Butterfly Skin

by Sergey Kuznetsov

  Outside the heat has probably eased off, but in here the waves of swelter are still slopping about. When I was twenty and a bit it didn’t bother me either although, to be quite honest, there weren’t any clubs like this then. But you like it here, it would be unfair to drag you away so soon.

  “Shall we have a dance?” I say.

  “Okay.”

  Right then, silver shoes, yellow top, already dried out a bit, dusky stomach between the yellow top and red panty elastic, two-tone bang. Right then, a secretary. Immediately after school you tried to get into college, the economics department, and failed both times. But you’re going to keep trying anyway. It’s hard to find a secretary in Moscow who isn’t going to try to get into college to study economics or law, well, good luck anyway. I used to think a good education was important too.

  You live with your parents and your elder sister, who happened to get into the law department at college, at the third attempt, in fact, but she graduates next year. At your sister’s age girls in my generation were already getting married and having children, but the new clubbing generation obviously isn’t in such a hurry.

  Stop.

  It’s as if someone is waking up inside, starting to toss and turn inside my chest; as if he’s getting ready to break through my ribs and come shooting out. But I only came to the club to relax. Like any regular Moscow boy. But all evening a phrase, a glance, some minor detail has kept throwing me back into the danger zone, where there’s nothing but stop, stop, stop. As if you’re walking along an endless corridor, opening new doors all the time – and suddenly you fall through one of the doorways into hell. And until you open it, you don’t know what’s behind it, but when you do open it, it’s too late and you can’t even understand straight away what happened, what it was that Alice said.

  Ah yes, she studied in the department of law at Moscow University. Like Alice’s sister. I took the student ID out of her purse, big, short-sighted eyes, she couldn’t see a thing without her glasses, I had to try to find her new ones, take the risk, for that week when… Stop, I tell you, stop.

  But I can see you’re a considerate girl, you ask: “Are you feeling okay?” No, little Alice, I’m feeling monstrously not okay, but in your place I wouldn’t try to find out anymore about it.

  “It’s stuffy in this club of yours,” I say, which happens to be true, by the way, and we go back to the table.

  Right then, she’s a little puppy dog. She’ll be a puppy even in the old age that she still has to live to see. Her bang will be gray, her skin will dry out, but maybe she’ll keep the way she walks and the way she laughs. How much more does anyone need, really?

  An hour and three martinis later I make eyes at Mike to let him know it’s time for us to move out, and Mike also gets up, with a sigh, and says he’ll go and dance for a while, although it looks like it’s obviously not his evening in this club tonight. Alice says in her shrill voice that she was glad to meet him and Mike gives a confidential nod in my direction and says: “You watch yourself with him, he’s a real psycho.”

  Stop, fuck it, stop! I can feel myself starting to turn red. You could blow your cover like that, stop, tell yourself to stop, and smile like this, the way people smile at a tired old joke that has nothing to do with reality.

  * * *

  An air-conditioned island. Genuine coolness. Silk sheets, a bottle of champagne beside the bed. Little post-pubescent fox terriers are into stuff like that.

  Modern female fashion keeps no secrets. You even know the color of the panties in advance, the only surprise in store for you is the angel tattooed on her left shoulder. “That’s my guardian angel,” Alice says, and starts kissing me, sucking my tongue into her little mouth. Pausing to catch her breath, she explains that she doesn’t like fingers down there, she likes it with the tongue, her breasts shouldn’t be squeezed too hard, but her nipples are a genuine erotic zone, and she can hardly ever come without having her clitoris fondled, so I shouldn’t be offended if she helps herself out at some point.

  The new clubbing generation. Girls who know their own bodies the way the girls of my generation knew the discography of Pink Floyd. Life is too short, why waste half the night on exploration? Better tell him up front, so he knows exactly what to do, because in hot summer Moscow it’s so hard to find a man who understands you without words.

  Night, but the heat’s as bad as ever. You find the smell of your own sweat disgusting. The waves of sweltering heat pound against the window panes, maybe you should take a trip to the sea? Take the fox-terrier girl Alice with you, stay in some small hotel, screw in the evenings and in the afternoons lie on the beach, dripping with sweat, just like you are now, as if you hadn’t taken a shower. Alice the fox-terrier girl obviously sweats a lot in general, that must be the way the way the glands are arranged under her dusky skin (stop), or maybe she always gives it everything she’s got, no matter what she’s doing.

  There was a time when I really liked all these sexual acrobatics and I differentiated between my partners according to their flexibility and inventiveness. I used to think that was important. But just recently I find I prefer the banal missionary position. If all we’re doing is having sex then, at the end of the day, that’s pretty boring. Stop. Stop.

  Right then, we’ve already been moving in perfect synchronization for a long time already, Alice’s red and light-yellow braids of hair have become completely tangled together on the pillow. As always, I don’t come for a long time, lots of women actually like that. Then Alice starts howling like a dog, and in response I start feeling cold. I ought to get up and turn the air conditioning down, but Alice clings on tight with all four paws, lying on her back with her big eyes closed and her little snub nose wrinkled up. Suddenly her entire body shudders, look at that, we managed it without stimulating the clitoris, we carry on.

  I used to think it was very important for the girl to come at the same time as me. Then it was explained to me that a skillful partner could simulate orgasm so well that even she couldn’t tell the difference. Yes, sex is an artificial thing, too, like the coolness in this bedroom. There’s too much falsehood in it. Stop.

  The obedient little girl Alice, the fox-terrier girl, a puppy to old age. She keeps going, she can’t stop, although she’s gasping for breath and she’s soaking wet, so that any moment now she’ll slip across the silk sheets straight onto the floor, onto the shaggy carpet, there now, I knew it. She doesn’t even open her eyes, trembling all over.

  The little girl Alice whimpers as she lies on the floor, a dusky little body on the light-colored carpet. She twitches spasmodically, especially if I wave my hand through the air. Like an electric shock. Stop. Like the shock of a sudden blow. Stop.

  Where is she now? Because she’s not in this body. Where has she gone? Stop. Stop.

  This has happened to me a few times before. If the girl is easily aroused, I can’t come for a long time, and she remains in that state of arousal… well, in short, this is pretty much what it looks like. Quite an impressive sight, but today for some reason, I feel sad.

  Alone in my own bedroom with a dusky body on a light background lying at my feet, trembling and whimpering. A little fox terrier on a rug.

  Alone.

  There are tears in my eyes.

  I walk to the remote that I left by the door, push the buttons, walk into the kitchen, pull open the drawer of the kitchen table (stop), pour a glass of water and ponder for a moment, then down it in one and walk back into the room with a second glass. I pick Alice up in my arms, sit her on the bed and give her a sip. Again, again, that’s a clever girl, well done, good girl.

  I put my hand on her forehead. When I was little, my parents only ever touched my forehead to find out if I had a temperature. But I like simply to stroke. Stop. Simply to stroke.

  “Shee-it,” Alice says in a hoarse voice. “What was that?”

  I shrug.

  “It happens,” I say, “you kept coming too long.”

  “Shit almighty,�
�� she says, “at one point I was looking down from the ceiling. How do you do stuff like that?”

  “Well,” I say, “Mike told you I was a psycho. I guess that’s what he meant.”

  She’s trembling all over, and I wrap her in a blanket, swaddle her up tight and sit her on my knee. Two-tone bang stuck to her forehead, snub nose. How I love her like this, tired, drained, exhausted. Little Alice puts her head on my shoulder and I feel that now she is like the daughter I don’t have.

  I don’t have a daughter and I haven’t seen my son for eight years.

  I run my hand over the damp two-tone hair and there are tears in my eyes. I press myself tightly against Alice, and at that moment she sees the condom dangling limply off the end of my prick.

  “What d’you mean, you still didn’t come?”

  I hastily roll the rubber off and reply guiltily:

  “Oriental techniques, you know.”

  I told you: women think I’m a good lover because I can manage not to come for a long time. Stop. Stop. Stop.

  Leaving in the morning, she left behind

  Her little silver ring. On purpose probably

  She left her number on the back of her company card

  Red and light-yellow hair,

  Dusky skin, big gray eyes

  Feeble yelping in a cool bedroom

  In the middle of hot summer Moscow

  Three days later it hit me

  Remembering her, suddenly I saw

  All the things I could have done with her

  She had elastic skin

  I told myself I mustn’t think about it

  Nipples with large areolas

  A little mouth the gag would have ripped and bloodied

  I don’t know myself why it hit me so hard

  It doesn’t often happen retrospectively

  I guess it was the way she came that did it

  An orgasm is called a little death

  There were so many, I wanted to see the big one

  I thought it would only be fair

  She came so many times and all the evening

  I just kept repeating “stop, stop, stop”

  Now we could balance our accounts

  I would ejaculate time after time

  And she would tell me “stop!

  Please stop and let me go!”

  She probably couldn’t come like that

  Not even if I touched her clitoris.

  (I like touching girls’ clitorises too

  Cigarette lighter, pliers, scalpel

  And other quite surprising instruments)

  I pictured how her face would look

  When she realized what was happening

  I would bring her to my dacha

  Without any drugs or ropes,

  She would walk downstairs of her own accord

  And only in the basement would she realize

  The little mouth would form a perfect circle

  Opened in a helpless scream

  The red and yellow hair

  Would instantly be soaked in sweat, but cold this time.

  Horror would make the big gray eyes grow even bigger

  Then she would squeeze them shut and maybe cry

  Although in general it was against my rules

  When I picked Moscow girls up in the clubs

  I never took them to the dacha

  Like any regular Moscow boy

  First of all, it was quite dangerous

  In general I tried to separate the two halves of my life

  Many serial killers do the same

  William Heirens thought up a doppelganger for himself

  His name was Mr. Murman, that is, Murder Man

  I also have an alias for my second self

  Or, perhaps, my first

  When I picked Moscow girls up in the clubs

  I never took them to the dacha

  Like any regular Moscow boy

  But dusky little Alice, the fox-terrier girl

  Haunted my mind, and the little ring

  In the bathroom kept catching my eye

  I really ought to give it back – and I started wondering

  Where I could have put the card with the cell number

  And the name of the firm

  Maybe my cleaning lady threw it out

  An old, but energetic woman

  Who comes to me on Wednesdays

  Perhaps the air-conditioned breeze

  Carried it off to the Mediterranean Sea

  Where Lyubka and Sevka are on vacation

  Or maybe the tattooed angel

  Really can save

  The secretary girl who calls herself

  A receptionist

  You were lucky, sweet Alice

  Fox-terrier girl

  And now, after all this time

  I’m truly glad. A little death

  Is quite enough for a little girl

  Live to be old, eternal puppy,

  Gray bang, dry skin, children, grandchildren. And education

  Since you think it’s so important

  Some day on vacation by the sea

  A grown woman, running through your one-night stands

  The same way other people count sheep or elephants

  Remember me, the sugar daddy from the club

  The silk sheets and the cool conditioned air

  The heat outside, the way suddenly you saw the room

  From a bird’s eye view

  It’s called out-of-body experience, dear Alice

  There are other ways of inducing it apart from sex

  I wanted so much to show you them, but it didn’t happen

  Believe me, the silver ring you left behind

  Is too small a price to pay for your good luck.

  32

  SHE LOOKS ABOUT ELEVEN OR TWELVE. AUTUMN-wear jacket, knitted woolly hat. She walks out of the subway station and he tags along behind her. There’s no one else around and she starts running, she doesn’t even shout, just keeps looking back over her shoulder to make sure: the man isn’t falling back, even though he didn’t seem to be running. She look about eleven or twelve, not dressed properly for the weather, she’s got the shakes, she runs along the street, she looks back over her thin shoulder, the snow crunches under her feet like the glass of broken bottles, she’s in a hurry to get home, but she doesn’t recognize these places. Façades with no walls behind them, the gaping windows of gutted buildings filled with the black night air, the festive lights pulsating jerkily in time to her breathing. She looks back over her thin shoulder, the snow swirls behind her, she’s not dressed properly for this weather, she’s got the shakes, she doesn’t recognize these places, she scrambles over piles of broken bricks, dashes through dark courtyards, runs, stumbles, falls and runs again. The frozen door handle at the entrance, the four digits of the entry code, the gaping mouth of the elevator, melt water splashing under her feet. She looks back, she has the shakes.

  Ksenia is waiting on the landing, she hugs the thin shoulders, says: “Don’t worry, everything’s all right, you know, you see, you got away, you got here, come on, let’s go, here’s the key, here’s the lock, you’re a big girl now, there’s nothing to be afraid of, come in, take off your jacket, you’re frozen through, come through into the room, you see, I got some presents ready for you, look – here’s a cat-o’-nine-tails, here’s a pair of handcuffs, here’s a riding crop, a leather paddle, a set of sewing needles, a splinter from a mirror, a kitchen knife, and don’t you struggle to break free, for God’s sake, you’re a big girl now, you ought to understand everything yourself.”

  Her heart is pounding, her T-shirt is soaked with sweat. Ksenia lies there, swaddled up tightly in the blanket, gazing into the winter morning twilight, wide awake before the alarm clock has even rung. After a dream like that, climb out of bed, run to the shower without looking round on the way, don’t look in the mirror, turn on the water, wash off the cold morning sweat, try to forget your dream. Ksenia understands only too well what it means
.

  The subconscious speaks to other people in parables, thinks Ksenia as she stands under the shower, but it always speaks in plain language to me. Last night my subconscious told me: you’re guilty. I know that’s the way it is: I’m guilty. I’ve felt my own guilt for as long as I can remember. For Lyova having to sit with me and not play outside. For Mom working to feed a family of four. For her not divorcing Dad because of me, and for not being able to stop them getting divorced. For not going to college. For putting my name on my site. For everyone in Moscow telling Mom: I heard your Ksenia on the radio, she was saying something about sex maniacs.

  My God, thinks Ksenia, standing under the shower. How tired I am of being guilty. All my life I’ve tried to make everything all right. So it would be interesting for Lyova to play with me, so Mom could work less, so she could be proud of me. How much longer can it go on, thinks Ksenia, sinking down on to the bottom of the bath, how much longer. I can’t do anything, I can’t even help Olya, today she’ll go abort her child. Vika told me once what it’s like, but I don’t want to remember that, I don’t want to remember today’s dream, I want to stay lying here, on the bottom of the bath. I want to go to Olya, but I can’t go to her, because it’s her body, her child, her choice, She wants to do it all as if it’s just a minor routine operation, nothing out of the ordinary, I understand her. Dear, dear Olya, I would like to be there with you today, to hold your hand, to stroke your hair, to say: don’t worry, everything’s all right, you know I love you. I’d like to be your mom today, to take you by the hands, lead you out of the hospital ward, take you home, put you to bed, feed you raspberry tea and pretend it’s just a sore throat. Dear Olya, I probably couldn’t even lift you up, let alone carry you home, but you can feel it, can’t you, feel me summoning all the strength I have left to send you my love across the frozen city this morning? Maybe at least it will make the anesthetic gentle and the awakening less frightening, if there’s nothing else I can do for you anyway.