Александр Ермак
The Great Cleanup

The Gypsy Trail

Anna glanced at the screen of her ringing phone. The number appeared quite unfamiliar. Yet she tapped a button and quietly responded:

“Hel-lo.”

There was no reply. Anna repeated:

“Hello…”

And again:

“Hello!”

She could clearly hear the sound of breathing. Someone was at the other end, but would not answer. Anna shrugged, putting the phone down on the table; perhaps it was a wrong number, or else a bad line, and in that case they'd call again to tell her what they want. Things happen.

She waited a couple of minutes, but the phone did not bother her again. “Wrong number so,” she concluded aloud as she returned to her own thoughts. And she had quite enough serious material for those.

Anna was sitting in the kitchen. Just before the phone rang, she poured herself some coffee. Its smell tickled her nostrils pleasantly. Now she picked up the cup and had a sip, then another, concentrating. She had to decide where to start the great cleanup.

The house, of course, was quite clean as it was; Anna swept, wiped, vacuumed every day. Yet she did it quickly, in haste, so she could squeeze her other chores in as well. Now it was time to go over the apartment in a proper disposition.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling: some quick-witted spiders might have sneaked in with their webs. Glanced over the walls: children, caught up in their play, might have spilled something on them or smeared them with carelessly dirty hands. Lowered her gaze to the floor: her husband was sure to forget to wipe his feet at the entrance, bringing in an oil stain or a piece of chewing gum from the street on his shoes. Then she remembered the high shelves in the entrance hall; these needed urgent sorting. This September was amazingly warm and sunny, and yet the winter was closer every day. She had to get the warm clothes, the ice skates, the kids' hockey clubs, and to throw the summer fun in instead: the roller skates, the badminton, the fishing rods, football, volleyball…

It was a very fitting day for “clearing the rubble”. The husband has gone off to work. When he kissed Anna, he apologized:

“My dear, I'll be delayed today: we have to finish a report. Have a good time!”

She shrugged quietly; work is work. So she gave him a peck in response:

“No worries. Have a nice day, good luck!”

“And to you too… with your great cleanup,” he took some time pondering his answer.

Right after the husband, the son and daughter left for school:

“Bye, Mom!”

“Bye, Mom!”

“Don't forget to have your lunches!”

“Yup!… Won't!” a shouted response rang from the stairway.

Last evening it was agreed that after school the children would go to the actively retired granny living in the next block and stay for the night, not showing up at home before tomorrow. So Anna had a lot of time on her hands, with nobody distracting her from her extremely important task. There was, in fact, enough time to complete the great cleanup and cook supper before her husband was due back from work.

Anna had another sip of the coffee and decided, definitely, to start with the high shelves. She stood up briskly, but did not get to do anything, as there was a new ring, this time from the door. Anna was not really surprised; children would often return from halfway to school after forgetting something. The friendly neighbour lady could also drop in for salt or some other trinket. Just to be sure, she looked through the judas hole, only to see, not her husband, children or neighbour, but a completely unfamiliar face.

Sooty skin. Under wide dark eyebrows, a pair of black eyes, their piercing gaze centred on the judas hole. Large lips, appearing to be saying something. Anna turned her head to listen. Sadly, she could not hear anything through the strong wooden door. She looked through the hole again, at the moving lips, the black eyes… and, without knowing why, opened the door.

A gypsy woman was standing on the threshold. A long motley skirt, a flowery kerchief over shoulder-length black hair. A constant murmur was coming off the gypsy's lips.

Anna listened carefully again, to find out what this sudden guest needed. The guest just went on and on moving her lips incessantly. At first Anna thought the gypsy might be speaking in her own incomprehensible language or even spitting out random meaningless sounds. Yet, gradually she could recognize some words among the mumbo jumbo. Some very familiar words: “gold”… “silver”… “money”… These words were repeated again and again:

“Gold… silver…money…gold…silver…money…”

Now understanding what the woman wanted, Anna threw the door wide open, inviting her into the apartment. The guest quietly slipped through the entrance hall, entered the living room, stopped in its centre, looking around. Her gaze slid over wardrobes, a sideboard, a console mirror with drawers and jewellery boxes. Then the gypsy turned to Anna, who finally caught up with her. Off the lips of the guest, the same incomprehensible sounds still came, along with three clear words:

“Gold… silver…money…gold…silver…money…”

With a docile nod, Anna dashed to the console mirror. Out of a drawer, she fished a little box containing small gold ear-rings with real emeralds. These were a heirloom from her mother, who got them in turn from her own mother. Anna wanted to give them to her daughter when her time would come to marry. But now, without thinking, she was shaking expensive jewellery out onto the mirror table. Out of the boxes, she scratched a few gold and silver rings, chains, brooches, bracelets. She pulled out the necklace of real large pearls with yellow precious metal insets, her husband's gift for the ten year anniversary of their life together. Then, after pondering a little, she pulled the wedding ring off her finger. Ran to the children's room to bring the small silver ring that she presented to her daughter on her recent birthday.

Thinking some more, Anna shook her head:

“There is no more gold and silver in the home…” Looking at the gypsy, who continued to mutter with her lips, Anna flung her arms up. “Money!”

She and her husband were planning to purchase a new washing machine, so there was a decent sum in the wardrobe under the bedding. Anna grabbed all the notes, placing them carefully on the console mirror table next to the gold and silver. Then she opened her own purse, removing every coin:

“Nothing more.”

The gypsy nodded and tentatively stepped towards the mirror. Suddenly she stopped upon hearing a noise in the entrance hall: creaking of the door, speech, patter. In another moment, three tall men stormed into the living room. One of them, the eldest, was wearing a regular suit; the two younger ones were uniformed and sported machine guns on their shoulders.

“Hands up! Police!”

Anna raised her hands obediently. Her guest did not follow suit. Instead, the gypsy circled a contemptuous eye over the intruders and started mumbling again. Other words were coming off her lips this time. Anna did not understand them, but for the invaders, the meaning was apparently clear. First the cops froze in place, then exchanged glances and started to rummage their pockets. Onto the mirror table, next to Anna's valuables, they laid out their money, car keys, condoms and even police badges. Then the law enforcement officers turned out their pockets, showing that they have nothing more.

It seemed to Anna that the gypsy's lips formed something approaching a smile. The unwelcome guest, while keeping on mumbling something, started clapping her hands in a rhythm: one, two, three… one, two, three…

The cops exchanged glances again. The elder one undid the buttons on his civilian jacket, spit briefly on his hands, touched his scarce light hair and then suddenly broke into a squat dance. He was, as it quickly turned out, no good at dancing, but still he dutifully threw his left foot and then right foot forward, shaking his sizeable belly that tended to break out of the trouser belt. The other two, with their machine guns, cheered him on, slapping their hands along with the gypsy and singing some folk song out of key.

The policeman, being of a relatively advanced age as well a completely civilian look, was out of his breath in a short time. Finally he failed to throw a foot out again, clutched his shaking belly and stood up:

“I can't go on! Even if you were to kill me, I just can't…”

Catching his breath, he grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and started wiping sweat off his forehead. Meanwhile, the gypsy gazed at another policeman, a uniformed man with an officer's badge. As if following an order, he handed his machine gun to the man with a sergeant's badge, glimpsed at Anna with a green eye and, throwing his arms open, started a sailor's jig. He obviously had quite some experience at this. His was a fine smooth dance, and he even had enough breath to sing along:

“Sometimes we're bound for Liverpool,

Sometimes we're bound for Spain,

Heave away, me jollies, heave away!

But now you're never coming back,

We're bound for the county jail

Heave away me jolly boys, we're all bound away!”

The other policemen, standing by and not dancing, joined in the gloomy chorus:

“But now you're never coming back,

We're bound for the county jail

Heave away me jolly boys, we're all bound away!”

Finally the sergeant could not stand still. He handed the guns to his elderly comrade in civvies and started jumping and stomping his feet in a meek imitation of a tap dance.

The gypsy openly smiled as she watched the brave couple of dancers. The policeman in civvies, having regained his breath, smiled too. The gypsy noticed this, frowned and harshly clapped her hands once. The man in civvies immediately put the guns down in a corner of the room and stood at attention, his back perfectly straight. The other policeman, the moustached officer, put his hands down on the elderly man's shoulders, and then the sergeant with a youthful fluff on his face also placed his hands on the shoulders of the officer. They froze in perfect formation, as if awaiting the next command. And it shortly came. The gypsy started clapping a new rhythm, and the three obediently moved their legs to it, bending their knees, throwing their feet up and out to the sides. The policemen's new groovy dance looked like a bunny hop or lambada; they kept jumping, sometimes to the back or sides, but more to the front, in the general direction of the exit:

“Ta-da-da, la-la-la!”

The three guardians of the peace were smiling joyfully, their eyes full of satisfaction and merriment. As she looked upon the dancing guests, Anna felt an overwhelming desire to join them, putting her own hands on the third policeman's shoulders and, with them, fervently throwing her own legs up and out to the sides, jump, jump, jump:

“Ta-da-da, la-la-la!”

She made a step towards the merry men, but heard the gypsy's voice, ordering:

“Take a clean shawl and put everything into it.”

With no hesitation Anna shuffled to the wardrobe, but before she could get anything out of it, the sound of loud laughter snapped her back to her senses. The three policemen were now roaring, hooting, cackling in one voice. As they stood in the exit, no longer holding each other but firmly blocking the door, they were wiping tears of laughter off their faces.

Finally, the elder man in civilian clothing caught his breath again and gave the gypsy a patronizing look.

“Hey, you – Rada, Magdalene, Cookie Monstress, Adeline of the Western Seas and what not… You really thought we were taken in with tricks? We've seen loads of your brothers and sisters in our long and hard service lives. Stretch out your hands!” Then he nodded to the sergeant, “Work away”.

The youngest of the three immediately took a pair of handcuffs off his belt and locked them onto the gypsy's wrists. The woman gave her hands submissively, though lighting and fireballs seemed to be emanating from her eyes while her lips now just produced an unintelligible, snake-like hissing. “She's cursing,” Anna realized, while gradually returning to normal.

As she saw all the family heirlooms and savings on the mirror table, she was horrified, shifting her gaze from one policeman to the next in embarrassment:

“I nearly gave her everything on my own. My own stuff, my husband's, my daughter's…”

The two uniformed men picked up their money, car keys, condoms and documents from the table. The one in civvies nodded:

“Yes, this happens. You are not the first, nor the second, nor even the ninth; there were seventeen robberies like this in this week alone. And we always failed to hit this Rada, Magdalene, Cookie Monstress, Adeline of the Western Seas and what not. Every single time, she managed to vanish before we could get to the scene. The victims and witnesses could not explain anything clearly, nor describe the swindler; they just said she used hypnosis, charming everyone into giving up their valuables and the addresses of friends who are well off. Well, charms don't work on us, and as you see you got lucky: we have finally traced the she-devil. We were shadowing her on the street, saw her make a phone call and then go into your apartment. So we have her now, all proper, clear-faced and red-handed. Now we'll invite an experienced hypnosis doctor and, under his supervision, have the crook confront all the people she managed to clean out. I have to say that she raked out a lot of money and jewellery from them. Let's hope she had no time to push it off, and will soon hand everything back into the jewellery boxes, wardrobes and safes of decent, law-abiding people…”

The gypsy threw an angry look at the speaker and mumbled with her lips again. The policeman made a disgusted face.

“Cut it out with the hissing and spitting or you'll end up with more jail time, as we'll consider it an assault on police on duty.” Then he turned to Anna again: “You will need to come with us, in our car, to the police station. We have to document the situation properly, so I hope you can spare half an hour for us. Are you free right now? Any plans for today?”

Anna shrugged pensively:

“Free… Plans? A great cleanup was on the plans. Especially now, after so many guests, there is much fresh dirt in the house…”

The policeman in civvies smiled:

“That's very good thinking; cleanliness is next to godliness and a godly society is a lawful society. So come on with us and you'll help clean up the city.” He looked at his comrades and sighed: “Though, truth be told, we just caught yet another small fish, swiped a peck of dirt, so to say, from the honest citizens' table. We should really do a great cleanup of the entire residential area. So many swindlers, pimps, drug dealer have sprung up…”

“Yeah,” the moustached policeman with an officer's badge agreed, “Would be nice to nail Cocaine, that monopolist octopus. And also Valve”.

The other uniformed policeman chimed in:

“And what about Borscht? He's got pretty brazen now. Our agents tell us that, under the cover of a restaurant, he has set up a powerful drug lab and even a first-class torture facility, to whisk competitors over to his side.”

“So arrest them?” Anna enquired confusedly.

The man in civilian clothing sighed:

“It's not so simple. Unfortunately, the criminal world has its own intelligence service. Someone in our very own law enforcement circles is working for the gangsters. We carry out one action after another, yet we can never catch the big fish – they get warned and slink away in good time. We strive for search warrants, arrest warrants, achieve them, but find nothing and nobody. All our hard labour, all our ambushes, sleepless nights, shadowing – down a very stinky drain!”

The moustached policeman shook his head:

“Wish we could get the bastard working for the criminal world!”

The young one added:

“Wish we could get him and just hang him by you-don't-care-what right on the pull-up bar in the station yard. Just so everyone sees how the good honest people treat criminals!”

“Yup,” the moustached man supported him, “One would nearly think rough justice is the only option in this situation. Wish I could just burn down Borscht's lair with napalm, and give the others a good solid mob thrashing too, not bothering about judges and juries.”

“No, lads,” the elder man took the floor again, “Everything must happen according to the law. Of course, even with this gypsy, we could just…” He gave Anna a quick questioning look, “Now, what floor are we on?”

“Twelfth.”

He spent a moment estimating something, then nodded.

“That would suit just fine. So, we could just drop her from the balcony, and claim that she fell while attempting to escape.”

The gypsy woman's eyes, wide to start with, widened further at these words.

“No loss of time, no formalities, and most importantly no repeat offences; she would never again use her base skill to harm people. As it is, she will serve her well-deserved time and then go right back to her dirty business again. But we must,” he sighed, “we have to follow the law, so now we shall, all together, go to the station and draw up the protocol in regard of a crime,” For some reason, he glanced all over Anna, “Are you ready?”

She nodded:

“Yes, of course.”

The policeman kept a narrow gaze on her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Anna confirmed, though she did not understand the strange stare.

The guardian of the peace shrugged, turning his intent eyes away:

“Well, then, let's go.”

The gypsy was taken out of the apartment. Anna followed the others, just as she was – in a blue fluffy dressing-gown and red slippers with furry white poof-balls.

Anna and the elder policeman took the passenger lift down. The others brought the swindler to the exit in the bigger cargo one.

There was a police car at the apartment block entrance; the stripe on it was the same colour as Anna's dressing-gown. The policemen placed the gypsy in the back part, behind bars; Anna was welcomed into the front part as a regular passenger.

At the local police station they went together through several twisty corridors. Then the two armed policemen in uniform took the gypsy away somewhere. The third one, in civvies, pointed to a wooden bench, polished by the backsides of many people who spent time on it before:

“Please take a seat here. I will prepare the papers and call you up to sign them. Don't worry, we will formalize everything quickly, and you can go home soon enough. We'll take you there in our car, as fast as the blue flashing light…” He smiled: “The great cleanup won't be derailed.”

Anna looked at the bench. A girl clad in leather – pants, jacket, and boots – was half-sitting, half-laying on it, leaning on an armrest. Like Anna, she was a brunette of average height, build and breast size. They somehow resembled each other, except Anna was somewhat older and dressed in a “home casual” style.

The girl's eyes were closed.

“Er?..” Anna was lost for words after looking at her prospective bench mate.

The policeman frowned and waved his hand dismissively.

“A junkie. Probably stoned. Don't be afraid, she's not dangerous…”

Having said that, he disappeared behind one of the doors. Anna glanced cautiously at her new neighbour, then sighed and, despite her misgivings, sat down on the very edge of the bench. Thinking that she should probably tell her unsuspecting husband that she ended up at the police station, Anna probed into the pocket of the dressing-gown. Her phone was not there. It remained on the kitchen table…

Her quiet coexistence with her bench-mate lasted a few seconds. The girl suddenly started shaking. She sat up, clasped herself with her arms, then opened her eyes. Her gaze tossed about the corridor, doors, Anna. It seemed that the girl was trying but failing to control herself. The junkie quaked more and more, and then suddenly focused a threatening look at Anna:

“Give it to me, quick!”

“What?” Anna did not understand anything.

The girl's eyes flashed with fury:

“Whaddaya mean, what? The usual! Give it to me!”

“What's the usual? What do I give you?” Anna stayed confused.

The junkie appeared to burn through her with a laser gaze:

“You forgot, didn't you?”

Anna herself nearly started shaking from the girl's stare:

“I never even knew.”

The gaze slowly faded, then Anna's bench mate closed her eyes and frowned.

“Damn! Damn! Damn! That's not you!” She flung her eyelashes open again, turning her head in all directions. “And where are you then? Now, where are you? Where are you? Where?!”

A stream of very rude words followed. Then another, even stronger. After failing to find whoever she was looking for, the girl stared at Anna pleadingly:

“You sure you don't have any?”

By this time Anna knew exactly what the girl meant, so she shook her head softly:

“I'm sure I don't. I don't do drugs. Perhaps at a banquet I might have a bit of sweet liqueur or a glass of champagne.”

The girl continued with another dirty tirade, devoted to one of the natural events of human physiology. Then she froze for a second and started a feverish rummage of her own pockets. After fishing out some bits of paper, a few coins, but none of what she was looking for, she hugged herself again, trying to hold back and soften the shaking.

“Now, she's really…” Anna quietly pitied the girl, who suddenly beamed and, after a quick glance to the sides, unzipped her pants and pushed her hand behind the zipper. When she got it out again, Anna noticed a small shiny paper bag on the palm.

The girl on the bench flipped the content of the bag into her mouth, licked the paper and immediately closed her eyes in bliss. First the muscles of her neck turned off and her head fell onto her chest. Then her back relaxed; the girl started a slow slide from the bench onto the concrete floor.

Anna swooped up the junkie, trying to sit her down again, but the girl just kept sliding off. Then Anna laid her down on the bench, head on Anna's lap. Amazingly, the junkie's hair was clean and had a lovely smell. Her leather pants and jacket were new and expensive. A gold pin with a real diamond shone on the lap. Anna sighed, reminded of how she nearly lost all her jewellery and cash to a hypno swindler.

She glanced at the door were the policeman left, wondering how soon she'd be let go. If the procedure were to linger, not enough time might be left for a proper great cleanup. And Anna really wanted to achieve a perfectly organized house by the time her husband and kids came back; with everything sparkling and shiny, no longer annoying her, the true mistress.

Suddenly, the girl opened her eyes, smiled and said very clearly:

“You are so kind and nice… You're like Mommy… I remember her. She was so… so… like Mommy… and Dad, he… he would do to her… and she could not, she could not bear…” The girl shuddered. “You know, I don't have much time left, either. You think I like this? I am just blacking out the pain. Tomorrow, perhaps today, I'll kick the bucket.” She slowly moved her hand to her chest, pulled the pin out of the leather of the jacket and stuck it into the lapel of the blue dressing-gown. “It's a gift…”

Anna did not have time to answer, as the girl's eyes rolled, her lips frozen in a blissful smile, her body going completely limp. A blue vein on her neck pulsated quickly, then started to slow down.

Seeing that the blood in the girl's body was slowing its circulation, Anna struggled to understand whether her new acquaintance was just out for a while, or really dying in the arms of a stranger. Again, Anna glanced at the door where the policeman went; perhaps a doctor should be called?

She did not have time to decide that, either. The next moment, another event took all of her attention. There was some sort of rumble at the other end of the corridor and then grey smoke billowed from there, quickly filling every bit of space around her.

Anna had no idea what to do. Escape? But she would not leave the senseless girl in the apparent start of a fire. Yet she hardly had the strength to carry the limp body. Also, in this thick smoke, the woman would have to find any doors or walls by touch alone.

She still could not see an actual fire, but the smoke continued to thicken. Anna became scared. She never was in a fire before, or any smoke like this, and of course she did not have a gas mask on her. She started to think she would die here along with this done-for junkie.

Anna started to cough, growing weak. Her consciousness was leaving her. She still kept the girl's head in her lap, but started to slide down to the floor herself, saying a silent farewell to her husband and children. But she did not end up on the floor. Suddenly someone swooped her up and put her firmly onto the bench again. Anna saw a face before her eyes.

At first she thought that it was a hallucination, that she was now out completely, as there was just one huge eye on the man's face. Yet her lingering senses told her that the man now stooping over her was wearing a protective mask, designed to break through the smoke. To rescue people, to get those trapped by the fire out.

Her saviour bowed closer to Anna, nearly touching her face with his mask, then moved his head close to her gown-covered breast. He appeared to be inspecting the fire victim. It seemed to Anna that he was trying to work out whether she is alive, whether she needs to be carried out of the smoke-filled building. Pulling the last remains of her strength together, she shook her head, showing herself not dead yet, and at the same time pointed at the girl lying nearby.

The masked man nodded in understanding and lifted Anna in his arms. The junkie girl's head slid off her lap and hit the bench with a loud thump. The girl did not come to her senses, and the saviour did not notice her at all. He was quickly carrying Anna away, somewhere, into the smoke.

Highway star

She was quite exhausted, yet conscious. She heard some kind of voices, shouting, door slamming, then a strange hiss. And she could only see smoke. A thick smoke, hiding everything else.

For a short time the masked man strayed about the corridors. Then, after yet another turn, he bent down a bit and brought his rescue out from the smoke-filled building, right through a broken window. Upon feeling fresh air, Anna started to catch her breath, coughing, tears running from her smoke-irritated eyes. Because of the tears, everything around her was fuzzy. Anna still could not discern anything around herself, so she shut her eyes, trying to quiet them down and to regain her breath, to gather enough strength for standing up on her own.

Yet when Anna recovered her senses completely, it turned out that her saviour was no longer carrying her in his arms. Instead, she was sitting in front of him on a motorcycle, which started down the street at a crazy speed, weaving its way among the cars. “He is probably taking me to hospital,” she thought. “To the family doctor? Or the ophthalmologist? Hopefully not to the gynaecologist!”

Anna threw back her head to see the face of her saviour and to tell him that she did not need any doctors at all, that she was all right and it'd be better to just bring her home, to the unfinished great cleanup and coffee.

She did see his face, and she was abashed. Now the man had no mask on. She was amazed at the abyss of his blue eyes. It seemed that she could dive into them and resurface at some sultry Copacabana beach.

She also noticed how this smoothly shaved face was handsome like crazy. His proud curved nose inspired her, and the mane of light curly hair was pure rapture. She definitely saw this man before. A long, long time ago…

When Anna was in junior high school, her entire room was plastered in rock star posters. Among them was a calendar, sporting a huge photo of a motorcyclist with the very same blue eyes, proud curved nose and curly light hair waving in the breeze…

Anna ended up so carried away looking at her saviour that she forgot what she wanted to tell him. Noticing her gaze, he smiled, flashing level, perfectly matched snow-white teeth:

“So you've come round? Sorry that I had to smoke things up so much. But I wouldn't be able to get you out otherwise, way too many cops out there. And I couldn't even wait. I saw Borscht's car when I was coming up to the cop-shop. His men might have gotten to you first…”

Anna had no idea what her saviour was talking about, yet she still could not take her gaze off him. Seeing strain in her eyes, the tamer of the bike hastened to reassure her:

“My name is Herman. Don't worry, our mutual friend has sent me. He found out the cops grabbed you, so he asked me to help out. Very soon you will be completely safe.”

An answer like that, of course, ended up perplexing Anna even more. Which friend could have sent for her? Why would she need rescue from the police? It appeared that she was, actually, completely safe right there…

Yet Anna did not ask Herman anything. Her neck started to hurt and get numb, so she turned her head back to its natural position, looking at the road right before her and immediately becoming horrified. She did like the racer on the photo, but she never rode an actual motorcycle before. When she was not yet married, she refused guys who offered her rides. This contraption, normally driven by reckless youngsters who would periodically break their arms and legs, ending up walking around on crutches or even staying in bed in plaster casts for quite some time, never seemed reliable to her. So Anna never got further than some photo shoots in the saddle of a stationary motorbike. But now…

They have now left the normal city streets and were racing down a highway at an unbelievable speed, overtaking cars with ease. Anna kept closing her eyes tight, expecting the motorcycle to crash into a truck or van: “Now… no, right now!” Yet by some miracle she and Herman would slip through tiny openings between cars, dodging little bumpers and huge bumpers, trailers, flatbeds. The cars that they left behind kept beeping and flashing their lights, but her saviour did not mind this at all, he just raced and raced the motorcycle forward.

Anna turned her head again to say something to Herman after all, but he anticipated her question again:

“I know you love the bikes. I would never trust anyone with my steel horse, but you're fine. So, all right, here you are!”

He took her left palm, placing it on the left handle of the bar. Then he put her right palm on the right handle. And the next moment he withdrew his own hands from the handle-bar, lightly hugging Anna's waist:

“You're on your own now, enjoy!”

Anna was horrified even more. The hard shiny road was dashing at her. Nearby cars still remained behind swiftly. The motor of the bike was roaring. The wind kept hitting at her face, leaving her eyes in tears. Her breath kept running away after it. It was all awful… awfully gratifying! The old song, “Highway Star”, seemed to play in her ears.

Anna used to listen to that song pretty often, as she looked at the pictures of Deep Purple and of that motorcyclist on her wall. Ah, how she used to dream, imagining herself blazing along the highway with him!

Later, when she moved out of her parents' home, rock music fell by the wayside. But now it was certainly the “Highway Star” ringing in her ears, roaring, tearing at the muscle of her very heart. How could she forget there was a song like this? Why did she not know that, along with it, one could really break the speed of sound?

Dizzy with the swift pace, Anna drove on for some time before finally noticing that cars ceased to beep and flash their lights. A few side glances revealed that the drivers' wide-eyed gazes were glued to her. “Probably there are few girls who can drive a motorcycle like I do,” she thought, before lowering her eyes and seeing the true reason for her current highway stardom.

The flaps of her dressing-gown were fluttering in the powerful headwind, revealing her thighs all the way to the well-worn yellow panties. The blue gown came undone at the breast, too, proudly showing off the unwieldy beige bra, intended strictly for home wearing only, to all and sundry. The belt stayed tied, the only reason preventing the fluffy garment from leaving its wearer entirely.

Without thinking twice, Anna abandoned the handle-bar, trying to cover up. Immediately she heard her saviour's loud voice in her ear:

“I was told you were very cool, but I had no idea! Driving at such speed hands-off! I never even tried this myself!”

She kept fighting the buttons of her gown, and the man did not even think of interfering with her “driving”. Unbridled, free as a mustang, the motorbike stayed in the straight on its own will, not straying to the left or right. For some time, the drivers around them continued to watch Anna's battle with her garment intensely. Then, suddenly, they all fell behind.

Finally she managed to cover her breast, fixing the top of her gown with the junkie's pin that came in very handy now. Anna sighed with relief and glanced forward. Now she realized the bike kept going, no hand guiding it. She had, however, no time to realize how scary this was, as she noticed a bend in front. All cars lowered their speed before it, but the motorcycle kept going just as fast as before. Like a bird, it was flying right to this bend, into the concrete wall dividing the road. The road marking was smoothly turning to the right; the motorcycle crossed it, continuing on its perfectly straight way.

Anna was out of ideas. However, her saviour did watch the road, and finally he appeared to lose his nerve. Herman put his hands down onto the handle-bar again, lowered the speed and, turning elegantly to the right, repeated:

“You are very cool!”

Adding:

“Very cool indeed!”

Nobody ever spoke to her like that before. She was always a submissive daughter, wife, a girl or woman next to a strong man. Anna just could not do without one, as when someone was rude or violent towards her, she could never protect herself, falling into an utter stupor.

First, her father was the strong man. In kindergarten, she used to tell rough boys off with “I'm telling Daddy!” and it worked, they did leave her alone. In school, she had to involve her father for real. She was already in high school by the time when, as she walked home, a lad from the next block approached her. Placing a hand on her considerably grown breast, he nodded approvingly: “Wow! This will do!” Anna was struck, not knowing how to respond or behave. As the lad chuckled and buzzed off, she just cried softly. But then she came home and told her father everything. Dad proceeded to visit the lad's parents immediately, and after a brief instructive conversation, to break the arm of the troublemaker's father. It was not publicly known what transpired between father and son, but since that time, boys in the neighbourhood and the school stayed well away from Anna. Even the ones she actually liked.

In college she kept this story hidden, to avoid scaring suitors away. Finally one of them, a fair semblance of a Siberian bear, well over six feet tall and nearly two hundred pounds, became her husband and the new strong man always near her. Yes, Anna was used to being weak. Yet how nice it really was to hear: “You are so cool!”

The motorcycle calmly followed the bend, continuing on the straight after it. Anna breathed deeply in relief and prepared, finally, to have a talk with Herman, but now she was distracted by a long black limousine appearing on the left. Anna looked over it with curious admiration, but not lust. She would never exchange the motorbike, with Herman, for the expensive fancy car. At least that was her feeling for the moment.

She noticed the side window at the back of the limousine rolling down. A swarthy male face appeared behind the window. The man intently, though somehow lazily, gazed at the motorcycle, and Herman, and Anna. Then the swarthy man turned away, saying something to someone in the car; in a moment, binoculars appeared at his eyes.

Anna realized the limousine's passenger was looking, not at the motorbike, nor at Herman, but at herself, and specifically at her D-cups. She remembered her plain beige home bra and lowered her eyes to check if the dressing-gown has burst open again. But no, this time, she was well clothed; thanks to the gold pin and the well tied belt, the buttons held. Her legs were, of course, exposed by the headwind, but within reasonable decency.

Anna glanced at the swarthy passenger of the limousine again. He appeared to nod contentedly to himself, saying something to someone inside the car again. The limousine pushed right, closer to the motorcycle. The swarthy man gestured to Herman, demanding that he turn to stop at the edge of the road. Herman responded with a one finger salute. Anna was not sure what was going on, but trusted her saviour completely. She suspected he knew what he was doing when he boldly fobbed the other man off.

The swarthy passenger shook his head and said something into the car again. The window closed slowly, and the limousine fell behind.

Anna was glad that they were left alone so she could finally tell Herman everything she wanted to tell him. But in a few seconds another car, shorter and more powerful, appeared in place of the limousine. Herman slowed down so the car would fall forward, but their new road mate dropped his speed as well. Anna's saviour sped up, but so did the car, trying to keep level with the motorcycle.

The next moment, another “mate” showed up on their right. As if by agreement, the two started to move closer together, squeezing the motorcycle in between. When they were just an arm's length away on each side, they started turning in unison towards the edge of the road, slowing down gradually. Anna realized they were trying to stop the motorcycle. She did not know if stopping would actually be bad, but she definitely had no desire for a conversation with road bullies.

Herman, too, understood what the pincering cars wanted. So he revved up the motorcycle, leaving the pursuers behind – but not for long. The powerful cars swiftly caught up, now moving in straight lines by the sides of the motorcycle, not coming closer again. Anna realized that such an escort would not be the end of it, something else had to happen. And she was not mistaken. One of the cars moved aside a bit, letting a small lorry come through, and this lorry immediately took up the lane in front of the motorcycle.

Anna thought that the motorcycle probably needed to drop its speed, falling back from the vehicles surrounding it. Glancing to the right, the left, forward, she didn't understand why Herman would not slow down. Finally she looked at the rear view mirror, realizing the gravity of their situation: a huge dump truck was speeding a few yards behind them. The motorcycle was boxed in!

Raising her head to look forward again, Anna saw the lorry's rear sideboard open up. A drawbridge descended from the bed of the lorry, its tip touching the hard surface of the road. As the metal hit rough spots, whirls of white and yellow sparks rushed out from it.

The driver of the right-hand car rolled down his window and waved for Herman to get on the drawbridge and onto the bed. Yet the motorcycle would not come closer to the lorry. The waving got more insistent, but Herman just responded with his trademark one finger salute again. Next, the passenger of the left-hand car waved politely – this time with the business end of a gun.

Herman and Anna turned their heads quickly, looking in all directions with desperation. Something had to be done. The cars surrounding them were so close that there was absolutely no way to slip between them. And yet Herman did not hasten to move onto the lorry. Anna realized he was looking for a way out. Looking, and yet not finding one.

Suddenly the motorcycle swayed. Herman stabilized it with a light movement of the bar. A look at the rear view mirror showed Anna that the dump truck was pushing them. Its driver, noticing that the motorcycle would not obey, decided to push it into the lorry's bed – or to crush it.

Anna turned her head back to look at Herman. He just chuckled:

“Hold on tight to the handles, Mathilda!”

Why Mathilda? Anna thought. Perhaps that's what people say in situations like that, “Hold on tight to the handles, Mathilda”? She thought of asking Herman for a bit of clarification, but he suddenly pinned her to the iron steed with his body, twisting the accelerator handle abruptly. The motorcycle started off like a rocket, flew over the drawbridge and into the bed of the lorry, but did not stop there. Herman pulled up the handles strongly and, swaying his own powerful, springing body up and down, raised the obedient iron steed into the air. As if holding its “hooves” up, the steed flew right over the front board of the bed, rolled the rear wheel on the lorry's cabin, and broke away into empty space.

This was real proper flight, and neither an airplane nor a roller-coaster would stand any comparison. It took Anna's breath away, and she saw everything in slow motion. Here was the bed of the truck under them, then the cabin, and then the road approaching. Very slowly.

Anna noticed not just the blackness of the asphalt road surface, but even single gravel fragments joined by the bitumen. They were closer and closer. Then came the impact. Anna would have hit her head on the fuel tank or handle bar, but instead her face ended up softly meeting Herman's hand, which was placed in the right place at the right time.

The bike landed on the asphalt with both wheels at once. It was pulled to the side, but Anna's saviour reacted immediately, stabilizing it easily. They were speeding on an empty highway again. Now their speed was so immense that cars moving in the same direction appeared and disappeared momentarily, as if they were oncoming. Yet Anna had nearly no fear anymore, taking a full, free breath in and out. Then she turned to express her admiration to Herman. He had his own reading of the look on her face, breathing into her ear:

“Not much left now. We just need to make it to the crossroads!”

Their pursuers had to know that their mark could slip away soon. In less than a minute the same two powerful cars caught up with the motorcycle and drove by its sides again. Windows rolled down. Another wave from the right-hand car invited the riders to turn onto the side of the road and stop. Herman shook his head in refusal. Then the barrel of a gun, which Anna already saw before, appeared from the window of the left-hand car. Noticing it, Anna's saviour pushed her down to the motorcycle again. She understood that he was covering her with his powerful body.

Glancing from under Herman's hand, Anna noticed the barrel shake; a puff of smoke emerged, dispersing quickly. Something white shot across the air before their eyes, hitting neither Anna nor Herman. But it did appear to hit something else, entirely unplanned by the assailants. Turning her head to the right, Anna saw the driver of the car on that side shake a fist, obviously not directed at the riders of the bike. She realized that the marksman from the first car has hit something inside the second. Though, judging by the action of the latter's driver, his life was not in danger.

The second shot from the left-hand car was more successful. Anna saw a small white dart pierce into Herman's arm. He quickly pulled it out and threw it behind his back, explaining into Anna's ear:

“This is probably a narcotic. Sadly, some of it did get into me. I am likely to fall asleep soon, and then you will need to take over again. But I know you can do it. You are so cool!”

These words were very pleasant to hear, but Anna had no idea how she would “take over”, transporting not just her own body, but also that of Herman's: taming the iron mustang was obviously beyond her ability. She realized she would fail, and tears spread over her cheeks.

Seeing that they hit Herman, those in the left car stopped shooting and withdrew their gun. The assailants probably decided to just keep waiting for the narcotic to work and for Anna's saviour, falling asleep gradually, to lower his speed and stop.

But they underestimated Herman's willpower. Yes, the motorcycle swayed. Yes, turning her head back, Anna saw Herman's eyes half-closed. But only half-closed, not closed. The motorcycle was going on, not in a very straight line, but still forward, definitely not stopping. Herman kept a steadfast fight against the nightmarish sleep descending upon him.

Things were apparently much worse in the right-hand car. It looked like the first dart has hit the driver. Either he did not get it out as quickly as Herman did, or he was just weaker physically and morally; after a few erratic zigzags, the right-hand car suddenly shifted left. Herman barely had the time to swing around the car going straight at him.

Turning to look back, Anna saw the horrendous aftermath. The right-hand car hit the left-hand one. Together, they slammed into the concrete crash barrier, were flung up, turned around in mid-air and, crashing onto the road, rolled as one, then disappeared in a powerful flash of fire and cloud of smoke.

Anna gazed at Herman in excitement. He smiled back at her, struggling to keep his eyes open:

“Well, we broke away,” then he nodded forward and to the right, “And this is our crossroads!”

Anna did not ask what crossroads it was. She just kept praying that Herman would not fall asleep before the motorcycle stopped somewhere. She did not want to hit some hurdle and explode like the cars behind them.

Herman lowered the speed. Anna looked around the highway, worried, but realized that her saviour did it simply in order to turn at the crossroads, bringing them onto a smaller road.

Spending a short time on it, they turned onto yet another road, stretching through a forest. Now the motorcycle started wobbling significantly. Anna kept wrenching her neck to check on Herman's state. Now the eyes of her saviour would shut completely from time to time, though they opened up again immediately. His gaze seemed empty, senseless, so Anna kept expecting to hit that birch tree, that poplar, that asp. Yet Herman would not give up, forcing his eyes open yet again and driving on and on.

They passed a few houses with high fences and reached some kind of gate. Herman stopped the motorcycle and honked. Anna realized that they have finally reached their destination, so she could get off the bike and have some proper conversation to explain things.

The gate swung open. Herman slowly drove in, then stopped and shut down the motorcycle next to a hefty double-storey house. Putting out the pillion to keep the bike stable, he helped Anna down.

As soon as her legs felt firm ground under them, Anna teetered. She would undoubtedly fall if not for an impressive gentleman wearing a dress coat with a bow-tie, who held her elbow just at the right time. Anna would place his age at around fifty. He was lean, of medium height. His head sported a stiff short row of brown hair. He had a narrow face and intent, cold grey eyes. His clothing was not just expensive, it was also refined. He smelled of smart cologne, too.

Making sure that Anna found her balance and was standing firmly on her own two feet, the gentleman with the bow-tie took a few steps away from her and, looking all over his new guest, pronounced in admiration:

“So that's what you're like, on the real!”

Milk, chocolate, and champagne

Anna liked this conversation starter. She always melted at compliments. Her father only rarely spoiled her with tender words, but her then-future husband won her over, perhaps, by showering her with “beauties”, “lovelies” and even “Cleopatras”. When they met, Anna was indeed a looker: slender, with a small neat nose, a straight forelock, little dimples on her cheeks, cute pouting lips. These days, after giving birth to Serge and Anastasia, she gained some weight. Recently she was thinking about taking care of herself and her figure. After all, sports was never alien to her. In college, she did some fencing and even participated in competitions, showing off her reflexes and her body. It was obviously too late to return to proper sports, but she really could spend some time in the nearest gym a few times a week, while the kids were at school. She just needed to talk to her ever-calculating husband, so he would approve the spending for getting his wife into shape.

While Anne was processing the compliment, the gentleman with the bow-tie nodded respectfully:

“I am always glad to help your father out!”

She could only shrug, lifting up her hands:

“But…” for her father died three years ago. The heart attack struck him right at his workplace, full of odours of medicine.

Anna was interrupted by an odd noise behind her. She looked back to see that Herman was its source. Her saviour apparently relaxed and finally fell asleep while standing, then collapsed onto the ground. Anna nearly dashed towards him, but the gentleman with the bow-tie stopped her by a gesture:

“Don't worry! We have someone here to take care of brave Herman”.

And indeed, two beefy lads were already running towards the tamer of the motorcycle and road, who flung his arms wide and smiled in his sleep. They lifted Herman up, perched him up on top of themselves and carried him away somewhere.

The gentleman with the bow-tie went back to his admiring tone:

“So this is what you are like!” Then he blanched: “But what have they done to you?”

Anna, feeling scared, looked all over herself. No, she found no wounds, not even a scratch. But she realized what the matter was: next to the magnificent house and the smartly dressed gentleman, Anna looked rather strange in her blue dressing-gown and the red slippers with furry white poof-balls, which by some miracle stayed on her feet. Luckily the gentleman did not see what she wore under her “outer garments”. Anna was embarrassed:

“Well…”

“Never mind!” the impressive gentleman reassured her.

He immediately beckoned to two young ladies in bright light dresses, who were standing on the porch of the house:

“Help Mathilda get herself in order, then serve the table, we'll be having lunch. But no hurry, carry out all the procedures properly.” Then he turned to Anna again: “With your permission, I'll get back to my business. I need to settle something here. You do know that with what we do, delays have dangerous ends…”

Again she just had the time to start with: “But…” when the gentleman already turned around and went away at a brisk pace. Anna looked at the girls, intending to explain that she is not Mathilda at all and some mix-up has happened. But both ladies, a redhead and a mulatto, shook their heads, refusing to listen:

“We were commanded to help you get back in order. Nothing else concerns us. Please, come with us. If you refuse, we’ll be in trouble with the master…”

Anna pitied the girls who could suffer because of her. Besides, she really appreciated the chance to fix herself up. Perhaps she could live with the dressing-gown and the slippers, but she also noticed she had dirty hands and arms. Sniffing the air, she felt that she smelled of asphalt, car exhaust and the devil knows what other unpleasant road stuff. Anna could well imagine that her hair was now unkempt and, in all likelihood, not quite clean too. With this imagination, she agreed:

“All right, let's fix me up a bit, but then I will explain everything…”

The girls held her elbows carefully, as if afraid that she would slip on the stairs of the porch and break into shards like a crystal vase, and led her into the house. Together they went through a spacious hall, full of marble sculptures of fair naked young men and maidens, its walls covered with paintings of unintelligible colourful scrawls and squiggles.

The red-headed girl proudly pointed to the paintings:

“Van Gogh… Monet… Pissaro… Morisot…”

“Piss pot,” the mulatto took her turn, pointing somewhere, too.

They came into a corridor with bronze, or perhaps even gold, candelabra, holding energy-saving electric bulbs. The girls opened one of the doors:

“Come in, please.”

They entered a small well-lit room. At one of the walls there were a small table, a few armchairs and a locker. The other side had a shower cabin in the left corner and another door in the right one.

Now that they stopped, Anna could finally take a good look at the ladies accompanying her. One was about the same age as herself, but well-groomed, and so she seemed to look nearly ten years younger. She was a head taller than Anna and, unlike Anna, had red hair and green eyes. She kept squinting, as if she was near-sighted or hiding something deep in the wily pupils of her eyes.

The other girl, a bronze-skinned mulatto, had brown eyes. Straight black hair streamed down her shoulders. She was far younger than her mate and, therefore, than Anna too.

The redhead pointed to an armchair:

“Please undress and leave your clothes here. While you take a shower, we shall prepare the baths, fresh underwear and clothes…”

Then she opened the door inside the room and disappeared into it, along with the mulatto.

Anna thought she might well do without a bath and without someone else's clothes. After all, her dressing-gown was not so dirty; she did not fall, nor did she end up in a puddle or a ditch. But, to keep a healthy body and spirit, she really did need a shower. So Anna undressed, placing her dressing-gown and underwear, which she did not intend to leave behind, in a neat stack. Entering the shower cabin, she turned a handle, and many streams of warm water gushed at her from all sides. A blissful shudder ran across Anna's body. One could get lost in these streams for a lot of time, but Anna changed the mode of the shower and swiftly washed herself under a tight bundle of water coming from above.

She did not have to lose time looking for a shampoo or shower gel. One of the shelves in the cabin had everything necessary for washing. Anna did see such things before, but she never ventured to buy them. Her husband earned decent money, but they could never afford this kind of soap, shampoo and conditioner. Right now, however, she was not burdened with such choices, so, with a clear conscience and a clean spirit, Anna enjoyed the very expensive soap, shampoo, conditioner and something else, she was not exactly sure what, in a pretty tube with “eco-friendly” in a few languages on it.

Upon exiting the shower cabin, she did not find her underwear or dressing-gown. A few towels of various colours and sizes were lying in their place. Anna dried herself off with the yellow and light blue towels, wrapped herself with an emerald one, placed a pink one in a turban shape on her head and opened the door that the girls went into.

She found them waiting for her in another room, in armchairs, looking through some fashion magazines. The ladies were wearing swimsuits now. The redhead had a green and blue monokini with narrow cloth bands, while the mulatto sported a red bikini that seemed to consist of thin ropes. The spacious room was well-lit and warm like the previous one.

As they saw Anna enter, the girls stood up. The redhead pointed at three baths, which were level with the floor in the centre of the room:

“The first one has milk. The second bath contains liquid chocolate. Champagne in the third. Which one would you like to start with?”

Upon hearing of the complete set she was being offered, Anna decided to delay explanations regarding who she actually was and what she was doing here. After all, she could just as easily settle everything after trying these promising baths. It was, of course, not so easy to work out the best beginning…

“So, milk in the first… chocolate is second… champagne, third…”

As she repeated this again, it dawned on her that she did not have to worry about the right order, that she could do exactly as she pleased; the girls were ready to obey any of her whims and nobody would judge her here. Thus she made her verdict:

“You know, let's just do it as it is. The milk one, the chocolate one, and then…” she remembered how her husband's friends discussed vodka and beer, “…let's polish it off with champagne.”

Nodding in agreement, the ladies approached her, removed the towels, held her elbows again and helped her into the first bath:

“Be careful, three steps here…”

Anna quietly entered the white warm liquid, feeling its softness and a pleasant milky odour. As she descended to the bottom and submerged herself all the way up to the chin, she felt another wave of pleasure rolling over her body. Feeling a ledge, she sat down on it, throwing her head back onto a dedicated head rest. Within less than a minute she was completely relaxed and just zoned out, like Herman back at the motorcycle.

But Anna remained asleep just a few seconds. She shuddered from a sudden thought: “Perhaps this is not milk at all, but yet another narcotic? I have no idea where I am and why.” She remembered the white dart, stuck in the strong arm of her saviour. After glancing at the girls, who were again reclining in the armchairs and looking through magazines, she scooped up a handful of the liquid and tasted it. It did, indeed, appear to be whole milk.

The redhead actually noticed that Anna tasted the liquid in the bath, reading it in her own way:

“Rest assured it's fresh.”

“Morning milking,” the mulatto added, her eyes still on her magazine, “We bathed in the evening one ourselves after the sunset…”

Anna gradually relaxed again and, once more, felt herself falling asleep. Yet she did not like the idea of nodding off in someone else's bath, so she decided she's done with the very pleasant milk and stood up, white drops trickling down her body.

At once the ladies sprang up, helping her move over into the next pool. Then they went back to their armchairs and magazines and kept silently reading, or perhaps gazing at pictures.

The content of the next bath resembled some kind of liquid dirt. Anna cautiously stepped into the slippery substance and descended into it up to her shoulders. Yet the smell in the bath was quite pleasant, even somewhat dizzying. Again Anna could not refrain from tasting the thick liquid, and again this would not escape the redhead's notice.

“Dark Swiss chocolate,” the girl remarked.

The mulatto, all in her magazine again, bragged:

“We bathed in Belgian chocolate the day before yesterday…”

Anna would hardly be able to discern the country of origin of liquid chocolate. Belgian, Dutch, Russian… She would enjoy it just the same as the Swiss chocolate now. She was all warm, tasty, very pleasant to the touch and to the thought of the diversity of bathing…

Next they were washing the chocolate off her in the third bath, the one with champagne.

“Crystal Brut,” the redhead informed.

“French,” the mulatto explained.

This third bath was not just a bath, it was a jet tub. The submerged aerated streams softly crashed into Anna's body. Thousands of bubbles pleasantly tickled her skin. In a couple of minutes Anna seemed, not just to relax, but to get a bit tipsy from the tasty champagne fumes. She was simply drowning in the intoxicating pleasure. She remembered how she met her then-future husband, a bear-like laggard who was the cousin of a girl in her college class. He was even named Teddy.

He waited for her after class and took her to a café close to the college. There he ordered some pastry and a couple of glasses of champagne, offering one to her:

“For our promising acquaintance!”

Anna did not refuse, even though she never drank any alcohol without her family before that time. Her father and mother used to explain to her: “You can only drink with someone you trust. Someone who will not take advantage of you when you don't control yourself. Someone who will help if you suddenly feel unwell…”

Her sizeable future husband elicited such trust in her that Anna actually drank two whole glasses. She felt so easy, so good. They chatted about anything at all: the intricacy of cutting out a double-breasted overcoat, the pleasures of winter fishing. They talked in the café, then in the park next to it. And they kissed. Then she did feel unwell, and he escorted the pale, reeling girl home, carefully holding her by the waist, then by the hips. He handed her over to her parents, stating: “I love your daughter and I am asking for her hand in marriage!” In the morning Anna's mother, handing her an aspirin and a glass of water to help with the hangover, informed her that their response was “we are not against it, but she has to decide everything herself when she's all sobered up”. And decide she did. Yet, at the crowded wedding, holding hands with her Ted “the Bear”, she drank just one glass of champagne. She knew a second glass would be excessive, leading to unpredictable consequences…

So now Anna felt like she has had one glass. Turning away the second, she stood up. The bubbles started popping ticklishly on her skin…

Once she emerged from the third bath, the girls, despite Anna's weak protests, wiped all of her body with some sort of aromatic scrub wipes and placed her down on a soft narrow bed that was covered by a sheet with a picture of a gorilla-like bodybuilder:

“You will need to have a bit of patience. Things got somewhat overgrown while you were stuck there…”

Picking up a small electric device and a pair of tweezers, the mulatto started removing the hair under Anna's arms, on her legs, below her belly. Meanwhile, the redhead proceeded to mask the woman's face:

“It is made of avocado, with passionfruit sprouts and extract of marine iguana placenta. It is excellent at refreshing the skin on your cheeks, gets rid of wrinkles and any swelling under the eyes. I do this on myself every day…”

Completing the mask, the redhead turned to manicure and pedicure. As her body was in the busy hands of others, Anna had nothing to do and felt somewhat lost, nearly falling asleep again. But very soon the girls snapped her back into her senses by forceful massage with all four hands:

“Some more patience, please. But you're sure to lose at least a pound.”

Anna did believe them, as she could feel the pulling, the pinching, the slapping. Well, at first she could. In a few minutes she stopped feeling anything at all. She felt, in part, tuned out: her body seemed to exist on a separate plane, her head remained alone with its lax thoughts…

When the massage was over, the ladies spread some kind of cream over Anna.

“It will be absorbed in fifteen minutes. A great tonic. And while it's absorbing, we'll dress your hair in a new style…”

The redhead pressed some button and the bed turned into a lounge chair, with Anna half-laying, half-sitting in it and her head accessible for hairdressing.

The girls picked up combs, scissors, tubes, jars, barrels. Anna's head was engulfed in hissing and whirring. Of course, she was familiar with the sounds. She usually visited a good (or so she thought) hairdresser in a salon a street away from her home. But her hair was never cut and styled by four hands at once before. She was a bit puzzled and scared; after all, a hairdressing is not a massage, everyone around her would see the results immediately.

Yet the ladies were so confident and concentrated that Anna's worries left her soon. While they were cutting, styling, fixing, blow-drying her hair, she felt her strength starting to return. Now she remembered what they were saying about this cream: “It will be absorbed in fifteen minutes. A great tonic.” “Perhaps I should ask for its name,” she thought, “It's a nice thing.” But she decided not to ask, as she thought she was unlikely to be able to buy it later. Everything in this house was too expensive for a common housewife.

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