Stepan Rannikov
Scam

“A routine business trip. A respectable official. But…

A quiet forest. One glance through the bushes — and her entire orderly life collapses into an abyss of forbidden desire, blackmail, and raw pleasure.”

PROLOGUE

Elena Sergeyevna sat down and carefully tensed her stomach. The stream hit right between a young fern frond and a lungwort.

“Well, yes. It's a lungwort.”

She peered carefully between her legs, watching the yellow spray bounce off the grass like fine beads and sparkle in the rays of light filtering through the bushes.

"I'm a biology teacher by training. I can tell a lungwort from a corydalis."

Lena farted proudly and with pleasure, then froze in fear. Someone spoke from behind her, to the left:

"So, any strawberries in sight? Let's go to that meadow over there."

The voice sounded very familiar.

The bush was huge. The forest was huge. There had been no need to look for such a perfect spot to pee. She could have sat under any tree.

“Who else walks around here? Turns out, they do.”

Elena Sergeyevna had held it for a long time until she finally spotted a very safe place, from a woman's perspective. This honeysuckle bush. Yes. In such a thicket, you could easily pull down your panties and pee. She'd already let out a small trickle. It had become unbearable.

Now she sat and watched carefully through the vertical gaps in the bushes as the young man and woman passed her, only five steps away. Their conversation had grown inaudible. They had stopped in a sunny spot a short distance away, so both were clearly visible. From behind, the young man looked about seventeen. He said something to his adult companion.

“Probably his mom,” Elena Sergeyevna thought.

Her legs were starting to go numb from sitting. She'd already peed, and it was time to get up. But the couple was talking only twenty steps away, and leaving the bush now would be foolish. They'd talk and then leave. She mechanically wiped her open vagina with her hand and slid her wet fingers along the grass by her leg. Then the guy reached out, stroked the woman's head, and said something demanding. She nodded and slowly sank to her knees.

And at that moment, the guy turned his head in Elena’s direction…

CHAPTER 1

Pyotr Ivanovich said, buttoning his fly:

"So, Glebova, you'll work in the region for a couple of years, and then back to Tula. You'll gain experience on the ground. You'll see ordinary people. That's essential for a career. We've all been there."

"So what about me? My husband and son..."

"That's no problem. Aleksin isn't overseas. It's only an hour and a half bus ride from the regional center. If you want, you can rent an apartment there for five days a week. And then go home on weekends. Or get up early and go to the bus station."

Yes, on the one hand, it was a promotion. From a simple typist to a senior inspector at the regional social security department. But on the other hand, life was so familiar and comfortable, where everything was clear and predictable. Her husband Vitya, son Alyosha, dumplings on Sundays, and sex on Saturdays suddenly hit rock bottom.

She probably could have refused. But Pyotr Ivanovich hadn't chosen her for nothing. This trust. She had earned it with her diligence, her hard work, and her dedication to the work of her beloved regional social security department.

Elena Sergeyevna was never late for work. She always reported to Pyotr Ivanovich what the girls were discussing in the department. And when he first unzipped his fly and pulled out his penis, resembling the sausage that Lena bought for Vitya and Alyoshka three times a week at the "Belarus" sausage shop”, she had almost without hesitation dropped to her knees and taken it in her mouth.

***

“Well, what's the big deal?” Marinka had convinced her back in tenth grade. Back then, there had been a heated debate about morality and everything in general.

Well, not about morality, my dear reader. You should have seen me. You'd definitely have said—you're the spitting image of Charles Bukowski. Fuck you, moralist.

"Lenka, realize this. Work takes up most of a person's time. Sure, it may not be as important as family. Especially for a woman. But you spend at least eight hours at work, five days a week. And with family, three hours in the evening, an hour in the morning, and a semi-daze on Saturday and Sunday. Work is your network. You need to cultivate it both internally and externally. And be prepared for anything. And if you got a job as a secretary, you should realize that you're being valued not for your ability to create the boss's daily schedule, but for your ass and tits. So you should understand, going into your first interview, that you'll be sucking his dick every day."

"So what about my husband?" Lena had mumbled, confused.

"He ate too many pears," Marinka smirked, emphatically and forcefully. "What does my husband have to do with it? He'll always get it. Divide these things."

Then her friend's cynicism had simply knocked Lena off her feet with its revelation. However, something had clicked in her head too.

“Yes. Work is important. Work is a very significant part of life. We must divide everything.”

"Therefore, Lenka, if the boss wants to draw and sharpen his Sword, don't hesitate for a second. Write him a visa to the Pisa."

"Which Pisa? To The Leaning Tower of Pisa, or what?"

"To yours pussy, you fool."

***

These were the very words that had flashed through her mind as she knelt before Pyotr Ivanovich.

“Divide. Vitya will always get it.”

And Elena Sergeyevna had opened her mouth and sucked in the boss's greasy sausage.

CHAPTER 2

The office of the head of the district social welfare department smelled of dust from old files and cheap coffee from a vending machine. She sat at a desk covered in stacks of papers. She sat with the face which had long forgotten how to smile without reason. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, her blouse a government-issued color, her gaze like a "denied" stamp.

The door creaked. A man in his late thirties entered, wearing a tattered jacket and carrying a folder under his arm. There was something sickly about his figure.

“Maybe he had rickets as a child,” Lena thought. “They all look so exhausted and beaten down by life in this Aleksin. Or maybe they're all villagers. Why is Aleksin, strictly speaking, a village? It's a regional center. Come on, Lena. A village is a village. Lyudk, oh, a village!” She suddenly remembered the disheveled film actress Gurchenko walking away triumphant from her rival in the film “Love and Doves.”

The man stood in front of her desk. His face was red, his hair unkempt. Yet, despite his subtlety, there was something confident in his gestures. Masculine. And his eyes…

"Hello," he began, trying to keep his voice even. "I'm here about my sister's care payment. I'm in my fourth month of zero. They told me back in April, 'We'll figure it out, just wait.' I'm waiting. My job barely pays me because I'm with her 24/7. My medications are running low, and I only have three hundred rubles left until payday. What the hell, huh?"

Elena Sergeyevna took the folder the man handed her and glanced at it. Then she stared at the monitor and meditatively began tracing eights on the screen with the mouse.

"Alexey... Ivanovich, right?" she finally said.

Her voice was as even as a protocol.

"According to the database, your application for compensation for caring for a first-degree disabled person has been suspended. Additional confirmation of your living conditions is required. Was the inspector out?”

***

Pisa was bored.

Lena hadn't thought there would be a problem with that. What was five days a week like in Aleksin? Then, at least, a quick bus ride on Friday evening to her native Tula to her husband and family.

She never had sex with Vitya in the middle of the week. Always on Saturdays, as usual. Well, maybe sometimes, if Vitya felt like it. But he never felt like it. He'd come home from work tired. Dinner, a bottle of beer. Then a talk show, and then bed. What kind of sex was that? But in Aleksin, she suddenly became unbearable. Or maybe from boredom.

The regional social security office paid for her apartment. And the rented one-room apartment was very nice, clean, and well-maintained. Almost close to work. Well, right next to the center. After all, the entire administration is in the center.

But what would she do there alone after work? And what would she do in this center after 5 pm?

The owner, a responsible grandmother who regularly rented this apartment to all the regional officials on assignment, was very happy to have such a tenant. Two years is a long time. The state is the payer. What more could she want?

"What entertainment is there, my dear? Go to the community center. They're showing movies there. But who watches movies these days? Everyone has TVs, 124 channels. The cafe downtown is decent. No fights or scandals. But how can you go there alone? What will they think? Rumors spread quickly here. You can go to the forest. It's light until nine in the summer. And now is prime time. Mushrooms, berries. We have a rich natural environment. And no ticks. So much for entertainment."

Pisa was homesick every evening.

“Probably from the multitude of unfamiliar smells. Completely different. Or maybe from the feeling of freedom. What am I supposed to feed her for two years now? Not mushrooms, of course.”

And Lena, hiding from the man's piercing eyes, clenched her thighs under the table.

***

"Which inspector?" the man chuckled, and his chuckling already rang with irony. "The one who promised to arrive 'in a few days' in February? Or the one 'on leave for family reasons'? I've brought you all the documents three times. The report from the local police officer, the character references from the neighbors, and even that stupid piece of paper from the clinic. Are you kidding me? Or are you just waiting for me to die along with her?"

Elena Sergeyevna finally tore herself away from the screen. Her eyes were cold, but they already flashed the weariness of a professional who had heard this a thousand times.

"No need for hysterics here, citizen. We are not a bank or a charity. After updating, the Unified State Information System (EGISSO) shows that the document package is incomplete. There's no stamp indicating actual residence at the address. And without that, you understand..."

She spread her arms, and the gesture was as sarcastic as would normally fit into an entire article of the administrative regulations.

"Go to the multifunctional center and resubmit. We'll see in two weeks."

"In two weeks?" He perched on the edge of his chair, even though no one had invited him. "Are you serious? My sister has been lying there without painkillers for three days because I can barely scrape together enough to buy her bread. And you’re going to ‘resubmit’ it to me? I’ve been running around in circles for six months now, like a squirrel in a wheel. It’s either ‘the electronic signature is wrong,’ or ‘the scan is unreadable,’ or ‘the database is glitching.’ Do you even realize that my sister isn’t a paper sister, but a living one? Or are we all just case numbers to you?"

Elena Sergeyevna leaned back in her chair. A thin, almost wicked smile appeared on her lips.

"Oh, how touching. You're all like that when the money isn't rolling in. And as soon as we appoint someone, it's 'thank you, goodbye.' I've been working in social security for a while twenty years, Alexey Ivanovich. Do you know how many of these 'guardians' I've had? Half of them later turn out to be their sister. They shipped her off to the countryside, and they drink beer on her pension. Or, conversely, their sister is so good you could work her to death. So, don't bother me with this 'living sister' thing. We're checking. According to the rules."

"According to the rules," the man mimicked, his voice already seething with anger. "You should shove your rules up your ass and use them. My sister's been disabled since childhood, and I've been looking after her since she was eighteen. No wife, no kids, no vacation. And you're talking about 'half that size'. I know better than you what responsibility is. You're here in the warmth of your office, sipping coffee, and I'm looking after her every day. Ironic, huh? A civil servant is teaching a man how to properly love a disabled woman."