The segregation wasn't for long, but it was necessary. The Russian girls, Anna included, all wore the sturdy shoes and sexless dresses decreed as proper wear by the bluenose commissars of Moscow. Their faces were bare of make-up, as was also deemed proper by a pseudo-culture which equated such artifacts with Western depravity. But girls will be girls even in Moscow, and now the young Russian females were doing their best to emulate the sexiest of capitalist sexpots.
High heels and silk stockings appeared from the recesses of deep handbags. Cosmetics were shared among them. The harnesses passed off as bras to Russian girls were removed and stowed away. Needles and thread flew over hemlines to shorten them. Belts were tied around waists so that the dresses might hug the hips. Buttons were undone and bodices pinned back to expose daring décolletage. Finally, still in a group, the girls joined the party.
Anna Kirkov was unquestionably the most desirable girl present. Her beauty was classically Russian. Her skin was white as ivory save for two dabs of rouge at her cheeks and the scarlet lipstick outlining the natural pout of her mouth. The half-moons of large, healthy breasts swelled over the top of her pinned-back dress. Her skirt flared as she moved about the room and her long, silk-encased legs, slender but sturdy, drew many eyes. Her face was animated, dark, mascara’d eyes flashing beneath a crown of blue-black hair which reached almost to her waist. Her cheekbones were high and Slavic, her nose straight, her chin firm. Over-all, her appearance was both aristocratic and passionate.
Anna attracted Mustafa Ben-Narouz immediately. He asked her to dance. She accepted, most impressed by this tall, handsome Arab with his flowing robes, trimly clipped moustache, burnt leather complexion and white-teeth sparkling smile. He spoke flawless Russian, and after they'd danced a few times he led her to an arm-chair in the corner of the room, squatted easily in front of her, and they talked.
Much vodka was consumed, and after a while the party began to get wilder. A Russian girl who was present later described it to the authorities. According to her, the lights were turned out in favor of a few candles and the group broke into couples who started to neck. Some of these couples went into the other room, and it was taken for granted that they made love there. She was asked if Anna and Mustafa had retired to the other room and replied that they hadn't.
But they had necked and petted freely, she testified. Mustafa had joined Anna in the armchair and arranged his robe so that it enveloped them both. They had kissed repeatedly and Mustafa's hands had been busy beneath Anna's bodice. At one point they had angled their bodies so that his robe no longer covered them, and it could be seen that he had pushed up her skirt to play with her.
It might seem that both Mustafa and Anna were fast workers, but it must be remembered that in Moscow time is short for lovers and opportunities scarce, so that the most must be made of what time is available. In any case, by the time the party ended, Anna knew that she was in love. Mustafa echoed her sentiments. They contrived further meetings between them.
This wasn't easy. It meant that Mustafa had to acquire a suit of Russian clothes as his own would make him too easily identifiable as a foreigner. It also meant that Anna had to keep very careful track of her father's work schedule so that her meetings with Mustafa could coincide with times when Josef Kirkov was out of the apartment.
Yes, the Kirkov apartment was their trysting-place. It was ideal, for Kirkov had been both fortunate and favored in the quarters assigned himself and his daughter. In a city where two and sometimes three families are often crammed into a one-room flat by government order, the State's faithful servant and one of its most eminent scientists rated a three-room apartment all for himself and his daughter. Thus Anna and Mustafa were able to enjoy a privacy denied most lovers in Moscow.
How many times they enjoyed liaisons at the apartment isn't known. Only the details of their last meeting have been brought to light. That was the one in which they were caught by Josef Kirkov.
He'd forgotten some notes at home and broke off his work in the middle of the day to fetch them. Coming through the front door of the apartment, he was struck by the sound of a high-pitched, almost hysterical giggle carrying from his daughter's bedroom. It was followed by a low, musical, indistinguishable masculine murmur. Kirkov marched to the door of the bedroom, which was slightly ajar, and pushed it all the way open. He stood and stared for a long, unbelieving moment at the scene which greeted-his eyes.
His daughter, Anna, was stretched out lengthwise on the bed, completely nude. Her back was arched, her eyes closed, her hair an ebony shawl covering the pillow behind her head. Her body was bent at the waist and her legs stretched straight up in the air, the knees held stiff. Only her hips and her lips moved, the former writhing in the throes of sweet torture, the latter mouthing an unintelligible hysteria made up of both laughter and sobs.
The cause of this reaction was a large, dark-skinned man lying across the bed, perpendicular to her, one of his hips wedged under her buttocks, an arm wrapped around her thighs, his body dictating the rhythm her hips were following. Shocked as he was, Kirkov was amazed at the largeness of the organ revealed by the long, deep, complete strokes as it battered untiringly against his daughter's flesh. He also couldn't help wondering at the strange device circling the base. It looked like a silver ring with a small thimble attached to it and a sort of spinner bristling with fine hair which seemed to dip into the thimble with each movement. Also, a strange red powder seemed to cover the entire organ.
(Kirkov couldn't have known it, but when this description was relayed to me, I immediately identified the sex device Mustafa was wearing. It was a Chinese “love instrument," known as "the silver clasp” and frequently used even today by educated Chinese males familiar with The Golden Lotus, which goes into great detail as to the pleasures it may provide. It serves several purposes which enhance the sex act. First, it cuts off the flow of blood from the male organ and therefore allows a man to sustain his passion for long periods of time. Second, its sturdy base is designed with a small metallic rise which repeatedly hits against and arouses that most sensitive sentinel of womanhood during love-making. Third, the bristling spinner continually tickles the portals of femininity and fosters a sensation which even the most hardened Chinese prostitutes find impossible to describe. Fourth, this same spinner constantly picks up bits of red powder from the thimble at the base of the silver clasp and distributes it over the male organ which transmits it to the female. This red powder is composed of cinnamon, hot mustard, pepper, ginger, and other irritating substances which make the delicate surfaces involved, excruciatingly sensitive. . . . It was interesting that Mustafa would have employed the silver clasp, for it is strictly a Chinese device and not to be found among the sex dildoes commonly used in the Arab countries.)
Kirkov roused himself from the shock which had immobilized him. “Anna!" he shouted.
His voice was loud, but the lovers were so enraptured of the frenzy possessing their bodies that at first they didn't even hear him.
"Anna!" he shouted again.
They came apart then, slowly, with obvious reluctance as though the import of the shout still hadn't reached them. Anna opened her eyes and focused them on her father. They looked at him blankly for a moment and then her cheeks flushed with color and her face filled with a mixture of embarrassment and fear.