Amy And Anton’s Secret Chats

She sent, “Video sounds fun. We can start small - like daily phrases. Today: how do you ask someone their name?”

There was a pause, then a message arrived with a photo attached - her chat window briefly filled with a crisp rectangle of plastic and the kind of official typography that made her stomach do a small, unwanted roll.

Amy blinked. “What is this?” she typed, before she could decide whether she was being rude. The photo looked like an ID card - her eyes snagged on a young man’s face, the harsh lighting, the bold lettering that belonged to a government font. The name line and numbers were too sharp to be a joke.

Anton wrote, “My ID. For my profile. I am 18 in this photo. I keep it.”

Amy’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. It wasn’t the photo itself that bothered her at first - it was how quickly her mind supplied the rest. The ID photo had the clean, hard edges of something official, something that came with rules and hierarchies and people who were not supposed to be casual.

She tried to be normal about it. “Okay,” she typed. “It looks… serious.”

Anton answered with a warm emoji that didn’t match the seriousness. “Yes. Life was serious. Now I am businessman.”

Amy stared at the word businessman. She’d learned enough Russian basics from her phone app to recognize the shape of the claim - something translated, something smoothed. “What kind of business?” she asked, and immediately regretted the question, like she was poking a bruise.

Anton replied, “Car battery service center. In Russia. Orenburg.” Then, as if he’d sensed her hesitation, he added, “I like to fix things. Batteries are simple. People need power.”

Amy read it twice, searching for the seams. Her laptop fan hummed softly. Somewhere upstairs, a neighbor dropped something heavy and the sound traveled through the floor like a dull drumbeat.

She wrote, “That sounds interesting. Do you work there every day?”

Anton took longer this time. When his message came, it was shorter, almost teasing. “Every day? No. Sometimes I travel. Sometimes I have other plans.”

Other plans. Amy could feel her own curiosity pulling at her like a hook, but her suspicion - quiet and stubborn - started to wake up. The ID photo had arrived too early, too cleanly. A person could share a childhood selfie or a passport photo accidentally, sure. But this was a military-style card, with that unmistakable layout that didn’t belong to a casual profile. Her brain kept turning it over, trying to decide whether she was projecting.

She typed, “Do you mean you travel for business?”

Anton’s next message included a different kind of warmth. “Yes. And sometimes I travel for my heart. You are interesting.”

Amy’s cheeks warmed. That was the spark she’d been secretly hoping for - someone confident enough to flirt without making it awkward. She told herself it was just charming, just a language-app habit. Still, the official ID photo sat in her chat history like a stain that wouldn’t wash out.

She answered carefully. “I’m not sure about interesting yet. Tell me a joke in Russian. Then I will decide.”

Anton replied with a line of Russian text she couldn’t read yet, followed by an English translation. “Why is the battery always calm? Because it knows it will have power.”

Amy laughed out loud. It sounded silly in English and somehow even sillier in Russian, and the laugh loosened something in her chest. She grabbed her mug again, though it was empty now, and took a sip of lukewarm water.

“Okay,” she typed. “That was… surprisingly good. Your English is also good.”

Anton’s next message came with a photo this time that looked like a room - grey walls, a neat desk, and his hand reflected in a window as he stood just outside the frame. No smile. No direct eye contact. Just the impression of a person who liked to control what was seen.

“I practice English with you,” Anton wrote. “And you practice Russian with me. We teach each other.”

Amy’s fingers paused. Teach each other sounded innocent. It also sounded like a system. She didn’t know which thought to trust - the one that wanted to believe in simple friendship or the one that remembered how systems trained people to say the right things at the right time.

She decided to keep it light. “Deal,” she typed. “What’s one simple Russian phrase I can use today?”

Anton answered immediately. “Привет, как дела?” and then, below it, “Hi, how are you?”

Amy smiled again despite herself. “You’re good at this.”

Anton replied, “I am good at many things. You will see.”

The cursor blinked. Amy watched it blink like it had a pulse.

She could have asked more. She could have said, Tell me about your family. She could have asked why the ID photo looked like it belonged to someone in uniform. But she didn’t want to scare him off on the first day. She didn’t want to be the woman who interrogated a man before she even knew his favorite coffee.

Instead, she typed, “I work a lot. What about you?”

Anton’s reply came with a different temperature to it - less playful, more careful. “I work. I also have home. I have wife.”

Amy’s smile faded so fast it felt like a door closing. She hadn’t expected that, not yet. Her brain snagged on wife the way it had snagged on ID. She was learning him too quickly, and the learning didn’t feel purely romantic. It felt like a pattern.

Amy forced herself to ask what was still safe. “Wife? Is she with you?”

Anton wrote, “Not always. She is in Russia. I am… busy.” He didn’t add details, just that word busy, plain as a brick.

Amy’s throat tightened. She didn’t know him well enough to judge, but she knew what busy could mean. It could mean work. It could mean travel. It could mean time away that never came with explanations.

She tried to keep her tone friendly. “Okay. I’m not asking to be nosy,” she typed. “I just don’t understand why you’re chatting with me if you’re married.”

Anton responded with a pause long enough that her stomach started to churn. When the message came, it was softer. “Because I need someone kind. Because language is easier with a woman who is honest.” Then, after a beat, “And because you feel safe.”

Safe.

Amy stared at that word until it started to look like a lie she wanted to believe. Safe was what you told someone before you asked them to step closer.

She typed, “Safe is a strong word.”

Anton’s next message arrived with another flirt, gentle but pointed. “Then I will say: interesting.” He added, “Your eyes are bright on video. I imagine.”

Amy’s heart kicked once, then settled into a wary rhythm. She hadn’t sent a photo yet. She hadn’t done anything on camera. The imagination line felt like he was trying to build closeness without earning it.

Her suspicion didn’t become proof. It just became louder in her body. She thought about the ID card - too-perfect, too early, too official. The app wasn’t supposed to be a place where strangers slid official documents into chats like they were candy.

Amy leaned back and let the kitchen air hit her skin. The radiator clicked again, and the sound made her think of metal. She looked at her hands on the keyboard and realized she was holding her breath.

“Anton,” she typed, “when we do video, can we start with basic conversation? Like introductions and everyday stuff. I want it to be normal.”

Anton replied, “Normal is good.”

Then: “But I also want to see you smile when you learn.”

Amy watched the messages stack. She wanted to believe he was simply a flirt who liked to charm. She wanted to believe the ID photo was an old mistake, a youthful relic he’d forgotten to remove. She wanted the spark without the dread.

But the ID photo sat in her chat history, crisp and unblinking, and her mind kept reaching for what it meant. She didn’t know if he was in the military, but she knew the card looked like it came from a world where men wore certainty like armor.

Amy typed, “When do you want to video chat?”

Anton’s answer came quickly, as if he’d already planned it. “Weekly. Same day. I can start next week.”

Amy felt a flicker of satisfaction. Weekly meant structure. Structure meant reliability. For a moment she let herself be excited - she liked the idea of looking forward to something pleasant.

She wrote, “Okay. Next week. What day is good for you?”

Anton replied with the exact day and time, including a time zone conversion that made her pause. He’d done the math without asking. It was thoughtful. It was also too smooth.

Amy sent, “Sounds good. Do you want to practice English or Russian first?”

Anton wrote, “Russian first. I want to hear your accent. Then English.”

Amy swallowed. Hearing her accent. That was normal. But the way he said it made it sound like he was already measuring her, already cataloging her response.

Still, she felt pulled toward him. The conversation flowed easily, and the joke had been genuinely funny. She liked the way he used English without sounding like a script. She liked the way he didn’t seem offended by her questions. Even the wife comment didn’t automatically mean cruelty - lots of marriages had distance, lots of reasons for absence.

The problem was that his distance arrived right alongside an ID photo that looked like it belonged to someone trained to keep secrets.

Amy typed, “Okay. Russian first.”

Anton’s reply was immediate and warm, almost affectionate. “Good. Tomorrow, I will send you one new phrase. For your homework.”

Homework. Amy’s stomach tightened again. The flirt was starting to sound like instruction, even if he never said it that way. She didn’t want him to turn their friendly practice into something demanding.

She stared at the chat window and decided to set a boundary without making it a fight. “No homework,” she typed. “Just conversation.”

Anton paused. When his next message came, it read like he was agreeing while also steering. “Conversation is homework for the heart.”

Amy rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see her. “That’s dramatic.”

“Maybe,” Anton wrote. “But I mean it. I want to talk to you.”

Talk to you. In the quiet of her apartment, that simple sentence felt like it had gravity.

Amy looked at the ID photo again, the young face framed by official edges. She tried to imagine the person in the photo standing in a car battery shop, smiling like a businessman, chatting with her about phrases. Her mind couldn’t make the image fit without stretching.

She didn’t confront him. Not yet. She didn’t have proof, only a shape of doubt.

Instead she wrote, “Okay. We’ll talk. But if you send more official photos too fast, I’m going to get nervous.”

Anton’s next message made her laugh despite the tension. “Then I will send less official.”

Then, after a beat: “But I will send one more if you ask. If you are brave.”

Amy stared at that line and felt the spark and the unease hold hands. She wanted to ask what he meant by brave. She wanted to ask whether the ID card belonged to the kind of training where people learned to keep their eyes down and their lips shut.

She didn’t. Not yet.

The app’s little read-receipt appeared. Anton was still there, attentive, waiting. Amy’s cursor blinked again on her side. She could keep the conversation light and safe until their first video chat, until she could see his face and the room behind it and the truth hidden in the background.

She typed, “Brave is for next week.”

Anton replied, “Deal.”

The chat window went quiet. Amy set her phone down and pressed her fingertips to her temple, feeling the warmth there. The kitchen smelled faintly like dish soap and old coffee. The radiator clicked. Somewhere outside, a car hissed past on wet pavement, and the sound made her think of tires on blacktop, of roads that led somewhere she wasn’t invited.

She looked back at the chat history - his first line, the ID photo, the wife comment, the smooth time zone math, the way he’d said safe like he’d already tested the word.

Next week was still days away. Next week meant a camera, and a camera meant she’d finally have something real to hold in her hands besides that too-perfect rectangle of plastic.

Amy closed her laptop carefully, like sudden movement might make the screen bite back, and lay her forehead against the cool edge of the desk for a second. The spark from Anton’s messages hadn’t disappeared. It never would.

But now it came with a second feeling tucked underneath it, tight as a knot: unease, sharpening itself each time she looked at the official ID photo and tried to decide whether she’d been charmed or recruited - friendly, on a language app, in her own Pennsylvania apartment, without anyone else knowing how close she’d let herself get.

End of chapter one. 46 more chapters in the full book.