Chapter 31

Eventually we all agreed that fun was fun, but it was time to turn in for the night.

Svetlana retired to the guest room where Ivan was ensconced, Dad got the second guest room next to theirs, and Buck (I have a hard time even thinking the name without smirking) was given the room right next to his, which was normally Lilly's.

We'd agreed, the girls and I, amongst ourselves, not long after I got out of the Army, that each of them should have their own room. Their own private space that they could decorate the way they wanted, where they could be alone if they chose. It was all part of my effort to ensure that they felt like individuals and not attachments.

Over the years, excepting the later stages of their pregnancies, they'd rarely used those rooms for anything other than storing clothes or as studies or hobby rooms. They preferred sleeping in my bigger bed, hogging my closets and bathroom and generally getting in the way whenever possible.

I preferred that arrangement as well. Yeah, sometimes it was annoying having to dig thru their stuff to get to mine, having to maneuver thru them in the mornings to get showered and dressed, but it was never more than a minor annoyance.

I like having them around me. I love having them pile on and around me in bed, even when it was for nothing more than sleeping.

The thing is, we'd never had guests stay with us before who weren't aware of our arrangement. And we'd never had a child other than our own sleep over, period.

Dad knew. We'd told him, Izzy and me, long ago. We'd told him about the three of us the day before I got out of the Army.

Ivan, Svetlana and ... their son ... they didn't know and I'm pretty damn sure Izzy wasn't too keen on having them find out.

So Peggy agreed to bunk in with Izzy, Lilly took AJ's room and my son took a sleeping bag and happily moved into the room his sisters shared to sleep on the floor next to one of their beds. He said it was the same as camping.

The point of which is, that after embracing each one of my girls, giving and receiving three disappointingly chaste kisses, I went off to my room ... alone.

I got undressed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, turned off the lights, crawled under the blankets and tried to get comfortable.

I don't like sleeping alone. I didn't mind when I was younger, because I didn't know any better. It took some time to get used to Izzy sharing my bed when I was thirteen, but not much. It took a lot longer to get used to her not being there after she went off to college, even though our sharing the bed wasn't an all the time kind of thing. It took time to get used to having Carlie sleep with me. The first few times I was awake all night, completely incapable of relaxing enough to fall asleep, and then, on the fourth night, no problem at all.

I had trouble sleeping at all for a long time after Carlie died, mostly because I couldn't escape the emotional imprint left by her death.

When I finally returned home and reunited with Izzy, it was as though we'd never been apart. No trouble sleeping with her at all.

Oddly enough, the first time all three of my girls spent the night in the same bed with me, there was no sense of unease, no worry, no fear or apprehension of any kind. It felt right from the very beginning. It felt... natural, as though that was the way things were supposed to be.

Sleeping alone had long since ceased to feel right.

I tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position.

I was lonely.

I got up, turned on the hot tub's heater, waited for the water to warm and then slid in, sat back and tried to relax.

Somewhere around four in the morning, while I was musing on the subject of honor, I sorta nodded off.

Honor has become a troubling concept for those of us living in the modern western world. Many believe it to be an outmoded concept, serving only to remind us of how far humanity's advanced beyond our primitive and uncivilized nature.

Honor has been replaced, in the western world, by the fairly recent promulgation of individuality. And make no mistake, this idea is recent; barely more than a hundred and twenty years old, even in the west. It received its big boost just after World War I, at the very same moment Honor took its near fatal wound.

What is Honor?

Honor is public perception and acceptance of an individual's personal standing within a cultural group. Respect, reputation ... you may have heard of the expression 'losing face', well losing face is a loss of honor; loss of communal respect, reputation and standing.

In the west our growing reliance on the science of psychology has replaced Honor with self-esteem and the cult of individuality. No longer required to submit to the demands of public expectation, we now serve only our own personal perceptions of who we are, who we should be and how we should behave.

Right?

Wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Ever heard of peer pressure?

Children know all about Honor, even if they aren't familiar with the word. It's all about fitting in with your peer group, all about acceptance, about being on the inside looking out and not the other way around. Honor means that if someone hits you, you'd better hit back, even if doing so means taking a severe beating in return. Losing a fight is nowhere near as bad as loss of Honor within the group.

Honor is about status, renown, regard and above all else ... reputation.

Having a strong (positive or negative) reputation makes you a powerful figure in the eyes of others. It is your armor, your weapon, your bankbook.

If your reputation is that of a weakling, you'll be treated like a weakling. You'll be tormented, teased, abused, taken advantage of and possibly even killed.

Your reputation is, for all intents and purposes, who you are. It doesn't matter one lick how you see yourself ... its how others see you that matters in the end. Perception is everything.

Still think I'm wrong?

Ask a politician about public opinion polls.

Ask a celebrity how important their fan's good will is to their career.

Ask an athlete or a soldier why it's important to 'fight the good fight', even in a losing cause.

Honor may be dying, but it's still a long way from dead and buried.

By the time her hand was over my eyes I was wide awake. I stayed very still and waited to see what her plan was.

"What did you do to Ivan?" She pronounced my brother's name 'E-von', and her lips couldn't have been any closer to my left ear without touching it. I felt her hot breath pulsing against my eardrum with each inflected syllable. She must have been lying on the floor behind me, because the one hand was pressed over my eyes from the right side and I felt her breathing in my left ear.

"What makes you think I did anything to him?"

"He hasn't moved since those men of yours put him to bed last night."

"Ivan always was a sound sleeper."

"Not like this. Did you drug him? I hear you CIA types are rather fond of drugging people."

Inside I flinched and a small knot formed in the pit of my stomach.

"I've never used drugs on anyone, and I sure as hell wouldn't use them on a member of my family." I assured her.

"Ivan says you and he were never very close as children. Perhaps your scruples do not extend to family members you are less than fond of?"

I nodded. "Yeah, well you might have something there. Still, the fact remains; I did not drug my brother."

"Very well, I will take you at your word ... for now."

"How very gracious. You'll be leaving, now that we've cleared that up?"

She chuckled, pulled back with the hand she held over my eyes, drawing my head down and back against the edge of the hot tub.

I've never adequately described my brother's wife. She's very tall for a woman, almost at tall as I am, and she (so my mother told me not long after Svetlana and Ivan were married) had come to the States on some sort of student exchange program and stayed to compete as a track and field athlete at the collegiate level. She'd been a pentathlete, and by all accounts, a fairly good one. The woman was strong. She had platinum blond hair, ice blue eyes, and breasts capacious enough to feed an entire maternity ward all by herself. She was probably what the ancient Norse had in mind when they dreamed up the Valkyrie.

Svetlana may have been a big beautiful athletic girl, but she also had brains, evidenced by the fact that she became a well regarded lawyer. But my reading of her emotional status, both at dinner the night before and right then in my room, told me that Svetlana was one cold, calculating, conniving bitch. She was used to getting what she wanted and wouldn't quietly take no for an answer.

"Not just yet. I have a few more things to discuss with you, little brother."

I cringed at those words. The patronizing tone alone was enough to set my teeth on edge. I can tolerate Izzy calling me that, but no one else.

"Such as?"

"Why do you refuse to introduce your brother and me to your political friends? It could be most beneficial for everyone involved."

"Two reasons really. First, as I told you at dinner, I don't like being manipulated. Not by anyone. Second, in my line of work, you don't make friends. Political enemies ... those I've got coming out my ears, but I doubt very much that using me as a reference would do either of you the slightest bit good."

"You're being modest."

"No, I'm being honest."

"You won't help us?"

"No, I won't."

"I could make it worth your while." she said and a second hand began caressing my chest.

"No, you couldn't. You have nothing I want. Nothing." I said, stressing the last word as firmly as I knew how.

"I don't believe you." she said sweetly, breathing hotly into my ear.

"Ask me if I care."

Svetlana was startled; her pride was hurt and she quickly grew very angry. The hand that had been on my chest pulled away, I heard a rustling sound behind me and then something cold, thin and sharp pressed against the skin just above my Adam's apple.

Several thoughts ran through my head right then. Most involved causing a very particular big blond a whole lot of pain. Not terribly useful thinking though, because she might, in her agony, actually slit my throat.

I am, as several people have noted over the years, extremely durable, and I heal a hell of a lot faster than anyone I've ever heard of, but one thing I'm not is bullet-proof. Or, for that matter, knife-proof. I can be hurt. I've come close to dying a couple of times, but as the saying goes, 'close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons'. Who knows, since the LA change maybe I was invulnerable.

It just not the kind of supposition you find yourself eager to put to the test. You'd look awful damn silly if it turned out you guessed wrong.

There were another couple of options available, but both of them posed rather complicated moral choices.

Did I really want to blow up this woman while she was right next to me? No, I didn't. I might not have liked her, but she was my brother's wife and my nephew's mother. That made her family, whether I liked it or not.

And this single fact limited my other choice as well. It would have taken no time at all to slap a ring inside her. But I'd refused to do that with my own wives for eight long years. Just thinking about it still made me queasy.

The knife blade pressed harder against my neck and I felt a trickle of something dribble down onto my chest.

"Perhaps you should start. How much blood does big boy like you have inside, hmmmm?" she murmured and began stroking my hair and the side of my face with the fingers of her right hand.

If I hadn't felt her reaction for myself I'd have had trouble believing it. The bitch was actually getting turned on.