CHAPTER 6. SO MANY SINGLE MEN OUT THERE, YET I LOVE A MARRIED ONE

There was no taiga. There was Star City, twenty-five kilometers from Moscow. That's where the medical examination took place. That's where intensive training began for new space tourists who were supposed to be sent into orbit to film some patriotic blockbuster—a project designed to siphon off astronomical budget funding.

Now, alongside thoughts of his sold-out homeland and betrayed wife, came thoughts about the feudal vassalization of subcontractors: the owners of his new "girlfriend" got the lion's share, she got crumbs, and he got nothing but free meals and fitness in a semi-closed facility.

You couldn't say he was poorly treated, but the very next day, when asked if he'd like the baked fish with vegetable garnish, he rolled his eyes meaningfully. She nodded and arranged a private audience in the shower, where she assured him that the budget embezzlement didn't diminish the seriousness of the real mission and promised to show him video surveillance of his wife and son. She insisted on mandatory daily intimacy — to satisfy those watching.

The spectacle happened right after the shower. He was thrown onto his back, mounted, and used with virtually no foreplay. Afterward, he was handed a tablet with photographs and access to video cameras installed in his apartment, with assurances that this was a fair trade.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember how he'd sworn to his wife to be faithful. How he'd wanted to be the kind of father who set an example, a man who couldn't be bought. How he'd condemned those who justified betrayal with "I had no choice." But did he have a choice now either? Or had he simply been seduced, tamed, and now had everything arranged to look like he'd chosen it all himself? He remembered how he used to laugh at movie "agents of influence." Now he was that agent himself, only without even a salary — just bird's rights. One question haunted him: what had he become — an actor in a performance, or truly a new person cultivated in the laboratory of someone else's will?