I’ve gotten used to it by now – every day for years, someone I haven’t seen in decades pops into my head. These days, so many things trigger these memories. But yesterday, I think I hit a new peak in crazy associations.
I was toasting Hungarian egg barley when a face flashed into my mind. Actually, it wasn’t even a face – it was a woman’s backside, in an unmistakable position…
I completely froze. What happened was that the image appeared before I consciously registered the real trigger. The egg barley. On that day, I’d eaten egg barley with meat. And then not once for about thirty years. Just like I hadn’t seen the girl since then either.
Sometimes memories work like this. A smell, a taste, a mood – and suddenly you’re there again, that twenty-year-old university student, full of possibilities. The scent of egg barley fills the kitchen, and you’re standing in that old apartment where everything was different: younger, simpler, more intense.
At university, I had a strange classmate. He’d tried six times before finally getting into medical school on his seventh attempt. Not because he was stupid, but because he couldn’t perform under pressure. He’d freeze up, block completely, couldn’t even speak. He was living proof of why psychological screening should be required for medical training.
I think he also had a hefty inferiority complex, and on top of that, things weren’t working out for him with women. All of which explains why he didn’t like me. We can say it plainly: he outright hated me. But he was too awkward even to properly insult me.
That year, I’d taken a gap year, and when we met up later, he mockingly said:
- Gyuri, I’m already a third-year!
- Really… And I just turned twenty. – I replied, perfectly naturally.
Hmm… I’ve wandered quite far from the topic, but this little detour is important to understand why the girl’s story is so spicy. Because this girl was his sister. And she was also several years older than me. Oh, and she had a boyfriend. They were already engaged.
There are few girls I regret not keeping in my life. This girl is one of them – though of course I don’t remember her name either. But I do remember how strangely we met. I was walking up the stairs of the physiology institute when she called out to me from above. She was waiting for me. She said it was because they’d gotten a bunch of Levi’s jeans from Italy, and she knew I was involved in everything like that. I never thought about how she knew. Maybe it was just an excuse to meet me.
That day, I skipped the boring physiology class. We had coffee, went for a walk, hit a party at the PE college that evening, then came back to my place.
The girl was perfect. Beautiful, sweet, funny, smart – and not incidentally, fantastic in bed. The only slight bother was that she went home from me to her fiancé. But that night was so incredible that even that didn’t matter. Just two people met, knew what would happen, and neither resisted.
The next morning, when she left, I could still smell her for ages. That lovely, sweet perfume mixed with her skin, her hair. I hoped this wouldn’t be a one-time thing. This was an interesting new experience for me. I was daydreaming about a girl. I closed my eyes, imagining her again and again.
I could hardly wait for the evening to see her again and spend the rest of the week in my bed. And on the carpet, in the armchair, on the table, the kitchen counter, in the shower, everywhere… On Saturday, we popped over to their place for a few things. Her brother was sitting in his darkened little room, studying. He saw us holding hands and could only manage to grunt:
- There’s a heart anatomy demo on Monday; you should focus on that!
I did not.
We went horseback riding. Or rather, the girl rode while I watched her sit on the horse, admiring that natural elegance, how she moved with the animal. She was wild and graceful at once – as if two worlds had met in her.
After lunch, we definitely weren’t discussing the heart demo…
I’ve had a few sex marathons in my life, but this was the best of them all. I won’t say it was because I was in love – because that’s not true – but there was something in it that went beyond mere physicality. Maybe the knowledge that this couldn’t last long. That this was stolen time that could end at any moment.
In the morning, when we got dressed and left the house, we were both exhausted. She even had sore muscles. I remember how we laughed about that. How she tried to walk normally, but every movement betrayed what we’d done the night before.
This relationship also ended almost without me noticing. We spent Sunday together, then I didn’t see her for days. I waited for her to get in touch, but she didn’t. I tried to reach her, but she didn’t pick up the phone.
One evening, the doorbell rang. She was standing at the door with her fiancé. They counted how many jeans I’d sold, and we settled the money. They were polite, distant. As if nothing had ever happened between us. I never saw them again. They didn’t even come back for the remaining ten pairs of jeans.
I didn’t understand. But the next day, I met a redhead. A natural redhead. Everywhere…
Love is a danger of a different kind
To take you away and leave you far behind
And love, love, love is a dangerous drug
You have to receive it and you still can't get enough of the stuff
It's savage and it's cruel and it shines like destruction
Comes in like the flood and it seems like religion
It's noble and it's brutal, it distorts and deranges
And it wrenches you up and you're left like a zombie
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It's an obsession