Part 1. Invisible Boundaries
Rimma stood in the middle of the living room, eyeing the wall with cool skepticism—the very wall Anton had already torn down in his head. In his fantasy, the space opened into one bright expanse filled with light and “manly freedom,” perfect for an enormous TV. In real life, the wallpaper was old but solid, and the wall itself was load-bearing not only for the building, but—apparently—for their marriage, too.
“There’ll be an archway here,” Anton announced flatly, rapping his knuckles against the plaster. “I’ve already arranged a crew. They’re coming tomorrow to measure. We need to expand our horizons, Rimma. We live like moles.”
Rimma, who had been silently sorting documents on the table, raised her head. Her gaze held none of its usual softness. She managed the logistics department of a major transport network, and her workdays were a nonstop stream of fixing problems created by incompetent people. Home was where she came to rest, not to fight. But Anton—an ordinary sales manager for plumbing supplies—had apparently decided this was his big moment as an architect.
“No archway,” she said calmly.
Anton turned, a patronizing smile frozen on his face.
“Sweetheart, don’t start. I’m the man—I handle how we set up our nest. You’ll love it. More space, more air…”
“Anton, are you even hearing me?” Rimma’s voice sharpened. “I said NO.”
He frowned. He always hated it when his wife switched into “boss mode” at home.
“Why ‘no’?” he demanded. “We’ve been married three years. I live here. I have the right to decide what our apartment looks like.”
Rimma sighed, removed her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This conversation should have happened long ago, but she’d tried to spare his pride. There was no point in sparing it anymore.
“Anton, sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit! I want to know why I can’t renovate my own apartment!”
“Because it isn’t your apartment,” Rimma said, each word crisp. “And it isn’t even mine.”
Anton froze. His hand, lifted for yet another dramatic gesture, hung in midair.
“What do you mean?” he asked hoarsely. “We live here. You said—”
“I said I have a place to live. I never said I own it,” Rimma replied, measuring out the truth like medicine. “This apartment belongs to my aunt, Zhanna. She’s been living in Canada for ten years. She let me stay here, pay only utilities, and keep everything in order. But any remodeling—knocking down walls, ‘archways’—is strictly forbidden. The apartment has to stay exactly as she left it, in case she decides to come back or sell it.”
Anton’s face changed color slowly—first going gray, then blooming with red blotches.
“So… it’s your aunt’s?” He sank onto the sofa as if his knees gave out. “And me? I’ve put money into this place… I bought that bathroom faucet! I installed the baseboards!”
“The faucet cost three thousand rubles, Anton. And you installed the baseboards because you wanted to, even though I offered to hire someone. You’ve lived here rent-free for three years. Downtown. Not paying a single kopek in rent. Do you think a faucet gives you ownership rights?”
“You deceived me,” he hissed, staring at her like she was the enemy. “You made me believe I had a home.”
“You made yourself believe it,” Rimma shot back. “You have nothing to do with the apartment—or the dacha,” she reminded him. “You knew perfectly well we never signed any documents. You just decided that if you sleep here, you must be the master.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is…” Anton sprang up, his lips trembling. “So I’m nobody here? A freeloader? A tenant?”
“You’re my husband,” Rimma said. “Or you would’ve been—if you hadn’t started dividing up square meters that don’t belong to you.”
Anton stormed out of the room and slammed the door. The walls he’d dreamed of tearing down shuddered from the impact.
Part 2. Poisoned Roots
The next few days passed in a heavy, padded silence. Anton moved around the apartment like a shadow, conspicuously touching nothing except his personal things. He slept on the edge of the bed, facing the wall, radiating a universe-sized grievance with his entire body. He felt betrayed. In his mental picture of life, a man who moved into a woman’s home automatically became the captain of the ship. And now it turned out he was just a passenger—one who could be dropped into a lifeboat at any moment.
Looking for support, Anton called his mother. He expected righteous outrage, sympathy, assurances that Rimma was a schemer.
“Mom, can you imagine?” he complained into the phone, pacing the kitchen while Rimma was out. “She hid it all this time! The place is her aunt’s! I’m nobody there! I nailed up a shelf, I poured my soul into it!”
There was a pause on the other end. Lidiya Petrovna—simple, but street-smart—didn’t rush to pour oil on the fire.
“Antosha,” she finally said, in a voice stripped of the pity he’d hoped for. “Why are you acting like you’ve been stung? Rimma’s your wife. You live fine, it’s clean, the neighborhood’s good. What do you care whose name is on some registry paper as long as no one’s throwing you out?”
“Mom! You don’t understand!” Anton cried. “I feel worthless! I have nothing!”
“Then earn something,” his mother answered evenly. “Rimma’s right. It’s not yours. And it’s not hers either. Be grateful you’re not dragging yourselves from one rented room to another. And don’t you dare demand what you haven’t earned. Take your empty ambitions and go to hell.”
Anton tossed the phone onto the table. Betrayal. Betrayal everywhere. Even his own mother had sided with that… that landowner.
That evening, when Rimma came home from work exhausted after endless meetings, Anton was waiting for her in the kitchen. He sat at the table with an empty mug in front of him, looking like he’d just buried his favorite dog.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked instead of greeting her.
Rimma raised an eyebrow. She had only just walked in.
“There’s soup in the fridge. Heat it up. Or have your hands withered from all this suffering?”
“I talked to my mother,” Anton said meaningfully, ignoring her tone.
“And what did Lidiya Petrovna say—tell you to pack your bags?”
Anton’s jaw tightened.
“She said you’re right. Technically.”
“Technically?” Rimma snorted as she poured herself water. “Anton, I’m right in practice.”
“But you don’t understand one thing!” He slapped his palm on the table. “You humiliate me with your superiority! You have everything: a career, a car, prospects. Even this apartment—okay, it’s your aunt’s—but you’re the one in charge here. And what do I have? An old Lada that’s rotting in my dad’s garage, and a job where my boss rides me every day.”
“And whose fault is that?” Rimma leaned against the counter. “Am I stopping you from finding another job? Am I stopping you from studying?”
“I just got unlucky with family!” he shouted. “Your aunt’s in Canada, your grandfather left you a dacha… Everything was served to you on a platter! And I’m supposed to claw my way through dirt? It’s not fair! Next to you I don’t feel like a man—I feel like… an accessory!”
His face twisted with envy and pain. This wasn’t simple resentment; it was the deep, black envy of a loser toward someone who’d simply done better.
“Anton, stop winding yourself up,” Rimma said tightly. “Don’t talk like that.”
“No, Rimma. I’m not winding myself up. It’s a fact. I’m broke as a beggar. And it’s destroying our marriage.”
Part 3. A Deal with Conscience
Saturday didn’t begin with rest—it began with the nightmare continuing. Anton must have been plotting all night, because at breakfast he looked frighteningly determined. His eyes had a feverish shine.
Rimma sipped coffee, scanning the news on her tablet. She’d hoped the storm had passed, but the kitchen felt charged to the point of sparking.
“I’ve been thinking,” Anton began, not touching his food. “There’s a way to fix everything. To give me my dignity back.”
Rimma tensed and set the tablet aside.
“What are you talking about?”
“The apartment is your aunt’s—fine. I can’t do anything about that,” he rattled on, fast, as if afraid she’d cut him off. “But you have a dacha. Your grandfather’s dacha. Two-story house, a bathhouse, ten sotkas of land. It’s registered in your name.”
“And?” Rimma’s voice dropped several degrees.
“Sign it over to me.”
Rimma blinked, convinced she’d misheard.
“What?”
“Make a deed of gift to me,” Anton repeated, staring at her with a kind of crazed hope. “That will make us equal. I’ll feel like I have property, like I’m the owner. I’ll take care of the house, the garden. I’ll feel like a man! It’ll save our family, Rimma. You’re well-off—one day you’ll inherit your aunt’s place anyway. But I need something now. So I’m not some penniless nobody in your eyes.”
Rimma stared at him and realized she was looking at a stranger. Greed had mixed with childish entitlement inside him, creating something ugly.
“Do you hear yourself, Anton?” she asked quietly. “You’re demanding I hand you my grandfather’s inheritance—something he built with his own hands over twenty years—just to soothe your ego?”
“It’s not ego—it’s fairness!” he snapped. “We’re a family! Everything should be shared! But if you’re so greedy, then let’s split spheres of influence. You keep the apartment, I get the dacha. That’s honest!”
“The apartment isn’t mine!” Rimma barked. “How many times do I have to repeat it?”
“Then it will be yours! And the dacha already is yours! What, you begrudge it to your husband? I’m not a stranger! You’re just a stingy witch clutching your precious square meters!”
“Anton, you’re sick. You need help.”
“To hell with your lectures!” he roared, springing up. “I demand respect! I demand my share! If you don’t sign the dacha over to me, then you don’t love me. Then I mean nothing to you!”
“You’re blackmailing me with ‘love’ for real estate?” Rimma stood up; her hands didn’t shake—they filled with a heavy strength. “You want to become a man at my expense?”
“I want guarantees!” Anton spat, flecks of saliva flying. “Guarantees you won’t throw me out like a dog tomorrow! Sign the dacha over and we’ll live happily. I’ll even close my eyes to the fact you earn more. I’ll forgive you for humiliating me!”
“I… humiliated you… by earning money?” Rimma repeated, feeling something dark and hot rise inside her. It wasn’t just anger. It was rage mixed with disgust.
Part 4. A Valkyrie’s Fury
“Yes, I’ll forgive it!” Anton couldn’t stop now—he was carried away by his own bitterness. “You think it’s easy for me? Every day watching you get into your foreign car while I take a minibus? Watching you buy clothes I’d have to work three months for? You crush me! You castrate me with your success! You have to share to restore balance! Curse your money if you can’t understand basic things!”
Rimma grabbed the heavy ceramic sugar bowl from the table. Anton flinched instinctively, but his eyes still burned with arrogant demand.
“Go roll away like a sausage, you miserable impotent excuse for a man!” Rimma screamed.
This wasn’t the cry of a wounded woman. It was the roar of a predator. Anton expected tears, excuses, attempts to soothe him, plead, negotiate. He was used to women fearing scandal. Rimma didn’t fear it. She became a hurricane.
“YOU—” She hurled the sugar bowl into the wall, an inch from his head. The ceramic exploded into shards, and sugar fell in a white cloud over the floor. “YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO? YOU—A NOBODY WHO COULDN’T EVEN CHANGE A TAP IN THREE YEARS WITHOUT WHINING?”
Anton pressed himself into the chair back. He had never seen her like this. Rimma advanced, her face twisted with revulsion and fury.
“YOU WANT TO FEEL LIKE A MAN? THEN BE ONE!” she roared, snatching his laptop bag from the chair and dumping everything onto the floor. “GO EARN IT! BUY YOURSELF AN APARTMENT! BUY A CAR! BUILD A HOUSE! DON’T BEG YOUR WIFE FOR PIECES OF HER LIFE!”
“Rimma, calm down… what’s wrong with you…” he stammered, going pale.
“SHUT UP!” she cut him off. Now the fruit bowl flew. Apples rolled across the kitchen like cannonballs. “YOU DARED TO THROW MY WORK IN MY FACE? YOU DARED TO BLAME ME FOR HAVING A BRAIN? WITH YOUR ENVY YOU DON’T NEED PROPERTY—YOU NEED A MUZZLE!”
Anton jumped up and tried to retreat into the hallway, but Rimma blocked him. She didn’t hit him—no. She destroyed him with sheer force, with unstoppable energy.
“YOU WANTED THE DACHA? MAY YOUR GREED TEAR YOU APART! I’D RATHER BURN THAT PLACE DOWN THAN GIVE IT TO A LEECH LIKE YOU!”
“Quiet… the neighbors will hear…” he squeaked.
“I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE NEIGHBORS!” Rimma grabbed his jacket from the hook and flung it into his face. The metal zipper tag smacked his cheek. “GET OUT! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW! IF YOUR STENCH IS STILL HERE IN FIVE MINUTES, I SWEAR—”
“Rimma, let’s talk calmly… I got carried away…”
“CALMLY?” She laughed—a harsh, hysterical sound. “You wanted ‘guarantees’? Here’s my guarantee: if you don’t leave this second, I’ll call the neighbor and say you’re robbing me. And I won’t care that you’re my husband! GO TO HELL!”
She grabbed his shoes and threw them out onto the landing, then yanked the front door wide open.
“OUT!”
Anton, clutching his jacket and hopping on one foot as he tried to put on his shoes, stumbled into the stairwell. He was stunned. He thought he’d backed her into a corner—only to discover he’d woken a dragon that burned him to ash. The steel door slammed shut with a dull boom, cutting him off from the “cozy nest,” the “aunt’s apartment,” and his fantasies about the dacha.
Part 5. King of Ruins
Two hours later Anton sat in his mother’s kitchen, in an old Khrushchyovka that smelled of medicine and age. Around him lay hastily packed plastic bags—things Rimma had “generously” placed outside the door a little later.
He sat on a stool, staring at the peeling paint on the windowsill. Lidiya Petrovna clattered dryly with pots at the stove. She had already listened to his stumbling version of events, where he was the victim of female hysteria and senseless aggression.
“She’s insane, Mom,” Anton muttered, rubbing his bruised cheek. “Came at me like a witch. I just suggested a way to strengthen the family… and she… She’s a greedy animal. She has money coming out of her ears, but she begrudged her husband a little patch of land.”
Lidiya Petrovna turned off the gas and faced him. The weight of disappointment in her eyes made Anton uneasy.
“You’re a fool, Antosha,” she said without anger—only bleak certainty. “A complete fool. You had a golden woman. Smart, beautiful, respected. Took you in, fed you, gave you a roof. And you?”
“What did I do? I wanted fairness!”
“Fairness?” His mother gave a bitter little smile. “You wanted a free ride. You wanted power where you hadn’t even hammered a single nail. You thought she’d bow to you if you raised your voice? Instead she showed you who the real man in that house is—the one who can earn, and protect what’s his.”
“You’re taking her side again?” Anton squealed. “I’m your son!”
“And that’s what hurts,” Lidiya Petrovna sighed. “That I raised someone so… petty. You’ll live here now. You’ll sleep on the folding cot in the passageway. Your father—may he rest in peace—wasn’t a star either, but he never asked for someone else’s piece.”
Anton clenched his teeth. To hell with all of them. No one understood him. No one appreciated his “sensitive soul.”
He pulled out his phone to send Rimma an angry message—demand apologies, threaten a division of property (though there was nothing to divide)—but he saw he’d been blocked everywhere. Social networks, messengers—everything. As if he’d been erased from her life with an eraser.
Anton looked around his mother’s tiny kitchen: chipped tile, a dripping tap, the ticking of a cheap clock. This was his kingdom now—the kingdom he’d earned.
“Nothing,” he whispered viciously, fist tightening. “She’ll come crawling back. She’ll realize money doesn’t keep you warm at night. She’ll regret throwing out a real man.”
But deep down, where a few grains of common sense still survived, he knew Rimma wouldn’t crawl back. What would keep her warm was an excellent heating system in a downtown apartment—and freedom from the parasite who never understood that being a man isn’t a line in a property registry, it’s what you do.
Anton poured himself some cold tea, stared out into the dark window, and felt a hollow chill spreading inside him. He’d lost everything. He’d gambled his family for the hunger to own something—and ended up with nothing at all. And the worst part was that if he was honest—truly honest—there was no one to blame but himself.
But admitting that would mean killing the last scraps of the swollen ego he clung to. So he chose curses instead.
“Greedy bitch,” he hissed into the emptiness. “Choke on your dacha.”
And somewhere in the city center, Rimma was calling a cleaning service to scrub the apartment of shards, sugar, and the last traces of a man who had never become her family. She breathed deeply and freely, feeling her rage give way to a strange, luminous calm.
