The woman saw the guy, almost a boy yet, coming in, and snorted. At least he had made up his mind. It was clear that he had noticed her. Many people did it. Tall, long light brown hair, superbly thirtysomething, In fact, almost forty, but no one would have said it...
While the guy came closer, looking to the left and to the right, to simulate an unlikely happenstance, she was checking him with more attention. Young, maybe good stuff, but to be refined, definitely: too casual dress, sloppy attitude, too insecure, social experience very limited. Intentions? Guess what...
"May I sit here?" he asked, looking in her eyes for the first time.
She snorted. He did not want to sit at her coffee table, just at the next one. Of course he could. Was he so insecure to think to bother her just sitting one meter away? Or was it just an ice-breaking line? Well, better than "What time is it, please?"...
"Sure," she said.
"Thanks..." he said. He sat at the table and looked around, breathing a bit too hard. He had mustered all his courage for that approach. Now he felt as a soldier just landed on a beach, lying behind some shelter... The woman smiled, without showing it too much.
She was still smiling when the waiter came and put on the table the ice cream she had ordered some minutes before. The waiter turned and looked at the guy.
"Do you wish to have something?" he asked in a professional but wary tone.
"The same as the lady," he said, promptly. The waiter look at her, with a questioning glance. Is this guy bothering you, madam? She nodded lightly: all in order, let him stay. That guy was totally inoffensive, She could manage him by herself.
The waiter went away. The guy waited half a minute, looking around, and then looked at her.
"Sorry, may I know, what did I order?" he asked. The woman smiled. A typical old style sophisticated comedy line, but said with the right tone. She pointed at the ice cream with her spoon.
"Coconut, chocolate, stracciatella and coffee. And a bit of whip cream."
"Hm!" the guy said, raising his eyebrows. The woman snorted.
"You are thinking that I don't care too much about calories, don't you?"
"Well, I guess you don't have such problems..."
"Oh, yes, the damage is done, already..." she said, looking at her own prosperous cleavage.
"Oh, no, I did not mean... You're fine... You know, where there's... " the guy said. And blushed.
"Where there's what?"
"Ow... never mind... " the guy muttered, in confusion. The woman smiled.
"Where there's fat, there's heat... That's what you meant, right?"
"Well... yes!" the guy admitted. She shrugged.
"And then... Why bother?" she said, taking another spoonful of ice cream. She never had any obsession about diets and so on. And clearly even that point had given the guy the courage of approaching her. Her thriving, buttery body, the fruit of her genes and of the absence of sacrifices, contributed to her cheerful, extroverted appearance. And it even suggested a warm softness in bed. There was no risk of hurting her, in the embrace. Or of getting hurt with the bones...
The waiter came back with an ice cream as the one she had ordered, told the guy the price (pays to be sure), took the money and left the square. Now all was in order, definitely.
She looked at the guy. It had been easy to unbalance him. Not even a minute, and he had complimented her. A sincere compliment. No, he was neither a sex offender nor a rapist. He was a young, hungry male, yes, very, very hungry... But totally harmless. A puppy... An overgrown puppy...
If she ever needed any confirmation to her beauty, to her skill to make any male's heart (and more) beat faster, that guy was giving her plenty of it. Just the way he was looking at her... scanning her body, yes, but first of all...
"Do you like my eyeballs so much?" she asked. Oddly enough, he was looking mostly there.
"Well... yes... the iris, especially..."
She snorted. Yes, her iris, her eyes. Blue, almost non-human eyes. Eyes of a Siberian Husky, as someone had told her. And she had taken it as the very best compliment she had ever heard. And not only because she loved the dogs...
"Sorry... You are not exactly Italian, right?" he inferred.
She smiled, and slowly shook her head no. Not exactly...
"Russian", she said, with a double "r" and a hissing, almost triple "s". And then she snorted. Surely the guy was reviewing in his head all the commonplaces about Russian women, from the noblest to the most low down ones... but his eyes remained attentive, respectful... He had scratched the latter ones from his personal list, on her... Good! "We can give of yourself, if you want."
"Fine... that is... thanks..." he said, a bit confused again. Tender, clumsy guy... fifteen years younger, maybe more, and he would have done whatever to jump on her beds, between her arms, and her legs... "Zavlikala ya malchishku", I have seduced a kid...
"Are you here for the concert?" she asked him. There had to be a rock concert the next night, in the arena close to the seaside. A famous Italian singer, but not one of those classic Italian crooner so famous in Russia too... Other times...
"Yes..." the guy said. "That is, a city break, three days..."
"What do you do at home?"
"University. Economics. Then, if I can, I will follow a master, and then I hope to find a proper job, maybe in Europe, if not here."
Yes, the woman nodded, even in Italy, as in Russia, it was not easy to find a good job, for many skilled joung men and women. There was a diaspora, even there. That guy kept a clear head, and seemed seriously intentioned to follow his ambitions, no matter where. "Ucìtsya, ucìtsya i yeshò ucìtsya", study, study and study again...
"Does studying take much time for you?" She asked. He shrugged.
"After all, I like it. And I know, I'm lucky because I can do it. Many people have not this luck..."
"Don't take on yourself the sins of the world..." she said. "If you were hungry, or even if you just had no girl, the other people would not give a damn, anyway..."
"Well, maybe it's too easy to put it that way... And however... I have no girl, indeed."
He did not say that he never had one. A sense of pride. But she had gotten the picture. That's why she had said it. If he were engaged to a girl, he would have been with her, and not there. And if he had had a girl before, he would have been not so clumsy... So tender...
"Immanuel Kant never had a girl, do you know?"
"Yes... That was why he wrote so much... Sublimation..." he snorted.
She smiled. Nice line. Woody Allen style, more or less. So that guy knew Kant, and how many works he had written. An informed, educated guy. Not so frequent. Surely he passed lots of time on the books. Instead of...
"You are a virgin, aren't you?"
The guy froze, his spoon halfway between his mouth and the ice cream cup. Then he looked at her.
"Why do you ask me that? Is it not clear from my face?"
