Body Surfing

loudly, echoing through the quiet streets. She could’ve broken in of course, but where was the fun in that?
    The proprietor hesitated, then hurried forward, one hand digging in the pocket of his filthy apron for a key.
    “Are you trying to raise the dead, girl? Quiet down before the entire Serbian army comes running!”
    The demon pulled back, giving Ileana a bit of freedom to see what she would do. He held her tongue though, as tightly as her fingers had held the organ she pulled from the Serbian soldier’s mouth.
    Freedom seemed only to make the girl weak. Ileana slumped into the proprietor’s arms, and he had to catch her to keep her from falling. Suddenly his hands noticed what his eyes had missed in the faint morning light: the blood on her skin and clothing. “Good God, girl, what have they done to you?”
    Still the demon held her tongue. Ileana struggled against him but could do nothing besides shake her head violently. She shook it and shook it, then began beating it with both hands, but still the demon would not leave.
    “Sestra.” The proprietor folded her tightly in his arms. “Sweet girl, what’s happened to you?”
    He took her in back, to an apartment as dirty as his apron. There was a Quran on the coffee table, a bilingual edition in Arabic and Serbo-Croatian, which suggested that the man wasn’t particularly devout—an apathy that wouldn’t stop a Serb soldier from shooting him in the head three days later, and defiling the pages of the holy book with his feces.
    The bathroom was windowless and damp. Droplets of condensation spotted the moldy ceiling, teardrop-shaped rust stains hung beneath the faucets in sink and tub. The only light came from a tall candle in a heavy brass candlestick that the man set on top of the toilet tank. A carpet of shed hair matted the floor.
    “I wasn’t expecting company,” the man said sheepishly. He lowered the lid over the filthy bowl and sat Ileana on it. “So much blood. It’s a wonder you’re able to walk at all.”
    He washed her face, dabbing softly at first, then pressing more firmly when he saw there weren’t any bruises beneath the dirt and ash and blood. Pink and gray water coursed down her neck, revealing the pale, unblemished cheeks, chin, brow.
    “It’s good they didn’t damage such a pretty face,” he crooned, tenderly pulling a piece of debris from her hair, then recoiling when he realized it was a bit of flesh. “My God, what can turn men into such monsters?”
    Ileana sat motionless, even as the demon worked busily inside her: dilating her pupils, plumping her lips, allowing the tiniest shimmer of sweat to glisten along her forehead. Her pores radiated chemicals that the man’s nose and tongue would register and understand, even if his conscious mind did not.
    When his rag strayed to her neck, Ileana straightened her back ever so slightly. Her breasts pushed at the filthy shirt, so wet with blood that they were outlined clearly.
    “Forgive me, sestra . I cannot get you clean with this…”
    Ileana’s eyes filled with silent pleading. Her arms moved of their own accord, lifting the bottom of her shirt and peeling it off.
    The man bit his lip beneath his dirty mustache. “So much blood,” he said again, but pity wasn’t the only thing in his voice. He wipedher throat and stomach, then rinsed his rag and returned to her breasts. He cleaned one and then the other, lifting them to get at the grime trapped beneath. When his hand brushed against her nipple she breathed in sharply, but that was all the demon allowed her.
    “Sestra?” The man looked into her eyes.
    The demon looked out at him, full of amusement and contempt. Such weak creatures, humans. Slaves to base urges. You didn’t even have to possess them to get them to do what you wanted.
    It was the man who removed Ileana’s pants, standing her up and lowering the filthy garment to the floor. He sponged the right leg, then the left, cleaned each of her feet in turn, around the ankles, between the toes. He turned her around and wiped the back of her legs, the cleft between.
    The demon turned Ileana around in a circle as though she were modeling a dress. But there was only the nineteen-year-old body to look at, taut, pale, completely unscathed.
    Still kneeling, the man looked up at the girl’s face. “There isn’t a mark on you. The blood. It—it isn’t yours?”
    The demon couldn’t hold back. He made Ileana grab the man’s coarse hair and pull his face into her