Chapter 7

“If our countries ever stop fighting, it would be my pleasure.”

“Don’t you forget to take me to a ball game too.”

After wading around a bit, I noticed the Aperol spritz sweating on the table by our beach chairs, so I went out to sip on mine before the ice melted. Lara elected to stay in the water a bit longer. The butler arrived as soon as I finished my spritz and asked if I would like another. I said yes, and another was in my hand by the time Lara arrived at her beach chair. I handed her spritz to her.

By the time the sun rode noon, beach chairs all around us filled quickly with hotel guests, so Lara laid out a beach towel in the sand down at the shoreline, where the water lapped against her feet. I joined her. I laid a beach towel next to her and enjoyed the coolness of the water against my toes. She took her top off to sun her breasts. I did the same.

“Well, well, look at you. Turning into quite a natural European.”

“What can I say, you’re a terrible influence.”

She giggled and licked her lips. Her eyes went down to my breasts. She shuffled her body closer to mine. She dug her feet into the wet sand. The waves came up across them, covering them fully with more sand.

She gave me a kiss on the lips, then my neck, then drew her face downward towards my breasts. I pulled back and glanced back worriedly at the people in their beach chairs.

“Not here!” I whispered.

She brought a hand secretly to my stomach and raked her fingers softly against my skin. I sighed.

“You are such a terrible influence. Why?” I complained.

“Because you are so irresistible right now,” she answered. Then she went for my nipple again. I only closed my eyes this time pretending as if I kept them closed, I’d be invisible and no one could see her licking, and sucking my nipples. “Oh God,” I gasped at the electric feel of her cool tongue. I shivered and moaned as she used her mouth to play with each of my nipples in turn. She did it slowly, eyeing me, delighted in my expressing so much discomfort in trying to maintain composure so as to not draw attention to us.

“Ok, that’s enough,” I whimpered and pulled back from Lara. Her lips were glistening with saliva. She wiped it off with her forearm and lay down on her beach towel.

“Tonight,” I assured her.

I looked around us. People still relaxing in their beach chairs. Most seemed to have dozed off. Perhaps no one had noticed. I stifled an incredulous laugh and relaxed. I tried dozing off, concentrating on the biting warmth of the sun, the cawing sea gulls and the lapping waves. I tried not thinking about how good Lara made me feel. I still felt her tongue on my breasts. My pussy ached badly for her.

As the sun dipped back towards the horizon, heavy afternoon clouds floated in, refracting the sunrays, causing everything to drip in golden light. The air felt rich and heady, a feeling I attributed to the spritz, but couldn’t shake the feeling that I was somehow living in a dream. In a way, I was, deliberately so, ignoring the real reason for her interest in me and my purpose to bait her into a trap.

We went back to the villa at sunset, cruising the lagoon as slow as a sailboat. Lara let me drive the boat, and, in a vote of confidence, she sat on the bow, took pictures with her Nikon, waved at others passing in their boats.

“Just drive between the red and the green buoys, and don’t crash into anyone.”

She took over as we neared the entrance to the grand canal and piloted us skillfully into her private marina.

For our evening out, she wore a sky-blue dress with a pleated skirt. Subdued, elegant, and accentuated her natural beauty being hemmed at her most delectable features. I wore the only dress I had brought with me to Vienna, a red cocktail dress that I had bought for all the State Department receptions.

We walked lazily through Venice to get to her favorite dining establishment, crossing the Ponte dell’Accademia. The sky had turned to a royal velvet purple with some of the early stars starting to show. The canals glittered orange with the lights of the city. People sat out on the terrazas enjoying cocktails and wine, their chatter echoing off the walls of the buildings that towered over the narrow streets. We weaved through couples walking hand in hand, so enchanted they seemed to be doing a synchronized waltz through the city streets. Lara led me left then right, then left again turning down nearly every alley we came across until I was thoroughly clueless as to where we were. We came out abruptly onto a small plaza that looked across a wide waterway towards Giudecca. The buildings on the island were silhouetted against the purple sky. The many windows dotted the buildings like strung Christmas lights.

There were countless restaurants to choose from, but Lara picked the shabbiest. A nook squeezed into a gap between two buildings like a makeshift afterthought. A few tables spilled out onto the street, and a crowd packed into it like sardines. People stood shoulder to shoulder with their wine or frizzante held closely to their bodies but didn’t seem to mind the bustling claustrophobia of the place. This contrasted with the surrounding restaurants that held their guests at politely spaced, white-clothed tables.

An attentive bartender spotted Lara, gave her a happy smile and pointed us towards the back of the small room. As we squeezed through the crowd, the room turned into a secret cave which opened out onto a terraza against a narrow canal. It was much less crowded here, and there was a stage and a dance floor. Musical instruments stood ready, gleaming beneath dim white spotlights. A baby grand piano topped with candles that dripped wax onto the shiny black top, a cello, electric guitar and a saxophone in their stands.

“Dinner and a show?”

Lara nodded. “And maybe some dancing too if you are up for it.”

The waiter lit our candle and stood patiently waiting for our order.

Lara rattled off Italian, the waiter nodded, memorized the order and left. The wine came quickly.

I sipped it and remarked, “This could be the cheapest wine in the world, and I would never know.”

“Do you like the taste?” She asked.

“Then it might as well be the most expensive wine in the world.”

I took another sip and could taste all of Venice in it. I could really be convinced that it was the best wine in the world.

Accompanying the wine was our aperitivo. An assortment of cured Italian meat and cheeses, and a small dish of polenta each.

As we finished, musicians came out and played lively jazz music. The lights were lowered. Cigarette smoke filled the air and glowed like fog in the moonlight as it swirled above our heads in the table lamp light. Several people got up to dance.

“Let’s dance,” Lara said. So, we went to the dance floor and danced.

The tables were cleared from the dining room, and the crowd of dancers grew filling in from the standing crowd. I thought it would be strange to hear live jazz in a Venetian osteria, but it fit perfectly.

After a few songs, I became exhausted and so went to the bar to cool off with an iced cocktail. Lara joined me of course. I surprised her by ordering each of us a shot of vodka.

“Well, well, well, looks like we are about to have a long night,” she exclaimed as I handed her the shot.

“How do you give a toast in Russian?” I asked.

“There are many ways. Perhaps we can say… ‘za lyubov’.”

“Za lyubov,” I repeated, and we drank our vodka.

The vodka was the tipping point. I felt so immensely free and daring with my actions. I wanted to dance with Lara. So, I dragged her back out onto the dance floor. I held her closely. We kissed. Her body and her clothes were moist from sweating. Her bangs clung wet to her forehead in curvy tendrils, as they get when humid. Her eyes watched mine with excitement, showing a gleeful surprise at my sudden initiative.

The band played Bossa Nova. I felt the thrumming double bass on my skin and the guitar in my core. My heart pounded excitedly, and my head swam. It was sweltering like the tropics that summer night from the heat energy coming off every dancer. We might as well be on a moonlit beach in Rio.

I didn’t know how to dance Bossa Nova or samba, but neither did Lara. It didn’t matter. The feeling of the rhythm, and Lara’s body against mine was all I needed. In any case, no one cared.

Lara spun me in a pirouette and leaned me down and kissed me into the lean. We fell to the ground. A nearby couple picked us up off the ground, and we laughed and went back to the bar for another pair of shots.

We toasted again, this time in Czech (Na zdraví!), and drank and from then on, the night swam in my head. Time became fuzzy. The next thing I knew, we were out in the streets, stumbling and bouncing off walls, trying not to fall into the canal as we held onto each other. Our laughter echoed through the mostly empty alleys.

Lara seemed so drunk I was sure she was lost. In fact, I wasn’t sure where we were, or if we had a plan. But, by a miracle, it seemed, we arrived at her home. We ended up in her living room. I plopped down on the couch in front of the cold fireplace. Lara put on a record. More Bossa Nova. The Girl from Ipanema. She put an unlit cigarette in her mouth as she danced solo in front of me, humming softly along as it played. Her voice was pleasant, a lullaby.

A strap of her dress fell off her shoulders as she danced. She attempted to replace it, but failed in her drunken state, so she left it to the fate of cinching her dress down to the crest of her breasts. Her hair fell across her face. She brushed it aside to watch me as she danced.

She beckoned me to join her. I stood. The blood rushed out of my head, and my knees went weak, so I plopped back down on the sofa. She came over and tried hoisting me up, but I was such a deadweight, that I brought her down atop me instead. We both giggled childishly, and this turned into soft kissing.

Lara caressed my face. I leaned my cheek into her warm hand. She smiled at me, hiccupped, then asked, “Why did you want to meet me again?”

“You said that I was dangerous. You said we couldn’t meet. So why did you call?”

George, of course, prepared me for the question.

“I really want to see you again. I like you.”

It was an excuse so disgustingly simple that if it were not true, I’d have a hard time saying it with a straight face. The reality was it was true. I was dying to see her again, to touch her again, to feel her warm body against mine.

She kissed me. “You don’t have to answer. Can I ask you a favor?”

“Depends on the favor.”

“I know I ask you a lot of favors.”

“I’ll let you ask again.”

We kissed again. She pressed her body to mine and brought her breasts up to my face. Taking the hint, I removed the bra from her breasts, and put my mouth around a nipple and sucked. As I did this, she ground her pussy slowly against my thigh through her dress. It was hot and wet.

When I was done with each of her nipples, we swapped places. I put her on the couch and straddled her and took my dress off over my head. She kissed as much of my naked body as she could reach.

The Bossa Nova stopped; the record player continued spinning, giving off a soft white crackling noise. Outside, crickets chirped in the gardens, the vaporetti motors gurgled in the canals, people chatted and laughed muffled laughs in the terrazas, and somewhere someone sang an Italian love song. Above the soft din of these noises, the sucking noise of tongue kisses on my body, punctuating tiny shocks of pleasure, leaving marks of saliva with a lingering coolness that contrasted nicely against the radiant heat of our bodies, and the summer night.

I bent my neck down to kiss her neck. She leaned her head aside to give me more to kiss, eyes closed, mouth agape, mouthing a silent gasp. I went down, kissing down her arched body. I removed her dress and her panty, leaving them in a pile on the floor around her ankles. I pulled her knees apart, and I kissed up her thighs. As I reached her clit with my mouth, her body jolted and she gasped and curled her fingers roughly into my hair, pressing my face deeper into her. Her pussy was moist, her clit swollen. I penetrated her with two fingers and pumped slowly as I licked and watched her writhe as if in pain.

I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that I had her, this dangerous KGB spy wrapped around my finger, completely helpless to my torture of pleasure. I felt completely in control, and that made me even hotter.

I licked her inches from orgasm, then stopped at her most vulnerable. I wanted her unsatisfied, starving, desperate for more and realizing she wouldn’t get what she wanted unless I too got what I wanted.

When I stopped, she blinked her eyes open as if awakening from hypnosis or a deep sleep, unsure of her whereabouts, and sat upright. She bit her bottom lip, her eyes glimmered with an excitement about a way to get back at me. She threaded her legs between mine. Our pussies touched and she began thrusting, rubbing her pussy against mine, her swollen clit against mine.