Page 55 of Degradation

I was a fool to call her malkta. A fool to speak the word out loud. It’s a measure of how little control I have, how much she’s already wormed her way into my head.

Malkta. Queen.

She is a queen. A queen of curses. A queen of damnation. A queen of whores.

But I want her all the same. I’m a fucking fool to feel it, a greater fool to acknowledge it. My hands shake, my entire body is itching to cross that room, to take a knife, to pin the little bitch down and have my way with her until she’s a quivering, bleeding mess that she’ll never recover from.

But I can’t do that.

I can’t fucking touch her.

I shut my eyes,imagining I’m doing it, that I’m holding her down, slitting her throat, fixing the problem for all of us.

Pailtyn

When night comes, my husband comes with it.

I can barely bring myself to turn and face him, but I know the man will happily beat me for my insolence if I don’t.

He looks like shit. He looks like his conscience might actually be catching up with him. His face is puffy, wrinkled, like he’s been faceplanting the pillow for hours and his eyes are slightly bloodshot as if he hasn’t been sleeping properly.

He tilts his head, twitching it slightly at an angle like it’s a tic he’s developed, but I don’t recall him behaving like that before.

“Wife.” He says, in a voice that is neutral, emotionless.

I don’t reply. I just drop my gaze, playing that submissive creature, he wants me to be.

He crosses the room, taking my hands as if I’m the most delicate thing in the world, as if I’m made of glass and he’s worried he’ll break me.

He raises them up, kisses them softly but I’m trembling all the same. Trembling almost violently.

I can feel his eyes on me. Not my husband. But him. The guard.

He doesn’t usually watch me. He doesn’t usually look at me. None of them do. It’s like they’re afraid to look in case my husband gouges their eyes out.

But they weren’t afraid that night, were they? My stomach twists as I remember it, remember him, on top of me, over me, how he jerked off, how he masturbated, how he clearly enjoyed my fear and my pain and all of it.

“Paitlyn.” My husband says, bringing my attention back to him.

“What do you want?” I ask. Maybe it’s stupid, maybe I should keep my mouth shut but playing nice hasn’t spared me anything so far?

“I was cruel. Unnecessarily so. I wish to apologise. I wish to show you how much you mean to me.”

I swear my jaw drops. This is a joke. It has to be. I mean nothing to him. I am nothing to him. I’m not stupid enough to believe otherwise.

He hooks his hand under the crook of my arm, leading me out. The maids gave me a nighty to wear so at least I’m not naked as he walks me down the hallway, down through this ridiculous building and to where his bed is.

I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to smell his smell or know that he is beside me, that he is close to me.

I whimper as we cross the threshold. My feet stick to the floor, and I feel like a horse suddenly refusing to go into their stable.

“Paitlyn.” My husband admonishes me. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“But you did.” I blurt out. “You did hurt me. You beat me and you abused me, and you let them do it too.” I throw a look over my shoulder, glaring at that same arsehole who even now is caging me in, ensuring I have no place to escape to.

Gunther shakes his head. “It’s over. It’s in the past.”

“Not for me.”