by Sadie Rabbit
“Isabelle,” Olivia said, “I’ve got some tasks for you.”
She pulled the girl into the shadows at the side of the stage.
“I need you to go to the store,” she said. “Buy me two bottles of wine, one red and one white. Get me hors d'oeuvres, too: olives, dark chocolate and brie. Candles, too. Not tea candles. Really big, thick, Medieval-looking candles. And a spear. See if you can find me something that could pass for a spear-like weapon somewhere.”
Isabelle scribbled everything down in a small gray notebook and hurried out of the auditorium.
“You can take a break, Colin,” Olivia said. “Those abs of yours gave me a few ideas, and I need to do some prep work. Let’s get back together in 30 minutes. … And put your shirt back on please. You’re distracting me.”
Everyone laughed, and Olivia beckoned Amanda and Aubrey to follow her into the costume room. They had some changing to do.
∞
The scene was set when Isabelle returned with the props. Colin lay on top of the trunk, arms behind his head propped up on a thick, fur-covered pillow, nothing but a sheet covering his manly bits. Two sprigs from an olive tree jutted from his hair.
After a lot of cajoling, Colin had agreed to wear lipstick and thick eyeliner. The result left just one word to describe how he looked: devilish.
The college girls looked as scandalous as Olivia could make them. She left them in their tight shorts and tanks but gave them impossibly tall heels. She caked their faces with makeup, too: lipstick, mascara, rouge, and she added thick, red clip-in highlights to their hair.
Isabelle pressed candles into the candelabra that littered the stage and lit them quickly. After uncorking one of the wine bottles, Olivia filled three goblets and set the bottle between Colin’s legs. Then, she handed the wine goblets out to Colin and his nymphs.
“You two are the key to these photos,” Olivia said to Aubrey and Amanda. “This is going to be hard, but I want you to imagine you’re both virgins.”
Aubrey hit Olivia in the arm playfully.
“You’ve been sent to the king’s chambers to seduce him. Remember, though, he’s not just a king. He’s a medieval king of old. He’s the very hand of God sent to earth to do our maker’s divine will. Act like you’re having the grandest, most delicious time you could ever imagine.”
“Sounds like a typical Saturday night,” Aubrey said, smiling mischievously.
The girls approached Colin slowly, their high heels clicking loudly on the stage. Olivia started taking photos and didn’t pause to look at the results. She knew the shots were perfectly, absolutely decadent, and there was something jarring about the effect — a marriage between the old and the new. Here was Poseidon, goblet of wine in hand, getting hand-fed dark chocolate by two girls who looked like they came from Vegas and could weaken the will of even the most devout husband.
Olivia told the students not to drink the wine, but that was like putting food in front of a hungry dog and telling him not to eat. They drank when they thought Olivia wasn’t looking, and the wine helped them loosen up. Olivia pretended not to notice, and the photos got progressively naughtier. The girls nibbled at Colin’s ear, laughed and laid hunks of cheese and olives in his lap.
All the while, Olivia was there, clicking away with her camera. She lost all sense of time, forgetting about Mike’s promotion, about Hawaii, about her sex whisperer, about everything except capturing the moment.
So it went all afternoon.
By the end of the day, Olivia had done three different photo series. One with Colin as new-age Greek god, one of a woman constructing a new face for herself (a visual trick that involved a lot of latex and a mud mask), and a third inspired by her sex whisperer. In it, a man and woman sat quietly at a fancy restaurant. The man was busy with his food while the woman had her eyes closed. The way the camera was positioned, you could see that there was a third man under the table giving the woman oral pleasure. The college students had particularly liked acting out that scene.
In the end, Olivia gave each of them $100. She also handed them fliers with details for her upcoming show. The girls stamped their feet in excitement.
“I can’t wait to see these,” Aubrey said.
Hope was right, Olivia thought, college students are the best free marketing in the world.
It was only after Olivia had loaded the last of her equipment in the car and collapsed into the driver’s seat that she realized how tired she was. It was a good exhaustion, though — the sort that comes with the sense that you’ve done something important … even if that something is paying college students to act out fantasies and deceptions they might very well face one day.
∞
Mike didn’t call. He just didn’t show up for dinner. Olivia wasn’t surprised or upset. She assumed he’d start putting in longer hours after the promotion, and it gave her time to edit the photos she’d taken.
When she sat down at her computer, though, she couldn’t resist checking her email for a reply from Thomas. A message waited patiently in her inbox.
Dear Hawaii Girl,
Thank you for the compliment. I doubt I’ll be able to think of Franco’s the same again, either! Enjoy your artwork and your travels. I’ll definitely have a whisper waiting for you when you return. I’ll bill you later. Something about writing whispers for you just doesn’t feel like work!
Your Faithful Servant,
Thomas
P.S. Your upcoming show wouldn’t happen to be at the Cannery, would it?
“Shit!” Olivia said out loud. “How the hell does he know about the Cannery show?”
She lifted her hands off her keyboard and balled them into fists. Her palms were sweaty, and her mouth tasted salty. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thought.
She went back and re-read the last message she’d sent Thomas. Would mentioning a gallery opening be enough for him to figure out when and where it was? Olivia wondered.
She started Googling art-related phrases. To her horror, she found that when she typed in “Photo exhibit opening in August, Dayton Ohio,” a Dayton Daily News brief on the Cannery show was the top result!
She literally ran to her cell phone and called Charlotte. “I messed up,” she said when her friend answered. “I told Thomas I have a gallery opening coming up, and he figured out which one. He could show up!”
“Oh, no,” Charlotte said. “You can’t be serious. Are you absolutely positive he knows which one it is?”
“Not positive,” Olivia said, “but listen to this.”
She read Charlotte the full text of both messages.
“You know what I think?” Charlotte asked. “You’re having a freak out with a capital ‘F.’ He doesn’t even know if your show is in the same state. Just write him back and tell him, ‘Actually, no, I’m doing a show in Tennessee.’ Or tell him it’s New York or San Francisco. Problem solved.”
“Even if I do that, I have a feeling he’ll still show up at the Cannery on Friday,” Olivia said. Then, for the first time, she realized what she’d done: she’d taken ideas from Thomas’s latest sex whisper and turned them into photos that she wanted to use in the show!
“This is bad,” Olivia said. She told Charlotte all about the photo shoot … specifically about the restaurant scene she’d shot.
“That is bad,” Charlotte said. “What if you just ditch those photos from your show?”
That’s what I should do, Olivia thought, but the photos are too good. She hadn’t even looked at them on her computer yet, but she already knew they were some of the most powerful photos she’d ever taken. There was something so jarring, surprising and haunting about the pictures that she felt — for the first time in her life — that she’d created work that truly mattered. And now, I need to hide those pictures from the world?
“Here’s one more idea,” Charlotte said. “What if you tell Thomas that he’s right, that you are doing a show at the Cannery, and ask him not to come? Be nice about it, and he should understand. That was, aft
er all, part of your agreement — no personally identifiable information about either of you.”
“He might agree to that,” Olivia said.
“He damn well better agree to that, or he’s going to feel the wrath of Charlotte.”
“That still doesn’t solve the problem of him knowing who I am,” Olivia said. “I have no idea who he really is. What if he tries to blackmail me or kidnap me?”
“You’re starting to sound like my paranoid grandmother,” Charlotte said. “He’s doing all this for money, right? You’re still paying him for the sex whispers, aren’t you? It’s just a simple business transaction.”
Olivia paused on the line.
“He’s not even asking you to pay him, is he?” Charlotte asked. “Shit, Livy. You haven’t met him, and this guy’s falling for you. You just love complicating things, don’t you?”
I suppose I do, Olivia thought. I suppose I do. “I’ll tell him not to come,” Olivia said. “He’ll honor that.”
∞
Mike came home before Olivia had a chance to reply to Thomas. He looked fresher than he should have after 12 hours at the office. When he got close, he reeked of shampoo and booze.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “You smell like you got drunk at a salon.”
“I meant to text you” Mike said. “Nothing big. I went out for drinks with my coworkers.”
Olivia bit her lip and turned away from him. When was the last time he went out for drinks with his co-workers?
Mike grabbed her waist and spun her toward him.
“Want to go into the bathroom and fuck again?” he asked.
“God, no,” Olivia said, “pushing him away. You’re drunk at midnight on a work night, and you didn’t even call. And why do you smell like you took a shower? I’m not buying the drinks-with-coworkers bit. Who were you with?”
A look of anger flashed across Mike’s face.
“I was out with my coworkers,” Mike said. “I think I’ve earned the right to do that every now and then. I’m the one paying for all of this, after all.”
He waved his arms around.
Money, Olivia thought. That’s what it always comes back to.
“You don’t work,” Mike said. “I think it’s hard for you to relate to putting in 10 hours at the office then coming home and acting all chipper and happy like we’re living in a goddamn musical or something.”
Olivia resisted the urge to laugh. Her life certainly wasn’t a musical. If it was, she’d trust her husband — even if he came home smelling freshly showered. At the very least, she’d know where he was most nights. She stood up. “I’m going to edit my photos,” she said.
“That’s real work,” Mike said, almost inaudibly.
Olivia kept walking, acting like she didn’t hear. When she got to her office, she shut the door, leaned her back against it and slid to the floor. Sitting there alone in the dark, she cried.
∞
Dear Thomas,
The cat, it seems, has gotten out of the bag. My show is indeed at the Cannery in two weeks, and now you know who I am. I’m begging you not to attend the opening. It would, at this point, complicate my life too much. Feel free to check out the show any time after the opening, though. I think there a few pieces you might like :) Now, perhaps comes the time in our email relationship when you tell me who you are? I feel rather naked having revealed myself without you doing the same.
xoxo,
Hawaii Girl
Chapter IX: From Behind White Masks, We Peer
Olivia carried a thin gray portfolio when she met with Klaus. Inside were 40 new images from her sessions at Wright State.
“I’d like first to look through all of them without feedback,” Klaus said. “I’d like to drink them in, so to speak. Can you agree to that, young lady? Let me look on them with no feedback or explanation.”
Olivia nodded her assent and sat in agony as the old man flipped slowly through the images. She was nervous, her palms moist and her mouth dry. She felt like it’d be impolite to stare at Klaus’s face to gauge his reactions, so she fixated on his hands. They were twisted with age. The nails on his fingers and thumbs looked thicker than they should have been. Occasionally, he rapped on the tabletop with a gnarled knuckle like he was knocking on a door that wasn’t there.
Klaus shut the book when he was finished and laid his elbows on the table. He looked directly at her. “These are magnificent,” he said. “We’re going to have a hard time narrowing down to 15 selections, that’s what I think to myself.”
He motioned for Olivia to pull her chair around so they could go through the photos one by one, sticking a Post-It on the images she should print for the opening.
Klaus tapped her on the forehead with his thumb when they finished. “There’s very much going on in there,” Klaus said. “These are very good, very powerful. Deeper this time. You reached toward the truth and made Klaus very happy.”
With that, the old man scuttled into a storage room and came back with a battered leather bag. It was the sort of bag a country doctor would have carried on house calls a century ago.
“Now, I have a surprise for you,” Klaus said. He pulled a small gift-wrapped box from the bag and handed it to her.
Olivia unwrapped a simple Mardi Gras mask. There wasn’t the slightest hint of decoration on it; just a white mask with eye holes and a bridge for your nose.
“Put it on, young lady,” Klaus said.
The mask covered Olivia’s face from her eyebrows to the bottom of her nose.
“I ordered 1,500 more just like it,” Klaus said, smiling broadly. “I think this show is about deception, so we’ll make the audience a part of it, huh? Let’s reel them in, body, mind and soul. We’ll greet them at the door and ask everyone to wear the masks while they’re inside. What do you think, young lady?”
“I think we’ll be the talk of the town,” Olivia said.
“Precisely,” Klaus said, nodding. “That’s exactly what we want.”
∞
Dear Olivia,
Thank you for trusting me with the truth. I was plagued with curiosity over your identity. When you told me about your gallery show, I couldn’t resist trying to guess which one it was. I have to confess, too, that I stumbled across a newspaper photograph of you while reading about your show. You’re even more beautiful than I imagined! The photos on your website are fascinating, too. I can’t wait to see what you’ve been shooting lately. How could anyone not be intrigued by a show called “Deception?!”
Fear not, though, I won’t attend the opening if that’s your request.
I also won’t let you stand by “naked.” My full name is Thomas Blackmore, and I’ve attached a photograph of myself. I live in a modest apartment in Oakwood, and I’m an avid hiker and biker. There. We’re naked together (and my member is standing at full salute between my legs!). Kidding.
Best of luck on your show, beautiful. I suspect it’ll be a dashing success!
Your faithful servant,
Thomas
∞
Olivia fished the photograph out of her purse and handed it to Charlotte in the passenger seat.
“Wow,” Charlotte said. “He looks even better than I thought he would. Five stars. He’s definitely rideable.”
Olivia hit Charlotte in the arm. “Don’t talk like that,” she said, though she couldn’t deny Thomas was sexy. What really freaked her out was the fact that he did look like the “dream man” she’d described in the sex whisperer questionnaire a month ago (even without the Captain America costume). He had the slate gray eyes, thin build, dark, mussed-up hair and dimpled smile.
“My best friend’s about to have an affair with an apartment-dwelling perv,” Charlotte said.
“Stop it.”
Charlotte laughed. “The truth hurts.”
Olivia shook her head and concentrated on driving. They were headed to the outlet mall in Monroe where they planned to buy clothes — loads of clothes — for Hawaii and Olivia’
s gallery opening.
“This is like one of those soap operas my mom used to watch,” Charlotte said. “The only thing that’s missing is a psychic … or a spy or a killer or something. Or maybe someone needs to die and come back from the dead. Ohhhhh! You know what would be really crazy? What if Thomas followed us to Hawaii, and the two of you sailed off on a yacht. You could make slippery love on the open seas.”
“You’re an ass,” Olivia said.
“You’ve got to admit it sounds romantic,” Charlotte said.
Olivia didn’t dare admit it. She just concentrated on parking the car. They’d made it safely to the mall. “I’ve never had to pair something with a white Mardi Gras mask,” she said.
“You know where we should go?” Charlotte asked.
“White House Black Market?”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Charlotte said. She linked her arm with Olivia’s as they walked into the mall. “You need to look like a knockout at your opening. I want every man there to want you.”
“I want to look like an artist,” Olivia said. “Not a male escort.”
“A male escort’s waaaaay better,” Charlotte said. “You’ll get good reviews. Reporters love a tight dress.”
Olivia groaned and let her friend pull her in the store.
“You’re terrible,” she said.
“I’m brilliant,” Charlotte said. “One day, you’ll appreciate that.”
∞
The night of the opening was clear and breezy. Olivia had managed to talk Mike out of calling a driver. The last thing she wanted to do was show up in a limo like a pampered New Yorker. That sort of thing wasn’t common in Dayton, despite what Mike thought.
Kenneth drove them in his SUV instead. Mike sat in the passenger seat, Olivia and Charlotte in the back.
