The celebration was in honor of the actress's November birthday, and of Alyosha's attachment to her, for they had once had an absorbing affair. During supper at an expensive Intourist restaurant, his hands stayed busy refilling glasses and adding food to heaping plates; his table was a refuge from every care in the world—including my first friction with Anastasia—except the stretching of stomachs and bladders. At midnight, we returned to his apartment for nightcaps and an hour's dancing.
One girl said she was tired and another remarked it was warm in the room—and suddenly, but nonchalantly, the three were taking off their clothes. Neither exhibiting themselves nor covering up, saying nothing in particular to me—as they hadn't all evening—they removed their underwear, ran a hand over their flat stomachs and reached for cigarettes, while I loved, feared, envied, wanted them.
Like a memory of my favorite sexy film, my mind's eye had already begun to rerun the miracle of their undressing. Brassieres cast off like gloves and breasts springing to life in slow motion as they were freed—with not a flicker of surprise, let alone of shame, on the three Slavic faces. Breasts so sylphlike that I remembered my adolescent doubt that I'd touch even one of that perfection in my life. Blood of astonishment flushed in my eyes as well as surging to my groin. Three white-skinned, long-limbed visions, as glorious as I'd ever seen, standing before me at the mirror, taking turns brushing their hair. Their nipples puckered. They were persimmon and pink. I had met these Aphrodites hours before.
Apprehension of the unknown topped off my astonishment. Thoughts of perversion, of my performance, of provocation and
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related dangers alone in a Russian apartment. I tried to imagine what Alyosha was planning for us and these exquisite three. And why this lavish generosity for me, a much younger, less interesting stranger? He was in the kitchen, washing glasses for tea. At a loss for what to do alone with them, I brought him some dirty dishes.
"My God, are they serious? What happens next?"
He cut me a fat slice of cake. "Orthodox custom stipulates rest after dinner, it's become something of a ritual. But maybe you're militantly anticlerical, muchacho? Shall we compromise on a nap?"
The models sashayed into the kitchen, two narrow-waisted cousins with Veruschka's cheekbones. Waiting with me for Alyosha to complete the tray, they put their arms on my hips as if we were at the rails of a skating rink. (With a lightning flick of the wrist, Alyosha drew the kitchen curtains. Whatever other danger was only in my imagination, that of neighbors seeing such a sight was wholly real.) I yearned, and feared, to kiss their lips—on the face first and then the others, with their russet covering. I hoped they didn't hear the boom-boom in my chest. I'd still not dared to make a move when the actress shouted to her friends, now flanking the refrigerator. "Not fair jumping the line out there, it's my birthday," she protested from the bed. A minute later, we were entangled together on it, the models chortling and moaning.
I woke up a dozen times before dawn, giving and taking what I wanted from the silky arms and legs. The warmth beneath the quilt smelled of cologne and sex. Thoughts about a provocation still lingered near me, to my annoyance; but if these were to be my last hours before a KGB arrest, I could only be grateful for the bargain. After many siren calls and echoes, a sweet soreness developed at the place of my passion, but like the Russian song, I reached for the taller model "one last time," while the younger one snuggled against us, cooing in semislumber. Then—final wonder!—the actress thanked one and all for her "yummy" night of love.
"No one can count the uncountable," goes the old Russian saying. Although it is impossible to speak of Alyosha without
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starting with his girls, it's no less possible to convey their numbers without resorting to a dry tally or some mechanical image. (Years ago, he himself attempted a count in order to parry stories he considered exaggerated. A nymphet's mother had caught him in the act, and before he could pacify her, there was a threat of prosecution and a need, in case things went to court, for facts. But after days of making lists on bits of napkin and notepaper, he gave up, estimating three thousand.) It can only be said that his conquests—a misleadingly mechanical image too, depriving the encounters of their shared communication through recklessness and laughter, not to mention the "victim's" own assertive pride—are a sea of Slavic flesh. A biblical multitude of rustic faces and springy bodies on the pattern of Masha's in the dormitory. Rarely do I return to his car after five minutes buying a bottle or picking up some tickets without a new one, or pair, bashfully waiting on the back seat to be driven to the place of their entertainment and seduction.
Although no Kremlinologist will ever hear of him, he is better known to the city's working class teen-agers than Podgorny or Suslov. Fully a quarter of those he approaches recognize the name "Aksyonov" from Moscow gossip, reacting to it with eager anticipation. Even factory girls in back-street areas know him by reputation: friends or friends of friends have enjoyed a few days with him themselves or have had him pointed out in a movie lobby or on a beach.
They are surprised, however, when Alyosha claims the name for himself Although he is a boyish fifty with soft hair and a handsome plane of cheek, his nose, as he puts it, "isn't a faultless fit." Too large, it also tends to redden. In general, the young audience had associated his notoriety with a taller, more dashing appearance.
"You're Aksyonov? I don't believe you."
He sighs. "As well you shouldn't. Moscow's teeming with you-know-who dying to impersonate the proletariat. Whisper your telephone number and I promise not to believe you."
Not noticeably cleverer than average, the statuesque brunette with the large, appealing mouth can only think to answer with a stubborn repetition of her doubt. The exchange is taking place in a fish store into which Alyosha has dashed for the makings of
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"luncheon" for another recruit, a Nordic-looking blonde strenuously coaxed from a minibus ten minutes earlier. With only a short lunch break from her office, the blonde is waiting restively in the car.
Not the least of Alyosha's urgent preoccupations is how to please her with a fresh carp without standing on the quarter-hour line which has formed for them. Because he is trying to hold the brunette's attention without leaving the store with her—in which case the self-respecting blonde, beholding his game, would instantly abandon him to his high jinks—Alyosha cannot spare more than ten-second dashes to charm the stout counterwoman weighing and wrapping the carp at the rear of the premises. At the same time, while we mentally calculate prices and count our money (behind fleetingly turned backs, so as not to "offend our new friend's dignity computing raw cash," as Alyosha explains) to see if the change will suffice for beer, a purchasing ticket must be punched at the head of a separate line to the cashier's booth, this time near the entrance. Trying to tiptoe into this second queue, Alyosha spies a People's Judge in the person of a square-jawed, box-bodied matron in whose court, a room of echoing pronouncements about the duties and moral obligations of Soviet citizenship, he sometimes appears. "Oh . . . er . . . top of the morning to you, Comrade," he singsongs, backing away from his line-butting and simultaneously trying to hide— but still not lose—the puzzled brunette. "It's a wonderful invention, don't you agree?" he continues, pointing to the cashier's abacus in an attempt to explain his behavior to the dour magistrate, and smooth his way free. "I'm always inspired by the skill of Soviet hands."