One of the early memories of Nikolai that he couldn’t ever forget was back when he was about 6 years old. Then the youngest of all the brothers, he could say that he wasn’t exactly the favourite, but let’s say he normally got his way when pursued. It was in that reason that, in the middle of the year when his brothers are on spring break vacation, he took a leave from his school and stayed at home, feigning a reason of business matters–at least that was what his father came up with when the principal got a little cross, and was dubious about the two week pull out, but at 6, Nikolai knew his powers over his father, and most of them lay on incessant whining.

In those days, his brothers were all out of the house, and his mother was supposed to be on a trip, leaving the baby sitting to his father. He only heard that his mother was going to fix a few finances in Italy, and that his father stayed; it wasn’t something he ever bothered with in the first place. He simply was cooped up in his room, all his TV shows lined up; sometimes waiting for a call from one of his brothers telling him about their trips somewhere in the north.

In one of those nights, however, he found himself waking up a little hungry. He remembered passing up on dinner to get a couple more hours of sleep, to which his father didn’t mind. Let them grow taller, he always says. Gingerly, he crept downstairs and made his way into the dark, when he realized that there was a bit of light on, coming from the television in the downstairs family room. Curious as usual, he kept silent, thinking it might be his father watching one of his usual videos downstairs about naked women that he didn’t fully comprehend but left his father alone with, only to find an actual action happening on the sofa. It was only him and his father at home then, and young Nikolai would not understand privacy till the age of nine when his own mother found him masturbating in his room thankfully covered in sheets, but he was aware that he had to be quiet, and so he was till he got a full view of what he was about to see.

On the sofa was a masked woman, on all fours. His father was fully naked, and right there, Nikolai knew that they were having sex—something he learned from his brothers. But this woman who was covered by the semi darkness seemed unfamiliar, and kept moaning at every instance that his father thrust himself unto her. Almost mesmerized at this event, young Nikolai sat silently at the lowest part of the stairs, mute and watching the fascinating occurrence unfolding. He forgot that he was hungry, and knew instantly that this is something much more interesting than food. After all, the sight of his father pushing his penis on an unknown woman on their sofa was something that definitely topped his hunger.

But what bothered Nikolai, or at least a few years after when he looked back on it, was the fact that he knew his father was being unfaithful, screwing another woman on the very couch his parents have picked together—but he found it rather natural. Like an instinctive notion that was human nature. And as he watched them sweating and moaning, all he could really look at was this tattoo on the woman’s right hip, and other than that, everything seemed like a blur.

A few minutes passed and he finally got bored, and so he stood up and went back to his bedroom as quietly as he went down, and pulled the comforter to wrap him in full and went to sleep.

The day after that proved to be much more interesting for young Nikolai. He found that his mother was home; coming in that morning before he woke up, he surmised. He shared breakfast with her, and his father sat beside him reading the morning news like nothing happened the night before. It also struck him that he could look at his mother straight to her eyes and feel nothing, not even guilt for keeping a secret that he should have blurted out on the breakfast table. He felt that, at age six, it was a manly thing to do; if his father seemed okay by it, maybe he should be, too. He sweetly smiled at his mum like a little six year old boy should, and the event passed on like nothing has ever happened. Not even the fact that his mother came in close to when his father was fooling around—it did not help little Nikolai from feeling any guilt nor grudges at all.

All these changed, however, when after a few years, he received a phone call from one of his mother’s friends and gave him the guilt that he should have been carrying. After answering the phone, he went upstairs to call on his mother, to find her nearly naked after coming from the showers. Instantly his mother tried covering herself with a towel and told his son that he would be coming downstairs in a minute, and to tell the caller to wait on the line for a few more moments. He obliged, but not before he caught a glance at his mother’s hips—and there, he found, a tattoo that wasn’t there before. Immediately all that night’s recollections came flooding, and he felt himself redden, like being told of a secret that he wasn’t supposed to know. He ran all the way to his room leaving the caller hanging, and the whole time, he stared at the ceiling. Come dinner, he never came downstairs to eat.

He didn’t know exactly what to make of that sight. He understood, of course, that the woman his father was having sex with was his own mother. But it wasn’t this that troubled him—it was, the fact, that all these years he found it natural for his father to fool around, and when that thought was invalidated by the tattoo on his mother’s hips, he found himself not comprehending how his father could have feelings and lust over the same woman he has been with for more than 30 years and still have that same feeling renewed till they grew old. Nikolai never encountered any other instances of his father having any affairs, no; it somehow disappointed him. Years later his mother would tell him about the tattoo which she got after coming from Italy, and he would remember feigning surprise and interest, but he knew much more history than they really let on, and more guilt than he would ever let them know.