The CPR Class

Chapter 3

Eva's apartment was in a genuinely sketchy part of town, in a forty-year-old brownstone apartment that hadn't been renovated or repaired since its construction.  It wasn't the best place to live, but the rent was cheap and the landlord didn't ask questions, so Eva found the place suited her purposes well enough.  Arthur Stirling expressed distress that she should be living in such a dangerous area.  She shrugged as she tightened the burglar-bar on her steering wheel.  "Rent's cheap," she said.  "And it's nicer inside than out.  Come on."
    She unlocked the front door and escorted him inside.  "Elevator's broken," she explained apologetically, "but it's the third floor so we don't have too far to climb."
    A drunk was passed out on the second-floor landing.  Stirling looked a little uneasy.  "Eva, a single lady really shouldn't be living in a place like this," he said pleadingly as he trailed her.  "If there's something you need, money or a loan or- I mean, I'm sure there's some way..."
    He fell off, seeing she was not listening.  He kept looking around nervously while Eva unlocked the door to her flat, Apartment 317.  She frowned to herself.  Damned building was killing the mood.  She hurried to get him inside and close the door behind him.  It was clean inside, tidy, comfortably appointed, the air tinted with a faint delicious touch of her favorite perfume.  She made sure to draw the bolt, and he noticed.  "If you lived somewhere safe, Eva," he said seriously, "you wouldn't have to do that.  I'm worried for you, living here all by yourself..."
    "Oh, you're sweet," she said, grinning at him.  "Look, I'm going to use the washroom.  I'll be right back.  There's some iced tea in the fridge, if you want."
    He sat down on the sofa, looking somewhat out of place, and Eva quickly went into her bedroom, off of which the bathroom connected.  She did use the toilet, but she also fetched a sheer negligee and a long silk bathrobe, which she changed into before returning to the front room.  Arthur rose when she came in - obviously out of chivalrous instinct, for he sat quickly thereafter.  Eva could see immediately, though, from his demeanour, that the young man was uncomfortable.  He'd probably spent the last five minutes trying to devise some way to weasel his way out of this, find some excuse to get home. 
    Well, thought Eva, we'll have to fix that.
    She walked past him into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.  "Do you have a girlfriend, Arthur?"
    "What?  ...Oh.  No, not anymore."
    "Oh?"
    He sighed and shrugged halfheartedly.  "Her name was Valerie; she broke up with me about a year ago.  We were practically engaged, but she was back in Missoula and couldn't handle the long distance relationship, so she broke it off."
    Eva looked sad and sympathetic.  She came and sat next to him, positioning herself so he could see a wide triangle of cleavage through the loosely-tied bathrobe.  "I'm so sorry.  That's got to be rough..."
    "I'm mostly over it," he said with a disinterested shrug.
    Internally Eva was cheering like mad.  "I'm amazed you haven't found someone else yet," she said aloud.  "Handsome boy like you?"  She grinned, and he laughed.  "Oh, sure, girls just falling all over me, all the time, just like bowling pins."
    She laughed, too, then continued to smile at him for longer than a normal friendly glance.  She was giving the face that said, "It just dawned on me how beautiful you are."  He noticed, and as expected started to make the same face back.  Boys are so predictable, she thought happily.
    She leaned the smallest bit forward.
    The signal worked like a charm.  Suddenly they were kissing; she forced her tongue between his lips, his teeth which opened so obligingly.  A good sign.
    She leaned into him, purposely "accidentally" letting her robe start to fall open and reveal the almost-sheer negligee beneath, shifting her body just slightly as her arms looped around his head and pressed it closer to her - shifting her position as though unconsciously, almost indetectibly, but enough to be sure he felt what she was wearing... which is to say, not much.
    She had heard that the roof of the mouth was the most sensitive place on the human body.  It only took a couple of strokes from her tongue to corroborate it.      His breathing had changed - not drastically, but enough.  She knew what to look for.  This was her first confirmation of success - that he was coming on to her - and she eagerly pressed on, leaning further and further into him, stroking the inside of his mouth with her tongue and his head and neck with her hands.
    He pulled away to catch his breath and gasped something like "We shouldn't..."
    "Why not?" she murmured, leaning close to his ear.
    He fumbled for a response, but said nothing, and she pulled his face back to hers and kissed him again.
    She let the bathrobe slip off her shoulders to the elbows.  Of course he had his eyes closed now, but in a moment he would see, and then there'd be an end to his feeble protestations...
    She pulled back, and he stared at her, clearly completely overwhelmed.  He would be as clay in her hands, she already knew.  Gently she slipped her hands under the shoulders of his jacket, slid it off his sinewy soldiers' arms, dropped it to the floor.
    She pushed him down on the couch.  He made a quiet little sound like a whimper, though he didn't try to resist.  She took him by the wrists and placed his arms over his head.  Obediently he kept them there while her hands slid down them, down his sides, up under his shirt, and moved back up along his chest, pulling the shirt up over his head and off.  His pulse was so strong she could actually feel it beneath her fingertips.
    "Do you like this?" she purred.
    "I..." he mumbled futilely, speechless.  She was used to that.  Most men had a similar reaction.  ...Actually, most men were drooling with tongues lolling out by this point, pulling off everything they wore as fast as they could, or promising anything she asked in incoherent terms, so his short-circuited silence was impressive enough, considering, since the mere sight of her was enough to jam all frequencies in the average male brain and cause all kinds of unexpected problems.
    She shed her bathrobe.  He was staring at her, lips moving every few seconds as if he were trying to talk but couldn't, breathing slow and irregular.
    She unfastened his belt.  He swallowed hard.  She smiled and batted his nose with a playful finger.  "I'm not going to hurt you, Lieutenant.  ...Unless that's what you want..."
    "Wh- what..?"
    She rolled her eyes, smiling even more.  "I suppose you're too innocent for that, hmm?"
    "But- I don't-"  He fell off, and she took his hand and pulled him up.  "Come on, there's not enough room here."
    She led him into the bedroom; but he resisted.  “No, Eva, wait,” he said with effort, “I can't.  It's - it's not right.”
    She raised an eyebrow.  “Not right?  Lemme tell you something, Stirling.  You let me do my thing, I guarantee you'll never feel anything MORE right.”
    “No, no,” he struggled.  “Not – not morally right.  Hell, I mean, I just met you this morning-”
    “What, don't you trust me?”
    Silence.  There was nothing internal about this conflict; she could see his eyes sweeping over her, twitching away, creeping back, while his mouth hung stupidly open.  He blinked, seemed to try to speak and failed.
    "Arthur?  Don't you trust me?"
    His eyebrows furrowed in a look not unlike pain, and he stammered, "I- well, I- I mean I- I want to... to, to trust you..."
    She smiled sympathetically - bordering on patronizing - and moved closer to him.  He made no attempt to move away, and she leaned her hips into his and rested her hands ever so lightly on his shoulders, cocking her head playfully.  She let her fingers trail down his back and he stifled a gasp. 
    "Aw, come on.  I'll go nice and slow and gentle, I promise.  Your body sure seems to trust me..."
    She had said too much, gone just a little too far too fast, and she knew it the moment the words were out of her mouth.  He pushed her away, feebly at first, then more forcefully as she did not immediately relax her grip.  "I have to go," he said.  "Come on, let me go."
    She caught his wrist, and he was clearly startled at the strength in her grip.  He turned back with a look of mixed fear, uncertainty, and lust, for a desire so carefully built was not to be this quickly extinguished.  "I'm sorry if I've been too forward," she said, relaxing her hand and letting go.  "It's just... you're beautiful.  The moment I saw you in the class today, I knew... we were meant to be together.  Can you blame me for my eagerness?  I mean, it's not every day that you meet your dream guy..."
    She almost cursed when she saw his reaction.  It wasn't like her to make a wrong call twice in a row, but the flattery seemed to have the opposite effect from what she wanted.
    "'Dream guy'?" he said, looked startled.  "But Eva, it's not even been a day yet!  You can't- you can't base- im-important life decisions on snap judgments like that!  You could get hurt!  What if I was a murderer?  Or the kind of man who would take advantage of you?  You can't tell that much about a person in an afternoon..."  He spoke earnestly, and as he did he was pulling his shirt back on, putting on his coat, fixing his undone belt.  "Look, I have a report I have to finish, but I'd like to see you again.  I'll leave a phone number, and maybe we can get to know each other properly."  He made to go.
    "I was going to give you a ride," she said.  "Let me get my keys."
    He hesitated, then stopped and waited by the door while she went into the bedroom.
    When Eva reemerged she was holding a gun.
    Arthur started, but both of them knew he had nowhere to run.  The door was still locked; he'd be shot ten times before he could get it open.
    "What you said about snap judgments," she said, smiling slightly and a bit unkindly, "I think it very appropriate to this situation.  Don't you, Lieutenant Stirling?"
    "But why?" he asked, his expression twisted with shock and betrayal.  "I don't have any money..."
    "Not money," she laughed.  "Information.  Into the bedroom, please."
    He went, haltingly, eyeing the gun uncertainly.  She laughed.  "Yes, it is loaded, if that's what you're wondering.  And I can shoot you plenty without killing you if the situation demands it.  ...On the bed.  Good."  She tossed him a pair of handcuffs.  "Right wrist, to the bedpost." 
    After a brief pause, he did as she ordered, uneasily.  She produced a second pair, and, walking around to the left side of the bed, fastened the other wrist to the bedpost on that side.  Then she set the gun down, out of reach, and leaned across him.  "You know, this would've been so much simpler and more enjoyable if you'd just gone along with me and had sex.  Now we have to play the interrogation game, and I'd really hoped to avoid it."
    "But what information can I possibly have that's worth all this effort?  I'm just a low-level engineering tech!"
    "Yes.  A low-level tech who does research in one of the most advanced secret military labs in the country."  She produced a knife from her bedside table, straddled him, sitting up facing him, and began to cut his t-shirt open down the middle.  "So let's talk about what exactly you've been researching, shall we?"
    "Why are you-" he started to say, but Eva sighed and put a finger across his lips.  "To attach the electrodes," she said.
    "What?"  He tried to draw back, but it was useless.
    Eva nodded sadly.  "I'm supposed to put one on your genitals, too, but I think we'll forego that for now.  Because it would be such a waste if you should accidentally be left, you know, unable to perform."  She glanced up at him, and her smile returned, brighter than before, and oddly sweet.  "When I said that I was impressed by how good-looking you are, I wasn't kidding.  You really are a beautiful man.  I think we'll put the electrodes on your fingers instead.  Those have just as many nerves as the privates, anyways, so I don't think it'll make much difference."
    The unfortunate man was obviously on the verge of panic by now, and helplessly as Eva got a mess of cords and wires out of her bedside dresser and began affixing electrodes to his chest he said, "But you said... you work for the health department..."
    "I said I worked for the government, Arthur, dear.  I didn't say which one."  She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "I'm a KGB agent.  But don't tell anyone."
    The final electrode in place, she pressed close unexpectedly and kissed him.  All her powers went into the kiss, and in spite of his fear she felt him melt into her, if only just a little.  Then she straightened, stuck the ends of the wires into a power pack, and grinned cruelly.  "Now, Lieutenant Stirling.  Tell me about your research."