Back in my room in the hospital, I found the portly nurse waiting for me. She sat me on the bed and took off my prison clothes. After covering my genitals with a cloth, she proceeded to wash my body in rose-scented water. She then removed my leg bandages, cleaned the remaining scars with an alcohol rub, and put on a minimal bandage. She advised me to leave my leg exposed to the air, and then put the clean and scented mufti’s cloak on me. She gave me some delicious food to eat, before laying me out on my back and injecting my buttocks with something that soon had me slipping into a deep sleep.
21. In My Torturess’s Bed
A Night of Debauchery and Terror
“For several years now, my esteemed male spouse, I’ve always slept with one eye open. My fear has been that, if I fell fully asleep, innumerable hands would extend in my direction, to pluck my eyes out, chop off my breasts, and insert needles and skewers in every aperture of my body. They would then pour ammonia over me and empty a can of gasoline so they could set me on fire and reduce me to a pile of dust. You would be the person selected to toss it into the foulest toilet. Isn’t that the dream you have in mind, you who, as of today, are my resident male spouse?”
The first time she used that term, “male spouse,” to describe me, I thought the female ghoul was using a term whose meaning she did not know. But the second time, I retorted to my strangler: “No, I’m not your spouse!”
“Oh yes, you are,” she replied, “duly signed according to law. Here’s the marriage contract with two witnesses. Tonight was our wedding night. You had sex with me so I could bear you a son of your own kind. Pretty soon, Hamuda, I’ll be able to fulfill your dream and tell you that I’m pregnant. .”
The very self-confidence of this woman hit me; it felt like poison and made me feel dizzy.
“You’re a disgusting slut!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “I would never be your husband, even if your gang sat me on an electric chair or tore me limb from limb. .”
“Listen, Honey,” she went on, “don’t judge my age by my weight. I’m still under forty. I haven’t given up hope of getting pregnant and having a baby.”
O Lord, rid me of this foul female ghoul and the power she has over me! Now that You have enabled me to outwit both her and her scurrilous minions, Lord, she’s trying to destroy my mind!
O Lord, relieve me of this calamity, loosen my chains, and bolster me to confront this new trial, one I have never encountered before and have no way of resisting.
O Lord, my shield and helper, You are my only guardian and resort!
She asked me what I was rambling on about, but I said nothing. When it came to the question as to whether or not I believed that we were truly married, I indicated disgustedly that I totally and utterly rejected the possibility. She planted a rough kiss on my mouth that prompted in me a strong desire to vomit. She then put two fingers to her mouth and let out a powerful whistle. Four men now appeared, among whom I recognized a preacher although I could not remember exactly where I had seen him before.
“So, august legal authority,” she said, keeping her clutches on me, “is my marriage to this man legal according to the law or not?”
“Legal, definitely legal,” the man replied, duly accompanied by the other three.
“Did he have sex with me or not?” she went on.
“He certainly did,” they all replied in unison.
I managed to get my head free.
“My brother,” I yelled at this pseudo-authority, “what have they done to your mind? Drugged it, shaken it? Is it even conceivable for a man to have sex with a woman without knowing about it or even being aware of it?”
“Yes indeed,” he replied immediately, like some programmed machine. “It can happen in dreams. If a woman is lying next to a man, he can dream things and project his desire into a female’s vagina. She may get pregnant and bear a child. In God’s creation there are indeed many wonders and signs!”
I screamed out a prayer cursing all phony jurists and purveyors of falsehood. The ghoul now signaled to the four of them to leave. Once she was alone with me, she tied my other hand to the bed and my leg (once she had splayed them apart). She now climbed on top of me with her foul, heavy body.
“Now, my lover,” she said, “you’re going to know for sure and be fully aware of everything. She then proceeded to do things with me that I could never have conceived, even in my wildest nightmares. In fact, she assaulted and raped me, showing superior skill and a whorish professionalism in the process. I kept screaming in shame and begging for help, but she stopped me by kicking my bandaged leg, which had not fully healed yet. Once she had finished, she lay down beside me, panting heavily as though she had just emerged from a particularly brutal fight. Once she had recovered her breath, she started singing in a coarse tone. I could not make out what the words meant.
If I had found a way to plunge my fingers into the eyes of this debauched songbird, I would certainly have done it without a moment’s hesitation or any concern about the possible consequences. The fact that I could not caused me pain, as did the fact that I had no choice but to listen to her singing such trivial nonsense. She then clutched a pillow that she called my baby, my child, and started singing the same stuff again.
She now told me that she had learned these songs from a female Moroccan Arab prisoner before she had died of a massive heart attack. She asked me if I would be bringing her child peaches and pomegranates. I said nothing and did my best to block my ears to these disgusting details about the love affairs she had had previous to what she was now terming our own beautiful story together, one that was so unique. She started talking about her intention to resign from the tiresome job she had so that she could follow me wherever I went, even if it was to a desert island. There we would build our little nest, love each other, raise our child, and cull such meats and animal milk as we wished from our little paradise. She then elaborated on the scenario with yet more detail, while I struggled to ignore what she was saying by considering my new plight and the dreadful consequences that might emerge from it.
A few moments later I reemerged from my ruminations with a jolt and found myself in my actual dire situation, confronting an explosion of abuse and complaint from the ghoul because I was refusing to consort with her and kept myself apart. This outburst was accompanied by nervous cigarette smoking. From time to time she forced me to smoke it too and to light others. When she had had enough, she threw the butt away and pulled a tray full of sandwiches from under the bed, along with two bottles of wine and some fruit. She sat up and put it down in front of us. She tried to get me to start eating, but I refused; when she offered some wine, I pressed my lips together to show clearly that the very idea was repellent. She now used her teeth to open the bottle.
“By God, you’re going to drink the wine of love from your bride’s own hand,” she said.
When I refused point blank, she hit my bad leg. When she grew tired of my resistance, she grabbed my testicles and swore that she was not going to let go until I did what she wanted. The sheer pain left my mouth open, and within moments my torturess had thrust the bottle into my mouth and started pouring the liquid down my throat. I tried spitting it out but had to swallow to avoid choking myself. She used the same method to empty a second and third bottle down my throat, accompanying her actions with foul language and the grossest of insults:
“God curse your mother’s religion! Here I agree to marry this despicable groom, folks, and yet we’re not getting drunk?! So, you little creep, you prefer heaven’s wine to mine? Whoever said you’re going to heaven, you little bastard?”