Page 89 of Violent Possession

The King is the last piece. He holds the white King, spinning it between his fingers, unhurried.

“This piece is the most idiotic in the game. It moves one square, does almost nothing. And everything revolves around it. The game only ends when it’s cornered, no matter the rest.”

“Do you think that makes sense?” I ask. “The most vulnerable is the most important?”

“It’s the only possible sense,” he replies, with something on his face that I cannot decipher. “If you don’t protect the king, no one else matters. Not the queen, not the soldiers. Everything turns to dust.”

He repositions the pieces, this time with more care. The board is now exactly like the beginning of an official game. I notice that he has changed the way he sits: his body slightlyinclined towards me, his left hand almost touching mine, as if contact were inevitable. I don’t know if this is provocation or just the reflex of someone who never learned to relax.

I decide I’m going to bluff. I pull on my cigarette, let out the smoke slowly, stare at Alexei. “Why are you explaining so well?” I say, my voice low. “I don’t even know if I’ll last more than a few months in this world.”

“I want you to last,” he says. “Or maybe I just need someone to play with, for now.”

Silence returns, thick, heavy, but different from before. Now there’s a strange electricity.

I look at the board, at the black pieces on my side, and try to remember how it begins. My fingers touch the pawn, and I hesitate.

“What’s the right move?” I ask.

Alexei smiles, this time with genuine pleasure. “There is no right move,” he says.

He pushes a white pawn forward, two squares, opening the game. He looks me in the eyes, challenging, but also offering something I can’t name.

I pull a black pawn, mimic the move. He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t scoff.

“You’re going to crush me,” I say, without feigning hope.

“I’ll give you five rounds before I crush your king,” he replies, and for the first time I feel that maybe he’s genuinely playing with me, that maybe there’s a place for me in this bad math.

We played in silence for a while. I mean,heplays. I just move the pieces, trying to remember the rules, trying not to make too obvious a mistake.

He is patient. He corrects my moves with “are you sure?” and forces me to think again. And, during his moves, I allow myself to look at him. Not just a glance;really. His dress shirt is open at the collar, revealing his thin clavicle, and a fine gold chainthat disappears under the fabric. The dark gray jacket looks expensive, and his hands—fuck, his hands—are calm, never trembling.

The atmosphere shifts. From competition to something more bizarre, more intimate. Because, while he thinks about the next move, I think about what it would be like to break the silence, to do something stupid, like throwing the pieces on the floor and pressing my face into his neck, smelling the cigarette mixed with perfume. The idea makes me laugh, but it’s a silent laugh, only through my nostrils.

I try to concentrate. I lean over the board, trying to predict his next move, and it’s an impossible task. I think of the knight, the chaotic piece. It’s a stupid move. I know the instant I touch it.

Before I complete the move, his hand covers mine over the piece.

The shock is instant and idiotic. The warmth of his hand, the exact pressure, neither too much nor too little. My brain freezes. What was just chess suddenly becomes something else. My gaze goes from the board to his hand, from his hand to his face. His pupils dilate.

I don’t withdraw my hand. Neither does he. His other hand moves, pointing to the pieces on the board, returning to a teacher’s tone, but everything has changed. His physical presence, his pleasant and irritating scent, the way he doesn’t back down.

“Look,” he says. “If you move the knight, the bishop takes your pawn, opening a direct line of attack. Your queen is threatened, and your king is trapped in this corner.” He demonstrates the massacre with the pieces. I understand, but I also don’t.

I feel a knot in my stomach, the same I feel before a fight. “What’s the defense for that?”

“You don’t attack,” he replies, and his thumb brushes my wrist in a gesture so small it makes me laugh nervously. “You sacrifice.”

He points to one of my pieces. A rook. “You lose a piece to save what’s important. It’s the only way out.”

He talks about the game, but I don’t feel like I’m hearing the rules of chess. It seems like his philosophy. Losing a piece to save what’s important.

I let him lead the move, but I don’t let go of his hand. He shows how to sacrifice the rook to save the king. The move is clean, gentle. He says something about “calculated loss”, but I barely listen.

All the blood spat on the canvas, every bone cracked by someone stronger, every smell of ether and rust from the infirmary seems so distant, so small, compared to what I feel now. A ridiculous urge to break all the pieces and press my face against his.

I want to kiss him.