NB: the chapter features mature content
"Don't... Please stop..." I let out a dull moan again, not recognizing my own voice and being surprised by it. Her soft and slightly moist lips are lightly touching my neck, collarbone, cheekbone… She seems to deliberately avoid kissing my lips (maybe that’s for the best). At this time, the girl's hands are impudently examining my naked body under a thin summer dress, which has already been pulled up almost to my breasts. I can feel the cold touch of the mirror, to which I am practically pinned by her body. “Stop it,” I mumble between breaths. “I can't do this... I never... Please...”
“No, you can, calm down,” she grins, raising her black eyebrow, looking at me with her eyes cold as marble. I want to put my hands between us, push her away, but she abruptly grabs my wrists and presses them roughly against the darkness of the mirror above my head. I moan, not in pain, but rather in fear of her power. Marble eyes do not leave me, they hypnotize me, make me weak-willed and obedient. How embarrassing! She stops touching me with her lips, and it seems to me that the sweet torture is finally over, but she slowly raises her sharp knee, pushing my legs apart, pressing against my crotch.
***
~ A few hours ago ~
***
“Did you comb your hair?”
“What?”
“I asked if you would like me to comb your hair or are you going out like this?”
I lift my head from the windowsill. It seems to me that I dozed off a little while waiting for my neighbor (and, in addition to her other duties, my best friend). I was already getting a little nauseous from the shiny "jugs" in my smartphone app, which I have been senselessly moving for the sake of getting no less meaningless three stars. So I just idly stared out the window just like an old lady, watching swifts that were sweeping and dashing over the roofs of houses with a cheerful, invigorating whistle, dangerously close to the wires that enveloped the evening sky like an iron spider web. While I was watching flora and fauna of my neighborhood, Dasha, with her inherent bestial enthusiasm, was putting on a bit of spit and polish for the upcoming "cultural" appearance in the jazz club.
“Look, maybe I'll just stay at home today. I'm a little tired...” The prospect of going to a club and suffering in a corner while my friend is briskly “marking her territory” did not please me at all.
“Tired of what? Do your buns hurt from constant seating in front of the computer? Hear the wisdom, girl: if your buns happen to hurt let them hurt from something more pleasant than your chair. Come on!” In a familiar way she twists my hair on her finger and lets it go, admiring the "wave" like a handsome gay stylist from American movies. “Take off this nun’s cassock, after all! Date someone. Arthur said that a couple of his friends should come to the club too.”
I sigh. As if that wasn't enough...
“There, there! Enough sighing for today for in a blink of an eye you’ll be in your forties, and you’ll live with a crowd of kitties.”
“I'm allergic to cats, unfortunately... But I love cats: they could be good companions.”
“Okay, fine! Let it be a crowd of fish or a bunch of knitted lampshades and other creepy napkins on the TV set so that dust does not settle. Or even worse: you will start drawing these notorious kitties out of sexual loneliness, and you’ll cover the walls with them.”
“They can always be sold on EBay,” I can hardly contain my laughter. “A lonely, but rich lady with a bunch of fish.”
“Or what,” Dasha continues, deliberately ignoring me, “Do you want to spread your legs only in front of someone special and make love to him on the clouds?” Her eyes are mockingly investigating me.
“Isn’t it from "Sixteen candles"?”
“That doesn't change the fact. Hey! What? You're mad at me??” She hugs me like a bear, smacking me as far as she can reach, while I continue to dodge, pretending to be an outraged innocence in the face of a tempter. “Well, you are just like St. Anthony in Dali’s painting!” Dasha laughs, somehow managing to peck me in the temple.
“Did you decide to finish me off with a final shot to the head?” Her kiss was strong and hearty. I rub the skin on my temple.
“Why are you still not dressed?”
“I AM dressed or are you blinded by a thick layer of shadows and mascara?” I tease her.
“No way, no way! We are not going to go out in jeans you and I,” Again Dasha is spinning in front of the mirror in her new high-waist pants and a short crop top. She, like Tinker Bell, puts her hands to her slender waist and rounded hips, as if checking if she had put on some weight. “Maybe I should put on a black velvet choker?”
“Yeah, and I will wear that Grandfather Frost’s white wig from last New Year party, and we will cosplay Yennefer and Geralt.”
“I'm serious! Isn’t my neck too short for a choker?” She twirls her long swan neck, while her natural curls are jumping merrily as if delighted to be on her head.
I sigh again. Dasha hides it, but she desperately wants to prove that everything is over between her and Danya. And that means going to the club with Arthur and dragging me there as a witness to her final breakup. Dasha and Danya. These two have been following me since my childhood and do not allow me to calmly hide from the complexes under the bed and never get out of there. The couple always supports me, on both sides, like two supports for one book that is standing alone on the shelf, preventing it from falling on one side or finally flipping its “cover” down. I don't know what exactly did the two charismatic guys find in me, but I can't imagine my life without their annoying presence. Back in school, we swore (and we barely persuaded Dasha not to swear on blood, taking the needle away from her, preventing her from pricking hers and others unfortunate fingers, with serious words "for the benefit of securing the solemn ritual") that we would rent an apartment as soon as we entered the university and would live together. Anything to get away from my ubiquitous mommy with a quirk for super control.
So now I have to work hard: Danya, at his father's company, doing handyman assignments; I, with my translations, working for peanuts, and dull tutoring with extremely stupid children (whose parents see their dear offspring as future diplomats and presidents, no less!), and Dasha... and Dasha is the luckiest one of us. Her parents give her a big sum every month: wishing their only child to learn and do not get into trouble. It's a shame to admit, but practically all our domestic life and "cultural (as she likes to call them) appearances” in some fashionable places is pretty much all her.
Maybe their mothers, being pregnant, watched a lot of soap operas, and that is why Dasha and Danya acquired a pathological tendency for exaggeration and drama. You would be wrong to think this is their first breakup. They'll make up again soon. Usually in a stormy, brutal way. Once again, I will cover my head with a pillow, involuntarily overhearing their moans behind the wall, especially Dasha's: first quiet, almost inaudible, then loud, as if from a sharp pain. With the tips of my ears burning, I can only humbly guess what he does to cause such moans from his girlfriend. Uncontrollably, a tight, pulling feeling appears in my lower abdomen. I am ashamed of myself that I want to touch myself, but I don't do it: I can’t allow this happen listening to them. Not them ...
So that’s how we live in our cheap two bedroom apartment, moving from one bedroom to another, in a style of Brownian motion: either they are playing in their room or Dasha moves to mine and my bed, complaining about her life; sometimes she huffs Danya out of their room, making him rest and do practical jokes on a thin mattress on the floor next to me, and Dasha would be sulky for several days alone like a majestic, but angry and proud queen in her chambers.
Once my mother, having already lost hope that her prodigal daughter would come to her senses and return to her father's house, sarcastically noticed that one day these two would get married and have children. “Where are you going to go? Will you babysit for their future brat? Or are you going to become their housekeeper? Will you cook and wash for them? Their parents have money and regard people like us only as servants! It's time for you to think a little about your personal life. Your father and I... " and off we go…
No matter how unbearably annoying she could be at times, there is some truth in her words. With fear I think about the day when they would ask me to move away from our cozy apartment in the sleeping "green" area. They also might leave for a new home, and I will be forced to return to my parents. The worse scenario is difficult to come up with, but so far their stormy sex life is not hampered by my modest presence. Sometimes it seems to me that I am their child, whom they protect and comfort: this would be something that keeps them from breaking up.
“What about wearing my dress?” She pulls out one of her expensive items from a giant wardrobe.
“I'll change in the hall.”
“Don’t be silly! Are you ashamed of me? I’ve seen you naked, besides, we are girls,” she laughs. “Do you remember how we had a swim absolutely naked in that puddle in the village? I almost died of fear when I accidentally touched a toad.”
“Are you talking about that muddy pit where all the villagers took water for their kitchen gardens? With the water that was almost brown with clay? We were eight.”
Dasha no longer pays attention to me and pulls out a nonexistent hair on her perfect eyebrow with silver tweezers. I myself do not know why I am so embarrassed to change clothes in front of her; I would be even calmer if Danya were here instead of her. He would just turn away, and I would quickly pull the dress over my head. Surely, he would not make a Barbie out of me! And now I am forced to blush standing in front of her, taking off a T-shirt and jeans, showing my bra and underwear from different sets.
Dating Arthur is another one of Dasha's whims. I know perfectly well that my friend is not planning anything serious; she just wants to have fun after the break up and keep me with her like that angel on her shoulder who, at the right moment, painfully bites her ear, preventing her from doing something stupid.
Actually it was a good idea to put on a dress, and not jeans. It's hot outside, but it's even hotter in Dasha's car. I flop into the back seat of a small passenger car, which Dasha's mother presented for girl’s university entering just like a generous boyar would give a fur coat to a loyal peasant. In the first passenger seat, there is a box with New Year tree decorations and something extremely heavy underneath, which makes it impossible to move it. With a demonic gleam in our eyes, we are both waiting for Danya's return, in order to confront the poor man with the fact that the duty fell on him, ugh, I mean…he will be honored to take the box upstairs. It’s still a mystery for me why we need New Year decorations in the middle of the summer.
“What is the code word this time?” I sadly look in the rear window at the receding wall of our block house that stands against the background of the pinky sunset sky. “Maybe Cleopatra?”
Dasha's attention is focused on the road. She does not like to talk when driving, clinging to the wheel, as if driving through a minefield, which, in my opinion, makes her an amazingly accurate driver.
“Why not... Where is this assface driver rushing to!!!?”
I hope she remembered Cleopatra. We always use a code word if somewhere in public places we start to feel very uncomfortable, but since we usually keep the "poker face", it is difficult to understand that one of us is suffering. So we came up with such a game: and if the word is spoken, then one of us must immediately come up with an excuse and, depending on the circumstances, put the other in a taxi or take her home herself. I cast one last look at the house, which is about to disappear around the bend. With horror I notice a shadow, as if someone had jumped from the roof. I open my mouth in shock. Did someone just fall? No-nooo… It’s stupid! It was nothing! The falling body would have looked completely different. I don’t want to talk to Dasha and distract her from the road. Otherwise, she will definitely turn back to check if anyone was hurt. I don’t want her to become nervous just because of my imagination. Besides, we have already entered the highway.
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