His Wife (A Contract Marriage Story) by Heer Mangtani

Chapter 48

My eyes flung open. There wasn’t any point pretending if he knew I was awake. And sure enough, there he was, right in front of me, staring into my eyes. I flinched.

He had switched on a dim light, because I could see now the table placed in the centre of the room, a single chair across from it, one on the other side fallen to the floor, cracked beige walls with red stains that I hoped and prayed weren’t blood, and cockroaches. So many cockroaches everywhere, including the floor I was on. But the thing I could see the most was the blue in the man’s eyes looking down at me with a disgusting hunger in them, along with speckles of grey. A black cloth covered the rest of his face.

1 wriggled. Eyes wide, I screamed. My voice got muffled due to the tape on my face. My wriggle got a laugh out of him.

“You know, my guy did ask me to not touch you,” He snickered, “But what I want to do to you doesn’t require a lot of touching.”

Once again, the pure fear gripped through me. I shook my head violently trying to get my hands free when I watched him remove his belt. His laugh echoed in the air around us, and I hoped, prayed, wished he would walk out and leave me alone. The dark and the stink seemed more comforting

He kneeled-down, his belt clutched in his one hand while the other reached out to me and tucked my loose hair strands behind my ear.

I couldn’t speak so I just pleaded with wide, tearful eyes. I begged while shaking my head.

I couldn’t see his face, but I could make out the smile underneath the mask. “Your new family wronged us. It’s time we wrong them back, hm?” His voice was soft with a fake love that wanted to make me throw up. “And what better way than by using you? I’m sorry sweetheart, you’re just collateral damage.”

I gulped. Tears made their way out, trickling all the way down. Sobs I couldn’t control broke free, getting muffled because my mouth was taped shut.

Fear, that’s all I felt. He hadn’t even touched me yet, but my skin burned.

I was scared. I was praying to any God to listen, to stop this.

I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want to be raped.

I watched the man unbutton his pants with one hand, his other tracing the skin of my face to my neck and the mud of my chest, trying to force its way into the lose sweater I was wearing.

on the door, wishing it would open any minute and someone would

anyone.

he took his hand off me to unbutton his pants

that sort

I watched his rolled

suddenly I wanted to vomit, the tape got off my mouth and

took me only a second

had thrown up

1/3

Chapter 48

My mouth was free.

as loud as I could, ignoring how my

back at the man, his eyes were covered with fury. “You holding his

b*tch,” he spat,

second it was in his hand and the other second it was against my arm

1 screamed.

my tears

mouth was covered with a new tape and I was left alone in the room with my and muffled

close to me. My legs, which were tied together just like my hands, hurt. I could feel the rope cutting through my skin when I wriggled to get free or get up to struggle my way

again, I felt weak. I was running a temperature, I knew, because my skin

but

were noises around me. Loud

door was banging or was I hearing them in my

mouth dry. I blinked. Tears seemed to not be ending today, because my vision still

to me.