SICK HEART

by Huss, JA

  Eventually he stops and walks over to me.

  We are both disgusting. Nothing but sweat and blood, some of it his, some of it mine, some of it Pavo’s. And it strikes me then that we’re both pretty sick people. There is an ocean of water beneath our feet. One dip and we could wash this blood away.

  But we don’t. We didn’t. And it’s weird.

  He points at me. Rolls his hand.

  I get the meaning. He wants to check my skipping. So I skip. Because I can now. And I don’t mind it. There are a lot worse things in this world than skipping rope.

  He nods. No smile, no thumbs up, no pat on the back or star on the toe. Just a nod and then a point.

  Keep going. That’s what that nod and point mean.

  I learned a long time ago that people would put up with my silence as long as I don’t play dumb. If they can get their point across, and I do as I’m told, eventually they get tired of punishing me for my silence. So I keep going.

  And he starts kicking that bag. I have no clue what these kicks are called, but he does lots of different types of them. Front kicks, and back kicks, and side kicks, and jump kicks. He does spinning kicks, and then he’s flipping and I actually stop skipping to watch that part of his show.

  Because that’s what this is.

  He’s putting on a show for me.

  And that’s when I realize that he’s working out in front of me for a reason. And I am jumping rope as busy work. I am jumping rope so he can make me do two things at once.

  This is pretty clever on his part. I get a little lost as I imagine that this is how he runs his training camp. I picture men like him. Younger, though. Maybe teens. All jumping rope like me. All watching him dance with it, then fight the bag with punches and kicks.

  They soak him up like a sponge. And so do I.

  This is how we spend our day.

  At one point he shows me where the water is, hands me one of two plastic cups, and we drink.

  I pause many times. I lean my back against the steel beam closest to me and slide down it, resting as he continues his routine. He never seems to get annoyed with my breaks, though I am careful not to take advantage. I rest, catch my breath, then get back up and continue.

  He does the same, only for much longer stretches. He works that bag hard. And then he slides his back down the far wall and watches me.

  I let him. I mean, it’s not like I could stop him, but I could turn my back and send a message. But I don’t.

  And I find that I don’t hate him.

  I find that these long, easy periods of skipping, and drinking, and resting, and then doing it all over again are a comforting routine. Something I can count on.

  This is a gift, I think. Day one with a new master should be filled with anxiety about my future. And it’s not.

  Perhaps he is instilling a false sense of security in me. Perhaps this is some elaborate, evil plan and tonight, when it’s dark, and I’m too tired to fight back, perhaps he will rape me.

  But I don’t think so. And a girl like me doesn’t get this far in life by being afraid of a little coerced sex. That’s fucking ridiculous.

  I’m not afraid that he will fuck me tonight. So his plan, if it is a plan, is working. I am, if not at ease, then resigned to my fate.

  But all things must end eventually. And this easy, predictable day is no exception.

  The sun is finally visible on the left side of the platform because it is low on the horizon. It is May right now, so I approximate the time to be perhaps five-thirty or six o’clock when he takes the rope from my hands and sets it down in a little pile next to his. Then he points to the stairs and we meet up over there and begin to climb.

  The birds attack.

  I had forgotten about the fucking birds.

  They are huge. The wingspan on these albatrosses is easily four meters from tip to tip. They are like pterodactyls, something out of place and out of time. But Cort waves them off like this is just part of the fun of living on an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the ocean, and they are not persistent.

  We make our way to the other end of the upper platform, behind the small building that I woke up in this morning, and he points to the back wall.

  That’s when I notice the hose. It is draped over a large hook. The nozzle looks like something you’d clean the bottom of a boat with. And I see what’s coming.

  I hesitate. He takes my arm—not harshly—and drags me over to the wall. Then he points at me. I’ve deciphered about two dozen of his points today. And this one means, Don’t move.

  It’s gonna sting. I already know that. But I’m sweaty, wearing yesterday’s paint and blood, and I don’t really care how I get clean at this point, just get me clean.

  So I strip off my dress, toss it aside, and stand with my back against the wall and my eyes closed.

  Yes. It fucking hurts. And even though I don’t want to wince, and hug myself, and cower from the cold water, I do all that.

  He makes me turn around and face the wall, and then he sprays my back too. The whole thing takes maybe… five minutes? My body is red and stings all over when he’s done. But I am clean.

  Cort walks over to me, his body still smelling of death and filth, still covered in sweat, and blood, and paint, and he hands me the hose. I look at it, and then him, and realize he wants me to hose him down next.

  This is the moment when I realize everything I thought I knew about Cort van Breda was wrong.

  Maybe I understand the Sick Heart. I get the fighter inside him.

  But Cort? The man inside him?

  No.

  I was wrong.

  I could hurt him with this hose.

  And he either doesn’t care, or he doesn’t think I will.

  I won’t.

  CHAPTER EIGHT - CORT

  When I first introduced Anya to the jump rope her face was a mixture of sadness, confusion, and many years of lowered expectations.

  I’m pretty sure she thinks that no one can read her, but I can read everyone. We might be silent for very different reasons, but the outcome is the same.

  Silence lets you hear things that aren’t said.

  Silence lets you see things unseen.

  Silence gives you space.

  And space is a gift if ever there was one.

  My first trip out to this Rock was when I was around five. Udulf had just acquired me and I was not in the mood to comply with anything he had in mind for my first night at his estate.

  I ran. I hid. And when they found me, I kicked, I screamed, and I bit.

  It didn’t stop him. He did with me what he had planned to do with me.

  He beat me senseless that first night. He beat me so hard, and for so long, I just passed out. And really, that was a gift as well. Because I have no solid memory of that night. Or anything that came before my first trip out here to the Rock. The only thing I have left of the life that came before Udulf is the Lectra dream.

  And that’s not reality.

  When Udulf dropped me off on the lowest platform of the Rock that first time, I stayed for three months. Alone.

  There was no food, but there was water. And that was so cruel. You can die in three days with no water. It takes months to waste away from starvation. Even a small boy can last many weeks without food.

  It was good water, though. Bottled. Sealed. Clean. A hundred cases at least. I had so much fresh water, I bathed in it. The rig had only been decommissioned for a few months when I arrived. It was still clean. And you could walk all the way down the steps to the water without slipping on slick algae and breaking your neck if you weren’t careful.

  All the housing containers had been removed but there were still leftover things inside the permanent building on the middle level. Clothes, and blankets, and even a deck of cards. And there was the kitchen, of course. Bathrooms, too. Those were built into the frame of the topside for electrical reasons, and couldn’t be disconnected.

  Food, on the other hand, that was hard to come by. The
re was no leftover food on the rig and it would take me weeks before I successfully caught my first fish down on the lowest platform using a steel beam as a spear and a discarded net that was stuck on the rig’s frame, just above sea level.

  But that wasn’t what kept me alive.

  The bird kept me alive.

  Just one bird back then. One wayward albatross who should’ve been on the other side of the world. His wing was bent in a weird way and he didn’t fly very well. I don’t know how he got here, since the natural habitat of the royal albatross is sub-Antarctic and this rig is equatorial, but he was here. And he could still fly—just not well enough to go home.

  I think he knew I was in the same position. So we were in it together.

  I gave him water and he brought me food like I was his chick.

  Little fishes. Little disgusting fishes that he spit out and I swallowed whole, so I didn’t have to chew. And even though I could’ve talked to the bird, I didn’t. Not at first. He didn’t say anything either. It was like we both knew there was no fucking point. We were stuck here and that was that.

  I liked it. I won’t admit that to anyone, but I liked it out here on the Rock. It was my first real taste of freedom. For the very first time I was in charge of my life.

  Udulf came back months later, expecting me to be dead and only there to drop off another disobedient house boy who was actually thrown off the rig and disappeared into the dark, choppy water without ceremony before we left.

  By that time, I didn’t want to leave.

  That bird, he was the only family I had left.

  That was the last time I cried.

  And that is how I learned to be silent.

  When I finally got off the Rock, I was taken to Udulf’s training camp. Apparently, in Udulf’s world, you are either a house boy or a gym boy, and he had decided that I was a gym boy.

  His camp back then was nothing like my camp right now. And it would take me ten long years before I had won enough fights and killed enough boys to earn my own camp.

  But on that flight from the Rock to the shore, Udulf had come up with a new way to separate the wheat from the chaff, thanks to me. Every boy from then on would do three months on the Rock. Alone.

  He lost a lot of boys that way. But they were disposable, weren’t they? And anyway, that was in my favor. Because if any of them had come back, they would be formidable opponents.

  Pavo Vervonal was the first to make it off the Rock, but by that time, I was nearly eight and he was just five. He followed me around like a sad, lost puppy when they brought him back but he was sold just a few months later so I never thought about him much. I don’t know if Lazar was the one who bought him originally, it doesn’t matter. The point was, Pavo had earned his place as wheat and that fight last night was nineteen years in the making.

  It’s hard to believe that it’s over.

  Almost too good to be true.

  Anya is staring at me. Then her eyes drift down to the hose in my hands. She looks disoriented and confused.

  I would not call her clean, but the blood and the paint has been stripped off her flesh. She is red now, not pale. And for the first time, I take a good long look at her body.

  Her breasts are firm and her nipples are bunched up into tight peaks. Her hips are wide and her waist is narrow. Her hair is blonde, but looks brown now that it’s wet.

  She is pretty. Even like this, and without recalling her from yesterday when I had just arrived on the ship, I can see her beauty. I can see why Lazar kept her around long after her usefulness wore off.

  He could’ve sold her. And she would’ve fetched a lot of money if her buyer wasn’t put off by her silence.

  But Lazar kept her long past her, for lack of a better word, usefulness. And then he chose to put her up as a sacrifice.

  Why? Was he really so sure that Pavo would beat me and she would not be killed? Or was it something else?

  Anya steps forward, reaching for the hose, and I have to shake myself out of my introspection. It happens to me out here. I lose myself in the open sea, and the wind, and the birds.

  There are a lot of birds now. Not all of them albatrosses. Lots of gulls too. And is it irony or fate that this old rig has turned into an unsanctioned breeding colony of vulnerable wayward seabirds?

  I don’t know. But I smile about it anyway.

  I slip my shorts down my legs and stand still. Most of the paint and blood has melted away with the sweat from the day’s workout. But it has left filthy, disgusting streaks down my legs.

  Anya turns the hose on and it hits my body at full force, making me take several steps backward and grab at my ribs.

  She turns it off and shakes her head. Like she didn’t mean to do that.

  I sign to her. Go ahead. I’m OK. She doesn’t understand the first part, but everyone knows the sign for OK.

  The hose hits me again. This time, she has figured out the mechanism for pressure, and while it’s still strong and it still hurts, it’s nothing I can’t handle.

  I place both my hands on top of my head and stand there, naked and with my eyes closed, as she washes me off.

  When she’s done, I coil the hose back up, hang it on the hook, and then nod for her to follow me. It’s not the best way to get clean here on the Rock, but it’s the only way to fully enjoy what comes next.

  We go down to the training level, but this time I take her in to the building. It’s dark, so I prop the door open with a large rock, sign for her to stay put, and then I turn and walk forward down the hallway.

  There isn’t a whole lot to this building. It’s got the switch for the generator, which lives in the small building on the top level. A lavatory with about a dozen urinals and a few stalls, minus the showers, since the living quarter containers that used to populate this rig all had private bathrooms. A clinic that is mostly stocked. And a small kitchen that was only used for the construction crew, because when a rig is running it has a proper mess container.

  I find the switch, kick it on, and the whole place comes to life with a rumble.

  Back in the hallway I flick on the lights and find Anya standing in the open doorway where I left her. She looks me up and down, and I do the same. Like we’re both just now noticing the other is naked.

  We are also both still wet. And she is shivering a little. I should probably give her a towel, but it’s not really necessary.

  I beckon her with a crooked finger and then disappear into the kitchen. She follows me, standing in a new doorway now, just watching as I take things out of the cupboards and hold them out for her to see.

  I’m not your fucking cook, these gestures say. I will cook for you tonight because you’re new. But I’m not your fucking cook. So take notice of where I find these things and what I do with them.

  I think she gets it because she unconsciously sneers her lip as she watches my hands.

  I show her how to wait for the water to run clear when I turn on the tap. I show her how to make rice in the small cooker. I show her the pre-packaged dehydrated meat. And then, when everything is cooking, I nod my head and make her follow me down the hallway again.

  There is one more room to show her today. The best room. The whole reason why we hose off first.

  And when she sees the tub, and when I turn on the water and it begins to steam, she sighs. No. She fucking moans.

  I chuckle out loud.

  It’s not a bathtub, it’s a therapy tub. Meant for athletes, not spa days. But the end result is the same. Warm, pampered muscles after a long day of work.

  Anya leans against the door frame as the tub fills and I go searching through cupboards for soap and shampoo. We don’t keep anything fancy here and for a moment I wish we did. It was a long day for her and she didn’t complain. So I want to make her feel better—or at least understand that what I do here has a purpose and it’s got nothing to do with torture. Luxury soaps and lotions are just an easy way to do that. But Anya doesn’t seem to care that the toiletries are industrial
-grade.

  I hold out my hand. She pushes off the door frame and walks towards me, accepts my help as she walks up the four wooden steps, and then squeezes my hand as she swings her leg over and lowers herself into the hot water.

  I climb in after her and we settle on benches placed opposite. The water hits her mid-waist so I have a very nice view of her breasts. If this bothers her, she doesn’t show it.

  And why should it bother her? She is a Bokori house slave. An old one, for sure. So she probably hasn’t been touched in a while. But she was raised naked. Like me.

  They do that to strip us of any lingering sense of self. To make us into things to be used. To take away our humanity.

  And once it’s gone, it doesn’t matter what happens next. It doesn’t matter if the nicest man alive buys you, takes you into his home, treats you like a person, gives you plenty to eat, and never even looks at your body like it is just a thing to be used.

  It does not matter how good it gets after that first shattering.

  You don’t come back from that. You are dead inside. And you are a killer on the outside.

  Anya Bokori is a killer. And so am I.

  She straddled Pavo Vervonal last night and thrust a knife into his gut. I practically cut off his head five seconds later and then ripped his body open and tore out his heart.

  There is no happy ending for us.

  A tub of hot water on a rock in the middle of a dark ocean with birds that look like they came right out of Jurassic Park flying overhead, ready to pick apart your half-dead body and feed it to their chicks—this is about as good as it gets.

  Anya washes herself quickly. She soaps up her hair and dunks under to rinse it off. And in less than three minutes she is done. Her blue eyes find mine, filled to the brim with questions.

  She looks at me like she doesn’t know what to do next.

  I’m more careful. My ribs are actually screaming at this point. I overworked them today and every time I draw in a breath, a sharp pain shoots through my upper body.