The apartment of Havre, the son
of Sarychev, was located approximately ninety kilometers from Oxford or an
hour’s drive by car. But it suited him. He was tired of living in the suburbs
of Oxford. And now, when his main training was over, and he could attend Oxford
University, not every day, Havre preferred to rent an apartment in the elite
area of London. London attracted him with its life, energy, people, and
movement. Although conservative England was felt here in everything, it seemed,
the city itself was living a different life as if having shaken off this touch
of snobbery and age-old foundations, and cast prudence to the winds and plunged
into the maelstrom of modern life. Havre also rushed into this whirlpool.
Nothing held him and did not stop him. The parents, having sent him to England
at school age, provided him with everything. Havre always had money, and in any
quantity. Therefore, he did not see the point in denying himself anything. And
why, we live in fact once.
And he tried everything. But he
had a head on his shoulders. He categorically removed drugs from his life having
tried them once. He saw those who got hooked on them. No, it was not his way.
He loved to manage his life and did not want to depend on anyone or anything.
He would never allow any junk to dictate to him how to live. Another thing was
alcohol. With the help of it, he could relax well, but at the same time, it did
not cause him any dependence. Well, he knew the measure. Youthful maximalism
had passed a long time ago. There was a period when he tried many different
kinds of alcoholic drinks from the endless sea. And he concluded that to vomit
in the morning, and then lie all day with a headache, this was not his way. Now
he drank, but he clearly analyzed what and how much. He already knew his dose
and his measure and no longer ventured with too much drinking, considering it
to be a stupid and childish act.
In addition to all of the above,
in a comfortable and free life of Havre, there was sex. Yes, he had the
opportunity to try everything in sex. He had no morals or limits. Well, they
were. It was what he wanted and loved, and what he did not accept. He wanted
and loved everything in sex. There were different perversions, group sex, hard
sex, whips, masks, hanging. In his bed, there were gays and lesbians, as well
as Mulattoes, Negros, Asians. He accepted everything in sex, but not in
relation to himself. He was ready to look at all this, but he was engaged in
this sex with certain limitations. In relation to himself, he does not accept
all these bullyings with these whips and masks, he gladly participated in group
sex, but only in the role of the top, and in no other way. Although his study
friends, the same cheeky students, the children of rich parents, assured him
that he would get a lot of unforgettable feelings by allowing himself to be
fucked. But here a taboo worked in Havre. He simply could not humble himself.
It was one thing to fuck a girl or a guy who was copulating with another
partner in a gangbang, it was really awesome, but in no other way. Well, he
could not allow anyone to shove a member in his ass and use his body for
self-satisfaction. From this alone, all desire disappeared in Havre.
Therefore, he was always just on
top, and this suited him perfectly. He received maximum pleasure from sex. And
he also knew that he should not lose control of sex, otherwise he can be
crushed by someone. Though he pretended to relax, he never trusted anyone.
That was how he lived, lived a
full life, plunging into dissipation. He tried everything and had time to
undergo treatment for all sorts of shameful diseases. Although he always used a
condom, some frivolous infections stuck to him and he had to be treated for the
consequences of this very free love.
***
That evening Havre decided to
have fun with a threesome. Although no, he did not plan anything at first, but
in the bar, where he was sitting and contemplating the audience dancing on the
dance floor, a girl sat next to him. She was pretty, with crafty eyes and a
good figure. Havre was in the mood for entertainment, and after a short talk,
they went to him and on the way to his house, they met Serge, his friend at the
institute. Serge was a Frenchman with Polish blood, tall, elegant and always
ready for anything. And so it all happened.
All three were now lying in the
bed of Havre. Serge fucked the Englishwoman, who was moaned from his thrusts in
her, and Havre fucked Serge in his tight ass. It was exciting, the debauchery,
which occurred in all its depravity, and from this, it was, even more, a
feeling of sweetness from what was happening.
The Englishwoman groaned and
went limp. Serge began to lean heavily on her, and Havre, feeling muscle spasms
on his penis in his friend ass, came off from the look of these two and the
sensation of sex in which he took part.
Then the nirvana came, in which
the three of them, lying on the bed, smoked and looked at the ceiling above
themselves. This sweet nirvana was interrupted by an insistent doorbell.
It was strange because it was
late, and only those who knew the code could enter the entrance. From this
Havre concluded that, probably, the neighbors from downstairs or adjacent
apartments, once again hearing the too loud groans or creaks of his bed, came
to hint to him about the silence and order in their decent house.
Havre got up reluctantly and,
putting on trousers and a shirt, went to open the door.
Nikolai Evgenievich, a friend of
his father, and three other men, whom he did not know, were standing on the
threshold. Havre was confused, but he kept a calm look on his face and,
greeting, invited them to enter.
“Are you alone?” asked Nikolai
Evgenievich, hearing laughter and voices from the bedroom. “There is a serious
conversation.”
Havre nodded in understanding
and, taking the guests to the large living room, walked into the bedroom.
There, in a voice that did not have objections, he asked the naked lovers lying
on the bed to get dressed and leave. This statement was not particularly
embarrassing. It could be seen, they were set to continue the evening.
Continuing to talk noisily, they got dressed, seized a bottle of champagne and,
going out into the hallway, where, not hesitating the men in the living room,
took turns kissing Havre on the lips and left.
Havre also, without being
embarrassed, came back to the living room with a calm face and lit a cigarette,
turned to his father's friend, thereby showing that he was all attentive. The
man paused, looking at the guy standing in front of him. He remembered him as a
boy when he was running through his summer cottage in the Moscow region. Even
then, little Gavrilka was always with broken knees, running everywhere, and
constantly creating problems for all because of his living character. Now he
was standing in front of a twenty-five young man, tall, with a good sports
figure. It was obvious that he was well-groomed. His brown hair was now matted
and not combed. They fell on his dark olive eyes. Even in the form in which
they found Havre, he was handsome, masculine, strength, power, and character
were felt in him. His face was not beautiful. It was correct, masculine, and
with age he would become that same type of men, from the appearance of which
women go crazy, feeling in them that male power and aura of power, which should
be in a real male.
“A dead ringer for his father,”
thought Nikolai Evgenievich, then he became sad and finally said what for he
came here from Moscow late at night.
“Your father was murdered. Last
week. He has already been buried. He was shot. Sit down ... I'll tell you more
in detail now.”
Nikolai Evgenievich appreciated
how Havre was carrying himself; he, of course, saw the pain in his eyes, but
there was the same calm expression on his face.
“He carries himself well, almost
perfect. He deserves his father. "
Nikolai Evgenievich poured him
water from a carafe standing on the table, he drank thoughtfully and spoke in a
voice that had no emotions.
“Tell me. I'm waiting.”
They had a long conversation.
Nikolai Evgenievich presented Havre to the men who had flown in with him. One
of them was a lawyer, his name was Edward, and the other two worked for the
deceased Sarychev in his business. After that, he told what had happened in
Moscow recently in the affairs of his father, about the capture of his mother
as a hostage, and then the cold-blooded murder of Vladimir Leonidovich. And
what thereby this thug who killed his father had achieved, and how things were
now with their business.
After listening to the story,
Havre was silent for a long time, there were still no emotions on his face, he
kept them all deep inside himself.
“I immediately return to Russia.
You had no right to hide my father's death from me. I should have been at his
funeral.”
“Sorry. That was my decision.
But I swore to your father ... that was a long time ago. So, I swore that if
something happened to him, I would do everything to save your life. I swore
that I would help and take care of you as my son,” Nikolai Evgenievich paused,
then continued. “If you go there, they will kill you. They do not need the heir
of Sarychev alive. While you are here, and as long as you do not interfere in
all this, you will not be touched. They are not interested in you. But as soon
as you return and declare your rights to your father’s business, they will
simply shoot your head off. Believe me, it is no England there ... now it is
hell, lawlessness there. Listen to me, no matter how hard it is. They spared
your mother only because she, having received a share in the business of her
late husband, is a guarantor that this business will not be sunk from above,
since Sarychev was respected by everyone, and no one would leave a widow without
money. So your mother, like you, is provided with the shares you have been
allotted. For now, be content with this. Moreover, here, in Europe, your father
had three branches of his bank. You will lead them and, being here, you will
manage this business. Now you need to wait. There, in Russia, and there is a
massacre. You do not know the main thing. Not only this thug but also “Czechs”,
Chechens, attempted to do business with your father. But Nazar, the one who
killed your father, took him faster, now the Chechens will go out on him. So
let them kill each other. And you will work here and wait for the time to come.
And when it comes, you will return, and I will help you to take back what
rightfully belongs to you.”
Havre calmly listened to
everything, then got up, walked over to the window, lit a cigarette, opened the
small window. Then he turned his gaze to Nikolai Evgenievich.
“How much to wait?”
“Five years. Previously, it
makes no sense to return. I think in five years they will kill each other themselves,
and then the one who will survive will be finished off by authorities. That is
the plan. Whom they will not finish off – those will be imprisoned ... Here is
such a food chain. And if you are smart, you will not get into it but will wait
until you watch all this.”
Havre was clever, he understood
everything, and he hid deep inside a passionate desire to avenge his father. He
just, pulling on his cigarette again, thoughtfully said, “Father asked to buy a
horse at auction. Did he have time to see it?”
Havre remembered the whole story
when, at the request of his father, he flew to Germany for the annual auction
of Hanover sports horses in May in Verdun. He did not understand this passion
of his father for horses, but as an exemplary son, he always carried out his
will. And when he asked to go there with a famous horse specialist to buy him a
horse, he, of course, went. Then Havre could not even imagine that horses, yes,
horses, cost so much. That they were being auctioned off and buyers were also
“fighting” for them, raising the price. He looked indifferently at everything
that happened, wrinkling his nose from the smell of horse sweat, and patiently
waited for this specialist to select a horse for his father. Then he paid for
this horse and agreed to send it to Russia. The amount he paid for the animal,
Havre did not even want to voice in his head, believing that buying a Ferrari
would be the best investment of money. But, probably, the father had already
fallen into senility, since he spent so much money on a horse. Havre did not
discuss all this with his father. He just did everything and, with a sense of
accomplishment, returned to England. The only thing that he remembered from all
this was the strange nickname of the horse - Walchensee. This is the name of
the lake in Bavaria, in the vicinity of Munich, in the middle of the Bavarian
Alps. This lake is famous for the clear water of sky-blue color. Back then,
Havre was surprised why the completely black horse was called as a blue lake,
he even specified this from the consultant who was with him. The one with a
businesslike look explained that the name of the horse was given after the
first letters of the name of the father and mother of the foal. Perhaps it was
the only name that they were able to pick up for a newborn foal using these
letters.
“Your father saw a horse ... he
really liked it. He often went to it, fed with carrots, crackers...”
“Why did he need this horse? He
doesn't even ride a horse. Rather, he rode in his youth, and then never sat in
the saddle,”- Havre recalled his father’s figure that had become stout with
age.
“For the soul…”
Havre heard this phrase from his
father. He did not understand how a horse at the price of a Ferrari could be
for the soul. And in general, he did not understand the fanaticism of such love
for horses. He referred it again to senile marasmus, which began with his
father. Thinking about it, he was glad that at least at the end of his life his
father had bought something for his soul.
“What now is with the horse?”
“When the Chechens began to
shake your father down, affairs looked on an ugly look. In general, the main
Chechen, Shamil, took this horse for himself.”
Havre was not particularly
upset, it wasn’t a big loss. It was strange that the Chechens coveted the
animal at all. Although it wasn’t strange, children of the mountains, they
always had horses for the soul too.
He was silent for a long time,
digesting everything in himself that he had heard, then, without turning around
and looking into the darkness outside the window, asked, “What, you say, is the
name of the one who killed my father?”
“Nazar.”
“Nazar...”
Havre reiterated this name,
knowing that the time would come and he would find him to avenge his father.
That night, having talked about
the general situation in Sarychev’s business, they decided to stop until the
morning. For the next few days, they had to meet more than once, so that the
heir to Sarychev would take over and accept his father’s affairs.
When the unexpected guests left,
Havre returned to the living room and, going to the window, was looking at the
night for a long time.
He knew that a carefree life had
ended forever for him. Now he had stepped over the line. It was in the past
when he was a young man with rich parents who allowed his son everything. And
now there was the present and the future, where he became matured during this
night and realizing what death and another life were, and that now he had
received everything that his father had been creating over the years of his
life. And he would not fail his father, he would multiply what he did, and then
would return what was rightfully his.
He was his father's son. No, he
was not a stupid spoiled boy. Just all this time, he studied life but never
lost his head or self-control because of all the temptations surrounding him.
Now it was his time. He,
Sarychev Gavriil Vladimirovich, would become whom his father wanted to see.
“Dad, I'll take revenge for
you.”
***
Nazar woke up from the delicious
smell of edibles that penetrated the room. In the stomach rumbled, and in the
mouth accumulated saliva. He got out of bed and quickly dressed, went into the
kitchen. There, cooking was in full swing. Judging by the products on the
table, the boy, apparently, had already managed to rush to the store. Nazar was
surprised. He had never slept so well, and here he did not even hear anything.
Alyosha did not expect to see
him in the kitchen, turning around, he almost dropped the wooden spatula from
his hands.
“Hello, what, scared?”
“No ... I probably woke you up?”
The guy, apparently, coped with himself and again switched to a hissing
griddle.
“Yes, I usually do not sleep for
so long,” Nazar glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall, where the hands were
approaching ten o'clock.
“Now everything is ready,”
Alyosha said busily, taking the plates out of the drainer and placing them on
the table.
Nazar, once again looking at all
this, went to the bathroom. He felt being got enough sleep and rested. It was
not only physically, but also internally as if the long-twisted constant-voltage
spring was now released, and he became just a man like everyone else. In the
morning he liked the delicious smell of the breakfast being prepared, this
kitchenette, in which sun rays penetrated through the tulle and cast glare on
the ground floor linoleum, and this Lyosha in sweatpants and T-shirt, so deftly
wielding at the stove.
By the arrival of Nazar from the
bathroom, on the table, there were two plates, on which scrambled eggs with
slices of sausage and cheese laid. Everything was sprinkled with freshly
chopped dill on the top. In a large bowl, there was a chopped salad of tomatoes
and cucumbers with greens, seasoned with oil. Gently sliced bread lay in a
wicker basket. The kettle was already boiling on the stove.
Alyosha waited for Nazar to sit
down first at the table, and then, sitting down opposite him, he began to eat
the food from his plate with pleasure.
Nazar also ate quickly and
greedily. It could be seen, the body was restored after yesterday's shake.
When the tea boiled, Lyosha poured
it into cups and put the sliced sausage and butter on the table.
Looking at Nazar, he asked
uncertainly, “Should I make a sandwich with butter and sausage for you? I love
in such a way.”
“Do it! I love that too.”
Lyosha smiled and deftly spread
butter on a slice of white bread, then put the sausage on top and handed it to
Nazar.
Nazar ate, surprised that
everything was so tasty, or he was so hungry, or here in this house, the food
was perceived somehow in a special and different way.
Finally, having satiated, Nazar
sank back from the table, leaning his healthy shoulder against the wall, and
watched Lyoshka cleaning and washing everything skillfully and quickly.
“Bring paper and a pen. I will
write a note for Yefim.”
Alyosha quickly brought paper
and a pen and continued to clean up the kitchen, and Nazar began to write.
When cleanliness and order were
imposed, Alexey remembered and turned to Nazar.
“Come on, I'll tend to your
shoulder.”
Nazar just nodded. Alyosha
understood the order and, bringing a first-aid kit, looked at Nazar, who,
getting up, took off his yesterday dark gray sweater.
Alyosha gently unwound the
bandage from his shoulder. The seam on the shoulder withered. Lyosha knew that
it was necessary to wash away the dried blood and process everything with a
disinfecting solution. So he did to Bystryi with its cut on the flank, he
concluded that the man wounds were treated the same way.
He, standing behind Nazar, began
to gently wash the dried blood with moistened gauze.
Nazar had already written a
message for Yefim. Overall, it was brief. Yefim should ask Alexey his home
phone number, and then dial it, but not from his home, but from any phone that
no one could listen to. Now they could not relax, while the situation was not
in their favor and in general it was still incomprehensible.
So, thinking about it, Nazar was
sitting on a stool and felt how carefully, even gently, Lyosha’s fingers
touched his shoulder. He felt his presence behind him so close that the warmth
of Alyosha’s body was sensed by his bare skin. Sometimes he stretched his hand
for another gauze napkin, and touched bare torso too tightly, too perceptibly.
And Nazar felt that every such touch responded to him precisely by the very
desire that should not be, but it was.
Nazar bowed his head lower; he
did not want Alexey to notice how it became swelling in his pants. That was how
he sat, struggling with the desire to jump up and stop this incomprehensible
madness, which increasingly covered him. And at the same time, he did not want
it to stop. He had not felt in himself for a long time such a desire, which for
some reason, contrary to everything, arose in him. But it was not only a
physical desire, no, but it was also something more. It was as if he dissolved
in intimacy with the guy, feeling his warmth, his breathing, his touch, all
this responded in his soul with a strange feeling unknown to him until now...
Alyosha was concentrating on the
sewn scar on Nazar’s shoulder. He tried to think only about what he was doing,
but he did not do so well. Even as soon as Nazar took off his sweater, and
Lyosha saw his body, he exhaled admiringly and then tried to breathe more
quietly, coping with his heartbeat. Probably, yesterday, against the background
of stress, everything that was happening was perceived differently. But today,
when he saw this relief of muscles, these hands with protruding biceps, not
large, but sufficient to give the whole body of Nazar masculinity and strength,
and this back, and such a smooth skin, even the ugly scar he worked on did not
spoil him - everything gave Nazar exactly the courage that a real guy should
have. Lyosha thought that perhaps he was just jealous of him because he himself
had thin arms and a puny body of a teenager. And probably, looking with
admiration at the naked torso of Nazar, he dreamt of the same body. Probably,
yes, but not only this so excited him inside. That was just what? He did not
know. But for some reason, he liked to touch his skin, and when he reached for
a gauze napkin, he specifically pressed his body so tightly against his bare
back, and it was nice. Lyosha held back his intermittent breathing, feeling his
heart pounding and his cheeks redden, and behind them his ears. And he felt
hot.
Lyosha did not understand why
all this was happening. And he did not know what to do with it. He also could
not understand if he wanted to finish with the treatment of this wound or vice
versa, he was so afraid that now he would finish processing it, and this
strange condition that he felt inside and strange that he felt in the air is
some kind of magic, a fairy tale that had originated, could all be destroyed in
a split second.
Nazar stood abruptly.
“Thank you, then I'll do
everything myself.”
Lyosha froze, hearing his icy
tone. Then the door slammed in the bathroom, and the water in the shower
rustled.
Alexey, uncomprehendingly, sat
down on a stool. Yes, that fairy tale that was now around him, suddenly broke
about this cold of words. He began to clean up the table, not realizing what it
was.
***
Shutting into the bathroom and
turning on the water, Nazar was jerking off. No matter how shameful it was for
him, but he could not bear such tension in himself. He jerked off, and he was
disgusted by himself. The last time he did these things, probably only in the army,
about five years ago. Then he did not have this need. There were always those
who satisfied him. He believed that jerking was a teenage need, and at his age
it was humiliating. And now he was doing it, knowing that if he had lingered at
least for a second there, he would not have kept himself, would have turned to
him, to his hands, the warmth of his body, his eyes.
Nazar recalled his sky-blue
eyes, and those lips, as if contoured, were so seductive...
He closed his eyes, remembering
how he was holding him then in the tack room, penetrating with a kiss into his
mouth, feeling his trembling, warmth, and breathing...
And he ejaculated into the hand,
dropping to the floor of the bath, stunned by such an orgasm and desolation
after it.
Recovering and washing with cold
water, he realized what had just happened...
“Nothing happened. The girl
needs to be found, and everything will be restored. After Natashka and I broke
up, all sorts of the nonsense climb into my head. And this puny tadpole with
his own eyes turned up at the wrong time. If there was a wench nearby,
everything would be fine."
Realizing this, Nazar came out
of the bathroom.
“Are you still here? Quickly go
to Yefim. There the address is written.”
Alexey just nodded and, hastily
dressed, ran out of the flat.
***
District Yasenevo was unfamiliar
to Alexey. He had never been here, but, as his grandmother said, your tongue
would get you anywhere. Therefore, having the exact address, he found the
necessary bus, on which he reached the necessary stop, and there, again asking
around the passersby, found the house he needed. After his district with low
houses, greenery, small cozy courtyards, this new district with huge houses of
seventeen floors, empty courtyards, and rare trees seemed to Alyosha a distant Martian
landscape so strikingly different in contrast to the earth.
He entered the porch
successfully, just as a girl with a pram was leaving it. He, holding the door,
went inside. There he pressed the button of the thirteenth floor and shivered,
he did not like elevators, feeling locked up and limited in freedom. Having
waited, when the elevator, as ill luck would have it, slowly rising to the
necessary floor, would open the doors, Aleksey quickly slipped out of it and
rang the right apartment.
Now he was to meet with Yefim,
with a man with whom he would have preferred never to see in his life. But
Nazar asked. Nazar needed help, so how he could think about himself. Alyosha
grouped and began to expect a meeting with the inevitable.
The door opened, on Yefim’s
unshaven face, nothing was reflected, and he looked at Lyosha indifferently and
waited.
“I am from Nazar,” Alyosha
whispered on the exhale, still feeling that he was afraid of this meeting, even
his voice was gone. And then he felt that a rough spurt pulled him into the
apartment, and the door slammed behind him.
“Come in, slippers are over
there,” he heard his husky voice.
Alex quickly took off his
jacket, threw off his shoes and found slippers in the darkness of the corridor.
Yefim was waiting for him in the kitchen. It was a standard small kitchen,
where the powerful figure of Yefim reduced the size of this room even more.
Lyosha slipped on a stool and handed a note from Nazar. He himself did not even
read it, although it was not glued. He simply knew that it was not good to read
other people's letters.
Yefim took a piece of paper. It
was written there: “Call me from an unrevealed number to Lyosha’s phone”.
The fact that something
happened, Yefim immediately guessed.
“Tell me,” he slowly lowered
himself on a stool in front of Alexey and nailed him to the wall with his gaze.
Lyosha swallowed saliva and
began to say:
“Yesterday, late in the evening,
he rang ... Nazar rang the doorbell. I opened. His shoulder was injured. I
sewed, well, like Bystryi, it also tore the skin, and I pulled it off with
threads. And Nazar is the same, and in the morning he told to give a note to
you. I arrived.”
“Is he hurt seriously?”
“I don’t know, but today I have
processed the stitch, there was dried blood there, but it does not seem to
fester...”
“Dictate your number.”
Alyosha, confused, dictated his
home phone number. Yefim did not write, just with a stone face looked at him.
“Where are you going now?”
“To the hospital ... to the
grandmother. She is there. She was recently laid down, she felt bad ... I will
visit her, and then to the stable.”
“Today, do not go to city. Got
it?”
Yefim saw that having come to
him, this guy was already completely cold, and it was not surprising because
the clothes were all old and out of season. But the frost on the street was not
sickly.
“Nazar also forbade going to the
city today. Therefore, I will help Petrovich and go home immediately.”
“Keep quiet about all this. Got
it?” Yefim did not change the voice intonation, but Lyosha was frightened by his
words, he just nodded and froze. “And if someone asks, you haven’t seen
anything and you don’t know,” Lyosha swallowed saliva again and nodded, “and in
the evening do not come back late. Got it? Well, why do you sit? Go.”
Hearing the command, he got up
and, quickly dressed, slipped out of the apartment with relief.
Yefim was already clearly aware
that their affairs were bad, and everything was very serious. He went up to the
stairs on the floor above and called the apartment. There lived a pensioner, whom
he regularly helped to carry bags. She lived alone, her grandchildren came to
her rarely, so Yefim calmly rang the doorbell, and she recognized him and let
him in when she heard that Yefim had a broken phone and he needed to call the
master.
With Nazar, they spoke not for
long. Nazar spoke briefly about the events of the evening, then they began to
sort out the options, who it could be. After discussing the plan, they came to
the conclusion that Nazar should lay low, because nothing was clear, and the extra
movement usually led to no good. But Yefim would begin to actively collect the
guys and work through all the options. When something became known, he would
call Nazar himself. That's what they decided.
Yefim came back to his
apartment, thanking the compassionate neighbor for helping to call the master,
and sitting down in the kitchen, he thought about it, analyzing the situation
and realizing that it all came from taking over Sarychev's business. So, they
needed to look for those who also wanted to seize this business, but only Nazar
turned out to be faster, stole the business from under the nose, and those
simply decided to kill him. Everything was simple and clear.
