by Poppet
“Why am I yours? I don't want to belong to a man. I'll end up bleeding and praying for God to kill me.”
He smiles again, and it is so unnatural it's creepy. “I work for God, maybe this was fate. No one will hurt you now. If you obey god, you will be safe.”
He's a disciple, but I don't know what that means. Maybe he's religious, like really religious. Maybe he took a vow of abstinence or something. Maybe I really am safe with him.
I don't struggle when he draws me out of my kitchen toward the door. “I look after you, you look after me. Da?”
“Da,” I nod, wondering if I just made a deal with a saint or the devil.
“Good. That means you won't be living here anymore, and you sure as fuck won't be walking to work. No more topless nights for you, those tits are mine now, whether or not they squint.”
“But I need my wages, Mikah. It's hard for girls like me to earn money. We have so few options–”
“Fine, you can dance in a glass box for me and I'll pay you, you can serve me dinner with your nipples hanging out and I'll pay you. But no more for other men. Ever.”
“Will you teach me to read and write?”
“Da.”
“Am I your slave now? Like I was that man's?”
“No, Kisha. You help me, and I help you. That's the way it was at the beginning, and that's how we will be.”
“And sex?” I ask, walking with my wrist stuck in his grip when we exit my apartment and start to go down the stairs.
“I don't know yet, I have to think about it. I have to ask God what he thinks. I never met a girl like you. I don't want to hurt you, so don't give me any reasons to.”
“I'll try,” I whisper, suddenly afraid again.
He stops on the landing, turning to me. “You confuse me, kisa. I thought you were a sinner, but now I find that you had no choice. I can't judge you. I'm conflicted.”
“What does that mean, conflicted?” I ask.
“It means my emotions war with me. I can't decide,” he explains. “But now, I feed you. Then we go find a place to live. I will not make you live with my brothers, it will not be right in the eyes of the lord.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, blinking against the sunlight when we step onto the gravel of the parking behind the laundromat.
Mikah stops and holds both my hands in his big ones, pressing my palms together like we are praying. “Because I thought you were a dirty angel, but you fell before you had a choice. The dirt wasn't yours. You were always mine, just ask the bratva. I'm glad I walked in on you and Foma. If he hits you again I'll put him in the ground.”
And as if that explains everything he takes me to his car, opening the door for me and making me sit in and put the seatbelt on. I am confused by all of this, but weirdly enough I also feel safe. Mikah is dangerous, probably also a criminal, but today he's my angel. I like that he calls me an angel too. Maybe he will fix my broken wings and teach me to fly.
It makes me sad to think I was kicked out of the nest so young, that I broke when I hit the hard ground of reality. My wings are deformed from when the bones shattered. Maybe girls like me will never fly.
He gets in next to me, starting the car and directing it out of the lot and back into the traffic, almost smiling when he rests his hand on my thigh, humming under his breath.
I like that word he taught me. Conflicted.
The more I think about it, the more I think I am conflicted too. I want to be safe, but I know better than to think I am. They only let you trust them if they plan to break your heart.
Yes, with Mikah I am conflicted.
Looking out the window as the world scurries past, people living their perfect lives, they can't imagine what my life was like.
This isn’t dark, it’s realistic.
I’m one of those girls you’d judge because you don’t know me, you can’t possibly understand my story because you’re too ignorant to relate. I’m the girl whose daddy kissed her with an open mouth and a bit of tongue, the girl whose daddy beat his wife every day so she’d remember her place. I’m the girl whose (ex) best friend would sleep in her father’s bed from age 7 well into her teens, and whatever happened in that bed made her a heroin addict. He bought his daughter on the black market. We aren't even reported missing. We're the girls who never existed in a system.
I’m the girl whose best friend’s brother used to finger every time he thought I was asleep because I stayed at her house more than mine because I’d rather be molested by a non blood relative than stripped and beaten and humiliated at home. The girl who has friends whose fathers make you show them your immature tits before they’ll let you into your friend’s room to visit. Janie’s 'dad' had her in girly mags before she was 15. She became a high end prostitute and got paid more in one night than I earn in a year. For fucking. You judge us because of your weird double moral issue. We see your hypocrisy and call bullshit on that.
How do you not go mad believing two opposing ideologies constantly? You live in a world where little girls are married to grown men because taking virginity means more than her longterm health or mental stability, where human trafficking is a booming empire you’re too busy turning a blind eye to. And yet you preach to us about a god of love - well excuse me for stating the obvious but his angels were rapists and abductors too. I already live in His world, and you may call that love but I call it exploitation.
There was one thing that gave us hope, movies. America, you will never understand how your movies of girls having the right to say no (thank you Marilyn Monroe), and cheeky girls like Scarlet O’Hara, (thank you Vivienne Leigh), gave girls like me our first education as to how relationships are supposed to be.
The movies gave us an escape, offered us a world of hope, one full of love and choices and freedoms those of us born into captivity didn’t even know existed. While our male counterparts were watching porn we were watching romance and chivalry.
It doesn’t matter if it was fictional, what matters is it exposed a choice for a better life. That’s where you went wrong America, you used to represent hope to the entire world and now you pump out movies of disaster and end of world destruction. What happened to the hope? If you can get little girls and teenagers to dream of a better life, of a better world, of a better reality, why’d you stop giving that to the next generation?
Back in the old days vigilante justice made my blood sing. Clint Eastwood was my hero, Fred Astaire was dashing, Rock Hudson was a darling despite being gay, and I wanted to grow up to be Doris Day.
You see, old movies are cheaper to rent than new ones. You may think you’re special because you have money and are given luxury most of us cannot even conceive, but we can’t all have good parents. So when this guy keeps telling me I’m a dirty angel, I believe him.
All angels are dirty. They’re rapists, they took the ones they liked for themselves, and I’ve heard rumors that the babies were so big they tore their mothers in two when it came to childbirth.
Yes, that’s the mercy of God right there. He came, he conquered. Then his angels came because they were horny (like a devil), and I see a world that still works that way.
If you have the power you can take and break. And just because my idols are 1950’s movie stars and inspired me to dye my hair blonde, doesn’t mean I chose to sin. I just can’t believe in a god who’d let brutality and exploitation be normal for a young child, where women are currency instead of a source of treasure, or where priests like to rape little boys and girls because they have more power than soul.
Dirty angel, I like that. Maybe I should make it my porn name? Then I look at Mikah and know the path I was on has come to a dead end. I won't make it to the movies, to that money. I won't have to be a whore to pay my way out of hell.
I pray to God because I needed to hope that someone up there could feel my heart break, could hear my shrieks when I was torn so bad I couldn't piss or poop without screaming. I was fucked so bad I couldn't crawl never mind walk, and so that mudak beat me for s
oiling the bed.
Foma took me to church, he told me god will forgive me for tempting grown men to sin. He said it wasn't my fault, it was the way god made me. He bought me makeup, told me to dye my hair so no one would find me, and got me to work. He's not a father to me, more like a stern uncle. But he's the only family I know. Now I have a sliver of hope. Looking down at the man hand on my leg, not too high and not too tight, just right, I dare to be brave. I put my hand on his, holding it back the same, not too tight, just right.
“It's gonna be okay, Kisha,” he says, focused on driving, turning the wheel when he takes the corner.
I shake my head, “Don't call me that. When I was Kisha that man called me manda. I don't want to be just a manda, I want someone to know me and care who I am before reducing me to a single body part.”
Parking in front of a coffee shop he kills the engine, turning to look at me as if his neck is stiff. “I understand, it has bad associations for you. I will call you kisa, because you are that. All claws but too tiny to defend yourself.” Then he lifts our hands still together on my leg, raising my knuckles to his mouth and softly kissing my skin, lacing his fingers with mine and locking me to him. “I will find the man who called you manda, I will find the man who took what was mine and I will kill him.”
“How? I don't even know my last name, I can't trace my own life, never mind his.”
Mikah gives me a dark smirk, his deadpan voice filling the silence of the car, “There are no secrets from God. He will hand me this man, and I will take great pleasure skinning him alive and forcing him to eat his own shit.”
“Why do you care what he did? It's history, Mikah.”
His blank eyes suddenly grow dark when his pupils expand to fill the pale blue of his irises. “You were born for me, he took what didn't belong to him. You were my dirty angel to rescue and redeem and he ruined something you had which was for me. Now I can't suck your skin and watch you get wet for me, now you will shake and cry because you'll be afraid of the hurt. He is damned, he's already in hell, he just doesn't know it yet.”
And as if that is perfectly normal and okay, he smiles, opening the door, tugging me out with him on his side, “Let's eat. It's gonna be a long day, kisa.”
It already is, but I think I can handle another long day if he keeps holding my hand like I mean something. Like I'm precious. I've never been important or treasured.
This is nice.
Trailing behind him his smell washes over me when we walk into the wind, and I smell the scent of my guardian angel.
He's my guardian!
I smell him just before I fall asleep at night. Laughing, smiling, I look up, saying quietly, “Thank you God.”
It was a portent. Maybe I am a filthy blood after all.
I would have to be to smell the future.
Biting my lip I go willingly with him, enjoying when he wraps an arm around my waist to walk me into the café, knowing if he knew my gift he'd kill me too, and not just the manda who called me manda.
Dolboeb.
(Fuckhead.)
Sitting down opposite Mikah, I stare at eyes as empty as the abyss. And the abyss stares back at me, it's claimed me and made me his own. Maybe now I will have a home, even if it's emptier than my heart.
~ Chapter 4 ~
When you light a candle,
you also cast a shadow
~ Ursula K. Le Guin
I'm in shock. Never have I seen so much money spent in one day. I've never known anyone to have so much to spend and not even worry when it leaves his wallet or his card. Sitting in my new home on a brand new couch, I'm drained from so much activity. I've never shopped like that, it's exhausting. Mikah puts the sim card back in his phone, sitting opposite me, lighting a cigarette when he flops back and exhales to the ceiling, the phone to his ear.
“Gavril.” He closes his eyes, looking as tired as I feel. “Da. Mm. I'm going to speak English, for her sake.” His eyes reopen and stare at me, lifeless in his bloodless face. “Tell Foma to get a new serving girl, Polina doesn't work for him anymore. – I don't give a fuck, brat. She's sestra now, where she belongs. I'm out until church.” He nods, dropping his voice to a mumble, “Mne phui. (I don't give a fuck.) You tell that zhopa (asshole) she owes him nothing. She's mine and I don't share.”
He drops the phone on the table between us, sitting forward and ashing his cigarette in the crystal ashtray.
“I'm sister now?” I ask, confused.
“To my brothers. That means they don't get to speak to you like a serving girl with her tits out. You're not their shloocha (slut).”
“Oh.” Then it occurs to me that we should eat. I should cook now, rub his shoulders or something. I've made the new bed and am afraid because it's only one bed and there are two of us, and cleaned the bathroom, but the rest will have to wait for tomorrow. Standing, I jerk my hand toward the kitchen when he relaxes on his soft puffy chair, supporting his head. “I'll get you a drink. Are you hungry?”
His facial muscles are still frozen, just his eyes darting when he thinks. “Polina, sit.” Instantly I sit again, on edge.
Rubbing his eyes he slouches into a seated position, watching me. “This is how it'll work. You take care of me, but I also take care of you. We're both tired, we'll order in. I'm not going to force you to do anything, we have lots of time to get to know each other before God expects you to commit to me properly. We have rules, and I never break them.”
He swallows hard and I watch his Adam's apple bob, for the first time seeing a nice man, possibly a kind man. A man who's had a day he probably never planned to have. No one likes shopping, especially not men. The deliveries this afternoon were endless, but now we have a home furnished like regular 'normal' folks.
Swallowing again, reaching for his cigarettes, he says, “I expect a companion. You no longer work for Foma, he's a sketchy character who has his hands in things you'd cry over. Now you are a housewife. You keep the house clean and the bed warm, but you only serve me when you have all day to plan dinner. I get home at six, but if I have church I'll go out again after we eat. You have a TV now with lots of channels, we'll order teaching DVDs for you so you can learn in the mornings. That's why we got a computer too, you don't even have to leave the house to shop for food. I know the words don't mean anything to you yet, but I'll help you, we'll have a regular order with the things you need and everything will get delivered. Alright, kisa?”
I nod, still reeling. Papa never cared like this.
Mama was his slave and he worked her hard. He beat her if he found dust under a chair. Papa held inspection once a week and god help us if he found dirt anywhere. Isn't it strange how much you can remember as young as age 2 when the memory was branded with pain on an impressionable mind.
Nodding as if to himself he moves to a stand, striding to the kitchen, coming back with a beer in his hand, a coke for me. He sits in his chair again, kicking his shoes off. “What do you want to eat?”
“Chinese?” I ask, thinking sweet and sour chicken might be nice.
His eyelids narrow. “What is it with you and the Chinese?”
“Nothing. It's cheap food and goes a long way.”
“Do you think I'm a poor man, kisa? Do you think I can't provide for you?”
“I never said that–”
“Don't be cheeky, Polina. God provides for his chosen. Now I'll ask you again, what do you want to eat?”
“Um …” Now I'm too afraid to say I want Chinese, and can't think of anything else I'd rather eat.
“Fine,” he huffs, pulling his phone to him, thumbing through the contacts and dialing a number. “Chang, two of the usual. New address …”
He's moved us out of Richmond to an isolated road in Walnut Creek, far off the street at the very end of Brodia Way, right on top of the Shell Ridge green belt. It's like he doesn't want me to be able to walk anywhere, or be found. Maybe he just likes privacy, I don't know, but it's nice having nature on the doorstep. It will be peaceful living h
ere, and it's the most fancy place I've ever stayed.
It's not sunk in yet, I feel like I will wake tomorrow to stare out grimy windows onto the street again, traffic and pedestrians making noise. Dropping his phone when his call ends he slumps back, drinking long from the bottle, just staring at me. Dipping my gaze I stare at the table, smelling the sweet scent of new home freshly cleaned. It's so spacious I feel like I'm in a hotel.
“Polina.”
I look up and meet his stare again. “Yes?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
He sits forward, his focus sweeping over me, a tic twitching in his jaw. “Kisa, I know this is all a lot to take in, but I need to be able to trust you. I have rules that you must follow, for your safety and mine. But to trust you means I need to ask you personal questions, and I expect you to answer them truthfully.”
Nodding quickly, I knot my fingers to stop them from betraying how nervous I am.
“You don't drink alcohol unless I give it to you, when I'm home I expect you in skirts, you don't smoke or take drugs unless I give them to you, and you never let another man in this house unless he's one of the bratva. Understood?”
I nod again, swallowing against the ash dryness of my mouth.
“I will give you a phone, when I call I expect you to answer by the third ring. If you don't, there will be punishment. In this house you are safe, but if you leave it I can't keep you safe. I have enemies and you have a past you don't want to find you, so I need to know who your friends are.”
“I don't have any,” I mumble, looking to his hand resting on the arm of his chair.
“Why not?”
Meeting his faded blue eyes, I shrug, “Same reason as you. It's hard to know who to trust, plus having girlfriends gets complicated. I got tired of being the freak, they were always trying to get me to go on dates, or get drunk and go home with strangers. I can't do that, I won't. It got easier to just be alone.”
He has that odd deepening to the edges of his mouth, like he's smiling without smiling. “Are you clean? Do I need to have you tested?”