MAGDALENA

Magdalena finished packing her last suitcase and wiped off sweat from her forehead. She's been packing since yesterday, after she made final decision to leave her husband, Alik, who she married at the age of thirteen. Yes, thirteen years, when she was still playing with her dolls, chasing butterflies out in the field. The arranged marriage took her childhood and virginity away.

Although, such a thing was accepted tradition in her community for centuries, her inner side never accepted being a wrapped housewife, serving her husband and his large family. She never dumped her dolls, always kept them in a hiding place. She was a victim, but Alik was a victim too. How? Tell you how…

Magdalena lived in the same village as Alik's family, but in different social level. Magdalena's family was poor, with many children and many problems as well. They had six daughters and one son, the last male child who they adored. In traditional families like Magdalena's male child was deemed to be a real child, they never took the girls seriously.

Magdalena's mother was being humiliated and embarrassed by everyone in their close circle because she had given birth to six daughters and couldn't give birth to a son. Magdalena has witnessed how her father beat his wife, dragged her on the floor with hair, right after giving birth, when he learned it was a girl. Poor mother, Nazi wept each time, bagging for forgiveness, as if she did something wrong. And she got pregnant again and again. Magdalena had witnessed many more torture and unhappiness of her mother.

When Magdalena turned twelve her period started and it was announced during family supper. Father kind of celebrated first, because Magdalena was a second daughter and the older one, Sona hadn't yet started hers. So, after celebrating Magdalena's stepping into “real womanhood,” father gave a punch to Sona cursing her, for being late to become a woman. Then father asked Magdalena to take off her dress and show him how her breast and other sensitive parts looked. In front of everyone including older uncle, Magdalena did it in anticipation of praise for her mildly grown boobs and gentle pubic hair.

"Hmm… it's a little early so far, daughter. Let's wait couple of more months, but I'll start searching for a nice husband for you. Don't you think so brother?" A little disappointment was noticed in his voice, when turning to his brother for opinion.

The brother said something too, in the same tone and that was it. But Magdalena was not punched this time.

This incident and many more like this were mostly what she remembered from her childhood. I said "mostly," because she had an aunt too, aunt Tamia, who had somehow managed to stay respected in the family because she had a facial defect and everyone believed this was a god mark on her, and that's why they let her find a work. Tamia had opened a tiny souvenir shop in the center of the village and traded with different staff, including the dolls she got for the girls.

The groom was twenty five, from a relevantly well-off family and he had never been to a woman before. Alik was the only child of a prominent family in the village and his father was a merchant. When the merchant saw Magdalena first his eyes were fixated on her breast first and he assessed her as if he was looking at a camel. Finally, two fathers made a deal and appointed a wedding. The merchant paid a grand dowry to Magdalena's father, with a promise to pay the rest after she gave birth.

Magdalena's arranged wedding happened in a hot summer. Everyone ate, drank, kissed her on her lips, squeezed her chicks, face and left. All the money gifted at the wedding was collected by mother-in-law and tucked into the old pillow, locked up.

The night came, hot, damp and stinky as hell. The bride didn't even shower, looking forward to his first adventure in a marriage bed. Sweaty, drunk and dirty, he lied above her, imitating what he had heard of about making love. And then hours of torture, pain, cursing when something wasn't going right, sticking fingers in the child's mouth. That night left scars in Magdalena's soul and body and too much blood on their bedding sheets. But the audience outside the room were satisfied.

Magdalena was late to get pregnant. Since the wedding day, maybe even the next day her mother-in-law started observing her behavior and never left her alone by herself. She was accompanied everywhere, including the bedroom. Sometimes the mother would just walk in without knocking while the two were intimate. And Alik was not finding this strange or awkward. So did Magdalena. She was used to it and would quickly get over the hot flashes on her face caused by sudden, instinctive embarrassment.

The days went by, filling months and she never got pregnant. Although, the family was relatively patient towards her, at least they did not beat and humiliate her for not being able to conceive.

Then after about a year and a half she felt dizzy while cutting vegetable for dinner and vomited right on the kitchen counter, enraging her mother-in-law. She at first started yelling at her, but then a thought of possible pregnancy made her hold her temper and take care of her.

Instead of getting a pregnancy test mother-in-law called local elderly self-enlightened physician and had Magdalena “checked-up.” The old, scary lady concluded she was pregnant and was carrying a boy. Magdalena was indeed pregnant, but not at the term of determining the baby's gender.

Two months passed and Magdalena's period was holding off, making it very clear that pregnancy was developing steadily. Then, on one hot night like it was on her wedding, she woke up suddenly with a sharp pain in her stomach and lot of blood below her hips. The baby was lost, and everyone took it as a disaster. What was the cause no one knows but maybe Alik's reckless incontinency in the evening, or maybe Magdalena's indifference and her childish behavior? Cannot be said for sure but this happened two more times later. In the course of following couple of months, she had two more miscarriages.

Now the Husband's family and her own parents were terrified. They never thought of involving a doctor's opinion and treatment, but decided that Magdalena was cursed. Believers of black magic, the merchant and his wife started visiting fortune tellers, psychics in their region and also distant area to find out what kind of curse Magdalena was carrying.

Finally, someone told the mother-in-law the curse was not on Magdalena herself but on Alik's wife generally, and whoever was his wife would get the same destiny.

“Maybe we should take her to a doctor, said once aunt Tamia, maybe the problem is very minor and easily fixed.”

But no one listened to her. After hundreds of more rituals carried out, sacrifice animals slaughtered, prayers said, candles burnt the family decided enough was done from them and it was time to take a bread, wait for the results.

Magdalena got pregnant again, for the fourth time. This time she did not lose it and gave birth to a baby girl…The family said before that gender didn't quite matter first, but…the girl had a facial defect and even more horrifying than Magdalena's aunt, Tamia did have.

Seeing the baby's face, mother-in-law yelled and almost fainted, dropping the corner of cloth back to the baby's face. Everyone in the room murmured while Magdalena was asking them to show her the baby. The midwife told her to shup up and they'll be back soon, took the baby outside and leaving Magdalena crying, bleeding and blacking out. Magdalena was the only person who didn't recoil from the tiny, deformed baby. Driven by pure maternal instinct, she cradled, cared for, and fed the poor infant, who cried helplessly day and night from the pain.

It never occurred to anyone to take her to a doctor. The local physician simply claimed she wouldn't survive more than a few days, and the family accepted her fate with quiet, hidden relief.

Then Magdalena began breastfeeding her, and the baby slowly gained strength. It was as if her mother's milk acted as a natural painkiller. The child survived, grew, and put-on weight, her crying fading over time. Even so, no one except Magdalena would go anywhere near her.

Magdalena’s father was denied the rest of her dowry because she had given birth to a girl and a "monstrous" one at that. Still, her husband couldn't bring himself to kick her out. Defying his parents' wishes, he kept her at the house. Not inside, though, they moved her and the baby into an adjacent shed. Alik visited only at night to satisfy his own urges, having zero contact with his daughter.

Alik’s family was convinced a curse hung over them, one they were powerless to resist.

So, Magdalena lived in complete isolation. Food wasn't an issue, but aunt Tamia was the only person around who actually cared about her.

By the time the child turned four, her health was still extremely fragile, and she fell ill every few months. Every time, Magdalena begged her husband to take her to a doctor, hoping surgery might fix whatever was wrong. He ignored her completely. When the girl still hadn't started talking by age four, the truth became clear: she was deaf, able to make only pitiful, unintelligible sounds.

Then, Magdalena stumbled upon a scrap of newspaper mentioning that deaf children could get surgery in the capital for hearing implants that would restore their hearing. Her husband’s family had money, but nobody cared. "She's your child, you deal with her," they told her.

Determined to raise the money herself, Magdalena turned to aunt Tamia. Tamia didn't have much, just a tiny, rundown souvenir stall where she sold trinkets to tourists. But the stall next door needed a vendor, and Tamia suggested she take the job. Alik agreed; he couldn't care less how Magdalena earned the money.

Long before sunrise, Magdalena would get up with her daughter and go to work. She swept the stall, dusted the items, and waited for her first customers. The area didn't get much foot traffic, but she managed to make a few sales here and there. She kept her daughter with her all day, covered under a veil. Still, whenever a passerby caught a glimpse of the child, they would throw their hands up in shock and hurry away.

Magdalena managed to save some money, but it wasn't enough. As she got better at business, she diversified her stock, displaying her own hand-woven textiles and rugs. Eventually, she earned enough to buy out the stall from its owner, turning herself from a simple vendor into the shop owner.

She kept her daughter impeccably dressed and cared for, and she often brought back colorful socks, shirts, and leather belts for her husband. Bit by bit, she earned respect from both her family and the neighbors, though only because she was no longer as helpless as before.

She never got pregnant again, despite trying desperately. She would often slip into her sleeping husband's bed and start rubbing his penis with clumsy finger movements. Her in-laws slept in the next room, but Magdalena didn't care. She made no effort to be quiet, talking provocatively and laughing loudly when they were done. Then, half-naked with her shirt unbuttoned, she would strut slowly through their room back to her shed and her child.

She did it out of pure spite toward her in-laws, a silent statement: "You cast me aside, but I'm happier than you'll ever be." She had even said as much to them once.

It was obvious why her husband never resisted. No other man in the village had a sex life like his. Alik walked tall, taking long, hot, scented showers every evening. Slowly, even his daughter stopped looking so ugly to him.

Eventually, when Magdalena’s boundary-pushing went over the line, engaging in oral sex with her husband while explicitly describing everything out loud, his parents realized they had to do something. They humbly asked their son if he would move into the shed with his wife, but he refused. Left with no choice, the parents moved into the shed themselves, handing the main house over to Magdalena, her husband, and their child.

The drama didn't go unnoticed in the village. Men covertly watched Magdalena bloom into her late teens. Turning nineteen, she had grown taller, fuller, and striking, a woman hard to ignore.

Magda had believed she loved her husband, but it was a bitter delusion. She realized this the moment when a young tourist appeared before her stall, a boy of twenty-five, fair-skinned, with blonde, tumbling curls and eyes the color of a pale winter sky. Shyly, he removed his sunglasses, his gaze searching for something. Struck by the young man's breathtaking appearance, Magdalena stepped out from within, offering him a polite, nervous greeting.

He asked for fresh orange juice. Magdalena knew enough English to understand, assuring him she would prepare it right away. As she turned to press the juice, a tremor ran through her hands. She was deeply unnerved by how fiercely this stranger had stirred her heart. Casting her shyness aside, she decided to seize the moment; she asked him about his travels, offered recommendations, and added softly that if he ever needed anything at all, he should return to her shop and she would help him.

On his way back, the young man did return, sinking wearily into a seat before Magdalena’s stall. Exhausted, he asked for another juice and a bit of food.

"I don't sell food," Magdalena told him gently, "but I brought a homemade pie from home. If you'd like, I would be honored to share it with you."

The boy was terribly hungry and ate Magdalena’s pie with quiet gratitude. As a gesture of thanks, he tried to leave some money on the counter. When Magdalena refused to accept it, he insisted, telling her to buy something for her child.

He then leaned down to gently pat the child's hair, and in that fleeting moment, his eyes caught sight of the child's face. A sudden, cruel panic pierced Magdalena’s chest. She snatched the child up into her arms and swept her away into the darkest corner behind the stall, desperately hiding her child, and her shame, from the eyes of the world.

"Why did you hide the child? Was it because of her face? But that is nothing... show her to me," the boy urged. And when Magdalena resisted, he offered a gentle, reassuring smile. "Do not be afraid, my parents are doctors, and I am training to be one myself."

Magdalena exhaled a long, heavy breath, a fragile ember of hope igniting in her darkened soul. She brought the child out from the shadows. The young man examined her carefully.

"Beyond the visible deformity, she likely suffers from breathing difficulties," he noted gently, "and there may be underlying heart conditions as well."

"She is deaf and mute too," Magda whispered, the confession tasting like ash on her tongue. "But they told me it can be cured. I am trying to save money to take her to the city."

"I know a place where these procedures are offered free of charge," the young man said, his eyes lighting up with earnest passion. "It simply requires proper diagnostics and timely intervention. Could you come with me? It would be best if we leave today, and tomorrow I will personally take you to the humanitarian research center."

Magdalena hesitated. How could she leave so suddenly? She had to speak with Alik first. She begged him to leave his number, promising to call that evening. "I cannot leave today; I must ask my husband's permission. Perhaps he will come with us."

They agreed, and the boy set off on foot, taking the path from where he had come.

Magdalena stood frozen, watching him recede into the distance. It was the first time in her life she had ever laid eyes on a hairless, sun-cleansed man, so meticulously groomed, so lean and toned, moving with an effortless grace. How his cropped hair glinted in the light, how perfectly his glasses framed his face, how firm and elegant his posture was.

That evening, she briefly recounted the encounter to Alik, but her husband's mind could barely grasp the concept. "Bring the man to the house," Alik muttered. "We will invite him for dinner and let him explain it properly."

Giddy with a desperate kind of joy, Magdalena pulled from her pocket a torn scrap of paper bearing the boy’s number, she didn't even know his name, and rushed to her neighbor’s house. A telephone was still a rare, alien luxury in their village.

"Hello doctor?? It is Magdalena!" she cried breathlessly into the receiver.

"I beg your pardon... who?" a distant voice replied.

"Magdalena! Magda! Remember, you bought orange juice at my stall? Remember? What you said about my child..."

The boy recalled the encounter and agreed to come for dinner the following evening.

Magdalena prepared for the dinner as if for a sacred ritual. She set her mother-in-law to work, sent her father-in-law to fetch nice wine, and scrubbed her husband clean. From aunt Tamia’s stall, she secretly took a bullet of pale pink lipstick and painted her lips. Driven by a quiet panic that he might lose his way, she walked down to the stall to meet him herself and guide him home.

"I... I do not even know your name," Magda admitted softly, her cheeks burning with shame.

"Ah, of course," the boy smiled. "I am Alex. Alex Weber."

At the dinner table, Alex spoke at length, introducing himself with an unexpectedly rich vocabulary, navigating their native tongue with a heavy yet strangely graceful accent. He explained that he had visited their country several times on humanitarian missions, dedicating his life to helping children and adults with similar conditions just like their daughter's.

"If you give your consent, I will take the child and her mother to the clinic for comprehensive examinations," Alex insisted, his voice brimming with medical promise. "We will address her hearing first; after that, reconstructive facial surgery is remarkably straightforward."

He exerted every ounce of persuasion to convince a family that, until very recently, relied on ancient rituals and dark superstitions to break "curses." In the end, they relented, though, in truth, it was less about conviction and more about their profound indifference.

It was decided: Alik would take Magda and the child to the city together.

At the end of the evening, Alik escorted the young man back to the stall.

From that night on, Magdalena lost all peace. Alex haunted her every waking thought, a tragic phantom of a life she would never possess. Her intimate encounters with her husband withered away. Alik did not fail to notice her cold distance, but every time he voiced his quiet resentment, Magda sharply rebuked him, hiding her emotional betrayal behind the shield of a mother's agony: "I am sick with worry for our child, how can you think of such things now?"

On the second Monday, Alik loaded the wooden cart, settled his wife and child upon it, and set out on the long road to the city.

The three-to-four-hour journey was a quiet agonizing-the sweltering heat beating down upon them, the child’s restless cries echoing over the dirt, and Alik’s relentless, bitter grumbling: "Why are you dragging me away from my work? We are chasing ghosts, going for nothing."

At last, they arrived at the address Alex had given them. Stepping through the grand glass doors of the clinic foyer, they found him waiting in the light.

Alex had already prepared a small, quiet room for the mother and child knowing, with heavy certainty, that this would be a long, harrowing journey, and that they would not be returning home anytime soon.

Alik left them there and turned back without looking twice, offering no fond farewells and asking no further questions. Little Sara’s eyes followed her father with a silent, lingering sadness as his back faded into the distance.

Then began the endless battery of examinations, blood work, and tests. The diagnosis was unsparing: the child was confirmed to be completely deaf, alongside a host of other failing systems, including a congenital heart defect.

The surgery to fit a hearing implant was scheduled for a month later, allowing time to strengthen the child's fragile body and reduce the lethal risks. During this month of waiting, Magdalena often walked the city streets with her daughter. She saw how much better people lived here, slowly absorbing their mannerisms, their cadence, and the polished way the city folk spoke.

Periodically, she would call home on the neighbor’s telephone to recount her days, but the family from the village yielded little interest. Her husband did nothing but complain, demanding to know why she couldn't simply come home for the month and wait there. Later, he visited her at the hospital for sex. The sterile, alien setting caused him no embarrassment whatsoever; instead, he scolded his wife, accusing her of abandoning her marital duties entirely.

During this time, Magdalena fell hopelessly, blindly in love with Alex.

She had never known a man like him, so caring, so refined, such a master of his craft. “This is the kind of husband I deserve, she thought bitterly, not a boorish peasant like Alik.”

She used every pretext to be near him, to catch him alone. Alex was deeply compassionate toward her, recognizing the crushing, impoverished life she had endured.

Tragically, Magdalena mistook his professional mercy for a reciprocating devotion. She convinced herself that he was as consumed by her as she was by him. She gave no thought to the future, nor did she formulate any real plans; she simply believed, with absolute, tragic certainty, that Alex and she were destined to be together.

A few days before the operation, after putting her child to sleep, Magdalena slipped toward Alex’s room under the cover of darkness. She crept down the hallway quietly, pretending she had urgent medical business with the doctor at midnight.

She pushed the door open softly. Alex was not in the front room, but the sound of running water echoed from the bathroom. Stepping forward, Magda approached the shower enclosed by a thin plastic curtain. Through a narrow gap, she caught sight of Alex’s bare body. His broad shoulders and toned arms appeared mesmerizing in the dim light. And as her eyes descended upon his naked lower half, Magda swallowed hard, the heavy rush of saliva gathering in her mouth. She wet her lips with her tongue... and pulled the curtain open violently with both hands.

Alex gasped in shock. "Magdalena? What are you doing here?"

Without uttering a word, Magda pressed her index finger to her lips, signaling him to be silent. Then, fully clothed, she threw herself into the shower with him. She caught his face in her hands and pulled him into a fierce, suffocating kiss.

She kissed him wildly, crudely, for she knew no civilized way to touch or be touched. She kissed him, biting at his lips, his cheeks, his neck. The man resisted at first, but the sheer shock, mingled with a sudden, overwhelming tide of suppressed passion, paralyzed him.

Magda ripped away the wet fabric clinging to her body, spilling her full, dark breasts into the open air. Kneeling beneath the spray, she reached out, taking his manhood into her mouth. Driven by a wild desperation, she consumed him licking, sucking, pulling, surrendering to pure instinct.

Alex could no longer withstand the onslaught and gave in, there in the shower, and then upon his bed.

He laid her, still drenched and shivering, onto the crisp, clean white sheets. He stroked her softly, gently, with a tenderness Magdalena had never experienced in her life. Alex had been deprived of a woman's touch for a long time, and he poured all his contained desire into her.

Magda could not stop. In the brief pauses between their encounters, Alex tried to initiate a conversation, to make sense of the madness unfolding between them, but she offered no answers.

"Be quiet." That was the only word that escaped her lips before she surrendered once more to the wild, desperate urgency of his touch.

At last, when Alex’s strength was completely spent, he reached up and gently brushed the dark, heavy strands of hair away from Magdalena’s bare chest as she leaned over him.

"That is enough," he said quietly. "Put your clothes on."

Alex convinced himself that she had surrendered her body out of a crude, overwhelming sense of gratitude for what he had done for her child. The thought made him feel profoundly sick inside.

Magdalena dressed in silence and turned to leave, but Alex stopped her.

"Wait... where are you going? Please, sit down for a moment. Let us just talk. I... I felt incredible pleasure with you, and I hardly know what to say. But it was all so unexpected. Will you not say anything to me?"

"What is there to say?" Magda asked softly. "When two people love each other, isn't it only natural that they take pleasure in being together?"

"Wait, Magda... what do you mean, 'love each other'?" Alex stammered, panic surging through him. "Did I miss something?"

A cold dread took root in Alex's chest. He knew with absolute clarity that he did not love Magdalena, nor had he ever behaved in a way that could reasonably be misconstrued as affection.

"Yes. I love you, and I know that you love me too," she stated with calm conviction. "You simply cannot bring yourself to say it because I am a married woman. It doesn't matter. Your touch convinced me far more than any words ever could."

A wave of bitter remorse washed over Alex. He cursed himself for failing to resist her, for yielding so foolishly to momentary weakness.

"No, Magda... you have completely misunderstood," he pleaded, his voice trembling. "I never intended to sleep with you, my dear. You have misinterpreted everything."

"But you did sleep with me, didn't you?" Magda replied, her stubbornness unyielding. "Doctor... did you not take pleasure in Magdalena's body?"

"Yes, but..." Alex trailed off, at a complete loss for words, terrified of breaking her fragile heart.

"Then that means you love me, Doctor. And I love you."

"Magdalena, it is better if you leave now. We will speak tomorrow when I can gather my thoughts, alright?"

Magdalena turned and walked out into the dark.

Left alone, Alex remained in a state of profound shock. He blamed himself entirely for his lack of restraint, feeling a sickening shame at a weakness he had never before displayed. Yet, as he replayed the violent blur of the encounter in his mind, he genuinely could not see how he could have fended off a woman driven mad by raw, unbridled desire, a woman whose eyes were clouded by sheer delusion.

All through the long, sleepless night, he fruitlessly searched his memory for the exact second he had lost control, the single moment he might have pushed her away and saved them both from this ambiguity.

He found none.

In the end, Alex convinced himself that Magdalena’s behavior was merely the product of prolonged isolation from her husband and overwhelming stress. Surely, he reasoned, it was a passing impulse, she would forget everything once she returned home. These rationalizations eased his conscience, allowing him to sleep that night like a baby.

Next morning, he overslept and was late to work next morning, earning a stern rebuke from the head physician, who noted that Alex had never displayed such unprofessionalism before.

In the days leading up to the surgery, Alex deliberately avoided Magdalena, dispatching other nurses to handle her care. Yet, as time passed and no dire consequences emerged from that fateful night, Alex began to relax.

Eventually, a darker, quieter thought took root in his mind: It wouldn't be so terrible if she came to my room once more.

Unable to bring himself to ask her directly, he paid a visit to her room under the guise of medical rounds.

Mother and daughter were both asleep. The small room carried an unpleasant, heavy odor. Intending to leave without waking them, Alex turned back toward the door, but Magdalena opened her eyes and called out to him.

Their conversation remained strictly formal. Alex informed her that little Sara would require a few more IV drips to prepare her for the procedure. The operation was scheduled for the following day, and Magdalena’s anxiety was intense; she murmured quietly that no one from her village had come to offer support.

Alex offered measured words of comfort: "Everything will be fine, but you need your rest now."

The exchange was so brief and detached that an outsider would never have guessed this couple had recently shared an encounter of wild intimacy. But as Alex turned to leave, Magdalena spoke softly:

"Tonight, when the nurse takes Sara for her night care... may I come to your room?"

Alex pretended to hesitate, though this was precisely the outcome he had hoped for when he walked through her door.

"I don't know, Magdalena... I don't think what we did was right. Should we really repeat the same mistake?"

Magdalena sensed his maneuver and matched it with a subtle, knowing response: "I regret nothing. Call me if you want me."

Alex offered a single nod, a quiet granting of permission to cross his threshold once again.

This time, Alex was prepared.

The moment she stepped inside, he led her to the bed and blindfolded her. "Tonight, we play a little," he murmured softly.

He undressed her completely and laid her down, lingering over her body as she trembled with desperate anticipation. He parted her legs, yet he refrained from entering her. Instead, he took her right nipple into his mouth, drawing upon it with the slow, rhythmic persistence of a newborn at its mother's breast. He lingered there for a long time before moving to the other.

Magdalena groaned softly under his touch, her entire being aching for the moment his heat would slide inside her. Suddenly, something pressed against her clitoris, something smooth, metallic, and unnaturally cold. A few deliberate strokes were all it took for an intense orgasm to break over her.

Alex immediately clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her cries, keeping her pinned to the bed. He continued the slow, hypnotic rhythmic stimulation, licking her breasts while working the cold instrument against her sensitive flesh. Magdalena counted six cresting orgasms in succession, yet something inside her still felt completely hollow.

Unable to bear it any longer, she tore the blindfold from her eyes without his permission. In Alex’s hand gleamed a cold, some king of medical instrument.

"Why did you open your eyes, you bad girl?" he whispered with a shadowy smile. "Now you must be punished."

And with that, he finally collapsed into her open arms.