WEST BERLIN, 1978.
I met Ernest in one of his favorite watering holes. The place little more than a basement, and a lot less than a bar. One of those places where even the spiders couldn't wait to get home afterward. Tonight I was feeling like a spider, as I'd arranged to rendezvous later that evening with a Swedish foreign reporter at the Atlantic Hotel, who I'd manage to convince I was in the bureau of immigration. She found the subject fascinating, and I found it a suitable cover story. We'd worked together on a few of her assignments. I fed her "secrets" supposedly from my department. She provided valuable contacts in her own network to me which I recycled to my own network. It was symbiotic. But before I could go see her, I had to deal with Earnest.
I'd received a phone call at my hotel from earnest's secretary. A nice girl, winter birthday, dark hair and brown eyes that stared at you as if she knew you carried a gun, a vial of poison, and a dozen other ways to dispatch an enemy agent on your person. She asked me to meet with Earnest within the hour, and seeing as we were old friends and I owed Earnest more than a few of my lives, I agreed.
Earnest was late, and I found myself annoyed. Checking my watch every minute as I imagined the pleasures that awaited me on the other side of this meeting. When Earnest finally did make his entrance my annoyance melted into the dust that surrounded us in this terrible basement. Earnest never worried, never fluttered, and never feared. Tonight he was doing all three.
"There's a woman following me. Red beret. If she comes down she will kill me." Earnest was talking fast. Didn't even order a drink. "You have to stop her."
"Earnest you know I can't make direct contact with enemy operators. Those are the rules."
"You have to break them! This woman, she is death itself!"
"Then why on earth did you let her follow you here?" I asked suddenly nervous for my own skin. Violence was uncommon, but not out of the question. Usually the jobs like that fell to men though, to have a woman doing it must mean something about her.
"I had no choice!!" earnest replied, the fear breaking his voice. He was holding onto my sleeve now. I pulled away.
"I'll be lucky if you haven't doomed us both."
I walked away from the table, leaving Earnest in a quivering heap. Nothing else to gain here. Whole lot to lose. I made my exit onto the street, the cold night forcing the breath from my lungs. And then I saw her. Approaching from across the street. The woman with the red beret. She crossed the street, and headed toward the bar. On my left was nothing but an alleyway filled with trash. No common sense reason to go back there. I had to walk past her.
I did my best to keep my head but something about her was magnetic, my eyes were pulled in her direction. Our gazes met, her piercing grey eyes peeking out from under her blood colored hat. A spark of recognition? Then she passed me, into the basement bar. I said my goodbyes to earnest in my head.
...........
I almost got back to my hotel before I picked up my tail. Two men in overcoats. Big ones. They were looking at the women's magazines at a newsstand opposite me. I made a left, and doubled back to see they'd gone, only for them to reappear moments later, supposedly leaving a café for a cigarette. I called a cab, and told him to go to the Atlantic hotel, double the fare if he took the labyrinthine backroads. To my relief my driver was skilled, and we quickly dropped my tail. I knew I couldn't go back to my place that night, and I really didn't want to sleep on the street. So I resolved to meet my Swedish contact early.
I reached the bar of the Atlantic and had the desk ring her room. I picked a table, secluded but with a view of the door, and ordered a drink. Bourbon. I sat nursing it, until she mercifully showed up. Amala was tall, I suppose that came with being Swedish, but she wasn't blonde. Her hair was dark and straight. She was wearing a form fitting dress yellow that I mostly managed not to stare at her athletic body underneath as she walked over and slid into the seat across from me.
"Vhat is your meaning of meeting me early Mr. Charlie?"
I'd almost forgotten that was my cover name. Thanks for reminding me.
"I just, wanted to see you was all. Is that alright?"
"Off' course eet is alright" Her accent was heavy. It was cute. She crossed her legs. "Eet gives me more time to get to know you."
"I'm flattered you want to know me. Most people don't think I'm very interesting. Drink?"
"Martini please." I waved the waiter over and ordered her one. "Since I have you here, do you mind if I ask you some work questions?" She asked, sly.
"Shoot."
"In your field, immigration, it's your job to see people across borders safely, no?"
"That's right."
Her drink came. She sipped. Perfect lips on the thin rim. Her mouth curved upward as she asked:
"Are you good at your job?"
"I like to think so."
"Do you work with all kinds?
"I do."
"What if someone wants to cross a border and they don't have the proper paperwork?"
Odd question. What's she driving at?
"Well we do our best to help them get to where they want to be. We keep a lot on file."
"Does anyone ever die?"
She knows something.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Is anyone ever shot? Crossing the border."
She drained her glass. I drained mine. I wasn't prepared for this line of questioning, but I had to be here until morning and I could get hold of my agency.
"That's not really my department. That sounds like a security issue."
"You work at the Zellsis immigration branch, no?"
That was my cover story, yes.
"Right, but we don't deal with anything like that."
"I think that you do. William Shatterton. Do you know him?"
I do. Good agent. Died in the back of an east german truck. One in the head, one in the heart.
"Never heard of him."
"Mark Spitzer?"
Strangled in an alleyway in Istanbul.
"No. Sorry."
"Earnest Carroway?"
My face betrayed me.
"What happened to him?"
"Murdered in a bar across town about 80 minutes ago."
Poor bastard. Stupid agent. Good riddance, but a bad way to go.
"How do you know that?"
"Maybe we should go up to my room."
I agreed. We rode the mirrored elevator her asking questions, me giving non-answers. Maybe it's the adrenaline, or the alcohol, but I couldn't stop looking at Amala's frame in her dress. Even as she grilled me, I can't help but feel the pull of attraction.
We reached her hotel room. It's nice, a bit too nice for a beat reporter. Hmmmm.
She makes us another round of drinks. I decide to come out with it.
"Who are you?"
She raised an eyebrow at me.
"How do you--"
She put a finger to her lips. She crossed the room at turned the radio on. Then she sat next to me on the bed.
"I am not a reporter."
"Clearly"
"And you are not an immigration officer."
"There you're mistaken--"
"Shut it please. I know you're an agent. Let me tell you how this goes."
I leaned in.
"We want to know who killed your man. We are tracking down enemies in the city and we believe she may be one of them. All we want is a description."
"You know I can't give it to you. My agency would--"
"But you will. This is why I have turned on the music. In the next room there are some men listening. Watching. If you do not cooperate, they will come in here and beat you until you do."
"Well, that isn't good news."
"And if you just give me the information, they will come in and beat you just to make sure it's the truth."
"Oh fantastic"
"So I suggest... you let me seduce you. They will not suspect a lie, and I prefer it that way anyway. You're quite handsome."
I considered. She had me in a bit of a corner, but not the worst jam I'd ever been in. The enemy of my enemy is my friend is all that. Plus the prospect of spending the night with Amala ignited a hunger in me I didn't know was there, only downside was the audience. But I'd done worse.
"Very well." I said, smiling. "Seduce me"
From a bar in the corner she poured two glasses of scotch. She downed hers before she even handed me mine, but I did my best to follow suit. She sat next to me on the bed, shoulders and knees turned toward mine. She leaned in, her face close enough that I could smell her sweet breath. Her fingers found her way to the top button of my shirt, and undid it. I exhaled, already feeling something hardening between my legs. She whispered in my ear: "Grab my ass."
I obliged her. I cupped one large hand around her perfect, shapely backside in that lovely, thin yellow dress and squeezed. Then WHAM! She slapped me. I caught her wrist. She kissed me. And we were off.
I found her tongue in my mouth, and my hands moving up her back, we fell backward onto the bed, her on top. She quickly popped the rest of my buttons off, revealing my chest, sculpted by years of labor in the field. I felt her hands run over them, a small exhale betraying her, almost reluctant appreciation.
My hands ran up her calves, up her thighs, up her dress. Her backside was soft and warm, and I wanted her.
She played with buttons on my pants, fingers working them loose. I kissed her again, long and deep as the buttons popped loose. She tugged my pants down, I pulled her dress up, and we we're stripped to our underwear.
I'd always been gifted below the belt, though I hadn't realized how gifted until my second girlfriend. She'd had a lot more experience than I had at the time, and the first time we slept together, afterward she said she felt like she'd been hit by a truck. I took that as a compliment. Amala had just become aware of my slowly hardening gift beneath my shorts.
"My god" She breathed. "It's like a Stasi baton."
"You'll like this better than a baton."
"I certainly hope so--hey!"
She smacked me as I ripped her bra off her. I grabbed her around the waist and sat us both up on the edge of the bed, her straddling me. Her tongue wound up in my mouth again, our bodies pressed together. I felt her moan as my pelvis rubbed up against her crotch. She ground into me, I could feel the heat between her legs growing. I spun her around so she sat on my lap facing outward. I kissed her back, up to her neck. With my right hand I caressed her breast, and with my left, I dropped her panties down her legs.
Her breath caught. She was mine now.
I whispered in her ear. "Do you want to suck it?"
"Yes" she breathed. With minimal encouragement she dropped to her knees between my legs. Her sharp eyes peering up into mine as she pulled my underwear off. My dick came free, flopping heavily against my thigh, semi-erect. Her eyes widened slightly at it's size, but she tried to play it cool.
