Wings
My dreams scatter upon waking like a flock of startled doves, gone in the space between eyeblinks.
It’s just as well. I would rather not remember. My dreams tend to be as thick and heavy with symbolism as a Dostoevsky novel, and I usually understand them about as much. People I know, places I don’t, situations that make no sense yet always feel weighted with a significance I can’t quite grasp.
The turbulence lingers, and for a few moments, I don’t know where I am, or who I’m with, just that I’m in bed and lying against someone hard and warm.
My chest pangs suddenly, aching in a distant way, and I don’t know why.
The major, I remember, then. The MVD major who beckoned me into the darkness with sleepy come-hither eyes and a dark smile. The man who cuffed my hands and fucked me against a wall, but then invited me to his room and later, into his body.
My new friend.
How many days has it been? I feel almost disinclined to count, but it’s been long enough to that my subconscious mind no longer assumes upon waking that the man next to me is Leshovik.
Sometimes I wonder if relationships are supposed to be as fleeting as dreams, or if it’s just something about being young. Or if it’s something about me.
Ever since I was a kid, things have changed quickly, and people have passed in and out of my life. Affairs lasted days or weeks, or sometimes even months. I can’t remember the names of everyone I’ve ever been with, all those men. If I were to count them, I think I would even forget some. That’s all right, though. There are some I want to forget.
In comparison, I’ve been with Leshovik a long time. Three years. I actually started to think that Leshovik might be a constant, someone who would be there for me in a way no one ever has, but now I wonder if he’s going to slip away, too. Will I forget his name one day as well, and he’ll just be that guy, that sniper, I used to be with?
That’s not what I want.
It makes me think about Lynx. It was so intense, but it barely lasted a day. Now, I’ve hardly seen him since we got here. Does that mean it’s over?
And now there’s the major.
I know him, yet I don’t.
Green-eyed and ginger-haired, mild and easygoing, my new friend is fun and adventurous, though there’s a fierce undercurrent lurking right below the surface. Crossing him in the wrong way, at the wrong moment, would be deadly, I think. He’s fearless, and shameless, like me, and he’s the nosiest lover I’ve ever been with, which startled me at first, but is actually kind of hot. Leshovik orgasms silently, the way we do in the field, but the major lets his appreciation be heard.
By everyone in the building.
But still. Hot.
I don’t know what this is between us – it started as a mutual enjoyment of each other’s bodies, but now there’s tenderness, a sharing and comradeship that is unlike what I have with Leshovik or have had with anyone else, for that matter. He’s older than me, but it doesn’t seem like it. I kind of like that.
He said he was alone before he met me. That seems sad, and a little surprising, for someone like him. Though I guess sometimes it just shakes out that way.
It makes me want to make sure he won’t be alone anymore.
I watch him sleep for a while. It’s strange being the one who wakes up first. I almost never get to see Leshovik when he’s sleeping.
The major looks younger when he’s asleep, brow smooth and downturned mouth full and generous, relaxed into an almost-smile. Thirty-five years old, he said, and I can see it in his manner and the quiet knowledge in his eyes, but now he seems somehow vulnerable.
I brush his hair off his forehead, but he doesn’t stir.
When I get up to use the lavatory, he’s still asleep when I get back. He won’t be waking up anytime soon.
I decide to let him sleep. I get dressed in the semidark and leave the way I came in, through the window, climbing up the side to the building to the roof. I have to do it quickly, since it’s daylight now, and I don’t have darkness to shroud me, but even still, I make it back unseen.
Thirty minutes later, I’m showered and changed, and I break into his room again, this time to leave him something to eat.
Blini would probably get soggy, so I leave him an apple and a little tvorog along with some chai, carefully wrapped. Hopefully it’ll stay warm long enough for him to enjoy it.
I leave him a note.
Preyatnova Opetita, I write, but I don’t address it, or leave a signature.
He’ll know who it’s from.
It’s just as well. I would rather not remember. My dreams tend to be as thick and heavy with symbolism as a Dostoevsky novel, and I usually understand them about as much. People I know, places I don’t, situations that make no sense yet always feel weighted with a significance I can’t quite grasp.
The turbulence lingers, and for a few moments, I don’t know where I am, or who I’m with, just that I’m in bed and lying against someone hard and warm.
My chest pangs suddenly, aching in a distant way, and I don’t know why.
The major, I remember, then. The MVD major who beckoned me into the darkness with sleepy come-hither eyes and a dark smile. The man who cuffed my hands and fucked me against a wall, but then invited me to his room and later, into his body.
My new friend.
How many days has it been? I feel almost disinclined to count, but it’s been long enough to that my subconscious mind no longer assumes upon waking that the man next to me is Leshovik.
Sometimes I wonder if relationships are supposed to be as fleeting as dreams, or if it’s just something about being young. Or if it’s something about me.
Ever since I was a kid, things have changed quickly, and people have passed in and out of my life. Affairs lasted days or weeks, or sometimes even months. I can’t remember the names of everyone I’ve ever been with, all those men. If I were to count them, I think I would even forget some. That’s all right, though. There are some I want to forget.
In comparison, I’ve been with Leshovik a long time. Three years. I actually started to think that Leshovik might be a constant, someone who would be there for me in a way no one ever has, but now I wonder if he’s going to slip away, too. Will I forget his name one day as well, and he’ll just be that guy, that sniper, I used to be with?
That’s not what I want.
It makes me think about Lynx. It was so intense, but it barely lasted a day. Now, I’ve hardly seen him since we got here. Does that mean it’s over?
And now there’s the major.
I know him, yet I don’t.
Green-eyed and ginger-haired, mild and easygoing, my new friend is fun and adventurous, though there’s a fierce undercurrent lurking right below the surface. Crossing him in the wrong way, at the wrong moment, would be deadly, I think. He’s fearless, and shameless, like me, and he’s the nosiest lover I’ve ever been with, which startled me at first, but is actually kind of hot. Leshovik orgasms silently, the way we do in the field, but the major lets his appreciation be heard.
By everyone in the building.
But still. Hot.
I don’t know what this is between us – it started as a mutual enjoyment of each other’s bodies, but now there’s tenderness, a sharing and comradeship that is unlike what I have with Leshovik or have had with anyone else, for that matter. He’s older than me, but it doesn’t seem like it. I kind of like that.
He said he was alone before he met me. That seems sad, and a little surprising, for someone like him. Though I guess sometimes it just shakes out that way.
It makes me want to make sure he won’t be alone anymore.
I watch him sleep for a while. It’s strange being the one who wakes up first. I almost never get to see Leshovik when he’s sleeping.
The major looks younger when he’s asleep, brow smooth and downturned mouth full and generous, relaxed into an almost-smile. Thirty-five years old, he said, and I can see it in his manner and the quiet knowledge in his eyes, but now he seems somehow vulnerable.
I brush his hair off his forehead, but he doesn’t stir.
When I get up to use the lavatory, he’s still asleep when I get back. He won’t be waking up anytime soon.
I decide to let him sleep. I get dressed in the semidark and leave the way I came in, through the window, climbing up the side to the building to the roof. I have to do it quickly, since it’s daylight now, and I don’t have darkness to shroud me, but even still, I make it back unseen.
Thirty minutes later, I’m showered and changed, and I break into his room again, this time to leave him something to eat.
Blini would probably get soggy, so I leave him an apple and a little tvorog along with some chai, carefully wrapped. Hopefully it’ll stay warm long enough for him to enjoy it.
I leave him a note.
Preyatnova Opetita, I write, but I don’t address it, or leave a signature.
He’ll know who it’s from.