The Summer Garden. Paullina Simons

liquid stomach was pulsing.

      “You need to stop with the magazines.” Bending, Alexander pressed his mouth into the back of her head, running his lips back and forth against her, and Tatiana groaned, and was embarrassed that she couldn’t stop herself in time.

      “If I don’t read them, how else am I going to know how to please my husband?” she said thickly.

      “Tatia, you don’t need to read any magazines for that,” he said.

      We’ll have to see about that, she thought, in trepidation at her own anticipated audacity, turning around and stretching out her tremulous hand to him.

      His hands behind his head, Alexander lay naked in bed on his back, waiting for her. Tatiana locked the door, took off her silk robe and stood in front of him with her long blonde tresses down over her shoulders. She liked the look in his eyes tonight. It wasn’t neutral. When he reached to switch off the light she said, no, leave the light on.

      “Leave the light on?” he said. “This is new.”

      “I want you to look at me,” Tatiana said, climbing on top of his stomach, spanning him. Slowly she let her hair fall down onto his chest.

      “How does it feel?” she murmured.

      “Mmm.” His hands on her hips, Alexander arched his stomach into her open thighs.

      “Silky, right?” she purred. “So soft, silky … velvety …”

      And Alexander groaned.

      He groaned! He opened his mouth and an unsuppressed sound of excitement left his throat.

      “Feel me, Shura …” she murmured, continuing to rub herself ever so lightly against his bare stomach, her long loose hair fluttering along with her flutters. But it was stirring her up too much; she had to stop. “I thought maybe if the hair was silky,” she whispered, moving her head from side to side as the cascading mane feathered him in silk strands across his chest, “you’d want to put your hands in it … your lips in it again.”

      “My hands are on it,” he let out.

      “I didn’t say on it. I said in it.”

      Alexander stroked her hair.

      She shook her head. “No. That’s how you touch it now. I want you to touch it like you touched it then.”

      Alexander closed his eyes, his mouth parting. His gripping hands pulled her hips lower on him, while he pulled himself higher. Tatiana felt him so geared up and searching for her that in one second all her grand efforts with mayonnaise were going to come to the very same end that had already been happening in their bed for months.

      Quickly she bent to him, moving herself up and away. “Tell me,” she whispered into his face, “why have you stopped caring how I keep my hair?”

      “I haven’t stopped.”

      “Yes, you have. Come on. You’re talking to me. Tell me why.”

      Falling quiet, Alexander took his hands away from her hips and rested them on her knees.

      “Tell me. Why don’t you touch me?”

      Alexander paused heavily, looking away from her searching eyes. “The hair is not mine anymore. It belongs to the other you, the you of New York and red nail polish and high-heeled dancing, and Vikki, and building a life without me when you thought I was dead—as you absolutely should have. I’m not against you. But that’s what it reminds me of. I’m just telling you.”

      Tatiana put her hand on his cheek. “Do you want me to cut it? I’ll cut it all off right now.”

      “No.” Alexander moved his face away. They were quiet. “But nothing is ever enough, have you noticed?” he said. “I can’t touch you enough. I can’t make you happy. I can’t say anything right to you. And you can’t take away from me a single thing I’ve fucked up along the way.”

      She became deflated. “You’re here, and you’re forgiven for everything,” she said quietly, sitting up and closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at his tattooed arms and his scar-ribbon chest.

      “Tell me the truth,” Alexander said. “Don’t you sometimes think it’s harder—this—and other stuff like the magazines quizzes—harder for the two of us? That magazine quiz just points up the absurdity of us pretending we’re like normal people. Don’t you sometimes think it would be easier with your Edward Ludlow in New York? Or a Thelma? No history. No memories. Nothing to get over, nothing to claw back from.”

      “Would it be easier for you?”

      “Well, I wouldn’t hear you cry every night,” Alexander said. “I wouldn’t feel like such a failure every minute of my life.”

      “Oh my God! What are you talking about?” Tatiana yanked to get off him, but now it was Alexander who held her in place.

      “You know what I’m talking about,” he said, his eyes blazing. “I want amnesia! I want a fucking lobotomy. Could I please never think again? Look what’s happened to us, us, Tania. Don’t you remember how we used to be? Just look what’s happened.”

      His long winter’s night bled into Coconut Grove through all the fields and villages in three countries Alexander plundered through to get to the Bridge to Holy Cross, over the River Vistula, to get into the mountains, to escape to Germany, to save Pasha, to make his way to Tatiana. And he failed. Twenty escape attempts—two in Catowice, one ill-fated one in Colditz Castle, and seventeen desperate ones in Sachsenhausen, and he never got to her. He had somehow made all the wrong choices. Alexander knew it. Anthony knew it. With the son asleep, the parents had hours to mindlessly meander through the fields and rivers of Europe, through the streets of Leningrad. That was not to be wished upon.

      “Stop it,” Tatiana whispered. “Just stop it! You didn’t fail. You’re looking at it all twisted. You stayed alive, that was all, that was everything, and you know that. Why are you doing this?”

      “Why?” he said. “You want it out while sitting naked on top of my stomach with your hair down? Well, here it is. You don’t want it out? Then don’t ask me. Turn the light off, keep the braid in, get your”—Alexander stopped himself—“get off me, and say nothing.”

      Tatiana did none of those things. She didn’t want it out, what she wanted, desperately, was him to touch her. Though the aching in her heart from his words was unabated, the aching in her loins from her desire for him was also unabated. She remained on him, watching his face watching her. Gently she stroked his chest, his arms, his shoulders. Bending to him, she flickered her moist soft lips over his face, over his neck, and in a little while, when she felt him calm down, she whispered to him. Shura … it’s me, your Tania, your wife …

      “What do you want, Tania, my wife?” His hands grazed up her thighs, up her waist, to her hair.

      She was so ashamed of her craving. But the shame didn’t make her crave it any less.

      His hands traveled down to her hips, holding her, pulling her open. “What are you clamoring for?” Alexander whispered, his fingers clamoring at her. “Tell me. Speak to me.”

      She moved a little higher, rubbing her breasts over his mouth.

      Cupping them into his face, Alexander groaned again, his mouth opening underneath them.

      Moaning, Tatiana whispered, “I want you to stroke my hair … rub it between your fingers, knead it like you used to. I used to love that, you touching me.” Her body was quivering. “Hold it tight, so tight … yes! like that … touch my blonde hair that you used to love … do you remember? Don’t you remember?”

      Very slowly Tatiana moved up on his chest, and up and up and up, until she was kneeling over Alexander’s panting parted mouth. Please, please, darling, Shura, whispered Tatiana,