Fifty Shades of Submission (2 page)

My strokes become more urgent and eventually I bring myself to a climax
, groaning softly with sensual pleasure. And it is precisely at that moment that I remember that my picture of the nude Venus is in one of the books that I lent the widow - my rambling scribblings are in the hands of a strange woman. What will she think of me?

I lie in the dark for a while but can’t sleep. Tonight, for the first time since coming here, I find my room strangely confining and oppressive.

There is a woman in the hotel; f
rom the look of her – a beautiful woman with long red hair that cascades richly over her shoulders. I feel almost like a primitive animal that senses her scent on the breeze. The sight of her has aroused me and made me restless. I have the feeling that she is out there in the night somewhere and I have an overwhelming urge to track her down and find her.

I get up and get dressed in jeans and pull on a T-shirt and decide to go for a walk.

Outside
the moon is full. I go out onto the terrace and stand there, soaking in the scents and sounds of the night. It always amazes me at how still the nights are out here in the country. The trees and the landscape in the distance are faded away into the night like black ink,
and I feel as though I am the only person alive in the world.

Some power
seems to draw me toward the meadow beyond the gardens of the hotel. I begin to walk. The night is cool and I feel a slight chill. The air is heavy with the sweet fragrance of wild flowers and the pine forest nearby. The fragrance is wild and intoxicating. Stars quiver overhead, faint in a silvery ink-blue sky. The field beyond is smooth and silent in the silvery half-dark. As always I am drawn to my favorite spot in the garden – the moss-covered stone statue of Venus presiding graciously over the pond at her feed, to the soothing sound of water cascading into the pool. I pause for a moment at the statue of Venus and look into her cold, inscrutable stone face. I imagine that once she was a real and beautiful woman - a warm-blooded a goddess who loved and broke the hearts of both gods and mortal men, and was punished for her needs and turned to stone right here, in this wild and sensual place.

I smile
at my foolish romanticism and walk on, heading for the pine forest. Where is she – the mysterious red-headed woman? Is she out here wandering in the night or warmly tucked up in her bed?

I am on the
main foot path that leads to the heart of the forest. I have walked it many times and am familiar with its twists and turns, and the almost wonderfully overpowering smell of pine needles. The dark shapes of the trees overhead are silent and overbearing. I have always found walking alone in a forest at night to frightening and exciting at the same time. There used to be a forest near our house when I was a boy and I used to force myself to walk alone through the length of it in the dead of night to prove to myself that I was brave.

I also went there
to hide from my stepmother. It was the only place that she would not come looking for me. The forest was my refuge on many occasions.

Ahead of me
there is a clearing, bathed in silvery moonlight. There is a stone bench in the middle of the clearing and I see her sitting on the bench. For a moment I catch my breath sharply – she reminds me of the nude Venus in the photograph in almost every way. But this Venus is not naked, she is dressed in her sable fur coat. Neither is she the beautiful stone statue guarding the pond in the meadow; this is the goddess of love herself in the flesh - warm-blooded and long-haired and draped in fur.

She has come to life for me,
this Venus, like the statue sculpted by Pygmalion who came to life for her creator.

I stand and
stare, mesmerized by her. Her pale alabaster face shimmers in the moonlight. Dark fur flows from her shoulders and cascades to the ground, hanging about her like a luxurious shield. In the moonlight her lips seem very red and her cheeks begin to take on color before my eyes, like a statue coming to life. Two green rays seem to emanate out of her eyes and fall upon me. She laughs softly.

Her lau
ghter is at once gentle and mysterious. It cannot be described, and it takes my breath away. I feel as if she is about to cast a spell on me; turn me to stone. Punish me for being a man and having the audacity to look upon her sensual, flawless beauty.

In an instant I yearn to possess her, but instead
I turn on my heel and flee, almost running. Now and then I pause to catch my breath. Her laughter follows me through the dark leafy paths, through black impenetrable thickets where no moonbeams can pierce. I can no longer find my way back to the hotel. I am lost and wander about confused, cold drops of perspiration on my forehead.

Finally I stop and g
radually my breathing subsides and everything becomes perfectly clear and distinct once again. There’s the fountain with the statue of Venus, and there’s the short avenue of neatly manicured rose bushes, and there’s the outline of the old country hotel in the moonlight which I am slowly approaching.

Another couple of steps and
I am safe once more inside my room. I close the French doors and make sure the curtains, too, are closed. Then I sit on the side of my bed in the dark and wait to catch my breath. Slowly I begin to calm down and reflect on what had happened.

Venus
on the stone bench in the forest clearing had been thrilling to look at, yet frightening in a way that I did not understand. It was almost as if I had some sort of foreboding that this women meant to harm me, even though I had never met her before.

And of course, she
isn’t a statue or a goddess of love at all - she is the woman upstairs with the red hair. The widow with the expensive sports car and sable fur.

"
Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.
"  -

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

In the morning
the magical silver-lit atmosphere of the previous night was gone, dissolved by the warm logical comforting rays of the wintry sun.

After breakfast I go out onto the terrace and read.
But this morning I am distracted. I keep looking up for a glimpse of the red-headed Venus, but there’s no sign of her. It’s as if the vision of last night had been nothing but an apparition – a figment of my imagination.

I settle down eventually and become absorbed in my book.
I am comfortable in the arbor, reading in the Odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers into beasts.

There is a soft rustling in the twigs nearby and then on the terrace close by.

The rustle of a
woman's dress…

And then she is there, standing before me:
the red-headed Venus, without her fur coat. This time she is merely a widow dressed in a skirt and a polar-neck sweater and yet— oh, what a woman!

She
stands there in the white shimmering midday wintry sunlight, the sky is a deep blue and there are no shadows or ghosts, and she is looking directly at me, her body full of poetry and grace, her face indescribably enthralling…

What
enchantment and softness plays about her full mouth! Her skin is translucent and infinitely delicate. How abundant her red hair; how tenderly it cascades about her long elegant neck! Now her eyes meet mine— and of course they are green. Eyes whose power is intense and deep and unfathomable.

She observes my confusion as I remain
seated, staring at her open-mouthed, the book falls from my hands to the ground.

She smiles
playfully and comes closer. I introduce myself, stammering like a tongue-tied, love-struck fool. “Julian Deverell,” I mutter.

And so our acquaintance begins
.

Her name is
Saskia von Werder.

“German?”
I blush like a sixteen year-old boy, not a man of twenty two—

She smiles
kindly. “My husband was German.”

"
Won’t you sit down?" I manage to say. I just cannot stop staring at her. I am dumbstruck by her graceful movements and the magnetism of her eyes.

She s
its down in the arbor on the wooden bench beside me, clearly enjoying my shyness and awkwardness. A delightful expression of conceit hovers about her lips. This beautiful women is used to having men fawn over her. She has probably broken the hearts of countless men. I can see that she understands her power over men and has the confidence and skill to use it.

“Did I scare you last night
, Julian? You ran away like a frightened rabbit.”

“I was…” I search
for the right words. Words that would not make me look a complete fool. “I was taken aback. I did not expect to come face to face with Venus in the forest.”

Again th
at mischievous laugh. She raises an eyebrow. “Venus?”

I feel
my cheeks burn. “You remind me of the goddess of love. I’m sorry, I’m babbling.”

“As in the photograph in your book?”

I nod awkwardly.

She smiles and touches my hand as if to console me.
“What are you reading?”

It is kind of her to change the subject and
I picked up the book off the ground and hold it up for her to see:
Justine
by Marquis de Sade. The cover displays a black and white lithograph of a naked man in a forest, with two frightened, half-clothed women in his power. The women cower away from him, their breasts naked and exposed, their faces twisted with fear.

“Ah,” she sighs
. “De Sade – the sadist. Do you view love as torture?"

"
Where there is love, there is pain
- Oscar Wilde said that.”

"I don’
t agree at all," she says decisively, shaking her head so that her curls flare up like wild flames about her face. “I prefer the serene sensuousness of the Greek ideal of love – love and fulfilment
without
pain.”

“
Do you believe in the permanence of love?”

She shook her head. “
As far as I am concerned, there is no permanence in
any
relationship between a man and a woman. Love is the most changeable condition in our ever-changing, unpredictable and fragile human existence. All endeavors to introduce permanence to love are impossible - despite religious ceremonies, vows, and other legalities that strive to bind us to each other forever.”

“You sound
cynical.”

“Cynical? Perhaps
, but a realistic nonetheless. And honest. Should I tie myself to one man whom I don't love anymore, merely because I loved him once? No, I will love whoever pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me – however fleetingly. And then I will move on. Is that heartless of me? If complete honesty in love is heartless then yes, call me callous. I am financially secure and I know that I am beautiful and that men are attracted to me. I travel the world as I please and live for the sake of my pleasure and enjoyment only.
My
pleasure and enjoyment. I refuse to apologize for that."

While she speaks her eyes sparkle with a kind of seductive
wickedness. I had taken hold of her hand without realizing it, and now hastily let go of it, appalled by my audacity. She, on the other hand, did not seem to notice.

"Y
our frankness is refreshing,” I say. “Perhaps that is what attracts me to older women: their frankness and confidence and experience of the world.” Judging by her looks, I estimate that Saskia is in her later thirties – quite a number of years old than me. In truth, she is old enough to be my mother. Curiously, the thought excites me. I am beginning to feel aroused in her company.

She is smiling at me. “Are you attracted to me?”

I nod, embarrassed.

She smiles benignly.
"It’s been a long time since any man has been attracted to me. My husband was a wonderful man – we were married for several years. Not even his dreadful illness soon after our marriage could get him down. During the last months of his life he often said to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?'

“Naturally I cringed
at the thought, but he was a pragmatic man. 'Choose an attractive lover,’ he would advise, teasing me, “or preferably several. You are a splendid looking women in the fullness of life, there is no need to deny yourself the comfort of a man’s caresses on my account.'”

“And did you take a lover?”
My cheeks flush at my boldness.

She
looks down at her beautiful slender hands lying motionless in her lap. “No, I did not take a lover; but it was through him that I have become what I am - a woman who believes in love.
Pleasurable
love."

"You are indeed a
love goddess," I say foolishly.