A Brief Arrival on the Edge

Pärnu – The Hotel Room

The keycard trembles in Elena’s fingers as she stands at her door. They’ve ignored the sexual tension with professional distance all day.

She turned to him, the corridor stretching like a held breath between them. A trace of warmth ghosted her expression—not quite a smile, not quite a secret.

“Sleep well,” she murmured, her eyes meeting his for an instant—enough to unsettle him.

She slipped inside; the door slowed, settling just shy of closing.

Ten minutes passed. Then Tarmo appeared with his phone, a half-formed note about tomorrow’s schedule on the screen. The door clicks shut behind him.

Quiet folds around them. His phone forgotten on a side table.

He had imagined this before—the choreography, the pace, the precise moment to let go. But Elena didn’t wait for cues.

She stepped closer, fingers finding the buttons of his shirt. One by one, unhurried but confident. His hands rose to her waist, then higher, finding the zipper that ran like a seam of possibility down her spine.

Fabric whispered to the floor. The silk slip she wore underneath caught the lamplight, clinging to curves he’d imagined since Dahkla.

She eased him back onto the bed, knees anchoring him, hair falling forward to shade her eyes. For a second, he thought she might speak. Instead, the faintest curve of her mouth, a breath that hummed against his skin.

Air thick with unsaid words, the snow falling its own tempo outside. No words. Just her weight, the press of her palm. The shift: control given over, lost willingly.

I watch his jaw, the minute hitch above his brow—that tiny tell when the ground shifts beneath him.

Her thighs tighten around him, palms braced against the hard rise of his chest. Hips roll, slow and deliberate, she guides him inside.

A gasp, bitten back. Her nails rake against his shoulder, claiming territory.

He groans, hands sliding up her waist, holding her breasts, then surrendering. Surrender given by awe.

He’s losing dominance, but gods below, maybe finding something bigger. A taste of submission. The possibility that inside me, he is not master but man.

The weight of her, the heat through silk, the way she takes me inside her with deliberate slowness—for those suspended moments, I am adrift. Truly adrift, for the first time in memory.

The textures, the taste, how her hair catches the lamplight, the burn of her laughter against my throat: I am overwhelmed. It isn’t just the pleasure. It’s the irreducible strangeness of it, as if I’ve stumbled through some magic gate and found myself, dizzy, in a city of gold.

What has this woman done to me?

Her breath collides with his. Bodies clamp together—weight, momentum, the drag and slip of skin. She lifts, then sinks, rhythm intentional, keeping that last edge of control in every movement.

His head tilts back, mouth grazing her collarbone. One hand tangles in the sheets, another falls open beside him.

If I were braver—or more foolish—I’d say: I want to be the only one inside you. I want to be the only one you undo like this.

A final thrust, a tightening, the shudder—both lost, undone, together. Her hand on his ribs, his on her hip, the connection fierce, all centre, no escape.

She eases off, slick clinging, then letting go. He rolls to his side, the space between them cooling, skin sticky, hearts hammering.

But before vulnerable words can form, defence overtakes devotion. The mask slides back into place so smoothly she almost misses the crack underneath. Almost.

He gives her a sly, sidelong smile, pulse still galloping. “Well, Elena,” he says, letting a wink take the place of confession, “that’s open for debate, isn’t it? Let’s see if this is a repeatable phenomenon.”

The Road to Tartu

The G-Wagon cuts through the Estonian countryside under a pewter sky. Forest and farmland blur past, punctuated by Soviet-era bus stops that look like concrete prayers to nowhere. Elena watches the landscape from the passenger seat, hyperaware of Tarmo’s hands on the steering wheel, the way he handles the curves with the same controlled precision he handles everything else.

They’ve been driving for twenty minutes, engaged in careful conversation—weather, logistics, and the university delegation waiting in Tartu. Safe topics that skim over last night’s undertow.

“The rector will want photos,” Elena says, consulting her tablet. “Standard press opportunity.”

“Naturally.”
His voice is neutral, but she catches the way he glances, just once, at her mouth when he thinks she won’t notice.

The radio crackles with Estonian pop, and Tarmo switches it off with more force than necessary. The silence stretches until Elena’s phone buzzes.

“Kristi wants to confirm the timeline,” she says, but before she can answer, Tarmo’s phone rings through the car speakers.
He glances at the display, and his jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
“I need to take this.”
The voice that fills the car is male, urgent, speaking rapid Estonian. Elena catches fragments: “probleem, Tallinn“, something about timing. Tarmo responds in the same language, his tone shifting to something sharper, more authoritative—the voice that commands rooms, that makes subordinates straighten their spines.
“Ei, ei. Täpselt nagu ma ütlesin. Mitte mingeid muudatusi.” No, no. Exactly as I said. No changes.

She scrolls her tablet, cataloguing every inflexion. The conversation continues for several minutes—logistics, confirmations, what sounds like barely contained irritation at someone’s incompetence.

When he ends the call, the silence feels different. Heavier.

“Everything alright?” Elena asks.

“Minor coordination issue.”
He merges onto the highway toward Tartu with mechanical precision. “Nothing that can’t be managed.”

But before Elena can respond, another call comes through. This time, the caller ID shows only numbers, and when Tarmo answers, his voice drops into Russian.
“Да, я слушаю.” Yes, I’m listening.

His Russian flows—smooth, practised, edged with something harder. Elena stays absorbed in emails, every instinct sharpening.
“Нет, это невозможно. У нас есть график.” No, that’s impossible. We have a schedule.

She catches references to Moscow, something about clearances, and a name that might be Volkov or Volgin. Tarmo’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel as the conversation grows more heated.
“Послушай меня внимательно,” he says, and Elena doesn’t need translation to recognise the tone of a man giving orders. Listen to me carefully.

When he finally ends the call, the car feels charged with unspoken tension. Elena looks up from her tablet as if she’s been completely oblivious, but she can see the calculation in his eyes as he glances at her—wondering how much she understood, how much she might have filed away.

“Sorry about that,” he says in English, his voice carefully modulated back to professional courtesy. “Busy morning.”

“I imagine coordination gets complex,” Elena replies neutrally. “Especially with multiple stakeholders.”

Something flickers across his face—approval? Suspicion?—before the mask settles back into place.

“Indeed.”

The word hangs between them as they crest a hill and Tartu spreads below: red roofs and church spires, the Emajõgi River winding through the medieval heart of Estonia’s intellectual capital. It’s beautiful in the grey morning light. Still, Elena finds herself thinking less about the scenery and more about the man beside her—the layers of language and loyalty, the way intimacy can reveal as much as it conceals.

Now she wonders if what she’d taken for vulnerability was another performance—calibrated to let her believe she was the one undoing him.

The university buildings loom ahead, and with them, another day of careful choreography. But the echo of Russian consonants lingers in the car like smoke, and Elena finds herself wondering exactly which version of Tarmo she’ll be watching perform today.

“Ready?” he asks as they pull into the parking area.

“Always,” she replies, and means it—though not, perhaps, as he imagines.

There are moments in every story when reality grows thin—a shimmer along the edge, where the magic beneath the plane of the ordinary nearly reveals itself. Through the hush between words, sometimes the strings that bind aeons and atoms vibrate a touch louder; almost enough to invite belief, but never quite.

There are stories within stories, faces behind faces. If Elena unsettles what feels solid, perhaps it is only the faint echo of something older—a note plucked across time’s hidden webwork, slipping past what our eyes have learned to see.

May you see magic, and be seen.

I.Ph.