Page 148 of Koroleva

I'll confess that I was a bit scared because I thought the quadruped might throw me off as soon as I got on. Fortunately, mine was quite manageable and I quickly got the hang of it. The animals followed the established order and, although it wasn't the most comfortable mode of transportation, the views were beautiful. Romeo kept looking at me and smiling with that "see, woman of little faith" attitude.

We were halfway up when we crossed paths with another group coming down. The guides greeted each other amiably and the animals from the other group continued descending as we climbed, until one, or rather, a female, stopped next to Romeo’s donkey.

As soon as the animal sniffed her, it started braying like mad. My husband tried to control it, but the donkey, stricken by love and a gigantic swelling in its loins, turned one hundred and eighty degrees to chase after Margueritta, which was the name of his beloved.

She, being all flirty, sped up so that Eros, R’s donkey, couldn't reach her. It looked like one of those fast-forward movie scenes. The septuagenarian riding on Margueritta's back couldn't stop screaming, and when she felt the push of the donkey on her flank, she flailed her feet and hands.

My guide was shouting; the other one too; the donkeys started spinning like tops not knowing which way to go, and Eros, stubborn and lovesick as no other, managed to corner Margueritta and rise on his hind legs with Romeo on top to mount her.

Tourists started pulling out their phones to capture the unexpected porn scene.

My husband clung on like a rodeo cowboy, trying not to make a fool of himself and fall on his butt on the stone steps.

And the woman riding Margueritta, who was English, screamed for someone to get that animal off her that wanted to rape her.

It was, by far, the most ludicrous and hilarious situation I had ever experienced in my life.

When the guides finally managed to disentangle the situation by pulling the amorous donkey away, people pleaded for them to let the animals have their moment of intimacy, which they well deserved. As expected, that didn’t happen.

Romeo was sweating profusely, and the English woman kept complaining to the tour organizer.

The guides apologized profusely and offered to comp our trip, which my husband declined, claiming these things happen when you're in front of the love of your life. His eyes sought mine and I could do nothing but laugh and cry.

We had just one more day in Santorini, and I didn’t want our time to end. The thought that I had a whole lifetime ahead to repeat trips like this one with him frightened me more than any bullet.

58

No matter how fast you run...

Andrey

Aleksa looked at me angrily from the bed. From the moment I entered the room and he saw me pull out the suitcase, the expression of happiness that had enveloped him upon seeing me vanished instantly.

"Are you moving?" was the first thing he asked me. I raised my eyebrows and replied, "What does it matter to you?" "Seriously, you're not going to tell me why you're packing your bags?"

He was more irritable than usual after I grabbed his damn bell and threw it out the window to stop him from pestering me with his absurd requests.

If my job had been that, I could have called it harassment. As I approached the bed, his arms multiplied like those of a Hindu god, groping me like an octopus everywhere.

Fed up with his harassment strategy, I assigned another one of my men to take care of him. Don't think he didn't protest. He raised hell over the nurse change, driving poor Omar crazy, who went up and down sticking his tongue out.

He annoyed me so much that the hundredth time I heard the damn bell ring within an hour, I was the one who went up to the room to snatch it from his fingers and throw it against the garden tiles.

Aleksa complained and I ended up telling him to file a complaint form, slamming the door so loud it echoed throughout the house.

I was fed up with his offended teenager digs. But what did he think, that this was going to make me come closer? He had another thing coming.

My salvation came in the form of a call that was going to give me the space I needed to breathe and reorder my thoughts.

I needed to get away, clear my head, not see him, hear him, feel him, or smell him. That's why I was sleeping on that uncomfortable sofa where my feet stuck out, instead of in the bed, next to him.

I had to leave the room because sharing a mattress with Aleksa was a fucking torture and my dick threatened to pierce the box spring every night, just by feeling his body heat nearby.

A cushion tried to reach me unsuccessfully. He had thrown it at me, as a call for attention, without taking into account that his ribs prevented him from making sudden movements.

"I don't owe you any explanation," I grumbled under my breath.

Our relationship was so tense that if it were a guitar string, it would have already snapped.

---