Dakota
“He’s not really my friend, Daniela. He’s just a guy from my recreational hockey league,” my dad admits out of nowhere.
“This morning you said he was your friend,” my mom’s voice rising to punctuate the end of her not so subtle reminder, as my parents argue underneath the light at our dinner table.
My father cowers in his seat, saying nothing.
“Now you mean to tell me you invited some…some…beast who you think might be part of the Russian mafia into our home, without even knowing him?”
“What other option do we have?”
My mom purses her lips and shakes her head.
“Exactly. None,” my dad says.
My mom raises a finger and just as her mouth opens the loud hum of a motorcycle engine rattles our front windows.
It’s too late now.
I run to the living room, flipping the light switch off just before I open the curtains ever so slightly, peering through as I watch a giant of a man throw one leg over his sleek motorcycle.
He surveys the front of our home as his hand reaches back, turning the key in his bike before removing it. Then jamming it into his pocket.
My eyes follow his hands and see he isn’t grasping a helmet in either. It’s not required in Florida if you’re over twenty-one years old and carry at least ten thousand in medical insurance, but even still it’s rare to see anyone riding without head protection these days.
Then again it’s very clear to see he’s about as far from anyone, as someone can be.
He takes long strides up the driveway as if he owns the place, as if he’s come home from a day of breaking bones and causing chaos like it’s all in a day’s work. And like this is his place, not ours.
I move my body, trying not to cause the curtains to sway despite my white-knuckle grip on them, as he arrives at our front door.
His eyes are straight ahead, not even looking at the big red doorbell button that you can see from a mile away.
The sound of his thick knuckles rapping against the reinforced steel door cause me to jump, my arms pulling into my body as my shoulders dart upward.
I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and I exhale, not even realizing I was holding my breath.
My view gets blurry and I realize I’ve exhaled too hard against the glass. His neck slowly bends, his head trailing behind it and I yank the curtains shut, stepping away from the window.
My feet get tied up and I fall right on my butt. My feet press down hard against the floor, my primal instincts pushing my body away from the window, away from this man, before I reach for the arm of the couch, helping myself back up to my feet.
Common sense tells me to crawl under the couch and call the police, admitting my father made a bad mistake and begging for professional help before things get too far out of hand.
But my mind is far from working right now. I’m overrun with feelings, and like a moth to a flame I move towards the edge of the doorway separating the living room.
My mom’s body is tight, her arms folded across her chest and the inside of her legs touching. It’s primal. She’s protecting her vital organs, as you should when a deadly predator is near. Whether hundreds of years ago across the savannas of Africa, or here and now in the suburbs of South Florida, we’re still animals. And right now we’re prey for the beast that’s entered the territory we thought was safe…the territory we wrongfully thought was our own.
Three more booming knocks echo through the door and my body jerks in response again, my cheek hitting the side of the doorframe.
My mom motions toward the door with her head and eyebrows and I hear the bottom of my dad’s chair slide across the linoleum just before he stands, takes a deep breath and moves toward the door.
His eyes sweep toward the doorway and he catches me staring with rapt attention. “Go to your room, Dakota.”
I throw my body around the corner and jet up the stairs. Moving through the hallway I open my door and audibly shut it, the cue I’m guessing my dad is looking for to let him know his daughter is as safe as she’s going to get at this point.
As the door creaks open, I quickly get down on my stomach, sliding across the carpet of the hallway to the edge where I can see into the lower level of our home.
“Dimitry,” my dad says, trying to make his voice sound lower than it usually is.
Dimitry says nothing, just stares at my father, burning holes through him with his eyes as if he’s asking him why he’s wasting his time, without needing to say the words.
“Come in,” my dad says.
“Can I get you something to drink, Mister…” my mom says.
“Vodka.” The two syllables, snapping from his tongue and cutting through the air.
“Absolutely, let me see what we have,” my mom says, skittishly moving toward the kitchen cabinets.
“Please have a seat,” my dad says, pulling out the chair at the table where he always sits, and never lets anyone else.
Dimitry takes one step forward, throws his leg over the back of the chair, not even touching it with his hands until the back of his black denim jeans finds the seat. He leans back, the front two legs coming more than a few inches off the ground.
I stare, watching him defy the laws of physics. How can the chair support his weight? How can he lean back so far without it tipping over? He has the confidence of Tony Soprano, but far younger, much better looking, and in peak physical condition. He calmly surveys the top cabinet where my parents keep the good stuff. He’s not exactly young though. I’d guess he’s mid-thirties and probably two hundred and fifty pounds. He’s solid, with wide shoulders underneath that midnight black T-shirt he has on. It goes with his pants and riding boots, which are scuffed. I can’t help but wonder if it’s from objects being kicked up from the street when he rides, or from him kicking in teeth when he doesn’t.
My eyes continue to rake over his profile, as he’s sitting at the end of the table. It’s the king’s chair, as my dad always says. But if he’s conceded it this quickly what does it really say about him.
“That one,” Dimitry demands. My eyes move toward the cabinet and I see my mom’s hand backtrack to the bottle of Russian Standard.
“We also have Belvedere and Ciroc,” my mom offers.
“There is no such thing as vodka from Poland or France,” Dimitry corrects, and my mom doesn’t seem ready to disprove his words despite the glaring visual evidence.
Dimitry’s far hand rests on his knee while his other arm is lying flat across the table. He takes up nearly half of it, making it look more like how a little girl’s toy set would look, than a place where three adults would actually dine each evening.
His fingers raise in succession, the tip of each digit slamming down into the wood as he impatiently waits for his drink.
Something in my mind click and it occurs to me how irresponsible he must be if he’s going to drink vodka and then ride that bike, then again I’m not sure if responsible, at least when it comes to rules, regulations, and laws, is something a man like Dimitry bothers with…ever.
I think back to that little sheet of paper you get with your vehicle registration, the one that tells you when you’re impaired. At Dimitry’s size and weight he could probably down half the bottle and be no more loopy than if someone my size had a few too many spoonfuls of cough medicine.
My mom reaches for the glasses, but before she can remove them he says, “Shot glasses. Two,” his words lacerating, as my mom’s back arches and I see her eyes close from the side.
“Right,” she says.
The shot glasses rattle in her hand as she pulls them from the cabinet, her hand visibly shaking as she pours two and sets them on the table.
“I hope it’s okay for you,” she says to Dimitry as she places one in front of him on the table and the other a foot and a half away, not in front of my dad but just in limbo as if it needs to be there, but not exactly intended for anyone in particular. The hurried confusion makes sense as I’ve never seen my dad take a shot of alcohol, and both my parents are clearly on edge, not sure what to do.
He says nothing, his eyes moving to my father, who looks like he’s frozen stiff.
“Yes, of course,” my dad says, the silence in the air creating a tension that my father is desperate to release as he nervously answers for Dimitry. My dad quickly takes the other shot glass, part of its contents spilling over the top.
I look at Dimitry, just in time to see him cringe ever so slightly at the minuscule loss of his national drink to our tabletop. My imagination runs wild, wondering if his real thought is to grab my father by the back of his head and force his face into the table, making him lick up what he spilled as if it’s the only way to right his sacrilegious error. Dimitry’s body language tells me it might not be my imagination at all.
My dad brings the shot glass up to his lips, his hand shaking just as feverishly as my mother’s, before he stops, holding it out in front of his face. “Nostrovia!” he says.
He looks at Dimitry for approval, but Dimitry looks at my mother and then back at my clueless dad.
I’ve watched enough mafia movies to know what he’s saying without saying a word. I want to yell it to my dad, but there’s no way I’m letting him, or Dimitry, know I’m watching this whole thing unfold.
Even as tense as I am, I know my dad’s even more on edge. There’s no way he’s thinking straight and it’s clear he’s absolutely not in control of anything that’s happening in his own home. I feel bad for him, but I also can’t deny what I’m feeling either.
My nipples are hard as rocks. I feel them painfully pressing into the fabric of my bra. I carefully raise up slightly on my forearms.
“Man never ask woman to listen to business matters,” Dimitry clues my dad in.
“Sorry,” my mom says, scurrying out of the dining room and into the living room.
“Na Zdorovie,” Dimitry says, raising his shot glass, or at least I assume so. His hand is off the table, but it’s so big the shot glass practically disappears even though the position of his thick wrist makes it appear as though he does have it in-between his thumb and index finger.
He takes the shot down, making no noises or faces afterward, the banging of glass on wood, and the lack of any spillage, the visible proof that he did indeed make quick work of the clear eighty proof liquid.
My dad takes two tips back, with a wince in-between, but manages to follow suit, before carefully placing the shot glass down on the table.
“What can I do for you?” Dimitry asks.
“My daughter, D-…my daughter,” he begins as if he doesn’t even want this feral beast to know my name. “She’s having trouble with a boy at college.”
Dimitry sits there, unamused. “And?”
“I was wondering if you,” my dad verbally tiptoes. “I was just guessing you might know someone who could help me…help my family, with this problem of ours.”
Dimitry’s hand moves from his knee to my dad’s chest, taking up the entirety of it. He pats him so hard my dad slides back in his chair, but before he slides further, or falls backwards altogether, he fists my dad’s shirt and pulls him right back to the table, bellying him up.
He stares him down as his hand moves across his collarbone and then to his back before finally moving across his lower back.
My dad is like a rag doll as Dimitry manhandles him, before sliding his hand underneath the table. I hear his hand sliding against the underside before his eyes track the corners of the ceiling.
I jerk my body back behind the wall, just as his eyes approach my position.
My cheeks are full of air as I very carefully exhale through my nose. That was too close for comfort.
But I can’t resist.
I slide forward, thanking my lucky stars I didn’t make any noise.
Dimitry leans to his side, leaving only one leg of the chair touching the floor. His pants aren’t tight by any stretch of the imagination, but it still takes him so time to wedge his big mitt into his pocket and pull it back out again.
He places his hand on the table and when he moves it away I see a tiny piece of drafting paper that appears to be been torn out of a notebook, and one of those half sized pencils you see carpenters keep behind their ears.
My dad looks at the paper and then cluelessly at Dimitry.
“Write,” he bellows.
My dad fumbles for the pencil, practically bumping it off the table before grabbing it with two hands.
He leans forward, writing what I assume to be my ex’s name on the paper, painstakingly slow as if messing up one letter may end in something tragic for some poor, innocent person.
Dimitry’s hand comes down over the paper as soon as he’s done grabs it, wads it up in his hand and stuffs it back into his pocket.
“Hurricane,” he says. Is he talking about some sort of code word for the punishment he’s giving out or guessing the name of my university’s mascot, but in a declarative way, not as a question.
My dad nods, seeming to finally be on the same wavelength as the big Russian in our home. At least as much as possible as he can ever hope to be with a creature like this.
Dimitry stands and steps back over the chair without looking down at it.
I quickly bury the side of my face in the carpet, listening to the footfalls of his thick-soled boots hammer into our kitchen floor as I recognize the sound moving toward the door.
I lift my face up off the carpet and my eyes go to the only thing that’s not black on him.
The big, silver barreled gun tucked into the back of his pants. My eyes bulge and I breathe in through my mouth, taking in some dust from the carpet.
I squeeze my face as tight as I can, never being so angry for not doing my chores in my life as right now. Even after I bring my hands to my face and squeeze my face even tighter, I’m not able to squelch my sneeze.
In one motion Dimitry spins on the heel of one foot and pulls the piece from his waist, pointing it right at me.
I am absolutely frozen stiff.
“It’s our daughter!” my dad yells, his hands coming up as if he’s ready to place them on Dimitry’s forearms, before pausing, realizing that might cause him to actually pull the trigger.
“You. Up,” his growl demands.
I lift my hands up in the air, and very slowly do some sort of weird contortionist trick trying to get to my feet without using my hands.
I turn my head away from him, not wanting to stare down a man who looks like he may kill someone every morning before breakfast, just as easily as my grandpa goes out in his robe to get the morning paper.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see his eyes rake over my body. Absolute terror washes over me and much to my surprise it’s mixed with absolute desire.
But the terror wins out in the near term as I feel a trickle of pee stream down.
Oh my god, I’m peeing my pants in front of a man holding a gun at me.
“This is daughter?” Dimitry asks, still pointing the gun at me.
“Yes, I’m terribly sorry. We told her to go to her room. I…I don’t know what…isn’t that right, honey?” my dad says, throwing me under the bus.
“Silence!” Dimitry roars. A moment passes and my heart rate continues to rise thumping quickly in my chest, my neck, and in my wrists. I feel it everywhere. And my panties are growing damper by the second, but to my absolute surprise this time it’s not due to my bladder. I’ve never been so horny in my entire life. How, completely messed up am I?
“Turn around,” he gruffly commands, his slow deep baritone calling out.
My feet make tiny movements as my body slowly moves in a circle.
“Stop,” he orders, and I do, on a dime.
From this angle he’s got a view of my profile and I swear I can feel the heat of his gaze examining the curve of my lower back before it drops to my butt. His eyes skate back up and he takes in the fullness of my breasts.
“Your daughter?” he asks, almost as if the first word is a complete joke.
“Yes. Our only one. Please,” my dad begs.
Dimitry slams the weapon back into his pants, his hand quickly finding the door handle.
I hear the knob turn all the way over, making a funny noise as the screws strain to hold it in place.
He steps out into the night.
A few seconds later the sound of his bike permeates the entire house, and we hear it pulling away.
“Oh my, god,” my mom yells, running toward the doorway. My dad’s back finds the wall as he and I blow out a collective breath in relief.
My mom slams the door before her open hand slams into my dad’s face.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she yells.
My dad’s back slides down the wall until his butt finds the floor. He leans forward, his forehead finding his forearm as his hands grasp at opposite knees.
My mom’s eyes shoot to mine, before she beelines it up the stairs, wrapping me up in a big hug.
“Are you okay? What were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed…all of us killed!”
My mom is very much in shock. It’s obvious.
But as neither of my parents is looking at me they can’t tell that I’m in shock too.
But my shock is for a completely different reason.
Yes, I’m shocked at what just happened, but I’m more shocked about what I just learned about myself.
There’s something inside me that’s messed up, dark, absolutely crazy.
And as much as I want to repress it, I can’t fool myself into believing I’ll be able to.
The University of Miami is well known for both their business and journalism majors, and it’s suddenly no coincidence that I’m studying both.
Because although it’s none of my business, I have to know more about this man. And like so many foolish journalists who will do anything to get a story, an answer to a question that gnaws at them, I know I have to undercover the truth about this barbarian.
And in doing so uncover the truth about myself…and my own desires.