Perfect Opposite (12 page)

I felt a sick wave of fear at the thought he might leave, so I
quickly pressed my body close to his.

“Don’t go.”

“No need to be afraid, Princess. You couldn’t make me leave even if you wanted.”

I took another deep breath, nodded and lay down, curling my body closer to his, still clutching the edges of the blanket he’d wrapped around me.

“Can you lie next to me... Please?”

I knew it sounded stupid, and I expected him to stay where he was, but instead he did as I asked. He threw the quilt across the bed and got in next to me, stretching out to his length and placing one arm around my waist, drawing me closer to him. Only a fold in the quilt separated our two bodies and I could feel his warm breath against my neck. The beat of his heart and the rhythm of his breathing came to me as little by little I started to calm down.

“Alex?“

“What
?“

“Are you sleeping?”

“Nope.”

“OK.”

Several minutes passed in silence. The only sounds came from the rain pattering against the windows and the glass clacking against the howling wind. Lightning came in irregular bursts, but feeling Alex’s body next to mine had brought about a new kind of tension.

“Alex?”

“Mhm?”

“Talk about something...”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.
Anything... When everything’s quiet, I start to think about the past.”

I would never admit it, but I liked the sound of his voice, so soothing
and disquieting at the same time.

“OK.
Well...” he said after a pause, “ When I saw you in the bathroom today I was real surprised. I would have bet money that someone like you didn’t know how to pick up a scrubbing brush.”

“Someone like me?”

“You know what I mean. Nikolai’s sitting on a big pile of money. You must have been surrounded by maids your whole life. I’d have thought you were in the habit of paying someone to do those things, rather than risk chipping a nail.”

“You have such high opinion of me.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just ... you puzzle me.”

“Let’s say I wanted to forget about what my life was like before. Maybe it’ll sound stupid, but scrubbing the pans in the kitchen and making my own toilet shine seemed like one of the ways. My start in that kind of work was... sort of interesting”

“I'm all ears.”

“You mustn’t tell anyone, on your life. Is that clear?”

“Sure is,“ he chuckled under his breath.

“Believe me, it’s not funny when you’re eighteen and someone has to explain to you how to use a sponge, or that you have to put detergent in the washer before you switch it on. One of the big surprises was that I couldn’t put footwear in the machine.”

“No shit? I never would have guessed.”

“ And
... The first time I washed the windows, I used liquid soap. Bethany had a nervous breakdown when she came home and saw my masterpiece. It took us two days to get the streaks off.”

“You and Beth are very close.”

“You could say that”.

“How much does she know about where you come from, and all the rest?”

“Nothing. I wanted to tell her about it a thousand times, but I haven’t. I guess it’s safer for her. Beth, Paolo, they’re all in the dark. They don’t have a clue about me in that way.”

A pause followed, in which it seemed to me Alex was deciding whether to ask me something.

“And how much do you know, Princess? What do you really know about what Nikolai does?”

”Too much,” I replied quietly.

“Too much? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean you can tell me what goods you need and I‘ll tell you who to speak to, what price you’ll have to pay, who to ask about delivery and how to transfer the funds to make it all look kosher. And what will happen if you don’t come through on your end of the bargain
.”

Alex went a little tense, but he didn’t remove his arm from around my waist, so I continued.

“I could also give you some advice about how to solve certain problems you might have. Problems can just disappear, you know.”

I heard him curse quietly under his breath, as though my answer was far from what he’d wanted to hear. A silence followed and it became obvious the storm was losing its force, so that the only sounds were from the rain and our breathing.

“I thought Nikolai might have been smarter, and not let you get exposed to it all so much.”

“Ha!” I snorted, “Do you really think he could have kept it all hidden? Nikolai always tried to keep me away from it, and if you asked him he’d probably tell you I know next to nothing, especially about the ugly side. It’s not his fault that children hear everything. I guess I was part of the furniture, and that’s when you hear things. They probably thought I wouldn’t understand… but they aren’t so smart.”

Lying flat on his back, his head resting on one arm, Alex brought a hand up to cover his eyes. His jaw was clenched tight so that he looked angry, maybe even furious, I couldn’t tell. Both his reaction and his tone surprised me greatly. I didn’t know why he would care so much about what I knew of Nikolai’s dealings.

I took advantage of the fact that his eyes were hidden from view to study his bare chest. I’d seen him several times without a shirt, but I’d always tried to look away fast in case he caught me staring. Common sense told me to look away this time as well, but the lure was too appealing.

Falling under a spell, I let my eyes move over the dark shapes in front of me, felling like I might be leafing through some artist’s sketchbook in secret.

All the tattoos were done in shades of black and they covered the surface of his body, from his collarbone to the low waistband of his pajamas. Most of them amounted to stylized shapes and symbols which mingled together to form one large composition, the beginning or end of which might never be discovered. Some pale lines that I hadn’t noticed before came into view, crisscrossing a few of the dark patterns and changing their form. When I looked more closely at his stomach I tried not to gasp as I made out a
big, deep scar running a long way up from somewhere near his belly button.

“Not the most beautiful
sight, is it?” he noted in a sour kind of voice.

“Well, no,” I spoke quietly. “How did you get that?”

“I didn’t move fast enough.”

“
I was more interested in how you came to be in a situation where someone might take out one of your organs. I didn’t mean the technical side of it”

At that, Alex made it plain by the way he sighed and shifted his body that he had no intentions of explaining anything any further. Since the subject was suddenly closed, I could only look towards his face, hoping to read something there.

“Well then, I’m very curious about whether all these tattoos stand for anything in particular?”

“Do you think that I would have covered my body with crap when I have to take it with me all my life?” he looked a little offended.

“I have no idea... I guess not. But there are so many. How’s it possible that every one has a meaning?”

“What can I say, I'm a complex person.”

“Weird might be a better word...”

“Well, that as well...” he smiled slightly. “As a rule I don’t ever talk about it... but for you I'll make an exception. I'll tell you what one of them represents.”

“Only one?”

“
Only one,” he confirmed.

I broke eye contact to concentrate on his chest again and focused on one part that had caught my eye some minutes before. T
he design was relatively simple and showed a snake bent into a circle, its jaws closing around its own tail to form a ring.

“This one,” I pointed with my hand, careful not to touch his skin.

“You sure? You only have one chance,” he asked and I nodded.

“Alright then.
That’s Ouroboros. The name comes from Greek and means ‘the one that eats its own tail’. It stands for a constant cycle of renewal – the alternating states of life, death and rebirth. You can find eternity there,” he whispered the last part as he flicked off the lamp.

“Something like immortality?” I asked.

“Yeah, that could be another interpretation.”

“Why did you want to have it on your body?”

“I like the idea of rebirth and eternity,” he paused for a moment and looked up at some invisible point on the ceiling, ”I don’t want to think that after this there’s nothing.”

After that, he went on staring silently up at the ceiling so that it seemed he might have forgotten about me entirely. I watched as he
lay still, his large sculpted body stretched out against the sheets, those sharp facial features even more pronounced against the gray half light coming from the windows.

Very slowly, I moved my body closer to his and brought my head to rest between his arm and the pillow below. I felt him move a little, settling the blanket around me and drawing it up slightly to cover my shoulder. Feeling his breath on my hair, I brought my hands down to my sides, hoping to fight against overwhelming desire to touch him. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, losing myself in his aroma. It reminded me of a forest in the early morning, fresh and sharp and soothing.

Again the mystery of how I could lose myself so completely in this man I knew nothing about. Without counting Tyler, I’d always been drawn to interesting minds and not what was on the outside. Alex left me in a state of total disarray. Even though he drove me nuts and it was clear that I felt a little afraid around him, there was something inside him that drew me like a moth to a flame. Like one of those night butterflies, I felt my wings burn whenever I got too close to the flame, punishing me for my curiosity. Maybe it was his secrets I was falling for, leading me to imagine all sorts of things that weren’t there.

Outside, all that was left of the storm was a light drizzle, blown in light gusts against the panes. The changing pattern of drops on the glass made me drowsy and I let my eyes slowly close. Just before sleep took me, I remembered the storm, and realized that talking to Alex had somehow washed away my fears.

Chapter 7 - No is not an option

The sound of someone clinking cups and percolating coffee in the kitchen lifted me out of sleep. At first I shut my eyes more tightly against the daylight, but then I let them open ever so slightly, feeling like the guy in the movie who washes up on a beach after a plane crash. A closet-door mirror came into view first, and from the reflection I could see my fluffy pink quilt now resting in an ungracious heap on the floor. I saw my body on its side near the edge of the bed, knees curled up inside a thin gray t-shirt, and a heavy tattooed arm resting across me. Alex’s head was behind mine on the pillow, his dark chin and half his face just visible beyond my own. The noises in the apartment didn’t seem to be disturbing him at all and he was sleeping like a baby.

I caught my breath, suddenly elated and unable to take my eyes off his reflection. In that moment he didn’t look tough or dangerous, and even his trademark pensive expression was gone. If anything, he looked at peace with the world and much younger than before. It hit me that I’d spent the night with my body pressed against his twice now, without even knowing exactly how old he was.

Where‘s that harsh expression, usually chiseled into his features?

These thoughts were whizzing round in my mind when I suddenly thought of Bethany going about her morning rituals
and imagined the look she might give me if she walked into my room. Never in a month of Sundays would I be able to convince her that nothing had happened between Alex and me.

“Alex?” I said quietly and tensed when his eyelids opened wide, leaving his pupils to adjust to the light.

When our eyes met in the mirror, just for a moment, he looked as confused as I did. It was obviously a surprise to have woken up in my pink room and I knew just how he felt. He quickly pulled back his arm and stood up straight by the bed, raising his hands high above his head to stretch his muscles.

“
Wow.You're one of those morning people I’ve heard about.”

“Just a habit,” he shrugged and reached beneath the mattress, pulling out a knife in its shiny leather sheath.

“Is sleeping with deadly weapons a habit as well?”

“Yep,”
came the curt reply, as he moved towards the door.

Noticing that he put most of his weight on his left leg, I remembered the cramp he’d mentioned days earlier, and made a mental note to give him some advice. Magnesium would put him right, according to an article I’d read somewhere. There wasn’t time to think about it anymore though; right then, I had a serious damage limitations exercise on my hands.

“Stop,” I hissed as he got to the door, “You can’t... Beth’s in the kitchen.”

“So?” he seemed faintly surprised.

“What do you mean ‘so’? She'll see you coming out of my room half naked! How could I explain why you spent the night in here?”

“She’s not your ma. You don’t have to make excuses, am I right
?“

“She thinks we're related, for God's sake! She'll think
we... you know... I mean, we were only sleeping, but she’ll think we were really sleeping together and then... Oh, God! What are we gonna do?” I sort of pleaded, but only felt more desperate when his lips curled into an crooked grin.

“It's not funny!”

“It is to me.”

“You moron!
You're getting off on this, admit it!”

“Maybe just a little...“

”You're impossible!” I got up out of bed in a hurry, ”Listen to me very carefully! I'm gonna open the door and take a peek. When I give you the signal, you have two seconds to get lost. Is that clear?”

I didn’t wait for an answer, but went over to the door and turned the knob, instantly scanning the living room as best I could. Deciding that Beth was not in the vicinity at that moment, I literally pushed him out, which was the signal I guess.

“Not a word about this when Beth’s around. If she finds out, my life will be a living hell!”

“Too bad.
I wanted to ask her about your snoring.”

“What?” I threw him a loaded stare.

“No one ever told you about it before?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed in a parody of concern.

Shocked, I studied his eyes madly, trying to remember if anyone had actually mentioned it to me before, but then I saw the
crooked grin start to form again.

”You liar!”
I managed only to whisper and shut the door in his face more noisily than I’d intended.

“It's nice to see you with a big, beaming smile so early in the morning.”

With this sarcastic greeting, Beth showed two rows of perfect white teeth as I plodded into the kitchen, the belt from my bathrobe trailing behind me, a pink sock on my left foot and an orange one on the right.

I've never been an early bird, but that morning I was feeling more than a little dazed and confused, and definitely not in the mood for socializing. There were three essays to write by next Thursday, and all I wanted was to put some food inside me and then lock myself away with some books till it was time to go to class, hopefully forgetting everything else in the process.

Alex was sitting at the table, pretending not to notice us, his entire being focused on devouring the stacks of fried eggs in front of him, reminding me of a Tyrannosaurus Rex from a book I’d had as a kid. Casting my eyes in his direction with a look that screamed contempt, I remembered how he’d tricked me so easily a half-hour before and letting out a low growl, started rummaging through the fridge.

”You know...” Beth came to lean on the fridge door, “I have a surprise for you.”

“
Mh..?” I exhaled instead of giving a real answer and continued my search for a half-eaten Greek salad from the night before.

I was pretty suspicious when it came to Beth’s surprises. The last one she’d prepared involved me eating a bowl full of some mushy brown
gloop, with some kind of dry grass on the side and a bitter, alien kind of taste. From the first mouthful I’d felt sure it would make me sick, but seeing the heartfelt enthusiasm on her face I’d somehow finished it all without complaining. I’d shoveled it into my mouth until it was gone and thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t died later. It was only to be hoped this surprise would be of a different nature.

“And?
Are you even gonna ask what it is?” excited, she was literally hopping from one foot to the other by now.

“What is it?” I finally asked, expecting the worst.

“First you have to tell me how much you love me!“

I rolled my eyes, straightened up and glared at her, folding my arms dramatically across my chest.

“So much so that yesterday – for the tenth time – I helped you give some random guy the brush off after YOU somehow gave him your number, by explaining yet again that you’d found Jesus and run off to join a cult. So much so that I’m often sleep deprived ‘cause I’ve been hanging out with you in hard rock bars where you hope to meet some drummer to drool over. So much so that I agreed to spend two months cleaning the kitchen with vinegar just ‘cause a woman at the market told you it’s healthier. I smelled like pickles for two damned months,” I ended my rant with a deep sigh.

Throughout my little speech, Alex had sat leaning forward in his chair, a fork loaded with eggs held between the plate and his open mouth. He was looking at me as if for the first time. Clenching my teeth, I turned my back on him and frowned at Bethany.

“I want you to tell me what my surprise is now.”

“Ta-
daa,” she announced brightly, producing some small, white pieces of paper from her back pocket, clapping and waving them under my nose.

I reached out, snatched the squares of paper from her and realized they were tickets to a gig. When I saw the name of the band written in big black letters, I shrieked with delight and joined her in jumping around madly.

“I can’t believe it,” I spread out my arms and hugged her tightly, “How did you know?”

“Well duh! You’ve been going on about them for weeks. Black Valentine this, Black Valentine that... when I saw the poster downtown I knew you’d
wanna go.”

“You're the best!”

“Wait, there's more,” she grinned triumphantly, “Look at the tickets, they’re VIP. We can go to the after party too. I was almost first in line.”

Staring at the tickets in my hand, I felt my eyes start to sting a little. The last time anyone had surprised me with a gift this thoughtful, and not out of guilt over hurting me
which was Nikolai’s usual MO, was when my mother had given me the necklace I always wore. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes once with the back of my hand, so that Bethany wouldn’t see me getting emotional, then fixed a happy smile on my face.

“You're just the best,” I repeated softly.

“I know. And for your information, you owe me one! But we’ll talk about that another time. I’m running late.”

Not sticking around a moment longer, she snatched her bag up off the chair and blew me a kiss, breezing out of the kitchen and leaving me alone with Alex. The thud of the front door rang through the apartment a few seconds later.

I set the tickets down and took my half-eaten salad out of the fridge, then sat at the table, intent on eating everything. All the time I was enjoying my breakfast, and then making coffee afterwards, Alex stayed real quiet. I slowly started to sense that something was up.

“What is it? Lost the power of speech?” I asked eventually, looking at him over the rim of my cup.

“No. Just enjoying the peace while it lasts, ‘cause I guess you're going to kick up a fuss when I tell you…” he leaned back in his chair and looked me straight in the eye.

“Tell me what?”

“Going to that gig. Well... it’s not gonna happen.”

“What
?“ I slammed the cup down, splashing coffee on the table.

“You heard me. A huge crowd of people like that’s just too damn dangerous. We can’t risk it.”

“I. Am. Going. To. The. Concert.” I said slowly, emphasizing every word. “And you don’t get to decide about it. "

“I’ve said my piece.”

I watched him pick up a coffee-stained newspaper and start turning the pages while rage ignited in my veins like burning gasoline, sending showers of sparks in front of my eyes. I got up from my chair, and it seemed important to lean across the table and bring our heads level, so that our faces were just inches apart.

“We'll just see
who’s boss around here,” I charged my words with as much menace as I could, an image of myself as John Wayne flashing through my mind.

Staying outwardly composed somehow, I turned around and marched out of the kitchen like a gunslinger, not going back to throw more coffee in his direction, even though the thought occurred to me.

When I got back to my room, I flopped down on the bed face first. If I’d been thinking rationally, I might have understood his point of view, but as things were, I felt crushed under the weight of being told what to do. Going to a concert was maybe a trivial thing, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as I was concerned. I was fed up with being everyone’s puppet and having my strings pulled this way and that.

I grabbed the phone from the table, called Beth and let her in on the plan that had already started to take shape in my mind. After many of my sketchy but desperate–sounding attempts at persuasion, she finally caved in a
nd agreed to get what I needed.

W
hen she hung up I carried the phone through to the living room to position myself on the couch in front of the TV. I glanced furtively towards the kitchen and was pleased to find that Alex was still there. It was important for him to hear the next conversation, so it wouldn’t look like I’d given up without a fight. That would have made him suspicious.

Although Nikolai had told me not to call him unless it was a matter of life and death, I dialed his number and waited for the network to connect me.

“Princess?” I heard Nikolai's worried voice.

“Dad!
Thank God you answered.”

“Are you alright?”

“I'm not alright! I can’t stand this anymore. My life is turning to shit!” I said, injecting more than a little melodrama.

“What happened?”

Sniffling quite a lot, I told him about the Black Valentine concert and the tickets Beth had bought, and explained that Alex had cruelly forbidden it. I knew all the time that Nikolai wouldn’t be swayed by my begging and that he’d side with Alex from the get go. In fact, if things were all up to Nikolai I’d be far away from the city, locked up with a bunch of armed goons. Anyhow, it wasn’t my true aim to get around Nikolai... just to make sure Alex heard every word.

“He’s totally right. It's not safe.”

“But dad...”

“I'm sorry Princess”

“I don’t believe it! You’re both the same!” I hung up and ran back to my room, throwing the door closed with my full force to complete the effect. Then, humming to myself very quietly, I started to get ready for classes.

***

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Beth asked on Saturday night, as she stood over a pot of steaming hot goulash, stirring it absently.