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Two AM is dead time in hotel land.

Ani has arrived at this conclusion after repeated observation.

Some guests will show up at 3 AM due to a bad connecting flight. A lot more jet-lagged people check in around 4-5 AM, just when the sky is turning that milky blue color.

But the 2 AM slot is oddly vacant.

True, she has only been working here for five months. And this is the first and only hotel she has worked in, so she has no valuable alternate data for this assessment.

She would definitely fail her Statistics class if she turned this in.  

But she still finds it interesting – this pattern in her night shift.

She sometimes can’t help but compare it to the rhythms of the strip club.

Two AM at the club was not prime time, but it was right after prime time – it was the intimate slow-down, the blitzed after-party unwinding. The groping was more unfocused, the dancing sexier because the girls were less coordinated.  

She’s tempted to write her final paper on this. The teachers often tell them to use their “life experience”. Statistics can only get you this far.

And, after all, both hotels and strip clubs are part of the hospitality business, if you think about it. Ani chuckles when she remembers Lulu back in the day, bragging about sending two guys to the hospital in one night.  

She doesn’t reminisce further. That life ended three years ago. She’s not going to resurrect its dolled-up corpse for a community college credit. She’s going to find something else. She just needs to find it quick, because she’s already abused one extension.

Since two AM is dead time, she uses the front desk computer for studying.

It’s funny; she’s reading about analysis of variance and the acronym given in her textbook is ANOVA. Almost like her actual name, which she doesn’t really use anymore. The name tag pinned to her lapel says Anna and that’s fine by her.

But you stumble across things like that all the time – a harmless acronym in a book – and they take you back to a different time.

The next thing takes her back too.

She hears hyenas laughing in the distance. Leathery, rich animals.

Mouths gaping with sound. Long legs stumbling drunkenly in the foyer. A noisy entourage.

Ani turns cold in her seat.

It’s one of those bad coincidences that can only happen if you work at a chain hotel near an airport.

If she’d got more of a warning, she might’ve slipped into a back office, tried to find someone to replace her.

But there’s no one at this hour. And she got no warning.

The muscled bodyguards make it to the front desk first, but they wait for him and his friends.

His entourage is not that big, actually. Just two other men – boys – with half-buttoned shirts and one greasy-haired girl wearing sandals in November. They howl and bray loud enough to wake the dead.

Normally, she’d say, would you please mind? The other guests are sleeping.

She might even go so far as to issue a warning. Do I need to call security?

But she says nothing this time, only keeps her eyes glued to her computer screen.

It’s very likely he won’t recognize her. Her hair is shorter now, tied back professionally. She’s wearing a pantsuit. Minimal make-up, no fake eyelashes. And it’s been five years.

He was oblivious then. He can’t have changed much.

He hasn’t. Ani catches glimpses as he saunters to the front desk. Still the same raffish hair and boyish limbs. Still a skinny brat, almost malnourished looking, unable to grow body hair. A sort of pathetic reminder that she once made herself believe he could offer her something solid when he can barely stand before her.

“Hiiiii…” He squints dramatically, trying to read her nametag. “Anna? Hellooo, good to be in New York City! Do you have cold champagne? I want champagne on ice.”

Ani starts typing fast in an empty document.

“Good morning. Do you have a reservation?”

Vanya makes a bored face. “Boriiiiis, did you make reservation?”

One of the muscles steps forward. Looks contrite. Says no boss, but he’ll take care of it.

Vanya slaps his hand on the counter, making Ani almost flinch.

He cusses mildly in Russian, but does not seem particularly upset. He steps back to his friends. He keeps talking fast in Russian. Ani can only understand a few words here and there, but she’s pretty sure he’s making fun of her for saying ‘good morning’.

Still a total fucking child, even five years later.

She keeps her face neutral and pleasant as she talks to Boris who hands her what she is pretty sure is fake ID.

But whatever. He pays upfront. And the faster she can hand them the keycards, the better.

Vanya doesn’t wait for Boris or the other goon. He makes a break for the elevators, dragging his friends after him like a spoiled boy with a wayward kite.

Their laughter is soon muffled by the elevator doors.

Ani breathes a small sigh of relief.

All in all, the reunion was anticlimactic. Funny, even. Of course the idiot didn’t recognize her. She looks forward to telling her sister the story tomorrow.

But then – no. She won’t tell her sister.

It was five years ago, but it’s still embarrassing.

It still even hurts sometimes.

So, she simply won’t mention it.

Two twenty-five AM is also dead time in hotel land.

There was a minor burst of activity that almost invalidated her whole theory. But Vanya is a freak accident. A variable you can’t account for.  

Ani tries to go back to studying, though she finds it hard to focus.  

The front desk phone rings. Room 305.

A blast of club music pours into her left ear. Then his voice.

Zamalchi, zamalchi!...Ssst!

He’s trying to tell his friends to shut up. Then he speaks into the receiver.

“Ladyyy, I told you we need champagne on ice!”

Ani inhales. “I’m afraid the bar opens at 6 AM. I will arrange for champagne on ice to arrive first thing –”

“Nooo, come on…we need it now! We are too thirsty.”

“I’m afraid that we are unable to provide –”

“Don’t be like that! Come on, for old times, Aniii, pazhaluysta.”

She feels cold again. Her cheek pressed numbly against the receiver. Did he say her name? No, probably not. He said Anna.

“As I said, the bar is unfortunately closed –”

“Then if you cannot bring champagne, bring me you! Just as good!” he bellows in the phone. “Come on up! Padnimaisya!”

Ani heaves a small sigh. “If you require any specific service, I can write it down for you and I will send staff as soon as we –”

“You talk way too big now, Ani! Big words! Don’t you know me anymore? We’re old friends, eh?”

Ani feels the cold in her teeth. She stares at the pixelated screen. They should really get new computers.

Maybe it’s another bad coincidence.

“Ani? Did you hear me? You remember, don’t you?” he says and laughs throatily. “My pretty zhyonushka.”

Little wife.

“I missed you! Come on up! Come see me! I need you!” he cries out petulantly, as if she were still at his beck and call.

She lowers her voice.

“I’m afraid you have me mistaken, Sir –”

“Don’t be afraid!” he replies stupidly. Not understanding. “No mistake! Nikakoi ashibki nyet! Come upstairs!”

“I really can’t help with –”

“Ani! Look Ani…” he says more quietly. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you. Just come up. Will you?”

What sort of trouble could he cause, she wonders, palm itching, fingers as numb as her cheek.

“You have nice job,” he drawls. “So come up for old times. Old time friends, eh?”

Ani will give him twenty minutes, like the sign she put on the front desk says. Back in twenty minutes.

Not because she owes him that much, but because she likes this job. And this stupid fucking kid will not ruin it for her.

He can’t mess with her anymore.

So, she goes up.

The two muscled guys open the door for her. They’ve shrugged off their coat jackets. Their ill-fitting shirts strain against their bulky frames, making them look burly and ridiculous.

Still daddy’s goons, presumably.

They usher her in.

Vanya is sitting on the couch in a fluffy white bathrobe. He’s pouring a Pepsi into a tall glass, trying not to let cigar ash drop in it. He giggles stupidly.

Ani can’t see anyone else in the adjacent bedroom.

“My friends in Room 306 having threesome,” he says, by way of greeting. “I wanted champagne so I could spray it on them.”

Ani makes a face.

“You liked threesomes before, no?” he asks, smiling up at her, chewing on the cigar end.

She folds her arms. “No. How can I help you?”

Vanya cocks his head back. “You are upset?”

Ani would be surprised by his total lack of awareness, but she’s had five years to get over it.

“I’m busy. I need to get back to work.”

“You’re not thaaat busy,” he drawls. “Hotel empty. You have time to talk a bit.”

She shrugs, unable to deny it. “What do you want to say?”

Vanya looks her up and down. “You look like super business woman. Very serious. Very different. But still garyachaya. Very sexy like this.”

She stares him down coolly. “You look about the same. There’s no smoking indoors.”

He smiles. Carelessly dumps the cigar in the glass of soda. He spreads his arms wide. “I look the same! Still young and wild, you mean!”

She rolls her eyes. She had meant it as a slight. “Sure. Whatever works for you.”

“But I work too!” he says eagerly, misunderstanding. He spreads his legs out. Trying to take up space on the couch. “I work with my father. He put me in charge of telecom company branch. I know big words too like…” He twists his mouth contemptuously. “Energy infrastructure.”

Ani shakes her head. “That’s great. Can I go now?”

“You are not impressed, okay! You’re right, yes, is mostly easy. This is what I find out when I go work for him. I thought it was hard stuff. I thought I was major idiot. But people are really stupid. They don’t care. They just want to rob you.” He cusses mildly in Russian again, shaking his head, as if disappointed the world turned out this way.

He lifts his glassy eyes to hers.

Is this supposed to be some pointed reference to their past? Is it supposed to get a reaction from her?

She gives him nothing.

“That’s how it usually works,” Ani mutters, looking at her wrist watch.

He nods. “They don’t even want to have fun. They want to be rich and…miserable.”

He adds an almost foreign, French twist to the last world.

He smiles at her glibly.

“You and me were not miserable. We knew how to party.”

He says the words quietly, wistfully.  

Ani doesn’t like his quietness.

He has not changed. He’s still got peach fuzz on his cheeks. But there is a sort of arrogant archness in his expression now, as if he won’t be taken for a fool anymore. As if he knows things.

It’s laughable, really.

“Yeah, well. We had to grow up,” she says, turning away from him. “Have a nice evening –”

“Wait, wait!” he says quickly. “Don’t go yet! Come sit down a bit!”

“I can’t –”

“Please! We are not done catching up,” he insists, leaning forward.

The two muscles are currently blocking the door.

But Ani isn’t too concerned. They can’t keep her here. His last goons couldn’t either.  

And Vanya isn’t stupid enough to try.

She heaves a sigh. “What more do you want to say?”

Vanya puts a hand inside his bathrobe. Touches his bare chest, rubs his fingers against the trail of fine baby hair.

“I want to say I missed you.”

Ani snorts, unable to repress it.  

“You don’t believe me!” he cries out. “You must! I missed you, zhyonushka.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“But you were – you are – listen! I am unhappy.” He lays his palm flat against his bare chest. “This life is so boring. I get so bored with work and party and girls and drugs and work again. It’s like, real shit… eta kak ad!”

Hell. Her grandma used to talk a lot about hell. But she called the fucking gulag hell. Not partying and girls.

“I thought you’re still young and wild,” she mutters derisively.  

“My soul is young and wild! But my life no good. I start thinking. When I was really happy?”

Ani rolls her eyes. So this is what this is. It’s almost 3 AM and he’s feeling sorry for himself.

“And I think and I think and I say one night, ah! it’s you, Anechka. I was really happy with you.” He says this grandly, with emphasis, as if she ought to be touched by this confession from the heart.

Then quietly, he adds. “So two years ago I began to uhhh, look you up.”

Ani blinks. Huh?

Two years ago?

“I hired private investigator,” he recites impishly. “I hired two, actually. One to keep an eye on second, haha. It’s a Russian joke. But anyway. They told me you quit strip club. Which I like. I like that you are serious.”

He tilts his head. His lips are bright red. “I think now you were always serious.”   

Ani frowns. She doesn’t quite grasp what he’s saying, or why he’s saying it. Is it all some kind of joke?  

“That’s how I find out about you and that ublyudok Igor.”

Ani stiffens. The name is like a sudden paper cut.  

“Not very nice surprise,” Vanya says, studying her face.

There is no warmth or friendliness in his voice anymore.

“Did you fuck him?”

Ani flinches.

It was brief and sweet, their bond. It was different, because it was pure, she thinks.

She grips the back of the chair in front of her. “None of your business.”

Vanya smiles meanly. “He was not man enough to fuck you, eh?”

“He was more man than you’ll ever fuckin’ be,” she spits out.

And everything comes back in a rush. Her Brighton Beach accent and the glitter in her hair and the resentment she’s carried all this time.  

Verging on hatred.

Vanya smiles widely. “Ahh. Okay. See. That’s why I had him killed.”

Ani’s knuckles whiten as they grip leather. There’s cold spit in her throat. She has trouble swallowing.

She hadn’t heard from Igor in – she tries to figure out the last time they talked –

Vanya bursts into grating peals of laughter. “Your face! Your fucking face! Hahahah, you should see it! You look scared, Ani! You really think – No, don’t be silly.”

Ani breathes out harshly. A fucking joke. Of course it’s all a fucking joke.

“No, no. I just had him deported.”

She stares up at him. “You –”

“They sent him back to Yekaterinburg. Biiiig trouble there for him.” He whistles. “Owes people money. So, maybe dead? I don’t know.”

His careless words land like small blows to the face. She turns her head away, blinded.

“I can find out.” Vanya yawns. “At least you weren’t fucking the Armenians, haha. I got new guys anyway.”

He nods towards the door where the two muscles are still blocking the exit.

“Used to play balshiye pushki in Wagner Group,” he confides with a smirk, imitating the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. “But don’t tell anyone.”

Ani doesn’t know if this is a joke too.

She realizes she was wrong. He is not the same boy she once knew.

He has grown into his privilege.

He no longer resents being a Zakharov. No longer dreams of America and escape.

There is a steely contour to his elfin features – a desire to inflict his privilege on others.

Not by accident, like last time.

Ani inhales sharply. She makes a show of staring at her watch. “I have to go.”

“Nooo, I upset you! I’m sorry, Ani,” he says, sitting up from the couch. “I’m big  mudak for bringing up that stuff. Forget Igor. Look, I want to talk.”

“We’ve talked enough. You’ve said enough.”

“I said I miss you! And I have – I have offer for you.”

She snorts, even though her heart beats too fast. “I am not interested in anything you have to offer.”

He gets up from the couch. He stands before her in the fluffy bathrobe, arms hanging at his side, throat bare. Like a lost child.

No, not lost.

Playing at being lost.

“I have two offers!” he exclaims, raising two fingers. “Let me tell you first. You come to Russia with me and you have good life. Good apartment, very nice clothes. Don’t worry. No marriage! You are free bird. But no sex with other men, okay?”

Ani scoffs. “You are out of your fucking mind.”

“Okay! Okay! I know offer one is too big. So, offer two! In business, you always offer second thing. Smaller thing. You learn that in school, no?”

Ani narrows her eyes. So he knows about her classes.  

“Offer two,” he repeats. “I come see you every time I’m in town. Which is like, twice a year, so not much! Not much! But you get lot of money.”

He pantomimes the smallness of his need by bringing together thumb and forefinger. Then the much larger amount he will offer her.

Ani feels the hatred she’d nursed all these years fill up her mouth to the brim.

“You can go fuck yourself.”

Vanya frowns. Large ridges furrow his forehead. “But it’s not much!”

“Jesus. You’re unbelievable. I would never touch you again.”

He seems struck by that. Not hurt, exactly. But struck, either way.

“But you had no problem before – I’m still good. Healthy. Clean.”

Ani closes her eyes. In many ways, he’s still a child.

“I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

Vanya touches his chest again. “Ah. Because I left you?”

Ani feels like screaming.

“I don’t care about that anymore. I’m glad you left. I can’t stand the sight of you. Okay?”

Her voice is pitched too high. Her mouth too raw. She can feel her lips tingling.

Vanya’s eyes are large and dark. “I’m sorry, Ani.”

She will not fucking cry in front of him.

“Okay,” he says softly. “Third offer. How about just tonight. Or morning. You said good morning.” He smiles.

“What?”

“Just one last time. And I pay you for twenty times.”

“No. Didn’t you hear me –”

“Just one more time! And I pay you two hundred fifty.”

Ani grits her teeth. “Vanya.”

He smiles again. It’s the first time she’s said his name in a long time.

“Thousand, of course. Two hundred fifty thousand. A lot of money.”

She shakes her head. She knows it’s a lot of money.

“Okay, five hundred thousand.”

“You can make it a fucking million and I won’t –”

“Okay! A fucking million! But that’s it!” he yells over her. “Boris! Show her the money.”  

One of the men walks to the jacket he left in the coat hanger and pulls out a big wad of cash from an inside pocket.

“Twenty thousand first now, then the rest,” Vanya explains as the man counts out the bills.  

“Transfer to your account,” Vanya continues, mimicking even more bills pouring into her lap. “For school. For your own house. For sister’s new baby?”

Ani feels cold all over. He knows all this. He knows about Vera and the children and the fact that she still lives with her sister.

“Open your own business, your own hotel!” he flings at her merrily. “Change lives!”

And all she has to do is sleep with him one more time.

All she has to do is that, he explains.

Would it be so bad?

She has done it before.

Many times. Too many times.

Vanya sees the way her face has mottled with anger and grief.

She doesn’t want to cry in front of him.

But it’s getting to a point.

He heaves a sigh. “Fuck. Okay. Okay. Gospadi! I’m not raping you. You can take the twenty thousand and go.”

He takes her hands.

Ani flinches.

He opens her palms and shoves the bills there.

“There. Take it.”

It feels like charity. Because he pities her. Because she’s about to be hysterical.  

“You can have this, okay?” he says, trying to cup her cheek.

Ani turns away violently.

She swallows a sob.

The two men open the door for her.

She sobs over a bathroom sink. Ugly snot trails from her chin.  

You dumb fucking slut.

Why did she take the twenty thousand? She should’ve thrown it in his face.

The crumpled bills are lined up on the counter like sad-looking origami.

She could dump them in the trash, but it wouldn’t be as satisfying. And the cleaning women would ask questions.

And – and it’s twenty grand. She can do something with that amount.

Not much, though.

Maybe pay a quarter of her sister’s debts.

He must know that. This is just to whet her appetite. Because he’s hoping she’s still got those old instincts.

Ani shudders with shame and rage.

She feels like a fucking fool.

She’s studied Statistics for over a semester. What were the fucking chances that he’d end up in her hotel?

That little performance he put on for her at the front desk. Knowing she was tying herself up in knots. This is what kills her. He was in on the joke, and she had no fucking clue. It makes her want to tear her skin off.

She grips the edge of the sink and spits saliva and snot and tears down the drain.

She stares at her blotchy reflection in the mirror.

She wants to hurt him back. She wishes she could.

More than that, she wants that money.

She fucking earned it.

She finds the door halfway open when she drags herself to 305 again.   

Like he was expecting her to come back.

Ani shoves down the rage. She retouches her hair.

His goons usher her in again with blank, uncomfortable stares.

Vanya is looking at his phone and sipping his Pepsi with the cigar still sticking from it.

He puts the glass and phone down.

He stares at her still swollen face.

She has wiped off the make-up.

“You look very nice,” he says, smiling uncertainly.

It’s not a hopeful smile. He knows what she’s come back to do. He’s just not sure how she’ll go about it.

“Tell your guys to get out. Then get on the bed,” she says mechanically.

Vanya almost stumbles as he gets up. “Yes. Of course.”

One of the goons says something fast in Russian.

Vanya scoffs. “She does not have gun or knife. Do you, Aneckha?”

Ani bristles. “If they fucking touch me, I’ll claw their eyes out before I call the police.”

Vanya grins. “Ohooo. Maybe you have knife. I like it. You heard the lady! Get out!”

The two men exchange a meaningful glance. But they step outside. They close the door behind them.

Ani knows they’d rush back in if they heard anything other than fucking.

She intends to make this quick.

“I want to see one hundred thousand wired to me first.”

Vanya is not dampened by her request. He picks up his laptop from a nearby chair.

“Give me your IBAN and SWIFT code,” he says with relish. Like he’s done these transactions before, because of course he has. Daddy put him in charge of a whole branch.

She almost recognizes the happy patience in his voice, the childish joy of knowing you’ll soon get what you want.

Like knowing you’ve ordered a warm meal that is on its way.

Ani watches him type fast. His throat moves hungrily.

He lies down on the bed like a kid waiting for Santa.

He lets the bathrobe fall open.

His scrawny body is slightly fleshier than she remembered. His cock is already hard, which at least makes her work easier.  

Ani wishes she’d worn a skirt. She takes off her trousers and panties as if she were preparing for a clinical exam.

Then she walks over to him.

“I’m not rolling a condom on for you, so you better do it yourself.”

Vanya licks his lips and nods. He takes out the little package from the bathrobe pocket.

All ready to go.

Probably ready since she first came up to see him.

She clenches her jaw.

“I’m going to straddle you. And I’m not gonna change positions. We’re done once you come.”

Which was always fast enough, so she is not exactly worried. In fact, this will be easy, she thinks.  It has to be.

In spite of everything, she can still fuck this kid without breaking a sweat.

That should make her feel worse, maybe.

But she’s not going to analyze it while she’s in this room.

She crawls up and over him. It feels familiar, although she’s never fucked him with a coffee-stained office shirt on before.

She grabs his cock. Does not pause to feel the new weight of it that five years has given him. Like adjusting a tampon on a heavy-flow day, she inserts him in.

Vanya hisses and cusses softly, falling back.

And she hisses too.

She shuts her eyes in discomfort. She hasn’t done this in a while.

And he’s bigger than she remembered. Still fucking growing somehow.

She quashes the beginning of panic. She just has to find her old confidence.    

She doesn’t understand what he’s mumbling in Russian as he’s gripping her hips, but she’s pretty sure he’s using diminutives for her pussy.

She wants to barf. But she powers through the discomfort. Finds that she has not entirely forgotten the rhythms that got him off quick and easy.   

She rests a hand on his taut, sparsely-haired belly and she stares up at the ceiling as she rides him efficiently to release.

She’s still got it.

It shouldn’t take long now.

Vanya’s hands come up to her shoulders. They try to drag her down on top of him.

Ani ignores him. She tries to shove his arms away.

But he sits up. He brings his hands to her face.

Ani tries to shake him off again, but he’s suddenly gripping her head. Trying to bring her mouth close.

He wants to kiss her, she realizes.

Ani swivels away angrily, panting. “Let go.”

But he’s stronger than he was five years ago. He grips her head to him. He leans in and pushes his mouth against her mouth without minding that she’s still saying no. He shoves his tongue in, while keeping her head still.

Ani screams and moans and wrestles in his hold. She bites down on his tongue.

He only halfway retreats, licking and sucking on her lips messily, making her remember the taste of their sloppy, adolescent kisses. And even though she can taste a bit of blood, he tries to stick his tongue in her mouth again.

She pushes him off roughly. “I’ll fucking stop if you don’t –”

Vanya’s hands are on her neck and shoulders and they grip hard. And try to bend her. She loses track of the sentence.

She comes down, or he drags her down. Not on top of him.

Under him.

Ani sees the giant bathrobe falling over her, like warm, suffocating snow.

And he slides from the fluffy covering like a newly hatched creature.

His hard limbs keep her down. One hand on her hip, pushing up her knee, the other in her hair, tangling at the roots.

His lower lip is stained dark.

She can’t seem to move. He’s so fucking heavy. And he keeps thrusting, slowly, jaggedly, like a broken toy.

It’s not the rhythm she established.

“V-Vanya –”

His face is white and rosy and beautiful.

She can see it really up close because he’s forcing her to kiss him again, he’s opening her mouth with teeth.

She turns her head away. He licks and sucks a trail down her cheek. He slides his tongue in her ear.

Ani recoils and whimpers. Her stomach roils.

He raises her hip higher, placing his fingers in the crook of her knee, dragging it against his waist in a back-and-forth motion that drags him deeper inside her.

Ani feels like there’s a fist in her throat.

She puts her hands on his neck, tries to get him off her. She grips the hairs at his nape, but all he does is moan happily, lustily, in a voice she almost does not recognize as he buries his nose in her hair.  

“You fucking asshole!” she hisses as he bears down on her with even more weight. “You fucking asshole, I didn’t agree to this –”

Vanya lifts his head. His face is pink and childlike with sweat.

“It’s okay,” he says, panting softly, “Not hurting you.”

“Yes, you are! Get the fuck off!”

Her voice trembles as she feels her stomach brushing against his, tightening with tension, and her legs being splayed open.

“Not hurting you,” he repeats. “Not raping you.” Because he had told her he wouldn’t. And as long as he said it, it was true. “Making you feel good.”

“I don’t feel good,” she mumbles, half-groaning with the effort of keeping her voice even.

“You were fake before when we…” he trails off, the hand in her hair caressing her forehead. Cupping her skull, protecting it from hitting the headboard. Because he’s going at it a little unsteady now. And each bump of her head against his palm makes her whimper.

 “You think I was totally stupid,” he says, not harshly, not scolding. Merely letting her know. “I notice you were fake. You moaned a lot and you moved a lot. But that was it.”

Ani swallows the warmth in her mouth, but it pools and pools endlessly, making her sick with shame. Because she feels it building up worse than a fever.    

“I wasn’t – I wasn’t fake. Not all the time. You didn’t notice that.”

He nods eagerly. “I like fake before. I want real now. I like telling me to stop. I like you bossy. I like you serious business woman.”

He makes a rough sound as he pulls out of her.

Ani feels the strange absence, the simmering wetness between her legs, craving friction, and then she feels his hands and his knees, rolling her over. Flipping her on her stomach.

She tries to grab something – a pillow.

Vanya bends down and bites the apple of her buttocks and Ani shrieks in shock. He slaps it playfully, watching the flesh tremble. He slaps it again. He slides his hand down between her cheeks.

And just as she maneuvered him earlier, he lifts her hips and opens her up in order to get himself inside her.

But unlike her, he lingers a little. He rubs the hood of her wet cunt eagerly, muttering to himself something about her little kiska begging for his cock. He is enjoying the stropping sound of her almost coming, the way her thighs twitch helplessly. Out of control.

Ani moans as he sinks in. She feels her eyelids growing sticky wet.

“But still bit of hooker in you,” he says, groaning as he bottoms in her. As he watches her take all of it. “Still a slut for me.”

Ani cries out. Angry sobs choke her moans.

“S-stop. Fucking stop.”

“Yes, do that,” he groans, pulling her closer, encouraging her to fight him.

He puts his hand under her blouse which is soaked and glued to her skin.

He tries to tear off the buttons, though he can’t reach them well.

“You want me to get it off you?”

She gasps. “N-no, fuck off, don’t you fucking dare –”

She’s afraid he’ll ruin her good office shirt.

So she unbuttons it herself with shaking fingers. Vanya doesn’t seem to care either way. Once there’s access to her bra, he sinks his hands inside the cups sloppily, fondling her small tits and pressing them against his palms, shoving the rest of the bra down, its wiring scraping flesh.

Ani feels the unbearable rosy heat of his body as he pins her to him, hands keeping her from thrashing, groping forcefully in time with his shuddering thrusts.

And she thinks of Igor briefly trying to restrain her all those years ago. Gagging her and tying her up because she was so strong for someone so small.

She sobs as she wishes it were him doing this to her right now.

But that would not be in Igor’s character. He was always gentle, even when he couldn’t afford to be.

And Vanya has always been – like this, deep down.

He asks her if it’s good.

He asks her again.

Ani sobs as she denies it.

But her whimpers are little hums of terror because when she hears his pettish little snarl in perfect English – such a good fucking slut, I know you like it –  her mouth can’t say no.

She feels trapped in badly shot amateur porn. This will be someone’s blackmail for the Zakharov family in the future.

And she will have acted the part all too well.

But she doesn’t give a shit anymore. He’s never made her feel like this in all the time they were together. And she really wants to fucking come.

She almost drools out the words, tries to swallow them back clumsily – mphhh-fuck, hnn, fuck yes, good fuckin’ slut nnnnfuck –  because that's maybe all she is as she twitches and flares and goes up in white hot flames.

She screams hoarsely into the pillow as her walls drag him in. She feels all of the things she carried with her for the past five years leaking out of her. And she moans feverishly as she gushes around his cock, wishing it were out of her so she could come more, so she could flush it all out.

But he stays stubbornly inside her because he does not want to come on her tits or her ass, he says.

And Ani feels the juddering weight of him, the quivering mass of a boy who has lasted too long, who has pushed himself to the brink, and who thinks he deserves a big reward. He comes inside her with a bleating little growl, reminding her of his youth, and he grips her hips as he coats her womb, the warm, sticky sensation making her tingle all over with shame and want.

And then she recalls hazily that he was wearing a condom.

Had been wearing one when she straddled him.

She says nothing for a while, only breathes harshly into the pillow.

Vanya bends down and kisses her hair, then rolls down next to her.

They rest like that for a long time, it seems.

“You took off the condom,” she says quietly, not facing him.

Vanya lifts his head. “Eh? No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You took it off.”

“No.”

“I felt it. You came inside me,” she says.

“Inside condom,” he replies lazily.

Ani shoves two fingers inside her swollen cunt. She turns around in bed and shows him his cum gliding down her knuckles.

“So what the fuck is this?”

And then she sees his red cherub mouth break into a guilty grin. Peter Pan tricking Wendy.

“Oops.”

She doesn’t have the energy to be as angry as she ought to be, although she tells him he’s a fucking bastard.

His defense is rich.

“Look. I don’t do that with other women. I always fuck with condom. But not you.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to be fuckin’ special?”

And he nods solemnly, like it’s some sort of heartfelt declaration.

“Don’t need protection with my zhyonushka.”

“I’m not your fucking wife!” Okay, she’s finding the energy to be properly angry now. “Jesus, you’re a such a fucking dickhead. You’re sending one of your goons to get me plan B right now.”

Vanya smiles rosily. “And then maybe breakfast?”

It’s only 4 AM, so they eat the complementary snacks from the minibar.

Vanya pours her a glass of ice tea like a gentleman.

He tells her he will be wiring the other hundred thousand a bit later that day.

Ani stares at him. She’s sitting there in her panties and half-torn bra. “So. It wasn’t worth the full million?”

He grins. “Yes but. I cannot wire you million just like that. But we can get to  million.”

Meaning, of course, that they just need to do this a few more times.

Ani glares. “You are going to add an extra fifty thousand for the condom bullshit. All right?”

Vanya lifts his hands. “Okay. Okay. All in good time.”  

Part of her knew he would haggle. He is cheap and selfish, when you come down to it.

But he doesn’t want to look cheap and selfish.

Still, two hundred fifty thousand, plus the extra twenty thousand she got earlier, is good money. It’s a start.

It doesn’t weigh too heavily on her. Not yet, anyway.

And whatever he thinks, this won’t happen again.

She will scrub herself clean in a few hours.

Vanya drums his fingers against the couch. “Come here. Sit with me.”

She is inclined to say no.

But she is still waiting for the goons to come back with the pill.

4 AM is not dead time in hotel land. She’s been gone for too long.

Ani plops down next to him with a sigh. “I’m probably getting fired.”

“I give you money, so it’s nothing,” Vanya says, putting his arm around her. To him, it really is nothing. “I just find you at next hotel.”

Ani frowns. “I will probably not work at a hotel for a while.”

He shrugs. “Then where you are. I will find you.”

He has given the words no inflection – no sweet or romantic note.

It may sound like poetry, but he’s just planning future hook-ups.

Or maybe there's a more sinister bent to it, but she won't think about it until days later when she gets a message from him on her phone. And she'll remember she never gave him her private number.  

For now, she leans her head on his shoulder, oblivious and tired. 

They used to sit like this so often. He’d be playing a video game while she lazed in his lap. And it would feel boring and cozy.

Ani shakes her head. “I don’t want you to find me.”

“Ok. Mother tells me marriage is like that.”

“Like what?”

But Vanya doesn’t know. Does not recall. He laughs. He’s just happy to take from her, in the moment.

Ani smiles too. She is glad that she sold his wedding ring – the one Igor gave back to her after the annulment.

She lifts her left hand up, staring at it in the warm lamp light.

In this moment, she feels proud, and oddly touched, that her fingers are bare.