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“I like looking at you.”
“Thank you?” he responds, a bit confused.
Shane looks at me over his phone with a half-pitying smile, his head cradled in the pillows of our bed in the cottage. I understand his confusion, because it was a stupid thing to say. But he looks very beautiful in this light, and I want to tell him.
I’m smart in Russian. It fucking pisses me off—I sound like a toddler in English. The language simultaneously makes no fucking sense and is pathetically boring. It has no complexity, no richness, no nuance. It’s impossible to create the same layers of thought in English that I can in Russian. It’s as if I am trapped inside myself and can only use a megaphone held by a third grader to speak with him.
At home, with women who shared my language, I could impress. A big shot, rich shit hockey player with a sweet tongue in bed. I am romantic in Russia. There is a reason women like me. My body, yes, of course. But I can make them come and I can make them laugh. I make good conversation, I’m clever. I read. They would not have been surprised to know I read the New Yorker. I sat at dinners with important people without a problem, but here people think I am just a half-literate athlete who only knows how to skate and who’s suffered too many concussions to have any personality left.
I want to say things to him that make no sense in English but would make him melt in Russian. My mother used to read poems by Pushkin to me when she tucked me in, and I want to read them to him, but every translation I find is fucking dull and stupid. He won’t even let me call him my “lover” because English has ruined that word. I hate English.
“Nothing. It’s stupid.” I don’t feel like trying to explain myself.
He puts his phone to the side and reaches out to touch my cheek with his knuckles. I love his gentleness, the way he is unafraid with me. It almost burns, like the first moments of sinking into a hot spring before the comfort washes over you.
“What’s stupid?”
“Your language is stupid.”
Shane chuckles at this, his eyebrows knitting in thought. I love how he thinks, though he thinks too much. I want to be able to think with him.
“What’s wrong with my language?”
“It is boring.”
“Are we still talking about English? Or are you just insulting me again?”
“No, I am still talking about English. Lucky for you, it fits you so well.”
He shoves my shoulder and we laugh. Our laughs are good together. I wish I could share with him the things that made me laugh as a boy, the idiotic things my mates and I would joke about. I suppose I could try, but it probably wouldn’t be as funny. Stories from boyhood always lose a little bit of power in the retelling anyway without also searching for the best translation.
Our laughter fades and I return to gazing at him. He really is very, very beautiful. The silky blackness of his hair and the way it falls on his forehead, the sweet rainfall of freckles across the angles of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips and the cupid’s bow that reminds me of a river current. The morning light makes him look golden. He is my prize, my treasure.
“I just like to look at you. That is all,” I say again.
The corners of his mouth turn up in a sheepish grin. The sweetness of it compels me to kiss the little lines on either side of his mouth. He hums as I press my lips to his and warmth blooms in my chest.
"I just like you," he whispers as I pull away. He searches my face for a moment and I try to make my expression softer so he knows I am not upset with him. He always thinks I am upset with him, and I almost never am, but I have noticed my face easily looks upset to Canadians.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “Just thinking about you, and your face. And your ass.”
This is the best way to get around the barrier that I’ve found. Just flirt with him until he forgets to interrogate me.
“You’re always thinking about my ass,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“I am.” I reach across to grab it, slipping my hand under his boxers and squeezing. “It is the perfect ass.” He covers my hand with his and laces our fingers together. He starts off staring at my mouth, but then finds my eyes.
“Even so, I know when you’re thinking about something else in addition to my perfect ass.”
Ugh. Shane is so completely earnest that I sometimes want to jump in the lake to get away from it. It is one of his best qualities; he has no ulterior motive. He truly wants to see inside me, to know me, to understand. He wants to be my friend. It mostly makes me love him, except for the part which wants to run to the mountains and never return.
“I wish I could talk to you,” I admit.
He blinks and furrows his brows. He’s so precious that I immediately regret being honest. He reaches a hand to my face and runs his thumb over my eyebrow.
“You can always talk to me,” he whispers. “I’ll always listen.”
“I know, solnyshko,” I whisper back.
-------
Sometimes we try speaking French instead. I know a little, as many Russians in our social tier do, and Shane is more or less fluent. It’s meant to be a very romantic language, and I suppose it is, but it’s not second nature to me the way it is to Shane. He’s mentioned learning Russian more than once, and I’m sure he means it. But the thought sits strangely with me, though I’m unsure exactly why. Probably because I know he’d become too comfortable with the language too quickly, which would be both embarrassing and hot.
“Did you like school?” I ask him over the produce display.
We walk in the grocery, gathering supplies for dinner at Yuna and David’s. Shane said Yuna had (What was the combination word he used… volun-told?) asked me to cook for the family. I do like cooking, though I don’t make many dishes. Tomorrow I’m making shashlik, the Russian (correct) version of kebabs. Looks impressive, is very easy to make well. Should score me some points.
“Uh, I guess? I was mostly focused on hockey, but I had good grades if that’s what you mean.”
“Of course you did,” I reply, throwing a bag of pearl onions across the display at him. He catches the bag, but barely.
“How about you? Did you like it?”
“Mmm. Yes, kind of.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means kind of. It was boring. Everyone else was stupid. Are the good pickles in the deli?”
The truth is that I would have loved school if it had just been me and the professors. I went to boarding school with other rich little shits, and most of them had no business being there. It was physically painful listening to our tutors try to pull answers out of them like teeth. School was so boring that it was hard to take it seriously, honestly.
“Which ones are the good pickles?” Shane sort of looks like a lost child as he turns to scout out the deli.
“The Grillo’s. The only good pickles.”
“I don’t think we have those here?” Shane opens his phone, no doubt Googling where to get Grillo’s pickles. “I think that’s only an American thing.”
“Blyad,” I curse under my breath. I won’t bring shitty Canadian pickles to dinner with Shane’s parents. I have standards.
I head over to get some cucumbers, and Shane follows with his nose in his phone.
“I think there’s an American store in the city where we can get them maybe?” His dedication to getting the right pickles is touching. “What do we need cucumbers for?”
“I’ll just make my own.”
“Your own what?”
“Pickles, Hollander. Keep up.”
“You can make pickles?”
That question pulls a genuine laugh from me.
“It’s just pickles,” I laugh. “You say it like I am magician.”
I started making my own pickles before I found Grillo’s. Pickles were my favorite snack as a boy, but the shitty sweet ones in America made me want to cry for how revolting they were. The ones I’m making for tomorrow’s dinner won’t be as good since they’ll only have been fermenting for a day or so, but it’s better than the alternative.
“It’s just pickles…” Shane mutters under his breath. “You say I’m perfect, but when you look closely, you’re pretty perfect, too.”
“Yes, see, this is what I am always trying to tell you. I am perfect.”
Shane just shakes his head as he walks toward the wine. “Fuck off, Rozanov.”
It’s my mission to make him say that at least once a day.
-------
“Fuck, Ilya.”
Eh, not quite Fuck off, Rozanov, but it’ll certainly do.
I have Shane pinned against the counter with my mouth around his dick. He was “helping” me cook, meaning that he was offering bad advice and heckling me, so I took matters into my own mouth. Not that I actually mind; it’s the principle of the thing.
“Ilya, Ilya, wait—” Shane gasps. He’s got both hands in my hair, trying to push my head away from his crotch. He’s trying to get me to stop before he finishes, I think. But why would I do that?
Shane releases into my mouth and down my throat, his fists tightening in my hair. I wouldn’t say it tastes good—I’ve never really believed those people who say they really enjoy it—but it does taste like Shane, and I do like that. And the sounds it draws out of him are truly delicious. He is panting, slowly releasing his grip on my hair.
“Now will you let me cook? Ah?”
Shane’s face and neck are a precious shade of red and he shakes his head in disbelief. I will say, it never gets old giving him pleasure like this. Making him look like a lovesick teenager every time. It’s one of my favorite skills.
“I can’t believe we did that in the kitchen, that’s so gross.”
I roll my eyes. What an incredibly Shane thing to say after his boyfriend just gave him unbelievable head in the middle of the day and swallowed.
“Shut up, or I’m going to think you’re ungrateful.”
“Fuck off,” he huffs with a laugh before bringing his lips to my neck. “I am very, very grateful.”
“Then make me a drink while I cook, yes?”
He gives a sort of reluctant smile, but heads to the fridge for a beer. Truthfully, I don’t need him to be grateful. It’s enough that I can make him swoon without words, because the words will always fail me with him.
He pours the beer into a glass and sets it by the cutting board where I’m preparing the lamb for our shashlik. He leans on his elbows across from me and watches me work.
“Where did you learn to cook?” he asks.
“In Boston,” I reply honestly. I didn’t learn to cook until I had to feed myself and missed home.
“Really?”
“We had people cooking for us at home.”
“Then how did you learn to cook Russian food?”
“I found out about this amazing place with any recipe you could ever want from around the world. It’s called the fucking internet.”
“Okay, yeah,” Shane sighs, throwing up his hands. He goes to the fridge and takes a just-pickled cucumber from the jar I’d made.
“These are really good, you know,” he crunches.
“Yes, I know.”
It’s quiet for a moment except for his crunching and the slice of my knife through the lamb shank.
“Did you really teach yourself to cook from recipes on the internet?”
“Yes, is not hard to follow a recipe.”
Shane has a habit of making a big deal about things that are not a big deal. Maybe it’s because everything he does off the ice feels like a big deal to him, maybe it’s just his way of parsing information. He’s just watching me with this look I can’t quite read and it makes me feel itchy.
“Why are you looking at me like that, ah? It’s making me weird.”
He laughs. “Making you feel weird.”
“What the fuck ever.”
“You’re just really smart, is all. I like that about you.”
The praise warms me, almost uncomfortably.
“Yes, thank you for noticing. I am hot and smart, I am a perfect man.”
“Shut up,” he chuckles and grabs another pickle from the jar. I slap his hand.
“They are not for you! Go be useful somewhere!”
But he stays seated, watching me and crunching away.
-----------
I don’t know how to learn the kind of English that will help me communicate the way I want to. Second-language English classes and sitcoms don’t teach you how to speak beautifully in English. I don’t know how to think deeply in English.
One of my literature tutors in school once told me, “You could be a very good writer if you allowed yourself, Ilya.” But mama was gone by then and hockey is what made papa happy, so that’s where the story went. I wonder, though, if I could still be very good at it. If I could allow myself.
So I order a book of love poems by Pushkin, some of the same ones my mama read to me as a child. When it arrives, I snatch it off the front porch before Shane can find it. That night, after Shane falls asleep, I go to the couch with the book, my phone, and a pen. My thumb finds the page with his most famous poem and I spend the night searching for English translations. Maybe if I compare the original to the different interpretations, I might find my way into understanding this language better.
------
Dinner at Yuna and David’s goes well, as expected. They loved the food and the wine, they loved my jokes. David, I’m learning, is very clever with words, too. I didn’t expect this, though I’m sure they didn’t expect it from me, either. They were impressed by the homemade pickles.
On the drive home, Shane reaches over to set his open hand on my knee. A request. He’s so funny, still. Like he doesn’t know he can’t overstep. I cradle his hand in both of mine, tracing the lines of his palm with my thumb.
“Did you like literature in school?” I ask.
Shane pushes out an amused little huff. “Literature?”
“Like books’ class, reading,” I clarify. Maybe I’m using the wrong word?
“I know what literature is,” he laughs. “Uh, not really, no. We always had to read the most boring books.”
“Ah, but you should have loved it, then,” I tease.
“Wrong kind of boring, I guess,” he smiles. “Why do you ask?”
I don’t really know why I ask. Maybe I’m hoping he has a favorite poet. Or at least a poem he liked. A novel, maybe. Something to give me a foothold.
Who am I kidding? Shane does not have a favorite poem.
“Nothing, just curious.”
“About my literature classes?”
“I was just fantasizing about you as a schoolboy, was trying to complete the picture.”
“Alright, alright.”
Though, now that I say it, picturing Shane in a little uniform is intriguing.
-------
“What’s this?” In the living room, Shane is holding the book of poems. He’s thumbing through it as if he were going to read it himself. A jolt of embarrassment hits me, but I push it down. So what? It’s just some poems. No big deal.
“Ah, some poems. Pushkin.”
Shane’s face lights up. “You read poetry?”
“Only sort of. Not for a long time. I just bought that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you like poems?”
Okay, it’s beginning to feel like a bigger deal. Standard.
“Why do you care?”
His face drops and he closes the book.
“I just think it’s cute, that’s all.”
“I am not cute.”
“You are!”
“No, solnyshko, you are the one who is cute.”
He blushes, my sunshine. The flush that heats his neck is the reason I want to be better at English. If I could really use the language, he’d be helpless.
“Come here,” he murmurs, almost sheepishly. I swear to Christ, it is the hottest fucking thing when he fights through his nervousness. He had me from our first kiss.
“No, you come here,” I tease back, though I’m closing the space between us. I bring my lips to the space just under his ear, leaving the ghost of a kiss. “You like it when I call you that, ah? My sunshine.”
“I like it better in Russian,” he whispers.
“Moyo solnyshko,” I repeat in my mother tongue, “on ozaryayet moyu zhizn'
He tilts his head back to give me room to work. The beautiful lines of his throat are somehow tender and erotic at once. I can’t help but lick into the dip above his collarbone before biting the flesh of his shoulder.
“Tell me more, please,” Shane whimpers.
“More what, my love?” His hands are in my hair and he pulls my head up so we’re face to face now.
“What are your poems about?”
“Love,” I answer simply.
“Read one to me?”
The thought of pausing what we’re currently doing to read him an old love poem truly makes me cringe. But he’s looking at me with those big, wet, sparkling brown eyes and though I’m usually the one ordering him around, he knows how to get exactly what he wants from me.
“Later, I’m busy,” I say into his neck. I reach down past the firm planes of his back to press my middle fingers into the dimples just above his ass. He pushes his hips into mine and whines.
“Please? I want to hear it.”
“They aren’t as good in English.”
“Then tell me in Russian.”
I slip my hands up under his shirt to palm at his chest, letting the heel of my hand drag over his nipple which pulls a little moan from his throat. I’m quickly becoming hard and losing patience for this line of inquiry.
“It’s just a poem. Let me enjoy you.”
He stills my hand with his.
“I love it when you speak Russian.”
“You can’t understand anything I say,” I argue.
“I don’t need to.” His eyes are so earnest, they almost convince me he’s right. It could be fun.
“Okay,” I relent.
I turn and sit on the couch, my legs spread just enough to take up space.
“Syad' mne na koleni,” I command, nodding toward my lap. He looks a little confused… or scandalized? Turned on? I can’t quite tell, so I press forward.
“Idi syuda, moy kotenok, ya khochu tebya pogladit.” I pat my thighs this time to get my point across, and with a timid little grin he straddles me, settling his hips down onto mine. He’s so fucking pretty—the gentle lines of his cheekbones, his plump lower lip. I can’t help but take it between my teeth. He grinds down into my lap and I reward him with my tongue in his mouth.
We kiss like this for moments, minutes. Slowly, languidly, his hands cradling my face and my hands roaming his body. I’m reminded that Shane has given very few people the opportunity to touch him like this, and my fingers dig into his ribs thinking of his face the first time he touched me.
“Ya khochu tol'ko tebya, moya lyubov’.” I’ve touched so many people—men, women, friends, strangers. I’ve done things that I’m not proud of, things that were fun in the moment but left me feeling empty. I’ve had beautiful sex with beautiful people in many countries. And yet, I only want Shane. I’ve never only wanted one person before. Never denied someone because I was longing for someone else. Even with all my experience, and all his inexperience, he’s still the only one I want to touch.
“Take this off,” he says into my mouth as he tugs at my shirt. The guilelessness of his touch down my chest makes me feel like a precious thing. He is a precious thing to me.
His hands grip my pecs and suddenly, I just need him closer. I wrap my arms around his waist and twist us until he’s laid out on the sofa and I’m crowding over him, laying my body over his. He throws his head back and gasps little fucks and pleases as I suck blooming marks into his chest. My hand is strong around his shoulder, but he pulls it up toward his throat and squeezes with his hand over mine.
“You want?” I confirm. I’m losing my English a bit, as happens sometimes in bed. It’s hard enough to flip back and forth between languages without all my blood rushing to my groin.
Shane just gasps and nods. I take that as a yes and latch my mouth around his nipple while giving an experimental squeeze to the sides of his throat. He moans wantonly and bucks his hips into mine, a clear sign that yes, he wants.
“Spasibo za to, chto ty posvyatila sebya mne,” I say into his skin. From the very beginning, Shane has given himself to me. In the hardest moments, in the happiest. He’s only ever been open to me, even when he wasn’t open to himself. What did I do to deserve such a gift?
I need him in my mouth. I need his hands in my hair, hanging on for his life, tensing and pulsing under me. I need the nakedness of his whines, I need his gasping, stuttering breaths. I need him.
So I take what he offers. His jeans and boxers come off and my mouth is on him instantly. I don’t have the patience to tease him tonight, I just need his pleasure.
“Jesus fuck, baby.” He’s immediately rolling his hips into my face and I move with him, my hands cradling under his ass. I hum my encouragement around his cock and focus on the ragged sounds of his breathing as I relax my throat to take him further.
“Fuck, oh my god—”
Even swimming through the love and tenderness I feel for him, I can’t deny that being able to undo him so easily is a head rush. It’s just fucking fun to be able to reduce him to this with a few strokes of my mouth around his cock. It’s powerful.
I remember my hand around his throat and tighten my grip again, just enough to give the impression that I could control his breath if I wanted to. He’s petting the hair at my forehead and the sweetness of that gesture melts me. Usually, I would be working up to deepthroating him fast and hard by now, but I want to make love. I want him to feel how I feel.
In the quiet darkness of the room, I work to take him apart with my mouth. He makes these high-pitched, broken sounds with his arm slung over his face that make my heart ache at the same time that my cock is throbbing. Before Shane, I didn’t know that desire and devotion could be the same thing.
As his voice becomes louder and more desperate, I take my hand from his throat and lace our fingers together. A sound almost like a sob escapes him and then he’s panting as I worship his cock.
“Ilya, baby, oh my god—I love you, fuck—”
It’s in this moment, as his breath is hitching and he’s holding my hand, just before he comes down my throat, that I realize English isn’t to blame. I love him and want him and need him in ways I don’t actually even know how to say in my own language. This love is nameless and true, and I’m going to keep choosing it every day, forever.
Shane sucks in air as he comes down from his high, and I sit up to see his eyes are glistening.
“You’re okay?” I ask, concerned I may have misread something.
“Okay? Fuck,” he laughs. “I’m perfect. Holy shit. You’re perfect.”
He bolts upright and takes my face in his hands. We kiss, deep and filthy.
“You taste like me,” he grins against my mouth. It’s cute that he’s learned to enjoy that taste.
“Ya khochu naslazhdat'sya tvoim vkusom vechno,” I say, biting his jaw.
“What does that mean?”
“I want to enjoy your taste forever.”
His eyes roam over my face before taking my lips again. It’s short, almost chaste.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he whispers, tentatively. It punches the air from my lungs.
“Ya tebya tozhe lyublyu,” I breathe in reply.
------
The next morning we take our breakfast on the back porch. The morning is fine and clear, just on the edge of chilly. Sometimes mornings like this make me miss home, but I’m not sure why.
“You never read me one of your poems,” Shane notes around a mouthful of toast.
“They’re not my poems, I didn’t write them.”
“Yeah, but they’re important to you, right?” He’s looking at me with that punchable, kissable, honest look he gets.
“I guess so. Yes.”
“Then I want to hear one.”
I consider it for a moment, then give in and go to retrieve the book.
“I will read one,” I say firmly. I’m not doing sappy shit all day.
I turn to the dog-eared page of one of Pushkin’s best known poems. Seems like a good enough place to start.
“This one is very famous in Russia. I thought of it a lot before we were together.”
“What’s it called?”
“I Loved You.”
So I read it in Russian. He lays his head on his crossed arms on the table like a boy, eyes closed. It’s a short poem, but it brings to mind every night we weren’t together.
“What does it mean?” he asks, head still resting on his arms.
“I don’t like any of the translations I find.”
“Try?”
I sigh, looking over the words on the page.
“It means… ‘I love you so much that even when you don’t love me back, I wish for someone else to love you the way I do.’”
His eyebrows crease. He sits up and runs a hand over my forearm.
“That’s so sad.”
“Yes, sad. But also beautiful. To love someone so much.”
“You thought about that poem a lot? Before?”
“All the time.” I did.
Shane leans in to kiss me, and I allow myself to simply be kissed.
“Are there any you think about now?”
“Yes, but they are also sad. They are Russian.”
He grins at that and squeezes my arm. He takes our plates inside and I read over it again, remembering the time before I used language to express my love.
I loved you; and perhaps I love you still,
The flame, perhaps, is not extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.
Silently and hopelessly I loved you,
At times too jealous and at times too shy.
God grant you find another who will love you
As tenderly and truthfully as I.