Chapter 33: Savagery
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Alexi and I sat at the gate, waiting for the plane. We did not speak and even the air we breathed had a bittersweet quality. He watched intently for Sasha and held my hand firmly in his own. He stood suddenly when he saw Sasha coming.
"I must go now. I don't want to talk to him"
I stood up beside him. "I know."
He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. "Will you be coming back to Chicago?"
"Are you asking me to?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll see you in September, as soon as the ice opens."
He took one last look past me, straight into Sasha's eyes, piercing even at the distance which separated them. Alexi pulled me to himself roughly as if through sheer force, he could mold my will as he molded my body to his. He kissed me recklessly and savagely. Then he broke free, turned and left in the opposite direction from Sasha.
"Was I supposed to see that?" came a sarcastic question.
"Sasha?! You startled me." He was standing right behind me. "That was nothing I had planned."
"A message from Alexi then."
"Sasha, his heart is breaking."
"That didn't seem like what he was saying to me."
"He was saying, that he is alone."
We sat on those uncomfortable chairs and waited for the plane. The silence between us lay thick, almost suffocating. He took my hand, but I was thoroughly ambivalent. I was absent when he kissed my cheek. I wasn't exactly thinking about anything. I was hurting. I had felt the pain that Alexi was feeling and it consumed my attention. What I felt for me, was guilt.
What Sasha made of my absence, I don't know. Or rather, I do know. It bothered him terribly. He didn't know where exactly I was, but he knew where ever I was, Alexi was there. The plane ride was awful.
Mama was waiting to meet us at Green, she had been planning to take us to lunch, but when she felt the depth of the silence surrounding us she drove home instead. She stopped the car in front of the house. "Why don't you drive Sasha home." She suggested as she got out of the car.
I drove Sasha to his house in the same silence which had enveloped us all day. Being away from Chicago helped. While I was still guilty over hurting Alexi, I no longer felt the pain so distinctly.
Sasha unlocked his house and we stepped inside. It was terribly uncomfortable. I was suddenly all too aware that while I had been absent, Sasha was in his own private hell.
"I... I've... got to go. I know Mama's been missing me." But I hadn't counted on the look in Sasha's eyes. It was hard, cold and hateful. I had my hand on the door knob, but I couldn't turn it as he backed me into the door. I pressed up against the glass doing anything not to touch this frightening stranger who looked out from my Sasha's eyes. He held me cruelly against the door with his body and ravaged my lips with his. I struggled against him, but he was too strong, too determined. One hand fumbled with the buttons on the front of my shirt. He gave up and ripped it right down the front. He touched my bare breast. His fingers were not gentle. I fought him with all the strength I had. It was only moments that it lasted but my lips were free.
"I'm. Going. To. Show. You. Who. You're. With! You won't be thinking of him."
"Sasha, you're hurting me, stop Sasha, please stop." I begged, sobbing. "I don't know why you're doing this. Please stop."
just as quickly as he had attacked me, he moved away, backing off like he was facing a wild animal. My legs were rubber and I slid down the door and huddled in a heap at the foot of it. I pulled my knees up in a ball and covered my head with my hands and sobbed. I could feel the heat of his body kneeling in front of me. His limbs were loose, like a dead man, and from small sounds I did not have to look to know that tears were running down his cheeks.
"Oh God Yelena! What have I done?! I've hurt you. I love you and I never want to hurt you! You were just so quiet and all I could think of all day was you with Alexi, him touching you, making love to you. You wouldn't talk to me and I knew that you were with him in your mind. The more I thought, the angrier I got, angry and sick. I couldn't stand it. I don't know why you came back. You'd better go back to Chicago, I don't want to hurt you again. I just go crazy when I think of losing you!"
"I am going back to Chicago... "
"I knew it!"
"In September, to skate."
"Then you're not in love with Alexi?"
"I'll always love Alexi, but I'm not 'in love' with him, no."
"How could you let me think... "
"I'm not in control of what you think. I've been agonizing over how badly I've treated him and how broken up I know he is. I haven't been aware of you at all. And instead of talking to me about your feelings, you assault me! You hurt me Sasha. I still can't believe it, you are not a brutal man, but you hurt me! I don't want to be with anyone who would force me like that. You were going to rape me."
"I couldn't have. Oh God... I could have! ... Yelena, I'm so sorry. I got so crazy. The more I thought about you and Alexi making love the crazier I got."
"You got crazy over nothing."
"Nothing! I'd say that the woman I love in another man's arms isn't nothing."
"Oh you, the great philosopher! You told me to go to him."
"I know. It was a logical decision and a chance I convinced myself I was willing to take, but my heart isn't going along with it."
I uncurled my legs and sat up. "Sasha, you scare me. There's two things you don't see. First, I'm here. If I wanted to be with Alexi, I'd still be in Chicago. I wouldn't be here. Second, and I don't expect you to know... but I didn't sleep with Alexi, I mean, I slept with Alexi, but only where 'sleep' was the operative word. Alexi Stanachev and I are not lovers. I couldn't do it. I cried my heart out but I couldn't do it. I couldn't make love to him, because the you're the one I love."
"You didn't? Oh no, I've really messed this up."
"Yes, you have."
"Yelena, can we start over? I'm a sorry excuse for a lover, but I'll try to make it up to you."
"Sasha, you're right. You have really messed this up. We had something good going. I never thought in a million years that you would... do what you've done today. I won't let my skating partner beat me up and I won't let you either. I'll tell you what I told him. 'You are just going to have to trust me.' If we can't have trust Sasha, we can't have anything. If I give you another chance, it will be your last one."
I stood up, still feeling shaky and gathered in the ruins of my blouse. "I need to go home now. You need some time to think." I opened the door, only a few inches, because Sasha leaned against it, trying to keep it closed.
"Please don't go."
"I must. I can't stay here." I forced the door open a little more and slipped through with difficulty. I closed it gently. I heard a thump as Sasha slumped back against the door.
"Yelena, come back!" he cried." Yelena! ... ... YELENA!!!"
Text Copyright © 1998-2003 Mary E. Tyler
