Ava Kaplinski

Chapter 1

Moscow, Russia. September 2014.
The long Moscow summer of 2014 had been particularly hot and humid. The capacity crowd, some 3,000 in all, left the air conditioned Bolshoi Theatre and visibly wilted as the oppressive night air enfolded them. They had come to see Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake' to witness the most gifted prima ballerina to play the double-role of Odette-Odile since the legendary Italian ballerina, Pierina Legnani. It was Legnani who had raised the bar and introduced the 32 fouettés en tournant, fast whipping consecutive turns on one foot and a legacy that became a curse to all aspiring ballerinas that followed.
Ava Kaplinski was the incumbent prima ballerina at the Bolshoi, renowned for her flawless performances of this highly emotional and technically difficult dance. Tonight's ballet had been danced with such grace and discipline that the crowd could still be heard murmuring their accolades long after the theatre had cleared. As was customary, the elite of the audience consisting of royalty, oligarchs and socialites, were invited for drinks at the bar and entitled to the company of the ballerinas. In recent years top ballerinas had quit the Bolshoi making accusations of being pressurised to offer sexual favours to the select clients. This of course was vehemently refuted by the management but accepted as common practice amongst the ballerinas and the select.
The enforced socialising was the part that Ava detested but it was a condition of her employment. Her elevation to prima ballerina had only served to heighten her desirability and compound the problem. Ava shuddered as she entered the plush theatre bar. Immediately all eyes turned to her and there was a ripple of applause as she made her way towards the bar. She was taller than usual for a ballerina, late twenties to early thirties, slim and elegant with sublime deportment, typical of her art. Her full length, figure-hugging black dress was cut radically from her shoulders to her waist and from her thigh to the floor. She smiled politely and tipped her head slightly towards the guests in appreciation accentuating the length of her smooth neck. Ava had her long auburn hair piled up on her head which further enhanced her height, slenderness and femininity.
She desperately hoped that she could make it alone to the barstool but a clammy hand gripped her upper arm. She turned to face the over-weight and balding man who was forcing his attention on her. She recognised him immediately as the very man that she had hoped to avoid, Sergei Bortnik, a royal pain in the arse.
"You appear to be ignoring me tonight my lovely," Bortnik's grip tightened as he spoke and his Vodka breath made Ava gag. He steered her rudely towards the bar without concern for what others might think. Such is the power of wealth.
"My name is Ava as you well know and I am not 'your lovely'! As for the drink, I can buy my own thank you," he had been to the last four performances and wasn't taking 'no' for an answer. Worse, he arrived considerably more drunk on each successive occasion.
"Ava there you are!" Katarina, one of the other ballerinas, had seen her plight, "I have some friends who are just dying to meet you," she was a brunette of delicate build, almost childlike, with the face of a cherub. Her lively brown eyes danced mischievously as if she was hatching a plot.
Ava was by far the most popular of the dancers, whether that was the men or women of the troupe. Even her ascension to prima ballerina had not brought about the usual female jealousy. Katarina took Ava's free hand to lead her away but the pudgy man shoved her rudely against the bar knocking the wind out of her. Yuri, the barman, raised a feeble protest but the look that he got back from Bortnik cut him down immediately.
"Send a couple of bottles of Bollinger up to my room with three glasses, I have guests!" the Bolshoi Theatre had rooms for those favoured by the management.
The Russian oligarch leered menacingly at Ava, "Now, I can make your position here very difficult. No, I will re-phrase that. I can make your life here very difficult and that of your trollop friend blessed with her two left feet," he took a pinch of Katarina's cheek between his fat thumb and forefinger, squeezing it and forcing it to bruise. "On the other hand I can be most generous," he put his hand under his crutch and held his genitals in his big fist, "and there is plenty in here for the both of you."
The despicable man's lascivious smile was short-lived. Inexplicably his eyes suddenly began to bulge out of their sockets and his expression was a mixture of pain and absolute astonishment. He screamed out pitifully as his grip on his own genitalia tightened, crushing his manhood. Ava simply watched him coldly, holding his eyes relentlessly, willing him to squeeze ever tighter. He began to vomit and stared back at her in horror and incomprehension until he eventually collapsed. Even in his unconscious state none of the men could free the vice-like grip that he had on himself, and none could even begin to understand why he had done it.
Eventually Ava looked away and immediately the fat man's hand fell free of himself. It was something that she could thank her mother for. Apparently telepathy, mind control and telekinesis had run through their ancestry, as did a muscular strength that far surpassed normal. The problem was that Ava had little and mostly no control over it. It was a dark power that showed itself in moments of rage such as this, but never in times of joy. Consequently she was deeply afraid of it and wondered if she was evil or perhaps possessed. Indeed she was troubled by restless spirits who manifested themselves to her in the night. They seemed to want something of her but she was never sure what. Ava used to deny them and chase them away but they would always return. She knew that they came to her because of her sadness and lack of fulfilment. They fed off the emptiness in her soul and would do so forever unless she found completeness. Ava had never dared to seek help for fear of being declared mad and then be locked up with her demons. Ava's thoughts turned back to Katarina.
"Come with me Kat and I'll fix that with a little concealer," tears were still flowing down Katarina's face and her cheek looked like a bee had stung it.
Katerina was a petite brunette with an almost child-like body. As they left for the powder room Ava felt sickened that a man could harm such a fragile and beautiful thing. Ava had her arm protectively around her brave friend's shoulder as she murmured her thanks for attempting to rescue her. When Katarina looked in the mirror she spat out her disdain.
"That fat bastard, look what he's done," she turned to face Ava with a look of consternation on her face. "Why on Earth did he do that to himself?"
"Just drunk I guess Kat and perhaps a little crazy on cocaine," Ava smiled. "Whatever, I don't think he'll be using that thing of his again for a very long time!"
They erupted into tears of laughter which resulted in the need for a little more facial repair. Katarina decided that it might be prudent to not display her injury in the bar and left Ava with cuddles and kisses and declarations of her life-long love and friendship. Ava returned to the bar for a much needed 'Dirty Martini'. This time she managed to get to her seat unnoticed as the guests and artists were still distracted by the bizarre event that had just taken place. The barman placed the Martini in front of her and made an attempt to excuse himself for not having come to Katarina's rescue. Ava took his hand reassuringly.
"Relax Yuri, there was nothing that you could have done that wouldn't have cost your job. Katarina wouldn't have expected you to take that risk for her," Ava casually stirred her Dirty Martini with the green olive on her cocktail stick then reached across and pecked him on the cheek. Yuri coloured up immediately. He was besotted with her but then who wasn't?
Ava finished her third drink, raised her glass and winked at Yuri for another. He went to work on it gladly, like a faithful puppy. Yuri was Mr Average in Ava's eyes. Average height, average build and average looks. He was too nondescript for her to notice the goodness in his heart and the humour in his conversation. She picked up his thoughts though, as she always could when she chose to, and they were all about her.
"Not in a million years!" Ava proclaimed to herself as his thoughts dallied to become more of a carnal nature. Somehow she had unintentionally transmitted that thought and Yuri turned to face her with a look of devastation and guilt on his face.
"Shit!" Ava muttered under her breath, "I didn't mean to do that."
She absentmindedly caught sight of her own image in the mirror at the back of the bar. The reflection showed a beautiful young woman with a slim face, good bone structure and small features. She had blue eyes with unusual brown flecks that shone like stars beneath long groomed eyelashes. Her auburn hair was shining almost red in the bar lighting and her lips were full, red and promising. To any other the reflection was of a rare beauty indeed but all that Ava could see was the ugliness in her soul. It was that part of her that she couldn't control, that dark beast that constantly lurked there in waiting. She looked hatefully at her own image for several seconds. The brown flecks in her blue eyes seemed to darken and merge as her rage grew until at last the mirror shattered. Ava immediately looked away and the blueness returned to her eyes.
"Are you alright Ava, what happened?" Yuri had recovered from her rebuke and was now afraid for her and clearly startled by the sound of breaking glass.
"I don't know Yuri, probably screwed on too tightly," she said dismissively. "I'll have that Dirty Martini now if you don't mind."
Ava became curiously aware of a man sat at the other end of the bar. He was of indeterminate age. Late forties, early fifties maybe, tanned and dangerously handsome, for sure. His dark hair, almost black in fact, was greying slightly at the temples giving him a deliciously mature look. He was expensively dressed in a designer suit, white shirt and bow tie. Extremely well groomed and soave would describe him, Bond-like in fact, with amazing presence. He was cleanly shaven which accentuated his strong chin. Ava's eyes were drawn to follow the line of his jaw to where it met his well-formed ear. Inexplicably she imagined running her tongue around the edge of it and the thought of it immediately sent a rush of blood to her groin. The impact of it disoriented her. Ava had to divert her thoughts quickly because these were classic symptoms, early warnings if you like, of her about to make a fool of herself, something that she had done on so many occasions with so many perfect strangers.
"What was it," she thought, "that makes strange men of a certain age so hot?" her question needed no answer. To her it was their experience, power, wealth and most of all, the delicious danger of it!
She continued her examination and tried to be pragmatic, even though her sudden wetness was becoming distracting to her. He was athletic in build with good shoulders and Ava guessed that he would be around six foot two when he stood, "Yes, dangerously handsome," she concluded and blushed involuntarily over what she was thinking. She was smiling openly at him but to her annoyance he didn't look up. Ava had to confess that she really did have something about older men and her mind continued to wander. The drinks were doing their trick and Ava was beginning to relax after her ordeal with Bortnik. Her intrigue over this dark stranger was fast becoming a physical thing that she needed to explore further, much further. Despite some fairly obvious affectations to get his attention, like letting her long hair down and shaking it, letting her skirt fall strategically open to expose her leg right up to her lingerie and dropping her purse to the floor with a rather exaggerated sigh, the dark stranger remained aloof and seemingly unaware of her.
Ava had already embarked on the road to her own physical satisfaction and was in far too deep to give up. She decided to do the one thing that always gets a man's attention, the public and provocative application of red lipstick. She waited until she had eye contact then gave him the full performance. This time he didn't look away, he just held her gaze throughout until she finished, "Yes!" she thought and instantly felt her whole body flush with delicious anticipation and became painfully aware of her nipples that had hardened and were testing the elasticity of her slinky dress. She let the purse fall to the floor again.
"He must have seen them pointing at him," she thought mischievously. The ridiculously handsome man stood up and drained his glass before walking towards her. He picked up her purse and smiled as he handed it to her, then without a backward glance, walked on to the door and left the theatre. Ava's chin dropped so that she was sat there wide-mouthed in astonishment. Men just didn't do this to her.
"The bastard!" were the only words that she could find to avenge her brutal rejection.
--------------------------------------------------------------