Beauty and the Beast

Assistant Secretary

I usually could estimate what time you would  roll off of me for good every night. Despite your 38 years, you had an overpoweringly voracious sexual appetite, which for some reason your wife clearly couldn't satisfy. You also weren't content with the standard missionary position, preferring to rotate between a variety of poses. Later on, that detail would amuse me whenever I would see you at the podium giving one of your rare speeches--the Reichsprotektor, who was so feared throughout Bohemia and Moravia, hated the thing called routine when it came to sex.

It was about 3 in the morning when you finally rolled off of me for the last time, pulling me against you so that my back was flush against your chest, which was now slick with a thin sheen of sweat. You would always place your chin on my shoulder like we were lovers of some sort, and I had to force myself to ignore the ragged pants that would fill my ears for the next five minutes or so as you struggled to catch your breath.

We never talked after you were done using my body. You would either put a bathrobe on and go take a shower, leaving me with instructions to clean the room and make it spotless, or you would throw the sheets over your naked body and go to sleep that way, snapping at me to put my clothes on and "get my ass out of your room."

Tonight, however, was different. You held me close to you for a lot longer than usual, and although that made my heart race more than usual, I chalked it up to the fact that you had enjoyed yourself more thoroughly than the previous nights, nothing more.

So it surprised me when you swept my hair away from the side of my face, put your lips to my ear and began to talk to me.

"Aren't you bored, all alone in that storage room?"

"Ja, Herr Heydrich." I stuck with formal ways of addressing you, since I had never had to address you anyway. But apparently, formality when you were most vulnerable didn't please you.

"Reinhard," you said. "Ich heiß Reinhard."

The idea of being on first name basis with you disgusted me, but the last thing I wanted was to argue with you. I had never tried it; I didn't want to try it.

"Wouldn't the idea of having an actual job, having a little something to do during the day, interest you?" you continued. I could hear the sardonic tone in your voice, hear you smiling.

"Yes."

"Yes...?"

"Yes, Reinhard." I prayed my voice wouldn't betray how disgusted I felt saying your name.

"Well, it's your lucky day, then. I've decided to employ you as my assistant secretary."

My eyes widened. I was so surprised I actually turned to face you. "What?"

"Spontaneous, are we not?" You let me go, which only shocked me more, and propped yourself up on one elbow, staring up at me with your emotionless blue eyes. "Yes, my dear, from tomorrow, consider yourself not only my personal whore, but a cog, albeit an insignificant one, in the machinery that is the RSHA."

Your "personal whore," was that it? Was I so far gone that I was nothing but an object, a human shaped vessel for you to come into? This "assistant secretary" job was nothing but a sham, a puppet position that I would later discover was so that you could keep a closer eye on me.

"My, my, where have your manners gone? Are you Czechs so Untermensch that you can't express gratitude when it's appropriate to do so? I'm disappointed in you, Sophie," you said as you rose to your knees, shoving my  face into the pillows.

You clearly weren't done with me at 3 in the morning, Reinhard. You went for another round that lasted another half hour before you rolled off of me and threw me out of your room amid strings of curses.