"Come with me," he said. I slipped off the bar stool and followed him out of Chardees. "Where are we going?" I asked. He tugged at my arm. "Over there," he said, pointing to a large car parked on the dark street behind Chardees. The street lamp above it was out. The only light came from the sparkle of neon over Chardees. He opened the door of the back seat and asked me to get in. I thought for a moment he might be playing out a fantasy as chauffeur, but instead he sidled in beside me and deftly placed my hand on his fly.

"Would you, please?" he queried. "I must tell you that I love my old man, and I am faithful in the sense that I do not touch anyone else, but I ask you to touch me." His face in the pink-colored light was so beautiful, plunged into darkness in alternating instants by the flashing neon sign, that the whole experience assumed the dimension of the unreal.

Was he stiffening beneath my grasp? Was that a sigh of ecstasy escaping from his lips? Did his eyes hold me captive when I gazed into their depths? Did his hand push my head back slightly when I went to drop it in his lap, and hold it there in clear indication that an oral approach was not to be the way? Did he respond with thrusting pelvis to my ever-quickening stroke, and keep my eyes locked to his as I felt the pre-wetness with my thumb? How many generations of warriors of the Russian plains flowed in the burst that exploded from him when, with eyes wide open and bearing down on mine, he strangled out words I did not understand, then settled back and closed the lids and sighed from the depths of his solar plexus?

"What did you say just now?" I asked, wiping my fingers with a handkerchief he offered from his pocket. He laughed out loud. "Oh, that!" he said. "I said thank you for the gift. It is my birthday, you see. Before I left my old man at our hotel, we drank vodka together to celebrate. I am 26 today. But he had already taken his medication and soon fell fast asleep, so the gift that he promised me, a good orgasm with his fingertips, became impossible to give. I had seen you last night, and liked you. I hoped you would be at the bar, and you were!"

I laughed with him and gave him a gentle kiss. "Happy birthday," I said. "Let us hope your old man will be with you for many more, but next time, no vodka."

"No vodka on birthdays," he grinned, "unless I run into you again at Chardees!"