The Russian Wife Ch. 06

We married with a civil ceremony because this was the only valid marriage, which could be registered at the Italian consular offices. My mother would have liked that we had a church ceremony too. Orthodox church, of course. The atheism of State was becoming history, and however, my mother had me baptized, when I was born (in a hush-hush way, of course, but with the consent of my father). It was quite a common use.

So the only problem was him. Or at least, I thought it was a problem, for him, to change religion. I knew that he had been baptized a Roman Catholic, as most of the Italians. But when I talk with him, about that, and I was very worried about his reaction, he looked at me, surprised of my awkwardness, and just said: "Is that all?"

Indeed, it was not all. Strangely, to arrange a religious marriage between an Orthodox girl and a man more than willing to become Orthodox, for her, was harder than to arrange a legal marriage between a Russian girl and a foreigner, from a supposedly hostile country. The State put few or no hurdles on this road, but it was not easy at all, all the same.

Nobody cared too much of these problems. We were married enough, for all the practical issues. I felt more than legitimate to make love with my man. And for the rest, we thought, we had all the time of the world.

Not all of us had all that time. Some months after our marriage, my father left for Heaven without warning. Really without warning. He died during the night, while he slept. And then my mother left too. Maybe she simply did not take it: she let herself go. They did not manage to die the same day, but they almost made it.

Of course, I was destroyed. When life hits you below the belt that way, you can have all the Russian-Asian-fatalism you want, you suffer all the same. And I was suffering as a dog without his master. They had been my world, till then. My man had entered my world, with respect, and he was welcome, but he was not ALL my world. Not yet.

I swear. If I had been on me own, all alone in the world, I would have commit... say it "a crap"...

And my man had his problems for to prevent me from doing it. He took all the day-offs he could for not to leave me alone. He learned to cook and to look after the house, because I could hardly do it.

And the night, for six months in a row... well, nothing.

"Bedolàga", poor beggar (as Kipling said): It was as if he had a daughter, not a wife. A little, traumatized daughter. At night, I laid on him, he hugged me, and we talked, talked, talked, talked... Till we fell into slumber (and I don't know how he managed not to fall into slumber first). And he talked to me like a Papa Bear. Wise, calm, the right words, in the right tone... And I liked it, I felt a bit better: loved, safe, protected... Did you say "regression"? Well, then I NEEDED to regress. Yes, I WANTED to REGRESS! Regress... Regress...

"Have you ever thought to become a priest?" I asked him, in one of those long, long talks.

"Why? Am I so good at talking about these kind of things?"

"Yes. You don't pretend you can explain them, but... You make them look less bad, less senseless... Almost bearable, acceptable... " I looked at him. "You could have been a good priest, really."

"Well... Maybe if I were born in an Orthodox country... and If I had found a "Màtyushka" like you..."

"Màtyushka": the wife of the "Bàtyushka", the ordinary Orthodox priest... I got his point, and smiled.

"So you did not become a priest because you wanted a woman? Because Catholic priests cannot..."

"Right on target!" he confirmed, nodding. "And I'm not the only one!"

"Do you think celibacy is against nature?"

"Well, not against nature, but... You know, you renounce to something that God gave to you: your sexuality. It's a bit like to jump with the parachute from a plane which is perfectly working. I know, there are people who do it, even as a profession... "Desàntniky", and airborne firemen too, here in Russia... But it's not so "normal", right? It's good for a... "corps d'Elìte", not for a whole army... It was not good for me, that's all. "Know your limits"!"

"Well, then... it must be very hard for you... All these months, without..." I looked at him. "Isn't it?"

"To have a women is not good just for "that"!" he snorted.

"And for what else?"

He hugged me stronger. I felt more his heat, his strength. Feelings I had almost forgotten. And he too was feeling my body more. My soft body, maybe my heartbeat too...

"That, for example... Do you think I could feel what I'm feeling now, if I were a Catholic priest? Hell no!"

"And what are you feeling?" I asked.

"Softness... Sweetness... The intimacy of a woman... The glance of a woman's eyes... A woman's skin under my hands... The smell of a woman... the heat of a woman... Even the sweat of a woman... I couldn't live without that... " he smiled. I was perplexed. All nice things, but...

"And is it enough for you? Is it so important?"

""Beati monoculi in terra caecorum"!" he shrugged. "Blessed the one-eyeds in the land of blinds... And there's a lot of "blinds", out there..."

I got the point. "Blinds", men without women.

"And you don't want to be "blind", right?" I asked. He shook is head no.

"Not even for the Heavenly Kingdom..."

Slowly, gradually, the emergency phase went away, and he could come back to work. He had lost almost all the vacations he was entitled to. And I knew that. He said it was nothing, "Moscow is nice in Summer". We both knew that Moscow in summer is definitely hot: maybe it's the worst season to see it. But I had no will to disagree with him...

We started to go around again, on Sunday or whenever we could, wherever the "mitrò" could lead. A habit we never lost, going around, even in Italy. We liked to go to Ismailovsky park: more than a park, a small wood, a forest just a bit "civilized" here and there. You arrive at the station of Ismailovo, and you see only trees, on the right-hand side of th wagon, if you come from the center. And then, a pair of stairway, up and down, you enter the wood, and there is no more concrete, for kilometers.

Gorky park was closer to where I lived, it's not too bad, but it's another deal: too much in the center, too much "official", starting from the entrance on, too much people, too much monuments, too much noise, inside and even more outside.

Compared to that, Ismailovsky park was a piece of "taigà"... You could walk for hours, on your own, wherever you liked, you could find little squirrels, or small lakes and ponds full of ducks... And we walked, and talked... We were like a "medsestrà", a nurse, and a veteran, in some field hospital, during the war... somewhere between Moscow and Berlin...

But the "veteran", the "rànenny frontòvik", the wounded from the front was not him: it was me. I had the battle stress, the PTSD, I had "seen the elephants", I had gone to the hell and back. Now I was recovering: to walk, to chat, to enjoy the trees, the birds, the sky, the sunshine, the good days, the fly of a white butterfly, seemed to me almost a miracle. Yes, my parents were dead, as our song says, "they didn't come back from the battle". But I was alive, and the life went on, and it was nice, and I had to live it. That was what they would have wanted me to do. Not to mourn: to live. to enjoy life, for them too. Because they could not...

And with a man like my man, close to me... Why not to live? There's always time to die...

One fine day (one fine night) we were in our bed, hugged slightly, and we had started another session of "Papa-Bear-therapy", when I called his name, stopping some talks about the meaning of life and so on.

"What's that?" he asked. I looked in his eyes and smiled, silent, for a while. Then...

"Disrespect me..."

He looked at me more carefully, perplexed.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded.

"You don't have to do it, if you don't want." He said. "I can wait yet..."

"And how much can you wait?" I said, smiling. "how much time yet?"

"Some more," he shrugged. "Some days..."

"And what's the difference? Today or tomorrow... or the day after?"

"The difference is, if you're not ready... better off not to do...".

I mounted over him.

"And when will I be ready? How can I know that? Just trying..."

"But..." he started. I caressed his cheek.

"I've been your daughter long enough. Now I have to be your wife again... or never more... "

"Never more..." he shrugged. ""Podùmai"!"

"I know what I say. You have been good with me. But I can't get used to see you as a second father. I couldn't make love with someone I see as a father. And you are a man. You need a woman. And that woman it's me. You are my husband. Maybe the best husband in the world. And I have to be your wife, not your daughter. In every meaning of this word..."

""Suprùjesky dolg"?" he asked, ironically. I smiled, nodding. "Maybe it's ME who can't, today..."

"Why?"

"I've had a hard day, at work. I'm tired, stressed... Overload, you know, overheating... "Peregrùska"..."

I shook my head. He had his problems, besides me. He had had to argue at work, some mishaps, a mix-up, an ill-executed order, a disservice, a client's complaint, a superiors' reproach. Or anyway, a confrontation. And a confrontation with a Russian, men or woman, is never a pushover. And he worked with Russians too... He knew when to use name and patronimic, to show respect, and wen to use hard words, to the limit of "mat", to show he was not a "slabàk", a dweeb. But it was a stress, however. And he never told about it, all that time. Not a word. To be only my "Papa Bear"...

"No worry," I said. "Relax. I'll drive..."

He chuckled. "I'll drive", nice joke... I kissed him on his mouth, closed lips, and elsewhere on his face and his head. He had said he liked the simple physical contact, and I undressed him and myself enough to uncover my breast and his chest, then I laid upon him again...

"Oh! That's fine.." he said. I started to move back and forth, over him. "And that's even better!"

He felt my swollen breasts, my nipples, caressing his chest. And I feel his chest under my nipples. They were hard, now, very sensible, as my breasts. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feelings. His hands were on my hips, warm and strong as always. The hands of a man, of a male, again... And I was loving them...

"If you want to stop, for any reason," he said, while he massaged my buttocks, "don't ask my permission, don't apologize... Just say "stop"... And I will..."

I nodded. He was caring as always too, but is animal part was awaking... I felt it against my pubes, pressing on my half-opened vulva... his sex, his shaft, harder and harder, throbbing more and more... I outstretched my arms, raising my torso away from his own, and set up his shaft between my nymphs in a better way... Now I feel it even more, and better...

I started moving my hips back and forth, pushing my pubes against his belly, feeling his shaft pulsing, a bit inside of me, against my inner flesh... my "vestibule", very sensible... I have no hurry to have it inside, and he have no hurry to put it into me: it was good that way too... for both...

"You are very wet..." he said. Indeed, I could hear the low, liquid noise of my moisture, while my wide open vulva caressed his sex, now stone-hard...

"And you're very hard..." I said. "Do you want me to go ahead?"

"As you like it..." he said. I went back and forth some more time, smiling, enjoying his hardness and my wetness between us, then I took his sex in my hand. "If you don't want to do this way..."

"Hush!" I said, my index finger across my lips. "Don't talk to the driver!"

He snorted, smiling. I manage to put the tip of his sex in my vulva and let my hips go down, while it filled me. It was really hard, but my sex had not got unused to be invaded, not even afther those months. I closed my eyes and breathed, while his sex arrived at the gates of my uterus... , a single, long breath of pure pleasure, no pain at all...

"You are wonderful... " he said.

"Wonderful to see, or wonderful to... hm?" I smiled.

"Both!" he snorted. I let him take my breasts in his hands. I liked to feel the heath of his hands, everywhere, but to feel them on my breasts was something more... it was as if he took ALL of me. My body, my sex, my hearth, all in his hands... Instinctively I push my chest forward, as to offer him my breasts even more. My breath get harder, faster... I was enjoying, almost "finishing" for his touch, maybe more than for his sex inside of me... And that's all said!

He was not squeezing my breasts: just touching them, caressing them with his fingers, and weighing them on his palms... but those light touches, those calm caresses made me relaxing more and more, abandoning, surrendering... like the knees of the rider guide the horse more than any wip can do... I felt that he was the strongest, between us, and that he knew what he was doing: I just had to let him do... And I did...

He put his hands on my shoulders, and I let him pull me down, feeling his chest against my breasts again... His arm around my shoulders, the other arm across my spine, the hand on my tail bone...

"If you want to push a finger in my ass, you can... " I whispered to him, smiling.

"HM! You took a liking for it!"

"I want to be yours. Everywhere!" I said. He got to my anus, but did not pierced me: just caressed me, all over there, all around there, poking just his fingertip inside. It was tickling, teasing... He could ram all his longer fingers into me, I could not resist. But he prefer to play with my hole, to let me feel that if just he would have wanted... And I liked that!

"Fuck my ass with your fingers!" I asked him.

"Ty dievchònka Huliganka!" he said, waving a finger close to my face. You're a bad girl!

"Then punish me!"

"HM! You've wanted it!" he said, starting spanking my butt. His hand was soft, but the effect was strong. I could just yip: "Oy! Oy! Oy!"...

"I did NOT mean THAT!" I cried.

"I punish you as I like!" he said, keeping slapping me. I could not stop him. My butts were at his mercy. Take it, bad child!

"Stop! Hold, enough! ""Bolshe niè bùdu"!" I cried. I will never do it anymore! I will be a good little child! I promise! I swear! "Niè bùdu!"

"Right now? I was beginning to have fun!"

"I have enjoyed it too!" I confessed. "But my butt is red! It hurts!"

"Oh! Poor babe!" he said. And starting massage my butts again with his palms. It was good! I laughed.

"Why don't you take me there too? With your fingers?"

"HM... at present... I don't want it too much..." he mused. He looked at me. "Don't you like how I did?"

"I like. But It seems me something is missing..."

"Yes, something. But is it important?"

"I would like. To be yours. From both sides..."

"Well, then... "... He took me from behind with his index finger and his medium one, and I shouted a bit, but I let him do...

"Oh... It's good!" I moaned.

"And now, from three sides!" he smiled. I did not realize what he meant: I had no time... I felt his hand on my nape, and he kissed me, his long tongue in my mouth. I enjoyed the kiss, then he let me breath, and I laughed: "From three sides", indeed. ..

"Do I keep on?"

"Hmm, no... One side is enough..." I concluded. I sit again on his hips, always with his sex inside, still hard and long... "The rest is redundant!" I smile...

He smiled too. I start going up and down, while he caressed me behind, as before. I liked his touch, and I liked his dick: it was REALLY enough... His caresses excited me, make me feel of his own, in his hands, kinky and "fuckable". But his blows inside of me were the real thing...

We came almost together (yes, sometimes happens, but relax: you can't plan it...), then I fell over him.

"It has been good..." He said. "Thank you..."

"Don't mention it... I too was needing that... ".

A few weeks later, my man got the news that he had been promoted and had to come back in Italy, in a month's time. He hoped to go back home, in Florence. And he got it. After all, he liked to live in Moscow: he said that there were worse places in the world, and even in Italy. Milan was interesting, but a bit too hectic and foggy for him, and if he would have had to move somewhere south of Rome, he said that he would have asked political asylum. Maybe he was joking, maybe not...

I too was in no hurry to move away. There were problems, "red tape" and other things. And even if things were getting harder, in Russia, it was always my country...

But the idea to go to live in Florence was enough to ease all my worries. Not a western city whatsoever, not even an Italian city whatsoever: Florence! Giotto, Michelangelo, the Uffizi gallery... And the countryside... As my man said, "not too much north, nor too much south": sweet green hills, many sunny days, no fog as in Milan, but not the too strong sun of Naples and so on... The right place...

I had already left the houses where I had lived since my childhood: it was not ours, it belonged to the city, and I did not need it anymore. I just took away the essential things: the medals of my father, something from my mother, my clothes, some small things I was fond of... All that i really want to keep. The rest... I would have left it to the new dwellers, but in Russia, then, few persons would have got things from strangers, let alone dead strangers. Some theory about "information" absorbed by clothes and other items... A weird, potentially dangerous deal...

My man got me to sell those stuffs we could not take with us to a "cooperative" (the first legal steps of private enterprise in Russia) and keep the money for me. Only for me. You have to have something for your own, he said. The amount I got was not so excessive, however...

So we took the plane to Rome. It was a quiet flight. I did not leave my country for good, of course. I was not running away as a thief, a deserter who can't go back, and I had no intention to say goodbye to all that, "Proshài, nemìtaya Rossiya", farewell, un-washed Russia, as a poet said... I loved my country, and I was sure my man too had left a piece of his heart there... We would have come back, every now and then...

At the airport of Rome, I had my first meeting with my mother-in-law, "suòcera" as the Italians say. It was a surprise. I was expecting a sweet, fragile granny, and I found a tank. A cheerful, friendly tank, but a real tank. High, healthy, thick, but not fat: all muscles... I noticed it when she hugged me, at the arrival section. A real bear hug! She was just like an aunt of mine, the older sister of my father. She too had seen all the war, from the first to the last shot, as we say. She joined a "medsambàt", a sanitary Batallion, when the Fritz seemed going to get Moscow, and had stopped bandaging boys and men just when Hitler had been dead for a week. And she too always hugged me that way...

"But let me see you!" my "in-law" said, very excited. "But how nice you are! But how healthy you are!"

She talked with that spirited Tuscan accent I learned to like in my man's version. When she had seen me enough, she authoritatively grabbed my suitcase from my hand and then marched (literally "marched": "ra's-dva, ra's-dva...") to the exit of the airport building. There was a car outside, ready for us. My man took the key from his mother and sat on the driver seat, me and his mother sat back.

While my man leave the airport looking for the road to the highway, his mother kept talking with me. She really knew a lot about me: who was my father, first of all. I knew that Tuscany was a "red" region, and she was proud to have on her family the daughter of a man who had fought at Stalingrad and Kursk, who had seized Berlin... She expressed me her sympathy for his death, and that of my mother. It must have been a terrible hit, she said. It was, I confirmed. We kept silent for a while. She had good, sympathetic eyes, and a good way to hold my hand. After that minute of silence, she smiled. Come on, life goes on...