SICK HEART

by Huss, JA

  But that laugh—that was truly unexpected. I liked the way she laughed. I liked the small hint of joy in that outburst and I wonder how attached she is to Pavo.

  I wonder if she will watch the fight tonight.

  I wonder if she will still be laughing when it’s over.

  I wake up to the sound of Maart’s voice.

  “Hey, fuckface. It’s time, OK? Interviewers have actually been waiting an hour already. But you looked so goddamned peaceful, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  My hand is still clutched around my cock and I realize I drifted off without finishing. My eyes wander over to Maart. He’s naked with his back to me, all his scars on full display. I catch a glimpse of his cock dangling between his legs when he reaches to hang a newly pressed button-down shirt on a hook.

  I swing my legs out of bed, stand up, cross the distance between us, then slip my hand between his legs to grab his balls as I bite his shoulder.

  Maart hisses in pain because when I bite, I bite hard. “Jesus fucking Christ, Cort.” I back off, allowing him room to turn. He looks down at my hand on my cock. His eyes lift back up to meet mine. I take his hand and place it around my shaft and he immediately begins to tug on it.

  Then he reaches for my hand and places it around his cock. My hand covers his and his hand covers mine. And we jerk each other off like that.

  I press my body in to him and he backs up until he’s against the door. I bury my head into his neck and he does the same.

  We don’t kiss and we don’t talk.

  We don’t need to explain ourselves.

  We don’t need to feel anything about what we’re doing.

  We just do it.

  That’s all there is to it.

  CHAPTER THREE - ANYA

  The muscles.

  The tattoos.

  The pure, raw power of him.

  But most of all, those silver-gray eyes.

  There is no way to get Cort van Breda out of my mind after that encounter in the reception hall. The way he looked at me. Like he was drawn to me.

  But then… that sneer. If he had been closer, and Pavo hadn’t been talking, I think I might’ve heard a growl.

  Sick. Heart. That’s what they called him in the Ring of Fire article. Two words with two periods. Like you have to pause between each one to get the full effect of how disturbing he is.

  I was raised a certain way. I have been around certain people who had expectations of me. And if I didn’t meet those expectations, there were consequences. I became intuitive. Instinctual. It was a survival mechanism.

  And eventually, these instincts became habit. And those habits turned into something natural and innate. Something I did without thinking.

  I read people.

  I put very little weight on words, even though I have more words inside me than maybe anyone else on this godforsaken planet. Words don’t mean much. I’ve lived with more than my fair share of empty promises, so I know this first-hand.

  No. I look for something other than words.

  I look at the eyes first.

  The lips.

  The eyebrows.

  Are the shoulders tight and tense? Or open and relaxed?

  Words never tell you as much about a person as body language. You don’t need words when you can look a person in the eye.

  But even this is not enough.

  Not in the world I live in.

  You need to see into their hearts. That’s where the truth lives and this is how I process my world. This is how I get through it.

  Pavo is still raging about Cort, even though he disappeared nearly half an hour ago now. “The fucking nerve,” Pavo is saying over and over again. “The fucking nerve.”

  Pavo has described how he will win this fight tonight about seventy-five different ways. He wants to break Cort’s bones. He wants a head injury. He wants to snap Cort’s back and force him to watch, powerless, as he chops his throat and crushes his windpipe.

  And as brutal as it sounds, it’s a lot tamer than the plans he was making last night.

  Pavo has just been sipping the Lectra today, but last night he was raging drunk on it and today he has to pay the price for that. Lectra is a weird drink. It turns you inside out for a while, and then, when it’s gone, you flip back—but if you get in the habit of this, eventually you’re never the same on the trip back.

  When you’re an addict, you’re never yourself again. Ever.

  You’re always a little bit meaner.

  A little bit darker.

  A little bit closer to hopeless.

  I’ve only sipped the blue liquid about half a dozen times. I was not high last night. As long as it is my choice, I will never drink Lectra with Pavo. It sexualizes you. Makes you crave things you never normally would. Erases inhibitions. Degrades common sense. Reduces what’s left of your moral code.

  And let’s face it, no one on this ship can afford any more erosion of their moral codes.

  Last night Pavo couldn’t stop talking about cutting off Cort’s dick. In fact, all he did was talk about what he wanted to do to Cort’s dick.

  I was forced to listen to him last night. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve been forced to do more than just listen to him, so whatever.

  He spent most of the night jerking off in a corner, talking the entire time. Talking about Cort and how they were boys together. “He was my friend,” Pavo said drunkenly. “Did I ever tell you that, nyuszi?”

  I hate that nickname. Bunny. Gag. But when you’re locked in a cabin with a psychopath on Lectra, you don’t make a fuss about the small things.

  “We were boys at the same training camp.”

  I didn’t want to hear it. I don’t go around forcing people to listen to my childhood stories, why can’t he give me the same consideration?

  But I was there. And try as I might, I could not tune him out completely. Also, I actually was interested in the parts about Cort, since none of this was ever mentioned in that Ring of Fire article.

  “He was two years older. Prettier than me. Everyone said so.”

  Oh. So that’s what this is about. Jealousy. Figures.

  “We learned everything together. And he always thought he was better. Always faster. Always tougher. He took the slaps, the punches, the scarring without whimpering or sniveling. He was always better with the pain. But I was a good fighter. I still am a good fighter. I’m going to win tomorrow, nyuszi. You watch me. I’m going to pin him to the platform. Lie on top of him. Make him feel how hard the fight makes me. Then I will take it all from him. Everything he has will be mine.”

  That’s how the spoils work for the fighters. They inherit the loser’s training camp. This is a big deal for the men who own the fighters. They will lose all their up-and-coming prospects, but only in that particular camp. This is why they don’t have just one big camp. They typically have dozens of smaller ones instead.

  I don’t know what Pavo will get from Cort if he wins. No one even knows where Cort’s training camp is. No one knows where he stays. The Ring of Fire article said he owns no house, no fancy car, no ten-million-dollar yacht. These are all things Pavo has. He has been rewarded handsomely by my father over the years. He is the pinnacle of my father’s stable.

  Pavo also has wives. Many, many wives by this point in his career. You get one each time you win in the Ring of Fire. And Pavo has won thirteen or fourteen times now, Cort twice that many, so Cort should have a pretty large harem. The article didn’t talk about that either.

  If Pavo wins I will not go to Cort’s harem. I will stay here on this ship. My father has already explained it to me. He will take a controlling interest in the Bull of Light and I will probably live on this ship for the rest of my life.

  It’s not a bad place, I decide. It could be worse. A lot worse, actually.

  The Bull of Light is like a city. There are hundreds of people here. Women working in the laundry and the kitchens who I could make friends with. Men I could have sneaky affairs with. I co
uld even get a job. I could work in the kitchen or the laundry too. Because Pavo is beyond delusional if he thinks my father will let him stop fighting.

  We will not be playing house. He will fuck me constantly for a few days while he drowns himself in Lectra, hopefully get me pregnant, and then he will leave for Thailand to continue training and I will stay here. Pavo will have at least four or five more fights before they let him even think about trying to buy himself out.

  The men in his class only fight once a year. And every time he fights there is the possibility that he loses. That means that I will not be safe if Pavo wins me. I am property and I suspect my ownership will change many times before they let me die.

  By next year, I might have a baby with me. If Pavo loses the next fight, the baby and I would both go to the winner.

  The obvious solution to this is to not get pregnant.

  The other, even more obvious, solution is that Pavo loses tonight’s fight.

  Then I would go home with the Sick Heart.

  I try to imagine that for a moment. Fully imagine how bad it might get. I would be somewhere far away. Not on a floating city with the possibility of some semblance of a life. My father would lose track of me. Lose interest in me too. I would become part of Cort’s harem, wherever that is. I would eventually get pregnant, I would eventually have babies.

  But this is his last fight. It is known. I would not be given away. Ever. I would be his, and his alone, forever.

  Cort van Breda is nice to look at. I’m not even gonna pretend he’s not. From a distance, though. I could look at him all day long if he wasn’t such a looming threat. But to be with him all the time? Forever? To be left alone with him and his violence? Not even under the protection of my father?

  He could do anything he wanted with me.

  He could sell me. Leave me somewhere. Beat me. Starve me. Tie me up and never come back. He could lend me out to his friends. And he seems very committed to those friends, so I imagine that’s a given.

  No. The Sick Heart is a risk.

  Going home with Cort van Breda would be orders of magnitude worse than staying here and being Pavo’s. If Pavo wins, my father would not stay here, but he would come often. He is obsessed with this ship. He might even want Bexxie to stay here too. I could beg for that. I could make it happen.

  In my world, this scenario—being Pavo’s property, having his babies, living here on the ship with Bexxie nearby and only occasional visits from the men in control of me?

  This is a fairy-tale ending as far as I’m concerned. Something right out of a fucking storybook.

  Pavo must win.

  Bexxie returns a little while later. Her face is flushed and her eyes are calm, like she just woke up from a long nap. “Look what I found.” She plops down onto the couch next to me and offers up the program in her hand. It’s for tonight’s fight.

  There is a picture of Pavo and Cort on the front, both of them shirtless, both of them looking like monsters. Inside there’s a short welcome paragraph from Cort’s father, a small writeup about my father and… a full-page picture of me.

  “You look so pretty in that pic, Anya. I love it.”

  Looking at the dress I’m wearing, I recall posing for it now, but I didn’t know they would use it as promotional material. And it seems like too much. I’m not really the prize. The prize is the ship. I’m just a trinket that comes with it.

  “They want you downstairs for wardrobe.” Bexxie leans into me. Her little hands grip my arm and she snuggles up against my breasts like I’m her mother. I lean my head on hers. “They’re not going to let me watch.” She pouts out these words. “Daddy says it’s too violent. And that’s stupid.” She sits up straight again. “Why did I come all this way if I can’t even watch?”

  I’m glad she won’t be watching. She’s already seen way too much in her short nine years.

  “You get to watch.”

  Get to watch? Hah. That’s an understatement. I was already told I will be on the platform with them. I will be forced to watch. I will see every horrific thing the two fighters do to each other in perfect clarity. I will spend the entire time wondering which monster will take me home. Which one of the blood-covered animals in front of me will be my master?

  Bexxie gets up and offers me her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you down.”

  I let her pull me up and then I let her keep hold of my hand as we exit the reception hall and head down the stairs. Several of my father’s guards fall in behind us. I can’t quite decide if they’re doing this for my protection, or to make sure I don’t run.

  I would like to think of myself as a person who might run, but it’s a ludicrous idea. We’re in the middle of the ocean. Where would I go?

  I roll my eyes internally. As if that was the reason. I have had hundreds of opportunities to run. Never happened.

  I am not the kind of girl who runs.

  Down on the main deck lots of people are milling about. It is massively wide. You could fit several houses side by side. But the front part of the ship is actually two long arms that extend outward like a forklift, if said forklift was a hundred and fifty meters wide. The topside is propped in the middle of the ship-sized forklift on massive robotic arms and ballasts.

  I am not an oil rig expert, but our father is very excited at the prospect of winning a controlling interest in this ship, so he explained all this to Bexxie and me while we were traveling here.

  The topside is a pre-fabricated oil rig minus the legs that anchor it to the ocean floor. Those have already been built and now this ship is carrying the working part—the power plant, the housing units, the office, the command center, the pumps or whatever they use to get the oil and gas up out of the ocean floor—so it can be placed on the legs.

  A topside is a factory. And right now, the topside roof sits higher than the command center of the Bull of Light. So that’s where all the important people will be watching the fight.

  But the fight itself will take place on the Bull of Light’s helicopter platform, which extends slightly outward over the side of the ship’s hull. That’s where I will be too.

  Bexxie leads me below deck. I don’t even know where we’re going, but she seems to, so I don’t worry about it. We end up in a compartment that must be a salon, where a team of people are waiting to turn me into something else.

  “I’m gonna stay with you,” Bexxie announces. “We’ll have mani-pedis together like the old days.” Then she pouts. “I hope you don’t leave. I don’t want you to leave, Anya.”

  I don’t have any say in that—and neither does she—so I don’t encourage this line of thinking. I just sit down, close my eyes, and enjoy the moment.

  I’m good at that.

  And so is Bexxie.

  I don’t get to choose my polish. I don’t get any say in how I look tonight. But Bexxie is more than satisfied with her gold and silver nails and toes.

  After the mani-pedis are finished, I am directed to a flat table where they will wax me.

  “I’ll see you when it’s over, OK?” Bexxie’s bright blue-green eyes look at me with fear and I nod. “OK,” she says. Then, without another word, she turns and walks out just as the team of body painters walks in.

  The stylists undress me and point to the table. I lie down on it and open my legs.

  I’ve never been Pavo’s prize before, but I’ve watched two of his fights.

  This thought makes me pause and wonder where his other girls are. He must have a harem of them by now as well. And children. How many children must he have? Dozens, maybe. He’s been fighting for girls since he was twelve. Even if only half of them had two babies in those dozen years, that number is in the upper twenties. But it’s not likely that they haven’t been pregnant every other year. Some of the earlier prizes might not even be around anymore. Hell, even his oldest children are probably dead by now. Used up and thrown out.

  And if he had boys, those boys started training for the fight ring by the time they were two or th
ree. Most of his sons are probably dead, or they will be soon.

  Cort, too, must have dozens of slave girls somewhere. He’s been in more fights than any other man in the history of this sport. When he was younger, his father used to make him fight three or four times a year.

  I hiss when they rip the strips of wax off between my legs. But that is a small pain and it’s not enough to make me forget that I’m not really a prize, am I?

  God knows, neither of them needs another girl.

  They are here for their continued existence. They are fighting for their lives, they are not fighting for me.

  The continued waxing makes me wince and hiss over and over. But soon that part is finished and when I get up off the table, the body painters immediately begin. I don’t know how they will decorate me. I don’t actually care. Not one decision about my life is mine to make.

  I don’t know exactly what Cort and Pavo will look like tonight, but I’ve seen pictures in Ring of Fire.

  If a fighter has tattoos, they like to paint those in something that glows. If they don’t, they make the designs up. The rest of their body is painted black. So when they are fighting in the dark, you can only see the glowing tattoos or symbols.

  They reduce us to non-humans as often as possible.

  How else would they live with themselves?

  My body will be painted white with dozens of unsettling symbols in red. I don’t know what the symbols mean—slave girls don’t need to know that kind of stuff. But I do know they have meaning.

  I will be the opposite of the men. My symbols will be invisible in the dark—the red will not glow. But the white will.

  It’s intriguing and I almost wish I could watch myself from a distance. See me the way everyone else will. Almost like an out-of-body experience.

  I keep still as they airbrush my skin until it has a pearl shimmer to it. I reposition when they ask me to, lifting a leg or an arm. And then, when that paint is dry, the artists begin creating the designs.

  Spirals and spinning circles. Black suns and pyramid eyes. Arrows pointing to chaos. Stars, and pentagrams, and upside-down crosses.