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CHAPTER 6
NEWSPEAK.
BRINKMANSHIP
Neena Alexandrovna to Svetlana Nikitechna
Electronic AudioMemo: Re: Vyera: Language Tuition, Stage 1
I began Vyera’s language tuition today. First, I plan to teach her to read Cyrillic characters and to give her a range of commands and responses in Russian which are suitable for a slave. This will confine her within a linguistic prison and maintain her in the role we intend for her. Her prison can be ‘extended’ by adding new vocabulary as her training progresses and she is ready to take on new duties. For practical reasons I will have to use some English with her but apart what I say, the only language she hears will be Russian and I hope this will increase her sense of isolation and vulnerability and her dependence on us in general and on me, in particular.
By the time she gains a reasonable fluency and her new language becomes second nature to her, it is my intention that her training will have taken complete control of her and she will not be able to imagine herself as anything other than our slave.
I attach my thoughts, as the events of this first session unfolded:-
She looks very tired and anxious as she is brought in. I am pleased to see how the stress of her interrogation has left its mark and I hope this will make her easier to work with and more agreeable. She is still naked, of course and at this stage, before she becomes used to it, her nakedness will spark feelings of embarrassment and vulnerability, making her yet more malleable and wearing down her psychological defences more quickly. I greet her in a friendly way but she reflects a sullen anger back to me. I see it rising up from inside her and thanks to her weakened psychological state, she will easily loose control of herself. In fact if she was dropped in water, I am sure that Vyera’s anger would be enough to make the water boil! Her emotional condition gives me another weapon to use against her and I will look carefully for a suitable opportunity.
I am taken from my cell, back to the interrogation room but this time, the only one there apart from me is my abductor, the girl Neena.
She looks up as I am brought in. She smiles. I really hate her when she smiles. She motions me to sit at the table. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why I should not. I look at her steadily. I want her to be quite clear about how I feel. I want her to know how angry I am, at what she has done to me.
As I sit to face her, I have my first really good look at my abductor. It’s just her and me. There are no distractions from the bustle of a street in London or the terror and fatigue of the interrogation they put me through. She is a little shorter than me. Very pale blond hair, pale grey eyes, slightly prominent cheek bones and lips full and lips everted just a touch. In another place and at another time, I might find her lips very inviting. Very kissable. But now she holds no sexual attraction for me. When she has spoken – after she had cold water poured over me – I noticed she has straight white teeth and a little midline gap. The sort of person who has a broad smile. She reminds me slightly of Maria Sharapova, the tennis player – there’s the same rather determined look, the same air of someone convinced she can better whoever she choses.
On the table there are some plain white index cards, a pencil and two books. One has large funny-looking letters printed in it. The other is a picture book (1). On the cover it has cartoons of small children with words beneath each picture – pictures of The Kitchen, The Hall, The Garden, The Shop and so on. It’s the sort of book you might use with a young child learning to read. Neena also has what looks like an “audio wand” such as you get at a Museum, to guide you around the exhibits.
I gaze steadily at Vyera. There is clearly a lot of work to do with her. Vyera should learn quickly, given her abilities but of course there will be obstacles. Nevertheless, she has made a very good impression on me over the past few days, during her interviews
She is an attractive specimen. She - of course – does not have the usual Slavic facial features and she looks different perhaps just a little exotic. She is a few centimeters taller than I am which means she has to look down just a little when I speak to her. Slaves should get used to glancing down and not looking at their Owners or Superiors in the eye! She has an attractive face with a very attractive head. Being shaven really suites her. Her ears are well formed but quite small and sit neat and parallel to her skull. She has attractive straight teeth and a strong chin. It’s not quite an English face and not quite a ‘Baltic’ face, either. I think it’s her pale green eyes which mark her out? Somewhere in between. Her genetics, no doubt. It’s always a pleasure to work with attractive material and she is definitely attractive. For a moment my mind strays to an image of Vyera spread out on my bed. Tied in position. On display. She will be such a tasty girl to play with especially when she has accepted her fate …
However, I have to push these interesting prospects to one side. It is time to begin and I intend to begin with a lesson about names
The girl Neena begins the lesson or whatever it is we are supposed to be doing but she keeps muttering into a small dictating machine. It’s so rude! Does she want to talk to me or doesn’t she? If I could, I would just get up and walk out. But I am too tired and frightened to do anything of the sort – and where would I go? Finally, she decides to pay me some direct attention.
“Ah, Vyerka!” (2) she begins. I'm confused. I thought she was calling me “Vyera” but perhaps I misheard. “It’s time you began to learn something of your new language. We will start with your name. Your full name is Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova. Do you understand?” She looks at me getting no response but not appearing worried by it. “There is a problem though. Vyera is an adult name and you are a slave, so we need something else.” None of this makes any sense but perhaps it is the least absurd feature of my life here. “We will call you Vyerochka, which is the child’s version of Vyera, like 'little Vyera' do you see?”
I’m now beyond mere anger at the patronising way she is speaking to me. How dare she talki to me this way, How dare she say I'm no more than a child. I should be back at work, writing my PhD. She’s talking to me as if I was at Primary School.
But it gets worse. Neena hasn't finished. “Now, if you have done good work and we are pleased with you, we will call you Vyerochka. This is right for a good child or a good slave but it’s not good for slaves to be praised too often. They forget their place, forget that they are,” she almost spits it out, “owned. It would not be good for that to happen would it?” She isn't in the least interested in my reply. “So we will use Vyerka, which is the right form for your name in these circumstances. Never Vyera, sometimes Vyerochka but mostly Vyerka. It almost rhymes with the English word ‘worker’ - which is what you are going to be, for the rest of your life. So, Vyerka, I want you to make notes on these cards and learn the words in this book and learn these words from this book. Each word in this book has a number and when you enter the number on the wand, you will hear me say the word for you. Do you understand?”
I make no attempt to hide my feelings. They must be clearly visible in my face.
She doesn’t respond; she just raises one eyebrow in reply. Then: “Do you understand?” she begins.
“Understand?” I snap back. The anger coursing through me is the perfect antidote to the fears that Neena and her male colleague stirred up in me yesterday. “Look - let me tell you, you cannot do this! You just cannot do this! I will be missed. When I don’t turn up at work people will come looking for me. The police will be sent for and when the police find me, they will find you!”
Neena leans back in her chair and regards me with a half smile playing on her lips and starts speaking into her blasted dictating machine again.
The interrogation has taken its toll but I can see the anger and defiance clearly written on our little slave’s face and she is still ready to put up a fight.
I find her resilience surprising. It is hard to imagine a young woman, naked and bald, behaving as bravely as Vyera does. Her whole manner reinforces Anatoly Sergeyevich’s (3) view of her, which I feel absolutely sure, is not what Vyera intends! I sit quietly listening to her rants. There is no point in interrupting. She spoke bravely but her words show that she still completely misunderstands her situation. After a monent’s reflection, I feel rather pleased. I could have some fun. I look at Vyera carefully. There is quite a stubble on her head. I recall our intention to have all her body hair lasered off. I wonder how she will reconcile herself to that?
“Hmmm?” is all she says finally chooses to speak to me. She doesn’t contradict me, doesn’t argue, she just leans forward, holding my eyes with hers and asks, “Little rabinya Vyerka, just where do you think you are?”
I hadn’t really thought about it, until she asked. Where I am is about the walls and the doors. I haven’t been thinking about the world outside.
“Where do I think I am? I don’t know. London, I suppose or somewhere near there.”
“So, little slave Vyerka thinks she is in London?”
And now at last my spirits soar! She has made a mistake! She has got a word wrong. She – and all the rest of them - are pretending to be Russians and they have got a Russian word wrong!
“Yes. You are holding me in London or somewhere near there and by the way, now I know, I know absolutely for sure, that this is all some form of pretence, because the word for slave in Russian is ‘sluzhanka’, not … not that other word you said.
“Rabinya?”
“Yes: the Russian for slave is ‘sluzhanka’: Ylena Zhukova told me. And she really is Russian. She told me”
Vyera had begun to threaten me with the possibility of a rescue by the British police so I asked her to tell me where she thought she was. In her opinion, she is being held near London! Her remark shows how disorienting her treatment has been. Even though everything is so alien Vyera is hanging on to the idea that she must be somewhere near home. It’s perfect, I thought. She is completely out of touch with the reality of the situation. And, if that was not enough, she is unaware of the true meaning of ‘sluzhanka’. Wonderful!
“I see,” she turns towards me and continues, slowly. “That is understandable but wrong. On two counts. First, words. Sluzhanka means servant. That is appropriate for consensual games, I suppose.” She looks as one who is genuinely considering the point; as though she had not reflected on the matter before. Then she puts the thought to one side as interesting but in the context of now, irrelevant. “But this is not a consensual game anymore. This is reality. Reality needs the real word. The real word in Russian for a female slave is Rabinya. You are now rabinya.” The word is bluntly spat out. It sounds like a bluntly efficient word, a stark and bleak word. It lacks the smoother, more sensual sound of sluzhanka. She is obviously pleased to disillusion me.
“Second, geography. You are not in London. Nowhere even near London, as you would realise at once if you went outside to see for yourself.”
“Well how can I go outside when you keep me locked in here?”
I see her pause for a moment. I can tell that she thinks me naive. It’s as though she’s waiting to turn every word I utter against me; like some sort of judo fighter sparring with their opponent, tempting them into a false move, ready to use an opponent’s strength and weight against them.
Neena calls out to the air: “Open the cell door and the outside door.”
There is a mechanical click from the cell door in reply.
“Vyerka ….”
“My name is Jenny and I would prefer Mrs McEwan from you.”
“Of course.” Neena nods understandingly but ignores my request, the irritating, patronising smile still playing on her lips. “Vyerka, why don’t you go outside and see for yourself? You will find the doors open. Go into the corridor, turn right, walk through two other doors and turn left through the door into the garden …..”
I look back at her in disbelief. I can’t imagine why she is letting me do this. The idea of something other than these four walls distracts me from the fact that I am still naked, just as I have been for the whole time I have been here.
I can see that Neena is enjoying the way that I’m still seething with rage, still trying to hold on to my name. It’s hard to tell what she really thinks though, what she is really trying to achieve.
As I stand up uncertainly, Neena says. “Oh, you will need something on your feet. What size do you take?”
“What? Er, 40, European.”
“Good. So do I. Borrow my clogs. Here.”
Walk a mile in your opponent’s shoes, they say. Well that is exactly what I will do. Walk to freedom in the shoes of my enemy. The girl Neena slips her feet out of a pair of bright pink wooden slip-on clogs and pushes them towards me across the cell floor.
I am momentarily taken aback by her easy suggestion that I should just walk away from them. Where is the trap? Perhaps they have got what they really want from me and they are going to let me run away whilst they all make their getaways too?
I stand, not sure what to do next; held captive by indecision as I have been by the walls and doors. I catch sight of Neena. She seems to be looking at me almost sympathetically as I put my feet into her clogs and turn towards the door.
“Vyerka?”
I pause again. Held by the sound of this strange new name she calls me by. I turn to look at her. I am hoping it will be for the last time.
“Yes?”
“I will have a cane ready for you when you come back inside. You are not being true to your name and I will have to punish you for it.” She speaks with a smile on her lips once more.
This last smug remark is all I need to drive me into calling her bluff. It propels me from the room and out into the corridor, through the doors. I burst through the last one and find myself outside.
As soon as I leave the building, my breath is taken away. It’s as though I have been physically slapped across the face. Ferocious cold surrounds me as I stand on the path. The cold scours me, voraciously sucking the warmth from my body. Neena’s clogs carried the heat of her own body but once outside, it is gone in an instant.
I look up at the sky: it’s pale blue and bright.
In front on me on both sides of the path are piles and piles of snow, far deeper than I have ever seen in England. I drive myself forward. The wind finds me and the cold burns ever deeper inside me. Every breath is painful. The building is behind me and I risk a glance back, to see if there is anyone chasing me. There is no one, but I have my first glimpse of my prison. It is a beautiful classical mansion but it’s not like any British country house I have ever seen. It is painted a pale yellow with the windows openings bordered in white. The architecture, the proportions, the scale are somehow different, foreign. (4)
Tears form in my eyes and as they escape onto my cheeks, they freeze.
Each step I take is becoming less and less certain. My bravado and determination are evaporating into the biting, grinding, burning cold. Suddenly there is a man in front of me. He is completely wrapped in furs against the cold and the wind. He calls out. I cannot tell what he says but that’s hardly necessary because there is no mistaking the anxiety in his voice: he holds up one arm in front of me and shoos me back to the house with the other.
I have been defeated! I cannot walk another step. All the strength stripped from my naked body by the cold. I howl in frustration and despair as he gently leads me back inside.
SOME NEW REALITIES
I am back in the cell. Facing Neena. She is drinking a black coffee from an elegant tall glass in a silver holder. Cream and chocolate float on the top. The sort I remember from skiing holidays. There is one for me, too but in a plastic mug and plain black. My mind lights on the slightest clue. Could I be in Austria?
I warm my hands, blue from the cold, on the sides of the plastic mug. It takes minutes before my body ceases to be racked by the shivering.
In comparison with the outside, the temperature inside the cell is tropical. Gradually warmth finds its way through my body. The man wrapped a blanket around my shoulders when he brought me back. It was a kindly act, considerate, pitying. And pitying is the look that Neena gives me. I must look a sight! She will think all my resolve has gone as my frozen tears melt in the warmth of the room, streaming down my cheeks. She might be right.
“So where am I?” I ask. There is no animation in my voice, just the dejection of utter defeat. I’m not sure that I’m even expecting an answer. Not sure that I will believe when it comes.
It is now time to answer some of her questions, now when her own experience will provide all the verification Vyera needs.
“Near Moscow.”
Moscow? That is preposterous! I was in London. Then not long after I was here. How can I be that far from home? How can I possibly be near Moscow?
She’s waiting for me. She can see that her reply has stopped me in my tracks, just as the cold outside did. She pauses for several seconds. I’m thrown back on my memories; walking in the street; speaking to Joe; meeting Neena and responding to her appeal for help, my capture, the way I was sedated.
Vyera looks at me, her face a picture of incredulity! She cannot accept what her eyes have seen and her body has experienced, so I prod her to think back over what has happened to her over the past few days.
“What is your last memory, before here?”
I don’t need to think about it. That moment is burnt into my memory. “I was walking down a street, in London. Thinking about Joe, wishing I could get my mobile to work, wishing I could finish my conversation with him.”
“Do you remember me?”
Oh yes, I remember you. The girl who asked for help, because she was a diabetic and thought she was going hypo. The girl I was worried about. The girl I helped to her car, to make sure she was safe, the girl who dropped her insulin syringe and by the time I had bent down to pick it up, she was pointing a Taser at me. Oh, yes, I remember you! But all I say is “Why?” and slowly shake my head.
Neena continues happily:
“Once I had you in the car and restrained, I sedated you to overcome your fears, to make you feel better …”
To feel better and less frightened about being abducted? To make me feel better about being stolen?
“ … then you were flown in your owner’s private jet to Russia and brought here. You see Vyerka: what a lot of resources have been used to bring you here. What efforts have been made on your behalf!”
“Why?” is all I can bring myself to say, once more slowly shaking my head …..
“Because you were chosen. Because we can provide you with a useful and fulfilling life with us.”
I sit in front of Neena with my mouth open; I am trying to form words to protest, to contradict, to establish once more my own view of reality but just as my tears have melted so I realise that the option has gone, forever.
I can tell that Neena also sees it in my face. Hope has been frozen out by the cold of winter. She knows that I did not have to believe her. I have come to know it for myself. Maybe the only reality is the reality of my captors. And all they had to do was to lend me a pair of clogs and open some doors. I have nothing to say. There is hardly anything I can say, except -
“I was happy as I was, thank you and what about my husband and my parents and my job and friends? What about my life?”
“No, Vyerka. We are your family now and your life is what we decide for you. Your life is are ours and your life will remain ours. Look at your wrist: it says ‘Vyera. Owned Slave’. You are our slave and you will remain our slave.”
She speaks so calmly, so assuredly that it is almost impossible to disagree with what she says. I look at the marks of the tattoo on my wrist. Is that what it says? Is it actually true? Yes, it is true. I know that it’s true from the research I have done. I can tell that she sees the light of recognition in my face. There’s realisation and following on, a feeling of desperation and horror sweeping round me like a tide as I begin to have an understanding of what this all means for the future.
Vyera’s face crumples up into a mask of – what? Dismay, dread, frustration, despair? She begins to howl and bang her palms down on the table top, as if that could change the reality of the situation she finds herself in. Pyotr enters from the corridor, and lays a heavy hand on her shoulder until this squall of anger leaves her and she becomes calm once more.
As you know, I like caning people! Although there was a part of me that felt sorry for Vyera, it is essential that she accepts our discipline – so caning Vyera was an important ingredient in the teaching I delivered. But of course, I enjoyed it too - resolving the morning’s events.
“Now the punishment I promised. Vyerka must be true to her name and have faith in her Owners. Kneel on your stool and hold the table. If you cannot cooperate I shall ask Pyotr to restrain you”
I pause for a moment and look at her and at the cane laid between us on the table. I do as she asks. How can I not? But inside the privacy of my mind, I continue to scream and scream. This is the only part of what is happening that is familiar to me. Taking punishment. I know what to do. I know how to handle this, but, oh, why is this happening to me?
I walk round behind her and place my hand on her lower back. I press down just a little and she pushes her bottom towards me and just a little upwards just as she should. It was funny. For all her objections and protests, when it came to taking punishment she did just as she was told.
I speak to her again, firmly but also gently. This is not the time for harsh words. It is the time for harsh deeds: actions that reinforce words. I tell her to kneel.
I take the cane and set my stance, feet a little apart. I aim for the lower part of her bum, planning to lay the strokes evenly across both buttocks.
However, there was also the chance to give her some language tuition ….
Neena picks up the cane from the table and walks behind me. I will explain some numbers she says. “One is ‘Adeen’, Vyerka.”
I take the cane and swipe it briskly towards her. I can tell she will burn and sting when I’m finished. I haven’t warmed her bum with a preliminary spanking. Oh yes, it is certainly going to sting!
I hear the whistle from the cane and feel the flash of pain as it lands across my bottom.
“Two is Dva”. Snick!
“Three is Tre” Snick!
“Four is Cheteri”. Snick!
“Five is Pyat”. Snick!
She stops, placing the cane gently on the table.
I struggle to my feet. The punishment has been given me without any of the slow build up I have learned to expect from other beatings. Each cut was laid on with a single, constant, strength and is all the more severe for it. I lower myself gingerly onto my bum.
“Now rabinya Vyerka: shall we begin your lesson again?”
With enormous effort I turn to the cards and books. I hate what she is making me do but I have no more strength left today, to stand against her.
Neena begins, “Here is the Russian alphabet. Ah, Beh, Veh, Geh … Vyerka: say it.”
I parrot after her. “Ah, Beh, Veh, Geh,” each time writing the letter on a card and turning over to write the sound the letter makes on the reverse. Whilst I am doing all this, I am wondering just what will become of me?
The whole thing has been a very enjoyable session. And productive too! I’m really pleased with the progress we made. I can tell I am going to enjoy this girl very much!
UNCOMFORTABLE REFLECTIONS
Some hours later, Sveta has the opportunity to catch up with the day’s events. She visits the web file and reviews Neena’s summary and then reviews the video recording of the conversations immediately before Vyera’s outing into the wintery garden and afterwards, once she was back inside with Neena.
Sveta is pleased. A wave of cruelty washes through her mind: Neena had played Vyera perfectly, goading her into coming to an inescapable conclusion about what had happened to her, showing some compassion by giving her coffee and then teaching her that defiance will always come at a price. Yes: Sveta especially enjoyed the finale! Vyera’s skin marked beautifully and Neena had executed the caning perfectly.
This slave – no, that was not quite right. Vyera was a slave in fact, but far from a slave in her own mind. Novice was a better word. This novice really was an interesting creature. For example: new slaves often had their heads shaven and a ring put through their septum to show then just how dramatically and fundamentally their lived had changed. Although hair grew again, shaving a slave’s head at the beginning of their training snatched away the comfortable image they had of themselves and left then even more naked than naked, so to speak. But this girl turned up shaven and had a septum ring when she was taken. So Neena’s preliminary analysis was exactly right: for this girl, taking away her own language would do as much as anything to play on her feelings of loneliness and vulnerability and help to start the conditioning process.
Before Sveta closes down the video, she runs it through once more and finds she has paused at the moment when Vyera was again sitting before Neena and her frozen tears malting into real tears and rolling down her face. Uncharacteristically, Sveta starts to feel uncomfortable. Her conscience has begun to trouble her, as if cruelty had melted, along with Vyera’s frozen tears.
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NOTES
(1) The picture book is in fact “A First Thousand Words In Russian”, published by Usborne Books
(2) More about Russian names! Once Russians are on first name terms with you, they will refer to themselves by the diminutive of their first name. We occasionally do this in English-speaking countries. For example Bill instead of the more formal William. Frank instead of Francis. Mike instead of Michael. Sveta is the diminutive of Svetlana and when Neena writes or speaks to Sveta (who is her boss), Neena uses the more formal ‘Svetlana’. The Russians are very fond of diminutives and some names have several variations. Russian diminutives always have a child’s version, a version to express endearment and occasionally a somewhat dismissive, even contemptuous version, as Neena explains with reference to Vyera, Verochka and Vyerka
(3) The Russians do not really have an equivalent of ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ and in formal conversation and use their first name and patronymic instead. Thus it is normal and polite for Neena when referring to Anatoly or when she is speaking to him in person, to refer him as ‘Anatoly Sergeyevitch’.
(4) The Pavlovsk Palace is the sort of building we had in mind for the Kustensky dacha.
© Phil Lane & Freddie Clegg 2011