Marta's Embarrassing Incident

They were up rather early the next morning despite how long they had been up the day before, caught the metro to Hidropark island on the river, now in daylight they could see many of the city beaches, where volleyball seemed popular, in the parks the pools were rapidly crowding with young children and sunbathers were laying on the grass.

There were street vendors selling shashlyk from stalls, tempted by the aroma, they bought one to share, Valya informing them in English they were called Shish kebabs, she took them all over the city alternating from trolleybus to Metro depending on what there was to see between destinations.

On Valya's guided tour they went down an 87 meter long escalator into the Metro then on to a station 107 meters deep, later she took them to see St Michael's Cathedral in the Upper Town, where they rode down the funicular railway with scenic views of the river and the left bank on the way down although it only took a few minutes. Here they wandered around the grid-like streets of Podil, the area which she told them was once the merchant's quarter, but was now becoming known for it's restaurants.

They continued their stroll where there were street performers, and vendors selling Kvas from big yellow and blue tanks a malt like drink brewed from bread, which they did not often see in their home town, but as it had so little alcohol it was considered acceptable for children to drink it.

The whirlwind tour had taken them all over the city, to see all the important cathedrals and museums, and more statues than they could count, but there had just been so much, they had not had the time to look inside any of the museums, or to visit the outdoor museum of Folk Architecture, which had interested Marta, who had wanted to see all the old rural wooden building that had been saved from around the countryside.

They had bought various maps, one of which Marta marked in pencil during the course of the day with little notes around the edge, longer jottings went in her notebook about each place they went, they also picked up guide books, gifts, and souvenirs of their day out.

Due to their snacking on street food at various times during the day, they settled for a light supper, a brief phone call home, followed by an early bath, then bed.

In the morning Valya awoke to the slamming of the bathroom door and loud sobbing, she slipped on her robe and went to find out what was happening, Anna was outside the bath-room door biting her lower lip looking indecisive about knocking on the door, when she looked up to see Valya standing there.

Quietly Valya asked what had upset Marta, that she was locked in the bathroom wailing.

It turned out she woke to find her period had started, and there was blood on the bed-sheet and duvet cover.

"OK no problem, will you go and strip the bed, take off the duvet cover, and put them in the washing machine, it's hiding in one of the kitchen cupboards, I'll run it later. While you sort that I'll see if I can get Marta to let me in and talk to her."

Valya tapped gently on the door, "Marta honey, I know you're embarrassed, but you aren't in any trouble, will you let me in so we can talk? After a brief wait the door opened.

Marta was standing there crying and sniffling, wrapped in one of the bathrobes which she hugged tightly closed, Valya went in closing the door behind her.

"You're not the first girl this has happened to, when I was your age, I was caught out more than once, I'm sure if you asked many girls or women, they would have accident stories, there are far worse places it could have been. That may not make you feel any better, but I just want you to realize, it's not such a big issue OK."

"This is only your second period?" Marta nodded and sniffled, Valya handed her some tissues, "Blow, now did you find a pad or tampon?" another nod, "Well for us girls puberty can be pretty rough, with all the funny moods, and the spots that pop up just when you get a hot date, and for a lot of girls for the first few years, they don't even know when their little visitor might turn up, at least it appears you could be regular right from the start."

"It takes a while to learn your own body's signals, I'm reasonably regular, but I wear a pad at night for a day or two before I'm due just in case. Now wash your face and come and get some breakfast, Anna's got a busy morning, I'm sure she would appreciate the support of her manager."

Marta's night clothes were included in the wash, and Valya added detergent and selected the correct wash cycle. Anna queried how there was a cupboard of cleaning materials in the apartment but no food, and was told people who stayed there mostly ate out, so food would go bad, and secondly when there were guests a women came in each day to clean the place up - or did she think it cleaned itself?

Marta was a little subdued at first during breakfast until Anna's humorous behaviour lifted her mood, at which point she asked if it were possible for her to visit Dmitri again to talk about learning English, then she suggested they take the laptop with them today, to see if John would be kind enough to update the web pages, even it were only Anna's last two sets, but she also wanted to check out what other girls had done as well.

When they got to the studios Valya collected her supplies, then set out her table in studio one, while the girls looked over the set design, which looked even better than the sketches they had seen on Monday. The backdrop painting was of a rustic log cabin set in pine woods, with real woven stick fence panels, hanging vines with other plants and flowers, with dead leaves scattered over a sand and grass floor, again both made of soft fur.

The hairdresser turned up and Anna went to her chair, Marta asked if it she could go and see Dmitri, Valya phoned him, and said it was fine to go now, but no more than an hour.

She arrived to find him talking to someone so she held back, but he saw her and beckoned her over. "Ivan, let me introduce you to one of my new language students, Marta, she and her sister Anna" he said pointing to the photo, "are very keen to learn English"

"We meet at last, you are a bright and resourceful girl, showing up those people who can't even write a simple contract document, and looking out for your sister, what made you want to learn English?"

"Well the web site is in English because of your members, so if Anna and I practice so she could do videos and talk in English then they could understand what she was saying."

"That was very perceptive of you, to see how that could make videos of your sister more appealing to our customers, I think two of our models tried a single sentence introduction, but they didn't learn English, they were just reading phonetically from a card"

"Well we've been using phrase books, and word games, and we listen to English radio broadcasts, and we have some dual-language restaurant menus, but Dmitri kindly said he would help with grammar and pronunciation."

"Could you say something for me in English."

Marta had practised, and expanded her piece from Monday.

"Hello my name is Marta, I'm thirteen years old, I like to do folk dancing and play chess"

Dmitri praised her pronunciation, stating she must have practised since Monday, and Ivan told her when he had spoken to personnel about her badge, he had meant it as a friendly joke, but he wanted to apologise as it appeared that Marta really was Anna's Personal Manager, and must have been looking after her sister's career development since she first started. He went on to say that everyone he had spoken to that had met the sisters were impressed with how professional and easy they were to work with.

"I was talking to John before I came here, it was about Anna. It turns out he was having trouble with set three from Monday. We normally have set sizes from seventy-five up to a maximum of a hundred and twenty images at a standard set price, the smallest set is fifty, but we sell those sets at a lower price. His dilemma was that he got her set down to a hundred and sixty really good shots, and didn't want to reduce the set any further.

That is why I came to speak with Dmitri and next I was going to sales, to discuss if they thought we could release a 'super set' of Natasha at a higher price."

"Haven't you done sets this big before?"

"No, this would be a first, as you can imagine, we couldn't split the set in two, customers wouldn't go for that."

Marta did a quick calculation in her head, "So if you could charge thirty percent more for the 'super set' will Anna earn more from the sales?"

"If the sales team agree with Dmitri and John that members would pay extra for the bigger set, then if we sold a comparable number of downloads Anna would earn thirty percent more at her current rate. With the way her existing sets are selling she could soon hit sales that move her to a higher percentage slice of each sale as well, that would bring her just one stage below our most popular current models."

Marta had another idea,"If the sales team agree about a big set selling for more would there be a flashing frame thing to tell members, on the 'What's New' page, and something on the 'Meet the Models' page to tell everyone? Maybe there could also be a note to look out for a video coming soon."

"Well I'm sure your sister has the best manager bar none, and if you were a bit older, I can tell you one or two people could worry about you taking their job not least admin or sales."

They talked some more then Marta saw the time, apologising that she had to go as she had promised Valya she wouldn't be gone more than an hour, and was expected back at studio one for the shoot.

On her return to the studio she found they were nearly ready to start shooting, Valya who was just cleaning up after completing her task quietly suggested Marta might like to take a bathroom break before the shooting started.

When she came back she studied Anna's transformation, her hair had been swept up on her head and must have been held in place with hair spray, poking out were two cute black furry cat-like pointy ears. Her long sleeve top left only her fingers showing, and covered her from her neck to just below her bottom when she was standing up, and included a long curly tail, the whole outfit looking like a cat's dark fur.

She had on leg-warmers in the same fur that fitted from knee to ankle, her last item being a small black thong, Marta watched at first as the shoot began, with Anna pretending to be some sort of feral cat. As things progressed she fell into conversation with Valya about her talk with Ivan and Dmitri, pleased, but at the same time anxious to see if she could come up with an idea for a video that would help her sister achieve what she wanted.

Once Marta got started she told Valya about the research they had been doing concerning all of the models featured on the company's web site, so that Anna could improve skills as a model. She fell silent, thoughtful for a moment before she continued, "This studio has other types of web-sites,ones where the girls don't take their clothes off, there must be other companies as well that do different types of photos and videos of girls, how would I find out what their stuff is like?"

"It looks like they are about to take five, maybe John has some answers, photographers in the modelling business seem to stay in contact more than any other people involved in the industry."

John was a mine of information, telling them through his dealings with the sales people and through talking with other photographers, he thought there were somewhere between fifteen to twenty-five similar companies across the Ukraine, Russia and Romania, some of them having up to ten or more web site brand names, each varying in content to cover the different tastes in the market.

Marta said it would be useful to see the content of some of these sites so that Anna could become a better model, and John jokingly replied if she improved any more she would warrant her own personal web site. This led to talk of the 'Natasha super set', which as it turned out Anna was the only one unaware of this possible new development.

Anna wanted to know why this set was so large, and John said he always edited a set the same way, he removed shots if they were out of focus, and ones with poor composition, he then found ones where he had hit the shutter at the wrong moment, he also threw one out if a pair of images were too similar, then he started over again being more ruthless the next time around. On the last set he could find no more pictures he was willing to remove.

Before he returned to capture Anna in all her glory Marta asked about a site update and about getting pictures from other sites, John said to visit Dmitri, so Valya phoned him.

"Back again so soon, I must have started using the right aftershave or deodorant."

Marta got to the point about a site update and about her talk with John about researching their competitors web sites in order to get a broader view of the market, Dmitri seeing she was in full manager mode stopped joking and got down to business.

"OK, power-up your laptop and I will update or replace the various files, but of course you realize how unethical it would be for me to have content from most of our rivals" he said giving her a wink, as he placed a stack of CD's on the desk, "I must get round to throwing these old disks out, or maybe they might disappear when I'm not looking"

Marta returned to studio one and for some reason the laptop bag was a lot bulkier.

She was greeted by the sight of her sister wearing only leggings and cats ears kissing John goodbye as he was leaving to review the photo shoot they had just finished.

Anna hopped up on her chair to have her feline makeover removed, as Marta was about to start on her hair, Valya said to leave it as they had used so much spray to hold it in place, it would be better to go back to the salon after lunch to get a quick wash and blow dry. Anna queried going to lunch with such an odd hair style, but was told much stranger sights had been seen in there, besides after lunch the salon would have finished doing the girls who were modelling that afternoon.

Lunchtime they each tried a different dish, Marta had the Holubtsi with the tomato sauce, Valya went for the clear Borsch, and Anna the Varenyky, which she said were good but not as good as the ones mum made. Between bites Marta told them in hushed tones of the CD's that had 'accidentally' ended up in her bag, and how she was itching to discover their contents as soon as they returned to the apartment.

Fortunately there were typed labels in each CD case, with site and set names, which would help when they started to make their notes about the photo collections, not sure where to start, they chose one at random, and started at the first folder, a girl in ordinary clothes, in an ordinary apartment, well a little bigger than where they lived, undressed slowly and posed for the camera. No costume or set, it was poorly lit, and the girls hair looked greasy, Valya commented on how shoddy it was, with lousy production values and a low budget, there followed many sets by the same company that were no better. The girls were nice enough, but they had put no effort into their appearance, in fact some were in need of a bath.

Marta never the less made notes on all these points, then they skipped through the rest of the folders from that company, only checking one or two images in each just to be sure they missed nothing of interest. "One down" said Anna, ejecting the disk and replacing it leaving the box open so her sister could copy the details as they ran through the folders.

After the third disk Marta called for a halt to review the notes on the sites they had so far scanned, trying to condense in her mind what they had observed. She started a fresh page and made a list of brief points to clarify her jumbled notes on the previous pages.

"This is what I have so far, one - some companies don't use studio space, two - alternative venues are smart apartments, or the apartment where the girl lives, or outdoor locations."

Anna wanted to know why she thought some girls had been photographed in their own homes, and Marta said how one of the down market companies had about a dozen girls each shot in different properties but a few of the girls with two sets were in the same place twice and there were items in the background that showed a girl that age lived there.

"On to three - outfits that have studios, either produce artistic fantasy backgrounds like the ones you do, or sort of abstract or simple painted scenes, or lastly just a plain backcloth.

Four - clothes, same as above, full fantasy, smart Sunday best, or plain ordinary.

That's all my thoughts for now, but I can see Valya's point about production values, I'm just pleased you're with a really top outfit, I doubt if those other girls would have been treated as nicely, or had as much fun."

Valya noting how intent the girls were with their research, suggested they have a takeaway meal delivered, removing several menus from a kitchen drawer for them to choose from.

Excited by another first, they decided to order pizzas, they were not even sure if there were any takeaway places still left open in their home town.

Continuing with their task they found sets with two and three girls together, they found one company that did sets where the girls were naked throughout each set, there were a lot of sets of girls washing either in a bath or shower, but most surprising were the ones where girls were seen peeing on the toilet.

They stopped to eat when a man in a motorbike helmet turned up with their supper, being all sticky afterwards they needed to wash up before returning to the computer. Not long after eating Valya got a call from Ivan, she told the girls he would like to see them in the morning, seeing worried looks, she said he was pleased with them, both of them.

All three gathered around the screen to proceed, and found a large set of a girl shaving off all the pubic hair around her pussy, with many detailed close-ups showing how thorough she had been. This prompted a question from Marta as to why would the girl shave it off having only just grown it, at school girls were proud of their hair as a sign of womanhood.

"In this case it gives the photo set a reason to focus so much on her pussy, but in everyday life some girls like to shave because it makes them feel cleaner down there, or they want to wear small panties or bikinis without hair showing, or sometimes because their husband or boyfriend likes it" "You may have seen I shave, well actually I don't, I have my pubes waxed, it hurts like hell, but it lasts longer, and my boyfriend likes it a lot. From the looks you two are giving me I can see I may have to expand on the basic sex-ed talk, when I spoke about a guy putting his penis inside a girl, there are also other things to do, that won't get you pregnant."

"When you start dating, you learn about boys and about yourself, you may have seen older teens kissing and perhaps petting, and then they argue, split-up and a week later they are going out with someone else. It is a big step for a girl to go 'all the way' but if she really likes a boy, and wants to do more they can touch and rub each others private places."

"If a couple's feelings are really strong, she could stroke his penis until he ejaculates, that means the sperm - male seed spurts out, or she could take his penis in her mouth and suck him off" at this point she had a wide eyed audience.

"Any boy who wanted his girlfriend to do that - it's called a blow job, should be prepared to reciprocate as well, which means licking her down there until she feels good, that is called, cunnilingus, and being hairless certainly helps encourage them she said winking"

The sex-ed class continued for the rest of the evening, interspersed with both silly and insightful questions from both girls, by the time they went to bed that night they felt they must be the best informed girls in their neighbourhood.

To be continued in chapter 7