Page 19 of Vasily the Nail

“It’s both of ours.”

“No,ovechka. Cannot be responsible for feel. God judge me only.”

The way her body curls this time, she’s tightening, but she’s moving into me, sinking in so that I can tuck myself around her better. “Do you really believe in God?”

“Da.”

“Then why do you do—?”

I finish her question by dipping my finger back in but staying on her clit this time. “This?” I ask with a kiss on her cheek.

“You know this is wrong,” she says.

“Mm, my God not your God. My God? He want me take care of you.”

“Like this?” she whimpers, but as she does so, I push that finger right back down, making her pitch change and end on a gasp. She digs her nails into my forearm, and although the roughness of them has me worried she’s going to draw blood, she doesn’t push my hand away this time. She holds it in place.

“Let me worry of God. He not judge what you can’t prevent.”

Her ragged sigh is another fight brewing, but once I have two fingers buried in her cunt, my thumb on her clit, and my other hand on her nipple, the best she can do is hold me until her protests melt into pleasure. Her body rocks unbidden, her cunt floods.

She grinds on that pillow as she comes. It dampens against the back of my hand. I debate whether I should give it back to Dima, just to mess with him, but no, it’s ours now.

For a long, peaceful moment, we are simply a man and a woman in a warm, pleasant embrace. We are a unit together. But once her orgasm fades, her body goes tense all over again.

Yesterday, this climax signaled the next step, the debt collection. But there is no debt tonight, just a kiss on her cheek, a “Sleep well,ovechka,” a cigarette on the porch, a cold shower, and a gummy before I wrap myself back around her sleeping body.

Day 3

Vasily

Coffee’s been made,a cup for each of us. The kitchen is spotless. Out on the balcony, the lone cigarette butt has already been emptied from the ashtray. Now that it’s daylight, I can see the way the furniture has been rearranged, and I like it.

Dima will be pissed that we’re gonna have to share the sofa to watch TV together.

Ana sits in my recliner with her coffee cup between her hands. She’s in one of Brooke’s sweaters and has at least two blankets on her lap as though it’s twelve degrees in here instead of a reasonable sixty-five. Those big brown eyes of hers track me through the kitchen and out to the balcony for my morning cigarette, staring me down as I send a text to Artyom that yes, I can take care of the truck again today. I’ve got a throbbing headache I’m positive is from yesterday’s biker coffee, and now I’m gonna end up taking another if offered because the only thing that fixes a meth headache is more meth.

Or opiates, which is what I’d planned for today.

Both, probably, because if I’m tweaking on meth again, I’m going to need to stabilize myself. I know that the moment I go back inside and instead of thanking Ana for cleaning, I say, “This they teach in church? Rearrange man’s home?”

Her nostrils flare. Fire sparks in her eyes. There’s a heartbeat where I think she’s going to rein in her anger. She’s good at that. But she’s a feisty little thing at her core. She takes a sip of her coffee and rolls her eyes up to the ceiling, glaring at the light fixture as she says, “No, I hate redecorating. And before you crack any more jokes, I hate cleaning. I had to read the labels on everything to even figure it out. I just don’t have anything better to do.”

“Read book.”

She hops up and stomps her tiny feet right over to the book shelf, taking book after book down and slamming them onto the table as she says, “They’re all in Russian, Vasily! How am I supposed to read anything?”

She’s a lucky girl. I’ve seen women get smacked so hard across the face they fall after pitching such a fit, and those are wives and girlfriends, not hostages.

I’m not that kind of guy. I like seeing this from her. It’s real. And it’s not fear. I don’t want her to fear me. She can stand up to me all day.

I can see that my grin irritates her even more as I casually approach, slide open a drawer on the coffee table, and produce an e-reader. “English.Tam. Has subscription. You read what you like, see?” I show her the selection I’ve already got on there, the historical works I favor.

Her brows pull together as she scrutinizes it. “The Splendor Before the Dark?”

“Is Nero, Tsar of Rome? A story of him. About him.”

She stares at me like I’m speaking . . . Russian, I guess . . . but hugs the e-reader to herself. I notice again her nails need to be cared for. They’re a natural color with white tips, the style that would look real if not for how even the coloring is or how thick and perfectly rounded they are, but several of them are damaged. I’m sure she would never ask for me to take her to a salon, but she should have at least asked for a file.

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