Vitali’s composure was almost believable, if not for the passing lights outlining his clenched jaw, and one finger tapping on the leather steering wheel cover. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was nerves.
My breath fogged up the glass, and I traced a heart in the condensation, trying to focus on anything but the waning excitement between my legs because the longer we drove, the more apparent it became that my reward wouldn’t be to straddle him in the driver’s seat.
The concept of me taking initiative was foreign, and the more the thrill wore off, the more I began to second-guess myself. Maybe I’d embarrassed him and he was sparing my feelings. Why wasn’t he talking? One moment I thought he’d fuck me in the parking lot, then he all but shoved me into the passenger seat and took off.
Some song played on the radio, but there were no lyrics, so I hummed.
He exhaled sharply, and his fingers on my leg tightened.
“I wish I had more time,” he muttered.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s just beyond thePravdaPark. Trust.”
Hewasnervous.
We pulled off across from the arched entrance to the park. Here, small stores littered the bottom floors of the old Stalinka buildings, and most of the street lamps were the older, larger kind. These were apartment complexes from the 1930s, and most of the city had demolished them in favor of low-cost, crowded housing, sparing only a handful in what could be called the scenic part of the city.
“Careful,” he said, helping me out of the car and onto the icy curb. I clung to his arm as we walked around the building and past tall scaffolding with poured concrete. It was lit up, as if someone planned to continue working there overnight.
The podyezd we entered smelled like cigarettes and something chemical, but when we started up, it quickly took on the notes of new plaster and freshly cut wood.
My calves burned by the time we made it to the fifth floor. There, Vitali stopped at a steel-reinforced door with exposed wiring of a keypad hanging loosely to the left of the lock.
A feeling I couldn’t quite place pushed my heart into beating faster (if it could, my cardio was worse than I thought).
He turned the key. The door opened, its hinges letting out a low moan.
It was dark, except for the glow coming from far-off windows in another room. A wave of fresh paint and wood-dust hit me with a gust of warm air, and the tightness in my chest became atremble.
The light switch clicked as the door fell shut.
“Oh…” I breathed out as the bones of walls rose out of the darkness.
Vitali took my hand in the way he had never held it before, and led me to the large room beyond the hall.
The ceilings must have been four meters high. Ornate molding caught the light from tall neoclassical windows, beyond which the city lights spread just past the park and disappeared into the background of a grand, white basilica with golden onion domes.
A bare lightbulb swayed sadly in the middle of the room, disturbed by the cold air that slipped through the briefly opened front door. The only furniture inside was a grand piano set against the wall, probably too large to remove without divine intervention.
He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, and his hot breath brushed my ear with the words, “Welcome home, Kotik.”
God help me—“Vitali… what is this?”—but of course I knew what it was.
“The building is being renovated. It’s why we couldn’t go in the front entrance. The apartments are being combined into lofts, just one per floor, so they’ll be large,” he said, and that note of nervousness caught on to his words, forcing them out faster. “It won’t be ready for a while. I wanted it to be perfect—you can do anything you wish once the walls are up. Tile, parquet, carpets—whatever you want. Right there,” he pointed at the depression-lightbulb, “is where we’ll hang the chandelier.”
We…
“This is for me? I don’t k-know what to say,” I stuttered. “I’venever seen anything like this… It’s too much, Vitali. This is too much.”
“No,” he said, and kissed me on the cheek. “It isn’t. I want to see you make this yours. I’ll get you a catalog, but most things will have to be imported, and that takes time, so you’ll have to let me know a few months in advance.”
Real life didn’t look like this. So this couldn’t be real life.
We…
He remained behind me for a moment, then turned away and left me to survey the room. The piano bench creaked beneath him.
