How I Became a Woman. Gender Reassignment: How I Became a Woman How I Became a Woman stories

I immediately warn you that NOT MINE). I stumbled across one forum, but could not help posting!)

• Let's start with the fact that my grandmother now lives with me. No, because I am a woman. This fact seems obvious when looking at me (well, I hope), but, nevertheless, sometimes surprises me myself. In the household, I am an absolutely superfluous element. To clean, wash and pickle cucumbers (especially cucumbers) I am chronically unfit. The most annoying thing is that I can do all this, but I stubbornly do not want to. I’d rather do something more creative: I’ll sit on the Internet, take a walk with the dog, dream about the future - the same thing, by the way.

• But, having turned out to be no housewife, I turned out to be an excellent manager: I surrounded myself with household appliances and, if necessary, servants, who in our time are delicately called house helpers. Assistants are so assistants, I am deprived of snobbery. Therefore, for all my uselessness, order and delicious smells reigned in my not very large, but quite spacious and comfortable apartment. Only now you don’t need to tell me that, they say, it’s good for you, you have a lot of money ... Don’t do this. No money fell on our family, there was no big inheritance, no lottery winnings. We got married as poor students and sometimes had to choose between soap and a trolley bus. Then my husband's career went up, and I, pushing around in search of a job in my specialty, graduated from design courses and settled at home. Well, how I settled down ... I began to work at home, fulfilling orders for the most varied design of everything. Over time, I developed a solid client base, and I no longer fit into a standard working day. Therefore, while the washing machine was washing, the dishwasher was washing dishes, the multicooker was multicooking, the coffee machine was spitting aromatic drink into my cup, and the robot vacuum cleaner was wandering around the house in search of garbage, I plowed honestly and selflessly. In general, I don’t know who pulled me to study as a microbiologist, while my life’s work turned out to be completely different.


• Products and other necessary purchases were made on the Internet, and personnel were searched there, if necessary: ​​either to wash the windows, or to clean the sofas. When our aged daughters were small, a nanny came to them, and when I was sick, an older schoolboy who lived nearby was called for a daytime dog walk. Good boy.


• If there were cases that were not subject to either household appliances or called specialists, then my husband and I (and later with our daughters) did them together. I was very comforted by the fact that my household hates homework as much as I do. It said that justice exists, and also that we are a family.


• So we lived with my missus for nine happy years. About “happy” I turned down a little, because show me people who live for nine years without conflicts, but the fact is that our marriage was quite strong and nothing threatened him.


• Until... until my grandmother broke her hip. There is no need to ask me why we took the grandmother to us, and not the family of her daughter, that is, my mother: it will be a completely different and not very funny story. Previously, such an injury was a sentence, but now my grandmother had an operation - a prosthesis was inserted. Grandmother received an underground nickname "Iron Leg" and the ability to move around - but only around the house and on a walker. It didn't happen right away. There was a very long period of pots, diapers, a strict diet ... as well as whims and dissatisfaction with life being dumped on me. The trouble is that my grandmother stubbornly did not want to understand that I was not sitting at home, but working, so I do not have time for soul-saving conversations in conjunction with cooking diet meals for her three times a day.


• Maybe someone read in my lines dislike for my grandmother and even irritation with her. I will not explain anything: those who have been in my situation will understand. And whoever doesn’t understand, let him first find a person who is dragged by the smell of senile liquid and solid waste, likes to listen to constant stories that now you don’t have it now, but as a bonus to rest on an old broken-down sofa, on which it’s not much better to sleep, than bare rocks. After about a month of living like this (which, unfortunately, fell on a “hot” working period), I hated everything at once. My existence resembled an endlessly gray dead end, from which there is no way out and cannot be. It's like in the movie "What Men Talk About" - I have reached a state where you no longer want to want something. Who watched the movie, remember what it's called.


• And then (just don't laugh) I came across the site of Olga Navalyaeva. She, along with another guru - Oleg Taksrunov, taught women to be women with a capital letter. They took the Vedas as a basis and said things, in general, correct .... By the way, I am surprised that one important fact did not alert me: Taksrunov had five wives.


• In general, I decided to become a "Vedic" woman. Moreover, according to the followers, the effect is awesome: the husband begins to earn a lot and give gifts to his wife. My husband's salary is already quite high, but the gifts ... yes, it was a weak point in our relationship. For all the holidays, he gave me a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of martinos, and I handed him a personally designed postcard. And it was also believed that everyone could independently take money from the family budget for something expensive for themselves: for example, I got a dog and a new computer, and my husband got a 450-liter aquarium and some obscure crap for cars . But there were no real, touching and romantic gifts for a long time. Probably never. And I thought it would be great... oh, how great it would be...


• In general, from Monday I firmly decided to embark on the path of the keeper of the hearth. Not the same as I am now, but the real one. If you believe the gourams, then for this you had to wear a long skirt. Without a long skirt, the hearth cannot be stored in any way. In principle, I loved long skirts, but at home I preferred something shorter and more practical.


• However, it is said: a skirt means there will be a skirt. Followers of the Doctrine swore that the skirt greatly helps in household chores. It's true: it is very convenient to collect dust and dog hair from the floor. For everything else, it absolutely does not fit. I was confused in a skirt, swearing quietly (according to the Vedas and Navalyaeva, a woman should speak in a low voice), but, in principle, I coped with the quest of the first day: without the help of technology, I put things in order at home and personally cooked dinner for my husband. I also told myself all day that taking care of my grandmother was my karma and all that. And, you know, almost agreed. Comp beckoned to work, but I did not succumb. It was a small victory, from which a new person will soon be built - I am in the form of a real, correct wife.


• You also need to walk three times a day - this is at least. Damn, the Vedas were written in warm India. And I live in Siberia. But, putting on a smile on my face, and another long skirt on my body, I courageously walked three times in the drizzling October rain. The next day I began to blow my nose and even have a slight temperature, but I convinced myself that this was how the wrong energy was coming out of me. And - a miracle - indeed, the signs of the disease disappeared as imperceptibly as they appeared. So I'm on the right track.


• The first bummer overtook me that very night. The gurus said that during sex, a woman should not think about her pleasure, but only about the pleasure of her husband. No, I can't go for that, I thought. But then I decided to be Vedic to the bitter end. I must say that in our family it was always good with intimacy: even in the pregnant and postpartum period, we found time and strength for this kind of communication. And when my grandmother moved in with us, taking the bedroom, we still managed to merge in ecstasy almost every night. But tonight should be special - I will not just fuck, but transfer my creative energy to my husband ... As they said on Navalyaev's website, the effect will not be long in coming, you just need to think about the partner's feelings all the time. And so I began to think .. thought and thought ... thought. My thoughts were interrupted by the voice of my husband: “Are you all right?” “Yes, darling,” I answered meekly (transmitting energy, of course).


• My husband is a man of courage. He endured a huge period of time - about 10 nights. He even took pity on me, attributing my deadness in bed to fatigue. And then I could not stand it - he brought me flowers. Yes, the followers said correctly: there will be an effect. Therefore, the next night, I tried to convey to my husband the energy of creation even more, even more carefully. After that night, he stopped waking me up with kisses. And generally wake up. But he began to give flowers and even real gifts more often. Strange, but I accepted them without joy: it seemed to me that in this way he was trying to buy from me something irretrievably gone in our relationship.


• “But sex is not the main thing, sex is not the main thing,” I consoled myself, twisting the strap of the expensive handbag presented by my husband in my fingers.


• And the gurus also said that the husband should be pushed to make decisions and, of course, his decisions should be implemented. Once in the first week of my Vedic life, I asked for a long time what to cook for him for dinner. Reluctantly looking away from the computer, he muttered irritably:


• - Goose in apples!


• It was lucky for me that he did not answer; "Mr. on a stick!" So he answered sometimes when I got him by compiling a menu for a slow cooker. What should I do then, huh? But, fortunately, he only asked for a goose in dapples. In the morning, having made the first of three walks, I went to the market. For a lot of money, I found this unfortunate goose, the only one in the whole meat pavilion, according to the recipe from the Internet, I shoved apples into it ... In the evening, my husband, traditionally looking into the slow cooker, asked:


• - Where's the soup?


• - Well, you asked for a goose in apples, and I made a goose, - I answered, naively flapping my eyelashes.


• - What goose? I didn't say it, I couldn't say it!


• And with displeasure set to the bird, delicately pulling apple seeds out of it.


• So my attempt to cook food according to the orders of my husband failed. Even earlier, an attempt to make him breakfast failed. Looking dumbfounded at the dish of pancakes that I baked, getting up at half past five in the morning, my husband blindly chewed on one, took a sip of coffee from the coffee machine and left for work. This went on for several days, and I was finally convinced that my husband did not have breakfast simply because he did not want to.


• Apart from these and other trifles, in less than three months I was transformed and, in general, I was satisfied with my transformation. I did not quit my job (the Vedas, thank God, do not forbid women to work), but I reduced the number of orders exactly to the level so as not to lose customers. A peaceful smile now always shone on my face, and the caressed grandmother was extremely pleased with my behavior. Only now the daughters have become suspiciously quiet and eerily obedient. But the husband was very good: caring, responsible and very serious. Like it's not mine. And sex was reduced to almost nothing. In the depths of my soul, I was afraid that my beloved had another woman, but I drove these thoughts away from me. After all, everything was fine. All was good. Fine! I'M FINE!!!


• On that day, I received an order in the mail: big, good, money. And, most importantly, very interesting. Probably the one I dreamed about all my life. All my past life. And now it was necessary to give it up: it would take a lot of time and energy to complete it, and I would not be able to devote much time to the housework and transfer enough creative energy to my husband. No, I can't take this job. Here I go for a walk for my second time a day - and refuse.


• Again a smile on her face, a long skirt on her body. And the road is icy. Today, my legs carried me to a small lake located a couple of kilometers from the house. It was surprisingly clean and even in winter it did not freeze to the end. Nice and cozy lake...


• I was roused from my daze by the barking of a dog. I myself did not notice that I tied the dog to a tree. Then, like a child led by a pied-catcher's pipe, she walked slowly towards the middle of the lake. A little more - and the fragile ice would have collapsed under my feet, and I would have collapsed into the water along with my long skirt, duty smile, geese in apples, expensive handbags and creative energy ... Yes, fail it ...


• I ran home very quickly, as if shaking off the haze. The first thing I did was take off my skirt and slip into my forgotten jeans. The second thing I did was write to the woman who offered the services of a nurse. The third thing I climbed onto the site of a sex shop and chose the most depraved lingerie. Then she answered the client with a bold YES and, before getting to work, poured herself a glass of martini with ice and juice. In general, I do not approve of alcohol during working hours, even if it is homemade. But today was a significant day - I celebrated the return to myself.


• PS. Despite some similarities with my actual circumstances, please do not consider this story autobiographical.

• By the way, I posted this story on the Valyaev forum. It was removed after 15 minutes, and I was banned by simply blocking the entrance. No reason, no term of the ban. :D But they began to spam me in the mail. Sectarians, what to take from them

Modern gender studies argue that the concepts of "man" and "woman" are not so much biological as social, and between these two poles there are still many opportunities for self-determination. Wonderzine is starting a series of posts about people who have had to adjust their outward gender so that their inner understanding of themselves finally matches what other people see. Our first material contains the story of Masha Bast, Chairman of the Russian Bar Association for Human Rights (formerly Evgeny Arkhipov), who came out as a transgender woman in September 2013.

interview: Sasha Sheveleva

Masha Bast

I have never had a dilemma - to be me a man or a woman.
I literally from the age of three, as far as I can remember, identified myself as a girl. The older I got, the more acute was the need to look like a girl. At the age of 10, I already began to wear women's clothes, to paint. Of course, my mother noticed that her clothes were all rummaged and dressed. She probably thought that it was connected with some kind of teenage growing up, she tried not to notice it. At the age of 12, I already went to a disco, met and danced with boys. The parents were not aware. We had a private house, and it was convenient for me to leave the house so that no one could see me. Some of my peers paid attention to the fact that I was wearing a bra - they laughed, but pretended not to notice. After all, I sunbathed like a girl - in a women's swimsuit, many of my friends saw my tan.

When I was 15 years old, my parents already began to suspect something, and I had a conversation with my mother. I didn't understand then what was happening to me. I did not know what transsexualism is, that there are people who correct their external signs. I myself thought at the age of 13 that I probably needed some changes in the body. I didn't like the roughness of the skin and voice. At the age of 14, I bought a hormone, such a powerful pill, and drank it. She was tense, and then my mother began to suspect something and found this pill, asked what it was. I said "medicine". Well, she threw it away. Closer to 15, I learned what transsexuality is, that people correct their gender. And I made a decision for myself that I would also change my external signs. For me, there was no such thing as "I want to change sex" or "I am a man who wants to become a woman." I have always felt like a woman, I just felt uncomfortable with the fact that I have a male body.

At the age of 16, I tried to suppress the feminine in me. I thought that maybe I really have such a teenage age, and took up weightlifting. I began to look like a 40-year-old man at the age of 16. They even started preparing me for participation in the Olympic Games in Sydney. And you know, I became so unhappy. I imagined that I am a man, I am winning the Olympics. But I'm not a man. I can't be a man. I went to crazy workouts, my peers were afraid of me, they didn’t come up on the street, because I was huge like a closet. But I'm a woman! Do you understand? It didn't suit me. I was very unhappy with this. And the more courageous I became outwardly, the more I felt like a heavy spacesuit on myself. I decided that I couldn’t do this anymore: I started injecting female hormones in frantic doses, I began to lose weight. I didn’t know then what shemale was, I didn’t know what transition was.

I had a conversation with my mom. I came in a miniskirt, with long hair. Mom said: “Do you want to be a woman? Yes please. But, - he says, - on the street. Go and earn. Only herself." And what is the street at that time? That means you're going into prostitution. I couldn't. I said, "Okay, I'm on my own." And I decided that I would live like this, and then I would get an education and help myself with the correction. For me it was probably a dilemma. And my mother and I started playing games, which ended with the fact that at the age of 17 or 18 the first ambulance came to me. I chose the hormones incorrectly, weightlifting also could not be abruptly abandoned. My pressure was over 200, like an old grandmother. I had to forget about hormones and exercise. I tried to return to my female body, but it was difficult due to health problems. I then decided that I would take a time out - I would go to a university, get an education. And only after receiving the status I will go and do everything. And so it happened. My mother knew very well that I would change, whether she liked it or not. My brother, who lives with me, was always aware of what was happening to me. He saw everything. I have been Masha for him since childhood.

Correction of external signs of sex is a series of operations. It all depends on the person, what he wants: if he wants to change the genitals - this is one operation. If he wants to bring beauty - you can do at least a hundred operations. I was lucky because I have a feminine appearance: there is no Adam's apple and never was, my chin has always been feminine, my nose is small. But there are people who have problems with the shape of the skull, Adam's apple. I did not change gender - I corrected my body. I was originally a woman. I made a decision for myself: I put all these commissions, documents in the background, because the most important thing is in me. Of course, many are faced with a problem: in order to have an operation, you need to change the documents and have a conclusion from the commission. To change documents, you need to do an operation. The document is a human invention. I drive a car, although I have a man's license. I follow the rules of the road. Let them stop - I will explain to them my rights and their rights. I am an independent person, I say: “Here are my documents, this is me. If something doesn't suit you, that's your problem." You don't have to be ashamed of yourself. People are embarrassed and feel guilty. You didn't make yourself that way - nature made you that way. Are you to blame? No. Therefore the society is obliged to accept you. If it does not accept, then this is a problem of society.

In adolescence, you need to talk to people
about what is transgender,
for a person to grow up mentally healthy

My wife knew everything about me from the very beginning, even when we just started dating in 2008 - I was already taking female hormones then. We are in a lesbian marriage. We discussed all this when we met. The only thing I can tell you is that I am a bi woman. In my youth, I liked both boys and girls. I dated men. They treated me like a woman. Brutal, large men under two meters looked after me. We are planning to have children. I didn't have children because I needed to change properly. Of course, I will tell my children everything about myself.

I believe that in adolescence it is necessary to talk with people about what transgender is, so that a person grows up mentally healthy, not a maniac. If parents notice that the first signals have appeared (around the age of 10), you should immediately run to a psychologist and in no case treat them. If this is transsexualism, then we need to stop fighting and start helping the child so that he is already a girl by the age of 18 preparing to get married. You can't hurt a child. There are provocations against me. In the village where I live, information was launched that I was gathering a rally of transgender people - the whole village was cordoned off, they were looking for these transgender people.

I know, for example, that Limonov (Maria Bast was the personal lawyer of Eduard Limonov and represented him in the Supreme Court of Russia and the European Court of Human Rights. - Note. ed.) couldn't reconcile my past and present. And I immediately say: you did not communicate with Evgeny Sergeyevich, but with Masha. Evgeny Sergeevich was the image that I carried to society in order to make it easier for me to communicate, but I looked at you through the eyes of Masha, and my brains were Machines. Most people understand this, 10% of acquaintances do not. Most often, rejection occurs among religious people. They are looking for an explanation - most likely, this is a performance, a planned PR move, some kind of protest. After coming out, I became a moment of truth for most people. I saw how people treat me: among friends there are users, but there are real friends. Users have left.

Photos: via Shutterstock

Kristin was 18 when she met thirty-year-old Fred. They fell in love and got married a year later. It was a happy marriage. However, as soon as Christine went somewhere for a short time, Fred fell into depression. He wrote strange letters to his wife that he was a terrible person and hated himself. Kristin could not even think what her husband had in mind. And of course, she had no idea that her husband's torment and guilt were connected with the desire to change sex.

One day Kristin stayed with her mother for a whole week. When she returned, Fred told her that he had bought women's clothes. Embarrassed and worried, he confessed to his wife that, having put on women's dresses, he finally felt like himself.

Christine was shocked. “I was sure my life was ruined,” she recalls. She began to reflect on her marriage, trying to understand how it happened that she truly fell in love with a fake man. Was the happiness she had a lie and a fake?

Kristin and Fred (right) before becoming Gray

Now her role as wife and mother has been turned upside down. But in spite of everything, thoughts of divorce did not visit Christine. “I loved this guy, he was so wonderful. Fred is my best friend, and only he could help me get through this trouble, ”Kristin shares.

The couple decided not to make hasty decisions. “We didn’t agree that we would stay together. It just didn't make sense to leave. Fred is the most amazing person I know, so why should I leave him? I wanted to be with him,” says Christine.

Three years later, Fred decided on psychotherapy. He wanted to be 100% sure that he needed to change sex. It wasn't until Fred made the final decision that he wanted to become a woman that the couple told their sons, who were 3 and 5 at the time, about it.

Fred became Gray, and the children began to call him not dad, but mapa. Physical changes took years, but Seda immediately began to wear women's clothes. “I tried to understand my husband, but I didn’t understand,” Christine recalls, “but the moment he changed into a dress, it became clear to me that we were no longer husband and wife in the traditional sense.”

"My husband is the most amazing person I know, so why should I leave him?"

Gradually, the relationship between Kristin and Seda began to resemble the relationship of two sisters. Kristin took Seda to a beauty salon where her ears were pierced, they went shopping together and chose breast prostheses for Seda.

The couple did not divorce for two reasons. The first is finance and a home loan. The second is the desire to raise children together. It wasn't easy for Christine. Formally, she was married, so finding a partner was difficult.

But she was lucky. It turned out that there were a lot of broad-minded people around. She met a man who was sympathetic to her difficult situation. Now they all live together. Richard, Christine's friend, has become part of their family. “I feel more like a widow than a divorced woman. The person I loved died. And feelings for him also died, ”says Christine.

Kristin and Seda are still close people. But they are no longer physically attracted to each other. Therefore, according to them, the feeling of awkwardness in their tangled relationship does not arise.

Seda (left), Kristin and their two sons

They all live in the same house: Seda, Kristin, their two children and Richard. They dine together and get along well. Richard cooks and Seda does the laundry. All adults spend a lot of time with children. Kristin introduces Seda to new acquaintances as a partner parent, and everyone is happy with that. Seda now looks very feminine and no longer attracts attention, like a few years ago.

The story of Seda, who in adulthood felt like a woman despite the fact that she was a man and was brought up as a man, made Kristin rethink her feminine side. Now she is convinced that gender identity is created by the person himself.

Christine believes that people should listen to themselves more and accept the challenges of fate. “Each of us has changes in relationships: a partner can have an affair, and a child can get injured and become disabled. It is important how the couple meets these difficulties and how much the partners empathize with each other.

It turns out that men are also not easy with us! “At least, this is what our friend, who recently experienced a family drama that happened on the basis of misunderstanding, says so. All the time, while the confrontation continued, he was looking for an answer to the question - What does a woman want? ... Now he admits that he did not fully understand.

What a woman wants - a man's story

“Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” was the name of the bestseller of the late nineties, which my classmates read at the institute. We, who are from Mars, ignored such literature, because we did not have any communication problems with the fair sex. The main thing is to come up with the first hook phrase, for example: “Sorry, weren’t you filming with Bertolucci in “Escaping Beauty”? If she was puzzled by this question - that's all, then you can take her "bare hands".

Most of all, I liked the girls who, in response, began to wrinkle their foreheads, vainly remembering, and not him; is it really? At Bertolucci? My friend Chervinsky acted even more simply: he came to a bar with a pug puppy under his arm. A terrible flat-faced creature, a cross between a Guinea pig and a Pekingese, aroused in all the girls present a desire to immediately stroke the "mupsik". Friend Chervinsky also got it. The pug and Chervinsky showed up at the hostel in the early morning, both of them smeared with lipstick. Ah, youth!

Something I grumbled. Perhaps another age crisis is approaching. From the age of twenty-one, crises are supposed to happen once every seven years. So now I have PCS - pre-crisis syndrome. Rethinking life guidelines, value systems in gender relations, you know. So what is she missing?

I bring money home, and quite normal. Bought an apartment. True, it will be completed only in two years, but we do not live on the street: we rent apartments in the capital with a view of the neighboring city. And it doesn’t look like a wallet with legs - I go to the gym three times a week, I played football in a team of middle managers. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I'm only interested in girls as an aesthete.

Why, then, for the second week, Katya looks at me as if I robbed a blind grandmother on the porch? To my specific and grammatically correct questions: “Are you unhappy with something, dear?” she raises her eyebrows, shrugs her shoulders and squints her eyes somewhere to the side or upwards: “What can you talk about with a Person Who does not understand the Most Elementary Things” - this is how this complex sequence of her facial expressions is deciphered. Well, I don't understand. I don't understand! The longer married, the more inclined to think that the author of the above bestseller was right.

We all have alien origins. Moreover, the Earth is a battlefield, as the old Ron Hubbard said. Why, instead of being offended for weeks for no reason, why not come up and say: “Beast, you don’t close the tube of toothpaste, and it has dried up like the Gobi desert”? Or “Yesterday it was your turn to take out the bucket. And the day before yesterday. And all this week! Go clean your shit, motherfucker!” And that's all - the conflict has been settled, an agreement has been reached, the parties continue peaceful coexistence.

But no, we have different signaling systems. For men it’s verbal, and for women it’s just some kind of Da Vinci code. Glances, sobs, hints and pouts. How am I to interpret your sullen silence in the kitchen, dear? I didn't wash the dishes? I didn't buy a dishwasher? Why should I ask for forgiveness, you are my Amazonian fish? What does my woman want?

Just in case, today I'm dragging a bouquet of Katya's favorite white carnations. Maybe I didn't congratulate her on her wedding anniversary? But the wedding was after the third quarterly report, and now it's February. So it's definitely not a wedding. What could I be missing? Have we had a baby? I ran over Katya's cat with a vacuum cleaner? Maybe I missed the birthday of my beloved wife? The leg itself pressed the brake, and around the coordinated chorus sounded the screech of brakes and the screams of nervous drivers.

That's right, I missed her birthday!

Katya loves these synthetic February carnations because she associates them with her birthday. Hastily turning on the "emergency gang", I quietly crawled to the side of the road. I'm finished! Katya could still forgive the concealment of income or the evasion of marital obligations, but she will never forgive the fact that I forgot about the most important day of the year. Why do people attach so much importance to this quite ordinary event? It is immodest, after all, to arrange a holiday on the occasion of the birth of yourself, your beloved.

Grabbing a cake, champagne, and a string of Chinese pearls from a nearby supermarket (it's good that you can buy everything from sausages to ballistic missiles in supermarkets), I stumbled into the hallway and laid out the gift set on the key table. “Katerina, forgive me, fool. I didn't forget that it's your birthday. I just didn't know what day it was. Lost in time with this job." I gave my face an expression that even a fierce gymnast could not resist at the institute.

I solemnly handed Katyukha a velvet box with pearls: “I bought this for you back in the fall, when I flew to Geneva.” Katya stared at me with her multi-colored eyes (one blue, the other green), which instantly filled with tears. I froze, full of bad forebodings. Katya sobbed convulsively, turned around and disappeared behind the bathroom door. The dry click of the bolt sounded like the sound of a twitched bolt. Ugh, what's wrong again? Katya became an activist of the society for the protection of shellfish?

Sighing, I trudged to the TV, the best friend of men, grabbing beer and newspapers along the way. But he could, as a white man, go with the creative department to an Irish pub, relax after hard work. Sit here and guess what you didn't like. Still, I don't like women, and this is the only thing Katya and I have in common. You can't love what you don't understand.

Why, for example, does a girl refuse a salad if the cook has dropped some olive oil into it, but at the same time she calmly eats a box of chocolates at night? How can an English bulldog be touched and squeal in horror at the sight of a mouse? I don't understand, for example, how you can faint at the sight of a cut on your finger and pluck your eyebrows with an unwavering hand. I tried once: this procedure can only be done under general anesthesia.

Why did they invent about two hundred varieties of fasteners for women's underwear? The more inaccessible the girl, the more desirable she is? Unavailability should provoke, baby, not infuriate. And those thongs? They look, of course, intriguing, but I'm afraid to even think about what it's like to wear them.

Although what discomfort can be caused by shorts made of two ropes to a creature capable of moving through the streets on ten-centimeter stiletto heels at the same speed that my Skoda develops in the city - seven kilometers per hour. And these lovely ladies' phobias about appearance? Last summer, having lost weight as a result of a heavy long-term diet, Katya became addicted to miniskirts.

I am not possessive and not a prude, but to see the carnivorous glances with which the males accompanied the slender legs of my wife was beyond my strength. Knowing Katya, I didn't even try to forbid her from wearing these allusions to skirts, because she would immediately switch to shorts from the All for Striptease store.

No, I kindly glanced at the musculoskeletal system of my beloved and thoughtfully said: “Strange, usually cellulite looks ugly, but it even suits you.” Katya stared at me with such horror that I felt a little ashamed. But I suppressed this feeling and finished off the unfortunate one: “And those delicate blue streaks under the knees… Does your mother suffer from varicose veins?”

Cruel? Cruel. But the shortest skirt I've seen my wife wear since then covered her ankles.
In general, it’s easy to play on girlish weaknesses, like on a xylophone. Even at the dawn of our relationship with Katyuha, I had to wait almost two hours for a friend stuck in pairs at her house. The sweetest (then) Katya's mother seated me in her daughter's room, brought me tea with buns and cordially offered: "You read for now, young man, and Katya will be here any minute."

I looked around the bookshelf and realized that it would not take long to choose. All the shelves were lined with glossy books with pictures of couples kissing surrounded by flowers and birds of paradise. Friend Chervinsky called this genre roughly but succinctly - "snot in sugar."

Textbooks on the morphology and syntax of the Russian language and thick monographs succinctly titled "Hairstyles", "Skin Care", "Chest" served as an alternative to "snot". The last work aroused some scientific interest in me, but there were almost no pictures, but only graphic diagrams of exercises. I had to take on "snot in sugar."

I opened the novel at random, stared at the printed text, and felt the blood rush to my cheeks. And these people accuse us of reading porn magazines in the toilet?! “The flower of Whitney, languishing with passion, opened up to meet the fluttering wand of the duke. “Sprinkle my womb with life-giving rain,” she whispered before plunging into the surging waves of sensual pleasure.

The duke's misty eyes flashed like lightning on a stormy night, and his masculine nature rebelled against the will of the owner, proving its right to possess this tender innocent flesh ... ”For the next hundred pages, Whitney and the Duke toiled with foolishness, deciding who had cheated on whom.

"Sorry, I'm terribly sorry!" - came from behind me. I shuddered and looked around: “Ah, it's you ... What, an hour and a half has passed? I read it and didn't notice. You know, interesting genre, I've never read a book like this before.

Tell me, will they get married in the end?" Katya looked at me with the same look that little Whitney must have given the Duke when she received a marriage proposal. "Yes," Katherine whispered. We fell silent, looking into each other's eyes. “If you want, take it. This one, this one, and this one."

The memories were rudely interrupted. The bathroom doors opened and Ekaterina appeared on the threshold. I squinted my eyes in the direction of the bathroom, expecting to see a drooping, crying creature. But Katya smiled dazzlingly at me and disappeared behind the kitchen door, singing "The thunder of victory resounds, the brave Russian had fun."

I really wanted to move to an Irish pub, preferably with the help of teleportation. Footsteps, heavy as the Commander's tread, broke the tense silence. "On the!" - Katya slammed an aluminum bowl in front of me, filled with something that looked like rotten hay. I stared into the container, trying to understand the meaning of this puzzle, but gastritis rage rose up from the bottom of my stomach, which had been hungry for a day, like bubbling lava.

"What is this?" I asked Katya in a hoarse whisper. "It's strange that you asked. It turns out that we all notice if we want, ”the caring wife said, wryly twisting her lips. "Stupid! I squealed, suddenly switching to falsetto. “I’m tired of your scenes!”

The bowl, sent flying by the trained hand of an athlete, glided at the cat and adorned his imperturbable British muzzle with a straw fly. Crimson spots flared up on Katya's cheeks. I grabbed my car keys and left the apartment. In the process of jogging from the twenty-second floor to the first, emotions subsided, and I began to think about what to do next.

You can’t go home like that right away, it’s non-pedagogical. The Irish pub has ceased to seem attractive. Driving around town on a Friday night? Thanks a lot! So without inventing anything, I wandered around the audio-video store located in the neighboring house. I bought a couple of new DVDs, snapped at an inopportunely thoughtful saleswoman and went back. “Well,” I said sternly to the back of my wife, who was standing at the window, “how can you explain your behavior?”

Her back shook with sobs. What does a woman want? “Come here, little one, and explain everything immediately,” I perched on the sofa and patted my knee with my hand. Katya was able to explain something only after a couple of hours, when, after crying, kissing and eating cake, she became sane. To be honest, I never understood the deep meaning of the drama that happened, but maybe on Venus this genre has different laws.

It all started a month ago. Katya, who is prone to reflection on the topic “Family and Marriage,” suddenly decided that her karmic task in this incarnation was to be an ideal wife and mistress. The trigger was a questionnaire in the magazine "Beautiful Life", according to the results of which Katya scored ten points out of a thousand possible. I saw this survey. Martha Stewart, the best housewife of all time, would hardly have received more.

“Does your house smell like pies on Sundays?” "Always" - 5 points, "Yes, I buy them near the subway" - 0 points. “Never, they get fat” - minus ten points. “Does your husband see you in curlers and a dressing gown?” "Sometimes" - minus one point, "No, death is better" - plus fifteen points. “Why do we need curlers?” minus 15 points.

"Do you have bacteria in your house?" “Yes, lactic acid in kefir” - plus ten. “No, I call disinfectants from the sanitary and epidemiological station once a week” - plus fifteen. “But cholera knows them” - minus a hundred. And in this spirit more than ten pages. Realizing the extent of her failure as a hostess, Katya immediately began to act. The floors in the apartment were switched to a three-time cleaning with dust, after which it was possible to eat from them.

With the money saved for the holidays, the victim of glossy magazines bought some special triumphant robes and mules (don't ask me what they are). According to competent authors, the contemplation of a wife in slippers and a sweatshirt offends the sense of beauty in a man. I don’t know, I don’t know, if I walked around at home in a dressing gown, maybe the sweatshirt would shock me, but I tend to move around the apartment in my shorts.

Sausages with ketchup, so dear to my heart, were forever expelled from the home menu, and all sorts of consomme and blemange came to replace them. Dinner was served in the living room and was accompanied by the music of Vivaldi. "Beautiful Life" believed that in the cold season, this composer is most conducive to digestion. Every evening, Katya waited with bated breath for admiring exclamations from her grateful husband. But all hopes were in vain.

The husband on autopilot bypassed the route refrigerator-TV-sofa and by the beginning of the eleven o'clock news release was snoring peacefully, ignoring all the creative achievements of a fighter for an ideal life. Only once did the thick-skinned rhinoceros, whom Katya managed to marry, notice something.

Looking up from his béchamel lasagne, he (that is, me) tossed his head, grimaced, and demanded that “that vile squealing” be turned off. It was about the divine Vivaldi. In the ensuing silence, a womb champ was heard - in the womb of a loved one, the dish that Katerina had worked on for almost three hours was rapidly disappearing. Her husband's drowsy eyes stared at the television.

Only when the fork scratched the bottom of the plate did he start up, a meaningful expression returned to his eyes for a second, the fork made several raking movements in the air: “More! And pickled cucumbers! And it stared back at the TV. “If I had given him a plate of silage,” thought Katya, “the effect would have been exactly the same.” And it was a shame then for the beautiful housewife. She went into the kitchen, propped up her white face with a lilac hand, and wept over her bitter womanhood.

Soon this Stepford wife's batteries began to run low. It is not easy to wash the floors with dust three times a day. And to get up an hour earlier so that the precious spouse does not see the sacramental curlers?
All subsequent efforts of Katerina ended with the same invariably “excellent” result - the husband enjoyed all the benefits of an ideal household with pleasure, completely ignoring them. Guess what a girl with two higher educations, who is writing a dissertation on the asymmetric dualism of a linguistic sign, thought up? "Bubochka works too hard"? Or "stop doing nonsense"? No, the only correct conclusion, according to Katya, was: "He doesn't love me anymore." And when the thoughts on this topic reached their climax, I showed up with flowers and pearls to congratulate the sufferer on her birthday.

Family happiness is impossible without a qualitative scandal. It was noticed by the philosopher Socrates and the novelist Tolstoy. The main thing in a scandal is to do it correctly. Americans have calculated that a woman speaks an average of 25,000 words a day, 10,000 of them at work, and men manage 13,000 words a day, and we spend 12,000 words from this reserve on work.

Therefore, in the process of escalating the conflict, the main thing is to let the girl speak out, economically spending her own resource. For a stormy, beautiful quarrel, it’s good to insert phrases: “I hear from the same one!” or "You're just pissed off because you've gotten fat lately!" This is usually followed by a climax: "Put it down, we both know it's not loaded!" And finally, the finale: “I love you!”, “I love only you!”, “I appreciate everything that you do for me!” and “I respect you as a person!” These are the answers to all the girl's painful questions, formulated by those very fifteen thousand words. In a minute.

Today is Saturday. We lie on the couch, dragging pillows and blankets onto it “for greater comfort,” as Katka says. I carry out the penance imposed on me by my wife, I watch the moralizing Hollywood comedy "What a Woman Wants". Pretty funny, although I'm willing to bet that of all those involved in its creation, only Mel Gibson wears pants.

The end credits rolled quickly across the screen. “Well, do you understand what a woman wants?” Katka playfully poked me on the shoulder with her sharp teeth. "Yes, my darling," I growled, tipping her over into the pillows. It was the wrong answer and we both knew it. The right one lies somewhere between dialogue and chocolate. This is not what I said. And not even friend Chervinsky. This is Mel Gibson.

Only one thing bothers me. When is Katya's birthday?

2014, . All rights reserved.

Once I worked in a small but reputable foreign trade firm, where I was placed on the basis of pull. Such a good job, not very difficult, but responsible. People are kind, sympathetic, mostly men much older than me, married. My work was not very difficult: serve-bring coffee-tea, receive mail, answer calls, organize negotiations, order stationery, tickets, hotel rooms, look good and smile.

I coped with official duties, at the same time I studied and absorbed the wisdom of foreign trade and document management.

Everyone was happy with me, polite, and attentive. I somehow got used to all such a warm, friendly, cultural, cozy team. Almost all year round there were flowers on my desk, which were given to me either by gallant business partners or by the male employees themselves. Candies of all famous factories and brands lay in boxes on my table and in a closet, all kinds of small souvenirs from various countries were crowded in the glass cabinet of my office. Every day I joyfully flew to work, and nothing foreshadowed trouble.

Eduard Sergeevich worked as a financial director in our company. Sergeevich, as we called him behind his back, was married, had two children, three luxurious foreign cars, a luxurious apartment, a huge cottage, a small beer belly, a bald spot and a large salary. Eduard Sergeevich was fond of edged weapons. In his office there was a large collection of all kinds of knives, there were even blades of very bizarre, unusual shapes. Sergeevich could talk for hours about his knives. Usually he took a knife, stroked its blade affectionately, squinted as if from a bright sun, and told. Then he handed the audience a knife and offered to admire the forms, sharpening, pattern and other graces of the knife. Sergeyevich also knew how to throw knives very well and accurately. He took out a thick board, put it on the table, leaning against the wall, and threw some special knives that were not particularly beautiful. A silhouette of a man was drawn on the throwing board with a marker, Sergeevich always aimed at the head. During this lesson, the face of Eduard Sergeevich became both cunning and evil. He was terrible and terrible, I never liked Sergeevich like that, but it was clear that he gets great pleasure from this.

From time to time, our best employees “disappeared”, because they were sent for 2-3 years to foreign representative offices of our company. It was very prestigious, monetary, but it had to be earned. Therefore, such appointments and departures abroad were celebrated widely and richly.

And now it was the turn of Eduard Sergeevich, he was appointed head of the company's representative office in Singapore. On this occasion, Sergeevich laid a chic table in the office, called colleagues and acquaintances, a buffet began, which usually smoothly flowed into a banal secular booze.

It was Friday of a hot summer, many were in a hurry to the country, on business, and the buffet table, not having time to turn into a booze, somehow faded away, everyone dispersed. I was receiving a fax from our client when Eduard Sergeevich's last drinking companions said goodbye to him and left. Then it turned out that the financial director even let go of his personal driver Ivan. But Eduard Sergeevich himself was in no hurry to leave, he entered my office and began to describe to me how happy he was with his appointment, what salary he would have, interesting work and what prospects were opening up for him. He imposingly walked around the office with a glass of whiskey, drunkenly gesticulating and praising himself to heaven. I politely smiled and nodded. Suddenly he stopped, looked at me with a sly squint and went with an oily smile and said: “Do you want me to take you with me as my secretary? I can persuade the boss ... "

But I'm studying and actually this is a very tempting offer, but it seems to me that the boss will not agree, and ..., - I began.

And then the financial director approached me, swaying slightly, and hugging me whispered: “Yes, if you only want, you will walk all in gold and furs.” Then he climbed up to kiss, I barely escaped, my heart thrashed with fear, like a bunny in a trap.

Well, what are you doing, girl! - Eduard Sergeevich yelled, - Let's come right here and agree!

I was disgusted, I was confused.

Eduard Sergeevich, you are married, and I am too young for you, I will never be able to love you, - I murmured.

You're an idiot! What a fucking love! You will be just a mistress - a secretary! - he laughed and climbed to kiss again. I twisted again: “You are mistaken, I am not like that ..”

Eduard Sergeevich sat down on the table, grinning, poured himself a whiskey and, looking angrily at me, said through his teeth: “Then, fuck .., quit, virgin, bl ..!” He drank whiskey in one gulp and asked: “Well, have you agreed?” My throat caught and I barely squeezed out: "No .. never ..."

Eduard Sergeevich roared, attacked me, tried to hug me, but I ran away and asked with tears in my eyes: “Eduard Sergeevich, I’m still a girl, why don’t you have enough other women! You won’t be pleased when you force it!”

He laughed, went to the door and locked it with a key. He began to threaten me, while the threats rained down like from a cornucopia, and each threat was more sophisticated than the previous one. He said he could accuse me of stealing money from the safe. Eduard Sergeevich constantly drank, pouring with anger. I was depressed and confused, I cried. Suddenly, Eduard Sergeevich began to fuss somehow, his face was distorted, he grabbed his stomach: “Damn, it’s impatient here!” He grabbed the phone from the table, pulled the receiver out of it, then took my mobile phone from the table, put it in his pocket, opened the door and went out into the corridor, locking me in the office. I went to the door, listened and realized that Eduard Sergeevich was really “impatient”, and he went to the toilet. From the toilet Sergeevich yelled some curses, I realized that he had seriously decided to undress me, tie me up, throw knives at me, and then rape me. In fact, Eduard Sergeevich spoke in a less literary language, he just said “when the knife sticks a millimeter from your head,“ bench press point, then I’ll kick you. From such "erotic" fantasies of a drunken Sergeyevich, I became completely scared and hopeless.

I remembered that there was a corporate cell phone in the table. I decided to call the Deputy General for Commerce Alexei Dmitrievich, I somehow did not dare to disturb the General or the police, it still seemed that it was not so serious, and I was afraid of a scandal. I trusted Alexei Dmitrievich, he was perhaps the most pleasant employee of the company. And he was the most handsome and sexy man. The most handsome and sexy in our firm, of course. But he was married and older than me by 12 years. Although I didn’t have any views on him, we just had friendly and trusting relations. We sometimes drank coffee in my office, talked, listened to music. It's strange, but despite a decent age difference, we had common interests, especially in music.

When I was thinking in a panic who to call, going through the names of various acquaintances in my memory, I understood that it would be difficult for me to confess to someone that right now, at this moment, financial director Eduard Sergeevich was going to perversely rape me, but Alexei Dmitrievich me I wasn't ashamed to say it.

And I called. He did not pick up the phone for a very long time, I was worried. And then I very confusedly began to explain to him what had happened. Naturally, Alexei Dmitrievich did not understand anything, at first he even thought that this was a joke, a prank. Then he did not believe that Sergeevich was capable of such a thing, he even demanded to hand him the phone. I said that I was locked in the office, while Sergeevich was sitting in the toilet. But when Eduard Sergeevich once again yelled drunkenly from the toilet, and I brought the phone to the door, Alexei Dmitrievich heard and believed. He swore, not embarrassed at all. Before, I had never heard such words from Alexei Dmitrievich, and obscene language from such a person inspired me with even greater fear.

Alexey Dmitrievich spoke to me strictly, in short phrases, as if he were giving commands.

Olga! In the bottom drawer of the desk is the key to the office. You open the door and run outside, catch a taxi and quickly go home, and I'll deal with him myself, I'm already on my way! he yelled into the phone.

The key was found quickly, I unlocked the office door and quietly approached the front door of the office. The door was locked, there was no key in the lock. I wanted to knock on the door, call for help, because far across the corridor is the security room of the building, there was a hope that they would hear. But most likely, Sergeevich would have been the first to hear about the help. I again dialed the number of Alexei Dmitrievich. I was shaking, there were no more tears, only panic remained. Alexei Dmitrievich did not even try to reassure me: “Olga! In the corridor opposite the toilet there is a cabinet with documents, try to knock it over the toilet door! Don't turn off your phone! Report to me constantly!

There was a closet, and I realized that if I overturned it, it would definitely hit the toilet door, and Sergeevich would be locked. But the closet was monstrously heavy, it did not move even a millimeter from my inhuman efforts. I panicked again. For some reason, the bathroom was quiet. It seemed very strange to me, I was afraid that Sergeevich was going to suddenly jump out and do what he had planned.

She informed Alexei Dmitrievich about the heavy closet. Almost without thinking, he ordered me to find a stick, such as a mop, and use it as a lever, knock over the cabinet. I acted like in a dream. There was no mop, but in the back room where the cleaner kept her inventory, there was a large vacuum cleaner. I used his thick aluminum tube as a lever. There was some distance between the cabinet and the wall, the plinth did not allow it to be pushed tightly against the wall. Trembling all over, holding my breath, I squeezed the pipe into the space between the cabinet and the wall, put my foot against the wall and pulled hard. From fright, I obviously overdid it, pulled too hard. The cupboard crashed into the toilet door, punching a hole in it with a corner. If the door had opened outwards, then surely a heavy cabinet would have torn the door off its hinges. The noise was terrible. And amid this roar, it seemed to me that someone in the toilet sobbed or sighed. Although who could be there, except Sergeyevich. I walked into the office, with trembling hands took a cigarette and lit it. It was my second cigarette in my life, after this incident I smoked seriously and for a long time.

Soon Alexey Dmitrievich arrived, he was in a beautiful blue T-shirt and blue jeans, and I was used to seeing him in a formal suit and tie. In a T-shirt and jeans, he looked ten years younger. Handsome! For a second, I imagined myself as a princess being rescued by a beautiful knight. But the knight already had his own princess. Yes, and the knight turned out to be very modern and rational - not romantic. After Aleksey Dmitrievich assessed the situation, he almost forcibly poured 150 grams of whiskey into me, the same whiskey that Sergeyevich had not finished drinking. I instantly got drunk, sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette again. My head was spinning, but my mood improved. It was my first real intoxication, the first, so to speak, the use of hard liquor. And I felt how adult life firmly sat on my neck and dangled its legs. Probably at that moment I became an adult woman.

Aleksey Dmitrievich, meanwhile, was trying to get through and get through to Eduard Sergeevich. In expressions, he was not shy. It turns out that my dress was taken apart, the tights were torn and there were several scratches on my face and neck. I didn’t notice all this in the heat of the struggle for life and honor, but the Savior Prince saw all these evidence at once, and all his doubts about what had happened were finally dispelled.

Sergeevich was stubbornly silent, but his telephone chimed loudly from behind the toilet door. Alexei Dmitrievich easily hoisted the heavy cabinet with papers into place and began knocking on the door. And in response, silence. I was afraid to leave the office, I didn’t want to meet Sergeyevich again, and in an easy chair, feeling pleasant spills of whiskey all over my body, it was so comfortable and cozy to smoke. Hell, I liked smoking back then. And Sergeyevich is also to blame for this.

Then it turned out that the door to the toilet can be easily opened with a coin, you just need to turn the big bolt on the lock. But I found out about it later. Suddenly there was a loud exclamation of Alexei Dmitrievich: “Oh, I don’t know!” And I flew out of the chair like a bullet, staggering, rushed to the toilet, I thought that Sergeevich had attacked my savior, or something else no less terrible had happened.

What I saw, I could never have imagined. I wonder what my face looked like at that moment? But the face of Alexei Dmitrievich was stupid and frozen from what he saw. Eduard Sergeevich, the financial director of a foreign trade company, a respected man, a family man, a father of two children, was lying in trousers lowered to the knees in an absurd position, I'm sorry, in a toilet that he himself littered ... And for some reason the hands of the financial director were raised above his head and unnaturally arched. His face was stupid and dirty... And I realized that he was dead. And Aleksey Dmitrievich understood this too, but nevertheless checked his pulse, let go of the dead man’s hand and quietly said: “Everything, damn it, I’ve played it out ...”

Then I got drunk with whiskey again, then they took me home, I was shaking, I cried, smoked incessantly and cried again. Aleksey Dmitrievich would disappear and reappear in our apartment, whispering something to my parents in the kitchen. At night, the naked corpse of Sergeyevich chased me and threw knives at me, which pierced me through and flew away into the dark distance. Luckily it was all a dream.

In the morning I learned that Sergeevich had died of a heart attack. Aleksey Dmitrievich asked me not to “take out quarrels in public”, not to tell anyone anything, like I was not in the office that evening.

But rumors! Gossip! Rumors spread after a while. Clearly, the general was the first to know about everything, and not from me. Alexei Dmitrievich said that the general should know everything ... For several days everything was quiet, but then Sergeyevich's wife came to the office and made a scandal in the general's office. It turned out that someone told his wife, but he didn’t tell everything .. But people began to whisper, it was somehow strange to look at me. Or is it just my guess. And a week after work, when everyone left, the general invited me to his office. He frowned for a long time, was silent, looked away. Then he asked: “Well, how did you survive?” I silently nodded.

The next day I wrote a statement on my own and quit. This is how sadly ended my foreign trade activity. True, there was a lot of money in the package, I even showed off for a while.

And then I found out that Aleksey Dmitrievich became the representative of our company in Singapore. He left without saying goodbye. I did not dare to call him, but he himself did not call. We didn't see each other again.

So it needs to be.