Page 3 of Deck the Halls in Secret Agents
It was the eggnog that won the day for George. As Christmas Eve drifted into Christmas morning, George and Nick swirled through the party, being genial to the increasingly drunken guests and yet always keeping an eye on each other. They circled like twin moons trapped in each other’s gravity, looking for a chance to sneak away without giving the other a hint where he might be going.
But finally, Nick’s steady consumption of eggnog forced him into a bathroom. George, his own bladder full to bursting, rushed to a different bathroom, then as light-footed as a cat hurried up the stairs to look for the entrance to the attic.
His idea of attics was shaped by his grandparents’, a narrow dusty room that was broiling hot in summer and icy cold in winter, lit by a single naked lightbulb and crammed with precarious stacks of all the things they’d never throw away. They had started married life on the cusp of the Depression, and could never get rid of old furniture, old clothes, old magazines, old newspapers.
This attic was not like that. A series of dim overhead lights illuminated a long, clean, airy room that stretched the length of the chateau. Though the blowing snow hissed against the windows, the room was as pleasantly climate controlled as museum storage, if the museum happened to be storing a forest of aluminum Christmas trees in among steamer trunks and old rolltop desks and stacks of faded hatboxes.
Both attics were alike in one respect: there were a thousand places to hide a packet of compromising love letters. George repressed a groan and approached the nearest steamer trunk. His knees creaked as he knelt beside it.
The hinges of the trunk might have creaked too, but he had brought along a pocket-size can of WD-40 for just such difficulties. Best to be prepared to keep quiet even in an abandoned chateau, and even more important now that it turned out the chateau wasn’t abandoned at all but stuffed to the gills, including one rival secret agent…
Did Nick know the letters were supposed to be in the attic? George would keep his ears peeled as he worked, although he was unlikely to hear much of anything above the continuing snowstorm.
The first steamer trunk was empty but for a dusting of glitter and a single scarlet pompom. So were the next two that George checked, so he gave up on the steamer trunks and shuffled over to a rolltop desk.
The pigeonholes were stuffed with letters, written in French in an execrable hand that took forever to decipher, and inevitably proved to be completely unincriminating family letters, thanks for the calissons, Maman, and things like that. Written from half a dozen sons on the Western Front during World War I. A treasure trove for a historian, probably.
He was halfway through a stack of letters that glancingly mentioned the trenches and then delved at exhausting length into the letter-writer’s plans for a novel (three beautiful women fought for the affections of the tortured young hero, an unrecognized man of genius) when he heard the jingle of bells.
Rather, a brief jingle that ended abruptly in a jangle, as if harness bells had been knocked from their perch onto the floor. George lowered the letter (Angelique had just threatened to kill herself if the hero did not return her affections) and listened, ears pricked.
Of course he could hear nothing but the wind and the snow. And of course, it might have been one of the staff, sent up to fetch one more bit of Christmas cheer.
But George didn’t think so.
He forced himself to read the letter to the end. The writer whittered interminably whether it was better to have Angelique die in the hero’s arms, or for the hero to arrive just too late and find her dead in the bath, as beautiful as Ophelia with her flaming red hair floating in coils like waterlilies.
The writer at last wound up with a joyeux noel and a plea for more socks, like you know how to make them, maman. George lowered the letter, and slowly, carefully rose. Nikolai should have had time to relax, just a little. George might have the pleasure of taking him by surprise.
Quiet as a cat in his sheepskin slippers, George padded down the center of the attic. His heart pounded with such excitement that he was afraid Nikolai might hear it. The attic was arranged in a series of bays, walled in by old bookcases, wardrobes, those inevitable aluminum Christmas trees. Biffy must have gone through an aluminum Christmas tree phase before returning to the natural pines.
In and among the other detritus stood even more Christmas decorations, evidently excess to requirements downstairs. Swags of fake greenery, a bookshelf housing ranks of wax poinsettias, an entire bay dedicated solely to Coca-Cola’s Santa advertisements…
And there: half hidden behind a rack of Santa suits, Nikolai sat on a pouf methodically searching a rosewood lap desk.
George had never successfully snuck up on Nikolai before. He paused a moment to gloat—and then of course Nikolai looked up.
He looked maybe just a little bit surprised. George mimed an exaggerated astonishment. “Nicky! What are you doing here?”
Nikolai blinked. That hint of surprise disappeared, and he set the lap desk aside and rose. “George Smiley,” he said, with exaggerated bonhomie. “Exactly what you’re doing here, I expect.”
“I imagine,” said George, “we’re both here on—export business.”
Nikolai essayed a little bow. “The export business is very time-consuming,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t want to keep you.”
And he made as if to move past George, except George stepped aside to block his path.
“Now George,” Nikolai said softly. They were standing just a little too close together. “Won’t you let me pass?”
“’Fraid not.”
“And why not?”
“Well,” said George, “I’ll have to check first if you’ve found the letters, won’t I?”
“Letters?” said Nikolai, widening his blue eyes. “What letters?”
Dammit, had he really not known? But no. “The letters you were searching for in that lady’s lapdesk,” George said.
“Ahh,” said Nikolai. “What can I say? Impolite to read other people’s correspondence, of course, but I’m an indefatigable student of history.”
“You are so full of shit.” George couldn’t help laughing at Nikolai’s look of wide-eyed innocence. “I’ll just take a look that you aren’t—borrowing any of these historical materials.” He stepped just a little closer to Nikolai, till they were not quite touching.
“Don’t you trust me?” Nikolai asked sorrowfully.
“Trust,” said George, “but verify.” And he reached toward Nikolai, who danced beyond his grasp.
“Now why,” said Nikolai, “would I be carrying any letters out with me? If I found anything that might be—embarrassing, to a high member of my government, I would burn it. But you—ah, you’d need to carry the letters away to use them for blackmail.”
He lunged at George. George dodged, only to discover a hairsbreadth too late that Nikolai’s first move had been a feint, and his dodge had landed him right in Nikolai’s grasp. They grappled, but George was off balance, and swiftly Nikolai bore him back into an overstuffed armchair. Both George and the chair let out a wheeze as Nikolai landed on top of them, and Nikolai took advantage of George’s winded state, sliding his hands under that hideous Rudolph sweater to pat George down for papers.
He made no attempt to stop George’s retaliatory search, patting down Nikolai’s hips, his thighs, his ass—and at that point George gave up any pretense that this was a search and crushed Nikolai against him, their lips crashing together, until Nikolai pulled away just long enough to strip George’s hideous Rudolph sweater over his head.
“There’s a mattress back that way,” Nikolai panted.
“Of course there is.”
They scrambled out of the chair, stumbling back past a rack of elf costumes. On the other side lay a queen-size mattress, neatly made up with pillows shaped like penguins and fleece blankets decorated with bounding reindeer.
George balked. “They just keep a mattress ready made up here?” he asked. And then he caught sight of a jingle harness on the floor, clearly knocked from a tabletop by one of the penguin pillows, and he cried, “You put it together!”
“Vsegda gotof,” Nikolai said primly: the Young Pioneer’s motto, Always ready. Then: “I thought we might be comfortable in our old age.”
It certainly would be something different. They’d never had a bed before.
George had already kicked off his curly-toed slippers. Pants followed, his shirt, his boxers, and he felt a fleeting moment’s shyness, because he’d never been naked in front of Nikolai before, never had the time, everything always so hurried between them—but Nikolai was naked too, he held out his hands to George and then they were in each other’s arms again, tumbling on the mattress. “Nik—” George began, but Nikolai stopped his mouth with a fierce kiss.
He kissed George hungrily, insistently, wrapping his arms around George’s neck and pulling him in close. He wrapped his legs around George’s waist, too, urging him in. That little gasp he gave when George entered him, funny how some things never changed.
They had never fucked face to face before, though.
George kept on kissing Nikolai at first, never wanted to stop kissing him, but he ran out of air and had to break the kiss to draw in deep gasping breaths. Their eyes caught, and George cupped Nikolai’s face in his hands, and Nikolai let out another little gasp and closed his eyes.
But after a moment his eyes opened again, and he and George gazed into each other’s eyes, panting together, rocking together, the intimacy almost unbearable and yet too sweet to break. Nikolai’s thighs tightened around George’s waist, urging him on, his fingers digging into George’s scalp as George caught his hips and fucked him hard, desperate to come before the eye contact became unbearable and he had to look away.
They came together, fierce and hot and hard. George collapsed on top of Nikolai. He felt more than heard Nikolai’s exhalation when George slipped out of him, sighed himself when Nikolai unlatched his thighs from around George’s waist, let his arms slip from around George’s neck. Nikolai stretched his arms above his head, lean and strong, and George kissed his exposed armpit and Nikolai laughed and shoved him away.
It wasn’t a serious shove. George slid only partway off, one arm still slung across Nikolai’s chest, one leg hooked between his thighs. Nikolai stretched out his arms again, groping till he caught the corner of one of the fleece reindeer blankets, and he tugged it over them against the slight chill of the attic. Lazily he asked George, “How much do you think it costs to heat this place?”
“The blood of many workers,” George intoned, which didn’t exactly make sense, but did make Nikolai smack him with a penguin pillow.
The smack was even less coordinated than the shove. Nikolai dropped the pillow afterward, and George tucked it underneath his own head. He tugged Nikolai against him, and Nikolai nestled close, and this too was new, and nice, and made George feel strange and shy and sleepy.
He tried to fight the sleepiness, but the days when he could stay up all night without consequences were long past. George found himself dozing, and jerked back awake. Nikolai mumbled against his skin, shifting his grip so it was just a little more secure, and George was drifting again. And it was all right, he thought, vague and confused. He’d wake up if Nikolai tried to leave. Nikolai couldn’t get away when they were tangled up together like this. It was all right to sleep…
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