BUCHAREST
Anja and Betty strolled down an aisle of the chemist's shop, picking out some last-minute items they needed for tomorrow's trip to the Romanian capital of Bucharest.
Anja's grandmother or bunică in the old language, had been born there, but the family had fled when she was seven, as the Soviets took over at the end of World War Two. Her grandmother's father had led them to the American sector of Germany and then eventually to England. Anja's grandmother had been a renowned beauty, but stayed single a long time, caring for her own grandparents and then parents, before marrying another Romanian refugee. This bloodline still showed clearly in Anja, with her thick, mahogany hair and full eyebrows over large, expressive eyes.
After years of Bunică's stories about the old country, Anja was finally going to see it for herself, alongside her best friend and worst troublemaker, Betty.
Anja thought Betty had insisted on this late shopping stop to pick up a travel-sized tube of toothpaste or the like, but she should have known better from the buxom blonde. The kind of trip Betty had in mind would have severely shocked Bunică Marisa, but was becoming abundantly clear as she stopped them in front of the condoms and personal lubricants.
First she took four tubes of K-Y jelly and put them in the basket Anja was carrying.
"Just how much of this do you think you'll actually use?" Anja asked with a mixture of humour and horror.
"It's not about how much," her randy friend answered. "It's about making sure it's always handy. Who knows where Vlad will want to impale us?"
Vlad referred to Vlad the Impaler, the notorious Romanian nobleman who had enemy prisoners impaled on wooden stakes on the battlefield to terrify the Ottoman soldiers who were marching north into Wallachia in the 15
th
century. Vlad was also known as Vlad Dracula and is said to have been a partial inspiration for Bram Stoker's famous vampire, four centuries later.
When they'd first decided to go to Bucharest, they'd kicked around the idea of making a day trip up to visit Bran Castle, which many people referred to as Dracula's Castle, even though Vlad had never really been there. From then on, Betty had referred to all Romanian men as Vlads. She'd also declared that the Romanian box on her Fuck-Around-the-World list was still blank and she was looking forward to being impaled on Vlad's stake. Of course, it would be a stake of flesh and blood, not wood; though hopefully stiff as wood.
"One for your purse, one for mine, one for your bedroom, one for mine," is how Betty accounted for the four tubes of lubricant.
Anja's mouth hung open speechlessly. 'For My purse and My room?' she thought. No wonder her randy friend had put this off to the last minute -- she obviously didn't want Anja thinking about it too long before it was time to go.
Now looking among the condoms, Betty started placing several small packages into the basket. "What kind do you want?" she asked Anja.
Anja answered in a disbelieving tone, as if she now thought Betty might be playing a prank. "Again, how many do you think we'll really need?"
"Well, we'll be there seven days, so I'd better get fucked at least seven times." She'd already put two 3-packs each of three different kinds of rubbers into the basket.
Anja was no vestal virgin and was certainly open to the idea of a romantic interlude during their stay, but,
at least seven times
, combined with the 18 condoms already in the carrier gave her pause.
"Seven days, but only six nights."
"Then I'll have to get fucked twice on one day. At least," she added with her famous dirty grin.
"Well, then why not just get a big box? It will cost less," Anja responded sarcastically.
Completely straight-faced, Betty replied, "Because when you hand a man a small box, he just thinks you're a well-prepared woman of the world. If you ask him to take a rubber from an economy pack, he'll think you're a slut. We don't want anyone thinking we're sluts, do we?"
Both women laughed, then took their purchases to the checkout. Anja blushed when the old chemist looked at them queerly over the tops of his half-rim glasses.
But Betty gave him a saucy look in return and said, "You don't think bad of us because we make them wear protection, do you? They seem to come just as hard with a rubber as without."
The old man's jaw dropped and he almost did the same with their change.
"Oh, you are so bad," Anja told her friend as they walked out.
"You'd better believe it," Betty replied.
### ###
The next day they arrived in Bucharest and checked into their two-bedroom suite at the Grand Hotel Continental. It was one of the fanciest hotels in town, but both women had good careers and could afford to splurge.
Despite Betty's actions in the chemist's, the women were interested in more of the city than just its sex life. Anja wanted to visit the National Museum of Romanian History to learn more about her ancestry, while Betty was always interested in art museums, from classical to modern. But today would just be a short introductory jaunt, to get their first feeling of the city and its people.
After dropping off their bags, the women walked to the old town, which was less than a kilometre away. They explored various shops and stopped for coffee and a bite at an outdoor café. They listened to buskers and saw a lot of clubs apparently catering to the students from the many university colleges in the area. After a few hours, during which they felt a very active vibe in the city, they made their way back to the hotel. Their research had told them that the club scene didn't get started until quite late, so the two friends each went into her bedroom and laid down for a nap.
After resting a few hours, they got ready to go. Each wore a slinky dress; the pale Betty in black, the dark Anja in red. Many heads turned to follow them across the lobby and into the hotel restaurant. There they ate a light meal and split a bottle of a delicious native red.
Then it was time to hit the town. They approached the concierge and told him they wanted to dance where the natives danced. Betty leaned in close and gave him a good look down the front of her dress at her full cleavage.
The concierge told the doorman to call up a taxi and passed on a location to give the driver. Helping them into the car, the doorman openly looked them over and when Betty sat down she hitched up her short red skirt to give him a look at the black silk thong covering her quim. With a happy smile on his face, he closed the door and told the driver to charge them only what the locals paid, not the tourists, before sending them on their way.
The concierge knew his discos. The taxi pulled up in front of a flashy, but classy looking place with a dangerous-looking, but well-dressed bouncer. Spotting the two beauties sans escorts, he immediately lowered the velvet rope and waved the Brits into the dance hall.
The sound system was good; loud, but clear, and the DJ was sending an excellent mix of rhythms through it. Betty and Anja first hit the floor together, but it wasn't long before they were being asked to dance by many men. A few tried to move in quickly and stake a place at the small table the girls had taken. Betty sweetly, but firmly, kept them moving.
Betty told her less-experienced companion that they didn't want to use 'first-come, first-served' as their way of meeting men. Instead, they had a great time flirting and dancing with a variety of guys. Mostly Romanians, but also Russian, Hungarian, Italian and even Swedish.
One particular pair had caught the girls' eyes from the start and when they'd finished their third dance with them, Betty invited them to stay at the table. The men eagerly agreed. Florin and Daniel were Bucharest natives, but both had spent time in America and spoke great English. True, it was American English, but still completely understandable.
It wasn't long before they were sitting thigh to thigh and starting to kiss. Florin had paired up with Anja and Daniel with Betty. But Betty wasn't about to let the hunting males think they were in charge.
Breaking off a particularly steamy kiss with Daniel, during which he'd started stroking the inside of her thigh, Betty said, "Florin, come dance with me." She pulled him away from Anja and onto the dance floor. Anja knew what her friend was doing and she took Daniel's hand and followed the others to the floor.
Coming back to the table they sat with their new partners and started making out again. Twice more they switched partners while dancing and the guys were in the swing of things now.
Daniel drove them back to the girls' hotel. Stopping at the concierge desk, Betty asked to have a bottle of champagne sent up to the room. When it arrived, they all sat on the large sofa, sipping the delicious vintage and stroking their seat partners.
Anja was enjoying how well Daniel kissed and the feel of his hand on her breast when she heard the sound of a zipper. Looking over, she saw that Betty had turned the heat up quite a few notches by slipping her hand into Florin's open fly.