Cleopatra's Perfume

A large smooth hand slipped over his thigh, rubbing it with caution. The strong smell of Aryan maleness tinged with the spice of perversity invaded his nostrils. The game had changed and he didn’t like the smell of it.

Why he didn’t make his move during the naked silence that followed, he didn’t know. Surprise, shock, fear? Not for his own life, but hers. Something about the fervent way she looked into his eyes and begged him to understand something else was at play here made him realize this was no ordinary tryst. But what?

He looked around and caught the SS officer staring at him as he removed his black tunic jacket with its single shoulder strap and thin aluminum collar piping. It took all his strength not to rip off the cotton hand-embroidered SS armband or kick him in the balls when he dropped his black breeches. Not a smart move when he had a service weapon trained on him. He recognized the sleek Walther P-38 pistol. An excellent design. Fit the hand as smoothly as a black glove. He knew he was in deep trouble when he saw the Nazi release the safety and cock the hammer in one motion as he pulled it from his side holster under his black jacket. Unlike most Prussians he’d seen since he arrived in the land of boot clickers, this one didn’t need time to unwind. His firm, muscular body reeked of desire, sweat glistening off the twin lightning bolts tattooed on his forearm like a glaring spotlight.

He made his interest in him clear, striding around in nothing but his high boots and his hat bearing the Death’s Head badge, the Totenkopf, swinging a whip and crackling it at his side as he struck the ground with the well-used black leather.

Chuck tried not to show it but he couldn’t control his fast breathing, one hand behind his back to hide what he knew was his hand shaking. What bothered him was how he’d reacted to the warmth of the man’s hands on his skin. Damn, he was hot, ready to climax, and his touch, any touch, he told himself, would have made him explode. He wouldn’t accept any other explanation. He had no doubt if the Nazi tried to brush his skin again with that hand, he’d deck him. He’d heard rumors about the proclivity of certain members of the SS for sex with other men. They shunned the effeminate side of the equation, preferring raucous, beer-drinking sexual antics where a man’s cock found penetration of a different kind to his liking. Dark, secret places that made his skin fester as if purulent sores covered it.

He scratched at his thigh, more from the crawling dread seeping over him than from the clouds of mosquitoes hiding in the thickets of dense shrubbery surrounding the lake.

“I have a game,” said the Nazi,“one I’m certain you’ll both enjoy.”

“And what if I don’t like your game?” Chuck dared to venture.

“I’m sure we can accommodate the captain,” cried out the Englishwoman, her soft hair wisps clouding the nervous expression he’d seen in her eyes. “I’ll fuck you both!”

“No,” said the SS guard. “I will fuck you both.” He grabbed the American’s buttocks with his large, smooth hand, making his stiffen. Chuck dug his fingers into his palm so hard he swore he pierced the skin.

“I swear, if you touch me again—”

The SS officer laughed. “You will fuck her, mein herr, and I will, as you Americans say, bring up the rear.” He laughed.

“And if I refuse?”

“There will be no exit visa.” He ran his hand along Chuck’s inner thigh then he snapped the whip against his flank when he tried to grab the gun away from the Nazi. The American grunted, pulling in his gut and swallowing the pain, rather than cry out.

“I demand you take us back to Berlin,” Chuck said. “Your game has gone far enough.”

“I’ll take you back—” the Nazi shoved the gun into his ribs “—straight to Gestapo headquarters to explain your presence in Berlin.”

“I have no intention of explaining anything to you or your Nazi friends. America isn’t at war with Germany—”

“Aren’t you forgetting our agreement?” the Englishwoman interrupted, her tone cold and formal, her coquettish mannerisms gone. She glared at Chuck, silently telling him to let her take over. Her look told him she wasn’t playing games now that she knew the SS officer wasn’t interested in her.

“It’s too late for that, Fräulein.” He pointed the gun at her. Chuck clenched his fists, ignoring the cascade of frenzy invading his brain. Whatever his personal feelings were in this game, he couldn’t allow the Nazi to strike her down in a stabbing flash of gunfire, bullets slicing along her belly, her breasts, jerking her straight up, spinning in a macabre dance of death.

“No!” she cried out, the late-afternoon sun sparking off her ring and striking the Nazi in the eye, causing him to look away. Chuck gathered up a handful of gravel mixed among the sandy dirt and gripped it in his palm, waiting for the right moment to strike.

“I regret having to destroy such a lovely female body,” the SS officer said, straining to perfect his aim in the harsh glare, “a perfect example of curve and line, but in the name of the Reich—”

“Run!” Chuck cried out, then spun around and threw the handful of gravel into the Nazi’s face. The man jerked backward, his hat falling off and onto the sand. Chuck stomped on it, smashing the skull-and-crossbones SS insignia under his bare foot and ignoring the sharp pain digging into his flesh. Then, before the German could react, he kicked him in the groin so hard he screamed out, but not before his pistol fired and the bullet hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand.

The Englishwoman didn’t wait. He watched in horror as she raced toward the lake, her white-blond hair shimmering around her shoulders like the crests of a wave. Then for an instant she pirouetted and stood on the large boulder, her arms folded across her breasts, her ruby-and-pearl ring catching the eye of the sun and making it flutter. Her last look was at him, her eyes begging him not to forget her. Then, another shot. The Nazi. Before he could get to her, she screamed then dived into the lake. Seconds, only seconds, yet he’d never forget that look.

Had the second bullet found its mark?

Before he could go after her, the Nazi was on him like a lizard crawling up a mud bank. He struggled with the German, kicking him again and, using the sparring techniques he’d learned on his numerous trips ashore to Hong Kong ferrying the mail, forced him to drop the gun. Knowing his attacks had to be fast and accurate, he threw a right cross to the Nazi’s chin. The Aryan ducked, surprising him, then came back at him with a double punch to his gut. They exchanged blows, skin splitting open, sweat mixing in a macabre blurring of male flesh and hard muscle into one blur until the Nazi retrieved the gun. Chuck kicked it out of the man’s hand and he went down on the sand. He jumped on top of him, but the Nazi threw dirt into his face. Eyes burning like hell, he reached out blindly, withstanding the man’s punches, until his hands wrapped around the German’s neck and he pushed down on his windpipe hard, not letting up, until he went still beneath him.

He sat back on his haunches and caught his breath. Eyes wide open, shock of blond hair hanging down low over his face, the Nazi had the look of a demonic creature cast in stone. He checked his pulse. He was dead.

Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, Chuck looked toward the lake. No movement, no splashing. Nothing. What happened to the Englishwoman? A sharp pain tore at his gut, eating him up with dread. He jumped to his feet and dived into the crystalclear water, afraid of what he’d find.

An hour later—or was it two?—the dead Nazi lay in the mud on the lake bottom with two large rocks tied around his ankles. Chuck came up again to get some air, his lungs bursting. No sign of the Englishwoman. No blood, no body. Nothing. Again and again he searched the area, but it was as if she’d dived into the lake and disappeared. He almost believed she was a mermaid and had swum out to sea.

God, he was losing his mind. Nothing made sense. The platinum blonde. The SS officer. What had he stumbled into? An intricate Nazi plot to pick him up? No, that was impossible. No one could have known he’d duck into the Hotel Adlon to get some rest after he’d been shot down during a bombing mission over Berlin. He was an American flier in the RAF and he’d been on the run for two, three days, trying to escape into the human blur that swarmed through the hotels in a never-ending bustle, moving at night when the city was thrust into darkness to evade the British bombers. Living on cold pasta tossed out from Italian restaurants, since food was rationed. His crew had been captured, but he escaped into the woods, burying his uniform jacket then stealing clothes drying on a line from an unsuspecting Hausfrau.

He wiped the water from his eyes, but he couldn’t wipe away the doubts, the puzzle that eluded him. It didn’t make sense. He dived in again, searching the lake that must have been over two hundred feet deep in the middle. And cold. Still nothing. He had no choice but to give up the search and find his way back over the German lines to the Allies. Forget what she said about a diary. Why should he risk his own life to retrieve a piece of female vanity?

Dressing quickly in the dead Nazi’s silver-and-black uniform—he intended to dump it as soon as possible—he got behind the wheel of the Mercedes 260D diesel car and drove off. He found himself weaving from one lane to another, his mind troubled. A hint of her spicy fragrance wafted off the black ribbed seat and hung in the air around him, torturing him with its power. What happened to the Englishwoman? Lady Eve Marlowe of Mayfair was how he’d known her in Cairo. Where was she? Though her beauty haunted him, her death haunted him more. Nothing was left to show she’d ever been there, shivered in his arms, teased him with her beguiling smile, pleasured him when he stroked her with his cock until she cried out at the peak of her desire.

Nothing. Just the redolent scent of her perfume.

Damn her.

It took him less than five minutes to change his mind and turn the car around and head back toward Berlin. It wasn’t that he faced a nearly impossible journey in enemy territory to get to France and the underground that made him change his mind. He’d survived worse. It wasn’t that he was certain Lady Marlowe had cash in her suite he could use in his escape, since when he searched through her clothes and purse before tossing them behind some brush, he’d found nothing. No, it was something he didn’t dare put into words. A hunch that this gorgeous woman was mixed up in more than sex and decadence, that she’d begged him to help her and if he didn’t, her life would have been in vain. Whatever they’d had in Cairo, it ended here, today. He couldn’t change that. He could change course, play out this insane caper and see where it led him. He hated the feeling eating at his insides, that her death was his fault. He owed her that much.

An hour later, he parked the big, black sedan blocks away from the Adlon then ducked in under the hotel awning and strode past the doorman and into the lobby, saluting and mumbling “Heil, Hitler!” to anyone who crossed his path. He avoided the black-suited desk clerk and the admiring eyes of the uniformed bellboy wearing white gloves and made his way upstairs, then grabbed a maid and threatened her with gestures and grunts until she allowed him access to the blonde’s suite. Who would deny an SS officer? He didn’t know more than a few words of German, but it worked. He was inside.

There, in the middle of the room, was a steamer trunk. It stood three feet long and two feet high with four rollers, edged in leather with wood strapping and brass rivets. He tapped his fingers over the cracking Damier pattern, noting the tiny tears in the canvas covering the trunk—

Rrring.

He waited.

The phone rang again and again and still he did nothing. He dare not answer it, but the presence of its irritating sound filled the air between himself and the unknown caller. Then the ringing stopped and the silence became his ticking clock. He glanced at the phone then looked at the door. Whoever had called could be on their way up here.

What was he waiting for? Staring at the trunk wasn’t going to bring back the Englishwoman. He tugged on the brass lock, but it wouldn’t give. Locked.

And no key in sight.

That wouldn’t stop him. He had plenty of practice picking the lock on his father’s gun cabinet when he was a kid, so he could practice shooting tin cans with his kid brother when the old man was away. He searched through the female items on the vanity table until he found what he needed: a nail file and a long hatpin. With the hatpin in one hand and the nail file in the other, he got to work on the lock. Using the hatpin, he picked the lock by raising the pins to their so-called breaking point as a key would, then used the nail file to rotate the cylinder to operate the cam at the rear of the lock’s cylinder to unlock the mechanism. It took a few tries, but it wasn’t long until he heard the welcome click and the lock popped open. Inside, he found a blue suit, navy pumps, chemises, garters and silk stockings. Beneath the clothes, he found a square box wrapped in black velvet about the size of a small jewelry box. He felt along the bottom of the trunk until it gave way and he uncovered a red silk-bound diary, its deep lush color still as fresh as the blush of a rose. He opened the book and the scent wafting from its pages overpowered him. Her scent. Spicy and pungent, like a kaleidoscope of powerful fragrances shuffled together that emitted a slightly different aroma every time he turned a page. Florid, feminine handwriting flowed from the linen sheets, jumping out at him as though the writer had jotted her thoughts down in a hurry. Voluptuous scenes, lusty descriptions, all filled with savagery.

Fascinated by what he’d seen, he flipped back to the first entry. It was all there in her handwriting. Loneliness, pleasure, the desire to submit, the indiscretions. All the passions of a woman possessed by the secret of what she called Cleopatra’s perfume. No wonder her image, her touch, her scent held him captive and wouldn’t let him go. He no longer saw her fluffed up in feathers and jewels and he a man filled with the raw need to conquer his own demons, but two people caught up in a dangerous game of intrigue and obsession. She revealed the past to him by way of the erotic tableaux she described, while the mysterious perfume emitting from the diary pages overwhelmed his senses with an intimate and intoxicating intensity.

And so he entered her world.

2

This diary belongs to: Lady Eve Marlowe

London, Mayfair

March 31, 1941

My life is in danger, but that won’t stop me. I must go to Berlin. Yes, I know it’s dangerous, considering the country is run by a monster marching against the world order and devouring innocents like a dragon spewing fire. He’s destroying everything in his path with flames of hatred and prejudice and he may destroy me, but I have no choice. If I fail at my mission I will die, as will others, but I’ve made preparations for a way out should death come too close to me. One so unbelievable I must write it down, for if I do not, no one will ever know what happened to me and the extraordinary journey I’ve taken. No one but you, dear reader.

It all began in 1939 when I refused to slip on the somber elegance of a widow’s veil, an act I undertook with the same rebelliousness that had ruled my young life. Unwilling, unvirginal and undaunted by an empty bed I was determined would soon be filled, I set out to find adventure. I was lonely, though at twenty-nine I’d traveled the world and seen its wonders as well as its weaknesses. I’d met my late husband, Lord Marlowe, who was thirty years my senior, years earlier when I was stranded in Cairo after what the London Times society page called “an unfortunate incident with renowned archaeologist Lord Wordley’s expedition into the Valley of the Kings,” insinuating I’d been on a dig with the famed explorer and his group of posh thrill-seekers. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I will leave the reality of what happened to later telling. All you need to know is I have a history with Egypt far removed from my peerage as Lady Marlowe.