Sunshine Through a Screen

Serafima seemed crystalline. Not in terms of fragility, but clarity and purity. Her raunchy fantasies about Michael were like playing at scary fairy tales—frightening but unreal, and therefore safe. They existed in a parallel universe of text, where there was no smell of sweat, no pain, no disappointment. In that universe, Kristina felt free. In her own, real one, she was a prisoner. A prisoner of her own body, which was rejected. A prisoner of her friends' opinions, who, batting their eyelashes, said: "Enough with your imaginary German! You're a grown woman. Find a normal guy." "Normal," in their understanding, meant someone who would "settle." And the ones who settled, it seemed to her, were only those who couldn't find better. Like Lyosha. Lyosha was as simple as a brick. A construction worker, gym-rat, with flat brown eyes that reflected nothing but his own mirror image. He was her "real boyfriend." For three years. Three years she believed this was the maximum she deserved. Because of her crooked fingers, her strange gait, her voice that sometimes failed her. She deserved someone like him. Dull, insensitive, but strong. His presence beside her was silent proof: "Look, I'm not completely untouchable." Their intimacy was as utilitarian as his job. A playground behind the garages, in the evening. He'd slide his hand under her skirt, work his fingers roughly, breathe heavily into her neck, finish in his pants or on her stomach. No kisses on the lips, no eye contact. As if her face, her upper body weren't part of the process. Only that hidden, "functional" part. He called it "getting some," and she silently agreed. But today, something inside her snapped. Maybe from the contrast with that tender, albeit virtual, closeness with Sima. Maybe it had just built up. "Lyosh," she said, stumbling over the words as he already reached for his zipper. "Could you… go down on me? I'll sit on the slide. It's… easier." He snorted, not taking his eyes off his already erect member. "First, you blow me. And I want it in the back today." Kristina swallowed a lump. Not fear, but a cold, clear resentment. "We've been doing this for three years. Maybe we could…" she made an effort to speak clearly, "…maybe get a hotel room? Do you have… protection?" He finally looked at her. Not with surprise, but with a disgusted irritation. "A hotel? What next? A hotel, she says. Come on, here, I'm in a hurry. The guys are waiting." That "in a hurry" was the last straw. She didn't yell. She simply stood up, straightened her skirt, and without looking at him, walked away. He shouted something after her about "showing off" and "being stupid," but the words dissolved in the traffic noise. She walked quickly, swaying awkwardly, feeling burning shame and fury rising in her throat. Her first time shouldn't be on the street, like a stray dog's. She wanted walls. Four walls and a clean sheet. Was that too much to ask? Apparently, for her, it was. Home was quiet and empty. Mother at work. Kristina rushed to the shower, scrubbing his cheap cologne and playground dust from her skin. Then she sat at the computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, pouring out all the filth, the pain, the humiliation. She told Sima everything. About Lyosha. The three years. The fingers on the rusty slide. His refusal and her escape. She wasn't expecting comfort. Just understanding—silent, like the first time. The reply came not in five minutes or an hour. It came deep in the night, when Kristina was already staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. A long, paragraph-separated email. Not in the messenger. As something important. > **Serafima:** > > Kristina, my dear. > > I read it. And I couldn't write anything for a long time. Because your words first made everything inside me clench with pain for you, and then filled me with such rage that, I think, if I could walk, I'd come and personally punch that blockheaded jerk in the face. Then I'd hug you and never let go. > > You write that you think you only deserve this. Let me, a seventeen-year-old cripple who has never kissed anyone, tell you one thing. You are wrong. You are wrong in such a monstrous way it screams from every line of your letter. > > You deserve tenderness. Not just sex in a hotel, but specifically tenderness. Like a sunrise that isn't rushed. And if I were a man, the one you deserve, I'd do everything differently. > > I'd start not with the where and how. I'd start with you. With your hair. I'd brush it for a long, long time, just to see it shine in the lamplight. Then I'd kiss each vertebra on your neck, knowing how tense they sometimes are from you holding yourself so straight. I'd kiss your hands. Every finger, every curve, every faint tremor—not as a defect, but as a unique pattern, a map of your resilience. > > I'd ask where it hurts, where you're scared, where you're ticklish. And I'd listen to the answer. Not to the words, but to your breathing, to the movement of your muscles under your skin. > > And when you were ready, I'd lay you down on clean, fresh-smelling sheets. And I'd look into your eyes. The whole time. So you'd see that it's YOU. All of you. Not a functional part, but all of you. With your mind that writes such texts, with your fury, with your fear, with your incredible, stubborn heart. > > And losing your virginity… It's not "losing." It's a gift. You're giving something priceless. And it should be accepted with reverence. Not on a cold iron slide, but in warmth. In safety. In a place where you don't have to look around and be afraid someone will see. Where you can scream, cry, or laugh—and it will be only yours. > > You deserve to be taken apart not out of impatience, but out of a desire to study and worship. Like the most complex and beautiful text. For every mole, every scar (physical or not) to be read, understood, and kissed. > > This Lyosha… he doesn't even know the alphabet of your body. He's functionally illiterate. And he'll never read the poem that you are. > > Sorry for being so long and so… frank. But I couldn't stay silent. You are the sun. And you shouldn't be used as a streetlamp to light the way for five minutes. You deserve to be woken up by your light. To be seen in it. To find warmth in it for one's own, cold soul. > > Kick him out, Kristina. Kick him out of your life like you kicked him off that playground. The space he occupies is too valuable for such garbage. > > Your Sima, who loves you more than any imaginary Michael, and who knows the price of what's real. Kristina read. And cried. Not out of self-pity, but from something else. From how these words, written by a girl who had never touched anyone except a keyboard and wheelchair armrests, touched her more deeply than anyone's hands ever had in her entire life. They weren't describing just sex. They were describing **dignity**. The right to a beautiful process. To respect. To being not an object, but a co-author of one's own experience. She wiped her tears and looked at her reflection in the dark monitor screen. A tired face, frightened eyes. "You are the sun," the quiet voice in her head reminded. She opened the chat with Lyosha. His last message, sent an hour ago: "Why the silent treatment? Come over tomorrow, we'll make up." She typed three words. Clearly. Without caveats. **"It's over. Don't write."** And sent it. Then blocked his number. Not out of fear, but out of a sense of… hygiene. Like taking out the trash so it doesn't stink. She looked at Sima's letter again. Reread the paragraph about the vertebrae on her neck. And for the first time in three years, in her entire adult life, she felt not shame for her body, but a quiet, almost unreal **pride**. Because someone, the most perceptive of all she knew, saw in it not a burden, but a poem. And to deserve such a poem… yes, she must be worth something after all.