delga | fic: hard liquor. [12/14] (spooks)

hard liquor. (spooks)
Fiona, Adam, Tja; het./fem.
xii. concentric circles

How many times can you be wrong about one thing?

(Too many).

She is wrong about Damascus (this much becomes clearer with every passing day).

Tja told the truth about the SIS. As soon as she is ‘in’ she bumps into one of them in the street. A woman. She is given an envelope. (Bloody hell, she thinks, I could do without the James Bond crap, thanks very much). The envelope has details pertaining to her new husband’s lifestyle and bank details.

(She doesn’t understand what she’s doing).

She takes the information, devours it, burns the papers. Finds herself looking for something in the house to back it up. (Finds bank statements, memos, two chequebooks). Finds herself taking note of smaller details, not really knowing why.

(Meets a man in a market on the other side of town. Gives him what she has. Doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t ask about Tja).

And late at night, when her ‘husband’ comes home, paws at her with his stinking hands and covers her with his stinking body, she closes her eyes, crosses her fingers, reminds herself that Tja will come. Soon, she will come. Soon.

They made it to Ibiza once. Anouska remembers the thrill of watching Tja stride onto the dance floor (remembers the thrill of seeing the men respond so eagerly, so wantonly). Tja’s eyes would pull them close, traverse the length of their bodies, back up to their eyes… gotcha.

(It was sin and it was lust – red lips, tight dress, lots of décolletage – and Anouska was the voyeur, her senses intensified by the heady air of doing wrong).

It was buy me a drink and I’ll make it worth your while but she didn’t care because this was Tja and Tja didn’t care. Tja said, “Buy me a drink,” and “Fuck off” in the same breath and Anouska wishes that she knew how to do it the same way.

(She always was a pushover),

“What do you mean?”

Adam feels smug at the knowledge; is grateful for the leverage. “Where are you from?”

Fiona looks like she could scream. “No, wait, what’s a freelancer?”

“Answer the question.”

“Adam—”

“No.” (God, he thinks, this feels good. To at last have the upper hand). “No compromise. You answer my questions and then I answer yours.” She seems uncertain, a little bitter. “Fiona?”

He can see it in the way she holds her shoulders – she does not want to answer. He wonders what she’s thinking, what options she’s weighing up and discarding. (He can see the fever in her eyes, the battling emotions scaling from anger all the way through to sadness and back around the block to perturbance). He wonders for a moment if she can take it (remembers the madness of Damascus and the night before) and then shakes his head. Reminds himself he doesn’t give a shit.

“It’s easy enough, Fi. Where are you from?”

She looks away. Scowls. “Moscow.” (He can hear the Slav, thick in her voice).

“Russia?”

“No, Canada,” she hisses, “Yes, of course Russia.” She smiles then, dangerously. “Don’t worry, pet,” (she spits the ‘t’ against her teeth) “I’m not a double or anything.”

(Is it wrong that he has to stop and think?)

“No. I suppose not.” He goes back to looking at the city landscape. “Why are you here?”

(She’s laughing).

And is she ever. Her head’s thrown back, her eyes are closed and she laughs, over and over again, ever so slightly damaged, he thinks. She laughs without humour and looks at him, looks ready to take him on.

“You brought me here. Or did you forget that?”

Fourteen weeks and then she walks into the house and Tja is sat by the door.

(What to say? What can be said?)

“Well, take your time, why don’t you?”

Damascus. The bunker. Adam Carter. (Vodka, not tequila – never tequila, never again). An overwhelming sense of betrayal.

And Gospodi, she can’t stop shaking.

(The name in the file says Fiona. Common enough, viable enough).

When they return to the HQ in Athens, Adam Carter stays close. Loathe though she is to make the transition, Anou— sorry, Fiona, knows what she must do.

(She is good at sex, can sell seduction and all the trimmings. She learnt, of course, from the best).

She is bitter and hurting but she knows how to play the con so she buries her anger deep inside. Thinks, maybe she’ll get out of the bind one day. Maybe she’ll work something out. (Maybe Adam Carter isn’t so bad).

(It’s only when she’s lying on her back, expelling the child from her womb, that she finally realises there’s no going back. Not now, not ever).

It is like the first time. Except is it the last. (And this she doesn’t know, yet).

Tja is not gentle, is never sweet; she pushes hard at Anouska’s shoulders and they tumble to the floor in a mass of silk and seduction. This is unclean, dirty, raw – hard – and it’s everything Anouska remembers. (Tja kisses her, holds her head still, forces her mouth open).

Anouska is drowning.

(Tja tastes of tequila and tobacco, smells of burnt cinnamon). One hand keeps Anouska still, the other brushes against her swollen nipples, taut with excitement. Anouska moans delight, is impervious to all sensation but for Tja: Tja’s hands, Tja’s lips, Tja’s body pushing, fighting, dominating every part of her reality.

(Anouska tastes desperation in the air).

When Tja kisses her, Anouska kisses back. As Tja’s hand slides up the inside of her legs, Anouska’s lips seek out her breasts. (Tja nips at the hollow of her neck; Anouska rakes her nails down her lover’s back).

This is not love.

Her body jumps as Tja finds her clit and rubs up against it, hard. (She knows nothing but Tja’s weight above her, Tja’s fingers inside her – this is the world, she thinks, Tja, Tja, Tja). She gasps, grinding her pelvis down onto Tja’s hand, arches up towards her lover. (Tja rubs harder, pulls her chin to the front, forces eye contact).

She comes with a strangled cry, holding onto Tja’s shoulders, the anchor in her sea.

“I didn’t exactly force your hand.”

(Fiona can hear the sting in his voice).

“You didn’t have to. Someone else did it for you.”

(And this is the end, she thinks, this time is forever).

(It’s like talking to a perverted version of the Dalai Lama).

“Look, enough of this cryptic crap, Fi, why me? What the hell are you doing here, in England, hey? How did you get from Moscow into Her Majesty’s Secret Service?”

(He spits the last phrase out like bitter tonic).

She pauses. Looks at him. Shakes her head.

“It’s your turn. What’s a freelancer?”

(They’re falling in concentric circles).

“When this goes up in smoke, Six will take you in.”

(Tja is sat, legs outstretched, on the edge of the bed: tequila in one hand, a smoke in the other. Anouska can’t help but wonder how the woman managed to find tequila in Syria).

Anouska is cross-legged, leaning against the wooden headboard. “Why would I join the British SIS?”

“You already have.”

(Paranoia kicks in; she thinks she can hear the buzz of hidden cameras and bugs).

Anouska has nothing to say. She doesn’t have the words.

As it turns out, they suck at compromise. They’re stuck in neutral, locked in stalemate. All they can do is try to measure up against one another.

(Fuck, Fiona thinks, I didn’t come out here for this). “This is getting us nowhere.”

“Then why did you come up here? Why are you wasting my time?” (He’s pissed off). “I can’t figure you out, Fiona. I can’t figure out why you’re here or why you married me. What exactly is it that you want?”

(What a bloody question).

“You have no idea about anything, do you?” (And she seethes like fury incarnate).

“You don’t tell me!”

“You don’t care!” Here they reach the crux. “You don’t give a damn! Do you have any idea how patronising you are? Do you have any clue how much I hate you sometimes? You don’t know everything I’ve seen! You don’t know everything I’ve done!” (This is light in the angry dark; this is dire discontent). “You’re just a… a brute. Just like the rest of them. Goddamnit, Adam, you don’t own me!”

(Oh god, she thinks, I’ve said too much).

Silence.

(He is looking her up and down, trying to work it out. He’s adding two to two and getting negative eight and still he’s taking the numbers and pushing them together).

He sighs.

“Ten years before I met you in Damascus a Six officer was on a deep cover operation in Athens. The Service had intel indicating that a high-ranking member of the Greek parliament was facilitating arms deals between the Balkans and the Soviet Union.”

(Fiona wonders where this is leading. Ten years before Damascus was two years before Tja and she can’t see how it’s relevant).

“It was one of those assignments, a sleep assignment. Go in, get proof, take the guy out of play.”

Bloody spooks and their euphemisms, she thinks. Why not just say ‘assassinate’ or ‘murder’?

“Well, he gets there. Sets up a gig as the guy’s chauffeur. Thing is, he couldn’t find anything. Not a bloody thing. Politician was clean – well, if you ignore the mistress and the coke habit. Nothing to connect him to the good old USSR.”

Fiona is impatient: “So?”

Adam shrugs, “Good question. Our guy doesn’t know what’s gone wrong with the recon but he needs to get out before someone finds him. So he packs up, goes to put back the files he’s taken and bam! Jackpot. He finds his perp.”

And now she is intrigued. Now this is going somewhere and she think she recognises the pattern. “Who?”

A smirk. He looks away, then straight into her eyes. “The wife.”

end. [12/14]