I bumped into her downtown one May morning. She was sitting on the steps of a bank, still closed at such an early hour. There she sat, looking a bit lost, though she wasn’t crying or anything, her head propped up on her fist, staring off into space. She had a tiny little watch dangling from her wrist, but I’m absolutely certain she wouldn’t be able to tell you the time. She simply wouldn’t process the question. She saw me and gave a weak, forced nod. Something compelled me to stop—it may have been that she nodded first. I didn’t hesitate, sitting down beside her and asking her about her life, her studies, and our mutual friends. She nodded in reply and talked a little, quite reluctantly. Then she went silent.
“What’s up? Did something happen?”
“Nah, not really. It’s just that I was getting my brains fucked out all night.”
“All night, really?” I asked incredulously.
“Yep, all night.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I waited for a bit. She wasn’t saying anything either, though. I reached into my bag, pulled out a carton of milk, and handed it to her. She ripped it open and started sucking it down greedily. “Fucking all night must be pretty exhausting,” I thought. I noticed that her fingers were trembling, as if she’d just done an intense workout at the gym. I noticed the veins bulging in her neck when she flung her head back to drink. I noticed dark circles under her eyes—the kind women only get when they’re in labor… or when they haven’t gotten enough sleep, I suppose. Well, at any rate, only women who are emotionally invested in what they do and afraid of slipping up can have those deep, translucent circles under their eyes. The weary and distant expression on her face indicated that last night had been nice, yet hard on her, that she was concerned about what happened, yet she didn’t have the slightest regret. She smelled of warm shower water, morning cigarettes, and someone else’s soap. It seemed as though the blood had deserted her fingers, flowing away to a safe distance. But those lips of hers—bitten and puffy—blazed darkly under the morning sun; she kept nibbling on them, as if she were thinking back to what had transpired that night, as if it had still not ended in her mind. It even seemed like she wanted that night to keep going, like something very important had withdrawn from her, something that she started to lament the instant that the dark of the night retreated—she’d been sitting there for God knows how long, for no apparent reason, lamenting the loss of something she’d just acquired. I must have been gawking at her lips—maybe that was why she choked on the milk. It ran down her chin. She quickly wiped it away, covered her lips with her hand, and started speaking, seemingly not even addressing me, talking in muffled and disjointed spurts, touching the wounds on her thin, vulnerable skin, stopping the blood that rushed to them after every outburst and question, growing anxious, and realizing that I could see it. She tried changing the subject; I kept the conversation going, trying not to look at her and feigning a casual and carefree attitude, yet constantly thinking to myself, “She was getting fucked all night! All night! She was willing to give love and understanding all night; she didn’t sleep all night, she forced herself to stay awake all night, making utterances, listening to confessions, remembering promises, and screaming words of ecstasy. She was feelin’ good all night—they kept her up all night—they kept her hot and bothered all night. She slipped into the dream world and was plucked out of it again, into the black air; she caught someone’s breathing, felt someone’s caressing fingers, tried to adjust to someone’s movements, listened to someone else’s heart beating, and got used to someone else’s smell, someone else’s voice, and someone else’s love.”
I took the milk out of her hands and started gulping it down too.
“You know anyone that’s hiring?” she asked suddenly.
“I’ll ask my boss,” I promised.
I tried to pass the carton back to her, but she shook her head as if to say, “I’ve had enough for today.” I got to my feet, said goodbye, and headed home, throwing the rest of the milk in a trash can along the way.
For some reason, my boss agreed to give her a job immediately. Now we were working in the same building. She sat in the next room over, copying out news stories from the internet so we could use them for our broadcasts. She hit it off with everyone, settled in quickly, and seemed to enjoy the company of her many new gal pals. She had a nice personality and a bad memory, almost never got angry, and almost never griped about anything. I’m not sure if she actually liked her job. I’m not sure if she even considered it a real job—endlessly surfing the internet, constant smoke breaks and phone conversations, soaking up the bright sun flooding through the wide-open windows, and hearing voices on the steps and car alarms erupting in the fresh morning air. She always seemed to be expressing a certain degree of appreciation for what I’d done for her, which I found pretty exasperating, because it rendered whatever prospects of getting with her I might have had nonexistent. We’d say hello in the morning, drink knock-off cognac at corporate birthday parties, and then she’d disappear again, and I’d pretend that was how things were supposed to go. I’d invite her out, suggest grabbing a drink together, and try talking about something besides work, and she’d agree in such an aloof and dejected tone that my desire to take her out would disappear.
“Don’t sweat it. Whatever happened to not mixing business and pleasure? Just let her work. When you put in a good word for her with the boss did you really think that meant you’d be the one fucking her brains out all night?” I thought, really letting myself have it. “Yeah, admit it. You did. What else could you have been thinking about when you saw her that morning, drained and bloodless? Three years ago, you would have finished what you started, no doubt about it. You would have caught her at the office after hours and slipped your cold hands down her orange T-shirt, brushing up against the hard pebbles of her moles. So what if she resisted, so what if she complained to the boss, so what if she gave her two-weeks’ notice? What would I care? Huh, that’s exactly how it would have gone,” I thought, agreeing with myself. “I don’t even know what’s holding me back now.”
But something really was holding me back. So much so that late one night as I was passing her desk on my way out of the office, I discovered, much to my surprise, that she hadn’t signed out of her email. I tried convincing myself to just walk away without reading her messages, but I just wasn’t persuasive enough. I sat down at her desk and tried reasoning with myself once again. “What’s wrong with you? You’re gonna have to see her every day.” Eventually, I got up, shut down her computer, and closed the door behind me.
And then, at the end of the summer, events took a surprising turn. It was an evening meeting that somehow devolved into everybody pounding booze. I’d been in a good mood all day. I was brimming with optimism, looking out the window where, cooling down in the twilight like radiators with no steam in them, heavy trees stood, drained by the white August sun. My spirits had gotten a lift that morning when I bumped into some old friends downtown, right in the middle of the street, taking an unexpected breather in the heat of a tough workday—drunken hugs and sweet memories of people I hadn’t seen in ages, about those who’d disappeared and were now hopelessly lost, promises to keep in touch, demands to not be a stranger, exchanges of vows and unsolicited advice, tears, and the restrained singing of men. The point is I came to the meeting a few drinks deep, so I had a bit of a head start. Then once we’d settled all our official business and everyone was feeling more laid back, I refused to listen to any admonitions or appeals from my friends. She was sitting there the whole time, obviously, right next to me, at someone’s desk cluttered with reports and newspaper clippings, and I could feel her warmth and her soft touch all evening, obviously, so I flew off the handle, obviously, because “When else am I gonna pull the trigger?” I thought. “It’s now or never.” I spoke only to her and listened only to her, told only her all my tales of heroism, and concerned myself only with her reaction. At one point, I was being ridiculously brazen about it, obviously, and she, being a person who was concerned about her reputation and did not wish to offend her good buddy, obviously, took the initiative and suggested we go for a little walk. She said that we could sit there in the office all night, listening to the trees breathing heavily outside. Nobody would judge us for doing so, obviously. The hour was getting late, though, which made absolutely no difference to her, since she lived nearby and did not depend on the city’s public transportation system; however, she was clearly emotionally invested in my plans and my fate. Soon Kharkiv would close the luminous gates of the metro to its citizens, and she had no idea how I’d resolve my transportation woes then, obviously. What if it doesn’t occur to me that I can call a taxi?