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victoriadecapua · 9 months

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Republic of Infidels Book I: The Remains - Chapter Eight - The Tender Void

“When you think about last night, try to remember that you fucked me after the world ended, not the other way around, hm?”

Rachel stared into the mirror. Ten days had passed, and already a lexicon had formed around their new reality. For those who preferred a more sanitized accounting, the Fall was rapidly becoming the most popular euphemism, though the Event was the term that Vikram and his little band of acolytes favoured, when they alluded to it at all. Before was less used. No one had attempted to polish it.

He had asked her to join them, to discuss the fate and future of their little afterworld, but she had declined, instead preferring to sit in front of her mirror and stare. She’d spend hours like this, staring at her own reflection, looking into her own eyes as she watched herself remember everything she had ever done, ever said, or that had ever been done or said in her presence.

Memory came in waves that seemed to lash against her mind, eroding her discipline, all the more irresistible because she wanted to let it take her, let it drag her under. She wanted to be with Alec in the grassy quad, that paltry twelve minutes in which he had brushed aside her defences, put his mouth on hers, lifting her up an invisible step on to an entirely new plateau of experience.

She wanted to tell him how unusual that was for her, to not know. To want, without having yet experienced. To feel that sexual charge, to embrace it, to know she could relinquish her hard-fought self control, because she knew Alec loved her.

But Alec Vigna was dead. Everyone was dead. Everything she’d known, and everything she’d ever experienced was simultaneously meaningless and inescapable. If she left this spot, if she left the memory of Alec, it would inundate her. Here, she had found a small refuge in the tactile recollection of his lips, his mouth, his teasing smile.

What would I want with a nice girl?

“You need to eat something.”

She blinked, realized her brother was standing over her with a plate and a mug of tea. With the interference of his presence, she came back to herself, and realized there were tears on her face. This happened all the time now, this unconscious weeping. She did it in her sleep, often waking to find her cheeks stained with salt. She knuckled them away and looked blearily at the reflection of his concerned, disapproving face.

Heaving a sigh, he balanced the plate and sat down cross legged beside her, then put the spoon in her hand. She looked it, frowning in confusion.

Exasperated, he held the plate out to her. “Do I really have to hand feed you, Rachel?”

She took it, and to please him, loaded the spoon and nibbled at it. It was uncomplicated, just curried rice and lentils, but the taste of salt and carbohydrates woke her appetite just enough. She ate another spoonful, then another. He handed her the tea, and she sipped the fragrant liquid, feeling her throat unstick.

She thought about the flavour, her mind naturally unpacking it, pulling out the facts she had in her nearly infinite record. China, she thought. Green tea came from China. As she thought this, the feedback loop she’d been trying so desperately to avoid by staying with the memory of Alec began, because of course there was no China, just as there was no Alec.

Tears again. She tried to ignore them as she continued to eat, but she found she could no longer stand the taste of the tea. She put it down. Vikram did not fail to note this gesture, and his expression of concern deepened. He reached out and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears, his black eyes searching her face. She let the half empty plate slide to the floor, and stared back at him.

“Why don’t you feel it?” She wanted to know, her voice shaking as she tried not to unravel. “Vikram, I can’t do this.”

“You can,” he insisted. “You can’t give into despair. I won’t let you.”

She looked at him, wanting so badly to explain that she didn’t want to be alive, but she couldn’t do that to him. And yet, she wanted his pain. She wanted him to stop being strong, to stop seeking solutions, to admit everything they’d overcome had now rendered them obsolete.

“We’ve gone extinct,” she whispered.

“No. Endangered, perhaps,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Refugees are coming here. More every day. There are still cargo ships on the high seas, still provisions and goods. Maybe we are writing the merest end to human history, but at least….”

Seeing her expression made him stop. They’d had this same conversation many times, but she could see he was giving up. Resigning himself to caring for her, because he couldn’t repair her.

“Why do you do this?” he asked, indicating the mirror. It wasn’t a judgement, she knew. He was interested in the psychic application. They had all kinds of tools for managing their condition, some of which they shared, others which were private, or not consciously applied.

This meditation was too private, too intimate for her to describe to him. She wasn’t sure she could explain that the memory of Alec Vigna’s cock pressing against her through his trousers was the only thing keeping her from stepping off the mountainside. It was not a nourishing memory, and it created a void of exquisitely painful desire in her, but that pain was so physical that it centred her. Stopped her from thinking about China, about Oxford, about Jamal Salim, about a thousand different things erased from a world she didn’t know she had loved so much. Most dead of all, the young woman she had been, one endowed with status and power. She would never have that again, and to her shame, she mourned.

“I don’t know,” she said in answer to her brother’s curious gaze. “What do you think I should do?”

“Engage,” he said at once. “Mother is establishing an academy and Father’s shoring up the harbour. You have medical training, you could help people.”

“Help people,” she repeated. “I can’t help people with radiation sickness, Vikram. The best thing you could do for most of them is shoot them.”

He glared at her. “You know who you sound like.”

She shrugged, and turned back to the mirror. Her face was unchanged, her dark eyes blank. Vikram’s reflection watched her, and she could tell he wanted to shake her, if only to make her resist. As her eyes moved to his, she thought that she would quite like to do the same. To shake him out of his missionary delusion, to shake some tears out of him. By trying to keep her safe from his own trauma, he wanted her to lie to herself about her own. She had begun to feel lonely in his presence. She hadn’t expected him to make the mistake of thinking that leaving her alone would correct the difficulty.

He got to his feet, then bent to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You need a shower.”

Then he was gone, slipping out the door without another word. It hurt, his frustration with her, but she knew his return in precisely six hours, when his rounds would take him back to her door, would hurt in a different way.

Silently, she rose and moved towards her en suite shower. She briefly toyed with the idea of taking her shaving razor to her wrists, but once there, her routine took over. Soon, she was washing her hair under hot water, now an unimaginable luxury for most other humans.

She stood there under the spray, and then, on impulse, turned up the cold water. It was icy glacial runoff, and made her instantly cringe. She forced herself to stand under it, to accept the cold burn on her sensitive skin, but it was such light punishment that it didn’t take long before she was accustomed to it.

Her mind swam through a rhythm of memory, each one like flashes of strobing light. It came in every form. Hundreds of thousands of faces, names, foods she’d eaten, tedious imprints of all the ordinary moments. Every traffic light in downtown Amsterdam flashed in her mind alongside the sound of each busker on the London Underground. Underwater, now. Under the punishing waves. Every memory that had ever given her joy was now a knife in her flesh, piercing her through so many times that she was more wound than human.

Mechanically, she dressed for sleep, pulling on her black oversized Nirvana t-shirt, but realized at once that she could not stand the idea of getting back into her bed. She needed air, needed to experience something external, something that wasn’t just the electrical impulses surfing the fine imprints in her brain.

As she made her way down the stairs, she paused at the entrance to the common area. Vikram, along with several of the village leaders, were in deep conversation over some kind of hand-drawn map. Planning the layout for his capitol, she thought with a poisonous surge of contempt. At once, she hated herself for thinking it, and wished, as she lingered there, that he’d see her. That he’d drop it, that he’d hold her and admit defeat so she could trust him again.

He looked up at her from his discussion, and smiled his strained, sad smile. For an instant she was hopeful, but he only gave her that nod of the head that said we’ll talk later. With that gentle dismissal, he returned his attention to his vapid statecraft, leaving her bereft in a way she couldn’t have imagined Before. There it was, Before. Her brother, her protector, the one who cared for her above all things had not survived. Perhaps it was worse. Perhaps she had simply not understood him as well as she had believed.

Aimless and lonely as a phantom, she turned and walked out the arched entry, letting her bare feet take her down to the causeway. The wind rushed up the sweeping rock face, smelling of sea junk, of petrol, and even from up here, rotting corpses. Thousands of feet below, they tumbled in the surf, not visible from here, but Rachel knew that they lined the strand. Those that came ashore rarely got further than the beach. Even so, her father and the security team would soon be overwhelmed by the number of survivors.

Her medical knowledge, even her practical experience, hardly qualified her to repair the wounds of this last, lost remnant of humanity. So far, the problem most common among the refugees appeared to be death, and she had no remedy for that. It was hard to think of a worse death than acute radiation sickness. Even if she could bring herself to try, there were no medicines, no narcotic that could alleviate the excruciating pain of cooking to death from the inside. She’d seen enough to know that a bullet in the neck would be the kindest remedy.

That thought lingered in her as she made her way along the dam, letting her hands ride the planed stone of her father’s engineering masterpiece. She still had this and all that Radhesh had created. The thought made her feel a little less heart heavy, knowing his genius was still alive, still protecting them. Then she paused, feeling the wet cool fog rolling against her skin.

As it cleared, the great ionized light that marked where the satellite had fallen became visible on the horizon. She considered it, feeling a tug of curiosity. The accepted theory was that the ARC had penetrated the earth’s crust, had forced the creation of a kind of nuclear volcano that would never stop generating radiated combustion. The eruption only built upwards, until it created a kind of geological funnel for concentrated energy, though no one would ever get close enough to verify it for themselves.

All around the world, every volcano, every fault line, any place where the earth’s crust was thin had opened, disgorging more magma, creating new volcanos, the layers of newly formed volcanic rock forcing the water level up to impossible heights. The wounds had then sealed themselves, but the original puncture remained open, filling the air currents with deadly radiation that would travel with the refugees, who would bring it here.

She walked along the lip of the dam, no longer aimless, but not quite committed to the possibility welling up in her mind. The lights illuminated the great sweep of cement wall, their supply of electricity uninterrupted. The dam had preserved, at least for them, the ability to generate this electricity, and through some strange meteorological dogma, it could harness the high altitude snows that now only touched the very top of the dry rocky spike that was Everest. Even Vikram was unable to account for the new rules of physics of this place and she’d given up without bothering to make the effort.

This meditation took her all the way to the eastern termination of the parapet, near to the switchback approach. On the other side of the road, the short end of the Alpine Security barracks loomed, its broad pitched roof making it look like a tall, asymmetrical steel and mortar tent. The windows set in the long side were narrow, but Rachel could see the dim light glowing faintly at the edges, and there, a diffuse shadow moving across the frosted glass.

Giving in to the impulse, she went to the plain wooden door situated at the end, and knocked once. Then, when there was no answer, she tightened her fist and cop-knocked on the hard wood until her fist throbbed.

The first thing Rachel saw as the door opened was the barrel of an extremely large pistol pointing directly at her forehead. She wasn’t frightened, exactly, but it certainly was a new experience. The passive, cold eyed expression on the face behind it animated as Sergei recognized her.

He lowered the gun, his blonde brows coming together in surprised perplexity. “Rachel.”

She looked from the gun, to him, his damp hair, his black bathrobe, and felt a little perplexed herself. “What are you doing?”

He raised an eyebrow as he looked her over, taking in her ragged, underdressed appearance. “I should be asking you.”

She ignored his question, then fixed him with a silent, expectant stare. He moved aside for her, uncocked the pistol and set it on the kitchen table. She paused to look at the gun, eyes following its machined lines, its silver dark finish. It was a Desert Eagle .50, Israeli made. Ostentatious and showy, just like its owner.

She’d never had reason to be in Sergei’s quarters before. Lit by two low lamps, it was a generous studio space, tented under the extremely angled ceiling. In addition to the kitchen area, there was a couch, a coffee table, and a low platform bed made with hospital corners. Beyond, she could see a bathroom door ajar, and inside that, a standing shower that was still steamed up from recent use. He’d been showering at the same time she had, she guessed, and wondered why this detail had decided to make itself important to her.

Her eyes caught something else, tucked into a corner, and she walked over to investigate. It was a two-doored gun safe with the doors open, full to bursting with small arms, assault rifles and shotguns. Most had been properly mounted in their brackets, but the floor of the safe held a pile of handguns of different makes. She almost wanted to laugh. So much death, stacked like children’s toys.

“You’ve been busy,” she murmured, half to herself. She heard him shut the door, and she could feel him watching her, struggling to place her. There was something wrong in his silence. Even without seeing his face, she could feel it.

When she did look up, the man standing before her, watching her intensely, no longer aligned with her record of him. He hadn’t just been busy. Something about him had changed. Something that intrigued her, and because it intrigued her, it also frightened her. That fear fired a little adrenaline into her, enough to give her back some focus.

It was also quite strange to look at him full in the face when it had been her decade-long policy to avoid acknowledging him with the privilege of her attention. His superficial playfulness was gone, revealing the hard, featureless core of him. Ten days ago, he had been an annoyance. Now he was a stranger.

“I made a few new friends out on the water,” he said finally. “Maybe you’ll meet them someday.”

“You know they’re not really friends if you make them at gunpoint.”

“What do you want?” he asked, the frown still etched between his brows.

“Vodka,” she said, knowing he’d be well supplied.

Letting out a breath of annoyance, he went to the freezer, pulled out an unopened bottle and held it out to her, neck first. She looked at him curiously, then nodded at it.

“In a glass. With ice, if you have it.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but his expression softened a little around the mouth. She watched as he went through the ritual, pulling an old fashioned ice tray out of the freezer. It was surprisingly fascinating to watch as he cracked the tray to loosen the ice cubes. He could have broken it in half as easily as she might have snapped a twig, but there was something precise, almost delicate in his gestures. An animal grace to him that she hadn’t really noticed before.

He poured a measure of vodka into an old fashioned glass, added two ice cubes and looked up at her. She nodded towards the table, and went to sit down, taking the glass and pressing the cold surface to her neck. She sighed, uncaring of his presence, as the chill soaked into her skin, cooling her pulse. She took a drink and that was even better, the frigid liquor burning down her throat.

Sergei watched her, clearly quite fascinated himself by her deviation from their traditional script. He took a pull off the bottle, then set it down on the table next to the pistol.

“You didn’t come here just to have a drink with me, Rakhila.”

“Don’t — ,” she began, then cut herself off. There was no point, and she was too busy living in the world of that glass, the sensual promise of the slippery ice texture, and its melting entropy. She took another sip, and decided to tell him the truth.

“I was thinking about killing myself,” she said, almost casually. “I’ve been thinking about it in one form or another every day for weeks. I suppose having a drink with you is a close second.”

He cocked his head to the side. “And what, you think I will help you?”

“Why not?” she smiled, feeling a little of the old contempt warm in her. “You’ve helped others.”

She almost expected him to smile back, to put on the mask he liked to wear when he was pretending to be roguish. Insulting her to her face with the suggestion that he was an incorrigible delinquent and not a brutal sadist of the first water. But he did not smile. His expression remained unchanged, his unblinking stare almost accusatory. She turned her attention to the pistol, tracing the Eagle’s rubberized handle with one finger, letting it find the contours where his fingers had recently gripped it.

Sergei took the gun out from under her hand and stowed it beneath the head of his bed, where he’d easily be able to reach it if needed. She recharged her glass as she watched this, and drank off half, craving the lightheadedness, the feeling of being divorced from her inhibitions.

“What has your brother told you about me?” he asked as he sat across from her. “What has he said to you that would make you think I would enjoy hurting you?”

“Nothing that would make me think you would enjoy hurting me in particular,” she said dismissively. “Nothing beyond what everyone knows.”

A thin smile played around his mouth. “What does everyone know?”

She shrugged, looked down at the contents of her glass. She could recall the different states of these ice cubes, but not the melting in between. The contemplation of this chaos slowed her mind, releasing some of the pressure cycle. She looked up into Sergei’s pale blue eyes, the irises so lacking in reflectiveness that it was difficult to see the folds in them. Each contraction of dilation would be impossible to detect, even though she knew they were happening, because she could see the widening pupils absorbing her, taking her in.

“What does everyone know?” he repeated, wetting his lips with his tongue. “That I am a killer?”

She looked hard at him. “Are you owning that now?”

“What do you want to hear?”

“The truth.”

He considered her, taking another pull off the bottle. Then he shrugged, his eyes going to the safe.

“Did you count them?”

She nodded.

“Add nine,” he said indifferently. “From Before.”

“Before,” she sneered, dimly aware that she was being offended by the wrong thing. “Before Armageddon.”

“Why aren’t you saying this to Vikram?” he demanded, suddenly irritated. “We are not friends. Your brother understands you. Why aren’t you asking him for help?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. The ice had melted in her glass, leaving her without the meditation. Still, she focused on it, tightening her grip in the hopes that she might shatter the leaded crystal, create a different bloodier chaos. Why had she come here? Why hadn’t she stepped off the dam?

“You are crying, Rachel.”

As she looked up at him, she was dimly aware that he had not asked her why she was crying, merely stated the observable fact. He was born without the ability to recognize distress, and so had to go by the physical evidence. As she stared at him, stared into his aquamarine eyes, the flat edged soul behind them, she realized she had fully expected him to lay hands on her. To do intimate violence to her, as he had once attempted years ago. She had laid him out with deliberation and damage for that trespass, but now she couldn’t even feel the humiliation of knowing she would submit to his poisonous flirtation a thousand times if it meant a return to Before.

She met his eyes again. “Sergei, will you do something for me?”

He nodded, staring back at her with unblinking intensity.

“Promise me you won’t tell me everything will be all right.”

At first he did not react, merely continued to stare at her. Then he a gave a reflexive little laugh, more surprise than amusement. Again she was struck by the change she perceived in him. He was not sobered, or tempered, but something had turned inside of him. He didn’t feel the need to mock her, to put some kind of intimidation on her, to pretend like he was in love with her. From that day to this, he had acquired an authentic confidence, and she knew with utter certainty it had everything to do with the former owners of the firearms piled in his safe.

He shrugged. “When have I ever lied to you?”

She said nothing, absorbing the truth of this. He’d offended her in the past, attempted to touch her without her permission, but he’d never insulted her intelligence with dissembling. Frozen in this thought, she only noticed at the last moment that he was reaching for her face. He caught one of her tears on his thumb, and brought it to his mouth, licking it off his thumbnail, his eyes never leaving hers.

Before she could appreciate this strange gesture, before she could speak any word of denial, he took her face in his hands and began to kiss her tears. Her breath caught, her body paralyzed by the tenderness an act so soft, so sweet that she could close her eyes and almost believe that she was waking from a terrible nightmare. That it was another man entirely who was gentling her, drawing the poison.

She knew the substitution was impossible. Even with her eyes closed, even as she struggled to find some part of Alec in that brief window of memory, she discovered she could not recall him. She knew the details of his face, the lemon spiced smell of his aftershave, but only as listed facts. She could not feel them, could not make her senses experience them. The scents now filling her nose were rust, gun oil, and vodka. The hands cradling her face already had a long resume of atrocity. Sergei wasn’t kissing her tears away, but imbibing them.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her with that glacial intensity. Alec had looked at her with greed, with desire, but the hunger in Sergei’s face surpassed her knowledge of human expression. Even when they had been teenagers, his attitude had been more teasing than threatening, a boy baiting a viper on a dare. Now his eyes glittered, scanning her face, his lips parted as he breathed in the taste of her. He was barely holding himself back, the need he had kept in check manifesting, forming the edge of an abyss. Waiting for her to step off.

When she pressed her lips to his, it felt like falling. His kiss was restrained and probing, as though he didn’t want to scare her, to overwhelm her. Being the gentleman, letting her use her mouth to instruct him. To decide who it was she needed him to be. It was a pathetic lie, and she felt an upwelling of rage, having just extracted his promise. She didn’t want his restraint.

She wrapped her arms around him and invaded his mouth with her tongue. With a sound somewhere between a groan and a purr, he gave it back with equal force, pulling her to his hard chest, calloused hands holding her face, tilting her head back so that he could deepen the kiss. His dark little chuckle when she gasped for breath was another new sound, just as his hands were new, as was the closeness of his face, the thousands of new details now overwriting the psychic pain with raw physical sensation.

She tugged open the neck of his robe, heard him give a strangled groan as she put her mouth on his flushed throat. Her hand moved down over his staggered abdominal muscles, seeking to go further. He grasped her wrist, stopping her hand from going lower.

“Don’t be greedy,”

She glared at him. “Why not?”

He grinned, and put his hands on her waist, walking her backwards until the edge of the bed caught her, and she fell back. Then his mouth was hot on hers again, his hands sliding up under her shirt, pulling it up over her head. His hands found her bare skin, thumbs sliding over her ribs, his mouth on her ear again.

“Because it’s my turn.”

He pushed her back, taking his time as he placed kisses on her body, moving down at a leisurely pace. She gasped as he slid teeth and tongue over her breast, pausing only a moment before moving lower over her belly to the plain black panties that spanned her hips. Even aware of what he was about to do, it still surprised her when he bent his head between her legs, pulled aside the fabric barrier with one finger and began to kiss her.

Rachel could not make herself understand or analyze the sensation of his tongue going inside of her, the sounds he made as though feasting on something delicious. She could only feel. Tension streaked down her legs, making her toes curl. Breathlessly, she arched back, only to find the upward surging arousal interrupted as he lifted his head, eyes bright, mouth flushed, a wide wolfish grin on his face. He licked his lips, clearly aware she wanted to inquire the reason he had stopped. He said nothing, but laughter was written all over his face. Triumph.

He leaned in, pressing his mouth against her ear. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

Ignoring this, she reached up and caught the belt on his robe, then hesitated, suddenly stymied by her inexperience. She didn’t want the charged, liquid feeling to end. Now that limitations were meaningless, she found she was strangely enticed by the possibility of intimacy with him. Sergei would not require emotional complexity from the exchange, wouldn’t even demur if she continued to hate him. But she had never done this before, and she knew she could safely assume his experience to be considerable. And for someone who was so disconnected from the subtlety of human emotions, he had shown himself to be incredibly well tuned to hers, because he seemed to know what was holding her back.

The familiar vicious grin spread across his face, and he took his time as he shrugged off the bathrobe. “Have you been saving yourself for me, Rakhila?”

“Fuck you,” she whispered, so fogged by lust that she couldn’t put force behind the words.

His smile softened. He took her hands and pulled them to his chest, wanting her to touch him, to experience his body. Having watched him create himself over the years, Rachel could not deny that she had wanted to know the sensation of his hard flesh, his creased lines. To add his physique to her anatomical database by studying him with her fingertips. He closed his eyes, lips parting as he savoured her hands on him, soaking in her touch. Then he bent down and kissed her with a perfect softness that was both erotic and almost obscene.

He pressed his mouth against her ear. “Hold on to me.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. He braced one hand at the small of her back and rolled, inverting their position so that she now straddled him. He was completely naked beneath her. Slowly, with one hand, she reached down, and his eyes closed as she encircled him with her fingers. His lips parted with an intake of breath, becoming more shallow as she familiarized herself with him, evaluating how he would fit, and how it would feel.

She wasn’t sexually unaware of herself, so part of it was familiar, the solidness of him, the thickening feeling in her belly. It was the fact of him. Sergei. His massive shoulders collapsing inward, his chin tilting back, eyelids fluttering. He let out a low moan as she rolled her hips forward, feeling him move with her, move into her as he let her discover herself. Her whole body was aware of the power she had over him, intoxicating as anything she had experienced. She wondered if she hadn’t always marked him as prey. Something she could always take if she wanted it.

He sat up, pulling her into his lap, kissing her mouth, her throat, using his hips to drive up into her. She gripped his hair as she learned him by touch, whispering words of surrender in some voiceless, tactile language he understood perfectly. His arms went around her, her world turning upside down, and then she was on her back, her whole body wrapped around him. Crying out, crying his name, begging him shamelessly for more speed, more force. He laughed at her, mocking her aspirations, the idea that she could tolerate even half his strength. She didn’t comprehend. She didn’t care.

As he held her down, went deep into her, she felt like she was entering a sweat lodge trance. Nothing but skin, and heat, his mouth, his grip on her wrists, the relentless articulation of his core and his hips as he showed her in full tactile detail the difference between store bought and the genuine article. His stamina seemed endless, his adoring words bleeding together in her mind as he spoke them against her skin like an invocation — dorogaya, beautiful one, how could you make me wait so long, you fucking bitch...

Rachel let his words bypass her mind, now saturated with thought-numbing endorphins that spiked with each orgasm he patiently, efficiently fucked into her. Each time he would slow as she gripped him inside, as she shuddered, his eyes on her face as though keen to examine his work. She saw him through a heat haze, felt the entire solidness of him, the width of his hips between her thighs, the length of him inside of her. The crystalline clarity of his blue eyes, so strange and beautiful this close, drinking her in. So greedy for the sight of her.

Her fingertips slid over his sweat glossed back, each muscle flexing hard as he used all of them to reach into her, to get as close to her as he could. His words had long ceased to make any sense to her, and she was losing track of time. Hours, days, it didn’t matter. Finally she collapsed in a sweating, panting fever of exhaustion. Oblivion enfolded her, taking her intoxicated consciousness away from her living flesh into the perfect void.

She woke suddenly, sore from friction, from exertion, at first unaware she’d actually been asleep. She could not reach back to a defining moment when the sex had stopped and unconsciousness had taken hold. Blinking in the dark, she sat up. Every place Sergei had touched her was its own little flame, and he had touched her everywhere, so the collective effect was a throbbing burn. She wondered if this kind of sex hangover was normal, or if it was just a result of his need to overachieve.

She turned to look, and found him sitting upright against the headboard, eyes watching her through the dark as though it did not impair his vision at all. She could just perceive the twitch in the corner of his mouth, the cockeyed smile now forming.

“What time is it?” she asked, suddenly keen to be outside of this room, and away from him.

“Early,” he said unhelpfully.

“Did you watch me all night?”

He shrugged. “I don’t sleep much.”

“And you didn’t… ” she resisted the urge to touch her inner thigh, to investigate for any trace of his genetic material.

“I don’t,” he said, all frankness. “Not when I want it to be good.”

Before she had too much time to think about that implication, he rose, made his way to the refrigerator. She turned her face away from the light as he opened it, but then felt the cold bottle of water as he put it in her hands. She drank down half of it in one gulp, then forced herself to sip slowly, not to guzzle the rest.

She felt his lips on the back of her neck, his hands linking around her waist. “They’re going to come looking for you.”

“Not here, they’re not,” she said, pressing the still cold bottle against her cheek.

One hand moved up to squeeze her breast. “Good.”

She allowed him a moment to nuzzle and grope her before finally shrugging him off, and moving to the edge of his bed, peering through the slowly receding darkness.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my shirt,” she said, scanning the floor for the dark garment.

“Come back to bed,” he suggested. “Or do you have plans for today?

A frisson of irritation ran through her. “Just because —“

“Just because.” he mocked. “Why, was I not good?”

She turned and glared at him. “You know, as a physical object, you are not without certain appeal, but then you open your fucking mouth… “

He put a finger on her lips, but it was his smile that stopped her. That same smile, wide, full of laughter, so very strange on his normally indifferent features. Now she’d never think of it without her body remembering the feel of him.

“I’m glad,” he murmured. “That are you are feeling better.”

He wasn’t wrong. The coarse, abrasive texture of her thoughts had smoothed, and she was back the old familiar contempt. Her desire to punch him was the most normal thing she had felt for weeks.

She spotted the shirt and fished it off the carpet, dropping it over her head and pulling her long black hair out behind her. The addition of both their sweat had made it frizz, and she was anxious to get back to her own suite where she could shower, well out of his reach.

He rose from the bed, his tall, broad muscle-bound frame still fully naked, his skin covered with the inflamed streaks she’d made with her fingernails. He stretched ostentatiously, and subsided into a self-aware slouch, eyes on her. “You didn’t answer my question, Rakhila.”

“Will you fuck off?” she snapped. “What do you want, a medal? Yes, it was good. I’m going now.”

“I hope so,” he said seriously. “Last night was the best night of my life.”

“Well done.”

She went to the door, pulled the handle, tugged it open, but he grabbed the door edge in one hand and held it in place, not allowing her to open it further.

“Get out of my way,” she snapped.

Sergei released the door with an open handed fine gesture, letting it swing inwards. Then slid a hand into her hair and used his body to press her back against the door frame. His mouth came down on hers before she could speak, and for an instant her recent experience of him took over, and she felt herself opening, melting —

Just as abruptly, he released her, giving her a little push like he didn’t want her any more. Then he nodded to the pre-dawn murk, sending a jolt fear through her — but there was no one there. Her eyes moved over the slowly lightening approach, the pathway, the dam’s great parapet. It was totally deserted, but he’d made his point.

“Look at me,” he said coldly, something dark and entitled in his expression, a soft rage that eclipsed his former playfulness.

Rachel raised her chin as she gave him the full measure of her disdain, even though they both knew her power to dismiss him was gone forever.

“When you think about last night, try to remember that you fucked me after the world ended, not the other way around, hm?”

Before she could bite back, or insult him, or remind him that she couldn’t forget if she wanted to, Sergei nudged the door closed with his foot and left her standing alone, with no good explanation, on his threshold.

Glancing around once more, her body shaking from muscle fatigue, she headed towards the dam. Halfway across, she paused for an instant on the parapet and looked out at the broken horizon, the burning nuclear fire visible thousands of miles away, a white needle piercing the sky.

It made her feel a little ill, the realization that her first experience of sexual intercourse had been with a man who clearly considered this horrifying vista a fair exchange for the privilege. It frightened her, but it also made her realize she could still be afraid. She thought of the pistols in his safe. She could still feel his hands, his mouth.

She turned her back on the anemic dawn, and hurried to make it back to the monastery while it was still dark. The same rocks hurt her bare feet, but she didn’t slow down, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and what she was beginning to suspect might be the worst mistake she had ever made.

#republic of infidels #sergei vetrov #rachel kori #excerpt

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pxyiyk · 2 years

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Read Book Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century -- Sergei Kostin

EPUB & PDF Ebook Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century | EBOOK ONLINE DOWNLOAD

by Sergei Kostin.

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1981. Ronald Reagan and François Mitterrand are sworn in as presidents of the Unites States and France, respectively. The tension due to Mitterrand’s French Communist support, however, is immediately defused when he gives Reagan the Farewell Dossier, a file he would later call “one of the greatest spy cases of the twentieth century.”Vladimir Ippolitovitch Vetrov, a promising technical student, joins the KGB to work as a spy. Following a couple of murky incidents, however, Vetrov is removed from the field and placed at a desk as an analyst. Soon, burdened by a troubled marriage and frustrated at a flailing career, Vetrov turns to alcohol. Desperate and needing redemption, he offers his services to the DST. Thus Agent Farewell is born. He uses his post within the KGB to steal and photocopy files of the USSR’s plans for the West—all under Brezhnev’s nose. Probing further into Vetrov’s psychological profile than ever before, Kostin and Raynaud provide groundbreaking insight into the man

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gramilano · 5 years

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Jacopo Tissi in Swan Lake at The Royal Opera House, August 2019

Three years ago, Jacopo Tissi left La Scala to join the Bolshoi Company in Moscow. Makhar Vaziev, the Company’s current director, was previously the director at La Scala and had seen Tissi’s work. It was Vaziev (on having to find a substitute for Sergei Polunin, who was himself a substitute for David Hallberg), who chose the young corps de ballet dancer to partner Svetlana Zakharova on the opening night of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty.

Before the summer, Tissi was dancing again with Zakharova when he created the role of Boy Capel, Coco Chanel’s lover and muse, in the Bolshoi’s new one-act ballet Gabrielle Chanel, with Zakharova as the French fashion designer. However, more frequently he dances with the Bolshoi’s youngest star, Alena Kovaleva. He was partnered with her in July 2017 at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Jewels Golden Anniversary Celebration when Emeralds was danced by the Paris Opera Ballet, Rubies by the New York City Ballet and the Bolshoi presented Diamonds, with Kovaleva and Tissi as the principal couple. In September 2018 they were again together when the Bolshoi Ballet brought La Bayadère to La Scala, and in August of this year they danced in Swan Lake during the Bolshoi’s three-week stay at the Royal Opera House.

That leap in the dark three years ago seems to have paid off?

Yes, it was an important decision, but one I’m pleased about.

How have you changed as a dancer and as a person training, living and performing in Moscow?

I have grown up so much both as a person and in my dancing. My experience of life in Moscow was full of new situations, new ways of seeing things, and I was encountering things that I just didn’t know. It certainly wasn’t easy, but it has brought me great rewards, such as learning to speak Russian. Today I feel well integrated both in daily life and in the life of the theatre where I have been very warmly welcomed.

These years at the Bolshoi have been a fundamental part of my artistic growth, teaching me so much and giving me many great opportunities. Two key figures are for me are my teacher Alexander Vetrov and my director, Makhar Vaziev. Every day I feel lucky to have the chance to work at the Bolshoi, and call this legendary place “my theatre”!

Jacopo Tissi in La Bayadére, photo By Damir Yusupov, 2018

One of those great opportunities was to play Solor with the Bolshoi on La Scala’s stage, a stage that you’ve been on since you were a child at La Scala’s ballet school.

That was a special moment. I’m very attached to La Scala and dancing on that stage after two years with the Bolshoi, in a leading role, was definitely a huge challenge. It was a big responsibility but at the same time a great honour. In the audience, there were many of my family and friends, who don’t get to see me that often on stage – it is always an immense joy to know they’re in the theatre.

And once again, you were dancing with Alena Kovaleva.

Alena and I started almost at the same time at the Bolshoi. We’ve prepared and danced many premieres together and we have also been in many other theatres on tour. Sharing these experiences has given us a special bond, which I think is essential for our work together and our dancing.

Together they have danced Diamonds, Études, Grand Pas Classique, La Bayadère, Flames of Paris, and Raymonda, and in September 2017 they debuted in Swan Lake, roles that they recently brought to London.

It was fantastic to hear that we’d been given two performances at the Royal Opera House. I made my debut with The Royal Ballet in May when I stepped in as Romeo in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet – which was a new choreography for me – but to bring a Bolshoi repertory ballet to the theatre, and one of my favourite roles, was thrilling.

Again, a lot of weight on your shoulders.

There was a great deal of preparation for the premiere, not just on a technical level, but also on the artistic one. It is a beautiful journey to find every aspect of a role, and Seigfreid is one that is continually developing with each show. He’s such an interesting character, and in Grigorovich’s version there are particular psychological nuances, which gives the opportunity to express many different moods.

Were you particularly nervous about this debut?

The first performance is always a little more tense, but I enjoyed the show, and I felt very ‘in the moment’.

You are now used to the vast Bolshoi stage. La Scala’s is smaller, and that of The Royal Opera House is even smaller.

The Bolshoi stage is very big, so almost always when we travel we have to adjust a little bit depending on the different stages, but I really like the atmosphere at the Royal Opera House.

Jacopo Tissi with Egor Gerashchenko in Swan Lake, London 2019 © Malcolm Levinskind

Jacopo Tissi and Alena Kovaleva in Swan Lake, The Royal Opera House, London 2019 © Malcolm Levinskind 01

Jacopo Tissi and Alena Kovaleva in Swan Lake, The Royal Opera House, London 2019 © Malcolm Levinskind

To finish off the interview, I wanted to ask him about his character. His apparent timidity must cover a steely core otherwise how could he have confronted so many challenges and alone, far away from his family and friends? All the while he was also battling to learn a new language and – even if he did feel warmly welcomed at the Bolshoi – facing the critical and maybe resentful looks of dancers who have gone through the rigorous Russian training. Many would have been defeated by the pressure.

It’s difficult to describe oneself… maybe you could do it?

And that’s it – I can’t. Tissi smiles often but there seems to be a melancholic layer just beneath the surface and as he smiles he often drops his gaze. From time to time he appears to drift off into his own pensive space. He is something of an enigma. But in an age when everything is laid bare in social media, it could be that some mystery isn’t such a bad thing, and for someone interpreting various characters on stage perhaps, even, an asset.

Jacopo Tissi in Swan Lake at The Royal Opera House, August 2019

Jacopo Tissi in Swan Lake, London 2019 © Malcolm Levinskind

Interview: Who is Jacopo Tissi? The Bolshoi’s enigmatic Italian star talks about Moscow, Milan and London, “It certainly wasn’t easy” Three years ago, Jacopo Tissi left La Scala to join the Bolshoi Company in Moscow. Makhar Vaziev, the Company’s current director, was previously the director at La Scala and had seen Tissi’s work.

#Alexei Ratmansky #Bolshoi Ballet #David Hallberg #Jacopo Tissi #La Bayadère #La Scala #Makhar Vaziev #Romeo and Juliet #Royal Ballet #Sergei Polunin #Svetlana Zakharova #Swan Lake

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multirenowacja · 5 years

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jeremystrele · 4 years

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51 Gorgeous Green Dining Rooms With Tips And Accessories To Help You Design Yours

Revitalising, invigorating, fresh and sublime, green dining rooms create good vibes. A green scheme can be cool and calm in minty hues, deeply sophisticated in emerald and forest shades, or energised in saturated lime. Whatever your character and energy, green is an adaptable choice. Singe feature walls and coordinated accessories are an ideal way to bring in a splash of colour without committing fully to the theme, as they can be easily and cheaply changed out. However, if you’re gutsy enough, then making a cash investment into a fully green dining set or colour statement cabinets will give the most gorgeous impact. With so many options, how will you go for green?

Visualizer: Polina Poludkina Sage green and simple. The calming tones of a light sage backdrop will make dinner times tranquil, and a small pop of colour will instill that desirable modern edge.

Designer: 2LG Studio Turn the tables in a fully turquoise decor scheme. Why stop at a feature wall when you can include matching dining hutches and dining table?

Visualizer: Olovo Build up tonal interest. This kitchen diner includes two shades of cabinets, and a third green hue on the walls. The combination builds depth and dimension.

Visualizer: JUST studio projektowe Partner heritage hues with traditional panel moulding and decorative coving to make a dining area with classic elegance.

Visualizer: Allan Borges Share the spotlight. With a strong wall colour it’s important to ensure that other elements don’t pale into insignificance. Cluster dining room pendant lights for added impact, and choose dining chairs with interesting silhouettes.

Source: Muuto This 50/50 split black and green modern dining room scheme is coupled up with the stylish 70/70 Table with solid oak top by TAF for Muuto.

Visualizer: Nelson de Araújo Light wood and honeydew melon walls make a mellow match. Team the palette with melon slice half moon motifs to sweeten the theme.

Source: Little Greene Picture perfect in pea green. The deep window frames in this dining room have been painted over in the same pea green shade as the surrounding walls for a fully saturated scheme. The single colour walls and colour coordinated dining chairs create a fearless effect.

Go loud with a love for lime and lemon. Cut through the zest with white accents to let the brightness breathe.

Designer: d2 interieurs Another one for lime lovers.

Designer: Terraza Balear Your green hero piece doesn’t even have to be in the room. If you have a stunning garden or forest view, keep the interior pale to let the outdoor greenery be your mural. Add a subtle green centrepiece to the table to draw just a little bit of that natural colour inward.

Architect: HGAA Even narrow outdoor spaces can host a plethora of living greenery to boost the interior mood.

Designer: Paul Rudolph Of course, you can always move the garden inside too! This clear perspex dining set disappears before an indoor jungle, unleashing flourishing foliage in full effect.

Visualizer: Svoya studio Plant a vertical garden for dense green coverage.

Visualizer: 3DCastro A smaller take on the vertical garden, this time sandwiched between a base of tiles and a custom cut mirror on top. The wall of plants stimulates the illusion of a refreshing alfresco eating area, which is helped along by a rustic wooden dining table.

Visualizer: Pavel Vetrov Combine the vertical garden aesthetic with a row of display shelves for a custom look. This approach also presents the opportunity to inject a contrasting accent colour, or multiple, over the shelves with knick-knacks and books.

Visualizer: Lanre Alao For those daunted by the installation and upkeep of a living wall, a raised indoor planter provides a more low-key solution for achieving an effective garden atmosphere.

Visualizer: Sergey Krasyuk Botanical walls don’t have to be living at all, and are entirely up to artistic interpretation. This mural blooms with a coral element that uplifts the green base.

Visualizer: Thao Nguyen Here, botanical wallpaper fills an architectural archway. An oval dining table has been selected to complement the curved feature.

Visualizer: Irina Yavtushenko Position a bush of painted fronds directly behind the cushions of a banquette seat to establish a fun connection between background and foreground pieces. Locate a couple of living fronds for the table centrepiece to draw the theme forward.

Visualizer: Muhammed Shafeek M A Just frame it. Minimal fuss, minimal commitment. A framed botanical print and a cluster of green glass vases does the trick on a shoestring budget.

Visualizer: Custom Design Construction Wood, gold and green paint a rich and natural scheme. A tall mirror helps to increase the sense of space in this small dining room design, and doubles the impact of a golden sputnik chandelier.

Visualizer: Pure Render Speaking of impact, check out this divine green tasseled dining room pendant light! Six perfectly colour matched dining chairs honour the spectacular ceiling fixture.

Designer: U Interior Design Why settle for plain coving when you can opt for a border of bold colour? Wrap the stripe around an entire open plan room to give the space cohesivity.

Designer: Christy Allen Designs Or, take colour all the way onto the ceiling to bring down high rafters. This scheme employs the help of a sputnik chandelier to help draw the eye upward.

Visualizer: 33bY Architecture An olive green dining room has deliciously comforting vibes when coupled with a curvaceous wooden dining set. Include a couple of low hanging pendants to add a cosy glow.

Visualizer: Min Maung Han Copper accents make a lustrous companion for a green dining room set up. These tufted dining chairs satisfy both sides of the colour brief.

Copper has been switched out for precious gold accents in this emerald green dining room. A golden chandelier drips from a high ceiling with neo-classical coving, and gold candlesticks top a gold frame table.

Visualizer: Evgenia Belkina Think outside the box by painting inside the picture frames! This unusual paint effect really draws attention to the muted green wall colour. A black pedestal dining table connects with the darker elements of the art, whilst ruby dining chairs pull out the pink tones.

Visualizer: Jolanda Kruse Establish presence in an open plan layout. A single section of colour will anchor a dining zone in a large white living space, and a green colourway is a particularly fitting choice for rooms with a lush view. In this design, a banquette seat sets the outer limits for the colour treatment, along with a length of modern track lighting.

Visualizer: Anna Makukha A dark green kitchen sets a sophisticated mood for this dining area. Oversized white pendant lights and a pale dining table lighten the look.

Visualizer: Denis Glushanin, Ilya Shubochkin & Marina Donskikh Play with room proportions. This dark green wall of panel moulding is teamed with pale sage walls at the sides to visually alter the width of the room.

Designer: Anne-Sophie Pailleret This larger room goes all out with a single shade of green, which allows golden accents sing out brightly from dining pendant lights and a pair of unusual wall lights.

Designer: Robyn Donaldson Black & white plus green equals a high contrast scheme with fresh infusions. The round dining table and chairs introduce a comforting, warming natural element.

Visualizer: Home D Make lighter, brighter spaces with mirrors. To stop an all green scheme becoming dark, incorporate a section of mirrors. They will reflect the green elements from the other side of the room but they will also reflect the natural light.

Designer: Zulufish Restrict coloured accents to just a nook, with a green upholstered banquette and matching dining chairs.

Visualizer: Elemental Design Another gorgeous green dining nook.

Visualizer: Olexandr Melnyk Extravagant dining room chandeliers crown this regal green scene with crystal and gilded chain. A traditional fireplace completes the manor house befitting design.

Visualizer: Noha Ahmed Another traditionally inspired design with a classic chandelier, but this time with a much lighter, airy feel.

Visualizer: Andrey Ryazanov This one comes back to the contemporary with a modern chandelier that pulls across the entire open plan dining area and lounge, just like its long green accent wall.

Designer: Hayon Studio Can’t change your old colour dining set? No problem. Create a colour block design by layering your existing set with a green background and a brightly contrasting area rug.

Visualizer: Yurii Zabuzhko Shake up a green panel moulded room by picking out the moulding with striking black paintwork. This works particularly well with a black dining set to match. Choose a light coloured chandelier to boost the dark combo.

Visualizer: Studio Proxy Green elements are used to anchor every zone in this open plan interior. The lounge has a bottle green accent wall, the kitchen has its coloured peninsula, and the dining area is established with a colour matched round dining table and chairs.

Visualizer: Studio Artere Let art be the start of a colourful relationship. Check out how the dog in the pic looks longingly at the globe pendant lights as though wanting to catch the falling balls!

Visualizer: Nimbusart Blocks of contrasting black, white and green jostle to form an energised scene that keeps the eye moving. A linear suspension light drops a floating note of black in front of a pea green kitchen workspace, and green accent chairs challenge white counterparts.

Designer: Love Country Design This modern dining table set makes light contrast with daring dark green dining hutches.

Visualizer: Studio VAE Another room of contrast, this time bringing the green accent to the foreground against a wall of deep burgundy cupboards.

Visualizer: DUDES architect Light green and loaded with natural wood, this is a room for restful reflection.

Visualizer: ArtPartner Architects Graphite grey and teal green issue the same satisfying saturation.

Visualizer: Elemental Design Green and shapely, this room rounds out with smooth painted green sections and curved modern mirrors.

Visualizer: VN Studio Just one piece of furniture can bring the green colour theme to your dining room–especially if it’s one huge bookcase.

1. Fruit bowl 2. Saarinen Tulip style dining chair 3. Green pendant light 4. Peas salt and pepper shakers 5. Green placemats 6. Green dining chair 7. Botanic art prints 8. Green glass vase 9. Green wine goblet

Recommended Reading: 30 Gorgeous Green Living Rooms And Tips For Accessorizing Them 51 Green Bedrooms With Tips And Accessories To Help You Design Yours 33 Gorgeous Green Kitchens And Ways To Accessorize Them

Green Themed Home Decor Inspiration

US Presidents' Office Interiors

White and Green Living Spaces That Feel Crisp And Fresh

Modern Classic Chairs

51 Green Bedrooms With Tips And Accessories To Help You Design Yours

IKEA 2012 Catalog

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drewebowden66 · 4 years