Hard sex. Rear entrance

Tanya stared again at the coffin being lowered into the earth, into the black maw of the grave that swallowed everything she had left. She tried. Tried to force herself to feel. She remembered Lena, so small, giving her a clumsily drawn card, her fingers sticky with glue, trembling with pride. How they laughed together over some silly movie, lying on an old couch, sharing a blanket. How Lena, grown up, spoke to her with gentle concern: “Tanya, you’ve become so prickly. I love you no matter what, but… be careful, okay?”

Nothing. No tears, no lump in her throat. Just the same emptiness. Deafening, numbing, absolute, like an abyss she kept falling deeper into. And a realization, terrifying and final, like a verdict: she couldn’t cry. The mechanism for tears, for pain, for grief, had broken in her. It had atrophied over the years she trained herself to feel nothing but anger and contempt, when she built walls of ice and steel around herself so no one and nothing could break through.

She hadn’t just lost her sister. She discovered she’d lost herself. The part that could mourn. The part that could love. And that loss was more terrifying than any grave, because she was alive, yet dead inside.

When the coffin disappeared into the ground and people began to disperse, Alex approached. He silently handed her a white rose, its petals cold as her heart. There was no fear or subservience in his eyes. Only understanding. And that was unbearable, like sunlight striking eyes accustomed to darkness.

“Leave,” she told him, and her voice finally cracked. Not from grief. From rage. Rage at herself, at this emptiness devouring her from within, leaving nothing but ash.

She stayed at the grave alone. The rain soaked her expensive suit, her hair, her face, its drops cold as her soul. She removed her sunglasses, letting the water stream down her cheeks like counterfeit tears she couldn’t shed. But it was a deception. A cheap imitation, like everything in her life.

She bent down, took a handful of wet, cold earth, and clenched it in her fist. Dirt lodged under her perfectly manicured nails, staining what always remained flawless.

“Forgive me, Lena,” she whispered into the void, her voice hoarse like the wind over a grave. “Forgive me for not even being able to say goodbye like a human being.”

But there was no answer. Only the wind, the rain, and the same icy, silent emptiness inside, which had become her only companion. A part of Tanya died with her sister, but how large that part was, she couldn’t grasp in this tragic moment. She knew only one thing: what remained was merely a shell, a shadow of who she once was, and that shadow didn’t know how to live on.

Chapter 6: Mirror for a Hero

Time, once frozen, could not be filled with anything, and the tools that had once sustained her—power, control, cold calculation—had ceased to function, like a broken mechanism. Tanya returned to work a week after the funeral, rising like a soldier from a trench after a crushing defeat. That same week, she had spent in a daze, drowning her solitude in expensive whiskey within the empty, cavernous expanse of her apartment, where every corner was steeped in a silence as heavy as a gravestone. She strode into the television channel’s building with her head held high, clad in an impeccable black suit, her makeup concealing the traces of sleepless nights and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. She was Tanya—the chief producer. Unbreakable. The Iron Lady, whose armor bore no cracks. Or so she believed.

But something had shifted, subtly yet irrevocably. The employees didn’t merely part for her as before, with caution and reverence—they turned away, hastily shutting office doors, their whispers fading as she passed by. Yet in this silence, there was more than just fear. The air was thick with something new, acrid like the scent of betrayal—a malicious glee that hovered around her, like a toxic fog.

Olga, her new assistant, greeted her pale and trembling, as if facing not a person but a specter whose presence chilled the blood. She had heard of Tanya, of her cold, ruthless nature, but when met with that gaze—sharp as a blade—she was momentarily paralyzed.

“Tanya Vasilyevna… You’re expected in the chairman of the board’s office. Immediately.”

“For what reason?” Tanya asked coldly, shedding her coat with a nonchalant grace, as if her heart hadn’t clenched with a dark premonition.

“I… I don’t know,” the girl stammered, lowering her eyes, her voice quivering like a fragile thread ready to snap. “But… the entire holding’s leadership is there.”

Tanya felt a shiver run down her spine, thin but piercing, like a needle. Yet she crushed the sensation, clenching it in her fist as she always did. She had endured worse—the loss of Lena, the emptiness gnawing at her from within. What could they do to her? What could they possibly do—kill her? The thought, dark and bitter, flickered through her mind, but she brushed it aside like an annoying fly. Her armor was strong. Or so she thought.

The chairman’s office was crowded, the air heavy as before a storm. Everyone was there: Viktor Petrovich, avoiding her gaze, hiding his eyes as if ashamed of her very presence; Kirill, whose lips curled into a barely concealed smirk; and other important figures whose names she scarcely remembered but whose private moments with her—in the silence of offices and hotel rooms, where power mingled with something darker, more dangerous—she recalled vividly. At the head of the table sat the chairman himself, a stern man in his sixties, his face carved from stone, his gaze cold as a winter wind.

“Tanya Vasilyevna, take a seat,” he said without preamble, his voice hard as a hammer’s strike.

She sat, maintaining her mask of indifference, her back straight as a steel rod, her hands resting calmly on the armrests. But inside, something trembled, like cracked glass.

“How can I be of service? If this is about the quarterly report, it will be on your desk by noon.”

“It’s not about the report,” the chairman replied, pushing a tablet away from himself and turning it toward her with a cold, almost theatrical precision. On the screen was a video, crystal clear. Her office. Her, on her knees before Kirill. Her humiliating posture, his triumphant face, brimming with grim satisfaction. “This is about reputation. The reputation of the channel, which you, it seems, treated as your personal brothel.”

Tanya froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. She stared at the screen, disbelieving, her mind refusing to accept what her eyes saw. This was impossible. This was her weapon, her secret, her power. And now it was displayed for all to see, like an enemy’s trophy.

“This… it’s a fake,” she forced out, but her voice betrayed her, trembling like a string stretched to its limit.

“Unfortunately, it’s not,” Kirill couldn’t suppress a smirk, his eyes gleaming with malice, like a predator scenting blood. “Sergey Igorevich, before he left, gifted us an entire collection of such… homemade videos. Quite educational. Here you are with Viktor Petrovich in his office, and with that young cameraman… What’s his name? Alex. And a few other… vivid moments.”

She shifted her gaze to Viktor Petrovich. He stared out the window, his neck and ears flushed a deep red, whether from shame or fear, but he didn’t dare meet her eyes. Traitor. Coward. She clenched her fists under the table so hard her nails dug into her skin.

“We’re not moralists, Tanya Vasilyevna,” the chairman continued, his voice cold as a draft in an abandoned house. “But we are a business. And when compromising material on a key employee circulates through all media, it hits the holding’s stocks. It hits trust. You’ve become a threat to stability.”

“I raised this channel’s ratings by thirty percent!” she shouted, leaping to her feet, her voice quaking with rage, wild and helpless, like a beast cornered. “I turned it into a goldmine! And you… you judge me for my personal life?!”

“Your ‘personal life’ was a tool for career advancement, and we understand that,” the chairman countered coldly, his gaze like a knife piercing her armor. “But now that tool has turned against us. Against you. The dossier is already with all major media outlets. By noon, everyone will know. We cannot take the risk.”

He placed an envelope on the table, his movement slow, almost ritualistic, like a executioner’s verdict.

“Your resignation letter, by your own request. And a signed non-disclosure agreement. You have one hour to clear out your office. A security guard will escort you.”

The world tilted, spinning as if in a nightmare. She stood, gripping the back of the chair, feeling the ground slip from beneath her feet, her empire crumbling like a sandcastle under crashing waves. She had lost. Lost to the very Sergey she had deemed insignificant, whom she had crushed like an insect. Her weapon—her body, her power, her ability to manipulate—had turned against her, a poisoned blade. The mirror in which she had so loved to admire her perfect reflection now showed her a grotesque, pitiful image, one she wanted to turn away from but couldn’t muster the strength to.

“Everyone is dismissed,” the chairman said, his voice the final blow. People began to leave, avoiding her gaze, their footsteps echoing like a drumroll at an execution. As Kirill passed by, he whispered, his words dripping with venom:

“I hope the throne was worth it, queen.”

She was left alone in the vast office. The silence was deafening, like the aftermath of an explosion, when emptiness rings in your ears. Her heart pounded, not from fear, but from a searing, corrosive humiliation that burned her from within.

She walked to her office as if in a dream, her steps heavy, as if her legs were filled with lead. The door was already open, as if awaiting her, as if her downfall was inevitable. A security guard, a grim man with a stony face, stood nearby, like a sentinel at the gates of hell. Olga, without lifting her eyes, packed Tanya’s belongings into a cardboard box, her movements quick, almost panicked.

“I’ll do it myself,” Tanya whispered, her voice hoarse, as if after a long scream.

Olga nodded and left, leaving her alone with the guard, whose presence weighed on her like a heavy burden.

Tanya slowly surveyed her office. Her empire. Her throne. Her fortress, built over years at the cost of everything—friendship, love, humanity. Now it was just an empty space, cold and alien, like an abandoned temple where no one prayed to the gods anymore.

She packed her things into the box. Expensive pens, designer trinkets, a few documents—all of it suddenly seemed foreign, useless junk, like shards of a shattered crown. Her hands trembled, but she refused to break, not here, not now, not in front of this silent witness to her fall.

With the box in her arms, she stepped into the corridor. The guard followed two steps behind, like a shadow, a reminder of her powerlessness. Employees passed by, their faces blank, their eyes averted. No one met her gaze. No one said goodbye. She was a ghost, invisible, erased from their world, like a mistake to be corrected.

In the elevator, she pulled out her phone, her fingers trembling like autumn leaves in the wind. She dialed Natasha’s number. The call was rejected after the first ring, the sound like a slap across her face. She dialed Alex, her last hope, her final straw. He answered, but his voice was cold and distant, like a winter day.

“Tanya, I’m on a shoot. What do you want?”

“Alex…” Her voice cracked, like breaking ice, revealing the abyss beneath. “I… I need somewhere to go.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. After everything… After you threw me out on the day of your sister’s funeral… I think it’s better if we don’t talk.”

He hung up, and the sound was like the final nail in her coffin.

She stood on the street under the cold autumn rain, clutching the cardboard box, like the heroine of a cheap movie after a firing, where everything collapses in an instant. Rain streamed down her face, mingling with the bitter salt she couldn’t shed. A taxi? To where? To her empty, lifeless apartment? To the mausoleum she had built for herself, where every corner reeked of loneliness, where the walls echoed her past victories but couldn’t shield her from pain?

She gazed at her reflection in the wet glass of the door. A blurred, distorted face. Not a queen. Not a victor. Not even a beauty. Just a woman. Alone, broken, discarded as useless, like an old thing that had lost its value.

She was utterly alone. Without a job. Without friends. Without family. Without love. With only her impeccable, terrifying emptiness inside, her sole companion. And for the first time in years, she felt not rage, not burning hatred, but fear. A quiet, piercing fear, like a cold wind seeping under her skin, from the realization that the mirror had finally shown the truth. And the truth was ugly, like a scar that couldn’t be hidden, like a wound that would never heal.

Chapter 7: In Search of a Ghost

Days blurred into a single gray smear, shapeless and heavy, like wet asphalt under autumn rain. Tanya awoke in her empty apartment, staring at the ceiling where shadows from the curtains traced patterns of loneliness, finding no reason to get up. She still had money—substantial severance pay and savings, tucked away in the cold digits of bank accounts. But there was no purpose in spending it. Her world, built with such effort, had collapsed, exposing a desert where nothing grew but thorns of pain and regret.

A flicker of that stubbornness, which had once lifted her from the ashes like a phoenix, still lingered within her. If she couldn’t die, then she had to try to live. But how? How does one live when inside there is only the echo of emptiness, and the heart is like a frozen lake, unstirred by any wave?

One morning, after hours of mechanical intimacy with yet another old acquaintance who knew her only as a “painter”—a mask she wore for status, to hide her true nature—she lay in tangled sheets, feeling only physical exhaustion, not of the soul. In desperation, she typed into a search engine: “psychologist, emotional numbness, depression.” Her fingers trembled like autumn leaves, but she persisted, clutching at this last straw.

She found a website with a pleasant design and a photo of a man in a white coat, about forty, with intelligent, calm eyes that seemed to see everything yet judge nothing. Eduard. She booked an appointment. Not out of faith in success, but out of hopelessness, as a final resort, like a confession before an inevitable end.

Eduard’s office smelled of coffee and lavender—a scent that gently enveloped her but oddly contrasted with his strong jawline and steady gaze. Soft light poured from a desk lamp, books on the shelves created a sense of coziness, and a comfortable chair invited relaxation. Nothing clinical. Nothing intimidating. This place was like an island in the raging sea of her chaos, and Eduard felt oddly familiar, though she couldn’t fathom why.

“Tell me, Tanya, what brought you here,” Eduard said. His voice was quiet but devoid of subservience or pity, carrying a steady, almost hypnotic depth.

He spoke evenly, without sharp intonations or emphasis, almost in a whisper, as if afraid to startle her honesty. Tanya, seated in the chair, her hands clenched on her knees until her knuckles whitened, tried to speak detachedly, as she did in boardroom reports—about her career, betrayals, survival tactics, her sister’s death, the emptiness that had become her only companion…

“I can’t cry,” she suddenly blurted out, surprising herself with the words, as if someone else had spoken them for her. “My sister died. I stood at her funeral and couldn’t squeeze out a single tear. I… It’s like I’m watching a bad movie. I know it should hurt, but… there’s nothing.”

“And what do you feel instead of pain?” Eduard asked, his gaze attentive but not oppressive, like a beam of light piercing a dark room.

“Nothing. Emptiness. Sometimes… anger. At myself. At everyone. But mostly—nothing. As if I’m looking at the world through thick glass,” her voice wavered, but she quickly reined it in, refusing to let weakness break through.

“You mentioned using sex as a tool. What about now? Do you feel a need for closeness?”

Tanya gave a bitter smirk, her lips twisting into a cynical grimace.

“A need? No. But I read that it… that it might help. Hormones, endorphins. Maybe if I try with someone… it could wake something up in me. Like an adrenaline shot to a stopped heart.”

Eduard looked at her intently, his eyes like a mirror reflecting her exhaustion but not judgment.

“Tanya, closeness built on desperation rarely leads to healing. It can be another form of self-destruction.”

“And do I have other options?” Tanya snapped, her voice ringing like a taut string. “Wait for it to resolve itself? I’ve waited. It only gets worse. I’ll be dead soon,” she said with such raw anguish that Eduard immediately offered her a glass of water from the table, as if trying to soften her pain.

“Thank you,” she murmured after a sip, attempting to continue, but her words dissolved into the void, like smoke.

In a surge of desperation, she parted her legs, attempting to seduce the psychologist, testing if her old weapon could work even here. But Eduard, meeting her gaze, showed no emotion, his face an impenetrable stone wall. This was such a blow to her already cracked armor that she instantly pulled herself together, straightened up, and feigned innocence, but even that didn’t sway him.

“This guy’s tough, seems like he’s seen plenty of desperate women, knows all the tricks,” she thought with bitter self-mockery, feeling humiliation sear her from within.

She stepped out onto the street with a strange sensation—as if she’d been turned inside out, exposing everything she’d so carefully hidden. Sex, which she had used as a key to everything—power, control, the illusion of life—had failed her. Her weapon misfired, and it hurt more than she’d expected.

But she wasn’t one to readily accept another’s opinion. She hadn’t been healed, but she’d been given a name for her ailment. “Emotional burnout.” “Post-traumatic stress disorder.” It sounded so scientific, so impersonal, like a label to slap on her forehead and forget. But it changed nothing. She was broken, and no label could piece her back together.

That same evening, she went to a nearby bar where she’d once sealed contracts and where there was always someone to meet, someone to drown her emptiness in cheap flirtation and expensive alcohol. She wore a short black dress, clinging to her figure like a second skin, and applied flawless makeup, painting a seductress’s mask on her face. But behind that mask, there was nothing. She was hollow inside, like a burned-out house, still waiting for someone to ignite a fire within her, to fill her with new life, not just fleeting heat.

A man approached her almost immediately. Sturdy, self-assured, with an expensive watch gleaming on his wrist like a symbol of his power. Igor. Owner of a chain of restaurants, who, as it turned out, enjoyed visiting others’ establishments to pick up new ideas. They struck up a conversation. He was assertive, straightforward, his words like blows, but devoid of malice. He was drawn to her coldness, mistaking it for mystery, a challenge he wanted to unravel.

Tanya played the role of an innocent, inexperienced girl dumped by her boyfriend with finesse—her voice trembled at the right moments, her eyes lowered demurely, her smile soft yet promising. She performed her old part like an actress who knew every gesture, every line. She smiled, nodded, cast ambiguous glances, touched his hand at the perfect moment. Internally, she observed herself from a distance, like a director watching an actress, noting detachedly: “Touch his hand now. Lower your gaze seductively. Say this. Do that.”

They ended up in his penthouse apartment with a view of the night city, where lights flickered, indifferent to her inner darkness. Everything was as it had been before. Expensive, stylish, soulless, like a set for a scene of empty passion.

“You’re incredible,” he whispered, peeling off her dress, his hands rough but skilled, like those of a man accustomed to taking what he wanted without hesitation.

Tanya responded with passionate kisses that were as empty as her soul. She let out moans that were quiet cries of despair, disguised as desire. She led him to the massive bed, her body moving on instinct while her mind screamed: “Now. Now something will stir. Something will come alive.” Her black lace lingerie, thin as a spiderweb, slipped down, revealing pale skin, alluring yet cold as marble. His fingers traced her curves, the soft yet taut lines of her body, but she felt only the touch, not warmth, not a spark, not life.

He took her like a storm crashing against the shore, and she wrapped her legs around him as she had done countless times before, to give pleasure and gain control, to feel something, anything. She moved like a well-tuned machine, her hips rising and falling in a rhythm honed over years. Her skin glistened with a faint sheen of perspiration, like morning dew, her breath quickened, her body reacted on autopilot—all the physical signs of arousal were there. But inside was only emptiness, black as an abyss where no light could penetrate. She stared at the back of his head, at the ceiling, at her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe—a beautiful, writhing doll whose movements lacked soul. Her chest rose and fell like waves under the wind, but her heart remained still, like a stone at the ocean’s bottom.

He reached his peak with a loud groan, collapsing onto her, his body heavy, hot, but alien. Tanya lay there, gazing at the ceiling, waiting. Waiting for something to awaken in her—tenderness, disgust, shame, anything. Any emotion, any spark that could ignite life within her.

Nothing. Only a cold emptiness, like a winter wind howling through her chest.

He propped himself up on an elbow, grinning, his eyes shining with self-satisfaction.

“So? How was it?” He awaited compliments, validation of his masculinity, a trophy for his conquest.

Tanya looked at him, her gaze empty as a scorched desert. And suddenly, she broke. Not with tears, but with words. Bitter, honest, unadorned, like a knife slicing through the silence.

“Nothing. Absolutely no feeling. I just played my part. Like a prostitute. Only free.”

His smile slid off his face, replaced by offended confusion, his brows furrowing like dark clouds.

“What? Are you sick or something?”

“Yes,” Tanya said quietly, rising and dressing with sharp, precise movements. “Yes, I’m sick. And you didn’t help. Not even a little.”

She left his apartment without looking back, her heels clicking on the marble floor like a drumroll announcing the end of yet another illusion.

Tanya thought endlessly about herself, about being utterly alone, and a chilling fear, like a cold claw, gripped her heart, compelling her to walk home instead of calling a taxi, through a dimly lit park where only the central alley was illuminated by pale pools of lantern light.

“Hey…”

She kept walking, thinking it was just the wind or the rustle of leaves.

“Heyyy…” came a louder voice, rough as scraping metal.

She turned and saw two young men sitting on a bench, their cigarettes glowing in the darkness like predatory eyes. Their stares were sticky, heavy, laden with grim curiosity.

“Where you rushing to?”

What might happen next was easy to guess, but Tanya, instead of running, decided to take control, as she always did, even when control was an illusion. Her desperation and hopelessness erased all boundaries of what was permissible, and she surprised herself with what she was about to do.

“What are your names? Never mind, doesn’t matter. You’ll be first, and you’ll be second. I’ll tell you what to do.”

They clearly weren’t prepared for this turn of events; their bravado faltered, a flicker of uncertainty passing through their eyes like a shadow on water.

“What, you scared?” she taunted with cold mockery, walking further and leaning against a tree, her pose provocative yet devoid of passion, only steeped in the darkness of despair. “Come on, first, straight into the dark entrance. Miss, and it’s your problem.”

What she could do to two sturdy men in their mid-twenties, she didn’t fully grasp herself, but the fog of desperation clouded her mind, dissolving all barriers. She had always been cautious with men, never allowing critical danger to herself. But now, in the night, the park, the darkness—it was all a stage for her self-destruction.