Akilah was woken early that morning - well before the muezzin’s first call to prayer - by the rusty clicking of the lock as her husband unlocked the door to the tiny room where she slept – more of a cell, really, than a bedroom. She had a sudden flash of anger at being gotten up early. And at her husband, Farouq - a slovenly, smelly, heavy-bellied middle-aged man who had taken her from her family - bought her, really - to be his wife. To serve him all through the long days with shopping, cooking, cleaning, and giving him his food. And to serve his other needs, of course. She was actually his slave, but it was so normal that Akilah didn’t think of it that way. It was just a woman’s lot.
He did not usually visit at this hour, preferring to do his business with her in the darkness. But the girl knew what was expected, and turned sulkily onto her back, naked under the thin sheet, her breasts pushing it up in small mounds, mocking him with their childless fullness.
Risking a quick glance, she saw him standing next to the bed, staring at her, not naked as was his custom when visiting her in the night. Her hands bunched into little fists, nails biting into her palms. Squeezing her eyes tight, Akilah tried to relax, but her legs clenched together in nervous anticipation as he pulled the sheet off.
He did not at once lie on her, however, and she nervously rearranged her hands, turning them palm up in the approved manner to indicate her complete submission to him. For a minute he did nothing, and the silent girl could feel the sweat forming on her bare skin, itching and making her want to move, to wipe at it, but she held herself as motionless as she could, the model of a submissive wife, despite her trembling. Let him examine her body. Take stock of his property. The round globes of flesh on her chest swayed heavily with her movements, and there was a different kind of itching at their tips.
She felt his weight on the bed, and then his hands on her thighs, squeezing them hard, his thumbs digging forcefully into the soft flesh of the insides. She bit her lip, doing her best not to cry out or try to push his hands away, though her arms tensed.
After some moments, as if he were merely testing her will, his hands slid slowly down her legs, past her knees, down her calves to her ankles. There his hands tightened again, suddenly thrusting her legs apart. Wide apart, her feet out past the edges of the bed. Her eyes flew open, and she yelped, once, before getting control of herself, though she was breathing quickly and shakily. Still, he did not lie on her, though his hands held her legs spread obscenely spread.
“Keep your eyes shut, girl.” His voice was even, but cold. “Or do you want me to blindfold you again?”
Once, when they were first married, her eyes had popped open in terror as he rutted her, and he had bound a scarf around and around her head, over her eyes, tighter and tighter until she felt her eyes were being squashed back into her head, the pain making her sob as her tears pooled in the fabric. After he finished his business and was leaving the room, he had finally said, “You may remove it now. But in the future, you will keep your eyes closed. Do you understand?” And she had. Yet another of the growing number of things she must do in order to prove her subservience to him as a female.
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