Chapter 3

I stared wide-eyed, mouth agape at her while she held me. Lara was an inch taller than me, so I looked up into her eyes. She whispered in my ear, “warm?”

I made a vague attempt to squirm away, but she held me confidently. A hand went up, grasped the back of my head. She drew her face closer to mine. I felt her breath against my lips. I went up to my toes automatically to meet her.

“Oh no,” I protested in a whisper. But I didn’t push her away. I didn’t recoil. I only stood permissively and closed my eyes and swallowed nervously. I offered no further protest. My arms fell to my sides limply. Her lips touched mine and a vacuous energy imploded within me, drawing me into a private, timeless world. Her lips were tender. Soft. Then there was her tongue, touching mine. I shuddered. She released her kiss slowly. I opened my eyes and found her eyes delighted, fluttering, glowing, mercurial in the sunlight.

“You like it!” She exclaimed.

I stood back, brought my arms into a cross against my breasts again and laughed and blushed beaming, nodding sheepishly. We kissed again. This time more deeply. Her hands, unseen, pried my crossed arms from my small breasts so that she could draw herself more into me.

After kissing, she grabbed my hand and brought it to one of her breasts. I held it there unmoving, feeling the softness of her breast. The hardness of her nipple on my open palm, sensing the beating of her heart beneath, then, before anything else could happen, I snapped out of my trance.

“I can’t…sorry,” I murmured. I backed off and waded back to shore. I wrung out my hair, then sat on the blanket to dry myself out in the sun, trying my very best to keep my cool.

Lara came out a moment later, with a confident, sensual sway to her hips. The rippling sunlight reflection of the water bounced like moving tattoos off her body. Water dripped from her hair and streamed down her curves.

She plopped down next to me and kept a silent gaze on the distant trees and the vineyards across the river. Her warm body being so close filled me with an effervescent buzz. The temptation to touch her, to embrace her, to kiss her again, all over her delicious, perfect Czech body was painful to bear. But for a long while we sat together like that, without conversation, without bringing overt attention to our fleeting foreplay. We sat until we were dried. When the sun started to descend into the mountain behind us, casting a long, cool shadow, we departed and walked along the gently curving river. Lara walked with her bicycle in hand, curled her other hand into mine. We walked like that until we reached the canal that veered into the city and followed it until we reached my apartment.

“Well, Lara, I — ,” I paused. I meant to say, ‘I had fun’, but realized that fun was a woefully inadequate qualifier for what had happened that afternoon. But I failed to find any other word for it.

“I’m having my party on Friday. I’d love for you to come,” she said quickly. I didn’t give her an answer, only stood there scratching my neck awkwardly. She embraced me and kissed me on each cheek quickly. She reached into her bicycle’s basket, picked out a lily for me. “Thanks,” I said. I took it and walked up the stairs.

“I hope to see you again,” she shouted after me. After arriving at my apartment, I went immediately to the window, and saw a glimpse of her yellow dress across the canal disappearing behind a passing tram. I really wanted to see her again. I was dying to see her again. And this made me happy.

Frank lit another cigarette. He turned a page in the dossier, and I craned my neck for a peek. When he saw this, he pulled the dossier closer to him. Photographs. I knew them to be ones that Lara took of me.

“You met Lara again later that week.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

He smirked. “Just a guess.”

“How did you get those pictures?” I demanded.

He flipped out another photograph and set it atop the first. He adjusted his glasses and studied it with clinical sternness. He ignored my question.

“The night of her party. That’s when you found out she was KGB?”

*** The Operative ***

I knew she was a security risk. I knew seeing her was forbidden. It was the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was backed against a corner, unable to compete with the US on military spending. They were embroiled in a shitshow of a war in Afghanistan. They had a party leader who was as paranoid as they come and a government that was corrupt and bloated. To make matters worse, the leader of their greatest adversary, Reagan, seemed like a loose cannon with an unsteady hand hovering over the red button. The KGB had been kicked into high gear, with Vienna being a focal point of their activities. And they were aggressive. Seeing her, I knew I was risking not only my clearance but my career. But if I told them about her, they’d tell me not to see her again. I didn’t want that. She made me feel good. I wanted to see more of her. So, I took the chance that she wasn’t a spy. How likely was it, really? And if she were, why target me. There were plenty of single, lonely men at the embassy with access to more intel?

A few days after the river, I called her, remembering she had mentioned something about a party she had invited me to.

“Hallo?” crackled the familiar voice on the other end. Laughter, loud talking, and loud music in the background.

“Hi Lara. It’s me, Kirby. Is this a bad time?”

“Kirby! It makes me so happy to hear from you. You’re missing a great party! Why don’t you come over?”

“Oh… I don’t want to be a –“

“Don’t be silly, I want you here.”

I was hesitant. I wanted to see her alone. I wanted her all to myself. But I agreed. “Ok. I’ll be over.”

She gave me the address. I quickly made myself up and hopped on a tram.

Her apartment was in the first district, on the border with the third on the edge of the ring road in a rather ornate Baroque building. She was on the top floor. A large, luxurious penthouse fit for a royal princess. This was a surprise.

When I knocked on her door, she opened at once and her face brightened. An intense marijuana smell wafted out from within. She hugged me tightly and led me by the hand inside. The apartment began with an elegant marble floored foyer larger than my whole apartment. In the living room, paintings in golden frames hung on every wall, a large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and a Turkish or an Afghan rug lay slanted on the oak parquet. Framed and unframed paintings and photographs, books in tall bookshelves all over, and people sat scattered across her floor. Several people were dancing in the center of the room to Annie Lennox singing. An eclectic bacchanalian mix of fashionable people in punk acid-washed jeans and skimpy cocktail dresses. Others barely dressed at all. A bare-breasted woman with a lei of fresh white flowers walked by with what looked like a Black Russian drink in her hand. She looked me up and down and winked before joining someone in the corner of the room, with whom she immediately started to make out with.

Lara shouted above the loud music “Hi everyone, this is Kirby! Kirby, this is everyone.” Some people looked my way and waved and shouted a greeting. Others were too tuned out to notice.

Lara yanked my hand to bring me to a circle of friends passing a roach around in the corner and plopped herself down on a beanbag. The others were sitting on beanbags as well. Lara invited me to join her. As I sat down beside her, a man — a boy really, with long hair tied back in a ponytail and his shirt unbuttoned – passed me the roach. I proceeded to pass it directly to Lara, who smoked it nonchalantly and passed it to the next person, a beautiful gaunt-faced Asian woman wearing round Elton John style glasses and a scarf tied tightly around her neck. There were two other people in the circle, a man that looked like Jesus and a buzz-cut woman. They were passed out cold in each other’s arms.

The Asian woman smirked at me, looked me up and down and in a sharp accent asked, “how do you know Lara?”

“We’ve only met twice. Randomly.” I looked to Lara for assurance.

Lara added, “Yes, twice, but Kirby is quite a lovely friend. Last Sunday we spent the whole day at the river and had so much fun together.”

The Asian woman seemed skeptical of me. Or too stoned to carry any other expression. Her voice droned, “ooh, sounds very romantic.”

“Oh, not romantic,” I blurted. Lara giggled. At that moment, she spotted a man in the kitchen that was trying to open a bottle with what looked like a chef’s knife. “Would you excuse me, I need to yell at some guests,” she said, then jumped up and went to the kitchen, leaving me in the circle with the Asian woman and the boy and the passed-out couple. The conversation deadened and the woman and the boy both stared at me lazily. I started a new topic. Leaning into them, I asked quietly, “so, what is her story?”

“What do you mean?” said the boy.

“I didn’t realize she was this… rich.”

The Asian woman let out a tittering laugh. “Old Russian money.”

“Old Russian money?”

“Don’t let her Bohemian style fool you, dear. Her family is Powerful.” She put a heavy emphasis on the ‘P’ in powerful. “Not only in Russia, but here in Vienna as well. You should know she received her debut at the Vienna Opera Ball. That makes her European nobility,” She stared at Lara with a distant envy as she said this.

“I thought she was Czech,” I said.

My heart palpitated. She had conveniently left out that little ‘Russian’ detail. Suddenly, my fears started to come into focus.

“Her mother’s Czech. But her father is a general in the Soviet military, I think. Hard to be a general if you’re not Russian, I would say.”

He took a drag from the weed and offered it to me. This time I took it and puffed on it and wheezed. My first joint since college. The boy chuckled lazily as I grimaced from the sharp, woody taste. I handed the joint to the Asian woman and croaked, “Lara said she was from Prague.”

When the Asian woman finished a puff, she replied, “Of course she is, dear. But who knows for sure?”

“And how did you all get to know her?”

“Same way you did. Randomly. Let me tell you, you are lucky to have Lara as a friend.”

“Thanks… I guess.” I glanced over at Lara who was having a glass of wine with the man in the kitchen. She was smiling and touching him as she spoke, gracious and flirtatious. She glanced over my way, smiled when she caught my eyes. She certainly did not look like a Russian spy, but that’s the point, isn’t it?

A dreaded sense of responsibility and an associated urge to leave this apartment came to me. I felt stupid, almost embarrassed for coming here. I excused myself from the circle and stood and tried sneaking out unnoticed. But at that moment, a new song started, a random guy grabbed my hand and yanked me onto the dance floor to dance with him. Lara noticed me, so I stayed and danced, pretending I was not just about to flee. Wouldn’t want to let the predator smell fear, would we?

When the song ended, Lara came over and squeezed herself between me and my dance partner. He took the hint and gave a polite berth. Lara and I danced together to the next song. As we danced, the stress of the situation tried its very best to melt away. My mind, screaming, grasped desperately at caution, fruitlessly trying to hold on to it for my sake. Apart from the light weed buzz, I was sober. Sober enough to recognize that the longer I stayed, the more I was in jeopardy of becoming drawn into a trap I could not see. At the same time, I told myself that leaving, now that she was watching, could be just as risky. So, I kept cool and danced.

The guy that lent me to Lara lingered nearby to make sure I wouldn’t get too far. I could tell he was very interested in me. He was soon joined by a friend, a wingman, and it became obvious that they were plotting to separate me and Lara.

The wingman whispered something in Lara’s ear. She shrugged and nodded and started to dance with him, while my original dance partner took my hand. He wasn’t bad looking. In fact, he was cute, and not bad at dancing either. The music was loud, and as we danced, he shouted over it into my ear in German.

“Thanks! What’s yours?”

“Nice to meet you, Jan!”

“Very nice. I like Americans! I like you!”

I only smiled politely in return.

Another song came, and he pulled me closer to him. I smelled an awful thick sweet smell of Jägermeister on his breath. It got to be too much, so I tried pushing him away. Lara, thankfully, saw me struggling. She took my hand, blew a kiss to the guys, and dragged me away. The guys, unperturbed, followed us off the dance floor. Lara whisked me hurriedly into her room. A couple were in there, feeling each other up on Lara’s bed, jumped alarmed at our barging in on them. The girl let out a squeal of embarrassment and pulled her shirt down over her breasts. The guy sat up on his elbows and smiled, looking hopeful that we were there to complete his fantasy, quickly dashed when Lara said, “we need this room.”