Sandalwood

[Totma, Russia. December 7th, 2024. 9:47 PM.]

The hotel smelled like dust from the radiator and those shitty holiday potpourri bowls hotels put out to seem cozy. Cinnamon and dried orange rinds. Fake home smell. The kind that makes you feel lonelier than no smell at all.

Sleet kept hitting the window. Not real snow yet. That wet, half-assed stuff that turns to gray slush the second it lands. Somewhere past the streetlamps the Sukhona River was frozen solid. Totma had like twelve thousand people in it and every single one of them was asleep by ten. This wasn't Moscow. This was nowhere. This was exactly the kind of nowhere we used to live in together.

Kaz stood by the door in his coat. His hair was wet at the edges from the sleet. Dark, curling a little at his temples where it was damp.

Three years.

He looked the fucking same.

I hated him for it. Actually hated him. Like a hot little coal in my chest. The years hadn't wrecked him. Not like they'd wrecked me. I'd lost weight I didn't have to lose. I'd stopped sleeping through the night somewhere around year two. My under-eyes had that permanent bruised look that no concealer really covers. And there he was, just—fine. Better than fine, actually. He'd filled out. His shoulders were broader, that kind of bulk you get from running at 6am because you're up anyway and your brain won't shut up. His jaw was sharper now. There were a few grey hairs in his stubble. Three years ago he didn't have any grey. I used to trace that jaw with my thumb in our freezing dorm bed, seventeen below outside the window, one single cup of tea between us because we only owned one cup. One cup. That was us. That was everything. God I’m being dramatic. But it was. It was everything.

He wore a charcoal sweater. Wool. Sleeves shoved up his forearms. I knew those forearms. Knew them by touch, by sight, by the way the veins ran under the skin. Those arms had carried my suitcase up four flights of stairs the day I moved into the dorm. Those hands had cupped my face the night I told him about the London fellowship and watched his whole chest cave in. I still see that sometimes. When I can't sleep. His chest caving in.

He was getting married in four months. Four. Months.

I don't even know what she looks like. I never looked her up. Couldn't.

"You look good." His voice was lower than I remembered. Or maybe I'd just forgotten the exact pitch of it. "You look really good."

"I look the same."

"No." He shook his head, slow. "You look like someone who got what she wanted."

I didn't flinch. I'd practiced not flinching. Three years of practice.

The London fellowship. The book deal. The life I picked instead of him. Instead of that freezing dorm and one teacup. Instead of the way he used to read my drafts out loud in bed. He'd mark grammar mistakes with a red pen he stole from the campus library. Stole. Like actually stole. Walked out with it in his pocket. And then he'd kiss my forehead after he corrected something. Like an apology. Like he was saying I'm only doing this because I want you to be great, I'm only doing this because I love you. I don't know why I'm telling you about the pen. It's just—it mattered. The pen mattered.

I told myself the ache would go away. And it kind of did. It went dull. I could walk around with it. I could give interviews and do readings and smile at book launch parties with this little dull stone sitting in my gut. People would ask if I was happy and I'd say yes and I'd almost mean it.

But standing here, watching him unbutton his coat, I understood something that made me want to throw up: the dullness was just distance. Up close, he was still the wound. Still the scar I gave myself. Still the thing I pretend doesn't hurt every time it rains, every time it snows, every time I make tea and pour it into one cup by habit and then remember I don't have to share anymore.

Fuck. See? This is what he does to me. I start sounding like a poem. I'm not a poem. I'm just sad.

He stepped closer.

I could smell him now. And fuck, that was the thing, that was always the thing—the way he smelled. Cedar from the cold outside. Salt from his skin. A little sweat under the wool. And underneath all of that, the cheap sandalwood soap from the little shop near campus. The old babushka who ran it always called him Misha by mistake and he never corrected her because he said it made her day. He let an old woman call him the wrong name for two years just because she smiled when she did it. That was who he was. That was who I left. Who does that? Who lets someone call them the wrong name for two years? Him. He did.

I'd bought a box of that soap and kept it in my London flat for two years. Never used it. Couldn't. Couldn't throw it away either. It just sat in my bathroom cabinet like a relic. Like a saint's bone. I'd open the cabinet sometimes just to look at it. Then close it. Then open it again. My therapist said that was unhealthy. I stopped seeing her.

His eyes were dark brown. Almost black. There was this tiny amber fleck near his right pupil, like a chip of honey in the dark. I'd memorized that fleck years ago, lying in his bed, tracing his face while he slept. His nose was crooked from falling off his bike when he was a kid. His mouth was wide. Lower lip a little fuller than the top. He always kissed like he was scared of forgetting something. He always kissed me like I was a language he was going to lose if he didn't practice it every day.

"Kaz." Just his name. His name in my mouth after three years. It felt heavy. It felt like swallowing a stone.

He kissed me.

Warm. Slow. Exactly the same as always. His hands came up and held my face, fingers cold against my jaw from being outside. I made a noise I didn't plan to make—"Hnn"—and he swallowed it whole, like he'd been waiting three years to hear that exact sound. His tongue touched mine. Whiskey. Peppermint gum. And under that, just him. That taste. That specific, impossible taste I'd looked for in other mouths for three years and never found. I'd kissed men in London bars just to see if they tasted like anything close. They didn't. They tasted like beer and strangers and nothing. One guy asked me why I had my eyes open. I didn't have an answer.

My hands went to his chest. The wool was rough under my palms. His heart was slamming. Too fast for an engaged man. Way too fast for someone who'd moved on. Too fast for someone who wasn't mine anymore.

"I think about you every time it snows." It came out before I could stop it. The words just fell out of my mouth. I hadn't planned to say that. "Every single time. And it snows so fucking much in London, Kaz. It snows all the goddamn time."

He made this small broken sound. From the back of his throat. Like an animal that got kicked. Then he kissed me harder, like he was trying to push the words back into my mouth. Like if he kissed me hard enough I'd take it back.

His hands went into my hair and pulled it loose. I'd pinned it up in the train bathroom three hours earlier. My fingers were shaking so bad I could barely get the pins in. Dropped one. It rolled under the seat. I left it there. I knew he'd be here. I'd known for two weeks. Two weeks of telling myself I wouldn't let this happen. Two weeks of packing and repacking the green dress. The one with the low neckline. The one I wore the night he first said he loved me, in the dorm, snow falling outside, one cup of tea between us. He told me he loved me and I laughed—not because it was funny but because I was so happy I didn't know what else to do—and he kissed my laugh right out of my mouth.

I remember thinking: this is it. This is the moment my life starts. I was right. Just not the way I thought.

He walked me backward until my calves hit the bed. I sat down hard and pulled him with me. His coat dropped to the floor in a heavy heap. I heard the zipper clank against the floor. Weird the things you notice.

He held himself above me, forearms braced on either side of my head, and just looked down. His pupils were blown wide. His breathing was all over the place.

"I thought about this." His voice was rough. "Every day. For three years. I thought about you in London, writing your book, living your fancy life. I told myself I was happy for you." His voice cracked right down the middle. "I told myself that every morning. Some mornings I actually believed it."

He thought: I shouldn't be here. Mara is kind. Mara cuts the crusts off my sandwiches because she knows I hate crusts. She learned my mother's soup recipe. She hums when she cooks. She makes things easy and simple and warm. And Lian... Lian never made anything easy. Loving Lian was like holding onto a live wire. It burned and it lit up the whole sky and it never once felt safe. But I'm here. I'm here and I can't leave.

I pulled his sweater off. His chest was the same. Lean but solid. Dark hair that narrowed into a line below his belly button, trailing down into his pants. His skin was hot under my palms. I touched the scar on his left shoulder—the bicycle fall when he was twelve—and he shuddered like I'd electrocuted him.

"You remember."

"I never forgot." I pressed my hand flat over his heart. It was pounding so hard I could feel it in my palm. Thump thump thump. "I tried. God, I tried so hard. I threw out the soap last year. The sandalwood soap. I sat on my bathroom floor and cried for three hours because it felt like throwing you away. Which is stupid. It was soap. A bar of soap. It cost like three dollars."

His eyes went wet. One tear dropped onto my collarbone. Warm for a second, then cold. I felt it there, this tiny patch of salt on my skin. I don't know why I remember the tear more than anything else. But I do.

He undressed me slowly. My blouse—buttons one by one, his fingers careful like he was unwrapping something breakable. My skirt—he slid it down my legs. My tights—he rolled them off, his knuckles brushing my thighs and leaving goosebumps behind. I had a bruise on my knee from bumping into my suitcase earlier. He didn't mention it. I don't know why I noticed that he didn't mention it. Each piece of clothing felt like a layer of the last three years coming off.

When I was completely bare, he sat back on his heels and just looked at me. His eyes moved from my face to my throat to my breasts, my belly, the dark hair between my legs. He looked at me like I was a place he used to live. Like he was trying to draw a map from memory and terrified of getting the streets wrong. His mouth opened a little. Then closed. I could see him deciding not to cry.

"God." His voice was barely a whisper. "You're still so—"

"Don't." I cut him off. "Don't talk about me like I'm already gone. I'm right here."

"You're right here." He swallowed hard. "And you're still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And in four months I'm going to stand in a church and marry someone else. And I'll mean my vows, Lian. I'll mean them. But she'll never be the first woman I loved. She'll never be the woman who taught me that two people can share one cup of tea and feel like millionaires."

I pulled him down because I couldn't listen to any more. I couldn't hear the life I threw away described in such perfect, gutting detail. It was like someone reading my own obituary back to me.

His mouth found my breast. Hot and wet, his tongue swirling around my nipple, slow at first, then faster. His teeth grazed the tip—just barely, just enough—and a spike of heat shot straight between my legs. My back arched off the mattress like someone pulled a string through my spine. "Ah—fuck, Kaz—" My fingers twisted in his hair. Still damp. Still dark. Still soft. I pulled hard and he groaned against my skin, the vibration humming through my whole chest. I'd forgotten what that felt like. The hum.

He moved to my other breast. Same slow torture. His tongue flat against the nipple, then the point of it, then his teeth scraping just enough to make me buck against him. His hand slid down my stomach at the same time, slow, deliberate, his palm warm and a little rough. Through the hair between my legs. And when his fingers found me—found how wet I already was—he made this sound like a wounded animal. "Mmmh." I was soaked. Actually dripping. My thighs were slick with it. Embarrassing almost. But also not. Because it was him.

"You're so fucking wet," he whispered. His voice was completely destroyed. "I've dreamed about this. The way you taste. The sounds you make. The way your whole body tightens up when I touch you right here—" His middle finger circled my clit and pressed down with the exact pressure he'd figured out years ago. The pressure no one else ever got right. The pressure I'd tried to explain to other men and eventually gave up on. They weren't him. They'd never be him. What was the fucking point. He pressed harder, moved faster, and I jerked against him, a whine catching in my throat. I sounded pathetic. I didn't care.

"Oh god, right there—" My hips bucked into his hand.

"Only for you." My voice came out all shaky. "Only ever for you, Kaz."

He slid down my body. Kissed my stomach. My hip bone. The inside of my thigh. His stubble scraped the soft skin there and I gasped. I'd forgotten about the stubble. He always had stubble by evening. Then his mouth was on me, his tongue parting my folds, finding my clit, and I cried out so loud I was sure the whole hotel heard. "Oh god—Kaz—fuck—" I didn't care if they heard. Let them hear. He licked me slow at first, then faster, his tongue flat and warm and perfect. His fingers pushed inside me—two of them, curling up to hit that spot—and I grabbed the sheets and held on. My thighs were shaking. My whole body was shaking. He ate me out like he'd been starving for three years. Like he was trying to memorize the taste of me. Like this was the last meal he'd ever have. Maybe it was.

My thighs clamped around his head and he just groaned into me, the vibration pushing me closer and closer—

"Kaz, I'm gonna—I can't—" I was babbling. My hips were grinding against his face and I couldn't stop. He slid two fingers inside me—curled them up, found that spot, pressed—and I came apart. A scream ripped out of me, "Kaz—!" My cunt clenched around his fingers, my back bowed off the bed, my vision went white and hot. He kept licking me through it, soft and gentle as I came down, until I was shaking and oversensitive and pushing at his shoulders. Too much. Not enough. Both.

He crawled back up my body. His mouth was wet. His chin was wet. He was smiling—that tiny smile he used to give me after he'd made me come, like he was proud of himself, like making me feel good was his favorite thing in the world. It was. He told me once. He said it was better than anything. I believed him.

"I missed the way you taste," he said. "I missed it so fucking much."

My turn.

I pushed him onto his back. His belt clinked as I unbuckled it. I yanked his pants and briefs down together. His cock sprang up against his belly—thick, curving slightly left, the head dark and slick with precome. I wrapped my hand around him. The heat of it. The silk-over-steel feel. The vein pulsing on the underside. He was bigger than I remembered. Or maybe I'd just forgotten the exact weight of him in my palm. Memory is weird like that. It shrinks things. Or stretches them.

"God, Lian." His head fell back, jaw slack. "Your hand—fuck—"

I stroked him slow at first, watching his face. His eyes squeezed shut. His mouth fell open. His hips started thrusting up into my grip, little helpless movements, like his body couldn't help itself. I leaned down and licked the head—salty, bitter, him—and he made a sound like someone punched him in the gut.

"Please," he gasped. "Please, I need—I need to be inside you—"

"Lian." He groaned. "Lian. Say my name again."

"Kaz." I stroked him slow, twisting my wrist at the tip the way he always liked. He always liked that. The twist. "Kaz. My Kaz."

He made this sound. Like a sob but not quite. One dry, broken sound that he swallowed immediately. But I heard it. I felt it in my own chest. Like an echo.

I swung my leg over his hips. His hands grabbed my waist, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks. I'd have bruises tomorrow. I wanted them. I positioned him at my entrance—the thick head pressing against me, hot and blunt—and sank down.

The stretch. God, the stretch. I'd forgotten. My body remembered even though my brain tried to delete it. He filled me completely, every inch, that slight curve hitting somewhere deep that made my eyes roll back. I cried out, "Oh—oh fuck—Kaz—" My nails dug into his shoulders, right into the bicycle scar, right into the skin I'd kissed a thousand times. A thousand? More. Probably more.

I started to move. Slow at first, rolling my hips, grinding down until he was buried to the hilt. His hands guided my waist. His thumbs pressed into my hipbones. His mouth hung open, breath coming in these sharp, punched-out bursts.

"Look at you," he breathed. "Look at you riding me—god, you're so fucking beautiful—"

I rode him faster. My thighs burned. My breasts bounced. The sound of our skin slapping together filled the room. Wet. Dirty. Perfect. His cock dragged against my walls with every thrust, hitting that spot inside me that made sparks shoot up my spine. I leaned forward, bracing my hands on his chest, and the angle changed—deeper now, hitting somewhere that made me whimper.

"Yeah—yeah, right there—don't stop—" I was rambling. Didn't care. Words were just sounds now.

His thumb found my clit again. Circling with that perfect pressure. Matching the rhythm of my hips. My body started to tighten, that coiling heat building in my belly—

"Kaz, I'm close—I'm gonna come—"

"Do it." His voice was raw. "Come on my cock. Let me feel it."

I shattered. Harder than before. A sob tore out of me as the orgasm ripped through my whole body—my cunt clenching around him in waves, my thighs shaking, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes. "Kaz—Kaz—fuck—" I was crying and coming at the same time and I couldn't tell which was which anymore.

He flipped us. Suddenly I was on my back and he was above me, driving into me with these deep, desperate thrusts. The headboard slammed against the wall—thud, thud, thud—matching the sleet on the glass, matching my heart, matching three years of silence finally breaking open. Someone in the next room banged on the wall. We didn't stop. The room filled with the wet sound of our bodies, the smell of sex and cedar and his sweat, sharp and warm. My nails left marks down his back. I didn't care. I hope they scar.

His face above me was completely wrecked. Mouth open. Eyes wet. A tear dripped off his chin and landed on my cheek. His tear on my face. "Lian," he chanted. "Lian, Lian, Lian—" My name like a prayer. My name like a curse. My name like something he was trying to burn into his memory so he'd never lose it.

"Don't forget me." My voice broke. My hips met his thrust for thrust. My thighs were slick with sweat and my own wetness. My cunt was squeezing him tight, pulling him deeper. "Promise me. When it snows. When you make tea. Just—sometimes. Promise me you'll remember."

"I love her," he gasped out, still thrusting, still buried inside me. "I love her—she cuts my crusts off—she's so kind—she makes everything easy—" Another thrust, harder. "But she's not you. She'll never be you. Loving you was the hardest thing I ever did and I'd do it again, I'd do it a thousand times—"

"I promise," he groaned, crying now, actually crying. Tears running down his face into my neck. "I promise, I promise—"

He slammed into me one last time, buried to the hilt, and I felt his cock pulse—throb—spill hot and deep inside me. His groan was long and low and torn from somewhere I couldn't reach. "Mmmnh—fuck—Lian—" His whole body shuddered. His face pressed into my neck. I felt every pulse of his release. Hot. Wet. Filling me. Marki