Ekaterina (novel)
Ekaterina is a 1993 novel by Donald Harington.
Plot
Ekaterina is an exiled Svanetian princess who arrives at an unnamed city at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela, Pittsburgh. There, she gets a job teaching an introductory mycology class at a university. Meanwhile, she rents a room from a woman, Loretta, who lives there with her twelve-year-old son, Kenny, who immediately takes a precocious liking to her. She befriends the 12-year-old boy called Kenny who reminds her of two young pubertal boys she had relationships with in Russia, Islamber and Dzhordzha. Harington describes the attractive boy as a faunlet, a male counterpart to Vladimir Nabokov's nymphet in Lolita.
After two months, the 27-year-old Ekaterina seduces Kenny and they have sex. During the course of their sexual relationship, Kenny, already a juvenile delinquent, steals contraceptives to avoid pregnancy. When Kenny confesses his sexual relationship with Ekaterina after being caught stealing car parts, his mother forces Ekaterina to leave. She settles in town called Stick Around where she befriends a woman named Sharon, who indirectly introduces her to a boy named Jason. Later, she engages Jason on his twelfth birthday by giving him an all-over massage in the bath while baby-sitting him.
