Vs had planned well. The boy was innocent, naive, frequent visitor to her home since he was the brother of the landlady - in fact that is how they were able to live in a posh neighbourhood in the first place, the landlady was the sister of a close friend of Vs's brother, and the whole family helped whoever was in need; this is how the elder brother of Vs had been able in fact to go through the college in the first place, his friend had convinced his parents to eke out what little they could out of their meagre hard earned income to support the poor boy. Vs's father did not earn and had worked as a low salaried worker before giving up, her mother had sung and given singing lessons to feed her children, often going to a tuition or a performance for the day just to be able to buy the little bit of food for the youngest baby, Vs's baby sister. Vs remembers hating her mother because Vs was hungry too and the baby was fed.
In later years perhaps this is why Vs was able to ignore her screaming daughter in pain of desperate hunger while she went about her work, leaving the baby daughter to one female in the house or another, and not feeding her until the twin baby boy was fed first for half an hour, both breasts carefully emptied forced into his unwilling mouth - he was usually asleep when his baby twin sister screamed with hunger and his mother woke him up and kept shaking him to force him to feed while the baby sister went on screaming for half an hour, exhausted with hunger. The mother of twins, Vs, unperturbed by the plight of the poor daughter who was in effect an orphan - for no one except a new wife of a brother in law would dare to mention facts as they were much less protest in face of the threatening lies of Vs towards denial of facts - always has maintained that the daughter never liked milk, and begged pathetically and dramatically to be let alone without being forced to drink milk, throughout her childhood. Given the breastfeeding agony which the daughter had been through no
surprises there.
But all that came later. Vs was a young girl when she planned, looking at her brother's friends and deciding who she was going to aim to net, with a few reserves just in case - after all she could only rely on her feminine wiles, given she looked more like a rat than like any beauty. This friend she had planned to marry was precisely the one who had convinced his parents to support her brother, and now the brother was the mainstay of the family, with the upper floor of the friend's sister's home rented for Vs's family - elder brother, parents, other siblings - to live until they could fend for themselves and afford to pay real rent of the expensive city they had shifted to. Only, the said friend had gone abroad, and was in all likelihood not going to marry at all, much less her. He was in for a high education and might be one of those celibate priests of science.
So Vs looked at the younger brother, one who lived with his parents and supported them with his new job, and was a frequent visitor to her new landlady who was his sister. This younger boy was now ready to look for a bride and perhaps his parents had started looking for suitable brides, and moreover he was unlikely to have remote dreams of science, research, or a better mate of dreams. He was supporting his parents and probably only needed to know his future bride would join him in this, with no contradictory agenda of her own life or career. This suited Vs, since she had dreams of being a diva, and had trained in music, but did not have talent enough to set up for her own at an age when such things are decided. With a home and a family of her own in a posh locale in her new in law's home in the small town she was familiar with, instead of the now larger town with its tougher competition in arts for a rising young person to contend with, she would be all set to have her cake and eat it too - her new mother in law was looking after the home and family and was unlikely to be retiring any time soon, her father in law had built a home that she could already imagine herself mistress of - the old couple could not live forever, after all - and she could easily straddle the "looking after home, helping the old mother in law" along with the "giving a concert, learning, teaching" career, whatever worked. One could always be an excellent excuse for being unable to do the other, or doing it imperfectly.
The younger brother however was unlikely to rebel and held back, even to the extent of saying no when Vs's brother asked if he had any intentions. Fortunately for her, Vs's original intended elder brother visited before her brother was successful in getting her married to someone else and spoiling her planned life - for, with another match, who knows what would be in store, no music, no one enamoured of her wiles or her sexy attitudes, and her being forced to really work both at home and at a job to feed her children the way her mother was! What a horror! But She was able to fend off the other suitors, the elder brother intervened and told the younger one to go ahead and marry the girl if he did like her, and she was all set. To be the mistress of the castle, with a doting husband and a compliant realistic mother in law who knew that putting up with this rough horror was necessary. If the father in law disliked her, she was equal enough to bad mouth him in the name of the universally respected mother in law - "he is so rude to her" she conspiratorially whispered to anyone who might listen. And the original beau who had never looked at her was unlikely to go anywhere - he would finally be hers to deal with since he was looking like he would be celibate for ever.
And then fell the million megawatt lightening bolt from heaven, when he announced there was a new person in his life and she was likely to influence his future, and he brought her home. Clearly he doted on her, and she was an equal and more. Dismay knew no end in the heart of Vs, who hoped to make a friend - more hopefully another pet - out of this new person with her deep machiavellian mind and total absense of a heart that might stop her from being unjust or rude or murdering. She would do anything to get rid of anything in her path to her small ends, being the mistress of the father in law's home and property being the chief goal. Only, this would not be possible if the family liked the new woman and she had children superior to her own. There was only one way - use black magic. And Vs was the mistress of all that is black. Hatred, deception, relentless persecution to kill someone or incapacitate, hitting them when they are low and brown-nosing those that are not, hiding it all under a Dickensian garb of meekness when suited and trotting it all out to make a joke or worse of those she had downed when she knew she had won, lies and manipulation, name it. As for heart that could have stood in her way and stopped her from sacrificing two humans or more, what heart? She could torture her own baby daughter so as to achieve forever making the competitor at home look like a mad woman with an agenda, never mind the suffering of the baby daughter that was her own flesh and blood. She could slit the baby daughter's throat if necessary, but it had been enough to merely make her scream for milk for half an hour before her end was achieved - the new woman had complained about it, and no one believed a mother would behave this way, so the new accomplishe woman had been branded suitable for ever.
Still, the elder brother in law and his wife were a threat to her queendom, since they had as much right to the house as her own husband. Moreover the brother in law now had a wife that could surpass any wiles of her own without stooping to wiles or manipulation. So she resorted to a mix of new tactics only noticeable to a woman. She would bring her breasts close to the back of the brother in law in public, making any viewer think she was pressing them into him, while he was speaking to someone else and was unaware of her existence. This gave a general look of her being a desired sex partner of the elder brother in law and made his own marriage questionable, since he had no children of his own - Vs had seen to that with her black arts. She moreover joked about him in public with her dependent female relatives, and they joined in since they depended on her for charity when her mother in law was no more.
So Vs resorted to cheap shots - insulting both or one, making insinuations of intimacy with the male while insulting or humiliating the wife publicly, and so forth. Who was going to stop her, after all? Not the noble couple, nor the misled extended family. She could make life hell for her and close ranks with them against the hapless noble couple who always paid for their share of the expenses and more, while never asking for their share of the joint home. Her mother in law had chosen her, worked for her so she could go do music in another town or twenty while home and kitchen and children were taken care of by the old woman. The far more qualified other woman meanwhile had been crippled with multiple injuries they made fun of or disbelieved - knee, spine, shoulder, - and was restricted to not only not working any more after a life of independence but being almost completely bedridden, while looking all health so no one believed she was in such dire straits. Vs had done her job well, and achieved her ends all in one shot. All that remained was to bring the brother in law in with a lasso, and if injuring him would do it she would do that too.
Only, it could not be too obvious - her throne depended on the younger brother she had married, and he might just not tolerate such a scheme if it were obvious. So it had to be a torrent of insults, humiliations, shouting down in a normal conversation and more, dealt out to the man who had not married her but waited to find a woman suited for him, through his wife in general public and often through ordering him around as well, pretending to be innocent about it. If the elder brother's wife was eating one could always order the servant to go sweeping dust in that room, and claim no one was eating there after all. If she was teaching someone one could always shout her down. If he was teaching her children one could laugh and insultingly proclaim him to be a teacher for children and hence one's own level. One could always provoke endlessly, and claim the other were being arrogant in assuming a lack of equality with the trash that one was. One could speak through any worship ceremony or at any place of worship for minutes on end with another female or more and be aggravated by those that asked one to be quiet. One could be the dog that bit humans albeit retaining human form and then complain about those that curbed one's bite with a muzzle or a suitable other measure.
Vs does her best - or her worst, which is the same - to achieve a complete control over the kingdom set up by the father in law for his wife, ruled over with a benevolent giving hand by the now gone mother in law, so she can relax finally on the throne with all four legs up. Only the Divine protects the elder couple from her bite and its poison. They have never had any inclination of taking a slice of the kingdom she salivates over with so low a desire, but this she can never be sure of, she can only understand her own level. Maligning them behind their back to all and sundry is only one part of her arsenal, falsehood another. But then what can one expect from a woman who starved her own baby for better part of an hour while she went about strutting in arrogance of her own power, and then denied the whole episode or general practice whichever it was?
