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A Murder In The Brothel

Pragya Chaturvedi
Fourth Wave
Published in
2 min readFeb 4, 2025

--

Iby Julia Malushko

The tip of their sword
pressed against my skin,
submerged deeper into my wounds
slowly, brutally, obsessively.

The sword,
it was pushed inside me
turned and twisted,
“tell me, tell me how it hurts?”
they asked me.

“it doesn’t”, I smirked.

A punch,
a punch mighty enough
to knock me down
came flying my way.

I didn’t squint.

I bled,
I bled more,
and then just a little more.
With the loss of every drop,
I could hear the emptiness
echo inside of me.

They stripped my heart
off of its dignity,
and called me a whore.

They pulled out
their swords
as I remained armless on the floor
with no desire to live
or to escape.

In my eyes they saw grave hopelessness,
they held back their swords
in the spirit of generosity
they spared me a moment to escape.

I could run.
I could run away,
far far away

but I didn’t have it in me
the desire to live anymore.

“Unveil some shame,
walk out of this brothel”
said one of the Kingsman.

I didn’t budge.

Then came the king himself.
“you have the time,
go live a life of dignity,
to engage in work of respect”,
he bent down to my level
as I lied on the floor.

“If to be a harlot
is no work of dignity,
if to call brothel your home
is gravely disgraceful,
then you also must be
disgustingly ashamed
of yourself, my mighty king,
for you’ve spent plenty splendid
nights
here yourself,
plenty enough to call brothel
your second home.
if to spend nights with someone
not out of love
but for riches
is misfortune,
then to spend nights with someone
not out of love
but out of sole lust,
must be equally undignified,”

he looked at me in sheer wrath,
as I whispered into his ear
with my last words.

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