"He seemed even weaker today," Irina said.  I followed
her into the dark apartment and closed the door behind me.
Thunder rumbled outside.

"He did," I said.  Irina walked to the window and looked
out at the night, the wind, the coming storm, facing
away from me as she unbuttoned her blouse.  We were using,
as we had been for weeks, a small apartment only a block
from the Palace, kept by the Ministry of Culture, ostensibly
for artists visiting the capitol.  Neutral ground.

She turned away from the window, slipped her blouse down
her arms and hung it over a chair.  Without meeting my
eyes, she reached behind herself and undid her brassiere.
Her breasts were full and heavy, with wide brown nipples
and dark beauty spots.  She slipped off her shoes and pushed
them under the chair, side by side.  Then she unzipped her
skirt.

The air was dense with thunder and impending rain; I felt
torpid, barely able to move.  I shrugged out of my coat and
hung it on the hook by the door.  Irina had taken off her
skirt and panties and put them on the chair.  Now she was
sitting on the bed, rolling her stockings down her legs.  The
hair between her thighs was dense and black and tangled; her
skin was pale.  She looked up at me and frowned.  "And what
are you waiting for?"  I shook myself, quickly removed the
rest of my clothing as she lay back on the bed.

Naked, I lay down beside her and took her breasts in my hands
as I always did.  She sighed and closed her eyes.  I sucked
on her nipples, one after the other, and my hands roamed over
her bare body.  She spread her legs, and her hip rubbed against
my swelling penis.  When I cupped my palm between her thighs
and pushed my fingers into her flesh, she grunted and bucked
against me.  Her hand groped down my stomach.

"He will be dead soon," she said, her voice husky.  She guided
me up and onto her, in between her legs.  "He will," I agreed,
sinking my fingers into the soft flesh of her sides, grinding
my pelvis into hers.  She moaned.

"And then we will be enemies," she said, her hands on my
hips.  I thrust forward, pushing into her.  She made a
deep guttural sound and opened herself wider, her heels
against my buttocks.  A crash of thunder shook the building,
and a torrent of rain clattered suddenly against the window.
We moved together on the bed, breathing heavily, our hips
moving mechanically.  "We will," I agreed.

She groaned again and put her arms around me, drawing my
body heavily down onto her as I thrust between her legs.
Our mouths came together awkwardly.  I reached one hand down
and slid it under her.  My palm full of the thick moist
flesh of her buttock, I thrust harder and more deeply, and
she began to moan rhythmically.  At the end, she arched her
body and shouted, her fingernails raking my back.

Afterward, we lay on the sticky sheets, her head on my
chest, like lovers.  The rain came down steadily outside.
"We've been comfortable for so long," she said.

I ran my hand down her back.  "There are better things than
comfort."

Her lips closed over my right nipple, and I felt her
teeth.  "You are right," she said.  "Of course you are
right."

He died, in fact, two days later.

The next three weeks were calm, at least on the surface.
Publicly, the Government and the Party united in a show
of mourning and respect for our late leader.  Speeches
were made, foreign diplomats received, some selected
prisoners released.  In private, all principals moved
slowly, retesting the borders of their influence, finding
themselves evenly matched, as expected, almost everywhere.
Caution prevailed.

That Thursday afternoon, we learned that the Ministry of
Justice had reserved a time slot for an evening television
broadcast.  Inexplicably, I was unable to determine its
content beforehand.  It seemed that Irina had decided to
make the opening move, and that I would know its nature at
the same time as the sweeper in the street, the whore by her
lightpost.  I sat before the idiot eye of the television in
the Party's capital mansion, a handful of political officers
smoking in the darkness behind me, a fresh Japanese woman in
a red dress on the sofa beside me.  As the broadcast came on,
I stroked her stockinged knee, pushed open the high slit in
her dress.

The head on the screen was not Irina herself, but one of
her senior ministers.  The words it spoke were not entirely
surprising.  The Government announced that, to its regret,
it was forced to decertify and prosecute a certain branch
of the Party in Oxala Province, because of disturbing
incidents that had been discovered by the police.  The
Government was certain that the Party would cooperate fully
in the investigation.  No details were given, but the head
talked for some time.  Sucking my lower lip, I stroked the
smooth skin of the woman beside me, drawing her leg into my
lap.  The weight of her limb felt good against me.

The Party would, I decided, cooperate fully.  It had been
clever of Irina to begin in Oxala.  It presented us certain
difficulties.  But these difficulties had not been entirely
unanticipated.  I called a few instructions to those in
the dark behind me, my fingers pressing the delicate skin
behind the knee I held in my lap.  Then I dismissed the
men and put my hand behind her head, releasing her leg.
Anticipating me, she bent her head down to my waist and
unzipped my pants.  Her fingers on my penis were gentle
and delicate, her mouth warm.  I sighed and lay back.

When Irina began to widen the scandal, as she would, she
would discover some of the price of our cooperation.  I
imagined her frown when a key magistrate suddenly resigned,
when one of her close assistants made certain revelations
to the media.  I felt her nipple again in my mouth, my body
pushing in between her legs, her flesh hot beneath me.
The Japanese woman's head bobbed faster in my lap, and
I thrust up against her.  She grunted, swallowing with
practiced ease.  I sent her away and reached for the
telephone.

Long after midnight, the situation well in control, I
logged onto a personal account, one not in my own name.
There was one piece of mail.  It was from Irina, encrypted
and signed with a keypair that only she and I had known.
I opened it.  There was no text, only an image.  I sat in
the dark room, looking at the glowing screen, for a long
minute.

The image was of Irina herself, naked, sitting on the edge
of a bed with her feet on the floor splayed wide apart,
her legs spread.  Her hands were between her thighs, her
fingers opening her labia, her body bent toward the
camera, her breasts hanging down in front of her stomach,
her hair over her face.  Even in the grainy image on the
screen, I could see the soft glistening structures within
her vulva.  It was an astoundingly wanton image, and it
held my eyes.  I wondered who had taken it, if he had
been allowed in her bed afterwards.  Irina never hesitated
to use her body for political ends, and in the Government,
and I feared even the Party, there were many men whose
judgement could be clouded by the thought of her sex.

I considered for a moment whether the image could be
useful to me politically.  But it was too obvious, too
blunt.  I could never prove it was not a forgery.  It
might BE a forgery, for that matter, although I was sure
it was not.  I printed a copy of the image, and filed
it, still encrypted, on the computer.  I propped the
printout on the table beside the bed, and lay down,
thinking of the weight of Irina's flesh in my hands.

I had wondered for a moment if I should reply, how I
should reply; but now I realized that with this image
she had said everything that needed to be said between
us.  That night, I dreamed of her, naked and open and
hot, her hands touching herself, separated from me
by a screen of cold glass.