MOSCOW, March 27, 2006 -- My Nokia mobile phone went immobile Monday night. I loaned it to the cretin Yuri to call somebody, and when he gave it back it didn’t work.
“I didn’t do anything,” he protested. “It just broke.”
Anyway, nothing to do but buy a new one – just like my old one – for 1600 rubles, a little more than 50 bucksi at a time when every dollar might be needed to pay the overdue rent.
“If I could get my old one fixed, I could give this one to you,” I told Zhorik. Yuri said he knew where to get it fixed for less than 500 rubles – about $ 17.
So I gave Yuri the phone and 500 rubles.
“I know where to get it fixed,” Zhorik volunteered.
Great! That’ll give him something to do. So I gave the phone and the 500 rubles to him.
The next day, Tuesday, was the day I had promised to have the rent money. Maybe we should wait and see if we have enough. So before I left for classes, I instructed Zhorik: “Don’t spend the 500 rubles. We may need it for rent.”
“Okay.”
When I came home at 8 p.m. after giving my first lesson in Human Resources Management at Potemkin U., there was no Zhorik. When student Alexei came a few minutes later, he gave me $ 100 -- enough to make the $ 800 rent plus a few more bucksi. Just in time!
Zhorik arrived a little later. When I went to the bedroom after Alexei left, Zhorik was lying on the bed watching TV. “Where’s the 500 rubles?”
“I went drinking”
“Who with?”
He mumbled something.
“I told you not to spend the 500 rubles.”
“I forgot.”
“Anyway, it was to get the mobile phone fixed. Why did you spend it on booze?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re as bad as Sergei.”
“I’m the same as Sergei?” he demanded.
“I can’t trust Sergei with money; I can’t trust you with money.”
“I’m going into the army,” he announced angrily. “In April.”
“It’s your decision,” I replied, stalking out of the room.
“Yes, it’s my decision.”
For the rest of the night he was short and snappy.
My old buddy Ned W., incorrigibly straight former fantasy and ex-West Virginia real estate partner, called. He’s divorced for the third time and dating a woman from North Carolina who adopted a daughter from Russia 7 years ago. They’re thinking of coming to Moscow this fall.
I invited them to stay with me and promised to explore the visa situation for them.
Saturday I had a follow-up e-mail. Our buddy Sam Love had sent him the address for the Red Queen.
“I checked out your website this morning,” he wrote. “Very impressive. Excellant writing resulting in pleasurable/entertaining reading. Good writing ! ! ! I've always admired every aspect of your writing.
“Smokin' Hot Too ! WHEW !
“Sounds like there's never a dull moment at your home. Is it a safe place to bring an 8 year old girl? Ha! Seriously?”
“Unless I'm luckier than I expect to be, everything will be quite tame,” I responded. “In any case, I would make it quite tame for your visit. I have a two-room (translated as 2-bedroom) apartment, and I would expect the three of you to stay in one room and I in the other. In a word, don't sweat the living arrangements.”
Just as I was going to bed about midnight, Zhorik turned on the TV.
“Honey,” I protested.
He ignored me.
Without a word, I got up and went into Anton’s room to sleep on the couch.
When I got up to pee in the middle of the night, he was still glued to the TV.
I woke up again about 5 and went to see what the situation was. He was lying on his back in his shorts.
He looked up at me and patted the bed beside him.
I lay down and put my arm around him.
We chatted. Neither of us mentioned the night before. I stroked everything I could get my hands on, including his naked ass and upper legs.
“We haven’t played in a long time.”
“I don’t want to now. Maybe later.”
“Later tonight? Later this week?”
“I’ll tell you when I want to.”
We both went to sleep. When I woke up at 7, I played with his dick and for the first time in several days prevented some more prostate cancer.
For the next couple of days, the atmosphere between us remained frosty, and my sensation of futility and emptiness continued to grow. Despite taking Melatonin at 10 p.m. he was remaining up all night watching TV or playing with the computer. We were hardly speaking to each other, and he was generally unresponsive. When I had asked him, while he was sitting at the computer playing some sort of car-racing game, to clean up the kitchen he had grumbled:
“Why can’t Yuri do it?”
“Are you so busy doing such important things that you can’t do it?” I demanded. “I have a student in half an hour.”
He went to the kitchen, took the dirty dishes and put them in the bathtub out of sight.
He is becoming nothing but a vegetable, I fumed. Worse: a parasite, a leech. He doesn’t go anywhere or do anything but watch TV or play computer games. He plays all night and sleeps all day and siphons off money for cigarettes, cocktails, telephone cards. Maybe the army is a good idea after all.
He finally fell asleep about the time my student Anton arrived at 11:30.
That night, after my last student left at 10 p.m. I asked him if he was hungry.
“Huh-uh.”
“What have you eaten today?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean you’re not hungry?”
“I’m not hungry.”
I decided to go to the 24-hour internet salon nearby and get a free copy of the Moscow Times.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get a newpaper.”
“Would you get me something to eat from Rostik’s?”
This did nothing to mollify my simmering impatience. He’s too lazy to get dressed and go to Rostik’s to have a meal with me, but he’ll send me as his errand boy to get him something to eat.
He seemed a little softer when I got back, and we actually lay down to sleep together about 11:30.
When I awoke at 3:30. He was awake. When I started stroking his back, he got up wordlessly and left the room. After a few minutes I went to take a pee. He was in the bathroom with the door locked. “Are you taking a shower?” I asked through the door.
“I’m getting ready to.”
“I’ve got to pee.”
He unlocked the door and we traded places.
As I left, he said, “Do you want to sleep?”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Do you want to sit and talk to me while I take a bath?”
“Sure.”
So we did our bath intimacy routine. For about an hour he lay in the tub while I stroked his stomach, chest, legs, upper inner thighs, balls, and dick. Only once did he get a hard on, and when he did, I deep-throated him several times, but not enough to come.
“Maybe we’ll play tomorrow,” he said.
He repeated his complaint that I was kissing him too much. “It makes me uncomfortable.”
“I’m just trying to show my affection for you. If I don’t kiss you, how will you know I love you?”
“All I have to do is look at you,” he smiled.
“Monday night, you said you were going to the Army in April,” I said. “Were you serious?”
“I don’t know. If I don’t go to the army, my friends are going to be mad at me.”
“Which friends?”
“Igor, Alexey.”
“Honey, I think you’re not happy now. You don’t have any enthusiasm; you don’t do anything but watch TV and play computer games. You’re becoming a vegetable.”
“I was happy for a few days when Sergei and Andrei left the first time.”
“But they’re not here now, and you’re still not happy.”
“I can’t decide whether to go to the army or not.”
He repeated the story of his and Igor’s pledge to go to the army together and live together afterward. “We’ll save all our money,” he said, “and buy a house when we get out.
“But I don’t want to leave you alone,” he added.
“Thank you, honey. I really appreciate that, but I’ll survive. I don’t want you to go into the army, but not for me, for yourself. I think it will be a mistake. But if going into the army will make you happy, then I think you should go. But frankly, I don’t think you’ll save all your money. I think you’ll gulyat and drink.”
He said the army didn’t pay its soldiers until they were discharged, and then it was available in a lump sum from Sberbank, so he wouldn’t be spending his money foolishly. He planned to quit smoking and drinking entirely, and figured that he and Igor would have about $ 13,000 between them by the time they got out, and Alexey would bring it up to about $ 20,000.
“Honey, where can you buy a house for $ 20,000? Do you plan to live in Svetlograd?”
“No. We could maybe buy a house in the outskirts of St. Peterburg.”
“Maybe. I don’t know about the prices. But it sounds to me like you’re not going to be happy if you don’t go to the army.”
“I don’t know. I have to think some more.”
“Well, you need to make up your mind soon, because early April is almost here. A week from tomorrow is the last day of March.
“I know. I wouldn’t want to go if it weren’t for Igor,” he said apologetically.
“I think you love him very much.”
“I do. But not sexually. I could never have sex with him. But we’re closer than brothers.”
“Love is the most important thing in the world – with or without sex,” I said, adding, “personally, I think maybe Igor is a closet gay.”
“You’re not the first to say that,” he replied, adding “If I go to the army, I will miss you.”
“I will miss you, too, honey.”
By this time it was 4:30. My first class was three hours away.
“I’ve got to try to sleep,” I said finally. “I hope you come to bed and try too.”
I lay down. A few minutes later he joined me.
As he lay on his back, our bodies touching and our arms entertwined, I started my usual ritual of massaging, stroking. “Is your sergeant going to massage your chest for you?” I joked.
He laughed. “I’m very happy when we lie together like this,” he said. I stroked his cheek and lay my head against his.
He turned toward me and I put my arm around him. We lay silently for a few minutes.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I’m going to turn on the computer.”
“Okay,” I sighed a little sadly.
“I’ll be nearby,” he said reassuringly.
By Friday evening, the affection between us had become palpable. The frost hostility of just a couple of days ago seemed like ancient history. We did a big supermarket shop together and brought back two bottles of cheap Moravian dessert wine.
After we had put away the groceries, we opened the wine and sat down to chat.
He told me why he didn’t like for me to take his arm when we were walking. “That’s what girls do.” Better to put my arm on his shoulder – like macho buddies. Hey, no problem.
He told me that queer fat Misha had called and twin Sergei had been at his apartment -- back in town. When Misha had handed the phone to Sergei, Sergei had asked Zhorik to meet him. Zhorik had refused. “I don’t have any brothers.” Sergei hung up.
When we had drained both bottles of wine, we went to the bedroom. “Do you want to play around?” he asked, switching on the porn.
I hopped into bed naked and played with his dick, stomach and legs. I deep-throated him and proceeded to jerk him off. The wine had set in and it took a lot longer than usual, but finally, the “Dane, I’m going to come” issued from his throat.
“I want you to come,” he said after I had drained him. I tried, but I was too dead from the wine. He did everything to help: He repeatedly erected, because I usually come after he does that three or four times. He also held the flashlight on his bulging, tumescent cock, which also usually works. But not now!
“Maybe if we go to the bathroom you can come while I take a bath.”
I followed him, still naked, to the bathroom, pulled off his shorts, and kissed his beautiful ass. He lay in the tub while I continued to jerk myself, but it still wasn’t working.
“I’ve got to pee,” he said.
“Pee in the tub.”
I’ve never been turned on by golden showers, but when the thin golden stream started arcing from his slightly enlarged dick, my hand suddenly filled with cum. I soaked up as much as possible with toilet paper, but I was still white-washed with it.
“Honey, when you finish, don’t let the water out. I’ll get in the tub after you.”
“Why don’t you get in the tub with me now?”
It was a sublime new level of intimacy. His father used to give him his bath this way, he said.
“I’m going into the army,” he announced.
“You’ve decided?”
“Yes, I’ll leave at the end of March.”
“That’s next week!”
“I’ll leave on the 31st.”
“That’s one week from today! You’ll need a thousand dollars, right?” I added.
“Yes. I’ve been thinking of how I will get to Svetlograd. Do you know what I’d like to do?” he said beguilingly.
“No.”
“Fly,” he laughed. “I love flying.”
“Okay, honey. You can fly.” It’ll be my final gift.
We sat silently for a few seconds while I played with his dick and my own.
“You’ll probably have other boyfriends more beautiful and smarter and better educated than me,” he said somberly. “But I hope you won’t forget me.”
Other boyfriends! That means he acknowledges that we’re boyfriends! Holy hemorrhoids!
“Honey, I’ll never forget you! What I’m afraid of is that you’ll forget me!
“I can never forget you,” he replied. “I’ll be so glad when I see you again, I’ll hug you till your belly pushes out your back.”
We both laughed.
He said that Sergei told him a long time ago that he and Andrei were sly, crafty, insidious. So maybe they’ve been planning this fleecing operation the whole time! He also told me how they repeatedly told him that our relationship wouldn’t last, that I’d get tired of Zhorik and leave him for somebody else.
“They were just jealous, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Yes.”
We talked about how he was different from Sergei and Andrei because he was honest, trustworthy, kind.
“Those are the most important things in life,” I said. “I guess that sounds boring.”
“No, no,” he protested. “Nobody has ever talked to me this way before. I’ve never had anyone in my whole life I could talk to like this. I can never forget you. I think there’s a good chance I’ll be stationed in Moscow, and I can come visit you. And maybe after we get out of the army, we’ll live together – you, me, and Igor.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “Who knows?”
So suddenly, in these last two days, we’ve become so incredibly close, so intimate, so affectionate, so deeply attached, so inseparable.
Inseparable? A week from today he’ll be gone!
I already feel an emptiness, a longing. Of all the relationships I’ve had, I think ours is the truest, the most real, the deepest. I think I will miss him a great deal. I wonder if I will cry.
While we were sitting in the tub together, he said, “Let’s do this again tomorrow night. We’ll smoke cigars and drink wine and Anton can take our picture.”
But Anton wasn’t around when we got ready to hop in the tub, and somebody had left my old camera on and the batteries were dead. No pix!
It was another exotic, erotic adventure. He managed to come despite the wine and “Trophy” vodka cocktails. “My dick likes your fingers,” he smiled.
But between the wine and three “Streets,” my magic moment continued to elude me despite extraordinary help from Zhorik. I’ve never seen his cock more tumescent, more beautiful, more responsive, more accommodating.
But I finally burst as I continued to watch him play with his engorged toy in the tub. With considerable relief, I told Zhorik I had been afraid I was getting too old to come.
“No, you’re fine,” he comforted.
While I was with private students Sunday, he went to buy his airline ticket. The ones for the 31st were $ 200, so he wound up buying one for $ 150 for March 29, Wednesday night, two days earlier. I won’t be able to see him to the airport, because I have an Institute of Diplomacy class that night.
So, suddenly, time is very short. We’re spending as much time as possible together, and the affection is still like the frosting on a lovely cake.
Nasty Nastya called yesterday for Sergei and then asked for Zhorik. “What did she want?” I asked later. “She wanted me to come fuck her.”
“Be careful with her,” I warned.
“I’m not going to fuck her,” he replied. “I don’t want to.”
Just the night before, he had told me that he hadn’t had sex with a woman since New Year’s in Svetlograd – almost three months.
“Women can’t give good blow jobs,” he said. “Yours are much better.” So after three months of sex only with me, he turned down a free fuck from the resident slut. Am I that good or is she that bad?
Anyway, the stark reality – Zhorik is leaving -- is blocking out everything else: the elections in Belarus and Ukraine, the continuing stand-off between Russia and the U.S. over Iran, and the growing coziness between China and Russia leading to – what?
The big news -- at least for now -- is that I’m losing my Zhorik. I’ve grown so used to and so emotionally dependent on him.
Will I remember the vegetable, the parasite of Monday, or the adoring, affectionate man-child of Saturday?
Best or worst, one thing is sure: I’ll be very lonely.
Chapt. 193 – 3000 words
Columns :: Zhorik marching to army on road of love
MOSCOW, March 27, 2006 -- Comments: Ratings: 
Average members rating (out of 10) : Not yet rated
Votes: 0
Votes: 0
