Eyla got her first blood today. Not from a fight. Not from a fall. The woman's curse. She was terrified, clutching her stomach, thinking she was dying. I had to explain it to her. In the dirt, chained up, with this stupid fucking sack dress clinging to me. I told her what our mother would have. About cycles and bodies and how it meant she wasn't a little girl anymore.

Her eyes got so wide. She asked if it hurt. I said sometimes. She asked if it would stop. I said yes, every month. Then she asked the worst question. 'Does... does that mean master can... use me now? Like the other girls talked about?'

My throat closed. My cunt went cold and tight, like a fist. I wanted to vomit. I just held her and said no. Not while I'm breathing. I cleaned her up with the last of our water. Her small hands were shaking. I wrapped her in the blanket and she cried into my chest.

All I could think about was the first time a man looked at me that way. After my blood came. The shift in his eyes, from seeing a pest to seeing a hole to fill. The dread is a physical thing. It lives in my gut, next to the hunger.

Now she's asleep, exhausted. I'm sitting here, staring at the collar around her thin neck. It looks heavier. I keep thinking about what 'use me' means. The mechanics of it. A cock forcing its way into a tight, unprepared cunt. The pain. The tearing. The ownership of it. My own body remembers the threat, even if it hasn't happened. It clenches in sympathetic terror.

I used to dream of ripping men apart. Now I just dream of a locked door. A single key. And silence.