Page 80
She sighed and said, "Very well, you have honestly confided in me. I won't betray you." She put her glass down and said, "But this is not the reason we came here, is it… darling?"
What was it about the girl that made his throat tighten every time he thought of her as a woman.
She came to her feet, and he to his and she preceded him to the bedroom, not exactly demurely.
She said, over her shoulder, her own voice husky, "This is disgraceful. It's not even dark as yet."
He couldn't think of any answer to that. As a matter of fact, there wasn't any answer.
In the bedroom she turned to him and put her arms around his neck.
"Kiss me, the way you kissed me in Torremolinos, that night before I left," she murmured.
He kissed her the way he had kissed her the night before she left. And then some.
All of a sudden they realized that their clothes were terribly in the way, and began to fumble out of them.
Fumble was the only word; they were so hurried that fingers and thumbs seemed terribly clumsy.
The room was quite light, so that he could enjoy the beauty of her lush, not too lush, figure. She closed her eyes, lying on her back, her legs slightly spread, as he first fondled then kissed her magnificent breasts. The nipples rose in response to his caress.
He ran a hand down over her body, over her belly.
She said, "I can't… I can't wait. Take me darling." She fumbled for his erection, took it eagerly into her hand.
He had wanted a pillow, under her, the way they had done it the first time, but that would have taken too long. Split seconds were too long. She parted her legs further, bent her knees to receive him, and guided his man-organ to the threshold of her body.
She sighed deeply when he entered and again when she held the full length of his shaft. She wrapped her heels behind him so that they fit in the cavity behind his knees and moved in perfect unison.
So aroused was Catherina that she came to orgasm almost immediately. He tried to hold his back, so that she could come again, and was successful to the point that she'd had two climaxes before his own could be restrained any further. They finished together in a blaze of fulfillment.
For long moments they lay there, still together, and for a time he thought that possibly he could continue without rest.
But then he rolled away and over onto his back.
She said, "And so, Bishop Edwards, this is what you call moderation."
Mike laughed, though he was still breathing deeply from the orgasm. He said, "Of course. The Old Time Religion is not opposed to sex, in moderation. It is the most beautiful thing in life. What it doesn't approve of is promiscuity. There should be love before sex. So let that be a lesson to you, young woman. If you have another boy friend, you're going to have to ditch him."
Page 81
"I have no other man at this time, Mike," she said softly. "You are my only man." She added wickedly,
"How many times can you do it in one day and still call it sex in moderation?"
"Hmmm," he said! "Well see."
She reached over to grasp him intimately, to arouse him to further passion.
"That we will," she said.
Chapter XX
From the first, it went with shocking success. For every flow of tide there is ebb and the hedonistic tidal wave that had engulfed the Russkies was at its crest when Mike Edwards' missionaries struck.
Overnight, the reversal to conservatism in dress, in cars, in entertainment, took place.
In lectures, in revivals, in church meetings, on TV, the message was spread. Bolshi-Films did a score of quickie movies. A hundred theatrical groups produced plays. Clubs were formed, organizations sprung up. All to promote the new belief. Moderation was the new Russkie fad. Nowhere can a fad spread so rapidly as through a people with time on their hands-and in all history there had never been a people with so much time on hand as the automation-freed Russians.
It was some six months later, two o'clock in the morning, and Mike Edwards was comfortably asleep in his suite at the New Metropole when the banging came at the door. Frank Jones was away on an evangelistic tour of the Crimea.
Mike rolled over, tried to ignore it, clung desperately to his dream of married life with Catherina. Finally he swung his feet over the bed's side, growling, 'There's a bell, damn it. Don't break the door down."
There were two of them and they pushed by him and into the living room of the suite. They were six-footers, two hundred pounders, empty of expression, inconspicuous of clothing. Yes, and the flat of feet.
Actually, since the Aeroflot rocketplane had landed him at Vnukovo airport, Mike had expected them, sooner or later.
However, he began, "What is the meaning of-"
One of them said, "Get dressed."
Mike said, "I want to call the American Embassy."
They grunted amusement in unison at that, as though they had been rehearsed. They followed him into the bedroom and watched dispassionately as he dressed.
Mike said, "I demand to be allowed to phone the American Embassy."
"No phone calls," one said.
There was nobody in the halls of the New Metropole at this time of night. They descended by the Page 82
elevator, hustled through the lobby and into a large black limousine, for once one with a chauffeur.
One of his bulky escorts sat to the right of Mike Edwards, the other to the left. They said nothing, in full character.
At this point, Mike told himself sourly, I should have a little glass capsule of cyanide hidden in my mouth.
Wasn't that the way they did it in the old days? Mike had few illusions about the ability of the Russkies to break him down under pressure.
And just when the effects of the campaign had been showing results.
They by-passed Red Square and skirted the Alexandrovsk Sad park along the west side of the Kremlin.
They entered at the Borovitskij Gate, went up the cobblestoned incline there without loss of pace and drew up before the Bolshoi Kremlevski Dvorets, the Great Kremlin Palace.
Two sentries snapped to attention as they entered. Evidently, Mike's guards needed no passes. A sixteen-step ornate staircase led them up from the ground floor to a gigantic vestibule the vault of which was supported by four monolithic granite columns. They turned left and entered an anteroom. There were more guards here who also sprang to the salute.
One of Mike's escorts approached a heavy door and knocked discreetly. Someone came, opened it slightly, evidently said something to someone back in the room, and then opened it widely enough for Mike and his guards.
The chamber had obviously once been a Czarist reception room. Now it was a not overly large office.
Mike stood a dozen feet from the door and looked at the man behind the desk, who, in turn, looked at him.
There was no doubt about who it was. Andrei Zorin, the fourth generation dictator of the Soviet Complex. The heir of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and so on, down the decades. Number One, Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
Zorin was a man of fifty odd, heavy-set, frowzy, a weary disillusionment about his tired eyes. His character, so far as the outside world knew, was largely a mystery. A reversal from the exhibitionism of some of his predecessors, such as Nikita Khrushchev. In more than twenty years of authority he'd never granted an interview to western journalists, a fact that hadn't endeared him.
Number One leaned back in his chair. He said in Russian, "Frol, Kliment, you may leave." The two guards turned and left the room.
There was only one other left now with Mike and Zorin, a younger man, as thin and nervous as Zorin was heavy and stolid.
Zorin said, "This is Nuritdin Kirichenko, Minister of Internal Security."
In other words, Mike told himself, head of the secret police.
Zorin said, "Sit down, Mr. Edwards." Mike shrugged and took a heavy leather chair. He might as well enjoy what relaxation he could at this point. He had no illusions about the future.