The Matrons of Regal Bay
Chapter 7
Natalya's Tales -- Part 2
Natalya Aleshinova stood in front of the dresser, gazing into the mirror mounted atop it at her image. She saw a mature woman who had just celebrated her 51
st
birthday the previous weekend, a woman who had mothered two children, both now adults. She looked at her reflection, from the short-cut raven-black hair that had been recently cut and styled, without a single grey hair in evidence, to the pale flesh of her face, age-lined at the edges of her eyes and mouth, her eyes still a brilliant steel-blue, her lips wide and subtle, and colored a deep rose. She wore a melon-colored loose-fitting sweater over a knee-length black skirt. Both hid the curves of her matronly figure, her widening hips and thickening thighs, her rounded rump, her swelling belly, and the heft of her massive breasts. Natalya reflected that her breasts were the first thing men were attracted to in her, from the time they began to grow when still a teen-ager in the old Soviet Union. She always thought her eyes were her best feature, and many men said as much, even though she knew better.
Natalya Vilkova had been born in a small village ten miles west of Kiev, in the Ukraine. At the time, her homeland was part of the greater Soviet Union, and her world consisted of a grey concrete block apartment building, the small three-room apartment her family lived in, and the small patch of naked ground that served as the playground for the children of the building, and a meeting place for the adults, when they weren't working twelve hour days in the nearby factories. Natalya's parents both worked for the power company, and by the time Natalya was of school age, they each worked a shift in the new nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. It was a rare day they the entire Vilkov family sat together over a meal.
Natalya was a young woman of only 21 when the accident happened. Her father had come home just hours before the alarms had sounded, but her mother was already on shift at the plant. "I want you to go to your aunt and uncle's house, Natalya," her father had insisted. Natalya was due at her own job in the city market, but all of that went out the window that afternoon. "You will stay with them until I come for you. I must go to the plant, to relieve your mother. I will work in her place until the dangers have passed." Her father left her then, and she did as he told her. By that time, areas were already being evacuated. He went one way, driving his small car up the lane towards the power plant, and she rode her bike the other, towards her father's brother's home.
She never saw either of her parents again. Nor did she see her Uncle Ivan. He, too, worked at the power plant. Her Aunt Iliana was already packing suit cases and Natalya's two young cousins Ekaterina and Stanic into a small station wagon. Natalya left her bike on the street and squeezed herself and her small bag in with them. Two hours later, Iliana pulled their car into a parking lot near the building where her parents lived, in Kiev. By then, the accident was finally being discussed on the news, but the enormity.
Iliana's parents could never have supported so many in their small apartment, and Natalya realized very soon that she needed to work. She looked for a job, but it wasn't until she agreed to work in one of the decadent night clubs did she begin to bring in money, for herself and her family.
"
Ty prekrasno vyglyadish, moya malen'kava zyezda
," her husband said as he stepped up behind her, looking at her reflection as well. "You look beautiful, my little star."
"
Spasibo, moy geroy
," she replied. "Thank you, my hero." His hands were gentle on her shoulders and she turned to kiss one, his left. She looked at his reflection in the mirror, and although Piotr was 17 years her senior, in her eyes he would always be the man who rescued her from the life she had been forced into. Piotr would always be her hero.
Natalya turned to face her husband and took his hands in hers. "I will miss you," she told him for not the first time that morning. "I wish you would stay, at least for another week."
"I do so wish that I could,
malen'kava zyezda
," he replied, again using his pet-name for her. Little Star. Natalya knew that she had never fit that title. She had never been a little girl, even when she had first begun to dance for the men in the dimly-lit, smoke-filled rooms. By the time she had started, her breasts were far and away the largest of any of the girls she competed with for tips. It wasn't until she had arrived in America, nearly twelve years later, that she finally found a brassiere that was comfortable and held the weight of her massive mammaries. Carrying 44-dd breasts around with her had taken its toll on Natalya's back, and after two surgeries on her back, she'd come to accept the constant pain as a penance for her past sins. After all, she'd used those very same breasts to get ahead in the world, to help out her remaining family, and find a man willing to take her away from the sadness and gloom that was the crumbling Soviet Union.
Piotr kissed her forehead and turned away. "I have meetings in Tokyo and Bangkok over the weekend," he reminded her, "and I am due in Moscow Wednesday for a board meeting. You know my work, and the face I must present. I only wish you would agree to travel with me."
"I have my own work, here, Piotr," she responded. "I enjoy this work, as I enjoy this, our adopted home."
"You could visit with your daughter," he suggested.
"I could not go there, not anymore, and you know that well." She went to the nightstand beside the large bed they rarely shared and retrieved a small package. "Here. Give this to Marina when you next see her. And tell her to call. I miss her very much."
"I know you do." Piotr took the package and asked, "What is it?"
"An outfit that I thought she might like. Something none of her rivals would have."
"And when should I give this to her? You know that I do not approve of her choice in careers any more than you do."
"Go to her when she between performances and give it to her. I doubt if you would be able to get to her at any other time." Natalya dropped onto the end of the bed with a sigh. "I wish she had never went back to Moscow. I had no idea that she knew how I once lived, how I made a living when I was at her age."
"We can be proud that she still has completed her college," Piotr reminded her. "Someday, she will step away and have a future. She will teach children."
"So long as she can step away on her own terms. I remember many of my friends who only stepped away after disease forced them to. Or when they had been wasted away by the drugs, and the men. I remember too many who only got out because they could no longer appeal to the men who were paying for their pleasures. Wasted women don't make much money to live on, not in the skin trades."
"Please, be still. Marina is not in the skin trades. She only dances, to make ends meet. Like many of her friends do." Piotr was sure of himself, but Natalya knew otherwise. She'd seen the videos herself, across the internet. The things her only daughter did to "make ends meet" were all too much like the things Natalya had herself done, thirty years ago.
"Come," Piotr said suddenly. "My car is here and I will drive you to your work. We will have a pleasant ride and a drink."
"And how will I get home, this evening?" Natalya asked as she followed her husband from their bedroom through the house. He didn't reply until they were standing inside the front door. It was slightly chilly outside, and he helped her with her coat before pulling his own on.
"Give Nicolas a call," Piotr finally answered. "I am sure he will be free to come, now that I am leaving."
"Don't be that way, Piotr," Natalya insisted. "Nico loves you very much. He's just at that age when boys need to be free of their father's control."
"That boy is no longer a boy," Piotr reminded her. "He is a man of 21 years, and should be firmly in control of his future. Instead, he plays golf or runs wild with his friends all hours. He needs to find his way and get on with his life."
Piotr held open the big car's door, allowing Natalya to slip in first. He pulled the door closed and signaled for the driver to pull away. "The Resort Clubhouse, Mikhail," he told the driver, who responded with only a nod.
"Nico will find his way," Natalya insisted, and let the issue drop. The drive was little more than five minutes long, and when Natalya slipped out of the car, Piotr gave her only a brief kiss on the cheek. Piotr had only been home for three weeks, and it would be nearly six weeks before she would see her husband again. In that time, Natalya had another man in her life who would see to her needs, quite willingly.