Page 31 of Vasily the Nail

Everyone saw that. Everyone knows just how aroused I am not just by his touch but his voice. That’s not biology. That’s him.

Vasily arouses me.

“Ah, but where is seed?” Vasily says with a cruel, mocking gasp. “They no see. Push out,zvyozdochka. They must see.”

I shake my head, unable to voice it beyond the ragged sob.

Immediately, his hand rubs briskly on my lower back as he makes the softest, gentlest sound, so quiet I doubt it will get picked up on audio. “No? Let me.”

My mind immediately goes to him letting everyone watch as he pushes his fingers into me and . . . I don’t know, scrapes it out or, more horrifically, spreads his fingers so the camera can seein. I’m not sure if that’s even a thing, but my stomach contents threaten to purge at the notion.

He doesn’t even touch me there. No, his hand goes right past that, his hand anchoring on my pelvis as his thumb rubs those delightful circles he does around my clit. I relax instantly, melting into the bench, ignoring everything around us as the orgasm I’ve been chasing this whole time finally rattles through me. No, I don’t regret this. I just need to trust Vasily more.

He gives me praises spoken so sweetly it barely registers how derogatory some of it is, how he keeps pushing the fact that he, a big, virile Russian man, has stolen an Italian princess. I can’t even deny it. In this moment, I’m his.

This time when he nudges my labia apart and my core responds to the stimulus with a brief clench, I feel thick, wet warmth trickle out of me.

“Da,”Vasily rumbles, and that satisfaction sounds genuine. I force myself to look back at him, and his face is lit up with pride as he swipes at his semen with his fingertip and says, “You see, Italian princess keep Russian seed deep, make baby.”

He wipes his finger on the camera, clouding over the lens before he leans down to kiss my shoulder affectionately.

Vasily refuses to let me walk back to his apartment with my own legs. In all fairness, it’s all bluster when I say I can do it myself. I’m not sure I can trust my knees right now.

The problem is there’s this feeling all over me and inside me that wants to push Vasily away — but notawayaway. Just . . . away.

I don’t know how to describe it except to say I’m spiritually itchy, and right now, Vasily is spiritually wool. I like wool. Some of my favorite sweaters and hats are wool. Sometimes, it’s just not their moment.

I don’t fight him after my first claim of being steady. But when we get into the bathroom and he unwraps me from the blanket while he’s letting the shower warm up, I say, “Can I, umm, shower by myself, please?”

The breath he takes is an enraged bull’s. His eyes widen a second before slitting again, and for the first time in four days, his pupils are constricted enough that I get a flash of the crispest pale blue irises I’ve ever seen, only for them to vanish again under a frustrated brow. I don’t know how this, of all things, has angered him, but I immediately want to take those words back.

I don’t though. I need this space. I rest my hand on his chest, hopefully to show I’m not turning him away, I truly just need a moment to myself. “You can keep the door open. You can check on me as much as you want. I just need to be by myself, okay?”

He smiles, but it doesn’t travel to his eyes. “Of course, Ana. Whatever you’d like.”

He never calls me Ana. I have no idea what he calls me, only that it changed to something much longer when I told him I was a college student, but never Ana. It weighs on me as I wash up, and it weighs on me even more when he doesn’t check in on me.

I nearly call for him when I get out, not because I need him but because I need to mend whatever’s just happened, but that seems ridiculous. After what we did, I’m not being unreasonable for wanting this time to myself.

And once I’m dried up and bundled up in his enormous bathrobe, I see I overreacted. He’s half asleep in bed and looking happy as ever, totally sated like he needed that space even more than I did.

I ignore the odd chemical smell in the air as I get into bed. When he languidly reaches out to me and drawls,“Zvyozdochka,”for so long it doesn’t end, just becomes an echo in my mind, I happily snuggle up to his side and pass out.

Day 5

Vasily

Total goat fuck of a day.

I didn’t wait to get the word from my brother about if I had to deal with the truck again. I knew what the answer was going to be, and I knew any communication with him was going to be far more than I could handle with the screaming headache I wake up to.

My kit’s tucked back away behind the water heater in a false wall. I could get it and patch myself up, but I talk myself out of it. I’m not an addict anymore, but I know how quickly it can happen again. The kit’s gotta stay locked up at least another month or two. I’m gonna be itchy as fuck today. I’ll have to leave my gun home because if anyone cops an attitude today — and they will; I know who saw that video and how it’s going to spread — it’ll be hard to resist pulling a gun on them.

I cut myself a bump of oxy to clear the worst of the fog and wrap myself around Ana’s warmth for another minute before it kicks in and I get ready for the day. I never check my phone. I don’t even turn it on. I don’t wake Ana up, either.

I needed her last night. I needed to take care of her and make sure that she was in a good space. Ineededto do that.

I’m not blaming her for what I had to do to settle myself, but it was the reminder I needed that this is nothing more than a game I’m playing. This isn’t real. That expiration date on this bit of madness is exactly what I need.

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