The bride,his business 3
I weakly gave in to him. He didn't need to make me do it; he just had to ask me for it. It wasn't the first time anyway, but this time, it felt dry and emotionless.
When he was done, he pressed a bell, and two men stepped in. From there, I was taken to another room.
All the while, I was crying—I was in tears. It was the biggest betrayal I had ever felt; my own husband was into this. Was this how he made his own money?
In that room, I was handed a towel and a plain gown; this was what I was expected to wear always. Then I was taken into a large dormitory with other ladies like me and was introduced to all of them.
One of them updated me on the rules of the house: no calls, and even if there would be, they would be monitored by a worker. There were many other rules I was expected to obey while I stayed in the house.
"How long will I stay here?" I asked. One of them glared at me and warned me never to ask such a question again.
I was assigned a small bed, and when I settled in, one of the ladies started to talk to me. She told me she was just a young girl in her first year at the university when a young man came to marry her.
Before that, she had been told she would marry early, earlier than most of her mates.
So when the man came, she excitedly accepted him without giving him the benefit of the doubt.
He married her, and it didn't take three weeks before she found herself here—the same thing that happened to me.
Another one joined us and said she was hired for a nanny job, and the first day she started, she was brought here.
Bad things here, bad stories here, bad experiences and pity. People suffering here and there because of ignorance, desperation, carelessness, and pity.
Like the other lady who said she started dating the man that brought her here out of pity.
How can you enter a relationship because you pity the man, just because he had been begging for a relationship for so long?
I found out that most of the ladies there had been close to the people who brought them here at some point.
I realized at that point that all hope was lost because some of the ladies told me how they had tried to escape, failed, and ended up punished. I got scared instantly.
When my fake husband stepped back in that evening to do his "regular supervision," as they termed it, most of the ladies started to confirm that my fake husband was the same man who married them.
That's when I realized it's what he does. He marries young girls and brings them here.
My chest felt like it was collapsing as more tears clouded my eyes. I had made the biggest mistake of my life because I wanted an easy escape out of poverty, because I wanted to help my family, my mother...
Now I know better: marriage is not an escape out of poverty, but an avenue to grow with a partner and build a future that will influence the lives of others positively.
Fake marriages...
After my fake husband was done talking to us—none of which I could make out—he finally asked us to get ready for the night.
And when he was about to leave, he said: Every lady here has to give birth to at least three babies. That was when I realized—this was a baby house.
Note: *This is a fictional piece inspired by real life societal issues to create awareness.*
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