by Tonya Plank
She nodded, eyeing my hand. “I do. Both.” She giggled.
“Good,” I said. “Then I’ll keep both coming.”
“First, I want you to turn over,” she said, the alcohol seeming to give her some punch.
“What?” I said.
“I mean lie on your stomach. I want to check out that tattoo.”
“Ah, the winged thinker.” I rolled over. My favorite. I was pleased she liked it too. It was partly a copy of Rodin’s “The Thinker,” a drawing of a man seated, resting his chin on his hand, deep in thought, but with majestic wings spanning outward to encompass my whole back, and even crossing over my shoulders so the wingtips were visible from my front. The wings were gold with strokes of crimson that made them almost look like flames. I’d always loved that Rodin sculpture and thought large winged creatures were cool, and this tattoo artist in West Hollywood—actually Sadie’s nephew, who I became friends with—suggested this combo.
“Wow. Just, wow,” she said, tracing the outlines with her finger. “Did you get it here or in Russia?”
“Here,” I said with a little laugh. I just couldn’t imagine someone in Russia designing this. I don’t know why, really. It’s not like Russians can’t be creative.
“How did you come up with the idea? I’ve never seen one like it.”
“The artist and I kind of came up with it together. He showed me a drawing of this winged being, and the body looked a little like the Rodin. I asked him if he could combine The Thinker with this brilliant otherworldly creature. He sketched it out and it really spoke to me, I guess is the way you say. The mind and body combination, brains and beauty, which you need both of to make art, to make dance. And it’s like escaping his mundane existence. Like his thoughts allow him to soar.”
“Wow, that’s brilliant,” she said.
“Thank you.” I smiled.
“How do you know him?”
“What?”
“The tattoo artist. How did you find him?”
“I met him through a friend,” I said, wondering why she asked.
She continued to trace the outlines of the wings. Her touch was so feathery, so ticklish and teasing, on my back. Those fingers were starting to make me hard again. “A friend from Russia?” she asked.
“No, from here.” I found it interesting she assumed my friends in California were from Russia. I made friends easily. I actually had very few friends from Russia. Russians didn’t much interest me, honestly. I wanted to get to know Americans.
My shoulders and back started tensing up, just from thinking about Russia, Russians. She seemed to sense this, and began massaging my shoulders, as if to work out the layers of stress. She traced my spine with her tickling, feathery finger, until it dipped into the small of my back. Then she rubbed her palms over my ass cheeks. Damn, she was good. I was really getting hard.
She swung her leg around and climbed on top of me, now running her tongue down my spine, making the same line with her tongue she’d just traced with her finger. I couldn’t take it anymore. My cock was getting very thick. Before she got all the way down to the small of my back again, I lifted my hips. She lifted her hips as well, and I turned over underneath her, now facing her. She lowered her hips right on top of my full erection.
She giggled then became all business, kissing one side of my chest, tonguing my nipple, as I’d done to her, then mouthing her way over to the other as she rolled her pelvis atop my rock-hard dick. This was too much. I had to be inside her again. I lifted her up with my arms, holding her above me. She looked down at me through heavily hooded eyes. I smiled devilishly at her. I placed her down, stroked her neck, snaked my fingertips down both sides of her chest, resting a hand on each of her taut, heavenly nipples. She sat up straight, arched her back and pushed her chest out. Good, she was forgetting her self-consciousness. She was also getting wet. Very wet.
“You’re even more than I expected, Rory,” I whispered, lowering my eyelids.
She squinted. “More what? You mean body, as in more fat, bigger boobs?”
“Rory!” I rolled my eyes. Okay she hadn’t entirely abandoned her self-consciousness. “More everything. Everything good, all the good words I can think of. More beautiful, more exquisite, more…shapely, yes, which is good. Which is very, very good. Absolutely not fat. Don’t ever say that again.” I sighed and shook my head. “And, ah, more…blonde,” I added, looking down at her pubic hair.
This caused her to giggle. “You didn’t think I was a natural,” she said, play-smacking my bicep.
“Stop,” I teased, play-flinching, acting as if it hurt. “Of course I did. It’s just that you’re so blonde you look bare. Beautifully so, blissfully so.”
“You really do have an amazing vocabulary,” she said.
“I’ve worked on it.”
“I can tell.”
I took my hand from her nipple and lightly brushed my finger along her clit, from her opening to the crown.
“Sasha!” She lifted her hips. Of course I knew that would get her.
I placed both hands around her waist and flipped her in one fell swoop onto her back. I opened her legs wide and slid down, until my face was perfectly, splendidly between her legs. She breathed hard. I stroked her clit with my tongue, licking her folds, darting in and out of her increasingly wet depths. As always with her, I feared she was obsessing over her thighs or some part of her body. It became my goal to make it completely impossible for her to do that. I flicked my tongue in and out of her juicy opening, then returned to the crown of her clitoris. I could tell I was successful with my little mission, as she arched her back and emitted a strangled moan, totally losing herself far too much to give a shit about any body image idiocy. She was on the verge. I eased up, teasingly. She grabbed the pillow under her head and tugged both sides. She finally exploded with ecstasy. I felt the shiver along her spine.
She released the pillow and ran her fingers through my hair. She looked up at me and held her arms out, indicating she wanted to wrap them around me. Sure thing. I climbed up atop her. She opened her legs into another straddle split.
I was just about to enter her when I realized I wasn’t wearing a condom. “Oh crap.” She opened her eyes. “I need to get something. I mean, you want, right?” My stupid English, revealing that I was in the thrall of passion. Of course she was too, and probably didn’t notice.
She looked confused for a moment. Then she asked, “Do you have anything?”
“Yes, of course. They’re in the bathroom.” I lifted myself off her.
“No, I mean, do you have anything bad? Like a disease? I don’t.”
“Oh. Me neither,” I said, now smiling. “But what about—”
“I take the pill every day,” she said, pulling me back on top of her. “Now don’t you dare leave me!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Chapter 19
I woke up well before the sun came up, as I often do. I’ve never been a deep sleeper. Probably because as a child I was always scared, ready to be startled awake by my father’s hand. I kissed Rory’s beautiful forehead lightly, not wanting to wake her. We were at it quite late into the night and she needed to rest before work. She had an hour before her alarm was set to go off.
I went downstairs to fix some coffee and read the paper. I still had the physical edition of the L.A. Times delivered. I couldn’t help it. I guess I just liked to get newspaper ink all over my fingers.
An hour later, I heard the birds chirping. My alarm.
“Sasha?” Though I was expecting her, just the sound of her voice shot a rush of blood straight to my dick.
“Good morning. I’m downstairs.”
She tiptoed down the winding stairway. It took her a while. When I finally saw her, I realized why. She had my bedsheet wrapped around her. Several times—it was double king-sized. It looked like she’d fallen into an enormous white sack.
“You are a most beautiful vision in white. What are you wearing?” I laughed.
“Well, why would you need clothes?” I said with a sharply raised eyebrow.
She looked at me like I was out of my mind asking such a question. “I can’t walk around naked in front of you, in this foreign house!”
I frowned in mock contemplation. “Well, it’s my house and I know very well what you look like naked now, so…” I made a motion with my hand, indicating she should lose the sheet.
“I can’t!” Her face reddened. So sweetly discreet. I hadn’t expected her to be naked. But teasing her was so fun.
“Fine, sit down and I’ll make breakfast. If you have time?”
I walked to the kitchen counter. I wore form-fitting white briefs. I knew she was looking at my ass.
“You’re not naked!” she hollered.
I shot her a cocky smile. “I’ve been up for quite a while, Rory. That would have been strange to be walking around naked alone.” I turned back around but I felt her eyes rolling. “So, how did you sleep?” I asked.
“Oh my gosh, never better since I’ve been in L.A.,” she said in a dreamy tone.
“Really?”
“Yes. That was the coziest, plumpest, plushest bed I’ve ever slept in. In my life!”
“Well, I am glad you enjoyed my bed so,” I said, looking at her with raised brows and a cocked grin. “What shall I make? Eggs, Canadian bacon, sourdough toast? You haven’t told me how much time you have before you need to go to work.”
“You cook!” she squealed more than asked.
“Enough to feed myself,” I said with a laugh. Why were women always so surprised when a man could spoon some eggs about in a frying pan and slip slices of bread into a toaster?
“It was really slow yesterday in the office. I don’t think my next assignment is ready yet. The partner indicated it would be a few more days before they got the documents from the client.” She stopped so I looked back at her. “I was thinking of…just taking a day off, maybe getting some good practice in,” she said, under her breath, almost as if it was still a thought.
A bolt of excitement charged through me. How much I wanted that. To spend the whole day with her. It was hard for her to miss an hour of work though, let alone a day.
“I mean, things will probably pick up later in the week,” she added, trying to convince herself. “So maybe it’s good to take a little breather to kind of calm myself before the storm.” Yes, she did feel guilty.
But I couldn’t help the ways my eyes must have lit up. “Greta is coming over in a couple hours. It would be wonderful if you could stay for that.”
“Okay!” she squealed.
“Excellent.” I removed a skillet and a saucepot from the cabinet. “So, the works?” I asked, hoping she’d have the same appetite as last night.
Her eyes fell. But just a bit. “Um, hold the bacon for me. I don’t like meat. But I’ll have an egg and one piece of toast. Plain.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a breath. It was something. “Here, have some fruit in place of the meat.” I slid toward her a ceramic bowl filled with a cornucopia of bananas, apples, mangoes, oranges, plums and grapes. “You have a big choice,” I said.
“Thank you.” She plucked a red grape from its stem and popped it into her mouth. “So when exactly is Greta coming?” she asked as I poured some oil onto a skillet.
“Nine.”
She eyed the clock. “I guess I don’t have time to run home for a change of clothes, but I’ll definitely need to take a shower. I don’t want her to…you know…”
“What?” I asked, looking up at her, wide-eyed, completely deadpan. I couldn’t help but tease her. It was too cute watching her cherubic little face turn all shades of tomato.
“You know what I mean!”
I returned my attention to the skillet, but continued to frown.
“Stop acting like you don’t. What will she think?”
“You can definitely use the shower,” I said, shooting her a wicked eye. “And, please,” I continued after a pause, “don’t worry about Greta. She knows me.”
She straightened her back. “Um, what do you mean?”
I reached into the cabinet for a plate. “What?”
“I mean, she knows what about you? That you sleep with all your partners?”
I cocked my head over my shoulder, squinting at her. She was squirming uncomfortably in her seat. “Oh. I probably misspoke.” I guess I’d been caught. I had been romantic with many of them, though not all. Still, I hadn’t meant to highlight it. “I just meant, she’s not going to care that we’re lovers. Don’t worry about what she thinks, at all.”
“Lovers,” she said with a giggle. “It sounds so European. So grown-up.”
I shrugged. I guess it did. It probably was a word I’d picked up there. I couldn’t always remember which English words and grammar I’d learned where.
After a moment she asked, “Do you sleep with all your dance partners?”
She wasn’t going to let me off the hook. I laughed. “As if there have been so many, Rory. Just three.” I placed the plate in front of her. I’d made the scrambled eggs so they looked like little fluffy white clouds with yolky sun strewn through, and I made little boxed-edged heart shapes out of the toast. I hoped she’d find the presentation too delightful not to eat.
“Which three?” She asked without looking at the food.
I shook my head. She wasn’t letting up.
“Micaela, Xenia, Tamara, wasn’t that her name…?” she continued.
“Not in childhood, Rory. As an adult.”
“Okay, so Micaela, Xenia and Arabelle?”
“Not Arabelle,” I said quickly. I was in love with you by the time I met her, I wanted to say but didn’t. “She was still mentally with her husband,” I said instead.
“Oh, okay.” She finally glanced down at her plate. But only for a split second. “So, those two and…?”
I sighed. “Yes, those two. Does that make me a man-whore, as you say here?”
She laughed. “Of course not.”
“Good. I am very happy to hear that,” I said teasingly, glad this line of questioning seemed to be over.
She looked at her plate, making no move toward her fork, before her eyes shot up again. “So, if Arabelle wasn’t the third, who was it?”
Shit. Had I said three? I didn’t want to go here. Not that it was a big deal. “What third? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay, you answered that way too quickly. What are you hiding? Who was the third? Tell me!” She was shouting but her tone was teasing.
“Okay, okay. I thought you knew,” I said. “I was broken up with Xenia briefly and so tried Bronislava.”
“Bronislava!”
“Yes, I mean, we tried to be partners,” I added quickly, realizing how I’d just made that sound. “And it didn’t work. At all. I mean…it was just…craziness.” I fluttered my hand about and shook my head. Bronislava was one of the most demanding, critical women I’d ever danced—or slept—with. Just the thought of her made my blood momentarily stop.
“And…” Her eyes were wide as saucers and she wore a pixieish grin. She looked like she was about to unearth some juicy tabloid gossip.
I shook my head, not at all getting her drift. “And what, Rory?”
“Just pro partners? Not any, like, pro/am partners, right?”
“No!” I widened my eyes in disbelief. “I would never…do that with a student.”
She giggled.
“Rory.” I was serious now. I hadn’t violated any non-fraternizing policies. If I had, Alessia would have my ass. “You are not my student.”
“True.” She nodded. “But…”
“But what?” I knew she was joking, but I was getting a little distressed over this conversation. I’m not one to break rules. I’m not like my uncle and cousin. I pride myself on being a professional, a good American worker.
“I was just wondering if…you’ve ever used that trick before?�
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“Trick?” I asked. I took my anxiousness out on the eggs I was making for myself, madly whipping them about in the pan.
“I just mean, have you ever blindfolded anyone else before?”
I turned off the heat and looked at her straight on. I’d never used the sash, or any other form of blindfold, on anyone else. I’d thought of it with her in mind. The sash was made for her. “Of course not, Rory. That was necessary for you alone.”
“Necessary for me alone! I’m not that bad of a follower!” She play-smacked me as I sat down.
I simply raised my brows in response.
She sighed, and smiled. Good, she was going to let up with the goofy questions. She looked at my bare chest and arms as I ate. She was checking out the tats. I had a very cool abstract lizard, a snake with a flaming tongue, and a wicked scorpion, all from Sadie’s brilliant nephew.
“More awesome tats,” she said, pointing to my arm.
“Thank you.”
“What is the top one? Some kind of spider?”
“That’s a scorpion. Scorpion and snake. Animals of the desert.”
“And a small lizard here,” she said, tracing the tip of her finger atop its delicate tail.
“That’s the first one I got.”
“Did you get them here too?”
“Yes.”
“Same artist?”
“Yes, same guy.”
“He’s very good. Did you meet him here or back home?”
Hadn’t we been here before? It was like she wanted me to have friends from Russia. I just didn’t. I don’t know why. I just made friends with different people than those like myself. “Home is here,” I said.
She cocked her head at me. “That’s great that you feel that way, like you belong.” She looked down.
“You don’t?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. I guess all the traffic makes it hard to go anywhere. And then the lack of parking.”
“You’re from a small town, right? This must be very different.”
