by Poppet
Clopping the shot glass on the coffee table he takes a deep drag on his cigarette, looking at me through the smoke. Green eyes the shade of algae stare at me with carefully schooled blankness.
He's judging me. The fucker is judging me!
Sighing heavily he sits forward, seeming tired when he supports his elbows on his knees. “She needs Victor and we don't have Victor any longer. Call Seth.”
“Seth's dead, remember?” I snap, annoyed with him for being a cunt.
“Then God has to do it, he's the best surgeon we know. She needs the best, Mikah. If she wants to keep her eyesight and recover her back without scarring, she needs the best. There's no way she can go to a hospital, we will never risk exposure to save a life. She also needs that tooth inserted back into the gum and jaw. If her dislodged tooth is reinserted now there's a good chance it'll heal okay. The anal rupturing has to be sealed closed, and fast.”
There's no way I'm calling God, Misha's out of his fucking mind. God will just put a bullet in her and call it a day.
Ivan speaks from the basement doorway. “She's on intravenous fluids with antibiotics to prevent infection, and I've administered meds for pain and shock. She's cold, any chance of putting a heater on down there?”
“She's paying for her sins, Ivan. Leave her like that for a day.”
He comes to sit on the last free chair, staring at me with eyes darker than the chasm. “You're not trained as a doctor, I am. Do as I tell you or I'll do it for you.”
Exhaling I stare at the ceiling, rage bubbling my blood.
“She needs a full time nurse, ask God to send one of the broken brides. That chick won't be walking anytime soon, and she needs a catheter inserted and someone who'll roll her and help her when she has bowel movements,” continues Ivan, relentless as a bitching barmaid. Fuck!
So much for Polina being a tough chick. One beating and I'm stuck with a useless whore-hole to care for. Picking up my phone I thumb through it, looking through my brotherhood contacts for a cosmetic surgeon. Someone must be able to put her back together and speed this clusterfuck along. Sergei! Calling him I watch my brethren watching me, the tension in here thick as smog. He answers and I fill him in, we've been here before. He's an acolyte training to join the ucheniki, so I know he'll keep his big trap shut.
His voice is coarse and savage, which suits him, saying to me, “Bring her over. We'll induce a coma to stop her from moving while she heals, but she's going to need multiple surgeries. This isn't an overnight task Mikah, this one is going to take skill and patience. You sure you want her? It'd be kinder to put her out of her misery.”
“I broke her for a fucking reason, Sergei! Like Victor broke Shauna, that's what I want for Polina. After this she'll never challenge me again, she'll be forced to rely on me for everything. That's how bonds are built, bonds thicker than prayer.”
When I hang up Misha's smiling at me. “You idolize Victor.”
“He was the son of God you retard. If you don't idolize him the problem isn't with me, it's with you!” I snap.
Refusing to get caught in the web of temper Ivan stands, stating, “I'll get the van, we can't move her in the car like that. She needs to stay flat and supported.”
He'll be gone for half an hour at least, long enough for me to go down to her, to put my fingers in my puppet. I hope it hurts like blunt force trauma when she has an orgasm with all the fractures in her body. I am her lord and master, forever.
Leaving Misha to drown his conscience in vodka I descend the stairs to where she's laid out on the duvet, naked now because the boys needed to examine the extent of the damage and do what they could. Leaning over her, sliding my hand between her thighs, inserting three fingers inside her, I hiss in her ear, “Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, 'You must go back to your mistress and submit to her mistreatment.' Genesis 16:9. See Polina, there's no escape. Your body belongs to me now, I paid for it with bone. What God joins together no one can tear apart. You'll be back, kisa. I'll be ready for you when you're healed, then I'll remind you why God gave Eve to Adam.” Leaning closer to breathe heavily in her ear, I whisper, “The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires. James 4:5. You fill me with that fierce desire. It can love or it can hurt. How you are to me determines which one you'll receive. Do unto others and all that … One will, remember? If you show me love and care I will fill you with love, I will make love to you. If you don't I'll take you the way I am now, I will make you shake with passion and pleasure, and like now it will hurt because it will shred your mind that a man can make you shiver with orgasms while treating you like shit. Give, and you will receive. Simple.”
Then I force her to cum, taking my time, watching her cry through it all, enjoying the conflict of a mind warring with a body.
Eve had no control over her body either. When will they learn that they were not made for freedom, but for us. A woman without a man, is nothing. Only through sex and blood and childbirth are they redeemed from sin. I make her holy, without me she's damned.
And yet she's so fucking ungrateful!
•
Polina:
I have no memory of the first three months, but I do of the last six. I've been with Mikah for ten months now, and am obedient. I do not complain, I don't speak unless spoken to, I don't irritate or antagonize him.
I spent the months in recovery watching English DVDs until I mastered all of it, now I listen to audiobooks and read along with them on my Kindle. It seems regret lives in Mikah because he still fusses over me, buying me gifts to assuage his festered guilt. He no longer smokes here, he uses that vapor cigarette and it helps the home smell clean for longer, but after his music gigs he often smells like cigarettes and cheap perfume when he climbs into bed. I pretend to sleep on those nights.
I'm even allowed to read the internet now, without supervision. I know he can watch me from the camera in the corner, but I don't care. Spend ten minutes online in a place for victims of abuse and you will read the line 'why didn't you just run away'. You'd think running away is easy, yes just leave. When I read that I get angry, really angry. What these assholes fail to recognize is that we would if we could. When Oleg had me it wasn't that easy. They don't understand that being tied to a bed for months at a time forces your muscles to atrophy. We become skeletal and unhealthy. We're compromised. That's the word really – compromised. In every single way I was compromised before I had my first step into womanhood. That was the plan see, I couldn't get pregnant.
I tried running once. The second I sat up the room pinwheeled. I was perilously dizzy from lying down for so long that I fainted. I tried standing – walking – but my muscles jerked, my limbs lost muscle memory, I was like a toddler learning to balance all over again. Could you run like that? Huh?
Now I rebuild again, for the second time, forcing my body back to vitality, back to strength. The high and mighty fall and I'll be there to kick your head in when you do.
Eventually the bindings come off because you can't fight and you can't run. My body is my enemy. It is weak, it is pathetic, and because my strength deserted me when I needed it most, my mind deserted me too.
You think I'm afraid of you? You think your aggression scares me? It doesn't. I can run now, but now I don't want to.
Now you should be running.
It's taking me time to recover my strength. I let him hold me down and fuck me, it makes him feel powerful. He holds my throat to the bed, squeezing tight when he cums, but in the dark and pain I smell Victor.
I smell wet and rainy forest, evergreen. It is the scent of hope.
Some nights I go outside and stare at the park, into the abyss of shadows, feeling him sometimes, other times I sense someone else out there. Why does he wait for me?
Surely Victor doesn't still need me?
He might not need me but I think I need him.
A heart withers when it isn't fed love.
Mine has never had love. It's had more man milk than the ocean is deep,
but no love.
Mikah smiles, he laughs, he goes for walks with me into the parklands, he picks me flowers, he tells me I am beautiful and worthy.
I pretend. Instead of pretending to be dead I pretend I am alive. I smile and laugh with him, I giggle at his shitty jokes, I cook his food and suck his cock, I massage his muscles when he's tired after church, and I pamper him.
The tension in me runs deep, it never ceases, it never abates. I am so tightly strung most days I feel I will snap from the strain of this game. Still I strive to fool him into falling in love with me, biding the day I break his heart too.
That day, that fucking day I came home and Misha and Ivan were waiting for me instead of Mikah, I thought I would die.
“Welcome home,” smiles Misha, standing and coming to me, bending his head and kissing my mouth, plunging his tongue between my lips, reminding me that I must kiss the bratva in greeting.
He kisses like papa and it's disgusting.
Then he made me kiss Ivan, but he didn't stick his tongue in me. Ivan whispered in my ear, “I'm sorry you lost the baby.”
I had a baby inside me? I don't even know how I got it. But I guess when Mikah beat me it left, it went back to heaven. Even a baby knows better than to live with Mikah. All I know was I had a ruptured spleen and survived a holocaust.
Misha removes my dress, turning me around and around, touching me everywhere, oohing at my skin, at the skill of the surgeon which was so amazing even the big M carved on my tummy is vanished, pulling my panties down and running his fingers all over my ass and pussy, staring between my legs until I felt like all he sees is the meat of my body. He doesn't care I have feelings, that I am apprehensive or afraid, that I'm insecure because I have nowhere to go and I don't yet have the skills to survive in this world on my own.
He has eyes but they do not see beyond my 3D body. My body is a hologram, it exists for such a short time, it wasn't built to sustain eternity, and it sags and wrinkles because it's not made to last. He doesn't see me.
They never see me. That's when ME began to matter, that moment, the moment a man I hardly know had his hand cupped over my pubic mound with the tips of his fingers inside me, stripping me naked and touching me like he had a right to molest my body.
I don't belong to god, I belong to me.
Mikah brought home dinner, flowers and chocolates, and kissed me like I fell from heaven that day, even though he was the one who took a chainsaw to my wings to make sure I could never fly. He disfigured me in my sanctuary, in my essence, in the place where I am holy.
Mikah sent Ivan and Misha away, then pulled me close, kissing my eyes to bless my sight, kissing my lips to buy my silence, and told me the pain is gone, my atonement has been paid. That he doesn't enjoy hurting me, and will nurse me until I am strong again, because 'that's what love does'.
If it is love then why does my heart still throb with the clang of a hollow coffin? Why do I roll over when he's fallen asleep to cry silently into my pillow, staring at the moonlight coaxing me to the park, tempting me to put a red flower in the window like a poppy in the barrel of a gun?
What am I afraid of?
I think … I think I am afraid of more rejection. Victor wants to use me for his own gain, he doesn't want to rescue my heart, just my body. And that's not enough now. That will never be enough.
Lying here staring at another full moon too heavy to soar, I recall the moment Mikah was alone with me after he destroyed me. It's biblical destroying sinners, but all I did was do as I was told.
He bends to me, staring his dead blue eyes into mine. “Don't you have something to give me?”
I have nothing in this whole world, what does he expect me to have for him?
“The rules, Polina. If you hurt me you kiss me better. I'm waiting.”
That was the moment my heart died again. My chest hurts where it used to be.
I went up on tiptoes, forced to hold to him for stability and balance, and kissed him.
And he kissed me back like he loves me, his arms wrapped around me and holding me to his hard angles in the longest kiss I've ever endured. Then he lifted me under my legs like a bride and spoiled me, treating me as if nothing bad ever happened, holding my hand and kissing my fingers, smiling at me with rapture in his eyes.
He still pretends. He pretends we are in love and I am an angel from heaven.
There is no softness in Mikah. He thinks he's kind and merciful, but the only person he fools is himself.
~ Chapter 20 ~
Bring her out and let her be burned
~ Genesis 38:24
Polina:
It's so peaceful when I'm alone at home. Some days I ache to go out, to make friends, to have something other than technology to distract me from the tedium of my lonely existence.
Looking at the clock on the wall, seeing it's after one in the morning, I succumb to temptation and go outside, to the blind spot in the surveillance system. When Mikah works at night he's seldom home before 3 a.m, I have plenty of time.
After I angered Victor I never called for him again. I yearn for him like a fish aches for the water, without it you wither and wilt. Sighing, I hold my legs and stare at the rustling trees dancing in the late September breeze.
A shadow slinks from trunk to shrub, stealthy and faster than a blink. Only those looking will see this home is under constant surveillance, and I am not conceited enough to think it's there to watch me. They're watching the bratva because God favors them.
Glancing up I trace the thin lipped smile of a quicksilver moon, still amazed that the cosmos is flecked with suns like malformed cells riddle a body besieged with cancer, yet despite all that light and heat the cosmos is ice cold.
I feel like that. The lights are on but there's no warmth inside.
“What are you doing?” says deeply behind me, and my uterus cramps with fright. Snapping to a stand, I pivot to face the gruff voiced man who owns me.
“I get tired of being inside, Mikah. I miss the night air, I miss the stars,” I mumble, my breath so shaky it undulates my voice in panicked oscillations. “I'm in the yard, I didn't go anywhere I shouldn't.”
He snares my wrist in his brutal grip, leering down at me. “It's not safe if I'm not home, Polina! What did I tell you about my will being your will? I don't make rules to persecute you, I make them because this world is full of thugs like Oleg and I don't feel like hunting down the next man to harm you.”
“But–” Then I remember I don't have an opinion, I don't matter, my thoughts and cravings will never matter. Keep quiet or the man will cut out your tongue, or tell his God what you did and then God will come to rain brimstone down on you. I glance behind me at the shadow in the trees, tempted to scream and make a run for it, but then I'll blow their cover. I want to protect Victor.
Hoping to distract Mikah while assuaging my curiosity, I ask him while he drags me indoors, “Did god have a son?”
“You know he did,” snaps Mikah, thrusting me with such force that I fall on the couch.
His vodka is waiting in ice for him to come home, so I don't feel like I have to jump up and serve him.
“What is his name?” I ask, playing stupid.
Mikah overlooks that I'm educated now, he's conditioned to thinking of me as being stupid. “Victor.” He sits next to me, his hand on my thigh, singlehandedly unscrewing the metal lid off the vodka and filling the crystal tumbler with it.
“Why that name?” I pry.
“Because he is the victor, victory is his. God is the Alpha, Victor is the Omega. God is the beginning and Victor is the end.”
I watch Mikah slug back the ambrosia from Mother Russia, at the thick cords of his neck when he tilts his head back, at the strength born in him that will never be mine to wield. But I still have Victor's gift, it didn't vanish when I was incapacitated.
“Tell me about Victor,” I urge Mikah.
“He is supreme, perfect, there's no one who will ever come close. God made him bleed and he worshi
pped his Father and thanked him. He was a walking calm death, invincible and ruthless, patient and indomitable. He could get inside a woman's mind like he was her own conscience, he read body language like your hands and arms and heart are an extension of his own –” He shakes his head, the melancholy expression glazing his eyes dissipating. “It doesn't matter, he's dead.”
“You miss him?” I ask, holding his hand on my thigh.
“If you know him you will always miss him. He's irreplaceable.”
Amen to that.
He looks at me, surveying me, the edges of his mouth deepening, his countenance inscrutable. I keep quiet, staring at the glass coffee table, seeing through it as if it is a portal to another universe. In that universe I'm holding someone else's hand, the hand of a man who has the voice of velvet on a spring night, the calm of mist after a hot day, the crispness of dew on a vista just born.
“Bed,” orders Mikah, and I snap out of my reverie, automatically obeying, moving to the bedroom, brushing my teeth and undressing, climbing into bed naked because I'm not permitted to lie beside him with barriers between us.
He stomps around, slamming and locking doors and windows, closing blinds and curtains, cursing under his breath when he strides to the bathroom to brush his own teeth.
Mikah's the cleanest man I've known, and for the small things I am grateful. But jeeeez is he in a foul mood.
“What's the matter?” I ask him, keeping my tone meek.
“You! You're the fucking matter!” he snaps in the deathly voice, and my bones react to the danger.
Instinct drives a honed stake through my spine and I am on high alert. When he uses that tone I will never underestimate him again.
Yanking his shirt off over his head, unclipping the nagyka and unbuttoning jeans, he slams his elbow into the light switch to kill the bathroom light. Agitation emanates from him and I tense up, lying stiff as a corpse in bed.