Page 20 of Vasily the Hammer

And I know something she doesn’t know. I know all about Ana. I was her sexual awakening. What she’s done with that in the last six years, fuck all if I know. She may have been living like a nun this entire time. But I know who she really is.

I lean over my desk, take her by the chin, tilt her so she has no choice except to meet my eyes. “You just like an audience.”

Her eyes go big as saucers, and yeah, she attempts to look away from me, but I’m too close. She’s not looking at my eyes, but she’s looking at my hand, my nose, my lips. I don’t think she means to do it, but I see her lips turn in and I can feel in my hand that her tongue is sliding over that seam.

I feel her throat bob as she considers how to respond, but then her nose crinkles. “Why do you smell like smoke? Is that soot...?” She actually licks her thumb like she’s about to rub the gray from my cheek.

I grab both her wrists. I should have showered before I hunted her down, but I needed to make sure she hadn’t gotten herself into too much trouble. “Print shop burned down. No big deal. And I’m not cheating on you.”

She shakes her head in disbelief, but her Mafia princess instincts must kick in because she doesn’t even get hung up on the fire part. “I don’t understand how there would be an audience here but not in the apartment. Do... do people come in here? Your employees...?”

Fuck if her pupils don’t blow out and her cheeks don’t flush, the pigment only a whisper beneath the light makeup she wears. She doesn’t hate the idea, not at all. Oh, she’s going to fight it, that’s clear enough, but she’s intrigued.

It’s early still, just past lunch, on a Tuesday. I nod to the window. “Go look outside, Ana.”

She hesitates before giving in and strolling away from me. She’s dressed the same as yesterday, my hoodie over leggings. She’s added sandals.

Last time she tried to run away from me, she threw on as many layers as she could but didn’t even try to find cash. It was right in the front closet then, not nearly as big a stash as now but just as easy to find. This time, she’s not even dressed warmly enough to go to the café across the street. It’s LA, but it’s February. I don’t think it hit 60 today.

I watch her pad delicately across the rug, the hoodie far too loose to show her figure, but she’s still slim. Still delicate.

I still want her.

She looks out the window, but she’s tilted her head down, to the street below.

“No, Ana. Look straight across. Do you see them?”

She leans close to the glass, squinting. I’ve stared mindlessly out that window enough times to know they’ll eventually be visible.

Her breath catches. Not startled. It’s only logical that what she’d see through the polarized windows of the skyscraper across the street is people working at computers. Some of them are in offices. Some share desks. There are a couple meeting rooms thatI’ve caught evening presentations at. I can see people from about seven floors, depending on how close they are to those windows, and three floors must be the same company because the break rooms are all in the same spot. It’s not unusual for me to see someone staring right back at me as they snack on chips or make their coffee.

Ana lifts her hand to touch the glass but pulls back before she leaves a print. “Can they see me?” In her reflection, I see her scowl toying at a return. “You’re making this up. They’d be able to see me just as well from the apartment.”

“It faces the wrong way.”

It’s harder to prove a lie when there’s an immediate answer for everything, but she keeps going. “Why the condoms if we’re married?”

“You’re determined to prove me wrong, aren’t you?”

She does stop to think then. The way her face contorts, I’ve seen it many times already since she arrived. I don’t recall that expression from Flagstaff, but six years can be an eternity and a blink of an eye at the same time. Bereft of her memories, she’s still the same Ana, but even without the additional six years of memories, she’s a whole different woman.

But as determined as ever.

“How long have we been married, Vasily?”

“Six years.”

“How old was I when we got married?”

“Nineteen.”

“I was young.”

“Not so young in your world,” I point out before I can hold back my tongue. Legal age is sixteen in Arizona with custodial consent, and I know for a fact the Mafia there is happy to give that consent.

“Myworld?” she repeats, her tone scathing.

I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t open up this can of worms, but I can’t help feeling all the anger I felt in Flagstaff for the girl whose virginity— but not her safety, not her future— was sold to a stranger. The girl who then felt so hopeless she tricked that stranger into defiling her for the entire world to see, in the hopes that it would devalue her enough she’d be free.

---