Sanka

My future husband was reliable, gentle, and even liked by my mother. Although, to be honest, it wasn't hard to please her with a daughter like me. Not a gasp of admiration, but a sigh of relief from her. Well, so be it!

The first month we were dating, he took me to a party at his boss's house.

The glances from his colleagues, admiring, a little sleazy. Turns out, skirts really suit me.

At some point, I couldn't take it anymore and dragged my date into the bathroom.

He brushed against me with his stubble and squeezed me with his huge hands so hard I practically suffocated.

"Kiss me," I said out loud. He obediently kissed me, deeply

and hard, but my consciousness refused to switch off.

I remembered how Sanka once asked me:

"So what, in your opinion, is the difference between a man and a woman?"

I just smiled:

"It's obvious, isn't it?"

"No!" my friend persisted. "I'm not talking about physiology!"

I shrugged.

"Men fuck, and women love!" she'd had too much to drink that time, and it was useless to argue.

Why did I remember that awkward, drunken conversation? Sanka, where are you now...

I felt a hot flush, I wanted to refute my old friend's thesis right here and now, in his boss's bathroom. I frantically began covering my man with kisses and tried to pull off his sweater, pressing him against the washing machine. I had already slipped my hand into his jeans, but he stopped me, pulled out my palm, stepped back, and looked intently into my eyes:

"Not now. They might hear us."

"Then let's go home. To hell with everything!"

"I can't. We just got here."

"They'll understand. They're all people."

"Who? The boss?! I shouldn't have gone to the bathroom with you. Don't drink any more tonight!"

"Sorry..."

We went back home and stood embracing for a long time. I breathed in the damp smell of his fur collar, and he just wouldn't let me go. Like a tamed little beast—cute, grateful, with apologetic eyes. He obediently pulled off his jeans, remaining in his long johns and sheepskin coat. I laughed, and he slipped his hand under my clothes and kneaded my breast for a long time and diligently. I breathed on his frozen palms and woke his cock until it was fully hard. My future husband didn't let me undress, just sat me on the table and moved aside the lace trim of my panties. He entered quickly and skillfully—no wonder: I'd been "marinated" for an hour. My husband worked his behind like a seasoned cowboy, quickly finished, and buried his face in my neck. Inside, everything burned with fading anticipation...

Here is my world, from now on and forever... An old, kind, sterile world, devoid of inhuman emotions. It's not afraid of the "past me." It's not interested in her. Or was I always like this? What about Sanka then? My thoughts are muddled from the champagne I drank.

And so, the family days flowed by, with a new, still-setting routine that in a year would probably be like cement. He really did try to be a good husband and father to our son. Like a shogun, ticking off all the rules of his personal family code point by point. That's where his strength ran out... The daily sex at first became twice as rare, and sometimes the sofa and football replaced me. My tin soldier tried, I could feel it. I praised his manly hands and told him he was the best I'd ever been with.

"He's tired"—tenderness and some kind of maternal feeling for this big child overwhelmed me when I covered him, asleep, with a blanket. Behind the back of the sofa, Sanka's silhouette loomed, her sad gaze asking:

"Are you happy, friend?"

"Begone!" I hissed at the phantom from my imagination and went to wash the dishes.

Having fulfilled all my duties as a wife and homemaker, I sat on the windowsill with a cigarette and dissolved into the night silence. On the balcony opposite stood a wife just like me, inhaling the night air after a day performed with an "A" grade. She looked at me, I looked at her. We smiled at each other. She took out a cigarette but didn't have time to light it. Her husband came out onto the balcony, gently but firmly led the woman back into the apartment. Deadly boredom...

I was sent on a business trip. I was nervous and rushed around the apartment in one sock, simultaneously giving instructions to my husband and son. I cooked food for a week, ordered the child to be sent to his grandmother. Yes, the plumber is coming on Wednesday...

"Don't worry, darling. We're big boys, we'll manage somehow." The smile made him look like the Cheshire Cat.

I kiss my husband, my son, rush to the airport. The air smells of a thunderstorm. That means everything will be fine—I love thunderstorms. My boss calls—everything is canceled, we agreed on an online conference. I hurry to tell my husband the good news—his cell phone doesn't answer. Asleep again?

With frozen fingers, I open the door. It smells of coffee and cinnamon—my husband is pulling himself together.

"Honey, I'm home! Everything's canceled."

He comes out in just his long johns, looking disheveled.

"You could have at least called!"

"I did call..."

He throws a displeased glance somewhere to the side. A woman's voice is heard:

"Are you coming soon? The coffee will get cold."

A chill runs down my spine. I've been screwed over...

"Where's the child?"

"At Grandma's..."

"Well, at least you took him there, you had the sense!"

"I'm not completely..."

I try to take off my boots—the zipper is stuck. I spit on the shoes, go to the room. He tries fearfully to block the doorway with himself, but how can this wardrobe in his underwear stand against my fury?

I enter. A picture worthy of an oil painting: in bed, next to the coffee tray, covering a slender figure in black lingerie with a pillow, sits she... No, not she, but HER.

"Sanka?!"

She widens her huge, unreal lilac-colored eyes.

"What?"

"Sasha..."

She was always so fragile, like a skinny boy. She wore plaid shirts that hung on her like sacks and her younger brother's jeans, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, and really wanted to become a doctor. The first time I saw him (or her—call it what you want) was when the class monitor, drunk, was trying to drag me into the bushes. She came out from somewhere behind the trees. A short, determined boy.

"Let her go."

"What do you want?"

"She's one of ours."

"Yeah, right! Dream on!"

The monitor painfully squeezed my elbow. I wasn't thinking clearly, but when this little David pulled a scalpel from his pocket and desperately rushed at the two-meter-tall Goliath, it was like a bucket of cold water was thrown on me. I broke free and slumped to the ground like a sack. The monitor ran away, shouting something about maniacs.

Then Sanka wiped my scraped elbow with peroxide and scolded me for getting so drunk and giving in to the monitor's persuasion. I had never wanted anyone as much as this person with serious eyes of a rare color...

My parents found out about us, my mother screamed for a long time, and my father simply put me in the car and took me to another city. Since then, I hadn't seen her, only heard that she became a doctor, as she wanted.

My husband crept into the room along the wall. I slowly approached the bed, not taking my eyes off her, tried to take the pillow.

"Katya?"

"I..."

Throwing the pillow aside, I hugged Sashka so tightly, and she hugged me. Even through all my clothes, I could feel her heart pounding. My husband stands there, stunned.

"What's going on with you? Kat?!"

"Get lost..."

I suddenly jumped up and threw myself at my husband with an embrace.

"Do you even know, you idiot, who you're cheating on me with here?!"

He remains fearfully silent.

"Of all the women on the planet, you chose her, her specifically!"

I return to Sashka again, kiss her, and she kisses me.

"You've changed!"

"You too."

"What about 'Sashka in the plaid shirt'?"

"It wasn't easy for him... for her. My parents even kept me in a mental hospital, Kat."

"Cured?"

We kiss again. I don't want to let her out of my arms. My husband shifts from foot to foot, offended.

"I'm sorry, Kat, I didn't know he was your husband... That he was married at all!"

"And he didn't know I'd be back. But you don't sleep with men, do you?"

"Just like you. Well, I decided to try..."

I don't want to let Sanka out of my hands. Let my husband watch.

He was the first to feel awkward.

"At least let me take the tray."

Do whatever you want.

He ran out to the kitchen as if scalded. And Sanka takes off my coat, finally the boot zippers give in. Sanya unbuttons my blouse, looking with her anime eyes straight into my soul. I take off her bra and touch her breast: high, neat.

"It's become even more beautiful since then."

"Oh, come on!"

Sanka's cheeks are burning, and her hands continue to strip off my clothes: skirt, stockings. I kiss her neck, her earlobe, slip a trembling palm behind the delicate lace of her panties, while her hands pull off my thong.

My husband peeks into the room, but I can't tear myself away from Sashka's body to react to him in any way. My hand is already deep inside. Sashka arches and trembles, presses her whole body against me gratefully. The door slams in the hallway—my husband left, couldn't take it...

And Sanka, catching her breath, gets to work on me in earnest, not letting me escape, covers my legs, thighs, stomach with kisses. Fingers and strokes the reddish hairs where there was recently a neat intimate trim.

"I've grown out, huh?"

"You're my golden-haired one!"

Sanka tickles and nibbles, works me over with her tongue as if a breeder has developed some new fruit and is now tasting it. Sweetly draws me in, while with her hands pressing me even closer to her lips. I moan with pleasure, the likes of which I haven't had in—teen years. Exactly as many years as I haven't seen Sashka. Fireworks flash before my eyes, I writhe, but strong hands don't let go—it's too early. From my heels, calves, thighs, stomach—from everywhere, thin, itching threads shoot through and roll over my body with an orgasm, the waves of which don't have time to subside before another one shoots through. I gently push Sanka away:

"We'll never get out of bed this way."

"And where are we supposed to get out to now?"

Half an hour later, Sashka and I are drinking tea in the kitchen. My husband is undressing in the hallway, says he only came back for his things.

I hug his offended torso, kiss the top of his head:

"Thank you for Sanka..."