Page 93 of Merciless Daddy

“Today, a glass. Tomorrow, collectivization.”

“Drink.”

She drank while glaring at me over the rim.

“Good girl.”

Her throat moved around the water.

That evening she sat on the floor with a coloring book Angela had brought and a box of pencils arranged by shade. The picture was a forest scene. Yelena colored every leaf black.

“Cheerful,” I observed.

“It’s nighttime.”

“Isn’t that that sun?” I pointed at the orb in the sky.

“An eclipse.”

“Of course.”

I read shipping reports on the sofa while she worked near my feet. Every so often, her shoulder brushed my shin. Accidental at first. Later, not.

When she completed a page, she held it up without looking at me.

I understood.

“Well done, little one.”

Her shoulders eased. The change was immediate enough to frighten me.

Praise settled her nervous system as surely as slow breathing did. Not empty praise. She rejected that. If I called something beautiful merely because she had made it, she narrowed her eyes and asked for reasons. So I gave them.

Good choice of contrast. Patient work. Clever detail. You stayed with it when you became frustrated.

She listened as if storing each word somewhere private. Then she tried to seduce me.

Relentlessly.

The tiny pajamas appeared on the second night.

Pale silk shorts. A sleeveless top with narrow straps. Too much bare leg. Too much warm skin. Her hair loose down her back.

She walked into the kitchen while I was drinking water and reached past me for a glass.

Her breast brushed my arm.

“Sorry,” she said. “What a terrible accident.”

She was not sorry.

“You’re going to bed.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Then drink.”

“Not for this drink. For a different drink. A drink only you can give me.”