Midnight Hunter

“So confusing.”

He reaches past me for his cigarettes. “It’s not confusing at all. You hate the Stasi but you want me to touch you. Simple.”

I stare at him, stunned. Is that it? When did he come up with that, or did he think this all along? He offers me the box. For something to do with my hands I take a cigarette and he lights it for me. I don’t like the taste but I smoke it anyway.

He exhales a cloud of blue smoke from the corner of his mouth and his eyes narrow. “Same as I loathe sneaking little traitors running like rats for the West. Come here.” He kisses me, his tongue sliding into my mouth, tasting faintly of something musky. Tasting faintly of me.

I pull away and stab my cigarette out in the ashtray. There’s nothing like being told you’re a sneaking rat to dampen your ardor, and I get up off his lap. “That’s not it at all. I’m just being manipulated by someone older, more experienced and far more devious than I am.”

He watches me straighten my underwear and stockings and pull my skirt down, his head on one side. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself, Liebling. Do you touch yourself thinking about me?”

But I just put on my shoes and walk off, his soft laughter following me out of the room.

Chapter Ten

Evony

I’m restless at my desk for the rest of the day, the inside of my underwear damp and hot and the places Volker licked me over-sensitized. I have to type his pointless letter out three times because I keep making mistakes, every other sentence punctuated in my head by his sardonic Or are you falling in love with me already? Hateful man.

When he comes out of his office to collect me at the end of the day he’s in that irritating mock-obsequious mood, helping me into my coat and calling me Fräulein Dittmar even though there’s no one else about, while my face burns with shame. “And did you have a good day, Fräulein Dittmar?”

I ignore him and stalk to the elevator.

Throughout the evening he’s his usual self, absorbed in reports and work. Frau Fischer has brought me some novels to read, to apologize for getting me into trouble for bringing Thom to the apartment. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” I told her. “Herr Oberstleutnant was very rude to you.” But she just shook her head, looking contrite.

I read a little, but mostly I stew. They’re romance novels and I’m not in a very hearts and flowers sort of mood. At ten o’clock I get up off the couch without a word and go to bed, but I’m not sleepy and Volker’s voice is still revolving through my head. Do you touch yourself thinking about me? Thinking about how I most certainly don’t makes my mind wander in that direction and soon I’m imagining all sorts of scenarios. Volker kissing me in his car while he gently twists my nipples. Volker coming up behind me in the filing room, his lips on my neck and getting his fingers inside my underwear. Volker stealing into my room and—but here I turn over in a huff and try to think about sheep, lots of sheep, jumping over a gate.

In the morning Volker seems subdued and I feel, if not calmer, then a little more removed from yesterday’s events. Lenore and I spend a quiet morning at our desks, typing up memos and answering letters. The methodical work is soothing.

Just before lunch Volker comes out of his office putting on his cap and coat. There’s a weary cast to his face that I’ve never seen before, even after the nights I know he’s been out hunting. But his eyes alight on mine and warm a little as he says, “I’ll be back at three.”

I turn my attention to my typewriter, which is jammed, and tug on the stuck paper. He can come and go when he chooses, what do I care? Volker hovers for the merest fraction of a second and then strides away.

Lenore, who is leaning over my shoulder trying to help with the jam, lets out a gusty sigh. “I wish someone would look at me the way Herr Oberstleutnant looks at you. Well, not anyone. An officer.”

I give another sharp tug on the paper but it doesn’t budge. Stupid typewriter. “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t even know each other.”

Lenore’s been tactful about what my relationship with Volker is but I can feel the curiosity rolling off her in waves. “No? But you’re living in his apartment.”

“He works all evening. We don’t talk and we have nothing in common. Oh, drat this thing.” I thump the keys, making all the type bars fly up and stick together.

She shoos me out of my chair. “Let me fix it. You’re making it worse.” With deft fingers she releases the jammed paper and the stuck keys in minutes. “There. Try it now.”

I sit down and feed a sheet of paper into it and it goes in smoothly. Good, now we can get back to work.

But it seems she’s not done talking. “Maybe it’s like what we read in Brigitte magazine. He recognizes something in you because you’ve met in a past life.”

I snort. Recognizes something in me? Yes, a traitor to the Republic. “Oh, Lenore. You don’t believe in that sentimental nonsense, do you?”

She shrugs, annoyed. “I don’t know. It’s nice to think about sometimes. I can’t always be thinking about shorthand.”

“Real life’s not like that. Real life’s complicated.” It’s not complicated to Volker, though, is it? You hate the Stasi but you want me to touch you. Simple, ja? But I don’t think it’s simple and I don’t understand how he can be so sanguine about separating the two things.

Because she’s the only person I can ask, I say, “Lenore, have you ever been attracted to someone even though you think they’re a terrible person?”

She raises her eyebrows at me and goes back to her desk. “You think Herr Oberstleutnant is a terrible person?”

“Could we at least pretend I’m speaking generally?” I beg.