Flaws: Vedmykiv

[11] The Ukrainian Barbie Doll

THE HIKE SEEMED shorter this time, though I wasted a lot of energy watching out for landmines. The hare trails were safe, Igor reassured me. I didn't know how I could believe him. He had lied to me before.

"This might be last time we trek," he said. The mud was drier than usual. "I found a way to get in."

Turns out the motherfucker liked my plan. He had been concocting his own version all along. He had the girl, he had the when, all he needed was the plausible explanation: A tourist living nearby, possibly with a girlfriend with a solid alibi. Some reckless idiot to enter the strip club with, someone who could be left alone with a girl, someone who could say a crass thing or two, someone nobody would look at twice. Someone who, if he were to ask an exotic dancer to commit treason, would not lift any suspicions. Who doesn't like boobs, vodka, and abhors the concept of Novorossiya? A dumb foreign kid, that's who. Igor had recruited me for this specific mission, and the fucker still wouldn't admit he worked for the government. Preventing the formation of a new nation, a confederation, I didn't care what his true goal was in the end. All I wanted was for my work to make history. That was why we had been to the club a handful of times. They thought I was just one more perverted tourist, like the Swiss guard, like the guy who wanted to steal the English teacher's big bootie beige panties. Some dumbass who wandered too far east and was now stuck, trapped by lady parts. Someone ordinary. Boys will be boys, right?

Igor claimed he couldn't get it done by himself. He had a reputation to uphold. They would get suspicious that a man of his connections would spend so much time with the girls. I didn't know what that meant, but whatever. Anything to get out of the apartment.

The Duality Club—in Russian, it made sense—was a big concrete block with yellow and black walls and an indiscreet neon sign that bothered no one. It was behind a parking lot and had an alley next to it. There were no military trucks like in other city intersections, just two empty police vehicles parked in front. It was safe to go in and do my thing. By which I meant Igor's. I was scared shitless as the last time, but I had to make contact. I had only one shot. It's not like I could interview all the girls one lap dance at a time to find the one that was against all the mayhem. Igor had already singled out a blonde. But convincing her, that was my job.

She danced on a platform at the center of a rotating stage. Her platinum wig brushed the sides of her glitter-covered skin. It matched the bikini she wore and the huge transparent heels she kept smacking against the floor. The dancer sat on the platform as she slowly spun. She grabbed one of her ankles and lifted her long leg. She kept the tension high, like cocking a crossbow, like the claw clip she removed from her hair, like a lure that sucked me in. She looked around at all the men smoking cigarettes and at the American drinking whiskey at the bar next to his Russian dad. A dad and his virgin son who can't make women come. Plausible, sure. She released. Her heels smacked each other, making a short whip slap. I jumped in my seat. The beaver trap was set. There was no recoil. She rolled over to the side and got on all fours. She then crawled to the pole. The tall Barbie climbed it up and down with sensual expertise. She removed her top, and I must not have noticed I was drooling over because when she looked at me, that poker face she had, that same poker face everyone else had, looked me in the eye and smiled. There was no recoil from that, either.

I could see why Igor had chosen her. The bleach-blonde hair of her wig was straight and direct, like someone without many friends. Her perky breasts looked defiant. She was intense and bold, like a goddess of darkness, like death itself. Like a sophisticated attendant at a Russian airport months ago. Despite having no clothes on, she gave away nothing. She looked like blood. That woman alone made up for the smell of cheap body lotion and sweat. And all the trekking.

"Keep staring. That'd draw her in," Igor said.

Soon, as Igor predicted, the platinum blonde came to collect the easy prey. She wrapped her long fingers around my neck and sat on my lap, pressing her breasts. The lust called my name, manufacturing the seduction game. Soon, as any professional would, she rose to the task and grabbed my hand. She placed it between her legs.