Adventure Across the World Ch. 03

They had slowly removed debris, ornate marble, and antiquities at the blown-out portion of the East wing and set a structural portal frame. This was not the end solution, but a massive steel frame that shored up the roof and provided a large entry point for equipment to enter and safely move larger sculptures and existing structural member dislodged in original explosion.

Antonia had taken over management of the series of warehouses where all their finds were stored. Her tasks were to manage a small army of staff to sift and categorize the debris. This fed the last and largest warehouse where experts from all over Europe were restoring what could be restored.

His focus was on the Museum building Itself. His damaged patient that he had to resuscitate and bring back to life. He continued to work on that but would take a short break or two, each week, to stop by the large main warehouse where the restoration work was being completed.

He had been confronted by Antonia. He had been accused that he was doing it just to flirt with the women art restorers and disrupt their efficiency.

What?... him?

Drew had to admit to himself that he was enjoying the attention of more females than he had in his entire life. Not that he really needed more sex. But, at 63, a flat 7 in the woman-world for most of his life, he was just not used to this intensity of female attention.

He had women turning to look and gossip as he went about shopping and talking in the neighborhood. He had women doing the female flirting of talking and touching his hands arms and shoulders. He was not used to this level of attention at all.

He was deep in Sasha one morning, when she woke him for a 'quicky' before he wandered off to work.

When he asked her about the phenomena, she just laughed at him.

"You are a 'god' amongst the local women, and half of the women in the Ministry's Departments and you complain?" she questions him. She then lightly kissed him and squeezed his semi-hard cock with her pussy.

"Why are men so clueless?" she thought to herself.

"Have you looked around? Have you seen how many women we have after the loss of our men?" she paused.

"Have you seen what happened to our men. They drank before, but now they have a greater excuse. Have you seen what is left in their eyes as they sit in my establishment and drink themselves to death?"

"And here you come to our world, with an odd foreign kindness. On the first day, you throw your body in the way to protect the virtue of your female worker?" She paused laughter in her eyes, "and you are confused?"

Drew had gone soft with the seriousness of the conversation. Sasha sat up and then rolled him over and straddled him. It was more for warmth than sultriness. She pulled the comforter over her, and therefore both. She snuggled on top of him and put her head below his chin on his chest.

"Just keep being you, lover."

*

The rush to winter was heavy on Drews mind. He had built in the Northeast 95 corridor, New York City to Baltimore USA. He knew what winter was. He knew how to build. But his love of history and the voice of his Polish office warned him that 'Russian' winters made anything he had experienced 'Pussy Play'.

Drew smiled when he received that text. "Pussy Play," was an interesting translation, but there was no misunderstanding on what they meant. 'Winter is coming' he mentally quoted a phrase from one of his past favorite shows.

The Local and Polish engineers had come up with an inflatable wall that fit the portal frame. Structural light-weight trusses, hung vertically to handle the wind loading on the large opening. The inflatable wall came in pieces, to be connected. They were like huge blow-up mattresses linked together to form a solid wall. They seemed to be working well with handling the early Fall chill breeze. The segments were being fitted as Drew watched.

The only change that had been made was a series of volunteers managed by Yulia. They had painted the segments of the 'pillow wall'. It now looked like a monstrous Ukrainian flag filling the void where the missile had demolished the front façade of the East wing. It was genius advertising at minimal cost and was caried on every social media platform in the world.

Cue a small corporate Logo in lower left-hand corner. Drew had to get his brownie points in if he wanted to keep spending funds that others would have argued about.

They had two of the four roof top heating and cooling units back in operation and he had a natural gas blower heating unit (think of a sort of jet engine looking device) on order and coming in from the Czech Republic. He knew he needed the extra heat for the coming cold.

The two previous winters had been brutal and had helped beat back the invaders of Ukraine. But he wanted to get past the winter and keep pushing for a final structural design that they could incorporate into a frame to reattach the surviving marble facade.

*

Yulia stood inside the east wing and looked out the windows of the mezzanine walkway that had seen so much drama. She looked down at Drew standing in his American made winter jacket, and his odd American hardhat with the new liners that had just arrived. She watched him just staring at the work being performed on the temporary winter façade.

"Who is this man that comes from so far away to help?" she asked herself. "He is so odd in so many ways, yet I trust him beyond any male I have trusted since my father." She thought and then crossed herself and said a short prayer she always did for her fathers' memory.

The enigma that was Drew, sometime frustrated her and sometimes made her hold her breath in shock. From that first day when he disarmed the local gang leader, to the moment he almost started a gun fight in the bar, just to protect them.

The things they were doing with the school, clinic and now daycare were spreading far and wide as all the foreign corporations tried to outdo the next. All of it was because of this enigma called Drew, the odd, older American that never worried about the consequences but followed a pathway that only his soul knew.

'The egg...seed he had started with the "crew" as he called them was bearing growth,' She thought to herself and just shook her head. She wondered how he would deal with that growth when it truly became known to him.

She watched as he sipped his stupid American diet coke...in the cold. She just shook her head again and headed down to the office that was now toasty warm after his tinkering.

She smiled at his antics. She smiled at the anomaly of a man that could sit with a now 5-year-old Alexander and watch the stupidest cartoons she had ever witnessed. She smiled at the man who would risk his life for his co-joined family of children, single females, and foreign women. It all just made her shake her head.

She had to admit she loved this foreigner. He was like some odd uncle, maybe a little crazy, but honest in his craziness.

*

While the weather protection at the museum came together the structural rebuilding effort continued. The structural design had been argued about for weeks with no end. The purists wanted the museum repaired with the original materials, wood. Drew had argued and still argued that using modern materials, steel and concrete would not take away from any of grandeur that was the original structure.

It was all covered by plaster on the interior, and marble/granite on the exterior anyway. It was the same argument that he had regarding the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral. Not that he worked on that project, or anyone would ask him his opinion anyway.

'So, what if I have strong opinions! Damn it!' he thought to himself. He knew today would be busy beyond reckoning, but it was because of the actions of a few days ago that caused todays excitement.

His relationship with the Architectural-Structural team was strained. Part of that was his fault and he felt part of it was foreign bullshit that would not be allowed to happen on his project. Drew was at the forefront of the American style of construction project management. He had graduated from a well-known US west coast architecture university. He had thrown his career into what is now called Construction Management (CM) and spent 40 years working it.

Before the war, Europe had started sifting away from the old school way of managing construction. That way was called the 'master builder' method where the Architect-engineer was God.

So, in Drews first formal project meeting, days before, the pretentious ass of an Architect asked Drew to fetch coffee...well things became rocky immediately. Words were spoken, and translated, and respoken and retranslated. The representatives of the Ministry of History and the Ministry of Art, Antonia being one of them, had scurried after the huffing asshole as he strode out of the meeting in a fit of pomposity.

He was physically accosted later that night by Antonia because of his perceived rudeness.

"How could you treat him that way in public? And embarrass me too?" she stomped and huffed after smacking the back of his head.

Drew just looked her in the eyes and shrugged. His eyes scanned the rest of the Crew as they sat silent from the business side of the first-floor office area

"Tell me what you are going to do to fix this?" she questioned standing over him as he lounged on a sofa on the first floor with a diet coke in his hand. If it had been after 5, he would have a glass of wine. He was immediately rethinking his personal 5pm rule.

"It's already been handled Antonia," he stated more formally that he would normally do. He was speaking to a representative of the Ministry of Art, not his lover.

"What do you mean handled?" she looked at him with her patience dripping out on the ground as everyone looked at her and then shifted to him.

He opened his mouth to respond but he was in no hurry, and he knew it aggravated her to no end.

"And you could not dress for our first formal meeting?" she kept haranguing him.

"Well?" She continued. He just stared, waiting for her steam to settle a bit.

He held up his hand and pointed to himself. "May I speak now and respond? Have you got that out of your system?" He asked as he leveraged himself up out of his seat doing a little old man groaning and stated one directive.

"Conference room."

"Ok," he started once everyone was seated and looked at him at the head of the table.

"I was sent here for a reason. There are lots of professional 'clerks' in Europe that could fill the shoes of what that pompous ass was expecting me to be."

"I am not a clerk, I'll fetch coffee for anyone I work with, but I am not a 'clerk' to be ordered to do so." He paused and looked around at the crew. They had all been there sitting in the peanut gallery during the dust-up.

"He was peeing in corners trying to mark his territory. My territory, and he now knows he screwed up." He ended with a smile.

Antonia could not wait for his slow delivery and his smirk was driving her crazy.

"So how is this fixed?" she growled at him.

"Well," he stated even slower, "It seems that Mr. Arrogant has so many projects that he must oversee personally, that he will be sending other representation to deal with the Museum." He paused briefly letting the running stream of Ukrainian translation keep up with his thoughts.

"I have been assured privately that the new representatives know the score...Sorry, know who the project boss is, and will behave like good team members." He ended softly.

"Who made these promises to you privately?" Antonia demanded.

"Umm, he is this guy, his last name starts with 'Z' and he...is your President...I think. And the Directors of the Ministry of History and Art too, of course." He stopped as everyone at the table gasped.

His smirk grew three times, as he slid his iPad over to Antonia. The rest of crew sprinted to her side to read over her shoulder.

Both of her hands were flat on the desk, and she just looked up from the table with tears in her eyes.

"I am sorry, I had no idea."

"My dear Assistant under Director of Restoration for the Ministry of Art, there is nothing to apologize for. And oh, by the way, he is going to do a walking tour of the museum on Wednesday, with press and social media present. The focus of the walk, as I have asked, will be your salvage and restoration endeavors."

He smiled as he watched tears drip down her face, now of happiness.

"It's supposed to be a surprise so do not spread the word. And NO! dressing up. Please remember what we are here to do, bring back the historical treasures of Ukraine and fix the building that displays them."

"As for my attire at today's meeting, I did it on purpose because I was warned by others how much this Architect thought of himself and how much he detests foreigners." Drew paused, "Think of me a wolf in sheep's clothing as I sat at the table."

"Please remember what your President wore the entire war, T-shirts, and sweatshirts. He may wear suits now, but I have a feeling he will be dressed down for the visit. Make sure there are things that he can do for the cameras to show his involvement in the restoration of his country's history." Drew paused to let that all sink in.

"As for me, I'll be wearing a suit when we do the ribbon cutting at the opening of the refurbished museum, and not before."

The Crew was a wreck on Tuesday night before the circus that would be their Wednesday. He was the meat in the sandwich that night with Antonia on one shoulder and Darya on the other. He awoke alone but could still feel the warmth on either side, so they had not been gone long.

"I am getting so old. I used to be light sleeper," Drew stated out loud just to himself. He could hear distant clanking in the kitchen below him. He could smell the ever-present scent of coffee. He could smell the freshness of the earthy odor in the air.

He got up and started his routine. He would normally just pee in the shower, but his lovers found that so offensive that he made sure his routine was complete before entering the shower. He was only in the shower for a moment when he felt the air pressure change with the door being opened and Antonia slid the frosted shower door open.

She planted her lips on him and slammed her body against him so abruptly and he almost lost his footing. They both slipped and slid for a second. There were no words from him or her, just squeals while they kept themselves from being a heap on the shower floor. Then moans when he grabbed both her lower cheeks and squeezed while spreading them slightly.

"I want you to be with me all day, as I deal with this today," she stated as she whipped around and presented her back to him. He ran his hands from her shoulders and again squeezed her lower cheeks.

"Where my lover? Where do you want me to deposit...me in you?" he whispered just loud enough to be heard over the cascading water.

"My pussy baby, my swollen pussy. Plant it deep inside me my lover. Give me something that will remind me of you forever," she whispered back and reached for the wall in front of her.

*

The 'Crew' was ready to go as he hopped, skipped, and jumped down the industrial stairs from the mezzanine. While not 'dressed up', Antonia had spent a lot of time on makeup and her blouse was a much finer quality than she normally wore to the 'shop'.

"Ni Puha ni pera" Drew commented to Antonia. It was the Russian version of the American 'break a leg'. He wanted to wish her the best of luck, even though he would be close. But he did not want to jinx the experience for her.

She smiled and then closed in and kissed him lightly on the lips.

"Thank you and 'K Chortu' in return," she stated smiling making the crew laugh.

While Drew knew she had just wished him to 'go to hell', he also knew it was the return to his comment with inverse meaning for all to go well.

And they were off to survive an interesting day.

Fade to Black