Ви Корс - The Mist and the Lightning. Part VI

“And legs too?”

“Legs?! No, why the legs! Al! You don’t understand anything in barbecue, legs don’t go for barbecue. Legs are possible if only in aspic…”

And Tol delved into the subject. And Lis stood and thought that only Tol, and only between them, calls him Al. Shortens his surname – Alis. Because they are paired. Because he insures Lis in battle. Covers him. And sometimes she shouts loudly and quickly to him during a fight. Apparently “Al” is easier for him to shout out than “Lis” or “Alis”.

“Al, right!”, “Al, how are you ?!” “Like shit, my dear Tol. Like shit.”

Tol has already completed an excursion into the jungle of cooking, and now he was staring at Lis, he was surprised that he never interrupted him and didn’t tell him to fuck off. But the truth was that somehow he

quickly finished, he could have screwed longer. And Lis would have listened, stand there. Damn, Tol can’t even say anything long and tedious, well, what a blockhead! What to ask?!

“And the weather is not very good, Tol, it seems like it’s going to start raining?”

“It is going to, but it hasn’t started! And when it start, nobody knows! It’s normal weather! Don’t worry! Everything will be just at its best! Listen up!”

And Tol still grabbed him, hugging with one hand:

“I'll tell you such a thing now! About Lila! By the way, I invited her! We can arrange a really good time this night! Come, come to my place, I’ll tell you everything now! This is something!.. You just get fucked when you find out!”

“He was not even surprised that I was going after him,” thought Lis, doomed, “he considers me his friend. And judging by how all this is offered to me, he considers me his equal. Congratulations, Al!” Lis grinned bitterly.

He didn’t want to go to Tol and listen to some dubious vulgarities about Lila, he didn’t want to. But even more he didn’t want to go to him… Well, of the two evils, as you know, they usually choose the lesser.

Asa only grunted when she saw them on the threshold. Her next puppy, barked and rushed around. Lis realized that she, unlike Tol, noticed changes in his appearance. Noticed and appreciated.

“You look good!” She said, in “black” language, with a terrifying accent. In her performance, it sounded like: "You rook grood." Why do they always add these damn “g” and “shh”! Soft sounds don’t seem to exist at all for them. Vowels are also a problem.

Asa sat down by the mirror to preen. Well, at least she understands what kind of guest made them happy with his presence. Tol thundered with bottles, and at the same time with no less enthusiasm, as if he had just not told Lis, he began to share his stunning news with Asa:

“It will be an unbelievably tasty barbecue! You will swallow your tongue! I ordered to add to the pickle…”

“To the marinade, moron!”

“Can you imagine how fucking great it will turn out! Real jam!”

Lis sat in an armchair. Pictures of naked girls were hung on the walls in Tol’s room (on one of the pictures, the girls washed themselves in a bathhouse – and very naturalistically). Over the table hung a cheap

portrait of Jazmina, a singer popular in the “Lower”, bought at the fair. And above the fireplace, there were framed sheets with clever sayings:

“In the bowels of black, tri-color is born – black, white and red!” “Only black is true color, and the rest origin from it!”

Further, the logical conclusion followed that the “blacks” were the true progenitors of all mankind. Probably such “true blacks” as Arel. At first there were only them. And only then, from them, “whites” appeared, or rather, according to the logic of the writer, “whites” are the same “blacks”, only in a slightly different guise. They are “blacks” who have moved to the upper sublevel. And only then… only then the “reds" were born the very last.

They told him shit like that at a military school. Lis remembered that. They were raising the patriotic spirit of future warriors. “Blacks” are a chosen race,

“whites” are so-so, but “reds” is just a burp. Gods! What is he doing here?! Why is sitting here, barked by a fucking dog, and doesn’t leave? Lis knew why.

Tol set a tall crystal glass in front of him and poured wine. Lis really wanted to take him by the hair, because Tol’s tail, despite shaved temples, was two Lis’ arms and waist length, and to muzzle him on the tabletop.

Asa languidly approached the table to clink glasses with them too. Lis wanted to hit her no less.

They drank. Everything at once. Neither Tol nor Asa knew how to drink in sips, savoring the taste, and Lis didn’t want to. He was now not in time to enjoy the bouquet. He wanted to get drunk and fall asleep until the evening. Until these fucking lamb barbecues. He was sure that Nikto would be there all the time with Arel, and Lis would not have a chance. And this is good.

Tol immediately poured again. The wine was not sweet. Tol knew what kind of wine to pour to his friend, and Lis was at least a little pleased.

He nodded toward the puppy: “What’s this?”

“My dog!” answered Asa proudly.

Yes, she obviously already pretty well learned to chatter in “black”

language.

“Can you make it shut up?” “Bushuy! Bushuy, lie down!”

“Gods! Why Tol? Why did he meet Tol this morning!”

Bushuy lay in a basket and began to tear something violently there.

“And I told him: “Fuck, Arel! There is such weather, you have to get out of the hole in the end! And he told me: “Where are you going to take the meat? Are you going to hunt for meat?” And I already got it in “Backara”…”

Lis read the following saying:

“Believe in God's purpose! God hurts us to save! ” Something new.

“Tol?”

“I say… it will not rain. And he… Yes?” “What's this?”

“Where?” Tol looked at the wall as if he had seen it for the first time in his life:

“Ah, that! This is a great thing! Lila gave it to me! And yet…” Tol with his inherent impulsiveness began to run around the room, scattering things.

“Asa! Where are the “Words of God”!”

Esa finished the wine, put the glass on the table and wiped her lips with a sleeve.

Tol cried out, trying to drown out the rumble from the collapsed arms rack:

“And Lila! Listen up. I wanted to tell you about Lila! We tumbled with her this way…” Tol froze. “It was a threesome.”

He started running again:

“Me, Asa and her.” She and Asa were doing such things!” He froze again, looking in the corner with a basket.

“Damn! Damn! Damn!” Jumping to the puppy, Tol pulled from his mouth a chewed parchment.

“Look!”

He joyfully thrust the “Word of God”, which was in the dog’s saliva, under Lis’ nose.

“And I will give you a new heart. And I will give you a new spirit. And I

will take from the flesh your heart of stone and give you the heart…”

Lis could not read what heart it was promised to give them, the ending was irretrievably lost in the stomach of the dog.

Tol was looking at Lis with enthusiasm:

“She’ll come to barbecue today. She has promised! Do you want to arrange the foursome, to look what the girls will be doing?”

“Do I look like an idiot? Why does he think that I can be offered this?”

“Drink!” Asa irritably shoved Tol into the stomach with a glass poured to the brim. She was unhappy with the prolonged gap between the first and second, or the third drink.

“At least one sensible thought!” Lis drank in one gulp. He was still not getting drunk. He still wanted to leave.

“Do you want Asa?” Suddenly suggested Tol, casting the dictum away from himself. He was absolutely sincere in his impulse of hospitality.

And Asa smiled at Lis. She smiled beautifully, feminine. Lis really wanted to leave…

“I want her!”

“That's it! And when Lila arrives, she will start such tricks… By the way, you have already nagged her. Have you noticed how crazy she is?”

Asa sat down on Lis’ knees and stroked his hair: “Red,” she said.

“Yes, dear, fucking red. And the “reds”, as you know, are the most crappy race. They have a rotten gut, so they say.”

She leaned toward his mouth. Lis answered her kiss, it was better than…

He lifted Asa in his arms and went to the bed, threw her at the bed. Asa immediately knocked him over.

They tumbled for a long time, Lis felt excited, but couldn’t cum, no matter how he tried. Tol drank wine and didn’t intervene, watching them with a pleased grin, as if anticipating the coming unforgettable evening.

Asa also seems very impressed. She was sitting on top of him now, and galloping, galloping, galloping… And Lis’ horse was galloping. On flat terrain. Without any barriers.

He looked at her tattoos. Beautiful. A little darker than her dark skin, with swirling patterns. He recognized familiar themes in these interweaving. They mean something. Some are like those… this monogram on the thigh, slightly convex like that of…

And Lis timidly ran his hand over her tattooed thigh. He felt irregularities, light bulges of the picture, where the skin was apparently pierced deeper than necessary. Ahhh…

Satisfied, Asa fell off to the side. Tol stood at the foot of the bed, holding the puppy on its hind legs. The puppy twisted frantically, bending and trying to bite Tol’s fingers. He was too round and pot- bellied to get what he wanted.

“You know, Lis,” said Tol, not paying attention to the dog trying to get out, “I’ll tell you as my best friend! When you're not showing off, you're so cool!”

Arel sat on the bed:

“My stomach hurts,” he said plaintively.

“What's wrong with your stomach?” Nikto asked aloof, he was looking for something in his bag and it seemed he couldn’t find it.

Outside the window, a windy but clear spring day began.

“It hurts, awful. Maybe the stomach, I don’t know… And the same thing yesterday! What should I do?”

“Smoke and everything will pass.” “Make me a smoke, Nick.”

“And “hard” does not suit you?”

“I love grass more. I like “hard” less. It’s you who likes “hard”.”

“Okay, now… wait…” Nikto stopped rummaging in his bag, went to the table and poured some grass on a sheet of paper.

“Hey?! What are you doing there? Nik, I think this is some important document. Are you going to tear it up?”

“I will just pin on it and that’s it. I am not going to tear anything.”

“Well, pin it… Arel tightened again, hugging his long-suffering belly with both hands. “Or maybe…” he began timidly after a while.

“No.”

Arel sighed heavily.

Nikto laughed, bowing his head over the paper and reading it: “Twelve days, three hours.”

“What?”

“This paper. Document,” Nikto handed it to Arel. Arel indifferently took the sheet:

“Ahhhh…” he said, “it was Enriki who gave me that. The decree. He grunted scornfully. Those freaks imposed a fine!”

“You’re taking time, it’s dangerous.” Arel cocked his head:

“What do you suggest?! To give you away?!” He asked in exasperation. Nikto looked down, handing Arel a clogged cigarette:

“Hold on.”

Arel literally snatched it from Nikto’s fingers.

“Why did they set such a deadline?” Nikto asked. “Why such strange numbers, twelve days, three hours?”

Arel blew smoke, and handed the jamb back to Nikto: “Will you?”

Nikto nodded.

“They are morons,” Arel continued, “for me their stupid orders mean nothing. Twelve days, thirteen days, a week. I don’t give a shit… shi-i-i- t…”