Chapter 3 #2
Juliette wondered if the hitch in her words gave her away before Katarina got up and moved to the window, her back to Juliette.
Framed by all the lights in the early hour of the gloomy, foggy morning, she looked divine.
Tall and slender, long, graceful limbs telegraphed her profession.
A ballerina. The ballerina. One for centuries.
One for epochs. One who danced well into her 50s and ruled over every company she ever headlined.
Even now, her influence, her talent, her history were guiding generations of dancers.
And speaking of history.
“I hate what this place does to you, my love. And yet, I don’t think it’s about this place at all.” Juliette knew her words were probably a few years too late, hell maybe a decade, ever since their first time coming to Estonia.
“I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what’s been on your mind, Juliette.” Katarina did not turn around to face her, but her voice was warm, no trace of anger or impatience in it. Juliette hugged the pillow to her chest, feeling tears threaten.
“I know this is your country. But there is something here that just draws the life right out of you, and I cannot stand witnessing your eyes lose their light. The way you watch everything, the way you expect—”
“To be arrested? To be thrown in jail? To catch a stone in my face, thrown by some angry, anonymous hand?”
Katarina turned to her now, and her face was all torment.
Juliette willed herself not to look away.
But as the seconds ticked, the clock on the wall pulling the strings of time between them, Katarina’s eyes lightened and she took a few steps towards the sideboard where a breakfast spread was ready for them, pouring a small cup of coffee.
As she handed it to Juliette, she traced her jaw gently. A caress, a benediction, an absolution.
“You are so quintessentially you, darling, it’s fascinating, despite living almost your entire life all over the globe. You still remain so innocent.”
Juliette gave her a long stare, waiting for an explanation.
“Of course this country makes me sad. And no, not just because my parents are buried here. And not just because I look around every time I grasp your hand, or kiss your cheek, or introduce you as my wife.” Katarina poured a cup for herself and sat next to Juliette.
“This is my fifth visit in thirty years, and believe it or not, everything has changed here. From the decriminalization of homosexuality to the complete repudiation of Soviet propaganda. Things do change, darling. Where I might’ve been wary of kissing you in the streets in the ‘90s, I no longer am. Looking over my shoulder is a force of habit. Same as expecting the police at my door every time there is a knock. They took my parents in the dead of the night, no trial, no due process. Some people still sleep with a knife under their pillow. It’s an inevitable result of the inflicted trauma, the type of trauma that even my decades in therapy cannot heal. ”
Juliette took a sip of her coffee and it settled bitterly on her tongue. Tears threatened again, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I guess what makes me sad here this time, on top of seeing mom and dad’s graves, or the orphanage I spent a year in that is now named after me with that plaque on the front wall, is that while some places in the world are going forward… The one we currently call home is not.”
Juliette bit her lip, suddenly aware just how deep her own sadness and fear about their homeland went.
There was also hope, as good people would never stop working towards it, but in that moment, in those past few days, she recognized her anxiety and melancholy were not caused by the place they had been physically in, but the one they’d be returning to.
“I never realized how much we took for granted, my love. Traveling always puts things into perspective for me… You held me yesterday in front of the Viru Gates—”
“And nobody blinked an eye.” Katarina finished her thought, and they sat in silence, the seconds trickling away, the coffee getting cold in Juliette’s hand.
Then, Katarina plucked the cup and set it on the floor by the bed.
“I don’t know which one of us is more down in the dumps, darling.
You thought it was I, and I was certain it was you. ”
“Both can be true.” Juliette felt the sigh choke her. What was happening to her?
“I think you’re grieving. And projecting it on me, on my own grief and on this place.” Katarina sounded so desolate. Juliette took her hand in hers, squeezed, and felt her squeeze back.
“I’m scared.” The truth came out in a stumbling whisper.
Katarina reached for her, kissed her forehead, enveloped her in those graceful arms, in that scent of orange blossom, in that feeling of home.
“Don’t be. My darling one. Don’t be. Everything is awful back there. And things aren’t going to get better soon. I know people are fighting, resisting, but right now it’s seemingly hopeless; still, it’s only seemingly so.”
“Why do you think that?” Juliette felt small, tired, insignificant to her very core, and Katarina’s arms were the only thing holding her here, present.
“Because some things cannot be locked up, once set free. And you cannot walk into the same river twice. The waters are different. Things change, darling. Like those waters. Fifty years ago being gay was a sentence. Thirty years ago? A problem. Now? How many would look at us twice if I held your hand in Richmond, Virginia?”
“Nobody would,” Juliette realized the point hit home, the bands around her chest loosening just a bit. “You picked that city on purpose.”
She felt Katarina’s smile bloom against her temple.
“I did. I chose it for what it once was, for the evil it stood for. And yet, you and I have been there. And nobody gave a damn. Things change. People evolve, even if some continue to lean on hate. I have faith.”
“In people?”
“In change. In what’s right.” Katarina looked her in the eye before slowly lowering her mouth, “In us. Always in us.”
The kiss started slowly, a lingering feather touch, a caress so gentle, the tears Juliette had been holding back spilled, one, then another and Katarina’s lips followed their path.
Drying Juliette’s cheeks. Gently drawing her sorrows away, replacing them with a fire that sprang on the banking coals, the coals of desire for her wife that never went away.
Decades, years, weeks, days… Nights. They had made love a thousand times and yet, it was always like the first time.
“Yes, like the time you pushed me into that wall in our apartment on Rue de Rivoli and destroyed me with words. The time you called me a good girl.”
Katarina’s eyes were stormy, a touch of that wildness from all those decades ago burning brightly in them, a wildness that Juliette reveled in because it meant the same hunger that ravaged her, consumed this woman.
This woman was her passion and her obsession, even after all these years. The enigma. The legend. The greatest ballerina of all time…
“And all mine…” Juliette reached down and in one strong tug, ripped Katarina’s cotton shirt apart, the little buttons flying everywhere across the floor. The sound of her wife’s breath catching, inflamed her even more.
“Mine… Mine… Mine…” Juliette punctuated every word with a kiss that she knew would be a bruise by the end of this encounter, and Goddess, she’d leave more, because she could.
Because as she flipped Katarina down on the unmade bed, the desire in her eyes turned feral, and Juliette couldn’t help but draw her hands up over the rising and falling breasts, pinching the nipples, making Katarina moan.
“Please…”
Oh yes…
“Please what, my love?” She lowered her voice and her face to barely centimeters from the place where Katarina wanted her and pinched harder. The moan that she elicited was downright dirty.
“Please fuck me…” The breathy, ragged pleading did unspeakable things to Juliette’s own heart. To her pussy.
She licked the begging nipple and then circled it, once, twice, before suddenly pulling it into her mouth and sucking.
Hard. Katarina screamed. Oh yes indeed. She sucked and pinched, and beneath her Katarina twisted and moaned, her hands digging into Juliette’s hair, as if uncertain if to pull her closer or push her away and then finally after a minute or so, Katarina seemed to have come to a decision. She pushed. But not away.
“I want you to make me come. Now. I want you to lick me and eat me and make me come out of my mind. Make me scream so hard the entire Old Town hears me and knows your name, knows to whom I belong.”
Her hands pushed Juliette’s head down, down where the smell of Katarina drove her mad, made her want to devour and never stop.
And so she did. Because the way this woman had with words? It was impossible not to come on the spot. Juliette had to squeeze her thighs together even as she kissed her way down Katarina’s body.
When she tore the lacy bikinis off, she decided that restraint was not a virtue and even as she lowered her face and licked the folds, drinking in the taste, slowly getting everything within her mouth’s reach wet, she allowed her hand to lower right into her own underwear.
She savored and she thrust her tongue into Katarina in rhythm with her fingers, teasing her entrance.
Then as she drew Katarina’s clit in her mouth, plunged three fingers in and lost her head, her rhythm, her sense of anything but this taste, this woman, this bliss.
The feel of her, the sound of her, the image of her coming apart under her mouth were enough to push Juliette off the edge.
In the quiet of the room, they breathed heavily. Juliette’s face, messy and wet, on Katarina’s naked thigh. Katarina’s hands still in Juliette’s hair, untangling the knots she had made there, massaging the scalp, playing with the amalgam of gray and black.
“I love you, you know that.”
Juliette smiled at the declaration.
“I do know that. I think it’s the most amazing thing of all. That you love me. That in the entire world, within billions of people, among massacres, dictatorships, and iron curtains, among disease and evil, among all the other loves, you found me. And you loved me. And you waited for me.”
Katarina trailed her fingers down the nape of her neck, raising goosebumps.
“You see, darling, I’d have waited for you forever.
Lifetimes. So none of the things that scare you scare me.
Why? Because nothing will ever stop this.
And so we live. And we love. And we fight.
For our daughter, for our family, for our friends, for us.
For every special moment. For every fairy light. ”
Outside, the March snow was falling in slow motion, blanketing the Old Town, the Viru Gates, and the city that accepted them.
Inside, as Juliette reached for her wife again, their love kept them warm.
Kept them hopeful. Kept them happy. The little lights danced brightly, making new memories of their love.