Winter.
The snow of a new year wasn't any colder than the snow of the year before. Once the temperature reached a certain point I forgot temperature exists at all. Forgot leaves were ever green or red. The barren trees, like uncles too old to tell jokes anymore, stood alone holding the weight of four frozen oceans and rainforests a million miles away. Like cousins that never meet, seen only in Christmas cards every other year. They look nothing alike, don't even share a last name and you'd be okay if you never met the picture at all. But you don't worry, because like the trees of Russia and Amazon, you're a million miles away.
Fridays we wouldn't have sex. We wouldn't eat meat. We would talk very little for she prayed all day in Russian. "God" was the only word I understood other than "sorry." These two words seemed to be in every sentence and this drove me mad. She was a stranger on Fridays so I'd disappear into the landscape. Walk towards the waters and the fields, all over, but never towards the woods. They were too dense and I feared I'd never be able to find my way back. I couldn't read the sky. Had no idea how to navigate. Without boundaries created by treaties, I'd never know where I was.
Fridays were the days I'd think I was crazy. Fridays were the days I thought about my family. My brothers, and my friends from childhood. About my parents and the animals I had growing up. About the day I beat up Anthony Silvestri on the bus. Broke his gold necklace. He was poor. I saw his house when he was dropped off everyday. Couldn't get over the guilt. Couldn't face him. Started to save money from cutting yards and shoveling driveways to buy him a new one, but I knew he'd never take it. So I spent the money on chocolates and teddy bears for valentines who didn't seem to care. On basketball cards I didn't steal.
Winter days were short and I didn't walk after nightfall. I envied wolves but feared them. So I'd head back to the cabin out of breath and thirsty for refreshment. Serena would have the fire going and she'd be on the chair next to it reading the bible. Page after page. She read it twice while I was there and once I jokingly asked if she was re-reading it for ideas to juice up the sex. Perhaps we needed to incorporate more lashings. Her response was in Russian and I stayed in another room the rest of the night.
I grew up Catholic. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Serena was Catholic as well, yet we couldn't relate religiously. I've never sat and read the bible so she called me a heretic. I called her a zealot. Since then we left the subject alone and on Saturday morning I'd wake with her supple tits in my mouth. For six days we'd feast on food and flesh and all would be normal again.
Tasting her pussy, sucking her insides to see if the wetness would at some point end. Scratching my eyelids. Popping my eardrums. Spreading her ass cheeks as I spread her pussy with my tongue. She sucking my dick as if to punish a heretic, my head throbbing against her vocal chords to quiet the inquisition. Till I lubricated them for her like olive oil and honey for a singer. My fingerprints hiding on the inside of her ass crack when she stood, like the scratches on my eyelids when I looked.
When we awoke the wine was poured again and the lard of the frying pan melted like the debauchery of another week.
I was never sure of the day unless it was Friday. So I was never sure when we were leaving. When I was leaving. When I'd have to or get to, depending on my mood, go back to the states. Back to civilization. Back to where I couldn't live off of wine and pussy and steak. Watching her ice skate. Watching her eat. Watching her start the fire and shovel the walk. I'd watch with my shovel as she cleared another foot, until she made fun of how weak I was. That she did everything a man was supposed to do. She was right and I said nothing. I was weak.
I think that had a lot to do with why we were so crazy for each other for the time we were. She needed to be stronger than me. Stronger than whoever made her come. Stronger than whoever made her need. And I needed to be weaker. I didn't need to know if I fulfilled her. She would ask if she made me come harder than anyone else. I never returned the question. I truly didn't care. So she tried to make me come harder each time. She wanted to fuck and I obliged every idea and request. Once halfway out the door, her face in the snow, tits melting circles in the ice. When I fucked her I could see the top of the abandoned barn off in the distance. It was about a mile away and I had walked there many times by myself and with Serena. With her we'd fuck. Without her I'd climb the rafters and jump into the drifts of the snow like a kid. One time I jumped and went in as high as my chest and it took fifteen minutes to get out. I told Serena about it afterwards and she cried, said I'd die before the spring thaw. And when I finally left I thought about those tears and the new ones after and realized that for her there was no difference between me dying and me flying away.
I told her that like her father and grandfather I had to return when bricklayers could lay bricks. She said I couldn't even mix the cement, mix the mortar, that I couldn't do anything without her. But it was Serena who couldn't do anything without me and the more I realized that, the more I wanted the thaw to come. I told her about Groundhog Day in America. About how if it saw its shadow it meant spring was coming and she said she hoped it never left its hole. I told her it has to eventually. It always does. That it's televised. She spoke in Russian. Hands trembling, black eyelashes fluttering, darker hair being run through and twisted between her delicate fingers. Long nails that never seemed to break.
I'd change the subject. Tell her about my childhood. About when I would race skateboards like bobsleds down giant hills and run into mailboxes and ditches and bushes. About how I'd steal lumber from construction sites to build tree forts. About throwing crabapples into the sky at night to watch the bats divebomb after them in a cul-de-sac I haven't seen in years. About how I'd get boners in class and not be able to stand up when I was called on. About snow forts and report cards and brothers' first cars and their girlfriends that I masturbated to. About creeks and fences I've crossed and climbed and the reasons why. Running from. Going to. Just because. And all the things before and after. Talked until she stopped trembling and she was laughing at me and saying I'd never have made it in Russia, and she wrestled me and held me till I gave in to her embrace and sleep.
One Friday the cabin was silent except for praying and the crash of an icicle falling from the roof shattered the calm. Serena looked outside and at me and back to the bible. I heard "God" and "sorry" more than ever before and she asked me before I went on my walk to please stay away from the barn. Her face was pale and her eyes a desperate fading green. I promised her I would.
That day I took off my hat and gloves when I walked, even unbuttoned my coat. The closest abandoned bus stop had puddles over mud where snow once was. And the trees, no longer covered in ice, stopped cracking when the breeze blew through, and instead flexed their branches.
When I returned to the cabin Serena was gone. She left a note on the bed that said,
I can't bear to see you pack so please have it done by the time I return. Went to ice skate one last time.
Love, Serena
