When you know

1. Say it

The plan had to go ahead tonight. Time and excuses were running out. It was either today or Ariana was going to lose her dignity to a man she loathed with all her heart.

'Anything else?' The shopkeeper asked in broken English. The short, round-stomached man peered at her suspiciously. Not that she blamed him. After all, Chloroform and sleeping pills weren't exactly day to day grocery items; Or maybe because it was due to her white skin that she stuck out like a saw thumb.

'No, thank you.' Handing over the money and grabbing the bag, Ariana rushed out.

The bus rumbled forward, jerking and jumping along the bumpy road, passing the dusty sandy roads, the dried out yellow coloured grass and the burnt out trees. The sun beamed and the heat was inescapable. The women opposite her stared at Arianna as she sat in the crowded, stuffy bus. What was it with these people? Had they never seen a white Muslim girl before? She wondered if the woman could read her thoughts, if she could see past her poker face. Ariana shook the thought off. Luckily only God could do such and the fact that humans couldn't was something to be grateful for.

The bus stopped a few yards away from the apartment building she had been residing in for the last few days. She stepped out of the urine-stenched lift and took a deep breath. Since she hadn't been given her own keys, she rang the bell on the red front door and waited for it to be answered. Her heart pounded and dread invaded her. She could just ran away. Right now. Go back home to England, but how? It wasn't an option since everything, her passport, clothes and money, were all inside this apartment. More importantly, the bond she had been forced into had to be broken.

'You took ages,' Juned, her awfully vile husband of eight days, said as he dragged her by the arm and threw her onto the floor like a piece of rubbish. 'Get the food ready. I'm starving.' He barked.

 It had only been 8 days since she had been forced into the marriage and she was already being treated as a personal slave and a punching bag. He was beyond ignorant to women's rights in Islam. However she would teach him. She would teach him tonight. The plan was becoming a reality and there was no backing out now.

As the pasta cooked and the wonderful smell of tomato and herbs waffled in the air, a handful of crushed white pills were sprinkled in to the pan. Was a handful too much? Frankly, Ariana didn't care. He just needed to drop unconscious for a while. As cruel as she felt, desperation had made her blind to moral conscience.

'Is it done yet?' His voice thundered from the living room as he sat lazily watching the large TV.

'Almost,' she replied quietly. Walking into the room, her hands shook as she placed the plate and the drink onto the dark wooden table.

'So, tonight is the night?' Juned's dark eyes narrowed as he sneered at her. Arianna forced herself not to cringe. Tonight she would become clean and he would take her virginity -or so he thought. Since intercourse was forbidden during menses, he had been forced to wait. He watched her nod slowly; his grin evil and calculating. With a wave of his hands, he dismissed her as if she was a servant and not his spouse. However, she in a few hours time, she would no longer be his spouse.

After a few moments, Ariana peered around the wall watching him devour the pasta like a hungry dog. She waited for the effect of the pills to come into action. But it wasn't happening. Patience she whispered to herself. He got up having finished the entire plate. And finally, he stumbled, touched his head and then with a curse, he fell with a heavy thud. Arianna walked slowly towards him, making sure that he was unconscious and unable to rise to attack her.

After much heaving and lifting, she finally managed to have him sitting and bound tightly to the chair. There was no way she could risk him escaping. Whilst he slept, she went into the study room and removed the beautiful canvas of the Indian Ocean from the wall above the leather sofa. Behind it was the safe which contained her freedom and money that she desperately needed. She removed the thin piece of plastic sheet from the keypad which she had secretly placed on it after she had caught Juned putting cash into it. Luckily, it hadn't moved and he hadn't realised it was there.