Klaus gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

He was in a small, bare room, alone, manacled into a chair which was the only piece of furniture.

He’d been snatched in Prague. His captors spoke Czech among themselves and English to him, with a mid-Atlantic precision that suggested very nearly top-level Russian training.

That had him worried, but not nearly as much as the question of what they might want him for. His local mission was utterly trivial, even legal. He was aware of no current case or events that would make him valuable to the Czechs, or to the Czech arm of the KGB.

The snatch team had been perfect, undetectable, unforeseeable to his numerous routine precautions. He was satisfied that no sloppiness of his own had put him into this uncomfortable predicament, and he suspected, uneasily, that his captors’ one mistake had been to grab the wrong agent. He had no idea what he was supposed to be able to tell them.

It was not the best position: KGB didn’t like mistakes. KGB mistakes disappeared fast and silently.

The usual noises at the door—behind him—announced visitors: harsh Czech voices, rattle of firearms held in threat, then still more feet, stepping in a quieter cadence. A voice said in English, "Someone wants to see you, spy." He recognized it from the violent interlude which had ended in his being secured to the chair, with several new bruises he didn’t appreciate. He hoped the Czech-speaking voices didn’t appreciate their mementos of that scuffle, either.

The English-speaker remained just out of his line of sight, but another man appeared, walking carefully at a distance from Klaus’s chair as he came around to face him directly. The newcomer smiled. "I believe Major Eberbach and I may handle this matter in a more worldly fashion from now on." The words were in fluent Western German. And Klaus had not told them his name.

Klaus replied in English. "Aren’t you afraid of leaving them out?" He rolled his eyes toward the peripheral blur.

The dangerously knowledgeable Herr-Suspected-KGB-Higher-Up continued in German. "They were told to capture you and hold you safely. They are efficient at what they are told to do, are they not?"

Klaus privately agreed with him. "And what are you efficient at?"

"At talk," said the stranger.

Yours or mine, thought Klaus, and had no doubt as to the answer. The game was proceeding more quickly than usual. He chose the simplest strategy and declined to reply.

When his silence had stretched into minutes, Herr KGB smiled again— it looked pleasant and genuine—and said, "You have an easy choice at present. We shall listen to this tiresome silence, or you may speak to us. Any subject will do."

Klaus sat mute.

The side-standing man snarled something in English. Klaus stopped listening. The two voices alternated for a while, at him, but no one touched him. He looked at nothing, at a point on the wall, and tried to forget where he was.

Some time later, a hiss of Russian caught his attention, partly because both voices had now migrated to behind his back. "He won’t break like this," said one, the former English-speaker.

"He wasn’t supposed to," said the other. "He must demonstrate his stubbornness to himself, as well as to us."

The first voice muttered a question.

"Leave me to my business. Bring in a cot and transfer him to it."

Another mutter, of assent, and the first man left the room.

Herr KGB came back into view, holding a syringe filled with clear fluid. "We would like to hear your voice soon, Major," he said, again in German. "It will be easy for you, but I shall have to insist on a little cooperation."

He gestured at the unseen guards, and two of them came forward to unlock Klaus’s left arm—the one with the torn-off sleeve—and hold it out for Herr KGB, despite all his efforts to resist.

"Beautiful veins," murmured the pseudo-German voice, and its owner made the injection with deft near-painlessness.

Klaus gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

Nothing else happened for several moments. Herr KGB took away the empty syringe. All Klaus’s senses remained active. Was he supposed to collapse, feel pain of some kind, die? Was he supposed to feel anything? Water was a clear fluid, and suggestion a powerful tool to the likes of Herr KGB. Thus far, he was wanted in good condition.

A cot. He was expected to lie down. If he went limp… Klaus let his arm relax in the guard’s ungentle grip, let his body sag in the chair.

Evidently he had chosen the right reaction, for a satisfied voice spoke Russian to the guards. "Unlock him—carefully. He will not be incapable of all action." The voice switched to German. "There is still a gun at your back, Major."

Only yours, thought Klaus. There was no one else in the room, and the door was closed. He let the silent Czech soldiers free him from the hard chair. Still nothing happened to his perception. Was he becoming lightheaded?

The door opened to a buzz of voices and footsteps. The cot, Klaus remembered, and knew he had only this one chance to gamble before the drug, if any, took effect.

He abandoned his limp posture, knocked the two guards aside and sprang for the door. Miraculously, it was not yet blocked by incoming furniture or men, though the glimpse he caught in passing of a Czech camp-bed confirmed that he would not have enjoyed the hospitality here. It, too, had manacles.

He was past the little crowd at the doorway in his first rush. A gun went off somewhere. A revolver, not a rifle. Herr KGB had probably been telling the truth about holding a gun on him. He ignored it and ran up one flight of stairs, following his mental map of the route in. Left here, left, right…

Was he slowing? He couldn’t afford to let some drug affect him, not yet. He charged through a door, startling guards on the other side. He had no Czech for them, and gasped in slurring Russian, "Emergency! Back there!" It was thin, but the best he could improvise. He couldn’t seem to think, except that he had to get out. He ran for the outer door.

It opened on daylight, and another pair of guards. He paid them no notice, but ran between them toward the courtyard gate to freedom. He couldn’t think of any Russian at all now, and he was sure his sprint could have been faster.

It didn’t matter. Only escape from the trap mattered, from this dark building where someone knew his name and wanted to play games with him.

He didn’t bother trying to unlock the graceful, iron-grille gate, which was protected by yet more guards, and simply vaulted for the nearest section of wall. It was a long way up, over gracefully pointed iron spikes which he cleared by fewer millimeters than he preferred, and a long way down to a bone-jarring impact as he landed running on uneven East European paving.

At least he was still in Prague. His ankles would never be the same, he was full of some unpredictable chemical, and the KGB was after him for reasons unknown. All he could do was run. He wanted away from the stale little room, the genial lying Russian German. He ducked sideways at the first opportunity, zigzagged though alleys, with no notion of where he should go. He could only move and keep moving, unable to think beyond each next corner. The Czechs were still one turn behind him, and he might be slowing already. He couldn’t trust his strength now. Where could he hide?

He took another corner and found his way blocked by a car. A car. A huge, black, foreign, Western, luxury car. It was disguise and transportation.

Klaus jerked at the nearest door handle. Locked. Swearing in German, he raised a foot to kick out the window, when the door swung open for him.

"So good to see you, Major," cooed a familiar voice in very English English.

Klaus collapsed onto the seat, felt Eroica lean over him to slam the door shut, and barely noticed as the car slid into motion. He was half on top of his rescuer, all but in his arms, and could not find the strength to struggle upright. "Das tut wohl," he said, and was shocked to hear the words from himself.

"Thank you," said Eroica dreamily. "I’ ve always wanted to have you in my power. Enjoying it, Major?"

"…wohl…"

"What’s good?" The English voice wasn’t complacent this time. "Major?"

The fog cleared a little as Klaus forced himself to some kind of alertness. "What…?" He lay slumped against the Earl, who was taking surprisingly little advantage of the situation. For him.

"Are you all right?" The Earl’s eyes skimmed over his ragged shirtsleeves and other irregularities of dress.

"No."

"I thought not. Are you hurt?"

"Yes…"

"Where?!"

"Feet hurt. Die Knöchel."

"Ankles, oh hell. Badly? You were running."

"No."

"Why aren’t you yelling at me?"

"Don’t want to…"

"Is this a joke?"

"No."

"Is someone chasing you?"

That was the right question. "Yes."

"Who?"

"Czech army and KGB."

"Ohhh." The Earl’s eyes narrowed, and he raised his voice. "Jones, are you having any difficulty navigating?"

"Not yet, y’lordship, but I could. Police alert just went out, to monitor all checkpoints for an escaped prisoner. Description: 185 cm, dark hair, dazed condition…"

"I see. Can we avoid them on the way home?"

"We’re already over the river and past the Staré Mesto checkpoint."

"Excellent. What about the Karlin road?"

"I can take another route in. Be longer, though."

"Do it. Good work."

"A pleasure," said the driver’s voice, and fell silent.

The Earl returned his attention to Klaus, who had managed to prop himself sitting up. "You’re going to fall down again if you try that," he warned, and slid a steadying arm around Klaus with no hint of coquetry. "You say the Czechs and KGB are after you."

"Yes."

The Earl thought a moment. "Do you know what they want from you?"

"No."

"Good. I doubt I could keep you from telling me, otherwise." He settled himself and gave a delighted-sounded sigh. "Well, however did they catch you?"

By a careful series of questions, Dorian got the essentials of the story from Klaus before they swept up the drive to his rented river villa and into the garage where he tenderly assisted his passenger from the vehicle.

"Easy on those ankles," warned the Earl as the Major stood up, and saw him wince in confirmation. "Lean on me— yes—like that. Jones," he addressed the driver again, "ask Peters to prepare for a confidential guest."

Enjoying the necessity for touch and the Major’s unusual lack of reluctance, Dorian guided him through passageways, up stairs, and into the master bedroom. Resisting a strong temptation to put the semi-helpless Major on the bed, Dorian settled him in a well-padded armchair and stood back to regard the bruised, somewhat bloodied, and strangely passive figure. "You look a mess."

"Yes," acknowledged the other.

"If you have no objection," Dorian said carefully, "I think you should have a bath and those scrapes and things tended to. Let’s see if your ankles are really sprained." Without waiting for a reply, he sat down on the floor and began unlacing the Major’s shoes.

"…yes…" said a vague voice above him.

The ankles were not swelling ominously, which was a relief to Dorian. "You’ll do well enough," he addressed the bare feet, and stood up regretfully. "I’ll see to some details," he told the Major."The bath is through there." He pointed it out, hoping Peters would have it ready by now. Czech plumbing was not the most reliable.

He was relieved when he found Peters waiting in the suite’s sitting room. "Yes?"

"The blue bedroom is made up, m’lord," said the valet.

"Thank you." There was more important ground to cover. "I expect everyone in the house to treat his presence as confidential. Completely."

"Yes, m’lord." The order was not unprecedented, for the Earl.

"Good. I know I can rely on all of you."

"Of course, m’lord. Jones asks if tomorrow’s schedule is affected."

Tomorrow being when some prettier items of a Hapsburg music box collection were due to disappear from the Belvedere Palace, and Eroica from Prague.

"Possibly. Yes. I’ll see Jones immediately. Is he downstairs?"

"Here, y’lordship." Jones had obviously been waiting just outside the door.

That would save time. "Thank you, Peters, that will be all."

Peters faded out, and Jones, after brief discussion, agreed that the plan for the music boxes could be shifted, within limits. Eroica tugged at a straying blond lock, thoughtfully, and assumed an air of mischief. "I may decide to start the caper at any time in the next two days…on a whim, you understand. I should prefer to enjoy thievery, like good wine, at the proper moment."

Jones coughed and nodded. "Until then," added Eroica, "I want total solitude, with no new visitors. I’m in retreat, alone, and I don’t want to be disturbed by the Prague police or any other nonsense."

Jones, part of Eroica’s team from the first, grinned. "Can do, boss. That is, y’lordship."

Dorian sighed. "Excellent. I’ll give you as much lead time as I can. Good night."

When he returned to the inner rooms, faint watery sounds indicated that his guest was taking his advice about a bath. Dorian, not averse to gleaning a little entertainment from the Major’s predicament, walked in on him.

"Feeling better?" he inquired cheerfully.

The expected snarl of outrage did not materialize. The Major looked up from a Roman-style pool full of steaming water and foaming bath salts. " Yes."

"I guess you mean that." Dorian, seldom at a conversational loss, had to consider carefully how to handle unadorned truth. "Do any of those bruises still hurt?" He came around to look at the Major’s back, but it was the long, calloused hands that were scraped raw. "I see you tried to fight fairly."

"No," said the automatic voice. "I did my job."

Dorian filed away this nicety of the Major’s conscience for reference if need be. A further inspection convinced him the injuries were superficial, so he fetched mercurochrome—thinking of a Greek cliffside—and sat down to wait.

"Are you staying in here?" asked the Major, abruptly.

"Until I’m sure you won’t go to sleep and drown in the bathwater, yes. I should have thought of it earlier. Shall I," he asked with glee, "scrub your back?"

Expecting a flat refusal, the flat "yes," took him by surprise. He shrugged, picked up a sponge, and moved around the large tub to where a battered dark head and pale shoulders emerged from the water. What this man, Klaus von Eberbach, did to test his self-control… "You asked a question. How can you do that?"

"I wanted to know the answer." Despite the flat tone, Dorian guessed the drugged man must want to know something very much before he would find it necessary to ask. He began soaping, gently, over white skin, careful of the incipient bruises. "This could be the start of something beautiful," he said, giving way to his imp of the perverse. Truth, now…

The reply was a calm question: "What?"

Dorian wondered how to answer that, and decided on honesty for himself. It wasn’t as if Klaus hadn’t heard it from him before. Waiting games weren’t getting his suit anywhere. If Klaus answered him now…at least he would know the truth. He took a deep breath and promised himself solemnly that he would behave as a gentleman and follow Klaus’s wishes. For tonight. A stubborn German mind could still be changed in the future, but tonight, despite all provocation and his own intense…interest…he’d take the answer gracefully.

"Why, I could get rid of this sponge," he laid it down and began stroking the starkly defined muscles of Klaus’s neck, careful to keep it a delicate suggestion of intimacy, "and get into the bath and make love to you. Here and now."

It got a strong reaction, at last. Klaus pushed himself up, dislodging the stroking hand, and turned to stare into Dorian’s eyes. " Yes," he said, and a hand pulled at Dorian’s shoulder.

Mouth open, Dorian disengaged himself and nodded numbly. He would accept whatever Klaus decided…right. He stood up and began to strip off. " Right away," he said, hearing his voice as from a distance.

"Yes."

Naked, Dorian stepped into the pool, glad of the concealment offered by water and floating foam patches. He hadn’t ever expected to be shy… It wasn’t his part to be shy, so he slid a loverlike arm gladly around Klaus’s body and pulled him into a kiss. It turned out awkwardly only because Dorian expected passive cooperation instead of enthusiastic help.

That was corrected with the second kiss, and his grip became more wandering, hands sliding everywhere over water-slick flesh. Klaus’s broken murmurings were in German, but what Dorian could make out sounded approving, so he didn’t worry about them.

Lovemaking in a bathtub, even a capacious Roman pool, had to be a careful business. Dorian kept control of himself; with Klaus, it would be far too easy to go wild, desire rising fast and hard, easy to respond to the answering caresses he was receiving now. Klaus wanted to touch him, fingering his face, playing with his hair,exploring his shoulders and chest and downwards. Dorian, kneeling over him and immersed to the waist in cooling water, shuddered with unquenchable reaction as warm fingers found his growing erection and brushed invisibly over and around it. He gasped andtried to think. Wasn’t that what he should be doing?

He coordinated a countermove, and was satisfied at the firm evidence of arousal he found, gratified when Klaus gasped in turn.

It wouldn’t take long like this, both of them so hot. Just as well, Dorian thought, through a haze of sensation. Klaus had started muttering again, endearments. Dorian wasn’t prepared to decipher anything complicated at the moment, but the words were definitely endearments. Klaus’s eyes opened to meet Dorian’s for a moment, full of lust and desperate truth.

Let’s just finish this, Dorian thought, and get you into a proper bed to show you sex can be fun. Have you ever had fun, Major? I’d bet not. It’s about time, isn’t it… He wasn’t far from climax, and he didn’t want it distracting him when Klaus would need him most. "Hold on a moment, lover," he said, not expecting comprehension, and slowed his hands, gave a parting squeeze, and found something safer to hold to. He took a last glance at Klaus to assure himself the other could wait for him, then closed his eyes and let the hands moving eagerly on him have their way.

The unstoppable tightening ran through him, following by unstoppable release. He sighed happily and opened his eyes and unclenched his hands. Everyone still present and accounted for… He went back to Klaus, letting the aftermath of his own pleasure mingle with the perennial excitement of bringing someone else to climax.

He stroked slick hardness, wishing he could suck at Klaus and taste him—unfortunately inadvisable in the soapy water. Later, perhaps… Right now Klaus was ready to fly, sweet and free of his inhibitions, silent now but for rasping breath, body twitching in impatience for the takeoff into uncontrollable sensation.

Another twitch, and gasp, and he was off, moaning soundlessly as Dorian watched in delight to take in the sight of Klaus unguarded in orgasm. He lavished hard caresses on the insistent penis in his hands, satisfying it by touch, hoping that later he could see every moment of its arousal.

His strokes gentled as he saw Klaus come back to himself, and he almost laughed, unworried about what the other might see. His own pleasure and affection was a simple truth to him, and not one he cared to conceal.

Dark eyes blinked open, looking at him from an unreadable face. " Eroica…" said Klaus, as carefully as if for the first time.

"Dorian," said Dorian, not displeased.

Dorian let exuberant impulse overcome his caution and, still kneeling, leaned forward to kiss the other man hard. Water barely above room temperature splashed around him as he finally drew back.

"Good?" he asked, breathless with the joy of having Klaus at last, realizing that his knees were incredibly sore. He hoped Klaus had fared better from the tiling.

"Yes," said the same uninflected voice, but the eyes that held his were still full of inexpressible certainty.

"Good," said Dorian, finally letting Klaus go so they could climb out of the bath. Klaus was beautiful, all starkly defined muscles, too many of which were marred by darkening bruises. Dorian swallowed.

"Let’s do what we can for you, and then go to bed," he said, and added, "You do want to sleep in bed with me, don’t you?"

He held his breath, barely able to believe how much he had gained so quickly, and Klaus nodded. "Yes."

The unconditional assent was reassuring, but Dorian wondered what Klaus would think in the morning. There was no way of finding out but to give him a night to remember. If Klaus needed evidence that Dorian, when allowed, could be a most zealous sex partner, Dorian had every intention of giving him full proof.

Dry and liberally anointed with mercurochrome, Klaus followed Dorian into the bedroom in a haze of disbelief at himself. He was not numb, not unhappy. He was, it seemed, out of his mind. He couldn’t think past Dorian’s presence, all casual nudity and still-perfect curls and improbable beauty.

There was food here, and very little talk as they ate, and finally Dorian settled him into the bed and joined him there. It was warm and soft, and Klaus felt more naked than he had in his adult life, lying in Dorian’s arms with Dorian whispering and laughing in his ear, touching him just for the sake of touching. Dorian, it came to him, was accustomed to such nakedness, loved it and offered it readily: on Dorian it was beautiful.

He let Dorian’s beauty fill his senses: the joyful English love-words, the scent and taste that flavored their little universe, the skin and soft hair under his hands as he ran them over the body beside him, for no purpose at first but to share the sensation.Hands and body touched him as well, warm weight shifting from beside him to on him and under him by turns. The scents became sharper, the voice moaned as well as murmured, and he felt a more familiar tension of pleasure rising in his groin. The hand that closed around it was not his own, and it didn’t matter.

Other sensations followed, shockingly unfamiliar but welcome in this limbo where nothing existed but tonight and Dorian and—somewhere in a half-defined twilight—himself. He could touch and taste and accept it all, as Dorian did, without fear for the consequences, and he matched desire and laughter with open, eager response. Caught up in Dorian’s brightness, he did not have to encompass any darker knowledge: in this place and time with Dorian, there was no need but their own satisfaction, and the gaspingly erotic truths of the moment were all he had to know.

* * * * *

Klaus woke up completely in an instant. He was…in the Earl’s villa in Prague. He was safe, sober, and had excellent recall of his capture, escape and rescue. And of subsequent events.

Oh, God.

He opened his eyes. Bright sunlight lit the room through a merciful gauze of curtain and illuminated an excessively ornate set of fixtures, including Dorian, who sat watching him from an armchair. He smiled enchantingly. "Good morning, darling."

"No, it’s not," said Klaus, affronted by all existence.

The smiled slipped a little. "Is something wrong?"

"I have disgraced myself, my honor, my name, everything. Yes, something is wrong!"

"That’s not very flattering."

"I’ve disgraced you, too," said Klaus freezingly. "I apologize for my conduct last night."

"I beg your pardon?" The smile had gone and Dorian was at his least affected—except for moments Klaus did not want to remember now— thinking hard. "I enjoyed it very much."

"You’ve been disgracing yourself for years, so I don’t expect it makes any difference to you."

"But it does," said Dorian, "because it was you with me."

Klaus deliberately made his face blank and cold. "I never want to see you again. Please leave."

"It’s my house, Major."

Klaus had momentarily forgotten that. "I regret intruding on your privacy, Herr Graf Gloria," he growled.

The Earl gave his enchanting smile again. "It was my—very great— pleasure. You may wish to stay here until my valet has found some suitable clothing for you."

The Major discovered that this was an accurate statement. He was naked in the bed, and he could well believe his former clothes were in no shape to be worn again. "Thank you," he grated, and, incapable of further gracious utterance,"Don’t touch me."

Dorian looked disappointed, then took on an expression of positive hurt. "Are you quite sure? You were eager enough…"

"That was last night. I was not myself."

"You seemed very much yourself…" The Earl dropped the playful tone. "Klaus, you know what happened. You can’t pretend you were unwilling, not if you remember it. Who started it?"

"You made a lewd suggestion."

"Which you chose to act upon. Immediately."

Shameful recollection of his own voice agreeing with Dorian, of his body’s unhesitating, too-willing response to Dorian’s presence, flooded Klaus’s mind. His body even now threatened to renew the feeling, but he quelled it with his usual rigid self-control. "I was not myself."

"You were far more yourself than ever before. Do you think I can’t recognize drugged behavior, and what it meant?"

Klaus remembered describing his captors’ actions to Dorian when asked. "You took advantage of me when I couldn’ t…couldn’t…"

"…when you couldn’t lie to me—or yourself. I didn’t take advantage of anything but the truth. You wanted me."

"I didn—I don’t now!"

"I see you’ve recovered the ability. It’s not necessary between us now." He leaned forward, dangerously near Klaus. "You wanted me. You still do. I want you, you’ve always known. Last night showed you what it’s like to feel…"

Klaus interrupted the intoxicating voice. "Get out."

"…something like love." He laid a hand on Klaus’s bare arm. Klaus tensed and tried to ignore it. Fingertips shifted downward to play over Klaus’s palm, ingratiating in their delicate knowledge.

"Stop that and get out!" Klaus curled the hand into a fist, and found himself holding Dorian’s hand instead. It felt good, and he dropped it and buried his arm under a shield of blanket, as if the human warmth of it were scorching.

"I don’t usually force myself on the unwilling," said Dorian calmly, retrieving his hand, "but I must decline to abandon you now. You are upset. Solitude will only make you brood and distress yourself further."

"If you’d left me alone last night I wouldn’t be distressed now! Yes, I’m fucking upset, you asshole!"

"Don’t you wish," said Dorian, eyes widening in amusement at a joke Klaus could not appreciate.

"No, I do not wish!"

"You didn’t want to be left alone last night, you remember."

"What if I don’t remember?"

"Yes, you do," said Dorian serenely. " It’s far too late to pretend we didn’t make love, or that you don’t recall it quite well." He shrugged. " Otherwise, why should you be upset?"

"I don’t want to discuss it. I am trying to forget."

"That won’t work." Dorian, sitting back now in the chair, contrived to hitch it closer to the bed, though he made no move to touch Klaus again. His voice became a little softer. "I know. You can’t forget. You can only remember and go on."

Klaus heard experience in that unfrivolous statement. "So you once were appalled on a morning after. Does that mean I shouldn’t be? I don’t think much of what you learned."

Dorian beamed. "We’re making progress. Yes, I have wakened of a morning and been…surprised…at myself. More than once, if you must know. As for what I have learned…would you have preferred a clumsy partner last night?"

Dorian had been anything but clumsy. A half-formed question pushed at Klaus’s mind, to be immediately overwhelmed by shame, but not before he was well reminded of Dorian’s adroitness. He retreated swiftly to his former position. "I would have preferred none!"

A sigh. "That again. I thought we were being honest, now. Put your well-trained mind to work and recall what you said, while you couldn’t lie to me."

Klaus set his mouth into bitter silence.

"I do not ask you to repeat it." Dorian seemed to be enjoying himself, which offended Klaus. "I recall it quite well, too. It was…gratifying, Major. And I thank you. But you know what you said."

Klaus did. The memory was no comfort in this morning’s sunlight.

"Recall what you did, as well. Your body couldn’t lie. I wasn’t controlling you then any more than I am this morning. You," he looked Klaus squarely in the eye with years’ weight of exasperation, "have never been controllable."

The Earl’s reasoning added up damningly. Klaus retreated behind a scowl and thought black thoughts about KGB drugs. Eventually, he had something to say. "I was not in my usual state of mind. You knew that. You went ahead and…did what you wanted, and I don’t like it now."

Dorian shrugged. "How could I know then what you would think later?"

"It wouldn’t have been a difficult deduction," said the Major dryly, "for someone less intent on carnal gratification."

"Was I to ignore the first thing you’ve ever said that sounded as though you didn’t hate me? And I can’t believe you didn’t know how I’d react at the time."

"You haven’t made it a secret," agreed Klaus. "You’re disgusting."

"Even now?"

"Especially…" Klaus saw the open hurt on the English face. "Yes, I have said that before. I, too, am disgusting now. I can’t accept it."

"It happened."

"I am back in my right mind and I no longer accept it. I will forget it."

"Can you? Whenever you see me, you’ll be reminded how good it felt to be free for one night. I won’t help you forget—I want you to remember it."

Klaus stared at him in furious despair. Dorian gazed back, solemn and confident. At least he was no longer treating it as a joke. Klaus reined in his panic and said, "Yes, I see. The incident occurred. I can’t deny it. That does not mean I approved, even at the time, only that I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t approve."

"You might change your mind."

"No. I don’t want to repeat it, ever again."

Dorian shifted his weight in the chair. "Am I that repulsive?"

Klaus gave him a look of disgust, wishing desperately that the night’ s experiences had been repulsive.

"You’ll remember it, you know."

Klaus did not reply.

Dorian smiled again and pushed his chair back. "It’s been enlightening, chatting with you, Major. I’ll leave you to Peters’ care now. Would you like any assistance in getting out of Czechoslovakia without alerting the KGB?"

"Just call me a taxi to the West German embassy."

"Jones will drive you. Yes," he forestalled any objections, "he will. My car is British. You’ll be safer."

"After all," he paused in the doorway and delivered his parting shot over a shoulder, "I want you to have a long time…to remember me."

* * * * *

Klaus remembered Dorian as he was whisked discreetly out of Prague to report to his Chief in Bonn, and for some time thereafter.

He was debriefed on the snatch and interrogation, and told his Chief only that Eroica had assisted his escape and given him a hiding place. He reported the effects of the unknown drug in an innocuous fairytale that had taken most of his trip back to devise, and which he hoped to God that no one would check against Eroica’s corroboration.

Continuously for the next three weeks, he dreamed when he slept and brooded when he was awake, about Dorian. He did not even have the distraction of a difficult mission. The KGB, it turned out, had wanted into his next job—which he had not yet been told of. It was all the result of a minor mistake in timing, the Chief informed Major Eberbach sternly, which had irrevocably exposed KGB informers within the Department. They would have to be removed now, at great inconvenience. Klaus was happy for them.

He was also yanked off the delicate Czech mission that his initial assignment had been placement for, and was sent on trivial and probably nonsensical work in Paris. Klaus hated France, all of France, and most particularly Paris. It was so…Parisian. In addition, he was lumbered with a full support team, A to F, so that he constantly tripped over some barely-occupied subordinate with some inane, trivial question about procedure. Privacy was minimal and free time nonexistent. He began to think, when he could think, that he was mad, and if not mad, sex crazed, and if sex crazed, extremely perverted. He remembered Dorian constantly.

It was very inconvenient.

Relief came, after two weeks of infuriating non-work, with a sordid chase into a French brothel to arrest an insignificant criminal for purposes Klaus was not told and never understood. He gave sarcastic permission for A through F to avail themselves of the facilities, if they were desperate enough to want to, and stomped out in the wake of the French police, despite Madame’s protestations of generosity toward le beau Allemand. He had never been able to fool a Frenchman (or Frenchwomen) about his nationality for an instant.

He walked out of the red-light district, ignoring it, until he heard a solicitation aimed at him in a male voice. He swung abruptly to face the speaker.

The young man—nearly a boy, with obviously false blond locks— saw his glare and turned white.

About to deliver an unforgivable insult—which a whore would probably swallow, which would be worse than taking the consequences of the insult from anyone else—Klaus looked over the scared boy. Stabbed by memory and shame, he said only,"Merci!" and turned away again.

He made it to his room in the seedy pension suite NATO leased for low-profile operations such as this one, and stood, shaking, against the inner door. This was unacceptable, insupportable.

It occurred to him to wonder if Dorian was as badly preoccupied by that night as he was. Probably not. Dorian, who warred unceasingly with the rest of the world, was serenely at peace with his nonexistent conscience.

Dorian, said an unexpected insight from nowhere, thinks he loves you. He took advantage only of something you seemed to agree to at the time, and he made sure you enjoyed the physical aspects of…of…

Klaus quashed the thought and did what was necessary to relieve the tension of the moment. It sufficed, for the moment.

* * * * *

His next mission, unhappily, involved cooperating with Eroica in a clandestine detail of cave-hunting in Hungary, looking for evidence of Soviet misbehavior during the second world war. Klaus couldn’t imagine what difference it would make at this date, and protested to his Chief, to no avail, that he could not work equably with the Earl of Gloria.

"Nonsense, he pulled your fat out of the fire in that cock-up in Prague," the Chief pointed out. "You can manage Eroica, in spite of his…oddities. He’ll be a great help to you in Kazinclarcika."

"I can’t be responsible for…" Klaus realized that he was making too much of the matter, and that the Chief would wonder why. "All right, sir. I’ll just kill him myself. Will that keep him out of future cases of mine?"

The Chief laughed indulgently without answering.

* * * * *

Klaus fumed his way to Budapest and through Hungarian customs paperwork as a West German tourist. Accompanied by A and B, he took a train north, wondering when he would have to confront Eroica and what to do when he did. Under other circumstances he’d have enjoyed the chance to explore the Carpathians in beautiful late-summer weather for caves containing old Soviet bases. He could get into them by himself—why send a flamboyant, attention-getting thief as well? Didn’t the Department have any cracksmen of its own?

When he muttered this question to Mr. B, the subordinate said, straight-faced, "Yes, sir. I was assigned to you as an investigation specialist."

"Then why was Eroica assigned as well?!"

B coughed in the haze of cigarette smoke that filled their compartment of the Budapest-Miskolc train. Mr. A had fled to clearer air already. " He’s very clever, sir. The Chief is sure he can help."

Klaus favored him with an absent glare, considering just how clever Eroica was. No doubt that was Eroica’s opinion of himself as well… Mr. B, more uneasy by the minute, coughed again. "Go breathe somewhere else, if you must," said the Major shortly, and lit another cigarette.

"Thank you, sir." Mr. B departed, leaving Klaus to his thoughts about Eroica, and the many ways Eroica was too damned clever.

Eroica wasn’t at the Miskolc station, or on the connection to Kazinclarcika, or lurking in the narrow streets of that town. If he hadn’ t shown up by now, Klaus thought in what he told himself was relief, they might not meet until tomorrow.

The lobby of their obscure little hotel was empty of the eyecatching blond mane or its eyecatching six-foot owner, but the clerk had a rather dazed look. Klaus stomped upthe carpeted stairs, speculating darkly, and threw open the door specified as theirs.

"Good afternoon, Major," said an affable voice. Eroica was seated comfortably on a sofa, smoking an overspiced cigarette and quite at ease.

Klaus took in the sight of him and suddenly relaxed as recent news reports from Prague fell into a pattern. He marshalled his considerable self-possession and smiled back. "Enjoying more of music these days, Herr Graf Gloria?"

"Music?" The Earl was all innocent curiosity.

"Perhaps I should ask after music boxes."

"I think music boxes are charming," said Eroica, still a picture of innocence. "Don’t you?"

Messrs. A and B had both disappeared into inner rooms of the suite, and in any case could be counted on to be conveniently deaf. "So did the cultural authorities in Prague," growled the Major. "Did they pay well to get them back? Was I useful to your thieving?"

The Earl took in a breath of ostentatious comprehension. "They served their purpose," he said sweetly. "Your trip home was smooth, I trust? Did the security forces and Prague police stay elsewhere?"

"Of cour—" Klaus stopped and glared at him. "How convenient."

"Yes, it was."

"For you."

"And you." There was a hint of feeling in the wide blue eyes that met his so unhesitatingly, before the Earl smiled at him. " I really don’t care which disturbance covered the other. It worked for both of us. Didn’t it?"’

After a moment’s appalled glare into the Earl’s calm gaze, Klaus abandoned that line of conversation as unprofitable. "Have you been briefed yet on—" He slammed the sentence to a stop, shaken at his own indiscretion, and looked around at the connecting doors.

Fortuitously, Mr. A emerged from the furthermost door and gave the all-clear sign, looking puzzled. They were unbugged. "—this mission?" finished the Major.

Eroica had not missed the wordless exchange. "I’ve had the place checked for listening devices already," he said, and, directing his words to Mr. A, "Talk to Jones if you want to know what he found."

Mr. A disappeared. "You don’t think," continued the Earl, "that I’d care to have my private conversations overheard, do you?"

It was deliberate effrontery, and unanswerable. Klaus gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

* * * * *

Eroica, thanks be to God, had his own hotel room, or rooms—Klaus pointedly did not inquire into any details of his living arrangements. The mission was likely to take up several days or even weeks, and the constant presence of the Earl would be extremely tedious for every minute of that time.

They all four met to discuss mountaineering routes the first evening. Mr. A unpacked the old, rediscovered map which had sparked the mission in some NATO Intelligence administrator’s mind. Klaus had no idea where it had been acquired, when, or how urgent the operation might be in any larger sense. He noted that there were bases in most of Eastern Europe, and suspected that he’d have been directing the less trivial Czech branch of the investigation if he hadn’t run afoul of the KGB in Prague. That led his thoughts, again, to the night with Dorian, and he slapped them down and tried to concentrate on less volatile subjects, such as what would happen to him if he was caught too far north, across the Czech border. What would happen if Eroica were caught? The Czech authorities couldn’t be too pleased with him, either.

Whatever had happened with Dorian meant nothing. Even Dorian must know that. The Major didn’t intend to trouble himself further with it.

The maps were spread overlapping on the crowded table surface in Mr. A’s none-too-commodious room, and Klaus noted Eroica’s satisfactory deflation when he saw the Cyrillic markings. In answer to the question Eroica shouldn’t ask, he said, "I can’t tell you what these are copies of, and keep any guesses to yourself."

The Earl eyed the map, then looked at the adjacent sheet, a local relief map (marked in Roman characters) that was provided for comparison. The four of them jostled around the table, A and B deferring to the Major, while Dorian, as ever, did precisely what he pleased."This doesn’t correspond with… Oh, we’re going underground," said the quick English voice. " Caves?" He leaned sideways to peer again at the Cyrillic map and collided with the Major’s shoulder.

Klaus jerked back, away from him, as Mr. B said, "Yes, we’ ll be going in by the east passage."

"We? Does that include me?" asked Dorian, and leaned again to search for Mr. B’s east passage. Klaus retired to the opposite side of the table and worked at reading the legends upside-down while Dorian conducted his reconnaissance unchecked.

"You’re along to unlock the installation, when we find it," the Major said, "or you wouldn’t be here." He wished Dorian weren’t here now, and his tone said as much.

The Earl glanced up, expression unreadable. "Yes, I wouldn’ t," he agreed. "Your Chief would prefer whatever we discover to be burgled, not blown up. Now I see why."

Safe behind the table, Klaus scowled at him. "You do?"

"He usually indulges your preference for firepower, but bringing down half the Carpathian mountains might attract attention, you know."

Klaus looked over the flawless, composed face while his subordinates went dead still. Eventually he turned to B. "What other routes do you see here?"

B unfroze and answered him, and the moment passed, but Klaus remembered that calm, knowing voice for hours.

* * * * *

The next day’ s excursion was no easier to bear. Dorian behaved with bland and total propriety in the face of B’s chaperonage, and yet managed to be infuriating at frequent intervals.

They departed the hotel laden withbackpacks, ostensibly off for a day of mountain hiking, and worked their way to the face that contained the east passage entrance. Inside, other explorers had left traces for some distance, but the dull, cramped rock clefts and irregular footing seemed to have discouraged them within a few hundred meters. The NATO party pushed on.

"I hope you’ve been marking our path," remarked the Earl, as his torch scanned a line of boulders that passed, here, for a trail.

"Of course," said Mr. B, before Klaus could give his blistering opinion that halfway into a trackless mountain was no time to first ask that question.

"Good; I have, too."

"Then why ask?!" said Klaus, with what felt like great restraint.

The Earl’s voice said patiently from behind his torch, " Inveterate nosiness, Major. And, I’ve been using fluorescent green marker." The torchlight swiveled and picked up a hideous chartreuse splotch at knee level, then shifted away. The patch continued to glow faintly. "If we’re looking for an abandoned underground base,we might want to watch out for marks their scouts used."

"Yes," said Mr. B’s matter-of-fact voice. "I haven’t seen any so far." Which was exactly what Klaus hadn’t seen.

"Well?" asked Dorian.

"Well, what?!" snapped Klaus.

"What markings are you leaving as a backtrail?" The Earl’s voice was still patient. "So I’ll know if I see anything else."

Klaus gritted his teeth at the reasonableness of the man.

"Yellow chalk arrows at eye level," said Mr. B, reasonably. "Good idea, using fluorescent stuff, though."

The worst of it was, they were both right. Klaus should have thought to co-ordinate all of their search for trail marks from the beginning. What had Eroica done to distract him from the mission to this degree? Nothing, recently. Eroica himself wasn’t distracted. That perverted seducer had no right to be so collected…so unmoved…

The Major ran his torchlight over the uptrail for the third time and finally paid enough attention to rate it traversible.

"See anything?" asked Eroica, as Klaus joined the other two in a rock-enclosed elbow of space where they waited for him.

"No!"

"Then let’s go on." They labored onward meter by meter, checking, marking and, inevitably, backtracking as they reached dead ends. It was slow, tiresome and unproductive work, and the Major’s temper was not improved by Eroica’s implacable patience.

"That’s been a waste of time," Klaus muttered, mostly to himself, as they emerged finally into the late afternoon.

"Not at all," said Eroica, emerging rather more closely on his heels than Klaus liked, from the narrow east-facing cave mouth. His voice was low and cheerful and rang, to Klaus, of unnamable impending intimacies.

Klaus backed a couple of steps down the outer trail and growled in utter disgust, "We have found nothing. A worthless day’s work."

"Negative information," said Dorian, reaching to steady Mr. B at the lip of the rock trail between daylight and cave-shadow, " is still information. We can start at another door, better prepared, tomorrow." B safe, he turned enigmatic eyes on Klaus. "As you certainly know. Is something annoying you, Major? There’s usually a better reason for your fits of…impatience."

B’s presence prevented Klaus from answering that as it deserved. "No!"

Disbelieving eyebrows mocked him, but Dorian said nothing more aloud.

* * * * *

Two more expeditions from the east side were no more fruitful, nor did the Major’s disposition ease in the slightest. The Earl gave no sign of being perturbed by Klaus’s constant hostility, or even of noticing it. Klaus found the situation infuriating but as shortstopped argument followed sidestepped verbal incident, he realized, unwillingly, that it must be a deliberate effort on Dorian’s part. The Earl of Gloria’s habitual arrogance had never been so little in evidence.

The fourth day’s expedition was set to begin at an unpromising south rockface. They gathered for another examination of the classified maps and aerial photographs concealed in Mr. A’s luggage, in the freshly de-bugged little room which was not quite large enough to let all four of them stand around the table without Klaus having to consciously avoid Dorian’s presence.

The Major ignored everyone and concentrated on the map until a nearby movement jerked his attention away from a side canyon and its thread of river. He glanced up to find Dorian sidling around the table away from him—to gain room or to give it? Bumping into Dorian would have been insupportable, but this polite avoidance set his teeth on edge as well. He glared for an unguarded instant, caught a calm expression of amusement in return, and dropped his eyes back to the map. It was several moments before he could find the canyon—or any other landmark— again. He focused on the task ahead of him and managed to end the meeting in some kind of order, but he wasn’t sure what had been concluded.

Safe in his own room, he lit a cigarette and stared at the wall. This was insupportable, impossible, not a condition with which he could work. He wasn’t handling the operation well: B could do—was doing—a better job of direction, while Klaus brooded about Dorian. His distraction endangered them all, and the mission as well.

Something must be done, and despite his threat to the Chief, and a horrifying inclination to carry it out, eliminating Eroica could not be the answer. Eroica, too, was a vital part of the mission.

His desire to see any more of the Earl than absolutely necessary (his body leapt with remembered sensation and he ignored it only with an effort) was nonexistent, but the matter could no longer be left as it was. He was going mad.

What did Dorian want him to remember? The actions—his own and Dorian’s—which were shameful at best, excusable only by extraordinary circumstances? The insanity itself, of sensation and luxury and unknown emotion that had been easy to give way to at the time, impossible to define ever since? He remembered it. He could hardly forget the disgraceful pleasure, and deplored it on every, frequent, occasion of memory.

Dorian had been right about that much. He couldn’t forget.

Klaus put down his current cigarette in the now-full ashtray and paced around the room. Anything to do with Dorian was utterly reprehensible, but no one else had answers. There was certainly no one else he could ask.

The Earl’s room, naturally, was the best their small hotel could offer. Klaus raised a hand, steady only by an effort of self discipline, to knock.

He put the hand down, raised it again, and put it down, then seized the door handle and threw it open in one violent gesture.

Dorian, wearing one of his detestable fluffy outfits, sat reading a worn, hardbound book. He glanced up and smiled at Klaus, not moving otherwise.

Klaus took one step inward and closed the door.

Dorian laid down the book and asked, with brittle patience, "Does this mean you want to fuck?"

Klaus, who had thought he was beyond shock, stood briefly paralyzed. But what else, after all, was there to do? "Yes."

The Englishman’s face altered, all the subtle mockery and defenses wiped away. "Oh. Klaus, I’m glad. Come here."

Klaus walked steadily, by an effort of will, across to Dorian, who stood up to meet him. "I don’t—"

"Shh," said Dorian, arms reaching to encircle him. "You don’t have to say anything. Come make love with me, right?"

Klaus nodded until he was kissed, and then cooperated as best he could.

"You," said Dorian after a bit, "have been smoking like a chimney. Were you that nervous?" Klaus nodded. "Mmm, come with me. Can you stay all night?"

"A and B…"

"Will think what they’re told, won’t they?"

"Only about the mission…"

"I’m part of the mission," said Dorian firmly. "Don’t worry." He led Klaus to the large bed and kissed him again. "You know you’ll like it."

Klaus was miserably aware that this was true.

"I’ve been wanting you dreadfully since Prague. You were so…beautiful."

"I…" Klaus could not describe his feelings in any way that seemed suitable to the situation. Whatever it was. Dorian’s hands had begun working at his clothes. "Yes," whispered Klaus, shamefully."I want…"

There was simply nothing else to be done if he wanted to finish the job. He was sure this wasn’t reasonable, but could it be worse than keeping Dorian at arm’s length? At least he could have what was tormenting him.

He stared, fascinated, as Dorian dragged the blue silk tunic over his head and tossed it away, pulled off a heavy gold bracelet. Klaus reached without conscious effort to touch that vivid, not quite androgynous face. His searching hand tangled in curls somewhere near Dorian’s mouth. "I want…"

Dorian pulled him onto the bed, would not stop touching him, helped him find ways to touch back, all over. "Me," he said, hands brushing over skin everywhere, half tickling.

"You?" Klaus had lost the thread of the conversation.

"You want me," affirmed Dorian, all confidence. A hand slipped into his crotch to emphasize the point, the touch still playful but direct now and meaningfully arousing. A hot wash of sensation ambushed any denial Klaus might have made, overwhelming all objections.

Klaus found he had closed his eyes, and opened them. "I don’t…" A knowledgeable thumb was caressing up and down his penis with precisely enough pressure to be unforgettable, "…want to go mad."

Dorian’s hand stopped, which was an immense relief and disappointment, and remained warm but unmoving on him. "Oh, so that’s it." The mischief in Dorian’s eyes this time was playful, gentle. "You have been a little preoccupied, this trip."

Klaus glared at him. Dorian bent down and kissed his throat. It proved impossible to glare at the headful of quivering curls while a determined tongue coolly traced his collarbones. Klaus shivered, and noticed that the stroking had resumed on his erection, and that he didn’t want to make it stop.

He remembered, now, how it had felt to…make love, as Dorian called it. In English, naturally.

It was natural for Dorian.

Klaus did not want to stop at all. The shame and disgust and all his many excellent reasons for reluctance waited outside somewhere; their weight would descend on him again later. Here and now, in Dorian’s bed with Dorian warm and wriggling eagerly against him, he caught his breath at the pleasure of knowing nothing but the moment.

In the moment, he felt the lean, strong body tense under his hands, saw Dorian thrash and moan at him for release; in the moment he applied himself with newly-learned caresses to grant it; in the moment he was himself raised to an unfamiliar and vulnerable readiness for climax, and in the moment he felt it take hold of him, more surely even than Dorian held him, as he moaned in turn. They clung together as the madness waned, looking into each other’s eyes in candor unknown to Klaus’s experience, for a last, long moment.

Time, if not reason, returned to him then. He pushed himself a little away from Dorian, whispering, "Ich weiss nichts recht. Nichts."

Dorian didn’t move except to smile. "You know plenty."

"I…I have to leave."

"Not yet," said Dorian, and put a hand loosely on his arm.

It stopped him. "I don’t know…what I am." He felt lost, and it might be forever.

"Ohh." There was a wealth of sympathy in the drawn-out syllable. "You’ll find out, you know. You are what is." The eyes in the flushed face were alert.

"I’m…not here."

"Yes you are." He was tugged back down into Dorian’s arms, but it was no longer a world sufficient in itself.

He bore it for a few seconds. "Dorian, I don’t know…"

Dorian released him. "At least you know that you don’t know. Can’t you stay?"

Klaus shook his head. There was crushing knowledge in wait for him somewhere, and if he didn’t go to meet it, it might come in looking for him and find Dorian. Quickly, before he could remember what it might be, he asked, "May I come to you again?"

"You know you can."

"I didn’t," said Klaus, pulling on his clothes.

"Now you know it." Dorian watched him dress, making no move to get up. "Will you come back? Please?"

His voice held no fear, no shame. He wanted what he wanted and he knew what he wanted.

"Yes," said Klaus, and hoped it was the truth.

* * * * *

The truth, Klaus thought bitterly an hour later, was that he himself had had no shame and had engaged in unnatural and illicit relations with that…that Englishman. Twice. He was intensely ashamed now. Dorian’s behavior was no more excusable than his own, but Dorian, of course, was a foreign and corrupt influence. Klaus wondered how corrupted one had to be to cease feeling shame, as Dorian clearly felt none.

He, Klaus, had actually touched the man who was everything he despised, had deliberately sought him for… A memory of himself licking salty sweat from Dorian’s skin, at Dorian’s urging, burned him with shocked disbelief. The memory of Dorian returning the favor added less acceptable heat to his revulsion. He had wanted it, at the time. He was horrible, a perverted monster to have let himself feel any such thing, or to have let Dorian believe that he did.

He could not even regard it as a moment of hopelessly bad judgement. He had known what Eroica was, and Eroica had given fair warning long ago with both declarations and emphatic demonstrations of exactly what he wanted from Klaus. Klaus should have been able to avoid it, knowing the danger, knowing Eroica’s persistence. Dorian had followed him everywhere, ignoring every rebuff. The Major almost laughed, but it went no further than a catch in his throat. Dorian had followed him into NATO’s danger before—for love of him, something he had never quite believed—and would do so again tomorrow. It was up to Klaus to finish the mission safely, for all of them.

The mission itself was straightforward, or should be. He’d seen all the maps, which tallied with what they’d found as far as maps could show. The only thing missing was results. What was wrong? The geography? The eastern-side exploration looked fine on paper, but it was a dead end; he should have seen that the first day.

Klaus sat up and reached absently for a cigarette, trying to remember the relief map. The river canyon had meant something, but he hadn’t seen it at the time. He’d been too preoccupied. Carefully ignoring the cause of his preoccupation, he got up, put on fresh clothes, and went to call on Mr. A.

Mr. A answered his knock with a Hungarian dictionary in hand. " Yes, sir?" The subordinate managed to sound attentive rather than surprised at the late-night interruption.

"Would you unpack the maps again?" asked Klaus.

"Of course. Another meeting, sir?"

"No. I had a thought about the mountains."

A, shaking his head, laid out the relief map and Cyrillic map, and retired again to his Hungarian word game.

Klaus confirmed his memory of the river: from the direction it cut through the mountains, it would have tributaries underground and there might be a large series of caves in the limestone…yes, around the area of the old Soviet base. The south face was closer to the present river channel. If he’d had the presence of mind to see that at first, it might have saved them all three days; but B had— reasonably—begun with the easier, eastern approach trails, and he himself had been preoccupied.

It was foolish to be angry at Eroica for his own failing. It had been more than foolish, and dangerous, to let such a ridiculous cause affect his judgement. He’d ignore Eroica and the distasteful events connected with Eroica’s existence. They had to get into the caves, find the base and discover what it held. That was his mission. Nothing more.

* * * * *

B led them up steep, rocky paths to the south-facing cliffs, finding a safe trail for the Major and Eroica. Some back-and-forth scouting brought them to an entrance to the mountain, which wasn’t too forbidding in the morning light; but the cave was no less dark than any cave, inside.

During the whole of the circuitous search for their new starting point, Klaus concentrated on the climb, ignoring Dorian except for necessary instructions. He did not snap at him, and Dorian did not deflect the arguments he did not make. If B noticed any change in the atmosphere, he failed to comment.

It was a silent party.

They began the tedious, painstaking search for a route deep into the mountain yet again. The used, marked trails were fewer but went on and on, and the three of them systematically combed the stone labyrinth, carefully leaving their own fluorescent back-guides.

This time there were bats. Klaus didn’t care for bats, whose soundless squeaks and invisible eyes haunted him in the darkness and whose wings made senseless stirrings in any high-roofed space in the caves. The only good thing about their presence was that bats must come from somewhere: this entrance led to more caves, and he could hope to find the hidden base.

The deduction was confirmed when they found a series of large caverns, after pushing through some rocky, angled passageways. They were not the first to traverse these huge stone bowels: the wall-markings of previous explorers still preceded them, although no footprints showed in the carpet of bat-droppings. No one could have been here recently.

"There are only two sets of trail signs, besides ours," said B at last, when they stopped to confer in a small stone vault with three openings and a roof too low to hide bats.

"Yes." That confirmed Klaus’s observations.

"That’s all I’ve seen lately, too," put in Eroica, playing his torch over the walls. "Barring a little graffiti."

"What?"

"Words written on the walls," said Eroica, and his torch beam circled and then held steady near the further opening. " There."

It was a single word, a common Russian name, written in Cyrillic characters.

"What luck," said B.

"How suspicious," said Klaus.

Eroica smiled. "No, I haven’t seen any others. I found it just now, when we stopped."

It was impossible to tell how long the roughly incised scratches had been there: two years or two centuries would be the same underground.

"We’ll take this branch," said the Major. "Both of you, keep watch for other signs like this. Thank you, Eroica."

The surprise on Dorian’s face was almost comical. B merely led the way into the next chamber, his light scanning the uneven, dirty surface at his feet.

Three chambers and a passage later, after the footing improved when they left the bats behind, they all but stumbled over the remains of the installation they were looking for. The Major’s torch picked out a smooth, square corner amid uneven rock surfaces, and he said, quietly, " There!"

The other two stilled.

His light played silently over the unweathered front wall of a prefab structure, graceless compared to the natural rocks that surrounded it. In the preservation of the cave, it might have been abandoned yesterday instead of forty years ago.

It had a door, marked in Cyrillic, now the focus of three torches. "Is this my cue?" asked Eroica. When no one denied it, he walked forward to the building.

He circled it once, and Klaus timed his leisurely inspection with impatience. "What’s he doing?" he whispered to Mr. B. There was no reason to whisper, or to ask anything of a subordinate, but the caves could be intimidating, no matter how little Klaus meant to be impressed by a natural formation.

"Looking for windows," said B, seriously.

"Don’t be foolish."

"He’s not, sir. Windows, air vents, back door…might be unlocked or less well locked. Why take the hard way in? Eroica’s a very good thief."

"Don’t admire him for that."

"No, sir."

Eroica reappeared, shrugged at them or perhaps at the cave in general, and tried the door. It opened easily, inward. Eroica shrugged again and glanced toward Klaus and B, grinning.

The door swept further inward of its own accord, to produce a dark-clad human figure who seized Eroica. As one, Mr. B and the Major switched off their torches.

The stranger’s grip—Klaus recognized a classic maneuver—was effective enough to thwart Eroica’s immediate struggles; Eroica, no believer in passivity, also screamed at a volume that reverberated through the caves as he was manhandled into the Russian base.

Before the door slammed shut again, Klaus was in motion, locating B in the dark with a grasp on his near arm. "Quietly," he whispered, "one step back and two steps to your right." That put them behind a curtain of rock to shield them from the building. Klaus shucked off his backpack to dig into it and went on, keeping his voice very low, "Don’t move yet from where you’re standing, and don’t talk unless you have to. They must have heard us, or they wouldn’t have pretended the base was empty. We’ll meet them before they come out looking for the rest of us. Get your gun." Klaus, with his already in his hand, heard B rustle in the blackness. It seemed to take forever.

"We want Eroica back, and we don’t want to let them know who we are. We don’t want the base unless it’s empty. Ready?"

"In a moment." Further rustling sounded, as of a pack being returned to shoulders. Eroica’s voice, which had quieted once he was inside the building, rang out again. As a scream from behind a closed door, it sounded very loud, and it seemed to last forever.

Finally it broke off. "Follow me," said Klaus. "Now!"

By memory he moved out of the niche and onto the shallow rock slope that ledto the base. Darkness was nearly total, except for a few faint light-leaks from the base itself, visible now in the absence of torchlight. There was another scream, just as loud, almost measured. Klaus hoped Eroica was enjoying himself, but the sound made his blood run cold.

Feeling his way, B on his heels, he advanced as quickly as the rough footing would allow. It seemed to take forever.

Before Klaus had reached the now ominously silent door, it flew open and a moving body hurtled out into his arms. Klaus steadied it, seeing nothing but the pale blur of face and yellow hair in the sudden light from the doorway. "Eroica?"

"I’m well enough." The Earl clutched at him briefly, but before Klaus could draw back, he pushed away and into a very healthy run up the slope, into the gloom.

Emergency objective accomplished. Mr. B had taken off in the same direction the moment Eroica reappeared; now his torchlight blinked at them and went dark in a quick signal. Klaus followed it as silently as possible, trusting B to guide them without revealing their position to possible watchers from the Soviet installation.

Somewhat surprisingly, there was no immediate clamor of pursuit. At the rock-shielded niche, Klaus grabbed at both the others to stop them and spoke very softly. "Eroica. How many of them are there?"

"Four…five. Or more." The voice was shaky, but stayed low.

That was too many to be sure of taking the base, with only one-and-a-half backup men. There was still no sound of followers. "Out, then, as fast as we can, quietly!"

They followed the green splotches, and traced their way back through the oppressive, bat-infested caverns in a nightmare of darkness and unknown floor conditions, allowing themselves only the briefest flickers of torchlight. Distant echoes that could have been a hunting party sounded behind them as they crept through the largest chamber.

Klaus whispered, "Link hands." He couldn’t stop using the torch altogether, but this would let them advance more quickly between pauses to listen for footsteps or voices behind them. Dorian kept up with the pace Klaus set, but his hand stayed clenched in a cold, sweating fist. The sounds behind them surged like tide, and did not seem to come closer.

Klaus gave his whole attention to the passage through the dark, repressing all speculations of what disasters could befall a mission whose agents were witless enough to walk blithely up to a Soviet base of any kind and expect it to be uninhabited without checking; repressing with less ease all thoughts of the horrors that might happen to Dorian inside such a base. Slowly, the sounds behind them died, or were outdistanced.

He finally called a halt in their flight when they reached a narrow enclosed room where Hungarian spelunkers’ witticisms showed in his first careful flicker of light. He hoped it would contain sound somewhat. " Rest." He switched the light off again. Dorian didn’t let go of his hand.

Behind them, the silence was broken by airy, angry, unhearable whistles and flutterings, but by nothing on two feet. The Major heard B lower himself onto the memory of a low stone shelf and guided Dorian in that direction. The Earl sat obediently, without speaking.

They waited in the dark until silence established itself as a stable entity. When he was sure any hypothetical followers were too stealthy or patient to be out-waited, Klaus switched the torch back on and surveyed his team. B wasn’t even breathing hard by now. Eroica was white and had lost his backpack but seemed uninjured. "Report, Eroica."

Dorian’s attempt at insouciance was a dismal failure; his airy hand gesture shook. "It was nothing. A lark." He gave a little clatter of laughter and broke it off before it could escalate. " They’re not at all the sort of people you’d want to know."

"I’m certain of it," said Klaus. " Start from when they grabbed you at the doorway. Who were they?"

"They didn’t tell me." It came out pettishly. "They weren’t wearing name badges."

"What language were they speaking?"

"Everything they could think of, at first. English when they saw I understood it."

"To each other, fool!"

"I don’t know. More than one, I think, besides English. Czech or Slovak, it could have been."

"Not Russian?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Think, Eroica!"

Dorian shuddered and shut his eyes, then closed his mouth hard. Klaus recognized the last defense before screaming hysteria and said less harshly, "No, it doesn’t matter now. You’ll remember it later. How did you get away?" He didn’t touch Dorian again, couldn’t with Mr. B there, couldn’t and shouldn’t in any case.

A couple of ragged breaths answered him and brilliant blue eyes opened in the torchlight. Dorian’s smile wasn’t his best, but he seemed in control again. "They took my pack and torch, so I had to bash the fellow they left to guard me with my bracelet." He displayed the object he still held in one fist: a circlet of thick gold, slightly dented. He began fiddling it back onto his left wrist."I saw James Bond do it once in a movie…"

There was a stifled sound from Mr. B. This once, Klaus could not entirely blame him.

"Four of them, or five?"

"At least five. Maybe another in the second room."

"What did they ask you? What did you tell them?"

Eroica took another deep breath, but he was recovering fast. Klaus didn’t like to think of what could have shaken the thief’s diamond-edge nerve even temporarily. "They asked me who I was and who I was with. I said…" he paused, and the smile this time was definitely malicious, "I was English and they couldn’t threaten me without a major incident because an entire regiment of Her Majesty’s troops were with me, complete in bearskin hats and scarlet coats."

Mr. B’s gasp and suppressed series of snorts had altogether too admiring a note. Klaus gave that direction a hard glance.

"That’s about what they thought," said Eroica, almost calmly, "so when they threatened me, I screamed a bit and said it was a SWAT team in adorable combat gear instead. I hoped they’d think I was American, but—"

"Not a chance," muttered B.

"—they just went on threatening me, so I screamed a bit more and pretended to faint," he’d got well into the narrative now, "and then I told them the truth."

"You what?!" Klaus didn’t believe him.

Dorian raised his eyes with a compound of fey sweetness and deviltry that Klaus considered extremely dangerous. "I did," he insisted happily and a little over-confidently. "I said the bravest, strongest man in the world was waiting for me, and he’ d come in and rescue me in no time."

Klaus refused to believe his ears.

"Then they were disgusted and set one man to watch me and went off to the other roomwhere I think there was another one, or maybe something like a radio link. They talked. And I bashed the one they left, who wanted to tie me up, and I searched him but he didn’t have any ID—or anything at all—in his pockets, and then I went without saying good-bye."

In the caves there was no sound, no disturbance of bats. The Major hoped they’d been lost. "Go on, Eroica. They had communications, you say?"

"I can’t be sure. I didn’t think a radio would operate inside all this rock, but something about the way they talked was like a one-sided conversation."

"Can you be more specific?"

"I’m afraid not. I was kind of busy just then." Eroica had been gazing down at his wrist and the bracelet now back on it. "Can we get out of here?"

"Yes." The Major nodded at B. "Contact A as soon as we’re outside. If the Soviets had a link, they’ll alert the local authorities as soon as they can. Tell A to evacuate and meet us."

Eroica stood up, but he was still very pale in the torchlight. " Did you," inquired the Major, "ever tell them your name?"

"No. I screamed at them instead."

"Good."

They began picking their way toward the entrance. If Dorian screamed whenever he happened to feel like it, Klaus had a certain sympathy for his captors. In the abstract. It seemed to have worked this time, and now he was the one who had to deal with Dorian screaming whenever he felt like it…

They reached the open air, and cool midafternoon light, where B dug out his radio and the other two waited. Dorian sat down again, unconcerned at the trail dust on his smart hiking gear. The Major looked out at their corner of the Carpathian mountains, his brain ticking through escape routines for rural semi-hostile territory, too many hundreds of kilometers from a friendly border to reach it before a search-and-detain order would be there before them. No doubt someone would connect the tall blond Englishman with his hiking companions at the hotel where the bugs had failed so recently. He couldn’t take the chance that someone hadn’t.

They’d need air transport if possible, and NATO credentials wouldn’t cut much ice behind the iron curtain. Would cash? It was quieter and easier than stealing, even in an emergency. Would there be an airstrip anywhere in these mountains? Probably not. A long-range helicopter, then,and where could they most easily find one of those?

Two possibilities had come to mind when Mr. B’s mutterings rose to a squawk and subsided. Eroica, who seemed to be listening in vague puzzlement to the coded exchange, groped at a pocket and then waved at Klaus, with meaning. Klaus noticed a lit cigarette in his own hand. He gave the pack to Dorian, fished for matches and added those.

Eroica lit one with fingers that weren’t entirely steady. " I’ve blown us, haven’t I?" he said quietly.

"Yes," snapped the Major, and then, "Not your fault. Mine, for bringing anyone so fucking distinctive. The Chief’s, for putting you on this mission."

"He wouldn’t have given me the job if I hadn’t wanted it," said Eroica. "I insisted." At Klaus’s look of astonishment, he tried a smile that didn’t work. "You can guess why. Sorry."

Klaus stared at him until he realized what Eroica was talking about, then swivelled to face the landscape of open canyon, his thoughts frozen on a memory of heat, and shame.

He couldn’t work like that. Ignore it. He tossed his spent cigarette to the ground and growled, "Shut up. I have to get us out of here."

"Are we all dead?" The low English voice was strained.

"Not yet," said the Major. "You may have to steal us a helicopter."

"Gladly." Eroica, too, turned to the spectacular view down the mountainside, contemplative to all appearances. B’s voice continued in a splutter of coded, random-sounding phrases, but he was concluding the conversation in better spirits than he had any right to.

"Out," he finally told A, and switched off the transceiver before succumbing to a fit of open laughter.

"This is no time for jokes," observed the Major. "Perhaps you’ll find Alaska funny."

"Sorry sir." B glanced at Eroica, who was blowing smoke rings at the river below. "Our situation is better than we thought."

"I trust A is departing the hotel at this moment."

"No, sir."

"Alaska…" said Klaus in warning, but B only snickered. Eroica looked up at them.

"Sir, Mr. A had a piece of routine news and an emergency bulletin waiting for us. Yesterday, another NATO team working from southeastern Czechoslovakia found an abandoned Soviet base in the mountains here, at latitude 48°14’ and some seconds north, longitude 20°38’ east. And some more seconds. It’s in his log down to the last decimal…"

"Here?" The Major stabbed his new cigarette in the direction of the cave entrance. "There!?"

"Yes, sir. The one we were at. The team there reports an intruder." He glanced at Eroica again but managed to keep himself under control. "Tall, with lots of long blond hair, carrying a concealed weapon. He escaped before they could learn much about him, and they don’t think he knew who they were. He evaded pursuit. They suggest we watch for such an individual and try to determine whether he had any…accomplices…" laughter threatened again, "and keep him from informing…anyone…" He had turned red with the strain of not laughing under the Major’s stern eyes.

Eroica looked back at them, and stood up. "Well."

Klaus grinned at him. "A fortunate accident, don’t you think?"

"Fortunate." He wasn’t pale any longer. Rather pink-faced, in fact.

"No stealing an aircraft after all."

"I could do with the practice. Under NATO protection."

"Not on this mission," said the Major.

"Oh?" said Eroica, still subdued, still very pink. "Perhaps later, then."

* * * * *

Back at the hotel, with the mission—such as it had been—concluded, the Major set B and A to writing their reports. He would need Eroica’s as well. He steeled himself for a difficult interview and walked down the same stairs and to the same door he’d visited the previous evening. He was going to Dorian’s room on official business. It was perfectly proper.

He knocked at the door, heard nothing, knocked again, and went in when he still heard nothing. Dorian sat blank-eyed on the same sofa, still dusty from the day’s excursion.

"Eroica."

He looked up at Klaus, expressionless.

"Can you recall anything more about our friends in the cave base?"

Dorian hunched his shoulders. "It wasn’t funny." Something tumbled from the sofa to the floor. Klaus picked it up: Le Comte de Monte Cristo. Dorian’s idea of light reading.

"Not at the time," agreed the Major. The dark flight through bats and shadows, unable to see or speak, was not going to be a highlight of his career.

"What if it had been real?"

The whole mission, as always, had been a game to Eroica. It occurred to Klaus that the Earl had never, ever, been caught before, let alone captured and held, even briefly. Hubris had been his natural state, and his present shaken demeanor merely signalled that the charm, at long last, was broken.

"That was real. Very lucky for us, and very real. How did you like it?"

"No…not much," said Dorian, and shuddered.

He’d have to be nursed through the reaction, if Klaus wanted any information out of him. "Do you need…" The Major noted a prepared tea service, along with a drinks tray, on the room’s table. He went over to it and poured a lukewarm cup. "Here, Eroica. Drink it."

The Earl took it from his hands, tasted it, and shuddered again. " I’d rather have brandy, please."

Klaus brought him a modest drink and wondered what to do. Eroica showed the excellent professional timing of falling apart only when the danger was over, but Klaus couldn’t predict how the man would react now. He suspected the Earl didn’t know either—he’d never considered himself to be in danger before.

Words and the brandy weren’t making a dent in his funk. Klaus laid a hand on his shoulder, hoping to be reassuring and impersonal. Perhaps it was, to Dorian. He didn’t react, though at any other time he’d have made some outrageous remark. His muscles shivered under the shirt.

Klaus squeezed the shoulder and released it, which drew Dorian’s attention. "Don’t leave."

"I won’t." He owed Eroica that much, and he still needed the man’s report.

"You should rip me up."

"No. You couldn’t have prevented your capture. I knew that at the time. You were very resourceful in escaping quickly and safely without giving anything away. You did very well."

Dorian stared up at him. "Do you mean it?"

"You did convince them that you were anything but part of another NATO team."

"You both laughed at me."

"It wasn’t really funny."

"Thank you. Sit down, Major, please."

Klaus sat on the sofa. Dorian, as he should have anticipated, nestled onto him so that Klaus felt all the tense stiffness of the lean body. He recalled, without volition, the feel of that body relaxed and naked against him, when it had been fluidly in action at Dorian’s will. The thought should have been a warning, but it reminded him only that Dorian was, at the moment, more upset than Klaus had ever seen him, in a long and eventful association of their two highly irregular professions. If Dorian, for inexplicable reasons, took comfort in his mere presence, perhaps that was normal for someone like Dorian.

Klaus did not reflect that Eroica’s presence was a comfort to him also.

It seemed only right to agree again, in a soothing manner, when Dorian asked, "Do you think I did the best thing?"

"Yes." What else could he say? " Yes."

He hadn’t meant to hold Dorian, but it didn’t seem wrong, under the circumstances. The thief was silent, after that small-voiced question, and the Major, who had systematically avoided this situation in the past, amazed himself by staying where he was while Dorian sat in unmoving abstraction and unnatural restraint in his arms.

It wasn’t difficult to sit like this. He’d just wait until the too-quick breathing slowed and the tense hands—clenching each other inelegantly in Dorian’s lap—relaxed. If Eroica was only now learning about mortality, Klaus could afford to give him company in the first shock of that knowledge. He remembered his own first mission, which had been very risky and very bloody and very successful. He didn’t think about it often.

Eroica finally sighed and sagged limply against Klaus, having buried whatever unprecedented emotion it was that he would not indulge. When he stirred, the Major released him and tried to free himself. The position was rather…compromising. He’d come to Eroica’s room for a report, hadn’t he? "At the cave base, what did you…"

Dorian’s arms tightened around him at the first word. "My dear Major," he said in an amazingly normal tone, "if you think I’ll let you go now, you are quite mistaken."

"Inside the installation, what did the men you saw…"

"I really didn’t notice," murmured Dorian, hands exploring up his back. "I was waiting for the strongest, bravest man in the world to come rescue me."

"The hell you were," said Klaus as eager fingers played in his hair and headed for his shirt buttons. "You broke yourself out."

Dorian twisted to look into his eyes. "But it’s true, isn’t it? You were all ready to come in after me."

It was true, damn the perverted, knowing creature who was still in his arms. "I hope you didn’t really tell them that."

Dorian shook his head gently without breaking the eye contact. " Oh, no, much better. I knew it."

Klaus was not aware of the battle for self-control until he lost it. The world shifted, and it was not he who was reluctant and Dorian who held him, but he who wanted Dorian and would have Dorian at any cost. Eroica had always pushed past the limits of his temper, and now there was nothing left for Klaus but to seize the siren face, hold it between his hands, and kiss it with great deliberation.

It was wrong; he was vile and weak and damned if he continued…but he couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t let Dorian go. He knew he was as bad as Eroica if he went on with this, or worse: for he knew it was wrong, and Eroica clearly didn’t.

He went on kissing Dorian as no one but Dorian had ever kissed him, unable to restrain himself, unable to pull his hands away from the tempting body that was now limber and eager beside him. He pulled Dorian closer, feeling the not-quite-strange sensation of a hard male frame against his own, enjoying the fierce heat of arousal that seemed to leap between them. Feverish with desire, he heard Dorian murmur nonsense to him as they removed their clothes, trying to move without losing the touch of bodies. Dorian laughed and teased him and made it a game, but Klaus had to concentrate intently on himself, on Dorian, on their actions, to avoid thinking about how wrong it was and how impossible it should have been for him to do anything of the kind.

Then he found himself looking again into clear guiltless eyes as the two of them fell and pulled each other onto Dorian’s bed, and for the first time, Klaus took the lead, unprompted, in the silly, awkward, inevitable process that, with Dorian, was lovemaking.

Given Dorian, what else was there to do?

What had there ever been?

He could not regard Dorian as repellent, and could no longer want to turn away from him when theory and conscience said he should. He couldn’t feel disgust even at himself, with Dorian here and real and gloriously responsive to every touch. Two unforgettable episodes had haunted him for days; now Klaus could put them to use. A careful fingertouch affected Dorian as alarmingly as it had him, yes, and so did open hands stroking over skin and the caress of a mouth on sensitive flesh.

He tried them all, everything he could think of or remember or invent at the moment, and when Dorian blinked up at him in surprise as well as pleasure, he smiled in a kind of triumph. "Do you like it, Liebling?" He liked being the one to say that.

Dorian studied him briefly, unbothered that he was lying flat on his back at the mercy of Klaus’s fingertips now trailing down his neatly muscled stomach. "You’re awake this time," said Dorian, thoughtfully.

Klaus gave him an intimate squeeze in an intimate place. " Yes."

Dorian squirmed a little to prolong the touch. "Oh, I like it. Do go on." He squirmed again, making himself more accessible.

Klaus followed up the unspoken suggestion and watched Dorian’s reaction, then went on, learning to do what only mindless abandon had allowed before. It was an engrossing study.

"Klaus," moaned Dorian at last. " Klaus." He looked up with brilliant, unfocused eyes, body shuddering deliciously.

Klaus did not falter in what he was doing, fascinated beyond distraction at last.

"I…want…you…" came breathless words, between shudders.

"What…?"

"Let me…do the same…for you." He groped at Klaus’s thigh. "You’ve kept me too busy…to remember you…" Experienced fingers reinforced his words. Klaus gasped as the first touch set a raging fire in his groin. An arm reachedup to curl around his neck, pulling him down over Dorian so that their bodies rubbed together as they kissed, and the last moment before climax became a hazy mixture of urgent friction and mingled breath. The deep, gathering, inner pressure built quickly, built forever, until it burst free, forever. Dorian’s voice rang in his ears as the other body convulsed against him, caught in the same timelessness.

He opened his eyes later, still on top of Dorian, clutching him tightly as if he might fall off, upward,into the world where everything had reversed itself. The only familiar element left was Dorian himself, who clung as fiercely to him. That was right: Dorian had always tried to hold him.

The moment of disorientation passed and Klaus carefully disengaged to keep from crushing his companion; but everything had still changed. He was lying in bed with a man he could not repulse and did not wish to.

That wasn’t right, but it was true. He could not make the world right itself. He had aligned himself with Dorian—thief, outlaw, and pervert; Dorian was always askew with the world. Now he was too. Forever.

Klaus lay unseeing while he worked out everything he’d have to do, staring at a fold of cotton Hungarian sheet two inches from his nose, aware of Dorian as a vague presence who was not, himself, the problem.

Eventually, the vague presence brushed his eyebrows with a very real finger. "Triste, lover?"

"What ?"

"Uh…Bist du traurig?"

"Not exactly," said Klaus. "Where the hell did you learn your German?"

"In school. Is it very bad?"

"It sounds like English, only worse." He stretched, and found it was possible and pleasant and relaxing to lie sprawled prone. His own hair, ruffled into disorder, fell over his face until Dorian lifted it from his near eye.

Suddenly curious, Klaus inquired, "Do you mean to say you were allowed in a school for long enough to learn anything’"

"Oh, I was much more conventional in my youth." Dorian’s hand brushed aside more hair, found the nape of his neck and rubbed at it.

"That must have been interesting." Dorian, conventional? Even by the lax English standards? But if the oblivious eccentricity was a pose, what was the reality? Did Dorian understand his askew world, somehow, after all? "Why did you cease to be conventional?"

Busy fingers on his upper vertebrae sent tingles down his spine…he’d have to remember that…and he turned his face into the mattress with a sigh. "It’s more fun this way," said Dorian reasonably.

"Well, why were you ever…" the fingers were working on his shoulderblades now, "…conventional?"

The words must have made it past the muffling sheet, for Dorian’s voice in his ear said, "I never was. I tried to be. I actually tried to fulfill the stuffy social standards of my class and position." When Klaus turned his head, all he could see was curls and the corner of a bright eye. "I chucked that."

"Was it easy for you?"

The moving hand was halfway down his spine when it stopped, then resumed the slow massage. "My family was distraught, but they couldn’t do much."

"Are they anything like you?"

Steady kneading spread outward from the center of his back. "I wouldn’t know, these days. Probably not."

"Oh. But at one time you thought it was worthwhile to keep up appearances."

The fingertips bit deeply into the back of his ribs. Klaus was not ticklish, but he grunted at a feeling that was not quite pain. "I hope you aren’t going to suggest that I should try anything of the kind again," said Dorian, and his voice was not playful at all.

"No. But I shall have to consider my own behavior from now on. For appearances. Do you understand?"

"Appearances," mused Dorian. He stopped the one-handed backrub to squeeze himself close against Klaus’s side. "Only appearances?" Suddenly, his voice was fast and breathless, almost as it had been earlier."Do you mean you want to be Iron Klaus outside and…yourself…like this…with me?" He kissed Klaus’s ear, licked it, raised his head and kissed the nape of Klaus’s neck. "Please, lover, is that it? Don’t tell me you want to just keep away from me. I don’t believe that’s what you want."

The rush of emotion should have annoyed him. If it hadn’t been nakedly sincere from Dorian, he would have recoiled. "My objective is to seem exactly as I was, as far as anyone else can know. It would help if you also act as you have before."

"Always," murmured Dorian. The hand played up and down his spine again, to some effect. "And when we’re alone?"

Klaus let Dorian knead at his lower back, knowing what it would lead to, wanting it. This wanton physicality was a part of Dorian’s world he did not dare to question because it could not exist for him if he did. Any theory, any examination of it, would deny what he felt. Every instant of the touch excited him now, seeming to travel down his spine and deep into his belly.

He turned and rolled over onto the other man, burying the beginning of new arousal against a correspondingly half-hard portion of Dorian. " Oh," said the breathless voice. "That’ll do just fine. Oh yes…ohh…" Klaus paused to arrange himself more comfortably. "Yes, lover, like that…go on, don’t wait…"

They moved together this time, almost smoothly. He let Dorian set the slow rhythm, measured like an exercise at first. Again, it was new to him, and again it was good, and afterward he felt too exhausted to move.

"There, that’s done it," said Dorian in his ear. "At last. That’s what you needed. Go on to sleep, Klaus."

"Ca…can’t. Time."

"I’ll wake you in an hour."

"Thirty minutes."

"Yes, thirty minutes. Sleep."

The next thing Klaus knew was being jostled. He sat up poised for attack and full of energy.

"It’s only me," said Dorian, sitting on the edge of the bed in a halo of cascading yellow curls. "It’s been thirty minutes." He was clean and freshly dressed.

"Oh. Thank you." Klaus noticed his clothes folded over a chair, which was not where they’d been discarded earlier.

"You were concerned about the time. Does that mean…"

"I have to leave soon," confirmed Klaus. "I can’t spend the night in your room." Appearances. He added, "Although I’d like to," and was surprised that it was the truth. From the look on his face, Dorian was surprised to hear it.

"It’s not late," murmured the seductive voice. "And besides, you’ll want a bath."

"Yes." Klaus made no move to get up

"You’re not being modest now, are you?" Wide blue eyes locked onto him and the sheet he wore, in mischievous speculation.

"Not yet," said Klaus. He didn’t want to get up and leave. He hoped it wouldn’t be as difficult as resisting Dorian’s other appeals had been.

"Klaus…"

He looked up from the bedclothes.

"Your Chief debriefed me on that evening in Prague, while he was setting me up for this operation."

"Did he?" Klaus carefully reserved his reaction until he heard more.

"I told him all about the music boxes. He was a bit tiresome about them."

"I’m not surprised." Stealing was illegal, after all. "Nothing else?"

"Nothing germane."

Klaus said, carefully, "No boasting? No sharing the joke?"

"It wasn’t a joke, was it? I’d say it was the first time you’ve ever told me the whole truth."

"Why didn’t you tell the Chief, then?"

Dorian shrugged. "You wouldn’t want me to. Right?"

"Yes." Klaus thought of a number of regulations he’d believed would never apply to himself. "And it would mean you’d never be assigned another mission with me."

"No? I think I could persuade your Chief of my utility."

"It’s mine he’d consider compromised."

Dorian nodded. "That’s what I thought. But…your Chief knows all about me. My reputation’s fully deserved." He didn’t sound either proud or ashamed.

"You’re an outside contractor, and the Chief enjoys baiting me with you. It satisfies his nasty streak. He and I don’t like each other."

"You’re not very much alike."

"If he had anything serious against me—such as grounds to suspect loyalty favoring an outside contractor—I’d be out."

"Just like that?"

"Yes."

"I see," said Dorian. "You’re a difficult man to be in love with"—he made it sound so casual—"but I’ll put up with it. Your Chief is more likely to believe what we tell him if our accounts tally. Do you want to maintain that it took this long to talk a report out of me?"

"I didn’t think you’d even heard me."

"That was your excuse for coming here, wasn’t it?"

Klaus knew he should have expected this easy familiarity with deceit. "That will do, if you don’t mind sounding like an idiot."

"Why should I mind? It’s not the truth."

Klaus looked at him closely. He wasn’t joking. "I do need your report on the mission. Give it to Mr. A before we reach Bonn."

Dorian rose, graceful and collected. "Was I foolish, at first? I wasn’t thinking very well." He had flushed a little, which made him look boyishly angelic and quite unreal.

"Everyone acts foolish like that at least once." Klaus remembered, uneasily that Dorian was more than skilled at deceit. " Was the result unexpected?"

"Oh, yes." The smile that answered his suspicious tone was fey and devilish. "I assure you, if I’d known how it would turn out, I’d have done it years ago."

Klaus didn’t doubt it.

"I’ll see you in the morning, Major." Dorian smiled again. "And thank you for a lovely evening." He walked out, leaving Klaus uncertain of who might be laughing at whom.

* * * * *

They all left Kazinclarcika together the next day, with a train compartment to themselves. During one interval when A and B were packed off to the dining car, Dorian ceased his tactful pretense of dozing and opened both eyes lazily.

"Klaus," he said, and the intimate tone made the Major cringe, "Do you have all the details you want in my report?" He had dictated it to A, with perfect composure, early that morning.

"Enough," said the Major shortly, ignoring the other’s sly smile.

"I’m looking forward to your next mission already."

So was Klaus, but he couldn’t say so.

"I don’t suppose anyone knows what it is?"

"No." Klaus had a strong suspicion that it would be in Paris, where the Earl’s revoltingly excellent French would be useful, along with his endless ability to rifle the treasure vaults of any target he considered important. NATO considered leaks into certain Soviet sources important, leaks that seemed to originate in France, so some very tricky investigationwas in order. It should be fun, thought Klaus: demanding, deadly work, and perhaps even useful.

It would be unpredictable and dangerous, and possibly out of Eroica’ s league. The KGB played for keeps. "You may not be needed. It’ s up to the Chief."

Dorian’s eyes twinkled at him in confident disbelief. "Oh, yes, I will. You’d like to have me," he paused delicately, "along, wouldn’t you?"

Long experience of coping with indecent innuendoes saved Klaus from rage. That the implications were now true instead of false only made it easier: At last he knew what Dorian meant by ridiculous statements like that.

It did not alter the danger that threatened Eroica on NATO’s jobs, danger which was intensified any time he became associated with Iron Klaus in the KGB’s machinations. And the French were not lenient toward art thieves. "Go to hell, Eroica."

"That might be an interesting trip, if you came too."

His tone sent a warm pang through Klaus. Dorian’s ideas were interesting in the extreme, and couldn’t be acknowledged in any way, here. They were no part of NATO’s business.

"Hell wouldn’t be enjoyable once we got there."

"I don’t know," said Dorian thoughtfully. "Arriving Station Lasciate Ogni Speranza momentarily. Please do not use the washrooms while the train is at rest. Departing for Il Paradiso immediately thereafter. Doesn’t that sound exotic?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"A little," admitted Dorian. "I feel as though I’ve been there, you see."

The train hummed and creaked around them, speeding them toward Bonn.

"Even your atheism is frivolous," growled the Major.

"Of course, Orpheus."

"What?!"

"I think I’d like some lunch. Won’t you join me?" He stood up and waited.

"I’m not hun—"

"I insist, Major. You’ll be the better for some food. Eat with me, or at least have a beer. Something."

It would be perfectly proper, unlike this conversation. The Major rose and trailed his personal demon to the dining car.

END