With This Secret

I stopped in front of a striking painting of a barely-clothed, crowned Poseidon in all his fleshy glory, riding a chariot of fierce white horses over a raging sea. He was surrounded by baby cupids who wore worried expressions on their cherubic little faces. In a way, it was the perfect imagery of the turbulent mess Levan and I were in.

The front door opened.

I scurried for a peep down the hallway.

Two of his men walked in.

I quickly retreated my head back until I heard another set of footsteps. I popped my head back around the door.

Levan stood there while shaking off droplets of rain from his jacket.

One of his men went forward and disappeared down the hallway to the side while Levan spoke to the other in words I could not hear.

I waited.

Soon enough, the one who’d disappeared, reappeared with an umbrella in hand. He spoke rapidly in Russian to his boss and then they all took their leave.

Levan came forward and stood in front of me. No smile showed on his face.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asked

“Ok …” I nodded, even though the last thing on my mind was food or drink.

“Come with me,” he said and led the way in towards the kitchen.

I realized he hadn’t touched me since he came in. It made my stomach twist with nervous fright, but then I reckoned if anything truly bad had happened, he wouldn’t look so calm.

The kitchen was only lit by the frosted glass lamps on the wall and he didn’t bother turning on any of the overhead lights. He went over to the electric kettle in the corner. It was already filled with water, so he switched it on, then turned around to face me.

I waited nervously by the door.

“Tea or coffee” he asked.

I heard him but my mind remained blank.

His dampened hair had been slicked away from his face, and in the cozy illumination of the room, he suddenly seemed to ooze a kind of primitive sexuality. If Aldie had been there, she would have described him as hot. But calling him hot would be like calling a panther a cat.

He was devastatingly magnetic. In the mood he was in, he promised of addictive, raw sex.

My eyes traveled down his body as I noted the way the material clung to the ridges of his torso, his triceps, and the bronzed skin of his veined arms exposed by the folded sleeves of his shirt. When my gaze moved lower to the way his pants fit to his lean hips and powerful thighs, something inside me felt as if it was melting and I became breathless. Which was totally crazy because of the dangerous situation I was in. Or maybe it was the thought of how easily it could have all come to an end for me that had made me become this unfamiliar, sex-crazed maniac.

“Bianca” he called.

My ogling ceased abruptly and suddenly, I became aware of the sound of the water boiling and the pitter-patter of the rain against the windows filling the tense silence between us. I dragged my eyes from the bulge in his pants, back to his face. “Uh … what did you say?”

“Tea or coffee?” he repeated softly.

I frowned. “Uh … you don’t drink coffee at night. Oolong will be fine,” I said it without thinking, but only when the corners of his mouth lifted in a tiny smile did I realize I had betrayed just how much I remembered of the past and him.

“And Earl Grey for you,” he murmured softly.

A kind of wild happiness flooded my veins and all I wanted to do was throw myself at him and let the world outside be damned. My life had been one of sacrifice. Shoes that pinched, secondhand clothes that made the bullies at school sneer at me. From a very young age, I’d learned to go without to make my mother happy. Have you had enough food, she’d ask me, and I would nod, even though I was still hungry.

On the rare occasion I was invited to someone’s birthday party I would save my slice of cake to share with my mother. I always saved the good half, the edge with the most icing and the cherry on it.

It broke my heart and I cried myself to sleep for days, but I even gave up Toto, the little stray dog that had followed me home from school one day, when we couldn’t afford to feed him anymore. I can still see the look in his eyes when my mother and I dropped him off at the shelter.

I did it all without resentment because I loved her that much, but after she died, I found the habit of putting myself last had become ingrained in me. It was still almost impossible to push myself forward and take what I wanted. Even now.