Our wedding night—what was supposed to be the most beautiful moment of my life—turned into a waking nightmare.

Just as my husband Aryan and I retreated to our room in his family home on the outskirts of Jaipur, someone knocked softly and pushed the door open. It was his father—Mr. Suresh Verma, a gaunt man in his early sixties with piercing eyes that always seemed to be watching something deeper than the surface.

He was carrying a pillow and a folded blanket.

“I’ll sleep between the two of you tonight,” he said plainly, stepping inside.

I froze. Was this a joke?

“In our family,” he continued without blinking, “there’s an old tradition. On the wedding night, a man who’s fathered a son must lie between the couple. It brings blessings for a male child. My father did the same for me.”

I looked at Aryan, expecting him to laugh or protest. But he only gave me an awkward smile and said, “Just for one night, Meera. It’s silly, but… all the men in my family follow this.”

I wanted to say no. Every instinct in my body screamed that this was wrong. But how could I, a new bride, argue against a “custom”? If I refused, they’d call me disrespectful, arrogant… a bad daughter-in-law.

So I said nothing. I swallowed my disgust and slid into bed—me on one side, Aryan on the other, and his father, Mr. Verma, settling between us under a thick quilt.

I couldn’t sleep.

The room felt suffocating. I turned my back to them and closed my eyes, but every few minutes, I felt something brush against my lower back. At first, I thought it was accidental. I tried to ignore it.

But by 3AM, the itching had spread. Down my back, across my waist… down my thigh. I couldn’t bear it anymore.

I sat up, heart pounding, turned around—and froze.

Mr. Verma’s wrinkled, bony hand was creeping out from under the blanket. It was touching my waist. Slowly. Intentionally.

And worse—he was awake.

His eyes were wide open, staring at me. No guilt. No panic. Just… calm. Cold.

As if he knew I wouldn’t dare scream.

But I did.

I screamed as loud as I could.

Aryan jolted awake in confusion. He turned on the light. I was shaking, pointing at his father’s hand. But the old man casually withdrew it and yawned, faking drowsiness.

“What is it?” he murmured. “I must’ve moved in my sleep…”

Aryan looked at me. Confused. Embarrassed.

He pulled me out into the hallway and whispered, “Please don’t overreact. It’s our first night. He’s an old man… maybe he didn’t realize.”

I stood there in the dim corridor, my hands ice-cold, my eyes flooded with tears.

That was the moment I realized… I had married a man who wouldn’t protect me. I had stepped into a family where a disgusting tradition could be used as a weapon—and no one would dare speak against it.

By morning, I had packed my bag.

I took a cab straight to my parents’ house in Udaipur. By noon, my mother took me to meet an old friend of hers—an experienced family lawyer. I submitted a formal request for annulment. Luckily, we hadn’t registered the marriage legally yet.

But I brought evidence—a recording I’d secretly started that night as a precaution. It captured the shifting sounds under the blanket, the strange whispering that began shortly before 3AM:

“Just a little more… Be good… Papa loves you…”