Chapter 1: I Refuse to Die Like This!

My husband's hands felt light on my body. He was grabbing at the corset of my nightgown. I felt

warm and dreamy as we prepared to make love. To behold my husband without a shirt is a

wonderful thing. His tanned skin wraps over those big muscles of his. He is now grabbing at me

with a fierceness I don't recognize.

"Please stop, my darling. Here, let me help you."

I move to undo my corset, but he slaps my hands away.

"Why did you do that, my love?"

I am confused. First, something seems wrong. Not only is my husband grabbing at

me with a roughness I don't recognize, but he is not speaking to me.

"What's the matter? Stop it!"

Now, he is pawing all over me and won't stop.

Is this the way my honeymoon night is supposed to go? We are bathed in a golden light, and the sheets are silk. I can feel the soft luxuriousness of the bed. What is happening? I try to sit

up to get away from the grabbing, but I can't because my body is pinned to the bed. I feel some

fear snatching at me like flames at the edge of a chef's grill. It's getting hotter and hotter. I will burn up if I don't get off this bed.

There's a loud crashing sound of breaking glass. This startles me, and I open my eyes.

I've been sleeping. This has been a dream. I move to get out of the burning bed, but it isn't

burning, and I can't move.

"Stop moving!" a man's voice says harshly.

I don't know where I am, but the room is dark and cold. There is a man, not my husband, on top of me. I start to kick and buck my body so that I can get that man off me, but he keeps

grabbing.

He is grunting, and I am screaming, but he has a hand over my mouth, so my screams

sound like moans. The man's body gets heavier on me. He feels like a concrete slab laying on

me. I can't breathe due to the heaviness of his body and his hand on my mouth.

His pelvis starts to grind with my pelvis. I am screaming/moaning for him to get off, but

he won't. This is the real scary thing I went through, to be raped by a stranger.

Somehow, I get control over my leg, pushing it forward and kicking as hard as possible. I feel

a little give, so I start pushing my body upwards. The man is having a hard time holding onto

me. I am almost free.

"Stop it! I will hurt you if you don't stop," the man says.

I bite his hand with all my might.

"You little . . .." he says, slapping my face.

My eyes burn with tears, but I'm still trying to buck my body out from under his.

"HELP!" I scream as loud as I can.

As I struggle, I feel the man's stubble rubbing against my body. It feels like a million pins

are scratching me. His breath is on me as we struggle together. His breath smells of a foreign

spice that I sometimes smell wafting out of the ethnic restaurant at the corner of my street.

"HELP!" I scream again. I am growing weaker and weaker as I fight him. Then suddenly,

I am bathed in a yellow light. I can smell the perfume Channel #5 come into the room. It's

Olivia, my mother-in-law. She's come to save me.

"What in the devil is going on here?" Olivia says.

The man on top of me stops what he is doing.

"Get your clothes and leave this instant. Kylie, I can't believe what I am seeing!'

"This man was about to rape me!"

"Really now," Olivia says.

The man jumps off me and the bed. He gathers some things and scurries away. I sit up in

bed and realize my silk nightgown with the ruffles at my chest is torn. My breasts are exposed. I

quickly cover up.

I cry, "Oh, Olivia, it was terrible."

Olivia's lips are in a thin line and pursed together. She disapproves of me. She never

has, but there is something else going on.

Olivia turns away from me, enters the hallway, and calls to my husband's

brothers. They all come in.

"Get her out of here."

The men start walking towards the bed. I clutch my nightgown to my chest so that my

breasts aren't exposed.

"I am shocked at what I see!" Olivia says as she raises her hands to her face and starts

crying.

I look at the reflection in the mirror and realize that what the people in the room,

including Olivia, are seeing is a woman who has just had some rough sex. I feel my face start to

burn with embarrassment.

"I cannot believe you cheated on my son so soon after marriage. You are a whore." Olivia's

mother screeches and then spits on me.

I don't know what to say. Things are looking terrible. I jump off the bed and go to

Olivia, my mother-in-law.

"Please, Olivia, you've got to know how much I love your son. I would never do anything

to hurt him."

Olivia comes and gets into my face. "I curse you! Go with the vermin you belong with."

The room is hot as hell now. People are coming into the hallway to

listen to what's happening. Many of those people are our servants. I want to die of embarrassment!

My face is on fire.

"Pick up this whore and throw her in our old warehouse," Olive commands the men in

the room. They pick me up and drag me, kicking and screaming, out of the hotel room. The

warehouse is in the back of the compound. It has been raining, so my feet are dragged across

muddy, cold water.

I feel the hot, sweaty hands grabbing at me as I kick and scream. It takes a long time, but

they manage to hold on to me and throw me through the warehouse door. I fall into a heap

on the cold floor.

The warehouse is dark, cold, and wet. I can hear water dripping all over the warehouse. I

also hear and see sparks across the way as a loose wire hanging from the ceiling touches the

water.

"Get her over here," one of the gruff men tells the man standing next to me.

"Throw her into that pen."

The man standing next to me picks me up like a sack of potatoes and throws me into a

cell. Exposed pipes are coming out of the ceiling. The man grabs my arms and stretches

them over my head.

"Here, handcuff her to the pipe," the gruff man says. The other men have since gone

away.

"No!" I scream.

But the men don't listen to me. They cuff me to the pipes, and then they leave me without

a word. All I hear are the dark noises of the warehouse. Including a squeaking noise coming

from the floor. I swerve my body to look, and there I see RATS! A horde of rats running

along the floor. I'm glad I'm tied to the floor.

"Oh God, please don't let this be the end!" I whisper to myself, trying to hold back the

tears.

I close my eyes in prayer, and then I hear the warehouse door open. The warehouse is

flooded with light from the open doors.

"Whose there?" I scream into the dark.

And then there before my eyes is my husband coming through those doors like a hero

with an ax to cut off my shackles.

"Graham, I am so relieved to see you! Please don't believe what you are hearing. Please

don't. I love you."

Graham doesn't answer me, so I go on, "Please, Graham, I am so happy you are here

to rescue me. I know we can make this work."

Still, Graham, my husband, stays silent and cold. He cuts me down from the pipes, and I

fall into my hero's arms. Like the true hero that he is, he carries me out of the warehouse. I feel

like we are at the end of a movie, but we are not.

The rats scurry out of the warehouse behind us. I hide my face in my husband's

shoulders. It's just too scary to see all those rats running behind us.

Graham carries me across the blacktop to his cherry red Chevy Camaro that we both

picked out as a wedding present from Graham's family. Graham helps me into the car without

saying a word.

"Graham, please talk to me. Don't believe what they are saying, "I plead with him.

Graham doesn't say anything as he starts the car. He looks stressed and dazed. I can't

figure out what is going on with him.

Maybe it's the fact that I am so hungry and thirsty.

"Please, Graham, do you have something I could drink? I am so thirsty."

Graham sits up and reaches into the backseat for his black metal water bottle. The one

I got him with his college mascot.

At first, Graham starts to take a sip.

"Hey, what about me?"

Graham shrugs and then gives me the water bottle without taking a drink.

"No, you can take a sip first," I say to Graham, who is starting to scare me with his

silence.

He starts the car and drives out of the family compound.

As I am drinking the water and looking out over the horizon, I start to feel woozy and

then everything goes dark.

It must have been a while since I was asleep because when I woke up, I was on a ship's

desk with seagulls flying around and nipping at my long hair. I feel like I am in a wild

seagull gone mad movie.

The seagulls start going for my hair. I can't help but scream. The birds are now nipping at my

face! I feel drops of blood going down my forehead. I'm going to be eaten alive by seagulls!

"Stop that!" Graham has come back. He starts to scare the seagulls away. With most of

the seagulls gone, he picks me up and carries me to a table and chair near the ship's entrance.

There is no one on the deck, which makes everything seem eerie. In fact, it is sunset time,

and the sky is an eerie pink and gold. Making everything look like a tropical movie set.

The wind is cold and biting, and my hair is blowing around my face. I am so weak; I can

barely sit up in the steel chair.

"Your reputation is ruined, and there is no way to save it," Graham finally speaks. He

walks to the edge of the deck and looks out into the water. He turns his face towards me, and

with tears in his eyes, he says, "I am so sorry for what I'm going to do to you. I can't help it.

There is a very powerful man who can help me in my position, and I can't refuse him anything."

"But Graham, what are you talking about? I'm your wife." I put my head in my hands.

"Anyway," Graham says, "Flora is my first love, not you."

I look up at Graham, and his eyes look like two glossy black stones. He moves across the deck and

sits down next to me.

"He was not. You disgust me," Graham lashes out and slaps me. My head jerks back

from the force of his slap.

When my head stopped spinning, I said, "You disgust me. You are ruthless, and I have

nothing but remorse for marrying someone as cold-hearted and dirty as you."

There's a crack in Graham's frozen face as he grimaces at me.

"My mother is right; you are a whore."

Graham grabs me, and I start to scream.

"Help! Help! Somebody help me!"

Graham lunges at me and picks me up. I kick and bite and do whatever to get him to let go

of me. He seems to be gliding across the wet slipper deck. He loses his balance and falls against

the ship rail, losing control of me. He lets go, and I fall into the water. At that minute, I feel

something punching my stomach. I screech from the pain as if all my bones are cracking open.

As I float in the water, I start to cry because I am in so much pain, I want to die. This is

it. It's time to give up. This is the pain of betrayal. I am a marked woman by my husband, but

he has had sex with someone else. I am the betrayed person, so I am the person who feels the

excruciating pain.

I bob in the ocean as I watch my husband walk away from me. As he turns his back on

me, I know I am going to die here. I am in pain and afloat in the sea. What could be worse?

Then I realized my family and friends would all hear about this. They will hear that I

cheated on Graham and that I was caught with a lover in our bed. I can't let that happen. From

somewhere, my pride soars inside of me.

"I can't die!" I scream at the vast blue sky above me. Determined to clear my name, I

swim slowly but carefully until I get to a pile of boulders jutting out of the sea.

If I can just get there, I can figure out what to do next. Failure is not an option.

Unfortunately, I did not see what was trailing behind me.