The man stood at her and looked at her eyes, watching her ludicrous attempts to hide. He was in doubt silently berated himself for abortive decisions.
Victoria remained obstinately mute and waited for what would happen next. She understood well what Gregory want to speak about and that wouldn’t be a problem if she hadn’t need to answer him. She had no answers.
Before her eyes the pictures were like speedlights: Gregory and she were naked in bed. Victoria didn’t know whose room was it, but it wasn’t hers absolutely! Another picture showed Gregory stroked her thigh, kissing her hard, the light was fading away. The genital areas were smudgy as if they were censored. The third picture depicted their sex. The image was more smudgy than the previous one, but Victoria understood that there was a love-making itself. It was so dull and doleful… After she had seen the picture Vic realized that all of those weren’t her thoughts and fantasies. It was Gregory’s impure thoughts, doomed to fail, getting through into her head.
‘About what, Mr. Dogmanov?’ Victoria looked sideways at the silent man.
‘You.’ He sighed and met her eyes.
‘Me?’ the girl stared, at first from surprise. ‘What’s wrong about me?’
‘It’s not the point that there’s something wrong about you. The point is that…’ Gregory took her hand, ‘…I just wanted to congratulate you that your probationary period is over successfully! Congratulations!’
The man shook her hand and went away with rapid steps. Victoria stared after him in bewilderment and he stare fixed at the woman’s phantom.
‘Leave my son alone!’ Victoria heard a threatened whisper from another world.
‘Far be it from me to be with him!’ the girl snapped back. ‘If you need then you look after your son! I don’t care a damn about him!’
Vic was storming. Weren’t people really able to distinguish truth and lie? Was another world imperfect?
While the girl was grumbling at the ghost, she didn’t even notice a living person, not a ghost, staying in the doorway.
‘Delivery’s for you… on the first ground.’ The colleague said, having glanced at the girl curiously, and left the office, ‘Completely demented…’
Victoria heard the colleague call her demented and at the first time probably she realized difference between when you call yourself a psycho and when someone else did it.
The girl went down and met a bearded man’s eyes who looked antisocial. Her instinct told her that of all the people crowded in the lobby of the building this unattractive man was a courier.
‘Good afternoon. Are you Victoria Drache?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Delivery’s for you.’
‘But I’ve ordered nothing.’
‘I know. This is the gift from… just a second,’ the man got in the inside pocket, ‘it’s from Mr. Kharon… Unfortunately, he didn’t say his surname.’
Finally, a smile appeared on her confused face. A warm wave ran over her body. Vic could feel them one by one, running over the red-hot muscles and vessels. She felt slight shiver, poignant her nervous, fascinated the girl.
Vic took the package stretched to her and suddenly she understood that the man delivered nothing on the earth.
‘Have a good day,’ the man said having looked at the girl mysteriously, smiled and melt in the crowd.
Vic came back to her office, put the package on the table and stared at it. Having no ideas how but Vic already knew that there was a small box, the consist of which she could see unclearly. It was something globe-shaped, small and full of red colour. It wasn’t a ring.
The girl smiled and finally opened the package. Yes. It was a box of turquois colour. It was an ecrin. There was usually jewellery in the same. Despite its light weight Victoria understood this small thing was a great value.
‘Open it now!’ she ordered and opened the box.
There was an ideally cut crystal of red-burgundy colour, in size of a thumb nail. There was a real kaleidoscope of red tinctures in the middle of the mineral. The beauty and the unusualness of the gem stone consumed the girl’s perception and mind. She fascinatedly gazed at the stone glamming, as its light seemed to pull down, consume the viewer’s perception. A phone call broke Victoria’s careful gazing at the stone.
‘…I can see it, Love,’ Victoria heard the voice belonged to her beloved man. ‘It’s on your palm and you think that the parts of your skin that the stone touches are getting more and more alive, don’t you? I can see its unusual colour reflect in your eyes, the colour of the ripe pomegranate… It really does for your eyes.’
Her chest raised more often, her pulse was beyond the limits, established by WHO.
‘What’s it, Kharon?’ she whispered.
‘Painith.’
‘Pa… what?’
‘Pa-i-nith as people call it on the earth. Do you like it?’
‘I do! It’s really beautiful. I can’t tear myself away from it…’
‘I can understand you.’ Kharon smiled. ‘It’s one of the most beautiful stones of Lucifer’s collection.’
‘Is this Lucifer’s stone?’ Vic gave a shiver after she had heard the Lord of Hell’s name.
‘Well, no. Lucifer has similar and thinks it to be one of the most beautiful ones on the earth. I agree with him.’
‘Yea…’ Victoria mysteriously looked at the stone. ‘So do I.’
‘In two minutes a hopelessly in love with you man comes to you who this morning wanted to make you his obtrusive declaration of love… But he was in a blue funk.’
‘Jesus,’ Vic got upset having heard the demon’s prediction and being doomed, she sank into the chair, firmly holding the gift in her fist.
‘No, it’s not him,’ Kharon answered coldly. ‘I’m waiting for you at home.’
The man hanged up the phone and frowned at the cell in his hand. He felt bad: his body, organized in a different way, had a lack of energy. He needed to eat. He had given too much to the girl having nothing in return. He needed to get power…
He unceremoniously got into someone’s dream. Having seen the most beautiful nature of the Alps and not less beautiful girl skiing, the demon couldn’t help hiding victorious smile. The girl was alone in this wild empty place…
At a magic wand wave Kharon was at her, wearing ski suit and sunglasses, hiding the most part of his face. He held ski poles and his feet were fixed in skis.
Then the stranger looked at him, trying to see his face through the mask, dreaming about the man to take off the mask. The man, after he had read her low and brute thoughts, was slowly taking off the mask with no embarrassment. The rays of the fading away sun were lighting up his white-snow smile. His smile was so languishing, charming and confident in its own perfection.
A second later the girl contemplates his amber eyes at which the light falls so elegantly, making them more attractive. Despite the demon’s face was lighted up by the many thousand years luminary his pupils were still dilated like as if he were in the darkness.
The girl couldn’t tear herself away from the man’s eyes, asked him to touch her. Without a second thought Kharon put the ski poles and in the twinkling of an eye the girl turned out to be in his severe but gentle arms… The demon of lust didn’t need too much to make his victim lose her mind.
He was quiet asking her for permission to get into her soul, promising to give something that she would never be able to forget and, oh, stupid, hyper excited girl was whispering him sacramental yes.
In a second the location was changed. The snow-white and cold Alps faded away, falling like walls and curtains in the theatre, on the horizon. The next unplanned location was moving towards them.
It was a fireplace, blazing with bright fire, pleasantly crackling over the dry branches. The high pile carpet, covered the floor at the fireplace, was so fluffy and soft. It was as white as snow covered a mountaintop.