Chapter 10: Journey

August 2, 1991, New York City, New York

“Steve!” I heard as I came out into the arrival hall at LaGuardia Airport at 5:00pm.

I saw a well-tanned blonde girl waving and to my shock, realized it was Lyudmila. She looked every bit of what I thought a ‘California Surfer Chick’ would look like. Sun-bleached blonde hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail, with stray strands hanging down over her ears; no makeup; a colorful, loose-fitting ‘crop-top’; what appeared to be a bikini rather than a bra, at least from the straps; a flat, toned stomach; faded hip-hugger jeans with ragged bottoms; and sandals, which showed multi-colored nail varnish, with no two toes the same.

The mind boggled! I was surprised to see her, because Katya had said I should call when I landed to let Lyudmila know I had arrived and make plans to meet her. But that surprise paled compared to the transformation from prim and proper Russian girl to California surfer chick that I’d noticed. The other thing I noticed was that Curtis wasn’t with her. I suspected he was either waiting in the car or back at the apartment.

I walked in stunned silence to where she was standing.

“Hi, Steve!” she gushed, holding out her arms for a hug.

I dropped my weekender bag and hugged her. She pressed her body tightly to mine and squeezed her arms.

“It’s SO good to see you!” she said when she released me.

“How are you, Lyusya Alekseyevna?” I asked.

She frowned, “Cut that Russian bullshit! It’s Lucy. Lucy Alexa. Everyone calls me Lucy! Save that other crap for someone who cares, like my mom! Or Tanya!”

She said it like ‘tan’ not ‘tahn’. Nary a trace of a Russian accent. In fact, if I had to place it, it would have been Malibu or Venice Beach, not the Ural mountains!

“Sorry,” I said. “Lucy? Really?”

“Don’t be a square! I’ve lived in California for six years! What do you expect?”

I chuckled, “Not this, obviously! Where’s Curtis?”

“Dead for all I care,” she replied, though I couldn’t tell if she was being humorous or vituperative.

“Trouble in paradise?” I asked, evenly.

“Grab your bag. I’ll tell you on the way. We’ll get a cab.”

We walked out of the terminal and waited in line for a cab.

“So?” I asked.

“He decided he wanted a fling with some slutty girl who was watching him surf. I found out. He’s lucky I didn’t cut his dick off and feed it to him.”

“So you broke up?”

“Are you kidding? Even you aren’t that dumb! Of course I broke up with him! Nobody does that to ME and gets away with it!”

We got our cab.

“Lyusya, uhm, sorry, Lucy, last I checked, you wanted to sleep with me when I was with Tanya, and you DID sleep with me after I was married!”

The taxi driver, a Pakistani man, was VERY obvious in staring at us in the rear-view mirror.

“Get your eyes back on the road and off me!” Lyudmila ordered.

“Perhaps we should wait until we get to the hotel to have this conversation,” I said.

She nodded and instead we talked about how her courses were going and my recent trip. We arrived at the InterContinental and I checked in. I got my room key, and Lyudmila followed me upstairs to my suite.

“So, about your double standard,” I asked.

“What double standard? You and Tanya were never a couple!”

There was that ‘tan’ versus ‘tahn’ again. I remembered when she never used articles, and now you couldn’t distinguish her from all the other blondes on the beach in California.

“True.”

“And your wives let you fuck pretty much anyone you wanted! It was only your stupid morals or ethics that meant I had to wait WAY longer than I should have!”

I chuckled, “You should talk with Kara, Jessica, or Bethany about that one! You aren’t alone!”

“As if that’s a consolation! You really can be a dork at times! A hot, and I do mean that, chick comes on to you, tells you she wants you to bust her cherry and you put her off? Seriously?”

“I had my reasons. And they really haven’t changed.”

“Whatever,” she said dismissively. “Anyway, when I found out about it, and it wasn’t too difficult because the slut was telling everyone she’d bagged the best surfer on the beach, I threw all his shit out of the apartment into the hall and had the locks changed.”

“Damn!” I chuckled. “Remind me never to piss you off!”

“Oh you did THAT when I was naked in Tanya’s bed and you refused to fuck me!”

“As I said, I had my reasons. And I think they were valid. You don’t seem too broken up about ending things with Curtis.”

“I was too angry to be sad, and then finals came and I had to focus on my schoolwork. By the time they were done, it was too late to be sad about it, I guess.”

“I hope you won’t be angry with me when I say that I am amazed at the transformation. I almost didn’t recognize you at the airport, and if you called me on the phone, I’d never know who it was! Even the last time we talked, you sounded like your old self!”

“I can do this,” she said, suddenly sounding Russian. “If I must, is easy to be stupid Russian girl!”

“Your mom is not stupid, Lucy,” I said, struggling to use her ‘new’ name.

“Says you! She gets off on people fawning over her Russian accent and Russian ways. And you get off on it, too! Heck, I’m surprised you two never did it as much of a love-fest you both have for each other!”

“I have too much respect for your dad to ever even think about something like that,” I said.

“Says the man who will bang anything that moves! Except me when I wanted it!”

She had a ton of anger stored up, and it seemed to me that she hadn’t poured it out on Curtis. Now, I was the most convenient target of opportunity. She had what she considered a legitimate gripe, and I was sure she was confident that I wouldn’t do anything to wreck our friendship. And she was right.

“Lyudmila Alekseyevna!” I said, intentionally using her Russian name. “You know that’s not true!”

“Do you know how frustrating you were?” she asked. “I was naked in bed. I was naked in the sauna. And you refused me!”

“Yes, I did. And I’d do it again in the same circumstances.”

“What a prick!” she growled. “You can’t even admit now that you treated me like a baby?”

“I most certainly did not! First of all, I had respect for Tanya. Second, I had respect for your mother. And, believe it or not, I had respect for you! Sometimes, keeping it in my pants is the right thing to do!”

“That would be funny if it weren’t so sad!”

“If you want to take a swing at me, go ahead,” I said with a smile. “I won’t even block it.”

She recoiled slightly.

“What?”

“You have a lot of anger built up. I’m guessing you didn’t go off on Curtis.”

“No! I just tossed his stuff out. When he knocked on the door, I opened it. I told him I hoped she was good and that he enjoyed the slutty piece of ass, and that I hoped it was worth it. Then I slammed the door.”

I nodded, “That’s what I thought. So you’re taking it out on me.”

“I am, aren’t I?” she said deflating a bit.

“Yes. From your perspective, you have a legitimate complaint with me. I don’t agree, but for the sake of this conversation we’ll assume you do. You never expressed that because you either knew or felt that doing that back then would mean you would NEVER get what you wanted. And you would have been right. So you finally got what you wanted, and were happy, but you were also ticked that you hadn’t got it three years earlier. So now, because you cut Curtis completely out of your life, I’m your target. Well, I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

She smirked, “Yes, you are! Shall we get some food?”

“Sure,” I said. “What do you want to eat?”

“Chinese would be great. And you for dessert!”

I chuckled, “Let’s get dinner. We can talk about the dessert afterwards.”

“Talk? There’s no talking necessary. There’s fucking or not fucking. Your call.”

“Jesus,” I breathed.

“We talked WAY too much before. I know if you start talking I’ll NEVER get it.”

“There are rules,” I said. “And they are inviolable.”

Well, apparently not, at least in the case of rubbers with Fawn, but the other one was.

“And these rules are?”

“A recent STD test. And verified birth control.”

“Dude, in six years, Curtis never touched me without a rubber. Do I LOOK like an idiot?”

Now I was very glad I’d tossed a box of rubbers in my bag, though there was a drugstore around the corner from the hotel.

“No. You don’t. But the STD test?”

“I didn’t find out about Curtis and the slut until AFTER I’d slept with him again. Who knows what diseases that skank is carrying? So I got a full test right away, and another one just before I left California. Some diseases have an incubation period. Even if he used a rubber, I was taking NO chances, and I wouldn’t put it past the whore to go without!”

“So she’s not on your Christmas Card list?” I asked.

“Only if I can send her a letter bomb! But hey, if she wants the cheating sack of shit, he’s all hers.”

“Remind me not to piss you off!”

“Then say ‘yes’ to dessert!” she demanded.

There was no way in hell I was going to say ‘no’ and she knew it. And she knew I knew she knew.

“The hell with going out to dinner!” I chuckled. “We can order room service!”

August 3, 1991, New York City, New York

I watched as Lyudmila, or Lucy rather, climbed out of bed on Saturday morning. I’d enjoyed her lithe, tanned body to the utmost before we’d fallen asleep about 3:30am. When I’d first removed her clothes, I’d stopped to marvel at the contrast between her tan, and the areas covered by her bikini. The milky white skin of her breasts and shaved mons against the deep tan of the rest of her body. And clean-shaven as well! That was quite the change from the Russian girl who didn’t shave her legs or under her arms!

“Come shower with me,” she beckoned.

I got up and joined her in the large shower.

“What is your mom going to say?” I asked.

“Fuck her! She’s got her Russian morals and she can keep them! Did she ever complain about you and Tanya Voronin?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” I said.

“Well, I’m 23 and this is none of her fucking business!”

“In general, I agree. But she’s a friend of mine.”

“Then you worry about it! I sure as hell won’t!”

We showered, then went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. When we’d finished, we headed uptown to her parents apartment. They still lived close to the UN, though they were paying for it themselves, rather than having it paid for by the Soviet government. I was a bit nervous when we arrived, since I was unsure how Katya and Aleksey would respond to Lyudmila having spent the night with me.

“Hello, Aleksey Nikolay’ich! Hello Yekatarina Sergeyevna!” I said as we walked in.

“Good morning, Stephen Rayevich!” Aleksey said, greeting me Russian style.

Katya did the same, and I saw Lyudmila roll her eyes.

“Have you been able to talk any sense into our rebellious daughter?” Katya asked.

“Comrade Colonel,” I said for the effect on Lyudmila, “it would take one of Dmitry Sergeyevich’s tank divisions to do so, and I would not put money on the tanks!”

“You have noticed?” Aleksey asked with a smile.

“It’s difficult to miss, Alyosha!” I grinned.

“Come have some tea and we shall talk like «культурный» adults!” Katya said, giving Lyudmila what amounted to an evil eye.

“I’m going to take a walk,” Lyudmila declared and left without waiting for any response or objection.

“She is embarrassed, our daughter, to have Russian parents,” Katya said. “She wishes to be fully American. She has even changed her name!”

I nodded, “You could have knocked me over with a feather at the airport. I was shocked.”

“Imagine how we feel? And this business with her boyfriend of six years?”

“Well, to hear her tell it, she had just cause,” I said.

“Perhaps. But one mistake in six years? When you are not even engaged? It is different if you are engaged or married!”

I chuckled, “Is it now?”

“Never mind!” Katya smiled. “Your situation is, well, unique. And very «некультурный». But young men do foolish things and to ruin a very good relationship this way? Without speaking to the young man?”

“I believe your daughter’s honor was offended, and if she’s anything like her mother, I don’t see how she could let this go!”

“Stepa! I am not so bad!”

I saw Aleksey smirk, but he wasn’t where Katya could see him.

“With all due respect, Comrade Colonel, yes you are!”

“Now you sound like one of my sergeants!” she laughed. “Whenever a junior officer or enlisted man says ‘With all due respect’, or the Russian equivalent, it means he is telling the officer the officer is not just wrong, but stupid!”

I chuckled, “You are not stupid, Katya. But your honor is everything, is it not?”

“Yes, it is as you say.”

“And that’s true for your daughter, even if she’s decided to become a decadent American! But, and I think you should consider this; she had no other lover but Curtis for six years. None.”

“You were her first lover, before, and now again after,” Katya said with a smirk of her own.

“You knew?” I asked.

“It is you who keeps reminding me I was a Colonel in the KGB, Stepa Rayevich!” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I marveled at the fact I was still alive after that revelation! Lyudmila returned about an hour later, but by that time, the conversation had moved on to my trip to Sweden and Russia, my family, my business, and my friends’ new careers.

August 4, 1991, New York City, New York

“You’re not checking out?” Lyudmila asked on Sunday morning after breakfast.

“No. I have some business in New York. My first meeting is for dinner tonight, then I’ll be busy the next few days.”

“I can come down to spend the night!”

“I have no idea when I’ll be in or what’s going on. Come visit me in Chicago!”

“I would love to! And your wives would let us fuck?”

“You’ll have to ask them! The rules are a bit different in the house.”

“When?”

“Christmas break, if you want; Spring break if that works better. Just let me know.”

“Count on it!” she said.

“I enjoyed these few days, Lucy,” I grinned.