Monogamy Book One. Lover: This is one love for life and beyond time

by Victoria Sobolev

  And does Alex remember our magical morning? Of course he remembers! Otherwise his eyes wouldn’t be lit up with happiness, his lips wouldn’t kiss mine at every available opportunity, and he wouldn’t grab me in his arms time and again to spin me around and scare me a little, although how could I be scared in the strongest, most reliable pair of hands in the Universe!

  The next morning, overcast this time but no less magical, Alex tells me, ‘You know, everyone comes to Paris to see the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, but there are far more interesting places in terms of pleasure!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it for a second!’ I say sarcastically, but with a broad smile. ‘And I bet you and Mark could make a bit of extra money as tour guides!’

  Alex looks at me reproachfully, but he doesn’t say anything – he is in too good a mood today.

  ‘Did you bring a swimming costume?’

  ‘A swimming costume? In February? Of course not!’

  ‘So we’ll get you a swimsuit first and then get on with the pleasure!’ he announces, before sealing our plans with a kiss.

  We drive in his black Porsche to an enormous glass-domed building and I have already worked out what it is – a water park! And not just any water park but one of the biggest in Europe – Aquaboulevard de Paris. Inside the dome is an installation of a huge, oversized whale, numerous pools of various shapes and depths, wave pools, exotic plants, and warm water lazy rivers you can escape the cold in. Oh, and steep slides, of course. I have never been to a water park before, but have wanted to for a long time and probably mentioned this to Alex and then forgot. He didn’t forget, though, and of all the possible Parisian delights, he chose this one just for me.

  Wisely, Alex has brought me on a weekday morning. The pools are deserted except for a few pairs of grandparents with their grandchildren, some youngsters – possibly students, possibly schoolchildren – and that’s it. I suspect Alex knows how to relax and has chosen the perfect place and time when there will be fewer people and more fun.

  I’m wearing a scarlet one-piece swimsuit. Alex insisted on it, saying that, for what we were going to do (water slides), a one-piece would be best, and that the man’s trunks definitely needed a strong drawstring. I seem to spend almost all my time laughing at his jokes, which come in an endless, uninterrupted flow. It never ceases to astonish me how he comes up with them all and the constant laughing is making my stomach muscles hurt.

  But now Alex is undressing and I’m not laughing anymore. Despite the fact that we made passionate love to each other this morning, as usual, my laughter and his nakedness are incompatible. In his marine blue trunks, the same ones he wore the year before when we swam in the azure Mediterranean Sea, the guy is beyond sexy. I tell myself that we’ll swim a little, spend a couple of hours on the slides, then I’ll say I’m tired and want to go home. Calming down a little, I notice that Alex is not joking around anymore, either. His darkened gaze is staring at my chest, then slides down to my hips, and, when his pupils expand at the sight of my lips, I snap him out of it.

  ‘Alex!’

  Instantly coming to his senses, he tries to smile and replies in a voice as sweet and sticky as honey, ‘Yes, Lera...?’

  ‘Shall we go swimming?’

  ‘Of course...’ he draws out.

  Then, as if having roused himself, he adds, ‘Shall we go straight for the scariest or practice on the smaller slides first?’

  ‘Well, I’m wearing a one-piece and your trunks are tied tight, so let’s go straight for the scariest! Cool shorts, by the way. I think I’ve seen them somewhere before!’

  Alex laughs and we both relax a little.

  *** ‘Hide and Seek’ (Single Version) by Love X Stereo ***

  We climb the steps up to the slide and I sit down to go first. The water is cold and I moan about it, but then I suddenly feel Alex’s hot chest against my naked back. His equally hot hands are around my waist and, before I’ve even had time to psych myself up for it, I find that I’m flying through the blue tunnel so quickly that I instantly start screaming, and I can hear Alex laughing behind me as he tries to tickle me.

  It is the most incredible sensation! The combination of terrifying and exciting is so fantastic that even the cold water doesn’t feel cold anymore.

  Finally, we come flying out at full speed into a small, but fairly deep, pool, and only then does Alex release me. We come to the surface, happy and wet, and I remove the wet hair stuck to my face, cursing myself for not bringing a hairband. Alex gently turns me around, somehow manages to tie it up in a knot and it stays put! I’m glad the problem is solved but can’t help thinking, ‘How does he know that trick with the hair?’, which ruins my mood slightly.

  ‘Again?’ my dripping wet lover asks, smiling, and with his long hair slicked back by the water, showing his perfect face and emphasising his extraordinary beauty, he is ramping up the pressure on my basic instincts even more, literally dancing on them.

  ‘Let’s do it! Together or separately?’ I am very good at feigning frivolity, hiding every single thought and desire.

  ‘Which would you prefer?’

  ‘Together, then it’s less scary. And when we come flying out, I’ll have a soft landing – on you!’ I say with a wink.

  And liking what I’m saying and how I’m saying it, he’s not just smiling, but blossoming with spring flowers.

  We spend a long time on the slides and, when we’ve finally had enough, we decide to take it easy for a while in one of the Jacuzzis bubbling with hot water.

  I should never have agreed.

  *** ‘Ceremony’ (New Order Cover) by Chromatics ft. Ida No ***

  As soon as we get into the secluded water, my insatiable lover’s arms instantly wrap themselves around me and his lips start nibbling at my ear, the back of my neck – it seems that Alex has decided to trigger a flurry of goose bumps from my secret place. But nothing happens! I’m not used to public displays of affection (even small, almost negligible ones). I pull free and swim away, with Alex following me, then jump out of the water and run along the paths between the pools. They are slippery with water and I’m afraid of falling, but I want to get caught even less and Alex is already close behind. He is cavorting around like a twelve-year-old boy – I have never seen him so full of irrepressible joy!

  He is unexpectedly thrilled and excited with our little ‘chase me’ game and takes it very seriously. When he finally catches me, he devours me with his mouth so openly that I’m forced to pull away again. But it seems that this is exactly what Alex wants: his eyes are ablaze, his mouth is stretched into a predatory smile, and, with a shriek and a giggle, I start running again because, this time, I have decided not to get caught no matter what.

  I run as fast as I can, get to one of the slides and start climbing up. Alex tries to grab me by the ankle, growling like a lion on a hunt, but I am also pretty agile and nimble, my foot is wet and slippery, and Alex’s grip isn’t tight enough to hurt, so I manage to pull free and throw myself down the slide first. He still manages to catch up with me in one of the loops, however, and grabs me with both hands. Before I know it, I’m lying back on him, his lips are kissing me, and his unrelenting caresses as we fly down the slide plunge me into a state of complete and utter happiness.

  I have never experienced moments, feelings, emotions or joys like these before in my life. Only now, at the age of twenty-four, has life given me a taste of itself for the first time. My brain is flooded with thoughts, some of which are rather bold, daring, desperate.

  We fly into the water at full speed and I again try to escape, successfully this time, because I’m closer to the side. I run through the whole water park to the steps leading up to the slide with Alex close behind, also running as fast as he can, but our game, among other things, comes to an abrupt halt when we bump into Mark and his same lady friends, Amber and Vanessa.

  *** ‘Arizona’ by Kings of Leon ***

  Then a drama unfolds with an almost tragic ending.

  The th
ree friends have only just arrived, are still fully dressed and haven’t yet figured out where to sit, while we are dripping wet, practically naked, hot from running, overexcited and emotionally worked up from our childish game. I glance at Alex, wondering why he invited these people when we’ve been having such a good time the last few days just the two of us, but he’s not looking at me, he’s looking at Mark. The smile on his face instantly metamorphoses into a look of annoyance and ill-concealed anger. Sensing something is wrong, Mark hurries to explain.

  ‘The girls wanted to join you on the slides...’ he says uncertainly, as if justifying himself.

  I switch my gaze to the ‘girls’, and they, as expected, are completely mesmerised. Why? Because they’re finally looking at what they didn’t get to see when we were playing cards – Alex’s near-naked body: his unbearably sexy chest, spiced with the tree tattoo made up of numerous initials; his slender legs; his hips clad in wet and clingy blue fabric; his powerful arms; his broad shoulders; and his smooth, flat stomach with its line of dark hair. It is at this not just uncomfortable, but extremely awkward moment that a scandalous thought first occurs to me: the line of hair on his stomach is a pointer to what he values most – sex. Because it catches even the most fleeting of female glances like the carnivorous sundew plant and doesn’t let go, shamelessly drawing it lower and lower until it reaches the waistband of his shorts and filling it with the desire to see, to find out what’s hidden beneath.

  And all this on top of his wet and therefore even curlier hair and his anger-darkened eyes is plunging the poor girls into a red-hot vortex of attraction.

  Alex is created to excite, to enrapture with just his appearance alone. His creator is someone extremely talented with an exceptional understanding of beauty so complete that a single flawless creation is able to satisfy various tastes and diverse subjective desires. If there were a hundred women of differing preferences, ages, nationalities, education and upbringing, all of them would choose Alex out of the hundred sexiest, most beautiful male bodies in the world.

  The French women are stunned. Both are in a daze, awestruck, but only Amber is experiencing what I once went through: she is fiercely drawn to him and not just in a sexual sense. She clearly likes everything about him – body, mind and soul. This fundamental attraction morphs into a gesture identical to my own: as if by itself, her hand comes up and stretches out towards the tree tattooed under the left breast of this unbearably desirable man, seeking to touch it just as my own hand once had.

  Jesus, how many women have laid their palms on that sacred tree? How many fingers have traced the outline of the initials?

  Poor Amber is not even aware that she’s doing it. Some things have such a powerful effect on us that our emotions overrule our thinking and we act strangely, unpredictably. Phenomena exist that the human psyche is unable to resist, and Alex’s beauty is one of them.

  But what can I say about Amber when I, who have already lost count of the number of times I have had sex with this guy over the last few days and was satisfied three times last night and once this morning, I, who am by no means the sexiest woman in the world, have to will the sexual longing in my stomach to abate every time I even so much as glance at him, constantly remind myself of the need for calm and restraint, and persuade my body to wait until evening, or until a couple of hours before dinner at the very least.

  Just as Amber’s hand is about to touch the ink on his tanned skin, Alex intuitively leans back, the movement as unconscious as hers but following his instincts, and pulls in his stomach to prevent her from touching it, then takes a half-step backwards.

  And again, poor Amber! I can only imagine how hurt and humiliated she must be feeling. The beautiful French girl looks bewildered, as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

  Alex hisses at Mark. They move away a little, but the resentment and anger in Alex’s voice cannot mask their conversation.

  ‘Why did you bring them here?! I told you I wanted to be alone with her! Why the hell aren’t you at the office?’

  ‘Why aren’t you at the office?’

  ‘Because I’m on my holidays! You took time off last month and the month before that as well!’

  ‘Okay, okay, calm down! Just let them go on a couple of slides and then I’ll take them away,’ says Mark, backing down quickly.

  Alex walks over to me.

  ‘Lera, I’m going to get dressed... Will you show them where our table is? They’ll be off soon; they’re not staying long.’ His voice no longer sounds angry, but it’s not what you’d call friendly, either.

  ‘You’re going to relax in the water park wearing a jumper?’ I ask reasonably.

  Alex is lost in thought for a while. It seems he knows all too well the effect his body has on women.

  ‘I’ll work something out,’ he answers shortly.

  I take Mark and the girls over to a cosy little corner next to the biggest pool, where Alex and I found a spacious table with soft armchairs. The girls go off to get changed and I ask Mark, ‘Mark, what’s the matter with him?’

  ‘With who?’

  ‘Alex. Why is he behaving so strangely, so aggressively even? He recoiled from Amber as if she had leprosy!’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on, tell me! I need to understand moments like those – he asks me about serious stuff!’

  ‘I know,’ answers Mark without looking at me.

  ‘So?’

  ‘He used to have more than one girl on the go...’

  ‘Like that’s news to me. Thanks for the invaluable information!’

  ‘These days, he wants only one. He wants a family, says he’s tired. He used to be different, but then something changed in his head.’

  ‘When was that? A long time ago?’

  I expect him to say something like, ‘When he met you,’ which was a year ago, but Mark replies, ‘About two years ago.’

  ‘Tell me, does Alex understand French?’

  Mark laughs.

  ‘He doesn’t just understand it; he speaks it fluently. His head was filled with all kinds of stuff when he was a kid, unlike mine. I’m from an ordinary middle-class family, while he is a descendant of the Russian nobility, the rich nobility! Neither his upbringing nor his education were anything like ours, believe me.’

  ‘So what other languages does he know?’

  ‘He speaks excellent German, some Chinese and Japanese, but he doesn’t know Spanish! At all! He says he’s definitely going to learn it. Did you know that his mother is Spanish?’

  ‘Yes, he told me.’

  Suddenly I see Alex, and he’s wearing a pale blue t-shirt that I’ve never seen before. I’m puzzled as to where he got it.

  ‘A new t-shirt?’

  ‘I bought it at the souvenir shop,’ he replies, smiling, and I can see that his mood has already improved.

  *** ‘Love Is A Losing Game’ by Amy Winehouse ***

  We order drinks and food, and Vanessa and Amber return wearing bikinis. I watch Alex and, slowly but surely, the smile slips from his face to be replaced by the same mask I first saw when we were playing cards.

  Amber gently lowers herself into the armchair opposite Alex, and I notice that every one of her movements is imbued with femininity. Even the way she sits down is drastically different from how I move.

  The air around us is heavy with awkwardness and tension. The feeling of suffocation is making me want to leave, to just run away and hide. Mark tries to lighten the mood by making jokes, Vanessa laughs, the oppressive silence lifts, and everyone relaxes a little.

  I try to make my own contribution. It’s a little forced, but I laugh a bit at their jokes and attempt a few of my own.

  Alex and Amber say nothing.

  Finally, our drinks arrive, but, rather than picking his up, Alex uses it as somewhere to focus his gaze. His behaviour is so out of character that I want to cry. I feel a sudden pang of loneliness because Alex is not here anymore. He’s gone. In his place is an inferior m
an I’ve never seen before, sitting silently in a new blue t-shirt, his face stony and his eyes narrowed. It’s as if he’s playing a game that I’m excluded from.

  The alcohol relaxes the three of us a little more and we continue with our efforts to improve the situation, joking and laughing, almost chatting easily, but Amber and Alex stubbornly remain silent.

  Finally, Amber yields to the force of attraction and lifts her eyes to look at Alex at exactly the moment he fixes his gaze on her. Their eyes meet, and I understand that what I’m looking at is chemistry – a sexual attraction so strong that it seems anyone brave enough to stand between them would be able to touch and physically feel it. It’s captivating to watch, the magic of it is astounding, and everyone has noticed: Mark, Vanessa, and I. It is something much more serious than just a game of strip poker followed by some drunk partner swapping.

  Stunned by what we are looking at, we gradually fall silent, but even this change in their surroundings is not enough to break the growing energy of reciprocity between two people who are now in a world of their own, a world that is just for the two of them.

  Pain. Sharp, searing, all-consuming, burning my insides.

  I feel like a blade has been thrust into my chest, a huge butcher’s knife, and is being twisted around. Whatever happens, I know that I will not be having sex today, and perhaps will never have sex with this guy again. Because what I’m feeling right now is beyond anything I have ever felt before.