The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [38]
“I won’t,” she said as she began to writhe.
He added more oil, massaging it into all the folds and crevices. With his left hand he held her by the throat, pinning her down. “You will.”
His knowing fingers delved and squeezed, becoming less gentle.
She said: “No.”
He said: “Yes.”
She shook her head from side to side. Her body wriggled, helpless in the grip of intense pleasure. She began to shudder, and finally she said: “Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh!” Then she relaxed.
Wolff would not let her stop. He continued to stroke her smooth, hairless skin while with his left hand he pinched her brown nipples. Unable to resist him, she began to move again.
She opened her eyes and saw that he, too, was aroused. She said: “You bastard, stick it in me.”
He grinned. The sense of power was like a drug. He lay over her and hesitated, poised.
She said: “Quickly!”
“Will you do it?”
“Quickly!”
He let his body touch hers, then paused again. “Will you do it?”
“Yes! Please!”
“Aaah,” Wolff breathed, and lowered himself to her.
She tried to go back on it afterward, of course.
“That kind of promise doesn’t count,” she said.
Wolff came out of the bathroom wrapped in a big towel. He looked at her. She was lying on the bed, still naked, eating chocolates from a box. There were moments when he was almost fond of her.
He said: “A promise is a promise.”
“You promised to find us another Fawzi.” She was sulking. She always did after sex.
“I brought that girl from Madame Fahmy’s,” Wolff said.
“She wasn’t another Fawzi. Fawzi didn’t ask for ten pounds every time, and she didn’t go home in the morning.”
“All right. I’m still looking.”
“You didn’t promise to look, you promised to find.”
Wolff went into the other room and got a bottle of champagne out of the icebox. He picked up two glasses and took them back into the bedroom. “Do you want some?”
“No,” she said. “Yes.”
He poured and handed her a glass. She drank some and took another chocolate. Wolff said: “To the unknown British officer who is about to get the nicest surprise of his life.”
“I won’t go to bed with an Englishman,” Sonja said. “They smell bad and they have skins like slugs and I hate them.”
“That’s why you’ll do it—because you hate them. Just imagine it: while he’s screwing you and thinking how lucky he is, I’ll be reading his secret papers.”
Wolff began to dress. He put on a shirt which had been made for him in one of the tiny tailor shops in the Old City—a British uniform shirt with captain’s pips on the shoulders.
Sonja said: “What are you wearing?”
“British officer’s uniform. They don’t talk to foreigners, you know.”
“You’re going to pretend to be British?”
“South African, I think.”
“But what if you slip up?”
He looked at her. “I’ll probably be shot as a spy.”
She looked away.
Wolff said: “If I find a likely one, I’ll take him to the Cha-Cha.” He reached into his shirt and drew his knife from its underarm sheath. He went close to her and touched her naked shoulder with its point. “If you let me down, I’ll cut your lips off.”
She looked into his face. She did not speak, but there was fear in her eyes.
Wolff went out.
Shepheard’s was crowded. It always was.
Wolff paid off his taxi, pushed through the pack of hawkers and dragomans outside, mounted the steps and went into the foyer. It was packed with people: Levantine merchants holding noisy business meetings, Europeans using the post office and the banks, Egyptian girls in their cheap gowns and British officers—the hotel was out of bounds to Other Ranks. Wolff passed between two larger-than-life bronze ladies holding lamps and entered the lounge. A small band played nondescript music while more crowds, mostly European now, called constantly for waiters. Negotiating the divans and marble-topped tables Wolff made his way through to the long bar at the far end.
Here it was a little quieter. Women were banned, and serious drinking was the order of the day. It was here that a lonely officer would come.
Wolff sat at the bar. He was about to order champagne, then he remembered his disguise and asked for whiskey