The Devil in music

Abstract:

We all find ourselves on the brink of hell. Sometimes. But what if you suddenly realize you've been standing on that edge your whole life? Perhaps leaving is not an option.

As always, there is enough lust in the story, but that's not the main point.

***

Icy water sprayed from the silver showerhead hanging under the ceiling, where for several years now, rust had been inexorably spreading in tiny islands. The stream crashed noisily against the bottom of the bathtub, splashing the pale, thin legs of a young girl, and began to hiss steadily, drowning out all the other sounds that had previously reached her from behind the door.

The cold burned her legs. This instantly brought her to her senses and she reflexively

staggered back. She braced her right hand against the tiled wall and retreated in small steps from the spreading film of water on the bottom, spreading her legs to the very edges of the tub.

The girl shrank from the cold. Her tall, slender body began to tremble finely. In an attempt to preserve warmth, she reflexively hunched her narrow shoulders, causing her small breasts to press together and goosebumps to sprinkle her skin. Her nipples tightened and turned into two light-brown pebbles.

— Oooohhhh… — A ragged sigh escaped her chest. — Now I'll be peeing a drop every twenty minutes for a week… That's exactly what's going to happen!

The girl clenched her teeth, began breathing rapidly, and lowered her eyes.

— … Stupid idiot… Everything's a mess… No wonder she says I'm not smart enough…

I'm lacking everything: brains, a face… Tits like a kid's, crooked legs, an ugly ass. A fucking bitch…

From this unexpected surge of emotion, two tiny droplets gathered in her dark brown eyes. The girl reached for her face and snatched off her glasses. Skirting the shower stream to avoid the cold water again, she slightly opened the pink-and-white checkered screen and carelessly clattered them onto the sink.

She took the showerhead off the wall and slowly began to pour hot water over herself—first over her legs, washing away the remaining streaks of urine, then raised the shower higher and drenched her stomach, chest, back, and head. Her hair turned from dark chestnut to black.

She felt cozy and calm; the shower washed away her headache and the salty taste of resentment. The girl leaned her shoulder against the tiled wall. She poured hot water over herself, stared meditatively at one spot, and savored with relish the bitterness of the recent quarrel, replaying in her head more and more new barbs that she had so lacked yesterday in the argument with her mother.

Someone knocked on the door.

— For God's sake, isn't it obvious it's occupied? I'm washing! — she snapped irritably.

There was no answer.

— Mother? Does she want to make up or something? First she picks a fight, and now she's barging in? Should've thought about that yesterday! Could've supported me, given advice before the exam… But with her questions: Medicine, her stupid choice, or Foreign Languages? How should I know? Damn, I'd rather go sell watermelons by the highway after graduation… specially for .o

rg. Wants to make up. Let her want!

But just as the girl began to sink back into her thoughts, a quiet creak of the opening door cut through the hiss of the water, tearing her out of the blissful feeling of warmth with rusty metal claws.

And then another voice sounded in her head, different from the one that a minute ago had suggested how to shut her mother up more sharply. The new voice mocked her: Stupid. But it might not be Mom. Where would she be today? Think—what did you forget?

Her pupils dilated, a slight tremor ran through her hands.

— Mom? — she uttered soundlessly. — Please, let it be you…

— Mom… — forcing it out, now aloud, she said again.

Instead of an answer, a quiet humming came from behind the screen—a melody terrifyingly familiar from childhood. And then a bitter realization stunned her: today is the second Thursday of the month! On any other day it would be Mom, but not now…

Once a month, Mother leaves for her morning appointment two hours earlier. Every second Thursday of the month. Today.

— Mom, mommy… mommy dear… what a fool I am to be angry with you, my darling… — she whispered rapidly, pressing the handle of the flowing shower into her chest in helplessness, as if it were a talisman that would protect her. — If I hadn't been angry with you, you would have woken me up today and driven me to school, and none of this would be happening now… Mom!

But nothing could be fixed anymore.

— Yulka? Is that you in there?! — a low voice rasped in surprise from behind the screen. — Washing? Ah, I'll just be a second! Give me the soap… Okay, don't get distracted, I'll get it myself. — A sinewy male hand slightly moved the screen aside and slowly drifted towards the gels, creams, and shampoos piled in the corner. Yulia watched it with horror. The girl shrank again and backed away, just as she had a few minutes ago when the cold water licked her feet.

The hand grabbed a jar of depilatory cream—the first thing the fingers touched—and disappeared behind the screen.

Her lips trembled. In any other situation, she would have burst into tears long ago—for Yulia, that was trivial—but now, like a cornered animal, she huddled in the corner and became all ears. Her wide-open eyes stared blankly at the wall tiles. Yulia tried to understand what… he was doing.

Humming. That childhood melody again. A melody that lay on bare nerves, plucked at them, extracting notes of fear, despair, and hopelessness from the girl. Together they formed a chilling chord of memories. Before, it had sounded atonal—little Yulia didn't understand why what… he did bothered her. Over time, the unease grew and turned to shame. By the age of twelve, when the girl finally understood the nature of her feelings, the chord finally sounded as it should. It coalesced into an unrelenting, pursuing fear.

Gloomy solfeggio lessons in the basement—Yulia didn't really remember much from them anymore, but for some strange habit, she measured her feelings with music. From the small school course, only a short story from their grim teacher about the tritone remained in her head.

— … The tritone is a strong dissonance that ignorant medieval clerics called the devil's music…

Right now, her feelings sounded exactly like that. It was an evil that gave her no peace; an evil that penetrated everywhere, like sound; an evil that sought her out and found her. Diabolus in musica…

He only hummed his melody at such moments. He probably didn't realize it himself. But Yulia had noticed it long ago.

After half a minute of tense silence, accompanied only by shuffling and the noise of water, the screen trembled and opened slightly. The same hand carried the jar back. Unable to place the cream in its original spot right away, the hand pushed the screen open wider. Following the hand, a head appeared—an unshaven male face and burning eyes. Yulia looked into them with fear, unable to look away, as if gazing into an abyss. They also glanced over her briefly.

— Yulia, what are you doing, not washing, just standing? — he put the jar next to the shampoo. — Still haven't learned how to soap yourself properly, clumsy? — a chuckle. Now the man turned his head and looked directly at her.

— Come here! Come on, come on, why are you standing there?

The girl stepped forward resignedly. He grabbed her arm with a jerk and pulled her closer.

— Eighteen years old, and Dad still has to wash you — her stepfather's voice sounded cheerful — Well now… come on… turn around!

Yulia turned her back to him. The man took the soap from the sink, wet it under the shower stream, and began

to stroke the girl with a trembling palm, spreading the slippery lather between her thin shoulder blades and over her lower back. With his other hand, he gripped her elbow like a vise. Tears rolled from her wide-open eyes down the girl's pale cheeks, and her fingers dug into the shower handle, pressing it even tighter against her stomach.

— You could never soap your back properly, Yulenka… — like this. — Put the showerhead on the floor. I said put it down! We'll wash you properly now…

It didn't last long; soon he firmly hugged and pressed the girl's soapy back against his T-shirt. Then he wrapped an arm around her waist and just as briskly began soaping her flat stomach, digging his steel fingers into it again and again. Sometimes his hand rose too high and carelessly brushed against her breast.

— Yulka, how come you can't even wash yourself properly? — he spoke louder and more cheerfully. — If Mom finds out, she'll laugh… But we won't tell her. Don't worry, Yulia… we won't tell.

Yulia wasn't listening to him; she remained silent and tried not to move. And he didn't expect an answer from her.

The louder and more confidently he spoke, the bolder and freer his hands roamed over her body. The prelude with her stomach quickly ended, and now, without pretense or subterfuge, he moved his hand to her breasts. Both of them easily fit into the rough male palm, but grabbing the tiny breasts in the soapy lather was difficult—time and again they slipped out, escaping the grasping paws. When he did manage it, he squeezed the flattened mound with his fingers until it was maddening. With a demonic, inhuman frenzy, he pressed the already swollen and reddened breasts. His movements resembled the rough efforts of a laundress wringing out barely damp laundry, trying to squeeze out the last drops of moisture. The girl felt as if this beast wanted to crush her, tear her tender flesh—only that way could he be sated.

She couldn't bear it any longer, and Yulia burst into tears. Her lanky, fragile body shook, which only made the man grunt, knead her breasts harder, and finally, when Yulia's legs began to buckle, he gave her nipple a final tug and pushed her away from him towards the wall.

He didn't speak anymore: he just pressed a palm between her shoulder blades so the girl leaned against the tiled wall, and slipped his other hand between her legs, gently pulling her pubic area towards him. Yulia arched her back. Her face and chest pressed tightly against the wall, and the hard tile now seemed to absorb the burning pain of his torment, giving the girl its pleasant coolness in return.

A huge, hot paw rested on her buttocks. It slid between them, and his thumb pressed against the tight ring of her anus. The girl reflexively tried to close up, but her stepfather only pressed her harder into the wall, and she again assumed the same defenseless position.

He pressed—the finger went in a few centimeters, and the rest of his palm settled between her legs. Yulia felt every movement distinctly. His sharp, carelessly trimmed nails caught her tender skin, leaving tiny, burning scratches. She endured obediently. The man pressed his finger harder and began to gradually twist it, forcing his way inside. It wasn't easy, but he had enough strength—the finger slowly penetrated her—it just took longer and was more painful.

Finally, the entire finger was inside her, and now her stepfather's movements became sweeping and ragged. With one hand, he pressed on Yulia's back, and with the other, gripping her youthful flesh, he seemed to try to hurt the girl as much as the strength of his huge paws allowed. When he began to move his hand from side to side to stretch the tense ring of her anus as much as possible, her patience ran out—she whimpered, rose on her tiptoes, and jerked, trying to get off him.

A final effort—he squeezed the hand holding Yulia between her legs several times, as much as the position allowed, then gradually loosened his grip. The pain began to recede. Yulia still stood with her back to him and couldn't see anything, but she knew perfectly well that her stepfather had just squinted his eyes, bit his lip, shook his head out of sync, clenched his buttocks, and a dark stain began to spread on his underwear. Yulia remembered what his orgasm looked like from early childhood, and each time it frightened her no less than before, although along with the fear came the long-awaited relief—this was the final deafening cadence of the tritone—the loudest and longest, which gradually faded and finally disappeared altogether.

He carefully and slowly pulled his finger out of Yulia. She didn't turn around. The fact that her stepfather had just quietly left was announced by the door creaking for the second time that day.

With dried tears and a detached gaze, Yulia slowly sank to the bottom of the tub. She ran her hand over her scarlet chest, where here and there the marks of his fingers were swelling and disgusting greenish and brownish bruises were beginning to form. She ran her hand over her stomach, over the coarse hair on her pubis, and slid lower. Biting her lip, she stroked her tormented vagina—slowly and lovingly, soothing the pain he had caused. But soon her movements became sharper and more depraved. She moved her finger to her clitoris and began persistently extracting the growing pleasure from it.

She didn't penetrate inside, just like her tormentor.

— How does he know… ? Knows I'm still a virgin? He senses it, and for now… doesn't take me. But when will he?

This thought became the harbinger of her orgasm. A second later, the girl closed her eyes, jerked her hips several times, and tensed. The orgasm was powerful and long—a flash of fire shot through her body. One, then another, a third. They wrapped the girl in bonds of pleasure, and every pulse emanating from her clitoris gave unearthly bliss, which then, as if unwilling to say goodbye, slowly and pleasantly drained away, leaving behind a viscous trail of relaxing satisfaction.

After the orgasm, the girl went limp. She turned on her side and lowered the same detached gaze to the flowing water. How long had it been since she last came? Four, five months? Maybe half a year? How long had it been since she last accidentally found herself alone with him? Yulia couldn't remember. She lay on her back again, shifted her gaze to the white ceiling, and now hiding nothing, first trembled timidly, then, finally giving herself free rein, wept inconsolably.

Author's Afterword

The story Diabolus in musica is a short sketch not intended to have a continuation. If you liked it, you can leave your rating, as you can if you didn't like it. Don't be shy.

This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to real people is coincidental. Do not attempt to repeat this in real life.

//A