Parisian chocolate can be bitter

– Carnival Samba

“How nice of you to keep my portrait.” I thought Mignot had lured him away from you a long time ago, “he heard the first thing as he came back sweating and sweating with his shopping.

Camille was after a shower. There was a magical freshness about her. She sat majestically in bed, covering her nakedness with a blanket, and brushed ashes at arm’s length through the window. At that moment, her neck was like Nefertiti’s, long, straight, and very beautiful. It was obvious that she was trying to match the immaculate image of herself in the picture. The faint sun filtered in through the half-open curtains, giving her ex-wife an aura of divine choice. So many years have passed, and everything feels like yesterday. But something is definitely missing. Cop-cop! Fluff is now rubbing against the legs of Basil, who is forced to squeeze out “Kitekat” directly on the parquet floor, just to get off.

“Similar?” Camille arched a little to the side.

“There was no juice, but I bought your favorite absinthe,” he ignored her question. – We need to celebrate your return somehow.

“Return…” she repeated the words, adding a little meaning to them.

Basil looked at his ex-wife so that she would know what she was going to pay. Carnivorous and brutal, without a trace of embarrassment, with a kind of threatening growl. This is how chained males look at a mouse that accidentally got into their bowl of soup. But Camille didn’t even bat an eye, blew out a puff of smoke and tried again to match the majestic image in the painting. Basil shrugged and cracked his vertebrae. He seemed to be giving up on her a little, and he couldn’t help but look away from the original to the portrait that hung on the wall. He had been able to tolerate one Camille for a while, but now two of them were staring at him with biting derision. Rumbles and noises filled the space. It was Basile who dumped the purchases on the table, causing the cat to run around the room with a wild cry. Did he just stupidly step on her tail?

– When was the last time you washed your vest?” Camille asked, taking all this sudden commotion with surprising equanimity.

“Since you left,” he said, trying not to notice the damned woman again.

There was a lump in my throat. Why hadn’t he ever tried to get her back?

– Yes, yes… Your habits are ineradicable. And you still scratch your chin when you’re worried…

– I’m not worried. I just finally got a wisdom tooth.

“Well, well. Can I help you set the table, honey?”

– No, “he said, and tossed the box with the new iPhone in it onto her lap, then found a pair of bras, a thong, and some other things in the pile of purchases. But Camilla didn’t even move, letting out a mysterious cloud of smoke and looking at this strange Russian.

– You won’t even look at what I bought?’ – What is it? ‘he asked, uncorking the bottle with his teeth. – Latest model. 12-megapixel camera…

– Do you know what I was thinking while I was waiting for you?”

“About what?”

“That I’ll smash this trinket against the wall… After all, they follow our every move, know what we want and what we are planning. You won’t believe it, but on the eve of the fire, I persistently received ads for fire extinguishers. We stopped communicating normally, buried in these devices. We do not see anything in front of us, burning out life in an unreal world....And all the present is here and now. Here you are now, standing before me, so beautiful and strong, and smelling of courage. I know you’re far from perfect, but you’re not Photoshop either. Oh, I would be so happy to resume pigeon mail in the country!

“I think we’ll come back to that later,” he finally said.

– It is extremely difficult to intercept such a pigeon… I have heard that there is a post pigeon house in Versailles.

– I don’t care about this palace, it’s not ours.

Camille smiled indulgently.

– It’s not about whose palace it is. It’s the segregation of the French. During the pandemic, everything fell into place. Some get rich, others drag out their miserable existence and survive as best they can… The old sores of society were laid bare. In general, the old song…

– Don’t I don’t want to upset you, Camille, it will always be like this, “he spat the cork on the floor, and the cat jumped out of hiding, jumped after it and began to play, rolling it under the sofa.

“No, I believe in future equality…” and the woman made a heart out of smoke and sent it to her ex-husband. “And you believe it yourself, Basil… We all believe. We believe it, because it will never happen, “she added bitterly.

“Yeah,” the man sighed, acknowledging the fact that his ex-wife had grown wiser over the years of wandering around without him. – Faith, it is from God. There’s nothing you can do about it. Everyone believes in their own fairy tales.

Camille reached out again and brushed the ash out of the window. Something in the courtyard distracted her, and she perked up.

“Oh… that fool is begging for your leniency…” she noticed Krever hopping by the windows and gave him a flirtatious kiss. “Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo… what a quick boy!

Well, that was too much. Basil hated it when someone poked their long nose into his den. The curtains were abruptly drawn, plunging the room into a mysterious gloom.

“You’re so harsh with people,” Camille said, and patted the strong hand of Basil, who now seemed to be jealous of everything in the world. – You think I can fly out the window?”

– You might get blown out…”

“Well, well… let’s dance.”

“Let’s dance.”

Basil went to the shelf of old CDs to find something nostalgic, something pleasant, and blew the dust off the speakers. He remembered their first meeting. His French friends had been trying to persuade him to relax for a long time, and immediately after the fight with Didlo, everyone went to celebrate the championship belt in the Agile Rabbit. There, by the pylon, a whore shone in the rays of multicolored laser beams, and some drunk guy on all fours was trying to shove a crumpled bill under her stocking. Basile would probably have killed him, if it hadn’t been for “Coundo pienco en ti”… yes, yes… that tune wasn’t played for nothing. Camille had hung upside down, her slender legs raised to the floor, playing to the music. Her gorgeous hair brushed lightly against the dance floor, and without expecting it, Basil dropped to one knee.

– Will you marry me?” he shouted over the music.

Is that what suggestions do? But the stripper nodded and burst into tears… and now their eyes, exhausted from loneliness, shivered, glistened with tears…

“Ugh, gray hair! Are you sleeping with your grandmother?

When dealing with Camille, you have to be cool-headed. What the hell did it matter who came to him and why?

“You’ve been under a lot of stress, drink up,” he ordered.

Jose Feliciano’s voice continued to sound wistful, inviting them to embrace each other, but for a long time they each held a cup of absinthe in their hands and stared at their reflection, as if trying to see the near future in it. When the song ended and there was silence, the former couple seemed to slowly and painfully wake up from their sweet, intoxicating dreams.

“Drink up, bitch, or I’ll send you out.”. Basil broke down first.

“When I hear Spanish spoken,” she said calmly, “I want to dance, when I hear French spoken, I want love, but when you send me in Russian, I want both.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and threw her head back as she forcibly poured the contents of the cup down her throat. She drank clumsily, wincing, choking, and spilling half of it on herself, taking long, long sips like wet swamp water. And suddenly she was amused, and she lay back and twitched as if in the agony of death.

“You’ve poisoned me, Little Bear … “she laughed. “What a bad scheming boy… I don’t know what you’re going to do with my still-warm body right now.

Her hysterical laughter stopped abruptly. Basile drank too, and in the stealthy silence of the room went to the bed where they were waiting for him. His chest burned with a long-forgotten fire, and his step was soft and silent. This is how a lion prowls across the savanna to his antelope. Camille propped herself up a little on her elbows, savoring the moments before his final leap. Why did he hesitate, why? Because he felt this very love that he had once suppressed in himself, a love that seemed to have died, but suddenly claimed its rightful rights, like a miraculously resurrected heir.

– You’re scaring me a little, “she whispered. – It gives me the creeps.”

He tossed the blanket aside and looked down at those thighs spread out in front of him, the way she was grinning, knowing he was about to pounce on her.

“All right, I’ll keep quiet, I’ll try to keep quiet…”

“Shut up!”

She had lain before him haughtily, with bold defiance, expecting nothing but rudeness from him, and now, to his horror and shame, he was trembling with tenderness.

The absinthe dripped down her nipples, over her tattooed tummy, soaking into the sheets… and Camille seemed to be at peace, like a living icon. Then she took a long, deep drag, like before the shooting, almost all the way to the filter, and squinted, blowing a cloud of smoke in his direction. The ember on the end of the cigarette flickered dangerously in the half-light. Camille started to say something else, but he leaned on top of her, covering her mouth with his hand, pressing her hard into the bed. No, he can’t be gentle with someone who sees nothing but rudeness in him.

“Shut up, bitch! Be quiet!

She gasped for air through his rough fingers, and he sank deeper into her, not feeling the bottom at all, drowning in her intimate wetness, showering kisses on her absinthe-flushed neck. He was insatiable. Her body shuddered as if under the influence of an electric current from each of his kisses. She moaned softly, wrapping her arms and legs around him. He was already at the limit of his abilities…

“Come on, come on! she wriggled under his fading caresses, but he was already sliding off her on his side. – No, no, no, don’t stop…”

She was still flushed and trembling, as if in a fever… at the height of her excitement. Another second of effort, a light breath, and she would have closed in, she would have exploded like a bomb… but Basil pulled away from her, shielding his face with his hands, burying his head in the pillow.

“There’s five thousand dollars for Julien’s head,” he said.

– Yes? I wouldn’t give you a dime.

“Me, too.”

– You know where he is, right?”

– I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“I’m surprised at your generosity. But then, you’ve always been like this.

“Which one?”

“The Good one.

Basil sighed.

– When you came inside me, I thought I wanted your baby.” It’s so weird… Do you still love me?

He didn’t answer, and his silence loosened her tongue even further.

“I was supposed to have a carnival samba tonight,” she said, looking visibly sad. – I bought so much champagne… so many guests were invited… We decorated the hall with balloons… You would have come, wouldn’t you?

– I don’t know. Why would you bother with me?

– I just wanted to show you off to my new girlfriends.” No one believes that I lived with you for half a year…

He grinned. When else was Camille a matchmaker?

“Imagine, no one even bothered after the fire.. What callous people have become! You’re the only one who’s different, Basil… you’re not going to throw me out the door after all we’ve just had, are you?

And why not? He looked at her strangely.

“Shut up…”

– Why are you being so rude to me?” Yes, I don’t have any cash. No home. The only one who can help is you… You’re mad at me, I know… too much pain, too little time… but I really love you. Don’t laugh. I only realized that now.

“Shut up!” You promised not to say anything.

Camille sighed and fell silent. At that moment, a cat jumped into her lap. Now the resemblance to the painting on the wall was complete.

– Something boring… Would you like to dance with me, honey? She suggested, getting up from the bed. “Turn on something else.”

Basil scratched his chin.

“Don’t be a bugger, will you?” and Camille put her hands on his shoulders in a peaceful way and made a few deft steps with her hips, then stepped back and beckoned Basil to her with her finger.

– You can’t turn around here, but still…”

He had a sudden vision of their bodies, heated from this vulgar sex, twitching against each other in this crazy beat of the Latin American program, and he felt a little uneasy. He scratched his chin again. For complete madness, you need to let Julien down and take a couple of dance lessons from him.

– Where are you hiding it?” Camille suddenly guessed the train of his confused thoughts.

“Who?”

“Him! she insisted, raising an eyebrow. – Do you think I’m a complete fool and didn’t recognize that rabbit fur coat?” Where are you hiding it, tell me immediately!?

The boards on the ceiling creaked treacherously.

“He’s hiding himself. You can go up to him for your bra. I’ll help you leave. Next week, the truck is heading for the Spanish border.

“To the Spanish border?” Very nice of you! There’s a lot of traffic there.

The woman began to dress hurriedly. Basil could tell by her nervous movements that she was up to something.

“This is crazy,” Camille wailed, pulling on her new stockings. – You’re sending me to the Spanish border…”

– I thought it was safe there… The ban on visiting the milongas has been lifted for a month now… and you could have danced to your heart’s content.. – What is it? “he asked defensively, handing his ex-wife a dress that he hadn’t even cut the label off.

Camille just snatched it out of his hands.

– Of course, you’ve taken care of everyone as usual… you say the truck’s coming next week?”

A friend of mine carries oranges to Paris via the Pyrenees…”

The woman began to search for her shoes, running around the apartment as if on cue.

“There they are, over by the couch…” he prompted, also annoyed.

Camille quickly put on her shoes and walked around the room once more. In the midst of all this hassle, she suddenly saw the iPhone’s box, tore it open, and began to examine the device.

“Who are you calling?” He wondered when he saw her nimble fingers glide across the display.

– And don’t even try to stop me!’ – No, ‘she warned.

Basile scratched his chin, listening to Camille give up her dancing master easily and easily, and finally got up from the couch and squared his shoulders. As if he felt a little better, everything was back to normal again.

“Will you walk me out?” – What is it? “she asked, tucking the iPhone under the elastic of her stocking.

– no.

– Well. Ciao, honey! And take care of my cat, I’ll pick her up later.

The door slammed. Then he counted the minutes. One, two, three. The police siren sounded. Basil went to the window and carefully opened the curtains. Nothing special. As always, the gendarmes have taken up hiding places and are flashing their guns. Looks like they’re shooting a stupid Hollywood blockbuster. Basil grinned. It’ll be fun when they shoot an attic pigeon in someone else’s feathers… but what is it? Camille says something about the presumption of innocence, prevents the gendarmes from taking aim. She herself calls Julien so affectionately and soulfully that all the male people gather at her call from all the gateways. Basil feels a twinge of nausea. Do not drink absinthe on an empty stomach.

“Julien, come down!” It’s all over. Don’t be a beech tree. We’ve all been wanting to see your cha-cha-cha for a long time! Come on, come on. Use your foot carefully. We won’t do anything to hurt you. Don’t be afraid, my bunny.

But the fugitive dance master is in no hurry to throw himself into the hands of justice. Obviously, he doubts the strength of the ladder, which he previously so unwisely climbed. He touches it carefully with his foot, like a diver before jumping into cold water. The gendarmes lurking behind the shelters are noticeably nervous, someone suggests shooting to kill, so as not to suffer… They even almost used Crever, who was hovering under their feet, to shake Julien’s hand, but Julien refuses, explaining convincingly that he is not allowed to go to the mountains… and then hiking in the mountains, no one understands. Fortunately, Madame Rabinski runs out of the house with some kind of white blanket, talking to the main person. He nods knowingly and shouts wildly into the megaphone, telling everyone to obey without question, or they’ll blow the house to smithereens. Great ultimatum. Madame Rabinski must be fainting. Krever picks her up, but it’s not entirely clear who’s taking whom to the bench. Basil scratches his chin. Well, in a minute or two, the poor fellow, covered with straw, jumps down like a scarecrow, crying, onto the canvas spread out in front of him. Madame Rabinski proudly tells Krever that she is so glad that her late husband’s shroud, which she hid for a rainy day, saved someone’s life. Julien seems happy, too. His light, agile body bounces like a ping-pong ball. The straightened dress serves as a parachute when landing. Basil sees Luc Besson in the crowd again. But no, it’s pretty serious. No cameras. The fugitive dance master is grabbed by the scruff of the neck, wrung and handcuffed behind his back, then roughly pushed into the back seat of the car. What for? So he doesn’t put up any resistance. Papa Lucien laughs at the prisoner in the dress and hands him the heel that was broken off during the jump.

– I jumped up and down…

Julien doesn’t care. Where they send him, they don’t go in those stilettos. He grins at everyone like a hunted wolf.

“Don’t worry, kid. Everything will be fine! Camille shouts, acting out some dramatic scene.

The gendarmes try to remove her, but she still makes a loud noise, although the prisoner still does not notice her at close range. Through the shaded window of the car, he looks inquisitively at the windows of the house, as if he wants to meet someone’s eyes.

But Basil is no longer entirely interested. A monstrous annoyance overcomes him. Everyone hears the Russian foul language coming from behind the curtains and, despite the lack of an interpreter, they realize that some idiot has just lost five thousand Euros.

“Yes, we will record, madame, your direct assistance in catching the criminal,” the gendarme nodded, when Camille calmed down a little and began to prove something, counting on her fingers. “No one’s going to hurt that bouncer. Of course, come with us, madame. You’re the main victim. And you, monsieur in the fez, stand back a meter and a half! And you’re a monsieur in a suit. How much more can I tell you?

Well, of course! As always in such cases, the insurer Krever is bustling. He left Madame Rabinski groaning on the bench and now looks like a pinscher jumping around a hunter who is holding a hare over him by the ears.

“Monsieur gendarmes, Monsieur prisoner, madame, just a moment, just a moment. I have a suggestion that is important to all of you, and one that will certainly interest any sane person, regardless of whether they are handcuffed or not. We all walk under God, monsieur, madame… everyone knows what’s going on in the city. In Paris. The epidemic is raging, morgues are overcrowded, there are not enough plastic bags and protective masks, and corruption is rampant in cemeteries due to a lack of land. Our company offers you in advance to worry about the place of your unfortunate stay and insure…

But they don’t listen to him, they scowl at him, push him away, and even threaten to shoot him, and in the end, annoyed, in a kind of wild despair, he collapses as if knocked down on a bench, muttering under his breath:

“Stupid, stupid people, madmen who pass by their happiness…

Madame Rabinski, who is sitting next to him in a semi-fainting state, pats him on the head, as if she has confused him with her Mosh.

“Yes, yes, that’s what you say, Monsieur Crever. Stupid madmen! Well, nothing! We won’t all suffer for long. Chipization is canceled, all of us will starve to death. You probably haven’t heard, my friend, yesterday’s UN forecast on the state of agriculture?

“Oh, I’d love to eat manna from heaven.”

– In the Bois de Boulogne

Eh, what month is the delay? Money, money, where can I get the money to pay for the rent of this miserable shack? This time, he will have to sacrifice the fighting gloves that he used to beat Didlo. Mignot had promised to give them a good start. An hour has already passed, but the “high-cost junk steamer” seems to have sunk into the ground and does not pick up the phone. Of course, according to the theory of probability, or rather, according to the law of meanness, they can simply miss each other, running along different paths, or maybe that one has failed, did not come? No. He must come! When it smells like big money, Minho is always there.

Basil was looking for an auction agent, running all over the Bois de Boulogne like the devil. Yes that there. It’s your own fault. After Camille’s invasion, he’s on beans and sucking his paw, and this scumbag Bruno and his boys are bothering him so badly at the wrong time. The plywood door is unlikely to survive another siege, and if this goes on, the idiot Krever will actually be put in his side. Although there is a faint hope that the latter lives with Madame Rabinski. At least there aren’t any suitcases in sight.

The sky was beginning to rain, and the former Octagon champion stopped under a pine tree to change into dry clothes. It’s about three degrees outside, it’s wet and windy, and you can catch a cold, and if you go to the hospital, they’ll inject you with something that will cause your kidneys to fail, and people in white coats will throw up their hands, saying that nothing can be done – a side reaction. Basile had already lost an acquaintance who worked as a janitor in the Saint-Vincent city council. He was an old, unkillable devil, always with a broom. Everyone was afraid to drop the candy wrapper in front of him, the hooligans were going around like crazy, and then Papa Lucien coughed something, got sick, went on dialysis, and all Paris was covered in red leaves from chestnuts…

But the Bois de Boulogne is in perfect order. By the way, last time Basil also changed here. The place itself is pretty: the water surface, and there splashes over the water roach, and even a fabulous ferry goes to the island where the restaurant is located, some duck hides its head under the wing, fishermen at the pier. And about fat burners… Better still, proper nutrition and juices, linden clearly loads the bladder.

I heard the crunch of pedals behind me, and Basile was still hosing down water all around him. A rather long column of teenage cyclists was passing by. This kind of activity takes place here almost every day, as the mayor’s office plays along with young people if they comply with the law. And these are probably from school. Everything is as it should be: all in muzzles and hoods, and no hugs and kisses! It is allowed only to laugh and whisper.

– Can you imagine, it gives directly with a cage and a wooden wheel… It turns so funny, “puffed one plump girl, pushing on the pedals with all her might. The bike clearly couldn’t support her weight. – And my mother says don’t start squirrels.” He’ll bite you, and then you’ll give him a hundred shots.

“And you didn’t take what?” After all, for nothing, “another, equally plump friend of hers was surprised, as she prudently dismounted, since the path was going up.

She glanced sideways at Basil and seemed to wink at him, obviously recognizing him as an onanist. And this is in his incomplete fifteen, or maybe fourteen years. Basil hated youngsters. He always has some problems with them.