“Yes, yes, okay.”
Gennady sounded flustered. Daniel let go of the button and lifted his hands to touch Gennady’s cheeks lightly, and Gennady flinched so hard he slammed against the foot of the bed. “Prostitye,” Gennady blurted. A tidal wave of scarlet flushed his face. He pushed Daniel’s hands away and began to fumble at his own buttons. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll do it myself.”
His fingers were shaking. Daniel stared. Gennady’s fingers slipped off the button, and he gasped, a weird frightened sound.
“Stop!” Daniel said.
For a moment they stared at each other. Then Gennady leapt to his feet. Daniel snatched up his own discarded shirt and put it back on, although even after he’d done up all the buttons he felt as exposed as a worm under an upturned rock.
He expected to hear the door slam. But he didn’t, and when he dared to look up, Daniel found Gennady sitting at the foot of the bed. He had taken off his shirt after all, although not his undershirt, which was worn so soft that it seemed molded directly to his body.
Daniel was too upset to find the sight arousing. “Gennady,” he said.
Gennady’s shoulders jerked. “I’m sorry.”
Daniel wanted to go to him, but he thought Gennady might flee, so he stayed on the floor. “It’s all right.”
“I’m sorry,” Gennady repeated. He raked one hand through his hair. “You must be thinking, what an asshole, he gets off and then he won’t even take off his shirt for me. What is it that you Americans call it? Second base? It’s nothing, not even enough to score a point.”
“I’m not thinking that at all.”
“American puff,” Gennady snapped. “You say, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ smiling all the time, when really you must want to punch me – ”
“No!” Daniel said, forcefully enough that Gennady at least stopped talking. He glanced over at Daniel, quick and half-frightened, and Daniel softened his voice when he spoke again. “Listen, Gennady, I never thought I’d have the chance to kiss you at all. I’d be an idiot to be mad when I got to do so much more than that. And it’s my fault, anyway, I pushed you too hard. I never thought we’d make it this far in the first place, so I got greedy. I mean, you’ve been told this is a perversion all your life, right? It’s hard to set all that aside. All that ingrained shame can hit you unexpectedly…”
And so forth and so on, rattling on to give Gennady time to compose himself, repeating things that Paul had said to Daniel when Daniel panicked and fled after Paul kissed him. Guilt, shame, societal condemnation of homosexual love affairs, it could all crash down on you unexpectedly and send you heading for the hills. Paul had talked on and on as Daniel nodded like a bobble head doll, petrified that Paul might guess why Daniel had really run.
It occurred to him for the first time that probably Paul had known very well that it was a bad experience in his past that sent Daniel flying. In giving his long soothing talk about crushing religious guilt, he had done Daniel the very great kindness of allowing him to think he’d kept his secret.
Certainly that was why Daniel kept talking. He figured that someone had gotten rough with Gennady sometime, likely one of those drunk guys Gennady had fooled around with, and probably Gennady didn’t want to talk about it any more than Daniel had wanted to tell Paul about John.
Some color had come back into Gennady’s face. He drew his legs up onto the bed and sat cross-legged, and when Daniel finally stopped talking, Gennady said again, “I’m sorry.”
Daniel rose to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. “It really is all right,” he said. “You don’t have to apologize.”
Gennady sighed. “What else can I say? I feel bad. You were so good to me, and I did nothing for you, and now you are so nice about it, pretending it’s your fault, you pushed too hard, blah blah blah, when we both know it’s my fault, you asked if it was okay and I lied.”
Daniel thought about that. He drew his legs on the bed to sit cross-legged, too, mirroring Gennady’s position. “Why did you do that?” he asked, trying through his tone to convey that it was a genuine question, not an accusation.
“I don’t know.” Gennady drew his knees up to his chin. “I asked what you wanted, and it was that, and I didn’t want to say, no, this one thing you’ve asked for – I won’t do that…”
His jaw clenched. His throat bobbed visibly as he swallowed. “And I thought you wouldn’t notice. I wish you hadn’t noticed,” he added, and pressed his hands to the bed. “I could have finished it,” he insisted, glaring at Daniel as if daring him to contradict.
“I’m sure you could have,” Daniel began, “but…”
Gennady interrupted him. “Yes, I could have finished it, and then we could be falling asleep right now in each other’s arms, together in the darkness like two cats.”
The image opened a pit of longing in Daniel’s stomach. He fell silent in the struggle not to let the longing show on his face – although Gennady had slid off the bed to turn off the reading lamp, and could not have seen it.
Even after Gennady turned off the lamp, the room was not quite dark: the dying light of the sunset seeped in above the curtain. But when Gennady returned, and sat cross-legged on the bed, the dimness made it easier for Daniel to complete his interrupted sentence. “But I didn’t want you to finish it. Not like that. To force yourself through something you didn’t want to do.”
“It would have been all right,” Gennady said carelessly. “After all, I like you.”
“Gennady,” Daniel said. Gennady smiled, and it struck Daniel that Gennady was teasing him, and he grabbed a pillow and started thwacking Gennady, until Gennady, laughing, wrested the pillow from Daniel’s hands and hugged it to his chest. “I’ll never be able to ask you for anything ever again if I think you’re going to say yes whether you want to or not,” Daniel told him.
“I wouldn’t.” Gennady shifted the pillow to rest his chin on it. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. Do you understand? I did want to. To be looked at, to be touched by a lover… I wouldn’t have tried so hard if I didn’t want it. It was just…” He made a slight gesture with his hand, open-palmed. “I was afraid. You understand? Both things at once.”
Daniel caught Gennady’s hand and kissed it, and he turned Gennady’s hand over and kissed his palm, too. “I understand,” he said, and he looked up at Gennady, and found Gennady biting his lip, looking at him, gray eyes bright and shy and hopeful.
“Let me try again?” Gennady asked.
Daniel held onto his hand. “Do you want to?”
“Yes. I hate to go back to Moscow knowing that I chickened.”
“Chickened out,” Daniel corrected, and hesitated, uncertain.
Gennady kissed Daniel’s hand. “You’re very picky. That’s not a good enough reason? To save myself from lifelong regret? You’ll only say yes if I say, I want to taste your lips again, I want to lick your sweat from your skin, I want to feel you move against me?”
Arousal flushed through Daniel’s body. “Do you want that?”
Gennady tossed the pillow back against the headboard. He scooted forward so they sat knee to knee. “Kiss me again and we’ll see,” he said; and, when Daniel still hesitated, Gennady leaned forward and kissed him.
Daniel’s heart fluttered a little too fast, and not pleasantly. He knew that if they couldn’t make this work he would have to be the one to call it, and he didn’t particularly want to be responsible for inflicting Gennady with a lifelong regret.
But then Gennady put his hands on Daniel’s waist and hitched himself forward, so he was straddling Daniel’s lap, and Daniel gave a little gasp and fell back against the pillow, pulling Gennady with him, and relaxed under the warm heavy weight of his body.
It was different than before, slower, both of them careful with each other. Gennady stretched like a cat as Daniel ran his hands up and down his back, up his neck, touching the hollows behind his ears, messing up his hair.
Gennady drew back eventually, his
lips full and red, his hair tousled. “Will you…?” Gennady asked, and touched Daniel’s shirt buttons, asking without asking.
Daniel undid his shirt and tossed it aside. Gennady kissed his collarbones, then slid down to kiss his solar plexus, and Daniel wrapped his legs around him and pulled him close, and realized how hard he was only when he felt himself pushing against Gennady’s stomach. “Oh,” he gasped, aroused, half-apologetic, and Gennady laughed at him and began to grapple with Daniel’s belt.
“I must be good at this,” Gennady said, teasing, pleased with himself.
“I’m just easy,” Daniel told him, and Gennady laughed again, and gave up on the belt, and simply shoved a hand under Daniel’s waistband and wrapped it around Daniel’s cock. “Jesus Christ!”
Gennady squeezed. “Too much?” he asked.
“No – Christ – ” Daniel fumbled at his belt himself. “Let me get my pants off, Jesus,” and then Gennady took his hand away and Daniel nearly whimpered, which would have been embarrassing if Gennady hadn’t kissed him again. Daniel kissed him repeatedly, needy, breathless. “This is why I took your belt off earlier.”
“Yes, you’re very wise.”
He nearly came just from the relief of pressure when the belt finally slid off. Then Gennady’s hands were on his fly, unbuttoning, unzipping, and it all would have gone faster if Daniel had stopped moving, but his hips kept bucking at every bit of friction, until finally Gennady just shoved Daniel’s clothes down to expose his cock and took him in hand.
“Kiss me?” Daniel said. Gennady’s free hand found Daniel’s neck, his mouth pressed against Daniel’s mouth, his tongue thrust between Daniel’s lips, and Daniel thrust against his gripping hand and came.
Afterward, they rested against each other, sweaty and sticky and sated. After a while Gennady took his undershirt off and used it to rub them both clean. Daniel roused himself to mumble, “Do you need…?”
“No, I’m all right.” Gennady snuggled in beside him again, his head on Daniel’s shoulder, and Daniel looped an arm around his bare back, trailing his fingers slowly over Gennady’s skin.
He was almost asleep when his fingertips tripped over the nearly-healed wound on Gennady’s side. Gennady shivered, his mouth opening against Daniel’s collarbone, and Daniel’s breath caught in his throat as Gennady got up. He caught briefly at Gennady’s arm, then let go, and maybe Gennady didn’t even notice that Daniel had tried to hold him.
The latches on Gennady’s suitcase clicked; the bathroom door squeaked. Daniel closed his eyes, and reminded himself that he was, after all, lucky to have had all of this, and it was greedy to want Gennady share his bed all night, in the darkness, how had he put it? Together like two cats…
But then Gennady was back, dressed as he usually dressed for sleep, shorts and a clean undershirt. “Here,” he said, and held out a cup of water. Daniel drank half of it in a greedy gulp.
Then Gennady sat on the edge of the bed, and Daniel drank more slowly, because Gennady was sure to get up and leave once the water was gone.
“Put on your pajamas,” Gennady said. “Or at least take off your suit pants. They will wrinkle if you sleep in them.”
“I’d better get a shower.” Daniel drained the water and went.
He took a long shower, mostly because he started to cry. It hit him once again that Gennady was really leaving – that he was going back to Moscow, and this was the end.
But it was fine. It was okay. He was calm again and even managed a smile when he left the bathroom.
The room was almost dark; only a little light from the streetlamps seeped in over the curtains. Daniel found his way to the unused bed mostly by touch, and was pulling back the stiff cold sheets when Gennady said sleepily, “Daniil?”
Daniel looked over at him. Gennady pulled back the covers to welcome Daniel in.
Daniel’s heart was in his throat. He slipped in bed beside Gennady, and Gennady nestled in against him, tucking his face against Daniel’s shoulder, slinging an arm over Daniel’s chest. Daniel wrapped an arm tentatively around Gennady’s back, and Gennady gave a sleepy snuffle and snuggled closer.
“I’ll miss you,” Gennady murmured.
Daniel closed his eyes and kissed Gennady’s hair. “Yes,” he said. “I’m going to miss you too.”
Chapter 25
“You don’t have to go, you know,” Daniel said.
It was the next morning, and Daniel was driving slowly in the pre-dawn dimness. Gennady was smoking a cigarette. He blew a stream of smoke out of the open car window. The sky flushed pink as the sun rose.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gennady said, not unkindly.
“I’m not being ridiculous,” Daniel said. “You could stay. You could defect.”
Gennady didn’t answer. Daniel took his eyes off the road briefly to look at him. Gennady had turned his face toward the open window, so Daniel could only see the curve of his cheek and the tip of his cigarette.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Gennady said, and Daniel faced front again. The roads of New England didn’t spool on straight forever like the roads in the Midwest. They wandered through the woods like something out of a fairy tale.
They had driven perhaps two miles before Gennady spoke again. “It wouldn’t be the same,” he said. “We would no longer be working together. Your FBI is not going to hire me.”
Daniel drummed a hand on the wheel. “But at least you’d be here,” he said. “You’d be safe.”
“I’ll be safe enough at home, Daniil.” The Russian pronunciation of his name sounded particularly affectionate, but also firm. “Stalin’s been dead for years now. They are not throwing people into the gulags for every little thing.”
“And how long is that going to last? Who knows what the next guy after Khrushchev might be like?” Daniel argued.
Gennady didn’t answer for some time. At last he said, “This is why Mr. Gilman agreed to let you continue to work with me. He hoped you could convince me to defect.”
Daniel glanced at him. Gennady’s face was unreadable. “He came up with the idea on his own,” Daniel said. “I didn’t tell him anything that you said about Khrushchev, or anything like that.”
Some expression eased back into Gennady’s face. “So what did you say to him? Did you tell him you thought I would?”
“I said you might,” Daniel said, suddenly worried. “That won’t get you into trouble, will it? I thought he might not let us keep working together if I didn’t hold out some hope that you might defect. But I can tell him that you rejected the proposal in the strongest possible terms, if that will help. I can tell him you punched me.”
Gennady’s mouth twitched in a brief smile. “Don’t overdo it. Just tell him that I said I love my Motherland, and I could never betray her.”
Daniel’s throat hurt. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll let Mr. Gilman know.”
“Will it cause you trouble?”
“No,” Daniel said. “He knew it was a long shot.”
They reached the outskirts of town. Daniel followed a sign for the railroad station. At this early hour, the streets were almost empty.
“I’ll be assigned a new partner, I guess,” Daniel said, mostly because if he didn’t talk he might cry.
“Ah, good. Someone new for you to fall in love with.”
“I don’t think I will, you know,” Daniel said, his voice unsteady.
“No more falling in love with agents,” Gennady agreed. “Get married, have children, have a happy life.”
“And what about you?”
“I’m Russian, I was never going to have a happy life.”
“Gennady,” Daniel said, choked and unhappy.
“It’s a joke, Daniel. I’ll be fine,” Gennady said, and smiled at him, and Daniel nearly broke down.
The train station was really nothing more than a platform. Daniel parked the car across the road and sat, clinging to the car wheel as if to a life preserver, while Gennady retrieved his luggage from the trunk.
Then Gennady leaned into the car through the open window. Daniel had gotten some control of himself by now. He managed a smile. “Proshai,” he said.
“Proshai.”
The train whistle sounded. Daniel couldn’t see the train yet, but he could hear the rattle of its wheels. “You’d better run if you’re going to catch it,” he said, which was not strictly true, but he wasn’t sure how long he could maintain this pose of nonchalance.
“Yes,” said Gennady, and stepped back. But then he leaned in through the window again and said rapidly, “Daniel. Is there an address where I could write you? One that will not change for a long time.”
“What? My mother’s, maybe. I don’t…”
Gennady interrupted him. “It will be impossible to write to you from the Soviet Union. And you mustn’t try to write to me there. But if I am ever posted abroad again, then I’ll write to you, I’ll send instructions how you could write back. Would you write back?”
“Yes.” Daniel ripped a page from his address book and wrote his mother’s address. His fingers brushed Gennady’s as he put the paper into his hand. “Gennady…”
The ground trembled as the train pulled into the station. “Do svidanye, my friend,” Gennady said.
He lunged into the car and kissed Daniel so quickly that Daniel had barely registered the touch of his lips before Gennady was sliding out of the car again, snatching up his luggage from the pavement. “Goodbye!” Daniel shouted after him.
Gennady crossed the street and sprang up the steps to the platform. He paused briefly to speak to the conductor. It took less than a minute, and yet it seemed an agonizing eternity to Daniel: this long last look at Gennady standing in the early morning sunlight, almost painfully beautiful in that ill-fitting Soviet suit.
The train began to puff. The conductor swung Gennady’s suitcase up the steps, and Gennady followed, taking the steep train steps with an easy swing of his legs. The door shut behind him, and the sunlight flashed across its window, so Daniel couldn’t see if he had turned to wave or not.
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