“Yeah, okay,” I say. Fuck the bar, hanging with Dasha seems a better idea. I want to know what she’s been up to.
As we walk side by side, suddenly both seemingly unsure, I catch her glancing at me.
“You’re very handsome,” she says finally.
I burst out laughing at that. I don’t mean to, but come on, who says very handsome.
“You’re all proper now,” I reply with a smile and a tug on her hair. It’s different, thicker than it used to be.
“Well that’s what a few years in Siberia will do for you. I spent most of my time watching old TV shows and reading historic British novels. I’m surprised I don’t sound like someone from Vanity Fair.”
We pass the small food stores, the pharmacy, and the bakery and then turn right without even consulting one another. We’re heading to our place. The woods.
When we reach the copse of trees, we head into the center.
“It’s still here,” she says with a smile. “I worried it might have been concreted over and built on.”
“It allegedly is going to be,” I inform her.
“Oh, no. That’s awful.”
She scuffs her toe on the ground, glancing at me from under long, reddish-brown lashes. “So… How have you been? What are you up to?”
“I’m good,” I say. I can’t stop looking at her eyes. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this new version of Dasha.
“Is that all you’ve got to tell me?”
“Well, what about you?”
She starts to rattle off all sorts of news. Most of it about her family. She tells me how cold it was in Siberia, and how long the hours were that her father worked at the power plant, and that things are hard now and her parents aren’t getting on. Then she tells me she’s going to be a ballerina.
She always wanted to do that, but it seems time and growing up some haven’t dulled her desire for it.
“You always wanted to be a dancer,” I say with a smile. I lean in and take hold of her hair again, fascinated by the length and weight of it. I let it trail through my fingers, silky and soft. Dasha blushes and looks away.
I let go and step back. “Sorry.” I shrug. “Your hair is gorgeous.”
“Let’s go look at the lake,” she says. And we do. We go look at the lake, and we talk most of the evening until darkness falls. In summer, it is light for much of the night, so I miss midnight, when I officially become nineteen.
I don’t care for once that I won’t get any presents. I don’t care that I’ve an alcoholic mother waiting for me at home.
Everything seems a bit brighter. We talk for hours, and it’s late when we get back home.
I go to bed, and for once life doesn’t feel hopeless and dark.
My bright shiny jewel is back.
Chapter Sixteen
Dasha
My sexual appetite is like some mythical beast asleep for centuries and now awakened with a ravenous desire. For three days I avoid even looking at Bohdan as much as I can, because I know I’ll do something highly inappropriate, like ripping his clothes off again.
Things are strained between us, but a couple of times, he’s tried to talk to me. I’ve shut him down, though, because really, what is there to say? And yet there’s everything to say. I don’t know how or where to begin. We’re strangers really, but I feel as if I know him better than anyone.
Bohdan always seemed to see deep inside me, right down to my very soul.
On the third evening after our impromptu moment in my dressing room, Jasper slithers into the lounge and comes to sit by me. Like always, the moment he gets close, my body goes onto full alert.
“I’m leaving for a few nights,” he says.
This isn’t unheard of, and he’s done it before for business. Now, though, it means I’ll be alone with Bohdan. I can’t be alone with Bohdan. I don’t trust myself. “You can’t,” I say without thinking. “There’s a threat against me.”
“You have your own personal Rottweiler now, darling.” He brushes my hair from my face and scowls. “I prefer you with your hair up. You see all your astonishing bone structure that way.”
“My head is a bit sore,” I say absentmindedly.
A dark smile stretches across his thin mouth, and he digs his fingers into my hair and pulls hard.
“Ow,” I exclaim without thinking that Bohdan might hear.
“Go and pull your hair back. You look untidy. I hate untidiness.”
“Okay,” I say hoping he’ll let go, but he doesn’t. He takes a harder grip and pulls my head into him.
“Don’t think I’ve not seen the way you’ve been looking at your guardian angel,” he mouths into my neck, his lips hot, damp, and repulsive. “I see you.”
“Send him away then,” I say. It would be for the best. Save me from myself.
“I would, but I enjoy seeing you make such a fool of yourself. You think a man like that is going to notice you?” He gives a vicious tug to my hair, making my scalp burn.
I want to tell him that man has most definitely noticed me, but I don’t say a word.
“You’re not good enough for him. He’s very handsome. I think he broke his nose recently, as it’s still got the scar across the top, but even then, he’s still too good looking for you. A man like that? He’ll have had hundreds, maybe thousands of women. Lilliana was eating him up at dinner the other evening. He’s not going to be interested in some skinny ginger woman with no tits to speak of.”
He lets go of my hair but not before he bangs his fist against my head. Fucking bastard. I don’t look at him because I just want this to stop. I want him to go on his business trip, so that I can screw the man he says won’t even look at me.
Three hours later, and with Jasper finally gone, I’m lazing in a hot bath filled with a musky rose-scented oil. I bought it whilst performing in the Middle East, and it’s such a luxurious scent. The rose is the top note but then there’s a base note of oud that comes through, heady and sensual.
I swish my arms through the water. I’m about to cheat on my husband. It’s for the second time, but the first I was hardly in my right mind. Now, I’m calculating and purposeful. He’s been cheating on me for years. We don’t love one another. In fact, it’s safe to say we hate one another with a destructive force. He hates me because I’m the one who is famous. I’m the one loved and revered. He also hates me because he needs me. Without me there is no fabulous lifestyle and secondhand fame.
Slipping a finger through the water, I part my folds and touch myself. I rarely do this. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with it, but because I hardly ever feel in the mood.
Now though, a man with blue eyes, full lips, and a beautiful wildness has made me want all the things I’ve spent years burying under fear and sadness.
When we did what we did the other day, I didn’t get a chance to explore. I want to tonight.
What if he turns me down?
The thought has my stomach sinking. I’m so down after the horrible scene with Jasper that it will be seriously hard if Bohdan does reject me.
I push the thought aside. Fortune favors the brave after all. Pulling on the silky camisole top and silk panties, I admire myself in the foggy mirror. The silk is a dark grey, and it looks nice against my pale skin. I rub body lotion enriched with the same scent as the bath oil over my arms and legs. Then I take the band out of my hair, letting it fall down my back. My teeth are cleaned, and I’m all clean too. Now I want Bohdan to make me dirty again.