The Summer Garden (52 page)

“How is Ant?” she asked.

“He’s fine.”

“Did you feed him?”

“Yes, I fed him. Took him to the movies, too.”

“He must have enjoyed that. Spending time with you.”

Tatiana did not smell remotely of alcohol or smoke, or other people. Not remotely. She smelled of the same musk oil perfume she had put on earlier. She was not crumpled, she was not touched, she didn’t have the breath of other people on her. Alexander was standing very close to her, right behind her; his stomach was pressing into her back, her strawberry-scented head was deep under his chin, and her hair was in his hands.

“Can you help me with the dress?” she asked quietly. “I can’t get the hooks undone.”

Alexander undid her dress, leaving his hands on her bare arms. Leaning down he kissed her shoulder. She moved away. “Don’t, all right.”

“Tania…”

“Just don’t, all right.”

He turned her to him. She wouldn’t look up. The dress was loose, falling down. She let it drop to the floor and was left in a new one-piece purple lace corselet and black stockings. He wanted to mention the purple lace bought for a night out without him but didn’t think now was the time. She still wouldn’t look at him. He cupped her face, lifting it to him, bent, and kissed her reluctant lips. Her hands came up to push him away, and didn’t.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“I went to the hospital. I kept Erin company on nightwatch.”

He exhaled heavily out. Her face was still in his hands.

Turning away from his mouth, from his eyes, she stood pressed against him. They were so quiet now, as if the fight had left them, the way they should’ve been when Anthony was outside their door. They stared mutely at each other. Her eyes filled with tears.

“No, no, come on, shh,” Alexander said. He went to close and lock the door and took the phone off the hook. Fully undressing her and himself, he laid her down on the bed, and caressed her as slowly as his impatient roving hands would let him. “Shh…look how warm and soft you are…I’m sorry I hurt you earlier. I’ll make it better, I’ll make it up to you.” With a groan, he lightly fondled her breasts. “Don’t be upset with me, all right?”

“I’m
so
upset with you. How could I not be?”

“I don’t know.” He stared into her wet, unsmiling, disconcertingly made-up eyes. “Just don’t be. You know I can’t take it when you’re upset with me.” He kissed her pouty lips until they opened and kissed him back, he kissed her until she lay a little flatter and more relaxed on the bed, and all the while his palm caressed her small patch of downy hair.

“Shura…don’t…”

“Don’t what?” Alexander bent open-mouthed to her breasts.

“I don’t want you to…” she moaned, trying to lie still, not squirm.

“No?” Bending below her navel, Alexander rubbed his lips back and forth against her blonde silken mound, his hand nudging her thighs. “Come on…” he whispered. “Spread your thighs for me…like I love.” With his fingertips he stroked her lightly. “Tell me, whisper to me what else I can do to make you happy with me…” She said nothing. “Come on…something nice?…something gentle…?”

She held her breath, not speaking. But now she lay like he loved. He kissed her. “Tania…look, your softest lips, your lovely pink tender lips, so moist, so parted, look, they’re not upset with me…” Alexander whispered soothingly, his tongue slipping in and out of her mouth while his fingers slipped in and out of her. She grasped the sheets, bare and open under his hands.

From his years with her, from the thousand beats of their common time, there were few things Alexander knew better than her body’s response to him. He stopped touching her. A breathless “Ah,” escaped her mouth.

He waited a few moments, and then resumed his caresses, increasing the pressure ever so slightly, and when she moaned in a peaking tremor, he pulled away again. A barely stifled heave left her hips. When Tania was happy she pleaded with him in two languages at this juncture to do all sorts of things to her.

But not tonight. She wasn’t even touching him. Tonight she pleaded nothing, spoke in no tongues, her eyes closed, her lips parted, even as her curving body began to shudder.

“Tatia…” Alexander murmured, looking at her, “please tell me, anything at all you want me to do to make you happy?”

She turned her face away, in a deep moan, her head back, her throat elongated, her hips rising up to him. She was glistening, but she wasn’t pleading.

He shook his head, kneeling between her splayed legs. She was so stubborn—and so blonde and bloomy.

There were so many things he liked to do to her, but tonight there was barely time for her penchant weakness—his fingertips caressing her nipples while he softly sucked her—before she cried out, clutching his head, and became neither reluctant nor unforgiving, nor stubborn. Alexander didn’t pull away. He kept his heated mouth over her, his hand on her, his insistent fingers on her, and she didn’t—and couldn’t—stop crying out or quivering or grasping onto his head until he thoroughly released her and then and only then did she unclench slightly and lie panting with her feet still tapping out a rasping drumbeat on his back.

Oh Shura
, she whispered. Oh Shura was certainly better than Shura, don’t.

Yes, babe?
Climbing up and kneeling over her, Alexander put himself into her moaning mouth, but he was so aroused he didn’t need another thrust, another squeeze of her hands. He needed only one thing.

Getting off the bed, he pulled her forward to lie in front of him and leaned between her legs to kiss her. She reached for him, taking him, pulling him in; her eyes open, her lips open.

His hands gripping the backs of her thighs, Alexander thrust once, twice, then stopped. Straightening out, he moved shallow and slow, and then as deep deep deep as he thought she could take. Tatiana’s mouth was in an O, she couldn’t breathe.
Tania…too much
? he whispered. She couldn’t speak, not even a yes. He waited a moment, he would have liked a yes, waited, pulled fully out, thrust fully in, and then she was suffocating and crying out. Holding her as steady as he could, he pulsed shallowly to prolong her moaning spasms and then stopped for a few moments, to catch a breath, to let her catch a breath, to kiss her, to nuzzle her breasts, to whisper how sweet she was like this as he stood over her, his hands on her folded thighs, bearing down on her, seeing her, seeing himself; he resumed the asymmetry of his jagged motion while continuing to whisper about his desire and her sweetness until she cried out, her stretched arms trying to grasp onto anything, and melted out again, moaning helplessly…and now it really was too much for her. Alexander knew he should stop. He knew he needed to stop. But he didn’t stop. Too soon she began to sound close to agony instead of ecstasy, and then she was convulsing and crying out.

Okay, okay, shh
, he said, stroking her, watching her as she lay gasping, her eyes closed, her thighs open, her body in a shiver.
Tania, you’re beyond lovely
, he whispered, caressing her, touching her lightly, with his hands, with his mouth, until she was soothed, until she was softened and her time was lengthened.

When he came back on the bed and climbed on her, holding her legs up against his rigid arms, she started to shake her head from side to side.
It’s too much like this, please
, she whispered.
I can’t take it.
He released her legs—but couldn’t help himself, the ratchet of her plea too much for
him
—released her legs but not before two deep full slow agonizing thrusts and her two deep full slow agonizing cries. Leaving her raised legs live and loose, he took her like she loved, on his upright arms in what she called his arc of conjugal perfection, fitted into her slender thighs, her lips, her milling hips reaching for him, her fingers desperately clasping into his chest and neck and head as if to navigate him, in spondaic sync, in iambic rhythm.
Come on, Shura…come on, Shura…come on, come on, come on, come on.
After she quivered out, he didn’t even wait before he came on, he took it the way he wanted it, placing her trembling legs straight up onto his shoulders. But she shook again and whispered,
I can’t take it, you’re too much for me like this, please, please.
This time he was implacable, undeterred and unreleasing, whispering back,
yes, but you’re so good for me like this
, and was steady and slow and unceasing through her rattling body and grasping arms, eventually lying flush on top of her, his arms encircling her, his body overwhelming her, confining and surrounding her, confined and surrounded by her, completely consuming her so that when she came again, it was like an earthquake inside him. And during her impassioned cries, having forgotten herself, she recklessly whispered a rash
I love you
.

Now that is what
I
call a whisper
, said Alexander, rubbing his lips against her eyebrows.

Oh, Shura…
She lay slack underneath him, softly weeping, her face in his neck. Her arms and legs wrapped around his back.

Are you still upset with me?

Less upset, honey, husband
, she moaned.
Less upset
.

Lifting off her, he whispered,
Get on your hands and knees, Tatia
.

She turned over on her hands and knees. Lowering her head into the sheets, her arms stretching out, she raised her hips to him.
Come on, Shura. Come on. Come on.
Everything was prone but her hips.

His hands covering her buttocks and the small of her back, eventually he had to close his eyes and hold his breath because
it was so fucking good…
until she, in her tumult, in her gasping abandon, tried to crawl away from him. A drenched Alexander leaned over her quivering weakening body, his chest on her back, his face in her satin hair, fondling her breasts, threading his taut hard fingers through her taut soft ones, slipping slowly out and slowly in.
You’re so good, Tatia
, he whispered.
Just a little more. You’re so beautiful…you’re so lovely…

He finished married, stressed and stark, on top of her and in her arms, and after stroking her to calm her down while she begged him for mercy in two languages even as she was coming down, Alexander, propped up on his elbow, lay beside her soaked, racked body and kissed her face, gazing at her all freshly loved and parched and breathless. “Why do you get so frantic?” he asked. “I swear, there are times you act as if you’re married to someone else. What’s the matter with you?”

Her eyes were closed as she received his kisses, her hand stroking the back of his head. She moved to cradle into him. He pulled the quilts over them. “I’m sorry I was late coming home,” he said. “I won’t come home that late again, I won’t upset you. But what are you worried about?”

“You told me you weren’t going to see any girls…”

“Come on,” he whispered. “Shh.”

Her damp face became tight.

“I took Steve up to the suite,” Alexander said, wiping her forehead and speaking with reluctance, “and fell into a chair. There were, I don’t know, thirty of us, it was loud, there was music, and commotion, and I was still sitting there trying to sober up a little when two or three girls were brought in—complete with their bodyguards.”

She looked up at him.

“What? Tania, you have to get that drunk just once in your life, to understand what it’s like. There is nothing but stupor in the chair. You saw me at five, after sleeping in the car for hours. Can you imagine what I was like at two? I couldn’t walk. I was a disgrace.” Alexander laughed lightly.

Tatiana didn’t laugh. “What were they doing?”

“Who?”

“The girls, Alexander.”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to upset her.

“Were they dancing?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “I think so.” They had been naked and dancing. “You are such a good girl,” Alexander whispered. “You’re such a good girl.” He kissed her lips. “It’s all right. They might have been dancing, but I don’t think you can call what I did watching, I was so out of it. But I shouldn’t have come up.”

“So where did the perfume on you come from?”

“As I was trying to get out of the chair, one of the girls came by and said something like, you need help getting up, cowboy? Wait! Where are you going? You’re in my arms, I just made love to you.” He held her in place. “Tania, I just made love to you,” he whispered, looking down into her face. “You’re in our bed, this is the final destination, last stop, all alight here, there’s nowhere else to go.”

Her lips were trembling.

“Let me finish telling you. I don’t want you to hear this third-hand from Amanda who might hear a more slimy version from Steve.”

“Oh, so now your best friend is slimy? I can’t listen to one more thing.”

“One more. And you are my best friend. Listen.”

“I can’t listen. I can’t.”

“She came by, said some stupid things, Steve was standing right by me the whole time. I got up, I’m almost sure without her help. I left. And that’s it.” He stroked her unhappy face. “I promise, I swear.”

“Did you…kiss her?” Tatiana started to cry.

“Tania!” He pressed her head to him. “Holy God. Of course not. She stood next to me, grabbing my sleeve. She must have reeked for her perfume to still be on my clothes. Steve thought I was too drunk to drive. I didn’t want to hear it. He may’ve been right. I left anyway.”

“That Steve.” Tatiana shook her head. “Was the girl…naked?”

The girl had been barely clad. “I don’t think so. I think they only get undressed for the dancing,” said Alexander, not letting Tatiana move away an inch. He saw such misery on her face. “Look, this is the thing—I went up to the suite, I sat in the chair, I didn’t leave right away.” His hand was gliding over her breasts, her stomach, her legs, like he knew she loved; she was like a cat, she adored to be caressed, slow and light, from her shins up to the face, to the hair, and back down, through everything. If his words couldn’t soothe her, perhaps his hands could. “I shouldn’t have gone, that was my mistake, but I did nothing wrong.” Alexander paused. “I’m going to tell you something—do you remember that night in Leningrad when I came drunk to see you at the hospital?”