Of Bugs And Men

With a sigh, she added, ‘Diarrhoea.’

The exterminator arrived the next day, looking less like Arnold Schwarzenegger and more like a version of Steve Carell who’d spent two decades drinking two pints every evening and raiding his grandfather’s wardrobe. His shirt was a size too big, his trousers a size too small, and his face had the expression of a man who’d lost three divorces but won the right to keep his van.

Before the summer of 2024, my relationship with Masha felt like a series of prison conjugal visits — meticulously scheduled, grabbing whatever intimacy we could, switching back and forth between her place and mine.

Instead of guards and metal detectors, we had Masha’s roommate — a lovely girl from Sicily who greeted me with a raised brow and, “Ah, you again.”

When I sublet my apartment and moved in with Masha, her roommate wasn’t thrilled. Her reaction was like someone who’d suddenly realized that conjugal visits had turned into a life sentence.

One scorching morning, I woke up drenched in sweat — as one British friend once explained, English homes are designed to trap heat rather than let it out. As I tried convincing myself that my sweaty, sticky state was somehow romantic, my phone buzzed.

My friend, whom I’d sublet the apartment to, sent me a photo of his arm. Four red welts lined his hairy skin, like a constellation of red giants.

“Check this out,” his text read.

“WTF is that?” I texted back.

He replied with a single emoji: 🐞.

“Sorry, man. This isn’t working out,” he added. His family would be coming soon, including a newborn. Whatever it was, he…