CHAPTER 1 

  Just as we are born with a set of physical characteristics, I believe we are also born with a more or less complete psychological profile. Early in our lives, first our parents, and later others, will attempt to squeeze us into moulds which distort our true self, and try to shape us into an image of what they wanted to be themselves but failed to achieve. Even worse, sometimes they are so vain, that they want us to be like themselves. Mind you, not their real self, but some idealised notion of what they think they are.
  A waste of time, I tell you.
Now, take me, for example. I was born in a provincial town in Russia. Naming it might upset some of the people living in this small community, and anyway, it wouldn’t add much to your knowledge of my country. The important point I want to get across is that I was born to be a sensual and physical girl. As far back as I can remember, and my earliest recollections go back to the age of three, I was interested in my body. And I had a mind of my own – mulish, Máma called me, but that was typical of  her.
  I close my eyes and I can picture myself sitting on the potty, playing with myself. No amount of dissuasion from Máma could stop me doing it.
‘Leave the girl alone, Katya,’ my Daddy would say to her, ‘she will grow out of it.’
But no, she ignored his advice, as she usually did. The more she tried, the firmer was my resolve to explore myself. In the end, all that she achieved was to stop me from doing it in front of her. For a while, she would catch me masturbating when I thought I was safe from prying eyes, but after many dramas and tears, she let me be. I guess it was easier for her to believe that if she didn’t see it, it wasn’t happening.
  By the age of eleven, I was very knowledgeable on the subject of sex, partly because of the exploration of my own body, but also because I spent a lot of time in the library, reading up on the subject matter. My classmates, (I didn’t have any friends,) thought I was a smartarse, and doubted my knowledge, preferring to believe the sanitised clinical shit doled out to us in the so-called sexual awareness classes. But I didn’t care; it was their loss. They chose to be stupid.
At about that time, one day when Daddy was away, I came home early and surprised Máma in their bedroom, naked in bed, under some stranger. After the man had departed in a hurry, my Máma cried a lot and begged me not to say a word to anyone about my discovery. I agreed, but that secret became a useful tool in my relationship with her.
  At the age of thirteen, I became friendly with a new classmate, a girl by the name of Anya. She was a blonde with long pigtails, a button nose and freckles on suntanned cheeks. We hit it off right from the start, and I decided to show her my diary, which I had kept for some years. It was a secret diary, which I hid under the house, in a place where no one ever went. Well actually, you would have to crawl to get to it, so it was safe.
  I showed Anya most of what I had in my diary, which covered the whole of my life to that point. But I am running ahead of myself. I started the diary when I was eight, and filled the events before that age. It was a faithful recounting of my experiences. I have a very good memory, and Miss Skolnik, my teacher, would tell me on many occasions that I was too grown up.
The things she read in the first couple of pages of my diary amazed Anya, but before I allowed her to read the rest, I swore her to secrecy. She readily agreed to my terms. This would be our secret.
When I was satisfied that I could trust Anya, I allowed her to read my entire diary, except for the secret business, which Máma and I shared. It wouldn’t have been a secret if I had let her read that part, would it? You may ask how I managed to keep this stuff from Anya. Well, my diary was a loose-leaf one, so I separated it into two sections. I thought I would plan ahead; maybe one day I would have other secret things going on, which would be none of Anya’s business. The separate sections would cover that situation.
  From the moment Anya had finished reading my diary, I noticed a big change in her behaviour. She said that she would tell me everything that had happened in her life. From now on, there would be no secrets between us, she said. I agreed, and encouraged her to tell me all. Naturally, I wasn’t going to tell her everything that was going on in my mind.
Soon after our agreement, Anya confided in me that she had explored her own private parts, and had concentrated there on a thing she had taken little notice of before.
  ‘Mara,’ she said excitedly, ‘rubbing it gave me pleasure which was better than eating chocolate ice cream.’
  Such a silly girl, I thought. ‘I can do it while I am eating a cream puff,’ I remarked. ‘Some of the cream applied there makes it feel yummier.’
  She looked at me with disbelieving eyes. ‘Are you sure? You didn’t write it down in your diary.’
‘If I’d written everything, I’d have had no time for anything else,’ I said. I could see that my mysterious smile got her all excited, and I was sure she would experiment as soon as she had the opportunity.
Two days later, her face flushed, she proudly announced, ‘I went out yesterday and bought a cream puff, which I hid in my backpack, until after bedtime.’
  ‘And?’ I gave her a smug smile.
  She rolled her eyes and declared. ‘Out of this world.’ She also said she would like to keep her own diary, but she lived in a small apartment and couldn’t think of a safe place to hide it. Would I mind if she kept it at my place?
  ‘Of course not,’ I replied. ‘I shall put it with my stuff.’
  ‘Will you show me where you hide it?’ she asked.
  ‘It’s complicated, and you wouldn’t want to get dirty.’ I assured her it would be safe with me.
  Two weeks later, Anya showed me a few pages of her newly started diary.
  ‘Is that all there is?’ I asked incredulously, having read four pages, which covered twelve years of her life. It was pretty ordinary.
  ‘I envy you,’ she told me, ‘you’ve had such an interesting life. I just couldn’t think of anything exciting to say.’ She then produced, rather shyly, further ten pages, which accounted for the last sixteen days of her life.
  ‘Wow!’ I enthused, after I’d read her stuff. ‘This is more like it. It’s right on the button.’
  We both giggled.
  I was sure Anya was pleased with my approval. Mind you, she was a tyro, but not bad for someone who had just begun to understand herself. Imagine, all those years gone to waste.
Over the next few weeks, we spent some time each day, comparing notes. Before I can explain to you the difference between my friend and myself, I should tell you a little about my family.
Daddy was an electrician, and worked for the local Electricity Supply Company. Máma was working in a small sewing workshop, making women’s dresses. She made dresses for herself and for me (I was their only child) in her spare time, on the old treadle machine at home. We couldn’t afford to buy clothing in shops because we were poor. Máma often complained to Daddy about where the money was going, but we all knew it was spent in the boozer, where he hung out. Also on cigarettes which they both smoked, but she forgot to mention that.
  Máma also kept saying our house was a disgrace. She was right, it had not seen a drop of paint since I was four, when Daddy’s mother had died and left it to him. Truth be told, some of it had probably never been painted. The bathroom was filthy and the parasha was in a rickety shed in the yard - no running water. I had to stand on the boards when I went there, and pinch my nose because of the stink. I refused to have my bottom touch the planks. Ugh!
While I am on that subject, I washed my private parts after each visit to that foul place. I wouldn’t dream of exploring myself unless everything smelled nice.
Often Daddy would come home drunk late at night, and Máma would lock him out of their bedroom. He would collapse on the sofa in the living room. I was sure she would have preferred him never to be in her bed.
  On the nights when he arrived tipsy, I could predict what would happen: Máma would accuse him of being an alcoholic (which was partially true) and a womaniser (which was unfair, knowing what I knew.)  He responded by entreaties, telling her how beautiful she looked when she was angry, and stuff like that. This produced the opposite effect to the one he would expect, but Daddy was a slow learner. After a few more exchanges, the voices and the action would escalate. He would attempt to mount her (I know because in my earlier years I watched them), she would resist, and so on. It invariably finished with him cursing her and falling asleep.
  It used to upset me when I was younger but I’ve learned to adjust to this kind of life. To drown out the sounds of quarrelling and subsequent loud snoring, I would put on my Walkman, listen to funky music, and concentrate on synchronising the beat with my self-indulgence.
Now, a few words about Anya’s setup. She lived with her mother (her old man had split) in a tidy little apartment, far from the intrusive railroad branch-line that divided our town. My window faced our backyard, which was metres away from the tracks. I could never get used to the thunder of the long line of wagons rattling our house at three in the morning.
Anyway, Aunty Lida, Anya’s mum, was a very kind and good-looking lady, who adored Anya, and spoiled her rotten. I mentioned cream puffs before; in our house, we had them only at Christmas and on my Nameday (if I was lucky). Aunty Lida made cakes, and baked wonderful meat and spiced cabbage piroshki every week.
  As you can imagine, Anya was a proper little princess who could detect a proverbial pea under her mattress. I certainly couldn’t, on occasions when I stayed overnight and we slept in her nice bed, the linen smelling of roses and lavender. My mattress at home was so lumpy I wouldn’t feel a melon under it.
  Now that I am twenty, I look back and realise that it was easy for me to invent excuses to stay with my friend.

CHAPTER 2 
 

‘   Again?’ Máma asked me when I announced I was off to Anya’s place.
‘  Yes, I am taking my books with me, so we can study tonight. I’ve been invited to sleep over.’
  ‘Lately you’ve spent more time there than at home. It seems to me that our house is not good enough
  for you any more.’ She looked at me with azure eyes that reflected years of injustice and misery.
‘    You tell me what’s so good about hanging out here? The peeling paint? My lousy bed? You're
   joking!’
‘    'I do the best I can, with what we have,’ she said in a monotone. ‘I work my tail off in that stuffy
   sweatshop, and what do I get for reward?’
     I picked up my bag.
  ‘  Anya’s mother doesn’t even ask for my permission to have you over.’
‘    We don’t have a telephone.’
‘    She could come by…’
‘    Are you joking? I would die of shame for her to see this dump.’
  I thought about Máma as I walked cautiously to avoid slipping on the icy pavement. At thirty-three,
s she looked more like forty-five, even on her good days. The trouble was that she never seemed to
  have any good days. Granny stopped her from marrying her school flame, the local ice-hockey hero.
  I am sure he never wanted Máma, but she kept insisting that he did. He married my Granny’s favourite
  daughter.
    To spite her mum, Máma married Daddy on the rebound. That was dumb. Don’t get me wrong,
  Daddy was sort of OK, except for his drinking, it’s just that I’m sure they had almost nothing in
   common in the beginning, and definitely less as time went on. I wished Daddy would stand up to her. She told me I was the only thing that stopped her from divorcing. I think it was an excuse for being
   gutless.
    On our side of the railway line, I passed the timber yard, where the band saw screamed like the German Stuka dive-bombers we had seen in the movies. Over the line, three small shops and a bakery huddled under one roof. The aroma of freshly baked cakes did not excite me, as it usually would, for I was sure Auntie Lida would have a surprise for us.
    The sky above looked like molten lead, bleak and depressing. Snowdrifts, brought about by last     n   ignight's blizzard, had all but buried a number of parked cars. The snowploughs had cleared the road,     a adding to their entombment. The edges of the snow heaps, like cross-sections of archaeological digs, s showed fresh white, yellow in the middle, and plain dirt layers. Some of the owners were shovelling a away the snow, cursing the weather.
    The stiff northeasterly was swirling loose snow about, but I didn’t care about the weather, reminding
   myself of Mark Twain’s joke that there’s nothing we can do about it. Actually, I was daydreaming of
   sunny southern Italy I had read about - Naples, Amalfi, and Capri. I loved everything Italian. Auntie
 Lida had once made delicious pasta with sliced smoked ham, all smothered in sour cream. Yum. There
   was no point asking Máma to cook anything like that. Lean borscht with sour cabbage and mouldy       b beetroot was more like our menu at home. Oh, and buckwheat porridge with a smidgen of lard.
    Anya lived on the second floor of a relatively new apartment block. On the scraper, I got rid of the
  slushy grime from my boots and rushed upstairs. Anya opened the door almost before I pushed the
   doorbell.
    Mara,’ she shrieked, embracing me and showering me with kisses, ‘I want to show you something,’
   she whispered in my ear.
    Inviting bouquet of aromas wafted from the kitchen. I gave Auntie Lida a small package.
    She unwrapped it, and looked through her glasses at the aquarelle I had drawn and coloured over
   the past few days.
    ‘What is it Mum?’ Anya asked. ‘Can I see?’
    Auntie Lida passed my drawing to Anya, removed her glasses and wiped her eyes with the heel of h h her other hand. Then she came over and gave me a bear hug.
    I had drawn a blonde woman with steel-rimmed glasses, her hands around two girls - a blonde with pipigtails and a black-haired one with light blue eyes. They were seated at a table laden with cookies
   and tarts.
    ‘Thank you, my dear. That was very sweet of you,’ Auntie Lida said quietly, her head turned away  frfrom me, and departed for her kitchen.
    I didn’t think it was a big deal, but she was inclined to be a bit mushy.
    ‘Who are these people?’ Anya asked, holding the painting.
    Silly girl, I thought. ‘What did you want to show me?’
    She grabbed my backpack, took me by the hand and dragged me to her room. It was a small room,
   tastefully decorated in pink, mauve and grey colours. A couple of large dolls, dressed in Russian
   costumes, sat on the dressing table, which also displayed a row of wooden dolls. A bookshelf was full o of books and magazines. A steam radiator hissed under the window facing the street. All the rooms in t  his apartment had one of those, I observed. No such luxury in our dump.
     Anya looked at me impishly.
    ‘What?’ I asked.
    ‘Notice anything different?’
    I looked around. ‘Oh, that.’ I walked to her writing desk and picked up a photograph of myself,
  framed in an elegant chrome frame. I remembered Aunty Lida taking photos of us a few weeks ago.
    My shoulder-length hair was swept up and tied into a roll, pinned by a pretty amber comb, which she h had given me some weeks before.
     ‘You like it?’ Anya asked.
     ‘Not bad.’
     ‘Not bad. Not bad?’ she shouted. ‘I think it’s beautiful. Only the most beautiful girl in our school.’ She
   came over and gave me a hot kiss on the cheek. ‘I got a book on reading faces,’ she said excitedly. ‘
   Look,’ she picked up a book from the shelf and opened it on a page full of photographs of faces.
   ‘See,’ she said pointing to an oval one, with rounded cheekbones and forehead, a widish mouth and a straight nose. ‘Now look at your photo.’
     I did. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘so?’
     ‘So, it says further in this book that people with your face are called a Jupiter/Venus combination – a classic beauty. It also talks about your personality.’
     ‘Do tell,’ I said.
     ‘You are supposed to be intelligent and confident. That’s the Jupiter in you.’
     ‘What does it say about the Venus part?’
     She came over and whispered in my ear, ‘Sensual and sexy.’
     Ok, I knew that. ‘What about you?’ I asked as we Auntie Lida called us.
     She giggled. ‘After dinner.’
     ‘You are very talented,’ Aunty Lida praised my art as she served us sweet peppers stuffed with
   grated carrots, and smoked pike. She had propped up my present by a vase on the sideboard.
     ‘Oh, I see,’ Anya shouted, ‘it’s supposed to be the three of us!’ and then added, ‘Not a good
   likeness.’
     I looked up at the ceiling.
     Aunty Lida shook her head and smiled. ‘My Anya is a little slow in the sentiment department.’
    ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ I said, casting a sideways glance at my friend, who blushed deeply.
    ‘This is delicious,’ I said after we had tasted juicy pork-and-veal rissoles, served on a bed of fluffy
   mashed potatoes, all covered with pan juices.
     ‘Look, girls,’ Auntie Lida said later as she brought in a mound of mouth-watering dessert, with a
   couple of spitting sparklers on top. She doused the light and we sat in darkness, our faces pulsating in a disco-like strobing.
    ‘What is it?’ I asked. I had never seen such a spectacle.
    ‘Bombe glacée,’ Anya pronounced knowingly. ‘We have it on special occasions.’
    ‘What’s the occasion?’ I wanted to know.
    ‘Mum’s Nameday,’ Anya announced proudly.
    The ice-cream centre was covered with delicious custard and sprinkled with almond crumbs. We
   wished Auntie Lida a Happy Nameday and toasted her with real apple juice. I paid tribute to her
   cooking. This was heaven, and I was a part of it. Life couldn’t get any better.
    ‘Can we help?’ Anya asked when we were all done.
    ‘No, my dears,’ Auntie Lida replied. ‘I’ll put everything away. Don’t you two have homework to do?’
    We went back to Anya’s room, exchanging glances. As soon as Anya closed the door, she rushed to
   her school bag, rummaged through it and pulled out some sheets of lined paper. Noting her neat writing, I  knew what it was.
     Anya’s entries were all about her interpretation of guessing people’s characters. She was greatly
   impressed with her new book on human faces – it was called Physiognomika. I burst out laughing; the
   word was almost identical to phisionomia (a common Russian word for a derogatory description of
   someone’s face – a mug.)
     Anya didn’t think it was funny. She took the subject matter seriously.
     ‘All right, what does it say about your personality?’ I asked, forcing myself to appear serious.
     ‘This is me, see,’ she pointed to a roundish face, with a snub nose and handsome eyes. The eyes
   were big and almond-shaped, and the text noted that they were nearly always on the verge of bursting
   into tears - from joy or sorrow.
     I looked at Anya searchingly. It was her face, all right. Moss-agate eyes, looking like a helplessly lost
   kitten, eliciting sympathy and caresses. ‘Ok,’ I agreed, but omitted to tell her about the kitty bit. She was
   such a baby.
     When we had finished dissecting our personalities, I let Anya know that the book was in line with my
   basic views that all of us are born with a set of physical and mental characteristics that shape our lives.
   It’s therefore not surprising that there would be a relationship between the two.
     ‘So,’ she said, ‘show me your stuff.’
     ‘It was a boring week,’ I said.
     ‘We have to share everything, remember?’
     I retrieved my diary sheets, we sat on the bed and I read to her the recorded events over the past
   few days.
     It was all about Máma and Daddy suffocating each other, even though they never touched. She was cold and distant, rebuffing all overtures on his part to break the ice.
     In an episode I’d overheard one night, he was trying to make conversation. He read to her something from a magazine about a famous film star and how she attracted a swarm of male admirers.
    ‘You wouldn’t get within smelling distance of her,’ she said. ‘A woman needs a real man.’ She walked
   out on him and slammed the bedroom door behind her.
    ‘Doesn’t she love him?’ Anya asked.
    ‘I don’t think she ever did.’
    ‘I read somewhere that you cannot make babies with someone unless you love them.’
    ‘They made me, didn’t they?’ I replied.
    ‘I never met my dad. Mum said he left us when I was still a baby.
    ‘Maybe you didn’t miss that much…’
    A knock on the door made us shove our diaries under the pillows.
    ‘Bed time, young ladies,’ we heard Auntie Lida’s voice. We were glad she didn’t open the door. ‘I’ve
   filled the bathtub for you.’
    I hid our notes in my bag and we set off for the bathroom.
    Having a bath in Anya’s place was another super experience. Clean tiles, hot water, warm and fluffy towels on racks above the radiator. Half their luck!
    One day I am going to have a bathroom just like this, only better, I thought. Maybe in Italy, like those
   photos I saw in a fashion magazine – all marble, glass and chrome.
    We undressed and examined each other’s bodies to see what had changed from the last inspection.
    ‘Your buffers are bigger than mine,’ Anya pouted, pointing to my pink buds on top of shallow hemispheres. And I have no hair down there.’
    ‘Don’t worry, Anya,’ I assured her, confident of my research, ‘it won’t be long now.’
    ‘But when?’ she asked anxiously, wiping the condensation on the mirror to look for evidence on her
   own body. ‘Nothing,’ she announced with disgust.
    ‘You are six months younger than I am, and in any case I read that dark-haired girls mature quicker than blondes.’
    ‘I miss out again,’ she said as we plunged into the tub.
    We splashed around for a while and Anya’s mood improved. By the time we put on our nighties and climbed into Anya’s warm bed, we both giggled happily.
    A sense of well-being spread over my body. I was away from my cold home where chilly winds of
   hostility and discord blew even on warm days. Here, with Anya and Auntie Lida, I felt comfortable and wanted. Why couldn’t my home be like that?
     I turned towards my friend and embraced her tightly.
    She returned my embrace and remained silent for a few moments, her hot cheek against mine.
  Then, without breaking contact, she turned her head until I could feel her sibilant breathing on my lips. ‘Mara,’ she whispered, ‘I will always love you, for ever and ever.’
    She moved her body away from mine and I could feel her hesitant hand creeping under my nightie
   and across the top of my thigh. I turned on my back, my breathing halting for a moment. Her clinging
  fingers slid between my thighs and continued their upward travel.
    ‘Mara?’ she whispered.
    ‘Mmmmm?’
    ‘You know what we talked about in our diaries?’
    ‘How we did it to ourselves?’ My heart was pounding.
    ‘Uhum.’
    ‘Will you show me how you do it?’
    My right hand moved obediently until my fingers were in the familiar place between the soft folds.
   Almost immediately, I could feel her index finger on top of mine. As my finger started to follow its bidding, Anya covered my hand with hers, her fingers assisting me in my task.
    ‘No more,’ I sighed, when my body had achieved the familiarly blissful condition quicker than usual. I squeezed my thighs, trapping our hands between them.
    ‘Mara?’ Anya whispered again.
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘You want to feel how I do it?’ 

CHAPTER 3 

 ‘What are you doing, Mara?’ Máma asked when I was soaking my bloodstained underwear in the
 bathtub.
  ‘What does it look like?’
  ‘You are bleeding?’ she said.
‘It’s menarche, Máma,’ I laid on a scientific name for it. That’s what the good book said.
‘What?’
I shrugged.
‘You’ve had your period,’ she said, this time the tone a little more sympathetic.
‘Máma, you need more RAM to absorb this amount of information.
‘Don’t talk in riddles. Is this your first?’
I looked at the ceiling. ‘It would have helped if you’d warned me it was coming.’ I knew the period would come, but it would have been nice if she had exhibited some concern.
‘I was going to…it’s just that I didn’t think it was time yet.’
I dried my hands with a towel. ‘Look Máma, some of the girls at school have them at eleven. Their mothers tell them beforehand. I am thirteen.’
‘Things are changing so fast.’
‘Excuses. Your life is one big excuse.’
‘Don’t be insolent,’ Máma shouted.
‘Well, isn’t it?’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Other daughters are a joy to their mothers,’ she started.
‘Other daughters have mothers who care.’
‘Don’t you think I care?’ she sobbed.
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’ I picked up my bag and went for the door.
‘I’ll tell your father how beastly you are to me,’ she said as I half opened the door.
Firstly,’ I said slowly, turned around and looked at her teary face, ‘he won’t give a shit about your snivelling tattle.’ Still holding the door handle, I added, ‘And you won’t do it anyway, will you Máma?’
I gave her a meaningful stare, resisted the impulse to slam the door behind me, and heard her anguished cry as I was closing it.
I didn’t pull this stunt very often, but it was a very handy weapon. Máma never understood me, but she knew that my threats were actual promises. I never had to deliver.
‘Yo, baby,’ Misha caught up with me on the way to school. He was a local sixteen-year old boy masquerading as a man.
‘Hi, Ice,’ I replied, my heart in my throat. Tall and muscular, he was our school hero, well known for his rapping performances of Vanilla Ice. I could dig that music. Auntie Lida had bought me To The Extreme CD some time ago. I nearly pissed myself laughing when she told me that she had put it on her machine and thought she had got my request wrong. Some kind of African savages yelling, she had said.
‘Want to listen to some rappin’?’ he asked.
‘Why me?’ He had never taken notice of me.
He shrugged. ‘The last time I looked, you had no buffers.’
I swung my fist into his stomach. I didn’t know if he had anticipated my move, but it was as hard as a rock.
‘Does that mean yes?’ he chortled.
‘Why don’t you ask when you’ve learned some manners?’ I crossed the road and entered the schoolyard. You fool, I chided myself, now you’ve pissed him off.
By midday, I was totally turned off listening to Miss Skolnik droning on about the Chechen border. I wish we had a Chechen boarder in our house. The Chechen boy in our class looked very sexy. But then who would want to live in our dump?
‘Mara, stop daydreaming,’ the teacher’s voice interrupted my reverie.
‘I wasn’t,’ I said, looking out the window.
‘What was I talking about?’ she persisted, her ironic tone implying that she had me.
I sighed. ‘Kyzlyar is in Dagestan and not in Chechnya.’ We heard about this shit from her before.
‘Look at me when I speak,’ she said resignedly, accepting defeat.
When we broke up for lunch, Anya and I walked into the yard and sat on the brick fence. Anya opened her lunch box and pulled out a couple of sandwiches.
‘Where’s your lunch?’ she asked.
‘In the mailbox.’
‘What mailbox?’
‘Oh, Máma made me a sandwich. A lump of old sausage squeezed between two thick slices of stale bread. No butter.’ I poked out my tongue in disgust. ‘I pushed it through the slot of someone’s box.’
‘Mara!’
‘You don’t expect me to eat that shit, do you?’
‘Here, have one of mine.’ She handed me an egg and mayonnaise sandwich. The fresh Moscow rye was crusty and buttered.
 I was half way through the delicious meal when a shadow took the sun away from my face. I looked up.
‘Yo, again, sexy.’ Ice gave me a provocative grin.
I nearly choked on my food.
‘You told me to ask you again.’ He spread his arms, with palms up. ‘So, I’m asking, pretty please.’
‘When… where?’ I stammered.
He looked at Anya and then at me. ‘Three is company. Want to take a walk?’
I cast a sideways glance at my friend.
‘You don’t need her permission, do you?’ he asked.
‘Of course not.’
I took his outstretched hand and he pulled me up. We started to circle the yard. I was aware of him sizing me up, looking down my blouse. My heart began to beat faster. I looked up at him and met his gaze. ‘So what’s all this about?’ I asked.
‘I thought you’d like to listen to some rap music. Tonight?’
Wow, I thought, a date with V-Ice. ‘Cool,’ I said, struggling to maintain my composure, ‘Where?’
‘You know the small clearing behind the timber yard?’
I nodded.
‘Come over after eight.’
‘Sure.’
‘OK, I’ll see you then.’ He turned around and started talking to another boy I didn’t know.
I stood there for a few seconds and decided to split.
‘Mara!’ I heard his voice when I was a few paces away.
I looked back and saw him giving me a thumbs up. ‘Nice arse.’
‘What gives?’ Anya gave me a puzzled look.
‘He asked me for a date,’ I said, mustering as much cool as I could.
She continued looking at me.
‘So? What’s the problem?’ I asked.
‘You didn’t say yes?’ She looked at me with eyes wide open. ‘I see,’ she said after my silence.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘I thought you loved me.’
‘Of course I do. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I thought we were, you know, friends.’
‘You are my only friend, Anya.’
She pouted.
I shook my head and went back to my class. I loved that girl; she was the only link with the normal life I longed for. But the first time a spunky boy asked me for a date, she went all funny. I didn’t give it more thought.
‘Why are you getting all dolled up?’ Máma asked that evening. I had washed my hair, put on a pair of jeans and the nicest blouse I had. She didn’t know I had borrowed one of her lipsticks, which was now in my pocket.
‘I am going to Anya’s,’ I said.
She looked at Daddy, who happened to be home at the time, and sober, or nearly so. He shrugged.
‘I never get support from you,’ she rasped at him.
‘What’s the harm in going to her friend’s?’ he said, rolling one of his smelly fags. ‘Have you done your homework?’ he asked me.
I nodded.
He lit his smoke, drew on it and pointed at me with the cigarette wedged between his nicotine stained fingers. ‘Good looking lass,’ he said, nodding his head.
‘She is a mere child,’ Máma said. ‘You two always gang up on me.’
‘Come on, Katya, stop complaining. You were young once.’ He nodded again. ‘And good looking. That’s why I married you.’
‘You married me because I virtually threw myself at you,’ she said. ‘I was an idiot.’
‘Out of profound respect for you, I cannot argue with that.’ Daddy bowed to Máma and swept his arm in an arc.
‘You can mock me all you like, you…’ She shook her head; evidently searching for the most vicious name she could call him. She looked at me, and resumed unpicking a dress she was making. She often brought work home. I guessed she had stuffed up the hem again. Finally she looked at Daddy and came up with what she must have thought was the most she could call him in front of me, ‘You pitiful excuse for a man.’
This was a piss weak version of what I had overheard her say to him on many occasions.
‘Don’t wait for me,’ I’ll be late,’ I said as I started for the door.
‘I suppose I have to be grateful you’ve decided not to sleep over this time,’ Máma intoned.
‘I’ll wait up for you, Márochka,’ Daddy winked at me as he poured some vodka into his shot glass.
‘You’ll be out of this world by the time she graces us with her presence,’ Máma said.
‘With a little privacy, maybe we can be nice to each other,’ he said sidling up to her and showing her the bottle. ‘Want some? It’ll put you in a better mood.’
‘Don’t touch me,’ she hissed moving away from him.
‘You people make me sick,’ I said and slammed the door behind me.
Outside, I took a deep breath. The balmy evening air felt good after the stifling atmosphere at home. God, how I wished I were free of this shitty situation. One day, I am going to fly away. I spread my arms and imagined flying high above the forest, like our storks, which left us each September, looking for warmer climate. I looked down and instead of a babbling brook, saw dirty pools of water, which the afternoon storm had left scattered on the pavement.
One day I’ll fly; Italy, wait for me.
I applied some lipstick, using someone’s window as a mirror.
Approaching the timber yard, I could hear the familiar Ice, Ice, Baby rap accompanied by a guitar. I began to click my fingers to the beat.
Behind the yard, I came across a group of boys and girls sitting on the grass. I recognised some of them from our school.
Ice was rapping the lyrics in Russian. He seemed to be in a trance, a world of his own. This was the first time I’d heard the song in our language and I felt tingly all over.
No one took any notice of me, so I plonked myself on the grass and enjoyed the music. He was super, no two ways about it. The boy on the guitar was good too.
 When he had finished the song, everyone applauded enthusiastically.
‘Da, da, da,’ I yelled spontaneously.
Ice opened his eyes, looked in my direction and came over, carrying two bottles in his hand. ‘Glad you could make it,’ he said, sitting beside me.
‘You were wonderful,’ I nodded, ‘real cool.’
‘Have a drink, baby,’ he said, shoving a bottle under my nose.
I shook my head vigorously. ‘I don’t drink.’ There was enough drinking in my family.
‘It’s only beer,’ he said as he opened the two bottles. ‘Like Coca-Cola.’ He nudged me on the shoulder with one of them.
I took it.
He raised his. ‘To beautiful chicks,’ he said, looking into my eyes.
I took a swig from the bottle. It was bitter, but I kept a straight face.
‘You like it?’ he asked.
I made a noncommittal noise.
Many songs and several beers later, we all sat in a circle. Someone played on an accordion.
People kept appearing and disappearing, and I lost track of the time. The voices had thinned out until I realised Ice and I were all alone. Whatever they put into that stuff must have worked, for I felt warm and light-headed.
Ice embraced me and kissed me on the mouth. It was my first kiss. Whatever we did with Anya, we never kissed on the mouth. His lips were wet and he smelled of beer, naturally. While I was busy thinking whether I liked kissing, I felt his hand creeping under my blouse. My breathing stopped momentarily as he cupped my breast and began kneading it. Mmmmm, that felt good. Shortly, his hand slid down and lodged itself in my crutch. Even before he started massaging me, I felt all wet.
He unzipped his fly, slid his pants down his thighs and guided my hand on top of his cock. I was surprised at its size; it seemed to be longer and thicker than I had been led to believe, reading those books. I panicked. What was I supposed to do? Then I remembered that the books also said that a man liked to be stroked. So, I moved my hand up and down his shaft.
 He fumbled with my fly, and eventually succeeded in getting his hand into my panties. His fingers felt delicious, as he probed my folds and shortly came across my engorged clit.
Not a word was said.
Unexpectedly, with his other hand, he brought my head down until my face was staring at his cock. Like a fool, I opened my mouth and took it in until its head was touching my palate. I started to suck it, but almost immediately his body began to shudder and he emitted a stifled cry.
I withdrew my head but held his pulsating shaft, which spurted out the gooey stuff. Some of it got onto my lips and I wiped them with my other hand. It tasted salty.
He stopped playing with me and lay motionless on the ground, mumbling how good it felt.
Maybe he felt good, but he didn’t seem to be concerned about how I felt.
Home in my bed, my body was still shaking, wanting a release to which I was accustomed. At least with Anya, we both finished the task to its ultimate conclusion.
I put on the V-Ice CD in my Walkman, listened to the beat and finished the job myself.
No one was going to cheat me out of what was rightfully mine.
I should make it up with Anya was my last thought as I drifted off to sleep.