Page 74 of Nineteen Seventy-Six

Faster, Edouard commanded, and as Soren obeyed, another familiar sound, of flesh against flesh, set to the disgusting grunts of a man who couldn’t get off unless he was certain the other person would not.

Maureen’s tears soiled the paper. Soren seemed to realize, finally, her agony and he stopped to check on her, but Edouard came up behind him and pushed Soren, commanding him back into motion. Moments later, she felt Soren’s tears on her neck, too.

Why didn’t he stop? Why didn’t they run away, together, away from this?

She couldn’t feel Edouard anymore. He was nearby, she could hear him, pleasuring himself. And then one of Soren’s hands left her hips. His sigh was light, knowing, and he didn’t slow his movements, but something had changed. Shifted.

Maureen turned her head, but her view was limited. She saw Soren crane his arm behind him, and there, behind him, was Edouard.

The skin-on-skin sound stopped. Soren’s arm began to move, followed by a quick jerk, and then, Soren, saying, “It’s okay.”

Soren’s arm pulled forward again and he cried as the rhythm changed, as the entire dynamic in the room altered. Edouard’s own cries became animalistic, the sound of a pleasure he’d never shared and now, Maureen knew, she’d never wanted. Edouard’s own rhythm, as—she understood now, in complete horror—he thrust into Soren, pushing Soren into her, one terrible motion that bound them.

With every slam of Soren against her, she felt Edouard. She felt again the things she’d prayed to God to let her forget. And when he cried out, his own completion coming first, of course, and then Soren released his own orgasm into her, Maureen had never felt so hollowed out. So lost.

Edouard left immediately after.

When he was gone, Soren took her into his arms, but she didn’t want to be held. Not even by him, a victim as well, but now, also, complicit. Why didn’t you stop? Why didn’t you tell him this isn’t what we agreed to? How did it get this far?

The questions weren’t only for Soren, and she hated him, hated herself.

Soren sank to the floor and sobbed.

Maureen left him there, with the door open. Anyone in the staff could walk by and see him, but would they be surprised? Didn’t they all know, already?

She passed Edouard in the hall on her way to her own room.

“Maureen, I’d say that went we—”

“Fuck you, for taking that from me, too,” she hissed and slammed her door behind her.

“Ekatherina loved you, as best as she knew how.”

“I took a train to New York for you to tell me what I already know?”

Aleksei smiled, nodding. “Ekatherina, to you, is an enigma. To me, she is familiar. I see in her the other women in our family. I see in her my own mammochka. I see my sister. I see my uncle and cousins.”

Augustus waited for the point.

“There was a darkness in Ekatherina, Augustus. It was not hers alone, and it’s not her fault she was born to a people who carry it. What is it? I cannot say. Is it mental illness, or something deeper, something in the blood, something even science cannot explain? No one knows. I don’t. She didn’t. We talked all the time, you know.”

Augustus didn’t know that.

“In the beginning, she talked of this wonderful boss who looked after her. Who gave her opportunities and listened to her ideas.” Aleksei grinned, his thoughts going somewhere else. “She admired you. A year younger than her, and you’d started something by yourself, ignoring those who told you that you shouldn’t. Ekatherina spent most of her life ignoring those people.”

“I didn’t give her special treatment. She was good at what she did.”

“Da. She was. Good enough to get first one American man to put her through school, and then another to give her a good job. She told me, too, about the necklace. What you did.”

Augustus dropped his eyes. He twirled his wedding ring around his finger. It was loose now, and he didn’t know why, except that he hadn’t been eating the way he should. “I don’t know why I did it. I saw how hard she worked, and I knew she wouldn’t want a handout, but this wasn’t a handout.”

“It was a kindness,” Aleksei said. “Though, I was surprised when she married you.”

Augustus looked up.

“Ekatherina was… she was like my father, at least until he came to his senses, but there are some Soviets who do not understand what the Kremlin does to keep us safe and protect us from the dangerous influences of the western world.” Aleksei gave a short laugh and gestured around. “Look, even, at this hotel. Is it necessary?”

“Necessity isn’t the point. Capitalism gives us something more to strive for,” Augustus said. “What is the incentive to work hard if not to earn more, produce more? Be more?”

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