I
The man was gray-haired, well-groomed, with a Greek nose and a beard like a professor. He meticulously counted out six slices of cucumber, added them to some shredded duck meat and wrapped them inside a translucent Chinese pancake, the way he liked his Peking style duck wraps. His date for the evening was a statuesque brunette with elegant shoulders, but she looked frankly bored to death. She was drumming her chopsticks on the table impatiently in time with the hit tune “Hips don’t lie”, which was very popular that year all over the Black Sea resorts. Ivan Grotov was a middle-aged holiday maker who was sat in the restaurant in a dark corner reserved for less prestigious clients because they were single, and he was observing the couple.
Catching the attention of the bored lady, Grotov folded his napkin into a heart shape and held it to his chest. The woman raised her right eyebrow in surprise. She raised her chopsticks, and looked at the paper heart through them; and then she suddenly them jabbed into the air, as if spitting the would be seducer’s heart on a bullfighter’s banderillas. Ivan grabbed his heart as if it had been mortally pierced and dropped his head onto his chest pretentiously.
When he raised his head, the lady had already moved her gaze to a different direction. There were several happy families in the corner finishing their meals, and a blond handsome man was sat at another table with three female companions. The girls laughed loudly, throwing back their heads and sticking out their breasts in the gentleman’s direction.
Grotov was not impressed with their pointed breasts, and he remained faithful to the lady with the elegant shoulders. Her pointed nose, and the manner in which she contemplated the man talking to her, head slightly bowed and unblinking, made her resemble a curious bird.
“I will take a glass to celebrate your maturity, my beautiful Elena, my Helen of Troy.” The gray-haired man raised his glass.
“I’m not afraid of being forty.” She answered. “Have you decided on a present?”
“Yes, my dear Professor.”
Ivan Grotov overheard the name of their hotel.
II
Beautiful Elena, her husband the Professor, and Ivan Grotov dined on the veranda of a beachside restaurant. The clouds densely painted over the disk of the sun, but the woman wrapped herself in a cloak, a refuge from the hot sun against the whiteness of her shoulders.
“So you studied together up until the third year of your higher education?” Queried the Professor.
“Yes, up until I reached a certain level, before finishing the course.” Ivan Grotov was telling somebody else’s life story.
“And then you were expelled?” Elena’s husband confirmed.
“Yes, something like that.”
Elena had come up with this story. She had convinced Grotov that going along with this fiction was the only way that they could see each other every day. So Ivan repeated his fictional story to the Professor every day for five days.
For the privilege of seeing Elena, Grotov’s payback was in having to socialize with her husband. They took long walks together, and fought protracted chess battles under the song of cicadas in the evening. Elena did not understand the rules of chess, and often left the players to their own devices. The potential lovers never had the opportunity to be alone, but their patience was rewarded by the occasional brief touch, promising smiles, and flirting.
One night they played a game called: ‘I believe, or I don’t believe you.’ Elena told Grotov how to play the game, saying: “Just watch what I do Grotov.” Elena was wearing a turquoise dress, and Grotov was sat opposite to her, with the Professor sat between them. Elena started the first round.
“Today there will be a storm,” said the woman and her husband turned to lookout over the sea.
Ivan said quietly: “I don’t believe you,” and his eyes were glued to Elena. Making sure that her husband wasn’t watching, she plunged the fingers of her right hand inside of her loose blouse, and stroked her breasts, studying Grotov with her cold bird like eyes. An instant later her hand was back on the table, but the blouse had ballooned like a circus tent. It was as if she had planted a large pea in her bra.
Ivan tore an innocent napkin up in his hands.
Later, when her husband was busy admiring the sunset, Elena inserted a thumb under the shoulder strap of her bra and slowly pulled it down until her breast was laid bare beneath the turquoise dress revealing the crescent of her overripe nipples. The thin crescent moon of her breast rose to become a full moon, and, while her husband was contemplating the dying sun, Grotov blew her kisses across the night.
Elena had a talent for seeing through a person and reading their lips. “I want you!” Ivan made it clear without speaking.
“Tomorrow,” the woman said out loud.
“What about tomorrow?” Asked the Professor, suddenly interested. “I told Ivan that you had arranged to go on a trip tomorrow.
“Oh yeah,” her husband remembered. “Would you like to join me? I can’t get Elena to go anywhere.”
“I would be glad to, but alas, I can’t.”
“Come to my room tomorrow morning,” Elena instructed him as her husband walked away.
“It’s too risky.”
“Not really, if you can make sure that he has definitely gone.” “Are you’re going to see him off?”
“No way. It would just make him suspicious straight away. You will go to the bus stop and make sure that he leaves. You can sit in the 24 hour cafe opposite the bus stop. Make sure that Alexander gets on the bus, and then come to me immediately.”
“What if he spots me?”
“I already thought of that. Here, take this just in case.” Elena slipped Grotov a ticket for a different excursion, leaving half an hour later than the Professor’s. “I have already agreed with the cashier that you can take the ticket back for a refund.”
Grotov barely managed to hide the ticket before her husband returned. When the scoops of ice cream arrived, Elena flirted with him over the dessert.
They played cards in the evening, but Grotov could not concentrate and quickly lost three hands. He ended up owing the Professor money because they weren’t playing for fun. Grotov put his arm round the husband’s shoulders that he was going to cheat on the following day, and full of happy anticipation for tomorrow, he ran off home.
All night Grotov was tormented by vivid dreams. Mythical film stars: female graduates from Hogwarts, Queens of the Elves, and the female lifeguards from Baywatch. All f them had elegant white shoulders and were attired in turquoise dresses. All of them declared their eternal love to Ivan and disturbed his sleep. In his dreams he was rolling around in bed entwined with a young vampire, until he heard Elena’s call: “Grotov, you only have eyes for me.” Tormented all night, Ivan still managed to rise at dawn, and he ran to occupy his observation post.
III
“What a total surprise!” The Professor leaned over the Grotov’s table. “May I join you?”
“Of course,” the sleepy Grotov barely managed to keep his eyes open. “Where are you off to?”
“Here,” Ivan showed him the ticket he had as an alibi.
“So after all you decided to accompany me,” said the Professor.
“I decided to take an excursion, but not with you.” “Are you sure?”
Grotov looked at the tickets and went cold: “She did this on purpose,” he thought.
“She definitely did this on purpose!” Ivan figured it out that morning when he was shaving in the mirror, and studying his face which was no longer young, and had never been good looking.
It took him three hours to prepare the monologue that would condemn her behavior, and he spent another half of a day dreaming up bloody ways for her to pay for what she had done.
At ten o’clock at night, he left the Professor to consider his next move on the chessboard, and Ivan rushed off to extract his revenge. He found the room without a problem, after hearing a familiar voice through the door. It wasn’t even a voice, but more of a whine, a sob, and a rhythmic moaning. It sounded like the noise of a toy doll being squeezed powerfully by a violent teenager who had just taken the toy from her younger sister.
Grotov rushed to the door. He knocked on it firmly. No one opened it. Then he began to frantically beat on it with his fists and feet, beating a rhythm to what was happening inside the room.
“Take me. Do it faster,” the woman’s voice ordered. Grotov was no longer sure that it was Elena speaking: there were so many animal like sounds, wild and filthy, and lustful.
The rhythm accelerated. The sound went up another two octaves until it reached a climax. A low groan accompanied the finale. In the ensuing silence only Grotov continued his game until he was finally heard. Behind the door, he heard the sound of footsteps, and a key turning in the door lock. Ivan found himself face to face with the blonde man who had been sat in the Chinese restaurant with his three female companions. The man’s shoulder showed bite marks from small teeth.
“Excuse me …” Ivan began.
The blonde man ignored him and slammed the door shut. Straight after that he could hear Elena’s voice and her bare feet padding across the floor.
“Grotov, is that you?” “Yes, it’s me.”
The door swung open and Elena came out – disheveled, half dressed, and reeking of someone else’s sweat.
“What happened Grotov? What are you doing here? Is something wrong with Alexander? Have you called an ambulance?”
“It’s okay. Calm down. I didn’t mean anything.” He replied.
“Well, thank God! All is well. You scared me Grotov.” Elena hung on to Ivan, sobbing and saying, “My dear Alex. Thank God. All is well.”
“Elena,” Grotov said firmly. “I know everything. You just used me for fun, I was just a gift.”
“Oh Grotov, you are so amusing.” Elena didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re not the gift.”
“Don’t try to deny it. I overheard everything in the restaurant.”
“I’m not lying, Ivan, he is the real gift,” Elena pulled her hand away from Grotov and stroked the blond mans tresses. “You Ivan, keep Alexander entertained. He is not much fun to be around, I admit, but it would be selfish to leave my husband alone all evening.”
“Did you ask any of us to be part of your game?” Ivan was waiting for any apology.
“What do you mean by us exactly?”
“Well, him for example.” Grotov pointed at the blond man. “What’s your name?”
The blonde remained silent. “Elena, what’s his name?”
The woman just shrugged her elegant shoulders in a sign of ignorance. Ivan continued his questioning:
“So you are happy to be a toy boy are you?” He asked.
The blond man still did not answer. Grotov meant nothing to him. For a handsome lifeguard, tourists like Grotov and other tourists rolled in to his resort like a huge wave, renting rooms, burning themselves in the sun on the beach, and finally they disappeared, taking lacquered shells with them to give the fake sound of the sea.
“Do you hear me?” Repeated Grotov.
The blonde man continued to remain silent.
“He heard you, so stop shouting,” Elena told him. “Wait for me downstairs, I will be down in a minute. I will join you for a drink and a chat. Is it right that you are leaving tomorrow?”
“I hate you all.” Grotov replied.
“We will drop by at seven o’clock,” Elena shouted to his back as he was leaving.
IV
In the early twilight of an August evening, on the hot pavement of the seaside town, a middle aged man fled from his pursuers. His travel bag hanging on a long strap kept hitting him in the knees. The man’s name was Ivan Grotov, and he was running away from an imposing black convertible car. The blond man was driving the car and Alexander was sat next to him in the passenger seat. The Professor’s wife was sat in the back, with her white arms stretched out on the leather seat like a huge white seagull. The convertible drew level with Ivan, trying to keep up with the fugitive.
“Get in Grotov, we’ll give you a lift,” exhorted the Professor, resting his arms over the door.
“You just used me. You are a disgrace.” Accused Ivan, as he kept on running.
“And you, as a decent man, tried everything you could to get up my wife’s skirts.”
“I fell in love with her.” Grotov ran out of breath and stopped running. “Okay, just get in then. Help him Elena.”
The car slowed down, and Elena opened the door with her beautifully manicured fingers. Grotov stumbled onto the back seat and curled up with his bag under the beautiful woman’s arm.
“This is immoral.” Grotov did not give up.
“Don’t be a hypocrite. What is immoral about pleasuring a woman?”
“She’s a married woman!” Said Ivan. “Relations outside of wedlock destroy families.”
“By definition, cheating doesn’t cause the most damage, but lies do. In this case you are the one responsible for all the lies. Incidentally, you weren’t very good at it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ivan was offended.
“Let’s take the story of being one of her classmates. I have heard the same tale from many of my wife’s admirers, but your version is the saddest. However, personally I enjoyed your company. It is a pity that we did not take a souvenir photo together.”
“Here, have these.” Grotov pulled a pile of restaurant receipts from his wallet and handed them to the Professor. “Remember how much your friendship cost me.”
The Professor just waved him away. Ivan opened his hand and the bills blew away in the wind behind the convertible.
“My darling Grotov.” Elena’s hand moved from the back of the seat and fell across Ivan’s shoulders. “Thanks for everything.”
The woman pulled Grotov down, and he obediently lay down on her lap.
“Thank you dear Grotov.” Elena stroked the thinning hair of her hapless suitor. “Thank you for your affection, and for the fact that Alexander did not have time to get bored. We are happy together once more. Are you happy for us, Grotov?”
The Professor turned round. “I will miss you,” he said.
“I’m not surprised,” Ivan agreed, “because now you have to find a new boyfriend.”
Grotov threw up his hand and cried into the street: “This one is open to offers!”
“Please don’t stop loving me, Grotov.” Elena caught Ivan’s raised hand in hers. “Being in love suits you.”
Ivan looked at the sky, where their fingers were interlocked and her breasts were free from all prohibitions. Behind them a beautiful bird of prey hovered with its wings stretched out framing the purple clouds at sunset. The bird hoisted Grotov up into the sky, and Ivan, who had been afraid of heights all of his life, finally felt free. He stretched out his arms and pressed his sweaty neck into her groin.