An American retro-swing band played on the mirrored Art Deco stage, five smug young men dressed like gangsters from 1930’s Chicago. A saxophone and a trumpet set up a raucous wail. The lead singer yammered something about a man in a pinstripe suit. On the dance floor, men flaunting white shirts, crisp slacks, suspenders, and vintage hats moved in the arms of pretty women in slinky dresses.

(At least), thought Klaus, (some of them must be women. Even in this club.) Dorian, mercifully, had not worn a dress. Or his usual decadent filmy tunic-and-tights ensembles. Not that anybody else here would have blinked. If one was honor-bound to be seen in public with the infamous Lord Gloria, this was a reasonably safe place.

Provided one could bear the obvious inference made by the other dancers, about him and Dorian. Klaus scowled.

“Try not to drop me, Major,” murmured the blond man in a decorous cornflower-blue coat and slacks. At the moment, Dorian Red Gloria was bent precariously backward over a polished wooden dance floor, golden hair streaming like a banner, his hands elegantly placed at his dance-partner’s shoulder and lean hip. For the sake of graciousness, he tried to keep lust from showing openly on his face and body. But he allowed his thoughts free rein. (Oh, Major, you can sweep me off my feet, anytime. You look most stunning in a slouch hat and charcoal suit, m’love.)

Major Klaus von dem Eberbach, currently on extended leave from NATO service, said low in his throat, “Haven’t we been here long enough to settle your bet, Herr Gloria?” (You dance very well,) he thought grudgingly. (But what else do I expect from a fop and a queer?)

Dorian laughed at the Major’s discomfort. “Not until our song is over.”

“We don’t have a song.” Klaus had given up trying to understand the latest snappy tune, which involved a lot of triumphant shouting about a king of something or other.

“Then let’s keep dancing, until we find one,” Dorian said, when the music gave him an excuse to nearly wrap himself around Klaus. “The bet stands, until I say it’s over.”

“Hmmph! Opportunist.”

“Now, now. You made the wager--and lost it. I unlocked the encrypted files before you did.” (Are you ill, dear one? The solution was nearly under your nose.)

“I think it was luck. Are you really that computer literate? Or did you -- subcontract?” (Steady,) Klaus warned himself, lowering his voice to blend with the music. (Remember your lessons. This wretched Amerikan ‘swing’ is much more energetic than a decent waltz. Of course, Dorian would love it.)

Dorian spun away with some startling footwork, then fit himself neatly back into the Major’s arms. “Oh, darling, I know more than you guess. About many things.” He grinned, eye to eye with Klaus, savoring the outcome of their offhand bet. (Subcontract? On this wager? When dinner and dancing with Iron Klaus were on the line? This job I did all by myself. I had to win!)

Klaus swallowed nervously. (Does he suspect?) He wished the club was bright enough to allow him the use of his new sunglasses. He’d be happier with panes of polarised plastic between his eyes and the all-too-knowing Dorian. Thank God, the music now demanded a series of stamping, separate steps. They came together at intervals, joining only their hands. Klaus was afraid he’d slip, and gather Dorian too close at the wrong moment. “Don’t parade your filthy secrets past me, Herr Gloria. I’d have to turn you in.”

“Speaking of secrets, Major--I didn’t know you could manage swing-dancing. You’re not bad at it.” In fact, the Major’s lithe body and strong hands were doing marvelously electrical things to Dorian.

Klaus couldn’t think of any words safer than the truth. (He’s going to find out, sooner or later. But not all the truth--not yet.) “I took dancing lessons, earlier this autumn.”

Dorian stared at him, almost stumbling. “Major?”

Klaus retreated, as far as he was able, into whispered dignity. “So as to not embarrass myself, when I knew the wager was lost.” He stifled a grin. “I am Eberbach. We do dance, occasionally. Had it been a New Year’s Eve waltz in Wien or Berlin, I would have been prepared.” (The swing-dance lessons were not as difficult as I thought they would be. Fun, actually.)

“Your Eberbach honour is sacred on this dance floor, Major.” Dorian felt like he’d just received one of the Major’s frequent physical slaps. (Damn your stiff-necked, stubborn principles. All this effort, and I thought you’d caved a little--and it’s only to satisfy your pride! Let’s see how well you can dance. Drop me, Klaus. Step on my toes. Fall on your wonderful ass. Let some embarrassment shake that perfect cold shell around your soul.)

Klaus felt Dorian’s anger shiver down the slim fingers clasping his. Dorian furious and spiteful was, at least, not Dorian lecherous. “My thanks for your restraint, Herr Gloria,” Klaus said formally. (So limber. So light, for the strength I know is in you. I barely caught you, on that spin. You’re trying to sabotage me? Well, Dorian, I won’t let you. My body does always what I ask of it. I had time for a month of lessons. My Alphabets thought it was for a covert operation. They were right.)

“You’re welcome, Major.” Dorian’s voice was brittle. “Care for a change of pace?” Over Klaus’ shoulder, Dorian signaled the band leader, who grinned back at him and flourished the trumpet in a sassy reply. Dorian swayed against his Major, thinking: (Cope with this one, my dear.)

The music eased into a smooth, sparkling melody, and the lead singer crooned:

“I’m just a small town guy

With a handful of dreams

My future is bright, or that’s how it seems

But when it comes to love, I’m in need of advice.”

Klaus groaned. (Slow dance? God help me.)

Dorian smiled wickedly, feeling the tense body tremble against him. He twined his arms behind Klaus’ neck. The Major’s hands rested diffidently on his waist--then, with more confidence, spread across Dorian’s lower back. And the music continued:

“I’ve figured it out

I got the world on a string

But baby, there’s really only one thing:

When it comes to love, I’m in need of advice.”

Klaus couldn’t shut out the inane words or the sinuous, yearning music. Visceral memories came back to him, more image and sound than concrete thought. Deliciously-bright songs his Austrian mother used to play on the piano, when he was very young, and his father mellow enough to allow something other than military marches or proper Teutonic Wagner. The Deco overtones of this London nightclub prompted recollections of family stories, half-shocked, half-boastful: legends of the fragile hothouse glitter of pre-war Germany, the power and decadence accorded a cadet branch of the House of Hapsburg.

Nothing of that lost world for Klaus, of course. Nothing for a last von dem Eberbach scion condemned to do stern penance for the past. The sins of the Fathers--

He had the castle, yes, and all its treasures. He had money, dignity, the grudging respect of his social peers. He had a job that ate his soul with intrigue and endless caution, enemies who would stop at nothing to see him dead or discredited. He had not consciously chosen such a life. It was simply--proper. An honourable employment of his less-savoury abilities. A way to be useful. To shirk it would be ungrateful for the benison of his life and breeding.

But he missed the music that had warmed his earliest memories.

“That’s right, I’m in need of advice--”

Klaus didn’t need advice, he thought. He needed out of this suddenly-airless room. Away from Dorian’s clinging body, and his own daredevil foray along the rim of the Abyss. “This is indecent,” he whispered furiously. (Think cold thoughts, Klaus. Damn you, Dorian, I can only do this when I am merely flinging you about.)

To his horror, he saw that Dorian was silently mouthing the lyrics to him:

“But when I looked to the sky I nearly died

Thinking about how it should be.

But that’s just me, and I’ll always be

Alone with my misery--”

“Stop that,” Klaus said. “People are looking.”

“They’re only looking because we’re so good together,” Dorian said, peering under the hat brim. It shaded Klaus’ green eyes, lending them an animal glitter. Dorian nuzzled the Major’s shoulder, where the bewitching hair fell like a curtain of dark silk. Klaus would be a stunning beauty even with a short conventional hairstyle. The long hair was a key to the man’s mind, Dorian had always believed. It spoke of secret vanities and softness, and an iconoclast’s cool disdain of convention. (Mmmm. You smell enticing tonight, darling. More sandalwood soap, than cigarettes. And some very expensive shampoo. Do I detect an indulgence, Klaus? I must send you a case of it. That way I can think of you nude in the shower, being intimate with a gift from me.) “Such a contrast, Major. Your stormy face and voice, against the gentleness of your hands. Which should I believe?”

“Believe that I will not embarrass myself in public by beating you to a pulp, you pervert,” Klaus hissed back. “This is a wager honourably lost and paid, nothing more.” (Only a wager, ja--but one with myself, more than you. This is safe. Public. People are watching. You can’t seduce me here, and I can’t hurt you. Here, I can touch you without consequence.)

His mask was safe, the expressionless iron face he’d worn since childhood. Since the day the piano was closed up and covered with a white sheet, and the first gun placed in his shaking fingers. When had the mask hardened around his soul? Accustomed to the cage, he knew it was there only by the startling moments he’d felt it relax.

“It’s like a long cold walk on a winter beach

Love is a game you cannot teach.

When it comes to love, I’m in love with you

And I need some advice--

‘Cause I’m in love with you

And I’m in need of advice--”

Dorian sighed, “I could get addicted to this, you know. I’ll just have to trick you into making more wagers with me. Of course, the stakes will be higher.” Some of the long-channeled heat leaked out from behind Dorian’s banter. (Private dinner? Dancing in my suite? Fuck you silly, afterward?)

Klaus stared into vivid azure eyes, and guessed the intentions just beginning to show in Dorian’s smile. The idiot would not let it rest. Would not stop pushing, even during a truce like this vacation. (Incubus,) Klaus thought. (Stop looking at me like that, people will think you’re getting off on us dancing, right now.) That not-implausible idea shook Klaus’ equanimity. “Herr Gloria, I will make no more such wagers with you.”

Dorian ventured a complex spin, ending plastered once more against the Major’s body. Concealed by their coats, he ventured an even closer contact, thrusting his hips forward. No answering passion tightened the other man’s abdomen, or swelled his groin.

Klaus snorted disdainfully, “Wanton.” His mask never cracked.

Dorian felt crushed. (Cold, bleak, stone-hearted man. Why do you have to be so beautiful? You either do have iron control, or none of this lavish body contact means a thing to you. I’d feel it, if you did. You don’t want to play--and now I don’t, either.) “Enough. You’ve proved your point, Klaus. Why should I bother? Leave, if you want.”

“I cannot.” Klaus had enough faith in his deadpan face and body, to let himself think: (It felt good, holding you against me. Without you guessing.)

“Why not?” Dorian asked, standing frozen on the dance floor. “Isn’t it what you want?” (I will not cry in public. You would just laugh at me.)

Klaus considered. (What do I want? I consented to the wager, so I must have wanted this.) The song wound down into a sultry clarinet solo. (I think I still want to dance.) But he and Dorian walked away from the dance floor. “I want nothing but my freedom,” said Klaus, “But I have an obligation to fulfill, first. I drove you here, Herr Gloria. I shall return you to your home.”

“Be happy, Major. You’ve won by losing. I’ll get my wrap.” Dorian’s eyesight wavered. The lights in the club developed rippling halos. (Oh, damn it. I mustn’t cry. Not here, not in the car, not until he’s gone. Klaus, why won’t you bend, just a little?)

Klaus watched Dorian stalk toward the coat-check booth near the door. (Even your tears are beautiful. You look like a weeping angel.) The comparison made Klaus uncomfortable. Of all people he knew, Dorian was certainly no messenger of the Divine! Well, perhaps--in that golden beauty. Klaus could not remember the exact moment he’d started watching Dorian on their missions, just for the surreptitious pleasure of it. (You look even lovelier when you are happy. As when you were dancing. What might you look like, Dorian Red Gloria, if I told you I played that wager--to lose?)

The trumpet sang a clever business, the notes almost like questioning words. A new song began, and the pounding beat made Klaus look up. The band leader’s narrow-eyed glance moved from him to Dorian, and back. Without looking away, the man sang:

“He’s got a sharkskin suit,

And a diamond earring.

He got jet-black hair just like his mother.

He’s got a jail tattoo of his long lost brother.

He’s got a shotgun fuse--

Don’t you pull his trigger.

He’s Public Enemy Number One

On the lam without bail,

Headed straight Back to jail--”

Of course, it looked like a lovers’ quarrel. The nosy bastard was blaming Klaus! That stung. (Ach was! I am not a thug!)

His silly Earl had legions of unlikely defenders.

Dorian’s attention was safely distracted by the wrap, a draped mass of royal-blue silk velvet and silver lace. The damned thing was more suited for a cinema starlet than a man in a Savile Row suit. Even worse, it looked like the sissy frippery one of Klaus’ more disreputable ancestors had flaunted. Except that Tyrian Persimmon would have looked merely dissipated and ridiculous in it. Dorian looked even more angelic.

Klaus scowled grimly back at the band leader, then let himself wink, just once.

The trumpet dipped a centimeter or two in a bow, and the man looked ready to laugh. But he didn’t betray Klaus.

The ride back was silent and miserable for the Earl of Gloria. He forced down his tears until his throat was scratchy from unvoiced sobs. Klaus had the damned heater turned up far too high. Dorian was sweating, under the velvet wrap and his heavy hair. He essayed a sidelong glance at the Major. A little more expression than normal--in the passing glare of a neon sign, Dorian read a dangerous smugness from Klaus’ face, and a hint of that trademark vicious half-smile. (Be calm, my love,) Dorian thought nervously. (It was just dancing. Don’t snap. I don’t feel like being beaten, tonight.)

Inside Dorian’s waistcoat pocket, his new PalmPilot quivered a silent alert. He retrieved the latest message, angling the tiny blue screen away from Klaus. Time to be Eroica again? A minute later, he tucked the device away, all his tears dried and his heart hammering with the thrill of danger.

And a petty, angry part of him kept silent, letting Klaus drive on, unwarned. It could be a false alarm. And if not? Dorian let himself wallow in fantasies of rescuing his reluctant love, by himself, and claiming a satisfactory reward.

The circuitous ride back was a blend of victory and torment for Klaus.

The car had checked clean: no homing devices, bombs, or electronic ears. On the boring London motorways, he couldn’t find anybody tailing him. A nasty game of chicken or a cunning evasion might have been amusing, in his current mood. He was cold, even with the mild autumn night and the good Benz heater running full blast. He’d won. The experiment worked. He’d proven he could tolerate the flighty Earl’s close physical proximity for a brief time. If Dorian didn’t push him, or offer too much sly innuendo. (You didn’t annoy the shit out of me, for once. I liked being with you tonight,) Klaus thought, not looking away from the road. (Could I--dare I--try it again?) His hands clenched on the steering wheel. (I want to.)

He needed to say something. The car was too silent. He was afraid of blurting out too much, and the art of meaningless smalltalk had always been beyond him. Dorian was absorbed in playing with a American-model PDA, probably with larcenous intent. Floor plans? More computer hacking? Klaus didn’t really want to know.

“Here,” Dorian said tonelessly, some time later. As if Klaus could forget this frivolous, badly-built pile of stones occupying far too much prime land just outside London! A beep sounded somewhere in Dorian’s direction, and the iron gate folded gracefully away from the Benz. Klaus glanced in the rear-view mirror, as the gate folded back.

Klaus pulled up to the familiar circular driveway. Dorian said, “Keep driving, around the back. There’s a garage. I will not be left on the front stoop like a discarded package. Anyway, there’s no one home to welcome me.”

“Is that wise?” Klaus’ enemies were quite often Dorian’s enemies. He didn’t want to lead anyone here.

“I am Eroica,” the Earl said regally. “My home is secure. And my poor entourage--they needed a vacation, too.”

“Even the stingy bug?”

“Even Jamesie. Dispatched yesterday to his cousins in Manchester, where he will fondle their coin collections back into mint condition, and charm another three fortunes from stock portfolios they were ready to dump. I may have to pay ransom, to get him back. Bonham is at an electronics conference in Milan, with a shopping list and a lot of untraceable funding. Jones is off doing something probably very amusing and dangerous without me, investigating an illegal Tanzanian diamonds-for-guns scheme. I hope he comes back in one piece. I think Peters is attending a Bromeliad Society conference. The rest are at their leisure here in Britain, close enough if I need them. The house can survive some dust. And I can cook for myself.”

Klaus thought about it, while the Benz navigated toward the first bay of an impressive four-car garage. “Why?”

“I wanted to be alone.”

“Odd. For you,” said Klaus, wondering if Dorian was settling into one of his bleak bouts with depression and boredom. According to A, who’d heard it from Bonham, a trip to taunt the Major had been Dorian’s favorite cure for many years. (I wonder if you should be on medication? No. It would stave off the depression, but rob you of the highs that you live for. What would it be like, to float around in a Dorianesque exaltation?) Klaus had no idea.

Dorian punched a few more buttons on his PDA, and the garage door opened smoothly. He stared at Klaus for a solemn moment, seemed to reach a decision. “Actually, darling, I wanted to be with you. To just know that you were near. I’d hoped you would stay here, the rest of your vacation. It’s a big house. You wouldn’t even have to see me, if you chose. And it’s more comfortable than your hotel.”

Klaus shook his head, more amused than outraged at Dorian’s irrepressible attempts. “Not in the bargain, Earl. Dinner, ja. Dancing, ja. Then we part.”

“You’re afraid, Iron Klaus? Take my word--I won’t bother you. I’d feel better if you were here, instead of the hotel. Please?”

He was serious. Not flirting, not coy, not shamelessly manipulative. From Dorian, that tone of voice meant business. Klaus took notice.

“What do you know?”

“Not much. A friend of a friend sent a message. There were people -- not your own -- looking for you at Heathrow a few hours ago. Not Russian. American, he thought. Wearing black suits. And sunglasses, on a misty evening.”

“I took an earlier flight than planned,” said Klaus, thinking about which branch of the Yank government had it out for him this month. Arrogant bastards, he’d stepped on enough toes the last time he was in Washington. Black suits. Ah, yes. That mission had been unforgettable. “Thank you,” he told Dorian. “I would not want to meet them, just yet.”

“You know these people, yes? What do they have against you?”

“By accident, I got a pair of their dark glasses.” Klaus said, patting his shirt pocket fondly. The innocuous sunglasses never left his person when he was awake. One never knew. Privately, he was still startled that he hadn’t turned over that prize to the Division research team.

And he’d lied--Iron Klaus, lied! Successfully!--to the debriefing specialists who’d interviewed him, after the incident. Nothing about a hijacked space-plane filled with small, bipedal worms who drank more coffee than the Alphabets on a stakeout. Nothing about a secret international military base in New York City’s Battery Park, or the idea that extraterrestrials had lived quietly among humans for centuries. Who’d believe Klaus, if he said any of it? They’d have him locked down in a padded room, that’s what. Or a safe, calm desk job--ha!

Now, to Dorian, he chuckled: “Amazing what you can see and remember, in the dark.”

“Tell me, someday. When it’s de-classified,” Dorian added. “But stay at the mansion, at least tonight.” Dorian, as Eroica, lived by well-informed hunches, flickers of deduction and cunning insight quite at odds with his public persona as a decorative airhead. Over the years, Klaus had learned to respect that brilliance--even when it gave him indigestion. “You can drop off the face of the world for weeks, if you want.”

Black suits. Klaus could deal with them. But the thought soured his pleasant mood. “Very well. If you promise to keep away from me, I will stay,” he said, glancing at his velvet-swathed companion.

“Oh, thank you, Major.” Dorian relaxed into the seat cushions in obvious relief.

The garage door closed behind them, sealing them in a well-lit utilitarian world of welding equipment, engine hoists, and huge tool-chests. The only other vehicle was a small powder-blue coupe down in the fourth bay. Klaus imagined it cowering away from the big black Benz, and kept a superior grin off his lips. The tools were professionally maintained, clean, and orderly. This was the province of Bonham or one of the others. Dorian would certainly never soil his hands on engine grease or brake fluid.

In fact, engine grease might make an effective Earl-repellent. (I could work on the Benz, tomorrow,) Klaus thought cheerfully, shutting off the engine. (At least wash it. It’s a rented, much-abused poor beast, and it needs a German hand to restore it. I’ll return it in better shape than I got it.)

Distracted, he got out before Dorian, walked around to the passenger door, and opened it as he would for a gentlewoman.

Dorian gave him an arch look, when Klaus retrieved a full suitcase from the boot. “I didn’t like the hotel, either,” said the Major, shrugging. “I was going to find another.”

“Then let me show you to your suite.”

“It better not have lace in it,” Klaus warned, hefting the bag threateningly. “Or roses, gilt statues, or any other foolishness. I’ll dump them all in the midden.”

“You’ll like it,” Dorian giggled. “I promise.”

Klaus did. The bed was not too shamefully soft. Quilted blue-grey brocade covers were folded down, revealing pristine white linen sheets. Persian rugs gentled the oak-parquet floor. A bookcase over the desk offered car and gun magazines, recent industry books on airplanes and surveillance technology, a set of antique 1890’s German compendia about natural history. A tapestry of a hunting-scene covered one wall. By the curtained window, a five-foot-tall dracaena in a bronze planter brandished dark-green leaves like swords. The furniture was modern and simple, more masculine than anything Klaus had seen associated with Dorian Red Gloria.

“Well?” asked the impudent Earl, now leaning on the door-frame.

(This was done long ago,) Klaus realized slowly. (And regularly maintained.) The plant was healthy and old, the magazines current, the fresh sheets smelled of lavender. (He made a place in the center of his world, for me.) Even so, Klaus gave the room a thorough sweep for monitoring devices. It was clean--even to the telephone beside the bed. “I approve. This is more than adequate.”

Dorian warmed at the guarded praise. “Loo and kitchenette along this hallway,” he pointed out a shut door beside the desk. “If you need anything else, just dial zed. That connects to my suite, for now.”

Klaus still wasn’t taking any chances. “Which is where? I need also to know all exits--”

“My suite is one floor up, on the opposite side of the house. You know the front door, and the way from the garage. Do you never stop being an agent, Major?”

“You never stop being Eroica.”

“I do, on occasion. But you’ve never been in position to watch it happen.”

Klaus set his luggage on a side table. “If you are done with baiting me, Herr Gloria, I am tired and I need to sleep.”

Dorian pursed his elegant mouth in a quiet whistle. “Oh, Major. What you just said--”

“What?”

“I could not ‘bait’ you,” Dorian said with sweetly damning exactitude, “if you did not find something about me worthy of being ‘bait’--”

Klaus’s reply was in explicit German, and loud.

“Sweet dreams,” caroled Dorian, as he blew a kiss at Klaus and darted out the door.

It wouldn’t mean much, in the house of a thief, but Klaus locked the door anyway.

Sleep eluded him, even in the warm room and gracious bed. Klaus finally sat up, in the dark, with the covers wrapped around himself.

The mask had shattered, as it often did once he was safely alone. His body demanded a steep price for its compliance earlier.

He crawled out of the bed, and started doing push-ups. The motion perversely reminded him of sex, and he felt his hips move in tentative thrusts against the heavily-textured carpet. He flipped over immediately, did a hundred fast sit-ups. He wasn’t at all breathless, afterward. He was also still wildly aroused.

At home, in his Bonn flat or at Schloss Eberbach, the solution to his current problem would have been silent, passionless, and instinctive. A solitary act meant only to drain away frustration. Klaus never even fantasized. What was the point? The sensations alone were enough, for a climax quickly achieved and then ignored.

Yet in Dorian’s stonghold, that act seemed fraught with even deeper shame. Soiling a host’s hospitality, belike, even though Dorian would probably exult to see him in the throes of self-gratification.

Not here, though, in this gift-suite, this virgin bed. Klaus felt certain that not even Dorian had slept in it. Klaus was meant to rest alone here, safe, and chaste. That he couldn’t was his fault, not Dorian’s. Dancing sparked his nerves the way fighting did, a hard physical activity that energized instead of exhausted. Just as well, that when he most often felt this vibrant thrill, he was usually in the middle of a brawl. ‘Iron Klaus’ had a whispered but well-known reputation for sadism. The truth sickened him more: in its rare rebellions, his unruly body would take any physical outlet it could get.

No fighting, tonight. The sheer non-violent fun of dancing had impressed Klaus from his first lesson. Dancing with Dorian had been even better than he expected. Dorian had never guessed--and Klaus almost had his fill of guilty pleasures:

Breathing the rose and lindenflower perfume combed through Dorian’s gold-silk curls. Clasping Dorian’s ivory hands. Watching that absurdly-lovely, ageless face. Hearing the murmuring British drawl tease him, while the pale-pink lips opened over white teeth and a deft tongue. Feeling the hard male body made light by its grace, and the pressure of Dorian’s erection, thrust against him--

That memory alone made Klaus shudder. He’d begun their dangerous wager in a sense of fierce outrage at one of Dorian’s bolder transgressions. He even remembered thinking at the time: (I’ll show you I can touch you and be unmoved. You’ll get no satisfaction teasing me, and you’ll stop.) Klaus knew he’d be playing with fire, when he arranged for Dorian to win.

Dorian, damn him, had won more than the wager. Klaus hoisted himself back on the bed, pushed down his pajama pants and briefs, and dragged his undershirt up around his chest. He might as well get comfortable for what he must do next, for sanity’s sake and his body’s urgent need.

Klaus lay on his back, forced his muscles to relax a little, then curled one hand over the shaft of his penis. He rubbed the other hand over his swollen glans. As always, the pleasure seemed to melt his very bones, but something was still missing.

He found it, when images of Dorian supplanted the blind push toward release. He had no idea how to fantasize as other men did, so he tried to recall Dorian drunk and provocatively half-naked in an Egyptian cabaret. Dorian clutching him--undressing him!--in a Roman bath. Dorian’s starry gaze, heavy-lidded with desire, whenever Klaus caught him in a moment of considered sin.

(He always looks at me like that. Why? What the hell does he see?)

The longed-for climax flirted with Klaus, eluded him again and again.

He was so hard now his balls felt like steel bearings. His pulse hammered in his ears. His breath whined between clenched teeth, almost musically--

(Wait. That noise--chiming?) He turned his head, and saw a tiny light blinking on the bedside table. It took him a foggy moment or two, his hands still moving, before he realized it was the telephone.

Dorian settled back, luxuriously clean and happily nude, into a peach-silk sheet draped over a mountain of pillows. On the new Linn hi-fi system, quiet classical guitar played a ravishing Segovia melody. Ten feet in front of him, a tall rose-scented pillar candle burned, the only light in the dim luxurious room. Dorian smiled at the amber-pink column, knowing the shapes it would suggest as it burned down.

Suggestion and sensation were everything here. The furnishings had changed over the years, as he grew bored with some things and found new delights for hand and eye. But this refuge still served its original, inviolate purpose. A red lacquer Ming Dynasty chest held sex-toys he used nowhere else, for no one but himself. No other lovers had sprawled on the pillows with him.

This was where he dreamed of Klaus.

In fantasy, there was almost nothing Dorian hadn’t done for, with, or to his lovely German officer. He had favorite daydreams, gentle or sizzling, that he replayed like familiar music. He and Klaus during the Indian monsoons in Goa, making love under warm rain. Or on a blanket of sweet-blooming clover, after a picnic where each fed the other. And in bed--Dorian gauged beds now, by whether they were big enough and exotic enough to properly frame the Major’s dark-and-light beauty. Dorian indulged in grimmer fantasies only once or twice, when rare anger let him bind and brutalize his dream-Klaus into abject submission--in ways the Major would answer with murder in real life! One time, it had been Klaus binding him. Taking him hard and vengefully, in a fury of heedless lust that ended with tunnel-vision, and the dull crack of a broken neck at the moment of orgasm--

Dorian considered that memory, then banished it. (Someday, I might so offer myself, Klaus. When I am tired of life, and you angry enough to oblige me. But not tonight.)

Dorian considered building a new fantasy, based on the way Klaus had danced at the club. Hot or cold, feral or controlled--Dorian still couldn’t decide whether the Major was weakening, or serenely shielded in his virtue. Dorian imagined dancing again, fully-clothed, body to body, only this time an answering erection rubbed teasingly along his.

But it didn’t feel right, with Klaus in the same house. Dishonorable, unsavory. Like real coercion, something he would never do to his beloved. So--no toys or scripts. Only the pure sensation of his hands ghosting along his body, lingering on his nipples, stroking hot and hard on his sex. Dorian tilted his head back on the silk sheet and soft pillows, moaning lightly.

So bizarre, he thought, pleasuring himself while Klaus remained in innocent isolation. Dorian visualized the Major asleep. Long black lashes shivered against milky skin. The dark hair flowed over the pillows. Poor Klaus, he was probably on his back, arms at his sides--over the counterpane, thank you--and looking like a medieval knight on a bier. Pre-Raphaelite, definitely. A pretty but chilling picture. The only other pose Dorian could see him in was half-fetal, curled up and huddled under the sheets like a child. That was hardly better.

(Poor Major. If I could go back in time,) Dorian thought between gasps, (I’d find the moment you decided to be a cold machine. I’d rescue you from yourself, darling. But all I can offer you in this house, it seems, is peace.)

After many straining minutes, Dorian gave up both his incipient comfort fantasy and unfulfilled passion. His own hands couldn’t push him over the last edge.

(Damn you, Major,) he thought in laughing despair. (What a time for you to have a restraining effect on me!)

Briefly, Dorian wished he’d rigged that room with devices the paranoid maniac couldn’t find. Good digital sound pick-up might have given him the soft cadence of the Major’s breath. Enhanced night-vision cameras might show an expression other than frozen denial on that sleeping face. Infrared scanners would offer patterns of heat and cold along Klaus’ body, certain indicators of stasis or arousal. He’d know if the Major was ready for him, consciously or not.

Though he would not spy on his beloved, the idea lingered persuasively.

What if Klaus had enjoyed the evening as much as Dorian had? What if, at this very moment, Klaus was--? (Doing what? I’ll never know, if I don’t ask.)

Dorian reached for a cellular telephone, and opened the red lacquer chest.

“Ja?” Klaus snarled, too preoccupied to keep the rough edge of frustration from his voice.

“Oh, Major. You aren’t asleep!” The knowing delight in Dorian’s whisper made Klaus groan. “Having trouble, darling? Me, too. Whatever are we going to do about it?”

“Get away! Don’t--don’t touch me!” But Klaus did not slam down the receiver. It seemed glued to his hand. It might well be, he thought--and shoved that thought away with a hundred snickering others.

Dorian rewarded him with a silver chuckle. “I can’t. I’m in my room, you in yours. All safe. All perfectly proper. Whatever we do, we do alone.”

“I can’t--” began Klaus.

“You can. You’ve been doing it for years, yes?”

“Ja. But I can’t--”

“Then just talk to me, darling,” coaxed the warm voice. “Put the phone between your cheek and your shoulder. See? There’s a brace, so it won’t hurt your neck. You won’t have to use your hands for anything but making love to yourself. Now tell me what you’re feeling, right now. I’d love to know. I’ll tell you what I’m doing. Would you like that?”

“Nein!” Arousal tempered Klaus’ shock. “I am--I don’t know how to say--my English now is not good,” he said, amazed that his hands were moving again, dragging new pleasures from his flesh. And from his mouth: “I know so little about this--”

“You know enough,” said the other huskily. “Say it badly. Say it in Deutsch. Say it in a scream, or a sigh. But tell me! Where is your right hand?”

“Rubbing me. My--phallus, at the tip.”

“Good, good. Where is your left?”

“On the shaft. Squeezing. Up--and--down.”

“Perfect, darling. Now go up, with your left. Are you cut, Major, or intact?”

“Was?”

“Are you circumcised?”

“Nein.”

That maddening low laugh sounded again in Klaus’ ear. “All the more to play with, darling. With your left hand, pull down your foreskin as far as you can. It will open the slit at the tip. Now, with the smallest finger-nail of your right hand, touch that slit--”

“Ah!”

“Dig in, just a little more. Rock the finger from side to side.”

Klaus made an inarticulate whimper.

“Now, with just the fingertips of your left hand, start massaging your foreskin. Up. And. Down. Gently. Good, yes?”

“Jawohl.” Better than good, Klaus thought with the smallest coherent part of his mind. He was used to his own forthright grip and unsubtle fingering. This was so unlike him, so delicately debauched--so very Dorian.

“Keep doing it,” Dorian commanded softly. “Now, Major, listen to me. I’m turning on the speaker-phone, so I won’t be distracted. I’m on my back, with a pillow under my hips and my knees up. I’m going to suck on the little finger of my right hand--just so--and then I’m sliding it over the top of my cock. We feel the same sensation, at this moment. Is it good?”

It felt guilty and dirty and outrageously shocking. It felt wonderful. “Ja,” Klaus moaned.

“Ohh, yes. Wait, darling, you’ll like this one even more--”

Klaus listened, and did as he was told, and ignored his howling self-respect in favor of the unexpected pleasures Dorian taught him. This seemed a minor sin, for a grown man. He was alone. He was obviously, desperately inexperienced at the finer points of self-relief. And he

needed to come, so badly.

“Suck on your right index finger,” said Dorian, and Klaus did. “Get it wet, darling. Trail it down the underside of your cock, to the base of your lovely, heavy balls--” Klaus did, grinning at Dorian’s moans, because Dorian must feel the same shuddering trail of fiery sensation.

“Ahhh. Now, spread your legs a little more, and move your fingertip down the slot. All the way. Right to the rim of your arse.”

Klaus flinched, shocked by both the crude word and the unfamiliar pleasure of touching that sensitive flesh. It shouldn’t feel so good, to glide his finger around the taut ring of muscle. A muscle that rippled and slightly relaxed, at his rubbing. He heard himself moan “Nein, nein--” into the receiver.

Dorian panted back at him: “Oh, yes, my love, it feels wonderful. And it just gets better. Push out with your sphincter muscles. Hard. Harder. Now push in with one fingertip--”

The fingertip--did it really belong to Klaus at all, now?--sank two centimetres inside him, before he comprehended what he was doing.

Reality tore Dorian’s web of lust. With a cry of fear and shame, Klaus pulled away from that sudden tightness and volcanic warmth.

“Bleib mir vom Leibe!” he hissed.

“I’m not there,” Dorian reminded him. “But you very nearly were. It was good, wasn’t it?”

“Keep. Away. From. Me,” Klaus said again, in concise English. “I don’t want--”

“Do you want to come?”

He was so angry he could only be honest. “Ja!”

“Then do exactly as I say, Major, and I guarantee you’ll have the best orgasm of your life.” Klaus heard the lascivious smirk in that smooth voice. “For now.”

But it was too much. “I can’t!”

“Then put down the telephone.”

At impasse, near defeat, Klaus sighed. He could not go forward. Or retreat. “I can’t,” he admitted.

Instantly, the light cruel voice became honey, soothing and gentle. “Shh, darling, it’s all right. You don’t have to. Do what feels safe, to you. Just listen to me--”

Klaus listened, his hands stroking his erection, while Dorian abandoned the shared love-game for something wilder. Frightening. Fascinating. Dorian wanted pleasure, and reached toward it in strange new ways. He used--objects. Which he described, in vivid detail, in words made breathless from lust:

“I don’t want to come too fast, love. Wouldn’t be fair to you. So I’ve snapped a restraint around my cock and balls, right at the base. Have you ever seen a cock-ring? No? Ah, you’d approve of this one. It’s soft black rubber, nothing frilly, but it--ah!--does lock me into lower gear. It’s just--tight--enough. Slows down blood flow. Keeps me hard. I’m going to want to take it off, in a little while. I’m going to howl, and beg, and scream for it to be off. You mustn’t let me remove it. You must choose when I do that, my darling.”

“Me?” The gift of even illusory control charmed Klaus, in spite of his fear. It was just a game. Dorian might be acting, even now. “Won’t it hurt you?”

A laugh answered him. “It might. Do you want to hurt me, this way? Blue-balls, for a whole night? It’s an appropriate revenge, for all the times I’ve teased you.”

What a delicious idea. Dorian, helpless and mindless with self-imposed need. Awaiting long-distance commands, just to pleasure himself. Dorian, sobbing in ecstasy or in pain--would there be a difference to the sounds? Klaus shook his head, convinced himself that he was terrified by that darkly-intriguing vision. “Nein! I don’t want to hurt you. At all--”

“What do you want, Klaus? Right now?”

That was easy, if shocking. “To hear you climax.”

“Oh, my love, you’d hear it this moment, if you were in me. Iron Klaus. I’d wager you have a shaft like steel covered in silk. I want to feel you moving inside me, but I can only pretend, can’t I? No matter. I’m good at pretending. Let’s pretend that you’re here with me. Kneeling in front of me, with my legs wrapped around your lovely waist. That my fingers are really yours, and you’ve opened me as far as you can. You move inside me, three fingers finding the perfect spot to make me--make me--scream--” Dorian broke off, following his own script zealously.

That abandoned wail made Klaus shudder in response. He felt tantalizingly close to climax, and startled himself by not taking the opportunity. He lifted his hands from his twitching penis, tangling them in the sheet instead. “I made you scream?” he asked when Dorian’s noises settled a bit. “Did you--”

“No,” Dorian whimpered, sounding amused and furious all at once. “I didn’t. The ring, remember?”

“Ohhh.”

The voice drawled with self-mockery, outrageously calm so soon after his first cry: “Please, Klaus, may I take it off?”

Without shame or hesitation, Klaus committed himself to this new game. “You may not. Keep your hands away from your erection. And your testicles. Continue talking.”

Dorian gasped, “I need you. Need something--” Klaus heard the sounds of flesh moving desperately against fabric. “I need this. It’s a vibrating dildo, very lifelike. Not huge, not wide, but what I imagined you’d be like: sleek, warm, hard under your velvet sheath, and pulsing gently with the tide of your blood. Your fingers are gone now, and I can feel the head pushing at me. Wanting in--” Dorian paused, and Klaus understood his cue.

“Push it in. Slowly,” he ordered. “All the way.”

After rough moaning, Dorian returned to him. “I’m rocking on it, now. Slow strokes. Oh, Klaus, I want to come. Please let me come--” By the control remaining in his voice, Dorian wasn’t in true distress yet.

Klaus wanted to hear the thief broken and begging, driven wholly honest in the depths of lust. There were questions he wanted to put to an Earl who could not lie--

Do you really love me? Why do you love me? How much do you love me?

Incensing noises threaded between Dorian’s pleas; wet sucking sounds, small fleshy impacts, the faint rasp of fine fabrics pushed back and forth by a jolting body. The Major’s mouth went dry. His pulse hammered against the warm, solid receiver cradled between his neck and shoulder.

“Release me,” Dorian whispered.

“No,” Klaus said, all barriers against fantasy momentarily overthrown by desire. What would he be doing right now, if he knelt between Dorian’s white thighs? That answer, his body knew even if his mind shied away from it. “Faster thrusts. Deep and fast. And don’t touch yourself, either.”

He knew when Dorian obeyed, because that clever, masterful voice went ragged with need and fury. “You bastard. You tease. How dare you hide all this--heat--this passion--under that ice? How dare you order me? I am Eroica. Eroica! No one controls me!”

“I do,” Klaus snarled.

When Dorian lost the capacity for coherent speech, Klaus changed his tactics. “Now, slower. Slower!” Klaus put all his years of studied command to use, and literally heard Dorian’s gasping aquiescence...and purring delight at the sensations revealed by that relaxed pace.

Now the voice was like warm water, content to drift in aimless pleasure, straining for nothing. Klaus smiled at Dorian’s soft moans and sighs and slurred English endearments. That calculated tenderness was not something he’d ever done, or known how to do, with a woman. He idly wondered how he knew the precise moment to inflict it on Dorian. Probably by overhearing somebody’s sexual boasting, during a surveillance. Klaus shelved the mystery for later consideration. He waited a minute or two more, before whispering: “Now take off the ring.”

“Uhh?”

Wild triumph threatened to destroy Klaus’ own self-control, even without direct stimulation. Dorian was his, so deeply his that the silly thief was lost in their game. He could have broken free at any moment--but he hadn’t.

“Take off the ring, Herr Gloria,” Klaus said, restoring rank and control to the other man.

He heard a quiet snap! and a whimper. Then a laugh creditably like Eroica’s sly, studied laugh, but one unable to hide the shaken discovery underneath.

Dorian was his.

Dorian proved it, all over again, thrusting the dildo back into himself and fisting his cock. His husky words faithfully relayed it all--every sensation, every scent, every imagined vision of lust--back to Klaus.

Klaus shook, hearing everything, tracing Dorian’s inexorable progress toward a wild climax marked by Klaus’ own cried-out name. Klaus could not follow, though the straining shaft once more in his own fists was even harder than it had been.

He listened to the sobs become sighs, then soft deep breathing, then a replete giggle. “You still there, Major?”

“Ja.”

“Did you come?”

Klaus growled.

“Oh, darling, I’m sorry. I did my best.”

“Damn you, Earl.”

Self-denial, the iron façade Klaus presented to the world, even his deep loathing of being recast into the same frivolous mold as Dorian--those inhibitions fled, before a stormfront of emotion. Had he ever, wanting something, simply reached out and taken it? Without shame or guilt, without need for outside approval or fear of censure? Instant gratification had been a luxury reserved for other people. People like Dorian--pampered, moneyed peer of a decadent realm. Not for Klaus, the dutiful son of an ancient family. Well, to Hell with being dutiful. Honourable. Good. Being temporarily insane was excuse enough. It had to be, to explain the next thing Klaus said: “Try harder.”

“Darling?” He could hear Dorian’s post-coital languor drop away, in a rustle of silk. “Do you think--that you might benefit from a more-direct approach?”

“I might. It depends.”

“On what?”

Klaus found another flimsy excuse. “On whether or not that bet of yours is over.”

Dorian’s laughter, for once, wasn’t the least bit cruel or affected. “Poor darling, I simply can’t leave you in this state. Not after--what you just did for me! Will you come to me? Or I, to you?”

Klaus thought about the likely décor of Dorian’s suite. At least this was more to his taste. He’d probably get lost in the hallways, and lose his nerve. “To me,” he said hoarsely. “Soon, Dorian.”

“Oh, Klaus. You said my name. How can I resist?” Dorian purred, and broke the connection.

Chills and heat chased each other through Klaus’ bloodstream, as he stood up from the bed. He started to tidy his pajamas. Then snarled and stripped out of them, defiantly. Then reached for the pile of clothing, then kicked it across the room. He turned up the dimmer switch on the sleek steel bedside lamp. Too bright. He turned it down again to the lowest possible setting. Love-madness left room for no other thought.

Dorian rapped twice on the door. Klaus whirled around, looking instinctively to the window, or toward the unloaded automatic on the bedside table. No escape. No defense. He’d agreed to this. Dorian would take his own revenge--and Klaus found his blood flaring even hotter at the thought.

“Unlock the door, Klaus.”

He obeyed, opening it for the most irritating, precious soul in his universe. “Herein,” he whispered.

Under the open blue velvet coat, Dorian was golden silk and bare, rose-flushed ivory. His eyes were huge in the low light, bluer than the velvet. Oddly enough, he looked--

Reluctant.

“Darling,” he said as he stepped into the room. “I think we should talk, first.”

“I don’t,” said Klaus. He pulled the coat off Dorian’s shoulders, wrapped it forward to trap those slim arms. With a double fistful of velvet, he hauled Dorian against him, searching out the thief’s mouth with his own ruthless tongue. He tasted honey, roses, and a wild earthy flavour that he suddenly knew was Dorian’s own semen. Klaus didn’t care that the kiss was clumsy and rushed. It only had to be sincere, to say wordlessly what even his thoughts couldn’t clearly say about Dorian Red Gloria. And then Dorian would do the rest, and it would be perfect--

“Mmmph!” Dorian writhed expertly in the coat, and Klaus was left holding an armful of warm, empty velvet. He blinked. He had less than two inches of height over the Earl, and he knew the grace and unlikely strength of that lean body. Dorian would be caught--only if Dorian wanted to be caught. The man’s new arousal was as rampant as his own.

What was the problem?

“You want this,” Klaus growled, stalking Dorian around the bed.

“Not this way! Not with you hiding behind that silly bet, and able to roar denials at me later. I want you completely willing. I want to cuddle with you on the morning after. I want--in the flesh--what I just had by proxy. You. My equal, my partner. My lover--” Dorian vaulted gracefully across the bed to safety.

Klaus tossed his burden onto the disturbed sheets. He had plans for that coat. “Screw the bet, Dorian. I let you win. I gave you the goddamned clues, myself. I played your games tonight, willingly enough. What does that say?”

Dorian stopped, his lovely mouth slack with realization. “You--”

“I let you win,” Klaus repeated. If he walked instead of pounced, very slowly now, and made no sudden moves, he might--Yes. Dorian was within reach. Klaus made no attempt to hold him. Only waited. “I wanted to see if I could touch you, without reacting. I thought it would dismay you,

and you’d stop tormenting me. Dancing seemed safe. But nothing’s safe around you. Not even my excuses. Do you want the truth?”

Dorian nodded, wide-eyed.

“It’s a sin. And inconvenient. I know that,” Klaus let himself babble. “You’re a man. And a thief. An utter shame to your rank. A millstone around my neck, half the time. But you screw up my missions less than the poor Alphabets do. You’re the best back-up I could hope to have, in a fight. You’re so goddamned beautiful. I can’t stop thinking about you. And I--I think I love you.”

Dorian came to him then, melting easily into his outstretched arms, whispering English love-words that Klaus only heard as background. All the slender warmth pressed against Klaus, rubbing in all the right places. Their second kiss was much better, an entanglement of tongues and hands and thrusting bodies. After it, Klaus pinned a willing Dorian onto the velvet-covered bed.

“My wrap! Move off, you oaf!”

“You wore it here. If we soil it, I’ll have it cleaned.”

Dorian gave him a wicked smile, his legs twining up to caress Klaus’ thighs. “You? Take something like that to a cleaners’? What on earth would they think of you?”

“What they should. That I have a very wanton lover in my life,” Klaus said, and silenced Dorian’s giggle with a deep kiss that turned instantly mutual. Skilled fingers slid through Klaus’ hair, dishevelling it, coaxing him to do the same with the soft golden curls that spilled over the pillows. The man in his arms sighed happily, when the third kiss ended. “When did you start calling me ‘Dorian’, in your mind?”

“Alaska, I think. You showed your fangs to Mischa. I kept it bottled up for a long time. Or, I’d hit you every time I wanted to kiss you. I’m sorry for that. When did you know--about me?”

A wry laugh tickled Klaus’ ear. “Oh, that’s easy. Once upon a time, there was a very cold tank, and the warm arms of the most handsome man in the world, and a song that revealed a strange beauty I’d never known. I wanted you, then. I wanted to rescue you from a dark, cold life that I thought was strangling your soul. It just got worse.”

“I liked singing to you, I think. Wasn’t until I saw the look on your face, that I was scared. Dorian?”

“Hmmm?” came the murmur from around his collarbone.

“Does this mean--I really am a homosexual?” Klaus could look at the label without flinching too much, now. But he couldn’t ignore the disasters it might encompass, if he or Dorian didn’t marshal the greatest deceit of their lives.

“Maybe not.” Dorian surfaced from his explorations, to put his chin on Klaus’ chest and look seriously back. An unseen hand migrated toward the inside of Klaus’ thighs. “Do you look at other men the same way you look at me?”

“Certainly not!” The idea revolted him.

“Women? Be honest, now.”

“They can be--interesting. But I don’t understand them, and they either bore me or scare me.”

“And I excite you?” The fingers were caressing his balls, now.

“Constantly.”

“Then you may just be a straight man with a lorry-load of hangups, and a tendency to fixate on one person. I happened to be your match. Man or woman doesn’t matter. You love whom you love. That’s a bit frightening, to me.”

Klaus snorted. “If you were a woman, I’d have fucked you by now. Are we through talking?”

A soft laugh answered him. “Talking’s good,” Dorian said. “But doing’s better.” His hands drifted down between their bodies, began pulling and squeezing Klaus’ testicles. Then stopped.

Klaus opened his eyes at the maddening pause of events. Dorian smiled up at him. “Oh,” said Klaus, “I’m supposed to carry my weight, ja?”

“Damn right, Major. Act like a man, not a toy.”

Klaus grabbed Dorian’s shoulders, rolled over until he was now buried in the bed, and Dorian sprawled over him. The fourth kiss curled his toes. When Dorian’s tongue twined languorously with his. Left his lips, followed his pulse down his throat. Flicked lightly at his nipples.

When Dorian’s hands left his insistent penis, and found the dangerous territory Klaus had abandoned earlier that evening. It was all very dazed, because Klaus was intent on memorizing every wonderful inch of Dorian’s body. Dorian’s pale mauve cock filled his hands, slicked his fingers with musky fluids. Klaus smiled at the throb that rippled against his touch. “So strong. But I would have thought you’d be bigger than me,” he said, reveling at the ways Dorian’s fingers stroked areas of his body he’d never associated with pleasure.

“Sometimes,” Dorian murmured, “my being smaller is an advantage. Especially for a virgin like you.”

“I am not--”

“Trust me, Klaus. You are.”

Klaus shivered at the implication, but it left him more aroused than fearful. Except for one thing: “Dorian? Are you--clean?”

“‘M not stupid, darling. I’ve been tested every six months, and very careful, ever since the tank. You?”

“Ja. For health,” Klaus felt moved to explain, “and my honour--”

“Fuck your honour,” Dorian said calmly. “You were just waiting for me, though you didn’t know it.” He slithered down, mouth joining his hands. “So big, but as sleek as I’d guessed. How amazing. You’re like some exotic tropical flower,” Dorian whispered, “Purple and coral. Softer than rose petals. Everywhere.”

Suddenly uncertain again, Klaus gasped, “What now?”

“You were ready to take me, when I walked in the room. Would you even know how, without causing both of us pain?”

“Maybe not,” Klaus ground out the admission. “Maybe you could teach me?”

“You don’t have to learn, my masochistic darling. There are other pleasures than that--”

“I want it,” Klaus said, achieving a little more coherence. “I want it from you, because I want to know what it feels like. For itself. And for when I’m in you, watching the storm on your face. I want to know what you’ll be feeling--”

The angel’s face smiled tenderly back at him. “And also because at heart, the strong man is a beautiful slave-boy who wants out of responsibility and guilt for his own pleasure? I’ll let you get away with it, this time. Lift your legs over my shoulders--”

Klaus listened, and did as he was told. He felt as much searing pleasure in this submission, as he had in dominating Dorian earlier.

Dorian’s careful preparations flustered him. How had he dared play with this--this expert? Dorian sank one finger deep inside him, curled it back against--

A gasping, shuddering eternity later, Klaus whispered, “Was?”

“Your prostate, darling. Let’s soften you up some more. Ah, Klaus. You look so beautiful. Your lips are red and swollen. Your cheeks flushed, your hair all ruffled, your eyes--hmmm, I have a lovely idea! Hang on a moment.” He left Klaus, left the bed, and vanished behind the door to the toilet.

“Dorian--” Klaus didn’t think he could walk, to follow. Before he’d fully levered himself back up to a sitting position, Dorian reappeared, carrying a small ebony-backed hand-mirror. The blond smiled mysteriously, pushed Klaus back down on the bed. Dorian folded Klaus’ fingers around the mirror handle, angled it so Klaus could see his own face. Klaus had never favoured lingering in front of mirrors, beyond making certain he was neatly groomed and clean. But the stranger in the mirror looked back at him from hungry green eyes, lips open in startled wonder. Then they curved in a half-smile matching Dorian’s.

“Watch yourself, while I fuck you,” commanded Dorian, as he slid his fingers back inside Klaus.

The mask was utterly gone. New emotions danced across the stranger’s face: shock, vulnerability, delight, complicity as Klaus squirmed against Dorian’s onslaught. Helping it. Yielding without a fight the fortress that had been his frozen, unloved, and unloving body. His legs rose, wrapped around Dorian’s waist. His fingers shook. The mirror nearly slid from his grasp. Klaus dared not lose sight of the stranger’s image; he might lose himself. Not the human tank, not the stern officer, not even the mostly- dutiful son. What was Klaus, outside those roles? What could he become, set free for a few moments by Dorian’s lovemaking?

Klaus turned his head, braced the mirror against a pillow. He saw his own startled relief at his lover’s lubricated, condom-shielded entry.

Klaus realised, gratefully, that Dorian was as much an expert at this as he was at thievery. Even the first pain was welcome, a rite of passage, a pain that promised exquisite rewards later. The thrusts began to increase in tempo and depth. Fingers had teased him. Now the slick hard head ground ruthlessly over his prostate, driving away every mirrored expression save need.

Raptures swept him forward like a swimmer caught in a rip-tide. His face contorted, somehow still beautiful in its madness. He heard his own voice panting, sobbing, screaming out a climax marked by Dorian’s names: “Dorian, Eroica, Gloria, mein Liebling, mein Abendstern--”

Klaus came back to self-awareness, and gently-stirring sensations.

Dorian washed him with a warm damp cloth. Dorian’s face was serenely absorbed, exploratory. “Was it good?” the other man asked quietly.

“Ja.”

“Do you feel properly abused?”

Klaus bristled, then heard the joke. “Not in the least. Was it--did I please you?”

When Dorian looked up, finally, his sapphire eyes were brilliant with familiar exaltation. “Oh, yes. Worth every year I chased you, and every black eye you gave me, to see you climax. It was pure beauty, poetry, art. I always knew you had romance in your soul, Major.”

“Was that--what we did--in the least romantic?”

“I never had anyone call me ‘Evening Star’, before. How long have you been calling me that?”

Klaus laughed, feeling giddy and suddenly half his age. “You’ll have to make me tell you--”

Three weeks later, at Heathrow on a rainy Tuesday night: “‘Welcome to my parlour, said the spider to the fly.’“

An elderly woman nearly dropped her lukewarm cup of coffee in her lap. “What did you say?” she hissed at her companion, her knarled fingers curling on the tabletop like claws.

The sandy-haired man didn’t notice her reaction, as he hastily picked up a café menu. “Look who’s walking right toward us--damn, where’s he been? He looks better than he has for months.”

Their target, Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach of NATO Intelligence, did look startlingly well-rested and calm. Instead of the expected suit, he wore grey denim jeans, hiking-boots, a bulky grey wool sweater, a black slouch hat, and a faintly self-satisfied smirk. He carried a single suitcase with jaunty ease. He was whistling, for God’s sake, as he stalked past their table like a panther on the prowl. His alert grey-green gaze swept over the two watchers. Seemed to look right through their tourist garb and props, and understand precisely who they were. He dismissed them with a shrug of his near shoulder.

“So, the Iron Major has a girlfriend. Some girlfriend,” muttered the man admiringly, loading a stun-dart into the tiny airgun he’d just palmed out of his sleeve. “Three weeks, incommunicado? I wonder if she’s exclusive--”

“Think with your other head, Mr. D,” said the woman, looking after the Major with her own indecipherable smile. “We can’t take him, here.”

True. Too many other evening travellers. The man sighed, “What do we tell the Twins? Is it worth it, to bring the whole 747 down?”

“You’re a bloodthirsty boy,” said the woman fondly. “No, we don’t want those glasses discovered by anyone else. Forensics people, especially. He hasn’t talked, in six months. He helped us, during the initial troubles, and he didn’t ask questions. For someone so distinctive, he’s very good at going unnoticed. He could be useful, d’you think?”

Agent D sputtered. “Ms. V! We can’t recruit him. He’s got a life--a command--an estate. He’d have to vanish from all of that. Hell, he’d have to leave her.”

Agent V, of the department known unofficially as the MIB, merely smiled, flexed her fingers like claws again, and whispered to herself: “I think he’d look very good in black--”

END (for now)