Siro by David Ignatius (short books to read txt) 📕

“Don’t touch!” said Anna. “It’s not polite to touch a lady while she’s dressing.”

She retreated toward the bed, where she had laid out her clothes in a neat pile. “Why don’t you sit down,” she said, pointing toward the chair. “I’ll just be a minute.” She stood by the bed for a long moment. The light on the bedside table was behind her, rendering her thin shift completely transparent. Taylor could see the roundness of her breasts, the supple curve of her thighs and a few wisps of pubic hair.

“That’s quite an outfit, Mata Hari,” said Taylor.

“A local couturier,” said Anna. “The harem girls wore this sort of thing in the seraglio to amuse the sultan.”

“I’m amused.”

“As I recall, there was one sultan who liked to hide behind a window overlooking the baths. He gave his women gowns like this, but with the stitches removed. They were held together only with a little paste. When the women got near the steam bath, their clothes would fall off.”

“What did he do then?”

“He watched.” Anna smiled coyly and picked up her panties from the bed.

Taylor changed position in the chair so that his trousers didn’t bind him so tightly. He was spellbound. There was something overwhelmingly erotic about seeing this well-bred woman act like a tart.

“Which way do these go?” asked Anna, holding up her panties and turning them backwards and forwards so Taylor could see. It was quite obvious which way they went. There was nothing but a thong in back and a small triangle of white lace in front. Anna slipped them on, one leg and then the other, leaving herself open to Taylor’s view.

“Forget the nightcap,” said Taylor, rising from the chair. “Let’s make love.”

“Uh-uh-uh!” said Anna, wagging her finger at him. “I’m not dressed yet.”

She extended one slim leg, arched her toe, and began putting on her panty hose, pulling one leg of the hose up a few inches at a time until it was at the top of her thigh. Then she did the other leg, just as carefully, until the panty hose were straight and taut at the waist. She gave him a little wink.

“Stop it!” said Taylor. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“Good,” said Anna.

She turned toward the bed and slipped off the sheer dressing gown. Taylor could see the thin string of her panties running down the tight crevice of her ass. She picked up her bra from the bed, a lacy number not much bigger than the panties, and cupped it under her breasts.

“Do me up, would you?” she called over her shoulder to Taylor.

Taylor walked toward her and didn’t stop until he was pressing hard against her. His hand reached not for the fastener of the brassiere, but around her body to her breasts. Anna slapped his hand, playfully but hard enough so that it stung.

“Naughty boy!” she said. “No touchee-feelee until we talkee-talkee.”

Taylor dutifully fastened her bra, fumbling with the clasp just as he had as a teenager, trying to undo his first girlfriend’s bra in the back seat of a car.

“Why do men have such trouble with bras?” she asked coquettishly when the strap was fastened. “Do they think bras are sexy?”

“Stop it,” groaned Taylor again. “What’s gotten into you?”

She put on a simple linen dress, letting it slip over her breasts and hips, and next her high heels. Then she walked over to her suitcase and removed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black from a duty-free bag marked “Aéroports de Paris.”

“Actually, there’s no reason to go out for a nightcap,” she said. “I brought a bottle.”

She went to the bathroom and retrieved the lone glass perched in front of the cracked mirror. She poured several inches of whiskey into it and gave it to Taylor.

“We’ll have to share,” she said.

Taylor took a sip. He looked at Anna, now fully clothed and sitting catlike on the bed, and shook his head.

“What’s this all about?” he said. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to say yes,” she said. It was somewhere between a purr and a pout.

“To what?”

“I want you to tell Stone tomorrow morning that you think my Armenian operation is a good idea and you’re all for it.”

“But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not? It makes a lot more sense than handing out Islamic literature in Uzbekistan.”

“Maybe so. But that still doesn’t mean you should do it.”

“Why are you so conservative all of a sudden, now that it’s my turn to try something?”

“Come off it. That has nothing to do with it.”

Anna sighed and put her head in her hands. “I feel like I’m playing ‘Istanbul Gentleman,’ ” she said.

“What’s ‘Istanbul Gentleman’?”

“It’s a game the harem women used to play. One of them would dress up like a man, paint a mustache on her lips, put a watermelon rind on her head as if it were a fez. Then the other girls would make her sit backwards on a donkey. And then somebody would give the donkey a kick, and she would go bouncing around the courtyard until she fell off.”

“And that’s what you feel like?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I feel like.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Please, Alan. Tell Stone you think it’s okay. He doesn’t really seem opposed to the idea. In fact, he would probably have said yes already if you had kept your mouth shut.”

“Don’t trust Stone. He’s operating on six levels at once. If he decides to let you do this, it will be for his reasons, not yours.”

“What are his reasons?”

“I haven’t a clue. But I know Stone. He’s devious.”

“I didn’t think that bothered you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Please say yes. Let me be as crazy as Stone if I like.”

“How do you know this Armenian isn’t working for the KGB?”

“I just know. He’s as pure as the snow on Mount Ararat.”

“Give me a break.”

“If he was a phony, the seams would be visible. But there aren’t any. And if it’s any reassurance, they did a CI workup on him two years ago and didn’t find any intelligence