Chapter 7 Natalya
NATALYA
“Say my name, baby.”
I’m curling my toes, my hands his hair. His tongue moves around and around my clit expertly. God, I’ve never felt like this before. My entire body is tingling…
“Anton,” I moan. His hair is like silk between my fingers. His masculine arms are holding me, wrapped under me and lifting me up as he starts to gently suck…
I start awake. My body is still tingling and I’m a little out of breath. The waking world melts into focus and I’m looking up at my ceiling, clutching the sheets.
Damn. That was some kind of dream. My body still feels like it’s on fire. I move my thighs a little and they slide easily together, the wetness between my legs aiding them.
Ugh, why did that have to be a dream? I lie in bed for a few minutes, debating making an attempt at masturbating and maybe, just maybe, giving myself the orgasm my body so desperately craves.
Sadly, I don’t bother. I’ve never been able to get myself there.
It’s just another bit of shame for my closeted upbringing.
I think about that for a moment. If I’d stayed asleep, would I have come?
It’s kind of tragic to think that it might be the only way I’ll ever experience it.
Even Andrei, who was a caring and gentle lover, never got me over the finish line.
My heart sinks a little as I think about him.
I thought we had time to figure that part out.
I sit up and run my hands over my face. Then I glance over at my nightstand.
His card shines out at me, silvery gray plastic with his name printed on it.
Anton Romanov, Entrepreneur. I pick it up and smile, my finger moving over the smooth lettering of his phone number.
“Call me,” he said. It was as open an invitation as I was ever going to get and boy, was it ever tempting.
I stretch and stand up. I don’t have a lot of motivation for getting out of bed today or even leaving the pool house. Admittedly, I do feel a little less bitter about the breakup. I guess going out and being complimented by my high school crush does lift a girl’s spirits…
…do I smell coffee?
I sit, sniffing the air for a few seconds.
That’s definitely coffee. I swing my legs over the side of my bed and reach for my robe.
Then I realize I’m still holding the card.
I look around frantically, then I spot a pair of my jeans lying over a chair by my window. I shove the card in one of the pockets.
Wrapped in my robe, I tentatively leave my bedroom and walk down the hall to the kitchen and living room area. Sitting at the island counter is my father, cup of coffee in his hand, another cup sitting next to him.
He doesn’t look at me but he says, “Good morning. Come have a seat. We need to talk.”
I start thinking about seeing Anton Romanov in the restaurant last night. Did he already hear about that? Oh, boy. I hope I didn’t just get a guy killed by flirting with him in public.
“What’s going on?” I ask. He looks up at me with his icy eyes.
“Sit. Please.”
I move to the stool next to him and I take a sip from the coffee cup. It’s good, but bitter. Tastes like the stuff he likes to drink. I glance over at my coffee maker and see that it’s half full with it. What a waste. I’ll have to dump it out when he leaves.
“So, I’ve been thinking about this whole thing with your boyfriend. Andrei, right?”
I blink. I don’t really talk to him about that sort of thing. I guess he wouldn’t know. “We broke up,” I tell him.
He nods solemnly. “Smart boy.”
I grip the handle on the mug to suppress the urge to throw the coffee in his face. “Right,” is all I say.
“I’m not saying that because of what I said to you that night. He’s a smart boy because someone like him does not belong in a Bratva family. If you married him, he would bring us all down, one way or the other.”
“Is that the real reason you chased him off?”
“I chased him off because he disrespected me in my own home,” he says, raising his voice. “Andrei made the mistake of thinking that his privilege extended to my house. He was wrong.”
He stops, taking another drink from his coffee cup. I don’t know if this is supposed to be an apology or what, but it’s taking far too long for my tastes. I’d rather be back in bed with my fantasies.
“But I’ve been thinking about that night and about you. You’re an adult now. It’s about time for you to move out on your own. Become your own person.”
He reaches into his inner jacket pocket and he pulls out two brochures. He sets them down between us and goes, “Read them.”
I pick both brochures up. One of them is for the peace corps. It’s got a photograph of a young woman kneeling down in a muddy road, giving a bowl of rice to an emaciated child. In big, bold letters it says, See the world! Make a difference! Join the Corps!
The other brochure has an old brick building on it with several nuns standing out front. Across the top of this one is written in Russian. It translates to Sisters of the Sacred Soul. And underneath it says, Find your path.
“What is this?” I ask, a sliver of terror racing through me.
“It’s the freedom you’ve been so eagerly desiring,” he says as he takes another drink from his cup.
I’m still a little confused, so I ask, “You want me to either join the peace corps or become a nun? Are you serious?”
“You think I don’t know how you feel about having to come back home?
” he snarls. “I know you talk to your girlfriend about what a tyrant I am. I raised you so that you will never have to want for anything. You have money and privilege and safety for your entire life. All I’ve done for you and you continually spit in my face. ”
All I can do is stare in amazement. This man who all but told me that he hated me is now mad at me for wanting to leave? I set down the brochures. “I’m not doing either of these things, Papa. You can’t make me.”
“Then you will leave my house. You will stop bleeding me dry and live on the streets for all I care.”
“You’d kick me out? With nothing? No money, no—”
“Yes!” He slams his hand on the counter and I jump. “I’ve been putting up with you for far too long. Since the day you killed your mother, I’ve sat here and tried to behave like I’m supposed to care for a creature like you.”
He’s leaning into me, spitting in my face as his eyes dig icepicks into me. In Russian, he growls, “You have been a bane on my existence since the day you were born. I would kill you if I could.”
He stops himself, his jaw clenched. I slowly stand up, eyes burning with tears I don’t want him to see. “You don’t mean that,” I say, my voice getting thick with an incoming sob. “No matter what our differences are, I’m still your daughter. I’m your blood. You don’t mean that.”
He turns from me with an angry grunt. “I wanted a son,” he says. “Your mother promised me a son. And what I got instead was you at the price of losing her. My bloodline is dead thanks to you.”
Again, he cuts into me with the circumstances of my birth.
As if I could have controlled something like being born?
Through my hurt, a ball of anger shoots up through me.
“And if I were your son, do you think I’d ever want to be one of your beloved brigadiers?
” I say to him. “Some days, I don’t even know who you treat worse, me or them.
At least they get to make their own money and live in their own homes.
If I were your son, you’d probably just treat me the way you treat them because you don’t know how to relate to anyone else in any other way.
I don’t even understand how Mother could have loved a man like—”
He’s up. He grabs the mug and throws it against the wall right by my head.
It shatters and pieces fly everywhere, sticking me as I flinch away from him.
He grabs me by my robe and pushes me. I stumble back, catching the wall to keep myself from falling over.
He takes another step toward me and I scramble back, reaching for the bat sitting at the entrance to the hall leading to my bedroom.
He stops, glaring at me as I raise the bat. Everything is shaking. My knees, my hands. I clench my jaw in an effort to look fierce, but I’m terrified. I don’t want to hit him and I don’t want him to hit me.
With one meaty hand, he points a finger at me and says, “You will leave here,” he says.
“One way or another.” He straightens his suit jacket and takes a step back.
“Be thankful you are not my son, Natalya. If you were any of the brotherhood, you would already be dead. No one speaks to me the way you have.”
My hands feel slippery on the bat. I still hold on as tightly as I can, ready for him to attack again if he dares try it.
He doesn’t. He looks at the bat, then at me, then he says, “Midnight of the last day of this week, if you are not out of this pool house, I will have you removed myself. And you will need more than that bat to protect you.”
And with that, he walks out. I stand there, staring at the open sliding door and the quiet blue water of the pool just beyond it. The eerie silence after the hurricane.
What the hell am I going to do?
Fear keeps my feet rooted to the spot and I have to force myself to move just so I can close and lock the sliding door.
As soon as I do, the tears come. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have any money, and the few skills that I picked up in college won’t net me enough money to live on. Christ, what a mess this is.
I go to clean up the broken mug he knocked over when he came for me, weeping as I pick up the ceramic shards from the warm brown liquid it was once holding. None of this is fair and I don’t know how to make it right.
The mug is cleaned up and my first thought is to call Ilya. I don’t know if she can help. Maybe I can stay with her for a little while. I don’t know.
I go to my bedroom to get my phone and call her. The phone rings a few times before she answers groggily. “Hello?”
“Lee…” It’s all I get out before I start sobbing. All the pain just comes flowing out of me like a river.
“Hey, hey,” she says. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“No,” I sob, wiping my face with my sleeve. “My father is kicking me out.”
“You’re kidding me.” She pauses, then, “Oh, my God. That’s great.”
I scowl at my phone. “What?”
“Nat, he’s giving you the keys to your freedom. Real freedom. Finally.”
“Ugh. You don’t understand. This isn’t like he’s setting me up in an apartment or giving me a job at one of his buildings. He’s kicking me out. On the street. With nothing but the clothes on my back if he can help it.”
“Okay, well, first of all, I’m not going to let that happen. You can stay with me until you get on your feet, okay?”
I sniffle. The sobs are dying down. “Thank you.”
She listens to my shuddery breaths, then she says, “He’s really just kicking you out on the street, huh? Guess he heard about you flirting with Anton Romanov.”
“No, I don’t think so,” she says. “I think he’s just tired of having to look at my face all the time. I don’t know.”
“That’s kind of harsh.”
“He’s a harsh man. He said that I could either join the Peace Corps or become a nun somewhere in Russia.
If I don’t want to do either of those things, then I can live on the street.
” I feel the sobs start to rise in my throat again as I replay all the awful things he said to me.
“He said that he’s hated me since I killed my mother. ” And I’m crying again.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers. “Nat… that’s really shitty of him. I’m sorry your dad’s an asshole.”
I press my heels to my eyes, trying to stop myself from crying even more. I hear her sigh.
“Listen, why don’t you go out with me and Rodney tonight?” she said. “We’re going to check out that club I told you about.”
“Ew, the sex club? Lee, I don’t know about that—”
“Come on. You woke up this morning and your life turned to shit. Are you really telling me that getting some action tonight wouldn’t make you feel a little better?”
I snicker. “You said there were other things to do there. Like… drink and stuff.”
“I mean, yeah. Rodney says that if you don’t want to participate, you don’t have to. There are stations you can just stand by and watch stuff go down. You can keep all your clothes on, and you definitely don’t have to actually do anything with anybody if you don’t want to.”
I sniffle and silently debate it. All this talk of freedom and living a little and here I am actually debating whether or not to go to a sex club with my best friend and her ex. It’s the very definition of everything she’s talking about I should be doing instead of being my father’s ‘inmate’.
“I wouldn’t want to be a third wheel,” I tell her tentatively.
“Then don’t. When we’re there, if you see something or someone you like, feel free to explore. Just be safe and call me in the morning so I know you’re all right. Come on, Nat. You need this.”
I smile at the idea of having some poor accountant bent over while I paddle his bare ass. I’ve never been a dominant type of person… or have I? It’s not something I’ve ever explored.
Maybe tonight is the night that I get the chance.
“Okay,” I say to her. “What time?”
“Atta girl.”