The King in Yellow Chapter Four

THE VIRGIN

Once again, Dmitri was chained to his chair in the interview room, behind bars, to answer Katya’s questions.

“We have had our people audit Alexandra” she told him after the briefest of formalities. He cocked his head at her, amused. “It suited everyone to assume that the beautiful girl who married an imprisoned sex-murderer had been ‘disappeared’ by the old regime” she continued. “But she simply vanished, After the ceremony there is no trace of her in the archives – they lost track of her”. Shifting in the steel fetters, Dmitri leant forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“She took pains to find me” he began. Behind the two-way mirror, Dana teased the end of a new ballpoint with her teeth, spellbound.

I know your part in the mutiny of the twenty-first battalion. I know from Grigori; so, you will understand that I know other things about you, too. The Security Division would be very interested in what I have to tell them.

Meet me by the conveniences in the public park of the Armenian Quarter at midnight.

Putting the handwritten note back into his pocket, Dmitri squared his shoulders and stepped out of the shadows into the pool of sodium lamp-light next to the decrepit, brick outbuilding. He had been watching from cover for most of the evening and had seen no-one come or go except for the stunning pocket Venus who sat patiently on the bench by the path, dressed as though for a smart dinner party.

Alexandra looked up expectantly at the huge, bearded, wild-haired man striding straight towards her.

“You are bold” Dmitri told her “or mad”.

“I am well prepared for this meeting” she replied, levelly. “I have made sure of what will happen if I do not return safely”. He sat down next to her.

“A document deposited with an advocate, to be opened in the event that you do not collect it tomorrow morning – that kind of thing”?

“Something like that” she replied, evasively.

“And so” Dmitri asked, “what do you want of me”?

“Escort me to your apartment” She licked her lips and leant back, opening her thighs to let him see the gleam of the brass padlock and the silver chain that laced through her labial rings to imprison her cunt and arse. “We can discuss it as we walk”. They rose and she took his arm.

“If the secret police are waiting for me” Dmitri shrugged “then I cannot escape – whatever I do. I am not a wealthy man; it is simply not worth your while to try to extort payment from me. So, I have to assume that you wish me to perform some service for you”? She turned her face up to him.

“My photograph has not been in the newspapers” she said “but you have read about the deranged girl so besotted with Grigori the sex murderer that she married him in prison? Everyone says that you are a dedicated sexual sadist and that the women who submit to you endure the most intense torments. You should understand what I want of you”.

Together they slipped through one of the many gaps in the park fence and into the cobbled streets of the St Nerses district; soon they were in the busy, well-lit centre of Mirenburg and passed unremarked amongst the beautiful people strolling from café to bar to club – although a few heads turned to watch the raven-haired beauty walk by with her giant beau, deep in conversation.

“This must convince you” Alexandra ventured as they passed the opera house. She took a travel receipt from her snakeskin clutch and passed it to him. “You see? Anyone searching for me will find that I arrived at Budapest Keleti yesterday evening, and took the tram to my uncle’s house.