Chapter 2 #2
He sits back and a little bit of juice runs down the side of his mouth to his chin and he laughs and catches it with his thumb and licks his fingers.
Instant erection. I am completely at this guy’s attention. Usually people have to work a little to give me one like this but the guy wasn’t even trying. Pretty sure my mouth is open too.
What the fuck?
This has never happened to me before, and I am freaking out.
I go out back and take a breath. I need to pull myself together, and get my dick down.
I think about chess behind the ovens but it stays rock hard.
What is happening? I have no choice but to pull it into my waist-belt and tie an apron around it.
I have to fuck that guy, or I have to stop thinking about fucking that guy. Can we just remember that he’s William Blazey’s brother? I hate that guy. That should be enough to kill this thing dead...
Out front the waiters and busboys are in the street passing by the window one by one and sneaking a look at the guy eating their dinner. Oh god, my brothers will be out soon. They’ll play it cool, having a drink until replacement dishes arrive from the chef, but curiosity will get them eventually.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” William asks Austen.
“Of course, Billy Bee, come on!” Austen says, “It’s gonna be great.”
Outside Anatoly is now smiling over the scene, and raises an eyebrow to me. He has his hands in his suit pockets with his feet slightly apart and looks like a billboard for Hugo Boss.
“Fuck off, Chili,” I mouth at him in Russian.
He has very good luck, so he’s the chili pepper.
He turns and leaves and Dimitri takes his place.
“Fuck off, Spud.”
It’s still only my younger brothers. Soon it will be Maxim, Aleksandr, Arkady... one after another, almost a version of the same guy, only older and more intimidating each time. Eventually Konstantin or Ivan will come out and that will definitely scare him off.
Austen wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I haven’t been up this late in forever,” he says.
Really? The clock just turned ten.
They call it a day and William tells one of his goons to get the car.
That was quick. I put that food down maybe ten minutes ago.
Austen comes to the counter to pay, and the others head outside. He picks up my scruffy old paperback lying on the counter and turns it over.
“What’s your name?” he asks me.
“Mischa,” I say. “I mean, Mikhail. My mom used to call me Mischa, but most people just call me Lemon.”
“Lemon?” he says, all posh and British. “But you are so sweet. I like Mischa. Dinner was amazing.”
“It was nothing,” I say, and feel my cheeks get hot.
“Not true, it was incredible.”
“Thanks. You should never eat pizza here again.”
Austen laughs. “Yes, I definitely won’t.”
God, what a smile. His dimples are killing me. I’m very hard again, and cannot wait to close this place up for the night and have a very vigorous conversation with myself. I just have to drink up as much of him as I can while he’s here.
He gestures to the Godfather and Scarface movie posters on the wall.
“Great movies.”
“Yeah, we’re real film buffs around here.”
“You know there’s a film festival soon? They are playing Santa Sangre next week too.”
“Really?” I say. I’ve never heard of it. “I heard it’s good.”
His face goes all gooey looking at me. The space between his eyebrows pulls them up together again.
He wanted me to see that one. Holy shit, he’s about to ask me out.
“Hey, I don’t suppose you would...” he starts.
I see William through the window, coming back.
“Yes!” I tell Austen, and nod my head emphatically. “Yes, yes I would love to. Absolutely. Tomorrow is good, or the weekend.”
The dimples say hello. Ding-ding. William is behind him again. Austen’s eyes flicker a little, the dimples disappear. Definitely scared of that asshole. I wait for him to finish his question.
“Um...”
“Yeah...?” I say, encouragingly, and leaning forward on the counter.
He thinks for a moment and then seems to change tact. “You should volunteer.”
“What?”
“For the film festival, if you’re interested. They need volunteers.”
He was definitely not going to ask me that before William came back in. Cockblocking motherfucker.
“Oh...” I say. “Yeah, that could be cool.”
William is drilling his eyes into the back of Austen’s head, and Austen knows it. My hot little dumpling is deflating with his brother’s frigid presence. He puts down the book, and I grab a menu.
“We deliver,” I say, and hand it to him. “From the restaurant too. Our phone number is at the bottom. If you call tomorrow, or the weekend, we’ll deliver, anytime.”
He takes the pamphlet from me, and I use the moment to stroke his fingers with mine secretly. His eyes dart from his hand up to my face.
He turns, William shoots me a nasty look, and they leave. I stare into space for a few seconds, and then look down at the bill.
He left an enormous tip.
???
Everyone has almost finished dinner by the time I return. They’re all bemused by the night’s events.
“Are you back to steal dessert?” Dimitri asks.
“You fucks got lucky tonight,” I tell the staff. “You all get two-hundred and fifty each.”
“He left you a grand?” Yuri gasps.
Yuri is the sole English speaker and breadwinner in his family. The other waiter, Danni, was homeless before I met him. He was too young and scared and too much like my younger self not to take him in.
“Yeah,” I say casually.
“Oh my God,” Danni says, taking his cut. “You can steal dinner anytime.”
“Yeah, suck his dick,” Yuri says.
“Hey!” Gregor says in a warning tone.
The two scamper away with their wads of cash.
“That was a very attractive young man, Mikhail,” Konstantin says pointedly. “Or was it both of them?”
“The one on the right.”
“What difference does it make?” Anatoly frowns.
“The one on the left is an asshole and scared the nice one off. So disappointing.” I shake my head. “The shop phone is mine this week,” I say, and hold up the flip-top phone charging by the till. “I gave him a menu with the number. I’m going to sleep with this thing in case he calls.”
“I will bet any of you a thousand bucks he never calls,” Anatoly smirks.
“So do you only like guys now?” Maxim asks.
“Well,” I shrug, “sixty-forty.”
“Sixty percent men or women?”
“Women,” I lie. “Or maybe I’m just a sex addict? I don’t know. I really need to have a fuck soon or I’m gonna go crazy.”
Gregor shakes his head. “Then you have to fuck someone before you come here next week because I’m not waiting till after ten to eat again.”
“I think Dimitri is at least seventy percent men,” Maxim smiles. “He’s lucky we’re not Italian,” he gestures like his hand is a gun that fires at Dimitri, who stares him down. “And I don’t even want to think about Anatoly.” The boys all start laughing. “Ninety-nine percent?”
“He’s a sharp dresser!” Arkady chimes in and Anatoly reaches over and thumps him in the arm.
“I’m five percent gay,” Ivan says, and the room goes quiet. “Maybe a little more. It is a comfort to me when I think about the Gulag. If I have to spend a few years in jail, I am getting some meat.”
The others laugh.
“Prison is different. It’s all just holes, isn’t it?” Dimitri says. “We can fuck anything. I mean I am not going to tattoo a whore on my stomach and open for business, but I’d go either way in a pinch.”
“Do tell, jailbird,” Anatoly says.
“Yeah Melon,” Maxim says. “Weren’t you in prison?”
All the boys start to jeer.
“Shut up,” Dimitri says. “For your information, I was cellmates with a beautiful... person... of indeterminate... affiliation... who I’m still trying to work out.
.. named Ivanna Krotchlickmehoff. I remember our time together fondly.
We changed positions every night. Sometimes it was the top bunk and sometimes the bottom.
Sometimes in her peepka and sometimes my poopka.
I promised to marry her but she’s got forty years to go, and I’m still a young man.
.. but I do miss the foot massages. She had big feet, but she was a nice lady. ”
Dimitri survived prison with his self-effacing sense of humor, and the terror Dad wields inside.
I stare out the window with a bewitched look on my face. I can tell the Green Pepper is about to nip any tender feelings in the bud.
“You are smitten?” Gregor asks. “You’re feeling something?”
“Your dick, perhaps?” Dimitri says.
A wild rumpus of hoots erupts.
“He has charmed you?”
I don’t want to dampen the atmosphere so I perform for my brothers.
“What if he has?” I gesture theatrically.
“He’s truly majestic. It’s almost like he’s some sort of rare woodland creature that has appeared in a forest clearing,” I stand on my tippy-toes, and dance a little from Swan Lake.
The boys laugh. “His handsome eyes glinting in a shaft of light through the trees. A bird sings a sweet song of spring and he turns to listen to it. A beast like me would only step on a twig and watch as the echoing snap scares him away forever.”
Applause comes up from the group.
“Lemon is the winner tonight! Give him a drink.”
I take a shot of Russian Standard and they cheer. A flash of sadness crosses over me but I push it back down.
“What’s with the security and flashy car?” Ivan asks.
“They are the Blazey brothers,” I say. “Vincent Blazey’s two grandsons. Their grandfather is a billionaire.”
“Is that so?” he looks over to Konstantin.
“They would have been heirs to an enormous fortune but the old man disowned them after they stole an airplane in Switzerland and crashed it into a ski field. The old man said they were dead to him.”
“Womp-womp,” Dimitri takes a shot of vodka.
Strange though. They must be burning through the last of their trust fund, because they don’t seem to deny themselves anything. They have a huge mansion out of town as well.
After dinner the Green Pepper comes to extinguish the last of my embers for the beautiful British dandy.
“Don’t even consider it, Lemon,” Gregor says.
“Everybody falls for someone at least once in their lives, but please try to choose carefully. This is a delicate time and we need to be focused. Spoilt little rich boys are a pain in the ass. He’s already a public figure as well.
Most romances end in pain anyway, and if you fell for him you wouldn’t be one of few lucky ones that don’t. ”
My parents were lucky. Tragic maybe, but lucky in love.
“You’re probably right,” I say, and pat the shop phone in my pocket. “But I have never in my life felt so pulled towards someone. One more push could tip me over the edge. He was going to ask me out and I already said yes.”
Konstantin sighs. “You don’t have the luxury of being powerless to someone’s charms like you were tonight. I can’t even imagine you fixated on someone. It’s a little terrifying if I’m honest. We have a duty, a place in a chain of command.”
“Of course,” I say. “The family comes first always. What should I do? Fuck him and get it out of my system?”
“No!” Anatoly whips around. “You’re not in his power yet. Do you want to be?”
I absolutely want to be.
“Of course not.”
“Then stay away.”
“You’re circling the drain, baby brother,” Maxim puts his arm around my shoulders. “Take it from me and Chili, we know the pain. Get out while you still can.”
“You can’t see him again,” Anatoly nods.
“You really can’t see him again,” Alexandr shakes his head.
They’re being dramatic. We’ll meet at a third location to have sex on the regular. I don’t do relationships. I’ll never be boyfriend material.
“Right,” I nod. “It should be easy. I never saw him this whole year. I just need to avoid him for a few weeks and then we’re done here.”
“Let’s not risk it,” Anatoly says. “Me and Gregor will go to Boston with you tomorrow. We need to dodge this arrow.”
He’ll call. He’ll call me tonight.
“Okay,” I say.
“Find someone casual,” Maxim says. “Try to avoid the shot from cupid’s bow until you at least find someone more... easy.”
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask him.
“No,” he shakes his head. “I hope when I do fall in love it will be short and painless or long and beautiful. Pain is more likely with people like us.”
“I have also not yet been in love,” Dimitri says. “I wonder if it’s real.”
“What about Ivanna?” Maxim jokes.
Dimitri smiles. “That was a marriage of convenience. I imagine real love will be like a pig being eaten by a python. Hopefully I’m the python.
I will fall, and I will think it will be too much, that it is enormous, insurmountable, and incredibly satisfying, but then slowly I will digest their soul and deflate over a few weeks or months.
I will come down from the cloud and will regain my senses.
I’ll have a lot of sex with them and get bored and move on.
At least I hope that’s how it will happen. I can’t imagine aching for someone.”
Austen seems nice. I wouldn’t be doing him any favors by eating his soul like a greedy snake. I should let him go before the cage comes down.