Anatoly’s kiss is perfect. It’s a twelve out of ten, gorgeous, amazing. The kiss is the thing, the kiss is the thing. If you don’t have the kiss, you don’t have anything. It’s been half an hour since we’ve kissed, and so I stop in the street and pull his big frame to me to kiss him. Months from now, a friend will laugh as I try to describe Anatoly’s kiss, and all I’ll be able to say is:
It was that pink iced birthday cake I had as a child, it was bubble gum after mass on a Sunday.
It’s light, it’s soft, it’s all the things a kiss should be, not a tepid tentacle jabbed in my mouth as though to claim it, like a flag atop a mountain. I’ve had great kisses ruined at the last moment by an inexplicable stab in the mouth, bringing the experience of the other person’s tongue back to what the kiss is supposed to transcend, to make you forget, a protruding clump of cells, flesh and bacteria, far from perfect. But Anatoly never lets me down like that. Kissing him is always Cupid and Psyche, glorious, indescribable. Anatoly is It, he is The One.
I’m not in love with him, and I’m almost sure he isn’t in love with me, but we have a strong attraction and a lot of curiosity about one another, being from such different worlds. He is a beautiful cat, blinking awake in the late morning, too tall for my single bed. He’s a tough mother, too, and he doesn’t hesitate to let it be known. Walking through some busy square late at night, a man makes a remark, and Anatoly changes immediately, with no effort at all, his whole frame tense, he’s ready. I feel very safe with him.
The kiss is the thing. We don’t sleep together, only beside one another because
We can use them if you want.
But he doesn’t try to convince me to let him away without a condom. The kiss is perfect enough on its own, anyway, so I’m content with that. He closes his big silver eyes and sleeps, and he is still beautiful in the morning when I let him out the big sash window so my tedious, jealous housemates will know I don’t want them to know, and will want to know even more.
He smiles, lets out a little low laugh.
Your lines, your lines, shape of the face. Like a girl from my country. Very beautiful.
I take this as a massive compliment, to be compared to the women of his native land.
One night, Anatoly says something that annoys me so much, I walk off, intending to go home alone, but when I get to the station, I have to admit that this is not much fun. I call him.
I’m with Igor, at the bar.
Ok. Do you want to come with me?
Five minutes later, he is there. The next day, I see Igor, and he shakes his head.
How do you do it? I was at the bar with Toly and you called and he just left.
I tell my mother that I got into a huff and stormed off and he came when I called him.
But did you respect him after?
Actually, I respected him more.
Anatoly turns the all-consuming love story on its head. We don’t sleep together, we never talk exclusivity, but by pure chance we happen upon something really wonderful. Years later, when the memory of Big Loves will only make me feel regret, embarrassment, I’ll remember Anatoly and be glad to have known him. There is something deeply restorative about being with him. I am at no risk of pregnancy or disease or jealousy. He responds to text messages, he gets in touch to make plans, he never hesitates to pay for his round or for the taxi home. He is big and strong and safe and as beautiful as a Greek statue. He is deserving of love poetry, whole volumes of it, not all that heart rending, takes-a-year-to-get-over, contributes-to-unhealthy-patterns bullshit.
Thank God for Anatoly, his bare collar bones, his quiet, patient masculinity, his perfect, fabulous, needs-nothing-more-than-this kiss.