The banging on the bedroom door ruined the post-coital moment we were having. "Get up! That stuff smells too good to leave on the counter," Anna said. "Shower up, and I'll get it heated."
"Fine," Svetlana replied as we sat up in the bed. I took the opportunity to suck on the nipple that ended up in front of my face. She gasped at the sensation then swatted the top of my head. "Behave."
"I don't hear any complaints," I said as she pushed me away and stood up. "Can I join you?"
"The food will get cold again if that happens." Yep, probably so. "Get in the shower while I change the sheets. We're going to work you out after dinner, so wear running gear." I grabbed shorts, socks, and a T-shirt and headed for the bathroom. I held it in front, but that didn't stop Anna from commenting on my bare ass as I ducked through the door.
I was out five minutes later, and a naked Svetlana pushed me towards the kitchen instead of pulling me back to bed. "Help Anna with the table," she told me. I watched her duck through the door, unable to look away from the perfection that was her posterior. Makeup sex had been great, slow, and sensual, but later tonight? I was going to hit dat ass that so hard I'd spotweld to it. I hope the neighbors didn't hear too much of it.
We'd found two bugs in the apartment, with no idea how long they had been there. The girls knew not to say anything, so we left them alone. We enjoyed a relaxing dinner as we talked about things we might like to do. Anna wanted to take us dancing, while Svetlana hoped to show me the city.
While Anna was clearing the table, Svetlana got her medical bag and a notebook and started with my physical workup. My blood pressure and pulse were both excellent, on par with elite athletes. My pulse was 50 compared to a previous normal of 64. She had me do burpees for a minute, and it only got up to 90 before returning to normal a minute later. She raised an eyebrow as she wrote it down. "You didn't have vital stats this good in the hospital."
A hearing test was next. I downloaded an app to my phone, then took it while wearing earbuds. I didn't have previous results to compare with, but I was in the top percentile, noticeably better than Svetlana or Anna when they tried. They didn't know how to test my nose, at least until Anna had an idea. She pulled a peppermint candy out of her purse, let me smell it, then had me duck into the bathroom while they hid it. I was able to find it using only my nose in less than a minute. "I can't smell it unless it's under my nose," Svetlana complained.
We ended with a vision test with a Snellen chart, the old "read the smallest line you can at twenty feet" test. 20/20 vision means you can see at 20 feet what 'normal' people could see at twenty feet. My distance vision was better than 20/5, meaning I could read at twenty feet what most could read at five feet. Then I repeated the test with the curtains drawn and almost no light, getting the same result while Svetlana couldn't read a single line.
Once Anna was done, we went over to the park across the street and found a level patch of grass by an exercise area. Svetlana and I decided to start with the US Navy SEAL Physical Fitness Test to compare me against elite athletes, excepting the swim since we didn't have an Olympic-size pool. "We start with pushups, two minutes as many as you can do," Anna said. She had the watch while Svetlana kept the notebook.
I pumped out one hundred and fifteen pushups in two minutes.
Situps came next after a two-minute break. I had Svetlana hold my ankles while Anna timed them; one hundred and eight.
We moved over to the pullup bar. This test had no time limit; it went until you can't continue. I cranked out eighty-seven before I dropped off the bar.
Last was the 1.5-mile run (2.414 km). Luckily, there was a trail map available with the lengths of each segment accurately measured. Anna worked out a route that was 2.5 km and headed to the finish line. I took my mark, and when Anna was ready, Svetlana phoned her and gave the start command. I ran fast, passing other runners like they were standing still, and finished in seven minutes and thirteen seconds.
And I wasn't even breathing that hard. "How did I do," I asked the girls after my cooldown walk.
"You smoked this thing," Svetlana said with wide eyes. "The advanced standard would be more than a hundred pushups and situps, 20 pullups, and a nine-minute run. You're demonstrating elite-athlete level performance, and you've barely worked out!"
"I wish we had some weights to see how much you can lift," Anna said.
"Come here," I said. I stood on a concrete bench while Anna held on to my hand. I lifted her until my arm was straight up above my head without straining myself. "Svetlana? Grab on." I picked up both of them without a struggle.
"How fucking strong are you," Anna said as I let them down. "Between us, we weigh a hundred and ten kilograms!"
"I have no idea."
"We're going to have to find a gym to find out for sure," Svetlana said. It was getting dark. "One that's empty and doesn't have cameras in it."
"I think we know enough for now," I told them. "I was a college athlete, not elite, but very much in shape. I couldn't approach what I did today despite working out six days a week as a younger man. Something changed in me."
"But what? These changes don't make ANY medical sense," Anna complained. "I have to do more research."
"Don't do it at home," I told her. "The cops could be watching that too."
"Yeah." Svetlana had this look of worry, probably because she couldn't understand what was happening to me. I worried too, but more in a 'Flowers for Algernon' way. Were the changes coming at the expense of something else, like life expectancy? Nothing is free, after all.
We gathered our stuff and started walking back to their apartment, one girl on each side. We cut through an alley, and I stopped by a flatbed delivery truck parked in the shadows. "Watch this," I said. Going to the back bumper, I squatted down and started to lift. I stopped when I got both back wheels off the pavement, then held it for ten seconds before lowering it again. "No problem," I said as I wiped the dirt and rust off my hands.
Anna's eyes bugged out while Svetlana's mouth was catching flies. "Let's get back to the apartment and have dessert," I told them. Svetlana put on the movie while Anna got the three big pieces of Kyiv Cake from the kitchen. The cake was tasty; the chocolate cake with colored buttercream flowers on top included meringue, hazelnuts, fruit jam, and a buttercream-like filling. I ate mine and most of Svetlana's as we snuggled on the couch.
My plans for hot sex went out the window when Svetlana fell asleep halfway through the movie. I carried her back to bed, undressed her, then used the bathroom and crawled in with her.
Sleep didn't come easily that night as I thought through everything we'd done. I finally dropped off with Lana draped across my body and my nose buried in her hair.
Ch. 22
Svetlana showed me Moscow the next day. We rode the subway downtown without incident and spent the entire day sightseeing in Red Square. My hometown of Houston didn't have a long architectural history, and even the Boston area was proud of its 300-year old buildings. Red Square had buildings constructed in 1491, and they were beautiful.
We ended up in the famous Glavnyi Universalny Magazin (Main Universal Store) at lunchtime. In the Communist days, this was the store for the elite of the Soviet Union to shop, but now it was a fancy shopping mall with a glass ceiling over the central walkway. We went to the top floor at one end to Stolovaya № 57, a Soviet-style cafeteria with good Russian food at affordable prices. It was good, and I got a lot, taking it out to one of the tables overlooking the big mall. After lunch, we got ice cream and walked along the brightly lit central atrium to the other side.
My girlfriend had never been one of the rich, so she wasn't used to shopping at the high-end boutiques that served the Russian elite. I didn't care; I had money and someone to spoil, so I was going to, but not now. We toured the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed, built on orders of Ivan the Terrible, plus the park behind it overlooking the Moscow River. We also toured Spasskaya Bashnya, "Tower of the Saviour," which was commissioned by Ivan the Great. I skipped Lenin's Tomb but enjoyed the State Historical Museum. "We barely saw half the sights, plus we didn't pick up anything to bring home," Svetlana said as we took a break on a bench.
"We can't do it all at once," I told her. It had been a fun day for new love, full of hand-holding, stolen kisses, and blushing glances. I looked at my phone; it was almost four-thirty. "Let's rest for a bit; your feet must be sore." Guys, few things short of great sex beat a foot massage after your woman has been on her feet all day. I had a travel-sized tube of lotion in my pocket for just this purpose, and I put that planning to good use. She was moaning and putty in my hands in moments. I loved the looks of the couples passing by, with lots of jealous looks from the ladies.
I was finishing up when a familiar voice came from behind us. "хорошего дня светлана (Good day, Svetlana)?"
"Anna! What are you doing here?"
"Your boyfriend invited me to join the two of you tonight," she said. She was wearing a shimmering gold formal dress and heels, looking like a billion rubles ready to head out on the town.
Svetlana looked confused. "That's new. Where are we going with you dressed like that?"
Anna looked at me like I was in trouble. "You didn't tell her?"
I smiled. "I like to keep Lana on her toes. Plus, I wanted to wait until you were here to help her pick something out."
Svetlana looked between the two of us. "What is going on?"
"Dinner at the Metropole Hotel in an hour, then Giselle at the Bolshoi Theater at seven. We'd better get you going so we can get your dress and shoes."
Her mouth dropped, then the panic set in. She looked a little like a fish on the dock. "An HOUR! I have NOTHING to wear and no money to buy anything!"
