Body Surfing

crotch. The man huffed and blubbered, fought, then gave in. It seemed unlikely he’d ever attempted to pleasure a woman this way. He chewed at Ileana’s labia as though it were an unpeeled orange. Ileana felt him gnawing, heard his moans as though they came through a wall. But she could hear her own moans too, and it was the latter that truly disgusted her.
    She threw him backwards onto the floor, his head narrowly missing the edge of the tub.
    “Whoa, girl, take it easy.”
    Ileana had to hold the man’s stomach out of the way to open his belt. Unlike the hair on his head and face, his pubic thatch was surprisingly well groomed, and the sight of the stumpy penis curled upward like a hitchhiker’s thumb brought a smirk to the demon’s face.
    The man responded with his own embarrassed smile.
    “It’s not much, I know. But it’s all for you.”
    The demon threw Ileana’s head back and laughed. Ileana heard the sound echoing through the dirty little room. Could feel her fingers pulling open her vagina as though it belonged to someone else, could feel her legs buckle as she dropped to her knees and impaled herself on the man’s little scimitar. The proprietor let out a short scream, half in pain, half in ecstasy.
    “Don’t—you—dare!” The demon fixed the man with Ileana’s eyes. “I need you to hold on for me. For just—one— minute .”
    The man’s mouth hung open. His eyes were blank as he stared into those of the girl straddling him and rocking up and down violently. A dull moan gurgled out of him.
    “Just—one—more—SECOND!”
    The last orgasm of Ileana’s life was like an icy wind, burning out the strange fire that had raged in her since her rape at the hands of the Serbian squad. All the deadened sensations of the past twelve hours pressed down on her fragile skin. She felt as if a thousand knives were ripping her apart, yet when she looked down at herself she was unblemished. Unblemished, and naked, and sitting astride a—
    With a shriek, she threw herself off the man who lay beneath her.
    “Who are you?” Yet even as she said it she knew. Remembered everything that had happened. Everything she had done. Everything save the why.
    “Sestra, sestra.” A tired smile played over the man’s face. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
    Ileana’s mouth curled in a grimace of disgust. She hurled herself on the man. She was strong, stronger than she’d ever been, but in her frenzy half her blows struck the tiled floor or the hard cast iron of the tub.
    The man threw her off and rolled toward the door. Ileana’s head smashed against the wall and she sat stunned.
    The man lowered his apron over his open pants. “Has the whole world gone crazy?”
    The events of the evening were still scrolling through Ileana’smind, one grisly murder after another. She lifted her hands, looked at them as if they didn’t belong to her. How? How had she done such things?
    “I’m sorry,” the man said. “I don’t know what came over me. I should never have done that to you. Not in your state.”
    A gleam caught Ileana’s eye. The long curve of a straight razor hanging just a foot away.
    “Sestra.” The man saw where she was looking. “Sestra , no.”
    She was entranced by the gleaming metal. Her left hand reached for it slowly. She didn’t see the proprietor reach for the brass candlestick on the tank. She stared at her narrow reflection in the blade for one second, then, in a flash, drew it across her right wrist. In the dim light the stream of blood was nearly black.
    Then suddenly everything was black. Ileana thought she was losing consciousness, but it was just the wick blowing out when the proprietor swung the candlestick through the air. It struck her squarely in the temple. An explosion of sparks, and blessed darkness fell over her mind.
    The proprietor dumped her unconscious body on the cobblestones outside his shop.
    “Stupid Croatian whore.”
    Shaking his head, he retrieved his broom and continued getting ready to open. The breakfast crowd would be here soon. People still had to eat, even in wartime.
     
    She felt the pain in half a dozen places when she opened her eyes: her head, her hands, her vagina. But none of them was as bad as the ache that throbbed in her soul.
    She was in a hospital ward. Beds, plastic tables, beeping machines. Everything antiseptic and off-white, save for a little blood seeping through bandages here and there.
    For the first time she noticed the man