Butterfly Skin (26 page)

Where is she now? Because she’s not in this body. Where has she gone? Stop. Stop.

This has happened to me a few times before. If the girl is easily aroused, I can’t come for a long time, and she remains in that state of arousal… well, in short, this is pretty much what it looks like. Quite an impressive sight, but today for some reason, I feel sad.

Alone in my own bedroom with a dusky body on a light background lying at my feet, trembling and whimpering. A little fox terrier on a rug.

Alone.

There are tears in my eyes.

I walk to the remote that I left by the door, push the buttons, walk into the kitchen, pull open the drawer of the kitchen table (stop), pour a glass of water and ponder for a moment, then down it in one and walk back into the room with a second glass. I pick Alice up in my arms, sit her on the bed and give her a sip. Again, again, that’s a clever girl, well done, good girl.

I put my hand on her forehead. When I was little, my parents only ever touched my forehead to find out if I had a temperature. But I like simply to stroke. Stop. Simply to stroke.

“Shee-it,” Alice says in a hoarse voice. “What was that?”

I shrug.

“It happens,” I say, “you kept coming too long.”

“Shit almighty,” she says, “at one point I was looking down from the ceiling. How do you do stuff like that?”

“Well,” I say, “Mike told you I was a psycho. I guess that’s what he meant.”

She’s trembling all over, and I wrap her in a blanket, swaddle her up tight and sit her on my knee. Two-tone bang stuck to her forehead, snub nose. How I love her like this, tired, drained, exhausted. Little Alice puts her head on my shoulder and I feel that now she is like the daughter I don’t have.

I don’t have a daughter and I haven’t seen my son for eight years.

I run my hand over the damp two-tone hair and there are tears in my eyes. I press myself tightly against Alice, and at that moment she sees the condom dangling limply off the end of my prick.

“What d’you mean, you
still
didn’t
come
?”

I hastily roll the rubber off and reply guiltily:

“Oriental techniques, you know.”

I told you: women think I’m a good lover because I can manage not to come for a long time. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Leaving in the morning, she left behind

Her little silver ring. On purpose probably

She left her number on the back of her company card

Red and light-yellow hair,

Dusky skin, big gray eyes

Feeble yelping in a cool bedroom

In the middle of hot summer Moscow

Three days later it hit me

Remembering her, suddenly I saw

All the things I could have done with her

She had elastic skin

I told myself I mustn’t think about it

Nipples with large areolas

A little mouth the gag would have ripped and bloodied

I don’t know myself why it hit me so hard

It doesn’t often happen retrospectively

I guess it was the way she came that did it

An orgasm is called a little death

There were so many, I wanted to see the big one

I thought it would only be fair

She came so many times and all the evening

I just kept repeating “stop, stop, stop”

Now we could balance our accounts

I would ejaculate time after time

And she would tell me “stop!

Please stop and let me go!”

She probably couldn’t come like that

Not even if I touched her clitoris.

(I like touching girls’ clitorises too

Cigarette lighter, pliers, scalpel

And other quite surprising instruments)

I pictured how her face would look

When she realized what was happening

I would bring her to my dacha

Without any drugs or ropes,

She would walk downstairs of her own accord

And only in the basement would she realize

The little mouth would form a perfect circle

Opened in a helpless scream

The red and yellow hair

Would instantly be soaked in sweat, but cold this time.

Horror would make the big gray eyes grow even bigger

Then she would squeeze them shut and maybe cry

Although in general it was against my rules

When I picked Moscow girls up in the clubs

I never took them to the dacha

Like any regular Moscow boy

First of all, it was quite dangerous

In general I tried to separate the two halves of my life

Many serial killers do the same

William Heirens thought up a doppelganger for himself

His name was Mr. Murman, that is, Murder Man

I also have an alias for my second self

Or, perhaps, my first

When I picked Moscow girls up in the clubs

I never took them to the dacha

Like any regular Moscow boy

But dusky little Alice, the fox-terrier girl

Haunted my mind, and the little ring

In the bathroom kept catching my eye

I really ought to give it back – and I started wondering

Where I could have put the card with the cell number

And the name of the firm

Maybe my cleaning lady threw it out

An old, but energetic woman

Who comes to me on Wednesdays

Perhaps the air-conditioned breeze

Carried it off to the Mediterranean Sea

Where Lyubka and Sevka are on vacation

Or maybe the tattooed angel

Really can save

The secretary girl who calls herself

A receptionist

You were lucky, sweet Alice

Fox-terrier girl

And now, after all this time

I’m truly glad. A little death

Is quite enough for a little girl

Live to be old, eternal puppy,

Gray bang, dry skin, children, grandchildren. And education

Since you think it’s so important

Some day on vacation by the sea

A grown woman, running through your one-night stands

The same way other people count sheep or elephants

Remember me, the sugar daddy from the club

The silk sheets and the cool conditioned air

The heat outside, the way suddenly you saw the room

From a bird’s eye view

It’s called out-of-body experience, dear Alice

There are other ways of inducing it apart from sex

I wanted so much to show you them, but it didn’t happen

Believe me, the silver ring you left behind

Is too small a price to pay for your good luck.

SHE LOOKS ABOUT ELEVEN OR TWELVE. AUTUMN
-wear jacket, knitted woolly hat. She walks out of the subway station and he tags along behind her. There’s no one else around and she starts running, she doesn’t even shout, just keeps looking back over her shoulder to make sure: the man isn’t falling back, even though he didn’t seem to be running. She look about eleven or twelve, not dressed properly for the weather, she’s got the shakes, she runs along the street, she looks back over her thin shoulder, the snow crunches under her feet like the glass of broken bottles, she’s in a hurry to get home, but she doesn’t recognize these places. Façades with no walls behind them, the gaping windows of gutted buildings filled with the black night air, the festive lights pulsating jerkily in time to her breathing. She looks back over her thin shoulder, the snow swirls behind her, she’s not dressed properly for this weather, she’s got the shakes, she doesn’t recognize these places, she scrambles over piles of broken bricks, dashes through dark courtyards, runs, stumbles, falls and runs again. The frozen door handle at the entrance, the four digits of the entry code, the gaping mouth of the elevator, melt water splashing under her feet. She looks back, she has the shakes.

Ksenia is waiting on the landing, she hugs the thin shoulders, says: “Don’t worry, everything’s all right, you know, you see, you got away, you got here, come on, let’s go, here’s the key, here’s the lock, you’re a big girl now, there’s nothing to be afraid of, come in, take off your jacket, you’re frozen through, come through into the room, you see, I got some presents ready for you, look – here’s a cat-o’-nine-tails, here’s a pair of handcuffs, here’s a riding crop, a leather paddle, a set of sewing needles, a splinter from a mirror, a kitchen knife, and don’t you struggle to break free, for God’s sake, you’re a big girl now, you ought to understand everything yourself.”

Her heart is pounding, her T-shirt is soaked with sweat. Ksenia lies there, swaddled up tightly in the blanket, gazing into the winter morning twilight, wide awake before the alarm clock has even rung. After a dream like that, climb out of bed, run to the shower without looking round on the way, don’t look in the mirror, turn on the water, wash off the cold morning sweat, try to forget your dream. Ksenia understands only too well what it means.

The subconscious speaks to other people in parables, thinks Ksenia as she stands under the shower, but it always speaks in plain language to me. Last night my subconscious told me:
you’re guilty.
I know that’s the way it is: I’m guilty. I’ve felt my own guilt for as long as I can remember. For Lyova having to sit with me and not play outside. For Mom working to feed a family of four. For her not divorcing Dad because of me, and for not being able to stop them getting divorced. For not going to college. For putting my name on my site. For everyone in Moscow telling Mom:
I heard your Ksenia on the radio, she was saying something about sex maniacs.

My God, thinks Ksenia, standing under the shower. How tired I am of being guilty. All my life I’ve tried to make everything all right. So it would be interesting for Lyova to play with me, so Mom could work less, so she could be proud of me. How much longer can it go on, thinks Ksenia, sinking down on to the bottom of the bath, how much longer. I can’t do anything, I can’t even help Olya, today she’ll go abort her child. Vika told me once what it’s like, but I don’t want to remember that, I don’t want to remember today’s dream, I want to stay lying here, on the bottom of the bath. I want to go to Olya, but I can’t go to her, because it’s her body, her child, her choice, She wants to do it all as if it’s just a minor routine operation, nothing out of the ordinary, I understand her. Dear, dear Olya, I would like to be there with you today, to hold your hand, to stroke your hair, to say:
don’t worry, everything’s all right, you know I love you.
I’d like to be your mom today, to take you by the hands, lead you out of the hospital ward, take you home, put you to bed, feed you raspberry tea and pretend it’s just a sore throat. Dear Olya, I probably couldn’t even lift you up, let alone carry you home, but you can feel it, can’t you, feel me summoning all the strength I have left to send you my love across the frozen city this morning? Maybe at least it will make the anesthetic gentle and the awakening less frightening, if there’s nothing else I can do for you anyway.

Ksenia is standing up to her knees in water. The pipe has got blocked, that’s what it is, the water isn’t draining away. Sink down into the chlorinated Moscow water, curl up into a ball in a primal ocean of cold morning sweat and uncried tears. But no, she gets out of the shower, wipes the wet mirror with her hand (damp, steamy and warm), looks at her own reflection. Her wet hair has stuck to her cheeks, without makeup her big eyes have a helpless expression. She walks out into the room, comes back with her vanity case and draws on her face: hard mouth, severe eyes. She takes a critical look to see if it’s all right. She steps back a meter, takes a sharp breath in and throws her clenched fist out in front of her,
kata-what’s-its-name
, the way Lyova showed her. She freezes like that – hair stuck to her neck, hard mouth, clenched teeth, every muscle tense, sinews vibrating, little fist in the foreground.

A sob behind her as the drain swallows the remains of the water in the bath, the night sweat, the uncried tears.

* * *

She’s practically twice my age
, thinks Ksenia in the overcrowded subway car, she thinks as she puts her leather purse on her knees, looking at a white feather stubbornly creeping out through the black material of someone’s Chinese down-filled jacket only twenty centimeters away from her face.
Twice my age, but if you divide her age between two, for her and the baby that is still inside her, in the airless darkness, you get seventeen
, thinks Ksenia, as a wet sheepskin coat covered in damp blotches takes the place of the Chinese down-filled jacket,
when I was seventeen, Lyova was the same age as I am now, so today Olya is my younger sister.

Yesterday Mom phoned, Mom asked how I was getting on, I told her about Olya – listen, my friend’s having an abortion, I’m terribly upset for her. Don’t be such a little girl, said Mom, I had about eight of those abortions and there was no problem.

Two girls are standing directly in front of Ksenia. Lulled into a doze by the swaying of the train, she doesn’t raise her head, but she listens to their conversation: “No, shit, this city’s just the bloody end in winter, creeps on every bloody side, no matter where you look, the subway’s packed, the streets are all jammed solid, the boss has got her menopause and there’s a psycho lurking in the alley.” – “So what’s your beef, Lex asked you, didn’t he, you should have gone to Thailand, everything’s cheap there – they told me, you know, like wow, it’s a hundred bucks a month, fantastic.” – “Nah, think about it, me and Lex in Thailand? Are you nuts? This guy, last winter he was there, told me the local tarts give it away for nothing, well, maybe a coupla dollars at the most. Sure, that’s a gas for Lex, but what good’s that to me?” – “That’s just great, that’s neat, you don’t even have to let him have it, like just go to the pool, or to the shops, like… shit, that must all be cheap there too.” – “Nah, think what you’re saying… why would I go to Thailand just for that? I don’t even let him have it here.” “Oh shit, now here’s our change, we almost missed it.” And they get out, grazing the metal corner of a briefcase across Ksenia’s knees.

She raises her head. Through the gap left in the crowd she can clearly see a sticker on the window opposite her: a child’s face chopped to pieces and the words “thou shalt not kill.”