The Womb Is Off-Limits
I had no excuse left in me, and no strength left to invent one. After I'd barely forced my mouth open to beg for my life, her hand came down so heavily I came within a hair of biting my own tongue off. From that point on I just bawled, fat ugly tears rolling down my face, and took the slaps until her fury finally burned itself out.
"You moron. You moronic bitch. Why are you even alive? You can't even recognize your own master. You don't deserve to live, unnie."
Slap. Slap-slap. Slap-slap-slap.
"Ugh—ghk! Nngh! Aaagh!"
At first I'd meant to endure it in silence. Even if the twins had deceived me, the fact remained that I had committed an unforgivable sin, and her rage was justified. She'd always been obsessive to the point of being exhausting, so of course the shock had hit her hard.
That was why I'd intended to take it as a beating born of love and stay quiet until her anger cooled. But what she was doing to me could not be dressed up in any pretty phrase like that.
Thud. Thud-thud!
Her vicious strikes puffed my cheeks until they were swollen and numb, until I couldn't even feel them anymore. Then she shoved me onto my back on the bed so I was staring at the ceiling, raised her fist, and drove it dead-center into my lower abdomen.
"Urgh—ughh!"
Pain so intense I thought my eyeballs would burst from my skull, and at the same time my stomach turned inside out. My airway opened on an uncontrollable wave of nausea, and gastric acid spilled up through it.
"Bleurhh—"
"Ah, ah... p-please, save m...e..."
This was too much. The gut-deep certainty that a few more punches like that would leave me with permanent damage—maybe even a disability—made me rebel for the first time, hard. I dragged my knees up, desperate to shield my lower belly however I could.
She let out a derisive little snort at my resistance, as if it were pathetic.
"Put them down, unnie."
"P-please, sav...e me... hhhngh... please..."
"I won't say it twice. Put your legs down, unnie."
Her smile began to thicken with sadism. It had been a fight I could never win to begin with. No matter how desperately I tried to cover myself, a single word from her reduced me to something more helpless than anyone else in the world.
That mocking smile of hers wasn't there for nothing—it said, what could a thing like you possibly do? I couldn't even break her stubbornness on a normal day. How was I supposed to win against her now, when she'd already stripped me of every scrap of control? Picking stars out of the sky would have been easier.
The only things I could do now were to keep from crossing her any further, and to try, even a little, to touch that soft place in her heart and beg for mercy.
I couldn't afford another word or gesture that might provoke her. So I did as she ordered. I lowered my legs and bared my already flushed, burning abdomen to her.
Cover it. Block it even a little or you won't survive, my body screamed inside my skull—but I didn't cover it. This was the moment to show her my resolve. I was terrified, but I had to show her that her command came first.
Obeying her meekly, and adding just one sentence—no more, no less—would be enough.
"I-if you h-hit my womb... I m-might not be able to have a b-baby... hhngh..."
".............."
The hand she'd raised to drive her fist into my lower belly stopped dead. Her face twisted, as if she didn't like what she was hearing.
I'd spoken on a hunch that it might get through to her, but I hadn't expected it to work this cleanly.
So there really was no law that said I had to die, after all.
Without even realizing it, I had been learning my own laws of survival, the way a rabbit—a prey animal—learns them by instinct.
"...That's a good excuse, unnie. If you'd just said it hurt and asked me to go easy on you this once, I'd have beaten you until there was a hole in your stomach."
She lowered her hand and gently stroked my reddened belly. The way she let out a sigh of relief, as if we'd just narrowly avoided disaster, was striking. But I still couldn't relax. There was no telling when her mood might flip.
Her words were vicious, and even less the kind of thing one woman should say to another—but they reassured me.
I couldn't quite grasp the meaning behind that loaded remark of hers, but the agonizing beating seemed to be over. The thought that I was alive filled my head to the brim.
"...Get up, unnie."
She'd been stroking my belly as if it were something precious. Then, out of nowhere, she said that.
"Okay..."
I didn't question it. I didn't dawdle. I tried to obey her command as completely as I could.
"Nngh... ghh..."
The slaps to my face must have rattled my brain; even a slight turn of my head made my stomach lurch, and I couldn't keep my balance, like a cat with its whiskers cut. But I somehow got to my feet and stood at attention in front of her.
She watched me with a thin, crooked smile.
"...You really do have a pretty face. Everything you do looks like a photoshoot. Even with your cheeks swollen, even with snot and tears running down your face, even with bruises on your belly, even after pissing yourself like a filthy animal—you're as beautiful as a painting. If this were a movie, you'd definitely be playing the princess."
I had no idea why she was saying something like that in a situation like this. I stood at attention, trembling with fear. Whatever this was, it didn't feel like it was going to end warmly. Standing there, I pissed myself.
"...That's why I'm going to punish you more, unnie. A person being punished isn't supposed to look pretty. They're supposed to be wrecked enough to look pitiful. That's what a punished person looks like. You're too pretty right now. Who would look at you and think you were being punished? They'd just think you were a princess."
Spouting that absurd logic, she suddenly swung her arm and struck my breast.
"Aaagh!"
The blow had landed on my chest, but the pain shook my entire brain. The strength went out of my legs, and my body collapsed onto the bed of its own accord—and still.
"Attention."
She was merciless. She issued the command in that same cold voice.
Clutching my aching head, tensing my abdomen as the delayed, throbbing pain climbed through it a beat late, I barely managed to get back on my feet.
"...Stand up straight, unnie."
"I-I'm dizzy... hhngh... i-it's too, too dizzyyy... hhhngh..."
"I said stand up straight, unnie."
As I swayed on my feet, the dizziness pulling my mind far away, her stern voice cut through. I clenched my teeth and stood up straight—and her palm came down on my breast again.
"Aaaagh! Aaagh!"
The pain was one thing, but my head really, truly hurt. It felt like it was going to split open. As if hundreds of tiny needles were stabbing into my brain without mercy, I collapsed where I stood, clutched my head, and rolled around on the bed.
"...Get up, unnie."
I was really going to die like this. I was going to end up a drooling vegetable who remembered nothing. And she was acting like a person who didn't know the meaning of forgiveness.
"N-nooo... I-I'm really going to die. Master. P-please save me. P-please, please save me. I-I'm sorry. Hhhwaaah..."
That stupid, stubborn idea that I would take my punishment without flinching had vanished a long time ago. I hated myself for having used my brain, for once. All I had to do was be myself—feel a little pain, crawl on the floor, and beg for forgiveness. Why had I tried to think?
"...I said get up."
"I-I can't. I-I'll die. I-I'll definitely die. P-please save me. P-please. Master..."
Her hand fisted in my hair, gripping it hard, as if to say that if I wouldn't get up on my own she would force me to my feet. My body began to shake.
I couldn't breathe. My ears went muffled, as if someone had stuffed rubber into them, and I couldn't see well. I'd been through this more than a few times, but the early symptoms of shock were something you never, ever got used to.
"I-I don't want to, Master. I-I don't want to, Master. P-please save me, Master. P-please, please, please."
I put even more strength into the arm wrapped around her ankle. As if my life hung on that one grip.
Tug— rip—
Something tore at my scalp, and a hot pain flared—but the worse it got, the harder I clung to her ankle.
Hard enough that my already-injured wrist screamed. Even as my hair was being ripped out, I clung to her ankle with vicious, desperate tenacity. I was half-mad with terror.
"...Unnie. Have you finally lost your mind? Does 'get up' not sound like words to you?"
Please save me. Please forgive my insolence. If you let me off just this once I'll never do anything this stupid again. If it happens again you can strangle me to death and I'll forgive you—I said everything I could think of.
Maybe that sincerity got through. I felt the grip in my hair slowly begin to loosen.
Her tone had softened, the first wave of her rage ebbing, and she stroked my hair the way you'd soothe a child. The panic in my body began, slowly, to settle. The trembling stopped. My muffled ears cleared. Color started to come back to my eyes.