It’s my last full day in town and I’m purring like a cat in a sunbeam. The hectic weekend has only just passed and was sufficiently eventful that my trip has been upgraded from “decent” to “great”. Now I’m just enjoying the sun, walking with Roy and Shotgun, and wondering if I can eke one more notch out of my phone list on this final evening.

My eyes rest on the middle distance, scanning Kamergirsky Street for female silhouettes in the distance. It’s usually pretty quiet around here mid-afternoon, not picking up till dinner time when the girls come out to restaurants or simply prowl back and forwards. I see a girl.

Tall, tight blue cocktail dress, heels. She has the dark features I like and the undulating walk I filter for. I open. Something about walking like a cat and having a scary face. It doesn’t matter. She stops and her instinctive reaction to me is to smile. Cat-like energy exudes from her. Noting this, my two hangers-on wings continue down the street for an early beer.

“I’m Nick” I say, holding out my hand.
“I’m Ela” she replies. “I can’t shake your hand. I’m Muslim”
“A muslim in Moscow?” I query. Surely Putin had put a stop to such nonsense.
“I’m Chechan” she says.

Deep inside, I somersault, high-five, and pat myself on the back. I’ve always wanted that flag. Any time you Google Image search Chechnya you see beautiful dusky girls and big fat Jihadi-bearded troll men. I never imagined I’d meet one of the former without an escort of the latter.

I look around anyway, just be to on the safe side. There are no cries of Allah Akhbar and no explosions. I’m safe for now.

We chat a few minutes and she tells me she’s just walking around, enjoying the sun. She’s a violinist at a local academy and seems like a strong K-select. Yet something doesn’t seem to fit. Her walk was sexual, her eyes are smouldering, and there’s a crackle of sexual tension. This might well be a rabbit in wolf’s clothing. I suggest we go for a walk.

The next fifteen minutes are spent walking towards Red Square then past the Bolshoi theatre and back to Kamergirsky. I politely probe her for information about her lifestyle, interests, and character. It turns out she moved here for university a few years ago (she’s twenty) and finds Chechnya cloying and restrictive. She confirms that yes she feels like an outsider, yes she’s a little rebellious, and yes she loves the anonymity of the big city. I calibrate my DHVs accordingly with a focus on freedom, passion, and rebellion.

We are twenty minutes in now and I’m pretty sure she fancies me. I suggest a coffee at a nice outdoor bar at Kuznetsy Most.

“I’ve never drunk alcohol before”
“It’s tasty. It’s worth a try”
“No. It’s ramadan. I won’t even have water”
“Surely you must be so hungry”
“Oh yes! It’s terrible”
“I just had a cheeseburger for lunch. A thick crispy bun and then lashings of sweet mayonnaise dripping over a hot succulent burger. The flavour was like….”
“Stop! It’s killing me!”

We sit at a rickety wooden table, her across from me. At this point I notice a dozen or more small scars on her left forearm. Trying not to stare, I eventually conclude they are self-harm. This girl is a cutter.

“Should’ve left her for Roy” I think to myself. “More his kind of girl“

I order beer and check my watch. Can’t get her drunk tonight and I’m out of time to do second dates. Might as well heat her up, escalate, and shoot for the fences. I begin the questions game. She enthusiastically agrees. Highlights include

• She’s wearing black lace underwear
• She’s a virgin and hasn’t kissed a man
• She thinks about sex all the time, and at least ten times about sex with me since we met
• On a scale of one to ten in horniness she is, at that precise moment, a twelve

I tell her my SDL with a porno star story from Prague last year. Every word of it is truth and it’s a beauty to drop on ratbags when you’re pulling fast. She loves it. I see her pupils dilate and she shifts position in her chair several times.

“What do you like about me?” I ask
“Your face is handsome. And your shoulders. You have deep eyes, like the ocean. And you are very charismatic”

She probably said a few more things too. Call it an IOI. This girl was boiling in her love juices and just staring at me. I try sounding her out verbally about sex and coming to my apartment. I explain I’m leaving tomorrow. She resists. I try waxing lyrically about the joy of freedom and acting on impulse, about how we only live once and it is important to take our opportunities. She still resists.

“Let’s go for a walk” I suggest then lead her to my apartment at the top of the street. She knows that’s what I’m up to and dumbly follows.

She fancies me, she’s horny, she’s been telling me her sexual fantasies, and now she’s following me to my apartment. Too early to pop the champagne but the One-Hour Twenty-Year Old Hot Chechan Virgin SDL flag is looking about 50/50 now, the closest I’ve ever come. And she really is hot, a solid eight.

As we turn into the courtyard, she wobbles. There are just a few parked cars, and the front door to my apartment block at the end. No people. She doesn’t look frightened, just immobile like her anti-grav boots have locked her to the floor.

“I can’t come in” she states, standing in the middle of the courtyard.
I try hand-waving it and key the code into the door lock. I look back and she’s still rooted to the spot, five metres away. I go back and try to coax her in. She’s not having it.
“Do you trust me?” I say. “Do you trust that you can leave my apartment without getting raped?”
“I trust you” she replies. “I don’t trust myself. If I go in, I’ll have sex.”
“That’s the point”
“No. I can’t”

I unzip my trousers and get my dick out, right there in the courtyard at 4pm. It’s rock hard and I’m hoping no-one is looking out of the hundred or so windows overlooking us. I’m not entirely sure why I did it.

She just stares at my dick. Her jaw goes slack, her eyes lose focus and I’m pretty sure she wobbled a little.

“No! I can’t” she whimpers, then runs away back to the main road.

I follow, take her number, and walk her to the metro. After saying goodbye I get a takeaway coffee and walking back past the metro I see her sat in a corner messaging. Then she walks off back towards where we met, the direction I’m headed. I give her ten metres, not intending to re-open. When we cross a road she literally helps an old lady across the road.

Later that evening, I’m checked into a hotel for one night in order to get my police registration stamped. Around 9pm I ping her – “I saw you help an old lady across the road”.

She strikes up conversation and replies fast. After a dozen exchanges I suggest she come around and watch a movie. She agrees to From Dusk Till Dawn and says she’ll get to my nearby metro station for midnight.

She doesn’t come. She blocks me the next day.

 

If you enjoyed that vignette, you’ll love my memoirs – Balls Deep, Deplorable Cad and Adventure Sex