The Art of Bleeding Gold

It all started with a smile. Last night I watched the film “Smile”,and nothing feels funny to me anymore. I love watching films, but I dislike it when they watch me back. I watch them fanatically, just as I do everything else.

I cannot say that my life is organized. I am not particularly efficient, but it is shaped by boundaries. I study, I train, I write, I read, I listen to music, I exist. I pay attention to how I live, but not to why—even though I think about that far too much.

I don’t go out much. Sometimes I feel like a mere spatial phenomenon, and other times like an inflated hedonist.

My parents are in a marriage—an impersonal one. Their relationship is built on a shared life of passing interests; an uncompromising life contract called marriage. A state-sanctioned marriage, a life sentence. Or so it has seemed for years.

From a young age, I knew what I wanted and the ideals upon which I formed my own standards, but the events that followed me always deviated from my life observations.

I feel as if I belong to no epoch, no time. As if everything I desire slips away from me, appearing only as a temptation, a silhouette.

Just like last night.

A beard grazing my spine, traveling from my neck, descending lower. I shivered, I trembled. My body coiled.

Beside my head, I saw a powerful hand that soon found its way over my mouth. I moaned into it, arching beneath him, trying to feel more—impatient, flushed, breathless.

And by morning, it had vanished.

Today is leg day—Bulgarian split squats. I’m preparing for it to kill every desire, every fantasy, every trace of the night before.

I’m meeting Sara after training. We’re off. I’ve showered, my legs are already heavy. I’m heading to the cinema. I threw on a flowy dress and left. I called Sara to meet halfway; she’s lost, completely scatterbrained. I love her and her unorganized, chaotic nature. She’s entirely mad. We are complementary opposites. These were the thoughts swirling in my head while the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Sara, where are you?"

"Wait, I can’t hear you. Let me put you on speaker. Okay, here. I’m at—wait, wait, let me see. I’m here, in front of that stupid sh*t, you know?"

I knew exactly. I was on my way. We met in front of the cinema.

We watched “Michael”,about Michael Jackson. The film is so monotonous. I think it would have been more interesting if they’d filmed him stealing kids than stealing time from us. Instead of children, he molested our brains.

Sara watched the screen, focused. My attention was shattered. I was thinking of the hands I had moaned into last night. Between my legs, I felt a pulse; I tried to find peace, but the only thing I wanted to think about was his hand over my mouth, silencing me so the world wouldn't hear that I was his.

The other hand in my hair, pulling my head back, exposing my throat to his lips, kissing my neck and back…

I was losing myself in thoughts, just like Michael in kids. I laughed at that thought… diabolical brain of mine,always finding a punchline in the middle of a breakdown.

As we stepped out of the cinema, Sara started rummaging through her pockets as if searching for buried treasure. She pulled out two tickets and waved them in my face. A fight match. Two days from now.

As I took the ticket, the fighter's name flickered before my eyes. It was familiar—hauntingly so—like a song you know but can't quite place. My brain stalled. I knew the name carried weight, but at that moment, it just wouldn't click.

The ride home felt endless. I kept turning the name over in my head, picking at it like a loose thread, but it refused to unravel. Every time I whispered it under my breath, a cold shiver traced its way down my spine, leaving me rattled.

I sat in silence, consumed by a restless, gnawing impatience. I just needed to get home, to tear through the layers of my own confusion and see who—or what—was lurking behind that name.

Sara glanced at me, her eyes lingering in a way that felt like a silent question. She knew something was off. Without a word, she rested her hand on my thigh, a grounding weight against the chaos in my mind.

I reached down and squeezed her hand, offering a faint, weary smile. "It’s been a long day," I lied softly. "I’m just exhausted, I think. A bit lost in my own head, that’s all. "

I turned my gaze to the window, watching the blur of the city pass by. A flicker of guilt pricked at me—I hated lying to her. She was my anchor, my voice of reason in a world that often felt too loud.

The rest of the drive home passed in silence. She kept her hand over mine, offering a steady, quiet reassurance that I didn’t deserve. But even with her presence grounding me, my mind was miles away, still dissecting the name, still searching for the missing piece of the puzzle.

The car pulled up to my building. I gave them a distracted wave, my focus already slipping toward the entrance.

I climbed the stairs slowly, counting each one to keep myself steady, but my pulse was racing. I couldn’t wait to get inside, drop my things, and finally surrender to the urge. I needed to see that name on a screen. I needed to know.

I didn't even wait to greet my mother properly; a brief, hurried wave was all I could manage. I dumped my bag in the corner, but not before fishing out my phone and the ticket.

Alone at last, I sat on the edge of the bed, holding the small piece of paper. My fingers traced the letters of his name, over and over. My hands were trembling. With a shaky breath, I unlocked my phone and began to type the name into the search bar.

Nikolai Sokolov

I touched my lips, whispering his name out loud, letting the syllables settle in the silence of the room. Then, I hit enter.

The screen flickered, and then there he was.

The face on the screen hit me like a physical blow.His head was shaved clean. His features were sharp, hard, and familiar. I stared at his dark eyes—they hadn’t changed. A thick, dark beard covered his jaw, emphasizing the width of his neck and his shoulders. He was massive, his body defined by dense, raw muscle. It was a physical presence that filled the entire monitor.

My breath hitched. The years rushed back, collapsing in a single, suffocating instant. Everything I had tried to bury, everything I had run from—it was all right there in front of me, staring back from the light of the monitor.

I wasn't just remembering. I was falling back in.