Varian Krylov

by Hurt

  343

  “I used to know what she needed.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don't know any more, Khalid.”

  He'd cried so easily with Vanka. But it was something they never did, he and Khalid, not in front of each other. It embarrassed him. But he let his voice break over his words. “I don't know how to help her. And I don't know how to make her love me.”

  “What have you done, Galen?”

  “I pushed her. Too hard. I scared her. Hurt her.”

  “Galen.” Khalid's voice made Galen's eyes snap up. “Tell me what you've done.”

  “I didn't rape her, Khalid. But I scared her. She was afraid I was going to. God.

  Fuck. She was so scared. So miserable. All I wanted . . .”

  Fuck, he'd completely lost it. Khalid was standing there, watching him bawl his god damned eyes out, so he fought hard to reign himself in, but fuck, fuck, he was so fucking frustrated and scared and hated himself so much he couldn't stop.

  A gentle warmth. Khalid folded him in, held him close, stroked his back and kissed his hair as he cried.

  “There is nothing to do to make her love you. She loves you already. If she did not love you, she would have given herself to you weeks ago. You know this about Vanka; she hides herself from the people she loves, the people who love her.”

  “Not from you.”

  “Yes, from me. But differently. Our love is different. You know that, too.”

  * * * *

  “Sweetheart. Tell me why you're here.”

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  “It's my house, Dad,” she answered, her voice flat, quiet. “It's where I live.”

  “Vanushka.” A tender reprimand.

  “It's just better if I don't stay with Galen anymore. So now I'm home.”

  “Why is it better?”

  “Dad,” her voice cracked, and she fought to smooth it out again, “I can't talk to you about this.”

  “Sure you can,Vanka.” Her dad took her hand and made her sit down beside him on the sofa. Cupped her face in his hands, kissed her forehead. “Vanushka,” he said gently, stroking her head, “I know you feel guilty, because you think, watching you go through this, I'm reliving your mom's illness. You try so hard to keep me safe, to never let me see you hurting, to never let me see you sick, tired. But I know, sweetheart, I know you're hurting. I know you're scared. And I know what you and Galen are going through.”

  Her dad's face went blurry. She swallowed. Focused on breathing.

  “I do worry. Of course I worry. But I would worry less if you would let me comfort you, now and then. If you'd talk to me. If you'd let me help you a little, if I can.”

  “Dad,” she called up her voice of finality, the voice that always gave her the last word, when she wanted it. But her spine softened, her strength drained away. Her dad's arms went around her, cradling her the way they had when she was little. She cried and cried and he went on holding her, until she ran out of tears and she just felt exhausted and small. He let her out of his arms, and she grabbed a tissue, blotted her face dry, and blew her nose.

  345

  “I just feel so guilty.” Her stinging eyes burned with fresh tears. “I don't know why I can't . . . I can't . . .”

  “Make love to him?”

  She nodded.

  “Let him see you?”

  She nodded again, tears sliding down her face. She mopped them up with the wet tissue she'd wadded in her fist.

  “Are you scared he won't love you anymore, after he's seen how you look now?”

  her dad asked gently.

  “No.”

  “Are you scared he won't be attracted to you anymore? That he won't want to be your lover?”

  “No.”

  “What are you scared of, Vanka?”

  “I don't feel the same way about myself, now. I don't even know how to explain it.

  I'm not ashamed. I don't feel ugly. But the way I was, who I was when we . . . when we fell in love, I'm not that person, now.”

  “You're not in love with him anymore?”

  “I am,” her voice broke on a sob. “So in love. Like I never knew it could be. I thought I loved David. I thought I loved Mark. But, god, Dad, the way I love Galen . . .”

  “Yeah.” His pale blue eyes teared up. “You know,” he said after a long quiet,

  “your mom's situation was very different from yours. We knew, really, that all her treatment, the most it could do was prolong her life, buy her a few years. And I'm so 346

  grateful for those years. For every day, even the days near the very end. Mostly, those last couple weeks were so horrible, but even the day she died, we laughed. The way I never laughed with anyone, before her or after.”

  He took a deep breath and seemed to harden himself. “But, after she had her mastectomy, she never let me make love to her again. And it still makes me sad, makes me angry, that she bought us those years together with all that pain—the pain of her surgery, the awful weeks of chemo—but for all those years, we never got to love each other that way. Naked to each other, holding each other.

  “I used to hate myself for that, you know. I felt guilty, like I thought of her like a concubine who owed me sex, or something. But that's not it.

  “It's that, your mom and I had shared something; making love was part of how we loved each other. And she let that surgery kill off that part of our love for each other.

  There's a part of me that will never really forgive her for that. Not just for my sake, but because it hurt her, the way you're hurting now. Those last four years, she could have been happier. And she didn't trust our love enough, didn't give me a chance to give her that.

  “Look, sweetheart, it's going to be scary, the first time you make love again—“

  He'd stopped short the moment she'd looked up and met his eyes. For a few seconds she watched him trying to work out her accidental confession.

  “I'm going to go for a drive, Daddy.”

  She gave him a kiss on the forehead and got out the door before the tears started again.

  * * * *

  347

  Galen knocked on her front door, dread weighing him down, holding him back.

  Disappointment washed away the dread. “Misha.”

  “Hi Galen. Come in. Vanka's not here.”

  ”But she's been here? She's coming back?”

  “Come on. Have a beer with me, Galen.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  They took their beers out back. The afternoon sun was low, staining the olive tree and the house in a palette of violent oranges and pinks.

  “She's not angry with you.”

  “No?” Galen searched Misha's face, trying to decide what she'd told him.

  “She feels guilty.”

  “She shouldn't.”

  “Galen. Has all this got something to do with Khalid?”

  Galen tried again to read something in Misha's pale blue eyes, hoping to hell he wasn't blushing. “Oh, Misha,” he laughed. “It's complicated.”

  “Yeah, so I gather. Not that Vanka would tell me anything. But Sasha's told me a tall tale or two.”

  Galen dug his fingers into his hair and let his head hang, gazing down at a line of ants zigzagging frenziedly along a crack in the concrete.

  “Look, I didn't invite you in to dig around in your private business. I just know that Vanka's here when she'd rather be there, with you. And I feel pretty sure that's what you'd like, too.”

  “Yes.”

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  “And I know as well as anyone that Vanka can make it just about impossible to get close, if she's convinced someone's better off without her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And,” Misha went on, his voice low, gentle, “I know how lonely it can be, when the woman you love, the woman who loves you, keeps herself from you because she's afraid when you see her, when you touch her, you won't love her anymore.”

  The tears stinging Galen's eyes, blurring the line of ants, welled up and fe
ll in dark spatters on the concrete.

  “Even though your own want is just a part of it, even though what you care about most is making her feel good, making her feel loved, you can't talk to her about it, because you don't want to burden her with guilt.”

  Sinking down between his knees Galen sobbed as quietly as he could, Misha's big, gentle hand rubbing a slow circle over his convulsing back.

  “And if I understand the situation even a little,” Misha went on in his fatherly voice, “you can't talk to Khalid, because you don't want to make him feel guilty for the comfort he's giving Vanka.” After a quiet pause, still gently rubbing Galen's back, he added, “And because you're afraid of hurting Khalid, letting him see how painfully you need Vanka.”

  Choked, crushed under a violent sea of feeling, too murky to even understand what had him angry and what had him sobbing, Galen finally caved in, let all his pain spill out.

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  “I feel like such an asshole, so selfish, feeling left out, feeling jealous and hurt. It's what she needs, and I'm so glad, so thankful she can get that comfort, that joy at all, from anyone.

  “But I miss her so much. I want her so much. And, god, I know it's selfish of me, but I wanted to be the one to show her she's beautiful, that she's loved. To bring her back. But they . . .”

  “What?” Misha asked after a patient silence.

  “Seriously, Misha. I can't.”

  “Afraid you're going to shock me?”

  “You're comfortable with me talking about my gay lover fucking your daughter?”

  Galen's face went hot. Fuck. What a thing to lash out with.

  “Well, I'd rather not see the home movies.”

  Through his hurt Galen grinned at the irony of Misha's joke.

  “But,” Misha went on, “I'm not the sort of man who thinks everyone should do things the same way. You and Khalid, you're good for Vanka. That's all I care about. So.

  Out with it.”

  Galen closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

  “They both . . . they can forget to protect themselves with each other, because Khalid sees Vanka's hurt and forgets his own. And it's the same with her. She sees that she can give Khalid something he needs, something I can't really give. And that helps her forget the fear she feels when she's with me.

  “And I'm glad. I'm glad for both of them, that they can do that for each other. It's not that I want to get in the way of that. But I'm scared. I'm so scared she's never going 350

  to give herself to me again. She gave herself to me so completely before. I'd never felt that. The ways she trusted me. The way she needed me. And now, god, she can't even bear to kiss me.”

  “I'm scared I'm losing her. I'm scared I'm losing both of them.”

  Galen was cradled in Misha's big arms, like a child.

  “Galen, Vanka loves you. It's because her love for you is so big that she's scared.

  “I know it's hard. You're used to knowing what to do, you're good at giving people what they want, at controlling situations. Here, you might have to let go of the wheel, for once. She's making her way back to you, her own way, in her own time. Trust her to come back to you, Galen.”

  * * * *

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “I want to come home.”

  Galen pulled her inside, pulled her to him, held her tight against him. “Home.”

  She'd never called the place they shared home before.

  “Galen, I love you.” She'd never said that before, either. “I love you ridiculously,”

  she laughed, mocking herself. “And I want you, so much it hurts to be near you. But I don't know how to be with you, right now.”

  “Can't you just be with me . . . however you want?” he asked gently, almost timidly.

  “I don't know. I don't know if you'll . . .”

  “Vanka. We'll go as slow as you need. However you want.”

  351

  “You said that before.”

  “I'm sorry I got angry before, that night with Khalid. It was only because I was scared you were using Khalid to push me away. It wasn't fair of me, thinking that about you. I won't make the same mistake, if you give me another chance.”

  She nodded, feeling some significant thread was slipping through her grasp.

  “I'm scared,” she heard herself confess.

  “I know.” Galen smiled, stroked her hair, pulled her gently to him.

  “Yeah, but you don't know why.” She slipped out of his embrace, locked eyes with him, touched his face. “Sure, it's hard, the idea of letting you see what my body is like now. But I know you. You'll find the beauty in that. A way to love my scars, because they're part of me.

  “The thing I'm scared of, Galen. That night you and I met. You figured it out. The thing I needed that night, all those nights we had together before my operation. I needed to be afraid of something other than the cancer.”

  “I know.”

  “Everything that was going on then, god, the whole time you've known me, I've been small. Weak. Afraid. And you were dangerous. That's what I needed, then. But Galen, that's not what I'm like. All the time we've been together, you've only known me weak and scared and needy. You've never seen me. The real me.”

  “Vanka,” Galen laughed softly, but his look, his voice was tender. “I've seen you. I know you. You think I fell in love with this wounded girl who needed rescuing? Hmmm?

  You think to me you're the hurt girl? The sick girl?

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  “Vanka, you're the woman who saved my dumb ass out the rain. The woman who picked up my six-hundred-pound motorcycle and walked it almost half a mile and hardly got winded. You're the person who stood in my kitchen digging asphalt out of my knee with a pair of tweezers. And all that a few hours after you'd had a tumor cut out of your breast.

  “You're the woman who could be making a cushy living working in Hollywood, but who'd rather make art that shows people things they've never seen before. Gorgeous films that reveal things about the world.

  “You're the woman who can make anyone I know shut up and listen, on a dime, with one soft word.

  “God, Vanka, I didn't fall in love with you because you're weak. You're one of the strongest people I've ever known.” His tender voice went teasing as he went on, “And I know you've been taking it easy on me, and I've been looking forward to finally meeting Ivan the Terrible.”

  * * * *

  Galen's whole body went taut. And then a flood of blood rushed through him.

  Above the bed, the manacles dangled from their ceiling bolt.

  Relief mingled with his visceral response. Khalid was relenting. The test was over. They'd be okay.

  “Do you need to use the toilet first?” Vanka's voice.

  Galen's breath caught in his throat. He turned around. Leaning against the wall, Vanka was watching, grinning. A snug red tank and filmy red boyshorts set off the lustrous paleness of her body, the greenness of her eyes.

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  The manacles. It was her. Galen could hardly speak.

  “No.”

  “Get undressed.”

  There it was. That soft voice that demanded obedience. While she watched, Galen stripped. When she saw that he was hard she smiled and raised an eyebrow, and fuck if he didn't blush.

  “Get on the bed,” she said, her voice low and smooth.

  He knelt at the foot of the bed, under the dangling restraints. When she came forward, right to the edge of the bed, their faces an inch apart, he caught his breath and waited for her kiss. But she took his hand, instead, drew it up and locked it into the first cuff. The cold metal sent a shiver down his arm, and he felt his nipples stiffen. When she'd locked his second wrist overhead, he wrapped his fingers around the silky thickness of the rope. She'd left enough length that his arms, his torso were not pulled taut. Just restrained.

  Now she smiled. A big, eager smile. God, he hadn't seen her smile like that since

  . . . before. Now she was waiting. Va
nka was so close, her mouth so close. Finally, their eyes locked, he felt the touch of her soft lips. A gentle first kiss. Her pale lids lowered, her lashes touched her cheek, and she kissed again, soft, deep.

  A big feeling surged through his chest. Vanka. Close. Against him. Her soft, wet kiss taking him in.

  Her taste. Her way of touching his tongue with hers. Her smell, the press of her warm body, her soft skin against his. God, he'd missed her. This.

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  On and on. His body hard with desperate want, but the kiss—their coming together in that deep, wet touch—was everything. But her tongue slipped away. The press of her full soft lips lightened, then left him. Her green eyes were pink, tear-veiled.

  But she gave him that big, eager smile again. Then a teasing arch of her eyebrow.

  Vanka pivoted around and strode off, toward the dresser. In back, her red panties were so sheer he saw the shaded valley of the cleft of her ass between her firm, pale cheeks, and heat surged through his cock. From the top drawer she extracted a length of black cloth. When she turned to face him again, as she came back to him, the sheer red fabric tugged his gaze down to her crotch, and another hot surge pulsed through his cock at the sight of her pale cunt, the delicate parting of her lips.

  Again she arched her brow. Then everything went black as she stretched the strip of black cloth across his eyes and tied it. And she'd gone quiet. Darkness. Silence.

  His arms pulled up, his body seemed to be hovering in space. Only the scent of her kept him grounded. Adrenaline, something had him shaking. His body, his muscles felt weak.

  Her mouth. Warm, soft lips touched his. Her kiss opened his mouth, her tongue stroked in, brushed over his tongue. He went into Vanka's wet heat and she sucked at his tongue, his lips.

  Then she was gone. He was alone, suspended in the silent dark.

  A sound just above silence. Not even a tread or the rustle of clothes. Just . . .

  motion. And then that faint musk he knew so well. Heat. A soft warm touch at the small of his back.

  A kiss. Khalid's mouth. Khalid's taste. That ardent tongue taking him. Galen groaned and strained into that hot kiss, his lover's urgent mouth. Khalid's fingers 355