This work is copyrighted to the author @2019.  Diese Arbeit ist dem Autor urheberrechtlich geschützt © 2019. Please do not remove the author information or make any changes to this story. All rights reserved by author.

codes: M+f/ sm / humil / viol / caution / anal / nc

Note:  This story is inspired by an actual account of a young girl committed to an Asylum for the Mentally Infirm after experiencing a traumatic event.*  The event and her reaction to it is a tale of mystery and the unexplained.  It's a world of delusion, one of her own making, and where nothing is as it seems.  So if you will allow me, I’d like to take you on an excursion through Sophie Koch’s endless nightmare.  But be warned, it’s a very bleak, dark place.  Peace, brothers

* Freud, Sigmund: Essais de Psychanalyse, 1927

--

WARNING:  This story delves into aberrant sex practices that might well offend you.  So if topics such as Sadism and Masochism, among other deviant practices offend you, do not read this story.  Some of the sex depicted is consensual, some not.  I don't condone it.  I'm not advocating it.  I may or may not even like it.  It's simply a fantasy, a product of my imagination, and thus, completely fictitious.

Before you read it, please note the following:

*If you are under eighteen, it is illegal for you to read this story!

*If you have a hard time separating fantasy from reality, do not read this story!

*If it's illegal in your jurisdiction to read non-consensual sex stories, don't read this story!

Support ASSTR: If you can afford to cough up a few bucks, the good folks who make this all happen would be much obliged.

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Sophie: A Life under Glass

(An Erotic Horror Story)

By

Hunsi

Click to meet Sophie:

www.asstr.org/files/Authors/HumblePie/Sophie.jpg

The Prelude: The Koch Family Home

Vittenheim, Germany, Fasching Day

The sound of Shattering glass . . .

Jakub Koch sat at his desk sternly lecturing his children on matters both big and small and those of particular importance to him he thought they need know. And atop that list was the lockbox he kept stored in his desk drawer.

"As you can see I’ve attached a lock to the box to keep out the nosy,” he held it up to show them. “But for the determined, those who are far too clever for their own good, a good old fashion spanking still works wonders.”

"Do you understand me, Sophie?" He followed with a stern look while nudging his daughter with the letter opener he held in his hand.

"Yes, yes, Papa, I do, I do. I promise not to touch it,” she cried, while trying to dodge the poke to her belly.

"And you, Hans?" He asked his son standing beside her.

"Of course, Papa," he scoffed. "You know I'd never do that."

“Oh, I know, son. You’re a boy. Strong willed. Not so taken by the temptation. But your sister . . .? Hmm!” he grumbled, then let the question linger for a moment. “Well, I’ll leave it at that.”

“Now then, off with you two,” he sought to terminate the discussion, but not without one final poke with that letter opener in way of a warning to his daughter.

--

Over the course of months that followed, the mystery surrounding that locked box and what it held inside plagued the children's imaginings like nothing else ever had. And it remained that way until the day Hans saw his sister sneaking into her father's study when their father was away at work.

Curious as to what she might be up to, he followed in her footsteps, only to fine not a trace of her when he entered. He did, however, find the desk drawer open, and atop the desk the lockbox and the letter opener she had used to pry open the lock.

It was at that moment that he heard a shuffling coming from within the closet. Knowing that it had to be Sophie hiding away inside, he thought to play a joke on her. Grabbing hold of the letter opener, he quietly tiptoed toward the closet. Then when standing at the base of the door, he carefully wrapped his fingers around the knob and put his ear to the door to insure his presumption was correct.

It took but a moment to learn he was right, but it would have taken next to never to figure out what the sobbing and the sound of her gasping, labored breath were all about. Although it did bring to mind a time when his mother caught Sophie reading one of those insipid, gawd awful unrequited love stories she was told not to read. A dark tale about a tortured affair that causes Sophie to respond in a simular way. The same anguish, the same tears, the same gasping labored breath - the whole of it - only with a far louder cry of despair.

“But that’s alright,” he mused, cracking a smile. “She had disobeyed Papa and was going to get the spanking she deserved from him, and the prank he was going to play on her now.”

So not wanting to waste a moment more, he raised the letter opener he carried up high, dagger-like, as if intent upon stabling her to death. Then swiftly pulling open the door, he bellowed out in the deep, resonant voice he'd borrowed from his father. "Sophie! You little snot. I told you not to touch my box!"

Sophie screamed madly, insanely, as if he were the harbinger of death about to slay her. The level of her hysteria was beyond anything he thought to be possible. But what troubled him most was the distant, glazed-over look in her eyes. As if she were lost to this world, her mind racing off into the distance to escape the horror of her imminent death.

"My gawd, Sophie, it's me, Hans. It was only a joke," he said, expressing his alarm, feeling a bit of her panic well up inside him as well.

But she didn't answer, nor could she have even tried once having fallen back into the darkness that cloaked the rear of the closet, screaming blindly, “Neo, Neo, I don’t want to die!”

-------

“The horror, the horror of that gleaming dagger threatening to cut me to pieces consumed me like an illness, a fever, soaring out of control. I shivered, I shook, and my vision flashed white. I felt faint, lost in a whirl, my mind laid to waste by an act of such incomprehensible cruelty that it shattered my world into a thousand little pieces, and caused me to collapse and then fall into a darkness as black as the cloak of death that covers a dead man’s eyes.”

Later: Picking up the thousand little pieces . . .

The Karl Heinrich Asylum for the Mentally Infirm

“What is it, nurse Voigt?  I heard her screaming halfway down the hall.”

“I’m not sure, Dr. Braun. I thought everything was going just as you explained to me they would. She was quietly sitting there off to her own trying to sort through her feeling, sullied as they are by that egregious act of stupidity thrust upon her by foolish brother. Then, from out of nowhere, that quiet moment of self-reflection suddenly imploded.

And I mean ka-boom! In an instant she jumped up out of her seat, grabbed hold of her hair and started screaming bloody murder. “Neo, Neo, I don’t want to die!”

As Nurse Voigt shared her observations, Dr. Braun was busily examining his patient, listening, but not really hearing all that much beyond the one word that remained stuck in his craw.

“There’s that name again,” Dr. Braun said, shaking his head wearily.

“What name, Doctor?”

“Neo!” he curtly replied upon righting himself. “She has been repeating that name endlessly. Which makes me wonder whether the Neo she speaks of is someone she actually knows or knew, or is he just another delusional construct she has built to protect herself from further harm?”

“I don’t know, Doctor. I’m as much at a loss as you. Just as I am about all the other things you hear her rambling on about. Like Seemannsviertel (seamen’s Quarter), where and what is that? And KasselStraße, the street her seems to thinks she lives on?”

“Nor me, nurse Voigt, and that’s what troubles me,” he said, clutching his chin as if pondering what all this might mean.

Then, wanting to set aside the speculation for a moment, he asked Nurse Voigt if she had anything else she wished to report. “Has Sophie been eating? Have you seen any change in her addled state of awareness? A smile, a tear, a touch of a hand for instance?”

“No, Doctor.  She just sits there, unmoved, staring at the wall mumbling to herself, or whomever.”

“Alright then, I suppose it’s time.”

“Nurse Krüge,” he asked the nurse standing off to the side, “record the time. Sophie Koch, room 109, 9:15 a.m.”

“Ready, Nurse Voigt?"

“Yes Doctor Braun.  3.6 megajoules, 10 ms pulse, potential 9.8."

“Fine!”  Then leaning down to speak to Sophie, “No, you’re not going to die, Sweetie.  Those are simply electrodes Nurse Voigt has attached to your scalp.  Now just relax and bite down on the mouth piece . . .”

“Alright, Nurse Voigt, on my mark . . .”

“3, 2, 1 . . .,” Beep!  Beep! Beep! "Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

And now our story begins . . .

---------------- § § § ----------------

Page 1

Gretchen and Me

“Do you like it, Sophie?” my friend Gretchen asked as she whirled around in front of the mirror.

“Mumm-humm,” I mumbled, not really paying as much attention to her as I was to the note from my teacher that I held in my hand.

For the most part our day was not unlike any other.  After school Gretchie and I would go to her house to study and collaborate on our homework.  The sessions were a lot of help for me, but for Gretchen it was no more than a needless exercise she endured just to appease me.

After finishing our homework, I lay upon her bed anxiously fidgeting with the note my teacher had given to me for my father, while Gretchen, fluttering about like a butterfly in front of her bedroom mirror was busily appraising the fit of a new outfit she’d just bought at a local boutique.

"Oh come on, Sophie, wake up.  Do you think it’s too short or not?”  She stubbornly persisted, arousing me from my thoughts. “Um, no, it’s fine.” I said with half a mind, the sum total of what I had to give.

“And this top, does it show a bit too much?” She asked while pointing at the peach-sized knolls seen beneath the fine-spun fabric.

“Well, you really don’t have a lot to show, do you?” I said without really thinking how my off-handed remark might have offended her.  Although quite honestly that wasn’t my intent.  I simply loved her too much.  Thick as thieves we were, as we always have been for as far back as I can remember,  sharing intimate secrets and a confidence in one another on a par with that shared between lovers.

Not that she would have allowed me to get away with speaking disparagingly about her regardless.  She might have been an elfin little thing, but she also had a fiery disposition, and didn't respond well to catty remarks no matter how ably veiled.  It was just that I couldn't wrestle my thoughts away from the envelope addressed to my father, and Mrs. Smits’ assessment of my academic performance that it held inside.

“You’re just jealous, Miss Big Tits!  Miss Melons,” she excoriated with a sour face, while her squeaky voice sounded nearly as chirpy as a bird.

“Better sweet melons than bitter little lemons, Miss Flat-as-a-board,” I said to her, knowing her soft spot well.

“Flat!”  She bristled in mocked annoyance.  "I'll show you who’s flat," she followed with a laugh as she launched herself headlong onto the bed and on top of me, causing me to squeal and then laugh right along with her as she unbuttoned my blouse and began to tickle me.  Her fingers knew just where to go, as did her lips and the thousand little kisses that followed.

"Stop it, Gretchie, stop, stop," I laughed while I pleaded and made like I could bear no more.   But she never did, and no matter how hard I tried to make my protest appear real, she saw through the pretense and would not relent until well after she had smothered my breasts in kisses.

Then like a love-starved tomcat, she’d slink down and chant and mime with a beckoning gesture of her index finger.  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” she’d coax, and then “Purrrrrr” while rubbing my panty-covered kitty to distraction until I could bear no more.

It was a game she and I played whenever we could.   Sometimes with me on top, sometimes her, but it always ended the same way — with her kitty rubbing up against mine!  It was so deliciously sweet, dark and forbidden and I loved it just as much as I did her. 

In fact, I loved everything about her, from her unquenchable passion to her bite-sized nips.  And though I enjoyed her affection like none other, there always lingered within me an insatiable hunger for still more.  A hunger that followed me both day and night, wherever I went.

“Oh, Sophie, I love you,” she said as she crawled up to kiss me on the lips.  “I love you, I love your kitty and would die to have big titties like you.” she said, while smothering my breasts in kisses.

“I love you too, Gretchie.  I love your kisses, I love your nose, I love everything about you.  You’re a bundle of joy, the best friend a girl could have,”  I told her while combing my fingers through her hair.  “I wish I were like you, Gretch.  “You’re pretty and sweet and the smartest girl in school.  You’re everything a dumb Ox like me could only wish to be.”

“Stop that!” She leaned up to voice her annoyance.  “You’re not dumb and you’re definitely not an ox.”

“Yes I am, Gretch. You know it and Mrs. Smits knows it too.  That’s why she gave me this letter to give to my papa.  To tell him I’m failing.”

“You don’t know that.  Maybe she wants to tell him how hard you’re trying, and how much you’ve progressed.”

“Gretchie, you know my papa.  To him, trying is never good enough.  He expects the world of me and anything less brings out the devil in him.”

----

Gretchen didn’t live all that far from me.  Just a few streets to the south as the crow flies, but like most districts in the older part of the city, the streets between tended to be as diverse as the communities that lived there.   From the safe and well-kept streets that housed the affluent to those long abandoned to the influx of immigrant communities.

Such was the case in the Ritterbaum, the old Jewish district in which I lived.  In fact, it was a matter of such concern to my father that for fear of my safety, he insisted I traverse the short distance by bus.   I really couldn’t say whether he was right on that account as I’d never felt a threat to my safety before.  Not from the working poor walking the street, nor on the bus, where the working poor sat on the bench seat beside me, and the Turks stood in the isles for fear of a disdainful snub from some angry German whose jobs they were taking. 

I say that as I looked upon a woman standing in the aisle beside me.  She was dressed in American blue jeans and wore a red hijab about her head.   The red headdress was typical of those worn by the women in our local Muslim community, and given that it was adorned by a white star, spoke to the fact that she was undoubtedly Turkish. 

Though much of her was hidden beneath the shroud, I could tell she was quite pretty, clean and neat, and I found myself wondering why I should think of her as anything less.  Yet I will admit to harboring the notion, no doubt due to my father’s outspoken hatred for the Turks that even I knew was akin to a malignancy that diminished the man in my eyes.  Still, after all the years of hearing his voice burn his hatred into my head, I now confess to owning much of it myself.  Some of it I could express outwardly, but far more lived in the subconscious where it now lay at the root of many of my biases and prejudices, and was the source of much of my near phobic fear of those Turks – the people my father put on a par with the sub-human.

Not that my father was a bad man.  A butcher by trade and a cantor at our local temple, he was held in the highest regard in the community for his outspokenness and his unbending religious orthodoxy.   A commitment manifest in the clothes he wore and the kosher meats he sold and proudly displayed in the store-front window right alongside the sign that read, “We Do Not Serve Turks.”

Obviously the sign was nothing less than a racially bigoted statement grounded in his own personal beliefs.  A by-product of his tortured past that he spoke about time and again to anyone and everyone willing to listen.  Stories of a man born on a small farm in Poland who was forced to run and hide when the war broke out.  Working his way through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and down to the Turkish border, where, in an effort to find refuge beyond, he found himself a slave to a farmer outside of Bursa - the place where he learned to hate the Turks.  His story, told time and again about what he saw as their uncleanliness, their almost piggish qualities that rendered them shallow souls with total disregard for even the most common of civilities, both in culture and manner.

“Sophie,” he would tell me, “If you see one of those heathens lay eyes on you, you run child.  They are dirty, foul, lowly beasts that roam the streets looking for their next prey to devour, without pity, or mercy for those they seek to ruin.  And if they should find you, as sure as I stand here I can tell you they will be ‘picking their teeth’ when done with you.”

As the bus stopped at the corner, I watched the Turkish woman who had been standing beside me depart.  My eyes following her as she stepped out onto the street and melded into the crowd, now looking for all the world quite ordinary.  Although I do confess to feeling a little relieved now that she was away from me.  It was as if her closeness to me had in and of itself been a threat to me, and now with her gone, my breathing and the rapid pace of my heart could again return to normal.

It wasn’t a conscious feeling, though none of this was.  Not my fear and certainly not the angst that riddled my body to the point of paralysis.  Rational?  No, of course not!  But it was a legacy left to me by my father that I could not shake — a crippling legacy that would forever diminish me as much as it did him.

--------

That night at dinner I sat opposite my father quietly keeping to myself as was my place just as it was my mother’s.  Unless asked, women did not speak at the table, and it certainly wasn’t theirs to interrupt my father when he was talking to my brother, Emil.  Whether the pair were sharing a few chuckles over something they’d seen on the telly, and certainly not when discussing the events of their day as if the women of the household didn’t even exist.

Normally none of this would have been much of a concern to me.  But tonight, with the letter from my teacher sitting on my lap, I was nearly counting the words spoken between them as I sat waiting for my father to ask how my day had been.

That is, until the moment had come.  “Well, Sophie, how did you do in your the studies today?”

“I . . . ummm, I did well, I guess.  At least I tried my best, like always, Papa.  You know how I want to do well.”

 “Yes, I know you do.  But trying and doing are not the same.  Just have a look at what Emil has to show for his academic success thus far.  He’s but a year older than you and the bureau in the family room is already topped with the ribbons and plaques that denote his accomplishments.  He’s a smart, clever lad, a chip off the old block.  Aren’t you, boy,” he grinned like a man who’d just won the lottery, while Emil, proud as a barnyard cock, looked toward me smiling and all but rattling the keys to the kingdom he held in his hand.

“Yes, Papa, I know.  But, I ah . . .” I stammered, trying to find a way to introduce the letter into the conversation, knowing as I did what that might mean.  “Papa, I have something for you,” I finally managed with my head hung low as I handed him the letter.

Opening it up, he read aloud for all to hear:

“Dear, Mr. Müller,” he read.  “I’m pleased to tell you that Sophie has shown much progress in her studies this grading period.  However, I must also inform you that she has yet to reach the level of proficiency required to graduate along with her peers from Realschule by the end of the final grading period.  It is therefore my recommendation that you secure after school tutorial help for Sophie to help bring her up to speed.”  

“Specifically, I’d like to recommend the services of Armoid Krause, a postgraduate student at the University of Vittenheim.  I have, on your behalf, asked if he might have an interest in helping Sophie, and I’m pleased to report that for 30 euros per session he would be willing to see her daily between 3 and 4.”

“If you are of a mind to accept, Mr. Krause can be contacted at the following address:

Armoid Krause

Nr. 6, Rosenblatt  30

Sincerely, Mrs. Helse Smits”

“Thirty euros,” he huffed as he handed the letter to my mother.  “It’s a waste of good money as far as I’m concerned.” 

“You can afford it, husband,” my mother addressed him as was hers to do.  “She will require bus fare as well of course.  Rosenblatt 30 is most certainly located in the University district, and as you know, that’s quite some distance away.  Still, it is money well spent in my opinion.”

“Huh, well, I still think it’s a wasted expense, but I’m agreed if you think so, Mother,”he nodded in agreement.  Then again he turned to me.  “Mr. Krause is expecting to see you tomorrow, and I insist you attend the sessions at the appointed time.”

“Just remember, Sophie, even if you find him a merciless task master I will not listen to your complaints.  As you and your mother well know, once I’ve made a financial commitment to another man, I never renege on my given word.  Understand me, Sophie?”

“Yes, Papa, I’ll do my best and promise not to complain.”

   ---------- § § § ----------

Page 2

Into the darkness . . .

It leaves you with an unsettled feeling in your gut when you discover you know so little when you thought you knew so much.  That’s how I felt when I boarded the Metro to see Mr. Krause with no more than a handwritten address on an envelope.  An address the driver had first to locate on the map himself at the transfer hub, even putting in a call to dispatch to be sure of the location before giving me a transfer to the Harbor Scenic. 

“You can’t take me there?” 

“No Miss.  The Metro covers the whole of the city, but to go to the old Seamen’s Quarter (Seemannsviertel) you take the Scenic.  See there,” he said pointing out of the window.  “You just stand there at that stop until the #25 arrives.  It’ll get you where you want to go.” 

As it turned out, the “Scenic” was an open-sided tram, narrow enough to travel through the ancient cobblestone lanes that pass for streets while still allowing the foot traffic to pass. 

Originally a main port of commerce, the old eighteenth century Quarter now gave refuge to the artists and bohemians, as well as to those who found comfort living among the rats (two legged and four) and the exiled — the dark, dirty, treacherous creatures that thrived in the ever-present conclaves that lined the streets.  These included a generous helping of those who wished to deal with the verboten (forbidden) and the degenerates who sought the drugs and prostitutes provided by the immigrant syndicates that were not so much in hiding, as they were plying their trade in the sex shops that lined the street.

After handing the envelope I carried to the conductor to show him the address,  I sat on a bench seat that faced out onto the street, taking care to hold down my skirt over my knees so as not to ‘show’ myself as the tram crept past the loiterers that lined the route.

As I watched the stream of tattooed and jackbooted young men scroll past, I thought to wonder what a postgraduate student from the University of Vittenheim would be doing in a place like this.  Or worse yet, what my father would have to say if he knew I was here?  Both posed problems for me, but it was the scene that greeted me when the tram rounded the corner that truly robbed me of my breath.  The street, lit up brightly with an array of flashing neon signs, and storefronts with nude girls in the windows dancing under the ultraviolet was about as vulgar a display as I could’ve ever imagined.

The whole if it left me breathless, and brought to mind a book a friend had found in the trash and secretly shared with me. The book, written by “Anonymous” in the form of a mémoire, was a first person narrative about a girl forced into a life of prostitution.

It was a dark tale to be sure. But in the opening passages, where she spoke about her family life, much of what she had to say did strike a chord with me. Her father was no less the despot than my own, and worse yet, her home environment couldn’t have been more punitive. All of it going to show how much we were alike, and like myself, she too looked forward to the day she’d be free to speak on behalf of herself.

That is until the day she met Rolf, “The Ripper,” the man she described in her book as the proverbial 800 lb. gorilla in her life. The ruthless, unstoppable, South African skin-peddler who spotted her on the street when looking to add to his stable. And as pimps in general and Rolf to his bones tend to be impatient men, he wasn’t about to entertain the whims of a girl wanting to speak out in “behalf of herself,” much less say “no”. In fact, he shut her up pretty damn fast. Her father as well, when late one night he broke into their home, cut her free from his grasp, then led her away wearing only her father’s Rabbinic cap, and his severed hand still holding tight to her arm!!! :(

From that point on, her story only grew bleaker, darker, a horror beyond all measure. And to drive home her point, Miss Anonymous included graphic pictures of pierced and ringed nude women dancing in similar storefront windows, along with bloodcurdling pictures of men with whips, and beaten women riddled with welts bowing down at their feet.  But the most hideous of them all was the picture on the title page. The old black and white photo, worn and weathered, showed a woman with a iron ring through her nose being shepherded through a barnyard by a farmer like a pig on a leash. His boar, restlessly expectant, following close-knit behind.

It was a hellish tale like none other, but it was the fact that its author, Anonymous, and I shared such a frightening similarity in our lives and our person that truly shattered my sanitized, fishbowl world into a thousand little pieces upon its reading.  And after, once all the pieces had been gathered up and reassembled, the story about her wounded life became as much mine as it had been hers. The bond between us so close to absolute that even the small wrinkle in time that separated our lives was rendered meaningless.

In truth, it was as though I could see through her eyes, feel what she felt, and as the tram carried me through the district I could almost hear her giving voice to the angst I felt! Her words written in bold print on the opening pages of her book . . . “It all looked so sickeningly repulsive, yet I admit to feeling a surge of excitement rise up from within me as well.”

And that was me. It was repulsive, sickeningly repulsive, yet somehow I too found it excitingly erotic. It was like a one-two punch that had the horrified half of me wanting to vomit, while the naughty part of me was left wanting for still more.

Finding it both repulsive and breathtaking, the scene that rolled past my eyes held me transfixed, glued to the spot throughout the six blocks of the most extraordinary madness and mesmerizing sights imaginable, until the tram came to a stop with a call from the conductor.

“Rosablatt 30,” he called out over the noise of the engine.

“Here?” I asked him. “Is this 'Rosablatt' 30?” I wondered, pointing toward the three-story tenement with a group of ruffians sitting upon the stoop. 

“Yes, yes, this is 30.  Nr. 6, is two floors up.”

---------- § § § ----------

"Doctor, the poor dear looks to be under such duress."

"I know, Nurse Voigt. The glassed-over eyes, the speaking in voices, it’s just as I feared.

The further she falls the louder those voices grow.”

Then leaning down to speak to Sophie,

“Can you hear me, Sophie? Can you tell me where you are, who you imagine yourself to be?”

"Still nothing,” Dr. Braun sighed after the long wait.

“Alright Nurse Voigt, if you're ready, on my mark. 3, 2, 1, Beep! Beep! Beep! "Hummm . . ."

----

As I entered the building I was immediately struck by the dank musty smell of the old wood that moaned and creaked beneath my feet as I climbed the poorly lit flight of stairs.  The decrepit old building, too long bereft of sunlight, felt more like a home for the harbourfront rats and roaches than one housing such a scholarly man.   And while the notion did trouble me, I knew my doubts were a luxury I could not afford to make me late for my appointment. 

I found his apartment at the end of the hall on floor two.  The dimly lit hall, as well as his dingy apartment door, did nothing if not expound upon my worries.  As did the absence of a nameplate and the hardened slide bolt and padlock used to secure the door in lieu of a doorknob lock & key.  I found it all rather unnerving, but steeled myself to knock nonetheless. 

I knocked one, twice, and before I could attempt a third knock, I was startled by a voice calling out from behind me.

“What do you want, Chickie?” 

Quickly spinning around, I saw a tall, lean, imposing black figure, dressed in a double-breasted peacoat and American jeans, walking toward me.  He was tall and sturdy as a steel beam and looked just as hard and unyielding as the North Africans I saw enroute who polluted the streets like filthy black rats.  And given the requisite gangster-like biker boots, and the thin scar above the right eye, he looked just as likely to rob me of my 30 euros as he did to cut me to pieces. 

He had a dangerous, imposing presence that spoke to the part of me that wanted to turn and run, but not to the part of me whose heart was sent racing by the intoxicating scent of his unbridled masculinity.  Everything about him, from the beard stubble that darkened the hard chiseled planes of his face to the disarming male sensuality of his smile set me ablaze. 

"You lost your way?"  He asked, with a smile that sparkled equally bright in his eyes.  Gawd, he was so handsome, yet dangerous looking too.  He was an enigmatic set of contrasts that left me uncertain as to how I should feel.  Like a beast I wished I could touch, but dare not for fear of being consumed. 

"I'm not sure," I replied while handing him the envelope addressed to Mr. Krause that had been given to me by my teacher, Mrs. Smits.  "You see, I was directed by my teacher to contact a Mr. Krause at Rosablatt 30, apartment Nr. 6.  He’s a postgraduate student at the University and I wonder if you know where I might find him?" 

"Your teacher, huh?” He asked as he pulled the letter out of the envelope while eyeing me with some skepticism, as if asking himself how anyone could be so stupid as to send an innocent young thing like me to a place like this. 

Quickly he scanned the typed letter addressed to Mr. Krause, audibly mumbling the parts he thought were important as he did. 

"Let's see here.   It says . . . Mr. Krause ...  yada, yada, yada . . .  Sophie Müller requires a tutor to help her pass the year-end exit exam from Realschule . . . primarily math and science . . . session fee 30 euros."  He shared all he had found, excluding only the discrepancy he had discovered regarding the Rosenblatt 30 address typed in the letter, and the 'Rosablatt' 30 address scribbled on the envelope. 

He quickly pocketed the letter and again looked at me.  It was clear to him now.  Whoever had written his street address on the envelope had in haste misspelled the name of the street.  Her destination wasn't ’Rosablatt’ 30, but Rosenblatt 30.  The former, his address here in the old Seaman’s Harbor Quarter, the latter, a street he assumed was located somewhere in the university district. 

"Yes, I know Mr. Krause," he finally looked up and said to me, "I’m him." 

“You’re Mr. Krause?” I had to ask.   I was surprised.  He was nothing like the scholarly man I had expected to meet.  Nor was this place.  Both frightened me, but in view of my relationship with my stringent father, living in fear was not at all foreign to me.  After all, fear was the cudgel used by my father to form me.  To teach me my place in the household, especially at the dinner table where it was my place not to talk until spoken to.   Just as it was not my place to question my father’s authority, regardless of how inordinately right or wrong his demands appeared on the face of it. 

So while the whole of the circumstance I found myself in frightened me to the point of near panic, as with my father, I felt it was not my place to question it, no matter how bitter the pill or whether I believed it was right for me or not. 

Of course, it didn’t hurt that I found Mr. Krause so intoxicatingly attractive.  Like an untamed beast, wild and free, absolutely reeking of masculinity, he was the vision of my every dream.  That I would be under the power of such a man had my heart pumping, my voice, like my will to resist, forever lost to me.  Honestly, had he leaned down and snapped his jaws shut around my neck to drag me off into the jungle from which he’d emerged, I know I would’ve gone willingly, inviting the taking. 

“You got the 30 euros?”  He reached out with a sneer.  A contemptuous sneer, and then for reasons I didn’t really understand, he snatched the money out of my hand as though those paltry notes were the Crown Jewels.  He counted the notes with equal keenness, and only after pocketing the money did he unlatch the door and tell me to follow him in.

“This way, Chickie,” he strolled in and I followed, getting my first look at the place. 

Nr. 6 was the only unit on the floor which had a window onto the street, and because of it, the otherwise darkened room was lit up by the neon reds and blues of the flashing signs in the ‘show windows’ from across the way. 

I found the strobe effect disorientating at best, though thankfully it provided just enough light for me to avoid bumping into the furniture, while not showing me much in the way of detail. 

That is, until he flicked on the lights and I found myself standing in what could only be called a sty.  Though to be honest, even that assessment didn’t come close to describing the decrepit state of the place.  The window was clouded by a greasy film of accumulated grime so dense it was nearly opaque.   The sofa, or what  passed for one looked to be living a second life beyond the trash heap, and the coffee table didn’t look much better.  Cigarette butts that had spilled out of the ashtray were strewn about amongst the empty bottles of beer, junk food wraps and dubious items of all sorts.

That was bad enough, but when he flicked on the kitchen light and I saw the cockroaches dropping off the table with an audible “thump” before scurrying off into the darkness, I felt as if I needed to hurl.  But as I found myself too frightened to do even that, I instead latched on to him for protection, whimpering like a terror-stricken child. 

“My, my, I can see young Sophie has a thing for bugs, huh?” he chuckled, the first sign of any emotion I’d seen on his face thus far.   And to be honest, I found the sound of his laughter a pleasing relief, a break in the ice that made me want to cling to him all the tighter. 

"Come, come,” he said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, leading me over to the table.  “We’ll study here, though you may want to hold down your skirt, huh?” he thought to add while pulling up a chair. Then with a smirk, “Else that dank, dark, smelly cavern you’ve got between your legs might lure the bugs back.”

“What?” I all but cried out in panic. 

“That bothers you, does it?” he replied with a casual indifference, as if he were talking about the weather.  “Well, I suppose some of that is only natural, in evolutionary terms anyway," he continued as he picked up my rucksack and dumped my school books, pencils and paper onto the table. 

"Rats, insects, cockroaches, and girls!" he then added, while rolling his eyes toward me.   "They must have posed quite the problem among ancient peoples, especially for women when laying that honey-hole between their legs down upon the ground to sleep." 

"What?  How nasty!"  I gasped, appalled that he would say something like that to me.  He might have been the polar opposite of my father, preaching the gospel of the street rather than religion, but in his own way he was no less shrill.  "Do you speak like that at the university?" 

"Of course,” he said with a huff, “at the University or anywhere else I choose to speak.  I’m a free man, not a cog in the wheel simply here to regurgitate what the conformity factory wants you to believe,”  he said while picking up the copy of ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ that had slipped out of my bag and began thumbing through it. 

"And yeah, sure, okay, maybe my equating your bitch pit with a hostel for roaches was a bit crude.  But it’s just the kind of tough medicine a little chickie like you needs to hear if you are to come to an understanding of all of life’s elements.  The good, the bad and all the ‘isms’ and ‘ologies’, like Sadism, Masochism, piss-ology, crap-ology, choke-the-bitch-ology or whatever the fuck you call them, and of course, prostitution!  In short, all that need be examined if you wish to grow up as a woman free of the system.”

Quite honestly, I had never heard of any of those other things before much less know what they meant, but I understood the word “prostitution” well enough.  You would think it would have sickened me to hear him say the word, but for whatever reason it didn’t.  Perhaps it was just the way he spoke with such self-assuredness, or perhaps it was because he chose to speak to me like an adult, and not a child like everyone else in my life.

Whatever the reason, I felt more enthralled by the man than by the words he spoke.  As if purblind to all but the beauty of the man who commanded as much control over me as he did this ghastly world he inhabited. Though again looking around the room, it did come to mind that perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to follow his advice.

“Why do you live here?” I braved to ask as I tucked my skirt tightly between my legs to protect my kitty from those hideous black bugs.

“Because I like it, lil’ Miss Honey Pot, It keeps me in touch with the real people.  You read this?" He then asked, again turning his attention back to the Twain novel he held in his hand.

"I’m trying,” I told him. “But to be honest, I really don't understand Huck all that well.  My father calls him unrighteous.  My teacher calls him a thorn in the side of civility.  Me, I think he’s not very smart and doesn’t listen to anyone."

"Oh, Sophie, how wrong you are.” He said to me, waving the book about in front of my face.  “You might think him uncivil and not so smart, but in truth, he's a boy with a mind of his own when it comes to believing what others want him to believe; thinking as others want him to think; doing as others want him to do.  In that regard he's a rebel, because he questions, then decides for himself what is right and what is wrong.  If he were told the world was flat, he'd be the first to board a boat to find out whether it was a flat world or round."

"Something he will one day learn is quite true, while you, my lil’ Sophie, will continue to live in your very flat world."

"A what?"  I asked, unsure if I should laugh or be offended.

"A flat world," he repeated with a demonstrative sweep of his hand across the tabletop. "Not at all unlike this tabletop, and like this tabletop, it has only one dimension.  It’s a world where everything is either black or white, good or bad, right or wrong.  Where everyone lives in fear, always worried they might accidentally wander too close to the edge and fall into hellfire and damnation.  So they, like you, follow the line like all the other flat-lander’s, believing all that you are taught to believe; doing what is expected of you.  Daddy's good little girl, too afraid to question whether all the bullshit he is feeding you could possibly be true." 

Again, I don't know why I acted as I did, but what he had said just sounded so darn funny to me that the giggle I had been trying to stifle finally escaped me.  "Aaah, a laugh," he said, as he took up my hand.  “Good!  It shows you were listening.  Although by the look on your face I can tell you don’t understand a damn word of it.  But that’s okay, I’ll teach you.”

“Oh, and by the way,” he then thought to add, “My friends call me, Neo.”

“Nero?  The Emperor?”

“No, you loon, not Nero!  Neo, as in the man who could see through the subterfuge and saw what was real and what was not.  The man who saw the world as it really is.  That there are real people and then there is a world of flat-lander’s, the automatons, those who can’t see through the crap they are fed to keep them walking in lock-step.”  He spoke sternly and again, all too self-assuredly, only this time offering a warm smile while cradling my hand in his.

It was a comforting gesture, one that led me to believe that perhaps the things he’d just said to me were said in jest, or at least, not meant to be quite as serious as I had thought.  It was only a guess on my part, of course, because he was a very hard read, prone as he was to unpredictable changes in mood.  One moment he’d snap as if to bite off my head, the next, he could be so affectionate, so warm.  Like now, looking upon me like the grown up I felt, and in turn, had me wanting to respond to him in kind.

So I said, "Well, Mr. Neo Krause, if you think that’s how I see things, does that means my head is flat too?"  I asked and then began to truly laugh.

"Yes, all flat-land people have very flat heads," he followed, again sounding a serious note.  "But with so little to put in it, that's all you need."

"I'm not dumb," I blurted out indignantly.  "Least my teacher doesn’t think so.  She just says I need to apply myself more to my work."

"I didn't say you were dumb,” he huffed, as if agitated with me for speaking in defense of myself.  “You're not.  You're just so loaded down with all the lies they’ve been feeding you in an effort to obfuscate the truth that free thought is all but lost to you."

"I don't understand," I said, and I didn't, neither his words nor his tone.  "I thought you liked me, so why are you angry with me?"

"I'm not angry with you, and yes, I do like you, despite your flathead." 

“You like me?” I nearly fell in a swoon upon hearing those words.

“Of course, there is a lot to like about you.  I may not like those frilly socks you’re wearing, or the kiddy smell of bubblegum on your breath, but I do like what I see shining through those pretty blue eyes.  It's a sign that there is a lust for life very much alive in you.  It's only a spark, but I'm certain that once you learn to think for yourself, it'll turn into a blaze."

"Oh, I get it," I lit up like the light bulb that hung over my head.  "You're talking about those silly little lies they tell kids to hide the truth.  Like how premarital sex will ruin me for life and how smoking hashish will make me an addict, things like that, right?”

“Well . . .," I followed, not waiting for an answer, "I know better and I'm not a child so you needn't worry about that."

So proud was I for having figured it out on my own that I sat up straight and smiled smugly, the prominences of my 30C cup boobs standing proudly between Neo and myself.

"I can see that," he spoke, more so with his eyes, tightly focused on my chest.  “You’re still in Realschule, huh?  Amazing!  Although it’s a pity you keep ‘um in cages.”

“What?” I asked looking down at my chest.

“Your tits,” he reached out to give the closest a pinch.  “Tits, like beasts, are born to roam free, not caged.  But then again, why would I expect anything less from a girl without a voice of her own, living in her unchallenged world.  I mean, what is your fear of just unleashing them from captivity?”

I was breathless.  Was he proposing I go braless?  Let them just pop out free for him to ogle?  It seemed all a bit too forward for me.  Still, I admit I did feel a fluttering in my tummy upon considering the notion.  They were the source of my pride after all.

Oh, I know they stood out large.   For a girl just 1.5 meters (5 ft) in height and weighting in at just under 44 kg (98lb), they loomed as large as cantaloupes on my small frame.  But I also knew that all the girls at school were consumed with envy, wishing for themselves something larger than the puny lil’ peaches they had to show.

“Well . . .?” he asked, his voice cutting through my thoughts.  “Am I to do it, or are you going to take the bra off yourself?  Your blouse too, so they can breathe.”

“You’re serious?”

“Of course, Chickie, freeing yourself of the impediment will aid your studies.”

I scarcely knew what to think or how I should respond.  Neo was clearly a very imposing figure, a man of the world who knew far more than me or anyone I had ever met.  In truth, I felt myself smaller by ten in his presence than when not, and he did nothing to dispel that notion.  The things he said and how he chose to say them left little room for me to say "no."  Had he been asking me to do my homework like my father, or read a book like my teacher, it would have been another matter entirely.  But he was asking me to expose my tits, something that shook the very foundation of all I had been taught to believe.

Still, I had every reason to want to be liked by this man who by looks alone was the epitome of every girl’s dream.  Plus, he had been right about me and my father.  I was his "good little girl," and never thought to question him or my teachers or anyone else for fear of wandering to close to the edge and falling into “hellfire and damnation.”

To say I was conflicted would have put it mildly.  In truth, I felt so torn I was at a loss as to how I should respond.  That is, if you were exclude the blank look that adorned my face.

"Tsh, tsh," Neo broke through my silence.  "I'm afraid young Sophie doesn’t understand a word I've said."  Then grabbing hold of the math text that lay upon the table before him, he held it up like a prop.  "Why am I not surprised you are having problems in school?”

“Look,” he then said, waving the book about, “I know you want my help, but why just bring this book?  Why not the crayons and the coloring book you use at school to color in the numbers?”

"Color in the numbers?  Why do you say that?  I'm not a child."

"You're not?"

"No, I’m not.  And for your information, my breasts are not beasts!"

"Ah, so you were listening.  Although I wonder if you understood a single word of it, or if you did, whether daddy’s little angel is even capable of free thought.  That you’ve already become so dependent on the pig slop he’s been feeding you that just the thought of freeing your tits from captivity leaves you quaking with fear.”

"I'm not afraid."

"If you're not, prove me wrong."  He glared at me, and the silence that followed rang in my ears like the bells from a carillon tower.  That is, until he reached out and pointed toward the door. "The bathroom is out that door to the right."

I was breathless, winded, and without defense against the paralysis that had suddenly set in.  All this had gone too far, too fast and had ventured into a realm beyond my control.  And, yes, I was afraid!

“I, I, I can’t, Neo,” I pleaded, near tears, gathering up a fistful of my blouse as if to conceal my bosom still further from his eyes.   “Please don’t make me.”

“I’m not making you do anything.   You said you wanted to learn.  You came here to learn, and I can and will teach you.  But I can’t teach a mindless girl who is all too willing to buy into all that rubblish about what’s proper and what’s not."

“Your tits aren’t temples as your father would have you believe.  They’re not gold nuggets that on sight drive sane men crazy either.  They’re just milk sacs, nothing more.  All else is simply a part of the bullshit they’d have you believe.  So, again I need to ask you.  Are you going to free up your tits or should I? Just keep in mind.  30 euros, 60 minutes of my time,” he said point to the clock.  “And as you’ve only 30 minutes left . . . Well, you can use your fingers and toes to do the math.”

I heard what he said, and I could feel his desire for me to see things as he did.  But no matter how passionately he spoke of wanting to help free me of those things long established in my mind as sinful and wrong, ‘nothing’ could get me to take a step that far.

“Nothing!” Or so I tried to reassure myself.  “Absolutely nothing!” Not his words; not the soon to follow kiss upon my lips that left me reeling;  And definitely not his fingers as he began unbuttoning my blouse!

“Nothing!” Not even when he broke the kiss and I could again catch my breath, and then through tear strewn eyes I could see my blouse and bra lying sprawled out upon the floor just as I had pictured them in my mind’s eye.  That place in my head where I had traced my disrobing like a route on a map, marking the spot where every button and snap gave way to his hands, and when done, thoroughly robbed me of my innocence.

But what would you have me do?  This wasn’t just some boy my age I could slap on the face and tell him to leave me alone.  This was a man of the world, a man my father had sent me to, a man of gravitas who could literally make me or break me with a single sweep of his hand.  A man whose tongue had been probing my tonsils just moments before, stealing away my breath and quite honestly, my will to fight back.

"There, they now walk among the free people."  He spoke in a cool, sober voice with a nod toward my blood swollen nipples.  Then, like an impeachable landlord taking ownership of what is his, he grabbed hold of my nipples and pulled unmercifully hard until he’d managed to transform the geometry of my firm round globes to a pair of long ruddy cones.

"See the distance these pretty ladies are willing to go to bridge the distance between us?  They still have a long way to go to truly break free of their bonds, but at least we know these ladies don’t live in the same one-dimensional flat world as you."

With my face as scarlet as my tortured tits, I sat there like a mute without the means to speak in defense of myself.  Although as to why, I truly don’t know.   I mean, I knew right from wrong and I’d certainly been taught better.  Once more, every version of the script I’d been taught read exactly the same.  That barring my being held prisoner by ropes and chains, I would be in control.  That I could say no.  But when it came down to it I couldn’t, and didn’t, because in truth something else was in control.  Something inside me that shivered at the touch of his hand; that wavered when he spoke, and that hungered for still more no matter how hard he pulled on my nipples.

"Nope, there is nothing run-of-the-mill about these two young ladies," he continued, pulling, pinching and twisting my increasingly agitated nipples painfully hard, distorting the shape of my breasts to a painful degree.  "Now that's pliable,” he chuckled.

“Yes, you could learn a lot from these little gals, if you'd only stop to listen," he said with some passion, though I still wouldn't allow myself to open my eyes for fear he might see the yearning that lay beneath.  For me, it was a way to save face, but for him, a license to pull upon my nipples all the harder before letting loose.  The spring back so jarring it lacked only the sound of the snap!

"These ladies are like those who walk the street.  The whores who flaunt them to turn the head of some potential trick.  Those who travel to the edge and beyond every day and are all the better for it.  The ladies who have nothing to fear, follow their own path and don't give a shit about what anyone thinks.  They may not always be as pretty as you and may have more than just one daddy to beat the shit out of them every night, but in my eyes, the whores and pain sluts, the gutter pigs and the junkies who walk the streets of the Quarter are the most beautiful people in the world, no matter how disgustingly nasty the muck they wallow around in stinks.  In fact, the dirtier the better, because in a world without borders, there are no limits, there is no shame."

That opened my eyes, my mouth too!  In one fell swoop he had managed to call into question all I had been taught to believe.  I wasn't sure I followed his line of thought in quite the same way he had laid it out, but one thing was certain.  Good, bad, right or wrong, I would never think of the whores that walked the street in the same way again.

"The most beautiful people in the world," he called them.  Now there was a thought fit to turn the world on its head.  The whores, the junkies and the deviants of all stripes became the righteous, and what he called the flatlanders, like myself, became the damned.

Still, it would be dishonest of me to say his words didn’t have their impact upon me, because they did.  To be honest, his words stirred my emotions in ways I never thought possible.  Yet no matter the mix of emotions that rippled through me, nothing pierced through to the depth of my heart as did the last four words he spoke.

"The dirtier the better!" The same words my friend Gretchen loved to utter while rubbing my kitty and nibbling on my titties.  Words that stirred as much excitement in me as they did in her.  The same words that played over and over again in my mind when at night I lay beneath the covers and rubbed my kitty to distraction, and until I could finally go to sleep in peace.

"The dirtier the better!"  "The dirtier the better!"  Gawd!  Even just saying the words caused my kitty to flutter and a shiver to course through my spine.  It was an intense heated rush of a feeling, and not at all unlike the shiver that now coursed through my body as Neo continued to exact his torture upon my tits.

"Aaah, yes, I can see the goosebumps,” his said with a lascivious grin.  “The ladies are excited.  See here,” he followed with a nod toward the telltale signs of a shiver.

“I wonder,” he then thought to ask, “Do you think it’s the attention I’m paying to them that excites them, or is it the pleasure that comes with the pain?  I can’t tell, but I can assure you the Quarter is the best place for you to find out, and you couldn’t have found a better teacher to help you work it through.”

He spoke to me as if I knew that he was talking about.  When in truth, I hadn’t a clue.  All I could hear was his demonstrative voice and the power of his conviction, meant, not doubt, to sway me.  For good or for bad I didn’t know, but at that moment I didn’t much care.  As long as I was able to conceal the anguish I felt, nothing else mattered.

So instead, I did what I do best.  I nodded and smiled in acceptance, no matter my hurt, no matter my tears as he continued to unmercifully torture my tits as he rambled on . . .

“Of course, it’s a costly course of study and 30 euros only buys so much.  But as I can see the extent these pretty little ladies are willing to go to make your dream come true, I see no reason why we can’t work it out,” he said with a grin warped a tad to the lopsided, while yanking upon my titties so painfully hard it could only be for his want to hurt me.

“I like to think of it as a road.  A special road that can be agonizingly tough, but since you feel compelled to take the journey, I’ll gladly show you the way,” he said to me, as if I understood what he was saying, which I didn’t.  Not the said, nor the unsaid.

“But first I think I need to pay some attention to what brought you here, and then, well, we'll just take it from there."

"So, how may I help you today?" he said with a leer, while he continued to punish my titties all the harder.

“What?” I shrieked, not fully understanding his question nor his treatment of me.

“Your school work,” he repeated, “what brought you here.  What you’re paying me 30 euros an hour to help you with?”

“School work?” I managed through watery eyes, looking down at my tits that painfully spanned the distance between us like a pontoon bridge.  And though I withered and was hyperventilating like a frightened rabbit, that ever-present flutter in my stomach continued to strum the cords deep down in my kitty.

The odd mix of pleasure and pain I felt was tugging upon my emotions in two polar opposite directions, effectively splitting me into two people.  One part of me with the rational mind wanted to scream, run and not look back.  But the other me, the one who felt every flutter in her tummy, was the one who was now in control, and the one who had to respond to Neo with a suffering indifference, as if I hadn’t found his touch arousing in the least.

“Yes, of course, my school work, you dimwit,” I told myself as I drew a deep breath to try to calm myself so as not to let my anguish nor my wantonness give me away.

“Math!” I finally managed to blurt out.  “The problem I’m having is in math.  Just with fractions, but for some reason whenever I encounter a problem in which the lead coefficient is a negative and I factor it out, my solution will not work for me."

"Yes, well, tell me, what does your text say regarding the matter?"

I gasped, then asked incredulously, "You want me to find where I've gone wrong in the text?  On my own?"

"Yes, of course.  You're obviously a very bright girl who understands the problem.  Now show me you know how to go about finding a solution."

“Isn’t that what my father was paying for?” I wanted to ask, but didn’t.  Not because his unusual method of teaching didn’t bring his credibility into question, but because questioning him seemed a bit beyond my grasp at the moment.  In truth, as emotionally sapped as I felt, it was all I could do to not burst into tears.  Still, I do confess it did raise questions regarding the validity of his credentials, if not leave me to wonder whether he truly was the scholarly man he claimed himself to be.

"Go on, go on, Miss Tits," he prodded, pointing to the text, encouraging me to pick it up.  "Prove me right or prove me wrong about you."

So I did, though not without having to deal with the torture he continued to exact upon my nipples.  Twisting, pulling, and pinching my blood engorged pebbles meanly, hurtfully, as if they were some sort of blood sucking parasites that needed to be eradicated from my body.  The pain, my suffering, was such that I felt compelled to grab hold of his wrist to impede his effort to pull my nipples off, leaving me with only one hand and half a mind to open up my text to the chapter specific to the problem I was having.

“Please, please,” I whimpered with watery eyes, hoping against hope I could somehow get him to relent.  But he wouldn’t and didn’t ease up in the least.  If anything, his pull upon my nipples grew all the harder, and his nails began to pierce through my skin all the deeper as I attempted to re-read the pages specific to the problem I was having.  The pages I’d already read countless times before, and know nearly by heart: "When the lead coefficient is a negative, you must first factor out the negative."

“Yes, yes,” I told myself, “I know that, but it still doesn’t work for me.” I gave voice to my frustration that pained me every bit as much as my tortured nipples.

At a loss, and near stupid drunk with pain, I was about to surrender to the suffering when out of the corner of my watery eye I saw a notation located below the illustration of the problem in the form of a footnote that read:  “. . .  remember, you must factor out the negative ‘in all the terms, 2, 3, 4 . . ., treating each the same.’”

“All the terms!  Of course!” I mumbled to myself elatedly, and so happy with myself that the pain that had racked my body just moments before faded as surely as did my gloom.

Quickly I grabbed my pencil and a piece of paper to work the problem through, all while Neo continued to exact his punishment upon my nipples.  Only now, having already drawn his smidgen of blood, he thought to broadened his range of targets to include my kitty - my center, that humid, soggy wet spot between my legs that my panties alone were unable to defend.

Had he done so a few moments before I would have been screaming in near panic, but having just successfully solved the problem I was so overwhelmed with excitement that I could think of nothing else.  Not his fingers pinching the lips of my kitty, not the droplets of blood I saw dripping off the tip of my nipple.  Not even when straightened back up, I sat and watched as he licked his fingers clean of my blood!

“I did it, I did it!!” I screamed out in joy, showing my work to Neo. 

"Yes, of course.  I knew you could do it. That is, once you’d freed yourself from what was holding you back.  The burden all girls labor under thanks to all the shit they have been feeding you and you've been buying into.  Girls can't!  Girls don't know!  Girls aren’t supposed to!”

“Now you see I was right.  Only when free of the crap they feed you will there be enough room in your flat head for free thought.  To become something more that ‘just a girl’, but a human being free of the shackles that constrain.  Free of all inhibition and no longer afraid to flip them all off, giving not a fuck about what anyone thinks when you proudly flash you tits or raise your skirt to show them your cunt.”

“I say, fuck them!  Fuck the rules!  Fuck the bra!"  He said, as he picked it up off the floor.  “This is what they use to bind you to ensure you follow in lock-step.  Just another unquestioning, unthinking spoke in the wheel without a free thought in your head,” he angrily swung it about then ripped it apart at the seams before tossing it in the trash!

"But, but Neo!”  I gasped, looking down at my swollen, blood-splotched tits.  “My mother . . . my breasts . . . h-h-how am I to get home?"

"You don't need a bra to travel on the tram.  You don't need a bra for anything.  You are a pretty girl, Sophie, but your inhibitions, your doubts, are down right ugly!"  He sneered scornfully, angrily, half expecting him to pound his fist upon the table.  In fact, I was surprised that he didn’t, and when he instead beamed the warmest, most affectionate smile imaginable, I was left speechless, utterly dazed by the speed of his transformation from the devil incarnate to the man of my dreams.

Quite frankly, I didn’t much understand him at all.  It was as if he was a composite of two people.  The beauty I saw and the monster that lived within.  Was there something wrong with him I wondered, or were all men that way?  That it’s simply in a man’s nature to be so affectionate one moment, and so cruel the next.

“Well, times up. 60 minutes, 30 euros,” he said, pulling away and straightening back up.  “However, if you wish to come again to learn more, the price is now 40 euros.”

“40?  Neo, that’s a fortune!” I was aghast.  “Surely that’s more than my father would be willing to part with.”

“You’ll talk him into it.  You will because you know no one else can show you the way down the road you yearn to travel.  So, yes, you’ll find a way, and when you do come again, you’ll have the money in hand begging me to take it.  Not only that, but you won’t be wearing a bra.  No bra no more or you’ll find the door locked and me gone.  Got it?”

“Yes, Neo,” I solemnly replied through the haze that engulfed me.

“Good,” he said while handing me my blouse. “Come, I’ll show you out.”

After I’d managed to put myself back together well enough to survive a ride home on the tram, I followed him to the door.  Then after unbolting the latch and giving me room to pass, he had one final thing to say to me.

“Oh yes, one last thing,” he said with a glare that was as sharp as any butcher’s knife.  “No bra and no panties either!  I want that cunt of yours just as free and unbound as your tits.  Got me, Chickie?”

“But Neo, the roaches, those hideous black bugs  . . .?”

“Bugs?” He loftily smirked, as though he knew more than he was willing to let on. “Not to worry, I’m sure a smart girl like you can find a way to accommodate the inconvenience. Perhaps in time, even with open arms. Now remember, no bra, no panties and 40 euros or don’t come back,” he summarily stated while slamming the door closed behind me.

“Accommodate the inconvenience?”  No, I really didn’t much understand the man at all . . .

---------- § § § ----------

Page 3

You’re probably wondering why I’d even want to go back to see him.  He might have been the essence of masculinity and the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on, but even at his best he could be as cold-hearted as a stone, and at his worst, he bordered on pure evil.

So, no!  Despite our shared intimacy and my attraction for the man, if left to my own devices I wouldn’t have gone back.  But as it turned out, I did go back, though it wasn’t my doing.  It was my father’s.  Yes, my penny-pinching, tightwad Jewish orthodox father who didn’t want me to go in the first place was all too willing to cough up half a day’s pay to finance my next visit.

Quite honestly it surprised me probably as much as it does you.  After all, trusting Neo to do what was “best for me” was akin to a shepherd handing over the lamb to the wolf, trusting it wouldn’t be eaten.  Please, allow me to explain.

The next day I went to school to take my quarterly exam.  A test I’d never scored higher than average on in the past and I felt I’d probably perform no better on this one.  So you can picture my surprise when Mrs. Smits, my teacher, called me to her desk to show me my results. Only instead of the red marks I feared, it was adorned with gold star as big and bright as the midday sun.

“That’s right, dear,” she beamed brightly at me, “You scored 100%.  30 problems and 30 correct answers. Congratulations, you have the highest score in the class.”

I was so overjoyed, and near out of my head with pride. And later, when my best friend Gretchen told me I had scored higher than her, I felt as though I was living my every dream.  It was all so improbable, yet so wonderfully true that I didn’t touch down until finding myself climbing the steps that lead to the front door of my home. The doorway through which the wonder of my dreams came to an end and real life again imposed its ugly head.

That night at supper, I sat pensively across the table from my father, waiting for my brother, Emil, and my father to conclude their father-son evening chat.   On my lap was the graded exam, gold-star, and all,  burning a hole in my skirt waiting for my opportunity to show him.  And when that moment finally came, it was all I could do not to stand up and wave it about in his face.

“Papa, Papa, look.  100%!  The highest score in class.  I’m so proud, Papa.  Mrs. Smits is too, and said if I score half as well on the end of the year exit exam, I am sure to be promoted.”

“Oh, how wonderful,” my mother was quick to applaud my performance, but not so my father.  Instead, he sat back in his seat, paused for a long while, then said to my mother.  “Huh!  I see the expenditure wasn’t the waste I had suspected it might be.”

“No husband it wasn’t.  Although I am glad it only cost us 30 euros and not the amount you feared.”

“Ah, Mama, excuse me,” I then dared to interrupt. “Mr. Krause said that if I wished to come back the cost would now be 40 euros, not 30.”

“What?” my mother barked.  “Why that’s more than my daily grocery allowance.  Absolutely out of the question!  No, no, I don’t care how well he taught you, you’re not going back.”  She shook her head, quite adamantly and was seemingly immoveable in her resolve.  But having already decided I wouldn’t be going back for fear the worst might happen to me, it really didn’t mean all that much to me anyway. 

“Hold on, hold on, mother,” my father cut in.  “This scholarly man, Mr. Krause, must know what he is doing.  One visit, one passing score, if we were to allow her to continue who knows what may happen.”

I could only gulp when I heard him say that, thinking to myself, “If he only knew.” That, in truth, Neo had taught me nothing and everything without even opening his mouth.  That is, other than to point the way for me to find my own answers in ways too horrid to even think about, much less enumerate for him.

“Perhaps, you are right, husband.  But the money?”

“Not to worry, it’s my concern not yours, mother.  Besides, I’ve already made the financial commitment and as you well know, I never go back on my word to another man. I never have and I never will!”

“Sophie,” he then turned to say to me, “You will continue to attend the sessions for however long necessary, and for the money, I expect to see equally good results. Understand me, Sophie?”

“But, but, Papa . . .,” I pleaded, wanting so much to tell him the truth about what Neo had done to me.  But my father would hear none of it.  With a sweep of his hand, he cut me off.  “Mind your place, Sophie.  It is not yours to argue.  I’ve stated my reasons, and you’ll do as I say, understand me, Sophie?”

“Yes, Papa,” I replied, knowing not to argue with my father.  Even if I had the courage to speak out, past experiences had never turned out so well for me.  An unbending, outspoken man, the harder he was pressed, the harder he dug in his heels.  So, like it or not, I had no choice but to go back to the Quarter braless and pantiless and again suffer Neo’s mistreatment of me.

                --------- § § § ----------

Page 4

I woke early the next morning to allow time to dress.  I chose to wear the gray flannel skirt and blazer ensemble my mother had bought for me to wear to Temple.  It was staid and temperate to a degree.  But then again, it could hardly be taken as an invite by lecherous men or those insidious black bugs.

When dressed, I stood for a long while before my cheval mirror to assure myself that the cotton blouse and the cut of the blazer adequately concealed the fact that I wore no bra beneath.  The fabric worked as I had expected, though true to form, nothing could hide the wobble of my corpulent globes whenever I moved.  It was a cause of concern for me, wondering what the girls and boys at school would say when they saw me walking down the hall with my tits flopping about like a pair of water filled balloons.  Not the sort of thing that instilled a whole lot of self-confidence, though thankfully my skirt did.

It didn’t top the knee like the skirts worn by my mother, but given the thickness of the wool, an inch or two above mid-thigh was more than enough to hide the fact that I was pantiless beneath.  Still, there was little the length could do to hide the flush on my face or the goosebumps that covered my body.  The flush and the goosebumps generated not as much by the chill in the room as they were by my fright, knowing as I did that my bare naked kitty was exposed to the elements beneath.

As it turned out not much was said to me at school.  Likewise after school, when I boarded the bus and later the tram to meet up with Neo once again.   In fact, few seemed even to take note of me until the tram I rode encountered a crowd gathered in the street blocking our passage.

Rising up from my seat I looked to see what was drawing the attention of so many.  I couldn’t see much beyond the crowd other than a faint glow lighting up the otherwise darkened street beyond.  I was concerned, of course, but it wasn’t until I heard the buzz that rolled through the crowd rise to a roar when that glow suddenly grew brighter, that I thought to speak to the conductor to see what he might know.

And that’s when I heard the hiss and a boom.  “Fire, fire!”  Anonymous voices from within the crowd screamed out in panic. In an instant, the ensuing tide of terror that swept through the crowd engulfed the conductor as well. And fearing the worst, he immediately began to back the tram away to escape the fire and the swarm of bodies that came rushing toward us.

But it was already too late.  The crowd was already jumping on, and rushing through the vehicle and out the other side, bringing his efforts to a halt.  Worse yet, those few passengers who still remained on board found themselves engulfed by the panicked swarm and swept away  - including me!

It had all happened so fast, so quickly, I hardly knew how to respond to the circumstance I found myself in.  One moment I was standing beside the conductor and the next, some unknown person was pulling me along by the wrist through the rush of the crowd.

At first, I didn’t know if I should be thanking him or screaming for help.  But when the crowd around me began to thin out, and the streets through which I was being led grew narrower, darker, without a street sign in sight, did I suddenly begin to feel a restless unease.  Especially when the number of storefront windows became less in number than the dumpsters and trash cans we passed.  One which I could see further ahead that housed a fire, it’s flickering flame lighting up the surrounding brick walls and the faces of those gathered round it.

As we grew closer the unease I felt suddenly turned into a panic when I saw the gathering of hoodlums, vandals and miscreants of every kind passing around a bottle of American whiskey.  The danger I faced was all too clear to me now, and fearing for my life I began to struggle.

“Stop-Stop, help-help, someone, help!” I began to scream while trying to break free from his grasp.   As we drew closer, and I could hear them start to beat the can they had set ablaze with clubs and chains, my mind and body instantly began to fall into a near catatonic state of paralysis. Stumbling forward, my feet two steps behind my forward momentum, I began to falter, and an instant later, to fall face forward onto the cobblestone street, the impact being such that it caused my head to snap back and my jaw to crack.

But even as catastrophic as the injury was to me, nothing could distract me from the horror I saw leering down at me once I rolled over.  The tattooed lout who had brought me here looked crazed and no less out of his mind than me.  He looked as wild as a beast, only this was a two handed beast.  One he used to slap my face and the other to grab hold of my skirt in an effort to rip it off.

And then, that’s when I saw him.  Neo!  The sight of him walking out from the shadows was almost theatrically magical.  As to how he happened to be in such a dark, distant, out of the way place as this, and at just the right time, I didn’t know. Surely the odds against it had to have been astronomical, but to be honest, during those desperate moments I didn’t much care.

All I knew was once I’d managed to roll my eyes in his direction and saw him standing straight and tall and as bold as any god standing atop Mount Olympus, he became much more to me than just a beautiful man whose attention I relished.  He had become my redeemer.

Then like the living god I saw him to be, he looked menacingly at my would-be assailant and with single sweep of his fisted hand he sent the lout scurrying off like a roach exposed to the sunlight, and along with him the men gathered around the fire lit trash can.

“Neo,” I slurred through the blood running from my mouth.  Reaching out, I beckoned him to come to my aid.  But he didn’t, nor did he utter a single word, choosing instead to reach into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes to light one up.  Then standing quietly off to the side, he puffed away as I sobbed my way through my wholly deplorable lament.

“Thank you, thank you, Neo.  He hurt me, he hurt me!” I wept my way through while he remained cemented to his spot, as if unfazed, quietly puffing on his cigarette.  That is until I ran out of things to say.

“Stop crying, bitch!” he snorted, causing a lungful of smoke to bellow out of his nose.  “You brought it on yourself!”

I was stunned.  How could he say that?  He was accusing me of bringing this all this upon myself, an accusation that was not at all substantiated by the facts as he knew them to be.  I thought to let him know my feelings, but didn’t, choosing instead to watch as he snuffed out the cigarette with his boot and then walked around me and knelt down exact to the spot where the lout once stood before running off at Neo’s command.  Then with his lips curled into a sneer, he lifted my skirt to glaze upon my bare naked kitty.

“Bloody fucking hell!  What the fuck is this?  No wonder he wanted to beat the shit out of you.  Your cunt is nearly as woolly as this skirt.  What a disgrace.  The fucking thing is more an invite to the fleas and lice than a man’s cock.   Disgusting!  You pig!  Have you no more respect for a man who wants to use you to sop-up his junk?”

Neo was in a rage, his hate, his anger flaring out from his mouth like a windswept fire gone out of control, though for the life of me I hadn’t the slightest idea as to why.  I hadn’t done anything.  I had followed his instructions; I wasn’t wearing a bra and I was pantiless just as he had asked of me.  Nor was I here of my own volition.  I was kidnapped and was about to be raped.  Quite honestly, I didn’t much understand his anger, especially about something as trivial as my pubes.

So, yes, I was confused about his anger and wanted to ask him to explain himself, but again I didn’t, nor could I.  Given the extent of my injuries and fearing he might lash out at me in anger, I said nothing, choosing instead to keep my feelings to myself and listen to his continued criticism of me . . .

“Yeah, so what, you got yourself a bloody mouth. Big fucking deal,” he said while forcing my jaw open to peer inside.  “A few cracked teeth too, but it isn’t anything a good pair of pliers can’t fix.  On the whole, you should count yourself lucky.  All those blokes wanted to do was to pop a nut up your ass, and had you just laid down, spread your legs and thanked them for choosing this disgusting flea trap of yours to dump their junk, no harm would have come of it.”

“But what else should I expect from a girl who buys into that crap heap of lies about virtue and monogamy they feed you to keep you walking the straight and narrow in an unchallenged world, without a free thought in your head.  Playing your tits and cunt like a trump card to win a seat at the homemaker's ball.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you you’ve still got a lot to learn, you nasty bitch.  There is a whole other world out there, one inhabited by real people who unlike you don’t run the treadmill like caged mice.  But don’t you worry.  You came to learn and I’m going to teach you all about your dirty little self, and the swamp you live in.”

“Neo!  I managed a gasp, sputtering out the blood.  “What do you mean?  What did you say?  I don’t understand.”  And I didn’t.  Not his anger and certainly not his words which were so cryptic as to be lost to me.  “Why are you angry with me?”

“I told you,” he spat out, “I’m not angry, and if it’s still not clear to you where you went wrong, you soon will be.  Now, you got the 40 euros?”

“Yes, Neo, Papa gave it to me,” I said, handing him the envelope that contained the money.

“Good,” he said while thumbing through the notes.  “Now get up!  We’re going to go fix you up.”

“Stand up?” I thought to myself.  For me, just having to cope with the wound to my jaw and endure the throbbing pain shooting up from the roots of my teeth was akin to torture.  Still, I did manage it, albeit on shaky feet and not without the wound on my chin opening up once again.  Not that Neo seemed to give two wicks about the harm done to me.

“Damn, you’re not going anywhere fast like that. Take off the fucking skirt!”

“Neo!”  I cried out, “I’m not wearing panties.  I can’t, I can’t!”

“You can,” he angrily snarled, looking beastly wild as he violently ripped off my skirt and tossing it in the trash.

Then again, he flipped on a dime.  In an instant his posture softened and the hardness of his glare gave way to a glint of compassion. Showing his newfound concern by removing his Peacoat and wrapping it around my waist to cover me up.  A moment of kindness that was nowhere in sight just moments before, and followed by a kiss upon my lips that was so warm, so tender, as if I were the love of his life.

“Oh, Neo, why were you being so mean to me,” I asked between panting breaths?

Of course, he didn’t bother to respond or otherwise try to comfort me.  He simply picked me up and cradled me in his arms, then set out to carry me out of the alley, saying to me as he did . . .

“Shut the fuck up, you dirty, smelly pig.  Your bellyaching makes me want to puke!”

------------

Without saying a word more, Neo carried me back out the alley the way I had been brought, and then a short distance up RotStraße until coming to a stop in front of a neon lit shop I’d not noticed before; a tattoo parlor called Ida’s.

Little more than a brick enclave carved out of the narrow space between the porn shops on either side, he carried me through the door and up to the counter where he was greeted by the clerk. Or more percisely, a living, breathing kaleidoscope of colorful tattoos that covered him fully - from his face to the lower regions of his shirtless torso. “Where is Ida?” Neo asked

“She’s busy fixing Markel.”

“Well get her, and get Markel off that white horse he’s riding. I want to see them both.”

“Yes, sir!” the man replied, and all but clinked his heels together before dashing off to do as he was told.  Once more, he called Neo, “Sir!”  It was as if he not only knew Neo, but he was someone who commanded respect.  A man he knew better than to ask what in the hell he was doing when, without being asked, he took it upon himself to carry me through the shop and into a vacant parlor room in the back, setting me down on a recliner chair.

“What’s happening, Neo?”  I asked, as I surveyed the assortment of instruments attached to the chair.

“They’re going to fix you,” he said flatly, pulling a tissue out from a nearby box, “Here, wipe the blood off your chin.”

A moment later Ida walked in, “Oh my,” she said after giving me the once over.  “Has little Miss Muffet lost her way home?”

“Not lost, not yet anyway,” Neo replied briskly, now sounding all businesslike as he went on to explain why he needed her help.   Explaining what had happen to me and my need for a new skirt.  A point he thought to emphasize by pulling his coat off me to lay bare my kitty for her examination.

“What in the hell do we have here?”  Ida caustically churned out.  “A playground for the fleas?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s definitely a hazard zone and one of the reasons I’m here.” Neo said to her as he took hold of Ida by the elbow and led her off to the corner where I couldn’t hear:

-------------

“Look Ida,” he spoke secretively, “I want you to go out and buy her a skirt, no panties, and then you’re going to pluck out that scraggly patch and polish up that cunt smoother than a billiard ball.”

“Look at the sign, Neo. I do tattoos, not pest extermination.”

“I’m not asking smart ass, got me?”

“Yeah, Neo, I hear you.”

“Good!  Now, how long is it going to take?”

“The skirt, 20 minutes, the billiard ball 15 minutes per session over two days.”

“Can’t do.”

“Well,” she said after giving it some thought. “It is slow today. Plus she’s clean, only a small scattering atop the knoll and along her lips, so I suppose I could get both Günter and Klaus to work on it together.  It’ll cost you extra, but if they work straight through, we can cut it down to 2 hours.  But it’s going to be intense and she’s going to be hurting.”

“Got something that’ll put her out for 2 hours?”

“How much does she do?”

“So far, none.  You’re going to be popping a virgin bitch.”

“White, brown or black?”

“Don’t matter.”

“She’s what, 150 cm and 4 and a half kilos?  I won’t ask her age, but yeah, I got a pinch.  Enough to keep her in a spin for a few hours.”

“Good, get on with it.  Oh, and one more thing.  She’s going to need a ring.”

“Oh Sure, I’ve got plenty.  Some pretty ones,” she said, showing him a small tray of small gold rings.  “How many, 4-6-8? She’s still a bit small for much more.”

“Let’s go with 8, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking cattle grade, big, iron, through the nose and permanent.”

“Oh?” she said with brows raised, as if feeling an unease about where all this was leading. “Look, Neo, perhap’s going with another painted lady might be a better way to go. After all, your last, Maxi the tattooed dragon lady, not only put you on the map, but made you a mint.”

“Look Ida, I don’t say nothing about the asphyxiation kink you’re into, so don’t you dare question mine. Got me?”

“Yeah, Neo, I got’cha.  But really, wouldn’t it be better to just wait and find one who’s at least weaned off the pablum?”

-------

I don’t have to tell you how unsettling it was for me to see them walk off to talk about me behind my back, but I can’t say I wasn’t happy to see Ida go.  As to why, I really didn’t know, because other than her caustic remark about my kitty, meant to belittle me, she had actually been quite nice.  Even going so far as to pull Neo’s coat back over me to cover my kitty back up and caress my cheek quite affectionately.  Perhaps it was that she looked less like a woman than she did a man.  Or perhaps it was the satanic tattoos, the spikes and chains, or her flaming red hair cut in a Mohawk that didn’t sit well with me.

It was but a short moment after Ida’s departure that Neo returned to my side.  Again smiling warmly, he took my hand and cradled it in his so tenderly, lovingly, causing me to yearn for the touch of his lips against mine once again.

“Neo,” I asked, “why are you so mean to me?  That man assaulted me. He kidnapped me and took me there.  I wasn’t there on my own.”

“I told you why,” he scowled. It was the way you were treating the poor bloke.  All he wanted to do is pop a load up your ass and you were treating him like he was about to carve you up and have you for dinner.”

“Neo, how mean!  He wanted to hurt me.  There wasn’t a speck of humanity in him.   He was soulless and as savage as a pig at the trough only without the snorts.  He was foul, dirty, smelly and as greasy as one too.”

“And that’s the reason for all the hysteria, huh?”

“Yes, Neo, he was a monster,” I said, then shrieked in despair, “My gawd, Neo!  Didn’t you see him?  He was a Turk!”

“Oh, there we have it.  The boogie-man hiding in the closet and scares little Sophie.  A Turk!  Well now, tell me, have you ever known one, like personally, or ever been mistreated by one?”

“No, Neo, but I know because I’ve been told.”

“By who, a neighbor, a friend . . . your father?” he finally asked, staring at me with a gaze as hard as it was cold.  It was a gaze that I had to force myself to meet, but I couldn’t get myself to look him in the eyes.  So worried was I that he might again find even more fault with me, that I didn’t have the courage to face him.

“Ah, so it was that Bible-thumping father of yours, was it?  Now he’s a bigot too,” he said with a brittle edge to his voice, giving me all the more reason to worry, and now without a voice to respond, I simply looked away.

“It’s bad enough he’s a racist bigot, but his personal animus now festers in you.  Tish, tish,” he scolded, wagging his finger.  Then leaning in as if to kiss me, he slapped me across the face, hard!   “That’s damn ugly, girl!”

“Damn right its ugly,” reiterated Ida as she strolled back in carrying a small blue skirt and followed by two men called, Günter and Klaus, who looked all business.  “But don’t you worry little lady, because we’re going to transform that ugly kitty of yours into the smooth, polished apple of every man’s eye in no time at all.”

“Günter, set up the stirrups, Klaus, you open the kit and load the gun with the better half of a quarter gram of the white.  And Neo, you get the fuck out of our way.  Oh, yeah, before you go, do I pop her in the crook of an elbow or between her toes?”

“Neither!  Neo exclaimed, shaking his fist. “Stick the fucking bigoted bitch through her pisser!”

“Ouch!” That’s going to hurt.” Ida said to everyone and no one, as Neo stormed out of the door, smoldering.  “Günter, spread her legs.  Klaus, swab it and spank it.”

“Sweetie,” she then said to me, muscling up and wrapping my head in a headlock.  “I don’t know what you said to him, but you sure as hell pissed him off.  Not good.”

 --------- § § § ----------

 “Good morning, Nurse Krüge, anything new to report?”

“No, Dr. Braun, just more of the same.  The same names, same places.”

“Yes,” the doctor noted. “It does sound a bit rote, as if she were reciting

from a script she had commmited to memory.”

“Yes, doctor, a bad bit of fiction I’m afraid. 99% absolutely ludicrous and 1% offering but

a hint of the possible.  Still, there are things in the mix that leave me to wonder.

Like the Seaman’s Quarter she speaks about. There was such a place, correct, doctor?”

“Yes, but you need ask yourself.  How could she have been to a place that

was bulldozed out of existence over 20 years ago?”

Page 5 . . .

The next thing I remember I was aboard the tram with Neo riding beside me.  It was late, the last tram of the night as I recall, and still too out of it to travel alone, Neo was there to feed me the “uppers” that he said would counter that “pinch of white” Ida had shot up my “pisser.”

But no matter how many pills I was made to swallow, it did little to negate the need for Neo to repeatedly pick my head up off his shoulder, to administer the obligatory shake and slap on my face in an effort to sharpen my awareness of myself.

And to a degree the shaking and slapping did help, each go-around reviving a bit more of my sense of self and the world around me.  Like the movement of the tram as it negotiated its way through the streets.  But more critically, I began to slowly awaken to the acute pain radiating up from my kitty, and the contrasting feeling of the cool vinyl seat beneath my naked rump.

As to why that should matter to me I didn’t know.  But as the shaking and slapping continued, and my need to figure out why all this should matter to me, a sharper picture of myself slowly began to take form in my head.

Granted, the picture of what I saw when I looked down at my kitty did help to sharpen my focus, at least to a degree.  But as to why it should matter that I sat with one leg spread wide and draped over top of Neo’s knee still remained a step too far for my mind to grasp.  As was the fact that, other than a small strip of blue fabric bunched up beneath my navel, I was bare ass naked all the way down to my T-strap shoes.  Nor the realization that between my wide spread legs, my bald kitty - adorned with 8 gold rings - was visible to all the pedestrians we passed.  Many were pointing and laughing, though not at some street performer juggling or sword-swallowing for a few coins, but at me.

And I remained immersed in that fog all the way through the Quarter and until the tram reached the transfer hub where the bus that would take me home waited the last few moments before its departure time.  Thankfully when I was helped to stand, the small strip of blue fabric that had been bunched up under my navel unfurled into a blue skirt – or more precisely, a wrap!

Shorter in length than a skater’s skirt, it was meant to be worn with a leotard beneath to ensure the proper cover up of my kitty.  But I wasn’t wearing a leotard, and as a result, the flimsy slash of fabric exposed more of my buns to the other passengers than not.  And when I reached up to grab hold of the handrail when it was my time to board, the tiny to non-existent skirt exposed my bald, ringed kitty to the driver as well.

Finding the seat immediately behind the driver vacant, Neo quickly laid claim to the seat, making sure to have me sit on the aisle side directly beneath the driver’s rear-view mirror.  Then as he had on the tram, he sought to expose me fully, only this time he raised my legs until my heels came to rest atop the cushion.  Then with my heels dug into the seat, he stretched my raised knees wide until my bald kitty sat prominently on display.

But even as lost to myself as I was due to the mix of uppers and downers, I had no problem seeing the lewd and disgusting manner in which my kitty sat posed in the mirror.  Looking for the the world like a pair of plump peach slices adorned with eight gold rings, it was the virtual picture of obscene.  But nothing frightened me more than the sight of the glistening pearly white droplet of dew bubbling-up from between the lips of my kitty.  The verifable proof of my excitement!

I was breathless, and for the first time since leaving Ida’s I felt my shame.  That my kitty felt a flutter while I wallowed in humiliation was a self-inflicted scourge I didn’t understand, yet knew I had to stop.  But when I attempted to lower my legs back to the ground, Neo would have none of it.  Grabbing hold of my ankle, he glared icily as if to dare me to move.

“See that,” he said pointing toward the froth of bubbles that were now seeping up from the well of my kitty. “Your lady friend doesn’t seem to mind at all.  Fact, it excites her, like a lil’ piggy wallowing in the muck,” he chuckled, and then taking hold of the new gold rings that adorned my kitty, he stretched her lips wide for the benefit of the driver.

“Look,” he said with a nod toward the driver’s overhead rearview mirror, where the driver could be seen peering back down at me with a smile and an intermittent lick of his lips.

“He’s looking at you.  He’s looking inside you, inside your inflamed red gash where he can see the froth bubbling up from the mouth of your kitty cozily nestled away inside.  No panties, no hair, no outer or inner lips to obscure his view.  Just the drooling, fluttering, slobbering mouth of your kitty.  The gateway to your tunnel of love,” he chuckled, cruelly mocking me.  Then seemingly growing bored with the shaming and the taunting, he let go of the rings and began to slap my sore aching kitty with the palm of his hand, hard and fast.

“Ooo, ah, eeee,” I feebly whimpered, my voice nearly drowned out by the smacking sounds that, in and of themselves, could be heard above the roar of the engine.   The slaps stung and they hurt, but it seemed not to bother Neo in the least.  If anything, his sneer only grew all the more disdainful, and wicked, when he pressed his face up against mine.

“Look up at him, bitch!” he said through gritted teeth.  “I want you look up at that face in the mirror and whisper softly, ‘I want you to beat my cunt’!” he hissed like an enraged lunatic who cared not two wicks for me.

“Go on, tell him.  Look up and tell that brown skinned, greasy, Azerbaijani mongrel you want him to beat you,” he punctuated with a painful slap.   “. . .  And if slapping your cunt isn’t enough to satisfy him, he can use his fist!” he said to me, snarling like a fiend.

“But it won’t be for free.  Oh no.  For a blow job, a fucking, a beating, no matter, you gotta charge,” he continued, no less perniciously, while holding up a five euro note he had pulled from his pocket and then made a show of laying it flat atop my glossy smooth kitty.

“I want you to tell him that’s all it’ll cost him” he said pointing to the note. “It’s going to cost him only one single solitary note, and for that he can fuck you, beat you, whip you, punch out your teeth if he wants, and all for the price of a frankfurter from a sidewalk vendor.  So go on, you bag of shit!  Tell him that’s all it’s going to cost him.”

The anger, the hate, the contempt he had for me had me in tears, and feeling as though I’d been blasted and I was already dead.  If not now, I soon would be.  Killed by Neo’s own hands, the blows to come raining down upon me no sooner than my next breath.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, the scorn that once cast a dark shadow over his face just moments ago was now brightened by the light of a smile.  A smile accompanied by a warm embrace, and countless little kisses all over my face.  Then setting my feet back down upon the floor, he lowered my skirt to cover my naked kitty back up.

I was breathless.  His transformation from the ultimate evil, to the living, loving, heart throb of every girl’s dreams was nothing less than astounding.  And there was nothing subtle about it, which led me to believe that none of this was real at all.  Rather, it came to me that all this might be something more akin to street theater, a macabre theatrical performance enacted for the driver’s benefit and not to harm me.  A feeling that grew by the multiples when he caressed my face in his hand and kissed me on the lips with such a passion I felt nearly faint and lost in a swoon.

It was an experience like none other, utterly horrifying and sheer bliss all balled up into one.  The pain and the pleasure that at worst, brought on such agony, and at best, enraptured me.   It also sobered me up to a large extent, and now back in touch with myself, I sought to regain my composure and make myself as presentable as I could.  Although, given what had just transpired between the bus driver and me, I still couldn’t get myself to look his way.

“Braunfelstraße and Kasselstraße,” the bus driver called out upon reaching the next stop.  My stop, and when I stepped off that bus wrapped up in Neo’s arms, I felt as if I had wings, lost to the breeze as we set out hand and hand like lovers, joyfully making our way down Kasselstraße, the street upon which I live.

That is until we reach the cross street of Eberstraße, the corner upon which my fathers Butchery was located and I tried to ignore. Not so Neo however, especially upon seeing the sign posted at the front entrance. The sign that read:

Müller Metzgerei

Herman Müller, Proprietor

We Do Not Serve Turks.

“Well, lookie here,” Neo chortled, “You said your father owned a neighborhood butchery and you live on this street. So this must be your father’s shop, am I right Sophie darling?”

“Yes, Neo” was all I could say, fearing that whatever I had to say in my defense might stoke the embers I saw flaring up in his eyes again.

“Well then, that’s good to know,” he smiled, and to my relief he said no more.  Instead he kissed me atop my head and again took hold of my hand to accompany me home.

It wasn’t a long walk.  Just two blocks then another half block further along a well keep lane flanked on each side by wall-to-wall tenements.  It was a clean, safe and an all too boringly typical Jewish place to live.  Far too stodgy for my tastes, but given my present state of mind, all that banality never looked more wonderful to me.

“You know,” he then said to me.  “We have a butchery in the Quarter too.”

“You do,” I asked although I don’t know why, except perhaps, just to appease him by showing an interest.

“Yes, Sophie, we do.  Only ours serves Turks.  They carry only the finest meats from the most beautiful of animals. The fairest of the fair, those with plump full rumps and thighs that make it so difficult for the customers to choose which one and which part of them they want the butcher to slice.”

I found it curious that he’d care to bring this particular matter up with me here and now or ever, quite frankly, especially since he seemed so absorbed in me.  But rather than question it, I simply smiled radiantly, then rose up atop my toes to give him a peck on the cheek.  “Thank you, my darling.  I hope to see it one day.”

“Oh, you will, my sweet lil’ yum-yum, you will,” he was quick to add and followed with the most enigmatic smile.  One that lit up his face as we walked down the street carefree and unhurried, with Neo humming a sweet melody, and me, near dancing on my toes. To me, it was a vision plucked from every girl’s dreams.  I felt valued, cared for, and found myself wishing our short walk could go on forever.

But it did end, and when we finally reached Nr 216, my home, the ugly reality of my shameful circumstance came rushing back.  Foremost, my fear about what my parents would have to say when they saw my marred face and my manner of dress.  Or lack of, if I need be honest, and as there was no way for me to disguise the fact that I wore no bra or panties and that beneath my minuscule wrap my kitty was all but on display, I could already hear the fire and brimstone my father would hurl at me in a rage of anger when he saw me.  All of it bringing about my ruin, Neo lost to me forever.

But I wasn’t without hope.  It was late, well into the wee hours of the morning, far beyond the time my father could afford to remain up and still open the shop at 8:00 in the morning.  Of course, my mother could still be awake, but as she too needed to get up early to greet our neighbor whose infant son she cared for during the day, it wouldn’t be like her to still be awake either.

Still, my worry was such that I thought to look up at the front room window to see if I could detect any sign of my parents sitting in wait for me.  I felt reasonably assured when I saw none, giving hope that if I were to hurry through the house to my bedroom and lock the door behind me, I might just escape their discovery.

Turning toward Neo to tell him my plan, I found myself again swept up in his arms.  And before I could utter a single word he leaned down to kiss my lips ever so softly and so warmly that it swept away my fear of whatever awaited me when I entered the house.  My mind, the totality of my being, was filled with nothing but the moment;  a moment in time that was destined to remain with me for the rest of my life.

Then after giving Neo a final peck on the cheek, I turned away and dashed up the stairs.   Quietly opening the door, I entered and ran through the house until at last I had reached the safety of my room.  But as things would have it, no sooner had I locked the door behind when I heard my mother’s knock, and the worry in her voice when she called out to me.

“Sophie, Sophie, is everything alright, is there anything wrong?” she asked, her voice carried through the door.

“No Mama, nothing is wrong.  I’m sorry I’m late, but I was with Gretchen, and as her mother was off visiting a sick friend, she asked me to stay until her mother returned.  I hope you’re not mad, Mama.”

“No, dear, we were worried that’s all.  You’re okay then, yes?”

“Yes, Mama, but there is one thing I need tell you.  I need to take the 5 a.m. bus to school in the morning because Gretchie and I need to study for the morning class.”

“5 AM?  Oh goodness!  Well, you will need to set the alarm because your father doesn’t rise before 6.”

“Yes, Mama, I will.  And I promise to be safe,” I said upon her departure, though knowing as I did that I wouldn’t be going to school.  To do so with the wounds in my mouth and upon my face, not to mention what Ida had done to my Kitty, the chances of discovery were just too great for me to risk.  And as Gretchen would be in school, I really had nowhere else to go but to the Harbor Quarter to spend my day with Neo.

You’re probably wondering why I’d choose to go to the Quarter in lieu of the public library, where I could spend my day clothed as opposed to 9/10^th naked.  It clearly would be the better choice, but it wouldn’t change anything.  The next day, and all the days following I’d have the same choice to make, and unless I wanted to lose Neo, I’d eventually have to go braless and pantiless, dressed in this horrifically brief skirt no matter how I felt about it.

And, the truth is, at the moment I didn’t want to lose Neo.  I felt I loved him, and in my heart I felt he loved me too.  But as to how I could love a man who could be so warm, so loving, and then by the same measure, so heartless, so cold, I didn’t know.  The part of me with an ear for my father’s teaching told me it was wrong.  But the part of me that felt the flutter in my tummy whenever Neo was near couldn’t have wanted for more.

I felt at a loss about it all and wondered if my confusion might be better explained in light of my youth and inexperience.  That perhaps it wasn’t just Neo, perhaps that’s just the way men were.  That it was in the nature of men to be so erratic in their moods.  That they were of two hearts, not one.  One the beauty, the other the beast, and it was my youth and inexperience that prevented me from seeing that in them.

Then again, I never knew my father to hit my mother.  Or if he had, that my mother would let on that he had.  It just didn’t seem to be within her to do anything other than submit to the cruelty, and gladly, if for no other reason than it wasn’t in her to speak ill of my father.

And now that I think about it, nowhere in my life had I ever heard a woman complain about such treatment.  Of course, that didn’t mean that they, like my mother, had never been the subject of such abuse, but as they all looked so happy with their relationships, and secure in their lives, I could only surmise they chose not to let that sway them.

Perhaps that too was a lesson I’d yet to learn.  If I wanted my love with Neo to flourish, I must not speak out or bring his behavior into question.  That it was simply mine to submit to him, and whether he chose to deliver a hit or a kiss, I would go to bed that night immersed in the pleasure of knowing he was mine.

-------

       --------§ § § --------

“Ready, Nurse Voigt?"

“Yes Doctor Braun.  3.6 megajoules, 10 ms pulse, potential 9.8."

“Fine!”  Then leaning down to speak to Sophie. “Sophie, please I want to help, but I

need to know.  Who Is Neo, who is Ida, and where is it you find yourself?”

Page 6

Falling Into the Inferno . . .

If I had expected there to be a change in the way I was greeted on the bus, and later the tram, I would be sorely mistaken.   The bus driver, no less bold, was quick to pick up my hand to lick my palm when I handed him my transfer ticket.  Once more, his eyes never left sight of me;  not when the bus came to a stop at the light where he’d spin around in his seat and lift my skirt to peep at my naked kitty; and clearly not while driving, when looking back through the rear view mirror, he’d lick his lips and stroke the bulge beneath his slacks whenever he saw me looking back at him.

Likewise, the tram operator was no less forward in his dealings with me, although not in the same obnoxious, persistent way as the bus driver, but in the humorous sort of way you’d expect of a man with a hearty chuckle and a handlebar mustache;  a long bushy shrub adorned with a twisted curly-Q at the tips that I’d often see him fiddle with whenever telling me things of a personal nature.  Like where he lived, that he was unmarried, and that he always kept the door open and a hundred Euro note at the bedside should a pretty little lady wearing short-socks and strapped loafers care to visit, or stay.

I found him fun, full of jokes and lighthearted, a man I didn’t so much mind sitting behind and laughing along with, or wish to please.  Just as I did when stepping off the tram upon reaching Rosablatt 30, I blew him a kiss to please his heart, and then whirled around to please his hunger with the windborne rise of my skirt.

It was a lewd, disgusting, base thing to do, something I would have been too ashamed to do prior to my meeting Neo.  But for some reason I didn’t so much suffer the shame, as I felt the joy of pleasing the man.

Just the way I felt as I dashed up the steps of Rosablatt 30, where the steep incline of the steps exposed more of my naked kitty to the boys sitting upon the stoop than not.

Again, exactly why I chose to do as I did I really can’t say.  Perhaps it was because I was finding all the sudden attention far too intoxicating.  Or perhaps it was due to my exposure to Neo;  his ideas, his teachings, his force of personality and the sway all that had upon me.

For whatever the reason, I felt buoyantly excited as I ran up the flight of stairs and down the hall that led to Neo’s flat.  My excitement being such that I didn’t even stop to wonder why I was expecting to find him awake or even home at this early hour.  In fact, it wasn’t until after I received no response to my knocking that I began to worry.  Where would I go, what was I to do?  I couldn’t just sit and wait for however long, and I dared not walk the Quarter on my own.

That’s when I heard someone entering the building and the heavy steps of well trodden feet winding their way up the long flight of stairs.  Again, I felt my excitement build, expecting to see Neo at any moment, greeting me with a smile no less bright than the one he wore the night before.

But it wasn’t Neo.  The man I saw walking down the hall toward me, toward Neo’s door, looked nothing less than a bull on a rampage.  His heavy stride, his balled up fist and the scowl on his face was more than enough to cause me to cower, and then flinch when, coming up alongside me, he sought to lift my chin with a finger.

“Relax, Chickie, I’m not going to bite.  Not you anyway.  A bloke would have to be damn near blind to want to harm a sweet little girlie like you.  Can’t say I feel the same about that fucking bitch, Zoë, hiding from me in there,” he said with a nod toward Neo’s door.  “You knocked?” he asked.

I didn’t answer because, quite frankly, I was so frightened I felt as if I’d swallowed my tongue.  But I did find enough of myself to nod, repeatedly, to let him know I had.

“They ain’t answering, huh?” he asked me.  “Well, perhaps that’s because you don’t know the secret code.  Here,” he then said facing up to the door. “Now watch, I’ll show you the code.”

And upon saying that, he lifted his fists overhead and started pounding with such a fury the whole door began to shake and rattle, threatening to break free of its hinges.  “Open this fucking door, you damn bitch!  Open up or when I get’cha, I’m going to blow a hole up your ass the size of a lamp post!”

“Come out, you damn . . .,” his stopped mid-sentence when the door suddenly flung open, “. . . Bitch!” he uttered upon seeing Neo.

“No need, Helmut.  Come in.”

I watched as the man he’d called Helmut followed Neo in, and though he hadn’t closed the door, I remained where I stood, not having been asked in.  But I did watch, curious to see what was about to play out.  Watching intently as Neo and the man who followed him walked across the room until coming to a stop near the sofa.   Neo, having just woken up was barefoot, shirtless and dressed in a pair of saggy gray sweatpants, and the angry lout with whom he stood nose to nose seemed all too ready to go at it.

“So what’s the problem, Helmut?” he asked.

“What’s the problem?  I’ll tell you what the fuck my problem is.  Zöey!  That’s my fucking problem.  She ain’t at work, and as I got no one to fill in for her that means my window ain’t making me no money.  And if the whore ain’t making me no money, she’s going to find it damn tough finding another job with two broken legs.  Got me!  Now, why don’t you be a good chap and go drag the bitch out here so I can set her right.  It’s either that or . . .,”

“. . . Or what, Helmut?” Neo cut in, squaring up, folding his arms over his chest defiantly.  A gesture that didn’t escape the man called Helmut.  The man stood there eye-to-eye with Neo for a long moment as if studying him,  as if assessing exactly what it was he was facing.

“Huh!” Helmut huffed, then said, “Look Neo, it’s just business, that’s all. I’m not looking for no trouble.  You know it’s a small world with everyone stepping on everyone else.  But here in the Quarter, nobody steps on no one.  We all get along, and no one carries no grudges either.  So don’t go worrying about that.  Bygones are just that, bygones, and if you or any of your crew were to stop by Pussy Pagoda tomorrow, I’m sure I could find my way to offer you the pick of the litter.  And not only that, but for free. No charge, no matter how badly you bloody them up.”

“So I’m asking, kindly of course, if you would just let Zoë know that it’s alright with me if she wants to a few days off.  That is, if that’s okay with you Neo?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll tell her,” Neo replied, and even offered a smile, or smirk, however you wish to see it.

“Thanks, Neo.  Oh, and you’ll be sure to extend my apologies to your folks too, won’t you, Neo?” he asked, but before Neo had a chance to respond I sneezed, alerting him to my presence.  As it did Helmut, who turned around for a brief moment to look at me before turning back around to face Neo.  “Huh!” He grunted.  “A young one, No?”

“I’m teaching her,” Neo replied, unstirred.

“Yeah, what?  How to use the toilet to do her business?”

“No, I’m pretty sure she’s potty trained.  She handles her piss and shit quite well, thank you.”

“Yours too?” he asked, with his brows furrowed, peering in, scrutinizing him closely.

“Not yet!”

“Yeah, well, whatever, Neo.” Helmut said, his face flush with disdain. Then, as he turned to leave, he began mumbling like a heartsick man, “Damn, there ain’t nothing sacred no more.”  That is until he reached me, where he abruptly raised my skirt and then unlike a heartsick man, he reached down to pinch my kitty and said to me, “Damn, I wish I had one of these sweet little cunnies to market!” Then letting go of my skirt, he continued on back down the hall.

“Well, don’t just stand there, get your ass in here and close the fucking door.”  Neo barked, not at all kindly to me.

“Now tell me, you little shit, why in the fuck are you here?  And this better be good because it’s 7 o’clock in the fucking morning.”

Obviously he was angry with me for showing up unannounced, especially at such an early hour.  But honestly, I really hadn’t given much thought to that when I had formulated my plan earlier.  But now confronted with the need to defend myself, I thought it important that I do so with all the heartfelt sincerity I could muster in hopes of dissuading him from sending me home.

So I did, in near tears, while he just stood listening in a sleepy state with heavy eyes, yawning and scratching and squeezing the knobby, half swollen bulge that lingered lazily along his thigh.  “I’m sorry Neo, but I really had nowhere else to go . . .,” I began and then went on to tell my story of woe, placing special emphasis on my fears and why I couldn’t go to school nor stay at home for reasons that were all too obvious.

“I mean, look at me, Neo,” I said to him as I opened my mouth wide and pointed to cracked teeth, still throbbing and already showing signs of graying.  “And this skirt  . . .,” I then went on, “my teacher, not to mention that my Mama and Papa would have my head if they saw me in it.”

I wasn’t all that sure he was listening, but when I began suggesting things I might do to keep myself busy, useful, and out of the way, like clean the apartment, washing dishes, etc., etc., did his eyes spring open, very much awake and not at all happy with me.  He looked ready to bark out angrily, or worse, when his bedroom door opened and the most striking, eye-riveting beauty, came sauntering in stark ass naked like a stripper walking the catwalk.

“Oooo!” she purred, “Lookie here!  How sweet is this cupcake,” she said as she stooped down and immediately began combing her fingers through my hair like some doting mother, or worse,  some ditzy blonde bimbo who was playing with a card short of a full deck.

“That’s Zöey,” Neo whisper on the sly while shaking his head.  Then while swirling his index finger around his ear, he mouthed the word, ‘cuckoo’ and moved back and away to give the beautiful, though thoroughly unusual woman room to do her thing.

“My name is Zöey, what’s yours, Baby Cakes?”  She asked with an air of soppy sweetness that lacked only the cootie-coo.

“Baby Cakes” she called me, and for reasons that were all too obvious, I instantly took offense.  The truth is, the condescension I heard in her voice rubbed me raw, and I wanted to tell her to stop it, that I wasn’t a child.  In fact, I felt very much grown up, and Neo thought so too.  The way he kissed me and held me so lovingly, so tenderly, proved me woman enough to satisfy him.

So, no, she didn’t sit well with me at all, and I wanted to tell her so, but nowhere could I find the opportunity to do so.  Rattling on as she was about how rosy were my cheeks and the silkiness of my hair, there was scarcely room for me to breathe let alone complain, or intervene, as she continued to speak.  Though ironically, she wasn’t so much speaking to me as she was to Neo.

“She’s simply precious, Neo,” she said to him while lifting my skirt and running a finger along my slit.  Then looking up, she said to Neo while licking her finger, “Ummm, like the taste of virgin snow.”  And the pretty little rings, adorable.”

“Yeah well, so far,” Neo mocked, “We’ll see what you have to say about it after our next visit to Ida’s.”

“Oh no, the more rings the prettier as far as I’m concerned,” she said to Neo then turned to me.  “Lookie here, Precious, I’ll show you.” Her excitement was palpable, and she couldn’t have acted with more haste in effort to show me.  Laying down upon her back, she quick as a flash spread her knees wide, and began to pull upon the multitude of rings of every size and sort that covered her lips like kernels on a cob.

“Quite bragging, you nasty slut,” Neo chuckled. “She’s already hooked.  Can’t you see how it excites her?”

“Does it, Sugar Dumpling?” She asked me once she was sitting back up.  “You want to pretty up your kitty like me?  I know Neo would like that.  See that,” she pointed, directing my attention toward Neo who looked on snidely, if not mockingly at me.  Once more, that half swollen bulge that once lingered lazily along his thigh now tented out, his sweatpants wagging about like a canopied tail.

“See, Pretty Peaches, just the thought is enough of a tease to excite him.  Come here.  Let’s see what we can do to stoke the fire a bit more.”  Then taking hold of the thin strip of Velcro that held up my infinitesimally tiny wrap around skirt, she pulled it off of me in one swift move.

“There we go, Sweetie,” she hurriedly followed, spinning me about to face Neo, my bare naked Kitty defensively tucked away between my clenched knees.

“Loosen up, Baby Doll,” she giggled in that same mocking, overly pretentious way that couldn’t have sounded anymore condescending had she tried.

To say her behavior angered me would have been to put it lightly.  In truth I found it all so exasperating that it had me wanting to pull out her hair.  But given the smirking, self-satisfied look on Neo’s face, it was obvious he didn’t see things in quite the same way.   In fact, if the whipping action of that colossal blood sausage beneath his sweatpants had anything to say about it, it looked to be exciting him all the more.

“When are you going to take our little Princess to see Ida?”  She asked Neo while endeavoring to part my thighs.

“Later, but right now I need me a blow job.  And since she’s never swallowed my nut before and don’t know how, you’re going to teach her.”

“Yes!” She lite up like a Delta 5 rocket.  “Come on, Neo, sit down.  It’s time to feed baby,” she prompted and he followed, taking care to dig his heels into the cushion before spreading his legs wide.

“There you go, Precious.  Your new daddy is ready to feed his baby girl,” she said and then with a theatrical sweep of her hand, she blew an air-kiss toward that huge black obelisk restlessly dancing about just centimeters away from her blood red lips.

“Mmm-wah!” she smacked her lips.  “Oh, you lucky girl.  Trust me, once your mouth is tied into this pipeline, you’re tummy will never starve for lack of cum and piss again.”

“Yeah, yeah, cut the crap, Zöey, and bring her here,” Neo huffed and she did, pushing me forward until my nostrils were filled with the smell of him, and my lips dampened by the ooze bubbling out of its gaping maw.

“Now, now, Neo, patience, patience!  First I have to teach her, and there’s a lot for her learn too.”  Then turning to me, “Of course you’ve got to learn how to suck his cock properly, and swallow it too.  And I’m going to teach you, Sweety Pie, oh yes I will.”

“But first there are countless little things you must learn to make it all go down right.  Like how to properly pay homage to a man’s balls, but more importantly, his ass with your mouth and tongue.”

“They love that. They love to see you tongue them, slobber over them, clean them, wipe free the grime.  They love the feeling, but mostly, they love to see you grovel, like a pig feeding from their trough.  The fact is, while they find the sight of a little pink piggy slovenly rummaging through the muck 99% pleasurable, it’s also a dominance thing, a taste of wickedness they find 100% pure joy, and simply drives them crazy with lust.”

“So, for that reason we need to start there, with his swampy brown pucker.  And the first step you must learn is how to properly mouth it, lovingly, tenderly.  Go on, try it.  Only remember, no teeth, just lots of tongue,” She said to me with a smile that came laced with a bit of wickedness of her own.

“Yungk!” I swallowed to suppress the bile once my face was pushed up against it.  With his testicles draped over my eyes blocking my vision, and my lips all but kissing that craggy brown hole, it was all I could do to hold back my vomit.

“That’s it, Pumpkin, and don’t worry.  You’ll get the hang of it,” she said warmly, soothingly, though I could tell from the glazed over look in her eyes that what she was saying wasn’t quite in sync with what was going on in her head.

It was a look that caught Neo’s attention as well, causing him to lean forward, brows furrowed, and with an ear for what was coming next.  “Listen, sweetie,” she then popped off.  “It helps if you think of it as grubbing for truffles.  That way with your head filled with images of those sumptuous candy store chocolate covered treats, you won’t so much mind the grubbing.”

“What the fuck!!!” Neo jumped with a start, disbelieving his ears.  “If that ain’t some crazy fucking shit!” he fumed, obviously having heard enough of the insane babble coming from her unhinged mind.  Her long gone mind, the end product of four years of selling herself under the ultraviolet like a piece of meat in a butcher shop window.

Not that he didn’t like her.  She could fuck, suck and take a licking and keep on ticking with the best of them.  It’s just that when she opened her mouth to speak, her thoughts were so disconnected she came off sounding like some dizzy cartoon caricature after being hit on the head with an anvil.  A far cry from the smart, chirpy 16 year old wannabe model he’d first met.

“Truffles!  he scowled, shaking his head.  “Look, you loony bitch.  There ain’t no way to make it sweet smelling.  It is what it is.  It’s my fucking shit hole, and I’m telling you right now, if she don’t get that pig snout busy rummaging through my shit damn quick, I’m going to beat the fuck out of her!”

“You got me, Sophie?” he then said to me, lifting his ball sack up off my eyes as he did.

Again, I really hadn’t a voice to speak, much less describe the anguish I felt.  My disgust, my suffering, tore through me like a riptide that left me retching, gagging and trying to hold back the bile that rose up in my throat.

But as I couldn’t go home and as I surely didn’t want to risk further harm to myself should I refuse, what choice did I have?  So while I hacked, coughed and struggled to hold back my vomit, I instead let my nodding head speak for me and did exactly as I was told.

“That’s a girl,” I heard him sigh as he let loose his ball sack, leaving me again sightless and gasping and struggling to suck in what little stale air I had to breathe.

Near strangled by the fumes, the stench, I could think of little else but to hurry things along as quickly as I could if I wished to survive.  But when I again faced that greasy, smelly pucker, and I began to gag and retch all over again, only more violently, Zöey felt the need to comfort me with a hug.

“Oh, poor baby, that’s all right, you’ll get used to it in no time at all.  It’s okay, it’s okay,” she tried to reassure me while her fingers sought to wipe my lips clean of the bile, froth, a black strands of hair and . . . “Oh, Neo!” she said crossly, “How mean of you.  It’s her first time you know.”

“Shut the fuck up, you scab!  You lick men’s asses damn near every night.”

“Yes, but they pay extra for that,” Zöey said in her defense.

“Consider yourself lucky, so far!  You never know when Helmut might stop charging for the extras; a beating, a toilet, a mutt fucking your ass, anything and everything, one price for all.”

“Oh gawd, Neo, please don’t say that.”

“You know it’s going to happen sooner or later, Zöe.  The lure of your beauty can only last so long, and at twenty, you’re already pushing the limits.”

“And you Sophie,” he looked at me, angrily, his eyes ablaze, all but spitting out fire. “Don’t you ever do that again.  Never!  Puking up doesn’t make me very happy, and you don’t want to piss me off, do you?”

“No, Neo,” I whimpered, lowering my eyes to avoid meeting his.

“And you love me, trust me and want to please me, right?” he barked out, no less furiously.

“Yes, Neo,” I nodded, still looking away.

“And whether I give you a diamond ring for your finger or a wad of toilet paper to wipe your mouth, you’re going to accept it, graciously, and thank me for it.  Am I right to see that in you?” he then asked of me.  But shell-shocked as I was by what he’d just said, all that was implied, I had neither the words nor the wherewithal nor anything more than my tears to express the anguish I felt.

“Good.  Now stop the tears and swallow my cock.”

“Oh, goodie,” Zöey rose up out of her stew.  “Okay, Baby Cakes.  Come on, it’s time to gobble up the goodies,” she merrily said while aligning my mouth with his cock and pinching my jaw open.  But before attempting to force that foot-long gnarly black slab of meat down my throat, she thought to point out something she thought might be of interest to me.

“See there,” she giggled while pointing to a spot at the very root of his cock. “That’s my lipstick.  Hellfire red, my trademark!”

“Pretty cool, huh?  I swallowed him clear down to there.  I mean, he was so deep down my throat I could hear those wriggly little spermies and later his piss, splash straight down into my tummy - the spermies squealing all the way down.  And when he was done, drained, and had already shaken off the remaining droplets, I thanked him for it too.”

“Now let’s see if you can match it,” she said as she again palmed the back of my head.  “And don’t forget, you need to keep your lips locked tight until he’s done and you’ve flushed the whole lot down.   Then you can thank him kindly for feeding you all the yummies.”

-----

“Great!” Fucking Great!”  Neo barked, totally pissed. “There goes your blouse, you little shit.  Zöey, get the sloppy little pig something of yours to wear.  She can’t go home wearing a pissed soaked blouse!” he growled like a mad dog, while Zöey kindly brushed my hair away from my eyes, seeking to further comfort me.

“I’m sorry, baby, but I did tell you to lock your lips tight and wait didn’t I?” she said with some compassion.  “After shooting his wad, it takes a man some time to relax before he can turn on the faucet.”

“Oh well,” she sighed, “If not the hard way, that’s a lesson I’m sure you’re going to remember.  Now take off the blouse and I’ll go get you something pretty to wear.”

And so that’s what she did.  Merrily skipping into Neo’s bedroom, and skipping her way back out, holding up the microscopic Net Mesh halter top she wore under the ultraviolet in the window at the Pussy Pagoda.

“There you go, Pumpkin,” she said to me, leaning back to appraise the fit. “It’s perfect.”

And it may as well have been, but it wasn’t the fit that was causing my heart to go arrhythmic.  It was the obscenity of it.  The net mesh halter with its fishnet weave, provided about as much cover as a clear coat of lacquer.  And worse yet, my nipples protruded through the wide mesh weave like a pair of ruddy-red udders.

“I like it,” Neo said. “ Although I think I’d like it better if her nipples had some rings.  Big ones, maybe even with bells attached.  Bells that’ll ring to the sway of her tits when some bloke is fucking her ass.  Who knows, I might even drum up more business.”

“Oooo, fun!  Can I have some bells too, Neo?  Please.”

“If you’re a good girl, Zöe, but first I got to take this smelly Miss piss-breath over to see Ida.  Come on you sloppy pig, Ida’s got a pretty little white pony for you to ride, and I’m going to drop the dime.”  All this said and done while pulling me out of the door, without a care or worry about what people would have to say when they saw my bare naked titties flopping about, and more than a half measure of my bare naked kitty.

But as it turned out we didn’t get far.  We had scarcely stepped out onto the street when we were stopped by patrolman Kohl, the policeman who patrolled Rot Straße (Red Street) from Berm to Otto Straße.  Six blocks of utter depravity; Wall to wall porn shops and girl showrooms, called meat houses by the locals, lit by the ultraviolet.  The notorious six block zone officer Dieter Kohl patrolled daily with nothing other than a nightstick and whistling a hearty tune.

“Good Morning, Neo.  Nice day, huh?”

“Yeah, sure, so what’s up, Dieter?”

“The youth lady you’re with,” he said while lifting the hem of my minuscule wrap with his police baton and began tap-tap-tapping upon my bare naked kitty and not at all kindly to me.

“You see, on the street the nipples got to be covered.  That’s the law,” he then said sounding a serious note.  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that, Neo, but if you don’t get them nipples covered I’m going to have to write you up.  That’s my job,” he warned as it was his duty to do, and all said while continuing his assault on my kitty.  Only now, with a cold cruel smile, he pressed the barrel end of his baton against the mouth of my kitty and began twisting and turning every which way in effort to get the thick black bulk to weasel its way in.

“No problem, Dieter, I’ll get something for her to wear over at Helmut’s place, the Pagoda,” he said obligingly, pointing toward the brightly lit palace of porn across the street.

“I would appreciate that, Neo.  Oh, and would you mind if I stopped by sometime to help you out with this one?  She’s a cute lil’ bug, but I’m afraid her sleeve is still too tight to properly holster my baton.”

“Yeah, sure, a safe place to stash your billy-club to free up your hands when you need to take a piss.  I gotcha,” Neo said with a wink and a nod."

“That’s right, you know the score.  Police regulations!  Blackjack and mace need be ready and accessible at all times.  And since I need both hands to piss, well,  I’ve got to have someplace to holster my stick, right?"

“Yeah, right, your can of mace too.  No problem.  Stop by and work on the little cunt whenever and however you want.  You know, in the Quarter nobody steps on nobody. We all get along,” he all but beamed his reply.

Then after the pair shook hands, he again took up mine and continued on across the street and into that carnival of debauchery, or as Neo called it, Helmut’s place.  With the music pounding, strobe lights flashing and the naked girls dancing beneath the ultraviolet, Neo, with me attached, strolled up to the counter and fist-bumped the clerk in greeting.

“Hey, Neo, what’s going on?”

“Not much, Ernest.  The lady needs one of those,” he said, pointing to the red glittery halter top on display beneath the glass counter top.

“Sure, what’s her name,” he asked, and then vanished into the back room before Neo could answer. “Sophie!”  He shouted out, hoping to be heard over the roar of the music and the bustle of the crowd.

“Give me five minutes to get it ready,” Ernest shouted out over the belching rhythm of Luther Big’s Shady Lady, that near drowned out my every thought.

“He’s stenciling in your name,” Neo turned to say to me.  Though he really hadn’t a need to, because before he could turn back around Ernest was already back.

“Try it on,” he told me, handing it over.  So I did, and when I let it slip down over my torso and saw it for the first time I nearly fell in a faint.  Unlike the other, this was made of a solid cotton fabric and unfurled down to my belly button.  Which was all good, but it wasn’t the length that frightened me.  It was what I saw printed on it.

Above a photo quality image of a nude dancer it read, “The Pussy Pagoda, 37 RotStraße, Seaman’s Quarter.  Best pussy in town.”  And worse yet, in a speech bubble bellowing out of the nude dancer’s lips, it read, “I’m Sophie!  Come fuck my ass!”

  -------- § § § --------

Page 7 . . .

Unlike last night, when we arrived at Ida’s we were immediately greeted at the door.  By Günter to be exact, wearing an apron with a few diffuse stains scattered about, and a smile of delight after taking a moment to vet the details on my new top.

“Not bad. He said looking surprisingly pleased.  “This sweet bit of advertising definitely advances the ball up the field.  I’ll make it a point to stop by when I’ve got the urge to fuck me some ass.  That is unless my header misses the net this afternoon.”

“You aren’t going to mess things up now are you, Günter?” Neo chuckled while giving Günter a brotherly punch to the chest.

“No-No, I was joking.  Don’t worry about nothing, Neo.  When she leaves here today she’s going to be carrying more gold than an armored bank truck.”

“Now, what do you say we get this show on the road, hmm?  Let’s take the little tart back to the center booth shall we,” he said, grabbing me by the elbow as he did.

“Neo, Neo, what’s happening?  What is he going to do?” I cried, wanting to give voice to my angst.

“Shut the fuck up.  I told you, you’re here for the rings.  So stop the squawking.”

“But, but, Neo,” I continue on, my angst growing by the multiples as Günter took me to the same room and had me sit on the same chair as the day before.  Something I didn’t want to do, and if not for Neo standing alongside to look after me I would have refused.  But finding solace in Neo’s hand in mine and his effort to comfort me with his smile, I sat restlessly, though quietly as they talked about what was to be done to me.

“Today it’s to be some pretty rings for her titties, huh?” the man called Günter chuckled while pulling upon my nipples.

“Yes, and one for her ... ahem!” Neo coughed into his hand, then reached up and pinched his nose and tilted his head up, as if repelled by some obnoxious smell.  Quite honestly, as the room smelled damn near antiseptic, I didn’t much understand  the need for making the gesture, but apparently the man named Günter did.

“Oh yeah, sorry Neo, I forgot to tell you.   We haven’t got it yet.”

“You ain’t got it?  What in the fuck, brother, that’s why we’re here.”

“Whoa-whoa, hold tight, Neo.  It’ll be here tomorrow,” he said, holding up his hands like a stop sign.  Then leaning close-in he whispered behind his cupped hand in a feeble attempt to hide what he was saying from me, “The chap at the stockyard has been busy.”  Then straightening back up, “But don’t you worry none.  It’ll be here in the morning.  In the meantime, we’ve got to string us up some ornaments.”

“With bells attached?” Neo asked by way of a joke.

“Yeah, man, with cowbells if that’s what floats your boat,” he chuckled as he made me lie back.  But feeling the rise of my angst after hearing all the alarmingly cryptic language about stockyards and cowbells and ornaments and such, I was quick to let my restlessness be known.

“Stop squirming, girl,” he said to me, “Unless you want me to strap you down.”

But I didn’t stop my squirming.  It was the only way I had to express my unease.  “What’s going on, Neo, what’s he going to do?” I continued on, letting my discomfort be known.

“You’d better hit her up,” Neo said, sounding all too cold-hearted and upping my angst to the point of near panic.   That is until Klaus walked in with the rigging and loaded up the gun.  After that, all I can remember is the fading light and the quieting of my worried mind.

------

Later, Neo carried Sophie slumped over his shoulder to meet the tram at the stop.  Stone cold out of it and adrift somewhere out in the stratosphere, she was totally unaware of everything about her.

As the tram came to a stop he laid her down on the floor beside the conductor, then covered her with a blanket, courtesy of Ida.

 “Hey, buddy, this isn’t no hospital.  Need help, call the medic.” But Neo didn’t answer. Instead he unfolded a hundred euro note and stuffed it in the driver’s pocket.

“Sorry, Pal, but I still can’t do it.”

“Yes you can,” Neo said while ripping the blanket up off Sophie and then raising her top and her skirt.  Her newly ringed nipples and the plentitude of rings that now adorned her puss was a sight that launched him into low earth orbit.  But it was the sight of her face that sent him rocketing moon ward.

“I know her! I know her!” the driver clamored excitedly.  She’s the sweet little chickadee who showed me her puss.  Yes sir, she’s a sweet one.  I like this one a lot.”

“I figured you would,” Neo chuckled.”

“So what exactly is it you want me to do with her, mister?”

“Anything you want, so long as she’s still breathing when you hand her over to the driver of the Braunfel and KasselStraße bus you’ll find waiting at the transfer hub.”

“You want me to put her on the bus?”

“Yes, carry her if need be. Tell the driver to drop her off on KasselStraße, and other than that he can do as he likes so long as he drops her off in one piece.”

“Anything I want?”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

“I’ll do it,” he said, shaking Neo’s hand, beaming a million dollar smile.  Then after watching Neo walk off and disappear into the dark night, he leaned down to scoop Sophie up off the floor. “Let's go, girlie. I gotta get you where you gotta go. In one piece,” he added with a chuckle. “And so it will be, only with the newfound ability to pocket a billiard ball up your ass!”

------

An hour later ...

“There you go, girlie!” Those were the first words I remember hearing since I last saw Neo’s face fade into the darkness as I lay upon the table in Ida’s back room.  Only the voice I now heard wasn’t Neo’s.  It was the voice of the conductor helping me disembark from the BraunfelStraße bus and onto the street upon which I lived.

“Your home is that way,” he said, pointing the way down KasselStraße, then after pulling his finger from my ass, he shoved me, sending me stumbling forward towards home.

How I got here or what had happened to me on that bus I don’t know.  But the wetness I felt running down my legs and the bitter taste in my mouth told me that no one that I had encountered had been the least bit kind to me.  As did the pain that burned like hellfire from my tits and my kitty, both feeling as if I’d suffered a major wound. 

I had but an inkling as to why I hurt as I did.  Only recalling Neo’s face grinning down upon me before I felt the spike rush through my body, sending my mind into a whirling swirling space of utter delirium.

And then there was the here and the now, my mind feeling more a part of the light breeze I felt upon my face than a part of me.  Blowing every which way, yet somehow knowing the way home and which door was mine to open.

“Sophie!” My mother screamed and I jolted upward, startled by the sound of terror in her voice.  A bloodcurdling terror that went off like an explosion in my head, and if for just that one moment, jarred me back to my senses.

“Mama!” I found myself screaming back, feeling every bit her terror though not quite understanding that it was me who was the source of her panic.

“Where have you been, what has happened to you Sophie?  Sophie, my baby.” She wept, and I languished, feeling her pain begin to well up in me as well.

“Mama, Mama,” I found myself sobbing in sympathy with her.  “I don’t know what has happened to me!”  And then the kitchen door swung open, and my father stood there hard and rigid and as cold as a stone.

“You asked where she’s been, Mother!” He spoke with an anger that was as sharp and cutting as any of the blades hanging above the kitchen sink.

“I’ll tell you where she’s been, mother.  She has not been to school, and has not gone to see her tutor, Mr. Krause, not once!  In truth, Mr. Krause neither knows her nor has he received a single pfennig from me.”

“You want to know where she’s been, Mother?” He asked yet again with such hatred in his eyes he looked to destroy me.  “Look, Mother, and I’ll show you where the little whore you’ve spawned has been!”

He looked the bearer of death, and even in my fractured state of mind I could feel my fear.  Yet I did not move as he walked up to me and turned me toward my mother so she could see my new top.

My mother fell to her knees and cried out in agony when she saw what was upon it, and I felt every bit of her pain.

“I’m Sophie.  Come fuck my ass,” my father spat out with such hate when reading it aloud to my mother.  And then, not to leave it there, he lifted up my top still further until the big gold rings that pierced my nipples came into view.

“Mother,” he said. “This is not Sophie!  This is a foul, evil abomination from hell that sleeps with the devil and is bent on taking us back with her.  And I swear on my father’s grave I shall not let that happen.  I would just as soon kill her with my own hands than allow her to rob us of our souls.”

“No!” my mother screamed, “No-no, you can’t, she’s but a child.”

“I can and I will, Mother.  There is no man’s law that can come between the righteous and the law there is in heaven.  So stand away, Mother.  There will be blood!  And with that he stormed off in a mindless rage, purblind to all but his favorite butcher knife which he sought to retrieve.

Then, with the knife in hand, he began to advance toward me as if to carve up a side of beef.  “Run, Sophie, run,” my mother began screaming.  But neither my mother’s screams, nor the knife or the madness I saw in his eyes managed to pierce my drug induced haze.  That is until he was just steps from me, when he held the gleaming blade up high ready to cut me to pieces that I awakened to the threat of my imminent peril. 

So I turned and ran out the door and out into the street with my father cursing and shouting at me, “You run, Sophie, and never come back.  If I ever lay eyes upon you again, I shall kill you where you stand!”

And so I ran and ran and ran, knowing not which way I went until looking up I again saw the corner sign, Braunfel & KasselStraße, the place where my adventure had begun just an hour before.  And whether for good or bad, I saw the same bus #2014 I had ridden earlier making its return trip back to the transfer hub.  The same bus, though now empty, and the same driver who quickly brought the bus to a halt upon seeing me.

“Hello again, kiddie.  You couldn’t wait for tomorrow, could you?  Well, baby girl, you needn’t wait no more.  It’s just you and me, and I’m about to take you for a ride you’ll never forget.”

The normally half hour ride to the transit hub grew to a three hour torturous marathon through hell.  With me sitting on his lap with his cock buried up my ass while traveling the route, and pummeling me savagely when parked at the curb.  My rectum felt a fire that even the cool air circulating about my gaping pit couldn’t extinguish.

Upon reaching the transit hub, I could hardly bear the pain when straightening back up.  Yet so needing to get away from him, I somehow managed to find the means to hobble my way the distance to board the tram.  But I was soon to learn there would be no relief for me there either.  Upon seeing my rectum still gaping and stubbornly refusing to close, the seedy old tram driver ventured to pull down his zipper and have me sit upon his lap.

“Don’t worry you cutesy little tease, me and my battering stick are going to feed your hungry puss real good.”  And he did, without mercy, his assault unrelenting, and all in full view of the laughing, heckling sex shop hopping passengers who cared not two wicks for me.

  -------- § § § --------

“What’s wrong, nurse Voigt?”

“I don’t know, doctor. I was simply cutting up the sirloin on her dinner plate

when she suddenly started screaming about unprovoked attacks upon her person.

Piercings, beatings, torture, and even someone who wanted to chop her up into pieces.

Whatever curse possesses her, it is tearing her apart piece by piece.”

----

Page 8 . . .

I felt a ravaged, blown out shell of myself when the tram finally reached Rosablatt 30, but so happy to finally be rid of him that even the all-consuming pain that had stricken my rutted out rectum could not keep me from taking those final steps to Neo’s door.

And to my surprise, I found him talking to another man in the hall outside his door.  The tall, dark skinned North African wrapped in black leathers looked as rough a lout as any I’d seen.  He looked hauntingly cold, near murderously so, and when he looked my way I felt a pitilessness in him seen only in the most ruthless of predators.

“What in the fuck are you doing here, shit head?” Neo snarled at me.  “And what’s with all the mother-fucking limping?” He followed, slapping the back of my head, sending me stumbling forward and into the path of an equally fierce, open palm thump to the forehead by that nameless black thug.  A blow that sent me reeling backwards and back into Neo’s arms.

“Who’s this?”  He asked Neo while looking to bite off my face.

“Sophie.  I’m teaching her.”

“Yeah?  So you say,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “She don’t be showin’ me much,” he quickly followed as he pinched my nose between his thumb and forefinger and raised me up until I was left to hang atop my toes at the end of his extended arm.  And he held me there staring daggers into my heart for however long and until he’d finally decided on what it was he didn’t like about me. Then, with an irascible “Tsk-tsk,”  he set me down and again turned to face Neo.

“Huh!” he grunted.  “This one is still way too chippy for my likes. It’s like she still believes what she wants matters. Not good. You must be losing your touch, brother.”

“Just started,” Neo replied, seemingly by way of a defense.

“You gotta get busy my man.  Unless you’re intent on selling her by the pound, it don’t pay to wait too long.  Not only does it screw with the flow of cash, it dumbs them down.  Does she come when you call her?”

“Yeah, sure, she responds well to my whistle.  She’s smart enough, though I admit, she does tend to get a bit stupid when it comes to remembering anything more complicated than a nursery rhyme or tying her shoes.  Like asking her why in the fuck she’s here at 7 o’clock in the fucking morning?” he angrily spat out, and again sent my head spinning with another blow to the back of my head.

“Take your hand out of her ass, Ahmed.  I want to talk to her,” Neo then followed, which the man called Ahmed promptly did, making way for Neo to have his talk.

“Now, tell me why you’re here and not in school letting the boys play with your tits?”

So, between my sobs while grasping my pain-stricken nose, I told him what had happened between my father and me. Starting from the moment my father first saw the, “I’m Sophie, Come fuck my ass,” caption printed on my new top, and then the rings that adorned my titties and kitty.

Then came the hard part.  Having to explain to Neo that my father not only knew he wasn’t Mr. Krause, but that I’d been spending my days with him in the Seaman’s Quarter.  All bad enough, and should have been more than enough to arouse his anger.  But apparently it wasn’t.  In fact, it wasn’t until I told him about my father trying to kill me, and if not for the fact that I ran, he would have, did he care to show any interest at all.  An interest that grew into a spirited smile when I told him about my father’s promise to chop me up into small pieces if he ever set eyes on me again.

It truly was a tale of woe that had me weeping and hiccuping all the way through, and it didn’t get any easier when I had to point out to him that I was now homeless, and I hadn’t a single soul to turn to for help but him.

“Finally!” Neo heaved a sigh. “It’s about time. I was beginning to think I may have misjudged that bigoted, hate-mongering father of hers. That he might actually have a heart and want to put up a fight for the little bitch.”

“No, you got it right,” replied Ahmed. “That’s the thing about roaches. Turn on the lights and they’re off and running.” Then promptly turning toward me, “So with papa roach now gone in hiding and you abandoned, I guess that makes you Neo’s meat to market. It’s either that or chop-chop dog food for you girlie,” he said while making a swordman’s crisscross slashing motion across my body.

“Want to come in and find out?” Neo chuckled as he again slapped the back of my head with a crack that caused my vision to flash white.

“No, you forget I’m working on one of my own. She’s a scrawny little thing, but what Gretchen lacks in fiber she makes up for by the sweetness of her meat.”

“A real gourmet’s delight, huh?” Neo chuckled. “Money in the pocket,” Ahmed replied, rubbing his fingers together in that universal sign for money.

“Yeah, well, if you’ll excuse us, Ahmed. If this little beggar is expecting me to take her in, we got a whole shit load of things to work out first.”

Then turning to me, “Come on Orphan Annie, let’s see if we can come to terms.”

------

“Gretchen?” I asked with my voice shaking, suffering an unease churning up from my gut.  “I know a Gretchen!”

“Yeah, so, I know 5 of them.  Now shut the fuck up and listen,” he said to me, flopping down on that worn, threadbare, sagging roach haven he called a couch.

“We ain’t got the time to be talking about your competition on the lollipop circuit.  We got our own business.”

“Okay, the way I see it, I’ll provide you with a roof to sleep under and a floor to sleep on.” He said while pointing toward the small worn foot mat by the front door.

“But I’m not going to feed you, or buy you no fancy clothes, makeup, or bloody pads.  What you need you got to pay for.  Which means you’ve got to earn money, and since you haven’t cut your teeth on anything beyond tying your shoes, there isn’t a whole lot you can do, except hustle up the money walking the streets.  Or, if you choose, work a window under the ultraviolet like Zöey.”

“Both are solid moneymakers, but if you’re smart, I mean, grown up smart, you’ll just sit back and leave the marketing to me.  I’ll set the pricing, line up the clientele and even drop a pfennig (a penny) or two into your piggy bank for you to spend.  It isn’t much but it’s definitely a step up from a trash bin in the alley.”

I was dumbfounded!  What he was talking about was selling me.  Here I had come to him because I thought he cared for me as much as I cared about him.  Something I sought to prove to him any which way I could.  From wanting so much to please him, to enduring the horrific pain he caused me,  I never questioned him no matter the toll he made me pay.

But to ask me to, to ... , oh gawd, I can’t even say it!  To do such a horrid, lowly, indecent thing was so offensive, degrading and ugly to me, I quaked from the very thought.  As would any girl, but especially me, if for no other reason than how I was brought up.  Sheltered, protected, and then there was my age.

While I acted grown up and already had the tits of a girl beyond my years, I was no less a bud than my friend Gretchen, a girl scarcely out of training wheels.  What more did he expect of me?  That I’d jump up and kiss and hug him dearly, and offer up my body for him to sell like a slice of meat in my father’s butchery?

But sadly, what choice did I have?  I had nowhere to go, except, perhaps, surrender myself over to the police for them to do with me whatever they did with abandoned kids.  But then I’d already met patrolman Kohl, the policeman with the baton who patrolled RotStraße (Red Street), and he had been no less unkind to me.  And, quite frankly, what was there to stop him just handing me right back over to Neo?  Or worse, using my kitty as a holster for his billy-club when taking a piss in a sidewalk WC.

The fact of the matter is, I was trapped.  There was no escaping Neo, and without a choice I was left with nothing but my tears, and a pleading voice to beg for his mercy.  Something I thought to do when he again prodded me for my answer.

“So what’s it going to be?  Are you going to hustle the goods walking the street; sell yourself working the window beneath the ultraviolet; or leave the marketing to me?"

“Oh, please, Neo.  I love you, I love you.  Please don’t do this to me.”

“Shut the fuck up.  I’m not making you do nothing.  You came here because you wanted to.”

“But not for this, Neo, not for this,” I cried, looking, hoping, praying that I might see in him an ounce of kindness.

“Yes you did.  Stop fucking lying to yourself!   I’ve already put your body through hell, and within the last week you’ve had more cock up your ass then shit.  Yet, what do you do?  You come back for more.”

“And you want to know why?  I’ll tell you.  Because it’s part of your fucking DNA!  Like a Homing Pigeon, you’ll always follow the same trek home,” he said to me while pulling me closer to him.  Then, after running a finger down the center of my kitty, he held it up to my nose.

“See that, your cunt is soaking wet.  Need I say more?” he asked and I began to cry all the harder.

“Look Sophie, don’t go blaming me.  If you think yourself a victim then you are one of your own making.  It’s as true for you as it is the whores you see selling themselves in the windows and on the street.  All of you are quick to cast blame on everything and everyone for ending up here.  It’s a scourge you whip yourself with, yet no matter how hard you beat yourself up, you continue to come back for more.  More pain, more suffering, and more of whatever it takes to get your self-flogging, damaged selves feeling whole again.”

“No, no, Neo, that’s not me, that’s not what I want,” I pleaded, I cried.  “I came back because I had nowhere else to go.”

“There you go again.  Always blaming someone or something other than yourself when in fact your choices were limitless.  The least of which was the Autobahn and your thumb to go wherever life takes you.  You had a world of choices, but all you could see is one.  Now, I’ll ask one final time.  Will you be selling yourself on the street, in the window, or would you have me do the marketing?”

His words passed through me like a rock thrown throw plate glass.  He was right.  I did have a choice, but I came back anyway even though I knew I could be hurt.  Then again, maybe that’s why I came back!

Maybe I wasn’t the only voice speaking on behalf of myself,  that I was of two souls.  I was the girl who reveled in the joy of Gretchen’s thousand little kisses, and I was my father’s daughter, the beleaguered girl who had been taught it wasn’t my place to speak out, but to submit and suffer in silence.

That’s what my father taught me.  The gospel of my submission!  The script that had become such a part of me that I no longer had a choice but to give up, give in and surrender to the suffering to make my damaged self feel whole.

And it was my father’s girl who now had to respond to Neo.  But it was ‘my’ voice and ‘my’ veil of tears that had to suffer through the utterance - “You, Neo!”

“Me?  Good!  It’s done!  You’re now my slab of pork to market.  Now strip,” he spoke of me as if I was less than human.  “Everything from your loafers and short-socks to the ribbon in your hair, then dump the whole lot atop your bed,” he pointed toward the doormat, telling, not asking it of me.

The doormat,  laden with an accumulation of muck and grime from countless shoes looked a horror.  And worse yet, I was soon to learn it was just another feeding zone for those roaches hiding beneath.  Those that came scurrying out after I’d dropped my bundle of clothes upon it.  The stampede of those hideous black bugs assaulted my senses and caused me to clasp my face and shriek in horror.

“Shut the fuck up.  They are not going to hurt you.  Why should they?  You’re their pantry, their two-legged cupboard where inside all your damp, dark places, you offer up a feast.”

“Although I can see why you might worry about them wandering a bit too far up that blown out hole of yours.  Damp, dark spaces are ideal spots for the infesting swarm to set up a homestead,” he said, smiling snidely with a sideways glance while reaching into his pocket to pull out a smoke.  Then while searching for a light, he looked up toward the window where the sound of a ruckus coming up from the street below rumbled through his flat.

It was loud and boisterous and stirred Neo’s interest.  Getting up off the couch, he went to the window and peered out.  In the middle of the street he saw five leather clad ruffians looking to rob a man of his money.  The man, dressed in a white shirt and tie told him he wasn’t a creature of the district, and seemingly in imminent peril, he thought to call out to me.

“Hey, dumb shit, get your ass over here,” Neo barked out meanly to me, and sought to hurry me with a wave of his arm.

“See that?” He followed, pointing out the window.  “That man is about to be roughed up and you’re going to save him.”

“Me, Neo?” I asked him, thinking to myself how he expected me to make that happen.  And I was about to ask him when he pulled up the window, grabbed me by the back of my neck, and thrust me forward until I hung out of the window.

Then just as swiftly, he pulled the window back down upon my back, pinning me in, with one half of me flailing about outside the window, while other half of me was pressed against the inside wall.  My bottom perched up high, my rectum, still gaping, posed like a target for Neo’s eyes, and then all too soon his cock, which he thrust in with all the fury of a blacksmith pounding his anvil.

“Ugh,” I grunted, feeling the burn all the way up to the pit of my stomach.

“Shut the fuck up!  Tell them your name!  Tell them to come up to fuck your ass.”

“Say it!  Say it you skag,” he angrily spat out while ruthlessly, mercilessly pummeling my rectum, treating me, my hole, with no more regard than a killer would show his victim.

“Tell them to come fuck your ass!” he shouted yet again, causing me such suffering, my anguish utter and complete. Yet, still of a mind to protect myself from further harm, I managed to sum up what little resolve I had left to do exactly as I was told.

“I’m Sophie, come fuck my ass!” I screamed.

“Louder bitch, shout it, howl it,” he continued his banter, and his battering, pounding out a rhythm on my ass in three quarter time.

“I’m Sophie, I’m Sophie come fuck my ass,” I shouted it, screamed it just as he asked, until I heard a knocking at the door.  Pulling himself out of me, along with an inflamed length of my rectum, he backed away and told me to hold tight, as if it were the least bit possible to free myself from my entrapment.

Which I couldn’t, though I could hear them.  Everything from the moment Neo opened the door to invite them in, to his escorting the bunch over to me.”

“How much, Mister?” I heard one ask, while fingering my hole.

“Sorry, bud, but she’s got to get her price.  It’s going to cost you.  One of these,” I heard him say, quite businesslike.

“Yeah?” asked the man, if not with a hint of disbelief.  “That much?”

“Yeah sure, that is if you can afford it.”

“For each of us?” He asked as if astounded.

“No!”  Neo barked.  “One single solitary euro for the lot of you!” Neo replied, most assuredly, and followed by a roar of laughter and the stomping of feet, the black leather louts all but rolling around on the floor with laughter.

Then when they had somewhat calmed down, “Brother!” The lout said to Neo.  “We’re going to tear her ass up.  I’m talking about ruining that shitter, doctors, nurses, the whole lot.  You ready for that, huh, brother man?”

Then through my mournful wailing and my tears, I heard it.

“Have at it!” Neo said in a cold, icy voice that brought to the fore the mistake I’d made!!

  -------- § § § --------

Page 9

Later ...

“Get up you pig and clean up your ass.  You’ve got an appointment with Ida.”

Coiled up on the doormat where Neo had left me, I rolled my eyes back to see him, but instead, I saw the roaches scurrying across my thigh, and now somewhat aware, I could feel them in and about my bored out rectum.  Or what I assumed was my rectum, given that it was the center of all the anguish I felt.  The throbbing pain, the heat that flared out of my hole like an acetylene torch consumed my every thought and left me purblind to everything else about myself.  That is until Neo grabbed hold of my hair and hauled me up leaving me to hang in the air, my knees inches off the mat.

“I told you to get up, so get the fuck up.”

Oh how I suffered just to get my feet beneath me. But in an effort grounded more in instinct than will, I managed to stand and avail myself to Neo’s efforts to cover my tits to appease patrolman Kohl. Then when satisfied, he grabbed me around the neck and hauled me out the door.

-------

“My goodness! It looks like the training wheels have come off for you, girlie,” Ida said snidely, if not mockingly to me as I lie back upon the reclining chair.  The same chair I’d been made to lie upon the day before and the day before that, with my legs resting in stirups, and my head clasp tightly between Neo’s hands.

“Nope,” our lil’ speed racer is now off to the races,” Neo replied with a sneer. “Which is fine with me, cuz the quicker in, the quicker out and done with the fucking means more money for me.”

“And more wear and tear on your quick lil’ humper,” Ida added, while swabbing an antiseptic over my nose. “The warranty only covers so many miles you know. Maybe we ought to wait a day or two, you think?”

“Nope! Just hit her up and let’s get on with it. You got the kit ready?”

“Does dog shit stink?” She huffed. “Of course I do, dumb shit. Trust me. Before you can say knockout punch, she’s going to be counting the chirping birdies circling around her head.”

“For how long,” I heard Neo’s voice, though through the deluge of my tears I could not see him.  But even if I could, to look upon the face of such hate without showing the loathing I felt for the man I didn’t want to displease, would’ve been akin to making me an accomplice in my own destruction.

“A week, maybe two,” Ida told him, and then in way of explanation, “I mean, all kidding aside, this isn’t some cartoon punch to the kisser that’s coming her way. This punch is going to take some time to recover from.”

“See,” she said, as she handed Neo the iron bulk to cradle in his palm.  Then as if to account for its size, he began to joggle it about.

“Yeah, perfect, just what I had in mind,” he said while holding the ring up to his nose. “The damn thing even smells fresh off the hoof.”

“Ja,” Ida said, “it’s a genuine hand-me-down.  It’s going from one sow to another.”

It was all too clear to me now.  Their intent wasn’t to just put a pretty little ring through my nose.  It was to make me look the physical embodiment of the pig he called me. And the revelation shot through me like a rock thrown through a pane of glass.  I felt utterly shattered, broken, and near dead to this world when Neo reached down, pinched my nose and tilted my head up.

“Now, don’t go feeling sorry for youself, Chicky. This is what you wanted, for me to put you on the market to make me money. Just like that crazy bitch Zöey keeps my pockets lined with cash, and Maxi, the tattooed-dragon-lady before her who lined my coffers with gold. It’s now Sophie-the-pig’s time to siphon up the euro. That’s what you said you wanted, and that’s what you’re going to do.”

Then turning to ask Ida, “So you’re going to keep her for the two weeks?”

“Fuck no, Neo, you are.  Just feed her a bit of soup and hit her up now and again.”

“Markel!” she then called out. “Do her up and let’s get started.”

------

Two weeks later . . 

“Have you got it?” I asked Ida as I stood at the door shaking and fidgeting and holding tight to the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. “Neo said you would be coming to fix me up. Oh, please, please, I need it so bad . . .” I cried, I pleaded, hoping to find some relief from the shakes and the tremors that riddled my body down to the roots of my chattering teeth.

“Yeah, Baby, I got’cha covered,” she said to me while examining my state of repair. Then when done and seemingly pleased with what she found, she let loose my chin and said to me with a hint of amusement in her smile, or grin, however you choose to see it.

“At lease I brought you enough to get you through for a bit. After that you are on your own. And trust me, at 50 euros a quarter gram, in two weeks the phrase ‘working your ass off’ is going to have an entirely different meaning to you.”

“Well, Neo, she’s all yours,” she turned to say. “Just what you wanted, a genuine pig.” Then studiously stepping back with her hand on her chin, “You know, Neo, I’ve got to hand it to you.”

“Hand me what?”

“You were right. She does make quite the novelty. A four star attraction that ought to make you some pretty good money.”

“Perhaps not quite as much as Maxi had, of course,” she followed with a flush. “When at the top of her game that girl was the high priestess of the body shop window. The crowds she drew . . . Well, what can I say. No one has seen anything like it since.”

“But then again, that dragon tattoo that painted her body was a wonder all to its own. The way that winged serpent seemed to come alive under the ultraviolet. The fusion of that iridescent ink under that dark-light made that fire-breathing beast appear to rise up from within her body, and then slither along her flesh as she swayed and undulated like some bewitching Medusa that no one who dare look could resist.”

“Oh my,” she sighed. “Just bringing it back to mind gets me wet!”

“Well thanks, Ida. Coming from the Dom of asphyxiation herself, I take that as quite the compliment.”

“But it wouldn’t be right to take all the credit. I mean, where would I be without the help of that heavy-handed imperious ogre of a father of hers, huh? That fucking idiot made it all to easy!!!”

  ---------§ § § ---------

Page 10:  Et Dükkani

As I stood in the booth shopping myself to the customers who were looking for just the right girl to use, I wondered how it had all come to this.

The booth was third on the left in the back room of “Die Grube, (The Pit),” a fuck room that was considered the filthiest sty of depravity in the Quarter. A place where for an extraordinarily low price a customer in need could drop in 5, €1.00 (euro), coins into the coinbox to open the rear portal to fuck my ass, or 3, €1.00 coins to open the front portal to fuck my throat.

I had worked the window at the Pussy Pagoda for a while, but when I spread my cheeks to invite them in, more fled than stayed to take me up on the offer.  And now, standing in what was analogous to an enclosed black box, I found myself just managing to hang on after one particularly brutal assault on my ass by some drunken lowlife.  A societal washout who was just barely hanging on to the bottom rung himself.  A man with an insatiable taste for cheap wine and a mugger’s sense of cruelty toward anyone stupid enough to leave their ass hanging bare.  A man who’d just finished pissing half a bottle of port up my ass, and now done, snuffed out his cigarette on the fat of my ass before quickly pulling out and stepping back to avoid the trailing geyser-like eruption of his deposited piss.

I felt lower than the low, the scum scraped off the bottom of the barrel.  And it only got worse when Neo took me home and made curl up like a beaten dog on that crud-encrusted doormat.  “Here you go, baby girl,” Neo would say to me while plunging the needle into my arm.

Then, as I’d fall back into the whirling-swirling world devoid of all pain, I’d hear him vent in his cold derisive voice the sum total of all I’d become. “Rest well my little piggy.”

And so went my new life, a life short on change.  For change, a welcome friend to the young in their formative years was not so much a friend as an enemy to me, hampered as I was to see anything beyond my next hit.  No matter what it cost me. No matter how many cocks fucked my throat in lieu of my kitty, or the countless many that still found me worth the five €1.00 euro to pummel my shelled-out ass.

So long as Neo fixed me up by day’s end, not another thought entered my head.  Not a thought about the pain.  Not a thought about the spit hurled at me by my customers meant to denigrate me still further.  Not a thought about who I was, or how I’d gotten here.

Not for a moment did I think about home, my friend Gretchen, school, or that just a few short months ago I was looking forward to graduating from flat-sole loafers and boys wanting to pull on my hair for a laugh, to heels and makeup and boys who wanted to hold my hand while walking me home.

Then there was Neo.  Even as ruthlessly cold and unfeeling as he was toward me, my love for him still lingered, and remained stubbornly fast no matter his cruelty.  Whether he made me crawl around his flat oinking like a pig to humiliate me in front of his friends, or when I was taken out to walk the streets on a leash;  a leash that he’d clip on to my nose ring and lead me about from trick to trick.

And when there were few, or none willing to cough up the paltry sum needed to fuck me, he’d hook my leash to a bolt in the rafters and string me up by the nose, midair, like a side of beef hanging in a butchery.  Then he’d beat me with his doubled-over belt; my tits, my ass, my legs, my back, with unrelenting force, welting my body all over, while admonishing me for not making him enough money.

“You skag,” Whack!  You pig,” Whap! “You piece of girlie shit.  You’re worthless.  So fucking worthless I couldn’t even get anyone to cough up a single pfennig more to fray your nasty ass. No one! Not with a stick, not with a whip, not even the sickest low life bastard out on the street thought your pathetic ass worth the effort.  Sometimes I think you might be worth more to me if I sold the pieces.”

Then one night, I saw a change in him.  He stopped my beatings.  He said it was to allow the black and blue bruises and angry red welts to heal.  Once more, he stopped sending me to Die Grube (The Pit) to work, and stopped tricking me out on the street.  Though thankfully, he didn’t ease up on the dope, ensuring I got the better half of a quarter gram every day.  And while the whole of it pleased me no end, it was his new-found kindness toward me that sent me off the rails.  He’d even begun taking me into his bed, and kissing me, my wounds, and hugging me close without once complaining about my shit breath.

It was such a change I felt as though I hardly knew him.  As if he was a stranger to me, and more like the man I first met.  The man I had fallen in love with.  The man to whom I’d given so much, and would have died for the privilege to give him still more.  And as the love and warmth between us continued to grow, the dope he fed me seemed to grow all the less important to me.  In fact, there were times when he sought to fix me up that I’d actually wave him off with a smile, and tell him with all my heart ...

“No thank you Neo my love.  All I need is you.” And in kind, he’d return my smile and put the tourniquet and syringe away before taking me in his warm embrace.

Then that changed too.  One night while sitting down beside me he took hold of my chin, and then while looking me in the eye he said to me with a heartfelt earnestness I’d yet to see in him:

“Sophie, remember once when I told you about the road to freedom?  The road where many who choose to travel the distance learn to think for themselves?  The road the artisans, bohemians, prostitutes, et al, travel to escape the bonds of the conformity factory that would have them become just another cog in the wheel?  The same road you have chosen to escape the expectations of family and friends who would have you believe the world is flat, not round?”

“Do you, Sophie?” And do you remember how happy you were when I told you I’d help you along the road?”

“Yes, Neo,” I nodded, wanting him to know how happy I was that he should care so much for me.

“Well, I have helped you, and I want you to know I’ve enjoyed following you every step of the way.  But like all roads, they all come to an end, and, I’m afraid yours has.”

“Oh no-no, Neo,” I cried out in near panic, just then coming to the realization of what this was all about.

“You can’t leave me, you can’t!  Please, please, I love you. I can’t live without you.” I sobbed hysterically, all but pulling upon my hair.

“Oh no, you misunderstand, my dear sweet little piggy.  I’m not leaving you.  What I’m saying is quite the opposite.  I love you too, and I promise to always carry a piece of you with me until your dying day.  Whether it’s just the remembrance of your smile, a lock of your hair or the tip of your finger if that’s the only scrap I can get.”

“And just as importantly, I love how you’ve managed to travel the distance you’ve come, and handled it so well.  Going from a girl with the smell of bubble-gum on her breath, to RotStraße’s queen of pain.  It’s been a remarkable journey.  And to celebrate your success I want to take you out to the best place I know to celebrate your remarkable achievement.”

“Then you’re not leaving me?” I asked with a sigh while wiping away my tears.

“No-no, I’m not.  I told you I love you, and there will never be a day when a part of you won’t be a part of me.  So you will accompany me, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes, yes, thank you, thank you, anything for you my love.”

“Good,” he beamed a smile that lit up my heart, and put me in such a place of utter bliss that I cared not an iota when he grabbed hold of my nose ring and tugged upon it painfully to raise me up off the couch.

Then with his arm raised high and to the point my nose could rise no higher, he said to me after slapping my face. “Now, my little pig, I want you to dress up in that gossamer little mini of yours so I can leash up my pig.  Okay, my darling?”

“I will I will, Neo,” I told him excitedly, and all too tragically.  “I want you to be proud of me.  I want you to show me just like the pig I am!”

------

We walked the length of RotStraße to Seebrücke with Neo pulling me along like a pig on a leash.  But instead of turning back up RotStraße on our return trip home, he led me down a delivery lane called Festmachen.  The lane ran between a row of government run tenements for the Tunisians, the Moroccans but mostly the Turks who scurried about at night through the Quarter like roaches, and who I hated and feared down to my marrow as my father warned me I should.

“Sophie,” my father would say to me, “The Turks are dirty, foul, lowly beasts that roam the streets looking for their next prey to devour, without pity, or mercy for those they seek to ruin.  And, if they should find you, as sure as I stand here I can tell you they will be picking their teeth when done with you.”

A more frightening image my father couldn’t have painted, nor could the words, ‘picking their teeth,’ have been any more impactful.  The image, and the unspeakable thoughts of inhuman savagery it conjured up had forever haunted my dreams and had terrorized my every waking moment for as far back as I could remember.

And it was the horror, the horror of that picture that again came rushing toward me like a riptide as Neo continued on down the narrow delivery lane where I could see the eyes of those seeking to hide in the darkened alcoves like roaches.  Those lowly ruinous beasts that so frightened me that I began to shiver, to shake, and my vision flashed white, freezing me to the spot where I stood.

But Neo would have none of it.  Instead of stopping, he tugged upon my leash all the harder and mockingly scolded, “Stop the squirming, you dirty little pig, they’re not going to bite you.  They’re just curious, that’s all.  The roaches don’t see many Germanic’s walking through Turk-land, especially not a girl, and especially not an appetizing little yum-yum like you.”

“An appetizing little yum-yum!” That’s what he called me, and that’s how I felt.  Like a feeding trough for the roaches that I saw lurking in the recesses and hidden in the dark, and upon that realization my fright instantly grew from mere panic to terror.

“Neo!  Where are you taking me?”  I screamed madly, insanely, like a restrained patient from her padded cell.

“I told you, out for a bite to eat to celebrate your success. You’re now the dirtiest, foulest, pain pig that has ever walked the Quarter.  That’s an accomplishment worth celebrating, and quite frankly, I know of no better place than at the meat house, Et Dükkani.”

“Look, see,” he then said, pointing toward a blue neon sign a few yards away. “We’re almost there.”

“No, no, Neo, Nooooo,” I screamed, I pulled upon my hair, all but out of my mind.  “Please, please, I don’t want to die!”

“Die?  Whoa, whoa.  Settle down, my sweet little pig.  I know you don’t like Turks, but honestly, that’s going a bit far even for you.” I heard him say, though none of it stayed with me.  Instead, his words just passed through me like a wisp of air, not unlike the swirl I saw blowing the sidewalk litter around.  My mind, my every thought was consumed by just one thing. The horror!  The horror that awaited me just ahead beneath that blue neon sign.  All else was simply lost to me.

Nothing else mattered.  Not the pull upon my nose ring as Neo led me on.  Not the advertisement posted on the window that Neo pointed to once coming to a stop in front of the shop.

The sign that listed tongue and liver as the day’s specials, while the men lunching inside looked upon me licking their lips and beckoning me in with dinner knives in hand.  And in the background, at the counter, stood the red faced butcher in his blood splattered white coat with cleaver in hand chopping away and singing along with the Turkish melody playing on the music box just inside the door.

Nothing else mattered but the horror that I knew awaited me.  And the terror, the terror that left me purblind to all else, and sent me in a whirl when Neo said to me ...

“Here’s a tip, my sweet little pig.  The butcher’s specialty is the tongue.  He serves it fresh, very fresh, almost still wagging on the plate.  Oh, yes, I’m going to be ‘picking my teeth’ when done with dinner tonight.  And afterwards, how does a romantic stroll along the waterfront sound to you, hmm?”

I saw his lips moving, but I could only hear the sound of the Turkish music playing, the butcher hacking, and the excited clamor of the expectant faces of those lunching.  All of it whirled around about me like a wind-spout fallen from the darkened skies above. Swallowing me up and sending me adrift, screaming ...

“Neo! I don’t want to die!  I don’t want to die!   I don’t want to die!!!”

------- § § § -------

“What is it, Nurse Voigt?  I heard her screaming halfway down the hall.”

“I’m not sure Dr. Braun.  She mumbled something about being eaten and then began screaming

that she didn’t want to die . . .”

The Epilogue:

The reclamation of Sophie Müller, aka Anonymous!

Some months later . . .

As I sit in my room writing my story, you can see that I am still very much alive. As it turned out, I was mistaken in my interpretation of what Neo had in store for me that day. Thankfully it wasn’t to be the end of my days as I suspected it might be. But it did lead to a loss of faith between Neo and myself, and to our ultimate separation.

And now, back in my family home, I thought it belonged to me to tell my tale to inform others of the dangers that await the unsuspecting, and the innocent who are always looking for the paradise that lie just beyond. A place that from the outside shines like a beacon on a hill, while on the inside, it’s a place where around every corner all the horrors of their victimization lie in wait.

Thankfully with the help of Herr Hunsi, my redactor-and-chief, I hope to have accomplished just that. Though, as Mr. Hunsi is quick to remind me, not all the lives of those who read my book, ‘Schweine zum Metzger,’ are so easily reclaimed. For example, consider the circumstance surrounding the reclamation of Sophie Koch . . .

---

The Karl Heinrich Asylum for the Mentally Infirm

“Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Koch.  I’m Dr. Braun, Emil Braun, and I’m pleased to see you today.  Please, have a seat.”

Taking a seat Sophie’s father, Jakub Koch, sat solemnly off to his own while his wife Frieda fidgeted anxiously as if expecting to hear further bad news about her daughter Sophie, and the condition that necessitated her having to be institutionalized.

“Well then, as I told you on the phone.  I’ve asked that you come in to help me pinpoint the cause or causes of your daughter’s current state of debilitation.”

“I am, of course, very much aware of the incident that occured at your home on the first day of Fasching (Carnival). The day Jakub found Sophie in her current dissociative state after the incident in which your son, Hans, sought to frighten her with a letter opener."

“As to why he chose to do such a foolish thing I still don’t know. Nor can I say with any certainty that this thoughtless act of tomfoolery was the sole event that precipitated your daughter’s breakdown. But what I can say is that it would be untenable of me not to consider it a significant causal event, the breadth of which warrants my thorough examination.”

“However, after observing her through the brief window that electroshock provides, I’m beginning to suspect there may have been other events in her life that have contributed to her present state of impairment as well.”

“Again, it’s only a supposition on my part, but one I feel a need to look into. For example, In the self-imposed reality Sophie has constructed for herself, she believes Jakub to be a butcher by trade and not the clothier we know him to be. She has, in fact, created a wholly new persona for Jakub. His character so rich in detail you’d thing it a product of a pre-written script.”

“Likewise, she has created a whole new universe of other people as well. People that no one seems to know anything about. For example, a person who goes by the name of Neo. Might either of you know of such a person?”

“No!” Mr. Koch was quick to reply. It’s an odd name, I think I would remember that.”

“And you Mrs. Koch?” he turned to ask.

“I’m sorry, are you saying Sophie told you she knows someone by the name, Neo?”

“No, Mrs. Koch, not to myself nor anyone else. You see, your daughter does not recognize the presence of anyone. She responds only to the events or occurrences she envisions, and as a consequence, speaks only to herself. Or, in the common parlance, when she’s standing she talks to the walls, and when she’s lying down she talks to the ceiling.

“Oh my goodness, I had no idea.  S-s-she talks to the wall as if she’s speaking to a person?”

“Yes, Mam, it’s as if she is talking to a friend or a confidante she can trust.”

“Oh my,” Frieda sighed, seemingly with regret, as if only now coming to terms with the severity of her daughter’s debilitative state.  Then after dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex ...

“Yes, well, like Jakub, I know of no such person. However, I do remember that to be the name of a character in a movie some time back. But Sophie was so young at the time I doubt she would even remember having seen it.”

“Are you sure, Mrs. Koch?”

“Oh yes, absolutely. I think I would remember if I heard my daughter calling out a name like that, don’t you?”

“Yes, mam, I’m certain you would. Though I confess to feeling rather surprised to hear you say that. As often as she mentions the name I would have thought to find it on top of everyones list.”

“Well then, perhaps you can help me solve yet another matter I’ve been puzzling over.”

“In the world Sophie has constructed for herself, she frequently makes mention of an old port of commerce called the Seamen’s Quarter that once existed along the waterfront before it was bulldozed out of existence to make way for the construction of the World Fair some years ago.  Since the old Quarter has been out of existence for over 20 years, I wonder how she could have even known about it, much less have it play such a prominent role in the world she has constructed for herself?”

“Yes, well, I can’t say much about all that,” Mr. Koch volunteered.  “However, I do remember taking the family to the World Fair on a Sunday sometime back to ride the Ferris wheel, the Skyride and to see the exhibitions.  As I recall, one such exhibit was dedicated to the old Quarter that was once there.”

“However, it was only a pass through, and quite honestly there wasn’t a whole lot to see. A few pictures and whatnot, though nothing of interest to the children at all. Still, it appeared everyone was having a find time. That is until lunch when the family and I went to buy a frank on a bun.  That’s when some immigrant fellows, Turks as I recall, bullied their way up to the counter, pushing and shoving their way through, and in doing so, they knocked Sophie down and caused her cut her knee.  A real gusher it was too.”

“I needn’t tell you how angry I was.  I cursed him and sought to go after him, but stopped by the Mrs’s, I instead stayed to help her tend to Sophie’s wound.”

“And yes, it was quite a nasty one I admit.  The gash was such that the blood soaked my kerchief tourniquet.  Still, her reaction to it was beyond any measure of normal.  Her manic state and her blood curdling screams had those standing round fearing for her life.”

“So you saw her response as inordinate, correct, Mr. Koch?” asked the doctor.

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” he replied. “It was sheer hysterics.  If I recall, at one point she even began pulling upon her hair screaming, blood, blood, I don’t want to die!”

“So in retribution you sought to strike out against the young men you called Turks, correct, Mr. Koch?”

“Damn right!  Those fucking Turks are animals.  They are like a plague that has infested our city, no less than the roaches we seek to extinguish.”

“I see, Mr. Koch.  I suspect it’s safe to say you do not like Turks.  It’s also of interest to me that your hatred of them is such that you compare them to roaches.  Now, since your daughter refers to them in the same manner, I wonder whether you might have expressed those feeling to Sophie as well?”

“Yes, well, I’m not one to hide my feelings.  If I’ve got something to say, I say it.”

“That’s well and good, Mr. Koch.  You’ve shown yourself to be a frank and earnest man in the fathering of your daughter.  However, equating persons of any ethnic origin to roaches, something that need be exterminated, goes well beyond what is acceptable by any standard. In societal terms its nothing less than a malignancy, and for a child in her formative years, nothing less than a stain that may well affect her for a lifetime. So, I find myself wondering why you felt the need to impose your inordinate, if not destructive, bias and prejudice upon your daughter?  To what end, Mr. Koch?  To teach her a lesson?”

“Yes,” he muttered, scarcely audibly, as if afraid to admit to his costly mistake.

“Fine, Mr. Koch.  That gives us something to work with.”

“Well then, I would like to thank you both for coming in this afternoon.  Hopefully, the information you have given us will help to determine what brought on your daughter’s break from reality, and hopefully, find a cure for what ails her; If not today, then sometime in the near future.”

“How long doctor?”  Frieda asked.

“I don’t know. Perhaps she’ll emerge from the darkness tomorrow, or it might take her a lifetime.  We just don’t know.”

“Sadly, in matters such as these, psychiatry is an imperfect science.  Sometimes I think it is even less than that.  For the truth is, our homeland is strewn with asylums that house the mentally infirm just as we do here at Karl Heinrich.  They are the countless many, who like your daughter, reside in padded cells, held captive by their own perceived notion of reality.  A delusional construct that has manifested itself after some sort of traumatic event or another, and will continue to wreak havoc upon them, some for a matter of days, weeks, months, and some for a lifetime.”

“Well, again, thank you both so much for coming in to speak with me,” Dr. Braun concluded and then stood up to shake hands and wish them both a farewell.

“Oh yes, one last thing before you go,” he thought to ask before they had reached the door.  “In the riddling world Sophie now inhabits, she frequently speaks in very explicit and graphic terms.  She uses words and phrases specific to genital and body piercing for example.  As well, she evokes scenes of a graphic nature that involve blood, whips, brutal beating, women being treated like animals and whorish woman dancing in storefront windows to sell themselves.  Quite honestly, it’s all so graphic and specific in nature that I find myself wondering how she might have come to know about such things?  Might either of you know where she could have been exposed to such vulgarity at such a young age?”

“She says such things?” Frieda asked him.

“Yes, it’s like a script from a book she’d committed to memory which has now become the construct of her delusional world.  A first person narrative she recites almost by rote, as if from a book, and down to every obscene detail.  She has even integrated her persona into the delusional construct.  Referring to incidents in which she is sold into prostitution, and worse yet, incidents in which she is hung up in mid-air by her ringed nose and beaten mercilessly for not having earned enough money.”

“You can’t be serious,” Frieda scoffed defensively.  “I know my daughter.  She knows of no such things.”

Dr. Braun could hear in her voice the anguish she felt, but providing comfort to her was something that was not within him to do.  At least not if he hoped to save Sophie from the far greater anguish she suffered.  So instead of reaching out to her, he simply pushed a button on the tape recorder he had atop his desk for her to hear Sophie’s voice for herself:

  “. . . and then he hooked my leash to a bolt in the rafters and strung me up by the nose, mid-air, like a side of beef hanging in a butchery.  Then he beat me with his doubled-over belt; my tits, my ass, my legs, my back, with unrelenting force, welting my body all over, while admonishing me for not making him enough money . . .”

Jakub Koch looked toward his wife for a moment with his lips ajar and with a restlessness in his eyes that seemed to be saying something he was unable to speak.  Then, with a nervous fidget, he looked down and shook his head no.

“Mr. Koch?” Dr. Braun asked. “Have you something you wish to say on the matter?  You must know how important this is to your daughter.”

Then with a face flushed red in anger, his wife Frieda looked toward her husband and through gritted teeth, said, “Damn you Jakub!  I told you, if you try to hide it, the kids are going to find it.  I told you, I told you, burn the book ...”

“Jakub?” Dr. Braun pressed.

“Schweine zum Metzger,” Frieda Koch tearfully spoke for her husband. ‘Pigs to the Butcher’, the book Jakub keeps locked up in his desk drawer to hide from the children. The book, that abomination from hell, is a first person account of Sophie Müller’s life of prostitution, annotated with pictures of whipped, ringed, brutalized women, beaten women treated like animals, and nude women selling themselves in storefront windows.  Everything you said, and other things so vile and hideously cruel the devil himself would dare not utter, but now, my little baby does.”

And she cried . . .

§ § §

Das Ende -  That is if you got it . . .

If not we can try this again, only this time in 25 words and not thousands.

You’ve worked a lifetime to own the crap you carry,

So keep it, because it’s yours, and your loved ones don’t need it.

Especially your kids!

Love, Sophie

Thanks,

hunsi

*Freud, Sigmund: Essais de Psychanalyse, 1927.  Sigmond Freud’s 1927 publication is a compilation of case studies specific to his inquiry into the cause or causes of hysteria, and the effectiveness of psychoanalysis as a tool to uncover the repressed feelings that lie at the root.

The case study that has inspired the telling of this story is one of Eda R.  The youngest of three children, she is the daughter of a pig farmer who suffers from bouts of hysteria that renders her unable to interact with people in or about her immediate environment without falling into a dysfunctional state.

In this case, Freud determined that her state of infirmity was a product of her mistreatment in the hand of her brothers. A problem that had always been an issue, but never more so then when they learn of her manic fear of the sight of blood from a wounded animal. A condition they cruelly exploit time and again. Instances in which she is hung from the rafters alongside the pig earmarked for slaughter. Then in way of a cruel joke, they'd use the animal's entrails to tie her up and then toss her hogtied into a cart along with the butchered pigs to be taken to market.

xxx-----

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