Chapter 5

Mitch

 

The embassy limousine drove us through the Moscow night and pulled up in front of a well-known restaurant on Teatrainy Drive, just before seven o’clock.

The night was cold but clear. Connie was wearing a knee-length white dress, cut perfectly to the curves and contours of her slim figure. She had let her hair out and it shimmered like a champagne cloud across her shoulders. Her eyes were bright with girlish wonder. When the limousine slowed to a stately halt, the driver came around and opened the door.

I leaned towards Connie to issue one last gentle caution. Our bodies pressed together, our faces so close that I only needed to whisper to be heard. Her eyes lifted to mine, and her lips were moist and slightly parted. Something yearning moved in her gaze, liquid and solemn, and I realized with a small shock of sudden clarity that she was truly beautiful.

“Remember to guard your words tonight,” I smiled. I could smell her perfume. Connie nodded.

For a moment longer I looked into her eyes, searching for signs of conceit or spite or meanness, but I saw only determination and intelligence.

 I watched Connie climb from the car and my eyes wandered appreciatively from the toned length of her calf to the perfect firm roundness of her ass. She had an exquisite figure, the attraction of her made all the more alluring by the fact that she never behaved like she knew she was beautiful. She was devoid of vanity or narcissism.

I felt a deep pang of regret.

If only I was twenty years younger…

The biting cold of the night gnawed at us as we stood on the sidewalk, bathed in the lights that spilled through the restaurant’s plate glass windows.

“Connie will call you and arrange for you to pick us up later tonight,” I instructed the limousine driver. He nodded, climbed back into the warmth of the car, and pulled sedately away from the curb without a word.

I turned on the sidewalk. Traffic was passing in a steady flow of muted noise and great clouds of steaming exhaust smoke.

“That’s Red Square,” I said to Connie and pointed across the way. “It’s one of Moscow’s great landmarks.”

“Red Square?” Connie’s voice was small and brittle in the cold.

I nodded. “It’s considered the central square of Moscow because the city’s major streets all originate from there. It’s always been a significant part of the city, reaching right back through the centuries.”

I was stalling, idling away a few seconds on the sidewalk to see whether the embassy car had a Russian trailing vehicle. I saw no other cars following the limousine as it drove into the darkened night and I allowed myself to relax. I turned back to Connie and took her arm.

Sergey Volostok was waiting for us inside the front door of the restaurant, looking as vast and menacing as any bouncer. He threw his arms wide in a gesture of welcome and the smile on his face was unaffected friendliness. We shook hands and held eye contact. The smile broadened on his lips, when he turned his attention to Connie.

“Greetings to you both,” his big voice seemed even louder in the subdued ambience of the restaurant. He took Connie’s hand and bowed to kiss it in an act of clumsy gallantry. “So very pleased you decided to accept my invitation. Come!” he waved us past the concierge’s desk. “I have a table waiting in the back.”

The restaurant was a splendor of floor-to-ceiling columns, wall-length mirrors and a décor of dark wood and marble. An elegant winding staircase with gold-painted balustrade led to a second floor. The lighting was dimmed to create darkened private corners. Waiters glided efficiently back and forth through the double doors that led to the kitchens.

Our table was set in a small alcove near the back, where we would not be disturbed or overlooked by other patrons. Sergey had apparently arranged for a personal waiter; a young man was standing beside the table with his back straight and his hands clasped demurely in front of his hips. When he saw us approaching he pulled Connie’s chair out for her and she sat like a beautiful bird settling on a perch.

She was shimmering and radiant. The light caught the highlights in her hair and turned them into a golden halo.

Sergey was a magnanimous host and the food was a collection of superb traditional Russian dishes. I made sure to drink sparingly, but Sergey had no such inhibitions. The man could drink like a fish!

After the entrée the mood became more subdued. Sergey’s gaze kept shifting to catch Connie from the corner of his eye. There were doubtful little crinkles across his brow and a change in the set of his mouth that I read as worry or perhaps concern. I leaned across the table.

“Sergey, you can speak freely,” I assured him and glanced at Connie with a look that was fraught with significance. “Nothing you say will leave this table.”

The big Russian nodded, and his eyes became hooded for a moment. At last he sat back in his chair.

“The trade negotiations,” he began. “They have reached a critical point, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed. The dealing between our governments had begun almost two frustrating years ago, but such are the ways of diplomacy that very little real progress had since been made. Global negotiations were like that; one side stated its position for weeks while the other side refused to budge from its own stance. Ultimately a small amount of ground was conceded by one of the parties, and for the ensuing weeks the stalemate returned once again. It was like laying siege to a city. Both sides were so terrified of making a bad deal, that they risked making no deal at all. And no deal would be bad business for both our governments.

“But there are obstacles…”

“Yes,” I said again, and then took a calculated risk. “Our government cannot accept the grain concession subsidy that Moscow is proposing, Sergey. It’s just too much to ask.”

The burly Russian looked aggrieved. He launched into a sudden impassioned speech.

Although his English faltered occasionally, Sergey was eloquent and persuasive, speaking with passion. He gesticulated with his hands, talking with a spontaneous glow of commitment that radiated from him in every movement and expression.

He was a skilled orator, mixing genuine fervor with staged theatrical gestures and expressions. But through it all, one thing became clear: Russia needed to quickly finalize this trade deal.

When he was finished speaking, Sergey slumped back in his chair and lapsed into contemplative silence like a big balloon that had deflated.

I waited a full minute before I finally spoke.

“Sergey are you the kind of man with the kind of connections who can make the final decisions on this deal?” I phrased my words carefully, concealing the point of the question under a thin veil.

“Yes,” he said emphatically.

I sat back. We were both the same kind of man, with the same mission I realized. Sergey had a direct line to his president and the power to force an agreement.

 

 

 

Connie

 

Moscow sparkled in the night as the car swept through the streets of the city and finally stopped in front of a restaurant.

I was nervous and anxious, delighting in the joy of being alone and so close to Mitch, while in my mind my thoughts were a turmoil of lurid fantasies.

The driver got out of the car and came to open the door. I tightened my grip on my purse and braced myself for the bite of the cold night air.

Then suddenly Mitch was leaning in close to me.

I felt the press of his leg and muscled arm against my side and my breath hitched in my throat. I turned my face slowly to his, and my whole body seemed to melt.

“Remember to guard your words tonight,” he said in a gentle tone that was wrapped around a smile.

I nodded.

His voice felt like the teasing caress of fingers across my cheek. I sensed the fine hair along my arms and at the nape of my neck rise, and a sudden flush of warmth spilled down my chest and turned my nipples hard.

Oh, God!

I wanted him to touch me. The ache for him was obsessive. I imagined his hands gently but insistently pushing my knees apart and the thought of it made my legs tremble. The wedge between my clenched thighs cramped into a knot of wet desire. I could barely breathe.

Touch me! I willed him.

Kiss me! My lips parted, glistening and moist.

Mitch was searching my eyes. My chest swelled with the pain of my frustration. I secretly leaned myself against him, soaking in the heat of his body and inhaling the intoxicating man-smell of him.

Touch me, please! my mind cried out in desperation. Dominate me with your hands and your mouth. Take me for your pleasure. Can’t you see how badly I want you?

Then I heard the car door opening behind me. Mitch stirred, straightening in his seat… and the fragile intimate spell between us was broken.

I climbed out of the limousine and stepped, trembling, onto the sidewalk.

 

 

The restaurant was elegant and the food full of peculiar and fascinating flavors. As we ate, Mitch and the Russian jousted across the dinner table, speaking in friendly tones and hidden meanings.

I confess, I remember not a word of what was said. My thoughts were still in the limousine, going over every instant of that moment before the driver had opened the door. I was in state of quivering mayhem. My panties were soaked and I gently stirred my hips as we ate to spread the melting burn of my arousal throughout my entire lower body.

When at last Mitch and the Russian began to stand, I looked up, my face a mask of bewilderment.

“Sorry,” I blurted. “I wasn’t listening.”

Mitch smiled and went behind me to draw back my chair. “We’re going,” he said kindly. “Sergey wants to show us a nightclub on the next corner of the block.”

“A nightclub?”

Mitch nodded. “I told him I wanted to see a glimpse of the real Moscow, remember?”