Page 5 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

“Yes.” He gave me a smile. “I think we both need it.”

I threw my arms around him. He hugged me back, pulling me closer. My breasts flattened against his chest, our bodies separated only by the flimsy fabric of our pyjamas. His breath quickened in my ear, and his hand ran down my back. As I pushed the cotton covers off, the book I had been reading fell tothe ground with a thud. I left it there. I moved to sit astride on Petr’s lap, and he kissed my neck, nibbling at it gently until the tickling sensation made me giggle.

“Do you want to ...?” he asked a little breathlessly.

“Oh yes,” I assured him, biting his lip hungrily, tugging at his wet, fragrant hair.

To which he responded by pulling my hands away carefully before kissing me tenderly on the lips and stroking my own hair with his fingertips. I reacted by grabbing his hand and directing it towards my hip, pressing on his fingers to indicate that a certain use of force would be welcome. But as soon as I freed his hand from mine, it retreated up my back.

Groaning more in frustration than out of arousal, I peeled off my top. Petr’s mouth sought my nipples, taking turns in sucking at them softly.

“Do it harder,” I instructed him finally, no longer able to restrain myself. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll like it if it hurts.”

“Christ, Renata!”

He ceased touching me altogether and rubbed his face in exasperation.

“What?”

“Can’t we just ever do it nicely? Normally. It’s like ... lately you’ve been constantly trying to force me to be disrespectful towards you, if not downright rough with you. I’m not that guy, you understand?!”

He looked at me, his face flushed, embarrassed.

“I just ... thought it could be fun,” I murmured, feeling my own blood flood my cheeks.

“Well, I don’t! It’s a little sick, frankly. It’s like you hate yourself now, and so you can’t stand it when I try to love you.”

I removed myself from his lap, sliding onto my side of the bed. I pulled the covers back up to conceal my bare chest.

“No. It’s just ... it’s become such a routine between us ever since we started trying for a baby ...”

He collapsed back onto his pillow, closing his eyes in the manner of a mortally exhausted man.

“Let’s just go to sleep. We’re both tired. We’ll add this to the list of things to talk about on our holiday.”

He propped himself up again but only to switch the bedside lamp off. Resolute darkness enveloped us, still vaguely redolent of pines and ginger shampoo. I closed my eyes, willing sleep to take me away. Permanently, if possible.

Even though Petr’s manager at work needed some convincing to grant him leave on such short notice, we departed for Italy about a week later, just after I had incorporated the last of my editor’s feedback into my Viking romance translation.

Despite the holiday’s main purpose being a discussion about our future, we spent the beginning of our planned break evading the realisation of said purpose. Without ever explicitly agreeing on it, we likely both felt that in order to approach such a conversation with open minds, we needed to clear our heads first by immersing ourselves in our new, exciting surroundings.

We sailed through Venice’s maze-like canals on a gondola, basking in the intense Mediterranean sunlight, and we dined on candle-lit balconies overlooking romantic arched bridges.

In Verona, we visited Juliet’s house, where the walls beneath the famed balcony were completely covered with notes asking for guidance in love. Some written on colourful sticky notes, others on heart-shaped pieces of paper plastered to the wall with the use of an adhesive. Then there were some that were less conventional, such as a few granola bar wrappers written over with a black marker. Even a female sanitary pad stuck to thewall in one place, with a single question written in red, rather appropriately: ‘Dear Juliet, did I marry the wrong man?’

I stared at it in a faintly disgusted fascination until the crowd pushed me away, buzzing with voices of mainly young women, clamouring for their place at the wall.

We had hoped to visit the Arena afterwards, but were disappointed to find it closed due to a violent incident having just taken place there. So instead we went to a nearby gelateria with its dazzling display of twenty different flavours.

“The world is going crazy,” Petr remarked in between licks of his ice cream as we retreated back into the city’s archway-lined streets. “Don’t you feel like there is suddenly violence everywhere? It seems like people are going crazy.”

“Well, statistically speaking, if you feel like the world around you is going insane, chances are you are the mad one.”

“Do you want some?” he offered, indicating the gigantic cone in his hand.

“No thanks. Vanilla is the most boring flavour in the world.”

We finally broached the flammable topic of our winding fertility journey as we made our way across the deep blue waters of the immense, mountain-lined Lago di Garda on a paddleboat. There were a few clouds in the sky above us, round and puffy like baby lambs, and a soft cypress-scented breeze tussled our hair.