Eve nodded again. “I’ll m-m-m—” The word wouldn’t come out at all, even when she pounded the floor. She let it go in a hiss, and then said, “Shit,” loudly. The first time Eve had ever sworn in her life, and it released the tight knots in her throat.
Lili’s turn to nod. “Have another cigarette, and let’s talk practicalities. A man who takes a virgin for a mistress will either wish to train her to his standards, or wish her to remain passive and innocent as he does the work. You will have to pay close attention and follow his lead. But there are things one can do that will please any man . . .” She detailed a few of them, gentle but specific, and Eve took in as much as she could, cheeks burning. Will I have to do that? And that?
To keep her job at Le Lethe, yes. She would do all of it.
Seeing Eve’s queasiness, Lili patted her hand. “Just notice what pleases him, and keep doing it. That’s really what it’s all about. Now, do you have any idea how to prevent yourself from becoming enceinte?”
“Yes.” Eve had a sharp memory, at twelve years old, of coming on her mother in the washroom late at night rinsing herself out between the legs. There had been a tube, a rubber bag. I don’t want any more of that bastard’s babies, she’d snarled, jerking her chin toward the bedroom where Eve’s father snored. Eve remained an only child; her mother’s washing must have worked.
“Nothing works perfectly,” Lili said as though reading Eve’s mind. “So be careful. No one wants a pregnant spy. That will land you home in England, and quickly, given that no one in Lille will treat you well for becoming pregnant by a collaborator.”
So many grim thoughts. Eve pushed them away for a practical question of her own. “Have you ever had to—do this?”
“There’s been a German sentry or two who wanted to see me on my knees before I got a pass through the checkpoint.”
Eve wouldn’t have been sure what that meant ten minutes ago. Now, thanks to Lili’s blunt tutorial, she had a much better idea. She looked at Lili, unable to imagine her kneeling down, reaching for a man’s buttons, and . . . “How—was it?”
“Salty,” Lili said, and smiled at Eve’s blank look. “Never mind, chérie.” Her smile faded, and they regarded each other with grim faces.
Eve tipped her head back toward the ceiling, drawing another deep lungful of smoke. She decided she liked smoking. If she ended up with another tight-mouthed landlady with boardinghouse rules about cigarettes, well, she could go to hell. “Lili, why don’t they tell us it could b-be like this? All that training in Folkestone; there’s n-n-n-not a hint we’d face anything like this.”
“Because they don’t know. And if you’re clever, you won’t tell them.” Lili looked very serious. “Do what you must, but don’t tell Captain Cameron or Major Allenton or any of the others we report to.”
The thought of telling Captain Cameron she went to a collaborator’s bed to get information made Eve cringe. “I wouldn’t tell any of them!”
“Good. Because they won’t trust you if they find out.”
Of all the things discussed tonight, that was the one to leave Eve astonished. “W-why not?”
“Men are strange creatures.” The twist on Lili’s smile wasn’t amusement. “If a woman surrenders her virtue to an enemy, they are confident her patriotism can’t be far behind. They have very little faith in any woman’s ability to resist falling in love with a man who beds her. Besides, a horizontale isn’t respectable, and a spy’s business is already disreputable enough. We can’t bring shame on our country by staining our reputations—if we’re to engage in espionage, we must do it as ladies.”
“Rubbish,” Eve said flatly, and Lili smiled.
“Oh, it is, little daisy. It is. But do you want to be yanked out of Lille because they believe your soft little head has been all muddled by a handsome collaborator?”
Eve tapped ash off her cigarette, stomach rolling all over again. “Would Captain Cameron really think that of me?”
“Maybe not. He’s a decent chap, as you English like to say. But I’ve heard other English officers say such things before about women like us.”
“Shit,” Eve said again. The swearing, like the smoking, was getting easier. She looked up at Lili, who gazed down with a smile Eve couldn’t interpret. Practicality, sorrow, pride?