Free Love Is Never Past Tense... by Janna Yeshanova Page B

his throat, his language dried up, and his only thought was how to keep from vomiting.
    It was already late. The “high society” poured into the courtyard and intended to leave for their homes. Janna spun among them. She listened and spread compliments, and kissed everyone at parting. When the crowd was past the gate, Serge looked with disgust at the narrow-shouldered, deformed figures of the "patrons of art” and spit between his legs. Janna stood at the gate and exchanged a few last sentimental phrases. Serge switched his view to her bronze legs which had been snatched out from the darkness by a shaft of door light, and with a malicious greed wanted her. He imagined how he would sadistically seize her, but immediately dropped this idea because her mother appeared on the threshold.
    “Janna, are you smoking?” she cried out.
    “No, Mom.”
    “Watch it, do not smoke. I am going to sleep.” At last, Janna remembered about Serge and sat down on his lap.
    “Give me a cigarette.”
    “Take one.” Serge leaned on the warm wall of the house. Janna took a drag.
    “How do you like my friends?”
    “So-so, I didn’t get a taste.”
    “They are charming. True?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Kiss me.”
    “I don’t want to.”
    “Kiss me, I said!” She imperiously looked at him and pouted with her lush lips.
    Serge touched them.
    “You are able to kiss better.” She tenderly leaned towards him.
    “Well kiss me; your lips are so soft.” Serge felt like some narcotic substance went to his legs, and rose up higher, into his head. He embraced her …
    “Behind the house, in the garden, there is a bed. I will go and get a mattress …” Janna whispered to his face.
    “Here it comes. She is mine. Now she does not lie, she really wants it.” It seemed to Serge, that this already happened some time ago, and that it occurs every day, and here again he would be in bed with a woman, so close and so familiar …
    Janna came out, covered by a mattress, a blanket and pillows.
    The bed was narrow, rusty, and had a sagging grid. They sat down on the edge, not daring to start for the sake of what they came here to do. Through the half-naked garden the street was visible, and shadows of passers-by occasionally flashed. Serge wearily tumbled down on the pillows and closed his eyes. He was not rushing. But weariness prevailed. Falling asleep, he felt a descending weight. The bed took the form of a hammock, and it became very uncomfortable. Serge tried to move, but the bed was too narrow. Janna seemed to be very heavy and inappropriate in the hanging space. He wanted to push her out from here and plunge into a sweet dream. But his desire from all the previous days woke up his body. Serge took off his shirt, threw off his trousers and covered himself with a thick blanket. Janna immediately pressed him to herself. She had wide hips, and she accepted him. She quietly and languidly waited, for the time when he would do what he so aspired to all these days. Serge tried to stir her, to excite reciprocal passion, but he lost control. From his throat, a hoarse groan was pulled out. The delightful wave lifted him, with a violent forceful whirlwind, immersing him in an abyss, and then rolled away leaving him, soft, exhausted, and barely trembling …
    The breeze rustled through the leaves. On the ground the first yellow leaflets silently fell. Autumn was coming …
     
    ***
     
    Time flew imperceptibly. They left behind not only three days, but ten days. It was difficult for Serge to watch the days fly by, and he didn’t even want to do this—he did not want to leave this carefree life, and there was no reason to speed it up.
    Every morning, half asleep, but pretending to be deeply sleeping, Serge waited, laying on his folding bed until the time when her mother would leave the house and go to work. The gate chain was a signal: as soon as its clanking became silent, Janna’s imperious voice called to the sleeper and Serge moved from the narrow