by Locket, V.
He knew. I don’t know if Gretel had told him, or if he’d guessed, but he knew. I think a part of me had known the moment I saw him still sitting there, on the hay. And every cell in my body knew when I felt the sting of his fist hit the side of my face.
Iron filled my mouth as my teeth cut through my cheek like a serrated knife. I stumbled back, leaned over, spit blood, then stood.
Standing was not the smartest move, but then again, I wanted to be punished for what I’d done. I wanted to die for it. If I was dead, I’d never have to face that look on her face again. I wouldn’t dirty her more with this tainted lust. I wouldn’t be haunted by these dark feelings that I couldn’t fight anymore. My desire poisoned the love I felt when I looked at her, and turned it into something obsessive and destructive.
Otto hit me again on the other side of my face, then kicked me in the gut. I groaned as I doubled over, falling back onto the hay.
“You’re not going to say anything in your defense?” He asked, standing above me.
I glanced up at him. It hurt to open my eye. Hurt to move.
Otto grabbed my shirt and hauled me up so that we were eye to eye. “Answer my fucking question!”
“I’m not.” My voice sounded like a little boy’s. Something flickered past Otto’s eyes. Something I couldn’t quite see, because my eyes ached too much to keep open. Even the sunlight felt like it was beating me.
“How could you do that to her?” He whispered. “She’s your sister.”
But we aren’t related! I wanted to scream, not that that mattered to anyone in the town. It probably would have been more acceptable if we were related.
“You think I don’t know that?” I cried. “You think I haven’t known that every day for my entire life? You think I don’t wake up knowing it? That I don’t spend each moment beside her knowing it? Each moment that I want to fucking touch her and I can’t?”
“But you did touch her.” His voice was a little softer than it had been, though not less angry.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I did. I fucked her. I made her my little whore.”
Otto threw me on the ground and began to kick. After he landed one blow to my stomach, I instinctively curled into a ball, though I did nothing else to deflect his blows. The sting felt almost sacred, the pain spreading through me, the pain I was too weak to give myself, but I knew I deserved for touching something so beautiful that could never belong to me.
Otto stopped. “I’m going to Gretel’s house tonight, and I’m asking for her hand in marriage.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
“You obviously can’t live in the same house as her anymore. I love her. I will provide—”
I didn’t let him finish. Couldn’t stand to hear what he had to say next. I threw myself at him, punching and kicking furiously. I even landed a few. “You can’t,” I said, when I was on top of him, my eyes looking at him wildly. “Don’t you dare fucking touch her!”
“Why? Because she belongs to you? You should have heard the twisted shit she said to me. You’re a monster.”
Maybe I was, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t let anyone touch Gretel. No one else could have her. “Stay away from her,” I hissed.
Otto shoved me off. “It’s a little late to play the role of the distraught, overprotective brother.”
“You don’t understand anything!” I said, jumping back at him. “You think you understand love? You know nothing of it. Nothing.”
Otto studied my face quietly. “I don’t like to admit it,” he whispered, “but I can see that you care for her in your own twisted way. But you can’t bring her into a world like that. She deserves better.”
My head fell down on his shirt. Blood dripped from my chin onto his neck, staining his shirt. “You don’t understand how much I...”
“You can’t do this to yourself, or to her,” Otto said, pushing me back. He groaned. “Somehow, knowing you feel this way makes it all worse.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“You can’t be around her anymore,” he reasoned.
“Don’t do this. Please. I’ll stay away, just don’t take her. Not yet.”
“You’re sick, Hansel, and you’re driving her insane. You should have seen the way she held me when she was just thinking about you. I thought she’d been attacked.”
I shivered. She had been attacked. By me.
“You’ll drive her mad,” he repeated. “She needs to leave, needs to have a life outside of you. I don’t really care what the fuck you do, as long as you stay away from her. It’s not right.”
I didn’t need my friend to tell me that. I knew it, and yet... “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I whispered, holding my battered face in my hands. Blood was all over the dry earth. All over the hay.
“Wash yourself. You can’t be seen out like this,” Otto whispered. “And if you want to live, stay away from her.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that when we live in the same house?”
“She won’t be in your house much longer,” Otto vowed. “Until then, think of something.”
Chapter 5: One Last Time
Gretel
I WAS UPSTAIRS, HUGGING my pillow on my bed, when I heard the door open. Uneven footsteps limped up the staircase. The bathroom door hit the wall, and someone turned on the sink.
Hansel, I thought, my heart racing. He was home. Had he finished doing those things to Rosalind? Is that why he’d come home? With shaking arms, I gripped the pillow tighter.
He turned off the sink, then nothing. No other sound.
So he hadn’t come to talk to me. I guess he wouldn’t need me, not when he had someone else who could tame his fever. I pressed my palms to my eyes until I saw green and purple swirls in the darkness. Did I mean so little to him? Did he hate me? Is that why he did it? Is that why he mixed those feelings of pain and pleasure so expertly, because he wanted to torment me?
I hadn’t realized I’d gotten up until I stepped into the hallway. What was I doing? I couldn’t possibly see him, not when he’d just done those things with someone else. But then, I couldn’t just stand here, guessing what had happened, torturing myself. I wanted to know how he felt. If I meant so little to him, the least he could do is tell me why.
I stepped into the bathroom. “Hansel.”
He didn’t look up from the sink. “Not now, Gretel.”
I shivered. Last night, my name had been so full of feeling whenever he’d said it. Now, it was like he was using it to create distance between us.
Then, I noticed that the sink was pink.
“Hansel,” I shrieked, running towards him. He gripped the edges of the sink. “Hansel,” I whispered, tilting up his face by force.
His eyes were puffy and purple. Raw. He’d cut his upper eyelid, and blood leaked down the side of his face. His lip was busted.
“What happened to you?” I whispered.
“It doesn’t matter. I deserved it.”
I swallowed. “Did Rosalind do that to you?”
He laughed. “No, not her.” He grabbed my hands, but did not let go. “You need to leave.”
“Why?”
He shut his eyes and brought my palms to his face. “Because I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Be around you without touching you.” Finally, he dropped my hands. “I guess that won’t matter soon,” he whispered, and then walked to the door.
I followed him. “What are you talking about?” I asked, out of breath as I followed his fast pace down the stairs. He slammed the door shut and locked it.
“Hansel,” I screamed, pounding my fist on the door.
“Don’t follow me,” was his muffled reply.
I frowned and ran to the back door. I knew where he was going. There was only one place in that direction. That is, if he didn’t intend to go into the woods.
God, I hoped he didn’t intend to go into the woods.
I ran, barefoot, ignoring the sting of t
he rocks digging into the soles of my feet. They were bleeding—I knew that much—and it slowed me down. I’d been so stupid not to grab a pair of shoes. Too far to go back now. I had to get to him. Had to reach him.
The shadows were growing longer. Most of the day had already passed. People would be going home soon. I stumbled into the door of the shed and pushed on the wooden handle. “Hansel,” I whimpered, out of breath.
He was there, just as I knew he would be, in the center of the small room. It was close to the church. Close to where we’d done all of those things last night that had forever and irrevocably changed the relationship between us.
I winced as I took a step forward. The dust stung the soles of my feet. They were really torn up. Hopefully I wasn’t tracking blood across the floor. I’d hate to clean that up later.
“I told you not to come,” he said.
I bit my tongue and took another agonizing step forward.
“Why do you always come when I tell you not to? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because I can’t,” I said, wrapping my arms around him, resting my face in the center of his back. Under his shirt, I felt his muscles flex.
He sighed. “He’s coming for you tonight.”
It took a moment for me to realize he was talking to me. I lifted my head from his back. “Who’s coming?”
He laughed, or at least I thought he did. It was a short, dry sound, void of pleasure or humor. “Otto. He’s going to take you.”
My body felt cold. “Take me where?”
Hansel spun around and grabbed my wrists. “Where do you think?”
He took a few steps forward. I started to fall, and he grabbed my hips then pushed me up against the table on the edge of the room. He let go of my hips for a moment to spread my legs. They were still sore from the treatment they’d received last night. I sucked in a breath. He didn’t notice, or didn’t care. Once they were apart, he situated himself between them.
“Do you know where we are, Gretel?” he asked, breathless.
I looked up into his dark eyes. They looked even darker now that the sun was setting. Darker because we were in the shed, without even a candle for a light. The church had been this dark, this quiet.
“The shed,” I whispered.
“You’re right,” he said, slipping a hand underneath my dress. I felt its pressure over my silk panties, pushing them into my skin, further into the forbidden area. No, that wasn’t what that was called—rather, he was pushing the silk into my cunt.
“This place is more than just the shed though,” he began. “This is where I take all my little whores. This is where I fuck them.”
My cunt started to ache. Nausea built in my stomach. So he had done that with other girls. So I wasn’t anything special. Why, then, did my body tingle like this? Why did it desire that pain that only he could give me? That pain that was sometimes beautiful, other times subtle, but always seared me. I hated him for doing it to me. Hated that I could feel this way when...
He pulled down my undergarments, exposing my cunt to the cold air. “No answer to that?” he whispered. His head was down by my thighs, and I felt his breath on the tip of my cunt. I moaned. “Do you like being my little whore? Is that why you follow me here, even though I begged you to stop?”
My hands trembled. I fisted his hair because I had to grab hold of something, and my body didn’t seem like it was real enough to grab onto. Under his touch, it didn’t feel like I belonged to myself—only that I belonged to him. Those ethereal feelings were already spreading through me, shooting form my center through my limbs, making me weak. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t special, I still felt it.
“I always want to be with you,” I admitted.
He glanced up, over the top of my body, into my eyes, and the expression in them made my heart ache. It wasn’t a beautiful ache—it wasn’t anything like how I felt when he touched me. Instead, it felt like someone had pulled a violin string from my heart to my stomach too tight and it had snapped. He didn’t look human, not entirely, not with his face all smashed up. More like some horrific forest creature. The kind that whisked young girls away. The kind the stories all told you to be weary of.
He looked down. “He’s taking you.” Again, those enigmatic words. “But I won’t let him have you, not completely.” He stood and pushed my stomach down, then undid the front of my dress again. This time I didn’t try to stop him, though I should have. Now that I knew it was nothing special, the pleasure that ran throughout my body felt hollow. I did my best to prevent my cheeks from blushing. I gripped my hands into fists to keep them from covering up the skin he exposed.
Hansel jumped on the table, on top of me. His hips covered mine. He planted his elbows on either side of my shoulders, then whispered near my ear, “I’m going to mark you so if he tries to take you—if he tries to love you—he’ll see me on your skin. He’ll know that you’re mine, and that he can’t have you. That he can’t take you from me.”
His voice broke. He was breathing too quickly. He looked crazed, like a man unhinged, like someone who had been pushed so far that they’d forgotten them self. My body began to panic. My heart beat too quickly, and yet I stayed completely still beneath him.
For some reason, looking at his horrific and frightening expression made me remember my love for him. I remembered his sweetness, his kindness, the feelings that no amount of time could cause to fade. Those feelings that would be with me always, no matter what happened.
He lowered himself over my body. Pain shot through my neck as he bit down. I cried out and he stuffed his hand over my mouth. “Quiet,” he whispered as he moved lower, to my breasts. He took one in the mouth, and bit and sucked. My toes curled and I winced, trying not to make a sound, as he continued to suck.
“Good girl,” he said. I looked down. There was a purple mark on my skin—was there one on my neck too?—and was he making another mark, on the other breast with his mouth right now?
He moved his hand over my jaw, then down my neck. He applied a bit of pressure, slightly choking me, as he pushed up more of my skirt. Then, he pulled down my undergarments and forced his dick in me.
My cunt squeezed around him as he entered, as if trying to simultaneously force him out and draw him in. I pushed my hips forward and he grabbed them with a bruising grip, holding them down on the table as he pierced me. “Don’t leave me, Gretel,” he pleaded, grabbing my hair so that I would look at him. “Don’t go to him.”
“Alright,” I said, barely connecting with what he said, but feeling like I should say something to keep that crazed look from consuming him. I hated seeing it there. I hated seeing him like that, as if he would break, as if the world had abandoned him. I would never abandon him, I thought, as I began to moan.
He grunted above me. His stomach over my stomach, his sweat sticking to my dress. He forced me to look at his face—at the pain in his eyes and the bruises fading with the growing shadows. I cried out and clung to him. The table we were on banged so hard and fast against the wall that I thought it would break.
“I won’t leave you,” I promised. Those words seemed to undo him. He moved even faster. Harder. A sliver dug into my cheek. He put his hand over my mouth, pushing it deeper into my skin. I bit down, tasted blood.
That painful pleasure mounted inside me, deepened with each thrust, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Those other girls didn’t matter. I was his little whore, no matter how much I hated him—no matter how much I loved him. I cried out in his arms, my cunt spasming around his dick. And then I heard his low growl as he thrust into me one last time.
“Gretel,” he whispered, placing his head upon my breast, finally at peace.
“I love you,” I said, running my fingers through his hair.
“It would be better if you didn’t,” he said. “It would be better if I hated you.”
“Don’t say that.” I wouldn’t be able to take it if he hated me.
He wrapped his arms around me and he
ld me tight. “It doesn’t matter how we feel. They’ll take you, Gretel. They’d kill you if they knew—”
I shut my eyes. “Don’t think about things like that right now.”
And then, we heard the scream.
Hansel bolted upright, but his legs were caught between my undergarments and my exposed body, so he couldn’t move away. Instead, he fell forward, back onto me, his dick sliding over my belly. I tried to push myself back, but my undergarments caught on his legs and I catapulted forward, slamming my sore cunt into his thighs. I cried out as I did it, and Hansel put his hand over my mouth, trying to gather my tattered dress with his hands to cover my breasts.
There were three women at the door, and four men. One of them was Rosalind.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. She sank back into the door, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.
What was going on? Why were they here? How had they...
One of the men—the pastor of our church—stepped forward and directed his finger at me. “Abomination,” he hissed.
Hansel lifted one leg and then the other, moving out of my undergarments. He stumbled forward. “This isn’t what this looks like.”
The pastor’s dark eyes trailed on me. “Seize her.”
“You don’t understand,” Hansel said, blocking the men’s path with his body. “I forced myself on her. Gretel is innocent.”
The other two men hesitated.
“Look at her neck! She has the mark of the devil!” The pastor called out.
“That’s just a hickey I gave her, you fucking old man! No, stop!” Hansel said, pushing against the men as they tried to move forward.
“Is that any way to speak to—”
“Run Gretel!” Hansel shouted, and attacked the two younger men.
I did, though it made me feel like a coward to leave him there to fend for himself. As it turned out, it was a futile move, and one I should not have made. At least then, I’d be able to stand beside him. I wouldn’t have felt like a traitor during our last moments together.
My feet were still bare, and they were badly cut and bruised. I jumped to the end of the shed, then immediately fell over, crying, as my bare feet hit the floor. I didn’t even reach the door. Seconds later I felt a strong grip on my arm and I was hauled back, into a cold, bony embrace.
