He could not figure Natalya out. She was just an aide, like Dimka, and not more than three or four years his senior, but she drove a Mercedes, twelve years old and beautifully preserved. She usually dressed in conventionally dowdy Kremlin clothes yet she wore costly imported perfume. She was charming to the point of flirtatiousness, but she went home and cooked dinner for her husband.

She had inveigled Dimka into bed with her, then she had fallen asleep.

He was sure he would not sleep, lying in bed with a warm girl in his arms.

But he did.

It was still dark outside when he woke up.

Natalya mumbled: “What’s the time?”

She was still in his arms. He craned his neck to look at his wrist, which was behind her left shoulder. “Six thirty.”

“And we’re still alive.”

“The Americans didn’t bomb us.”

“Not yet.”

“We’d better get up,” Dimka said; and he immediately regretted it. Khrushchev would not be awake yet. And even if he was, Dimka did not have to bring this delicious moment to a premature end. He was bewildered, but happy. Why the hell had he suggested getting up?

But she was not ready. “In a minute,” she said.

He was pleased by the thought that she liked lying in his arms.

Then she kissed his neck.

It was the lightest possible touch of her lips on his skin, as if a moth had flown out of the ancient hangings and brushed him with its wings; but he had not imagined it.

She had kissed him.

He stroked her hair.

She tilted her head back and looked at him. Her mouth was slightly open, the full lips a little parted, and she was smiling faintly, as if at a pleasant surprise. Dimka was no expert on women but even he could not mistake the invitation. Still he hesitated to kiss her.

Then she said: “Today we’re probably going to be bombed to oblivion.”

So Dimka kissed her.

The kiss heated up in a flash. She bit his lip and pushed her tongue into his mouth. He rolled her onto her back and put his hands up inside her baggy sweater. She unfastened her brassiere with a swift movement. Her breasts were delightfully small and firm, with big pointed nipples that were already hard to his fingertips. When he sucked them she gasped with pleasure.

He tried to take off her jeans, but she had another idea. She pushed him onto his back and feverishly undid his trousers. He was afraid he would come right away—something that happened to a lot of men, according to Nina—but he did not. Natalya pulled his cock out of his underwear. She stroked it with both hands, pressed it to her cheek, and kissed it, then put it in her mouth.

When he felt himself about to explode he tried to withdraw, pushing her head away: this was how Nina preferred it. But Natalya made a protesting noise, then rubbed and sucked harder, so that he lost control and came in her mouth.