and letting this opportunity slip by would be wrong. Things must happen, at least for the sake of sexual experience, which he urgently needed to acquire. All his peers were always bragging about their adventures and insane romantic rendezvous. Some even participated in orgies. With Ralph always having nothing to say, he was relegated to the role of an attentive and grateful listener, before whom it was always possible to brag about anything, even lies. Ralph took everything at face value, eagerly listening to the funny stories his friends shared with him.
Christy had no particular need of this Ralph. However, the amount of innocence and purity of perception that was clearly present in this young man was a pill she so desperately needed as an antidote to the sophistication of all her other lovers. Dealing with their distorted minds was an exercise that Christy found to be very complex at times. She sometimes just wanted simple, sincere sex, unencumbered by the baggage of numerous mistresses, the experiences of unsuccessful and successful unions, the energies of other women that a man always carries with him like some fishtail train. And if he was also simultaneously involved with some other girl, this would be always obvious, and it so drained all the energy from their encounter that she needed to have some kind of intractability to communicate with him. This was the other side of their experience, the uniqueness of their nature, their attractiveness. After all, if a man decided to keep to himself, concentrating on his work or to a single, beloved woman, he would end up losing himself as an artist, and generally, as a creative person. Christy has long realized that she was always attracted to men with a creative component in their nature. And this was a special contingent that determined everything in the men’s lives, from sex, emotions and sexual drive, things they needed like water, like air, otherwise these men could not be able to exist, and would start wedging like mechanisms that worked on solar batteries and needed charging from time to time.
No, this was not a bad thing. Christy knew she was birds of the same feather with these men. But despite her seemingly non-monogamous lifestyle, Christy always wanted more than just sexual attraction. Love could arise from almost anywhere; be it a noble deed by a male admirer, his brilliant performance at some important forum, or his sparkling mind. But without further sexual chemistry, this feeling remained at the level of professional admiration. Chemistry is obviously an indispensable component of the magical elixir of love, a mystery that humanity has been trying to comprehend for centuries. Here, too, when animals partake in this chemistry, they find it sufficient for the creation of couples, unions and breeding. In principle, humans could also be content with this type of mutual arrangement. Nevertheless, if the relationship did not rise above sex, or it remained at the same level, Christy would always immediately leave it behind. She did not know exactly how the relationship should grow after the sexual hunger had been satisfied. Nevertheless, it was obvious that, just as flowers always follow the sun as they rise up out of the earth, this dark, and at times dirty, basis of fertility and relations originating from insane sex should also stretch endlessly towards the skies.
Meanwhile Robert was dying of monotony at his pool, watching the lesbian fun of his girlfriend, who was busy teasing him with all the parts of her body, beckoning him to come back, while licking some brunette on a chaise longue. This is the height of every man’s dreams, Robert thought. The ability to have any number of women, as well as alcohol, money, drugs and sex in any quantity. He had been burdened by previous serious relationships precisely because they had required that he be monogamous. Here, in view of the bisexuality, or more precisely, lesbianism, of his girlfriend, who pretended to be bisexual to continue staying with “one of the twelve Olympians” out of love, there were no scenes of jealousy. On the contrary, Emma actively invited him to participate in their lesbian orgies, bringing her own girlfriends that allowed themselves to be used, so Robert got everything he wanted. The only condition in his relationship with Emma was that he could not start a relationship with a woman whom she did not approve beforehand, and he could only have sex with another woman if she participated as well. Considering the number of new girlfriends Emma always brought around and replaced, this condition was quite acceptable. He had long stopped thinking about love. After all, what is love? A lump in the soul and on the throat, effusing a sweet bliss over the body or a stream of sperm to the right and to the left. Over the years, Robert had stopped thinking in terms of the soul and the heart, or had tried not to think about them. If a woman was a good mistress, and even allowed him to be freaky with her girlfriends, this was already more than enough. In any case, there was no one to fill his brain with unnecessary jealousy-driven accusations. No one to incessantly check his phone and Skype, and the only times Emma did so was so that she could give an expert male opinion on how attractive a female was. This way, as an active lesbian, she would take out her verdict on whether they were taking the female to bed or not. In his mind, Robert found this to be satisfying. He often surfed online dating sites, and those where for $5 a minute, a girl could come before him, undress and do everything he wanted, women from all over the world. Black, white, German, English, French. For the greenback, all of them were ready to jump on every command, and Robert enjoyed being the slave owner of these dolls, cheap online-order girls that he seduced, corrupted, watched and evaluated with his experienced gaze of a connoisseur of beauty, and then, just as ruthlessly, discarded. He did not need to introduce himself to these girls or open up to them. They had no idea who he was. And this also brought him a kind of pleasure, making him feel like a mere mortal, like some unknown John or Peter, who, after work, can afford to spend a couple of dollars to see a beautiful woman’s body, indulge in it at a distance, and fall asleep until the next working day. It was curious to see himself as a simple consumer of virtual fun, and to cease being the idol for millions of people for a while. But, apparently, he also wanted more. When he started courting Emma, it was obvious that she was indifferent to him. He had to use all the arguments, from those involving material things to the more professional ones, so that this lesbian agreed to be with him on her own terms. She did not love him. This was as much her strength and power over him at the same time as it was her powerlessness. Strength and weakness. Robert wanted real, tangible feelings … He remembered how sweet this sense of reciprocity could be achieved not only in sex, but love, the fragrance of this flower, which two people breathe and cannot inhale. He was the only one breathing here, and because of this, he and this flower were suffocating. You would want to bury your head in someone’s hair, feel their fragrance, put your hand on a woman’s chest and feel her heart beating. And although he could afford all this with Emma, he felt only a passionate indifference towards her. Why passionate? Because she had passionately fallen in love with his money, his status and his capabilities. Because she used all this to its fullest, to light up in front of the cameras, to show off in all her glory. Because she teased him, in a bid to maintain the interest of the satiated god, coming up with more and more perversions. She did not care that he loved her. She understood that she only had this chance once in her life, and putting a lid on her open interest in women, she hugged him, kissed him and fulfilled all his whims. She was especially affectionate with him in public. This is why Robert was very fond of these public outings. When the floodlights faded, he realized that he was alone with his unshared feeling, which no longer was the sparkling glass of champagne that was in the beginning. He could not understand why, being adored by millions of women, he was so indifferent to this lesbian, and the bitterness of this discovery rolled up a lump at his throat.
Emma’s plan was simple. She wanted to marry this unfortunate Robert, turn him into an incapable alcoholic and take custody of him. Of course, it would be great if he got that way on his own, but Robert had quit so many times, that it was now not difficult to turn him to booze and drugs again. She was not often home. When she did come, she would start her dramas, which alternated with loving caresses, orgies, bouts, then the cycle would repeat again from the beginning. Robert had ceased to understand where he was and what was happening to him, why Emma was always beside herself, why sometime she would be scolding him and accusing him, then immediately would start making love to him. Afterwards, to unload his brain somehow, he would immerse himself in alcohol, skype and parties with old friends, that, as usual, ended up by drinking and doing drugs. After two years with Emma,
