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Every time Victoria was madly jealous when she noticed Kharon looking at one or another girl. He could fascinatingly smile at any girl that made Vic angry and confused. The girl said nothing to him. She silently got over her emotions. What could she say to him? She didn’t even know if Kharon was capable of being jealous and what it was in fact?
In his turn the demon understood what to be jealous meant but he didn’t understand well what he did so special that Vic was getting angry. It was enough to give a good look to any girl and he could hear her teeth grit.
Victoria almost got used to her visions and spirits. She saw spirits every day. She could see the same souls near her colleagues who accompanied them. Almost every person had near the deceased. Victoria didn’t know why the deceased were among people. Fortunately, spirits didn’t speak to her. They sometimes brazenly immersed her into their own memories, showing their past lives. Most of all those were moments of their deaths. Rarely they showed to her something good or other happy moments.
Victoria changed her mind about death. Now she was sure that no reason was to be afraid of death as there would be a life after it. Yes, it could be probably not as funny and happy as it was before, but it would be. There was a soul that continued to live, and it remembered how it used to be. Once it threw its corporeal skin it started remembering about what a person dreamt but while he was alive, he didn’t get.
Spirits often showed their memories of childhood to her, wiping away tears of impossibility to be there again, embrace a young mum whom they pulled from with their hand and legs. Souls remembered everything.
Victoria still didn’t understand what all that meant but she took it rather coolly. A man’s walking – ok. A soul’s walking near – ok. Nobody can see it but only I – ok. That was what the girl thought of it, assuring herself that she was ok. Vic made herself believe that everything happened to her was ok.
The girl sometimes could see lonely spirits. They followed no one and existed on their own. They slowly walked down the streets, percolated through the walls as if they were on their way to somewhere, they needed.
Some of them smiled but the smile was sad and enchained. If you saw such a smile, you’d never understand good or bad made the person smile like that. Maybe he didn’t smile at all, but he had a trifacial problem… You could hardly believe such smile… there was no soul. It was pretended. And when a soul with such smile walked you overcame with horror: souls couldn’t pretend. So, what could make it smile in such way?
At the beginning Victoria was uncomfortable when she met spirits and when they smiled walking towards her, it was getting worse.
At times the girl felt sorry for them. Once when Vic was walking about the Old Moscow, she saw a girl in a hurry and there was a spirit of her mother behind, trying to braid her hair in the wind. Here it was rushing to the girl, screaming something with its voiceless mouth, as it wanted to stop merciless time.
Seeing those pictures was very uncomfortable. Many times Victoria saw lovers parted by death itself. They shed bitter tears, raking up memories, pulling out the pain on the surface. But the beloved was near! He was always near, touched her hands, stroked the head, smiled. But nobody could see and feel him. There was pain again.
It was worse when a soul in love with its beloved was following him in the rear, but he was already touching a new living person’s hands, making himself love again. The spirit suffered. It remembered very well how it was and knew better, how it could have been, and it couldn’t understand why all it happened. Why didn’t anyone feel his touches? Why didn’t anyone kiss him back? He busted his guts, yelling into the living person’s ears about fading away love again.
Victoria’s heart was blowing up because of those visions. What a cruel substance, maybe, material, ruled the world if some people were doomed to suffer even after their death? Sufferings that were caused by woe and incomprehension. Some of spirits didn’t understand that they were spirits, that they were dead. In every way they tried to draw attention to themselves of the person who was important for them. But nobody, nobody noticed them. When someone like Victoria saw them, they tried to pass by with their eyes locked on the ground. Who would like the brand of insane person? Keep all your visions to yourself.
Grief wiped out all those who finally understood that they had been parted. Forever. The grief didn’t look like that which living people could feel to other ones. It was stronger, more painful and poor souls were imprisoned by forcible grief.
Victoria often asked herself why she could see it all. Why did she have to see all those sufferings and be unable absolutely to help anyone? Because of her own inability she was overcame with horror. She had to close her eyes or stoop her head, say to herself that she saw nothing, heard nothing and she didn’t care at all. She had to do what others did – just pass by. She had to leave the agony unnoticed in the middle of the great crowd. Victoria said nothing about spirits and ghost to anyone. She didn’t tell about it even to Kharon. Nobody had to know that she was insane.
A month passed after the deal was concluded. If there hadn’t been spirits, her happiness would have been unlimited.
Kharon studied to be a human, live like a human, tried to understand what to feel meant and what exactly he had to feel.
The jealousy issue was still opened: Victoria kept silence, the demon carefully waited until the time was ripe.
While Vic was at work Kharon studied people. He followed them everywhere, listening to every sigh and word said to anyone. He followed couples creepingly and got more and more surprised with speckled diversity of feelings. They were able to love, and it was important information for Kharon. His mind tried to understand how people loved. One thing was determinate absolutely: there was such couple whose feelings were the same. Someone loved too much to rave about his beloved and there was only his image before the eyes. The image was unchangeable and static. It stood to give a small chance, thin hope to look at the image in own subconsciousness. How strong the heart was beating! No. It was shaking and filling with life when the beloved appeared in life. The air stated walking inside the body, breaking up the breath. Pupils were madly black, dilated. They sucked into the face like big leeches. They sucked in, pulling out the image to keep it in memory. Adrenalin was injected into blood; a shudder ran over the body. Was it fear? No, it wasn’t. That was love. It had gentle touches, almost impalpable but penetrated straight soul, fondling it, desirous to touch it. And the beloved allowed to touch his soul.
Kharon knew Victoria to feel all of those. Almost a month of his own being with people, he finally understood why Victoria had done that crazy thing, why she’d been looking for meeting with Lucifer and what for or whom for she had sold her soul. She loved him. It buttered him up. Too much. It was the first time in his life. It was usual thing for him when women wanted more. But there was nothing about love but lust. Victoria…
Almost every night with scandals with her mother, Victoria stayed with Kharon. Every night his fingers barely touched her skin, her body, ran through her hair, unbuttoned clothes… His lips kissed her hands and body. But there was nothing serious between them.
Victoria fell asleep being embraced by him, broke down with love and passion but there was nothing more. Kharon didn’t even think that something was going to happen, but for sure he liked being loved for nothing. He was scared because of a thought what could happen to the girl’s mind when they used the bed finally not only in frames of a place where they could sleep. Sometimes he thought in what way his true face would change the girl’s love.
Kharon saw other couples in streets. There he and she hated each other. They were ready to kill, destroy but they couldn’t live without each other. He was absolutely surprised by such couples’ existence. None of them were neither demons nor angels but they had so powerful energy and invincible spirits. Maybe sly spirits deprived them from being together without scandals.
The relations with Victoria were far from the standards, fortunately. The girl was too complaisant and ready to do whatever the demon asked. She idealized and worshiped him. Kharon sometimes thought that if he had asked her to jump from a roof of a skyscraper for him, she would do it with no thinking.
Victoria texted Kharon to introduce him to Olga Vladimirovna and they both would be waiting for him at 8 pm at her place. For a long time Kharon was trying to find out why she needed it, but he wasn’t capable of reading her mind on the phone. That’s why he was on time before the door, contemplating the doorbell. He wasn’t scared but he didn’t get used to it. The demon could see through the walls Victoria putting on, combing her hair, her mother sitting at the table. Without coming into the flat he had already known that Olga Vladimirovna didn’t like an idea of her daughter.
As soon as Kharon heard the idea in the woman’s mind he immediately switched over her daughter, greedily picking her thoughts to seek for the idea. But there was nothing.
In thought the man came back into Olga Vladimirovna’s mind and heard again “Bad idea, Victoria, very bad”. Kharon frowned. Instinctively he turned out to be in Victoria’s mind, having immersed inside fully. He was looking for the idea. Demons had an amazing vice – excessive curiosity. But a new disappointment befell him again. There was no idea in Victoria’s mind. Being already irritated Kharon placed his hands at the door, burning through the erected obstacle by humans with his eyes, he immersed into Olga Vladimirovna’s mind. “What an idiotism, Vic… with your ideas. To leave your mother for a man… I don’t like it.” Kharon stepped back from the door and smirked. That was the idea Victoria glimmered. The demon was satisfied after he had found out everything that he had wanted to. He pressed the doorbell.
Suddenly Olga Vladimirovna gave a jump on the chair. Vic ran out of the room, zipping the shorts. Kharon had already heard her heart madly beating, joy being reborn into an indescribable admire, her soul wanted with awe to see the demon.
The door was opened, Victoria turned out to be in the beloved man’s embrace. She closed her eyes, basking on his shoulder and tenderly whispered: “It’s been a long since we saw each other last time. How much I missed you!”
‘It’s been a long?’ Kharon smiled, firmly embracing the girl, looking through the walls at Olga Vladimirovna’s mean face. ‘Oh, dear, what do you know about the infinity? We were together last evening at the very place saying good-buy each other, embracing. It was 18 hours 10 minutes and 35seconds ago. 18 hours is not an infinity, trust me.’
Victoria was listening to Kharon’s sentimental whisper and scarcely suppressed her admire and happiness. What could she know about infinity? What could he know about infinity being unable to love?
‘It is, actually. Even a second without you is infinity. Come in.’
Kharon came into the flat, squeezing the girl’s hand. Her mum was staying in the hall and trying to smile, pretending to be glad of a new acquaintance with her daughter’s man. The demon looked at the woman, greeted her with smile and stared at Vic. She held his hand and her happiness had no limits.
‘Good evening, young man,’ Olga Vladimirovna answered for greetings. Her voice was dry, stern and powerful. All the doctors usually had the same. The woman pretended easy to smile and be glade of that party. But the demon gloated as he clearly saw Olga Vladimirovna dislike him at all. He liked the beginning of the evening.
‘This is Kharon, mum.’ Vic introduced her young man.
The girl, being so blinded by unknown love, didn’t see that her mother’s amiability and smile had nothing to do with reality. She didn’t feel that real hostility from Olga Vladimirovna.
‘Kharon?’ she asked in a mentor voice. ‘What an unusual name.’
‘I was called different. Kharon is the name I gave to myself.’
‘How did your parents call you?’
The man gave the woman a playful look, dropped his head and slyly looked at Vic from under his eyebrows.
‘Parents?’ he grinned. ‘If I want everyone to know my name, I got from my… parents, I wouldn’t have used different one.’
Olga Vladimirovna took a sigh, making her displeasure public. Victoria still noticed nothing but only the demon’s magnificent face. He hypnotized her, extinguishing her mind neuron by neuron.
‘Shall we go?’ Vic took his hand.
There was a serviced table in the kitchen: snacks, salads and a bottle of wine.
The man sat to the table, Olga Vladimirovna was nearby. Her green eyes were scrutinizing the face in front of her. She was looking intently at the couple. The mother understood very fast what was going on in that relation in fact.
‘How did you meet?’ she asked, put the salad to the guest, saw her daughter holding his hand.
‘Four months ago, I was in metro. I saw a girl read intently something in her notebook…’
The demon retold word-for-word the story he had told before to Vasilisa. Vic listened to the fairy tale with pleasure but the same could hardly be said about her mother.
She liked the young man less and less. Unfriendliness was getting worse and worse. She did want to say to her daughter: “Break up with him, Vic, and run. Just run, without looking back.’
‘Do you have any intensions to my daughter?’ suddenly Olga Vladimirovna asked.
‘What do you mean intensions?’ Kharon asked in all innocence.
The woman’s face fell, her eyes filled with suspicion and indignation. At that moment she couldn’t hide her disappointment. Kharon had fun instead, as he enjoyed the woman’s evil thinking.
‘How do you see your future with my daughter?’ Olga Vladimirovna asked after she had counted to ten and took a sigh.
‘Very colourfully. Absolutely. Overpoweringly. Epochally. Pushy. Eccentrically. Extravagantly. Sometimes freakishly. Exotically. A little paranormally.’
‘We love each other, mum.’ Vic told in flurry of words, after she had noticed her parent to be agonizing and even irritating. ‘We wanna live together that’s why we’re here now.’
‘Live together…’ Olga Vladimirovna lowered her eyes. ‘Ok then Kharon, tell me about yourself: where you work, live, what your parents do. I want to know everything about you.’
‘I don’t have parents. They died. A long ago. I’m an orphan. I live in the centre of Moscow.’
‘Renting?’ the mother asked in surprise.
‘I am’
‘So, you have no your own place to live, right?’
‘Mum!’
‘A second please, Vic.’
‘I do but in another country. My own home is very far from here. It’s a diabolic distance, Olga Vladimirovna. It hurts me to remember about it.’
The woman was looking at the incubus like at an odious grub worm. She insanely wanted to smash it not to let be the bane of her daughter’s life. But she was enervated to lift her leg to kill the maggot, creeping up to her girl.
‘Well Kharon, do you work? Where? Victoria has told me nothing about you.’
‘Oh, I work for well-known company, but I’m forbidden to speak about it. If you worry about my affluence,’ Kharon clarified, having screwed up his eyes, after he had read the woman’s mind, ‘you shouldn’t then as I am enough financially backed not to let Victoria be in a downtrodden.’
‘We’re gonna be ok.’ Victoria tried to convince her mum.
‘I like to believe…’
Olga Vladimirovna silently saw her daughter looking at the cocky man, putting him on a high pedestal. Vic had never looked at anyone before. Her eyes had never shone like this before. Love for that man, whom Olga Vladimirovna didn’t like at all, was struggled out of her eyes.
The woman spoke with Kharon through clenched teeth after she had finally found something obnoxious and unpleasant of him. She was sure that the man of such face, such money, such body and speech couldn’t be a good man whom her daughter needed. She noticed his exaggerated and caddish self-confidence, mischievous countenance, lofty mien… “Big-headed asshole” was what Vic’s mother thought. All the evening she was waiting for him to leave finally.
Victoria was in the well hall, embracing with the man of her dreams. She didn’t want to let him go.
‘Let’s do it tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Move to your place.’
‘Yeah, about “move to my place”… I didn’t hear you have such a desire. I was in your mind but there was nothing. Do you hide it from me? How?’
‘Hide?’ Victoria frowned. ‘The whole evening I’ve been thinking that we’ll go to you tomorrow… whispering to you to say my mum about it but you seemed not to have heard me and it’s not about the move.’
The demon frowned, put his warm hands on her temples and closed his eyes. He easily came into her mind to look for her thoughts. There were many halls and greyness. It was like drizzling eternally, that covered visibility, occulting with its monotonous whisper every rustle and move. Kharon was running through the halls, seeking for anything, any sound or letter. Fortunately for him, he found. He deafly heard a vacuum whisper of invisible lips, asking for kiss…
‘I can hear them.’ Kharon said quietly, having pressed the girl’s temples stronger. ‘I can hear. They’re asking for kiss. Asking for tearing off the clothes and examining the perfect body with my lips by inches. They’re asking: “I wanna go with you…now” Take you? Now?’
Kharon opened his eyes and studied the girl. There were tears in her eyes, they were begging him to do it now.
‘Go get ready for move. I’ll be waiting for you here.’ Kharon nodded towards the door and smiled.
Vitoria kissed the man and ran back to the flat to pack things she would need at first.
‘What’re you doing?’ Olga Vladimirovna was staying in the doorway, having grossed her arms on her chest.
‘Packing my stuff.’
‘Where?’
‘To Kharon. Where else.’
‘I don’t wanna you go to him. I don’t like him. Are you listening to me, Vic?’
‘Mum!’ Victoria got frozen for a moment. ‘We’ve discussed everything already.’
‘Do you hear me?’ Olga Vladimirovna raised voice. ‘I don’t want you to go to him.’
‘Is there anybody who’s gonna accept the things that I want?’ Vic turned back to her beg, putting her laptop and cosmetic case into it.
‘This is a bad idea, Vic. Absolutely bad.’
‘Why? Why are you speaking like this? Why don’t you want me to be happy?’
‘Your happiness is what I’m speaking about…’
‘Oh really?’ the girl glared. ‘I think you’re speaking about your happiness, as usual. All my life you’ve been thinking for me, imposing your opinion on me. Sorry mum, but can I choose a man for me from my personal perspective? Can I like him, not you?’
‘What the hell are you talking? That’s disgraceful! This is his influence, isn’t it? Daniel was a good man for you… But you’re not interested in him. Of course, you look for freaks and peasants. What do you know about him?’
‘I know about him enough!’ Vic shouted, having grabbed her beg. ‘I’m not interested in Daniel because you like him not me! Let me go!’
‘What’s there on your blade?’ Olga Vladimirovna stayed in the doorway, blocking her daughter’s way.
‘Nothing.’ Vic answered with a snarl.
‘Vic!’ an austere voice sounded.
‘Tattoo!’
‘Tattoo…what? Are you out of your mind?’ the woman asked in a low voice, being worried. ‘I’m asking you, aren’t you quite right in the head?’
