by L J K Cross
“I am here at the opera. I have come to get you and take you home. When the opera finishes use the crowd to make your escape but try and be discreet. I will be waiting for you outside the St Nicholas Naval Cathedral. I promised I would always be there for you. I will be waiting for you – always. Steve.”
Her nightmare was now complete. Just when Amanda thought she was beginning to understand. Just when she thought her nightmare couldn’t get any worse. When would this nightmare end? How would it end?
CHAPTER 24
As the black limousine rolled into view and made its way down the deserted side road, the two fearsome looking sentries hastily discarded of their cigarettes under foot and stood to attention. They were not the only ones. From his vantage point behind the stonewall high above them, he was also on guard, alert with anticipation. As the limousine crunched to a halt in the fresh early morning snow, he pressed himself further into the cold hardness of the wall, anxious not to be spotted by the hawk eyes of Alexander’s sentinels.
He saw Koroviev exit the limousine first. He signaled to the two sentries, who managed to stand even straighter, then looked circumspectly up and down the deserted street, never trusting anyone’s judgment but his own, never leaving anything to chance. Once satisfied, he saw Alexander exit the limousine, pulling the collar of his jacket up high around his ears to protect against the blistering cold or maybe it was to protect against the ever present possibility of prying eyes. He heard their footsteps march in perfect unison through the snow then come to a stop. Disregarding the danger of being caught, he leant further over the stonewall, eager not to miss a word that was uttered down below.
He didn’t need to look that closely to know why they had stopped. He already knew why they were there. He was the reason. He saw Alexander take a good long look at the frozen corpse lying just inches from the icy waters it had been dragged out of less than an hour ago. He could imagine Alexander smiling triumphantly from behind his turned up jacket collar as he took in the icy blue pallor that could only occur from death by drowning in such freezing waters. He could imagine the gleeful look in Alexander’s eyes as he took in the icicles formed on the moustache, the watery, unseeing gaze from behind the glasses that had somehow managed to stay on the corpse.
As Alexander turned to address Koroviev, Alexander’s high collar continued to hide his face. When he spoke there was no tone or expression in his voice. He continued to hide any trace of emotion.
“Who found him?” demanded Alexander. His words were as cold and lifeless as the motionless corpse that lay before him.
“A local police unit,’ responded Koroviev.
“They have been dealt with and been generously remunerated to ensure their silence. They will not cause any problems I can assure you.”
“Good,” nodded Alexander, inspecting the corpse further.
“And you are sure it is him?”
“Yes, without doubt. He conveniently had his passport on him,” explained Koroviev, producing the passport from his own jacket pocket to dispel any lingering doubts that Alexander may have had. Alexander briefly inspected it before handing it back.
“You have done well Koroviev. I am very pleased,” stated Alexander, although his voice still remained as flat and emotionless as ever.
“It needs to be disposed of. There can’t be any trace of him left behind,” instructed Alexander. He paused and then added,
“It needs to be as if he never existed.”
Satisfied, he turned and made his way back to the limousine. Koroviev followed, as ever just a few watchful steps behind. Just before Koroviev was about to get in the limousine behind Alexander he stopped and looked around once more. This time he looked up at the stonewall and smiled knowingly.
Steve acknowledged Koroviev and watched the limousine slowly drive away, hopefully never to be seen again, by him anyway. From high up on this stonewall, Steve felt like he had just had an out of body experience and been watching his own funeral take place. He felt as good as dead now that Koroviev had told him that Amanda no longer wanted him. He had prepared himself for death until Koroviev had pulled him back and stopped him from drowning in the frozen canal waters. He supposed he should be more grateful to Koroviev but it was proving difficult when the outcome was so bleak.
It had been Koroviev’s idea to play the trick on Alexander. He seemed to have already had it all worked out. He had found the “snowdrop”, one of the many unfortunate drunks or hapless homeless who perish in the harsh St Petersburg winter. Someone of similar build and age to Steve and dressed him up in Steve’s disguise props. He had eventually convinced Steve that fooling Alexander into thinking he was dead was the only way to ensure Amanda’s safety. Steve still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced but he no other choice. He knew he should no longer care. Amanda had made her choice and decided not to come and meet him but Steve couldn’t just switch off his feelings for her. He wished he could. Then he wouldn’t have to suffer such heart wrenching anguish.
It would be a long, lonely journey home. Steve hated the thought of leaving Amanda in this cruel, inhospitable land. Koroviev had sworn that he would protect Amanda, that he had been looking over her all this time. When he spoke there was a light, a kind of serenity that Steve did not recognise as being Koroviev. He had to take him at his word. Steve had to admit, even though he hated doing so, that not only had she been kept safe till now but that she had blossomed. It seemed that it was Koroviev after all who was the master puppeteer pulling the strings.
CHAPTER 25
It was the first time that Amanda had ever felt like she hadn’t wanted to train. She felt drained: drained of her passion, drained of her purpose. But as she tied back her hair, pulled on her trainers and took her pre training supplements, focusing on routine and the familiar was the only thing that stopped her head from spinning with thoughts of the previous night.
She hadn’t slept a wink. It had hardly seemed necessary. Why would she need to sleep when her nightmare had become her reality? She had spent the remainder of the night, curled up in the armchair, staring hauntingly into the dying embers of the fireplace. Over and over she replayed the night’s events in her head until it seemed like the fire that once fuelled her dreams was also extinguished in the fireplace. She had so many unanswered questions and even more regrets. She regretted ever having come here. She deeply regretted allowing herself to be tricked by a smokescreen of lies and treachery but her biggest regret was losing Steve. She needed him now more than ever. She felt so lost and lonely, so stupid to have been duped so easily. He had been so close, heartbreakingly close. He had been waiting for her, just as he had always promised but Amanda knew he wouldn’t be waiting for her any longer. He had either perished in the cold or returned home thinking he had been rejected. Amanda didn’t know which was worse. She didn’t know why Koroviev had had Steve’s note to her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. All she did know was that they had both been victims of this netherworld of deceit and betrayal. They were both being made to suffer the consequences of Amanda’s gamble. It seemed that cowardice wasn’t the worst of vices after all.
Forcing down the remainder of her protein shake, Amanda fought the urge to throw it all back up. She felt sick with tiredness, having not slept at all the night before. She felt nauseous thinking about the sick fantasy she was entangled in. She wanted to vomit even before she got in the gym.
Walking into the gym, Amanda felt a crushing sense of dread weighing down on her shoulders, heavier than any fully loaded barbell. Whereas once she had derived a sort of perverse, sadistic pleasure from the prospect of pain promised by these implements of torture, now all Amanda saw was the pain and the torture. And over by the squat rack, waiting impatiently for her, was the most sadistic torturer of them all, her very own Marquis de Sade. The barbell was already loaded with a weight most would struggle just to lift from the floor, never mind curl for reps to warm up. Dispensing with such tedious civilities as “hello” and “how are you,” th
e trainer just pointed at the bar and that was Amanda’s signal to start training. Since Amanda’s arrival at this god forsaken place they had met on a daily basis. She spent more time with her trainer than with anyone else but dialogue, conversation would have been far too colloquial a term, never strayed from hurling commands at her and on one occasion a water bottle, which had narrowly missed.
Amanda watched herself robotically curl the bar up, lower it, then repeat. She felt like she was watching someone, or something else – just as she had done in her nightmare. Her face remained impassive, afraid to reveal her uncertainty, intent on masking her pain. Her body no longer felt like her own. Looking at her reflection, there was no doubt that the growth hormone was working. Her physique had morphed beyond all recognition, just as her recurring nightmare had forewarned. Each muscle had doubled in density and strength, swelling to cartoon like proportions. But as Amanda looked at this creation staring back at her, she was left wondering whose dream she was really fulfilling. Was all this really the dream she had strived so hard to achieve? Nor could she ever have imagined the insufferable pain brought on by such a rapid growth of muscle and strength. Sometimes her muscles looked so swollen they looked ready to burst. Getting out of bed had become a chore but to stay in bed and get in a comfortable position was near impossible. Sleep was fitful, interrupted by searing spasms of pain. Every morning the bedclothes were drenched in sweat and every joint ached as if she had spent the night being stretched on the rack. Such pain and misery could only portend disaster.
Amanda could have tolerated, even embraced the pain, if the passion had still been there. In the past she had always justified pain as weakness leaving the body, a necessity of heavy lifting, a sign that the training was working. Amanda was sure that the training and the growth hormone were working but she wasn’t sure anymore if it was worth the sacrifice. Even warming up, every rep hurt and the thought of the training session that lay ahead was torturous.
“Obraty vnimaniye!” Amanda immediately snapped out of her daydream and back into the present. She needed to pay attention. Her trainer furiously slammed more weight on the bar bell, intent on punishing her for her lack of focus. Amanda snatched the bar off him. She really wasn’t in the mood for his bullyboy tactics today.
“Odin, dva, tree,” he counted but it wasn’t necessary. Amanda was counting down with every rep as the fire in her muscles spread. Her skin reddened until it looked raw. It was stretched so thinly that it looked as if it would tear.
“Desyat!” Ten. Finally. Amanda went to put the bar down and at least allow the throbbing in her arms to ease.
“Nyet,” screamed her trainer, pushing Amanda back into position.
“Yeshyo.” There was no need to translate as he signaled with a jerk of the head to carry on curling. Amanda managed two more muscle wrenching reps before her arms were so flooded with blood and lactic acid that she could barely lift them more than a few inches in front of her.
“Yeshyo,” spat her trainer, pushing the bar aggressively up to her chin and fixing her with a steely look that dared her to defy him.
“Medlenno. Slowly,” He only resorted to English when his patience was being pushed to the limit. The count of five as Amanda slowly lowered the bar seemed to last much longer, the ten extra reps seemed to last an eternity. Amanda’s patience, it seemed, had run out many reps ago.
On the last rep Amanda let the bar drop to the floor in defiance. There was nothing he could throw at her that would defeat her, even when she was this tired and lacklustre. Her trainer though seemed hell bent on breaking her. Already he was walking over to the preacher bench and lining up a selection of dumb bells before it. Amanda dawdled, stopping to tie up her shoes, trying anything to delay and allow the build up of blood in her arms to dissipate. She tried to shake them but they resisted and remained hanging heavily by her side.
“Bistro,” urged her trainer, commanding her to hurry up.
Amanda took her anger out on the preacher bench as she vigorously wrestled the seat into position. Fixing her right arm on the pad, a 50k dumb bell was heaved into her outstretched hand. The dumb bell was raised inch, by painfully slow inch. With each inch, the bicep stretched further towards its snapping point. The higher the dumb bell was raised, the more inhuman the groans that escaped from Amanda’s mouth became. Three reps were all she could manage before the weight fell from her hand. It was immediately replaced with a 40k weight. Although the weight was lighter, the pace was still laboriously slow as every sinew in the bicep was recruited and pushed to absolute failure. The 40k was replaced with a 30k, the 30k was replaced with a 20k but through her blurred vision Amanda could have sworn the weights were increasing rather than decreasing.
The drop set left her arm lying dead on the pad, lifeless, unable to move on its own accord. Amanda switched arms. Her left bicep had always been the weaker one, the one prone to injury. The drop set had almost destroyed her right arm. Amanda dreaded to think what it would do to her left arm. As the 50k weight was placed in her left hand, her arm shook slightly, flooded with the anxiety and adrenalin that was racing round her body. Amanda would get through this set even if it killed her. There was no way she was going to admit defeat. There was no way she was going to give this masochist the pleasure.
Amanda started to lift the weight. It barely moved. She gripped the bench with her free hand and focused every ounce of energy on contracting her left bicep. The weight began to move as Amanda squeezed, swore and sweated like never before. Amanda inhaled sharply and leant her weight back from the bench in an effort to jerk the weight up. Amanda heard something pop. The whole residence must have heard Amanda’s eardrum splitting scream. A loud thud reverberated round the gym as Amanda simultaneously dropped the dumb bell and fell back onto the floor clutching her left bicep in excruciating agony. Amanda felt like her bicep was being skewered by flaming hot pokers, sending shooting pains up her left bicep, into her shoulder and radiating through the back of her head. Amanda wanted to pound her head against the floor in desperation. She would have done, if it would have made the pain go away.
Amanda rolled onto her back, still cradling her left arm and looked up to see her trainer standing over her with the same impassive look on his face. He roughly grabbed her left forearm, pulling it towards him. Amanda stifled a scream but couldn’t suppress a muffled “shit!” escaping her lips when she looked down at her bicep. In a matter of seconds it had swollen beyond deformed recognition and turned a disgusting shade of the most disfiguring darkest blue. It was horrifying but still the trainer’s face showed no reaction. He signaled for Amanda to flex her arm but the pain was too unbearable, too immobilizing. Instead her arm just hung, lifeless by her side, like it belonged on a mutilated corpse rather than a world-class athlete. Amanda stared at her arm and knew that all her hopes and dreams had just crumbled and died around her, then and there, on that cold, unforgiving gym floor.
Amanda was left alone to wallow in her misery and agony. She felt totally isolated, utterly desolate. She wanted more than anything to curl up into a ball on the floor and let flow a torrent of tears, of anguish and regret. But the harsh stomp of approaching footsteps had Amanda quickly wiping any hint of moisture from her eyes. She couldn’t let him see her like this. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her broken on the floor. Using the preacher bench to pull herself up to her feet, it occurred to Amanda that no amount of prayer would bring the miracle she needed right now. As the footsteps got louder and more urgent, Amanda heard only the approach of encroaching doom and despair.
Her trainer had returned with an ice pack and something much, much, colder. Alexander grabbed her arm in contemptuous disbelief. As cold flaming anger burned across his face, Alexander turned to scold the trainer with his scorching tongue. Amanda watched as the trainer wilted under the heat of Alexander’s tirade. He physically winced, flinched and faltered backwards from the savage verbal lashing he was dealt. But Amanda could feel no sense of just retribution. She had
had enough of cruelty and pain. She had had enough of Alexander and his damned world where cruelty and pain reigned.
With the trainer well and truly berated, Alexander turned his attention back to Amanda, fixing her with the full ferocity of his stare. Amanda looked into the black holes of his eyes and felt them pulling her, dragging her back to the horror of the previous night. All the intense loathing and disgust came flooding back, making Amanda want to get as far and as quickly away from Alexander as possible but she stood her ground and held his gaze with unblinking, unrelenting nerve.
“I can’t believe you were so stupid,” seethed Alexander. “How could you have been so reckless?”
“Reckless,” repeated Amanda, disbelieving of what she had just heard. “How can you say I was reckless? I was training, pushing myself to the limit just as you wanted. Just as you demanded.”
“Do you think I wanted this?” sneered Alexander.
“No,” he said with slow, menacing venom. “This is what you wanted. You wanted to ruin everything.”
“Why in God’s name would I want this?” screamed Amanda pointing at her disfigured arm.
“Why the hell would I intentionally want to injure myself? Can’t you see the pain I am in? You really don’t know the first thing about training, do you? All you fucking care about is bringing your sick pathetic perverted fantasy to life. You never really gave a shit about me achieving my dream to become Ms World Body Builder.”
