by Poppet
“When a man confronts me I want to kill him,” I answer honestly.
“But I'm taller, how will you disarm me?” he challenges, looking so cocky I really do want to kill him.
He thinks he's so much better than me just because he has a dick, so I do exactly what I would if he cornered me in the alley behind Taĭna, I knee his balls and punch his throat so fast he doesn't even react, his face looking like it's going to explode because it's gone an alarming shade of purple. Mikah bends over, gasping for air, and now I wonder if I'm in shit for doing what he told me to do.
“I'm sorry, it's just, that's what I would do if a man confronted me –” My cheek throbs and I stagger back with such force I can't keep my balance, landing on my ass on the concrete, off the mats in the cloak of shadows.
The shock robs my voice, my breath coming in squealing whimpers when he bolts after me and slams his fist in my face again, the crunch of bone detonating napalm into my eyeball, my brain blank, my eyes so red I can't see light or shadow, I can see nothing.
“Bitch! What the fuck, Polina!”
Opening my mouth I try to defend my actions, to explain, but the agony in my eye robs my thoughts and air, and I curl to cover my head, protecting it, quivering because I know I've done bad. I've done very very bad.
“Get up!” he demands, but I can't, I try to unfurl but my stomach is so afraid I think I have my period suddenly. My thighs have the earthquake and I taste blood.
“Polina, if I give you a fucking order I expect you to respond! You play dirty so don't go hiding behind your arms and playing dead, that trick doesn't fool me.”
His words flit in and out of focus and I shake my head, holding my palm out to him, “I – I can't hear properly. My eye, Jesus Mikah my eye is broken.”
His shadow blots out the little blur I can see, curling over me like the angel of death, grabbing my ponytail and lifting me from the ground by it, my neck searing with torture. He hisses in my throbbing eye, “Ruin will come on you suddenly, ruin you never dreamed of. Isaiah 47:11”
Panic takes over and I slap and struggle, desperate to get away from the hurt. “Stop! Stop it! You told me to do it!”
Dumping me in a tumble onto the mats, he growls at me, “Do you know what God said to the tribes when he gave them an angel to watch over them?”
I shake my head, holding my hand over my eye, hoping it's gonna be okay. It hurts like a motherfucker.
“Pay attention to him and obey him. Do not rebel against him for I have sent him, and he will not pardon such rebellion. Isaiah 14:29.” He looms over me, bending so close to my face with his own I can see the rage in his eyes, hearing the deep vibration of his bitter voice. “I am your angel you little bitch, and God sent me. Do you think I will pardon rebellion? Do you?!”
“No-o,” I breathe, knowing the shit is so deep I'll be breathing it soon.
“Got that straight, dirty angel. When I offer to teach you don't you ever raise your fucking hand to me!”
“Yes Mikah,” I whimper, still holding the side of my face where the eye grinds into my teeth. It aches so bad.
“I tried to purify you, you remain defiled. You will not be pure again until you have felt the full force of my anger. Ezekiel 24:13.” He says it with so much hatred that my insides hollow. Before I can respond his foot connects and I'm launched off the floor and hurled to the concrete, the snap of a whip skinning my soul before I feel its bite. I can't react, I can't think, I curl up on my calves and hide my face tight to my knees, forehead down to the gritty floor, the whip cutting and eating at me, the fire spreading to my scalp, my ass hurts, it all hurts, it's acid chewing up my body with thunder, cracking like the fetid thunderstorm escaping from hell.
Clutching my cheeks with my hands, my fingers over my eyes, my eyelids clenched so tight, I scream and scream. “Sorry! Sorrrrrry!”
“You will be,” he hisses, his voice so calm in the quiet of the basement, so menacing it scuds goosebumps all over my body.
The dread is so severe my spirit booms in and out, my middle shaking so bad I am weak with it. It's emotional, deep, so deep it has no name I know, but it's holy. My holiness is in pain, it's fleeing me.
•
Mikah:
I need to cut her, to make her know once and for all I will not permit rebellion. Little bitch, showing and doing are two different things. She didn't give me that respect so now she'll feel the fire of purification. After this she won't doubt who her master is.
Disgusting, dirty, angel! She's curled into a ball on the ground, nose down, offering her back as a shell to protect her vulnerability, but it's the softness I want to hurt. Today she learns there is no hiding your sins from God. Hooking the nagyka around my neck I let it hang, staring at the blubbering mess quaking like she's traumatized, but Polina lies. She likes pretending does my little kisa.
Drop kicking the huddled creature so she collides with the wall, nowhere left to retreat, I close in on the hysterical woman, grabbing the hand protecting her face and bending the fingers so far back they crack when they dislocate. “Try punch me now, kisa.”
“S-sooooorry!”
“I asked you to show me and you used it to attack me, I gave you an opening and you took it. You betray yourself Polina, you expose the grime in your heart!”
“I – I misunderstand!” she shrieks, and again I'm grateful we're in the basement and so far from neighbors.
Unpocketing her knife I flick it open, resting my knees on her thighs, exerting all my weight on her slender legs, pinning her when I straddle her, stomach up to her first lesson in disrespecting one of God's angels.
Sliding the blade under her tank top I slice it open, then the bra, exposing her breasts to me, pressing the sharp point of the blade into her nipple. “God gave you these, you flaunted them for so long I wanted to cut them off so you'd learn the meaning of humility.”
“Foma made me!” she screams, shrinking as hard as she can into the corner where the wall joins the floor. The white of her left eye is ruptured with blood, swelling and already vividly bruising.
Good, you fucking asked for that. Ask, and you will receive – that's a promise. “I gave you my rib and this is how you repay me?”
“I gave you my blood!” she spits, and I see the kitten's claws come out.
You don't get it, you just don't get it.
She has to know the worst kind of pain to comprehend that she doesn't get to raise her tongue to me, she doesn't get to demand or challenge. When the tribes of Israel challenged God he rained fire down on them, he plagued them with cobras, he hammered his might onto them until they were broken and couldn't misunderstand that He is supreme, their authority, only His will matters.
Let the lesson begin.
Sitting on her I smash my fists into her abdomen so many times that I lose count, swiveling the switchblade the right way and sliding the scalpel sharpness down between her breasts, slicing a large M into her torso, watching the blood pearl like garnets.
Laughing because this is what I live for, I stand, gripping her arm, twisting it behind her so she's forced to maneuver onto her front to prevent it breaking, my ears deaf to anything but the visions in my mind, hauling her with her arm elongated and wrung so close to dislocating her shoulder, yanking her in brutal jolts to my supply of salt. Banging the lid off the barrel I kick her over, releasing her arm, then grab fistfuls of salt, pouring it down onto the bloody M like holy ash, smiling at the magnificent scream it elicits.
“Were you baptized, Polina?” I ask, not waiting for an answer when I heft her onto my shoulder and march to the basement sink, filling it with cold November water, then supporting her by her hips I plunge her into the basin, watching the water slosh and slop onto the floor when she struggles, but I keep her head under for a full count of 120 seconds.
Pulling her out, dropping her so she brains herself on the concrete lip of the rudimentary sink, I sit back. She sucks air, coughs and chokes, gurgling, but I don't rightly give a shit.
I warn you that in my anger I will rule over you with a strong hand, with all my power. Ezekiel 20:33.
Putting the switchblade in my pocket I remove my cigarettes from the other pocket, lighting up and inhaling deeply, expelling the smoke to heaven with my prayer of thanks.
Now that the ember is livid with fire I press it to the lobe of her right ear, my left hand gripping her hair to keep her head still.
“God marked them on their right sides, I'm marking you with fire Polina, because only fire and salt and water purify dirty angels. None of you understand until you taste the bile of God's wrath.”
I take my sweet ass time, smoking in between marking her on her right hand and foot, then sit back to observe her hysteria and convulsing, smoking it all, stubbing it out in the blister already formed on her right earlobe. She shrieks like the devil himself is fighting for her soul, which he is. I need a drink. Standing, I bend over her, my feet either side of her hips, and point my finger in her face, her eye swollen shut. “If you ever hit me again I'll beat you so broken they'll be taking your teeth out of your legs, understand me?”
She doesn't nod, just moans. Fuck but this woman knows how to piss me off. It's reflex, I slam my fist into her middle, her body flexing up when the air hisses between her teeth. “Understand!?”
“Mmmm!” she squeals.
“And the next time you tell me you gave me your blood like it was a fucking sacrifice, I'll make you bleed from every hole on your body. You owe me so much more than that, Polina. I provide for you, I saved you from the hell you were in, I sent vengeance after your enemies, I protect you from God, and you tell me your blood was payment! Fuck you! I'll take your blood now if you think it's so precious, and when I'm done I'm leaving you here. Three days without food and you might be grateful for what I do give you!”
Decision made I grip her throat and squeeze, so angry I want to cut off her life, but then God will be disappointed that I failed in my quest. Shaking my head I stand erect, undoing the buttons on my jeans, kicking her over onto her stomach again, then drop the denim to my ankles.
I'm taking that ass right now.
You want to give me your blood, I'll have it every day until you have no more flesh to tear open.
Bitch!
~ Chapter 18 ~
The Lord disciplines those he loves
~ Hebrews 12:6
Polina:
The bones of my hips scar the concrete when his weight presses onto me, pressure pushing between my ass cheeks, thick and hot.
There's nothing else he can do. He whipped me so hard his breath burns my spine, my stomach scorches, my inhalations scald. Bashed by my tush into the flat floor the hardness of it sandpapers my face, but I don't care because he's shoved something in me.
I can see his thick wrist next to my eye, see the veins running up his arms with the pressure, see the white skin over his knuckles when they arch, and screeeeeam for mercy.
It's a space shuttle in my ass, it's in my bones!
J-eeeeeeesus!
I must air. Breathe! I can't breathe, it's too much, too much!, it – it – it breaks my mind into grains.
My body vanishes and my whole being is focused on the rage ramming into me, it's worse than the sex, it's worse than the whip, it's the Satan in the basement!
A hot poker incinerates me from the inside, it singes my body black, it squeezes sweat into my eyes, my heart echoes with such wild gongs it throbs! When it withdraws I sag heavily, my chest melting into the floor, relief swallowing my skin, but then it jabs in again, wildfire erupting right through me and I crush my tongue in my teeth, gritting my jaws, tears drowning my eyes.
It's punishment. It's because I did bad. But this is bad, SO BAD!
I never – Godddddddd – pleeeeeeease –my body is nothing, it's nowhere, my essence is on fire, it's burning me up, it's a hot coal on coal on coal on coal. I am a flame ignited in the dust, I am the heart of a volcano, I am the shrieeeeeeek of despair.
Sucking shuddering inhalation, my voice stutters in the long keen of grief. Polina can't play dead now, she is dead now.
Mikah murdered Polina.
My nose clogs, the snot runs to my eye, it smears my view of his strong arm etched with blue and bulging veins swelled with excitement. My heart breaks and I surrender, closing my eyes to the sorrow, living in the ruin corroding my heart.
I hurt him, now he hurts me.
Never hurt Mikah, never! NEVER!
The excruciating blaze reaches all the way from my pussy to my throat, it stresses my neck bones, it spasms my jaw, it bombs my broken eye. I'm cut in half. He put something inside the finger puppet. He put the devil in me.
Hours later when she regains consciousness:
I can't move. My skin is so swollen I feel like a balloon. The dark, the dust, the smell of blood and man milk, it reminds me too much of Oleg. Foma liked to collect quotes and he once told me: The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk in our own souls.
And I feel him now, the evil Mikah says is in me, I feel it.
Never again will I hit him, I won't speak back, I will be good.
I will be so good he will think I'm an angel, but I'm a dirty angel, I don't live in heaven, I live in hell.
Wet runs from my ass, it's caustic and burning.
I'm alone, so I cry – I weep so hard it makes my lungs cymbals and my soul writhes. The shakes quake so hard through me it bends my bones, my lungs creak, my teeth throb.
How long before I can walk again? How long before I can see again?
C-can't breathe.
Inhaaaale. Cough!
Cough blocks throat.
Gag.
Rolling with immense effort I let the blood and drool seep out of my mouth to the floor, hoping the air comes to me. Convulsing uncontrollably hot mess erupts out of my insides into my mouth.
Severe agony compresses hours into dense trauma, then stretches a second into infinite suspension, my sentience hovering in lucid consciousness in the seizing cramp of immeasurable suffering. Tense, struggling to inhale breath without pain, exhaustion quivering muscles while I fight for stability, praying for the miracle that will neutralize the rupturing of inflamed neurons.
It is like waiting to be born, entombed in embryonic fluid, suspended in corrosive acid scouring the outer form off your bones, exposing marrow and sinew while it seeps out of the confines of structure, and then the contraction which binds every ounce of your body into a convulsion of a pain so vast you cannot exist, cannot move, claimed by the hand of Mephistopheles – and it squeezes the juice from your spirit as if your life is a malevolent tumor.
In an instant your entire world is engulfed with sulfur, with affliction all ignited at once, your mind slaughtered while shrapnel grenades thermite through muscle and blood and bone. My thoughts are rancid, my heart curdled, the ability to reason atrophying, stripping me of sentience, reducing me to a singular instinct – a singular throb pulsating an urgent signal into the cosmos. Help!
Unravelling in the plague possessing my skin and stomach, scrolling and bleeding into a macabre dribble of cauterized obliteration, the fetid rot of death hovers, creeping tendrils of familiarity deep into the sealed chambers of my quintessence.
Rolling more, the torment gripping my whole body, I rest on my nose leaving the sick to ooze out, trying so hard to breathe around it. He broke my hand and I can't get up, can't push off it.
Wailing, I beg him, “Please m-m-m-Mikah, I'm s-s-sorry.”
He said he sent vengeance after my enemies. Does he know Victor?
Is Victor here?
Will he rescue me?
Collapsing, smudging my expunged catharsis, bile burrows into my nostril, incinerating my eyeball, claiming my tears for the ravenous maws when oblivion asphyxiates my existence.
•
Mikah:
The shower feels so good sluicing down my tight muscles.
Smiling to myself I think of how she surrendered when I took her ass. It was t
he wrong angle completely, it must've hurt like she was being torn in half.
Good.
Next time you raise your hand to me I'll cut it off. I don't need your hands because you'll always have holes, suka (bitch).
You can lick the windows clean for all I care.
A dirty angel to the very core, well, dirty no more.
She's broken. Now I can rebuild her.
~ Chapter 19 ~
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away
~ Revelation 21:1
Mikah:
Misha picks up on the first ring. “Sup?”
“I need you and Ivan here. She needs medical attention.”
Laughing the glee of a drunk man, he says, “Finally! I thought you weren't going to do it.”
“She's my woman, and when it comes to my woman I do things on my terms. Now get Ivan and get your asses here asap. She's in shock.”
“She'll get over the shock, she can wait until –”
“Now Misha! Right fucking now!” I command, dropping my phone and disconnecting, glaring at the camera view of the basement accusing me from a widescreen LED TV. She's in bad shape, but I refuse to console her. She will crawl to me and beg for forgiveness before I'll show her a shred of kindness.
Two hours later Misha emerges from the basement, swiping his hands clean on surgical wipes. Slumping in the chair opposite mine he grabs my smokes and lights one, then pours himself a shot of my vodka and slams it back. Gulping he holds the glass, staring into it, saying with distance, “Broken ribs, dislocated shoulder and hand, four teeth loose, she lost one of them, sutures required in her anus, you ripped her right to her vagina, her back is shredded, five ribs are supported with bandages, luckily her lungs aren't punctured, but it's the eye that needs immediate hospitalization. The way you ripped her anus I'm concerned she'll get septicemia.”
