Chapter 7: Moscow Nights - February

A Ride on the Metro

Professor Angela Dawney is in Moscow. She is walking from the Hotel Tatiana, along Stremyanniy Pereulok towards the Paveletskaya Metro Station. It's cold and grey - minus 5 degrees, Angela guesses - but at least there is no wind chill - and besides, she's wrapped up warm. In her heavy coat and fur hat, she's indistinguishable from any of the Russians sharing the street with her.

Angela is in the city to attend an academic conference. It's on something she knows a lot about. She's not presenting a paper this time but it's a chance to meet up with colleagues and to find out a bit about what happening in other universities. "New Approaches to Statistical Analysis and Inference in Psychology" is being held at Moscow Old University. The University is a gracious classical building standing on Mokhovaya Ulitsa, six stops away along Line One. For Angela, the journey is an opportunity for one of her favourite indulgences; a ride on the Moscow Metro.

In most cities, the Metro merely takes commuters and tourists to their destinations but in Moscow, the Metro is a destination. It was an integral part of Stalin's grand plan for the rebuilding of Moscow and the platforms and concourses were constructed with extraordinary imagination and built with infinite care. Stations are lit with chandeliers, floored with mosaics and decorated with gold - it is a collection of subterranean palaces. At Paveletskaya, as she joins the escalator, Angela looks up at Pavel Korin's mosaic of Red Square, Lenin's mausoleum and St Basil's. It's a feast for the eyes.

The Metro is one of two experiences Angela always enjoys in Moscow. The other — and more important — is her friend Anatoly Kustensky. Anatoly will meet her after the afternoon seminars close and the two of the will go to dinner and afterwards? Who knows? Anatoly is the only man that Angela has ever let inside her knickers. Angela has hopes for what might take place, at the end of the evening.

Angela has known Anatoly for many years now, ever since they first met at the Greenham Women's Peace Camp in the late 1980's. Angela was a young idealist then, about to go to University. She was, with the many others, protesting at the installation of Cruise Missiles by the United States Air Force at the Greenham Common Air Base. Anatoly, dashing and handsome, in his late twenties, had been keeping an eye on "developments" at Greenham, on behalf of the Soviet Government. His position as a KGB officer was something he kept to himself, something he did not share with any of his lovers. Not in England at least.

Over the intervening years, Angela kept her links with the peace movement. She felt it was almost a matter of professional pride, as someone concerned with madness, to be naturally opposed to war. And she kept her links with Anatoly, too.

Anatoly also kept in touch with his former colleagues, though some of those weren't as peaceably minded as Angela's friends. He became a very successful entrepreneur with interests in oil, gas, minerals, engineering and security. And then there was his other business; a very special employment agency. You only have the opportunity to recruit from the Agency if you have been recommended to Anatoly and you only get on the books of the Agency after Anatoly has come looking for you!

SMALL SAMPLE ANALYSIS

Angela's afternoon session at the University is over and she packs away "A New Evaluation of Mood's Median Test for Small Sample Analysis" in the back of her mind. Ahead, in the entrance foyer stands Anatoly. Tall and muscular, he has lost none of his vitality, charm nor his looks with the passing of years. Angela was attracted to him at Greenham eighteen years ago and she is still attracted to him now.

They embrace. It's as if the years fall away. The desire re-awakens. Angela can feel her own pulse quicken. He suggests dinner. She agrees. They take Anatoly's BMW to the Central House of Writers in Povarskaya Ulitsa. In Soviet times, this establishment was the exclusive preserve of the Writers Union and boasts music, carved wood interior decoration and excellent cuisine. Over the meal, the two friends catch up. Angela talks and talks; the talk a substitute for touching. It's too public for intimate discussion but she feels she can unburden herself about her recent adventures.

"Anatoly, I want to ask you about something strange. What do you think of this? Last year, an American phoned me to arrange an interview."

"Well, they do get everywhere, Americans..."

"Sure." She looks around, anxious to be sure they are not being overheard. Anatoly smiles encouragingly. He knows that the best way to avoid being listened to is not to look as though you are saying anything of consequence. "But eventually the man I had spoken to stopped me in the street quite unexpectedly. I was bundled into a car with some other men. They told me I was being arrested and took me away..."

"What??"

"Absolutely!"

"But why? It's a long time since your cruise missile protests. I mean, sure you'll still be on their lists, of course ... But, was that what they were interested in?"

"Well, no. I don't know. I mean, that would at least make the sort of stupid sense that these people believe in. But it wasn't that, at all. They were interested in one of my postgrads, and interested in my visits here. And they were interested in you."

"Me? And one of your students?" Anatoly is busy trying to recollect if there is anyone from Angela's university that he has been involved with, either professionally or personally. He is having no success. "Who is she, anyway?"

"She's called Jennifer McEwan."

The name means nothing to Anatoly. He shrugs and says so. "I don't know her. What did these policemen think I was doing with your student?"

"Well they didn't say. They just kept going round and round about you and the Russians and her research and how you were supposed to have put me up to sending her..."

"Angela, this is completely crazy. Even for security services. What had you got this student — McEwan - doing for goodness sake?"

Angela tries to gather herself. She's conscious she's been gabbling. It's not her usual style. "Well she was - is - studying the effects of stress and BDSM play." Anatoly looks quizzical. "There is this organisation in the UK which offers what you might call BDSM adventure holidays. They put the participants through some consensual slave training routines, that sort of thing and I thought it would be an ideal experimental situation."

"And you weren't playing any games at all with your student were you, Angela?"

Angela blushes but presses on. "Anyway these people seemed to think that you were interested in Inward Bound - that's the company — or were somehow involved."

"Well, I'm not and for goodness sake, just who was this postgraduate of yours? Someone from your Royal Family?"

"I know, it's completely ridiculous. The student is a nobody, in that sense, and I mean I couldn't see how you could be involved but, nevertheless they kept me locked up for several days before taking me back home and dumping me on my front door step in the middle of the night, I might add."

"Look, Angela, I'm so sorry but really I had, I mean I can't think what they were thinking of. After all, I'm just a businessman now..."

"Yes I know but I thought I should speak to you in person when I saw you next. In case you had any trouble from them. If you travelled to the US or the UK..."

"Hmmm, well, thanks for warning me. I'll maybe have a word with some friends in our Foreign Ministry, just to be sure."

"Yes, please do that because I would hate it for you to fall into their hands" — Angela stretches across the table and squeezes Anatoly's hand to reassure him, to let him know that she is on his side.

Anatoly's face shows complete surprise at Angela's fantastic tale. It's like a cold war fossil come to life. Anatoly's mind seizes on the information and works very quickly indeed as he remembers another meal, this time in London, with a man called Clegg who was very anxious to know if Anatoly was interested in an organisation called Inward Bound.

THE TRYST

Dinner over, they return to the Hotel Tatiana.

Angela, filled with anticipation of Anatoly's body, invites him to her room for coffee. It's soon ignored in favour of an exercise in animal passion, as they fall upon each other.

Tearing each other's clothes off, Angela can feel how wet she is and Anatoly can smell her arousal: Angela is soon on her back and Anatoly's penis is driving into her, sending her to the heights of orgasm. She comes. He comes. They relax in post coital bliss. Why, thinks Angela, just why am I so randy? He's only a man for goodness sake.

Then her rational mind points out that it's that time of the month. She is ovulating! That's why she is so randy. And she is lesbian and lesbians don't need contraceptive precautions, unless they are being fucked by a man of course! But lesbians don't fuck men, do they?

She is about to speak when Anatoly's tongue fills her mouth. He rolls her onto her back once more and spreads her legs. Angela's rational mind engages with the situation and cries out weakly in protest, but her instincts are too strong. She feels his penis once more advancing down her vagina. She feels him bottom out at the entrance to her cervix. She feels him beginning to fuck her again. Slowly. Strongly. He is going to take his pleasure inside her again. There is nothing she can do to stop him. She responds, rocking her hips towards him in delicious harmony. She might as well. There will be no stopping until orgasm — untill they each orgasm! Presently, during the throes of her next orgasm, she feels his ejaculation. The injection of hot, potent sperm right into her womb. What if she comes back from Moscow pregnant? Oh! Oh! Oh! "Fuck!" she yelps.

"Mmmmm, Fuck!" replies Anatoly, wonderfully misunderstanding her response.

Anatoly returns to his flat next morning. He expects his wife and daughter, Sveta and Alana, back from St Petersburg in the evening.

He's sitting on the balcony, looking out across the garden square at the rear of his building, thinking about what he learned from Angela.

He thinks back over the meal with Clegg and how Clegg seemed to be warning him away from interfering in the UK. Maybe what he was really saying was to stay away from this Inward Bound business? Anatoly didn't pay much attention at the time. Freddie always seemed to be worried that folk were trying to fish in his pond but Anatoly always felt that English girls (with the possible exception of Angela) weren't really worth the trouble. At the time, he'd put the whole thing down to Freddie's usual paranoia. Now, he thinks, there could be more to it.

If Freddie has gone to this much effort, then he really must see some potential in then Inward Bound operation. And that is not going to be for consensual BDSM holidays if Anatoly knows anything at all about Clegg.

So, Anatoly thinks, the people who lifted Angela were Clegg's and Clegg is very keen to detect any penetration of Inward Bound. Therefore he, Anatoly, needs to know a lot more about it.