Yakov's Mom

The doorbell rang. Yuliana hummed happily, wiping her hands on a towel, as she walked to her front door. Pulling it open, she was greeted by a smiling, bearded stranger.

He remained strange only until he said the words, "Hello Yakov's Mom!"

Yuliana was instantly transported back to the millions of times that Danny had come calling for her son. 'Hello Yakov's Mom, can Yakov come out to play?' was a catchphrase she'd heard nearly every day for over ten years as the boys grew up together. She'd watch them go, tearing off over to the park across the street and know that, whatever happened, they would at least have each other's back.

"Danny!"

Yuliana grabbed the young man and dragged him inside, closing the door to shut out the Winter chill. She hugged him tight then kissed him on both cheeks and held him at arm's length to examine his changes. Despite his shaggy hair and unkempt appearance he was the same boy; his shy, furtive, nervous look always made her want to reassure the little lost boy. Not so little now though. Yuliana was tall, even bare-footed as she was now, but Danny was beaming down from his elongated height. She held her hand on his cheek, just below the scar caused by her son shooting an arrow at his head when they were seven.

"I haven't seen you in a dog's age, look how big and handsome you've become." She pinched both his cheeks and flubber-lubber-lubbed his face affectionately.

"Ow." Danny protested playfully.

Yuliana called for her son, then stood gazing and grinning at the young man, she was excited by the imminent reunion of boyhood chums. It was going to be joyful. Yakov walked downstairs pulling on his jacket.

"Dan." A single grunt.

"Ready?" Danny grunted back.

"Yup."

Yuliana watched, bewildered, as her son slipped his feet into into his trainers.

"Bye Mom."

"You knew he was back!? He never tells me anything, Danny."

"Bye, Yakov's Mom." They were down the steps and on to the street when Yuliana called Danny back.

"Next week is Christmas. You have no family to go to. You will come here."

"No I couldn't jus-"

"What is this couldn't?" Yuliana's English always broke down when she was flustered, if you got her mad enough she would revert to her native Slovene until she calmed down again, "What couldn't? How many times have you come to our house? We have cousins and uncles and all sorts coming so one more chair, one more mouth is nothing. Is decided! You come! Now, beat it."

She waved him away imperiously and watched the two friends, bundled up against the bitter cold, traipse off down the street.

*******

Yuliana's festive family gathering was in full swing. Loud music blaring from the front room for the youngsters, a Bizet opera playing softly in the back room for the adults to chat over and the smallest ones running around shooting Nerf guns or driving various remote control vehicles. Yuliana found Danny in the kitchen, sitting quietly at her dining table. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

"Caught you hiding." She smiled wearily and kicked off her heels.

"I've not drunk this much Slovenian beer since we all came to Yakov's eighteenth birthday party here."

Her stilettos were red to match her slinky dress that seemed infused with a golden shimmer when it caught the light just right. Danny hadn't been able to take his eyes off her whenever she was in the same room. The dress hugged her subtle curves perfectly, accentuating her lithe, graceful body. She had long dirty-blonde hair that framed a young face, her grey-blue eyes sparkled like a freshly poured gin and tonic.

She had the cheekiest smile he'd even seen. Her perky, impeccable breasts, her flawless, flat stomach and her pear-drop bottom added to her supermodel status but the real deal-breaker for Danny's libido were her long, almost never-ending, legs. His eyes were magnetically drawn to her small feet shrouded in sheer black nylon. He scooted his chair closer then bent down and lifted her feet on to his lap. She watched him, bemused as he began to rub her soles. She let out a deep sigh as his adept fingers released waves of tension gained throughout the busy day. She smiled at him contentedly, like a cat lazing in the sun.

Danny observed, "You look a little tired."

"Well, it's late. I must look a mess."

She viewed him from under hooded, sleepy eyelids that had been brushed with smoky eye-shadow, the effect on Danny was electric.

"I've never seen you look more glamourous."

"Oh sure," she waved away his compliment, "I'm a real glamourpuss. I've been on my feet all day, they may be a bit sweaty."

Danny raised one foot and pressed his nose to her toes. She blushed. She leapt up out of her chair as some aged relation came bumbling into the kitchen to retrieve a handful of beer bottles from the fridge. Danny enjoyed watching how embarrassed she was as she smoothed down her dress and adjusted her hair. Yakov walked in and slumped into a chair.

"I'm ready to crash," he puffed, "These old guys can really put it away."

"Da, that side of the family were always hard drinkers." Yuliana had lifted the hem of her dress and was straightening her misaligned pantyhose, when she glanced up to see the two young men were watching her with a fascinated fixation. She blushed again and stood upright.

"Danny," she said, plowing through the constricted silence, "Now you're all grown up, I have always wanted to ask you a question."

"Shoot." Danny stood up, stretched his back and yawned.

"I've said Danny could stay tonight, Mom." Yakov interrupted, joining in with the contagious yawn.

"Da, of course. Everyone else is. You're very welcome. I'll bring out some blankets and pillows for everyone later."

"What was your question, Mrs Kolar?"

Even though she'd asked him many times to call her Yuliana, he still felt that it was somehow incorrect.

"Why..." Yuliana paused, looking for the words, "What happened to your mother?"

"You can't ask that! Jesus, Mom."

"Hush, Yakov. He can tell me 'go to hell' if he wants to."

"Maaaaan." Yavok stretched then waved his arms as he left, indicating that he was escaping all this craziness.

"I would never say that to you, Mrs Kolar."

Yuliana and Danny both leaned back against the kitchen counter.

"You don't mind I ask?"

"No."

They stood, side by side, while Danny searched for the strength to talk about something that was obviously painful. Anyone other than Yuliana would've been met with a curt refusal.

"They told me she died in childbirth," Danny spoke flatly, suppressing his emotions, "Having me."

"That's so sad."

"I, I've never talked about her before. I often wonder what she was like. If I'm like her? They didn't know if she had any relatives to take me in. I started off in a foster family, as a baby, then I bounced around different care homes or other foster families until I was sixteen."

"And your father?"

"I don't know who he is. I never met him." Danny chuckled coldly.

"You had no one?"

"Not a soul in the world."

"You're breaking my heart."

Yuliana embraced him, wrapping her arms around him and touching his hair, he could feel her long artificial nails poking his scalp. His libido reacted mechanically to the close contact of a sexy feminine body but it was overwhelmed by Danny's genuine feelings of comfort.

Yuliana spoke into his ear, "I wish I was your Mom."

She stepped back and cupped his face in her hands.

"I would look after you. And feed you, skinny boy!"

She rubbed his tummy and he laughed.

"I've been waiting for the right moment," Danny held on to her, his arms around her waist, "To thank you."

"It was just Christmas dinner."

"No, I mean... all those times I came into your home. You never once failed to make me feel welcomed. Your warmth and kindness was the only... sometimes it was all I had."

"Danny." Yuliana's eyes were misting over.

"At night, I'd be in some strange bed, in some strange building, wondering when they were gonna shove me on to the next place. Wondering if they'd be friendly, if I'd be attacked, or abused." Danny's voice was cracking slightly, "If I wanted to feel better, I would think of you, and your home here, and your cookies and your cakes, and your black-bread and soup, and you're crying..."

Yuliana's tears were trickling down her cheeks in tiny black rivers of mascara. A distant cousin chose this moment to enter the kitchen and discovered how upset Yuliana was and they began a hurried, passionate discussion in Slovene, with the cousin looking daggers at Danny.

More relatives joined them and the room descended into a cascade of their buzz-kazuzzing native language, the crashing sibilance a mystery to Danny who was trying to look as if he hadn't just committed the heinous crime of the century.

Yuliana sat down at the table while her relatives crowded round to comfort her. From her gestures alone, Danny could tell she was relating his story to the burbling assembly. A very beautiful but thin girl broke from the group and came over to hug Danny as tight as her pipe-cleaner arms allowed.

She kissed him full on the lips, shook her head slowly, sadly, then rejoined the crowd. A small elderly woman, no taller than his belly-button, hobbled across the kitchen and reached up to pat his cheek affectionately. An loud uncle make a declaration and a bottle of spirit was thumped down on the table. Shot glasses appeared from nowhere and were soon filled.

Danny remembered these bottles from Yakov's eighteenth. Home-brewed schnapps. The worse three varieties were, in order of appallingness, rancid raspberry, putrid pear and brutal blueberry. If they'd poured blueberry schnapps into the Apollo 11 space shuttle, it would've reached Mars. Everyone was handed a glass. Another declaration was yelled and the glasses were raised in salute before being drained. Danny felt the paint-stripper dissolving the sides of his throat as it went down.

As the next round was being poured and more bottles appeared magically on the table, Danny tried his best to look invisible as he strategically withdrew.

Upstairs, he stepped into Yakov's dark bedroom and closed the door behind him. Yakov woke and lifted his head.

"Can I doss down in here tonight?" Danny asked.

"Of course. I hear the noise. Has it all gotten a bit too East-European down there?"

"They brought out the schnapps, Yakov."

"Ouch. It wasn't blueberry?"

"It was blueberry."

Yakov sucked air through his teeth.

"You were lucky to get outta there alive, man."

He threw a pillow to his friend and returned to his beer-induced slumber. Danny lay down on the floor and eventually found a comfortable position for sleep as the sounds of an unintelligible riot rose up through the floorboards.

The revellers emerged from their blanketed cocoons around lunchtime. Danny stepped carefully around these extras from the Night of the Living Dead as they shuffled, mumbling, around the house. The only one seemingly unaffected by the

previous night's liver-shrivelling alcohol consumption was the hostess. Danny watched in awe as she bustled around, floating from guest to guest with cups of coffee or tea, slices of buttered toast or other requests. The beautiful thin girl now looked about seventy-eight. The rambunctious uncle was a shell of a man. People nursed their hangovers in their own private hells.

Yuliana breezed around, dressed in a teeshirt and a pair of jeans so tight they looked as if they had been air-brushed on to her flesh. Danny tried, and failed, to not ogle her beautiful bum as it jiggled around inside the dark denim.

He was looking out of a window at the gathering grey clouds, feeling the coldness reaching in through the glass, when Yuliana discovered him. She put her arms around his neck and snuggled in close. She kissed him just under his ear then leaned back.

"I'm so glad you were here with us."

Her gracious affection was disarming. She ran her hand up his cheek and through his tangled hair. She kissed him on the lips. She went to turn away, to resume her hostess duties.

"I, er, I was hoping," Danny was his old uncertain self again, "Maybe, I could ask a favour of you?"

Yuliana cocked her head on to one side, waiting patiently. Danny opened his mouth to speak but was drowned out by the sound of crashing plates, raised voices and then a weeping child.

"Hold that thought," Yuliana was walking down the hall to the kitchen, "I'll be back."

Danny lingered for a minute or two, then realised Yuliana had gone on to yet another crisis of hospitality. He sat at the bottom of the stairs and tied his boots. He pulled on his cap and Winter coat and slipped out of the front door.

*******

Two months later, Yuliana woke in the night, some unusual sound had disturbed her. She lay in bed, listening to the reassuring silence then decided to go downstairs for a drink. As she reached the bottom stair, a large shadow fell across her and she squealed.

"You made me jump!" Danny's voice said in the dark.

Yuliana switched on the light.

"Made you jump? You frightened the life out of me!"

She was holding her palm flat against her chest, restraining her somersaulting heart, "What are you doing here, Danny?"

"Oh, I'm not alone. There're a few dead soldiers in there."

His thumb indicated the lounge so she poked her head through the door and found Yakov and half a dozen friends sprawled out in various sleeping positions. She walked past Danny to the kitchen. He followed, noticing that her only clothing was an over-sized blue shirt; he watched her thighs as she walked and became convinced she was completely naked under it. He was a little surprised by how much this excited him.

"You give me a heart-attack." Yuliana pulled a juice bottle from her fridge and poured two glasses. She held one out for Danny.

He took it and explained, "They wanted to watch some pay-for-view boxing match. We tried not to wake you."

"I hope he's paying for this pay-for-view."

They drank, watching each other from opposite sides of the room.

"You thought that I'd broken in, that I was stalking you."

Yuliana laughed, "Da. For a minute there, I did."

She rinsed out her glass in the sink, "Although I am sure you'd make a very nice stalker."

After a minute Danny replied, "I can't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound creepy so I'll keep my mouth shut."

Yuliana's bare feet padded across the kitchen's hard floor as she came closer.

"Are you sure you weren't thinking of sneaking upstairs to my big, cold, lonely bed?" She gave him a smouldering look, her lips quivered slightly then curved up into her cheeky smile.

"You're teasing me!"

Danny dissembled into laughter and wiped his brow. He was suddenly very hot.

Yuliana poked him, "You're easy to tease!"

"I'm always gullible when girls are involved."

"I am a girl? Look again."

"Why is your bed cold and lonely?"

"How you mean?"

"You're an intelligent, successful, beautiful, kind-hearted woman. Why aren't there... hordes of men battering down your door to share your bed?"

She leaned in even closer, he was thinking that she must wear perfume in bed.

"I am picky."

"I see. High-maintenance."

"I know this phrase. You mean difficult. Like I am... argumentative bitch." She pronounced it beach.

Danny floundered, but she was merciless and looked terribly offended.

"This is harsh, Danny, calling me bitch in my own kitchen."

"I, I, I didn't... you're fucking with me again."

Yuliana was giggling.

"Yakov's Mom, you're killing me tonight!"

They walked back down the hall to the stairs. She paused on the first step.

"You'd better go in the room, or I'll think you're looking at my bottom when I go upstairs."

Danny held her gaze. Was this another tease?

"I'm only joking," she smiled broadly, "Of course you can look at my bottom."

She walked up the stairs then stopped near the top and looked down at Danny frozen in place. From his angle he could see right up her night-shirt.

"I didn't think you'd actually look!"

A quick flash of delectable bumcheeks and she was gone. Danny heard the closing of her bedroom door. He adjusted the sizeable bulge in his pants and returned to his place in the heap of sleeping bodies.

*******

Danny was shooting pool in a pub with a few friends, it was a quiet suburban place. He lost his game and walked out of the small pool-room to console himself with a beer. Waiting at the bar for his turn to be served, he felt his shoulder tapped and turned around. Yuliana stood grinning, holding a cocktail glass. Danny's breath was taken away. She was dressed entirely in black: spike-heeled boots, nylon hold-ups and an exceedingly short dress. She wore her hair up in an elaborate affair, showing off a delicious neck that would be luring vampires for hundreds of miles. He touched his face to make sure he wasn't actually drooling.

She put her hand on his shoulder and twisted him around to face two tables full of gabbing, chattering women.

"This," she announced proudly, "is my son's best friend." The gaggle of women brayed. One of them wolf-whistled. Danny turned back to the bar to order his beer. Yuliana stood next to him.

"How are you, Danny?"

"That was embarrassing."

"Oh? I did not want them to think I am a cougar, chasing young men. These are women I work with, one of them has turned forty."

Danny paid for his beer then chinked his bottle against her glass.

"Mrs Kolar, you are most definitely a cougar."

She blushed, "Is Yakov with you?"

"Not tonight. We're having a little pool tournament in the next room."

"Well," she kissed his cheek, "Good luck with your game." Her dress barely covered her bottom and he couldn't help watching her walk back to join her friends.

Later, Danny was stood watching a pool game when Yuliana walked in, now decently covered by a long coat that reached to her knees. She looked around the pool-room.

"I know some of these faces." She smiled at the group of men lounging on the chairs.

They called in unison, "Hello, Yakov's Mom!"

"Danny, I am leaving. If you've finished your games, perhaps you would care to walk me home?"

Somebody wolf-whistled. Danny ran his hand through his hair.

"Er, yeah, sure, of course."

Danny grabbed his coat and cap, the young men cried out as one, "Bye, Yakov's Mom!"

She waved to them then walked out, wrapping a scarf around her throat. Outside, the freezing air reddened their cheeks. Yuliana pulled on her gloves.

"Were the boys making fun of me in there?"

Danny zipped up his coat and began walking.

"What? No. No way."

He pulled his cap down tight. Yuliana hooked her arm though his and they found a common walking speed.

"Are you sure? They seemed a little, oh I don't know, too friendly, too pleased to see me."

Danny looked at her as they walked, was this another tease?

"Surely you must know?"

"What? What must I know?"

"They're all crazy about you. We all are."

Yuliana stopped. She was frowning at him. Danny grinned.

"Come on, you're being falsely modest. You were like a... a sex bomb dropped in our teenage pants. All us guys were completely in love with you, growing up."

"I... I did nothing to encourage this."

Danny put her arm through his and pulled her back into walking.

"You didn't have to do anything. Just being you was enough."

"I had no idea."

"Well, let me tell ya, that pool-room is a seething snake-pit of envy that I get to walk you home, Mrs Kolar."

They walked on in silence, Yuliana was stunned.

They reached the entrance to the park, despite the lateness of the hour the black wrought-iron gates stood wide open. Yuliana tugged on Danny's arm.

"Shall we cut through the park? Normally I would be too scared, on my own, but with you..."

The sounds of traffic were muted in the park, all they could hear was the rustling of the trees and click click of Yuliana's heels on the path.