the box, or sit over a bottle of lemonade in the refreshment room. The problem had deeper roots…
Not right away, but I noticed that after our having a sex Eera got in a plaintive mood, and on the way from the Hosty to her home she spoke of sad things… How sadly was the wind dragging the autumn leaves across the stadium, visited to say goodbye to track athletics, because of a ligament injury after 2 years of training… How sad it feels, when at a festive table your parents got so absorbed in an agitated discussion of who of them was more right or wrong, that they do not notice you taking already the third plate from the table, and detachedly letting it fall to the floor over the scattered splinters of the first 2 – snap! – before mom and daddy wake up and finally turn to you…
The further, the sadder. The mood changes were replaced by overt sabotage! How else to classify it, if at having a sex your partner wriggles out from under you? It took me a hell of a lot of efforts to elicit the reason for such an unconventional behavior… Well, because she felt something like an urge for uncontrollable urination.
(…long live to our Soviet education system – the best system in the world! It couldn't maim the village schoolkids to such a degree though. They were saved by direct observation of the natural facts of life. A village girl would figure out at a glance what namely you were rolling upon her with. But the luckless city dwellers?.
In one of the color illustrations concluding the school textbook on Anatomy, there was a partial image of penis modestly hidden in between the intestines out-poured from the belly on the general scheme of internal organs. Those appended pictures were studied by the pupils on their own because during the academic year the class managed to reach only the middle of the textbook.
Now, how could the unfortunate daughter of teacher know the difference between orgasm and urination?..)
I'm far from stating that the problem was solved because of my persistent requests to trust her own body, which was wiser than her. In any case, she gave up wriggling out…
All those painful crises in the relationship called for general relaxation, and restoration of the dented self-esteem. These factors led to the emergence of Sveta, who also lived in the Hosty, and Maria, who did not live there but came on occasional visits, and more oftener I went to spend a night at her place…
Despite the fact, that Sveta studied at the Biological Department, she lived on the fifth floor in the Hosty. During one of her visits from up there to the third floor, she got vanquished by my noble continence, like, a knight-errant driven by merciless weather conditions to a roadside brothel…
I had just returned from seeing Eera to the vestibule in her staircase-entrance when they told me there was chicken soup on the table in Room 77. One of the advantages which the student canteen apportions you is that after visiting it you still can find enough room in your system for chicken soup, any time of day. I entered the room and turned on the light.
On one of the four beds, there lay a girl who did not make a secret of the fact that she had nothing on apart from the bedsheet wrapped about her. More importantly, there was a pot on the table and a couple of spoons. Taking the lid off the pot uncovered the presence of the soup, about two servings. I wiped off one spoon, sat on a vacant bed and started eating. The soup was cold, but unmistakably of chicken. The girl protested from inside her bedsheet that she couldn't sleep with the light on. Turning it off, I threw the door open, because eating soup in complete dark is uncomfortable, so I had to finish it off in the dim illumination from the distant corridor lamp. Some delicious soup, I liked it, even though cold. Then I left.
"The less we love a woman,The more she is turned on…"
Thus, I began to heal the wounds from the torturing love with medicinal visits to the fifth floor in the hostel. Sveta was simply created for that. Not very tall, of a boyish haircut, she had a slender body and generous breasts. She was good at anything, but her special dish was giving a blow job. Besides, Nature-Mommy endowed her with a valueless blissful gift: a mere touch to her nipples did make her go off for fucking crazily, whining, and there went you, in her wake, to boot.
In addition to psychological impediments formed by the Soviet school system, at times I rammed into unbending ideological dissonance with Eera. Like on that occasion when the institute Rectorate ordered a volunteer clean-up in the Count's Park. The girls of my course were raking the fallen leaves in great heaps, and Igor Recoon and I set them on fire.
After translating The Jaws, I knew that burning leaves in the open was a crime against the planet's atmosphere; there was a short passage in the book on that particular point. But could you prove anything to anyone? "Sehrguey, don't put on airs! Everyone does it. We're not in America.”
When in Rome do as Romans do. The Count's Park got drowned in the thick white smoke and we dispersed… Bypassing the Old Building, I saw a girl in sportswear and liked her from afar. I didn't even know why she attracted me so much. Well, the wide white kerchief with big black spots around her neck, that's for one, but certainly not only because of that; and not for the sneakers. I came closer – what the f-f.. damn! – but that's Eera herself!. And, way too deeply moved by the pleasant surprise, I blurted at once about my falling in love with her again a moment before.
"You did not known it was me but fell in