“You may kiss your bride.”
Nikolai wipes my tears with his fingers before he kisses me. Then we are hurrying out of the church. I look up at Nikolai. His light eyes are mesmerizing in the sunshine and he gives me a sexy smile. The dream becomes reality.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Star
Two Months Later
I wrap the package up in plain silver paper and tie it with a yellow ribbon. Then I put it into a silver bag. Carefully, I write inside the yellow card.
For my darling husband.
Without you there is nothing …
From your little butterfly, Star
I get into the shower and let the water cascade down my body. The shower door opens and I smile. A large hand touches my body. I turn around.
“Hello,” I say softly.
“Are you having a shower without me?”
“I had to. I’m very dirty.”
“How dirty?”
“You won’t believe how dirty I am.”
“Oh yes, I will,” he says reaching for the sponge. He pours soap on it and drags it across my breasts, under my arms, on my stomach.
“The dirtiest area is between my legs.”
He laughs. A lovely rumble that comes from deep inside him. He runs the sponge quickly over my crotch. That is surely not the way to clean something very dirty.
“Nah, that’s not going to work,” he says.
“No?”
“No.” He kneels down.
I sigh with pleasure and look down. God, I love this man so much.
The water sluices off his head, his face, his mouth, as his tongue swipes me gently. After I climax, he has his wicked, wicked way with me. His seed drips out of me, and the quickly moving water washes it all away.
I smile to myself. A secret smile.
We get out of the shower. I wrap myself in a bathrobe and pad into the bedroom.
“I’ve got a present for you.” I hold out the silver bag.
His hair is wet, plastered to his head. How is it possible that I still want to have sex when I have just climaxed twice?
He takes the bag. My mind records the moment. I watch him avidly. He takes the silver package out. He unties the yellow ribbon. He tears the silver packaging. He opens the plain grey box. He takes the bottle out and looks at it. Then he looks at me.
“Huile Douche?”
“Huile Douche.”
He nods a few times and I know what it is. He is speechless. Nikolai Smirnov is speechless.
“Hey, are you going to say something?”
“Do you feel all right?” he asks.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I’m not,” he confesses. I realize that he does look a little pale around the gills.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid for you. It will hurt you.”
I grin. “There are seven billion people on this earth and each one was born to a woman. I’ll be fine.”
I take the oil from him and pour a little on his hand. I rub it into his skin and take his hand up to his nose.
He inhales. “My god, you’re right. It does smell of fields of flowers, fresh air and sunshine.”
I laugh. “Told you so!”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Nikolai
Seven Months Later
“Say hello to your son,” the nurse says, and puts the naked, mottled creature into my arms. I stare at him in amazement.
My son.
The noises around me blur.
He is so tiny I can almost fit him inside my cupped palms. His eyes are shut and his face all wrinkly and red. His hair is still wet and plastered to his head, but it is fair. His little fingers curl and uncurl. He opens his little mouth and makes a soft mewling sound … and my breath stops.
God, so much could go wrong.
A protective instinct so shockingly ferocious fills my chest. My heart feels as if it could burst with love for this helpless little thing.
“Nikolai,” Star calls.
I look up from my son’s face and gaze into the flushed face of my wife. She is exhausted, but triumphant. At that moment I love her more than I’ve ever done.
“You did it,” I say. “You actually did it.”
“We did it,” she says softly.
I look into her beautiful blue eyes. “No, my little butterfly. We didn’t do it. You did. You made this amazing boy inside your body.”
She bites her lower lip. It’s an old nervous gesture. I haven’t seen it in years. “Nikolai, you know how we said we were going to name him Mason?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind again.”
She gives her head a slight shake. “I haven’t changed my mind. I’ve never changed my mind. I’ve always known the name I want for our son.”
I gaze at her, bewildered. We have been back and forth with a hundred names ever since we knew we were having a boy.
“I want to call him Pavel.”
The sound comes from somewhere deep inside me. I didn’t know I could make such a sound. It’s like a cry of terrible pain. But the pain is cathartic. Like the sharp pain of a boil being lanced. Afterwards there is relief and healing.
She looks at me worriedly.
Oh Pavel. All these years I wanted to call your name but could not.
“Pavel,” I whisper.
The child in my arms opens his eyes and looks at me. There is no proper focus. Just an innocent, utterly blank gaze. Then his lips move. Someone else will think it was a twitch. I know it is a smile.
Epilogue
Nikolai
Five Years Later
I lift my son from his horse and set him down on the ground. I smile at him. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
I tie our horses to a tree and pull the bunch of flowers from the holder on the saddle. I give him the flowers and we walk to the iron gate. He opens it and we go inside the tomb. Our boots echo in the still air.
I watch him walk to the grave and carefully put the flowers into the vase of water. He turns his fair head to look at me, and I am reminded of the first time I brought Star here. Life takes, and it gives. Life took Pavel away and left me wandering in the dark for years, but then it gave me Star and another Pavel.
“Daddy, can you tell me that story again?”
“Which story?”
“The baked apple story.”
“Ah. That one.”
He sits on the marble. “One day, Duscha made a tray of baked apples. She put them on a wire rack to cool. These apples were very special. The core had been removed and filled with Duscha’s secret honey-and-nut-filling recipe. Everybody in the family knew these were Uncle Pavel’s favorite treat. Like a bear that can’t resist honey, he couldn’t resist them either. He used to sit at the kitchen table and wait for them to cool. He knew he couldn’t eat them because we were supposed to have them for tea. Together. But that day, one of the baked apples was missing. Duscha asked him if he had eaten the baked apple.
‘I didn’t,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell lies. It doesn’t matter if you did.’
‘But I didn’t.’
‘If you didn’t, who did?’
‘I don’t know, but I didn’t’
‘Did you eat them, Nikolai?,’ Duscha asked me.
‘I didn’t eat them.’
‘Did you eat the apple, Mrs. Smirnov?,’ Duscha asked my mother.
‘No, I didn’t eat them
,’ my mother said.
‘Neither did I,’ my father said.
‘Tell the truth, Pavel. You won’t be punished,’ Mama said.
‘But I didn’t eat it.’
‘Right. If you admit it you can have another one. If you don’t, there will be no baked apples for you.’
‘Just say you did,’ I whispered to Pavel.
‘But I didn’t,’ he insisted.
‘Just say you did it anyway. What does it matter?’
‘It does matter. I don’t want to lie.’
‘You won’t get any apple if you don’t admit it,’ I warned.
‘It doesn’t matter if I don’t. I won’t tell a lie,’ he said.
That day poor Pavel had to sit at the table and watch us all eating our baked apples.”
My son nods solemnly at this point of the story. This is his favorite part.
“Poor Uncle Pavel,” he says.
“Yes, poor uncle had no baked apple. He went to bed sad that no one believed him. Then next morning Duscha was cleaning behind the oven and what did she find?”
“She found the baked apple.”
“That’s right. It had fallen down and rolled under the oven.”
My son grins. “Now is the best part.”
“Yes. Now is the best part. Everybody felt so bad that we did not believe Pavel, but Mama and Papa were so proud of Pavel because he was so honest that they decided to throw him a big surprise party. So we decorated the house with balloons and colored paper. Duscha made a whole tray of baked apples. Mama and Papa went out and bought loads of chocolates, sweets, biscuits and cakes. The table was so full of goodies that it groaned.”