Chapter 25
Anya
It’s strange how fast the weeks fly by when you stop just surviving and actually start living.
Every day since we decided to toss Maksim’s pride out the window, we’ve fallen into a strangely pleasant routine.
He still wakes up before me, but now he doesn’t vanish for the rest of the day.
He goes out to exercise or work, but he’s always there when I open my eyes, ready to give me the best orgasms.
I can’t believe I ever thought Maksim might not be attracted to me. The man is ravenous. His hands or mouth are always on me whenever he gets the chance. I still don’t know if I can look Vladimir in the face after he caught us in the act in the office last week.
I’d only gone to tell him I was back from my classes at the project when Maksim sat me on the desk and went down on me. The door swung open without warning, startling me, and suddenly I was face to face with a surprised and slightly flushed Vladimir.
“Get out.”
Maksim ordered, and he obeyed in a flash, but I’m still embarrassed about the whole thing.
I give a nervous smile to no one in particular as I remember the scene and head toward the kitchen, where I find Maksim once again drinking coffee and waiting for me.
Today I’m heading to my new class at Dreaming on Pointe, so Maksim stays with me until I leave.
He drinks his coffee slowly, frowns at his phone, and barks orders at anyone who passes by.
When I’m ready to go, he stops me at the door, kisses me, and threatens Grisha over my shoulder, saying he’ll kill him if I’m late.
“Bye, Medvezhonok,” I whisper in his ear, because this nickname is just between us. I don’t want anyone else sharing it.
“Get going, Svetlana,” he responds with a half smile after one more kiss.
So I go. With Grisha silent at the wheel and Yelena’s knife tucked in my boot, I cross St. Petersburg to Dreaming on Pointe for my new routine.
Three times a week I teach the small class Vanya put together—girls with the drive, the body, the posture, and the stubbornness for professional ballet.
I correct every position, teach them how to fall without getting hurt, show them how to turn fear into discipline.
It’s not like the Bolshoi. There’s no spotlight and no audience giving a standing ovation at the end, but I celebrate anyway.
Whenever one of them nails a movement she’s been struggling with all week and looks at me with that proud disbelief of someone who didn’t know she had it in her, I feel my chest swell with something that hasn’t filled me in years. Pride and hope.
If I can’t be a soloist anymore, at least I can help someone else become one.
That’s why I train every morning—so I don’t lose everything I’ve learned over the years, everything I want to pass on to these girls.
The dance room at the end of the east corridor is my sanctuary, just like the reading room.
There I put on music, do barre work, stretch, push myself as far as my knee will allow.
It still gives out, still pops and trembles in the middle of a plié if I push too hard.
But over these past weeks, I feel like I’ve relearned how to dance with my whole body instead of mourning a single broken piece.
It was on one of these training mornings that Ivan started showing up.
The room’s window faces the woods, and one day I lifted my eyes from the mirror and spotted him sitting down there on the frost-speckled lawn, looking like a giant, bored dog staring at the house windows. The next day he came again, as if he liked the music. And then again.
And like another delicious piece of this routine, it just fit.
I train, I dance, Ivan arrives and watches from the garden until I finish and go down to give him an apple or some walnuts. I smile as I watch him walk away, satisfied with the breakfast I’ve offered him, until my mood sours.
The phone rings.
Aleksei’s name lights up the screen.
My father calls every two or three days. Relentlessly. Religiously. It’s been more than two months since I left that house—sold off by him—and I hadn’t felt anything until today. My chest tightens with hurt, and even though I try to push it away, I can’t.
I know what awaits me on the other end of the call, just like in the years when I lived in Moscow and danced at the Bolshoi.
Aleksei would call with longing in his voice, say he wanted to see me, that he missed his daughter, and at the end of the conversation, always, came the request. Just a few rubles.
It was a small debt. The last one, he swore. Always the last one.
I don’t answer this time.
Not since I left them behind. I ignore the tenth call and put my phone in my bag. But it vibrates again ten minutes later, demanding my attention.
Galina: you ungrateful bitch.
The least you could do is answer when we call.
I stare at the screen for a while, waiting for the guilt, the lump in my throat, the shame of ignoring my parents and leaving them in need when I have so much. But none of that comes. This time, all that comes is a strange, clear certainty: these two people sold me.
Literally.
They took my father’s gambling debt and traded me for it as if I were a piece of furniture.
And even though the people who bought me turned out to be good in the end, that might not have been how it went.
Everything could have been so different.
Instead of being called family by my new husband’s cousin, I could be dead in a ditch or working as a prostitute in some nightclub, and my parents wouldn’t even care.
I take a deep breath and delete the message without responding.
Even though I don’t want it to, the echo lingers. That night, after Maksim lies down beside me, he kisses my ear and asks:
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He pulls back, searching my eyes for any trace of doubt. It’s not a lie—nothing happened. That’s what my parents are to me now. A big nothing.
“Tell me who upset you and I’ll make them pay.”
I laugh at his murderous expression and decide to tease him.
“Misha, an eight-year-old, stuck gum in one of my students’ hair today. I spent half the class trying to get it out and consoling the poor thing.”
Maksim grunts, still holding me, grumbling about how boys like that need to be taught a lesson.
I laugh again, and just like that, the weight lifts.
My husband’s hungry touches keep me awake and alert and, above all, make me feel desired and admired.
When he enters me, I’m already so wet I’m dripping, making it easier for him and everything more intense. Maksim fucks me the same way he does everything—with intensity, claiming and commanding—only to then give me what I desire most: him.
“Look what you do to me,” he whispers, pushing deeper inside me. “You drive me crazy, Solnyshko,” he grunts, speeding up his thrusts.
I arch back, as close to orgasm as he is, until he accelerates and joins me.
Tired, my head resting lightly on the pillow, a worry hits me. Maksim is already snoring softly beside me, oblivious that I completely forgot about that medical appointment.
With a grimace and a churning in the pit of my stomach, I mentally remind myself to do it in the morning.
Although my body has never been reliable in that regard.
Since I was fifteen, training professionally for the Bolshoi, my cycle became a mess—showing up when it wanted, disappearing for months.
I never had to count the days because I never had days to count.
After the accident, it didn’t regulate either. It’s just how my body is.
I let the calm wash back over me. It needs to be done, but it’s not urgent. With that in mind, I turn to snuggle into Maks and drift off peacefully.