Chapter 26Vasily #2
It’s selfish, I know. This is the sort of thing that gets men ridiculed by their women when we’re wounded by our own poor decisions, but I feel the need to sit down, even though I’m honestly wishing I bought shower shoes at TJMaxx, too.
My arms fall to my side as my knees take over the space between Ana’s feet and my ass lands on my heels.
There isn’t nearly enough space here, but I don’t need space.
God, if they had to do emergency surgery so drastic, I must have almost lost her then. My son was almost an orphan. I don’t know if Tony would have taken him in or shipped him to me or just threw him into foster care. I might have lost them both.
It’s as good as a sucker punch .
Ana shakes and clutches her stomach, holding in the emptiness inside her. “I’m so sorry.”
Her words bob around in my brain, wrong in a way I can’t immediately identify.
She didn’t do anything. It’s not like she performed the hysterectomy herself.
The doctors did that. And I’ve heard enough bitching from Kseniya about reproductive rights that I know they didn’t do it on a whim.
She doesn’t have anything to apologize for.
She doesn’t have anything to apologize to me for.
She should never apologize to me.
My arms go around her legs to pull her in.
She doesn’t have a choice except to put her hands on my head as I invade the space they were just in.
“I’m sorry. Fuck, I am so goddamn sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me about Artom.
I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.
I’m sorry about how much pain you must have been in.
I’m sorry... I’m sorry I was a coward.
I’m sorry I didn’t give you a choice.” As much as it hurts me to say, I blurt out, “You shouldn’t take me back. I don’t deserve you.”
The sweet, devastated, beautiful woman that she is, she swipes tears from her cheeks even though she’s standing under running water. “You’re not upset that I can’t have any more kids?”
“That’s what you think I’d be upset about? Ana, I didn’t even know I was a father a week ago. And it kills me, everything I missed, but I just want you. Anything else is a bonus. I haven’t been with you for the last six years, but I don’t want to miss a single other minute.”
Her lips pinch like she’s unsure of my words. “You’re sure? You seemed really into the idea of me being pregnant.”
I nod. Yeah, I can see where that might have her a little concerned. “Yeah, I was, but we can always pretend, right?”
“Pretend? ”
“Right, like—” I spread my knees, forcing her to walk her feet out a step and giving my shins some much-needed space.
I slide a hand up her inner thighs and part her lips, slipping through the slickness that’s far too thick to be water and pushing two fingers into her, curling them into the front wall.
“Like, what if I just made sure that I came in this little hole every time?”
She stumbles when I straighten my fingers and curl them again. She has to grab onto my shoulder to steady herself. I massage her at a slow pace, keeping my fingers rigid, going as deep as I can to make sure she really feels it, even though everything about her wobble assures me of that already.
I lean in and flick my tongue over her clit, making one of her knees dip.
“What if every single time I came deep inside you, coating your cunt with my seed, I forced you onto your back with your legs up to keep it inside you as long as possible, and pretended it had somewhere to go?”
Her fingers dig into my shoulders, and she makes sharp, panting sounds when I lash her clit some more, doing my best to time everything so I get her close to the edge before I lift my head up.
“Would you like that?”
“Vasya,” she croons, rocking herself on my fingers.
I spread my other hand across her belly, noting the stripes of stretch marks she wears proudly, feeling the ripple of them under my fingertips.
With just a bit of pressure, I say, “What if we pretended that my seed took and your belly grew and grew and grew? If we pretended your belly would get so big with my baby that you had to waddle around with a hand on your back, and the only thing that made you feel better was taking my cock over and over and over again? Would you like that, zvyozdochka?” I lean forward to kiss her belly, and then I pump my fingers into her to punctuate my words.
“Would you beg me to give you my cock every single day, just to make the burn go away?”
Her head tosses back as she gives up her bid for balance, instead leaning against the wall, moaning my name and attempting to get her own hand between her legs to help herself along.
I’m crowding her too much, though. No room for her hand.
And when I lift myself up onto my knees, I can rest my chin on her sternum and lean my head one way, then the other, and say, “What about these? Can we pretend that they’re so filled with milk they ache?
Can we pretend the flesh is pulled taut and glistening?
That our baby’s already full and sound asleep so there’s nothing to be done except make Daddy suck every drop of sweet milk out of your tits as he fucks your sweet cunt? ”
Her eyes fly open, and she gasps out, “No!”
But I’ve already got one in my mouth, and I’m already pulling hard on it, like if I just suckle it enough, I’ll find milk somewhere.
I know that was a bit too far for her— the words, I mean— that if she’d actually just had a baby and was nursing, she wouldn’t want me anywhere near her breasts, but this is all pretend.
And her orgasm? That’s real. And her trying to silence it, only to make a sound like a tea kettle ready to explode? The whole house probably heard that.
She’s so wobbly it’s nothing to fold her legs and drop her down onto my cock.
She rides me there in the mildew-speckled tub under the abysmal shower in the decrepit, formerly-pink bathroom of the shittiest Airbnb an hour north of Denver, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It doesn’t matter where we are or what the world is around us, it’s just us in this moment, and she is so fucking incredible I will die before I let anyone separate us.
The water runs cold before we finish; by the time we have finished, we’ve turned it off and melted into jelly in the tub.
I’m gonna be broken all over with the way I’m curled up, but Ana is hugging me and kissing me, and I’d rather be broken than interrupt this moment— so of course we’re interrupted by a knock on the door.
Not a knock, a bang, and Kseniya shouting, “Get dressed and get out here now!”
It’s a scramble. There’s an urgent problem.
Ana is rushing behind me, attempting to dry us both off as I pull clothes out of the store bags.
I’m still drenched when I pull on the tee shirt and sweat pants, and the synthetic fiber clings to me like it’s going to fuse with my flesh and I’m going to be the clearance rack forever.
And when Ana throws just a pair of panties and my hoodie on, I shove her back so hard as she tries to leave the room with me that she stumbles and glares at me.
“Just until I know what’s going on,” I hiss, not saying aloud that she also needs to put on a pair of pants if literally anyone is here other than the people who were here when we got in the shower.
There is, but it’s a woman. It takes me a moment to remember who she is.
No wonder, as I’ve only met her once, and it was through Ana’s phone screen.
And there’s someone else, with a tiny but excited voice, babbling a mile a minute, but I can’t see them because Dima is squatted down in front of them, blocking my view.
Dima straightens up, and the source of the voice peeks around him .
I grab onto the wall for support. I try to speak, to say a name, but nothing comes out.
He’s looking at me, he’s smiling, and there’s nothing here that’s going to get in our way this time.
“Daddy?”
I was wrong. I was so wrong about how it would actually feel to hear that the first time. He might no longer be a baby, but he’s my baby.
I drop down to my knees, just like Ana did on the rooftop, and Artom runs to me, throwing himself in my arms.
“I know I never met you, but I missed you so much,” he whispers, his voice soft and secretive and absolutely perfect.
I hug him and squeeze him, kiss him and hold him so tight I don’t think I’ll ever let him go. I can’t find my voice, though, so I mouth, “Thank you,” to Camilla.
Kseniya swipes furiously at tears, Alex laughs at her, and Kseniya socks him in the arm.
I’ll never call him out for it, but I catch Dima ducking down as though to pick something up so he can discreetly wipe his own tears away.
“I like dogs,” Artom says as he drives his little matchbox car over the path he’s created from utensils we found in the kitchen. There isn’t much here to entertain him, but Camilla’s kids are really into cars, I guess. She had a handful of them in the bottom of her purse.
I played with these when I was little. I had a bucket of them I had to leave behind in Russia.
I have this idea in my head that kids are just video game drones these days and only want the most expensive toys, but I’m now thinking that, at least at his age, he’s happy with whatever he’s given and doesn’t care if they’re toys of a bygone era.
“I like dogs, too,” I tell him confidently. “I’ve never had one, though.”
“I haven’t either.” He looks up at me, his eyes gigantic. The same blue as mine, but somehow, the color is so much sadder with the damp sheen rimming them and the dip in his pale brows and the way his bottom lip curls in slightly, like he might be chewing on it. “I’ve always wanted one.”
“Yeah? Then as soon as I can take you home, I’ll get you—”
Above his head, Ana, Camilla, and Kseniya are all making kill gestures, like I shouldn’t promise him that as soon as we get home, I’m going to get him a dog.
I’m absolutely going to get him a dog though.
If my boy wants a dog, he’s going to get a dog.
Whatever he wants, he gets. I’m not a monster. I’m getting him a dog.
But the look on Ana’s face as she slashes her hand across her throat tells me that if I want to get in her pants again any time soon, I better not promise to get him a dog.
“—a... pass? To the dog park?” I offer instead.
I don’t think that’s real. I’m pretty sure if you show up at the dog park, they just let you in.
I’m not sure if people like random, dog-less strangers in dog parks, but he’s a little kid.
They can’t say no to a little kid who’s enthusiastic about dogs.
Whether that was the best correction or not, the girls all look relieved by the new promise and go back to their conversation, although I can tell they’re paying attention to everything I do.
It’s fine. They’re all moms. I clearly have a lot to learn. It’ll come with time. The important thing here is the stuff I was worried about? Stuff like how to have a conversation with a kid and how to entertain a kid and how to hug a kid? That’s easy .
We can just sit here on this bedsheet from the TJMaxx bag, that we laid out on the floor because I didn’t trust the carpet, all crisscross applesauce as we make little ramps and rumble strips with spoons and Chinese takeaway chopsticks, and have a good time.
“Hey, Artom?”
“Yeah, Daddy?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Daddy.”
The women all glare at me as they retrieve their well-used tissues. But I can’t help it. And as gooey as it makes me feel when Artom says it back to me, it’s not what’s important. He needs to know I love him, that’s it. And I haven’t done a good job of that for anyone in my life, I don’t think.
“Hey, Artom?”
“Yeah, Daddy?”
“Did you know Kseniya is your aunt, and she loves you, too?”
He lights up at that. “She has a baby that’s my cousin! I’ve never had a baby cousin before.”
“Yeah, well, your cousin Maribel and your Uncle Miguel love you, too.”
From the kitchen, where Dima and Alex are on a call with Janson, figuring out what’s going on in Flagstaff, Dima coughs and grumbles, “Uncle D loves you too, buddy.”
Artom giggles. “I know that!”
“Good. Great.”
Artom runs his car over the chopsticks with some serious focus, so I’m surprised when he says, “Hey, Daddy?”
“Yeah, Artom?”
“I’m, umm, I’m sorry I told you Mommy’s name was Lacey. Auntie Cami told me she goes by Ana too, and she told me it’s not my fault for saying she’s Lacey, not Ana, but I’m sorry.”
Oof. Just... oof. I scrub my chest, thump it a couple times to work the pain out.
I don’t want him blaming himself over that, but Ana’s already pulled me aside and given me a pep talk that included a gentle but firm warning that I can’t just let him have everything he wants and I shouldn’t automatically assume he’s done nothing wrong and I need to let him work through his feelings.
It was all a lot, and the way she said it made me think she was regurgitating a bunch of stuff that had blipped into existence in her brain without context, but I’m trying my best to work through all of that.
And I nearly messed up with the dog, I guess.
“Thank you, Artom,” I say, hoping that accepting his apology is the right route. A lead-by-example thing. “I appreciate that. Sometimes I call Mommy zvyozdochka, too.”
“Little star?”
He really does understand Russian. I won’t talk to him in Russian now. I don’t want Ana to feel excluded when everyone else here is fluent. But damn.
“Wait, that’s what that means?” Ana pipes up.
Artom spins around and gives Ana the most exasperated sigh, so dramatic I have to assume he’s learned by mimicking adults and hasn’t truly felt that sigh in his soul yet. “Mommy. Your Russian is terrible.”
There are a lot of laughs, but Ana’s eyes hold mine. “You started calling me that—”
“When you told me you were majoring in theatre.”
Her face tightens as she holds back emotions. “And before that?”
“Ovechka?”
“Baby lamb!” Artom sing-songs. “They say that in church a lot.”
“Yep, because that’s what they call the devout. Like your mama.”
“Mommy prays a lot,” Artom says conspiratorially.
I lean down close to Artom and say, “She was praying to God right before you got here.”
A second ticks past.
Then Camilla’s jaw drops. Kseniya throws a pillow at me. Ana hisses, “Vasily!” like she’s going to spank me.
If she wants to do that later, I’ll let her.