The Russian Wife

When we married, a civil ceremony, I had the feeling that the lady who managed the ceremony was not so happy to see another of "our girls" who married a foreigner. She was pleasantly surprised to see that "the foreigner" REALLY spoke Russian. Not only because so there was no need for an interpreter. I was proud of it, as if my man had learned the language only from me.

But when the lady started her short address to the spouses, there was a part I though was addressed only to me.

"Remember, neither of you is marrying the Perfect Being. You will have to be patient with each other. You know the alternative: you always can have you freedom back, but freedom is solitude. You could even never find another compatible person, and then you'll remain alone for the rest of your life, as an astronaut lost in space..."

They were wise and well intentioned words, but she told them looking at me, maybe casually, maybe not. I thought she was talking to me. Be careful, "devchonka", you will go in another country, if the things go wrong you will be REALLY lost in space...

I looked at my man, and I don' know how, but he understood what I was thinking. Maybe my worried eyes, maybe he knew that if and when we would have left Russia I would have need a "tòchka opòri", a foothold, more than ever, and this foothold could be only him. If for any reason I would have lost him...

He snorted, smiled and shook his head, with a streetwise face, as to tell me "It will never be, no way, no worry..."...

And I stopped worrying.

We get home and close the door behind us (it was HIS home, indeed), quite late in the night. After the marriage, there had been a real, beautiful Russian feast, a revelry, a jamboree, you name it. No need for a "Tamada", nothing so traditional. My father and my man, with war songs and "chastùshki" and some Italian hit, had collected applauses as two professional entertainers. My man wanted to make a surprise to my father, and he learned a row of veteran songs: "The last battle", "There birds don't sing", "Song about stars"... And it was a very good gift for him. "Ty snàesh ètu tòje?", you know that too? "Snàyu", I know...

My father was virtually "nepyùshi", he almost never drank, and he was stern as only a man who saw the war can be. But when he decided to have fun, he was the hearth of any party. And without getting drunk. He was not drunk when he told his toast for us. A good companion is like a good gun. Take care of it, and it will take care of you...

And then "love and wisdom", of course, as a final, and then again sing, dance, and drink a bit (just a bit...)... Fun, but tiresome. We can't wait to be home. My man, a bit stunned, automatically went to the TV and was going to turn it on, but I took him by a wrist and made him turn around.

"Don't you have any better idea?" . He looked at me from tot to toe.

"Hell yes!" he said, with a low, testosterone-full tone. I turn around myself and looked in his eyes, with a sinfully promising glance. We had done it before, but now it was different. "Suprùjesky dolg", conjugal duty... He had a last doubt. Maybe I was feeling it as a duty? "Are you tired? Do you want to sleep?"

I shook my head, always looking at him. No fatigue, no slumber. Just all those white dresses upon. They were useless, now.

"Undress me!" I ordered him. Not a plea, an order. Undress me, my servant.

He complied, not too hastly, affording himself only a kiss on my neck, in the process. Good...

At a certain point, he went away.

"What are you doing!"

"I will undress myself, in the bathroom!" He said.

"I already saw you naked!" I laughed, He stood and assumed a solemn pose.

"But for all I can, I swear to God, you'll never see me with socks!"

I laughed, finished undressing myself, and went to the bedroom.

When he went out from the bathroom, I was under the blankets, naked and calm. I had turned out the lights, there was a full moonlight from the window, it was enough. All was fine, quiet, almost magic. He went in, got to the bed, pull up the blankets, looked at me and... Chuckled!

"What's that?" I wondered.

"I've recalled a line from a comedy, of Dario Fo, an Italian author. " he said. ""That's how a husband shows respect to his wife: disrespecting her as much as possible!"..."

"Disrespecting her?" I asked, peeved.

"Yes, that is..." he answered, indicating my naked body. I realized: "THAT" disrespect...

"Oh... well, then..." I smiled. He slipped beneath the blankets, was leaning on me, but I stopped him, putting my hand on his chest. "You know that it is NOT so, right?"

"Yes, " he said. "I know that is NOT ONLY so..."

"Well...". I laid back again on my spine, opened my arms, and of course, my legs. "Then, come on, my husband. "Disrespect" me!"

He laughed , kissed me on my mouth and disrespected me. Many times. Wonderfully...

I'm writing these lines in the hospital. I can't go home, even If I know that I can do nothing, here. And there's nothing to read. So I've asked a pen and a log and they kindly gave them to me, so I can write, at least (Why not, Stendhal did it too...).

I don't know what I will do with these lines, Maybe I will publish them, self-publishing, of course, a tribute to my man, in the worst case. If someone will read them, out of curiosity, maybe he (she) will be upset from the quantity of sex... My man is almost dead and I write of... Well, sir, or madam, my man was ALSO this, and when I will think to him I will ALWAYS think to THIS too.

That's why I DON'T want him to leave. Not yet...

I love him (I LOVED him?), I've told it, maybe too many times. But do you think love is only feelings, sweet words, mutual care? Of course it's ALSO this, but don't kid yourself: the base is SEX. It's not a dirty need, the carrot for make the males do what you want, it's the ENGINE! Of course a car doesn't work with the engine only, lots of other things are needed. First of all a smart driver. But without the engine (and the fuel) a car doesn't MOVE! And so is the sex for love. It's not enough, but it TAKES.

Don't you believe it? You think it's Russian barbaric way of thinking (It's Russian REALISTIC way of thinking, indeed)? Well, let's take Confucius. Not Casanova, not De Sade: Confucius. Three are the instincts of the humans: to eat, to drink, and, say, to have a good time in bed. These are the bases of all, even of love. Just the bases, of course, but without the bases, you fall. Yes, these are the instincts of all, and I am not an exception. I don't WANT to be an exception.

The ten years without sex? Fear, pain, rage, surely not virtue. Pathology, not physiology. Not for me. I loved my man, with my head, with my heart, with my you-know-what, with my belly, with ALL of myself. I loved when he "disrespcected" me, and if for any reason I could have made love with him no more, I would have allowed him to leave me, or to do it with other women, if he would have liked to live with me all the same, as brother and sister, and I'm sure he would have done the same with me. Because he TOLD me that. But it never happened. Many things happened, but not that.

One of the things I missed of the chats with my girlfriends (until we could start them again on the Web) was just the lack of that "barbaric way of thinking". Among us, not only we talked about love and sex, as all the self-respecting women, but we talked about it THAT way. Name the things with their names, don't dress the pig with satin, as often they do in the "West". After my first night with my man, they wanted to know if, in my opinion, Italians did it so "better". I didn't know about the other Italians, I said. But mine... I made a stretching, spread arms, eyes closed, as if I was just waking up in the morning, but with a heavenly smile on my face, and they all got the picture, and laughed. There was even Galina, the wife of Carlo, and she confirmed: even my own is not so bad... That's evident, another girl said, touching her swollen belly. And we all laughed again. Gàlia was pregnant of her little girl already, and her face showed beyond any doubt that she was happy about all the aspect of the issues: process and result. "Prozèss I resultàt"...

This does not mean that we were amoral. When I presented my man to my girlfriends, I warned them all: "Dièvushki, on mòy!" I said. Girls, he's mine. And they all were almost scorned by my remark: "No konyèchno!" they all said: sure, what do you think we are? He's yours, "sviatòe dèlo", holy deal! Who will touch him?

But I was never so sure, even after the marriage. My problem, not theirs. And not his.

Every now and then I accused him of coveting my girlfriends, and he took it as a game. But once he look at me seriously. I had told him again that he could "disrespect" my girlfriends at his will, even two at a time. And he sighed.

"I have to make you a confession."

"Have you disrespected my girlfriends?"

"No, but..."

"But you would like to do it! Two at a time!" I said. Well, it was human, A bit perverted, but human.

"In a sense..."

"Who!"

"Bortei..." he said. It was logical. She was not only nice, but exotic. Buriat mother, Russian father, a perfect mix of Mongolic and Slavic blood. Beautiful jet-black hair, enticing black almond eyes, but the cheekbones were not so edgy and the face not so full-moon-like, thanks to the father's genes. A though competitor for anyone...

"And the other is?"

"And the other is you."

I looked at him. He nodded, and he was not joking. It was not a request, just a confession of a sinful fantasy.

Sinful? Not so much, after all. ME and another woman, once in a lifetime... And what a woman! If I was at the same level, as a beauty, for him, that was more than a compliment...

"Really?" I asked. He nodded again. "Or you would like... only with her?" I inquired. He shook his head no.

"You and her, would be wonderful. Without you... I could not do it. It would be bad".

And I knew he was true, as always. That was the way he felt, really.

I smiled to him, started turning my hips around, chanting a vaguely oriental song from a famous comedy: "The girl prisoner in the Caucasus".

"Esli b'ya byl sultan, ya b'imel tryok jòn, i troinòiu krasotòy byl by okrujòn..." I sang. If I were a sultan I would have three wives, and i would be surrounded by a triple beauty...

"Oh no, three are too much!" he snorted. "Ah, spasì, Allah!" Ah, save me, Allah... Always from the comedy... I sit close to him.

"Is this the ONLY thing you have to confess to me?"

He poked his inch behind his upper incisives and snapped them with the inch's nails.

"Pust mnye bùdet pùsto!" he said. It was kind of a streetboys' swear, something like "let it be bad for me" ("if I lie", of course). I snorted. He was true, again. Nothing else to mention.

"Would you really like it? I could talk with her..." I told him. He blushed.

"Oh... No. Just if you WANT it. YOU are my wife. The one and only..."

I was not sure I would have like it. Bortei was a friend, and a wonderful woman. My man was my man, and I know how he was in bed: likely, he could satisfy both of us. And I would have not counted it as a cheating: I would have been there, he would have had my consent, and he would have made love with me too. But how could it be, to be in a bed with a woman? I was not a "lesbyànka"!

Anyway, I had the chance to visit Bortei in her house. She lived alone, in that period, her parents were in Buriatia for a family matter of her mother. Having studied Buddhism as a philosophy, Bortei gradually had embraced it as a religion. Seriously, no New Age stuff. Buriats were Buddhist for centuries, and Bortei always felt strongly her Asian roots.

Even her house was "Asian", if not "Buddhist". Not the usual Russian flat (although, for a Westerner, a Russian flat, with the carpets on the walls and things like that, seems quite "Asian" too). White wall, not crammed with furnitures, no wallpaper. There was a strange, relaxed, quite "nomadic" air. "I can stay, I can go". A fine place to stay in, all in all.

"So, Sashka... How the things go, with your husband?" she asked me.

"Well, how it goes... It's strange you ask me that..." I looked at ther. "He told me he would like to make love with you..."

"Oh, Sashka! I swear, I never teased him... Not a word..." she gasped, very upset. She was so afraid I was accusing her to tempt my man!

"I know, I know, let me talk... with you AND WITH ME!"

"Ah!" she breathed, and smiled. "Really?"

"Really!"

"And you?"

"I... I told him I could ask you!"

"And are you asking me?"

"Well... I don't know... I'm not sure..."

"Hm, honest answer..." She looked at me. "But you would be ready to do it. Because he asked you..."

"That means, I'm a fool?"

"No: that means you love him, a lot. And you would like to make him happy. That's a good thing. And I will tell you the truth: I would like to have your man in my bed. It must be good to belong to him, to have him inside. And I'm neither a nun, nor a Bodhisattva..."

A "Bodhisattva": for all I know, something between a monk and a saint, totally alien from any heartly pleasure... Well, she was not! Just like me!

"You can tell it to me. It's good to make love with him, Isn't it good?" she asked, calmly.

"Oh, yes, it's good..." I sighed, feeling meek and "fuckable" as any time I thought to have sex with my man. She smiled even more. Not jealous, not envious. Happy for me.

"But I can't do it..." she said, tranquil.

"Why? We are friends, it would be just once. I trust my husband, and I trust you..." I said, surprised. "Maybe your religion forbids it?"

"My religion teachs, that passions are bad beasts, and they are inside all of us. It would not be bad if it would be REALLY just once, the game of a night, a bit of pleasure between friends. Buddhism considers the sexual pleasure illusory, as all the rest, but not sinful. But are you SURE it would be so? I'm not..."

"No?"

"No. Your man loves you, and I am your friend. But things could even change. If he likes me already, to make love with me could increase this fire, not quench it. He would like to do it again, with me. And the same applies to me. We could fall in love with each other, become lovers, behind your back. And even if just one of us would fall in love with the other, that would cause unhappiness, to all of us." she said, calmly. We keep silently for a while, then I sighed.

"You're right." I admitted. "Then, what do we do?"

"Nothing," she smiled, shaking her head. "You told me nothing, and I told you nothing. Let it remain a fantasy, for all of us. It will be fine. And nobody will get hurt..."

"Bortei, I REALLY trust you, and my man. If you want... Let's do it..."

"Sashka, you are a good soul, maybe too much good for this world. You want to make your man happy, and now that you know I would like it, you would like to make me happy too. Even if you are not so convinced. You are a very good wife an a very good friend. And I don't want to risk your friendship for a pleasure I can do wihout. He is yours, for this life." she said, calm but determided. Then she smiled "I will wait for him in the next, if any..."

I quitted insisting. She was really right. She was so charming, with the childish charm of the oriental girl, but the inner strenght of the peoples of the steppes. Maybe her name was common in Buriatia, and the fact that it was the name of the beautiful and wise wife of Gengis Khan was just a coincidence, but a significant one... Would have been really enough, for my man, to possess her just one time, or one night?

And my man? I knew hou could feel a woman after have been under him. Satisfied, happy to be a female... And ready to be under him, again and again, and again, and again... He was a real "sàmez", nice and strong, besides a very good husband and a friend. Could Boltai accept to taste such an eartly delight just one, two, three times, in a single night?

Nothing to do: sex is sex, it's not a game, it's a serious stuff. To make love is not to see a movie together, something you can always remember with a smile, but with no serious consequences. It's easy to say "no strings attached": strings exist, and they "attach" by themselves. Always. Emotionally, at least. No need to get pregnant, or to get an ill...

Me and Bortei were standing, facing each other. I had said what I had to say, maybe even too much, and she had answered, as a Buddhist and, more than this, as a friend. A real good friend, wiser than me.

"Thank you, Bortei." I said. "Spazìba bolshòe." She looked at me, surprised.

"Why do you thank me?"

"You could take advantage of my... "good soul" to take away my man. To get a nice, Western male..."

"It's YOUR nice western male." she smiled. "Why should I take HIM? They are plenty, now. They come, more and more, and they all dream a Russian woman. A "Soviet" woman!" she snorted cheerfully: she was not "fully" Russian. "If I want, I can take one for me, even tomorrow morning. If he is nice, I can sleep with him. And if he is as good as your man, I could marry him. Anyway, I will have a good time, and I will not lose a friend... a good friend like you..."

I nodded, smiling. She was DEFINITELY wiser than me...

"Excuse me for my... indecent proposal..." I muttered. She shook her head no, smiling.

"It will be our secret!" she said, putting a finger across her lips. We snorted. We kissed each other, three times, traditionally, without any malice, and I went away.

I arrived at my home, tranquil. I was a bit sorry for my husband, I would have really liked to make him happy that way. But the more I thought, the more I saw that Bortei was right. How could we have looked at each other again as simple friends, after having made sex together? It doesn't work that way... Yes, Bortei would have always recalled the sex of my man inside, the hands of my man on her skin... And my man? The smell of Bortei, the moans of Bortei, the taste of Bortei (I mean THAT taste...)... It would have been embarrassing, to say the least. And the temptation to do it again... Maybe without me in between... At least for Bortei...

It was still quite early, my man was at work yet. I was alone at home. And the thought about "why not" (and there was a lot of "beacuse not") had a strange effect: it made me "see" how it could have been. If it had been just "the game of a night"... I saw my man who was possessing Bortei, and she was enjoying it... And this did not cause to me any impulse to kill both!

Because I thought to be there with them, naked as them, aroused as them... Yes, my man was penetrating her, but I knew that after that (and a bit of rest), he would have taken me... And I can't wait for it to be!

Yes, Bortei was right about it too: let it remain a fantasy... It will be good for all of us... And nobody will get hurt...

I laid on our bed, half-dressed yet, and kept fancing how could have been that innocent "game of a night"... Me, my man and Bortei on the same bed...

How could it start? Well, we could undress ourself, and then him... Kissing him here and there... Feeling his caresses on our skin, our hair... his strong, large, warm hands...

I would have asked Bortei, whether she would have liked to get my man inside first, as a kindness to the guest... or maybe we would have asked him, our "lord and master", to decide... I would have liked to see him taking Bortei first: to see "from outside" how he was, when he possessed a woman... He would have done it, and I would have watched him, more and more excited, touching myself, my breasts, and my sex... He would have taken Bortei from behind, as a real master, and she would have let him do, subjugated, weeping, wincing, meowing, as the Asian she-cat she was...

She would have begged him not to sodomize her, out of fear to feel too much pain, that way... feeling how long and big was the sex of my man... He would have assured her, he didn't like that kind of things at all, and she would have relaxed, abandoning herself to him even more... Inciting him to take her deeper, stronger, faster...