Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

‘Yes, I think you may be right,’ Zoya croaked, lifting one claw-like hand to her forehead. ‘I feel totally ship-wrecked. You must leave me, I am washed up.’

Gor snorted. ‘One last thing, Madame, if I may,’ he asked from the doorway.

‘Oh, if you must!’

‘The sanatorium, where the young man works: the name, if you’d be so kind?’

‘The Vim & Vigour: out by the creek.’

‘Vim & Vigour,’ Gor repeated slowly. ‘I see.’

‘I know it!’ said Sveta. ‘I had a friend who attended there. It’s a lovely place! Indoor pool, saunas, massage cabinets…’

‘They tried to get me to go,’ said Zoya. ‘I saw them off with my pepper spray. It’s full of old cabbages.’

Sveta laughed a tinkling, jowl-wobbling laugh, not sure if the old lady was joking or not. She said her goodbyes and hurried after Gor.

‘So, we will pay a visit to this Vlad, then?’ she asked, her voice eager. ‘Friday is best for me! I have a busy few days at school, but the autumn holidays will have started by then.’

‘We, Sveta?’ Gor eyed his shoes intently as their footsteps clip-clopped in the stairwell.

‘You don’t want me to come, do you?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Well, what is it?’

She stopped still on the step, hands on her hips.

‘Sveta…’ He turned to face her, and searched her face for the words. ‘It’s me that is the focus for all this. It’s me… It’s me they hate—’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to involve you.’ He looked down into her eyes. ‘You are a good woman. Avoid trouble if you can. And avoid me. I’m not worthy of your help.’

She was surprised by his sincerity, the unexpected thoughtfulness. ‘I’m a big girl: quite able to defend myself. If someone is mocking the spirits, I want to know. And if someone is trying to scare you… for whatever reason, I feel offended. I can’t stand deceit. And if this Vlad, handsome and strong as he is, has been deceitful, trying to hurt you through trickery and falsehood – I’ll be wanting a word with him! A big word! Both on your account, and my own.’

‘Ah…’ Gor fell silent. They passed under the dilapidated arch of the building’s rear entrance and stepped into the chill of evening. ‘In that case, I would be most comforted by your presence, on Friday.’ He smiled softly: a true smile that transformed his face, briefly, from the depths of a glacial winter to a sunny June morning.

‘That’s settled then,’ she beamed in return.

‘We will set out at ten?’ he asked.

‘Ten! Good. Oh,’ she hesitated, ‘there’s just one thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘Albina.’

‘Eh?’

‘She must come.’

‘What?’ The rays of the smile disappeared. ‘No, really, Sveta—’

‘It’s the school holidays! She can’t sit at home alone all day with only Kopek for company!’ Sveta smiled up at Gor.

He sighed and regarded the black, leathery leaves sticking to his windscreen. ‘The parrot doesn’t have to come too?’ He lifted an eyebrow.

‘Akh, no!’ Sveta laughed. ‘It’s a parakeet, actually, Gor. They are quite different.’

Two days later, in a hermetically sealed apartment above Grocery Shop No. 6, a pool of sweat was collecting in the small of Polly’s back. She could feel it trickling towards the cleft of her buttocks as she moved. Her face, broad and pale, captivating yet detached, registered nothing, eyes closed as Vlad’s fingers pulled her down harder onto his hips, nails digging into her flesh as he tried to keep a grip. He was writhing. She sighed inwardly and glanced at the bedside table: seven o’clock already. She would have to go soon. She increased her speed, thigh muscles searing then numbing, her mouth moaning like she’d heard her room-mate do, hoping it would hurry him along. It did. He twisted and shuddered beneath her, swearing, making a sound like a choked rabbit.

A moment later he subsided into the pink sheets, becoming still, just a pulse in his neck flicking as his chest rose and fell. The clock ticked. She scratched her head, smiled down at him briskly, and began to look around the room for her clothes.

‘Polly,’ he muttered through sticky lips, twisting his fingers into the coils of her hair and pulling her down to lie on him, chest to chest, her face pressed into his shoulder. His hand was heavy on the back of her head as he attempted to nuzzle her hair. ‘My princess. I’ve missed you—’

Her tongue clicked against her teeth and she pulled backwards, bringing her hands against his shoulders to push up and away. The room was stifling. He was stifling.

‘Don’t mess up my hair,’ she said with a shrug, softening it a breath later with a half-smile aimed centimetres behind his head. His hands fell back onto the sheet and she dismounted gracefully, as if from a pommel horse. With a flick of a long leg and a twist, she was sitting next to him, one foot beneath her, the other dangling towards the floor, swinging rhythmically. ‘I’ve got things to do,’ she said, turning away from the injured look that crept across his face, ‘and I can’t do them with matted hair. If there’s one thing my mother taught me’ – the features twisted momentarily, eyes clouding – ‘it’s that I must be neat. Appearance is all, Vlad.’

‘I thought you said your mother wasn’t around enough to teach you anything.’ He smiled and threaded his fingers into the ends of her hair. She pulled away, tutting.

‘It wasn’t always like that.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Again he attempted to touch her, leaning forward, his hand stretching for her thigh. ‘Maybe you could stay here, with me, and have something to eat? There’s no hurry, is there?’

She sprang from the bed and bent low to pull on shiny red knickers in one deft movement. Ex-gymnasts always had that feline grace, that controlled power. He watched her.

‘You have a one-track mind. I have to go: business calls!’ She pulled on thick black tights. When she stood, her legs looked like wire. ‘All you think about—’ she pointed a long finger, ‘is sex.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s not true. I think about other things. Plenty of things.’ He scratched his balls. ‘But I like touching you. I love it. I thought you loved it too. But sometimes… recently… I think you can’t bear it.’

‘I just did, didn’t I? You touched me quite a lot, eh? I bore it. You can’t complain!’ She said the words softly, smiling over her shoulder and nodding her head, but still she didn’t look him in the eye.

Vlad lay motionless and watched her dress, the movements hurried and exact. She zipped up her skirt and fastened the button like she was turning a chicken’s neck. She never stayed. She came and went and left him by turn surprised, delighted, angry or empty. He would have liked to have held her for a while, maybe gone to sleep with her head on his shoulder, her dark hair across his chest, her graceful, fragile-boned hands stroking the hairs around his nipples, her full mouth wet against his skin. Their breath would slow and mingle as they subsided into sleep. But she never stayed.

‘I’m very busy, and you should be too. We’ve got lots to do. How is your case study going? Good progress?’

He looked at her blankly. He’d been staring at her breasts while she twisted into her bra. A sweat broke on his brow.

‘I can still feel you all over me, Polly, smell you in my nostrils, and you can’t wait to talk about my patients.’ He turned his beautiful grey eyes to the ceiling with a sigh.

‘Your patients? He’s not your patient , is he? You’re a student, like me. Don’t kid yourself with that doctor-speak. You’re no more a doctor than I am.’ She collected herself, and began to tug on a chunky-heeled boot.