Prologue:
Sheeba waltzed into the school premises, moving to a tune only she could hear. Her eyes closed, she swayed from one side to another, as the music took control of her and made her move on its own accord. A cool breeze hit her face, and she felt her face heat up in pleasure. She opened her eyes to meet the lush green grounds of her high school, and started skipping towards the academic block. A solitary brown leaf from one of the many trees that dotted both sides of the pathway leading to the block, blotting out the sunlight enough to cool down the atmosphere around her, wisped through the air, and brushed past her skin. Her elbow tingled, and she rubbed it tenderly, remembering the coarse but smooth feel of the leaf.
For some reason today her body seemed more sensitive than usual. More recdeptive to the little pleasures, she thought to herself, and then felt the heat flow into her face, and also other parts of her body. She thought she knew the answer behind the mystery – It had to do with the birthday gift teaser she had sent to Faiz via MMS. She smiled as she thought of her boyfriend’s strong arms, his chiseled chest, his dark, and handsome face. ‘Mmmmm.’ She had kept him waiting too long, and today she would open up, and let him have her. It had to be the perfect birthday gift any girlfriend could give to her boyfriend. And what’s more, he’d be waiting for her in class, right now, after the teaser she had sent him at midnight, wishing him.
You are so dirty, she scolded herself, and then shivered and another pulse of pleasure ran up her spine. She felt dirty, naughty, but she still liked it. She realized she was humming to no music, and stopped. She heard sniggering, and opened her eyes and slanted them sideways towards the source of the commotion. A couple of girls were sniggering at her, hands over mouth, their eyes as though they were shocked at the abomination that she was. Jealous, she smirked, and moved on. As she climbed the stairs that led her to her classroom, she heard yet another girl pass a surreptitious comment at her, “Slut!”. She stopped, and frowned at the girl who had just passed by. ‘What’d I do to her?’
A few guys who were guffawing over a cell phone looked at her, and quieted down. Each one of them had a smirk on his face, and one ventured out to ask her, “Are you available tonight?” Slap, she hit him, and he backed up, and the rest of the guys started guffawing again, that the bastard was even rejected by sluts! Sheeba held her hand gingerly, which was stinging from the slap, but her mind was running at lighting fast speed.
What was going on? Why was everyone behaving this way? Why was she being called a slut? Where was Faiz, and why was he allowing these people to talk like this? Suddenly she spotted Sumana, her best friend, at the classroom door and rushed to ask her what the issue was. “Hey Sumana, what’s going on here? Why is everyone – ”
SLAP
And now it was Sheeba’s turn to take a couple of steps back, recoiling, off-balance. What was that for? She shook her head, cleared her mind, and echoed her thought at a fuming Sumana. Sumana threw a cell phone at her, and walked away muttering, “I can’t believe I have such choice in friends!”
Sheeba looked on as her best friend walked away, and then flipped the cell phone open. The inbox showed a message from Faiz. She opened it, and immediately dropped the phone in shock. It was her gift… her teaser! She frantically looked around her to see if anyone had seen, and quickly deleted it. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she saw the bright words, “More’s waiting for you honey!” at the end of the slideshow died away with the photo of her ass.
Faiz had sent the message. Everybody who had seen her today had known. It struck her like a beach ball – he had sent the fucking message to everyone in school! Before she realized it, she was sprawled on the ground, her knees unable to take her weight. Her boyfriend had forwarded such a private and… and… personal message to everyone. She blinked. Ex-boy friend. There was no way he was getting away with this. She had been exposed, humiliated in front of the entire school. She couldn’t stop her tears from escaping her. She was broken. She had been in love with him. But he… he… she wiped away her tears, and promised herself thus – No matter how, she was going to get back at him. No matter how.
Courtroom Clerk:
1st November 2004. Announcing case between plaintiff Sheeba Ruzmani represented by Advocate Annan and defendant Faiz Khan represented by Advocate Sreeni. All rise in the presence of the High Chair, Justice Uvan.
*feets shuffle as the Hon’ble Justice Uvan takes his seat*
U: Please be seated. May the case be opened.
*Annan gets to his feet, walks to the center of the courtroom podium, and turns to the Justice*
A: Your Honor, the present day generation is far more in touch with their sexual selves than we were, as teens, thanks to the overture of exposure to the internet and the television. However, the morals all parents try to instill in them still at the very least cause them to retain the levels of morality that we had in our respective generations. My client, and the defendant had been in a relationship for an year and three months, and unlike most teens who rush into issues way over their understanding, she had waited to be sure that she was in love with the boy before she took her decision, which eventually has resulted in this lawsuit. The slideshow she presented to her boyfriend is already in the court’s possession, but as usual as with all forms of electronic information, countless copies have been made and spread all over the state, maybe even the country, and my client’s name and respect been crushed in society like a roach in the kitchen at the wrong time of the day.
Your Honor… I do not wish to justify what my client did as right or wrong. It was teenage blood, and it has cost her. But it remains a fact that the defendant, very clearly in breach of trust, had sent it to everyone as a forward in a very lucid state, thus the question of his intent is not in doubt. I will, with a few witnesses, prove that the defendant is subject to torts ranging from defamation to nuisance due to this breach of trust. My client’s honor is now as lost as the ships to Bermuda, and I can do nothing to safeguard that anymore. All I can appeal before this court, is that due compensation be drawn from the defendant, for his questionable actions, or be punished for the same.
*Annan retakes his seat on the right of Sheeba and her mother. Sheeba is sobbing into her mother’s shawl, while she stares ahead like a statue, expressions engraved into her face of stone. Annan pats her hand, and whispers something to both mother and daughter. Sreeni gets up, checks her gown, and walks into the middle*
S: Your Honor, if you may have noticed, my moralistic colleague used the phrase ‘breach of trust’ atleast thrice in his opening. I passed my Bar exam only four years back, but I am pretty sure that ‘Breach of trust’ is not a valid legal claim under the law. It is true that my client sent the message to others, causing said pain and discomfort to the plaintiff. However he did not break any law, and I will prove without any witnesses, that nor is my client liable for any compensation, nor for any punishment as deemed by the legislature, or by precedent. Thank you.
*Sreeni retakes her seat on the left of Faiz. He grins slyly at her, and she ignores him completely, facing the judge instead. Beside him, Faiz’s father is busy reading the business column in the newspaper*
Justice Uvan
The prosecutor, Annan stood up, and took off his glasses. He whispered words of comfort to the woman again, and walked to the center. I grunted in disgust. I didn’t like this case. This was the youth? This was the future of our human race? Where a girl sends nude pictures of hers to her boyfriend, and her boyfriend sends it to everyone? If he had his way both of them would have been spanked till they regained their senses. It was this law of not beating kids which had spoilt them and made them so susceptible to such satanic urges in the first place.
“Your Honor,” Annan started, but I cut him off. This girl lawyer had said something that might be vital…
“Excuse me counsel, but would you mind putting your case forward after the defense counsel does? She assures us it will be short and without witnesses after all.”
Annan frowned, “It’s against protocol, surely…”
“I am as much a lover of protocol as you are counsel, but defense counsel has suggested there is no case here at all, and I think we would like to hear that first.”
Annan didn’t look convinced, but nodded anyway, “If you feel its better, your Honor, as you say.” and walked back to his seat. He is a good kid, I thought, always wants to play by the rules, but also knows where the power lies. He was a nice kid alright. I motioned Sreeni to walk forward and present her case, or in this case, a lack of one.
“Your Honor, I based my opening on basis of what opposing counsel had put forth in his, picking out a mistake in his usual impeccable logic” Sreeni filled the sarcasm and evened it out, all the while adjusting the pleats to her gown. This one had no respect for authority. I sighed. The future of this world seemed very bleak at that moment, in the hands of these morally lost intellectually weaker creatures.
“Are you suggesting that there is a case? Or a lack of it? I demand you not waste the time of this courtroom, counsel.”
“Well your Honor, it depends on what opposing counsel seeks to blame my client on. You know, which charge he was trying to pin on my client?” Sreeni asked, gesturing elaborately, as though explaining everything to a toddler. She continued, completely ignoring the change in my expression, which must have mirrored the tempest in my chest. the girl was trying to insult me! “Ofcourse, now I must shoot in the dark, and explain both possibilities, because now you have forced me to talk before him, hence I have no clue as to what he was gonna stick this poor boy here with.”
The crowd started laughing. The boy, Faiz, started guffawing. This was too much. I realized I was shaking with fury, and I used the hammer in my hand.
“Silence in the courtroom!”
The courtroom feel silent, but the boy’s father simply turned the page of the newspaper he was reading as though nothing existed around him. I felt like bursting with rage. This clearly had to be contempt of court! I took a pill from the drawer on my table, drank a little water, and breathed deeply for a couple of minutes. Once I was calm enough to turn a blind eye to all that was wrong with this world, I asked the counsel to continue.
“Well, as is the wont of the court and of the opposing counsel who seems keen on blaming my client on this ‘breach of trust’, it seems he has forgotten that it is a charge which does not exist in legislature nor in precedent. I also doubt that in a secular country like ours, he can get away by trying to quote the Bible or the Gita, or for that matter the Quran. Unless ofcourse his mind is so mixed up that he misunderstood ‘breach of contract’ as ‘breach of trust’. In which case I must point out, that there was no written contract between plaintiff and the defendant, and so there is definitely no liability here. A breach of trust here hence does not affect the law in any way, and in such a scenario this is a waste of the court time mentioned by his honorable justice Uvan.”
She turned to Annan, “So was that how you were going to play this case, Annan? Were you going to waste time the justice could have spent on more fruitful works such as a spa?”
I sputtered, where had that come from? What did this woman think of herself? How could she talk to a judge like that so rudely? He had heard that she was a moralistic woman, and a very respectful one, but this seemed to be the opposite! I opened my mouth to say something, but by then Annan had shaken his dissent, and the girl had already turned back with another attack imminent.
“In which case, your Honor, I must turn to the next keyword he used in his little speech: Tort. I am presuming he is aiming at a defamation suit here, because honestly this wasn’t assault, or battery. In case he is going for the defamation suit, he needs to prove that the allegations which my client made against his client (which I presume, in a very grotesque manner to be this slideshow) is baseless and without evidence. This is absolutely preposterous as the pics themselves act as proof and hence there is no defamation.”
Sreeni turned and walked back to her table, and started drinking water. Maybe I would not have to listen to her anymore. She was really testing my patience. I would have loved to have handed that case to the girl just so Sreeni would learn a lesson, but she made valid points, if very rudely and disrespectfully. As an impartial judge, I could not ignore that.
I started, “Now that the defense has rester…”
“I do not remember saying that, your Honor,” Sreeni smiled wickedly, and pretended to muse, “unless ofcourse you thought that swish of my ass was a sign of submission, which you can ask Opposing counsel, is not a sign of any such thing.” Annan and I started together at it, both of us shocked to the core. I could not guess what he was thinking, but I was waiting for an opportunity to hold her in contempt already. A good spanking would do her good too.
“Not enough reason to hold me in contempt, judge? It just means I’ll have to try harder!” Sreeni said, not even looking at him. He tried putting her to her place but the words were not forming properly in his mouth. She meanwhile was drilling her eyes into Annan with such a fierce look that it either had to be of pure hate, or that of a woman scorned. Neither made sense, because his eyes just seemed… happy to see her. Think about the case, I told myself. This nightmare would be over soon. First Nicholas, and now this girl. My inception into the Justice world was sure not a path of rose petals.
“Continue, counsel.” I said, gulping down the various expletives that came into my head. Sreeni turned, and put on a smile I could bet was fake, and planted. “Thank you, your Honor. Now see, I also notice that opposing counsel could be aiming at a nuisance case, either alone or in conjugation with Defamation suit. In such a case, I would like to defend my client on two accounts.”
“What might they be?” I asked, eager to get her part over with at the earliest. Atleast the boy represented something of why I joined law in the first place.
“On the one hand, the slideshow was sent to my client by the plaintiff in all her senses, which makes him available to the consent defense. She had sent it to him with her consent to use it to his liking. He had not stolen it from her, nor forced her to send him naked pics of her. Also on the other hand, I have the illegality defense. I believe the plaintiff is only 16 years old, which makes her a minor, and hence it is illegal for her to watch, make or take part in any form of pornography. My client is very kind not to file a case against the girl, and I am surprised the state has not done it of its own accord. In such a scenario, Ex turpi causa non oritur actio says that the plaintiff has no case against my client.” She then turned to the audience, and raised her voice, “Ex turpi causa non oritur actio is the illegality defense, the Latin for "no right of action arises from a despicable cause."”
“The plaintiff was involved in a technically illegal act, not to mention immoral. Any damage caused to her by my client in such a scenario is not reprimand-able legally, as the law will not support any compensation to disturbance or intervention to an illegal act in the first place.” Sreeni smiled sweetly at me, the defendants, and then at the audience, taking one full round of the chamber, and finally turned to me and said, “And now, your Honor, the defense shall rest.”
There was silence in the courtroom. Only a girl sniffing and sobbing could be heard. It was eerie. Even the man had stopped reading his newspaper, and was looking at his attorney in amazement. He slowly stood up, and started clapping. His son soon joined it. Sreeni looked away from them, sick to her stomach for some reason. None of the audience joined in. I had to admit, she had made this case pretty much airtight. I pitied the poor boy who would speak for the prosecution. This case was lost even before he started. He was staring at Sreeni for some reason. The mother of the girl was still carved in stone, and the daughter seemed to be crying herself to death.
But most of all I pitied the girl herself. She had already lost her face in front of most of the world, and now losing this case… This had to be the worst day of my entire legal career. Without doubt. As much as I hated the defense counsel, she had just won my awe and respect, and I hated myself for that.
I had to help them. But how? What could I have done? So I did what little I could, delayed the inevitable. “The court shall re-assemble after lunch. The court is now adjourned.”
Cook up some magic, Annan, please, for the poor girl’s sake. How he hated being impartial sometimes.
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