Looking back at that momentous occasion from the present, I can see that the wedding was one of the most boring, but at the time it seemed to Limonov, with his then great yearning need for throngs of people, to be grandiose and significant. I even managed to be, if not at the center of attention, then at least on its periphery, since I was by no means the least attractive man in that crowd and could actually dance better than anyone else, which earned me the attention of the ladies and I suppose the bitter resentment of the men. I was dressed, I remember, in my white suit. The day was sunny and warm, fortunately, although I had in fact been following the weather reports for a week, afraid it would turn cold and I wouldn't be able to wear it, the only impeccable item in my wardrobe. The lively, smiling Limonov, surrounded by ugly girls and women, and as breathless from dancing as a young virgin at her first ball — you know, Natasha Rostov. "Are you a designer perchance?" asked a fifty-year-old-lady, puffing away at her cigarette and rendered even happier and more interested when I told her I was a writer. Another lady of the same venerable age took me for a ballet dancer; obviously, such ladies think that all Russians living in the United States are ballet dancers.

What can I say? I was flattered by their attention, and although it would have pleased me even more to be surrounded by a flock of young actresses and models rather than by a motley crowd of slightly crocked married women jealously watched by their paunchy and sullen better halves sitting at their tables with loosened ties, or by a crowd of Jenny's pimply friends selected as if for their complexions, a gaggle of twenty-year-old girls of various sizes, even those groups stimulated me somehow, although I realized it was all very silly. This is silly, Edward, really silly! I thought to myself, and then grabbing my next partner, I rushed onto the dance floor, desperately seizing from life whatever it was capable of giving me that day, and in fact did give me. The orchestra (certainly Krishna had hired an orchestra) was a jazz ensemble, with saxophones, drums, and a piano — what else; I couldn't expect him to invite Richard Hell and his group, could I? The orchestra liked me too, and even started to accompany me, keeping time to my movements.

I used to have a Polaroid picture taken that day by Raj, a relative of Krishna's, in which I am sitting at a restaurant table in my white suit with the sea behind me and a happily romantic expression on my face. I later gave that picture to Elena, who no doubt has lost it, which would be a pity. Behind me you can make out the head of a woman, or her hair at least; mat's Andrea, the girl I danced with the most that evening and who won me, having prevailed over all her rivals. That is, I fucked her, or more accurately, she fucked me, or even more accurately, we fucked each other a few days later. I was at the wedding with Jenny, after all, and had come in the same car with her, which she drove. Besides, I had no intention of abandoning her that evening or of hurting her; I still cared about her, and anyway it was enough that I had hardly danced with her that day. Andrea and I merely exchanged phone numbers.

Despite my expectations, the bride and groom, or rather the husband and wife, didn't look all that incongruous, didn't seem like grandfather and granddaughter. Even though Jennifer was only twenty, she was stocky, robust, and swarthy, with a coarse blunt nose, and looked older than she was; I would have said she was thirty. Krishna, on the other hand, was just the opposite: he looked much younger than his years, and was tall and well-built for his age, without any wrinkles to speak of on his tanned face, so that I would have given him fifty-five instead of his seventy-two. And so they looked quite normal together — nothing particularly shocking.

Among the guests was a whole clan of Indians: men, women in saris, and even Indian children, and not one of them got drunk, and I noticed too that the men danced, but the women didn't. It also seemed to me, as I looked at the Indian women, that Jennifer very much resembled an Indian girl — it was no accident I'd mistaken her for a Turk the first time I'd met her. Her face was of a generally Eastern type, and if you had taken off her clothes, she would have looked like one of those squat women with fat thighs you see held on the pricks of their grinning Indian rajas or non-Indian sultans, those well-built women sitting or lying in various positions, sometimes very uncomfortable ones, on the pricks of their rajas in Indian colored miniatures tinted in red and in gold. Who knows, it may have been that very resemblance that tempted Krishna into thinking they would be happy together in bed.

Andrea and I met again only a few days after the wedding, both of us waiting a bit, as if out of decency, although we both knew what we wanted. Finally, after a phone call, I went down to her place on Chambers Street in an unfinished loft which she had bought with several friends. Each of them had a separate bedroom but shared a huge kitchen and a gigantic hall, empty and uncluttered, which they planned to use for concerts and dance performances and for teaching and studying dance. Andrea was in fact a student of modern dance, and I soon had my fill of sweaty youths and girls in tights or wide pants and T-shirts portraying snakes or a Chinese theater or whatever while rolling on the floor with significant expressions on their faces — which all seemed so second-rate to me. Nevertheless, during the months I spent fucking Andrea, I posed as a passionate admirer of modern dance, and even went to some of her performances. Andrea was either the seventh or the fifth dancer in "The Silences of the Night," or maybe it was the "The Scream of Day" — I don't remember exactly what, although it had a pretentious title and reminded you of something halfway between therapeutic group gymnastics and a theater for the deaf and dumb.

I didn't burden myself with any any special efforts on Andrea's behalf; we just went to a place called the Ocean Club near her place on Chambers Street for drinks, and I told her, just as I had told Jenny, about how unhappy I was. I told her I didn't want to be a homosexual and had therefore become friends with Jenny, although I couldn't have sex with her because she was very sick. "Jenny and I are just friends. I merely play the role of being her boyfriend," I said, "only please don't tell anybody, Andrea," and Edward made a noble face. I don't use that pitiful technique anymore; it seems unworthy of a man. And I very much want to be a "real man," as indeed I am.

Andrea wasn't required to believe anything I told her — it was just the usual love song of the male; any noises would have done. She wanted my hands on her little body and my prick inside her, and I wanted just as calmly and confidently to see her naked; she probably had short legs and a hairy crack. A twenty-year-old cunt, I thought with a certain aversion.

Andrea told me in her turn how unhappy she was. She had had an affair for a year and a half with a guy who also did modern dance, who crawled on the floor, in other words, and sometimes she thought she still loved him. Pronouncing the word "love," Andrea's face assumed a tenderly bovine, dreamy expression.

Realizing that we were both unhappy, we drank some more, and she suggested going to her place for a smoke — she had some grass at home. We returned to the unfinished loft, went into her bedroom, and lit up. A few minutes later I found that I was fucking her without even taking her panties off but just pushing them a little to one side, and with my own pants in a tangle around my ankles, that I was fucking her and that it was extremely good, as if I had come home again — and doesn't it seem to you, dear reader, that a cunt is a home, warm and cozy? Her sticky cunt followed my prick wherever I wanted it to; if I went to the side, her cunt did too, and if I pressed down, her cunt inclined downward too, softly and benevolently enveloping my prick as it did so. I lifted her dress as high as possible until it covered her face, took her large breasts in my hands, large for a girl so small, and lay down on her as heavily as I could and stroked. She was submissive and only panted, and then she softly moaned. I liked the way she fucked — I don't care for women who are too vigorous — and especially that feeling of domestic tranquility she gave to me. Her cunt was a home, cozy and warm. She came with me, later admitting she had waited.