Accepting An Offer Of Help

ACCEPTING AN OFFER OF HELP

The guest house that she owned, and ran, was unremarkable. Angelina knew that. The Crimean resort had its plush hotels on the beach, or close to it, and they were the first choice of visitors with money. Her place, on the other hand, set in an elevated position overlooking the rooftops and the sea beyond, remained in demand and at peak holiday times was full to bursting, or so it often felt, when the kids of families staying in the property rampaged in the courtyard and splashed in the small wading pool. There was no space for anything bigger and, in any case, she would never have been able to afford the upkeep of a swimming pool, large or small, that the places nearby offered their residents.

She clutched her mobile phone, an ancient contraption that served its useful purpose of keeping in touch with the few friends that her free time allowed, the best of them a friend from her school days. Lenara, or Leni as she liked to be called, was married and had her kids early. She understood what she had gone through and the emptiness that was felt in not being as fortunate as she had been.

The phone had to trill only a couple of times before she snatched it up off the table. The shade of the vines threaded over a tracery of beams and ropes in the courtyard where she sat, offered her welcome shade.

"Hi, Lenara! You're right on time."

"Angelina! I have a chance to call and tell you the news I've got! Are you sitting down?"

She laughed. Like her, Angelina had been looking at websites to check on sperm donors registered at various cryobanks. "Is it so bad that I have to do that?"

"No, but it may come as a shock to you, what I've found out...in fact, who I've found out about but I'm not going to tell you how."

Intrigued by what she had been told, Angelina still groaned. "Go on, tell me. It can't be any worse than everything I went through the last time we spoke about any of this."

She wanted kids, just like her friend, and had attended the diagnostic clinic to find out what the problems were and before Igor had abandoned her. Now, as a single woman with money earned from her guest house business, she had still not committed herself to IVF treatment as the cost ran into tens of thousands of roubles. Such an outlay was very hard to accept, let alone commit to. The authorities in Russia were only too relaxed about such services, and clinics in the Crimea still offered their various services even as war raged not so many kilometres from where she sat.

"Angelina, there's a donor you know...or, let me put it in another way, he works for you when something needs to be fixed or rebuilt."

Angelina sat up. "What...what! You mean Viktor...the guy who does work for you too in your house?"

"Yes, him," Leni answered, flatly. "You wouldn't know to look at him, but I put his name in a search engine and after a few clicks I got into a site and saw his picture."

"So much for confidentiality!" Angelina scoffed.

"True, my dear friend, but this may be the break you need, and this way, if you do it, a heap of money's saved. No one needs to know, and certainly not the clinic whose website I found his name on. He's getting on, but Viktor's got something about him..."

"A dick that works!"

"Angelina Ivanova you naughty woman!" Lenara shrieked with laughter.

"Not so loud, Lenara, he's here today redecorating a room for me."

"Go and ask him if he'll help you."

"Oh sure, I just walk up and say will you sleep with me and get me pregnant? He'd run like a scared deer if he knew that I knew what he did when he was not here."

"Not all the time, he's too old to do it so often. Besides, it would weaken his seed...his sperm count, if he fooled around doing that all the time."

"Who is to say or could know until he was used?" Angelina sighed. "You've sure done your homework."

"Yes, and I care, that's all. Now, sorry...but I have to go. Just think about it. The whole idea's a secret and it's still between you and me."

"Yes, and I love you for thinking of me."

A movement on the roofed walkway across the yard caught her eye. She then saw Viktor, dressed in his olive-drab work overalls, close a door behind him and then walk towards the stairs that would then bring him to where she was sitting.

Viktor smiled as she greeted him, standing up and gathering the papers she had been seen working on. He'd gazed at her from behind the window of the room he was fitting out and liked what he saw of a young woman, in her thirties he reckoned, with her blonde hair severely tied back and knotted and leaving her pretty face fully open to his wondering gaze.

Angelina was not as tall as him, but she sure carried her voluptuous figure well. The varied work that she had to do always had her dressed in jeans or dark blue or black slacks, and with a floaty blouse that did not restrict her movements and did not shape what he knew would be covered.

He'd heard from other young women, who worked in the guest house, that they had overheard Angelina and her ex arguing and that they reckoned they could not have kids. That was what had finally driven Igor from her. The guy had been unable to handle the emotional tantrums that she threw, but it was all hearsay.

"Are you finished up there, already?"

"Yes, I am, and it's not so often that I see you laugh like that, Miss Ivanova," Viktor said as he stepped toward her. After a moment's hesitation, he went on. "You have times when you can feel happier, I suppose. I am sorry for you, for what happened...but I have said nothing. I work here, nothing more."

"And I have come to rely on you, Viktor. The other places have their deep pockets, but you still agree to work for me. I appreciate that." She watched him as he unashamedly unzipped his overalls and stepped out of them. The man before her was lean and somewhat careworn in his face, but undoubtedly strong.

"I have what I need and lead a simple life. It does not do to draw attention to myself." His overalls were now bundled up and held under one arm.

"No, I guess that is so," she smiled, but the news Leni had brought now made her look at him through new eyes as she wondered if this man could produce 'quality sperm', agile swimmers, that would succeed and where Igor had failed. She was not intent on compromising what she wanted from a donor by accepting, at face value, what Leni had told her about him, so far. "Can I get you a drink?"

Viktor looked shocked. "We sit down and have a drink?"

"Yes, I'll get two bottles of lemonade out of the refrigerator." She wanted to keep him talking and to see what would become of it.

"But the guest's suppers will be soon..."

"I have staff to deal with that, remember, and there is something I wish to talk to you about." She had decided, instantly, to let caution fly off on the wind, but how to start?

"Wait a moment, please?" he asked holding out a hand but not touching her. "Was something said while you spoke on your telephone to make you do this? It is a first time."

Had he read into her behaviour that she had discovered something about him, or of his life away from her, to prompt her to offer him a drink and for them to talk?

"Yes, but I do not know where to start, Viktor. And, please, call me Angelina...you have worked for me long enough."

He watched her walk away, the dangling stems of the vines brushing her wonderful hair, the attractive woman oblivious to his concern for her. What he did know was that she was having a tough time of it and often took to wondering if he could be of particular help even if he reckoned he was not the most handsome of guys, anymore, but still had his wits about him and took care of himself. Money was scarce, so he wasn't a man to go spending it on drink or living on tick.

From his earliest days in the military, then in work, he knew that few secrets about you could ever be kept, and now he began to wonder why there was this change in her.

She met his look upon her as she carried a tray and glasses, stooping once more to avoid getting tangled up in the vines.

"I'll tie them back the next time I'm here," he offered.

"Thanks, although none of the guests have said anything about it." She said it on sitting down before him and watched as Viktor poured out his drink and sipped on it reflectively. "You're...you're wondering about this now, aren't you?"

"Yes. That call seems to have gotten to you and I'm reckoning it concerns me, somehow."

"It does concern you and what I hear you've done to help others...other women I mean."

"Go on...I'm listening." He spoke to her now as a man to a woman, not as an employee of his boss.

"I've been told that you have helped some women...donated 'stuff'...you know?"

"Sperm', let's call it for what it is, Angelina," he said, his voice changing in tone. He wasn't angry or embarrassed but wondered where this could lead. "Yes, I've done that. Are you shocked to know it and want me to leave your employment?"

She met his look.

"No, quite the opposite and I want to talk about it with you, some time and in private. You may have heard from others why Igor left and then divorced me. And now a friend tells me things about what she has seen on a website that involves you. It's something that, as I said, I want to talk about."

"It costs money and what you're thinking may save you that," he said easily getting to the point. "You know nothing, really, about me..."

"No, I don't, not where it concerns this."

"I've got no family anymore, so I reckoned I'd leave something of me in whoever I helped and used what I gave the donor clinic. For the others, who I do not know, I gave that and nothing more. But for you, a woman that I know and like, I could get to do things differently...very differently. Do you know and hear what I'm saying, Angelina?"

"Yes," she answered in a low voice as if she'd been told off. "I'm sorry to speak about it without any warning."

"Don't be. Some of the places I've been and what I've done make this, us talking, easy to do. It also gives me something to think about. I'll...I'll call in tomorrow afternoon after I finish another job and deal with those vines. We'll both have some time to think this through."

"Yes, and thanks for listening."

He smiled and she was suddenly taken by the change in him. Angelina followed him along the passageway used for tradesmen and saw him tug open the door. She could not keep from touching his arm.

"Did you keep any written reports, or letters to say how good your seed was?" She could scarcely believe that she was speaking of it. "Sorry, I have an obsession about having a family...a child."

"I see and hear that from you now, Angelina. I also understand what may have driven your husband away. I'm not like that in not wanting kids. That's why I did what I did."

"Then make it happen for me if you can!"

She had become lost in the moment and did not resist him as Victor gripped her shoulders and pulled her against him, his mouth crashing onto her lips and she tasted lemonade. A riot of emotions, that she was unprepared for, now coursed through her mind. What she felt in her belly was a raw anticipation of what this man might do for her and with her.

Passions seemed to run deep in both of them.

"Until tomorrow, Viktor! Now go!"

The door was slammed shut behind him and locked. She fell back against it, her body shaking. She had spoken of her deepest wishes without a moment's hesitation.

Where could that now lead them?

♥

She worked methodically, the day set to be busy with residents leaving and rooms having to be made ready for new guests and their families. Food and drink deliveries had to be dealt with, as well as inventories and delivery notes. And throughout all this, as it had been during a restless night, she had thought about her conversation with Viktor and, most of all, the sudden passionate display of his interest in her that she took from his kiss before the door had been closed on him and her raging thoughts.

What she had spoken about, the very suggestion of what had brought her to confess what she knew of his activities as a sperm donor, now had her wondering if she would have to sleep with him and ensure success, or whether he would jerk off in a bathroom, somewhere in the hotel, and he brought the container to her and she spouted his semen into her body. How cold and mechanical that sounded. But the alternative was to lie in a bed, naked in his arms, and for them to fuck with only one purpose in mind.

Images of the man drifted before her eyes, of Viktor with his light sandy-brown hair, luxuriant and always clean, that was swept back from his high forehead, his wrinkled brow, and the creases to each side of Viktor's mouth evidence, to her eyes, of a man who had lived through hard times.

She wouldn't have to pay the outrageous fees of an IVF clinic and, instead, she would make it up to Viktor in the most 'natural' of ways. In that might also lie the route to her being impregnated.

A floaty summer dress, with cropped sleeves, would be worn in anticipation of seeing him later in the day, after midday she thought Viktor had said. She had found a reason to make a fuss over herself.

♥

The night spent with Alié, lying between her fleshy thighs and coming off on a surprisingly strong sexual high, had not persuaded him to think any differently from what had been suggested to Angelina the previous afternoon. As his early morning erection slipped from her moist heat, the only thing on his mind was Angelina's suggestion that he might be asked to get her pregnant. How he had kept her from noticing his erection, as they talked, still surprised him.

The knowledge that she had a curvy figure, was somewhat fleshy but ragingly attractive even when she seemed closed in on herself, had taken hold in him after he had kissed her and then left. Jeez, how his balls had churned when she began talking about what possessed her thoughts.

Angelina had become visibly nervous as they talked, even seemed terrified to have dared to talk of him following what had been done for anonymous others and becoming a sperm donor to her. He worked for the woman, undertook odd jobs, and whatever she asked him to do. His skills were many, but what she had suggested might be asked of him topped the lot.

He'd never thought to check what the clinic had on him, in their records or what others, as she and a friend had done, could discover.

Still, he chuckled as Alié posed before him and moved so that her tits swayed. Surprises came in a variety of forms, and he liked nothing better than the thought that he might get to fuck that blonde-haired goddess, in his eyes, Angelina.

He was poorer than she was and had few assets to his name, but he had something more than enough to please and get to her. Of that, he never had any doubts.

♥

"It's my afternoon off," he smiled. Sky blue slacks, white slip-on shoes, and a white collarless cotton shirt had been chosen for his meeting with her.

"And I see a different man, smarter." The hotel's courtyard was quiet, only the birds could be heard twittering in the vines and flowering climbers that they stood under. "Don't get your clothes dirty. The vines can keep."

"It's the reason, or one of them, for why I'm here."

"Yes, I suppose it is."

Angelina had greeted him somewhat nervously, wondering perhaps what he made of her appearance. She wore a summer frock that flattered her figure, the skirt frilly, and the neckline discreet, even if they failed to cover her cleavage fully. Perhaps it was intentional, how she had dressed, and there was no doubt that the woman before him stirred his lust for her. Alié's energetic claims had been a distraction, but she had gone to her work and would then go home to her husband.

They had an arrangement, that was all. But with Angelina, a different life could well be there for him to take hold of. Right now, he wanted her and perhaps she had sensed that from his gaze upon her.

"Have you...?" They both laughed as they each said the same thing at once. Viktor held out his hands in a gesture that she should speak first.

"I...I don't know where to begin. I still have the pieces of a kit, unwrapped, from the time my ex-husband and I tried that way. But even then, I didn't want an anonymous donor and when my friend mentioned what you had done I decided then, and last night when I couldn't sleep, that I would ask you again today." She paused when he gave her no reply or did not interrupt her. "Well?"

He reached out to her and he was surprised to feel the strength in her grasp on his hand. It lasted for only a few seconds.

"With the others who I may have helped, I was doing it and not knowing who I might be helping if my sperm was ever used. But now, and with you, it matters to me a hell of a lot more. I'd be involved directly and that's what I want from this and from you."

"What else?" She sat down on a rattan chair as he pulled it out from under the table. Viktor sat down opposite her and she saw him push back his hair. It looked so luxuriant and complemented his tanned face, clean-shaven and smooth. The man before her looked different and he was undoubtedly attentive.

"There's this," he said in a confiding tone as his fingers brushed the bare skin of her leg above her knee.

Angelina knew instantly what he meant by his caress. Viktor wanted to sleep with her and not jerk off and spurt his sperm into a jar. He wanted to put in her, to act like the stud mounting a mare. The image made her shudder, but it also aroused a wayward longing that she should chance it with him, a man she knew and whom she believed had no malicious streak in his nature.

She thought she could see through the veneer of bravado in the man before her, a man who so clearly lusted after her now that he kept touching her leg. Just his touch, and the thought of what it could lead to, were making her wet.

"Viktor?" He had stood up, a lingering brush of his fingertips to her skin offered before he stepped away. He began to tie back or push the dangling strands of vines behind the tracery of ropes that he had fixed before the growing season had begun. She followed him. "Viktor?"

"When's your time?"

"Soon, in a day or two. I checked..." She could not keep from trembling. Viktor wanted to fuck her if that meant that his seed had any chance of truly finding its way and from which a new life might spring. But then what?

Viktor brushed the fingertips of one hand over her lips, and she heard his slow and persuasive voice ask it of her directly.

"The room I worked in yesterday is ready...isn't it?"

"And the new guests for it won't be here until the day after tomorrow!" she replied with a laugh of wanton acceptance of his suggestion and skipped away from him. "Don't be long with those vines! I have other work for you to do!"

She had not seen or heard from Viktor for two days, but now he was with her again, attending to repair jobs that the kids of families staying at the hotel seemed to cause as if it was a part of being on holiday.

"I want a donation from you so that I can have a baby!" she had called out when another opportunity had arisen for a spontaneous tryst in one of the vacated bedrooms. She had yet to be naked in his arms and to lie in a bed with him.

Viktor had wasted her before he had climaxed. Dismayed by what had been discovered with him so passionately, she had cried out noisily on feeling him spurt wads of his seed deep into her body, she lying on the edge of the bed with her skirt around her hips and Viktor standing between her legs and hammering that pole of flesh deep into her slicked haven as his hands gripped the swell of her breasts.

"And I want you and all that you have!" he had grunted in reply.