by Purple Hazel
When arriving at the room, though, Tatyana instinctively waited in the hallway to let Ludmilla enter alone. That had been her hard-learned lesson from earlier experiences with inebriated customers; but in the back of her mind she knew she needn’t fear anything from her handsome guest. “Lyev” was certainly no threat. “He” just needed a warm bath and a long winter night’s sleep—like a big cuddly bear cub. That’s what Ludmilla seemed to be to Tatyana. And oh, how inviting and exotic that hot bathtub looked to Ludmilla when she entered! She’d sink into the water and soak away her stiffness from the freezing cold walk through the snow. She could already imagine how wonderful it would feel.
“There, you see? I found you some clothes…and they will probably fit just fine in the morning,” Tatyana said, smiling. Ludmilla looked over at the bed and saw a rather nice men’s suit; all cleaned and laid out on top of the blankets for her to put on the next day. Ludmilla simply gave out a “hmmmph,” then added “Rather nice…thanks, Tatyana (hiccup).” And with that, Ludmilla turned ’round to bid the beautiful girl good night.
“Dobroy nochi…see you in the morning,” said Ludmilla as she reached for the door knob simultaneously with Tatyana. But the young woman startled away when their hands met on the tarnished metal. This surprised them both; and the two looked at each other with embarrassment. Meanwhile, Ludmilla—always keen to details—wondered why she seemed so jumpy.
Tatyana froze with her hands at her side, looking down, and hoping her spooked reaction hadn’t been too off-putting. But as she raised her eyes, she now found herself staring briefly into Ludmilla’s now partially-exposed cleavage! Ludmilla didn't even realize her robe was falling open as she bent for the doorlatch. Luckily Tatyana got only a brief glance before looking up into her eyes.
“Were those…?” she started to wonder, but frankly Tatyana couldn't really tell what she saw. It was a mere split-second flash of skin, then it was over. After that both girls stood silent. It was Ludmilla who spoke up first following the uncomfortable pause. She had no idea what had just happened. Hadn’t processed it completely.
“Well then…I believe I’ll enjoy this hot bath and…um…well I guess (hiccup)…that’s it then.” She smiled awkwardly; not knowing what Tatyana had almost seen. Tatyana’s eyes were now riveted to hers. She seemed somewhat nervous.
Soon, though, she answered with “Right…um…dobroy nochi Lyev,” then she backed into the hallway. Ludmilla nodded and smiled as she latched the door, still oblivious to the situation. Remembering her manners she hollered through the door, “Thanks for the bath!” and her lovely hostess merely laughed, “Pazhalooysta!” She didn’t leave immediately, though.
Tatyana now processed what she thought she'd just seen through “Lyev's” robe. Were they breasts? If not, then what had she just seen? Muscles? Possibly. But how would she know? She'd never gazed upon a grown man's bare chest. Didn’t know what one looked like! Thus, she returned to the dining hall and began cleaning up for the night while Boris Valentin finished his bottle of vodka and staggered back to his room. By then she was shrugging it off as a mere trick of the light. After all, the room was only illuminated by candlelight. Lyev seemed to be quite a healthy lad. “Perhaps that’s what a bare-chested man really looks like!” she laughed privately before heading off to bed.
However, now alone inside her room, Ludmilla snapped out of her hazy inebriation rather rapidly once she stripped out of her furry black robe and eased down into the hot tub full of water. What an incredible sensation! She even worried for a moment about having to go relieve herself! The water felt so good she was like a chicken in a pot. It was her first bath in her entire life and boy did she realize just what she’d been missing. There was soap, too!
Yes, soap was sitting in a little dish next to the tub. It smelled horrible, but when applied, it was highly effective in dissolving years and years of grime. Soon that bathtub was milky gray with soot and soil…and when she rose from the swill quite a while later, she could look down and see the whitest most beautiful skin on her thighs and hips. “So that’s what color I am,” chuckled Ludmilla—realizing she was no longer slurring her speech and best of all those annoying hiccups had gone.
The room was well-heated by a small iron stove in the corner; and that stove had a single pipe that ran up the wall, then connected to a hole near the ceiling. It was just like the one they had at home, only about one third the size. Clever, thought Ludmilla. By her standards, this room was like a guest suite inside a royal palace! And the bed? Oh, it was fresh and clean. Lumpy, but still a vast improvement on her old straw-stuffed mattress at home—the one she took over from the very last older brother when he’d run off to join the army and left Ludmilla alone to tend the farm.
After squatting to relieve herself in the chamber pot over in the corner, Ludmilla put back on the robe and collapsed on the bed, shoving the men's clothing aside. “Nice suit,” she muttered to herself, “Apparently some poor fool must have had to flee in a hurry one night and left his pretty clothes.” Then she snickered. Chances were it would fit just fine in the morning; and it was clearly a nicer outfit than she’d ever received as hand-me-downs from her older brothers! She’d look forward to trying it on; but for now, she just needed to sleep, and her weary mind was fading already when her head hit the pillow. Heaving a few deep sighs, she fell fast asleep like a baby nuzzling into her mother’s bosom. In a matter of moments, she was snoring peacefully and dreaming of the next day.
But after a while she came awake again, thinking about something she might have missed earlier—something she’d noticed but not fully processed at the time. Why did she pull away? thought Ludmilla one more time. Why the hesitation? Then she pushed it from her mind. Tomorrow, after all, would be her next opportunity to see lovely Tatyana once again.
Chapter 5
Belgorod
In the morning Ludmilla awakened slowly, only to find herself baffled and confused. Like anyone who’s ever spent the night in a different bed, in a different place, and then awoke the next morning to begin wondering, Where the hell am I? Ludmilla came to in a foggy haze.
Gradually she began to put things together though; and in a few moments it became clearer. This was a room at an inn; and she was sleeping in a bed…wrapped up in a bearskin robe. What’s more, the room was now freezing cold, and her first reaction was to burrow underneath the blankets to sleep some more. This allowed her to doze a little while longer, but eventually the dusty fur from the robe made her sneeze again. First it bristled up to tickle her nose as she snuggled into the blankets, then after a while sure enough—Aaaaachoo!
So now she was awake…no use trying to get back to sleep. “Might as well get out of bed and go use the chamber pot,” she figured. Her bladder was about ready to burst anyway from all the ale, the soup, and the vodka she’d consumed the night before. But burrrrr! It was so incredibly cold! The fire in her little stove had gone out, and as she scampered across the icy floor still bleary-eyed from sleep she almost immediately stubbed her toe on her own work boots!
How did these get here? she wondered. Someone had apparently dried them by the fire the night before and brought them up to her room. But they’d also laid out some more wood for her to build her own fire when she awakened. It must have been Bogdan. Couldn’t have been Tatyana, she speculated. Clearly the girl had been rather hesitant about being in the room alone with her the night before. Ludmilla remembered that and it still befuddled her.
Then it occurred to her that the pretty girl most understandably thought Ludmilla was a man and that must have made her pull back suddenly when their hands almost touched on the doorlatch. This made her chuckle as she lit a new fire in the stove and then went over to the chamber pot to do her business. Squatting over the little pot, with the bearskin robe spread out around her legs, she looked far less than manly, even if she didn’t look very lady-like either. Nevertheless…today, she’d continue to be “Lyev,” just like she’d always been, ever since she’d made that bol
d decision as a young teenager. Tatyana would have to know her as “Lyev” too; and that’s how it had to be (for the time being).
Ludmilla quickly dressed in the gentleman’s suit left out for her the night before. It fit rather well, though it was quite snug in the buttocks and hips. The pants length was just right, and the rubakha was billowy enough to hide her bosom. This by the way had been a growing problem for her in her mid-teens. Whenever she began to outgrow her shirts, the first thing her brothers noticed were her boobs poking out.
* * * *
“Tie those things down, durachit!” the mean brother once yelled at her. It had been years before while they were hoeing a field. “Otherwise, we’ll have to milk you,” the evil boy then added viciously. Ludmilla in response paused work and stared at him while the cruel words sunk in. At the moment she was very hot and sweaty from all the exertion, but when she looked down to see her shirt soaked with sweat and her breasts clearly outlined by the wet material, she realized what he was referring to.
The other brothers began to laugh. Ludmilla was not amused. But when she moved forward to strike her brother for making such a crude comment the coward turned to run, knowing full well he’d have no problem outdistancing her. Ludmilla was a big strong girl even back then, but certainly not built for sprinting. She didn't need to be, though. In fact, she had no intention of chasing him at all. She just wanted him to take off running.
She even waited a moment or two for him to get a good lead on her while she calmly reached down and picked up a stone about the size of a walnut. Then, measuring the distance and angle carefully Ludmilla wound up to throw it, while her brothers winced in anticipation—remembering quite well the night she beaned that snarling wolf in the midsection from fifty yards away.
The poor fool. When the evil brother got about ten yards he looked back to taunt her some more only to see what she was doing! He begged her not to throw it for a moment, then turned again to sprint from the field, stumbling a bit on the uneven ground but eventually gaining his feet for a terror-stricken run to safety. It was no use. When he got about thirty yards—”SMACK”—the stone hit him right in the back of the head and he fell to the ground with a big KERTHUMP. In fact he lay there unconscious—barely moving for a time—while the other brothers stood dumbfounded. Ludmilla looked back at her brothers for a few moments and they remained silent as a church…eyes wide open in anxious fear. Apparently no one wanted to be her next target.
But Ludmilla knew she’d made her point, and went back to work. There’d be no further violence. As she did so, one brother commented humorously, “He just won’t learn will he, eh Lyev?” Then the other brothers snickered and everyone went right back to tilling the field. Ludmilla meanwhile picked up where she left off, turning the soil and spreading fresh seeds from a bag slung around her waist. Nothing more was said about the incident the rest of the day.
And what of the evil brother? They simply left him there to sleep it off until he regained consciousness. Not that they’d miss him—if he never woke up that is. Frankly he’d been whining all day about the heat, to the annoyance of everyone. Did a lot more complaining than working, to be honest. Everyone was better off just leaving him there. Later on if Father asked about the lump on his head, they’d only say “he fell,” or something vague like that, and there’d be no use in him trying to protest. Nope, if Father found out what happened he would have whipped them both for messing around when they were supposed to be working.
* * * *
Ludmilla came downstairs in her new suit, quite pleased with herself. This was the cleanest she’d felt in years, and she was liking the new sensations of clean-smelling skin and fresh clothes. It was something she’d never felt before! She felt refreshed.
But upon arriving in the dining hall, no one was about, not even good old Boris who’d bent her ear the evening before. Taught her about his business and filled her head with new concepts the likes of which she’d never been exposed to before. Meanwhile the sun was clearly high in the sky outside. She could see bright sunlight streaking through the greasy frosted windows and knew she must have slept through breakfast. She’d never done anything like that back on the farm. Father would have beaten her with a switch!
Making her way toward the smell of fresh bread baking, she went to the kitchen where she found a middle-aged man of about forty years old working away on a ball of dough making loaves of bread. It smelled delicious. “This must be Bogdan, Tatyana’s father,” she guessed, “the man who welcomed me into the tavern yesterday.” Suddenly she was going to be addressing a grown man she didn’t know, and it made her nervous, but she bit her lip and launched right in.
“Dobroyo Utro. I am Ludmil-…I mean my name is Lyev,” she blurted out, perhaps a little louder than she needed to which revealed her apprehensiveness. The man didn’t look up, only kept on working on the dough, kneading it with the precision of an experienced baker and forming it into a loaf to place on a baking pan with three or four others. Apparently he was either expecting a big crowd that day or he was preparing loaves of bread for sale at the market. “Maybe that’s where Tatyana is,” she guessed. The man merely belted out cheerfully “Da…Dobroyo Utro…how did you sleep, my boy?”
Ludmilla liked him immediately. He was all business and working hard at his task. Pleasant, but nevertheless focused totally on his work. That’s what she imagined men should be like—that’s what she tried to be like, too—and he seemed to be a man she’d enjoy getting to know. Ludmilla replied, “Da…the room was very nice. I’m sorry I slept so late, but I was so comfortable, you know?”
The man still didn’t look up but he chuckled proudly. “Ah, then Tatyana took good care of you, no?” Ludmilla snickered and replied affirmatively, “Mmm-hmm.” The man looked up for only a brief second but not right at her, only gestured with a flour-speckled finger toward the bar area next to her, saying, “there’s some bread and cheese if you’re hungry. Or if you can wait…I’ve got more in the oven right now.” Then he looked back down at his work and finished placing the bread loaf onto the baking pan.
Wiping his hands on an already quite filthy apron, the man then turned to open a big oven constructed out of stone with an iron door. Grabbing a cloth, he grasped the handle of it and opened it up while simultaneously snatching a long stick with a flat wooden plate attached to the end. With this tool, he scooped underneath the hot loaves already baking and checked each one to see if it was browned. Then he slid them aside to make room for the new loaves he’d formed and pushed them in next to the others. Shutting the door again, and blinking from the heat which blasted his face while he was shoving loaves aside, the man said proudly, “Not much longer. I give you fresh bread in a little while. You wait, okay?”
Ludmilla chirped humorously, “Da!” Then the man wiped his hands on his dirty apron once more and grabbed his mixing bowl to start another batch of dough. Hard worker, this fellow, thought Ludmilla. No wonder he never had time to clean that filthy dining hall. She almost wanted to ask him right then and there if he could use a handyman or some help come April after planting season began. Ludmilla knew she could convince him; but a suggestion from someone he trusted would make more sense.
The man looked up and made eye contact with her after a few minutes—once he got the next batch of dough mixed up and began kneading it meticulously. “So…Lyev…how long will you be staying with us, young man?” However, Ludmilla had by then grabbed some goat cheese and crusty bread which she had to flick winter bugs off of before eating. “God, this place needs a thorough cleaning!” she mused privately.
With her cheeks stuffed full of food, she replied by holding up an index finger and nodding humbly. “One more nigh’n,” she muttered, while she tried to get the food down. Bogdan grinned. “One more night, eh?” he asked. “Good then. I'll send you with Tatyana today to the market, yes? You’ll help with the shopping. She said you're a very nice boy.”
Wow, what an offer! Ludmilla nodded enthusiastically, still c
hewing and swallowing her food. Bogdan smiled again, then looked down at his work. He added, “It’s beautiful outside…go see the town if you like. Help my daughter carry the bread. And also…I believe you have goods to sell, my daughter tells me. Is that so?” Ludmilla finished swallowing the salty cheese and replied, “Nyet. I'll just go see the town with Tatyana and help with the bread. So, you mean you sell bread there…and ale, too?” The topic had somehow turned to business.
Bogdan replied with a hint of curiosity in his tone, “Da…we sell ale. Occasionally. And by the way, Tatyana tells me you brew it as well. Also says you are quite the hard worker. You help your father with the farm, no?” Bogdan was clearly impressed with what he’d heard about her. It occurred to Ludmilla that he and Tatyana had likely been up for hours already and therefore had plenty of time to talk before she made it downstairs.
She answered confidently, “Mmm-Hmm…brothers all gone off to war…run off to join the army…it’s just me and Father now.” Bogdan gave out a big “hmmmph!” and muttered, “Good son,” as if to himself but still quite audible nevertheless. Ludmilla certainly appreciated the compliment! However, truth be told, it gave her pangs of guilt knowing that Father was alone back at the farm, possibly wondering where she was. Then again, he’d likely guess she was outside working since it was a sunny day. Come bed time that night, he’d probably drink himself into a stupor and pass out in his chair. Then he’d fall asleep, nodding off ’til morning or waking up to go relieve himself…staggering off to bed assuming Ludmilla was fast asleep. In fact, he’d follow that winter routine pretty much every day for a full week most likely—before he’d even notice her missing.
