"No, no, no! I am not doing it. Don't even dream about it!"
"But why? You do cut Jamie's hair when he asks you."
"He is a lot less particular about his hair."
"Oh, come on! He is very particular!"

From somewhere in the kitchen comes an outraged "am not!". I sigh in exasperation. If a person does not understand that cutting people's hair in a straight line across their back is easy and using clippers with four different attachments is hard, there is really no chance of instilling common sense in them.

There are at least twenty different hairstyling products in the bathroom, all of them belonging to Rudy. Katie's and Jamie's idea of styling usually involves a brush and a sufficiently big ponytail scrunchie.

"No, no and no! Find yourself a real barber."
"There is no time! It's five o'clock already."
"Then you will have to find one tomorrow."
"The bad hair day is today."

Jamie comes in, waving a bandanna and suggesting it as the ultimate solution to any bad hair day. Rudy tells him to stick the bandanna where the sun don't shine and go back to the kitchen. He goes back to the kitchen, hopefully without sticking the bandanna where Rudy told him.

"What are you afraid of? If I don't like it I can always go to a barber and cut it even shorter."
"Not today, you can't. They are all closing in an hour or so."

He finally recognizes this as a valid point and gives up, but demands that I help him dye his hair red. I'd never done that before either, at least not for anyone but myself, but he says that there are instructions on the bottle and that he can mix the dye himself, so I guess it's all right.

Petra comes in, sniffs the mix, says "frr" and goes away. Jonathan also comes in, sniffs the mix, says "frr" and goes away. Then Jamie comes in, sniffs the mix and says "frr" in exactly the same way as the dogs. We burst out laughing.

Jamie puts collars on Jonathan and Petra, dorky-looking sunglasses on himself, and takes the dogs out for a walk. As soon as the door closes behind them I ask Rudy:

"So, who is the girl?"
"What girl?"
"The one you have a date with tonight. Why else would you be suddenly be so concerned about what your hair looks like?"
"Can't people just want to look good for the sake of themselves?"
"Sure can, but then they are in a lot less hurry."

I start putting the mix into his hair.

"Nice girl," - he says. "Tall. Blonde. Pretty. High-spirited."
"What exactly," - I ask carefully, - "does high-spirited mean in this context?"
"You'll see someday."
"What does she do for a living?"
"Didn't ask."
"Where'd you meet her?"
"Lost and Found."
"That might not be the best place to meet girls, although it does have a lot of heterosexuals nowadays."
"Yeah. I figured it was a gay place when I noticed all the guys were staring at my ass. But she gave me her phone number, so she is hardly a lesbian."
"No offense, but I think you vastly overestimate the attractiveness of your ass."

He starts turning around, trying to take a look at his ass in the mirror.

"I mean that not all the gay guys want you. Honestly."

He does not protest but clearly does not believe me. In my mind I question the wisdom of showing up on the first date with red hair after having first met the person while having black hair, but I decide that it's too late for this advice.

"Did you tell Jamie and Katie about it?"
"Jamie was there when I got her phone number."
"What does he think about it?"
"I didn't ask. I am not gonna ask dating advice from Mr. Smug-married-at-24. He has no idea what it is like to be a single man in his mid-thirties, and probably does not remember what dating is all about anyway."
"I think he knows how to tell a nice woman from a not-so-nice one - unlike you, Mr. Smug-married-at-19."
"Bitch," - he says, but does not seem particularly upset.

Now all his hair is covered with the dye, and he tries to transfer the towel that he has on his hips onto his head. I protest, and he growls and finds a shower cap. We go to the living room and he pours drinks for me and himself. The floor is covered with socks, no two of which seem to belong to the same pair. Katie's eternal laundry crisis.

I try to fish out more information about the girl, but he just smiles mysteriously and turns the conversation to the intricacies of Finnish grammar. I think he just does not know much himself. About the girl, I mean. He knows a fair lot about the Finnish grammar by now, even though he cannot or would not say anything in Finnish. He does understand it a little bit - in fact quite a lot for a person who'd only been here two months.

Of the three of them, Katie is the only one capable of a little bit of polite small talk and ordering herself a beer in Finnish. She learned all of that at work. Jamie also works and brings home various useful Finnish words he learns from his coworkers, such as saatana, vitun serveri, teknolelu, and, quite inexplicably, homokaasu. He has also scared some Swedish-speaking coworkers half to death by turning out to understand what they say pretty well. His spoken Swedish is not as good, but he says he is learning it very fast, although I suspect that it might be the coworkers who are learning to understand his Danish.

The time is up and we wash the dye off Rudy's hair. It turned out pretty good, actually. I have always felt there must be at least one person in the world for whom those supermarket hair colors really work like it says on the box. Too bad I couldn't be that person.

Jamie comes back with the dogs. He takes a look at Rudy's hair, makes a gesture of approval and heads to the kitchen. A second later a fairly loud explosion is heard, followed by swearing, and he runs past us to the shower, all wet already and taking his clothes off. He turns the cold water on, splashing us and causing us to scream and jump aside, and stands under it. Under the stream of water it's hard to see how badly he is burned, but apparently badly enough to start fainting immediately. He leans on the wall, slides on the floor and lies down on his back under the cold shower.

"Are you OK? Is anything on fire?" - I ask.

He answers no to both questions, and then the fire alarm sounds. Rudy runs off to the kitchen, and the screams of "bloody hell" are added to the alarm. In between the bouts of swearing Jamie tells me to turn the fucking alarm off and says that this is done by jumping, waving a broom just under the alarm and screaming, and I take the broom and start jumping and waving it under the fire alarm, figuring that screaming won't help much and that there is enough screaming here anyway.

The alarm stops, more due to Rudy's efforts than mine, and Rudy comes out of the kitchen. They have a fire blanket there, but Rudy did not think of it and instead sacrificed the towel that had previously served the interests of the public decency on his hips. Now the towel has a big hole the size and shape of a stove burner and several small holes in it, but he is waving the ruined towel triumphantly like a banner of victory.

We take a look at Jamie. He really doesn't look good, but at least doesn't seem to have blisters anywhere, so the burns are probably all first-degree. He is still under the cold shower, so it's pretty much impossible to tell by sight how much of his skin is burnt. I ask him, and he says that it's almost all of his stomach, most of his chest, and some on the face and the right arm. "Eyes?" - I ask. He shakes his head.

Shit. We have heard that sufficiently large first-degree burns need medical attention, but we have no idea how large is sufficiently large, how to measure it or what can happen to people with such burns. I leave Rudy with Jamie and go to the computer, but all the burn websites are unanimously silent on the specifics of large-area first-degree burns. Maybe should take him to the emergency room just in case.

Jamie is quite adamant about not wanting to go to a hospital. He is still lying under the cold shower and is therefore not in an awful lot of pain, but I don't think he'd be able to get up. He asks Rudy to bring him a bottle of panacod, eats four, which is way too much, and apparently intends to stay under the shower until the panacod kicks in.

The obligatory first-aid course that I had in high school and all the first-aid webpages that I'd ever seen say that such burns should be rinsed with cold water for at least half an hour. They also say that when a person is in shock they should be kept warm. None of them ever explain how to keep a person warm while simultaneously rinsing most of his body with cold water for half an hour.

In the end he figures that the shower is of no use anymore and tries to get up, unsuccessfully. We manage to get him to bed and bring him some burn ointment. He spreads the ointment on his burns and asks for water. Rudy brings him water and again tries to convince him to go to a hospital. The dogs come to sit and look at us.

I go to survey the damage in the kitchen. The fire was minor, just some stuff that got onto a burner and caught fire, but the explosion was considerable. There is brown stuff on the walls and even on the ceiling, a lot of water on the floor, a couple of broken glasses, and a broken and twisted can of condensed milk. I step on a shard of glass, swear and pull the shard out of my foot.

"Don't step on the glass!" - yells Rudy.
"Could've said that five minutes ago."

"You were boiling condensed milk in a can," - I tell Jamie.
"Yeah," - he says, figuring that denial won't help at this point, - "I am sorry. Now you see why I don't want to go to a hospital."
"Don't know about Mira," - says Rudy - "but I sure don't."
"Katie is gonna kill me."
"Katie loves you, as is evidenced by the fact that she hasn't killed you yet," - I tell him - "She is not about to start now."
"Besides," - points out Rudy - "if she gives you hard time you can always remind her how she set grandma's privy on fire with fireworks."

That's true. Some twenty years ago Katie really set the shithouse of their grandparents' summer cottage on fire by setting off fireworks inside it. To this day she has not been able to adequately explain why she was setting the fireworks off inside the toilet. The shithouse burned down to the ground but luckily Katie herself wasn't hurt, at least not until grandma came and gave her a well-deserved thrashing.

I don't think that would prevent her from yelling at Jamie for blowing up the kitchen. After all just two days ago we all had a long conversation on why people, especially people of Jamie's attention span, should not boil condensed milk in an unopened can, and he promised not to do it.

"She should yell at you," - I say. - "You deserve it. Didn't you promise not to boil the condensed milk?"
"She should give you a spanking or an enema," - giggles Rudy. - "Oh, wait, you might like that, you pervert. Maybe she should force-feed you salmiakki? That stuff is worse than marmite."
"Nothing is worse than marmite," - says Jamie.
"Have you tried salmiakki?"
"Yes, and I still think it's the second worst thing in the world after marmite."
"Wait till you try mämmi," - I say.
"What makes you think that she will be more angry if you go to a hospital?" - asks Rudy.
"I am not gonna tell her!"
"How do you intend to hide all the destruction in the kitchen and your burns?"
"I'll clean up the kitchen and put some makeup on the burns."

Rudy and I exchange glances.

"You are in no condition to even get up," - says Rudy, - "Even if we clean up the kitchen, she will notice what happened to you. Makeup is bad for the burns, and you can't keep putting it on all the time without her noticing. And then there is the matter of performing, uhm, marital duties."
"Marital duties won't be a problem," - says Jamie the eternal optimist, - "and the burns won't be visible by tomorrow".
"Jamie," - I say, - "there is absolutely no chance your face will heal by tomorrow. It will take a week, maybe five days if you are lucky."

He looks panicked.

"Shit," - he says - "Katie will think that I am a dickhead."
"Katie has been married to you for 10 years and known you for 25," - says Rudy. "She already knows you are a dickhead."
"Besides," - I add - "I don't think you can get an erection when there is not even enough blood in your head to keep you conscious when you stand up."
"Why not? Where does all the blood go from your head anyway when you are starting to faint?"
"Don't know, but I am quite sure it does not go to the penis."
"Could have been worse," - says Rudy - "it could have been one of us in the kitchen."

Jamie gives him a look that makes it clear he isn't quite sure that would have been worse.

"Now that you only burned yourself," - explains Rudy, - "you will heal in a week or so and that's it. If you had burned one of us we would have reminded you about it for the rest of your life."
"You are gonna remind me about it for the rest of my life anyway." Jamie knows us well.
"I gotta go soon," - says Rudy - "maybe we should clean up before that. Can you stay with him until Katie comes?"
"I got a date too, but I can ask Timo to come here."
"Yes!" - Jamie cheers up, - "ask him to come here. You guys can have some drinks with us. The dessert has unfortunately exploded, but we have a hell of a lot of booze."

I call Timo, he agrees to come, and we start cleaning up in the kitchen. I get the glass off the floor and the condensed milk off the stove, and Rudy, being the designated tall person here, washes the ceiling and the top of the wall. We are almost done when the doorbell rings. Rudy runs to open the door, but it does not sound like it's Timo. I get a bit closer but stay out of sight of the door, and hear that there are two women trying to convert Rudy to some religion or other. The women are speaking English with a Finnish accent. They introduce themselves to him. "Rudy Goldberg," - he says, and shakes their hands, but does not invite them in. They ask him whether he already found Jesus.

"Errr," - he says - "I wasn't looking."
"As a Christian you should consider it."
"I am not a Christian. I am a Jew."

A moment of silence. The towel that is still covering Rudy's hips is now in such a bad condition that the women can probably observe for themselves that he is not a very good Jew, or at least his parents aren't.

"Jesus loves Jews," - they say.

This is apparently new information to Rudy and he does not know how to react. A moment of silence, again.

"Do you think Mrs. Hallgrimsson would like to speak with us?" - they ask, misinterpreting the two names on the door to mean a heterosexual couple. Haven't these people ever heard of roommates?
"Who?"
"The lady of the house."
"That might be possible," - Rudy says carefully - "but I am not sure you would enjoy it. Jamie!"
"What the fuck?" - yells Jamie from the bedroom, - "Why don't you send the fucking Mormons to hell?"
"That's my Jamie," - Rudy says to the women. - "Unfortunately he is not much of a lady. Come to think of it, not much of a gentleman, either. They are not Mormons, they are women," - he yells back to Jamie.
"Women? Bring them in! What do you mean, "not much of a gentleman"? And don't they have female Mormons too? How do they make little Mormons?"

The women don't understand that now is the time to flee, so they repeat once again that Jews are God's chosen people and ask Rudy to recite some prayer in Hebrew. He starts "Baruch ata adonai eloheinu..." in a very shaky way.

"...melekh ha-olam, borei pri hagafen," - I come to the rescue, walking up to him. Those three years of Hebrew school must have been good for something.
"How beautiful!" - one of the women says. - "What does it mean?"
"This is a blessing for alcoholic beverages," - I say. - "Onko teillä TV-lupa?" (Do you have a TV permit?)
They are taken aback. "This is Mira," - introduces me Rudy, - "and she is not much of a lady, either." The women make their excuses, tell us again that Jesus loves us and leave.

Rudy starts putting his clothes and various hairstyling products on. "Are you gonna be OK?" - he asks. I nod. He looks in the mirror, says bye to us, and goes out of the door. I take a coke from the fridge and go to the bedroom.

"How are you feeling?"
"The same. Sore. Do you think I should put some underwear on before Timo comes or are you all free spirits around here?"
"He won't go blind if he sees you naked, but in general underwear is advisable."
"Just throw me something from that drawer."

I throw him something. It has pictures of what is probably supposed to be penguins, but looks more like slightly overweight pterodactyls in tuxedos. He puts them on.

"So, what is Rudy's new girl like? He told me you saw her."
"A Russian girl. Name is Oksana."
I have a bad feeling about this already. "Describe."
"A little bit taller than you, thin, shoulder-length curly hair, blond but I don't think natural blond, about C-size cups."
"Shit. I think I know the girl," - I say and take out my cell phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Sending an SMS to Rudy to tell him to wear a condom."
"Does she have HIV?"
"Not that I know of, but she likes getting child support from different fathers."
"Rudy doesn't have a lot of income to get child support from."
"I am not sure he has informed her about that."

The doorbell rings. It's finally Timo, and we just stand in the doorway kissing each other for a couple of minutes. Then we go to the bedroom.

"Hi," - says Timo, "what happened to you?"
"I was trying to make dessert and it exploded."
"Oh my god! What did you try to make? Napalm?"
"Dulce de leche," - I answer for Jamie.
"How come it never expodes when you make it?" - Timo asks me.
"Jamie chose the most dangerous way and did not watch the water levels properly."
"Take some drinks, guys," - Jamie changes the subject. - "You'll need them."

We pour some vodka for ourselves and make tea for him.

"Where is everyone else?" - asks Timo.
"Katie is coming soon. Rudy is out on a date," - answers Jamie.
"A date! That's nice."
"With Oksana," - I add.
"The coke Oksana?" - Timo raises his eyebrows, - "Isn't she married or living with somebody or something?"
"Coke Oksana?" - asks Jamie.
"Yes, she lives with that coke dealer guy," - I tell Timo. To Jamie I explain: "She uses quite a lot of coke, and I don't mean the brown soda that you are so fond of. Sometimes deals, too."
"Shit!" - says Jamie. "And Rudy is on a date with her? Why didn't you say earlier?"
"You just told me it was her."
"What are we gonna do?"
"What can we do? Wait till he comes back."
"Is her boyfriend a Mafia man?"
"Don't know, but if I were the Mafia boss I would probably fire him for incompetence and drug use on the job."
"Mafia isn't the problem," - says Timo. "The problem is that the woman is a bitch from hell. Where did he find her anyway?"
"Lost and Found."
"That's not a very heterosexual place," - remarks Timo.
"That much I figured," - says Jamie, - "after a few guys asked me to dance."
"What did you do?"
"Danced. Except for the slow ones. And then a couple of them invited me home but I did not go."
"OK," - I say, - "let's learn a new Finnish expression today. Antaa ymmärtää, muttei ymmärrä antaa."
"Too complicated," - says Jamie.

A key turns in the apartment door, and in comes Katie with a huge cactus. I come out to greet her and tell her that Jamie invited us for the evening, and also that he has burned himself a little. She puts the cactus down carefully and walks into the bedroom.

"Hi," - she says, sitting down on the bed and examining Jamie's burns. "What happened?"
"A cooking accident," - says Jamie.
"Boiling condensed milk?"
"Yeah. I am sorry."
"That's OK," - sighs Katie, - "I have always known you are a dickhead, but you are my own dickhead and I love you." She kisses him on the face, trying not to touch the burns. "Mira, Timo, do you need some condensed milk? I don't feel like keeping any in the house right now."
"He'll just go out and buy some more."
"That's true," - she sighs again. "I need a drink."
"Rudy is out on a date with a coke-using bitch who lives with a Mafia man," - informs her Jamie.
"Argh! What! Couldn't you have said that after I had a drink? Or five!"
"We are not sure he is a Mafia man, he just deals coke," - reassures her Timo. She does not seem very reassured. She calls Rudy. He doesn't answer.

After several drinks we decide to wait until Rudy gets home to tell him the news, in case he hasn't figured them out during the date. The conversation shifts to other topics, such as chocolate, EVE Online, Bush, dogs and Finnish language. After eleven Jamie's phone rings and he answers.

"Hi...Yes, of course you can: it just takes a lot of warm water, shampoo, oil and brushing...It might take 3 or 4 hours, but the stuff will come out of your hair...Oh, that hair? I suppose it comes out of there the same way as from the head hair, but I would opt for shaving if I were you...Mind you, I'd shave before putting that liquid latex on and not after...By the way, do you know that Oksana is a coke user living with a coke dealer?...OK, bye!"

The rest of us manage to regain our composure with varying degrees of success.

"He got liquid latex all over his pubic hair," - Jamie explains. "And he knows all about the cocaine. He'll be back in a couple of hours."

Timo and I figure this would be the right moment to flee and leave Katie to deal with Rudy and his latexed pubic hair when he comes home. Jamie is for once elated that he is not the center of attention anymore. We all know he will be punished, though, and not in a sexy bondage way but in some utterly boring way, such as having to walk the dogs every morning for the next many weeks or suchlike.

We come to my place and continue the evening with Irish coffee, a little bit of food and wild monkey sex. OK, regular sex. We fall asleep about three, and at ten Katie calls and tells me that Jamie is in the hospital and Rudy hasn't shown up yet and is not answering his phone. She asks me to come to the hospital.

"What's wrong?" - asks Timo when I hang up.
"Jamie is in the hospital and Rudy hasn't shown up yet."
"Shit. What happened?"
"To Jamie? He started throwing up and couldn't stop. We don't know what happened to Rudy. I am going to the hospital now, are you coming?"
"Is she sure he was throwing up and not just trying to speak Danish? They sound kind of similar."

I growl at him, mostly for the sake of political correctness - in fact I share his opinion about the sound of the Danish language - and bite him lightly on the shoulder.

I feel sorry for Jamie - he is really afraid of hospitals, or rather of staying in hospitals overnight. His own fault, of course - he should've gone there immediately and not wait until the night. On the other hand, if he came there before he started to throw up they would probably have sent him home with some highly useful advice, such as "stay in bed and drink a lot of fluids".

When we arrive to the hospital Katie is already there. Jamie is asleep with an IV drip in his arm. His burns look a lot better than yesterday. The rest of him has the same slightly greenish color that people usually acquire after drinking a couple of bottles of kossu the night before. He looks so sweet and peaceful when asleep like that that I start thinking someone should sedate him more often. Preferably before every dangerous cooking experiment and not after. His black hair is braided into two braids, and suddenly I start wondering what he would look like in a Japanese schoolgirl's uniform. Grrr. I really did not need that image in my mind.

"How is he?" - I ask Katie.
"Sort of OK. I mean, he is not throwing up anymore and they say they'll discharge him tonight if he is able to hold food down. Last time they took his temperature it was 37.6, they don't expect it to go up."
"Any news of Rudy?"
"No. I called a few hospitals but he wasn't there, then I called police but they said that when an adult man goes out on a date and doesn't come home till morning it's not quite an emergency yet."
"They don't know our Rudy."

Jamie wakes up.

"How are you feeling?" - asks Katie.
"Like I am young again: a bloody awful hangover and waking up in a strange place. It's not fair: you guys drink and I only get a hangover. How do they say I feel?"
"They say they'll let you out tonight if you are able to eat solid food."
"Hope they don't mean the food that they have here, or else I'll be here forever."
"I am sure any food will do."

He asks for water and drinks some without throwing up.

"Did Rudy managed to get the latex out?" - he asks.
"He hasn't shown up," - says Katie, and explains everything she has already done to find her wayward brother.
"Shit. What can we do?"
"I guess I'll have to go and talk to Oksana," - I say.
"You know where to find her?" - asks Katie.
"I know where she lives."

I try to call Oksana just in case, but she doesn't pick up the phone. I tell them that I will keep them informed and try to leave.

"Is it safe?" - asks Timo.
"How well would you fare against that Oksana in a fight?" - adds Jamie.
"I would have no chance at all. Unless I had a crowbar or something like that. But I don't think there'd be a fight."
"I can go with you," - says Katie.
"I'll go with you too!" - suggests Jamie.
"No!" - the rest of us exclaim.
"This is Russian people's business, they are gonna speak Russian," - explains Timo to him.

Jamie is unconvinced, but I tell him very firmly that being male, sick and unable to speak Russian disqualifies him from the mission three times over. Katie and I go, leaving the guys to discuss computer games and the relative merits of Fazerin Sininen and Fazerin Punainen.

"How's your Russian?" - I ask her.
"Rusty. I can understand everything, and can speak too but not very well."
"That will do."

When we come to Oksana's and Vitya's place we can hear the screaming and the sound of shattering glass from the stairwell. "Uh-oh," - says Katie. I ring the doorbell. The door opens and Vitya grabs me by the throat and slams me against the wall.

"You bitch!" - he screams, his face red and bruised, - "where is that cunt?"
I make an "everything ok, don't interfere" gesture to Katie. "I was sorta going to ask you the same thing. I came here looking for her."
"The whore is out there fucking some asshole and you are all in it together!" - he says, - "They made me crash my car! A fucking new car, and it's totaled!"

Vitya releases my throat. He smells like a liquor factory. He looks up and notices Katie.

"This is Katya," - I introduce her, intentionally using a Russian name. "And this is Vitya."
"Help!" - a weak cry comes through the door of one of the rooms.
"Nice to meet you," - he says and smiles at her, - "Shut up, you slimy cunt, I should have fucked you up the ass when I could!" - he screams to the door.
"Who is in there?" - I ask.
"Marina Alexeyevna. The slut! I'll fuck her up the ass! The little bastards, too."
Marina Alexeyevna is their seventy-three-year-old babysitter. "I don't think you'll enjoy it," - I say. "What did she do?"
"She is in on it with Oksana! You sluts are all in on it!"
"You are paranoid."
"Yeah, but you are still all in on it!"
"Marina Alexeyevna!" - I yell, - "It's me, Mira! Everything is OK! You can come out now!" Katie looks like she does not quite accept my definition of "OK".
"Thanks!" - we hear, followed by some scary sounds and a whimper.
"I can't open the door!" - she says, - "I have barricaded it with a sofa and bookshelves and now I can't move them."
That's all we need right now. "I am sure Vitya will think of something," - I tell her.

The floor is covered in broken glass and blood. Looks like most or all of the blood comes from Vitya's feet.

"Can you tell us what happened?" - I ask.
"Last night Dima called me and said that Oksana is screwing some asshole at Igor's and Natasha's place. I went there, and there the whore was with some red-haired prick who looked like a tapeworm. I told them I was gonna kill them both but the fuckers started fighting back and the prick kicked me in the balls, and then I left but stole their two vodka bottles in revenge and went driving, and then some assholes put a tree in my way. The car crashed and I had to call Dima to drive me home, so here I am. And that cunt," - he points at the door - "won't let me fuck her. I am sure she knew about all that."
"Did the guy punch you in the face like that?" - I ask, pointing at his bruised and swollen eye.
"No, that was the bitch herself. Why are you looking for her anyway?"
"In fact we are looking for the guy."
"You know him?" - He jumps up and grabs a knife. - "I knew you were all in on it!"
"We are not in on anything! She just needs to find the guy and kick his ass," - I say, pointing at Katie.
"Oh, dear," - he says, making a horrible grimace that he probably thinks is a seductive smile at Katie, - "the man must be insane in order to cheat on you".
"He is insane," - she says, wisely doing nothing to correct Vitya's assumption.
"Tell you what," - says Vitya, - "why don't we forget the assholes and do some lines? Leave the prick," - he says to Katie, - "I will never cheat on you." He takes a coke bag out of his pocket.
"Vitya," - I say. "Don't you remember that I am a virtuous woman?"
"Yeah," - he says, - "you are crazy, but I was hoping our lovely Katya here would be less virtuous."
"Sorry," - I apologize, - "she is even worse. Tell you what: we are gonna go and check out Igor's and Natasha's place, call us if something comes up."

He growls something about ripping Oksana's pussy up to her asshole, nods and we go out the door. Katie dials Jamie's phone number in the hospital but he doesn't answer. "Probably in the toilet," - she mutters.
"Hope he did not run away from the hospital," - I say.
"He can't," - grins Katie, - "I stole all his clothes, and the rest of his stuff: the keys, the HKL ticket, the phone, everything. He is not getting out of there until I bring his stuff back."
"If he really wants to he'll run away naked or steal some hospital clothes."
"Yeah, but I was sort of hoping he wouldn't bother."

She calls him again but nobody answers. Great. Now we have to watch out for naked Jamie lurking in the bushes. Not that he knows where we are, though. Unless Timo told him. I call Timo.

"How are you? Did you find her?" - he asks.
"No, but we found her boyfriend. He found Rudy and her yesterday at Igor's and Natasha's place, and they beat him up. We are going there to ask if Igor and Natasha know anything."
"Igor and Natasha beat Rudy up?."
"No, Rudy and Oksana beat Vitya up."
"Can you give me the address?"
"We don't need you there," - I say, but give him the address. "Are you still in the hospital?"
"No, not anymore. Left there five minutes ago."
"How is Jamie?"
"He's pretty much all right. In good spirits and all."
"We gotta go now. I'll call you if something comes up."
"Call me after you see Igor and Natasha."

I relay the conversation to Katie. "Jamie in good spirits?" - she asks suspiciously. "He must be up to something."
"Isn't he always?"
"No, sometimes he also sleeps."

When we come to Igor's and Natasha's house we hear drilling in the stairwell. Igor is fixing the apartment door.

"Hi, Igor!" - I say. "It's a lovely morning. How are you?"
"Hi," - he answers. "Fucking Vitya broke our door yesterday. Come on in."

We come in, and he follows us. Inside, Natasha greets us and puts the kettle on. I introduce Katie as Katya again. We look around. Some of the furniture is broken, and in general the place looks like there was a fight here yesterday.

"What happened?" - I ask.
"Oksana brought her new boy toy here for a date, and some asshole told Vitya about it. Vitya came and started swearing and trying to break down the door. Oksana sent the guy to fight with him, saying that she does not want to die naked, and then dressed and joined the fight. Vitya lost, threatened to kill everybody, stole all the vodka and went driving. That's pretty much it."
"It was Dima," - I say, - "who told Vitya about it."
"How did that asshole find out?" - wonders Natasha.
"If you have a sufficiently big crowbar you can ask him". I am just being facetious but they look like they just might consider it.
"Where are they now?" - asks Katie.
"We gave them the keys of our summer cottage. Don't know if they are still there. I've tried to call Oksana but she left her phone here. The guy, too."
"Why do you provide Oksana with a place to fuck?" - I ask, - "Can't she just screw around at home when Vitya is away, like all normal people?"
"He is very jealous and works irregular hours," - says Natasha.
"Don't the guys she finds have homes?"
"The yesterday's guy lives with some evil control-freak relatives," - answers Natasha. Igor, who did not miss the rather obvious familial resemblance between Rudy and Katie, kicks Natasha under the table and points at Katie with his eyes.
"Oh, I am sorry!" - Natasha is upset, - "At least that's what he said."
"We'd like to find them, can you give us the address?"
"Sure," - Natasha writes down the directions. "Have you been to Vitya's place? Is he OK?"
"Lots of minor injuries, still drunk and kind of paranoid. He's been threatening to rape Marina Alexeyevna and she barricaded herself and the kids in their room, and now she can't get out."
"Marina Alexeyevna? He must be high on some hard drugs to want to stick his own dick in her," - says Natasha.
"Or in Oksana," - adds Igor with an evil grin. Natasha looks at him with reproach.
"Oksana is my friend," - she says.
"That's hardly a reason to fuck her."
"We can take the guy's cell phone," - I say. "We are looking for him anyway."
"Can you take Oksana's, too? You'll probably see her sooner."
"OK."

I take the phones and we leave. When we go out of the building Rudy's phone rings. I take it out to look at the caller ID.

"Where," - I ask Katie, - "did you hide Jamie's phone? Because somebody is calling from it. Should I answer, or will you?"
"Don't answer," - she says. "Let him think we don't know anything. I hid it at home with the rest of his stuff."
"I gotta call Timo. Should I ask him about it?"
"No, don't."

I call Timo.

"Hi! We've just been at Igor's and Natasha's."
"Did you find them?"
"They went to Igor's and Natasha's summer cottage. We are going there now."
"I'll join you."
"OK. By the way, did you know that Igor shares your opinion of Oksana?"
"Heh. Who doesn't?"
"The two poor buggers who are paying her child support, and Vitya. And obviously Rudy. Yeah, we found his cell phone."
"Cool."

I give him the directions and we agree to meet at the train station. I really feel like asking him about Jamie, especially since Katie does not know enough Finnish to understand it if I do, but I restrain myself since I am gonna see Timo in person pretty soon.

At the train station we see Timo and Jamie licking two huge ice cream cones. Jamie is - thank god for small favors - wearing clothes, and apparently his own clothes, too.

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" - he asks Katie.
"You know, for a second there, yeah, I kind of did," - she answers, and we all laugh. - "No, I really didn't, just sort of hoped you wouldn't bother. Where did you get the clothes?"
"I asked Timo to bring me some. Then we went to our place and I changed into my own and got the keys and everything."
"Did you climb inside through the balcony?"
"Who, me?" - he makes his best expression of injured innocence, - "Of course not, I asked the guy from the building office to open it."
"Good," - she smiles, - "how are you feeling now?"
"I am fine. The burns would be a bit sore, but burana is our friend."
"Burana my ass! Probably ate a fistful of panacod again? Shouldn't take too much of that stuff, it's toxic for the liver."
"I would never eat more than two panacods," - he makes an expression of injured innocence again. He is not fooling anybody.
"It wasn't panacod, it was burana," - says Timo with a much more efficient expression of injured innocence. The thought of my Timo lying better than Jamie shocks me for a second, but then I realize that he is not in fact better at it; Jamie is just overusing his sweet and innocent act and it doesn't work on us anymore. At least not most of the time.

I laugh and kiss Timo. "Ice cream tax," - I say in Finnish - we usually speak Finnish between ourselves - and lick his ice cream, but it turns out to be strawberry-flavored so I don't lick it again.
"That was a very moderate tax," - he says, - "You should be working in the tax office.
"Why the hell did you bring him clothes?"
"Well, I can't let the guy get Ida's Licenciate degree before I even got my laudatur.

Ida's degrees are a student thing and are given for running around naked. Laudatur is given for running naked to the nearest railway station; licenciate for running naked to the central railway station and coming back in the public transportation, telling the people who check the tickets that the ticket is in your pocket. This sounds exactly like a thing Jamie would do. In fact sounds exactly like a thing Katie would do too. I make a mental note not to mention it to them.

Katie puts her hand on Jamie's forehead to find out whether he still has a fever, but apparently the evidence is inconclusive. She proceeds down the checklist of asking him whether he's had enough water, salt and sugar. He answers "no, never" to the sugar question and taps her on the nose with his ice cream, then licks it off. This questioning is more for the sake of his ego than anything else - he knows just as well as Katie what to do about dehydration, he just likes being asked these things. Makes him feel loved or something...

We buy tickets and get into the train. Katie and Jamie immediately proceed to have a public display of affection, which is not quite trivial considering that one of the parties has burns all over the front part of his body, but they manage it somehow. I start wondering whether we should follow suit and then notice Timo's hand already following suit somewhere under my shirt. Some heavy petting ensues, without any sound effects and even without scaring too many grandmothers. Afterwards Timo asks me what's the plan if we don't find Rudy in the cottage, but I have no plan.

Jamie looks in the window of the train, using it as a mirror, and apparently doesn't like what he sees. He starts unbraiding his hair. "Put your hair in a ponytail, honey," - says Katie, - "It will be so much easier to hold away from your face when you start throwing up again." He scowls at her but follows her advice.

Igor's and Natasha's cottage is in fact a timeshare that stands in a village of similar timeshare cottages. It's only ten minutes by cab from the train station, but the place feels like it's in the middle of nowhere. Nobody is to be seen, and the atmosphere feels vaguely threatening. Trees on one side, empty meadows on another.

We walk through the empty-looking village. Jamie starts singing something softly, something quite familiar. I come closer to hear the words.

"Upptill sitter Herran.
Han är ganska fjärran.
Men din broder Satan
möter du på gatan."

Great. Next thing we'll start finding fully-dressed skeletons.

"Måste du sjunga?" - I say, unexpectedly for myself.
"Nej," - he answers and switches to English, - "and you are quoting from the wrong part of the movie."
"Am not!"
"Wanna bet a liter of Fazer's truffle ice cream on that? The knight asks Jöns to shut up after the next song, the one he sings after they find the skeleton."
"This one?" - asks Timo and starts singing "Ack ödet är en rackare, du själv min vän en stackare..." Jamie nods.
"Could the whole Bergman appreciation club please shut up?" - asks Katie.

Finally we find the right cottage, but nobody responds to our knocking. Katie goes around, and yells for us to come there. Through the window we can see Rudy on the bed, naked, tied up and gagged. He sees us too, and tries to wave his waveable parts at us.

We open the window as far as it goes, and Timo starts squeezing through. "Careful," - I say, - "he might not be alone in there." "OK," - he nods, but when he is finally in he does not spend any time checking out the place but unties Rudy and goes to open the door for us. Rudy springs up from the bed with an amazing speed for a person who has apparently been tied up for quite a while, and runs somewhere.

We come in. There is nobody else inside. Rudy is in the toilet, and is apparently also having a quick shower. When he comes out, he doesn't seem particularly distressed or hurt - just a few bruises, and he is rubbing all the places that are sore from lying in the same position for a long time. And there is dried-up liquid latex on his pubic hair and in some other places.

"The true happiness is a toilet when you need it," - he declares.
"What happened?" - asks Katie, - "how long have you been like that?"
"I have no idea," - says Rudy, - "Oksana tied me down and went to buy us some more cigarettes, and then disappeared. That was about three last night. Hope nothing has happened to her."

It looks like nobody else is sharing this hope.

"Look, I brought you your cell phone," - I say.
"Great, thanks. We gotta find her."
"Can't we just, you know, not find her?" - asks Timo.
"But what if something has happened to her?"
"I am sure she deserved it."
"Wasn't it annoying when her boyfriend came last night?" - I ask.
"That's OK, we kicked him out of there. Sorry about those nice people and their furniture."
"Doesn't it bother you that your date turns out to have a violent boyfriend?"
"He is no match for me."
"Sexually or as a fighter?"
"Neither," - says Rudy, modest as always.
"Rudy, man, get yourself a vasectomy," - says Jamie. "Especially if you are gonna hang out with women like that."
"But what if I want children later?"
"Then you are shit out of luck."

They start their usual discussion about potential children. Rudy really can't stand children, but for some reason has an idea that he might want to have them in the future, and meanwhile he spends half of his time fretting whether he has gotten somebody pregnant or not. It was sort of understandable at eighteen, but now he is thirty-five, so there is not an awful lot of reproductive future left, and he still can't stand children. Does he imagine that he will suddenly start loving them and find a like-minded woman before forty? Or does he think he'll find a much younger woman at some more advanced age? He might at that - at least women turn their heads when he walks past them in the streets. But it is funny how a lot of men believe their reproductive possibilities would extend to their fifties, sixties and even seventies without giving any thought to where they would find a younger woman, or indeed any kind of woman.

"It's not like there is a lot of "later"," I say.
"Men are fertile until they die," - Rudy says.
"Yeah, right. With whom?" - laughs Jamie.
"Clint Eastwood had a baby when he was sixty-six," - reports Rudy, - "with a woman who was just over thirty".
"You are not Clint Eastwood," - I state the obvious.
"No," - he says, - "I am a lot more handsome." It's a matter of taste, of course, but a lot of women do find him quite handsome, and even the ones who are not attracted to him usually tend to notice him.
"There is also the small matter of being rich and famous," - informs him Jamie.
"It can't really be that important," - states Rudy with finality.

We scatter in order to comb the grounds for Oksana, and decide not to ring any doorbells. Mostly we can see each other. To the left of me Timo seems to be somewhat distracted by mushrooms and other wonders of nature. To the right Jamie finds a body. He manages to rouse it, and it turns out to be Oksana. I am too far to hear their conversation, but I can see her slap him. I start running towards them, and I see him slap her right back. She falls, not so much from the force of the blow as because she is somewhat unsteady on her feet. By the time she gets up I am there, but neither of them is paying me any attention.

"You asshole!" - she screams, - "only a coward would hit a woman!"
"You started it,"- says Jamie, who has grown up in the same house with his sister Karen and as the result has no misgivings whatsoever about hitting women.

She pretends to calm down and then aims a full-force karate kick at his face. He dodges and kicks her in the upper chest, not very strongly but it does not take a strong kick in there to make a person fall on his ass. She falls into a puddle too, which might or might not have been his intention but which he obviously finds amusing.

"Don't try it again," - I tell her in Russian, - "His next kick is probably gonna break your neck."
Oksana has apparently already realized that she is very much out of her league. "Wow," - she says and smiles at him, - "that's a cool trick, where did you learn it? Can you show me?"
"Sure," - he smiles back at her and shows her how to do it, all the time explaining everything with a lot of technical terms.

We start gathering the others. Oksana and Jamie keep chatting about martial arts like old friends and start flirting with each other. I know them well enough to see that both of them are faking it, but I am not sure whether each one of them knows that the other one is faking.

Everybody gathers up. Oksana acknowledges Rudy's presense with a "hi" in Russian, just as if she hadn't left him tied up in bed the night before. He does not demand an explanation, not yet anyway. I introduce Katie and Oksana to each other, and Oksana looks at Katie up and down with the same kind of appreciation as men usually do, which is funny because I have never known Oksana to be anything but heterosexual.

I hand Oksana her phone. "We better get back," - I say, - "and you better get back too. Vitya is really pissed off and has threatened to rape Marina Alexeyevna, and she has barricaded herself in a room with the children."
"The asshole!" - she says, - "on the other hand I probably deserve it for yesterday's escapades."
I roll my eyes. "Marina Alexeyevna does not deserve it for your yesterday's escapades."
"She will probably just be glad."
"I am sure that's why she barricaded herself."
"Are you sure her boyfriend won't hurt her?" - Rudy asks me.
"He won't dare, I am pregnant," - she says. I can see relief on Katie's and Rudy's faces. In fact I feel relieved although normally I would consider another pregnancy of hers a disaster for the potential kid. Timo and Jamie, who do not understand much of the conversation, seem to notice our relief and give us questioning looks.
"From whom?" - I cannot resist.
"What kind of question is that?"
"A natural one, considering..."
"It's probably Vitya's. Could be also Seryozha's or Pete's. There was nobody else. I'll tell Vitya it's his anyway."
"Oksana, Pete is black!"
"So? Do you have anything against black people?"
"No, but don't you think Vitya is gonna notice if the kid is born black?"
"I'll tell him that one of my ancestors was black or something. If he doesn't believe me that's his problem."

I look at her incredulously and translate the gist of the conversation for the non-Russian-speaking guys.

"Why did you leave me tied up for the night?" - asks Rudy in English.
"I didn't!" - she protests. "Oh, shit, I did! I forgot!"
"What do you mean you forgot?"
"I went to the bar to buy the smokes, and then a couple of guys offered me drinks and I started hanging out with them and then we had some coke, and somehow I forgot that you were tied down. I am really sorry."
"Did you at least get the cigarettes?"
"Yeah. If I didn't smoke them all already." She searches around her body for cigarettes and finds them in the back pocket of her pants, dripping with mud. "Oops."

We lock up the cottage and take a cab to the train. In the train Oksana and Jamie continue to flirt with each other, which is a bit strange, at least on Oksana's part. He always flirts with everything that moves regardless of whether he actually has any dishonorable intentions or not, but she rarely flirts without a purpose in mind, and I don't see a purpose here. Jamie is in fact everything that Oksana does not like in a man, both in looks and personality. I am sure the feeling is mutual, too.

"What do you do for a living?" - he asks her.
"I am a marriage counselor," - she says, - "a psychologist by education."
"Really?" - he asks, looking at me questioningly. I nod. Believe it or not, she really is a marriage counselor.
"Really," - she says. "What do you do?"
"Me? I am just a trophy husband of a rich wife," - he lies and points at Katie.

Now it's Oksana's turn to look at him incredulously. Jamie is very cute in a mousy kind of way, but it's hard to imagine that somebody would marry him just to show him off as a trophy spouse. He is not very showy, not unless he wants to be and definitely not at the moment.

At some point they stop flirting with each other and Oksana starts talking to Katie. "You deserve a better man," - she tells her after asking her about her job and a number of other things.
"Why?" - asks Katie, amused. At least she did not say "you too". Although probably she doesn't think that Oksana deserves a better man than Vitya.
"You could get a taller and richer guy, and a more respectful one, too. Also you could get a guy with blue eyes, especially around here." Oksana has a thing about blue eyes, and also a thing against brown eyes, especially on white people.
"Has he been disrespectful?" - asks Katie. "That's strange. Usually he behaves quite well at home."
"The asshole kicked me!"
"Didn't I tell you what will happen when he kicks you again?" - I ask her.
"He can't understand us."
"He has been around Russian-speaking people for a while. I wouldn't bet on what he can and cannot understand," - I say. I am just trying to scare her. He wouldn't kick anyone for this.
"Men should be respectful to all the women," - says Oksana. "You really should consider getting another one. You are a very beautiful woman, and successful too."
Katie's expression is pensive. "I don't know where would I find another guy with such big a dick," - she sighs.
"How big?" - immediately asks Oksana, interested.
Katie makes a gesture that shows about twice the natural length. "Besides, he is unbelievably good in bed."

Either Jamie is accustommed to Katie making false advertisement for him, or he really can understand some Russian, but he very obviously understands what they are talking about. A very wide grin appears on his face, and he turns away from us. The advertisement is false, by the way - Jamie is fairly competent in bed but is not exceptional in any way.

I start wondering whether I have ever been with anyone who was really exceptional in bed, and come to the conclusion that I haven't. About seventy percent of my lovers were competent but unexceptional; the rest were, well, less competent. Do great lovers really exist other than in popular media?

In any case Oksana seems to believe in men with supernatural sexual abilities, and Katie is having her on. I feel insanely jealous of Katie's ability to invent monstrous lies and make fun of people while wearing the same deadpan expression all the time. I can do it for a minute maybe, but then the deadpan expression starts to deteriorate very fast.

In order to corroborate Katie's story I tell a couple of severely embellished stories of Jamie's sexual prowess myself. I do not bother to mention that the events described happened thirteen years ago, and this seems to shock Oksana a lot. I leave Oksana to Katie and turn to listen to the guys' conversation. There Timo is trying to find out why Jamie doesn't have a Danish citizenship.

"If you are a Scandinavian citizen and haven't grown up in the Scandinavian country you are supposed to ask to retain your citizenship at the age of 22, or else you lose it," - says Jamie, - "At least that's how it works in Denmark and Iceland. I kept the Icelandic citizenship, but not the Danish one."
"Why not?"
"What am I, crazy? They have a conscrpit army."
"I don't think they want to conscript the citizens living abroad."
"I didn't want to find out!"
"In any case, don't they have civil service as well?"

The expressions on both Jamie's and Rudy's faces clearly show that they don't think much of the civil service either. Timo, who has served 16 months in civil service teaching various idiots how to use Windows three point whatever, looks a bit wistful. Jamie asks how people manage to avoid both services in Finland, and Timo starts explaining about self-disturbing gay people.

"Self-disturbing gay people?" - giggles Rudy.
"Yeah. Homosexuality used to be classified as a mental disease, but now it is classified as such only if it disturbs the person himself or herself," - says Timo, - "hence the self-disturbing gay people. Because being a regular gay person is not enough to get out of the army."
"Are there self-disturbing heterosexuals?" - asks Rudy.
"Obviously there are," - I say, looking pointedly at him. He sticks his tongue out at me.
"Anyway, why would anyone want to be a Dane?" - Jamie returns to the previous topic. "Danes are evil, they put marsipan in your chocolate."

This triggers a minor World War Three, with all three of them waving their hands at each other and having very strong opinions on what does and does not belong in chocolate, and with Timo's scream of "hazelnuts are pure evil" the train finally comes to Helsinki.

At the station Oksana first whispers something to Rudy, then asks us to come with her to help her straighten out the domestic situation. I agree, not for her sake but for Marina Alexeyevna's, since I am sure Vitya has done nothing to rescue the poor woman. Rudy agrees too, although he is the one person who shouldn't be there. Jamie and Katie sound unsure, and Timo says that this is a job for police and firefighters. In the end we decide to come anyway. Katie tries to get Jamie to go home and get some rest but he says is curious to see what kind of guy lives with Oksana. Rudy gives him an angry glare.

When we come to the building Oksana asks the guys to wait outside, Rudy preferably somewhere where he can't be seen from the windows, and asks Katie and myself in. When she opens the apartment door Vitya jumps up from the sofa, screams "I am gonna rip you a new asshole, you cunt!" and falls down, since his feet are full of glass shards and he is not drunk enough anymore not to feel it.

"Vitya," - I say, - "why don't we rip Oksana's asshole later, and first rescue Marina Alexeyevna."
"Argh!" - he says, - "She is still in there! And the children too! I totally forgot!"
"Marina Alexeyevna," - I say, knocking on the door. "Are you OK?"
"No! I am locked in here with three children and no food or water and that maniac on the outside, and the pot is overflowing!"
"Don't worry! Everything is OK! We have come to rescue you!"

While this conversation is taking place Vitya and Oksana are exchanging the threats of death and grievous bodily harm.

"Marina Alexeyevna," - Katie asks through the door, - "do you think that if we have enough people pushing from here we'll be able to move the furniture?"
"Afraid not, dear. Some things will have to be moved sideways."
"OK. We'll go outside and talk to our guys, and then come back."
This distracts Vitya, who still thinks Rudy is Katie's husband or boyfriend, from his domestic dispute. "The yesterday's asshole is here?" - he screams and runs to the window.
Katie walks to the window. "That guy in a blue t-shirt with a ponytail is my husband," - she informs Vitya.
Vitya cheers up and makes a very unsuccessful attempt at a seductive smile. "But he is so much shorter than you," - he states, - "and quite a bit younger, too."

Katie gives him a glare of death and walks out of the apartment without a word. Jamie is actually one month older than her. He has unusually good skin for a guy his age, for which he usually credits his liberal use of very strong sunscreens. He'd make a good advertisement for some sunscreen company, although the advertising effect on us is somewhat spoiled by the fact that his sister has the exact same kind of skin without using any sunscreen whatsoever.

"What did I say?" - asks me Vitya.
"A few points on picking up married women," - I answer. "First of all, disparaging their husbands to them is not very constructive. Second, disparaging their husbands for being younger than themselves is not likely to endear you to the women, especially in the cases where said husbands are in fact older."
"Shit," - he says. "How was I supposed to know? Hold on, if that guy is her husband, then who is the red-haired prick? She is cheating on him! You are all whores!"
"He is her brother, moron," - says Oksana, - "can't you fucking see?"

I walk out the door and go downstairs. There Rudy is leaning on the wall, smoking and occasionally scratching the bits covered in latex, and everybody else is discussing the possible ways of rescue. Timo is still voting for the firefighters. Katie wants to use Vitya's body as a battering ram. Jamie thinks the rescue can be done by climbing the into the room, which is on the second floor and has a balcony, and after a few minutes of arguing he simply starts climbing.

He is doing very well, except that his jeans are trying to fall off. Rudy keeps pointing at his ass and making a pantomime of fainting. Jamie is not exactly blessed with a sense of fashion, but it should not take a genius to figure out that jeans that are cut that low are meant to hang on one's ass, and therefore should not be worn by people who don't have any ass to speak of. Besides looking like a C-size strapless gown on an AA-sized woman the jeans are making a very good attempt to fall off while he is climbing. For a second I hope they would fall off and teach him a lesson, but then I think of the heart attack Marina Alexeyevna will have if she sees a strange English-speaking man climbing into the room without any pants on, and decide that the lesson wouldn't be quite worth it.

He reaches the balcony, climbs on it, pulls his pants up and knocks on the door. The door opens and Jamie goes in, and the eldest of the kids, five-year-old Max, comes out.

"Hi, aunt Mira!" - he greets me in Russian, - "we got locked up and cannot get out!"
"I see," - I say, - "how are you doing?"
"Great! We were eating candy the whole day. But we don't have a TV in here."

We hear the sounds of a desperate furniture-moving attempt and then some swearing. Jamie appears on the balcony.

"There is a humongous sofa in there," - he says. "I can't move it."

Shit. I can't believe it was that sofa! The sofa is question is indeed huge, and usually requires two people to move it anywhere. Apparently even two people is not enough if one of them is Marina Alexeyevna. But how did she move it in the first place? Must have used the Force... Truly the resources of a human mind are mysteriously boundless, especially when the body that the mind inhabits is being chased by Vitya with his dick up and his pants down.

"Anybody else wants to climb up?" - Jamie asks, but the question is pointless, he knows that none of us can. "Any ideas?"
"Why don't you try to rape her too?" - asks Rudy, - "Maybe she'll move the sofa again?"
"Any other ideas?"
"How about firefighters?" - asks Timo again.
"Can we tie some long ropes to it and pull it from down here? There are four of us, after all," - says Katie.
"Five," - corrects her Oksana who just came out of the building.
"Are you sure the fucking thing is not gonna break if we do that?" - asks Jamie.
"Can't be sure about anything," - says Katie, - "but I don't think so. I used to study physics before I decided to become a biologist, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember," - he says, - "you used to take all those classes on the Relativity theory. Problem is, that sofa does not look very relativistic to me."
"Anyway," - says Katie, - "if it falls apart it will be easier to move."
"Not if its legs fall off, it won't."
"Do we even have enough rope?" - I ask.
"Rope is no problem," - says Oksana, goes inside and reappears after a while with a huge bagful of ropes.

Timo throws the ropes and Jamie catches them, then disappears inside. After a while he comes to the balcony, throws down the ends of five ropes and says that the ropes' other ends are now securely fastened to the sofa. We start pulling.

"Stop! Aaarrgghhh!" - we hear him scream from inside, followed by a crash and everyone's screams. The screaming is in turn followed by swearing, in both English and Russian, and using words I did not think Marina Alexeyevna knew. Jamie comes to the balcony again.

"The fucking thing fell apart, its legs broke off," - he says, but has the grace not to add "I told you so!".
"What are we gonna do now?" - asks Oksana.
"Let me remind you once again that firefighters are your friends," - says Timo.
"Is there any other way?" - asks Oksana.
"We can leave them in there forever, but I don't think it's a good idea," - answers Timo.
"Can he help them climb down?" - asks Oksana, pointing upwards.
"No fucking way," - is the unanimous answer.

Jamie ties the ropes to the balcony and starts climbing down. Just as he starts sliding down the ropes he realizes that the rope-climbing with burned stomach and chest was not a good idea, but by then it's too late. He gets down without an accident, but he looks very sore, very tired and his jeans are trying to fall off again.

"I told you not to wear such low-cut jeans!" - says Rudy, - "It looks horrible."
"I usually don't," - he answers, - "but try wearing anything else with the damn burns on your stomach."

He definitely has a point, but this does not explain why he owns this pair of jeans in the first place.

"Can we go upstairs and get some water?" - Jamie asks me.

We go upstairs. He is clearly leaning on me and is in a worse condition than I thought.

"You really should be home in bed now," - I say.
"What, and miss all this circus?"
"I could have shown you these people some other time. They have a circus like that almost every day."
"What, with locking the babysitter in the room?"
"No, this one was new. By the way - did you tell the hospital that you were running away?"
"No, I just sneaked out. Shit, gotta call them."

We come into the apartment. Vitya has gotten a new bottle of vodka from somewhere, probably Oksana's purse. He greets us and thanks Jamie in Russian for having climbed up there. Jamie understands the idea and does his best to say "you are welcome" with body language. I tell Vitya that we just came for a glass of water. He pours a glass of vodka and offers it to Jamie. Jamie smiles, says "no, thanks" in Russian and shakes his head. Vitya does not quite understand why a perfectly normal person is refusing vodka, and I tell him that Jamie does not drink. Vitya wonders what is wrong with him and I say that nothing much, he just doesn't. Vitya keeps asking questions, and upon learning that Jamie is not a recovering alcoholic, not on probation for drunk driving and does not have any problems with liver or religion he looks like he is starting thinking. This is definitely a new thing for him, and you can sort of hear the little wheels turn in his head.

"I could use that!" - Rudy says from the door in Russian. He comes up to Vitya and gives him his hand. - "Sorry about your girlfriend, man. Sorry about that kick yesterday, too."
"You are sorry!" - says Vitya, shaking Rudy's hand, - You just screwed her once, and I have to live with her every day!" He drinks half of the glass and offers the rest to Rudy, who gulps it down.
"That's what I meant," - explains Rudy sympathetically, - "you are stuck with her, man. Do you know she tied me down and disappeared somewhere for many hours?"

Vitya hugs Rudy and starts crying. Jamie, who has already drunk a couple of glasses of water, is trying to manhandle me towards the door, apparently to let the guys have their tender moment alone. I resist for a moment, but after figuring they are not going to kill each other yet let him lead me away.

"What did Rudy go there for?" - asks Katie when we get down.
"Making peace with Vitya," - says Jamie.
"They are hugging each other and drinking together," - I add.

Oksana looks panicky like any woman whose boyfriend and lover are suddenly found hugging each other and drinking together.

"I am calling the firefighters," - says Timo.
"No, wait!" - pleads Oksana, - "I gotta warn Vitya."
"You have three minutes."

Oksana runs inside just as Rudy comes out. He winks at her.

After three minutes are up Timo calls the firefighters. We decide to stay until they arrive. They come, Timo tells them that he was the one who called them and explains the situation. Three firefighters climb onto the balcony and go inside.

"Aaaarrgghh!" - we hear Oksana screaming, - "the car! You fucking asshole!"

This is followed by the sounds of a fight with breaking glass and general yelling. Soon the firefighters come out and tell Timo that the old lady and children have been rescued, and that they have called in a domestic disturbance. Timo thanks them and we leave without waiting for the police to arrive. I feel a bit bad about the police but Timo says that they shouldn't have started fighting in front of the firefighters. Hope they at least have hidden the coke well.

Katie invites us to come over, and we say OK. On the way Rudy starts sneezing and can't stop. "Fucking cocaine," - he mutters, - "I must be allergic to the stuff or something."
"Rudy!"
"What? I had to do a line out of politeness."
"Some politeness," - growls Katie.
"Are all the Russians here like this?" - asks Jamie. "We used to have much better Russians in Edinburgh when I was a kid."
"No, these two are a pathological case."

When we get there the dogs jump on us with the urgency of a person who really needs to go to the toilet. Jamie tries to grab the leashes, but Katie tells him to stay home and rest and takes the dogs out herself. He swallows a couple of buranas, pulls his t-shirt off, spreads burn ointment on himself, puts the shirt back on, turns the kettle on and lies down on his back on the floor, instructing us to bring him a cup of tea when it is ready. Rudy is searching for tissues and finally finds them. Timo is searching for something under my shirt, and it feels good. I would like to search for beer in the fridge, but that can wait.

Finally the tea is ready and Rudy pours it for everyone and takes out booze and chocolate. Timo offers him some antihistamine, which he takes. Jamie seems to get so much better after tea and chocolate that I make a mental note to use chocolate to revive him if he ever dies. He calls the hospital, tells them that he ran away and that he is sorry. Apparently they don't yell at him too much, and tell him to come show himself to them on Monday morning.

Rudy undresses and starts examining the liquid latex. We all come to check it out. It seems rather firmly stuck. Rudy pulls on it and apparently finds it painful.

"Hmm, it's so stuck that you can't even shave this," - says Jamie. "And don't try to pull it off by force unless you want a bikini wax. Which is nice but way too painful," - he adds with the voice of bitter experience.
"So what do I do now?"
"Try warm water, brush, soap and oil. Or peanut butter."
"It feels really dumb to brush your own balls."
"Yeah, but what else can you do?"

Rudy disappears into the shower with a big brush and a can of peanut butter. I volunteer to give him a hand, but he says there is a limit to the amount of humiliation he can take. He comes back fifteen minutes later and declares a partial success.

Katie and the dogs come back. The dogs run around and try to lick everybody. Katie pours herself a whiskey and hands Jamie a thermometer.

"Oh, come on," - he says, without taking the thermometer.
"If you don't take it I'll use the veterinarian one on you," - she says.
He grins and for a second I am afraid he'd take her up on that, but then he says "OK, OK" and takes the human thermometer.
"37.2," - Katie says when he finally takes it out, - "but you probably should be in bed anyway."
"Sorry, but I don't think I will be in any condition for performing my marital duties tonight."
"What," - she gasps in a mock horror, - "You are too sick to cook?"
"No, not that bad, there's a limit to everything. Food might in fact be a good idea right now," - he smiles, gets up and goes to the kitchen.

The rest of us get some drinks.

"That's a lovely red," - Katie says to Rudy.
"Oh, thanks," - he says, - "it's a Feria, don't remember the number, Mira helped me put it on yesterday."
"I actually meant your nose."
"Bitch."

He gets up and looks in a mirror. "Shit! I totally forgot going to a barber again, and now they are all closed!"
"It's not so serious," - Timo tries to calm him down, - "I have heard a rumor that they might be open again on Monday."
"Yeah, but Monday is, well, on Monday!"
"And now is Saturday night," - says Katie, - "and I sincerely hope you don't have another date before Monday."
"At least not with Oksana," - I add.
"Do you wanna borrow a bandanna?" - sounds from the kitchen.