#BlogTour A Killing Sin by K.H.Irvine @KHIrvineAuthor @UrbaneBooks #LoveBooksTours

The Comedy Café ELLA

  The Comedy Café open mic is a bear pit. The standard is high and the punters unforgiving. I feel the adrenalin surge in my veins as the MC shouts her name.

  ‘Amala Hackeem!’ I give Neil’s hand a quick squeeze. Millie and I lock eyes. I can feel her take a breath. Part excitement and part trepidation. Amala loves it. She runs on stage, talking at the same time. Punching out jokes like a volley of Amir Khan jabs. Jab. Jab. Jab.

I hear her opening line. She’s used it before and it still makes me cringe. I can’t help it. I worry for her. ‘I know what you are thinking. You are looking at me and thinking, she can’t be a real Muslim. She’s not dressed like one.’ The crowd shift in their seats. Ready to laugh but not sure yet, feeling the underlying air of anxiety in the room. Less certain of what’s ok. With a flourish that makes my heart pound, she finishes, ‘She doesn’t look like a bottle of Guinness.’
They laugh. They’re on her side. Thank God. In the bar afterwards, she’s buzzing. She doesn’t even see him coming. Neither do I. Not until I see his spit land on her face. He looks like a man possessed. ‘Who do you think you are, you infidel? You think you’re so special. You drag good Muslim women into your gutter.’
His mouth is twisted into a vicious sneer, his yellow teeth bared and his eyes full of hate and contempt. ‘Someone is going to wipe that stupid smile off your face. One day a husband will show you what it is to be a good Muslim wife.’ In that instant I know she won’t resist it. She never can. And she doesn’t.
‘Don’t worry, mate, I don’t fit the bill to be a good Muslim wife.’ She lifts her chin, and with a grin that’s recognised the world over, she delivers the line.
‘I talk.’
I feel it before I see it. The air as he pulls back his arm to maximise the impact. Rage turns his face puce. His fist crashes into her eye before she has time to move from the full force of the blow. Before any of us can move. Stunned, she falls back. Scrambling to stay upright but failing. I rush to grab her as she falls. In my peripheral vision, I see Millie, quick as a whip, grab his hair and smash his face into the bar.