Ira Lav
Emotions rule

 ( or MAY I FEEL SAID SHE)

This book was inspired by my own passion and curiosity for emotions, my friends’ experience (male and female) and their points of view and feelings.

The characters resemble the people I’ve known. The chapters are similar to the events happened in real life. I did mix, embroider a little and intertwine everything into a lovely plot which I really do hope you will love.

Some moments bring us laughter, some moments bring us tears, some moments give us drive or maybe needed peace.

May you find at least one scene that will touch your heart or maybe remind you of some moments in your own life…

Yours,

Ira Lav

Prologue

Darkness. A single patch of sunlight was escaping through the blackout curtains from both sides of the window. Katya woke up in her king-size bed, her limbs scattered as if of a starfish. Her state could be compared to a shaken bottle of soda that had just been opened. That was just her uncontrollable giggle of joy triggered by her memories of the previous night. To be precise, her late alfa-gravity class with her coach, the thirty-seven-year-old Alexandre. Broad-shouldered, tall, fair-haired young chap with piercing grey eyes and deep confident voice. What a treat for a single aging woman…

During the class, Katya might have stretched one of her arm muscles. Not surprising – she was no longer a young lassie. Feeling responsible, Alexandre thought he ought to do something about it. He suggested massaging it. His deep voice assured her that she could fully trust him as he’d finished massage courses.

As his hands began their firm and confident gliding along her arm muscles, Katya closed her eyes and relaxed. A moment later, she wished he would never stop. How blessing every day was. Even when your muscles hurt.

‘Tell me if it hurts,’ Alexandre said as-a-matter-of-factly.

‘Damn, it feels so good. You must be having lots of clients,’ stated Katya, slightly rocking from his strong gliding hands.

‘Oh, I’ve never thought of massaging as earning money. I just do it when someone needs it. Like, to my relatives or friends when they’re in pain, now you… maybe I should try earning some extra dough with it,’ he said chuckling.

‘I’d be the first client then. I’ve been thinking of having my back massaged for ages. Just didn’t know where to go to,’ said Katya with a slight moan in her voice.

‘I could give you the first massage now if you want to. The first one is for free, for my first client,’ the coach suggested seriously with a hardly noticeable playful undertone.

‘Right here?’ wondered Katya rounding her eyes and, at the same time, expecting an affirmative answer.

‘No one is here. It’s my last class, and the receptionist has already left. On Fridays, I am responsible for closing the place. No worries,’ informed Alexandre with an innocent smile.

He fetched a mat from the corner of the room and a clean towel from the receptionist’s shelf. He spread it out on the mat, ‘Would that do for a massage table?’ wondered the ex-coach and newly-hired massage therapist squatting on the mat.

‘I suppose,’ Katya raised her shoulders and stretched her lips in a satisfactory smile.

‘Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back,’ uttered the jack-of-all-trades and left the room.

As he came back Katya was lying on the towel on her stomach, topless, anticipating his touch – goosebumps all over.

‘Do they have some music in here?’ wondered the patient.

‘Some yoga mantras, I believe. They have yoga classes in this room as well. Let me check,’ he said. ‘What ancient equipment,’ he said trying to turn on the cd-center that he found in the corner of the room. As Alexandre held a wire he said, ‘Wait a minute, I think I can plug in my iPhone. I think I have some jazz. Would that suit you for the massage?’

‘I guess so,’ was Katya’s reply.

As the music began, he approached the mat and kneeled down near Katya.

‘Sorry, no massage oil here I would find,’ he warned and began rubbing his palms against each other.

‘No problem,’ Katya said paying attention only to her back and to the loads of energy she was feeling coming from this guy.

What welcoming and ticklish anticipation covered her back! It seemed to be a giant runway ready for a plane to land. Finally, she felt his warm palms spread over her back – gliding, pushing, making her feel like dough in his firm men’s hands. The dough that was getting constant knots of electricity from his touch. Katya knew the feeling. A hell of a lot of chemistry she was getting from this young stud. And she felt the chemistry was mutual, so why not enjoy the evening? Her thoughts were interrupted by her own moaning as the masseur began to handle one spot with persistence.

‘Does it hurt here?’ Alexandre asked as a doctor pressing the very spot harder with his firm fingers.

‘Yeah,’ said the patient. He concentrated on the spot now catterpillaring with his thumbs up the tension zone.

‘I think not a little,’ he said and added, ‘You have hell of a tension right here’.

He kept on working on the same spot, now chopping up the tension zone with his loose hands luring Ekaterina’s blood flow to come up to help him heal her body.

‘It hurts but I like it. It feels good, a bit painful and ticklish but good. The same feeling when your muscles hurt when you’ve overworked, but I adore the feeling,’ explained Katya, her voice as if coming from a deep dungeon.

‘Good for you. Some cannot stand the pain and plead me to stop the execution,’ Alexandre informed chuckling.

One song ended, and Teach Me Tiger by Marilyn Monroe filled the atmosphere around with its seducing, flirting, sexual vibes.

‘Didn’t know men listen to Marilyn Monroe these days,’ meowed Katya under Alexandre’s probing fingers.

He said as an expert, ‘Well, who else would Marilyn sing to… actually, it’s not my music. My sister borrowed my phone for one night, well, me with the phone, for her jazz party, cuz her phone had got broken. Good that I kept the music. It appears quite handy tonight.’

As the procedure was close to an end, Alexander placed his palms on Katya’s back and held them still. Then he took Katya’s T-shirt to cover her back.

‘That’s it. Lay still for a couple of minutes and only then get up,’ he instructed.

‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she exclaimed turning over on her back, her T-shirt flying over. She held herself on her elbows demanding, ‘I would also like a massage on my front side, please,’ her no-longer-firm breasts exposed and her eyes boring into his pupils surrounded by light grey.

He stared steadily at her for a whole minute. Never losing eye contact, the masseur silently placed his right knee and right hand close to the opposite side of her body and sat on her like on a horse. He gave her a gliding but confident kiss. Was he still in the massaging mode? Or could it be simply his style? His feature? Confidence all around him as his aura?

‘Call me Sasha, Katya,’ he informed. ‘Would you like an inner massage too?’ he asked, his breathing deep and frequent at the same time, eyes half-closed.

‘Absolutely,’ Katya whispered in his ear and began pulling off his gym pants.

‘G’od, I’m nuts – he is a cute lil boy. He is nuts – I’m almost fifty-five, damn, almost a pensioner …but what a night!’ Katya exclaimed and sailed out of bed, drew apart the heavy curtains smiling to the morning sunshine. She couldn’t get herself together. No meditation she was to perform that day. Goosebumps all over her body, fire in her chest were making her smile like a baby. She could not keep still.

She turned on her laptop to find the Teach me, Tiger song and sat down silently listening to the beginning. Her pinky finger between her teeth. Her tongue somewhere in between. She got up and started floating across the room playing with her purple nightgown. Floaty dance was her meditation that morning.

Finally, she approached the mirror and looked at herself. What did the woman in the purple nightgown see? Did she see the real self? What kind of a woman had she grown into? And how had she been transforming into the one she saw in front of her?

There stood a tall, ripe woman. The wrinkles on her face and neck suggested she could be somewhere in her mid-forties. She took great care of her skin without any popular injections but with masks, massage, and facial acupuncture. She took hormones to boost her libido. She felt great! No one could ever tell her real age. She was slim, fit from swimming and her recent alfa-gravity classes. Hanging on ropes attached to the ceiling did its wonders to her body. She was proud of her looks. Ekaterina winked at her reflection and smiled. Her hair used to be blonde, but now she was dying it blonde to hide the white color of aging. Her besties had once nicknamed her Blondie, hence, she should remain so. What if they changed the nickname to White-haired? She would never like to be called so, would she?

‘Maybe I should stop dying it and let it be natural. Why should I hide age changes? Cuz everybody does. But I’m not everybody. Or am I?’ she asked herself roughly touching her strands making them fluffy from tangling. She danced more in front of the mirror seducingly showing off her hips. The aka stripper abruptly stopped and hunched theatrically when she remembered what day it was. The obligation of this day triggered a sudden lump in her chest which was about to ignite Katya’s whole anxiety of the day. She caught the hue of the thought. Why did the day promise to be full of anxiety? No, she was to tune herself on a positive breakthrough for both herself and her daughter. She sat on her bed. She placed her palms up on her knees and closed her eyes. Katya began her gratitude routine she’d started practising for quite a time already. She was grateful for her daughter, for her functioning body, for a tremendous sea of energy she had felt with Alexandre the day before. She was thankful for being alive. And she visualised the upcoming talk with her daughter to be honest and awakening.

It was her daughter’s birthday. Eighteen years before Katya had decided to tell her birthday girl about her Dad on her eighteen’s birthday. Back then Katya had named her Varvara, Varya (same as Barbara, to inject some wilderness into her character, some barbarian nature). Today was the time to let her little birdie fly out from under her mum’s wing and enjoy life and freedom. Easy said than done. Blondie still saw her daughter as her little girl. The girl whom she had breastfed, nursed, shared times of illness and success, failures and victories, whom she knew so well and would always care about her as she, Ekaterina Mitrofanova, was simply her mother.

Blondie had spent months thinking about what kind of present to get Varya. Finally, she had asked her daughter’s bestie, Lyuda. The latter surely had to know what Varya might desire.

‘Well, that’s pretty easy. I know what she really wants. I want it too, but we don’t know if you approve. I asked my parents a long time ago and they said yes. But Varya decided to wait till she entered a university,’ began Lyuda with her long introduction, ‘I hope she won’t kill me for telling you this.’

‘Of course not. It’ll be a surprise. A present she would definitely like, c’mon tell me, Lyuda,’ Blondie pleaded.

‘She wants to go to Cuba to learn how to dance Salsa, to learn Spanish. You know, see the world on her own, well, with me actually. The school years would be behind. We would have a month before we start a university, you know,’ giggled Lyuda nervously repeating herself.

‘You wanna feel freedom,’ finished Katya with a knowing smile. Somewhere deep inside she felt a hidden sadness. The sadness of realizing that her daughter was no longer a child. The sadness of realizing that time was running fast. The sadness of the worries she would experience when her Varya would be far away, on her own in this huge, enormous, big- big world.

Katya gave Lyuda a smile, but inside she was all worry and doubt. The silly predictions first appeared in her head, “And why on earth Cuba? Why would they choose Cuba, an island swarming with loose Cuban hot machos? What do they wanna learn about sex from a one-night stand, well, or from one-month stand? Damn, I AM getting old. Stupid thoughts, go away. Thank you for your protection. But I’ll manage.”

She recollected herself leaving for an adventure for the first time. She was sixteen when she left her home. She spent a whole summer in England learning a new culture, a new language, a new mentality, new way of life with other teenagers from other countries. The beginning was a bit hard as Katya missed her parents and friends a great deal. But soon she made friends and got used to the new environment, so in the end, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go back home. Later on, she childishly prided herself for having so many international friends from all over the world. Katya was welcome now in at least three or four countries to stay over at her friends’ in the future. And she understood that she was lucky to have such parents who had trusted her and let her go to broaden her skills, mind, and future possibilities.

Now that Blondie was a parent herself, it was her turn to play a wise mum no matter how disturbing it could be to let your child move on. After all, any child is an individual, a free individual, especially, a grown-up one with her own life to take hold of. Katya was aware of all that, but how hard it was to let your own kid go. She would imagine placing a protective bubble around her daughter and let her go and know that her mum was always with her.

She’d been thinking of the changes approaching. She’d been remembering herself during her university years. She’d been working with her feelings of a worrying mother. So now she was playing a wise and cool mum answering Lyuda, ‘What a cool idea, the same thing I would have wanted for my eighteenth birthday. So when are we booking this salsa course, flight, and accommodation for ya, girls, eh?’

Katya glanced at the clock, it was ten a.m. The very time when her daughter would normally wake up with no alarm clock. She made two cups of coffee, placed Varya’s favorite tiramisu cake on a tray, put an eighteen-number candle in the middle, lit the candle and slowly proceeded towards her daughter’s room.

‘Fuck, I forgot the present,’ grumbled Katya, she carefully placed the tray on the floor, opened her purse and fished out a folder with the print-outs of the Cuban trip. She tried to hold the folder and the tray at the same time. It didn’t work. She stood thinking for quite a time. If I put the folder under my arm, I wouldn’t be able to put down the tray; if I put the folder in my nightgown, the folder might fall down; if I put the folder into my mouth…

‘Jesus, just fetch the damn folder after you’ve put the tray down,’ a voice commanded in her head. Her self-talk was interrupted by her phone buzzing in her purse. She placed the tray on the floor one more time, checked who it was calling and mumbled to herself, ‘Men can wait, even young, attractive sex machines as Sasha.’

She put the phone back into her purse and picked up the tray again. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Katya did her best not to flip over the tray while opening the door. She saw her daughter lying awake checking messages on her phone and began singing Happy Birthday to You song.

As Varya finished reading the message, she sent her phone flying under her pillow and sat up to watch her Mum singing.

‘Thanks, Mum, no dancing or poem reciting this time?’ chuckled Varya.

‘Oh, shut up, Little Monster. It’s my day off, no working routine today,’ Katya disappeared for a second and reappeared with a folder in her hand. She sat down next to Varya.

‘And I have two things to give you on your eighteenth birthday, honey,’ Katya drew a deep sigh, her eyes radiated seriousness and love at the same time, ‘The first one is the truth, which you will need time to digest and the second one is hell freakishly awesome. So… which one you wanna get first?’ she finished with a slightly nervous smile.

‘I don’t think I like the sounding of the first one. Sounds like from the movies. Will you tell me about my Dad? Are these some photos of him you have in this folder or something?’ said Varya playing a detective, ‘Am I right? C’mon, spill it!’ Varya encouraged her mother as she saw that it wasn’t easy for her.

‘Um, well, let’s start with the folder first. This is my present to you, sweetheart. Open it!’ instructed Katya.

The seriousness started to penetrate Varya’s mood too, ‘Alright, let’s see what skeletons you have in your cupboard,’ whispered Varya never stopping playing a foreseer.

As she was studying the papers carefully, the picture of the trip was slowly being visualized in her head. Varya couldn’t but stand up on her bed and yell, ‘Cuuuuuuuuuba, G’od, I am going to see Cuba! Mum, you’re the best!’ she jumped on her mother, hugged and kissed her all over.

When the repeating of the word Cuba finally faded in the air, Varya was ready to take up the next present. ‘Ok, Mum, tell me the truth now. I’m not that good a detective this time. You HAVE surprised me. So now, the father story. He’s never died, am I right? Will you tell me his real name now and let me see him? Ok, I shut up,’ said Varya realizing she was asking way too many questions. Little Monster locked her mouth with an invisible key and threw it away.

‘So… where do I begin?’ Katya drew a deep breath and went on, ‘My whole life I haven’t been that lucky with men. Well, I’ve always been lucky with men for sex, for fun, for some romance, call it, as you like it, but have never met my man, who would take me for… let’s say, forever, you know like for life love. One and only. I don’t know if I make sense. But back then I believed in such love. I think most people did, especially in Soviet times. High moral family standards were pretty strong and cherished alright, even though they might be a fraud in life. So at some point, I decided I would just forget about that creating-a-family idea and live for myself, and enjoy life how it was. And I justified my new self with this so common phrase We come in this world alone and leave alone. So why suffer? Why being stuck up on finding some other half of yours when you’re whole already? That was when I created my English through theatre business, which was a great thing I’ve done. Look how we live,’ Katya raised her long fingers around the spacious Varya’s room and kept on, ‘but still, I desperately wanted a kid. I tremendously enjoyed being with my best friends, who had already kids and families, but I also envied them, hell, I envied them. This year I will turn fifty-five. That means I was almost thirty-seven when you were born. Not an extremely young Mum I was. As I was getting close to my fortieth birthday and no responsible man was to be seen, I decided I would play God, and have a baby without any man involved. You know, I didn’t want any awakened ‘father of yours’ appear unexpectedly and surprise you with, ‘Hey, I am your Dad.’ So, I had an IVF, In Vitro Fertilization. Shortly speaking, my egg was fertilized by some man’s sperm in a lab dish and then the embryo was put back into my uterus, and then the normal pregnancy went on. And that was how you appeared,’ finished Katya adding with a tender voice, ‘my Little Monster.’

They both knew that Varya was now a gorgeous young woman, but Little Monster nickname was something of a habit, a tradition, the tradition of mother-and-daughter love, they mutually shared and cherished. Katya kept on looking at her daughter trying to figure out her thoughts, ‘Do you want to be alone?’ she asked carefully.

‘Hell, no, Mum, I’m alright,’ produced Varya and froze to find the right words to describe her flow of thoughts, ‘It’s so unusual… what you did… I mean, lotsa people do it nowadays, but I’ve never thought I’d be the product of IVF… um… let’s name it not unusual but unique… it was still your egg. You are my Mum, hell, even if it wasn’t yours… you have raised me and I love you… and I know you love me… I guess, nothing’s changed from knowing the details of the fertilization, right? But why did you do it? You didn’t have any problems with getting babies, did you?’

Katya’s eyes began to get glossy. She began speaking with a slight tremble in her voice automatically slipping into the role of some broken-hearted woman, ‘Varya, I told you, I’ve never met a man who wanted to have kids with me. Sex-yes, but no kids, no family. A family requires love, commitment, responsibility, respect, money, a place to live, time, etc… No responsibilities or duties men need these days. Or at least, that’s what I thought then. Just fun everyone wants. When it gets serious, men evaporate… Such were my observations. I mean, of course, there were SOME men who want to have a family, but I guess, they were all occupied already. So I thought I would have a baby without any particular man I know. I didn’t like the situation and I changed it to my liking. And since then I see men as positive emotion-evoking, awakening adventures with no attachments and no expectations… as they have always seen me. And it’s so much better as I don’t worry anymore, no more heart-breaking feelings, no more dramas to tend to. Maybe I even buried the idea of finding the right man. And watching you grow and knowing that no one will appear and bother you makes me feel stable, confident, calm.’

Katya made a sigh and wanted to say something else to explain herself, but Varya embraced her and they both sat holding each other, making their backs salty with tears.

Varya put her forehead against her mother’s and uttered, ‘Mum, let’s spend the whole day together. I wanna hear your whole life story. I bet it’s much better than any Hollywood movie I’ve seen. So what d’ya say? I’ll celebrate my birthday with friends tomorrow, no problem.’

‘Let me think,’ Katya said and complimented her words with an image of Rodin’s sculpture Thinker, ‘I agree. I’ll make it a real performance for you, ho-ho. Shall I perform it as a musical?’ Katya stood up and began singing, ‘When I was young, I never needed anyone, and making love was just for fun,’ she stopped abruptly and commented, ‘Well, that was the opposite with me,’ she turned to Varya, wiped her eyes with her fingers. ‘But, first, I need a tissue to blow my nose,’ informed she with a chuckle, ‘no, I’d rather wash my face.’

‘Yup, good idea. And then we’ll have a talk over cold coffees and tiramisus,’ agreed Varya looking at the tray where half a centimeter of the candle was left, ‘I forgot to make a wish, my wish has just come true. Cuba-Cuba! I’ll make one for you then.’

Varya blew off the candle light and produced a wink with a smile. And they went to wash their red-spotted faces.

As Blondie stepped out of the bathroom, she heard her phone buzz again. She drew the phone out of her purse and swiped the green circle, ‘Hello’, she said.

‘Hello, my sweet Milf,’ came Sasha’s deep and confident voice.

‘Just a second,’ Katya said business-like into the speaker, covered the speaker with her palm and yelled to Varya, ‘I’ll join you in the kitchen in five minutes, honey.’ Blondie headed to her bedroom, feeling butterflies flutter in her belly, and shut the door.

Katya raised the phone to her ear and said as-a-matter-of-factly, ‘So, hi, Kilf.’

‘Kilf…and that would stand for?’ wondered Sasha in a bit confused voice.

‘Kid-I’d-Like-To-Fuck,’ informed Katya.

‘You watch it, woman. I may punish you for this and won’t even notice that you are a woman and that you are almost eighteen years older than me,’ he said in his seducingly confident voice and added, ‘you can call me Filf, by the way.’

At first, Katya opened her mouth to ask how he’d learned about her age. But then she remembered about giving her ID to the receptionist. Suddenly her thoughts were frozen by Filf expression. She guessed the first ‘f’ would stand for ‘father’ and quickly responded, ‘Are you married? If yes, I don’t want to have anything with you again, I try not to mix up with married men.’ She caught herself on saying ‘try’, ‘don’t try – don’t mix up!’

‘Don’t worry, I’m divorced, have a ten-year-old son, who lives with his mum and fucking father-in-law in Amsterdam. The rest can tell you later. Will I see you today, Katya?’ he asked demanding.

‘Um, I can’t today. It’s my daughter’s birthday and I just promised her to spend the whole day with her, telling her how I came from the point of finding my prince on a white horse for a happy family life to the point of treating men as little adventures,’ explained Katya.

‘Oh, that’s how you see men. I’ll have to prove to you otherwise. I do care,’ stated Sasha.

‘Care about what?’ wondered Katya confused.

‘Care about you, about the beginning of our relationship, at least now,’ confessed he, ‘but your words are misleading at the moment.’

‘That’s interesting… Can we talk it over tomorrow? You can have me the whole day, the whole Sunday will be yours, I promise,’ Katya reassured him.

‘Ok, tomorrow then,’ agreed Sasha.

‘And prepare the Teach Me, Tiger song. I’m totally into it now,’ added Katya.

‘I will. See you,’ said Sasha.

‘See you, Tiger,’ responded Blondie and hung up.

Katya entered her kitchen a bit perplexed but with a wicked playful fire in her eyes. This air of confidence about Sasha drove her crazy. Confident voice, confident posture, confident gliding arms…

‘Who was that, Mum?’ wondered Varya raising her voice from a low to a high note. She noticed every change in her Mum’s face.

‘Just a man. You don’t know him,’ answered Katya, sipped some coffee, took a spoonful of tiramisu, and placed it in her mouth. As she finished chewing, she announced, ‘So… my life story… I guess I’ll begin with the trip to Germany.’

Chapter 1
Katya, Yulya and Tanya go to Berlin

The girls became friends at Moscow State Pedagogical University, Foreign Languages Department. Although they’d been learning German for a year already, they could hardly speak it. Thus, the ladies had decided to spend their summer holidays together and brush up their German. The trio believed the fastest and surest way to learn the language was to stay in the country where the very language was spoken. That was their recipe and they felt a strong urge to give it a try. What they had to do was to mix the following ingredients: A) socialize with native speakers, B) stay open to communication, where making mistakes was not only inevitable but also contact-finding and amusing, C) get acquainted with the culture and compare it with your own and D) have fun obviously. If you followed the instructions correctly, you would master the language pretty fast. Bon appetit!

Back to Moscow Vnukovo airport.

The blonde-haired Katya, a tall, slender girl was in her hyper mood waving happily b’bye with her long palm at her parents. Her Mum and Dad were masters of a farewell scene with a real pep talk of be careful here and there spiced up with lots of examples from newspapers, books, news and movies of young ladies who go on adventures abroad and end up deceived serving foreign pimps. Every time they saw her off they would spill on her the same stories. They wanted to give her all the opportunity in the world but at the same time protect her. She was an only child, as her Mum had been advised against any other pregnancies due to her catastrophically bad eyesight.

Katya didn’t want to let down her worrying parents and like a really good-natured daughter, she pretended to listen to them with great attention. To herself though, she was thinking if she took to these horror stories she would spend the rest of her life in Moscow being afraid of the rest of the world. Or she might even consider going back to her home town, where there were only about one hundred thousand people compared to Moscow official thirteen million. Instead, Katya chose to trust in good. And the good would take care of her. She cherished the notion of thinking positively in order to attract it in her life. That was her faith.

She was so excited to escape. Freedom was about to come! No irritating small laws of parents, teachers, elderly people to obey, at least for the time being! You could forget all about ‘Don’t swear! Don’t come home late! Don’t get drunk! Don’t mess up with guys till you’ve graduated from the university!’ Although in the back of her mind she knew being alert would do no harm obviously. Shit happened. No one was ensured against crooks.

Red-haired, miniature pretty Yulya with her outstanding lips and freckled face was hugging her Mum and Dad telling them in her high-pitched voice not to worry. Having never flown in a plane, they were really worried about the flight, more than Yulya herself. While the latter was just thinking of a new experience with the excitement of discovering a new world and new feelings, her parents had these terrible pictures in their heads of plane crashes they’d seen so often on TV. On seeing her Mum’s wet eyes and Dad’s absent look Yulya was obliged to quote the three Musketeers saying ‘All for one and one for all’. She squeezed her Mummy hard and cheek kissed her.

‘I’ll be very prudent, Pa, I promise,’ she whispered in her Dad’s ear. After all, it wasn’t like going alone, but with very, very good friends of hers. They were like her elder sister, very care-taking.

On her own stood dark-haired Tanya with a thick fringe of hers which had provoked her friends to call her just Fringe. She was chewing gum, eyeing the ceiling. She looked as if she was somewhat irritated with her friends whose parents were such Mummies and Daddies as if their kids were leaving for war. She had handled her b’bye procedure at home telling her Mum not to worry as she was capable to get to the airport on her own. She didn’t need that puppy-love scene performed at the airport.

Since the age of sixteen, Tanya had been making clear to her Mum that she’d grown up. Fringe began to feel her growing independence when she started earning her own, though little, money by typing texts for some publishing house. With her own money, she could indulge in her own wishes without begging her Mum to give her some cash. That was the turning point for the newly-acquired phrase she threw whenever her Mum was about to lecture her. With a slight note of irritation Tanya would say, ‘I’ll decide by myself what to do with my life, I’m big enough, Ma.’

Maybe it had not been only her own money that had made her rely only on herself as a teenager.

She had become aware that life was not only honey and sugar at the age of twelve, the personal experience mutated through a psychological trauma into the secret she’d kept to herself in the lowest drawer of her memory.

Plus, at the age of fourteen, she’d witnessed her Dad get himself utterly drunk and bit up her Mum. In a panic, Fringe’d called an ambulance to take her Mum to a hospital where the latter had spent a week. That week Tanya’d spent alone with her beast Dad home. Fringe had been afraid he might perform the same beating act on her, so she’d always kept a pocket knife on her for defense, even though she hadn’t been quite sure she could raise a hand on her own Dad. Surprisingly, she had been relieved to observe his permissive beating had only been directed onto his wife. The attitude toward his daughter hadn’t altered. Nevertheless, she could not forgive him for her Mum’s beating.

When her Mum had been released from the hospital Fringe’d told her she didn’t want to live with her Dad and she would run away if they kept on living together. Mum’d replied she needed time to think.

When Mama Irina had been beaten one more time, she’d filed for a divorce and arranged to stay at her sister’s place where the latter lived with a daughter of hers. Two sisters and cousins had to endure a little inconvenience of being packed like sardines in a one-room apartment during the process of changing the beating husband’s three-room apartment to two one-room apartments. As a matter of fact, Tanya and her cousin, Anya, had become quite close at that time and had been determined to keep their friendship after their inevitable separation. Soon the exchange had been performed. The sisters and their daughters had been back to living apart.

Since then Fringe had been living in a one-room apartment with her Mum. Tanya believed she was deprived of her private room only temporarily. She valued that she and her Mum resided in a safe and non-violent place now.

Maybe because of all the family cataclysms Fringe looked older and wiser than her besties. It was her eyes that could flicker a sullen twinge at times. In reality, she was even a year younger. Besides, her looks were just super womanly as she was shaped like the yummiest donut on earth. Such an appearance was due to her big heavy breasts which she only used to curse when she ran in PE classes – so dangly and heavy they were that they even hurt. But in all other cases, Tanya was extremely proud of them. The pride that was strengthening with each lustful male stare or an envious female glare.

Finally, the girls lost a glimpse of their parents. If they could’ve screamed without frightening the airport staff, they would’ve gladly done it. Instead, Katya began singing as if an opera singer ‘Parents, see you soooooon and freedom, weeee are cooooming!’

Yulya just made a silly-goose dance and jumped forward to the pass control as if she were a ballerina. Pretending to be embarrassed, Tanya said to the security guy, ‘I AM NOT WITH THEM!’ and rolled her eyes up.

Finally, Moscow Duty Free was offering its services to them: Vodka or Tequila would help them celebrate their soon arrival. They chose a huge chocolate bar and Tequila Silver for their dinner in Berlin.

‘Shall we take one or two ciggie cartons?’ Tanya was referring to Yulya with a mocking seriousness.

While Tanya adored the act of smoking in general and treated it as a means of thinking, relaxation, and meditation, Red-haired didn’t much care about inhaling and exhaling the smoke, she just did it to keep a company, because everybody did it, so she never felt real satisfaction in the act. Her elder sister smoked too, but her parents didn’t know Yulya was smoking. They still treated her as their little one. And Red-haired was trying to preserve the corresponding behavior of an ignorant, innocent girl. When they felt the cigarette smell around her, she would always say it was the university girls who had smoked her over, her hair and clothes.

‘I thought you were going to quit, young ladies?’ Katya needed to drop her word in there too.

‘Alright, alright, we’re taking only one carton. One carton should be quite enough for a month. Katya, you should become a damn health coach,’ uttered Tatyana in a fake irritation. And so their trip began.

Berlin. Everything seemed different. Even the air seemed different. The smell of bread and freshly-baked buns greeted them at the airport. In the train from the airport they heard a couple speaking Russian, who appeared to be living in Berlin for a long time already. Katya was holding a note with the address they were to live at and asked if, by any chance, they knew the street.

The couple had a look at the address and uttered, ‘Nope. But we’ll help you to find out when we are at the railway station.’

No one seemed to know where the street was.

‘Look, there’s a city map,’ there came Tanya’s voice.

No such street to be found. The map was enormous. Berlin seemed to be as big as Moscow. Taxi-drivers should know! Beige Mercedes taxis were lining up for their clients. Everyone was asking what district the street was in. But the girls had no idea. No idea the first driver had as well. What about the second one? Alright, at least he managed to find the street on his map. Quite easy to find if one knew that it was in Charlottenburg-Wilmesdorf, West Berlin. And the happy girls put their luggage in the trunk; gave the Russian couple a Russian chocolate bar Alyonka and got into the car with relief. Why it was such a riddle for Berliners to find a street remained a big question.

‘Twenty euros,’ pronounced the taxi-driver. The girls paid and got out. What now?

It took them about twenty minutes to look for the landlady. Not a soul seemed to know where she was. Their first brainstorming idea was to call up all the apartments one by one and ask. They started with the basement.

A tall, brown guy with long arms and fingers, his body wet, wrapped up in a towel, gestured vividly to come in. A broad smile on his face. Yves was his name. He excused his wet appearance as he’d been taking a shower when he’d heard the doorbell ring. He suggested calling the landlady. What a cutie pie! No dangerous crooks so far. He called, told the girls to go to the second building, fourth floor imitating the landlady’s voice melody. The ladies thanked him and left.

Katya volunteered to be a pioneer that day.

‘These walls definitely need some repainting,’ she thought observing the dilapidating walls as she was climbing the stairs with wide steps skipping every second step. She saw an open door, knocked and in she went. The old wizened lady with unkempt grey hair was standing in the middle of the room vacuuming.

‘Hello, are you Frau Wolf?’ yelled Katya to deafen the vacuum cleaner.

The decaying lady turned off the noisy machine, greeted the girl with a fake smile and began telling things about the flat. Katya had to explain that she first needed to call up the other girls and left. The German landlady resumed vacuuming while Katya ran down the stairs in the same hyper mood.

‘Oh my!’ Blondie yelled to the girls. ‘Ancient building with an ancient landlady. The Wolf lady is much more like a Lamb lady, wizened Lamb lady.’

Blondie grabbed her luggage and hauled it to the fourth floor. She went down again to see how little Yulya was handling her luggage, the size of nearly her own height.

‘I’ll help you with your giant stuff. Did you pack your whole wardrobe or what?’ Katya offered a helping hand feeling like Hercules energized with excitement of an adventure.

Evening. Unpacked. Windows wide open. Hot, stuffy air of the apartment was slowly being mixed with transparent waves of a slightly fresh evening of the outside. Fringe was opening the bottle, Blondie fetched the cups (the only drinking vessels they had) and Red-haired was breaking the thick chocolate bar against the table into small squares with loud bangs. After feasting over the chocolate and the booze they were ready to go out.

They popped out with the question ‘Hey…. Anyone knows where the city center is?’

They tried to ask the cute Yves, but nobody answered the doorbell. Luckily, within a minute they bumped into a German lady who happened to be a colleague of theirs, an English teacher! How good of her to offer them a lift to the clubbing district.

The club they chose incredibly sucked. How could they choose the worst club ever in the partying paradise of Berlin clubbing stage? They should’ve asked someone for recommendations or at least read 10 tips to go clubbing in Berlin article in the net. Instead, they stood on the almost empty dance floor, with the music they couldn’t properly move to unless you were high like Johnny Depp’s character in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Some two German chaps approached the ladies and disappointed them as soon as they opened their mouths to speak. Either they were stupidly boring or programmed on a one-night stand small talk. Perhaps both. As if just being there empty-headed but gel-haired would make any girl open her thighs. Do you get horny by looking at a good hair-style and a dumb face? Perhaps sometimes you do. But the girls felt otherwise. That night the Russian trio just wanted to dance the whole night away, to feel their bodies uncontrollably moving to good tunes, meet some pleasant company and stay tuned into the pleasant reality, not get wasted right away with unpredictable consequences, didn’t they? Was it really the adventure they wanted? Or maybe a bit more sensible one?

The ambiance disappointed them. The hyper mood evaporated. And the girls decided not to lose time with the boring male company in the wrongly-chosen club and head home instead and get some sleep before their first day at the language school. If only they knew the way back to their new home. At least, they remembered the name of the street, the district, and the Berlin TV tower they saw from their window. So there couldn’t be a big problem. Three hints would help them to find their way.

On their way back the ladies were making their way through the jolly partying youngsters. Unexpectedly they bumped into two bright-faced Brits. What luck after all! A surely better way to finish the day! Why is it always two specimens of the opposite sex to three of another kind? Not that the girlies were eager to jump in bed with them that very night, but still, who knows, how charming a man might be and how weak a girl might appear under the magic spell of a good-looking experienced womanizer.

In a second five of them were sitting outdoors in some pub learning new swear words in English, British English, to be precise. After vigorous negotiations over some drinks, the ladies concluded that the grossest and funniest one was a purple-headed monster.

Although, at first, Katya was obliged to ask, ‘Who is it?’

‘Rather WHAT than WHO… It’s a penis, honey!’ retorted Yulya sipping her Dry Martini.

Katya gave a thoughtful smile and then burst out laughing. Thank God no such reaction repeated after the words ‘twat’, ‘knob head’, ‘wanker’, ‘bollocks’, ‘bugger’, and so on.

‘Well, I learnt my first swear words in English when I was five, I remember it vividly,’ chuckled David, one of the Brits, ‘my Mum used to work as a bartender, so I spent some of my childhood in bars,’ he began his story gulping his beer, ‘you can imagine what kind of language I heard in those bars. Most of them were quite clear to me, so I never asked what they meant. And only one-word combination really puzzled me, though it consisted of sorta decent words.’

‘The old boy always tells this story to everyone. No shit, it impressed him greatly at that age,’ the other Brit addressed the Russian trio with bored but amusing eyes.

‘Funny fart really left my brains puzzled. Since I always asked my Granny questions as she was the only one willing to answer them. All of my whys and whats she’d answer with a smile. The day I asked her what funny fart meant was the last day I spent time in bars. From then on she babysat me all the time,’ finished David.

‘And did she tell you what funny fart meant?’ wondered Katya also feeling herself like the puzzled five-year-old David.

‘She didn’t. She just said I would learn it when the right time came,’ chuckled David.

Tanya watched Katya’s unsatisfied face expression and stepped on the latter’s foot when Blondie uttered again, ‘And what is this f-?’

‘Excuse us for a moment,’ said Tanya to the guys and addressed Blondie with a wink, ‘Come with me to the ladies room.’

As they reached the toilets, Tanya said with a grand smile, ‘Honey, you don’t go around hinting everyone that you are a virgin.’

‘What? I wasn’t hinting anyone. What did I do wrong?’ asked Katya perplexed.

‘You were going to ask those two men what funny fart was, hel-lo?’ Tanya reminded her.

‘And? What is this damn funny fart? I have no idea, so I asked,’ Katya defended herself.

‘Damn, Katya, funny fart is the sound of the air escaping from the vagina when having sex. It’s like a burp from out there. Got it?’ Tanya explained with a look of an expert.

‘Eew,’ the voiced air escaped Katya’s mouth, ‘Thanks. I would’ve felt embarrassed hearing this from those two chaps. And, anyway, if I weren’t a virgin, I would not know what this is, cuz we don’t have such an expression in Russian. I wonder why you know it in English.’

‘I heard it in some TV series, I think,’ Tanya explained herself.

‘Tell me, if this funny fart is..? I mean, does this creepy fart happen all the time when having sex?’ wondered Blondie with a worrying look.

‘Hell, no, sometimes, depends on your vagina muscles though,’ Tanya was to explain again, ‘Mostly mamas have those funny farties as they have given birth already, so their muscles are pretty loose.’

‘Damn, I have to learn a lot. Keep me informed,’ Katya pleaded, letting that funny fart topic drop, ‘let’s go back I will keep my mouth shut and just listen.’

Chapter 2

Beforehand, in the plane, the trio had talked over their new household routine, now they were to practice it. Being students, having not much money to give away, though sponsored by their parents, the girls decided to see a bit of Europe so they were not to lavish on eating out but spend money on train fares getting around. Thus, they were to do shopping in supermarkets, cook themselves. Each of them had even brought a kilo of buckwheat from Moscow, pretty cheap corn back home.

Being an early bird and responsible as a Soviet comrade, Katya was supposed to be the first to get up, have a shower, wake everyone up, and cook buckwheat.

Humming Guten Morgen, Sonnenschein, Blondie stepped into the kitchen with a red-towel dress around her waist. She was surprised to see Tanya sitting at the table with a notebook, pencil behind her ear, a stab in her right hand. Boiling buckwheat blobs could be made out in the background.

‘Wow, is anything wrong? You’re an early bird today,’ said Blondie as her morning greetings.

‘Everything’s cool. Just after yesterday’s British vibes am in the mood of speaking BBC accent. Am actually trying to remember the tongue twisters we played with at our Phonetic classes. I just adore them,’ Tanya finished her speech and tried to have a drag, but there was just a filter left.

The red-toweled girl sat beside and started reading, ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,’ she began aspirating the ‘p’s and ‘k’s sounds, but the voice from the bedroom finished the tongue twister for her, ‘blah-blah, Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?’ yelled Yulya with the BBC accent as well, ‘Make up your own tongue twister, Tanushka, I’m fed up with the old ones!’

‘Yup, good idea, try with the word fuck, f sound,’ suggested Katya standing up and let out her usual, ‘Oh, how I hate this smoke, smoking cows,’ she looked at Tanya with reproach and headed to get dressed.

‘As promised, I smoke out of the window. That makes it one cow,’ protested the red-haired Yulya as she passed to the washroom with her pointing finger drawn vertically along her freckled nose, a yellow towel in her other hand.

As Yulya stepped out of the steaming washroom with her pink face, a yellow towel on her head sponging her hair, she heard Tanya thoughtfully pronouncing, ‘Wait, wait, let me read it all over again,’ and she began monotonously,

‘Phil the fucker fucked the fluffy fannies of funny females

If Phil the fucker fucked the funny females with fluffy fannies,

Where’s the fuck-’

‘Has all the fluffiness from fucking gone?’ finished Blondie triumphantly as she placed the last plate on the table, ‘have a seat, ladies, breakfast is ready!’

‘I like it. Yulya, have a listen!’ began Tanya turning to Yulya.

‘Eeeeww, I’ve heard it all, gross, disgusting, you are perverts! Don’t read it ever again, chew up that paper and swallow it. And never ever repeat these lines,’ said Yulya with her theatrically disgusted lemon face expression and went to the wardrobe to get dressed.

‘C’mon, don’t be a nun! We are just practicing sounds. Don’t dwell too much on the meaning!’ Tanya defended her masterpiece with a crooked smile.

‘Gee, you know, I visualize everything. How can I not make a meaning, if words bear one? You created your own meaning. Yuk, let’s change the subject,’ said Yulya sitting down in her jeans shorts; a green tank top matching her green eyes.

‘Ok, let’s take another word. How about a cunt?’ Tanya did try to change the subject.

‘G’od, take a good word, why a bad one?’ proposed the Red-haired’s plump lips.

‘Clumsy cunt couldn’t contact,’ Katya blurted out holding her cup of coffee before her mouth and had a sip, ‘Fuck, I just burnt my tongue.’

‘What can I say? Be careful next time, silly, it’s karma. You’ve joined me in my bad-word tongue twisting,’ exclaimed Tanya with the voice of a ghost and added, ‘A damn quick computer you have in your head, by the way.’ Fringe instantly wondered, ‘But why could it NOT contact? Cuz it was clumsy?’

‘Could not BUT contact, choose any variant,’ said Katya as-matter-of-factly.

‘Will you two, please, stop this yuckiness! Though, I must admit, you are quite good at making up. Maybe you just switch your imagination into a good-words mode?’ suggested Yulya with a funny look of despair chewing her spoonful of buckwheat.

‘Ok, we’ll stop for now,’ said Tanya gobbling up her breakfast, ‘And… Don’t touch my cup, I’ll finish it after the shower,’ warned Tanya as she sipped her coffee with great care so as not to burn her own bad-words-dirty tongue. In a couple of minutes, she vanished in the washroom with her green towel. Did they bring red, yellow and green towels on purpose to hang it on the balcony strings symbolizing traffic lights? Red- don’t disturb! Green- welcome! Yellow- hell, beware!

Soon they got used to their new morning behavioral system. Katya remained responsible for breakfast. Yulya was to wash up after breakfast and Tanya after dinners. Who made dinners? Whoever wanted or whoever was the hungriest. Being at their language school till one p.m. they had only apples perhaps or yogurts they’d brought with them. Until dinner, they hung around in the city center.

Alexanderplatz was their most frequented metro station. They window shopped and sightsaw a lot.

Once they went accessory-shopping. And Tanya didn’t pay for nail polish by accident. She felt somewhat ashamed at first, especially with the super moralised Blondie beside her. But then Yulya repeated the trick and from time to time Fringe and Red-haired went shop-lifting. Katya didn’t preach morals to them but just refrained from their new entertainment.

After that, they always headed to net supermarkets such as Aldi or Espar to buy food to cook at home. Evenings were always party time for them. The girls drank cheap wine, met their language school friends, hung out in the parks playing silly games, singing songs and going wherever they were invited to.

Every day they went out and saw an ever-growing row of their wine bottles standing near a garbage container, wondering why they were still there. No one bothered to tell them there was a special container for glass.

It was one of those days when they got together with the whole crew of international students, those who were also learning German. Before going to a club, they popped into a tiny liquor store, places mainly owned by Turkmen or Arabs. One could buy drinks, chocolate and some snacks in the middle of the night there. Everyone was already out of the kiosk with their bottles of beer, but Tanya and Katya were still thinking about what to have. They just didn’t like beer.

‘What an attractive back and cute curly hair he has,’ thought Katya to herself when she was passing a guy standing in front of the beer fridges and felt a strong impulse to brush against his back but held herself back. Finally, the ladies agreed to beers as the wine prices were higher than they’d expected. Why couldn’t they have what they wanted? A perpetual question. To have or not to have was merely the question of money. No money- no desires to fulfill. Forget your desires till you earn… or steal… or maybe an opposite sex will provide for you? These were the thoughts to consider.

When they strolled out of the kiosk with the bottles of their disliked drink, a friend of the cute curly hair wondered whether the girls were Polish. Why is no one capable of telling a Pole from a Russian? Perhaps for the same reason not many can tell a Portuguese from a Spaniard. Being polite girls they answered the question and kept on walking.

‘Why don’t we talk to the guys?’ ventured Tanya addressing Katya. ‘Maybe we’ll get some wine after all,’ Tanya winked at Katya.

Naïve Katya wondered, ‘How?’

‘The guys! If they consider us bedworthy, we might have a chance,’ lectured Tanya with her eyes full of wisdom.

‘But I don’t wanna go to bed for a bottle of wine,’ warned Katya mockingly scared – fun of adventure was only in her head.

‘Me neither, silly. Let’s just have a talk first,’ replied Fringe.

Simultaneously they turned around and joined the guys. A lovely talk with Sven (an outgoing young man with tangled hair and fogged grey eyes, the one who asked if they were Polish) went in English. Why English? The girls were simply experiencing a psychological barrier with the German language. And, vice versa, Mr. Curly Hair had problems with speaking English, didn’t he? Or was he just shy? No matter what it was, he looked so important standing there as if he was the President of the Dominican Republic or something. Filip was his name. Realizing that their small talk was stretching to a common small biography about Tanyushka and Katushka (Russians prefer to ‘colour’ words showing their attitude towards them by adding all sorts of diminutive suffixes, so Tatyana might equally be called in a diminutive way Tanushka, Tanushkin, Tanchik, Tanusik, Tanechka, Tanyok and so on, depends on how rich your imagination is), the ladies decided it would be better to meet up the next day. And right now they had to produce, ‘Sorry, but we need to catch up with our international buddies.’

‘So if you’re not coming along, give us your phone numbers and we’ll get in touch,’ Blondie finished Tanya’s thought in a hurrying voice.

A moment of silence stood within the Germans staring at each other in bewilderment.

Mr. Curly Hair blurted out, ‘I thought GUYS are supposed to take girls’ phone numbers’.

Everyone burst out laughing. The thought ‘When you make up your mind to ask for our phone numbers, sweet hearts, we’ll be already heading back home to Russia to drink tea out of samovars in frosty winters with valenkis on,’ was distinctly read in the Russian laughing eyes.

Finally, the phone numbers were exchanged, and the females headed towards the having-fun rest of the eve.

The next day they met, Mr. Curly Hair was ten minutes late. Who said that Germans were punctual? Raise your hand!

Hungry, so hungry everyone was. Walking the district in circles they finally managed to pick an Italian pizza place and share two Margaritas and one Diabolo pizza.

‘Geee, it’s so damn spicy,’ said Tanchik breathing like a locomotive.

‘Diabolo means devil, it’s supposed to be hot, like in hell,’ hinted the waiter overhearing the comment and asked if they wanted a refill.

‘Oh, that is very good to know. Thank you,’ replied Katya with a little irritation noticing that at the moment she reminded herself her own mother who didn’t like when people answered questions that weren’t directed to them.

As the waiter turned around, Katya’s eyes slid to his butt. Addressing the girls she said in Russian, ‘А у него классная попка! (Meaning ‘What a nice ass he has!’)

The waiter turned around and said in pure Russian, ‘Спасибо!’ (meaning ‘thanks’)

Katya turned red like the tomato sauce on the Diabolo pizza.

In a couple of hours, they appeared at Filip’s place, under the pretense that they needed some German magazines or books to make a project for their German course. The girls didn’t feel uncomfortable about inviting themselves to somebody else’s place so fast. Could their way be described as chutzpah?

Filip’s flat. All white, same as theirs. Again they felt like being in a hospital. Only later the girls learnt that almost all German apartments were white, rented ones in particular.

Wow, so many records here! Filip was crazy about music. Most of his records were old-school hip-hop. Frankly speaking, the Russian ladies couldn’t tell one vinyl from another, but they were still marveled by the amount of them. So when Mr. Curly Hair asked what they would like to listen to, the girls felt at ease answering in unison, ‘As you wish’.

All of a sudden Sven did a headstand.

‘Um, is it what Germans do when they listen to hip-hop?’ wondered Yulya to herself and asked out loud, ‘Can I use your washroom?’

Filip waved his hand in the direction of the washroom.

As the Red-haired reached the secret room she opened the cold water tap to prevent others from hearing her toilet procedure sounds. How inventive she considered herself every time she did it, and how wasteful Europeans would consider her doing so.

Chapter 3

One week had passed. What would the other three weeks bring? The girlies were eager to visit different places in Europe. Since they had classes on workdays, only weekends were available to hit the road. Their only plan was to see Amsterdam. They bought the cheapest train tickets they could find and headed for Amsterdam with no particular plan. They could walk along the Red Light District, perhaps admire sexy ladies in the shop windows and just sightsee whatever there was in the guidebook.

‘I would not want to stand out there and seduce passing-by men. And hope that my next client would be just a jolly healthy young stud longing for a healthy sex, not a fucking maniac or something. I wonder what made them take up such a job?’ Yulya finished her monologue of wonder, pity, and disgust while staring at the window ladies.

‘I bet you don’t really wanna know this, hun. It’s not the good life, not the happy circumstances that persuaded them to do the first step in this direction. But who knows, maybe some girlies do love their occupation and treat it like a hobby,’ summarized Tanya nonchalantly in a low voice watching the half-naked bodies. Fringe seemed to enjoy the talk and kept speculating, ‘I heard bisexuality is pretty common in Europe. So these ladies might even take care of women too.’

‘Are you serious?’ exclaimed Yulya raising her eyebrows.

‘Yup. Say, a man wants to fuck, like really, really badly, he can’t help it. But he doesn’t have a constant partner. What should he do? Go masturbate? Hire a hooker? Or just go to a bar and maybe find someone who wants to fuck also really, really badly? And it doesn’t much matter what sex the person would be as long as he is satisfied in the end… or in the end, it doesn’t much matter for these ladies,’ Fringe waved in the direction of the window girls, ‘who they’re going to deal with as long as they get paid… it’s just a routine job for them, no feelings involved,’ finished Tanya with an air of an expert.

‘Ew, you are always so harsh in explaining things, sweetie,’ commented Yulya.

‘But that’s the case,’ Tanya defended herself.

‘Or… the man should just go and do sports instead of screwing hell-knows-who when his hormones are playing dirty tricks on him. Otherwise, one might end up developing some perverse habit or even some unhealthy mania. It’s so unnatural in my opinion. Men have penises, women vaginas, a simple puzzle like that. A stick fits into a hole. What are they supposed to do when it’s two penises or two vaginas?’ Yulya expressed herself vigorously.

Tanya seemed to ignore Yulya’s comment and proceeded with an air of a news presenter, ‘But the same happens with animals… Say, cattle are grazing and nature is calling some cows to have sex, in other words, oestrus, when their organism wants sex to make offspring, but, unfortunately, there are no bulls around. What are the cows to do when they are itchy inside? They mount other cows…The same with people. Itchy inside, why not have sex with anyone around.’

Katya finally interfered, ‘Yes, Yulya, arses for men, fingers for women as a helping aid. But if you wanna know the procedure, perhaps you should try it with a girl, she will be your manual. Anyway, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone and both sides are willing, I see no harm in any possible variation. Yes, there’re cases of the same sex who feel love emotions to each other, so just accept it, sweetie.’ She produced a long sigh, noticed her comment made no particular persuasive effect and pushed the two speculating friends of hers farther, ‘Come on, we have lotsa other things to see, not only playboy girls.’

With a sour face, Red-haired shrugged her shoulders to the unsatisfying answer. On seeing the strengthening disgust on Yulya’s freckled face, Fringe changed the topic asking, ‘And what about coffeeshops then?’

‘I thought we’ve talked it through, ladies,’ reminded Blondie pushing them gently forward.

‘I know, but I still don’t understand your point. We are in Holland. And who knows maybe we’ll never be here again. We must have a smoke. I know you think it could be dangerous, but, come on, almost every Dutch does it. Look, they are still alive! Americans even consider marijuana a medicine,’ Tanya was waving her arms trying to persuade prudent Blondie.

‘I don’t wanna do it, cuz I’ve heard stories. Besides, a person can have a lot of fun without drinking or smoking or getting high. And yes, it can be dangerous,’ Katya explained herself.

‘Why don’t we eat a cake with hashish at least. I heard it’s not that strong as a joint. Just a new experience? And you don’t need to try it if you don’t want to, just come with us,’ Red-haired joined Tanya’s floor of persuasion.

‘Fine, fine, let’s go to a coffeeshop, otherwise, you’ll never leave me alone. I’ll come cuz I wanna see the place, watch you get stupid, and take pictures. But, only in the evening! First, we see the sights!’ Blondie agreed finally and performed a theatrical evil laugh anticipating interesting snaps.

Till seven p.m. the trio managed to see the Van Gogh paintings, Rembrandt House Museum, and take an Amstel River tour. Time for the coffeeshop!

Being pioneers in coffeeshops they were advised against space cakes stuffed with cannabis. To start with, they ordered just two pre-rolled joints which were a mixture of cannabis and tobacco. Katya ordered just water, which was damn expensive, and got comfortable to watch the ladies get high. The time was creeping very slowly now. Katya noticed the friends’ eyes get glossy and red. They started giggling.

‘Ok, you were right, nothing dangerous so far. Just silly giggling girls,’ commented Katya.

Tanya and Yulya looked at each other and started laughing even louder.

‘Still, I don’t regret not having tried it,’ Katya said aloud but seemed as if to herself, as the girls were covered in their laughter not paying much attention to her. The only thing she regretted was that they hadn’t had dinner first but headed to this place as she felt her stomach rumble with hunger.

Chapter 4

Arriving back to Berlin meant resuming the Berlin routine.

As usual, Katya woke up, shaved her legs and armpits, and washed with a cherry shower gel, the smell of which would remind her of Berlin for the rest of her life. Then she would walk up to Yulya to wake her up. To Tanya, she would come up two or three times, and sometimes she would even succeed in pulling her out of bed.

Days were passing. The three Russians and two Germans saw each other from time to time, having lots of laughter-giraffter.

Once, on a perfect July day, the girlies were invited to a picnic in Volkspark Wilmersdorf by their learning German internationals. What a grand event for them! Lots of jovial youngsters hanging out in a park, with food and drinks!

Everyone seemed to be under a happy spell. The sun was shining in their faces! Birds were chirping in the trees. Multiple trees were stretching out their green fluffy arms all over to offer a shadowy shelter. A blue clear endless dome was hanging above. What else can a soul desire? A hearty meal! And the ladies were hungry like hell as they hadn’t eaten the whole day.

As the bottles were opened, Katya emptied her first plastic cup of wine at a go. And she instantly felt herself somewhat high in the bright blue sky. Tuned to the sun’s energy Blondie seemed to be in her childish mood, annoying everyone like kids do. Having small-talked to every possible soul in their circle, Katya approached Fil. He was busy talking to Tanya. Was that an obstacle? Katya sat beside him and tickled his knee.

‘Stop it!’ came his reaction. What kid would stop after such a phrase? Apparently, that was exactly the motto for kids meaning Do it again! Thus, the hungry girl tickled him again and again, smiling, watching his reaction.

‘Hey! If you do it again, you’ll be in trouble!’ Mr. Curly Hair pronounced like some mafia boss warning his victim for the last and only time with playful malice. Soon Filip learnt that the silly kindergarten girl was in a playground mood that sunny afternoon. And his last words were understood as not only Do it again! but as green lights, the encouraging non-stop signal, meaning C’mon, tickle me to death, Katushka!

Thus, the silly-goose girl was obliged to tickle him again. In a second she knew not how she was lying on the grass on her back with Filip sitting atop her. It was not the happy look of under him at last, but the look, how the fuck did that happen?

The rest of the evening the two spent fighting with each other. You know, like puppies do bite each other when playing? After the picnic everyone was aware of Katya-and-Filip’s mutual non-indifference towards each other. No wonder everyone was asking if they were a couple. Funny enough, the two of them kept on denying it, even to themselves. And yes, they were grown-up people who behaved like… kids? More like overgrown kids…

The next morning Katya woke up with bruises all over her body. Definitely, something to remember Filip by. Was it their way of showing love to each other?

Chapter 5

This time it was Filip who invited them to have a meal at his Mum’s apartment. Filip’s Mum was away on holiday. So it was the perfect time to occupy her decent apartment on the top of the house, where there was a nice wooden terrace with a dining table and four chairs. Sven couldn’t make it that day. Was he to practice his headstand instead?

As they went to the place they bumped into a playground with a merry-go-round that looked like a big bowl that was fastened to the ground in the middle. While Tanya and Yulya decided not to be stupid, Katya, on the contrary, placed her bum down onto the bowl merry-go-round. Filip began to spin it.

The playground whirled faster and faster in Katya’s eyes. The whole world became a mess of various colours. As she started to feel dizzy, she yelled, ‘Enough! Stop!’

But that time she completely forgot that stop-phrase worked like encouragement for kids. So Mr. Curly Hair started to spin even faster… and there Katya flew! Was it dropping like a stone more like? Her bum landing on the ground. As Katya heard sorry, she briskly glanced at Filip. A pitiful look was readable on his face.

‘Never mind,’ Katya heard herself say, a cold angry look froze on her face. All of them resumed walking in silence; Katya shook off the dust from her skirt and observed the scratches on her elbow.

What a lovely apartment Filip’s Mum had! Having understood from the previous time that girls were not really inclined to choose their music, Mr. Curly Hair took the liberty of turning on funk.

Everyone agreed on a vegetable stew, and Tanya volunteered to cook the dinner. Too many cooks would spoil the broth, so Fringe commanded not to disturb her. Katya set the table on the terrace and soon joined Filip and Yulya watching his childhood pictures. Soon one could make out the smell of heated olive oil, frying onion, eggplant, and pepper. A carrot too perhaps, if fried carrots do have a particular smell.

As they all sat to the table, they pretended to eat like high-class society – speaking on social themes, weather, and so on. They praised Tanya’s culinary masterpiece. But their performance didn’t last long, as they switched to reminiscing funny stories from their school times, forgetting about the knives, waving their forks in a cloud of agitated laughter.

Perhaps all of them would remember Filip’s hilarious but remorseful story of catching a guy from a lower grade and sliding a mop into both of his sleeves. The guy was not able to put down his arms but was to walk like the red, little traffic light man, the symbol of Berlin, with his arms outstretched.

Tanya might even keep the memory of the taste of the red wine and funk music playing in the background with sudden beeping sounds coming from the cars below. Perhaps Yulya would remember multiple city roofs and the night sky. Katya – Filip’s smile and the fresh summer night air.

Or maybe they would remember all of it?

How could Yulya be moody at such a pleasant night? No one noticed when her mood had changed. She kept herself quiet staring nowhere in particular; a melancholic air was readable on her freckled face.

‘I’m going home. Thanks for the eve, Fil. I’ll see you tomorrow, girls,’ Red-haired reported and took her dirty plate to the kitchen’s sink.

‘Why so early? Stay! We’ll sleep here, no need to go home!’ Filip had to yell at Yulya’s back, his forehead instantly covered with wrinkles.

‘Leave her, Fil. I know this girl. If Yulya wants to be alone, let it be so,’ warned him Katya.

When Yulya left, Filip brought out a bright rug and placed it on the wooden floor, and lay atop. The girls understood it as a welcoming gesture. In an instant, three weirdos lay on a small rug on the roof watching stars, if any could be seen from a big city lit with hundreds of lights.

Before leaving Yulya thought she would want to return in the morning and be a lovely surprise to everyone bringing something to eat for breakfast. So she left the door slightly open by putting Katya’s flat-shoe in the doorway, so the door wouldn’t lock.

On stepping outside, Red-haired dived into the street world. Brightly lit pictures everywhere. Sparkling windows. People in cafes and bars gulping their beers. The city noise was like an orchestra as if rehearsing before a performance tuning their instruments. Glasses clinked. The jolly chatting buzzed. Passing cars whistled. Yulya could also make out a mixture of different smells. Perfume. Pizza. Drinks. Exhaust fumes.

‘Excuse me,’ a young chap sitting on a cafe terrace addressed Yulya loudly, ‘Can I take a picture of you? You know, you don’t often see high-heels around here.’

‘Go ahead,’ Red-haired responded and struck a pose.

As the chap got up to take a picture he spoke again, ‘I’ll show the pic to my girlfriend to let her know what drives me on.’

He took a shot and said, ‘Thanks. Have a good evening!’

‘Oh, bear in mind high-heels aren’t very comfortable,’ added Yulya.

‘How do you wear them then?’ he wondered.

‘I’m used to them. I’ve been wearing heels since fourteen. I didn’t like being short, so the heels helped me out really. Well, have a good eve!’ Red-haired answered with a pleasant smile and walked on.

She remembered how she used to change her high-heels for trainers to go for a walk with her ex after school. With thoughts of her ex-boyfriend, she came home to wash off the day that was coming to an end.

In bed. Lights still on. Again Yulya thought of Dima, her first and only boyfriend. Was she missing him? Or was she just feeling lonely and wanted to cuddle up against any male flesh? Suddenly Red-haired felt irritation towards him. Irritation that, even though it was SHE who had broken up with him, he wasn’t with her now. Irritation that he hadn’t written her or called her, even though she’d told him not to bother her for some time. Irritation that he hadn’t come up with some strategy to win her back, even though she’d told him their relationship wasn’t going anywhere but standing on one and the same spot. Realizing this she finally shaped her conclusion into a clear thought, ‘If he doesn’t need me anymore, then this is the end of our story. Good riddance. I’m officially free then.’

Yulya tossed in her bed drowning in her overemotional state. She jumped out of bed. In semi-darkness, she fished out a ciggie and a lighter from her purse and landed on the windowsill. Lit a ciggie, puffed at it twice and for the first time, she was feeling a real relief smoking. She was really enjoying it. She took a long drag feeling the smoke in her lungs and with it her worries. She became aware of the tension knot inside her, she imagined it untie and exhaled it together with the smoke. As Red-haired finished her smoke, she felt serene and sleepy. Now she had no problems falling asleep.

Meanwhile, Mr. Curly Hair and the two Russian girlies decided to turn in. Three of them perfectly fit in Filip’s Mum’s bed yawning and telling night-night to each other. Filip in the middle of the two Russians. What a lucky man he was, wasn’t he? A dilemma for him? He was magnetized to Katya, but he couldn’t make out her real feelings towards him. There was some invisible obstacle between them. At the same time, like any man, he was attracted to Tanya’s curves. While Filip brooded on his dilemma, Tanya was already asleep as her quiet snoring was filling the room.

Some other thoughts whirled in Katya’s head, ‘Damn, I can’t bring myself to embrace him or just take his hand. Stupid, stupid me…’ She struggled for a moment, and miraculously simultaneously their sweaty hands magnetized to each other with great tension. Fingers between fingers. The heat was rising up between their hands, but stupidly enough they never dared go further than that. What unhealthy suppression of emotions, wasn’t it?

In the morning the newly-made trio was awakened by some noise from the kitchen.

‘Is your Mum back?’ whispered Tanya to Filip as she saw him open his eyes.

‘No, can’t be,’ reassured her Fil and got out of bed to see what was going on.

‘Morning!’ said Yulya joyfully, ‘I brought some sandwiches and coffee. Where are the girls? I hope you’re not a maniac and they are alive.’

‘Mhm, looks great,’ said Filip ignoring the question about the girls and sat to table, ‘No need to wake up the girls. I might want another helping of this yumminess.’

‘Heeeeeeey, you,’ came the loud protest from behind. Tanya rubbed her eyes and joined in munching, ‘I’m hungry too, no helpings for you today, man!’

Overhearing the kitchen talk Katya had the resilience to get up as she didn’t want to face Filip. She didn’t understand him and herself as well. Why wasn’t any of them making the first step? But she made herself get up, head to the washroom first, and finally join in in the breakfast.

Filip hardly dared to look at Katya either. And both put on the I-am-so-important mask. And when their eyes occasionally met, the wooden look covered their eyes and the WhatevEERR glance was on.

Chapter 6

Did Sven feel a little sad about having missed the terrace dinner? He was on holiday while all his other friends were working, only Filip and the Russian trio were not. So why be bored? He invited everyone to his place to try his Eintopf. The ladies were to learn that Eintopf was a German dish that combined the first and second courses, basically, a soup with lots of different vegetables and meat, but thicker. It could be called a stew as well.

Just before the Eintopf party, the trio was getting themselves ready to the sounds of the TV music. Tanya was feeling energized from inside. Was it positive or negative energy? In a little more than a week, she would have her periods. She was in a hyper mood but in the mood of a sex-hungry lassie. She knew the feeling but she couldn’t do anything about it at the moment so she nudged Blondie instead, ‘Hey, Katushka, when on earth will you or Fil make the first step? You know the time is racing, we’re leaving soon.’

‘Whenever I feel like doing it… Another half of the question I guess wasn’t addressed to me,’ Katya snapped back.

‘We know why you are waiting, but what’s holding him, I’m in doubt,’ commented Yulya exhaling a cloud of smoke through her nose. She was sitting on the windowsill, being first to have dressed.

‘Maybe he is gay,’ suspected Tanya putting on her huge earrings.

‘He is not gay,’ retorted Katya again putting on her red tank top.

‘Who knows…Men normally take what they want right away and don’t hesitate so long,’ kept on Tanya.

‘Why don’t you mind your own business!?’ retorted Blondie, her voice gathering up notes of malice, ‘Besides, if you hadn’t been much flirting with him, it could’ve been easier for me to figure out his inclinations towards me.’

‘Beg your pardon?’ asked Fringe with an air of bewilderment turning around to face Blondie. Katya turned around to face her opponent in response.

‘Yes, you heard it. I said to mind your own business. You know I fancy Filip. And I know you don’t. So leave him alone. You just have this stupid habit of flirting around, basically, with anyone who stares at your breasts, well, even with those who don’t. You just fucking marvel why a guy doesn’t stare at your ‘big blue eyes’, so you instinctively begin to flirt intensely,’ finished Blondie and turned to the mirror.

‘You’re just being jealous!’ Fringe defended herself but was obliged to recollect her behavior with Mr. Curly Hair. Perhaps the latter was right a bit and Tanya had been behaving herself with a flirty air, but she couldn’t help it, she was a woman. How else was she supposed to be around men?

‘Mhm, maybe I was flirting a bit. But that’s me. I do flirt with men. I’ll try to hold myself back a little. Deal, Virgin?’ Tanya uttered in her slightly raucous voice willing to make up and stretched out a hand like a businessman. With men, she behaved like a flirting little birdie while with her like she was rather unpretentious and business-like.

Katya stared at Tanya’s hand and took it, ‘Deal, Boobie Witch!’

Fringe instantly pulled Blondie into her embrace, ‘Witch yourself! Boobie? Boobster sounds better!’ They both burst out laughing, their hug dissolving the remaining hints of offense in their bodies.

‘Sounds like new food for your tongue-twister inspiration,’ Red-haired commented on the hug scene and put out her ciggie adding, ‘Baby Boobie Boobster boosted boobs to become a blockbuster bosom.’

Katya and Tanya turned to Red-haired uttering simultaneously, ‘Not bad!’

The gang of Yulya, Tanya, Katya and Filip arrived at Neukölln district. They popped into a supermarket to buy some wine. Done.

Here they were. Two-room apartment. Also vinyl records but not as many as Mr. Curly Hair had. Very hot outside. Windows wide-open. Bon appétit to everyone. Yummy-yummy. Wine bottles got empty pretty fast. Nice music on. Silly pics were taken. Music videos were watched. Already dark. Yulya and Katya got out to buy some chocolate. Brought it home. So hot outside that the chocolate was more like a Nutella paste. The girls asked for spoons. Did anyone want some melted chocolate? No, thanks. What perversity it was to eat melted chocolate on a hot eve. Everyone was chilling.

Having munched the chocolate Katya went to another room to stare out of the window. She sat down on a sill.  Mr. Curly Hair approached from behind observing a picture A Girl on a Windowsill.

‘Bored?’ he asked sitting down near Katya.

‘Nope, just taking some fresh air…like smokers would have a smoke,’ chuckled Katya thoughtfully.

‘I see. How come you don’t smoke while your besties do?’ he wondered, even though he was not really interested.

‘Donno, why should I? I guess smoking didn’t have that positive effect on me… you know, like using smoking to make friends-smokers and have a chat outside over a drag, or have a break after some stress, or smoke instead of eating… never thought of it… I might smoke though for fun when drunk or something… but I don’t do it properly anyway and a ciggie always falls down through my soft drunk fingers half-way burnt,’ summarized Katya with a vague smile.

‘What do you do in Moscow?’ asked Fil all of a sudden.

‘Study English and German, why? What’s that sudden interrogation about?’ Katya asked smiling and frowning at the same time.

‘Yes, I know that. Anything else? Work? Hobby?’ insisted Filip ignoring her slight indignation.

‘No, not really. Whenever I think of earning some money my parents stop me saying that I will have enough time to work after the uni, so that I’ll get sick of it… Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Girls and I are going to be English teachers. German is just a second language we learn. But we all want to learn as many languages as we can. That’s why we try to pick a language from native speakers,’ Katya tried to make herself clear.

‘Do you really wanna be a teacher?’ he looked at her with suspicion.

‘Not really. It was my Mum’s idea. After school, I didn’t know what to study. My Mum thought I was good at languages, so she suggested that I should apply to the Foreign languages department,’ Blondie explained.

‘But what do you really wanna be?’ Filip kept on asking as if it was an interview.

‘An actress,’ Katya said calmly, ‘What did YOU want to be?’ she redrew the attention to him.

‘I wanted to be an actor as well… But I never applied… I just didn’t bring myself to… now I’m too old for that,’ Filip pronounced it with some bitter notes in his voice.

‘Ridiculous, the age of twenty-eight is already too late to become an actor? Those stupid rules,’ Katya grumbled to herself. ‘How far can you spit?’ she slipped into the role of an interrogator.

‘What?’ he seemed surprised as if he didn’t catch what she’d just said.

‘How far can you spit, I said…I can spit far enough,’ she confessed with a smile.

‘I think I can spit far enough too,’ he responded also with a smile.

‘Ok, one-two-three and we spit, alright?’ Blondie commanded.

‘Outside the window?’ he asked.

‘No, on the floor,’ Katya responded with a sarcastic smile, ‘Yes, out there, of course.’

‘Ok,’ he agreed.

One- two- three – they spat. A common thought crawled to their heads, ‘Is it déjà-vu or the movie Titanic?’ Oops, there were some people walking by, just as they spat. They kneeled down on the floor and started to giggle.

‘No more spitting from the window,’ he whispered.

‘Agreed,’ Katya whispered back with a nod.

Just then Tanya entered the room asking, ‘Are you looking for something, kids?’

‘Yes, we lost an elephant,’ Tanya heard Katya’s response as the latter couldn’t stop her sarcastic flow.

‘How funny,’ said Tanya with a corresponding sarcasm tune and went on normally, ‘Well, we’re going to play Truth or Dare, are you in?’ wondered Tanya opening her palm to get a reply.

‘Why not?’ replied Katya in agreement and glanced at Filip.

‘Sure, I wonder whose idea it was… I’ll just watch you play,’ answered he concerned.

‘Ha, foxy, you can’t watch others get embarrassed without embarrassing yourself!’ stated Tanya, ‘Come on.’

‘Alright, let the show begin,’ said Filip and headed to another room.

‘Good boy!’ commented Tanya and followed him smiling.

Everyone sat down on the floor in a circle. Tanya volunteered to be the first one. She chose dare and the rest of the crew made her drink half a cup of Jägermeister, the only booze they’d found in Sven’s kitchen. The next turn belonged to Yulya. Having chosen truth, she just had to answer if she had ever eaten boogers.

‘Of course, I’ve eaten boogers. Everyone eats their boogers as a kid!’ was Yulya’s answer with no hint of embarrassment. At the beginning of the answer, everyone started giggling but in the end, they sat remembering their childhood poking their noses.

Valuing his privacy, Filip undoubtedly chose dare and had to photograph his naked butt in another room and then show the picture to everyone and only after that, he was allowed to delete it. At the sight of the naked ass, Tanya began laughing loudly as a horse, resting on Yulya’s shoulder. No doubt Jägermeister had gotten to her alright.

Sven chose truth and was naming all the drugs he’d tried. Katya was dared to dance a sexy dance with a chair, which she managed to do quite well as the guys started to howl like wolves.

The second round began and Tanya chose truth this time.

‘You will not get me this time, sweeties,’ said Tanya laughing like a mad woman.

The cruel Sven wanted to know if she had a secret she had never told to a soul, and everyone agreed to this one.

Tanya stopped laughing, everyone saw her eyes go up reminiscing something, she shivered in disgust and sat silent, then she looked Sven in the eye and said, ‘I was raped by my Dad’s friend when I was twelve,’ tears began to roll down her cheeks. Her distorted lips managed to voice in a long sob, ‘THIS I’ve never told to anyone.’

Silence. Everyone froze. Yulya moved towards Tanya with her arms stretched out. Now that she was holding Tanya tight, she said, ‘You should have told it to your Dad. He would just cut his penis off right away.’

No one produced a sound. Instantly upset and deeply thinking pairs of eyes were observing the embracing ladies. Filip moved to join the union atop. Sven came up above to touch Tanya with his pitying arms. Katya managed to squeeze in and put her face against Tanya’s ear. Everyone went still. The song Losing my religion filled up the room.

‘I was afraid then and now it’s no point. The man was killed in a motorbike accident,’ Tanya responded quietly, she calmed herself down, brushed off her tears, and produced in a louder voice, ‘I think it’s time to go home. Fil, can you check the timetable, when is the next tram coming?’

Filip began checking the timetable. Sven thought out loud, ‘Males can be creepy creatures sometimes. I’m sorry you had to experience that.’

‘That’s the past. I’m fine now. No need to pity me,’ reassured Tanya everyone, regaining her composure.

‘The last tram has already left. I guess we’re destined to stay here,’ informed Filip.

Sven got up, poured a cup of water, placed it in Tanya’s hands inviting her for a dance. The latter drank some and put it on the floor. As Fringe got up, the floor seemed to whirl under her feet, but still, she offered herself to dance the dark memory away and feel the music and her partner.

‘Fil, you’ve come by bike, right? Can you take me with you? Though it would be a bit peinlich, but I’ll manage,’ ventured Katya.

‘Peinlich? why would it be peinlich?’ wondered Filip raising his eyebrows.

‘You know, sitting on an iron thingy behind you may be hurting, may it not? Peinlich same as painful in English,’ Katya was finding the right words.

Filip chuckled and explained that peinlich actually meant embarrassing.

Meanwhile, Yulya lay herself down on the bed to watch the dancing pair thinking how creepy it must be to be raped and what one needed to forget it and carry on living normally. If the recollection of the past made Fringe so emotional, she was not all fine and it was not just past. She was crying a few minutes ago. The memory still tortured her. Yulya wanted to help but she did not know how, perhaps she should study psychology instead of languages.

Katya joined Red-haired to tell she was leaving with Filip by bike. They cheek kissed. Then Blondie approached the couple and embraced Tanya from behind and kept dancing with the two whispering into her ear that she loved her. She let them know she was leaving with Fil and thanked Sven for the lovely Eintopf. They rode off.

In the morning the curious girls had to ask whether there was anything between her and Filip.

‘Sure, the most intimate moment was embracing him from behind on his bike. He just brought me home and we parted. It was neither painful nor embarrassing, girls,’ reassured Katya.

In their turn, they informed Blondie that Sven fell asleep on the floor listening to Depeche Mode. So Yulya was obliged to take drunk Fringe to bed, clean the table, wash up and finally turn in. When in the morning they left for their German classes, Sven was still asleep.

Their three weeks of freedom flew by sexlessly but full of interesting events to remember – the game Bottle, Amsterdam trip, once being caught in dodging a bus fare, sightseeing, hanging out with internationals. There approached the time to leave. Katya planned to stay in Germany. Yulya had to go to Paris to learn French. Tanya, in her turn, was to visit her beloved cousin, Anya, whom she hadn’t seen for a long time as the latter had moved to London when Anya’s mother married an Englishman. The three girls parted stating that it was damn fun traveling together.

Chapter 7
Girls Meet on the 1st of September

September the 1st. Knowledge Day in Russia. Kids go to school. Students go to university.

‘Hel-lo, my lovely beauties! How come you aren’t running to hug me too, little bitches?’ yelled Yulya when she saw Katya and Tanya hugging each other and had to try and hug them both with her miniature body.

‘Hi, sweetheart. Can’t wait to tell ya about London. I bet you have something interesting to share with me too,’ sang Tanya happily as an opera singer.

‘Oh my, is that you, Tanya? You-Singing? Looks like someone is head over heels here,’ Katya commented on Fringe’s singing.

‘Right. First, we have to sit through four classes, then we can have lunch together and talk, talk, talk our brains out,’ Yulya made a forecast rounding her smiling eyes.

‘Good plan, let’s get a move on, ladies,’ cried out Katya joyfully and gestured to go.

The first lecture was Theoretical Phonetics. As the lecturer recited loudly and slowly her material she’d memorized from year to year, the ladies gradually became weary of scribbling down the never-ending flow of words.

Stretching her neck and sighing Katya heard, ‘To convey information nowadays we use seven percent of vocabulary (as grammar is ignored altogether), thirty-eight percent of vocal means. And nonverbal means (posture, facial expression, gestures and so on) account for fifty-five percent of the message.’

The ladies raised their heads to look at each other and smiled. Tanya brought her lips into a foxy smile. Katya raised her index finger. Yulya whispered, ‘Oh, that’s why we love Phonetics.’

‘Gosh, I need a smoke,’ whispered Tanya back and grabbed a lighter from her pencil box to play with. ‘Hey, do you remember our first class of phonetics?’ Tanya pressed the button on the lighter to let gas flow into her mouth.

In about five seconds she pulled out the lighter, lit it and blew out the gas right onto the flame. A faint but distinguishable bang could be made out from the third row, left wing. The lecturer turned to the giggling trio and uttered in a superior tone, ‘The ladies disturbing, if you are not interested in my lecture, you may well leave and NOT disturb the ones who ARE interested.’ No one got up to leave. The silence was restored.

Their final lecture was about to begin. The girls sat all prepared. As Katya opened her bottle to have a quick gulp of water she could tell Yulya was daydreaming. The eyes of the Red-haired weren’t staring anywhere in particular but at some invisible screen, nobody saw. Katya couldn’t help but put some more water into her mouth and spray it all over Yulya’s face.

‘What the hell?’ Yulya barked startled, looked around, at Katya and joined her laughter whisking the water off her face.

‘Sorry about that but I couldn’t help it. I’m glad you didn’t hit me back,’ Katya squeezed her apology through her fit of laughter, ‘Here is the tissue.’

Yulya’s next daydreaming happened during the lecture. This time she was awakened by her own burp. She looked around and realized that she was surrounded by about a hundred students looking at her. Some were giggling including her besties, others looking in bewilderment. Yulya blushed and whispered, ‘Oops, sorry.’

‘You’re not in your kitchen, silly,’ commented Tanya suppressing her laughter.

‘Oh, shut up,’ hissed Yulya.

After the lectures, the ladies went to one of the canteens. Picked a bunch of food. Salad, soup, cabbage pies, coffee with a chocolate bar. Instead of prayer before meals, they promised each other not to take so much ever again. Their habitual promise. And finally, they sat down to the girls’ talking ritual. Katya was the first to begin.

Chapter 8
Katya’s Story: her Stay in Germany for Three More Weeks
I

‘So where do I begin? Our German course was finished. You went to Paris and London. And I went to Leipzig to see Sarah, a friend of mine.

Being there already a week I was missing Berlin and was constantly texting to Mr. Curly Hair. One evening I wished him sweet erotic dreams, just for fun of course. I got a reply with ‘ja, feuchte Träume. Schlaf gut, Mädchen’. I had no idea what feuchte Träume were supposed to mean.

The next morning, while having breakfast with Sarah’s family, with an innocent face, not suspecting anything, I asked the whole table what that German word-combination meant. You should’ve seen their face expressions when I uttered those magic words. The big brother started giggling. Sarah’s Dad almost spat out the coffee he was drinking.

Sarah’s mother wondered, ‘I’m sorry, what again?’

‘Feuchte Träume,’ I repeated naïvely though already suspecting something shady.

Then she managed to say with her pitying eyes, ‘Who told you this?’

‘Some guy from Berlin texted me this yesterday,’ I confessed. The mother wondered what message I wrote so as to get such a reply. I made an even more naïve look and pronounced, ‘I simply wished him Goodnight. Somehow my head treated equally Good night and Sweet erotic dreams. But I swear, I did NOT mean anything by that. I just was in my silly mood, I guess.

‘Well, wet dreams mean,’ the mother started finding her words to explain properly.

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