Page 101 of Viripotent

He doesn’t hear and more spit lands on me, it sticks to my hair, and I can’t breathe with the sheets covering my mouth.

“Vlad!”

Liking Vlad’s anger isn’t the same as this. He’s not doing it knowing it’s me and that’s what fucking hurts. He’s using my body imagining someone else and I scrape my nails against his thighs, so he seesme. He doesn’t react and I do it harder reaching for any part of him I can as he alternates betweenspitting on me and cursing me in Russian with each punishing thrust.

“Gryaznaya.”

The springs creek and spit lands on my shoulder.

“Chertova.”

My tears are soaking into the sheets as he pushes me deeper into them.

“Shlyukha.”

My sob forces the words out in a scream.

“VLAD! Stop!”

He freezes again, the tension leaving his muscles before being replaced by something weighing them down. I wince as he gently pulls out of me and softens his hold on my hair. I try to stop my tears, but they slip into my mouth and soak into the sheets under me. The soreness settles in and the violence behind me is deathly still. He’s back in his body and he hesitates as his hand ghosts over my spit-laden face.

THIRTY-NINE

Vlad

Hearing Inessa repeat what haunts me is the last thing I fucking remember. There’s pink running down her thighs and for a split second I think I’ve become the thing I despise. Blood coats my body, but it’s the color on her perfect skin that has me sinking. I can’t see her face and she’s not moving. Her head is buried in the sheets because I fucking held her there. The sheets under her face are wet, tears. Fuck, she’s going to have blank eyes. Why does she always have to fucking talk?!

The little lines where the strands bit into my skin show how badly I fucked up as I untangle her hair from my fingers. When her back moves with her breathing, I relax and turn her so she’s on her side. My mouth opens automatically, an apology trying to form, but it doesn’t leave. What I can’t do verbally, I do physically and press my lips to her forehead with a promise of not losing control again.

There’s blood all over the sheets but she’ll be cold without anything covering her and I pull them up to her chin before leaving. An iron band wraps itself around my chest and I can’tdraw in a breath as I leave her there. I leave her on her fucking side with tears streaming down her face and blood on her skin. It’s the one thing I would never do, and I fucking did it.

I’ve made myself into the biggest cunt to exist to prevent this fucking shit. Fear would stop anyone attempting to get close or trying to pay bullshit compliments. Becoming the devil kept it all away and it would never fucking happen again. I turned pain into fucking power and now it’s pain again. But it’s not my own, it’s Inessa’s and I can’t see blank eyes. Blank eyes will destroy me, they’ll be the biggest death I’ve had to encounter in my adult life.

Pushing into the private office with too much force has the lock snapping in my hand. The useless fucking thing should be able to withstand force, it’s a lock, for fuck’s sake. Violence sits under my skin, and I know the remedy as I load the server. One of the sick fuckers can be my outlet, some creepy little fuck who is loved and respected by the community while getting their rocks off to people’s torment.

My usual search has new results that have me hesitating. It’s always the same still shown at the beginning of the video, but there’s one that’s different. Younger. Needing to torture myself, my hand moves and the memory I didn’t know I had comes back with the video playing.

5 years old

Mama pullson my arm as we leave the prison. It hurts my shoulder, but I stare at the guard’s gun. They’re like the movies and I want one. If you have a gun, then no one comes near you. Maybe mama would stop pulling my arm if I had one. She doesn’t though, she keeps tugging until my shoulder burns. When I’m bigger I’ll have a gun and she’ll have to be like other mamas.

I know she’s angry and keep my head down on the walk home. Papa said he’s the man of the house and I’m not allowed to lie to him, but mama didn’t want him to know that her friend has been staying in her room. They make weird noises, and he smells funny. Sometimes it’s in my room when I wake up, but he doesn’t sleep in my room. He must smell really bad if it goes through the walls. Sometimes mama smells like the bad smell too, but she smells of flowers today. She always smells like flowers when we visit papa.

I keep walking and looking at my shoes and try to think if papa likes flowers. He said boys aren’t allowed to like them so he can’t. But mama doesn’t like them. I gave her some, but she put me outside and called me stupid. It’s always the same words—stupid, worth less, bastard. I hum in my head. I heard the song at school, and I like it. One boy got scared, thinking the wolf was really going to drag him into the forest. He’s stupid. It’s a song, they’re not real, and it doesn’t say the forest is bad, just that the wolf will take you there. It might have guns and be good.

Mama doesn’t shout outside, and I walk slower, hoping it stops her being angry when we get home. She lets go of my hand and I stay behind her. There are shops that we always walk past since papa had to move into the prison, and there’s a bakery with a big ptichye moloko in the window. I want it. IfI had a gun, I’d make them give me it and then mama would be happy if I shared with her. She wouldn’t shout or put me outside all night again.

Walking faster, I slip my hand in hers. It’s cold and mine are always warm so she won’t feel the snow. It makes her look down, but there’s no smile. I don’t think mama has ever smiled at me. She smiles at Piotr and laughs with him. But not me.It’s weird because he smells and I don’t smell, but she doesn’t smile at me.

She’ll smile at me when I’m big and strong. I’ll get her the cake and then she’ll definitely smile at me. No one is sad when they have cake. Or I’ll let her shoot my gun and she’ll definitely smile then. They’re fun even when I play on my fingers.

I try to get the ptichye moloko and I smile now as I pull on her hand and point at the bakery.

“Can I have that?”

She shakes her head and I try to convince her.

“For my birthday?”

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