The Petticoat Gang

Chapter 5-1

5

Ahmad Farrokhzad was an Iranian-born Australian citizen who came to Australia on a leaky boat as a teenager, seeking asylum along with sixty-two other would-be refugees fleeing their respective homelands and the alleged persecution they faced therein. Openly Muslim by faith, Ahmad remained a devout follower of Islam. As he matured into adulthood, a disturbing transformation embraced his life: he embraced the ancient, barbaric teachings of Sharia law.

Considered a bastardised adoption of modern-day criminal law by most nations of the western world, including Australia, Ahmad was never going to advance his career opportunities through his public support of Sharia. Having learned his adoptive country had laws of its own, laws far removed from those of Sharia, his obsessive devotion to the teachings was conducted covertly and confined primarily to his domestic situation. What happened in the privacy of his home had absolutely no bearing on what happened or how he conducted himself outside the home, he reasoned.

Ahmad Farrokhzad was wealthy, not in the sense of being mega-rich, but wealthy by standards accepted by the general population. Exactly how he’d made his modest fortune was unclear to most of the people he mixed with, but then, the type of people he associated with knew better than to ask. Suffice it to say that the unspoken belief was that none of his wealth was obtained by legitimate means. Ahmad lived by a code that dictated to Ahmad, even if to no one else, the distorted ethic: He who has the most money wins.

At home, Ahmad never gave his wife money of her own. She was forbidden to work and he insisted she wear only clothing and makeup he chose and which he paid for. She was never to wear makeup outside the home, she could only leave the house when accompanied by him and only then when clad in clothing he deemed appropriate. In fact, Ahmad’s preference was that his wife should never leave the house, but he knew that was impossible to enforce. Australia was not ancient Iran; people would ask questions regarding her whereabouts he was not prepared to answer. Any concessions Ahmad made, he made with reluctance. He was aware that there were some things, regardless of how distasteful they may be to him, he simply had to abide, particularly if he was going to appear to fit into the widely-accepted Australian way of living.

Ahmad ruled his domestic home life, including his very pretty, younger, Australian-born wife, with an iron fist. He was the man of the house. His philosophy regarding the female gender was uncomplicated — women are for cooking, cleaning and bearing children. They were, and always would be, on earth for no other reason than to please the man. Disobedience or non-conformance by a wife was punishable, if not by a hundred lashes, a punishment regime acceptable in ancient Iran, then by a severe beating, at the very least. Women had to know their place in the order of things and, although never considered a possibility by Ahmad, it was only a matter of time before the clash of cultures came to a head. Explosively.

At thirty-two years of age, Amber Martin had suffered, physically as well as emotionally, more than most women of her age. A victim of domestic violence from the very first day of her marriage to a man ten years her senior, Amber endured both the pain and the indignity of almost daily beatings. The constant fear of dying at the hands of her husband became an all-consuming, omnipresent expectation for almost eight years before it finally ended. Not in the divorce courts or the relative safety of a shelter for victims of domestic violence, but in the kitchen of the home she shared with her abusive husband.

Ahmad Farrokhzad came home wanting and demanding that which he considered to be his conjugal rights. s*x on demand was one of the things a good wife should provide, Ahmad believed. Refusal was not an option. Unfortunately for Amber, she refused.

Amber had been beaten before for refusing Ahmad’s s****l advances, and she knew she was about to be beaten again. Nevertheless, she stood her ground and defiantly, bravely, refused. It was not so much the actual s*x; she had long ago conditioned herself to block that part of it out. It was the perverse, disgusting, painful pre-cursor to the act, the part Ahmad referred to as foreplay that terrified her. She was tired, still bruised and sore from the last beating just a couple of days earlier. Maybe this time it would be different. In her heart, she knew it wouldn’t be.

Ahmad beat her so badly he broke her nose, fractured her jaw, dislocated her shoulder and broke three of her ribs.

When he moved in close, with that all-too-familiar evil smirk of anticipation on his face, determined to finish what he started, Amber plunged a kitchen knife deep into the side of Ahmad Farrokhzad’s neck, severing both the interior and exterior jugular arteries. Ahmad bled to death in less than a minute and a half, his eyes filled with hatred for his wife even as the life faded from them.

Charged with Ahmad’s murder, the court ultimately declared Amber not guilty. Medical evidence tendered in court dating back to the early days of their marriage indicated a sustained, constant pattern of physical and s****l abuse by Ahmad Farrokhzad. Amber walked free from court, vowing never again to place herself in the position of being a victim of a violent relationship.

Amber also walked away broke. The marital home was in Ahmad’s name. Unbeknownst to Amber, he had created a secure trust fund that allocated his entire estate to an Islamic charity, including the proceeds from the sale of the house he shared with his wife.

Twenty-nine-year-old Ebony Aitken and thirty-year-old Anna Blaine met in their first year at primary school in Brisbane, Queensland and had remained inseparable friends ever since. Ebony and Anna also shared a somewhat checkered history, having walked a thin line between right and wrong for most of their adolescent years.

Mostly their indiscretions amounted to what might be considered by others in their age group as innocent, albeit borderline, mischief. While there were, however, among the select few friends who knew them well, some concerns that the occasional joint smoking, pill popping and excessive alcohol consumption might well, at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, bring them to the notice of the police, nothing in their past amounted to anything criminal, at least nothing Ebony and Anna considered criminal.

During one incident in their more recent past, a man died, and while the police might well consider the circumstances of his death as constituting a crime, Ebony and Anna did not consider his death a crime in the true sense of the word. They did reluctantly concede, however, that neglecting to report the man’s demise might be viewed by the authorities as a criminal offence. Also, the fact that they both played a part in killing the man was something they agreed might also be frowned upon. Nonetheless, they were both steadfast in their belief that the deceased had forfeited his right to breathe the same air as everyone else on the planet, and by jointly instigating his unfortunate passing, they had in fact done the world a service.

Simon Dougal was in love with Ebony Aitken, or at least he was in his warped, deeply disturbed imagination. In reality, there was not a relationship therapist anywhere in the world worth his or her salt who would interpret the emotions raging deep inside Simon Dougal as ‘love.’

What Simon was, and it did not take a relationship expert to recognise it, was a violent psychopath. He had fantasised for four years about extracting revenge on Ebony for her rejection of him.

He was not always a violent man. On the contrary, he was once a kind, gentle, respectful individual who believed passionately in the sanctity of love, marriage, family and the concept of a lifelong union of husband and wife. These were character traits many would envy, he believed, but it all went to Hell in a handbasket when Ebony decided to end their relationship.

Simon was a virgin when he and Ebony first got together. Paramount in his ideals was the firm belief that s****l relations between a man and a woman should be avoided prior to the legal union of marriage. A product of a strict, albeit outdated and unfashionable Catholic upbringing, Simon held true to his ideals under fear of eternal damnation should he stray from the path of goodness and right.

At first, these were ideals the then-twenty-two-year-old Ebony found commendable, even sweet. There were not many men in this day and age who could honestly say they followed such purist beliefs, and she was genuinely happy in the early weeks and months of their relationship.

Ebony, however, was not a virgin; those days were long behind her, and she made a conscious decision, perhaps wisely, perhaps otherwise, not to disclose this inconsequential fact to Simon. The problem that ultimately developed with her relationship with Simon was simple, at least to Ebony. It wasn’t rocket science. Nor was it anything that required weeks or possibly months of therapy. She was horny! That was it, plain and simple. She wanted s*x.

Ebony was not a raving s*x maniac. Far from it, but she was no stranger to the obvious pleasures of the flesh, either. She had not had a lot of s****l partners, perhaps not as many as most young women her age, but she had had enough to know that she would like to continue to revel in the experience every now and then. She had no intention of getting married to anyone until she was at least thirty years old, so Simon had a choice: put out or get out!

Simon did not take it well. He flew into a rage that took Ebony completely by surprise. Never in her wildest imagination had she thought he would react as he did. He did not hit her, although she feared he might at any moment, such was the vitriol that spewed from him. The names he called her, the accusations he screamed in her face, the disappointment and disgust he spat at her filled her with dread. A sense of guilt like nothing she had ever before experienced and never wanted to again consumed her.

Ebony fled the relationship and moved in with her best friend, Anna. Simon had scared her. The transformation from nice guy to out-of-control maniac was the last thing she would have expected from him. While she didn’t think he would come looking for her, it gave her an enhanced sense of security having her friend close.

The two girls set a course of enjoying their young lives to the fullest. When they weren’t working, they partied. Both girls were young, very attractive and they made no secret of the fact that they were both available. The line of suitors queuing up for the opportunity to date them seemed unending, and for Ebony, the drought had well and truly broken in the s*x department. Life was good and only getting better.

Simon Dougal, on the other hand, was obsessed. He spent every available moment over the next four years covertly stalking Ebony. Every day, every week, every year, his silent, suppressed rage, like a cancer, festered and intensified. He rarely found Ebony alone and followed both girls when they were together. He followed them when they went to clubs and pubs. He followed them when they went shopping together, just the two of them enjoying each other’s company. When Ebony went on dates with other men, he was never far away. He would follow them home after their date and wait, out of sight, for hours, sometimes discreetly parked outside her date’s house and sometimes outside Anna’s house. As he watched and waited, the rage continued to simmer deep inside him, and his imagination ran amok thinking about the disgusting, distasteful things she might be doing at that very moment.

Then one night he could contain the rage no longer.