The Interpeter

She refused to speak Russian and said, "Does not every gerl give up some things to make marriage work? No one gets everything in relationship without going on compromises and in this case, I am understanding what you tell me. Many times, man or woman doesn't understand what kind of compromises other person is wanting. So they fight all of time. You are nice man. You are kind. You are polite. You are respecting woman. You are also very honest and open man. And as I say, not so bad looking." She smiled her amazing smile then said, "All those things I am liking very much. And even though I joke about how many years you have, I am sincere when I am telling you I see handsome man sitting here. So I am needing you to explain details of what you call...mmm...how is it? Oh, yes. Must haves. Then I can be knowing if is okay to me." That smile....

They spent the next half hour generically talking about the things Langston most wanted. He told Oksana she had the most obvious trait most men wanted—physical beauty. He made sure she knew just how attractive he thought she was and that also made her very happy. It was obvious that even as pretty as she was, men didn't tell her that. He also told her he thought she was intelligent, honest, and charming. These, he explained, were also essential ingredients. He further shared with her how important it was to have a wife who loved to dress well for him to which Oksana responded by saying, "What girl is not liking pretty clothes? I am not having many of them because cost is so much and money is too little but I very much like them. Is not so important for me to have them for myself but to wear them for loving husband would be great pleasure. This is not so bad compromise to go on. What more is 'must have' for you, Кит?"

Langston explained his love of traveling, the water, flying, working out and his love of talking to a woman who can hold her own on a wide variety of topics.

"Всё нормально," Oksana said confidently. This was all quite normal to her.

"So you don't see anything unusual in what I'm looking for? I mean, I wouldn't bring all of this up this fast if I was dating someone who lived near me. But I can't fly to Ukraine every few days to talk with a girl here so I want to make sure I'm being very clear."

"I understand. This is unusual way to go on date, no? So what does girl get for wearing nice things and climbing rocks and jumping from planes with Кит?" she said sweetly. She was partly teasing but also wanting to know what she might be getting into.

"First of all, she gets all of my love and caring. I will treat her like my equal partner and protect her at all times. Beyond that, she will have a very large, beautiful home to live in and decorate any way she likes. She'll need her own car in America so I'll buy her whatever model she wants. Well, maybe not a Bentley."

Oksana laughed again. "I am not even knowing how to drive car so fast one is not so important. Is very nice offer but you must teach me to drive first, okay?"

"There is something else I need to make very clear and I don't like talking about this but it's very important that I do." He spelled out the framework of a prenuptial agreement and what it meant.

"I understand reason for such agreement. If pretty young woman is marrying man for money she will soon leave him and take money. This is—how do you say? <<защита>> for him."

"Protection is the word you're looking for. Yes, it is protection. But if my wife stayed with me for more than five years, then I would make sure she receives some money and the amount would increase each year after that even if we divorced. In the meantime, she would have a very generous monthly allowance to spend any way she liked."

"Okay. Now I am better understanding. So if this is deal, it is not so difficult and I am understanding. Is very...mmm...разумно."

"Reasonable," Keith said.

"So how does girl show you she is meaning sincere and don't want just money?" Langston winced at her English but reminded himself it was still far better than 99.9% of Ukrainian or Russian women.

"I guess we should begin by going on a date."

Oksana smiled and said, "I think this is wise choice and necessary first step. I am agreeing to date with much pleasure!"

"How about we start by meeting tomorrow morning at noon in the lobby of my hotel?" Langston suggested still speaking in Russian. "From there, I'll take you shopping then pamper you with a massage and a makeover and hair styling at a spa/beauty salon. Then we'll spend the rest of the day together getting to each other better followed by a dinner at a nice restaurant. Does that sound reasonable for a first 'date?'"

"Yes, this is sounding nice but it is sounding very expensive. I am not needing so much things but because you tell me you like to see wife—I mean girl—in pretty clothes, I will try to go with such offer but will be very unusual for me. But I will try this. So I will see you at hotel tomorrow!"

Langston walked her to the door and hailed a cab. She insisted on paying for it herself but he told her, "Oksana, if this is going to work, you're going to have to get used to me spoiling you. That means you can't pay for anything any more when I'm with you. It will be my pleasure to buy things for you from now on. Please understand I'm not trying to buy you or your love. I just believe it's a man's responsibility to provide for a woman. You see, I'm very traditional in that sense myself. And...it makes me very happy to do this for you. So will you please try and let me?"

She was standing there in front of him and Langston thought he saw a tear well up in her eye. "Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?" he asked. He was still speaking in Russian and he knew he didn't make any grammatical mistakes.

Oksana replied in Russian. "Keith, you didn't say anything wrong. In fact, you said everything just right. No man—no, no person—has ever been so kind or so generous to me before. I understand you've only asked me out on a first date, but you need to understand I've dreamed about this kind of thing happening to me for as long as I can remember, but I gave up thinking it would ever actually happen. At least not to me. So that wasn't a tear of sadness. It was a tear of joy. And for the record, your age is a concern to me, but the more I know about you the less it matters. But you need to know that it does concern me. Knowing what I know about Ukrainian men and Western men, I gave up finding someone my age. Still, I often wondered if I might ever meet an older man who was attractive to me AND as nice as you are. And now suddenly, I've found someone who is both of those things. I didn't mean to cry. I'm just a little overwhelmed...but in a very nice way."

The taxi driver called out, "Come on! Let's go." Langston handed him $20 and asked him to be patient. That was a day's wages so he was all too happy to sit quietly.

"Keith?" Oksana said.

"Yes?"

"May I hug you goodbye?"

Langston was again taken by how beautiful she was and now he was also taken by how genuine and how caring she was. "I'd like that," he told her.

She moved closer and he took her into his arms for the first time. He held her for quite a while and she made no attempt to move away. Eventually, he slowly released his hold on her until she was looking into his eyes. "Спокойны ночи," he told her softly.

"Good night to you, too," she said. Just before she got in the cab, she kissed him on the cheek and smiled at him again. Langston handed the driver another twenty and gave him directions. He stood there and returned Oksana's wave goodbye as the taxi pulled into the still-heavy traffic in downtown Kiev.

Langston made one phone call that evening before turning in. It was local and to an old friend who owed him a favor. Hell, several favors. He needed to call one in if it were even possible on such notice. As it turned out, it was. After that he took a long, hot shower and went to sleep.

As nice as his hotel was, it didn't have anything but a small exercise room with a couple of treadmills and a universal. He did some asking around and found out where the nearest gym was and at 8am, he was in a cab on his way there. He arrived at 8:30 and there were already a dozen people inside. All but two were women who were either doing yoga or spinning. Langston paid the daily rate then spent the next 45 minutes tearing up his back and biceps. He headed back to the hotel in time to take another hot shower then get breakfast and a cup of coffee before Oksana arrived.

He'd asked her to wear something she could easily get in and out of as he planned to have try on quite a few different things. He also requested she wear no makeup and that she wear her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. When she arrived right on time, he was at the main entrance waiting for her. "Доброе утро, милая" he said as they hugged one another.

"Good morning to you, too, dear!" she said repeated cheerfully in English.

Oksana told him she'd already had breakfast so they agreed to head directly to begin their shopping. He opened the taxi door for her then sat down beside her. He gave directions to the driver when Oksana said, "No, hold on!" She looked at Langston and said in Russian, "That's crazy! You just told him to go to the most expensive shopping district in all of Ukraine. Don't get me wrong. They have some really beautiful things there, but you can find some very nice clothes at several other places I know and they're a whole lot less expensive. That'll be just fine with me and save you a lot of money. So let's go there instead, okay?"

Langston took her hand and said, "Oksana, I told you you're going to have to learn to let me spoil you. I haven't had anyone to buy pretty things for in so long I can't remember the last time I did this. It may be hard at first, but please, let me worry about money. Try your best to just relax, enjoy being spoiled, and if you can, enjoy looking beautiful for me. Of course, what I mean by that is making you even more beautiful than you already are."

He paused and waited for her reaction. It was warm and honest and it said, "I'm not used to this and spending that kind of money makes me very nervous. Well, actually, I've never spent that kind of money. Just the thought of it scares me." She squeezed his hand and said, "I'm not sure it won't bother me, but I can promise you that I'll try not to let it do that."

Then Langston added, "That's all I can ask for. What worries me is I'm not sure if it's even possible for you to be more beautiful than you already are so this may be an exercise in futility."

She slid close to him and put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his arm. As she did, she felt his biceps and said in English, "Oh! Somebody found sports hall. I can tell because there is big swelling in muscle!"

He even didn't correct her let alone laugh, but that was hilarious because something else was indeed swelling. It just wasn't his arm. Some called it a third leg but....

If this worked out, then once she got to America, he'd hire a tutor to help her perfect her language. As broken as her English sounded, he knew she was at about 80% along the way to mastering the language. Getting to even this level of proficiency was quite a feat and was very admirable. Hell, she spoke better English than 90% of the guys he knew who graduated from DLI spoke Russian. Anyone who's tried to master a foreign language understands how incredibly challenging it is to get anywhere close to where Oksana was. She spoke about as well as someone would after maybe three years of college-level English. Langston had spent over 5,000 hours studying Russian in a formal setting and many hundred more hours on his own. He was maybe 95% fluent and fluency was measured logarithmically. That meant closing that 5% gap was unbelievably difficult and would require spending years in a country where Russian was spoken learning all of the colloquialisms used in everyday speech, watching movies, reading poetry, and picking up on all the many things kids learned growing up that weren't taught in formal classrooms. Oksana would eventually get pretty close to that in English if she married him, while he was content with staying right where he was.

The taxi dropped them off in front of a very expensive clothing boutique. As he took Oksana's hand and led her toward it, she stopped him and said, "Боже мой!"

"Why are you calling out to God?" Langston teased. "Do you suddenly believe in Him?"

Oksana hit him playfully on the arm and said, "No, of course not. I am good atheist woman. This place is too much expensive. One dress in here is costing me whole year's money! Is crazy, no?"

Langston pulled her along to the door and opened it for her then teased her saying, "You're not holding up your end of the bargain very well so far. I hope this isn't an indication of things to come." She hit him again but smile as she grabbed onto his "swollen" arm.

As they stepped inside she whispered, "You know everyone will think I am..." She asked him how to say "gold digger."

"Let them think it. You're not digging for gold. I'm offering it to you so to hell with them."

Oksana laughed and said, "You are funny man. I like that you are making me to laugh. It is very pleasant."

One thing that struck him was that no one offered to help them. Hell, no one even said hello. Both girls looked right at them then just turned away so they wandered around looking until they found something he liked. That's when it hit him that the store personnel, who were all very well attired, must be thinking he couldn't possibly afford anything in a store like this. After all, they were both wearing jeans and t-shirts. Then again, maybe it was something else. Something even worse. Or maybe they were just bitches.

Oksana had no idea what he liked and he was content to let her look around at first. That way, he could see what kinds of things she gravitated toward. There were all kinds of displays with beautiful dresses, skirts, shoes, and blouses and she seemed to love every single item in the store. No matter what she showed him he'd say, "That's very nice." But what caught his eye was toward the back. He found a beautiful, off-white, sleeveless knit dress with a square neckline with a matching cardigan. He showed it to Oksana who said in English, "Oh, my goodness. Is very beautiful!"

"Do you really like it?" he asked hopefully.

"Of course I am liking it. I have never had such pretty dress. But where would I wear it? How many big parties are you having each year? It would be for special occasion, no?"

Rather than answer, Langston held it up against her. He didn't understand European sizes but he could she this was too large. Oksana was about 5' 6" and maybe 110 pounds—maybe. She needed about a size 4 and this looked like maybe an 8. Or else she needed a Small and this was possibly a Medium.

"Since this is our first day together and since I'd love for you to wear it for me, I suppose this is a special occasion. But this is the kind of thing I would love for you to wear for me just any day of the week. It doesn't have to be a dress, though." He put it back on the rack and showed her a very sexy charcoal gray sweater and black skirt. "This would also be very nice."

"Боже мой!" she said again. "Кит? Do you see price? Dress is 350 Euros. Cardigan is 150 Euros. Sweater is 175 Euros. Skirt is 125. It is crazy prices in here! Let's go to my stores, okay? I can make very good deal. Please? Clothes are not quite so nice but is still very good and not costing fortune? Okay?"

Langston ignored her and picked up all three things plus another sweater that was a powder blue with a Navy-blue skirt. "Here, try these on, okay?"

Oksana just stared at him. No, she was glaring at him. She had to be thinking he was insane. He just smiled and nodded his head toward the changing booths and handed her the clothes. "Go ahead. Let me see how you look."

She shook her head but took all of the items and headed that way. The girl working in that section had a brief exchange with Oksana which got a bit loud. It ended abruptly when she looked over at Langston who just smiled and waved. The girl reluctantly opened the door but only let Oksana take in one item at a time. Langston thought he heard the word "сука!" but wasn't sure who said it. While he hoped it wasn't Oksana, it would be even worse to think that a clerk in an upscale store like this would call a potential customer a whore, but he was old enough to be her father so...let the games begin. Comments like that would be likely be a regular occurrence anytime the two of them went out together.

A couple of moments later, Oksana opened the door and motioned for him to come closer. She wasn't planning on stepping out but Langston took her hand and basically dragged her in front of a very large mirror. Oksana was wearing the sweater dress which was even shorter than he thought it would be, but her slender legs and tight butt made it look sensational on her. Okay, he had to admit that as a boob man, her perfect, size C breasts filled it out in an amazing way. Langston stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He lowered his head and said quietly, "You look incredible. Do you like it?"

"Of course. Is beautiful but it is costing..."

"We'll take this one," he said to the snobby store clerk. "Try on the others for me, okay?"

One by one Oksana modeled each item for him. She looked sensational in every one. "These, too," he said in Russian.

When she came back out he said, "So now you need some shoes and purses to match."

Oksana switched to Russian and said, "I heard you say purses—plural. I only need one. Black will go with everything. Same with the shoes. Really. That'll be more than enough."

"Hardly!" Langston said cheerfully. "You need a pair for each outfit and since they're different colors you'll need a different purse for each, as well. Now—go. Look. Find. Shoe fly!"

She gave him a "you've gotta be friggin' crazy look" but she broke down and smiled then went and did as she was told. Forty-five minutes later she had three new pairs of shoes and three new purses on the counter next to the new clothes."

Oksana nearly passed out when the girl rang up the total. It came to just over 4,500 Euros. As he handed her the bags she shook her head again and said, "Боже мой!"

"You really are a very religious young lady!" he teased. She just shook her head in disbelief but he could tell she was also secretly thrilled to be doing something she never once imagined possible.

"So I will get us taxi, okay?" she offered.

"Taxi? Are you kidding? You still need bras, panties, stockings, a coat, and jewelry. We don't need no stinking taxi!"

Oksana was not only puzzled at his comment about taxis with a foul odor, she was beside herself at all the money Langston was spending. She might spend $25 a month on new clothes for herself. Maybe. Had Langston not made such a positive impression on her as a kind, decent, caring man, she'd have felt used and...cheap...as though he was trying to buy his way into her life. But she was afraid to admit it but deep down she knew he'd already gotten inside not only her life, but as much as it frightened her to admit it, into her heart.

As they headed toward the jewelry store she said, "So, Кит. I must ask. Are you in American mafia?" When he looked at her she said, "How else can Army officer be spending so much money? I know you have pension but how you can do this? It is so much? And why all for me? Why are you not buying for yourself something, too?"

He stopped her and said with (mostly) mock indignation, "First of all, I was a Marine Corps officer. Nothing is more offensive to a Marine than being called a soldier unless maybe you call him a sailor. Them's fighting words!" Oksana finally laughed again as he continued. "And didn't I tell you—twice—that it was my job to worry about the money and your job to worry about being beautiful for me?" He brushed his hand across her cheek and said, "Why am I doing it? Because this makes me very happy. So will you please let me do this for you? And as to 'why you?'—if that answer isn't obvious yet, then either my Russian is worse than I think it is or you're just not as smart as I thought you were."