Mantis

48. Very bad gentlemen

– When... when was it? – Victor stammered after what felt like an eternity, looking at me with eyes darkened by fully dilated pupils.

– A long time ago – I replied laconically in an icy tone.

– And what did you do?

I looked at his beautiful, terrified face and barely restrained myself from a crooked smile.

– I was sixteen – I muttered in an emotionless tone. – What could I have done, huh?

– I don't know, well... – Victor gasped, excited. – Tell someone. The school principal. Your parents. What did they say?

The little creature living inside me snorted in amusement, and this time I couldn't hold back a crooked smile.

– Which one? – I asked in a tone as saccharine as my plastic smile. – Mom or Dad?

– Either. Both.

– Don't make me laugh – I scoffed, though I didn't feel like laughing at all.

– What's so funny about that? – Victor asked, giving me a confused look.

I looked at Victor, trying to convey nonverbally what I really didn't want to say out loud, but he stared back at me with a clueless expression.

– Do you think I got all these scars from nowhere? – I muttered, referring to the ones on my back and face.

– From where?

– From Daddy – I replied again in a sugary sweet voice, though inside my body a sea of bitterness was spreading. – As a souvenir.

Victor's eyes instantly became wide and large like saucers, and his mouth formed the shape of an „o".

– He did that to you? – Disbelief rang in his voice. – How? When?

I no longer remembered what the ongoing two-hour argument between me and my so-called dad was about. I was sitting on the floor by the door that separated me from that raging fury, plugging my ears so I wouldn't have to listen to him anymore. The shouting and sounds of pounding on the door grew louder with each passing minute.

Suddenly, there was a tremendous crash, as if someone had hit the door with something heavy, followed by the clatter of breaking glass. Thousands of shards rained down on my head, cutting my cheek. I jumped to my feet as quickly as I could, but it was a bit too late. My father burst into the room and, without warning, grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me forcefully into a shelf filled with glass and crystalware of all sorts. The cabinet wobbled, and its entire contents came crashing down on my head with a deafening noise.

– Sit down! – he growled, trying to force me into a sitting position.

I was so terrified that I didn't even try to resist. Besides, I stood no chance against an adult man in his prime.

My father pushed me with such force that instead of sitting, I fell onto my back and slid a bit on the slippery floor, feeling as if a thousand needles were piercing my skin. I tried to get up, but he was already upon me.

He grabbed me by my clothes at the chest and lifted me with one hand, looking at me with a mixture of disdain and fury.

– Never turn your back on me when I'm talking to you – he spat through clenched teeth, glaring at me with the hateful eyes of a madman, then threw me onto the floor where the most broken glass lay, and I felt the shards embed themselves in my back.

I didn't even try to get up. I curled up under the shelf among the pieces of glass, feeling unbearable pain all over my body and didn't say a word, because I knew that if I even tried, I would start crying, and I absolutely couldn't allow myself to do that in his presence.

The rest of the memories of that evening blurred, mingling with the overwhelming, all-encompassing pain and the sight of blood. Only the hospital remained clear, and my father's face hovering over me with an expression that could convey anything but concern or compassion. He was angry but also suspiciously satisfied. As soon as the doctor moved far enough away not to hear his voice, he leaned over me with an expression that was far from caring and spoke in a quiet voice:

– Remember this day – he growled menacingly, fixing his fanatical gaze on my face. – If you ever defy me again, it won't be this gentle. And not a word to Maria.

– I returned to school after the holidays with that little beauty – I finished my story smoothly, forcing an ironic tone, and touched the thin scar on my cheek.

– I... I had no idea – Victor murmured, looking at me with wide eyes. – I had no clue that... I don't know what to say. It's just... You're his daughter. He must... – He stopped and looked at me as if he feared that if he said what he was thinking, I would do something to him.

– Love me? – I finished for him in a cold tone. When he barely nodded in agreement, I smirked crookedly, and the little voice inside me made a disgusted face.

– Oh yes – it scoffed sarcastically. – He must love his little girl very much. What do you say to that, Vicuś?

– My father used to organize these sort of gatherings for his friends, some of whom were his clients – I said aloud, speaking what the little voice inside me would eagerly say for me. – And to ensure that no one from the outside knew what was really happening in our house, or what he himself was doing during that time, he would get rid of me and Julia. Sometimes to grandma's, sometimes to a friend's for the night. But when there was no such option and one of us had to stay, he would give us sleeping pills.

I opened my eyes, still not fully grasping where I was, but already knowing something was wrong. I blinked several times and distinctly saw a man's member above me. A hairy hand with an absurdly expensive watch on the wrist was moving quickly over it, and when I looked up further, I saw half-closed eyelids and an expression of blissful satisfaction on his face.

Slowly, more details started to register with me. The blanket under which I had laid down before falling asleep, when my head was unbearably heavy, was pushed aside, and my shirt was pulled up.

The man noticed that I was looking at him and threw me a shiny, unsettlingly excited glance, then quickened his hand movements. His knee, which was resting on the nightstand next to my head, nudged the furniture. A frame with a picture on it wobbled and fell with a loud crash of shattered glass, but the owner of the penis paid no attention to it at all. After just a few seconds, his expression changed, a mixture of relief and wild ecstasy spreading across his face.

A warm stream of something ran down my skin onto the sheets, and I felt a strange, unpleasant pressure in my abdomen, followed by a sudden wave of nausea.

For a moment, I lay there paralyzed, unable to move, and then, in a surge of a completely unfamiliar type of anger, without breaking eye contact with the man's face, I blindly felt for a glass shard from the broken picture frame. In one smooth motion, I ran it along the penis that I still had in sight, cutting it lengthwise.

The man howled in pain and surprise. He recoiled from me as if burned, and seizing the moment, I leapt to my feet and dashed out into the corridor, frantically looking around for a safe refuge.

– You little bitch! – I heard footsteps and the voice of that man behind me, whose seed still lingered on my chest.

I darted into the first door I came across, which turned out to be my parents' bedroom. As I burst into the room, I froze mid-step, meeting my father's gaze.