You funny little human being. In the morning or tomorrow night I’ll gather a little more power – and then I’ll be able to do whatever I like with you. And it won’t be you who’ll save me if anything happens, I’ll save you – you big, strong, confident, reliable man … But right now you’re sure of yourself, sure of your ability to protect and save, like a little child walking along a dark street with his mother and telling her: ‘Don’t be afraid, Mum, I’m here.’
Maybe it is the Light Ones’ style, but even so, I like it somehow.
I swam slowly up to Igor. Right up to him. I put my arms round him and whispered:
‘Save me.’
The water was warm, but his body was hotter than the water. He was as naked as I was. We kissed, sometimes going under the water, then surfacing with a rush and gulping in the air and searching for each other’s lips again.
‘I want to go back to the beach,’ I whispered. We started swimming, sometimes touching each other, sometimes stopping to exchange another long kiss. I had the taste of salt and his lips on my lips, my body seemed to be on fire, the blood was pounding in my temples. You could drown like that … from the excitement, from the impatience, from the longing to be closer.
About five metres from the beach, where the water was already shallow, Igor picked me up in his arms as easily as if I weighed nothing at all, carried me to our clothes and put me down. I felt the towel under my back and the stars swayed over my head.
‘Come on,’ I whispered, spreading my legs. Like a depraved little girl, like a seasoned slut … and this was me, a witch of the Moscow Day Watch who was loved by Zabulon himself.
But right now that didn’t bother me at all.
There was only the night, the stars, Igor.
He lowered himself towards me, his right hand slid under my back and caught me between the shoulder blades, his left hand slid across my breasts and for just a moment he looked into my eyes – as if he felt doubtful, hesitating, as if he wasn’t feeling the same burning desire for intimacy that I was. I arched up involuntarily to meet his body, felt for his aroused member with my hips, swayed – and it was only then that he entered me.
How I wanted him …
It was like nothing else in the world. Not like sex with Zabulon, who always took on the form of a demon for this. With Zabulon I had always experienced a wild, painful pleasure, but it had always had a feeling of humiliation in it, sweet and arousing, but still humiliation. Not like sex with ordinary men, whether they were inexperienced young men full of strength, muscle-bound hunks or experienced, ageing womanisers. I’d tried everything, I knew it all and I could make an evening with any man interesting in its own way.
But this was different.
It was as if we really did become one, as if my desires were immediately transmitted to him and his to me. I could feel him trembling inside my body and I knew that he could come at any moment, but he was putting that moment off and I was balanced there on that same agonisingly sweet, timeless boundary of pleasure.
It was as if he had known me for years and could read me like an open book. His hands responded to the desires of my body before I could even feel them myself, his fingers knew where to be gentle and where to be rough, his lips slid over my face without stopping, his thrusts became more and more powerful, carrying me up into the dark sky on a swing-boat of delight and I whispered something without knowing what I was saying.
And then the world stopped and I groaned, clutching at his shoulders and scratching, moving after him, not wanting to let him go. The pleasure was as brief as a flash of lightning, and as blindingly bright. But he didn’t stop, and I was buoyed up again, balancing on that wave of sweetness – and at the precise moment when his eyes opened wide and his body went tense, I came again. But this time in a different way, the pleasure wasn’t as piercing, it was long and pulsating – as if it was following the rhythm of his spurting into my body.
I couldn’t even groan any more. We lay beside each other – I was on the towel and Igor was on the sand – touching each other, caressing each other, as if our hands had a life of their own. I pressed my cheek against his chest, catching the salty smell of the sea and the sour smell of sweat; his body shuddered under my hand. And I didn’t even realise when I started kissing him, moving lower and lower and burying my face in the rough hair, caressing him with my lips and my tongue, feeling the excitement mounting in him again. Igor lay there without moving, just touching my shoulders with his hands and that was right, that was what he should do, because now I wanted to give him pleasure. And when he came again with a quiet groan, unable to stop himself, I felt as happy as if he had been caressing me.
Everything was just the way it should be.
Everything was like nothing that had ever happened before.
No orgy, not even the most exciting, had ever given me so much pleasure. I had never felt such happiness, not with one man or two or three, never felt this feeling before … this feeling of … completeness? Yes, that was it, completeness. I simply didn’t need anyone else.
‘I love you,’ I whispered. ‘Igor … I love you.’
He could have answered that he loved me too – and he would have spoiled everything, or almost everything. But he only said:
‘I know.’
When Igor got up and took something out from under the heap of clothes on the sand, I could hardly even believe my eyes at first.
A bottle and a glass. A crystal glass. Just one.
Igor smiled, the cork went flying into the air and the foaming champagne poured into the glass. I took a mouthful. Brut, and cold too.
‘Now am I good or bad?’ he asked.
‘Bad,’ I said, holding out the glass to him. ‘For hiding a precious treasure like that!’
Igor smiled and drank the wine. Then he said thoughtfully:
‘You know, I think I’m getting that feeling again—’
He started and stopped speaking, straightening up abruptly. I jumped up – just in time to see an indistinct shadow slip away into the night from behind a beach umbrella not far away.
‘That’s not good,’ Igor whispered.
‘Who was it?’ I asked. The realisation that someone had been watching us didn’t increase my excitement as it usually did. Completeness. Total completeness. Even the sip of champagne was just a pleasant extra now, not really necessary. And I certainly didn’t need any outsiders.
‘I don’t know … it looked like one of the children.’ Igor was clearly upset. ‘That’s really bad … how stupid.’
‘It’s no disaster,’ I said, putting my arms round his shoulders. ‘The little ones are already asleep, and it’s good for the older ones … it’s part of their education too.’
He smiled, but he was obviously concerned. That’s people for you … always making a big deal out of nothing.
‘Let’s go to your room,’ I suggested.
‘Okay,’ said Igor with a sharp nod. He looked at me. ‘But remember, in that case you won’t get any sleep today.’
‘I was just going to warn you about that,’ I said. And it was true.
CHAPTER 6
WHEN I was a fully functional Other, I could easily go without sleep for five or six days. But even now I wasn’t feeling sleepy at all. Quite the opposite, I could feel my blood simply seething with energy.
I got back to our summer house half an hour before reveille and looked in on the girls – some of them were tossing and turning as they woke up. But everything was all right. No one had run off to go swimming and drowned, no one had been kidnapped by evil terrorists, no one had got it into her head to go looking for their brigade leader in the middle of the night.