If You Love Me Read online

  “I said get out,” he thundered.

  Ivana bolted like a rabbit.

  Before Ulexi could say another word, Catia was at his feet. Kissing them. “Forgive me, please...forgive me.”

  “Why did you come here?” he said, much closer to his normal tone of voice.

  “My mother threw me out. I have nowhere to go.” She didn’t dare raise her head.

  “You can sleep on the floor,” he said. “Just keep out of my way.”

  “Thank you, Ulexi, oh thank you.”

  “I’m hungry,” he said. “Fix me some eggs.”

  She hurried to the kitchen, happy, fulfilled again. “They’ll be the best eggs in the whole wide world,” she promised.

  She watched him eat them, taking none for herself. She hadn’t eaten all day, but she didn’t care.

  “Hungry?” he asked her.

  “Yes, Ulexi.”

  He set his plate on the floor beside him. There were maybe two or three mouthfuls left.

  Catia went to pick it up.

  “Leave it like it is,” he said.

  She felt a tightening in her belly. “Yes, Ulexi.”

  He wanted her to eat off the floor. Like a dog.

  Back down she went, onto all fours. The eggs were good. She took them eagerly between her teeth.

  She wanted to please...she wanted to fuck.

  For good measure, she licked it clean.

  “Ulexi?” she whispered, not daring to beg explicitly.

  “Clean up,” he told her. “And go to bed.”

  “Yes, Ulexi.”

  He plopped down on the mattress, leaving her the dish and frying pan. She washed them both, took off her pants and shirt and approached the bed...meekly.

  How close would he let her get. She set the pants down near the end of the mattress, rolled like a pillow. The coat, she used as a blanket.

  Lying on her side, she pressed her ass to the mattress. He was snoring above her. She closed her eyes, sighing. She was safe now.

  At a certain point he mumbled something in his sleep. His hand fell over the edge of the bed and landed on her face. She kissed and licked his fingers. The hand went down to her breast, clutching it.

  Catia moaned. She couldn’t help herself. She pushed her hand under her panties and gave in to the sensations. She tried to keep it quiet as her body spasmed, one soaking wet orgasm after another.

  Finally, she fell asleep, giving way to the deepest exhaustion.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Julyana did not sleep at all. Naked, huddled in the bedroom with a bottle she tried to do things to herself, mind numbing, escapist things. Things that hurt and cleansed. Things that made her ashamed.

  I am nothing, she thought.

  And she wanted to die.

  Her only hope was Paulina. To be found worthy to be abused...again.

  If only she had her phone number, her address, her complete name. Somewhere along the line, she too passed out, thanks to the alcohol. Her last thought was for Catia.

  Please let her be all right. Please, may I not have driven her into the jaws of the devil...inextricably and fatally.

  Catia never heard her prayer. The next thing she was aware of was the sensation of being dragged to her feet by a furious Ulexi, his fist in her hair, maneuvering her like a doll.

  “What is the explanation of this?” he demanded.

  “What, Ulexi, what do you mean?”

  He slapped her. “Don’t play stupid. You know what I mean. You stink of your crime.”

  She flushed beat red. He meant the masturbation. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  He grabbed her crotch. “Whose is this?”

  “Yours, Ulexi.”

  “What did I say happened to people who look at it, touch it?”

  “You—you would kill them.”

  “And why shouldn’t I kill you?”

  “I didn’t mean anything, I swear. I was thinking of you...inside me, owning me, that’s all it was.”

  “Liar,” he snarled. “There’s someone else.”

  “No, there’s no one.”

  It was the first time Ulexi’s jealousy was rearing its head. It frightened her that he could become so irrational so quickly.

  He continued to glare. Was he sizing her up? Deciding?

  “You are my property, Catia. Is that understood?”

  “Only yours, Ulexi,” she choked. “I love you, so much, with all my heart. I would die for you.”

  He frowned. “Today you will prove yourself.”

  “Anything...” She swallowed her trepidation, not knowing the limits the man might be capable of. Still, better to follow her heart to hell than crawl back to mother.

  Ulexi’s test was frighteningly simple. “You like to masturbate,” he stopped her on the street. “Do it now. Right where you stand.”

  It was broad daylight. A policeman was walking towards them, a block away.

  “But Ulexi,”

  “Do it,” he said coldly. “Or never speak to me again.”

  “Wait,” she cried. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be across the street, watching.”

  “But, Ulexi,” she called out.

  He looked over his shoulder.

  “I could be arrested.”

  “That isn’t my problem. You’re the one in love.”

  He didn’t mean that. He couldn’t. He loved her too; he just couldn’t say it like she could. He was a wolf. He had to be strong, to fight off dogs and crooked cops. He ran a gang of street thieves. He was her king, her wolf king.

  Catia faced the cop, squarely. He was moving swiftly, no nonsense. She licked her lips. Slowly, unbuttoning her jeans, the same ones she’d worn yesterday. She would need new clothes, what with everything she owned being back at her mothers. She would ask Ulexi—beg him—to buy her some later. He would be pleased at her obedience, after all.

  Down went the zipper. In went her hand, under the waist band. The cop kept on coming. The others just stepped out of her way, a holdover from communist times when not minding one’s business could cost a person their life. Or was it a sign of the new times—every man for himself, make a buck and look the other way?

  The cop saw her. His lips thinned. He had the hand cuffs ready. “I’m not sure what your game is, but it will cost you.”

  She fought him, making him pull her hand out. He spun her around, attaching her wrists behind her back.

  “This will cost you,” he repeated.

  Catia looked across the street at Ulexi, leaning against a lamp post. He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her.

  “Move it,” the cop dragged her when she tried to stand her ground. She was craning her neck, trying to see him as long as possible. Did she dare call out to him? What had happened to his vow, about killing anyone who touched her?

  The cop took her to the next corner. He said something into his radio, she couldn’t follow. A minute later an unmarked car pulled up, driving right onto the sidewalk. A uniformed officer was driving. The cop holding her opened the back door and pushed her inside.

  “Head down,” he ordered.

  She had to squash her head against her thighs.

  “Damn traffic,” muttered the driver as they plodded through the noon time traffic.

  He turned on the siren, the two tone blare that seemed never ending in these looser, freer times. Once upon a time, they came with no noise at all and no one misbehaved, unless they wanted to disappear.

  “What’s her story?” the driver asked the other, who was sitting beside Catia.

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. All you have to know is she’s a free bee. And she better be real cooperative if she wants to stay out of jail. Right, girlie?”

  “Yes, Officer,” she said as he ran his hand up under her back unfastening her bra. She’d almost slipped and called him comrade officer.

  “You got any diseases?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “She’s lying,” said the driver.r />
  “There are rubbers in the glove compartment.”

  “I’ll need two. How about you?”

  “Three for me.”

  “Bullshit, Vonya,” the other chuckled. “You’ll be lucky to fill one.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He pushed Catia’s head down onto his lap. His dick was already out, for her convenience.

  She didn’t need to be told what to do. She was a captive girl, in the back of a police cruiser in a country where corruption was as natural as breathing...and fucking.

  Just let me live, she told herself. Let them do what they want, but afterwards let me crawl back to him, to show my loyalty.

  Then he’ll know. Then he’ll keep me...forever.

  ***

  Ulexi made love to her with total abandon that night. His kisses were all consuming, his cock was on fire. “Tell me,” he whispered, his fingers interlaced with hers, pinning her down on his mattress. Tell me every detail.”

  “They took me...outside the city,” she moaned. “To an old warehouse. I think...they must go there often.”

  She described for him the hanging chains, the wrought iron rack, made of welded pipes.

  “They made me take off my clothes and they told me how it would be. ‘Look here,’ said the one who arrested me. ‘I think you can see how things are. I bet you even wanted this didn’t you?’”

  “How did you answer?”

  “I didn’t know what to say, Ulexi, except that I wouldn’t fight them. He just laughed. ‘No, you won’t.’ They told me more, while they made me strip, about how they had all the power and how they would make me go away. Did I think that kind of thing didn’t happen anymore? Did I think a little slut like me could flout the law and not pay for it? ‘No, Sir,’ I told him. ‘I know I have to pay.’”

  Ulexi bit her nipple. She had never seen him this excited. She screamed because one of the things they had done to her was to put clamps on, big ones. They had also put things in her pussy.

  “Did they make you come?” Ulexi wanted to know.

  “They told me I had to. And if I just faked it, they said they would take me to the prison...to the dogs.”

  “Yes, they have them,” Ulexi confirmed, chomping at her other nipple. “The dogs will hurt you. They hurt and hurt but they’re trained not to kill.”

  She thought about the scars on Ulexi’s body. On his hand, and on his chest. She wanted to kiss them and make them go away. “I stood naked for them, Ulexi, in the middle of that warehouse. The floor was concrete. They had a mattress. It stank of sex. They told me if I was a good girl, they would use me on it, otherwise it would be the floor. I told them I would be good.’

  “That’s when they brought out the rubber hoses. They told me cops like them because they don’t leave marks, but they hurt like a son of a bitch. They wanted to know if I liked pain. ‘Don’t lie,’ the one who’d arrested me threatened.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said I liked it a little...sometimes.”

  “Only a little?” Ulexi bit her neck, making her moan.

  “Okay, a lot. I like it a lot. But I didn’t want them to know too much. Especially with those hoses in their hands. They told me to get on all fours next. They wanted to see me crawling. Like a naked little ruffian, they said. While I crawled, they went at me with the hoses, on my ass, my back. It hurt so bad on my back. The concrete stung my hands, but I moved like lightning trying to get away. I begged to take their cocks in my mouth, up my ass, anything to get them to stop.

  “I wish there had been marks,” Ulexi said, continuing to move inside her, in and out, up and down. “You look good that way.”

  “I would bear them with pride...for you. If only you could have been there, Ulexi.”

  “You were there because of me,” Ulexi reminded her. “Everything they did...I did.”

  “Yes.” That was it. That was what she needed. “Your hands. Your cock. Oh, god, it hurt. They used their sticks, too.”

  “How?”

  “In my pussy, they fucked me there until I orgasmed. Then they fucked my mouth, taking turns, the other going at it from behind. I was clamped and dirty and I had to take it in the mouth and cunt at once. Then they went after my ass until I cried and then they started again. They came into condoms and they gave them to me and I had to suck the jism out, like candy.”

  “You’d do it again. If I told you.”

  “I’m your slave, Ulexi,” she confirmed in unfettered joy. “How could it be otherwise?”

  He grunted and climaxed, leaving her unsatisfied.

  She went to him as soon as he rolled onto his back.

  She sensed something wrong as she licked away her juices. “What’s wrong, Ulexi?”

  “I’m bored.”

  She hugged at his belly. “Ulexi, don’t say that.”

  “It’s not that you aren’t a good little lay,” he stroked her hair. “It’s the business. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Is there something I can do to help you?”

  “Maybe. It could be dangerous, though.”

  “I don’t care,” she insisted.

  He pulled her up, had her mount his cock which was getting hard again. “I’ll tell you about it, if you want to hear.”

  “Please,” she wheedled. “Please, please?”

  And that’s when she heard about Ulexi’s plan to steal a small fortune in stolen weapons from a mobster known as Ivan the Terrible...using her as bait.

  ***

  The next day Catia did something she dreaded far worse than police assaults or facing Russian mafia bosses.

  She went home to see her mother.

  Ulexi was the one who he made her do it.

  She would like to say he did it to build her character, but the truth was he got off on forcing her.

  There was a bad scene ahead of time. She begged him in tears not to make her. “I just need some clothes. If you’ll get them for me, I’ll pay you back.”

  “There’s only one way a girl like you can do that,” he said. “And I’m not letting that happen.”

  She went so far as to get on her knees. “Ulexi, please?”

  His cock was rock hard. “You’ll do as you’re told,” he rubbed his erection.

  “Yes,” she choked.

  “You’ll go back to your mother,” he breathed tightly. “You’ll ask for your things. You’ll tell her you’re sorry.”

  Tears streamed down her face. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand that you’ll do it, girl, because you’re my slave. And your opinions, your feelings don’t enter into it. Do they?”

  “No, Ulexi.”

  He unzipped his pants. “That’s better.”

  She was angry but she took him more abjectly than she ever had in her life. He owned her, he really did. He was fit and willing to control her and she had no option but to respond...as his woman.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, licking a drop of him off her lips afterwards.

  “Don’t mention it. You’ll go this evening, when she’s home from work.”

  “Yes, Ulexi.”

  Catia fixed her brain on autopilot the rest of the day.

  “Aren’t you coming?” she asked when it came time to leave.

  “Report back to me,” he said, not bothering to take his eyes off the tiny black and white TV.

  “All right,” she pouted.

  Catia hoped against hope all the way over that her mother wouldn’t be there. Just my luck, she sighed as the door opened on the second knock.

  Julyana answered the door, stunned. She couldn’t move; she could barely speak. “Catia.”

  “I’m here...for my things,” Catia said woodenly.

  Julyana stepped aside, like a character in her own dream. “Everything’s where you left it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Julyana followed her. “Are you all right?” she asked, watching her daughter pull her suitcase from the shelf of her old room.

  �
��I’m fine.” Catia knew what she had to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. And unless Julyana put up some resistance, she was liable to escape back out of here without apologizing at all.

  “Catia, please.” Her mother was begging. “I know you hate me and you are right to do so. But if I can help you. Anything, my love...my life I would give.”

  Catia swallowed. The words sounded so familiar. This was just how she felt about Ulexi. But shouldn’t she feel this way about her own mother, too? The woman who gave birth to her and stood by her for her whole life?

  The stone wall melted. Under the harsh exterior of anger and resentment was a reservoir of sadness, a ball of loss so great it hurt. “Mamya,” she whispered in Voldovian, the name she called Julyana when she was a little girl.

  Julyana folded her daughter into her arms. “My Catyisha.”

  Catyisha...little Catia.

  Catia burst into tears, the words pouring out, and a waterfall of regret. “I was so mean, Mamya, I am so sorry, when they took me away, I...I could not bear it, and then...and then...”

  “Hush,” soothed her mother. “It will be all right.”

  The lump in her throat would not go away.

  It wouldn’t be all right. It would never be all right. Not in a world where women must depend on men, where they must use their sex to survive.

  “Come home, Catia, please, come home?”

  “I can’t,” Catia choked. “I’ve gone...too far.”

  “It’s never too far, my love, never.”

  “There’s a man now,” she sniffled. “He...he has a claim on me.”

  Julyana looked at her, sadness in her eyes. She already knew the answer to the question she was about to ask. “He loves you? He will marry you?”

  Catia managed a smile. “One day, yes, one day, we shall marry and he does love me in his way.”

  How like me she is, thought Julyana. Optimistic, stubborn. For how many years did she hold out hope that Nicholas Bentham would return to rescue her.

  “This man of yours,” Julyana asked, trying to find the words to resonate. “Is he...strong?”

  Catia lit with appreciation, relief. “Oh, yes, I think you’d like him, he’s very handsome, too, and a leader. Everyone looks up to him. I think...I think he must be like my father.”

  “I’m sure he is.” Julyana brushed the stray hairs from Catia’s face the way she did every morning before school. “I think you would know to pick such a man.”