Chapter 4

By Thursday of the following week, it seemed like everything had settled. In some strange way -- as if Ann’s betrayal had been the bottom their family had pushed off from.

They began living as if there had been no immigrant janitor at all. From the outside it might have looked like, having gotten tangled in the undertow of sin, the spouses grew frightened and, in horror, threw it away.

But the old man kept sweeping the courtyard by their building. He did his work -- cleaning the street and spreading Darkness. He still knew how to win a battle in the very moment it seems lost.

A time came when Yuri began to forget his wife’s fall. The child who defined memory as “what you forget with” wasn’t entirely wrong. And it was precisely then that Yuri found his wife in a dress she rarely wore -- a festive one.

The dress hugged her body like a second skin.

So many textures in that outfit: weightless, half-transparent lace traced her breasts ... in front, satin showed off its luxurious sheen ... the back was made from a calm, matte silk... (the fabric was so thin that the shape of her ass in it was perfectly rounded.)

“Oh. You put on the dress I gave you...” Yuri said, and a vague unease began to rise in him, like something waking up.

“Yes, love, thank you again for buying it!” Ann answered nervously. She looked as if she’d been caught at a crime scene. “It’s beautiful. Though it’s too expensive...”

“You’re the one who told me, ‘Don’t look at the price if you like the thing.’ So, who gets to enjoy this beauty of yours tonight?”