ONE WEEK LATER

Patti, the nurse, looked in and smiled cheerfully. "Rachel, are you ready to talk to your father today?"

Rachel smiled. She'd been told last night that her father had arrived and would see her in the morning, and she wanted to see him very much. But foremost in her mind was the priority she had established in her mind, the very first thing she intended to do once she was able to talk.

Her jaw was still very stiff, and she had to talk very slowly or risk slurring her words so badly she sounded falling-down drunk. But she was excited that everything was coming along well. She could wriggle any part of her body, though movement of any joint was still a major effort.

And it was such a relief not to be naked anymore. She and Anya were both in pajamas -- definitely not the sort you would wear for a romantic evening, but Rachel didn't care for style points at present. At least it was ordinary pajamas, not the ridiculous hospital robes that would leave her butt exposed if she went out walking -- not that she could do that yet. She and Anya still couldn't feed themselves, but just yesterday the nurses had started feeding both of them soft food -- yogurt, applesauce, anything not requiring chewing, now that they had recovered the ability to move tongue and throat muscles, so they could swallow. Unfortunately they both still had to tolerate enemas: any relief from that had to wait until they could walk to the bathroom, or at least maneuver a bedpan under themselves.

Rachel mostly judged how Anya was being treated by hearing her spoken to -- Rachel couldn't yet turn her head in that direction on her own. Ironically, keeping Rachel informed on Anya's treatment was the only useful outcome of the staff speaking to Anya -- the word seemed not to have come through that Anya didn't speak English, and neither Anya nor Rachel had been able to correct the misunderstanding. That was the first order of business today.

"Patti, before I see my dad, there are some things I really need to tell Mr. Barlow, that guy from the State Department. Is he in the building?"

"I can check. Hold on."

While Rachel waited, she watched the television. Nearly all the patients in the hospital at Ramstein Air Base in Germany were American military personnel, and the base had its own television station, English-language. The news was on. The sound was muted, but Rachel could read the closed-captioning. Not surprisingly, Irkhetnia was still the major news story. "Former Irkhetnian president Dimitri Gerov is being held by French authorities following his arrest yesterday on his private island, pending the resolution of a legal tangle of extradition requests from both the United States and Irkhetnia. The future of the legal cases against him was further muddled yesterday by the announcement that the United Nations may establish an international tribunal to try Gerov on charges of massive human rights violations, as well as drug trafficking. Acting Irkhetnia president General Anatoly Perelenko has said..."

Peter Barlow looked in at the door. He must, Rachel decided, have been out in the waiting room. He'd probably requested to be informed if Rachel started speaking. "Hi, Rachel. You wanted to see me?"

She smiled at him. She would have preferred that the U.S. embassy in Germany had assigned a female as her contact, but at least Barlow didn't try to touch her -- pat her on the arm, wrap his fingers around hers as if he was shaking hands with her, etc. Aside from the doctors, about whom Rachel couldn't do anything, she intended not to let any man touch her, ever again. And Barlow did try to make sure he stayed in her field of vision, which was very considerate of him. She could follow him with her eyes, but only so far.

She spoke carefully and distinctly. "A few days ago, you said I should let you know if I need anything. I promise I won't ask for anything really outrageous." She smiled again. "But anything reasonable goes, right?"

He smiled back. "I'll put in any request you make. I can't promise anything, but I'm told the government will grant anything... reasonable, yes, that's probably the best word for it."

"Okay, here goes. Anya is going to come home with me to the U.S. -- that's not a request, that's just the way it is. Obviously I'll need a little help with that. She'll need documentation, of course. I want you to see if you can arrange with the Irkhetnian government for her to get a passport from them. Her full name is Anya Simonina. Their government probably has an official record of her birthdate and things like that."

Barlow nodded, as he wrote a note to himself. "We had her name from prison records. Okay, what next?"

"From our own government, she'll need a visa -- a student visa would work, because she's going to be going to school in the U.S. Will all that work?"

He thought for a moment. "This is all doable, if it's also what she wants." He turned to look at Anya. "Anya, is that what you want? To visit the U.S. and stay with Miss Preston?"

Rachel smiled again. "Uhhh, Peter -- is it okay if I call you that?"

"Sure."

"Anya doesn't speak English. She only knows Russian. That was going to be my second request. Can you locate an English/Russian interpreter? Preferably female? We'd both just feel more comfortable with a woman. No offense." This was the request Rachel had wanted to make as soon as she could. Anya couldn't really have much of an idea what was happening, and more important, what was going to happen. Rachel didn't want another day to go by with Anya still so much in the dark.

Barlow blinked. "You need an interpreter? You don't speak Russian, yourself? How do you know what she wants?"

Rachel smiled once more. "Your interpreter has only to ask. Anya will be able to tell you what she wants as soon as she has someone she can speak to. Okay?"

Barlow sighed and smiled. "All right. Interpreter will be here later. Pending Anya making a formal request, we'll assume for now that she wants into the U.S. on a student visa. What's next?

"I think there's only one more thing, for now. Could you get two iPads, one for each of us? Anya's should be set for Russian, of course... the hospital has free Wi-Fi?"

"I've heard it does."

"I'd want mine to have an app on it for teaching Russian to an English speaker. And, as you can probably guess, Anya's should have an app like that in reverse, designed to teach English to a Russian speaker. They've got those, right?"

"There's apps for just about anything these days."

"Oh, and to go with that, we'll probably need help getting started -- somebody to help me learn how to use mine, and a Russian speaker who knows how to show Anya how to use hers. And... well, again, if these teachers could be female, that would be great."

He smiled again. "Anything else?"

"I don't think... oh! Earphones. We'd have dueling speakers otherwise. It'd get confusing."

Barlow started chuckling. "Okay, is that everything?"

She grinned at him. "Everything I can think of. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

He laughed. "Well, yeah, the truth is I was imagining a lot harder stuff. I've dealt with defecting foreign agents. You should hear what they ask for."

Rachel laughed, and started coughing. Her body was getting in the way. "Okay, now you know not to make me laugh. But thank you. You're really nice, and I'll recommend you to all the other patients."

Barlow laughed once more and waved goodbye as he left.

Her father looked in the door a few minutes later. "Rache? Are you busy?"

Rachel laughed again, and coughed again. "What did you think I'd be busy at?" Suddenly her vision was wavery with tears. She hadn't been able to cry as a mannequin, but she could now. "Hi, Daddy."

He strode forward and wrapped his arms around her. Dad, of course, was an exception to the no-male-touch-Rachel rule.

She had never in her life seen him cry before. "I missed you so much, Sweetie. I tried so hard to get used to the idea I'd never see you again. I knew I needed to. But I never did."

Her tears were starting to collect in her ears. "I never did either, Daddy. About not seeing you, I mean."

He let go of her and stood. "So you're getting some movement back?"

"Little bit. I know how to move, but everything is just really stiff. They said it will all get easier gradually. Oh, I want to see if I can do this. Watch my hand. Right hand." She concentrated, and slowly, with a grunt of effort, managed to curl her right hand into a fist. She had tried and failed to do it yesterday. Then she sighed in exasperation. "Now I can't unclench it, though. I think the clenching muscles are stronger. Oh, don't bother." He had leaned forward to start straightening out her hand. "I'm not using it for anything anyway."

He stood upright again, and looked across her at the other bed. "I heard all about how you'd come back with a new friend."

"That's a weak word for what she is. Daddy, look at me a minute."

He did, and she held his eye. Speaking even more carefully than she had been, she said, "Daddy, this is Anya. And she's part of our family now."

Her father stared at her, then smiled. "You're so much like your mother. I learned never to argue with her when she gave me that look."

"Mom would have really liked her. You will too."

He looked back at Anya. "Nice to meet you, Anya."

Rachel rolled her eyes. She was glad she could do that now. "Daddy, she doesn't speak English." She knew she would have to tell everyone that, one by one.

Her dad blinked at her. "Oh, ahhh... oh."

The word suddenly came back to her. "Say this: Pryvet, Anya. That just means hi."

"All right." He looked across. "Pryvet, Anya."

Rachel heard a sound, now, that made her the happiest she had been since she'd discovered Anya was being evacuated with her: she heard that sweet voice for the first time in months. And, of course, she didn't understand it any better than she ever had before. But it was so wonderful to hear. She did pick out the name "Retchell" twice.

Anya, of course, had thought now that the strange man visiting Rachel spoke Russian. Speaking in the same slow, measured way that Rachel had to, she was responding to him in that language. She sounded so happy. Rachel started tearing up again.

Rachel's dad held up his hands and grinned. "I'm sorry, I don't have any idea what you're saying. Rachel just told me to say that."

Anya stopped -- very likely her experience at having had the same thing happen when Rachel had first said "Pryvet" to her helped her immediately understand the situation. Sounding just a little contrite, though not wounded, Anya said, "Im soarry."

Dad blinked. "Is she echoing me, or what?"

"No, she does know what that means. She knows a few words."

"So that was Irkhetnian, what she was speaking before?"

"Russian. They speak Russian there."

Rachel heard Anya say agreeably, "Russ-shyan." She must, thought Rachel, have heard me say the word often enough by now that she understands it to be the English word for her language. Hearing it used whenever someone tries to address her in English has probably helped.

Dad smoothed Rachel's hair. "I know talking isn't easy for you. I should let you give your throat a rest. I'll come back later."

"I should be eating hard food in a week, I think. And feeding it to myself. Could you sneak some cinnamon cookies in here?"

He chuckled. "Not sure where to find those around here. I could mail some after I get back to the States. I shouldn't stay here more than another few days, if I don't want the business to go broke."

Rachel grinned. "We wouldn't want that. But see you in a few hours, then?"

"Of course." He hugged her again and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and waved to both her and Anya as he left. Rachel heard Anya say cheerily, "Do svidaniya." Rachel had heard that before somewhere. She believed it meant "Goodbye."

A few minutes later, Patti looked in again. "You're probably tired, but..." She bit her lip. "Paul and Marianne Forrest are here?" She gave Rachel a questioning look.

A flurry of butterflies suddenly swarmed through Rachel's stomach. Mandy's parents. Rachel had met them just once before, when she and Mandy rode to the airport with them. She knew they had asked to see her as soon as she was able to speak.

Rachel had thought a long time about what to say to them. She hoped it was the right thing. "I can talk to them."

A few minutes later, Paul Forrest looked in the doorway, with a wan smile. "Hi, Rachel. I hear you're doing a lot better."

His wife Marianne clung to him, looking near tears. Her smile was much shakier than her husband's, but she managed a soft "Hi."

Rachel found it was still harder to speak now, with her throat suddenly clenching closed, but she managed to rasp out, "Hi."

Paul looked at his wife, gave her waist a squeeze, and looked back at Rachel. "We were hoping... Well, I mean, the news reports have all been saying Mandy is... gone. But there's so much confusion. They say it took them awhile to find all of the prisoners, with them in a lot of different parts of the prison. Do you... We just need to hear you say it. We thought you would know for sure if anyone does."

"Well..." She paused a long time. She hadn't been sure how to start, not knowing what opening to expect. "The truth is I can't tell you anything that Chief of Staff guy didn't already say. I didn't... see it happen, you know, they just told me one day. But there's one thing that I do know." There, she thought, that works. Prepared speech takes it from here. "Mandy was very brave, and she was a hero." Her own tears started, which got Marianne's going. "She went to Irkhetnia, and took me along, because she wanted to do something important, something good. She found out about this drug operation before she went there. It's the reason she went there. Because it just made her mad, a guy with so much power, running a whole country, and doing a thing like that. It made her mad because of Bryan." Mandy's late brother. "It was a really dangerous thing to do, but she went there for Bryan. And because of Mandy, now there's one less big organization pushing drugs around the world, and one less animal, one less monster, making millions of people miserable." Her voice broke, and the tears continued. "I was thinking... We all only get so much time here, and some of us make something of it and some don't. Mandy only got about twenty years, but she did more good for the world than almost anybody else ever, even the ones who live to a hundred." Rachel was almost at the end of her ability to make intelligible words through a tightened throat, between the sniffles. "I hope you can think of it that way too."

Neither parent said anything for a long time. Finally Marianne let go of her husband, came to the bed, leaned over and put her arms tightly around Rachel. Her mouth was close enough to Rachel's ear that Rachel could hear the words, with almost no wind behind them, "Thank you."

Barlow returned in the afternoon, with a cheerful looking woman of about forty. Barlow introduced her as Ingrid. "She will be happy to do some translating for us."

Rachel smiled at the woman. "Pryvet, Ingrid."

Ingrid started to respond, then stopped, smiling uncertainly. "Wait, you are the one who speaks English. Yes?" To Rachel her accent seemed to have a shade of both Russian and German. Probably, Rachel decided, she grew up in East Germany. Plenty of call for speaking Russian there.

Rachel managed a short giggle without coughing. "Yes, sorry. I didn't mean to confuse you. I just know a few Russian words."

Before the woman said any more, Rachel heard Anya say, "Pryvet, Ingrid." Ingrid smiled and returned the greeting.

Rachel had planned to pass along to Anya a long explanation of where Anya was now, what would be happening, and what Rachel hoped would happen. It had eventually occurred to Rachel that the fact Anya was in a hospital where people would take care of her was surely obvious to her, and that everything else Anya needed to know would be contained in the one question to which Barlow wanted the answer. "Ingrid, I just need you to tell Anya that I am hoping to take her with me to my home in the United States, and that I'm trying to work it so that she can stay with me there as long as she wants. We need to know if that is what she wants. And please also answer any questions she has."

Ingrid nodded, and began speaking to Anya. Rachel heard Anya's quick intake of breath during the first sentence, when she realized Ingrid really spoke Russian. Anya barely let Ingrid finish the question before exclaiming, "Da! Da!" Rachel grinned, knowing that was Yes. Anya said something more after that, something with "Retchell" in it. She sounded very happy, and very sincere.

Ingrid turned back to Rachel, coloring slightly but smiling. "She said that her home is any place you are."

The faucet in Rachel's eyes opened up again. She couldn't recall ever crying as many times in one day. "Tell her I feel the same way about her."

Ingrid passed that along to Anya, and turned back to Rachel. "I am told that you can't turn and look at her, so I will tell you she has a very big smile."

Barlow broke in, "That takes care of the question on my end. I'll start working on the paperwork and trying to get clearances. We were already working on getting her an Irkhetnian passport anyway. The German government has been getting on us about that. Oh, I should have those iPads by day after tomorrow."

"Thank you, so much! Don't get in a big hurry about the iPads. If you handed me one today I couldn't move enough to use it. But day after tomorrow should work fine. Or the day after that, maybe. Thank you again." She smiled broadly at both her visitors as they left.

That night, Sandy, the night nurse, turned the lights way down as always, telling Rachel it was time to sleep. Rachel was just starting to drift off when she heard Anya say, "Goood niyet, Retchell. I lahvv yu."

Rachel smiled, and the tears started up one more time. Then she experienced a slight panic -- she couldn't recall the Russian equivalent for "good night". It came back to her, to her relief, because she remembered how similar the Russian word for "night" was to the Spanish one, for unknown reasons. "Spakoinie nochye. Ya tebya lyublyu, Anya."

She heard Anya sigh softly, and then nothing more from her that night.

Yelena lay in the soft bed in her new nightgown, both ecstatic and worried. Ecstatic at being free, at the news of Dimitri's arrest, Karozki's suicide, Tourachev remaining comatose and under arrest in any case. No one who had terrorized her before could threaten her or her daughter, ever again.

Worried frantically about Marya.

Marya was in the other bedroom of their suite at Yelena's favorite Paris hotel, Four Seasons George V. Yelena hated letting Marya out of her sight, but it was necessary. Being alone with Marya took Yelena to the limits of her self-control, especially when Marya was wearing that adorable nightie Yelena had bought her in the little boutique on Champs-Elysees.

Yelena had discarded the blonde wigs for herself and Marya, but had made sure to comb, and later style, their hair differently, hoping that the avoidance of bangs and the addition of twenty years to her age would prevent anyone recognizing her from her movies. It might, indeed, have been more likely that Marya be mistaken for Yelena than for Yelena herself to be identified, so she'd changed Marya's look along with her own. So far no one had given them a second look, other than that of appreciation for attractive women.

Yelena had hoped that being in Paris, so far from their prison torment, would allow her sexual hunger for Marya to diminish, but it seemed as though it might actually be growing stronger under the stress of abstinence.

To Yelena's relief, she had found that her longtime plans for financial independence had worked perfectly. Fifteen years ago, when her love for Dimitri had begun fading, to be replaced with growing distaste and occasionally outright fear, she had carefully sought friendship with people whom she might find potentially useful. She had chosen well, especially General Gherkov, a roguish soul who seemed miscast as a high-ranking army officer. Through a series of conversations, they had hatched a plan. Gherkov had found a young corporal with impeccable computer skills, and had invited him to "test the security" of the government's budgeting computer by hacking into it. He told the corporal he wanted to show proof of the hacking to the president so that the security shortcomings could be addressed. Towards that end, Gherkov had suggested to the corporal that he create a budget line for a non-existent military project and allocate the equivalent of six million dollars annually to it from military "contingency" funds. Gherkov, after the corporal had gleefully explained how easy it had been and exactly how he had done it, had commended the corporal for a job well done, assured him that he had helped guard the nation from digital invasion by its enemies, and had then used what the corporal had told him, deleted the first project, and created a new one under an entirely different name and budget control number, so that it could not be found if the corporal should spill the secret to inquisitive friends. He had then corrected the vulnerability outlined by the corporal so the corporal would be unable to exploit the system later for his own use. Gherkov had funneled the money budgeted for the phony project into bank accounts in France and Switzerland, with half for himself and half for Yelena. Yelena's half had been directed to an account in a Paris bank under the name "Juliette Masson."

Gherkov had been prepared to tell anyone who asked about the mysterious budget item that it was a program created by President Gerov personally, and that Gherkov was not at liberty to provide any details without presidential authorization. This would surely cut off further inquiry -- no one would have the fortitude to try to interfere with something appearing to be one of Dimitri's pet projects. Dimitri himself had little interest in the small details of military spending, so there was little chance he himself would inquire as to the nature of the project, assuming he even looked at that page of the budget.

Yelena's next step had been to engage the services of one Colonel Blasinski in the military accounting office, known as an unimaginative drone who was a wizard with financial investments. To him she had given the task of making her money grow. Purchasing his silence with a generous portion of the income from the investments, she had been pleased by his acumen, which had caused the Paris account, into which forty-five million dollars had poured during the fifteen years, to blossom into something over a hundred million, even after Blasinski took his own cut.

Yelena had been very distressed, after her arrest, to learn that her contacts with Blasinski, having grown more frequent over the past year as she became more serious about plans to leave Dimitri, had been misinterpreted as a romantic affair. Dimitri might well have hinted of the "affair" to Marya; that could have been where Marya's own knowledge of what Yelena seemed to be doing had come from. Dimitri's anger, Yelena had understood, had not boiled over until Marya had compounded Yelena's betrayal of Dimitri with an unrelated one of her own: her membership in an underground group dedicated to destroying him. But Dimitri would probably not have been quite so infuriated with Marya without the added misunderstanding of Yelena's activities.

Yelena's greatest fear upon her rescue had been that Blasinski's arrest as her "lover" must surely have resulted in his confession, under torture, of the existence of her Paris account. She was saddened, but relieved, to be told by Gherkov, who had not himself made use of Blasinski's services, that Blasinski had managed to kill himself during his arrest.

And the money, Yelena had discovered, was still there in Paris, as she had assumed it would be, once she had learned of Blasinski's fate. She knew the account numbers and passcodes, and the bank had accepted the Juliette Masson passport Gherkov had commissioned for her as identification. She had withdrawn a few million euros in cash to start, and had already wired five thousand back to Gherkov, to cover the expenses he had incurred getting her to Paris. She intended to drain the account slowly, taking the funds in cash to a bank in the south of France, where she planned to establish permanent residence. She didn't want an electronic trail of money transfers between her old bank and her new one.

In the absence of worries about her financial future, Yelena was able to commit herself fully to fretting about Marya. The girl had been withdrawn to the point of seeming a human-shaped robot, going through the motions of living, eating when presented food, following where Yelena led, but responding only minimally, without visible emotion, to anything Yelena did or said. She had been this way since Yelena had told her, during their escape by helicopter, of what General Karozki had ordered Yelena to do, of the threats he had made of extreme torture of Marya if Yelena were to fail to cooperate, of the drug that had given Yelena her insatiable sex drive. She had stopped short of describing her eventual habituation to sex that had replaced the need for the drug, because at that point in recounting the story she had already seen Marya begin forming the shell around herself that now seemed impenetrable. The girl, Yelena thought, was clearly frightened enough at the immense power that her father had aimed at her, in his desire to make her life a Hell of punishment. She didn't need Yelena scaring her still further by revealing to her that, even with her father, and Karozki, and Tourachev out of her life, she was still in danger from her own mother.

I have to show her she is safe with me, Yelena told herself. I will never have her back without that.

Yelena felt terrible at having to hide anything from Marya. At least, she decided, I swear on my life I will never tell her another outright lie. She has been subjected to more than enough lies for a lifetime.

Yelena's thoughts were interrupted by a sound from Marya's room. What Yelena first thought was hiccupping became more obviously crying as she listened more closely.

As upsetting as it was to hear Marya's distress, it was the first emotion of any kind Marya had displayed in the entire week since that helicopter ride. Yelena hurried to the door connecting her room to Marya's, hesitated, and opened it very quietly.

She stopped dead just beyond the door. Marya's nightie was on the floor beside the bed. Marya herself was naked, sitting on the bed, facing the foot of the bed, her knees drawn up, her face scrunched up and streaming tears. Her hand was in her crotch, motionless, as if perhaps she had been masturbating before being too overcome with grief to go on.

Yelena remained frozen by conflicting imperatives. The sexual animal within her, created over the months of captivity, born of her need to save Marya from torture by simulating a constant craving for her, a craving that had eventually become real in response to a never-ending series of blinding orgasms, a hunger now rising to fever pitch on seeing Marya nude and trying to stimulate herself erotically -- this animal cried out for Yelena to relieve her need now, this minute, this second, to run to Marya and caress her, stroke her, kiss her. Battling with the animal: the mother, the good mother, the loving mother within Yelena, held her where she was, knowing that if she so much as touched Marya she would lose control entirely. The two forces grappled within her as Marya continued crying. Yelena could feel the so-familiar tingling between her legs, the sudden moisture in her crotch almost immediately soaking through her panties. It was getting harder by the second to remain in place. She had to look away, to stare at the wall in front of her. Seeing Marya so available, so bare, so much as she looked all those times Yelena had made love with her... If I keep looking at her, mother-within said, I'm going to lose this fight.

Yelena must have voiced a small whimper in the extremity of her internal struggle. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Marya suddenly turn her head and look directly at her. Yelena wanted to run back out the door, lock it, lock herself away from the temptation forever. But both forces within her agreed that she couldn't possibly leave Marya alone at this delicate moment.

"Mom?" Marya's voice was barely understandable between her sobbing and sniffling. "I... All the time I was, you know, Hélène... It's so weird. I remember it. It's like I was somebody else, and I was watching this somebody else do things, but it was still me... I remember how she felt -- how Hélène felt. She was me and not me... I can't explain it right. There aren't any words for what it was like. But I do remember it all..."

She was quiet for at least a minute, except for sniffling. Yelena had no idea whatsoever what to say. Maybe listening, she told herself, will be enough.

Marya started up again at last. "You... So you never really wanted to be my lover... right? They just... made you do it? By threatening you? By threatening me? It was... that drug was making you do it? It was never something real?"

There, I've got it now, the mother inside told Yelena. All Marya wants is reassurance. To know the mother she is depending on right now never really wanted her daughter sexually. That I don't want her sexually now.

Yelena tried to open her mouth to give that reassurance. She couldn't make herself do it. It would be such an enormous lie, the biggest she had ever loosed upon Marya.

"Mom?" Marya sounded a little angry now. "What aren't you telling me? Why can't you look at me?"

I swore never to lie to her, Yelena reminded herself again. I can't. I can't. She deserves the truth, always. I should have told her all of it before. We can work past this once it's all out in the open. "Marya... Darling... It... It became real. Later. The doctor said it was probably... something I became conditioned for. The drug did it at first, it made my body respond. But gradually... all the... stimulation..." Yelena felt her face burning up. This was hard, so hard. "I... After that I didn't... need the drug anymore. The need, what I did, what I wanted, it was all... coming from inside me. It was... part of me."

Another long silence. Marya broke it. "Mom..." Now Yelena didn't think she sounded angry anymore. Yelena found Marya's voice altogether unreadable. "Does that mean... Well, that wouldn't all just go away suddenly. Does that mean you feel that way now? Are you feeling you want me?" She sounded stunned, now, and groping for a liferaft of truth in a tossing sea of confusion. "Are you having to stop yourself from running over here and kissing me?"

She was always so smart, thought Yelena. Or maybe it's so obvious anyone could see it. Either way it was impossible to deny it now. Numbly, still not looking at Marya, Yelena nodded her head.

Marya said, "Don't."

She just doesn't understand how strong it is, thought Yelena in despair. "I can't just turn it off like that, honey. It's going to take time to get over it."

Marya slowly rose from the bed and stood. Walking towards Yelena -- No, please, don't get closer, Yelena begged her silently -- Marya said, "I didn't mean don't come running over. I meant don't stop yourself."

She can't possibly mean what that sounds like, thought Yelena, suddenly turning her head towards Marya and staring wide-eyed as she approached. "What?"

Marya stopped in front of Yelena, and put her hands on Yelena's hips on either side. Marya's eyes were bright, open wide, her lips parted. Yelena could feel Marya trembling, and it was so obviously from excitement, not from any kind of fear. "Mom, I told you, I remember it all. I know what Hélène wanted. I know what she felt. That's all part of me now." She was suddenly crying again. "I was just so scared it had all been a lie. That you never really wanted me. That it could never be like it was again."

Yelena gasped. She remembered Marya saying those words before! Within the first few minutes after the Hélène fantasy had broken down. Yelena had watched helplessly on her television monitor as Marya had cried, saying "I just want it to be like it was!"

Yelena knew what Marya had meant by that now!

Marya leaned forward and tentatively, as if still not completely sure the contact was welcome, lightly touched her lips to Yelena's.

With a cry of need, Yelena pulled Marya against her and opened her mouth wide, her tongue entering the familiar warmth of Marya's mouth. Without breaking the kiss, Marya reached down to the hem of Yelena's nightgown and pulled it upward, and as Yelena took over the job of removing it, Marya slipped her thumbs inside the waistband of Yelena's panties and slid them quickly down her legs.

As they shuffled in their embrace towards the bed and fell onto it in a tangle of arms and legs, Yelena felt her innermost being released from a prison of her own making. I don't have to hold back anymore! she exulted.

She laughed in delight as she tasted Marya's tongue and felt Marya's fingers, so practiced, knowing exactly what Yelena liked, begin working between her legs. Yelena reached down, her fingers seeking out Marya's clitoris, and Marya spread her legs farther apart for better access.

There is no one who can take this away from us! Yelena told herself. This is what our life together can be, always!

Yelena and Marya, synchronized through long practice, cried out together and shook with their first orgasms of the night.

THREE WEEKS LATER

Sasha waved goodbye to her last customer of the day and came around the counter to lock the front door and pull down the shade. A good day, very busy.

At the far end of the street, where it opened up into the square in front of the People's House, she could see that the demonstration was still in progress. Free speech was something very new. Acting President Perelenko had said that demonstrations and speeches on any subject were permitted, as long as there was no violence or advocation of violence. So far the restriction was mostly observed.

Today's demonstration, judging from the placards Sasha had seen going by, was in favor of "Free Internet For All." The acting president had announced the end of restrictions on access to the World-Wide Web, but a number of people thought there should be a government subsidy to establish free Internet caf‚s in all the major cities.

Sasha had no interest in participating in any of the demonstrations. She had left her activism behind in a previous lifetime.

She had made good use, she told herself, of the money given to each of the prisoners released from the now-closed Trevachevski Women's Prison. The government had given her the equivalent of just over a thousand dollars, and another share for her sister Tasha, along with a promise to bring them in to testify at the trials of the people who had run the prison -- most of the women had actually been even more eager for that opportunity than for the money. Sasha had used most of the pooled resources of herself and her sister to open a small bakery on Novgorodov Prospekt.

It was so much easier now! She remembered when her father had wanted to open his own bakery, but gave up in the middle of the process of getting a form from this office, getting it countersigned at that office and submitted at still another office, only to find it was the wrong form, and that three other forms in addition to the correct one were required, two of which were out of stock at the moment... Many of the old bureaucratic rules had been suspended by the new government, and Sasha had only needed to fill out one form at the city hall, a formality to meet the need of the local government to have a record of who was doing business where.

Sasha had hired a girl to help with the baking, both of them starting at five o'clock in the morning and staying busy until closing time at six in the evening. Sasha seemed never to stop running at full speed. But she loved it!

Exhausted now at the end of the day, she rounded the counter again and opened the door that led to the small apartment behind the store, where she and Tasha lived.

Tasha turned and grinned at Sasha from the refrigerator, where she was just putting a bottle full of fresh milk next to a half-dozen similar bottles. "How did it go?" She closed the refrigerator door.

Tasha looked very cute in her tight new American jeans and oversized Lady Gaga t-shirt -- there had been some money left over after starting the shop. They still hadn't found a bra for Tasha big enough yet, mostly because Tasha didn't really like to go out and Sasha had very little time or energy for shopping outside the hours the bakery was open. None of Tasha's old bras from home were of any use.

Sasha had been trying to persuade Tasha she really should get out more. Tasha didn't seem to believe, after a lifetime of being overweight and self-conscious about it, that nobody would think of her as pudgy or fat anymore. Everything she ate seemed to go straight into milk production. As for her breasts, admittedly they were still huge, but Sasha told her men would like that. They wouldn't like them leaking, Tasha always countered. Even now, though she changed shirts several times a day, the one she had on now had wet patches around both nipples.

Sasha had thought Tasha's breasts would get smaller by now, in the absence of whatever they had been feeding her at the prison, but she had read somewhere that lactation is self-sustaining as long as the milk has a steady outlet. Tasha certainly had that. And it had proved very useful. Sasha's shop, along with bread and various pastries, featured a tray of sweet cakes on the counter daily. They always disappeared quickly, though she had already raised the price twice. People told Sasha she needed to make more of those, but she explained that her production was limited by the supply of one of the ingredients. She didn't tell them what the ingredient was. People were funny about that. Sasha had seen that there was already plenty of Tasha's milk in the fridge for tomorrow's batch.

With a sigh, Sasha lowered herself onto the couch, leaning back and closing her eyes. Getting to sleep early tonight, as always, would be easy.

Tasha wiped her hands dry on a towel, coiled up the tubes of the breast pumps and put them away. She was done with them for the day. "You want to watch some television?" Her voice was a little raspy. She hadn't been able to speak for months at the prison. She was just getting used to it again.

Sasha shook her head. "Go ahead and turn it on, though. You watch something."

Tasha laughed. "What do you think I do while I'm pumping? I've seen enough."

Sasha smiled at her. "So, got any left? It looked like you must have used it all."

Tasha came over to the couch. "There's always more." She got up on her knees on the couch facing Sasha, straddling Sasha's legs, and pulled off her t-shirt. Her breasts, of course, were right in Sasha's face.

Sasha giggled. "I never imagined at the start that I'd get to where I wanted this. But it just tastes so good." She put her hands on either side of Tasha's left breast, opened her mouth to surround the nipple, and started sucking and swallowing.

Tasha closed her eyes and sighed. "Feels good too."

Yelena handed a note to Gabrielle, her maid, that read: "We are going to explore the island. We will be back in a few hours."

Gabrielle nodded and beamed at her, signed "Goodbye," and resumed cleaning up in the front parlor.

Yelena grinned at Marya, who turned back from giving a cheery finger-wave to Gabrielle, twitched her shoulders to adjust the straps of her backpack, and followed Yelena out the front door.

They had been on the island five days now, following Yelena's purchase of it from the agent, under her "Juliette Masson" name. That was her name to her small staff as well, Gabrielle and the cook, Margaux. To them, Marya was Juliette's daughter Josette. Yelena was pleased that General Gherkov had picked out such a pretty name for Marya.

It wasn't the same island Dimitri had managed to reach and live on for barely two days before his arrest. That was about thirty kilometers to the west. Yelena had considered buying that one, but the police were still searching it for any evidence of criminal activity Dimitri might have brought with him. Several major players in Dimitri's drug network had already been arrested, using evidence from the laptop computer Dimitri had left behind, but European and American investigators were hoping for more. The drug operation itself was most likely dead, or if not, would take many years to rebuild. But it paid to be thorough.

But Yelena and Marya had both fallen in love with this island. About ten square kilometers, it was covered in mostly undisturbed tropical growth, and had a very modern house constructed by the previous owners, surrounded by a garden of exotic plants, through which the Mediterranean shoreline could be seen on one side. The island had cost only thirty million euros. What remained in her bank account after that, Yelena knew, would easily last them the rest of their lives.

Since taking up residence on the island earlier this week, she and Marya hadn't left it yet. For the present, they were content with each other. Someday, thought Yelena, we might take in some of the entertainment the mainland can offer, perhaps some concerts, art fairs... But that was for later.

Yelena had already contracted with a service that would see to the maintenance of the garden two days a week, and another service that delivered supplies by boat daily -- she'd paid extra for them to unload the supplies themselves and bring them up to the house.

Yelena had found Gabrielle and Margaux through an agency affiliated with a school for the deaf in Marseilles. Yelena and Marya were both learning sign language. For the present they communicated with the girls by written notes. It had been Marya's idea that the staff should be deaf, and Yelena had laughed in delight, seeing her point immediately: for a mother and daughter, they did make a lot of noises that would be hard to explain.

Today's "exploration," on the other hand, had been Yelena's suggestion. Yelena took a deep breath, closing her eyes and savoring the scents of the garden, and led Marya away from the house, beyond the garden, and into the virgin growth beyond.

It wasn't impenetrable jungle. There were a number of clearings, but still there were plenty of trees for shade. Yelena remained within sight of the shore until they were a few hundred meters from the house, then stopped and grinned at Marya, who giggled and shrugged out of her backpack, while Yelena did the same.

The backpacks had been empty. For now.

Each began undressing the other -- unbuttoning blouses, unzipping pants, unhooking bras, pulling down panties. They preferred doing it that way. Each neatly folded her own clothes, and put them into her backpack. They rested the packs against the trunk of a tree. They would be able to identify the shape of the shoreline later, to find the packs when they returned.

Alone and naked with Marya now, Yelena felt an almost overpowering need to pull her down to the ground and make love with her immediately, but competing with that was an equal excitement at the idea of finding a permanent, private place, out of view from the shore, the house, the world. Yelena took Marya's hand, interlacing her fingers with Marya's, and led her into the interior of the island.

Yelena's heart sang with the joy of complete freedom. Freedom from threats, freedom from coercion, freedom from observation, freedom from the confinement of clothes that neither she nor Marya could get used to wearing again. It was easy to imagine that they were the only humans on Earth, with nothing they needed to do except take pleasure in each other's bodies. Marya had at first wanted to bring along some of the ropes and other toys that they both loved to use, but she had seen Yelena's point about wanting nothing at all but themselves.

Yelena gasped when they came upon a small pool at the foot of an embankment, with runoff from yesterday's rain dripping into the pool from the top of the embankment three meters above, a quiet, temporary miniature waterfall. Yelena looked at Marya, and Marya nodded back eagerly.

Marya took advantage of the flat side of a boulder beside the pool, sitting on the ground and leaning back against it, with both knees upraised. Yelena dropped down between Marya's legs to lay on her side, resting her head in Marya's crotch, her cheek rubbing the prickle of Marya's pubic hair.

Marya put one hand on Yelena's hair to stroke it, and the other on Yelena's breast, cupping it, absently brushing her thumb lightly back and forth over the nipple. Yelena closed her eyes and lightly stroked Marya's thigh with the fingers of one hand, up and down from the buttock.

It was warm, a typical early spring day, and humid, as if a soft blanket was covering them both. The local birds made lovely music -- admittedly a disorganized avant garde piece, but Yelena liked it. She hadn't heard birds, felt a breeze, seen sunlight, smelled flowers, for such a long time. She started drifting to sleep.

Marya said, in an amused voice, "Mom, I was just thinking this morning, and I wrote it all down to figure it out. If we love seven times a day..."

Yelena smiled. Marya had taken to simply using the word "love" for what they did. And seven times sounded about right. Once right before bed, or the sexual tension wouldn't let them sleep; usually twice during the night, when either of them awoke and felt a need for the other; first thing in the morning, before breakfast, either in bed or in the tub; and a few more times during the day, often with the strap-on or other toys. Yelena knew their combined sex drive was at a level far higher than anything that would be considered normal, but they were both comfortable with it. Yelena knew how it had become that way, the origins of it drug-induced and fear-inspired, but that was no longer its nature. It was part of them now, their joy, their happiness.

Marya continued, "...then we'd do it twenty-five hundred times every year. In forty years, we'd love a hundred thousand times." Marya said the last in a voice of pure awe.

Yelena smiled and turned her head upward slightly, but couldn't see Marya's face from where she was, with Marya's breasts in the way. "A hundred thousand? Are you sure?"

"Uh-huh. I wrote it all down," she repeated.

Yelena started trying to figure it out in her head, but now her heart was pounding, her crotch was tingling and wet, and she knew she was, as so many times before, past the point where analytical thought was possible. She said in a throaty rasp, her sexual arousal barely allowing her to speak now, "Well, we'd better get started then," and lifted her head farther to probe Marya's navel with her tongue. Marya shrieked with laughter, and Yelena kissed her stomach below her navel, her bush, and finally her sex, licking around it, while Marya leaned over onto her side and twisted around to put her face in Yelena's crotch. They rocked together on the ground, moaning, arms holding each other tight, their tongues tasting each other, while the birds gave opinions and advice.