The Russian Front, A Love Story by H. Jekyll Part Two: Submission and Dignity * * * * * * Note: I'm not using story codes. This is a story about rape and domination and love and loss and happiness in the middle of war. There are graphic rapes and other graphic sex. It's a "sex" story but not a sex "genre" story. If you want something that's "just" about sex, you'll be disappointed. Give this a pass. There are very well written pure sex stories out there. I even wrote some of them. Search them out. This is a slight revision of a story originally posted at Ruthie's Club, based on an idea first put into print by Neil Anthony (see his "Housewife, 1946" series at Ruthie's Club). The formatted and illustrated original can be found there. Copyright 2002 by H. Jekyll. Permission is freely granted to post on any site that does not charge for entrance, as long as full attribution is given to the author. The story should not be read by anyone under the legal age to read sexually explicit stories, or by anyone in a location where it is illegal to read such stories. I appreciate comments and inquiries, even criticisms, and I absolutely promise to respond to them. Please send them to: h_jekyll2000@yahoo.com The H. Jekyll stories are archived in the Alt Sex Stories Text Repository, at /files/Authors/h_jekyll/ Also at "Ruthie's Club" -- http://www.ruthiesclub.com/ * * * * * The Russian Front, A Love Story Part Two: Submission and Dignity She remembers the first bath he gave her every time she bathes the children. They can run only one or two inches of hot water, so little that she often merely sponge bathes herself. He had the riches of conquest, though, an ancient bathtub with four claw legs. He filled it well up with water so hot they had to wait before they could use it. She had remained kneeling when he pulled out of her mouth to run the water, his obedient subject, hands on thighs, face red and wet. He led her to the tub by her hand, helped her in, and let her soak, immersed in impossibly warm water while he left the room. Then, when she was completely warmed, he helped her to stand and began to wash her. The water wasn't the only impossible thing. He was impossibly gentle and caring of her wounds, especially the bruise around her eye and the new welts on her back. He dabbed at them tenderly, then soaped his hands and slid them over her whole body, slippery hands over her breasts and down to her vagina, slipping his two hands up and down her thighs, one thigh at a time. He made her nipples stand by moving slippery thumbs over them several times. He spent much time on her vagina and ass. She couldn't make her mind move away from his hands, take it to some safe place, because of the gentleness. She knew she could never face sex again, but even though it was obvious he wanted sex the hands didn't repulse her. She didn't feel sexual pleasure. She couldn't have stood that. No, but she could come to crave those hands that brought her to a world that wasn't so horribly frightening as the one she had left. He made her bathe him. This forced her to look at his body closely, not just his cock, which she had to soap and clean until it grew again, but everything. He had gruesome wounds. The worst was a pit in his right chest just inside the shoulder. It was so large and deep that she thought she could put three fingers into it. She looked to his face in surprise and he said, "Mortar." When she washed his legs she found two pits on a thigh, on opposite sides, one of which joined three long and jagged lines. Long, thin, raised scars ran along both arms and one cheek. And there was a thick crease at the corner of his forehead. When she touched it he said, "I was shot in the head, just barely Liebchen. It broke off a little of my skull. Some of my men think I am immortal. When I returned from the third wound the entire regiment surrounded me, cheering. They took to calling me 'Rasputin' because I am so difficult to kill, and they consider me lucky to be around. Of course I share my given name with the monk, Grigori, which clinches it for my poor, empty-headed boys." He spoke in a frank and friendly tone, as though the two were new friends who sat on a bench in some park and told tales about themselves. His empty headed-boys, his men. She suddenly realized she had been caught in the moment and forgotten to think of them, and that he loved the ones who had raped her. She began to cry again. "Why do you let them do... what they did?" she finally asked. "This war is very hard for everyone." * * * * * * She knows he is a Rasputin in more ways than merely his indestructibility. She listens to her husband breathe through the night, the husband who, after he absently comforts or caresses her, always lets his eyes travel to her stomach and then stops touching her, and she remembers those soft hands. She hadn't wanted pleasure, hadn't wanted to love him. She would be his obedient slave, or his whore, nothing more, except that he had this way about him. The nights are the worst time for these thoughts as much as for the others, because she has no activities to distract her. She does masturbate sometimes, in the bathroom or rocking before the heater in the middle of the night, but it doesn't satisfy her. She thinks if one of the Americans pursued her she would let him have her, even though it might cost her job. Grigori, my love, my demon, who first used me, then deserted me. * * * * * * He began that first night. When they were both clean and wrapped in bedclothes he led her out to the fire, where he had set a small dinner on a coffee table. There were mainly Russian rations, but he had procured some sausages, fresh rolls, and wine as well. He ate quickly but she knelt passively, with her hands on her thighs, as she had before. "Eat, Liebchen." She replied in a tiny, quavering voice, but she didn't look up at him. "No, bitte, I cannot. I will lose it again if I do, sir." Now that she was wide awake to the world, whenever she thought about putting anything in her mouth she saw the red-brown sauce spurting from that one man's prick, tasted it, and felt herself swallowing it. Even empty as she was, she had to control waves of nausea. "For me, you will keep everything down sweetly, schöne Fraülein. I cannot have you growing still thinner. You would disappear entirely." He fed her tiny bits of food, so tiny they were hardly more than specks, and gave her plenty of time between bites to finish swallowing. In between he gave her sips of wine, more wine than solid food. She wouldn't feed herself but she took what he held to her on his fork. He watched her face carefully, to tell when one of the waves had passed, and each time he let her rest a minute before giving her another tiny bite. Dinner was thus very leisurely, proceeding into the night. He restored the fire in the middle of it to keep her warm and relaxed. After he decided she had eaten enough he told her to lie down on top of her sheet, on a little mattress he had brought out to the fire. "Now, Fraülein, I will play with your body and you will do what I tell you. I will not hurt you. Do you understand?" "Yes sir." "And you will not call me 'sir.'" She lay before the fire and he moved those hands over her forehead, down across her neck, to her shoulders. He lifted her head and used a brush to spread her hair out like a golden brown halo, then for a long time he brushed from her scalp to the ends of her hair. She had not been able to relax for weeks, even before the rapes, but he seemed able to bring it on. After awhile her muscles loosened, though she didn't know when it began. Her eyes closed by themselves. He knelt over her face and kissed her eyes, then her forehead, then her neck. He kissed her mouth and she became completely tense because she remembered the mouth of the rapist who had forced her to kiss, but this mouth was clean, tasting only slightly of wine. She obediently returned the kiss. He brushed her hair some more and it wasn't long before she didn't want him ever to stop. She fell almost asleep, so supine that her state was trancelike, but she was aware of what his hands were doing with her hair and then was aware when he moved to her nipples and licked them while caressing lightly all around them. He petted her pubic hair, soft light brown stuff, still barely touching her and, like one would do with a cat, he stroked it again and again. Finally he spoke to her again. "Fraülein. My dear. You will come here every evening and stay until morning, as long as I want you. Is this agreeable?" She opened her eyes, half way. She was a long distance away, but there was something she needed to ask again. Her voice was obsequious even to her. "You won't hurt me, will you?" "No. Never. You will do everything I ask voluntarily." "What if I don't want to?" "Then I will release you. I am sure there are others who would like you." Ah, that was the threat. "You'll protect me from the others?" "Yes. A little badge on your coat will tell everyone you are with me. My men will know in any case." "What of my children and mother-in-law?" "I already affixed a sign to your front door. They will not be bothered." "Yes, I'll come every evening, as long as you want me." She was lying, but she would come as long as she had to. She thought she should rouse herself to do something he would like, and she tried without much success to half-rise, but he pushed her back down, gently as before. "Tonight only I will do things." He began the caresses again. Soon her eyes were closed and she entered her half trance again. She felt him spread her legs wide and push two fingers inside her. She thought his fingers might hurt her because of the rapes, but she was slippery and the fingers felt nice after all. They were part of the massage. He masturbated her intermittently, while stroking her and kissing her elsewhere, so that her breathing became more sonorous and lovely. She wouldn't pursue pleasure but she couldn't bring herself to resist and she had to let him do what he wanted. Then he entered her and fucked her for several minutes, and she began to feel real pleasure. He brought her closer and closer, and she gasped with him though her arms lay at her sides. So close. Let him finish now. Let him finish alone. He did, which pleased her. She hadn't orgasmed for him. He pulled out and curled on his side, drawing her to him in a spooning position. He pulled bedclothes over them and then they both fell asleep. During the night she woke once from a nightmare, shaking and damp again, and when she felt his naked body she felt safe. He was unlike anyone she had ever known. Later an errant shell fell close by and she awoke startled, terrified, remembering every bad thing, but he also woke up and pulled her to him. "There, there, Liebchen, nothing can hurt you when you are with me." She knew he was telling the truth. Her head was raised, her neck and back completely tense, eyes wide and mouth open as she stared into almost black space, and he, who seemed to be able to see a little better, slid an arm under her head. She turned around toward him and nestled in, her face under the covers, hands touching his chest. And fell back asleep. * * * * * * He was up and dressed before dawn. When she awoke he was sipping a cup of real coffee and looking at her. "I have a long day ahead, so I cannot stay to eat with you, Fraülein. Here is some meat and coffee for your family. I hope to be back by the time you come, but wait for me in any case." He bent to kiss her, a kiss she did not return, and left. She didn't hurry to rise or leave his place. She didn't know what to expect outside. There was food here and she was able to eat a little. Finally, though, she dressed to leave, then was struck with terror that she couldn't find the emblem he had promised her. She went through everything in the room looking for it. It must be here someplace! Only after she'd given up hope of finding it did she see that he already had fastened it to her coat. She picked up the coat and held it to her. She was soaked in sweat. Her heart was pounding. She'd been sure the rapists would get her again. Outside was the same world it had been the day before. She was almost paralyzed because her courage left her when she began to step toward the street. Grigori! Why did you leave me? She held her coat closed in such a way that the emblem was a shield going before her, and walked fast. She couldn't escape, though. Three soldiers sauntered down the street, blocking her way and grinning, giving way only when they say Grigori's mark. They taunted her in Russian as she passed and one grabbed at her ass. She half ran for a block. Other men stopped their work to make catcalls. She turned a corner directly into the path of the rapist who spoke German and two other men who looked familiar. She backed up to a light post, trying not to panic, but they followed, coming right up to her face and leering. She couldn't back any further and couldn't seem to breathe. "Do you miss us already? We are planning another party and you will be our main entertainment. We will let you show us more of your talents." His face was almost touching hers. "Stop! Stop or I'll tell Grigori!" Oh God, what are his family name and his rank? "Already using given names, are we? Do not worry. When Rasputin is done with you he will throw you back down to us. After all, we found you first!" He reached down to grab her sex hard, and when she hit him and broke away the men all laughed. * * * * * * She was finally home. How could she go back tonight? How could she not? She leaned against the door with the sign that protected them and worked for ten full minutes to calm herself. Then, time to make an appearance. She had to tell her mother-in-law, because she wouldn't be home in the evening any more and she would have to explain. She thought she wouldn't be able to, but it was easy. "An officer rescued me. He will protect us all, but only if I..." How to phrase it? "Only if I spend the evenings with him." At first her mother-in-law seemed perplexed, but after a moment she asked, "How bad is it?" She had rehearsed her line: "It is nothing, and anyway, there is nothing we can do." The mother-in-law looked at her in a thoughtful manner for about ten seconds. Finally she nodded several times, took the coffee and meat, and went into the kitchen. They never again spoke about it. * * * * * * It is instructive to study Gustav Doré's etchings of nineteenth- century London. A bleak place, full of want and vice, filthy, dark, cold, a place much like she walked that evening before she orgasmed for him. No one grabbed her though everyone seemed to look at her, and she was certain they all knew what had happened to her and what she was doing. How many of them had done her themselves? She left her house early because there was no street light and she couldn't bear the thought of being outside after dark. She had to wait at roadblocks, though, where she was questioned in atrocious German, and take approved detours around bomb craters and collapsed buildings, so that darkness overtook her. There seemed to be new fires. The air was full of smoke, sometimes so thick it obscured the street. There was a steady, distant bombardment, the vibrations of which came through the concrete to her feet. She almost lost her way twice. Once she saw a girl being forced into a doorway by several soldiers. A child. She certainly wasn't more than a girl, not a full adult, and she was crying and begging, struggling, but she had no protector. The housewife looked away and hurried past. When she encountered Russian soldiers she looked past them and pointed her index finger at her little emblem. It was a tiny regimental decal, all that stood between her and them, and scarcely visible in the twilight. She had planned to be coolly subordinate to the officer, whatever he was -- her protector, her master, her own private rapist? She was humiliated by everything associated with him, having relaxed for him, sleeping with him, finding him safe and warm, feeling the pleasure forced upon her. That wasn't what happened when you were raped. You didn't feel good about anything at all. He had somehow taken such advantage of her vulnerability! Well, she was stronger today, so it wouldn't happen again. She would let him have his way but keep herself removed and above it all, sacrificing her body but keeping what was more personal away from him. She couldn't do it though. She just couldn't. She tried but it was too awful. Long before she got to his door she was shaking all over again, just like the previous night, filled with that panic, afraid her sanctuary would be gone. When she finally found the door it was locked. She knocked, then pounded on it when he didn't come, and called loudly "Grigori!" Please please be here! The door opened and candlelight poured over her and she remembered what she had wanted to forget during the day, how deliciously nested he had made her feel when she snuggled against him during the night. She put her face to his shoulder, put her arms around him. Make the shaking stop! Make it go away! He put one arm around her waist and held the other hand to her head. "Liebchen, Liebchen, it is okay. You are safe my darling." He kissed her head and she could feel the warm breath on her scalp. "Nothing bad will ever happen to you, I promise." "I thought you were gone, that I would have to go back through the streets!" She was trying not to cry. She already felt foolish but she couldn't stop her chin from quivering and her eyes were watering. "But I am here for you, no? I will always be here for you." They stood for the longest time until, by and by, as he kissed her hair and held her to him, she calmed. When he bent to kiss her mouth she returned the kiss, then he escorted her to the inner rooms. * * * * * * She orgasmed because she couldn't do otherwise. He didn't use tricks of seduction. In fact, he almost repeated the previous evening: had her undress while he undressed; sat on the stool and told her to hold his penis in her mouth while he loosened her hair and caressed her all over; described how beautiful she was, her hair, her breasts, her skin. Tonight, though, it made her a little hot, even holding and tasting his cock. She tried to concentrate on things besides his hands and his voice, and the penis helped, but he was mesmerizing. He was Rasputin. He was Svengali. Maybe it wasn't her fault if she couldn't resist him. Maybe he had special powers. He did fuck her mouth a little when he was ready to come. She had no trouble swallowing his semen. He drew a full, hot bath again and they washed each other again. He did one thing differently. Washing her, he concentrated on her vagina, using a soapy, terrycloth rag. He washed her sex on and on it seemed, and of course she had to let him do what he wanted. After awhile she became high. Her breathing quickened and she leaned her head back a little, half closed her eyes. Though she began to realize he could excite her, and that she couldn't do anything to stop it, she tried not to show it. He told her to lean over in the tub, to put her hands on its back ledge. "Good. Now spread your legs wider, to the sides of the tub." When she was thus posed, he pushed a soaped thumb into her rectum. It went in easily. She had never ever had anything back there, so she gasped out a long "ahhh" more in shock than in anything like pain, but she didn't move. He held the thumb all the way in her while he continued to wash her vagina with the terrycloth rag, and this got her higher and higher, until she was actually showing her desire, gasping, dismissing her resolve because the excitement had taken over and she was in a world far away from the events of the day. She wanted him to do it. She was almost at the brink when he stopped, dropped the rag, and pulled his thumb out of her. No! "When you are aroused, Fraülein, you are the most delicious woman in all the world." Don't stop! She looked at him with pleading but she wouldn't beg. At dinner he insisted again on feeding her and insisted she feed him. She didn't care about the food. What she wanted was to be transported, like during the bath, so she was openly sexual, kittenish, goading him toward fucking her. When she fed him she called him "my Bolshevik" in a voice like that of Marlene Dietrich. She played with putting the fork to his mouth, then saying "nooo" and yanking it away when he tried to take his bite of food. He retaliated by pouring a whole glass of wine down her front when she tried to take a sip. She promised to be good, but the next time she offered him a sip she poured the wine on his penis instead. They started wrestling until he could hold her still long enough to pour the rest of the wine bottle all over her. They were laughing and she was happy and thoughtless for the first time in months or years, and then they were kissing passionately, moving lips back and forth over the other's open mouth and tasting the wine on each other's face. He lay her on her back and she helped him put his penis into her and they fucked and she came. She came quickly but he didn't, not after using her mouth earlier, and then she came again. She grew breathless. Both were sweating and gasping, but still he fucked her and she came a third time, hardly able to gasp it out, lacking the strength to move her body with his anymore so that she merely lay there under him, until finally he came and pushed his crotch as hard against hers as he could and she was hit by a fourth orgasm that she could only lie there and feel. * * * * * * She remembers that evening when she sits in front of the heater, and she is both mortified and aroused. The two responses always occur together. Nothing like that had ever happened to her, before or since, not even with her Rasputin. She wonders if he did that to other women. Then she wonders where he is, if he was killed at Berlin. Oh God no. Or caught up in the post-war purges that Stalin apparently had begun, or if he has become a high officer, married, making his own children. Tonight she recalls the fucking with a kind of sweet regret, with thoughts of what was and what could have been only in fantasy. The day afterward, though, she had been angry with herself, furious that she had given in to him so completely, only one day after being raped and hurt, given in to that Russian who had manipulated her. It was important to make this a contest, to wrest control away from him, so that night she had acted coldly and done her best not to show him any desire, even when he petted her vagina and spoke beautifully to her. She kept great face and breath control, though she grew slippery inside. He seemed vaguely uncertain about her mood at first, but after awhile came to some decision and made her suck him off again. She had won. The next evening he wasn't there. The door was unlocked and there was a one-sentence message that he would be out with his men and that she should wait. Was he angry, telling her he would play without her? He'd left some food by the fire. She sampled a little, telling herself she was lucky because she might not have to sex him tonight, but the evening passed and he didn't return. She re-stoked the fire herself. Finally she slept, not well. Distant artillery fire had begun again, after a day of near quiet. It woke her when it started, but later it was like thunder in the distance and she forgot about it. He wasn't back the next morning and she didn't know if she should wait or go home. She began to think he was through with her. What if? What would happen? Was it so important to retain her dignity if her safety and her children's safety were at stake? She grew fearful and went through all the worst possibilities. He was going to punish her by abandoning her. Her damned pride had brought her to the brink of ruin, though he hadn't been cruel to her. Don't abandon me, my Grigori! I'll be such a good lover to you. Come back. Every few minutes she looked out the windows. Would he come? Would he send the soldiers to take her? She straightened out the apartment, to make it nice for him when he returned. She swept, did the dishes. It gave her something to do. She thought she should check in at home, that they would worry about her and that her mother-in-law might need her, but she was afraid to not be there for him. When would the telephones be back up? Finally she left a note saying she would be right back. She signed it "Love" but looked at it for several seconds afterwards, wondering if she shouldn't have. It scared her a little. It overplayed her hand. She ran home just to say she couldn't be there that day. Her mother-in-law asked if she was okay and she answered yes, but that an emergency had arisen. Then she ran back, feeling the bombardment through her feet. It had grown misty. A few flakes of snow swirled around the streets, but there were almost no Russians. Nothing had changed in the apartment. She tore up the note she had signed "Love" and burned it in the fire. In the afternoon an aide of some kind came in to clean. They looked at each other uncertainly. The aide didn't understand German, so finally she got her coat and pointed toward the emblem. Then she kept out of his way until he left. Grigori wasn't back by evening. Where could he be? The aid surely wouldn't have come if he were gone forever. She dozed. It grew dark. She tried to eat a few scraps, but her appetite had deserted her again. What should she do? The artillery fire grew in intensity bringing her the thought that his troops had been called back into battle. She built the fire up and waited. * * * * * * She was at the door before it was completely open, a sheet wrapped around her, otherwise naked because she had thought he would want her that way. She wasn't sure if she'd been asleep. His uniform was dirty and he smelled strongly of gunpowder. She came close to him but suddenly didn't know how she should act, and he didn't move to touch her. "There was a little counteroffensive, Fraülein, very small, so they sent us out to handle it instead of taking troops from the major offensive. Then we could not return because the roads were blocked by supply trucks." A pause. "I am happy to see you." "I was worried about you. I guess you're okay?" He slid his coat to the floor and she saw that his left forearm was burned. It was red with some bloody blisters and had clearly not been treated. "What happened? What happened to you, Grigori?" She wanted to pretend to be angry with him, to maintain superiority. She wanted to mother him. She wanted him to want her, and it scared her that he could have been killed. "I always need a souvenir, you know." "Why hasn't a doctor seen this?" He shrugged. "There is an offensive on, lady. There are men who need them more. I left three at the aid station and three others will not go home at all. Do not go on so about a little burn." He seemed irritated with her, but he took a long breath and winced and she knew the burn was hurting him badly. She pulled him to the fire, sat him on the little stool where she had sucked on him, and took off his shirt. The burn was dirty and could become infected so she rounded up materials to clean it. She washed it with soap and water, as gently as she could, but some blisters sloughed off anyway and it bled. She spread ointment on it and wrapped it with fresh bandages. She tried not to look him in the face while doing it. He didn't complain, but by his breathing she knew it hurt him. Once it was bandaged it seemed a little better. "Can I get you some wine?" "Vodka." She brought a pan to sponge bathe him, first helping him out of the rest of his clothes. She was certain he would not want sex tonight, but he grew erect while she washed him. She ignored the erection except when she washed it, and then she didn't comment on it. She was pretty sure he wouldn't throw her out, and with this knowledge her new and old resolves went around in her mind. She didn't know how to act. "You are a good woman to me, even if you do not want to be here." The statement came out of nowhere. She was unprepared for it and couldn't at first answer. Somehow it changed the atmosphere in the apartment. She felt she was passing into something new and different, something she didn't understand. Finally she sat down beside him and said, "I'll do whatever you want, Grigori. You know that. Willingly." "No, not willingly. Not really." "Yes, willingly. I..." She had to stop. It was obvious what he meant. There was no use trying to lie, so she looked away from him and said, "I can't change my feelings. I can't make myself someone else. I can do anything else for you, though. I can. Let me, please." She looked back to him as she said the last part. "The other night you let your feelings go. You wanted to be here." So this was how it ended. What would he do? She thought he might still give her protection but it was utterly depressing. Once again she looked away, a little past him and toward the fire. She replied quietly and thoughtfully, "I was weak then, because... because of what happened. It helped me forget everything. But I'm not just a toy. I'm not a plaything. I can't allow it. I have to be stronger, for myself." "You were happy, Liebchen." She didn't answer him at all. She sat staring down into the fire, after a few moments moving fingers across her eyes, back and forth. It was so sad. He spoke again, "You do not even try to deny it. Here, look at me please. Look at me." She had been crying a little. She turned toward him and he continued, "I can have you, yes, whenever I want, and you are such a woman that it is worth it to me even if you try to deny your pleasure. But you can have some happiness too. You know when I want I can make your body respond to me. I will do it, too. What I want is that you relax your will to let your body give you joy." She wiped her eyes before she answered, "Please don't try to make me do that. I don't want that." "I will do it. I will play with your body until you cannot help yourself." "Please, no, don't take that from me. I'll do anything else. Please don't make me. I beg you, please Grigori." But his face was touching hers and then he was kissing her, and in a minute she was obediently kissing him back with lips covered in tears. He was caressing her body with those hands, caressing her like before. She couldn't stop the pleasure because she had to let him do what he wanted, though twice more she asked him "Please stop." No he wouldn't stop. He concentrated on her body, stretched and spread below him in front of the fire, not letting even his burned arm stop him from getting chill bumps to run across her chest, playing with her nipples until they stood out fiercely from her breasts, running his hands in a continuous play down her vagina, palm to fingers running down, one hand then the other then the first, so that there was no gap between them, no time when a palm wasn't sliding down her sex. Of course he won. He had all the advantages. Before he finished she was crying out and kissing him all over his face and holding him tightly, banging her hips against his and feeling wave after wave of pleasure travel up through her body from her crotch to her chest. Deep inside was a quiet voice, one she couldn't hear for the moment, that said this wasn't really her, wouldn't be her afterwards, that said she hated him. End of Part Two.