by Locket, V.
“Gretel.” He rubbed the small of my back. It should have been a soothing gesture. It made my skin itch, crawl, feel unbearably hot.
“Otto,” I said his name to give myself confidence, I think. “Is Rosalind Hansel’s little whore?”
His hand stopped moving.
“Is he...are they...is he...I mean...is he fucking her face right now? Is he sticking his cock in her cunt?”
Silence.
I began to shiver. Suddenly, all of the heat that had been dripping down my body felt cold as ice. It felt like an eternity before he spoke. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” I whispered. “Please, don’t make me say it again.”
More silence.
“Where did you hear such words, Gretel?”
My cheeks flushed. I felt his hand squeeze into a fist right next to my skin. A few strands of my long hair were caught in his fist. He hadn’t meant it, of course. They’d been stuck to my back, and probably had stuck to his palm when he rubbed me, but they were there, and when he made his fist those hairs were pulled. The pain reminded me of that time in the church just last night when Hansel had pushed his cock up my cunt. When he had whispered words I knew never to repeat.
I’d thought those words mysterious and beautiful. Shocking. At that time, I wondered if they were words just the two of us knew, because they seemed to perfectly explain that fragile, painful, exquisite thing that existed between us.
But he’d gone off with another woman, and I’d spoken those words aloud, to another—another who obviously knew what they meant, and who was angry about it. Suddenly, the magic those words had had over me was lost, and they seemed common—no, less than common, like a beautiful thing that had been shattered and then reluctantly thrown away.
“Gretel, where did you hear such words?” he repeated.
I stood. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He grabbed my wrist. “No. You need to tell me where exactly you heard them.”
“I don’t want to.” I looked down. My throat felt tight, and my eyes too dry. There was too much dust in the field. It was irritating my corneas, making it difficult to see.
I didn’t try to throw off his hand. I don’t know why. I hated his grip on me, and yet, I couldn’t move. Some hot, disturbing feeling was welling in my stomach.
“Gretel,” he lowered his voice. “Is one of the boys from town bothering you?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“You can tell me if one is. I want you to tell me.”
“It wasn’t a boy from town.”
He sucked in a breath. His grip on me tightened. “Was it a woman?”
“No! Otto, it’s nothing. Forget I said it.”
He stood. For a moment, he stopped grabbing my wrist. I should have run then, but I didn’t. Instead I stood, as still as I had before, as he put his hands on my shoulders and spun me around to face him. “How the fuck can I forget you said some thing like that?”
My bottom lip trembled. He stepped back, and his grip loosened, and fell to my hands. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s fine. I should go.”
He didn’t let go. “I’m not going to let you leave until you tell me where you heard it.”
“I don’t want to.” Now my voice was shaking. He flinched for a moment, but I could tell by the determined look in his eyes—and the regret in them—that he wasn’t going to let me leave until I did.
“Just tell me, Gretel. It’s a boy, isn’t it? Does he say things that make you uncomfortable?”
“Stop it,” I wailed.
He swallowed, and his voice got hard. “Does he ever do things to you that make you uncomfortable?”
“I said stop!”
“Gretel, who is it? Is it Joseph?”
“No, it’s not Joseph!” If my hands were free, I would have slammed them over my mouth. I’d just admitted that I’d heard those words from someone. No, not just someone, but a man.
My mind raced as Otto’s eyes narrowed. “Who is it?”
“It isn’t someone bad,” I said quickly.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“It’s none of your business!”
“Like hell it isn’t!” He looked over at the trees. “Do you know what Hansel would do if he knew someone was talking to you like that?”
“He doesn’t care!” I shouted back.
“Like hell he wouldn’t care! Do you have any idea what you just said means? I don’t even want to know where you heard such a thing.”
“Then let me go,” I begged.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Gretel, just tell me.”
I shook my head and stumbled forward, into Otto’s arms. “No. It doesn’t matter. Just forget I said it. I just wanted to know if he did those things to her. If he said those things...”
I couldn’t think anymore. In my head, I saw Hansel and Rosalind, moving together in the shade of the big trees. On the ground, their knees dirty. Him, tearing her skirt as he urgently pushed it up over her hips. Her body, accepting him as he thrust into her. As he fucked her.
Did her legs get tight when he fucked her? Did her cunt ache? Did he feed that ache with his cock until it hurt? Until it hurt so badly that it felt good and she never wanted it to stop? Did he rip her apart and then put her back together again? Did he whisper that she was his, that she would always be his? Did he brand all the girls like that? Was that all I meant to him?
I rung my hands in Otto’s shirt. He’d let go of my wrists when I fell forward, and now his hands were on my back, and he was holding me close to him. I could feel his heartbeat thumping. It reminded me of when Hansel had collapsed on me in the church.
In the back of my mind, I saw his face as he rammed into me that last time on the altar. I saw the reverent look in his eyes as he looked down at my body. I’d never been exposed to someone like that. Not since I was a child, and back then it had also been with him. And I felt precious, sacred, because it was him that I was naked in front of. Hansel, who knew everything about me, who always was there for me.
“I thought those things were special. I thought they meant something. I’d never felt anything like it before. He said I couldn’t tell anyone. He said that everything would be ruined if I told.”
Otto gripped me harder. “You can tell me, Gretel. You can tell me anything.”
“I can’t. I belong to him now. He was right. I’m ruined.”
His heart started to beat faster. “You don’t belong to anyone but yourself,” Otto said firmly. “No one can ruin you. No matter what they do to you, they can’t ruin you.”
“You don’t know what happened!”
“I think I have a pretty good idea,” he said softly.
“No, you don’t!” I pushed him away and looked at the woods. “I just wanted to know if he had other little whores. If he fucked everyone’s face. If he’s in the woods, fucking her face right now! Fucking her cunt with his dick! If he’s just...”
“Wait, Gretel, are you talking about Hansel?”
I stopped. My eyes went wide and I stumbled back, my hand over my mouth.
Otto took a step forward.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
He raised his hands. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.” He swallowed. “Was Hansel the one who said those things to you.”
I couldn’t look at him.
“Did he do those things to you, Gretel? Did he tell you that you were ruined?”
I couldn’t move. Still couldn’t look at him. Luckily, he didn’t try to touch me again.
“You’re not ruined, Gretel,” he said softly. “But you might want to go home now.”
I glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not mad at you. I just don’t think you should be here when Hansel gets back.”
“Why?”
“He and I have some things to talk about.” Otto handed me the discarded lunch I h
adn’t finished. The one he’d given to me when I first sat down. His lunch. “Here, you can take this with you.”
I took it, though I didn’t thin I could eat it. No, I had to. It was a beautiful lunch. Expensive. It shouldn’t be wasted.
“You’re beautiful, Gretel,” he said, just before I turned around to leave. “And it doesn’t matter what Hansel told you. Nothing in this world can ruin you. You don’t belong to him or anyone but yourself.”
***
Hansel
ROSALIND WAS CRYING. I should have expected that. I should have prepared myself for it. But I couldn’t stand seeing a woman cry. It tore up every cell inside of me. It didn’t matter how much I prepared myself. I still felt like an asshole, and every part of me wanted to run to her and make her feel better. But I couldn’t, because that would give her false hope.
“I can’t be with you anymore. I can’t be with anybody. It’s not you. You’re wonderful and beautiful, Rosalind.”
“Who is it then?” She whimpered. “You have another girl, don’t you? Who is it?”
I glanced down. That was something I could never answer. And I didn’t have that other girl, not that she would know or understand. It didn’t matter how many times I took Gretel. It didn’t matter how much I touched her, how close I was to her. I would never have her. Not completely. She was for someone else. I had to accept that, and being with other women just didn’t do it for me. It never would. And, in all honesty, after being with Gretel, I didn’t want to cheapen her feelings or mine, or betray what we had, by being with someone else. Especially someone she loved and I cared so much for, like her best friend.
“It is another girl,” Rosalind said softly. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“It’s not what you think,” I said softly.
“Do you fuck her?” Her voice was rising. “Is that why you never wanted to fuck my cunt? Because you had someone else?”
“Stop it.”
Her hands flew to her chest. They fumbled over her buttons as she began undoing the front of her dress, exposing the creamy skin of her breasts and her white corset beneath. I tried to get to her, but not before she’d already slipped the top off her shoulders. Her nipples poked out of the top of the corset, and her firm, round breasts looked so plump and soft—as plump and soft as I knew them to be.
I turned away from her. “Put your clothes back on.”
Rosalind wasn’t listening. “Does she do things to you that I won’t do?”
“That really has nothing to do with it.”
She got on her knees before me, just as she’d done the first time, and many times since then. I looked at that mouth—that beautiful mouth that had sucked my dick. My dick remembered the feeling of her tongue, rolling around the rim. The feeling of the back of her throat as she took it all the way in her mouth. She was good at sucking cock. She liked it. She wanted it to be the last cock she’d ever suck, and she’d sucked it often. She loved the taste of my cum, she’d said, and I believed her because every time after she swallowed, she’d smile.
Her hands reached up to my trousers. I backed up with disgust, though all that disgust was for myself, not her.
She wasn’t deterred. “Do you remember when you fucked my ass two weeks ago?”
I remembered. I didn’t want to, but I remembered. It was so fucking tight, and we’d been in the back of her parents’ pantry. No one was home, and she’d leaned over her daddy’s work table, and hiked up her skirt. Without saying anything, she’d grabbed my already erect cock through my trousers and ran it up the side of her ass.
I couldn’t fuck her cunt. I knew that much. She didn’t want to have any trouble before she was married, which was smart, in my opinion. But, she said, she’d let me have her ass.
I knew it wasn’t her first time. It wasn’t my first time, either, but the moment had felt more intimate than any other time I’d been with a woman. Perhaps it was because this was Gretel’s best friend, the closest thing I’d ever get to her. Perhaps because her hair smelled like apples. She spread her legs. I grabbed her hips and entered her from behind. The work table had groaned. The air tasted like dust as I sucked in my breath, but her bare shoulder tasted like apples. My Gretel’s apples.
I’d had to bite my lip to keep myself from saying Gretel’s name. And then, when I tasted blood, I kissed the back of this other woman’s neck as I thrust into her, softly, as softly as I could. It was how I’d always wanted to fuck Gretel. Really softly. Sweetly. To show her I loved her, and would love her more than anyone else ever would.
I wrapped my arms around her stomach and held her breasts. I think Rosalind was startled by how gentle I was being. How loving. She’d offered her ass, and here I was, making love to her. And she rocked her hips back into mine. She’d whimpered and said my name. She’d said it was alright to go fast. That I could let go.
I wanted to let go. My thrusts had quickened, and she’d tightened her ass each time I pulled out, pulling on my cock as I shoved it in deeper. And then I’d emptied myself into her, my substitute. I left my hands on my hips and rested my lips on the nape of her neck.
I love you, I thought, only I hadn’t thought it. I’d said it.
And then, after a few moments of startled silence, she’d said I love you too.
Rosalind got on the ground, spread her legs and arched her hips up in the air. She looked over her shoulder, her hair mussed, her eyes big, her lips puffy and her cheeks red from crying. Her tits were out of her corset now, but were still pushed up by it. Her bare shoulders were peeking out.
“You can fuck me,” she whispered. “You can do anything you want to me. You can fuck my cunt if you want to. Is that why you want her? Because she’ll let you do anything to her? I’ll let you do anything to me too.”
“I can’t,” I said, and I was surprised to realize it was true. A part of me wanted her, still. Wanted to take what she offered. Wanted to use her. And that part of me disgusted myself to the extent that I couldn’t even get hard when I looked at her. It was a cruel, disgusting impulse. I had no right to hurt an honest girl. And more than that, I couldn’t cheapen what I felt for Gretel.
Gretel would marry. I wanted her to. But I didn’t want her to feel like I’d used her. And so I wouldn’t be with anyone else. Not for a long time, and maybe not ever. It would probably be easier than I thought it would be, because after having the real thing, even just the thought of going to a substitute sickened me.
Rosalind’s hands gripped the dust. She lowered her head onto the ground. Her tears were mixing with the dirt, making mud on her cheeks. “Why did you say you loved me?”
I had no answer to that.
“Why did you say that to me, Hansel? Do you really hate me that much?”
“No,” I whispered. “It was a mistake. I’m no good for you. No good for anyone, really.”
“I don’t care that you’re no good. I want you!” She cringed and dug her fingers into the ground, scraping it. “Please, don’t leave me.”
I got on my knees beside her, facing away from her body. The shadows of the trees looked like bars on her back. “You’re beautiful, Rosalind. I don’t know a guy in this town who wouldn’t love to be with you. Who wouldn’t cherish you.”
“But you don’t,” she whispered. “Am I not beautiful enough?”
“It has nothing to do with that. I can’t be with anyone anymore.” That was as close to the truth that I was willing to go.
She got up and rubbed her dirty hands on her dress, trying to smooth it, but all she did was smear more dirt on it. “Now look at me,” she said, laughing. “People will think we came into the woods to fuck.”
“Many girls run around with dirty skirts.”
She took a few steps forward, her back facing me. “I did come here to fuck, though. Except we didn’t. It just looks like we did. It’s so silly.” She took a deep breath. “Who is she, Hansel?”
The image of the hurt in my Gretel’s eyes as she looked between Rosalind and me
flashed before me. Gretel knew. In that moment, she recognized what it was that I’d never wanted her to see, and she’d felt bad about herself. And I couldn’t go to her and make her feel better. I couldn’t comfort her. The only thing I could do was protect her with my silence, and my neglect.
“There’s no other girl for me,” I said. “You should go back first. I’ll wait a while.”
“Fine. You can eat the lunch I made for you,” she said.
“I don’t think I can—”
“I don’t want it back,” she snapped. And then she took off, so quickly she almost fell. I guess she thought that, even though I couldn’t see her face, I might notice she was crying, and she didn’t want me to see it.
I watched her go, then sat down and ate her sandwiches, trying to fill the emptiness in my heart with food I couldn’t taste.
***
Hansel
IT WAS A GOOD HALF HOUR before I left the woods. Everyone should have gone back to work, but Otto was waiting for me, sitting on the hay, looking at the ground. A tremor shot through me. “Hey. Didn’t think you’d still be here.”
Otto kicked his toe into the dirt. “While we were eating lunch, Gretel asked me something.”
I froze. No, it couldn’t be. Gretel wouldn’t say anything about it, would she? The distressed look on her face filled my mind. Those big, begging blue eyes. That trembling lip.
“Do you want to know what she said?”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t answer.
“She asked if Rosalind was your little whore. Wanted to know if you fucked her.”
The blood drained out of my face.
“You’re looking a little pale, friend,” Otto said, standing. He stood almost a head taller than me. He was one of the biggest men in the village, and he loved Gretel. I’d had to watch him lust after her for the past five years. He’d tried to hide it, so it wasn’t like I could beat him up for looking at her like I could with the other guys. Besides, I was under no delusion that I stood a chance against Otto. Not that I’d ever really thought that way before, because he’d never looked at me the way he looked at me now—eyes dark, narrow, and out for blood. My blood.
“You also don’t look nearly as surprised, or as angry, as you should if some guy had said those things to your beloved little Gretel.”
