There is no love more powerful then the one of a parent for its children. and there is no greater pain in this world then for a parent to see its children suffering (Legend Of Actit).
Mankind can live without scientists, without priests, without emperors, without philosophers, without warriors and without merchants, but it will never be able to live without mothers (An Ancient Prophet).
When a parent is crying for its children, the whole sky is crying. And when a child forgets its parents, the hell opens its mouth (Legend Of Imhal).
Alia - Atan is free a few days, before he will go up to the mines. We use this time, living every second of it. It is autumn, but still is warm enough. We are in the house now. We both are dressed as women, with a white and green knee-long dress and with brown pantyhose. The morning trains have passed and now we enjoy some quiet time. We finished smoking a cigarette and now I open my laptop.
"Any news from my parents?" he says.
He never talked about them for months. I know they are strongly against me and want him back.
"I don't know yet", I say. "Let's see..."
I open his mail address and look.
"Yes, you have a new message. Should I delete it?"
"No", he says. "I think now I have the strength to read them. It's been almost an year since I last contacted them".
"They have been crying and begging you to return".
"I know. But you know as well as I do, that I no longer belong to the world they live in".
I remember. Whenever someone is preying about me, I hear it, no matter to what god that person is preying. For such a long time I've seen his parents kneeling in front of an icon and preying from a book. I could see their cries, their tears. This almost ripped me. But, I open the mail and see. There are a few messages. Two are from former friends, asking him if he is still alive.
"Delete those. I am dead to my friends", he says, pointing his fingers, with green nails, to the screen.
"Ok", I say, as I delete them. "The last one is from your parents. Are you sure you are ready to read it? Many times you just told me to delete them".
"I want to see".
I remember old messages. How many times, they asked him to return? I just remember one:
Please, just leave that place. Leave that witch and those cursed mountains. What is wrong with you? We never harmed you with anything, ever. Can't you see that she is drinking your blood, drinking your money? Can't you see that she is a daughter of Satan? Come back to us and save your soul. Then, another message was like this: We are all alone, waiting to die. There is nobody to say a good word to us. We built this house for you. We worked all our lives to offer you a good life. You are the light of our lives and the reason we exist. Without you, we have no reason to exist. Just get out of there and return to us.
I tried to answer and give them details about our lives. Well, not everything. I told them, for example, that he is working hard at the surface mine and I am worried that he will get exhausted by too much work. And the answer was always a harsh, cruel one. They always cursed me and were extremely rude to me, each time. But I always deleted their messages.
"Ok, I open it now", I say, as opening the message.
From this moment on, you are no longer our child. When we will die, all our fortune will die with us. We don't want to hear anything again from you. You chosen to go to the land of savages and you chosen to marry that witch. Now, it's your life. You are a child of Satan and no longer a child of us.
And for you, witch, may your soul end-up in hell, where it deserves to be. Just tell our former child that we no longer recognize him as our. He made his choice and lost his soul. You both no longer exist and there is no way you will ever have a way back.
"What does that mean?" I ask. "That's why in the last few weeks I no longer felt their preying".
"I don't know", he says. "They just abandoned me?"
"As you abandoned them".
"For a long time, I hoped I could make peace somehow. But they never accepted me as a sfenist. Why does all this have to be?"
"I really don't know why. But this is how it is to be a sfenist. Endless pain".
"I know", he says. "I never wanted anything from them, any of their fortune. All I wanted is them".
He looks up, then says:
"God, why does all have to be like this? I never ever wanted their money. I just wanted a new life. And now, God, you are the witness. I love them. They are my parents and the only thing I had for a long time". He looks deep into my eyes, like asking for help. "The only thing I will never forgive them is that they forced me to sleep with that girl. I will never forgive them for that". then, he puts his hands on my shoulders. "Nicotiana, your parents are different. I know they suffered that you are a sfenist, but they never forced you into something you cannot do. Your parents love you just as much as mine... or do my parents still love me?"
I look deep into his eyes and read his look. He has the eyes of a person who lost someone very important and still hopes that it might return somehow.
"They just abandoned me? Like this?"
"No", I say. "I don't think that. I think only that, for the moment, they realized there is no way to make you return. How could they not love you? I've seen their faces".
"I also cannot believe that they really abandoned me", he says. "Maybe, in a few years, they will accept us as we are".
"That is what I also think", I say. "Maybe now they are starting to stop loving their dreamed model of you and soon they will love the real you".
"Maybe they just gave-up", he says. "Maybe they realized that preying had no effect and I will not return".
"They are willful people that don't accept anything from you that is not according to their plan. But even the hardest stones are eroded slowly. A train cannot walk in a straight line, it must follow the railways. They did not follow the rails and derailed. It will take time for them to return to the tracks. Only that, this time, they will have to follow the line".
"Nicotiana", he says.
"Yes".
"Now, you are the only thing I had. The former me died when we got married. All I have is like memories from another life. But they still remained, as a bridge between the two lives. Now, they died too. You are the only thing I have. I feel like an orphan".
I take my hands and put on his shoulders, in the same way he does with me. Yes, he really has nobody now. And if he would try to contact his parents, they will probably reject him or at least punish him a lot. I realize how he would feel if somehow he will try to return to them... even if, with our salaries, that will be quite impossible.
"I am harder and I basically ran away from my parents", I say. "If not, probably they would have forced me to get married and suffer far more. You remember Inah?"
"Yes, I do".
"Her parents tried to force her get married, when Altha got married first time. But she, just like me, never accepted that".
"Why do we, sfenists, have to suffer like that?" he asks. "My parents took me to psychological treatment, tried to prescribe me medicine... Why all this?"
"That is what is to be a sfenist", I answer. "For a long time, I said that I better have died, then to suffer all this".
"This is true", he says. "This is true, Nicotiana".
"Everybody tries to push us back into the main population group", I say. "Some forces us into psychological treatment, others just ignore our pain and want us to get married, others just don't understand. Some people say it is just a lie and we don't exist".
"But we do exist", he says. "I never knew other sfenists until I found you. We do exist, but nobody talks about us. Believe me, one psychiatrist prescribed me medicine to increase libido. He simply did not believe me. Even many priests, when I went to confess my sins, the first question they asked is 'Are you married?' When I said 'no', they immediately said: 'Then what are you waiting? Or you want to go to a monastery?' Why do things have to be like this?"
"The only people that ever understood us as we are, are people from other sexual minorities", I say.
"You mean homosexuals?"
"You know, they did understand me. I found a few at the University and talked to them. Maybe, because they also belong to a sexual minority, they know how it feels".
"This makes sense", he says.
"Yes, the ones I know, understood me well. Well, I know you hate them because it was a gay who destroyed your life..."
"That infidel was a gay", he says, "but as you said once, there are also gay sfenists. So, accusing them all is not correct. You know that where my parents live, Gipsy people are stealing from cars, minibus vehicles and private properties. But not all Gipsy people do this. So, accusing all of them is not fair. That is the difference".
We sit and look one at each other. Then, I delete the message, without answering anything to his parents. In my mind, a single question remains: What is the biggest suffering ad being a sfenist? Just like when Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. What was the worst? The destruction of the cities or the struggle of the survivals who tried to rebuild their lives away from the ash? I guess iy was the second.
"Alia", I say.
"Yes?"
"We just have to keep on going. Just go forward and don't look back. If we keep crying for the past, we do nothing. If we keep looking at our wounds, that will not help at all. I know from my life. We just have to accept what we are, move forward and never look back".
"I guess you are right".
"We formed a family. Maybe one day we will also have children. What should we do? Just burry ourselves in pain? No, we didn't went that far for this".
"Do you think it will be possible for us to have children?" he asks. "I mean, you know how children are made. Or, maybe through adoption".
"At this point, it is impossible. But maybe, in the future, it will. It all depends on us, on what we try to do: stay as we are or keep following our path".
*******************************
In the Civilized World, two lonely parents are sitting in their house, watching TV. They are watching about a recent fight between two military factions in the Land Of Fire, then about a suicide bomb attack in the Land Of Sand.
"That is close to their border", says the woman. "Why did he go to that place?"
"What I don't understand is why you sent him that mail", says the man.
"Why? Because I realized he will never come back. It's been over an year since he left and soon will be an year since he is with that woman".
"Maybe. But still, he is our son. Now, we really don't know if we will ever hear any news from him. At least Nicotiana was sending us a mail at a few days".
"Stop saying that name!" shouts the woman. "That witch is behind all! May she be eaten by worms!"
"Yes, I agree that she deserves that pain, but now we lost our son".
"He was lost from the day he left, but we didn't understand. Why did he go there?"
"It was like something was calling him there", says the man. "He was a good student and was offered a job in America, but refused. Instead, he went to the End Of The World just as he heard about".
"I don't know. Only that I gave-up hoping and trying", says the woman. "You remember that old priest we found? The blind one".
"Yes, I do".
"You remember what he told us?"
"That we did all we could. We prayed and cried and fasted. And if he is not coming back, it means that the will of God is for him to stay there", says the man.
"So, if it is God's will, what could we possibly do?" says the woman. "That's why I gave-up".
"I know, but still I don't want to give-up. Maybe, something will change".
"What will change?" Do you realize? They will make a child there and from that point on he will be linked to that place forever".
"I don't think so", says the man. "There a salary is less then a quarter of what is here. What child will want to live in that poverty? Maybe that is the point when he will return".
"With children made with that savage? That I will never accept!"
"I don't know... but at some point, he is still my son. And that cannot be changed".
*******************************
Here, at the mountains, at the End Of The World, two parents have finished lunch and are resting, smoking a cigarette.
"I see Ana and Atan never had a fight for months", says the woman.
"She is very smart, but despite the look, he is even smarter. He knows how to avoid conflicts", says the man.
"I see she loves him. And I also see he loves her. Even if they are the strangest couple in these mountains. So many people spoke about them".
"Yes, nobody ever seen a man that gets dressed as a woman", says the man. "But still it's good this doesn't happen when he is at work. Honestly, I don't like that part, but as long as he does not harm my daughter, he is welcome".
"I only wish I could meet his parents", says the woman. "Ana talked about them as people extremely rich, but also I understand this is how people are there".
"Even now, I like to call her on her old name. On the name we gave her. I don't know", says the man". That girl died when that cursed tourist came to us. And I am guilty in part for that. Ana is a different person. In many regards, it is like a different soul in the same body".
"I know... but she is our daughter. We have to take care of her, like of all the others".
"Yes, but she is not like the others. You know what she did to Stromboli, to Abdul, to Stallion, to Wizard... to... How many guys did she smashed? I wanted to marry her with Wizard, then with Stallion. And you know what happened".
"Well, she didn't kill Atan", says the woman.
"Not yet".
"And I think she will not do that. Just look at them, they are in love".
"Yes, but what love is that?" says the man. "They stay together in that house, they dress the same, they move almost with the same steps, they smoke together, but where is the love? I never seen them kissing, not to mention what they should do. I understand why they do things like that and I know this is my fault. At least, they are happy, even if I ask myself what kind of happiness is this".
"Do you think I wouldn't like to see them in another way?" says the woman. "I would like to see them like Abida and Aslan. Soon, they will have a child. Even Cemis will get married soon. I don't know if Ana will ever have a child, but at least I am happy that she will not be alone".
"She suffered more then all of us together. I just hope that guy dressed as a woman understands it".
"He suffered probably the same, but in a different way".
"How do you know?"
"Ana told me. Remember, he is also a sfenist. What I don't understand at all, is why his parents never came to visit him for so long".
"They hate our daughter. Don't you remember?"
"Yes, but they love their son, don't you remember?"
*******************************
The evening trains have passed. We eat and then we go back to the house. We listen music, from YouTube. I like meditation songs, like those from Enigma, Karunesh and other New Age genre. Even soft rock, like Nightwish. He prefers not a genre, but fast, happy music. Nightcore and Trance.
As we listen, we light a cigarette. We practice smooth and fetish inhales and exhales. Then, like we did many times, we practice the smoky kiss. We transfer smoke between our lungs, through a kiss. We also practice the gummy kiss, exchanging our gum. And a few bubbles.
With every passing day, our relation becomes stronger, here, at the End Of The World. It is like we've been this way forever. Maybe we were made to be together. We can stay for hours just like this, smoking, making smoky kisses and talking, touching each other, massaging our pantyhosed feet... We touched and explored our whole body surface, except the points linked to the wounds of our souls.
I put back my feet on his lap, while leaning on my back, with the head on a pillow. He massages me. He spends time working on my toes, on my heels, on my ankles, then all the way up to my knees. All this time, I lean on my back and smoke, watching how layers of smoke mix in the tight atmosphere of the room. Then, we change seats and I start massaging his feet, feeling the softness of a pantyhose layer, while he sits with the head on the pillow, smoking. And then, we change seats again. I put my feet in his lap. I move his dress up, so that my feet can feel his.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I just want to adjust position", I say. "Pantyhose on pantyhose".
"So, you want your feet to sit on mine?"
"Yes. I like that feeling".
"Ok, let me help you".
He lifts my feet, then pushes his dress up, placing my feet on his. I like the feeling. His pantyhose fetish is now mine, just as my smoking fetish is now his. He starts massaging me again. Then, I feel something under one foot.
"Is that..." I say.
"What is it? Is there a problem?"
"Yes, something moved", I say.
"Did I do something I shouldn't?"
"No, not your hands. Below".
He doesn't answer, but I see it in his eyes.
"I know what moves", I say, with a small smile. "But I never understood how that organ is actually moving".
"Sorry", he says. "Did you just feel..."
"Yes, I did feel. And not only now".
He moves my feet further, to his knees.
"Don't worry. Only that I don't understand how it is increasing and decreasing in size".
"It is a bit complicated", he says, then makes silence.
We make silence for a while, until I feel again something moving. At that moment, I take my feet out of his lap and sit near him, on the bed. I look at his feet, covered by a layer of brown pantyhose. I watch them all the way to the toes. Up, I know they are under the dress, all the way to the waist.
I take a deep inhale of smoke, looking at his body. My eyes get fixed at his fake breasts. Maybe one day we will have money and a place to buy breasts, that could be glued on him. As we stay one close to each other, I let my head on his shoulder. When we stand, this is impossible, since he is higher then me, but when we sit, it is more easy. He also leans his head to mine, until our green hairs touch one each other.
"Do you feel any anger on me?" I ask.
"No. What for?"
"For when you caught me in the kitchen masturbating".
"Nicotiana, I told you many times that I have nothing to object. And I told you that what you were doing, I also did. And not only once".
I take a double drag, hold the smoke inside me, then blow it in the air.
"Anytime you feel the need to do that, just do", he says. "As I said, I have nothing against. I also do masturbate from time to time. I know it is not good, but... that's it".
"I want to ask you, but be honest", I say, also taking some smoke inside me and blowing it out. "When did you masturbate last time?"
He is quiet for a few seconds, then says: "A few days before I caught you".
"That is enough time ago".
"I guess so. Why do you ask?" he says, looking curious at me.
"I was just trying to understand what made your organ move when I had my feet on your lap".
He doesn't say a word.
"If you need to, don't hide yourself from me", I say. "Remember, we promised that we will have no secrets".
Again, he says nothing.
"How is that you can see inside people's eyes?" he says after about two minutes. "I was planning to do this in a night, pretending I go to toilette, then to tell you what I did in two or 3 days".
"I knew it!" I say, with a smile. "I knew that is why it was moving".
He looks at me surprised and a bit not agreeing.
"Do you feel the need to do this?" he asks.
"Yes and no. But, I don't know. Ok".
"Well, if this is your will, ok. I agree".
We stay a few minutes looking one at each other, like asking 'who has the courage to do that in front of the other?' until I run to the kitchen and take my screwdriver. He recognizes it.
"Ok", he says. "Here goes nothing!"
Then, he lifts his skirt, exposing the pantyhosed feet all the way up. I see a clear bulge there. And at that moment, I remember something. I feel cold in my back, my body starts shaking and I have again that image of something slimy, full with infected worms.
"Stop!" I shout.
He instantly lets his dress down to his knees.
"Are you ok?"
"Alia, not like this! I am not ready for this".
He massages my head, gently.
"Don't worry, it is ok", he says.
"No, not like this", I say.
He takes two cigarettes and gives me one, then takes the lighter. I take a deep inhale, trying to calm down. A single look and my body rejected everything. We smoke until only the filters remain on the ashtray.
"Nicotiana", he says. "I don't think we are ready for this step. Not now, maybe in future. But I have an idea. What if we both go out? It is night now, nobody can see us. You stay in one place and I stay in another, at enough distance one from the other. This way, it could work".
And this is exactly what we do. We get out in the dark. It is a cloudy night, with no stars and no moon. All we can hear are a few dogs barking. We sit about 20 m one from each other. I cannot see him, only his cigarette. And he cannot see anything but my cigarette.
Could this be considered some form of sex? I don't know, but for us, it is. It takes a bit longer then the time needed to smoke a cigarette for me, while for him it was faster. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it is clear that we now have entered the 4th step of a sfenist relation.
After this, we return to the house, but not for long. The night train is going up to the mines. We both go to the railway station, to wait for the train. And soon after, comes a train from the surface mine, one of the last. Soon, that mine will cease operations for this year. Arnold has made his reserve of coal for the winter. We return from the station, we smoke one more cigarette and go to sleep.
