the most final
concluding work

Olga was superbly good at kissing and liked it too, not for nothing she had so sensual lips. The bitter taste of burnt tobacco on her breath did not distract me overly much. Besides, standing by her khutta’s wicket, the very next time I saw her home, she shared a cigarette to me. I tried with cautious apprehension, yet it brought no bummer and I began to smoke even without Olga around.

The khutta, which I escorted her to, was dwelt by Olga’s aunt by whom she stayed that summer on her visit from Theodosia in the Crimea, where also lived her mother and elder sister. As for her father, he died in an accident driving a tractor when she was twelve years old. Olga loved him so much that sometimes she went to the cemetery in the dead of night to cry by the openwork monument welded of rebar rods with the tablet "Abram Kosmenko" fixed to it. Some name, eh? But he wasn't a Jew, just so was his name.

Her mother found a stepfather for her and her sister, no ZAGS registration though. He's a musician, knocking drums. One time, Olga lay on the couch with the temperature watching TV. He got seated next to her feet and covered his lap with the end of her blanket. Her mother saw it and raised some hell of yelling…

Then she went in for athletics, one hundred meter dash. The coach said she had a good physique for that sport. And their group even went for a competition in the regional center, Simferopol City. Before the dash, the coach made everyone eat a whole lemon, not a pinch of sugar to sprinkle it. He said, "It gets straight to the blood!"

Thus, between the kisses, we were getting to know each other more closely…

After that touring concert, Skully, Vladya and I went to the Seim for an overnight stay. By the evening local train, Skully and I got there bringing with us a large vinyl bag which Father had fetched from the RepBase. Such bags came there as wrapping for certain helicopter spare parts. The big translucent bag could easily do for a three-man tent. We also brought a guitar with us and then Vladya arrived by his scooter "Riga-4" loaded with the dinner.

On a sandy spit overgrown with young supple Willows, we put the bag-tent up. It was getting dark and we built a fire to share a bottle of wine by its light and the slathers of grub brought by Vladya, which seemed too much for a snack and was lavishly scattered around, however, no one cared because in the morning Vladya had to ride to Konotop after more chow…

He began to give out guitar riffs from popular hits. Above the placid water, the guitar sounds wafted mighty great, so clear, so full and… nyshtyak, in a word, it sounded out there… One fisherman in his boat anchored in the middle of the river liked it and asked to cut more. But when we roared "Shyzgara!" another night catcher from afar—near the other bank—began to curse us for scaring off his fish.

Skully advised not to mess around with him, the geezer could go and call more mujiks from the huts. The fire burnt out and we crawled under the vinyl roof…

At dawn, I woke up from water dripping into my face. Vinyl is absolutely water- and air-tight. The night-chilled walls kept our breathing inside turning it into water droplets—the condensate, at school they did not teach us of such things. So we met the morning cold and hungry. I hardly managed to wheedle Vladya to give me his "Riga-4" for riding after some eats instead of him…

Yes, motors are the real thing, you don't have to pedal or pull anything, the only effort is twisting the throttle handle and steering… I drove into the city mapping the routes in my mind: first – home, then to the Skully's khutta and to the Vladya's to collect available victuals, and then the ride back to the river.

"Plans on paper looked just fine

Yet, they'd missed out the ravine…"

Entering the left turn between the Station and Loony Park I heard my name called out loud. Over the Station square, Olga was dashing in her red mini-skirt. The coach was right – that's some physique!. I throttled down and let the scooter come to a stop…

She ran up with not a whiff of panting and let me have it – it's three days since I'd disappeared no one knew where and if I did not want going out with her I didn't have to she didn't care because yesterday she got a telegram from her mother inviting for a telephone talk with Theodosia and she said that's enough for staying and she had to go back in two days but I didn't care I rushed to the Seim with my fucking friends who were more dear to me than her and she was just a fool to think she had found someone she could trust and if I needed her the slightest bit I would stay with her right now.

After the cold condensate shower so torrid a squall, and her pending departure and the rise of incipient hope—hey, she might let have it off for a farewell, eh?—had their job done. I only begged for a couple of hours – to take the scooter to Vladya's khutta and go to change before our meeting at the Park…

Sure enough, my friends returned from the Seim by 17.20 local train, after they combed the entire sand spit in search of scraps that they had so improvidently scattered hither-and-thither at the orgy the night before. Who but I could understand them better? Once I also almost fainted from hunger on the Seim.

They stopped talking to me and boycotted for full 3 days. And who but I could understand them better? You couldn't boycott a dude for longer than 3 days if you played dances with him and your only means of communication was thru disgruntled Chuba.

Now, Olga.

Her breasts certainly lacked the yummy splendor of the melon-like treasures by Natalie. And the nipples were not jutting rigidly as prescribed in the literary tradition to the mentioned parts in the virgin anatomy. Yet, on unbuttoning both her blouse and my shirt to press her topless chest against mine for the first time (she did not have a bra on that occasion after dropping for a sec into the dark khutta yard) I was stunned by the immensity of the sensation caused by the naked female flesh.

The fact of her breasts being small and the nipples not too stiff she explained by diving from a cliff after rapans in the sea which happened to be too deep there and that’s why at the hospital they had to pierce her breasts.

(..some whopper for of a gaping sucker’s ears? I have no idea.

As a champion dupe, I believe anything they tell me. Faith, I mean it, while listening, I believe anything at all from whoever they be.

And because of my fundamentally delayed mental processing, the logical evaluation of the bullshit they fed to me takes place the following day if not later.

However, at that period I did not care for no logic – be it rapans or other fish. It's only now I feel curious at times – what kind of crap could be them those rapans? But then I'm too lazy to go Googling after them…)

Yet, the most captivating feature about her was her legs.

(..the sexual revolution was raging then all over the world reaching its apogee, and the laws of revolutionary times have no mercy, moreover, the laws of revolutionary fashion.

In modern, democratic times, you can wear whatever you want – be it maxi or midi or unisex. You can even choose to spend all of your life in sportswear and have no problem about it if only the pants legs bear those nice stripes from Adidas.

The sexual revolution established the dictatorship of mini all over the world so that if you considered yourself a woman, you had to bare your knees. The law was simple and short – either your skirt is for at least two inches above your knees or go and join the pack of pensioner lady-oldies idling on the common bench in the yard.

Dura lex, sed lex…)

Olga's mini was 10 inches above her knees. Therefore, when getting seated she chastely dropped her hand between her sportingly ripe thighs so as not to flash her panties. And on that bright and shining sunny day, when I stood next to the Under-Overpass tunnel and stared at her skipping in a nimble athletic style down the stairs from the Plant Park, flashing her yellow sports haircut and the ruby-red mini of hers, it became so clear to me that I was born in the epoch really worth to be born into.

A flick of the breeze tossed up the loincloth of her mini and she, on the run, sat it back with the everlasting gesture of Marilyn Monroe from some other, pre-revolutionary era.

He was her co-worker at Rags where she got a job because she hadn't gone to her mother in Theodosia but stayed in Konotop by her aunt.

"Rags" was how they named Recycling Factory on the very outskirts of Konotop, by the first stop of the local train going towards the Seim and farther.

Why not pick a job somewhere closer? Because at Rags they didn’t care too much for the labor legislation, and Olga then was barely just 15…

~ ~ ~