A novel in the service and what can come of it. The story of another novel. Career, love, feelings, emotions or banal sex?
An affair in the service? Never.
This is how I was taught.
Accountant O. She gave me my first salary as a young scientist. Slender, short-sighted - with that slightly absent-minded, promising look, before which I could never resist.
For the second salary, I came with a ready-made phrase.
- Tell me, O., do you like music?
She stretched and as if lazily asked:
- Do you want to invite me somewhere?
Not "where", namely "somewhere." And already - on you.
All that remained was to ask the following traditional question. And I asked it:
- Are you free tonight?
- Yes. Come pick me up after five.
Six o'clock. We are at my twenty-five meters. A concert in an hour. She looks around in the bachelor's apartment.
- Actually, I don't like author's song.
- Well…
- Where is your bathroom?
She's coming back. We kiss for a long time. We fall on the sofa …
We barely make it to the start of the concert. From which we run after the first branch. And already slowly, in a businesslike way, as if telling - with hands, lips, in general, everything - about life before, without words, we love each other. We smoke. And again…
About half an hour before midnight, she gets up, dresses.
- Maybe you will stay?
- No.
- You were …
- I felt good.
- I AM…
- Where can I get a taxi?
- There is a parking lot around the corner.
- Till tomorrow.
And I accepted the rules of the game. Non-binding sex. Nobody, nobody, nobody. No jealousy, no plans for the future.
But somehow we always coincided: if she had a free evening, then it happened with me - and vice versa.
And about half an hour before midnight, she got up, dressed and walked to the taxi rank. Sometimes she would let me walk with her to the corner and smoke a cigarette along the way.
An affair in the service? Never. But this was not a novel either.
O.'s accountant was in good standing and was engaged in community service. She was even elected to the Komsomol committee of our research institute. When my scientific advisor Igor Tsarkov ended up in Lefortovo for anti-Soviet activities, and I refused the flattering offer of the first department, they decided to “put me in line on the Komsomol line”.
O. voted for a severe reprimand with entry. And by seven we were already on my couch. I took revenge - she dutifully accepted the punishment. Without words. At the usual time, she got up, dressed and left.
She was very practical. Tsar'kov, even before Lefortovo, once called it a "semaphore". On critical days, O. wore bright red trousers.
We never parted. I just left the institute - to school. But she stayed. At this point, our business relationship was interrupted. Plus, I fell in love again …
What was I to her? - I do not know. But she was my ideal lover.
Here it would be to put an end. But fate threw another plot.
Ten years later, when my family life was bursting at the seams, I wandered around the city, coming up with an adventure for the evening. A tram stopped nearby, and O.
She said as if they parted yesterday:
- Hey!
- You?.. You haven't changed at all.
- I know.
- Are you in a hurry?
- No.
- Shall we take a walk?
We walked. Frozen. We took a taxi. They came to me - now to the outskirts. Have eaten all the chocolate in the house. We drank a couple of bottles of Crimean wine. They kissed a little. I told her my life, she told me hers. It turned out that she knows how to tell.
And about half an hour before midnight, she asked to put her in a taxi.
I didn't love her.
She was just the perfect lover.
But God, what am I doing? I'm putting on Mirzayan's CD …
She actually didn't like the author's song.
