Varian Krylov (13 page)

“I believe you promised me a screening.”

For a moment he thought he saw a filmy cloud of disappointment darken her composed expression, but the next second the light in her eyes brightened and he saw a smile he'd never seen before, with her—exuberant, irrepressible. Like a child's.

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He'd expected a movie. A short film. Something artsy, like one of the hundreds of arduous narratives he'd seen from countless nascent directors.

Vanka's film was something else. Split panels, alternately displaying contrasting images of women's bodies: on the left, a succession of startlingly visceral images, first of a woman's perfectly waxed cunt, labia parted by two fingers tipped with long acrylic nails, another cunt, the labia waxed, a neat patch of trimmed hair decorating the pubic mound, slowly being penetrated by an enormous hot pink dildo, another cunt, again, waxed, shot from behind as it was penetrated alternately and repeatedly by the cock of a black man, then a white man; on the right, one continuous shot competing with all those on the left, a close-up of a woman giving birth. Then, on the left, pregnant belly after pregnant belly, bellies of every shade of skin, framed by jeans and saris and a dozen other articles suggestive of a dozen different cultures; on the right, keeping pace image for image, the sleek, gleaming bellies of strippers, fashion models. Then the screen broke into two horizontal planes, and above were taut, ripe breasts bouncing, shaking, being sucked, fucked, spattered with cum, and below, again racing, image against image, were images of women nursing infants.

“I take it you're not a fan of porn.” Right away he was sorry he'd said it. The piece had moved him. Aroused and disturbed and, somehow, frightened him. He just didn't know what to say.

“No, I guess not. But I'm not a fan of Andrea Dworkin, either.” She didn't sound defensive. Or dismissive.

“The juxtapositions are really provocative. It's a critique of the objectification of women?”

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“Somewhat. Actually, I have another piece that's more to that point. But I'll hold that in reserve for when I'm really desperate to seduce you.”

“Yes, well, you'd better hurry up and take me, now, before the aphrodisiatic properties of this last piece wear off.”

She popped the DVD out of her laptop drive and snapped it into its plastic case.

“Hey. Seriously. I want to know what was behind this piece. It's powerful. I'm just out of my depth here.”

“No, you're just afraid of bruising the delicate ego of the artist. Honestly, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if the thing made you sick to your stomach. The worst thing you could say to me is that it left you flat.”

“Definitely not that.”

“Well. Obviously I chose a pretty specific subject matter for the piece, but it's not really about critiquing the objectification of women. It's part of a series that's more of a critique of the artificiality of media representations, more broadly. The way people and relationships get depicted and consumed; it's so much about a fantasy; I have this sense that it has the net effect of leaving everyone desperately disappointed with what's real. Their bodies, their lovers' bodies. Their sex life, their sexuality. Love. Friendship. In the end, life is disappointing, when you hold it up beside the image of life we're offered by movies and jewelry commercials.”

“But . . .” He already wanted to take back what he hadn't even said yet.

“What?”

“I was going to say, that's what those things are for. Escapism. Real life gets dull, gets scary. Gets hard. The fantasies are there as a way of forgetting . . . I don't know, 117

that you just got laid off and the mortgage is due next week, or that your wife doesn't want to fuck you any more, or that your senior year in high school was as good as your life's ever going to get.”

“You've got a lot weighing you down, don't you?”

“Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg, but I didn't want to make you cry, telling you all my troubles,” he teased back.

“It's not that I don't think a bit of fantasy is a bad thing,” Vanka went on. “Of course, it's an important part of our lives, of human culture. Religion, art, literature, people have always need to create ideals, dream up heroes and adventures and love affairs bigger than any they'd experienced themselves. But in the days of Gilgamesh and Homer, it wasn't a twenty-four-seven media monsoon. People weren't inundated every minute of the day with commercials and billboards and songs and TV shows showing them a thousand versions of a life . . . god, not even better, but . . . bigger, prettier, sped up, every dull moment stripped away, to compare with theirs.” She paused. Smiled. “What? Oh, sure. Go ahead. Laugh at the earnest girl.”

“I'm not,” he laughed. “I'm not.” He kissed her, on impulse, pushed against her by a surge of sudden joy.

She looked lit up, expectant, as he touched her just-kissed bottom lip. The way she looked at him—her green eyes fixed on his eyes, hopeful, nervous—made him think, at times, of a lean, hungry animal. Something seeking and unsated. But then something in her seemed to retreat, and the heat in her look dimmed.

“I hate to turn you out,” she said, but really, I should get some work done.

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“All right.” He swiped up his keys and wallet, dropping them into his pockets.

Then he kissed her, working to put the hunger back into her, and he went, warmed at the last moment to see that unsated look as she closed the door.

* * * *

When her phone rang, her belly fluttered and clenched as the idea of Galen's voice hummed through her. And then there was that cold, shrinking feeling that came with all the other guesses. The display offered a number, not a name. She gambled.

“Vanka Klimov.”

“Hello, Vanka. It's Khalid.”

“Hello, Khalid.”

“I hope you do not mind that I've called.”

She laughed. More delicate about calling than fucking.

“He doesn't know I'm ringing. After last night, I wanted to . . .”

She waited, but he never finished. In the silence a bitter rage swelled up.

"Just what did you think last night was about, Khalid?"

"A question like that has many, many answers. Or else a very complicated one."

"Try this, then. What did you think was going on, out in the living room, while you were lounging in that bed, poring over your French existentialism?"

"You want to know if I was laying there reading while I imagined Galen was raping you?"

Silently, she stared him down.

"I trust Galen, Vanka. That . . . deeply. Perhaps you cannot trust his judgment.

But you can trust his . . . his intent. He would never deliberately harm you. Except to 119

please you. Or, rather, to give you what you need." He paused for a while, then added,

“I'm sure you've noticed. He's very intuitive Are you getting what you need?"

She left his question unanswered, even in her head.

"Vanka."

She straightened out of the chair she'd just sunk onto.

"You do understand, don't you Vanka?"

"Understand what?" she asked, her brain trying to hurriedly predict what she was supposed to understand. That Galen was taken? That Khalid had tolerated their little dalliance, but she wasn't to expect some long, torrid romance?

"What Galen's doing. That he's testing you. Or . . ." he paused to find the word he wanted," . . . better, maybe, he's . . . sounding you. Finding your limits. Pushing, pushing. Every time you come back, he sees he can go further with you. He thinks that's what you want him for. You see? If you go back to him again . . ."

"Yes?"

"Just don't take it lightly. He'll take it as a kind of consent from you."

"A consent to what?"

"A consent to whatever it is he thinks you need."

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Chapter Four

Vanka took one last look at the clear blue L.A. sky, one last breath of outside air, almost relishing the taste of dust and traffic, then forced herself through the double glass doors, into the hospital. Even before she reached the mammoth bank of stainless-steel elevator doors, gleaming with promises of lofty heights, barium milkshakes, bleeping monitors, scalpels, and whirring sarcophagi, the faint hum and soul-sucking glow of the fluorescents and the sad decor of the lobby were sapping her strength.

Doctor Greel's waiting area had the same fluorescent-tinged array of furniture mocking all considerations of aesthetics and comfort in the universal and ever-repugnant combination of salmon, hunter green, oak, and brass brought together in hotels, office buildings, and doctor's offices across the nation like some elaborate practical joke carried out by the wealthy few on the majority of the populace.

Greel's office was a small-scale, distorted replica of the horrors of the lobby, with just two of the inelegantly configured arm chairs in oak upholstered in faded orange-pink, with one of the oak side tables overgrown into a large desk buried under piles of file folders instead of aging issues of Vogue, People, and Better Housekeeping.

Vanka wondered if the look on Greel's face was genuine or contrived concern and sympathy, as the words cancer, BRCA2, DCIS, PET scan, tamoxifan, and chemotherapy riding out on waves of sound from Greel's vocal chords, tongue, and lips, swelled and washed over her, leaving her cold. Weighed down.

* * * *

The kid had probably lied. But he looked like a sweet, gawky virgin, and that was the important thing. Actually, he seemed nervous. Almost afraid. She felt bad.

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Finally, after shooting her a final, fretful glance, his eyes honed in on the top button of her blouse, and his fingers painstakingly worked it through its little buttonhole.

She could hear his heavy, excited breathing as he moved on to the second button, then the third, then the fourth. Her blouse hung suggestively open, the flesh down the center of her torso bare. He still didn't seem to believe that he was supposed to do what she'd told him, and he looked up a final time as if to ask yet again. She smiled her permission down to him, hoping she wouldn't have to speak, relieved when the smile seemed persuasive enough, and his shaking hands gingerly slid her blouse from her shoulders and down her arms.

"They're so pretty."

It was a lame line, and he said it as if he thought he was supposed to. But he sounded aroused, too. He sat there, looking at them for a long time. Gazing at her chest. Taking in the her colors and contours. Then he focused on one breast. The unhurt one. All her pale skin. The little freckle near her armpit. Her aureole. Her nipple.

Then his eyes scanned left, and his finger brushed faintly against her skin, just under the scar.

"What's this?" he asked tentatively.

"Just a scar."

He seemed to be in awe. Not just the scar. Not even just her breasts. Her. The whole situation. He stared like a figure frozen by a comic book villain, but his breath was rapid. Audible.

"It's OK. Touch me."

She tried to say it softly. And she smiled as kindly as she could.

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The hand that had touched her skin close to her scar and then retreated to his lap came back, mirrored by its companion. For a second she thought he was going to go for it, just grab her tits artlessly, like a boy who doesn't know better or a man who doesn't care enough. But the trajectory changed and his palms landed on her ribs, right below her breasts. He was breathing awfully hard now, almost hyperventilating, but obviously trying to be quiet about it. Then, slowly, the panting boy, the professed virgin, raised his hands until they cupped her breasts.

He was so still she was almost annoyed for a moment, because it brought her no pleasure and it was kind of awkward, waiting for him to do something. But then she thought how it must feel to him, holding her warm flesh in his hands like that, having a woman he didn't know at all let him touch her, what it would have been like for her, at that age, to touch a man that way, or hold his cock in her hand. Or even now. There is something more to touching than giving and taking pleasure; nudging nerves toward a symphony of pleasure culminating in climax. That sense of another's body. Of warmth and softness and trust. And just touching flesh not one's own. The astonishing, thrilling difference.

She smiled. After a nervous glance, he began to move his hands. There was nothing stirring in his touch but the context. His innocence made his exploratory touches rousing. He sighed a little with every exhale, and that soft sound softened and warmed her. Maybe she couldn't use it, but she had the sudden urge to feel his mouth. She pushed his hand away, took in his look of embarrassed fear, petted his hair, stroked his cheek, and pulled him to her. Gave him her breast. With a little groan, he put his mouth to her.

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She moaned and clutched him to her. He sucked the way she imagined an infant would nurse: driven by need and instinct. Now her body was reacting to him. Now she was panting with him.

They were already past what she could use for the piece. She pulled back, and when he leaned forward, going with her, following her breast, still diligently sucking, she pressed her hands to his shoulders and, trying to be gentle, pushed him back.

"Thanks, Mike." She made her voice gentle. "We're done. That was perfect."

He looked a little disoriented, a little disappointed, like she'd wakened him from a nice dream.

"You got what you need?" he asked, trying to smooth the excitement from his voice, trying to sound professional.

"Yes. You did great."

"Really?" He smiled, nervous. "Good."

She had him sign a release form, paid him, and walked him to the door. But she didn't open it. He was still breathing erratically, his eyes alternately avoiding and fixating on her breasts--half-heartedly hidden under the sheer blouse she'd casually closed with a single button—and her face. Especially her mouth. And it looked like he had a length of pipe stuffed into the front of his jeans. Virgin or not, he wanted her. At least his body did.

Yes, the kid had probably lied, but the idea of fucking a virgin was suddenly, violently arousing.

"Mike."

He raised his eyes and blushed.

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"Would you like to stay a little longer?"