We were in apartments in Budapest. I don’t really know why I chose this city and not another, I was so peaceful in my hometown. My daily strolls downtown, passing by the fountain, not because I particularly admired its design, but because it was on the way to anywhere I wanted to go. Buying the crusty wood fired bread for my mother’s huge sausage sandwiches. I would watch the unattainable lasses strut and tumble with the rough lads, relentlessly scratching their dirty crotches and spitting everywhere. Wondering which one would be for me.  Curiosity killed the cat as they say, and the resulting rash doesn’t ever seem to heal.

This moment had been a long time coming. My mother, sharp-tongued as always, had warned. “Not even making a pact with the devil will we be able to find him a good woman to marry.” Just not marriage material.  She was right. That fateful morning she said goodbye to me as if we never see each other again. “Your lunch-box contains an extra sandwich, and a tortilla. Every day you come back later and whatever happens, I don’t want you to be hungry. Even if you never see things my way.”  I barely took note of the contents of the lunchbox when I realized I was  blind on the way to my meeting with Brigitte.

I met her, or perhaps better said, I met him, online. Perhaps it was naive of me to try to make myself interesting for this stranger. I told her the story of my inheritance from my maternal grandmother, and my mother�s brother and his dirty boys.  He passed away at the age of 74 and since his only son had died a year back, exchange for having taken care of him and his “preferences,” I somehow found myself involved. His lowlifes weren’t really my thing, but I found myself sucked into the intriguing world of online dating and the ensuing cyber-sex.  This is how I found myself pulling the wool over my eyes and rushing blindly to the train station. “A ticket to Budapest” I said. In the rush I left everything and as my mother told the police. “He didn’t even try the tortilla ….”

And here I am now, pacing the banks of the Danube in the capital of Hungary. Even in a state of shock after having my behind pounded by huge shemale,  I am struck by the aftertaste of “csirkepaprikás,” that chicken stew with paprika that waited for me so sweetly and patiently at the table.