MOSCOW, Jan. 1, 2004 -- New Year’s Eve!
The biggest night in Russia.
When Lenin and his thugs stole the Russian democracy, one of the first things they tried to do was to stamp out religion – “the opiate of the people,” he rightly surmised.
But what do you do with Christmas? You can’t destroy a tradition that goes back to long before the birth of Christ, so what do you do? Simple. You move it back a week, toss out Jesus and his mom, add “Grandfather Frost” and call it New Year’s.
So now it is New Year’s that the Russian people celebrate with the fervor of the Western Christmas – gifts, family togetherness, reverence; but with the celebratory glee of New Year’s thrown in – drunkenness, dancing, all-night parties, and the furtive sex that goes with them. It is a night that Russians look forward to with eagerness all year through, a night that they make sure they spend with those they love the most.
My Christmas in Prague with Yegor, Shurik, and Anton had been a disaster. And now it was New Year’s Eve, Shurik’s biggest night of the year. Vanya had arrived from Nizhny Novgorod on schedule two days before. Yegor had gone to visit his aunt’s in Sandova as planned. Anton was spending New Year’s Eve with his boyfriend. The ubiquitous, creepy Yura was spending it in front of our TV.
“What do you want to do tonight, Shurik?”
“I’m going to stay here and watch television.”
Not my cup of tea.
“What are you going to do Vanya?”
“I’m going to Red Square.”
At least that’s something. “Okay, I’ll go with you. I don’t want to sit in front of the TV set.”
But about 11:00 that night Vanya announced with a sly smile, “I think I want to go by myself,” meaning he wanted to spend the time cruising.
No problem. I had already had second thoughts about leaving Shurik here alone – or at least only with Yura, which is about the same thing -- while I went celebrating on Red Square with Vanya.
“Okay, I’ll stay here with Shurik,” and went into the living room to watch the Maxim Galkin show on TV with Shurik and chronic Yura.
Shurik in turn went to the kitchen. When he returned a minute later he announced, “I’m going with Vanya to Red Square.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you.”
“No, no, you might get lost. There’ll be a lot of people and I’ll be moving around a lot. I might easily lose you.”
“That’s ridiculous. You won’t lose me. Of course, I’ll come with you.”
“No, I think you should stay here.”
It was astonishingly and painfully obvious that he wanted to ditch me and go to Red Square with Vanya and leave me here – on Russia’s biggest night of the year – alone.
Even worse, with Yura!
“Why don’t you want me to go with you?” I demanded.
“You might get lost.”
My brain was calculating rapidly: He goes without me. That’s strike three (he had had another emotional fit in Prague which was even worse than the first). Three strikes and he’s out. Okay, he goes. I lose his gorgeous 19 year-old uncut cock. And he loses his sewing lessons now and his university in August. I’ll be better off without him. The fucking I get ain’t worth the fucking I get.
“Okay. Go to Red Square! Without me! Have lots of fun!”
But the same calculations must have been running through his brain.
“No, I’m not going without you.”
So we had another fight, this time from reversed positions.
Vanya stepped in: “Please, let’s all just go to Red Square. It’s getting late. You have to get dressed now.”
We argued some more. Finally, I said, “Okay, Vanya, as a favor to you, I’ll go.
So then Shurik decided he wouldn’t go.
Vanya managed to convince him and we packed two-and-a-half bottles of champagne and three glasses into our “sumka” and headed out.
So at 10 minutes before midnight on Dec. 31, 2003, we found ourselves as near to Red Square as we were going to get. There was nothing but people, noise, fireworks, and cops. We could barely even see the square. Allegedly it turned midnight. People cheered. More fireworks exploded.. The noise was deafening.
I was ready to come back home.
We fought our way towards a metro, but were met with a police cordon through which everyone had to pass. We still had an unopened bottle of champagne.
“You can’t take that with you,” the young female cop bellowed. I took it and handed it over the fence as if to drop it. She turned her head away and Vanya grabbed the bottle, stuck it back in the bag, and we walked on – I toward the metro, they toward somewhere else.
I was fuming. The two biggest nights of the year Shurik had managed to ruin for me!
Strike Three.
He’s selfish, ungrateful, and not very smart.
He’s out of here.
When I got home I drank some of the Becherovka that I had brought back from Prague. Then I opened the absinthe. And the scotch that my “Real” brand hypermarket class of Germans had given me. I got very drunk and passed out on the couch – Shurik’s bed.
I think I remember Shurik coming in and lying beside me and saying something nice.
But when I woke up on New Year’s morning I reached over to stroke his thigh and awoke with a start!
Hair!
That’s not Shurik!
I looked. Vanya! Vanya, though he doesn’t have a hair north of his belly button, is saturated with smooth, golden fleece from his naval to his toes. It’s a beautiful tawny color and very sexy.
But not as sexy as Shurik’s absolutely hairless limbs and torso.
So I must have been mistaken about Shurik’s coming to me the night before. Maybe it had been Vanya. I had been too drunk to know.
Hong Kong Harry, the American professor of Russian History at Univ. of Hong Kong, called from London to wish me Happy New Year. Vanya and I were standing in the hallway. I had my arm around him and was stroking his chest and nipple. He pulled me into the living room and we lay down on the couch and while I finished talking to Harry, I began stroking his body and pulled down his shorts.
Harry and I finished our conversation and I was deep-throating Vanya’s long, curved, cock for about the third thrust when suddenly the door opened. Shurik! So what, he’s history. Shurik turned to leave and pulled the door closed again. But Vanya pulled his shorts up and we went back to the kitchen.
What’s going to happen? asked Vanya.
“He’s out of here,” I fumed. I just don’t know when. I’ll wait till Yegor gets back and we’ll talk about it.”
“Nothing will change,” Vanya replied knowingly. “He’ll still be here.”
“No, he’s had it. That’s the last straw.”
“Wanna bet?”
Yeah. How much?
“A dollar.”
So we bet that Shurik would be gone by the first of February, 2004.
I continued to ignore Shurik for the rest of the day.
About 5 p.m. Vanya suggested I go with him to the Belarusskaya Railway Station and try to buy a ticket back to Nizhniy Novgorod on Saturday.
While we were waiting in the interminable line, we reverted to our earlier conversation.
“So you think Shurik’s going to still be here,” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to increase the bet?”
“Yeah, maybe .”
“How ‘bout ?”
“Okay. that Shurik will still be here on the first of February.”
I eagerly shook hands on it.
Soon after we returned to the apartment Shurik came into the kitchen.
“Dane, could I have a word with you?”
I followed him into the living room and we sat down beside each other on the couch. Had a familiar cast to it. It’s just the way we had sat after we returned from Prague and I hadn’t spoken to him for two days.
“How long are you going to continue not talking to me?” he asked. “I can’t go on like this. I came to you last night and apologized.”
Aha! So it had been Shurik.
“What did I say?”
“You said you were glad I had come.”
Gulp!
“To tell the truth,” I responded, “by that time I had gotten very drunk and I don’t remember it. I wasn’t drunk when we went to Red Square but I was very drunk by the time I went to bed.”
“I came and said I was sorry.”
“I don’t think you love me. I don’t understand how you could go off and leave me alone – or even worse, with Yura!”
“I was afraid you’d get lost.”
“That’s nonsense. We’re adults. I have arms. I can reach out and grab you.”
“But there was a big crowd and sometimes I have to move fast.”
“I have a voice and I know your name. You weren’t going to Red Square until you found out I wasn’t going and that Vanya was going by himself. That’s the most important moment of the year in Russia. Why didn’t you want to spend it with me?”
“I did want to spend New Year’s with you. If I hadn’t wanted to, I would have gone to Andrei’s or somebody else’s. I have lots of friends I could have gone to. But I stayed here because I wanted to be with you.”
“Then why didn’t you want to spend midnight, the most important moment of the year in Russia, with me? I don’t think you really love me.”
“I don’t think you really love me, he retorted. I saw you and Vanya this morning.”
“First of all, I replied, I didn’t remember that you had come and apologized last night. And I was still angry.
“Secondly, I have known him and we’ve been having sex for five years. Sex or no sex doesn’t affect my love for him or my love for you. You and I have never talked about our relationship, but if it’s important to you, we can agree that we will only have sex with each other except for Yegor. Other relationships aren’t important to me.”
“Okay. I agree. We’ll only have sex with each other, except for Yegor.”
He seemed so earnest and sincere. Maybe he really does love me.
We reached and kissed each other passionately.
A few seconds later we were both naked. Afterwards we lay together and watched TV for a long time. And an hour or two later we had sex again.
It looks like I’ve lost .
But then there are still 31 days till Feb. 1!
Chapt. 34 – 1867 words
Columns :: Strike th… two-and-a-half
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