by SR Jones
“You let me off my debts because we’re friends, and that is what friends do.” Father offers him a false, reptilian smile. “I let you help my son with his homework because I wanted you to feel useful. Important. I know how hard it has been for you since you lost your seat on the local council. You lost some of your reputation. Now, you might be about to lose a lot more.”
“Unless?” Mr. Yahntov gets with the program. “What can I do to stop that from happening?”
“I know you’ve got a pile of savings. I think giving some of them to us would go a long way to me keeping my mouth shut. I’ll put it into an account for the boy. For all this … trouble you’ve caused him. Call it reparations of sorts. If you give us half of your savings, we will consider this matter closed.”
Mr. Yahntov pales. “I can’t give you half. My wife will kill me.”
“She will kill you if she knows you like to touch young boys inappropriately and, to be honest, your wife will be the least of your worries if this gets out.”
“You piece of shit.” He stares at my father with pure hatred, then turns his beady eyes on me. “I bet you were in on this, shiyuka.” He spits the word at me. It means whore.
Bastard. As if I’d be in on anything with my father. The man disgusts me. The word still coats me with sticky shame, though.
“Now, let us go and talk about this like civilized men. In the kitchen over a vodka. The others have left.”
All planned. And I was the bait.
My loathing for my father intensifies. When Mr. Yahntov is gone, it boils up and over. There’s only so long you can simmer away before you explode. I march into the living room and scream at my father.
“You’re the most disgusting human being I’ve ever known. You hate me and you hate me because you know it is true what your perverted friends say. I am good looking, and that means I can’t be yours. I can’t be yours because you’re an ugly, fat fucking loser.” I start to laugh. “Your wife fucked someone else, and you’ve raised that kid as your own all these years. What a loser.”
The blow when it comes is so hard, I stagger back and fall. My father picks up a chair and smashes it down on my back. I bend over to try to protect my head as the blows rain down on me.
When it’s finally over, I can barely breathe. He storms out of the apartment, and I don’t move. I don’t think I’m able.
What seems like hours later, I hear a key in the lock. Shit, he’s back.
I struggle to get up, not wanting a second go-round, but hear Mother’s voice. She staggers into the room, Uncle Roman, holding her up.
He sees me and lets go of Mom, who falls to the side, the wall the only thing stopping her from hitting the floor.
“Bohdan?” He crouches down next to me, his face creased with concern. My uncle might have gone to prison, and he might have even killed a man, but he has more honor than my father holds in his little finger. “Did he do this?”
By he, he means my father.
This I can talk about. Unlike the other stuff that I just can’t find the words to say, this I can speak of. “Does it a lot, but this is the worst,” I say. My voice sounds strained.
Uncle Roman gently lifts my sweater and swears.
“This can never happen again. After tonight, Bohdan, your father won’t be a problem for you. Do you understand what this means?”
I nod.
“Do you want me to take care of it?”
Another nod.
Then my uncle leaves.
I just signed my father’s death warrant, and I don’t regret a thing.
Chapter Ten
Dasha
I am hot and sweaty after practicing so hard, and I take a shower at the theater. It’s strange showering with Bohdan right outside the room.
For years now, I’ve had no sexual desire at all. It’s been dead. Ever since I saw him however, all those weeks ago outside my dressing room in the hallway, my libido has roared to life.
It doesn’t make sense. I hated him for all these years, didn’t I?
He betrayed me with that awful woman, and then I never saw him again. I had loved him, yes, but in some ways, you might say it was an innocent love. We were saving ourselves until I was eighteen, so it’s not as if I have a lot of torrid memories of me and him.
He never saw me fully naked. We did kiss and touch. I had orgasms with him. Some nights when my mother was deep asleep with her ear plugs in, I’d let him into our apartment, and we’d creep into my room. Once there, we’d snuggle under the covers, kissing and touching, sometimes for hours.
On a few of those nights, we’d get carried away and touch one another, rub up against one another, find a release together in the dark. Even those interludes, though, I see as innocent somehow.
I’ve seen him naked, though.
I blink to try to forget the memory as it hurts still, but it pushes its way in.
The image of him sprawled out on a bed as a woman licked and sucked at what I’d not even tasted. His eyes were closed, and I remember that for a moment, before the reality of what was happening hit me, I had thought he was so beautiful. Then I’d zoomed in on her red lips wrapped around his penis, and I’d fled.
The memory brings the usual hurt and feelings of shame at being so naïve as to believe a man his age would and could wait. It also brings something else. A faint frisson of desire. Would he look like that now? I doubt it. He’s piled on weight and all of it muscle. He’s broken his nose, and it means he doesn’t look quite like my angel anymore.
Nor does he look like the god I used to think he was. More like a fallen god, I huff to myself, annoyed I’m giving him so much head space. So much heart space.
As soon as I get out of here, he and I are having a talk, and he’s going to agree to assign someone else to my case at the end of it, so help me.
My phone buzzes and dances on the stool across the room from the shower stall. I sigh, turn off the water, and wrap a towel around myself. I didn’t wash my hair, and it’s covered in a plastic cap with pink flowers all over it. It’s hideous but my mother brought it for me a long time ago so I could shower without always having to wash my long hair, and I cherish it for those reasons. I love my mother. She’s about all I have left in this world that I do love. She can be difficult, and she refuses to see any faults in Jasper, but she cares, and she’s home to me. So I love her despite her faults. That’s what love is, isn’t it?
When I glance at the screen, I frown.
We have a dinner this evening, with a couple who are interested in sponsoring you in your own private show. The highlight of which will be The Dying Swan. Go shopping and buy something incredible. They are arriving at eight pm, and I have the catering sorted with our housekeeper. Go to Galeries Lafayette and buy a new dress and shoes. Please be home in time for your hair appointment at the house at six pm. See you then.
I sigh. Most women would love to get such a text, but not me. It means I am in for an evening of torture. An evening of talking to people I don’t know. I never know what to say. I’m not shy as such, but I do lack social skills. Small talk gives me hives.
What kind of dress? What sort of people are they? Should I buy something conservative, or a bit more daring? I never go for sexy as I don’t have that type of body. It’s all angles, and sinew, and bones. Jasper told me not so long ago that the reason he has to sleep with all the many similar blondes is because I’ve over trained in dancing, and now he finds me repulsive. I wipe the mirror with my hand, letting the steam clear, and stare at my reflection.
Am I repulsive? My face isn’t. I know I’m classically beautiful. I also look younger than my years, by quite a bit. I could pass as twenty-five easily. That’s what you get from a lifetime of very little alcohol, not much sugar, fierce use of sunscreen, and healthy eating.
Although some of it is genetic, I imagine, because my mother doesn’t look her age either.
I dry myself, spray some body oil on, Chanel Gabrielle, and sue me if I don’t want to look and
smell good when I have the talk with Bohdan. It will have to wait now until we’ve shopped, however. I head out the door, letting it bang shut, and Bohdan falls into step behind me as I head back to the dressing room. I don’t even glance his way but leave him outside again. I stash my dance bag in the cupboard and grab my usual tote. Then I put some makeup on again. This time I add a swipe of lipstick. I pause at the mirror and let my hair down, running my hands through the knots.
It falls in a heavy red curtain down my back. The color is all natural. The style is simple, no bangs or heavy layers for me as I often have to sweep it up. I do have a special blow dry once every two months, though, where they use this deep conditioner, and then this stuff that allegedly means your hair will dry the same way every time until the next treatment. How true it is, I don’t know, but my hair has looked better to me since I started using it.
When I hit the hallway outside, Bohdan once more falls into step with me as we walk in silence to the garage.
“Where to?” he asks when we hit the road in the car.
I tell him, and he raises one brow but doesn’t say anything.
“I need a dress for this evening,” I tell him, weary and sick of this charade that is my life.
He parks up near to the store and shoots me a glance. “We could have walked, you know?”
“Well, we didn’t.” I get out of the car without looking at him again and slam the door.
When we enter the store, I head to the ladies’ fashion department, Bohdan trailing me.
I expect what I’m about to spend on a dress will seem horribly wasteful to him. I guess he must earn decent money, but he won’t be rich the way Jasper is. The way Jasper is because of me. I must try to find a lawyer, but it all seems beyond me when I’m so exhausted.
I don’t mean the physical exhaustion from practicing, but a bone-deep mental and emotional weariness that stops me from being able to gather the energy to do the things I know I should.
Leaving Jasper would be a start. He swears he’ll find me and make my life hell, and break my feet, but if I’m gone, I’m gone. I’d go into hiding.
A thought hits me. I could pay Bohdan to guard me against Jasper, if only I could find a lawyer in this city who didn’t seem scared of my husband and would be willing to help me.
Bohdan used to be my savior; would he be it again?
A thought enters my head. A bad thought. It’s a terrible seed of an idea, but I let it grow. What if I seduced Bohdan? He can’t be here purely for the reasons he’s stating; I refuse to believe that. There’s a coincidence to him being here. It means he might still have feelings for me. Oh, I’m not stupid enough to believe he loves me, not after what he did. Perhaps, though, he regrets never having had me?
Men get weird about those sorts of things, don’t they?
What if I seduced him, got him to feel all protective about me, and then showed him what Jasper does? Would he help?
In about ten minutes, I’ve managed to grab four dresses to try, and pointed out two pair of shoes to the sales assistant and asked for them in my size. I head to the dressing room with my haul. I put on one dress after the other, and finally settle on a rich, jewel green dress. It’s knee-length, so not short, but not gown-length. It means it will fit well with whatever this other couple are wearing. It’s a thick material, long sleeves, a V-neckline secured with a gold brooch between my non-existent breasts.
I pull on the gold heels and decide I want to look in the larger full-length mirror outside the changing stall. Swishing back the curtain, I go and stand near the sales assistant watching the changing rooms, and critically look at the outfit in the mirror about twenty feet away.
“Come and look at your wife,” the sales assistant says.
My head whips around. Oh no. She thinks Bohdan is my husband, and for some reason her thinking that gives me such a warm fizzing feeling in my stomach it’s as if I’ve downed a glass of champagne.
I expect him to tell her he’s not my husband, but instead, he pushes up from where he’s reclined on a hot pink sofa and stalks to the changing room. He leans one arm up on the wall and peers in at me.
His eyes take me in, firstly looking over my face, then raking down my body, and every single place it touches burns.
He looks at me as if my body is beautiful too. It is beautiful when it’s moving and dancing. It’s a finely tuned machine that does amazing and powerful things, but it’s not sexy. Bohdan looks at me as if it is sexy. As if I’m some alluring movie star from days gone by.
Self-conscious suddenly, I fiddle with the dress. Smoothing it over my hips, I try to pull the hem down a little. Bohdan reaches for me. “It’s perfect as it is. You look stunning.”
I stare up at him, to see if he’s playing with me, but there’s only heat in his gaze. He stares some more, devouring me, before turning away and tossing a glance back over his shoulder. “Definitely that one, darling.”
My face is on fire. I glance at the assistant, and she mouths wow at me.
Wow what?
Her next words clarify it. “I’d say finding a man who looks at you that way is pretty priceless. Get the dress, honey.” She says all this in a whisper, glancing at Bohdan as he settles on the couch.
Oh, I’m getting the dress, but why is Bohdan looking at me that way? Does he still have feelings for me? Do I want him to?
Chapter Eleven
Dasha
I need to tell Bohdan he can’t stay. He’s messing with my equilibrium, and I have a performance to prepare for. I can’t deal with the distraction. As nice as it is to feel those flutters of attraction after feeling dead for so long inside, I can’t go there. I can’t allow myself to feel anything other than the upcoming performance.
I’m also afraid, if I’m truthful with myself. Bohdan broke me once before, and he clearly still has the power to do so again. For all the things Jasper does to me, they don’t hurt as much as seeing Bohdan with that woman, and that’s because I don’t love Jasper.
I loved Bohdan. I loved him fiercely and blindly, and he took that love and that trust and trashed it.
Glancing at him as he drives us smoothly through the Parisian streets, I clear my throat.
“You have to leave,” I tell him.
He doesn’t reply.
Damn him.
“You took my case, you said so yourself, and you had no right. I bet you didn’t say we knew one another. This is a conflict of interest. So now you need to hand it over to someone else, and you take a different case. I can’t do this. You’re stirring stuff up for me, Bohdan. Plus, it’s not right. It’s not professional. You need to let your employers know you know me and let someone else take this case.”
“It’s not a conflict of interest,” he says.
“What?”
“I’m not investigating anything here, Dasha. I’m simply protecting you. Besides, it is moot as I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then I’ll tell Jasper we know one another from before.”
He swerves across two lanes of traffic, down a narrow street and comes to a stop in front of a closed sweet shop. What the hell?
“Firstly, no you won’t. He suspects something about us, and if you tell him now, after a whole day with me, he’s going to be livid. Now, I don’t know your husband, but he doesn’t seem like a man who handles his dark moods all too well.”
How does he know that? Then again, he probably has to read people well for what he does.
“Secondly, you do that, and I will tell him a few choice stories of my own.”
“Like what?” I set my jaw at him. “There are no stories.”
“Oh, Dasha, there are plenty. Do you remember that time we went down to the lake and swam? God knows what was in that water.” He lets out a soft laugh. “It’s amazing we’re not irradiated by now. I remember it well. I also recall after. You and me, on that muddy bank, no one around. We were wet. Our underwear was dripping, and we kissed and then somehow, we were rubbing against one another and w
e came. Do you remember?”
He's whispering now, his breath hot against my ear as he leans in.
“I fail to see how this will have any impact on Jasper,” I snap, pushing him back.
“I doubt he’d like you driving around Paris for a day with your ex-lover. I doubt he’d be happy that you’re in the car with the man you let dry hump you until you came crying out his name.”
God, he’s a bastard.
“I really doubt he’d like that you kissed that man now.”
“We haven’t kissed, so you—”
His hand tangles in my hair, and warm lips brush against mine.
Push him off, push him off, push him off.
The alarm is blaring in my mind, but I can’t move. All I can do is feel.
His soft mouth, his hand tangled in my hair hard, and his scent all encompassing. He tastes of peppermint and coffee, and smells of the ocean and heat.
A whimper fills the car, and I realize it’s from me. Horrified, I pull away.
He stares at me, eyes blazing, and slowly he licks his lips.
“I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing here, but it sucks,” I tell him. I’m shaking. I’m also wet. I turn my shame and arousal into anger. “You’ve no fucking right to come back into my life and torture me this way; not after what you did to me.” I speak in Russian, the guttural, harsh sounds suiting my anger.
He gives a rough laugh. “Oh, you paid me back, though, didn’t you, my little ballerina.”
What does he mean?
I’m about to ask him when my phone rings out. It’s Jasper’s ringtone. I glance at the clock on the dashboard. Oh, shit.
“Bohdan, you better get me home in ten minutes flat, or I’m going to be in trouble.”
He frowns and nods, and guns the engine, peeling out of the parking space far too fast for my liking.
“But in one piece,” I add with a touch to his arm.
He glances at where my fingers touch his bare skin, and I pull away.
My phone goes again, and I sigh and pick it up. This conversation between myself and Bohdan isn’t over yet. I need to know what he means when he says I did something worse. I’ve never done anything to him. Except leave. Could that be it? He hates me for leaving? That’s why he’s back messing up my life?
