"Does Timo dance?" - she asks.
"Not voluntarily, no. I mean he might consent to dancing when very drunk, but at that point he is in no condition for it."
"I've always wondered why so few men like to dance."
"Yeah, me too."
"Are Scottish men better at it than Finnish ones?"
"Not sure. Most of my Scottish relatives sure dance when they imagine it can get them laid, but Rudy is the only one who actually does it for the sake of dancing itself. Jamie occasionally dances when he has had too much coffee and sugar."
"Speak of the devil..."

Jamie walks into the room, followed by two guys. He immediately sees us and they come over and sit down at our table, or rather our tractor. Jamie climbs on the tractor itself and pretends to be driving it. He introduces the twentyish blond guy with green eyes as Sami, and the thirtyish dark-haired one as Johan, and introduces us to the guys.

Jamie looks somehow slightly wrong. His grin is just a bit more manic than usual, the eyes shinier, the voice louder. This all seems very distantly familiar. I stare at him for a few moments and then, to my rising horror, diagnose his condition as at least two promille of alcohol in his blood.

It's been many years since I have last seen him drunk. It was before his marriage, before our relationship, before the post-traumatic stress disorder, before he was raped and almost killed in Angola, before everything. And it was terrifying. He gets a lot of bad ideas when he is drunk. He gets a lot of bad ideas when he is sober too, but alcohol severely impairs his ability to distinguish between the good ideas and the bad ones without in any way impairing his ability to implement them. In fact alcohol tends to enhance his ability to influence people, and he also becomes a very good public speaker when drunk. When we were kids we often speculated on whether he can be kept drunk for a suffucient time to get himself elected to the Parliament; since he stopped drinking at 19 and you had to be 21 in order to get elected we could not test it out for real.

The event that prompted Jamie to stop drinking, at least in any significant amounts - he had three or four drinks a year after that, and never two on the same day - was when he got drunk with Alex (one of Rudy's younger brothers) and convinced him to have sex with a sheep, and Alex did it and got caught in flagrante delicto. Jamie got into a lot of trouble for that, though not nearly as much trouble as Alex himself. To add insult to injury, while arresting police officers sternly told Alex that sheep cannot express consent of lack thereof, the actual sheep promptly expressed its lack of consent by biting him on the hand. Alex got arrested (luckily he was a minor), bitten by the sheep, given a tetanus shot and a few stitches by a giggling doctor in an emergency room, given an unbelievable thrashing by his mom and grounded. Jamie was given two smaller thrashings, both by Alex's mom and by his own mom, and decided that alcohol was not for him. What the fuck is he doing drunk now?

"Hey, why don't we all go for a ride?" - he says and extends his hand towards Johan. Johan tries to give him car keys, but I snatch them out before Jamie gets them.
"Don't. Can't you see he is drunk?" - I start sharply, but then realize that it might not be obvious to a person who'd never seen him drunk before and soften it with a smile.
"He doesn't drink," - says Johan sheepishly.
"He usually doesn't, but he is drunk now. What did he have?"
"A whole lot of glögi. I assumed it was the alcohol-free version."
"Besides," - says Rudy from behind, coming back to the table, - "he does not know how to drive a car even when sober."
"He does have a license."
"He got the license when he was eighteen, he is thirty-four now, he has probably driven five times in the meanwhile, you do the math."

I give Johan's keys back to him and he hides them in his pocket.

"Why are you so drunk?" - Rudy asks Jamie.
"I thought the damn glögi did not have any alcohol. By the time I figured it did it was sort of too late."

Jamie tilts his head to one side and then to the other, studying Rudy's new haircut. The new haircut looks remarkably similar to the old one, but it would be a bad idea to tell that to Rudy, who has just paid thirty euros for it. The only visible difference is that his hair is spiked with an unbelievable amount of gel, and I can actually understand that such an amount of gel costs that much money.

"Hey, you have Viagra in your hair!" - observes Jamie. "Can it be used as a cocktail stick?"
"Using Viagra as a cocktail stick would give a new meaning to a stiff drink," - says Tarja.

Jamie starts trying to stick olives, cocktail onions and bits of pineapple onto Rudy's hair. Rudy tells him to cut it out. He doesn't. After issuing a few warnings and realizing that they don't work Rudy gets up and in one fluid movement grabs Jamie's hair with one hand, all the ice out of my water glass in the other, lifts the hair and stuffs the ice under Jamie's collar. This produces the desired effect: Jamie lets go of the cocktail vegetable matter and starts jumping, screaming, swearing and trying to extract ice from under his clothes. The staff and other customers look at him with great interest.

"Bugger that," - he says. - "Let's go drink on Makkaratalo's roof."

Sami turns out to have the keys, and we go drink on Makkaratalo's roof. It goes reasonably well, except that at some point we run out of booze. Jamie expresses his desire to venture to the parts of the city that do not have trams, and Johan and Sami decide to excuse themselves.

We end up going skinny-dipping in Vuosaari, something none of us would ever do without drunk Jamie's bad influence. Least of all Jamie himself if he were sober. He hates cold water. I hate cold water too, but am too drunk to even feel the cold.

After Vuosaari Jamie decides to check out bars in Kontula, and Liisa decides to flee. Bars in Kontula are a bad idea in general, and especially when a party contains two obviously foreign and weird men. Rudy is a very visible guy in general, very tall and thin and with hair dyed bright orange, and he is way overdressed for this venue; Jamie does not have any attention-provoking clothes, and could indeed pass for a Finn in a bad light in spite of his brown eyes and black hair, but with him jumping around and screaming and swearing in English with a Scottish accent there is no chance of that.

We sit in one Kontula bar rather uneventfully for about an hour, which is a rather nice surprise since the place looks rather disreputable even for a Kontula bar. Then, just as Jamie is buying another drink at the bar, a big gorilla-like guy shoves him from behind.

"Get out of here, you fucking Vietnamese prick! You fuckers just come here and drink on our tax money!" - growls the guy, who does not in fact look like someone who pays taxes.

Jamie turns around, showing his very un-Vietnamese face.

"Fucking Swedish prick," - the guy adjusts his guess as to Jamie's ethnicity remarkably well.

Jamie looks him in the eye with the same sad and soulful look that, when done by him, sometimes means "sorry I've eaten all the chocolate", and sometimes means "say goodbye to your balls, asshole". The guy retreats. He does not leave it at that, unfortunately, and after returning to his table throws a full beer glass at Jamie's head. Jamie deflects the glass and it hits another customer, but he finds deflecting the beer to be a lot more difficult. The guy who got hit by the glass thrower throws a glass back, and a huge fight breaks out.

Some people run towards the fight, some towards the doors. We gotta get out of here, but the problem is that after a moment of reflection Jamie has decided to join the fight and kicks the original glass thrower in the balls. The guy folds up, howling. One of his friends tries to attack, gets kicked in the face, the third guy throws his glass at Jamie, he dodges the glass but not the contents, and now it's his turn to howl, since the glass has apparently contained something stronger that beer, and the stuff has hit him straight in the eyes.

The melee is the worst I'd ever seen in a bar in Finland, some guy has just taken out a knife, and we've got to get out of here. Jamie is rolling on the floor with five other guys, elbowing one of them in the face.

"Let's get him," - says Rudy to me. "Maybe you better wait by the door," - he says to Tarja, but she is both too fascinated and too dutiful to wait by the door. When the right moment comes Rudy grabs Jamie by one arm, I grab him by the other and we drag him out from under the heap of people. Now Tarja grabs him too, and we start dragging him towards the door. He is resisting.

Extracting drunk Jamie from a barfight is much like extracting an angry octopus from a net: he seems to have a lot of extremities that are trying to grab everything in sight. This, of course, is just my guess, since I have never actually had to extract a real octopus, angry or otherwise, out of anything.

"Come on, Cthulhu," - says Rudy, to whom apparently the octopus comparison also came to mind, - "Get a grip."

Jamie already has a fairly strong grip on a table and a door, and doesn't want to let go. I twist the wrist of the hand that is holding on to the door and he lets go for a second, only to grab a mop, which he then tries to use as a weapon. The damn thing is wet, too.

"Let go of the mop, you moron! It's not yours! They need it to clean up after us!"

Somehow Rudy manages to confiscate the mop and leave it in the bar, and we carry Jamie through the door and return him into an upright position outside. An 18-year-old with an expression of admiration comes up to us.

"Wow, man, you were great," - he says to Jamie in English. "What martial art do you do?"
"Sumo wrestling," - says Jamie without batting an eye. He weighs just over sixty kilos, and looks rather delicate and fragile, I suppose, to anyone who did not just have to drag him kicking and screaming out of a barfight. He does not, of course, do any sumo wrestling.
"Wow," - says the teenager, - "that was so cool!"

The teenager goes away and we lead Jamie away from all the Kontula bars and approaching police sirens. Half a kilometer later we stop for a second to examine him. He is not bleeding from anywhere visible, and does not seem particularly sore except for the eyes. He is, however, dripping wet.

"Eeew," - says Rudy, - "What's that smell?"
"Salmiakkikossu," - I answer after smelling Jamie, - "sahti and some kind of light lager."
"Also some sweet cider," - says Tarja, - "and lonkero."
"You mean people really drink that stuff?" - asks Rudy. "Eew!"
"Now we are gonna get banned from that bar for sure," - says Tarja grimly.
"Is it really that much of a loss?" - wonders Rudy.
"No, but it's embarassing. Sort of like getting fired from a brothel for whoring."

We get into a bus going towards Rautatientori. Luckily there is not a lot of people going that way at this time, so we don't scare anyone. While in the bus we try to wash Jamie's eyes with eyedrops, achieving a partial success. Meanwhile Jamie himself is trying to sing. He usually reads a lot of Pratchett fanfic and is trying to go through all the possible versions of the hedgehog song. Apart from the content his singing is luckily pretty inoffensive since he has a good musical ear and not a lot of a voice.

"We can't go home," - he says, - "Katie will kill me."
"She is probably not in yet."
"She will be soon."

We decide to go to my place. It is getting fairly cold outside, and very windy, and by the time we get there we are all shivering. We go inside, and the smell of various alcoholic beverages used as a projectile weapon is so strong that Rudy says Jamie will need to be washed immediately. Jamie decides to resist just for the hell of it, but there are three of us and only one of him. We try to take his clothes off, he wriggles like an eel and giggles like a whole crowd of teenage girls, and finally Rudy threatens to wash him without taking his clothes off, and under cold water, too. This threat turns out to be effective, and finally he lets us undress him and stick him in the shower, and lets me wash his hair without even splashing me too much. He does not seem to be injured apart from bruises, and can stand more or less upright, and I decide that he can be trusted to wash all his other parts by himself.

After he gets out of the shower I stick all his clothes into the washing machine and turn it on, sincerely hoping that the downstairs neighbors are not home. Forcible washing is apparently good for him, since he starts behaving like a human being for a change and offers to make coffee for all of us. We all want it, too, although I somehow doubt that caffeine and sugar is something I would want to feed to Jamie himself right now. After the coffee he grabs my wrist in one hand and a go board in the other and tries to drag me to the bedroom. I resist.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" - I ask.
"I wanna play go," - he says. "Just one game? Please?"

Weird. Jamie can probably win a go game from God himself, and I am a rather lousy amateur. There is no chance at all of me winning, no matter how many handicap stones he gives me. Why the hell would he want to play with me? I decide to go along for the sake of peace and harmony, and we excuse ourselves and Jamie closes the bedroom door behind us.

"You don't have to play unless of course you want to," - he whispers. "I just wanted to give some privacy to our lovebirds."
"What? You don't mean that Rudy and Tarja are..."
"Not yet, but it is coming to that. Just wait and see. They are already sitting close to each other and talking about poetry."
"Come on, they are just drunk!"
"Yeah, and horny."

He puts the go board on the floor, sits down next to it and flutters eyelashes at me. He is very hard to resist when he is being purposefully cute, and god knows he is cute enough even when he is not doing it on purpose. He has very beautiful brown eyes, and I have never been able to pinpoint what exactly makes them so beautiful. It's not the color itself, nor is it the incongruence of seeing dark brown eyes on his otherwise fairly Scandinavian face. Maybe someday I'll figure it out. The rest of him is quite pretty too, although no other part draws quite as much attention as the eyes.

We end up playing several games of go, which I all lose, and Jamie shows me several combinations, which are all very clever but none of which I would likely remember in the morning. He asks me whether he can stay the night. Usually having him over at night is not very conductive to having a good night's sleep, but with this amount of alcohol I am not likely to sleep well anyway, so I tell him that's ok.

At some point we decide to come out of the bedroom for a while. Tarja and Rudy are whispering something to each other and giggling. It's almost one o'clock and Tarja decides she wants to go home, and Rudy volunteers to walk her there. Jamie tells Rudy to tell Katie that he is staying over here, and they go, leaving us alone.

Jamie lies down on my bed, his hair still very wet. "You'll sleep on the wet spot," - I say.
"Sure thing."

It's kind of hard not to notice that his dick is pointing up towards the ceiling. I suppose he can't help it, but I am afraid it might get some totally wrong ideas into his head. Or, worse yet, my head. How come all the men who I am trying to have sex with can never get it up when drunk, and my ex-boyfriend, who is married to my cousin and who does not usually drink, has such a perky boner on a night when he is drunk and we are alone?

He traces the direction of my stare.

"Hey!" - he says, jumping up from the bed. "I think I just found what we can do for the rest of the night."
"No!" - I scream. "I am with Timo now." This is so lame. Jamie knows that Timo and I have an open relationship.
"Tell him that Jesus told us to share," - says Jamie and starts chasing me around the room.

I start dodging him, all the time saying "no, no!" and laughing so hard that even Gloria Steinem would have had problems interpreting this as a lack of consent. He thinks it's all very funny and threatens to eat all my chocolate supply if I do not have sex with him right now. He is being overoptimistic: not even he can eat that much chocolate, and besides he does not know where most of it is. While I am running away and giggling I am also trying to talk some common sense into him. I tell him that it all might seem like fun now but that we'll regret it in the morning. I also tell him to stop chasing me, or else I might give in and then we are both gonna be very ashamed afterwards. Hmm, it does not look like my line of reasoning is doing much to discourage him.

Why would we regret it in the morning, in fact? Timo and I have an open relationship; Jamie and Katie have a sort of semi-open relationship where he is supposed to ask her permission before screwing around, and he hasn't, but I know that unauthorized screwing around with a previously-approved woman is not a big offense in her book, and I am a previously-approved woman. I guess it's just that I suspect that Jamie never really got over our relationship, and god knows what will happen if we start having sex now while living in the same city.

I stop for a second to think of all this, and it turns out to be a mistake. Jamie catches me, drags me onto the bed and starts pulling my clothes off, and I am both too amused and too aroused to resist in any semiconvincing way. He puts a condom on and tries to make love to me doggie-style. Unfortunately he is too drunk to aim well.

"Jamie, you idiot! Wrong hole!" - I scream.

In the ten seconds it takes him to realize that indeed this is the wrong hole he comes, pulls out and apologizes. I feel like berating him both for poor aiming and supershort sex act, but am laughing too hard to actually say anything. By the time I finish laughing he has another erection, which definitely should not happen to very drunk men, but here it is. He puts another condom on, and this time he aims better but the act is still too short for my taste. Luckily he is able to continue with his tongue in a perfectly adequate way until the victorious end.

He wraps his arms around me and starts kissing my neck. I kiss him back and fantasize about a cold beer, but this does not feel like the right moment for getting up and going to the fridge. I also feel like in the name of all feminists I should lecture him about "no" meaning "no", but in the past I have been so cavalier about his own consent that I don't think I can afford it.

"Did you really ever get over our relationship?" - I ask. Should have probably asked that years ago.
"Does anyone ever get over any relationships?" - he shrugs.
"Maybe. I don't know."
"Well, not me, I don't think I've ever got over any relationship."

We have some tea and then go to sleep. He wraps himself into my arms and holds on to my hand. Jamie is very pleasant to touch: smooth skin and nice hair, although would've been much nicer if it were dry, but this is still a damn inconvenient way to sleep. Oh well, I am still quite drunk so there is no chance of a good night of sleep in any case.

I wake up two hours later and see... well, I don't see a shit. It's dark inside, it's dark outside, looks like the whole block has lost the power. Must be the storm, the wind is howling horribly. Shit! Good thing Jamie is still asleep - he is really afraid of the dark, he would totally freak out if he woke up and there were no light. I try not to move and not to make a sound, just thinking "don't wake up, don't wake up..." and trying to remember where the flashlight is.

The power goes on again, and then he wakes up screaming. I hug him and he recoils from me for a moment, which usualy means he has seen a particularly nasty nightmare, and then hugs me and starts crying. I hold him, stroke his back and keep telling him that everything is OK, he is safe, etc. He seems to be perfectly well aware of the surroundings but is still very upset. After a while I understand that this is not just a nightmare.

"What's going on?" - I ask.
"Can I have a drink? Hot buttered rum or something like that?"
"Are you sure that a drink is what you really need?"
"Yeah."

I get up and go to the kitchen. He follows me. I make two hot buttered rums and we return to bed to drink it. We sit on the bed and drink the rum. I start brushing his hair, which usually has the effect of calming him down for some reason, and also has a chance of making it marginally less wet, although it's a bit late for that.

"What's going on?" - I ask again.
"Remember what you promised me thirteen years ago?"
"Yes," - I say, and my pulse suddenly jumps to a higher rate than his.

I promised to kill him if he asks me to. You don't forget such promises in a hurry.

And if he thinks I am actually gonna do it, he is more insane than doctors or anyone else gives him credit for.

"Would you tell me what happened?"
"I've got lung cancer," - he says. "No fucking way," - I think.

How can a fairly young guy who has never smoked or worked with asbestos or suchlike have a fucking lung cancer? I feel that I am pretty close to fainting, but I mustn't faint and instead must explain to Jamie that this is not a good reason for a suicide, although I would probably want to kill myself too in that situation.

"Are you sure it's not just scar tissue?"
"That was the first thing that came into my mind, too. But no, wrong place. It's a tumor alright."
"Are you sure it's malignant?" - I ask, trying to remember if there is such thing as a benign lung tumor.
"No, but the lung tumors almost always are. Ever known anyone who had a benign lung tumor?"
"Come to think of it, I've never known anyone who had any kind of lung tumor until now."
"See?"
"What am I supposed to see? What do doctors say? What are you gonna do about it?" Dumb question.
"Die. I guess."
"There are treatments. Don't give up."
"I don't think I am up to this. I am tired. I've had more than my share of doctors and hospitals. I don't think I can take all this surgery-chemo-radiation shit."
"You've taken all this surgery-mental-drugs-therapy shit the last time around, and it came out well. Mostly."
"The difference was, the last time I knew I would eventually recover. That does wonders for your motivation. This time I know I will die."
"Some people survive it, you know?"
"The few percent's survival rate is not worth the trouble. I don't expect to survive."
"Fourteen years ago Rudy called me and told me that you were not expected to survive till the morning. But here you are."

The event we are referring to is the injuries he sustained in the attack in Angola. It took him many months to recover physically, and a few years to recover - for the most part - mentally. It left him with nightmares and a lot of irrational fears, but as far as I know indeed by the time he woke up the doctors already knew that all his physical injuries would heal or at least could be surgically fixed.

Suddenly I realize that I don't remember him ever being sick, apart from an occasional flu. Injured, yes, many times. But never sick. Must be a new and shocking thing to him, although I suppose that a lung tumor is a new and shocking thing to anybody. Anybody except the people who have had one before, anyway.

"Did you tell that to Katie and Rudy?"
"No, and I am not going to."
"Why not?"
"They would be really upset."

I feel like strangling him just a little bit and screaming "and I won't be, you fucking asshole?", but don't actually do it. He notices the impulse, though, and goes to correct himself:

"I mean that they are less likely to understand than you are. You have always been a lot more sympathetic towards euthanasia and right to die. If I tell them they will force me into treatment no matter how painful it is."
"They can't force you," - I say. "You are an adult."

I am, indeed, quite sympathetic towards people's right to die in general. I am just a lot less sympathetic towards it when it concerns Jamie, or anyone else I know and like. I do wholeheartedly believe that this is his life and he has a total right to dispose of it as he wishes, but I still feel quite ready to do my best to force him into treatment, no matter how painful it is for him and how much it violates what I believe is his right, only for the utterly selfish goal of having him around for a few months more. I think he chose a wrong person for his suicide plans. I will probably do the same as Katie and Rudy, just feeling more ashamed about it than they would.

I notice that I am crying.

"Will you do it?" - he asks.
"Yes," - I lie and look him in the eyes.
"You are lying," - he says. "Every time you lie you get this really honest expression on your face. Ever noticed how honest Alex looks when he is lying? You sort of do the same thing. You should practice more."
"OK, so I was lying."
"I don't want you to do anything illegal," - Jamie says, - "I just want you to be with me when I do it, hold my hand or whatever. I really don't wanna die alone."
"I think that if it comes to that you should have everybody around you, not just me."
"I can't let them know. Will you be with me? Please?"
"Yeah."

He is trembling like he is cold, and he probably is. I pull a blanket over us.

"Please tell Katie and Rudy," - I say. "You can't deal with a thing like this alone."
"You can."
"Maybe I can. You can't."
"I am dealing with it now."
"Yeah, and it shows."

"So what are you gonna do?" - I ask, - "You don't seem to be in any physical pain now, I hope you are not planning to kill yourself right away?"
"No, not right away. Sometime after it starts hurting."
"Wouldn't the same plan work together with treatment?"
"No. If I have surgery it is gonna be hard to conceal it from everybody, and I am not even touching chemo."
"They have the kinds of chemo nowadays that does not cause significant hair loss," - I say, knowing that this is one of the sensitive points but not knowing if any of those drugs are any good for lung cancer.
"Do they also have the kinds that don't cause vomiting, diarrea, headaches, mouth sores and whatever else they usually cause?"
"I actually think that for every one of these side effects there is something that does not cause it, but I don't think there is any drug that doesn't cause anything at all."
"Spending the last few months of my life throwing up does not seem like a good proposition."
"How long do you think..."
"Don't know. Maybe half a year, plus or minus..."
"Serenity is coming out in spring. Hope you are around to see it."
"Oh, really? When exactly? Is it official now? Did Whedon say anything?" - Jamie perks up.
"It's official for now, you can look it up on IMDB."

This feels very stupid, probably to both of us, but I can actually see him putting seeing Serenity on his mental pre-suicide checklist.

"Star Wars III is coming out in May, too," - I continue.
"Yeah, gotta see that, too. Maybe they have hired a real scriptwriter this time around."
"And Harry Potter six and seven will appear sometime."
"Oh, come on! She writes so slowly, I can't wait that long!"
"What's the rush? It's not like you are gonna be late somewhere."

I do my best to be cheerful, but in fact I am in a state of total panic. Over the years we've lived in different countries and I often saw him only two or three times a year, and I can't say it bothered me much not to have him around, but the very thought of the possibility of him not being anywhere at all fills me with more dread than I can stand.

"So, what did the doctors say? What would they want you to do next if you were going ahead with treatment?"
"Surgery," - he says grimly.
"What kind? And shouldn't they find out what kind of tumor it is first?"
"They couldn't. They did an x-ray, an MRI and some blood tests, but apparently you can't always tell what it is without a tissue sample. So they want to get the sample by removing the thing."
"Isn't there an easier way?"
"There is a needle biopsy, but they recommend this."
"Then go for it."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because!"
"Because what? It might be in its early stages, in which case they can get it all. It might even be benign. What have you got to lose?"
"What if it's not?"
"Then you are not worse off than now."
"It would be scary to find out I have an incurable lung cancer."
"You assume you have an incurable lung cancer already."
"But I would hate to find out that I am right!"
"Wouldn't you, like, hate to find out in six months that you were in fact wrong at this point if you have an incurable cancer then?"
"No, I can't do it."
"What is it exactly they want to do? What kind of surgery?"
"How the fuck am I supposed to know? They want to make three small holes in my chest, stick some instruments in, cut the thing out."
"When do they wanna do it?"
"I have an appointment for Wednesday, but I am gonna cancel. I am not going."
"Yes, you are. Or else I am gonna tell everything to Katie."
"She is gonna find out anyway if I go there. The damn thing has a hospital stay of three days, and that if everything goes well. I can't just disappear for three days! And what am I gonna do with the scars afterwards?"
"Plastic surgery, like you did with all the other scars."
"Plastic surgery is OK in the long run, I mean what am I gonna tell Katie the next day when she asks where are those from?"
"Tell her you've been in a knifefight. Tell her the dogs did it. Tell her you got hurt installing a new motherboard. Or wear clothes around the house and have sex in the dark."
"How dumb do you think she is?"
"Dumb enough to have married you."
"She will notice my disappearance anyway."
"Lie to her, you are good at it. Invent something. Can't you go to a conference or whatever?"
"I can, but I usually don't."
"A sick relative to visit? A company trip somewhere?"
"Hmm, gotta think of a good place to go. If I tell her there is some company recreation week somewhere in the middle of nowhere she is not gonna believe me."
"Yeah, has to be in a city or in a sufficiently big town. We all know you don't visit countryside voluntarily."
"Hey, what about Stockholm?"
"Stockholm will probably do."
"Are you gonna come to the hospital with me?"
"Of course I am."
"What if it all goes wrong? This procedure has a considerable risk of turning into an open-chest surgery. How am I gonna cover for that?"
"You can't, but you gotta take the risk. You know, try to live dangerously for once."

He chuckles. "One more thing," - he says, - "I want to give you the power to make my medical decisions for me if I am not able to. If something happens to me, like a permanent coma, or severe brain damage, or anything that would make me unable to express myself in the long term, I want you to tell them that I would have wanted to die. Katie can't do it, she'd never be able to let me go. Promise?"
"I promise," - I say, and this time I even mean it. Sort of, anyway. I don't even know if it's legal.
"Please be there with me," - he whispers. "Please. I don't wanna die."
"I will," - I say. This is a definite improvement over him wanting to die twenty minutes ago.

We lie down, still holding each other tight. Now what have I promised again? I have had sex with several married men, including ones whose wives definitely disapproved of it, but never in my whole life did I feel as adulterous as just now when I promised that to him.

We pretty much cry ourselves to sleep. He wakes up many more times during the night, but falls asleep again quickly. I have no such luck. At some point I point out to him that Katie can measure his stress levels by the number of times nightmares wake him up during the night, two or three being normal, but he says that he can blame it on the work stress.

We wake up about ten. My head is killing me, and so is my stomach. I have the mother of all hangovers. Jamie is somewhat green and is apparently having the grandmother of all hangovers.

"Argh," - he says, - "now I remember why I stopped drinking in the first place. Do you have a burana?"
"Yeah. Just hold on a second." I get up gingerly, notice that I am still alive, and get us first burana and water and then tea and sandwiches. I also bring a bucket, just in case.

We eat the pills and the food and realize that the food is apparently staying inside us, which is good news. Then the phone rings.

"What's going on?" - asks Katie.
"Err... Breakfast."
"Where are those two assholes? Where have you been?"
"Jamie is right here. Don't yell at him too much, he is not feeling very well, got a hell of a headache."
"Why didn't he tell me he was staying over at your place?"
"Didn't want to wake you up in case you were asleep. Rudy was supposed to tell you."
"Yeah, and where is he? And why is nobody answering their cell phones?"
"Why aren't you answering your phone?" - I ask Jamie.
"Shit. Forgot to take it off silent."
"Shit. Forgot to take it off silent," - I relay to Katie.
"Do you have any idea where Rudy might be?"
"Maybe. I'll check it out."
"Thanks. And could you both come here as soon as possible?"
"Sure."

"Did we use a condom yesterday?" - asks Jamie.
"We used two."
"I am sorry. How is your ass?"
"A bit sore, but I'll live. How is your head?"
"Probably will have to be amputated. Do you remember what we talked about last night?"
"Of course."
"Damn. And I already thought I could skip Wednesday."
"No such luck."
"Listen... do you think we could do it again sometime?"
"Maybe. If you are sober and aim better next time."
"I promise. I am never touching any alcohol ever again."
"Heard this one before. Are you gonna be in trouble with Katie?"
"Oh yeah."
"What is she gonna do?"
"Probably use her eight-inch dildo on me and make me listen to her heavy metal collection."
"Doesn't sound so bad."
"That will be eight inches in diameter, and that will be all of her heavy metal collection."
"She can't be that cruel," - I laugh.
"She can, but she probably won't," - he grins.
"Maybe you should've asked her before having sex with me..."
"That's not much of a problem. Getting drunk and fighting in a bar is."
"You don't have to tell her, at least about the barfight."
"She'll find out anyway."
"You might be off the hook. Rudy has disappeared again."
"What? He didn't come home last night?"
"No, he didn't."
"Are you gonna call Tarja?"
"Yeah."
"Don't tell her he didn't come home unless you have to."

He gets up and staggers to the bathroom. I call Tarja.

"Hi, what's up?" - I ask.
"A bit of a hangover, but not too much. And you?"
"A whole hangover, I guess."
"Sorry to hear that. Should practice more."
"So, did Rudy walk you all the way home?"
"Oh, yeah," - she says, - "and he kisses so well. Probably should have asked him to come up. Although I guess he was too drunk for sex."
"You can do it the next time. Did he go home afterwards?"
"I suppose so. Did you guys just go to sleep or did you play go for the rest of the night?"
"Err... I'll tell you later, in person. Gotta go."
"Hehe. See ya."

Jamie gets out of the shower and I go there myself, informing him on the way that Rudy did not spend the night at Tarja's place. After the shower I get dressed and we go to their place.

When we open the door Katie is standing right behind it, and she is angrier than I'd ever seen her. She grabs Jamie's shoulders, shakes him and screams "You owe me an explanation!". The dogs look as nervous as if they owe her an explanation too.

"I am sorry," - he says. "I did not want to wake you up and I knew you wouldn't really mind me having sex with Mira."
"That's not what I am talking about!" - roars Katie. "I wanna know why the police come here in the morning looking for you in connection with a fatal stabbing of a man in Kontula!"
"Ugh," - says Jamie, - "I did not stab any men in Kontula. Or anywhere else, for that matter."
"What happened? Where were you yesterday? No, let Mira tell me."

I tell her the story of our yesterday's adventures, editing out Makkaratalo's roof, skinny-dipping and our having to forcibly remove Jamie from the bar. Jamie adds these bits, too, telling her everything except about the lung cancer.

"Do you think you've injured any of them?" - she asks.
"I am quite sure I have not injured any of the ones I punched in the face, or the one I kicked in the face. The one I kicked in the balls, well, he'll survive with a little help of a bag of frozen peas or something."
"Good."
"I am not so sure it's good for the gene pool."
"It's you I am worried about and not the gene pool. Remember, your mom is not licensed to practice law here."
"Unfortunately."
"How did they even know you were there?"
"That's easy. I paid with my bank card."
"Maybe you should consider using cash next time?"
"Next time? How often do I get involved in a fight?"
"Too often."

Jamie goes to the kitchen to make some tea. The doorbell rings. Katie runs to open it, thinking that Rudy has lost his keys, but instead of Rudy two police officers come in, and want to talk to Jamie. He comes out of the kitchen and greets them, all innocence and helpfulness and good manners. He offers them tea or coffee, but they don't want any. They sit down.

"So," - starts one of the police officers, - "You were one of the people who started a fight at the Juhlakrouvi bar about 10pm yesterday?"
"Me?" - says Jamie with his best expression of shock and injured innocence, - "Certainly not! But I was there when it started."
"Could you tell us how it started?"
"Of course. I was at the bar when the guy behind me started yelling something at me. Sorry I can't tell you what he was saying, my Finnish is still very bad, but I am quite sure he was swearing. He swore a bit and then went back to his table, and from there he threw a glass in my direction. The glass hit the guy next to me, he got angry and threw his own glass back at the first guy. That's how it all got started."
"Did you get a good look at those two men? Could you identify them for us?"
"The one who was swearing at me, definitely. The other one, I am not so sure but probably yes."

The second police officer takes out some pictures. Jonathan wags his tail and comes up to the first officer, trying to lick her in the face. She dodges and Jamie pulls Jonathan away from her.

"Shame on you! Sit! We don't lick police officers!" - he says. "Oops," - he continues, looking embarassed, - "I did not mean..."
"That's OK," - laughs the officer.
"Could you tell us if you see one of those two men in these pictures?" - asks the second officer and shows Jamie about a dozen of pictures.
"Both of these guys were there yesterday, but these are not the guys who started the fight."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. Hey, Mira, wanna take a look at those guys? She was there with me," - he explains to the officers.

They show me the pictures and I confirm what he said, and even happen to remember where one of them was sitting. The officers stay to chat for a while, and when they ask Jamie admits having had to hit somebody in order to get away, and expresses concern for the person's health. They don't seem to be particularly concerned or angry. Jamie is doing a perfect job of looking like a person who would never hurt a fly, and they seem to believe him. The only doubtful moment comes when they ask him whether the swords hanging on the wall are his.

"No, they belong to my brother-in-law," - he says truthfully.
"Does he live with you?"
"Yes."
"Would you know how to use these?"
"Hmm... I know the theory... The end with the handle goes in your hand, the sharp end goes into the other guy," - he says.

They laugh and leave. We all feel relieved.

"Shit," - says Katie. "Where the hell is Rudy?"
"He went to walk Tarja home, kissed her goodnight and left. That was about one-thirty. We don't know anything else."
"What are we gonna do?" - asks Jamie.

Katie calls Rudy but he still doesn't answer. Jamie checks his own phone, and it has a number of calls from Katie and from an unknown number, both in the morning.

While we are discussing what to do, the door opens and Rudy staggers in. He does not look good. He puts out a cigarette when he comes in, throws it on the stairs, closes the door after himself, rushes to the toilet and throws up. Then he throws up again, and again. Then he closes the bathroom door, and the sounds coming from there suggest that he might be having diarrhea at the same time and having to rotate in order not to make a mess on the floor. Katie recommends using a bucket. For half an hour we hear intermittent swearing, sounds of various bodily functions and other weirdness, and then Rudy emerges out of there, holding his coat, swearing and being even paler than he usually is, to the extent to which it is possible.

"What happened? Where have you been?" - asks Katie.
"At a party," - he answers.
"What party?"
"Fuck if I know. Some party."
"What did you drink there?"
"Everything."
"So, did you have a good time?"
"Can you get your wife away from me and tell her to stop asking me stupid questions?" - Rudy growls at Jamie.
"Let me think about it for a second... No?"
"Argh," - moans Rudy with disgust.

His coat meows. Rudy rolls his eyes, sticks his hand into the coat's pocket, and takes out a gray kitten.
"What the hell is this?" - he howls,- "Where is my vodka?"

His only answer is "meow" from the kitten and "oh, it's adorable!" from Katie. Jamie takes the kitten to the kitchen and gives it milk, all the time emitting what he thinks is soothing noises. Katie joins him. I pat Rudy on the shoulder.

"Where is my vodka bottle?" - he asks in quiet despair. "And where did the cat come from?"
"The bottle turned into the cat?" - I suggest helpfully.
"I wish it were the other way around," - he says. Then we also go to the kitchen.

"So," - says Rudy, - "did you two have a good time last night?"
"Yes," - says Jamie and glares at him.
"Yes," - I say.
"A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering "I will ne'er consent" - consented," - quotes Rudy.
"Man," - says Jamie, - "have I ever told you that you are a bloody awful poet?"
"That wasn't me," - corrects him Rudy, - "That was Lord Byron."
"Have I ever told you that he was a bloody awful poet, too?"
"Well, then I am at least in a good company."

The kitten drinks up the milk and says "meow" again. Katie laughs and starts scratching it behind the ears. It starts purring, looks around, scans us for the human most likely to give food to cute little furry animals, chooses Jamie and says "meow" to him. Jamie obediently gives it a piece of sausage.

"What the fuck?" - Rudy addresses his question to the kitten. The kitten says "meow" to him too, just in case. "Where is the vodka?"
"Since vodka bottles rarely turn into cats," - informs him Katie, - "either you have exchanged the vodka for the cat, or you lost the vodka and acquired the cat in two unrelated incidents. Where were you yesterday and what did you do?"

Rudy throws a questioning look at Jamie.

"He already told me everything," - says Katie.

Rudy throws another questioning look at Jamie, who nods back.

"Well, I left Mira's place and walked Tarja home, and then I was going home and I ran into some drunk Russians and joined them. Don't remember much after that. I remember that it was a house party somewhere in Kurkimäki."
"What did you have besides alcohol?"
"Some pills. At least four different kinds."
"Had sex with anyone?"
"Beats me. Hope not."
"IV drugs?"
"Surely not."
"You don't remember?"
"I am lucky to remember where my dick is."
"Did you get the cat there?"
"Don't know."
"You know what?" - says Katie, addressing all of us. "We are all hung over. I think we all need a beer. How about it?"
"Absolutely," - I agree.
"Never again in this life," - says Jamie.
"Don't you see that my mouth is currently exit-only?" - points out Rudy.

Katie and I take a beer each.

"So," - she says, - "why were you two behaving like thugs yesterday?"
"No, I was the only one doing the thuggy thing," - corrects her Jamie. "Rudy was totally the sweet voice of reason."
"I shudder to think of a situation where Rudy has to be a sweet voice of reason."
"Sorry," - says Jamie. "It was all my fault."
"Yes. And you are in more trouble than you can imagine." Looks like he is getting to listen to all of her heavy metal collection after all.
"Come on, Katie," - I try to reason with her. "He did not know that there was alcohol in the glögi, shit happens, everything is OK, everyone is here, the cops went away, no harm done, and he has one hell of a hangover."
"No harm done? A fight got started and somebody got killed!" Uhm. Did not think of it that way.
"He did not start it, the other guy did."
"What police? Who got killed?" - asks Rudy.
"The police were here talking to Jamie about yesterday's fight," - explains Katie. "Somebody killed somebody during the fight."
"Shit! Did they want to talk to me too?"
"Not that we know of," - says Katie.
"Did you pay cash or card?" - I ask Rudy.
"Cash."
"Good," - says Jamie.
"What, did you pay with a card? How could you be so stupid?"
"I wasn't exactly expecting a fight."
"In any case you are in big trouble now," - says Katie to Jamie, and from her tone it's clear she is not talking about the police.
"Katie, please!" - I try to plead on his behalf.
"Mira, I need to talk to you. In private," - she says and gestures me towards the bathroom. She looks pretty angry.

I get and go there. The two things that run through my mind is that, first of all, Katie is much taller and much better-trained than me, and second, that dying while fighting with my cousin over her husband's honor would be a rather logical end to my misspent life.

Katie closes and locks the bathroom door and turns the water on.

"OK," - she says. "What's going on?"
"Nothing! I mean, nothing except the things you heard already."
"What are you and Jamie up to?"
"We had sex last night. I was under impression that you guys have an open relationship."
"We do. And I am not talking about sex. You have been very protective of him all this morning. What did he do?"

I hope she is not asking about sex. After such an intimate moment as we had last night one doesn't just say about one's lover "well, actually he was so drunk that he couldn't find my pussy on the first shot" even when this is actually the case.

"You already heard everything he's done," - I say. "Isn't it enough? Besides, I am always protective of men after I've just had sex with them."
"Mira, don't. I've seen you have sex with many men, including Jamie, and usually the only thing you are doing after that is foraging for a beer."

We both laugh despite ourselves.

"Anyway," - she says. "I guess you are not telling. Just don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"OK," - I lie. I suddenly realize that Katie herself has been very nice to Jamie today, considering what he has done yesterday, and he did not yet get in half as much trouble as we expected. Maybe she knows something already?

Katie unlocks and opens the door in one swift movement, hitting the two men and the two dogs on the noses.

"You are all eavesdropping on us, even the dogs," - she states the obvious. "Only the kitty has been good."

Jamie gives me a worried look. I nod that everything is OK.

The kitten says "meow" to Katie. She gives it some sausage too. Having established that the household contains two sausage-giving humans, the kitten curls up, looking very smug.

"Are we keeping it?" - Jamie asks Katie.
"Yeah, unless somebody else claims it we are keeping it. And Rudy will take care of it."
"What the hell?" - Rudy is alarmed.
"You brought it. You will feed it and change the litter and take it to a veterinarian, and so on."
"I can take it back! I can take it somewhere!"
"Too late."
"What the hell do you need a cat for? You've got Jamie!"
"So?"
"He is much better than a cat! He doesn't need a kitty litter. He can cook, pretty well in fact. He can talk like a real human being, most of the time anyway. He can purr like a cat if you tell him to. He is hypoallergenic, too."
"I think you are missing the point," - remarks Jamie. "She already has me, and now she wants the cat too."
"Meow", - says the kitten.
"The cat is staying, and you are taking care of it," - Katie pronounces her final verdict.

Rudy sighs and takes out his cell phone. He fiddles with it for a while, then dials a number.

"Hi, Rudy here... I was wondering... Would you like to go out tonight, for drinks and dancing... Just the two of us... Great! Pick you up at seven, then? See you!"

"Rudy's got a date," - comments Jamie unnecessarily.
"With whom?" - I ask.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" - Rudy is looking even smugger than the kitten.
"Tarja," - guesses Jamie. From Rudy's shit-eating grin we can see he's right.
"Don't forget to get the kitty litter and the cat food before that," - reminds Katie.
"Shit," - says Rudy.
"By the way, Mira," - says Katie, - "are you doing anything tonight? Could we go out for drinks somewhere, just the two of us?"
"Sure."
"Can I join you?" - asks Jamie.
"No, it's gonna be girl talk," - answers Katie.
"Can I be an honorary girl for tonight then?"
"Considering that the main topic of discussion will be your sexual technique, definitely not," - Katie laughs.
"Damn. Just when they are discussing something worthwhile... Are you guys leaving me here all alone on a Saturday night like I am some fucking Cinderella?"
"Apparently we are," - I say.
"Where is Timo anyway?" - asks Jamie.
"On a day cruise in Stockholm with some friends of his."
"Getting drunk and getting laid and buying cheap booze?" - asks Rudy.
"No, visiting museums and spending two nice and quiet evenings on the boat, and in general having a cultured weekend. Unlike you two."
"Didn't know SF Bokhandeln was a museum," - says Jamie.

My phone rings, and the number is not on my list. I pick it up. It's Vitya, a local Russian thug, who starts his polite conversation with a roar:

"You fucking cunt! Where the fuck is Oksana?"
"And good morning to you too. How the fuck am I supposed to know?"
"She was hanging out with that red-haired prick relative of yours last night! And then she disappeared!"
"I doubt it, but I can ask him."
"Don't doubt! Everyone has seen them fucking at that slut party in Kurkimäki."
"Are you sure that was him?"
"How many more tall anorectic Russian-speaking assholes with red hair do you know?"
"I'll call you if I find out anything."

I hang up and give Rudy an evil eye. He looks back at me defiantly.

"We are going for a walk," - I say, - "and to buy the kitty litter. Be back in an hour."
"It does not take an hour," - says Rudy.
"Yes it does."
"It's raining. What are we gonna do for the rest of the time?"
"Talk."
"And buy some cat food for it too," - adds Katie who looks like she can't wait to get us out the door.
"It's not an it!" - protests Rudy. "It's a he! Or a she!"
"So which is it?" - asks Katie. "A he or a she?"

Rudy inspects the kitten's nether regions and looks baffled for a second. "It's a boy," - he declares finally, - "I'll call him Tiger."
"Meow," - says Tiger.
"You sure?" - asks Katie.
"Positive."

Rudy goes to the toilet, and we hear a scream.

"What, Rudy found a freckle on his nose?" - asks Jamie.
"No, bite marks on my dick!" - sounds from the toilet. "Assholes," - he adds when we start laughing.

He comes out and demonstrates us the injured organ. The bite marks are rather serious and very red, especially on his extremely fair skin.

"Could you stop fucking vampires, please?" - asks Katie.
"Alligators, too," - adds Jamie.
"Bugger off," - says Rudy, and we leave.

As soon as we go out Rudy lights a cigarette and leans on the wall.

"Oh my god!" - he groans, - "what am I gonna do with this dick?"
"Er..." - I say, - "some disinfectant and maybe a bandaid?"
"You don't understand! I have a date tonight and I have bite marks on my dick!"
"You really should schedule your women better."
"Says the woman who has just fucked her cousin's husband."
"He is in an open relationship. I am in an open relationship. Tarja will probably want a monogamous relationship but she understands about the open ones too. Just try to explain to her. She will understand."
"You don't understand! It's one thing to have an established open relationship. It's another thing to show up on the first date with bite marks on your dick."
"I do understand. I am just telling you that Tarja will understand it too."
"No. I can't do this."
"Then you will have to pretend that you don't want to have sex on the first date."
"Oh, no! She won't believe me. She'll think I am not interested or something."
"Yes, you can do it. You can be very Victorian when you are trying to. You can explain all this as cultural differences."

He groans.

"Anyway," - I continue, - "this is not what I wanted to talk about. I wanna know where is Oksana."
"How do you know..."
"Recognized the tooth marks."
"You serious?"
"No, you moron. Vitya called me and told me you were seen with her last night."
"Wasn't me."
"How many more tall anorectic Russian-speaking assholes with red hair do you know, he said."
"I am not anorectic!"
"I know, just severely underweight." He is not as badly underweight as he was in summer, but nowhere near normal yet.
"Am not!"
"How much do you weigh?"
"Fifty-eight."
"I rest my case. Anyway, this is not the point. The point is, where is Oksana? And why did she bite you on the dick?"
"Fuck if I know. I ran into her and some other people. We went to that party. We had sex there, among other things. At some point a few hours later when I asked for more sex she took my dick in her mouth, bit hard, told me that all I think about is sex and left in a huff, alone. That's all I know."
"When was it?"
"About six."
"She never came home."
"Duh, surprise!"
"Vitya was asking about her. Can I tell him what you told me?"
"Be my guest."

I call Vitya.

"Hi!"
"Do you know anything about the bitch?"
"She did not show up yet?"
"No."
"Rudy says she was at that party with him, and left about six, alone."
"Yeah, that's what the other people who were there say. Did she say anything when she was leaving?"
"She bit Rudy on the dick."
"Oh, she's been doing that lately," - brightens Vitya. "Bit me the other day too. Probably all the pregnancy hormones or something. Say hi to Rudy for me."
"You should warn people. Anyway, I think she'll come back today after biting some more people."
"I hope so. Call me if you hear anything."
"Sure."

I hang up.

"Vitya sends his regards. She bit him on the dick too the other day."
"You did not have to tell that to him," - says Rudy reproachfully.
"I did. people should be warned about public hazards."
"At least don't tell Katie and Jamie."
"OK."

When we come back with the litter and the cat food Katie and Jamie look a lot less hungover than they were an hour ago when we left. In fact they look positively happy and relaxed, with nothing but some towels on them, Jamie lying on his back on the sofa and Katie sitting next to him and absent-mindedly massaging his chest and stomach. I start thinking about a surgeon's scalpel or whatever they use cutting into his chest, find the thought painful and try to chase it away, but with little success. I turn away from them and look at the dogs. They are trying to sniff the kitten carefully from a respectful distance.

I tell them that I gotta go and promise to pick Katie up at seven.

When we come downtown in the evening Katie sees some teenagers who are skateboarding on Makkaratalo steps and asks to borrow a skateboard. Much to my surprise they agree, probably out of curiosity, since I suppose not many women in their thirties in high heels and a mini-skirt try to borrow skateboards. She rides the board quite well for a few minutes, then gives it back to the teenagers and thanks them. They stare at her open-mouthed, apparently not realizing that she has had many years to practice.

"Wow, that felt good!" - she says. "Probably should get my own board from the attic."

We go to 10th Floor, buy drinks and sit down at a table. The place is still fairly empty, but all the men who are there look at Katie. It feels good to be invisible for a change just by being next to her. She is extremely tall, and very pretty, in spite of a somewhat unfortunate taste in clothes. For some reason she chooses perfectly nice clothes when she is dressing casually, but fairly vulgar ones when she is trying to dress up. Elsewhere it's not a problem, but here in Finland her way of dressing up, especially in combination with her heels and evening makeup, tends to make people think she is a Russian whore.

We drink.

"I have gonorrhea," - says Katie with a tragic look on her face.

In comparison with Jamie's yesterday's admission this sounds amusingly anticlimactic, and I start giggling. I stop giggling upon realizing that I had sex with Jamie yesterday, and he probably has gonorrhea too. Thank god for the condoms. Then I remember that he also went down on me, and that gonorrhea is transmitted by oral sex as well.

"Where did you get it?"
"Last week's conference."
"Ugh. Conferences are dangerous events."
"Tell me about it."
"Did you do it without a condom?"
"Yeah. For the first time, and see what happens!"
"But why?"
"Too drunk, too tired, too stupid, everything around was closed."
"When did you find out?"
"Yesterday. I already got the antibiotics, too. Gotta go for another checkup next Friday."
"Did you tell Jamie?"
"That's kind of the problem. He is really not gonna be happy about it."
"No shit."
"But I gotta tell him. Hope you guys used condoms yesterday."
"We did. Except that he also went down on me, so if he has an infection in his mouth..."
"Don't worry about it. He did not go down on me last week."
"That's a relief. Did you guys have sex a lot? Sorry for asking. Hope you did not have sex today?"
"Not today, no. At least not intercourse," - she smiles. "But we did it three times during the week, so the chance of him being infected is about fifty-fifty."
"Well, you gotta tell him."
"Yeah. I am scared."
"Why?"
"He is gonna be really pissed off."
"No shit. But he'll forgive you," - I say, all the time imagining how pissed off I would be if Timo admitted to screwing around without a condom and possibly giving me gonorrhea. I would forgive him too, but not before ripping him another asshole.
"I know. But it's scary anyway. I'll tell him, I can't put it off forever. Three more days and he'll start wondering about having no sex."
"Why are you so afraid? It's you who punishes him usually, not the other way around."
"That's because. A lot of our relationship is based on me keeping him in line. And it's not because he likes punishment, but because having some limits set and enforced by people who love him makes him feel, well, loved, and safe. What kind of a bloody protector am I if I go out and behave irresponsibly and bring gonorrhea home?" She starts sobbing.
"I know that in your relationship he is the one who gets to behave irresponsibly and to trust that you'll stop him. But he understands that you are not perfect and that sometimes you can fuck up, too."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"You know, I caught him screwing around without condoms once, seven years ago, and he did not even catch any disease, and then he got some really serious punishment. How can I face him about this now?"
"With an apology. Was that the time when you had him waxed?"
"He told you about it?"
"He whined about it for weeks. Did not say what he was being punished for, though," I grin.
"I felt so bad about it afterwards. I did not mean to do it. I mean, I did mean to do it but I did not expect that it would hurt him that much. I mean, I do it to myself pretty often..."
"It hurts some people more and some people less. He knows you did not mean to hurt him that much. Did he complain a lot?"
"Oh yeah. I had to bring him hot chocolate to bed all the time for the next four days, and he kept saying that he is not letting me anywhere near his pubic hair ever again with anything more than an electric shaver."
"See? He has survived the waxing, he can survive this. He'll tease you for weeks about it, but that serves you right."
"Weeks? Say years," - she laughs.
"He hasn't got years," - I think but don't say, and then have to pretend that I inhaled some of my drink. Katie taps me on the back.

The conversation goes on. Katie clearly wants to talk about Jamie, I on the other hand want to keep him out of my mind at least for a little while. I drink fairly fast in hope that it helps, and it does, but not much. I order a Long Island Ice Tea. Then another one.

"Look who is there," - I tell Katie. "At your eight o'clock."

She turns. There are Rudy and Tarja, dancing. Rudy doesn't notice us but Tarja does and waves. We look at them for a little while and return to our conversation. Every once in a while guys come up and ask Katie and occasionally me to dance. We refuse politely, and the guys go away. Katie remarks than young Finnish men are a lot more polite than the British ones, but I have never had any problems with the British ones either.

At one point a young African guy tries to ask Katie to dance, and gets the same "no, thanks"-response as all the other ones. He does not go away though, but lingers.

"May I sit down here with you?" - he asks.
"No!" - we answer simultaneously.
"But I would like to join your conversation!"
"We are discussing my husband's and her lover's erections, erogenous zones and duration of intercourse," - says Katie coldly, although we had already finished with that topic and were talking about Ekberg's pastries versus Kakkugalleria's pastries when the guy came, - "Are you sure you really have something to contribute to this conversation?"
"Is he white?" - asks the guy.
"Yeah," - says Katie, - "he has lovely white skin and long straight hair."
"Black men have longer penises," - he points out.
"You sure?" - asks Katie and takes a ruler out of her purse. I giggle.
"Come on," - the man says. "I just want to be friends."
"Why don't you go and be friends with that guy over there," - I say, pointing at a bearded man of about fifty. - "He looks really friendly." He really does.
"But I want to be friends with you!"
"We have enough friends," says Katie, - "Every time I come out in high heels and a miniskirt some bugger wants to be friends with me."

The African leaves and is soon replaced by an older Finnish guy, who is not as pleasant as the younger ones.

"Nice girls," - he says in English. We look at him and say nothing.
"Come with me," - he says to Katie, putting his hand on her knee.
"Keep your hands to yourself," - she says.
"Two hundred euros," - he says. Bugger. Nobody has ever offered me more than one-fifty.
"Stick it where the sun don't shine," - says Katie, - "And do you wanna keep that hand or do I rip it out?"
The man looks shocked. "Not very nice girls," - I point out to him helpfully.
"You fucking Russian whores," - he hisses, although it is unclear how anyone could mistake Katie's thick Scottish accent for Russian.
"Did you say something?" - asks Katie and rises. This has the usual effect - faced with a woman whose tits are on the same level as his eyes the guy retreats, trying not to stare at those tits in the process.
"Is it just me, or has the quality of men in this establishment gone down in the last couple of hours?" - I ask.
"You haven't seen half of it. Look who is behind you," - she says.

Behind me is Vitya with some friend of his who also looks like the missing link in the evolution of the human species.

"Shit," - I say, - "They really shouldn't run into Rudy and Tarja."
"I'll call Rudy, you call Tarja."

We dial. Rudy doesn't answer but Tarja does.

"Hi! Could you let me talk to Rudy for a second? There are some guys here that he doesn't want to run into."
"OK."
"Hi! Vitya is here. You guys better get going."
"Shit! Thanks for telling me."

They start making their way towards the exit, but it's too late. Vitya has noticed Rudy and is running towards him. Katie and I try to get up and go there, but I am a bit wobbly on my feet. Katie runs ahead, I stagger along.

"What the fuck did you do with Oksana?" - screams Vitya in Russian and throws a punch. Rudy dodges.
"Nothing," - he says.
"This asshole has fucked my girlfriend!" - howls Vitya, who seems to be chemically enhanced in some way, and charges again. This time he gets punched.

The fight ensues, in which Vitya and The Other Missing Link attack Rudy and he defends himself in ways not entirely approved of by Finnish law. He gets a bruise on one eye, they on all four eyes, then he kicks them both in the balls, although just yesterday he was explaining to Jamie that this is an unmanly thing to do, and then the security guards come, kick the whole shebang outside and threaten to call the police. We go outside too, and there Katie joins the fight and kicks them some more.

"Hey, this is not Junttikrouvi," - says Tarja. "The police will be here any second. We gotta go."

We go, and they go too, in an opposite direction. Katie suggests that we all come over, and we agree. She calls Jamie and tells him to put some clothes on.

"Now we are gonna get banned from the 10th Floor too," - says Tarja. "What was that all about anyway?"
We eye Rudy carefully. "These guys were Russian hooligans," - I say in the way of explanation.
"That much I figured," - says Tarja.
"The guy got angry when I had sex with his girlfriend a couple of months ago," - explains Rudy.
"Gee, I wonder why."

We finally get there. Jamie is curled up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate, the laptop and the cat. The dogs are jumping all around us.

"Nice doggie," - says Tarja, sitting down and patting Jonathan on the back. The nice doggie immediately climbs in her lap. It's at least 35 kilos, and not very comfortable.
"Get off, you old bugger," - says Rudy and tips Jonathan to the floor. Jonathan looks at him reproachfully, says "woof" and seeks protection with Katie.
"Did you guys have a good time?" - asks Jamie, - "Where is the bruise from?" He looks at Rudy's face.
"We ran into Vitya and some other schmuck in the bar. I kicked them in the balls."
"Just look at you. And people call me a thug!"
"That's because you are."
"And who got Mira so drunk?" - asks Jamie.
"She had a drink every time somebody tried to pick us up," - answers Katie.

I get a phone call. It's Vitya.

"Tell that relative of yours that he is dead!"
"Vitya asked to tell you that you are dead," - I tell Rudy.
"Tell him I love him too," - says Rudy.
"He loves you too," - I say, - "didn't Oksana come home yet?"
"No! I've called everyone!"
"Have you tried the police?"
"No, and I am not going to!"
"Why not!"
"Because!"
"Tell him that frozen peas and other vegetables are good for bruised balls," - says Jamie.
"Jamie recommends frozen vegetables for the balls," - I tell Vitya.
"Where the fuck would I get frozen vegetables at this hour?"
"Gas station?"
"Hmm..."
"And I really think you should call the police about her."
"Bugger off."

"What, Oksana disappeared again?" - asks Katie.
"Yeah. Did not come home in the morning, does not answer the phone."
"That silly Russian guy is actually missing her?" - asks Jamie.
"Either that or he doesn't want to watch the kids on his own."
"Why did you have sex with her?" - Tarja asks Rudy.
"Errr... Accidents happen."
"You have sex by accident?" - Tarja is amused.
"Yeah," - Rudy says, somewhat embarassed, - "I was very drunk."

Behind Tarja's back Jamie is waving hands at Rudy in the manner of a manic windmill, and Katie is making a fairly good pantomine of fainting.

"That's all right," - laughs Tarja and pats Rudy on the head, then stares on the amount of gel that stayed on her hand.

I decide not to wait how it all turns out, wish everyone good night and stagger home, especially since I just remembered that I am supposed to pick Timo up from the ferry in the morning. God, I missed him! Tomorrow I'll spend the whole day in the company of my sweet and sensible Timo and am definitely not going to see any of my drunk and violent relatives.

In the morning I come to the Viking Line terminal to pick Timo up. I am having the mother of all hangovers again. One look at Timo is enough to understand that he is having an even worse hangover. I take his bags.

"How are you doing?" - I ask.
"I am never drinking any whisky ever again. Yeah, and if I ever tell you that I am going to SF Bokhandeln please give me a whipping."
"I can give you a whipping any time you like."
"Not now. I can hardly stand upright. Here, I brought you a bottle of Absolut Kurant."
"Thanks." I kiss him.

We go to his place. When we get there he immediately gets into the shower and then into bed. I make us some tea, bring it to bed and lie down there next to him.

He tells me about his trip, which sounds like fun. Maybe next time I should join them, rather than hang out with the crazy Scottish relatives. After a few hours we feel better, and Timo wants to have sex.

"There is a bit of a problem," - I say, - "I might have caught gonorrhea over the weekend. We used condoms so this is unlikely, but I think it's safer if we use condoms now too."
"Interesting," - says Timo, - "tell me more about it".

I swear him to secrecy and tell him about all the events of the weekend except Jamie's tumor. He does not seem very pleased, especially when he hears that Jamie and I had sex.

"What's wrong?" - I ask, - "We do have an open relationship, and we have both had sex with other people before."
"Yeah, but that was different. Screwing around at the company's Christmas party is no big deal. But Jamie... He was someone important, someone you loved... It's not like I am asking you to stop having sex with him, but I am worried."
"He is still someone important and someone I love. It does not depend on whether or not we are having sex."
"See! I have a good reason to be worried. How do I know you won't leave me?"
"You don't. Nobody ever does. But I am not planning to leave you."
"Why not? I mean, why are you with me and not with him?"
"Look at it this way: I've known him for twenty-something years, I have had many good shots at being his girlfriend and I actually was his girlfriend. And yet here I am with you."
"Why?"
"Has it ever occurred to you that I love you too? I am quite sure I have mentioned it several times."
"If you loved him and still do, why did you leave him?"
"You know how he is. I could not provide him with everything he needs. Katie is much better at that."
"I take it you don't mean money?"
"No. Things like time, care, attention. He needs somebody to hold him in bed every night. He needs almost constant physical contact. Even aside from all his problems, he is a very extroverted person and has all the normal needs of an extrovert. Also he needs a firm hand, somebody to surrender part of the control of his life to. I wished I could give him all of this, but I can't give what I don't have."
"So he was too much for you to handle, and you left him?"
"Yes."
"And of two of more guys that you have feelings for, you choose one who fits in your life the easiest way?"
"Yes. It's sad, but that's how the things are."

Timo disapproves, even more so because he realizes he would have done the same, and probably had. All his girlfriends that I know of have always been fairly easy-going introverted people who knew how to give him space and time for himself. On the other hand, I suspect that Timo is one of those highly fortunate people who filter out unacceptable candidates before allowing themselves to develop any deep feelings - maybe he could never have fallen in love with a woman who demanded too much of him.

This conversation is bringing us both down, and we decide to arms ourselves with condoms and have sex. It feels awfully good, and relaxing. Afterwards we make some tea.

"Do you ever imagine that you are with him when you are with me?" - he asks. This time the question is not emotionally charged; he is just being curious, - "Or the other way around? Or in general that you are with one guy when you are with another?"
"Sometimes, when the guys are similar enough. You two are just not similar enough."
"Damn. Now I will have to have sex with you all by myself. Can't delegate it to Jamie."

We laugh, and spend the rest of the evening in bed playing with each other and watching South Park.

On Monday Tarja calls me. She feels like Rudy is not really interested in her, since he's been avoiding sex. I tell her that his dick might have been bruised in the fight Saturday night, and call him to inform him of that. He likes the idea.

On Wednesday morning Jamie shows up at eight, even though we are supposed to get to the hospital by eleven. I open the door, and he comes in, hugs me, and we stay like that for a little while.

"How are you feeling?" - I ask.
"Very scared. Hungry. Cold."
"It's not that cold outside."
"Yeah, but I am always cold when I have not had anything to eat. The fuckers told me not to eat anything since midnight yesterday."
"Don't be afraid. This surgery has a very low mortality rate."
"That's not what I am afraid of."

He takes his boots and jacket off and hugs me again. We sit down on the bed.

"I have a bad feeling about this," - he says.
"You always have a bad feeling about everything,", - I think, but do not say it.
"Oh, you can say it," - says Jamie.
"Say what?"
"'You always have a bad feeling about everything'. That's what you wanted to say, didn't you?"
"You picked a hell of a day to start reading minds," - I remark, and then realize that it was not the brightest thing to say either.
"Why, what's on your mind?"
"Nothing much. Also scared."

He starts undressing me.

"Are you sure it's a good idea right now?"
"Please. One last time..."
"You mean that you won't put out anymore after the surgery?" - I ask, trying to turn this into a joke.
"I might not be able to, at least for a while, and then there won't be a lot of time. And in the unlikely event that I do recover, you won't put out anymore. You are only doing it now because you know I am dying," - he says matter-of-factly, without a trace of accusation.
"No, I am not," - I say, and mean it. In fact I'd love to have sex with him again. It's just that this particular situation takes the prize for being the most wrong-time and out-of-the-mood sex I've ever had.

We go to bed and have sex, and I do everything I can to please him and give it my life's best shot at faking an orgasm. It is successful, although probably not due to my acting skills but to his distressed state. In fact I should probably raise my hat to him for being able to do it at all.

Sex doesn't manage to calm him down though, and we sit up in bed, Jamie trembling and crying, me caressing him, brushing his hair and trying to make rather inefficient soothing noises. Instead of him getting calmer I am getting more nervous.

We sit like this for a while, and then he asks: "Would you cut my hair?"

I look at him in shock. In their relationship he does not get to decide when he has to get a haircut; Katie does. He only gets to choose the style and who is doing the cutting. There is a reason for that: haircuts are one of the things he's been very afraid of after his post-traumatic stress disorder, to the point where I, Katie and pretty much everyone else suggested that he should not have his hair cut at all. Unfortunately for everyone involved, he has a rather firm, and in my view rather well-founded opinion that his hair looks its best when it's about bra strap length (not that he has any bra, but we don't know a better term for this length), and his hair tends to grow a lot longer than that. He is not usually capable of saying that he wants it cut, and the cycle normally involves 8-10 months of growing, 2-3 months of whining that his hair is too long, and finally Katie telling him that he is getting a haircut right now. The process of cutting itself is very traumatic for him and normally involves a lot of tears, and sometimes a lot of valium, too. As far as I know he hasn't actually asked for a haircut in thirteen years.

I am usually the one who does it, if I am available, because I know what he wants and and what is important to him and how to do it really fast. Every time I do it I have a somewhat unpleasant feeling of having more intimacy with him than two human beings should ever have between themselves. It feels like I am violating him somehow, even though I know he really likes the result though not the process. Today this feeling is made a lot more unpleasant by the thought of horrible intimacy between him and whoever will stick a scalpel between his ribs a few hours from now.

"Are you sure? You seem stressed out enough as it is."
"Yeah, and that's why. I figured it can't possibly be any worse," - he makes a weak attempt at a smile. He is probably right too, at least he is not likely to start crying any more than he is crying already.
"OK," - I say, take the scissors out of a drawer and start cutting without saying anything else. His hair is about ten centimeters longer than his preferred length, and it's fairly easy to cut, so it's all over in less than a minute. I put the scissors away and hand him a mirror.
"How does it look?"
"Same as always," - he smiles, calming down quite a bit as soon as it's over. "Thanks. You are the best."

Shit! I suddenly realize that now we are really busted. I mean, I was a bit sceptical of Jamie's ability to conceal the surgery from Katie and Rudy to begin with, but now there is no way he can explain this. Now they'll know for sure he wasn't in Stockholm with his coworkers. It's not like he can say "I was walking around Stockholm and was bored and saw a hairdresser and decided to get a haircut". Shit. OK, what's done is done, and there is no sense in pointing it out to him now, he has enough to worry about. It's his own problem that he will have plenty of time to think about while recovering in the hospital. Except that now I am busted too, because they will know who did it. A very unusual slip-up from Jamie: usually he remembers to keep his lies in order amazingly well. Oh well, he's been under enough stress.

He asks for some more brushing, and then braiding. After that is done we just lie down and kiss until it's time to go. "I love you," - I whisper to him, rubbing my cheek against his, and feel very fortunate to have an opportunity to say that to two men within the same week, and mean it.

In the hospital Jamie says that he is very scared and that he would like to have me with him for as long as possible. They say that he can have me until he has to go to the operating room.

For some reason every time when Jamie or any other adult wants to have someone with him in a hospital on account of being scared doctors tend to talk to that other person, as if talking to a parent of a child. It always irritates me to no end, and I feel like saying "he is just scared, not stupid". This time the doctor starts talking to me in Finnish about Jamie; so I give her the benefit of doubt and assume she just does not speak English, and when she asks me questions she should be asking him I simply translate them to him. She catches on pretty fast and starts speaking English to him.

She tries to calm him down the best she can, tells him that the risks are small; that the biggest risk comes from general anaesthesia, which she knows he's had before. She also tells him that although most lung tumors are malignant his has a good chance of being benign, because he is young and never smoked; she does not say how much of a chance is a "good chance". She tells him about the procedure, apparently not for the first time, and says that they will take the tumor out, check it, take out some more tissue if it is malignant.

Jamie says once again, although he has also put it on the paper, that he wants me to make all the necessary decisions for him while he is unconscious, and also tells the doctor that he would like to die rather than be in a permanent coma or in a state where he cannot communicate what he wants. He also asks how much it will hurt after the surgery; the doctor promises him enough drugs to keep the pain out.

Then they take us somewhere where they do various pre-surgery checkups and suchlike and tell Jamie to take his clothes off. He is none too happy about this; for some reason he is very shy about undressing in front of doctors and nurses, although he has no problem whatsoever taking all his clothes off at nude beaches, sauna parties, or when dancing on a table. Wonder how he would feel about undressing at a medical school sauna party?

I generally expect all kinds of meanness from medical personnel in such places, especially when dealing with a patient who is difficult in any way, but actually they are all very nice to Jamie. Everybody is trying to reassure him; when they have to handle him they do so very gently; they explain before they do anything; and apparently everybody who sticks needles into his body manages to do so without causing him any undue pain. He is still scared; not really crying anymore, though, just a few tears here and there. I stay with him all the time, gently stroking his cheek and telling him that everything is gonna be OK. Finally they give him some drug, and suddenly he is not scared anymore, and then they take him away.

I sit in the waiting area, and I am not feeling well. Don't remember how long it was since I last was that nervous. I have to go to the toilet to throw up several times. My imagination keeps painting the most horrifying pictures of death and pain and suffering.

Finally, after almost three hours, the doctor comes into the waiting area with a rather deadpan face. She tells me that everything went fine, that Jamie is doing as well as one can do under the circumstances and that they will let me see him in a few minutes when he wakes up, and that the full lab report on the tumor will not be ready until tomorrow, but that the tests that they did during the surgery clearly show it to be benign. It takes a few seconds to sink in that this nightmare is about to end.

They take me to where Jamie is. He is awake, but seems quite a bit drugged. Does not seem to be in pain, though.

"Are you OK? Did they tell you it is benign? Can you talk? How are you feeling?"
"Yeah, they told me it's benign," - he says in a rather weak voice, - "And I haven't been so stoned since that trip to Amsterdam in '88."
"How about the Amsterdam trip in '91?" - I remind helpfully.
"I wasn't so stoned then."

I was there and wouldn't be so sure.

"Listen," - I say, - "How about we call Katie and Rudy and tell them now? I mean, we can continue pretending that you are in Stockholm, but is there really a point? And I know you'd like to have them here. Is that all right?"
"Yeah. I guess. It's better to listen to their yelling while I am still stoned."
"I'll call Timo too."
"OK. Tell him to bring a go board if he comes to visit."

I go outside to call Katie, Rudy and Timo; I tell them that Jamie is in Meilahti hospital and just had a benign tumor removed; they all promise to come as soon as possible.

I get back to Jamie. He has a lot of tubes and monitors attached, and every once in a while some medical personnel comes to check out his vital signs. They seem perfectly satisfied.

Katie manages to get there in less than fifteen minutes. She has clearly been crying.

"Oh my god, Jamie, why are you so stupid? I love you! Why did you have to do it like that?" - she asks and starts crying again.
"I am sorry," - is all he has to say.
"You did not know it was a benign tumor when you came here today, did you?" - she asks and looks at me. I look at Jamie, trying to get a cue from him. He is too tired to lie, though, and tells the truth:
"No, I didn't."
"Oh my god! You had to go through all this alone... Good thing you at least had enough sense to have Mira with you... Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was afraid. Did not know how much treatment I could take and whether you'd force me to do more... Do you think you would be able to let me go?"
"I don't know," - Katie considers, - "Probably not. You are the most precious thing I have in life."
"That's what I figured. Hence Mira."
"Do you think she would be able to let you go?"
"Probably not, but I figured that only after I asked her."
"No offence, love, but I would really like to be sure it was indeed a benign tumor. Could you tell doctors to tell me?"
"No problem," - he grins.

The next time some medical personnel comes to take a look at his blood pressure he makes it known he wants them to give out his medical information to anyone who comes in person and asks. The doctors and nurses seem to be rather amused at the presence of two women both of whom seem to be Jamie's significant others, but they are doing their best not to snigger, and they show Katie Jamie's complete file. I read it too, just in case.

Rudy and Timo come a little while later. Rudy sits down next to Jamie and starts stroking his face and hair. Timo takes a go board out of his backpack, and threatens to win. Jamie retorts that he can win from Timo even when drugged, and turns out to be right.

At some point Rudy tries to go out in order to cancel the date he has tonight, and Jamie is so outraged he almost jumps out of his bed. He tells Rudy to go on the date and not to come back home until he gets laid.

Katie looks embarassed for a moment, but then decides to say it:
"Jamie, I have gonorrhea. I am so sorry. I'll never do it without a condom again. I was stupid and irresponsible," - she starts crying again.
"Argh," - he says, clearly too tired to be angry, and amused at her embarrassment, - "Just don't do it again. Where did you get it?"
"At the conference last week."
"That's not fair! Why don't I ever go to conferences where you can have wild sex?"
"This summer Debconf is in Espoo," - says Timo. "Mira and I are going. Wanna join us?"
"I've been to a Debconf before," - growls Jamie, - "five hundred men and five women, a great recipe for an orgy. But I can join you just for the hell of it. Yeah, and from now on I am packing condoms in your luggage every time you go anywhere without me," - he says to Katie.

He asks the nurses whether he can have a gonorrhea test while here in the pulmonary department. At that point their professionalism is not enough anymore to conceal their amusement, and when he says shyly that he might in fact need several tests for several possible places the hilarity reaches the point where they openly laugh, and promise to test everything for good measure.

We stay there for a couple of hours, during which time Jamie is transferred to a normal hospital room. At some point Rudy, Timo and I go away, leaving Jamie and Katie alone, unless you count Jamie's roommate, a guy of about forty with what sounds like severe respiratory problems. But he does not count because he is behind a curtain.

Much as I love Jamie, it's a relief to leave him to Katie. It's not that he is that much of a burden right now; it's just that leaving him with Katie finally gives me a feeling that he is happy, taken good care of and safe. I kiss them both goodnight, and off we go.

When I come there the next morning Jamie is lying very still, and his breathing sounds so normal that you wouldn't believe he'd had a lung surgery less that 24 hours earlier. Katie is sitting beside him and holding his hand.

"How is he?" - I whisper.
"He is all right, doctors seem to be satisfied. Doesn't have much appetite, but then he never does when he spends a whole day in bed. And you don't need to whisper, if you wake him up he'll just fall asleep again right away. He is drugged up the wazoo."

To demonstrate the point she tickles him under the chin and says: "Wake up, there is a proctologist here to see you."
Jamie opens his eyes for a moment and sees me. "This is not a proctologist, this is just Mira," - he says, - "But hey, if you want to give me a rectal exam, be my guest."
"Uhm," - I say, - "some other time."
"It's not nice to do it with other people in the room," - explains Katie to Jamie, pointing to the curtain behind which the roommate is.
"Hey, maybe Mira would like to give him a rectal exam too?"
"No!" - Katie, myself and the roommate exclaim simultaneously.
"You guys are no fun," - says Jamie and promptly falls asleep.
"Why'd you let him take so much drugs?" - I ask.
"I always do when he is in a hospital. Otherwise he is jittery at night and aggressively cheerful at innocent bystanders by day."
"Drugs good, keep him drugged," - sounds from behind the curtain.

I stay there for a few hours, mostly entertaining Katie. Every once in a while some nurses come in and make Jamie get up and do some breathing exercises, and are apparently satisfied with the results. At some point they bring him lunch, and he opens one eye and looks at it with disapproval.

"Come on, eat it. That will put some hair on your chest," - teases Katie.
"Don't want any hair on my chest."
"Some ass on your ass, then."

Instead of a verbal answer Jamie moons her, and right at that moment some nurse walks in and informs him that he does not have gonorrhea in any places they checked.

Rudy comes, and Jamie wakes up and asks how the yesterday's date went. Instead of a proper human answer Rudy lets out a delighted but deafening squeal, and Jamie joins him in it. The sound effect is unbelievable and can only be compared with the sound of fifty teenage girls who suddenly found a naked Orlando Bloom in their midst. A few people stick their heads into the room, and the roommate groans.

I peek behind the curtain. "I am really sorry for all the noise," - I tell the roommate in Finnish, - "But look at the bright side, at least they did not bring bagpipes."
"This guy can play bagpipes?"
"Absolutely not, but this has never stopped him from trying."
"OK, just don't give them any ideas."

At some point Timo comes too, and we all hang out there for a while, then go home and leave Katie there with Jamie. She seems to live in the hospital now - I am not sure whether she just gets there before the visiting hours start and leaves after they end, or simply manages to stay there all night, and I don't ask, but she is always there, stroking him, holding his hand, brushing his hair, talking to him, trying to feed him. When he is awake he talks to her and plays with her fingers and sometimes eats bits of chocolate out of her hands. They are not bothered by the rest of us coming to visit; quite the opposite, they take us as entertainment.

They discharge Jamie on Saturday with a prescription of tramadol, a week of sick leave, an appointment to remove stitches and a three-week ban on sports, heavy lifting and other strenuous activities. He tries to ask the doctor when will it be safe to perform various sex acts; after the fourth question the doctor decides that now she knows more than she ever wanted to know about Jamie's sex life and orders him to find out by method of trial and error while proceeding with caution and not putting undue pressure on the muscles on the side of his chest.

On Sunday we come to visit them. Katie is sitting on the sofa and Jamie is sitting in her lap, her arms wrapped protectively around him. There is no trace of the recent sleepiness, he is just his normal hyperactive self, probably due to the fact that as soon as they got home Katie confiscated all the tramadol. Has his normal appetite, too, judging from the pile of candy wrappers in front of him. Tarja is here too, holding hands with Rudy and winking at me. I wink back.

"Can I hug you?" - I ask Jamie.
"Sure, but be gentle."
"When have I ever been gentle to you?"

I sit down next to them and Jamie comes to sit in my lap. I hug him, taking care not to touch the places where the stitches are, kiss his cheek and run my hands through his hair. For some reason holding him in my arms like that and feeling his warmth and his heartbeat makes me cry. He knows that I don't like to cry in public and starts licking the tears off my face. The dogs notice and immediately want to get in on the licking action, but we don't let them. Finally I am not crying anymore and Jamie goes back to sit in Katie's lap.

"How are you feeling?"- asks Timo.
"Pretty much alright," - says Jamie, - "except that the buggers told me to walk a lot, but want me to stay home for a few days. It's pretty boring walking around the flat all the time."
"Have you seen the weather outside lately?"
"Also the damn tramadol causes horrible constipation, and of course they didn't say anything about it in advance."

This statement elicits more amusement than sympathy.

"That happens a lot to people whose main source of fiber is chocolate," - laughs Katie.
"Have you ever read Jaroslav Hasek? He advised not to visit a shithouse on an empty stomach," - is my helpful advice.
"Just take some more tramadol," - says Rudy, - "You will still be constipated, but you really won't care."
"Yeah, I know, constipation is pretty funny when some other bugger is afflicted," - sighs Jamie.
"Look who is talking! Who was laughing the loudest of all last weekend when I had an awful diarrhea and bite marks on my dick?"
"Anyone want coffee?" - asks Jamie quickly but not quickly enough to drown out Rudy's last words.
"Bite marks on your dick?" - Tarja turns to face Rudy, - "Interesting. You never told me... Who bit you?"
"Err," - mumbles Rudy, red as a boiled lobster, - "She did!" He points at Petra who is sitting and happily wagging her tail, completely unaware of the cannibalism accusation. The rest of us freeze in various "oh, shit!" positions.
"Rudy," - says Tarja, - "I can understand you seeing other women at this point, but what was your penis doing in the dog's mouth?"
"Err," - says Rudy, blushes even deeper and gives everyone an evil eye.
"He was just kidding," - says Jamie.
"I would like to hear the real story," - says Tarja.
"Well... I met one girl I knew... and she bit me on the dick."
"Unstable personality, she bites everyone," - I explain.
"Ahaa..."

Rudy is in total panic, and Tarja is in the mood for being merciful.

"How about we go to my place and you tell me the real story and show me the bite marks?"

Rudy looks at us questioningly. We all give him various "go, go, you moron!" signs.

After the door closes behind them we all start laughing so hard that we scare the cat.

My cell phone beeps a few minutes later. There is a message that Tarja has probably sent from the bus: "Men are sweet but don't make much sense. Let's go fishing without them next Sunday. Bring Katie too."

I relay the invitation to Katie and she accepts it. Then I decide to call and check on Oksana, just to see if she's alive. To my surprise she answers the phone.

"How are you? Where have you been?"
"Went on vacation last Saturday, just got back today."
"You didn't tell anything to Vitya!"
"Can't stand the fucker. I needed a rest from him."
"Where were you?"
"Hitchhiking around Murmansk with that Misha guy, do you know him? A kosher junkie. He took me with him so I'd shoot him up on Saturday."
"Good thing you are back," - I say, although I am not so sure it is a good thing.

You just can't understand some people.