"Oh, Fräulein! Come, quickly, we must prepare you!"

A dozen hands swamped me as they yanked me into the room. I gazed around to find seven women standing about, blonde hair pinned up nicely and blue eyes wide with enthusiasm as they scanned my face and body. They were wearing satin dresses of different colors, but all with the same theme—bright and utterly blinding. Their mouths were stretched in toothy smiles, and one of them grabbed my hand, digging into it with her long nails, and dragged me to the center of the room.

"So, Brittany, are you excited for the big day?" a woman in her early twenties in a cobalt dress stood before me, taking my simple summer dress into her hands. I let my eyes wander around passively, not even bothering to answer her question. This was the last place that I wanted to be at, and this situation the last one that I wanted to be in.

The women chattered happily as they gathered around me, stripping me of my dress and my last comforts. I had a sudden and odd thought that they were all hens, clucking excitedly with their arms bent back and heads bobbing back and forth. I smiled a little at the thought and wished that they would just go back to roost on their nests and leave me be.

I noticed how they paused when the dress was completely off, their judgmental eyes on the small and barely noticeable swell of my belly. I had only very recently begun to show; I was right out of my first trimester. The women's eyes bounced back and forth between my belly and my indifferent face, as if waiting for me to say something, to justify the horrible fact that I was pregnant before my marriage. After a few moments of booming silence, they turned back to each other and the chatter was renewed.

They began to prepare me for the ceremony, occasionally facing me and speaking to me, but I didn't hear them, nor did I care to. I was back in the house, back in safety, back in Santana's arms, which was where I truly belonged.

"Brittany, Herr Eberhardt will not be coming home tonight. He mentioned something about tradition," Ora feigned disappointment as she exited the living room to the kitchen. I buried myself further into Santana as her comforting arms wrapped around me. She leaned her cheek on my head, sighed quietly, and said, "It'll be okay, Brittany."

I felt a warm tear slip down my nose as I took in a shaky breath, my hands clenching onto Santana's blouse. "Once we're married…it'll be set in stone. I'll never be able to get away from him."

She stroked my hair soothingly and I breathed into her blouse so that I could smell her sweet scent. I felt a mixture of emotions, from absolute terror of what was to come to pure bliss for being in her arms, for being the one that she loved. The one that she kissed every day, and embraced in her arms, and whispered words of affection to. I didn't understand what I had done in life to deserve to be loved by such a divine and wondrous person as Santana. I must've done something right. But there was this constant feeling, this "what if." What if we were found together? What if she's taken away from me? What if she's killed because of my selfishness?

Santana was humming a quiet tune that she frequently played on the piano, one of my favorites, and rocking me back and forth like a mother does her child. Her left hand drifted down to my belly, and she caressed it, a frequent practice that had become a comforting habit. She sneaked her hand under my blouse to have better access to my belly, and she stroked it back and forth, almost protectively. We were hers, my child and I. And there was not one bit of protest within me to that fact.

"I don't want to marry him," I choked out.

Santana held me closer to her, and was quiet for a bit before saying, "When all of this is over, this war, this nightmare, we'll run away together."

I smiled into her shirt. "Run away to where?"

I could almost hear the grin in her voice when she said, "Run away to Neverland."

I giggled and rolled my eyes, leaning up to kiss her neck. "Tell me more about this running away."

"We'll run away to a distant land, with elves and centaurs and satyrs. Where everything is green, and the people are happy, and the animals speak. Where a 'happily ever after' can exist. Where it rains diamonds and the wind smells like peaches and love grows on trees. We'll be welcomed into the castle and married that same day by the King himself, and we'll ride to our new little cottage on our glowing unicorn. We'll grow into beautiful swans just like the Ugly Duckling."

"The Ugly what?" I asked as I stroked her arm.

"You've never heard the story of the Ugly Duckling?" Santana sounded astounded.

"My parents weren't much of storytellers," I shrugged, still leaning into her.

"Well, this is an amazing one, written by Hans Christian Andersen in the 19th century. It's a story about a mother duck who roosted on her nest until her eggs hatched. And she had beautiful ducklings, but there was one, big and dark and ugly, among the ducklings. And the mother duck presented her ducklings to the rest of the farm animals, but they all rejected the Ugly Duckling, saying that she should send him away. He was bullied and beaten by the other animals, until he just couldn't take it anymore and he flew away. He flew away first to a moor, then to a cottage, then to a peasant's home, but wherever he went, he was spoken down to and treated as if he was less worthy, inferior. And one day, after the seasons passed and it was summer again, the Ugly Duckling found his way back to the farm and the garden. And he saw the most beautiful creatures that he had ever seen in that garden—swans. So he flew down to them, preparing himself to be rejected by them as well—"

"But they didn't reject him," I found myself as excited as a little child being told a bedtime story.

"No," Santana kissed the top of my head. "No, they swam to him and accepted him, and then he looked down at his reflection in the water—and he saw a swan. A beautiful swan, no longer an Ugly Duckling at all. He felt like he never belonged, but finally, he found his true family."

"Like me," I said softly. In our life, I was the Ugly Duckling. The Nazis and Aryans were the arrogant ducks, unaccepting bullies who raised their beaks at anyone who wasn't like them, and the "inferior," the harmless innocent, were the beautiful swans. Santana was the gorgeous swan that accepted me, made me her own. And I had never been happier than being a fellow swan in her arms.

She tightened her embrace, leaned down to kiss my nose, and said, "Yes, just like you."

Now more than ever, as I was being powdered down and smeared with make-up, I felt like the Ugly Duckling. The one who never belonged. Here were these Aryan women, wives to Nazi officers, entirely engrossed in their lives of superiority and wealth. I didn't want any of that. All that I wanted was to be able to be with Santana for the rest of my life, whether it be here or there, wealthy or poor, superior or inferior. As long as I was with her, I didn't care about anything else. But in this world, where inhumanity and cruelty were so evident, such a wish was an impossible idea. Where would we run away to after the Nazi Regime conquered the entire world? It certainly seemed like they were on the way there. They practically controlled all of Europe already. How do you escape when you're surrounded on all sides?

The women moved my arms and legs like a puppet until I was constricted in the wedding dress that I had been fitted into a few months earlier. I was like a marionette—all that they had to do was to tug on the strings to get me to move to their liking. That's all that anybody ever had to do, tug on my strings; it was part of being an Aryan woman. Like my father had said, I was a property of the state. Nothing more, nothing less.

They allowed me to gaze at myself in the mirror, even though I didn't really care to. What did it matter how I looked? Beautiful or not, I was to marry a horrid man, to spend the rest of my life with him. There was a comfort within me, though, a comfort in the knowledge that she would be there with me. But how long would we be able to continue to live in our little fantasy? How long did we have before he found out? Before our fragile illusion was shattered?

I raised my gaze to the mirror to be met by my solemn eyes. I was hardly recognizable with all of the make-up that the women had applied to my face. The dress covered every little part of my body, and I took notice in the fact that they attached a small swastika pin above my left breast. I was branded, although in a much less traumatizing way, just like the prisoners of Auschwitz. Once again reminded that I am their property.

The women fixed the wedding veil into the bun that sat firmly on top of my head and lowered the thin, see-through fabric over my face. They were still speaking heatedly amongst themselves, and occasionally to me, but all of their words sounded jumbled and incoherent. My heartbeat quickened a bit as silent terror fell over me, and I frantically tried to set my mind on Santana again. If I could just think about her the entire time, maybe I would get through this ceremony.

Finally, the time came for me to stand by the small door that led to the Kraków town hall. It was meant to be a small, unreligious wedding. A simple and quick ceremony, almost painless. The women filed out of the room, some hugging me and wishing me good luck. I kept my lips tightly shut as I had done the entire day. I had nothing to say to them, the ones who indulged in this atrocity.

I let my mind wander back to Santana as I stood there, awaiting my future of confinement. The first time that we made love, and how I discovered what passion truly was. The way that she held me in her arms after, so protectively, as if I was the one being hunted down by those killers, not her. She was always the one comforting me, not the other way around. As if I had something to complain about after the life that she had been through. She was so strong, and when she set her mind to something, such as being there for me at every moment, comforting me, loving me, she would do it without the slightest bit of complaint. She so devotedly loved me, and I so ardently adored her, and it was almost like we could be happy in our little oblivious bubble.

I remembered her hands on my naked body, her lips on my neck, her tongue in my mouth. I remembered how my fingers so nicely intertwined in her now slightly longer hair. How she'd rock us back and forth, our legs locked around each other, our arms tangled, and our hearts beating as one. How she'd breathe heavily into my ear, and how she'd mumble, "B—Brittany…"

More than anything, I wanted to remain pure for her. I wanted to keep what little sanctity I still had after all of those nights with him. Maybe not purity in sex, but my lips were hers, and only hers. He had never kissed me before. He just came into my room, did his business, and left. There was never any intimacy between us, nor did I want there to be any. It was the complete opposite of being with Santana, with the ragged breaths and disorganized kisses and just being engulfed by each other's bodies. To him, my body may as well have been that of a prostitute. To her, it was a place of worship. Utterly irreplaceable.

When I snapped back into reality, I found myself standing at the front of the hall by Herr Eberhardt's side. Herr Von Richter, the Nazi General who had set up our engagement, was speaking about how marriage is holy in that it brings together worthy people like Herr Eberhardt and I. He was dressed in his finest uniform, and his cold eyes bore into me as he spoke. His voice sounded distant and muffled, as if he was saying these things from across an entire valley. Once again, the words either became incoherent or I was too hazed to figure them out.

Herr Von Richter turned to Herr Eberhardt and asked him a question. Herr Eberhardt's response cut into my dreamlike state like a knife. "Ich will. I do."

Herr Von Richter turned to me, and now his voice was closer, more understandable. "Do you, Brittany Susan Pierce, take this man, Richart Eberhardt, to be your faithful husband?"

I gazed apathetically at Herr Von Richter, the man whose fault it was that I was even here in the first place. But I did have something to thank him for—without him, I would have never met Santana. Life without Santana seemed meaningless, pointless. And if it meant that I would rather be here, married to this man, than not be with Santana at all, then so be it.

Herr Von Richter glared at me, sending daggers through his eyes, waiting for me to give my unwilling consent. I turned my head to Herr Eberhardt, who was standing to my left, and pondered whether or not I should go through with this. If I didn't, if I said no now, what would happen? I would be moved back to Berlin, away from Santana. I saw her body lying before me, a bullet hole in her forehead and her face frozen in horror. I would be safe, and she would be dead. I turned my head back to Herr Von Richter and said quietly, "Ich will."

Herr Von Richter's mouth stretched into a smile that looked a lot more like a sneer than anything else, and he declared, "I now pronounce you worthy man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Herr Eberhardt pushed my left shoulder away from him so that I would be forced to face him. His harsh hands lifted the veil off of my face, his callous eyes scanning me. He put one hand around my neck and pulled me towards him, but I quickly turned my head away, and his lips barely caught the corner of my mouth. My lips were hers and no one else's. I would not let him take my very last piece of dignity.

We were frozen in that awkward position for a few moments before he finally pulled back and let go of his tight hold on the back of my neck. I licked my lips, longing to taste Santana's lips on mine again. My eyes darted around to the Nazi officers and their wives, who were standing all about the hall. I was married. Now it really was set in stone.

"Congratulations, Frau Eberhardt," Herr Von Richter sounded malicious. The Nazi officers standing about repeated his words, along with congratulations for Herr Eberhardt. My husband.

The women who prepared me pushed me toward the door of the town hall, urging me to follow Herr Eberhardt to the car that was waiting for us outside. I tripped over my dress in all of their hurried frenzy, and they quickly caught me with an "Oh, no!" Herr Eberhardt was already sitting in the car, waiting for me, and I was shoved into the back seat and forced to sit beside him. The excited women waved me goodbye and slammed the door in my face, leaving me alone with him.

We were taken to a small inn in the city, where we were given access to the largest, most prestigious room. Herr Eberhardt commanded me to wash myself, and, reluctantly, I made my way to the shower. To my utter terror, the haziness that served as my shield throughout this day washed away with the water. Now I was fully conscious of every little sound around me, including Herr Eberhardt's boots, which were marching back and forth across the wooden floor of the room. I was swept by dread for what was to come, and yearned to just remain in the shower for the entire night. But Herr Eberhardt was impatient, and knocked on my door loudly, saying that I was taking too long for his liking. I shut off the water, dried my body off, and wore the nightdress that had been laid out for me.

I opened the door, only to be knocked aside by a careless Herr Eberhardt. I rubbed my arm as I left the restroom, and he slammed the door behind me. Maybe if he thought that I was asleep…although it never stopped him before. I crawled under the sheets and faced away from the sounds of the shower, completely petrified of what was to happen. I suspected that it would be more horrible this time, after I had been with Santana, after I experienced what it was like to really make love. I wished to be back in the house with her, to pick our love off of trees, to ride our unicorn to our freedom. More than anything, I wished to live in the world of Hans Christian Andersen, and to be her Ugly Duckling.

Translations

German

"Frau" – Mrs., a title for married women.

"Fräulein" – Miss, a title for unmarried women.

"Herr" – Mr., a title for men.

"Ich will" – I do.