I was still continuing the meeting when Adaah came into my view with a sunken face. Looking at her I knew there is something bothering her. I paused the meeting for a few minutes and went out of the hall. The moment I was in front of her, her lips slowly curl in an inverted 'u'. So sweet and cute was my little girl doing those things. Her small body held me tight by the waist and she begins to sob resting her face on my stomach. Oh God! I can't function seeing my 'her' in tears. I held out her head a little to wipe the tears on her cheeks and mellowed down to her some pleasing words to know about the problem. She pulls my coat a little urging me to bend down and when I do it, she starts to mewl in my ears. My eyes go wide as the realization hits me. Another challenge to face Mr Ajit Acharya, Adaah attained her puberty. My mind whispered, preparing me to fill the role of a mother for her. Being clueless of the situation her body is undergoing, she is in complete consternation. I sigh and comfort her with soothing words and then called my mother for the education I had to give her about the situation.

I contacted the house help Maria immediately and when she reached home to help Adaah, I left out to bring some sanitary pads for her. I take down the notch I am the only 'PERSON' for Adaah to cherish for pleasure and pain and as time demands I have to drape the roles of different relations for her in this world. When I was to listen to her sweet fantasies, I transform into a brother a relation nearer to her age who understands her emotions. When it came to discipline her I changed to a strict father and now it's the time I clothe myself into a mother of her.

Whatever relation I may be called after to this 'little girl' I love her in all conscience which is beyond any sort of venereal cravings, felicitously be blemished as - 'an unparallel adoration'.

Chapter 8

Ajit

Today Adaah is very reticent. She did not ask me any doubts in her subjects and was unusually quite. She was distancing herself from me and I somehow did not like the feeling. I want her to confide in me everything. But I need to give her some time to open up. It is dinner time and she is abnormally quite. To say it bothers me is an understatement I know there is something messing up in her brain. I tried to make a conversation to loosen her up, but she would answer me only in monosyllables.

I was getting angry and frustrated with her changed behaviour but I put my emotions under control. Like every day I tucked her to bed and kissed her forehead to say goodnight. She just nodded and I know it without a doubt that she was trying to arrest her cry. I left her room to the study hoping that she would unmask her malaise.

After sometime there was a knock at the door and in came my 'little girl'. I breathe a hope of relief. She was finally ready to divulge. But my happiness was short lived. Within seconds her lips curled and I know quite well the outcome of that expression. Jumping out of my seat I hugged her before she starts to cry her eyes out. Call me it as my weakness, I won't hesitate to accept. Yes! Her tears are my biggest weakness and I cannot stand them in her eyes.

I brought her to my chair where I sat and took her in my lap. I hugged her small body to my chest and ran a hand on her lose hairs soothingly, waiting for her promulgation. After sometime her sobs silenced and she began to speak. Her face was compressed in my chest and she was hugging me dense. Absorbing her body language I knew the matter was serious. Fisting my shirt in her small hands as tight as one could, she starts to speak in a low shivering voice "Ajit there is a boy in our school, who is two years senior to me. He has been bullying me since last four months." The moment the disquiet words left her lips, I was blazing with anger but before that I need to learn about the whole situation. Acting sagacious I stopped myself tough to listen to her. "I thought I could handle the situation as it was unworthy to bother you for trivial things. But today he crossed all his limits." Uttering those words she burst in a poignancy which could hardly get arrested. "He tried to touch me in my private places when I was alone in the classroom." My hands were now in tight fists and it was taking every bit of me to control myself before her. "The lecher wouldn't allow me to do my work. His hands were always on my body." She spat with venom in her eyes. "I tried warning him of the vicious result but he was out of control. Unable to sustain myself anymore, I slapped him on his cheek. It probably stung as he got wild and manhandled me."

"What did he do?" I burst in angst. This time I couldn't control myself anymore. "He gripped my breasts and was about to touch me over there." She pointed south of her body with her forefinger. By then I was shaking in anger, but holding myself I still listened to her and made a resolution that fucker would repent for the day he came out of his mother's womb. "Now, he blackmails me, if I don't sleep with him, he will expose me in front of the whole school. A few photos were taken by his friend when he was touching me. And I was lost."