Chapter 9 – Chapter 9

July 21, 1944

Men from the SS were swarming through the entrance of the Ritz Paris into the cavernous lobby, with small teams of men peeling off in several different directions. An SS captain marched up to the reception desk.

"Are the German residents General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the military commander of Paris, and his liaison, Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, still registered here and on the premises?" the officer demanded in a booming voice.

Paul, who was coming down the stairs at the time, with Antoine behind him, froze. The SS officer was Captain Garren von Kaube. He hadn't told Paul he was coming back to Paris. In fact, he'd told Paul he wasn't coming back to Paris. And Paul had believed him this time. When Garren had left for Berlin the last time, he'd taken the sketch of Paul with him.

"Come back up the stairs and across to the rue Cambon side of the hotel," Antoine whispered insistently in Paul's ear. "Go to the bar and tell Frank Valkyrie has been compromised."

"What? Valkyrie?" Paul asked, dumbly, not able to take his eyes off Garren. He was within two days of leaving Paris to use the passes Garren had given him to go to him to Berlin. But Garren was here. As an SS officer. Evidently to arrest other German officers both he and Paul had socialized with here at the Ritz.

"I'll tell you later, if there's a later," Antoine hissed. "I can't go. They can't find Frank and me together. Now go. Do this to prove I can trust you."

Not taking his eyes off Garren until he had turned in the curve the staircase, Paul moved quickly through the labyrinth of halls of the old hotel that he had come to know so well and to the more modern wing off the street behind the Place Vendôme.

"Thank you," Frank said calmly when Paul passed on the message from Antoine at the rue Cambon bar. He continued polishing the glass he was holding, but Paul could see his hand tremble a bit and the muscles of his neck tense up.

"You'd best go to your room now. Stay out of this," Meier said.

Garren was in the room when Paul got there. "I didn't know you were coming," Paul said, trying to contain his mix of concern and joy.

"There's been an attempt on the Führer's life," Garren said. "We are after the conspirators in Paris—here, at the Ritz. I can only stay an hour while my men search for them." He was stripping off his uniform.

He fucked Paul in hard, strong strokes, with the two facing each other on the bed, Garren's knees pushed under Paul's buttocks and Paul's legs wrapped around Garren's hips. Paul's torso was arched back, his face toward the ceiling, his arms dangling from his side in supplication, moaning and crying out in pained ecstasy, as, arms embracing Paul under the small of his back, Garren slammed his cock hard and deep up into Paul's passage, again and again and again. He fucked Paul in anger at the crumbling of his world. An SS Gestapo captain at war, taking no prisoners. Continuing to piston hard and deep long after Paul had come and totally surrendered.

After the SS captain had come in a hot flow, he let Paul's body fall back on the bed in a heap. Paul watched through mournful eyes, not bothering to move his limbs from where they had fallen, while, without a word, Garren quickly dressed back in his uniform and walked out of the room.

Two days later, Paul received an abject apology in terse words in a telegram from Berlin from Garren. Not from the SS Gestapo captain this time, but from the Garren Paul was in love with. Garren had been overwrought with the situation he wrote in a form of code—not just with the assassination attempt on Hitler but also with the number of high-ranking military men, many of whom were known and had been respected by Garren, who were implicated in the plot—including here at the Ritz. And he'd had to arrest some who had been friends of his. And who knew whether he would be implicated at some time as well? He had known nothing about the plot, but he had been here. He was just sorry that he had taken his anger and frustration out on Paul. He never would do that again, he declared. The telegram ended in the words that had come increasingly easy to Von Kaube: "Ich liebe dich."

Paul couldn't bring himself to believe that Garren would never be violent like that again—and on some level, Paul melted to the violence in Garren. Paul gloried in being fucked roughly. He couldn't deny that Garren was two very different men, however. The intensity and brutality with which Garren had taken him two days previously had been no different in anger, force, and control than the double-penetration fuck of the two soldiers at Claude's brothel Garren had shot.

It didn't make a bit of difference that Paul had loved it. He was confused. He put his trip east on hold.

* * * *