Silvery moonlight
I had never been happier.
I couldn't believe yet that the following day I'd get married with the man of my life.
I was so excited I couldn't resist: I wore my wedding gown and I watched myself in the mirror for a long time, from all angles, full of incredulous joy.
Tomorrow I'll be married, I thought. I'd wear this wonderful dress, I'd be gorgeous, James would look into my eyes and promise to love me forever. Then there would be the party, and it would be a wonderful party! And then, the night...
I blushed. Lately, when we kissed, James' hands had become a little more curious, but we had never gone all the way. I wanted to wait for us to be married. And finally, tomorrow...
I felt a certain shudder down my back; the idea turned me on and scared me a bit at the same time. To stop thinking about it, I went to the other room to show my dress to mum and dad.
Mum almost started crying; dad just smiled, but it was a smile full of pride and joy.
"My little girl is really beautiful," dad said.
"She's not a little girl any more, by now," mum answered, and she smiled to me.
"Rei will manage to come on time tomorrow, won't he?" I asked. I couldn't get married without my big brother by my side!
"I'm sure he will, darling. He promised he'll be there, and Rei always keeps his promises. But now go and get changed, you don't want to ruin the dress before tomorrow, do you? Furthermore James said he would come to see you tonight, and he mustn't see you with the gown on until tomorrow! It takes bad luck!"
"Yes, mum."
And on that moment, the window burst.
Actually, I realized later recalling that moment, it didn't burst at all; they simply broke it down by throwing in a stone or something like that. But I just heard a big knock and saw glasses falling all around.
Before I could realize what had happened, the house got filled with scary men.
Some had come through the cracked window, others through the door, that I saw lying on the floor, broken. One grabbed my mother, keeping an arm against her throat, other two took my dad, forcing him to stay still. Those awful men sneered and looked at me.
I was petrified with terror. It's not a figure of speech, I couldn't move...neither scream. I only managed to press a hand against my chest, trying to stop my heart, because it was beating so hard I thought it would pop out.
One of the man approached me. His face was covered by some kind of a helmet and this, if possible, made him even more terrible than the others. No expression is scarier than a threatening expression.
"Look what we have here!" the man said.
The other just watched the scene and sneered. Probably, that had to be the boss.
I wanted to beg him to leave us alone, to go away, but I couldn't even open my mouth. It seemed my lips were sealed.
Luckily, mum had more presence of mind than me.
"Please, go away," she said. "We are poor people, but we have collected much food for tomorrow's party...Take it all, it's yours. But leave us alone please."
The masked man didn't even turn to her. The helmet only let half-view his eyes, and he kept them fixed on me.
"Ah really? And what do you have to celebrate, you bumpkins?"
None of us answered.
"I'm talking to you, babe!" and he took one more step in my direction. "What's happening tomorrow?"
His tone of voice was kind. I thought that if I answered him politely, maybe he would pity us and leave us alone. Understand me, I was only fifteen.
"To-tomorrow I'm getting married, sir."
"Have you heard? Tomorrow she's getting married!"
All the men burst into laughter.
"An who's the lucky man, pretty child?" the man with the covered face asked me.
"J-James."
"This James must be a real moron if he has a girl as beautiful as you and leaves her alone, with two old guys as protectors. If you were mine, I would never let you go."
There was something deeply threatening in those words, but at the time I couldn't understand why yet.
And then, it came to my mind. James had promised to come and see me that night! Our house was a bit isolated from the rest of the village, and our screams probably hadn't been heard by anyone. But James would come, and save us! I only needed to gain time. But I didn't know how!
"I...I don't know, sir," I could only say.
The man burst into laughter. Because of the helmet, the laughter came out cavernous, deep and far away at the same time; it sounded like a demon's laughter.
"And tell me, is what you are wearing your wedding gown?"
"Y-Yes."
"Are you able to say a sentence without stammering...what's your name?"
I swallowed, I inhaled, I collected all my energies to say my name without hesitating.
"Airi."
"Good, Airi. I see we are beginning to improve."
Outside, there was a big hustle. Then, other two man of the gang came in, dragging my poor James.
"Look what we've found outside, boss!"
James was looking around, unbelieving and horrified. There seemingly were some men on guard duty, and they had taken him even before he could realize what was happening. All my fantasies of being saved by my knight in shining armour vanished in a second. James, among those men, looked almost as scared as me, even though I saw also anger in his look.
"Well, who are you? The lucky groom, I bet," the man with the helmet said. "Don't you know that seeing the fiancée in her bridal gown before the wedding takes bad luck?"
James said nothing.
"Tell me, have you already fucked this babe at least?"
The man started chuckling again.
"Get out of here, bastards!"
"Oh! How brave you are!" the man said. "I bet this means no. Well, I had thought to kill you immediately, but instead you deserve to enjoy the show."
James turned white. There wasn't even a grain of courage in him any more.
"Wh-Which show?" he found the power to ask.
"Me deflowering your girlfriend," the man said.
It took me a while to understand what he meant. James instead got it immediately.
"Don't you touch her, son of a bitch! Don't touch her!"
He twisted like a madman, and he almost managed to release himself from the men's grasp; they hit him in the stomach, then in the face, until he collapsed on the ground. His face, his beautiful face, was a mask of blood. I impulsively ran to him, screaming his name, but the masked man stopped my running half-way, crushing me against himself.
"You see?" he said. "The babe can't wait to start."
The men burst into laughter. My parents cried, although I don't know what, and they tried to free themselves too, but they were too weak. They didn't even bother to hit them.
The man grabbed my hair, dragged me to the table and threw me on it. He snatched my beautiful dress from the back and pulled, tearing it off me. I started crying. Yes, I remember the first thing I felt was the pain for my ruined wedding gown. Then, the shame of being all naked in front of my parents and James...and those men, who had started making horrible sounds, covering my parents' screams. I didn't know what was the worst. Then, the worst came for real.
I felt a tearing pain, and I screamed. The men shouted, laughed, whistled, it seemed they were cheering. The pain remained, got worse. Finally, I understood that awful men was inside me, and was moving. I couldn't believe it. Was it like that, making love? That horrible thing? No, of course not; if it had been with James, it would have been different. It would have been good. With that terrible man, instead...
My belly hurt, as he were breaking through my guts. I screamed and cried, begging for mercy. I tried to escape from that disgusting and terrible contact, but moving only increased the pain. At the end, I stood still, softly sobbing, trying not to think of what he was doing to me, to convince myself that the girl lying on that table wasn't me.
The man stopped. I thanked heavens: he was done. Now would they go away, would they leave us alone?
Instead he said: "Well, babe, aren't you enjoying it any more? Bored already? Then, you need the special treatment. After all, your arse is too nice not to use it."
The men's shouts changed into a roar. I didn't understand what he meant. Then, I felt an excruciating pain, a hundred times worse than the previous one. I started screaming again, I begged him to stop.
"Ah, finally you've recovered! That's the way I like you!"
I don't know how long it lasted, it felt like hours to me. Finally, he pulled out from me. I stayed half-stretched on the table, completely emptied out. I felt ashamed to stay like that, but I missed even the power to try to cover myself.
"Get up," the man said. Since I didn't obey, he grabbed me by the hair and lifted me up by force.
I couldn't walk because of the pain. I felt something slimy between my thighs, and when I lowered my eyes I saw it was blood. Was I bleeding? Would I die?
The man crushed me against himself, to keep me standing. James still was on the ground and couldn't even talk, he just gave off a gurgle, and seemed to try to reach out to me. Mum cried hopelessly, she seemed broken in two. Dad shouted he would kill them all.
"Oh, really? Will you kill us, oldie?" said one of those who were restraining him, and laughed. Then, he changed his grasp on dad's arm and turned it, until we heard a chilling sound, a liquid snap. Dad screamed. The masked man turned me towards him, so I could see him better.
Dad now was lying on the floor. One of the men had an iron bar, and lowered it on his knee. Dad screamed again, among those monsters' laughters. I closed my eyes, but the man who was keeping me realized it. He pulled my hair.
"You must watch," he said. "Otherwise, all my men will bang you, as I did. And then it will be your mother's turn."
And so, I watched. I watched while they slaughtered my father with a bar, reducing him to a pile of flesh and blood.
Regarding James, they simply crushed his head on the floor, as the men of the village did to rabbits. I had seen it only once, and from that time on I had locked myself in every time it was necessary to kill animals. And now, instead, I saw it done to the man I loved.
Mum had fainted. They slapped and punched her to make her come round, but her eyes remained rolled backwards. Seemingly this was no fun for them, because they decided to make it short and stab her in the heart.
I was waiting for them to kill me too. By then, I didn't care. Instead, something worse happened. The masked man loaded me on his shoulder and took me away with him.
From that day on, I thought I was living in hell. Actually, I didn't know yet, but Jagi wasn't such a bad master after all. He came to see me when he wanted me, he did everything he liked, but for the rest of the time he left me alone. I learnt to abstract myself, to detach from my body when he was with me; relaxing my muscles, physical pain almost disappeared too. In any case, I wasn't that girl. It wasn't me.
Seemingly, for Jagi having such a passive slave was not much fun, because he sold me after a short while.
My second master, the boss of a gang of bikers, was worse. He forced me to sleep with him, but not in his bed: on the floor. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, woke me with a kick, and ordered me to do things to him. He wanted me to tell him I liked it, otherwise he'd work me over. Almost never in the face, because he said that if he had ruined my face I'd have lost all my value. He preferred punches in the stomach, and when I curled up in a foetal position, in a desperate attempt to protect myself, he started with kicks in my back.
That wasn't life. I had to run away.
I tried to, one night. The master was sleeping and I simply slipped out of the room, of the house. Outside there was full moon; its silvery light looked to me like the colour of freedom.
His men got me back before I could walk half a mile.
"You must be punished," the master said. "I'll make you forget about running away again."
And he kept his word. He left me to his men. All. For a whole night.
Up and below, front and back, even two or three at the same time. They never stopped. They were many, they were young: when the last was done, the first was ready again.
At dawn, the master came to get me back. I couldn't even stand, so he dragged me by the hair to a water tank. He washed me with a tube, one of the ones peasants use to water fields, because, he said, "I'm not going to put my hands in that scum you've left, guys." Then, he raped me too.
From that day on, I never tried to run away again. But I couldn't stand that life. So, I decided to kill myself. The idea of joining my James, mum, my dear dad, seemed to me the best thing I could wish for. It gave me relief. So, one day, I stole a liquid they kept in the motorcycles shed. I brought it outside, because I wanted to die under the moonlight, the silvery colour of freedom. Soon, I would get free.
I tried to drink all the liquid in one go, but I immediately found out it was impossible. It tasted bitter, disgusting. My stomach shrunk immediately, with excruciating pangs. I puked, and I felt like everything was going on fire, my stomach, my throat, my mouth.
Then, I remember nothing else. I only know that at some point I woke up. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. I thought that maybe being dead is like that. You don't see nor feel anything any more. But I actually felt. I felt the hard and cold floor under my back, and I also felt my master's kick in my side while he told me: "You moron! You are my property! If you had died, I'd have lost a lot of food! Stupid bitch!"
Then, I understood I had gone blind. My master sold me shortly after that episode, but I think he was angry about the suicide attempt, not the blindness. Seemingly, a blind slave is as valuable as a sighted one; maybe even more. She can't run away, she can do nothing by herself, she can just lay down in a bed or on a floor, to get raped. She's perfect.
Since then, I've changed many masters. By now they're all the same to me, even more now I can't see their faces; it's better this way.
It's better this way. I'll never again have to see a man killed like a rabbit, an old woman slapped and punched because her daughter's rape has broken her heart. From now on, I'll only see the moonlight, the silvery colour of freedom. Forever.
Author's corner: thanks to Pointytilly for suggesting a possible way to get blind during a botched suicide attempt.