Warning: Rated R for content.

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Red Wine

by Magik

The young woman swirled the blood red liquid around in her glass, watching as it splashed against the sides and threatened to lap over the edge and onto her white dress. She could hear her brother's shouting and the muffled screams of his young model from the other room but she just looked at her skirt and took a sip of the wine.

Her throat burned as the red wine slipped down it. A burning that contained a pleasant after effect of freedom and complete animosity. In this day and age, it was hard to walk the streets unnoticed yet somehow the young woman managed it.

The patter of hurrying feet brought her cool, blue eyes up from the glass to view the image of the tattered model in the doorway. The model was short and thin, with a large bosom and the tiniest of waists. Her dark hair had been curled about her face when she came in, but was now tangled and hung in loose ringlets about her smoky green eyes.

"Please, Lady Rasputin, may I go," the model cooed as she leaned her tired body up against the oak frame.

Illyana Rasputin's eyes grew hard and cold as ice as she viewed the girl in front of her. An overwhelming sensation was growing in her stomach to throw the expensive red wine all over the model's black satin dress with the golden threads. Instead she gave a cool smile and whispered, "Has my brother finished his painting?"

Panic stretched itself across the model's flushed face as she twined her fingers nervously about a thread on her dress. "N...no," she stuttered out, "but he's drunk on vodka."

"So?" Lady Illyana asked as she shrugged and swirled the red wine around in her cup again.

"But, Lady, he is awfully drunk. I am afraid that he will hurt me. Please, can't I go home?" the model was pleading now, her eyes shinning with unshed tears.

Lady Rasputin eyed her silently, all the while holding her glass of red wine in her left hand. Her rich blond hair was elaborately braided and piled on her head, the beads strung in it glowing in the warm firelight. A sigh escaped her drawn lips as she smoothed out a wrinkle in her dress and began to consider the model's plight.

It was true that her brother could be pretty rough when he was drunk but he was an artist and come what may, he still needed a subject. But was it fair to put this poor girl through the kind of experience her drunken oaf of a brother could dish out. Piotr was stronger than most men; his hand seemed to be made of iron when it struck you. Illyana carried her our scars from her brother's down in the bottle days.

If the model stayed until the picture was finished, she would come out a broken, tattered thing. A doll whose dress is missing several buttons and who is worth next to nothing. She would be ruined; her life would be shattered.

Illyana took another drink of the red wine, savoring its taste as she contemplated her next step. She herself had been broken when she was young. At first, it had been to the will of her widower father and she had indured that with a steel heart and a set mind. Then her brother Mikhail had toyed with her, intent on crushing the last vistage of her spirit. And, God in heaven, he had come so very close.

When it was Piotr's turn there was nothing left in Illyana to break. The only thing left to her was one thought in her muddled head, "Survive." It became her mantra on the nights when he broke her arm like a twig in his strong grip and then took her roughly from behind as though she was an animal.

Survive. The one thought beat into her thoughts again and again until it was the only thing she dreamed about, the only word she knew. Survival was for the fittest and Illyana was going to survive.

No, I have survived, she realized as her cold, blue eyes focused on the red wine lapping at the glass in her hand. I survived, I fought, and I climbed the ladder of progress to get where I am now.

In just a few short years, the Lady Rasputin had risen from a street whore selling herself for shiny pieces of copper, to the collaborator of the first erotic art museum in all of Europe. She had become rich and successful; able to afford not only red wine for herself but also enough models for her brother to paint and break that he would be happy for the rest of her days.

And now this teary eyed model was pleading with her, looking to her for help. Giving that help would mean offering a piece of herself up to the hounds again. If her brother wasn't sated with a model or a whore, then he would come after her. Illyana was sick of being touched like she was an object, sick of being held down as men forced themselves into her. Sick of it. So she raised her eyes, looked at the girl, and allowed a haunted smile to stretch across her face. "No, I'm sorry but the painting has to be finished before you can go. Get back in there before my brother gets angry and you get hurt."

"But.... but," the model stuttered and Illyana simply leveled her with her blue eyes. "Fine," the girl whispered and walked back down the hall to entertain Piotr again.

Illyana watched her leave something akin to pity in her blue eyes but then she swirled the red wine around in her glass again and remembered her mantra. Survival at all costs with no worry about who else was going to get hurt in the process.