“Adele was born on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.” As soon as I had scrawled it on a piece of paper, I understood this is how it should be. I had not lived in Russia, but I knew Russian women; it seemed to me their northern capital provoked a response in the heart of Spanish Lidia, exciting her like a forbidden fetish. There, everything was different. Russians seemed to be an enigma for her when viewed from here, from another world. She would think about it, use her imagination – and then exaggerate, and want more!
I described this city where gray-eyed, green-eyed divas wandered with snow-covered souls and ice in their hearts. The energy threads of living cells swirled there in a cocoon – in the prisons of apartment blocks, in musty, festering, double-entry courtyards, in entryways where doped-up teenagers and stray dogs congregate. A damp wind blows there unceasingly – from the dirty river, the canals, the swamps. Nearly everything in those places is devoid of life, though you may not guess this at once. Only the hardiest life-forms are able to grow there without dying in infancy, able to remain bright against a miserable, gray background – and Adele grew up and remained. Herein lay the enigmatic essence, for those who could understand.
Letting fantasy run free, I did not skimp on the details and fine points. I knew they were necessary – without them, no one would believe. You can’t guess beforehand what exactly will be important, what will catch someone’s eye and play to your advantage. The image needed flesh, volume – though Adele was slender, to the envy of many. Though in her distant childhood she had been quite fragile and light…
Her parents at first glance seemed an ideal couple – this was what all who knew them said. Adele took after her father: he was also thin with good breeding. Women adored him, and he responded to them in kind – too many of them, as it soon became clear. Her mother sought consolation in prayer books and icons, but she soon threw up her hands and became hysterical and spiteful. They argued every day and separated in tears and hate, and after the breakup they fought ferociously over their daughter, the only fruit of their union. Each one wanted to give her a happy future. Sadly, neither knew how to do that. A child of love who had taken the love away – this was who Adele had been in infancy. A missionary of love, its unrelenting priestess – this is who she became in a little over twenty years.
She was an obedient girl, despite a tendency toward wild impulses. She started reading early, devouring children’s books one after another; then she progressed to adult novels, which secretly fueled her daydreams. However, soon she had her fill of them, and her own dreams moved into the foreground. At about twelve years old, Adele fell in love – with an older schoolboy, a thoughtful giant who looked her full in the face without turning away, and carried her in his arms for hours. He spoke almost no words, and she learned to emulate his silence. Later, when his family moved to another city, she sobbed violently for a whole week. After that, she never let anyone pick her up in his arms again – not a single one of her men.
Her mother married a second time, and her stepfather was rich and well-known. When Adele turned sixteen, a friend of the family – her stepfather’s partner in the oil business – started to court her. Her parents never minded, but she kept her virginity – despite his affectionate promises. Then the stepfather went broke, and she somehow fell into the arms of the “friend” who rented her an apartment nearby, took her to Nice for a week, and began supporting her by paying expenses. She honestly tried to fall in love with him, but soon despaired, and this despair led her to cheat on him with whoever happened along. He, however, put up with it all – for two or three more years – until they finally parted for good. Adele was already studying at the university by that time. Having quickly tired of her peers, she started living with a chemistry professor and nearly drove him out of his mind. This episode hit her hard as well: she quit school, had the definitive fight with her mother, and began working as an artistic model. And then she landed in Madrid. It was there she finally found herself.
Everything seemed to happen on its own. They were taken to Europe for a photo shoot – an assorted selection of ten beautiful women. The first day they actually did shoot a little, then they were asked to pose at an auto show, and finally they were offered work without further ado – as call girls, escorts for money.
Her companions laughed a lot and joked with each other; everything looked like fun. No one refused, and Adele agreed to try it as part of the group. Unexpectedly, she liked it. She tried it again – and liked it even more. Thus she became an elite whore.
Many men offered to make her their mistress; some even wanted to marry her, but stability did not interest Adele in the least. She was in an active state of exploring her body – as well as her own self. The money was just a cause; self-expression – that’s what was important! When you’ve already gotten paid, there’s no need for trifles. You can be insatiable, unrestrained – and your territory is safe from harm. Anyone unable to understand you will merely think you are skillful and earnest. He’ll know he’s not your only man – and won’t get cocky and self-important from finding happiness in your bed. He won’t start to think he is so good that you are warming to his virtues – on the contrary, he will be grateful to you! That’s a lot, any way you slice it. No one, yourself included, will suspect you sold out cheap. That you gave too much and received little. Because the price is agreed on in advance. Afterward, it’s too late to count up and have doubts.
Ah, Adele… She was smart and passionate, spontaneous and romantic in her own way. Her skin smelled of honey, her hair of a sweet meadow. She, Adele, was the object of desire for all. And many, if not all, could afford this luxury.
I imagined her, how she was when plying her trade – different with different men, yet always similar in some way. I saw her with those who awoke a response in her, and with others who did not interest her at all. With shy adolescents and full-grown men. With regular lovers and one-time clients. I observed – dispassionately, from the outside – how she sometimes hid her indifference, or even animosity bordering on contempt. Or how she would throw back her head, curving her neck and baring her moist teeth. Or how, once she was alone, she would look in the mirror, surprised at her reflection, and pondering with a certain irony: Where do I go from here? I knew her gaze – languid and opaque, or direct, eye-to-eye, as if fighting for the main prize. I saw all of her – beautiful hands, flat stomach, and small breasts. Bangs hanging over her eyebrows, her prominent collarbone and graceful neck. Her look through narrowed eyes, with lips whimsically pressed together – a mask to keep from giving herself away when passion suddenly took over.
Adele had mastered the elements of Tantra, knew the special pressure points, had learned something of S&M. She often started her games with a massage – and those who already knew her asked for it themselves. She was skillful, confident, and strong – squeezing her palms and elbows into their fat backs and haunches; using her knees and feet as well. And then a pink electric massager would appear – the very sound of its buzzing could bring many to ecstasy.
Sometimes she would turn into a little girl, on her knees looking up as she cocked her disheveled head to one side. Then she would work with her lips and tongue, lift her gaze again and ask, “Like that?”
“Or like that?” she would continue, changing her rhythm and technique. Pretending to be inexperienced, just recently corrupted.
“Maybe like this?” she would whisper, on the verge of sobbing. This was a very effective method. It let her feel her power in full. Sometimes Adele was even a little ashamed. “Who is supposed to pay whom?” she would ask herself in all sincerity. The male body never grew boring; it provoked bold experiments. Everything was interesting to her – to have no scruples about it she asked for more money. More, and more, and still more – for this, and that, and even that. Then later she would say, “You’re such a pervert! See what you made me do?”
I invented her every day, indefatigably, as I had once created Semmant, but with a much cooler head. Coming up with depict
ions of lust and lechery, I was calculating and composed. Not once did it occur to me to masturbate at my desk – though I did not sleep with women and often woke up with an excruciating erection. But as soon as I sat down to work, my manhood grew tranquil. Sometimes I went into the bathroom and stood on Buddha’s mat, but this too did not excite my flesh. Only the fantasies on the page became more explicit.
Weeks passed in this fashion, and they did not pass in vain. The mound of papers written in my small hand attested clearly: the deed was done. The image of the best of courtesans was nearly complete. This was a perfect puta, the kind you don’t meet in real life. But it is of them that men dream – I had given the world a dream again, ha ha! It even seemed to me my apartment was almost the garden paradise of Eden!
And the city outside the window beckoned with forbidden fruits. They were accessible, sweet, juicy. I finally thought about myself and felt boundless craving. What had been said on paper now delighted in revenge, exhausting me day and night. I needed a woman – the more compliant, the better.
This, fortunately, was easy to achieve. I caught a taxi and darted off to the Plaza del Sol, to the buxom Roberta, who was up for anything. They brought us drinks and a snack; I ripped the dress from her shoulders, threw myself at her, and knew no fatigue for the full three hours I had paid for. Even for Roberta this was something – toward the end she almost smothered me in her embrace. And she whispered to me with utmost tenderness, “You are my animal, my voracious beast!”
Outside, as I left her I said aloud, “Adele!” and laughed in Madrid’s face. I was exhausted, deflated – and greatly satisfied with myself. One more accomplishment filled out my list – maybe just to spite the city. To spite its principles, its petty breadth of view. To spite the stereotypes considered indisputable.
Everything was in my hands: a girl who did not exist – now I knew she really did. And I felt she would help – both me and the phantom that many no longer believed in. The one that many no longer thought of – well, I would remind them of it. The time had come to take the next step.
Chapter 19
Lidia Alvares Alvares had a secret weakness: online forums, the feeding ground of the quasi-intellectual crowd. There, hiding behind a playful nickname, she shared fragments of unwritten plays. Her phrasing was shaky, but the public received it favorably. Lidia’s protagonists lived in sentimental retro. It was exotic in those circles dominated by Ego Manic and Down Hause, by Devastator and Seducer in Blue. They competed with Malicious V and Sara Swallows, as well as five or six other hot-tempered avatars whose gender no one had ever bothered to discover.
In the main, the virtual milieu proceeded briskly. The regulars patiently bore their crosses. They wrote about herpes and depression, sensationalism and consonance, the triumph of polygamy and anal sex. And also about democracy, avant-garde painting, and the injustice of life as a whole. Some of them, like Lidia, practiced amateurish writing that was usually mocked, though without much spite. Sometimes, they met in real life – it was awkward for many: they blinked and squinted, as if entering the light after prolonged darkness. Almost everyone got plowed within the first half hour. The men would try to hook up with the unappealing female contingent, but everything ended, usually, only in shame. That same night, the victims of alcohol and abstention, the owners of pimples and flab, would slink back to their customary twilight. Their routine would start over – to go on, and on, and on.
This was the environment into which I was to insinuate myself. To mimic, and later – to stand out and get noticed. And to steal upon a certain victim who suspected nothing.
As I had expected, this turned out to be easy. Soon after registration they admitted me into their company, taking me for one of their own. I started small – posting one short comment each day. A few phrases, nothing more – so as not to seem defiantly immodest. They contained no novelty, but there were plenty of seditious slogans and proclamations. They were naive but full of emotion; the audience could not help but take the bait. All the aborigines go nuts for glass beads – and, perhaps, it also helped here that I called myself by a word that didn’t exist. Defiort was my call sign, and no one, including Lidia, had the faintest idea what it meant. Neither did I – and I never tried to guess. It would have been even funnier to call myself Semmant, but I was afraid she would remember that name. Though more than likely, my fear was baseless.
After a couple of weeks, I felt the time had come. My virtual double took on form and maturity. My comments became harsher; I went from being a disorderly rabble-rouser to voicing a position. I might not have actually had one, but I made it look like I did. This always gets respect.
Then I sat down again to write. I wrote a story and edited it patiently. I let it sit for a while, then read it and tried to make it better. Finally I was sure it could not be improved any more – and I posted it to the forum in the dead of night, like laying a trap for a shark or a fox. It was the account of how I met Adele.
Coming up with it was a tricky task – from the very beginning I had to set the right tone. My imagination suggested many different paths, and I rejected almost all of them. The threads of fine energy – I had to maintain them under tight control. I had to set them apart, save them for the decisive step. To keep them on hand like a resource of passion, to focus it later on the target like a laser beam.
Ultimately, I chose something simple – light flirtation, back-and-forth, innocent. I envisioned it: here she was, walking into a bar at the Palace Hotel. That is an attractive place; it has style. It’s immaterial whom I might have been waiting for – a lawyer, a bank manager, a real-estate agent. All of them at once, or one by one, they’re running late; time passes idly. I’m bored and looking around. I sip my water with lemon and glance with displeasure at the screen of my mobile – but here, suddenly, everything changes. A girl in pink silk makes a hasty entrance, looking over people’s heads. She’s not alone; she has a companion. He’s self-confident and probably a jerk. Or maybe I just think that – the sight of a beautiful woman who’s with someone else always reminds you the world is messed up.
I imagined: soon they have an argument, quick and ugly. “Get lost!” The girl dumps him and turns away. The man immediately leaves, hissing something in reply. When he stands up, everyone sees he is not at all young. The gloomy bartender gazes after him sympathetically. “Who’s the lucky guy that gets to pay for her cappuccino now?” I think derisively, and then it occurs to me: I am!
I jump up ahead of the rest – in case anybody else is planning to do the same. I walk up, introduce myself, and crack a joke that’s quite to the point. The girl looks at me calmly, cocking her head a bit to the side. Then she nods, “Well, all right. Just call me Adele.”
“And just so you know,” she adds right away, “I work as a whore, and I have a ‘friend.’ There won’t be any love for free; don’t kid yourself. So now, do you still want to buy me coffee?”
“Ha ha ha!” I laughed out loud in my Madrid apartment.
“Ha ha ha,” I wrote in a new line. There, in the Palace Hotel, I also laugh and praise her honesty. She immediately grows in my esteem. We talk about a multitude of things, and I am uninhibited and eloquent. The same as I had been with Lidia when we argued over the red shrimp. But here there are neither shrimp nor oysters. There is neither ambition nor any objective to come out on top. And soon I realize I can hardly sleep with her for money.
This upsets me. I stop talking, frown, and Adele seizes the initiative. She asks the most indecent questions. I don’t know why she’s doing that, but we now talk of things intimate, physical, and coarse. However, even amidst coarseness she knows how to be elegant.
“Tell me, then,” she says, “me, who knows everything about men. Me, who… well, you know. So, tell me…”
And then it seems to me there’s a loophole. A secret entrance into coveted obscurity. Adele looks into my eyes so innocently – no one in my place would be able to resist. I get excited and wave my hands; my speech is full
of allegories. It is peppered with “sincerity” and “impudence,” an “unreserved impulse” and a “lascivious nature…”
Adele does not stop me. She listens attentively, without interrupting. I keep gushing, completely letting down my guard. And then I’m caught in the net. Adele smiles at me, leans across the table, trailing the scent of her perfume. She utters a few phrases, and I am smitten and vanquished. I am awkward, silly, and cannot ever comprehend what happens and how.
That’s an amusing sensation, and I shared it in the story sparingly. Sparingly, but such that it must be believed. And I imagined: Adele stands and walks up to the bar. Hundreds of solitary destinies – the reflections of her words – surround me in a dense cloud. I want to yell after her, “You’re oversimplifying!” But, of course, I don’t do it; that would be pointless.
Adele… As soon as I had written all this, I believed myself – that’s exactly how it happened. In the stifling Madrid summer, in the Palace Hotel bar. This happened – and it was beautiful! As I had been planning from the very beginning.
Yes, I knew her, was acquainted with her – this girl who didn’t exist. And besides, I now had her phone number. I made it up too, and it happened to be quite useful. Looking at the nine nonrandom digits, it was easier to move forward.
Thus, I put forth the effort, which successfully attracted attention: the forum crowd noticed the story. Some of them criticized it – on literary and aesthetic grounds, or for its latent homosexual roots – but the majority were favorably inclined – to me as well as to Adele.
Two girls and a boy sent me notes suggesting we meet up. However, I was not looking to make acquaintances; outsiders did not interest me. They were just a smoke screen, window dressing. I was holding out for Lidia – and soon I saw: she did not remain indifferent. With the help of a simple script, I tracked visitors to the page where the text was located. Lidia read it more than once. I had determined her IP a long time ago; there could be no mistake.
Semmant Page 17