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— Here, admire this. The result of the inspection.
Kirill stood frozen in the doorway of the living room, still clutching the briefcase handle in his hand. The air in the apartment was the same, smelling of freshly brewed coffee and Oksana’s perfume, but something had fundamentally changed. In the very center of the room, on the light parquet floor that his wife polished to a shine every weekend, stood a huge, fat black garbage bag. It was tightly stuffed with something soft, shapeless, and looked like an ugly monument to some quiet but monstrous event.
Oksana sat in the chair opposite him. Straight back, perfectly even part in her hair, one leg crossed over the other. She held a cup of coffee but did not drink. She was not looking at the bag, but at Kirill, and in her gray eyes shimmered such a coldness that for a moment he felt uneasy. It was not hurt or sadness. It was steel. Rage cooled to absolute zero, hardened and sharp as a blade.
— What is this? — he asked, although the answer had already begun to grow in his mind like a poisonous weed.
— This, as they explained to me, is “shame.” That I was decided to be rid of, — her voice was flat, without a single trembling note. — Your mother came by. She said she was passing through and decided to drop in. To have some tea.
Kirill approached the bag and, hesitating for a second, untied it. A familiar mixed scent of Oksana’s perfume hit his nose — the smell of her things, her wardrobe. He looked inside. On top lay her favorite sea-wave-colored silk dress with an asymmetrical hem. The very one they wore to the restaurant on their anniversary. Beneath it was the sleeve of a cream blouse he had brought her from Prague. It was made of the finest cotton and cost a fortune, but he couldn’t resist imagining how it would look on Oksana. Then came a bright summer sundress, a strict office skirt, a cashmere jumper. Everything was folded surprisingly neatly. Not crumpled in rage, but arranged with methodical, cold cruelty. Like a coffin.
— She… she just took and?.. — the words got stuck in his throat. The scale of what had happened didn’t fit in his head. This was not just interference. It was an act of desecration.
— She opened the wardrobe while I was in the kitchen, — Oksana continued in her colorless tone, as if reading a news report. — Took all this out here. Said she was helping me look like a respectable married woman, not like some girl from the panel (a derogatory term for a low-class girl). Said I had no taste, but it was fixable if I listened to my elders. Then she took this bag out of her purse and packed everything inside. Advised me to take it out before you came home, so you wouldn’t see this shame.
Kirill straightened up. He looked at his wife. Not a single muscle twitched on her face. She was not seeking his sympathy. She was simply stating a fact. The fact that into their home, their personal space built with such love, someone had intruded, stomped through the most sacred, and demonstratively thrown part of her personality into the trash. Suddenly he clearly understood what she felt. It was not about the things. It was about humiliation. Deep, demonstrative, public, even if the audience was only one person.
Inside him, anger began to slowly boil. Not hot, not impulsive, but dark and heavy like cast iron. He saw not just a pile of rags in a bag before him. He saw the tears Oksana did not shed. He saw the slap she received, albeit metaphorical. He saw his mother’s brazen, impenetrable confidence that she could do anything. That she had the right to come into his house and set her own rules, judge his wife, decide what she should wear and how she should live.
He silently took his phone out of his pocket. Oksana followed the movement with her eyes. Something new flickered in her eyes—not expectation, not warning. She knew him. She knew that behind his outward calm a hurricane was raging.
Kirill found the contact named “Mom.” He looked at Oksana, at her frozen figure in the chair, then shifted his gaze to the black bag—this ugly trophy in the center of their living room. The pressure of his thumb on the screen was heavy, final, as if he pressed not a call button but a trigger.
The long rings stopped on a half-tone. His mother’s voice sounded from the speaker, even, somewhat homely sweet, as if she had been waiting for his call just to discuss an apple pie recipe.
— Kirusha, I knew you would call. Has Oksana already complained? I hoped she was wise enough not to.
There was not a hint of remorse in her voice, only honeyed condescension and unshakable confidence in her righteousness. She did not excuse herself. She stated her victory. Kirill closed his eyes for a moment and took a slow breath. He felt Oksana’s gaze on him—testing, motionless.
— Explain to me what kind of show you staged in my house? — his voice was quiet, but in this silence, there was more threat than in any shout.
— A show? Darling, I put things in order. I helped your wife. Apparently, she does not understand that a married woman, a mother of the family, cannot walk around in… in that. Those cuts all the way to the ribs, those transparent rags. That’s a disgrace for you! People look and think what? That you cannot dress your wife decently, or that she is looking for adventures on the side? I saved our family’s honor. You should thank me.
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It was said in the tone used for a foolish child who does not understand the benefits of bitter medicine. Condescending, patient, with a halo of martyr-like care. And it was precisely this tone that pulled the pin on the grenade lying at the bottom of Kirill’s soul. His calm snapped like an overtightened string.
— Family honor? You talk to me about family honor? — he almost growled into the phone, and Oksana, sitting in the chair, slightly flinched at the sound.
— Just imagine!
— You, Mom, first deal with my little sister, then start picking on my wife’s clothes!
He stepped into the room, gesturing with his free hand as if his mother was standing right in front of him.
— Or have you forgotten what your Lizonka wore to my birthday last month? A skirt barely covering what decent girls don’t even show to their doctor! A top that looked like two stickers! All evening men were drooling, and their wives were nudging them with elbows. Is that, in your opinion, family honor? Or her summer “dresses” made of transparent mesh, showing everything underneath? Is that normal? Isn’t it a shame? Why don’t you pack her things into garbage bags?!
There was a brief pause on the other end. But it was not a pause of confusion. It was a regrouping before the counterattack.
— Don’t you dare compare, — Irina Viktorovna snapped, and the sweetness disappeared from her voice, replaced by cold metal. — Liza is an unmarried girl. She is searching. She can and should attract attention. These are different things. And Oksana is a wife. She made her choice. Her task is to keep the hearth and look modest, so as not to provoke anyone or disgrace her husband.
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Family Vacation Tours
This answer, monstrous in its simplicity and hypocrisy, was the last straw. Kirill stopped in front of the black bag, this ugly monument to maternal “care.”
— Oh, I see. So it’s not about clothes, but about status? Got it, — he laughed, but the laugh was short and bitter. — Then listen carefully. My wife can wear whatever she wants. Because these are her things, bought with our money. And it’s her body. And this is my house. And if I find out again that you have touched the things in my house without asking, I will personally come to you and throw your entire wardrobe into the trash. Every one of your fur coats, every dress, everything, down to the last thread. Am I clear?
He didn’t wait for an answer. He threw the phone onto the sofa. A thick, electrified silence hung in the room. Oksana slowly put her cup on the table. She looked up at him, and now there was no cold in her eyes. There was something else. Dark flame. Approval. And a silent question: “Is that all?”
They didn’t make them wait. Within an hour, a sharp, demanding doorbell rang through the apartment. Not the kind friends or couriers use, but the kind that doesn’t ask but commands to open. Kirill and Oksana exchanged looks. The black bag still stood in the middle of the room, a mute witness and main accused. Oksana did not move from her place, only gripping the armrests tighter. This was his fight. He understood that.
Kirill opened the door. As he expected, his mother stood on the threshold. Irina Viktorovna was dressed to the nines: perfectly ironed coat, expensive silk scarf around her neck, her face an impenetrable mask of righteous anger. But she was not alone. Behind her, lazily leaning against the doorframe, stood Liza. She wore tight leather leggings, ankle boots with huge heels, and a short jacket made of some shiny fabric that barely reached her ribs. Her brightly painted lips curled into a lazy smirk. She was a living, breathing illustration of their recent phone conversation.
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— I came to finish our conversation, which you rudely interrupted, — Irina Viktorovna declared, entering the apartment without invitation. Liza followed her, casting a bored look around the room that lingered on the black bag.
— Wow, is this some kind of mourning for rags? — she drawled, her voice as glossy as her leggings, cutting through the taut nerves.
At that moment, Oksana slowly rose from the chair. She moved with the smooth, dangerous grace of a predator. She didn’t look at Irina Viktorovna. Her gaze was fixed on Liza.
— Hello, Liza. What an interesting jacket you’re wearing. New? Must have cost a lot. Did you have to… work long for it?
The smile slipped off Liza’s face. The question was asked quietly, politely, but the venom in it could kill a small animal. Irina Viktorovna immediately rushed into battle, shielding her daughter like an eagle.
— What do you think you’re doing! Liza is a young, beautiful girl; she gets gifts. Unlike some who have to hide their true appearance under decent clothes to keep their husbands!
The Best Clothing Stores
— Mom, — Kirill stood between Oksana and his mother, — I asked you not to come. I asked you not to touch my things or my wife. Don’t you understand?
— I am your mother! I’m not an outsider! — her voice grew louder. — I have the right to come into my son’s home and put things in order if I see his wife dragging the whole family down! Look at her! She doesn’t even repent! She stands there, spitting venom!
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Kirill looked at Oksana. She stood with a completely calm face, slightly tilting her head as if watching an interesting experiment in a terrarium. Then he looked at his mother and sister. They stood shoulder to shoulder, a united front of unbreakable, granite confidence in their rightness. Words bounced off them like peas off a wall. He suddenly understood with crystal clarity that all his threats, all his arguments, all attempts to appeal to logic were absolutely meaningless. They did not hear him. They did not see him. To them, he was not a son and a brother, but a bothersome obstacle, the husband of “this woman” who must be convinced, broken, returned to the “family.”
— We are your family, Kirill, — his mother said, as if reading his thoughts. — And she is a temporary phenomenon. And we will not let her destroy what we have built for years.
That was the last phrase. Something clicked and froze inside Kirill. The anger evaporated, giving way to icy, ringing calm. He no longer wanted to argue. He understood that they do not understand this language. Another was needed. More visual.
He silently walked around them. His gaze caught on an expensive bag of a famous brand in Liza’s hands. He stepped to the kitchen table where knives were in a holder. His hand, without the slightest tremor, lay on the handle of the biggest and sharpest knife. He did not look at the knives. He looked at the bag. And in his mind, a very clear and definite plan of further action had already formed.
The silence that followed his words was dense and heavy. Irina Viktorovna and Liza looked at him, at his calm face, at the hand gripping the knife handle, and in their eyes flickered confusion mixed with contempt. They still didn’t believe. They saw this as just a cheap theatrical performance, a clumsy attempt to scare.
— Have you completely lost your mind? — Liza snorted, sticking out her glossy lip. — Decided to scare us with a little knife? Kirill, don’t be ridiculous. Put away your toy and apologize to Mom.
Kirill did not answer. He didn’t even look at her. His gaze was fixed on the bag in her hand — an expensive accessory made of soft calf leather, with a golden logo screaming its price. He stepped toward it. Slow, measured, like a surgeon’s step to the operating table.
— Kirill, stop this circus! — Irina Viktorovna screeched, instinctively stepping back and dragging her daughter with her.
But he was faster. Not by a jerk, but with a smooth, inevitable movement, he grabbed the bag’s strap. Liza squealed and tried to pull it away, but his grip was iron. With his other hand, he raised the knife. The steel flashed.
And he began to cut.
The blade sank into the expensive leather with a disgusting, wet sound like a moan. He did not chop in rage. He cut. Slowly, with cold, focused pressure, making a long, ugly incision along the entire front side of the bag. The golden logo fell off with a quiet clang onto the parquet floor. He ran the knife again, slashing the side, then turned the mutilated thing and with the same merciless neatness cut the other side. The leather rags hung helplessly, exposing the silk lining.
Liza watched this with her mouth open. A suppressed, hoarse sound escaped from her throat. It was no longer mockery. It was horror. Horror not at the sight of the knife, but at witnessing this methodical, cold destruction. At the realization that the person before her was not a hot-tempered boy, but someone else, unknown and terrifying.
— What… what are you doing, monster?! — Irina Viktorovna finally found her voice. She rushed at him, trying to snatch the remains of the bag, but he simply pushed her hand aside without taking his eyes off his work.
Finished, he unclenched his fingers. The mutilated piece of leather slapped onto the floor at Liza’s feet. He lowered the knife, placing it on the coffee table with the same calm precision. Then he straightened and looked them in the face.
— I warned you, — his voice was quiet, devoid of any emotion. — You didn’t understand words. Maybe this will be clearer. Don’t touch other people’s things. Especially in my house.
He approached the huge black bag that had stood in the center of the room all this time. He lifted it with one hand as if it weighed nothing. He did not carry it to the door. He went to his stunned mother and shoved the bag into her hands, forcing her to hold it so she wouldn’t drop it.
— This is yours, too. You brought it — you take it away. You can give it to Liza, since she can do whatever she wants. And now — the door is there. And my wife will buy new things that you won’t touch because she won’t wear these anymore. They are desecrated by you!
Irina Viktorovna looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. There was no righteous anger in her eyes. There was fear and confusion. All her confidence, all her maternal authority crumbled to dust along with the scraps of the expensive bag. Liza silently cried, but without a sound, wiping tears with the back of her hand, not taking her eyes off what had once been her pride.
— Don’t come back, — Kirill added, looking over their heads. — Ever.
He opened the front door and just stood waiting. They backed away. The mother, clutching the ugly black bag, stumbled at the threshold. Liza, sobbing, took her arm. They left, and he closed the door behind them without a word, turning the key twice in the lock.
Kirill turned around. Oksana was standing in the same place. She looked at him, and there was neither triumph nor gloating in her eyes. There was only deep, infinite understanding. She silently walked to the table, took a napkin, carefully wiped the knife blade, and put it back in place. Then she approached Kirill, took his hand, and squeezed it tightly. Silence reigned again in their apartment. But now it was a completely different silence. Clean. And final…