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Boris

Nina had a long-time friend Boris, her former colleague. They’d met fifteen years ago at the school where he worked as a teacher of the Russian language, and Nina then organized children’s holidays. Their paths have been different since those times.

Nina started working in a different field, and Boris stayed. However, despite this, they kept in touch in social networks and their communication has recently become more active because of the theme of detachment, which worried them both.

Boris had been long married and had a teenage daughter. Nina was familiar with his wife and believed their alliance to be very strong. Yet recently, she was surprised to find out that he had divorced.

Nina wanted to express sympathy, but Boris told her that he was happy and had found new love. He gave Nina a hint that she’ll be among one of the first to be invited to his wedding. So little by little, they started talking and their chats became more frequent and trustful.

Boris was a very interesting and enthusiastic person. He enjoyed “living history” and was a member of a historical reconstruction club, which focused on the Medieval Russia of X – XIII centuries. The members of this club reconstructed the lifestyle, art, and craft of Medieval Russia.

They were crafting leather, fabric, making authentic costumes and decorations, and utensils, weapons, musical instruments. They were learning ancient languages, sang hymns and epics.

They went to different places and festivals, where members of similar clubs from other cities and even other countries gathered. They lived in tents there, cooked over a fire, danced and sang.

In this club, Boris met his new love, Nadia. She was an accountant, and used to sing old songs in a vocal ensemble in the club. She was forty years old; she was the same age as Boris.

Nevertheless, if Boris had already been experienced in family life, Nadia had never been married. She had plenty of unsuccessful love affairs in her life, as well as no children. A spark ran between Nadia and Boris immediately, and they fell in love with each other.

They started dating, spent time together in the club and outside of it, and couldn’t live without each other. Boris was in seventh heaven, it seemed to him that he had found his destiny and he soon proposed to Nadia.

However, Nadia rejected his proposal and suddenly distanced herself from him. She didn’t explain anything, just stopped talking to him, didn’t respond to his messages and calls. If they had been inseparable before, they now went home separately, not even looking at each other.

Boris didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t talk to Nadia, since she avoided him and didn’t even let him near. Darkness came into his life, as if black clouds had covered the sun forever.

A week had passed, another one, and Nadia suddenly smiled at him when they met and was the first to speak to him. Then it went on as if there had not been such alienation. She was, just as before, laughing at his jokes, taking his hand, and they were walking home together after the rehearsal at the club.

Boris decided not to try talking about it again, he was too afraid to frighten off this state of happiness, as a patient, who just got rid of his sharp pain, tries not to make any sudden moves and walks with caution, fearing that the pain may return again.

They soon went with the club to a festival of martial arts. There Nadia was inseparable with Boris, looked after him and literally fed him with her hands. Boris was happy. In that manner, two months of non-stop communication had passed.

In the days when they didn’t see each other, they were like teenagers, constantly exchanging messages. Nadia was indeed like a little girl, and Boris protected her and took care of her.

She could call him late in the evening and say: “Tell me a story!” And he wrote her fairy tales until she fell asleep…

However, that happiness didn’t last long. For no reason, Nadia distanced herself once more from him. And the avoidance and his despair began again.

Therefore, two years passed with periods of flaming passion and then of chilling cold.

Nadia used to distance herself about once in two or three months, suddenly ceasing to speak, write, call, and pushed Boris away. He used to wonder, why? Even she couldn’t explain her behaviour at that time.

“I don’t know,” she said. Boris reacted in different ways, depending on how she did it. He either tried to be near, or kept his distance and endured.

“I know now,” he told Nina, “that, in the end, it will be over… But I’m bloody afraid that one day she may never come back…”

“Have you asked her how she feels in such moments?” asked Nina. She was worried about this topic because, she too, had a similar experience with the boy and wanted to know at least something about it, even though another person’s experience.

“Nadia feels deep loneliness,” replied Boris, “and I become a stranger to her. It’s painful for her. She suffers and cries into the pillow at night…”

“What do you think, why is she doing this?” Nina asked.

“Try to understand, people used to hurt her a lot…” began Boris, “this is understandable, she’s scared, she’s scared that I’ll leave her. Besides, she was used to living alone…”

“It’s clear that nothing is clear,” thought Nina.

“But I don’t lose hope… After all, she’s my hope!” he finished.

The Hell of love

“No, my boy has something else,” thought Nina. “Some inner pain gnaws at him and he splashes it out on me, hurting me”.

Nina didn’t understand what was wrong with her boy, what was going on in his life. Why was he experiencing such pain, that to reduce it, he had to hurt others?

He cruelly insulted her a few times. Once, during one of the next intimacy and happiness periods, when they were caressing each other with words of love and when their conversation took an erotic turn, the boy asked Nina to send him photos of her naked breasts.

Nina was furious and exploded with anger. However, he was asking for it, like a man, dying of thirst in the desert, asks for a sip of water, and Nina gave up.

She took a picture in front of the mirror, covering herself with a flowing sheer fabric and revealing a part of her breast. He liked the photo; he complimented her and calmed down for some time.

But then he started asking and then demanding more and more of them. Nina had to uncover larger areas of her body. However, he had never sent his intimate photos. Nina decided to end that injustice. She told him that either she would stop sending him photos, or he had to send his in return.

He protested, saying that he couldn’t take that kind of pictures because his parents could enter the room at any moment. Then Nina refused to send her photos and ceased to answer his calls and messages.

After a pause, that took a couple of days, she entered the chat and found a very offensive message from him. He called her an old whore and wrote many other offensive words. Nina thought she was blind when she read the message.

A black dagger of betrayal pierced her back, and the earth opened up under her feet, as she fell into the abyss. She felt like a candle burning under an open sky and an evil wind had put it’s flames out, so that there was only darkness.

It felt like death… If even such a close and beloved man could betray, who and what could she believe? What could she rely on? She wanted to write him something in response, not knowing what to say yet, but was unable to open the page. He had blocked her!

It was another knife in her back. She had read or heard somewhere about how eastern men could betray, that it was okay to give a rose with one hand and keep a dagger in the other one behind the back. However, Nina couldn’t associate that with him, her little boy, her little birdy, as she liked to gently call him…

When the initial shock had passed, Nina began to wonder what made him do that to her. Oddly enough, the word “old” hurt her the most, since she knew that it was true. Indeed, she was a mature woman to him.

Although in her nude photos she could give odds to many young girls, her body was gorgeous and was glowing with mature beauty. However, the abyss of time, which divided them, was still present.

Nevertheless, why did he never show her his body? Due to his virginity and modesty? He wasn’t shy, however, and his sexual fantasies could have easily been a part of any contemporary erotic novel.

Sometimes Nina was surprised, how she as a grown woman and not a nun, indeed, didn’t know the many things that her boy told her. Of course, this awareness was due to the Internet and porn sites, which become part of modern boys’ life pretty early…

Trying to unravel the cause of such aggressive behaviour, Nina started to look through all his pictures that she had. She noticed that in all the photos (and basically they were all selfies), there was only his face or he was captured from the waist up.There were no full-sized photos or photos with his legs. Why? After all, if he loved football and played it with his friends, as he claimed, it would be logical to see him in photos in sports gear, cleats and ball. All the boys, who play football, have such pictures.

“What if he’s disabled or has a problem with legs?!” a horrifying thought came across Nina’s mind. “And football is just his fantasy, the impossible dream…”

That would explain a lot: this pain in his eyes and that inexplicable anger, because he didn’t want to show her his body, and she kept putting pressure on him…

Nina then looked at their relationship from a different angle… Truly, she had never seen him. She only had photos and had heard his voice. He never asked her to chat via Skype or video. However, Nina herself didn’t want to.

She believed that the camera, firstly, distorted the image, and secondly, emphasized all the imperfections and wrinkles. She could see it clearly when skyping with her daughter. But if he had some physical imperfection, would she love him as before, is she knew about it?

Nina imagined different scenarios and thought about how she would react. Would she want to continue their relationship if it was true. Her heart ached with pity for him, but the offense was stronger. Nina decided that no matter what he had no right to insult her, and he couldn’t be forgiven.

Meanwhile, the time went on and she still couldn’t access his profile. The second week of their alienation came to an end… Nina was going crazy from longing and uncertainty. She knew that she just longs for communication that she was used to.

Nevertheless, she had almost forgiven him. His painful words had almost erased from her memory, especially since she immediately deleted the offensive message and had never had the opportunity to read it again.

Nina had nothing that she could do, she didn’t know how to get in touch with him, and his Facebook profile was closed to her. However, at the same time it had positive aspects, because it didn’t let her do anything stupid in the moments of severe depression.

A few more days passed by and suddenly an anticipated message from Ismael came to her account. It sounded just like before, as if there had been no insults, blocking or silence.

“Hey, how are you?” he wrote, “My account wasn’t working and I couldn’t text you. I’ve finally fixed it now.” And no regret for the insulting words.

It was strange for Nina to read that… How could he speak just like before, when she went through so much pain and such a betrayal? When her stable world had fallen into pieces?

She asked him: “Why did you write such words to me?”

“Don’t bear that in mind!” was all that he answered.

Nina tried to explain him her offense and said that she could only forgive him once, and if he would offend her again, she would break all connections with him. However, his only answer was: “Don’t worry!”

And somehow, unexpectedly for Nina, everything went back to normal. He was gentle again and spoke of love. Nina remained silent, yet her heart started melting away, after all, she loved him, and blamed his age for his offensive message, as he was still a child and had no experience with women. And the thought of his possible disability was tearing her apart…

They were back again in the happy times of love, but this case became a precedent of any such future insults and blocking from his side.

Their next major argument took place soon afterwards. The boy once went online on a Saturday night, when Nina wasn’t alone, as her husbands’ nephew with his wife came to visit them, and Nina was working in the kitchen.

She told him that she couldn’t talk at the moment and offered him to continue the conversation later. But he asked her to take photos with the guests and send them to him. The boy was very curious and wanted to know how and with whom Nina was spending time.

Nina took a moment and photographed the guests. The guests and her husband were smiling into the camera. She sent the photo to Ismael. After some time he wrote a mean message.

He asked about husband’s nephew and asked why this guy was looking at her.

“There can’t be any doubt, you are sleeping with him!”

Nina was offended; she said that his jealousy knew no bounds. To which he responded offensively, and blocked her again.

Nina was offended and hurt. Now there was another, new feeling of rage and anger. She decided that she would never return to him, even if he begged on his knees!

Nina was in this state of anger for a few more days. She decided to spend less time on social networks. And if it wasn’t for her business page, she would never return there. Still, she had to do it, and when she went there, she automatically read the messages from new and old friends and answered them.

Yasser

It’s been a few days. Nina once went online to check her page and saw a new friend request. It was someone under the name of Yasser Abdullah from Algeria.

She paid attention to the profile. There were no personal photos, just a picture of a white galloping horse without a rider, the same photo that she sent the boy. In their conversations it was a photo of a girl-rider that represented the “girl-rider” sex-pose.

The background of the profile was a photo of a key-wallet with pendants in shapes of a man and a woman, but the female one was missing. There were no personal photos, only some of nature and some romantic pictures with flowers, candles, kissing couples…

A red bulb with a “Caution!” sing immediately appeared in Nina’s mind. She accepted the request and remained waiting for something to happen. It started off with tender, romantic messages. This Yasser was an interesting person, and they had discussed plenty of themes. They had talked about politics and religion, art, fashion, perfumes, colours.

He surrounded Nina with a cloud of love and adoration. He sent her beautiful songs in Arabic and French. He wished her a good day each morning and good night each evening. He sent her romantic pictures and photographs.

He only wouldn’t send his photos. Moreover, had never called her. He explained that he wanted to be Mr. Incognito for Nina, as it would be so mystical and romantic! Nina long had an idea of who Yasser Abdullah was, but pretended to trust everything he wrote.

She was also intrigued by the game, especially since the profile of Ismael was closed to her. She told Yasser her love story with the boy, and that they broke up.

Yasser showed deep understanding and psychologically went through the whole situation. He tried to comfort her. For Nina, it was consoling and explained her what had happened.

They kept on talking every day about some very intimate things. In addition, although he wrote very differently, in a different manner and style, in other words, but Nina still noticed from time to time that he used some familiar figures of speech. He even sometimes touched the issues that they had discussed with the boy only, and that no one else could have known. All that convinced Nina about the truth her guesses. So one day, she forced him to reveal himself.

They have been chatting, as always. He suddenly asked: “What is the colour of your underwear right now?”

“Try to guess!” answered Nina.

“Black, white, pink…” he started guessing.

“it’s pink,” said Nina.

“Really? I won’t believe until I see it myself! Send me a photo of your pink panties!” Yasser asked.

“Don’t you even dream about it!” wrote Nina and sent a laughing smiley.

“Please, please, please!” he started to beg.

“You know, if you were Ishmael, I would’ve sent you this photo,” wrote Nina. And immediately added: “Ismael, I know it’s you! Ismaeeel!”

That was followed by silence, apparently these words surprised him. Then he wrote:

“Yes, it’s me. Now we’re together again!”

Nina was overjoyed, her heart was madly beating and she asked him a lot of questions about why he was doing it, blocking her from his profile and writing under another name. He told her that his account wasn’t working, but he missed her a lot, so he wanted to be with her. He suddenly suggested:

“I want to meet you in real life. Let’s meet, for example, in Turkey or Tunisia, and we’ll have a week of happiness!”

“Why not in Egypt?” Nina was surprised, “or are you afraid that we’ll come across any of your friends?!”

“No, I’m not afraid,” he said, “I just want to meet you in another country.”

“OK, but how will it happen?” Nina asked. She didn’t expect such a twist.

“Pick a hotel, buy a tour for yourself, and I, too, will come to this hotel at the same time…”

They were texting all night and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They were imagining the meeting. Nina had thousands of questions. What would he tell his parents? Could he book himself a room? After all, considering the law of Egypt and some other countries, he was still underage! Where would he get the money from, since he was not yet working?

He reassured her and said that he would solve everything! For example, he could come with an adult friend. And they would meet officially as friends, and at nights he would secretly come to her room. He would tell his parents that he would go on a vacation with friends. His friends would support him and serve as a cover-up for his parents. Concerning the money, he could borrow it from his friends or his father.

“Yes, you can borrow some, and when we meet, I’ll give you the money, so that you can return it back to them!” suggested Nina.

They had never talked about money until this moment. Nina had heard that many men ask women for money on the Internet, feeding them with different sad stories. She was always attentive to this issue and would never send money to a stranger on the Internet.

However, her boy was an exception. He had never asked her money before. Although she wasn’t aware of the level of prosperity of his family, she thought: “How can a child have money?”. She was ready for everything for him!

“What are you gonna tell your husband?” he asked her in response.

“I don’t know,” Nina replied, “I’ll deal with it. Perhaps, I can tell him I’m visiting my daughter…”

What she would tell her husband was the last thing that bothered Nina, she preferred not to look that far ahead and solve problems on the go. Nina began searching for a hotel enthusiastically and started sending him the options. They had finally finished their conversation in the morning, sending each other a string of hearts and emoticons with kisses. However, the next day everything changed.

When they started chatting again and Nina began to address him by the name Ismael, he started denying everything and insisted that he wasn’t Ismael, he was Yasser. He said that what made him call himself Ismael was his strong love for Nina and the desire to get her intimate photos behind this disguise.

Nina got angry and stopped responding. Everything mixed up in her mind and she didn’t understand her boy. Why would he play this game, if they felt so good with each other? Why would he impersonate someone else?

Nina didn’t respond to his messages for five days. She just kept on reading them with no response, but didn’t block his profile. She wanted to figure out what he wanted and why he played this way. Meanwhile, Yasser, to prove that he wasn’t Ismael, had sent her a photo of his passport.

Indeed, in it there was the name of Yasser Abdullah, the country was Algeria, and he was forty years old. In the photo she saw a handsome thin man with dark hair, white face and European features.

It wasn’t Ismael. Nina read on the Internet that some part of the Algerian population comes from the Berber nation, a unique nation with a European genotype.

Such metamorphosis disappointed Nina very much, and she retreated into silence. Yasser, however, didn’t stop sending her sweet messages and romantic pictures. He told her a little about himself: that he had a small business, a little grocery shop.

He also sent Nina a few of his photos. He soon began to talk about their meeting. Yasser tried to convince Nina that they would spend a perfect romantic holiday, filled with love and tenderness.

Nina thought day and night about what it meant and who had wrote it. Maybe, that was her boy, who continued to play hide and seek with her? She began to respond, at first with short and emotionless messages, and then decided to continue the game and to expose him again. They continued to discuss the meeting and choose the country.

Nina hadn’t been by the sea for a long time and, actually, was already planning on going somewhere to relax in near future. She already had been to Turkey, but never to Tunisia.

She found some information about Tunisia and decided that this country should be very interesting to visit. Firstly, being in North Arica, it was warmer than Turkey and secondly, there was a very diverse nature there: the sea and the Sahara Desert, where you can go on Safari.

Its culture was also very intriguing. In addition, Tunisia is a former French colony, where people from France and Germany love to spend their vacations, which was much better than the dominance of Nina’s compatriots on Turkish resorts.

So, Nina opted for Tunisia and reported it to Yasser. He was very happy and wrote that he would fly even to Mars with her! And again, a red “Caution!” sign appeared in her mind. They spoke with the boy about Mars at the beginning of their relationship.

Nina once told him that an international expedition to Mars was gathering, however, it was only planned to go one way. Those who would go would never return to Earth.

They would have to build a colony on the red planet, to live there for the rest of their lives and die in this far alien world. Most applications from those wishing to participate in this expedition came from the United States, plenty

from India, there were volunteers from China and even some people from Russia. No one from Egypt.

Nina asked Ismael, if he would like to go to Mars forever. He immediately responded: “No! No way! I love my country, my Egypt!” Then he thought, and wrote: “With you I would fly even to Mars!”

Now, after reading that message from Yasser, Nina became convinced that was him, her boy. Then Nina suddenly realized, she suddenly saw the whole situation. Yes, of course, that was him, Ismael, writing on behalf of Yasser.

He wanted to meet her, but secretly. He was protecting their conversations from possible hacking, so he found a way which doesn’t raise any suspicions. He might come with this Yasser. After all, if he was underage, then it would be easier to arrange the trip and hotel accommodation with an adult friend.

“I have revealed your secret plan!” thought Nina and started chatting with Yasser, pretending to believe him, however, she was happy inside, knowing that there was her beloved boy underneath that mask.

She vividly imagined their meeting in the hotel in Tunisia and how she would depict the joyful surprise at first, and then would tell him that she had already figured out everything long ago!

They set up their meeting for mid-September.

Nina bought a package tour for that time in the city of Sousse, in a four-star hotel on the beach. She sent all the info about the hotel to Yasser.

He wrote that he would wait for her on her arrival day in the lobby of the hotel, since he would be coming from Algeria directly to the hotel by car, as his country is bordering Tunisia.

“What about Ismael?” thought Nina, “will he fly from Cairo by plane?… But, in the end, that’s his problem!” she finally concluded. Whatever happens, the main thing is that they, Ismael and Nina, will meet, because they both want this so desperately!

There was not much time before the trip, a little more than three weeks. Nina was nervous that she didn’t have time to do anything before leaving, as her job was a full time trouble.

Then there was the boy, or rather, Yasser, who was sending his messages actively. They had once again discussed the meeting at the hotel: where to meet, what to say to each other, what Nina and Yasser would be wearing.

Yasser asked Nina to send her photos in all the outfits that she planned to take with her. Nina had a photo session in front of the mirror, as if for a fashion show, and sent the photos to Yasser.

He chose a black shirt with an orange long skirt. He said that that outfit fits a very stylish and sophisticated lady, and he wanted to see her for the first time in these particular clothes.

He sent his photo in a white Adidas t-shirt and blue jeans. That, again, was a photo of man from Algeria, whose passport Nina had seen before. She felt annoyed again and she wrote:

“Don’t worry; I’ll recognize you because of your special feature, even if you’re going to wear different clothes!” (Nina was referring to the mole on his upper lip, but didn’t explain anything in order to pretend that she had not found out his disguise!) He responded with a cunning smiley, and Nina calmed down. Everything was going as planned.