CHAPTER 18 #2
I cross the eight feet between us and stop at a distance she can step back from. I put my hands at my sides. The touch waits. The words come first.
"Rossi."
She lifts her chin.
"This is the protocol. We are four. You are one. You hold all our names. You hold the word that ends the room. Hippocratic. Color. We hold you. You hold yourself. Say yes."
"Yes."
I draw the breath through the nose. Four counts in. The pause is the work.
"Elena."
Her eyes go wide for a half-beat. The lashes go down once and up again. The medallion lifts a quarter inch on the chain as her sternum lifts.
"Yes."
Her name stays in my mouth, kept back. I save it. Thirty-nine years I have spent saving syllables for the times they will hold.
"There are three rules. Anyone may say color at any time. The word Hippocratic ends the room. Outside this room we are the people we have always been; inside this room, we are each other’s. State comprehension."
"I understand. I agree. I want this. Yes."
"Good, Elena."
The room exhales. The fire takes one long breath through the flue. Alexei has begun to unbutton the Henley at the cuff. Gabriel's hand stays flat on the jamb where it has been. He is the count. He is waiting.
I lift my right hand to her collar and undo the top button of the cardigan with one finger. My eyes stay on hers. Hers stay on mine.
"Elena."
"Yes, Nikolai."
I undo the second button. The third. The fourth.
The cardigan slides off her shoulders. Stefan steps in from behind and lifts it clean.
The dress next — Stefan unzips at the nape; Gabriel unhooks at the waist; Alexei lifts the hem.
The dress comes off her over her head in three pairs of hands.
The bra Gabriel unhooks at the back with two fingers.
He watches her face in the mirror over the chest of drawers for the half-second the bra takes to leave her, and her eyes hold his clean through.
She is standing at the bed's end in nothing but the medallion.
The three men are still half-clothed; the protocol is precise about this.
The men finish undressing themselves at the cardinal points — Stefan at the chair by the fire; Alexei at the chest of drawers; Gabriel at the door — plain in their motions, free of theatre.
I undress at the bedside, the watch still on the bedside table, the shirt folded twice and set on the chest. The fire takes the room's edge.
The radiator hisses. The foghorn calls once outside.
I lift her by the hips and set her on the bed. She lets her weight go into my hands. She is breathing four in, six out. Stefan taught her that count Day Ten. She has kept it.
"On your back, Elena."
"Yes."
I lay her down. Her left hand lifts and finds the headboard above her head.
Her palm closes against the carved double-eagle at the centre of the walnut panel.
The wood is cool there; her hand has not warmed it yet.
The pads of her fingers find the wing's edge — the deep relief, the cold grain — and stay.
I take my place at her left breast. Alexei is at her right.
Stefan kneels at the head of the bed at her mouth, the cord at his left wrist falling against her collarbone.
Gabriel is between her thighs, the strap at his left lab coat folded in the pocket of the coat hanging on the chair — the strap stays out of the room tonight; the protocol's first night is bare-handed; her own held breath is the only restraint, and we have all agreed.
Gabriel's voice goes low and even, the Italian cadence under the English as it always is when he is counting.
"Uno."
I lower my mouth to her left nipple. Alexei to her right.
Stefan kisses her mouth. Gabriel's mouth to her clit.
The four points close on her at once. Her sternum lifts a half-inch.
The held breath I told her was her restraint becomes the restraint.
The breath stays locked behind her teeth.
The medallion stays at the centre of her chest, lifted on the lifted sternum, the chain steady.
"Due."
The artery gives me enough. My tongue is even.
Alexei's mouth is hot on her right nipple, the ringed thumb pressed flat against her sternum a half-inch above the medallion.
Stefan lifts his mouth a half-inch off hers and says the line that is his and his alone — "Perfect, doll.
" The cord at his wrist rests at her throat above the medallion. He kisses her again on the four-count.
"Tre."
She begins to exhale. She exhales over Stefan's mouth. He takes the breath into his own. The exhale is the cue. The held breath was the restraint and now the restraint is gone and the room is hers.
"Quattro."
Gabriel's mouth is steady at her clit. His left hand is flat at the inside of her left thigh. My right hand is flat at her sternum below the medallion. The chain lies under my palm. Her heart is moving fast under my palm. Her breathing has shortened.
"Color. " Gabriel. Quiet, on the breath. He keeps his voice low.
"Rotate."
He moves first. He always moves first; he is the count. He rises from between her thighs and crosses to her right breast where Alexei was. Alexei moves to her mouth. Stefan moves to her left breast where I was. I move to between her thighs. The geometry shifts in four seconds.
Her cunt is wet against my mouth. The slick is clean and thick at the inner thigh. I taste her. I keep the tempo at thirty seconds against the throb at her hip artery. Her heart is racing now. Her breathing has gone bright and shallow. The medallion at her sternum lifts as her chest lifts.
"Uno."
Alexei's mouth opens over hers. He kisses her.
The kiss is fast and slow at once — fast at the lips, slow at the tongue.
He pulls back an inch and says, low, the line that is his and his alone — "Such a fucking gift.
" Krasivaya under the breath. Krasivaya.
The word is in the room and it belongs only to him. He goes back into the kiss.
"Due."
Stefan's mouth at her left breast where mine was. His four-count under his lower lip. The scar on his palm against her ribcage.
"Tre."
Gabriel's mouth at her right breast where Alexei was. His face stays bowed to her skin. He saves his line for his turn at her mouth. He has built the count and the count includes the holding of the line.
"Quattro."
My mouth at her cunt. I keep the tempo.
"Color."
Her breath comes long. "Green."
"Rotate."
We rotate. Each man one position forward in the cycle. I take her mouth. Alexei moves between her thighs. Gabriel to her left breast. Stefan to her right. The geometry shifts in four seconds. The four of us are in the new positions before her breath has finished its second four-count.
"Uno."
I lower my mouth to hers. Her lips part under mine.
She tastes faintly of the Stoli; under that, of herself.
I kiss her slow. I am face to face with her for the first time inside the protocol and her eyes are open.
I lift my mouth a quarter inch off hers.
I say the line that is mine — "Good girl.
" I say her name after it. "Elena. " The name lands in the room.
Twice now. The first at the threshold. The second inside the rotation. I return to her mouth.
"Due."
Gabriel at her left breast. The slowest mouth she has known is at her left nipple and his left hand is flat under her ribs.
"Tre."
Stefan between her thighs. He counts in four under his breath. His face stays put; his line was said at her mouth in the first rotation and the rule is one call.
"Quattro."
Alexei at her right breast. The ringed thumb at her iliac. The cold steel against her bone is the after-image he made in the trauma bay Day Six. The after-image holds now.
"Color. " Gabriel. Quiet again, the count carrying it.
She breaks the kiss for one syllable. "Green."
"Rotate."
Gabriel to her mouth. Stefan to her left breast. Alexei to her right. I move between her thighs. The geometry has begun to seek the closing configuration. The slick at her inner thigh has thickened. Her heart has run beyond calm. Her breathing breaks into heat.
Gabriel lifts his face above hers. The fourth line of the litany is his and his alone. He keeps it low. He says her name first — "Elena" — and then the line — "Look at what you are. " The litany is complete. The four lines have been called, each at her mouth, each in his own turn.
She comes the first time on the fourth rotation. Gabriel's count is at due. My tongue is on her clit. My left hand is under the small of her back. The body answers before speech can. The sound she makes is not a sound. It is the absence of a held count.
The four of us hold the geometry steady through the come.
We stay where we are until the pulse at her hip artery slows under my mouth.
I keep my mouth at her clit through the last three pulses and then lift.
I look up. Gabriel's eyes are on mine over the rise of her sternum.
The eye contact is the witness charge. He says, even, "Color. "
"Green," she says. "Fuck. Green. Yes."
"Rotate."
The rotation continues. She comes the second time during the seventh rotation, then a third time before the count reaches twelve.
I lose the count of the comes after three.
The rotation count stays clean. Gabriel keeps his too.
The Italian goes on at twenty-second intervals.
Uno, due, tre, quattro. The four-line litany has been called once, the rule honoured, the praise lines held in their owners' mouths. The structure holds.
The first hour stays mouths and hands; the cock waits.
The first hour is the rotation; the rotation is the architecture; the rotation is the protocol naming itself in the body.
The cock comes later — Alexei first, slow, at the rotation he is between her thighs; then me; then Stefan; Gabriel stays outside her tonight; he kisses her instead, as he kissed her at the loft, because his protocol is the count and the count is his.