Vivian Travels to Estonia Ch. 01

Vivian Laaning started her life growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Although the rigors of farm work held no horrors for her, still the tedious repetitive farm chores did not challenge her intellect.

One year when she was in elementary school, her class took an educational field trip to Chicago to attend the appropriate museums and provide some educational sight-seeing. From that trip, she knew that she would want to live in that big city, when she was old enough. To fulfill that desire, she developed an ambition to become a lawyer.

From that childhood dream, Vivian followed the necessary practical steps to achieve that goal: she finished high school; went to the University of Wisconsin (Madison) for her undergraduate degree and obtained her law degree from the University of Chicago. Having passed the bar exams, she obtained a position as an associate attorney with Kirkland, Mayer & McDermott, one of Chicago's largest law firms. She had made it! Her life goals were reached. And as icing on her cake for career ambitions, she was employed strictly as a criminal law court advocate for those accused of crimes, the branch of legal practice, which she had enjoyed practicing the most.

Mind you, there was what some would consider a deviance from such an orthodox path to a stereotypical American success story. After she surrendered her virginity at her eighteenth birthday party, she became highly sexed, and very promiscuous. She engaged in a two year lesbian affair with her high school English and History teacher, Erin Falconbridge. Erin also was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, in conjunction with teaching at the high school in Lydiaville, WI. While a student at the University of Wisconsin, Vivian on her own initiative, organized a gangbang where she fucked twenty-five men in a twenty-four hour period. To commemorate the occasion, she commissioned a tattoo design of twenty-four small replicas of the Estonian and German flags carved on her upper thighs. Each flag contained the initials of her sex partners and the time of the start of each hour of occurrence for each tryst. Because her father was of Estonian ancestry and her mother was German, hence she chose these flags for her tattoos to represent her ancestral roots.

In her first year at law school, she seduced and had sex with each of her five other study partners. A remarkable achievement indeed, considering that four of them were not heterosexual. To commemorate that occasion she acquired, and continuously wore four ankle bracelets with the names of her partners inscribed on the bracelets.

Vivian's sister Erica, five years her senior, had cautioned her against such brazen displays of her sexuality. As Erica put it, no decent eligible man would want to marry a woman whose past licentious sexual experience would be so blatantly advertised whenever he witnessed her naked. Vivian dismissed such warnings on the basis, that she knew she could be a one man woman for the right man. If a man could not discern that, and could not overlook her past, then he can't be a man worth her time, never mind marrying.

In the main, Vivian was correct in such assessment taking into account her two most serious subsequent lovers. After she started working full time for Kirkland, Mayer & McDermott, she met Jed Baxter for a second time, at charity ball function. She had previously enjoyed essentially a one night stand with him, during the time she was a student at the University of Wisconsin. That first occasion was a wedding, where Vivian was the maid of honor, and Baxter, who being the closest male relative, gave the bride away in lieu of the bride's deceased father. Jed Baxter was the CEO of Baxter & Sons a business conglomerate operating various and sundry successful business enterprises. Consequently, Jed was the richest man in Chicago and one of the wealthiest in the United States as well as in the world for that matter.

As a result of that second meeting of the business magnate, Vivian entered into an almost three years torrid love affair. Of course, Baxter had no standing to complain of Vivian's sexuality, as after all, he was committing adultery in participating in the affair. On the other hand, he was not feeling any guilt either, since his wife was sexually frigid. Notwithstanding, that their marriage had produced two children, his wife demonstratively had exhibited no joy from their sexual intimacies. Accordingly, they had entered into an explicit agreement wherein she would condone carte blanche any adulterous activity on his part, so long as a public scandal would not ensue as a result.

Given such free rein for licentious behavior, Jed Baxter took full advantage. He maintained his membership and continued his participation in the orgies conducted at the Texas Love Ranch (TLR). The TLR was a swingers sex club located near Dallas which conducted orgies on its premises every weekend. In his affair with Vivian, he gifted her lifetime membership into the TLR, plus paid-up passes for attendance to twenty orgies. Naturally, this type of benefit in her affair with Jed Baxter was most welcome considering Vivian's sexual proclivities.

As their torrid love affair progressed, Vivian soon realized that their relationship wasn't going anywhere. Even though she was an attorney at a prestigious, and truly well-respected law firm in Chicago, she still was a farmer's daughter. Jed's wife, on the other hand was from the upper crust of American society, born to a well-to-do New England family. Together with Jed, they represented the crème de la crème of the most elegant couple in high society in the United States, never mind just Chicago. Even Oprah Winfrey, the most celebrated woman from Chicago would defer to Felicia, Jed's wife, whenever they were seen together in a public setting.

That being the situation, Vivian lowered her desires for the outcome of her dalliance with Jed Baxter. Mindful of her sister's admonishment that she might have a tough time to attract a suitable man to marry and given that she truly would want to be a mother of at least one child, she concluded that becoming pregnant with Jed's child would be her ultimate realization of all her dreams and aspirations in life. Consequently, she relinquished all birth control protection for every one of their occasions of sexual intercourse. Alas, contrary to her deepest desire, she did not become pregnant despite having sex when she was positive that she was ovulating. She began to despair that perhaps she was barren.

The matter came to a head, when Felicia, Jed's wife, in essence summoned Vivian to a luncheon meeting at the tenant's café in what was then known as the Sears Tower (now designated as the Willis Tower). Her agenda was to persuade Vivian to give up her affair with Jed. Her strongest most persuasive argument, which Felicia believed would be paramount, was her avowal that Jed was not about to end his marriage for a mistress no matter how beguiling. Felicia soon recognized that such argument would not hold sway with Vivian, as the latter was fully cognizant of such reality. Eventually, Felicia was successful in getting Vivian to give up on Jed, when she advised that Jed had undergone a vasectomy. Such information was definitely a deal breaker for Vivian, as she could not see what advantage was there for her to continue her relationship, other than the sex of course. Then again there were other fish in the sea to fulfill that need or desire.

As a last incentive addressing such concern, Felicia invited Vivian to a party at the Baxter mansion sans Jed of course, but with several eligible bachelors in attendance. Vivian did meet a man there of interest to her. His name was Sam Crawford, and he was CFO of Baxter & Sons. Not unexpectedly considering Vivian's character, and her sexual proclivities, they had sex that very night. They started a six months affair culminating in a pregnancy and subsequent wedding. Unfortunately for Vivian, Sam had a dark side to his character. As CFO of Baxter & Sons, he had been embezzling the company for years to the tune of $120 million. He was found out by Vera Starikovich, a forensics accountant hired by Jed Baxter to thoroughly examine the financial records of Baxter & Sons with a fine tooth comb.

The FBI arrested Sam right at the wedding reception, a mere two hours after Vivian and Sam had exchanged their wedding vows, and thereby had become husband and wife. Vivian took it upon herself to legally represent Sam, but then he was murdered four days later by a deranged fellow inmate at the prison. To add to her nightmare of misery, she was fired from the law firm for representing Sam. Baxter & Sons was a major client of Kirkland, Mayer & McDermott, and thus Vivian's representing her husband was a conflict of interest, which the firm could not tolerate.

Before his death, Sam had signed over a Power of Attorney to Vivian plus disclosed financial information not uncovered by Vera Starikovich or the FBI. That included substantial funds deposited in various banks in Switzerland and Monaco. Thus, five months after her daughter, Maia, was born, she took her baby girl for a tour in Europe ostensibly for a vacation, to reassess her life goals. Her main reason was to ascertain what monies were still held in his name in the one bank in Monaco and the two banks in Switzerland; and to transfer the same unto her name. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that these bank accounts totaled a little more than 90 million US dollars.

Her other motive for the vacation to Europe, was to see if she could meet and visit some blood relatives. In Tallinn, Estonia, Vivian made contact with Jaan Läänemets who was a distant cousin of her father, and hence to her. Jaan and his wife Marika, although surprised, were simply overjoyed with the visit of an American relative whom they had been vaguely aware of. They insisted that Vivian and her baby stay in their home for the time Vivian had been planning on staying in Estonia, before returning to the United States. Even though Vivian could easily afford to stay at a hotel, she accepted the invitation of the Läänemets with alacrity, as the conviviality of the Läänemets as hosts, was infectious.

The visit was more pleasurable than either party had anticipated. The first fun part of the visit was to establish their relationship, and the other part was to recollect, and establish the circumstances of how Jan's part of the family remained in Estonia while Vivian's part of the family ended up in the United States. The common ancestor to Vivian and Jaan was Ants Rebane. He lived in the nineteenth century when Estonian territory was under Russian Tsarist rule. Ants Rebane was the grandfather to one of the grandparents of Vivian as well as one of the grandparents of Jaan. In other words, he was the great great grandfather to both of them, and thereby making Vivian and Jaan third cousins.

Vivian's grandparents were older than Jaan's and as a result were recruited to the German cause during World War II. When the Russian Red Army pushed back the Germans, Vivian's grandparents had to flee from Estonia, and they finally ended up in Wisconsin. Jaan's grandparents on the other hand, were children during the War and thus could safely remain in Estonia. Jaan and Marika had two children, a boy, Kaspar, seven years old and a girl, Silvia, three years old. Their children were fascinated by the visit of Vivian's baby.

Vivian had named her daughter Maia, after her grandmother's sister, who like Jaan's grandparents was too young during the War and remained in Estonia. Her grandmother had poignant memories, of this sister, and in fact this was the person and her relatives who was the target family Vivian was trying to reach when she decided to visit Estonia. However, right on her first day in Tallinn, Vivian was to learn that Maia Saar did not bear any children during her lifetime, so there were no blood relatives from that source. Researching Maia Saar, led to the discovery of Jaan Läänemets and their common blood ties.

During their discussion of mutual family relatives, Vivian was struck by the many surnames in their mutual families which when translated into English duplicated English surnames. For example: 'rebane' means fox; 'mets' means forest; and 'saar' means island. Other relatives' surnames which likewise have English equivalents are: 'must' which means black; 'suits' which means smoke; 'kivi' which means stone or rock; and 'rand' which means shore. However, her surname Laaning did not fit that pattern.

In that regard Vivian explained that although Maia's birth was legitimate and her husband was listed as the father on Maia's birth certificate, nevertheless, she registered Maia's surname under her maiden name. Since her marriage was of such short duration, she had never got around to utilizing her married name in any case. She felt, therefore that it would be too awkward in growing up, to have Maia bear her father's name, considering he had died some five months before her birth.

A couple of days later, in the late afternoon, another relative of the Läänemets came to visit the Läänemets household. His name was Eino Tarvas, and he was a widower whose late wife, Dagi, was Marika's sister. Eino happened to be a dairy farmer in southern Estonia, and he was in Tallinn to negotiate a bank loan so he could purchase the adjoining property and some farm machinery mostly extra milking machines plus some extra cows as well. He planned to expand his farm from 104 cows eventually to 208.

As the conversation was going on in this vein, with Vivian included, she was able to contribute the observation that the family dairy farm she grew up in the United States was exactly the size of Eino's projected expanded size. She added, "Actually, when I was a teenager, we had four more cows who could not tolerate being milked by machines. So, I was given the task of milking them by hand. From twelve years of age until I finished high school, I was the milk maid for those cows. When I left for college, my father didn't replace those cows and neither has my brother, who took over the farm when my dad retired."

With such commonalty of interests between Vivian and Eino, it was natural that the two of them were almost the exclusive conversationalists in the subsequent dialogue. The Läänemets also could not help noticing that there was romantic chemistry between the two of them which transcended their mutual interest in dairy farming. Thus, when Eino invited to take Vivian out for dinner and perhaps some drinks afterwards, they did not protest by suggesting they had expected to entertain the two of them for a family dinner.

They actually volunteered to baby-sit Maia. Although Vivian was breast feeding her daughter, she did have a supply of baby formula on hand for emergency feeding use. Vivian was naturally grateful for Marika's offer as it was the first time, she really had a social outing with man since Maia's birth. Such an enjoyable date was most welcome as it relieved for a short time her continuous responsibility as a mother. So, Vivian replied, "Oh thank you Marika. Before I go, I'll pump my breasts, so you need not resort to using the formula. Of course, if I'm delayed longer than expected, I have plenty of formula you can use to feed Mia."

Marika replied, "Not to worry Vivian, you have a good time. Rest assured I'll have no problem in taking care of your baby. I haven't forgotten how to change a diaper."

This reminded Vivian of a favorite anecdote repeated often by her father, so she said, "My brother is roughly two and a half years older than me, and my sister is two and half years older than him. With such even spacing my sister became toiled trained on the same day my brother spent his first day at our farm. He became toilet trained by the time I was brought home after my birth. Apparently, I was toiled trained likewise two and half years after my birth. So, my father has been fond of saying, that he and my mother had to endure changing diapers continuously for seven and a half years without respite."

Marika in mock horror, gasped, "Oh my God that's brutal. Thank God that we had a respite of at least a year between Kaspar and Silvia."

Eino contributed, "Well I guess I've no standing to complain. My wife, Dagi was too ill to undertake changing diapers of our son, so I had to do it. At least my mother came to live with us, so that I was relieved partially of such a chore."

As Eino's remarks were uttered in a jocular vein, Vivian took it as a positive spin that Eino had not been averse to taking care of his late ill wife. It made her warm up to him some more.

In due time, Vivian and Eino departed for their spur of the moment dinner date. They dined at one of the finer restaurants in Tallinn. In growing up, Vivian was used to Estonian cuisine, provided by her paternal grandparents and thus the fare offered by the restaurant was to her liking. She ordered accordingly, without asking for Eino's advice or input. This impressed Eino quite a bit. Although Vivian spoke Estonian fluently, and without a trace of an accent, still she was an American citizen. However so far, Vivian's comportment was not any different than had he been with a native Estonian female. That impression augmented his instant attraction, sexual and otherwise to her.

Their conversation was sparkling. There was just the right mixture of witty observations interlaced with some serious thought-provoking discussions as well. An example of the former had to do with the number of Estonian surnames, Vivian had discovered in her search for her Estonian relatives, which had equivalency in English. As Vivian opined, "So, an Estonian émigré to the United States wanting to assimilate, would be tempted to change his name, especially if it is say 'Must'*, which translated into English means Black, and that would be a common enough surname. Now must* as an English word has a meaning which would make it nonsensical as a surname, and hence the Estonian would probably make the change to 'Black' almost automatically. However, if our Estonian emigre's surname was 'Rand' he would be in a quandary. Rand means shore in Estonian, and 'Shore' is a relatively common enough surname in the United States. Dinah Shore, an American songstress my dad had liked, was a famous example. On the other hand, 'Rand' is also fairly common surname, but it has no meaning in English as a word. Ayn Rand, the American author and political philosopher is probably the best known person with that surname."

(*note to reader* with regard to the word 'must' in the conversation Vivian would have pronounced the word in the first instance as 'moost' the Estonian pronunciation of the word and surname; in the second instance she would have given it the English pronunciation)

Eino replied, "Well I guess were I to emigrate to America, I would not be changing my name, as Tarvas as far as I know is not an English word. Or is it?"

"No, you're quite right, it isn't. So yes, you would not be changing your surname just as my family name is Laaning in America, as it was in Estonia."

On the serious side of their conversation, Vivian noted, "When I arrived in Estonia, I was trying to make contact with my great aunt and her family. I discovered that although she had been married for quite some time, she was childless when she died. This led me to an anecdotal observation that there seems to be many more childless married couples than in most other societies. It also seems that there are fewer families who have more than two children than is the norm for other societies.

"Now theoretically and mathematically to preserve the continuation of our species, society would require couples to reproduce 2.5 children. Actually, the rate of 2.1 average birth achieved by each child bearing woman would be adequate to replace the adult population of a society. The 0.1 would make up for those children who prematurely die before reaching adulthood. If I'm correct in my observation that there is an inordinate amount of small family membership in Estonia, thus it would appear that the Estonian birth rate would not be large enough to sustain replacement for Estonia in the long run."