Babayaga

latch turn, but it clicked his eyes wide open. A floorboard creaked, then stillness. Then he saw her shadowy figure slip into the room. She unzipped her skirt and pulled down her stockings. She crawled under the sheets and he took her warmly in his arms. She smelled like she had been sitting by a campfire.
    He didn’t ask any questions. He kissed the nape of her neck, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, she shivered and grasped his head in her hands, her actions were fierce and hungry, kissing his neck and cheeks, until finally her lips fell on his lips. They kissed for a long time.
    She never spoke. Eventually, they tumbled across the bed until she was lying beneath him. He pulled her close and took her breast in his mouth and she pressed her hips against him, opening her legs. He held her down on the bed and pushed himself inside her. As they moved together, he never stopped looking into her eyes; she tried to avoid his gaze but he held her steady and would not look away. Finally, her eyes spoke to him. Her eyes said, Words are too weak, too small, they are always too small, even the purest and most simple phrases fail. Her eyes said, Look at who you are, you were asleep when I met you, but now you’re awake, so stay awake. I did not need you and I did not want you and yet here you are, awake in my body and in my heart. Then her eyes said, This is the last time. Her eyes said, I am leaving you, don’t follow me. There is nothing but pain down my path. So kiss me goodbye. Kiss me. Please. Kiss me. And her eyes were crying.
    He answered by turning her over so that he lay on top of her, pressing his lips hard on hers and then holding her face tight in his hands. Stay here, he said, without using words, stay with me, he said, pushing himself harder inside of her. Yes, I am awake now, he said. I am awake and I am yours. You have taken me on a journey I can never understand but now you own me, wholly. I was nothing, and now I am a man, and now I am yours.
    She said nothing he could comprehend, she clung to his back and increased her passion, scraping him with her sharp nails until the blood seeped out from his flesh. She pulled him tighter still, so that the sweat of their chests smacked. She would not let him go, he would not release her, they thrashed and they thrust and they loudly strained the limits of the bed’s strength, until their bodies finally collapsed, intertwined, exhausted, breathing so hard it seemed their hearts might burst. He tried to look and see what her eyes said now, but they were closed.
    He fell asleep again, he could not tell if he was dreaming or awake. He thought he heard the echo of women’s voices chattering in other rooms, but he could not tell if it was a dream or reality, maybe it was just the cooing of pigeons.
    When he awoke, her pillow was empty and the room was dead quiet. He lay there thinking about all he had felt with her, how exposed and vulnerable, yet paradoxically also safe and assured. In the throes of their passion, he felt as though he had pulled back every layer and laid himself open to her, still wordless and yet revealing more than he had ever confessed, even to himself. He knew a threshold had been crossed, and that what he was feeling now was deeper than the various flirtations and romanticism and thoughtless screwing around that had come before. Because now she held some part of him, an indescribable, essential, and secret part, what he was at his best, a knowledge of his true potential, what he was made of, who he could be. He needed to be with her again, perhaps for as long as he remained in Paris, however long that would be, or perhaps for the length of his life, for if she did leave him she would be taking with her that essential part of him, and then he knew he would never feel whole again. The more he lay there thinking about it, the more certain he was. She had become an integral part of him, the person he would not be able to fully live without. He did not know if he lived within her in a similar way, but he suspected he might. It felt too strong not to be mutual. An exchange had occurred, of comfort, of knowledge, of intimacy.
    He knew he was not being sentimental, it was more scientific than that, chemical to the point of being elemental, or maybe tribal, he could not say. All he knew was that they were one now. It was as simple as that. You didn’t need an advanced degree to figure it out, or a priest to tell you it was so. He rose