A Year of Hell on the Waves

I accidentally washed a bloodstained bedsheet at home—a memento of my husband's first night with his true love.

He went berserk,accusing me of being a jealous bitch.

To teach me manners and mold me into a dutiful wife,he banished me to a deep-sea fishing trawler as a deckhand.

The ship held fifty brutal men who regard the law as nothing—and me,the only frail woman.

Their eyes gleamed with desire.

Onboard,there was no morality,no law—only survival of the fittest,raw violence.

I screamed,I begged God or whoever's out there,but no one answered.I became their tool to ease boredom.

Broken in body and spirit,I felt like I was neither human nor ghost.

A year later,scarred and submissive,my husband retrieved me.

He couldn't be more contented.

He made me kneel,grovel,swear never to disrespect his beloved again.

Only when he saw my ravaged body did he clutch me,saying how much he regretted it.

Too late.I was already destroyed,weary of this cold world.

...

After hell of a year at sea,I stepped onto land again.

Gaunt,stumbling,eyes vacant,I barely looked like human.

Those who've never been on a deep-sea trawler can't possibly imagine the hardship.

Seasickness—like riding a rollercoaster nonstop.

Head splitting,sleepless,eating only to vomit,vomiting only to eat.

The sea could be calm a second and stormy the next,with waves ten feet high nearly every day.

In the cabin,we rolled and crashed like dice,bruised and battered.

Food and fresh water were scarce,doctors and medicine even scarcer.

Sick?You could only wait for death.

But the worst was the loneliness.

Endless ocean,no horizon,no direction.

Time seemed to freeze.Yesterday,today,tomorrow,all blurred and made no difference.

No future,no hope.

Worse than prison,the monotony drove men mad.

Three months in,I watched a sailor scream,"I can't take it!"and leap into the ocean to his death.

And the worst fate was mine—as the ship's only woman.

Fifty strong men,fifty ravenous wolves.

From day one,their eyes screamed desire.

That first night,the captain,grinning viciously,stormed into my cabin,tearing at my clothes apart.

"Your husband sent you here for our amusement!No resisting—enjoy it!"

I fought hard,scratching,biting.

I got punches,kicks,and savage beatings in return.The captain slammed my head against the bulkhead.

I passed out,woke in pain,and fainted again.

The nightmare never stopped.

The first mate,chief engineer,bosun...

That night,my door was forced open for a whole eleven times.

Soon,locking it was pointless.

A year of torment.

From resistance to submission,from humiliation to numbness.

I became too numb to cry anymore,and my body was scarred all over.

Torn,bruised,infected.

God's last bit of mercy on me:I wasn't pregnant.

The captain ordered all men entering my cabin to use protection.

Violators lost their"privileges."

His strictness wasn't for my sake—just to keep me functional,free of pregnancy or disease.

The physical scars were horrific,but the mental agony was even more unbearable.

Relentless viol...