The Lost Souls of Angelkov by Linda Holeman Read Free Book Online Page A

breathing even. He was a virgin but didn’t want this girl to know.
    She named a price and he nodded, handing her the money. She tucked his kopecks under the thin mattress, giving a little laugh before shrugging out of her frock and pulling Timofey on top of her as she lay in her patched chemise.
    Her hair was an odd red colour and Timofey liked the sound of her laugh. He could see her nipples, small and aspink as her cheeks, through her chemise. Such was his inexperience and excitement that he climaxed almost as soon as he’d released himself from his trousers and pressed against her. She cried out in annoyance, pushing him aside and fussing at him for soiling her chemise. Then she sat up and gave a brittle laugh.
    “First time?” she said, and Timofey drew back at the stink of raw onion on her breath, noticing the silvery streaks stretched down the slight sag of her belly.
    He stood awkwardly beside the bed, humiliated and angry, hating her laugh.
    She rubbed at her chemise with a foul-smelling rag, and then tossed it to him. “Here, clean yourself up. You paid for an hour. I’m tired. I’ll sleep for the rest of it.” With that, she settled onto her side facing him. Within moments she was emitting small puffing sounds from half-open lips.
    Timofey watched her sleep. He wanted to smack her for laughing at him. Instead, he listened to the stifled, rhythmic groans behind the blanket separating them from the next pallet, hearing the damp slap of flesh on flesh. After a few minutes of listening, he ran his rough fingers over the woman’s thinly covered nipple, and then climbed on top of her, pushing up her chemise again. She made an irritated sound as she squinted at him in the dim light.
    He shoved himself into her, not stopping as she said,
Wait … let me just … my hair is caught
 …
    “I’m sorry,” Timofey murmured as he forced himself not to focus on the warm, welcoming softness of her.
    He did not let himself think of the road back to Chita, or the one that lay ahead. He did not let himself think of his brother Kolya.
    He especially tried not to think of the woman under him. This time he moved in an unhurried fashion, determined not to embarrass himself again.
    “Well, you figured it out that time,” she said when he’d finished and was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Just keep at it, and smile that pretty smile of yours. Will you come back to visit me,
moy sladki
?” She reached up to draw her index finger down his cheek, but Timofey recoiled from her touch. He stood, pulling up his trousers and stepping into his boots.
    He discovered there were women to be had for next to nothing in every little village and hamlet along the way. Some of them sensed something—they weren’t sure if it was suppressed violence or simply indifference—and were wary. Some of them were attracted to his guarded silence and dark looks. On his lonely journey, he wanted the comfort of a woman in the dark. But never did he allow himself to be moved by any of them.

    He decided to stop in Krasnoyarsk, northwest of Irkutsk, for the winter. He got a job unloading timber. It felt good to use his muscles again after so much time astride Felya.
    From Krasnoyarsk, he wrote two letters and sent them both to his dead father’s friend. The man was a Decembrist who had been with his father in the uprising in St. Petersburg in 1825. One of them was for Timofey’s mother, who couldn’t read. In it he told his mother that he had not been able to find Kolya in Irkustsk, and that he was not coming home to Chita. He told her that the friend would explain about the money from the sale of the cooperage, the family business where Timofey had worked alongside his father until his death.It had been a thriving concern, making barrels for Chita and the environs. The money would be enough to last her as long as she lived.
I embrace you and bless you. Tima
, he ended it.
    The second letter asked the friend to sell the cooperage and give the