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Your voice still tenderly caressed me,
Your dear face sought me as I dreamed.”
Ivan’s eyes flicked up to meet Anna’s as he continued, his voice dropping even lower as though he were sharing a secret. He settled on the coffee table in front of her, setting his glass of wine aside and laying his now free hand on her knee.
“Years passed; their stormy gusts confounded
And swept away old dreams apace.
I had forgotten how you sounded,
Forgot the heaven of your face.
In exiled gloom and isolation
My quiet days meandered on,
The thrill of awe and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love, were gone.
My soul awoke from inanition,
And I encountered you anew,
And like a fleeting apparition,
Like beauty’s spirit, past you flew.”
Anna felt a shiver run down her spine, the words seeping into her, awakening something deep and primal. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from Ivan, his hazel eyes burning into hers as he read. His voice was rich and seductive, and if this was how he read passages in his class, it was no wonder he had male and female students scrambling to take his class. However, she had a sneaky suspicion that this was all for her and her alone. She took a sip of her wine, letting it linger on her tongue for a moment as she stared at him.
Ivan stood up and walked around the back of the chair. He leaned in closer, his breath warm against her ear as he whispered the final lines.
“My pulses bound in exultation,
And in my heart once more unfold
The sense of awe and inspiration,
The life, the tears, the love of old.”
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken desires. Anna’s breath hitched as she felt the intensity of the moment, the line between literature and reality blurring. She couldn’t move as she let the implications of the poem sink in. She could feel his breath warm on her cheek until he finally moved. She slowly turned to look at him. Was this how he felt about her?
“Pushkin wrote of love,” Ivan said softly, closing the book and standing up, “but he also understood the power of desire, the way it can consume us if we let it.” He returned the thin book to its place on the bookshelf before walking into the kitchen and stirring the pot of soup.
Anna’s pulse quickened, her thoughts a whirlwind of emotions she had long kept hidden. She followed him, grabbing the bottle of wine and refilling her glass. “And what if we do let it?” she asked, her voice barely audible. There were butterflies in her stomach, and she had never heard a poem more beautiful or more seductive than the one he had just read to her.
Ivan’s hand reached out, gently brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then we explore it together, dushenka,“ he replied, his eyes never leaving hers. “Through Pushkin, and others like him, we can give in to those desires, in the safety of words... or perhaps, beyond them.” He cupped her cheek for a moment, his palm wam, before picking up the ladle and dishing out their soup.
Anna nodded, the decision already made in her mind. The poem was only the beginning, a gateway to something much deeper, much more intimate. And with Ivan as her guide, she was ready to explore it all.
Chapter Four
Dinner had been a quiet affair full of glances over wine glasses and the promise of things that were long in coming. Ivan had put on some soft music, Tchaikovsky, from what Anna could tell. It wasn’t a piece she knew, but then, The Nutcrackerwas pretty much the only piece of music by the Russian composer she was familiar with. She was tired and restless, and the way Ivan looked at her made her cheeks flush. She wasn’t used to him looking at her that way.
Or maybe she was, and she just stopped noticing it because she didn’t want to admit that she felt the same way about him.
She looked up as the clock on the mantlepiece struck one. She didn’t realize that they had been talking for that long. The dim light of a single candle flickered on the coffee table between them, casting dancing shadows across the shelves of books that took up the corner of the living room. Outside, everything was quiet, the world oblivious to the intense conversation unfolding inside.
