Zariah
Vassili holds me tightly in his arms. I’ve showered for the second time tonight, this time with him, and without tears in my eyes. He was a gentleman and didn’t try to screw me. Lord knows, I kept my gaze on his and not on all the ripped muscles of his body.
Now, we’re lying in bed. He has this obsession with cocoa butter and my tummy. Although it’s flat-ish, I told him during my pregnancy with Natasha that I didn’t want stretch marks. Well, I had a few of those prior to, and he’s kissed every one of them. But he got into the habit of massaging my belly.
Seems like the perfect slice of déjà vu as Vassili’s big strong hands rub along my stomach. It’s nothing short of therapeutic for him, because we have deeper conversations like this.
My husband is fearless and invincible. And I’m half the team. Now, I need to connect with him on a deeper level. I need to know more about his actions at the bar, more about his mother. “Tell me you trouble, my love,” I sigh, sinking my head against his chest.
Vassili caresses my hair, kisses my forehead. But he doesn’t utter a word.
“You promised. I’ll pay in ass in the near future, not tonight though.” Damn, my joke was his level of crude, and still, my husband is quiet.
“You overheard my conversation with Malich about how my father tied my mother up to a street post?”
“Yes, baby. Tell me more.”
“I’ll tell you,” he asserts himself. “Before she got up there, she was dragged to Anatoly’s compound. I hadn’t seen her in months… Had to be months. I always tried to forget about her. It was safe that way, and then Anatoly would go look for her. Bring her ass back. Shit seemed like years, since I was just a kid.”
“Hmmm,” my finger twirls a figure eight across his chest.
“One of his goons spotted her somewhere… I didn’t know. He tossed her out of the trunk of his car, she was in the middle of the courtyard. The sound of her screams I can still fucking hear it now. Hear her begging for them to stop, to let her go.”
My skin begins to burn as an image comes to fruition in my mind.
“The bitch, Anatoly had running the house told me not to go down. I said something to Sasha, scared the shit outta her. Made her stay with that cunt. Then I went outside. My father was …” he pauses, his chiseled chest puffing with air before exhaling. “He raped her in front of them all. Sometimes I can’t get that shit from my head, and I don’t want to disrespect you.”
“Like when we were screwing in Vegas, and having fun, and you called me a bitch.”
“Dah”
I lay on my side, and place my hands on his beautiful, stone carved face. Vassili seems so emotionless, but I swear it’s eating him inside. “I’m going to ask you a question, Vassili.”
“Girl, just ask——”
“What was in your heart?”
He blinks. This is a doggone trick question to him.
“Malicious intent? Were you angry when calling me a bitch?”
“Nyet. Fuck no!”
“Your father raped your mother. You saw it.” I repeat to him the truth. His eyebrows knead as if the thought never occurred to him. “Rape is a means to gather power. To strip a person down in order to make the assailant feel.... good? I don’t know. I’m just aware that it’s all in the striping down, gaining control, showing of power, and causing humiliation. Have you ever kissed me crazy at the bar to shame me?”
He shakes his head.
“We have fun, we role play. Trust and believe, if we were just dating, I wouldn’t have allowed very much of the stuff we do to happen. Yes, I can be sadidty when I want. And as your wife, I am bound to make all your sexual fantasies a reality. If I don’t like something, I’m highly aware of how to say no.”
I hold my husband tight. Yeah, he has a few visible scars that increase his sexiness, and on occasion, broken … bones. My heart cries for those scars I never knew about. It’s gonna take time for Vassili to fully open up to me. He just gave me one isolated incident of his childhood.
There’s more.
I’ll have to beg, plead, and sometimes even force him to share more with me in the future. And it’ll break my heart to break his over again while he’s divulging the past, but it’s part of getting to know my husband.