The Price of Three Tickets to America

In the spring of 1889, hundreds of peasants from the Carpathian valleys packed up what little they had and set off westward, fed up with hunger, taxes, and lords who never received them. Few ever saw their villages again. One May morning, the Albu family closed the door of their home in Crăciunel for the last time and headed for the station, never to return.

***

“Look, Stela,” Irina said to her rag doll.

They had left the mountains behind and were now crossing an endless plain, with the sun rising at their backs. The girl nestled against her mother’s side and stroked the doll’s ragged black mane while they both watched the unfamiliar landscape rush past the window.

Adela, her mother, wore a white linen blouse with flowers embroidered around the collar and cuffs, a long dark-blue skirt, and a small apron tied at the waist. She brought the doll’s face up to the glass so Irina could play and, in doing so, was able to examine the third-class carriage at her leisure.

It was nothing much. A mass of people sitting or standing, murmuring, coughing, sighing. Her father, a man weathered by years of working outdoors, dozed on the bench beside them and snored through a thick mustache. Other travelers crowded the aisle, swaying in unison around the bends, their clothes reeking of stable and fried onion. Above it all, the incessant clatter of wheels over the rails. The carriage air was stifling, but Adela would not let the girl open the window: being so close to the locomotive, the wind would only bring in smoke and ash.

They changed trains at Budapest’s grand station. When they entered the atrium, Irina stood open-mouthed, staring at the lofty ceiling and the enormous arched window in the wall. She had never seen a building so large, so precise, with more rectangles and semicircles than she could have counted.

They were lucky and found seats for the next leg. Irina traveled on her mother’s lap while her grandfather, Tudor, remained standing for six hours. Her aunt Marta tried to give him her seat halfway there, but the old man would not hear of it.

“As long as he can stand, a man carries what falls to him,” he growled, shaking his head. “I don’t need women for that.”

When the train finally pulled into the port, the Albu family made their way to the end of the carriage and climbed down onto the platform in a line: Tudor holding Marta’s hand, the youngest of his daughters; Marta holding that of her niece Irina; and the girl, in turn, holding Adela’s. Carrying the only suitcase, the old man led them out, beyond the crowded station and onto an equally noisy street.

“We’ll find a room away from the docks,” he decided. “It’ll be cheaper.”

They struggled southward as the sun sank into the sea to their right and stained the sky red. They had been traveling for nearly two days: first by cart to the nearest city with a station, then by train all night and for almost another full day before finally reaching the port on the Adriatic. They were exhausted.

At a side street, Adela saw a bed-shaped sign hanging from an iron bar. Rooms. She sighed with relief. Tudor smiled at her and the girl and led them inside.

***

The following morning they went down to the docks early. Irina, who had never left the mountains, was fascinated by the port: ramshackle fishing boats returning from the grounds, immense steamships laden with cargo amid bangs and shouts, stevedores cursing, gulls plunging after scraps. The living smell of the sea tangled with the stench of rot rising from beneath the piers.

The ticket office was packed: mothers with crying babies, fathers shoving in line, harried clerks behind a long counter consulting account books and, no doubt, some pickpocket practicing his trade. A cacophony of languages filled the room, and the air was already unbearable. While Tudor joined the queue, Adela looked for a corner where she could sit, a bead of sweat trickling down her back.

The old man returned some time later, his armpits damp and his face twisted with rage. The ship they wanted to take sailed that very day, but there were no berths left. Nor were there any on the one two days later. With luck, perhaps the following week. Who knew?

Hearing this, Adela stood and held out her hand for her father to give her the money.

“A man does what he can,” she said, repeating and twisting his usual phrase. “But sometimes something else is needed.”

Tudor thought for a few seconds and, resigned, handed the bundle to his eldest daughter.

The young woman checked herself in a little mirror before crossing the room to the far end of the counter, where a clerk was updating a board with the names of the ships, their destinations, and departure times. The man shook his head apologetically and began pointing her toward the end of the line, but when she persisted, he looked up.

Adela’s eyes, an unsettling blue in the middle of a very dark face, had their usual effect. The young man’s gaze, however, soon dropped lower. Adela was dressed traditionally, with her bone-colored blouse tucked beneath her dark skirt, fastened at the top with a row of buttons that, almost casually, she had begun undoing as she approached, pretending to seek a little air in the heat.

She leaned over the counter and pressed her arms against her sides, making the shadow between her breasts deeper. She spread out the bundle of banknotes so the clerk could see that she had the means to pay and, slowly, fanned her sweat-shiny cleavage while arching one eyebrow. The young man, dark-haired and about twenty-five, opened his eyes wide before hastily composing himself.

“Un momento, per favore,” he said in Italian, and hurried toward a door, knocking before sticking his head through for a moment.

When he came back toward her, Adela rolled her eyes and pretended to faint, letting herself fall to the floor. Without dropping the money, of course, which remained clenched in her fist.

The clerk flung open the little counter door and crouched beside her, alarmed. Adela’s eyelids parted, and she blinked in feigned confusion. With his back to the room so no one could see his face, the young man gave her a furtive, conspiratorial smile. He patted her cheek, offered his hand, and helped her sit up.

“Ufficio,” he said softly, pointing toward the door at the back.

***

He escorted her to the office, which was crammed with account books and papers covering every available surface. An older man with a great mustache, some sort of supervisor, rose from behind an enormous desk and looked her up and down while his subordinate closed the door. Hearing the bolt click, Adela smiled inwardly: her trick had worked.

Men, she thought with some contempt. Then she displayed the money, ninety florins in all.

“Three,” she declared firmly, holding up three fingers. “New York.”

“Tre? Sicura?” The supervisor narrowed his eyes skeptically. “Vedremo, vedremo… We’ll see.”

He nodded, weighing with his eyes the figure of that woman with her harsh beauty, and slipped the money into his pocket without counting it, certain the transaction would be worth his while whatever the amount. And, ready to begin collecting his due, he started unbuttoning his fly.

Adela cleared her throat and fixed him with a reproachful stare, making it clear that she was no common whore and that she considered such haste vulgar. Far from being disconcerted, the fellow reached into his drawers and pulled out his cock, already half-hard, letting it fall heavily against the shirttail. He gave her a malicious grimace as he stroked it up and down with his fist until it stood completely rigid, then signaled to the young man to prepare the tickets.

Embarrassed, Adela looked away and pretended to be interested in a faded picture on the wall. It was only the second cock she had ever seen in her life. In her ignorance, she had always assumed that all men carried something similar between their legs, and suddenly understood just how wrong she had been. It was enormous. It was the most humiliating situation she had experienced since giving birth, and yet she could not stop herself from casting a quick, furtive glance at the threatening shaft. Rigid. Thick. Vertical. The swollen purple tip gleamed with a drop beginning to emerge from the little hole. Beneath it hung two heavy, dark balls covered in curly black hair, and Adela felt a dizzy spell unlike the earlier one as she imagined that thing inside her body.

When the young man handed her the tickets, Adela realized she had no way of checking whether they were genuine. Even so, she pretended to inspect them, tucked them into her bodice with satisfaction, and nodded her approval. Then she leaned back against the edge of the desk and slowly began lifting her skirt and petticoat to her waist while the supervisor, comfortably braced against the table, watched every detail.

The man remained still, as though expecting something from her. Adela did not understand his passivity, why he did not simply throw himself on her as her daughter’s father usually did. Until, tired of waiting, the supervisor spat into his palm and rubbed the saliva all over his shaft, up and down, unhurriedly, watching her eyes while the glans grew shinier and slicker.

But Adela was a woman who could handle herself, a mother who had no intention of cowering before a show of bravado. She raised one eyebrow as if none of it impressed her, hiked her skirt all the way up, and allowed the man to contemplate the triangle of black curls on her cunt, already thoroughly soaked despite her disdain. He licked his lips at the wetness gleaming between her thighs and leaned over to kiss her on the mouth, surprising her unpleasantly with his roughness and pleasantly with an unexpected taste of bitter coffee. The supervisor’s tongue entered without permission, thick and eager, sweeping over her palate while a rough hand caught one breast above her bodice and squeezed it until a small moan escaped her into the kiss.

He did not linger over preliminaries. He yanked open two more buttons at her neckline, pulled one breast free, and nibbled her nipple until it was hard as a pebble, tugging it with his teeth until Adela arched against the desk. Then he crouched and buried his face between her thighs, spreading them without ceremony with his palms. Against all expectation, she liked the roughness of that tongue. It aroused her, left her even wetter, awakened in her belly an urgency she did not know how to name. The supervisor licked her slit from top to bottom with long, flat strokes, paused at the hood to suck it between his lips, and then plunged back down until he pushed his whole tongue inside her, penetrating her with it as though it were a small cock. Adela closed her eyes and spread her knees farther on her own, ashamed of her own obscenity.

The trouble was that he stopped just when she sensed something was about to happen, something intense and utterly unknown. Having done his part, the supervisor stood, turned her facedown across the table, and hiked her skirts over her ass. He slapped both cheeks to watch them tremble and, without warning, fitted the tip of his shaft to the entrance of her cunt, driving all the way in with one thrust. Adela let out a muffled cry, her eyes clouding, her cheeks pressed against the desk’s wood and her mouth open in a silent gasp.

She did not understand what was happening to her body, how so much pleasure could be possible, that feeling of fullness as the man moved in and out with a dry rhythm, giving her exactly what she had been seeking without knowing it. She felt his cock strike something deep inside with every thrust, while his balls slapped against her damp thighs with a wet smack that turned her ears red. Then she heard movement beside her: the young clerk was clearing the desk and stacking the account books on the floor, his cock already out of his fly, thinner than his boss’s but long and erect, giving little jerks each time Adela moaned.

Once he had made room, the young man positioned himself in front of her face and, following a sign from his boss, began kneading her breasts through her blouse. He did it gently, brushing her nipples until they hardened, then undoing the other side of her bodice as well so both tits were exposed, round and white, shaking in time with the supervisor fucking her from behind. The boy pinched her nipples between his knuckles, pinching and stretching them, a caress that contrasted with the force with which the other man pounded her from behind, driving her hips against the edge of the desk.

Adela was ashamed of her own moans. Until that morning, her experience had been limited to something clumsy and quick, not much different from what she had seen the animals in the yard doing. It turned out city men knew how to fuck in another way, and she decided she did not care what the young man did with her tits, so long as he did not try to steal her tickets. The supervisor held her hips with both hands and pulled her back with every thrust, impaling her on his cock with increasingly deep strokes until she herself began moving her ass to meet him, seeking the depth, the friction, the exact spot that made her lose her head.

“That’s it, puttana, that’s how a female moves,” the supervisor panted behind her, giving one buttock another sharp slap. “Work it well. I want to see it dance.”

Adela did not fully understand the words, nor did she care. That imperious need returned at once. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the rhythm, almost immediately regretting when the young man withdrew his hands from her breasts. When she opened them, she found another firm, proud cock an inch from her face, its foreskin pulled back, tilted slightly to the left, and glistening with a transparent thread that hung down and brushed her cheek. It was the supervisor who, without ceasing to thrust, slid one hand between her thighs and began rubbing her hood directly with the pad of his thumb, tight circles executed with a skill she would never have believed possible from such thick fingers.

Pleasure arrived like a wave breaking inside her. A spasm caught her entirely by surprise, tearing a long moan from her that broke in her throat and making her cunt clamp around the supervisor’s cock so tightly that he gave a hoarse laugh. She came in torrents inside, not as fluid but as electric shocks that shot through her waist and ran down her thighs, soaking them even more. She had never felt anything like it, pleasure so great it seemed ready to split her in two. This must have been what some women laughed about in hushed voices at the village washhouse. The man watched her pant and convulse, never stopping the movement of his thumb over her hood, ignoring her clumsy attempts to push it away. Unable to stop trembling, Adela heard herself panting and moaning meaningless words for what seemed like an eternity, her cunt streaming around the cock still inside her, until he finally granted her a few seconds’ respite, holding still without withdrawing completely. The young man took advantage of the pause to press the tip of his cock against her chin, leaving a wet mark of pre-cum there.

Adela was certain no woman in her village had ever slept with two men at once, and the thought made her feel, despite herself, lucky and curious about what would come next. She looked at the young man over the cock resting on her nose. She caught the dense smell of a man, a mixture of sweat and something saltier, and felt her cunt contract again, as though her body were asking for more without consulting her. He tilted his head and, as if about to kiss her, rubbed the tip against her lips; she pursed them and placed a timid kiss on it. The cock jerked, and a weak laugh escaped Adela. She let just the tip of her tongue out and tasted it: salty, a little bitter, not as unpleasant as she had feared. To avoid fearing something big, you have to look it straight in the face, she told herself with a determination she had never known.

A resounding slap on her buttocks filled her with a frenzy that made her feel woman and little girl at once. She was surprised to find herself wanting another blow: she was enjoying it without disguise. The supervisor obliged with two more, one on each cheek, leaving them burning and hot, then drove his cock all the way into her cunt again to remind her who set the pace. But then the young man seized her by the nape and tried to put his cock between her lips and, when she instinctively resisted, resorted to the same trick her mother had used to make her eat vegetables as a child: he pinched her nose.

Adela pressed her lips together, grunted, and tried to wriggle free. It was too much; she had never done this even for her daughter’s father. But a few seconds later her lack of air betrayed her, and she opened her mouth to breathe. The young man took advantage of it to thrust his cock halfway in. The young mother thus discovered the novelty of having a man inside her mouth: the hot weight on her tongue, the salty taste on her palate, the rough hair at the base brushing her nose when he pushed a little farther. She did not like his methods, though deep down she had always been curious. In the village she had heard married women say it was the quickest way to get their husbands to let them sleep, and she had remembered their advice well. With her tongue she explored the cock inside her mouth, moving up along the underside, circling the rim of the tip, imitating what that same man had done to her nipples earlier.

The supervisor watched from the side, highly pleased with himself, never stopping his slow, deep thrusting from behind, which made her swallow with difficulty. Soon he pulled his cock from her soaked cunt as well and walked around the table to offer it to her from the front, dripping with her juices. Grateful for the pleasure he had given her, Adela overcame her reluctance and accepted it eagerly, tasting the musky flavor of her own cunt mixed with the man’s. She rewarded him by looking him in the eyes, just as she had heard her countrywomen recommend, and surprised herself by sticking out her tongue to lick his balls when he rested the tip of his cock against her forehead. Sprawled across the desk, she alternated between them, her mouth now on the supervisor, now on the young man, letting herself be pushed headfirst until she gagged a little, until a thread of saliva hung from her chin and stained her blouse. She could not help giving more of herself to the man who had made her come, sucking his cock deeper and more slowly, her cheeks hollowed.

Ironically, the supervisor indicated that she should focus on the young man, since he preferred to set the rhythm himself. He moved behind her again and plunged his shaft into her cunt with a single thrust, drawing a moan that was muffled by the boy’s cock. The young man leaned over again, slipped one hand beneath her blouse, and pinched a nipple while she attended to him, slowly moving her hips against his mouth. Adela let herself be fucked from both ends at once, jerked like a rag doll between the two cocks, and discovered with astonishment that instead of completely humiliating her, it lit a new pulse between her legs. Until, without warning, the young man thrust his hips and buried himself completely; Adela’s eyes flew wide, and she felt the tip of his cock strike the back of her throat. The need to swallow blotted out everything else. In spurts she discovered how men ended, thick hot spurts splashing her palate and running down her tongue, and in spurts she had to accept it, swallowing in waves so as not to choke, while the final tremors of her own pleasure moved through her. When he finally pulled out, still spitting the last drops, a white thread hung from the corner of Adela’s mouth, which she wiped away with the back of her hand.

“Two tickets, bellissima,” the supervisor whispered in her ear, while she was still choking around it.

Adela nodded, disheveled and breathless, too exhausted to move. And when one of the man’s fingers, wet with spit and with her own cunt’s juices, slid down to her last opening and pressed firmly, she had strength only for a sob. The finger entered to the knuckle and moved in circles, slowly opening her ass while she clenched her fists against the desk and tried to relax inside. The other man covered her mouth with his cock, still soft but quickly hardening again on her tongue, while the supervisor added a second finger and then a third, spitting on her asshole from time to time to make it slide more easily. When he thought she was ready, he withdrew his fingers, pressed his shaft against that puckered hole, and pushed slowly, patiently, gaining ground millimeter by millimeter until the glans gave way and entered all at once, drawing a long moan from Adela, muffled by the young man’s cock filling her mouth.

He took her without haste, gripping her hips and giving her time to adjust until he began moving inside her with short thrusts, each one deeper than the last. Adela had never imagined that a man could put himself in there; the initial burning gradually became a strange fullness, different from everything before, a hot weight that pressed against her cunt from the other side of the partition. Against all expectation, she shuddered again when the young man brought a hand to her hood and rubbed it himself while fucking her mouth. Her tight ass clenching around the supervisor’s cock drew a roar from him, and he began moving faster, gripping her waist with both hands until he buried himself completely and came inside her with three or four violent thrusts, filling her ass with a sticky warmth she felt sliding inside her. When he finally emptied himself, he showed the first sign of weakness: he stumbled away from her, his cock still dripping semen and fluid from Adela’s open ass, groped for a chair, tripped over the pile of account books, and fell backward, laughing heartily on the floor with his shaft hanging above his fly. Three tickets to America in exchange for three indulgences. The deal was closed.

Fearing that the young man might want his turn from behind as well, Adela straightened up and hurriedly lowered her skirt, feeling semen trickle down the inside of her thigh beneath the fabric. But the young man, emptied too, walked around the desk to help his boss. She took advantage of the moment to fasten her neckline, tuck her breasts back into her bodice, make sure the money was still in place, and reluctantly accept the handkerchief he held out so she could wipe her mouth and clean herself between the legs as best she could.

“Grazie mille,” she said disdainfully, smoothing her skirts, and headed for the door.

“Un momento, signora,” the supervisor croaked.

“What now?” she sighed, shooting him a murderous look. The man was standing by the desk, counting the ninety florins again.

“Four?” he asked, lifting the asylum application.

“Three adults and one child,” Adela clarified cautiously.

The supervisor smiled, suddenly friendly. He took some banknotes from the bundle and handed them back.

“Seventy-five. The child doesn’t pay.”

After a second’s hesitation, she accepted the money with a slight nod and tucked it into her blouse.

“Grazie mille,” she repeated, this time genuinely grateful.

She opened the door and left the office with her head held high, ignoring the whispers of those who, a minute earlier, had heard her come.

***

The steamer called at Genoa, Naples, and Gibraltar before facing ten days of crossing against the wind. They reached New York on a bright morning and disembarked that afternoon amid the tide of people shuffling toward the island’s reception center. Irina was captivated by the giant woman holding a torch aloft, her copper-colored skin splashed with pale green.

The process was quick. A cursory medical inspection: no lice, no cough, no watery eyes. Then they compared the names with the ship’s register.

“Documents?” the officer asked. And, faced with their blank looks, repeated, “Passaporti?”

“Of course, of course.” Tudor handed him the papers.

“Tudor Albu,” the officer read slowly, and with a chuckle wrote “Theodore Albe” in his book. “I’m doing you a favor, friend. Let’s see… Adela Albu. Ah, yes. You,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “We received a telegram from the port about you a few days ago. Would you be so kind as to accompany me for a moment?”

“It will be my pleasure,” she replied, already rolling up her blouse as she set off.

“Welcome to the United States, Mrs. Albe,” the official congratulated her, placing his hand precisely where the back loses its name. “You know, I have a friend who…”