Beauty and the Beast

Amor Et Fidelis

That hug I gave you must have worked wonders, even if they manifested themselves many, many weeks after it actually happened. For the next two weeks things between us were normal--you would come to my room and have your way with me, and then leave. One night, however, you suggested we go out for a late night walk instead of spending our time like we usually did.
I was so shocked when you casually asked if I wanted to get some fresh air that for a moment I remained tongue tied. I managed to eke out a Jawohl seconds before your face began to twist in anger at my silence that you clearly took for impudence.
You gave me your arm—another shocking gesture—and the two of us walked in silence out of the room and through the deserted hallways of the chateau.
We emerged outside, and you led me out through the gate. I remembered that gate with painful clarity—how could I not? I had run out of the same gate the night I tried to escape. It had been a shot in the dark and a foolhardy course of action, but in those days I still had hope that I would make it out alive, that I could escape you. I didn't know I had never had a prayer of escaping you —not in the slightest way . I didn't know so much about staying alive, either. Was I even alive? I didn't think so. For all I had left to live for, I was dead. I still am a walking corpse, a spectral entity cursed to wander this earth in a body I no longer acknowledge is mine for all the transgressions committed against it. What is dead may never rise again.
I hope it makes you feel bad that you are the cause of all this. But I'm not sure it does. You were never one to be sympathetic.
It had been almost a month since my mother has informed me Josef was coming. I personally no longer wanted him to come. I sincerely felt that I needed to stick to your heels and be loyal to you, even at the cost of my own life. I considered it a blessing that you hadn't thrown me to another high ranking Nazi party member sooner.
I would later learn that the facade of kindness that you showed me during those days was only the calm before the storm. It was the prelude to something much more sinister and violent, and, if it hadn't been for your death, one that would have resulted in a horrifying outcome for me.
But now, I let the cool breeze caress my face as the two of us traipsed the rolling hills surrounding the chateau in silence. You didn't say a word, which surprised me, because usually you were unfortunately garrulous around me.
"Aren't you afraid that someone will...try to kill you?" I broke the silence out of necessity. "We're out here—you're out here, completely unprotected."
All the while I asked you, I prayed Please, God, let someone from the village see him. Let them come up here and kill him.
It was a stupid prayer, because as I would later learn, the defensive perimeter your SS security detail had been ramped up to not only encompass the chateau itself but the areas around it for a considerable distance. Or maybe it wasn't stupid, since I didn't know. What did you think? And why am I asking you that now, when I already know the answer? You already gave me one long ago, as sarcastic as it was.
"Smart girl, Sophie Gabcik." I could hear the sneer in your voice. "Even an idiot would see the logic in your sentiments." You let go of my arm and stretched out on your side on the tall grass, motioning for me to sit next to you. "The most hated man in the Protectorate, taking a walk with a scrawny Czech girl in the middle of the night, with not an armed soul in sight. The perfect opportunity to stage an assassination attempt, is it not?"
I looked around, your words slowly sinking in. My desire to escape had sank into a state of almost eternal dormancy after that night in the woods. But now, surrounded by nothing but trees and rolling hills, I wondered how much of a chance I had against you now. I could run into the woods now—
The woods.
I cast a fearful glance at the pitch black tree line. All the muscles in my body immediately seized up, like they too remembered the things you had done to them, to me. There was no way I was running into those woods. Not again. Not ever.
You followed my gaze to the tree line and chuckled cynically. "Are you remembering that day? So am I. You're a faster runner than I thought you were."
I felt like I was going to throw up.
"Need I spell it out for you?"you said. "You will be safe as long as you play by my rules and don't pull juvenile stunts, like trying to escape. So long as you do as you're told..." You reached up and touched my cheek; the feeling of your skin on mine burned like I was being branded. I resisted the urge to jerk away from you and slap you across the face. "...you won't be harmed. Resist, or disobey me, and you'll be sorry."
You sorry bastard, I thought. If all goes well, I won't be here for very long. My brother will come and get me, and kill you.
"What's the matter?"you jeered. "Don't tell me you're entertaining thoughts of running into those woods. Or anywhere else for that matter."
Run away? If only I could, Reinhard. I so desperately wished I could bring myself to do so. I wanted to turn tail and run as fast as my feet could carry me. I didn't even want to go to my village anymore. I wanted to run somewhere far, far away, to the ends of the earth where no one I knew would ever find me.
Instead, i slowly uncoiled myself until I was lying next to you with only a few centimeters separating us. Our bodies were perfectly parallel to each other—two lines that never touched.
"I would never run away." Bile rose in my throat as I listened to myself speak, listened to words that could only have come from the part of me that you had irreversibly and irrevocably damaged, the piece of my soul that was lost to the darkness forever. "I would never leave you, Reinhard."
And at that moment, if only for a little bit, your armor cracked. The apathetic, cold expression plastered on your face dissolved into one of genuine confusion and...fear? Was that fear I saw in your eyes, Reinhard? What could you, you who had no reason to fear anything or anyone in the Protectorate, possibly have been afraid of?
"Why wouldn't you run away?"you asked. Your voice frayed at the edge. "I'm unarmed, and we are at a part of the property where no guard is posted. What is stopping you from...making a break for freedom?" You gestured vaguely at the lush green expanse surrounding us.
"My place is here," the me who wasn't really me, had never really been me said.
No! my mind screamed. No! No! Fuck you, fuck you! Why?!!
"I no longer belong down there, in the village. I have no one there anymore. Not really. You're all I've ever really had, Reinhard."
You looked completely at a loss for words now. At that moment, you didn't look like the ruthless, calculating head of the RSHA, or the bloodthirsty ruler of Bohemia and Moravia. You looked...guilty. You looked like a man with a conscience.
"Why?" Your blue eyes were wide when you raised your head to stare at me in the eyes. I instinctively cowered under the intensity of your gaze; I had never looked you in the eyes before. "After everything I've done to you..."
"....you and I are kindred spirits." I finished your sentence for you. "Even if I were to run away, I would eventually come back because—"
"—because you would know that there really is no escape from me." Your voice went from raw and heartfelt to cold as ice and sharp as flint faster than I could snap my fingers. "You know that if I were to catch you—which I eventually would—you would die."
Your sudden change in demeanor was what brought me around more than anything. I felt like I had just watched a scene from a movie starring my doppelgänger and yours. Who said all that bullshit? Was it me? Was it her? Who is she anyway?
You didn't give me time to put my thoughts in order. My mind spun as you wrapped my blonde hair around your hand and pulled my face to yours, kissing me so hard your teeth cut my lower lip and drew blood. With your free hand you shoved me to the grass the rest of the way, your long, spidery fingers swiftly undoing the ties of my—no, your wife's—pinafore. I tried my best to make my mind go blank although it reeled with the momentum of the events that had unfolded only seconds ago.
If Lina knew her husband was fucking a Czech girl in the middle of nowhere, what would she say? What would she do?
Your lips found mine again as they crashed against them savagely. Your tongue wormed its way between my lips and teeth and into my open mouth.
Who said all that? Did I really just tell him that him and I were the same?? Am I really that far gone that I can identify with him?
You made short work of the rest of my clothes and then reared up onto your knees to begin taking off yours.
This isn't as bad as it gets. I ought to be grateful he isn't planning on giving me to his SS shock troops or the men of the Gestapo. At least he's still good looking for his age...and he's been merciful enough to keep me with him despite all my—
You were inside me now; your face next to mine, your mouth next to my ear. I could feel your hot breath on the shell of my ear like a blast of fiery wind from Hell. It still hurt considerably, which was strange considering the fact that you had been systematically raping me for quite some time now.
Does Lina even know? Or is she blissfully ignorant, the way he wanted her to be when this all happened? Is the only mental image she has of her husband the facade he puts on when he plays with his children at night, rides horses with them on the weekend; makes love to her every night? Would it never occur to her that the Reinhard Heydrich she knows and loves is really nothing but a cold hearted rapist?
I stared up at the inky black sky, at the twinkling stars, and thought I could see my father's face outlined in them, an imaginary constellation. His face was twisted with disgust, rage, and sorrow.
Where's Josef? Why hasn't he come yet? Has he forgotten about me? What has my mother told him? Did she tell him that I'm being raped by the invading ruler of our country every day? What was his reaction? Does he even care? He's so late...
Your hips ground mine into the damp, moist earth as your movements grew more sporadic and less controlled; your moans gradually ascending to a higher pitch. I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried my best not to cry—although what was the use? I would cry later on anyway.
You are a Czech. You are nothing. You would still be nothing if not for him. He's the only one who has truly humanized you. You are worthless to all these people but him...he keeps you alive to serve him and make him happy...out of all the girls in the village he chose you...
I sometimes wonder why the hell I would ever entertain such twisted, nonsensical thoughts about you. You had hurt me in so many ways, and yet all I could think about as you rolled off of me and slumped in the grass to catch your breath was how lucky I was to have gotten a German who was physically palatable and not passed down the line to, say, a potbellied octogenarian in an SS uniform.
As if fucking me outdoors wasn't humiliating enough for you. There was no limit to the degradation, pain, and humiliation you could put me through, Reinhard. I only wish I could have known that earlier. Perhaps if I had, I wouldn't have used trying to love you as a recourse to ease the after effects of what you did to me. I would never have used it as a coping mechanism. And if I hadn't done that, I would never be here, telling you that years and years after your death, I love you somehow.