Eyes of a Siberian Husky

The woman saw the guy, almost a boy yet, coming in, and snorted. At least he had made up his mind. It was clear that he had noticed her. Many people did it. Tall, long light brown hair, superbly thirtysomething, In fact, almost forty, but no one would have said it...

While the guy came closer, looking to the left and to the right, to simulate an unlikely happenstance, she was checking him with more attention. Young, maybe good stuff, but to be refined, definitely: too casual dress, sloppy attitude, too insecure, social experience very limited. Intentions? Guess what...

"May I sit here?" he asked, looking in her eyes for the first time.

She snorted. He did not want to sit at her coffee table, just at the next one. Of course he could. Was he so insecure to think to bother her just sitting one meter away? Or was it just an ice-breaking line? Well, better than "What time is it, please?"...

"Sure," she said.

"Thanks..." he said. He sat at the table and looked around, breathing a bit too hard. He had mustered all his courage for that approach. Now he felt as a soldier just landed on a beach, lying behind some shelter... The woman smiled, without showing it too much.

She was still smiling when the waiter came and put on the table the ice cream she had ordered some minutes before. The waiter turned and looked at the guy.

"Do you wish to have something?" he asked in a professional but wary tone.

"The same as the lady," he said, promptly. The waiter look at her, with a questioning glance. Is this guy bothering you, madam? She nodded lightly: all in order, let him stay. That guy was totally inoffensive, She could manage him by herself.

The waiter went away. The guy waited half a minute, looking around, and then looked at her.

"Sorry, may I know, what did I order?" he asked. The woman smiled. A typical old style sophisticated comedy line, but said with the right tone. She pointed at the ice cream with her spoon.

"Coconut, chocolate, stracciatella and coffee. And a bit of whip cream."

"Hm!" the guy said, raising his eyebrows. The woman snorted.

"You are thinking that I don't care too much about calories, don't you?"

"Well, I guess you don't have such problems..."

"Oh, yes, the damage is done, already..." she said, looking at her own prosperous cleavage.

"Oh, no, I did not mean... You're fine... You know, where there's... " the guy said. And blushed.

"Where there's what?"

"Ow... never mind... " the guy muttered, in confusion. The woman smiled.

"Where there's fat, there's heat... That's what you meant, right?"

"Well... yes!" the guy admitted. She shrugged.

"And then... Why bother?" she said, taking another spoonful of ice cream. She never had any obsession about diets and so on. And clearly even that point had given the guy the courage of approaching her. Her thriving, buttery body, the fruit of her genes and of the absence of sacrifices, contributed to her cheerful, extroverted appearance. And it even suggested a warm softness in bed. There was no risk of hurting her, in the embrace. Or of getting hurt with the bones...

The waiter came back with an ice cream as the one she had ordered, told the guy the price (pays to be sure), took the money and left the square. Now all was in order, definitely.

She looked at the guy. It had been easy to unbalance him. Not even a minute, and he had complimented her. A sincere compliment. No, he was neither a sex offender nor a rapist. He was a young, hungry male, yes, very, very hungry... But totally harmless. A puppy... An overgrown puppy...

If she ever needed any confirmation to her beauty, to her skill to make any male's heart (and more) beat faster, that guy was giving her plenty of it. Just the way he was looking at her... scanning her body, yes, but first of all...

"Do you like my eyeballs so much?" she asked. Oddly enough, he was looking mostly there.

"Well... yes... the iris, especially..."

She snorted. Yes, her iris, her eyes. Blue, almost non-human eyes. Eyes of a Siberian Husky, as someone had told her. And she had taken it as the very best compliment she had ever heard. And not only because she loved the dogs...

"Sorry... You are not exactly Italian, right?" he inferred.

She smiled, and slowly shook her head no. Not exactly...

"Russian", she said, with a double "r" and a hissing, almost triple "s". And then she snorted. Surely the guy was reviewing in his head all the commonplaces about Russian women, from the noblest to the most low down ones... but his eyes remained attentive, respectful... He had scratched the latter ones from his personal list, on her... Good! "We can give of yourself, if you want."

"Fine... that is... thanks..." he said, a bit confused again. Tender, clumsy guy... fifteen years younger, maybe more, and he would have done whatever to jump on her beds, between her arms, and her legs... "Zavlikala ya malchishku", I have seduced a kid...

"Are you here for the concert?" she asked him. There had to be a rock concert the next night, in the arena close to the seaside. A famous Italian singer, but not one of those classic Italian crooner so famous in Russia too... Other times...

"Yes..." the guy said. "That is, a city break, three days..."

"What do you do at home?"

"University. Economics. Then, if I can, I will follow a master, and then I hope to find a proper job, maybe in Europe, if not here."

Yes, the woman nodded, even in Italy, as in Russia, it was not easy to find a good job, for many skilled joung men and women. There was a diaspora, even there. That guy kept a clear head, and seemed seriously intentioned to follow his ambitions, no matter where. "Ucìtsya, ucìtsya i yeshò ucìtsya", study, study and study again...

"Does studying take much time for you?" She asked. He shrugged.

"After all, I like it. And I know, I'm lucky because I can do it. Many people have not this luck..."

"Don't take on yourself the sins of the world..." she said. "If you were hungry, or even if you just had no girl, the other people would not give a damn, anyway..."

"Well, maybe it's too easy to put it that way... And however... I have no girl, indeed."

He did not say that he never had one. A sense of pride. But she had gotten the picture. That's why she had said it. If he were engaged to a girl, he would have been with her, and not there. And if he had had a girl before, he would have been not so clumsy... So tender...

"Immanuel Kant never had a girl, do you know?"

"Yes... That was why he wrote so much... Sublimation..." he snorted.

She smiled. Nice line. Woody Allen style, more or less. So that guy knew Kant, and how many works he had written. An informed, educated guy. Not so frequent. Surely he passed lots of time on the books. Instead of...

"You are a virgin, aren't you?"

The guy froze, his spoon halfway between his mouth and the ice cream cup. Then he looked at her.

"Why do you ask me that? Is it not clear from my face?"

"No, not from your face. You have a very normal face. Even nice."

"A fool's face...," he shrugged, having another spoonful of ice cream.

"No, not even foolish, believe me," she shook her head no, relaxed, "I've seen a lot of fools' faces in my life, from my country straight to here, and I know how they are made... And you've not one of that kind... "

She was talking seriously, but he shrugged.

"And then, why I am so yet?" he said, gloomily. "It means I deserve it... "

"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it..." the woman stated. The guy snorted. Maybe he had gotten the quote. "Unforgiven"... There are so many reasons why you don't find a mate...

"Maybe in my case it has... I don't want to be so, to be... virgin. But I am," he shrugged.

"Well... if it's so important, to put an end to that, then you can go to some..."

"Yes, I know, I can. But I won't. I don't want," he said, determined. He looked at her. "You know that song, Woody Guthrie, "The Doremi"... "You're the number forty thousand for today..." Well I don't want to be the number forty thousand. Nor the number forty. Nor the number four, for that day... Yes, sometimes I have thought to go to some sites on the internet, or read some classifieds... "Social relations" or the like... And go to someone, and to Hell with all of that... But I didn't... And I don't think I will ever do..."

"And If you were the first, some fine day?" she said. "It's easy, just..."

"But is not just that..." he shrugged, a bit irritably.

"Got it," she nodded. She looked at the guy, with tenderness and respect. "The great love or nothing?"

"Something in between... Without fooling anyone... without hurting anyone..."

"And without getting hurt..." she snorted. He looked at her, shrugging again.

"And why get hurt?"

"It's a too ambitious program. Life's not like that. No pain, no gain. No guts, no glory... "

"Well, I know, but... To hit the lamppost, you have to aim at the stars... "

"And... should I be the lamppost?"

The guy looked at her. She was calm, not annoyed, not enraged. She was onto him, from the beginning. Now, just now he had realized it.

"Co... Could you be?" he asked, lowly. Could you make love with me, he meant. She shook her head no, calmly, even sorry.

"No," she said, softly.

"Why?"

She snorted, and put on his table her right hand, moving the ring finger up and down. And there was a ring on it.

"Oh. Nice ring..." he said. She got the irony and smiled: the ring was a very normal wedding ring. "Why do you wear it on the right hand?

"Russian tradition... " she said. He nodded.

"And is it... just for that? Is it "no" just for that?"

"Yes. Fundamentally."

"Oh, well... I thought it was for... not to assume my sexual misery... Something alike..."

"No. You've not sexual misery," she snorted. "If it were so, you just would have gone to... you know where... No, you have, so to say... Romantic handicaps..."

"Romantic handicaps?"

"Yes... You are... somehow you are ashamed to want sex from the girls, and so you don't know how to ask about it. You think that all girls consider sex a dirty stuff... And you would like that thing Americans call... "friendship with benefits", or the like... Friendship with a bit of sex, but not really love... Because you are afraid to hurt, and to get hurt... "

"Yeah, that's it... Why do the girls not understand?"

"Oh, they understand... But many of them think it's too easy for the blokes... And instead, I think, it would be good for them too, the first times, the first years... even to distinguish what is sex and what is love... But maybe they are still afraid to get a bad reputation, the pushover, you know... Times change, but some things never change, really... No matter where...

"They all say, there are girls who take the upper hand, the initiative... But damn if I ever met one of them..."

"Ah, maybe they are... But they don't look for guys like you... For guys like you, it would take someone... someone like me," she smiled, and then shrugged. "But I can't... Really, I love that fucking bloke," she said, sighing. "I mean... my husband..."

"If not?" the guy asked. She shrugged again.

"If not... If not, we would be in your room already. But how can I do it? We should have come together, he had had some job problems, and he insisted to me, he wanted me to come here, to have a rest... It would be too bad if... I've said, I love him... with all of me, and I mean ALL! It's not just a mental thing, a religious thing, love, faithfulness... It's EVEN that, but it's not JUST that... He's my man, my male. And I don't look for anyone else."

"Your... male... " the guy said. He figured that wonderful woman on a bed, in a dim light, naked, her swollen breast, her throath exposed to the kiss of an adult strong male who was not him... and happy about it... She was nodding, looking at the sea. Then she looked at him.

"I'll tell you something, that usually a woman tells only another woman..."

"I won't be offended..."

"Well... when I am alone, a bit tired, or bored, or depressed... I think about him, about what we do, what he does to me when... You know what I mean..." She shrugged, her eyes closed: "And I get wet, without even touching me... If I just touch me, I come... really... "

"Wow... you like to speak loud and clear..."

"Yes, I like... I like ice creams, I like the beautiful days... and I like to do it," she smiled. The guy didn't ask "Do it what?". She shrugged. "It's just that it would be incorrect, on my behalf, to do it with someone else than him. That's all... "

"I think you are a bit crazy..."

"Why? Because I say "fucking", "do it" and so on? Because I enjoy the life, from the nice days and beyond? I'm still young, I'm healthy, I have a nice body, and a man who loves it, who knows what to with it, to have fun, and to make me having fun. And I know it will not last. As the Chinese say, no banquet beneath the sky lasts forever. Do you know Balzac? "An old man is a man who has eaten, and who looks other people eating"... Well, when it will be my turn to look the other people eating, I want to have my belly quite full yet. I will be happier, then, more bearable by the other people... and less alone..."

She turned her head and looked at the sea, waiting for the blues to pass away. Then she looked back at him.

"But we can do something all the same. Have you seen any girl you like, besides me?"

"Well..."

"No, no, guy: no regard for me. I'm out. Let's say you have screwed me already. If I were not engaged, we would have done it, so, think of it as if you have "morally" fucked me in my room. It has been fine, you've done your best, I'm really satisfied, and I want nothing else from you: no strings attached, you are free. So, what's the next choice?"

While the guy was recovering from the shock (a lady who says "screw" and "fuck", just so, as usual), the woman was looking around. People were walking on the seaside promenade, locals and tourists, enjoying the sun and the not so hot weather.

"Why not her?" she said, pointing at a girl who was taking a seat at another table, at the other side of the "dehors" where they both were sitting.

"And why her?"

"Well, for many reasons... I've seen her at the hotel where we are living, she is nice, she seems quite at ease, looking for fun... Maybe even "that kind" of fun," she smiled.

"I don't think she is a hottie..." the guys said.

"Just because she is not wearing a butt-level-cut pair of hot pants or a whore-like mini skirt?" she snorted. "Let me tell you... you really know nothing about women... If you play your card right, then you can do it... "

"But I DON'T KNOW how to play my cards right... " the guy sighed.

"And what am I here for?"

It took half a minute for the guy to get the message. Then he looked at the women. She was smiling.

"Do you mean...?"

"Nothing better than a woman, to understand a woman... " she shrugged.

"But... It doesn't... It's not right..."

"Why in the Hell?"

"Well, because it's not love, it's just for... "

"Exactly, my lad. It's just for fun. You want a very normal summer romance. Even a one-off, if any, just for starting. What's wrong? If she doesn't want, then, stop, no-go, no romance, nothing at all. Better luck next time. But if she wants, then you can go ahead. Why not?"

"But I'm NOT in love with..."

"But you're NOT looking for love, right?"

"And you? Do you really want me to..."

"I'm only here for consulting. To tell you what means what, in the eyes of a woman, of course. If you have some chances or not. Or what you can do to have a chance. I will never tell you to swindle that girl, to promise you will marry her, just in order to bone her, or the like... Just, I want to help you to show your stuff at the best. The stuff you're made of. That's all..."

"But why?"

"And why not?" she shrugged. "I've nothing else to do... And I'm having fun!"

"But what she could think, if she has seen us together?" the guy asked. The look on her face became righteously outraged.

"And what in the Hell she could ever think, you naughty boy? I could almost be your mother!"

And then she laughed, and patted the guy's cheek.

-

The day after, the guy and the girl went for a trip at a town in the surrounding of the seaside city. They have met at the concert in the evening, that is, the guy had summoned all his courage again to approach her, since they both had gone there. She was really nice and quite friendly, and once she had understood that the guy was absolutely not dangerous, she had accepted him as an escort for the rest of her holiday.

The town where the guy and the girl went was a renown historic and artistic center. The girls had a sweet tooth for paintings, frescoes and panoramas, and the guy had a wide culture about history, politics and economics in the medieval and Renaissance Italy, due to his studies. She had just read historical romances, or seen TV fictions like "the Medici", and they had passed hours talking about that great traders' and bankers' family, who had ruled Florence for centuries, leaving traces both in arts and culture and history. The girl was happily surprised to have found a man who was not the usual TV-soccer-dirty-jokes Italian male subject...

The guy had reported all the above to the woman, when the girl had decided to go and rest, after that interesting, but fatiguing day.

"She said she too studies, economics, but she did not know so much some historical cotes... "

"Do you see? You have not the face of a fool, and you are NOT a fool..." the woman said, smiling.

"Yes... It was strange: we were talking, talking... And I never thought whether to hug her, or touch her... Usually I always think about it, with a girl... And I don't know what to do... To touch or not to touch, that is the question," he snorted.

"That's good," the woman said. "That means you like her as a person, not just as a body. You like to talk with her, to be with her. She is not just a walking cunt, for you. I mean, it's EVEN that, but not ONLY that. And a woman knows these things... "

"Well... " the guy said. He was embarrassed. The woman shook her head, smiling.

"There's nothing bad if she is EVEN that for you. You are a male. It's natural. Don't put the lipstick on a pig... It's something inside of you. You have just to keep control over it, not to feel ashamed of it."

"Keep control... "

"As a rider rides a horse. It's up to you to decide whether you horse goes galloping or pacing. To you, not to him."

"Yes, but... talking about control... What if... What if I had hugged her, today?"

"Well, it was the second day you met each other... It would have been improper, so to say... I mean, to hug her, to embrace her... Too much, too soon... "

"And the next days?"

"Well... touch her arm when you cross a street, something like that, just to have a first contact... Now she knows you, I think she will not misunderstand it... She will not take it as a threat, a rudeness... And then... "

"Are you sure?"

"Sure... I guess she feels safe with you... She knows you are not the kind of man who tends to grope, to stave his hands everywhere... or to do something worse... As we say, "sùnul, vìnul, i pashòl"..."

"That is?"

"Get in, get out, and get away," she snorted. ""Vlam, Bam, merci Madame", as the Frenchmen say..."

"No, I'm... not so..." the guy mumbled. She laughed. Of course not...

-

Even in the morning after, and in the afternoon, the woman had been alone. And this did not bother her at all. A bit of solitude, of loneliness, every now and then, is fine, she thought.

She knew she had a man who was waiting for her. And she was happy not to have any secret for him. As she was sure HE had no secret for HER. No, she did not "FEEL" so, she did not "THINK" so: even the turkey thought, and he ended up in the soup, as the saying goes. She KNEW that it was so. That her man was faithful and just to her.