by C F Rabbiosi
“That’s brave. Now that it’s over, I don’t know why I was so afraid. Still, men need it more than we do, it seems.”
“Hmm.” Focusing on the spot Alexander occupied moments before, I clean the excrement and rocks out of the pig’s little hoof. There must be a lot of men here who keep the urge locked away until appropriate, on their one night a month. I swallow down the lump in my throat that wells up. “Does it hurt?”
“You mean…” She pauses to register. “Yes. It does hurt. But it’s fine. You’ll be fine.” Words quickly spit out, they do little to comfort me. Finn is like me: inexperienced and kind. I really want it to be him who has me first, but as Alexander’s feverish touch lingers on my skin, a dark fate whispers in my ear. Then, out of nowhere, I’m taken by the dreams. They stab through my chest with that same powerful longing of all the nights combined. It’s as if something breathes a spell across my skin that turns my blood to liquid fire, and somehow I know there is so much more to come.
The animal in my arms squeals before I realize my alarming grasp, and Mary-Shelley touches my shoulder, wishing to say something, but the words fail her.
“I’m sorry,” I pet the poor animal but it doesn’t calm until I let it go. “Do you ever become so consumed by a feeling?” I link my fingers together to keep them from shaking and her teeth sink into her lip. “This place, this prison…it’s poking and prodding at something sleeping inside me. It gets closer and closer to waking, and I don’t know what will happen when it becomes conscious and realizes it’s trapped.”
Her hand snaps onto my knee and she nods fervently. “Yes. I do feel that way sometimes!” Her cheeks flush, and she turns her head aside. “I love Othello,” she says without even a note of uncertainty, “but my soul squeezes to the point of pain when he touches me on our long awaited nights together. It’s…” She purses her lips and shakes her head. “I’ve wanted to feel him so badly that when the time comes, it hurts. From waiting. From wanting.” She turns toward the sky and black swirling clouds in front of the large red sun dance across her face. “From it being over so quickly, and the thirst nowhere near being slaked. And then it compounds, heavier and more unbearable every day.”
I swallow her incredible confession, ice water trickling down a parched throat, and let it fill my mind as we finish up for the day. No one talks about it in this place, but I am not alone in my misery.
We head to the evening meal and the pigs snort their anxiety. As the cold sets in, food is scarce and they must go without eating until after the day’s leftovers can be taken out to them. Already their bodies grow thinner from being fed the bare minimum.
***
Darkness touches the village as I gather the scraps in the kitchen and wait for Mary-Shelley. Laughter echoes from inside where a few of the men still sit and talk about the day’s adventures in the forest, but the food preparers have left along with almost everyone else for the night. The minutes go by, but the friend I now see differently doesn’t show. Momma nods in my direction as she heads back to our domicile to wait for me.
And then, Mary-Shelley appears.
With Alexander at her side.
She shakes her head with a confused expression and departs again. He watches her leave, then spins around. “Told her to go on home. That I would be helping you with this tonight.”
“That’s ludicrous. This isn’t work for a royal. I’ll take it myself.” I muscle the huge container up using the handles meant for both Mary-Shelley and I, and I get a few feet before collapsing.
“Unless you’d like me to get your mother, perhaps she could help us.” His chuckle stabs into my back.
I quickly boost the pigs’ slop back up, but my arms burn. I push through the pain. Heart racing, I spot Scarlet in the square talking with her father, Elijah. “Scarlet!” I set the tub down and jaunt over to them.
“Aw, you’re on slop detail tonight.” She scrunches her nose and her father politely greets me despite my intrusion. “Oh, they must be starving.” She notices Alexander in the background, and her soft brow creases.
The muscular man that has Scarlet’s full lips and ash-colored hair plants a kiss on his daughter’s forehead and I suddenly wish I had a father to protect me. But he was lost to me before I was born. Momma hardly ever mentions him, but it’s no surprise considering he was killed by a black bear during a hunting trip. Many others were injured as they stabbed it with their blades, and before they took it down, another man was killed as well. Scarlet’s father still carries the mark across his forehead of the struggle of that day. Momma told me she could smell the meat of that bear cooked on the fires outside as she laid on the floor of our cabin. She went hungry that night—not that she felt it.
“Good night, ladies.” Elijah smiles and gives Scarlet a playful grasp around the back of her neck before departing to the male quarters.
“See you in the kitchen,” Scarlet says to me, concern plaguing her voice. Something inside me wishes for her to save me, maybe call out to her father or make a huge scene that would draw others, but I can’t expect to her to fix this. Alexander waits with his back turned and I leave before she questions the inconsistency he’s brought to our predictable existence. I tell her goodnight and feel her curious eyes as I walk away.
The swine need to eat. Might as well get on with it. We each grab a handle and trek out to the dimly lit pigpens. Every step reminds me that I don’t have a plan, every footfall forced, as though Alexander moves them himself.
We approach the cage, and I begin to coordinate with him to dump the slop. He says, “This will do nicely.” Hard and fast, he drags me down by the waist. The container hits the ground, sending a splash out to the dirt. The animals fuss, the smell driving them mad.
“No! Wait!” my whisper begs. I struggle a hand free and reach toward the mess.
“Forget them!” He pulls a knife and holds it to my throat. “Silence yourself if you plan to live through this.” I jerk stubbornly and the blade digs in its sharp warning. “Shh, see?” He jerks my bottoms down and I shake my head with furious desperation.
“Get off, Alexander. Can’t you see they need their meal? They’re starving.”
He scoffs. “I could kill you, not to mention several other terrible things.” The blade drags down my thigh. “And it’s the pigs you worry about!”
“They’re precious.” I nod toward the poor beasts while my feet ground and scrape. “How could you risk them?” Tears sting and pour over as they cry out.
“Any other young woman would be curled up in a terrified ball with a knife threatening her life and a man’s cock threatening her innocence.”
“Really?” My fingertips gouge into the dirt and I buck my hips, sending him off balance. “Well perhaps it’s not in my blood to cower.”
“Ohh,” He touches between my legs and takes aim. “You should have let me have you earlier. I would have been nicer. Not much, but now I want to hurt you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I hope you’ve never felt a man before, as would be expected for a young unmarried. I want to rip you up for the first time.”
One of the animals screeches out a terrible sound as they fight amongst each other. It sends my knee careening into him and I fling crumbling earth into his eyes. He tears away with a bellow and, like the lightning that sizzles to earth in a flash, I knock the bucket over, sending its contents under the fence. I run, my clothing still a mess, too afraid to glance behind until I make it to my quarters. I carefully close the door despite my nerves lit aflame and sink down against it. My mouth opens wide in a tremulous sob but I force it back so as not to wake my mother. With my silent lamentations lost to the universe, I wonder if I should have let him do whatever he wanted to me. Now I will be punished—or worse, someone I love will be.
Tomorrow morning, I will go straight to Europa.
6
~Calypso~
I’ve always felt the weight of being different. A monster, something parallel to Frankenstein’s. Like him, I long to live,
I long to love, but my strange features and stigma never allow me to truly exist here, to be here with everyone else. There’s no joy with the underlying voice that repeats…You’re a monster…You’re dirty. Unholy.
Tap, tap, tap. An intrusion into my dreams. Clenching the covers, I inch them slowly up to my chin. My breath shudders as I fight to control it. No, no, please no. Momma stirs in her bed and anger surges through my veins at Alexander, and at myself. How could he come here with my mother sleeping nearby? My fists ball and beg to be thrown through the window, shards right through his face. Tap, tap, tap.
I spring up and flush against the window, I snarl, something nasty overtaking me. The muscles in my face contort, and I harness the terrifying evil of the clawed demons in Dante’s Inferno. Envisioning them as they skewer wicked people through their gut and hold them under boiling black tar, I summon their strength.
The man behind the glass changes, and I’m stunned to see that it’s Scarlet who jumps back, her face streaked with tears. I gasp in surprise and rush out.
“Scarlet, what…What are you doing here?” She shakes uncontrollably in the darkness, almost writhing, and a flicker of red shimmers through the clouds behind her. A muffled cry tears from her throat, then the rumble of thunder sounds overhead. I reach for the material around her mouth and the whites of her eyes flash wildly as rain streams over them.
Rough material scratches down my face, and the last thing I see is Scarlet being ripped backward. I howl and throw my head back, landing it into boney skull, and lose the head cover. A crack of thunder echoes across the land.
“Shh, shh,” I’m grappled into a solid chest while the man I slammed my head into stumbles away, panting. He flings chin-length light hair back and reveals himself to be one of the twins who follow Alexander. Corinthian, as told by the scar down his cheek, and his brother holds my friend with an arm around her neck. “I will go into your house and kill your mother. Would you like that?” Alexander spits out. Gagging sounds erupt from Scarlet as the other twin holds her down.
“You can’t,” I snap quietly, just in case he very well can. “Tiberius and Europa would see your neck slit in the square.”
“Really? My own brother would order my death? That would be like you sentencing your mother to death if she were accused of murder.” His truth stabs through me. Would the leaders even believe me?
“I shouldn’t have denied you,” I force out, and go slack in his arms. I work an arm free and feel my way up his thigh, stroking that part of him that makes him look desperate and out of control. It gives me control. “I’ll go. No more fighting it.” I’m breathy, surprisingly so. “You can let her go.”
He inhales through his nose and, from under the sack, I can imagine his wicked face perfectly when he says, “But I like it when you fight. I like it when you’re angry.”
The most terrifying scream I can muster bubbles up from my belly, but before it can be born into the ears of all our sleeping village mates, a rock-like fist slams into my chest. I groan and double over, receiving a sickening blow to my temple.
My feet seem to miss the earth as he makes me walk, everything spinning, and I stumble. Unable to fight, my head blurry and blackness surrounding, Scarlet’s terrified utterances are the only thing real to me.
The perimeter closes in and I shake away the blur. “Where are you taking us?” A burning in my wrists alerts me that my hands were tied at some point, and I push down the erupting panic. If they’re taking us out of the safety of the cloaking device and into the forest, nothing will stop them from torturing us. They could kill us and hide our bodies out here. No one would ever know.
Twigs snap under foot and branches tug at my face covering. Wet rustling through the brush sounds through the night as creatures scatter from their hiding places from the storm.
A vise grip forces me onto my back. Ragged breath assaults my skin as the night clothes are removed from my shivering form. Misty rain collects upon me as the storm passes, sounds of thunder echoing from the distance. The chill on my nipples stings them to painful hardness and contrasts sharply with the stifling heat under my head cover.
“Tie that one up tight and let her watch what we do,” Alexander says, excitement singing across his tongue. Bella’s head cover slides off and hits the ground, her cries heard more clearly now. Alexander’s hand slaps between my legs and a strange sensation bites into my lower body. “Hold her wrists.” Fingers spread the soft petals of my lower lips open. The rustling of footsteps come close, and my tied hands are gripped above my head. “Look at this pink pussy—new and in need of being broken in.” I stiffen as his touch plays along my sensitive flesh, that word he used to describe it sounding demoralizing, though I’d never heard it before.
He devours the fear draining from my breath and seeping from my skin as though he were starving for it. I lock down that weakness, refusing to give him that part of me. Besides, allowing myself to cry will only scare Scarlet more.
My legs are thrown apart, and I remember Mary-Shelley’s words…It does hurt. But it’s fine. You’ll be fine. Of course I will, even after this, though I suspect her Othello was gentle. I brace myself as I feel the tip of his maleness push against my resisting flesh. “I hope you know how much I’m going to enjoy this,” he says.
“Shut your mouth and do what you came for,” I hiss.
With a chuckle, he rakes his fingers down my face, making the rough sack scratch against my nose and lips. “Let’s see how fiery you are after we’ve all had a turn.”
7
~Calypso~
Darker than I have ever felt—and I’ve never been one for the light—my body smolders with rage. Not anger like when mother wouldn’t let me stay out late at a friend’s cabin, easily felt and forgotten. Something else. Something so black, the darkest midnight full of shrouded ghosts, those past and present, couldn’t bear it. With my vision hidden behind the cover, every squeeze, every brush, every violating touch is heightened and shoves right through me. It hurts, even the softest caress, like sharp sticks jabbing everywhere at once.
Settled between my open legs, he wrenches one over his shoulder. My hands yank forward in response but are immediately held back in place by one of his villainous men. I told him to do it and still he holds off, with vigorous breathing and the sound of hands pleasuring his own flesh to prolong the moment and build my fear. Women supposedly enjoy sexual relations with men. So what’s the difference? I’ll endure it.
Silently, I plead for Scarlet to stay calm, to be brave. My heart pounds at the thought of them doing this to her. If I have to transform into the bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde and possibly lose myself forever as he did, I will. I will lose more than my humanity. I will lose my life fighting them to protect her.
I extend my fingers from their hold and lovingly grasp the leaves of a plant. I always dreamed about touching them and imagining what they would smell like out here where I am not allowed; the smooth green crispness of the bulky leaf comforts me and I try to breathe it in.
As I try to preserve this focus, a searing, stretching sensation consumes my lower body. As much as I’d promised myself I wouldn’t react, I cannot stop the terrible gasp that breaks into my lungs. Tears squeeze down my cheeks as Alexander’s body crashes into mine, over and again. Shaking my head, I try to knock the suffocating cover free, but the fresh cool air I desperately crave never comes. My shoulders ache as I yank and twist against the hold on my wrists, and it causes whichever one of the twins that has me to stop stroking himself and hold me down with both hands. A slap rips across my face and a ringing blasts through my consciousness.
I lie still, and a bleak numbness washes over me. My wrists slack and subtle movements above me resume, rattling me back and forth. The burning pressure between my legs has subsided, but each thrust throws sparks of torment that make my insides shriek. How can this ever be anything but horrifying? No wonder they only make women do this once a month. I never want this again, not even with Finn.
Al
exander brings his powerful hips in one last time and holds me tight, a groan of pure ecstasy pouring from his lips. Our sexes held tightly together, I fight for air, suffocation seizing me into a nightmarish ball of pain and indignity.
Scarlet’s frightened murmurs intensify and a hand slaps over her mouth. I hear her body hit the ground. “No, no!” I buck Alexander off and roll wildly to my knees. “Not her! Don’t touch her!” Stumbling backward, I rip my face cover off, and light from torches stuck into the ground blinds me. Helsing crawls on top of Scarlet and throws her frantic hands into the ground.
Alexander lunges for me. I side step and growl as though Mr. Hyde himself is indeed ready to rip out of my skin. He misses but quickly regains his balance. “Whore,” he says, his arms outstretched. “You’re mine now. I know you feel it. You belong to me.”
An inappropriate chuckle bursts from my mouth, and a giddy laugh continues to simmer in my belly, but I force it away and flip around, throwing my knee into the crotch of Corinthian, who approaches at my back. He yells out and Alexander shushes him. I dip my head and rush toward Helsing.
“Surrender yourself to me, my whore.” Alexander reaches inside his pocket and snaps a knife out. It doesn’t stop me. I crack my other knee into Helsing’s head and he flies off Scarlet. Flipping around, I ready myself for Alexander’s attack and tell her to run. Somewhere in between her saying, “Not without you!”, I realize it’s too late. I’ve turned right into Alexander’s smiling face and a cold wetness grows across my belly. Looking down, I’m surprised to see ruby liquid shining off his blade. He steps back, and it’s as though an invisible force throws me down. Scarlet’s thrown down beside me, the ground holding us hostage, and Helsing works her night dress up her thighs. With a desperate cry, I sit up but immobilizing pain in my stomach throws me back down.
