Mar 2nd Winston is cheating on me. I’m sure of it. He is away all day. “I’m not hungry”, he says when he gets back home in the evening, sometimes late in the night night. The babies are due in less than a month now.

Mar 4th “Where have you been?”, I asked him when he got home this evening. “Nowhere,” he said, “Just went for a long swim to clear my head”. He looked guilty and crawled away from me as fast as he could. I caught a different smell on him, something sweet mixed with musk. He is definitely seeing someone.

Mar 7th “He is probably stressed about having kids”, my girlfriends told me, “Winston is different from the other males, he wouldn’t get up to monkey business, not with the babies due in just a month”. That made me feel better, they’re probably right. I wish he’d spend more time with me though. Maybe I should be the one making the first move, maybe I’ll tell him that I’m feeling lonely…

Mar 8th Winston was so weird today, it made me mad. I was in a hole all day, down in the dumps. He came back from his jaunt earlier than usual. “I’ve got something for you”, he said, all excited. I’d been craving meat, it’s probably the pregnancy, and hoped he’d got something for dinner. “Mangoes!”, he said, shoving some fruit in my face. Asshole! Have I ever eaten fruit? I was going mad with hunger and I ate some, and it was disgusting. That’s the ripe smell that I smelt the other day, it’s all over him, everywhere. He’s been eating fruit. I was too shocked and angry to even have a fight with him. I stayed silent, but he was too self-absorbed to catch that, he was too busy eating his fucking mangoes.

Mar 9th Winston went away early this morning. Mother came by. “I thought he was cheating on me, but it turns out that it’s worse”, I laughed, tears streaming down my face, “He’s taken to eating fruit!”.

“Don’t worry, they get like that sometimes,” she said, “It’s their way of handling the stress of becoming a parent”.

“But who has gotten him into this nasty fruit habit?”, I asked, “I don’t think it’s any of the other males.”

“You worry too much, Winston is different”, she said. There again, “different”, just like what my girlfriends were saying, I don’t like different – why can’t he be like the other males? I think I would have preferred his having a girlfriend to his turning vegetarian. Who is behind this though?

Mar 11th Sheila came by today. I don’t like her, even though she’s part of our bask. She’s always pity and crocodile tears, I wouldn’t tell her a thing. I caught her hitting on Winston a few times, but he always ignored her.

“I saw Winston today”, she said, “He was in a tearing hurry, ‘after a while’, he said and sped away.”

I grunted.

“Don’t worry”, she cackled, “he was all alone.”. She knows I’m worried about him.

Winston came home with mangoes again this evening, “I got more mangoes for you, you liked them so much the other day”, he announced.

“Where did you go?” I asked, curt.

“It’s far… but I could go to the moon and back to bring you food”, he said grandly.

Idiot. If only he’d pay any attention to me, he’d see that I am not the one eating the mangoes. Disgusting fruit. Why can’t I have a normal relationship?

Tomorrow I’m going to find the bitch who got him into fruit.

Mar 12th I thought of all the ways I could have him followed, and then I decided to just ask him straight out.

“Who’s giving you all this fruit?”, I asked him, stroking his ear, “It’s not normal you know, to eat so much fruit”.

“You promise you won’t be mad?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Is it Sheila?”, I asked.

He barked a laugh, “Sheila? What ever got that idea in your head?”

“Then who is it, it’s surely not one of your male friends.”

“No, absolutely not. I’d be a laughingstock if they found out, it would be so shameful.”

“You can tell me”, I said, “I won’t be mad, and I won’t tell anyone.”

He told me then, after much hemming and hawing.

I am too shocked to even tell about it here. It’s disgusting, not a natural relationship. I have to do something about it. If anyone in the bask finds out…

The babies are due any day now.

Mar 13th
I’ve decided that I’ve got to kill her. There’s no other way. Besides which, I’ve been craving meat for many days now.

“Hey, why don’t you invite your friend home?”, I told Winston, “She’s been so kind to you this last month.”

“Are you nuts?! If anyone sees her with me, she’ll be dead meat and I’ll be banished from the bask.”

“If anyone sees her, tell them you’re bringing her home to me as a birthing gift”, I said, “they’ll understand and leave you alone then.”

“Are you sure you’ll behave yourself?”, Winston asked, “It won’t be too much temptation, will it?”

“What do you think? Do you think I’ll eat up your girlfriend, gobble up her mango-shaped heart?”, I laughed, “I’m not so heartless, I have my own 4-chambered heart!”, I chortled.

“She’s not my girlfriend, she’s just a friend”, he said.

The poor fuck doesn’t know what I have in mind for his friend…

Mar 14th Winston has been away too long. Something has gone wrong for sure. He should have been home by noon and it is almost dusk now. I told him to be discreet, to tell his simian friend that his wife wanted to thank her for all the mangoes she’d given us, but I’m sure Winston blabbed.

I dreamed of meat last night. I’ve been whetting up my appetite all day, fresh flesh, monkey meat. I’m going mad with blood lust.

Winston has stayed away, but he will come home at last, he will for sure.

I’ll make him pay for it if he doesn’t have that monkey on his back. I’m not going hungry tonight…

–

A modern re-telling of the “The Monkey and the Crocodile” (ref1, ref2, ref3). The female croc point of view, first person, exercise for The Peepli Project Storytelling Workshop, 16th July 2020, Arun Rajappa, version 1.