Unlimited

Darina Grotto, 2017

Summer, 2013. Moscow. Just a young redhead girl. Just an amazing and unusual meeting. The meeting which thwarted plans and dreams of the young redhead girl, Victoria. And totally untypical love that got under the girl’s skin. What if she mustn’t love? Horrifying! What if she mustn’t want? Dangerous! And what if Victoria really wanted to love? How to live when suddenly as if touched with a wand everything became unusual including the redhead girl? In a Moscow beautiful summer, one beautiful day Victoria made a mess of things that led her into apocalyptic troubles.Содержит нецензурную брань.

26

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September 2013 (Thursday)

The month passed since Lucifer and Victoria had concluded the deal.

September was stealing up to the end. It was getting colder. But wagtails and starlings were still trampling with their little legs the merciless causeways and railway station forecourts seeking for food. They were waiting for people to give them some crumbs as blackflies had hidden already. Fortunately, not all people were mean and in a hurry. They feed plump birds and their fledgy nestlings before they flew away.

Leaves were slowly getting yellow and falling. In the silent park leaves were heard to come off the sleepy treetops and whispering, falling slowly down, dancing in light vorticity. Anyone would be amazed by their marvellous colour. There were so many colours and tinctures on trees, leaves and grass. Were there so many names for all those colours of autumn palette?

Of course, it rained. It rained in a soft, monotonous way but not torrential. Water whispered and whispered about something from the sky. Nobody listened to it. All the world had music in its ears, its neck is enveloped with the wires, devastating its mind with suffering hypoxia of artificial and non-existed sounds. The rain still whispered and whispered, the ground exhaled fragrance before to fall asleep.

For a month Victoria had job that she had got with Kharon’s help. She like her job and Olga Vladimirovna kept on mumbling that her daughter had to be a doctor not a street painter. There were quarrels and scandals. The mother and the daughter understood each other less and less.

Olga Vladimirovna didn’t want to admit the fact that her daughter was already an adult. She could be let to a life sea, sometimes giving a piece of advice if she asked for, but her mum shouldn’t trust down throat.

For the month after work Victoria met her mysterious friend. She was going deeper and deeper into unheard love for him. She wanted always to see him. She wanted his voice to sound in her head and ears for her entire life. Victoria was filled with her desires for the demon. She always touched his hands, examined his long, beautiful fingers, neatly trimmed fingernails, soft skin. His hands didn’t face with household use not orally neither in dictionary.

Sometimes when she stayed with the demon at nights, Victoria liked looking at his fabulous trunk. She liked seeing his fingers move awkwardly, hardly being able to button his shirt and how quickly they unbuttoned it. She liked seeing them tear off cloth when he didn’t succeed in undoing just one button.

His rarely laughed. Kharon nearly always frowned or was suspicious. He studied to live with people. It didn’t amuse him. Besides after the demon had noticed that Moscow wasn’t too much smiley, especially when it was about mornings, Kharon stopped smiling at streets at all, accepting it as ill-mannered and idiotism sign.

Victoria tried to explain that people in Moscow had an original opinion about laughing. Russian people didn’t use to smile just for nothing: it was a bad behaviour, an imbecility wave. But it didn’t mean that in Moscow laughing was tabooed. You just needed to find a good reason to smile and laugh and also convince others that you were mentally healthy, here was your reason to laugh. Kharon was difficult to understand it. He was easier to say good-bye to his smile than to adapt to changeable social mood.

Victoria liked walking with Kharon. The demon sometimes examined with pleasure and admire one or another historically significant building, being amused with human abilities: it turned out that people were capable not only of destroying but also of creating.

Vic often argued with Kharon about this theme. She wasn’t fascinated by the modern buildings; most likely she was irritated with them. She was perplexed with obscure tendency to create phallic forms and structures. Where had all worthy architectures gone who had had perfect imagination and abilities to realize all of those into life? Why were there similar skyscrapers, spread all over the world? It was ok with the world, but did they try to fill Moscow with lean, tasteless and simple buildings everywhere?

Certainly, Kharon enjoyed both modern buildings and past centuries architecture. It was simpler for him as he had had no chance to examine carefully none of them before Victoria appeared.

They walked over the whole capital of Russia on foot in the evenings, speaking about everything what they thought of. The demon confessed that he hellishly liked Moscow, its buildings, structure and movement, frowned people who, despite their gloominess, were ready to help and smile at any time. He liked movement most of all. It was everywhere in Moscow: on the roads, under the ground, in the sky, in buildings and basements, on roofs and railways. There was nothing static in this city. The tartar representatives were fascinated with crazy Russian chaotic conditions.

No Victoria’s arguments worked that to live constantly in turmoil was very difficult, it sucked out of you your energy… life in the long run. Moscow absorbed everything. It was like a black hole, swallowed up you. Few people could notice them be in the centre of the vile city abyss. That was because no one wanted to run away from it.

Moscow made most part of its population exist but not live. It managed to keep millions of people with its beauty and massiveness. Perhaps it was tired of us but due to its habit it kept on absorbing and sucking surrounding materials.

Victoria told about miracles of underground life in the capital, about true architecture that was covered under the strata of the ground.

The demon visited every metro station in the underground, having looked over great mosaics, statues, patterns, frescos… It would be nothing to say that he was shocked. He didn’t suppose people to have done those. People weren’t supposed to have definitions of beauty and ability to give life to beauty.

Certainly, Kharon couldn’t help seeing female part of Moscow. He happened to be with people, but it hadn’t been for so long and as a rule it’d been in Europe and its buttoned-up ladies. He had one-day relations and none of those women did even try to have a walk with Kharon. None of them gave him a possibility to see also beautiful medieval London, pretentious Paris and laid down base of the Elfie Tower. He saw nothing but respectable ladies who were preoccupied with their own desires when they, hiding from their husbands, enjoyed sins of the flesh not only with people but with incubi. Before Kharon had seen nothing bad of it. The demon was had been created to satisfy the fair sex, what did he have to complaint of?

Kharon read like a neon signs, women’s minds, their desire no one knew about. He liked their minds. Women didn’t always think of sex: they had a lot of things to do and feel, which their minds were full of. They tried to keep everything in mind. They were in a hurry.

Every time Victoria was madly jealous when she noticed Kharon looking at one or another girl. He could fascinatingly smile at any girl that made Vic angry and confused. The girl said nothing to him. She silently got over her emotions. What could she say to him? She didn’t even know if Kharon was capable of being jealous and what it was in fact?

In his turn the demon understood what to be jealous meant but he didn’t understand well what he did so special that Vic was getting angry. It was enough to give a good look to any girl and he could hear her teeth grit.

Victoria almost got used to her visions and spirits. She saw spirits every day. She could see the same souls near her colleagues who accompanied them. Almost every person had near the deceased. Victoria didn’t know why the deceased were among people. Fortunately, spirits didn’t speak to her. They sometimes brazenly immersed her into their own memories, showing their past lives. Most of all those were moments of their deaths. Rarely they showed to her something good or other happy moments.

Victoria changed her mind about death. Now she was sure that no reason was to be afraid of death as there would be a life after it. Yes, it could be probably not as funny and happy as it was before, but it would be. There was a soul that continued to live, and it remembered how it used to be. Once it threw its corporeal skin it started remembering about what a person dreamt but while he was alive, he didn’t get.

Spirits often showed their memories of childhood to her, wiping away tears of impossibility to be there again, embrace a young mum whom they pulled from with their hand and legs. Souls remembered everything.

Victoria still didn’t understand what all that meant but she took it rather coolly. A man’s walking — ok. A soul’s walking near — ok. Nobody can see it but only I — ok. That was what the girl thought of it, assuring herself that she was ok. Vic made herself believe that everything happened to her was ok.

The girl sometimes could see lonely spirits. They followed no one and existed on their own. They slowly walked down the streets, percolated through the walls as if they were on their way to somewhere, they needed.

Some of them smiled but the smile was sad and enchained. If you saw such a smile, you’d never understand good or bad made the person smile like that. Maybe he didn’t smile at all, but he had a trifacial problem… You could hardly believe such smile… there was no soul. It was pretended. And when a soul with such smile walked you overcame with horror: souls couldn’t pretend. So, what could make it smile in such way?

At the beginning Victoria was uncomfortable when she met spirits and when they smiled walking towards her, it was getting worse.

At times the girl felt sorry for them. Once when Vic was walking about the Old Moscow, she saw a girl in a hurry and there was a spirit of her mother behind, trying to braid her hair in the wind. Here it was rushing to the girl, screaming something with its voiceless mouth, as it wanted to stop merciless time.

Seeing those pictures was very uncomfortable. Many times Victoria saw lovers parted by death itself. They shed bitter tears, raking up memories, pulling out the pain on the surface. But the beloved was near! He was always near, touched her hands, stroked the head, smiled. But nobody could see and feel him. There was pain again.

It was worse when a soul in love with its beloved was following him in the rear, but he was already touching a new living person’s hands, making himself love again. The spirit suffered. It remembered very well how it was and knew better, how it could have been, and it couldn’t understand why all it happened. Why didn’t anyone feel his touches? Why didn’t anyone kiss him back? He busted his guts, yelling into the living person’s ears about fading away love again.

Victoria’s heart was blowing up because of those visions. What a cruel substance, maybe, material, ruled the world if some people were doomed to suffer even after their death? Sufferings that were caused by woe and incomprehension. Some of spirits didn’t understand that they were spirits, that they were dead. In every way they tried to draw attention to themselves of the person who was important for them. But nobody, nobody noticed them. When someone like Victoria saw them, they tried to pass by with their eyes locked on the ground. Who would like the brand of insane person? Keep all your visions to yourself.

Grief wiped out all those who finally understood that they had been parted. Forever. The grief didn’t look like that which living people could feel to other ones. It was stronger, more painful and poor souls were imprisoned by forcible grief.

Victoria often asked herself why she could see it all. Why did she have to see all those sufferings and be unable absolutely to help anyone? Because of her own inability she was overcame with horror. She had to close her eyes or stoop her head, say to herself that she saw nothing, heard nothing and she didn’t care at all. She had to do what others did — just pass by. She had to leave the agony unnoticed in the middle of the great crowd. Victoria said nothing about spirits and ghost to anyone. She didn’t tell about it even to Kharon. Nobody had to know that she was insane.

A month passed after the deal was concluded. If there hadn’t been spirits, her happiness would have been unlimited.

Kharon studied to be a human, live like a human, tried to understand what to feel meant and what exactly he had to feel.

The jealousy issue was still opened: Victoria kept silence, the demon carefully waited until the time was ripe.

While Vic was at work Kharon studied people. He followed them everywhere, listening to every sigh and word said to anyone. He followed couples creepingly and got more and more surprised with speckled diversity of feelings. They were able to love, and it was important information for Kharon. His mind tried to understand how people loved. One thing was determinate absolutely: there was such couple whose feelings were the same. Someone loved too much to rave about his beloved and there was only his image before the eyes. The image was unchangeable and static. It stood to give a small chance, thin hope to look at the image in own subconsciousness. How strong the heart was beating! No. It was shaking and filling with life when the beloved appeared in life. The air stated walking inside the body, breaking up the breath. Pupils were madly black, dilated. They sucked into the face like big leeches. They sucked in, pulling out the image to keep it in memory. Adrenalin was injected into blood; a shudder ran over the body. Was it fear? No, it wasn’t. That was love. It had gentle touches, almost impalpable but penetrated straight soul, fondling it, desirous to touch it. And the beloved allowed to touch his soul.

Kharon knew Victoria to feel all of those. Almost a month of his own being with people, he finally understood why Victoria had done that crazy thing, why she’d been looking for meeting with Lucifer and what for or whom for she had sold her soul. She loved him. It buttered him up. Too much. It was the first time in his life. It was usual thing for him when women wanted more. But there was nothing about love but lust. Victoria…

Almost every night with scandals with her mother, Victoria stayed with Kharon. Every night his fingers barely touched her skin, her body, ran through her hair, unbuttoned clothes… His lips kissed her hands and body. But there was nothing serious between them.

Victoria fell asleep being embraced by him, broke down with love and passion but there was nothing more. Kharon didn’t even think that something was going to happen, but for sure he liked being loved for nothing. He was scared because of a thought what could happen to the girl’s mind when they used the bed finally not only in frames of a place where they could sleep. Sometimes he thought in what way his true face would change the girl’s love.

Kharon saw other couples in streets. There he and she hated each other. They were ready to kill, destroy but they couldn’t live without each other. He was absolutely surprised by such couples’ existence. None of them were neither demons nor angels but they had so powerful energy and invincible spirits. Maybe sly spirits deprived them from being together without scandals.

The relations with Victoria were far from the standards, fortunately. The girl was too complaisant and ready to do whatever the demon asked. She idealized and worshiped him. Kharon sometimes thought that if he had asked her to jump from a roof of a skyscraper for him, she would do it with no thinking.

Victoria texted Kharon to introduce him to Olga Vladimirovna and they both would be waiting for him at 8 pm at her place. For a long time Kharon was trying to find out why she needed it, but he wasn’t capable of reading her mind on the phone. That’s why he was on time before the door, contemplating the doorbell. He wasn’t scared but he didn’t get used to it. The demon could see through the walls Victoria putting on, combing her hair, her mother sitting at the table. Without coming into the flat he had already known that Olga Vladimirovna didn’t like an idea of her daughter.

As soon as Kharon heard the idea in the woman’s mind he immediately switched over her daughter, greedily picking her thoughts to seek for the idea. But there was nothing.

In thought the man came back into Olga Vladimirovna’s mind and heard again “Bad idea, Victoria, very bad”. Kharon frowned. Instinctively he turned out to be in Victoria’s mind, having immersed inside fully. He was looking for the idea. Demons had an amazing vice — excessive curiosity. But a new disappointment befell him again. There was no idea in Victoria’s mind. Being already irritated Kharon placed his hands at the door, burning through the erected obstacle by humans with his eyes, he immersed into Olga Vladimirovna’s mind. “What an idiotism, Vic… with your ideas. To leave your mother for a man… I don’t like it.” Kharon stepped back from the door and smirked. That was the idea Victoria glimmered. The demon was satisfied after he had found out everything that he had wanted to. He pressed the doorbell.

Suddenly Olga Vladimirovna gave a jump on the chair. Vic ran out of the room, zipping the shorts. Kharon had already heard her heart madly beating, joy being reborn into an indescribable admire, her soul wanted with awe to see the demon.

The door was opened, Victoria turned out to be in the beloved man’s embrace. She closed her eyes, basking on his shoulder and tenderly whispered: “It’s been a long since we saw each other last time. How much I missed you!”

‘It’s been a long?’ Kharon smiled, firmly embracing the girl, looking through the walls at Olga Vladimirovna’s mean face. ‘Oh, dear, what do you know about the infinity? We were together last evening at the very place saying good-buy each other, embracing. It was 18 hours 10 minutes and 35seconds ago. 18 hours is not an infinity, trust me.’

Victoria was listening to Kharon’s sentimental whisper and scarcely suppressed her admire and happiness. What could she know about infinity? What could he know about infinity being unable to love?

‘It is, actually. Even a second without you is infinity. Come in.’

Kharon came into the flat, squeezing the girl’s hand. Her mum was staying in the hall and trying to smile, pretending to be glad of a new acquaintance with her daughter’s man. The demon looked at the woman, greeted her with smile and stared at Vic. She held his hand and her happiness had no limits.

‘Good evening, young man,’ Olga Vladimirovna answered for greetings. Her voice was dry, stern and powerful. All the doctors usually had the same. The woman pretended easy to smile and be glade of that party. But the demon gloated as he clearly saw Olga Vladimirovna dislike him at all. He liked the beginning of the evening.

‘This is Kharon, mum.’ Vic introduced her young man.

The girl, being so blinded by unknown love, didn’t see that her mother’s amiability and smile had nothing to do with reality. She didn’t feel that real hostility from Olga Vladimirovna.

‘Kharon?’ she asked in a mentor voice. ‘What an unusual name.’

‘I was called different. Kharon is the name I gave to myself.’

‘How did your parents call you?’

The man gave the woman a playful look, dropped his head and slyly looked at Vic from under his eyebrows.

‘Parents?’ he grinned. ‘If I want everyone to know my name, I got from my… parents, I wouldn’t have used different one.’

Olga Vladimirovna took a sigh, making her displeasure public. Victoria still noticed nothing but only the demon’s magnificent face. He hypnotized her, extinguishing her mind neuron by neuron.

‘Shall we go?’ Vic took his hand.

There was a serviced table in the kitchen: snacks, salads and a bottle of wine.

The man sat to the table, Olga Vladimirovna was nearby. Her green eyes were scrutinizing the face in front of her. She was looking intently at the couple. The mother understood very fast what was going on in that relation in fact.

‘How did you meet?’ she asked, put the salad to the guest, saw her daughter holding his hand.

‘Four months ago, I was in metro. I saw a girl read intently something in her notebook…’

The demon retold word-for-word the story he had told before to Vasilisa. Vic listened to the fairy tale with pleasure but the same could hardly be said about her mother.

She liked the young man less and less. Unfriendliness was getting worse and worse. She did want to say to her daughter: “Break up with him, Vic, and run. Just run, without looking back.’

‘Do you have any intensions to my daughter?’ suddenly Olga Vladimirovna asked.

‘What do you mean intensions?’ Kharon asked in all innocence.

The woman’s face fell, her eyes filled with suspicion and indignation. At that moment she couldn’t hide her disappointment. Kharon had fun instead, as he enjoyed the woman’s evil thinking.

‘How do you see your future with my daughter?’ Olga Vladimirovna asked after she had counted to ten and took a sigh.

‘Very colourfully. Absolutely. Overpoweringly. Epochally. Pushy. Eccentrically. Extravagantly. Sometimes freakishly. Exotically. A little paranormally.’

‘We love each other, mum.’ Vic told in flurry of words, after she had noticed her parent to be agonizing and even irritating. ‘We wanna live together that’s why we’re here now.’

‘Live together…’ Olga Vladimirovna lowered her eyes. ‘Ok then Kharon, tell me about yourself: where you work, live, what your parents do. I want to know everything about you.’

‘I don’t have parents. They died. A long ago. I’m an orphan. I live in the centre of Moscow.’

‘Renting?’ the mother asked in surprise.

‘I am’

‘So, you have no your own place to live, right?’

‘Mum!’

‘A second please, Vic.’

‘I do but in another country. My own home is very far from here. It’s a diabolic distance, Olga Vladimirovna. It hurts me to remember about it.’

The woman was looking at the incubus like at an odious grub worm. She insanely wanted to smash it not to let be the bane of her daughter’s life. But she was enervated to lift her leg to kill the maggot, creeping up to her girl.

‘Well Kharon, do you work? Where? Victoria has told me nothing about you.’

‘Oh, I work for well-known company, but I’m forbidden to speak about it. If you worry about my affluence,’ Kharon clarified, having screwed up his eyes, after he had read the woman’s mind, ‘you shouldn’t then as I am enough financially backed not to let Victoria be in a downtrodden.’

‘We’re gonna be ok.’ Victoria tried to convince her mum.

‘I like to believe…’

Olga Vladimirovna silently saw her daughter looking at the cocky man, putting him on a high pedestal. Vic had never looked at anyone before. Her eyes had never shone like this before. Love for that man, whom Olga Vladimirovna didn’t like at all, was struggled out of her eyes.

The woman spoke with Kharon through clenched teeth after she had finally found something obnoxious and unpleasant of him. She was sure that the man of such face, such money, such body and speech couldn’t be a good man whom her daughter needed. She noticed his exaggerated and caddish self-confidence, mischievous countenance, lofty mien… “Big-headed asshole” was what Vic’s mother thought. All the evening she was waiting for him to leave finally.

Victoria was in the well hall, embracing with the man of her dreams. She didn’t want to let him go.

‘Let’s do it tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Move to your place.’

‘Yeah, about “move to my place”… I didn’t hear you have such a desire. I was in your mind but there was nothing. Do you hide it from me? How?’

‘Hide?’ Victoria frowned. ‘The whole evening I’ve been thinking that we’ll go to you tomorrow… whispering to you to say my mum about it but you seemed not to have heard me and it’s not about the move.’

The demon frowned, put his warm hands on her temples and closed his eyes. He easily came into her mind to look for her thoughts. There were many halls and greyness. It was like drizzling eternally, that covered visibility, occulting with its monotonous whisper every rustle and move. Kharon was running through the halls, seeking for anything, any sound or letter. Fortunately for him, he found. He deafly heard a vacuum whisper of invisible lips, asking for kiss…

‘I can hear them.’ Kharon said quietly, having pressed the girl’s temples stronger. ‘I can hear. They’re asking for kiss. Asking for tearing off the clothes and examining the perfect body with my lips by inches. They’re asking: “I wanna go with you…now” Take you? Now?’

Kharon opened his eyes and studied the girl. There were tears in her eyes, they were begging him to do it now.

‘Go get ready for move. I’ll be waiting for you here.’ Kharon nodded towards the door and smiled.

Vitoria kissed the man and ran back to the flat to pack things she would need at first.

‘What’re you doing?’ Olga Vladimirovna was staying in the doorway, having grossed her arms on her chest.

‘Packing my stuff.’

‘Where?’

‘To Kharon. Where else.’

‘I don’t wanna you go to him. I don’t like him. Are you listening to me, Vic?’

‘Mum!’ Victoria got frozen for a moment. ‘We’ve discussed everything already.’

‘Do you hear me?’ Olga Vladimirovna raised voice. ‘I don’t want you to go to him.’

‘Is there anybody who’s gonna accept the things that I want?’ Vic turned back to her beg, putting her laptop and cosmetic case into it.

‘This is a bad idea, Vic. Absolutely bad.’

‘Why? Why are you speaking like this? Why don’t you want me to be happy?’

‘Your happiness is what I’m speaking about…’

‘Oh really?’ the girl glared. ‘I think you’re speaking about your happiness, as usual. All my life you’ve been thinking for me, imposing your opinion on me. Sorry mum, but can I choose a man for me from my personal perspective? Can I like him, not you?’

‘What the hell are you talking? That’s disgraceful! This is his influence, isn’t it? Daniel was a good man for you… But you’re not interested in him. Of course, you look for freaks and peasants. What do you know about him?’

‘I know about him enough!’ Vic shouted, having grabbed her beg. ‘I’m not interested in Daniel because you like him not me! Let me go!’

‘What’s there on your blade?’ Olga Vladimirovna stayed in the doorway, blocking her daughter’s way.

‘Nothing.’ Vic answered with a snarl.

‘Vic!’ an austere voice sounded.

‘Tattoo!’

‘Tattoo…what? Are you out of your mind?’ the woman asked in a low voice, being worried. ‘I’m asking you, aren’t you quite right in the head?’

‘That’s all, mum. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘No, not tomorrow. I forbid you to go with that bastard anywhere!’

‘Mum!’ Vic smirked. ‘I’m not a child. I’ll go with him. Tomorrow I’ll pack other stuff I need. I’m begging you don’t be upset with me and try, just once in my damned life, to understand me and my feelings. I love him. Do you understand it?’

‘I do, Vic, I clearly do, moreover I can see! You know what I see? He doesn’t care about you and your feelings. I don’t want him to break your heart.’

‘You’re the person who’s breaking my heart now. Stop it, mum. Everything’s gonna be ok. You can trust me. Is that too much to ask?’

Olga Vladimirovna sighed and let the girl in the heat of rage go.

‘This door is always opened for you.’

‘Thanks.’

Victoria came to the well hole and found Kharon smiling. He defiantly took her bag, instantly looking at her eyes.

‘Your mother doesn’t like me at all.’

‘Yeah, that’s true.’

‘That’s true? I think it’s called hatred. Certainly, I’m not used to hear women hate me, but you know, this is a funny feeling. She’s selfish. Is that what you call it?’

‘What it?’ Victoria smiled.

‘When people hear and listen to only themselves. When they are sure that the sun goes around only for them. When they think that all the world will be waiting. From here,’ the demon took the girl’s hands and out them on his chest, ‘Yes? The heart, and then into the mind, yes? Is selfishness here?’ Kharon pointed at the girl’s temple. ‘Yes, it is. It’s not in your hearts. Come to me. Closer. Closer. I wanna our bodies adjoin…’

There was a fillip and then it was darkness. A second. Another one. Bright light. Kharon’s kitchen.

‘How did you…?’ Vic looked around.

‘How did I do this? You’ve been preoccupied with this question for a long time…’ Kharon took off his jacket to hang. ‘Do you remember, dear, I told you that we don’t surprise with space and time. But space and time are surprised with us. We subject them, not they. Why are you so surprised?’

‘Why? There are many things in the world you can be surprised with having no stop. You’re surprised with people, but you shouldn’t.’

‘Oh, dear, I’m in the human world for the first time ever.’

‘Oh, I do, obviously, spend every day with incubi and know everything about them!’

Kharon smirked, studying the girl before him.

‘Then surprise me with the joint living…’ The demon came up closer to her and unbuttoned her jacket. ‘Your mother’s seen Lucifer mark. Why didn’t she like, how you call, tattoo on you? What’s the deal with it? I saw millions of people have tattoos.’

‘True, but there are millions of people who think tattoo abnormity and ugliness for the entire life. You see, Kharon, the war between “good” and “bad” will never be finished. The only one problem is that in fact nobody knows what good and bad is. It doesn’t exist but your attitude does, and it can be good or bad. My mum thinks tattoo bad and ugliness…’

‘It’s only for two years.’ He said with a touch of sadness.

‘You’re so strange sometimes!’ Victoria smiled. ‘I know Lucifer to be your boss, you know him personally, you can call and meet him. But if I say to my mum that Lucifer left his mark on my blade who was a guest at our home and we concluded the deal, she will send me in an asylum. It’s not bad already, it’s impudent overkill!’

‘Stupid people,’ the demon whispered, pulling the unbuttoned jacket with his two fingers from the girl. ‘You know almost nothing indeed…’

His mouth greedily came down on her and without stopping, went to the bedroom.

‘Kharon…’ the girl closed her eyes when she felt gravity-free and then the soft bed.

‘You know nothing about the light that gives life to you every second.’ The demon’s pressure drew Vic crazy as she was drunk with the feelings. ‘You don’t know how much strengths and wishes it has to have to give life to the light… How much energy it gives you!’

‘No, no, Kharon, please, stop…’ the girl hugged the hot man too who had deftly relieved her tender body from clothes and there were only her panties left to be put off from the girl magnified with magic whisper.

‘Then what can you know about the darkness? Ugh, dear, what?’ in the semi-dark the demon with a wolf-grin looked at the white cloth, meanly hanging on his index finger.

That’s all. There was no defence on Victoria left and her mind was about to betray her. The man was too pertinacious, too strong and handsome. She couldn’t help wanting him… She couldn’t help rejecting him…

‘…None of you know,’ his hot lips came down on her body, on her belly.

Vic gave a shake. She wanted to open her eyes, to stop charming and making craze touches. But she couldn’t move. She was too much ashamed. But her enjoyment didn’t doze. It penetrated her muscles, forged them with its resilient body. Oh, what an enjoyment! How was it possible not to love it? How to reject it? What a hard-hearted piece of iron you need to be to wipe away this omnibus enjoyment?

‘You part everything into bad and good,’ Kharon was coming down, making her heart almost jump out of her chest, ‘You do it so blindly because you’re injudicious barbarians…’

Teeth. It was a gentle, pleasant bite on her inner part of the thigh. The girl sighed and warped like a snake. His hot breath nibbled her gentle skin, bringing Vic above.

‘What can you know about the truth?’ Kharon hanged over the girl again. ‘Tell me, Victoria. Tell me!’

She couldn’t speak anymore. Her heart was about to stop because of the bliss of touches and kisses. The girl had lack of air to keep on living in that mad stream of emotions.

‘I’m ready to show you the truth… It’s not bad not good. It’s faultlessly pure, spacious and all-consuming. I’m ready to immerse into it with you… right now. Vic, dear… Only one move separates us from the truth…’ Kharon was whispering in her eat, tenderly biting her earlap, burning with his hot breath.

‘Kharon,’ Vic gasped, having wrapped around his body with her legs, ‘I can’t… I can’t reject you anymore.’

‘Ask me then!’ he smiled. ‘I can hear your mind speaking, screaming, begging me to do this move! But I can’t hear your voice! Will you let me show you the absolute?’

‘I will…’ Vic breathed out. ‘Thousand times yes!’

The demon smiled and did that move which Vic had been dreaming about and waiting for several months. She held on his hot back. Under her finger pressure the muscles screamed put and the girl did the same simultaneously, fainting. She thought that because of that tremendous splash of many hormones her hypophysis was going to die, her heart was about to stop, her lungs were going to stop to rich themselves with the oxygen. But no. She kept on breathing. More often. Shallower. Her heart went on beating. Stronger. Faster. Her consciousness was losing itself in her own head.

Time had stopped. The heavy darkness, that didn’t know what mercy was, ran down because of the girl’s scream, but it didn’t leave. It lightened behind the window. It thundered. Why? It was late September… She was feeling so good that she was ready to die in that mind-numbing ecstasy. Insanity. It hovered nearby, saw her thin pale fingers torment the man’s back. They wanted to rip the flesh, to squeeze and cut up carelessly something. To squeeze firm. Her eyes were closed. They didn’t want to see anything. They didn’t want anything in the world to distract them from that what was happening. His strong hands, having no obstacles, studied her body. Her lips didn’t know what tiredness meant. He had so much life and energy in him. He gave her something unbelievable with his every touch. That was something that mind hided deeper than drugs and alcohol.

The storm flooded over, the strongest wind beat down the window with the branches, the weather came unstuck at all. It cried… Victoria screamed, ripping the flesh into parts. The weather screamed, ripping its flesh. The girl opened her eyes. There were huge shadows of wings on the ceiling…

‘Oh, God…’ Vic closed her eyes again.

‘No, dear,’ Kharon whispered, having wrapped her waist around with his arms. ‘I have nothing in common with God.’

After he heard the name of God incomprehension awaked in the demon. He stopped to let almost dead Vic have a rest, to pump air in lungs.

‘Why, dear?’ he whispered. ‘That’s me who’s leading you to the pureness. I’m giving you desirable enjoyment. Why do you say his name?’

The demon started again the passion wheel, firmly squeezing her in his arms, kissing her neck, hearing her heart beat, failed her breathing.

‘I can hear your thoughts. They’re so… passionate. Here you are as you are! Finally, my name sounds… And I like it… how modest it sounds… and I can hear it.’

‘I don’t wanna you stop…’

‘As you wish, my Lady.’ Kharon grinned, penetrating what was going on fully…

Kharon was used to hearing begging women and such kind of speaking. He liked being deified, begged to continue, embrace and kiss. Victoria wasn’t the first and the last who was going crazy in the incubus’s arms…

Almost lifeless, exhausted, fragile girl was relaxing after having had stormy passion. Victoria was lying on her stomach, arms outstretched. She was sleeping in a profound beautiful sleep which she could only dream of.

Her naked body bathed in the night, gently wrapped with a sweet scent. Kharon was nearby. It was the first time in his life he was lying near the woman after coition. He silently was studying the night ceiling, lights reflected on it, silence.

He didn’t know what to do next, how to be, what she would say. Although about “what she would say” he knew the answer — she would say nothing. She would think, imagine, remember, confirm in thought that the night had been the best in her entire life, but she would say nothing.

Victoria hardly moved a little. Kharon surveyed her and rolled over on his side to examine the little horizon border. He smiled.

‘I can’t wait for the morning,’ he informed, having found the girl in a stable.

Victoria was combing a black horse. It was glossy in the broiling sun, stamping with his hoof, stirring the dust beneath and shook its head.

‘You’re here…’ the girl murmured peacefully, turning to him.

The black horse snorted and glanced sideways at the man. Victoria turned to the demon: she was so happy to see him, she missed him so much as if she hadn’t seen him for several weeks.

In a second she turned to be in the passion and strength arms, giving herself again to the demonic creature, thinking of only the dream to be never ended.

While Kharon was destroying the sundress with barely noticeable moves, showing her gentle skin to the soft sunrays, Victoria remembered her having felt those touches recently. Recently she had almost lost her mind, answering for the dizzying, voluptuous kiss of the godlike man.

‘My gentle, sagacious, human miracle,’ Kharon looked into the girl’s eyes. ‘I have to report on my actions if you’re asking me… in your mind. I must give everything I can give to let you understand sex isn’t a two-minutes game between sexes, ending in a messy sleep in exhausted poses. Just recently we have let the huge ball of physical energy out… but in a dream I can do something more that’s impossible to do in a real life…’

Kharon dropped to one knee before excited Victoria, slowly pulling down her panties…

‘Do you confirm my arrogant, insolent invasion into your Edenic dream?’ he whispered, touching her hands with his lips.

‘Yes, I do,’ the banal and usual answer sounded…

The alarm was ringing off in the morning. Victoria opened her eyes and wanted to turn the ear-shredding device off as she understood her not have any physical strength even winkle without saying about move. She commanded her brain to take the cell, but her hands didn’t obey, in replay they cried that nobody understood and heard them not have strength to move.

Victoria tried to move her legs and it turned out to be worse. Her hands weren’t able to do anything, but the girl could feel them, and she couldn’t even feel her legs. She had no any. Her mind didn’t know how to command to make anything obey.

‘Kh…’ Vic was strong enough to say the first letter of the demon’s name while she exhaled.

The man couldn’t hear her. He was so much interested in a noisy traffic-jam under his windows. There were multi-coloured and the same cars, screwed-up drivers, annoyed pedestrians. Kharon had no idea that Victoria was calling for him.

Suspicious crowded upon him when he heard the ringing off alarm for the third time and there was nobody in hurry to switch it off.

The man came quietly into the room. There was breathless silence. Kharon frowned, sat down on the edge of the bed and called the girl. There was no answer. The demon closed his eyes, trying to go into sleeping Victoria’s mind but he faced a strange obstacle: there were twisted halls again. Empty. There were no thoughts.

The demon went around the bed. He had to see the girl’s face right now.

Victoria was still lying on her stomach, arms outstretched. Her eyes were opened, and a tear was running her cheek. She had a soft whistle of her breath and feeling of fear, her heart beat weakly. Victoria didn’t understand what was going to her, why she was incapable of taking a good sigh and even of moving. The numb body that she didn’t feel, made her panic. Could it be a blood-stroke? Blood-stoke had hit her was her the first thought. She was getting worse and so upset she could cry. She didn’t want to live like this. Victoria appealed to the demon to kill her, but he was incapable of hearing her. He was walking about the grey halls in the girl’s mind to seek for her mad thoughts, being unable to catch any of them.

Kharon looked at her running one by one tears and slowly he started getting what was going on. He couldn’t help smiling and, of course, he didn’t feel any sympathy for the girl.

The demon turned her on her back, took her hair away from her face and kissed her numb lips.

‘Today is a day of my monologue.’ He said, lying near Vic.

Vic could lie and move her eyes. Having seen Kharon smiling she felt uncomfortable. She looked pity and awkwardly while he dared to make fun of her when her body had broken down.

‘Well, I’ll start with myself.’ He said, fondling her naked shoulder. ‘I’m confused a little bit… I better say I’m scared of your strange system of twisted halls in your clear head. I’ve seen it twice already. It could have been nothing but there’s a slight objection — I can’t catch any of your thoughts. I can’t read your mind but see your foolish halls and corridors.

Kharon looked at Victoria’s face: there were no emotions just frustration and indifference. Vice versa was about her heart and soul. She had been already scared of misunderstanding her condition after Kharon’s word she got more scared. If he couldn’t hear and read her mind, then he couldn’t help her…

‘Silent human child…’ he murmured, still smiling. ‘Do you know what the reason of your physical condition is now? Do you know why you can’t move even your little finger and sigh deeply? I’ll tell you…’

The demon lay on his back with his hands under his head. He saw the morning light line slowly stealing over the sleepy ceiling. The city was greeting the morning, meeting another new line of life like previous ones that had been yesterday, the day before yesterday and years ago.

‘This is not a disease nor illness, this is tranquillity. Any sexual influence made a person let so much energy to fill a flat with… It’s ok! It’s ok when you have sex with someone like you… with a human. You chose another way and another man one. Knowing nothing about me you gave yourself up to the blind impulse that consumed you fully. I know this night was the best one in your life, you whispered it to me when you were capable of… As usual in any coition you, being in arms of extra-terrestrial passion, burst all your energy… I’ve taken it.’

Kharon rolled over on his side, having stared at the girl’s face. Of course, she almost calmed down that that wasn’t blood-stroke, but she was still afraid of what would be next.

‘You’d have been alright if you hadn’t been so… avaricious.’ He smiled. ‘I came into your dream… if you had told me the night before had been enough you would have moved, breathe and live as usual. You’d have been had a slight malady, tiredness but it would have been ok. But you, dear, couldn’t resist your desires… I took the rest of your energy in your dream. That’s why you’re incapable of moving now. On the contrary I really feel groovy. I’ve never felt better than this. I can’t still read your mind… Let me.’

Kharon put his hands on the girl’s head and slightly pressed on her temples, slowly like a corkscrew, penetrating her consciousness.

‘You’re hiding them from me, dear… How can you do this? Ah?’ Kharon kisses the girl with no taking his hands away from her head. He wanted with the kiss to distract her from blocking her thoughts. ‘Many corridors and halls… Holes and ways in and out. Oh, here they are! Your intimate thoughts!’

Kharon closed his eyes and smiled, reading all her feeling. He read all her fears for her life, all the memories about the divine night having spent in the best man’s arms, all her worries about her incapability to get to work, her original happiness that they were going to spend that day together with Kharon. She didn’t care that she was like a statue lying with no moves. The main point was that he was nearby, his velvet voice whispered in her ear pleasant words, his hands touched hers, and he chuckled at the youthful greediness.

‘Don’t worry.’ Kharon took his hands away from her head. ‘You’re gonna be ok. Soon. Honesty I don’t know when exactly but soon. Then I’ll take your energies again, won’t I, dear?’

The demon touched her hand, smiled and gently kissed her on the cheek and his arms came tight around her waist.

‘It’s an interesting thing, Victoria. There’s never been a woman who didn’t embrace me… Your physical helplessness and incredibly beautiful nudity provoke in me a new spurt of only now born feelings and emotions. I’m not gonna even read your mind to know if you agree or not… thousand times yes were your words…’

He took a corner of her quilt and flipped it off and started covering her body with the smallest kisses. The girl wanted to smile, take him into her arms, maybe laugh, because his light stubble tickled her body. But she couldn’t do anything. Nothing.

Suddenly Kharon stopped and with a sad grin, he looked at the girl’s eyes.

‘I can’t do anything.’ He whispered, taking his hands from her. ‘You’re weak, you have no energy that’s why I can’t do anything. I’m sorry but I have to wait for your energy stores to be obtained again.’

Certainly, the demon didn’t tell that energy of a witch was a thousand times stronger and greater than energy of an ordinary human. He didn’t tell her that a witch was more difficult to obtain her energy stores. That was the secret Victoria had to realize herself.

‘By the way, your job…’ Kharon took Victoria’s cell. ‘Shall I tell that you’re ill a bit?’

The man easily managed the task, having informed Victoria’s manager that Vic felt ill and asked for compensatory leaves. Victoria took a sigh of a relief when she realized that Kharon fixed everything.

The man turned on relaxing music, lay near the girl and fell asleep. Victoria, being tired to look at the ceiling, closed her eyes and got to sleep.

It’s summer. It’s 1948. Moscow. She is a travelling substance. She can’t see herself, but she can hear and see everything around. She has a great ability to move fast in space like a comet or asteroid in the depth of the universe. She has no obstacles: as a bodiless spirit, she can easily go through walls, buildings, fences, big factories and whatever else.

Here she is rushing through Moscow narrow streets. The streets aren’t crowded yet. The huge pedestrial areas are empty. There are almost no cars. One maybe two… the roads are empty. It’s so good.

Victoria is flying somewhere. She doesn’t understand why and where but some power pulls her as if she was in the middle of the strongest whirlpool. She has no possibility to resist spontaneous forces that are pulling her forward.

She turns out to be at Vagankovo cemetery. There is no one on the paths but only a young girl and walking old lady. The girl is staying near a grave of a man. The hill is new-made. The black ground hardly had time to get covered with dry crust, the flowers are still alive, come out with the buds, giving beauty to the dead. I wonder if they know they’re already dead, too.

The girl is near the new-made hill and has tears in her eyes. She carefully wipes them away with her palm, a smile appears on her face for a second, full of happy memories and desperation. She asks the questions which no one hears but only the dead and her own mind. It’s not a surprise that there are tremendous scales of hopelessness.

The old woman is slowly walking along the path, at a modest pace tapping with her walking cane made from some wood. She’s mumbling words, speaking and asking someone. The old woman lifts her eyes up and sees the grieving girl. Serpentine, fast and swift moves and the old woman, seemed before to be hardly stand on her feet, turns out to be near the mourning girl. The woman touches the girl’s palm with her bony and sinewy hand. It is wet because of tears…

‘You…’

Victoria opened her eyes. There was Kharon’s face with an obvious riddle on before hers.

‘What an interesting dream,’ he whispered. ‘You seem to be coming to yourself.’

The girl carefully moved her fingers and she was so happy when her limbs responded to the call of the brain. She couldn’t help smiling.

‘Kharon’ she said in a strident voice, having understood her organism functioning again. ‘I’ve been so scared.’

‘Hush,’ he put his finger on across her whispering lips, ‘you have no need to speak now, to expend your energies to describe the thing I’ve been watching the whole day.’

Victoria looked at him in surprise. What did he mean the whole day? She thought she was sleeping for ten minutes. Victoria shifted her gaze at the clock and got surprised: it was seven pm. The picture behind the window told the same.

‘7 pm?’ Vic decided to confirm the seeing.

‘No, it’s 58 minutes and 32 seconds to 7 pm. You have to rest. Don’t speak and move.’

‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

‘Bathroom?’ Kharon asked in amaze. ‘Oh, sure. Bathroom!’

He took her in his arms and went to the bathroom.

‘I need to put on.’

‘Why? You look beautiful. When finished your business, call me. I’ll bring you back.’

Touching every inch Victoria was moving forward, holding the wall. Having done her business Vic got into the shower cubicle also by inches of the wall. The night before was too pleasant not to let any tracks which had to be washed off despite she’d like to keep them forever.

Water quietly purled, enveloping the body with cool freshness. Vic had to sit on the floor under the shower as she had no strength to stay but she had to wash herself.

Having heard water sounds Kharon came up to the bathroom door and closed his eyes. He wanted so much to read the girl’s mind, understand and accept it. But her heard nothing. Unconscious instinct of the witch worked well, and the demon realized it. Not knowing Vic hid and closed everything that was on her mind from him. Witches were usually very powerful and strong creatures. However, to have any impact on incubus she had a little strength, but she would obviously try. That was for sure. Kharon didn’t want that to happen. But he didn’t also want Victoria to hide her mind from him. If he said to her that it was her exactly who closed her from him, there would be many questions which the demon wouldn’t like to answer.

A loud crash distracted the demon from thinking. He immediately came into the bathroom. Under the water pressure, having leaned on the glass wall, the girl was sitting with a smile on her face. There were bottles lying around which had fallen with crash.

The demon silently and thoughtfully looked at the smooth legs, holding together, tucked up beneath the girl. The smile was on her face. The stupid one. Shameful eyes yearned him to see her nudeness and by leaps and bounds being afraid of it. Her fingers nervously touched the lying near bottles. Her wet hair, having become different colour, curled because of water, hid the upper part of her body.

Kharon was serious, quiet and pensive. Slightly screwed his eyes up, he was intently looking at the girl’s smile. How much strength she needed to smile? To keep that smile? Why did she do that if she couldn’t almost stand it? She had no energy, it’d been taken away. The died-out site of life fire was still in her eyes, her fingers shook, the heart beat quiet, she had barely energy to take a sigh to fill her lungs with air… And now she was wasting energy to smile.

‘Why are you…’ Victoria closed her eyes, made a pause, exhaled and whispered again, ‘looking at me… like this?’

Her question didn’t sound like a question. If there’d been no “why” Kharon would hardly have got that Vic had asked something.

‘You’re strange people. I’m getting more and more interested — why? Why are you smiling when your heart’s crying?

Kharon squatted down near the girl. She closed her eyes and was about to faint again, relaxing her body as her strength failed her quickly. But she didn’t wipe her smile away.

‘Because it’s always more pleasantly to look at a smile,’ she muttered, throwing back her head, gasping.

Kharon kept silence. He didn’t understand. Who carried what others like? Why did she need to think of it?

‘You have to think of obtaining your energy stores not of smiling. It’d be better and… more logically.’

‘I don’t think…’ a deep inhale. ‘I just wanna smile… at you. Wash me, please, I’m exhausted.’

The girl stopped moving her fingers and got frozen. Then her smile died on her lips. She seemed not to be breathing, looked like a dead. Kharon took the washing spray and directed the gentle water trickles on the weak girl. The goosebumps appeared at once, but Victoria didn’t shiver.

The man carefully raised slightly her head to kiss her wet lips. They were lifeless fully. He wetted her red, grown dim hair again.

‘Every time I touch your head, by force of will I can hear your thoughts streaming in your head… I can hear you want to smile because you’re happy with what’s going on now… But you have no energy to do what you want to. I feel your thoughts speaking impudently and unwittingly, begging me to lay your body in arms of fondling… now. Tell me, Victoria, are you… out of your mind?’

Having heard the question Vic tried to open her eyes, move somehow, deny persecution. But all was for nothing.

‘No, don’t. Don’t speak.’ Kharon stroked her with water then put his hand on her forehead. ‘No, dear, I didn’t mind offending you. Don’t take it so hard. I’m just trying to understand you.’

The demon didn’t take his hand away from her head, reading all the information like if he had been blind touched with his fingers Braille script in a speechless book. Her thoughts were so pleasant for him! He loved her thinking about him, he liked that she liked him. He just liked… But Kharon even didn’t try to get that unusual feeling of love. He had never felt nothing of it and in fact he didn’t understand why he needed it.

Kharon brought the weak girl in the room and got her to bed. For a long time, he was sitting near her, examining the night coming down, made him deep into his thoughts.

He glanced at the sleeping girl and, having grinned, he left home. His interest in everything around him didn’t leave him alone. He wanted to study people…