My face flames. I don’t think that’s true, but I have no point of reference.
“Oh, thank you.” I stutter, unsure how to react, but Vera is unfazed, taking another sip of her beer. I guess she’s used to people being awkward around her.
“Girl like me? I’m an acquired taste. There’s a market, but it’s niche. You are the mainstream.”
If that’s true, maybe Aleksandr doesn’t like the mainstream. He’s certainly not like any of my other fiancés.
“Well, it’s not like he hasn’t had the opportunity.”
Vera raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow, and for some reason, I don’t feel embarrassed to talk to her. I want to tell her everything that’s happened, how confusing it’s been.
“I would have… Uh. I asked him to touch me. On our wedding night. And he told me that’s not what this marriage was about.”
She purses her lips and nods knowingly. “Hmm. There’s no delicate way to put this, babe. Leks came to my club that night.”
“Our wedding night?”My lungs tighten.
Vera nods, watching me carefully. Then she rolls her eyes. “He was in such a mood. None of the girls were right for him.” She looks me up and down. “He picked a blonde, real sweet girl, one of the newbies. Cara. Looked kinda like you, actually.”
The bottom of my stomach drops away.
I asked him to touch me and instead he went to a prostitute, after curling his lip in disgust at my offer. I wonder what this Cara had that I didn’t.
Sexual experience, definitely.
A better figure? Mama always says I need to watch what I eat.
Strangely, it’s not the lack of fidelity that disturbs me — when I’m plotting to leave this marriage, I have no right to demand that Aleksandr stays faithful to me.
The rejection is what stings the worst. My skin flushes in an awful, prickling embarrassment, which Vera latches onto.
“Are you mad at him?”
I shake my head. Mad is not the right word. I’m embarrassed.
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s nothing I can do,” I breathe.
We’re married, and until my parents find me a way out of that, I can’t do a single thingabout it.
Still, the insult stings. This was always what I’d feared about marriage. That I’d be trapped into an unloving arrangement where we lied to each other and made each other miserable.
Vera perches on the arm of the couch beside me. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think they actually went through with it. Which is unusual, for Leks. He needs his head read, for sure, but he’s never had trouble getting it up.”
She mimes an erection with her hands and my face flames.
“Apparently, that night he did nothing but complain. Took her into the room, turned the lights off, complained about her perfume, then said her hair was the wrong color or some shit like that. Men are ridiculous.”
I don’t even have enough experience with men to agree with her there, but I nod anyway.Some small part of me wants Vera to accept me, or to think of me as a friend. I bet she has great stories.
She hops down from the arm of the couch and wraps an arm around me. She smells strongly of spices and perfumes.
“You know what you need? A fucking drink.”
By the time Aleksandr gets home, Vera has told me a thousand stories about men that make me blush, and I can’t help but collapse in a fit of giggles. The bottle of white wine we’ve shared doesn’t help either.
As he walks through the door, he lifts his eyebrows in amusement, as though he’s not surprised to see Vera here. His gaze falls heavily on the place where I’m lounging on the floor, leaning against the base of the couch. It puts a stop to my laughing fit.
