Chapter 2

Annette was surprised by the warmth of her husband’s welcome. Back home, in harsh contrast to her vulgar, low, degrading betrayal, she felt his love and kindness directed at her. It filled her with the sharpest guilt. How could Annette have known the reason for Yuri’s tenderness? Again and again, as a constant undercurrent while he spoke to her, he was remembering how the market men had used her in the jeep, in full view of vendors and shoppers, under the gaze of cameras. Those images were burning inside him, feeding him strength.

At home Annette tormented herself with guilt. A faithful, loving husband answering her sin with kindness was a punishment worse than the guillotine! And Yuri meanwhile was simply drunk on lust, like an addict on a dose, reliving her betrayal again and again. Memories wear thin if you handle them too often; the spell would inevitably wear off. But before that, Annette, unable to bear her pangs of conscience, decided to give her husband something she had never given him before.

By night there was only the faintest moon visible on the frosted window, and little light fell into the house, as into the bottom of a well. Yuri brushed his teeth before bed. The lamp was lit only in the bedroom.

“Why is Anna still awake? I made it perfectly clear I don’t want sex tonight,” he thought. That evening he had masturbated twice and was not sure he would manage an erection in the course of his marital duty with a wife who had stepped out on him. But when Yuri entered the bedroom, all his worries about possible masculine failure vanished by themselves. Hearing his footsteps, Annette was waiting for him on all fours. Naked.