"Isn't the language barrier annoying?" He asked.
"No, not at all, they just smile at you, and it's cute," Nathan told him.
Brad laughed.
Yet, he was incredibly interested.
Chapter Three
Brad had continued his work week and yet he couldn't get over his Sunday with Nathan. He couldn't believe that the idea of getting a mail order bride was so tempting. He had always thought that things like that were weird. Yet, he was drawn to the idea of honey.
He texted Nathan, "I feel crazy for considering this, but I'm thinking about getting a bride."
Brad laughed at himself and looked around is the office. He felt lost. He received a text, "Do it!"
Nathan sent him the website where he had found his wife. Brad typed it into his computer and was immediately bombarded with pictures of foreign women. He would have the option of choosing whatever he desired. Brad frowned when he was prompted to by the membership in order to chat with girls before he paid them.
He sighed and pulled out his credit card. He hoped that he wouldn't get a security breach.
Once he was done with that he started going to the women. Eventually, he landed on a brown haired beauty who was Russian. He raised his eyebrow. She was smiling brilliantly into the camera and looked like she was thin and curvy around the bust area. Brad didn't mind whether they were real or fake to be honest.
He stared at the picture for several minutes before he snapped out of his thoughts and looked through her profile. He could tell that she had put her biography through a translation application. It was horribly translated into English.
She didn't really have anything that stuck out to him. Other than similar music tastes. He wondered if she had any more pictures. He wanted to know if he could deal with having a girlfriend with a bland personality as long as she was pretty.
Brad laughed at himself, he sounded extremely shallow and thought that this was how he ended up with an ex-wife that ends up cheating on you. He sighed to himself. He couldn't help but think about her the last couple days. He missed the security and companionship.
He remembered during the early days of their relationship they would cuddle on the couch and watch movies. She also adored decorating and would force him to help her choose paint colors. He smiled to himself. Even if there were some annoyances, he thought that he still had a great time. Other than finding her with another man. That was horrible, but he was getting over it.
Brad went back to the task at hand and decided to send the woman a message.
He simply asked her how she was doing and then went back to work. Two days had passed since he had sent the message before he received a reply. During that time, he had decided that he was an idiot for romanticizing buying a bride online. However, he couldn't keep back the excitement when he saw the message waiting in his inbox.
"How are you?" She asked him.
He stared at the message; it was extremely bare and yet the excitement didn't go away. He looked at the name on her profile and put it into a translator. Vasilisa.
"I think you're beautiful, sorry, I don't mean to be so forward" Brad messaged her back. He cringed as soon as he hit send. He realized that he was being incredibly boring. But it didn't seem to matter because over the next two months he was talking to her daily. He was getting nervous. She had told him that she had been talking to several other men, and he wanted her to be with him. So he took the leap and bought her.
There was a sense of guilt at buying Vasilisa; he thought that it was cheapening her. She told him that half of the money would be going to her family. He felt a little sad at that too.
It seemed like an eternity. Brad had done the best that he could to keep himself busy. However, the longer he was out of contact, doubts started to pile up in his mind. Did he just give away a large sum of money to a scam? He was supposed to receive an email from the company to alert him when he would be able to pick up Vasilisa.
Eventually, he finally heard from the company, and he would be expected to pick Vasilisa up in a couple days from the airport. Brad couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.
He felt like he could finally relax and let the excitement course through his body.
Chapter Three
The day was finally here. Brad was going to meet his Russian dream. That morning he woke up almost two hours too early and ended up cleaning his apartment in order to kill some time. He was incredibly impatient. It was worse than waiting for the news that he had fallen into a scam.
He decided that he couldn't wait any longer and instead decided to get to the airport early. He was practically pacing at the terminal. He was once again thinking about his ex-wife. If she knew that he had just bought a new wife she would call him pathetic. He looked at the wall; he felt like he was pathetic and desperate. He had laughed at Nathan and yet he wasn't any better. Brad sighed.
"You're waiting for your wife?"
Brad jumped and swung to look at an elderly woman. She smiled at him knowingly.
"Uh, yes Ma'am," Brad told her, hoping she wouldn't try to continue the conversation.
"I can tell, my husband used to get just as nervous when he was waiting for me" She sighed dreamily.
Brad smiled at her, but on the inside he was irritated. He didn't want to talk to this woman, and she was making assumptions that hit too close to home.
Thankfully people started to pile out of the terminal, and now Brad would be seeing his bride any second. It was as if all the noise echoing around him faded to nothing. His sights landed on a beautiful woman that he recognized from pictures. He let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding.
This woman was the girl he had chosen.
She was tall and despite radiating confidence seemed out of place. He walked up to the line waiting for her to get to him.
"Vasilisa," Brad said her name and she paused.
When she laid eyes on him, she smiled brilliantly. It caused his chest to break out in nervousness.
She started to walk towards him, and he watched her graceful trek.
"H-hello," He told her in butchered Russian, he thought that it would be good to learn as much as he could of the language. She seemed surprised but smiled and greeted him enthusiastically.
He smiled back at her, but he didn't attempt to do anything else. He wanted to make sure she was comfortable. Brad led her back to his car, and the two went to his home.
He watched her enthusiastically as she looked around her new home. He tried to tell her that they could move into a bigger place, and she looked like she vaguely understood. He felt a tinge of sadness, he didn't think that a language barrier would be this much of a problem. But he was just happy that he would have someone that he could love and care for.
He had a guest room, so he decided to set up her bags in there. He would feel weird about forcing her to stay with someone she barely knows.
She smiled at him as he laid her bags down and he smiled back. He felt like a dope.
He had gone grocery shopping the day before and went to the kitchen to cook her some food. She seemed confused but accepted snacks and water when he offered it.
Brad couldn't really believe that this was happening. It felt like a dream. In some ways, he just didn't know what to do. It was odd. He wanted to laugh at himself. He desperately hoped that everything would work out.
Chapter Four
Vasilisa was a girl who grew up in a very poor household. She was young and cared greatly for her family. She sighed and left the man who was sleeping on the bed. She didn't know how she could stand having gross old men hump her until they collapse from exhaustion. But she was making money, and that is all that mattered to her.
She felt like she was avoiding death. The dark haired beauty was in dangerous situations often with her occupation. But it was worth it to ensure that her siblings would have something to eat.
She didn't bother with fixing her makeup. She would be home soon enough, and when she did, she would be able to
wash her body from her filthy deed. She felt like she couldn't get clean on days like this. Which were most of her days?
She came home to her small house and quickly went to the bathroom that she was surprised they had. Thankfully they had running water. She was sure that her Mother was at work, and her siblings were in school. Vasilisa knew she couldn't take long, so she quickly scrubbed her body and turned off the water before she sat on the bathroom floor.
Her Mother knew what she was doing. But none acknowledged it. It was better not to say anything. Besides that, it was legal and normal for women of the night to be in Russia.
Vasilisa needed to make more money, and she needed to do it quick. She was just careful about her clients. The more money that they had, the greater risk.
She was too scared to seek work at a brothel. She didn't want to get involved with drugs; she knew that if she did then she wouldn't be able to help her family.
She came out of the bathroom and got dressed before she sought out some food. Crackers that she kept under her bed. Her Mother would be back soon before she has to go off to her second job. Vasilisa wasn't looking forward to seeing her, despite her love for her Mother, she was a bit overbearing.
As she thought this the door opened, and she walked out of her room, her Mother was busily stirring the soup for when it would be ready later that night.
She looked over her shoulder to stare at Vasilisa for a second, "You need to find a husband."
Vasilisa sighed, she probably should have stayed in her room, "I know Mother."
Her Mother gave her one more glance before she grabbed her stuff and left the house. She was too busy to pester her daughter any further.
Vasilisa sighed. She was frustrated. How was she supposed to start a family herself if she couldn't even take care of the one she was currently a part of? She sighed and decided to clean up the house.
She quickly realized that there wasn't much to do around the house and still had several hours before she would have to go and pick up her youngest sibling from kindergarten. The woman decided to go and catch up on sleep.
Her day proceeded as it normally did after that.
Except her friend was talking to her.
"You can sell yourself to a man to be his bride, you'll be taken care of, and you'll be able to send money to your family," Anna told her.
Vasilisa shook her head, "That sounds too good to be true."
Anna nodded, and continued to drag her to the library, "I'm telling you, this is the real deal, you'll see!"
Vasilisa sighed. She didn't need a get rich scheme; she needed certainty. She needed to make money.
"I think I'm fine with the way things are..." Vasilisa tried again, but Anna wasn't hearing any of it. Before Vasilisa knew it, they were in the library, and Anna was logging into the computer. It took a few moments for it to load, but once it did Anna immediately began logging into a website.
"Look! All these men want the perfect wife, and they're guaranteed to have money."
Vasilisa laughed and shook her head. Her friend was always coming up with wild schemes.
"Here, look at all the men who have been talking to me" Anna pointed to the messages.
Vasilisa looked over them. Most of them seemed like they were just from lonely people, but there were a couple that was creepy. She stared at the internet page until she was satisfied.
"I'll make you a page right now. Just try it" Anna told her.
Vasilisa brushed the hair out of her face and sighed. She knew that Anna wouldn't let up, so she gave in. It's not like she actually had to use the profile.
Anna smiled and laughed in victory before she started making the profile. Vasilisa even began to laugh as they filled it out. It all seemed so cheesy.
After that day, she had completely forgotten about it. Until about a month later she was bored and waiting for Anna to get out of class. Vasilisa was waiting in the Library and started browsing the web before she decided to check her profile. She had so many messages that she felt overwhelmed.
She slowly started sorting through the message. She was basing it off of how attracted she felt to the men. She slowly read through the comments, some were creative (from what she could translate), others were suggestive. She decided to talk to the simplest ones.
After that, she quickly logged out so that Anna didn't see what she was getting up to. That is all that Vasilisa needed was her friend gloating at her. She sighed.
Vasilisa spent the next couple of trips to the library on the website. She was rather captivated by one man in particular. He was from America and was sweet. Although there were plenty of other men, who would be more than willing.
She sighed in nervousness. She never thought that she would sell herself to the highest bidder. Was she really ready to be chained to a man, and in a foreign country none the less? Vasilisa wasn’t sure, and she wouldn’t have been.
However, one day, while she was entertaining a high paying customer. Things started getting out of hand.
“How about you lay off a bit, let me do the work,” Vasilisa told him.
The man laughed, and continued his drunken pawing. She sighed, getting frustrated that the man was becoming a little too rough. She pushed him away a little bit. The response she received was one of violence. Her vision went white, and the sound in her ears disappeared for a moment. Then she felt the sting. She was shocked that she had just been struck.
Vasilisa tried to roll away. But the man grabbed onto her and shoved her into the bed. He held on to her roughly, and fear started to come over her.
Her struggle started to turn more frenzied, and it angered her nameless captor who was once a client. He went to strike her again, but she wiggled free from his loosened grip. Rolling over she grabbed a phone book and swung with all of her might. The man collapsed in a heap.
Vasilisa quickly scooped up all of her clothing and put on what she could to be deemed decent and ran from the motel. Tears were streaming down her face. She looked at her watched and realized that it was still too early to go home. Her family would be there.
Vasilisa had no other choice, so she went to the park that was close to her house and laid low. She was paranoid and felt unsafe. But she stayed until she was sure that her family would all be at work or school. She went inside the house and breathed a sigh of relief.
She quickly went into the shower and washed off her body. Once she was done with that, she went and ate some crackers. The routine was the only thing that was keeping her from having a meltdown. She looked around her small empty room and decided that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead, she went to the library.
She read the message that she had received from a man named Brad. It was like she was in a dream. She told him that she was going to marry someone and mentioned that she had received many different offers. Before she knew it, he had bid on her, and she allowed him to win.
The company sent her information; she would have to fill out so that she could go to America. Vasilisa stared at it. She felt numb.
Chapter Five
Vasilisa arrived in America in the morning. Although, the time zone, was different, and she felt utterly exhausted. She was also nervous and felt like she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
She started drifting back to her conversation that she had with her Mother. She was distraught to hear the news that her daughter was going to America to get married. Vasilisa didn't even know how she had explained it to her Mother. Her siblings weren't happy with her either. They all cried together sad to see that their older sister was leaving.
Anna had jumped in joy and congratulated her. At least someone was happy. The company that she had been with was going to send twenty percent of their earnings to her family. She was at least happy that her family would be fed for a couple months, and hopefully her new husband would be charitable.
She was brought out of her thoughts hearing her name. She looked up and met eyes with the man that she only knew from pictures and a computer scr
een. She smiled at him. She was nervous.
They met up, and he took her bags. He attempted to talk to her in her native tongue, and she could barely understand what he was saying. She could appreciate his effort, though. Vasilisa thought that things were going well so far. She was still nervous, but at least she knew that this man existed and seemed to be honest.
"I guess this is my new life," She said to herself. Brad looked at her and said something in English, but she just smiled at him.
Her new life was interesting to say the least. She thought that she would have to do more things if she were to be this man's new bride. But he hadn't asked her to do anything. She wasn't required to do the dishes, or clean. He hadn't even attempted to kiss her and ask her for sex. Vasilisa didn't know what to make from all of this. She thought that she was here to fulfill his need, and yet she was treated like a guest.
Adored By The Rancher: Mail Order Brides Box Set Page 43
