Brick, Mortar, and Bruises

"You're so pretty like this dove, bent over and bruised, quivering in fear, gasping in pain. I could slap your puffy bruise of a cunt, slap it until you'd get your slutty little cunt wet for me, but I won't, don't worry. I won't - because right now all I want is to pound you hard."

He was true to his words and fucked her brutally. Throughout it all he had to do what she most hated, clamp her mouth and nose shut simultaneously to keep her from screeching when his pelvis slammed against her inflamed crotch. The pain was worse than death, and yet she felt so owned, so taken, when he forced himself on her despite knowing full well how horribly painful it was for her. And, while listening to her own screams ringing in her head once more, she came to accept that whatever the circumstances, he could fuck her at will. It was his right. And her duty. Also she saw that no matter how much he'd already hurt her, he could always hurt her more, and make it feel intimate.

She wondered which of them was sicker to allow this to go on.

After Anni had taken his load and staggered off to the shower, Raduz sat on her bed. Her notebook was lying on the table and he picked it up and started absently leafing through it. It was full of words he couldn't understand, except one, his own name, over and over staring back at him from every page. He stared at her diary in silence, all her thoughts, memories, fears, dreams and nightmares littered with his name. If he was in over his head, then so was she.

The way she'd looked at him when he allowed her to stand up and leave for the shower told him that he'd failed to beat love out of her. And he most certainly didn't have the power to beat it out of himself or he would have done so already. The only thing he could do to destroy what was budding between them was to send her away to a life from which she'd never return as the same person again. To do to her something which would truly make her hate him forever. Only that way he could keep his life from changing from what it had been before her arrival.

Anni sat on her bed, fidgeting in nervous anticipation. Raduz had told her to stay in her room when the others left for the site and she didn't know why. A week had passed since they slept together in his bed, but so far Raduz had flatly refused to talk about it -- and about the beating that followed. The whole thing was insane. She knew he cared about her, she could see it in the way he looked at her, hear it in the way he talked to her, and yet, he fought it harder than was humanly conceivable. She needed to know what was going on and she needed to know soon, for time was running out. Hopeful that he might be ready to talk now she kept glancing at the door, waiting to hear his footsteps from the corridor.

When Raduz finally entered her room he had someone with him. Anni stood up, instantly wary. She hadn't known they were expecting a visitor, and didn't like the hunger with which the Arab's eyes were assessing her. This didn't bode well.

"I want you to meet a friend of mine," Raduz said flatly, sounding like a complete stranger, cold and indifferent. Not one bit like the man who'd nursed her not too many nights ago.

Anni hadn't forgotten his past threats of 'friends' and new commissions and understood at once what he had planned for her now. With frantic, whining whispers she started pleading and bargaining -- just as Raduz had known she would, for she was about to lose her only asset, her status as his special girl. She could see that he was about to demote her into a common whore, open to anyone he chose, and more important: unworthy of his affection.

"Don't do this," Anni begged. She wanted to add 'Don't do this to us,' but her boss was heartless. She saw now, finally, that for him there was no us.

"Stupid, stupid, foolish girl!" Anni spat at herself inside her head. "Did you really let yourself believe he cared?!"

Raduz made her strip in front of the stranger and, shaking with sobs, Anni removed her clothes with numb, trembling fingers. She felt sickened as the stranger's eyes gleamed with lust at her large, naked breasts and plump, bulging curves. Raduz nodded and the stranger moved to squeeze, paw and taste her. Suddenly -- forcefully and without warning -- he shoved a cruel finger all the way up inside her unprepared pussy. When she cried out in shock and pain, the man pushed her from him and backhanded her across the face with such force that she was thrown sideways and was left cowering on the floor.

"Shut the fuck up cunt," the man hissed and raised his balled fist as if he might hit her again. "I don't need you conscious to find out whether your cunt is worth your keep. In a few weeks I may come to take you with me and trust me, you don't want me to think that you plan to give me attitude."

He looked over at Raduz who was leaning casually against a wall, a forced, ugly grin on his face.

"What the hell is this shit?" he shouted angrily at him. "You've been working on this fuckhole for two months. Does this look 'trained' to you?"

Faizan had noticed an unsettling quality of tenderness in Raduz's manner toward the girl, something Faizan had never seen before. It made him look on his old friend with contempt.

"You gone soft or what?" he mocked.

Needled by the scorn, Raduz approached Anni and pulled a wide roll of cloth from his back pocket. He took her by the shoulders and lead her to stand by the bed.

"Don't pretend to be surprised. You knew this was coming. Faizan is not a bad man as long as you spread your legs and don't give him trouble." Raduz wiped the tears from her cheeks and lifted the blindfold to her face. "Come now, he won't want you if you're all redfaced and snivelling."

She tried to whisper in the smallest voice possible so Faizan couldn't hear her, "Can't I just be yours? Please? I want to be only yours." Raduz pretended to suppress a burst of laughter.

"Oh baby, with an asshole like yours, I couldn't be so selfish."

The mocking tone in his voice was the product of much effort, for in reality he was starting to regret the whole business. He'd seen her cry before from pain, fear and humiliation but this time was different for he knew she was crying for what she felt for him. Still, he wrapped the cloth three times around her head and tucked in the ends. Faizan was standing further away, saying nothing.

"Now, get on the bed on your hands and knees. Show him what a good girl you can be."

Lips quivering Anni complied, seeing before her a grim future with the cruel master that already had hit her once. Somewhere in her mind a small voice cried out, "This isn't happening. This isn't real. This is not you! Run! Scream! Fight! Goddammit, do something!" Yet compared to the inexplicable power that Raduz held over her, that tiny voice was nothing and she stayed where she was.

She felt Raduz's familiar hands arrange her body, nudging her knees apart, bending her back to arch and her ass to rise. When he was satisfied, Raduz stroked her hair and whispered, "You better hope that that cunt is wet."

Anni heard him walk to the door and close it behind him, and with that one sound any intimacy they had shared was gone. Next there was some shuffling, and then a long pause before she heard a zipper and the sound of Faizan's clothes dropping to the floor. When he climbed behind her on the bed she let out an instinctive, panicked wail of fear.

Faizan ignored her outburst, spit on his hand and rubbed it harshly on her while spreading her labia. Anni wanted to scream from disgust or at least ask him to use a condom on his possibly infectious cock, but she was too afraid of him to dare open her mouth. He rubbed another load of spit impatiently on his cock and entered her with one needy push. After the initial grunt of surprise and pain Anni held her breath, struggling to not let out even one tiny sound as her blindfold soaked with tears.

The man fucking her was also silent. Anni was afraid her future master didn't find her pleasing as she couldn't make him let out even one groan. The only sounds were his breathing and her own heartbeats.

"A good whore," Anni thought dismally. "I've become a good whore. I shut up and let a stranger masturbate with my body. He's raping me and I don't even fight back."

He fucked her so hard that eventually she failed to be still. She grunted and cried out in pain and soon his pummeling caused her knees and hands give way and she lay prone beneath him. Any time now he would cum inside her. The grunts, the breathing, the disgusting, contented groans. And then the inevitable. The jerking and seizing. The huffing. The spurting. And, finally, the last desperate stabs into her tightness.

When he collapsed on top of her, Anni heard the door open again and someone walk out. She went rigid with shock; Raduz had tricked her. He had only pretended to leave the room and instead had stayed to watch her be used by another. Everything was over now. Everything. He would never touch her again.

She heard the inhuman, animal-like scream before she realized she was the one making the sound. She didn't feel any connection to her own body. All she felt was loss and pain. There was no meaning in anything anymore. No point breathing. No point feeling.

Then the man still on top of her whispered into her ear. "Such a good girl. My brave, obedient little dove."

Anni stiffened. He had played her! The men had not switched places. Raduz had tricked her! Anni knew she should be spitting with fury but she was too pathetically grateful to care. Her emotions went in a heartbeat from the cold agony of total emptiness to a chest tightening glow of utter happiness. It was all too much and she burst into tears, shaking uncontrollably until he pulled her to him and held her.

"Hush, it's over now. I'm here, little dove. I'm here."

Anni would never know that until the very last moment Raduz had meant Faizan to have her. But as much as he was anxious about the changes in his life, he'd grown too attached to her to bear the idea of another man inside of her. Faizan was gone now and Raduz would probably never see him again. When Raduz stopped him from raping Anni with a finger on his own lips as a mark for silence, Faizan's face had radiated such loathing that Raduz knew he was nothing to his old 'friends' now.

Chapter 12

"Little dove," Anni prattled on and on in her head. For days. "Little dove, little dove, I'm his little dove," she went, smiling like a loon.

She was spinning. Fast. Feet off the ground. Spinning and falling. Falling in love. When the rest of the crew would leave for their faraway homes, she and Raduz could spend all their time together, grunting and screaming, sweaty bodies coiling, no prying eyes, no skulking in the dark, no secrecy, no forced silence -- and no limits. She shivered from fear and excitement to think what it would be like to be alone with him, to have him use her completely without restraint. Some of the things he'd been doing to her so far had been truly terrifying, and with no one to hear her screams he would surely force her even further into panic and agony.

Yet she wanted him, his voice and his touch, and would allow nothing to stand in the way. Indeed, so selfish was her love that she didn't care about the deeds of his past no matter how many women he had destroyed. That didn't matter now. Nothing mattered. Nothing except him and her and his hands on her skin. Now that she had finally found Him, she had to have him. Let the rest of the world burn for all she cared.

What Raduz could offer her was a dream come true, a delight beyond words, a gift she had given up hope of ever receiving. The fear, the pain, the brutal, savage sex and then the gentle kisses, caresses and whispers afterwards -- all of it. She wouldn't give up such pleasure and passion for anything. She wanted to spend the rest of her life being first broken and then mended by him, Raduz, her great, amazing love. She deserved this happiness and by god she would keep it. All that she had ever dreamed of was to be His little girl, and now she could do it -- for real!

She could see that he wanted her and cared for her, and by her own sentiments could guess just how truly, madly and deeply his feelings also must run. She would never go home. She'd stay with him for ever and ever and ever.

But in her feverish frenzy Anni was blind, for Raduz still had every intention of sending her away. Even more so now that he'd failed to keep his promise to his 'friends.' Anni's little girl crush was moving, but not something he could ever allow to persist. The great change that she had started was unwanted -- not to mention dangerous. She did not know what she was getting into with him. She could not be able understand what it would mean for her to take him on, to take on all of his pain and all of his past. She did not know what it would mean to share his life, what it would be like to see -- and endure -- him at his worst. This change she wanted to bring about would leave him dependent on her, and for that he hated her as much as he needed her.

But as much as he wanted it to be so, nothing was as straightforward anymore, and Raduz felt delirious and desperate all at the same time; delirious for touching her and desperate for losing her. At nights in her bed he could have longed for the way she used to cower from him in fear when he stepped into her room, but surely it was even better to be able to make her shiver with desire and cream between her legs by the mere thought of him hurting, fucking and humiliating her.

He had never managed to frighten her so deep into herself that she would have lost that artlessness and earnestness that set her apart from the girls that had went before. What he saw in her eyes after they had spent their passion each night wasn't pity -- he couldn't have stood pity -- but it was compassion, a contact, a connection. Touch and be touched. Want and be wanted. She was aware of his needs; she knew he enjoyed hurting her and watching her thrash and suffer in pain, yet in her eyes he saw no blame. She understood it; she understood him. And she had her own perversions as well, a need deep down in her soul to be hurt, controlled, raped, used, brutalized and dominated. He didn't know why, but when he raped her sore and swollen holes and flooded her brain with pain, it seemed in some inexplicable way to set her soul free.

Still, no matter her reasons, Anni wanted him for the man he was. Thus she obviously saw him as something much better than he saw himself. She was a strange creature to see his violent and abusive behavior towards her as some sort of reaching out. Yet her faith in him made him want to become that better man she saw. The l-word came up in his mind over and over. That, and the word 'mine.'

Ever since the day Raduz had stopped his friend from raping her, Anni had been walking on clouds. Then, out of the blue, just as she was happier than ever before in her life, Raduz asked her into his office and told her that when the bus would come to take the rest of the crew away, she was to get on it too. There. Dismissed. Go.

Anni was absolutely devastated. But Raduz was even worse. He couldn't even stand to look at her, let alone touch her. Anni wept, raged and begged hysterically but Raduz refused to talk about it. When she cornered him and tried to force him to explain, he choked so badly that he couldn't utter a single word. Seeing him in such pain tore Anni's heart in two, the way he visibly hurt and still despite it was so god damned adamant to push her away.

"Do you have any idea how much I was ready to give up for you?!" she howled and raged, her voice breaking. "How much I was ready to forgive!? And now you're sending me away!? Fuck you, Raduz! Fuck you! I hope you burn in hell!"

When the words 'fuck you' only made him turn his eyes to the floor and silently withdraw even deeper into himself, Anni knew it was serious. The Raduz she knew would never have allowed her to speak to him like that, but that man was broken now, broken because he could not let go of the past, could not allow himself to find his little piece of happiness. If only he would give her a chance to explain how she had felt the same way, and how it was him who had finally freed her from it by offering her a chance to atone. She hadn't been able to save Riikka when it really mattered, but she could save him now. If only he'd let her.

After her near three month rollercoaster of emotional extremes, this disappointment was simply too much. The crew got a new cause to wonder and worry as Anni, after slowly recovering to her original sunny self, suddenly collapsed into another sullen, withdrawn depression. She didn't eat, didn't speak and merely stared ahead with dead, empty eyes. This time round the other volunteers however had some guesses as to what might be the cause.

For weeks and weeks Anni had behaved strangely around Raduz, and many had noticed the nighttime traffic between their rooms and heard the murmurs of muffled whispers. Yet, out of respect for Raduz, the rumors of a dirty old man fiddling with a pretty young thing encumbered with serious daddy-issues were not allowed to become a public joke. But, even if it was to some extent unrequited, the girl could not be so unhappily in love with the old volunteer veteran that it could explain her dramatic mood swings and frequent weeping when she thought no one could see. Some claimed that she was so unhinged that she should return home to her family at once so they could get her the professional help she so obviously needed. Then again, others said, Anni was young and maybe a little naïve and at that age the affairs of the heart could seem quite dramatic. But, as they assumed that Raduz indeed was having intimate relations with the girl, none felt comfortable to voice their concerns about her unstable state to him.

Although she was relieved that Raduz had reneged on his initial threat of sending her to suffer the vile passions of an untold number of cruel rapists, Anni wasn't eager to return home to her little lonely apartment where He was just a dream. She listed in her mind the few guys she could text for sex. Then she thought of the times she had lain beneath them, taking their cocks yet feeling nothing. She didn't actually have a relationship with her boss in the traditional sense, but however outlandish their relationship was he made her come alive. With him she felt passion she'd only dreamt of before. With him she felt owned and desired. And, despite once hating him more than she had ever hated anyone, she had, eventually, also come to love him more than she had ever loved anyone. She was again counting down the days to departure, but not for the same reason as only six weeks ago. How could she go back to her old life and to being a mere ghost and a shadow herself?

She didn't even bother to leave her room anymore but everyone could hear her crying in there. And since nobody knew what to do, the morning the bus drove onto the gravel yard to take the volunteers back to the airport was a relief to everyone.

Anni walked to the bus, threw her rucksack and bag into the bus's luggage compartment, and took a seat without so much as glancing at the people around her. One look at Raduz, she knew, and her legs would give out, and losing the very last shreds of her dignity was a humiliation she could do without.

With the continued presence of the huge elephant in the room, most of her colleagues took their leave of Raduz with less cheer than they would have preferred. Everyone agreed that he should not have toyed with someone so obviously incapable of handling it, but no one opened their mouth to actually say it. No one felt comfortable to get involved in Raduz's private affairs.