The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - Сергей Николаевич Огольцов

going to the drugstore because my mother asked to fetch her some medication before I went to Nezhyn. Therefore, I most warmly said goodbye to Kuba the Sea Dog, although the lemon peels were not yet scraping the glass of the bottom in the three-liter jar, and in the frying pan there still were glittering, here and there, spots of sunflower oil not fully wiped up with bread.

"No! No! I know! All's gonna be nyshtyak."

After the Under-Overpass, I boarded a streetcar to City. I neatly got off it by the Department Store and went round its corner to the drugstore where, by my mother's lead, they sold the needed medicine. Entering the glazed door, I reached the glass partition and, to the question of the woman in white, inhaled a lungful of the air preparing to answer but suddenly realized that even if I could recollect the medication’s name then pronouncing it, or anything else for that matter, was simply unfeasible. Ruefully, I turned around, exhaled and staggered out.

Nonetheless, I somehow managed to cross Peace Square before getting aware that I was done in beyond all bounds and switched over to the guidance of my guardian angel. He steered me into the yard of a five-story apartment block, chose the proper staircase-entrance and took care that I did not spill down the dark stairs to an unfamiliar basement. Then he led me along an endless cemented corridor to the place, where the scattered light from the opening to the outside pit outlined a mesh bed frame, leaned against the wall. It remained only to lower it onto the floor, crash down upon it and conk off. The sheepskin coat and the hat substituted for a sleeping bag.

I woke up in a thoroughly stiff state, but still managed to be in time for the last local train to Nezhyn.

The next weekend, I again volunteered to go to the drugstore after the medicine if my mother reminded me of its name, but she said, no, it was not necessary any longer…

~ ~ ~

There was a New Year dancing party held in the foyer of the New Building. Eera and I were dancing there, and some teacher from the Biology Department could not keep back her delight, she gleefully announced to us that we were created for each other. It's nice to be complimented that way, moreover, by a specialist versed in species. But soon after, the zipper in my jeans blasted, and my sweater was not long enough to hide the hole. So I tried to fasten the sweater hem to the jean's fly with the safety pin lent me by Slavic. However, it did not help to resolve the situation, because the pinched down sweater began to look like a leotard on sub-deb gymnastics girls, besides, I did not care to be pricked into one or another of my private parts if the pin burst too. There remained no other option but go to the Hosty and change my jeans. Normally, I didn't keep spare clothes in my room but changed in Konotop at weekends. Yet, that was a special occasion and I had brought my dapper jeans for dancing at the party. The incident made me change back into shabbier, but sturdier ones.

Upon returning to the foyer, I found Eera in eager conversation with some young buster. I did not like him right away, despite the fact that he was introduced as some of her old acquaintances.

Probably, I couldn't hide my dislike towards him and the feeling became reciprocal. The confrontation did not go over to active hostilities, but the voice timbers acquired menacing pitch. At some point, I looked away from the jackass and caught a glimpse of Eera which deeply amazed me. She blossomed, she was happy! Never before I had ever seen so much joy in her eyes…

On the way to her home, Eera kept picking holes in my reaction to an absolutely normal situation, and I half-heartedly defended myself, busy with storing in my head the new discovery.

(…the highest bliss and most eagerly craved for moment in a female life arrives when two stag-males are going to clash their horns for her, the prize bitch.

That's it. You vigorously toil like f-f..er..I mean, flustered Pygmalion absorbed so deeply in turning your piece of art into living flesh, panting, drowning in the perspiration of relentless efforts and to what end all that, eh?!.

O, fool! You’re slavering for an idle jerk popping up down the road to lap up the goodies of creation that cost you so many pains! No, it’s anything but a fair play. Where's the f-f..er..fundamental justice, eh?..)

The New Year Eera met at the Hosty… Before her arrival, I served a romantic table for 2, a bottle of red wine next to an unlit candle and an open can of sprats in oily liquid. There still remained some time and I suddenly decided to prepare a surprise for her, or rather a New Year present…

Since my getting interested in the topic, it was insistently driven in to me that the longer, the better. To wit, the duration of having it indicates the quality of action. The human race invented quite a few tricks for gaining upswing in quality. The simplest one is to kill a glass or 2, I mean the standard Russian glass of 250 ml. However, stepping on that path you need the right snack. Prosper Merimé, for example, was advocating for soup of cock combs for this particular purpose. I did not have even lard.

The austere circumstances called for finding other means or workarounds. My personal experience in the brute facts of life prompted that of two go-rounds the second having a sex was always longer. Thus, I had no other choice but having a proactive sex.

Very conveniently, Spotty was frisking about the hostel corridor, hither and thither, as if so too busy with her New Year Eve cares. Good timing. I skipped discussing the reasons of my unexpected interest in her or