By: devovitsuasartes
Summary:
Ian visits Svetlana at the massage parlor and makes an offer. Set in season 3
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Svetlana is enjoying a quiet conversation with Nika in the back room, slowly inching her way closer to the blonde and gazing into her eyes with a practiced smirk, when Sasha's pitbull of a lackey comes bursting rudely in. He looks them up and down, unimpressed, then crooks a finger at Svetlana.
'Break time is over,' he says. 'You have a customer.'
The moment broken, Nika turns away and lights a cigarette, sparing Svetlana a sympathetic glance. Svetlana sighs despondently, threads the fingers of her hands together, turns them so that the palms face outwards and pushes into the stretch until the knuckles crack. Heading out of the break room, she flexes and curls her fingers over and over again, listening to them crack and pop. This job will surely leave her arthritic before she reaches 30. It's lucky that she will have an American husband soon, and an American baby. Terry Milkovich called it an "anchor baby" with a sneer, and Svetlana likes the sound of that. She likes the idea of being anchored.
The customer is already in one of the "massage" rooms, so Svetlana briefly checks her reflection in the mirror, finds no fault, and heads inside.
'Take your clothes off,' she says to the customer, who is irritatingly still fully dressed. They are supposed to be naked already at this point.
He doesn't move to pull off his clothes, though. Svetlana wonders if he's nervous. He is young, probably not yet legal to do a lot of things in this country, and he has his arms folded around himself, his head ducked, sitting on the edge of the massage table. Hoping to hurry things along, Svetlana sheds her robe, leaving behind just a thin, lacy teddy. She reaches out and touches his arm, runs her fingers up his firm bicep and squeezes his shoulder. 'First time?' she asks.
The boy takes a deep, shuddering breath. 'Stop,' he says.
Svetlana pauses, wrongfooted. 'This is what you pay for, yes?'
'I paid because I needed to talk to you. In private.'
This is a long way off-script now, and it's making Svetlana uneasy. Maybe this boy is some obsessive who has been following her around, or some creep who can only get off on raping girls and needed to find a girl who can't go to the police. Either way, she's considering yelling for the bouncers to drag him out when the kid speaks again.
'I have more money,' he says. 'All of my savings.'
Svetlana quirks an eyebrow, interested. 'You want something special?'
'I want to pay for you to get an abortion.'
The words hang heavy in the air. The nasty strains of the cheap massage mix CD - turned up loud to drown out the sound of grunts and groans through the thin walls - are the only sound Svetlana can hear. She is turning the boy's words over in her head, looking at his pale skin and head of orange hair, and before long she thinks she has this figured out. She grabs the boy's chin roughly, forcefully lifts his head. His eyes are red and watery, and his face is covered in injuries - a black eye, a fat lip. She has seen him before.
'Ah,' she says gently, with a knowing smile. 'I know you.'
The boy's mouth twists. 'Yeah?'
'You were Mickey's boy. The faggot.'
Hearing Svetlana say her fiancé's name aloud just seems to make the boy angrier. He shakes with barely-contained rage and hisses, 'You want the abortion or not?'
Svetlana laughs. 'Not. You want blowjob? Handjob?'
'No!' He glares at her. 'The only reason Mickey's marrying you is because you're pregnant. So what's it gonna take for you to get an abortion? You want more money?'
