Chapter 36 Just Another Tuesday
Just Another Tuesday
The next day was a Tuesday, and of course it had to be a Tuesday, because all the worst things happen on a Tuesday.
Vitali returned home early in the morning hours, a full day before he was supposed to. He slipped into bed with me, still smelling of cigarettes and generic soap you’d be lucky to find in government office buildings.
“I missed you,” he whispered, pressing his lips against my shoulder blade. His hands wrapped tightly around my waist, and rolled me toward him in my still half-asleep state. His stubble scratched my palm when I touched his cheek. Two days’ worth—at least. His face hovered just above mine.
“I missed you, too,” I mumbled, pulling him down in a vain hope that I might still get another hour before the sun came up, but he wasn’t budging. In fact, he stopped moving entirely.
All at once, the haze lifted, and I realized it was a day early and I still smelled like the vodka Sergei fed me the day before.
And he was breathing me in.
After a long moment, he pulled back. “Open your eyes, Katya.”
I did, and my stomach clenched. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t anything but entirely unreadable, and that was worse.
“You drank.”
Denying it would be insulting, and I had no good excuse prepared that didn’t make Misha complicit. ‘You drank’ was better than ‘You drank with my boss and colleague while watching me play dentist-Dr. Frankenstein on TV.’
“It’s not what you think…” I started anyway, not even sure where I was going after that first part.’
Vitali stood, turning his back to me. He reached behind, bunching up his shirt, and pulled it up over his head, then swung open the closet door.
“Tell me what you’ve been up to while I was gone.”
Nothing like you’ve been up to, I thought with the same attitude I wanted to give him, watching his clothes come off. I didn’t speak in time because his muscles stilled.
“Is there a bottle here?” he asked.
“No…”
“Where did you go.” The shift held an edge, but not the same one that’d made me wary before.
“I saw Misha…” I said, immediately panicking. I wanted to be honest with Vitali. This was technically the truth, and I’d still be keeping my promises as long as I didn’t mention Sergei.
“And?”
“And Elena is missing…”
He turned with an eyebrow raised. “Missing?”
“Nobody has seen her in three weeks. Her Mama thought she was just working a lot, but no one at the hospital can say the last time she was in.”
“What are the police doing about it?”
“Not much, I imagine.”
He nodded. “That’s easier. I’ll look into it. Why did you go to Misha first?”
“I’m not supposed to call unless I have to, remember?” The look he shot me fully acknowledged the sass, and my feelings on the matter were… mixed.
“Katya, I’m not kidding around.”
The words zapped me, and I pushed myself against the wall atop the mattress, pulling my knees up to my chest. He held the clean shirt slack in his hands, eyes spearing into me.
“You have no idea what you’re getting into. You’re done going to Misha for things. This is very serious, and I am very disappointed in you.”
Might as well have been a gut punch. The tears warmed behind my eyes, but I wasn’t going to be a crybaby about it—Katya makes choices and she stands by them. “She’s my best friend, Vitali.”
“I don’t care if it’s Mama—you don’t get involved unless it’s through me. And you’re not going to speak to anyone about this. The police come asking questions, you tell them the truth—you haven’t seen her, and you haven’t spoken to her, and that’s the end of it. No more Misha.”
This time, I really was going to cry. “Why are you being like this?”
He fingered the shirt in his hands, wrinkling the collar, but remained quiet for a few moments. I could almost see the dialogue scrolling through his mind.
“Because when girls like her disappear, it’s not on vacation. She’s not a kid who ran away from their parents or a drunk uncle who froze to death in a sewer drain. She kept ‘company.’ Leave this until I tell you different, Katya.”
I spent the entire day prior in the presence of horrific things, saw two men get shot, and Sergei eat fried chicken, and yet Vitali’s words were the reality that cleaved through a haze of what seemed like watching myself on TV.
“Kotik,” he said, more gently, and sat down beside me, pulling my face into his chest. Letting me crumble. “I’ll take care of it. I always take care of you—don’t I? Come here.”
He lifted me, settling me on his knees like a crying child with his arms holding me flush against his body.
The dam inside me somehow held, cracks and everything, until right then.
Now, the ugly, shaking, snot-nosed grief poured out of me into the crook of his shoulder.
Into the space of his heart he’d reserved just for me.
The warmth of his hand on my back made firm, soothing circles, and he leaned a cheek against my sleep-frizzed hair. I emptied into him as he held me, until there was nothing left but dry sobs. Still, he didn’t let go.
“I’ll take care of it,” he repeated, and pressed a slow kiss to my forehead.
He spent some time making calls, but they were all done on the balcony where I couldn’t hear. He paced the small enclosure and rubbed his chin a few times, looking out into the distance at nothing in particular. I wasn’t sure if that should have inspired hope or fear.
We had coffee, and then we didn’t mention it for what I’d call (mostly) the rest of the day. What we did speak about was the vodka.
“I would like to revisit you drinking after I explicitly told you not to.”
I stopped brushing my teeth and peeked out of the bathroom, already in pajamas and in no mood to do any revisiting. He stood at the closet, going through his jacket pockets. The vodka hadn’t been my choice, but I couldn’t say that out loud. Lying to him wasn’t an option either. Bad Katya.
He pulled my gold necklace out, and my breath caught, the mint toothpaste pooling in my mouth. He found it…
“This is a privilege,” he said, letting it dangle off his fingers. “And you broke your promise, so you can’t have it back until you earn it.”
So it was bad Kotik…
Oh… I was going to earn it. The thought of how I was going to earn it made me salivate and I had to spit in the sink. But, when I came out to do my earning, there was something else in his hands.
A thick, black, leather dog leash complete with a collar.
He’d never had a pet…
I mouthed an ‘oh’ and he grinned.
So it was a really bad Kotik…
My bruised throat gave me pause, but not one long enough to call me smart.
“Come here. We’re going to play a game.” He unclipped the back made up of thick, steel rings. The kind you’d use on very large guard dogs. I held back a giddy smile and took a step forward. “Hold up your hair.”
I did, turning my back to him so he could fasten the collar.
He adjusted it until a part of it constantly touched my flesh without rubbing.
A light test tug let me know there was no use fighting, and the next one sent me backwards and pressed against his chest with his arm like a steel bar across my collarbones.
“And now you’re going to tell me where you went.”
My eyes grew wide as I realized my mistake, and I tried reaching back for him, but he was already leading me to the bed. I crashed down on it face-first, and the mattress squeaked as he knelt above me, a knee on each side of my hips.
He slowly began to coil the excess leather, wrapping it around his palm and drawing himself closer with each loop. The pressure against my throat grew rigid.
“Why did you call Misha?” he asked, near enough to send tingles down my spine.
“I wanted his help to find her…” I said, my breath surprisingly shallow.
“And what did he tell you?” He slid his free hand into the band of my less-than sexy pajama pants, and tugged them down far enough to expose my butt.
There was no creative way to avoid telling him the truth…
“No… he said no.”
“Good girl,” Vitali said, and looped a finger through my underwear, sending them the way of the pajamas. “Which begs the question of how you made it all the way to the vodka. What happened next?”
“He told me he’d look into it.”
“No, Kotik, I don’t think so,” Vitali said, and his fingers entered me in one quick motion, forcing my high-pitched cry into the blankets.
It hadn’t hurt, but the combined sensations bordered on a different kind of agony.
And then, his fingers curled, their force lifting my hips, and my already sensitive nerve endings sang. “Care to try again?”
“He said I had to ask Sergei!”
To my horror, there was no surprise in his voice when he said, “And what did Misha instruct you to tell me?”
“Nothing, he asked me to tell you nothing!”
“Good.” He withdrew, but kept stroking along the slickness, brushing my clit as if by accident, but the light linger gave him away. “But see, here is the issue, Kotik. You didn’t tell me anything when I first asked.”
He adjusted and slipped his arm under my thighs, which brought me up with a little bounce against the hard bulge in his pants.
My head remained pressed against the blankets.
He reached around, his fingers slowly massaging my clit.
The breath began to leave my body. He wouldn’t let me spread my legs for even a bit of relief.
“You went to see Sergei. Here is where you’re not going to get away with half-truths, Katya,” he said. “Because I want to know everything.”
At first, the leather slackened, but then he grabbed my wrists and pulled them behind my back.
I squeaked in delight as he wrapped the leash around them, securing me in a position I couldn’t get out of if I tried.
A bit of panic did tighten my chest, but I pushed it down.
His voice was Vitali. Just Vitali. And I was his to do with as he liked…
God, but I wanted him to do as he liked…
“What happened next?”
“He said he’d look into it.”
“What did he want in exchange?”
“Nothing—”