Chapter 4

Another week passed, and with it came more questions. They were working on a puzzle of the Kremlin one night, when Nadia asked one.

"Today Steven, a boy in my Calculus class, wanted to know why I was with a wimp like you, instead of a stud like him. Can you explain this to me?"

One of Ruth's favorite things, these days, was to find out how she had handled that in the moment, so he asked her what she said when he told her that.

"Whenever someone asks me why you are my boyfriend, I tell them you make me happy."

"So you told Steve Hopkins I make you happy?" Steve was on the wrestling team, and had gone to State the year before. He hadn't won, but he'd gone, and he liked to remind people of that.

"I had this feeling that he was talking about something to do with sex. He had that look on his face. So I told him you make me feel so good when we are together that I wasn't sure I could stand being any happier without needing a hospital."

Ruth gawked. "You said that?"

"Yes. Was it wrong to say?"

"No. Not exactly. But I suspect he thinks something different than you meant."

"So what is wimp and stud?" she asked.

"A wimp is someone no girls want to have sex with," said Ruth. "And a stud is someone all the girls want to have sex with."

"So there are no studs at Victorville Consolidated High School," she said.

"I didn't say that."

"You said all girls would want to have sex with one. There is no boy at this school I want to have sex with. Therefore there are no studs."

Ruth laughed. "I guess you're right. No studs. I wish I could write that in some yearbooks."

Then he had to explain what a yearbook was.

Saturday came, and the trip to WalMart was a resounding success. Nadia cooed and giggled as Ruth drove them to the store. Once inside, Nadia just stood in awe. Both the quantity and variety of things astonished her. When she saw the bakery, she got pale and said that much bread would feed her village for a month. Even more impressive, in her opinion, was that there were no lines to get it.

They had been in the store for over an hour when they happened upon the women's clothing section. Nadia was entranced, looking at everything, touching everything, and generally acting like a kid in a candy shop. The exchange program gave her a stipend each month, and she had some money. She still wasn't comfortable with dollars, and hadn't put much in their basket because she was quite sure the next thing she saw would be even better, and she didn't want all her money to be gone.

Then she turned a corner and saw the lingerie.

She stood and stared, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

"It's so beautiful," she sighed. "So pretty."

"I'll just leave you to look at all that stuff while I go look at T shirts or something," said Ruth, who didn't want to be caught dead by any of his friends in the bra and panty section of WalMart.

"No, no! You must help me! I have to have something from there." She pointed and swung her arm. "I have never seen anything that beautiful!"

"Well yeah, but I can't be here with you," moaned Ruth. He couldn't very well tell her he was getting a hardon from thinking about it.

She ignored him. She was, it turned out, looking at a pale blue panty and bra set that was lacy and sheer. Five feet away was another set that was black. They weren't racy, in the sense that they displayed her sexually. They were just very feminine, and a far cry from the sturdy white, cotton bras and panties she had always worn, and which, to be honest, was all one could get in her part of Russia.

She held both sets to her chest, breathing deeply.

"Which one should I get?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Ruth, nervously. His groin was giving him signals that suggested he needed to calm down, instead of thinking what she might look like in those outfits. "I can't help you with this, Nadia."

It was, at that moment, that Tiffany Dodd and Maria Gonzales, two cheerleaders, approached.

"Hi, Nadia," said Tiffany. "I see the pervert brought you to the good stuff section." She smiled, though, suggesting that she didn't really think Ruth was a pervert.

"He didn't bring me here," said Nadia, still staring at the wealth of sexy things on display. "I said he had to help me choose, but he says he can't."

"Of course he can't," said Tiffany. "He's a boy! Not to worry. Maria and I will make sure you get just what you need." She turned to Ruth. "Run along now." She whisked her hand at him several times. "Go gawk at video games or something. We'll come find you when we're finished.

It was the better part of an hour before they did, in fact, come to find him. The things they had selected were already bagged up, with the plastic handles of the sacks tied in a knot, and the receipt stapled to one of them.

"You owe me thirteen bucks," said Maria. "She went over her allowance."

"Oh," said Ruth. "Okay." He pulled out his billfold and gave Maria a twenty, telling her she could give him the change whenever she happened to have it.

"She said you were a good boyfriend," said Tiffany. "So we took care of you, you horndog. You owe us."

"Owe you?"

"You'll see," said Tiffany, mysteriously. "Now, we're late to meet my boyfriend, so we have to go. We'll see you in school, Monday."

"Bye, bye," said Nadia. "Thank you for helping me. You were so nice."

"We don't all have such a wonderful boyfriend," said Maria, smiling.

"He is a very good boyfriend," said Nadia, smiling brightly at the two girls. Then she grinned. "I love America!"

Maria looked sideways at Ruth, new respect in her eyes. "I bet you do," she said softly.

"Come on, Ruth!" said Nadia, bounding on her toes. Her breasts bobbed gently under her shirt, and Ruth's eyes bobbed with them. "There is so much more I want to see!"

"Me too," thought Ruth, but he didn't say so.

At supper that night, Nadia waxed fairly poetic about her Walmart experience, thanking Bob and Molly again for inviting her to come and letting her stay.

"What did you get?" asked Molly.

"I got chocolate!" she said, excited. "And I got some new clothes, and an amazing new toothbrush. It was so much fun!"

"Well good," said Molly.

"Ruth had to take me away from the food part," the girl sighed. "If I had more money I would buy everything. I would eat it all up and get very fat."

"Well, we don't want anyone to think that the Cummins family got you fat," said Bob. He blinked, as his mind strayed to other meanings of the word "fat" in the context of being applied to a beautiful, nubile, young woman. He pushed his plate away. "And I don't want to get fat either." He looked at Molly. "Darling, I think a walk would do us good. Let's go get changed."

"A walk," said Molly, staring at him. When his hand slid along the inside of her thigh she laughed and said "Yes, let's go get changed." On her way out of the kitchen she stopped and hugged Nadia.

"We're very glad you're here, dear. I'm personally delighted."

She kissed the girl on the cheek and then went to the bedroom with her husband.

Nadia turned to Ruth. "Should we go for a walk too?"

Ruth grinned. "I don't think they're actually going for a walk."

"What are they doing?" She looked at him curiously and then they heard Molly squeal briefly. Her eyes went round. "Again?" she gasped.

Ruth nodded. "I think that's one reason Mom is so glad you stayed with us."

The girl wasn't stupid. "Your father ... he still wants to have sex with me?"