Dead Tomorrow

paunch.
    As he walked towards the bed he said, ‘How are you, my beautiful angel of the Gara de Nord?’
    She felt a prickle of anxiety through her haze of wooziness.
    ‘I’m great,’ she murmured. ‘Thank you so much for everything. I’m so tired.’
    Then his erection was touching her left cheek. ‘Suck him,’ he said. His voice was cold and hard.
    She looked at him, suddenly more awake and alert. There were dark rings around his eyes and menace in the inky blackness of his pupils.
    ‘Suck him,’ he repeated. ‘Aren’t you grateful to me? Don’t you want to show me your gratitude?’
    He climbed on to the bed and manoeuvred himself so that his erection and his balls were right over her face. Afraid, she put up her right hand and held the shaft, then took him in her mouth tentatively. It tasted of stale sweat.
    Then she felt a stinging blow on her cheek. ‘Suck him, bitch!’
    She took him in deeper, closing her mouth around it, moving up and down the shaft.
    ‘Owww! You fucking stupid woman, you want me to take your teeth out or something?’
    She stared at him, wild-eyed, sobering fast.
    Suddenly he pushed her chin away, pulling himself free. ‘God, you ungrateful bitch!’ Then, wrenching her shoulders harshly, causing her to cry out in pain, he turned her over, right over, until her face was buried in the pillow, and for a moment she thought he intended to suffocate her.
    Then she felt his fingers probing her vagina and thought she was going to throw up. She struggledto swallow the bile that rose in her throat. Then they moved from her vagina to her anus. Moments later she felt his erection trying to enter it.
    Then, shrieking with pain, she felt him entering her. Further. Further.
    ‘No! Gogu!’ she screamed, almost choking on more bile.
    Further.
    She felt as if she was splitting in two.
    Further.
    She shook her head, her whole body, in desperation, trying to break free. He grabbed a clump of her wet hair and banged her face hard into the pillow, so hard she could not breathe. Then entered her further. Further still.
    She was whimpering. Crying. Calling, ‘Gogu, Gogu, Gogu!’ Struggling. Struggling against the pain. Struggling for breath.
    ‘Fuck you, ungrateful little bitch,’ he whispered into her ear.
    She turned her face sideways, gulping down air, crying in agony.
    ‘Fuck you, bitch!’ he hissed.
    His erection was getting even bigger. Busting her in half.
    ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, bitch!’ He smashed his fist into the side of her face. ‘Fuck you, ungrateful little bitch from the gutters!’
    He pushed even deeper inside her.
    She screamed out again and he rammed her face hard against the pillow, holding her there, jamming her airways. She struggled, tried to lift her head, but he kept it down, hard. Panic seized her, through the pain. She shook, trying to move, but she was pinned, as if a spike had been rammed through her. She began shaking in the final throes of suffocation, her chest hurting so much shethought it would collapse. Then he jerked her head back and kissed her deeply on the lips, as she gulped in air, his air, from his lungs.
    Then he broke his mouth away. ‘Tell me you like this. Tell me you are grateful to me.’ He held his face hard against her cheek. ‘Tell me you are grateful to me for saving you. Say it. Say you are grateful! Say thank you!’
    ‘I hate you!’ she gasped.
    He slammed the ball of his thumb against her cheek. Then he smashed his fist into her eye socket. He paused for a second before gripping her hair with both hands, so hard she was sure he was going to rip it from her scalp. He continued holding her hair as she felt him ejaculating inside her. Then she vomited.
    Some time later, Simona did not know when–she had lost all track of time–she was in the back of the big black car once more. The same music she recognized from before was playing, that same rich voice singing those words of a song that had no meaning for her: ‘I’ve got you under my skin’.
    The same Bucharest night was gliding past the window. She hurt all over. The most terrible pains. Her face felt puffy. Her head hurt. When she had arrived at the Gara de Nord she had felt dirty all over. Now she felt clean all over, but dirty inside. Filthy.
    She wanted to cry but she hurt too much. And she did not want this man with the snake tattoo, who was driving, who had not spoken one word, but kept looking at her in the mirror and smiling at her, a filthy, dirty