Chapter 8

“Sorry, Omar,” she said. “You have a right to your point of view. I shouldn’t have insulted you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, little one. You’ve seen how the teenagers treat me ... I’m used to insults.”

The old man pressed on her pity deliberately -- and it worked.

“Oh ... forgive me! I saw they’d written that stupid nickname again ... You’re sick, you’re scrubbing walls after them, and then on top of that I insult you...”

With a sad little smile, Annette turned to her husband.

“And you call me your sun. What kind of sun am I...”

“Brighter than the one in the sky,” Yuri answered with calm certainty. “You know, the sun can be cruel too ... it can burn everything around it.”

“Still, I’d rather shine than burn.” Annette exhaled. “Omar -- by way of apology, I’ll show you a couple of exercises that help when you’re ill. I need to do yoga anyway.”

“I’d be very grateful,” the old man replied.

He stared hard at Yuri, and Yuri felt uneasy. It was the kind of look that said Omar knew everything.

Impossible, Yuri thought, looking away.

Annette went to change. She came back in a short top that showed off her perfect stomach. Once again, the old man marveled at her body.

When she bent to clear the floor -- an extension cord, chargers, phones -- Omar stared openly at her ass stretched tight by her leggings. The old man took a special, double pleasure from gawking at the beauty right in front of her husband, without hiding. Omar could feel Yuri’s gaze on him, but he deliberately refused to look away from Annette’s rear. The janitor knew the local schmuck was on the hook, and it was fun to play both husband and wife at once.

What he hadn’t accounted for was that his arousal would become a hard-on. When Annette sat down on the floor, he had seconds to decide what to do with it.

He decided to do nothing.

At first, the beauty looked at him with a carefree smile.

Then she saw it.

The words she meant to say got stuck somewhere on the left side of her skull. On the right side there was a flash -- breath knocked loose, cheeks going hot. She’d only just forced away the memory of that vulgar dream, and now Omar -- almost as if on purpose -- stood in front of her with that obscene, unnaturally huge erection, as if to say:

Don’t get distracted from the only thing that matters. The size of my cock.

“Ann?” her husband called, worried. The immigrant had his back to him, and Yuri couldn’t see why his wife had frozen.

“Y-yes ... sorry. I got lost in thought,” Annette answered after a few seconds of silence.

The old man angled his hips forward a fraction, sensing no one would stop him.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

“To begin with ... are you sure you’re up to this?” Annette asked. “You took a fever reducer, but you’re still seriously sick.”

“Believe me, it’s better for me to do something than lie there and suffer. I feel worst on the bed!”

“All right...” Annette said. “Today I want to work on breathing with you. Of all the universe’s gifts, breath is the least appreciated. No one writes hymns to it, no one prays to kind air -- the president and the laborer breathe it equally, the master and his dog. And yet God forbid you be without it. All our lives we do nothing but breathe. And now I’ll teach you to do it properly.”

Annette began demonstrating different breathing exercises, lecturing as she went. It made it easier for her to communicate with the janitor -- teaching him yoga. Omar became what he was supposed to be: silent, not arguing, listening closely, acknowledging Annette’s authority.