Scarf L.

L, a 35-year-old woman, forgot a scarf in the hallway of my apartment. A long, thin, olive-golden weightless piece of fabric retained L.'s scent, and therefore, and from some ephemeral feeling, I constantly wore a scarf in my pocket. Feeling at the same time a strong and young person, cheerful and happy.

L. loved expensive scents and used the morning, daytime, evening, separate for different parts of the body. The forgotten scarf was saturated with the scent of L., and even in the pocket of my jacket there was a persistent and magnificent scent.

We have known L. for 15 years, once worked together in neighboring buildings, fell in love and lived together for 2 months, pleasant but nervous. L. spoke about the wedding, I was silent, because although at that time L. was an emotional, emotional brunette, but ... In my life I have already met another beautiful girl who caused pain, therefore I did not burn with the desire to get married.
According to L., I was the second man in her life. I don't know if this controversial girl was telling the truth about herself. At the beginning of the relationship, I was ashamed that L. was taller than me, but then I got used to it. My pride was flattered that on the street the men turned around after the slender, long-legged L, and her eyes were happy when she looked at me. Peers raised their thumbs up, and more mature men looked at me with sympathy.

Mother L liked me, who salted porcini mushrooms specially for me, an appetizer with bitter Russian vodka. Friends thought we were a great couple, and they were probably right.

Once L. and I had a fight over a trifle. I don’t even remember what exactly was the reason, and we didn’t make up. A couple of days after the quarrel, the Motherland sent me on a business trip for "a couple of months" to a god-forsaken point on the globe. From there I had to fly in the other direction, so it happened, an order is an order.

A year later he returned home thinner and younger, kind and courageous. Then I was ready to love and forgive any beautiful girl I met.

While still in a foreign land, I learned that L. had married my friend, an excellent guy and a brave officer.

Upon arrival, he came to his friend, husband L., congratulated on a happy marriage. We drank vodka "for the meeting" and explained ourselves. It turned out that L. had lied to her husband about our "platonic relationship", "her coldness and inaccessibility," and I, to no avail, "persistently courted and sought her." I loved.

Time flew by, years passed. All people have their own, often difficult life. When I saw L. from time to time, she always looked well dressed, wore gold of a high standard and precious stones, lurid for my taste, a British woman would never wear such, but L., black-haired and temperamental, like a Spanish woman, these bright stones suited.

Once an acquaintance, an exemplary wife and mother of the family told me about L. in a fit of frankness:

• She divorced a good man, her husband-lieutenant colonel, because he is a rogue and a drunkard. Now one daughter is raising. Works for wealthy businessmen and thieves. Actually, this L. is now a lecherous drunkard! "
  I was not pleased with this sad review of the once beloved girl, especially from a serious and generally fair person. But women rarely speak well of their girlfriends behind their backs.

During the New Year holidays, L. and I accidentally bumped into a shopping center, as usual L. looked luxurious in a short sable fur coat, a long gray wool skirt, black high-heeled boots.
L. smiled affably, and her brown eyes seemed to me illuminated by sincere joy coming from within.

Perhaps it was the scent of L.'s evening perfume that finally turned my poor and unhappy head?
But unexpectedly for myself, I slapped L. on her elastic ass, hugged her around the waist and took him to my place.
All the way to my house L. walked obediently, but her eyes flashed angrily and scolded me for what the old world stands for: “Then I often dialed your phone, but you never answered! I looked for you everywhere through the communication girls! that you left me! Because I got married urgently, having acted recklessly and stupidly! "

I was silent, because you never know what a woman is talking about? True, L. gave one of the addresses exactly, but almost no one knew him. It turned out that L. was really looking for me then? It became sad from such thoughts, and I decided to throw them out of my head.

In the wrong evening light, slender and graceful L. looked like a young, very seductive woman. The beauty looked at me invitingly and tenderly, pressed her whole body, caressed my hand with her long fingers. It seems to me that this is how a woman demonstrates love. This cannot be faked. What more could a man want from his beloved woman ?!

We came to my house, I put wine and cognac on the table. L. called her mother and asked to look after her daughter. She drank a small glass of wine, and I two large glasses of cognac, after drinking which I did not feel drunk, but only a little drunk.
Emboldened by the cognac he had drunk, he lifted the woman in his arms and carried her to the double bed. L. ordered not to light the fire, because her "chest no longer sticks out, and her ass became flat."

At night L. cried a couple of times, real tears flowed from her eyes and snot from her nose. The woman mumbled quietly and quickly: "- I would be happy to marry you. Give birth to children and wait from work with a delicious dinner on the table!" … .And so on, feminine, banal, meaningless.

I was silent, but a block of ice melted inside me. The realization of the correctness of L.'s words came, and it became bitter.
Finally he turned the woman back, hugged her and my tears dripped onto her long, thin and silky hair. So that she would not notice my tears, I breathed quietly and evenly through my mouth.
L.'s hair smelled like Japanese shampoo and was thick. I hope that her beloved did not notice my tears.
L. tenderly kissed my palm, and with that I fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the woman was no longer in the apartment. Only a subtle scent of perfume reminded of the one who spent the night with me. This aroma disturbed and disturbed the soul, began to look for its source. In the end, he found L.'s scarf on a hanger in the hallway, brought a thin piece of cloth to his face and felt the joy and strength of youth, as if he had thrown off the burden of a difficult and mediocre life from his shoulders ...

Ten days later, in the building of the Arbitration Court, I met L., and silently handed the hostess her scarf. The woman barely nodded her head to me, took the scarf from my hands and smiled politely with the corners of her lips.

We went further each our own way and did not even exchange phones.

Today in the middle of the night I woke up, sat on the bed and aloud called myself a nerd. I could have guessed and bought a similar thing, and gave it away. And L. will keep a genuine fragrant scarf for himself as a talisman and a memory.