Broken Horse

Chapter 5 - Sergei

The two empty bottles were on the counter and the third, I could barely figure out how to open. Setting it back onto the granite, I held on to the counter letting the strong breeze blow past before I tried again. This bottle had to open and I needed it to open now.

Closing my eyes, the room spun and waved and moved all around me, but it didn't matter. Why bother even caring anymore? Wasn't that what got me in this position in the first place?

Three damn years and that woman hadn't said one word to me since she took everything away from me. Now, she decides she wants to make things right, to patch up the pain as if it were just a mere breakup? She took everything from me! And I was just supposed to forgive her as if what she did meant nothing at all?

And that girl, that student... that... Jacki. Why did she have to walk into my class? Three years I avoided women, didn't even look at one twice, nor even cared about one. The first day of class I was teaching and she had to be there wearing those tight pants and knee high boots. The other female students were wearing less than she was, but for some reason, I couldn't take my eyes off her.

I had everything under control. I had these feelings about her wrapped up to where I was able to fight them off. And I was doing a damn good job resisting the looks, her always watching me, listening to everything I said, and that blushing of her cheeks when I asked her a question or looked in her direction.

I've had girls gawk at me, drool over me, and even pick me up in the club knowing nothing would be more than a quick fix. But this one... this student of mine. Watching her on that horse was amazing in how she had that animal under her thumb from the second she mounted.

I was no stranger to horses, had been riding all my life because of my father, but I had yet to come across someone who could get a horse to submit to her the second she settled into the saddle. When he first came out of the trailer, I couldn't imagine her getting on him if he even allowed it. Then, she went up as if he wasn't that big and that powerful turning him into a mouse. A graceful, delicate creature that he was. And that side stepping prance she was having him do... Those moves to where he was dancing and she was just sitting there giving him directions that were so subtle, I barely spotted them.

Monday night and I couldn't stand it. The silence in my house was sickening. My thoughts on that woman and her horse alone were inching me into a spot I know I never should dive in to. Not to count the text messages from the woman who stole my life from me three years ago reopened a large wound in my heart. And there was the fresh bottle waiting for me, begging me to just give in and numb everything.

"That is what you do? You drink?" The Smirnov thunder came around the fireplace in the middle of the room. Coming into the kitchen, his dark blues found the wreckage at the counter. "You do not answer the call. You do not come to door when I knock. You sit here drinking."

"I just needed a drink." Letting go of the counter, I reached for the fresh, untouched bottle swallowing back the pain. Untouched... like I heard the guys joke around about in the parking lot with Jacki. Untouched. Even she said she had sex before, being untouched at her age would never be the truth. Not many lovers have climbed in her bed that I could tell. My guess would be only one with the way she held herself.

The others in class promoted their goods to me all the time. The low cut shirts, the see through fabrics, and the short shorts and skirts, it was all there. Nothing I saw fit to take a few more looks at. But that one who was wearing that sweatshirt and the one who had taken it off in front of me just wearing a tank top that molded to the most perfect breasts, now that was a sight that robbed my attention.