Revelations of the Ruby Crystal

by Barbara Hand Clow

  Sarah stared at the image of the nude on the divan as if she were viewing a bold painting of a beautiful woman by a great artist like Goya. Her mind, with its deep understanding of art, took in every detail while every cell in her body electrified as if she’d been struck by lightning. Pink excited nipples, seductive luscious curves, soft brown hair at the base of her thighs, and her commanding radiant face with green eyes revealing the wisdom of the ages blinded her. Armando stood next to his painting with his hands at his sides, the artist waiting for approval.

  Her cells screamed. Whatever this image is supposed to be, I am not ready for it. Then a deep and angry voice growled through her strangled throat, “How dare you, how dare you? Why have you done this to me? I did not agree to this!” She stood up and lunged for the door.

  Desperate, he rushed to cut her off as she rose. He was so used to doing as he pleased that he had never truly considered that she would be angry—judgmental maybe, but not angry. Clutching her right shoulder roughly, he pulled her body to his and grasped her with both hands as he pleaded, “You caaann’t go! You promised to study this painting to find its essence. You are not being fair; you promised me!” Then he pulled her to his tense body with desperate flashing eyes.

  She smelled sulfur, and paralyzing fear swamped her mind. Maybe he is crazy. What am I going to do? “You don’t understand,” she snapped. “I can’t look at the painting because I cannot get past the surface, the conjuring of me in the nude. I can’t see anything beyond that and neither will anybody else.”

  He clutched her closer, hurting her arms as she struggled to jerk herself away, but he was very strong. Snarling into her face, he said, “That is exactly what I mean. That is the surface beauty everybody sees. They strip you nude with their eyes to do whatever they want, like when I took you to the Doria Pamphili. That is what you don’t understand, sexual desire. You torture men just by being in the same room; they rape you with their eyes. Welcome to the real world, Sarah. It’s ugly.”

  Oh god, I feel weak, like a victim in the claws of a monster. I’ve got to keep my brain going to avoid total panic. Armando glanced back at the canvas and felt his penis get suddenly hard from a shocking inner explosion that blinded him with white light. Power surged in his groin, shooting hot energy up his back as he became a rod and his shoulders grew great black wings that turned into steel. Struggling to escape his grasp, she twisted violently to see his face. Blood flooded the whites of his eyes; his mouth distorted. He grabbed the sides of her face and pulled her face to his, crushing her lips, plunging his tongue into her mouth. More fire hardened his penis when her breasts touched his partially bare chest. He gyrated his bursting erection against her soft pelvis and pubic bone, out of control with the most potent sexual desire of his life.

  Gasping for breath, she struggled with the pressure of his pelvis jamming her backward toward the divan. She clutched for his hair, but that turned him on even more as he rubbed his rock-hard penis more forcefully against her pubis and began moving it up and down. She fell backward on the divan, nearly cracking her head as the blur of the nude painting flashed by. Pinning her with his pelvis, he rose up triumphantly with his outer thighs pushing her legs painfully open. Stretching her legs open even more violently with her back flattened against the back of the divan, he tore at her blouse. She tried to knee him, but he had immobilized her legs with his own. Wrenching the blouse off her right shoulder, he pulled off her bra and pressed down harder on her groin. Pinning her wrists with one hand, he massaged her bare breast and tongued and sucked her stiffening nipple. Oh god! Sarah thought with a rising mixture of panic and shame. I’m getting excited! He was biting her while his rotating pelvis rubbed her inner thighs. “You are hurting me,” she cried desperately.

  “Don’t worry; it won’t last much longer,” he growled into her neck. “I’m going to take you, take you all the way because I want you. If you resist, I will hurt you more, hurt you a lot. If you allow me, I will make love to you. It’s your choice.”

  “You can’t do this,” she cried angrily. Armando put his free hand over her mouth and shoved her face back against the divan. She felt like her neck was going to break. Pinning her tightly with his legs and pushing her face harder, he rose up and arched back to unzip himself with his right hand. She was terrified because she couldn’t get out of his strong grip and couldn’t breathe. When he pulled out his huge throbbing erection, she bit his hand hard, causing him to release her face as she screamed, “You are a Fallen Angel!” The thought had come subconsciously from the deep recesses of her faith and her feminine intuition—the same intuition that had been giving her warning signs since Matilda called the previous day, and even before that. Suddenly she was not helpless. With her chest heaving, she wrenched her pelvis and cried out, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus, help me!”

  As she named Armando for what he was and cried out to Jesus, weakness flowed into his legs, the blood sucked out of his penis, and his reptilian wings receded. As he softened, she shoved him hard on the chest, pushing his legs off with her knees, kneeing him contemptuously. Collapsing down, grabbing the side of the divan and holding his crotch, he gasped, “What did you say? What did you say about a Fallen Angel and Jesus?”

  Sarah pulled her blouse back together, stood up, and stumbled out of the studio. “You will never get a chance to try that again, and you are never to show that painting to anyone. Destroy it immediately.”

  Pulling the rest of her clothes back in order as she went, she ran down the stairs to the back of the castle, relieved she did not run into anyone on the way to her room. She went inside, shut the door, and locked it. She drew a hot bath and soaked in it, scrubbing off his smell and tenderly washing her violated breast. Massaging her pelvis erased his imprint, and she reflected on her own part in the drama. I am not innocent. She slipped into a white bathrobe, crawled into the enveloping canopy, and stared at the tendrils of vines, leaves, and delicate flowers. This room comforts me; beautiful rooms have often sheltered violated women. I will be all right. I’ve had a few tussles like this before but nothing went as far as this one. Thank god he didn’t rape me.

  She considered talking to Matilda. But Armando was her oldest son, and Sarah knew Matilda hoped she would marry him. How can I get out of here? Looking over her arms and legs, she only found bruises on her inner thighs. Maybe I can manage to be a decent dinner guest, she hoped as she drew herself out of the tub. Just then there was a quiet rap on the door, and a maid’s voice said, “Miss, miss, I have a note for you.” She took the note and opened it. On white paper embossed with the family crest, it said:

  Sarah. All I can do is apologize. I was taken over by an evil force that I don’t understand. No one will ever see the painting, I promise you. I hope you still can attend dinner with my parents tonight? I planned to ask you to marry me today. Perhaps knowing that, you can forgive me someday? I know you will never be my wife because I do not deserve you. But I hope you can continue to be our family friend, especially in light of my mother’s fondness for you. Please don’t break her heart.

  With absolute respect and humility,

  Armando

  Sarah let the note fall from her hand and left it on the floor where it fell. Despite the comfortable temperature of the room, she began to shiver. With mechanical motions, she set the alarm for dinner time and crawled under the soft covers. It seemed like only ten minutes later when the alarm sounded. Still in shock, she was determined to go to dinner and do her best to act normally. She slipped into a demure gray dress with a high square neck that she always wore with her aunt’s long pearls. They met again in the library, and this time she joined Pietro in a double scotch, hoping he could charm her.

  Matilda noticed Sarah seemed to be nervous. Something must have happened that was too intense, something negative. When Armando came to join his father, Matilda took Sarah’s arm and asked her to come sit in the window seat. “My dear, tell me, did you see the painting, and do you like it? I feel like you are upset about
something. Is it the painting?”

  Sarah stared at the ground, her mind blank. She had no idea what to say, but Armando, who was listening with his fox ears, hurried over after handing his father another drink and said, “Well, Mother, I have bad news. Sarah does not like the painting! That is her prerogative since I altered it from the photo.” Matilda eyed him ruefully, noting he looked like he’d been crying. What is going on with these two? Something, but I cannot ask.

  “Well, that’s too bad, Sarah. Why don’t you like it?”

  Armando was about to break in again when Sarah volunteered, “It’s not a painting of me, not at all. I don’t want anyone to see it, not ever.”

  Dinner was quiet and intense, with food being consumed amidst strained conversations that would not go anywhere. Neither Pietro nor Matilda could imagine what was going on. After dinner, Armando asked Sarah to speak with him in the library in private. Sarah agreed reluctantly, reminding herself that his parents were in the next room. As she followed him into the library, she noticed he seemed diminished. Dropping into the bay window seat with the rising moon behind him bringing silver light to the deep blue night sky, Armando said, “I will never see you again. My only hope is that you will forgive me. This is very sad for me. I want to show you something to prove my sincerity. Sometimes I just get out of control and become a rake, but I am not a liar. May I?” She assented by nodding her head as she looked at his sad, resigned eyes. He has been crying.

  He brought out a small velvet ring case and opened it. Her eyes fell on a ten-carat deep emerald set between two diamonds. “I have never thought of marriage until I met you. This is what I wanted to give you today if you appreciated my painting and wanted to share life with me. I have abandoned that hope. We must say good-bye, yet is there anything you want to say to me?”

  She sat in silence, thinking these circumstances couldn’t be further from what she had imagined for a proposal of marriage. Like most girls, once she had dreamed of being a princess who grew up to become a queen. Why did her first proposal have to be so tainted? The thought of how this could have gone if Armando hadn’t acted the way he did passed through her mind. What would it be like to wear a ring like that? What would it be like to be sequestered in the Tuscan aristocracy and be loved by a man like Armando? He would have loved me if I became his wife; he would change. What would it be like to bear children in this ancient lineage? I am partly responsible for what happened today because I was attracted to him and what he offers and I didn’t listen to my instincts.

  Sarah was troubled by what she saw as her own complicity in the terrible scene in Armando’s studio, yet no matter what had happened there, she kept coming to the same conclusion. I would never marry him because I don’t trust him. Having sex with him would probably be incredible but dangerous. I wish I’d done it with somebody by now so I’d know what it’s like and how to handle these feelings. If he hadn’t attacked me I might have surrendered, forgotten my misgivings and fallen into the folds of the deep past. It would be nice to live here in this castle, sheltered from the ugly world, but that’s not really possible, not with him. She brought her gaze to meet his, seeing that he still held the box open in his right hand in case she’d take it. “You have become selfish and immoral over many years, and I hope this experience will be the last of it. Even if you change, I will not be in your life. I hope I will be able to forgive you someday because I understand you didn’t want to act like that.” She dropped her gaze down to the bruised thighs hidden underneath her dress. “But not yet.”

  Sarah raised her eyes to his again. “You’re right, though. There is one thing I want to ask you. You are the artist, so what is the hidden meaning in the painting?”

  Armando responded eagerly, “Oh, that’s easy, Sarah. I found the part of you that is ready to surrender as a woman. The exquisite nude expresses your readiness, the beauty of a woman on the threshold of love. I captured you though I’ve never seen you. I lost control and panicked when I realized you would go away forever. Like the rape of the Sabines by my ancestors, I tried to take you. If I had succeeded, you would be wearing my ring tonight. The first man who takes you will have you forever. I captured your desire for love in the painting, a masterpiece. Do you know that about yourself?” he wondered as he slowly closed the box and put it back in his inner jacket pocket.

  Sarah broke through her shock to respond emphatically, “I wish every woman could be safe enough to surrender to love, but the way you acted today is the reason we have to be so armored. Women are taken easily and then discarded before they have any idea how special they are. Armando, this is the twenty-first century. You would not have me if you had succeeded today. Nobody is going to take me away from myself.”

  Pietro’s and Matilda’s quarters were in the castle wing over the library. It had been built in the fifteenth century, a time when Tuscany was peaceful. The worn stone floors were covered with thick oriental rugs. Damask drapes on the great canopy bed could be closed to ward off the damp and penetrating cold. Moonlight shining through ancient lead casement windows cast geometrical patterns on the velvet settee in a small sitting area in an alcove under thick ancient beams. Matilda spoke quietly and reflectively, “Something is wrong, Pietro. She is perfect for him; he wants her, yet I feel like it will never be.”

  Pietro said sadly, “I think it is the times. Armando can have anything he wants, any money, any body, any thing. Not realizing how precious she is, he probably didn’t woo her with the long haul in mind. He probably hasn’t even thought about the children we need in this family. She is younger than he is, but she is much wiser. She needs an old soul with great character, and that just isn’t Armando. I am sorry about it. I am afraid our generation is one that is to have few, if any, grandchildren because people have forgotten how to live.”

  18

  The Ruby Crystal

  Sarah stared listlessly out the car window, trying to forget about the medieval tower as they crept along in the snarled traffic of Rome’s perimeter. I feel disembodied. Massive old stone buildings—unmemorable ghosts like the meaningless and repetitive thoughts running through her mind—passed by, reflected on the hazy glass separating her from Guido in front. How many millions live here who barely get through the day? I am empty, broken, trapped in someone else’s nightmare. All I want to do is get to my apartment and go to sleep; I want to sleep.

  Simon had been calling Sarah constantly all weekend. By Sunday afternoon he was frantic; he knew something was wrong. Where is she? It isn’t like her to just disappear. Could she be in the library? But even then, he reasoned, she’d have her cell phone with her. He decided to call her number once more before concluding something serious was going on. This time she answered.

  “Where have you been all weekend?” he asked, his tight voice betraying his anxiety. “I have been calling you five times a day. I was beginning to get seriously worried.”

  “I’m sorry, Simon,” she responded. “As soon as I got back after seeing you last week, Matilda Pierleoni called and persuaded me to go up to Tuscany for the weekend to see Armando’s painting, the one he made of me during the summer. Armando wouldn’t let anybody see it until I saw it first. So I agreed to go even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Armando again. I rushed out and forgot to take my cell phone with me.”

  She had been with Armando! “Well, that will have to be that,” Simon said, trying not to sound as crushed as he felt. “So how is the painting?”

  “I did not like it at all. It horrified me, so I want to forget about it,” she said, her voice flat and peculiar.

  I just want to sleep, she thought.

  After a twenty-second silence, Simon was alarmed. “Sarah, is something wrong? You don’t sound quite like yourself. Did something happen this weekend that upset you?” He waited.

  She was sitting in her window seat, completely unaware of any light or beauty in the room. My lower body aches; my mind is dull. She was so devoid of feeling that she came close to clicking off t
he phone. Simon’s voice sounded like it was coming through a metallic tube. “Sarah, what is the matter? Tell me what is wrong?”

  She is like a gray shroud floating away to a distant shore. He said in a firm voice, “Sarah, listen to me. I am coming over to see you right away. I have never been up to your apartment, but I expect you to ring me in when I get there. I will be there in fifteen minutes. Wait for me, stay there, and answer the bell. Make sure you answer the bell when I ring it.” Then he hung up and rushed out to grab a cab in the Piazza Di Spagna.

  Sarah dropped the phone. I am turning to stone. She barely heard the bell ringing in her head. She recalled Simon telling her to answer it when he arrived, so she muttered the number and opened the door. Simon rushed in, scanning her eyes. She seemed to be barely aware of him as she vaguely indicated the window seat. I wonder if he drugged her? Bastard! He sat down next to her and pulled her close under his arm. “What is the matter? You must tell me.”

  His cradling touch released her tight breath. He’s in my room; it doesn’t matter. Just hold me while I sleep. Relaxing back on the plush velvet pillow, Simon pulled her closer so that she snuggled into him with her head resting on his chest. He pulled a small blanket over both of them and they curled into each other. Then she said in a flat voice, “Armando tried to rape me after he showed me the painting.”

  Simon’s adrenaline rose, but he controlled himself because he knew he had to handle this exactly right. He said in a level voice, “Just talk to me about it. I only want you to be okay. Tell me what happened and maybe I can help you with it, whatever it is.”