the fires of burning Rome

I awoke to the sour and moldy dawn of District 12 and upon my chest slumbered my sweet girl, my rape blossom, my Katniss Everdeen.

Her nude body pressed against me like a newborn. The poor thing was quite exhausted, and no wonder after last night’s revelries. Mother and baby sister had slept so soundly in their bedrooms next door as I explored for the first time her vagina with my mouth. When my tongue hooked my favorite fish, oh, how she wriggled! I ate her orgasm greedily and then drew her tight to my chest to sleep, which she did not like. She continually shuffled to try to find a more comfortable position, and when she thought I had dozed off she tried to escape entirely, but my arms made of her a well-behaved prisoner. In the end, exhaustion took her, and now her hot, unconscious breath grazed my skin. There are few things more beautiful than the deep sleep of the freshly raped.

I did not fuck her the previous night; no, I had wanted to save my own pleasure for the morning. My gift to her of oral sex did not come without its strings attached.

I laid a hand on her bare shoulder and shook her awake. She stirred resentfully: small sulky mouth, frowning brow, then the opening of her confused, dumb eyes. And then she was awake all at once as she realized that I was still here.

‘Good morning, my sweetheart.’ I gave her forehead a kiss.

‘Hello,’ came her gloomy reply.

She did not like that I had not left in the night, as I usually do. But I had a free weekend, and I had spent so little time with her family… Surely it was time to take our relationship to the next level?

‘Did you enjoy last night?’ I teased. Of course she had enjoyed it: I had felt her clitoris pulse against my face.

‘Yes, thank you.’ Her slow brain made a sleepy, desperate search for the words that would please me. ‘It felt really good.’

I waited pointedly. She cleared her tired throat.

‘I liked… when you kissed my, um…’ She frowned. At first I thought she was merely being coy, but then I understood that she had forgotten the word.

‘Clitoris,’ I helpfully supplied. Such words were all new to her, after all.

‘Yeah. That. That was… nice.’ She gave me a weak, shivery smile and obviously hoped that this would be enough to sate me.

‘I enjoyed it immensely as well. You have such a sweet little vagina, like a pink éclair. It was delectable.’

She gave a sudden, half-involuntary sigh, and I fancy I sensed exasperation in it. Oh, was she getting annoyed with me? My poor love. How much she will one day come to beg for the sweet gift of my tongue in her rape-hole, when her alternatives are being whipped or cut or urinated on…

But such treats would come later.

‘It was generous of me to pleasure you so,’ I informed her. ‘But now I think it’s only fair that you repay the favor.’ I smiled benevolently and gave her nose a tap.

What little energy remained drained from her face. Yes, she hated to perform oral sex; she hated it more than anything else I ever did to her, and this lent a keener edge to my own pleasure. The rape she took to like a duck to water; oral sex did not come naturally to her. To spur her on, I shifted her to the side and pulled back the sheets, then presented to her the familiar sight of my waking erection. She gazed upon my penis with a certain listlessness, like it were a book that could hardly hold her attention. But she had learned her lessons. She knew to obey.

Slowly, her hand sought my cock. It was with a certain mechanical clumsiness that she began to work her small, girlish hand around the shaft, and then she lowered her head to her prize. When her little mouth opened I could see the reluctance girding her lips. Her whole being loathed this so intensely: the scent of the glans, the texture on her lips and tongue, the stretch of her jaw, the scratch of my pubic hair against her nose. But, graciously, I laid a hand on the back of her head and helped my recalcitrant sweetheart take the cock all the way into her adolescent throat. I made her hold it there for some time as I pleasurably observed the helpless twitch of her soft palate like an insect under glass.

She began to gag. Oh, how I adored the damp melody of her stubbornly choking throat! That wet and satisfying ribbit of the raped pharynx! Just the exact sound of crushing frogs underfoot, which used to so entertain me as a boy. Spit began to swell in ripe bubbles from her lips. Her eyes reddened and glittered with tears. This made me very happy.

I released her head and she drew back gasping, and thick ropes of spit bound her mouth to my cock. She panted desperately for air, but I soon decided that she had had enough reprieve, and I pushed her back to her work. I worked her skull with both hands in that sweet jackhammer of girl-on-cock which produces the delicate glug-glug-glug harmony that never sounds so beautiful as when it is sung from the throat of a girl you have raped.

Her body began to convulse in arrhythmic waves as I pulverized her gag reflex, which deeply pleased me, and I observed her helpless palsy with gratified arousal. One fit, another, a third—and, then, the sweet and helpless bounty of my girl flailing, pulling back, and then vomiting bile and some watery yellow vomit onto my shining cock.

I allowed her a moment of respite. Her face was pink with exertion, her eyes bloodshot, tears and spit and sick all over her chin and naked breasts. I observed her hard nipples and I wondered if she was aroused, or if vomiting was one of the many lovely alchemies that produced this effect in women.

‘Tsk tsk. You’ve made a mess.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Her dull voice was wet with saliva.

‘Come on. You know what to do. Clean it up.’

For a moment, she remained sitting in place. Her eyes flicked to nothing, as they so often did, and I knew she was thinking about committing suicide. I can always see the flicker of self-annihilation in her pupils and it sends a little fish of electricity swimming through my loins. But I enforced some self-restraint and I gave her the necessary few seconds to collect herself and return to her task. I am not unreasonable; girls need their indulgences.

Then she set to her task once again. I observed with pleasure her clever licks as she swallowed again all the mess she had spat out on me, while her hand returned to the shaft to ensure that the experience was as pleasurable for me as possible. She is a good pet.

‘You could be more vocal,’ I observed. ‘You enjoy this, don’t you?’

Her face was varnished with saliva and a little vomit. She nodded once.

‘Good girl. So, don’t be afraid to let me hear that enjoyment. Come along now.’

Her resentful eyes looked at me through wet lashes as she licked at me. Like a hatchling from an egg, a dulcet rhythm emitted from her lapping mouth: ‘Mm… mm… mm…’

Dear reader, there is no sound closer to heaven than the feigned birdsong of the girl who takes your cock when she does not want to. I truly believe it may be more beautiful than sounds of sincere pleasure: the exaggerated pretense of it, the hopeless insincerity, the sweet despair…

I suddenly heard a door open and close, followed by light little footsteps on the landing. Katniss Everdeen fell silent and froze in her duty. Primrose had left her bedroom and gone downstairs. Had she heard the sounds of her sister being mouthfucked and quietly excused herself to give us privacy? Did the sounds disturb her, or did she just know that her sister preferred to not have an audience?

‘Keep going,’ I said encouragingly. ‘No one to hear you now.’

And I do think that this brought her some comfort, because she was ever so easily upset by the involvement of her sister in our games. Now, emboldened, she varied her mms with a few ahs when she broke her mouth from my cock, and she slipped into the familiar rhythm I had taught her: to go deep, to choke, then to pull back; to lap the pink glans like raspberry ice-cream; to tap the cock against her cheek with her tongue out like a dog and to gaze up at me with those hollow, beaten eyes. She was such a pale and miserable imitation of pornography, which aroused me so deeply.

With her mouth sucking keenly, I felt my slow, aged orgasm finally build, and I began to stroke the back of her head the way I usually do to tell her that it is nearly time. She knew not to vary her rhythm at this point; her sole purpose on earth now was to ensure my orgasm. If she faltered in her destiny, I would be most displeased.

I pulled back at the very last moment to ensure my ejaculate hit her extended tongue and not the back of her palate, lest it fall too soon into her throat. Her eyes flickered ever-so-slightly as my semen splashed happily into her mouth. I permitted her the gift of the sound of my pleasure: the groan of an old man, perhaps not a beautiful gift, but fondly given all the same.

‘Good girl,’ I soothed, as she sat there open-mouthed and obedient. I could see her eyelashes flicker. There were precious few fragments of her mind left intact, and whenever I found one I crumbled it to dust. I observed the gleam of my ejaculate on her brown lips, her rosy tongue, her white teeth, and then I decided I was satisfied. ‘Swallow.’ Instantly, obediently, she did so. She liked swallowing; she much preferred it to holding the semen in her mouth. I felt it was a job well done.

After sex it is important to give praise and comfort. Unheeding of how messy she had made herself, I drew her tight against my chest and stroked the cleaner parts of her hair. I whispered my adoring compliments: you’re a good girl, I’m so proud of you, I care about you very much, I will never leave you, I will never, ever leave you.

You see, she has to know that it’s forever. I am not here to use and discard her. I am her protector, her lover, her father, her man, her God… I fit into her life like a new, sharp rib-bone. She must accommodate me; she must live with me, day after day, forever. And when I feel her heartbeat slow against me, I know that she is taking comfort in my petting, my soothing, my care. It’s how my body tells hers that the sex is over and that she can rest, and she appreciates this. I am her safe space as much as her hell.

When she seemed calmed, I gave her a final kiss on the forehead. ‘Go wash your face, now, and tidy your hair. But don’t rinse out your mouth.’

I added this final instruction very strictly, and she looked at me with unhappy eyes. Oh, I knew how she loathed the flavor of my seed! Well, she should be grateful: I have a good diet and I have consulted extensively with my doctors to ensure no poison I imbibe is absorbed into the spermatozoa. There are many men in the Capitol whose release tastes far less sweet than mine, I could assure her!

I allowed her to use the ensuite while I took the family bathroom. I observed the accoutrements with sharp curiosity. Two toothbrushes: mother and little sister. Gaily I ran my finger along the bent bristles of the smaller, pink one. One day, Primrose…

Cleaned and tidied, I returned to my love to find that she had locked the ensuite door.

‘Miss Everdeen? Miss Everdeen. Unlock this.’ I banged on the door once, twice, three times—and then the lock rapidly turned and the door swung open.

‘I’m sorry,’ said my girl. ‘I just locked it on habit. I didn’t mean to—’

I smacked her: sharp, neat, nice. Her throat made a little uh sound as the blow fell upon her cheek.

‘Don’t do that again,’ I ordered. She clutched her pinkening cheek, frowning hard. ‘I do not like to hit you,’ I said. ‘Not unless we’re playing. Please don’t make me do that to you.’

She rubbed the place I had struck. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’ Her voice came peculiarly strong and stubborn. I fancy she preferred the simplicity of being smacked over being abused.

I turned her chin back to me to observe her. Well, she had done a terrible job cleaning herself up. The vomit and spit was gone, but her hair was a greasy nest, there were crusts of sleep in her eyes, and she smelled. I tutted. She stood in sullen silence as I dragged a brush through her hair, and I chastised her for the number of split ends as I smoothed the mess further with a comb. Then I scrubbed her face with a damp cloth and I worked it under her armpits and against her cunt to freshen her up. I really needed to make her take better care of herself. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, her skin was greasy, she was underweight… I fancy, too, from the pink, superficial marks on her upper arms that she had been picking at the skin there. Such behavior, of course, is common in rape victims. I expected that she wanted to go back to cutting herself, but I had already ruined that happy pastime for her. Oh, perhaps she would enjoy it after all if I took a blade to her…

But not today. I had other, kinder plans.

‘Right!’ I said brightly once she was tidy. ‘Breakfast time.’

‘Where?’ Her voice was a little hoarse from the throat-fucking.

‘Here, in your kitchen,’ I said, and her expression collapsed in on itself. No, I was not done with my fun for the day; my sadism is not so easily blunted. ‘Come along, my dear. Let us see what your mother has made for us.’

I took her by the hand and led her downstairs into the kitchen, only to find it disappointingly empty. More than empty: unused. Did any of these women eat? What a malfunctioning family.

‘Where is your mother? She should be making breakfast.’

Katniss looked at me with utter confusion. ‘She… She doesn’t make breakfast. She sleeps late.’

‘How late?’

For the first time that morning, even with the oral rape she had endured, my darling looked embarrassed. ‘Noon. Later, sometimes.’

‘Hm. A depressive.’ I weighed the possibilities. ‘Did she start sleeping that late before or after I began raping you?’

I fancy my girl was a little uncomfortable with this conversation. ‘She did it before. But maybe she does it more now.’

I nodded. ‘Well, we can’t have that. Go and fetch her. She should be making pancakes.’

I sat at the table and waited. I expected my affairs to be in order: my girl-mistress at my side, the mother preparing breakfast, the baby sister… Hm, where was Primrose?

I rose again and went in search of the mite. There were not so many rooms; very few places to hide from the big bad wolf. Not that I wanted to eat her yet. Not quite ripe, still green at the edges.

I found her in the study. I swung open the heavy door and there at the desk sat the tiniest of girl-children, pen in hand, fear in face.

‘Hello,’ I said cheerfully.

It took her quite a long time to know what to say back. ‘Hello, Mister President.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘My homework.’

‘Wonderful. What a good girl you are.’ I offered her a kind smile; my intent was not to frighten the child. Not yet. ‘Why don’t you come do your homework at the kitchen table? We are going to have a big, family breakfast.’

An interesting expression filled the girl. Not bravery, but curiosity: the honesty of inquisitiveness. ‘Family?’

I smiled wide. ‘Indeed. Come.’

Primrose obediently gathered up her homework and followed me, and I considered taking her hand but decided against it. Back in the kitchen, mother and daughter were at their stations by the oven. I tarried at the threshold to eavesdrop.

‘He wants pancakes.’

‘But I don’t know how to make those… Katniss… Why did you invite him to stay the night?’

‘I did not invite him, he…’ And then Katniss caught sight or smell of me and neatly cut off her complaints. She looked in terror at her little sister. ‘Prim!’ she exclaimed, then she reached forth and grabbed her sister and bundled her away from me. My pet was ever so funny.

‘Good morning, Mrs Everdeen,’ I said to the mother. The woman was still in her nightdress, with a robe slung loosely over it. Chicken-feet ankles peeked out of worn slippers. She was even skinnier than her raped daughter. Miserable creature. Mothers are a uniquely intolerable breed.

‘Good morning, Mister President,’ she gabbled uselessly. Was this really a human being? Surely it was just a bird, just an accident of life. I had to fix this situation. Either the mother learned to play her role properly, or I would have to find a replacement.

‘Your daughter and I decided I would stay the night,’ I said. Of course, it was not strictly speaking Katniss Everdeen’s idea, but since I make all her ideas for her now, it might as well be. ‘I trust that is not a problem?’

‘No, no, not at all!’

I gave a nod of satisfaction. ‘I rather thought pancakes would make for a good breakfast. Miss Everdeen, sit down while your mother makes us pancakes. Primrose, why don’t you continue your homework?’

My pet knew how to play my games. She promptly pulled out a chair and sat at the dining table, and slowly, little Primrose joined her. The mother did not move. Really, what was the point of such a creature?

‘Mrs Everdeen,’ I said helpfully. ‘The pancakes.’

Her stupid eyes grew large. ‘I don’t… I don’t know how… We don’t eat them here…’

My patience was growing thin. But I am a generous man, and I understand my demands are sometimes difficult for civilians to follow, even if they are as simple as pancakes. Helpfully, I went first to the fridge and found there eggs, milk, and butter. Flour was in the first cupboard I checked—I have a particular knack for choosing appropriate cupboards—and the bowl and pan were found next.

‘It’s really not so difficult. Three cups of flour. Four and a half cups of milk. Three eggs. Whisk, pour, flip regularly. Can you remember that, my dear?’

The woman nodded her frightened head. I mimicked her nod and smiled.

‘Do your best,’ I encouraged. ‘It isn’t appropriate for a mother to be so slack in raising her children. I have replacements I could find for you, you know.’

A small voice spoke up: ‘Replacements?’

I smiled down at Primrose, then joined the girls at the table. I took my pet’s limp hand in mine and squeezed. ‘Do not worry, Primrose. I’m sure your mother will do a fantastic job. Now, while we wait, tell me what homework you are working on.’

The happy cacophony of domestic cooking filled the room as Primrose shared with me her sums. This was certainly not the simple arithmetic I allowed the District children to learn; no doubt the family had procured for her an illegal tutor with Katniss Everdeen’s Hunger Games winnings. But that was no matter; I could turn a blind eye here and there. Primrose had made some errors in her algebra.

‘Ah, you see, you have been dividing before you multiply,’ I observed. I looked to my pet, who was staring most intently at the opposite wall. There was nothing interesting there. ‘Do you understand, Miss Everdeen? Primrose has forgotten that we always multiply first.’

Her big eyes, grey as death, flickered to mine. ‘I can’t do math. I’m sorry.’

‘Well, no matter. You have other talents, my dear.’ And I laughed and I brought her hand to my mouth to kiss, and I fancied that Primrose was looking at us very intently. I suppose I was becoming a sort of brother-uncle to her. How pleasant!

I explained to Primrose the error and had her write out the correct solution, and then I walked her through the steps of the next problem. Katniss Everdeen’s palm sweated against my own. Primrose wrote neat, girlish figures at my guidance, and once or twice she repeated my instruction questioningly, and I reassured her and explained in greater detail. By the time the smell of cooking pancakes filled the room, the girl had got the knack of it.

‘Do you understand it now?’ I said warmly.

‘I think so.’ Primrose tapped her pencil against her mouth. ‘You explain better than Miss Appleyard.’

‘I’m a good teacher.’ And I looked to my pet and I laughed, and her chapped and halting lips stretched in a parody of a smile to mimic my own. God, she looked dreadful! Next to golden and glossy-haired Primrose, my Miss Everdeen was so withered. It would not do. I would need to rejuvenate her. Everything in this life can be fixed, for a clever man.

With shaking hands, Mrs Everdeen served three plates of pancakes. She had, again, been too stupid to make any for herself, but I instructed her to make us all tea and bring jam, and soon our family breakfast was just as I had planned. The pancakes were greasy but tolerable, and the jam was good, homemade, District preserves. Primrose ate with greedy joy. But Katniss Everdeen, my sad rose, merely cut her pancakes into smaller and smaller pieces and moved them around her plate in esoteric patterns I could not interpret.

‘Are you not hungry, my dear?’ I said.

And Katniss Everdeen for the first time that day turned hard, spiteful, hateful eyes upon me, and she spoke with force and loathing: ‘I’ve already eaten.’

I laughed at that. ‘Well, true!’ And it was a funny joke, so I decided I would not punish her for refusing to eat our family breakfast.

Oh, all was just as it should be!

After we had eaten and the hour was growing late, I made my goodbyes. I thanked the mother for her diligent kitchenwork and I helpfully told her that I was sure her cooking would improve with time. If it didn’t, well…

I then congratulated Primrose on her sums and she smiled up me with the guileless pride of the rarely flattered child. I then gave my darling her final instruction.

‘Walk me out. Do give your sister a goodbye kiss.’

Those grey eyes stormed at me. With thin lips and a face set with murder, Katniss Everdeen bent and pressed her semeny lips as lightly as she dared against the cheek of her baby sister. This gave me such a thrill of pleasure.

At the door I fetched my scarf and coat, and then my girl and I tarried on the porch. She scratched her bare arm absently and looked around the neighborhood with concern, as though she still cared whether people saw us together.

‘I had a lovely time,’ I told her. ‘You did ever so well. You’re becoming such a good girl.’

Katniss Everdeen did not even look at me. She stared through the air at nothing, into another world. I do wonder sometimes if the eyes of raped girls can see into universes that we mere men cannot. She stood uneven and wan like a line of chalk half-rubbed out from the rain. And then she began to speak.

‘I was thinking… I thought… It’s hard being without you.’

I warmed and brightened at this. Insincere, yes, but convincing. ‘Oh?’

‘I miss you when you’re not here.’ Her voice was as flat and featureless as the epicenter of an atomic bomb blast. ‘I want you all the time.’

‘I know that’s true,’ I smiled at her, and heedless of any onlookers I rubbed two large fingers against her crotch. She barely seemed to notice.

‘Perhaps I could come to live with you in the Capitol.’ These words fluttered from her mouth like dead flies. ‘Then you wouldn’t have to travel so far.’

‘Mm.’ I pulled her closer to me, enveloping her in my coat, and I slipped my fingers into her clothes to find her plump clitoris. Its stimulation disturbed nothing in her face, not even the lightest breeze shifting the branches of a dead tree. ‘That could be nice.’

‘And…’ Finally, her eyes locked on mine and there it was: her familiar plea. ‘And my family could stay here, and we wouldn’t need to… They would be okay.’

I nodded with amused and exasperated understanding. ‘My dear, are you spinning another trick to keep me away from your sister?’ I rubbed her clitoris with one hand and her lower back with the other, warming her, comforting her. ‘You are a silly little creature. You know she belongs to me, if I want to take her. Your reluctance only makes me want her more.’ Then I withdrew my hands and tilted up her chin to stare into her face. What a curious autumn pool she was: deep, dark, decaying. ‘One day, yes. I will take you to live with me in the Capitol, and I will have no more business with your little sister. But I will decide when that day comes. Not you. Do you understand?’

Maxim Gorky, The Life of a Useless Man ☆☆☆☆

The story of a 'useless man' (a put-upon boy, bullied, solitary, lacking in intellectual or emotional intelligence) clashes somewhat awkwardly with Gorky's overt political narrative. The latter is far less interesting than the former, but the former is really good.

Yury Olesha, Envy ☆☆☆☆

Interestingly, my criticisms of Envy are very similar to those of Life of a Useless Man. The first half of this novel is absolutely fantastic: a character portrait of a young man obsessively envious of his employer and landlord, driven almost to psychosis. But then the second half shifts into a completely different mode and suddenly we're in a political allegory about post-revolutionary industrial Russia. It's just much weaker stuff.

Yevgeny Zamyatin, X and Other Stories ☆☆☆☆

Very uneven, but the good was worth the weaker material even though there wasn't much of it. Honestly I'd only really recommend "At the End of the Earth" and "The Flood".

"Provincial Life": A grim and miserable, though effective, story of an awful man "failing up" through rape and lying and luck in a wretched village. This is not an interesting theme to me, but it was well executed. It felt like a better take on Sologub's "The Petty Demon".

"At the End of the Earth": A military settlement and their many mishaps. Full of rich characters and miserable mistakes. I, ah, really enjoyed the marital rape <3

"The Cave": This just felt... unfinished? I was reminded of Dead Man's Letters, which perhaps it inspired. A postapocalyptic story of a couple slowly dying in a cave/apartment, and then suddenly it ends. Really striking atmosphere but this honestly felt like an unfinished manuscript.

"Mamai": I simply did not understand this story. Like "The Cave" it ends extremely abruptly. The reincarnation of Mongolian commander Mamai gets into some scrapes, except the joke is he's a complete coward, and also this is a fantasy version of St Petersburg where the buildings sail through time like ships (which sounds amazing but is literally a background detail), and there is going to be an inspection, and then the story ends. ??

"X": Again, this felt unfinished. There is a repentant (unrepentant) priest in the wake of the revolution, there are rumours and mistaken identity, and then... it ends. I was enjoying it until I turned the final page and it was just... over.

"The Flood": This was strong enough to justify a four star rating for the whole volume. A woman sees her husband begin an affair with another woman, and she... takes it badly. It was nice to read a female perspective that didn't involve constantly fainting and twiddling away about romance. Good pregnancy horror, which I appreciate.

Konstantin Vaginov, Goat Song ☆☆☆