Ashes To Dust

by Eden Rose

  “I think she is the one who got me in here…” I explain. I don’t want to be set up for failure by talking about the guards. I have seen what they have done to someone who doesn’t listen to them. I don’t need to be on the end of that.

  “She is a real whore.”

  I choke on the air I’m desperately trying to breathe in through my mouth so I don’t breathe in the stench of a thousand dirty women in a small barrack.

  What’s worse, we are right by the bathrooms.

  “You can’t say things like that,” I hiss. I don’t know the things we are allowed to say or if they are listening. I don’t know anything.

  Joan shrugs. “You just wait. She is sleeping with all of the officers and half of us. I hear she has even slept with the other female officers as well.”

  My head whips around to look at her. “All-all of the guards?” I stutter. Surely Milo wouldn’t sleep with her. I don’t see him doing that to me.

  My paranoia has skyrocketed.

  “Yes, and rumor is there is a cute Nazi- if there are any that are cute- who works with the doctor. I heard he’s been sleeping with a lot of the officers as well.”

  “I’m going to be sick!” I mutter and shove my way past the other girls in the barracks right into a steely warm wall.

  Wait, what?

  I look up and see the man in question. His arms are bracketed around me and he looks pleased with himself that he has me in his arms.

  “Inmate, I need to speak to you about your charts,” he says as he looks at the room filled with girls.

  “What if I don’t want to?” I retort with anger lacing my words. I’m eager to push back. I have to. The Nazis have taken everything from me and I need to find a way to hurt them as much as they have hurt me.

  Starting with Milo.

  “You don’t want to do that,” he tsks.

  “Okay, Officer Stein.”

  He grips my elbow pulling me through the stream of zombies who have ended their days at whatever their jobs are. These poor people are needing sleep and nutrition badly. I’m not a doctor, but even I can see that.

  Milo drags me into an empty barrack which smells of some type of cleaning solution.

  All around us, there is utter chaos. Utter despair of people facing life or death situations and I’m having a secret moment with my husband.

  “Are you okay?” Milo asks me.

  I step back from him. “How… How… could you do this?”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t understand, my love. You would never know the amount of pressure I’m under.”

  “You signed up willingly! All of you did! All of you signed up to send innocent people to their deaths! Do you like pushing us around?” I blurt out.

  I notice this is the first time I have had an actual conversation with Milo. On the night we got married, all that mattered was saying the two words which would bind us together. Now, we are having a vital conversation.

  One that could get me killed.

  Oh, G_d, he could kill me for just breathing!

  “Do you know what the Jews have done?” He almost yells.

  “You mean your wife? I’m a Jew. Milo! You married me. You married a Jew.”

  He nods. “I know. I’m sorry you are here.”

  “Are you sorry I’m here or are you sorry that you might get caught?”

  Milo’s eyes dilate and then he shakes his head. I can tell I got him right where I want him. He’s beginning to think about what he just said.

  “I’m sorry you are here. I’m sorry I have to watch you and watch everything that is about to happen around you. I’m even more sorry that I can’t do anything to save you.”

  I shake my head. “I bet you are. I bet you are sorrier that you have to look at your ‘pretty Jew wife’ in striped pajamas and head shaven like a common criminal. I’m pretty positive that criminals are treated better than I am.”

  “Anya, will you quit! I didn’t do this do to you!” He almost shouts at me.

  “No, you didn’t. But you are in the organization which killed my parents and little brother in the streets like they were rabid dogs. Did you know they shaved me from head to toe in case I carried diseases? Did you know I now have to live in a barrack with a thousand women who all smell?”

  I’m ranting. I know I am. I know in the back of my mind that Milo isn’t the cause of my problems, but since he is here, he’s going to get the brute force of my anger. I need someone to feel my wraith.

  “Baby, I’m so sorry.”

  I feel the tears begin to flood my eyes. Here they come. Here comes all of the tears I have been choking on since I got here. They are going to start flooding and there is nothing I can do to stop them.

  I worry I will never stop crying.

  He cuts the space between us, wrapping me in his arms again but I’m pushing him away. The comfort is something I don’t want. I’m worried if I get a taste of it, I’m going to crave it more.

  You can’t want what you don’t know.

  I give him a big shove a couple of inches away from me. My strength is down due to my not eating or drinking water. He looks at me with his bottom lip twitching at me.

  Milo takes the space in one big step then he has me up in the air. My legs wrap around his waist on their own accord. He is kissing my lips with a fervor I didn’t even experience on our wedding night.

  He is kissing me with a passion of someone who is desperate. Like he is worried he is about to lose me.

  I push all those thoughts out of my head as much as I can. I need to have this one time as a regular person one more time. I don’t know when the next time I am going to be able to be with him like this.

  I squeeze my eyes shut in order to not see the uniform. I can’t look at it. If I do, I will throw up.

  My lips ache from the passionate kiss he is giving me. Milo pushes my back against the wall with a thud. He works quick removing my pajamas and his uniform.

  I can tell he knows time is of the essence.

  “My love, I missed you. I missed you so much,” he murmurs against my lips.

  “I love you, Milo.”

  “I love you, too, Anya.”

  I nod, then I feel the unmistakable hard on pressing against my opening of my sex. It has been a long six months since I have last felt him, and I feel as if I’m dying.

  “This has to be fast. I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

  I nod as I try to not let the real world break into what we are doing. I can’t let them in.

  It’s hard at first. I adjust to allow his length inside of me, but I am having a hard time accommodating him. Milo is very well-endowed.

  “Relax,” he mumbles just as he did on our wedding night. “You have to relax, baby.”

  I nod. “I’m trying. I’m really trying.”

  He reaches between us to rub my little bundle of nerves in between my thighs. I bow my back, offering my chest to his greedy mouth in search of my nipples.

  Milo pistons his hips harder and faster than before. I feel the ache from the pleasure and pain all at the same time in between my thighs. My sex muscles scream from the onslaught of euphoria.

  “That’s it. That’s it, baby.”

  I nod. “Yes, that feels good.”

  “You have to come. You have to come so I can. It has been hell without you.”

  I see a gust of light flash past my eyes as my muscles tighten around him. I know I’m about to come but I’m reaching for it. I can’t seem to complete my orgasm.

  “I’m trying! I’m trying, I really am.”

  “Is someone in there?” I hear someone shout in German.

  I jump and almost scream. Milo’s eyes pierce mine as I snap mine open.

  He plunders those delicious hips harder against me. The force of his hips has me spiraling out of control. He covers my mouth with his to stop me from moaning.

  I combust all around him in a sudden gigantic orgasm.

  He follows behind me with his, filling me up with his org
asm.

  I feel it spill out of me a little.

  He kisses me one more time before placing me on my feet.

  I feel cheap.

  I slept with a Nazi officer as a Jewish woman.

  My parents are probably rolling around wherever they are buried. They didn’t raise a floozy.

  Chapter Sixteen: Milo

  I just had sex with an inmate.

  I just had sex with my wife.

  “Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, but I’m not surprised that Anya heard me.

  “Yes. You slept with a Jew,” she fires at me.

  She’s putting her uniform back on with her face flushed from my making love to her. Her lips are swollen, her eyes are glazed over.

  I want to pull all of my hair out in despair for making her feel cheap. Everything that I have been trained to do and be prepared for didn’t prepare me for how I would feel after seeing my wife and attacking her like she was a whore.

  I’m the worst monster in the world.

  “I don’t see you as a Jew,” I counter.

  She laughs. “But you will. You will see me as a prisoner for being a different religion than you and you will hate me. Sooner or later, you will hate me like they hate me. You will want to get rid of me.”

  I shake my head. “Why are you being so stupid, Anya? Why are you acting as if I was the one that brought you here?”

  Anya’s eyes turn to glass. Her smile is bitter and the laugh she lets out, is so mirthless that it scares me. “You might not have brought me here, but your cause did. The Nazis destroyed my life and killed my whole family in the street like we’re criminals!”

  She’s shaking because she is so mad. And I’m getting even madder at her. She is treating me like shit for the ideals and characteristics of the Nazis. I’m one person just as she is.

  “I can’t talk to you like this. I can’t talk to you when you’re attacking me! I love you, Anya. I have loved you since the moment I laid my eyes on you, but I will not allow you to treat me like I’m the problem!”

  I don’t let her say anything more. I adjust my uniform back to code and hightail it out of the warehouse. I can’t even look at her without wanting to kiss and strangle her all at the same time. She’s mad at me for being a Nazi when she doesn’t even know why and how I became one.

  She hates me more than I’m supposed to hate her.

  Fuck.

  I storm past a couple of women who are talking about the doctor and his charms.

  “Why is he so interested in twins?” One of the women ask.

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of creepy, isn’t it?”

  “If you have nothing better to do then gossip, I can find stuff for you to do!” I bark at them as I step in between them. “This is not social hour!”

  They gather their stuff and stroll past me calling me a name.

  “What did you just call me?” I yell at them. “Stop right where you are!”

  They stop on their feet and look down.

  “Mandatory strip searches. It’s time to see what you are hiding.”

  A few other officers took their rightful places next to me in case the women decide to do anything to hurt me or hurt themselves.

  “Stein, we got you.”

  Drunk on power I misplaced after twenty minutes with Anya, I need to release it somehow. My hands form fists and I’m about to deliver them when I hear a cry behind me.

  Fuck.

  I turn to look over my shoulder and see Anya standing there with a horrified look on her face.

  God damn it.

  I shake my head. “Search these women and then send them back to their barracks. They shouldn’t be out and about as if it were summer camp!” I yell.

  I don’t say anything to Anya as I go back to my dormitory next to the medical facility. I need to calm down before I lose my shit on someone.

  “Stein!” Nancy calls out to me just as I pass my wife.

  Her breasts are hanging out more so than usual. “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if you could help me select a couple of inmates to help me get my new housing quarters together,” she replies as if it were innocent.

  I know the truth. She’s setting up a dangerous game that will impact all of us. What’s worse? Her blue eyes are settled on my wife.

  “Did you get that approved?” I request hoping to stall her from asking any more questions.

  She nods. “Yes, I did.”

  Her brutality is worse than one of the worst officers we have here. She takes her vow to protect Germany and the Fuhrer very seriously.

  Coming from a poor family, I can sense she is loving the excessive paychecks and the freedom she receives from being a female Nazi. I think she is just plain mean.

  “Nancy, I don’t think there is anyone over here that will be able to help you.”

  I need to make sure I can get her mind off of Anya. Her evil mind is twisting into something worse and worse.

  “Everyone, go back to your barracks, now!” I shout.

  Chapter Seventeen: Anya

  My heart is beating profusely in my chest. No matter what I do, I can’t control the speedy beating of it.

  The horror of seeing the man I love, who is supposed to love me, almost kill those two women… is appalling. Abhorrent.

  I don’t know what I am doing here.

  I don’t know how I am going to survive after everything I have lost and after everything that has happened in the short time that I have been here.

  It gets worse and worse as the seconds pass on.

  I manage to get back to the over crowed barracks just in time for count. Joan is waving at me from the left side of the count line with a disgusted look on her face.

  She must see my shame.

  Little does she realize, I feel more shame than I could ever tell her. The absolute disgust I feel for allowing myself to sleep with Milo like that…

  And he just left.

  I’m a damned floozy. A harlot. I’m worse than the easy Nazi woman who has her eyes all over my husband.

  And I can’t do a damned thing about it.

  She can actually be with him, I can’t. I can’t be anything more to him than a Jew.

  Tears well up in my eyes. This time, not from sadness, but despair.

  “You need to stand in rows of five. Do not look up, do not respond to them unless you are asked a question. Do you understand?” Joan whispers to me as she tugs my hand.

  I nod my head. “What are they doing?”

  “This is worse than when you first came in. They are searching for invalids to get rid of through the chimney.”

  My heart breaks a little more.

  “How many people go up the chimney?” I ask with morbid curiosity.

  Joan clucks her tongue. “You don’t want to know. You need to stay away from whichever guard made you walk funny. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “Aren’t I already dead?” I counter.

  My new friend gasps. “You haven’t been here long enough to know what dying feels like. You need to keep your shit together or they will kill you. Do you understand? You win by surviving.”

  “You!” The Nazi yells at one of the women standing to the left of me. “Yes, you. How old are you?”

  “Forty, officer,” her meek and panicked voice rings out over the other officers asking questions and throwing their battalions at us. Her scared answer only proves my point even more.

  We’re all going to die here.

  *

  My whole body is numb from the onslaught of cold. Poland is known for her unpredictable weather and she showed it today.

  Between the rain and snow, the sleet is enough to make anyone cold. I feel it in my bones, I’m going to be getting sick soon.

  The idea of getting sick in this place is enough to make me want to scream all on its own.

  After what feels like a couple of days but is probably only hours, our count has been completed. Three people have collapsed from varying reasons.
Two other women have been shot for mouthing off and we are just standing in the midst of the bodies as if nothing is wrong.

  If hell exists, this is truly hell. This is the scariest place in the world.

  “Count is over. Get ready for dinner,” an officer calls out.

  Joan looks up and looks over at me. “That was your first count. Do you see what I mean? Keep your eyes down and you won’t be bothered.”

  I shudder and let out a deep breath I didn’t realize I have been holding. “Is it always like that?” I whisper.

  “It gets worse.”

  I look at the teenaged girl lying dead next to me and I let out a strangled cry. “That is the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life!”

  Joan grabs my hand. “You can’t do that out here. Do not give them the satisfaction of your crying. We have to get the cups before everything is taken.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask dumbly.

  “There is not enough food for everyone. We need to get there early or we won’t be able to eat.”

  “What kind of food is it?”

  She giggles vainly. “Oh, sweetie. I wouldn’t call it food. It’s water with a potato in it.”

  We walk over the bodies, but I’m stopped by the woman who was talking to Milo after our tryst. She is looking at me as if I’m the devil, and I’m beginning to think that I might be.

  Who else sleeps with a Nazi after knowing what the Nazis have done to their family? A devil.

  “You look rather peculiar. Where are you from?” She asks me with a mean looking whip in her hand.

  “Poland,” I answer with my voice lower than normal. I’m hoping if I ignore her, she will ignore me.

  “I see. How long have you been here?” The Nazi woman requests as if we’re at a local café or something. Obviously, the casual banter must be something she’s getting off on.

  “Today, ma’am.”

  She giggles. “Aren’t you making a name for yourself on your first day, huh? Sleeping with one of the most respected doctors in the whole camp? You must be using your Jew power on him.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I reply with my head down even lower. My mother used to tell me how bad of a liar I used to be. I would twirl my hair in between my fingers to distract myself from the lie. I would get so good at it, no one could tell if I were lying or not.