The Information Officer

CARMELA CASSAR HAD SOBBED AND SQUIRMED AND struggled the moment the sedative had worn off. Lilian, on the other hand, just lay there on the table, inert, denying him any satisfaction. Or so she thought. She wasn’t to know that it didn’t matter to him either way. If anything, her self-possession was a welcome challenge. It gave him something to work with.

He rose from the chair and approached the table.

She was spread-eagled on her back, her wrists and ankles lashed to the four legs. The gag and the blindfold were the same ones he had used on Carmela.

She flinched when he placed his hand on her chest, assuming that he was feeling for her breast.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Not yet.”

He was feeling for her heart. Again, he was impressed. It wasn’t thumping away beneath her rib cage, betraying her apparent composure.

“I’m beginning to understand what Max sees in you.”

She didn’t like the mention of Max. The thought of him upset her. It showed in her face.

He smiled, sensing an opening. She might be able to close down her body, but she couldn’t shut off her ears.

“He has a certain quality about him, doesn’t he? Oh, I’m not talking about the good looks—those will fade with time. It’s something else, something more lasting. Men feel it too. He’s not a threat to men. Maybe that’s what it is. He doesn’t try to impose himself on people. He’s not looking to prove anything.”

He lit a cigarette. Rather than blowing out the match, he held it close to her thigh—absently, almost without thinking—the flame licking at the skin just below the hem of her black skirt. Her leg jerked, twisting away from the heat. He dropped the match onto the floor.

“You have great legs, you know? They’re not quite as long as Mitzi’s, but your breasts are larger. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m forgetting, you don’t know about Mitzi, do you? I can’t imagine Max has told you about her. Why would he?”

All the while, he was searching her body for signs.

“I’m not sure you would like her. She’s very different from you. Not unintelligent, but frivolous, unreliable. Flighty—that’s the word I’m looking for.”

Still no reaction.

“Why he needs her in his life as well as you, I don’t know.”

The sinews stood out in her slender arms as she clenched her fists.

“The truth is often unkind. But it is what it is, and we just have to put up with it. In the grand scheme of things, a man torn between two women is hardly news, especially if he’s sleeping with only one of them.” He paused to allow his words to sink in. “He was with her three nights ago. I saw him go in and I saw him come out, and at one o’clock in the morning I don’t think they were playing backgammon.”

Lilian was visibly upset now, doing her best to hide it.

“Maybe with time he would have told you about her. Between you and me, I think he would have. Sadly, we’ll never know.”