Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico by Theodora Taylor Page B

called me Thel in years.”
    Her little sister gave her a knowing smile. “So I guess you changed your name.” Thel had always said she would as soon as she turned eighteen.
    “Yeah, yeah I did,” Thel admitted with a tremulous smile of her own. “But I’m ready to change it back now.”
    “Why?” Willa asked, voice curious and frank.
    “Because I’m sick,” Thel answered, not knowing how else to explain what took place in the doctor’s office that day. How instead of getting her tubes tied like she was supposed to at Bair’s command, she’d asked the university hospital’s OB/Gyn in broken German about the lump she’d felt in the shower. Even after five years, she still hadn’t managed to pick up this country’s language as well as Bair.
    She could still remember the doctor’s cold hands as she checked Thel’s small breasts herself. The feeling of certain dread even before the doctor switched to English to tell her this was something they would definitely need to have checked out before they went through with the “other” procedure. And the wind tunnel that had appeared inside her head as she nodded and asked if there was another door she could leave out of. Already knowing without needing any test results what was happening inside her body.
    But in Sembach, she told her sister the simplest version of her truth: “I got cancer, really bad. And I’m ready to be done pretending to be somebody I ain’t.”
    “Okay,” Willa said. Just like that. “What can I do to help?”
    And Thel broke down sobbing.
    “I ain’t used to being nurtured no more,” she tearfully explained as her much taller little sister held her. “Or having somebody say they’ll help me without a devil’s deal being involved.”
    “I’m not ‘somebody.’ I’m your sister, Thel,” Willa admonished, holding her even tighter. “And whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. I promise.”
    Thel believed her. And moreover, she was grateful. For the first time in a very long time, she was grateful to be Thelxiope Okeanos. The strangely-named girl with the crazy family who loved her. After Bair Rustanov, after this terrible pre-diagnosis, which made it immediately clear she had to get out of this fucked up version of a life she shared with The Beast, she knew she wouldn’t ever take her remaining family for granted again.
    But even as she cried with gratitude in her sister’s arms, she knew this wasn’t the end. Knew she wouldn’t get away from The Russian Beast that easily. She’d escaped for now. But even back then, safe inside her sister’s arms, she knew she’d never truly be free.

2
    SIX YEARS LATER
    D ear W ,
    I’m sorry. I know you want to hear from me for real, but you don’t understand about Bair. He has me followed everywhere. He calls it protecting me. But whatever. There’s always a goon there. Waiting for me to get done, tracking my every move, reporting back to him if I so much as talk to another guy.
    So I’m sorry I can only write you in my diary. Which I know he won’t read, because he doesn’t care what I’m thinking about, only that I’m under his full control. Which I am.
    Did I tell you I’m set to join the Moscow National Opera as a lead soprano in the fall? I know, right? I’m so young! How did I get so lucky?
    The answer is I didn’t. He arranged everything. The album that put my name on their radar. The donation that made the spot magically open up. All of it.
    I should be grateful. But I can’t be. I don’t feel anything but trapped.
    He’s no longer the Beast I met in Greece.
    Sometimes it seems like he became a monster the minute he started wearing a suit. I still ain’t scared of nothing, but the anesthetic is definitely wearing off, and I’m not sure how much longer I can do this with him.
    All he wants is to control me. He tells me how to dress, how to talk, what to do. He takes me to parties and I have to act like this docile thing so I don’t embarrass him. Wear all these