by AB Plum
“Hurt me less or hurt you less? Because I’d sure as hell punch you back.”
“In which case I’d have to . . .” What? Kill him? He was my best friend. My only friend. “We swore an oath when we were six years old.”
“I remember.” An undercurrent of resentment colored his reply.
“Why are we playing this power game? We’re equals, you know.”
“Except we both know that’s a lie. You have the money. The important father. The big future. Your dreams will all come true.”
“So will yours. As long as you stick with me. As long as I can count on you.”
He kicked up a pile of snow, sending puffs of it into my face. I clenched my hands.
“All right, dammit. Last night Kristina sucked my dick.”
Chapter 20
A Bad Day Ends Well
All day in my classes—where I was top boy—I failed to put up my hand to answer a single question. Dimitri’s revelation taunted me. Mocked me. Drove me crazy. Why had Kristina chosen him over me? In reality, was I so different? Repulsive? Ugly? Too short?
She was at least an inch taller than Dimitri. I was, without being egotistical, better-looking. So, was I too young? His birthday fell exactly nine months after mine. True, a few stray hairs had sprung from his chin, but . . . Why him?
When school let out, I didn’t want to go home. How could I face Kristina? How could I hold onto my temper?
Dimitri hesitated for a fraction of a second, then agreed to go to Hovedbanegård again.
“We still haven’t seen the exact spot,” I said as if he’d protested going.
“I suppose there isn’t much to see by now.”
“Which isn’t my fault,” I snapped, my face hot, my insides boiling.
“The third time, as they say . . .”
“Who the hell is they?” I barged through a gaggle of students. One of them stumbled, but a classmate grabbed him, calling after me to watch where I was going.
I whirled to march back to the group, but Dimitri stood in front of me like a brick wall. He said, “Forget them. They’re babies. Let’s go.”
At first, I resisted, but he remained immovable. I jogged away from him, swearing under my breath, drawing stares from several au pairs and mothers waiting for their little darlings. Dimitri caught up with me before I reached the corner.
“A guy back there with a camera just took your picture,” he said. “He’s following us.”
“Shiiiiit.”
“He’s bigger than us, but if you distract him, I can steal his camera.”
“Or we can just shove him under a train.”
Dimitri grinned. “Let’s save that option for another day.”
“If we can get him to follow us to Hovedbanegård, will that work?”
“Perfect, with all the passengers coming and going. How will you distract him?”
“I’ll think of something.” I wasn’t about to admit I didn’t have a clue.
The idea came to me full-blown at the entrance to Hovedbanegård. Dimitri called me brilliant.
Per my instructions, he broke away from me and stayed back while I waded into the hordes. My tracker behaved as I’d anticipated. He stayed almost on my heels. Trusting Dimitri’s timing, I suddenly bent to tie my shoes.
The tracker stumbled over me, and several passengers tripped over him. His camera fell on the floor. I shouted for help. Dimitri scooped up the camera and disappeared. The chaos continued for a few minutes after the arrival of two policemen.
“This man is following me,” I said in a voice close to tears. Fake tears, but no one but me knew that. Besides, the accusation was a serious one.
Danes do not like strangers following their children.
“That’s ridiculous—where’s my camera, you little bastard?” he shouted and a group of looky-looks booed.
“Why do you have a camera, sir?” the younger policeman asked.
“I’m a photojournalist. I need my camera. This punker and his pal stole it.”
There was an audible intake of breath from the bystanders, their Danish sensibilities offended by the reference to me as a punk. By now, I had opened my coat to reveal the Krebs’ Skole crest on my uniform. That crest is like a halo in the eyes of most Danes.
“Sir. Please mind your language,” the older policeman said, frowning.
“I’ll mind my language if he returns my camera.”
“But I don’t have your camera.” Since I was telling the truth, I had little difficulty sounding sincere.
“Then your pal took it. Where is he?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about. I came here by myself.”
“And why,” he sneered, “did you come here?”
“I came to see the place where my brother died last week,” I whispered, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands while I guffawed on the inside.
It was as if I’d waved a magic wand. The police broke up the crowd. The older one took the photojournalist aside and produced a notebook on which he wrote between nods.
The younger policeman escorted me to where I had sent Alexei over the edge. He stood next to me for the five minutes I stayed there, head bowed.
When I couldn’t stand still any longer, I raised my head. “Thank you. I’ve come here several times in the past few days, but I never got close enough to say good-bye.”
“Ahhh. I thought I saw you here the other day. Did you come with another boy—one with dark hair like yours?”
“Nej. Nej. I came alone.” I glanced at my shoes as if overcome by grief and so avoided eye contact. Few people liked what they saw when they met my gaze head-on, but I’d learned to make enough eye contact to pass for natural with some strangers. “May I leave now?”
“Absolutely. I’m sorry about that photojournalist. If he bothers you again, let us know.”
“Tak. Tusind tak.” A thousand thanks sounded so sincerely Danish I felt like puking.
Chapter 21
Fair Is Fair
Dimitri met me at the bus stop half an hour after I left the train station.
“That camera was nice,” he said.
“What’d you do with it?”
“Tossed it in the nearest trash bin.” He grinned. “After I removed the film.”
He reached into his pocket and unrolled a strip of celluloid.
“We’ll take it home and burn it.” I stepped forward to board our bus.
Kristina met us as soon as we entered the foyer. Roses bloomed in her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled.
“God dag. How was school?” She winked at Dimitri, and I immediately felt my chest tighten. She said, “Your mother’s not here.”
“Where’d she go?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. She said she’d be gone for the night. Back tomorrow after lunch.”
“Did she leave a phone number?” I threw my book bag on the hall table. A lamp on it tottered, but remained upright.
“C’mon now,” Kristina said in a wheedling tone. “She didn’t leave a number, but she left me in charge.”
Kristina proceeded to show us how she intended to be in charge. She ordered us to go upstairs. “Get undressed and climb in your beds.”
“Are you bringing us hot chocolate?” I shot a glare at Dimitri.
“C’mon.” His impatience spilled into annoyance
What the hell? I was the one who should be annoyed. Mad even.
“Go upstairs. Get undressed and climb in your beds,” Kristina repeated in a flat, no-nonsense tone. “Or, I’ll call Herr Romanov.”
I doubted he’d come if she did call him. At that point, I didn’t care. Vowing I’d make the cow pay, I stormed up the three flights of stairs.
In our room, Dimitri said, “I don’t know what’s got into her.”
“Were you lying about last night?”
“I swear she came to my bed. Just like I told you.”
“Well, I’m not drinking a drop of her damned hot chocolate tonight. She doctored mine.”
Chapter 22
A Very Pleasant Surprise
“I’ll tell her I’m not interested.” Dimitri folded his clothes over a chair. “So be ready—”
“Save your pity. I don’t want your fucking leftovers.”
“You are mad.”
“Because I said fucking?” I kicked one shoe toward the ceiling. “I’m not a baby. I’ve used the fucking word before.”
“Guess I’ve never heard you.” He crawled into bed and turned on his side to face me.
“Well, you aren’t with me every fucking minute of every fucking day. I generally take a leak without your nose breathing down my neck.”
“Min gud.” He slapped his palm in the middle of his forehead. “I completely forgot you’re queer that way.”
Propelled by an electrical jolt of adrenaline, I leaped out of bed and fell on top of him, straddling him between my knees, pummeling his head with my fists, spit spraying out of my mouth. “Don’t you say that, goddamn you. You’re the queer. Faggot. Fairy. Pansy. Queen. Poof.”
My fury ran down, and he finally caught my hands and held them over my head. He outweighed me by thirty pounds—mostly muscle from daily workouts on a punching bag.
“Got it out of your system now?”
“Let go of me.” I writhed and tried to swing my leg over his chest. His erection pulsated against my inner thigh. My heart pounded. “Faggot,” I whispered.
Before he could answer, the door swung open.
Kristina, naked as the day she came into the world, clapped. “Gud. Gud. Gud. Exactly what I was hoping for. Now make room for me, please.”
And we did. She rolled over me, plopped herself between us, and offered us each a rosy, voluptuous breast. She fondled us. Sucked us. Guided our dicks into her vagina. Repeatedly. Voraciously. As if she’d invented sex.
We spent all night in an orgy of sex. In retrospect, that initiation was the happiest day of my life.
Chapter 23
A Kindred Soul
For a full week, Kristina took us into every twelve-year-old boy’s fantasy world. She told us how a cousin had introduced her at age eleven to his secret world of an older boy.
“He was fifteen—a year younger than me now.” She wiggled her nose like a young girl, then shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I was supposed to be a boy. But I liked fucking with him. Most of the time was like with you two. On the sly. Which made what we was doing exciting. We went on for two years. Then I got pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” Dimitri and I spoke in unison like trained parrots. We understood the relationship between sex and babies. But until Kristina, sex had been abstract—except for masturbation.
“Me mum made me get rid of it,” she said as if relating her grocery list. “Didn’t hurt, but I had some kind of complication. Now I can’t have any more babies”
“Do you mind?” I asked, curious, rather than caring. I had no reason to relate to Kristina as a mother. Not at sixteen.
“Not really. My mor had nine kids younger than me. I changed enough butts to do me a lifetime. And when they’re not shitting, they’re puking. Sometimes they do both at the same time.” She shuddered and looked into my eyes.
For the first time, I saw something peering back at me like what terrified everyone who dared gaze into my eyes. Even Dimitri’s dark malevolence lacked the primitive animal instinct I recognized in Kristina’s unflinching gaze.
The crystal blue pigmentation of her irises? Her rosy, apple cheeks? The baby-soft protuberance of her bottom lip? No signs of the hairs prickling on the back of the neck. Did her immaturity protect her from the wariness other humans felt in my company?
The two or three times I brought up these questions to Kristina, she stuck her tongue in my mouth and opened my fly—perhaps an answer.
Chapter 24
Homecoming
For the first time in memory, life infused me with anticipation.
From the time I got up in the morning, with Kristina curled between me and Dimitri, until I fell asleep with her cuddling our dicks, I looked forward to what each day brought. No more trips to Hovedbanegård. No more concerns about the photojournalist. No more thoughts about being different.
The three of us created our own family—an island cut off from the mores and strictures of “normal” society. Classmates and teachers gave me and Dimitri even wider latitude—as if they sensed we belonged outside the tribe.
Weekends proved too short for the games we invented behind our closed doors. We discovered my father’s amazing wine cellar, but introduced ourselves judiciously to the fruit of the vine. We applied a different criterion to food. Whatever we wanted, Kristina cooked—everything improved by generous amounts of butter and cream. We kept the house warm as a sauna so that we could strut around the house naked.
Dimitri and I had IQs well above average. We should have imagined our world could not last. Sooner or later, one of my parents would come home. But by Day Fifteen, their absence now seemed natural.
So natural, that half drunk on wine, food, and sex in the middle of the day, none of the three of us heard the key in the front door.
Chapter 25
Back to Earth
Fifty-nine minutes after my mother found Dimitri, Kristina, and me entangled on the living room floor, Kristina trudged down the front steps and handed off her three bags to a taxi driver. Dimitri and I tapped at the upstairs window, but she slid into the cab without glancing up.
An hour after Kristina’s departure, my father entered our bedroom. He was red-faced and short of breath. Skin under his eyes hung in loose, black folds. His thick lips were dry, his teeth yellow, his breath foul. Finger trembling, he motioned me and Dimitri to sit on the edge of the bed. He pulled up the chair to face us.
“So, you have offended your mother and godmother, is that right?”
The closed question was a trap, but we nodded.
“She thinks you are perverted beasts.” He looked from Dimitri to me and back. “What do you have to say for yourself Dimitri Vladmir Karpov?”
“We didn’t hurt anyone.”
“Ahhhh.” My father nodded as if that answer teetered on acceptable. “And you, Michael Sergei Romanov?”
“I have no regrets.” A lie since I had one regret—that my mother had found out about Kristina and put an end to my idyllic life.
“You are eleven years old.”
“Twelve. Twelve in two weeks.” Had he forgotten my date of birth? A sour taste crawled up my throat. He’d remember Alexei’s birthday for the next thirty years I was certain.
“Twelve in two weeks means you are now eleven.” He swiveled his gaze to Dimitri, then back to me. “Whose idea was this?”
“Mine,” I said before Dimitri could open his mouth. “I forced Dimitri to go along.”
“Now that,” he said, “is a lie. But I don’t doubt you were the instigator.”
“I was.” I lifted my chin, waiting for the back of his hand across my face.
Instead, he threw his head back and roared. When he finished guffawing, he wiped his eyes. “I have not laughed since your brother’s accident. Thank you.”
Chapter 26
Apologies Unaccepted
My mother refused to accept the apologies we delivered with my father standing at our sides. She stared at all of us with the loathing of a beautiful, deadly snake. After half an hour of her contempt, my father sent us back to the attic and closed the drawing room door.
Naturally, we sneaked back down the stairs and eavesdropped.
My mother was speaking. Her soft, girlish tone contradicted the harshness of her words. “Those two are amoral. Both of them. I don’t want them in my house. Take them to live with you and your whore.”
“Aliina—they’re boys. Boys will be boys. I had my first sexual experience when I was eleven—”
“And look how you’ve turned out. Like father, like son. How Alexei grew into such a fine young man is amazing.”
“You don’t think Alexei d
ied a virgin?” My father’s laugh was a bark.
“Alexei was seventeen—almost a man. These two are boys. No, let me amend that. They have never been boys. They’re evil. Of the two, Michael’s the worst. If that is possible. I want them out of this house. Today.”
“You are being unreasonable. There is no place for them at my current residence.”
“Then find them a new residence.”
“Aliina, for the love you once felt for me . . .”
I imagined him holding out his open hands to her.
“I never loved you, Nikolai. I married you against my will. The only happiness I have ever had the past seventeen years was the birth of my first son.”
The silence rang with the deep resonance of a Tibetan gong. Muscles in my neck tightened to breaking. I curled my fists. Dimitri laid his hand on my shoulder.
Finally, my father said, “You are telling me nothing I did not already know, Aliina. Do you ever wonder if your toxicity has poisoned Michael?”
Her laugh could have splintered glass. “Michael was born poisoned. Thank God I never breast fed him, or I would have died for a certainty.”
“I’ll tell the boys to pack their school clothes. Plan on being out of the house tomorrow by four so we can come back for their things—unless you’re going to deny them their belongings.”
“I want nothing of theirs in this house. Nor anything of yours. I never want to see any of you again.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“For your information. I have consulted a lawyer. I have grounds to divorce you. And I plan to do so as quickly as possible.”
Chapter 27
Let the Good Times Roll
My father informed me and Dimitri in the taxi that he had booked two suites at the Hotel D’Angleterre. Dimitri and I exchanged looks. I think we’d both imagined he’d dump us in a fleabag while he whiled away the evening screwing his mistress.
