The Anaesthetist

Synopsis:
A young woman realises that she has a strange insatiable addiction, after going through a
scary yet exhilarating experience. This series traces her journey of exploring fear, womanhood and
power, but in ways only she can understand. This book is narrated in first person, voiced as a
personal confession by her, making the experience seem more personal and genuine.

A woman is walking alone across a quiet, lonely street at night. She has a little pocket knife
with her which she carries on this patch of the road for safety, but partly knows and partly hopes
that she would not be needing it. But on this night, an unsuspected attack by a roadside creep,
causes her to make use of it. All she wanted to do was slash him with the knife, just enough to
surprise him and give her time to run away. She manages to slash him across the cheek, and for a
second it does send him reeling. But instead of going away stunned, he recovers from that shock and
catches hold of her again. This time things get ugly. She desperately tries to land another clean cut
on his face or arm, while he is trying to pin her down and pry that thing away from her hand. She
misses her angle and instead of slitting his cheek, the small pocket knife goes straight into the one
of his scapular blades. He faints right in her arms as the wound starts oozing blood.
Being a doctor herself, she knows this wound probably isn’t fatal. But that is the problem. In
a matter of minutes, he could wake up, scream for help and gather a crowd. She knows he hadn’t got
a closer look at her face, but he could still recognise her. What if he finds out where she lives and
attacks her again? Or worse, what if he complains? What if there is someone here and has witnessed
this? She pulls him into the bush, trying to think what she could do. Part of her is hoping for the
slight possibility that he might die. For a fleeting moment, the thought of killing him then and
there also occurs to her. She is surprised at her own cruelty, and shuns the thought just as fast as she
got it. Plus that would also mean an investigation would take place. Should she take him to the
hospital? She’d have to show some iD there too! When all these thoughts are swarming her mind,
he starts stirring beside her in the darkness. She decides that the best thing to do is to stop the
blood flow, and then, make sure he does not complain.
She is just about a few meters away from her house. Taking advantage of the fact that her
land lords or neighbours are fast asleep, she somehow manages to take that half unconscious man,
inside her apartment. Not only does she have to nurse him back to health, she also has to make sure
he doesn’t know where he is or who has brought him here. She puts the best headphones she has on
his head and covers his eyes with the gauze piece and crape bandage set she has at home. She pulls
out the nylon clothes line she has from her balcony, and uses it to tie him up, front down, spread
eagled on the bed. She brings her betadin and spirit kit to bandage the wound, but stops before
using it. Seeing this stranger on her bed, helpless and vulnerable, gives her a strange rush she was
 The Anaesthetist
never aware of. She plugs the headphones to her system and plays a screeching noise in it.
Immediately, he regains consciousness. The moment he starts screaming, she picks up the first thing
she sees (which is a dishcloth) and stuffs it in his open mouth. Watching him writhe and kick like
that and fail, gives her a little more sadistic pleasure. Just to be careful, she turns off the light in her
house, goes to the window and peers out to see if any other lights have come on, near her house.
Now she goes a step further. That wound requires no sewing, and that certainly can’t be done
without anaesthesia anyway. Yet, she takes a needle and a simple cotton thread and begins sewing
him up.
One entire night, this man lay helpless on her bed. A stranger, the person who had attacked
her a few hours ago. A slight change of fate and she would have ended up mugged, molested, raped!
And yet, here he is, at her mercy, waiting to be either killed or released. She wants to rip open his
eye patch, look him in the eye and say, ‘how did that feel?’ Instead she simply takes out a syringe
from her work bag, and injects a clear liquid into his veins. Next night, he wakes up in the bushes on
the very street on which he had been taken. His head is spinning, his muscles ache, mouth dry, and
the last thing he remembers is that he was stabbed by that girl he was following. No matter how
hard he tries, he can’t picture her face. He clearly remembers the stitches and the injection, he also
remembers small details of his attacker, but can’t place who it is. Whether it was the girl, or another
person, he does not know.
Two weeks later, when he is ironing clothes at his workplace, a customer comes to ask for her
clothes. She puts a blue basket on his counter as she points to her pile of ironed clothes at the back.
Something about her seems very familiar; and even a little unnerving. There is something about the
way she looks at him, as if searching for something. He finds that very strange. But when he bends
over the counter to put the pile in her basket, the smell of her perfume brings back all the memories
of that night. It leaves him staggering back with horror. So it was her; who stabbed him, took him to
a dungeon, tied him, tortured him, dressed his wound and left no proof of it, and now stood
brazenly in front of him. What more could she possibly want?
Till that day, she had been worried sick as to whether this man would recognise her. She had
tracked him down and followed him as much as she could to find out if he was about to tell on her,
and when she found out nothing, she had gone and confronted him, herself. She had partly hoped
he wouldn’t recognise her, but if he did, she knew this day would be the end for her. But this man
reacts in a way that she would have never anticipated. She sees a fear, in his eyes; that split second of
some glimmer of horror that beats the kick she had gotten even when he was lying on his belly on
her bed. In that moment, she knows that this feeling is something she wants again. That rush, that
sense of power over someone even when you are standing 4 feet away, unarmed, in broad daylight, is
very addictive. She wants that feeling again. She wants that with a more challenging prey this time.
She does not kill her victims. In fact, throwing them back into society and watching them
struggle is a part of the fun for her. This is a journey of how a sane, sensitive girl turns into a so
 The Anaesthetist
called ‘criminal’. It is an extreme example of how fear of the unknown can cause a person to turn
into a monster. In this series, she herself, tells the story of how she tackles this new found hobby in
her life, which is to kidnap and torture men who she thinks deserve to be set right. A story of how
each new victim, teaches her something more about herself, more about her fears, her ethics, her
morals, her sense of right and wrong.

Breakdown
1. A man walking to his car at midnight is kidnapped, tortured (details) and is dropped back to
the same spot, the next night. The narrative shifts to 1st person, and the kidnapper starts talking
to the audience, about a similar night when she was almost kidnapped. Her first victim. For two
weeks he struggles with trying to remember what had happened and who must’ve done that to
him. Everyone notices that he looks a little lost. On the 15th day, when he is working his
colleague makes a casual pass at him; the one he had been eying for a long time. The woman
who did this to him is the woman who asked him out.

2. Her daily life. Collecting empty vials of ketamin from the path lab (making the concoction).
Finding the next prey. Life of her prey explained from her POV like a stalker. The hunt, the
kidnap. He falls after the first spray of ketamin. After taking him home, she feels his pulse. He
is sinking. She notices that he is an asthma patient.

3. 3 weeks later. Prey no 2. is walking on the road in broad day light. His life after the incident. His
wife notices that he is a better husband, a meek person now. Asks him what is wrong. He tries
to explain, but can’t find the words.
Her life. A fling that she is having. The same bed is being used. Her date notices that
this bed smells like a weird deo. Next day, she shops for a new bed. She talks to her landlord and
asks him to open the other room in the flat as well. She’d be paying the rent of that room too. She is
out hunting for another victim, when her fling starts hinting that he wants to have a more serious
relationship. The new opened room gives him the idea that they would soon be with moving in
together.

4. Her boyfriend is talking to her father. Heated conversation. She has broken it off with him.
Meanwhile she is at the hospital working. A woman comes to the gynaec ward with her
daughter. The protagonist notices that there are cops at the hospital. There has been an assault
on the girl and she refuses to talk. She doesn’t try asking the two women too many questions
but decides that she will keep a close tab on the case. This victim would be a lot of fun to
torture, she thinks. She is setting up the new room as a ‘workspace’ one night, when her father,
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her sister and that boyfriend she dumped, come to visit her. She locks the room up and lies that
the land lord is renting this room to another tenant. Her phone rings from inside the room.

5. Description of the new room. Hospital routine. She is trying to find out more about the assault
case at the hospital. The patient has gone home and the investigation had stopped, which is both
frustrating and a sign of an opportunity for her. Meanwhile there is another person she is
stalking. Same stalking, hunting, kidnap. When she takes him home and tortures him, she
realises that he is not reacting the way he should. He doesn’t scream. He seems to be liking it.
She notices that the bastard has a thing for violence and is enjoying this. He has an erection. For
the first time, she flips her victim over. She is looking at his. Buck naked, tied up, turned on. She
sleeps with him.

6. It is been 3 weeks since. She is sitting in the open coffee house in the evening, opposite the
building this kinky man works in. It is frustrating for her that he had enjoyed himself. She
wanted to hurt him, but something wrong had happened. Something she had liked. Something
she hated that she liked. She receives a call. It is someone from the hospital. The girl who keeps
on blabbering. She is trying not to pay attention to her yet trying to be polite and not hang up,
because that man has come out and it is time for her to follow him. But just when she can’t take
it anymore and is about to hang up, that girl tells her some progress about the assault case. She
takes in the info, and continues following the guy. He enters a bar. She follows. He sits alone.
She sits next to him. One thing leads to another. She ends up giving him her number.
Meanwhile, victim number 5 is talking to his wife. Crying. She hugs him and tells him, we will
do something.

7. Stalk, hunt, grab. One man in her table. She is disinterested. She wants to stop this. The hunt
isn’t fun anymore. She keeps looking at her phone waiting for the bastard’s call. No call. The new
victim is still in her apartment. She is watching an old noir film at night, when her phone rings.
It is him. Next day, they are meeting at the bar again. She offers to take him to her place, but he
declines. It seems what she had done has affected him and for the first time she feels guilty and
upset over herself. She goes home and relieves the victim she has got there.

8. It has been about 2 weeks. The guy at the bar has not touched her. Though things have gone
beyond just one date. Now it has been a long tie since she hasn’t gone on a hunt. She has almost
decided to quit this addiction. Quit it while she can, before she pushes her luck too hard and
falls into trouble. But there is one man she still wants to see on her table. The father of that little
girl at the hospital. The man who raped his own daughter. Every time she wants to be on the
hunt, other things take over her time. Sometimes it is work, mostly it is her new relationship.
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But not this time. This time she is back on the hunt with a vengeance and the hunt is really
close. At midnight she kidnaps him. She takes him home. She is just tying him up on the table
when her doorbell rings. It is him. She wants to answer the door but it is too risky. The
anaesthesia is wearing off on the victim. She does not realise that the next thing he will do is
call her. In that silent house, the phone rings. He hears it in the corridor. And just leaves.

9. The father is taken care of. Though she wanted to kill him, she has kept her rage to herself, but
she has been very rash with the guy. Meanwhile she makes up with the bar guy and is ready to
take things forward. All seems to be going well. The mood of the story changes, things seem to
be going to a stop. A happy ending. Her date. She opens up to him. The whole deal. Sex, talking,
etc. It is all beautiful. He offers her a woman on top position. She rides him. He seems to enjoy
it. So much, that in one swift motion, he pins her back down on the bed. In the middle of the
night, she has fallen asleep on his shoulder. He is smiling away in the darkness, playing with her
back, looking at her twitching eyes.
10. Next morning, she wakes up with a spinning head, muscles aching, body tied up. She can’t see
anything, she can hear a woman screaming in her ears and she realises that she is on a hard flat
surface. Spread eagled.