Deadliest of Sins by Sallie Bissell Page B

Boyko murmured as he motioned for another man to enter the room. “This is Dr. Petrov. He is going to examine you.”
    She watched as the doctor came into the room. He was older than Boyko with yellowish-gray hair greased back from his forehead. He wore a long white coat that had brown stains on the lapels and rimless glasses that magnified his eyes, giving him a strange owlish appearance. A third man followed the doctor into the room but stayed by the door, watching the other two with dark, unreadable eyes.
    The doctor walked over and dropped his bag on the side of the bed. He looked at her dispassionately, as if she was some lab rat in a cage. In a way, she guessed she was.
    â€œHave you ever had a physical examination?” His English was formal, but awkward, as if he seldom spoke it.
    She gulped, her mouth dry as a cracker. She’d been to doctors to get shots for school and once to get a dog bite stitched up. Beyond that, her mother had taken care of her.
    â€œDo not be afraid,” said the doctor. “It will be painless.”
    Her heart thudding, she watched as he opened his bag and withdrew a pair of latex gloves. As he shoved his plump fingers into the gloves, he turned to look at the two men who stood by the door.
    â€œDo you need to watch this?”
    â€œI do,” said the man Boyko, whose coal-chip eyes now gleamed.
    The doctor shrugged, then turned back to Samantha. He pulled a flashlight and wooden tongue depressor from his bag and tapped her chin with the little wooden stick. “Open, please!”
    She opened her mouth. Immediately, his fingers began a rough probing, feeling her gums, pulling her tongue up to peer underneath. Finally, he withdrew the tongue depressor and stuck his own tongue out, motioning for her to do the same. He shined the flashlight down her throat, then stuck another instrument up her nose and into her ears. As he turned her head, she saw Boyko watching her with hungry eyes.
    When the doctor had finished with her head, he took out a stethoscope and listened to her heart. His pale eyes gleamed moistly behind his thick glasses and he smelled of the same disinfectant that sometimes clung to her mother’s work uniform. As he worked, he breathed heavily through his nose, the air whistling through his nostrils.
    Done with her heart, he straightened up . “Razdeváysya .”
    She didn’t understand what he wanted. When she didn’t move, he made another motion, crossing his arms over his chest and then lifting them up. “Remove your clothes.”
    She looked past him, at Boyko and the other man who stood gaping at her from across the room. “No.”
    The doctor frowned. “If you don’t, they will,” he warned her in a whisper.
    She lowered her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she realized that she was one of their girls now—no longer a person—just a thing to examine, use, and then discard.
    â€œ Bystro!” the doctor finally cried. Impatient, he reached behind her and pulled her T-shirt over her head, her bra down to her waist. As she moved her arms to cover herself, he pushed her flat on the bed. Suddenly, his latex-covered fingers were feeling her breasts, making large circles around the outer edges, smaller circles around her nipples. She turned her head and saw Boyko, his thin lips parting as he watched the whole procedure.
    The doctor’s hands left her breasts. She thought—prayed—for a moment that he might be done, that this might be the end of it, but faster than she could imagine, he pulled her shorts and underpants to her ankles, then off entirely. He pushed her knees up and spread her legs wide. Then suddenly, the same fingers that had catalogued her teeth were now inside her, probing and feeling. At that point, she closed her eyes and took herself away. Down, down into a soft darkness that she imagined her father’s mine must have been like. Suddenly, he was there, scooping