Chapter Eight

“Woke up this morning
Everything I had was gone.”

The song hit her head again like a brain worm, taking her back to the day she met Pyre. She was close to breaking down. She was lost, not recognizing herself, weak to Pyre, but hating him in the same moment. In that instant, self loathing suffocated her. Through her own means, she had destroyed everything she cherished.

Am I a fool, or what?

Then she smiled the tiniest smile, silently, inwardly. Maybe not everything. Her precious was literally within her reach. And she knew something about it that perhaps Boris and Kevin did not. A very slight advantage. But the memory of smoke crept in just a strong. Where is the fire in this deal? The confidence wavered. Fear hit again, like a wave of nausea.

“I hear this pretty little box is worth half a million, or so thought your late friend, George. Pity he could not join us. I hear he likes a good vodka, just like Mr. Pyre,” teased Boris, as he tossed back a shot.

“The interest you both have in this trinket has, how should I say, triggered my curiosity.” Boris lit a cigarette and let it hang out of the corner of his mouth, bobbing up and down as he smiled at the two. They weren’t so talkative now. Fools.

The clicking release of a safety lock behind their heads caused Pyre and Alma to sit up a tad straighter. Boris’ associates were quiet. Their heavy frames did not evoke even a creak from the worn floorboards of the timber framed farmhouse as the approached the trio. Their guns were not so silent.

“Don’t worry, they are just my body guards. The Organizatsiya is a little paranoid. They didn’t like I was here by myself so they sent Pasha and Mikael. Good guys, I think you call them. Just your typical organizational bullshit. Don’t sweat it.” Boris giggled. “They are gentlemen.” The bodyguards stood like telephone poles.

Don’t sweat it? Alma had become a fountain of hot, sticky sweat. For an instant, her head pulsed with memories of an absurdly different setting. The sweat that trickled down between her shoulder blades was transformed into hot milk, poured over a sheen of olive oil that had coated her body after the most amazing body scrub at a Korean Spa for women. She had gone there with some girlfriends in London, 3 or 4 years before. They had soaked their skins to a loose, pruney pucker, then had every inch of their bodies scrubbed just to the edge of discomfort by strong Korean women. This was followed by the unusual but incredibly luxurious moisturizing treatment of massage with warm olive oil followed by hot milk that trickled into every crack and valley of her body. Afterwards, her skin had felt softer than her silk pyjamas. She could recreate the sensuality of it in her mind. It relaxed her. The sparse oxygen in the room was finally able to reach her brain. Refocusing on the pudgy Russian, she could visualize Boris liking the treatment.

But it was sweat, not milk that darkened her shirt. She could smell her own fear. She glanced at Kevin, who still looked calm. And weary. He knows something I don’t, she thought. It was time to summon her inner Judi Dench. She took a deep breath, primped her expression in her minds eye, and looked at Boris with interest and, she hoped, confidence.

“Boris, you magician! Where did you find my little trinket? Had Kevin sold it to George so quickly?” Glancing to Pyre, Alma drawled, “so much for loving it for me. I think that was my precise language, yet you somehow interpreted that to mean pawning it to that society grubbing George?” Pyre’s face sat ummoved.

Alma added her most desultory, throaty laugh, hoping to sound more confident than she felt. She concentrated on not letting her nostrils flare. Her mother used to say that gave away your emotions. Instead it felt like she was imitating a sniffing bunny, crunching her nostrils inward, rebounding back out. Too bad there wasn’t a mirror and time to practice like she had as a child, creating plays in the living room with her playmates.

“Alma, Alma, you are mistaken. This is not really your trinket. It belongs to the people of Russian. It belongs to us via our beautiful queen, Katherine the Great. You know that.” Boris clucked a few times and gave Alma the look of a fond, but disapproving parent. “You were just taking care of it up till now. All of us Russians are deeply appreciative. And to have such a beautiful caretaker – well, we are fortunate.”

Plucking the cigarette out of his mouth, Boris waved at the taller bodyguard. “Give sweet Alma and I a moment, Pasha. Take Mr. Pyre out for some sun. He is looking pale.”

Boris stood and moved to the seat next to Alma vacated by Pyre, who allowed himself to be snapped into a pair of handcuffs and led from the dark room. A shaft of light lit the room as the two left. She wondered where they were taking him. She wondered if he was in cahoots with these gangsters.

Boris turned towards Alma in a cloud of smoke and onion breath. He readjusted his unseen corset, wincing slightly as it cut into his folds.

“Alma, my beautiful stow-away, what do you know of this trinket? How did it come to you? You must have wonderful stories to tell me. I love stories, don’t I Mikael?”

Alma turned to the remaining bodyguard in time to see a mouthful of gold flash silently in response.

“Mikael is the ‘strong, silent type.’ Lost his tongue. Literally.” Boris smiled. “Makes him a good person to help in, um, delicate situations. Now beautiful lady, have a drink and tell me about your precious. Mr. Pyre mentioned it has been in your family for a long time, no?”

A glass of vodka was pressed into her hands. Why not. Vodka always gave her spine, and helped her acting skills. She downed it in a gulp that barely touched her tongue. Then she thought about her tongue… not something she cared to live without. She ran it over her teeth, then her lips.

“Of course, Boris. After your kindness, I could do nothing but to repay it with a little story. But can we open a window? It’s terribly stuffy here and this story, well, it always excites me – makes me hot.” She fluttered her lashes at both men and feigned a slight swoon. “I need a breeze, ok sweetheart?” She leaned forward towards Boris, hoping her damp shirt was not so stuck as to not fall open a bit to proffer her assets. Sweaty or not, she had great tits.

“Mikael, the window, da?” waved Boris. Grunting, the bodyguard backed towards the window and pushed it open with his left elbow, the gun never losing it’s aim on Alma’s head. A whiff of hot grass and parched earth blew heat, not relief into the room. But at least it gave some hope that if something went wrong, others might hear. “Spaciba, Mikael.”

Alma relaxed back into her seat, allowing herself to sink further and further into her fantasy of a beautiful spy, risking her life for her mission. She took a deep, luxurious breath and let it come out like an invitation to an afternoon delight. She closed her eyes and smiled just at the corners of her newly wetted lips.




Something coursed through her. It startled her. Power. She had power. She had control. This was a new game. A spark of electricity traveled the length of her body and she gave a quiver of pleasure.

“Boris, this is one of those stories that I almost never tell.”

“Why my little English dove?” Boris was perked to attention like a wind up soldier. He had stopped fiddling with his fat readjustments and attuned to something different in this woman he had thought was a simpering, spoiled English brat. His voice was soft and sweet. His attention was metallic. It was not for nothing. Boris’ lineage as the grandson of an NKVD founder was legendary with his associates in Moscow. Vain, yes. Soft? No.

Waiting a few beats, she slowly opened her eyes. “No one ever believes it.”

She let the silence fill the room after she spoke, not offering another word. She leaned across Boris to pour another vodka, putting him between her and Mikael’s gun. Her breasts were close to spilling out, like the vodka that splashed over the rim of the shot glass. The second shot went back to her throat, like her breasts back into her shirt. She glanced at the body guard. It’s working, she thought. It’s working.

With a sigh Alma barely whispered “It started well before Katherine…”


by Nancy White