by Poppet
The viper wants to attack, looking for reasons to sink his toxic fangs into my body. I must play the flute for the devil so he calms and sways instead of wanting to strike.
Nodding, staring at his chest, I say with the meek voice, “What must I do while you are gone?”
“Watch your instructional DVD's in the morning so you can learn to read and write, then clean, then continue fucking yourself because you need to know how to be wet for me.”
“God said I mustn't do that no more,” I whisper, biting my lip and wondering if 'god' will come back to wrap my head in plastic again.
“I own you and I'm giving you a direct order. Leave God to me. You do as I tell you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I grind through my clenched teeth.
I want to kill you you bastard motherfucker. You order me when I owe you shit. You are nothing to me, you push my nerves until they ache to snap. Your tone and arrogance make me want to slice your big dark veins open to watch your heart pump blood all over your pale skin.
You don't deserve me.
But a snake charmer knows to be careful, to learn the prey and the predator, to weave the two together so they can serve each other.
One day, you fucking asshole, one day you will serve me, and you will not know how it happened. I will charm you so you end up killing yourself.
He comes closer, kissing my forehead. “Good girl.”
“When do you go?” I ask, standing frozen, knowing he likes to order. I must stand here until he says I can go, it makes him feel powerful. It fools him.
Always keep the viper docile. It likes to feast on the living, and when it wants to attack simply play dead. The snake eats breath and blood and fear and pain, but the dead have none of those things. Polina knows how to pretend she is dead, she is dormant, she waits for her own turn to attack. I am so good at surviving among the venomous. My whole life I have walked in the world of darkness where the thugs and evil slither through the night, hissing and spitting and threatening life.
Never challenge, stay still, be dead and watch the snake lose interest. Always they lose interest, and if not I know from TV how to paralyze the snake. You take the thinnest rod and whip its side, then for minutes it can't move. It doesn't kill it, it is like a stun strike to a shark's snout. It simply prevents attack.I want to hit Mikah like that, I want to hurt him so he remembers he is no one in this world, he's just a man with sickness eating his mind.
He has no power, that's why he wants to own me, he tries to make me fear because fear makes people stupid. I don't make mistakes, I'm far too alive inside to bow to fear. Just be calm, walk in each moment and let the gut feelings guide you. I know many things about life even if I'm ignorant.
I know that I am not this body and that is why the body will die. The part of me Oleg tried to destroy is still safe, it's the part of me that stands in prison but is still free to think and feel. He can't control my thoughts, and I know why.
My body is like a finger puppet. My heart and soul and mind and emotions are forever, my courage and calm and goodness and sentience – it cannot fit in my body. Instead it's on the finger of my spirit, and I make it move and wiggle it this way and that, I use it to talk and walk through this life, but the body is that tiny compared to me. I am big and powerful but my power doesn't belong to this body because the body is deficient, it is just for the show. This whole life is a show which is why only the fool takes everything serious and at face value.
The gut, the gut senses everything, it is the spirit talking to the heart, and the heart translates those vibes into thoughts for the mind. The mind wants to react, it says to run and hide and be good, but the gut says stay calm, look the monster in the eye and never back down. Monsters are like a shadow. They need light to exist, but if you put too much light on them they die.
That is why monsters like shadows, they like the darkness, then they think they are safe, and the longer their shadow the more powerful they think they are. To rob him of this lunacy all anyone ever had to do was shine a spotlight at him. Then all the power is gone because his power is external, it's outside of himself. He gets it from frightening girls and hurting men.
My power resides inside me which is why no light can harm my strength, I am what I am regardless. I need nothing from this world to know my thoughts rule my mind and my mind rules my reality. Calm the mind and it feeds back down the ladder of communication, from mind to heart to gut to spirit. It's a current that never ends, keep the balance and the poor man will resort to extremes to make me fear. Then I simply play dead because nothing is calmer than death.
I know, because I lied to Mikah, I have helped many to find that peace, I have seen the struggle leave their eyes when the calm comes to them. That is when the spirit slides out of the puppet, abandoning it. It is useless then. We are not the puppet, we can never be the puppet. The puppet moves only as long as we use it, when we take it off it can't talk and walk no more.
Looking into his eyes I know he's dark in there. He says words like lust and sex as if they mean love. Love is laughter, love is sharing a blanket when it is cold, love is hurting if you make another cry, it makes you sorry if you cause anger or shame. Instead the man in front of me thrives on hurt, his tank is full with anger, and to me that makes him weak because he cannot see the rest of himself. He can't even feel it. He thinks this finger puppet is powerful, and yet they think I am ignorant.
Padre Antonio once said that only those who are like a child make it to heaven. I am still that child and I was saving myself for heaven, not for a finger puppet with a cock.
Instead I pretend to be futile and fragile, looking up at him while waiting for him to tell me when he will go to cut out his rib for me. He must want me so bad, and he doesn't think it makes him look weak and stupid. But it does. If he makes decisions with his dick like cutting out a rib, then he is already my victim.
Dumb, he's dumb and pathetic.
He hands me his weaknesses and thinks they are his strengths.
Making a point I step closer, softly caressing his crotch because he thinks with it. He will cut open his body to stick this thing in me, we'll both bleed. What he will never know is I have no fear of blood, especially when it's not my own.
I like the way it feels. It runs thick, feels slick, oily even - until it dries, and it smells like a sacrifice. It's a strong scent that holds heat, like a good curry. It's pretty too, so red it looks like fruit waiting for picking.
Smiling at Mikah I already know I will pick him. When you pick the fruit it rots, it dies.
Now I am happy because I know he will die, the finger puppet will remember that without the spirit he's just empty and can't move. Love makes the spirit bigger, but he likes fear, so he's empty, deflated and flat and useless to me.
There's too much light in me and it will make his shadow vanish, and when he has no shadow he will see that he is my puppet. I am his light and without me he has no shadow, his perception of power is reliant on me, it depends on me.
See, I can play this game.
Pretending to be shy I look up at him still stroking his zipper, whispering, “I hope this makes orgasms too. I like orgasms, they impress me more than pretty clothes.”
“Try it and find out,” he smirks.
“Only when you give me what Adam gave Eve. We mustn't anger god, Mikah. You said so yourself.”
Look how the puppet pouts.
You cannot win the game, Mikah. You've already lost.
To me.
~ Chapter 11 ~
Sin came into this world through one man,
and his sin brought death with it.
~ Romans 5:12
Mikah:
A day later than planned we block off both ends of the narrow alley behind Taĭna while the rain sluices vision to conceal our advance. It's been storming for hours, ever since I left Polina. Some would call it an omen, I call it a blessing. Nothing is coincidence. It's times like these that I know He is all powerful and shields us.
&nbs
p; Stepping from the armor plated Mercedes I stare at the puddles lining the eroding walls, grateful again that here winter has no rime. Back home we'd be insulated against knee deep snow, but California is paradise. To my blood it's warm all year round, and standing in rainwater is easier than crunching through snow. We won't slip, we can be stealthy, and the idiot still hasn't installed cameras back here. He should know better, but falsely thinks he can rely on us for safety. With Misha at my left and Ivan behind me, I take off for the rusted metal door.
Striding while wrath heats my veins, the precipitation running into my eyes welcome with the fury boiling my mind, I blend into the shadows, wild thunder camouflaging our approach and the opening of the squealing rear door. Stepping into the dank passage I open my jacket, unclipping the nagyka, cricking my neck when I duck through the threshold to the club.
Pausing in the gloom I survey the overflowing ashtrays and upturned chairs, seeing just the lamp in his office on. Raising my hand for Misha and Ivan to block the exit, I continue alone, into Foma's hovel. I'm so stealthy he doesn't notice me, hunched over his desk with a Sobranie hanging from his lip, adding numbers the old fashioned way. Paper ticks out of the roller with every punch of the enter key, his cigarette falling onto his worn trousers when I pull the chair in front of his desk and sit in it, taking out my own Belomorkanal cigarettes and lighting one while maintaining silent and relentless eye contact.
“Mikah!” he blurts, pouncing from his chair to brush the burning ember off the nylon of his pants, rubbing the leg to stave the pain while stamping the cigarette dead on a carpet tile curling up around the edges.
The scent of burning plastic permeates my pores and I smirk while I take a long pull on my smoke, leaning back and watching the liar.
“What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting –” Foma shuts his mouth and sits again, this time too heavy and hopeless, the life fleeing his eyes because he knows our protection of his illegal proclivities has come to an end.
Slumping against the old vinyl chair it squeaks when he moves, his shoulders drooping while he waits for me to explain my presence. Exhaling a plume of smoke I rest the hand holding my cigarette on my thigh, my legs splayed and relaxed, boots hooked under my chair, pretending this is a social call. “Foma.”
“Mikah,” he nods, feigning respect.
“Do you have something you'd like to tell me, Foma?” I ask, cocking my head and giving my prey a half smile.
“No, nothing. You get your cut, always. I keep nothing back, I swear it.”
“What about the girl?” I ask, leaning closer, resting my hand in front of his ashtray, leaving the smoke to ribbon between us like a noose catching shadows.
“Which girl?” he plays dumb.
Playing dumb just pisses me off.
“Kisha,” I smile, knowing it's the smile of a homicidal maniac pleased that fear is finally descending into the mind of a dimwitted fool.
“Polina?” he asks, doing his utmost to seem concerned.
“Did you give her that name?” I demand, watching the harsh graze of his swallow distending his throat.
This man is dirty, he's filthy, and he's corrupt. I allowed it because it served me, now it no longer serves me.
Foma nods, sallow skin paling to jaundiced, his black eyes losing all sparkle as if cataracts just veiled his soul.
He knows. I love it when they sense their own demise.
“Tell me how you know Oleg,” I instruct, tightening the edges of my mouth in encouragement, leaning back again to smoke my Russian tobacco.
“She told you everything?” he frowns, his leg nervously bouncing. I can hear it knocking against the wood of the desk drawers.
“Forget about what Kisha may or may not have said, tell me your version.” I kill my cigarette and relax against the wood of my chair's back, watching the racing of his mind, surveying the fingers stained yellow reach for another Sobranie, smiling when his hand shakes while he lights it, buying time when he exhales to the ceiling.
I don't need to look up to see the foot of smog clinging to the cracks, to know the paint has long since been stained with tobacco fumes, embedding the particles with the stench of addiction. This place is a dive, it's decrepit and unkempt, it's everything God hates.
We sit in a room with no window, with no escape.
“Who is Oleg?” he asks, milking the ignorance teat of every drop. Shaking my head I reach into my jacket lining, extracting the photos from the hidden pocket. I flick them at him like a jester spilling tarot cards, watching them flit across the desk in various angles of accusal.
Foma glances at them, then up at me. “I …” Clearing his throat of the bucket of mucous from too many years of smoking, he sits up, steeling his jaw. “We – we went to military together.”
“Why did you buy Kisha?”
“Do I look like I bought Kisha? I got her made legal, I kept her from the trafficking and whoring, I made her a servant girl. If I'd bought her she'd be earning me money with her legs open, not costing me time and gray hairs.”
Shaking my head again I lean forward, resting both elbows on his desk to eyeball him. “Confess Foma, you have only one chance to come clean.”
“Why do you care where she comes from? She's not in Russia, she's not with her bastard father or being used by Oleg's pedophile ring. Her life is better now, because of me!”
“No Foma, her life is better now because of me.”
“How? You take her away from all she knows and expect her to be happy? She will hate you, Mikah. You don't know Polina, you don't know what she'll do when you trap her.”
“You mean the fact that she sleeps with a switchblade under her pillow and likes to stab men? I know, Foma.” Standing, slowly pulling the whip out of the loops of my black jeans, I demand, “I told you to leave Kisha out of this and tell me your version. Why did you buy her?”
Foma drops his cigarette and stands, backing away from me to press against the skew filing cabinet. “She told you about the knife? She told you she … she's dangerous Mikah. How do you know I bought her? No one knows that but Oleg.”
“Wrong again, Foma. God knows. Nothing is secret, not when God is the informant. Confess, or I'll beat it out of you.”
“I didn't! I paid for the container, it was a bulk purchase. I didn't know about Polina until she was here, and then I had to find her before child services did!”
He called her dangerous. What a lie. Never have I seen such a sweet woman blanched with innocence. She is like the breast milk of a virgin kept in a rusted bucket. It's not she who is dirty, but rather what she has been surrounded with, contained within; this scum.
Cocking my head I sway the whip slowly from side to side, letting the pendulum motion distract him. “How long have you been trafficking minors?”
“Never! She wasn't supposed to be here, then when she was I had to do something! So I became her uncle. Mila was furious, but what could I do? Oleg wanted her gone, she was bad for business.”
“And you owed him one, right?” I sneer, stalking him behind his desk.
“Yes, no, well –”
“Well?” I demand, halting in front of the recoiling man.
Foma slides to the floor, covering his face, hissing, “His papa saved mine.”
“From what?”
“The Nazis,” he whispers, and it's hoarse and shaky.
“You took a child and kept her filthy. You let her become a woman and you had her with her tits out for any man to look and touch–”
“Are you on drugs? No one touches Polina! No one would dare!”
“Get up,” I command, bored with this bullshit.
“Why? What are you going to do to–”
Cracking the whip, I bellow, “GET UP!”
He tries, but his dodgy knee caves and he falls, twice, before using his desk to stand, his chest heaving, terror widening his eyes. “What do you want, Mikah? Why are we doing this?”
Laughing I flick my wrist, connecting metal with his cheek
. “I want your rib, Foma. Should I take it when you're alive, or dead?”
“I saved her!”
“Sure you did,” I chuckle, derision coating my tone.
I don't know where God got the photos, but it's plain as day that Foma fucks minors. Not just young, but criminally infant. Boys and girls, he has no preference, but when I see a grown man shoving his dick in a child until it dies, well that makes me sick. That makes me angry.
There's a photo on that desk of an infant already blue with asphyxiation, but Foma is too far gone to care. With his eyes closed and his head arched back on his neck, his only care was for an orgasm. A life for an orgasm. That is why God bought the children from his people, he kept them safe from savages. He owns every life and Foma took without paying God. He doesn't even thank God for the murders he's committed. He is deeply in debt and can't even see it. Sin makes the whole world blind.
Polina was a child and I suspect he screwed her too, which is why she's so fucked in the head. He kept her ignorant until now, unable to read or write, unable to run because of abuse, unable to escape her prison.
It is abuse.
He could have kept her pure, instead he desecrated a chalice born for me. Blood for blood. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's the law. “Bend over your desk, Foma.”
“Mikah, don't do this! She's not worth it–”
The metal teardrop on the end of the nagyka silences him, his argument cut short with his scream. I'm done playing nice, snaring his hair and smashing him over his desk, locking him down while I fish in my pocket for my Zippo, flicking it open and holding the flame to his nylon trousers, I laugh when he chokes so hard on his yowl that he vomits.
Synthetic fibers melt and burn, adhering to his skin until I've burned away the section around his asshole. Leaning over him I grab his empty beer bottle and ram it inside him, then slam him back into his chair, enjoying the agony of his own medicine. Not quite a tooth and not quite an eye, but it'll do. His scream warms my cold heart, it makes me jubilant like I'm high.
He is purple with pain, it suits him.