Alesya Gagarina, part one..





My mother stayed at home while my father worked hard and she taught me how to cook and sew.  She made me beautiful dresses that I now recognize as coming from scrap materials that were thrown away or purchased very inexpensively.  I did not realize that we were missing a television as our evenings were spent reading and listening to the radio.

In the winter, we wore many layers of clothes and only used the gas to cook with.  Sometime when it got very cold, we turned the heater on, but only if the fire in our fireplace could not warm the room properly.

In the summer, I did not realize that we used the long days of light augmented with candles to read because we could not afford the electricity.  My life was one big adventure and our home was filled with love and laughter.  I never realized that we were different than others until I was invited over to a friend’s home for her 16th birthday.

Katya’s home was not much larger than my home, but it was filled with many electronic treasures.  They had a TV almost as large as my dresser in what they called my family room and they had several different types of gaming systems attached to the TV including a Karaoke machine.  Katya’s bedroom was filled with many treasures including her own computer.  I had always thought that everyone uses the computers in our school library to do their homework on.  Her bed had a canopy over it and long trails of pale pink gossamer fabric hanging from the ceiling to form a private enclosure should she wish.  And even though it was the middle of summer, her house was so cold that I felt as if I needed a sweater.

He birthday feast was made up of many foods including what they called a candy bar where you could select any candy your heart desired and the bowls were never empty. The food and drink were plentiful including a very large selection of soda that was way too sweet for my taste.  We ate and ate as we laughed and talked and soon we were so full of food, I thought I might be sick, but then she turned on one of the gaming systems and put in her favorite game, Dance Revolution.  This was a game where you stood on a mat and you attempted to match the steps of the dancers, step by step until you made a mistake and then it was time for another girl to have her turn.  I really enjoyed this game and while we were working up quite the sweat, we kept cool from the air-conditioning.  Several hours later, we were exhausted from dancing and so she fired up the karaoke machine and it was the same concept as the dancing game, only instead of dancing, you sang along to the song the best you could.  The microphone that you sang into had some way of determining how well you were singing and I easily one the game.

My prize for my win was the latest DVD from an American Studio called The Notebook. I did not want to tell her that I had no DVD player to play it on or a television, so I thanked her for her generosity.  It was her birthday and we were being given all the gifts!

When it came time for Katya to open the presents, I was quite proud of the beautiful blanket that I had crocheted for her.  Other girls gave her makeup and movies and books that she loved to read, but my gift had not cost much more than the time I enjoyed to make it, but she seemed much happier with the other gifts and that made me a little bit sad, but I had little time to think on this as Katya’s other friends had other plans including watching some movies on the TV through the computer!

It wasn’t the ability to watch things on the TV that came from the computer that astounded me, it was that we were, at the age of 16, watching porno.  There were several movies of a very handsome boy named Tommy as he took the virginity of beautiful  young girls.  He was tall and handsome and had eyelashes that appeared so long as to touch the top of his eyebrows.  He had a roguish smile that spoke of mischief and passion as he eagerly devoured his young virgin.  I was embarrassed to watch the movie, but at the same time, I could not tear my eyes away from what was happening on the screen.

When the videos were finished we talked about this Tommy and one girl mentioned that Tommy paid much money to film the loss of a girl’s virginity and while I secretly swore to myself that this would not be my fate in life, I remembered this little bit of information and held it in the deepest recesses of my mind for almost two years.

Again, it was summer and I was still happy.  I did not need all the furnishings and electronics that Katya and her friends had.  Sure, I enjoyed using them when we would have parties and sleepovers, but I had no need for anything other than my father and my mother and our beautiful and comfortable home.  I did not miss such material things and I felt more love and laughter were to be found in our home.

Just before my 18th birthday, I came home from school to find my mother sitting quietly in the garden.  My father was not expected to be home until later in the evening, so I poured myself a glass of fresh fruit punch and went outside to join my mother.  Our garden was her pride.  She tended to it lovingly and she grew most of our vegetable from seeds she had collected during harvest the previous years and she did the same with the flowers she grew there.  The fragrance of our garden was always amazing and powerful that my mother never needed perfume.  When she had finished tending the flowers, their scent would enrobe her and she always smelled wonderful.  There were times when she would crush the petals and place them in a small vial with oil and when I would take a bath, she would place a few drops in the warm water and soon I would smell as beautiful as she always did.

As I approached my mother I could hear that she was quietly sobbing.  Realizing that there must be something horribly wrong, I rushed to her side and pulled her into a big hug. and asked her what was wrong.  It took her a few minutes to compose herself enough to speak as I frantically looked around our tidy garden to see what could possibly be wrong.

There was nothing wrong with the garden.  Instead, it was my father.  He suffered a heart attack at work and was so sick, they had to take him to St. Petersburg for surgery.  Having no car, she could not rush to be with him and having no phone, she could not call to inquire of him.  My mother had been informed of his condition when a co-worker finished his shift and came to tell her on his way home. She was frightened for him and for us.  My friend Katya had just received a car for her 18th birthday, so I immediately called her and asked her if she could take us to the hospital and let us be there with him.  She was willing, but only if we would pay for her gas.  I thought that was very selfish of her; she was supposed to be my friend, but the situation was dire and my mother needed to be with my father.  As we waited for Katya to come for us, I packed a small bag of clothes for my father and some snacks for us to eat.  We had very little cash and I knew that we would use most of it to pay for Katya’s gas.

It seemed an eternity for Katya to arrive with her car and of course, her first concern was that I pay for her gas before she would let us in the car.  I was disgusted that she did not even inquire about my father and when I asked her how much she needed for gas, she easily claimed it would be four times what the actual cost would be.  Her selfishness left me with barely enough to buy a meal, but we were at her mercy and she knew it and took advantage of it.  I could feel the bile rise in my throat at the display of her greed and deeply regretted giving her such a fine gift for her 16th birthday.  Had the situation been reversed, I would have gladly given her everything I owned so that she and her mother could have been with her father, but that day I learned the meaning of the American phrase “fair weathered friend.”

We arrived at the hospital just as they were taking my father in for his second operation.  His situation was far more critical than they had originally thought and perhaps even more surgeries would be scheduled later.  It was good that my mother had the opportunity to tell my father how much she loved him, even though he was not aware of even our presence.

My father was in the hospital for a very long time and my mother and I made the trip to see him as often as we could afford to and I took a job in a little cafe and waited on tables and poured coffee for people who were wrapped up in their own lives.  They cared not how much of a mess they left their table or how rudely they treated me, but we needed the money and so I worked hard.

I had given no thought to my 18th birthday, my father’s condition was much more important than such a trivial thing, but on the morning of my birthday, my mother greeted me with a smile and a beautifully wrapped present and a beautiful bowl of fresh fruit.  Later in the day, when I had finished work she said we would travel to the hospital to see my father because he would not want to miss such a special day as that of his only daughter’s 18th birthday!  I worried that we could not afford the trip that day, but my mother assured me that we could as I dressed to leave for work and my shift.

While  I was waiting tables, a very handsome man who was very well dressed, stopped me and gently held my arm still.  “Stop!,” he commanded, though his words were not harsh, “Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?”  His statement brought a blush to my face as I thanked him for the compliment and then told him it was my 18th birthday and I was excited because we were to visit my father in a few hours.  He then asked me if money was tight and his ability to see the truth of my situation made me blush even deeper.  That seemed to bring a great smile to his face and he gave me his card and told me to call him as soon as I returned.  He told me that he had a solution to my dilemma and when he left, there was a large amount of money tucked under the saucer of his coffee cup.  It was a fortune to me and would more than cover our travel expenses for that day, and may other days as well.  I tucked his card into an inner pocket and I told not my mother of what had happened.

As it turned out, this generous man was an agent for erotic models.  His business was to procure young women and train them to model for sexy magazines.  He also enquired as to if I were still a virgin as he told me that as long as I remained a virgin and could prove my virginity, I would make much more money that I would if I were not a virgin.

I agreed to remain a virgin and signed the contract.  The quantity of money was not the deciding factor.  My father was very ill and could no longer work.  The options were limited for young girls my age and even more so for women of my mother’s age.  My parents had taken such good care of me as I grew up, it was now time for me to repay their kindness by supporting them.  I did not see this as a burden.  My parents gave me their everything and they gave it with such love and devotion that this was a simple decision.  I was willing to give my everything for them and I was prepared to do whatever it took to make sure they wanted for nothing or had to worry about money.  I had grown up the richest girl in our town, not with material things but with love and adventure; and this new modeling career was just the beginning of a new adventure for me.  I made the appointment to return the next day and begin my training.

That night, as I thought of the enormity of the sacrifice my parents had made to raise me in challenging times, I thought of the sacrifice that I would be making for my family, but I realized in that moment that none of us had sacrificed anything.  We had a good life.  We were poor, but we had riches other could never hope to have.  I thought back over my friend Katya and all that she had, but I had two things that I knew she would never have; love and happiness.  And then it hit me!  I remembered the DVD’s we watched on the boy Tommy as he took a girl’s innocence and I remembered that she was paid great money for his pleasure.  The more I thought about it, the more I knew that this would be a way that I could at least partially repay the kindness of my parents and at the same time secure their future so they would not have to worry so hard about money.  Perhaps there would be enough so that I could attend University and then be able to earn some real money at a real job. I drifted off to sleep that night content with my decisions and with hope for our future.

My story “Part two” click here..