Chapter 17: A Feeling of Pure Evil

Chapter 17: A Feeling of Pure Evil

September 28, 1994, Munich, Germany

“So, what’s this thing you’re going to do for me?” I teased after we exchanged a quick kiss.

“Later,” Elena said, swatting my arm, “After dinner! What do you want to eat?”

“You?” I smirked.

“Hmm ... that’s an idea, but I need real food FIRST. We could just go to the same place, if you don’t mind. The menu had plenty of offerings and they have an excellent selection of wines.”

“Sure. Would you mind if I made a call first?”

“Do you need some privacy?”

“That probably is a good idea.”

Elena nodded, “Knock on my door when you’re ready.”

“I’m ALWAYS ready,” I said with a leer.

“Don’t be a pig,” she said, but she was laughing.

She gave me a quick kiss and left the room. I dialed the number Karla had given me and was happy when she answered.

“Hi, it’s Steve,” I said.

“Steve!” Karla exclaimed. “Hi! How are you?”

“Good. I’ve just finished up in Munich and I’ll be flying back to Chicago tomorrow. I just wanted to call and say ‘hello’ and see how you’re doing.”

“Mina knew as soon as I came into the apartment,” she said with a small laugh. “She said I looked like I’d spent two nights with a proper lover who knew his business! She was right!”

“I certainly enjoyed our time together, and I don’t mean just that last night. Thanks for spending all that time with me.”

“Thank you for not being angry with me because of how I was thinking at first.”

“I accept your apology, even though I don’t feel it’s necessary. And that means I’m going to forget it ever happened. You’re a wonderful girl, a good friend, and I very much enjoyed those dinners. And would have even without Sunday night!”

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“I do. I promise to keep in touch.”

“I’d like that,” she said happily. “«Ik hou van je.»”

I had been sure she’d say that again at some point and I was prepared for it. This was one of the times when I wished English, and Dutch for that matter, had different words to express feelings in a more finely grained way without using dozens, if not hundreds, of words. The three Greek words would work, but so would the four ideas of love in the Kama Sutra. Or even the stages of love that Sakurako had explained to me. But, as English only had one word, there was only one possible response.

“I love you too, Karla. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

We hung up and I went across the hall and knocked on Elena’s door. She came out right away, looped her arm in mine and we made our way to the elevator, and from there, out of the lobby and across the English gardens to Seehaus. As we had the night before, Elena chose a bottle of wine once we’d each decided on our meals.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“Good. I finished at the customer so tomorrow I plan to visit Dachau.”

“That evil place? Why?”

“For precisely that reason. I need to see it for myself. To drive home the point.”

She nodded, “I can see how that would make sense. What time is your flight?”

“4:00pm. I plan to take the bus to Dachau in the morning, then come back to the hotel just after lunch, collect my bags, and head for the airport.”

“You could leave your bags in my room if you prefer not to leave them with the front desk. I can get you a key.”

“Thanks. I’ll just bring them over in the morning. Are we having breakfast?”

“Of course! What time is your bus?”

“7:35am from the hotel. And it brings me back at 12:45.”

“Are you going to run before breakfast?”

“Yes. I pretty much do that every weekday morning.”

Our salads arrived and we started eating.

“How was your day?” I asked.

“Ugh! Germans! No sense of taste or style! But I’m slowly educating them!”

I laughed, “They make wonderful cars, appliances, and machinery, and Braun has some of the best industrial design I’ve seen.”

“Yes, if you like Panzer tanks or washing machines or electric shaving equipment, the Germans are very good. But style? They’re worse than Americans!”

“Ouch,” I chuckled. “And Italian design is the best in the world?”

“Of course it is! Only Japanese comes close, and it’s a very different style. I’m talking about their formal kimono in all the various styles.”

“I suspect there are a few designers who might disagree with you.”

“French? Poor copies of Italian at best! English? Don’t make me laugh! Americans? All the good American ones are really Italian!”

“We’re not TOO full of ourselves, now are we?” I teased.

“I am very good at what I do. Among the best!”

“I agree,” I said sticking out my tongue at her.

“Silly man!” she laughed. “You know I was talking about clothing design.”

“Do you deny thinking you’re very good at love?”

“Of course not! I’m Italian, and everyone knows Italians make the best lovers!” she declared, still laughing. “And besides, much more importantly, YOU think I’m a good lover!”

“True,” I said with a smile that indicated just how satisfied I was with her.

Our main courses arrived and we ate mostly in silence, and once again having coffee, and then a drink before taking a stroll in the English Gardens. That stroll was also mostly quiet, and eventually I led us back to the hotel.

“You’re a very, very patient man,” she observed when we entered the elevator. “That shows maturity and sense of purpose.”

“I believe Ben Franklin also made the point about preferring older women because they were more interesting to be with out of bed as well as in. Wiser, more worldly, more prone to good conversation.”

“I could see you playing chess naked in a bathtub with a woman and simply enjoying her company, just as he did. In fact, I would wager, and I don’t want you to prove this, that you would be content with the time we’ve had tonight even if it didn’t end in bed. Just as you would have last night.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“All the more reason...” she said, actually giggling.

“To?”

“Wait!”

We walked down the hall and went into my room. She went to the phone and ordered champagne and fruit again, refusing to say a word until after it was delivered and the waiter had left.

“I don’t often allow this,” she said, “but I want you to take me around the world.”

“If that’s what you want,” I said flatly.

“Oh come on!” she laughed. “That response HAS to be an act! No red-blooded male would fail to be excited by THAT prospect!”

I laughed, “Of course it’s an act! If you don’t care about sleep, I’ll take you around the world twice tonight!”

“Only three men have ever been allowed to do that. My very first lover when I was fourteen; then Beppe, of course; and a man I know in Buenos Aires. And you can finish in my mouth, too. I usually don’t allow that, except for very special men. I normally take it out and finish them with my hand, or as we did last night, finishing with intercourse.”

“I am your willing and able servant,” I grinned.

She laughed, then opened her purse and extracted a tube of K-Y jelly and flipped it to me.

“You always carry this with you?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “Just in case?”

“No!” she laughed. “It’s for my plastic boyfriend! The one that takes batteries! I don’t meet a guy every trip. In fact, it works out to maybe two or three a year, and occasionally there are guys I’ll meet again, like the one in Buenos Aires. I told you, I’m very picky.”

“You did say that,” I grinned, which turned into a smirk. “Which order?”

“You choose, but obviously you need to clean after the back.”

“Yes, of course!”

We both quickly stripped off our clothes and over the next three hours I took her around the world twice, choosing to end the second trip with a long, slow screw that left us both spent. Despite the sweaty, smelly sheets, we fell asleep in my bed.

September 29, 1994, Munich, Germany

“Shower with me?” I asked when I came back from my run in the English Gardens.

“You’ll miss your bus,” she teased.

“I have the willpower to shower with you. Do YOU have the willpower to shower with ME?”

She laughed and got out of bed and joined me in the shower. There was quite a bit of touching, kissing, and teasing, but we managed to finish and arrive downstairs in time to eat breakfast at a leisurely pace. When we finished I went back upstairs to pack while Elena arranged for a second room key. When I was packed, I moved all my things to her room.

“I did something for you at lunch yesterday,” she said.

“Oh?”

She opened her portfolio, extracted a sheet of paper, and handed it to me. It was a VERY good sketch of me, wearing an expensive Italian suit.

“I should take your measurements myself,” she grinned. “Or perhaps THIS one is better for measurements!”

She handed me a second sketch, this one of me, nude, ready for action, as it were, smiling and standing at the foot of the bed, with what I was sure were Elena’s legs, but from her upper thighs down. The most important bits would have been just off the bottom of the page.

“To scale?” I grinned.

“Should I erase it and give you one that’s 25 centimeters long and as big around as a can of beer? That’s how most guys see themselves!”

“I’m VERY comfortable with my size, thank you very much! And I believe you were, too! In all THREE places!”

“You do have a point!” she said.

She handed me a couple of pieces of thick cardboard to protect the sketches, and I carefully put them in the interior pocket of my large travel bag. I closed it up and we went down to the lobby. I checked out, and then we walked outside.

“I’m glad I met you,” she said, handing me her card. “Call anytime if you’re coming to Europe.”

I handed her one of mine, “Call anytime if you’re coming to the States.”

After a quick hug I boarded the bus. She waved and got into a waiting taxi. About thirty minutes later, the bus stopped outside the main gates to Dachau. I exited the bus with about thirty-five other people. I’d declined the offer of a guided tour, and instead planned to simply wander the grounds at my own pace, guidebook in hand.

I crossed the street and the instant I stepped through the gates a cold chill went down my spine. It felt as if the temperature had dropped thirty degrees, literally as I had stepped through the gates. I KNEW that was impossible, and yet something had changed. The only thing that came to mind was ‘this is the feel of pure evil’. Suddenly, it came to me. THIS was what the Japanese meant by «kami». This place, this evil place, was filled with the «kami» of over 30,000 souls who had perished here at the hands of one of the most evil regimes to ever debase the planet.

For the most part, I ignored the purpose-built memorials, and instead wandered past the remaining original buildings and the ovens used as crematoria. I felt physically ill when I thought about the kind of evil necessary to perpetrate such horrors, and silently thanked my dad, and millions of others from dozens of countries around the world, who had banded together to stop the insane Austrian, who, with his equally insane henchmen, had cast some kind of malevolent spell on Germany.

I stopped in front of one of the crematoria and offered a silent prayer for all of those souls, hoping against hope, that somehow, some way, they could find peace. The problem was that the overarching feeling of dread and evil insisted it would never be possible, no matter what the eschaton might look like. What could even begin to make up for something like this? Not a damned thing.

I knew, deep down, that it had to be the fact that I knew what had happened here that made me feel the way I did, but my senses all screamed otherwise. The place just FELT evil. And nothing I could do or think would take that feeling away. I’d planned to spend the entire morning, but after only an hour I just couldn’t take it anymore. I HAD to leave, for fear of somehow never being able to leave. Or perhaps, of never being able to truly escape the feelings that this place engendered.

I walked back through the main gate and across the street, and, weirdly, the temperature changed once again, and the feelings of dread subsided, at least for the most part. I’d visited a concentration camp, and I would never again in my life visit one. I needed no further reminders, and didn’t want to experience the feelings it had engendered ever again. I’d never been tempted by the kind of rhetoric that had led to this, and there was no way I ever would be.

I checked the schedule and a bus would arrive at 10:00am that would take me back to Munich. It had a destination about four kilometers from the Hilton, but I didn’t mind the walk. I walked down the street and found a café where I had a cup of coffee, then went back to the bus stop.

I arrived back at the hotel about 11:20am, and went up to Elena’s room to relax. I pulled out my PowerBook and recorded the visceral feelings that Dachau had caused, then went back and wrote about everything that had happened with Elena and tried to work out my feelings about her and the change in my rules she’d suggested. Even though I’d made the decision to modify them, I was still struggling with how to implement the modified version, and kept coming back to not risking harm to my relationships.

Elena would object, saying I was treating the women as property, but I’d counter that I was placing my friendships over the desire to have sex. If I couldn’t do THAT, I was a bigger ‘pussy hound’ than Sofia had ever accused me of being! It wasn’t about Melanie belonging to Pete, or Stephie to Jason, or Kathy to Kurt, but about respecting my friendships. And those were things that had to be sacrosanct, no matter what my new Italian friend might think.

That said, I didn’t believe she was completely wrong, at least with regard to a woman in her situation. There was no relationship to risk between me and Giuseppe, and no chance Elena and I would develop dangerous feelings for each other. But how was that different from Katt or Mary? There was no relationship to ruin there, nor was there any real risk of developing dangerous feelings. In their cases, it was only the danger of the slippery slope. But that was a slippery slope I simply couldn’t risk, which might lead me one day to make a disastrously wrong judgment call.

Perhaps, as Jennifer liked to say, Elena was the exception that proved the rule, and I should maintain the rule, but with the possibility of making occasional exceptions for VERY rare circumstances, such as I had with Katy. That seemed to be a better idea, allowing a judgment call at the extremes, rather than moving the bar closer to the danger zone. I laughed because, in effect, that was something Jennifer had told me YEARS before and I’d failed to take it properly to heart. And THAT was pretty much par for the course of my life!

I honestly didn’t expect too many opportunities similar to the one that had presented itself two days ago, and as such, I would have very limited chances to make such a mistake. Adding to that, if my default answer was ‘no’, subject to revision only in very limited circumstances, then the opportunity for error would be further limited. That seemed to be the right approach.

I looked at my watch and saw it was a couple of minutes before noon, which meant I had about an hour before I needed to be in a taxi on the way to the airport. I shut down my computer and packed it away. I was just about to open the door when I heard the key and Elena came in.

“You’re early!” she said.

“Sorry, did I mess up a lunch date?” I smirked.

“I am NOT a slut!” she protested. “I told you, two or three times a year, and only if they meet my standards!”

“Touchy, touchy!” I replied.

“Sorry; but there are many men who think that a woman having a few new lovers every year is a slut, but they can have twenty women in a month, and that makes them cool.”

“I do NOT think you’re a slut.”

“Good. Why are you early?”

“I had enough of the evil place and came back. I was writing in my journal.”

“Pleasant memories?”

“Very! I planned to get lunch. Interested?”

“We have enough time...” she smiled, her finger tracing the spaghetti strap on her dress.

I pulled her to me, kissed her softly, and then quickly removed her clothes. She did the same for me, then led me to the bed. I was surprised when she pushed me down and gave me a very sensual blowjob, her warm mouth and soft tongue bringing me right to the edge. She stopped, and moved up to kiss me. After a couple of minutes of kissing, when the urgency had passed, she straddled me and slowly lowered herself onto me, engulfing my shaft in her soft, silky tunnel. She bent down and offered me her nipple to suck, which I greedily did. After a few minutes, she sat up and worked herself to an orgasm. When she’d cum, she lifted off, moved to the side, then slowly engulfed me in her mouth, bringing me over the edge very quickly. When my orgasm passed, she moved up and we exchanged a French kiss.

“That was a thank you for the past two nights,” she smiled.

“You’re welcome,” I said, kissing her again. “Shall we shower?”

“I think we should! Otherwise everyone at the office and everyone on the plane will know we’ve had sex!”