Something wrong with Rozanov

TOTAL – Blinding the Eyes (B'et po glazam)

Moscow, July 2008

Angela, without even realizing it, had made a monumental contribution to the construction of Ilya’s self-esteem and the awakening of his sexuality. He knew that most of the guys his age were nothing but wanker-virgins who could only dream of someone like Angela in their wildest fantasies; Ilya, however, had the honor of putting his cock in her mouth and receiving flattering compliments about being well-endowed for his age. It was so magnificent that he felt more inclined to keep it a secret than to tell a soul – Rozanov suspected that people simply wouldn't believe him, and he would end up looking like a pretentious blowhard. Of course, he could break anyone’s kneecaps for such rumors if necessary, but he had little desire to get tangled up with his dim-witted, worthless peers during his final year of school. His belief in his own superiority and omnipotence was so ironclad that Ilya saw no point in proving anything to anyone – among those pimple-faced losers, there wasn't a soul who could touch him. His hockey career had also suddenly taken off, even though Ilya had grown considerably cold toward his practice in recent months, training – as it seemed to him – at half-throttle. He stopped worrying about what his teammates would say, or whether the coach would scream at him or praise him, and simply hammered the puck with his stick, netting goal after goal. Everyone knew, saw, and expected Ilya to take first place in the autumn JHL (Junior Hockey League) competitions, and after that, if things went well, his path would lead to the West. That is how contact with a woman’s body affects a man’s self-esteem and performance. Thank you for that, dear Angela. She, as Ilya later learned, married a classmate in the middle of her sophomore year. A shotgun wedding. Inspired by his son’s successes and prospects, Grigory Rozanov eventually loosened his grip, pestering Ilya less often with orders to shave, get a haircut, or iron his clothes before going out. All Ilya had to do was nod obediently when his father spoke about preparing for the junior league trials and not skip the summer team practices, which started in July this year, after a general break throughout June. The future was bright, cloudless, and prosperous. Everything in it was perfect, except for one tiny, nagging detail: the choice of this specific future wasn't Ilya’s. Everyone but him had a hand in deciding the tracks his life would run on: his father, the coach, the former goalkeeper Vetrov, the team, and his schoolteachers and classmates who envied him – some kindly, some out of spite. He was a source of pride and respect. At the end of every school year, he was reverently awarded crested certificates of merit for his contribution to the sporting achievements of the school, the district, and even all of Moscow, despite the fact that his grades in math, literature, and physics left much to be desired. Ilya knew what they said behind his back: they called him an upstart, gossiped about his poor academic record and the galling leniency of the teachers, but they smiled and played along to his face because they were afraid to judge him openly. Everyone vividly remembered the fate of one of his former buddies, who spent a week and a half after their first fight with cotton plugs shoved up his nose. As graduation approached, the children-turned-teenagers thought more often about perhaps the most difficult and important decision that would define their lives – if not forever, then certainly for the next five years. The girls saw themselves as pediatricians, veterinarians, biologists, or lab technicians; the boys wanted to be engineers, programmers, miners, or businessmen. Future students loved to discuss which university they would apply to. When Ilya was asked this question, he would simply shrug and say: "I’m just going to play hockey." There was no turning back from professional sports, he understood. It meant he would be playing hockeyforeveruntil his career ended, and after that, he’d become a coach. This inevitable fate stirred neither fear, nor trembling excitement, nor delight in him. It already lay in the palms of his hands; all he had to do was live long enough for it to come true. He only felt a slight bitterness at the thought that on the remote control managing the flow, meaning, and shape of his life, someone else was always pressing the buttons. Sometimes he pondered this as he walked slowly from the metro to his house after training, kicking small stones with the dusty toe of his sneaker. It was, of course, better than following in his older brother's footsteps. It was ironic that the young beat cop, who had barely finished police academy and started his service at the precinct, was hiding baggies of amphetamine and GHB wrapped in several layers of tape at home. Aleksey stole them from the evidence locker – the CCTV in that room worked only intermittently – and then resold them to local junkies or planted them during arrests to hit his quarterly quotas. He often hit the stuff himself – Ilya knew this because by age seventeen he had learned to tell from the color of the eye sockets and the diameter of quivering pupils when his brother came home zooted. Despite this, his service in the Militsiya and the rank of junior lieutenant made Aleksey a source of pride for their father: sometimes Grigory even held the older brother up as an example to Ilya, because he served for the good of the Motherland and protected the law-abiding citizens of the Hero City of Moscow. The younger Rozanov found it hilarious, but he didn't show it, no longer feeling any jealousy for his father’s unattainable approval. The thought that he might never achieve recognition, even standing on the top tier of a national podium, had become habitual and mundane – like brushing his teeth in the morning. That’s how it had always been, and that’s how it would always be. That was that.

***

The sweltering July mercilessly flooded Moscow with scorching rays, heating the stone sidewalk tiles and softening the asphalt. Not far from the training center where Ilya practiced with his team stood an ice cream kiosk. He and the guys would run to it during lunch breaks, chipping in their small ruble notes and coins to buy ice cream for everyone, including the coach, just to cool down a bit. "Pyotr Semyonovich, this is for you," said a breathless Ilya, appearing at the door of the coach's office. In his hands, he held two waffle cups of crème brûlée flavor – one for himself and one for the coach. "Wait, where is he?" The coach wasn't in the office. A guy Ilya didn't recognize was sitting at his desk, lounging with his feet – clad in red suede sneakers – propped up on the edge of the windowsill. A desk fan blew air in his face, oscillating back and forth, lifting strands of his shiny, dark-brown bangs. "Pyotr Semyonovich is out," the youth replied. He sat with his back to Ilya and his face to the window, as if tanning through the glass. "He’ll be back soon." Ilya took a hesitant step inside and said: "And you?" He meant to ask, "Who are you and what are you doing here?" but to his own surprise, he cut himself off mid-sentence. The guy lounging at the coach's desk lazily turned his head and looked at Ilya over his shoulder: brown eyes stared searchingly straight into Rozanov's. "His son," the guy in the red sneakers replied. He took his feet off the windowsill, stood up unhurriedly, and approached Ilya, extending his hand for a greeting. Sitting at the desk, he had looked smaller – it turned out he was only about half a head shorter than Ilya. "Sasha." "Ilya," he replied, biting the edge of one of the ice cream wrappers with his teeth to free his hand for the handshake. Their fingers touched: Ilya's palm was damp and cold from the frozen treat; Sasha's palm was moist and warm from the sun. "You're Rozanov?" The guy named Sasha gave a crooked smile, pulled the ice cream intended for his father out of Ilya's mouth, and began to open it. Ilya watched his hands and nodded: "We didn't get any for you." "Nothing, he won't mind," Sasha replied mockingly, touching his tongue to the mound of ice cream in the waffle cup. His dark brown eyes continued to watch Ilya’s, intently and with interest. "My father talks about you all the time." "Yeah?" Rozanov began to unwrap his own portion; it was melting fast from the heat and his warm hands. "He says you show great promise," Sasha returned to his father's desk and sat down, stretching his legs. "I'm quoting." "Cool." Ilya didn't know what else to say, so he added: "I’ve never seen you here before." Sasha laughed. "Yeah, because I don't play hockey. Sports aren't my thing." Ilya's eyes widened in surprise. He finally walked into the office and sat on the chair on the other side of the desk. "Your father’s the coach, and you don't play?" "Well, yeah. He wanted to sign me up for hockey when I was a kid, but my mom talked him out of it." Something clicked quietly in Ilya’s mind. He remembered a similar dialogue between his own parents once; they had fought bitterly, and Ilya had heard everything. He looked at Sasha like an exotic animal in a cage, or conversely, like a caged animal looking at a large two-legged creature for the first time. "I see," Ilya replied, and Sasha suddenly laughed again. "Not much of a talker, are you?" he said, crumpling the ice cream wrapper and tossing it toward the trash can, missing. Ilya nodded silently, again offering no reply, which only emboldened Sasha further. He laughed loudly, covering his mouth with his palm. Ilya didn't know whether to take it personally. "Rozanov!" a stern male voice boomed from the doorway. The coach appeared, red from the heat, his forehead glistening with sweat. "Why are you sitting around? Get outside – five-kilometer run, and that’s it for today. Move it, come on!" Ilya finished the rest of the melted ice cream in one bite and waved to Sasha, who watched him walk to the door with a satisfied look. Sasha called after him: "See you."

***

Sasha hadn't lied. He showed up again a week later, just as Ilya and his team were finishing an evening strength training session. Standing by the exit, Sasha waited for Rozanov, who had again been left to clean the gym – he had to return the dumbbells and kettlebells to the rack and straighten the bench press stations. "My father is hard on you," Sasha said, waiting until they were the only ones left in the gym. "But he only acts like that with people he respects." "To hell with that kind of respect," replied a soaked, breathless Ilya, sliding a 25-kilogram plate onto the rack. "Hey." "I'd offer to help, but you see," Sasha sat on the edge of a bench, "I don't want to." "Pleasure doing business with you," Ilya smirked. "What are you doing here?" "Waiting for you." Ilya froze, holding a heavy barbell, and looked at Sasha questioningly. "I owe you an ice cream. I thought, why not take a walk after your workout?" He lay down on the bench, arched his back, and aligned himself so the empty bar was directly over his eyes. After five quick reps, he racked the bar. "Nah, this is total bullshit. I don't get why you guys do this. So, are you busy?" "No. I need fifteen minutes to shower." "I'll meet you outside then." The sun, dipping behind a distant line of grey apartment blocks, painted the sky in a red-orange gradient that slowly faded into a darkness peppered with tiny stars. Sasha bought Ilya a large ice cream and a sausage-in-dough – after training, Ilya was ravenous and bolted the snack in two bites. While Ilya ate, Sasha told him about growing up in the family of a former pro-hockey player and current coach: how he was almost enrolled in hockey school, just like Ilya, then they wanted to put him in tennis, but it never stuck. As it turned out, Sasha had been drawn to art since childhood and began drawing well at age seven, so his mother insisted on art school. In two months, near the end of September, he was moving to Paris to study at an institute for interior design and decorative arts. "My father, as you can imagine, wrote me off a long time ago," Sasha shrugged and lit a cigarette, offering one to Ilya. Ilya took it. "But he’s paying for school, so I won’t complain. What about you? What are you going to do?" Ilya nearly choked. "What do you think? I don't know how to do anything but swing a stick. I mean, literally nothing." "Do you want to go to the NHL?" "Probably, yeah. My father wants me to stay here and play for a Moscow team, but the coach will likely ship me off to the States or Canada." "I’ve heard about your dad – tough guy. He’s military, right?" "A cop," Ilya blew a stream of smoke away from himself and Sasha. "Well, he's a policeman. He’s retired. He’s nearly seventy." "And your mom?" "Housewife," Rozanov replied quietly, pausing for two deep drags. Clouds gathered overhead like a thick, dirty-grey mist, shrouding the black evening sky. The first heavy drops of a coming storm landed on the boys' shoulders. The hot, steam-filled air breathed the warm scent of road dust pinned down by the scorched asphalt. Ilya and Sasha took shelter from the rain under the glass awning of a lone bus stop, hidden beneath the lush green canopies of maples. Sasha sat on the thin wooden bench and lit another cigarette; Ilya sat beside him. "This is the last one," he said to Ilya, handing him the lit cigarette. They passed it back and forth between drags. "Do you have a girlfriend?" "No," Ilya shook his head. "You?" "No," Sasha replied. "And I doubt I ever will." Ilya turned to face him and silently raised his eyebrows. "Rozanov, can you keep a secret?" Ilya only shrugged but watched Sasha intently, expectantly. "I don't really like girls. I mean, I’ve been with girls, different ones, even two at once, but I play in a different league. You get me?" Sasha avoided the word "gay" at all costs – primarily so as not to spook Ilya. Throughout their walk, Ilya had been staving off this moment, and finally, he coughed on the tobacco smoke, which mixed with the ozone scent of the storm. Rain hammered the roof, and thunder rumbled in the distance. "Why are you telling me this?" "I don't know," Sasha said thoughtfully. "I feel like you might understand, I guess." "Why on earth would I?" Ilya was indignant. "When you're not like everyone else, you sense that difference in other people. It’s just a feeling. I don't know how to explain it." "Absolute bullshit. What if I tell everyone?" Sasha’s lips curled into a sly smile. "You won't. And even if you do, what do I care? No one knows me here, and I'm leaving soon. For a long time. You know what? Go ahead, tell everyone." "I'm not telling anyone," Ilya grumbled. He finished the cigarette with a final drag and flicked the butt toward the bin. "You're fucked up." "That’s true," Sasha laughed again with his quiet, thin laugh. "I’m also curious. Haven't you ever been curious about what you're capable of?" "No. I'm normal." "Are you sure?" Rozanov decided the conversation was pointless and was about to leave, but a cool palm landing on his bruised knee stopped him. Sasha's other palm, equally cool and dry, cupped his cheek; a second later, Sasha's lips touched Ilya's. He held Ilya's face with his thumb under the jawline; Ilya's skin heated up rapidly under this strange touch. The kiss was slow and deliberate. Ilya had already forgotten what it was like to kiss. Sasha's saliva tasted slightly salty and of the cigarette they had shared. A dozen seconds stretched into an eternity while the mechanism inside Ilya Rozanov's head processed and digested what was happening; instinctively, he parted his mouth, allowing Sasha’s hot tongue to penetrate deeper. Lightning flashed: Ilya opened his moist eyes slightly and saw Sasha's face. His eyes were tightly shut, his long eyelashes quivering. Then a loud click echoed in his mind, like a snapping spring. "Fuck," Rozanov hissed, shoving Sasha away so hard the other boy hit the glass wall of the bus stop. Ilya hurriedly threw his gym bag over his shoulder and left without a word – not even truly remembering which way he was supposed to go. His lips and lower abdomen burned and pulsed. As he walked away, he felt Sasha's brown eyes boring into his back. He was definitely smiling, Ilya knew it – that wicked, kitten smile. Returning home, Ilya locked himself in his room and lay curled in a ball on his bed until he fell asleep. By morning, he decided that everything that had happened the night before was just a dream. There had been no walk with Sasha, no kiss in the dark under the glass roof while the July storm drummed away, and Ilya certainly hadn't felt the erection that followed that non-existent kiss.

***

Sasha didn't show up at hockey practice for two or three weeks. Every weekday, Rozanov would approach the training center, slowing his pace as if walking to the scaffold, rehearsing what he would do and say if Sasha suddenly appeared. The safest bet was to do nothing and just ignore him, or settle for a nod and a handshake. But what if he told everyone himself? Sasha was leaving soon; he wouldn't be in the city for years except for short winter breaks. He didn't give a damn about any of it. Thinking about this, Ilya felt his heart race – from the terror of everyone finding out, and from a gnawing envy, because Sasha didn't care in his soul what anyone said or thought. An entire universe lay before him, and Sasha decided where to go and what to try. He could try women, try men, and it didn't spark a war of internal conflicts or contradictions; he didn't spend his time wondering if he was "normal." In Ilya's world, that was an unaffordable luxury. Sasha seemed to be looking down on him, mocking him with his crooked, beautiful mouth. It was infuriating; Ilya had been outmaneuvered in the one area where he could never, under any circumstances, succeed. He thought constantly about what had happened between them, and the more he thought, the angrier he became. "I feel like you might understand, I guess" – it sounded like a curse spoken in Sasha’s voice. In the third week after the incident at the bus stop, Ilya tried turning on gay porn for the first time – the first video he found – and it was one of the most disgusting things he had ever seen. But, at least, life had stopped being so boring. This summer, the last before graduation and the JHL competitions, had stopped being dull. He only reappeared in mid-August. Sasha followed his usual pattern: sitting in his father's office until the end of practice, then hiding in the storage room on the way to the weight room to avoid his father in the corridor, watching until the whole team headed for the showers. Ilya, as captain, was always the last to leave the gym, cleaning up and turning off the lights. "Rozanov," Sasha called out, appearing in the doorway. "You can't hide from me." Ilya heard the familiar voice and squeezed his eyes shut with anxiety – good thing his back was to the door, and Sasha couldn't see. For some reason, his heart rate spiked. He remembered how Angela had called out to him from behind a few months ago. They had later texted, walked in the park, and fucked when her parents and younger brother went to the dacha. With her, it had been different, completely different. His heart had pounded then, of course, but in a different rhythm, without skipping beats. "I'm not hiding from anyone," he replied as calmly as he could, continuing to move the bench press stations, which still bore sweat marks from the boys' backs. "Didn't you miss me?" Sasha’s voice was getting closer; Ilya could feel it between his shoulder blades. "Piss off," Ilya snapped, turning around sharply. Sasha was right in front of him. He wore a white linen shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest, frayed denim shorts, and those same red suede sneakers. His skin was tanned and smelled of something fresh and citrusy, like seawater with a squeeze of lemon. "Well, I missed you," Sasha whispered, leaning in for a kiss. They were standing in a brightly lit gym, the door wide open, a long dark corridor leading to it – they could be seen from the other end of the floor, Ilya knew this well. He tried to breathe to muffle the pulse thumping furiously in his throat, making him nauseous. The feeling was like a devastatingly thrilling adrenaline rush when you score a winning goal in the final second and take the cup, beating the opponent by a single point. "You smell like a racehorse," Sasha said, pulling back slightly. He ran his palm over Ilya's sweat-soaked neck; Ilya shuddered visibly. "I like it." Rozanov was afraid to open his eyes and stood with his arms at his sides, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world – a schoolboy about to have his head dunked in a dirty toilet by a senior. He let Sasha's lips touch his; the other boy clearly knew better how to kiss a guy. "This is wrong," Ilya swallowed hard. "But it’s interesting," Sasha replied, taking half a step back. "Isn't it?" Ilya nodded, surprising himself. He tried his best to stay cool, but his ragged breathing and the prominent bulge in his gym shorts gave him away lock, stock, and barrel. "Is anyone home?" Sasha asked after a long pause. Ilya wasn't sure: his brother was definitely out, he’d been living with his fiancée for years; his father, in his old age, had found a new flame around New Year’s who was barely half his age, and he sometimes stayed at her place for days. He and Grigory kept in touch through rare calls and texts. "No," Ilya replied. "I think no one's there." Sasha curled his lips into a smile. "What are you standing around for then?" he said through a laugh. "Go shower and get ready. I’ll wait for you outside." Sasha called a taxi. When Ilya stepped out of the training center, a black foreign car with a checkerboard on the roof was already waiting, hazards blinking. They sat in the back seat in silence, their knees briefly touching. On the way, Ilya gathered his courage and dialed his father; he replied that he wouldn't be home tonight. His father's habitually stern voice echoed from the receiver – Sasha heard everything and placed his hand on Ilya's thigh with silent approval. "No one will know. Okay? Don't worry." Ilya barely remembered how they climbed to his floor and tumbled into the apartment, unable to pull apart for even a centimeter. Sasha's white linen shirt was tossed toward the bathroom; two pairs of sneakers flew to different ends of the dark hallway. Everything felt unreal, illegal. Sasha's heavy breathing, like a wounded animal's, was the only thing Ilya could hear. "Without that stupid hockey uniform, you're beautiful – just insanely beautiful," Sasha murmured as they fell onto Ilya's unmade bed, clutching each other. Rozanov found himself drawing parallels to how it had been with Angela – they had kissed tenderly and clinically, like a textbook, overcoming shyness; Sasha, however, seemed to be going mad, gripping Ilya by the jaw and under the Adam’s apple through countless kisses. Where had he learned this? His touch turned Ilya’s brain and skin to ice. Sasha pulled two condoms from his back pocket and tossed them on the bed. "Don't worry, you’ll be on top," he slid his lips down Ilya's stomach, kissing and nipping the thin skin through quiet laughter, and pulled off Ilya's shorts and underwear. Ilya closed his eyes, unable to bear the reckless thrill mixed with fear and denial. The physically painful arousal resolved in less than a minute; Ilya tried to pull Sasha's head away from his member, but Sasha held on tight. Coming in his hot, yielding throat, Ilya realized that, apparently, a man knows better how to feel another man’s body.If it feels the same for girls when they sleep together? "I need to be stretched," Sasha wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and flopped down next to Ilya – who was breathing heavily, staring at a single point on the ceiling. "I don't need to... you too..." Ilya shut up, not knowing how to ask what he wanted to ask. "Suck me? Not necessary. Later, if you want." He was mumbling something about how there was nothing to worry about because he’d used an enema, that Ilya wouldn't be hurt – only Sasha would probably hurt because he hadn't had a dick this thick before – and that they needed lube. Ilya didn't understand; it was like spat-out fragments of some mysterious truth he’d only just discovered. "There’s baby cream," Ilya whispered, pulling Sasha’s face close for a kiss. "On the nightstand." "Baby cream, seriously?" Sasha reached for the nightstand and smiled that wicked smile again; his saliva-slicked teeth flashed in the dark. "Fine, it’ll do. Do as I say." He squeezed a crooked snake of chamomile and glycerin-scented cream onto Ilya's fingers, lay on his side, and backed his rear into Ilya's stomach. "Lube it up a bit and press with one finger. You’ll know when you can add a second. Don't be afraid." Ilya was scared to death. In the viscous, heated darkness, he felt the backside with the pale tan lines from swim trunks, ran his fingers between the cheeks, and pressed the tip of his finger against the tight muscle of the anus. Rozanov had no idea how his dick could fit in such a narrow place. Sasha threw his head back a little as it lay on Ilya's forearm. His hips twitched toward the fingers; that must have been the signal. He gradually became softer and moaned as Ilya, moving two fingers inside him now, pressed against the smooth, soft mound at the level of the middle phalanx. Ilya's body reacted to the moans and muffled exhalations much faster than his mind could, as it replayed an endless sequence of torn thoughts about how everything they were doing was a very bad idea. He tore the condom with his teeth and got stuck for a few seconds, unsuccessfully trying to roll it down the length of his penis. "Don't be afraid," Sasha repeated, reaching a hand between his back and Ilya's stomach to guide the tip against his rear.Did he say that to himself or to me, Ilya suddenly thought. More thoughts were gone. Something inside Ilya's skull flipped a switch that was responsible for cognitive processes, reflection, conscience, and the perception of right and wrong. What was happening lay far beyond the usual coordinates of meaning. They changed pace and positions as often as if they only had one last minute together and had to try everything possible in it. Ilya rolled Sasha onto his back and settled between his legs, looking down, watching another dick lying on a flat soft belly, twitching and smearing slimy droplets of leaked lube and sperm from the previous round across the skin; how his own, Ilya's, dick was driving inside between the rounded buttocks. Sasha's fingers intertwined with the hair at the back of his head, painfully gripping it with his palms in moments when it became unbearably good for him. "Do you like it?" Sasha asked when Ilya looked up. A gold cross on a thin chain struck his chin, and he caught it with his lips, looking from below with the whorish gaze of his brown eyes. "Don't," Ilya said low, grabbing the chain with a sharp movement and tossing the cross behind his own back. The only thought that appeared in his head before the second orgasm of the evening sounded like this: "Mama, am I going to hell for this?" Definitely, yes. "I want a cigarette, I’m dying," Ilya fell with his sweat-soaked back onto the crumpled cold blanket. They smoked one cigarette, passing it from lips to lips. The smell of two bodies and baby cream mingled with the bitter scent of tobacco smoke. "You see, and you were refusing," Sasha laughed hoarsely, flicking ash into the torn packaging of the used condom. Ilya laughed with him. He hadn't laughed like this in a long time. "By the way, this doesn't make you gay. If you like both guys and girls, you’re bi." "Bi?" "Bisexual. When you can play for both teams, understand?" "Are you bi too?" "Oh, no. Not at all," Sasha propped himself up on an elbow and reached over to kiss him. After a few long seconds, Ilya opened his eyes and saw a dark silhouette standing in the doorway to his room. It was his brother. They hadn't heard the doorbell click in the hallway, hadn't heard the sounds of footsteps walking down the corridor, muffled by the street noise from the window. Ilya had no idea what Aleksey had heard of what they were talking about, or how long he had been standing in the doorway watching them, completely naked. Even from a few meters away, Ilya could hear the angry, dangerous breathing buzzing in his brother's chest. Aleksey turned silently on the heels of his heavy uniform boots and left toward the exit, his soles hitting the creaky parquet with terrible thuds. The front door slammed so hard that the glass in the window frames rattled throughout the house. Was there even a slight chance that the brother hadn't recognized Sasha as a guy from behind and thought it was just a girl with a short haircut? Highly unlikely. It was the end, the end of everything and to everything. He was certainly going down the stairs now, skipping steps, and calling their father to report: "I caught Ilya in bed with a guy." Their father would probably have a stroke.Maybe it was about time? "Don't say anything," he said to Sasha, just as he started to open his mouth. "Please, just be quiet." In one of the distant orbits of Ilya's thoughts, one was spinning, the scariest, the most terrifying: for one brief second, looking into the eyes of his older brother burning with hatred, he felt thathe had been freed from all of them. The world that contained these two, the brother and the father, was over. It meant that from this moment on, he could start building his own, by his own laws, however Ilya wanted. He could start from absolute zero. But conscience, loyalty, and fear – a monstrous, gut-wrenching terror – proved stronger. Everything had to be calculated very carefully. He walked out of his room and lit a cigarette in the middle of his father's living room, looking at the cell phone screen he’d pulled from his shorts pocket. Aleksey picked up on the third ring. Ilya exhaled tobacco smoke at the ceiling and said: "Listen to me. I’m offering you a deal. You stay quiet about what you saw. I stay quiet about you keeping drugs at home," Ilya spoke with such icy calmness as if nothing much had happened. "If you open your mouth for even a second, even in a whisper, I’ll tell everyone. I’ll tell Father and your fiancée. She’ll be thrilled to know she’s hooked up with a miserable fucking junkie. I’ll put on gloves, take everything you’re hiding out of the house, and bring it to your precinct, to your chief. They’ll find your prints on the baggies. You’ll be locked up, Lyosha, at most – and at least, you’ll be fired. Just keep your mouth shut, and none of this will happen. You can hate me, I don't care. Just stay quiet. Do you understand me?" Ilya spoke in one breath, as if reading a speech from a piece of paper, without a single stutter. He could hear Aleksey’s eyeballs popping with rage on the other end of the line. "Not only are you a faggot, Ilyusha, you’re also a rare piece of shit." The dial tone droned. Ilya crouched in the middle of the living room, hugging his knees with one arm. He took a deep, long drag of his cigarette, scaring back the nausea creeping up his throat with the smoke. From the piano standing against the wall, his mother's blue eyes – printed on glossy photo paper – watched him. Two tears ran down Ilya's flushed cheeks in hot, thin streams and landed on the red pile of the carpet, turning into two identical dark spots.