Page 52 of Vasily the Nail

And I’m upright for at least two seconds before Vasily puts his hands on my boobs to cover them.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen them,” Dima huffs as he walks by and goes into his room. “The entire state of Arizona has seen them.”

Day 9

Analiese

When Vasily laidout clothes for me this morning while I dried my hair, I thought he was being sweet and affectionate in the wake of the night we spent together.

Together.

He wasn’t lying about his plans to make sure his cock remained within me through the night.

And what he picked out is pretty. One of my stuffier outfits, the sort of thing I wear to Floral Society meetings with all the judgmental grandmas, but pretty. Long sleeves on the quietly pink jacket, a tea-length floral-print skirt, proper stockings, and nude kitten heels. Based on his choice, I did natural make-up and styled my hair down in bouncy black curls.

As we were leaving the apartment, he added a scarf around my head.

When we enter the church and I immediately realize this is not a Catholic church, it dawns on me that he wasn’t being affectionate at all. He was making sure I was dressed appropriately.

I scan the room. It’s gigantic and beautiful, with high, vaulted ceilings and gold accents everywhere. There are intricately painted depictions of the saints with votives in frontof them, several of which parishioners are currently praying at. The pews are simple and look uncomfortable, but that’s okay. There aren’t a lot of people here — I got the feeling from the expansive but mostly empty parking lot that we must be here for an earlier service — but a couple people are sitting with priests in the pews, deep in conversation.

As I marvel at the room, mentally taking inventory of how different this is from my Catholic church in Phoenix, the one thing that stands out is the lack of confessional booths.

Oh no.

We’ll have to stop at a Catholic church on the way home. I’m sure Vasily will be annoyed by this — it’s clear enough from the way people look at him, not so much because of how devastatingly handsome he is clean-shaven in his black suit but because they weren’t expecting to see him here — but I need to confess. It’s been building inside me this past week, and though I’ve gone through several drafts of it as I’ve come to terms with what I do and don’t consider sins, I need it. I need to feel right about what I’m doing.

I see Vasily’s brother sitting in a nearby pew, sprawled as though he owns the place while chatting with a beautiful blonde woman about his age, maybe a decade older than me. They look comfortable together, and when his hand touches her shoulder absently, I notice the glimmer of a gold band on his finger.

“Your brother’s married?” I ask Vasily. I hadn’t gotten that impression of him yesterday, but I suppose it’s not something I was thinking about while in a hospital gown.

“Da. Is . . . new thing,” Vasily says, slipping back into his Russian voice. Since we’re in a Russian Orthodox church rightnow, I suppose he’d be speaking Russian if he was talking to anyone else. I imagine the thick accent makes him sound more natural in this crowd.

“Who is she?” I ask. Despite Artyom’s sprawl, they look comfortable together. His wife naturally fills in the space left for her, like the peg of one puzzle piece locking into the void of another. I don’t see that often in my social groups in Phoenix.

Vasily side-eyes me as he waves with one finger at Artyom to get his attention. “Jana?” he says questioningly, like he doesn’t think that was what I meant.

It wasn’t. “No, I mean, what family is she from? To marry the . . .avtorivet,” I say, struggling through the word. I asked Vasily to spell that for me when he introduced Artyom that way, but the letters he recited were Cyrillic, and I decided it wasn’t worth pushing. “She must be from another family, right?”

Vasily’s eyes — his vibrantly clear, blue eyes, which have captivated me all morning, so I’m thankful Artyom gave him a lecture about being sober today so I could get this chance — sparkle, and he lays a chaste but affectionate kiss on my temple, right at my hairline where he has to nudge my scarf aside to reach. Appropriate for church, but still casually dominant and possessive. “Her father is a mechanic. Her mother’s a social worker. She’s a mechanic, too. No family, no connections.”

I assess her again, and yes, just as beautiful now that she’s approaching arm-in-arm with Artyom.

“This upsets you,” Vasily says at the frown I didn’t want to show so prominently. “Because she is a mechanic? Or because she has no connections?”

Kseniya’s husband is a Hispanic accountant. Artyom has just married a woman outside of any organization, as well. Despite what I’ve seen already, I keep making these assumptions that Vasily’s life isn’t so dissimilar from mine, but I can’t relate to any of this.

There’s love in the eyes of both Artyom and Jana as Jana says something. He looks from us to her and smiles, whispers something back.

The closer she gets, the more excited I get to meet her, but then, when they’re only a couple feet away, Artyom gestures for her to go talk to another group. Her eyes meet mine, but she’s too far away for me to understand the tug on her lips before she walks off.

“Well, you’ve made a miracle happen today, Analiese,” Artyom says with a boisterous laugh as he holds my shoulders in a warm, friendly grip and kisses my cheeks. He claps Vasily on the back and, in an accent every bit as heavy as Vasily’s, says, “It’s been, what, six years,brat?”

The way Vasily’s jaw ticks in irritation has me taking his arm again, even resting my other hand on his bicep for extra support. “You know that already,” he murmurs with a glare.

I expect a showdown between them. Whatever has offended Vasily so much, if I saw this sort of reaction from my brother’s ilk, we’d be lucky to get out without at least one gun drawn. They’re generally behaved in church, but even in the parking lot, I’ve seen noses bloodied over flippant comments.

Artyom doesn’t double down, though. He pats Vasily’s back more gently and says, “My apologies,brat,” in a sympathetic voice, which makes the repeatedbrata bit confusing. “Ishouldn’t have joked about that. You are looking well today, Analiese.Mor bratis taking care of you better now?”

---