"I am yours, Grigori,” her arms flopped over her head. “Use me, reject me, that will never change."
He pulled off the turtleneck, revealing the statuesque torso. “I dream of you,” he confessed. “Every night, in detail. That character I wrote. She is you, you know."
"I know,” she replied. “And Spring Lust is you. That leaves Winter Lust. The second male part. Should I take a guess?"
Grigori pulled off his boots and undid his buckle. “I used to call him the White Lion,” he explained. “In my language, that was how I referred to Giovanni."
"White,” she approved. “For winter and wisdom. The aging, majestic king of beasts. It fits."
She drew a sharp breath as he unzipped his pants. He wore no underwear. His cock, if anything was larger than she remembered, and thicker.
"Oh, god,” she cried, lifting her hips without shame. “I need it so bad. Fuck me, Grigori, please, I beg you."
"Do you surrender to me, wholly? To my power and to my wisdom?” He was masturbating, the slow rhythmic motion putting her into a lustful trance.
"But I'm ten years older,” she protested mildly.
"I will have you no other way … Julya."
The sound of her mispronounced name burned through her like flames through dried brush. “I surrender, Grigori. It is what I want. If you wish, I shall call you Master."
"My first name will do, though there is another to whom you owe a slave's allegiance."
"Giovanni,” she sighed as Grigori pulled her by the hips to the edge of the desk.
"Giovanni,” he repeated, his cock finding her hole with ease.
The pair of them was fused in a single heartbeat, the man's shaft fully immersed and bathed in her sweet, yearning cavity. There was no denying the fit, the keen remembering. So this is what she had worked so hard to put out of her mind. At least half of it, anyway. The other half was the mercurial Maestro, Giovanni, whose direction and wisdom and passion she craved so very much.
"Julya,” he cried out, his cock swelling in preparation for relief.
She clenched him tightly, her own muscles spasming in readiness. They came together, calling each other's names, clinging tightly to one another for dear life. Her legs were locked tight behind his buttocks and her hands were clasping his back, fingers splayed over the corded muscles. His sharp, stabbing breaths pressed his chest against her swollen nipples, sending tidal currents to the center of her sex. His semen spurted, on and on, till she felt like there was nothing inside her but him. What a privilege to be a woman at such a moment, feeling the full power of a man inside her, the full measure of his lust.
Or could it be more? Certainly they were sexually compatible, and probably always would be, but was the rest of it there, too-the magical affection and sweet glow of companionship that would burn well into old age.
"Grigori, I have to know,” she sighed. “Do you love me? Tell me the truth, or I swear I will die."
Lifting her off the desk, Grigori continued to hold her, her weight nothing to him. She let him kiss her, deep and solid. Soon she felt him rising against her all over again. The air filled with her scent in response. He nibbled at her neck and then at her earlobe.
So this was her answer, she thought. He wanted more sex and that was all. But then he spoke to her, the most amazing words of all.
"Julya?” He asked, in a tight hot whisper. “Marry me?"
"Yes,” she replied without hesitation, scarcely believing her good luck. “A thousand times, yes."
The two of them were approaching with clasped hands. There was no mistaking they were a couple. Giovanni tried feeling happy but for them, but nothing came into his heart save a kind of bitter gall. Who were these two actors of his to find a peace without him and then to come and rub his nose in it?
He dabbed the paintbrush in the pallet, mixing a bit of sky blue. His sudden bitterness had caught him off guard. These last months at the seaside, doing his humble paintings had cleared him of so much of his old animosity and restlessness. What was it about seeing Grigori and Julie, in love, that made him so furious?
Giovanni did not bother to get up from his seat. He was a foot into the surf, pants rolled up, sitting in his chair before his easel attempting to recreate yet another ocean landscape. It was therapy and up to now he'd been satisfied with it. Except with these two coming, in their matching khaki shorts and white shirts it was a little hard to think of his life here, alone in this cottage as little more than a pitiful, cowardly exile.
He pretended to paint as they waded through the water. They were a dozen feet away when he picked up the canvas and flung it as far into the ocean as he could manage. He tossed the easel next and finally the chair. Breathing heavily, he glared at the horizon.
"Well I consider this an improvement,” said Julie. “At least now you're trying to drown inanimate objects and not yourself."
The Maestro scowled. The remark was funny, though he was not in the mood to laugh. “As a painter,” he confessed, turning to face the couple he himself had created. “I leave much to be desired."
"As a discus thrower, too,” she noted as the canvas floated back, bumping her in the knee.
"Giovanni,” said Grigori, leaving the comedy to Julie. “You are wasting yourself here. The world needs you."
Giovanni noted the matching gold rings on their fingers. In no uncertain terms, he told them what the world could do with itself.
"Why don't you do it to us instead?” Julie grinned.
Grigori nudged her, prompting her to lower herself with him to one knee. Holding out a plush black ring box, he said, “Giovanni Ambrosiano, will you marry us?"
Believe it or not, the Maestro had heard stranger proposals in his life. “I am tired,” he shook his head. “Flattered, but tired. Find blood that runs as fast as your own."
"We don't want other blood,” said Julie. “We want yours."
Now it was her prompting Grigori so they could both remove their shirts. Their chests were as smooth and flawless and gender appropriate as he'd remembered-the man's sharp and muscular, the woman's healthy and curved.
"You are both crazy,” he shook his head.
"Probably,” Julie concurred.
Grigori dunked his head to kiss the man's feet. “Maestro,” he resurfaced. “Claim us, possess us and mold us. We need you. You are half of our whole."
Julie was working on Giovanni's trousers, exposing him.
"I am a terrible bore to live with,” he said. “I am argumentative and I hate to share the blankets."
"Then we'll stay where it's too warm to need them,” Julie reasoned, exposing his cock.
Giovanni sighed, putting his hands on her shoulders. “No one has touched me since we parted ways,” he confessed. “There has been no one else."
"For us either.” Grigori said, wading behind Giovanni to help pull down his pants. “Our hearts found no home but with each other … but we need you, too."
He let them pull off his pants. It was difficult to ignore this sort of persuasion, the beautiful Daskalovian kissing his ass cheeks and the equally beautiful American kissing his genitals. His cock responded happily, eager to feel those familiar lips.
"I've missed you both,” he confessed. “Terribly."
It was a hard thing to say, terrifying even. To admit such feelings was to make himself vulnerable. And to a triad-how much more fragile was that than a conventional one-on-one relationship? Still, there was more here than just the sex. These two reopened the veins to his youth. It was no accident, it seemed, that he had chosen them for his film. It had indeed reflected personal desire.
Julie's mouth wrapped round him while Grigori's tongue probed teasingly from behind. He wanted them both, every part of them at once. He wanted to roll with them in the ocean, to lock arms and legs, to lick and nibble and be washed away again and again in the salt water. The rising tide taking them and their desire, filling and emptying again and again.