December 5^th, 1998 – Yes, She’s Still In The Promethean Research Organisation Facility, But This Time It’s Level B6. That’s the lowest one.

This was finally it. Agent Sofiya Sokolov was being taken to the lowest level of the facility.

The night had been a little warmer, but her companion was sorely missed. She tried not to think about what had happened, and instead directed her energies to worrying about how she was going to get both of them out of here. Where she’d been moved to was anyone’s guess in this vile centre of counterrevolutionary terrors.

The B6 level had it’s own large waiting room set up with a security checkpoint. She could hear thumping and some form of music coming from the room beside her, albeit faintly.

“Hands above your head,” said one of the guards.

She complied with the request, and he began patting her down. He made his way down to her legs, and started hesitating a little. Another guard walked in from behind.

“Did you find the radio transmitter in the room?” said the first.

“No, it’s not there. We’ve been informed she might be storing it on her person.”

She’d expected this would happen. Hanna may still being interrogated. There was no telling how much intelligence she’d already spilled. She felt a spike of anxiety. If they had a leak, then the rational thing to do was to plug it. An escape would be difficult; extracting an unwilling person would be even harder.

She held onto a faint glimmer of hope that her friend was still in there, somewhere deep down. She had to be. If she could just get her back home, then Hanna could be taken to an MVD reeducation camp and…

“On her person?” said the junior guard.

“… inside her person. Private, I order you to check.”

The junior guard gulped, and then pulled away Sofiya’s outer layer. The effect that her body had on the young man was pronounced. It was clear he’d never seen somebody who kept their body in peak physical condition before. He may not have ever seen a woman naked before.

“I don’t know what it is you think you’re going to find in – ooooh”, she said as his fingers shyly slipped inside and started feeling around.

“I don’t… I don’t think there’s anything here, sir,” he said, almost choking on the words.

“Oh you incompetent fool, stand back,” said the ranking officer.

He knelt down and took the other man’s place.

“Let’s see here,” he said, and then gave it a shot himself.

Sofiya bit her lip. He was far more assertive with his cavity search. The man pulled his hand out, and seemed surprised by how lubricated it was.

“I bet you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he continued. “Well, if there’s nothing in there, maybe it’s somewhere nearby.”

Sofiya wasn’t like that. She wasn’t the kind of person who got turned on by things like that. Was she?

Sofiya relaxed her muscles for the incoming probe. She still let out a little whimper as his finger began exploring her arse aggressively. He checked every inch of her several times, delighting in her reactions. The man had an air of casual cruelty about him; Sofiya suspected this wasn’t the first time he’d drawn out a search like this. Eventually the very thin pretence was in danger of collapsing completely, and he pulled out as abruptly as he’d entered.

“Harumph! She’s clean,” he said.

Sofiya was no amateur. At the first opportunity after she got sent back to her cell, she gave the transmitter it to one of the lonelier cell block guards in exchange for certain favours. Even with the mind blowing orgasm she gave him, she couldn’t fully trust him to keep his end of the deal and take it above ground, but the risk of Hanna spilling the caviar on their plan was too high to hang onto it. She was going to need to have a little bit of faith in her sexual prowess.

They did not take her through the main entrance; they hurried her into some kind of backstage area, where a team of women applied makeup and fussed over her hair before she was coerced into a new ensemble – an elegant but fashionable white dress that plunged just enough to make use of her ample cleavage and was cut high enough to show off her legs in the heels they forced her into. Sofiya begged them to at least make her lips red; one of the women took pity and obliged.

“There, now you look like a proper lady,” said one of the women, giggling.

“More like a very expensive prostitute,” said the senior guard.

Sofiya didn’t want to look like a “proper lady” or an expensive prostitute! An affordable and accessible prostitute perhaps; a prostitute of the people. Just what in Stalin’s name were they up to this time?

* * *

The main room wasn’t large – it was huge. There was tiered seating for three-hundred and twenty-four people opposite a respectable stage. That wasn’t even counting the booth, an ostentatious space presumably to house disgusting plutocrats and important officials as they observed whatever horrifying events were to take place here. It was easily 3.14 times the total area of the floor above. It was taller, wider and longer.

There were sound technicians setting up on stage sporadically playing small samples of music. Agent Sokolov paused for a little too long, and one of the guards smacked her arse to keep her moving.

On the far side, there was another entrance – seemingly another elevator. She ran through the blueprints in her mind, and realised that it would probably take you up close to the airfield. Sofiya was herded into another spot where they apparently wanted her to stand witness to the important arrival.

Over the next ten minutes, more and more people crowded into the room. Many of them were Poles, some that she’d seen here before, but also Europeans of other stripes, too. Some wore their national colours – Romanians, Czechoslovaks, Hungarians and more. Most of them were directed into the seating, and they looked very excited to be here. Sofiya felt dejected seeing this on such a scale; men and women enthusiastically embracing their capitalo-national-papist indoctrination. What could the purpose of this event be? Was this some kind of celebration of their success?

Pride of place was reserved for a group of important looking middle aged people – mostly men – who positively stank of the affluence and the ill-gotten gains endemic to their class.

A team of women ran past her hurriedly in their clacky high-heeled shoes, carrying a large roll of red carpet. Sofiya raised an eyebrow. They unfurled it front of the mysterious elevator.

Sofiya had been taught that in the West, red carpet was an important signifier, a sign of respect reserved for only the most popular rock-stars or visits by heads of state. Back home, of course, all carpet was red, because the communist system respected all citizens equally.

The lights above the elevator lit up, and the room quietened down in anticipation.

It dinged. Out marched four of the most strangely dressed men she had ever seen – and she’d been briefed on the Milan Fashion Week. They were dressed in a similar shade of bright red to the carpet, with black pants and perfectly shined shoes. Their heads bore outrageously tall fur hats that must have at least partially obscured their vision. The old-fashioned military uniforms were contrasted against the modern and sophisticated assault rifles they held. They marched in perfect synchronisation forward, as trumpeters began an awful racket. Sofiya blocked her ears.

The guards split ranks, and another figure emerged from between them. He was a middle aged man, but handsome, clean shaven, and dressed in a finely tailored suit. He smiled wryly as he entered. He was flanked by a pair of people who were presumably assistants or servants.

Behind them, an elegant and rather attractive brunette woman of perhaps thirty years followed with an expression that screamed ‘the people in this room are beneath me’. She was followed by her own strange posse. Sofiya could have sworn looked like Russians from their clothing. More traitors, she thought.

The trumpets stopped, and Sofiya lowered her hands.

“His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales Duke of Rothesay,” one of the musicians bellowed. A kilted man nodded appreciatively at the mention of the latter title.

For the nth time this week, Sofiya gasped. She was looking at none other than Prince George – the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom. The British were the fiercest, most duplicitous and by far the most evil enemies of the Russian people and the Revolution.

The prince waved, and the room erupted into cheers. Sofiya couldn’t believe that these ordinary people, these workers and peasants could cheer for someone like that. An exploiter. A cruel and callous unelected leader for whom they were mere pawns in the great speed-chess tournament of life. Stalin forgive them, she thought. They know not what they do.

The procession made it’s way up to the booth, and was joined first by the rich and powerful crowd she’d spotted earlier, and then, to her surprise, by her own group. Two of the Polish guards held her arms firmly, knowing that they were deadly weapons in their own right.

The booth was luxurious; bear skin rugs, fine leather chairs, an exquisite chandelier, a table full of expensive glassware and champagne. The Prince turned away from a chat he was having with a short, bald mustachioed man when she entered. He lingered his gaze on her for just a moment longer than was appropriate.

His attendant, a preposterously British man standing behind him, whispered something in his ear. His face lit up, and he stepped towards her.

“Ah, the scum of the earth, I believe,” he said in a friendly tone of voice, bowing his head slightly towards Sofiya.

“The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume,” she shot back in a mock English accent that, upon reflection, was really quite substandard. She made a mental note to run through the verbal sparring and foreign accents training course again when she returned to Moscow.

“I’m so pleased you could join us,” the Prince said. “It is most fitting that we have a representative of the Soviet Union to witness today’s test.”

“So, you’re the one behind all this,” said Sofiya, as guards tightened their grip on her.

“Guilty as charged, I’m afraid,” he said.

“When I saw the Americans here, I should have known that the rest of their Anglosaksy pets wouldn’t be far behind,” she said.

“Oh yes, the Colonials. Jolly good people, yes. But I’m afraid you’ve got this all around the wrong way. I don’t mean I’m in charge of this facility. I am not taking orders from anyone.”

Sofiya was taken aback. Surely he couldn’t mean that literally.

“I find that hard to believe,” she said. “Britain has been playing second fiddle to the United States since The Great Patriotic War. If you’re here, then it is at their behest. And you assuredly have the consent of your parliament to be here.”

The Prince guffawed, and so did all of the dignitaries surrounding him. They laughed, and laughed, like as the funniest joke they’d heard all week. Apparently, this preposterous nonsense was common knowledge among western elites.

“No my dear, you really are a fool. But I can’t blame you – you’re from a country of naive fools. Parliament handles the day to day affairs, my dear, but loyalty to the crown is the true guiding principle of the nation. Not just the British nation, but the American one, too.”

“But… that’s absurd… the revolution?” she said, dumbfounded.

“A true masterstroke, my delectable Soviet seductress,” he said. “You see, when the British Empire grew too large and powerful, we risked uniting the world against us. But an ‘independent’ America? Now that would have a clean slate to expand and grow it’s power, free of all that baggage. Oh of course, we pretended to have a few tiffs every now and again. The star spangled banner and all that. But we’ve been pursuing the same agenda ever since.”

“This whole time… the cold war…” she muttered. The Prince’s foot guards made sure to stay between them, evidently not trusting the Polish guards based on their recent track record.

He smiled Britishly.

“Of course there were a few Americans who discovered the truth and tried to rebel against it. We had to take out old Lyndon when he started making a fuss.”

“You were behind the assassination of President Lyndon B. Johnson?!” Sofia exclaimed.

“Oh heavens no. We killed Lyndon LaRouche,” he said.

“Oh,” she replied. "Understandable.”

“But oh dear, my manners are getting away from me,” he said. He raised a glass and began tapping on the side to gather everyone’s attention. “I have an introduction to make!”

The small crowd looked on with interest as he walked over to the elegant woman he’d entered with.

“May I present to you the most beautiful woman in all the lands – Grand Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova of Russia. Rightful heir to the throne of the Russian Empire – and my bride to be.”

[Translator’s Note: Titles used by Russian royalty do not neatly map to equivalent titles in English. The use of Grand Princess and Grand Duchess for the children of the Tsars are both attested in English language sources, but refer to a single common Russian title, Velikaya Knyazhna. To preserve some subtleties of the original text, I have chosen to render it sometimes one way, and sometimes the other as appropriate.]

This time, Sofiya was not alone in gasping. The room exploded in quiet murmurs.

“That’s… impossible…” was all Sofiya could manage. “She- she died! She was killed during the revolution!”

“That disgusting peasant rabble did not manage to finish the job,” the woman replied scornfully. “Though they did wipe out most of my family. An act their descendants will rue.”

“But Anastasia would be… she would be nearly one hundred years old?!”

“I admit, she looks fantastic for her age,” said the Prince. “Would that I could age half as gracefully,” he said, smiling and kissing her hand. She fanned herself and giggled.

“How could you expect anyone to believe this?” Sofiya said.

The European dignitaries looked intrigued, but no less confused than she was.

“Silence this peasant worm, my love. She knows not how to speak to her betters,” the gorgeous Grand Princess purred to her doting Duke.

“Patience, my little fabergé egg. Soon she will come to see things very differently.”

“This is absurd. Actually everything here is absurd, but this, in particular, is especially absurd. This woman is obviously an impostor!” said Sofiya.

“Au contraire, my little red thorn,” the Prince began. “In 1944, an American cargo aircraft traversing the arctic crash landed in the far north of Russia. They made an incredible discovery – a girl, perfectly preserved in the ice. When the crew was rescued, they brought this discovery with them back to the United States. The technology to safely unfreeze her didn’t exist for several decades. But as you can see – the results were as flawless as the woman herself,” he said.

Anastasia basked in the praise.

“There are still many Russians who support the monarchy, within Russia and in the émigré community. Whites, Cossacks, Kulaks and all manner of malcontents,” he continued. The Russian traitors all raised their glasses and waved.

Kulaks. The word rolled around in Sofiya’s mind, making her angrier and angrier. The bulwark and hope of the counter-revolution. The lowest form of human life – lower even than the fascist or the mime. No man could be trusted with more than three hectares of farmland. If someone managed four, or even – Third International forbid – five hectares, they inevitably began working towards the destruction of the communist way of life.

“But we have not come here to spar with the likes of you,” the Prince said. We have come here for a demonstration!”

The Prince snapped his fingers and the bald man with the moustache bowed, then picked up a suitcase from under the nearby table. He clicked it open one lock at a time then presented it to the prince.

“Marvellous, positively spiffy,” the global number one enemy of the people said. “Have you ever seen anything like it? That is really just the biscuit, isn’t it?”

Sofiya could barely understand what he was talking about, but there was something odd about it. It was difficult to focus on the object from that far away. She rubbed her eyes and looked around the room, but everything else was normal – it wasn’t her vision failing her.

The prince held up the object inside, and the light of the room seemed to subtly warp and shift around it as it moved. She looked even closer, and then finally realised what it was – a thick stack of bank notes. It was a kind she’d never seen before.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the European Coal and Steel commission, representatives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and their Royal Highnesses, may I present: the first prototype of the new unifying force of Europe,” said the man. His accent was difficult to place at first. It sounded almost French, but not quite. There were German influences. Then it struck her. Belgium.

The Belgians disgusted Sofiya. They always seemed so smug, and superior. An artificial country created by the stroke of a British pen to keep France away from Flanders. The worst parts of the Dutch, the French and the Germans all together in one dysfunctional nation.

A slender man beside him then spoke. She knew he was German just from the way he dressed.

“Ja, ve haff finally perfected ze recipe. Four parts Neureichsmark, three parts French Franc, two parts Dutch Gelder, a splash of Belgian Franc, und just a touch of gold-backing from ze Sviss. It is ze most powerful currency ever conceived.”

“The Europe-Dollar!” the Belgian exclaimed. “The name is not final.”

Sofiya was no economist, but even she knew this meant trouble. The European Coal and Steel Commission was the very backbone of capital in Western Europe. To be here alongside NATO and the British Crown…

“Observe, if you may, monsieurs and madames, the test subject,” the Belgian continued. His patent leather shoes were sending glare straight into her eyes, so she was grateful when he shifted position. “You may let go of her, my Polish friends, I assure you, she will be no threat.”

The man held out the strange bank notes in front of her, one at a time, letting her inspect both sides.

They were brightly coloured – not made of paper, but perhaps some type of polymer composite. She’d never seen anything like it, even disregarding the warping of space and time as they passed before her eyes.

“Why does it look like that?” she stammered.

Sofiya knew by now that they were going to do whatever they were going to do, and she had to believe in her ability to resist it. In the meantime, she needed to gather as much information as she could.

“Zat is because it ist toootally pure,” the German said. “For wide release, vee vill be needink to… how you say… ‘cut it’, with Drachma und Złoty.”

The face sides all bore famous European figures, the most respected and influential leaders from the continent’s long and storied history. Charlemagne. Napoleon. Hitler. ABBA.

“Even one such as this, who has rebuked our techniques of persuasion and control at every step will be unable to resist it’s influence,” he said. “And soon, she will happily work with us. So long as we use our little grey cells,” he said, tapping the side of his head and smirking.

“We will see about that,” said Sofiya.

“Mademoiselle,” the Belgian said, “Would you be so kind as to hop up and down on one foot. Like an adorable little bunny rabbit, no?”

Sofiya stared at him.

He pulled out one of the warping, shifting bank notes and held it in front of her body.

“And if I offered you five of these Europe-Dollars, Mademoiselle? Hop up and down on the spot until I tell you do stop.”

“I will do no such thing,” she said. “You are wasting your time.”

The room suddenly started shifting up and down.

“What…?” she managed.

“Very good, you may stop now,” the Belgian man said.

It was then she looked down and realised that it had not been the room shifting – it was her. She had been jumping up and down, exactly as the man had asked her to. Beyond minor embarrassment, the implications of her sudden outburst of leporidaeic behaviour boded very poorly for what was to come.

The onlookers were visibly impressed. He held out the money he had promised, and Sofiya snatched it up, holding it close and trying to figure out where she could stash it inside her dress. Just as a sample. To take home for analysis, she thought to herself.

“As you see, the currency creates a powerful contract between the giver and the subconscious mind of the receiver. The immense value of the currency makes it nearly impossible to resist, so long as the offer is proportional, and they believe you will hold up your end of the bargain.”

“Ask her to do more,” said the Prince enthusiastically. “Something a bit less PG certificate, old boy!”

The Belgian bowed his head, then turned to Sofiya and pulled out another, larger note.

“Forgive me for my crude request, Mademoiselle, but would you be so kind as to unburden yourself of some of those fine clothes? Perhaps you could remove them slowly, and do a little dance at the same time. As though you are trying to seduce us for one of your missions.”

She braced herself to resist the instruction, but it was futile. Her body politic moved without consulting the central committee. She flushed red with shame as she started to move.

The men – and some of the women – looked on at her hungrily as she performed her energetic striptease. She could not understand why a 20 Europe-Dollar note would be worth this indignity. She moved and writhed to an imaginary soundtrack of Russian folk music, giving little suggestive winks towards the more important looking men, and making sure that whenever she turned around, she slowed her pivot to maximise the amount of ogling one could conduct during one’s inspection of her slender-yet-busty Soviet frame.

Her seduction training had been extensive, and her body had remembered every move and technique designed by teams of Kremlin seductionologists to tease and tantalise even the most hesitant of counter-revolutionary minds. Several of the men began whistling approvingly. Anastasia looked on with concern as the Prince, too, was taken in by her taut and obviously superior physique. The alleged-Anastasia’s Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov was a little heavy on the Holstein-Gottorp.

“Stop this, stop this at once,” she wanted to say, but could not.

Instead, her sordid socialistic soliciting encouraged the Prince to come closer and offer her more money. Another five to stick a finger inside herself, which she took without blinking. A twenty to suck the cock of the Chair of the NATO Military Committee, which she guzzled like her life depended on it. It was only the beginning.

Outside, a pre-show of some kind had started behind her. Inoffensive pop music was playing, but she couldn’t stop and watch, because she had a job to do. She had five, six, seven jobs to do.

The dance that had turned into an orgy subsided, and Sofiya was a pile of shame and sweat. The Belgian, who was uninvolved in these proceedings, stood over several undignified dignitaries and handed Sofiya her hard earned hard currency. She snatched it all up and stored it in her discarded clothes like a crow banking it’s newest shiny objects in the nest.

Prince George held another stack of cash, which he must have found very amusing given the way he was chuckling to himself.

“What’s so funny?” she said.

“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just… truly it is a rich man’s world,” said the Prince.

Anastasia did not look as amused. She was taken aback by the debauchery on display. Perhaps it really is her, she thought to herself. That was how Sofiya would react if she’d fallen asleep in pure and innocent Russia and awoken sixty years later in this sordid, corrupted world.

“I grow tired of this, George,” the Grand Princess said. “Take me back to Windsor.”

“Would that I could, my wondrous Winter Palace. Alas, we’re not finished here yet,” he replied. His smile was starting to fade.

“But this is all so, so… so disgusting,” she continued.

“Anastasia, my darling. You know you mean the world to me. But you have to be more understanding of other cultures. This is all considered very normal now.”

She stomped her feet.

“Now! You will take me back now!” she said.

His frown slowly turned back into a smile as his attendant brought him a small gold bell. He took it out of his hand, held it up to frigid femme, and carefully chimed it twice.

All of the colour drained out of her face.

The Grand Duchess, last of the true Romanovs and heir to the throne of Russia dropped to her knees and started panting like a dog. She scurried around on all fours, let her tongue fall out of her mouth, and began marking the majestic monarch’s manly member through his pants.

“Not now, down, down girl,” said Prince of Wales to the future canine Queen.

One of the Princess’s own attendants, a strange man in Russian peasant clothing, came over and fastened a collar and leash to the woman, then handed it to the Prince.

“Now, you behave, and if you’re a good girl, you’ll get a treat,” he said. The Pavlovian Princess panted happily and wiggled her arse. “Forgive the interruption, my fiance is still learning her place.”

The Belgian man once again bowed deferentially, then loomed over Sofiya once more.

“You see, Mon Ami, this beautiful Russian flower has proven very resistant to nationalist indoctrination. The Americans had only a little success by appealing to a sort of internationalism, but she recognised that it was also a form of colonialism. And so, she broke free. The Italians, they appealed to her sense of higher authority, no? For a time it worked, but here she sits. The Poles, however, made another intriguing discovery.”

“And that is?”

“That this normal looking young lady, is actually… fifty-two percent lesbienne.”

“This is a lie! I am not fifty-two percent lesbienne!” she shouted. “I hate women! I don’t even like using a mirror! Give me more of your penises! I will prove it!”

“You see?” the Belgian man said. “It is precisely as they say. I believe we can break her – for good this time. Here, we will present her with a vision of a united Europe. You will play the role of higher power. And the Grand Princess, with your permission, will satisfy her more… cosmopolitan urges.”

“Intriguing, my fellow. Most intriguing,” he said, scratching his chin. “And we will pair this with the more traditional techniques?”

“But of course,” the baleful Belgian replied.

The man dropped a stack of fifties in front of Sofiya.

“You will not take your eyes off the stage until instructed to. You will make no effort to defy or resist us, and you will do your best to facilitate the sexual intercourse as instructed by His Royal Highness.”

Sofiya knew that her body was going to obey. The battle was lost. But the truth was, even her mind was putting up little resistance at this point. She was becoming accustomed to doing what these people told her to. She found herself looking forward to the monetary compensation. It was like slavery. No, it was worse than slavery – it was employment under capitalism. She was going to need a Most-Honourable-Order-of-the-Bath when they were done.

The Prince whispered in the ear of his future Queen. Anastasia Romanov, would-be Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias whimpered and tried to pull away.

“You heard me,” said the Prince. “You want to be a good girl, don’t you? You want to be a good girl for master?”

She whined even louder. He tugged on her collar and she trembled.

“Does master need to bring out the zappy-ouchy-stick again?”

She sprang up off the floor and sauntered over to Sofiya.

“There we are,” His Royal Highness said.

Sofiya’s eyes were now firmly affixed to the stage, where it seemed like everything was ready to go. The lights were starting to dim. She almost had time to wonder what was about to happen before the defrosted doggy Duchess dove deep into Sofiya with her tongue.

“Ohhhh!” said Sofiya.

As a good and loyal citizen of the USSR, Sofiya despised monarchies in all of their forms. She would liquidate any royal without a moment’s hesitation. But there was something appealing about having one on her knees, servicing her. The highest of high-born women was now beneath a common worker – literally and figuratively.

That was what Sofiya told herself, anyway. There was no way that she was enjoying this because of an innate homosexual streak. It was simply a matter of social dynamics and historical ironies. That’s what was causing her body to react like it was on fire as the panting puppy princess continued to lick and grind behind her.

“And now, Mon Ami, the show will begin,” said the Belgian.

Sofiya was breathing heavily and trying to stay as still as possible for whatever this show was. She dreaded whatever this grand “vision of Europe” would be.

The lights dimmed.

The music stopped.

A spotlight tracked a woman in a sequin dress over to a microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” the woman began. “I am honoured to have you all here today for the very first Eastern European event in our almost fifty year history. If tonight’s trial run is as successful as we all hope, then this event will be broadcast all across the former Eastern Bloc. So make some noooooiiiissse!”

The crowd began hooting and hollering.

“Welcome… to…”

Another spotlight fired up, illuminating an enormous logo in the centre of the stage.

“Eurovision!!!!!”

By the central committee! she thought. It had been staring her in the face the whole time. She felt stupid for not putting the pieces together. They were hinting at this, taunting her with it.

The cheering intensified. Sofiya tried to distract herself from the pleasures she was experiencing behind, though it was difficult. If Eurovision was under the control of the ECSC and NATO… then this plan had been in the works for decades.

“And here, for you,” the Belgian said, wrapping a pair of headphones around her.

It was felt more than it was heard. It was a little hiss, just below the surface. It reminded her of what she’d experienced on her first day here, with the Catholic priest. She had to admit that missed him just a little. More accurately, she missed his shredded body and 20.32 centimetre penis, though the Romanov family was doing quite an admirable job of pleasuring her at that moment.

It was not to last.

The prince yanked on her collar and pulled her away.

“Thank you for warming her up, darling,” he said.

The game of musical chairs ended with the Grand Princess’s great big pussy shoved up into her face. She knew what they wanted of her – what the bargain required of her. She began licking.

At the same the princely penis, that dastardly Duke’s dagger filled her Soviet slit. The very slightly above average 15.24 centimetre royal sceptre was just what the general secretary ordered.

“Ohhhh!” she said again.

“My my,” said the Prince. “You are an eager red carpet-muncher, aren’t you!”

“I am, I am your eager slut,” she said back, with her mind apparently deciding that would be the kind of thing that would help facilitate intercourse most effectively.

But she had another task that she had subconsciously agreed to fulfil, too. She did her best to keep her eyes on the stage as she muff-dived Anastasia, who let out disturbing yet possibly arousing animal noises whenever she did a particularly good job of it.

Eurovision. The event had gradually expanded throughout the non-Soviet influenced parts of Europe. It made perfect sense that it would expand again with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the capitalist coups in central and Eastern Europe.

The subversive pop music was being performed by Hungarians. The lyrical content, such that it was, made little use of the Hungarian tongue, and was instead instead an incessant chorus of “na na na” and “la la la”, with interspersed English phrases like ‘All right!’ and ‘Yeah!’

It was cultural imperialism dressed up as entertainment. The suppression of local languages in favour of the one spoken in the imperial core was a sure sign of colonialism. These poor people didn’t understand what was happening to them. It was every Soviet citizen’s duty to fight against this tyranny, to save the nations of Europe from themselves.

The imagery was no less disturbing. Dancers dismantled a plaster statue of Lenin and other abstract symbols of communism fell to the stage. Seeing them smash the father of the revolution with oversized prop hammers made her sickle to her stomach.

The pressure in her head kept building.

The cock in her pussy kept pounding.

Her tongue kept lashing.

The next song came on, this time from Romania. The theming was a little different. It was a message of nonspecific unity and brotherhood. The lyrics were still full of nonsense English phrases and repetitive sounds, but it was a lot easier to listen to.

This was all an exercise in propaganda, but in a way, it was beautiful seeing the nations of Europe together like this. It wasn’t precisely how she wanted it to be, but it was not too far removed from what the central committee taught. And could she criticise these people when she herself was now working not only with the capitalists, but for them?

In fact, this was all exactly what the teachings of Marxism pointed towards. This was all necessary. The man with the slicked back hair on the stage playing saxophone? A necessary part of the revolution. The cock pounding her? Necessary. It was like being pounded by Marx himself.

In fact, as the song continued, and the burning in her skull intensified, she realised that she was being pounded by Marx himself. And Marx was whispering things into her ears. Things she paid rapt attention to. Sometimes his accent went a little bit funny, and sometimes he seemed to be arguing with himself, but Sofiya knew the Hegelian dialectic when she saw it. The back and forth of contradictions were just a way of reaching a higher truth. She needed to surrender herself to the commands of the ultimate authority on communism, higher even than Stalin himself.

Struggling against the British empire was not only impossible, it was counterproductive. Who could stand against them? They were legion, with their money and their boats and their skyscrapers. This was all a necessary stage of human development. It would all lead to the greater revolution to come – the global revolution. The great reorganisation – Perestroika.

Sofiya came, but the fucking didn’t stop. The songs and the sex slurred into a great mess of sensations. She came again, and then again. She was lost in an ecstatic trance. The clarity of purpose she felt was absolute.

Suddenly, the stage was rocked by an explosion. The sprinkler system activated.

Everybody flinched, Sofiya included, though she was unable to take her eyes off the stage. Her headset fell to the ground, and she started becoming more aware of her surroundings again. She was drenched – inside and out.

Princess Anastasia rolled away and began whimpering in the corner, completely terrified by the loud noise. Prince George, cowering like a waif in underwear, took a few moments to build up the courage to hunt for his trousers.

The singer had been knocked forward off the stage and landed in a crowd of Hungarians, apparently unharmed. In a stroke of good fortune, the dancers for this performance had not yet entered. The crowd below began to panic, and started rushing to the entrance hall. As citizens of the former Communist nations, no matter how panicked they were, they always obeyed fire-exit signs, and so none attempted to swamp the express elevator.

“Your highness, we need to move you to a secure location immediately,” said one of the grenadiers in a surprisingly serious tone for somebody wearing a 40.64 centimetre tall fur cap.

The Polish guards split up and began trying to put a halt to the chaos below. This may have worked, except that a second detonation occurred backstage, and the people began pushing past the guards. A few accidental gunshots went off from one of the rifles hitting the floor, and people kept flooding out to the waiting room.

The Prince’s Royal Foot Guards formed a diamond shape around him as he struggled to re-fasten his belt buckle.

“It’s been a pleasure, but now I really must say cheerio,” said the Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. “If you make it out of here alive, I’d just love to do this again some time.”

As he started moving, he dragged Anastasia on a leash and headed towards the express elevator, with several of his European minions rushing to cram in the elevator with him.

Sofiya couldn’t take her eyes off the stage. She hadn’t been instructed to. One of the guards returned from below and took a hold of her.

“Come on, you must follow me,” he said.

His accent was a little odd.

She stood and followed him, not taking her eyes off the stage, but was sure to grab her stack of earnings and clothes, soggy though they were. She ordinarily have felt embarrassed to be running around naked, but she was a mess of conflicting feelings.

“Stop staring at that, come on, we have to go!” he urged.

Finally. Someone had given her the order she was waiting for. She turned to look at him, and was struck by how handsome he was. His chiselled jawline and bright blue eyes made him look like one of the men from those action movies that America kept producing. She was still out of it, and her jaw was hanging slightly open. Approximately 48% of her was daydreaming about at this impressive hunk of man meat before her.

“Agent Sokolov, I need you to focus. I’m here to rescue you,” he said.

She tried to shake the fog out of her mind.

“You… you got my signal?”

“Yes. As soon as we knew you were still alive, I was authorised to begin my infiltration. Come on, over here, I have the code for the elevator.”

She followed behind him, though she had some difficulty moving quickly after the last round of abuse. The elevator unloaded it’s passengers at the top, then began moving back down to them.

“Halt! What are you doing?!” said an approaching guard.

Sofiya, still somewhat dazed, turned to see where the sound was coming from. His eyes went wide at seeing her naked body and perfect breasts. The dashing KGB operative raised and fired his gun at the man. A dart shot out and hit him in the neck, rendering him almost instantly unconscious without so much as a class struggle.

It seemed that nobody else had noticed them. She gripped his solid, masculine body until the elevator let them inside.

“My name is Yevgeniy, by the way,” he said.

He hit the button.

She collapsed onto the ground and stared off into space.

“I know it must have been horrible,” he began. “But this is it. It’s almost over now. We just have to find a vehicle to commandeer, and we’ll be at the border inside of an hour.”

“If we don’t get discovered. If they don’t chase us,” she said. “And… Agent Nevsky…”

“She was gone. I don’t know where. She wasn’t in any of the areas that I saw,” he said.

She gripped the back of her head and breathed heavily.

“It’s futile. It’s all so futile,” she said.

“Nonsense. We’re going to make it.”

“Not just escaping… this conflict. How can we win? How could we possibly defeat them?”

He knelt down to her as the elevator slowly rose.

“Why do you say these things?” he whispered. “That is defeatist talk!”

“They… they are too many. All these nations are working for them now. They have so many people to exploit, and so much money to spend! Their vast cities reach up to the sky itself. We both know the USSR cannot match their military might,” she sobbed. “It is an impossible struggle.”

The agent shook his head and paced back and forth for a moment. Then, he turned and raised his head, pointing at her.

“In the West, man exploits his fellow man. But in the USSR, it is the other way around. That is our great moral strength. Our people will fight that much harder than any exploited peasant.”

Sofiya looked up and met Yevgeniy’s striking gaze.

“As to their great financial wealth – this is just an illusion. There are far more Rubles in circulation than Dollars.”

“Perhaps…” Sofiya said meekly.

“It may be true that they have the tallest buildings in the world,” he began. “But on the other hand, we have the world’s largest transistors.”

He was right, Sofiya realised.

“Their armies are vast, yes. They have many jets, and many warships. Their forces are many… But we have the forces of history on our side,” he said.

Sofiya let the words sink in. She felt a surge of renewed vigour. She got up on her feet, the fire inside fully reignited. The elevator arrived at the ground level.

Sofiya gripped his his large bicep. It was the bicep of a true worker.

“Let’s show these Capitalist bastards what it means to be a revolutionary!”