Бесплатный фрагмент - Inside the Russian Dolls

The Blacksmith’s Lesson

The first light of afternoon brushes the treetops with a mellow gold, and high above the estate of the Petrovs — an old noble family whose fortunes have softened but never vanished — a solitary bird glides in slow, effortless arcs. Her wings cut through the hush of the summer sky, and below her, the land unfurls in gentle patterns: orchards, gravel paths, neatly trimmed hedgerows casting slanting shadows over sunlit grass.

Then, the manor comes into view.

It lies at the heart of this cultivated symmetry like a pearl in the fold of velvet — broad, pale-stuccoed, with a colonnaded façade and a slate roof that gleams dully in the sun. A wide gravel drive curls before it like a silver ribbon, and today, it is alive with motion. Carriages arrive one by one, the lacquered wood of their doors catching the light, wheels crackling softly over the path.

From within them emerge figures in bloom — young women, fresh as the season, descending with the practiced grace of those raised to be observed. Their gowns shimmer in hues of lilac, dove-grey, powder blue; fine lace trembles at sleeves and throats, and satin ribbons flutter like small flags in the mild breeze. Gloves are smoothed, parasols unfurled, hats adjusted with a fleeting touch. There is laughter — bright, airy, tempered with a sense of shared anticipation.

The bird circles once more above them, indifferent to station or silk. Her keen eye sees patterns: the tightening of a corset, the flash of impatience behind a smile, the faintest tremor in a gloved hand. She sees the staff retreating discreetly into the side wings, the discreet glances exchanged between waiting footmen.

And far beyond the garden wall, where the clipped elegance of gentry gives way to fields and forge — something stirs. A shape moves in the distance. But for now, the bird flies on.

The great doors of the manor stand open, breathing in the warm afternoon like a sleeping animal roused gently from a dream. Above them, a balcony of wrought iron catches the sun in soft sparks; below, a pair of liveried footmen wait motionless, as if time itself had paused to observe.

Carriages roll in one by one, their wheels muffled by the fine gravel of the estate’s circular drive. Each is a quiet announcement of breeding and silver. From within them emerge daughters of families whose names are spoken not loudly, but with careful respect — the kind that has accumulated not over money, but over generations.

The first figure to step down is wrapped in lilac silk — not the loud purple of parvenus, but the misty, fading shade of violets pressed between the pages of a prayer book. Her gloves are pearl-white, her neck long and pale. She glances once at the facade of the manor, unreadable, then walks forward with a step both careful and exacting. Her face is calm, cool — as if she has already guessed the purpose of this visit and found it unthreatening.

She is followed by another: shorter, sharper in her movements, in a gown of celadon green that clings a little too knowingly to her waist. Her eyes flick from column to curtain with feline precision. She walks not behind, but beside the first girl, her chin slightly lifted — not in pride, but as a habit of command.

Then comes the third: a rose-colored gown, heavy in fabric but worn with such warmth that it feels effortless. Her cheeks are sun-kissed, her expression open, even mischievous. She pauses to adjust a hairpin that needs no adjusting — a gesture meant more for the viewer than the mirror.

A fourth descends next: her dress a pale, summer sky, almost white in this light. She is slender, with fine features and restless eyes, as if she has already grown tired of this formality and longs for something less delicate, more vivid. She lifts her skirts just enough to clear the step, revealing ankles that move like water over stones.

Next, a girl in pale gold — more woman than girl in posture and presence. Her gown catches the light in a way that makes her seem taller, older. She does not look about like the others. Her eyes remain forward, like someone stepping into a role she has already rehearsed.

Behind her, a quieter presence: a girl in grey, nearly silver, whose every movement is careful, contained. She moves as though she fears disturbing the air itself. But her gaze is level, steady, watchful. She notices everything — the embroidery on the Baroness’s sleeve, the way the shadow of the portico divides the gravel.

And last — a flash of coral. The seventh girl steps down as if she owns not just her carriage, but the earth it touches. Her smile is slow, knowing, the faintest twitch of amusement tugging at one corner of her mouth. She waves off the footman who offers a hand and adjusts her parasol like a duellist checking the weight of her blade.

They ascend the steps in loose order, a soft rustle of taffeta, satin, and chiffon. Seven shades of youth, poised between girlhood and something not yet named. They approach the hosts not as a group, but as a procession — each claiming her moment in the sun.

At the top, the family awaits.

Baron Petrov, dignified to the point of severity, bows to each with mechanical courtesy. His hair is white, his coat rigid, his boots glossy as a legal seal. He does not smile — but then, he does not need to. His name smiles for him.

The Baroness inclines her head with greater warmth, though her eyes remain alert. Her gown is dusky mauve, discreet but expensive, and her hands, in gloves the colour of faded tea roses, rest lightly on a carved ivory fan.

Between them stands Vera — their daughter, their centrepiece. She carries herself with the composure and confidence of a seasoned hostess, her eyes sharp and quick to catch every detail. Her primrose-yellow gown fits her like a second skin; her hair is pinned with such precision that even the breeze seems to avoid disturbing it. And yet her eyes give her away — bright, sly, quick to spark.

As each girl approaches, Vera steps forward and takes her gloved hand with gentle authority.

“Mama, Papa — this is Sofia,” she says of the lilac girl. “She came all the way from Penza.” Sofia curtsies deeply, her smile faint but without irony.

“This is Darya,” Vera continues, presenting the girl in celadon. “She stayed with us one winter, remember? She beat the colonel’s nephew at whist and wouldn’t apologize.” A glimmer passes between Darya and the Baroness — a trace of memory, perhaps admiration, perhaps warning.

“This is Liza,” she says of the one in rose. “She brought her little dog, but left it with the coachman. She knew better.”

“And Ksenia,” Vera adds, nodding toward the girl in sky blue. “She’s the best sketch artist I’ve ever met. She once caught me mid-yawn.”

“Olga,” she continues, turning to the golden figure, “comes from the old estate near Tver. She reads Latin better than most priests.”

“Here’s Marya,” Vera says, her tone softer. “She doesn’t say much at first. But give her a piano and she’ll answer anything.”

“And this,” she finishes with a flourish, “is Zina. You’ve heard of her, haven’t you?” Zina curtsies with a dramatic little swoop, her coral skirts fanning out like the petals of a tropical flower.

Polite greetings follow, with all the murmured phrases expected of such an occasion.

“How you’ve grown.”

“Such a lovely shade.”

“You remind me of your mother at that age.”

“I hope the roads were kind to you?”

No one says anything remarkable — and yet much is said. Glances dart. Hands brush. A girl lingers too long under the Baron’s gaze; another lifts her chin too sharply at a too-casual comment. There is tension beneath the perfume — but it is the agreeable kind, the kind that feeds stories and steals sleep.

Then Vera speaks again, with the smooth, unhurried tone of someone rehearsed.

“This way,” she says. “We’ll be more comfortable where no one will disturb us.”

A subtle pause follows — a beat too long, just enough to suggest that what awaits is not merely tea and biscuits. Then she turns, and they follow.

The corridor is long, sunlit, quiet. Footsteps are muffled on the carpet, and the girls glide rather than walk. On the wall to their right, a mirror reflects their passing: eight young women, eight distinct silhouettes, trailed by colour and promise.

At the far end, a door stands ajar — not wide, just enough to suggest invitation. Vera stops before it, lays one hand briefly on the knob, and glances back at them — not to ask permission, but to make sure they’re watching.

Then she pushes the door open.

The young ladies have disappeared down the corridor, their soft footsteps fading into the manor’s depths. At the grand entrance, Baron Petrov and his wife remain for a moment, watching the empty steps as if reflecting on what has just passed.

The Baron clears his throat and lowers his voice, speaking to his wife as they begin to move away, the gravel crunching softly under their feet.

“Are we truly wise, letting such inexperienced girls meet a man like our blacksmith? A figure so strong and… primal. What if this first encounter colors their view of men? What if it shadows their future choices, making gentler suitors seem pale by comparison?”

His wife meets his gaze steadily, her hand lightly brushing the folds of her gown as she replies with quiet confidence.

“Better they learn to recognize strength now than settle for less later. If they begin with the best, they won’t mistake the ordinary for the exceptional. We do no harm — they gain something rare.”

The Baron exhales slowly, nodding with reluctant acceptance.

“Perhaps you’re right. Let’s hope this lesson serves them well.”

They turn and walk slowly toward the private wing, the manor’s doors closing softly behind them, leaving the house humming with unseen promise.

The room, cloaked in the softened glow of shaded lamps, breathes with quiet anticipation. Heavy curtains keep the outside world at bay, folding the space into a private cocoon of warmth and whispered voices.

Sofia sinks into her chair by the window, fingers lightly tracing the carved wood armrest as her eyes, shy but attentive, flicker nervously across the room. The faint flush on her cheeks betrays a mixture of excitement and apprehension — the thrill of new company tempered by uncertainty.

Darya throws herself onto the settee with a casual defiance, one knee pressed against her skirt’s hem. Her sharp gaze darts playfully, searching for a spark to ignite. A teasing smile quirks her lips as if she’s already plotting the mischief to come.

Liza perches at the edge of the sofa, her fingers nervously twisting a delicate brooch. Her restless eyes scan the doorway, a silent question lingering there — is it merely the anticipation of the evening, or something else that draws her attention? A soft laugh escapes her lips now and then, warming the space like a flickering flame.

Ksenia, perched like a restless bird on her chair, sketches swiftly, the pencil’s tip dancing over paper. Her brow furrows slightly, betraying concentration, but her eyes occasionally lift to catch Vera’s approving smile. Every now and then, a quick glance passes between her and Zina — a silent exchange loaded with youthful challenge.

Olga reclines regally near the hearth, the worn leather book unopened on her lap. Her serene smile hints at a mind weaving unseen patterns, listening intently to every murmur and shift in the room, as though gathering threads for her own quiet tapestry.

Marya sits near the piano, hands folded tightly, fingers tapping a slow rhythm against one palm. Her face is a mask of calm, but her eyes betray a storm of emotions — longing, restraint, curiosity. A soft sigh slips past her lips when a laugh breaks through, and her gaze softens.

Zina sprawls luxuriously on the chaise longue, humming a private melody that vibrates with unspent energy. Her eyes gleam with mischief, sparkling under lowered lids as she watches the others. A lazy flick of her hand sends a cascade of hair tumbling over her shoulder, and she grins at Vera — a silent dare, daring the evening to unfold as wildly as her spirit.

Vera moves between them with gentle grace, her voice a soothing thread weaving through the group. Her laughter, light and unforced, draws smiles like a flame pulls moths. She leans close to Sofia, whispering about the blooming roses in the garden, her words carrying a warmth that settles the room.

“Have you noticed the garden today? The roses already scent the air, as if in a hurry to greet us.”

Sofia nods, her shyness giving way to a soft smile. “I did. It’s impossible not to smell.”

Darya’s teasing tone breaks in. “Perfect for secrets, don’t you think? Secrets waiting just beyond these walls.”

Liza laughs softly, but there’s a hint of nervousness in her voice. “If only there were more to find.”

Vera’s gaze drifts to the closed door, eyes bright with expectation. “Perhaps tonight will teach us what lies hidden.”

The room holds its breath, wrapped in the gentle hum of youth, curiosity, and the promise of the unknown.

The knock reverberates sharply, slicing through the low murmur of the room. The heavy door creaks open, and there he stands — a towering figure framed by the muted lamplight, broad-shouldered and solid like an ancient oak. His beard, thick and untamed, dark as smoldering coal, brushes the collar of his simple linen shirt, which is spotless but plainly cut. The sleeves are rolled up to reveal forearms knotted with muscle and veins, skin bronzed and toughened by the endless hammering of iron.

His trousers are heavy canvas, practical and worn at the seams, bearing faint traces of soot and dust, but carefully cleaned for this occasion. Rough hands hang loosely by his sides, calloused but steady, fingers marked with tiny scars — badges of his craft. The leather belt at his waist is plain, functional, nothing decorative, yet it holds him with a natural authority.

His face is set in a habitual scowl, the deep furrows above his brows and the line of his jaw a mask worn to hide thoughts too sharp for words. But beneath that stern exterior, a flicker in his dark eyes betrays a quiet awareness: the subtle fragrance of the young ladies, fresh and soft like petals; the delicate rustle of silk and lace; the almost tangible tension of curiosity hanging in the air. He shifts his weight slightly, not uncomfortable, but measured — a man who knows he is out of place here, yet not unwelcome.

The girls watch him with wide eyes, some drawn to the sheer strength etched in every movement, others caught by the rare gentleness in his glance as it flicks briefly towards Vera, who meets it without flinching. His presence fills the room like a solid heartbeat, steady and undeniable, but the strictness of his features softens imperceptibly when he hears the light laughter and whispers around him.

There is no arrogance, no attempt to dominate; just a quiet acceptance that he has been summoned for a purpose, well paid for it, and curious enough to be glad of the company — even if his lips remain pressed into that usual line, a barrier between the world and what lies beneath.

The silence that follows his entrance lingers — thick, almost physical — as though the room itself draws breath and holds it. Lamplight glints on the brass buttons of the door behind him, now quietly shut, and casts his massive form into stark relief: broad, unmoving, his head slightly bowed, yet somehow still the tallest thing in the room.

The girls do not speak. Some look openly; others glance and then quickly away, as if ashamed to be caught staring. The air is scented faintly with jasmine, beeswax, and now — beneath it all — a trace of something rougher, like iron dust after rain.

Vera is the only one to rise.

She moves without hurry, each step soft, deliberate, her gown whispering across the carpet like breath on silk. She stops before him, though not too close, and lifts her gaze — calm, clear, faintly amused. Her voice, when it comes, is smooth as warmed porcelain.

“Before we begin,” she says, “we need to know — are you prepared to do whatever is asked of you?”

The man regards her in silence. His brows are heavy, his expression unreadable beneath the shadows cast by the sconces. One could almost imagine him carved from the same stone as the fireplace mantel behind her. But then — just there, at the edge of his mouth — a faint shift, not quite a smile. Not mockery, either. More the amused recognition of something he’s seen before, in another world far from velvet curtains and girls in satin shoes.

His voice, when he answers, is low and dry, with the quiet rasp of iron on leather.

“As long as it’s paid for, and not against my nature,” he says, “I’ll follow orders. I’ve done worse for less. And the company, I’ll admit — » his eyes move, slowly, unhurriedly, along the semicircle of youthful faces, many now frozen mid-breath,” — is an improvement.”

A stillness settles. Zina’s fingers still in her hair. Ksenia’s pencil hovers just above the page. Liza blinks twice, then lowers her eyes. Only Darya allows herself a quick, sideways smirk.

Vera neither blushes nor smiles. She studies him for one heartbeat more, then gives a small nod — as one might to a tradesman who has confirmed the terms of an arrangement, nothing more.

“Good,” she says simply, and turns back toward the others, her posture as straight and untroubled as when she left them.

He waits. They all do.

And somewhere in the house, very faintly, a clock ticks.

Vera returns to her seat as if nothing unusual has transpired, her step unhurried, her gaze composed. She settles onto the edge of the ottoman that places her slightly above the rest, hands resting lightly in her lap. The man still stands near the door, unmoving, solid as the column of a temple, his shadow pooling long across the carpet.

For a moment, silence lingers again. Then Vera speaks.

“I thought today,” she begins calmly, “we might use our time together more… constructively.”

There’s a flicker of amusement in her tone, but it is the only thing light in her bearing. Her gaze slides slowly across the room, touching each of the girls in turn. “After all, there comes a time in a young woman’s life when she must learn to study a man. Closely.”

She does not look toward the blacksmith as she says this. In fact, she speaks as though he were not in the room at all — as though she were referencing a painting, or a sculpture still draped in cloth.

Liza makes a small sound — a half-suppressed laugh, quickly smothered behind gloved fingertips.

Zina leans forward on her chaise, eyebrows lifting. “Study him?” she echoes, voice lilting. “Darling, I doubt we’ll get much conversation out of him.”

A few of the others chuckle nervously, but Vera doesn’t. She turns her head toward Zina with the mild patience of someone correcting a younger sibling.

“We’re not here to speak with him,” she replies plainly. “We’re here to look.”

There’s something about the way she says it — so matter-of-fact, so unembarrassed — that draws another stillness over the room. Only the fire crackles gently in the hearth.

Vera turns back to the others, her voice as smooth as ever. “Tell me truthfully — who among you has ever seen a man unclothed?”

The effect is immediate. A few girls lower their gazes. Marya presses her lips together and glances down at her knees. Ksenia stops drawing mid-stroke, her pencil held just above the page.

Olga, ever composed, raises an eyebrow. “Does childhood count?” she asks delicately.

“Only if you remember details,” Vera answers without missing a beat.

Sofia clears her throat. “Once… in the servants’ quarters. I walked in by mistake. He was bathing.”

Darya grins. “My brother swims naked in the river behind our house. Not by choice, I assure you — the fools steal his clothes every summer.”

Zina stretches, arms overhead. “Only statues,” she sighs. “Though I do spend a long time in the sculpture hall at the Academy. Some of those torsos are quite… informative.”

There’s a ripple of laughter, some real, some nervous. The blacksmith has not moved.

Vera tilts her head slightly, as if weighing the information.

“So. None of you, truly, has seen a man whole. Alive. Not marble. Not ten paces off in a foggy bathhouse.” She smooths the front of her skirt. “That’s just as well. It will make what comes next more instructive.”

Vera tilts her head slightly, as if weighing the confessions with mild amusement, then allows herself a moment of silence — not hesitation, but preparation.

Her gaze lifts to the man. This time, fully. She studies him openly now, without hurry, her eyes moving over the width of his shoulders, the way the light falls across the edge of his jaw, the stillness with which he waits. She looks at him as one might regard a large and unfamiliar instrument — not out of fear, but with the cool interest of someone preparing to see how it works, how it responds to touch.

And though she speaks calmly, her voice carries a new charge — not louder, not sharper, but steadier somehow, anchored in the quiet thrill of control.

“Step into the center,” she says.

Not a request. Not even quite a command. Merely the stating of an inevitability.

And when he begins to move, she does not lower her gaze.

Not yet.

He steps forward as instructed, each footfall quiet but unmistakably heavy, like the measured tread of something ancient and rooted in the earth. The floorboards do not creak, but the space around him seems to tighten with each stride. He stops in the center of the room, beneath the chandelier whose crystals catch the lamplight and scatter it faintly across his shoulders.

There is no ceremony to it. No hesitation.

Vera, still seated, lifts her chin by the smallest degree. Her voice is calm, almost disinterested.

“You may remove your shirt.”

He obeys at once, without a word. His hands move to the collar, fingers thick but precise, undoing the buttons with a quiet ease that speaks of routine. The linen pulls away from his chest, then over his shoulders, and at last he draws it down his arms and folds it once before placing it neatly aside.

What’s left standing in the golden lamplight is something none of them had fully prepared for.

His torso is immense — not swollen, not brutish, but built with a kind of weight that seems elemental. The kind of strength that isn’t shaped for display, but for labor, for weather, for carrying. His chest is broad, the muscle heavy and cleanly defined, with a dark scatter of hair between the pectorals and down the centerline, drawing the eye without permission. His shoulders rise like stone, the cords of his arms shifting subtly even in stillness. Across his collarbone and down one side of his ribcage run old, pale scars — not violent, but faintly glimmering reminders of work, of years at the forge.

For a long breath, no one speaks.

Ksenia’s pencil, forgotten in her hand, drops softly into her lap.

Zina bites the tip of her finger, more out of habit than thought.

Sofia stares wide-eyed, her lips parted slightly, her hands still folded in her lap but tightening.

Liza glances once, quickly, then again, slower — a delayed double take, as if her mind had rejected the sight before it could register.

Darya leans forward slightly, elbows on her knees, smiling now not from amusement, but from something else, quieter and more intent.

Even Olga, composed as ever, shifts her posture — a tiny movement, but noticeable — as if to allow herself a better angle.

Vera says nothing. Her eyes remain on him, cool, steady, thoughtful. But something in her breathing has changed — just barely. A tightening in her jaw, a faint lift in her chest.

The room feels warmer. Not because the fire has grown, but because something in the air has turned — as if they had all stepped, together, into another kind of place. One with different rules. One where the body, laid bare and silent, speaks louder than any polite conversation.

And the man says nothing. He merely stands — unmoving, unembarrassed — as though he were built for this, as though it had always been his function to be looked at.

Vera shifts slightly in her seat, folding one leg beneath the other. Her gaze lingers on the blacksmith’s torso — not in wonder, but with a kind of studious calm, like a hostess appraising a sculpture recently delivered for inspection.

Then, with that same collected tone, she speaks.

“Flex for us.”

The phrase is simple, clipped — yet it hangs in the air with the weight of command. There is no blush in her cheeks, no tremor in her voice. She does not glance around to see how the others react; she already knows.

The blacksmith inclines his head just barely — not as acknowledgment, but like a bull shifting beneath a yoke — and begins to move.

First, his arms. He raises them slowly, curling one, then the other, until the thick cords of muscle swell and harden under his skin. The biceps rise like carved stone, the veins beneath taut and prominent, crawling over the surface like roots in summer clay.

A faint sound escapes from someone — a sharp breath, a swallowed gasp. No one identifies it.

He rolls his shoulders next — a slow, deliberate motion that draws the upper span of his chest into full relief. The muscles shift beneath his skin like beasts under a sheet, all harnessed force and unspent labor. His pectorals tighten, lift, fall again. There is no grin, no bravado. Only movement. Only form.

Then he turns.

He does not ask. He knows what is expected of him.

His back is broader than they had imagined — a vast plane of muscle shaped by years of weight and fire. The line of his spine is straight and deep, the lats sweeping out like wings, tapering toward the waist with a grace almost feline. Scars, fewer now but still present, catch the light as pale ridges across the grain of bronze-dark flesh.

He raises his arms again, this time behind his head, pulling his shoulders taut — and the room, for a heartbeat, forgets to breathe.

Ksenia’s hand drifts unconsciously toward her sketchbook again, though she does not draw. Her eyes are too full.

Sofia clasps her hands tighter, knuckles pale, mouth dry.

Zina has ceased humming entirely.

Liza, normally quick to speak, says nothing at all.

Vera watches all this without moving. Her fingers rest lightly on her knee, but one thumb brushes slowly back and forth, betraying something more private — a pulse of energy barely contained beneath the polished surface.

Then she speaks again, her tone still even, her gaze fixed on the blacksmith’s back.

“Turn to face us once more.”

He obeys.

There is a grace to the motion — not elegance, but economy. He returns to them with the same quiet surety, his face still composed, unreadable. But now he is no longer merely standing. He is offering.

And they — one and all — are looking.

Vera’s gaze shifts downward, flicking briefly toward the man’s feet. Her voice, steady and unhurried, breaks the silence once more.

“You may remove your boots.”

There is no hesitation. His rough hands reach down, fingers curling around the worn leather. The boots — heavy, scuffed at the toes, bearing the faint imprint of the forge’s dust — come off with a soft sigh of leather parting from skin.

He places them carefully side by side, soles down, as though setting a pair of ancient relics to rest.

His bare feet touch the carpet now — solid, wide, and calloused — grounded as if they, too, bear the weight of his labor.

The girls watch intently.

Sofia’s breath catches, a small shiver running through her. Ksenia’s eyes flicker with something like awe. Even Darya leans forward, curiosity sharpening her features.

Vera remains poised, her eyes tracing the line from his feet back up the powerful arches of his calves.

“Good,” she says softly. “You may stand as you are.”

The quiet command settles over the room like a drawn curtain, marking the shift from the ordinary to something more raw, more elemental.

Vera’s gaze shifts downward, briefly catching sight of the heavy boots that ground the man to the earth. Her voice cuts through the quiet room, calm and unwavering.

“Remove your boots.”

The command is clear, devoid of hesitation or invitation.

His large hands, calloused and steady, reach down. Fingers curl around the worn leather, textured by years of labor and dust from the forge. With a soft, practiced ease, he unlatches the boots from his feet, peeling them off as if shedding a layer of the day’s burden.

The heavy leather soles meet the carpeted floor with a muted thud.

His bare feet — strong, broad, and marked by the harshness of his craft — rest solidly on the rich rug, connecting him more intimately to the room’s warmth.

The girls watch with rapt attention.

Sofia’s breath catches softly, a flicker of nervous fascination crossing her face. Ksenia’s eyes widen slightly, sketchbook momentarily forgotten. Darya leans forward, the corner of her mouth twitching in a curious smile.

Vera’s eyes trace the line from the bare feet, up the powerful calves, steady and commanding.

“Good,” she says, voice soft but edged with quiet authority. “Stand as you are.”

The atmosphere shifts imperceptibly, thickening with an unspoken understanding. The man is no longer just a visitor — he is the centre of their study, a living sculpture laid bare under their gaze.

A faint smile, barely there, curls at the corner of Vera’s lips as she watches the blacksmith comply with her quiet summons. His obedience — so immediate, so unquestioning — strikes her as almost absurd, yet undeniably intoxicating. The power she wields over this man, a living mountain of muscle and shadow, ignites a delicate thrill inside her, one she guards behind a veil of calm control.

“Come here,” she commands softly, voice low but edged with that unmistakable note of authority that leaves no room for refusal.

He moves toward her with the deliberate, measured steps of a man accustomed to following orders — each footfall a silent drumbeat marking the shift in their strange encounter. His presence grows larger as he approaches, the quiet strength in every muscle evident beneath the faint sheen of sweat on his skin.

Vera reaches out, fingers trembling just slightly, betraying a ripple of hesitation beneath her composed façade. She brushes her palms along the rough fabric of his trousers, feeling the coarse weave beneath her fingertips. The weight of the moment presses gently against her chest, and a faint catch lodges in her throat.

The room hums with barely suppressed tension. Soft giggles ripple from Zina, her eyes bright with mischief. “Careful, Vera,” she purrs, voice low but teasing, “this isn’t your usual furniture to dust.”

Ksenia’s pencil taps nervously against her sketchpad, her eyes darting between Vera’s hands and the blacksmith’s immovable form. “Do you think he’s used to this much attention?” she whispers to no one in particular.

Darya leans forward, her grin sharp, eyes glittering with amused anticipation. “I bet he’s more patient than any of us imagined.”

The blacksmith, meanwhile, stands still as a statue, his dark gaze steady and unreadable. Then, almost imperceptibly, he bends forward slightly, guiding Vera’s hands with slow, practiced precision. His fingers, large and warm, close over hers, directing the motion of pulling the waistband downward.

The fabric shifts, creases gathering as it moves inch by inch, revealing what few had dared to imagine.

Beneath the broad expanse of his abdomen, a thick mat of coarse hair darkens the pale skin — a wild, natural curtain that seems to thrum with silent power. The subtle rise and fall of his breathing stirs the fine hairs at the edges, as if the very air is charged with latent energy.

And then, the undeniable sight emerges: the base of a relaxed but potent shaft, the flesh heavy yet unmistakably alive beneath the descending trousers.

Vera’s breath catches audibly, a fragile sound that breaks the stillness. Her hands falter, fingers trembling as the enormity of what she sees anchors her in stunned silence. Her eyes widen, heart pounding against the cage of her ribs with a sudden, fierce rhythm.

Around her, the room shifts in response.

Zina’s playful expression softens into a quiet awe; she leans back, eyes glittering with a mixture of envy and fascination. “Well,” she murmurs, “that’s more impressive than any statue I’ve seen.”

Ksenia’s pencil slips from her fingers onto her lap; her cheeks flush a deep rose as she dares not meet Vera’s eyes. “It’s… bigger than I thought,” she breathes.

Sofia’s gaze flickers to the floor, cheeks burning, hands clenched tightly in her lap. “My brother…” she begins quietly, then stops herself, unwilling or unable to compare.

Darya, ever bold, bites her lip, eyes locked on the scene before her. “I didn’t expect to be so… speechless,” she admits in a low voice.

Even Olga, usually so composed, presses her fingertips together, her lips parting briefly in silent astonishment.

Through it all, Vera remains rooted — neither fleeing nor fainting, but frozen in a moment of awe and disbelief. Her chest rises and falls in uneven breaths; a flicker of vulnerability flashes beneath her measured calm. The power she commands feels heavier, more intimate than ever before.

Her hands, poised to continue, hesitate, trembling slightly as if aware of crossing an invisible threshold.

For a heartbeat, the room is suspended — caught between curiosity and reverence, between youthful wonder and the raw, undeniable force of the body before them.

And the blacksmith, unshaken, waits — patient, still, a silent testament to strength and endurance, as much a fixture of the room now as any ornate piece of furniture, yet charged with a presence that commands more than mere observation.

Vera swallows once, barely, her throat tightening with something she cannot quite name. The weight of the moment presses more heavily upon her shoulders than she had expected. The feel of coarse linen under her fingers, the living heat rising from his body, the sudden nearness of him — it all clouds the precision of her thoughts.

She lets her hands fall away, slowly, and lifts her chin to regain her composure.

“You may finish undressing,” she says — quiet, but firm. Not with retreat, but with calculated release. As if handing him a brush to complete a portrait she has only begun to sketch.

He says nothing. He does not step back.

Instead, standing just in front of her — close enough that she could reach out and touch the curve of his hip without leaning forward — he obeys.

His fingers move with a practised ease, sliding beneath the loosened waistband. The linen trousers, already loosened, glide down over the great column of his thighs, past his knees, and to his ankles. He steps one foot free, then the other, using the edge of his calloused heel to push the bundle of cloth aside like an empty husk.

He stands tall now. Entirely bare. Still. Awaiting further instructions.

The lamplight plays across the length of him — not just flesh, but mass, form, presence. He is as unmoved as a statue, but there is nothing dead in him. The warmth of his body radiates outward like heat from sun-baked iron.

Vera draws in a slow breath, not lifting her eyes.

Not yet.

The room is silent. Even the fire in the grate seems to quiet itself, as though taking part in the stillness. A breathless moment stretches — delicate as silk, and just as tense.

The blacksmith waits. Not sheepish. Not proud. Simply present. Offered.

And the girls… watch.

He steps forward, as Vera instructed.

The hush that follows is not one of embarrassment, but of attention — the absolute, magnetic stillness of a room full of eyes unwilling to blink. His footfalls are soundless on the carpet, but with each step, something shifts in the air — not heavy, but deliberate. A ceremony without fanfare.

And then, it becomes impossible not to notice.

That part of him — that central presence they had never truly imagined until now — moves. Not with shame, not with urgency. With weight. A slow, inevitable sway that seems to measure time itself in each step. It hangs low, unfurled and relaxed, its rhythm entirely its own.

The eye follows it helplessly, drawn not by lewdness, but by something older — fascination, proximity, the pull of a secret now unhidden.

Ksenia’s pencil slips again from her fingers and rolls across her sketchpad in a lazy arc. She does not retrieve it.

Her eyes are locked on the man’s movement, lips parted slightly, not from desire — not yet — but from the quiet agony of detail. Her artist’s mind is already failing to keep up.

Across the room, Liza shifts in her seat, the fabric of her dress rustling faintly. Her gaze drops, lingers, lifts, then drops again, as if her body refuses to follow the orders her modesty tries to give.

She whispers, barely audible, “It moves…”

No one answers.

The man’s body continues its course — sculptural, yes, but too warm, too imperfectly alive for marble. The central weight of him leads the eye again and again, the slow swing of flesh not inert but responsive, with the gravity of something both private and powerful. Not angry, not proud — merely real. More real than anything they’ve ever dared think about.

Zina’s expression sharpens, the mischievous curl of her lip gone. What remains is a narrowed, focused gaze — the same look she gives when listening to scandal whispered behind fans, but this time without irony.

“It’s like a… creature,” she murmurs, as if unwilling to say more.

Sofia blushes furiously and looks down at her hands. But even then, her eyes drift sideways again, helpless to stop.

“It’s not like the statues,” she says suddenly, as if to defend herself. “It’s not still. It’s there.”

The firelight shimmers faintly across the curve of the man’s thigh, across the line of his abdomen, catching in the shadow beneath him. That shadow draws attention more than the shape itself — that darkness at the base, from which everything else seems to hang, swing, breathe.

Marya doesn’t speak. She leans slightly forward, as if unaware, hands resting limply on her knees, eyes fixed — not afraid, not curious — just… watching. Like she’s listening to a song with no melody, no words, but one she already knows by heart.

Darya exhales a sharp breath, a smile flickering. “I thought it would be… stiffer,” she says lightly, as if to test the silence. “It looks like it could sleep forever.”

“It only sleeps,” Olga replies, her voice flat and precise, “until it’s asked to do otherwise.”

A pause.

And then the blacksmith stops.

He stands fully revealed, his body a composition of strength, weight, and quiet obedience. But it is that central element — the living part of him, relaxed, curved, and impossibly present — that refuses to be ignored. No longer just a word, no longer a blush in a letter or a medical diagram. No longer imagined.

He makes no move. He does not flinch beneath their eyes. If anything, he allows them.

And they do not look away.

Not a single one.

Vera lets the silence stretch a few seconds longer, then — with a practiced toss of her head and a brightness she does not quite feel — speaks.

“Well,” she says, her voice light but clear, “what do you say?”

The question floats above them like a thrown ribbon, landing in the laps of the assembled girls, who shift subtly as it touches down. For a heartbeat, none of them answers — then, as if on cue, they begin.

Zina, of course, is first. She stretches lazily on the chaise like a cat in morning sun, her eyes fixed on the man as if he were something brought from market just for her appraisal.

“I’d say,” she murmurs, tapping a finger against her bottom lip, “that we’ve all been wildly misled by marble and paintings.”

That draws a few nervous laughs, a release of tension — but only slight.

Ksenia speaks next, more cautiously. She’s still holding her pencil, though the sketchbook in her lap remains untouched.

“There’s… more movement than I expected,” she says. “Even in stillness. It’s like watching breath — but lower.”

Darya grins, eyes flicking toward Vera with amusement. “I never imagined it would hang like that,” she says. “It looks half-asleep, and yet…”

“And yet what?” asks Vera, tilting her head.

Darya shrugs, then offers, “It feels like it’s listening.”

Sofia clears her throat. She’s sitting stiffly, her hands folded too tightly on her lap.

“I suppose I thought it would be… smaller,” she admits in a voice meant to be matter-of-fact, but which quivers at the end.

Zina chuckles under her breath. “Didn’t we all.”

“I didn’t,” says Olga simply. She has not shifted in her seat, but her eyes remain fixed, analytical. “It’s a secondary sexual organ. They vary widely. Though this one” — she inclines her head slightly — “is certainly at the upper edge of normal distribution.”

Liza, red-faced and wide-eyed, clutches a small silk handkerchief in her fist.

“I don’t understand how it stays like that,” she says. “Shouldn’t it… go away? Or up? Or something?”

Olga turns slightly. “It’s not aroused, Liza. That’s why it remains pendulous.”

Liza mouths the word to herself — pendulous — like it’s a pastry she doesn’t know how to eat.

Then Marya, who has said nothing until now, speaks. Her voice is soft, almost distant.

“It looked heavy,” she says. “When he walked. Like it knew it shouldn’t rush.”

The girls fall quiet again, each holding her own fragment of the moment like a stone warmed in the hand. The blacksmith stands motionless, unbothered, as if he has no interest in the conversation — or no stake in it.

But Vera has found what she needed in their words: a thread of control, restored. She straightens a little, her gaze lifting again to meet his chest, his shoulders, his unmoving strength.

He is still waiting.

And she is ready.

Vera’s gaze does not shift, though her throat moves ever so slightly, as if swallowing the gravity of what she is about to say.

“Move it,” she murmurs at last. “Side to side.”

Her voice is soft, almost conversational, as though she were asking a servant to open the shutters a little wider. The blacksmith gives a subtle nod — nothing more — and obeys.

He shifts his stance, spreading his feet slightly for balance, and then — with a motion that seems both absurd and impossible — he lets the weight between his thighs begin to swing.

It is not abrupt. It does not jerk or lurch. Rather, it moves like something half-asleep, drawn by its own rhythm, obeying no will but gravity and mass. Left. Then right. Then left again.

And the room, already quiet, seems to grow quieter still.

The girls follow its motion as if mesmerised. Eyes move with it, as though trying to measure its weight, its breadth, the strange, pendular grace of it. Each sway is like a slow metronome, drawing invisible lines in the air.

Zina leans forward slightly, lips parted, her usual smirk now tempered with something close to respect. “That’s… not how I imagined it would move,” she breathes.

“No,” Olga replies coolly, eyes fixed. “Because none of us imagined it honestly.”

As it continues to swing, slower now, heavier, Ksenia’s artist’s eye catches another detail.

“Look,” she whispers. “Just behind…”

And indeed, behind that central motion, there is another — smaller, subtler, but just as alive. The flesh there is softer, more delicate in its movement. The pouch of skin, loose and veined, rises and falls slightly with each sway, like something cradled in silk. It does not follow directly; it lags, responds, offers its own choreography.

“Is that —?” Liza begins, then bites her lip.

“Mmm,” Darya answers for her, not unkindly. “It’s… part of the same… constellation, I suppose.”

Marya, wide-eyed, says nothing. But her gaze is fixed with a kind of holy wonder.

Sofia, pink-cheeked, murmurs, “It’s like… like something breathing through the skin.”

“Testicles,” Olga says softly, with clinical detachment. “The scrotum regulates temperature. That’s why it hangs.”

Liza stares, her voice hushed. “But why two?”

Zina chuckles under her breath. “Would you rather there were three?”

That earns a ripple of laughter — gentle, breathless — but their eyes never leave the man.

Still he stands, unmoving but for that slow, steady motion. The room seems lit differently now, as if the gaslamps glow warmer around the curve of his body, the darker places beneath casting longer shadows.

The girls do not look away. They cannot. Something has shifted — not just in the room, but in each of them.

And still it moves.

As the slow, pendulous motion continues, a subtle change catches the girls’ eyes — a shift in tension, an imperceptible tightening, like a breath held beneath the surface of calm water.

“Is it… growing?” Liza whispers, eyes wide and fixed.

“Can it get even bigger than that?” Sofia asks softly, a mixture of disbelief and curiosity flickering in her voice.

The room holds its breath, the shadows deepening as the blacksmith’s body responds in quiet obedience to some unseen summons. The relaxed swing slows, the flesh lengthens, the form draws taut with measured grace — a silent symphony of flesh and muscle waking to life.

Olga, who has watched in studied silence, finally speaks. Her voice is calm, precise, and carries the weight of knowledge that quiets the room.

“The average length of an erect male organ ranges between 12 and 16 centimeters,” she says, her tone clinical yet unobtrusive, “though variations exist widely. Exceptional cases can reach beyond 18 centimeters.”

She pauses briefly, watching the subtle rise and fall of the flesh before them.

“It is not unusual for a man to have a size considered ‘large’ by common standards, but what matters more is vascular health and function — the ability to sustain engorgement and respond to stimuli.”

The girls absorb her words with a mixture of awe and reconsideration, the earlier teasing fading into serious contemplation.

Darya murmurs, “So… what we see now is only the beginning?”

“Perhaps,” Olga replies, “or simply the natural state of readiness in this moment.”

The blacksmith remains still, a living monument to strength and raw vitality, his body speaking silent truths that words can scarcely capture.

Olga’s words linger in the air like a measured echo, grounding the room’s swirling emotions.

Zina exhales sharply, then smirks. “Well, that certainly puts some of our daydreams to shame. I thought these things were smaller… somehow.”

Ksenia, still holding her pencil loosely, murmurs, “I suppose the sculptures lied. Or at least spared us the full truth.”

Liza bites her lip, cheeks flushed. “I never imagined numbers could mean so much… or so little.”

Darya’s eyes sparkle with mischief. “So, we’re not looking at a boy’s toy, but a proper… instrument, then?”

Sofia nods hesitantly, fingers twisting the lace of her cuff. “It feels different now, knowing what ‘normal’ can be. I guess I’d always been imagining less.”

Marya, voice barely above a whisper, says, “It’s strange. Something so private feels… so alive.”

Vera, watching her friends closely, catches a flicker of vulnerability beneath their bravado and curiosity. She smiles softly, regaining her composure and control.

“Then let us continue,” she says, voice steady. “We have much to learn.”

The air remains thick with quiet after Olga’s measured explanation. The flickering light from the fireplace casts soft, trembling shadows that dance across the faces of the young women. Each one seems caught in her own private reverie — a secret unfolding before their eyes, too intimate and raw to be simply dismissed.

Zina leans back on the chaise longue, fingers tracing lazy patterns on the velvet armrest. Her eyes, bright and sharp, flicker between amusement and a flicker of something deeper — maybe awe, or perhaps surprise at the palpable reality of what they are witnessing.

“Well,” she says finally, voice smooth and teasing, “I suppose the poets had it all wrong. Nothing small or delicate about this particular verse.”

Her words pull a few quiet chuckles from the group, breaking the tension just enough.

Ksenia’s pencil finally moves, sketchbook opening as she tries to capture not just the lines of the blacksmith’s form but the elusive essence of the moment — the weight of flesh in motion, the subtle rise and fall, the undeniable presence.

“I’m realizing how deceiving all those classical statues can be,” she admits softly. “They show us idealized forms, frozen in time. But this — this is living anatomy, unpredictable and full of character.”

Liza, perched on the edge of her chair, bites her lip nervously. Her hands flutter as if wanting to touch her own skin, to reassure herself of what is real and what is imagination.

“I thought I knew… but seeing it like this,” she murmurs, “it’s harder than I expected. Like trying to hold a dream that keeps slipping.”

Darya, who had been watching with a mix of sardonic amusement, now smiles wider, a spark of something almost rebellious in her gaze.

“So, it’s not just a boy’s curiosity,” she says, voice low. “It’s a weapon, a tool, a secret held close — and we’re the ones finally getting the glimpse.”

Sofia shifts in her seat, her fingers twisting the lace cuff of her sleeve. Her cheeks bloom a deeper shade, but she raises her eyes, as if summoning courage from somewhere deep.

“I’ve seen servants come and go,” she says quietly, “but this… this is different. It’s more than flesh. It’s… power. Or at least, it feels like it.”

Marya, who until now has been the quietest, speaks last. Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it carries the weight of wonder.

“It’s alive,” she says simply. “Not just the body — this part, this movement. It’s as if it breathes on its own.”

Vera listens, her own heart beating steadily, the heavy responsibility of her role pressing at her temples. She smiles faintly, a smile not of certainty but of resolve.

“Each of us sees what we are ready to see,” she says. “And we will learn more. Together.”

Her eyes sweep over the circle, connecting with each of her friends in turn, gathering strength in the shared secret, the unspoken trust.

The blacksmith remains still, a silent witness to their discovery — his presence both a challenge and an offering.

The room seems to hold its breath, poised between innocence and knowledge, as the lesson continues.

The chatter, light and uneven as falling petals, has done its work. With every clever quip, every uncertain observation, the weight on Vera’s shoulders lightens. Their voices — so familiar, so young and hungry for knowledge — return her to her role. Not merely hostess now, but conductor, priestess, guide.

She rises from her seat with quiet deliberation.

The sound of fabric — soft, layered, expensive — is the only signal. The girls grow still as she crosses the carpeted space, her figure pale and upright against the warm dimness of the room. Her steps make no sound. But their eyes follow.

She approaches the blacksmith slowly, deliberately. He does not move.

As she nears him, the scale of him asserts itself again. He stands not just taller but wider, more solid — a living column of heat and mass. His skin, where the light touches it, is bronzed and flecked with a faint sheen. Where it falls into shadow, it turns to sculpture.

Vera pauses just before him. Her hands lift.

She places them lightly on his shoulders, as if testing the temperature of stone warmed by the sun. Her fingers press into the dense curves of muscle — and she feels the layered strength beneath the surface: pliant, but unyielding.

She moves — slowly, almost idly — letting one hand trail across his chest. The skin is warm beneath her palm, and smoother than she expected, with a softness that gives way to power just beneath. Her touch slides down his sternum, then glides lower, across the plane of his abdomen.

Still he does not move.

She begins to circle him, keeping one hand always in contact — down his side now, to his hip, where muscle swells like the edge of a riverbank beneath taut skin.

Her skirts whisper faintly against his thigh as she rounds him. One fold — silk, ungoverned — brushes gently forward and flickers across the base of what hangs before him. It is accidental, or nearly so.

The thing twitches.

No one says a word, but several pairs of eyes widen.

Vera, still composed, steps behind him. For a moment, she simply stands there, looking — her head tilted slightly, as if considering a canvas from a new angle.

His back is as vast as his front — the taper from shoulder to waist like a Greco-Roman statue brought to life. And lower… the shape of him changes.

The buttocks — broad, round, and heavily muscled — seem almost neglected, left out of the girls’ earlier scrutiny. Vera studies them with interest. Not coarse, but powerful. Not soft, but shaped with a craftsman’s discipline — the kind forged not in gymnasiums, but in the fire and hammering of real labor.

She lifts her hand — slowly — and lays her palm flat across one.

The flesh is warm, solid beneath her fingers, the skin faintly coarse from long years of rough trousers and work. For a moment, she simply holds — feeling not just muscle but breath, blood, presence.

And then… something shifts.

A ripple beneath her palm. A tremor — barely there — but unmistakable. Not a movement of the body as a whole, but a small contraction, as if he were suppressing a flinch. Or receiving the contact too intimately to ignore.

Vera blinks once. Not startled, not alarmed — but made aware.

Of his presence.

Of hers.

She lowers her hand gently, steps back, and breathes in — quiet, measured.

And behind her, seven other girls do not breathe at all.

Vera steps back from him, her fingers still tingling faintly from where they pressed against his skin.

She turns slightly, half-facing the room, but keeps her eyes on him — sharp now, like a blade freshly honed. Her voice, when it comes, is lighter than before, edged with amusement but holding something colder beneath.

“Well then,” she says, tilting her head. “Do we not excite you?”

The question hangs like perfume — sweet, deliberate, inescapable.

For a moment, the blacksmith says nothing. His brow lowers a touch — not in displeasure, but as though turning the thought over like a heavy coin in his mind. Then, his voice comes — low, roughened by smoke and years, but steady.

“You do,” he says. “More than you know.”

He pauses. A slight narrowing of the eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth — not quite a smile. “But this — » he shifts slightly, almost imperceptibly,” — this isn’t like the kind of wanting a man lets show too easy. Not when he’s told to stand still.”

A hush settles over the room. The words have weight — not because they are eloquent, but because they aren’t. They land like iron on oak.

Vera raises an eyebrow. She’s not satisfied. She steps forward again, slowly.

“And what kind does show?” she asks, her voice velvet-wrapped but pointed. “What is it, then, that stirs you?”

This time his answer comes more quickly — not rehearsed, but honest. His eyes do not wander. They hold hers.

“A woman’s hands,” he says simply. “When she wants to touch, not when she’s told she may. That’s different.”

He shrugs, as if apologising for not being more poetic. “And the way she breathes. Just before she says something she’s not sure she should.”

Then he falls quiet again.

And somehow, the silence that follows is louder than anything said before.

“Women’s hands, you say…” Vera repeats, drawing out the words with theatrical thoughtfulness. Her voice is calm now, steadier than before — the falter from earlier folded neatly beneath a layer of poise.

She steps closer again, gaze fixed on him, the edges of her lips curling ever so slightly.

“Well, we have sixteen of them in this room,” she continues, almost idly. “If you’ve been counting.”

A few girls shift in their seats, startled less by the words than by the unspoken suggestion behind them. Even Zina sits up a little straighter, her smile fading into something more serious.

Vera lifts her hand — slowly, as if reaching for something delicate, a pull of curtain cord, a flower stem.

Her fingers find him — not abruptly, not crudely, but with that same calm, methodical assurance she had used earlier when touching his shoulder, his chest. There is no fanfare in the motion, no drama — only the sound of silk moving faintly as she leans closer, her hand encircling him in a firm, exploring grip.

The weight surprises her — not for its size alone, but for the warmth, the dense, shifting texture that lives beneath the skin. She does not show it on her face.

Her hand moves — not far, not fast. A slight lift, a careful draw, guiding the blacksmith a single step forward. He follows.

And she turns her head — toward the semicircle of her friends. Toward the first.

Ksenia.

The artist still holds her pencil, but it has long stopped sketching. Her eyes flick from Vera’s hand to the blacksmith’s face, then back again. She does not move, but something in her breath gives her away.

Vera’s tone is light as she speaks — too light, almost — like a governess beginning a lesson in botany.

“Perhaps we should begin with the observer,” she says.

There is a pause. A silence that hangs thick — not awkward, not afraid, but dense with something larger. Possibility. Permission. Power.

Ksenia blinks, then sets her pencil down quietly. Her hand lingers at her lap.

Vera does not force. She releases her grip and steps aside — not retreating, but making space.

The blacksmith remains where he is, just before Ksenia now, the space between them close, almost charged.

Vera folds her hands behind her back and turns to the others.

“We may as well learn,” she says. “Properly. Together.”

And though she speaks to all of them, her eyes flick back — just for a moment — to the place where her hand had been.

Ksenia does not rise. Not yet. Her breath slows, her spine straightens. She has drawn statues, nudes, horses in motion — forms frozen in charcoal and graphite — but nothing like this. Nothing that changed as she watched it.

The blacksmith stands before her like a figure stepping slowly out of marble, his body relaxed but no longer at rest. Between them — no more than a foot of air, thick with breath and thought — that part of him is shifting.

No longer pendulous. No longer idle.

It’s rising.

Not sharply, not urgently. But with a kind of slow, deliberate intent, like a tendril of smoke lifting toward the ceiling, responding to heat only it can feel.

The shaft begins to tilt upward, not with precision but with gathering weight. A heartbeat ago it swung like a rope; now it holds itself with an awkward, uncertain stiffness — the way a young tree leans toward light, unsure of its height.

Ksenia watches.

Her artist’s mind does not yet allow her to name it in the usual ways. She sees curve and texture, light caught along veins, skin taut in some places and folded in others. She sees the contrast of movement — the solid trunk rising, the softer folds behind it still swaying faintly with each breath.

She sees transition — and that fascinates her.

A slow flush rises in her cheeks, not from shame but from awareness: of herself, of him, of Vera just behind, watching still. Her fingers twitch in her lap. She does not yet raise them.

The blacksmith does not look down. His gaze is somewhere over Ksenia’s shoulder, as though affixed to a point far beyond the room — steady, detached, offering himself without comment.

It is the silence that makes it harder. If he had spoken — if any of them had — the moment might have broken. But it remains whole, thick as paint, and Ksenia must choose her way through it.

She finally raises her hand — slowly — and places it not on him, but above her own knee. She is not ready yet. But she will be.

The shape before her continues its ascent, alive with blood and something else — not demand, not threat, but sheer presence.

And in her eyes there is no fear. Only the sharp, bright glint of study.

Slowly, with a deliberate care, she lifts her hand. It trembles faintly, as if drawn by a current she cannot yet fully name, and moves forward — not hastily, but with the slow, reverent grace of an artist reaching to touch the marble they have sculpted in their mind.

Her palm turns upward beneath the weighty, rising column before her. The contrast surprises her: the warmth that seeps through the skin, the subtle pulse beneath the surface, the firm yet yielding resistance that speaks of life rather than stone.

Her fingertips trace the outline gently, mapping the swell and taper with a tentative curiosity. It is not a touch of ownership or possession, but a silent dialogue — a question posed and answered in the language of flesh and breath.

Around her, the soft rustle of silk and the quiet inhalations of her friends create a delicate chorus, a backdrop to this intimate moment of study. Ksenia’s eyes remain fixed, absorbing the minute shifts — the tautness here, the softness there, the delicate shadows cast by the slightest movement.

Her heart beats a measured rhythm, a drum accompanying this quiet communion between observer and observed. Though the rest of the room remains still, charged with anticipation, within Ksenia a subtle transformation unfolds: from tentative onlooker to confident witness.

She does not withdraw her hand immediately. Instead, she holds the connection, a bridge spanning the unspoken distance between curiosity and understanding, between youthful wonder and the solemnity of first experience.

And in this fragile stillness, the blacksmith’s figure remains a silent partner — steady, unyielding, yet strangely alive — waiting for the next gesture, the next unfolding of this unspoken lesson.

Ksenia’s fingertips come to rest gently against a softer, more yielding mass nestled just beneath the base of the rising column. It yields slightly under her touch — a subtle pliancy, a warmth unlike the taut firmness she felt moments before.

Her fingers close softly around the small, rounded forms beneath, the delicate balance of tension and softness catching her by surprise. They feel like twin spheres, compact yet resilient, each with a quiet vitality pulsing beneath the thin skin.

A brief shiver passes through her — a mingling of wonder and reverence — at the realization that this too is part of the living sculpture before her, so often hidden yet here, unmistakably present.

Her gaze flickers upward, meeting the steady, calm eyes of the blacksmith. There is no shame in his glance, only a quiet acceptance, as though this moment, shared in silent consent, is simply another stroke in the shaping of something greater.

Around her, the soft murmur of the others remains suspended, their breaths held as if in reverence.

Ksenia’s hand lingers, exploring with gentle confidence, the complex interplay of texture and temperature, strength and softness — a delicate secret revealed in the quiet communion of touch.

Vera, seated now at the far end of the row, watches Ksenia’s tentative exploration with a keen eye. Her lips press into a thin line, satisfaction flickering behind the calm mask she wears. The delicate unfolding of this ritual pleases her — a dance of control and discovery in equal measure.

With a quiet yet firm voice, she issues the next direction: “Step to the girl in lilac.”

The blacksmith shifts his weight, muscles flexing beneath bronzed skin as he turns slowly toward the girl by the window. Sofia, pale lilac in her gown, sits poised in her armchair, fingers lightly resting on the polished wood of the armrests. Her eyes widen briefly, a faint flush coloring her cheeks as the man approaches.

He moves deliberately, his bare feet soundless on the thick carpet. The slow, steady cadence of his stride commands attention, a silent promise in each measured step.

Sofia’s breath catches, her gaze flickering momentarily toward Vera, who offers a slight nod — a silent encouragement and command all at once.

The blacksmith stops before Sofia, the space between them charged and expectant. He stands tall and still, the living sculpture awaiting its next examination, the embodiment of strength tempered by restraint.

Vera’s voice breaks the quiet once more: “You may look, Sofia.”

The girl’s eyes lift, taking in the man’s form with a mix of awe and curiosity, the flicker of nerves betraying the calm facade. The atmosphere tightens, every subtle movement magnified in the stillness.

Vera’s lips curl into a faint, knowing smile as one of the girls — Zina, ever bold and theatrical — breaks the fragile silence with a playful yet daring whisper.

“Why merely look, when we may also touch?” she suggests, her eyes gleaming with mischief and curiosity.

The room stirs slightly; some girls exchange quick glances — surprise mingled with intrigue — while others bite their lips to conceal a burgeoning smile.

Sofia’s breath comes uneven, a quiet tremor threading through her composure as her fingers rise hesitantly. She sits poised yet visibly restrained, the soft fabric of her lilac gown whispering with each tentative movement. Her eyes dart briefly to Vera, seeking silent permission once more, finding only that faint nod of assurance.

Her hand hovers just above the living form before her, as if reaching toward a fragile bloom she fears might wilt at the slightest touch. Slowly, cautiously, her fingertips descend — feather-light at first, grazing the warm surface as though memorizing the sensation.

The touch is soft, tentative, almost reverential; she allows her palm to rest gently, feeling the subtle heat radiating, the quiet pulse beneath the skin. Her fingers tremble imperceptibly, betraying a mingling of awe and a touch of shyness. The texture beneath her hand is smooth yet complex — a quiet landscape of muscle and skin, alive in ways Sofia had never fully imagined.

Her gaze flickers to the faces of her friends — some watching with a blend of envy and encouragement, others silent, absorbed. A faint blush colors her cheeks, warming the delicate skin around her eyes.

She moves her hand just a fraction, exploring the subtle undulations, the gentle curve where flesh gives way to softness. There’s a hesitant firmness in her touch, as if she’s testing boundaries she’s only just begun to comprehend.

Around her, the room holds its breath, the silence punctuated only by the faintest rustle of silk and the occasional quickened intake of breath.

Sofia does not speak; her silence speaks volumes — a mixture of wonder, respect, and the tentative crossing into a new realm of understanding.

Olga’s voice, calm and assured, cuts gently through the hushed room. “Don’t be afraid, Sofia. Try to hold it — just lightly, with your fingers. Feel the strength beneath the skin.”

Sofia’s eyes widen, a flicker of hesitation crossing her face before determination softens her features. Slowly, she closes her fingers around the shaft, her touch cautious but curious. The warmth she feels pulses quietly against her skin, a living presence that both fascinates and unsettles her.

Her hand molds around the smooth surface, fingers pressing just enough to sense its weight and firmness without causing discomfort. A faint shiver runs through her — a mixture of nervous excitement and the solemnity of this strange, intimate discovery.

Around them, the other girls watch intently, their faces a mixture of encouragement and awe, while Sofia’s cheeks deepen to a rosy hue. Her breath catches, but she holds on, eyes locked briefly with Vera’s approving gaze.

It is a moment suspended between innocence and awakening — a quiet lesson in the strength and vulnerability hidden beneath the skin.

Vera’s eyes gleam with calm authority as she raises a hand, signaling the blacksmith forward once more. “Now, come to Darya, in celadon green,” she commands softly, her voice both invitation and decree.

The blacksmith shifts his powerful frame smoothly, the muscles along his back flexing under bronzed skin as he turns toward the girl seated on the sofa, draped in celadon green. Darya lounges with an air of daring confidence, one leg tucked beneath her dress, sharp eyes sparkling with a mix of mischief and bold curiosity.

Unlike Sofia’s tentative approach, Darya’s gaze is direct and unflinching. There is a challenge in her smile, a subtle teasing that betrays no trace of hesitation. She leans forward slightly, fingertips resting lightly on the plush upholstery, clearly eager to engage with the living sculpture before her.

As the blacksmith comes to stand before her, Darya’s eyes roam appreciatively over the powerful lines of his body. She seems to consider the texture, the form, the very presence of the man as something both potent and intriguing.

Vera watches quietly from her seat at the end of the room, the faintest hint of a smile playing on her lips as the ritual continues — each girl unfolding her own response, each moment a delicate brushstroke on the canvas of their shared experience.

Darya’s eyes gleam with amusement as she shifts slightly, the soft rustle of celadon silk blending with the quiet anticipation hanging in the air. Unlike the delicate hesitations of others, her movements are assured, each gesture deliberate and full of bold curiosity. She extends her hand slowly, fingers brushing first along the firm, bronzed thigh of the blacksmith, tracing the line from hip to knee as though committing the texture to memory.

Her gaze never wavers from the powerful figure before her, a study in contrasts — strength and subtlety, ruggedness and grace. When her hand reaches the warm, living column that has so captivated the others, she wraps her fingers around it with a confidence that borders on playful command. The weight and heat beneath her palm speak clearly, stirring an unspoken dialogue between observer and subject.

Around the room, the girls watch Darya’s actions closely. Some exchange knowing looks, others bite their lips, caught between surprise and admiration at her forthrightness. A faint ripple of whispers threads through the group — part critique, part encouragement — while Vera remains still, her eyes keenly appraising every subtle shift.

Darya’s fingers begin to explore with a rhythmic firmness, tapping lightly along the surface, then kneading with a measured pressure that suggests both fascination and control. She seems to delight in the tactile language she wields, a silent conversation told through touch.

Her lips curve into a slight, teasing smile as she glances sideways at Ksenia, whose brow furrows with concentrated focus, and then to Sofia, whose cheeks still hold traces of blush and uncertainty. The contrast between their approaches weaves an unspoken narrative, enriching the room’s charged atmosphere.

As Darya continues, the blacksmith stands motionless but not indifferent. His eyes flicker briefly toward Vera, then settle calmly on the scene unfolding before him — an unvoiced acknowledgment of the strange, elegant ceremony in which he now plays a central role.

Vera’s gaze shifts with subtle grace as she rises slightly from her seat, her voice calm yet imbued with quiet command: “Now, approach Liza, in rose.”

The blacksmith’s steps remain measured, his bare feet barely whispering against the thick carpet as he turns toward the young woman perched near the edge of the sofa. Liza’s rose-hued gown flows softly around her, a contrast to her restless fingers, which toy with a delicate brooch pinned to her bodice. Her eyes flicker between the man and the gathered company, a mixture of nervous anticipation and spirited curiosity.

As he comes before her, Liza straightens, a faint flush coloring her cheeks. Unlike Darya’s boldness or Ksenia’s contemplative touch, Liza’s approach is tentative — her fingers trembling slightly as they extend toward the living form. There is a shy hesitation in her movements, yet beneath it lies an eager desire to understand, to partake in this intimate study.

Her hand brushes the blacksmith’s skin with a delicate feathering, tracing the strong lines of his forearm before moving upward. The warmth radiating from him seems to steady her nerves, grounding her in the present moment. The quiet rustle of her gown accompanies each subtle shift, punctuating the stillness with whispered softness.

Around her, the girls watch with a mixture of encouragement and quiet respect, their eyes reflecting the shared journey unfolding between observer and subject. Vera offers a reassuring nod, her presence a steady anchor amid the charged atmosphere.

Liza’s fingers find the familiar column once more, her touch gentle but growing in confidence. She encircles it lightly, exploring the textures with a careful reverence, as if tracing the contours of a rare and precious sculpture. Her breath catches slightly, a soft intake that betrays the depth of her fascination mingled with vulnerability.

The blacksmith remains still, his gaze calm and unshaken, embodying the silent strength that anchors this unfolding tableau — a living testament to power, restraint, and the quiet awakening of discovery.

Vera’s voice cuts through the room — precise and unwavering — as she commands, “To Zina, in coral.”

The blacksmith turns with a silent power, his footsteps muffled against the thick carpet like distant thunder rolling over a summer dusk. Before him reclines Zina, a living flame draped in coral silk, bold and untamed — like a wildflower reaching for the sun with reckless abandon.

Her fingers toy with a lock of hair, casting delicate shadows across a face that wears a smile both playful and edged with a flicker of hesitation. Her eyes glint sharp as thorns yet soft as the silken folds that cling to her form.

When her hand extends toward the mighty shaft, there is no hesitation, yet the fragile weight of the moment lingers beneath her touch. Her fingers close lightly around the living column, a gentle embrace sensing the restless pulse beneath the bronzed skin.

The room holds its breath; silence thickens with unspoken approval and secret admiration for her boldness. The gazes of her companions flicker — part envy, part silent encouragement.

Vera remains a still sovereign in her chair, watching the interplay of light and shadow, strength and delicacy, unfold before the living monument of flesh and bone.

The blacksmith stands statuesque, wordless but vibrant with the breath of presence — here and now, body and soul intertwined in the fragile ceremony.

Olga, draped in pale gold, sits near the hearth where flickering candlelight casts a warm glow, softening the contours of her serene face. Her eyes, calm and knowing, hold a scholar’s precision — a mind trained to observe with clarity and to understand what lies beneath appearances. This is no mere curiosity; it is a measured examination, a study in the quiet art of anatomy, cloaked in the intimacy of the moment.

As the blacksmith steps closer, his silhouette strong and unwavering, Olga’s gaze descends with deliberate intent. Her fingers, pale and graceful, move not with hesitation but with the assuredness of one who has read and contemplated far beyond the surface. The room hushes, the other girls silent witnesses to this rare communion of knowledge and flesh.

She begins at the base, where the shaft emerges from a crown of thick, curling hair, tracing with gentle strokes the rugged terrain that speaks of virility and nature’s design. Her touch is light but confident, a silent dialogue between skin and fingertips. The subtle heat beneath her hand radiates steadily, a living warmth that defies the coolness of the dim room.

Slowly, her fingers travel upward, mapping the length with a practiced ease. She notes the ridges of veins, the smoothness of the skin stretched taut over muscle and sinew, the delicate folds and curves that shape the organ’s form. Olga’s touch is reverent, a careful balance between scientific interest and a profound respect for the living subject before her.

When her hand reaches the glans, she pauses. The swollen head gleams with a faint sheen of moisture — an unspoken testament to the tension and vitality contained within. With the softest touch, her fingertip brushes away a bead of clear liquid that clings to the tip, an almost clinical gesture performed with grace and without embarrassment. It is a moment both tender and exacting, a precise acknowledgment of the member’s state, its readiness and strength.

Her eyes lift momentarily to the faces around her — curious, admiring, some tentative — before returning to the task. In that silent glance, there is a communication deeper than words, an unspoken lesson delivered with patience and quiet authority.

As Olga continues, her fingers circle and press lightly, gauging firmness and texture. She traces the subtle shifts beneath the skin as the blacksmith maintains his stillness, a living statue subjected to the curious scrutiny of those around him. The room vibrates softly with the collective breath of those present, the atmosphere dense with unspoken questions and dawning understanding.

There is no haste in Olga’s movements, only a steady, deliberate exploration that transforms the act into something almost sacred — a merging of intellect and sensation, of study and silent reverence. Her calmness offers a counterpoint to the swirling emotions of youth and discovery filling the room.

In this moment, Olga embodies a bridge between the raw vitality of the blacksmith’s form and the blossoming awareness of the young women gathered to witness. Her touch teaches as much as it reveals, guiding hands and eyes alike toward a deeper appreciation of the body’s power and mystery.

The blacksmith’s gaze shifts briefly to Vera, then settles back on Olga’s steady hands — an unspoken acknowledgment passing between them. The ritual continues, each touch, each glance, a stroke upon the canvas of this rare, intimate tableau.

Vera’s voice, low and unwavering, delivers the final instruction:

“To Marya.”

The words settle like dust in the still air. The blacksmith turns for the last time, his steps soundless now, as though even his weight has grown contemplative. The slow arc of his movement draws every gaze with it, but the room has softened; the tension that once bristled with nervous delight has mellowed into something quieter, almost sacred.

Marya sits alone on her narrow piano stool, the curve of her back perfectly straight, hands folded in her lap like a prayer forgotten mid-whisper. Of all the girls, she has spoken the least. She has laughed when others laughed, smiled with kindness, not mockery, and watched everything with the wide, searching eyes of one who sees not just what is before her, but what lies behind it.

Now she lifts her gaze, and the blacksmith comes to a halt before her — not abruptly, not dramatically, but with a kind of grace that feels earned. He stands in his full and wordless presence, and she looks up at him as though from beneath a bell jar, every breath caught in delicate suspension.

She does not reach for him at once. Her hands remain still, as though they must first understand the silence between them. Then slowly — not shyly, but gently, with something that resembles awe — she lifts one hand and lets it hover near his skin.

When she touches him, it is not to weigh or measure. There is no curiosity in it, no testing, no attempt to name or define. Her fingers rest, warm and slight, against the base of him — not grasping, only making contact, as one might rest a hand against the flank of a great sleeping beast, feeling the slow, powerful rhythm beneath the stillness.

She closes her eyes for a moment. The room seems to hold its breath with her. The candlelight catches faintly on her profile — the fine line of her brow, the softness at the corner of her mouth. Her thumb shifts almost imperceptibly, not in exploration but as if in response to some inner tempo. The gesture has no aim. It simply is.

The blacksmith, for all his stillness, is not unmoved. His chest rises a fraction more deeply. A muscle in his jaw tenses. But there is nothing between them that might be called tension. It is a contact beyond desire — or perhaps before it.

Marya withdraws her hand with the same grace that placed it. She does not lower her eyes, nor speak, nor seek approval. Whatever passed through her fingers will remain with her — unnamed, unspoken, and entirely her own.

Vera watches in silence, and for the first time all evening, makes no comment. Perhaps because there is nothing to say — or perhaps because Marya, in her quiet way, has said it all.

At last, after the slow, solemn passage from one pair of hands to the next, the circle completes itself.

Vera rises — not abruptly, but as one might stand at the closing of a ceremony, not because it has ended, but because it has reached a point from which it must not go further without a new kind of silence. She does not speak at first. She merely extends a hand — not to touch, but to beckon. The gesture is simple, refined. Almost regal.

The blacksmith turns toward her without hesitation.

He walks with the same steady weight, yet something in him has changed — no longer the quiet stoicism of a man fulfilling a commission, but the heat of something endured, absorbed, barely contained. His body, still strong and composed, bears now the traces of what it has been through — not weariness, not trembling, but a fullness. As if every breath he holds is waiting for permission to become something else.

As he steps toward Vera, he passes once more through the shared light of their gazes. It is not reverent now. It is not playful. It is not afraid. It is something else entirely.

And then it is Olga’s voice — measured, low, tinged with something that might be called amusement or simply observation — that breaks the hush:

“His pouch no longer swings,” she says, almost to herself, though every girl hears. “It’s drawn up, tense. The body knows before the man does.”

Several heads turn toward her in surprise, but there is no embarrassment in her tone — only clarity. As though she’s pointing out a change in weather, or the sound of distant bells.

Vera hears, but does not respond. Her eyes remain on the blacksmith, who now stands before her, motionless, waiting.

What passed through seven pairs of hands now returns to her, changed. Not merely a body. Not merely a man. Something summoned, and now — awaiting command.

Vera approaches with the measured grace of a sovereign stepping into her court, the soft rustle of her gown a whispered echo in the heavy air. Her eyes, clear and commanding, settle on the blacksmith — a living monument of raw strength and silent endurance — standing before her like a statue carved from midnight.

Her fingers reach out with a quiet certainty born not of haste but of long-held command, finding once again the familiar, warm length that has borne the gentle scrutiny and tentative exploration of the evening’s attendants. She cups it with a touch that is at once firm and reverent, the delicate balance of possession and awe folded into that single gesture.

Without haste, she turns him gently but decisively, guiding his steady frame until his gaze aligns with the circle of young women gathered in silent expectation. Their faces, flushed with the mingling of anticipation and restraint, drink in the sight — a tableau both arresting and intimate.

Vera’s hand does not relinquish its hold; instead, it lingers — a subtle yet unmistakable emblem of control, an unspoken claim laid bare in the stillness between breaths. The warmth beneath her palm, the slight pressure of her fingers, speak louder than any command: here, in this space suspended from time, she is the axis upon which all else turns.

Her voice cuts through the hush, low and sure, each word a deliberate stroke upon the canvas of the moment:

“Tell them,” she commands, eyes blazing with the tempered fire of absolute control, “which hands pleased you most — and why.”

A faint murmur stirs among the girls, like the flutter of silk or the quickened pulse of a heartbeat caught in the stillness. Their eyes dart from one to another, each weighing the unspoken challenge laid before them.

The blacksmith remains statuesque, the silent witness to this delicate exchange — his own endurance mirrored in the quiet strength of her grip, unyielding yet without harshness.

Vera’s gaze holds, unwavering, as her fingers tighten just imperceptibly — a whisper of dominance that both commands and caresses, drawing the night’s fragile veil tighter around the secret they share.

The blacksmith’s gaze lingers a moment longer on the circle of young women, his dark eyes tracing the delicate curves of each face, the subtle sway of their postures, the quiet breath held between them. Then, with a measured weight, he inclines his head toward Ksenia — the pale sky blue dress catching the candlelight like a gentle wave, her fingers still trembling faintly from their first tentative touch.

His voice, low and gravelled, breaks the silence with the slow certainty of one who speaks from the bedrock of experience, not empty phrase.

“It is her hand,” he says, “that spoke most clearly to the body beneath. Not because it was the strongest, or the most sure, but because it was the hand that listened.”

He lets the words settle like warm embers in the room, watching the flicker of surprise cross some of the faces, while others nod slightly, as though understanding a secret finally unveiled.

“I felt it first in the gentle cradle at the base — the way her fingers cupped without clutching, holding without pressure, as if inviting rather than commanding. There was a softness, yes, but also a steady presence, like the quiet forge that burns beneath the anvil — constant, unyielding, and patient.”

His gaze flicks briefly to Vera, and there is a flash there — respect, acknowledgment of the invisible thread of control that binds them all.

“When her palm moved, it was not to claim but to explore; not to mark but to understand. The touch that watches the shape, the weight, the warmth — the life beneath the skin. That is a hand that knows.”

He shifts his weight slightly, the faintest catch in his breath betraying a tension beneath the calm.

“The body answers to certainty. It trusts the hand that does not rush, that does not seek to own but to be present. And hers was that hand.”

A silence follows, heavy and charged, as the girls exchange glances, some flushed, some thoughtful, all caught in the reverberation of a truth laid bare.

Vera’s lips curl into a faint, knowing smile. The power of the moment settles around her like a mantle, her hand still warm upon him — a silent claim, a promise, a question left hanging in the soft candlelight.

Vera turns slowly toward Ksenia, the blacksmith’s length still cradled firmly in her hand, a quiet testament to the night’s unfolding power. Her eyes, sharp as flint yet softened by an unexpected warmth, meet the young woman’s gaze with an unspoken recognition — an acknowledgment not merely of choice, but of the delicate balance between strength and tenderness revealed this evening.

“Ksenia,” she intones, her voice a low murmur woven with both authority and grace, “you have listened with more than your hands. To touch without haste, to hold without claim — this is a language few speak, and fewer still truly understand. Let this feeling nestle deep within you, a whispered strength carried in silence.”

Her gaze lingers a moment longer, tracing the subtle flutter of emotion across Ksenia’s features — hesitation, pride, and something tenderly resolute — before Vera’s fingers tighten ever so slightly around the warm flesh beneath her palm, a silent benediction and a promise.

“Do not allow doubt to cloud your touch again. You possess the rare grace to command without uttering a single word. Tonight, you stand not only as a witness, but as one who holds the quiet mastery of knowing.”

The moment hangs heavy with Vera’s words, each syllable settling like velvet over the room’s charged air. Then, as if breaking a spell, a ripple of laughter — soft, teasing, yet warm — courses through the circle.

One by one, the girls exchange glances, their eyes sparkling with mischief and relief. A smothered giggle escapes Liza, quick to spark a chain reaction; soon, light applause bubbles up like a spring, delicate but insistent, filling the room with the sound of youthful camaraderie.

Their hands come together in gentle claps, echoing the playful atmosphere, transforming the weight of the moment into shared delight. The laughter and applause ripple through them, weaving a thread of unity amid the intimacy of their strange, unfolding ceremony.

Vera allows herself a brief, triumphant smile — the sovereign of the moment, both commanding and cherished — before motioning the blacksmith to move on, the ritual far from over.

Vera’s gaze sharpens as she turns back to the blacksmith, her hand still holding him steady. With a voice low and measured, she asks, “And what of my hands? Tell me — what do they say to you?”

The blacksmith’s eyes meet hers, steady and unflinching. A slow, almost imperceptible smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Your hands,” he replies, voice rough like forged steel yet sincere, “speak of command — of a will that does not bend. They please me for their strength and certainty. They hold not just the body, but the moment itself.”

Vera feels a quiet satisfaction settle deep within her — a steady flame kindled by the blacksmith’s words. The unfamiliar weight of her role, once daunting and strange, now begins to soften into a mantle she wears with growing ease.

She senses the sheer physicality beside her: a man towering above her by a full head, his strength seeming to ripple beneath the skin like coiled thunder — more formidable than all her friends combined. Yet here she stands, unshaken, commanding the moment with calm authority.

In that charged closeness, where raw power meets poised control, Vera feels an exhilarating blend of awe and mastery — a subtle triumph born not of dominance alone, but of quiet confidence embraced.

Vera slowly releases her hold, the warmth of her palm lingering a moment longer before she steps back, her eyes gleaming with quiet command. “Move the chair to the center of the room,” she instructs, voice steady and assured.

The blacksmith nods without hesitation, the familiar rhythm of obedience in his steady movements. As he carries the heavy chair across the polished floor, the young women’s gazes lift from the intimate focus they have held to take in his entire form — the broad sweep of powerful shoulders, the taut sinews of his arms, the steady, measured pace of his stride. His body, a living sculpture of strength and endurance, commands the room with silent authority.

Once the chair is placed precisely where all can see, Vera glides gracefully to it and settles herself, the rustle of her gown soft against the wood. She stretches out her hand, palm up, fingers relaxed but inviting, an unspoken gesture heavy with meaning.

Without a word, the blacksmith approaches, instinctively understanding the silent summons. He lowers himself carefully, and with the deliberate gentleness of one who knows the weight of such a trust, he places his proud length into her open palm.

Vera’s hand glides over the length resting in her palm, moving with measured grace, as if tracing the contours of a finely wrought sculpture. Her touch is light at first — a tender exploration, fingers sliding softly along the skin, warming and waking the dormant strength beneath.

Gradually, her movements gain subtle insistence. She begins to tap gently, a slow, rhythmic pattering that speaks both of encouragement and quiet control. Each gentle slap punctuates the silent dialogue, coaxing the restless body to respond — sometimes urging it toward life’s rising pulse, sometimes calling it back to calm repose.

Her fingers shift with nimble precision, varying the cadence, the pressure, the touch — a delicate dance between motion and stillness, stirring and soothing in equal measure.

The faint sound of skin meeting palm echoes softly in the room, a whispered murmur beneath the attentive silence. Vera’s gaze remains steady, her eyes reflecting a keen awareness of the balance she commands — the fragile thread between awakening and restraint.

Around them, the young women lean forward, caught in the quiet gravity of this unfolding ritual. Each tap, each stroke, carries weight beyond the physical — an unspoken conversation of power, trust, and discovery.

Beneath her touch, the blacksmith’s form remains statuesque, yet subtle shifts betray the body’s quiet response. The steady rise and fall of his breath, the slight tightening of muscles — all speak to the delicate interplay between surrender and control.

Vera’s hand, poised as both guide and guardian, navigates this intimate landscape with a reverence that belies the commanding role she inhabits. Here, in the soft glow of the room, the ritual unfolds — a slow unveiling of strength tempered by grace, rawness softened by care.

Each motion is a brushstroke on a living canvas, each pause a breath held between heartbeats. The moment stretches, rich with tension and promise, a silent testament to the fragile beauty found where power and vulnerability entwine.

Vera’s hands move deliberately now, both palms rising and falling in a slow, measured rhythm — each gentle slap a deliberate punctuation in the quiet chamber. The motion is confident, almost ceremonious, as if she conducts an unspoken symphony between touch and response.

Her palms meet the flesh with a soft yet unmistakable sound, a muted cadence that resonates through the room like distant thunder — neither harsh nor hurried, but a tempered rhythm that commands attention. The warmth of her hands contrasts with the coolness of the air, sending subtle ripples along the taut surface beneath.

With both hands working in tandem, Vera crafts a dance of duality — coaxing and calming, urging and soothing — the motion speaking in a language of quiet authority. The steady beat carries a measured insistence, coaxing life to stir and then calling it back to gentle stillness, as if mastering a delicate balance between flame and ash.

Around her, the girls watch breathless, caught between fascination and reverence, their eyes reflecting the slow unfolding of power held in gentle hands. The blacksmith remains motionless, save for the faintest twitch of muscle beneath the caress, a living statue poised at the edge of awakening.

Each slap is a whispered command, each pause a silent question — an intimate ritual where strength yields to grace, and control bends tenderly toward surrender.

Vera pauses, her hands still and attentive. Her eyes narrow slightly, drawn to a delicate detail at the tip of the shaft — the foreskin stretched taut, revealing a small, pink nub beneath, crowned with a tiny opening at its center. The sight is both unfamiliar and fascinating.

Turning slowly, she fixes her gaze on Olga, who sits poised near the fireplace, her expression calm and knowledgeable. “Olga,” Vera inquires softly but with clear intent, “what is this? What am I seeing here?”

Olga’s lips curl into a faint, patient smile. She leans forward slightly, fingers lightly resting on the arm of her chair, ready to impart her learned understanding.

“That,” Olga begins, her tone measured and precise, “is the glans, the sensitive head of the male organ, often protected by the foreskin in its natural state. The small opening you see is the urethral meatus — the passage through which both urine and semen exit the body. It’s a delicate structure, integral to both function and sensation.”

She pauses, glancing briefly at the blacksmith, whose stillness lends gravity to her words.

“The tension in the foreskin you notice is natural, especially when the organ is relaxed or partially erect. It can stretch and contract, unveiling or concealing the glans as circumstances dictate. A marvel of both design and purpose.”

Vera absorbs the explanation thoughtfully, her fingers still hovering near the sensitive area, a newfound respect deepening in her eyes. The room remains hushed, the young women listening with quiet fascination, each absorbing the intricate knowledge woven gently into the evening’s unfolding discovery.

Vera turns her gaze back to Olga, curiosity sharpening her tone. “And — can the foreskin be drawn back like this?” she asks, her fingers poised hesitantly near the edge. “Is it proper to do so?”

Olga meets her eyes calmly, a hint of both knowledge and gentle caution in her voice. “Yes, it can be retracted, usually without discomfort if done carefully. The foreskin is meant to protect the glans, but when moved aside, it reveals the full sensitive head beneath. However, one must be gentle and never force it — respect for the body is paramount.”

Without waiting for the blacksmith’s permission, Vera’s fingers inch forward, grasping the edge of the stretched skin. With slow deliberation, she pulls it back, unveiling the smooth, glistening crown of the glans, flushed a deeper pink under the soft light.

Her eyes widen slightly, drinking in the delicate curves and subtle textures now exposed, a quiet admiration playing across her features. The moment feels intimate and solemn — as if she’s glimpsed a secret held close, a blend of vulnerability and strength laid bare by her own hand.

Around her, the other young women watch with a mixture of awe and reverence, the room thick with the charged silence of this unspoken permission granted by the ritual of touch.

Vera, still gazing at the now-revealed glans resting quietly in her palm, tilts her head with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. The tiny opening at the very tip draws her focus — so small, so delicate, it seems almost impossible it could serve such a base function.

She glances over her shoulder at Olga, her brow faintly furrowed. “So… did I understand you rightly?” she asks, her tone low but edged with incredulity. “That tiny hole — this — is where they relieve themselves?”

Olga inclines her head with the calm composure of someone long familiar with anatomy through books and diagrams, if not through experience. “Yes,” she replies evenly. “That is the urethral orifice. It serves both purposes, though not at once. The body knows to choose between.”

There’s a moment of silence as this sinks in. Vera looks down again, eyebrows faintly lifted, as if seeing the structure anew. The thought feels faintly absurd, even comical, but the evidence is there — gentle, pink, and unmistakably functional.

She breathes a quiet, almost amused hmph, then mutters, “Well, I suppose even marble fountains must have their plumbing.” A few of the girls stifle laughter, but none take their eyes from the strange and delicate truth cradled in Vera’s poised, fascinated hand.

The room holds a stillness not of silence, but of exquisite attention. Vera’s remark hangs in the air — half jest, half genuine curiosity — as her fingers remain lightly poised above the now-revealed glans. A flicker of amusement passes across Olga’s face. She folds her hands neatly in her lap, the motion deliberate, as if preparing to lecture an errant student in a drawing-room, not dissect an organ of flesh and mystery.

“If you don’t believe me,” she says dryly, her tone ironclad with knowledge and a touch of disdainful humour, “you could always ask him yourself… though I daresay he’ll prefer not to provide a demonstration on your rug.”

The words land like a single violin pluck in a quiet concert hall — sharp, clear, unexpected. For a heartbeat, no one speaks. Then Zina, lounging like a spoiled cat on her chaise, lets out a delighted little gasp, her fingers fluttering to her lips.

“Oh, how dreadfully improper,” she coos, eyes gleaming. “But — imagine!”

Sofia blushes furiously and looks away, while Liza giggles into her sleeve, her shoulders trembling with the effort to contain the sound. Even Marya lets out a soft chuckle, half horrified, half enchanted.

Vera, to her credit, absorbs the volley without flinching. Her cheeks flush, but whether from embarrassment or delight is difficult to tell. She lifts her chin and smiles, wry and unrepentant.

“I think we’ve learned quite enough for one sitting,” she says smoothly, withdrawing her hand at last, the motion neither rushed nor ashamed. “There are, after all, limits — even to education.”

A murmur of laughter ripples through the room, soft as falling lace. The blacksmith remains silent, impassive as ever, though a knowing flicker crosses his eyes — gone before it’s fully registered, like heat above a forge.

And so, decorum is restored, but only just. The edges of mischief remain, like perfume in the air, refusing to dissipate entirely.

Vera leans forward, ever so slightly, as though to listen for a whisper that might rise from her own open palm. The curve of her body follows the motion, her spine graceful, her breath held. Then, with a faint, playful narrowing of the eyes, she parts her lips and exhales a single, deliberate breath — soft, almost imperceptible, but direct — across the pink, gleaming crown nestled in her hand.

The response is immediate and minute: a twitch, no more than the flick of a cat’s tail, but enough to suggest that sensation had registered, that something beneath skin and sinew had flinched — whether in defiance, delight, or reflex, who could say?

Her lips curl, just slightly. “And what mischief are you planning now, I wonder?” she murmurs — not to the man, but to the thing itself, as though it were a character with its own motives, perched there like a guest refusing to leave. “I do hope it’s not anything… wet.”

A muffled snort escapes from Darya, seated on the sofa, half-hidden behind a raised fan. Liza gasps, her mouth open in gleeful scandal, while Zina practically squeals, hugging her knees to her chest as though to contain herself.

Olga’s dry voice cuts in, as ever the anchor of logic. “You may flirt with it all you like, Vera. Just remember — it answers not to wit, but to warmth.”

That earns her a ripple of laughter. Even Vera smiles more broadly now, no longer veiling her pleasure in this strange theatre. She sits a little straighter, adjusts her fingers with a certain ceremony — an air of authority returned, if not unshaken.

The blacksmith, to his credit, remains still as stone. But there’s something in his stance — a slight settling of weight, a fractional rise of the chest — that suggests he, too, is listening, and not merely to words.

And so the game continues: bold, absurd, exquisite. As delicate as silk drawn across flame.

Vera’s gaze flickers toward the small glass vase perched by the window — a humble thing, squat and thick-walled, holding a drooping bouquet whose colours have begun to fade. With a languid gesture, she points.

“Bring me that vase,” she says, as one might command a servant to hand her gloves.

The blacksmith obeys. He steps away, each motion fluid and silent, and returns with the vase in hand. The dying flowers tremble gently in its neck. Vera takes it and rests it on her lap, the cold glass pressing faintly through the fabric.

She plucks the wilted stems out, one by one, and lets them drop to the floor with unceremonious indifference. Then, lifting her eyes, she glances up at him again — his bulk still framed between her parted knees, the hem of her dress nudged aside by the sheer breadth of his thigh.

She shifts slightly, thoughtfully, fingers drumming along the rim of the empty vessel. Her other hand reaches up — not for him, but for the space between them, the tension, the question. She lifts her gaze to the others, smiling as if about to pose a riddle.

“I wonder,” she muses aloud, “what else this vase might be asked to contain…”

The silence that follows is not shocked, but charged — each girl leaning imperceptibly forward, suspended between curiosity and disbelief. But Vera does not move further. She simply sits, holding the vase with idle grace, as though the idea alone were enough to stir the air.

Vera shifts in her seat with slow deliberation, adjusting the vase now balanced delicately on her knee. The bouquet of wilted stems lies forgotten on the floor beside her, like something dismissed from a previous act. With a gentle nudge of her thigh, she reminds the blacksmith of his position — still standing between her knees, still enormous, silent, and attentively waiting.

Her fingers, those same fingers that once danced across a piano or arranged the pleats of a visiting card, reach forward again — not to grasp, but to explore. She touches the very tip of him, as though checking the temperature of poured tea, and with a subtle lift, draws him toward the rim of the vase.

The room leans in. Not literally, but atmospherically.

She doesn’t say anything at first. She simply watches — thoughtful, analytical, playful. Then, with a mock frown and a cocked brow, she turns her head toward her audience.

“It occurs to me,” she begins, her voice light and airy, “that glass may be the one material he’s yet to leave his mark on.”

A flutter of suppressed laughter ripples through the girls. Zina covers her mouth with a hand still sparkling from the remnants of spun sugar. Olga only sighs, as if the line between science and farce has once again blurred.

“And what would we call such an experiment?” Darya drawls from the couch. “A study in… hydrostatics?”

“Volume and containment,” adds Olga, dry as chalk.

Vera lifts her shoulders in a mock shrug, still holding him loosely, as if weighing something far more abstract than mass. “Oh, I don’t know. I was only curious if he might fit.”

Vera holds the vase steady on her lap, its cold curve pressing lightly into the silk of her dress. Her other hand, still poised beneath the firm weight in her grip, adjusts slightly — a silent suggestion, nothing more. The blacksmith does not speak. He shifts his stance just so, his body obeying a command not given aloud.

There is a moment of waiting, of breath held not in fear but in fascination — a stillness that hums. Something subtle changes in her palm: a slight tremble, a warm tightening, the signal before a storm. She feels it first — not with her eyes, but through the nerves in her skin — and then sees it:

A glimmer.

Just a dot of brightness where before there had been none. As if a hidden spring had whispered to life, catching the light inside its trembling lip. It beads there, perfect and golden, perched at the very centre — not falling, not yet.

Then, with a sigh from the man that is more exhale than voice, the droplet yields to gravity, and more follows. Not a rush, not a torrent, but a line — fine and honey-coloured — descending into the vase with a delicate, crystalline sound. Not vulgar. Not shameful. Simply… human.

The girls, all of them, watch in reverent silence.

Not one breath is wasted on laughter.

The golden line arcs softly into the vase, catching the light in a delicate shimmer. The room holds its breath, the quiet so dense it seems to press against the walls themselves. Each girl watches with eyes wide, minds awhirl with a mix of awe, curiosity, and a flicker of something unspoken — the thrill of witnessing the tangible essence of life’s quietest needs.

Zina breaks the silence first, a mischievous sparkle dancing in her coral eyes. “Quite the alchemist, isn’t he? Turning the ordinary into gold.” Her voice flutters between a tease and genuine wonder, stirring a ripple of soft laughter from Darya and Liza.

Olga’s gaze remains steady, thoughtful as ever, her pale gold eyes reflecting a scientist’s measured calm. “It is a natural marvel, truly. The body’s way of reminding us how intimately connected we all are to the earth’s rhythms.” She gently taps a finger against the vase’s cool surface, grounding the moment with her quiet reverence.

Sofia, usually reserved, leans forward slightly, her lilac dress shimmering with the faintest movement. “It’s strange,” she murmurs, “to see something so private shared so openly. It changes the way one thinks about… everything.”

Marya, seated near the piano, clasps her hands tightly in her lap, a blush rising to her cheeks. “I never imagined such a simple act could feel so… profound.”

Ksenia, ever the artist, tilts her head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “It’s like watching a live painting — the colors, the flow, the light all merging into a moment frozen in time.”

Vera, holding the vase gently, allows a rare smile to touch her lips. “We have seen more than most, today. It’s a lesson not just of the body, but of trust and quiet strength.”

The blacksmith stands quietly, his face unreadable, but beneath the calm exterior lies a silent gratitude — for their curiosity, their respect, and for the rare moment of connection suspended between them all.

The vase catches the last glimmer of the amber line before it settles, a humble vessel now carrying the silent story of a lesson well learned.

Vera reaches down gracefully to retrieve the fallen bouquet from the floor, her fingers brushing lightly over the delicate, wilting petals. With care, she lifts the fragile stems, a small, almost reverent gesture that seems to seal the quiet intimacy of the moment. Slowly, she replaces the flowers back into the vase, straightening the arrangement as if restoring order not just to the room, but to the fragile balance between them all.

Without a word, she looks up at the blacksmith, her eyes calm but commanding. “Put it back,” she says simply, her voice steady as stone yet soft with unspoken understanding.

He moves without hesitation, the solid thud of his boots muffled by the thick carpet. With deliberate strength, he carries the vase back to its rightful place upon the windowsill, the light catching on the glass once more, now shimmering with a different story.

The girls watch in silence, their gazes following the motion, the tension easing as the room slowly exhales with them. Vera settles back into her seat, the subtle authority of the moment lingering like a quiet perfume.

Olga clears her throat softly, a spark of both curiosity and quiet authority in her pale gold eyes. “May I?” she asks, voice steady yet tinged with a polite boldness. “I would like to feel the exposed glans.”

Olga clears her throat softly, a spark of both curiosity and quiet authority in her pale gold eyes. “May I?” she asks, voice steady yet tinged with a polite boldness. “I would like to feel the exposed glans.”

Vera, with a slight nod and a glance that carries both command and invitation, directs the blacksmith’s attention to Olga. Without hesitation, he steps forward, the bare soles of his feet silent upon the thick carpet of the room.

Olga produces a finely embroidered handkerchief from the folds of her gown, the delicate fabric a striking contrast to the rawness before her. With practiced gentleness, she lifts the cloth and dabs carefully at the exposed head, her fingers momentarily pausing to let the cool softness soothe the skin.

A subtle smile plays on her lips as she lets slip, “A souvenir, perhaps, to remember this encounter by.”

The room ripples with soft laughter — a delicate relief amid the charged atmosphere — as the blacksmith remains still, his expression unreadable yet touched by a flicker of appreciation.

Vera’s gaze sharpens with a hint of playful command, the faintest smile curling her lips like the first flicker of dawn. “You must have been standing still far too long,” she remarks, her voice carrying that delicate weight of authority that brooks no refusal. “Move a little. Begin with a simple jump on the spot.”

The blacksmith’s dark eyes flicker briefly toward her, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. Without hesitation, he shifts his stance, grounding himself firmly on the thick carpet. His bare feet press into the woven threads, solid and sure as the earth beneath. Then, with a measured grace that belies the raw power coiled within his frame, he bends his knees and lifts himself upward.

The movement is slow, deliberate — each rise and fall a testament to the strength in his legs and the tautness of sinews beneath his sun-kissed skin. Muscles ripple like dark waves over the surface of his thighs and calves, taut cords flexing with every silent beat. The soft thud of his feet kissing the floor carries a muted rhythm, a percussive counterpoint to the steady breath that fills the room.

The girls watch, entranced. Ksenia’s eyes, sharp and observant, trace the play of shadows beneath his knees, where sinews tighten and release like bowstrings drawn and loosed. Sofia, usually shy, leans forward, captivated by the steady cadence of his movement — the way his torso sways imperceptibly, balancing the force of each jump with the ease of a dancer.

The blacksmith’s broad chest rises and falls with a quiet intensity, his beard brushing lightly against the curve of his neck as he moves. His arms hang relaxed at his sides, hands clenched just so, a natural readiness etched into every line of his powerful frame. Even in motion, he seems both a force of nature and a sculpture in living flesh, sculpted by toil and tempered by time.

Liza bites her lip, a faint flush warming her cheeks as she whispers to Darya about the sheer discipline it must take to command such power with such grace. Olga’s expression is thoughtful, almost clinical, as she notes the evenness of his breathing, the controlled exertion in every muscle fiber.

As he continues, the blacksmith’s body speaks a silent language of strength and endurance. The subtle bounce of his hips, the flex of his ankles — each detail unfolds like a chapter in an unwritten tale. His shadow dances briefly on the walls, flickering with the light that filters through the heavy curtains.

Vera, seated now with an air of quiet dominion, watches with satisfied eyes. The scene unfolds exactly as she intended — raw power revealed through motion, an unspoken lesson in presence and command. The blacksmith’s every jump is an eloquent phrase in this wordless dialogue, his body the language and the lesson both.

When he finally comes to rest, the soft sigh that escapes the room feels like a shared breath — an acknowledgment of the simple beauty found in movement, in strength held gently yet unyieldingly. Vera’s voice breaks the silence again, soft but resolute: “Enough for now. Stand still, if you please.”

The blacksmith complies, steady and unwavering, the faintest flicker of a smile touching his lips as if to say he understands the part he plays — and perhaps, that he welcomes it.

Vera’s eyes gleam with quiet command, a subtle curve to her lips as she says, “You’ve stood still too long. Move. Begin with a simple jump on the spot.”

The blacksmith shifts his bare feet on the thick carpet, grounding himself with deliberate care. Then, with a slow, controlled bend of his knees, he lifts off the floor. Each jump is measured, powerful yet restrained, muscles tightening and releasing like tempered steel beneath his sun-darkened skin.

With every rise and fall, the girls’ gazes follow the rhythmic play of his limbs, but not only that. Their eyes drift lower, drawn involuntarily to the subtle movement of what lies between his legs.

At first, the length sways gently, still proud but losing the rigid firmness it held before. With each slight jump, it moves in soft, pendulous arcs — a living thing of flesh and shadow, responding to motion with a tender languor. The skin stretches and relaxes, the slight downturn hinting at a momentary retreat from its previous tautness.

The testicles, no longer loose, remain gently drawn upward, tucked close as if in quiet tension, bouncing lightly with the motion, yet contained and steady.

Vera notices the slow, graceful yield of his body, the way strength surrenders briefly to ease, and a smile flickers on her lips. The blacksmith’s member, no longer rigid, reveals the human vulnerability beneath his heroic form. It is an intimate dance of power and softness, a secret ebb and flow witnessed only by these few.

The girls watch, spellbound — the subtle falter of firmness an unspoken confession, a tender contrast to the indomitable exterior. The slow sway, the gentle pulse, speaks louder than words ever could.

As he lands once more, the length brushes softly against the fabric of his worn trousers, a quiet reminder of the flesh beneath the armor of muscle and labor. Vera’s voice, calm and deliberate, breaks the reverie: “Enough. Stand still.”

He obeys, body settling, his member reclining into a quiet repose — alive, but no longer commanding. The moment lingers, heavy with a strange, compelling beauty.

Vera’s voice rings with calm authority. “Lie down on the floor,” she commands, her eyes steady on the blacksmith. “Do as many push-ups as you can.”

He obeys without hesitation. The heavy bulk of his frame lowers smoothly to the carpet, broad shoulders folding forward like iron gates closing. His arms bend, thick cords of muscle bunching beneath skin weathered by years of toil. Each movement is deliberate, controlled — a symphony of raw strength and enduring stamina.

As he presses upward again, the girls lean in, breaths caught between awe and curiosity. Their eyes trace the powerful sweep of his biceps, the tension of his deltoids flexing with effort. The sculpted planes of his chest shift rhythmically, veins rising like fine threads beneath his tanned flesh.

But even as his body commands their full attention, their gazes cannot help but flicker downward — where his still naked member brushes softly against the woven carpet. With every rise and fall, it follows the movement, lightly grazing the floor, a subtle pendulum marking time with his exertion.

The skin there glistens faintly in the filtered light, taut one moment, relaxed the next, in gentle conversation with the steady pulse of his heartbeat. It moves not with the rigid insistence of before, but with a softer, more intimate rhythm — a whispered echo of the effort pouring from his limbs.

Vera watches with a quiet satisfaction, her expression unreadable yet glowing with the pleasure of command and discovery. Around her, the young women exchange glances — some wide-eyed, others biting lips in shy wonder — all captivated by this rare glimpse of raw humanity entwined with primal power.

Each push-up is a statement: strength made flesh, vulnerability laid bare, a living sculpture animated by sweat and breath.

When finally he pauses, chest heaving and arms trembling slightly, the room exhales with him — the silence rich with unspoken questions and awed respect.

Vera’s voice breaks the hush, low and steady: “Rest now. Stand.”

He rises with the grace of a giant, the faintest shiver passing through his body as his member settles once more against his thigh, still alive with quiet energy.

Vera rises deliberately from the armchair, the rustle of her gown whispering against the polished floorboards. With measured grace, she crosses the room, returning to the circle of her companions — resuming her place among them as if reclaiming a throne.