Part III
Galina (Age Fifteen)
“These lips are only for me, kurva. Men will pay me well for the pleasure of owning your virgin pussy, but these are mine.”
His lips touch mine, and I have to bite back the gag from the smell of his breath. It’s difficult, but I don’t move. I know the punishment for moving would be much worse than even the repulsive kiss.
The first time I pulled back from his kiss, from his touch, he sewed my lips together and said next time he’d do it to a different set of lips. It didn’t scar, fortunately, but it took Dmitri and Krystof hours to carefully pull each thread from the tender holes. When Father caught them helping me he only laughed and said he’d hoped they wouldn’t grow up to be weak for pussy like most men.
I didn’t resist again, and once he realized he had my compliance, he started bringing more ‘Uncles’ around. He makes me sit on their laps and call them Uncle such and such. The hardness I constantly feel while on their laps betrays their familial position, though, and I’m dreading the day Father gives them permission to paw at a bit more of my body.
I remember them visiting occasionally when I was young, but usually when they came to visit, I’d be sent to my room while the men did their thing. Dmitri and the twins would usually be with me, the older ones would help my father ‘tend to my uncles’. At the time, I was unsure what that meant.
I always wondered why my older siblings acted so strange after those visits. That is until one day I came out of my room and saw my oldest brother on his knees in front of one of the uncles. The look of absolute anguish on his face as he sputtered and gagged brought bile to my own throat. Before I saw the tears that poured down his cheeks as my ‘Uncle’ thrust into his mouth, I had never seen my brother cry. I snuck away and, fortunately, no one but Krystof saw me.
Later that night, I went to Krystof’s room to make sure he was okay, but he wouldn’t open the door for me. We never did speak of it, and it wasn’t until a few years later when Father started to discuss selling me that I realized he had been selling, or rather ‘loaning’, my brothers since they were my age too.
When Father is finished with me, I start boiling as many buckets of water as I can, eager to erase his touch from my skin. I carry several buckets to the bathroom, hissing when the water touches me, scalding hot, just short of boiling.
“Galina!” Dmitri rushes in, pulling my arms toward him to inspect the damage. His light touch hovers over the burns before his eyes dart up to my face, taking in my bitten lip and the bruise forming on my cheek. His eyebrows pull down, then he ushers me to the sink, grabbing a cloth and wetting it before bringing it up to clean my face. I feel one tear drop, his hand quickly reaching up to wipe it away.
“None of that,” he tells me matter of fact. “And no burning yourself either. Come on, I’ll help you get cleaned up.”
I sniff and nod, letting him take care of me.
“He said he was going to sell my pussy,” I whisper after a few moments. Dmitri freezes, his eyes bulging, but he doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he continues his ministrations.
I think he’s going to say something, reassure me it won’t happen, but he doesn’t.
Vasily always gets what he wants, so if he wants my lips for himself and my pussy on the auction block, then that’s what will happen.
“Practically have third degree burns,” he mutters as his hands hover over my skin. The skin on his fingers is coarse and rough from the hours he works, and at seventeen, he’s slowly beginning to fill out and lose some of his teenage lankiness. Even though it hurts, the strong, sureness of his touch soothes me. I lean against the wall and let him run cool water over the burned areas of my face and neck.
In the summer, I’m given a small slip to wear and nothing else, leaving little of my skin unexposed. My brothers are used to seeing me like this but for some reason, I feel vaguely shy as Dmitri takes advantage of this and begins to cleanse the rest of me with the thin cloth, working his way down my arms and back. I close my eyes and feel myself relax into his touch. Once he finishes, he moves down and takes one leg in his hands, starting at my feet.
“These legs, and what’s between them, is going to make me a fortune.”
I jerk up, my eyes wide as Father’s words come back to my barely conscious mind, the strong grip on my ankle centering me.
“It’s okay,” Dmirti coos, soft voice soothing me, a hand coming up to cup my cheek. “It’s just me, you’re safe now.”
As I look into his dark green eyes, I feel the sting of tears against my own. Before the first one falls, his arms are around me. I sob into his shoulder as he pulls me onto his lap on the ground. We’re both drenched but it doesn’t matter.
“Sssh,” he whispers into my hair, petting it slowly. He always said he loved my red hair, even though I hate it. Maybe if I didn’t have red hair, Father wouldn’t have found out about Mother’s infidelity, and maybe she’d still be alive.
“I’ve got you now,” Dmitri whispers, and I wonder if his sweetness came from our mother. Despite my hatred for how we’re treated, I know that there is a vengeful and dark side to me, too, making me wonder what my real father was like. At least I know he couldn’t have been as bad as Vasily. No one is that evil.
“He’s going to sell me,” I cry into his neck. “He says my virginity will reimburse him for the years of having to feed my whore ass.”
I feel Dmitri stiffen around me, but he continues petting my hair. After a moment, he stops and presses his lips to the top of my head.
“Don’t worry, Galya. I’ve got you, always.”
* * *
In the summer, there are only a few hours of blackness. The days are long and warm, and the sun takes a long time to give way to the night. During one of those rare hours of darkness is when I find myself being woken by hands on my thighs.
My body tenses, fear shooting through my veins as one of the hands squeezes down in warning.