by Evie Blake
‘Why not?’ he asks. ‘I don’t want to change who you are. I just want to be able to call you my girlfriend.’
‘Theo . . . I can’t . . . you know that . . . I told you before . . .’
Her inadequate words stumble over each other. She pulls her hands away from his grasp.
‘Can you not just think about it? Please try, Valentina.’
She wants to scream at him that it is no good. She can’t let herself fall in love with him. And yet she finds herself agreeing to think about it. Even though she knows it isn’t fair, she lets him walk away hopeful.
It is too late now. He has gone. Where, she has no idea, apart from the fact that it will be cold, since he took his down jacket and snow boots. She is glad he didn’t push her further. Will you be my girlfriend? No, she could never do it. Why can’t he let things just stay as they are? Casual. Fun. Sexy. But living with someone is hardly casual, she suspects. Has she been a fool to let a man move in with her? And why does he need some sort of commitment from her? She doesn’t want him to leave . . . and yet she can’t give him what he wants. Maybe her mother is right after all, she thinks sourly. Maybe she and her mother are the same. Inconstant butterflies, flitting from one man to the next.
Valentina shakes the thought from her head, and picks up the package on the dressing table. It is surprisingly heavy and she places it back down again. It is a plain brown-paper parcel tied with string. No label on it. No card. She is full of anticipation. What could it be? She hopes it isn’t a grand romantic gesture. My God, what if he is building up to a proposal? The idea horrifies Valentina. She has no intention of ever getting married.
She steps back and stares at it. She is not sure she is ready to face what lies inside that brown paper. She has a feeling it is something important. She walks into the bathroom and turns on the shower full blast. As the steaming water cascades over her shoulders, down her back, stomach and thighs, she opens her mouth and lets it run through her. She tries to wash away her anxiety, forget the look in Theo’s eyes just before he left. Why is it that all her lovers want to cage her? She hoped Theo was different. She gives him so much space, and yet even he isn’t satisfied. What annoys her most is how his excursions are beginning to bother her. Sometimes she finds herself waking up in the middle of the night when he is away and wondering if he is okay. She will be on the verge of sending a text when she manages to stop herself. Their rule is never to contact each other when either of them is abroad. She hates the pestering nature of texting. The last thing in the world she wants to be is needy.
She is pulling on her stockings when she can bear it no longer. She has to know. Wearing nothing but her G-string, suspender belt and one sheer stocking, she squeezes the package and tries to weigh it in her hands. It could be a picture, or a book. It’s too big to be a ring, anyway, thank goodness. She unties the string, which is knotted tightly and takes ages. Typical Theo. Then she slowly rips off the paper until it is shredded at her feet.
She is holding a black book. On second thoughts, it is an album, but old, made from some kind of black velvet that is so worn it is no longer plush, but bare cloth. As she opens the book, she is hit by a strong scent of old roses, sweet and decaying. She looks at the open book and sits down on the bed in surprise. How strange. Her present is a riddle. Attached to the first page is a negative. She can tell immediately that it is old, because it is bigger than modern-day negatives. It also has a yellowish tinge. It is attached to the thick, card-like paper by a tiny sliver of tape that she can easily remove. She takes out the negative and holds it up to the light, but it is impossible to make out the image. She flicks the page and finds another negative. She turns the next page, and the next. All of them contain negatives. Nothing else. No words. No pictures. No explanation. She feels inexplicably annoyed, and tosses the book behind her on to the bed. What kind of a present is this?
No ordinary present, that’s what, Valentina.
She can hear Theo’s voice inside her head. She cannot help but be reassured. She picks up the negative she peeled from the album. This is more than a gift, she thinks. This is a game. A thrill of excitement stirs inside her belly. Theo is playing with her. Giving her little fragments of . . . what? Him, her, the mystery that surrounds him? This is fun, and certainly not a marriage proposal or anything too romantic. She carefully places the negative on her bedroom bureau and pulls on her other stocking. She cannot wait to get into her darkroom to make a print and uncover the first clue in her lover’s puzzle.
Belle
SHE RETURNS AT DAWN, TO ENTER HER OWN DEEP LAGOON of dreaming. She stretches on her back, her arms flung upwards and grasping her bedstead, her toes pointed, the sheets entwined around her naked body. Through a chink in the curtains she can see the pink blush of day. She hears a blackbird call to her and she imagines it sitting on her balcony, its oily feathers sleek in the morning light, singing as freely as her spirit feels. She closes her eyes and remembers the sensations of the night, a stranger’s skin against her skin, and the musky scent of shared desire.
She doesn’t feel wicked, nor does she feel good. She is detached from these emotions. She listens to the church bells of Venice, in time with the beat of her heart and the measured lap of the canal outside her window. She pushes her hand across her brow, lifting her hair as if to feel for fever, but in reality remembering the heat of his hand upon her forehead, less than two hours ago.
It is 1929. Picture her now, Signora Louise Brzezinska as Miss Louise Brooks. They are kindred spirits, she and the actress. Women who wish to share their sexuality, their eroticism and their affection. Despite her husband’s possession, Louise cannot live just one life with him. She is impelled to take risks because she needs to be another Louise. The Louise who plays the part of Belle, starring in her own private drama.
It happened quite by accident the first time. She was on her way to a costume party. Her husband was abroad and she had decided to be brave and attend on her own. She had been looking forward to it for so long. Her life had become unbearably dull, every day filled with running the household and looking after her husband’s needs. The only time they seemed to go out was to Mass. The party offered her some small escape, especially since she was required to dress up. She liked dressing up. She liked being another woman.
She decided to be daring, since her husband was not at home to be disapproving, and copied the image on a postcard from an arcade machine in America which one of her husband’s associates had given her, of a young woman dressed in Egyptian costume. Since the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb a few years ago, she had been fascinated by Egyptian imagery. She had found some books in her husband’s library on the ancient gods of Egypt, and had spent hours studying Horus and Thoth, with their bird heads, and sinister Anubis, half man, half jackal, guardian of the dead and yet potent with sexuality. Sometimes during the solitary days when she seemed to spend every hour poring over these books, she would dream of Anubis, his splendid dog face snarling, licking, biting, while his human half was inside her, satisfying her in a way her husband never could.
This particular night Louise wanted to be Egyptian precisely because it gave her these sensations, the mixture of seduction and the macabre. She had her seamstress make her a shimmering outfit: a long transparent gown of black chiffon decorated with gold beading worn underneath a cream silk skirt that parted at the centre. This was held in place by a sheath of rich gold damask tied around her waist and curving beneath her behind, emphasising its outline. On her top half she wore dark silk, sleeveless, split down either side right to the waist. Over this was an embroidered garment that was little more than a brassiere encrusted with thick gold beading. On her head she wore a gold band neatly clipped around her black bob. The outfit was more than daring and Louise loved it.
It had been her intention to take a gondola down the canal to the party, but at the last minute she decided against it. Although it was a warm night, her maid, Pina, insisted she wear a light woollen stole draped around
her shoulders, fearful that her mistress was a little too under-dressed for propriety. She had begged her to wear one of her furs, but Louise claimed it was too hot.
Louise listened to the sound of her heels ringing out on the cobbles of Venice. She loved to walk in this city. Sometimes she would let herself get lost and disappear for hours, much to the annoyance of her husband. This night she chose a circuitous route to the party, since she didn’t want to arrive too early. It was a quiet, empty trail through the city, and she was sure her husband would disapprove of her reckless behaviour, but there was a part of Louise that could not help but disobey him. It gave her satisfaction even though he would never know.
She had just passed Campo San Polo when she paused on one of the little bridges. Putting her hands on the balustrade, she looked out at a corner of Canal Grande which she could see from where she stood. Here in Venice the streets were like a network of narrow branches stretching and reaching across a great sky of water. Sometimes she felt marooned. It could be a haven, or it could be a kind of jail. She reached into her bag, took out her cigarette case and snapped it open. The walking had made her hot, and she hoped her cheeks were not too red from the exertion. She would have one cigarette before she moved on so that she could compose herself. She wanted to look cool and aloof when she arrived, just like a dark Egyptian soul. She pulled her stole from her shoulders and looked at it in disgust. Louise Brooks would not be seen dead in such a mediocre garment. In a moment of abandon, she dropped it into the canal. She hated that stole. She shook her head and adjusted the gold band around her head.
‘Shall I rescue that for you?’ A man had appeared by her side. She started in surprise.
‘No thank you,’ she said, turning to look at him.
He was not a tall man, but he had a beautiful face. Dark honey eyes, and a soft curly moustache. He looked young. Maybe the same age as her. Perhaps younger. She took a drag of her cigarette and stared at him. She saw the surprise in his eyes at her audacity.
‘Are you going to a costume party?’ he asked, indicating her attire.
‘No, sometimes I dress like this because I want to,’ she lied, enjoying the suggestion in her answer. She put her head on one side and smiled at him. He smiled back, and she noticed that he had a little chip in one of his front teeth. A thought came unbidden into her head. How it would feel for him to tease her nipple between his teeth; how would it feel for the sharp broken edge of his front tooth to catch on her skin? She looked into his eyes and his pupils had dilated so that they were almost black. He took a tentative step towards her, and she didn’t move.
‘Are you working?’ he asked, so quietly it was as if the water beneath the bridge spoke.
Working? What could he mean?
He stepped forward again. From the glint in his eye, and his hand in his breast pocket, fingering some notes that he had begun to remove, she now understood what he meant.
He was up close. She could feel his excitement through his trousers as he pressed against the light layers of her skirt, which shifted easily as soon as he touched them to reveal her bare leg. For one so young, how bold he was to approach a woman he thought was a prostitute. Surely he had a beau? He was handsome, looked respectable, and yet she smelt it on him, his potent sexuality, just like her.
‘How much?’ he whispered.
She shivered with fear and excitement. She should have slapped him and walked away, but she didn’t. Her lips went dry, but she tried to keep up her sanguine façade. She named a figure, not knowing if it was the going rate, as she stabbed her cigarette out on the parapet of the bridge. She could see her hand shaking uncontrollably as if in shock at her own words. She grasped it tightly with her other hand, stilling her astonishment. What exactly was she doing?
He counted out the notes, looking around him to make sure no one was watching, and handed them to her. She didn’t even glance at them as she stuffed them into her bag.
‘Where?’ he asked urgently, his hand around her wrist as if he was worried that she might flee now that she had his money.
Where? She hadn’t thought of that. She could hardly take this stranger home. And even if she could, she knew that if she didn’t follow her instinct right this very moment, she never would. She would give him back his money. She might still walk away.
Yet at the same time as her doubt, another emotion emerged: a sense of power she hadn’t felt since before she got married. Louise was in control again.
‘Over there,’ she said, her voice low and husky, indicating a tiny alcove on the other side of the bridge, barely visible from the street.
He expected her to do it. This was the thrill. After thirteen years of her husband deciding when they would have sex, and being in charge – she was never allowed to actually touch his penis; just had to lie back and let him do his business – this young man wanted her to touch him. She reached out, her hands shaking with anticipation. It felt different from how she had expected. Softer, yet stronger. She squeezed hard and then relaxed her grip. She felt his penis nuzzled into her palm as if it was a being in its own right. Her back was against the old Venetian wall as he pulled aside her skirt, as simply as if he were opening a curtain. He fingered her for a few moments, and it was a delicious sensation. Her husband had never touched her here before. She pulled her silk underwear down and opened her legs wide. With his penis between her hands, she pushed him into her.
She was in Ancient Egypt now, in a dark tomb of desire. She was Anubis’s love slave. The young man growled into her neck, and together they rocked backwards. He lifted one of her legs so that it hooked around his back. Oh, this young one has done this before, she thought. It excited her to imagine that he believed she was experienced too. All he wanted from her was sex. He licked her neck hungrily, pushing up into her. She pulled her silk top back from her chest, and yanked down the brassiere. She put her hand behind his neck, forcing his head down to her breast. Oh yes, she could feel him sucking, and that broken tooth dragging on her nipple. He pushed in and out of her, faster and faster, and she was moving with him, not lying like a dead woman as she did for her husband. She was making love with her Egyptian jackal god. She desired him, and yet she feared him. He was burying her under layers of his touch. The deep earth of her longing was reaching into her and extracting her passion. Ah, she thought, sex is not death like it is with my husband. It is the life in death.
And now Louise was so deep inside her jackal god that she was no longer flesh and blood, no longer a woman, but gold dust dancing in the night air, a tiny part of Ancient Egypt brought alive in Venice. It had been so long, so, so long since she had felt these sensations. She was full of this young man’s penis. She sensed her vibrations exciting him, and he sped up, biting her nipple as he came, and jolting her up towards him so that he was deep inside her, deeper than her husband had ever been.
A moment’s breath and the young man pulled out. He was grinning with delight but she refused to smile, although she was proud of the effect she had had on him. It had made her happier than she had been in a long time.
‘Good night, madam,’ he said, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it delicately like a true gallant before disappearing across the bridge.
Louise was left shaking. She was shocked. Not at what she had done, no, she did not feel ashamed or disgusted with herself. Her shock was at the discovery of who she was. A vessel for lovemaking. She knew it in her heart, just as anyone who has a calling does. She had never felt so alive, so whole, so elated. What was love without sex? It couldn’t be real love. Yet what her husband classed as sex she would call procreation. The only reason he touched her was because he wanted a child. What had happened just now was sexual liberty in all its glory. Louise and this boy sharing their desires in a dark alcove in the backwaters of Venice. This was her freedom.
She rearranged her clothing. Took out another cigarette and smoked it, looking at the moon reflected in the canal. Her discarded shawl lay upon its surface like a gaping wound within
its silver orb. An omen of pain to come, she feared, and yet she wondered if she would ever be brave enough to do again what she had just done. She tossed her half-smoked cigarette into the canal and set off towards the party.
As she walked briskly through the Venetian night, Saint-Saëns’ ‘Danse Macabre’ played inside her head as if it were the musical accompaniment to her night walk, enticing the dissolute ghosts of Venice to join her in a dance of liberty. If she could have passion and love, would that make her happy? she wondered. Or would it destroy her? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it would never be a possibility with her husband. If she were to have any hope of finding this kind of love, she would have to separate herself into two: Louise, the wife of the respectable Polish businessman in Venice; and Belle, her hidden self, the whore. She made a promise as she walked. She would find this kind of love despite the consequences. If Anubis himself came to take her away, she would follow him gladly. For Louise, life without love was death.
Valentina
HOW WILL VALENTINA TELL HIM WHEN HE GETS BACK? That she can’t be what he wants: that girlfriend is the first step to . . . what? Love . . . engagement . . . marriage? After she tells him, things will deteriorate no matter how she tries to divert him. It’s such a shame. She doesn’t really want him to move out. It is good he is away for a few days. It gives her a chance to prolong the illusion that everything is okay. Maybe if she plays his game, with the photo album and the negatives, it might be enough.
She closes her eyes for a moment and tries to stifle familiar memories. Those few weeks before letting a lover go. How a touch that could turn her on one day leaves her cold the next. What happens to her? Why is it that as soon as a man tells her he loves her, she switches off? I am just more like them, she thinks crossly. They flit from break-up to break-up all the time, and never get called unfeeling, heartless or shallow. And yet underneath her anger, Valentina feels the edge of another emotion. It is a feeling she doesn’t want to admit to.
