Ivangorod

The kitchen smells of burnt tea and cigarettes, which nobody smokes anymore. Ludmila keeps touching the icon above the stove—Saint Nicholas, patron of travellers and thieves—like muscle memory from a childhood that predates fear.

I spread the map across sticky linoleum, weighting the corners with whatever’s handy: a jar of pickles, Sandi’s phone, the stub of a candle that’s seen too many power cuts. The apartment building creaks around us, pipes and footsteps and television murmur creating the white noise of ordinary life.

“This is how it works,” I say, drawing circles with my finger. “No direct contact. Everything moves through family first, then friends of family, then people who owe favours. Ludmila, your cousin Masha in Petersburg—she still works at the university?”

Ludmila nods, her weathered hands folding and unfolding a dish towel. “Literature department. Always complaining about the students these days.”

“Perfect. Professors talk to other professors. Students talk to everyone.” I mark an X on the paper. “We start there, but sideways. Nothing about resistance or networks or politics. Just… academic interest. Someone is writing a paper on regional folklore. Someone documenting family stories before they disappear.”

Sandi leans forward, her programmer’s mind already troubleshooting. “Digital security?”

“Signal, but only for logistics. Meeting times, not content. Real conversations happen face to face, always in public, always with cover stories.” I tap the table. “And we use the old codes. My grandmother’s generation knew how to hide messages in plain sight.”

“Like what?”

“Recipe exchanges. ‘I’m making pelmeni this weekend’ means all clear, come by Sunday. ‘The borscht needs more time’ means lay low, too much heat. Simple things that sound natural in kitchen talk.”

Karim shifts by the window, scanning the courtyard four floors below. His presence here still feels surreal—a Belgian Moroccan guide, turned sentinel who should be filing a report to his boss, Hasna in Brussels, not plotting in an old cottage in Ivangorod that probably predates his birth.

That’s when his phone erupts.

The sound cuts through our careful planning like an alarm. Karim fumbles for it, his face going pale when he sees the screen.

“Elena,” he says, extending it toward me like it might bite. “It’s Tarmo.”

The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. Ludmila’s hand finds Saint Nicholas again. Sandi’s fingers freeze over her laptop keyboard.

I take the phone, feeling its weight like evidence of a crime I haven’t committed yet.

“Elena Vasilieva.” I use my fake name, formal distance, even though Tarmo knows exactly who he’s calling.

“Off the grid, Elena? No footprints, no updates, just vanished. Mrs H and Hasna are blowing up my phone, your trail’s gone dark, and you—where in Odin’s name are you?” His voice splits the quiet, sharp with that professional fury, and something rawer beneath.

“I’m fine.”

“Fine?” The word comes out sharp enough to cut glass. “You disappear across the border like you’re going for coffee, and I’m supposed to believe you’re fine? I’ve got intelligence reports suggesting increased surveillance in your area. Border Patrol logs showing unusual activity. If they’re watching you—”

“They’re always watching someone.”

A pause. Background noise that sounds like Geneva traffic, the “safe” world of international organisations and diplomatic immunity. When Tarmo speaks again, his voice is quieter but no less intense.

“Elena, I know what you’re thinking. I know you see an opportunity. But if this goes wrong, I can’t protect you. Not there. Not from this.”

I press the phone closer, as if proximity could bridge the thousand kilometres between us. Around me, three women and one very nervous journalist wait for me to either justify their faith or destroy their trust.

“Sometimes protection isn’t the point,” I say. “Sometimes the story is bigger than the person telling it.”

“Don’t give me anthropologist philosophy. Give me exit strategies.”

I close my eyes, seeing the map spread beneath my hands, the network taking shape in my mind like a constellation. “We have routes. We have protocols. We have people who’ve been doing this longer than either of us.”

“People get careless. People get brave. People disappear.”

“People also get tired of being afraid.”

The silence stretches between us, filled with everything we can’t say over an open line. Finally, Tarmo sighs—a sound that carries two decades of friendship and professional partnership.

“Forty-eight hours,” he says. “If I don’t hear from you in forty-eight hours, I’m calling everyone I know. Embassy, contacts in Tallinn, that woman at the UN who owes me three favours, and sending in you know who.”

“Forty-eight hours.”

“And Elena?” His voice softens, just slightly. “Whatever you’re building over there—make it worth it.”

The line goes dead. I set the phone down carefully, as if sudden movements might trigger some hidden alarm.

Ludmila breaks the silence first. “Your friend worries like a mother.”

“He has good reason to.”

Sandi closes her laptop, decision made. “So do we all. But that doesn’t mean we stop.”

Outside, Ivangorod sleeps under its streetlights, ordinary and unremarkable. Across the river, Narva mirrors its sister city, two halves of something that was once whole. Between them, the border runs like a scar through the landscape, dividing families and languages and histories that refuse to stay divided.

I fold the map, creasing it along lines that will matter more tomorrow than they do tonight.

“We start with the university contact,” I say. “Slow and careful. And if anyone asks, we’re documenting folk remedies. Old women’s wisdom about healing.”

Ludmila smiles, touching her icon one more time. “That’s not even a lie.”

We wrap up, and wishes for the night and the morning are a unilateral murmur.

The sisters’ spare bedroom is dim, moonlight striping the battered bedsheets and casting the window’s grid onto the wooden floor. Karim has claimed the lumpy living room couch, mumbling about keeping watch, but he leaves us with a look that’s equal parts concern and blessing.

Sandi

We lie side by side in the hush of the borrowed room, moonlight inching across the quilt, and I can sense her beside me—awake.

God, I want to touch her. Just once: to feel the weight of her breast in my palm, to taste her, to hear her fall apart in my hands. But what if she turns me away? What if I ruin everything—this partnership, this trust, this enormous risk we’re taking together?

My hand hovers, not quite daring to make contact with the bare skin of her arm. I can feel her pulse through the mattress, sense the question in the tension of her fingers.

Does she want this? Has all that laughter, all those glances, really meant what I hope? Or am I just chasing ghosts, reading my hunger into every kindness Elena has shown me?

For a moment, I imagine gliding my palm over her hip, pressing my nakedness against her back, rubbing myself against her, touching her breasts, tasting the sweat at the base of her throat, pushing my fingers into her until she is wet and begging, burying my face between her legs and letting her explode in my mouth. The ache is real, nearly unbearable—but so is the fear.

Her warmth radiates against my skin. Please, let her want this. Let me do this right. Don’t let me mess this up—not when I’ve come so close.

I turn toward her, feeling the wild, vulnerable question vibrating just beneath the surface. My voice is soft. “Elena,” I murmur, tilting closer.

“I’m awake.” Just that—an opening, an invitation. I exhale, shaky.

Elena

Sandi moves beside me, peeling off her jacket with mechanical precision and slipping beneath the covers. The air between us is electric and heavy with anticipation. We lie there in the hush, side by side, not touching at first—the only sound our steady, shallow breaths and the distant night traffic. I pretend to sleep, but my pulse is insubordinate, each heartbeat louder than the last.

Then she shifts, close enough that her breath softens the hairs behind my ear. Her hand traces a line from my wrist to the crook of my elbow. “Elena…” she whispers, her voice rough, raw with wanting. “Can I?” There’s a tremble—eager, honest, vulnerable in the dark.

She leans in, lips barely grazing my jaw, then travelling lower—hungry and methodical—down my neck, tracing the scars and ridges as if searching for a secret only she can read.

Her mouth finds my collarbone, then the line beneath my breast—a hot, lingering kiss. I can’t help the sharp inhale, the way my hips tilt. Sandi’s hands—surer than I expected and no less gentle for being firm—slide my wrists above my head, holding me with practised pressure, pinning me just so. She kisses me again, everywhere: my sternum, then lower, the seam under my ribs, slow and deliberate, making me shiver with anticipation.

She eases her way down, peeling the sheet aside, drawing a path with her tongue across my stomach, then nestling her head between my thighs. Her grip on my wrists tightens—not cruel, but impossibly sure—grounding me, making resistance both unnecessary and irrelevant.

And then her mouth is on me—hot, insistent, expert—her tongue moving in slow, swirling motions that make my vision go white at the edges. I arch, gasp, lost in the rhythm she finds—the hum of her breath, the press of her lips, the pulse of her name under my skin. She devours me without hesitation, utterly focused, until the tension surges and breaks—a shuddering rush so fierce it approaches pain, cascading through me in wave after wave of relief.

When I come, my knuckles whitening against the pillow, the cry startled loose and swallowed by her mouth, I barely manage to choke down a manic laugh. Even through the haze, I wonder—wild and incredulous: What do I have down there, a magnet? Every lost or restless soul—Sandi, Karim, even Tarmo, in his way—drawn to me like moths, hungry for something they cannot name.

Sandi crawls up, nuzzling my throat. Her hands are trembling now, but she’s grinning—wide, proud, wrecked. She catches my eyes with a look that borders on reverence and asks, voice hoarse, “Are you a witch? Because I’ve been obsessed with you since Tallinn. Your voice—I couldn’t get you out of my head. God, Elena, what have you done to me?”

I try to reply, but only laughter comes out—half-moan, half-wonder. I tangle my legs with hers and let her hold me, let the world shrink to the small space between us, a little sanctuary of heat and surprise.

If I am a beacon, a magnet, a witch… tonight, in this far-off bed with Sandi’s hair splayed on my chest, her breasts pressed against my skin, I won’t question the magic. I’ll simply let myself be wanted, found, and—for a fleeting hour—undone.

Her hand drifts upward again, tracing the curve of my breast. She slowly slips her fingers beneath the lace and pushes it down so my breasts come bare. Her thumb grazes the line of my rib, and my breath catches, sharper now.

Encouraged, she circles my nipple with slow, deliberate reverence. Her mouth follows—sucking with her warm lips, then releasing me to travel up along my collarbone before finally finding my lips. The kiss is soft, sweet, but charged—her tongue sliding into my mouth with easy possession.

I’ve never kissed a woman, I think—and the realisation excites me far more than I already am.

We kiss until she pulls away, and to my own surprise, I feel a flicker of disappointment as her mouth leaves mine… only to travel lower.

I sink back. Her hands roam—first tentative, mapping me with fingertips, then taking off my bra, then surer, as if she’s memorising the path. Suddenly, she takes off my slip. She pins my wrists above my head—not roughly, but with the kind of claim that asks nothing and takes everything, her body stretching over mine.

Her mouth lingers, unhurried—pressing, tasting, letting pauses bloom into anticipation. As she trails kisses from my collarbone down, I feel her breasts brush against my skin—soft, pressing into my stomach, my hip, leaving a trail as tangible as her lips. Her skin breathes against mine—heat and heartbeat—this is the moment when bodies stop being separate stories.

At my breast she lingers, circling my nipple with tongue and mouth, first softly, then sucking harder on each nipple. A moan escapes me. Her thighs find mine, her stomach pressing close. When did she get naked?

Every shift brings us deeper into true contact—not just mouth, but chest, belly, all of her: present, intent, unhidden. She trails heat over ribs and belly, a slow exploration that leaves me taut with wanting, her body flush to mine in that mingling, aching symmetry only women know.

By the time she reaches the soft inside of my thigh again, I can feel her hesitation dissolve in the rhythm of her breath. When she finally settles between my thighs, it’s with intent—deep, hungry, the eagerness of someone who’s been carrying this moment in her head for months. She’s patient and greedy at the same time, learning me with each stroke of her tongue, each shift of pressure, as if taking notes she’ll never write down.

Pleasure builds in slow spirals—no rush, just the steady, delicious inevitability she seems to understand by instinct. Pleasure crests and I break apart in her mouth, senses sparking wild—almost laughing through the shudder:

“Gods below, what do I have down there, a magnet? Every lost soul rendered to my magnetic force field. Hmm, so it could be demagnetised too,” I speculate;” like inherent energy loss…”

I reach for her, drawing her against me until our pulses find the same tempo, refusing any more distance than skin allows—our breasts pressed, hearts in sync.

Her breath is still ragged and warm against my cheek. I trace her collarbone with my thumb, memorising its topography, letting my hand skate down the slope of her back, fitting my palm to the soft hollow at her waist.

She shifts—eager, still trembling. “Please… touch me.”

I catch her mouth in mine, slow and arduous. My lips linger at the edge of hers, tongue tasting laughter, the salt that’s newly appeared at the corner of her mouth. The air between us thickens; every inch of skin thrums, waiting.

I let my mouth wander down her throat, pausing at the pulse hammering beneath her jaw. “Don’t tease,” she gasps before I find her breast, where my mouth teases her, thumb circling until I feel her take a sharp breath, arching gently into the contact. Her nipple grows taut in my mouth, and I think, half amused, even here, the body is always honest—never asks permission, never lies.

I slow the moment, watching her face for each flicker of want, while I press my fingers inside her. My tongue traces the curve of her breast, my other hand sliding lower behind her back, pushing her closer, breath mingling—purposeful, exploratory.

She wraps a leg around me, pulling me closer.

When I press my mouth lower, tongue tasting her at last, I’m driven and demanding. I listen to the way her breath catches, the way her hand fists in the linen. I feel her urge—her hips tipping up, her pulse thrumming wild beneath my mouth, pleasure unspooling, coiling, cresting like a tide teased by moonlight.

I press deeper into her, tongue and fingers drawing her upward in waves, and she’s already near the brink—I can hear it in the broken rhythm of her breath, feel it in the way her thighs tighten around my head.

Her hand finds my hair—slow at first, then desperate—and she gasps, almost startled by her own urgency.

Her hand knots in my hair, harder now, and her voice comes out as a gasp:

“Elena—can I come, please, now, please?”

Half-breath, half-plea, carrying that note I’ve heard before.

My anthropologist brain flares for a heartbeat: Women don’t ask here for literal consent—we ask for the seal, the ritual nod, the joint authorship of release.

But another part of me—the wicked one—thinks: What am I, air-traffic control?

“Yes,” I say anyway, low and certain, never breaking rhythm. “Come for me.”

Her body tightens hard, then unspools into shaking warmth, pulse galloping against my lips, eyes squeezing shut, mouth open on a sound that’s too raw to name. She shudders against my mouth, her pulse thrumming hot under my tongue, until she’s left pliant in my hands.

We collapse together, skin-to-skin, Sandi’s pulse fluttering beneath my palm, her breath tangled with mine. The hush is thick, bright with leftover heat and a thousand little tremors.

She laughs softly, still breathless, murmuring something that sounds mostly like gratitude and half like disbelief.

Inside, my mind is half anthropologist, half troublemaker—field notes flicker behind my eyes: Apparently, granting orgasmic clearance is now part of my skill set. Dr. Elena Delange, air-traffic controller for lost women at peak altitude. Add it to the CV.

Outwardly, I only grin, tracing slow circles along Sandi’s shoulder, letting the silence linger as long as possible before reality crowds back in.

If there’s any cosmic ledger, tonight I’ve tipped the balance: pleasure granted with permission—ritual observed, sample size improved.

And if anybody asks what happens after women say yes, I’ll flash that fox-smile and say, “Some clearances are worth the paperwork.”

The light is thin but insistent, seeping through the curtains and catching on the bare slope of Sandi’s shoulder. She’s awake before me, lying on her side, head propped on one hand, her eyes fixed on my face as if she’s been memorising it.

Her voice is calm, almost conversational—but there’s a weight in it that holds me in place.

“Any regret?”

“None whatsoever,” I answer, and I mean it.

The curve of her mouth shifts—not quite a smile, but something more dangerous, more decided. In one smooth movement, she pushes the blanket down, exposing us both to the balmy morning air. Her body presses against mine, skin to skin, warm and unhidden.

“Good,” she says quietly. “Then before we deal with the world downstairs…” She leaves the sentence unfinished—her hand already cupping my cheek, drawing me deeper against her.

There’s nothing tentative about her now. She kisses me hard, briefly, then moves to my breasts and belly. She opens my legs and, without hesitation, takes me into her mouth—slow and deep, her tongue pressing inside, her pace unhurried, thorough, and wholly in command. It’s clear she’s not granting release as a favour, but taking her own pleasure in coaxing it from me. Her rhythm builds, relentless and inevitable, pinning me to the sheets until, still on my side, I’m shuddering into her mouth, my hands clutching at her hair but never shifting her from her claim.

When I finally manage to breathe again, she kisses her way back up, settling over me, her gaze steady, lips brushing mine without urgency. “Now,” she murmurs, as if she hasn’t just undone me again, “we can face whatever’s downstairs.”

She pulls the blanket up, trapping heat between our bodies, not for modesty, but for possession. The house is waking—footsteps, the faint clatter of teacups, but for a few more breaths, the only world that matters is the one beneath these covers.

We pad into the kitchen, carpet rough against our bare feet. The sisters—Nurgjeta already kneading dough, Ludmila stirring a sullen pot of kasha—pause just long enough to cast us the kind of look that’s survived more scandals than even I can claim. Karim sits at the table, too upright for someone who spent the night on a couch, green eyes narrowed in the way of men who know they’re a beat behind the conversation.

“Rough night?” he asks, too casually, gaze flicking between us. I ignore him, fixating on the mug of steaming black tea that Ludmila slides in my direction. My hands are steady. My mind is not.

For a flash, I worry we’re radiating guilt—the scent of salt and secret smiles, of hunger not quite sated—but Ludmila just smiles, setting bread between us and whispering, “You girls look alive, at least. More than most who come through here.”

Sandi’s foot nudges mine under the table, and I stifle a smile, burying it in a mouthful of bread. Whatever passed between us, there’s no time—no room—for softness in daylight. The work calls. My phone buzzes with a coded alert: word from St. Petersburg, the first whisper through the network we risked so much to build.

I sit taller, back in my element, the mission crowding out my nerves. The sisters lay out the maps, Karim drags his chair closer, and Sandi shifts to my side—businesslike now, though her hand briefly lingers over mine as we lean into the plans.

Fear, connection, the taste of real agency, these things crackle in my body, not as contradiction but as the new ordinary. I tuck my hair behind my ear, let out one last shaky exhale, and get to dangerous, necessary work. The border might be a river, but every crossing—every tangled night, every coded message—is another step forward, building the sort of bridge even I can just barely believe we’re capable of holding.

Author’s Note

If you’ve ever wondered whether clandestine networks run on cryptic codes, old kitchen recipes, or sheer stubbornness, Elena and Sandi’s night suggests the answer is: all of the above, preferably with a strong cup of tea and a locked door. Yes, the world may tremble at the promise of revolution, but real risk is waking up after a night like theirs and facing breakfast with your co-conspirators—still rumpled, smirking, hoping nobody asks too many questions. Here’s to secret passions, necessary bread, and the sort of daring that can turn kasha into a plot twist. Thanks for reading—and for embracing both the rebellion and the ridiculous.

May kasha be hot and the secrets hotter. Every breakfast: a quiet revolt.

I.Ph.