PRINCESS OF THE HOMELESS
Olya and Sergei had been arguing for over an hour... They often had such discussions. Both close people, having lived together for half a year, they saw life differently. Young, with an active life stance, valuing each other's intelligence and passion for their work, Olya and Sergei disagreed on various social issues. No, the personal relationship of this bright couple was wonderful, but different occupations and life values, instilled by upbringing, led to such frequent, drawn-out arguments in the kitchen...
— They are people just like you and me!" Olya insisted persuasively. "Just the same. And they deserve to live a full life.
— The best and most full life for them is to lock these animals up in a special camp and never let them into our environment—normal and socially healthy people," her beloved irritably retorted to Olya.
The argument was about homeless people. Yes, precisely, about homeless people, citizens, those who, by the will of fate and the will of other, unkind people—whom Life often trips up on the path—found themselves thrown out onto the street and forced to fight for survival on the harsh urban expanses. Olya, by the nature of her work, was employed at a social charity foundation. She chose the work by vocation and the call of her soul. Since childhood, this girl had been distinguished by a soft, responsive heart. The role of a social worker was chosen by Olya quite consciously, and for three years now, the "Kind Heart" Foundation, thanks to her work, had been providing assistance to many in need.
The sick, hungry, and lonely turned to this glorious organization, and Olya, among the most attentive staff, was always ready to respond and engage in solving the problems of another's fate. The foundation created various programs, and quite recently, Olya had the idea to conduct a charity program to help the homeless. There were very many of them in the city, and the girl often caught sight of ragged and dirty people rummaging in residential dumpsters for a piece of daily bread with her pitying gaze. Her kind heart clenched at the realization that living people could be brought to such a state.
Sergei, with whom she shared her plans to help, showed no sympathy for this category of needy. A businessman, he loved Olya very much as a woman. He was attracted by her elegant figure, beautiful, magnificently shaped breasts, slender legs, blue eyes like the morning sea, but what truly made Sergei fall in love was her purity and sincere kindness. Olya was very different from the gold-diggers who swirled around Sergei in the business environment, seeing in him a potential match as a rich and confident groom. Olya was completely different and valued Sergei's best masculine qualities—reliability and intelligence. And yet, sometimes, in Sergei's opinion, Olya's kindness and responsiveness took her to incomprehensible places; the girl expended a lot of effort on people who, again, in his understanding, were not worth it.
— You don't pity those you consider outsiders," Olya echoed in their long argument. "The homeless need help to return to life, to society—and this act will only beautify the lives of successful and well-off people. Why do you treat them like that? How can you lock them up, they are people!
— Don't make me laugh," Sergei answered angrily. He was irritated by his beloved girl's position of helping these worthless creatures, who had sunk to the level of beasts, whom he couldn't even call people. "How are you going to help them? Will you go to their squat and feed them with a spoon?
He began to openly mock. But in reality, the imagined picture of his girl, tenderly called "princess" by him, fussing with dirty subjects with incomprehensible contagious diseases—his Olyechka caring for these dregs of life—this picture evoked disgust and simultaneous fear in Sergei. He already understood that the argument was turning into a destructive direction...
— Yes, I will help them!" Olya angrily retorted. "Yes, I will give them everything they need.
— You'll give them everything they need?" Sergei drawled mockingly, approaching his fiancée. He embraced her waist. He wanted to make up, and his hand slid under her robe, finding the warmth of her crotch. "Will you give them *this*? After all, *this* is the most necessary thing," Sergei quipped, and leaned in to kiss his girl on the neck, but she was angry and sharply pulled away, pushing his strong hand, which had already begun to caress her.
— You're vulgar! Your thoughts are only about that. You're well-fed, live in a luxurious and warm apartment, dress from leading designers, and think that hungry, freezing people have the same needs as you. They don't need sex at all. They're thinking about how not to freeze in such a winter.
Outside was a cold and snowy winter; the city was frozen under its power, and everyone at such a time preferred to sit in warm houses...
— And what a vulgar man," Olya repeated, embarrassed. Her beloved's words about what she could *give* to the homeless, even said jokingly, with sarcasm, had gotten to her. She became even angrier. "Aren't you ashamed.
— No, I'm not ashamed that my girl is beautiful, sexy, and everyone wants her," Sergei answered seriously.
The man began to calm down. He no longer wanted to argue; he wanted something completely different—affection and passionate sex with his beloved girl. They could engage in sex—that sweet and vitally important activity—for hours, and Sergei vividly imagined how they would reconcilingly lie down in bed now, and he would enter Olya, dissolving in her until complete exhaustion, as before...
But Olya couldn't settle down. She literally fixated on the subject of the argument.
— These unfortunates are freezing. It's minus thirty outside, we are in warmth, and they are probably trying to warm up in basements and gateways. I can't think of this indifferently. My goal is to save people. And I will save them.
She began pacing the room animatedly, unfolding a new thought before her beloved:
— Let's help them today. Why postpone what the destitute need right now!
— What are you talking about?" Sergei asked warily, knowing that when it came to Olya's work—helping one's neighbor—his girl couldn't be stopped. "What have you thought up, darling?
Olya froze for a second, looking Sergei in the eyes, then answered, absolutely seriously.
— You have a full closet of winter clothes. Sheepskin coats you don't wear, fur coats you've piled on me—I don't need that many, and neither do you. I suggest right now, without postponing anything, taking everything unnecessary and taking it to the nearest homeless shelter.
Sergei would have looked at Olya as if she were crazy, but he understood perfectly well she wasn't joking. He realized he needed to take the situation into his own hands, the decisive hands of a real man.
— Olyechka, what are you talking about? Where are we going to go now, at nightfall, and in such frost?
— Are you sorry for the clothes?" Sergei shook his head in response; he was bewildered by his beloved's determination. "If you won't go with me—I'll go alone.
The quarrel flared up with renewed vigor. Sergei's masculine, master-of-life character boiled over. He declared he wouldn't let her go anywhere, and he himself wouldn't go to any homeless people—unfortunates in Olya's opinion, and complete scumbags in his.
Having quarreled, the couple silently began preparing for bed. Sergei lay down first and turned to the wall; the desire to have sex with his beloved had vanished. Her kindness today had been revealed in its full absurdity and irrevocably spoiled the winter evening. And Sergei, returning after a difficult business day, had imagined it quite differently...
Olya lay down later, calming down for a long time. Why didn't her beloved, the best man in the world, understand? The girl almost cried that Sergei hadn't let her carry out the planned good deed. Could he really be such a callous person, and she had planned to spend her whole life with him.
Olya lay down but couldn't sleep. Hearing her dear one's light snoring, she quietly got out of bed and went to the window. The night city was sprinkled with fine snow, and it seemed to her that the City wanted to tell her something. An important, unspoken thought flew outside in the winter cold night, and Olya understood that she wanted to catch it, this very Thought, the main one at this hour. And without that, she couldn't sleep, so strongly can a random idea impress us.
But nothing happens by chance...
Olya understood what needed to be done. She went into the dressing room, approached the closet, and quietly opened the doors. Here they were, things—unnecessary to them and needed by someone... A European couturier's fur coat, Sergei's Italian sheepskin coat, a warm down jacket from Pol Shark, a couple of knitted sweaters. Gathering all this into a bag, Olga put on her evening blue dress, boots, threw on her mink coat, and, silently unlocking the door, left the apartment. Quietly, trying not to wake the sleeping man, she closed the door behind her...
Outside—no one. The night was not conducive to walks, and meeting someone in the winter frost would have been something surprising. The lonely girl suddenly thought. She knew—to whom to go, but didn't know where. Where did these unfortunates, who so needed her help, live?
Olya knew that homeless people wandered where the residential dumpsters stood. She walked around her building to the place where the containers were installed and saw what she expected to see—near the dumpsters, a dark figure, dressed in who-knows-what, was bustling about.
Olya approached it, very close. The figure, hearing the steps crunching on the snow, distracted itself from extracting scraps from the dumpster and turned around.
Whether this person was a woman or a man—the girl found it difficult to determine.
— Hello!" Olga was the first to respond. "Sorry to distract you, but I have a request for you.
Krysa—a homeless woman with experience and without age—hadn't heard requests in her life for a very long time. She had already forgotten how she ended up homeless on the street, and now she was surprised that this elegant, dressed-up girl from a completely different life, where Krysa could never get, needed something from her. Fights broke out between the local homeless groups over these dumpsters. People living nearby threw out a lot of good food here; such a place in the city was worth its weight in gold, and Krysa had been beaten up a couple of times for encroaching on what someone considered their territory. But the woman approaching her was completely unlike that. This lady was unlikely to need anything from the dumpster.
— What do you want?" Krysa grumbled, examining Olya with wariness and yet interest.
Olya immediately decided to explain the purpose of her nocturnal visit.
— I wanted to ask you, could you take me to your...?"—she thought about how to call them—"...neighbors in housing. You all must be very cold, and I have several warm, good things for you in this bag.
Krysa had never encountered anything like this. She and her crew lived nearby in an old boiler room, where decent people never looked in.
— Are you normal?" asked Krysa. Olya was taken aback by such a question but then nodded. By the voice, she finally understood that it was a woman before her.
— Well, come on then, if you're not joking"—and Krysa trudged slowly towards the squat. Olya followed her. On the way, Krysa asked:
— And what kind of stuff is it?
— A fur coat, a sheepskin coat, a down jacket, sweaters," Olya answered, filling with pride from the donated set of things, to put it mildly, not cheap.
Krysa smirked:
— Knock-offs?" she asked again.
— Why knock-offs?" Olya was taken aback again. "No, what are you saying, no one set them on fire.
— Stolen?" clarified the homeless woman. This girl, not understanding Russian, amused her.
Olya began to justify herself:
— No, these are things belonging to me and my fiancé. We want to give them to you from the bottom of our hearts. You'll need them more."—Olya, slightly embarrassed, added a question:—"Do you have a husband?
— Yeah, two of them," Krysa casually gave an answer that Olya didn't understand.
They reached the boiler room. It turned out to be a gray abandoned basement where homeless people lived winter and summer. Olya was glad that now her mission would find its realization, because helping one's neighbor was the most important thing.
They descended the steep steps; Olya had to look carefully at her feet, as in the pitch darkness, it was impossible to distinguish anything.
Krysa knocked on the locked door; after half a minute, the door opened, and at the entrance, they were met by a homeless man wrapped in a dirty blanket, of an unwelcoming appearance.
— Brought a guest to us, let us in, Shnyr," Krysa declared from the threshold, and they entered inside, finding themselves in a fairly spacious room. Olya looked around. Soot-covered walls all around, water dripped from the ceilings, a steady stinking smell unpleasantly tickled the nostrils, low ceilings seemed to press on the brain, enhancing the feeling of hopelessness from living in such a place. The girl shuddered fastidiously. Well, this was exactly how Olya imagined the homeless dwelling.
Now it was time for Olya to look at the inhabitants. Besides Shnyr, there were three more men in the squat. Two were sitting at the table, concocting something; one of them, the healthiest, with a big belly and a huge beard, in a dirty Adidas tracksuit, once fashionable, approached the girl.
— Who did you come to?" he asked harshly. He examined Olya with obvious interest; women of this level had never been in this basement.
— To you," Olga tried to answer as calmly as possible. The pot-bellied man exuded the harshness of the owner and something else that Olya couldn't yet explain, but she didn't like it. She was suddenly surprised by the picture in which she found herself. An expensively dressed, beautiful girl in a dark, abandoned basement among homeless guys—for some reason, this didn't seem natural to her.
— TO ME?" the "big guy" asked again. "Well, to me, so to me. Sit down!" He pointed Olya to a half-collapsed, torn sofa in the corner. Olga had no choice but to sit; she didn't want to contradict such a "handsome" man.
— I mean to you, to all of you," Olya clarified.
— ALL—will be disappointed," the "owner" cut off just as harshly, then poured some liquid from a bottle into a tin mug and handed it to Olga. She was silent, not even knowing what to answer next. She seemed to have forgotten why she had come, such a depressing impression the surroundings made on her.
— I... wanted to help you," Olga finally said in a strange, quiet voice for herself.
— You'll help now, oh yes you will. Drink!" ordered the "big guy.
— What is it?" Olga asked again. An unpleasant smell emanated from the mug.
— Hooch," the man explained sternly. "Don't be scared, it's diluted, just right for a woman. And by the way, my name is Bugay," he introduced himself.
Olya tried to protest:
— What are you... I only brought things... I, um, don't drink..."—but Bugay suddenly behaved in a way Olya couldn't even imagine.
He grabbed the girl by the jaw, pressed sharply, shoved the mug into her mouth, and forcibly, despite Olya's jerks, poured it down her throat. Olya tried to spit it out, but he tilted her head back and covered her mouth. She had to swallow, and the liquid, burning her