The days blurred into one another, a strange dream-life stitched together by leopard print, perfume, and the echo of your own heels on polished marble floors.
Victor kept his distance, as though he had already won and had no need to flaunt it. Morning glimpses at the breakfast table, evening shadows of him coming home, his voice booming down the hall while you sat in your room in silk and lace. He was polite—never cruel, never unkind—but he was firm, immovable, like the house itself. “Soon, we will be married,” he would say in that baritone, with his thick Russian cadence, as if those words alone were enough to lock you into place.
The staff were ghosts more than people. The two maids flitted about, smiling politely but never lingering. The cook brought meals with practiced formality. They treated you not as an interloper, not even as their mistress yet, but as though you had always been there. It unsettled you at first, but soon their quiet acknowledgment became a kind of comfort.
Left to yourself, you explored. The house was gaudy in its way—marble columns where none were needed, chandeliers too large for the rooms they hung in, gilded frames and plush velvet chairs that screamed for attention. It should have repelled you. Instead, after days of wandering its echoing halls, you began to feel a strange swell of pride, as though the house itself was wrapping around you, whispering: This is yours now.
The wardrobe was worse—or better. At first the clothes disgusted you. Too tight, too short, too loud. Skirts that barely covered your ass, dresses clinging like a second skin, heels that turned every step into a strut. And yet, the more you wore them, the less you fought. Something about sliding into those garments, about hearing your bracelets jingle, about catching your reflection in a gilt-edged mirror and seeing Yulia smirking back—it stirred something that frightened you. Pride. Ownership.
Every morning a girl arrived—Katya, nineteen maybe, with dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail and a matter-of-fact way of speaking that made you feel like a schoolchild. She was supposedly from one of Victor’s boutiques, but she was more tutor than shop girl. She drilled you on Russian grammar, walked you through makeup techniques with practiced hands, adjusted your posture when you tried on outfits.
You wanted to resist. But each lesson slid into your brain with uncanny ease, as though Yulia’s memories were waking up in you. A phrase Katya spoke felt already familiar; the brush in your hand traced eyeliner with a precision you swore you shouldn’t have.
By the fourth day, you weren’t learning Russian—you were remembering it. Words came without effort. Sentences poured from your lips, natural, fluid, yours. But English began to slip like sand through your fingers. When you tried to speak it with Andrea on the phone—short, stilted calls when Victor wasn’t home—you fumbled. Words that once came effortlessly tangled in your mouth. “C–can’t… I… wait,” you would stammer, the accent thick, the syllables fractured.
It terrified you.
And yet, when you sat before the vanity in the evenings, robe slipping from your shoulders, lips painted full and red, you didn’t feel like Steve pretending. You felt like a woman—this woman. You shifted your weight, crossing your legs, tilting your head, and it looked right.
You knew you should recoil. You should fight, resist, claw for scraps of your old life. But instead you found yourself staring into the mirror, whispering in Russian without meaning to:
"Ya ne prosto Yuliya… no ya yesm’ ona…"
(I am not just Yulia… I am her.)
And then, clutching the edge of the vanity, you shook your head violently, whispering in your halting, broken English:
“No… Steve. I am Steve. For kids. For Andrea. I must remember.”
But each morning when Katya smiled and called you devushka—girl—you found it harder to believe.
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