Part 8 - Ivan: Wolves

I sleep sitting up. I always have. No more than two or three hours.

I think back to the Siberian nights, Petyr and Angelina and myself. I sit up, while they huddle under the blankets. The northern lights glow in the frosted window, lighting up the narrow room and the stacked beds. The wolves are howling out in the snow, and my father’s snore through the thin wall shows his level of concern.

We huddle together for warmth, for comfort, but nothing satisfies. Nothing will satisfy the needs of the pack except the blood of an animal. Not even the night light that Mother Nature has blessed us, cursed us with. We don’t dare press our faces up against the windows and peer out over the field of snow to the tree line.

Yellow eyes are there, staring back at us. We know they’re there. They know we’re here. The wind moans. The shack trembles. Another howl in the quasi-dark. I sit up and listen, and I don’t sleep.

I wake and stretch. Orange light peeks through the dusty windows that line the high Eastern wall of the warehouse. Dust motes dance in the shafts of a new day. The northern lights are far away. Another place; another time. A lost world. Lost with my brother and my sister. Lost with my father. Buried in the ice when the gangs came and took only me — not because I was the biggest, although I was. Not because I was the strongest, although I was. But because I wasn’t afraid of them. They were taking me away from the wolves, the only thing that I feared. They left everything else.

The Giant is back. He fills the far doorway like a 747 crawling into a hangar. His wings hang at his side, power on demand. He waits for me to stand and cross the empty floor. Tomorrow this warehouse will be full of televisions and Blu-Ray players and Xbox sets destined for Chile. I can see it in my mind’s eye, the boxes stacked neatly on pallets ready for loading into ship containers. And for every five containers of cheap Chinese electronics, one of them will be the temporary home to a person, a fragile cargo not on the manifest and the one that will bring me the most American dollars.

The sun is bright for a moment as it lances down through the cranes and mobile platforms of the port facility. I inhale the salt and sea, and, as always, it reminds me of fishing near the coast, the briny foam frothing up from the ice holes we cut along the Yana River. Then we are in the truck, the shiny Escalade the Giant is so proud of. He adjusts his mirrors, caresses the steering wheel, and starts the engine as I lean back. He knows where to go. From behind, I hear movement. The girls have been waiting, as they always are, and they come around the bench seat, one settling in beside me, the other coming to rest between my legs. Good girls, they are. Quiet, obedient, always ready to please. Their naked bodies are pale, budding, their faces bright, eager. There is a sense of calmness about them, and I can’t help but feel it as I close my eyes again. They are my little angels, my taste of Heaven.

Tatiana unzips my pants and takes my beanstalk down her throat. I breathe in the musk of her young cunt.

I’ve slept three hours already, but I’m still tired. Gretel makes me tired. Why? I cannot explain it. The súka bitch drains me somehow. I can feel it, but I don’t understand it, and that worries me. The Giant would be surprised to hear this. Me, worried? The Beanstalk does not get worried. The Beanstalk worries others. It has been this way for a long time, and now something has changed. It’s not the sex. I’m nearly 70 but I’m not old and feeble. My khuy stands tall against age and the odds. If Gretel wants to spread her legs for me, if she thinks this somehow means something, she is mistaken. I feel nothing, not even the pleasure of the bobbing head and warm mouth that works to please my bulging beanstalk. Tatiana, like Gretel, pleasures me because otherwise there would be pain — pain for her. Tatiana knows this. Gretel understands, even if she won’t admit it to herself. She thinks she is different. Special. She is wrong. She thinks she does this to manipulate me, to endear herself to me, but she is just another American whore who thinks a man’s happiness comes through his trousers. This is true to some degree, especially with American men, but if she wants to truly understand what makes me tick, what makes me smile, she would not be so quick to open her legs for me.

What will make me smile, Gretel? Your tears. Your tears will make me happy. It will make me want to fuck you, not like now. Now I fuck you because it amuses me to watch you debase yourself for me. But your tears…

I feel a stir.

I gaze down at the short-cropped blonde hair, feel the stir, watch the practiced rhythms of this young girl. Her mouth is like a machine, as is her sister’s. I open my eyes and glance over at the twin beside me. Her legs open instinctively, and I place my hand over her pizdah. The soft blonde fur disappears as my fingers slide lower until I can feel her wetness. What a good girl. She looks back at me, and I can see the hope in her face, the need.

It’s the same hope, the same need that will become the mask that betrays tomorrow’s cargo. Each of the eleven girls will wear it, even if they are unaware of it. I will look them each in the eye, watch the tears flow, hear the whimpering, feel mykhuystiffening as I imagine them loaded into containers, each alone in a metal box for a week until they are offloaded in Valparaiso. A week of despair, and then another moment of hope. Another shattered moment. Anguish. Horror. A dirty fatveeblyodokbastard who likes pretty girls and is willing to pay top dollar will unwrap his present, and she will never see her home again.

Send me my money. I don’t care.

And Gretel will be right behind them. I’ve had enough of her and her mistakes. Does she think she is fooling me? Does she think she can play her games, show me her cunt and make me a believer? I haven’t believed anything since that day they cut up my father and left him for the wolves.

What does she believe? She believes in the money; that I know. But she is a fool, and she will find herself in one of those containers soon — maybe sooner than even I expected. Yes, she’s old, but she’s attractive. Someone will pay money for her, maybe even good money. Thirty isn’t too old to learn a new trick or two, and with the right motivation, she will learn to behave. Or she will live a horrible life, a short life, a life filled with pain.

It’s so much easier to just obey.

I glance over at Tatiana. Her eyes are fixed on me. My hand is still pressed against her pizdah. She wonders what will happen later. Will it be the whip, electricity? A jolt to her nipples to make her whimper. A heavy paddle to her ass to make her cry. Or will she just get the beanstalk while I play “Bad Uncle” with her sister’s body? Will she beg to take her place out of kindness and love? Or will she be selfish? Or perhaps I will just send them both off to play in the pool and be mermaids all day. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes say everything. She simply waits. She knows the game; we’ve been playing it for years now, ever since I found the two of them in Moscow and brought them back with me. Rich uncle adopts twin nieces. From orphanage to opulence. It’s a story for the ages.

I nod, and she’s up and moving, nudging her sister out of the way, taking my beanstalk down her throat without hesitation, while I look down at her twin. The two Tatianas. I can only tell them apart by the way their mouths feel, the way they moan, the way they whimper. I stare at her, and she stares back, a halo of saliva frothing around her lips, a dazed look on her face.

Oh, Gretel. That will be you soon, my dear. Only it’s easier to come to this life when you are a teenager. Tatiana can tell you that. She can tell you what it is to be meat. To be stalked by hungry wolves.