That day I went to the university just to pick up Alfredo. My small victory had to be celebrated. My throat was burning with thirst, and I had no money. But I had Alfredo.
I got a bit tipsy, Alfredo barely touched his drink. We talked for hours about everything under the sun. Mostly, I did the talking.
“After I finish my studies, I’m going to ask her to marry me!” I said passionately. “We’ll live happily ever after and have seven children! And I’ll never hit her! When you love someone, you don’t hit them, you protect them! She’ll be the most protected woman in the world!”
“That’s very nice,” my friend replied, delighted. “But don’t talk so loud. People can hear us.”
By evening, I arrived home. I was so happy… and so drunk…
“Oh, it’s you?” my mother asked, startled.
“Who… hic… did you think it was? Is something wrong, Mom?”
“Nothing,” she replied absent.
She was worried. Tension filled the air. Dad was late again. Surely he had stopped at a bar after work. He would come home drunk too. Drunker than me.
He would come late, slam the front gate, struggle for minutes to open the door. It always happened like that. The same old story. Every time the key turned in the lock, my mother’s heart would leap out of her chest, and her beautiful eyes would turn into the eyes of a hunted animal.
My eyes didn’t change. I wasn’t scared at all. I was a man. I calmly waited for Dad. I could have knocked him down anytime, and I wouldn’t even need both hands for that.
When I was home, I never let him hit her. Dad would curse, yell, roar, break things around the house, but he wouldn’t touch Mom anymore.
When I was home.
***
I waited for Irina the very next day.
She didn’t want to take the money for the cakes. She seemed worried. That day I didn’t hear her laugh. She wasn’t upset, but she wasn’t very cheerful either. Just tired and maybe a little preoccupied with something.
“Isn’t your jacket a bit too big for you?” she asked at the tram stop.
I was wearing my ‘new’ clothes from the second-hand shop.
“It might be too big, but I’ll grow into it, and it’ll fit perfectly.”
“Where are we going today?” she asked. “To the pastry shop again?”
“Do you have any particular place in mind, Irina?”
“No. Honestly, I’m tired. I’d rather go home.”
“As you wish.”
“Don’t worry, I can manage, you don’t need to walk me home. But don’t you have classes, Tiberiu? You said you’re a student. Shouldn’t you be at the university now?”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
I stayed by her side. I took a deep breath and told her:
“Irina, after I get my degree, I’m going to ask you to marry me. Seriously!”
She looked at me with wide eyes, then blushed.
“Do you always ask girls you take to the pastry shop to marry you?”
“No. Only those who pay for the treats.”
“I think you’re a bit crazy,” she said, looking concerned. “Actually, I don’t think, I’m convinced.”
She got on the tram. I watched her go. I loved her. It was clear, I felt it.
I didn’t feel like going to classes. I craved something sweet and looked around for the nearby pastry shop. Maybe I wanted a cake, maybe I wanted to see Mia again.
What was wrong with that?
I felt I needed to see her one more time before getting married. The last wish of a bachelor.
It was nine in the morning. Too early for other customers to be at the pastry shop. Mia quietly wiped the tables, then scanned the room and went behind the counter.
I ordered a brownie. I tried to eat it slowly, like a civilized person.
My mouth was sweet from the brownie, and my eyes kept drifting to the woman behind the counter.
She had a magnetism I had never encountered before.
“Maybe it’s because she has a good soul,” I thought, trying to explain the attraction. “She has a mother’s kindness in her eyes. She has a kind smile. Maybe I’m drawn to her because she somehow resembles my mother. What?! Tiberiu, what nonsense is this? What does your mother have to do with this? Are you crazy?”
Mia was a petite woman, and her sparrow-like voice accentuated her “small and delicate” appearance.
“Got you!” said Eva suddenly. “I thought you said you liked hippopotamus women!”
“Not always, not necessarily!” I defended myself, confused. “Did I say that?”
“Yes,” she said, looking at me intently.
“Well, sometimes I like petite ones too. For variety.”
“What do you mean ‘for variety’?” said Eva, ready for an argument. “You’re contradicting yourself! You said there was no variety. You told me all women are the same, remember?”
“When did I say that?” I marveled, looking at her baffled.
“Good!” exclaimed Eva. “So you’re bad with memory, not just with ‘I finished too quickly. Sorry!’.“
“But I never said all women are the same! That’s nonsense.”
“You did. The very next day after ‘I finished too quickly. Sorry!’.”
“Okay, whatever you say.”
“Why don’t you admit you’re a liar?” Eva threatened, pointing a finger at me.
“Because I’m not! Not really. Okay, maybe a little. Here and there, when the situation calls for it.”
“Oh my God, you’re such a liar!”
“You annoy me, Eva! Actually, if I think about it, all women are the same. But only after I’m done with them. Before that, they’re different.”
“Fine,” she growled, annoyed. “Continue.”
“But that’s the truth, Eva. After I leave their legs, they’re all the same to me, uninteresting. I don’t even look in their direction.”
We glared at each other, both of us angry. Eva’s black eyes were like two bottomless pits, ready to swallow me whole.
“Come on, don’t be mad,” I said awkwardly. “I’m being honest. It’s my flaw. Why do you women always hate honesty? That’s how it is after, you understand? That’s how I feel after sex. Eva, you’re young, and you’ll have plenty of chances to see how men look after you give them pleasure. When you see them leaning back with their heads on the pillow, with a look of a cow hit between the horns, remember my words. At that moment, all women are the same to them, meaning uninteresting.”
“I already knew that,” she said coldly. “Continue the story. I don’t want us to fight.”
“Fine. As I was telling you, I was at the table in the pastry shop, wondering how it was possible that when I was with Irina, I thought of Mia, and why when I was near Mia, I thought of Irina.
Just being near one of them would automatically make me… think of the other.
It had started to rain outside, and the drops were turning into streams on the window.
‘Autumn is coming,’ I thought. ‘If I hate anything besides winter, autumn is definitely in second place, with its cold rains and millions of yellow leaves scattered on the streets. And in third place is spring, which comes with muddy puddles and colds.
Damn… I wish for a never-ending summer!’
It was raining outside, and suddenly, sadness walked through the pastry shop door, stepped toward me, and threw itself into my chest.
‘Couldn’t your girlfriend come?’
Mia smiled at me. Her milk-white teeth pulled me out of my depression.
‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ she repeated, looking at me kindly.
‘She couldn’t come,’ I said quickly. Then I added, ‘But she’s not my girlfriend. She’s my future wife. We’re almost engaged. We’re getting married soon, after I graduate.’
‘Aha,’ she said, understanding, then finished wiping a glass, placed it on a tray, and came into the room, near my table.
She busied herself rearranging chairs here and a tablecloth there. I felt the need to say something, to continue the conversation with her, but I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say.
Neither did she seem eager to help. She just kept busy around me.
‘Is this your pastry shop?’ I asked in a slightly hoarse voice.
‘Oh no!’ she chirped. ‘I just work here. But why couldn’t she come?’
I thought about Irina, and my Irina descended from the ceiling and sat next to Mia.
I sat on the chair, analyzing both of them like a horse trader at the market. I looked closely at both of them. They were both so cute. But Mia was somewhat more… mature, more ripened. A fruit waiting patiently to fall from the tree at someone’s feet.
However, I admit, I didn’t know Mia well; she was a stranger to me.
My thoughts turned lovingly to Irina. I already knew Irina like the back of my hand; I dreamed about her at night, thought about her during the day, eagerly waited for her to leave the factory gates. I breathed with Irina. She was mine, and I was hers.
‘But why couldn’t she come?’ came Mia’s voice from afar. ‘Is she sick?’
Irina, sick?
I was shaken. The mere thought that my beloved could be ill was simply unacceptable. I rebelled internally.
“Irina will never get sick! I will always be by her side and take care of her. I will look after her until the moment of death. My death or hers? Uh… mine, definitely. I couldn’t bear to see Irina die before me. I would go blind if I saw her on her deathbed! I would go insane!”
Oh, my God! Irina dead?!
What a horror! What a nightmare!
I imagined Irina dead, in a coffin, dressed in a white wedding dress. I saw myself, overcome with grief, at her bedside. I was crying, Irina’s mother was crying, my parents were crying too, and everyone was trying to console me.
Everyone was weeping around the coffin. It was crowded and felt like the end of the world.
Irina had died.
At the dead bride’s bedside, a choir of twelve priests was holding the service, but their chanting was drowned out by Ella’s wailing.
“Oh my God! cried my mother-in-law. You’ve gone, you mother’s little girl! So young… pure soul! Oh…”
I could see in my mind my own mother comforting me, putting her hand on my shoulder: “Don’t cry, my child, don’t cry anymore! Oh, Lord, why did you do this? Why?”
I was destroyed, collapsed beside the coffin, with my forehead on the cold board.
My tears started to flow timidly down my cheeks, then gained courage like the rain streaming down the pastry shop window.
I saw myself standing at the edge of my beloved’s grave and felt the damp, cold earth under my feet. One thought exploded in my head:
“Irinaaa! Whom have you left me with?”
That was the last straw. It filled the cup. I started to cry with all my heart.
‘Oh my, so she is sick!’ exclaimed Mia, quickly placing her hand on my shoulder. ‘Is it serious?’
Of course it was serious! I didn’t say anything. I was mute, silenced by the pain I had caused myself.
I put my arms on the table and hid my face in them.
‘Poor you!’
The woman gently stroked my head, pulled up a chair, and sat at my table.
‘Come on, don’t be sad! Everything will be fine, you’ll see! Everything will be fine and you will be together again.’
How could I not be sad? How could I not cry at my beloved’s funeral?
And cry I did! Especially now that I had someone who was comforting and consoling me. I was a sensitive soul, that was clear! In fact, most men are sensitive beings.
I shed tears for about half a minute more, then wiped my eyes with my sleeve. I looked at Mia. Clearly… Who could resist such a look?
Mia leaned forward, pressed my head to her chest, and continued to whisper words of encouragement. It felt nice.
My face was very close to hers. We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment and drowned in each other’s gaze. Our souls mingled.
Mia’s magnetism was overwhelming. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her round, full lips, which kept repeating words I could no longer understand.
‘Poor you! Poor boy, she sighed, probably. All I heard was a kind of “Blah, blah, blah.”‘
I closed my eyes and kissed those lips desperately. They tasted like chocolate. I kissed them once, then again. I gently bit her lower lip. Pure chocolate.
Mia embraced my head with her arms and pulled me towards her without a word, almost involuntarily.
Our lips melded in a long kiss. That chocolate-flavored kiss sent a pleasant sensation from head to toe, making me dizzy.
Finally, the spell broke, and she gently pushed me away.
I looked at her, puzzled. I had calmed down. Even I realized that what I was doing wasn’t quite right.
‘Your girlfriend isn’t sick, is she?’ she asked, giving me a puzzled look.
I felt put on the spot. Yes, I was a schoolboy who had entered the pastry shop with his homework unprepared. I stammered:
‘As far as I know, no.’
And smack! The walls reverberated with the echo of the slap.
Her lips might have been cool, but her palm was hot. She suddenly stood up from the chair and ran her hand through her hair.
‘Oh, my God,’ she exclaimed in disgust, ‘what an idiot you are! Get out! Don’t let me catch you here again!’
I left. I didn’t look back.
“So that’s what it’s like to kiss a woman!” I told myself cheerfully, rubbing my cheek with my hand.
It was the first kiss of my life.
I liked it.
I liked it a thousand times over.
I had become addicted from the first dose.
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