Content warning for descriptions of rape and sexual assault.
“In Kiev, Kherson, and other areas of the Ukraine, many sexual assaults have
occurred, committed by the occupants. Among other victims was an eighteen-year-
old girl; Russian soldiers have been raping her for eight days straight.”
—La Strada, a public organization
Anna_Kava
Russian fascists should be ripped into pieces! Kill the scumbags!
Maria_Svet
Beasts, moral freaks... May all of the Russian aggressors die on the Ukranian land...
May they never rest in peace!
Oleksandr Rudenko
Their privates with their papers should be sent home, let the dogs have the corpses—
they can strip that shit to the bone!
Pavlusha Kotik
No need to take any prisoners, they all knew where they were going. Shoot them
down, like rabid dogs!
...
There were dozens of comments. The content was pretty much the same. In a
nutshell: hatred for the invaders and calls to commit the utmost brutality against the
fascists, or Russists, who arrived with their guns on the Ukranian lands—that is what
they were called by the Ukranians from the beginning of the war.
Galya was sitting on the floor, her back pressed to the cold radiator, in the
only room of their apartment where the windows were still intact. The door was
closed. The silence of the apartment felt huge and empty. It had been a few days
since she’d heard the sounds of shooting, explosions, and the howling air raid siren
coming from the outside.
She didn’t want to read the comments anymore. She didn’t feel like anything
at all: she didn’t want to drink, eat, or sleep. She didn’t even want to move. Galya
felt as if she had even stopped breathing: her chest moved ever so slightly. Her eyes
almost didn’t blink: she was just staring straight ahead, at the picture standing on a
table. Two young women were looking back at her from the pretty picture frame—
they were clasping each other in an embrace; they were smiling; they were happy.
One of them was Galya. And the other one, Valya, Valusha. They had taken that
picture only about six months ago, when Galya had turned eighteen. Valya was older
by two years.
They had met about two years ago, by chance. Although, nothing ever happens
by accident in this life, does it? That Sunday morning, Galya went to the market with
her mother. They needed to buy some lamb. They were expecting guests and had
decided to prepare a stew because the wife of her father’s friend—Lola, for whose
sake the whole huge feast had been arranged to begin with—came from Central Asia
and of all meats recognized solely the lamb. Lola’s justification for that peculiarity
seemed very strange to Galya: she said that the ram was stupid and didn’t understand
when he was being taken to slaughter and therefore wasn’t full of “hormones of
fear.” And that was why the ram’s meat was the “purest” and healthiest.
Galya and her mother moved from the row of stalls filled with meat to the
vegetable ones. And there, by the counter heaped up with various greens, she saw
Valya standing in the shade under one of the few trees at the open marketplace and
nibbling sunflower seeds. She was spitting the husks into a little plastic bag, not onto
the ground.
Her peculiarity could be seen from afar: strength and weakness all in one. A
mannish, athletic body without even a hint of a waist, muscular legs and arms, coarse
and large facial features, a short haircut with shaved sides, a tattoo on the back of
her neck—all of it seemed to be in a state of horrible dissonance with her defenseless
and childish facial expression. Having sensed Galya’s roasting gaze with her whole
body, Valya shrugged, put the plastic bag filled with husks into a pocket that stuck
out of her cotton dress, and started to walk. Toward Galya. As they were coming
closer to each other, Galya’s heart was beating faster and faster, louder and louder.
At a certain point, she thought everyone around them could hear her heart beating.
A step, another step. The distance between them seemed to decrease faster than they
were walking. Finally, they’d reached each other.
“Hey, I’m Valya. And what’s your name, girl?” Valya asked, sort of how kids
on a playground start a conversation: afraid that they will be rejected and at the same
time hoping that a playmate has been found.
“Galya.” She said her name in a singsong manner. Whatever they were saying,
their intonations didn’t matter in the least. The words disappeared just like the husks
from the sunflower seeds. Whereas their eyes, as if the wet lenses stuck together,
could not be parted. And it was precisely that bond that allowed them to exchange
kilobytes of information at an unbelievable speed.
“Galya, where did you go? I’ve been searching for you everywhere, you silly
girl.” Her mother was out of breath. She grabbed Galya’s arm and dragged her along.
“Ma, wait! I saw...a friend of mine...” said Galya, swallowing hard since she
felt her mouth run dry.
“Come to our place tomorrow! Make sure you come visit us.” Those words
were addressed to Valya.
“I know where to find you.” Smiling queerly, Valya put her hand on her neck,
instinctively willing to cover up her tattoo.
Galya’s mother was watching Valya suspiciously.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that...girlfriend of yours,” her mother grumbled,
continuing to pull Galya along. “There’s still so much to do at home, and we’re
loafing about here. Here, carry this! Not too heavy?”
Mother gave two relatively small bags to Galya and carried the other large and
heavy ones herself.
Throughout the summer holidays that started a week later, Galya and Valya
spent a lot of time together. Valya had already graduated from high school and
worked at a store selling stationery and office supplies. Each day, Galya waited for
her by the store, and they traveled to Dnepr together, where in a secluded secret spot
they could fully belong to each other. First, they would eat the sandwiches, carefully
prepared by Galya and brought from home, with juicy tomatoes and crunchy
cucumbers, cherries, and other fruits that were available at home. Then, exhausted
from the heat and their overloaded stomachs, they would lie on a blanket and watch
the sky. They would hold hands and watch the clouds pass by.
That was where they first kissed. Valya wanted to get to the next level of
physical intimacy there, but Galya refused—she wanted their first time to happen
somewhere more private.
“No, please, let’s do it at your place,” whispered Galya, feeling hot and
aroused, trying to restrain Valya’s hands from wandering all over her body. “I can’t
do it, not here...”
“As you wish, my love,” exhaled Valya into her girlfriend’s ear, then licked
it.
The village where Valya lived consisted mainly of regular wooden houses
with tiny farms in the backyards. They also had glassed-in porches, wells in the yard,
and stoves for heating. She had moved into that house as soon as she left the
orphanage behind. At first, she had lived there with a friend, but at a certain point,
the friend left and Valya had to keep house herself. She fixed the windows as best
she could so the wind wouldn’t get through and fixed the stove so it wouldn’t smoke
up the place. She threw out all of the junk from the cellar and kept jams, pickled
vegetables, and compotes there, which she had prepared herself. She would stock up
on food for the long winter ahead. She would get carried away and prepare more
than she could possibly eat. But at the same time, she had plenty of treats for her city
friends; she would bring treats to work on various celebratory occasions.
Her house was poor but clean. The bed where they loved each other for real
for the very first time was soft and squeaky. The old iron-clad grid had sagged a long
time ago and couldn’t be fixed. But that didn’t matter to the girls: interpenetration,
which filled them both with infinite tenderness and warmth, was much more
important.
After the act, they talked incessantly about men, sex, kids, and childbearing.
Pretty much about everything.
Valya told Galya about her life at the orphanage. How she had dreamed of
someone who would adopt her. She had a recurring dream in which she was walking
by a man’s side, holding his hand. He was her father, and she was so proud, proud
that she had him.
“Let me comb your hair,” she would tell Galya and with great pleasure, taking
her time, would comb through her long thick hair. She shared with Galya that she
could physically imagine and feel how her foster mother would comb and wash her
wavy locks. For whatever reason, she always missed that type of tactile contact the
most.
“I personally hate it when my mother combs my hair!”
“Why?”
“Well, it hurts! She pulls too hard,” Galya tried to explain but realized that
Valya would probably never understand.
“What about your father? Did he ever walk you to school, hold you by the
hand, for example?”
“He did, whenever mother would send him. He is a typical pussy.” Galya sat
naked, tucking her feet under, and her nakedness felt like freedom to her. “Mother
made him that way: there are only her wishes and needs. He obeys her completely.”
“Does he love you?”
“Of course. And I love him. He and I—we are both victims...” She smiled.
“Of our authoritative mother.”
“Do you think she’d be able to accept our relationship?”
“No.” Galya stood up abruptly, threw a robe over her shoulders. “Never. She’d
kill me sooner.”
“And your dad?”
“I’m afraid he won’t be able to help me...”
“Well then, I’m going into the cellar. I’ll bring some jam for us. We’ll have
some tea with sweets; we’ll sweeten the sourness of these words!” Valya got dressed
and climbed the ladder down to the cellar to grab a jar.
“Strawberry or raspberry?” Her voice came from under the floor.
“Whichever,” responded Galya with indifference.
...
From the very first blows of the occupants directed at their city, Galya and her
parents would run to the bomb shelter whenever they heard an air raid siren go off.
There was more and more destruction. They would attack civilian targets: a theater
already stood in shambles; a whole wall of a municipal hospital had come down;
there was a huge gaping pit in the middle of the market square; around it there were
heaps of construction waste and the remains of tents, booths, and counters.
Only a week later, Galya was able to escape from home. She went to visit
Valya. The outskirts, where her friend lived, would be fired at quite often, and
Galya’s heart was aching from worry about her beloved. She had never prayed
before since her family was not religious at all, but the war changed everything: she
began to address God and ask him for help and tell him about her worries often.
“Please hear me, God! Please have mercy on your servant Valentina; protect
her from a bullet, a splinter! I am worried sick about her, oh God!” Galya pleaded
as she could. She didn’t know how to pray and didn’t know any prayers.
“Forgive me, oh God! I don’t know how to address you or speak to you
properly to make sure that you hear me! I swear I’ll learn some prayers, I’ll go to
church and go to services, and I will thank you for your help!”
Once, her mother had gone to pick up some grocery packs that were being
distributed by volunteers from humanitarian convoys, and she had written a note and
left it on the table. She wrote that she had gone to see a friend and would be staying
with her for the night. Father was sent to pick up some wood to strengthen the
window frames, which had partially fallen out from the bombardment.
It took Galya almost two and a half hours to reach Valya’s house. Her heart
was beating with joy when from around the corner she saw the house standing
there—all safe and sound. There were several burnt cars on the street, two distorted
tanks with a letter Z on the armor. A scorched corpse was lying on the ground by a
tank. Galya had never seen the war that close...
Valya was making soup out of vegetables and canned, stewed meat. The smell
of food had filled the whole house, and when Galya opened the door, the smell hit
her so hard in the nose that she could barely stand. Or perhaps she was just extremely
tired. Or she was just extremely happy to see Valya alive...
Of course, she stayed with Valya for the night. It felt so calm and sweet,
sleeping together, holding each other. In the morning, they heard the roar of the tank
engines and rushed into the cellar. The girls thought they’d shoot. But the occupants
burst into the house, having easily broken the lock on the flimsy door. They searched
the whole house, and a burst of gunfire hit the closed lid of the cellar.
Galya screamed from fear.
Someone yelled back in Russian, “Come out, come out, wherever you are! I’ll
shoot!”
Trembling from fear, Galya followed Valya, who resolutely went up the
ladder first, covering her girlfriend.
There were five men in the house: two young soldiers and three officers,
apparently. A thought crossed Galya’s mind: They are my father’s age. And one
officer even almost looked like her father. Almost. The room was turned upside
down: the closet was open, clothes were scattered around the floor, and the ledge on
one side was torn from the wall and was hanging across the window.
“Who are you bitches hiding from?” asked the superior officer.
“From the bombs,” answered Valya hardly loud enough.
“Who lives in the house?” continued the questioning superior. Two soldiers
were holding Valya from both sides, as if she could run away—her legs had turned
to rubber.
“Nobody, it’s just me. My friend came to visit,” babbled Valya, nodding in
Galya’s direction.
“Anyone in the neighboring houses?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been outside in a while,” Valya said, and the officer
struck her straight across the face.
Her head bounced and a stream of blood came out of her nose. When the blood
reached the corner of her mouth, Valya licked it off, and the left corner of her mouth
turned red.
Just like a vampire, thought Galya.
“Why the hell are you talking to her? Drag her out into the yard, and we’ll ask
the youngster a few questions,” shouted the officer who had momentarily reminded
her of her father.
Two soldiers who were holding Valya dragged her toward the terrace. She
tried to resist, but she wasn’t strong enough to fight two large men. She was trying
to turn her head to be able to see Galya. She wanted to tell her with her gaze that she
supported and loved her. At least like that.
“I love you; never forget that!” shouted Valya when she was already behind
the door, out on the porch.
“Hullo! You two are lesbians,” happily cooed the senior officer. “Lookie
here!”
He grabbed Galya by the shoulders and pushed her to the table. Confused, she
didn’t resist. In any case, resistance was futile.
“Let me show you what the almighty dick is capable of!” The officer
unbuttoned his pants and approached the group at the table: two soldiers were
holding her from either side; she was spread-eagle on the table. The soldiers tore her
clothes to pieces and cut her panties off with a knife. Galya shut her eyes, so as not
to see their disgusting grinning mugs.
They raped her in turns, one after another. The officer that resembled her
father ran it all. The only thing that she begged God to do was to make her lose
consciousness so that she wouldn’t feel pain, shame, and repugnance, which covered
her like a wave at each friction of the rapists. Through all that horror, she heard an
explosion outside. It seemed to her that it had come from one of the neighboring
houses. The three men, standing at the table, grabbed her and pushed her into the
cellar, closed the lid, and locked it from the outside so that she couldn’t get out. They
ran out. And soon they all returned. The five of them. She could hear their footsteps,
their voices, and could smell the food being cooked. They were frying something—
it stank. It was a sickening smell. She vomited.
Galya was trying to listen to their conversation. She was worried that Valya
had disappeared. But no one mentioned her. They were discussing the explosion. It
seemed like several soldiers from their subdivision, afraid of the probable treachery
of the residents of the neighboring house toward them—the unwelcome visitors—
opened the door and threw a hand grenade in. Then they entered the house without
fear. It turned out that there were only two elderly people in the house. Their bodies
were thrown out behind the gate. The cow, standing in a barn adjoining the house,
got wounded by the splinters from the explosion. So, the soldiers had no choice but
to shoot her. Someone stayed behind to cut the meat: the soldiers decided to fry it
and feed their brothers-in-arms.
***
Very quickly Galya lost track of time. She couldn’t understand what time or
what day it was anymore.
Most of all the thought of where Valya could possibly be occupied Galya’s
mind. Valya, Valechka, Valyusha.
It would have been better for her not to resist those jerks. Now she’s probably
locked up somewhere in a basement. It’s full of holes; it’s cold down there, thought
Galya. She imagined how once those degenerates were gone, she and Valya would
embrace, warm each other up; they would cry a little and promise each other that
they would forget what had happened to them once and for all. They would leave
this place, this town and perhaps even this country. There were many refugees now;
they could get lost among them. Of course, Valya would be against that. She loved
the Ukraine, Dnepr, the nature and people. After all, Galya’s parents were here too.
But who could guarantee that once again the predatory sharp-toothed neighbor
wouldn’t crush their world with the war? Would she be able to live with the thought
that this could happen again?
The young soldiers, fresh out of school, were extremely sexually active and
would drag her out of the cellarseveral times per day. Everything would repeat itself:
they would throw her down onto the table, pull her torn clothes up, open her legs,
then press their bodies against her, squeeze her breasts and her belly, roar with
laughter, curse, roar like wild beasts, cover her with sperm. The most repugnant of
the soldiers kissed her on the lips, bit her lips until they bled, tried to shove his
disgusting huge tongue down her throat. At times, he would shove his dick down her
throat too. Galya felt like she would choke, but her gag reflex would save her.
Every once in a while she would end up facedown, with her belly on the table.
That saved her from redundant cringeworthy grappling and stinking breath, but the
penetration itself hurt more.
Galya didn’t want to think about what those beasts were doing to Valya. She
was certain that they were raping her also but Valya didn’t scream because she didn’t
want Galya to hear her screams. And that was precisely why Galya would clench
her teeth and silently endure the violence. She would only moan quietly when it was
completely unbearable. She would cry in the cellar, quietly, into a handkerchief. She
would pour her pain out through tears. It helped.
“Open your eyes wider, oh God! Look what horrible and foul things these
monsters are doing to us!” she prayed. “Punish them, please! You are wise; you’ll
decide what kind of punishment they deserve. Just cast a glance at us...”
Half-dazed, she muttered the address of Valya’s home, sending her prayers to
the Almighty over and over again.
Later on, she convinced herself that Valya had been able to escape. If they
were raping her too, it was unlikely they were spewing quite so much lust onto her...
And Galya was sure that one of the soldiers would have spilled the beans by now.
But no one mentioned Valya at all: Galya was trying to pay attention to their
conversations. Only once, in the beginning, the three officers cursed and discussed
her beloved. Naturally, in the most unflattering manner. At that, the more drunk they
got, the more their speech became meaningless and the richer in threats. She couldn’t
understand what they’d wanted to do with Valya if she was being kept captive.
Soon that one nasty soldier was brought in; he was wounded and the others
left him on the porch. He screamed from pain, moaned and cursed, then mumbled
something incoherent loudly, being in a feverish state. The night had gone by. That
was the first night the lid of the cellar opened only once, when someone threw in a
piece of bread and a bottle of water.
There were compotes, juices, pickled vegetables in the cellar—one wouldn’t
die of hunger. Valyusha was a good hostess. And her childhood spent in an
orphanage had made her very thrifty. Once, Valya had received a salary in the form
of products from the store where she worked: there was paper, notebooks, pens,
pencils, and even glue. All that treasure was neatly kept in the corner of the cellar.
“Why are you keeping this?” Galya used to laugh. “Give it to the girls and
boys in the village!”
“You don’t understand; it might come in handy one day,” Valya would answer
earnestly.
“It did come in handy indeed,” said Galya aloud, holding a notebook and a
pen in her hands. She decided to write a letter to Valya:
Valyusha,
I know, you’re going to come after me soon! My dear Valyusha, I love you so
much! I miss your touch, your tender kisses behind my ear, on my neck, around
my nipples... I’m out of breath even now imagining how you made a
wandering path with your kisses from my breasts to my navel, and then lower
toward my lap. When your fingers gently touched my clitoris, I was already
wet. The vaginal moisture oozed from everywhere, even from my eyes it
seemed. Even those simple tender touches were enough to make me come. But
that was the moment when your tongue would attack me, and it took me to
cloud nine!
Our love, the love that we share, is so different from the loathsome
things that the Russists did to me. I think that the sensation of a stake being
stuck in my crotch is never going to go away! As if someone stuck the handle
of an ax into my pussy and forgot to take it out...
You’re going to ask if it hurt? Yes. But the physical pain was not as
awful as the moral one... It was completely useless to resist or scream. I was
a complete rag doll in their hands; I was a vessel that took in their lust and
excreta. They stank, panted, sweated, screamed, roared with laughter,
covered me in their sperm, and then fell off from exhaustion like a bug filled
with blood falls off its victim’s body. They were poking so furiously with their
dicks, attempting to receive love from me, but that is not how one receives
love. That made them even angrier, and they would hit me, scream curses at
me, demanding something of me that I wouldn’t have been able to provide,
not for any money or promises in the world.
Every night, when they would come home, they would eat and get drunk
on vodka; they would then open the lid of the cellar and demand for me to
come out. When my head would appear above the floor level, they would grab
me by my hair and pull. They made me clean up the table, then they would
shove me onto that same table in order to fuck me one by one, over and over
again. After that they would send me back into the cellar, having thrown some
bread and boiled potatoes and a couple of plastic bottles of water after me. I
tried to clean myself up as best I could, but their sperm was everywhere. I’m
covered in it even now. The smell never leaves me. Even though the soldiers
are long gone. I can hear that the house is empty. No one is walking around;
the wounded man is not moaning anymore. I think they’re all dead now. I
don’t know how, but they disappeared from the face of the Earth. I feel it.
I don’t understand why the fact that we were lesbians infuriated them
so much. Remember, you told me that women fully accept homosexual
relationships between men but not women. These men were peculiar;
something was so wrong with them. They furiously reproached lesbians. They
discussed you among themselves and called you a man without balls, as if you
had gotten a false idea of your own importance and God had punished you.
You are strong and I believe you were able to fight them and run away. I know
you’re thinking night and day of how to get me out of here! And I know you’ll
be able to save me. I’ll wait; don’t worry about me, Valyusha. I love you so
very much!
Yours always,
Galya
In the morning, she saw the light coming through the floor boards. She tried
to get out of the cellar, but the lid was closed from the outside. In the evening, the
cracks in the floor began to let the darkness through. And the dead silence. It seemed
like the whole world around ceased to exist. Even the dogs didn’t bark. The roosters
didn’t cry, proclaiming the sunrise. Two days more had passed. Finally, she heard
footsteps. Those were not soldiers, she had a feeling. And so, she screamed as loud
as she possibly could.
When Galya went down the front steps of the house, she saw Valya’s bloody
corpse right away: her arms were tied behind her back, her breasts had been cut off,
and a cane was sticking out of her vagina. A knife, stuck in her stomach, pinned
down a note with the following message written in crooked letters: “Not a lesbian
anymore.”
“Shut your eyes, oh God! Don’t look here...” was the last thing that Galya
whispered before she lost consciousness...
***
“In the N. Village of the Kiev region, after the departure of the Russian occupants,
multiple cases of violence against the civilians of particular savagery were
established. Hanging from the front gates of one of the houses a mutilated corpse of
a hanged young woman was found.”
—An excerpt from the newspaper Oblasniy Visnik
Lisa Monde is a writer, playwright, composer, director, actress and performer. Writing stories and novels is a new step in Lisa's creative life. Previously she focused mainly on plays and musicals. Lisa is the author of the historical drama about the famous poet of the 15th century Francois Villon called - "I Know All Save Myself Alone" (2014 XLibris, 2019 Bookwhip), which in 2021 received a Reader’s Choice Award with TCK publishing, as well as "Saint Francis: Religion of Love" which has recently been published by the Christian Faith Publishing. To find out more about Lisa, visit her website www.lisa-monde.com. Memberships include Dramatists Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, CID Unesco, AFM, AGMA.