CHAPTER 6 Jaklin and Mikhail
Once she stepped outside, Alex realized that her relationship with the night had changed. As she walked the side of the winding street toward the center of town, her eyes adjusted more quickly than normal to the lack of light. In her peripheral vision, she saw evanescent outlines that dissolved when she looked directly at them. Though largely without color, each object seemed internally radiant. Her relationship with the heavens had also changed. She saw deep into the firmament, the pin pricks of light, saw a glowing Milky Way that beckoned her into its sparkling depths.
Alex wondered if she wasn't changing too. Her breasts itched and seemed a little larger, felt puffy, as they sometimes did around her period. Which, by the way, was now officially late, just a day, but that hadn't happened in a while.
As Alex came into town, she noticed an excitement to the nightlife for the first time. Voices from restaurants and pubs seemed to pull her in. She wanted to speak to those voices, have them respond to her. She heard laughter, felt a thrill ripple through her. This must be what her friends back in Bucharest felt when they talked about their love of nightlife, something until now, Alex couldn't share.
Alex walked by a pub and noticed the music and laughter spilling out into the street. She decided to go inside and was aghast at the mash of bodies writhing to the pounding music. She heard someone mention the rapist, and pushed her way through the mass of humanity, unexpectedly relishing other bodies rubbing against hers, the smell of cologne and perfume. She stood at the bar, shrugged off the bartender, not really wanting a drink. She seemed to have a purpose, to be actively looking for something, someone, although she couldn't imagine what or who.
She wedged a path into the dark reaches of the room and spotted a girl in the corner who looked sullen, perhaps even morose. Alex felt drawn to her, as if caught in some sci-fi tractor beam. The girl smiled as she approached. It was the goth that attracted her, the dark lipstick, deep-set shadowed eyes. Those large bulbous whites seemed to glow in the dark. Her hair fell in soft ringlets about her shoulders, and black bangs covered her forehead. The girl was a little older and apparently not with anyone, although another chair at her table sat empty. The girl motioned her to take it, and Alex surprised herself by slipping into the warm seat. At least the girl didn't have any piercings.
"Buna Ziua," said Alex.
"Vorbiţi bulgară?" the girl asked in Romanian. She was brunette, full-figured, prominent clivaj. Though sullen, she seemed to have a sense of eternal optimism about her, covered by a scowl.
"Engleză şi un rus puţin," Alex replied.
"Mikhail will love you," the girl said, and looked down.
Alex was enchanted. "Oh god! I'm going for the goth."
"You like goth?" The girl seemed peevish but wiggled in her chair.
"I do now." Alex loved those sparkling dark eyes.
"We're preparing ourselves for Braşov, if we can ever tear ourselves away from Sinaia. We love this place."
Alex couldn't take her eyes off the girl's cleavage. Her throat looked even more inviting. "Who's Mikhail?"
"My friend from Russia."
"Russian? You like Russians?"
"You don't?"
"Fifty years of communist suppression? I guess not."
"I met him a couple of weeks ago. I'm Jaklin." She squinted and looked at Alex as though she'd seen her before. An orchestral interlude started the next song. "Dance?" she asked.
Alex was taken aback. A girl asking her to dance? But one girl couple was already on the dance floor. She rose and walked toward it with Jaklin following. Once there, they danced apart, but Alex couldn't take her eyes off this dark beauty from Bulgaria. She was shorter than Alex, with a self-conscious, perhaps self-inhibited smile. The song was Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die," a recent international hit that she'd not been fond of but now seemed particularly appealing. The drummer's steady beat projected a sense of urgency that drove her body movement. Choose your last words, This is the last time, Cause you and I, we were born to die..., Lana's contralto vocal reverberated sending a chill up Alex's back. ...born to die..., born to die... echoed in her mind. Jaklin looked so familiar. Alex realized she had been ... Lost but now I am found, I can see but once I was blind... How true, so very true.
Alex could hardly keep her hands off Jaklin. She leaned forward and spoke into her ear over the music, "You're Bulgarian?"
"Came here for a part-time job with the Bulgarian Consulate. Decided to stay." Jaklin took her hand. Black fingernail polish.
Alex flinched, but let her keep it. It was warm and smooth, silky soft.
...the road is long, we carry on... That line reminded Alex of the psychic road she saw when she'd fainted.
The song changed to Del Rey's "Blue Jeans" just as a tall young man with black curly hair started dancing alongside them. "This is Mikhail," Jaklin said in her ear. He was less goth, with rimless glasses. Quite handsome. Well, yes, Alex thought. This Russian, I can stand to be around a while. They became a threesome, the perception flowering and pulling them together. Del Rey's voice animated the three of them. I will love you till the end of time... The rest of the dance floor seemed to disappear, the three alone, immediate friends in a euphoric dance of life and death. This is it, Alex thought. This is my life. ...till the end of time... They are my life. But how silly to know someone for five minutes and be so... attached.
Alex leaned toward Jaklin again. "You two seem familiar, but we've never met, have we? I come here every summer." Her hair smelled like a field of wildflowers.
"Isn't this dreadful?" Jaklin said. "Dreadfully good."
Alex looked up at Mikhail, loved that scrubby little beard, and caught herself singing along with Lana. I know that love is mean, and love hurts... Me singing? How can this be? And singing to a young Russian with a short black beard. He was singing to her also. ...love hurts... A magnificent feeling enveloped her. Just now, she felt as though she could suck whatever she wanted out of the Universe. I would wait a million years...
The song ended and Mikhail disappeared. So disappointing. She followed Jaklin back to her table in the corner. The magic had evaporated with Mikhail's departure.
Once in their seats, Alex leaned forward, asked in Jaklin's ear, "How long will you be here?"
Jaklin turned her head so that their cheeks touched. "Who are you?" she asked. "You feel like a lover." She kept turning until the corners of their mouths touched. They kissed, a faint touch of tongues. Alex felt a charge of electricity ripple through her.
"What are you two doing?" It was the young man, Mikhail, and as the girls separated, he pulled another chair up between them. He had a soft creamy complexion that Alex wanted to touch, and that grizzly little beard that she wanted to scrape her palm across. Neither answered, but Alex felt her own body warm. What is happening to me? she wondered. I'm not like this. This is not my body. She felt her nipples tingle.
"I'm Missy," she said, pulling back to get a better look at him. She'd quickly adopted Queen Marie's nickname. "So you're the Russian?"
"What did Jaklin say about me?" Mikhail looked defensive, and rather cute with that bit of beard and glasses.
Alex actually liked guys in glasses, the studious type. He'd be a great boyfriend at Oxford, she thought. "Nothing you'll have to live down," she said. "At least you speak English, if not Romanian." But Alex was wondering what she was doing. She'd never kissed a girl before. That was not something a good Romanian girl would even consider. And now this dark Russian looked even more delicious.
"Why did you decide to stay in Sinaia?" asked Alex.
Jaklin and Mikhail looked at each other. "Something inexplicable," said Mikhail. "Perhaps it's because Sinaia is so international, and we're close to royalty, Peleș Castle just up the hill."
"Well, that's not quite the whole story," said Jaklin. "I have a part-time job at Casino Sinaia. You do know it's not actually a casino?"
"Of course. It's the ICC, International Conference Centre. How did you lan
d a job like that?"
"The Bulgarian Consulate. I just graduated with a degree in international relations."
Alex was intimidated. Here she was just about to enter university, and Jaklin had already graduated. Yet, she had a real affinity for these two. She seemed to read them as she'd never been able to her friends in Bucharest.
"How about you, Mikhail? You work there also?"
"No way. I came here with a study abroad class. Once I met Jaklin, I decided to stay a while. I was planning to start graduate school, but now I'm not so sure."
"Also in international relations?"
"Heavens no. Nothing that practical. I majored in literature. I'll have to teach, so I have several years yet at university."
"In the fall, I'm off to Oxford. Not that I'm particularly excited about it."
"An intellectual," said Mikhail. "You'll be famous."
Alex was surprised at how instantly at home she was with these two university-educated foreigners. "I don't have any friends," she confessed. "Never have. Why is it that I like you two so much?"
"Just something in the air," added Jaklin.
"Something darkly spiritual," said Mikhail.
"You're into religion?" asked Alex.
"Not really," they said simultaneously, then frowned at their synchronicity.
"He's royalty," said Jaklin.
"Just a distant descendant of royalty," objected Mikhail. "Jaklin's heritage is the closest."
"You wish," she countered. "We're both offshoots of the Cantacuzene family. Mikhail from the Russian branch and me the Bulgarian, through some bizarre marital twists that no one will confirm."
"Then we are all three some dark side of royalty," said Alex. "Just today, I learned that I'm a descendent of Queen Marie of Romania, but through illegitimate birth."
"That's rank and file," said Jaklin. "We are a royal trinity. Makes me tingle." She squiggled in her chair again, and her eyes roamed Alex's face, settled on her lips. "You know of the Cantacuzenes?"
"Never heard of them," said Alex.
"You should have," said Mikhail. "The Sinaia Monastery was founded by a Cantacuzene."
"I'll have to ask Bunică. She knows the history of Sinaia."
"So you're from Sinaia? Lived here all your life?" asked Jaklin.
Alex laughed out loud, something she rarely did. "Heavens no! I was born here, but raised in Bucharest. I'm just spending the summer."
Jaklin whispered something in Mikhail's ear, and he whispered back.
"What's the secret?" Alex asked.
"No," Mikhail said to Jaklin.
"What?" asked Alex.
Mikhail smiled at her. "She's a kinky Bulgarian girl," he said. "She wants me to kiss you."
"Just a little affection to consummate our royal kinship," added Jaklin.
Alex instinctively leaned toward Mikhail and pulled his face to hers. She just had to get her hand on that bit of beard. A spark of static electricity made her flinch, then their lips met. She closed her eyes and drifted into a few seconds of bliss. He tasted like salami and pepperoni pizza, a dash of olive, felt the brush of beard across her cheek.
"Break it up, you two," said Jaklin. "Now, I'm jealous." She gave Mikhail a quick kiss then pushed him forward over the table and leaned behind him and toward Alex.
Alex took the cue. Their lips met again, and this time it was tongue wrapped around tongue. With her hand on Mikhail's shoulder and his back up against her breasts, the heat of the two of them was a rage inside her. "Delicious" didn't begin to describe Jaklin. She tasted like blackberry cobbler.
A strange sexual yearning enveloped Alex, and she pushed back. "I don't know what I'm doing," she said, alarm in her voice. "What is happening to me?" She felt panic. She didn't know either of them, yet she had an out-of-control yearning. With that, she jumped to her feet, ran from the table.
"Missy!" they called after her.
Alex pushed her way through the crowd and out of the pub, leaving her two new friends behind.
What had frightened her more even than what she was doing was the blossoming thought: the three of them together, in bed, a ménage à trois.