The Wings of our Soul virtual novel

Prologue

One soul heard another soul singing to it in a dream.
So tender in the silence, like an angel sent from Paradise.
And that time the prankster Love, flying over the world, started up,
She swiftly descended from the clouds and touched the sleeping man lovingly:
She left a hot kiss, pierced his heart with a fiery passion,
Whispering: "You love again. Don't grieve. More likely to go in search of the beauty".
Love flew over the ocean, all the way without getting tired of being surprised,
That I passed through so many different countries and ended up in the farthest one.
I found a second soul at the window, gazing dreamily at the stars:
She was as beautiful as the moon, as clear and pure as the air.
She prayed for love in verse, and now Love has heard the prayers,
And put a heat in her blood, and made her so happy…
How it started? Perhaps it doesn't matter now whether he saw an alluring image in his dream or he heard the call of his heart part on another continent, or maybe he accidentally caught a glimpse of an unusual face on a professional job site, which he has visited once a year, when it was absolutely necessary., but all this was the beginning of one of the love stories that are reflected in novels.

 
Chapter I . Rain

My love for you is like a hurricane,
Steppe, sea, sky, and universal.
My love for you is like the ocean,
Mysterious, alluring, unknown…

Rain was in loss… Why did this woman refuse him again and again? Him who is so handsome, so smart, so well-off, who had never been rejected by any fair sex. Everyone was always smitten with just his mesmerizing gaze, not to mention his dazzling smile and charming voice that complemented the image of the conqueror of women's hearts. And what was his jokes worth, his subtle humour! Alas, the one who attracted him so much remained absolutely cold to all his tricks. "What else should I do?" — the cold and calculating mind of a businessman tried to find new algorithms to conquer a new ladylove. In his mind, he had been already calling her "My fair lady", although in this case «Me» was not his at all, but complete stranger, and a stranger in every sense: a strange woman from a foreign country with a foreign culture, and also a someone else's wife. Rain felt sick of these facts understanding. He knew this condition well, when you feel you breathe taken away from a strong excitement so that he can hardly breathe. Within all his long years of hard-working business experience, accustomed to the UPS and downs of the oil market, he had a good fortune (or misfortune?) he had a delicate and vulnerable soul. And this very soul of his suddenly stopped breathing at the most crucial moments of his life. No, something must be done about it. That’s not good. Why should he, Rain, a man in his Prime and who is free for several years, why should he endure the regular polite but humiliating rejection of a woman who clearly lost to him in the social status? So, he decided to take up the case. To begin with, he regained his breath, he managed to cool up his soul that all this was just temporary difficulties, and saw that he immediately felt a sense of comfort throughout his body. So, let's start with a different approach, Rain told to himself. — Well, she doesn't want to respond to my male attentions because she has a family and, apparently, she is quite happy with her life, but at least she could agree with traditional friendly communication which does not oblige her to anything, however, as well as me. Here it is! He knew in his gut that he was on the right track. The businessman's nose never failed him.
Two months have passed. No shift. But rain didn't give up. His excitement grew stronger with every new refusal. His friends poked fun of him. In fact, it was ridiculous: he asked several of his friends to establish professional contacts with an inaccessible and incomprehensible lady, but somehow the lady guessed that all these professionals, which supposedly needed some help or recommendations and begging for her email address under a plausible pretext are none but the enemy "bastard - messengers" from Rain. In the end he found a clever programmer who managed somehow to get her email address out of the lady's social profile. Hurray! Now she has nothing to do. Well, she wouldn't change all her addresses and phone numbers — she has such an extensive network of professional contacts and she probably values it. Finally, her heart is not from stone. After several letters attacks the lady finally agreed to respond to his letters. True, it looked so grudgingly more as a polite gesture but still it was his victory. No, he's definitely a winner. For sure we should raise a glass of champagne!
Why would he want this strange lady from the other world?  Raine couldn’t answer this question clearly.  He was slightly over 50 years old, a successful, has been married, an American gentleman with a wonderful son.  He had everything that he sought from his youth: an excellent education in one of the best universities of the United States; he had his own business, thanks to which he travelled half the world;  a spacious house in a quiet cosy town in the northeast of Texas; he had a teenage son who is the subject of his pride, who was his heir and successor of the family;  well, he had no marriage obligations for the past few years.  He was tall, thin and well-built, but he constantly monitored his physical shape and nutrition, because he loved to eat delicious food, and it's no secret to anyone that tasty meal is not always healthy, especially for the figure. He was Taurus, and as a rule Taurus are big gourmets. All these defines an exquisite white wine, seafood, tender poultry, spaghetti, various types of sauces and seasonings are always in Rain's house.  He could endlessly list the dishes that he liked: juicy steaks, a variety of shrimp, beef stew, linguine with white clam sauce, all kinds of original soups, veal, beef squash with nuts, shrimp with garlic sauce, lasagne, seafood salad, escarole with beans and chicken sausages and etc.  He loved to cook specific dishes and beautifully lay the table for two.  How else?  As a gatherer of female beauty, he could not spend romantic evenings alone, so he never had a shortage of girlfriends.  Raine played the piano perfectly, loved and had a subtle feeling for music, no matter whether it was classical or pop music - thanks to his mother (he had the best mother in the world, who devoted her life to him after his father's death).  “It’s good to be important, but it’s much more important to be good,” Mom never tried to repeat and he did his best to be good.
Rain knew that he was a child of a great love. It was a separate story that is worthy of admiration. In the early years of the twentieth century Rain's father, a successful businessman, came from the promised land to the States and met a lovely blue-eyed Dutch woman and realized that he had found the love of his life. So, a few days of a short business trip turned into a few happy years of life. Rain spent his childhood and youth in several countries because his father's numerous relatives wanted the whole family to gather in the Holy land as often as possible, his mother missed her Netherlands and the business concerns required location in the States from time to time where rain's parents certainly felt more at ease — it was America. Then her father was gone, and Rain and her mother settled down in a small Texas town with the beautiful name Dreamview, which means "Dreamy look" or "Dreamy view".
A small town with a population of just over 80 thousand people was founded in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its founder sold one hundred acres of his land to the Southern Pacific Railroad for just one dollar so that the company would run its line near his property, and the railroad has been running through Dreamview ever since. He also gave the name of the city, once saying that a "dreamy view" can be seen from the window of his house. Later, the town developed well due to the oil industry, so even during the economic crises, it was practically not affected. Despite the small population, the city opened three higher education institutions, built its own airport and several highways. All the buildings of the town looked low and cosy. The climate was even, warm, and humid. Local residents included famous football players, baseball players, singers, actors, directors and producers. Life here was calm, comfortable and confident.
Rain longed for his father, for the old happy life with both parents, but especially for what fate had given his father — the love of his life. Rain was secretive by nature. He always seemed cheerful and carefree, while his heart often squeezed into a small ball. Others saw him as a regular guy, he had a noisy and cheerful group of friends, but he believed that he never had real and close friends. And of course, he dreamed that one day he would meet the love of his life. `
Lots of years passed, and the love of his life did not come. Rain started to doubt the truth of the story that his parents had told him. He was in his late forties when he met a pretty girl — a tall brown-haired woman with hazel eyes. Kelly — it was her name — worked as a Sales Manager for one of the small insurance companies. She came to his house with an offer to insure the property, so the story of their acquaintance was the most banal. She was well-bred, not an ardent feminist, and had a good character. She was about thirty and wanted to get married. When Kelly got pregnant and the ultrasound showed that it was a boy, Rain thought that he had nothing more to wish and got married. The wedding was magnificent in a beautiful garden, with many guests and gifts. "Here is my family happiness!" — Rain rejoiced. Now he has everything all people have: all his friends have been married, they had children, and only he was the man the whole company remained a bachelor for a long time, and now he had a wife, Kelly, and a son, John
Really the first years of marriage had seemed perfect to him, without much passion, but they had been fun and enjoyable. Rain liked to take care of his family, play with his son, give gifts to his wife, celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving at the big table with the whole family, including his mother and new relatives, he spent holidays with his family at the sea, walk with his son in the parks. But then all this just disappeared. Rain left his position of a supervisor in a big international oil company and started his own oil business. The trade of crude oil products began to take up all his free time, and he had to travel a lot to different countries and stay there for a long time to establish contacts with the business world and put his business on its feet. He loved that he was doing: building bridges, negotiating with customers and suppliers, achieving goals, and increasing his income.
But the better he did in business the worse his home environment became. Kelly who had never been able to cook or liked to cook, stopped even trying to look like a good hostess and started buying convenience foods in supermarkets which Rain could not stand. She had put on a lot of weight after giving birth, but she constantly refused to do sports or dance to get back in shape. She spent most of her time out of home, but in the cafe with her friends, eating large portions of coffee and sweets and constantly complaining to them about Rain. A real devastation came to the house: when he was returning from trips Rain regularly found and threw out the spoiled food from the refrigerator, he saw piles of incomprehensible magazines with horoscopes and threatening articles about the end of the world, dried flowers in pots and broken dishes. Kelly increasingly started terrible scenes of jealousy and thus she received a nickname "Dramatic angel" from him. Rain tried to settle situation, but Kelly wouldn't let it go: she'd convinced herself that he had a girlfriend in every country who made him spend so much time away from home. Nothing good came of it — they got divorced.
The divorce took a lot of efforts and money from Raine, especially the fight for his son: the question was how much time he will spend with each of the parents, what every parent should and should not do. Rain loved his son — John looked so much like him: the same blond curly hair, the same high forehead, the same dazzling smile, only his eyes were not blue, but hazel, like Kelly's. And John was also very sweet and caring, much like his grandmother, Raine's mother. When Rain was sad, John was very sensitive to his mood, crept up to him, looked into his eyes, climbed to hug and ask why he was sad and whether he, John, was the reason for it. Then his son would pull him by the hand and lead him to the refrigerator for ice cream or to the yard to play. Rain was touched by his son's simple childish cunning, and his heart warmed up.
Rain devoted all his free time to John: playing football with him, teaching him to play piano, taking him to the trips abroad, welcoming his friends, going to the cinemas with them to see children's movies, giving them picnics and small children's performances. Kelly was furious, but there was nothing she could do. John started spending more and more time with his father and grandmother, rather than with his mother. He loved to rides to go with his father, spin on carousels, ride different cars and shoot at the shooting range. At first, John wanted his parents to be together again, but four years later when he was a teenager, he began to understand his father better and stopped pestering him to live together as before. When Rain was away to the business trips for a long time, John was saved by his friends: he had a lot of them, and they were all devoted to each other. Secretly, Rain envied his son, because he had never had such real friends. He didn't quite know why: whether it was the age — old rivalry at school, or in courting girls, or envy to his appearance, or Raine's ability to make a career and earn money. In any case Rain always got all the best: high ratings, the attention of the most beautiful girls, positive relations with the bosses, the constancy of the customers. But it didn't bother him much now, because he had the best son in the world. John filled his life. Rain constantly watched him and wrote down in a large notebook all the funny tricks and funny expressions of his son, and then framed it in the form of fairy tales and stories. Rain decided that one day he'll publish a whole book of stories about my son, and the whole world will know how wonderful he was. So, John was the first in Rain's heartbeat. But it wasn't enough for his heart.
After a failed marriage Rain didn't want to think about a serious relationship anymore. For some reason basically, he came across sleek predators with shimmering eyes and lush blond hair, tall, long-legged, with large Breasts, dressed in the latest fashion. They made a splash with their appearance in society, Rain mockingly watched as they pretended to be fatal beauties and amused himself with an amusing spectacle. The beauties tried their best to establish themselves firmly in Rain's life, but despite all the tricks of these socialites to take him into their clutches, they failed. Rain's heart remained calm. He was perfectly happy to meet pretty women who obliged him to nothing.
Rain enjoyed his loneliness and freedom. He was glad to be immersed in himself, in his physical, spiritual and mental development. He enjoyed the outdoors, jogging, cycling, painting, sunbathing on the beach, playing baseball, putting on comedies with friends, and writing stories about his son. He was fascinated by Eastern wisdom, poetry, philosophy, and spiritual practices. Rain was a lark as to his biorhythms: he liked to get up early, before sunrise, and watch the dawn break, as the first ray of the sun timidly falls on the ground, as every minute around it becomes brighter and brighter, as the world wakes up. During these hours he thought especially well: he spent a long time reading the clever thoughts of Eastern philosophers, doing asanas and thinking about life. But one day while devouring the works of Rumi and Khalil Gibran, he suddenly remembered the words of Leo Tolstoy: "In the name of God, stop, stop your work, look around you." It was an Epiphany: he realized that he was ready to search for the love of his life again. And Rain actively started realizing the case. His heart was beating with joy, and his imagination was already drawing an image of a beautiful stranger who must be waiting for him somewhere as anxiously as he was looking for her. Rain fell asleep with such pleasant thoughts. In his dream, a poem written in early 19th came to his mind:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I long to know who you are
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky…

The next morning Rain woke up happy and inspired. Now he carefully looked at every pretty woman walking towards, sitting in a cafe or being in his company, reading the expression of her face, her figure, listened to the voice of his heart and tried to detect chemistry. But all attempts were unsuccessful. There was no chemistry: the ladies seemed to be boring, uninteresting, and not exciting to him. It was obviously necessary to look elsewhere. But where? Well, he did not register on the site of brides — this idea disgusted him.
Rain yawned, turned on his laptop and headed to the professional job site searching for a colleague from his former international oil company whose contacts he had lost, but whom he needed now desperately to discuss the prospects for pricing of crude oil products in Russia in the nearest future. He set the search parameters and started lazily browsing the site's pop-ups. And then he felt frozen. Something happened to his heart: it jumped and fluttered. Rain felt his breath catching in his throat, or rather, that he couldn't take a deep breath. It was her, his beautiful dream stranger. Raine's mother often said, "Good things can be found in places where we least expect them to be." How right she was, his dear mother! He found the one he'd been dreaming about for years. He was afraid to be deceived. What if it wasn't her? What if his instincts are wrong? But no, it couldn't be so. He found her. Everything happened as it should be. He understood clearly that he had found the love of his life.
Rain's mind whirled with thoughts of love. If you listen to them you could find something for yourself. "Love is a gift, not a game to be played. Love is something that none of us can point out, because this inexplicable thing only appears when you realize that you don't ask yourself what love is. Love is the key to happiness. Love is a wonderful feeling of compassion and satisfaction. Love should be given respect and trust, and then you can get that love back. Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Love is like reading a story; you have to put your heart and soul into it to enjoy the story. If you don't, the story will start to seem boring and slow, you will lose interest in it, and at the same time you will lose love. Love is the feeling that you're going to explode just from looking at the person you love."
So, the chemistry happened. The things are east — to bring your chemistry, that is, love, to the object of your dreams and achieve reciprocity.
All the time that Rain was rushing around in searching a way to win the heart of his Beautiful Lady the pretty owner of this title was quite calmly living her life without Rain.

Chapter II. Denise

My birth is a summer night mystery.
My name is the Sea, I am its soul.
And the God of love in the sky is not accidental
Lit a star, decide my fate…

Her name was Denise. This is a name that sounds more like a man's than a woman's. Psychologists who study the influence of a name on the character and fate of its bearer are definitely right. Denise had a great feminine personality with a masculine note. Yes, Yes, do not laugh, just notes. On her father's side, who had Eastern blood, she was from a warrior family, so there was a steel core in her character. In other times she might have been a female warrior, like Queen Tomiris or Jeanne d'Arc. But from her mother Denise inherited all the softness and charm of femininity. The fact that her father was a career officer also left a significant mark on Denise's character. Due to the peculiarities of his father's service who had been built underground cities in different parts of the world, the family was constantly moving from place to place, from the North to the South, from the East to the West, from country to country. Life in military camps wasn't very diverse, but Denise loved it. It would seem that there can be interesting things here? Several houses surrounded by woods, many men in military uniforms, officers' wives sitting on benches in front of the entrance, always busy knitting; children of all ages who enjoy a strange freedom from their parents and disappear for days in the yard; military parades on holidays; the constant hum of planes overhead; Sunday movie shows in the wooden soldiers' club; frequent shortage in water, heating and electricity, and the constant clatter of passing trains. Throughout her childhood and youth, Denise fell asleep and woke up to the sound of car wheels, as if to remind her that she would soon have to move to a new place again.
Denise loved to dream. In her youth she liked to sit on the windowsill before going to bed and watch the stars. The most favourite was a large and bright star, resembling the twinkle of a running deer. Denise called her star of running deer she talked to it and confided it to be girlish secrets, including the Deer was privy to her dream of meeting a beautiful prince with blue eyes who would come for her from far away and take her to his magical castle. Denise didn't even trust her beloved mother who had been her best friend for years.
Denise's mother was an avid theatre and a lover of poetry. She was madly in love with her city on the Neva river where more than one generation of her ancestors was born and grew up and from where she followed her husband as a real "Decembrist wife". Her mother was a romantic dreamer who read heroic novels. She often ran to dances to the military school although she danced very badly. Dancing wasn't her mother's thing, but she didn't want to admit it. Mom was, as they say, "snort", well, when she didn’t like something she immediately — snort! and come on, this was especially true of fans. She had huge grey eyes and a Roman profile and prizes for short-distance prises, her mother thought that only a tall and handsome Lieutenant of noble birth with the same aristocratic manners as hers was worthy of her hand in marriage. But fate had a different opinion.
At the next ball in the military school, when her mother snorted at the annoying cavalier she caught someone's eyes on her. Who could it be? My mother was dying of curiosity. It was almost Peter the Great's own black man who was looking at her. A shy young man with an Oriental appearance stood watching her at the opposite wall of the hall. Her mother was struck by his sad black eyes and terribly amused by the hairstyle, which was called in those days’ "hedgehog". Being a kind girl, she smiled slightly and nodded affably to the young man. She felt very confident in a small black silk dress, decorated with airy lace at the yoke and sleeves, and high-heeled pumps. To her genuine surprise, the cadet moved to meet her and asked her to dance. Mom was confused, but it was too late to back down, and she held out her hand. And then her mother realized that she was not just a bad dancer, but did not know how to dance at all, because the cadet turned out to be a brilliant dancer. He moved easily and gracefully, literally flying in the dance, carefully circling his shackled partner. He exuded such hidden charm, such warmth, that my mother simply began to melt in his safe hands. "This can't be so," her mother thought, and fell in love with the Oriental youth. It was Denise father-to-be.
He wasn't so tall but he was well-built, and he was an extremely well-read and erudite conversationalist. He was easy to talk to, well-mannered, and overly modest. Her mother felt at ease with him as if they had known each other for years. He smiled softly with all 32 white teeth as he listened to the mother's chatter. It turned out that he can play several instruments, loves theatres, museums and various exhibitions, graduated the school with a gold medal, and that he is an orphan. Mom was struck by the abundance of poems that dad recited to her by heart, and literally smitten with the breadth of his soul when he spent on her and her sly girlfriends all his increased student scholarship for excellent studies — it doesn't matter if mom wanted expensive sweets and cakes or theatre tickets for the very first rows, and then he had to walk through the city at night to his military school, because there was no money left on the subway.
Mom and dad met at the beginning of winter, and on March 8, dad came to visit mom with a bouquet of flowers and a ring. It was a marriage proposal. Denise's grandmother, her mother's mother, whose veins were full of several bloodlines — Russian, French, Polish, and Jewish-was not very enthusiastic about her daughter's choice of a groom, but my mother was determined. The wedding was noisy and young: the whole dad's course was walking. It was not without a curious thing: the wedding car did not come for the young people from the wedding Palace. In the Palace, the application for marriage registration was accepted by a ferocious aunt, who was convinced that a girl from the city on the Neva river should not go to some "darkness" for a man of clearly non-European origin. Like a real military officer her Dad caught the first taxi on the street and took her mother to the wedding. The ferocious aunt was furious and mom and dad spent their entire lives laughing about their first adventure together.
Dad was a child of the Second World War – he was orphaned at the age of six and grewup in an orphanage. He desperately wanted to have a good strong family where his children would get everything that he was deprived of due to life circumstances. Her mother dreamed of a blonde and grey-eyed girl with the Northern name Elon, and the father modestly kept silent. When a girl was born with bright brown eyes and thick dark hair, her mother could not recover from the amazement: it seemed to her that she had changed the child. Elon's name was immediately rejected. Her mother was completely at a loss. She had no other options at all. Her father took the initiative and brought the birth certificate to her mother to the hospital where Denise name was written. By the time her mother reached the ward, she forgot her daughter's name and kept crying for a long time. Then her dad explained to her how the name was translated and mom accepted it. For her mother the name was unfamiliar to her ear, because it sounded like a man's name. Well, how can you call a girl a name that ends in a consonant letter? You can break your tongue. How do I make a name as a diminutive? Generally, it was a mystery. Dad was happy to the point of outrage: it was the name of the land of his ancestors, the call of his homeland; there was the sound of the Caspian Sea, the rustle of the steppe grass, and the imagination pictured the tides associated with the moon, mountain peaks covered with snow, and scarlet spring poppies. In a word it was the East
Her mom got into the associations of the name explained by dad, and loved the name Denise. Both of them loved their daughter to distraction: dad — because his dream to have a family and children came true, and mom — because, besides she was a kindergarten teacher and loved children in general. A few years later, when the family had a son, Alex, who was already named by his mother, the happy circle closed. Her father served "25 hours a day" as her mother told enjoying rare hours of rest in the adored family. When dad returned from business trips, the whole family gathered in the evening in the living room, where the table was set with tea and pies and candles were lit, exuding the scent of roses. The mother organized theme nights: now all the family members took turns reading funny stories or poems, then recalled family traditions, then were sitting at the piano and singing romances. It was a serene and happy time. The mother devoted herself to her children, tirelessly studying them and passing them love for literature and art. So, the years passed.
Denise grew up capable of math, music, and literature. She was an easy student and never did her homework at home, managing to do it at the end of classes. And when was she supposed to do her homework? The mother loaded her to the full: since it is not possible to constantly live in a big city and to develop, then her daughter should have a brilliant education in any way. At the age of six, Denise began her adult life: first she went to music school, then to gymnastics, sewing, knitting and embroidery, cursive printing, acting classes, all electives in imaginable and unimaginable subjects, even aircraft modelling and photography. The reward for a whole year of work was a long dad's vacation, which coincided with the hottest months of the summer holidays.
Dad's military leave was divided into two parts: one part was spent by the sea, the second — visiting theatres, museums and exhibitions. Rest at the sea was quiet and healthy: the family rested in the Crimea, then in the Caucasus. Denise was amused by the Abkhazian names: "amagazin" — meaning "shop", "arestoran" — meaning "restaurant", and she liked the local delicacy with the tricky name "churchkhela" — strung nuts in flour-thickened pomegranate juice. Together with her younger brother Alex, they wandered along the shingle beach and searched for small flat stones with a through hole, which for some reason were called "Chicken God". Dad was a great swimmer and wanted to teach the whole family to swim, because everyone except dad, as he said swam like an axe. The mother and brother remained "onshore ", and Denise — after a couple of times almost drowned, but learned to swim. Denise could not help learning to swim and thereby offend her namesake because her name meant "sea". Most of all, she loved to lie on her back like a star and watch the clouds passing over her like marshmallows, white-winged gulls fly by, and remember the legends associated with the sea, mountains and magic birds. She was a dreamer and often imagined herself as a Sea Princess, a sea wave or a Seagull, and in her fantasies, there was always a beautiful Prince who saved her from an evil wizard.
A relaxed and quite rest at the sea was balanced by the second part of the holiday in St. Petersburg, which was really hectic and festive. The parents bought a lot of walking, river and bus tours on the city and suburbs, tickets to Opera and ballet theatres, musical comedy theatre, drama and puppet theatres, trying to make up for the monotonous life in the military towns with the capital entertainment. The family wandered through the museums and parks of Northern Palmyra, enjoying the beauty of sculpture and architecture, and breathed in the fresh wind from the Baltic. Then the vacation would end, and the family would fly to a distant military town in the middle of the steppe or in the thick of the forest, and begin to make plans for the next year.
Denise has changed seven schools, she was tirelessly proving to new teachers that all her excellent marks are well deserved. The frequent changes had hardened her character, and she was not afraid of anything. She was awarded a ticket to the All-Union Children's Camp "Artek" for excellent studies. She was proud that she had earned this trip to Artek, as her father had once done. A long time ago, as an excellent student her father was sent from the orphanage to that part of Artek, which was called "The Sea Camp" for the whole spring. Then Artek was divided into two camps: "the Mountain Camp" — in the upper part of the territory, and "The Sea Camp" — right near the Black sea. Dad was in Artek during the school year so he combined rest with study. to the Museum of Cosmonautics, they arranged dances near a huge fire, where everyone dressed up as Indians, they took them on boats on the sea and organized all sorts of concerts, where children from different parts of the world read poems and sang songs in their languages, they whirled in the national dances and burst out laughing. Denise's team included not only schoolchildren from the Ex-Soviet Union, but also boys from Afghanistan — dark, curly — haired, nosed and sedate, and girls from Venezuela – they were thin, sophisticated, smiling girls who studied ballet. The team was friendly and cheerful, and at parting the Artek kids exchanged addresses with each other, and also took a lump of Artek land as a souvenir which was packed by the counsellors in cellophane. June passed quickly and Denise returned home full of new experiences.
Denise read a lot. My parents had an extensive library, which they collected over the years and they were so proud of it. She wasn't interested in schoolboys. She preferred to fall in love with the noble characters acted by Jean Alfred Villain-Marais and she watched all the films with his participation. Denise inherited a poetic nature from her mother and father and she started trying to write poems at the age of 16. By the time when she finished school, she was seriously interested in literature, the history of the life and work of Alexander Pushkin and she was going to become a Pushkin artist. After graduating school with a gold medal Denise went to her hometown on the Neva like her dad. The successful entrance exams to one of the best universities in the former Soviet Union was a big progress but her mom's sudden serious illness forced her to drop out of University and return to the military camp to take care of her younger brother Alex, who was a teenager that time and could not live independently. Her father spent days at work her my mother spent months in the clinic for treatment. Denise became the mistress of the house and the head of the family. Her broken dreams of a failed study in St. Petersburg did not depress her much-her youth was carefree. Denise had no doubt that when her mother recovered she would go back to University and study what she loved.
The choice of work was small in this military town, and Denise boldly went to the head of the garrison officers ' club to ask for a free position as a graphic designer. She didn't really know how to draw but she was sure she could do any job. By the way, all her school years Denise performed on the stage of the officers ' clubs and no concert was complete without her participation: she led holiday concerts, recited patriotic poems and sang military songs, playing guitar. After testing Denise's ability to pain and the head of the garrison club grimaced and hired her. They gave her a real artist to help who graduated the real Moscow Academy of Arts. The artist was in the status of an old soldier who did not get into service on time with his mates but he was late and now was terribly shy. The young soldiers called him grandfather. Of course, it would be more accurate to say that Denise was the artist's assistant and not the other way because he drove her ungodly, constantly forcing her to ground posters with ochre, to wash brushes, pens and palette, and pull a whatman on a stretcher. There was a real creative atmosphere in the studio, and Denise liked her work. A couple of months later the artist who had taught Denise something was discharged from the army and Denise became a completely independent graphic designer. Now she knew how to wash posters, to use a palette, to mix colours, to copy military maps, and write various posters with a pen for the garrison library and for the formidable inspectors from Moscow.
The year of work changed her ideas about many things, including where to go to study. When mother was discharged from the clinic, Denise realized that she could not be far from her home, so she refused from her dream to study in St. Petersburg. She had to find something closer so that she could jump on the train any time and be home a few hours later. Dreams of becoming a Pushkin art were transformed into a desire to study history, as they say, from the creation of the world to this day.
Thus, Denise came to the city at the foot of the motley mountains and entered the Faculty of History. The competition was huge: 25 people per place but she passed all the entrance exams with honour, gaining 15 points on three subjects, and she was accepted. She liked her student life much more than her school life: lectures, seminars, exams and credits, student parties, trips to harvest apples and potatoes, participation in student theatre productions, new friends and other fun cutters. And what is the most importantly - she did not need to spray on all objects as she did at school because she had only one direction - history, and she greedily absorbed all the information that was given at lectures and seminars.
The trip to Kiev was one of the memorable summer student practices. Denise's group walked around the capital's hail on the Dnepr river within the whole month. Kiev was bright, green and tasty. Denise and her student mates visited many museums in Kiev, including the Museum of Western European Art, the Museum of Holography, an Outdoor Museum with an imitation of the old Ukrainian village, the Golden Gate, the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, old cathedrals and theatres. Denise swam in Dnepr, went by boat, raced in a high-speed tram across the city and went by the metro along all lines. But one Kiev seemed to be not enough for students and they persuaded their head of practice to visit the ancient city of Chernigov, full of secrets and legends about Russian heroes. After half city bypassing the group went to the historical museum, where rich armours were stored. The students asked the director of the museum to allow them to try the battle chains of Russian heroes. It was funny because modern guys could not put on old soldiers Armor, so they turned out to be small in size. "What kind of heroes are they" - the group was surprised. As the story read in ancient times people were smaller, but strong, and iron chain mail weighed very decently, more than seven kilograms. In comfort the director of the museum fed students in the museum dining room including the tasty cutlets of Kiev and they drank a real blueberry morse. The journey to "where the Russian land came from" was completed and Kiev and Chernihiv cities were added to Denise piggy bank of the visited cities.
An archaeological expedition to excavate the ancient settlement was another real adventure after the next course. All summer students of the Historical Faculty spent with a shovel in their hands. Excavations were carried out far in the steppe, in the very south of the country, away from civilization and caravan routes. The heat was incredible. The young archaeologists were dressed more than comically: someone was in long balachongs made of sheets, some people in bath towels wound on their heads, like eastern turbans, some people simply in bathing suits. Denise began to peel skin on her ears due to an unpleasant habit, because they were not covered by a baseball cap and she sewed ear covers from a piece of gauze. Her students’ mates joked about her first but in a few days later they amicably followed her example. Thus, the precious ears of historians were saved.
The excavations were conducted at several sites. At the first site the remains of the ancient Palace of the Scythian Queen were excavated and that were dated from about the eighth to the twelfth centuries AD. Novice archaeologists marvelled at the perfection of ancient architecture: water and sewer channels, a system of fountains, niches for lamps in the walls of the Palace. In the city of artisans called Rabad, there were also lots of amazing and incomprehensible things. In addition to dwellings with ovens, sleeping and sitting places made of hardened clay, there were lots of ancient dishes, amphorae, plates, vases found. They were covered with coating with different drawings, thanks to which it was possible to determine the age of the finds — the eighth, tenth or twelfth centuries AD. There was one object literally arrived from outer space: an oblong vessel of a greenish colour, shaped and sized like a large duck egg, with transverse grey lines, as if cut with an iron toothed tool. The leader of the expedition, an old archaeologist, said that this was an ancient vessel in which the pharmacists stored poisons, and it was made of an alloy of stone and iron, which in principle seemed to be incredible. It was surprising that the scientists were more interested in the ordinary dishes, jewellery and coins, rather than an unearthly vessel of a strange alloy. The origin of the vessel remained an unsolved mystery to Denise. The last object of excavation was located in an ancient cemetery where ancient soldiers were buried. At the cemetery, military armor, coins and jewellery were found, which were transferred as exhibits to the Historical Museum. Denise returned from the expedition, even more inspired by historical science.
She liked to compare important historical milestones with the classics of world literature, so Denise's thesis included a comparative analysis of the views of   English Philosopher Bolingbroke and English Playwriter Fielding at the same time. Her scientific supervisor was surprised by such a non-standard topic of the thesis but supported it, and the defence was successful. Now it was necessary to make the choice of further direction in the profession of historian. There were a lot of roads: graduate school and dissertation, spending time in long archaeological expeditions, teaching history at school, working in the archive, working in a Museum, and just working somewhere else. Denise chose to dig through the archive. She liked ancient folios, modern closed archives of the state security service with all sorts of spy secrets, documents on the history of the city and state, documents that help people to find lost information about homes, relatives, work experience. Denise willingly wrote scientific articles on various topics, she designed exhibitions of archival documents for all sorts of historical events, compiled calendars of memorable dates, participated in radio and television programs on the history of buildings and organizations. By that time her father had already finished his military service and retired and moved the family to a city located at the foot of the mottled mountains. But then the Soviet Union collapsed all at once, and all the friends and relatives were on the other side, and Denise's family was on this side

Chapter III. Life Line

Eras. Days. Moments. Hours.
Millenniums. Centuries. Seconds. Eternity.
Minutes. Months. Seasons. Era. Lives.
It's time. Moments. Years. Infinity…

The first time Denise got married early. Her marriage was hasty, as they say, happened out of stupidity, which was completed in two weeks of dizzying courtship and followed by a spectacular marriage proposal of a young man with the imposing name of Arthur. All her students’ mates and relatives just wondered how she managed to combine successful studies at the University with family life and with the daughter birth and her upbringing. But Denise had an extremely active nature and she was also an incorrigible optimist, so she managed everything.
Unfortunately, as is often happens with young people the first marriage was unsuccessful. Arthur was an electronic engineer by training, but he had an explosive character like a classic Sagittarius, and at the same time he had a temperament of a Japanese karate player. He did not share her romantic optimism and constant good mood, he thought that it was just stupid toe to enjoy everything all the time, but he liked to quarrel over nothing. It is noteworthy that already at the wedding, Denise realized that she wanted to divorce: Arthur was angry that his wedding ring hurt his finger because all the guests shook happily his hand in congratulations; he forbaded Denise to clink a glass of champagne with her friends, seeing this as criminal frivolity for the bride; he treated ungraciously the musicians who managed to play a song that annoyed him; he refused to dance with Denise wedding dance and in generally behaved disgusting. Later Denise had realized that Arthur was just an energy vampire: after every quarrel Denise felt empty, she had a breakdown, but on contrary her husband began to sing, whistle and felt absolutely happy. But all this could still be experienced if there is not such a pathological jealousy. As they say he was jealous for every post: for her classmates, for friends, for parents, for a child, for any passenger standing next to her in the bus. His jealousy reached the point of absurdity: one day Arthur quit his job and started going with Denise to all classes at the University, and then he was sitting next to her at the library. He literally turned off all her friends and managed to spoil relations with all her relatives. It was a real disaster. In Denise's family her parents never even raised their voices to each other or to the children, all issues were discussed peacefully and kindly, so it was a shock for Denise to realize that there were families, for example, where her husband grew up, where there is a completely different atmosphere and frequent quarrels were familiar and even there were encouraged events that supposedly stimulated family life. After suffering for seven years which seemed like a century she decided to divorce. Denise did not want her daughter to grow up in a nervous environment, when parents are so different that they cannot agree, she took her daughter and flew to her grandmother to St. Petersburg for a few months. Denise's first marriage story had finished.
Arthur was so angry with her flight that for the rest of the years he never helped in raising his daughter either morally or financially, but he categorically avoided any hint of communication. Denise was not upset at all this: this was to her advantage because now she could raise her daughter in the familiar for her atmosphere of love and understanding that always prevailed in her childhood.
Denise was what is called paired woman, so she was a family woman and remarried soon again. After she returned from St. Petersburg, Denise started to work in her archive system again. In St. Petersburg, she managed to work as a realtor in one of the new-fangled American companies with a sonorous name "Interoxidental". Socializing with people and selling real estate brought her satisfaction, but she could not stay long with her grandmother who didn’t lived alone but with her son, her mother's half-brother, who had a Hungarian wife with many quirks. So, Denise took her daughter was happy to return to her parents.
The familiar archive environment restored her peace of mind and revived her desire to have a family. She was close to thirty years old. All her friends, who had been brides for a long time, had just married — by the way they were quite successful and they had gone abroad with their husbands. Denise didn't have any social circle left except for her work colleagues, her grumbling old aunts, and the dinosaurs of the archives. In her parent’s opinion this was not a good thing: they were old-school people with a conservative outlook on life, and therefore they thought any normal woman should have been married. So, Denise made them feel good. When she remarried Denise was sure that her marriage of convenience would be successful since she would not marry a boy but an adult, reasonable husband and a good father for her daughter. But even in this marriage, she met an ambush. A former sculptor by profession Peter has maintained his Bohemian habits in his current life. He was 16 years older than Denise but he didn’t surpass her in worldly wisdom. Peter could lie on the couch for weeks with a pile of popular science magazines and talk about the universe, about the secret laboratories of the Pentagon, about the chemical properties of chamotte clay, to discuss how good it would be to have a lot of money and own a business. Denise didn't want to realize that she had made another mistake in marrying a lazy, empty — mouthed man-after all, there were many things about Peter that appealed to her. He was very strong by nature and had been Boxing since his youth. Later, this hobby became a good help for him during his studies at Stroganovka when novice sculptors held an iron at arm's length for hours, strengthening their muscles. Peter could easily put Denise on one shoulder and her daughter on the other and carried them around the yard for a long time to the envy of the neighbours. It was always very safe and quiet with him during evening walks around the city in any questionable corners. He exuded a sense of great physical strength and fortitude. Peter liked everyone to be healthy, he was happy to grow apples, pears, plums, tomatoes and cucumbers in the garden in front of the house, every other day he heated the Finnish bath and steamed his Pets with a birch broom. When he had bouts of working capacity he could manage to earn enough money within a short period to purchase a house or to arrange family trip to the sea. Peter was a devout parishioner not of the usual Orthodox Church which was new-fangled church “New Life”. He regularly attended meetings of like-minded people he paid Church tithes from his income and didactically quoted phrases from the New Testament of the Bible to all his friends and acquaintances. All this somehow did not fit in with his sybaritism, tendency to lie and periodic laziness. Denise did not share her husband's commitment to the incomprehensible faith and, after she attended a couple of peculiar Church meetings just due to politeness she refused to continue visiting them. Peter did not insist: he was careful about matters of religion and faith and understood his wife's feelings. Among other things, Peter did not interfere Denise to write poems and songs, did not object to her leaving to study in Europe for a second education. Time dictated its conditions. Denise had a good career in her archive system and held a fairly high position. In order to grow up it was necessary to make some kind of breakthrough. Denise started her distance education at the Department of Archival Science at the Central European University in Budapest. The year of study passed quickly, all the papers were sent, evaluated and accepted and Denise was invited to the final stage of training: passing exams and passing an internship. As Peter called her she was "staggering lady" according to her nature she was happy to go to Europe. She was very curious to see Hungary, and she was also nostalgic for Germany where her family lived for five years at the place of her father's service. Denise was drawn to European culture, ancient castles, narrow cobbled streets, neatly trimmed trees and shrubs, red tiles on the roofs of houses that looked like toys, a soft, even climate, the smell of candles and cinnamon. In short, Budapest seemed almost like her native city, especially since its architecture and a large number of lions reminded her of her homeland — St. Petersburg, and the General European atmosphere inspired the thoughts of neighbouring Germany.
Denise was accommodated in a noisy student hostel that was home to students from different courses, different ages, and different countries. It was fun! The carefree atmosphere of the Dorm took her back to the days of her youth, when she was studying at her first University. As being able and impatient, Denise never did homework in the first and second universities as she did at school as she managed to do everything in lectures and seminars. It might have been just a rush not as deep as the other students did, but it gave her precious time to visit the local attractions which are so numerous in Budapest. Denise's friendly face and welcoming smile, her constantly even and good mood and benevolence always attracted strangers to her. It was so easy and pleasant to communicate with her so she quickly became friends with the Nika from Moscow a giggly tall blonde with excellent erudition, a sarcastic character and a great sense of humour. Her student mates entitled them with a slight envy said " joined at the hip ". During the summer session Denise and Nika managed to run around all the museums and exhibitions of the old and new cities, Buda and Pest, including churches, a laser astrology show, visit all the walking and bus tours, visit the bell tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral, get inside the most beautiful synagogue in Europe, ride along the Danube, climb the Islands of St. Andrew and St. Margit, buy gifts for their children and win the opportunity to collect unique Oxford books for free from the University bookstore dictionaries, books on culture and guides to Budapest. Very often the students gathered as a multi-ethnic group and occupied almost half of a restaurant in the centre of Budapest drinking dry red Hungarian wine, snacking on spicy chips and sharing their stories of the origin of each other and what was happening in the archives of their countries.
One day, their curator-teacher — a woman named Gerdy invited the entire group to her home for an event with the fashionable name "team building". Gerdy and her husband's apartment was located near the city center. The students of all ages from different countries of the world happily accepted the invitation and brought a luxurious basket of flowers in gratitude so Gerdy's face broke into a satisfied smile. Everyone was curious to see how their curator lived. It was a luxury apartment: several large rooms that looked more like a Museum of musical instruments than an apartment. Some instruments looked as outlandish as if they had been imported from another planet, especially the stringed musical instruments from Asia and Africa. Gerdy organized a buffet with great taste: all sorts of snacks, fruits and cakes were displayed on the table, invited waiters in black tailcoats scurried around the table, and a professional musician sat at the piano delighting the guests with imperishable classics. Just after midnight, the happy students said goodbye to their hospitable hosts and left for their dorms.
Denise celebrated her 30th birthday in the company of fellow students and new friends to be more precisely Denise had one new and already quite close friend Nika, and Nika was followed by her unexpected admirer from Tel Aviv with the great name Igal, which means in Hebrew "Savior". It was the first time Denise was celebrating her birthday in such a multi-ethnic society, so the gifts were very unexpected and memorable: Nika gave delicious red wine, sweets and a funny porcelain cow; the Lithuanian women put an amber necklace around her neck; the Polish man brought several professionally taken photos of Denise; Igal handed her an envelope with money (he believed that all students from the former Soviet Union are extremely poor and hungry) and an unusually coloured glass bird "for luck", and the Slovak man gave sweet champagne and took all their merry company to the Church, where he agreed with the local Padre and played them a Bach piece on a huge organ. This birthday was one of the most memorable for Denise. It was a good time. But all good things come to an end.
At home, Denise was met by an unhappy husband. During her absence, he had lost weight, looked haggard, and less confident than before. It turned out that he was terribly jealous of her until she returned. For a couple of weeks Peter sulked at her for some reason and then he calmed down. Denise planned to continue her career in the archive system and was expecting to be appointed to the position of Director of one of the archives, but then the unexpected thing happened: Denise began to have an occupational disease — an Allergy to archive dust, and the doctors completely forbade her to work in the archive. Denise was very upset at first because history was her profession, and archive was a part of her life. Her husband exulted that she would finally sit at home and cook borscht, according to his Household ideas but this did not happen: Denise decided to take on half of the responsibilities of managing her husband's Studio. The studio — this is, of course, quite loudly to say but still it was a new and exciting business in its own way. A couple of seamstresses who worked in the Studio were not too gifted with the talent of couturier and sense of taste, so Peter developed the design of curtains, tulle and bedspreads and cut them by himself — after all, he had an art education. Denise was helping him. She liked to participate in the creation of romantic masterpieces made of fine cambric, transparent crystal, light lace and heavy curtain fabrics. She collected enthusiastically the magazines on sewing curtains and offered the customer the original model for the decoration of windows and balconies. Denise worked expertly with clients, even the most difficult ones, and was childishly happy when they left happy and recommended the small Studio to their relatives and friends.
The family business began to bring in a good income, they exchanged their fairly used car for a brand-new car right from the salon, and Peter began to feel successful and wealthy. At the same time, he became even more tight-fisted when it was connected with clothes purchases or gifts for Denise. Suddenly he suddenly began to talk more and more often about how old Denise was, that she had no personal property, that without him she was no one and no one else needed her, especially with a child from her first marriage. Denise knew in her heart that this was a sign of his jealousy and fear of being abandoned by her, because he was almost 50 and she was in her early thirties, but she was stung by this reasoning. Nevertheless, she tried to accept her husband's point of view and look at everything objectively in order to preserve the marriage. The relationship between the couple became increasingly strained. Denise began to feel that she was losing confidence in herself, in her abilities, in her appearance. She set a mental deadline of two months to fix the current situation and she honestly held on. However, Peter did not want to improve it, did not meet her admonitions and Denise decided to leave him. As in her first marriage she took to flight. This behaviour must be typical of her zodiac sign Cancer. She was not afraid of anything, but she always did not want to go to conflict and sort things out. Denise returned to her parents' house, leaving her wedding ring and a note on the kitchen table saying that she was leaving him and forgiving him for everything. Peter was furious. When he returned home in the evening and found the attributes of a divorce instead of his wife, he struck a professional boxing blow to the wall with all his strength, punching a through hole to the neighbours in the house. So, the second Denise attempt to establish a family union failed.
She had just turned 33, the age of Jesus Christ. Being a pretty and attractive brunette of short stature and having a slender figure, she looked almost young, but felt like a millennial. And of course, her eyes reflected her condition — big, brown, with Golden dots, so deep that you could have drowned in them. So, these eyes pulled the viewer into them to the very bottom of the soul, where sadness and life experience lurked. It was necessary to start life anew, restore physical and mental strength, and lick the wounds of the heart.
Denise decided to change her life 180 degrees again. She went to work for a construction company as an engineer. Denise's father, as a former military construction worker, encouraged her to count construction estimates, climb boiler rooms, draw electrical diagrams, visit the blacksmith shop, and help the chief accountant keep records of warehouse materials, because everything could be useful in life. The team was strictly male: fifty construction workers who were constantly on business trips and visited the office only to receive a salary and new order where to go next time. Denise saw the entire team a couple of times a year, when the Director gathered his team at the festive new year's table and on his birthday, the other holidays were not included. The office was on the other side of town, and while Denise drove two hours to work and the same amount back she did her favourite thing — writing poems and songs. Her passion led her to bards and to the music Studio of a local composer.
One day a former colleague from the archive, who had moved to work to the library, called her and asked her to spend a creative evening: to read poetry and sing some of her teens songs who were interested in creativity, but did not know how to start. Denise slung her guitar over her shoulder and set off to "sow the sensible, the good, the eternal." Two hours passed quickly the boys listened to her with open mouths, and Denise gave them all the best she could. In the middle of the concert, Denise was joined by another performer, he was a middle-aged but pleasant man who called himself the bard and head of the song writing club. After Denise's poems and songs, he invited her to a musical bard’s party. Denise was glad to have an interesting meeting and accepted the invitation. And at the end of the evening a shy young girl approached her and suggested her to write poems to the music of her boss, who was a composer. Denise was taken aback: there were so many interesting acquaintances and offers during one publication. But the chance was not to be missed and Denise agreed with the second offer, too. Finally, she had the interesting life she had always dreamed of.
The bards welcomed Denise warmly into their friendly creative family. The club of author's song became her second home. It was a place where poetry and music lovers of various professions and ages gathered. But everyone was united by one genre — the art song. So, Denise became not only an amateur poet but also an author and performer of her songs. Bards gathered wherever they could: in cafes, in hotels, in the House of Scientists, in the House of Writers, in the music halls of schools and in the auditoriums of universities. Creativity flowed like a river the authors read their poems, sang songs and played guitar to their hearts ' content. They gave their own solo and group concerts, applauded themselves, praised themselves, and criticized themselves. There were also enough away concerts for the public, they were treated with special care, rehearsed for a long time, quarrelled, shared inspiration and advice on what to do to make the voice sound better from the stage, they gave cognac and raw eggs each other. Denise was thrilled with her new life. It wasn't a big stage, of course, but it for sure Muse managed here.
However, the big stage was also very close. The shy young girl kept her word and introduced Denise to a composer. There was a magnificent white grand piano in his huge apartment the heart stopped from the powerful rumble of it. Denise sighed: the grand piano was her dream. The sounds of her old piano, which had survived many years of moving from one military camp to another were nothing compared to the rolling velvet stream that poured from the sparkling white grand piano. But Denise held her own. The composer had great ambitions and Napoleon plans to take over the musical world. He came up with the idea of creating an original song in several languages, he composed music, but could not find a suitable author: the songwriters he knew did not agree to write words in several languages, since they could only write in one, for example, their native language. Denise found the idea non-trivial and she agreed to write poems in four languages without hesitation: Turkish, Russian, English, and Italian. As she found out later one major foreign company decided to collect as many popular songs of different peoples of the multi-ethnic Eastern country as possible in one disk, and the composer managed to win participation in this charity project by offering to write another song to the collected songs uniting all the other songs with a common idea of friendship. Denise liked bold experiments, she was not afraid of anything, and after a couple of months the words of the song were written in four languages harmonized by a sound engineer and were put to music and recorded in a real music studio on disk. The song became the national anthem of the country and friendship of peoples. Besides of the CD, a video clip was created with the participation of popular pop and opera singers which was successfully broadcast on local and international channels on Peoples Friendship Day.
She became a friend of a small group of music studios and went to work there leaving her construction company. But the composer was self-interested, Denise who forgave the weaknesses of her fellow artists turned a blind eye to this. She liked to write poetry not on her own simple music as it seemed to her, but in alliance with a professional composer. In this tandem, they created some more songs and videos, held several concerts around the country, and then Denise realized that she wanted to change her life again, thus she became cramped in the walls of a small studio and in general in the walls of her home so left for Los Angeles. Denise friend helped her to arrange an invitation to America, her parents supported her but the daughter boycotted her, and her friends were terribly upset about her departure. Denise was comforted by the thought that she could always come back, so she was determined to try out life in the States. From the outside her trip to America could be called an adventure, because she had some plans, and her life plans were quite different.
Los Angeles was completely different from the place Denise had imagined. The city of angels, the center of world film studios and world stars was similar to the city only in the so-called downtown business center where high buildings and offices of various financial, legal, commercial and other companies were located. Otherwise, the city of four million people was scattered on the hills in the form of villas and private houses. The Famous Hollywood looked like an ordinary street with large buildings, surrounded by concrete and stone fences on all sides. Denise was startled by the lack of people on the streets. It seemed that there were simply no people in the city, and there were only cars racing along endless tracks in three levels. According to Denise point of view this could be the last stage of civilization, followed by robotization and the extinction of humanity. There were lots of people in the business centres. The small insurance company where Denise was employed as part-time to the position of a translator during the legal negotiations with complainants and defendants was located on the 28th floor, with a magnificent view of the downtown rooftops and the prospect. The roofs were very unusual: they had gardens, swimming pools, restaurants, sports, games and helicopter places — in other words, they were full of life.
Denise was surprised by the routine of lawyers and their assistants. In the morning they arrived, drank coffee, exchanged news, then spend a couple of hours sorting out cases, planning trips for the rest of the day, ate lunch, and left for meetings with clients. Meetings usually didn't last long; about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the work was done, and the lawyers, knowing how tired they went home with a sense of honestly done duty. In the cases Denise went to were funny and sad. As in any society, there were both fools, tricksters, and scoundrels everywhere and each person had a story worthy of a novel. Sometimes Denise was surprised that there were people in Los Angeles who had lived there for decades and didn't speak English. They were Russian-speaking and Spanish-speaking emigrants. Sometimes it was absurd when the lawyer from the insurance company was English — speaking, the client who filed the complaint was Spanish — speaking, the Respondent was Russian-speaking, as a result two translators were invited to the negotiations at once: one from Spanish to English, and the second from Russian to English. Denise was amused, interested in learning about American society from the inside out.
The apartment Denise was accommodated was located in the Hollywood area, in a scenic spot called Covenga Hill. The three-story house was part of a cosy condominium, with its own security, parking, tennis court and swimming pool. Denise found it funny that the three-story building had an elevator that somehow stopped between floors instead of on the floor itself, so half the flight of stairs had to be dragged up or down, depending on the occupant's preference There was no washing machine in the apartment and all the neighbours were washing clothes in the basement in huge washing machines that were happy to consume several coins at once. The machines were equipped with a drying function, which made the process much more expensive and also spoiled things so Denise refused quickly from this equipment. Nevertheless, it amused her. The house she was accommodated was the most extreme in the condo, and the bedroom windows looked out over a green hill where deers often ran. From the other side of the house a swimming pool was located so she could swim in any time of the day, and it was nice. At night the living room windows offered a magnificent view of Los Angeles at night, sparkling with colourful lights. Denise loved to sit by the window, breathe the sea air, admire the stars, the incredible panorama, and think about her life.
The neighbours were different, as in her country, and she didn’t want to communicate some of them. For example, a brawler lived in the house he preferred to listen to music at any time of the day at maximum volume and regularly broke the windows of his own apartments dur to his temperament. The neighbours complained and the house was often visited by the police. It was quite interesting to communicate with a neighbour from another entrance, a former resident of Kiev, who had nothing to do but to walk a friendly boxer long hour. She cordially invited Denise, she proposed to join her to try Ukrainian borscht and jokes, shared little secrets and tricks of life in America.
The owners of her apartment were a very nice couple. They took her to Disneyland and the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The beach area was not far away- 15-20 minutes away by car. The ocean was fun: lots of small restaurants and amusement parks. A wide beach line stretched away along the entire coast, where sports enthusiasts of all ages jogged. It was difficult to get to the ocean on the crossbar without a car.
At night Denise longed and wrote poems and songs about her feelings and emotions living on the other side of the earth. Both poems and songs turned out to be sad, sometimes even merciless in relation to the author. Denise, who loved theatres, museums, ancient architecture and cultural Europe could not get used to the idle and, as she thought, spiritless life of Los Angeles. Of course, it was interesting for her to walk along the street where the handprints of stars are immortalized, walk through huge parks, sit in a Mexican restaurant, but the cultural life and the feeling of a megalopolis were clearly lacking.
Denise was so happy her colleague had a big family party, and she invited Denise to Chicago for a celebration this holiday with her relatives. The trip was short, but bright and eventful. The family celebration took place in a luxury hotel, with excellent food and service, accompanied by fun music, dancing and games. Chicago resembled vaguely Moscow: tall buildings, interesting architecture, a granite-clad river, crowds of people (Denise finally saw people on the streets), fresh wind from Michigan lake and the most delicious American pizza. There was a stunning panorama of the city and Michigan lake from the height of the 103rd floor of the Marina tower observation deck. After going down, Denise immediately took the river tram down the Chicago river and then across the lake. She enjoyed the buildings along the river, the granite embankment, and the mirror-like surface of the lake. Another interesting experience she had was a trip on different types of transport in Chicago: by the subway and on the "Meter" — another train, only two-story, as well as on the high-speed tram that ran along the line that rises over the road. The metro was too simple and unattractive, not like in Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Budapest – the people valued speed and comfort more than beauty and harmony. Needless to say, it was the business world. In order to memorise Chicago Denise bought a t-shirt with a picture of a guitar in the famous store for music fans with the beautiful name "House of Blues".
The plane from Los Angeles to Chicago and back was operated by a female pilot, and the take-off and landing were terrible but all the passengers in the cabin applauded politely each manoeuvre. The Grand Canyon was the most striking impression of the flight, the plane moved over the Canyon circled a little so that passengers could take pictures for memory. The view of the Grand Canyon was stunning in the setting sun. The Colorado river, which cuts through the canyon, created bizarre landscapes that look like fairy-tale sand castles. The Canyon walls are five to six million years old from sedimentary rocks. Time and wind have created amazing landscapes that changed with every step. Such places can be counted on the fingers of one hand all over the world. Denise immediately remembered the equally unique and wonderful Charyn Canyon, located not far from her city, which was smaller in size, but twice older then the Grand Canyon, and felt a strange relief from the parallel drawn. The plane moved away from the Grand Canyon and returned to its route and Denise could not tear herself away from the window for a long time: of course, the American roads were admirable, spacious, wide, smooth and high-quality. Their network covered all America. From a bird's-eye view the roads looked like the creation of an unearthly civilization. Denise was delighted with what view in gratitude for the trip, she baked a pie for a colleague and gave her a beautiful lady's purse which she had admired long time.
Every day Denise listened to herself: if she was getting used to it or not? Will she be able to stay here to live or should she return? And then, an answer to the question came - an Allergy broke out. It was a strange and inexplicable phenomenon in Denise's life. The doctors could do nothing: either unusual food, or the pollen of exotic flowers and trees, or on something else. But Denise knew that this was the answer to all her questions: she had to go home. She remembered well a favourite expression of her friend Irena "a person's skin reflects a state of their soul", and if the skin feels uncomfortable, then the soul is clearly not in the place.
Denise sighed with relief and took a return ticket on the largest liner the Virgin Atlantic, which flew safely across the ocean and covered the distance from Los Angeles to London without landing. Denise ordered salmon and a glass of white wine for dinner to celebrate her return home. Denise flew from London home in a half-empty plane with small and cosy British Airlines. That was the end of her journey to America.


Chapter IV. Felix

Your love I miss:
Another one I wish,
From old books I've read,
From poems I made believe…

Denise was met at the airport with flowers by two close people: her old friend Felix and her daughter Christina. To Denise's surprise Felix waited patiently for her return from the States. Right at the airport, he handed her a huge bouquet of her favourite dark red roses and put a ring on her finger with a marriage proposal. Denise loved original silver jewellery and Felix deliberately chose not a gold ring but a silver ring with a beautifully cut rock crystal stone that shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow. Denise had known Felix over two years, he was loyal and reliable and regularly proposed to her, and she regularly refused explaining that she kept in mind her failed marriages, fear of stepping on the same rake again, and a desire to think.
The story of their acquaintance was funny. At that time, Denise had just come to work in a recording Studio. Before her appearance in the office repair works were completed and a mini-telephone station was installed so that each employee had their own phone, but for some reason the wires were not hidden in special telephone channels, but they randomly curled along the walls and laid under the tables, constantly clinging to the feet of employees and threatening them with an indecent to fall down at the most inopportune moment. Denise loved order and harmony, so she found the contacts of the company that installed the telephone station and called them. In response she heard a pleasant male voice, so soft, intelligent, somehow unusual pronouncing the letter "R". As the owner of an excellent ear for music and a lover of beautiful voices Denise immediately wanted to see the owner of an attractive voice, and she invited him to the office. For some reason it seemed to her that he must be red. However, in fact it was not quite so. Felix — that was the engineer's name — was just fair-haired, but he glowed red from the inside. No, she was not mistaken: he's definitely red at heart, Denise thought and happily extended her hand to Felix in greeting. While he crawled under the tables and took care of the walls, she had time to get a good look at him. He was tall, slender, with a high forehead, a Roman profile, and warm brown eyes, Felix was a very pleasant man, and his soft, friendly voice was in perfect harmony with his appearance. Besides, Denise's unmistakable feminine eye had determined that Felix was unmarried, and this fact also added to his advantages. Denise always liked technical men who could do everything with their own hands and Felix could do almost anything. To begin with, Denise persuaded her boss to pay several Felix's visits, explaining that the Bohemian musicians and sound engineers who filled the studio were not able to put up new chandeliers in the office, a fire shield, fix the safe and alarm system on the front door. Felix was surprised at such orders, which did not correspond to his pro6file of work, but agreed. Glancing at Denise to see if she liked what was going on, he carefully carried out all the repairs she requested.
Then, as if ironically, Denise's phone line went down at home, her computer broke down, and there was a painting that needed to be hung up right away, and there was no one else to do it but Felix. It was obvious that he was curious and tormented by secret passions, but he tried to behave with restraint. Denise felt by Felix as if they had known each other for years, and it was easy and simple. Once she read an interesting study on the psychology of relationships, and everything immediately fell into place: it turned out that Denise's sense of kinship with Felix was on a subconscious level, because Felix looked like her adored mother — the same Roman nose, oval face, hair colour, lip shape. Only the eyes were different, because her mother had huge grey eyes with a haze, and Felix’s eyes were small and brown.
Their relationship became gradually warmer and closer, he began to meet her from work, gave her flowers, took her to the theatre, invited her to a barbecue and accompany her home. At home Denise made coffee to Felix and served him homemade cakes, both of which were sweet. Felix liked to drink real coffee, but it was not so simple: preparing to brew coffee in Turk was, to put it mildly, just a torment for Felix. Denise solemnly handed him an ancient wooden coffee grinder — a family pride — and instructed him to grind coffee beans. The coffee grinder was very old, with worn-out millstones and a raspy voice. Felix was silently indignant, but turned obediently the handle. Felix brought Denise an electric coffee grinder as a gift for the New Year, or rather, as a gift to himself, and since then the old coffee grinder peacefully decorated the top shelf of the kitchen set, and the new electric one silently and quickly grounded any volume of coffee beans. When her mother saw the coffee grinder, immediately concluded: "this is your future husband."  Denise shrugged: after two failed marriages she didn't want to think about getting married again, but she watched him with interest. What will be the next gift? Felix literally read her mind: on March 8, he gave her an electric mixer, or rather again not to her, but to himself, because he was tired of manually whipping cream for cakes and pastries during which cooling he wanted to take an active part. This was followed by an electric meat grinder and blender. Between these gifts designed to improve life and make life easier, Felix gave Denise silver jewellery with natural stones, accompanying the marriage proposals, but Denise only cheerfully laughed them off.
In general, they had a pleasant and interesting time: during the theatre season they attended performances and concerts, in the warm season they went fishing on rivers and lakes, went to the mountains, picked mushrooms, baked potatoes on a fire and watched shooting stars. They had a kind of cultural exchange of interests: Denise instilled in Felix a taste for drama, comedy, opera, ballet and operetta, and she shared his passion for fishing, hiking in the mountains, and later skiing. Two years passed. Then Denise went to America, and Felix waited for her at home. And waited.
She would read his letters during her lonely evenings in Los Angeles and remembered how they had enjoyed their time together. After returning home Denise had no doubt that she would marry again, and that she would marry Felix. Forty years loomed on the horizon, the fears of the previous failed marriages dissipated, and she realized that she wanted to put on a wedding dress and wedding ring again. Their relationship was built on a solid foundation of friendship and camaraderie complemented by tender feelings. The African passions that the heroines of Denise's favourite novels sinned with began to seem non-existent, disconnected from reality. After all Denise reflected love can be different: the bright, stormy, and sharp emotions of youth have gone, and they have been replaced by mature, calm, confident, and conscious feelings. They bought themselves fashionable and original, so-called double wedding rings. The design was unusual - a narrow white gold ring rotated in the middle of the main yellow gold ring. It looked very impressive.
The wedding was celebrated in a very narrow circle of only the closest relatives and friends, in a small cafe with the cosmic name "UFO" where they sat for more than a dozen evenings during two years of their friendship on the day of the wedding, the groom managed to go to work, and the bride in a hurry managed to sew the trousers from the new suit to the betrothed. They were a harmonious, so-called golden couple: Denise was shoulder-high to Felix, and they both looked much younger than their years due to their slimness and affability. And, of course, their faces shone with well-deserved happiness. The lady in the Wedding Palace, who was giving a solemn speech, looked at them all the time with amazement and resembled a large bright tropical parrot, squinting at the visitors in the zoo.
The next day the newlyweds were married in an Orthodox Church and left to a small wedding trip to the mountain lake Issyk-Kul, taking Denise daughter and the daughter's friend with them which caused frank banter from friends. Really, who takes their kids on their honeymoon? But everything was decided, and the rest was a successful. Felix fooled around like a child, sometimes taking pictures of Denise racing along the beach on a zebra-painted donkey, sometimes pushing her into the icy font after a steam bath, then burying her in the sand on the beach. Denise looked at him, listened, and calmed down. All these years her soul has been searching for happiness and peace, and now it seems to have found it.
15 year passed. These were wonderful years filled with happiness, love and care. It doesn’t mean that their life was absolutely cloudless, they went through a lot: failed IVF, and Felix's serious illness, and the loss of relatives, and the unsuccessful marriages of their daughter, and the birth of a grandson, and the separation from Denise's parents, who suddenly decided to return to Moscow in their old age, closer to friends and relatives. Denise missed her parents terribly and tried to plan all her vacation flights via Moscow so that she could see her parents more often. Felix didn't mind: he had lost his parents and was sincerely attached to his wife's parents, especially since the way to distant countries often ran through Moscow.

Chapter V. Far away

I can't keep it quiet
Live in home and family environment
I am attracted to the stop free road,
Running to the Earth band

Over the years, Denise and Felix have become avid travellers, real "outdoor people" and seasoned tourists. They visited about twenty countries around the world and still could not get enough. However, every vacation was the subject of heated discussions, because Felix preferred a beach holiday in Asia, Africa or on the Islands, and Denise drew him to Europe, to go to museums and historical sites. The issue was resolved peacefully and fairly: summer vacation — in Europe, and autumn-winter or spring — in Asia. Their most favourite rest was in Goa. They were attracted by the spirit of the Indian ocean, a sense of Nirvana, wide and empty beaches with fine white sand that resembled starch, pine trees swaying in the sea breeze, stunning sunsets, delicious Goan cuisine — a kind of mixture of Portuguese and Indian cuisine, exotic excursions and curious stray dogs lazily lounging on the beach, whose smooth glossy fur from a well-fed and quiet life near beach restaurants could envy homeless people in any country of the world. Denise and Felix spent six winter vacations in Goa, always staying in hotels located near Betalbatim beach and the beloved shake, that was in the small beach restaurant Baggio.
They made friends with a local jeweller in Goa, who was happy to show Denise placers of diamonds of different colours, unique jewellery in a single copy, treated her and Felix to delicious Kashmiri tea and gave cashmere shawls as a sign of friendship. Denise liked to look at unusual gold and silver jewellery of the author's design and pour sparkling diamonds from hand to hand. At such times, she imagined herself a Princess from the Arabian nights. In memory of Goa Denise brought a bright yellow Sari, painted with strange blue flowers, and sometimes wore it on New year, remembering the pleasant days of vacation.
After Goa, the next most desirable countries were Portugal, located on the opposite side of the world. Denise was celebrating her fifty at Cape Rock, the most extreme point in the West. From the height of the 140-meter cliff, a magnificent and mysterious view of the endless Atlantic opened up. Denise was taken aback by the boundless expanse of the raging ocean, the coastal rocks, and the waves that beat against them in all possible shades of blue, which breathed a refreshing coolness. Denise and Felix drove through bright and colourful Portugal from South to North, visiting many cities with unusual sights like Pena castle, which was remembered for its fantastic pseudo-medieval style of architecture and incredible weather conditions, when the sun shone brightly on one side of the castle, and a dense white fog hung on the other. The cheerful and carefree Portuguese were pleasant and friendly in communication, adoring their "green" wine and the signature dish "aroch de Marishka", which resembled Oriental pilaf, but not with meat, but seafood. Portugal was cozy and friendly, and they wanted to go back again and again.
Israel left an unforgettable impression, of course with its beautiful white city of Jerusalem. For many years after visiting Jerusalem, Denise clearly remembered her feelings when she set foot on the promised land: she felt as if she had returned to her homeland — there was such comfort of her soul. Perhaps it was the memory of generations that worked. Denise was always sensitive to matters of faith, and Jerusalem was a divine city for her. She left notes in the Wailing Wall with her secret dreams and desires, put a few candles in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they visited Bethlehem, took several dips in the waters of the Dead Sea, and felt that one of her earthly debts was paid off.
As a historical archaeologist in the past Denise enjoyed flying to Egypt, she like diving in the Red Sea over amazing coral reefs, touching the mysterious Egyptian pyramids of Giza, visiting the National Historical Museum of Egypt with the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, walking around Alexandria and Cairo. Only the highest piles of garbage in the Egyptian capital marred the reverent touch of ancient history: Denise and Felix had never seen such a garbage dump. After Cairo, all the other cities in the world, including Delhi, seemed to be a model of cleanliness. In memory of Egypt, Denise brought home a popular tourist pendant "khartush" with her name and a modern fake painting on papyrus depicting a fragment from Egyptian mythology.
There was no doubt, Spain and Italy were incredibly beautiful with their gentle sea, green hills, magnificent architecture and elegant cities with many museums, theatres and fountains. After visiting the famous Spanish Flamenco, the unusual museums of Salvador Dali, Spanish cellars with different wine types and jamon, and looking around from the height of Mount Montserrat, Denise and Felix immediately attributed Spain to the category of favourite countries. Italy was the next country with its proud Roman profile and North-South bus travel to 16 cities, including Rome, Venice, Naples, Verona and Siena. Denise visited Verona, Shakespeare's city of Romeo and Juliet, with genuine curiosity, and was sad to discover that the whole story was an author's fiction, and the house of Juliet was a beautiful fairy tale for tourists. After a gondola ride in Venice Denise calmed down and forgave Shakespeare for his cute pranks.
France had been Denise's dream country since she was small, not only because it was part of her mother's family, but because of the fine French literature that Denise devoured: Alexandre Dumas, Stendhal, Honore de Balzac, Romain Rolland, Prosper Merimet, Emile Zola and Maurice Druon, Guy de Maupassant were her best friends. Perfect French taste in clothing and perfume, in manners and refined expression of thoughts, instilled from childhood by her mother, accompanied Denise throughout her life. She and Felix loved the French Riviera, the quiet and cozy cannes, the beautiful Nice, but they were not charmed by Paris, the city of love, as they had dreamed: either the time of the former Paris was gone, or the state of mind did not allow them to feel the beauty of the city sung in poems and songs.
Montenegro was a small mountainous country along the Adriatic coast was remarkable: mountains covered with dense forests, beautiful and unhurried inhabitants, a large number of harmonious Orthodox Churches, romantic boat trips, extremely delicious vegetables and fruits and excellent Montenegrin wine "Black Vranac". Denise and Felix enjoyed splashing in the sea, strolling along old Budva and the pier with spectacular white yachts, enjoying fresh seafood and admiring the wonderful Royal Park.
Sweden has the most delicious water in the world and the most original modern underwater Museum, created from the unsuccessfully launched and immediately sunk Vasa ship, and the sand castles of the Jordan Petra shocked by the unusual architecture and fabulous culture of the Nabataeans.
Mainland and island Thailand were always happy with its exotic quirks: luxurious Buddhist temples, elephants who can paint pictures, pig races, magnificent gardens, spicy original cuisine, famous Thai massage and the three main aspects of Thai life — Suai, Sabai and Sanuk.
Vietnamese Phan Thiet unexpectedly disappointed with the sunset not in the sea, but over the hills, as well as steep waves that please only kite surfers and are completely unsuitable for comfortable swimming. However, a trip to the mountain city of Dalat, built by the French and reminded the existence of Europe, as well as a visit to the quaint hotel for wild animals "Crazy House", was very pleasant
Crete left a double impression: on the one hand — the unusual nature of the island, exuberant nature in the West and more sparse in the East, ancient Christian Churches with icons painted on raw plaster, the Pirates Island of Gramvousa at the junction of the confluence of three seas, intricate gourmet cuisine and completely incomprehensible Greek with accents in the words in those places where you least wanted to put stress, on the other hand — the sadness of the lost great Greek civilization, the hard-to-find harmony of beautiful Greek statues in modern faces and figures, the dispelled myth of the Minotaur.
Croatia, Germany, Monaco and a number of other countries left smaller impressions. The UAE, Turkey and Hainan have become familiar, pleasant, but slightly boring to visit.
In Russia, the most vivid and unforgettable experience was a visit to the distant Solovetsky Islands in the White sea: a unique monastery of the fifteenth century, the unsolved labyrinths of Zayatsky Island, dancing birches and the Northern bittersweet gingerbread "Kozulya".
There is no point to describe all the countries visited. As they say, it's better to see once than to hear a hundred times. Denise had a lot of more exciting things in mind: The Northern lights, dog rides, Icelandic geysers, ancient castles and unknown Islands. In General, it was good to rest everywhere — there would be an opportunity. And this opportunity was provided only by constant hard work, which took up the most of the time.

Chapter VI. Recruitment

Life in categories, concepts, words,
In synonyms, metaphors, and meanings,
Sung in romances and poems,
Sometimes it sounds like prose, rushes fast…

After she coming back from America, Denise seriously thought about changing her job and profession in general. Over the past few years, she had already worked as an engineer, accountant, and art manager, but everywhere she was missing something. Of course, she would have liked to write poems and songs, but, unfortunately, all these did not bring income, and it was necessary to think about how to live in the present and in the future, how to aware money for apartment repairs, new furniture, travelling, how to pay for her daughter's education, and so on. Felix's modest salary could not be enough for the family, since he was still helping his old mother, and Denise began to look for work. To begin with, she had a heart-to-heart conversation with a smart person, i.e. with herself, and she determined that she would like to work more with people than with papers and equipment. She made a resume and went to a recruitment agency, which promised that immediately application to them each applicant will go directly to the employer. Of course, it turned out to be a bluff, because Denise didn't go anywhere. She waited patiently, and a few days later she was invited to interview in several companies at once. Denise had been involved in several curious situations during interviews, but she gained invaluable experience, which later became very useful to her as examples of how not to behave with candidates.
First Denise went far out of town to a local cosmetics company, but after half an hour of the interview, she got up, excused and left, because the interviewer spent half an hour telling her how bad things were at their company, and that, no matter what the company would soon fall apart. Why would she a successful lady, should go to work for a company of losers?
The visit of the other construction company, was also strange. When she arrived to the company at the exact time Denise had been waited two hours in the corridor before she was invited to the office of the Deputy Director of the company. A shifty middle-aged man peremptorily stated that he specifically keeps all the candidates for a long time, checking them for stress resistance. Then he rummaged around on his desk, found her resume, and immediately called the internal phone and invited the employee to his office. For another half an hour, he scolded his subordinate for some flaws and watched Denise's reaction from the corner of his eye. Then the employee left, and the strange Manager said that he was inviting Denise to work. When she politely declined, he was genuinely surprised. Denise was well aware that there was no point in explaining her refusal to such a category of people, and so she immediately retreated with a parting smile.
The next place to visit was one of the well-known foreign banks. Denise successfully passed several stages of interviews and testing and was invited to the final meeting with the Deputy Chairman of the Bank. It was an unfriendly Pakistani man who had a very small idea of basic politeness. After asking Denise a few questions about how quickly she was ready to go to work and whether she was happy with the salary offered by the Bank and when she replied, he nodded with satisfaction and shook her hand. After a moment's thought, he decided to specify her age, explaining that he was too lazy to calculate her age from her resume. She was surprised by the incorrect question, but she honestly defined her age and heard in response: "What a horror! You look much younger, so you've misled me. I want to see only very young employees in my Bank. You are denied." In fact, there was an unspoken age limit in those years, and everyone over thirty had a hard time to find work. Anyway, Denise left the Bank, accompanied by a saddened HR Director, who was already full of confidence that she had found a suitable Deputy.
On the way home, Denise was thinking whether to take a break for a couple of days and not go to other interviews, or continue her courageous journey. But then her cell phone rang, and she scolded herself for not being reliable and answered it. There was a young, pleasant, and very positive male voice on the phone, inviting her to an interview right now. Denise felt lucky and agreed to the meeting. The business center that housed the recruitment company was a few steps away. The location was very good, there was a square, a swimming pool, a lot of cafes and shops nearby. Denise went up to the eighth floor where she was met by a young man with a hussar appearance, in a fashionable business suit, who was also very polite, friendly and had good manners. After talking for two hours without a break, they both realized that they both found what they were looking for, and the next day Denise went to learn a new profession as a recruiter.
The Director turned out to be a very energetic young businessman, who understood that first you need to invest something in employees, and then expect them to make large profits and breakneck success. He recruited a new team and enthusiastically began training them in recruiting. The team was fun they were of different genders and ages, but everyone was united by a positive attitude, fighting spirit and a desire to earn a lot of money. After two months of continuous training, the group passed the exams, after which the "failed" half left the company, and the second half began successfully closing vacancies, pleasing their boss. Denise liked the new profession: she liked to study the market, meet managers of different companies, interview and test candidates and, of course, to receive fees for closed vacancies. The Director was quick and easy, and therefore he recruited employees according to the same pace of life. The consultants, as the Director called them, got along very well, worked tirelessly, and in between interviews shared funny stories that happened to them and their candidates. They quickly introduced themselves to candidates over the phone, quickly presented available vacancies and quickly closed them.
Not all candidates perceived the fast pace of speech, and there were plenty of incidents. Once Denise quickly pronounced the standard phrase on the phone: "Hello, my name is Denise, I represent the recruitment company Aware Consultants, we have a vacancy that would be interesting to you." In response, she heard a huff, and then a discontented voice that said to her: "Veronica, you speak very quickly, I don't understand anything." Denise was taken aback at first: she couldn't understand where the name Veronica came from when she said her name, which was very different from Veronica. Then it hit her, and she burst out laughing. Indeed, her tongue twister and the name of the company, which sounded like "Evear consultants" in Russian, might well have conjured up the name Veronika in the candidate's mind. Denise began to monitor the pace of her speech and try to speak a little slower.
Illaria Elagina her colleague was a former simultaneous interpreter, and she spoke even faster than Denise. An even funnier incident happened to her, which literally became her calling card for the rest of the consultants. Illaria liked to sleep and was often late for the beginning of the day. There was nothing wrong with this, since consultants were often late at work, so the Director ignored their lateness, because they brought a considerable income to his company. So, this day, Illaria was late, and the other consultants were on the site and met their candidates for interviews according to the schedule of meeting rooms. All the consultants had already gone with their candidates to the meeting rooms, when suddenly the confused office manager called everyone to the hall to help sort out the unusual situation. A dishevelled young man was standing in the center and demanded Evdokia Ivanovna. All the consultants looked at each other in disbelief and shrugged their shoulders, because such a lady definitely did not work in their team. The Director himself came out at the noise. He was a former military man, he had been recruiting for a long time, and had seen a lot of things. In addition, he was the only man in the company at the time, and therefore he thought a little differently. The Director approached the young man, introduced himself, and asked him to explain everything from the beginning. The young man gave his name and said that a girl had called him the day before, introduced herself as Evdokia Ivanovna offered to consider a job as an engineer in a construction company, announced the address of their office and the start time of the interview. To prove his words, he pointed to his name written on the Board with the schedule of meetings: opposite his name was the name of the consultant — Elagin Illariya. Suddenly everyone understood the following when Illaria introduced herself on the phone, it sounded something like this: "Hello, my name is Elagina Illaria..." and so on. After speaking her name several times in a rapid patter, the experienced Director achieved an almost complete imitation of Illaria's rapid speech, and it immediately became clear where this mysterious Evdokia Ivanovna came from. Since then, as soon as Illaria made any mistakes, the consultants called her Evdokia Ivanovna. She didn't take offense and laughed along with everybody.
But that was just the beginning. The real test was when candidates with oddities and just sick people came. One day, the most sensible of all the consultants, a lady named Gakku, came out of the conference room pale and confused. She escorted the female candidate to the door with a tight smile, breathed a sigh of relief, and shared her experience with her colleagues. It turned out that throughout the interview, the candidate applying for the role of the FD in a large company quickly undid and buttoned numerous small buttons on her blouse when answering questions from Gakku. At the end of the interview she undid a long row of buttons on her cuffs again and rolled up her sleeves, as if preparing for a hand-to-hand match with a consultant. Gakku was very concerned about the candidate's behaviour. She had a wealth of teaching experience, extensive knowledge of psychology, and a well-developed sixth sense. She realized that the lady was seriously ill and therefore tried to relieve the candidate's nervous tension as much as possible and curtail the interview before the scheduled time. The entire team, led by the Director expressed their admiration for Gacc perseverance and approval of the correct solution.
More than five years passed unnoticed. As they say Denise stuffed her hand and ate the dog on the search and selection of candidates. The company was small, nice, but already too familiar. Denise wanted to step out of her comfort zone. And she went out. She went to work for a large international company with a huge staff, new technologies and a tough business style. Denise liked to ride the service bus to the office with her new colleagues, run around the floors of a high-rise building, and feel like an important cog in a big machine. Over ten years of working at the company, she has made a good career, won the respect and trust of colleagues, survived several top management teams and almost a dozen bosses. So, by her half-century anniversary, Denise was a well-established and successful lady.

Chapter VII. Awakening

Love came like a hurricane on the steppe,
Swept away doubts and fears.
My thoughts and flesh are consumed by fire,
And the soul trembles as on the block…

Denise sat on various international professional sites, searching for the right candidates and politely accepting invitations for business communication as she was not particularly fond of social networks, because she preferred live communication, but realizing that in her work it was necessary,
Life can happen that, unfortunately, in modern society there were more and more single people looking for their half by any means, oddly enough, including work sites. Denise was young, attractive, and affable, which was faithfully reflected even in all her official photos, and therefore she often received offers to meet gentlemen of different nationalities, all sorts of professions from the most unexpected parts of the world. Denise was quite happy in her third marriage and she was not in the mood to engage in nonsense such as virtual affairs and did not hesitate to refuse fans from social networks, kindly explaining her status as a married woman and wishing them happiness in search of a lady of the heart. The failed suitors offended by the refusal disappeared immediately and forever from her life, without overshadowing her further existence with their importunities.
But one day a strange incident occurred. A man named Rain wrote to Denise without any ceremony asking her to add him to her contacts, saying that he wanted to meet her because her appearance and resume attracted his attention. There was no profile of Rain on the site, which suggested fraud. Denise, who had been used to such messages for many years sent automatically the stranger a standard polite response with a refusal. However, the man did not disappear, but on the contrary, he continued to send letters with a request to continue communication. Denise texted a couple times and then stopped responding. After a while, it seemed to her that the persistent stranger had disappeared and she breathed a sigh of relief. But suddenly she was bombarded with requests from candidates from oil companies asking her to enter the first circle of communication which gave access to her email address. Denise was wary: the engineers at “oil company” were never interested in contacts outside of the oil business — their education and work experience were too specific. She was overcoming the embarrassment of her repeated refusals, but continuing to reject requests, she realized with a sixth sense that these candidates did not need to join her network of professional contacts, but simply played the role of ordinary spies of Rain. Denise had taken a course in the state security service and was well versed in logical and illogical behaviour and psychological attacks. After analysing once again all the incomprehensible cases with the proposal to expand the community and her defensive reaction, she was glad that she was able to figure out the "enemy" in time. Denise rejected any requests from candidates of the professional network for two months, with small interruptions. The man named Rain stopped showed up, and she calmed down.
Suddenly she received a letter to her work email from the same Rain with an apology for perseverance and an explanation why he behaved like this and what he expected. The letter was warm and pleasant, he told her that accidentally he went to a professional website in search of an old friend that did not have a profile on the site, because he was not interested in the job and that he was not going to meet anybody, but leafing through the pages of the site, he caught look at her picture and felt that he was inexorably drawn to talk to Denise. The letter attached by a photograph of Rain. Denise looked with interest at the photo of an unknown man of clearly European blood, reminiscent of the Dutches: a high forehead, a narrow face, large laughing blue eyes, curly wheat hair, a noble nose and a dazzling smile in 32 bright white teeth. In the photo it was evident that he was tall and slender. There was a string with a strange decoration around his neck. A typical foreigner who likes to wear trinkets and be proud of himself, Denise chuckled to herself, but something inside her skipped a beat, because Rain picture reminded her of the Prince from her girlish dreams. She was about to give another faceless and polite refusal, but then it occurred to her that Rain had somehow managed to get her email address. Denise wondered again if he was a crook. But there was nothing to do — the working email address would not be changed because of company policy, and she was not going to quit her job, so she had to write another kind "turn away" to Rain from the work mail.
"Well, he should get some sort of masculine ego, after all, — Denise mused. In fact, she had never met such persistent suitors in her life. In her opinion at the very least he should have been offended and left behind for a long time, and globally — he should hate her as any repeatedly rejected man. But he did not want to be left behind, and continued to bombard her with letters over and over, replying that he understood everything, that she was married and all that, and he did not expect or demand anything from her, but perhaps the "hand of friendship" could be useful to both of them. It was like a last-ditch attempt to reach her, and Denise took a deep breath and decided that she would have to answer rain politely and coldly a couple more times so that he would be disappointed in her, and then he would disappear as if he had never existed.
Rain continued to bombard her with letters telling her about himself, his son, and his hobbies, interjecting short questions to Denise about her life and preferences, about what she would like to see her life if she were not married. By the way, Denise immediately told Rain that she had been married many times, that she was already many years old and had an adult daughter and even a grandson. But to her real surprise, Raine wasn't the least bit confused or intimidated by the circumstances that Denise had hoped for. It seemed to be incredible to her. Rain sent her photos of himself from all over the world — with his son, with a glass of wine, with various exotic ornaments around his neck, in various funny poses and mysterious places. Denise looked curiously at the strange tattoos on his arms, with symbols of either ancient Vikings or martial arts. She was curious about the origin and meaning of the tattoos she'd seen, but Raine was careful to avoid answering her questions about them. Denise was captivated by the communication: little by little, she told Rain about her life, about her passion for writing poems and songs, singing to the guitar and piano, drawing pictures, about her work and love of traveling. Really, what's wrong with having interesting acquaintances in different countries of the world? It's just a nice human interaction."
But it was self-deception. Rain's letters with their thoughts on society, history, literature, music, art, human psychology, and thoughts on love, family, and children, touched the most delicate strings of Denise's soul. She realized that she was in love. It was funny and scary — after all, half a century had been lived, and several lives had been lived. But she was a woman in the full sense of the word, even if she had a name that sounded like a man's, with warrior ancestors and an iron core in her character. And a woman named Denise, though late, still met the man of her dreams, her Prince charming. It was not only point that they understood each other perfectly, that Raine admired her appearance, figure, erudition, poetry, and other talents, and that she admired her extraordinary intelligence, knowledge of world literature and art, and a fine sense of humour, but also that a real passion broke out between them. It must sound strange and even more strange that a man and a woman who had never seen each other, never touched each other, could have such strong feelings. You can't order your heart to do this, that's for sure. And even if he was ordered to, he wouldn't obey.
We often hear that love can work wonders, but we are not always able to notice it. Denise's soul, which had been sleeping peacefully for many years suddenly woke up, spread its wings, and flew up. Denise felt incredibly young and indecently happy. And so being slim by nature, she lost even more weight, became younger and prettier. Her eyes shone, and her step became as flying as in the days of her youth. Love gave her wings: they were as fine as silk, as soft as down, as transparent as a tear, shimmering with all the colours of the rainbow and sparkling like the Northern lights.

Chapter VIII. The Tricks of Love

My love for you is unrestrained, restless and blind.
I don’t dispute that it’s sometimes stupid, but noble and worthy.
My love for you is like salt on a bleeding wound.
My love is a big pain and a state of Nirvana…

Rain's letters were tender, dreamy, and romantic, and Denise read the magic lines excitedly.
"My Beautiful Lady, I want to be with someone who is easy to be with, who is not an angel of drama, who knows that the material things are not as important as people. I want to be with someone who wants to enjoy what life has to offer, sharing new experiences together every day, getting closer over time. I want to wake up in the morning, look at my friend and feel happy that another day has come that we can share with each other. I want to see a smile or a twinkle in your eyes that says: "I want you" or "I'm so glad you're with me." I want to show her how special she is, how much she means to me every day. I want to do nice small things for her that show that she is always in my thoughts and in my heart. True love is never too tired or too busy to stop, hug and kiss, or help each other out. If we really love someone, we put their happiness above ours, because when our beloved one is happy, it fills the heart with joy. Love is selflessness, beyond time, beyond age, and it sees what is inside, not our showroom. We recognize that we are all human and we have differences, and it is normal to have different opinions and interests. It's never a good idea to go to bed angry with each other, and it's never a good idea to say something that we can't take back, no matter how upset we are. We must always respect and appreciate each other and not take for granted that tomorrow will come anyway. We have to live every day as if it's our last day, because we never know when it might be. And we should not hold back our feelings, good or bad. Communication is also important for a successful relationship, and if we don't communicate, how does our partner know what's bothering them or how we feel about each other? Or how do we know what makes our other half happy? Being able to talk about anything is very important in a relationship if we want it to continue. If we love someone, we release them, and if they really love us, they will always be there, and if they don't, we can't force them, so they need to be released."
"Sex may be the most beautiful thing between two people who love and care about each other, but it doesn't replace the need to spend time with each other, and it's not a competition about performance. Making love is a physical way of expressing our feelings for each other. If we love someone we are close to, our heart speaks through our body. Love means that we don't always have to be right, and it's better to apologize, no matter who was wrong, then to let our love be damaged. We must treat our love as the rarest flowers, cultivate it and protect it, and then it will bloom throughout all the years of our lives."
"My Beautiful Lady, looking back today, I awoke to the fearlessness of vulnerability. There, right there, in the gap of hopelessness, there was a wealth that whispered thinly: "Everything is as it should be." I let humility to wash over me this afternoon, and so the world effortlessly rekindles the embers of this evening. Believing that you are a soul on a huge scale, I am grateful to travel through life with you. I would like you to know that I think of you and send you my sweet energy. When I close my eyes, I can hear your voice. My heart warms when I know that you are energetically near. I hope its fate, as if you were brought to me by an angel. You are in my thoughts."
"My Beautiful Lady, I went to bed last night with a smile because I knew I would dream of you... But I woke up this morning with a smile because you weren't a dream. I was thinking about you. And I know I don't say this often enough, but I appreciate everything you say or do. I've never known anyone better than you in any way. You always make an extra effort to inspire and inspire me. You make me want and try; you make me want to succeed. I could say that you complete me, but that would be a lie, because every morning when I wake up, I miss you more than the day before. You have no idea how nice it is to wake up every morning knowing that you are mine and I am yours. You made me believe in myself. For this and much more, I send good wishes to your door. I will always be there for you."
"My Beautiful Lady, I just want to thank you for your kind heart and love for me. You've made me a believer since I met you. Every night before I fall asleep, a smile appears on my face, because in the morning I have the fear of a long day in my head, and when I think of you, it gives me the strength to go into a new day. How nice it is to be ecstatic with someone you adore in every sense. Your intelligence captivated me, your benevolence awed me, and your eyes stole my heart. Thank you for being there, I promise to be a good person for you and provide your heart with any desires to the best of my abilities. I value you very much. May God always keep and protect you for me."
"My Beautiful Lady, I've been having a lot of thoughts running through my head lately. It's hard for me to put my thoughts into words, so you'll have to go through this with me. I keep thinking about the future, about life and what I want from it. I keep thinking about us and what this relationship means to me. I keep thinking about these things and realize that they go hand in hand. This relationship is my future, this is what I want from life. I want to grow old with you. I want to experience this crazy love forever, and I really think I'll get there. I want us to go to new homes, choosing the one that will be just right for us. I want to see you walk around our house in a big t-shirt with your hair down and catch my eye telling you how beautiful you are. I want you to pull the covers off me at night, which means I have to move as close as possible to keep warm. I want to see you laugh at me when I do something stupid. I want to put lotion all over your body because you've been lying in the sun for too long. I want to have a family with you and go through the experience of being a father with you. I want to see you and me chasing our little grandson around the house, all three of us laughing and having fun. I want to hold you when you cry and smile with you when you smile. I want to fall asleep every night with you in my arms. I want you to fall asleep on my chest, listening to my heartbeat, knowing that it's beating for you. I want you to be the first thing I see when I wake up and the last thing I see when I fall asleep. I want to see your horribly and sweetly dishevelled morning hair and admire it. I want to sit on the beach with you and watch the sun go down, and I want all the people who pass by to be envious of our love for each other."
"I want to go with you to places we've never been, and explore them with you. I want us to swim in the hotel pool at forbidden times, get caught by the hotel staff, and run away back to our room, waking everyone up with our loud laughter. I want our friends to come and envy us because they don't have the love we have. I want to go to the store with you, stumble, fall on my face, and turn around to see you rolling on the ground and laughing at me. I want us to run outside in the rain and act like children who are soaking wet."
"I want you to catch your breath every time I say I love you, because you know it comes from the heart. I want us to sit together and watch our grandson take the first steps from my hands to yours. I want us to sit down with a box of strawberries, a bottle of chocolate syrup, and a piece of mint chocolate ice cream... Hahaha… I'll let your imagination finish this. I want to love you and be with you at least forever, if not a little longer. I would really like to put more into words what was in my head. I just want you to know that I'm really crazy about you, that all I think about is you. Have a nice day, Honey."
Soon a long letter turned into a long chat by the phone. After three weeks of crazy communication, on the day of his birth, Rain declared his love for her. Denise was over the moon. She felt like a taut string waiting for the guitar player's nervous fingers to strike. Because of the time difference, they communicated during her morning hours and his evening hours. She had to get up an hour earlier than usual to talk to him and it was not easy for her, because she was an owl, and he broke his bedtime routine because he was a lark, got up early and went to bed early, but this game gave them extra energy. They talked about love, about life, about children, about parents, and could not stop talking. Denise was delighted with Rain's attentions, especially when he sent her a gift of songs that he liked and wanted to share with her. From his songs you could trace the development of their relationship, his feelings and mood. The songs sent were the highlight of their relationship, a special language of love and an explanation of many aspects of communication. The songs were different — sometimes melodic, the dancing, the passionate and erotic, or strict and gentle, some rollicking and rowdy. They were performed by singers of different ages, gender, and skin colour. The songs showed the multifaceted nature of Rain: his external restraint and for those who did not know him close, even coldness, his hidden passion, romanticism and dreaminess, his sincerity, simplicity and warmth of soul. "I want to be with you for the rest of my life… Nothing can change my love for you... I will love you as long as the stars are shining in the sky… I'm the one you were looking for… Eternity is not enough for our love… You're driving me crazy… I never thought I could love so much… No one has ever been as close to me as you are… I felt lost without you… Don't leave me, my love…Let me be your guardian angel… I'm all I am, because you loved me... " – all these was in the songs sent by Rain. Denise made a whole album out of them and often listened to them when she was home alone. The songs carried Rain's energy and mood and helped maintain the romance of their relationship.
In response, Denise sent him her poems, translated into English. Rain was her muse, her inspiration. As he conveyed his mood in the songs, Denise expressed her thoughts and feelings in poetry. She wrote to him about her love, about doubts, about the seasons, about impressions from what she saw or read about life, about philosophy, and about himself. Denise wasn't always able to write poetry in English at once, so she often wrote poems in Russian and then translated them for Rain. The translations weren't very good, but smart Rain understood everything she wanted to tell him. It's funny, but they even managed to quarrel in poems and songs, but then they always made up in the same way. It is strange how you can quarrel with lovers who are on different continents, do not share leisure, bed, property, money and other components of everyday life? It was simple: subconsciously, they were striving for a future life together, and they had a real lapping of characters, habits and worldview at a distance no less than the newly-made newlyweds.
Over the years of his life Rain got a sort of habits which at first were very strange, and sometimes even annoyed Denise. He might have made an appointment with her but not answered her messages because he fell asleep listening to music, or he might have been distracted by an urgent work call and never returned to their conversation that day, and the next day he was acting as if nothing had happened. When he got into trouble in business or got the flu, he would disappear for a few days, and only then, when all the problems were sorted out or he was recovering, would he tell her about it, already as a fait accompli. He only laughed it off to all Denise's soul-saving conversations and admonitions to share everything that was going on with others, in this case with her, and everything went on as before. The most annoying, she did not like were the moments when she saw that all her messages to be read, and there was not a line in response. As it turned out, he behaved like this not only with her, but also with his mother and son. Rain believed that if he had any important matters or problems, he would not bother anyone until he solved them. Denise had the impression that he was raising her to suit him, forcing her to get used to his way of life, thoughts and actions. Denise called him Stubborn Taurus in her heart.
She was a little uneasy that he was literally reading her heart, her thoughts. He seemed to know her much better than she knew him. Rain had a rare gift to find the right words to ease the tension and negativity of previous quarrels, and he did it very gently and delicately. He never tired of saying that he loved her as she was, and that she was always with him in his heart. These words were a balm to Denise's heart. It was not in her nature to be angry or resentful of him for long; it was not in her nature or in her rules. Besides, she loved him immensely and forgave him for everything.
They both really wanted to meet, they missed each other as if they had been married for many, many years and suddenly they had to break up for a long time. Rain had a plan in mind, but the time frame was unclear. Rain went on a business trip. His route from the States ran through London to Moscow, then to a couple of other places, and the trip, according to his calculations, would end in a couple of months in Singapore, and then they could start planning a future meeting on a distant Meridian. But life had its own way. Like saying: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." The meeting they had planned in the next few months was pushed back by a full one and half a year.
Oil was unpredictable. Another global crisis in the oil business broke out just from scratch, because of the ambitions of the rulers of individual oil managers, each of which not only did not think about the welfare of society and civilization, but pulled the blanket in their direction to the very top, thereby creating an unprecedented skew in the economy and giving rise to an unheard-of drop in world oil prices. The world community was indignant, tried to bring the great rulers to their senses, but it was all in vain. The global oil market has been hit by a real disaster.
Summer Moscow greeted Rain in a nice hotel with a magnificent view of the Kremlin and the embankment, outrageously low temperatures, which are not traditional even in spring or autumn, and cold torrential rains. Rain loved rain: he was born on the warm April day, it rained gently and warmly, and it was in honour of this rain that his mother named him Rain. Usually the rains brought him good luck and a quick solution to problems, but now he got acquainted with the real Russian rains that pour from the sky for weeks, flooding parks, squares, roads and airports. Elegant business summer suits had to be put back in their suitcases, being satisfied with jeans and a warm jumper for official negotiations. But Rain wasn't used to being discouraged long. He was reticent by nature, was fond of spiritual practices and had tempered the spirit of a businessman. Negotiations with Russian oil refineries did not go as he expected. Transactions were complicated by unforeseen obligations that could not be circumvented. Additional investment of money and time was required. Instead of the planned next trip to Denise's homeland, a beautiful city on the Neva river, Rain flew to the inhospitable Yekaterinburg, located 6in the center of logistics routes between Russia and Southeast Asia, and from there he left to Singapore.
Denise sent Rein an old Irish blessing for good luck on the trip. Rain was happy
May the sun light up and warm your face
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
She waited patiently for Rain to tell her about the meeting. At the time, it seemed to her that they would soon see each other again. She didn't understand how complex, serious, and unpredictable his business was, or how it was possible not to have a clear idea of the timing of the planned meeting. But this was exactly what he had written to her in his letter: "This relationship is my future, this is what I want from life. I want to grow old with you. I want to experience this crazy love forever, and I really think I'll get there." He knew how long his business trip might be, but he didn't want to frighten or upset her in advance.


Chapter IX. Soloveig’s Song

I am Sad, I am like the Moon, and you are like the Sun,
We go in a circle, each in his turn,
And we wait for the sky to laugh,
To meet — desire calls…

Denise liked to share her thoughts with Rain. For example, once she wrote to Rain "You know, today I suddenly thought that our love is like the seasons. More precisely, not love itself, but its States. First, spring came with love and burst into our lives, so young, brave, and trembling. Spring was followed by summer, and with it the blossoming of physical and emotional passion came. Summer was replaced by autumn changes, light sadness and unstable weather in the soul. What will winter bring us? »
As a romantic man with an imaginative and sensitive nature, Rain took even the smallest changes in Denise's mood very personally. But as a well-to-do American, he valued his peace of mind very much and did not want to upset himself even in small things. He wanted their relationship to have always a sense of celebration, and he tried to avoid serious topics of conversation, especially when it came to questions about the state of the business. He was being a little deceitful to Denise, insisting that his business was going well and there was no reason to worry, but in fact he could see from the situation in the oil market how long his visit to Singapore might take. He preferred to deal with everything in silence: extending a business visa, shipping crude oil products, chartering a ship, and so on. Work took up a lot of energy, nerves and time, he often did not have time to eat or sleep properly, and, of course, on days that turned into weeks, he did not write to her, but did not even open her messages. This was a familiar way for Rain to communicate. He had considered Denise so close to him that he did not think that she still needed attention from him, even if it was not as frequent and vivid as at the very beginning of their romance, but it was constant, indicating its reliability. When Rain was gone for a few days, Denise would literally go crazy with suspense. The wildest thoughts began to come into her head, such as that he was gambling at the casino and losing all the money he earned, that he drank a lot, and therefore, like all very drunk people, was behaving so irresponsibly, that as a handsome and rich man, he probably had many other women to devote a lot of time to, and that she was just one of many girls in his life. Denise wondered how anyone could go mad with jealousy for a man she'd never met. The situation seemed absurd to her, but she was well aware that she was in love with him, as they used to say in her youth, to the point of losing her pulse.
Some days after his disappearance, rain would appear as if nothing had happened, was gentle and passionate with her, saying a lot of dizzying words and calm her down. In turn he was always surprised by her southern temperament, offended by her distrust of his loyalty and decency, laughed at her inventions about his gambling addiction or unhealthy addiction to alcohol, and every time promised that he would stop disappearing and being silent, but these were just words, and everything went on as before-such was the strength of his habit.
Little by little Denise got used to Rain's personality and habits, and their relationship became more balanced and trusting. But it wasn't as if Rain wasn't jealous of her, either. This was a separate and very painful topic. He knew perfectly well that she was married, that she had a wonderful loving husband, a close-knit family and many friends with whom they celebrate holidays, go to the mountains, ski and spend all their vacations together. Rain tried to ignore the situation, pretended that her husband did not exist for him, but sometimes admitted that he deliberately did not want to communicate with her for several days, because he was very jealous of her husband and in general of her whole life where he now had an indirect relationship. Like any man, Rain was possessive one, and he wanted Denise to be his own. He was tormented by the fact that they were far from each other, that there were always new obstacles on the way to their meeting, but he could not force events, because the oil market continued to be unstable and any omission on his part could threaten financial disaster for his business. Money was of great importance to Rain — it was his passion, and business was the meaning of his life. Denise knew that even if he loved her, his Beautiful Lady, and the love of his life, he wouldn't compromise his principles about money one bit. It wasn't very pleasant to realize. Denise lived in a world of feelings and emotions. Money did not play the same role for her as it did for Raine — it was not an end in itself in her life, but it was simply a means to achieve a certain level of comfort. But she loved him and wanted to be with him, so she tried to understand and accept his world, his principles and habits.
Over the long months of communication, Denise was used to telling Rain every day how her day went, what she was thinking, what she was worried about. She liked to ask his advice on certain points at work, as well as what to give a friend, what outfit to wear or what to buy. He had a fine aristocratic taste for life, for style, hairstyles, wardrobe, perfumes, and underwear. As about women, Rain preferred the soft and sweet scents of perfume, admired Denise's elegant outfits and exquisite jewellery, her good taste, as well as her erotic underwear. He liked to ask her in the morning what she was wearing — it gave him aesthetic pleasure. Without ceasing to pay her compliments, admiring her slender figure, stylish hairstyle, playful eyes and always good mood in his own way, as far as possible from a distance, he also showed concern for her timely and complete nutrition regularly asking if she ate on time and what exactly she had. Its amused Denise, but it was pleasant, and she was happy to share with Rein photos of the dishes she had prepared and their composition, in order to somehow entertain him and brighten up the tedious stay in a foreign country. Rain missed her, the normal home life and food. He loved delicious food, loved the comfort of home, loved the feeling of family, and the fact that he had to live in a hotel for months on this trip and eat in cafes and restaurants did not bring him any pleasure. Rain never complained about anything, and his masculine core in the character could only be admired. Denise had a vague idea of how he lived for months away from home, from his usual life, how he coped with everyday difficulties and the absence of loved ones. Rain didn't particularly like to talk about his monotonous life, focusing more on discussing events in Denise's life. This made him feel almost like a family man. Of course, he was deluding himself a little here, because Denise wasn't his wife yet, but it was better this way. He was a dreamer, a romantic, and an optimist. He met his Beautiful Lady, the love of his life, and he was happy.
For sure Rain was happier now than Denise, who was tormented by remorse and the ambivalence of her position as a decent married woman and the secret lover of a beautiful overseas Prince. When she opened her heart to Rain, she closed it to her husband because she didn't have the ability of polygamous men to love multiple wives at the same time. Denise's husband was also quite happy, because he didn't know or even guess anything. Denise felt the worst: the day was inexorably approaching when she had to make a choice between two men, and she couldn't figure out if she could make up her mind to make a big change in her life again. In the balance, on the one hand, it was a long — term quiet and happy family life with Felix, and on the other one -crazy love and an absolutely vague future with Rain. She had no one to share it with, and she didn't really want to, so the only person she had to talk to was Rain, who also had to listen to her worries and doubts about the ambivalence of her position and the constant sense of guilt towards her husband. He listened to her patiently and soothed her with his beautiful declarations of love, which Denise did not even know about, which made her soul exult, her heart sink, and her whole being filled with joy, peace and boundless happiness. It has long been known that women love with their ears. Denise's ears could listen tirelessly to Rain's words of love: "You are always in my heart", "You are every second in the beat of my heart", "You are my one and only woman, there is no such thing in the whole world anymore". She especially liked it when he told her," I love you to the moon and back." These words sounded like the cosmic music of eternity. Time passed, and the meeting was still impossible to plan. It was not clear whether fate itself was opposed to this meeting, or whether it was preparing a better time for it. Their love was cramped within the established framework, it was suffocating, it lacked dynamics, development. Waiting for the meeting was a real test of feelings for both of them.
Rain left the States at the beginning of the summer, and Thanksgiving and Christmas were just around the corner. At first, Denise counted down each month from the day they met and notified Rain about it. He was happy, but he couldn't remember any dates: like most men, he didn't care about dates at all. Teasing her, he said: "It's good that you keep up with the times. I'm so in love with you that I've lost count of days and months." Later, after marking the anniversary of their virtual meeting, she also stopped focusing on dates. In fact, what is the use of counting if it does not affect their relationship and the situation as a whole? He was definitely right about that.
Of course, Denise's life did not stop because of Rain - she continued to spend time with her family, take an interest in her husband's business at work, communicate with her daughter and grandson, meet friends, visit theatres and go on vacation to Islands in distant countries. While on vacation, she shared her impressions with Rain of the host country, observations about the life of the local population, historical events, myths and legends of the islanders, unusual natural landscapes and views of ancient architecture. He waited with interest and impatience every day for more and more stories from her, scanning her mood.
Most of all, he was happy with her photos in beautiful poses against the background of the sea, the sun and flowering plants. But at the same time, he was terribly jealous of her husband, of the fact that Denise was not spending her vacation with him, Rein but with another man. He told himself that he couldn't and shouldn't be jealous of her until she was his, but he couldn't help it. Only a future meeting could help him resolve this issue, and he tried as best as he could to speed up the process of sending the chartered ship with oil products to the States and even began to slowly pack things for the road, but the long-awaited meeting was again postponed indefinitely.
The meeting, they first planned for the fall, then for the new year holidays, and then for the beginning of spring, continued to be ephemeral. The whole world was gripped by a terrible epidemic of a hitherto unknown virus. The pandemic has affected all areas of people's lives: the economy, politics, social life, and health. Almost all countries of the world were closed for several months, all international and domestic flights, railway services were cancelled and then banned, and people were stopped by road. The time has stopped. Groundhog Day has arrived. Rain was locked up for the rest of the quarantine in Singapore, unable even to return home. Denise remained in her own country, with no chance of going anywhere.
Rain had experienced a lot of unpleasant moments related to money during an unusually long business trip. Following his long-established rules before leaving the States he blocked all his accounts and forbade himself to use them, relying on quick money from future transactions, which was always enough for living and being on business trips, for successful product-money-product turnover and for making a profit. So, he cut off all the ways to retreat in case something goes wrong, so as not to hope for additional help from himself and deftly get out of any situation. But one day the unexpected happened: accidentally typing the wrong number in the "Bank-client" program, he sent a huge amount to someone else's account. Of course, he immediately corrected himself, but the job was done and the money went to an unknown direction. Rain called his Bank, then applied for a refund, explaining his mistake, and waited for a quick money back transaction. However, the Singaporeans were clearly in no hurry and assigned him a waiting time of one week, then extended it to two, and then lasted as much as a month. This was not just terrible, but it was a financial disaster, since all subsequent transactions depended on the missing transfer, and the world of the oil business was not going to wait for Rain to settle all the Bank formalities for the return of the required amount. Rain fell ill from the stress received and was hospitalized with nervous exhaustion. It was at this time that he disappeared for the first time for several days and Denise began to go mad with suspense. She changed her mind about everything, from the idea that he had left her and found another woman, to his abduction by some Somali pirates and even his tragic death. Later, when he was found and Denise told him everything she had changed her mind over the past few days, he calmed her down for a long time, joking merrily, as he always did. But that wasn't all.
Denise had always been acutely aware of Rain from the very beginning of their acquaintance. There was some kind of devilish delusion, Denise thought to herself, when once again she felt such a weight in her chest, as if someone had entered her. But as a highly sensitive person, she knew what Rain was thinking of her at this moment. Depending on his mood and life circumstances, Denise had different sensations in the chest area. If Rain just thought about her and sent her his love vibes, then the feelings were the same, and if he was in trouble and he mentally called out to her for help, Denise experienced a completely different feeling. That time when Rain had an unfortunate incident with sending money to an unknown account and had a nervous breakdown, her strong intuition was sharpened to the limit. Denise was desperate, because from the heaviness in her chest and the difficulty in breathing, she knew that something was wrong with him, that he was silent because he simply could not tell her about himself. After crying furtively before going to bed, Denise said a prayer and mentally asked heaven to give her some sign to find out where Rain was and what had happened to him. The next morning Denise knew for sure that he was ill: she saw him in her dream on the stairs of a building that looked like a clinic, dressed in a long black robe with a hood. She went to him and embraced him, but she felt no living warmth, as she held a cold and hard body in her arms, then, throwing back her head, she looked into his face and that was struck by its deadly pallor. Despite his silence on the air Denise continued to text him several times every day. A week later he replied her what had happened to him, and was surprised by her prophetic dream and powerful intuition. She never ceased to amaze how much she felt all the movements of his soul. Every time she felt another soul literally entering her, she received messages from him. It was a real mental connection, when you don't have to say anything, because everything is clear without words. Only a highly spiritual and developed person could communicate in this way. His passion for Eastern practices must have been very successfully mastered by him. Denise had rarely seen anything like this in her life. She had clear powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, and energy concentration, but she didn't like or want to use them. She was afraid of harming her loved ones, especially when they angered her with their actions or attitudes. She well remembered how she had once frightened her ex-husband Peter.
Once, during their next quarrel, he unfairly began to accuse her that without him she was nobody, knows nothing, can do nothing and has nothing — in this peculiar way he tried to keep her from divorce. Denise listened quietly to his screeching screams and felt her insides heat up to the limit. In order not to look at Peter, she looked away at the glass Cabinet with crystal dishes, and at that moment one of the large wine glasses in the Cabinet rang sharply and shattered into a myriad of small fragments. Peter realized that Denise's energy was not to be trifled with, and immediately fell silent.
On another occasion, after listening patiently in the office to the unfair accusations of an unsuccessful candidate who was not hired by a prestigious company, allegedly because Denise did not recommend him professionally enough she offered him a glass of water and put it on the office glass table, which crumbled to pieces at her touch. The boss and the other consultants came running at the noise. After making sure that everyone was alive and well the whole team amicably removed the fragments, and the mortally frightened candidate left and did not appear with any claims.
One of the cases when Denise blamed herself for the consequences was connected with her husband, Felix. The winter turned out to be less snow, icier, but they still decided to go on their favourite mountain skiing. Some of Felix friend knew told him about a little-visited ski slope on a winding pine slope. Denise had suggested that her husband should go fun a more familiar and safer place, but Felix had persuaded her to try out a new slope. The track was unkempt and hardly rolled: icy, narrow and winding, it skirted several mountain slopes, covered, at first glance, a very good layer of snow. They skied several times, and Denise realized that she was uncomfortable here, she felt a vague uneasiness and she shared it with her husband, saying that she would not climb the mountain again and wanted to go home. Felix waved her off blithely and said that she could do whatever she wanted, but he would still ski again because this winter he had not skied he was an old and confident skier, with a lot of experience and good skiing technique. It was he who immediately after the wedding put Denise on Alpine skies, taught her to love them, to ski and enjoy the speed, the feeling of freedom and flight. Denise glared at him, tired, cold, and hungry. "What's the point of skiing again where everything is bad?" she said to herself. There was a storm of indignation in her heart that he had dared to leave her alone, that had never happened before. "Well, up to you," she said angrily to her husband. — If you fall and get bruised — I won't feel sorry for you," and went to the car to take off the ski equipment.
The lifting up and passing down from the mountain took at most ten minutes, and with the technique of skiing Felix-five or six minutes. Half an hour passed, but Felix did not appear. Denise had cooled down and was worried that something was wrong. She was about to abandon the car and run for the lift when a lifeguard's snowmobile carrying her husband appeared in the distance. Felix was very pale and wincing with pain. He couldn't step on his left foot. He told her that he felt guilty for leaving her alone, and therefore decided to shorten the passing down by directing the skis to the other track, but across the snow slope that seemed reliable. However, the path chosen by Felix turned out to be treacherous and dangerous. As his ski caught on a snag hidden in the snow, he felt himself instantly thrown up and spun around. Then he went tumbling down with both skis on his feet, which, did not unfasten as they should have for some unknown reason, but continued to create an additional spin that cost him a torn cruciate ligament in his left knee. So, the release of negative energy Denise almost cost her husband a broken leg. The torn ligament they were treated long time, and although at the end of the next season Felix stood on skis again, the echoes of serious injuries remained life - he could not so valiantly to down the mountain, as before, got tired faster and didn't want to risk it. She remembered her secret gift or the curse of her ancestors, Denise did her best not to be angry with her family, fearing that nothing would happen to them. Now, when she thought about Rain, about his sudden periods of disappearance and silence, she tried to coax, to calm herself, her inner self, which was literally torn apart by contradictions. She distracted herself in any way: exhausting office work, burdening herself with household chores, unscheduled cleaning, tiresome cooking of recently read culinary delights, writing poetry until late night, and visiting massage parlours where she could forget and relax. Rain was clearly lucky: she never allowed herself to get really angry with him. Whether he wanted to or not, over the many months they'd been together, he'd practically trained her into his habits and lifestyle. When Denise shared her awareness of habituation with him, he was relieved: now many things in their relationship will become simpler and more understandable. Yes, many. But not all of them.
Once again when Rain kept quiet about what was going on in his life and why he didn't have the fun and romantic mood that Denise was used to, she managed to get him to admit that he hadn't eaten anything for several days, because he took a risk and invested all the money he currently had in another deal that turned out to be very dubious. After scolding the careless lover, she asked how to help him. Unfortunately, she didn't have a lucrative business or side income of her own, but only a salary that she cut out for vacations, repairs, and home purchases. But she could not allow the thought that her loved one was suffering and starving. Of course, from the outside this whole situation could look quite strange: a successful businessman, who has been buying and selling petroleum products for many years, suddenly finds himself in a completely wild situation, without having a cent in cash to buy food for himself. Denise had heard many stories about scammers who met wealthy women, ingratiated themselves with them, and then began to extract money from them under plausible pretexts. But she didn't even want to think that Rain might be a common scoundrel. She and her husband shared the common family budget, calculated to a penny, and they never had secrets from each other, so Denise was even at a loss where she could get a few hundred dollars to help out Rain. The situation was further complicated by the fact that it was impossible to transfer money directly to Rain: his passport was in the Singapore Embassy for visa renewal so the transfer could only be made with the participation of his agents, who were entitled to a decent percentage for services rendered. Denise was outraged by the predatory attitude of the agents, who had worked with Rain for many years and received a very decent income from his transactions, but, unfortunately, this was the only way, and she sent Rain a small amount. Since she didn't have any extra money she pawned one of her expensive diamond rings in the hope that she would be able to buy it back soon after receiving payment for a future vacation. According to her concepts applied to her income and social status, the amount was decent, but considering an expensive life in Singapore, it was just a penny. Nevertheless, Denise was happy because now her lover would be able to buy food for himself. Rain was also happy and grateful to her. He was exhausted mentally and physically and there was nowhere else to look for help, although it seemed strange, because he might have friends and relatives to whom he could turn, but he told her that he had no one else and she had no choice but to believe him. Of course, he promised to return the amount he received to her as soon as the situation stabilizes. Denise knew that the money could only be returned to her when Rain was home again, unblocking all her accounts and bank cards, because for some reason only Rain could understand he couldn't give her the money back quickly. Denise didn't ask him but she assumed it had to do with the American tax system and the state financial services tracking every move of its citizens. Rain told her that this situation had already happened to him and then he asked his mother to help, but this time his mother could not send him money, and if it wasn't for Denise he had no idea how it would have ended. Either way, things got better: Rain went through a difficult period, the deal was done, and he was back in the money.
It's been more than a year since they met. For such a long period of time any love could be threatened with disaster, especially one that was not supported by the physical side of the relationship. However, the classics of world literature more often testified that platonic love is more tenacious. In any case Rain and Denise decided to prove to the world, to the pandemic, and to themselves that they will stand up to all the challenges that fate has prepared for them.
Denise missed Rain and she tried to feel Singapore, to understand what kind of city it was that kept her lover from her for so long, what kind of climate, what kind of life, atmosphere, and so on. Rain, apparently had been there many times and said nothing special, except that "the dogs are lazy and not curious" that despite the seeming security at Christmas "it's better to stay in the hotel and stay out of trouble", that it's warm and rainy, that sometimes he goes to watch movies, sunbathe on the beach and swim in the sea, that most of his time is spent at business meetings, at the hotel with a laptop and at the seaport.
Denise eagerly absorbed any information about the new country was not satisfied and she decided to discover Singapore from different angles. From the school curriculum she remembered that Singapore was a rich city-state located on the Islands of Southeast Asia with beautiful tropical nature and unusual architecture, which preserved the remnants of the colonial British style, and now dominated by a modern style that included trends from around the world. Denise was surprised to learn that Singapore was translates as "the Lion City". She was glad that her lover was at least not in the "city of the crocodile" or the "city of piranhas".
There was a lot of appealing in Singaporean culture because many things were done for humanistic reasons. Denise was surprised to learn that Singapore does not display the words " do not walk on lawns. The fine is so much." Instead of tracking down intruders who make an additional path on the lawn, cutting a corner, the Singapore authorities notice the newly trodden paths and lay them out with beautiful paving slabs, referring with clear understanding to the fact that it is more convenient for people to walk diagonally, rather than along the perimeter.
Denise was very interested in the fact that the huge metropolis, which has more than five and a half million people, four official languages and all the major world religions, was also the owner of a variety of cuisine and a signature drink "Singapore sling" — the very highlight that Denise was looking for in the history and life of Singapore. The drink smelled romantic and sad. The sling was invented based on sherry brandy in the 1920s by a bartender named Nyam Ton boon at the Raffles hotel in Singapore. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Raffles hotel was popular with writers and the famous English writer Somerset Maugham, one of Denise's favourite foreign authors, who spent many years there, creating his magnificent stories where English etiquette with tea at five-o-clock was diluted with unbridled passions involving Malay beauties.
Denise understood Singapore had many temptations for Rain and from time to time she experienced bouts of jealousy when imagining her blue-eyed prince spending time surrounded by oriental luxury and young models. But Rain was always finding the right words, skilfully neutralized the feelings of the lady of the heart, childishly offended by her distrust of his love and loyalty.
There was no doubt about it: they were having a real romance, just like in a novel.
Rain was tired of Singapore, the hotel, the pandemic, and everything else that was a barrier to a normal life. On those days or hours when he took a break from the frenetic pace of his business, he was able to relax: he liked to watch international news or football matches without thinking about anything, or just lie on the couch, listening to music for hours and thinking about Denise. He wanted to go home, he wanted to watch football not alone, but in the warm company of men, he wanted to drink beer with friends, he wanted to hug his mother and son, and, of course, he missed Denise. Very often, before going to bed, he would wish that she was there, and he would send her tender and passionate messages. Every time Denise heard the special sound of a message coming from him, her heart started pounding.  She was well aware of the power of her eroticism and she loved everything that brought romantic pleasure. Knowing what an aesthete and romantic her lover is, she, in response to his "Beautiful Lady", called him "My King" and pampered him with playful erotic sketches. He loved her photos, taken with high artistic taste: basking in a bathtub filled with dark red velvet roses; reflected in a mirror in Flirty underwear; casually posing for the camera in an evening dress that reveals her beautiful legs with well-defined calves in fishnet stockings: gently embracing the guitar with delicate hands with thin musical fingers and elegant manicure. He wanted to be with her as much time as possible, to watch her move, smile, cook soup, fry fish, conjure over a plate of salad, sew on a typewriter, iron clothes, and he asked her to call him, turn on the video and not even pay attention to him, but just do their business and please him with their presence. It was a mutual pleasure. Sometimes Rain felt half-married, and he liked the feeling. But the wedding was still very, very far away, if at all possible, because first we had to at least just meet and feel each other.

It was autumn again, a time of change, a period of hope and joyous anticipation.
Singapore opened flights to the States, and finally Rain returned to his native Texas, in in a cozy little town with the romantic name Dreamview, or "Dreamy view". After almost a year and a half of traveling in foreign countries he had lost a lot of weight, although he had never been in a body before. His mother oohed and aahed as she looked at him, and tried to make as many pies and cakes for him as possible. Rain wasn't too upset about his physical condition, because the day before, when he'd shared his weight concerns with Denise, calling himself bony, she'd found the right words and calmed him down, telling him that she loved him anyway, no matter how thin or very thin, and joking cheerfully that "A good rooster doesn't get fat." Rain liked this Russian proverb very much, and he took it firmly into account in the upcoming communication with his old American friends, who were quite overweight.
He barely recognized his son. When Rain left John was a skinny 11-year-old boy who looked shyly into his eyes. Almost one and half a year later he was met by a significantly elongated and overweight 13-year-old with a broken voice and frequent mood swings. Rain wondered if John had inherited his ex-wife's tendency to be overweight and depressed. Without putting it off, he seriously took up the restoration of his son's athletic form. They began to jog in the Park, play soccer, ride horses, and exercise in the yard as before. Rain could see that John was not used to him at all, despite their constant Skype communication during the entire period of his trip, and this made him sad. My mother was better behaved than John, of course, but she had grown old and sentimental since leaving Rain, and there was an unearthly light in her beautiful sky-blue eyes that Rain had inherited.

Chapter X. On the Star Bridge

A twenty-first-century virtual novel…
I can't assess its role in any way:
Whether it is a gift, or a torture for a person,
Either the happiness of disembodied love, or the pain.
Messages with songs or poems,
Many feelings and impulses, dreams and plans…
Everything is mixed up like in a mixer: joy - with sins,
Remorse — with the tenderness of the stars…
And now we are with you - I am a poet, you are a romantic —
Two wings of a fantastic bird of fate.
What lies ahead — boundless happiness
Or disbelief in phantom love?

A month later, when Rain had put in order all his household and financial Affairs and had had enough of communicating with his mother and son, and was energized, he began to actively implement his plan to meet Denise. They had a little argument about which country and city to choose for the meeting. At first, Rain was determined to come to Denise's town but she wisely decided that it wasn't safe, because the town was relatively small, there were a lot of acquaintances and co-workers around, and almost everyone knew each other. She explained to Rain that they couldn't be locked up in a hotel or rented apartment all the time, that they would want to go out for a walk in the city, sit in a restaurant, visit a theatre, a Museum, or an exhibition, and someone would see them together and draw far-reaching conclusions, and maybe immediately to tell her husband about their discovery. Denise felt a lot of remorse but she knew that only after meeting Rain would she be able to tell her husband about the separation. It was hard, even though she didn't love him anymore. She didn't want to hurt Felix, but without that, no change would have been possible.
Then they went through Dubai, Istanbul, Singapore and Bangkok. But all these options required too much effort from Denise and explaining where and why she was going to. In the end, the choice fell on Moscow — it was convenient for both of them, since Rain had business there, and Denise could just go to visit her parents. Moscow was attractive from all sides: the city was huge both in terms of population and the number of interesting places where you could walk without fear of meeting friends, the autumn weather promised to be stable, the time of Golden autumn brought romance to life. The long-awaited meeting was just around the corner.
Rain began to prepare for the trip, to think about the wardrobe, so as not to get into a mess, like the last time when he Packed thin and elegant summer clothes for business meetings, and instead, to escape from the damp and cold, went all the time in jeans and a thick jumper. But these were small things. Of course, first of all, he intended to pay her a debt, a ridiculous amount, by his standards, but very valuable, because it was a real salvation for him in the most difficult time.
Most of all he was worried about what to present Denise. He had a complex that never once in the entire one and half a year of their acquaintance, due to circumstances, except for musical greetings, he could not even give her a bouquet of flowers, so now he expected to win her over with his generosity and good taste.
As at any exciting moment in his life, Rain's breath caught in his throat, and he began to control his condition, counting to a hundred and adjusting the breathing process. Now the reason for his wild excitement was obvious. He darted between the bracelet, the pendant, and the ring. Sometimes he imagined putting a delicate bracelet on her wrist so that she would always feel his hand firmly on hers; sometimes he imagined wrapping a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant around her neck to mark the union of their hearts; sometimes he trembled with excitement in anticipation of her delight at the spectacular ring he would put on her small finger. They didn’t come to a consensus and Rain decided to buy Denise everything he thought about, but to give her not everything at once but to stretch the pleasure for several days. Rain knew that she loved him, but deep down he was worried that she wouldn't have the heart to leave her husband and her life and go to him forever. All this he intended to discuss with her when they meet. He booked a room for two for a week in a good world-famous hotel in the center of Moscow, specifying Denise as his wife. He didn't know how she would feel about it, but he hoped she would understand. Rain didn't have a clear plan in mind for how they would spend their time, because Moscow had a lot of interesting places and events in the world of art and culture. The most important thing he wanted was to spend as much time with Denise as possible and talk about the future.
At this time, Denise was dealing with the issue of vacation at work with the purchase of air tickets and with coming up with a reason for Felix, why she was going to Moscow to visit her parents alone. Fortunately, the issue was resolved itself: Felix had an important object at work that needed to be urgently serviced, and he was calm about Denise's little unexpected vacation. But there was a question in her husband's eyes, and a hint of sadness in his voice, but it was too late to back down: for one and half a year, she had weighed, compared, and tried to persuade herself — and all in vain, because her soul was longing for her dream, for Rain. Felix was not a dream, but a gift from life, and Denise was eternally grateful for the many years they had spent together. She didn't know yet how she could explain him that she had met another man for whom she would go to the ends of the earth, do crazy things, and even break up with her family.
In her soul Denise struggled with different feelings but the love for Rayna significantly outweigh all the others put together. She put aside her doubts and began to dream about what their first meeting would be like and what she could do that would be so original that she would surprise rain. She imagined him sitting on a park bench while she crept up behind him and covered his eyes with her hands, and he froze and started asking stupid questions about who it could be, and in response she walked around him, sat on his lap, laughed and took her hands away from his eyes. Another image that filled Denise's mind was of their meeting at the airport, when he stood in the arrivals hall and stared intently at the faces of passengers coming out of the baggage compartment and she, arms outstretched, ran to him, put her arms around his neck, and he scooped her up in his arms and whirled her around in front of the astonished audience.
But all these images from old sentimental movies of the last century replayed in Denise's mind, were completely unsuitable for their case. The meeting at the airport, which Rain also wanted, she rejected from the very beginning. She did not like the idea of going straight to his hotel without seeing her parents, because both they and her husband would immediately have a lot of questions about where Denise had gone from the plane and whether she had even arrived in Moscow. Knowing her parents 'and her husband's ability to panic, she decided to go to her parents' first before deciding how and when to meet Rain. She had no choice but to tell Rain to wait for her at the hotel the day after her arrival. There was no doubt this was Denise's little feminine trick: her father had given her seasickness, which modern Airliners generally overcame, but the echoes of ill health still haunted her from time to time. Denise usually got off the plane in a pale green colour with reddened eyes and a little puffiness on her legs from the long hours flight. Of course, she wouldn't want to appear to her King in such an unsightly way for a first date. Clearly, she had to rest, take a shower, get some sleep, and only then go to meet her happiness. Rain did not object to his Fair Lady, because he worshipped her, approved of all her words and actions, and never expressed his displeasure to her. He was not indifferent, just had enough patience and understanding for many things. Rain agreed. In his opinion this place was no worse for a meeting than an airport or a park, if the noble knight could create a romantic atmosphere in it, and the romance and rich imagination of Rain was not enough. There wasn't much left.
In turn Denise was also puzzled by the search for a gift for Rain. She wanted to give him something unusual, interesting and necessary, so that he would use her gift. She thought of a handmade genuine leather purse with the monogram of his name on it, or an interesting belt also handmade from genuine leather for jeans — after all, he lived in Texas, rode horses, and loved jeans. The purse was an interesting gift, but it didn't match the belt, because Denise didn't know what size or how many pockets it would be useful for Rain. So, the belt won. Well, it was a man's gift, Denise reassured herself. From her psychology course, she remembered that all women look at men's belts, especially buckles, and men attach great importance to this accessory. The belt was ordered, approved by her, and hidden in a suitcase. Now she had to think about her wardrobe. Denise was often in Moscow in the fall, but she could never really guess how capricious the weather would be. She clearly did not want to take a bunch of clothes that would arouse her husband's unhealthy interest, so she decided to dress as usual for the road and to visit her parents, but to take a pair of beautiful dresses for going to the theatre and to a restaurant to meet with school friends, without which no visit to Moscow was complete. Denise made on her charming underwear and elegant stilettos for the main focus for a date with Rain. After all, he was waiting for her, not her wardrobe.
The long-awaited week-long vacation and the day of departure to Moscow came. Denise was nervous, it seemed to her that she was betraying something important and valuable in her life. For the hundredth time, she changed her mind and called her actions been the worst words, and flew away. Felix had walked her to the airport, saying that he would miss her very much, and this fact hung like a stone around her neck. In addition, he complained of feeling ill and having misgivings. With a guilty look at her husband, Denise gave him a quick kiss and disappeared into the departure gate. During the entire flight, she tried not to think about anything and to sleep, but the sleep was shallow and did not bring the expected result. On arrival in Moscow Denise was met by her only sibling, Alex, who, as usual, grumbled that she had again brought a huge suitcase and several bags with gifts. Denise was glad to see her younger brother, and his familiar grumbling, and his stories about how he cared about his parents, and his sceptical jokes about all the everyday nonsense that amused her, distracting her from thinking about the vicissitudes of life. Her brother, like a father, was a former career officer, had served in several modern wars, had military awards, and a stable character that did not allow him to do all sorts of stupid things, like Denise did, for example, several times to marry and divorce. In short, he was a good support for their parents in their old age. Alex quickly handed her to his parents and left for work.
Her parents had scolded her for coming without her husband — as old-school people, they believed that a husband and wife should always be together, and began to treat their welcome guest to a festive dinner that they had prepared in honour of her arrival. Denise kept smiling even though she wanted to cry. She was very attached to her parents, missed them very much when they moved to Moscow, and now she enjoyed their bustle, warmth and care. She also had no idea how she was going to tell her parents that her life was going to change again, and she decided to leave all explanations for later if the change happened. Despite of her fatigue Denise managed to knead the dough and bake her personal lemon pie in the oven for tomorrow. After telling her husband and Rain that she had arrived safely, she fell asleep.
The next morning Denise woke up refreshed and happy. She was worried about meeting Rain and didn't want to eat anything for breakfast, but her dad ordered her to eat the whole bowl of oatmeal and drink a cup of coffee in a commanding voice. Denise told her parents that she was going to meet friends, and rushed to Rain taking home-made lemon pie with her. They were lucky: it was a real golden autumn, warm, dry, bright. Denise felt like a young and reckless girl rushing to meet her Prince. She put on jeans, a jacket, and boots, and packed a smart dress, shoes, and her own adorable underwear in her bag. Denise couldn't think of anything but Rain her heart was pounding. She was filled with confidence, because she had taken care of her long and lush haircut in advance, put on her favourite jewellery and perfumed herself with a delicate, sweet and erotic shade of French perfume based on peony. Denise didn't wear any makeup, except her favourite French lipstick, which was a natural shade of lipstick that fell like silk on her lips. Her whole being was ready to open up to Rain.
As she ran into the hotel lobby Denise looked around for Rain, but before she could take a step, someone put an arm around her from behind and held her tight; she smelled elegant and expensive men's perfume felt the touch of a velvety, well-shaven cheek, and then his hard kiss. She squeezed her eyes shut and stopped breathing for a moment, then whirled around and opened her eyes. Just like I imagine, Denise thought, and she stopped thinking at all, because they started kissing like crazy, right in the middle of the lobby, completely oblivious to the crowds of hotel guests who were staring in surprise at an interesting couple — a tall, blond American and a slender, dark-haired woman who came up to his shoulder, with an incomprehensible appearance, either mixed with Asian blood or something else. No doubt these two didn't care what was going on around them — they were completely absorbed in each other. That's not how kids kiss, because they haven't learned how to kiss yet. This is not how respectable adults kiss, because they have already forgotten how to kiss. This is not how a brother and sister kiss because their hearts don't beat. Only those who have discovered the miracle of love kiss like this.
They took the elevator to the 17th floor still kissing. In their room a sumptuous bouquet of her favourite dark red velvet roses, champagne, fruit, seafood lunch, and red caviar sandwiches were waiting for Denise. "You're crazy," she muttered. Rain smiled shyly and nodded in response: "Yes, I'm happy to be crazy about you." The room was spacious and comfortable, it had everything necessary for a pleasant and comfortable stay. A luxurious king-size double bed, upholstered furniture, a beautiful dressing table with an ottoman, a study table for work, a huge wardrobe for clothes and a nice entrance hall. The bathroom was laid out with cheerful multi-coloured tiles, new plumbing was polished to a shine, snow-white towels and bathrobes shone clean. The bathroom was also interesting because it had a separate shower stall and a separate bathtub itself — a large, deep, lion-legged tub.
Denise went to the window: there was a magnificent view of the Kremlin and the Moscow river. Rain was wearing jeans and a smart shirt. As Denise studied the room, he found soft, pleasant music on the music channel. It was obvious that he was trying hard. Rain watched her carefully, waiting for her reaction. "I'm thrilled with everything I see. Thanks. You're doing great, " she said. He breathed a sigh of relief. Denise went into the bathroom and put on a short evening dress that showed off her figure, and high-heeled shoes that made her look taller and slimmer, and her beautifully shaped calves looked very tempting. She wanted the holiday to be felt even in small details. Her appearance was quite spectacular. Rain walked over to her, gave her his hand, and led her to the table. "My impatience is great, but I want you and me to have a lot of romance. You and I are adults and we can wait a little longer. I don't want to ruin our meeting with my youthful fervour. I have a beautiful plan. Do you mind? » Denise didn't mind. Despite one and half a year of close communication with Rain, which made them very close, they still saw each other live for the first time. She didn't want to rush things, either.
Rain opened the champagne — the expensive Veuve Clicquot, Denise's favourite champagne, and, by the way, the favourite champagne of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, and he knew a lot about champagne. Denise was surprised, because she had it only once, quite a long time ago, she told Rain that she liked Veuve Clicquot and that she had only drunk it a few times in her life, because it was very expensive and only suitable for special occasions. In her opinion, Rain didn't think much of the name of the champagne at the time, but it turned out that he had a very good memory, especially for the things Denise liked. A good start, she thought. — What else will you surprise me with?"» Rain raised his glass, looked into her eyes, and smiled brilliantly. Denise stared at him. In real life, he was even better than in photos or during video calls: bright blue warm eyes with rays-wrinkles from frequent laughter, a noble nose, a high intelligent forehead, well-defined lips, light, slightly curly hair and very good posture. She took a literally aesthetic pleasure in contemplating the portrait of her lover, her beautiful Prince, who came to her from a dream. Sitting next to him, Rain looked with equal curiosity at his Beautiful Lady for whose favour he had fought so long, for his hard-won and rewarded love. He felt an irresistible physical and spiritual attraction to her. "Well, how feminine, lovely, charming and sexy she is. I would have eaten her, Rain thought of her like a man. He clearly had something to be proud of and even brag about, because he had the most beautiful woman in the world in his opinion. In addition, he never forgot about Denise's powerful intellect, broad outlook, high spirituality, musicality and poetic gift.
"Let's drink to our long-awaited meeting. For meeting on the star bridge, in the middle of many worlds, to the meeting that God and love brought us to," Rain said softly.
"For us, for our long wait and patience, for the fairy tale that suddenly happened in our lives," Denise supported him. The glasses rang with joy.
As far as Denise could remember, like a true Taurus Rain liked to eat, and therefore probably constantly worried about whether she had had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Even now, he carefully offered her one dish or another, never tired of asking if she liked the taste of the food he chose. From long conversations, they both knew each other's preferences pretty well, so whatever was on the table was fine with both of them. Denise threw up her hands, jumped out of the chair, and ran to the hall to get her bag: she had completely forgotten about piece of the family pie, which is specially brought from the house for Rain. The pie was thin, tender, and golden-ruddy, with a filling of fresh lemon ground with sugar. Rain licked his lips — he had a sweet tooth and a fan of homemade cakes, and had long wanted to try his lady's cooking. The pie was well-deserved and at risk of being eaten quickly, but Rain stopped midway because he wanted to stretch out the pleasure and finish it for dinner. Denise had always been a moderate eater, and she had stopped long ago and watched with fondness as Rain devoured her pie. Rain knew how to eat beautifully and deliciously and it was a pleasure to look at him.
At the end of the meal Rain got up from his chair, went to the dressing table, and took something out of a box. "Please close your eyes," he said to Denise. Obediently, she lowered her lashes and felt the pleasant chill of metal on her neck. After repeating his request to her not to open her eyes until he said so, he gently helped her out of the chair and led her to the mirror. "You can do it now," Rain whispered, feeling his breath catch in his throat as it always did in the most exciting moments of his life. Denise opened her eyes and gasped at the sight of a delicate gold pendant in the shape of two hearts, suspended from a delicate gold chain of openwork weave. "What a beauty! Thank you! " she exclaimed and hugged Rain. She loved jewellery, and it was unspeakably pleasant to receive it as a gift from her adored King.
Rain was relieved to see that his Beautiful Lady really liked the gift. He also decided to pay off his debt immediately and handed Denise an envelope with the inscription "to My beloved Savior from the grateful saved from starvation". Denise smiled sweetly. "Do you know the good Russian proverb that debt is red in payment?" she asked Rain. He said that he had not heard before but now he would know, and that he was a businessman and a man of his word. In response, Denise handed him her gift-a belt made of genuine leather with an original buckle on which the head of a snow leopard was squeezed out. Rain immediately swapped his usual belt for her gift. The belt Denise had chosen fit him perfectly, and it looked good on Rain's slender waist. He didn't hide his pleasure: she certainly had excellent taste in more than jewellery and ladies ' clothing. So, all the sensitive points were settled. The most important part of the meeting was approaching.
Rain sank down on the carpet in front of Denise's chair and put his head on her lap, holding her legs tightly. Denise leaned over and kissed the back of his head. He lifted his head and their lips met in a long, sweet kiss. They didn’t want to observe any more ceremonies, they simultaneously began to take off each other's clothes. Denise suddenly realized that her whole life had been waiting for his touch, and she wanted as much of it as possible. Rain breathed in the scent of her body, her perfume, and his kisses and caresses became more and more passionate. He'd longed for her, longed for her body, for her closeness. Not knowing each other physically, they both subconsciously felt that they were suitable for each other. Denise felt herself melting into love: her King was not only smart and beautiful spiritually and physically, but also a great lover. They understood each other without words. Rain had read somewhere that good cooks understood love, and he was delighted with his Beautiful Lady who was so delicious and sweet that it was impossible to break away from her. He remembered how dreamed of her as he fantasized, what they will have nights and days, as he was jealous of her husband and all the men who were earlier in her life, and now was embarrassingly happy that she finally belonged to him and only him. The love marathon that had brought them both unspeakable pleasures had ended in victory, and now they could rest and relax a little. Resting her head on Rain's shoulder, Denise closed her eyes and drifted back to the dreamland, she was glad the bed was so comfortable and the bed so fresh. Rain was tired, but he was so full of different feelings that he couldn't sleep. He laid there and tried not to move, so as not to disturb Denise's sleep. The sweet smell of her hair made him dizzy and the touch of her body took his breath away. He remembered a haiku: "Hands intertwined. The legs merged Love." Here it is, his long-awaited happiness! This is the love of his life.
The evening came. Lanterns were lit in the streets and the stars shone in the sky. Rain kissed Denise and she woke up. He looked at her — and she smiled a sleepy, happy smile. "Let's go for a walk in the evening city," Rain said. Denise nodded approvingly. In fact, you can't lock your life in a hotel room. They put on jeans and jackets and went downstairs and out into the street. They held each other's hands tightly, not really thinking about the route. They talked about various things, about their feelings and experiences, about a beautiful evening, about the upcoming dinner, and all sorts of nonsense that only lovers think is important. So, Rain remembered that there is a mint ice cream in his room, in the refrigerator that he bought for Denise. One day they were discussing who liked what kind of ice cream, and it turned out that his favourite ice cream was mint, and she had never tried it, because in her country no one produced it and did not bring it from anywhere. Rain remembered this, found mint ice cream in Moscow and saved it for his Beautiful Lady. Denise was moved almost to tears by his concern.
When they got back to the hotel she called her parents and told them that she wasn't going to be there that day because the meeting had been delayed. She couldn't stay with Rain all day because her parents needed to pay attention and help with the housework. After dinner and a delicious mint ice cream, Denise decided to discuss her future plans with Rain. He understood, and they agreed that in the morning she would go to her parents ' house, and in the evening, she would return to him, and during her absence he would settle his business matters, which were the accompanying topic of his trip. When they were done, they decided to continue their romantic evening.
The bathroom seemed to be waiting for its time. Rain had long dreamed of taking a shower with his beloved, he imagined how he would help washing her long hair with shampoo, gently massage her body with a mitten made of natural seaweed, fool around and spray her with a shower head, and then they would make love right in the shower stall, and how erotic it would be. Denise was happy to share his fantasies, she liked everything he did, and sex in the shower brought a lot of sensual pleasure to them. They moved smoothly from the shower to the bed. It seemed to have accumulated love for two centuries. He treated her as if she were a child, and she felt safe and comfortable around him. Rain brought a hair dryer and dried and styled Denise's hair himself, winking at her and complimenting himself on how good he was at being her personal handyman. When he was done with his beauty routine, he finished his well-deserved slice of lemon pie and settled down next to Denise. The whole night was ahead of them, and they were both worried, trying to guess if they were going to continue their love marathon or if they were going to get some sleep. None of them could remember how old they really were, they felt full of energy and twenty years younger.
Now that when they had calmed down for a while, they both began to study each other lovingly. Rain had a lean, strong body, broad shoulders, strong abs, and fair skin tinged with gold from constant tanning, with curly blond hair on his arms and legs, and intricate tattoos on his chest, shoulder, and wrists. Denise studied them carefully, then she ran her fingers curiously over each one. She remembered that Rain always walked away from the conversation about what caused each tattoo, and what the secret meaning of them is. Denise had never been interested in tattoos, and none of her husbands had them, so now they seemed like foreign curiosities. The right breast of her lover was decorated with a small symbol of his zodiac sign, the left forearm was covered with a Celtic bracelet of fancy ligature, meaning the infinite life of the human soul, the unity of the earthly and spiritual worldview, and the backs of both hands above the wrist were covered with some symbols in the form of ancient hieroglyphs, probably also having a hidden spiritual meaning. In Denise's opinion he was as good as Apollo.
In turn Rain admired Denise's magnificent figure, which was clearly confusing in questions about her age, throwing off at least 12, or even 15 years, her slim waist, exciting hips, beautifully outlined calves and small feet, small sensual breasts, dark skin, in the light of the nightlight glittering with a mysterious greenish hue, as if she was a mermaid or an alien. He admired her dark brown hair that fell over her shoulders, her delicate hands with sensitive musical fingers, her well-defined lips, her large, inviting golden-brown eyes where he wanted to drown in, and was surprised to find black flecks in her pupils that gave his Beautiful Lady the sly look he loved in her photographs. Rain reached out for his beloved again, feeling a surge of new strength and desire in his body. Denise's entire being opened up to him. They were caught up and carried away by a real hurricane of passion as if they were experiencing a honeymoon in their youth.
The old hackneyed truth that love is the unity of the soul, mind and body, found confirmation once again: while they had long conversations for one and half a year on various topics, they became convinced of the kinship of their souls and minds, and it was wonderful, but only the last union, the union of bodies, became a powerful closing chord in their beautiful love song. "I love you to the sky and back, my Beautiful Lady. You are the one and only one in the whole wide world for me," Rain's usually soft and melodious voice sounded muffled and hoarse. "I love you more than anyone in the world, my King. You are everything to me. You are the man of my dreams," Denise whispered softly to him, and the velvety timbre of her voice was a balm to Rain's heart. The moon and stars watched them, from a huge window wondering how long lovers could stay awake. After quenching their passion for a while, they fell asleep only in the morning.
Denise opened her eyes to the bright sunlight filtering through the high clouds. She looked at Rain, who was sleeping peacefully and smiling in his sleep. She slipped out from under the covers and made her way to the bathroom. Like a real military daughter, Denise washed quickly and dressed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she leaned over and kissed him. Rain muttered something and sat up in bed with his eyes squeezed shut. He was funny, sleepy, and warm. Denise felt a rosebud opening inside her. "I have to run," she whispered. Rain hugged her and didn't want to let go for a long time. "You haven't even had breakfast," he chided her. "I'll be back in the evening to eat at my parents’ house', " Denise replied sweetly, freeing herself from the ring of his arms. Rain paused for a moment and released her. "Go and come back soon. I'll be waiting for you, " he said. Another minute and he could hear her light footsteps outside the room door. The elevator came quietly and took his Beautiful Lady away. Rain had a long working day ahead of him, with negotiations, deals, and calls from all over the world.
The hotel reception employees looked at Denise in surprise: where is Mrs. N running away at such an early hour, leaving her Mr. N alone in the hotel? But the delicacy with which they were trained did not allow them to ask the guest an indecent question.
Denise went by subway and couldn't hold back a happy smile, her body and soul singing the famous love serenade to her alone. Frowning Moscow residents looked at her with displeasure and turned away: someone else's happiness clearly irritated them on a weekday autumn morning. Denise stared out the window and thought about yesterday and last night, she felt the heart pendant under her jacket, and thought about Rain. The part of the mystery was no longer a mystery to her. Rain was hers now, and she couldn't help but exclaim with joy at the knowledge of winning over a long wait of one and half a year. On the way to her parents ' house, she went to the Church and lit a candle to the Virgin Mary for her and Rain's love. Denise didn't want to repent because she didn't consider herself a sinner: she met her late crazy love that God sent her, and how can God's gift be sinful?
She devoted all day to her parents, washing, cleaning, cooking them all sorts of goodies, listening to long-known news about friends and relatives, and feeling like a beloved child. After roasting a couple of delicious beef chops for her King, Denise made her way to his house that evening.
She reassured her parents that she was already an adult, that she needed to visit an old friend who had recently changed her apartment for a more spacious one, wrote her husband a message that everything was fine, and left.
Her heart sang with happiness. All day long while Denise was at her parents' house, between his business meetings, and it seems that during meetings, Rain sent her messages — sometimes tender, then passionate, then funny, then just indecently intimate, which pleased and amused Denise. It had been a long time since she had experienced such a breath-taking sensation of flying, perhaps since the last time she had flown a paraglider or a parachute. Her eyes glittered and shone with a bright light, her gait became swift and light again, her body regained its youthful flexibility, her lips, slightly swollen from Raine's kisses, smiled seductively, her fluffy hair flew as she walked. She ran into the hotel and went up to her lucky 17th floor. Rain was still at his laptop, finishing his last business email. Denise burst into the room like a gust of wind, hugged Rain, and asked him how long he intended to work. Rain didn't answer, just slammed the laptop shut, as if to indicate that the question was over. Then he took her on his lap and did not let her go for a long time, saying that he had been waiting for her all day and that the day seemed to him an eternity. When she found out that he hadn't eaten all day because he was busy, Denise hurried to lay the table and treat him to homemade chops. The food came in handy. After eating, they went for a walk.
They walked in an embrace along the evening embankment and told each other how their day had passed, then stopped, kissed, again declared their love and went on. A light rain was beginning to fall. They both liked rain, but this time rain was worried that his Beautiful Lady might get wet and catch a cold. He pulled the hood over her and led her back to the hotel. At the hotel, they sat in the lobby for a glass of delicious Portuguese wine, a cheese plate and sweets. Then they went up to the room, turned on the music and decided to dance a little. Like any person with a musical background, Rain had an excellent sense of rhythm, moved easily and freely, and proved to be a skilled and pleasant dance partner. Its amused Denise that Rain was left-handed, and wore a watch on his right hand, while, as he said, he wore a leather bracelet on his left for balance. Denise knew that he was joking, but in fact, he also likes different jewellery, in this case, men's bracelets as she loves to as well. He also liked to wear some mysterious locket around his neck or a man's necklace made of someone's teeth or rare stones. Such ornaments suited him, and he knew how to wear them. During another musical passage Rain picked Denise up in his arms and spun her around. As he spun Denise around he was looking at her instead of at her feet and as a result, he stumbled and they fell to the carpet, laughing. It was a dangerous fall: Rain began to kiss her passionately and undress her right on the carpet. He really missed her, as if they hadn't seen each other for a long time. Denise didn't mind, her passionate nature and Oriental temperament instantly responding to Rain's caresses. She knew her body well, and she felt a spark run through it, and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Rain was a gourmet in love, able to enjoy himself and give pleasure to his lady. With each new intimacy, his caresses became more refined and skilful. Denise felt like heaven. None of her husbands possessed such a great technique of sex, and she highly appreciated her beloved. Indeed, few people try to master the art of love, so that it brings pleasure not only to a man, but also to his woman. Of course, the natural male physique was also important — from this point of view, Rain was simply perfect in all aspects.
After another love marathon, they decided to make themselves another pleasant entertainment: they filled the bath with warm water and aromatic foam and they settled down in it. Rain lay down on the bottom, sank down on the curved back of the tub, and stretched out his long legs. Denise, small and dainty, sat deftly in the middle of the tub, her back against Raine's broad chest. He took her in his arms, and the lovers fell into Nirvana. They both had the feeling that they were not in a hotel in the center of a huge metropolis, but somewhere far away on the edge of the world, in a God-forsaken hut, and it was wonderful. They suddenly wanted to be on the beach, listening to the waves and basking in the warm rays of the rising sun. Rain had long, unbeknownst to Denise, berated himself for agreeing to a meeting in Moscow instead of some warm place in the middle East or Southeast Asia where he could give her the best of everything, but it was too late to think about it now. The bath had a wonderful relaxing effect, and as soon as they got to bed, they fell asleep.
In the morning the lovers woke up almost simultaneously and almost synchronously said "good morning" to each other, then laughed and spent a long-time basking in bed, hugging and caressing each other. They washed together making funny faces in the mirror and splashing water merrily. Then they went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Denise took a table for two by the window, and Rain went to find the waiter who was pouring coffee. After a night of love, they were both very hungry, so they ate a little of everything the hotel offered for breakfast. Rain ordered a truly masculine omelette with ham and tomatoes, and Denise enjoyed her favourite oatmeal porridge. They also picked up fruit, several types of cheese and sausages, as well as pancakes with honey and cakes. Rain was eating for both cheeks and happy, looking at Denise as she was eating.
After breakfast, they decided to go for a walk daytime on the Red Square, look at St. Basil's Cathedral and take a trip by the river tram on the Moscow river. The day promised to be warm, clear, and sunny. Holding hands like schoolboys, they went for a walk. Denise thought with a sinking heart about how quickly time was passing, that it was the third day since their meeting, and there was just as much left, and that was not enough. Rain seemed carefree and happy, and Denise didn't bother him with her calculations. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the sad thoughts away. As usual there were, a lot of people on the Red Square, both locals and foreigners, and they were all fascinated by one sight — the Scots in kilts (skirts), walking around on an autumn day with bare legs. Tourists took turns asking those to take photos with them. Especially the Chinese tried. Scots descendants of the Vikings, whimsically shaved or with wild hairstyles and beards decorated with flowers, graciously posed against the background of the Kremlin in the national kilts fluttering in the wind.
Smiling slyly Rain whispered to Denise that it was the Scottish national custom to wear kilts directly over the naked body. As a former historian by profession and an eternal historian at heart Denise, suggested that this might have been the case in the middle ages, but not now. They bet on a kiss at the time and place that the winner will appoint. Rain was not a shy man, and he went up to one of the Scots and asked if he was wearing underwear or if he was walking traditionally. The Scot grinned and confirmed that he traditionally only wears a kilt. Denise lost and had to give Rain a kiss at an unknown time in an unknown place. He walked beside her and encouraged her.
Following their plan, they went to St. Basil's Cathedral, which had been closed for decades, but today was open to visitors. It was very narrow and stuffy inside, there were many winding passages and stairs, there were plenty of visitors, so you could quickly admire the ancient icons and Church accessories. Quick and light, the lovers hurriedly ran around all the floors and galleries and left the famous Cathedral. The Red Square was flooded with rays of warm and soft autumn sun, colourful leaves rustled underfoot, evoking the lines of Alexander Pushkin about the very time that was "the eye of enchantment". A fresh river wind blew from the Moskva River, inviting the passers-by to take a go by the river tram and admire the beauty of the banks and buildings built on them from different eras and in architectural styles.
Rain gave Denise his hand and they found themselves on the deck of a small river boat called a tram. Denise did not want to go down to the salon because of her seasickness, preferring to stay on the open deck and breathe the fresh river air. Rain didn't mind. He hugged her to keep her warm, and the river tram began its leisurely journey. They began to approach the huge glass observation deck of the new Zaryadye Park in the center of Moscow. On the observation deck, there were countless onlookers hanging on the railing out of curiosity and eager to take some original selfie. As the river tram drew level with the observation deck, Rain suddenly rose from the bench, quickly led Denise to the center of the empty deck, and informed her that it was time for the kiss she had lost to him. Denise was a little confused, but she had to keep her word. She tilted her head back, stood on tiptoe to reach her King, closed her eyes, and gave him her a long and sweet kiss in front of the cheering crowd that was literally hanging over their heads. She started to pull away but rain wouldn't let go, and the lovers continued to kiss as the tram crawled under the observation deck. They could hear the clicking of cameras, cheers, and boos from onlookers: Rain had no doubt that their photo would be on all the news sites in the morning, it amused him, and he was not slow to share his thoughts with Denise. She was a little embarrassed but she was smiling at him with her sweet smile. After the trip, she slipped on the wet iron steps as she went down the ramp to the beach, and if it hadn't been for Rain's strong hands, she would have fallen into the water. He picked up his Beautiful Lady in time and carried her to the dry land. Here he remembered something and asked her to stop for a moment. Denise watched him carefully as he took something out of the inside pocket of his jacket. "Close your eyes," Rain said, and her lashes lowered obediently. Rain took her hand and put something on it. Denise opened her eyes and looked at her right hand, which was wearing a thin and elegant bracelet, delicately woven from white, pink and yellow gold. The bracelet clung quite tightly to her wrist. "Now you will always feel that I am holding your hand securely and not letting you fall," she heard Rain’s whisper. "You're crazy," Denise exclaimed. It's just delicious! Of course, now I will wear it without taking it off." Rain was smiling his dazzling smile, and she wanted to cry with happiness.
For most of the day they wandered about the city, sometimes talking incessantly, sometimes in silence from the excess of their emotions. They were hungry and they went to a small cozy restaurant "Venice", located in the basement: near the stairs, under the ceiling, hung a bicycle decorated with flowers, on the floor there were huge antique vases, small windows shimmered with coloured glass, laid out like a mosaic. It was warm and cozy inside. They ordered dry red wine, arugula salad, and seafood spaghetti, and took a seat in the corner, near the fireplace, with a sofa and two armchairs. They were obviously supposed to sit opposite each other, but they did not agree, sat down next to each other, thereby surprising the waiters, and so they sat together all the time, enjoying each other's closeness. When they had satisfied their hunger, they went to the subway — Denise was in a hurry to get back to her parents before dark. Rain joked sadly that now he would have plenty of time to get away from her and get some sleep before she broke into his life again and disrupted his plans. Denise promised that she would come by tomorrow evening and stay with him as long as possible. Pausing for a moment in Rain's arms, she kissed him tenderly and disappeared into the bustle of the subway. On the way to her parents' house, she managed to get to her school friend Lisa's new apartment for half an hour so that she could tell her parents about it. Lisa was extremely displeased with such a hasty visit, but Denise consoled her by promising to meet her the next day when Lisa left work. Lisa worked in a high-level official institution in the center of Moscow and a few steps from the hotel where Rain was staying. It was convenient.
After spending almost, a day with her parents Denise had a good night's sleep and a break from the hectic pace of her life. Her parents fussed happily, constantly hugging her and not letting her do anything, but she still outsmarted them: put the apartment in order, prepared delicious food, threw out expired medicines and set up a beauty salon for her mother in the bedroom. Well maintained and treated kindly parents released their restless daughter to the world in the evening.
Denise met her bosom friend from work, gave presents for her and her entire family, she sat with her in a cafe over coffee and cakes, listened to her latest news about work, about her sons, about her relationship with her husband, nodded sympathetically to her and did not say a word about her affair with Rain. Lisa gave her two tickets to Vivaldi concert in the Small Hall of the Bolshoi Theatre and they said goodbye.
Denise ran to the hotel, picked up Rain and they hurried to the Bolshoi Theatre. Thanks to Lisa for the gift — it perfectly diversified life. The small hall at number 13 was new, originally made in the form of a semicircle, elegantly inlaid in the Baroque style and had excellent acoustics. Denise and Rain were almost in the center of the hall: Lisa obviously tried her best when choosing the places. It was a real pleasure for classical lovers to listen to a quartet of three violins and a cello. Light and bright music of Antonio Vivaldi, sometimes cheerful and joyful, sometimes it has a slight sadness, undoubtedly went in unison with the mood of lovers. During the break Denise took Rain to the foyer, which was brightly lit by crystal chandeliers, and they took a short walk along the boardwalk, enjoyed Glasse coffee and eclairs, and returned to the hall for the second part of the concert. The musicians’ well-honed technique caused a storm of applause from the audience. Rain clapped his hands, smiling happily. Denise was happy that he enjoyed the evening.
They were walking around Moscow in the evening and taking some beautiful photos in Stoleshnikov lane, and then on Nikolskaya street, decorated with fancy lanterns hanging over the pavement, the lovers returned to their temporary shelter. It was quite late, and they missed each other, so they took a shower together and hurried to their Royal bed. It was their last night together: the next day, Denise would return to her parents' house, pack her suitcase, say goodbye, and leave for the airport by nightfall. Her vacation was coming to an end. Rain stayed in Moscow for a day longer, and he also had to finish his work meetings and pack his Luggage. The night was hot and passionate and they didn't get much sleep, but neither Denise nor Rain felt tired. They spent a long time declaring their love for each other, asking for forgiveness for something, and endlessly showered each other with kisses.
In the morning Rain took his Beautiful Lady to a restaurant for breakfast and asked her to give him some more time. Denise nodded and looked worried: she suspected that an important conversation or another surprise was waiting for her. Rain didn't take her back to her room but suggested that she take the elevator to the top floor, where the pool functioned in summer, and in the cold season there was just a pleasantly decorated walking area. After a brief bird's-eye view of Moscow's morning landscape, Rain asked Denise to stop for a moment. Her heart began to pound. Rain got down on one knee and handed her a small box. "I love you and offer you my hand and heart," he said. There was a click and Denise saw a spectacular engagement gold ring with a large round diamond. The sun's rays converged in the center of the stone refracted and scattered in different directions, shimmering with all the colours of the rainbow. Denise froze; she saw that Rain was waiting for her to respond immediately, and she was confused. During one and half a year of his courtship, he casually proposed to Denise several times, which he wrapped in another letter in mysterious discussions about love and marriage, or sent her songs in which the singer asked the lady of his heart directly if she would marry him, but this was never taken seriously by her, and she always joked merrily. As the saying goes, promising doesn't mean getting married. There was no time for jokes. Rain was still on one knee, his face very pale, and he was smiling a strained smile. In an instant Denise's entire life flashed through her mind, all the worries and struggles she had committed herself to when she decided to communicate with Rain, all her secret dreams and hopes about him and their future, which she dared not even look into, it was so hazy. In order understand what was happening to her, Rain took her hand. She felt a current run through her body at his touch, and instantly there was no doubt in her mind. "Yes, I want to be your wife. I love you immensely," Denise said softly, and felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Rain rose from his knee and kissed her hand. Tears sprang from her eyes, and he drank each of them, saying that these were her last tears of uncertainty and sadness at parting with her old life, and that from that day she would only laugh, and if she chose to cry, it would be from happiness.
The happy King hugged his Beautiful Lady tightly and put a ring on her finger, which, to her surprise, turned out to be just her size. She couldn't figure out how Rain had guessed her ring size, so she demanded a logical explanation. He didn’t want to lead his beloved by the nose, he admitted that in one of the meetings, when Denise fell asleep, he took her rings, which she took off before going to bed, and tried on his fingers, then went to a local jeweller in the hotel and reduced the size of the ring bought in the States to the desired size. Undoubtedly Rain was very smart and quick-witted, and it was not for nothing that he became a successful businessman.
"You're my wife now, and I'm asking you to do the right thing," Rain said seriously, looking at Denise carefully. She knew what it meant: when she returned home, she would immediately file for divorce and begin preparing to move to America. She was brave, a female warrior with a male name, but she was still a little scared. As if reading her mind, Rain asked her gently: "Do you want me to fly with you and help you talk to Felix? I can explain everything to him, and he will let you go without dramatic scenes. I can protect you." Denise looked at him gratefully, then she rose on tiptoe and kissed his beautiful blue eyes, which radiated love and warmth and then kissed his lips, which uttered such wonderful words.  "No, I don't want to, my King. I really appreciate you desire to support me, but trust me, I can handle it. You will have a lot to do to resolve the issue of our marriage and my move," Denise replied. She imagined briefly how Rain meet Felix, and she felt sick. Of course, they both are not brawlers, but adults, reasonable a people, but in a critical situation, no one can vouch for their impulses. Denise also didn't want to offend her unsuspecting husband with the sudden appearance of a happy rival. She felt bad, like a traitor, but it was too late to back down.
She talked to Rain about the long divorce process ahead and the subsequent application for the bride's visa to the States, and then she asked him if he was willing to wait patiently for her divorce and the state government's permission for their marriage for at least another six months or more. According to her friends who had already been married to European and American men, she remembered that the collection of documents and all sorts of certificates and permits takes several months. Rain replied that they hadn't come all this way to meet each other just to stop halfway, and he was willing to wait as long as necessary, and he also intended to scrupulously collect all the necessary documents and send a request for permission to register a marriage to the special service of America. So, they knew that a long and tedious bureaucratic process was to be expected on the way to happiness and thus they had to open a second wind.
They returned to their room and Rain surprised Denise again by making a video call to his mother and introducing Denise as his future wife. Her mother gave Denise a friendly smile and gave her a long English speech that told Denise that she was expected and would be welcome. Rain then phoned his son and also introduced Denise to him. John stared at her for a moment, and then said: "I see that you are kind and good. I like you. I know that my father loves you, and I don't want him to be sad and lonely anymore. I won't bother you. Come here». Hearing these adult words from a teenager Denise felt how difficult it was for John to accept his father's decision to marry, and with what dignity he made this decision. After Rain's stories, Denise liked John, she had no doubt that they would find a common language and communicate.
However, even the short calls took a lot of her energy. She leaned back on the sofa. Rain was sitting next to her during the call, did not want to put up with her independent posture. He reached for her, pulled her onto his lap, and looked into her eyes. "How are you? Everything okay? I have been preparing our meeting for so long, I have thought through everything to the smallest detail. I've been through so much to make you feel comfortable and enjoy everything." Rain found her lips and they kissed for a long time, until he felt the tension go out of Denise's body. "What an obsession, I want you again," he said. But she shook her head: "Let's not do it, or I won't be able to leave you now, and it's high time for me to go." He released her reluctantly: "Have it your way, but I won't let you go another time. Right now, I'm willing to let you go just so that we can get on with our reunion." Denise smiled: in fact, Rain knew and understood her better than she understood herself. She smoothed his curly hair and stood up. He did not let her take her evening dress, shoes, and a set of erotic underwear. "I will take your things to your new home, where they will be waiting for you and it will be nice to touch them from time to time and feel your invisible presence," said Rain. Denise didn't mind — it was his style, and she liked it. Rain walked her to the subway, not wanting to leave. At the entrance to the escalator Denise turned to see him standing there watching her go. She waved at him. "See you soon! See you again! When will it be, this new meeting? How long do we have to wait? » Denise thought on the way to her parents ' house. She kept looking at her engagement ring, stroking the bracelet on her wrist and furtively touching the place where the heart pendant could be found under her jacket. Rain's gifts gave off the breath of a new life that was still far away, but was already unwinding the magic ball that called Denise to follow its thread.
Her parents were already waiting for her and had even partially packed her things. Denise packed her suitcase, sat at the table with her parents, and hugged them good-bye. She didn't want to think that if her plan with Rain worked out then in six months or a little more she would be moving to the States with him, and from there it would not be so easy to fly to her parents, and she would have to settle for video calls. Denise was always more attached to her parents than to her husband and children so she missed them very much and tried to visit them as often as possible. Her sad thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of her brother, who was supposed to take her to the airport. Alex looked at his older sister suspiciously: he definitely didn't like her fashionable Western style of dress, her dreamy look, or the mysterious glint in her eyes. "Well, sister, have you solved all your questions in Moscow? » Alex asked. Denise only nodded in the affirmative: she saw his curiosity, but she didn't tell him about her heart's business. "Let no one know anything yet. I'll let them know later when everything is clear. There's no need to bother them," she reasoned.
As Alex dropped her off at the airport entrance he said suddenly: "You don't have to tell me anything but I'm your brother and I can see that something important is happening in your life. I remember your previous divorces and your search for happiness. I'm always ready to support you no matter what happens." Denise tried to give him a big hug but it didn't work because he was twice as big as she was. She kissed him on the cheek and asked him not to talk about his doubts with his parents. Alex shook his head and smiled like a child: "Be calm, I promise."  Denise flew home.

 Chapter XI. Crossroad

My fate is the bend of the spotted snake.
I'm always in the point, with poison in my teeth.
My whole life is in struggle:
I love my thorny path
On the sharpest ledges in the mountains.

At the airport, her daughter met her instead of her husband and told her that Felix was suddenly very ill and was at home. Denise realized that her plans would be disrupted and her actions postponed indefinitely, because she couldn't tell her sick husband on the doorstep that she was leaving him.
Felix was really very ill — either with the flu or some kind of viral infection. He was lying with a high fever, headache, cough, and aches all over his body. Denise called the doctor, who assured her that it was a flu of some unknown variety, and she began to treat her husband. Felix felt very ill, which made him feel bad and he was constantly acting up. Denise cared for him selflessly, stuffed him with medicines, prepared diet soups, made delicious fruit drinks and baked tender meat in the oven. Ten days passed but he did not want to recover, but then he got better. Denise delayed the moment of explanation until Felix went to work. She told Rain why she hadn't filed for divorce yet and he not only supported her, but even expressed his admiration for her generosity and humanity. Rain returned home safely, collected all the necessary documents, filled out a form for the licensing authorities and sent it along with documents confirming his status as a long-divorced man, his income and evidence of his long-term communication and meeting with his chosen one.
"If you could close your eyes and then open them, and everything would have already been done as if by magic. And no one would be tormented by the pangs of conscience and not suffer from the decision made, " Denise dreamed. Her soul yearned for Raine, but her conscience and sense of duty to her husband continued to weigh heavily on her frail shoulders. It was late autumn but it was still warm in the city — the mountains always shielded it from the cold and wind for a long time. Felix suggested Denise to go together to the mountains, take a walk, get some fresh air. She loved hiking in the mountains and agreed without hesitation. It seemed to her that in the mountains it would be easier for her to tell her husband of her decision to part.
And again, she closed her eyes and weighed her unearthly crazy love with Rain and many years of her own happy life together with Felix. He was a very good husband, the best of all her husbands. But he didn't know that Denise had stopped loving him long ago, long before she met Rain. The reason lay in Felix's attitude to the children, not to her daughter, whom he generally treated well and sometimes even took care of in his own way, but to his grandson, whom he almost hated. Felix had never had children of his own, and he and Denise had endured their repeated and unsuccessful attempts to have a child together, failed in vitro fertilization, and then accepted that they would live without children. The doctors just shrugged their shoulders: both were healthy and Denise had a daughter born during the first marriage, but conception did not come for some reason, as if God himself did not want to give them a child. Denise even went to a clairvoyant, who said that, as she "sees", Denise fulfilled her earthly destiny by giving birth to a daughter, and her husband has a sign not of continuation, but of termination of the genus, so all their long-term attempts to have a child were not crowned with success. Denise was upset, she really wanted a son, she wanted her family to have balance and harmony, which was in the family of her parents: two children — a son and a daughter, a long and happy family life, love and mutual understanding.
Denise managed to find a good husband, but failed to find a loving father to her children. Of course, she knew it wasn't Felix's fault — her heart couldn't tell her to. But she could not understand why he did not tolerate a little boy, so kind, cheerful and affectionate, why he, unwillingly participating in the upbringing of his grandson from birth, did not feel for him, if not love, but just a kind attitude, as other adults often treat other people's children. For many years, her husband's attitude toward her grandson had been a sharp pain in Denise's heart. No matter how many times she started a conversation with Felix on the topic of love for children, all her attempts ended in a quarrel, after which she cried for a long time, and her husband was angry. Then, of course, they made up, and everything went on as before. She didn't want to share her pain with anyone, not even with her parents, who would not understand how to dislike a child living in a family, but would certainly be outraged and treat Felix badly, and therefore their family seemed perfect outwardly.
Denise learned not to pay much importance to her husband's attitude towards her grandson and to avoid sharp corners, trying to make them see less of each other and communicate less. She had studied the psychology of people well and had a strong intuition, Denise made a discovery that significantly influenced her awareness of her husband's behaviour: her husband loved her very much and was very possessive, and therefore did not want to share his wife's love and attention with anyone, he felt that Denise loved her grandson more than anyone else, and this hurt him. "How can you love a spoiled boy who tells stories all the time, jumps on the couch for hours," twists the head" of an expensive floor lamp, throws toys and watches stupid cartoons on TV? " — Felix was indignant. He claimed that he was calm as a child, never lied, did not interfere with anyone, and was not like that at all. Denise understood that her grandson was also repulsive to Felix because Felix had not had the same happy and carefree childhood as her grandson, as Denise's daughter, and as Denise herself. She could see that her husband was equally indifferent and cold to his nephews, but in her eyes, this did not excuse Felix. Denise initially hoped that he would change, that the baby would melt the ice in his heart, but, unfortunately, every new year saddened her more and more. Through Felix's efforts, the doors of her heart were closed for him. However, while she appreciated her husband's considerable assets in many ways, Denise had never considered divorce. She had learned to live with a closed heart, continuing to treat her husband well until Rain came along and won her love with his persistence. He had woken her up as a Prince wakes up a Sleeping Beauty, and now she couldn't stay asleep any longer. God sent her a last and late love, and she gratefully accepted this amazing love and would not give it up for the sake of her usual calm. Denise had never loved anyone as much as Rain, and she wanted to spend the rest of her years with him, so she decided to have a difficult conversation with her husband. Denise and Felix took the car up into the mountains, drove through a beautiful gorge, and stopped. The only way to go up the mountain was on foot. They took their backpacks with water and food and went along the path. Everything was fabulously good. Still quite lush foliage, but already yellowed and reddened enveloped the thin branches of the trees. The firs and pines continued to delight the eye with their ever-green juicy colour. The soft, dry grasses of autumn rustled melodiously in the faint breeze. The sky was a smoky blue with fleecy and curly clouds looked like strange animals. The air was clear and clean. Here, high up in the mountains, the head was always visited by various thoughts that could hardly come in an urban setting. The most thoughts were of a philosophical nature, about the meaning of life, about the past and the future. Sometimes there was an epiphany, an awareness of something previously incomprehensible. But now Denise was thinking about the present, about something she was very worried about.
"Stop, please. I have something very important to tell you." He turned around: "can't this wait? We walk in the mountains, enjoy the views of nature. You can talk about important things at home." Denise shook her head: "Let's sit on a log or a rock." Felix was worried: "So important or so unpleasant a conversation that you can't wait? Well». Denise steeled herself: "I'm asking you for a divorce. It's very hard for me to talk about it. I am eternally grateful to you for the years you have lived. We had happy years, but they are in the past, and you can't bring them back. I can't live with you anymore because I met another man. Forgive me. I'm terribly in love and I can't resist my feelings."
Denise stared at Felix intently. At first, he smiled helplessly and crookedly, then his face changed, somehow hunched and aged, a tear rolled down his cheek, and he said in a wooden voice: "Why? What happened? What about me? How is it better? Where is he? Did you lie to me? Tell me the truth." Denise felt sorry for him: "He is very far away, and I did not deceive you. I struggled with my feeling for a long time, but it was stronger than me. You're good, you're wonderful, and I don't want you to worry so much. If you want, scold me with all your might, tell all your friends and acquaintances that I'm a mean, disgusting woman, but let me go in peace. I will go to another country, and you will never see me again."
It was as if a bomb had gone off in Felix's head and stunned him. He didn't take Denise's words well. Emotionally, he first felt a strong blow and was almost knocked out. He caught his breath for a few minutes, then his anger boiled over: how could you do this to him, after all the years of his life devoted to her, loved her, cared for her, pampered her. Felix slammed his fist down on the log they were sitting on and broke his palm in blood. «You…Do you... Know who you are?" he looked at his wife, who was pale, confused, and frightened by his anger. "I understand you," Denise said softly. — I'm sorry about that. But you and I are mature, reasonable people, so let's settle this quietly. Tomorrow is Monday, a business day, and we can file for divorce. We don't have children together, and if we don't start dividing our property through the courts, we will be quickly divorced. You will return to your apartment, and your daughter and grandson will move back in with me."
Felix knew she wasn't joking. The force of the punch and the subsequent pain in his hand had cooled him down a little. "I will let her go to hell if she wants to. She'll get a divorce. But why? he thought. He got up and quickly started down the mountain to where the car was parked. Denise could barely keep up with him. They drove in silence all the way back. When he got home, he dropped his backpack and wanted to slam the door and leave right away, but she was able to persuade him not to get excited and have dinner together. In previous marriages, Denise did not experience such a terrible state, because she just used to pack up silently and left her ex-husbands, then filed for divorce, paid the state fee and got a divorce. She claimed nothing and shared nothing with them, not even applying for alimony from her daughter's father. But now it was different: they had to deal with the issue of moving, moving things, thinking about dividing the car and small family savings for a rainy day. Looks like it's a rainy day.
Denise asked her husband to open a bottle of wine so that they could sit quietly and discuss the upcoming divorce proceedings. "You and I have lived well together for many years, and I don't want us to throw mud at each other for nothing. If you want I will indicate my adultery as the reason for the divorce, and then the registry office will judge me and support you, " Denise suggested. "Will you change your mind? I can forgive you and try to forget your words like a bad dream. I know that at some points I didn't behave in the best way. I remember how you asked me to change and try to make a step towards you in relation to your grandson, and I stubbornly stuck to my line. I have long felt that something was happening to you. I didn't tell you, but for a long time now, I've felt a huge cold boulder bursting in my chest, it's very heavy, and it's pressing down on me. Maybe I can improve even though it's incredibly difficult for me. Think about it, I still love you, " Felix said.
Denise was surprised: she did not expect such kind, wise and sincere words from an offended and angry husband. She wanted to close her eyes again and imagine that nothing had happened —there is no one and half a year of crazy romance with Rain, no meeting him in Moscow, no proposal of marriage, no her consent, but only a measured and ordinary life with Felix, with their small family joys and sorrows. "Thank you, I really appreciate your words and your attitude to me. I am very sorry for our life. I'm sorry I couldn't understand you and accept you for who you are. It's probably my fault that I couldn't awaken your love for children, or if not love, then at least a good warm attitude. Perhaps I didn't love you enough, and a few years ago I closed my heart to you. I'm sorry, but I can't change my mind. I gave my word to another man, and I will keep it. Yes, I do not know what awaits me in the future, what awaits me in that other life. Maybe one day I'll regret what I did and want to come back, just like I came back to you from Los Angeles, who knows. But now I see only one way — a divorce. Please support my decision and don't put obstacles in my way. I want to keep a good relationship with you," Denise replied to her husband. Felix lowered his head and drank the blood-red wine in silence. He knew the firm and resolute character of his wife, a character that was not always easy for him to put up with, but through which many seemingly unsolvable things were solved. He was acutely aware how much he loved Denise, how much he didn't want to give her up to some strange man who probably didn't deserve such a woman, and how he had managed to win her favour, much less consent to marriage, while being married to someone else. He had lost her, long ago, and now all he had to do was to accept the fact and let her go.
They were divorced quickly and began a new life. Felix moved his belongings back to his apartment, and his daughter Christina and a young grandson returned to Denise. She and Felix decided that they would not move the furniture from one apartment to another, that the car would remain with him, since he needed it for work, and that Denise would have all their small savings that would be useful to her in the future. Denise cried her heart out and started preparing for her new life with Rain.
 

Chapter XII. Sunreturn

Happy people don’t watch hours —
You know this truth, my light.
But in life, sometimes we have some moments:
Languish waiting for a century.
And I, my friend, count the days and nights
Until we meet, I'm fighting my thirst,
My dream is to make the day shorter,
Bring the date closer, I pray.
I believe: you are striving to meet me,
Hasten the time of the transaction and the court,
And just waiting for a beautiful warm evening,
Which will be our reward for years.

After she had received the official divorce document, Denise filled out the forms Rain sent about her ancestry, signed the originals, and sent them to him by FedEx fast mail. Then she studied the list of documents required for the bride's visa and began to collect them. It was not an easy task. It was necessary to apostille, in clear language, legalize her birth certificate, all three of her divorce certificates and diploma, collect certificates of non-criminal record, absence of debts and loans in banks, pass an extensive medical examination and get notarized permits to travel to the States from parents and daughter. All this red tape documents collection took Denise four months. So, just in time for the anniversary of their two-year acquaintance with Rain, she gathered all the necessary documents for the bride's visa and waited for an invitation from the US Consulate to the reception. Still, it was a good thing that Rain had such a cold, calculating mind as a businessman, because it was thanks to his calculations and methodical in collecting documents that the whole process went exactly according to plan. Finally, Denise received a call from the U.S. Consulate and on the appointed day she dressed formally and went to the reception. The queue was moving on schedule.
While Denise was in the waiting room she couldn't help but listen to other people's stories. A beautiful young woman with long red hair caught her attention. She was sobbing because she was denied a fianc;e’s visa, even though she brought evidence of five years of communication with her American lover. The woman's story was touching: she lived in a neighbouring state where American troops were stationed, and she met a brave American military officer there with the rank of a colonel. They dated for three years, then he returned to the States and began divorce proceedings with his wife, with whom he had not lived for a long time, but because of military service in a foreign country, he could not find time for a divorce. His wife had long life with another man, but as he also did not seek to officially break off the relationship, since the current situation suited everyone. Their divorce process dragged on for a year, but ended successfully.  The Colonel collected all the necessary documents and applied to the state authorities for permission to marry a foreigner. The redhead lady prepared all the documents and came to the reception at the Consulate in a neighbouring country, since there was no such Consulate in her country. The Consulate officer, having studied all the documents of the redhead lady and her Colonel, made a harsh verdict: "You are permanently denied a US visa because you broke up a happy American family." In vain the red-haired woman tried to explain that everything was different, that the Colonel's wife left him long before they met, because she was tired of living alone for many years, while he was serving in different countries and did not come home for a long time — the officer was relentless.
There was another story Denise listened to was a happier one. A thin and shy young girl from a simple family went to the States on a student Work and Travel program to earn money and improve her English. She was delivering pizza on the beach and met a young guy. They had an affair, swore an oath of loyalty to each other, and after her return to their homeland, they set out for their goal of being together. The young man did not have enough money of his own, because he had recently started working, so he asked his parents to support him in the decision to start a family and provide financial assistance if necessary. He was the only son in a rich family, and his parents willingly signed an official document with a notary that they would guarantee financial support for their son and his future wife. The Consulate officer, after carefully looking at the papers, said that she did not believe a single word of the document issued by the groom's parents, that it was a fake document, but, due to the youth of the couple in love, she gives permission for the bride's visa as an exception. The young girl happily babbled words of gratitude to the stern American lady who held human destinies in her hands like a Nemesis.
Then a visa was given to a cool businessman and to a large family that, came from a neighbouring country and asked for political asylum. Denise's heart began to pound as her turn came next. She came to the window calmly in a formal suit, holding Rain's printed letters and photos taken together in Moscow. The officer held out her hand for the documents Denise had prepared, looked at Denise carefully, then at the documents, and asked: "Were all your previous husbands so bad that you got married and divorced so many times, and now you plan to get married again and go to America? » Denise looked her straight in the eye, smiled sadly, and answered: "Every time I got married, I wanted to live happily ever after with every husband until I died. But time goes on, people change and do bad things, after which they no longer want to love. My third husband was a very good man, and I lived with him for many years. But I stopped loving him because he didn't treat my grandson well. And then I met Rain and I fell in love with him, because he is a wonderful person, kind and smart, he loves his son and is ready to love my children, and so I want to grow old with him." The officer glanced at Denise and silently put down the visa.
Denise informed Rain that she had received a three-month fianc;e’s visa and that the countdown had started from that day. Rain was very happy. He knew how strong bureaucratic traditions were in obtaining all sorts of permits in the States, he was very worried that there would be some obstacles in their way. Fortunately, everything went well. He asked Denise how long it would take her to leave her company. She promised to settle the matter quickly but a couple of weeks still had to be devoted to working out and transferring cases. The lovers decided that Rain would fly to her a few days before her departure and accompany her on a trip to his home. At first, Rain wanted to fly through London, so that he could stop in the small seaside town of Splinpool and visit his apartment, and show Denise where they could always stop on their way to Europe for a break. But for such a trip, Denise had to open a separate visa to the UK, and there was no time for this. They looked at several other flight options via Seoul, Frankfurt and Dubai and chose Dubai: the flight was not long, with two transfers, but slightly more comfortable in terms of flight time and connections at airports.
Rain took care of comfort, food, and well-being, and Denise was grateful to him, because she was still in a state of disarray from the rapid change of scenery in life. She didn't even know what to take with her and what should be left so she decided to leave the wardrobe issue until Rain arrived — he probably knew better than to make her look like a black sheep in his beloved Dreamview. After discussing her feelings about clothes and shoes with him Denise asked him that he thing about this later. The answer was not long in coming and, as usual, instantly dispelled all her doubts and even made her laugh. Rain said that he would love her in any clothes that she could think of to take with her, whether it was a national robe or a military uniform, and in his opinion, her most beautiful clothes are her erotic underwear, and even better, "Eve costume".
In the two weeks before Rain's arrival Denise managed to safely quit her job, settle all the issues with her daughter in the apartment, endure a difficult conversation with her parents and other relatives about her changes in life and departure, see friends and even take part in a concert of the author's song at the bard club, he had not visited since her last marriage. Together with their daughter, they cleaned the apartment to a shine for Rain's arrival and made a menu of delicacies that they were supposed to treat the groom. The daughter said that she would greet Denise's new boyfriend, have lunch with them, and then, to show delicacy, go with her son for a few days on a recreation area near the city, and return before they leave to take them to the airport.
At the same time, Rain was tidying up his bachelor home in Dreamview. He called a housekeeper and explained that his wife would be arriving soon and everything should be clean by the time she arrived. Raine's mother couldn't trust the housekeeper completely, and all the days she was cleaning, she came by herself and tried to rearrange things, decorate them, or throw them away. John also did not want to stay away, tried to help, but in fact conscientiously interfered his father, grandmother, and housekeeper. Rain spent hours on the Internet ordering new bed linen with gold paintings by Gustav Klimt, new wine glasses and champagne, a small serving table to serve Denise breakfast in bed, new bright bath towels, expensive shampoo, fragrant soap, flowers for the day of her arrival, and a lot of other things that he enjoyed himself. John laughed as he watched Rain's exuberant activity, and his mother's already large blue eyes grew even larger as they marvelled at the purchases of her much-loved son.
Rain decided not to bother buying a wedding tuxedo and other formal paraphernalia yet, because he and Denise had not decided yet where, when, or how to celebrate the wedding. He relished the crazy but pleasant chores ahead. The main gift he prepared for Denise was the purchase of a painting by their famous contemporary, the famous American artist Howard Spring, whom Denise admired. Howard's talent was multi-faceted: he painted landscapes, animals and portraits of people, created sets for famous Hollywood films and made drawings for postage stamps. Howard was a long-time good pen PAL of Denise's. They had met almost twenty years ago and had kept in touch over the years, exchanging news about Howard's new paintings and exhibitions, Denise's new poems and songs, and everything significant that was going on in their lives. It was a strong long-term friendship between two creative people: Denise called Howard "the Artist of Time", and he called her "the Poet of the World". One of Howard's paintings was a gift for Denise's birthday framed in gold on the wall of her living room. Denise's husband, Felix, knew of his wife's friendship with the overseas artist and did not object. As far as Rain was concerned, he wasn't that aware of Denise's acquaintance, and she was a little worried about how he would react to her friendship with Howard. In one conversation, Denise had cautiously mentioned that she knew a famous artist and admired his paintings, but it didn't seem Rain understood.
On the other hand, Howard was aware of all Denise's life changes and supported her as warmly and sincerely as she supported him at various times in his life. They never saw each other but they always invited each other as families. Now Howard was privy to the next change in Denise's life and, as a sign of his support, he invited her to visit him, saying that he and his family would be happy to see her in any status and in any company. Howard was much older than Denise and treated her like a father. Despite his fame, he was distinguished by simplicity, modesty, kindness and wisdom. Over the years, Denise was always happy to have such a great friend. Now all that remained was to settle the matter of their friendship with Rain. Denise knew that her beloved King had a high regard for artists and just good people, and she hoped that she could go with him to visit Howard and introduce them. The future thrilled her.
Rain was so sensitive to Denise, chose the magnificent landscape of Yellowstone Park with a view of the mountains and the stream running at their foot surrounded by picturesque trees. He thought that the picture would remind his Beautiful Lady one of the landscapes of her city, spread out at the foot of the mountains.
When Rain decided that the house was ready for the arrival of the future owner, he allowed himself to relax a little, to sit in the bar with friends, take a walk with his son and play the piano his mother's favourite music. Then he quickly got ready for the road: after all, it's good when both countries are about equally warm and you don't have to take a lot of warm clothes for all occasions. After putting on his favourite jeans, sneakers, and jacket for the trip, and packing only a pair of jeans and t-shirts for a change, Rain flew off to pick up his Beautiful Lady.
Denise met him at the airport, dressed up and smiling happily. Rain was tired from the twenty-four-day flight, but when he saw his lady of the heart, he forgot about the fatigue. They hugged tightly and went to the exit. Denise's daughter was waiting for them in the car at the airport parking lot and drove them home. All the way Rain stared at the streets where he was being driven. He was lucky that he did not arrive at night, but in the morning: he saw the snow-capped peaks of the mountains, as it seemed to him, directly above the city; lush spring greenery and mixed buildings from the past and modern ones. Along the way, to brighten up the trip, Denise told Rain the history of the city and individual buildings. Rain liked everything. He visited many countries in his life, including the country of the former Soviet Union, but only in Russia, which was still closer to Europe, and he was the first time in the Eastern state. Of course, America is also a multinational state, but here it was also interesting and colourful. The diversity of cultures and religions was reflected in the appearance of the city and in the appearance of the inhabitants, dressed in European or Muslim clothing.
When Rain entered Denise's apartment, he felt at home, so comfortable and peaceful was it, noting how much light and positive energy there was. "I knew that everything around you and everything you touch becomes as beautiful as you, my Lady," he said. "It's because I breathe love and my love extends to everything in my life," Denise explained. Rain looked at her carefully: it seemed to him that in the six months since they had seen each other she had grown younger, prettier, and positively glowed with a beautiful inner light. "Yes, you're right. You are Love itself, " he said. Denise smiled back: "But you won't get enough of love alone, dear. Let's go celebrate your arrival and our meeting on my land." Rain nodded obediently: he was hungry, of course, but he didn't dare interrupt their romantic conversation out of delicacy.
Denise led him to the kitchen, where the table was laid. "You know, we believe that the kitchen, not the living room is the most comfortable place to meet at a festive table. But to be honest, I don't even have a table in the living room. Take a seat where you like, " Denise said. Rain didn't care if the table was set in the living room or in the kitchen, as long as it was nice and delicious. He settled down on the couch, and Denise sat across from him to work between the table and the stove. The daughter and grandson came and sat down in their seats. The grandson held out his hand to Rain and said: "Hi! We've been waiting for you." Rain laughed at the funny way the kid pronounced English words. He called him over, hugged him, and handed him a large transparent Lollipop with a beetle figure inside, which was clearly one of the popular treats for children in the States. The kid froze in horror and delight: "is it alive inside? » Rain made a serious face and said: "Of course, alive. You start to lick it and you will see that it moves its legs and antennae." The grandson smiled slyly in response, it was clear that they liked each other. Christina smiled with satisfaction. So, all the formalities were over, they could start the meal.
Denise tried to prepare the most interesting dishes for Rain that he had dreamed of during their long communication and that he had seen in the photos Denise had sent him. She cooked Russian borsch for him, made oriental pilaf, fried river trout, made an Italian salad of arugula, tomatoes, pine nuts, and a Jewish salad of spinach, raisins, garlic, nuts, and croutons. Russian pancakes with red caviar and Greek olives were also on the table. Denise also baked white Italian bread with tomatoes and fried onions for Rain, as well as a small cake with nuts and chocolate. Seeing such a sumptuous table, Rain couldn't help admiring the culinary talent of his Beautiful Lady: "My Baby there are the most delicious dishes collected here, as in the most expensive restaurant." Denise smiled triumphantly in response. He opened a Spanish cava — essentially the same champagne, but under a different name. In fact, the taste of cava was no worse than champagne, and sometimes even better — it all depended on the manufacturer. They clinked glasses in Russian and said "chin-chin" in English.
After sitting a little at the table her daughter and grandson said goodbye and left. Denise and Rain were alone, sitting opposite each other and smiling. Then Rain said: "Do you remember that I always told you that I didn't want to sit across from you, but next to you? » Denise didn't take long to get up from her chair and join him on the sofa. He pulled her onto his lap and began to kiss her gently and passionately. Denise's breath caught in her throat: she had waited so long for him, her Prince on a white horse. "We'll have time, my love. You need to take a shower and get some rest from the road, " she whispered. Rain pulled away from her with difficulty: "You are right, my Beautiful Lady. Seeing you makes me go crazy."
While he showered, Denise washed quickly the dishes and cleared the table. Then she went into the bedroom and made up the bed. The underwear was new and fresh, with bright coloured Kenzo-style butterflies. The bed beckoned. Rain got out of the shower and stretched out blissfully on the butterfly sheet. She turned on soft, pleasant music for him and went into the shower, too. In the bathroom there was a smell of expensive men's perfume, he was excited by her sensuality. After the shower Denise perched next to Rain. He liked to take a sleep during the day, a NAP well restored his mental and physical strength. Denise watched Rain sleeping for a few minutes, then hugged her Prince charming and fell asleep, too. They were awakened by a bright ray of the setting sun. They opened their eyes and smiled sleepily at each other. Rain reached for her, and in a few seconds, they were plunged into a sweet frenzy.
When the lovers finally kissed, it was already a pleasant warm evening. Denise made a quick cup of coffee and they went for a walk. It was spring outside, and the lilacs were in full bloom, and the smell of them made them dizzy. Holding hands like schoolboys, they reached the road and caught a taxi. Denise decided to take Rain to the hilariously named Green hill, a mountain located within the city limits, where the funicular lifted visitors. The height of the Green Hill was 1130 meters above sea level. The mountain was very well located: from its height, you could see almost the entire city. It was a clear evening, and the couple enjoyed the romantic view of the dark range of mottled mountains gradually disappearing into the night, and the beautiful panorama of the city, sparkling with bright lights and as if it did not want to go to sleep. Then they went back down to the city and wandered through the night streets for a long time, kissing under every beautiful street lamp. When they got home at midnight, they quickly fell asleep.
The next few days Denise took Rain to the mountains, waterfalls, canyon walks, Opera and Ballet Theatre, and museums. He couldn't stop wondering how much energy she had and how he was being charged with this positive force. He even forgot about the time difference and did not want to waste time on a NAP. In the evenings, Denise played the guitar for her lover and sang his favourite songs and romances in her velvety voice. Rain was happy. We decided to take the guitar with us. He helped his lady of the heart to choose the right things for the road and pack their suitcases. The day before she left, Denise made a video call with her parents and introduced them to her future husband. Clever Rain managed to learn a few phrases in Russian without saying anything to her, which caused the approval of her parents, who immediately softened their hearts towards the one who had become the destroyer of her former long family life. Flashing his charming smile, he told Denise's parents that he loved her and her entire family and would do everything to make her happy. Then he invited her parents to visit and promised that he and Denise would also visit them in Moscow as often as possible. The parents wiped away their tears and smiled back.
The day of departure came. Christina and her son came to pick them up in her car and took them to the airport. At parting, Rain gave them a long hug and told them that they were his children now and that he would be happy to see them at home. He also added that his son John is now their brother, and his mother is their second grandmother. Denise kissed her beloved grandchild and daughter good-bye, wiped a tear from her eye, and made them promise to keep their promise to come visits her and Rain after the wedding. Christina and her son waved after Denise and Rain until they disappeared into the departure lounge. Feeling orphaned, they sadly descended the escalator to the airport exit, got into the car and drove home.

Chapter XIII. Christina

I am the Tree of Life, but I live by you:
You are my branch, my height and strength.
Blessed is the trembling night,
What I bring you, my dear friend…

So, my mother went far away for a new happiness… Christina was sitting on the windowsill and smoked. Elderly passers-by shook their heads disapprovingly seeing a thin girl with a cigarette in the window, and Christina stuck out her tongue at them. "It's a good my mother can't see me," she thought. Her mother always scolded her for her cigarettes, even now that Christina was in her thirties and the mother of a nine-year-old son. Until the last moment Christina considered herself an adult, but after her mother's departure, she felt like a little girl who wanted to snuggle up to her mother and complain about her fate. Of course, she didn't have much to complain about: her life was going the way she wanted it to, and her mother, even though she scolded her, still helped and supported her, no matter what she did.
Christina was a difficult child and Denise had suffered a lot of mischief from her. It is worth starting with the fact that fate played hide-and-seek with her for a long time, and then made a fun joke. Denise and Arthur were waiting for the boy. At the very beginning of the pregnancy the doctor made calculations and confidently declared that Denise would have a boy. When the baby started moving, Denise was sent for an ultrasound and there she was also told that there would be a son, since the child has a large head. Arthur was overjoyed and, without waiting for the delivery, bought a blue baby carriage, a blue baby cot, a blue blanket, and a bunch of blue diapers, vests, and caps in advance. Throughout the pregnancy, Denise felt very ill, she had constant toxicosis, fainting spells and allergies to almost all foods. The baby is clearly messing with you, with a myriad of vagaries in the food and drink, and lifestyle. Seeing how unhealthy Denise was attending lectures at the University, the Dean sent her to take early exams and go on vacation without any questions. The summer was particularly hot that year, and the sun was abnormally hot: scientists called it the year of the active sun and predicted that these are the years when the most resilient children are born. On the eve of the birth Denise's mother saw in a dream that she was meeting her daughter from the hospital with the baby wrapped in a pink blanket, tied with a large red bow. Her mother went to the store and came back with a bright pink bedspread with chanterelles and cats painted on it, and a red satin ribbon. Denise took offense at her mother: "What are you making up? You never know what someone dreams. The doctors have already told us several times that it will be a boy. We have already chosen a name — Konstantin. I don't even have a name for a girl, and we want a son." Her mother smiled slyly and said, " don't think about it. We'll wait and see. If not this time, it will come in handy next time. But I'll tell you one thing: on my side, all my aunts, uncles, and all my cousins had girls first in the family. And this is very good -I know it by myself. And then there's the prophetic dream." Denise snorted in disbelief, but she was wary. Her mother was romantic, poetic, and believed in dreams and premonitions.
Denise didn't pursue the subject; she didn't want to change her mind about the birth of her son. According to the doctors ' calculations, she had to walk for at least another month, if not more. But the baby turned all the plans and began to ask for the light much earlier than planned. Denise was very athletic, mobile, and therefore gained only the necessary minimum of weight during pregnancy. Her weight, physique and general condition confused the doctors ' forecasts, and she was given the wrong delivery date. When Denise was brought to the hospital, the midwives fussed around her, because the delivery was, as they called it, "fast and urgent", that is, on time and very quickly. In less than a half and an hour in the hospital, Denise gave birth to her baby. The hands on the clock in the delivery room showed exactly midnight. The midwife quickly showed Denise a small body with a large dark head and said: "I congratulate you, mother. You have a daughter." Denise shook her head, "it can't be. I have a boy." The midwife looked at her in amazement and shook with laughter: "Well, I didn't give birth to her. Maybe you didn't order it, but it's a fact: you have a daughter, so please love and favour." She quickly washed, weighed, wrapped the baby in hospital swaddling clothes, and carried it away, first attaching square pieces of oilcloth to the wrists of the child and Denise, where Denise's name, registration number, height, weight, and gender were written — "girl." Denise was taken to the ward and fell asleep instantly: what a blessing that you can sleep on your stomach again and no one is kicking you from the inside.
The next morning her daughter was brought to feed. She was sleeping and Denise looked curiously at her treasure: she had large eyes with long, straight black lashes, a soft nose, plump cheeks, and well-defined lips. The daughter smacked her lips and opened her eyes - they suddenly turned out to be some kind of swamp colour. Denise hadn't expected this at all: she had light brown eyes. Arthur and all his relatives had dark brown, almost black eyes, and only Denise's mother had grey eyes. How could the baby have such green eyes? Where would they come from?
Later Denise read accidentally in a study that during pregnancy various miracles can happen, which then affect the appearance and character of the child, for example, if the expectant mother constantly looks at interesting faces or reads about unusual characters, listens to peculiar music, and so on. Denise drew a parallel between her addictions during her pregnancy and a scientific article and admitted that everything is true. Denise loved to surround herself with beautiful things, icons, paintings, candles, musical instruments. At that time, she liked to cut out reproductions of paintings of famous artists from Ogonyok Magazine and paste them on the walls of her room. So, one wall was decorated from floor to ceiling with glossy pages with beautiful old portraits of Raphael, Michelangelo, Fragonard, Liotard, Vrubel, Bryullov, Serov, Polenov, Kramskoy and many other famous portraitists. For some reasons Denise mostly stopped her eyes on the painting by Jean Honore Fragonard "Portrait of DuPont". The refined face of a French youth looked at Denis from the canvas, he had long, wavy brown hair and mysterious, large, swamp-coloured eyes. Denise looked at DuPont's face and imagined that this was her son in the future. After the birth of her daughter and she had read the study Denise had no doubt that her daughter inherited some of the features of the French youth painted over two hundred years ago. The child's gender and the doctors ' calculations as well as ultrasound results remained a mystery to her.
Denise had excellent health, a young strong body and perfect physical shape, her daughter was also healthy, so the doctors discharged her home in three days. Her husband handed Denise a bag of blue diapers, a shirt, and a cap. He was so shocked by the birth of a daughter instead of a son that he did not even find the strength to look for a pink dowry for his daughter. One day Arthur did not come to her hospital at all, because he got drunk with friends on the occasion of his baby birth and Denise's parents did not let him out of the apartment, fearing that he would get anywhere. Denise was met by her husband and parents from the hospital. Her mother was holding a pink bedspread and a red bow. The midwife wrapped her daughter, did not stop wondering and grumbling why the girl's dowry was all blue, and only when she saw the new-made grandmother's pink blanket, she breathed a sigh of relief and deftly wrapped the new born in it, not forgetting to intercept the body with a solemn red bow.
When they got home Denise and her husband started choosing a name for their daughter. Everything that was offered by relatives and acquaintances was considered inappropriate to the appearance of the child, besides, Denise wanted the name to be in harmony with her patronymic name. After much hesitation Denise told firmly to her husband and his family that she would name her daughter Christina, and they did not object to her, because the name was very rare and beautiful, and somehow immediately suited the child. While Denise was finishing her studies at the University, her daughter grew and developed under the supervision of her grandparents.

Christina was born under the sign of Leo and was wayward, independent and brave from infancy. She was never afraid to go into a dark room on her own to get a toy, remained quietly at home alone, and was not particularly eager to be friends with other girls. But she played with herself for a long time, building pyramids out of blocks, drawing with paints and pencils, and making up all sorts of funny stories. She hardly smiled at all, which was surprising for Denise's family, where everyone's face was always lit up with a kind and sweet smile, but this was Christina, and over time, her unsmiling nature didn’t surprise anyone.
For some reason, Christina loved most her grandfather - Denise’s dad. He played with her as a child, pretended to be a horse, rolled her on her back and said "yoke-go", crawled with her on the floor among the toys, pretending to search for a missing owl or bear, put her on his strong neck and carried her around the apartment, whirled her around until she screamed with joy, read fairy tales in different voices and took her to the circus. Denise's mother, affectionate and calm, could not always cope with the whims of her only wayward granddaughter but during peaceful periods they walked on the street, ate and tied beautiful bows on their heads. Arthur was not ready for fatherhood, and this constantly upset Denise. She tried hard to explain to her husband that the child should be played with, walked with, and generally needed a lot of attention from him, Arthur continued to live as if the earth revolves only around him: disappearing with friends in restaurants and spending almost all of his salary on his wardrobe and entertainment. He considered shouts and slaps to be the most effective method of education. Christina didn't like her father, and as soon as she was getting older, she started asking Denise to find another dad. When Denise divorced Arthur, the daughter became more calm, confident and began to smile occasionally. Denise marvelled at her adult judgment and perception of the world. Nothing seemed to surprise Christina: neither circus shows, visits to the zoo, plane rides, no train rides — she acted as if she knew everything and was tired of them all.
Before getting married for the second time Denise talked to her daughter, explained that a father must be in the family and that the father is expected to be better than the one who was before. Christina did not mind, she wanted her to have a father like other children. Denise took Peter's last name and gave it to Kristina to make everyone feel like a family. Christina got used quickly to the new name and went with her to the first class. She got along well with Peter and calmly called him Papa. Peter treated his daughter not so well, but rather neutrally: he called her his daughter, bought everything she asked for, sometimes discussed school matters with her, but there was not the fatherly warmth that Denise expected from him. When she left Peter, Christina reacted calmly. She was already twelve years old, and she supported her mother as best as she could.
Of course, the breakup of the family was not in vain: Christina entered a difficult teenage period with a baggage of childhood resentments, stopped being friends with a long-time good friend, began to communicate with problem girls, slipped in school from a five to four marks, and sometimes got bad marks and brought Denise a lot of grief. When Denise met Felix, Christina started protesting against another suitor for her mother's hand and heart. She ran away from home, hid with friends for several days, and Denise often sought her out with the help of the police. Felix saw what was happening and tried to talk to Christina, but the situation didn't improve. One day Christina met two old Gypsy women on the street, got into a conversation with them and did not notice how she fell under the hypnotic influence. As a result, Christina took out of the house and gave the Gypsies all of Denise's gold and silver jewellery, except for the ones she left for work, as well as her entire monthly salary. When the fog in her head cleared, she said that she did not repent at all for what she had done, because in return the Gypsies promised her mother a long life and excellent health. Denise called the police for help, but the fraudsters were nowhere to be found.
Denise tried to be restrained she read a lot of literature about difficult teenagers, invited a child psychologist to the house, conducted conversations with her daughter on various topics, but the process of education, or rather the return of Christina to normal life but with a big change. At the same time, Christina enjoyed shopping with Denise to choose her own clothes, took swimming, dancing, equestrian sports and guitar lessons, wrote stories about cosmic love in her diary and drew interesting pictures with coloured crayons, most often portraits of her grandfather and her pet poodle named Grey.
Denis was so tired of Christina difficult teenage period so she went to America for a couple of months to find happiness, leaving her daughter in the care of her parents. During the absence of her mother Christina grew up suddenly and realized that she wanted to have a normal full-fledged family, with mom and dad, that Felix is a good person and that she did not mind if he marries mom. In any case, in her opinion, it was better than the absence of my mother. Christina wrote a letter to her mother in Los Angeles saying that she missed her, that she would improve, and that she thought Felix was a suitable match for Denise. She was about to turn 16. On the day of Denise and Felix's wedding, Christina put on a smart dress, picked up colourful balloons and went to the Wedding Palace to congratulate her mother on the start of a new life. She was smiling happily.
After finishing school, Christina entered the University to study psychology. She improved, grew wiser and matured, but continued to prove her "I" and fill bumps. She had a striking and unusual appearance: beautiful slender legs, a slender figure, luxuriant long dark brown hair and huge green eyes with a marsh hue, fringed with thick lashes. She drove her little ladies 'car expertly and got married regularly. By the time she was thirty, she had three failed marriages, a University degree, and a wonderful son. Christina was attracted to everything fashionable and beautiful, she liked to study, and she completed a variety of courses in makeup, haircuts, hairstyles and style, but she still did not decide on her main profession, and she did not have a permanent job. While her mother was around she supported her, but her mother went with her new husband to a country on the other side of the world and Christina was left alone. I had to find a job and live on her own.
Christina never stopped being surprised by her mother, her energy and courage to change her life abruptly at any age. When her mother fell in love with Rain and when she told Christina about it in one and half a year, first she thought that her mother was just going crazy with her next transition age and that everything would pass soon. But when she understood that her mother's romance has been going on for a long time and is not going to end Christina became concerned. Over the years she had grown accustomed to and attached to Felix in her own way, endured his grumbling and scepticism, consulted him about car repairs and maintenance, gave him gifts for holidays and birthdays, and sometimes listened to his outraged comments on the current youth's carelessness. Christina was slightly envious that all of her mother's husbands loved her all-consuming, but of course, she was saddened by the fact that none of them became a real father for her and she was rather tolerated as a mother's free app, rather than loved as a child. She didn't blame her mother's husbands and she certainly didn't blame Denise for choosing a husband who wasn't a good father. Christina minded her difficult adolescence and how much Denise had suffered from it, now she tried to support her mother in every possible way.
When Christina heard her mother's slightly guilty but incredibly enthusiastic story about Rain and their plans for their future life together, she realized that changes were coming in her mother's life again. "Previously you were more willing and often changed jobs, and the last ten years you are afraid of changing jobs, but changes in your personal life do not frighten you at all," Christina said. Denise smiled dreamily and spread her hands: "I wasn't going to change anything in my life, but love called me. Great love». Christina nodded to her mother as a sign of understanding and support: Rain seemed to be closer to the ideal of a father and husband, which Denise had dreamed of all these years. "Mom, you know I'm always on your side. I can see what a difficult choice you have to make, how difficult it is to take the last step. Don't worry. I will look after Felix from afar, and if something happens to him, I will help him so that he does not feel abandoned by everyone, even though he did not love me as much as he could." Denise sighed sadly, and that was the end of the conversation. Six months later, Rain came and took her with him.

She was thinking long what to do but suddenly Christina realized that she had accumulated enough knowledge and life experience in her head and that she was ready to teach others psychology in various areas of life. She was armed with Internet and covered with books and began writing trainings on the topic of relationship psychology. The success came immediately: after just a few classes two of her students quickly established relationships with their boyfriends and successfully married, and several other students established relationships with their children. Christina was elated: she found her vocation, started earning money, and now her mother could be proud of her and live in peace. It remained to find one detail that stop her to be complete happy — a beloved man with whom you could create a strong family. Fate seemed to have overheard her thoughts and soon gave her a gift of meeting a good man who was worthy of love and happiness. The young man was four years older than Christina, had a higher education and a small but stable business of his own. He divorced a long time ago, they had no children, he had already lived alone enough and wanted to have a family and children. When he saw Christina, he was surprised that she was not only an attractive girl but also a good mother for a child and a faithful life partner, he did not hesitate long and made her a proposal. Christina exulted: now not only her mother has a huge female happiness. She did not hesitate to share with Denise her professional success and future plans for life with a new young man.
Denise was genuinely happy for her daughter. She was busy with the upcoming wedding with Rain, but she did not stop worrying about Christina's happiness, so the daughter's news lifted the last load from Denise's soul — the road to a new life was flooded with sunshine.

Chapter XIV. Transit

Time stopped in trains,
In buses, trams, and cabs.
Eyes on ships and planes
are always seem happy…

Denise and Rain's flight was long and quite tiring but they were together, so the time passed quickly. After a four-and-a-half-hour flight to Dubai they were happy to leave their Luggage at the airport and leave while connecting flights to the city. In the arrival hall, white-robed Arabs routinely and unhurriedly checked documents, scanned pupils and measured the temperature of the arriving passengers. At the exit from the airport Rain ordered a taxi and took Denise to the hotel, which was a surprise to her. She was very surprised why they needed a hotel for 14 hours of connecting, and which was not the cheapest room, because you could walk around the city, relax in the park or on the beach, but then she was very grateful to Rain for his care and love of comfort. In fact, after sitting in the storage device waiting for departure, a long flight and tiresome standing at passport control it was nice to sit in a cozy hotel room with a view of the Persian Gulf, take a shower, have a delicious lunch at the restaurant, and then go to the hotel beach and swim in the waters of the Gulf, resembling fresh milk. The sun had already warmed the water so much that it looked steel-coloured. The air was hot and humid. Everything was clean, every inch of the hotel and every grain of sand on the beach. Denise and rain went down to the boutique in the lobby of the hotel for swimsuits and light summer clothing and quickly chose the most interesting options for themselves. After a few hours of rest at the hotel and on the beach, the lovers decided to take a walk. It was nice and fun. It was summer in Dubai, while in Denise and Rain's homeland summer was just about to come.
They famously travelled by the subway to the famous 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa, took tickets to the observation deck, and took the Elevator to the 148th floor. Dubai looked like a toy through the glass walls, from a height of 555 meters. On one side there was a magnificent view of the Persian Gulf, on the other side you could admire the original architecture and elegant landscape design of the city. The descent was tricky. By a strange coincidence, a couple of elevators were undergoing maintenance work, and Rain and Denise had to ride three elevators to get to the lower floor, changing at different floors and running through long corridors from one end of the building to the other. Finally, they found themselves on the street, satisfied that they had seen and that they were safely out of the maze of elevators. They wanted to see the dancing and singing fountains but there was still a lot of time before the show, and they went to one of the huge shopping malls to escape the heat. The mall was impressive not only for its size and design, but also for indoor hall fenced off by a glass wall, behind which there was snow and people were skiing. It was incredible: everything was melting outside from the heat above forty degrees, and here it was snowing, some of the visitors were standing in long mink coats, and another part was rolling down the slides with a joyful squeal, and in general it felt like Christmas eve. Rain smiled indulgently at the fun while Denise watched the skiers with fascination. Suddenly she remembered the happy winter days when she, Felix and their friends had gone skiing in a noisy and friendly group. Suddenly, she caught Rain's gaze on her, and immediately pushed away the sudden thoughts of the past. No, the past must remain in the past, and now they must look to the future.
Denise looked at Rain and smiled: "Where are we going now, you are a diamond of my soul, flower of my heart?" He laughed and the frown that had appeared a few minutes ago while he was watching Denise's mood and cut through his beautiful high forehead instantly smoothed out: he liked it when she was in a playful mood. He took her by the hand: "You know, I was thinking that we could go see your wedding dress here, if you don't mind. You could also think of a tuxedo for me. But if you're not ready now, we'll get back to that in Dreamview. I'm not rushing you, but I'm just worried that my small town is unlikely to have a large selection of beautiful wedding dresses and I want to see you the most beautiful and the happiest on our wedding day. At the same time, we could choose wedding rings here. " Denise was confused   for a moment — she hadn't thought about the dress, the tuxedo, or the rings at all, so she felt awkward. She run her hand over Rain's cheek, she nodded, "You are the wisest and most far-sighted king I have ever met. Thank you for the great idea. Of course, we'll see why not."
All the previous times, when Denise was preparing for the wedding, she could clearly imagine what kind of dress she wanted and what kind of suit the groom should wear. For the first wedding Denise sewed a long and lush white dress in a romantic style, with flounces and frills. She immediately forbade her first future husband, Arthur, to look at black suits, saying that if a wedding was a joyous event for him, then the suit could not be a mourning colour, and the groom was bought a white suit. It was unusual and spectacular: next to the bride in a white dress and veil the groom was standing in a white suit but in order to contrast the groom had a red tie on a white shirt. For the second time Denise's wedding dress was made by her groom Peter. He bought a piece of gold brocade and made excellent patterns for the dress. The dress was of medium length, revealing the bride's chiselled legs and beautifully fitting her slender figure. The style was simple, because the gold brocade looked itself like a decoration. Denise wore only a wreath on her head. She chose a light grey suit for the groom that matched his blue-grey eyes and Denise's gold dress. In this costume, Peter looked like a great backdrop for his bride. For the third wedding, Denise chose a long ivory satin dress with a luxurious neckline and open back, very fitted and effectively diverging down the "fish tail". The bride's hair was decorated with several flowers scattered over her hair. After Felix tried a thin silver three-piece suit Denise was pleased, and he didn't mind. In all the wedding photos, the elegant couples looked great.
Everything was different with Rain. From the experience of their two years of communication Denise knew that her lover has a clear opinion on everything and excellent taste. She knew that since Rain was talking about a black tuxedo, he would never definitely wear a different colour and style, and for her, he probably had already had some non-trivial style of dress in his head. There wasn't much time, so they ran to a specialized wedding salon. Rain took a quick look at the row of dresses on the pole, then put his arm around Denise and said to the salon clerk, " Miss, do you see this beautiful lady? This is my fianc;e. She is not tall and does not have a large size. You need to choose something special, elegant and spectacular for her, so that at our wedding she looked like a real Queen. We are not very young, so we need simplicity and elegance."
The clerk froze for a moment, her face showed that she was thinking hard. Then she went to the back room and returned a short time later, carrying a large box. There was an unusual French dress of a small size in the box. The dress was long and white, made of the finest silk, and it did not fit, but flowed over Denise's figure. Her shoulders and back were open, and the hem were decorated with faint twigs and leaves embroidered with fine silver and gold threads. The dress was completed with a transparent white shawl, embroidered in the same way as the hem of the dress. Rain froze in admiration: "I always knew you were a real beauty, my Beautiful Lady. I have no doubt that you will adorn any dress. How do you feel in this white dream? » Denise felt as if she had been wearing this dress for a long time, it was so comfortable and pleasant. "I like the fabric and style, I feel comfortable in it. But how much does it cost? " she said to Rain. He smiled his dazzling smile and said that for the sake of her beautiful mood, he would do anything crazy. "The Madness" was inexpensive to their mutual surprise and delight, because there was no demand for it. The dress was clearly waiting for Denise. The seller, was satisfied that there was a buyer for her unsold product, called the owner of the salon: he made an additional good discount on the dress and in addition he ordered to give a small white purse to the dress.
They were so elated by the unexpected success and the future newlyweds ran on in search of a tuxedo, shoes and rings. The tuxedo was not chosen so quickly, because Rain's good height, lean figure without a belly, long arms and legs were not suitable for models made for Eastern men. Finally, the black English tuxedo found its owner. Rain was given a silk bow tie to go with the tuxedo and asked to come back, which he readily promised, pretending not to notice Denise's sly smile. They went to an Italian boutique to get their shoes. Denise chose simple little white pumps with thin stilettos for her wedding dress, while Rain chose black shoes with laces. When he was paying for the next purchase, he joked that after the wedding in his "village" shoes will have nowhere to wear, except at home instead of slippers, and that they will have the most elegant slippers, the envy of all neighbours and relatives.
They went to get their wedding rings, covered in bags. The search was not easy: there were no identical rings of the right size, the design was not liked, the price was too high. Finally, they stopped at the last jewellery store on their way, having previously agreed that if they did not decide on the rings now, they would order them at home via the Internet. In the doorway of the salon Denise suddenly bumped into a man. She looked up and was taken aback: it was her old friend, a goldsmith from Goa, whom she and Felix visited every time they went on vacation. Truly, the world is small. The jeweller recognized Denise and smiled happily: "Hello, my friend! I'm so glad to see you. What are you doing here? Resting? Where is your husband? » The jeweller’s questions came one after another. Denise saw Rain's puzzled face and hurried to settle the situation. "It's nice to see you too, dear friend. I'm just passing through. And I have a big change in my life. Please meet my future husband, " Denise blurted out in one breath and introduced Rain and the jeweller to each other. Rain cordially shook hands with the jeweller and then asked: "As I understand you are a jeweller and know the local salons well. Could you help us with choosing wedding rings? »
The jeweller went back with them to the same salon from which he had left and introduced them to his friend, also a jeweller, the owner of the salon, as his old friends. Jewellers specified the size of the rings of the future newlyweds and offered several interesting options. Rain was willing to buy whatever rings his fianc;e liked. Denise after her three previous marriages had different wedding rings — both double, and with a diamond face, and with diamonds, wanted something simple and elegant. They were lucky: the jewellers found a nice pair of wedding rings made of gold, simple, round, good thickness, with a nice cut on the edge and at a good price. But the most pleasant surprise was the one inside the rings. A beautiful English script was written on the inside of each ring: "I love you" with a small heart engraved next to it. The rings looked harmonious in a pair. The owner of the salon pulled out a bottle of expensive French champagne from under the table as a gift to the rings. An old friend of Denise's gave them each a small gold letter as a keepsake:" D "for Denise and" R " for Rain and traditionally presented them with an elegant cashmere shawl, muttering that it was a present for Denise's future mother-in-law. They thanked the jeweller and said good-bye, promising to go to Goa and visit him. The lovers were in a hurry for a show of dancing and singing fountains. On the way they managed to run into a store with Oriental sweets and visit a sports store to buy John a new soccer ball from a famous company, which he had long dreamed of, and dreams must come true, especially for children.
Rain and Denise were in a good hurry — they were just in time for the show to start. The dancing fountains of Dubai were amazing, creating incredible compositions at the foot of the Burj Khalifa. To the accompaniment of famous musical works in the reproduction of famous performers water jets rose to different heights, depicting running tracks, smoothly changed levels and created the effect of dancing, leaning in different directions. A guide standing nearby said that the fountain has more than a thousand unique water compositions that quickly replace each other. Denise and Rain were mesmerized by the magnificent fountains, which first froze, then mysteriously turned into a thick fog, and then suddenly crumbled glass branches, transforming into fantastic figures performing enchanting water dances. It seemed to the lovers that they were in a real fairy tale, bright, mysterious and exciting. Rain and Denise were starving after enjoying the spectacular display. The flight to the States was still long way off where they were supposed to be fed at least twice. After dropping off their precious purchases at the hotel, they started looking for some cozy seafood restaurant. Denise remembered that there was a chain of cheap restaurants in Dubai with the funny name "Fork and Spoon", where the Malays prepared seafood perfectly. They found the nearest restaurant on the map and the hungry lovers settled down at an empty table by the window. There was no view from the window, because the sun had set down and night had fallen on the ground. Rain and Denise were happy just to sit next to each other, look at each other, eat something delicious, and remember the day's adventures and shopping. After they had finished their meal, they returned to the hotel to drink their champagne and rest for a while before their new flight started. It seemed to them that they had lived a whole life in one day.
Rain's phone rang in the hotel lobby as the airline informed him that due to technical reasons the flight to the States was delayed until almost noon the next day. This was unexpected, but was not too bad, because the room had been paid for a day and it could now be used properly. On the way to his room, Rain grabbed chocolate and ice cream from the lobby buffet. They went up to their room, refreshed themselves in the shower, and opened champagne. There were no wine glasses in the hotel, so champagne was poured into water glasses, which amused Denise. They took their wedding rings out of the box and tried them on again. "You know, my heart stops beating, and I'm literally choking with happiness," Rain said, putting a small ring on her slender finger, which fit freely inside his ring when they compared them. "All the most difficult things are over. I'm with you, and I'm happy," Denise replied, carefully pulling the second ring onto his long and strong ring finger. The ring was a quarter of the size Rain needed, because the bones in the knuckles of his fingers had the thickening characteristic of musicians ' hands. The ring did not want to get in and overcome the bone, and then Denise suddenly deftly screwed it in. "Now you want to be single again, but you can't," she laughed. Raine chuckled with gladness: he liked his new status as a married man, and he in any case did not want to return to his former bachelor status, which is considered unflattering and was looking down upon. In Raine's opinion, a successful man must be married, and married for love, to a beautiful lady. Denise met all his dreams, desires, and preferences.
They finished their champagne and ate their chocolate ice cream. Suddenly, he wanted to be naughty. "Listen, let's go to the top floor, swim in the pool, look at the night sky," he said to Denise. She nodded obediently: swimming in the pool under the stars was in keeping with her romantic mood. They put on their bathing suits, put on large Terry-cloth hotel robes, and took a towel with them to the top floor with the pool. It was late and they weren't allowed to swim in the pool, so they walked down the hall on tiptoe so that the desk clerk wouldn't come out of some office and send them on their way.
The night was soft, warm, and enveloping. The stars in the sky reflected brightly on the smooth surface of the pool. From the height of the hotel, you could see the lights of the night streets of Dubai. Leaving their robes and towels on the nearest sunbed, Rain and Denise dived into the pool. There were soft splashes of water and their muffled laughter. After a bit of frolic, Rain swam up to Denise and pulled her to him for a kiss that took them both under the water for a moment. Feeling a surge of strength and desire, he decided to make love to her right in the pool. He throws her bathing suit and his swimming trunks on the edge of the pool, Rain wrapped one arm tightly around his beautiful seductress by the pool wall, holding on to the handrail with the other. Denise followed his example. Having experienced several options and with effort coped with the goal, because, as it turned out, not everything that is shown in films can be convenient and pleasant, they forgot about precautions and laughed together. The manager immediately came running at the noise. When he found the naked bathers in the pool he waved angrily and told them to get out immediately, or they would face a fine. Rain politely asked him to turn away while they climbed out of the pool and put on their robes. There was no time to dry off, and the lovesick hooligans raced back to their room, slipping wet feet and losing their flip-flops as they went. The night's adventure excited them and they laughed loudly all the way to their room and woke up half the floor. They could hear the doors of neighbouring rooms opening behind them and words of disapproval of their behaviour. But they didn't care. They were together and had fun.
After returning to their room and laughing a little more, they went to sleep on the king-size bed. Why do lovers need such a big bed? Absolutely for nothing, because they want to be closer to each other. They quickly fell asleep hugging each other. In the morning they were woken up by a call from the desk clerk, who politely informed them that it was time for breakfast and then for the airport. After going down to the restaurant, Denise and Rain enjoyed a variety of food from the buffet and settled down at a table with a view of the Persian Gulf. The weather was excellent, the sun was shining brightly, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Ships and yachts sailed across the bay. The souls were filled with a sense of celebration, and the smiles did not leave their happy faces. I love you, Raine's eyes told her. "I love you", — answered him Denise eyes. After breakfast Rain checked the phone to see if their flight's departure time had changed, and when he heard that everything was on schedule, he hurried Denise to the airport. They didn't really have much to collect other than yesterday's purchases, but they didn't need to wait any longer — they were waiting at home in Dreamview.
At the Dubai airport they quickly passed all levels of control and soon found themselves on the plane. It was a large modern liner. Rain had previously reserved seats for them in the row where there were only two seats. It was convenient. There were only two of them in the row and the distance was large between the seats and the rows, which gave a sense of space and created an atmosphere of comfort. A pretty young stewardess smiled and handed them pillows and blankets, as well as a menu. After a circle over the Persian Gulf the liner followed the set course for Houston. The flight was scheduled to take about 16 hours. During this time, they could sleep, watch a lot of movies, eat and drink everything that was on board of the liner, and discuss all the important topics so that they don't waste time. After a good rest and enough food and movies, Denise decided to ask Rain what his plans were for the flight, other than to adapt to a different time zone. Rain looked at Denise thoughtfully and told her that he had everything on his calendar on his home laptop, but the most important thing he remembered was that they should get married as soon as possible and start processing Denise's wife's visa and other documents. For this reason, they had to solve quickly all the issues related to the preparation and celebration of the wedding, and then deal with other matters. Denise was surprised at the earnestness with which Rain had spoken of the upcoming wedding arrangements. In her opinion considering their age and several marriages behind their backs, it was possible not to arrange a lavish celebration on the occasion of the wedding but to make do just official registration at the city hall and a festive buffet in the fresh air for his family and a couple of close friends. But seeing that Rain clearly had other plans she didn't try to dissuade him. This is their last wedding after all. It sounds funny, but it's true. Denise rested her head on Rain's shoulder and dozed off. She dreamed of colourful balloons, bright confetti, sparkling soap bubbles, and a large wedding cake.
"Wake up, dear. We're here," Rain's voice woke her up. Denise opened her eyes: the plane was rolling smoothly along the runway, the landing lights were reflected in the windows, the dawn was just beginning to break, and it was not clear whether it was still night outside or the morning was slowly beginning.
Sleepy, but happy because of the successful landing, the passengers applauded the plane's commander and crew in gratitude for the safe flight and excellent service. They unhurriedly cleared the luggage racks and got off the plane. Houston international airport, the second largest airport after Dallas was named after the 41st President of the United States, George W. Bush. Rain and Denise arrived at terminal D, which was used for international flights. After standing in a long line to check in documents, they picked up their luggage, which was rolling on the tape and went to the bus stop to get to the city, where Rain left his car in the Parking place. The buses were large, cheap, and frequent, so they didn't have to wait long. It was broad daylight as they rode. When they reached the Parking place, Rain loaded their belongings into the trunk, telling them that they still had three hundred kilometres to go home, which was about three hours on the highway.
Denise looked at Rain's car with interest. He never told her about the car only about the motorcycle. But as it turned out, he still had a car, he just did not attach much importance to its presence. So, Rain had a Ford SUV — the type of car Denise preferred. Ford was big, steady, and reliable. "My mom doesn't like SUVs," Rain chuckled. Well, well, another important detail for the future communication with his mother, Denise thought to herself. She slid into the front seat next to Rain, strapped herself in, and they raced to Dreamview. The roads were excellent, smooth, the car did not go but flew on them. On the way, they stopped at a small supermarket and bought coffee, water, and a couple of burgers for the trip. Rain expected to arrive home before noon, where his mother and son were already preparing a festive table for the arrival of their host and new hostess. Along the way, Denise asked Rain about his mother's personality, her habits and preferences, John's interests, his behaviour and schoolwork, and Rain's friends and relatives — she wanted to know as much as possible about her new family. Rain looked at her sideways, smiled, and told her everything he thought was interesting and useful.
On the highway they met several small and cozy towns, slowly waking up from sleep. Denise liked the clean and tidy houses, without fences, with flowers surrounding them on all sides; straight and clear lines of streets with names on the houses, beautiful cleaning machines, as if from a picture, and friendly guys in bright overalls at gas stations. The road ran between the cities through the prairies, which also looked neat and well-kept. Finally, Dreamview came into view, and Denise's heart began to pound with excitement.
 

Chapter XV. Edem

The Earth is tender to forgotten deities:
Like Eve and Adam, we descended
To the river valley, on a sunny pirogue,
And we go to heaven, kissing each other on the way…

Rain took the shortest route to the house, so Denise didn't get a good look at the city she was going to live in. Reading her mind again Rain said that there was no reason to be upset because Denise had all the fun ahead of her. He parked the car in front of the driveway, unloaded their bags and suitcases, and dropped Denise off. Then he put the car in the garage and went back to Denise and their luggage to move them into the house. As he parked the car Denise looked around: the street was clean, quiet, and green. There were houses of various designs on both sides of the street, they were mostly two-storeyed, with red, brown, and grey roofs, and windows that shone clean and glittered with sunbeams. There were no fences in front of the houses but a low hedge of neatly trimmed bushes separated them, and flowers grew on some of the lawns. Rain's house was at the end of the street in the most comfortable and peaceful place. There was a path led from the road to the house, paved with large terracotta paving slabs, tea rose bushes were planted along the edges of the plot, the middle of the lawn was left empty, it was a rich green colour and contrasted perfectly with the red, pink and white roses. The house was painted in bright colours, had two floors and a wing of the garage. The roof was covered with red tiles. The door was decorated with a large door handle in the shape of a lion's head ring, and the marble steps on the porch looked more like the entrance to an ancient museum than to an ordinary house. Denise noticed that there were no curtains on the windows, but light vertical blinds.
Rain knocked the door and his mother appeared, followed by his son. "Welcome home," his mother greeted them. She was smiling but there was a concern in the depths of her eyes. Rain gave her a warm hug, and Denise followed suit. John muttered "Hello" and hung on to his father's neck with a happy squeal. Rain picked him up and set him down on the floor: "Let's get our stuff inside, son. We'll also unpack our gifts." They all carried their bags into the house. Rain introduced Denise to mom and son again. She hugged John and felt him tremble. "We will definitely become friends, I have never had a son, and I always dreamed of having one, and now my dream has come true. You are my son. I know you have a mom and I can't replace her but I will try to be a good friend to you," Denise smiled. John clung to her trustingly. Raine's mother wiped a tear from her eye and let out a sigh of relief. She liked Denise: she was simple, sweet, smiling, and exuded a pleasant energy. Rain laughed and wrapped his long arms around his entire family at once: "Now we are one big friendly family. Let's remember this moment for many, many years." So, the first meeting took place. The tension eased.
Rain and John went up the stairs to the second floor and carried their suitcases into the bedroom. Denise asked for a few minutes to wash her face and get her presents. Rain kissed her, helped her unpack her Luggage, and pulled out what was bought for mom and John. They went down to the living room, where a small festive table was set. There was a shite California wine, water, oven-baked salmon, several appetizers, and a bowl of fruit on the table.
Rain put a large box of Oriental sweets on the table, draped a cashmere shawl over his mother's shoulders, and handed John a new soccer ball. Denise gave her future mother-in — law a pair of decorative satin pillowcases of different colours, chosen in advance at home in a souvenir boutique, one of which was embroidered with a camel in Burgundy and gold threads, and the other, bright blue-edelweiss against the background of distant snow-capped mountain peaks. She saved John a fashionable leather bracelet with an original national ornament for teenagers. The gifts caused a storm of emotions in both of them, and they considered them for a long time.
Rain's soft voice brought everyone back to reality: it was lunchtime, and the food spread out on the table was inviting by its delicious appearance and smell. Rain opened the wine and gave the toast to his mother. It was obvious that his mother had been preparing a speech for a long time and even wrote it on a separate sheet, but she was too worried, did not say the prepared words, crumpled the sheet and put it in the pocket of her dress. She swept her warm heavenly gaze over everyone present and simply said: "I am happy to see you all happy. When children are happy, their mothers are happy. Let it always be so." Rain couldn't resist getting up from his seat, walking over to his mom, giving her a peck on the cheek and telling her that she was the best mom in the world. Everyone relaxed after such a heartfelt toast and started eating. Having satisfied his first hunger Rain raised his glass and looked at Denise, saying that he was infinitely happy because he had met the greatest love of his life. Then he looked at his mother and added that now he understood his father more than, who was also lucky to meet his great love, that was his mother, and that now Rain knew for sure that everyone could find their love if they really wanted it and put all their efforts to find and win it. After a moment of silence, he added that John had everything ahead of him and when he grows up, he will also meet his greatest love, because this is a gift that was passed down in their family from generation to generation., who was so busy eating with both cheeks nodded to his father in embarrassment: the stories of love threw him into confusion — it would be better if he did not continue to develop this awkward topic for him now. Denise's face was glowing with happiness. At the end of the meal, she thanked his mother and John for the warm welcome and delicious holiday table, she said that she had overcome many obstacles for Rain, that she was happy to become a member of their family, and that she would try to make them all happy.
After lunch the mother and John said goodbye to Rain and Denise and went home. Denise cleared the table quickly. Rain helped her to clean up and put all the plates, forks, spoons, and glasses in the dishwashing machine. They were tired but happy, they lay down to rest on the sofa in the living room. "Wait a few minutes and I'll show you our house," Rain whispered. When she was sitting on the sofa, Denise finally got a good look at the living room. It was located just behind a small hall, right in the center of the house, and it gave access to the other rooms on the first floor: Rain's office, John's children's playroom, the guest toilet, the kitchen, the laundry room in the basement, and the stairs to the second floor, where there were bedrooms for Rain, John, mom, and the guests. There were large windows and several lamps in the living room and it was bright and festive. Denise liked the light upholstered furniture and a slightly darker shade of table, chairs, TV stand and other furniture made of natural wood. The TV was huge, like in a movie theatre: it was immediately clear that the owner liked to feel part of what was happening on the screen, whether it was sports, political reviews or blockbusters. There were small paintings on the walls that resembled the style of the medieval Dutch people. Raine's favourite piano stood against one wall, and a large real fireplace occupied the other. The fireplace was decorated with vases of unusual shapes and a small light carpet lay on the floor in front of it. It seemed that the entire living room was divided into certain zones, but at the same time it looked harmonious, as a whole.
"Who set up the house?" she asked Rain. He stretched contentedly: "What do you think? Would I be a good interior designer? » Denise had always known that Raine had a fine taste in food, clothing, music, painting, and books, but now she had the opportunity to make sure that he had just as good taste in everything around him: choosing the best house plan, using every inch of the house in the most efficient and effective way, arranging furniture, and generally creating comfort throughout the house. The only exception, as she thought was the absence of beautiful tulle and drapes on the windows: the blinds that hung in their place looked, in her opinion, more formal than cozy, but this was the American style. "You promised to show me the whole house and the surrounding area," she tugged at Rain's hand. He willingly got up from the sofa and took Denise on a tour.
First, they went out to the back yard through the kitchen door. Denise knew that a private home was an indicator of success for an American. Living in a suburb or small city where all the neighbours know each other, in silence, away from the metropolis was much more prestigious than even in the center of New York. The territory of the backyard was large, about six hectares, it was also fenced with densely planted shrubs. There was a huge green lawn in the back yard, a swimming pool on the left, a barbecue area on the right, and in the middle, you could run, jump, roll, play football and any other outdoor games. In the farthest corner there were sports equipment for physical exercises. Everything bores the imprint of care and a master's hand.
Rain led Denise back to the house through the garage where his car and motorcycle were parked. A door led from the garage to Rain's office. Denise joked that this door can serve a man well if he wants to leave his wife unnoticed on business. Rain laughed and said that he would take her idea into account and do it when Denise was angry with him for something. There was almost no furniture in his work room, everything was simple and comfortable: there was a desktop for a laptop near the large window, and a chair with an orthopaedic back was located next to it. Two walls were filled with shelves of books, partly fiction, partly business literature. There was a small secretary board in one corner, and a small leather sofa in the other, where you could lie down and relax between tasks. There were photos of his mother, son, and Denise on Rain's Desk. She was pleasantly surprised to see her image, since he never mentioned it. In the portrait, Denise was smiling that sly smile that Rain loved so much.
John's game room was spacious, with soft flooring, a TV, and various video game consoles, a long and bright sofa stretched along one wall, and several very soft chairs that looked more like large leather bags filled with sawdust were literally lying on the floor opposite. There were pictures from children's magazines with images of Captain America, Spider-Man, Alien, Predator and other fantastic characters on the walls.
Next, they went to the kitchen. Previously, Denise had already looked in there when she was clearing the dishes from the holiday table. Now she had a large sightseeing tour of her new domain. The kitchen was even larger than the games room. Light furniture visually added space. In the middle there was a cooking island with a built-in gas stove, built-in electric oven, and microwave. Adjacent to the kitchen there was a bar, which was decorated with wine glasses and glasses of various shapes, for any sophisticated drinks. Rain opened the doors of all the kitchen cabinets, and Denise was amazed at the abundance of dishes for a large number of guests for all occasions, canned vegetables, drinks, cereals, nuts, oils, seasonings and other products. One corner was occupied by a huge double-leaf refrigerator with an ice-making function. It was evident that Rain liked to eat out: the fridge was stuffed with meat, fish, poultry, seafood, vegetables, fruits and herbs. Denise giggled, and Rain winked at her: no one was going to starve or diet here.
After the kitchen Rain showed her the basement, where there was a washing machine, a clothes dryer, an iron, an ironing board, several racks of detergents, and laundry baskets. There were also buckets, mops, various attachments and rags for cleaning the house. Denise was glad that the house had its own washing machine and that things didn't have to be taken to a workshop. When she asked who cleans such a large house and looked after the lawn and flowers, Rain said that on certain days the housekeeper comes and does everything that the owner tells her, and he prefers to take care of the lawn himself, and only during his absence there is a temporary hired gardener. "If you want to change the housekeeper, days and methods of cleaning, then everything is in your power," Rain said, emphasizing that from this day on, she was the owner of the house and could make any decisions.
After the tour of the lower part of the house and surrounding grounds, Rain and Denise climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the so-called private area was located. All the bedrooms had large windows, were furnished in different styles and equipped with walk-in closets, private bathrooms with shower or bathtub, as well as a washbasin and toilet. It was extremely convenient and practical. The guest bedroom was medium-sized and had a walnut colour scheme. It had a large built-in wardrobe and a double bed with bedside tables, a dressing table and an ottoman. A pretty Texas landscape painting was located on the wall. John wanted to decorate his bedroom in different colours: one wall looked like a cosmic sky, another like a football field, and the third was occupied by a large wardrobe. The bed was shaped like a car wreck, and there were pictures of his friends and the football team on the walls. The bedroom was the place where his mother sometimes spent the night and it was a delicate light green. Everything in her room reminded her of spring, of tulips, and of the Netherlands. Her bedroom had a balcony and a view of the backyard. In other words, each bedroom had its own characteristics. Finally, Rain opened the door to their bedroom.
In the haste to sort out the gifts Denise didn't get a good look at her new abode. Denise knew that Rain's favourite colour was blue, so she wasn't surprised that the bedroom walls looked like a blue sky and the bed looked like a big white cloud. The bedroom had also access to a balcony with a view of the backyard. On the balcony there was a light table and a couple of chairs, on top of which there was an original design in the form of an awning, which could be opened over the balcony in the hot time of the day. In the morning, you could sit on the balcony and drink coffee, and in the evening — enjoy fruit and wine. Denise looked into the adjoining dressing room and was struck by its size — indeed, Americans love everything big. All the shelves and openings were filled with Rain's belongings, shoes, and suitcases.
He noticed her surprise, smiled and opened the next door: "and this is your domain," Rain said. The second dressing room, which was just as large, was almost empty: Denise's suitcases and bags were in it, and her evening dress, which Rain had not allowed her to pick up during their meeting in Moscow, hung on the crossbar. There were her stiletto shoes took pride of place on the shoe shelf. "When I missed you but couldn't call and talk to you because of the time zone difference, I would look in the dressing room and talk to your dress and shoes," Rain whispered in her ear. Denise felt a wave of tenderness flood through her. She rubbed her face against Rain's shoulder and purred: "I am very pleased to hear you say such words. You are the most gentle and romantic man in the world. And I love you." Rain hugged her and told her that he also loved her very much, so the ultimate goal of their sightseeing tour of the house was their bathroom, which she should also like.
They went into the bathroom and Denise admired again the fine taste of her King. The bathroom was spacious, elongated, with a large shower stall filled with different types of shower holes, all sorts of lights and equipped with a wide seat. In the bathroom there was also toilet and two adjacent sinks installed directly to the tub. The bathroom was decorated in blue and white. Bright bath towels with starfish, fish, and seaweed hung from the rungs. Bathrobes hung on door hooks. "This is yours," Rain handed Denise a bright yellow terry — cloth robe with store tags still attached. "Why yellow? Yours is blue, so it would be more logical for me to take blue? " she asked. "It's simple, my love: I have a dark blue robe, because I am your sky, and you have a yellow one, because in my sky you are my sun, and the sun should be bright and warm," he replied. Denise reached out and kissed Rain. She enjoyed his care and loved it when he expressed his thoughts so poetically.
They went back to the bedroom to sort out their suitcases and then Denise noticed a picture on the wall, tightly wrapped in an opaque wrapper. "What's this?" she asked. Rain slapped his forehead and said guiltily: "I'm sorry, I forgot. This is my main gift to you." He quickly unfolded the picture, and Denise saw a magnificent landscape of Yellowstone National Park in the style of Howard Spring. She couldn't take her eyes off the painting. "Yes, Yes, you were right. This is your beloved Howard Spring," he teased her. Well, it was unpredictable, unexpected and unusual. Not for nothing did she fall in love with him. And how could she be angry with him for something and reprimand him? For a moment, she was ashamed, but she immediately justified herself with her past torments and experiences when he disappeared, and she went crazy with the unknown. Now Rain had opened up to her in his familiar surroundings, she understood him better. With each of his new actions, Denise was convinced again and again of his love, attention and understanding. It was him, the man of her dreams, her Prince charming on a white horse.
When Denise sorting out quickly and deftly her Luggage and hanging up all her clothes in her spacious dressing room, she took off her travel gear, wrapped herself in a new robe, and went to check on Rain in his dressing room. She was carrying her guitar because she didn't know where to put it. It turned out that he, also had almost finished with his suitcases. Denise helped him to put the rest of his things on the shelves and asked where she could put her guitar. Without thinking, Rain carried the guitar into the living room and put it on top of his piano. "Let her stay here for a while, in a pleasant musical neighbourhood, and later we will decide where it will be better for her. In any case, your guitar should be in the living room, so you can please me with your songs when you're in the mood." Of course, Denise didn't mind. After successfully resolving the issue of a place for the guitar, she asked Rain to change his clothes for a robe and go to the shower, then to relax from the trip. Her mind was a jumble of flights, passport control, time zones, new experiences in Texas, and Dreamview in particular. She wanted to wash away the dust of the long trip, the alien energy that permeated airports, the fatigue from the excitement and just the whole past life.
"You're tired, dear. Let's just freshen up and go to bed. I love you very much, you are always welcome to me, but we will still have many happy days and nights ahead for love and passion," Rain seemed to read her thoughts. She looked at him gratefully. They went into the shower and turned on a large ceiling watering can with a soft and smooth waterfall mode. Gentle, slightly warm streams of water and a pleasant liquid soap with the smell of lemon soon had their beneficial effect. They both relaxed and felt the need to get to bed as quickly as possible.
As he was falling asleep, he said to her, " you know, I've always been dreamed of a dainty little woman with dark hair and brown eyes. I have found my dream, and I am happy." Denise's heart almost broke with tenderness and pain. None of her previous husbands had said such words to her. Each of them admitted to her that they had dreamed of a tall, long-legged, fair-haired woman, and yet each of them somehow loved Denise wildly, who did not meet the set canons of beauty. It was a woman's shame to hear such clumsy confessions from her exes. Rain made her happy. She felt like a real woman with him loved and desired. Denise fell asleep against Rain's shoulder with such pleasant thoughts.
In a couple of hours, they were woken up by the doorbell. "Who could it be?" asked Denise, surprised. Rain smiled mysteriously: "We'll go and see." They put on their dressing gowns and went downstairs. Rain opened the door and there was a courier, a handsome young man with a huge bouquet of dark red velvet roses on long legs. "These are flowers for Miss Denise," the courier said, looking at them both questioningly. Denise held out her hand for the bouquet. Thank you for the delivery." The face of the courier's face broke into a satisfied smile. He handed her the receipt to sign. Rain took a wallet from the pocket of his robe and handed the courier a tip. The boy returned the salute as if it were a military service: "Thank you, sir." Rain nodded to him, and the courier left. They were standing on the porch in their long terry-cloth robes, Denise holding a beautiful bouquet in her hands, and her eyes were shining with happiness. A neighbour’s family watched curiously from the house across the street. Rain waved at them, and Denise followed him. Then they returned to the house.
Rain brought a large floor vase standing by the fireplace, filled it with water, and Denise put her roses in it. Rain carried the huge vase into their bedroom and placed it next to the bed on Denise's side. "You shower me with gifts just like a Princess. I'm terribly happy, but I'm even a little embarrassed, because I can't give you anything in return right now, " she looked at her lover. "You are the best gift I have received from fate for this year and for all the years to come. You can never give me anything, and I will still feel happy and gifted with many gifts," Rain said solemnly. His words were sincere and sweet. Denise came up to him, and they stood for a long time embracing each other and whispering sweet words of gratitude and all the other silly things that lovers usually say.
It was evening. Something had to be done about dinner and future plans. Rain suggested to go out for a walk and go to a nearby restaurant. She put on a smart dress and shoes, and they went outside. As he passed the houses next to each other, Rain did nothing but bow to the neighbours with a happy smile on his face. Denise nodded to them, too. The neighbours smiled back and looked after them for a long time, as if they were assessing Rain's companion and making all sorts of assumptions about who she was, where she came from, and how long she would stay in his house.
The restaurant was small made in Texas-style, with wooden furniture and waiters dressed as cowboys, wearing traditional hats, boots, and belts, and hung with fake weapons and ammunition. Rain said that this restaurant didn’t serve fish and seafood, so they will drink wine, eat meat, tortillas and pastries. He ordered dry red wine and pork, a real cowboy roast of beef, garnished with black beans, vegetables, and corn. The roast was accompanied by tamales flatbread, which was prepared according to ancient Indian traditions on the basis of corn leaf dough. There were peanut butter cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. There was live music in the restaurant and Denise listened with interest to the swashbuckling cowboy songs. The evening was fun and pleasant. She liked the bright taste of Texas cuisine — the cowboy camping method of cooking gave them an appetizing smell, and the general atmosphere of the institution invisibly hovered the spirit of adventure. They returned home well-fed and satisfied.
The night was coming but they didn't want to sleep because of the time difference, and their biological clocks weren't used to the Dreamview time zone yet. Denise reminded Rain that it would be necessary to find a stable place for her guitar. He looked at the wall where the piano stood then walked over to it and he pushed it aside a little to make room for Denise's big concert guitar with the romantic name "Cremona Lily". Then he brought a reliable screw, screwed deftly it into the wall at the height of the piano, and hung the guitar on it. "When we go shopping, we'll buy a solid hook and put your friend on it," Rain said. Denise shook her head in response. The screw is enough." He realized that the guitar, hanging from a simple screw instead of a fancy hook, reminded her of her old life. "Have it your way," Rain agreed, and the question of a place for the guitar was settled once and for ever.
They went up to their cozy bedroom. Denise sat down on an ottoman in front of a dressing table with a large oval mirror. The mirror was high-quality, did not distort the face and figure, it was nice to look at it. Admiring herself in the mirror, she took off her jewellery and began brushing her hair. Rain, who had been watching her in silence until now, rose from his chair, " Please let me brush your hair. I've wanted this for a long time," he said. Denise handed him her hairbrush and closed her eyes blissfully. Rain began to brush her hair gently. His movements were smooth and gentle. He remembered that before they met she wore her hair short and only at his request she grew it long again. He was enjoying what he was doing, it gave him sensual pleasure. Rain felt a surge of desire. He tossed the brush aside knelt beside the ottoman to balance his height, and touched his lips to Denise's neck. She tilted her head back and offered him her lips, so soft and sweet that it took his breath away. Rain didn’t want to hold back any longer quickly undid the back of her dress and pulled it off her shoulders. His hands slid hungrily over her body. Denise felt him passionately kissing her calves, her knees, her thighs. Denise didn’t want just to accept his caresses, she rose from the Ottoman, her dress sliding to the floor, followed by her underwear. It was a good thing the bed was an arm's length away: Rain caught Denise in his arms and lowered her to the snow-white cloud. In one of her favourite novels, she came across the expression "poem of the flesh", which she particularly liked. At the time it was just an effective phrase for her, but now she couldn't describe their love as anything other than a "poem of the flesh": everything that happened between them was beautiful, romantic, and perfect.
In the morning Denise woke up to a faint noise. Opening her eyes, she saw Rain carefully closing the door behind him, holding a small table with a couple of cups of coffee, a plate of sandwiches, and a bowl of Oriental sweets. "What are you doing? Are you crazy?" asked Denise sweetly. "Wake up, my Beautiful Lady. We have important things to do. We need to start all the preparations for our wedding right away. There will be a lot of running and hassle. No one else will do it except you and me," Rain replied. Denise was instantly awake. They had a quick meal, packed up, and drove to the city center.
They visited a few agencies on the organization and carrying out weddings, they stopped the fastest of them in the provision of services. After discussing the design of the bride's bouquet, the venue of the ceremony, the festive decoration, the number of expected guests, the reception, the wedding cake, fun games, video and photography, the future newlyweds breathed a sigh of relief. Denise had asked Rain to keep their wedding as low-key as possible, and he wanted a lavish and spectacular celebration. After a brief argument over the scope and expense of the celebration, they agreed on the golden mean. It was decided to hold a wedding ceremony in a small restaurant with a delicious name "Little Cakes", to invite no more than twenty people, order the most successful and popular dishes and drinks that will please every guest, and traditionally decorate the wedding arch in the restaurant courtyard with festive balloons.
There was a slight hitch with the bridesmaid. Rain wanted only his son to be his fianc;’s friend, but what to do with Denise's girlfriend was a mystery. Denise thought for a while and decided to invite her former hair stylist Natalie, who recently moved to the States and lived in Los Angeles. It was a great idea. From time to time, Denise kept in touch with Natalie, so she was sure that she would come to the wedding, and at the same time she could make her a spectacular hairstyle. Unfortunately, Denise could not invite all her relatives and friends, as they were in different countries, many of them were not easy to get a visa to America, in addition, they all had families and pre-planned vacations. Denise and Rain were happy to had bought their wedding outfits in advance in Dubai, as this made it easier for them to prepare for the ceremony. Denise called immediately her friend, startling her with her news, but the main thing was done — Natalie accepted the invitation to the wedding as a bridesmaid. It was not clear who would lead Denise to the crown. After consulting with Rain, Denise wrote about her wedding and the problem to her friend, artist Howard Spring. On behalf of both of them she invited Howard and his wife to the wedding and asked if he could replace her father at the wedding ceremony, because her parents could not fly from Moscow due to their advanced age. To Denise's surprise, Howard enthusiastically accepted the invitation and confirmed his honourable mission. So, all questions were settled and now it was necessary to wait for the event itself.
The wedding date was set for the middle of the first summer month, just between their birthdays: Rain in May and Denise in July. There was a little more than a month ahead. During this time, Denise had to settle into a new home and a new city, get to know and make friends with Rain mother and son, see his friends, and generally get used to her new life. Rain had given her his word that he would not go on any business trips until the wedding, but only work from home and then they would decide together when and where to go.
A few days later, when Rain had given Denise several tours of the sights of Dreamview — parks, museums, shops, and restaurants – he had his birthday. They decided to make an outdoor barbecue for the whole family. Rain had bought pre-purchased fresh meat for the steaks, and Denise had selected everything she needed for several types of appetizers and salads that she wanted to please her family. Mom and John arrived exactly on time. John presented his father with another Cup for the title of the best football player in the school, which caused an exclamation of admiration from Rain, who was very proud of his son's success at school and in sports. His mother asked smiling enigmatically where he planned to take his new wife on their honeymoon. Rain was taken aback: they haven't discussed it yet — so much to do. Of course, they would go somewhere on their honeymoon, but why should they discuss it now, at his birthday party? Mom took a large envelope from her purse and handed it to her son. The birthday boy looked at her questioningly and opened the envelope: it contained a weekly hotel voucher in Hawaii and plane tickets for two. "The beginning of summer, of course, is not the best season, but the rest will be appropriate and timely, so I decided to give you just such a gift," added his mother. Rain hugged her warmly: he was so lucky to have the best mom in the world.
Denise also made a small gift to Rain — she noticed that a few keys on the piano were sinking, and a couple of others had a rattling sound. One day, when Rain had a busy day at work and went to a long business meeting in the city center Denise invited the piano tuner, and he quickly coped with the out-of-tune instrument. Her parents and daughter wrote him a lot of nice words, and her grandson sent them a yacht with a wish to buy the same one and travel on it. Rain was moved by the gifts and congratulations. The steaks were tender and juicy — the cook and guests were satisfied with each other. The barbecue was a success. But the most important thing was that everyone felt like a family. The marriage ceremony was exactly thirty days away.

EPILOGUE

The whole world is for us.
 Everything in the world is for love.
And you and I are madmen in love.
The Lord has blessed us with verses
And songs of divine guidance…

The morning after the wedding came Denise woke up to Rain's voice talking to someone: "Get up, Mrs. Martin. The plane won't be waiting for you." Denise thought sleepily then she realized that Rain had given her a new name. She remembered that yesterday there was their wedding, that she took the Rain name and now they need to get ready and fly to Hawaii to spend their honeymoon there. "I'm awake, dear. Give me a few minutes to get ready, " she told her husband. Yes, Rain was her husband now, and she was his wife. More than two years had passed since they'd met. The virtual novel has ceased to exist. A new, unknown, but no doubt happy life lay ahead. The soul flapped its wings and flew to Hawaii.

 

Table of Content 

Prologue                2
Chapter I . Rain         3
Chapter II. Denise         7
Chapter III. Life Line         12
Chapter IV. Felix         19
Chapter V. Far away         21
Chapter VI. Recruitment         23
Chapter VII. Awakening         26
Chapter VIII. The Tricks of Love28
Chapter IX. Soloveig’s Song 32
Chapter X. On the Star Bridge 39
Chapter XI. Crossroad         51
Chapter XII. Sunreturn         55
Chapter XIII. Christina         60
Chapter XIV. Transit         64
Chapter XV. Edem         70
EPILOGUE                77