Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(87)

Undressing her, he lays her naked on the blanket and, undressing himself, lies down next to her.

"One of two things is going to happen after I'm done with you," he says in his most soothing erotic voice. Tatiana can't take it; she moans.

"That's right, one of two," he says, caressing her trembling body. "I am going to make love to you until you either beg me to stop, or promise me that you willnever and I mean, never, play dominoes with me again."

She closes her eyes as her hands reach for him, grasp for him. "I'll tell you right now," she whispers. "I will not be begging you to stop."

"We'll just see about that," says Alexander.

Stop time, stop time, stop time.

One less day. In the late evening, Tatiana climbed into his lap. "No, no, don't stop reading," she purred, snuggling up to him. "I'm cold." She curled into his chest. Enfolding her in his arms, Alexander resumed reading, but only every tenth word was getting through because she was nestled against him, and her silky hair was rubbing against his neck, his throat, his jawbone. Alexander listened to her breath. It was rhythmic. He put the book down and peeked at her. Her eyes were closed.

An aching tenderness filled him. He sat, not moving, inhaling her sleeping soapy feminine smell. She fit into him like a cat under his chin, on his collarbone, her legs tucked in over him, she was warming him as he warmed her. He wanted to squeeze her closer to him but didn't want to do anything to wake her up. Unlike him, she was a light sleeper, and he knew when she got up, she would get off his lap.

Minutes, crystalline, wet, chilly, breathless minutes, and the time tick tock, tick tock, it moved, without a watch, without a clock, without the chime of the hour, the bell of the church, but with every sunrise, every sunset, with the waning cycle of the moon it steamrolled ahead without a backward glance.

How many days left? He didn't want to think about it. When they got married they had twenty-six days in front of them and they said, oh, we've been married three days, five days, ten days. But now Tatiana had stopped talking about it, and Alexander was thinking, how many daysleft ?

Dear Tania. I am so happy, yet I've never been more miserable in my whole life. Can you possibly understand? You with your wings of joy, can you understand what you carry on your shoulders, and how heavy I am? No, you are made of gossamer, nothing can weigh you down, not even me. You float, while I founder--in my fear, in my folly, in my fierce weakness.

A short quake went through her, and she opened her eyes. "Oh," she murmured. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Shh," he said. "Don't get up."

"How long have I been on you?"

"Not long enough. Stay here," he said quietly. "Stay. I'll sit up and you bend your head and sleep on me. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

I'll hold you all night."

"And tomorrow you won't be able to walk, your back will be so bad," she replied. She tickled his neck. They sat. "Well? Are we just going to sit here, or do you plan to do your husbandly duty?"

"We're just going to sit here."

Her fingers caressed his neck, her lips kissed his throat, her hips nested into his lap. "What's the matter?" she asked, nuzzling him. "Come on. Let me make you happy."

"Iam happy."

"Happier. Lie down," she whispered.

When they roughhoused, Tatiana was as assertive as a cougar, but during lovemaking, Alexander couldn't get her to be anything but intemperately tender with him. "Harder," he would tell her. "Touch me harder, Tatia. Don't be so gentle with me."

"Shura..." The fire flickered its harvest moonlight around the cabin. She stroked his face with her gentle fingers, her tongue ran in smooth circles around his lips, her fingers sloped down to his neck and throat and caressed his chest, lightly circled his upper arms where she rested before continuing. "I love your arms," she whispered. "I keep imagining you holding me with them."

"You don't have to imagine," Alexander whispered back. "I'll hold you with them right now."

"You lie still." She continued to caress his chest and his stomach; her fingers were silky and fragile, like small nightingales with webbed feet.

"Tatia," he whispered. "I'm dying."

"No," she said, moving lower. "Not yet."

"Yes, yet," he replied. "Come on, don't make a grown man beg."

Adoring and worshipful, groaning from pleasure, she was bent over him, breathing over him, murmuring. "God, Shura, you are--I love you, I can't take it."

Shecouldn't take it? His eyes shut, he clasped her head between his hands.

A few days. A few nights. Later, later. Tomorrow. The next day, the next evening, another breakfast, a waning quarter-moon night.

She sat on the blanket every night before the fire he built outside in the clearing, and called him to her. And he would come, like a lamb to the slaughter, and lie down and put his head into the lion's lap and she would sit over him and stroke his face, and murmur. Every night she murmured to him, soothing him with her lilting stories or her questions, or her jokes, and sometimes she sang to him. Lately all she sang to him was "Moscow Nights":

"The river flows and flows Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html