Silently he pours us both a drink and brings mine to me.
‘We should drink to something.’
He raises a cynical eyebrow.
I raise my glass. ‘Here’s to happy lives for both of us.’
‘Happy lives,’ he echoes, an odd edge to his voice.
We knock it back. He turns away from me and walks towards the bottle.
‘What will you do today?’ I ask into the awkward silence. He is so distant, so cold, it is impossible to imagine that it is the same man who licked ice cream off my body while I giggled like a schoolgirl. Or the man who came into the shower and kissed me like I was the most precious thing he’d ever had.
He shrugs. ‘Sleep. You?’
Talk about short answers. I can play the same game. I grimace. ‘Boring stuff.’
His phone vibrates and he goes rock still. Something happens inside my body when I watch him pick it up and put it to his ear.
‘Yeah, she’ll be out now,’ he says.
I want to touch him. I want to kiss him. I want our goodbye to be different. I feel … oh, God … I can’t …
I don’t want to leave him.
Nine
Noah Abramovich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqpAgMxhx30
Run
Once the taxi has driven off, I close the front door and walk into the living room. The house feels like a fucking tomb. No wonder I never come here. This is a family home. It is meant to be filled with the sound of a woman and children. Not this deathly silence.
I have the urge to smash something. I pick up the glass I left on the coffee table and throw it blindly. It crashes into the wall and smashes with a resounding noise. Then the silence returns. I press the heel of my palm into my forehead. Damn it. Damn it.
This can’t be fucking it.
No fucking way.
I stride to the bottle of cognac and pour myself a large measure. I drink it so fast the liquid burns my throat, but on an empty stomach it is finally starting to dull off the sharp edges. I sit down on the couch and pour myself another. Tasha Evanoff. My limbs feel heavy and dead. I grasp the bottle by the neck and take a long swig.
Ah, fuck it. She’s just a woman.
There is a Chinese saying. People are like a finger in water. Take the finger out and the water closes over seamlessly. Not even the memory remains. No matter how important they seem to be their absence doesn’t count a damn.
I look at the dent in the wall. It is some kind of specialist paint or shit. I’ll have to get that annoying designer back in here. A thought crosses my mind and I go into the kitchen. I stand at the doorway and look at the counter smeared in ice cream. I see her again, spread out on my dark granite completely coated in the oozing sweetness, squirming, laughing, a creamy sticky mess.
I see me bending down to slowly lick the drips from her breasts, her stomach, my tongue exploring everywhere, every inch, pretending I was not really in search of the sweet nectar between her legs. More ice cream lands on her giggling body, more licking, until she didn’t squirm or giggle anymore.
I turn away from the empty counter. I have never felt so alone in my life. I sit on the couch and pull my feet up. Not long before daylight. She would have arrived at her home by now. I call Sam.
‘All done,’ he says crisply.
‘Where did you drop her off?’
‘One street away.’
‘Right. Thanks.’
I drink until I can’t see straight, but the wanting doesn’t go away. I can’t face the bed. I close my eyes and sleep comes. I wake up at the sound of someone in the kitchen. My head is hammering. I look at the bottle rolling on the floor. It’s empty.
I groan when Irina comes into the room.
She is coming into the room bringing a small saucer. ‘Nikolashka,’ she says. Her voice rings like a fucking Church bell in my head.
It is an old Russian cure for a hangover. A slice of lemon with a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of coffee on top.
I shake my head and pain shoots into it. ‘Nyet,’ I whisper.
‘It’s either this or haash.’ There is not an ounce of sympathy in her voice. Fuck that. Haash is a Caucasus thick stew that is prepared by cooking tripe and beef trotters for six hours, and to make it worse, it is consumed with radish and lots of garlic. I’d rather die than let one drop of that shit into my mouth.
I put my feet on the ground and a bolt of pain hits my brain.
‘Fuck,’ I curse, cradling my head.
Irina stands patiently next to me with her saucer.
I reach out a hand, take the lemon slice and, sliding it between my dry, crusty lips, chew it slowly. As soon as I have swallowed it, she nods with satisfaction and goes back to the kitchen. I stand up slowly and go straight into the bathroom. I switch on the shower and stand under the hot jet. The sluggish blood in my veins starts pumping. I roll my neck and stretch the knots from my shoulders. Last night feels like a dream. I get out of the shower, brush my teeth, and walk naked to the bedroom.
Slivers of sunlight slanting in through the window shutters make me squint. My eyes turn to the unmade bed. She was no dream. I walk to the bed and, grabbing a fistful of bedding, pull it up to my nostrils. Her smell clings to the bed sheets like early morning fog across a lake.
I can’t just let go of her like that. She belongs to me.
I go to the window and pull the shutters open. Bright yellow sunlight blinds me for an instant, then I see them. An Omen. In my head Babushka is saying, eto magiya (it’s magic). Two blackbirds have settled on the pillars on either side of my gate.
A dormant memory, fresh as if from yesterday, fills my mind.
Babushka’s hands with their bulbous knuckles are moving quickly. She is peeling red onions to make pickles for the winter. It always makes the whole house smell of vinegar. Around her head is the triangularly folded headscarf and I am reading the newspapers to her. Suddenly a bird flies in through the open window and perches on the inside ledge.
‘Look, Babushka?’ I gasp.
She looks at the bird.
‘What kind of bird is it?’ I whisper back.
‘It’s a blackbird,’ she says and smiles.
‘Is it a good omen?’ I ask curiously. Babushka assigned meaning and superstitions to even the smallest occurrences.
She throws a peeled onion into the bucket and picks up another one. ‘All the birds that wear robes of black come to tell us the seeds of change have been planted in our lives. Often they bring news of death because that is the greatest change of all.’
‘Who will die in our house?’ I whisper aghast.
‘No one. When you see a blackbird you must smile. Tis a great blessing. It is an early warning. Telling us to be prepared. To love those around us even more deeply than we think is possible because one day they will be no more.’
She smiles at me and I smile back.
‘Now sing,’ she says.
And I sang for her. I was eight years old.
That winter was the first time I knew Mama was ill. That time they cured her. The next time the illness came back I would be thirteen and this time she would suffer for two years two months and five days before she left Babushka and I forever.
For a moment I just stand and watch silently. What seeds of change have you brought? What do I have to be prepared for? Who do I have to love even more deeply than I think is possible before they are taken away from me forever?
I don’t move but they must have sensed my figure because they look up towards me before they simultaneously fly away. I draw myself away from the window and Tasha Evanoff fills my head.
Her luscious curves, warm sweet breath and eyes full of simple joy. No matter how much I try to make myself believe last night was nothing more than two animals acceding to their wildest, lustful desires, I know different. I also know slow darkness will follow after taking the forbidden. But I don’t care. I shrug a shoulder.
I’ve waited for a long time to make that pussy cry
out for me and fuck me it did, over and fucking over. Hell, I can’t remember the last time a woman made me feel this alive. I drag myself back to the bed, my cock stiff and throbbing with blood surging from my brain. I get in and grasp its thickness firmly. With long slow strokes, I visualize that sweet pink flesh that drove me to such wickedness hours earlier.
I see my cock power into her, thrusting mercilessly, as savage as the Alpha wolf with his female. I took her like it was my last day on this earth. What a fucking glorious ending! My free hand grips my chest and my heartbeat rises as my orgasm begins to race forward like an unstoppable freight train.
Oh, fuck, oh, fuck me. My cock pulsates, frantically cheering my hand on, like it has a fucking mind of its own. I stroke faster and faster, and feel the perspiration form across my forehead. My whole body stiffens as I shoot my hot seed into the air.
Fuck. Fuck you Nikita Evanoff.
This, this is just the fucking beginning ...
Ten
Tasha Evanoff
I stand a block away from my home. I look around me and there is no one. It’s still early and no one actually walks the streets in this neighborhood. There is a nip in the autumn air, but I am warm in the butter-soft, brown leather jacket that Noah insisted I wear.
‘I can’t be seen in it,’ I told him.
‘Then ditch it before you get home,’ he replied carelessly.
I stood still while he helped me into it. He lifted my hair out of the collar and zipped me up as if I was a child. Then he stepped away from me and let his hands drop to his sides.
‘So it’s goodbye,’ I said, wanting desperately to prolong those last moments.
He didn’t answer. Just nodded and opened the door, his hand clutching the handle so hard his knuckles shone white. I didn’t want to go, but my legs moved and I walked over the threshold, down the steps, and straight into the cab. I smiled automatically at the man called Sam as he shut the door.
As he got into the driver’s seat I turned my head and looked at Noah. His tall frame filled the doorway, still, dark and mysterious. I lifted my hand and waved, but he did not wave back. Then the cab began to move and I wanted to scream for him to stop, to take me back where I belong.
But I didn’t.
I just sat in the cab, numb and silent, until we were nearly at my house. That’s when my sense of self-preservation kicked in and I leaned forward and told Sam to drop me off a block before my house.
‘Just there, by that post box would be great.’
That’s how I come to be standing a block away from home hugging Noah’s jacket. A cold October wind ruffles my hair as I take the first step towards the place I call home and my legs work. I take another step and another step. With every step my body starts rewiring itself. I did what I wanted to, and it was the most beautiful fantasy I could have dreamed of, but now it was over, and real life had to begin again.
When I am half a block away I take the jacket off, but I cannot bring myself to throw it away. I roll it up into a ball and walk a bit further down the road. My hands are itching to throw it away. If I get caught … there will be hell to pay for not just me, but Noah too, but my heart won’t let me. It is the only thing I will ever have of him.
As I get to my best friend Lina’s house, I pop into her front garden and stuff the jacket in the blue recycling containers left outside. It must be collection day. I know the trucks don’t come until mid-morning. I’ll either come back in a couple of hours and retrieve it, or I’ll just call Lina and ask her to keep it for me until later.
When I get closer to the house I take out my mobile phone and call my grandmother. Although it is five-thirty in the morning, she answers her phone on the first ring and sounds completely alert. My grandma wakes up at four every morning to do her prayers. She prays for hours for my father’s soul.
‘Tasha,’ she says.
‘Baba, can you give me a hand?’
For a moment she is silent. Then she exhales the breath she is holding. ‘Of course.’
I walk to the wall at the back of the house and wait across the road. The gates have CCTV cameras running 24 hours a day, but the walls only have cameras that swivel on a 180% arc. So if you time your journey to or from the wall carefully you will never appear in it. I wait, half hidden by a cherry tree. Five minutes later a rope comes over the wall and I run to it.
I have less than 45 seconds before the camera will return to that spot. I run across the road and climb the ladder nimbly. I have been doing this since I was six years old. I jump onto the springy grass and pull the ladder up behind me. I carry it with me and run to the ancient Yew tree. Less than ten seconds left. I reach into the roots of the tree and pluck the rope out of the metal hook hidden within. I yank it but it gets stuck.
Shit.
Five seconds left.
I get on my haunches, untangle it, it comes off, and I heave it free. Clutching the ladder and rope to my chest, I roll on the ground and get behind the tree. I push myself upright and lean against the back of the tree. My heart is hammering and adrenaline is buzzing through my veins, but I’m smiling. Three Rottweilers are licking my hands and face.
I made it.
I speak softly to them, patting their muscular, well-trained bodies, and fishing little treats from my cardigan top to give to them. ‘Go on. Off with you,’ I tell them, and they trot off to resume their guarding duties.
I stand up and wait for the camera to do its complete sweep before I run back to the house. I throw the rope ladder back into its black bag and dust myself off. Thank god, it is not raining. Although I have made this trip in the rain, I would have made a right mess of myself, rolling on the wet ground. Carrying the bag, I walk coolly into the kitchen.
It is empty, but for Baba. She is sitting at the kitchen table wearing the thick housecoat she wears to bed and a dressing gown over it. Her short, coarse iron-gray hair is uncombed, and her face is pale without her lipstick. There is a pot of tea and two cups and saucers laid out on the table. I walk up to the table and, dropping the bag on the floor, sit in front of her. Silently, she fills the cups with tea.
‘Isn’t the appointment for your wedding dress fitting today?’ she asks in Russian. Baba is the only one who speaks to me in Russian.
‘Yes.’
‘At what time?’
I look down at the steam rising from my tea. ‘Half past eleven.’
She pushes the container of sugar towards me. ‘Where have you been?’
I look into her deep set, dark eyes. They’re similar to Papa’s in coloring, but while his are cold and dangerous, grandma’s are warm and full of concern.
‘I was with a man,’ I confess.
Eleven
Tasha Evanoff
A look of deep sorrow and fear comes into her eyes. She clasps her pink, shiny hands on the table top because they have started trembling.
I love my grandmother and though I knew she would not approve, I never expected to see her look so desolate or frightened for me. It’s not like I’ve hurt anybody. I just took something for myself and I have been careful not to cause consequences to anybody. I reach for her hands and cover them with mine.
‘Oh, Baba, please, please, don’t be sad or scared,’ I plead. ‘Nothing bad happened and nothing will. I wanted him for a long, long time and I would have always regretted if I had not taken this night for myself, but now I’ve had him I can move on. I can put it all behind me and be a dutiful daughter to Papa.’
She blinks slowly. ‘You wanted him for a long, long time?’ she echoes in a daze.
‘Yes, for a very long time.’
She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Have I not known you at all, Solnyshko?’
‘You’ve known all of me, Baba. This is just something my heart wanted.’ I smile. ‘It’s like how you sometimes still crave for your babushka’s smokva.’
‘Smokva? Yes, we called it dried paradise apple in our village,’ she says, her eyes misting with the memory. ‘It was very precious, but
I have never crawled over a wall in the middle of the night, or … risked a man’s life for it.’
I take my hands away from hers. ‘Papa will never find out.’
She shakes her head. ‘You could have been caught. Someone could have seen you.’
‘No. I was very, very careful. I told no one. Not Mama, not even you.’
She sighs sadly. ‘Do you know smokva originally meant dried figs, but because they were too expensive for the ordinary person, somebody had the idea to boil up locally available apples, quinces, plums and rowanberries in honey or sugar syrup? Smokva was the poor man’s substitute for figs. You don’t need to make do with a substitute, Tasha. You can have the real thing.’
I stare into her eyes and whisper, ‘That was the real thing, Baba. That was the real thing. What I will have after him will be the substitute.’
Her eyes widen and she gasps. ‘Who is this man?’
‘You wouldn’t know him.’
Her eyes narrow. This is when she looks closest to Papa. ‘But my son does?’
I nod.
She draws her breath sharply. ‘This man, will he tell, boast to anyone about you?’
I shake my head. ‘He’s not a kid. He understands it could cost his life.’
‘And he will not try to make trouble?’
I shake my head again.
‘Will you see him again?’
‘No,’ I say and it is a wretched sound. I can see that it startles my Baba. ‘It was just the once,’ I say miserably, ‘so I’d know what dried figs taste like.’
‘Oh, Solnyshko, you don’t know what you have done.’
‘I have done nothing. It was just this once. I did it for me. My whole life has been one long Lent and just this once I indulged.’
‘You think you have had one taste of carnal pleasure and now you can walk away and never look back? You have only awakened the demon of desire.’
We are both staring at each other when the door to the kitchen suddenly opens. Both of us jump and swivel our heads towards it. Papa is standing at the doorway. He is still dressed in the clothes he went out in last night. My father is a balding, short, barrel-shaped man. If you saw him in the street you wouldn’t even notice him, but if ever you chanced to look into his black eyes you would shudder with something unnameable. Like looking into the eyes of an insect. Not evil. Just soulless. This man could kill a man with the same emotion with which he sneezes or takes a piss.
You Don't Know Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 4
