Chapter 32: On The Edge: Yet Another Decision
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The note Sasha left was written in Cyrillic, which I neither read nor write. I can't even say my alphabet in Cyrillic. I kissed him goodbye with a strange feeling of finality. I was on the edge of decision. Mama always said that I decided things too fast or not at all. This was one of those things I could barely decide at all. I hoped that Sasha was right. I hoped that becoming Alexi's lover would help me to know what I really wanted.
Alexi did finally return after about an hour.
"I couldn't listen to him making love to you."
"He didn't, I mean, we didn't." I stammered. "Here, he left this for you." I thrust the note roughly into his hand. Alexi read it.
"Do you know what he wrote here?"
"I haven't read it." I said. Alexi gave me the paper. "I can't, I don't read Russian."
Alexi leaned over me. "Here it says that he is going back to the hotel. And here, it says that he's giving me a reprieve from the ice for today and tonight, that I may lie with you with his blessing. These two lines I can't read. Can you?" The paper was trembling in my hand.
"They're in English, they say, 'If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it was yours to begin with. If it doesn't, it never will be.'" I didn't translate.
"What does that mean, in Russian?"
"It means if you and I become lovers and I choose him, then I belong with him. If we become lovers and I don't choose him, then it was never meant to be? He is freeing me to make the choice and taking a chance on the outcome."
"That's a big gamble."
"Yeah."
"So, do we become lovers?"
"You have today to win me."
"So little time?"
"If I belong with you to begin with, it won't matter."
"No, I suppose it won't... do you want to do anything special today?"
"Not really, I just want to do what we usually do, that's the way it's been and the way it'll be so we may as well stay with it."
"Sounds like a plan."
We ate breakfast. Alexi was still keeping a close eye on my diet. He often said that I didn't eat enough to sustain a bird, but as long as the scale showed that I wasn't losing weight, he couldn't be too overwhelming about it.
Our ballet lesson seemed very normal, on the surface. I was aware that Alexi looked at me more openly and seemed distracted from the lesson. When he held me, it was very personal, as if he had been trying to keep a neutral touch in the past.
Often during that day, he held my hand or put his arms around me. He called me "Lenoska," which is a pet name, a soft term of endearment, reserved only for the closest and most beloved. I reached out to him as I had not before. It was very right to have his hand in mine, in that right feeling, there was a seed of something which was putting out roots and growing.
During our ice time, the rink was empty, everyone but us was at supper, I guess. He had lifted me right over the boards in his arms and just held me while he skated. I remembered what Elisaveta had once said about her husband doing something very like this and I realized what Alexi was trying to say. In the same way and without words, he wanted me to know that he would be there for me, to take care of me and carry me if I needed it. In complete silence, he had showed where his heart lay and how. It was impossible not to be affected by something so romantic and true, what I had felt from the morning was growing, becoming strong. It was a pain in my heart that would not go.
By evening that growing thing was budding and as we came to my apartment, I knew the point of no return was near. I stood in my bedroom staring out the window. The blinds were down, but not fully closed and the dying light mirrored the turmoil that I felt so strongly. Alexi approached me. He laid a hand on my shoulder. His head was wet from the shower and his skin was damp. With the other hand he tilted my head up and gently kissed me. In that one kiss was all the unrequited passion and all the promise that he could bring to something so simple, so ephemeral as a kiss.
I turned toward him, burying my face in his chest, clinging to him. He undid the buttons on the back of my dress and eased it off my shoulders and over my hips, easing my panties off with it. I was naked in his embrace. He lifted me as he had on the ice and laid me on the bed.
He touched me, with little hesitation, his hands wandering forth over my skin, knowing every small place with certainty. It was as he embraced me that I knew. I finally knew the feeling which had been forming in me that day. So engrossed as he was, he did not notice for a few moments that tears slid down my face. I cried silently, but with increasing conviction. I turned my face from him.
"Lenoska, are you all right? I haven't hurt you or frightened you, have I?"
"No Alexi, It's just... "
"just what, my heart?" He said, folding his arms around me.
"Alexi, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry." He stiffened. "Alexi, I just can't. I thought I could, I even wanted to, but I can't." I was sobbing and almost incoherent. "I never meant to hurt you."
"Do you want me to leave?"
"No... please hold me."
He held me for a moment then moved away, rolling onto his back. I turned toward him, fitting myself to his side and laying my head on his shoulder. He trembled and when I touched his cheek, it was wet with tears.
"Alexi, I didn't know, until just now, when you laid beside me, it was so overwhelming!"
"Then you just knew? just like that?"
I nodded. "I can't be your lover."
"Then you do belong with him. You will never be mine."
"Alexi, I would always be yours, on the ice."
"Then I have a decision to make also."
I nodded.
"Lenoska... I don't want to go."
"You don't have to."
"Would you hold me? At least for tonight?"
Text Copyright © 1998-2003 Mary E. Tyler
