Bus Crash

He looked at the door through which she had disappeared. Not now, he thought, she wasn't ready. But she would be. In time she would be -- her ready smiles told him as much. All he needed was time for the thought of him to settle into her mind for she needed to trust him as well as like him. Now she was still wary, but the fear was gone that she'd obviously felt when she first woke up. And this time, he noticed and smiled, she didn't set the chair back to block the door.

Chapter 3

Anni woke up in pain. It was too long since she'd taken the last pill and her head was throbbing with white-hot searing pulses of pain. She wanted to cry out for Vlajko, but was too embarrassed to make a fuss. Besides, sun was up already and he would be outside again, doing whatever work it took to run a place like this. He wouldn't hear her even if she did try to call for him. She inched slowly along the walls to the kitchen. With her eyes blurry with tears again, she accidentally sweeped dishes off the counter, rummaging for the first aid kit and the blessed, blessed little pills. Alarmed by the noise Vlajko rushed in. He helped her to the sofa and gave her a pill. He held her hand, petting it soothingly and waited with her until the drug kicked in. Aamu was thankful for that.

For an hour or so she felt normal, washed her teeth (as best she could without her toothbrush) and ate breakfast, but then the drugs made her fuzzy again, punch drunk and very, very sleepy.

She wanted to wash. And to ask about her luggage and about a lift to Ivanjica but it was too much, all too much and she lay in bed, thinking, day-dreaming, planning, nodding off. Every time she woke up she knew she should do something to help her get on her way but every time she nodded off again without even trying to sit up. At some point Vlajko came to clean her wound and change the bandages again, and she accepted yet another pill to cope with the pain which had been made worse by the antiseptic once more. She hated him for putting her through such agony but likewise she was grateful for him afterwards when he petted and soothed her back into sleep.

Late in the afternoon she finally stirred a little and forced herself to get out of bed. Vlajko was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. A pile of potatoes still waited to be peeled.

As she washed her hands and set to peeling despite his protestations, she noticed the red tint on the sky outside of the sun starting slowly to go down. Damn it, she swore. Another day wasted.

They spent a pleasant enough evening together, and at night Anni asked him for the medicine. Tonight she meant to sleep so she could wake up bright and early the next day, so she asked for two. Vlajko turned from her to hide his smile; she didn't know that Vlajko had the same identical pills in two different strengths, the other enough to help with the pain, the other enough to knock her out for several hours. She'd now swallowed a double dose of the strong stuff.

Aamu wasn't at all pleased when she woke up the next day and saw the day was already well past noon. Well, there's still time, she thought and set to look for Vlajko. But the man was nowhere to be found. She checked the stables and walked around outside for a good while searching for him -- nothing. Restlessly she resigned to wait for him, stalking the clock on the wall impatiently all the while as the day passed before her eyes.

At last, late in the afternoon, she saw him climbing up the hill. She waited for him on the porch and stared at his plastic grocery bags and full backpack in confusion.

"You've been to town?" she muttered as he passed her into the house, and he had the audacity to smile at her.

"You've been to town!?" she repeated, shouting now. "Why didn't you take me with you!? Why!? Why didn't you take me to the police station!? Why didn't you take me to the bus station!?"

He didn't need to speak English to understand her words and for a second he felt pity for his little guest and shame for playing such a trick on her. Yet she wasn't done recovering and definitely in no fit state to travel anywhere. Or at least that was what he told himself.

Vlajko looked at her, rising his eyebrows as if he had no idea why she was suddenly so hurt and angry. Aamu walked towards him, getting more and more agitated, shouting and screaming, "Why? Why!? Why didn't you take me with you? Why didn't you wake me up!? Why didn't you tell me!?"

She yelled and yelled, gripped the front of his shirt and tried to shake him. "Why!?" Her voice broke and she started banging his chest with her fists. "Why didn't you tell me!? You big, stupid oaf! Don't you understand that I want to go home!"

He tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn't calm down, wouldn't listen, wouldn't understand, wouldn't stop. Finally he grabbed her by the wrists and held her still so that she couldn't beat at him anymore, but she fought him and kept on shouting. However he was strong and she, still weak, was exhausted, and as suddenly as it had begun, her fury turned into desperate, heartbreaking sobs.

"I just want to go home," she mewed and leaned her forehead on her host's chest.

It was safe to let go of her now, and he slid his hands along her arms, caressing her awkwardly. "Shh, mišiću*," he crooned as he petted her. "You're still weak, but everything is going to be OK. You're all right here. I'll take care of you." (*traditional endearment, mišiću = little mouse)

Just then she hated him, and was angry and bitter, but the comfort he offered was the only comfort to be had and so, though grudgingly, she submitted to it and wiped her tears onto his shirt.

Vlajko held onto her as he walked her to the bedroom and helped her lay down. She hated being so weak that one fit of rage depleted all her energy so entirely that she could hardly stand upright without support. He offered her more of the painkillers but she refused to take them. She was done lying around, feeling confused and groggy. Pain or no pain, she needed to focus and figure out a way out.

Anni had fallen asleep to muddled thoughts and woke up to sounds from the other room. She stood up gingerly, testing how her head felt without the drugs, and found she could move about as long as she took care not to make any sudden movements.

The groceries had found their way into the cupboards and Vlajko was making dinner. She smiled briefly at the thought of that big, scary-looking man cooking for her and looking after her. But then she remembered how he'd gone to town without her, either out of sheer thoughtlessness or, possibly, on purpose, and stopped smiling.

On the kitchen counter lay fresh grapes and oranges. Some of the oranges had already made their way as wedges into an oven dish with chicken thighs. Two of the plastic bags were still waiting by the door. Vlajko fetched them and nodded for her to open them. She took the bags to the sofa and he looked on with a smile as one by one she pulled out two nightgowns, one white, one with porcelain blue little flowers on it, two summer dresses, one plain, the other floral and frilly, two t-shirts, a cardigan, six pairs of socks, some much needed toiletries and finally six pairs of floral print panties.

Aamu received this thoughtful gift of necessities with mixed feelings. The gesture was kind but she would have preferred to have her own things back. Why hadn't he fetched those from the police station instead? Moreover, why hadn't he woken her, told her where he was going and taken her with him? Nonetheless, she had to say thank you, had to smile and act happily surprised. Though the anger for not being taken along festered in her mind, showing it would have been too ungrateful.

Yet mixed feelings or no, she closed herself in the bedroom and changed gratefully into clean clothes. The clothes were more or less of the right size but she wasn't used to wearing dresses. Still, she put the plainer one on over a t-shirt and her old blood-stained jeans.

When she walked out in her new clean clothes she was painfully self conscious about the fact that Vlajko knew exactly what kind of underwear she was wearing, the little ribbon bows and all. And what about the rest of the clothes? The innocent girly nighties? The feminine dresses? The clingy scoop necked t-shirts? Was this simply what had been available or was this what it pleased him to see her in?

She sulked in secret but Vlajko wasn't done yet. He noticed her mood and after dinner took out his secret weapon: chocolate and candy -- and lots of it.

Aamu groaned and rolled her eyes at herself. She didn't want to be so easily appeased, she did want some answers, but when Vlajko dangled the treats before her, smiling his most charming smile, she couldn't help but burst into laughter. She wanted the treats as badly as any girl half her age and oh did he know that.

They both laughed. He had found her weak spot and somehow the safe, comforting and familiar act of throwing herself down on the sofa to munch chocolate and watch TV -- however foreign -- wiped out the tension and Aamu decided there was time enough for answers on the morrow. What she did not notice however was the one necessity he'd failed to bring her: shoes.

She'd waited around for her things for three more days. Vlajko kept promising that somebody he apparently knew from the police station would bring her things to the house when the investigation into the accident was done, but days passed and nothing happened. She was terribly embarrassed of being a burden to him and of being the reason he slept on the cramped sofa. It was embarrassing to eat at his table, sleep in his house and dress in things he'd paid for, and it left her feeling indebted to him in a way she didn't like. She did what she could to help with the housework and his chores outdoors but much of the farm work was new to her and he had to teach her by hand, which left her wondering if she was more of a hindrance instead of being actually useful.

At times she even got quite comfortable around him. She'd seen him be kind to his animals, and he was always kind to her. He even tried to teach her Serbian, and it seemed to please him that she made an effort to memorize it all. Yet still, as his face became more familiar she learned to read his expressions and came to see the desire in his eyes when he looked at her. And she realized her own terrifying vulnerability. Day and night. With no one to help her should he decide that his lust was more important than her right to decide. Her little refuge, the quaint rural dream, was not the same after that.

She knew he wanted her and every minute she stayed in the house made matters worse for she did not want him and his wants and needs brewed. She could almost hear the imagined grunts of him rutting on top of her in her ears but there was no way out. She was stuck, and when she tried to talk to him about getting her things back he avoided giving her any definitive answer. She saw a road on the bottom of the valley but she needed help for that road to take her anywhere. She needed a lift or at the very least directions.

And then there were times when the work was pleasant and they were both in a good mood and it was comfortable to sit together in the cosy cottage before sleep. On such moments she couldn't deny that there was a certain lure in the absurd, childish fantasy. A life there. With him. Like Heidi on her mountain. But her life was no fantasy, it was reality and in reality men who housed strange girls expected things. She heard the imaginary grunts again and the creaking of the bed and saw herself under him with a blank face and dead, empty eyes. Her limp body was tossing back and forth from the force of his thrusts, his drool and sweat dropping on her face as she paid her rent on her back. Her stomach turned and she clamped a hand over her mouth as not to throw up. It was all gone now, the fantasy, the dream, the erotic lure of his big hands, all of it. She needed to get the hell out of there. She needed to make him listen. She needed him to help her to get to Ivanjica. Now.

Vlajko knew he should call the police station in town and request for the girl's salvaged things to be brought over but he was reluctant to give her the means to leave. With young women escaping the countryside in search of education, work and prosperity in the cities Vlajko had never married, a faith shared by many.

He'd had a woman in town who'd given him release for a reasonable price when his need had become too strong but release was far from satisfaction. Leaving money on the table and slinking away afterwards made him feel more and more hollow each time and so he'd quit visiting her. He wanted to be wanted and here she was, little Aamu, stealing glances when she thought he didn't notice, sending a flood of mixed messages, shimmering with insecurity as well as curiosity, shyly and secretly looking at him in a way he had forgotten existed.

He turned to look at her over at the vegetable garden fastening strings for the beanstalks to climb and felt a heady rush of gathering momentum. It wasn't simple lust that made him stall her, he wanted her, all of her, and as astonished by it as he was he was pretty sure he wasn't alone feeling that.

When her eyes weren't following him she was hunched over, scribbling and sketching on a notepad she'd found lying around. She liked to draw details: a hoof of a goat, the rusty lock on the barn door, the intricate stamens on the pear tree flowers, the torn etiquette of an old bottle, the bottom half of a storm lantern. But the latest one was the most interesting. She'd drawn a large hand gripping and pinning down a smaller hand by the wrist, the fingers of the smaller hand clawing the air in distress, soft lines indicating a mattress or a blanket gathering in folds under the weight of the grip. In a flash his mind filled out the rest of the scene and lust yanked at his gut. Was it a fantasy of hers? She'd drawn it right there in his house, perhaps when he'd been sitting but a few yards away. What did it mean? Did she want him to wrestle her down on the bed like that? Did she want him to ...take her?

He heard her walking towards him and quickly found something to busy himself with, something to turn to to hide the bulge of his erection from her. It wouldn't do to let her see that. She might take fright and run and for now -- especially now -- he wanted to keep her right where she was.

Next morning Jela came by. Preoccupied with Aamu, Vlajko had forgotten his normal routines and had not taken the week's laundry down to the village for Jela to wash. Now he rushed around inside the house, cursing while putting together the laundry basket, constantly peering out of the windows to see what the girl and the older woman were up to. He did not know what would wait for him outside, and it was eating at him. What were they talking about? Would Jela take Aamu away from him? What if he never got to find out what the growing tension between them would lead to -- for growing it was, he could tell.

Finally he had the basket ready and met Yela standing by the porch.

"I see the girl is still staying with you," she mused. And, knowing full well she wasn't, continued teasingly, "Still unwell, is she?"

Vlajko replied with an irritated mumble she wasn't even meant to make out, but Jela saw how things stood between them and continued with a suggestive tone. "She asked me if you and I are lovers." She laughed and continued, "And asking it she looked every bit as embarrassed as you do now."

"And what did you tell her?"

"Ha, just that I wouldn't touch you with a stick! Not sure if she understood any of it though, poor thing. Not very bright, is she? And I didn't have the patience to spell it out for her. But she looks to be an obedient girl nonetheless, eager to please for a smile and a few kind words. She might have made you a decent wife, but you must know that she'll never last here." Vlajko knitted his brow and looked away from her. "O Bože*," she sighed with true compassion. "I see how it is. You big fool. You're in love with her already, aren't you? Trust me, nothing but trouble and heartbreak there. They're all fake nails, shopping and night clubs girls like that." (*O Bože = Oh God. Oh my.)

Vlajko said nothing and Jela sighed and continued. "Well, just tell my nephew in good time if you plan to move into your brother's old house. He'll need time to find them all a new place."

Vlajko hadn't planned that far -- in fact he hadn't planned at all -- but, watching Aamu head over to weed the vegetable patch dressed in his worn old overalls, she really didn't seem to him like a night clubs and shopping kind of girl.

Much later, Aamu lay awake for another sleepless night. It wasn't just the lack of quetiapine that made her restless this time, it was the movements and sounds of the man sleeping in the other bed only a few yards away. She'd panicked when Vlajko came to the bedroom. Fleetingly Aamu contemplated how much could be conveyed without words, with body language, gestures and tones. He wasn't there to rape her, he was just too sore to spend another night on the cramped couch. And he had every right to sleep in his own bed, yet still it felt unsettlingly intimate to share a room like this. To hear all each other's sounds, to breathe the same air, to wear nothing but flimsy night clothes in each other's presence.

Still, the room was distinctly warmer during the night now that he shared it with her. He radiated heat in his being and breath and it was a curious feeling to share his warmth. His proximity and maleness made her restless as she lay there, sleepless and listening to his breathing. Unbidden, her mind raced with all the nasty, scary, troubling what ifs: could he, would he, will he? She wasn't cold now as she had been in the nights before, and the thought that it was him and his warmth enveloping her and drifting into her was unsettlingly erotic. He could never be allowed to know how it made her ache for a man, how her little snatch twitched and tingled and grew wet at the sheer thought. And those hands, those hands...

Chapter 4

Two more days passed. Her one big chance to seduce her teacher had been wasted and soon, when the seminar would draw to a close and she was still nowhere to be found, Timo and her family would start to get worried on a whole new level. Still, she'd been thinking less and less of Timo as she got more and more anxious over her own situation. She'd tried to speak to him about it over and over but he just he kept telling her soon soon and totally refused to appreciate how anxious she was.

Lost in a strange country or no, shoes or no, she'd soon try walking to the nearest town herself. She would draw bloody comic strips on paper for passers by if it was the only way to find someone who had an actual phone that could phone to an actual embassy somewhere. Was there even a Finnish embassy in Serbia? Probably not. So what on earth would she do?

In the night she was awake again and in the darkness all she saw was despair. She tried to weep quietly, but he heard her and got up. She sat up on her bed as he approached and he sat behind her on the mattress, emanating heat, just like she had imagined all those nights ago. For a long time he said nothing and let her cry, holding on to her shoulder with a light touch.

"People are worried about me and I can't tell them I'm ok," she finally stammered through her sobs. "My phone. My passport. My money. My clothes. Without a passport they won't let me cross the border back to EU. How will I get home? I don't even know where our embassy is. I don't even know where I am!"

He still said nothing but kept petting her. Hair, back, shoulders.

Despite her anger towards him, deprived from the rest of the world Aamu felt strangely close to Vlajko. The heavy touch of his palm, even without words, was soft and reassuring and she stopped crying, relaxing into his caress, absorbing from it what comfort she could. In her thoughts she let go of everything but the touch and concentrated only on the movements of the large, gentle palm on her body. Through her nightie her skin shivered. Her nerves perked up to experience the tingling pleasure that was the prelude to everything erotic. She knew she should tell him to stop or soon she'd break and give in to it and end up mixing herself into something she'd regret. Yet every new caress opened her mouth into a soundless gasp and she kept thinking, 'just a little more, just a little more, just a few more seconds.'