Last Kiss

by Jessica Clare

  “Why?” I ask, puzzled.

  “Just to say hello?”

  “I have nothing to say to her after hello?”

  “Right. She might not get our conversations. I think I’ll just stay on the line.” His voice is warm even though the words are chiding. It’s a conversation we’ve had before, many times. As an Aspie, I am abrupt with people and not good with small talk or managing conversations, and Daniel has had to “soothe ruffled feathers” in the past, as he likes to say. I’m not sure what I said that set him off, but I go on.

  I want to tell Daniel about the places I’ve been and seen—he would be impressed that his introverted little sister has been to Florence and Venice and ridden on a train. But Vasily has cautioned me about mentioning locations so I look for a different topic. “Did you know that there are men that like to fuck donkeys? I saw one. I wasn’t entirely sure that he could reach the donkey’s vagina but apparently you can with the appropriate footstool. The donkey must have been trained to stand still for his attentions, but I imagine that is a difficult thing to train for. Do you buy a donkey fully trained for bestiality or do you suppose that someone buys a normal donkey and has to slowly introduce it to—”

  “Whoa whoa whoa—” Daniel bellows into the phone. “Where the fuck is that dipshit Vasily taking you that you’re seeing someone fuck a goddamn donkey? Put him on the phone right now.”

  I frown. “Daniel, I am making conversation. It was a bad place, but don’t worry. Everyone died.”

  “What?”

  “The donkey is safe,” I assure him.

  “Naomi,” Daniel says, and his voice is flat. “Put that sonofabitch on the phone right now.”

  “Vasily is visiting Elena Petrovich,” I tell him. “I am in hiding until he comes back, and then we’re going to have sex again. Maybe more than once.”

  “Oh my Christ, someone please burn my ears off of my head,” Daniel moans into the phone. “I am going to kill that bastard for taking advantage of you.”

  “You’d better not,” I tell him with a frown. “I don’t want you killing Vasily.”

  “Sarcasm, sis,” Daniel points out again.

  I sigh. Always with the sarcasm. I never can pick up on it. Daniel was a sniper in the army, so it is reasonable to think he might come after Vasily. I should probably caution him when he returns.

  There is a soft knock at the door.

  I tilt my head, thinking, and look at the plain clock on the wall. Vasily should not be back this soon. No one is supposed to know that I am here. This is not good.

  “Someone is here,” I tell Daniel quietly into the phone. “Something bad has happened with Vasily.”

  “Where did you say he went again? Regan, get me a pen.”

  “To visit Elena Petrovich. She has summoned him. She probably knows I am here.” I speak quietly, but the person knocks at the door again and tests the doorknob. It will not be long before they attempt to break the door down, and they can’t catch me with the phone, or Daniel will be in danger. “Can you come?” I whisper quickly.

  “Give me thirteen hours and I’ll be there with bells on,” Daniel tells me in a worried voice. “Go with them. Do whatever they want, but stall, do you hear me? Stall. I love you, sis.”

  I hang up and stuff the phone between the cushions of Vasily’s chair. “Coming,” I call out, and approach the door. I briefly consider Vasily’s brick of money under the sink, but anyone that is coming for me will not be bribable, I suspect. Better to just stall, as Daniel has said, and wait for him to arrive.

  So I open the door and paste (what I hope) is a happy smile on my face. “Yes?”

  The man that stands there is in a black suit that somehow looks cheap and ill-fitting. He is bony-thin, with hollow cheeks, and tall. His hair is greasy from a lack of bathing, and his nose has been broken multiple times. And he returns my smile. “You are to please come with me.” His accent is very thick and sounds like Vasily’s. “Your friend Vasya is in danger.”

  For a moment, my heart skips a beat. Vasily is in danger. But then I remember the situation; Vasily did not send this stranger, so his mouth is full of lies. I have to pretend I don’t know this, though. “Oh no,” I say. “Can you take me to him?”

  “But of course,” the man says, and grins at me far too widely for it to be natural.

  We get into a black sedan with tinted windows, and the man opens the back door for me. I get in, and there is another man in the driver’s seat. He barely glances over at me in the rearview mirror, but starts the car. The skinny man sits in the front, gives me another false smile, and then murmurs something to the driver. They both laugh.

  “Where is Vasily?” I ask. “Where are we going?”

  They laugh again, and continue talking in Russian, ignoring me. At this point, I am almost positive they are laughing at how gullible I am. See, they are probably saying. She is stupid. She comes without asking questions.

  But my actions have purpose. These men are going to take me to Elena Petrovich, who has Vasily’s Caravaggio . . . and Vasily.

  And Daniel will be here in twelve hours and fifty-five minutes.

  Now

  When I see Vasily next, it’s good I don’t have to hide my fear. I’m terrified of this big place with its ornate furniture and the fact that there is a naked, wide-eyed boy in the room with us. Elena Petrovich is beautiful—and also naked—but I don’t like her face.

  I especially don’t like her after she offers to have the man holding me—Ylofa—rape me. And then the next is the worst.

  “Ylofa will not take your cock, of course. That is unnecessary. He will only cut open your sac and remove your balls.” Her voice is irritating.

  I’m trying to digest whether or not this is a serious threat—removing balls? Really?—when Vasily gives me an intense, soul-searching stare. If he’s trying to communicate something, I miss it.

  “I will do it,” Vasily says. “Allow the others to leave and you may take whatever you like from my body.”

  And I’ve had enough of this shit.

  “This is incredibly stupid,” I say. “You are the worst castrator ever if you think removing his balls is going to be an effective method of castration.”

  Elena turns to me and her jaw drops. Her face flushes a mottled red, and I’m filled with glee.

  “Nyet, Naomi—” Vasily begins.

  “I’m serious. This is kiddie shit,” I point out. “That is the stupidest punishment I have ever heard. What, do you think every man that has his testicles removed from testicular cancer is suddenly a castrato? That’s idiotic and absurd. Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together would know that a man without his testes can still get an erection and have sex. Removing the testicles will simply remove his ability to produce semen and reduce his testosterone—which, I might add, can be artificially increased with medication and thus take care of the sex-drive problem. So really, all you’re doing is creating an incompetent scenario in which you are not solving the problem at all. Why not remove his spleen and pretend that turns him into an eunuch as well?” I snort, amused by my own joke. I even hold up a finger. “Oh look, I have a paper cut. This must make me a eunuch!”

  “Someone shut her up,” Elena says in that annoying, tight voice. “Or I will cut the bitch’s tongue out.”

  “Why not just castrate me?” I mock. Everyone is looking at me as if I’m insane—Vasily included. The hand holding my arm is bruise-tight, but I ignore it. I have my plan: stall for time. Elena Petrovich won’t kill me. She needs me alive to hold Vasily. If she wanted me dead, they would have put a bullet through my brain back at the apartment. I know this, and I use this confidence to continue to needle her. “You do realize you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, right?”

  “That bitch is yours, Ylofa,” she snarls, her face a dark, ugly red that suggests she is losing control. Her breasts are heaving with anger. “I have changed my mind. I will take Vasily’s balls and you can rape the pizda.”<
br />
  A low growl sounds through the room, and I realize it’s Vasily. His hands clench, and there is a mad look on his face. “You will not fucking touch her,” he says in a cold voice. “Do so over my dead corpse.”

  Elena reaches for her robe and pulls it back on her body, scurrying backward. She shouts something even as the man holding me grabs his gun and pulls it out.

  “No!” I cry, but he holds the gun over my shoulder and shoots before I can react.

  A dart appears in the raging Vasily’s chest mere moments before he can attack Ylofa. He collapses at our feet, and I realize Vasily is tranquilized, not dead. This man is not armed to kill. Elena wants all of us alive.

  The room falls silent. Elena puts a hand to her heaving breasts and mutters something in Russian. The naked boy scurries to action, along with the manservant. They each grab one of Vasily’s hands and drag him across the room.

  “So,” Elena says to me after a moment, speaking in English again. “You are determined to ruin my fun tonight. Now we must put Vasya in a cell and wait for him to wake up. I wish for him to be conscious for his castration.”

  “His useless castration,” I point out.

  “Cunt,” she says in that sneering voice of hers. “Enjoy your time with Ylofa.”

  The man holding my arm grabs me and hauls me out of the room. I glance over my shoulder one last time to see Vasily’s unconscious form being dragged slowly across Elena’s rug. Hold on for eleven and a half hours more, I tell Vasily silently. Daniel is coming.

  We go down a few side halls, and then Ylofa slams the door shut behind him and locks it. I can’t read expressions normally, but there’s no mistaking the evil leer on Ylofa’s face as he looks me up and down.

  I take a step backward in alarm. “Don’t touch me.” I back up against a nearby chair. I’m scared, I admit it. I have a plan, and I’m hoping the plan works. If not, this is going to be very, very bad.

  He continues to advance. His long, bony arm snakes out and grabs my wrist, and then he hauls me against him. “On knees,” he tells me, and pushes a surprisingly strong hand onto my head, forcing me down.

  I collapse to my knees, unable to withstand his strength, and he begins to unzip his pants. As he pulls out his member, I begin the next part of my plan.

  My eyes roll back in my head and I begin to convulse. My body stiffens, and I begin yet another fake round of seizures.

  I can’t watch him this way, of course, but I hear his breath suck in even as I collapse and fall backward onto the carpets. He won’t try to stick his dick into my mouth now. Not with me arching my spine and drooling all over myself in a rather convincing seize.

  “Chto yebat!” He sounds startled.

  I hear a metal clicking, though, and I can’t place the sound until I hear the swift pshew of his gun as it fires another dart. Pain shoots through my sternum, and my eyes flick open just in time to see Ylofa glancing around, as if checking for watchers.

  As I slide unconscious, I think to myself that perhaps this great plan of mine is not so great after all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  VASILY

  When the drug wears off, I find myself in a plush room. The young manservant is sitting cross-legged, chained to the floor. He is nude but from the nonchalance of his stance, I can tell this is not an uncommon place or position for him. The younger boy is nowhere to be seen.

  “Why are you here?”

  He shrugs. For a fifteen-year-old boy he has experienced too much already. “I assume she will ask me to pleasure you or perhaps you to pleasure me. You are very old but she appears to have a special affection for you.”

  I want to tell this youth that I was born old. Poverty does that to you. I reach down to touch my groin but there is no pain.

  The boy notices. “You are untouched. I think the crazy lady convinces them to not harm you.”

  “Do not refer to her as crazy.” I give him a grim smile to soften my reprimand. His return roll of the eyes indicates I should not have tried. Too much American television for this boy. Russian boys do not roll their eyes. “Is it a brother or sister that she threatens?”

  This makes him look at me in surprise and then with narrow-eyed suspicion. He thinks he is the only one? How can he be so naïve? But I need him for whatever might come next. I must convince him that the time to act is now, rather than waiting.

  “My brother. How do you know this?”

  I begin to examine my bonds as I talk. “This is the way that she tells herself that she is not evil. You—and I and the others—do as she asks without force. When she hunts she looks for those who have vulnerabilities. At times you wonder if you should just kill yourself or the ones that you love to put an end to it all. Cut the thread on Damocles’s sword yourself and if it falls and beheads you, then your suffering is over.”

  “But if you are gone, the one you have sacrificed for all those years remains unprotected.” He’s listening to me. His insolent, lazy pose has been replaced with one of alertness. He is standing now, holding his chain off the ground.

  “True. So you take the sword up in your hand and wield it.”

  At this he scoffs. “If it were only that easy, I would have knifed her years ago. She watches me and my brother constantly. All of her puppies have watchers. You do not do as she asks, and vulnerability”—he spits out the word like it is contaminating his mouth—“is brought before you. A warning the first time and the second—”

  “The second time, she makes them suffer,” I interject. “At least she has not changed. I know her well.”

  “But you are still dog on a leash,” he sneers. “You have no sword, and your crazy girlfriend has been tranqed. Now you will perform, both of you, like trained bears at the circus.”

  “That is one outcome,” I agree. “But we can make others.”

  He wants to turn away, but the carrot of possibility is too strong for him to ignore. “I don’t believe you can make change.”

  “Watch me,” I say. There is a chain around my wrist. I follow it to the base, which appears to be bolted to a floor joist. Several jerks fail to move the bolted plate. Another delicate chain is wound around the base of my cock and balls, which is attached to my wrist. I cannot lift my dominant hand more than shoulder height or it begins to pull on my balls, but if both my hands were free . . . I look around for something small but heavy I could use. There is a plaster bust on the built-in chest behind me and the chair of the sofa. Either will do but the plaster bust will be easiest. “Where is she being held? My friend,” I clarify, snatching the bust and tossing it in the air. It is not as heavy as I would like, but with a few blows it should do the trick.

  “Next door. Elena is calling her friends for an impromptu party.”

  “Who has weapons here?” Elena does not carry weapons nor does she know how to use them. It disturbs her vision of herself as a wealthy noblewoman. We are her weapons.

  “Ylofa. Later, the bodyguards of her guests.” He is eyeing me warily. “What will you do with that?” He pushes his chin toward the bust.

  “Free myself.” I tip the chaise lounge on its side, for the base is much harder than any other part. Kneeling before it, I place my balls on top. “Your brother? Is he watched?”

  “Yes every hour of every day.” His voice is growing faint.

  “Are you allowed to contact him? Is there a safe place he can go for a couple hours?”

  He gnaws at his lip and stares at me with growing horror. “You do not plan to use that, do you?”

  “I am no dog on a leash.” I lift the bust in the air.

  “Stop!” he cries.

  I pause with the bust halfway down to my balls.

  “What are you doing?” he says. His chest is heaving as if he is the one who has suffered the crushed testicles.

  “I am loosening the leash.”

  “I do not understand.” He steps nearer to me. “How will this help you?”

  “After I crush my testes, I will be able remove the c
hain and move my right hand freely.”

  “You are crazy like your girlfriend.”

  “Perhaps.” I bare my teeth in a gruesome smile. “It is first compliment you have made.”

  “Here.” He tosses me a thin, shiny object. “I store this in my mouth for the times she likes to lock me up and I no longer wish to be restrained.”

  I catch it. It is a thin metal pick with a hook on the end. “Thank you.”

  In a few movements, I have released myself and him. He rubs his ankle.

  “What will you do now?”

  “Find Ylofa, of course. He will be the only person with weapons. We disable him, rescue Naomi, kill Elena, take the painting, and leave.”

  “You can do all of this?”

  I toss the pick in the air. “Yes. I will take the sword and stick it into Elena so many times, the blood will run out of her like a sieve.” I bare my clenched teeth. “Come with me and you will have your turn.”

  This time it is he who bares his teeth.

  “Where is Ylofa?”

  “Where else but watching porn on his phone when he is supposed to be guarding Naomi.”

  I am not able to loosen the larger chains from their bolts on the floor, but the manacle and chain that bound my body together will serve a fine purpose. I whip it around and toss it out a few times to measure its length and spin. Yes, it will do well for me. “Come, then, and stay behind me.”

  He nods. I unpick the lock from the inside and open the door slightly. The hallway is empty. I creep out and head toward the living room.

  “Your friend is the other way,” he hisses. I press a finger to my lips to silence him.

  I want to know who else is in the apartment other than Elena, Ylofa, Naomi, this manservant, the young boy, and me. The study where we were tranqed is empty, but there are two piles of clothes. I take mine and dress while the boy does the same. I rifle through the cabinets but as I suspect, there are few weapons here. I do find a pair of scissors in a drawer and hand them to the boy.