Sex and Murder Magazine

By Jack Ryan

Pyotr put the gun down. He couldn't take its weight, its honesty, its reality, how it had come into his possession. It only held two bullets: one for Vanessa, one for the floor. One for him, one for his youth. One for Vanessa, the other for whomever she chose to dance with.

Pyotr had found the gun on the body and found the body in the birch, beyond the well, in that place between places, the forest forbidden to the people of his nameless village. A place of wolves and wanderers, escaped prisoners and foreigners, deserting soldiers and failed revolutionaries, the forest that had taken Fanya's life had long ago become more than a natural eastern border.

Though the people of the unnamed village had a lot in common with the people who stumbled upon it, they had reached their desirable population density and feared that something would come to ruin their tenuous peace. They had forgotten their roots, their previous lives, had given up big ideals to live in quietude, and had gone from vicious intellectuals and would-be revolutionaries to butchers, carpenters, ditch diggers and whatever the town needed to survive. If someone made it through the eastern forest, a meeting was held, votes taken. All easterners got sent back through the woods, or west, blindfolded and escorted. They kept up the façade of voting in loving memory of dead ideas. The villagers only accepted visitors with connections, letters of introduction, cousins, and therefore from the west-they had to keep some relations, for trade.

Pyotr hadn't told anyone about the body, partly because he only spoke with his employers and their horses, but also because of the danger of it: A dead anarchist in the woods meant more on the way and eventually-possibly-the discovery of the village by the Okhrana, the Tsar's secret police.

For Pyotr, that meant something else, the end of village monotony, the first time he would feel alive since the night Fanya had died, sixteen years earlier. Vanessa had invited him to the party out in the woods. Fourteen and shy and infatuated with the unassuming beauty of this strong girl - the daughter of an Englishman who had fled St. Petersburg to avoid the consequences of selling his violins to Jews, Gypsies, Mari, and others considered unpopular-Pyotr had seized the opportunity to spend time in her presence, even if they couldn't be alone completely. Fanya, Alexandra, and Filip had also come. Fanya brought the fiddle, Alexandra brought the alcohol, and Filip brought his thirst to get Alexandra alone. Pyotr hoped that Vanessa's life, energy, and imagination would compensate for his poor conversational skills.

Aided by fire and vodka, the group had ignored the stories they had heard about the forest since early childhood, paying no attention to the wind and the snow and the lack of stars in the sky. Casting a grey-blue glow over the ground, a full moon hid behind a perfect blanket of unbroken clouds. Wolves howled. The kids howled back. The sound of the revelers-the adults drinking at the public house-had faded into memory, into the trees, into nothing. Filip grabbed Alexandra's breasts and she pushed him off, laughed, pushed him off again, laughed, and then let him. Fanya played her fiddle, improvising new songs off of old scales, making the others stomp their feet and clap. They told ghost stories and dared each other to do things. Vanessa took out a small white book and asked everyone to name one dream, one desire, some hope for the oncoming year.

"You want desire? I've got desire," Filip laughed. Red-faced, drunk, horny.

"I'm serious. This is not just a party, it's a beginning," Vanessa said.

Everyone shut up a moment.

"We will live tonight, and forever after, with this same energy and spirit, and this town of ours will burn brightly in the night."

Pyotr watched her eyes and Fanya smiled. Then Filip broke the silence with a belch.

"Okay, enough of this, let's split up…you Vanessa, are French, go have a ménage a trois."

"She's not French."

"Ah, he speaks. Okay," Filip gestured with his hands, "next bet. I bet Fanya will not go alone, deeper into the woods while playing her song."

Without a word, Fanya stood up, started playing and disappeared through the half-shadows. Alexandra kissed Filip. Vanessa smiled at Pyotr. She had a simple beauty, blonde hair and green eyes, her face flawed-but barely-by a birthmark on her cheek that blended into the bottom of her eyelid. Everyone had wanted her-open-mouthed, grown men stared, sometimes following her around-yet she had chosen him. All blended into a single sensation-Vanessa's hand extended to Pyotr, Fanya's fiddle, Alexandra's laughter, the crackle of the fire, the wind, the wolves, the sweet cold air. Fanya's tune reached crescendo and the wolves seemed to howl along. Pyotr reached for Vanessa's hand and moved toward her. Then the music stopped before he could touch her fingers. The group of friends ran into the woods.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god." Alexandra couldn't breathe.

Vanessa knelt beside her friend's body. Filip held Alexandra and Pyotr stood alone. A halo of blood had formed in the snow around Fanya's head. Her instrument laid intact, a stone's throw from her feet.

"She's not breathing." Tears streamed down Vanessa's face and Pyotr stood there, aware of every bone in his body, of his distance from everyone around him, of the ice between his boots and the earth.


The Orphan School had provided Vanessa's training, had taken advantage of her fearlessness, her comfort in the face of death to teach her how to paint the dead. She had not seen her parents' bodies. No one had. They disappeared en route to meet a buyer outside of the village, to the west, the summer after Fanya died. Alexandra had told people about that night, about how Vanessa had turned her friend's body over against everyone's wishes; that she had looked at what remained of Fanya's face with a tenderness no one else could understand. To her, Fanya's beauty remained visible. The face had merely taken on another texture, color, change. The dark, barely red blood against the blue snow, surrounded by the perfect blackness of bare branches.

When Vanessa turned sixteen she left the school and returned to the village. The people respected her courage, talent and independence. They also admired that she had taught herself to dance and pleaded with her to teach others. She did.


Vanessa's powders brought life to Kohei's face, making the awkward, middle-aged, half-Japanese man look respectable in the light of her workshop. She had never told anyone about that summer, just after her thirteenth birthday, before the winter that took her friend and the summer that took her parents. The summer that she considered her first. Everyone swam in the river without clothing, no single body-except hers-drawing more attention than another. The people forgot themselves, dancing on the shore, jumping into the cool waters, laughing for no reason. Vanessa went every day, taking her time to feel the sun before getting in the water and then staying later than everyone else, relishing the sound of the water and the cool air on her wet skin.

That summer afternoon, though she had seen him, Vanessa paid little attention to Kohei, the older man who had begun swimming after she had just gotten out of the water. Usually she had been the last one there, but he stayed when the others had gone. She wanted to be alone, to enjoy her body as she had recently grown accustomed, exploring herself in her father's workshop to the unplayed melodies of the strings, sunlight beating down through the high window, heating motes of dust into tiny stars.

When Kohei had come out of the river he looked drunk, his excitement visible as he walked toward her. Smiling, she held out one hand for him to stop and covered her body with the other. The man writhed against himself as she laughed softly, quietly. She played a moment, and the man crawled, swollen, his body gnawing the grass and dirt, tearing into the ground as substitute.

"I'm going now," she said and stood, throwing her dress on over her head. Before she walked away, she remained still another moment and watched him watch her. When he stood back up he looked primitive, his long hair wild, his skin covered in dirt, blood under his fingernails. She remembered thinking his lust beautiful.

She continued working on his corpse. He had taken his life the day before, in the tradition of his fatherland, drawing a blade across his belly and then, in the absence of a partner to perform the coup de grace, stabbing his own throat. She had covered his neck completely. No one had decided yet what to do with his body, to store it or burn it, and they did not want to vote until after the festival, the following day. Suicide, though not uncommon, posed a unique set of questions, provoking near-endless discussions. Morals the people had tried to escape came to the surface, religious traditions and other points of usual contention. He had no family, no one close to him, nothing but miscellaneous work and misplaced desire. After years of solitude and rejection-he tried multiple times to win her affection-he left only a single word written in black ink on a piece of torn cloth: Golden.


The longest night of the year. Tomorrow. Pyotr put his hand against Yudanov's head. Yudanov's black eye settled on Pyotr before Yudanov shook off the human hand.

"Can you hear that music?" Pyotr asked his favorite horse. There was no music, not yet. The other horses rattled their stable chains in protest, knowing Pyotr's mind. "That's the sound of the party, new life. She is going to dance. But not with me." Pyotr started laughing.

"Maybe the little children, eh? Maybe a crippled old man, or that slob Filip. Maybe someone who burnt off his face in a bet, like Kalinikov."

Still laughing, Pyotr recovered the gun from the last stable, the empty one. Now he needed its honesty. He held it with one hand and put the barrel into his mouth. The look on the anarchist's face had been so peaceful. So perfect. The look of a man who had achieved something. The only ideal not out of the reach of mankind. The body slumped, eternally comfortable. Yudanov looked away. Pyotr took the gun out of his mouth and went over to the horse.

"Don't worry old friend, you won't have to see it."

After putting the gun back, Pyotr left the stables and went for a walk in the woods, enjoying the cold against the exposed skin of his face. Every year since Fanya's death he'd walk further, finding things - icons, scattered articles of clothing, newspapers, a Cossack's dagger caked with blood, a book, a record of births. Each object taught him something about the outside world, about the lives of strangers and no-longer possibilities. About the anarchists in Tomsk and the war with Japan. One day he found an old man, who looked like he had been a soldier once, crazed and laughing, resting against a tree.

"I can't even find the river," the man had said.

"I wish I could help you sir, but I am lost myself."

"I can't even find it."

The man laughed even harder. At that point in time Pyotr had kept with tradition, hoping to keep the village hidden, especially from the east. Pyotr left the man there and never thought of him again.

Now, he listened to the sounds of the forest. Nothing. The slight movement of the trees, the absence of birds, not a single wolf. The sun had begun to set, turning the sky into layers, different colors of cold, jagged promises.


The men had already come to take Kohei's body to the shed when the sun had begun setting. Vanessa went out to the well after finishing her work, as she always did, to get some water for tea. Pyotr had come out of the woods just as she was pulling up the bucket, and when he stepped into the clearing she felt a stir, a flicker that replaced her usual indifference toward him.

"What were you doing out there?"

"Nothing. Walking."

"Did you find anything, interesting?"

He chuckled. Pyotr kept his distance to avoid that swoon, that combination of desire and disgust, disappointment and longing, nostalgia and forgetting that often occurred when he came within a breath of her.

"Tell me."

Despite the scentless perfume, the sight of her in her dress, Pyotr felt powerful, for just a moment. He held his breath.

"Signs, Vanessa." He let it out.

"Signs?"

"Nevermind. I must get back to work."

"The day is done Pyotr, come visit with me. I'm making tea."

"I don't enjoy tea." He turned to leave.

"Will you dance with me tomorrow?"

Pyotr turned back, stepped closer to her. Not yet within arm's reach, he felt the approach of that feeling, that swoon. "What is it Vanushka, that you want from me? What."

"I want you to tell me what you've found. And I want a promise that you will dance with me."

"A dead man."

"A dead man?" She smiled.

"Yes. A corpse. Not one you will work on."

She didn't know what excited her more: the fact that Pyotr had braved the woods alone, or the mystery of a dead man.

"No papers."

Vanessa took a deep breath. She thought of summer dances and crowds, the life she had vague memories of, people, happiness, what the village had been in the beginning, in her youth, before fear had conquered the town, the noise of it, the drunken swimming. Vanessa had continued visiting the river, alone, every summer. She thought of her best friend, her face, her music. Revolutionaries would ignite the village, relight that which had once existed - they could all feel what she felt, the reason she had chosen to return.

"I want everyone to dance. The old people, the children, the dead man's comrades," she said.

"Who knows if they are on their way?"

She didn't know about the Okhrana, not the way he did, the scraps he read, newspapers, pamphlets and half-burned books, the information that the occasional western visitors denied. The information they shrugged and coughed off. He could see and feel her mounting excitement as it sent its tendrils through the air. As Pyotr moved toward her now he began to feel lightheaded. A spark of anger broke through the lightness, allowing him to speak.

"What is it? What is it Vanessa? How do you do this?"

"What is what?" She smiled.

Vanessa reached under her dress, touched herself and then brought her fingers to her mouth and grinned. Stars on black water, her lips glistened, and Pyotr grabbed the back of her head and pressed his mouth against hers. Scentless perfume sweet. A swirl of light exploded behind his eyes and he couldn't breathe, but didn't feel the need to. A pleasant weakness, a freedom, a finality.

She released herself from him and he nearly fell back, smiling, before righting himself. Pyotr swooned again. The bare branches, the frozen ground, the blue breath in the air, her lips, a song felt, though not heard - he staggered back from her a bit.

"Will you dance with me tomorrow?" Vanessa asked.

"Everyone will dance tomorrow. I don't know how to dance." His head still swam.

"I will teach you."

The nostalgia dissipated and Pyotr took a step back. To learn to dance after over a decade of keeping himself away from other people, those who chose professions, those who did real work, those who sometimes enjoyed Vanessa's attention before she found them boring, meant to watch the summer start when he had already learned to dread the heat.

Vanessa repeated herself.

No, Pyotr thought. Too late.

More people would come to seek solace in the village, bringing their ideas with them, ending the boredom, and it would become what it could have been the whole time. Then the Okhrana would follow, demanding faces that the people would hide, and they would cut, shoot, tear apart, and it would all end again.

"At least have tea with me." Vanessa smiled, sweet and genuine.

"No. I told you I don't drink it."

*****


Dusk. A procession of already drunk men marched just outside the stable door. The population had seemed to explode overnight, people coming out of the woodwork, one excuse to act alive again. Yudanov fussed, whinnied, and shook his head. Pyotr uncovered the gun; put it against his body, concealing it beneath his shirt and coat. The weight felt good as he left the stable.

Filip's heavy hand fell against his back. Pyotr had almost walked into him.

"Pyotr! Pyotr!" The head lolled. Red eyes and thinning hair, bald spot visible. He had grown heavier over the years, his lust buried beneath mounds of fat, time, and muted rage.

"Filip."

"Tonight we drink like old times yes!"

"Sure."

Up ahead, Alexandra walked alone, apart from groups of well-dressed women bearing candles, gifts, and children.

"She won't even look at me now, eh, just think, when we were kids I could have had her anytime. That bitch. Why did she have to die that night?" Filip's eyes floated in his face. He pulled a flask from his shirt and drank, then passed it to Pyotr who took a drink and coughed.

"Let's dance." Pyotr laughed, returned the flask, and moved ahead of Filip, into the public house.

Talk of Kohei had ceased. They would deal with that tomorrow. The musicians prepared. Holding Fanya's violin, a young girl waited in the corner, surveying the room - more guests than usual and a few handsome strangers with intelligent faces.
Beaming, Vanessa entered last. A man who spoke poor Russian with a German accent let out a laugh, told the man next to him, who had inquired about his invitation, "I came to drink the water."

The lead musician, an old man wearing a suit that no longer fit him, raised his hand and the music started. Balalaika and shouts. Three men took the floor and began stomping. The other people stomped along, both smiling and serious. The young girl swayed across the room, beginning her song. Already the temperature in the room had begun to rise.

A swirl of dresses, hair, legs and hands led by Vanessa. People clapped, people stomped, people sang along. Pyotr had never heard the tune before. He closed his eyes and watched a dress of moonlight disappear into shadow.

The smell of bodies. Butchers, builders, farmers and market-men. Black sawdust and body heat. Pyotr felt the heavy, pleasant weight that usually came moments before falling asleep. The music got louder and louder and he fought the feeling, rising back through the floor and into himself, the light in the room, the buzzing. Sweet-tinged air. Small children danced around Vanessa-she had taught them, prepared them, and the pride showed itself on her face.

One child smiled up at her. One child looked nowhere, lost in his own movement, perfect synchronicity with the improvised music. Alexandra sat in a corner, drinking alone, looking out at the beauty of the crowd. Her eyes fell on Filip, a moment, before rolling in disgust. Filip danced, or tried to, his unwieldy body stumbling while others, also drunk, kept their rhythm.

Pyotr felt nailed to the floor. The strangers had German accents, Western accents-no trace of the anarchists. The only horses he could hear were the ones he cared for, out in the stables.

The music swirled. Large mugs were passed around. Cold water and vodka. People started sweating. The cold outside a memory now. Vanessa smiled at Pyotr as she danced, back to back with the young girl. A small white book circulated, its pages blank, someone shouted something about dreams, about winter wishes, one of the Germans let out a hurrah. Pyotr could feel the gun and every bone in his body.

People wrote in the book. No sound from outside, just the music, Yudanov having faded into the distance. Vanessa put her hand out to Pyotr and smiled, an honest smile, an invitation to the dance.

The gun that anchored him now enabled him to move, lifting him off his feet, into the throng. Bodies. Breath. Warmth. The music moved him. Smiling wider now, Vanessa waited for him, an arm's length away, and he felt the pull of her spirit, her body, her green eyes, then the pull of his own as he reached into his jacket with the hand closest to her, and he strained to hear the sound of hooves, of dead men in the forest, of the people looking for them, of the old man who lost the river. Nothing. He held the gun against himself and continued dancing until the song finished.

















































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