Brick, Mortar, and Bruises

Anni didn't know the faces of the men who had assaulted her friend, but in her head they were all clones of Him, broken free from the puppet strings Anni had allowed herself to believe she controlled.

Seeing every day the slums some of the locals lived in, her first two weeks had been emotionally taxing but she didn't regret coming. The work was hard but rewarding and each night she could see the brick walls of the new school stand a little higher. Thankfully the stink of the slum didn't reach the site yet but in a few years the shanty town would most likely expand, swallowing the then finished school. Hopefully education would help some of the children into a better life and out of the slums.

To make Anni see that their work really changed things for the better, Raduz told her he'd take her for a drive to give her a look at some of the other schools the project had already built. Without really knowing why, Anni hesitated at first, but soon gave in as not to make an embarrassing fuss -- especially when he assured her that he took all first timers for such a drive.

Back home Anni had waited for her cab to the airport amidst snow banks over three feet deep, but halfway across the world March marked early autumn. The weather was warm and Anni was sweating under her jacket as she got into Raduz's car. She cursed the sticky feeling on her skin but it couldn't be helped as the stifling jacket was necessary to hide her swollen and erect nipples from her boss.

Her breasts had been sore for over a week and she couldn't understand why as nothing like this had ailed her before. Her nipples kept poking out embarrassingly through her shirts and bras, and the irritating, persistent throbbing of her nipples constantly derailed her thoughts to her breasts and to His cruel fingers pinching her.

"Dammit!" she spat at herself once again, for no matter how hard she tried to forget, He obviously wasn't going anywhere. And this drive wasn't helping.

As the old car hummed beneath her, the vibrations surged through her pleasure-deprived flesh to her very core. She'd gone three long months without an orgasm and the lack of release had started to show. She'd kept trying for a while but every time she placed her fingers on her clit, pleading in her head for her fantasy rapist to spare her, the fantasy unravelled to reveal a gritty, non-stop replay of her friend's gruelling rape. Excitement would turn instantly to self-loathing and she would yank her hand quickly from her crotch, utterly disgusted at herself.

Now the seat trembled inexorably against her pussy on the uneven roads, teasing her until she felt her juices flow. The touch of her clothes felt like hands stroking her skin, and she closed her eyes, giving in to the hypnotic hum of the engine. She concentrated one by one on the faces of the male volunteers -- a failing attempt to keep Him out of it -- but when Anni's mind offered her boss as the face for the man in her fantasy, she noticed with unease how alike the two in fact were. The shadow, always lurking just on the edge of her field of vision, seemed to have acquired Raduz's heavy brow and his thinning, sandy hair. She wasn't happy about it but for the first time since the assault on Riikka, the thought of Him warmed her instead of causing a cruel tweak of guilt.

Faux leather creaked and Anni stirred as Raduz leaned over to grab a pair of sunglasses from the glove compartment. She tried to move her knees out of the way, but the back of his hand brushed against her high strung body. She jerked involuntarily as a hot flush spread through her, originating from the point of his touch. She emptied her lungs in a long sigh, shocked by her own reaction yet grateful that the exhale didn't come out as an aroused moan.

Promptly she shook her head, trying to put aside her imaginations. It was unbelievably awkward to have responded sexually to a man she was working for, to a man she thought of as a friend and mentor. It wasn't really Raduz that she desired, she knew that, and yet -- even though it was totally irrational -- she feared that her boss could see into her mind and find that thought, that somehow he would smell on her a scent left behind by his imaginary counterpart.

Now that she had a secret to keep from him, Anni felt Raduz's gaze suddenly laden with power; his stare stripped her and pierced her, and brought forth in her mind the very images she most wanted to hide. In frustration she chewed her lip, making futile wishes of Him being real. She wanted Him to come to her, bend her to his will and simply force her past the guilt she couldn't seem to get over on her own. She ached to submit to something or someone stronger, to be freed from thinking, from taking responsibility, from constantly having to try to affect the outcome of fate in order to succeed in life. Also, she ached for sex. It would be so sweet to surrender to Him if only He could cross the barrier of dreams and reach her. She needed Him to free her from stewing in the torturous sexual unfulfilment she suffered from.

Unbeknownst to her however, Raduz's mind was occupied with similar thoughts as he'd had his own motives for their little outing. Though during the years there hadn't been any takers, he always gave the girls a chance to give their bodies to him willingly. As contemptible as he found them, they deserved that much.

He knew he wasn't handsome. He wasn't charming either, but Anni had displayed her admiration so openly that Raduz had expected a different outcome this time. She could have sighed and spread her thighs apart just an inch or two as an invite, but she hadn't. She'd gasped and pulled away instinctively from the hand that grazed her.

Despite the slight blow to his vanity, he had a hard time hiding his thrills, for he was looking forward to taking by force what she wouldn't offer by choice. Just one more week to be on the safe side, and then he would feast on her tears.

Chapter 3

There were four shower cubicles along the bleak corridor. After the first two mornings Anni started waking up before 6 am. to skip the shower rush. She'd already gotten used to having the whole place to herself when one morning she almost ran into a man in the corridor. Highly embarrassed, only wearing a towel to cover herself, Anni mumbled her apologies for not looking where she was going. When she looked up she saw Raduz, still dripping with water, with a towel around his waist. Too struck to mind her manners, she gasped and grimaced at the sight of him. Pale wide welts of scar tissue licked his sides from behind and covered his upper arms. She was so shocked that all words left her, she didn't even have the sense to let him pass and just stared slack-jawed at his marred skin.

He looked at her with disgust and pushed past her. Anni turned and started, "Good—" and, after Raduz had disappeared into his room at the end of the hall, finished absently, "...morning." His entire back had been covered with those same horrible scars. She had never seen anything like it and stood still for a moment before darting into a cubicle. She locked the door and hid herself under the stream, painfully ashamed for gawking.

"So rude, so rude, so rude!" she chided herself, as her skin prickled where he had brushed her.

Grasping for an explanation, Anni calculated that Raduz must have been in his twenties at the beginning of the Velvet Revolution and wondered how much brutality had been swept under the carpet to name the event so. Lately she was so used to feeling guilty that she almost didn't notice the quick reel of her safe, snug life flash by in her mind as opposed to vague images of restless crowds clashing with riot police, dingy cells and the echoes of fists, boots and lashes thudding on flesh.

After lunch Anni sneaked away from the building site and went to Raduz's combined office and bedroom. She knocked timidly on the door, half hoping he wouldn't be there.

"Yeah?" She heard from inside and stepped in, hovering hesitantly close to the door. When Raduz saw that the comer was her, he turned back to his papers, a gesture that told her most acutely that she wasn't welcome.

"What is it?" he asked gruffly without bothering to look at her.

"Raduz, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to— I'm so sorry, " Anni babbled looking at her feet.

Raduz chose not to acknowledge her, but he couldn't wipe the strained, faraway look from his face; the papers in front of him were clearly the last thing in her friend's mind. He was wearing what he always wore - jeans with a t-shirt and an unbuttoned flannel shirt - and through the layers of fabric his fingers traced absently the paths of the scars in his upper arm. Anni had often seen him repeat this gesture of his but until now she hadn't known what it was his fingers were always stroking there. She glanced at his chest where the snug t-shirt revealed a dent in his ribs just below his heart. She hadn't noticed it there before, but after seeing him without his shirt on she knew where to look. There was pain in this man. Pain the like of which she, even under the weight of her scorching guilt, could not begin to imagine.

"Forget it. Go back before you're missed," Raduz grunted coldly. All traces of his previous friendliness were gone from his voice, and Anni couldn't help but feel that she'd insulted him by seeing, no matter how accidentally, the marks on his body.

The following night she woke up to someone touching her. Alarmed, she propped herself up on her elbows and tried to call out, 'Who's there?' but a hand touched her lips and a man shushed.

"What's happening?" she whispered, stiff with fright and confusion.

"Shh. Everything's fine."

Anni recognized Raduz's voice. The man was tense, his breathing shallow.

"Has someone come to the camp?" she asked with haste, thinking of the others lying in bloody beds cut into pieces with machetes, though she guessed machine guns a more probable cause of death in South America run by drug cartels.

"Everything's fine," he repeated with a strangely emotional voice.

The situation got weirder still when he ran his hand down the side of her head to her cheek.

"Everything's fine, just lay back down."

She'd followed his orders for three weeks without ever questioning anything he said and for a moment she was too stunned to speak. Then she felt her boss lift the blanket. This is some misunderstanding, she thought, flustered, but no: the man was getting into bed with her. Not wanting to wake the others up and cause an embarrassing scene, she held back her rage and hissed vehemently, "Raduz, what the hell?"

"Shh, it's ok. Everything's fine. Go back to sleep," he still tried to sooth her.

Anni tried to push him away and half hissed half growled, "What are you doing? Get away from me, god damn it!"

She tried to fight him but his hands were everywhere. Anni squirmed, kicked and clawed but her boss wrestled himself on top of her, stretching her arms above her head. He restrained her wrists effortlessly with one hand and caressed her face with the other.

"Don't pretend you haven't thought about it, dove," he whispered with a smile and slid his free hand down to grab a hold of her breast through her nightie. "Don't pretend you haven't thought about me."

Anni was now seriously scared and struggling to get free by turns spit curses at him and pleaded for him to let her go. She thought of the others sleeping down the corridor, and trying to wrench her hands free growled at Raduz, "Get off me or I'll scream!"

His face melted into a sly grin.

"No, you won't. You see, everybody knows the Kid's got a crush on me. After all those intimate little chats, every person on this crew knows that you're just dying to spread your little legs for me. The way you've been following me around and shoving your tits to my face they'd assume any scream merely to be the sound of ecstatic surprise when my cock tears your tight young cunt wide open. So go ahead, scream out for them all to hear what a dirty, randy slut you are."

Anni's eyes grew wider and wider as he spoke. She was the youngest of the group by fifteen years and as a joke she'd let them all call her Kid. She could well imagine that as a result the others had come to think of her as one and that Raduz and her spending time together could have been perceived by them as an infatuated teen running after a beau begging for attention. It would be her word against his and the crew would think that she had led him on. So, just as Raduz had guessed, Anni was too ashamed to scream for help and blamed herself bitterly for being so stupid as to expose herself to such gossip. No one would help her now.

"Please get off me," she begged in a desperate whisper, but he didn't move. "Don't do this. I don't want to. Raduz, really, I don't want to." She couldn't believe he would hurt her. Not him. Not Raduz. Not the man who had promised so warmly to look after her.

"Shh," he reassured her and pulled the rubber band off her braid. He combed her hair loose with his fingers until it ran down her shoulders, framing her beautiful, frightened face. "It's ok," he whispered and grinned, "I'll play nice."

Panic overwhelmed her and she started kicking and bucking frantically. If she could just get to the corridor she'd be safe, but she couldn't even get her hands free. In a few short minutes of tugging and heaving she had exhausted her strength. Hot tears streamed down her face when she realized that he was going to fuck her and there was nothing she could do about it.

"I know, dove. I know," he kept soothing her in a low voice and stroked her forehead as she trembled under him.

Now that her fate had been taken away from her hands, now that it was time to submit and surrender, Anni was fiercely against it. In her dreams it had always been Him who was to trap her under him -- a man she both knew and loved, a man to whom she'd give everything. Now there was a stranger on her, groping and squeezing her flesh, panting and grunting into her ear words in a language she couldn't understand, about to spread her body open and force himself to her very insides.

Raduz leaned his face close to hers and Anni jerked her head away in disgust. Her boss's voice went ice cold as he growled, "Don't test my patience. I can make it to really hurt."

Anni winced at the way he stretched out the word really and turned to face him.

"That's my girl," he murmured, and leaned in again.

Anni cringed, but this time she didn't dodge. She clenched her teeth shut, expecting him to kiss her, but instead he dragged his wet tongue over her pursed mouth, rubbing it against her lips. The sensation was revolting and Anni squealed in distress.

"Shut it," Raduz spat and grabbed her chin, clenching so tight that her flesh burned with pain as it was crushed between her jawbone and his fingers. First Anni squealed more because of the pain and fear but soon realized that silence was the only way to make it stop.

"There. Good. And not one more sound, you hear me?" her boss commanded.

Then his anger melted into a cruel smile and he chuckled. "Damn, you are a horny little cunt, aren't you? I'm not even inside you yet and you're already moaning like a bitch in heat."

Anni's first reaction was to shake her head no but she didn't dare move in case he would squeeze her chin even harder. She was worried he might break her jaw it if he got any more pissed at her.

Raduz had a system, a basic pattern, that he tweaked each time to fit the individual characteristics of the girls. One of his ground rules was that the girl was not to mistake herself as being desired. She was to feel used instead of wanted. Such heartless treatment combined with occasional gentle comfort tended to confuse the victim and make the soul-wrenching initial breaking process last longer. He could transform a girl into a passive fuckzombie in one, long and hard night -- and had -- but over the years he'd learned that what he most wanted was for the distress, the frantic crying, the panic and disbelief to last as long as possible. Weeks preferably. That suffering was his payoff, the prize he fed off of. That and not the end result, the meek, subdued fuckdoll they all changed into sooner or later.

This in mind he softened his tone and let go of her chin.

"See?" he said petting her hair. "If you play nice, I'll play nice."

Despite the veiled threat Anni kept writhing and whining as Raduz wrenched himself between her legs, leaving her sex open and vulnerable. Supporting his weight with the hand gripping her wrists, Raduz slid his other hand between their bodies in search of the girl's pussy. She slept without panties so there was nothing in his way.

Anni moaned and gritted her teeth when he reached her pink, puffy lips and burrowed his finger roughly between them. He followed her damp slit down to her pussy hole and started pushing his finger inside her. Her dryness resisted the invasion but with sufficient shoving the finger slid into her dry cunt an inch at a time, forcing its way deeper in search of moisture.

From deep within Raduz found a hidden reservoir and worked his finger in and out, spreading the meager slickness. Anni wailed faintly in futile anger for not being able to stop his unwanted attentions.

"Don't tense up on me," Raduz crooned. "Relax. Breathe. Don't fight it. I just need to stretch this tiny cunt a little so I can fit my cock in here. There. Getting nice and wet, good girl." Time dragged on as his words and her humiliation continued. "Feel that, dove? You're clenching again. Aren't you a horny little thing to want me so badly, sucking my fingers with your tight little fuckhole. Patience, dove. Patience. Don't worry, I'll give you some cock real soon. No need to hurry."

While Raduz was whispering to her Anni lay rigid beneath him. She had never even been to a gynaecologist and it was a horrifying feeling to be invaded so profoundly, to have something alien and unwanted enter her, wriggle, poke and scratch inside her body, force a reaction out of her and forever steal away her sovereignty. Raduz added a third finger and stretched Anni's pussy further.

"Please, stop. Please," she begged, her voice cracking, and kicked the air helplessly while her boss continued to defile her. He answered her pleas by taking out his cock.

"Don't cry baby, I'll make it feel good," he sighed. "You'll like it. I promise. Just let me take care of you."

There was a cruel contradiction between his caring tone and vicious actions. Anni knew his words were nothing more than filthy lies but Raduz had a way to make his voice sound sincere. It confused Anni, making her feel half safe and half scared out of her mind. The old Raduz had been her protector, her friend, and Anni couldn't quite separate that man from the monster now on top of her.

The heavy, fat piece of meat had stiffened and now prodded at her crotch. It leaked drops of pre-cum that smeared cold little puddles on her skin, and Anni imagined a huge, ugly snake spilling its venom on her, slithering towards the unprotected opening to her body, fangs ready to sink into her flesh.

"No! Please! You don't have to do this. Please, stop," she gasped as Raduz guided his penis on her entrance and lay down on her.

"Shh," he shushed. "You know me. Calm down, just let it happen. This doesn't have to hurt. Nothing to be afraid of; I'm here. I'm here. I'll take care of you. Relax."

His words were a cruel joke. Anni felt the snake push painfully against her sticky, resisting folds but could do nothing to save herself. She stiffened in disgust as the snake started stretching her tiny opening and forced its way inch by inch inside her body. Anni wailed softly, then gagged down bile, feeling the thick, scaly snake crawl deeper and deeper, unable to make it stop.