About the book: 2023 / Kirill Barkovsky arrives on assignment in a provincial town. The first workplace, a new team, in which there are also attractive girls, the young man decided to court one of them... Twice he left roses in her office on her desk. When meeting in a narrow corridor, he smiled welcomingly, giving way in three steps, once asked how the training was going, and several times called her a goldfish in a conversation. Finally he invited the girl to a cafe. He took me home. The costs of courtship were insignificant - only two roses and two glasses of wine. He had never made such cheap investments in girls. Meanwhile, the relationship developed progressively, quite rapidly, and over time everything seemed lean and uninteresting to him.