tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45761009176079749312024-02-25T08:22:04.180-08:00VerycoolinfoAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18065387791373755955noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4576100917607974931.post-65400514231493821122022-11-07T04:26:00.005-08:002022-11-07T08:55:17.595-08:00CHAPTER 2<p> </p><h3 class="book" style="color: #505050; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0px; padding: 11px 0px 6px; text-align: center;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">CHAPTER 2</span><br /></h3><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">At breakfast, Elvira Maksimovna's voice trembled with the bird's chirping that Sasha knew so well. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">This calmed Sasha, and when they, having paid for the table and lodging for the night, went out into the courtyard of the hotel, no one-eyed man was there, and Sasha had completely forgotten about the morning incident.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And I remembered when Elvira Maksimovna suddenly asked:</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">By the way, why were you in the parking lot for so long? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I had to wait for you for breakfast.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“I followed the car,” Sasha answered. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She did not want to tell Elvira Maksimovna about her meeting with yesterday's one-eyed man, because she herself did not want to relive this meeting again.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Behind the car? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- responded Elvira Maksimovna. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Go and chat with the parking lot workers? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">They certainly did not leave them indifferent to your appearance ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“You know I'm not interested in men,” Sasha said.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Who are you interested in? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">asked Elvira Maksimovna.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha has already heard this question a hundred times and answered it a hundred times exactly as she answered now:</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I'm interested in you.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“We must think,” Elvira Maksimovna grinned, as always, and in gratitude, as always, patted Sasha on the knee.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">They got into the car. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">We drove out the gates of the parking lot, and soon the hotel could no longer be found in the rearview mirror.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Maybe you want to lead?” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">asked Elvira Maksimovna.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“I don’t drive very well,” Sasha said, “you know ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“So you need to train,” Elvira Maksimovna advised. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Patience and work will grind everything. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In vain did I buy you the rights especially for this trip? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And she wrote out a power of attorney for this car ... just in case of a fire? ..</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- If you're tired...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“You’re talking business,” Elvira Maksimovna said thoughtfully, “when I’m tired, then you’ll lead.” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Now it's easy for me...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- As you say.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Give me a bag from the back seat,” Elvira Maksimovna asked.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha turned around. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">A dozen identical multi-colored plastic bags of chips fluttered in the back seat, which Elvira Maksimovna had brought with her from the hotel restaurant.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Wow, - said Elvira Maksimovna, when Sasha got a bag from the back seat, - they even have chips of my favorite variety. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Reveal to me...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha opened the package. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna took her hand off the steering wheel, but immediately returned it.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Feed me,” she asked, “so that I don’t get distracted.”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha managed to bring only the first piece of fried potatoes to Elvira Maksimovna's mouth - and immediately dropped it. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">A sensor on the dashboard beeped frantically, and to the right of the steering wheel, on a small display, the electric letters of foreign incomprehensible words lit up and burned, pulsing, pulsing.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– What is this? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maximomovna was surprised. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– Sasha, did you press anything here?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- N-no...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Damn, what's written here?!"</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The beeping of the sensor turned from intermittent to continuous, and the car began to lose speed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">No matter how Elvira Maksimovna pressed buttons and pedals on everything in a row, no matter how she twisted the levers, the car seemed to fall into some kind of stupor and could not be revived in any way.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Of all the instruments, only the steering worked. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna turned to the side of the road, where the car quietly stopped.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Well, - said Elvira Maksimovna, - they arrived ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- And what happened? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha asked. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Like running out of gas…</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- You yourself saw how it was refueled ... Here, all control is electronic. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And for some reason it crashed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">God knows what it is...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna got out of the car. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha followed her.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“And not a single car,” muttered Elvira Maksimovna, lighting a cigarette. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What are we now with you - cuckoo here until the evening?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She took out a cell phone from her purse, turned it on, tried to dial any number, listened - only a barely audible wheeze came from the speaker.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna grimaced and threw the phone into the back seat.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Maybe open the hood and take a look? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha suggested. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It's possible that something can be fixed...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Yes, what to fix something ?! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">even Elvira Maksimovna got angry. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">You might think you know something about it! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Fix it... Someone seems to be driving over there,” she said, peering intently at the tape of the road covered with a hot, oscillating film. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- The truck seems to be ... Let's vote - it will help. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">We'll pay him if anything...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha went around the car and stood at the left side of the hood next to Elvira Maksimovna. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">They looked at the slowly approaching truck, and Sasha had a restless, still incomprehensible feeling growing in her chest, which became clear to her only when the truck drove up so far that it was possible to make out the facial features of the driver sitting behind the wheel.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Black bandage across the face and black beard. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha raised her hand to her mouth in fear. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna also recognized this truck and did not raise her hands.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The truck flew past them.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Thank God,” Sasha breathed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Do you remember this driver?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Who almost killed us last night?” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Elvira Maksimovna clarified. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Of course I remember…</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- It’s good that we didn’t stop him and he drove past ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Don't rejoice ahead of time," said Elvira Maksimovna in a strangely hardened voice.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What? .. - Sasha whispered, turning around to where Elvira Maksimovna had turned.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The truck came to a point where the road widened slightly, slowed down, made a 180-degree turn, and stopped like a beast about to jump.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It seemed that the driver was considering how to deal with the travelers who were in a difficult situation. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It was at least three hundred meters from the truck to the dead sports car, about five minutes had passed since the truck stopped.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– What is he doing? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha asked Elvira Maksimovna in a whisper. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Why did he stop there? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I'm scared ... He turned in our direction and stands.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">A few more minutes passed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The truck stood still. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">For Sasha, this was much more terrible than if he began to approach them. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She couldn't take her eyes off the frozen truck. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The driver could not be seen at all through the three-hundred-meter thickness of muddy stuffy air and dusty glass.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Finally! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Elvira Maksimovna uttered hoarsely and immediately lit a cigarette, nervously drawing in the sugary menthol smoke. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Someone else is driving ... Look - it seems like a jeep is driving?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Jeep, - Sasha confirmed; </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">glancing briefly, she turned back to the scary truck.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Noticing a sports car parked on the side of the road and women waving frantically, the jeep slowed down and drove up to them.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">As soon as the jeep stopped next to them, the truck in the distance began to move again. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">He turned around again and slowly drove on his way.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna was already explaining something to the man who got out of the jeep.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha turned to them as the truck was out of sight.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The jeep turned out to be not just any, but a Land Rover. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">True, it was dusty and neglected to such an extent that one might think that he had never known a car wash or even a simple rag.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The driver of the jeep was about thirty-five. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Short coarse hair, randomly sticking out in different directions, gave the impression not of a sloppy mop, but of a trendy hairstyle. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The driver's face was of the type that is usually said to be carved out of stone, although, looking closely, Sasha realized that only the protruding lower jaw could be made of stone. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The rest of the face, as soon as its owner began to speak, came into a lively movement - the lips moved in time with the words flying out of them, the eyebrows moved in time with the lips, the folds on the brown forehead moved in time with the eyebrows, and the lower jaw, which was supposed to pronounce the words, seemed perfectly still, and gave every reason to believe that the jeep driver's brain was in her, and not behind the sliding sinuous wrinkles of a brown forehead.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The driver of the jeep was dressed in jeans that were rather shabby and torn at the knees and a denim jacket with torn off sleeves, which, when unbuttoned, did not hide a single muscle of a perfectly trained torso.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">As Sasha could understand from the conversation, the jeep driver's name was Edik, he was engaged in the sale of used cars in a town with an unpronounceable name five kilometers away. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik was just heading there when Elvira Maksimovna stopped him.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“We even have an emergency gang in the city,” Edik boasted, leaning back against his jeep, “you can call and they will come here.”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“I already called,” Elvira Maksimovna said, “she doesn’t pick up from here ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Yes? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik was surprised. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– And I also wanted to buy a mobile phone for myself the other day… We don’t even have a mobile center in our city, in my opinion… Yes, this is a city – one name. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">No mobile center is needed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">You whistle at one end, you will answer at the other ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Great, - Elvira Maksimovna appreciated. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- And what about the car?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- With a car?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik went up to the car, opened the hood and, carefully scratching his lower jaw, thought deeply about its shimmering insides.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Is the car new? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik asked a few minutes later.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- New, - answered Elvira Maksimovna, - they didn’t really have time to run in ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- So that's the point! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Edik was delighted. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- And you probably quickly drove her?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“I rarely drive slowly,” said Elvira Maksimovna.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“In that case, it could be something like this,” Edik said, wrinkling his brown forehead, “these new machines, just like those stuffed with electronics, have such a shitty feature ... If they are exploited too zealously, they simply turn off the entire system in order to do not overheat ... Understand?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Almost,” Elvira Maksimovna shook her head. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In other words, nothing serious?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- As far as I understand, no, - Edik confirmed and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, - it is quite possible that in half an hour the engine will cool down and everything will be in order. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Although - just in case - you need to show the girl to a specialist ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What girl? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna asked in astonishment and glanced sideways at Sasha, who was standing on the sidelines.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Yes, I'm talking about the car! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik explained. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">That's what I call cars...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She and Elvira Maksimovna laughed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha suddenly noticed that Elvira Maksimovna was not looking at Edik the way she usually looked at the men around her.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“What if it doesn’t start after half an hour?” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">asked Elvira Maksimovna.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik thought again with his lower jaw.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I can offer this option, - he said, - I will give you a lift to the city, and from there you will return here in an emergency car.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- And my ... car should I leave here, or what? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Elvira Maksimovna did not understand.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes, you can do it here too,” Edik shrugged his shoulders, “what is there ... Two cars pass along this highway every hour ... And you will turn around in half an hour ... If you hurry, of course ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Well, no, - Elvira Maksimovna resolutely objected, - I won’t leave my girl ... that is, the car ... here unattended.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Then let's - your girlfriend will go with me, - Edik made a second proposal, - in the city she will agree with the emergency gang and return. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Until then, take care of your car. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Is that how it goes?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna looked doubtfully at Sasha. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha shrugged her shoulders, but lowered the corners of her mouth, which always meant she had a clear unwillingness to do anything.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna knew perfectly well that all she had to do was order her, and Sasha would meekly get into Edik's jeep and go wherever he needed to. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">But she just doubted that Sasha would be able to quickly negotiate with the emergency service workers, whose structure, apparently, is still in its infancy in this city, and organize a trip to help.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And Elvira Maksimovna did not smile at all for half a day to sit in complete solitude in a car melting from the crazy southern sun.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Besides,” thought Elvira Maksimovna unexpectedly to herself, glancing over Edik’s half-naked torso – from the powerful jaw to the elastically convex and brown abdominal muscles, “it would be nice to ride in a jeep with a peasant – the old fashioned way. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">For the sake of diversity, so to speak ... "</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Let's do this, - said Elvira Maksimovna, - I will go with you, Edik, and the girl ... Sasha will remain to guard the car.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Eddie shrugged.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes, what is it to me?” he said. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Do as you wish. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Remember what I said about new cars stuffed with electronics? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– this he turned to Sasha. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- It is quite possible that when the engine cools down, it will return to normal ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Exactly,” said Elvira Maksimovna, “you, Sasha, that’s what – if this happens suddenly ... Well, in about fifteen minutes ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“In about fifteen minutes it’s about time,” Edik interjected, “the motor will have time to cool down completely during this time. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Unless, of course, my diagnosis is correct. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">But I actually understand something about cars ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- If in fifteen minutes the car can go, - continued Elvira Maksimovna, - you drive slowly forward - you will meet me with an emergency gang. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Then you won't have to pay the full cost of the call.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“But it wouldn’t be better for you and me to wait in the car together,” Sasha said, who really did not want to be left alone, “if fifteen minutes ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“So should I take someone to town or not?” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik asked, pulling away from the side of his jeep. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Keep in mind that I'm leaving now. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I can't wait fifteen minutes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Things are waiting for me in the city ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Drive, drive, - Elvira Maksimovna hurried, taking a step towards the jeep, - who knows. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Suddenly, and after fifteen minutes, and after half an hour, the car will not start. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And here we are waiting for another ride ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- A very long time, - Edik confirmed, interrupting, and opened the door from the side of his driver's seat, - a very long time to wait.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Here,” Elvira Maksimovna said, “as Edik advises us, we will do just that,” her gaze again lingered on Edik’s chocolate press. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Just what should we do if we suddenly miss each other with Sasha?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Easier than simple,” Edik spoke quickly. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">There is a cafe at the entrance to the city. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It's called Roadside. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">You will meet there, if that.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Excellent! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Elvira Maksimovna liked this plan. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Do you remember, Sasha? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Cafe "Seaside".</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“You can’t drive past it,” Edik said, getting into the jeep, “there is only one highway here, and on this highway - on the remaining stretch of the way to the city - there is one such cafe ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– Did you understand everything? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna asked Sasha.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes,” Sasha nodded and sighed.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Don't be silly! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– Elvira Maksimovna reassured Sasha, already walking around the jeep to sit next to Edik, – you have rights. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I gave you a power of attorney for the car. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">You drive normally ... Like.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes, there’s nothing to drive here,” Edik interjected again, “all the time in a straight line and in a straight line. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And there are few cars, so even if you want to, it will be difficult for you to crash into someone.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She and Elvira Maksimovna laughed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Edik started the engine.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Well, see you soon! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna shouted to Sasha, trying to drown out the noise of the jeep's powerful engine with her birdlike voice. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Look, do not confuse anything! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Wait fifteen minutes or more. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Then try to start the car. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Then, if possible, drive slowly towards me ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The end of the phrase was no longer heard. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Throwing out two fountains of white dust scorched by the sun from under the rear treads, the jeep rushed along the road and very soon turned into a black dot, and then completely disappeared.</span></span></p><br style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><h5 class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 9px 0px 0px 2.5em; text-align: center;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">* * *</span></h5><br style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha couldn't get the one-eyed bearded man out of his head. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In a stuffy car, even with all the windows down, she was sleepy, but she was afraid to close her eyes, so that the vile black mug, crossed over the eye with a deaf bandage, would not appear again in her mind.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Finally, weary of her hazy state of half-sleep, she got a bottle of lukewarm mineral water from the back seat and, leaning out of the half-open car door, rinsed her face.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“It must have been fifteen minutes already,” she said to herself, and reaching for the key in the ignition, she tried to start the car.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The engine roared, the car trembled, ready to rush forward.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Started up ... - Sasha said with surprise, - wow - what miracles ... As if it hadn’t stalled half an hour ago.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The car started moving. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha was driving in first speed - very, very slowly.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Probably it looks funny from the outside,” thought Sasha, “such a massive car, but it moves as if it is groping its way in the dark.”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha received confirmation of this assumption immediately - some crazy teenager motorcyclist who swept past her towards the city turned around and opened his mouth wide, breaking his pimply mug into two halves.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It even seemed to Sasha that snippets of mocking laughter had reached her.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- So what, - Sasha said and increased her speed by two kilometers per hour, - but I have the opportunity to meet Elvira Maksimovna here - on the highway, and not hang around in some eatery at the entrance to the city. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I imagine the rednecks in this diner will stare at me. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And try to treat with warm Soviet champagne produced in the city of Uchkuduk ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">No matter how slowly the sports car driven by Sasha dragged along the track, and no matter how Sasha peered into the distance unsteady from the heat, the emergency car did not show up.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">But some long one-story building loomed ahead, similar to a train car and a construction barrack forgotten by someone on the road - at the same time.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Soon it was possible to make out the sign - "Cafe "Pridorozhnoe".</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Apparently, I’ll have to wait in this cafe for my Elvira Maksimovna,” Sasha muttered under her breath, “you can’t get anywhere ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Maybe,” a thought stirred in her, “that Elvira Maksimovna is already waiting for me there? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It is unlikely - she does not know for sure that her car has returned to normal ... "</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha drove up to the cafe. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I parked the car so that it could be easily seen from the road and headed to the cafe.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="book" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="color: #393939;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Blog recomendate</span></span></p><p class="book" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="color: #393939;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="book" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; 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font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0px; padding: 11px 0px 6px; text-align: center;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">CHAPTER 1</span><br /></h3><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Like a drop of revived mercury, a large sports car was flying down the narrow and winding mountain road of silver color.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The huge, red sun, like the wide-open eye of a prehistoric reptile, already beginning to be sucked in by the sagging line of the distant horizon, did not see the car gliding under its fading rays.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The big gray car, not subject to the red sunset glow, seemed completely alien to the southern nature surrounding it; </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">and was so similar to an unknown alien beast that it became strange at the thought that inside it, of course, there are people who control it.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“The sun is setting,” Sasha said, without squinting, watching the darkening and dying ball through the tinted glass. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Elvira Maksimovna?”</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha received in response a cloud of tobacco smoke and a melodious bell:</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Of course.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“As in the old joke,” Sasha continued, looking into the distant mountain ranges passing by the window, similar to the backs of giant ossified camels, “when an employee of a large company comes to a travel agency and orders an exclusive mansion on the Mediterranean coast for his boss ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha fell silent, mesmerized by the flaming camel backs.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- So what? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna said loudly, again dragging on her cigarette.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- BUT? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha started up, turning around.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Is it an anecdote?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Anecdote ... Ah, well, yes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">An employee of the company in a travel agency sets conditions - that the mansion is only three meters from the beach, that there is no one around for twenty kilometers, that seagulls fly over the sea only from left to right and do not scream ... He is told: this is impossible - there are certain sanitary areas near the sea and in general ... wildlife cannot be controlled. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The employee lifts from his shoulders a huge bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The agency is dumbfounded, the employee was promised to arrange everything ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha fell silent for a few seconds, feeling that Elvira Maksimovna was not listening to her - there was a sharp turn ahead, and the road narrowed sharply.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“A few months later,” Sasha continued, when the dangerous turn was over, “on the veranda of a luxurious mansion, three meters from the deserted beach, a businessman comes out. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">He scratches his chest under a brocade robe, looks at the sky, where seagulls with tied beaks fly from left to right, and says: “Yes, beauty ... That’s what you can’t buy for any money ...”</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna smiled, shaking her graceful, slightly birdlike head.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Quite right,” she said, “there is nothing that cannot be bought.” She even turned to Sasha, noticing that she shrugged her shoulders vaguely. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- You say it is not so?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“It can’t be like that,” Sasha said after a pause, “something must be such that ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- For example? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Elvira Maksimovna asked mockingly, lighting another cigarette. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Give an example...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha was silent.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Even if we take the crown of creation - man, - continued Elvira Maksimovna. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- It would seem - what is more perfect and more valuable ... But - it is easy to buy and sell. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Did I buy you? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Well ... to be more precise - I rented it. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">During your vacation. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">But if I want, I can buy forever and with all the giblets. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It is so?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha said:</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- So.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Although she could object about offal, by which Elvira Maksimovna clearly meant a spiritual, out-of-body human essence, but did not. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And a minute later, she thought with fear that she kept silent because her spiritual, out-of-body essence is now not completely free.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"It'll be completely dark soon," Sasha said to drive that thought away from her. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Where are we going to sleep? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Back in the car?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- In about two hours there will be a roadside hotel, - said Elvira Maksimovna, - a cafe, a gas station, everything ... We will spend the night there. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And we'll be there the next morning. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It is interesting to see which mansion my "sixes" have chosen for me ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“What about you,” Sasha asked, “do you trust them so much that you don’t even check their work?” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Have you seen this mansion yet?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Only in the photographs,” Elvira Maksimovna shrugged her shoulders. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“My firm has been around for a long time. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And the staff know my tastes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I am so sure of this that I can trust them in choosing this kind. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I am most captivated by the location of this mansion - it is located on a stretch of the Black Sea coast, where you rarely meet any of the other vacationers. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Perhaps there is only one such site left,” she added, “and rest here costs much more than in any fancy sanatorium. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Of course,” she continued, throwing her finished cigarette out the window, “there are certain difficulties in this case – it is difficult to get there. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Only by car. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">But after all - it will not be a problem if it is not made a problem. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">So?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes,” Sasha nodded. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">– Remember when we had a rest in a closed sanatorium in Yalta last year? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">How did the people around us squint at us? ..</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Exactly, - Elvira Maksimovna picked it up and laughed, - especially when I invited you to rub my back in the shower on the beach ... In that mansion where you and I will live this year, there will certainly be no chain-bearing rednecks. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In general, there will be no one. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Only a minimum of servants. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">You know... - Elvira Maksimovna laughed again, catching a sudden thought - why don't you and I get married? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Well, not officially, but like this ... I would buy you out of your fucking office. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">You would no longer have to serve fat old aunts crazy with age ... I can imagine how stunned my “sixes” would be when they found out ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- We have been meeting for a long time, - Sasha remarked, - in my opinion, for anyone from your environment ... the formalization of our relationship would not be a big surprise. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The girls from my agency would definitely be very surprised. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It is not so rare that men marry prostitutes, but in order to ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- You are wrong! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna suddenly objected. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I mean, my subordinates know everything about our relationship. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">No one should know anything about our relationship with you - of course, I joked about the wedding. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I need to maintain my prestige. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And if there are any rumors among my "sixes", then the chatterboxes are well aware - one careless word and ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Someone told me,” Sasha said, “that earlier, in the last century, rich old men who supported young girls represented them in the world as their nieces ... Do you remember, Elvira Maksimovna, how they once took us for sisters?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna was already thinking about something else, smoking another menthol cigarette, which she destroyed up to three packs a day. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha, looking at her, fell silent and turned back to the window.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The mountain descent is over. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The winding and narrow road has turned into a smooth, wide highway - a serpentine ribbon hanging so low from the tree straightens on the floor.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It's already completely dark. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna turned on the high beam and increased her speed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">They drove in silence for about half an hour.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I want to sleep, - Elvira Maksimovna yawned barely perceptibly, - her eyes are closing.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“You don’t need to sleep,” Sasha was frightened. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Let's talk, otherwise you will fall asleep, and we will fly into a ditch. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">How many such cases happened.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"I'm tired of it," Elvira Maksimovna grimaced gracefully. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Everything has already been discussed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">For days in a row, we just do what we talk. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Put some disc.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What, for example? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha asked, opening the glove compartment.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“King Crimson,” Elvira Maksimovna said after thinking, and when the music sounded in the cabin of the car speeding along the highway, she leaned back and stretched sweetly without letting go of the black steering wheel from her hands.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha turned to the window again, but nothing was visible there, except for the rapidly flying overweight silhouettes of bushes and trees, which almost instantly turned into a solid dark line.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha closed her eyes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She seems to have dozed off; </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">in any case, the thoughts and images that suddenly swirled in her head, in their fantasticness and at the same time their vivid plausibility, were more like ordinary dreams.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">When a white-foamed wedding dress covered her and she found herself somewhere on a hill, surrounded by humming people, and next to her Elvira Maksimovna took her by the arm, dressed for some reason in a strict men's suit and therefore became like a miniature boy who glued a tuft of black over his upper lip wool from the lining of a winter coat, - she suddenly felt cold touches on her body and, opening her eyes, realized that she really was sleeping.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Electric guitar overflows, like threads of an invisible, sparkling cobweb, easily taking off and disappearing, instead of falling off, filled the interior of the car - Elvira Maksimovna, obviously, added a sound.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha stirred and suddenly found that her white shirt was unbuttoned to the last two buttons, and without that short skirt fluffed up to the very waist.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Awoke? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna purred thinly. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I woke you up, woke you up ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She reached out to Sasha again, keeping her eyes on the road, and Sasha, habitually feeling her hand on her chest, leaned back and closed her eyes.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“No, that won’t do,” Elvira Maksimovna said after half a minute and took her hand away, “now you don’t sleep, my eyes are so glued together ... And it’s still an hour to go to the hotel. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">If not more... It's better if you don't let me sleep.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha resignedly moved closer to Elvira Maksimovna. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Her hands skillfully slid over the bird's body, freeing him from clothing where it was needed.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Be careful…” Elvira Maksimovna exhaled quietly after a few minutes and, tilting her head slightly, took her earlobe away from Sasha's already swollen lips. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I'm still driving a car ... I need to somehow control myself ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha's palm, folded like a boat under Elvira Maksimovna's clothes, slid off her stomach a little lower, and, screaming, Elvira Maksimovna threw back her head herself and greedily dug her lips into Sasha's lips.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Lowered long eyelashes flickered before Sasha's half-closed eyes, and at the same second, from somewhere far away and at the very same time, a car roared very close.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Escaping from the tight embrace, Elvira Maksimovna turned the steering wheel. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha was thrown to the door. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The headlights of a sports car, switched to high beam, snatched out of the darkness of the night a truck that swept very close by, furiously humming with an antediluvian horn.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna, without ceasing to squeal, pressed on the brake pedal. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The sports car spun across the road, and with a terrifying screech it came to a halt, almost overturning.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">For a few seconds there was such silence, which happens only after a very strong direct blow to the face.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha looked in the rearview mirror. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The truck, which almost smashed them and Elvira Maksimovna together with the car, also stopped. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The door slammed, someone fell out of the truck.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What was it? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha breathed out.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“That’s how we had fun…” muttered Elvira Maksimovna, staring with widened eyes at her hands, still clutching the steering wheel, “if only a little more, and we would have left a wet place… Who knew that in this wilderness, and even at such a time there may be an oncoming car on the road...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- He's coming towards us, - Sasha screamed, looking into the rear-view mirror again, - this one ... from the truck.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna silently started the car and began to turn around. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The driver of the truck, a huge bearded man, was already very close. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna squealed again when he rapped on the glass from her side.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Whores!! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">the man's roar sounded muffled because of the raised windows. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“They almost ruined my car, you filthy bitches! .. I saw what you were doing there !! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">There are no cops on you, perverts!!</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna finally leveled the car and switched gears. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The man was still running beside them, yelling something completely inarticulate and shaking the night air with his clenched fists.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha suddenly noticed that his broad face was crossed obliquely by a black bandage covering his right eye.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I'll find you again! </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- shouted the man.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna pressed the gas pedal, and he, along with his truck, disappeared.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Instantly picking up speed, the sports car raced on down the night road. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The sparkling guitar threads disappeared - Elvira Maksimovna turned off the player.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha still couldn't calm down. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Her breathing was interrupted every now and then, and from time to time she had to gasp for air that had suddenly become very stuffy. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She couldn't lower the window - it seemed to her that if she did this, the one-eyed bearded man would immediately roll into the passenger compartment, woven out of the darkness of the night, and grab her by the arm.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“But now I don’t feel like sleeping,” Elvira Maksimovna smiled with her still pale lips, who was always proud of the fact that she quickly recovers after any shock - a quality, by the way, very useful in her hectic life as a Russian businesswoman.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“It seems to me that I won’t sleep at all today,” Sasha complained, “this one-eyed one ... Like a pirate from a black and white film ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Scared? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna turned slightly to her. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What is there to be afraid of now? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">We did the right thing by leaving immediately. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Who knows what he could do to us on the night road, where there is not a soul for several kilometers ... Now there is nothing to be afraid of. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I would look at this animal when he tries to download rights somewhere ... Where it's crowded. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Let him prove that there was something like that. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">There were no witnesses to the incident - he was alone in the cockpit. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And none of the cars received any damage. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It seems ... Well, ours - for sure.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Look,” Sasha suddenly got up in her seat, “there are some lights ahead!”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes,” Elvira Maksimovna confirmed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- A big building. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Have we already arrived at the hotel? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">What is it called there...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna took out a map of the area from under the seat and unfolded it on her knees.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Yeah, this hotel ... Do you know what it's called? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">she chuckled again.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- How?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- "Motel" ... What? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Briefly and clearly. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The most important thing is the topic. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Most importantly, this hotel should not be as dirty as hotels in the periphery usually are. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I know those provincial “Motels” – cockroaches fall from the ceiling like confetti… – Elvira Maksimovna looked at Sasha again.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha buttoned up her shirt and straightened her skirt.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Then put my clothes in order,” demanded Elvira Maksimovna, “only this time without nonsense.” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Otherwise, I’m already afraid - suddenly another crazy truck will surface now ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She laughed with a silver bell. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha was not laughing.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Ahead, large letters flickered, lined with red electric lights. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">After a few more minutes, the letters formed easily into the word "Motel."</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Look,” Elvira Maksimovna was surprised, rising a little on the seat so that Sasha could button up her skirt. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Indeed, they have already arrived. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And I thought we still had a whole hour to go ... The ancients said well: a pleasant fellow traveler - and the road is half as short ... - the bell rang again. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Besides, we were driving at high speed. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Well, just a little more, and we will have the opportunity to sleep on relatively clean linen ...</span></span></p><br style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><h5 class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 9px 0px 0px 2.5em; text-align: center;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">* * *</span></h5><br style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">When she and Elvira Maksimovna slept together, Sasha always woke up first - it was assumed that Sasha was supposed to make coffee and cook breakfast. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">For almost all of Sasha's regular customers, such morning care meant that, in addition to the usual dachshund, Sasha needed to throw some more on top.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In the case of Elvira Maksimovna, Sasha had the opportunity to skimp on his voluntary duties, because Elvira Maksimovna did not drink coffee, but instead of breakfast, she smoked two or three menthol cigarettes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Moreover, Elvira Maksimovna took Sasha with her on a two-week vacation, having paid for her services in advance; </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">she wouldn't pay Sasha extra every morning now...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In addition, Elvira Maksimovna used Sasha's services for quite a long time - ever since a few years ago she suddenly discovered in herself a dormant attraction to the representatives of her own sex and put her henpecked husband out of the door. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha knew perfectly well that Elvira Maksimovna, the owner of a large metropolitan firm, who loves accuracy in everything, would never pay more than the agreed rate even to her.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha dressed slowly in front of the mirror. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Her clothes - something like a permanent uniform laid down by the nature of her profession - a transparent shirt and a very short skirt - did not hide at all, but on the contrary - emphasized every pleasant bulge of Sasha's body, which Sasha herself considered ideal, and generally accepted standards - a little large .</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The dressing procedure, although Sasha performed it with deliberate deliberation, took only a few minutes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It was too hot for pantyhose, and Sasha was not supposed to have underwear - Elvira Maksimovna did not like it.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Having dressed, Sasha combed her well-groomed long blond hair, which she was very proud of, and loosened it over her shoulders, fluffing a little around her slightly wide-cheeked face.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Having finished with the hair, Sasha set about the obligatory make-up. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">From time to time she turned away from the mirror and cast a glance at Elvira Maksimovna, sleeping naked, lying across the wide bed.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">As usual, stripped of clothes, Elvira Maksimovna resembled a fragile fifteen-year-old girl drowned in swollen snow-white sheets. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Her face, even with traces of yesterday's strict make-up, could not be called the face of a thirty-year-old woman. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna took care of herself and looked much younger than her years, and if it were not for her usual business suit, then at all sorts of business meetings or conferences she could easily be mistaken for the daughter of one of the businessmen who accidentally wandered.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Suddenly Sasha thought that, despite such a long and close acquaintance with Elvira Maksimovna, she would never learn to address her as “you” - even in the most intimate moments. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Already Elvira Maksimovna herself made comments to her about this - she said that it’s funny to hear phrases like: “Elvira Maksimovna, lift your skirt, please, it’s more convenient ...” - but Sasha couldn’t help herself - it just so happened that from the very early childhood, every person, invested with even a minimal shred of power, aroused in her reverence, reaching outright reverence.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And since, due to her timid nature, Sasha considered almost every person important and significant, she only called girls from her calling agency and stray cats, whom she loved very much, as “you”, and that’s all.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha called both her father and mother, as was customary in the nineteenth century, “you”.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sighing about something in her dream, Elvira Maksimovna rolled over on her side, outlining a short invisible arc in the air with her sharp pink girlish nipples.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">On the wide bed, Elvira Maksimovna looked very small. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha often thought that Elvira Maksimovna's diminutiveness was more than compensated by Elvira Maksimovna's love for everything big and significant - be it a squat and wide sports car, huge mansions on the outskirts of the capital, a company that spread almost half of Moscow with many branches in other cities and, finally, her magnificent body, Sasha.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">As if sensing Sasha's gaze on herself, Elvira Maksimovna rolled over onto her back and raised her head.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Woke up already?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Yes,” Sasha nodded, moving away from the mirror.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- What time is it now?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha, looking at the watch on her hand, answered.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Oh-oh ... - Elvira Maksimovna stretched sweetly, bringing her thin hand to her mouth. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Where did I put my cigarettes yesterday,” she suddenly became worried, “have I really lost it?” </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In this hole, most likely you won’t get such cigarettes for any money ...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Yes, here they are, on the nightstand!</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“There’s already a lot of time,” Elvira Maksimovna said anxiously, lighting a cigarette, “we’ll leave soon. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">We’ll just have breakfast and then we’ll go ... And you, Sasha, go down to the parking lot ... Ask them to look at our car and ... fill it up. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Full tank - who knows where next time we will meet a gas station until we get to the place.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Okay,” Sasha said.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“For now, I’ll take a shower and get dressed,” Elvira Maksimovna said, leaning back comfortably on the pillows and waving a smoking cigarette towards Sasha: “Go.”</span></p><br style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><h5 class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 9px 0px 0px 2.5em; text-align: center;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">* * *</span></h5><br style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha did not want to eat at all, nor did she want to return to the stuffy room, so after giving the necessary instructions to the workers in the parking lot, she stepped aside and sat down on a low bench in the shade of a tall, lonely cypress.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">To Sasha's left stood the grotesque hulk of a cheap cinder block hotel, messily painted a hazy green-brown color, which made the whole structure look rather repulsive, as if the hotel had been doused with shit from roof to cellar.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha looked around - the smell, from which she was slightly sick, came from a wooden booth of a single toilet, intended, obviously, for employees of the parking lot and gas station of the hotel.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">To the right and left, for Sasha’s observations, there was nothing of value either - only puddles of diesel fuel, heaps of garbage of agricultural and technical origin, exuding a mixed aroma of manure and burnt car treads, and several old, broken-down cars, mostly trucks on a fence surrounded by a flimsy fence of rusted metal plates actual parking lot.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Suddenly, Sasha noticed that the boys who were examining Elvira Maksimovna's car kept throwing far from modest glances at her, winking and giggling among themselves.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">On a creaky bench, she turned a little sideways to them so that the lack of underwear, which attracted the attention of young people, God forbid, would not damage Elvira Maksimovna’s car - Sasha perfectly remembered how at one of the gas stations a mustachioed uncle, looking at Sasha’s chest, half-naked after another pranks of Elvira Maksimovna, accidentally scratched the front fender with a filling pistol.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In order not to provoke the workers, Sasha began to look at the camel backs of the distant mountain ranges, the distance to which seemed to have not changed at all during the second day of her car trip. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha would gladly get up from the bench and move somewhere far away from the hot eyes of young people, but there were no other benches in the shade in the courtyard of the hotel.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha was well aware that men liked her, but she herself did not have any feelings for them. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">When she started her career as a street prostitute, she used her attractiveness solely for profit and sincerely did not understand those women who were frank about enjoying themselves in bed with a man. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And only when she accidentally had a chance to try female caresses, she realized that bodily pleasures are not only the pleasure of delicious food, expensive drinks and cozy rest.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Then she decided, as they say, to combine business with pleasure and passed an interview in one of the agencies specializing in supplying clients with girls and boys trained in all the subtleties of same-sex love.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">After several months of work in this agency, Sasha met Elvira Maksimovna and fell in love with her so much that a week rarely passed without two or three, or even more, calls from Elvira Maksimovna.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Later, Elvira Maksimovna began to take Sasha with her on holidays or business trips, and at about the same time she began to start strange and confusing conversations about unnatural marriage, which soon became a kind of fixed idea for Elvira Maksimovna.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha did not understand whether her patroness was serious about this or joking. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">She knew that such marriages were illegal, but still, the thought of the possible possibility that she and Elvira Maximovna would someday live - as spouses - under the same roof, made Sasha try her best to please Elvira Maximovna. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Momentary revenue is a good thing, but she wanted to achieve a deep and long-term location of Elvira Maksimovna.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And Elvira Maksimovna, although she preferred young girls to male representatives, could not forever get rid of her dream of a real man, because of the absence of which, according to her, she began to feel a craving for women.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha did not understand much when Elvira Maksimovna talked to her about this, but one day it occurred to her that after many fruitless attempts to find her ideal man, Elvira Maksimovna began to rebuild herself under this ideal...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Hello beauty!</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha almost cried out in surprise and fright. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">In front of her stood the same man whose truck had nearly rammed Elvira Maksimovna's sports car the previous night.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Well, yes, the same one. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">A thick black beard and a pirate bandage on his face. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">He was dressed, as Sasha could now see, in old, impossibly frayed and oiled jeans and a tattered T-shirt of an indefinite color, which exposed his thick hands, blackened by the southern sun. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha noticed a tattoo on her right shoulder - a skull over two crossed bones and a strange inscription - "If you want grief, love me."</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Hello, beauty ... Deaf, or what?</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“N-no…” Sasha found the strength to stammer. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Hello…</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“He was driving towards us,” flashed through her mind, “how could he be in this hotel? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Specially - turned the car around and chased us? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I waited for the morning and now ... "</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“After I almost fit into your car,” the man said, as if answering Sasha’s unspoken questions, “I almost turned my truck over. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The cylinder on my right wheel was already dying, and then you ... In short, I had a flat tire, and the spare tire is no better than the old cylinder. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">I had to come back here - after all, you won’t go on a flight on such shit ... I ran out of time, called ... Now I’m sunbathing here ... through your fault, by the way ... - the one-eyed man ended his speech with a savory spit that almost hit Sasha on the leg.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Well, excuse me,” Sasha said, “we didn’t do it on purpose…”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Sorry…” the one-eyed chuckled. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Fuck your apologies..."</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha looked around helplessly. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Throughout almost her entire life, there was always a person next to her, whose duty it was to protect her. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">When she worked on the street, it was the guy who sold her to clients. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">If he couldn’t cope on his own, he could always call four from the old car, constantly standing in a deaf gateway, either the guards, or the roof, or just his friends - Sasha did not know who these four were, drinking every night beer in an old car and appearing only when it was necessary to reason with outraged customers who were not on business. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And after Sasha began working in the agency, she had no problems with clients at all. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The girls who had already drunk dashingly - her colleagues in the shop - whispered that they were terribly lucky, </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">that they go under such a serious roof and none of the clients dare to offend them just like that, and Sasha did not understand their joy. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It turned out so well for her that she knew about cases of clients bullying prostitutes only from oral stories, which she was not very inclined to believe: it was a sin for many girls to embellish and turn rather ordinary episodes into real incidents.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">And now even Elvira Maksimovna was not around to intercede for her.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- Why are you silent? </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The one-eyed man kept looking at her. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Are you… retarded?”</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“I’m… tired,” Sasha burst out, “I’m tired… just…</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">The one-eyed man snorted disdainfully and looked her over from head to toe, in which, however, there was by no means only disdain.</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- And you have nothing ... - he began to say and turned to the car, near which there were no workers, - nothing, I say, you have a wheelbarrow. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">What is it called?</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha knew this. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Elvira Maksimovna loved her cars and often repeated their names.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Audi Quattro Sport,” she uttered, “one of the latest models ... Only it is not adapted, it seems to me, to our roads. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">This is where your truck will pass...</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Let’s swap,” suggested the one-eyed one, “let’s wave without looking, huh?”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha didn't have anything to say. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">It seemed to her that the one-eyed man, who at first spoke to her more or less calmly, was now gradually losing his temper.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“It’s necessary to turn off the conversation,” Sasha thought, “somehow he behaves incomprehensibly at all ...”</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“I will go,” she said. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">- I'll be late for breakfast.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">“Nothing,” the one-eyed man said incomprehensibly and shook his head, “nothing ...</span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 20px;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Sasha got up from the bench and went to the entrance to the hotel. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">While walking to the door, she looked back twice - the one-eyed man was looking after her, putting his hand to his forehead in the manner of a visor.</span></span></p><p class="book" style="color: #393939; 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