The mind is a powerful thing. It gives us the power of perception and what one person perceives to be reality can be totally different when seen from another person’s perspective. A madman in an asylum and a judge in a courtroom can both see the same thing and in their individual minds interpret it in different ways. But who is to say which individual is correct? In their minds, both of them perceive their individual interpretations of reality to be the truth. And who is to say that which interpretation is less impartial than the other?
There are no sex scenes in this piece so it’s classified as a non-erotic work. However, if sniffing & stealing worn bras bothers you, you should probably skip this.
No there is no spelling error.
It’s not a bar fight.
You read it correctly.
It’s a bra fight.
Just two years ago, I would not have believed something like this is going on in the country. Almost everyday we read in the news someone gets caught stealing lingerie.
Another gets caught taking upskirt.
Another gets caught trying to peep at a friend in the shower.
Their faces get splashed all over the newspaper, they’re fined, jailed and humiliated.
The university hostels are rich hunting ground for lingerie collectors.
A lot of men, both outsiders and students alike prowl the fertile grounds of the campus in search of suitable prey.
You can get lingerie easily online even if you are a man. You can walk into a shop and buy it, it’s not against the law. Then why do men steal lingerie ?
Why do they target the lingerie belonging to young, pretty and intelligent girls?
Is this purely a perverse act or there is something more than meets the eye ?
The news merely reports the who, the where, the how of each theft.
No one asks about the why.
Why ?
Why do we steal the lingerie of girls instead of buying them ?
I’ll tell you why.
Power.
Something happened two years ago that changed my life. I had just came out of the gym with my girlfriend and we barely settled down at a café for dinner when someone made a grab for my girlfriend’s bag.
The bag containing her worn gym clothes and socks.
My reaction was fast enough and I took off immediately after the man, leaving my girl screaming for me to come back.
I could hear her shouting that she has no valuables inside there but it’s not about valuables.
The man took something right from under my nose, something from my girlfriend. That don’t sit well with me.
The robber is agile and fast. He’s not only a good runner, he’s a parkour enthusiasts as well. I saw him bounce and jumped off a parapet to the staircase, skipping an entire flight.
That would have bought him at least a 3 seconds gap ahead of me if I did not skip the stairs and run down the slope. It was a dangerous thing to do but the weather has been pretty dry that week.
I still skid but found my balance and when my shoes hit the road, I immediately took off against the robber. He fast, but I’m fast too. Having worked out 4 times a week, I can do 5km in 55 minutes at a comfortable pace. If I go flat out, I can hit 50 minutes. My heart and lungs burned as I closed the distance between the robber who is still holding onto the gym bag.
There’s no way I’m letting him get away.
We must have done a full kilometre in silence along the quiet university road before he cut into a forested area. The darkness did not bother me and I could feel my phone vibrating nonstop.
Twigs and branches whipped against my arms and face as I followed the rustling sound into a clearing. The man stopped running.
My muscles are warmed up. I could my heart work extra hard as my senses were heightened.
He’s about the same size as me, I can take him.
The man was wearing a hoodie and his face is covered.
He dropped the bag onto the floor and I saw him reach into his back pocket.
Relaxing my stance, I tried to recall the lessons I took about how to disarm an assailant back in the army.
Just when I thought he was pulling out a knife, he pulled out something else.
I froze. I could not believe what I was seeing.
The straps, the cups, the unmistakable shape and I could even catch a glint from the metal hooks of the bra.
The robber pulled out a bra from his back pocket.
“ what the fuck… “ I muttered under my breath.
The man held up the bra to his face and I heard him speak. His voice is soft but I could hear his words clearly.
“ 32A, worn bra of my classmate.”
Honest to god, I have absolutely no idea what the fuck he was doing when he suddenly pressed the bra to his face and took a deep sniff.
“holy fuck.” I blurted out
As he took a deep sniff, I felt an eruption of power ripple outwards from his body. It knocked me off my feet and rustled the trees around the area.
I felt a burn in my chest and upon lifting up my top, I saw a red mark.
It hurts, as if someone whipped me with the bra.
“what the fuck “ I cursed and was about to get up and throw a punch at him when the man took another sniff of the same bra.
My instincts told me to duck and I dove to the ground to see the young saplings behind my get sliced neatly into two.
This is bullshit.
I barely had time to recover from the shock of what just happened when I saw the robber pick up the gym bag belonging to my girlfriend.
He opened it and pulled out my girlfriend’s worn sports bra that is still soaking wet with her fresh perspiration.
This is a nightmare, it’s not real.
The man smiled as he pressed my girlfriend’s worn sports bra to his face. He knows my girlfriend’s name.
“ 34B, worn sports bra of Nelly ! SNIFFFFFFF! ARGHHHHHHH! ” He grunted and I felt the ground beneath me shake.
Power. I could feel the power in the air.
Wiping his face downwards with my girlfriend’s worn sports bra, he was ready to kill me.
Another ripple of energy exploded from him, although slower this time round, I could see the grass upon which he stood withered and die as it spreads like a plague in a radial manner.
Just when I thought the decomposing power is about to get to me. Someone saved me.
I know that voice.
It’s a familiar voice.
“34B, worn lace bra of Nelly! SNIFFF!“
A rippled of energy came from behind me and as the two expanding radial energy met, they cancel out each other.
I scrambled to get back up on my feet and I came face to face with my good friend. Vincent.
He was holding a bra which my girlfriend said went missing a couple of weeks back.
The robber, upon seeing someone else on the scene smirked before taking off with Nelly’s sports bra and leaving the gym back behind.
Vincent came over to me and asked if I’m ok.
“are you hurt James ? are you ok ? “ He said while trying to get me to look at him.
But I can’t look at him.
My eyes remained glued to the bra.
The pink soft bra that I bought together with Nelly, the same bra she was wearing the first time we had sex. The same bra that went missing from her lingerie basket one day.
“James, James ! look at me ! “ Vincent raised his voice at me.
Right about then, I saw the robber come back into the clearing but he’s not alone. He has another friend with him and both of them had bras in their hand.
Vincent pulled out another bra from his back pocket.
“do you trust me James ? “ Vincent said as he pushed the black colour bra into my hands
“what ? “ I could barely breathe as I looked at my good friend.
Vincent eyed the two men in front of us and he took my hand, lifting them with that black lacy bra closer and close to my face.
Then he said something that reminded me of what the terminator said in the movie.
“Smell the bra if you want to live.”
10600 words