I Was Homer’s Child

Moscow (Mockba) That evening we went to a restaurant that was overflowing with young Muscovites where we met Yuri, a slim, flashy, rakishly, good-looking young entrepreneur in the electronics industry, or so he said. He was also, according to Salvatore, a gadabout in the movie industry and allegedly had connections to the KGB. Salvatore invited him to join us for dinner. Yuri was very popular, a stream of young adults and a few middle age people stopped at our table and said hello to Yuri, who introduced us to each person that visited our table. After a fine dinner and drinks, Russian beer, vodka and wine, Yuri suggested we meet some of his friends. He drove us to an apartment complex on the edge of Moscow and entered one of the apartment buildings. Yuri knocked on the door and was invited inside by a young, barely dressed woman. As we stepped inside the door, Yuri went into the bedroom and came out with a naked young woman over his shoulder that was laughingly kicking and twisting to get loose. Yuri set her down and she retired to the bedroom and returned dressed in a one-piece cotton frock, under which she clearly was not wearing anything. Salvatore brough a bottle of vodka and one of the young women went to get glasses while the other loaded selected ‘45 discs on the machine to play some music. We had a few drinks and the two women started dancing together and pulled Yuri and Salvatore onto the small dance area in the center of the room. I am enjoying a glass of vodka, listening to the Russian Pop music, and watching the dancers when one of the young women pulled me into the middle of the room and started dancing with me. Although the young Russian women were attractive, sexy and obviously willing, I have no interest in getting involved. I am happily married; as Johnny Cash sang in an old song, ‘Because you’re mine I walk the line’.* *Johnny Cash, “I Walk the Line” After a while, Yuri saw that I was not getting involved with the women and suggested we say good-bye, which we do, to the apparent disappointment of the two young women. Our next visit was to an upscale apartment building. A beautiful, sexy, Polish woman in her late twenties opened the door; her hair was blond and she was dressed in a negligee-type dress of satiny white cloth, her arms bare, a string of pearls around her neck complementing her skin. I thought to my self, “Is she a budding femme fatale, a seductive Matahari, or what?” Yuri introduced her as Viviana, and although she was Polish, she spoke Russian and a little English. Yuri and Salvatore chatted with her in Russian while I observed the surroundings. The suite was small and elegantly decorated with paintings and carved furniture upholstered in fine fabrics. There was a silver tea set, miscellaneous silver items, a copper samovar, and a bottle of yellowish liquid and slender drinking glasses, in a tall glassed-in cabinet. On one shelf was a display of painted Russian matryushka dolls each of which have several smaller dolls nesting inside the larger ones. Viviana, if that was her real name, made hot tea for the four of us in the copper samovar. We drank the tea and the three of them continued to converse together in Russian. After a while, Salvatore told me that he and Yuri needed to see someone for a few minutes in this same building and they would be right back. Before I could open my mouth to protest they were already out the door. Vivianna sipped her tea slowly and appeared as if she had been through it all before and was waiting for a signal from me. I was uncomfortable and could stand a stiff shot of something alcoholic. I asked her if she had any vodka. She said, niet, (No), smilingly nodding her head negatively, and.went to the glassed-in cabinet and brought back two slender glasses and an elegant bottle containing a highly alcoholic yellow liqueur. She filled our glasses and made a toast, which sounded like ‘nostrovunov tovarish’, or some such, and we touched glasses and sipped the drink. The sweet, syrupy fluid tastes like strong Italian grappa with peaches and apricots thrown in, or like the slivovitz that I imbibed at an Alpine Lodge in the Austrian Alps on a business trip to Germany. She started a conversation with me in her barely decipherable English and it became evident after a short while, from her speech and body language that she was sexually available, but I was not buying it. I sat agitatedly sipping the powerful liqueur, waiting impatiently for Salvatore’s return. Yuri and Salvatore returned a few minutes later and Salvatore asked me, “Do you want to stay with Vivianna? We can come back for you later.” The question was a ‘no brainer’, as far as I was concerned. I am married to a beautiful woman and I intend to keep it that way, and I replied, “No thanks, I’m ready, let’s go” and after polite goodbyes, we left. However, this was not the last, there is more to come.