Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Karl was snoring.

Nick left the office that evening at seven on the dot. He hurried up the Bahnhofstrasse to the Paradeplatz, hoping to catch the next tram. A light snow was falling, and tonight it made Zurich the prettiest city in the world. His step was light and energetic, buoyed by a sense of purpose he hadn’t known since his first day at the bank eight weeks ago. He passed the tram stop that would take him to his grim apartment in the USB Personalhaus and crossed the square, arriving just in time to board the number two, heading in the opposite direction.

Nick chose a seat near the doorway and settled in for the short ride. He repeated Sylvia’s address in his head as the tram bucked and jostled its way up the Universitatstrasse. He hoped she wouldn’t mind his showing up unannounced—if she was even home. He had tried to call her earlier, but her assistant had said she would be out for the day. A rush of well-being came over him, and he smiled. He didn’t know why he felt so exhilarated. Maybe part of it was because he had pulled off his petty theft; maybe part because he was keeping his word, taking concrete steps to make amends for his poor conduct. Whatever the reason, he felt alive and vital—full of piss and vinegar, his father would have said—and he needed to see Sylvia. He needed to see someone who understood the foreign world into which he had delivered himself.

Nick arrived at the top of Frohburgstrasse twenty minutes later and caught his first glimpse of Sylvia’s apartment. A light was burning in her window. He had a hard time keeping himself from running the short distance to her doorway. Two weeks ago, he’d asked himself what it was about her that he found so attractive and he hadn’t been able to fashion an answer. Yet tonight, he knew it without thinking. She was the first person he’d ever met who kept a tighter rein on her life than he kept on his. For once, he could be the one to let go, to be a little crazy, even whimsical, and relax doing it, knowing that she was in control. It was a role he’d never played before, and he liked it. Then, of course, there was the sex. He didn’t like to admit it, but at first he had enjoyed the taboo implicit in seducing his older female superior. And he thought she did, too. When he was with her, the whole world stopped turning. Everything beyond their immediate periphery ceased to exist. She made him feel complete.

Nick reached the entry to her apartment and pressed the call button. He prayed Sylvia would be at home. He felt too good to be left alone on a Friday night. He tapped his foot nervously. Come on, answer, he said to himself. Open the goddamned door. He pressed the buzzer again, and his spirits began to fade. He took a step back. A voice came from the intercom. “Who is it?”

Nick felt his heart skip a beat. He was nervous and excited at the same time. “It’s Nick. Let me in.”

“Nick? Are you all right?”

He laughed. She was probably wondering if he was as frazzled as he’d been that Friday night not so long past. “Yes, of course.”

The door buzzed and he rushed inside the apartment. He took the stairs two at a time, forgetting all about his sore knee. He just wanted to see Sylvia. She was waiting for him at the door as he came down the final few stairs. She was wearing a white terry-cloth bathrobe, toweling her hair dry. He stopped for a second to stare at her. Her skin was flushed from hot water. Her face was damp and moist. He walked slowly the last few steps, feeling like he needed her more than he’d needed anyone else before in his life. Not knowing why and not caring.

“I was just in the bath. You sur—”

Nick slid an arm inside her bathrobe and drew her toward him. He kissed her firm and hard on the lips. She resisted, trying to wedge a hand in between them. He wrapped his other arm around her back and held her tighter. She relaxed, allowing her head to fall back and opening her mouth to taste him. She moaned. He closed his eyes and drifted to a warm place.

Nick released her and they stepped into the apartment. He shut the door and pulled back to stare into her soft brown eyes. He saw a flicker somewhere inside them, and he knew she was asking herself what he was doing there, why he had kissed her like that. He expected her to speak, maybe even to tell him to get out, but instead she remained silent, standing inches away from him. He could feel the warmth of her body and her slow, heavy breathing. She raised a finger to his lips and brushed it slowly across them. He grew aroused. She turned and led him by the hand down the corridor and into her bedroom. She pushed him down onto the bed and peeled the bathrobe back from her shoulders, allowing it to drop to the floor. He looked at her nude body. He longed to run his hand along every curve, wanted to brush his lips across her stomach and then lower. He lifted his hands and cupped her breasts, running a thumb around her nipples until they hardened. Her breathing slowed and grew shallow. She reached down and touched him, rubbing her hand back and forth over the swelling in his trousers. Then she lowered herself to her knees, and ran her face back and forth across him. She pushed his jacket from his shoulders, then anxiously unbuckled his belt and pulled down his trousers. She caressed him for a moment, her tongue tasting him, then took him into her mouth.

Nick watched her, his pleasure forcing his hips off the bed. He wanted her to take more of him, all of him. He wanted to be inside her, to hold her next to him, to share the same breath.

Sylvia released him and climbed onto the bed. She straddled him, guiding him slowly into her, taking him out, then bringing him in deeper. Her eyes were closed and she moaned each time he touched her. Nick held on to the bed, balling up the sheets in the palms of his hands. He struggled to breathe slower, to feel less. Finally, she lowered herself onto him and shuddered. Nick sat up and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her ravenously. Her mouth was hot and wet with desire. His entire body stiffened, and when he could hold back no longer, he let himself go, arching his back and thrusting himself deep into her. She lowered her head to her chest and her body quaked, an uneven humming drifting from her mouth. Her tremors increased and she laid both hands on his chest, breathing heavily. Then suddenly her body relaxed. She exhaled loudly, then fell onto the bed.

Sylvia lay down beside him. After a while her breathing calmed and she laughed huskily. She raised herself on an elbow and ran a cool nail down his chest. “Better get some rest, Tiger. We have the whole weekend to get through.”

Sterling Thorne could not erase the grin from his face. He knew he must look like an idiot, smiling and laughing like a six-year-old boy, but he couldn’t help it. He was reading the text of the charges that had been filed against First Lieutenant Nicholas Neumann USMCR for the first time in its entirety. And he was enjoying it. One section was of particular interest, and this he read again and again.

“… whereby defendant did willfully and with malice aforethought batter the plaintiff. Said plaintiff did suffer severe bruising to the lower back and hip, two ruptured disks at the 14th and 15th vertebrae, a class-one subdural hematoma, gross swelling of the testicles and concomitant edema.”

That last one made Thorne fidget in his chair. “Gross swelling of the testicles and concomitant edema.” Old Jack Keely had got himself a thorough going-over; his back was half broken, his skull near fractured, and worst, his balls had been throttled so hard they were swollen the size of grapefruits. Not only that, the fucker’s cojones were leaking.

Thorne flipped to the next page, and then back again. Nowhere in the file did it specify the reason for the attack. Nowhere did it say what had gotten Neumann so riled at this man Keely, whom the record listed as a “civilian defense contractor.” Read “spook,” Thorne corrected.