The brush crackled through Eve’s hair. “I know you aren’t one to have your head turned easily, which is why I thought you could take such a step without compromising yourself. But such things can become more complicated than we anticipate. Are you developing a tendresse for him?”
“No.” A bitter shake of Eve’s head. “Never in this wide world.”
“Good. If I thought you were becoming conflicted, I’d have to report it. And I would,” Lili said evenly, continuing to stroke the brush through Eve’s hair. “I’m terribly fond of you, but the work is too important to compromise. So if it’s not a tendresse, what makes you so ashamed?”
Eve forced her burning eyes open, meeting Lili’s gaze in the mirror. “The first f-few times I went to bed with him, p-p-pleasure wasn’t—required.” Or even expected. “Now . . .”
Now, however, Eve had had time to grow accustomed to what happened in the crisp, immaculate bed. And René Bordelon had high standards in bedmates, as he did in everything else. Pleasure was expected. Giving it and getting it.
That had led to something utterly unimaginable.
“Tell me.” Lili sounded matter-of-fact. “Not much shocks me, you may be sure of that.”
“I am starting to enjoy it,” Eve said, and squeezed her eyes shut again.
The long brushstrokes never stopped.
“I despise him.” Eve managed to keep her voice steady. “So how can I possibly take pleasure in what he d-d-d—in what he does to m-m—” The word wouldn’t come. Eve let it die.
“He must be good at it,” Lili said.
“He’s the enemy.” Eve realized she was trembling all over. Rage or shame or disgust; she didn’t know. “There are collaborators in this city one can p-pity—women who sleep with officers so they can feed their families; men who work for the Germans so they can keep their children warm. But René Bordelon is nothing but a profiteer. He’s almost as bad as the Huns.”
“Maybe so,” Lili said. “But lovemaking is a skill like any other, you know. A bad man can be a good carpenter or a good hatmaker or a good lover. The skill has nothing to do with the soul.”
“Oh, Lili—” Eve rubbed at her temples. “You sound so F-French.”
“Yes, and a Frenchwoman is exactly the person to talk to about such things.” Lili straightened Eve’s head toward the mirror. “So, Monsieur Profiteer is good at what he does between the sheets, and you are feeling guilty for enjoying yourself?”
Eve thought of René decanting a fine wine and inhaling the bouquet, René tipping an oyster down his throat in a lingering motion. “He’s a sophisticate. Whether he’s enjoying a glass of Bordeaux or a fine cigar or—or me, he takes his t-time getting it right.”
“A physical response to skill,” Lili said rather carefully, “is not a mark of what is happening in the head or the heart, you know.”
“A physical response unrelated to the head or the heart is what m-marks a whore.” Eve said it brutally.
“Oh, pish. That sounds like someone’s provincial aunt talking. Never listen to people like that, little daisy. They’re not only joyless drones, they usually wear chintz and think housework is a virtue.”
“I still feel like a whore,” Eve whispered.
Lili stopped brushing, and rested her chin atop Eve’s head. “I imagine it was your mother who told you a woman who enjoys a man when he isn’t her husband is a slut?”
“Something like th-that.” Eve found it hard to disagree with such a statement. She looked at René with nothing but dislike—how was it that his patient, innovative, cold-skinned hands could evoke anything even remotely pleasurable? “Ordinary women wouldn’t feel this,” she began, but Lili waved a hand.
“If we were ordinary, we’d be at home reusing our tea leaves and rolling bandages to support the war effort, not carrying Lugers and smuggling coded messages around our hairpins. Steel blades such as you and I do not measure against the standards for ordinary women.” Lili lifted her chin from the top of Eve’s head. “Listen to me. I am older than you, and considerably wiser. Believe me when I say it is entirely possible to despise a man and still enjoy him between the sheets. Merde,