Ark(21)

The prostitute glanced at the priest, who merely grinned, and then she looked back at Japheth.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s because of me that you’re here, girl,” Japheth murmured. “Do what you must.”

She climbed astride him, seating him inside her, and began moving her hips, grinding against him, but Japheth felt no desire for a mere slip of a girl as this—even under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have desired her. His desires were irrelevant however; the herbs the priest had forced him to swallow had seen to that.

The girl moved on him, and Japheth fought against the physical response of his body to her touch. But then . . . if she couldn’t do as the priest wished, Mesh-te might hurt her further, and it would Japheth’s fault. The priest, watching, was licking his lips and fondling himself, as if watching gave him as much pleasure as performing the act himself.

Japheth closed his eyes and stopped fighting his physical response to her touch, wanting to pray for forgiveness, but unwilling to believe in any god who could allow such evil in the world. She knew her trade all too well, this girl, and Japheth struggled against the riot of mixed emotions, pleasure and pain, hatred and disgust. He opened his eyes and met her gaze and saw the apology there. He needed to feel something besides her movement upon him, so he pulled against the chains with all his strength, straining until the manacles cut into the flesh of his wrist, providing a stinging counterpoint of pain to balance against what the girl was doing—

Suddenly a hot wet rush burst over Japheth’s face and chest, filling his mouth with an sickly-sweet tang, a sharp taste he knew all too well, and the girl whose name he never knew gasped in surprise and gurgled and thrashed above him. Japheth opened his eyes and saw the prostitute on top of him, her robes fallen open, head tipped back, dark hair cascading around pale shoulders . . . a scarlet gash across her throat. Blood ran down her flesh, coating her breasts crimson. He reached for her, wanting to ease her passage somehow, but the chains prevented him and he could only cry out in rage, spitting out her blood.

Mesh-te the demon-priest was licking the blood from the blade of his dagger, grinning, pleased, aroused.

Japheth, turned his head away, closed his eyes, horror searing through him.

Elohim, why do you allow this? Japheth found himself praying to his father’s god for the first time in so long, turning to The One God for some kind of comfort in his agony. Elohim, if you are real, if you are The One God—

Japheth was going to ask Elohim to end his suffering, but he found himself thinking of Aresia instead, and changed his prayer: Elohim, spare her. Spare Aresia. Protect her, if you are The One True God. Let me suffer instead of her.

Eventually the priest staggered from the room, the girl’s body now empty of blood.

The next hours blended together until Japheth couldn’t have said if he’d been chained to the chair for hours or days, or if he had ever been free, if he had ever seen the sunlight, or tasted wine upon his lips, or felt the wind on his face.





4





Bone Of My Bones





“Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.’” Genesis 2:23 ESV





Once again my days and nights were filled with the sound of screams. The court of King Sin-Iddim was worse than Father’s, by far. Some of the screams were howls of agony drawn from tortured captives, others were moans of pleasure from the pairs or groups of people mating on the floors and couches scattered throughout the throne room.

I sat on my throne next to my new husband and stared at the sliver of blue sky visible through the far doorway. A slave cowered at my feet, a human boy not yet old enough to grow a beard, naked, crusted with dirt and scabs and dried blood, hair matted and tangled, chains on his feet and hands. He knelt on all fours, face pressed against the floor, waiting. I had learned he would not rise from that position unless commanded by the King. Even if struck or kicked by a guard or priest or courtier, the boy would remain motionless and silent. I wished I could kneel beside him, scrub away the dirt and blood, send him to play in the streets with the other boys his age. I knew, however, even if I did, he would have no concept of play, no notion of fun. The one time his eyes met mine I had seen no life there, no identity in his gaze, and only a lifeless apprehension of pain.

The only kindness I could perform for him would be to plunge a dagger into his heart—he would welcome that. Oh, Inanna, what was the world coming to, that an innocent boy’s life should be so awful? The boy served only one function . . . he was not a cupbearer, not a spear-bearer, not a servant of any kind—his only role in life was to be sodomized by the king.

There was no concept of privacy in the court of Sin-Iddim. Whenever the mood took him, the king would rise from his throne, grab the boy by the hair, bend him over and violate him, right on the throne, in front of anyone who happened to be watching. He hadn’t done that particular evil to me yet, thank the gods, but it was coming, and soon. I had expected Sin-Iddim to take me to his bedchamber the moment we arrived at the palace, but he hadn’t. His first act was to rape the boy, watching me as he did so with a vile glint in his eyes. He was playing with me, I knew. He wanted me to wait, wanted me to dread what was coming.

And I did—I dreaded it with all of my soul.