"Yana, I wanted to let you know this is my last night."
"What? What do you mean 'last night'? What are you talking about?"
"I've saved up enough money to get out of here and I'm leaving tomorrow morning."
Yana pulled Larissa aside where they could talk more privately. They'd been best friends since childhood and both had grown up in Brighton Beach as second-generation Russian immigrants. It was Yana who'd introduced Larissa to the world of exotic dancing after they graduated from high school four months ago in June.
Yana came from a very close-knit family that loved her and put her first. She'd started dancing at Девки for the thrill and the attention more so than for the money. Her parents would die if they knew where she really went most evenings working from 9 or 10pm until late into the morning hours. She told them she had a job working as a telemarketer for a firm that dealt mostly with Russian-speaking clientele. That explained the odd hours and her older brother Boris covered for her because Yana knew about his new-found love of cocaine. In exchange for his support, he got her silence.
Yana told Larissa what she was doing after her first week at Dyevki which is a Russian slang word for 'girls.' Larissa thought it was disgusting until Yana showed her the tip money she'd made that first week. It was just short of a four-hundred dollars. Even so, Larissa was hesitant about dancing with her clothes off for the kind of men who frequented such places. Unlike Yana, she'd grown up in home where her father was a hopeless alcoholic who'd mentally abused her and beat her for as long as she could remember. She couldn't prove it, but she was convinced her father was somehow connected with, if not outright responsible for, the death of her mother some ten years ago. Because of her home life, she had tremendous trouble when it came to relationships with men. In fact, the only man she really trusted was her older brother, Sergei.
He was now 20 and like Larissa, he'd been the victim of their father's wrath on many occasions. He was a good, decent boy with an unbreakable spirit, but even he couldn't take life at home with their dad. The day he turned 18, he joined the Army and had been gone the last two years.
Larissa cried when he told her because he'd been her protector and confidant since he was strong enough to stand up to their father. More than once he'd saved her from another night of terror in their tiny apartment after their father had gotten hopelessly shit-faced on vodka, the Russian's drink of choice. Vodka was cheap and plentiful and their dad put away a fifth of the clear liquid every day. He hadn't been able to hold a job in five years and they lived off of whatever meager benefits he could get from the system.
Larissa Golovko was used to going without. She was an exceptionally pretty girl who not only didn't have nice clothes, she didn't even have little things like shampoo or nail polish. To her dad, those were luxuries which really meant they took up money he could otherwise spend on necessities which meant vodka. So she went to school all her life with greasy, stringy hair, and whatever second-hand clothes she could find at near-by apartment-yard sales or the Good Will store. Once, Yana had given her a pretty blouse and skirt she no longer wanted, and the day she wore it her father had called her 'шлюха' or 'slut.' From then on, she was content to wear what she had until it was tattered and threadbare in spite of the regular ridicule she got at school.
When she herself started dancing at the club, Yana let Larissa shower at her place so she could shampoo her long, dark hair and style it so that it framed her pretty face in a way that would maximize her tips. Larissa was also supposed to be working for the telemarketing firm and both of them left the apartment dressed modestly then changed at the club. That first week, Larissa brought home three hundred dollars more than Yana and the manager began touting her as a 'featured' dancer. As such, Larissa would often have the entire floor to herself for the better part of an hour in which she could make several hundred dollars.
Other than expenses for the skimpy outfits she wore to work, every dollar was squirreled away in a jar under the floor under her bed in her tiny room. Each evening, she only need wait until her father passed out drunk before going to Yana's to change and leaving for the club.
Now, after just four months, she had more than enough money to leave town, get an apartment of her own somewhere, and hopefully, find a job doing what she loved. The one and only joy of Larissa's life had been ballet and she had been dancing all her life. Her mother had been her biggest supporter and had arranged a scholarship from a wealthy Russian Larissa later learned was connected with the local mafia in Brighton Beach. The money had kept flowing in even after the death of her mother. However, Larissa understood that its continuation required monthly visits to the private office of Ivan Ivanovich Smerlov. Nothing sexual had taken place—yet—but they were visits she knew where somehow inappropriate and that more would one day be expected of her.
Larissa's life was full of conflicts with her father as well as contradictions. She was a pretty girl who looked plain and homely. She was a quiet, sweet girl, but the most seductive, salacious dancer at Dyevki. She didn't trust men, but she loved her brother. She loved her brother but she shouldn't. She couldn't. It was forbidden. And yet she did.
She thought back to the day she turned eighteen when Sergei had come home unexpectedly to surprise her. She hadn't started dancing at Deyvki yet and she was hoping just to be able to be left alone for one day. If she was really lucky, she might be able to sneak out and spend some time with Yana.
Her father was already three sheets to the wind before dinner and he downed several more shots with the kielbasa and pirogi she'd made him. As usual, he reeked of liquor, sweat, and cigarette smoke and the thought of him touching her made her sick. She went to her room as soon as she was finished eating and closed the door. Several minutes later she heard him stumbling toward her room. Шлюха? Tы готова? Ты меня ждешь? Ведь, ты сегодня взрослая. Мы будем попраздновать! "Whore? Are you ready? Are you waiting for me? After all, you're a grown-up today. We're going to celebrate a little."
Larissa cringed as her door opened. She didn't even look up. She was so numb, she could no longer even cry. She could smell him from across the room and as he approached her bed, she got that sick feeling in her stomach. He stood next to her and started mumbling about what a prick tease she was and how ugly she was and how no man would ever want her.
That's when she thought she heard the front door open and shut. A part of her hoped it was a break in. Maybe a man with a gun. If she were lucky, they'd kill her father and her nightmare would be over. She'd remembered thinking it would also be okay if they killed her, too.
As her father reached out and grabbed her arm, she saw him. Tall, handsome, and strong. The moment he saw what was happening he said in a very loud voice, "Не трогай мою сестру. Я тебя убью!" "Don't touch my sister or I'll kill you."
The old man turned around too quickly and lost his balance. He fell into the nightstand knocking over the small lamp standing on it as it fell along with him. He drug himself to his feet and looked at his son and said in Russian, "Well, well. Look what the cat drug in. It's the soldier boy himself."
Like Larissa, Sergei Golovko spoke only English outside of their local community, but their father's English was so awful they spoke only Russian at home. He told his dad, "You don't scare me anymore. I'm not afraid of you. The last time I was home I thought I taught you a lesson you'd never forget." He took a step closer and put his finger in his dad's face and said, "If you lay a hand on her I'll kill you with my bare hands."
Their father turned around and looked at Larissa who was still cowering on the bed. He turned and faced his son who was a good four inches taller and in perfect physical condition. "Your sister is a fucking slut. That's why you love her so much. Yeah, I know all about you two," he slurred. "You two are going to make some kind of monster baby together. Don't kid yourself, Sergei. Larissa is nothing but a whore. A sick, fucking..."
The old man didn't even see the right cross that broke his jaw and sent him flying back into the nightstand. The next morning, he had no idea he'd hit the corner of it with his head or how the huge gash got there. He only knew he was in more pain than he'd ever been. He lay there in her bedroom calling her name and begging for help. But she was gone.
Sergei told her to get cleaned up and to change into the pretty dress and other things he'd bought her for her birthday and carried inside in the kinds of bags she'd only seen other women carry from the nicer stores. He'd even remembered the little things they didn't have at home as he handed her scented soap, shampoo, and perfume. Larissa hadn't worn perfume since her mother was alive when she would dab a tiny bit behind her ears on special occasions. Just having her beloved brother home for her birthday was more than enough. These gifts were more than she'd received on all of her previous birthdays combined and just looking at them made her cry tears of joy.
