Nikita walked proudly into the banquet hall with his girlfriend Rita on his arm. His friend Misha was celebrating a milestone birthday, and the room was filled with people Nikita had known for years. Guests had been laughing, catching up, and exchanging news, but the moment Nikita appeared, conversations suddenly died away.
“Who on earth is that? And where’s your wife?!” gasped Tamara, Misha’s wife, who had known Nikita and his family for nearly thirty years.
Only six months earlier, Nikita’s life had looked completely different. He had a home, a wife, and two children—a teenage son and a younger daughter. Then Rita appeared.
She was twenty-five. Nikita was fifty.
Slim and attractive, usually dressed in short outfits that emphasized her figure, Rita burst into Nikita’s life like a hurricane. They first met when she came to his office for a job interview. She had previously worked at a beauty salon but wanted something different.
Nikita did, in a sense, “hire” Rita.
Just not as his secretary.
He quickly realized that she wasn’t exactly qualified for office work, but that didn’t stop him from finding another kind of “position” for her in his life.
When Nikita’s wife eventually discovered the affair, she couldn’t forgive him.
“I’m leaving anyway. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” her supposedly faithful husband replied with a careless shrug.
And just like that, he walked away from his wife and two children, convinced that a wonderful new life was waiting for him.
When Nikita and Rita entered the banquet hall together, the guests froze.
Someone gasped quietly. Others exchanged uncomfortable glances.
Everyone knew Nikita was supposed to arrive with his wife. Instead, he had brought a young woman who was obviously decades younger than him.
Misha, the birthday man himself, nearly dropped the glass he was holding.
“Hello, everyone! This is Rita—my girlfriend,” Nikita announced proudly.
Misha and Tamara had little choice but to force polite smiles and show the couple to their seats.
Later, when it was time for guests to make speeches, Nikita raised his glass and delivered a toast that immediately wiped the smile from Misha’s face.
“Well, my friend, happy birthday! I hope that at fifty you’ll still look thirty and have the strength of a young man,” Nikita declared loudly as he approached the table. “Young people give you energy, don’t they, Rita?”
Some of the guests, already cheerful from the drinks, laughed and raised their glasses.
Encouraged, Nikita continued.
“You know what a man needs to stay young? A young woman! It’s practically a scientific fact, Misha. Remember that. Old wives and children make men age. They give us wrinkles and gray hair.”
A heavy silence settled over the table.
Misha wiped his forehead with a napkin. His collar suddenly seemed uncomfortably tight.
“And speaking of that, here’s your present,” Nikita said, placing an envelope on the table. “Give some of the money to Tamara. Let her visit a cosmetologist or maybe get a facelift. She’ll look younger, and then you’ll both feel younger. Everyone wins!”
A few restrained chuckles could be heard around the room, but most of the guests remained silent.
Tamara turned pale.
Misha frowned.
Several friends stared at Nikita with open disapproval.
“Nikita,” Misha said quietly, doing his best to remain dignified, “my wife is a beautiful woman. And she wears her age very well.”
“Oh, come on! I’m only joking!” Nikita laughed, clinking his champagne glass against Rita’s. “I was just trying to lighten the mood!”
But the mood had already been ruined.
Friends exchanged glances and shook their heads.
After the celebration, people discussed Nikita behind his back.
“Can you believe it?”
“He abandoned his entire family for that doll?”
“And he had such a good home before. His wife is an intelligent, decent woman.”
“And this Rita… There’s nothing there except a pretty face and a nice figure. Completely empty-headed.”
Nikita occasionally heard fragments of those conversations, but he dismissed them.
“They’re jealous. That’s all.”
In fact, he seemed to enjoy showing off even more.
Around his friends, he would casually hand Rita money “for lashes and nails” and proudly tell everyone that he had bought her an expensive fur coat.
A year passed quickly.
Rita completely stopped working at the beauty salon where she had been employed before meeting Nikita.
At first, he didn’t mind.
Let her rest, he thought. Let her enjoy life.
But after several months, it started to bother him that his beloved girlfriend spent all day sitting at home and only seemed to leave the apartment when she wanted to spend money.
“You could at least cook something once in a while,” he complained one evening when Rita greeted him beside an empty pizza box. “Just for a change. We can’t live on delivery forever.”
The trendy takeout food that Nikita had once considered fun no longer seemed appealing.
He suddenly found himself craving homemade meatballs, soup, and ordinary family dinners.
Eventually, after enough pressure from Nikita, Rita decided to show some “initiative.”
She cooked dinner.
Everything burned.
Then she attempted to clean the apartment.
She washed black clothes together with white ones and ruined one of Nikita’s expensive summer suits.
“How could you possibly do this?!” he shouted. “That suit cost a fortune! I bought it abroad! Where am I supposed to find another one like it?”
“I’ll be more careful next time,” Rita replied. “I can take care of the house. Of course I can. But you’ll need to give me money for a housekeeper.”
Nikita stared at her.
“And what exactly are you planning to do?”
“Well, if you’re so worried about me being bored, I’ll become a photographer. I’ve always liked photography. I just need you to buy me a good camera.”
Nikita wanted to refuse.
Then he thought, If I don’t buy it, she’ll never start working. At least this way I’m supporting her ambition.
So he bought an expensive camera and paid for photography classes.
Two months later, he discovered that Rita had stopped attending the course.
“Photography isn’t fashionable anymore,” she explained casually. “Everyone has good phones now, and AI can do all the editing. They told me there’s no point.”
“Then get the money back!”
“I already did.”
Nikita relaxed slightly.
“And?”
“I bought myself a dress.”
His face changed.
“How could they give you back my money and you just spend it?!”
Rita looked at him calmly.
“It’s our money.”
Nikita’s irritation had been growing for months.
More and more often, he found himself thinking about his wife.
He remembered how she cooked, managed the household, took care of the children, and never demanded expensive gifts. She appreciated attention and small gestures.
Now he looked at Rita stretched across the sofa with a phone in her hand and thought bitterly:
A leech.
She’s nothing but a leech attached to my wallet.
She didn’t work.
She made no serious effort.
She had no interest in learning anything.
But she knew exactly how to smile beautifully, ask for money, and explain that life was terribly difficult because she simply couldn’t figure out what she wanted to do.
One day their argument finally exploded.
“This is our money,” Rita repeated.
“No, it isn’t!” Nikita snapped. “You don’t own anything here! Everything is mine! I’m simply supporting you. And if I want to, I can throw you out tomorrow.”
“Really?” Rita shrugged. “Don’t get so worked up. I can leave on my own.”
“Leave? Where exactly are you going to go? You’re in a relationship with me!”
“To someone younger and more generous,” Rita replied with a smirk.
Nikita was furious.
But Rita wasn’t bluffing.
A short time later, she really did leave.
While Nikita was at work, she packed her belongings and disappeared, leaving behind a short note:
“Sasha is younger and more generous. Good luck!”
Sasha was a mutual acquaintance who owned a chain of beauty salons. He had first noticed Rita at Misha’s birthday party.
Rita, meanwhile, had noticed Sasha’s wallet.
Without much hesitation, she traded Nikita for the wealthier man.
Naturally, Nikita never spoke to Sasha again.
And whenever Rita’s name came up, he had nothing good to say about her.
After Rita left, Nikita changed dramatically.
The confident man who had once proudly shown off his young girlfriend became bitter and cynical.
He began avoiding social gatherings where women might be present.
When he met his friends, the same comments appeared again and again.
“They’re all the same. Women only want money.”
“Do you think she loved me? She didn’t care who I was. All she cared about was how much money I had.”
“My wife? My children? You think I should have stayed with them? Please. They wanted my money too. Everyone around you is a predator. They attach themselves to you, drain everything they can, and then disappear.”
One evening in a café, he started complaining to the bartender.
“You know what I’ve realized? All women are leeches. Young ones, old ones—it makes no difference. They want money, presents, someone to support them. Love, family, loyalty… Those are fairy tales for idiots. I used to be one of those idiots. Never again. And if you’re smart, you won’t fall for it either.”
Nikita continued living his life, but gradually his old friends began distancing themselves from him.
They found excuses not to invite him to gatherings.
Even the bartender at his usual place began looking at him with barely concealed contempt whenever Nikita ordered another drink and launched into another speech about treacherous women.
One evening, Nikita had already been drinking for several hours when two women in their thirties sat nearby.
They were laughing and discussing an upcoming vacation.
Suddenly, Nikita turned toward them and rudely interrupted.
“What are you doing, looking for some man to attach yourselves to? Need money? Why not just say how much you want? Maybe some idiot will fall for it!”
The women exchanged shocked looks, got up, and quickly left.
The bartender noticed what had happened and called security.
A few minutes later, Nikita was asked to leave.
“I’m not even drunk!”
“You need to go home and sleep,” one of the staff members told him. “You’ve been sitting here for five hours, frightening customers away.”
“And that’s exactly what I should be doing! Let those predators stay away from decent men!”
“Drink some water and go home. We’ve already called a taxi for you.”
But Nikita didn’t want to go home.
No one was waiting for him there.
And perhaps more importantly, he didn’t want anyone waiting for him anymore.
In his mind, every woman had become the same—greedy, calculating, ready to abandon a man the moment someone richer appeared.
He had built a wall of hatred between himself and women.
What he failed to realize was that the same wall was cutting him off from everything else as well—from friendship, warmth, companionship, and any possibility of starting over.
Nikita never called his ex-wife.
He never seriously tried to rebuild his relationship with his children.
Instead, he sank deeper and deeper into bitterness, constantly convincing himself that he was right.
Everyone else was guilty.
He was simply an innocent victim of circumstances and manipulative women.
But sometimes, when the alcohol wore off and he was alone with his thoughts, an uncomfortable question crept into his mind:
What if he had destroyed his own life?
The truth was that he had never really loved Rita.
He had abandoned his family because of vanity.
He had allowed a young woman to live at his expense because showing her off made him feel successful, desirable, and young.
And now, while claiming to hate everyone else, Nikita was beginning to understand that the person he truly hated was himself.
He hated himself for being weak.
For being foolish.
For throwing away something real in exchange for beautiful packaging that had nothing inside.
