Chapter Text
December 10, 1935. Berghof.
The snow outside the windows is coming down like a madman, as if God Himself were trying to bury this new, perfect Germany we are building. Dinner. Endless, excruciating. At the table—a gathering of idiots in uniforms. And I, Joseph Goebbels, architect of the national spirit, am forced to nod and smile while a noble contempt boils inside me for all this biological waste. I count the seconds until I can retreat to my room and somehow wash off the stupidity that has been sticking to my skin all day.
He is, of course, at the centre of everything. Adolf. My Führer. Tonight he is especially unbearable. In the best sense. That is, in the sense that he drives me mad. In his simple tunic, with that familiar lock of hair falling onto his forehead. Just moments ago he was enthusiastically describing a new Volkswagen model with the zeal of a ten-year-old boy, tracing its shape in the air with his finger; now he has moved on to a detailed analysis of the superiority of apple strudel over cherry. His blue eyes shine with absolute, unclouded happiness. He tugs at Göring’s sleeve to emphasize a point about buttery pastry, claps a bewildered Hess on the shoulder while telling an anecdote about a Viennese confectioner. He is a whirlwind of naïve, tactile energy.
And everyone responds with delighted agreement. I watch Ribbentrop, that polished idiot, freezes with his fork suspended in midair, as if hypnotized. They all gaze at the Chief as one watches a solar eclipse—blind, reverent, and devoid of any thoughts.
And then, just as everyone is standing up, stretching, beginning to disperse, it happens. He somehow finds himself beside me, as if by accident. Our shoulders almost touch. I feel the warmth radiating from him. His lips come close to my ear. His voice is not commanding, but conspiratorial — a playful whisper that sends a chill down my spine and a treacherous heat flaring below my stomach.
“Joseph… don’t go to sleep yet. Come by in half an hour. We need to discuss… the cultural program. And… bring that report on cinema. The thick one.”
He steps back, and his eyes meet mine. There is not a trace of bureaucratic seriousness in them. Only mischievous sparks, as if he has just slipped a tack onto my chair. He gives me a sly wink and turns away to wish good night to some stunned maid.
I stand there like an idiot, crushing a crumpled napkin in my damp palm. “The cultural program.” At half past ten at night. “That thick report.” Which, as I know very well, he would never open willingly. Not in his entire life.
My cynical, exquisitely calibrated mind — only moments ago constructing plans for the total intellectual annihilation of Rudolf Hess over his views on pudding — short-circuits. All my sarcasm, all my fatigue, all my irritation with the world crumble to dust before this simple, ambiguous invitation.
What is this? A new way to torment me? A desire to prolong the evening by mocking my devotion? Or… no. No—better not to think it through. Thinking it through is the path to madness.
I glance around the hall. Göring is waddling off to bed. Hess is peering out the window, probably searching for runes in the snow patterns. They all retreat to their rooms to snore and dream of greatness.
And I, Joseph Goebbels—doctor of philosophy, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda—will, in half an hour, like an obedient schoolboy, be knocking on the bedroom door of the most powerful man in Germany. To “discuss the cultural program.”
With bitterness, I realize that this is the only agenda that holds any meaning for me at all. So I straighten my tie and feel my heart pounding with a ridiculous, humiliating hope. Damn it. Damn him and his charming, teasing, gleaming smile. Damn this Berghof! And I hate the fact that I am already watching the clock, counting down those cursed thirty minutes.
Chapter Text
The door to his private apartments stood slightly ajar. I knocked, seized by the idiotic urge to wipe my sweaty palms on my trousers. When I entered, I saw him seated in a deep armchair by the fireplace. Warm light played across his profile, softening the sharp angles, making them almost… gentle. He wore a simple white shirt, the collar open, no tunic, no eagles, no iron. He looked astonishingly young and vulnerable.
It was an illusion, of course.
The most dangerous kind.
“Ah, Joseph! Sit down,” he gestured toward the chair beside him, just as low and deep. His voice sounded deliberately serious, almost troubled. “This issue of cultural policy in the rural districts of Bavaria… it simply won’t leave me alone.”
He sat with one leg tucked under him, boyishly, and spoke. Spoke seriously.
“Joseph, we must fundamentally rethink the narrative,” he declared. His voice was low, persuasive, almost musical. But his eyes… his eyes were laughing. That unbearable, mischievous blue shimmered in them. And while he discoursed on the “purity of narrative,” his hand reached toward the armrest of my chair. His finger was a single centimetre from mine. It felt as though X-rays were radiating through my skin from the spot.
I nodded, occasionally offering something intelligent. My words sounded smooth and convincing. I am a master of rhetoric, the Minister of Propaganda, after all. Yet inside—god, inside was chaos! Absolute, animalistic chaos. Because he had begun touching.
At first, it was nearly imperceptible. His finger, tracing the arc of a “clear stream” in the air, brushed my sleeve. Just slid over the wool. I swallowed a lump the size of a billiard ball. Then, emphasizing the word “fundamentally,” he patted my forearm. His manner was friendly. That of a comrade. The contact sent a jolt through my entire body, as if from an electric shock.
And now… now his fingers — elegant, well-groomed, which moments ago had been carelessly drumming on that same armrest in time with his monologue on Cultural Revolution — rested lightly over my hand. Casually. As if unnoticed.
Everything in me boiled. Blood thundered in my temples and lower—much lower—with such force I had to bite my tongue. I felt myself hardening, treacherously fast, straining against the tight fabric of my formal trousers. Agonizing. Shameful. Divine. How little it takes for him to reduce me to this.
“Of course, my Führer,” my voice came out hoarse. I cleared my throat. “Engagement… that is the key point. Through the aesthetic to the ideological.”
“Exactly!” he exclaimed, and his hand closed around mine. Heat shot through me like a bare wire. “You always understand me at a glance, Joseph. My sharpest pen.”
Shackled in agony, the world collapsed into two points: the one where his leg touched mine, and the unbearable, pulsing weight between my legs. I prayed the nighttime shadows concealed my groin. I tried to think of something dreadful—Rosenberg? It didn’t help. I was dying. Sitting in an armchair in the Führer’s Berghof residence, conducting a high-minded discussion about the future of German cinema, while in my lower abdomen an outrageous, naked betrayal of everything. The very ideals that I was meant to embody were coming apart. My penis, utterly uninterested in German cinema, was hard as Reichswehr steel and desperately trying to breach the barrier of trousers and official decorum. I crossed my legs to hide the disgrace, but only increased the pressure, turning it into a sweet, unbearable torture.
I wanted one thing. To drop the cursed report onto the floor. To grab him by that ridiculous, plain tunic. To pull him close and cover his face, his neck, his hands with mad, greedy kisses. To bite into his lips, hear him moan, feel his body under my hands. To bury my face in his stomach. I wanted to come right there, from a single glance of his, from one teasing, innocent touch. It would have been release. Madness. Treason to everything.
Instead, I sat rigid as a statue, my face stone, only occasionally nodding and squeezing out short, “measured” remarks: “Undoubtedly,” “This must be developed further,” “A brilliant thought.” My palms were slick with sweat. I felt a drop slide slowly down my spine beneath my uniform jacket. But I had to keep my composure. Had to. I am the cement holding this regime’s façade together. Furthermore, I cannot be this… this slave to lust, trembling from the touch of a hand.
“Do you agree, Joseph?” he suddenly asked, interrupting my private hell and looked straight at me, his lips curved in a faint, enigmatic smile. His hand now lay fully over mine on the armrest.
“Absolutely, my Führer,” I forced out, my voice rough. “Your vision… is unassailable.”
He studied me for another second. Those blue eyes saw everything. Did they see my erection? Did they feel how I burned? Slowly, almost reluctantly, he withdrew his hand to lift his cup of herbal tea.
“I thought you would understand,” he said thoughtfully, taking a sip. “You always do. That is your value.”
He praised me. Again. And those words, spoken in that tone, with that look, did more to me than an entire army of striptease dancers ever could. I felt myself blush. With shame. With desire. And with helpless fury.
I had to leave. Now. Before I did something irreversible. Before I collapsed at his knees, wrapped my arms around his legs, and burst into tears like a complete fool, confessing my pitiful, forbidden, all-consuming love.
Rising to my feet, knees trembling, the report came up to my chest like a shield—the only justification for the visit.
“If you permit me, my Führer… it’s late. You need rest.”
He looked at me, and his smile widened, grew more sly. He knew. Damn it, he knew everything.
“Of course, Joseph. Thank you for stopping by. And for… the substantial discussion.”
I performed something between a bow and a spasm, turned, and nearly fled the room. In the corridor, in the cold half-light, I leaned my forehead against the cool oak panelling and tried to catch my breath. My hands were shaking. Self-loathing settled in, sharp and familiar. A weakness I could not forgive.
Notes:
So?