Re: (Before Ninja: The Cat)
Svetlana thought she had seen most things men were capable of. The bad, the boring. There was no brilliant in world of brothel and of bars, guns and marriages backed by fist. Invention was next step to fear, eh? Women who learned to endure, to burn, feared what they did not know yet they could endure still. But those women, those girls, they were dead. Legitimate business owners, and she licked the last taste of the whiskey from her lips and she left the glass there. Gossip is worse for legitimate, eh? She did not know this yet.
But she was not fat of land. Her money, her nest-egg was bricks and mortar. It was tea steeped to gold poured in silver. It was all she had now. Name and roof and store. She could make money on back, she could make money on knees. But that was not security. Tea-place was not security without work. But she would work, eh? Work herself raw. Fuck baker. Baker did not know what it was to burn. Hunger, endurance, hah. It did not matter. It was all burn.
She did not know who Katya was now. She had bar. She was citizen. She was soft, the way money filled your belly, kept your knees together until you wanted them open. Katya was woman, with name over bar. Was Katya grown, girl in brothel left behind? She looked it. But was not so easy. Past did not stay behind. Katya laughed, and Svetlana's mouth curved crimson.
"Bored? No." Her mouth crooked secrets. "No, not bored." If coincidence was to crawl from walls, to set up business, maybe gun needed. Gun instead of knife. Gun was quicker, less intimate. But if Katya was generous with booze, Svetlana unfolded herself to full height. Was not graceful. Was languid. Similar, but not the same. Her cheekbones were blades and she smiled like knife-edge. She touched the bar-top briefly with two fingers.
"Is solid." Was not about bar. Katya was legit. But she had not always been.