Varian Krylov

by Hurt

  "Where?"

  "My gym."

  "You go to a gym?"

  She was laughing again.

  "Why's that so astonishing?" he asked, looking down the front of his naked body.

  "Don't you get mobbed?"

  147

  "Oh," he laughed at his defensive vanity. "Well, I suppose it's a . . . rather exclusive gym. So, I only get hounded by the obscenely rich and the momentarily famous. Want to come?"

  "Honestly, you couldn't pay me to go to a gym. Even if I'd get to see Brad Pitt doing pilates."

  He scoffed.

  "Right. You don't work out."

  "Not in a gym, I don't."

  "How'd you tone this fit bod, then?"

  He playfully squeezed her bicep.

  "Yoga. Rock climbing. Cycling. Gyms make me claustrophobic. Or something.

  Those fluorescent lights. That institutional carpet and the smell of disinfectant. I don't do malls, either."

  "But you don't mind gagging on incense and perfumed candles through ninety minutes of Ashtanga?"

  "Yoga I do at home. Or outside. The beach. The park."

  "OK, then. How about a little yoga? Out on my deck. I actually have mats."

  She smiled, both touched and amused by his sudden enthusiasm for the joint workout.

  "Another time. I really do have some work to do."

  "All right."

  He kissed her on the side of her neck, down, and across to the smooth round edge of her shoulder where the taut skin looked polished in the morning light, and when, 148

  after giving him a soft, lingering kiss on his lips, Vanka started to rise, he pulled her back down to him. Touched her cheek and looked through her eyes, into her.

  "We're more than lovers, Vanka. I'm your friend. I hope you'll let me help you, if I can. With anything. Whatever you need. Even if it's just company. Even if it's . . . I don't know. Something you can't ask any of your other friends."

  * * * *

  "So. Are you ever going to tell me?"

  "What?" Vanka dipped her gaze into the cool murky depths of her lemondrop. All night she'd barely been able to look at Brods. Proof she'd fucked up.

  "Why you left David."

  A ripple of relief, swallowed up by a fresh wave of guilt. "The distilled answer is that I don't love him anymore. Not the way you love a partner."

  “Where'd that come from? Up at Timberline last month I was hearing wedding bells.”

  “Me too, maybe.” God, she'd really thought they'd get married. Her tummy twinged, like looking down a double black diamond slope. “Our happiness, I don't know, Brods. It was a complacent happiness. It was the easy fit. I thought that was what I wanted, what I needed. But it's not enough. I feel bad it took me so long to figure it out.

  That David wasted two years with me. That I've wasted the last ten years pouring myself into diluted troughs of happiness and love.

  “Diluted troughs?” Brods echoed, and they both burst into mocking laughter.

  “Another metaphor like that and you're cut off, my darling.”

  "I have a lover." There, that was clean. Unpurple.

  149

  "You what? How can you have a boyfriend already?"

  "Not a boyfriend. A lover."

  "Does David know?"

  "It's none of his business."

  "You sure about that?"

  "Quite."

  "And just when did you meet Captain Orgasm?"

  "Why?"

  "David's convinced you left him for someone else."

  "Why? Because that's easier than accepting the real reason?"

  "So he's wrong?"

  "I met him after David and I broke up. By at least six hours."

  They laughed. They were drunk.

  "Well. What's your magnificent stud's name?"

  "Galen."

  Again Vanka stared deeply into the luminous haze of her lemondrop. Why'd his name have to be so unique? Why couldn't it be Chris or Jason or Bob? She really didn't want to get into the whole thing of who he was.

  "So, you're having fun? Getting up to lots of naughtiness?"

  Oh, praise be to martinis. Broderick was too buzzed to make the association.

  "I'm not sure fun's the word. But he definitely . . . fills a need."

  "Sweetie, having fun is the whole point of having a lover. You don't dump the man you've lived with for two years to have a fling with someone who 'fills a need.'"

  150

  Vanka leveled her eyes at her friend.

  "I have something else, Brods."

  "Oh yeah, what's that?"

  Broderick's teasing gaiety stabbed Vanka with guilt.

  "Shit. It's awful, the way I set that up," she laughed, drunk and amused at her ineptness.

  "Come on. Give it up, doll."

  Vanka kissed Broderick's cheek and stroked his hair, giving him comfort against the hurt she was about to inflict.

  "What, Vanka?" he asked, suddenly grave.

  "I have breast cancer."

  He just stared.

  "Cancer?" he finally breathed.

  "Cancer."

  "But you're so young."

  He was already starting to cry. It had taken her two weeks.

  "Yeah."

  He put his arms around her and held her tight, but it was her comforting him.

  "You'll be okay, Vanka. You'll be fine," he promised in a tear-choked voice, clinging to her like a drowning victim with a life preserver.

  He didn't know that. She didn't call bullshit, though. Let him have some time, first.

  But she couldn't pretend to know he was right.

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  "I'm fine," she said instead, to soothe him. One had to say something positive.

  And she was fine.

  "What did they say?" he asked long moments later, letting her out of his desperate embrace.

  "What?"

  "The doctors. What are the doctors telling you?"

  She touched her breast absentmindedly as she said, "They did a lumpectomy. I went back and had a PET scan, and they'll know in a few days if any lymph nodes are involved, or if it's spread. But it looks like I'll be starting chemo next week either way."

  She'd meant to tell him the other thing, but her throat closed tight around it.

  "They did a surgery? And tests? Already? God, Vanka. How long have you known about this?"

  "I didn't find out for sure until last week."

  "Oh."

  He was pissed, but he was pretending not to be. She had cancer.

  "Brods. I didn't want to get you upset for nothing. I wanted to know more before I dumped this on you."

  "It's OK, V. This isn't about me. It's about you. What you need."

  The hurt look on his face cleared up, and he gave her a rather forced smile.

  "The important thing is you're going to be okay."

  * * * *

  Rubber tubing bit into the flesh of her upper arm. Clean. Not dirty rubber, but the yellow almost-flesh color made it look dirty.

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  She pressed the tip of her index finger down on the blue ridge of vein at the crook of her elbow. It was firm. It resisted. But with enough pressure it yielded, went flat under her fingertip. And then it bulged and surged again when she took her finger away.

  A good vein. Everyone always got it on their first try.

  She watched her skin go shiny and seemingly a little darker when the nurse rubbed the cold wet ball of cotton over the bulging blue ridge, traversing the crease inside her elbow. Watched brown fingers sheathed in a second, translucent white skin pluck off the plastic tip of the syringe to reveal the sharp gleam of the big needle. Like a sword coming out of its scabbard. Needles for taking blood are big. Bigger than needles for giving injections. Is that because of the volume of liquid that has to go through? Or because blood is thicker than penicillin? Than Novocaine?

  She always watched. Every time she donated blood. And now. She watched the needle poke at her skin, which didn't yield righ
t away, but resisted, only getting pushed down, a hollow little divot, a tiny, shadowed crater, but the barrier between inside and outside not broken. But then the diagonal, hollow tip punctured alcohol-wet skin and bulging blue vein and then the red tide flooded the clear plastic cylinder. It looked violent, the onslaught of her turgid blood, hot and thick and dark and fast—upon the innocent sterility of that cool and lifeless cylinder of mostly transparent plastic.

  Usually, before, she'd always noticed—intentionally focused on—how little it hurt, that sharp little piece of metal puncturing her skin, burrowing up into her vein. Nothing compared to even trivial daily accidents—a bumped elbow or knee, a nick while shaving, a fingernail snagged and bent back—all crueler injuries than this efficient little stab of the needle.

  153

  But today she wasn't donating blood. Today she was sick. Today she let herself feel it, this tiniest of invasions, of penetrations. This smallest taking of her body. This easiest little pain. Focused on it. The hurt. The cold bite of the needle as it tore a barely visible hole in her tender skin—so delicate and thin, there. The burn that followed the metal into her flesh, and the ache that followed after, dull, throbbing with each swelling pulse driving a fresh wave of viscous red into the colorless transparency of the vial.

  * * * *

  Galen was getting nervous. It had been almost an hour, and Khalid hadn't touched him.

  “Shall we call Vanka? See if she'd like to come over?” Khalid suggested, and Galen's belly clenched.

  “You remember our agreement?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “All right.” Galen tried to manage his voice. Khalid was playing with him. And soon, maybe, Vanka would be there with them. The idea scared him. And he was getting hard. He grabbed his cell from the counter, pulled up her name, and beeped the call through.

  “Vanka? Khalid's here. We were wondering if you'd like to come and join us.

  Good. We'll see you then.”

  “She's on the 110, heading in from a job downtown. So, probably forty minutes, maybe an hour.”

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  “Good. That gives me plenty of time, then, to enjoy you, without breaking our agreement.” Khalid stepped close, and Galen got ready. “But understand, Galen. It won't be my fault if you make it difficult, and we're not done when she gets here.”

  They were done before the doorbell sounded. Galen made sure.

  “I'd better wash up,” Khalid said, still panting a little.

  * * * *

  When Galen opened the door, he seemed strange to her. Slightly off balance.

  But he smiled and looked into her and drew her inside. Already he was flushed and warm as he pulled her back to his chest and mouthed her neck where he'd pulled her hair out of the way. But then she heard the shower running and she realized. It wasn't because of her his body was hot.

  “Something to drink?” he breathed by her ear.

  “No. Thanks,” her breathing had already changed, just feeing his warm body against hers, feeling his touch, his breath.

  Galen turned her around to face him, sank into her with his eyes.

  “How are you, Vanka?” he asked, his voice low and serious.

  “Happy to be here. With you,” she answered coolly, keeping her thoughts penned behind the partitions she'd put up.

  He smiled and drew her with him, over to the fire. He let his robe fall to the floor, and sank down, naked, onto the thick rug by the hearth.

  “Get undressed.”

  She looked back over her shoulder. Toward the bathroom.

  “Khalid will be with us in a few minutes,” Galen told her.

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  She wondered what she was acquiescing to, now. Maybe tonight, it was Khalid's turn to watch. Or maybe they'd both want to fuck her. A heat licked at her insides, at her sex—the same heat that had thrilled her when Galen had invited her to join them, the same heat that had been teasing her the whole way over. As Galen sat at her feet, looking up at her, she stripped, and when she was naked, he reached up and coaxed her down, had her straddle his thighs.

  Without prelude—no kiss, no other touch—Galen slid a finger into her. Leaning back, propped on his free arm, he watched her face as he touched her. When she moved to caress him, he looked at her hand on his chest and grinned.

  “Put your hand down.”

  She did it. Fuck, it was hard, just kneeling there, his fingers working over her sex, him watching her. When she caught herself groaning out loud, her chest and cheeks went hot and some feeling flickered over Galen's features—his eyes went sharp, his jaw set. The next moment she caught her breath and her skin went tight and tingly. A warm touch on her bare back. Khalid. Khalid's naked chest. His hands curved over her shoulders, his breath breezed warm into her hair.

  “Hello, Vanka. I'm happy to see you again,” his rich voice seemed to pour over her.

  He pressed his body to her, pulled her back against him, and her heart felt like lead in her chest.

  “Ssssh.”

  Khalid leaned her back against him, wrapped his arms around her, cradling her in his warmth as Galen went on watching and touching her. As her sudden fear seeped 156

  away, now she thought Khalid would caress her, tease her nipples, just inches from where his hands curved over her ribs, but he only held her against him as Galen's touch brought on a slow, rolling orgasm, as she writhed for it, rode it out, raising and flexing her hips without realizing until after. Only then, Khalid pressed a kiss to her temple, and went on holding her as Galen leaned forward and gave her the first real kiss of that night.

  It didn't feel strange, and Vanka didn't know how it couldn't. She stayed cradled in Khalid's arms, reclining naked against his naked body, as the three of them lounged by the fire.

  “Vanka?”

  “Hmmm?” she loved how her name sounded on Khalid's tongue, caressed into a new shape.

  “I want to ask you something. Something very personal. Do you mind?”

  “You can ask . . .”

  “In the last year, how many people have you fucked?”

  Personal, indeed. But it was no big secret. “Four.” That little word shocked her a little. Less than two weeks ago that would have been her answer to a question on how many people she'd fucked in her entire life.

  “Galen. Me. And your,” Khalid hesitated, then, “David, is that his name? And who is the other?”

  “A colleague,” she said automatically, before she realized she'd said it because saying she'd fucked her teenage model sounded so smarmy.

  157

  “What about you, Galen?” Khalid asked. “How many people have you fucked this year?”

  “Two.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Because of something in Galen's expression at that moment Vanka wanted to turn to see what Khalid's face looked like. But she didn't.

  “Two for me, too,” Khalid said. Vanka could hardly believe that for the last year the two of them had fucked no one but each other, and her. “This colleague of yours.

  You used a condom?”

  For some reason she was blushing, now. She looked at Galen and found he was gazing at her, quiet, intense.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you be fucking him again, do you think?”

  “No.”

  “Are you on the pill?”

  She hesitated, then answered. “Yes.”

  “I have a proposal to make. This little menage a trois. I suggest we forget about the condoms for tonight. For whenever we are together. Unless, or until, one of us decides to sleep with someone outside. Then back to condoms.”

  Vanka was shocked, for some reason. Lots of reasons. But Galen looked alarmed.

  158

  “Why look like that, Galen?” Khalid asked. “You know very well we're both clean.

  And Vanka?”

  “What? STDs? HIV? No.”

  “It's no commitment. All of us, we fuck anyone we like. We only have to confess, if we do
.”

  “All right,” Galen said, sober and quiet.

  And Vanka said, “All right,” too. Doing that, saying “all right,” made her see, all at once in that moment, her deep trust for these two men she barely knew.

  And then Khalid's warm breath was gathering in her hair and he was saying softly,“I have my ways, Vanka. I take control. I give orders. That doesn't mean you don't have a say. You understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” the word echoed, soft, transfigured on Khalid's rich, sweet voice, that fucking gorgeous accent.

  Behind her Khalid's body shifted, tilting her. Upright. Then forward. His arms—the arms that had been holding her gently, almost cradling her, for the last ten or twenty minutes, took sudden control of her, one belting across her abdomen, one pressing along the length of her spine until her face was almost in Galen's lap. Her body tensed with an instinct to struggle, but she willed herself to soften, to sink down under Khalid's hand, and she stretched herself, seeking Galen's cock with her mouth. But hands—

  Galen's hands—coaxed her cheek down on his thigh and gently stroked her hair, her face.

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  Only when Khalid had entered her, and after she'd gone hot and tense, struggling toward another climax, and after she'd heard Khalid say, “Let her, Galen,” did Galen let her take his cock in her mouth and suck him while Khalid kept at her from behind, working an angle that was prodding her right toward the edge.

  “Don't, Vanka. Don't come yet,” Khalid sighed when she huffed out an urgent groan. “Let me hear Galen first.”

  The angle of Khalid's thrusts altered, and she was in less danger of being swept over the edge. She focused on Galen—his breaths, his groans, how his thighs were flexing, almost twitching, how his balls had gone tight. Then, when she heard him, tasted him, the feel of Khalid inside her changed, he came on harder, back at that perfect, torturous angle, and fucked her through a hard, convulsive climax. And kept on.

  Hard. Deep. Until she heard him, felt him coming after her.

  Galen's cock was softening in her mouth. She liked that, almost as much as feeling him harden there. She let him go, watching as his florid prick settled against his thigh. But Khalid's fingers were up in her hair and his chest was heavy on her back, keeping her down. And he was still inside her. The length of him slid slowly from her cunt, then, warm, wet, still hard, she felt his cock nudging against her.