Chapter One - My Maria

“Thank you, Maria. Please tell Dimitri I accept his terms and I’d like to proceed with the contract.”

Dimitri Patanoff understood enough English that he was smiling before his translator, Maria Chernova, got it all out. We had a deal. A good deal. A multi multi million-dollar deal, approved by the United States Government as well has his, the Russian Federation. A subsidiary of mine was going to supply his company with drivetrains for agricultural tractors. It seems quality was slipping in some areas of the manufacturing process, mostly with state sponsored subcontractors, and they weren’t going to take his name down with them. The tires may fall off the damned things, but the engines would still be running and the transmissions still turning the axles on them when it happened. His company was all about the drivetrain being guaranteed.

“Maria,” Dimitri spoke quickly to her, in Russian, causing her to smile, and the only words I picked up were happy and dinner.

“Mr. Danner, my employer has asked that I take you to dinner, as he has plans and must meet with family members tonight. It would be an honor, sir, if you will allow it.”

“Of course, Maria. Of course.” We stood, I thanked Mr. Patanoff for his cooperation in our endeavor, and shook his hand before he left.

“You have some fun, Mr. Danner,” he said in very broken English, then started laughing and walked out.

“He knows a little bit of English, but not enough to do business. Enough to maybe get into trouble, as the Americans would say, but not enough to get back out. In any case, Mr. Danner, I would like to…”

I interrupted her. “Maria, you have already assured me that I should call you Maria, right?” She nodded her agreement. “Can you call me Rob? Please?” She nodded again, smiling brightly. “This is our third meeting, and to be honest, I was going to ask you out for dinner last time I was here, but toward the end of the meeting you had the phone call and told us you had to leave. If I’d asked you then, would you have gone out with me? Like maybe on a date?”

“No, I would not have. That phone call you are remembering, though, was an undoing of sorts. I most assuredly would now, if you were inclined to ask, though. I’d rather that than take you out at my employer’s behest, actually, Rob.”

“Maria Chernova, will you please be my date tonight for dinner, and maybe some music and a dance afterwards, if you can help find us some?”

“That would please me to no end, Robert Danner. I would be more than happy to accompany you on a ‘date’,” she said, making quotes with her fingers. “And I will share more on my story, kind sir. If you had asked me last year, after our first meeting, I would have said ‘yes’. I actually hoped you would, as I was, and yes, I still am, quite drawn to you. I really wished you had, now, as it would have saved me from a disaster in my life, the likes of which if I experience again, I will only accept dates from other girls.” She giggled a cute little giggle. “I promise more on that later, but only if you desire a funny, albeit tumultuously heartbreaking story of a young woman being used by a very gay man, very deep in his closet, to hide his relationship with an extremely high-ranking government official.” I looked at her with a frown. She nodded. “Very sad, but very true. Come, Mr. Danner. Rob. Date me.” Her smile lit up the room.

She took me to a very fine restaurant which had an ensemble playing light dinner music, then a few musicians joined in afterwards, at about nine o’clock local time. The band, which was quite accomplished, played nice classical dancing music, both Russian and American big band and waltzes. There were several songs I’d never heard before, but I really liked them. I asked Maria to help me find them later as a personal favor to me if she could. I told her I’d make it worth her while, but she assured me I had already done that, had made it worth her while, and much more, and that she’d be more than happy to help.

She was a very good dancer. I asked her about it, but all I could get out of her was ‘school’. She learned in ‘school’. I dropped the subject and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. This lady was prettier every time I looked at her. An hour or so into our dancing, she asked me the ultimate question, for her, and possibly for me, but she was the one who asked it.

“Rob, when do you think you might be back? I know you do not make the parts. I know you do not fix the parts. Will you be coming back, or is Maria on what you might call a one nighter?”

“Maria, if you want me to come back, for Maria, I will. If you want me to send for you to visit me at my home, I will. If you think this is a one-night stand and I’m going to ply you with vodka, have hot mad passionate sex with you, and run away to safety back home, you are sadly, if not badly, mistaken. As a matter of fact, I’m not going to have sex with you, ever. I won’t do that. I don’t do that. At least not anymore. I did it a couple of times, unknowingly. Maria, you asked when I might be back. Do you want a second date?” She nodded. “Do you have anyone else, Maria?” She shook her head. “You did, though, you thought?” She nodded. “If I leave here with plans for a second date, I won’t see anyone else. Can you say the same?” She nodded and right on cue, she kissed me.

“Yes. You are one-woman man?” she asked. I nodded. “I am one-man woman. This should work out very well. Please tell me you will come back soon, Rob. You… You see, you were out of reach for me, as the American. The businessman. I thought you would not want to see me. That you would not want to date me. Not as a serious concern in any case. Then I was caught up in the drama of the Foreign Affairs Department. Affairs is right, too. I should have known, but… In any case, it was not to be. He was nice, for a while, but… Anyway, to know you would ask me then, and to know you ask me now, changes things. To me, in fact it changes almost everything. You are a nice man and I like how you talk to people and treat people.”

“Maria, if I tell you the truth, I’m showing my cards too early. If I say nothing you will think I don’t think you’re special, but may I be honest and still be able to try for your affections?” She nodded. “Maria, you are the most beautiful woman, I think, I’ve ever spoken to. I’m not being dramatic, and I’m not trying to fill you full of fluff. Your gorgeous red hair, your pretty face, your attractive slender neck, your voluptuous figure, your longer than life legs, the way you move when you walk in your high heels, everything womanly about you is wonderful and enticing and more than I’ve ever seen in one place. Do you ever get vacation time off?”

“Yes, Rob. Of course. What are you asking?”

“Would you come home with me? Visit with me and stay at my ranch and see if we enjoy spending time together? Get to know each other? I’ll bring you back in a week or two, depending on your vacation time, and maybe stay a few days and we can talk about it.”

“Diving in quickly and deeply, are we not?”

“It’s the easiest way to get used to the water. Think about it, please. I’ll stay for a couple more days if you like. That will give you a chance to think it over and please, if you think it’s too early, say so. Say ‘later’. Say anything, but say something. Something besides, ‘no’, please. Your voice is also one of those things I admire. Belay that. Maria, I’ll be honest. Your voice is one of your many attributes I’m enchanted with.”

“Come, Rob. I will take you to your hotel. I have a bit of work to do tomorrow, but I will take off early after I talk with Dimitri. He knows I like you. He does, too, by the way. He told me you mentioned something after the last meeting. ‘A shame she got that call’, he told me later he heard you say. I had to decipher it as he got a couple of words wrong, but just the same, he knows.” As we drove through the city, she asked me, “Do you have any questions about me, Rob. Anything you need to know before we have the dating process?”

“Yes. Many things. I will assume you are a girl.” She grinned, then giggled, and nodded. “Parents?”

She shook her head. “I lost them when I was young. They were in the wrong place at a bad time in the south and were caught in an explosion. They were at a conference in a school and did not make it out of a terrorist attack. Chechen rebels.”

“Siblings?”

“Sister. Twin. Fraternal twin. She does not have like me the red hair of my mother, but instead the blonde hair of my father. We look a bit similar, but she is different, too.”

“Where is she?”

“She serves in the Russian Navy. She is assigned in St. Petersburg.”

“Are you two very close?”

“Mostly. As much as sisters can be, maybe? We have different lives, and different views, but we love each other. I love her anyway. She is all I have left of our family. I hope she feels the same.” We pulled up to the hotel. She was going to get out, to help me out, as would be customary if she was the employee providing transportation. In this case, I reached out and held her arm.

“No need, princess. Stay there.” I got out, went around to her side, opened the door and with my hand on her neck, pulled her to me for a kiss. A kiss full of lightning and vibration and color, the likes of which I do not before remember feeling… Ever.

“Rob? Oh, my God. What was that?” She pulled me back to her by my lapels. The second kiss was similar, without the vibration. “I will go with you. Please be careful with me, Rob, but I will tell Dimitri I need to go with you for my vacation. Can we go somewhere and do something fun, or are we going to sit on your ranch and watch the cows grow?”

“We’ll have fun, princess. I can guarantee we’ll have fun. Call me tomorrow. You have all of my information.” The third kiss was just a short peck, but it was still more than I ever remembered there being in a kiss. Robert Danner was in love.

After taking care of my nightly ablutions in a completely preoccupied mental fog, I fell asleep thinking of the gorgeous redheaded wonder that kissed me goodnight. I woke to the sound of my phone ringing. “Danner.”

“This is your new girlfriend, if you will have me. Good morning, Rob. I have talked with Dimitri, and he has given me leave to be absent until I come back. It is not open ended, but yet he set no specific date. He has no pending deals, either American or from the United Kingdom, inclusive of other English speaking clients and customers, but asked that I be available by phone if he needs me.”

“Wow. He must like you, Maria. Would you be ready to travel tomorrow? We can leave mid-morning and arrive at a reasonable hour for me to take you to dinner at my favorite place back home.”

“Yes, I could. I need to know what to bring.”

“The weather here is just a bit cooler than at home in the spring, so keep that in mind, but if you will take the minimum necessary, I’ll turn you loose in any of several clothing outlets to purchase whatever you need, or want, when we get there. Riding clothes, cocktail dresses, an evening gown, golf and swimming attire, shorts and tops to run around in. All of that. I can, and will, take care of all of that. Pack lightly like you were off with Dimitri translating somewhere, and I’ll take care of everything else. Then, when you decide I’m not worth your trouble…”

She interrupted me with a laugh. “I highly doubt that is going to happen after you buy me all those clothes, boyfriend.”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that one, but in any case, I’ll ship your new clothes home with you or take you back home to use them again next time. That will depend completely on your desires.”

“You said golf, swimming, and did I hear correctly, riding?”

“Yes. I warned you that it was a ranch. And it is, of sorts. Horses and cattle. Not many, and I have people take care of the property and the animals for me, but I like the outdoors and being in the open, so I live in the country. Not too far, but far enough.”

“I can not wait. Rob, have you eaten yet?”

“No, my darling girlfriend, I haven’t even woken up yet. I was without the benefit of an alarm and was enjoying it immensely. Would you join me for a late breakfast here at the hotel?”

“More like an early lunch at this point, boyfriend, but that sounds like fun, then we can get me ready to go. Are you busy today?”

“No, Maria. You’re my only concern at this time, barring any work-related calls, until we get back home. Come for me. I’ll get myself cleaned up and if you’ll come get me, we’ll just take care of Maria today. After you find me some breakfast, and you some lunch, that is.” She giggled and signed off promising to be at my hotel room shortly.

It was a warm spring day, and to be honest, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the door to my suite. Maria was a beautiful creature in her work clothes, usually a business suit with a mid-thigh pencil skirt and high heels. Put her in short shorts, a tight T-top, with high heeled sandals, and it changed everything. Now, she was an attraction. I literally had to pull her into my arms to keep from staring at her. At that point, with her in my arms, I was pretty sure this was it, and it was all over. As long as I’d known her, and as many times as we’d spoken on the phone, probably thirty or more, never once did I get a negative vibe from her.

Now, with her against me, I gathered myself and said to her, “I told you last night what I thought of you. That was in business clothes. You are amazingly attractive in that sexy little outfit. You are a doll, Maria. I’m so happy we’re trying this. Wow. Just wow.” I finally separated from her, held her shoulders and kissed her. “Striking. Simply and utterly striking.”

“Thank you, Rob. You know, you are not less than handsome yourself. I have always thought that, but first you do not ask, then I cannot say yes, then, well now, all is well, and the handsome businessman has asked the little Russian girl out to breakfast. Do you really think your new girlfriend is pretty?”

“No need to ask. I wasn’t kidding. You are the prettiest woman I’ve ever talked to, let alone kissed, or held in my arms so close to me. Come on, before we get mushy. I’m hungry?”

“Mushy?”

“So sweetly romantic it reeks of paperback love stories. Cheap romance novels.”

“Oh, we do not want to reek of mushy. That would not do for us. The romance novel thing, perhaps. That does sound much more interesting. Come, I will feed my new boyfriend.” She laughed, I chuckled, and we joined hands as off we went for the elevator.

After we ate, she drove me to her house where she made me a drink and sat me in her living room, watching her pack. It was a small place. With her bedroom door open I was only ten feet from her as she folded her things and packed them carefully into a medium-sized suitcase.

“Really, Rob? Only what I need for a couple of days? Casual clothes?” I nodded. “I think maybe dress to shop in. Easy in, easy out, for when I try on other things. Short sun dress I wear with heels and keep my new boyfriend close.”

“That sounds like a plan. Maria, you’re playing with fire.”

“No, Rob, I am not. I am playing grownup games with grownup man who has said more nice things to this grown-up girl than she has ever heard. Ever. And he said them all in one day. Over a year, Rob. We have known each other for much over a year and have spoken many, many times. You know I believe you, or I would not go with you to America to visit. It is not normal for a woman to be taken so much with a man or a man to be taken so hard and so quickly by a woman. This did not happen yesterday, Mr. Danner. It happened in our minds and our lives over the last year. If I ask you a question, will you answer your Maria… Wait. I want to tell you something and ask you for a big promise for our lives. For our relationship. Forever. Can you promise never to lie to me? To always tell me the truth and never hide from me that which would hurt me if I knew you were hiding it. Honesty always?”

“Yes, and I assume by asking that, you are making the same promise, the same charter, if you will?”

“I am. I know of no secrets that would benefit you. I know no secrets, come to think of it. Maybe about Dimitri’s girlfriend, but you probably do not care.”

“I care, for a couple of reasons, but I won’t do anything with the information. First, if his wife kills him, our deal may fall through, and second, I don’t like cheaters, but who knows. Maybe… Their lives are their lives. I won’t lie to you, and I won’t have an affair behind your back. Wait. If I ever lie to you, there will be a gift or something involved, but that’s not the kind of lying you are talking about, is it?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then what is the question my Maria would like the answer to?”

“Two, actually. Do you believe in love at first sight, and if you make love is it forever for you?”

“Yes.”

“To which?”

“Both. I told you I wouldn’t have sex with you. I was hoping, if the Goddess is kind and generous to an old man who tries to do the right thing, that some day you would make love to me. With me.”

“I feel a mushy romance story coming on. Rob, I am not a little girl, even though I am a little girl. I know of what a relationship with you will consist. High heels and intimacy, at a minimum.” She giggled. “We are fine, you and I.”

“Good. Are you packed? I want you to spend the night with me in my suite. We will proceed at your level, Maria, and at your speed. I will do nothing to offend or scare you away, but I’d like to be together.”

She closed her bag, set it on the floor and reached out for me. Holding my face in her hands, she urged me down for a soft kiss. Another electrical connection. “It will be fine, Rob. Really. Let me tell my building manager on the way out that I will be back in a few weeks. He is a nice old man and will keep my mail for me and watch my place.” I picked up her bag and after she locked her door, I followed her downstairs, down the hallway, and to the first door by the entrance to the building. I watched her closely. Very closely. There was nothing about this woman I wasn’t taken with. Any axiom you can imagine about watching a woman walk was true about me watching her.

She spoke to the old man, him smiling and looking at me a bit, evidently approving, and they bid their farewells. I put my hand on the lowest part of the small of her back and felt a vibration run through me that couldn’t be denied. My hand was resting on the lower spine of my future. She turned and smiled. “I enjoy your touch, Rob. I really do.”

We put her bag in the car, I put her in the driver’s seat, went around, entered the car and sat next to her. Surprising me, but not as much as if she had done it the day before, she put her hand on my leg and gently, ever so gently squeezed a bit with her fingers and thumb.

“I am nervous, Rob, but I want to be with you. You want me to go at my speed, but my speed tells me to love you within an inch of your life and never let you go. What is your speed?”

“I’ll just use yours. That will be fine. Are you sure, Maria? If we do this, you’re stuck with me until, well, it will be my forever. If I make love to you, you’ve collected your last paycheck in rubles.”

“I thought you would say something silly like that. I am taking you to your hotel room, Rob. I am going to make hot and mad and passionate love to you, as well as get you to do the same to me, and we are going to see what happens with a one-day love culminating after a one-year fantasy.”

And that is exactly what she did. We spent the entire afternoon in bed with her taking charge and loving on me in every way she knew. She knew a few I’d never even heard of, and I had ten years and a couple of intense relationships on her. She was adventurous, tender, physical, shy, unfiltered, romantic, and demanding, all in the same three or four-hour period of time. If I hadn’t felt the electricity, I would have been scared, but I did, and I wasn’t. I did have a plan, though, and let her know as we dressed for dinner after a much-needed post coital shower, that there is an American saying: “Turnabout is fair play.”

“I hope so, Rob. I hope so.” She grinned almost wickedly, hugged me, and pulled me out the door. She was wearing a miniskirt, a little fitted sleeveless blouse with a ruffled collar and placket that showed a perfect amount of cleavage. She was perfect. The necklace lying on her upper chest, between her breasts, the bra she was wearing, and the impact of all those things together were all perfect. Her high heeled sandals and her tanned legs, together, put the perfect woman on the perfect pedestal. Perfect. I know. It sounds too good to be true, but this really was the most gorgeous creature that had ever spoken my name.

She took me to a small restaurant several blocks from the hotel where we could talk, in private, and still enjoy some really good food. It was very popular with the locals, as well as the businesspeople that came here often, just for that reason. The prices would make one think twice, since it charged about half as much as the fancy places one finds on the main thoroughfare with the better hotels and such, but the food was better. Much better. Western influenced if one desired. I had a sausage and potatoes dish that screamed Russian farmer’s dinner and I loved it. Maria had something similar, and we shared a huge salad, relishing in the fun of feeding each other little bits of tomato and olive and such.

We drove back to the hotel where parked her car and took a walk across the street to a fairly large park, several acres, at least, with paths and areas for people to sit, children to play, and the like. There weren’t that many kids out this evening, but the park wasn’t empty either. She held my hand with one of hers and my arm with the other, leaning her head on my shoulder and mentioned something rather important… To both of us.

“I made love to you, Rob. I did not have sex with you, I made love to you. I am now yours. Forever. Just as we spoke earlier, that is it. I really do hope that is OK, because it is my truth.”

“We did discuss this, Maria, and if I did not intend to make you my lifelong mate, companion, and spouse, the only thing you would have taken off in my presence would have been your shoes.” She looked at me questioningly. “So I could rub your feet, doll. I do really think you are a wonderful woman and would have rubbed your feet while we relaxed with a drink or something. But I do understand what you are saying. We made love. Together. We, in our eyes, because I think we have the same value set on this, are one.” She nodded. I kissed her forehead. “I’d like to tell Dimitri later, at least a couple weeks after we’re home, just so he doesn’t think you are an impetuous little girl falling crazily in lust with an older rich man with a horse.” She giggled.

“Oh, but I am! Only one horse?” She giggled again.

“You will have your own. Mine might be a touch large for you, but who knows. Ever ridden?”

“In a summer retreat for children from our school, a long, long time ago when I was but a young girl. It must have been… About nine years now,” she said laughing. “It was not so long ago I was fifteen, then, was it?” I shook my head.

“You’re only twenty-four, Maria? I thought older, maybe by at least a few years.”

“No, we have just turned twenty-four a couple of months ago. On the day of the Cupid. Valentine’s Day in the western world.”

“So, Maria Chernova, will you be my valentine?”

“I certainly will, Robert Danner. Take me back to your bed, Rob. Please.”

I did just that, and turned the tables on her like I planned and just as she said she hoped for. This time it was me in control, being physical and yes, tender, at times, but mostly I threw her around like a ragdoll and hearing her acceptance of my forceful, commanding couplings, she drove me on more intensely, more firmly, and more completely. As our last coupling ended with both of us reaching our climaxes together, her sitting upright in my lap, with me on my shins, one hand under her bottom and the other around her back holding her to me, I bit the tendon on the side of her neck leading to her shoulder.

“Stop, I need to rest!”

“Marry me, Maria, and I’ll let you rest. Say you’ll be mine forever, as we have both stated we would be, and agree be my wife, and I will hold you and let you rest.”

She threw her arms around my head, pulled me to her breasts, shook my head, then bit my ear, ever so gently, and in a whimper said, “Yes. Oh, God, yes. A thousand times, yes, I will marry you.”

I let her loose a little, so we could kiss to our agreement, her agreement of marriage, then just held her and rocked her. She cried a bit.

“To hope for something is one thing, but then to get it, is quite another, and more shocking to the system. I am sorry I am crying, Rob, but they are tears of joy. I will send my sister a letter and post it tomorrow. She must know I am out of the country for a while, and I want to tell her why as well, if that is all right with you, husband.”

“Of course it is. Make sure all of my information is in there as well, and add this number,” I showed her my personal cell number. She got up and grabbed a towel we had on the bed putting it under her and went to the desk for a pad and pen.

“I am a mess.”

“You are a beautiful mess. My beautiful mess.”

She brought the towel and the pen and paper back, cleaned me up a bit, then jotted down the number and the address and such for her letter to her sister, then laid them on the side, pushed me back and laid on top of me.

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

I pulled the sheet up and we slept. We slept well, I might add, from my point of view. She was lying next to me, her head on my shoulder, her shoulder in my armpit, breathing deeply and still sleeping when I woke. It was amazing just to look at her there, with no makeup and her hair all awry, just as beautiful as she was at dinner the night before, or the night before. I kissed her forehead, hoping to wake her gently, or at least move her so I could get up and tend to morning things.

She jumped, startled, then looked at me and smiled. “Go. I am next.”

I finished up then climbed into the shower while she took her turn, then on my invitation, she joined me. It was probably the longest shower I have ever taken, and up to that date, the most enjoyable. Nothing was left undone, unclean, un soaped, un scrubbed, un shampooed, untouched, or unloved. We both realized we were but one from this point forward and would be for our foreseeable future.

“I love you, Robert Danner. Take your new wife to her new home, please.” Once again, she dressed to please me, knowing she had my number. This time, she hid in the bathroom while she dressed, coming out in a little light blue knit top, tan short shorts, natural-colored strappy high heeled sandals, and sheer to waist light coffee colored pantyhose. Yeah, she had my number. Multibillionaire, international business mogul and entrepreneur, yet this woman could bring me to my knees with stockings. Pathetic. Enjoyably pathetic.

We parked her car at the airport where I had my plane kept and serviced with a promise from them to keep an eye on it. They knew we’d be back within a few weeks, so they didn’t have a problem and kept it for her, free of charge.

Dimitri Pattanoff had been flying her all over the world helping him with translation in most English-speaking countries, as his agriculture equipment company either purchased parts or sold equipment in almost all of them. Maria wasn’t new to flying, but it had always been commercial. Very few businessmen in Russia had their own planes, and there are stories about who those men might be and what might have gotten them to that position in life. Let’s just say there wasn’t a lot of family wealth in Russia dating back eons, like say, in the British Empire, or America. My personal situation was one of very old money, dating back to the early eighteen hundreds. Money which was well managed and propped up by a lot of hard work. As was customary in my family, I had spent several years in the service of my country after graduating with my MBA, then was requested by our parents to come home and take over the company they owned. My father’s heart was failing, us being told that cigarettes, alcohol, and good living were taking him to his end.

In all actuality, he’d quit smoking in the early eighties, drank only socially, and exercised more than I did. His doctor went over me with a fine-toothed comb when I got back, just to make sure it wasn’t some hereditary thing that would kill me in my youth, or at least way too early, like it was doing to my father.

In the end, it wasn’t at all his heart that killed him, but my uncle’s plane. All four of them, Mom, Dad, Uncle Stephen, and Aunt Sadie all went together. My cousin Allie took over all of her father’s holdings, including two Ford dealerships and substantial interest in two local banks, and I got Danner Industries International, LLC, which is actually several manufacturing companies and their plants dealing with everything from tractor engines and transmissions to electronic warfare devices. Our family had been involved in building things for our government’s military since the turn of the last century.

Enough about money. I walked my new wife-to-be out to the plane, opened it up, and as the stairs came down, she realized she wasn’t flying commercial anymore.

“Rob, is this yours?”

“And soon will also be yours as well, Maria. We will have an agreement, in writing, like we do between us emotionally, that if never broken, allows you many things. My things. They are your things for as long as I am yours. I don’t know any other way to say that, but there have been those that tried to corral me, but they didn’t want Rob. They wanted Robert Danner’s things and his money. I don’t think that is my Maria.”

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