Lose Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part Two) (2 page)

Even so, since the announcement, their friendship has drifted slightly. Now it seems that Gaby goes everywhere with Angelo. Valentina has only seen her once on her own recently, when they went to a Matisse exhibition. Her old schoolfriend had been a nightmare, complaining that she felt sick every few minutes and telling Valentina that she had no idea how bad the nausea could be in early pregnancy. Of course, Valentina did know. But she wasn’t going to tell Gaby that. There is only one person in the world who knows she was pregnant once. And she is never going to see him again, right? That had been the other thing that drove her mad that day with Gaby. Her friend kept bringing up Theo – trying to get her to talk about him, telling her to call him, advising her not to let him slip out of her life.

In the kitchen, Valentina makes herself a cup of English breakfast tea before sitting down at the table. She hasn’t heard from Gaby in a couple of weeks. She should call her – check everything is OK. She should care that her friend is pregnant, and yet she doesn’t want to think about it. In fact, if she is honest with herself, she hates the fact that Gaby is having a baby. She will lose her, too, just like she lost Theo.

Valentina opens up her laptop. She hasn’t checked her emails for a couple of days. She likes not being available all of the time. Sometimes she imagines having the courage to throw her mobile off the top of the duomo and watch it smash into tiny pieces on the piazza below, but she knows that would be professional suicide. There is quite a lot of mail, mostly boring, but one item in her inbox grabs her attention. She looks with interest at its subject: ‘Exhibition of Erotic Photography.’

When she clicks on the message, she has to read it twice before she actually takes in the content. She is being offered a place in a group show of erotic photography, in the Lexington Gallery in Soho, London, at the end of next month. Finally, all of her focus and drive is paying off. Last winter, during the weeks following her break-up with Theo, she had spent days putting together submission packages and sending them out to galleries in London. She had reasoned that she had always wanted to exhibit in London, although, if she is really honest with herself, it had also crossed her mind that this same city is Theo’s new home. Without hesitation, Valentina grabs her phone. To hell with Raquel’s family dinner, she needs to speak to Leonardo, now.

‘Leonardo, guess what? I’m in a show at the Lexington Gallery in London!’ she announces before her friend even has time to answer his phone properly.

‘Valentina, that’s great, but I can’t talk right now.’ Leonardo sounds unusually uptight.

‘Oh, sorry . . .’ She feels a little hurt; she cannot help it. She imagines Leonardo and his voluptuous wife, Raquel, at the dinner table, entertaining her family: the aroma of home-cooked food, wine liberally splashed into glasses, chat of young and old, children hiding in between the adults’ legs underneath the table. A scene she has never, in her whole life, been a part of.

‘I’ll call you later.’ His voice warms. ‘Well done; it’s really great news.’

At last, something else is happening in her life to take her away from her heartache over Theo. Finally, her profile as an art photographer, rather than a fashion photographer, is beginning to build. It takes her out of her mother’s shadow – Tina Rosselli was Milan’s iconic fashion photographer of the sixties and seventies – away from comparisons with her mother and into a world that is hers alone. Maybe that’s why she keeps taking those photographs.

Her episodes in Leonardo’s club make her feel better. She is not herself, disguised in some costume with her camera. She is a stranger watching strangers, taking pictures of them as they reveal the most nocturnal part of themselves, their secret desires, their shadow selves. The honesty of these scenes never fails to move her. And these are the only times she can hide away from her hurt. So she just keeps on snapping, consumed by this mission: to make something aesthetically otherworldly, beautiful and luscious out of sex.

She sits back against her chair, her heart rate quickening. It takes her less than a second to make up her mind. She quickly types a reply to the email, accepting the invitation.

Finally, she can get away from Milan for a while and all the memories of her and Theo that haunt the rooms within her apartment. In London, she can reinvent herself. And yet, the truth is that Valentina knows it is not just the idea of the exhibition that is exciting her. She now has an excuse to go to London, a huge city, of course, with a population of millions, and yet, even so, it is Theo’s new home. In London, she will be closer to him.

1948

The day she leaves, it is raining – the way it only
can in Venice – a penetrating downpour, barrelling down upon them as they walk towards the ferry. The lagoon sloshes over on to the pavement to merge with pools of rainwater. Her feet are wet before she has even set out.

The ferry is already there. Maria grips her suitcase handle, feels the stiff leather burning her palm. Her breath is tight in her chest. Finally, she is leaving.

Her mother places her hands on Maria’s shoulders, squeezes them tightly and looks intently into her eyes. She is hatless and her hair is stuck to her head like a shiny black helmet.

‘Never forget who you are,’ she says to Maria.

She looks away from her mother’s gaze. It is too intense and makes her frightened. She is beginning to have regrets. She is safe here in Venice. Why would she ever want to leave?

‘It will be very different in London,’ her mother continues. ‘It’s a very big city; much bigger than Venice. And it has been crippled by the war. Things will be harsh.’

Pina reaches forward and places her hand on Maria’s mother’s arm in reassurance. ‘She will be fine, Belle,’ she says gently.

Her mother drops her arms and, instinctively, Maria folds into the embrace of the two other women. She inhales deeply her mother’s scent of crushed roses and Pina’s more comforting aroma of burnt sugar and vanilla.

The bell rings for the ferry to depart and Maria knows that it is now, or never. If she doesn’t get on the ferry today, she will never be able to extricate herself from her mother’s love. It is so painful, this separation, and yet she has dreamt of this moment for many years – throughout the dull grey fear of the war, when she spent hours dancing on her own in the deserted palazzos of Venice, watching her young, supple body shimmering in the tarnished mirrors and dusty windows. She knows that, logically, her mother wants her to leave as well. She has always encouraged her to dance, reminding her again and again that her paternal grandmother was a Spanish dancer – that dancing is in her blood.

‘It is your calling, my darling,’ her mother had told her.

Her mother’s faith, though, was all words, not action. It was Pina who had given her the practical skills to pursue her dream. It was she who had found the right dancing teacher for Maria: a French-American Jew, called Jacqueline, who they hid throughout the war, and who tutored Maria not only in dance, but also in French and English. Jacqueline had left them over a year ago. They had not heard from her until two months ago when she wrote to Belle and Pina, telling them that she had a teaching position in the Lempert Dance School in London. Upon Jacqueline’s recommendation, the director of the school, Bruno Lempert, had a place for Maria. It was an opportunity Maria couldn’t possibly turn down: to actually train with the Ballets Jooss, one of the most cutting edge contemporary dance companies in Europe. Her chance had been handed to her on a plate.

‘Remember to work hard,’ Pina says, her expression earnest, and Maria knows she is trying to hide her emotions, for Belle’s sake.

‘Oh, I don’t know . . .’ Maria begins to say. ‘Maybe I should stay . . .’

Her mother shakes her head, fiercely, although tears are sprouting in her eyes.

‘No way, young lady,’ she says, picking up her case, and almost pushing her daughter on to the ferry. ‘You are doing this, not just for yourself, but for all of us.’

Now they stand apart, her mother and Pina on the quayside and she on the edge of the rocking boat.

‘Be careful,’ Pina instructs her.

Maria frowns. ‘Of what?’

‘She means be careful of
men
,’ her mother says, smiling despite the tears. ‘She is right, my darling; don’t let yourself be taken advantage of.’

‘Of course not,’ Maria says roundly, gripping her suitcase to her chest. She means what she says, for she tries to have no interest in men. Although her mother idolised her father – never said a bad word about him – as far as Maria is concerned, he abandoned them. He never met his own daughter. Belle tells her that he is dead but, when Maria asks where or how, she is unable to elaborate. If she doesn’t know for sure, then it’s possible that he could be alive, somewhere, couldn’t he? It’s possible he just never bothered to come back and is letting them all believe he is dead.

Pina has always been there in her life. Maria has been perfectly content living in the home of her mother, and her lover. It seems the ideal relationship: two women who of course completely understand each other. ‘Such harmony, and no patriarchal mess.’ That’s what Pina was always saying. If only she liked women, but Maria has to admit that she is not attracted to other girls and, sometimes, she finds herself casting her eyes at a man – usually a lot older than herself for some reason – before she pulls herself together and looks away. She knows that if she is to succeed as a dancer then she must dedicate her life to her dream. Falling in love with a man could destroy her purpose. And yet, as much as she convinces herself that she doesn’t want it, Maria can’t help but sometimes fantasise about how it must feel to be in love, and to be loved. How is it to be one man’s princess?

The ferry begins to pull away and she waves goodbye. Her throat tightens and she is not sure whether she is crying or not, her face is so wet from the rain. Her mother and Pina link arms and wave back, blowing kisses across the water. Maria catches them in her heart. My mother’s kisses will protect me, she thinks. She is frightened of the world she is walking into: London, a city devastated by the war, its people tough and proud. And she is an Italian. Not as bad as a German, yet still the enemy until Mussolini was got rid of. She bites her lip and inhales sharply the damp air of the lagoon as she watches the city shrinking in front of her and the figures of her mother and Pina receding. The magic of Venice is unravelling around her as if she has been wrapped up in a magic carpet all these years. She shivers. The new sensations of her own life, her independence and her beginning, course through her veins.

‘She is so innocent,’ Belle whispers as she watches her daughter disappearing before her eyes, the wide lagoon swallowing her up.

‘As were we all, once,’ says Pina pulling her lover close to her side. She kisses Belle’s damp cheek, places her hand upon her lover’s heart and feels its quick, hurting beat. ‘Let’s go home,’ she says.

Yet Belle can’t stop a dark thought entering her head – that Maria is too young to go to London, that maybe she is not ready to live this big ambitious dream of being a dancer. She can’t help thinking that she shouldn’t have let her go. Her daughter is too innocent. Will she ever return to Venice the same?

‘Can I come too
?
’

Antonella pins her with a pleading gaze, leaning forward and taking hold of Valentina’s hand. She is literally squeezed into her latticed corset and her ample cleavage is brushing Valentina’s own chest, the ends of her talon nails digging into the palm of her hand.

‘I’m only going for a few days,’ Valentina says, trying to put her off.

‘Please, Valentina,’ Antonella begs. ‘It’s so boring in Milan now Marco has gone to New York and Gaby is all loved up.’

Valentina hesitates. She had imagined herself alone in London – a time to reinvent herself.

‘Please,’ Antonella pushes, batting her false eyelashes at her friend.

‘I don’t know . . . I’m not even sure where I’m staying yet . . .’

‘My aunt has a whole house in Kensington we could use. It’s really posh,’ Antonella says smugly, knowing full well Valentina has no such useful relative in London.

‘You have to let me come with you. I can help you curate your show . . . you know how good I am at that. Besides –’ she licks her lips – ‘there are some really cool clubs in London. We could have so much fun.’

Valentina cannot refuse her friend; maybe it would be good to have someone else there with her. If Antonella is by her side, distracting her, she might not be so tempted to contact Theo. And this is something she really mustn’t do. She can’t go back to all that pain.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘but let’s talk about it later. Don’t you think we’d better go in?’

Antonella stands up and stretches. Despite the fact she is wearing spiky stilettos, she is still shorter than Valentina. She tugs at her corset, repositioning her breasts. She is wearing such a tiny red lacy G-string, she may as well not bother. Valentina still finds it bizarre seeing her friend dressed up this way and even more so taking pictures of her when she is in full flight in her dominatrix personna.

‘No harm to keep him waiting . . . I
am
in charge tonight,’ Antonella declares, as she saunters out of the reception area of Leonardo’s club and down the black marbled corridor.

‘Well, now, that is debatable,’ Valentina counters, catching up with her, ‘since this is my scenario you are a part of.’

‘Oh, yes, one of your erotic compositions.’ Antonella spins around, her eyes gleaming. ‘You see you
have
to bring me to London, seeing as I am one of the stars of the show!’

Inside the Velvet Underworld, all is as Valentina left it this afternoon when she set up the shoot, apart from the fact that the hammock she constructed is now occupied. Tonight she is extending her pictorial study of the dominatrix, using Antonella, as usual, as the main protagonist. She managed to persuade Leonardo to let her create her own version of a harness-cum-hammock, hung above the four-poster bed. She has removed all elements of crimson or purple from the area around the bed, covering its surface with a pristine white sheet. She’s taken down the heavy drapes and replaced them with mosquito netting that flutters in the candlelight. She has two arc lights positioned at either corner of the room, throwing dramatic shadows of the hammock across the walls and ceiling.

She has spent weeks finding the right material for her hammock. This picture is so important in the series because she is finally managing to get over her aversion to the whole dominatrix scene. Although she has learnt to respond to various levels of pleasurable pain herself as a submissive, she still struggles to find the inflicting of pain on someone else erotic, despite the fact that Leonardo tells her she is being selfish about it – that those participating want to feel these extreme sensations. She still shudders when she remembers the first time she went into the Velvet Underworld. It has only been through Antonella that she has been able to understand a little about the turn-on of being a dominatrix.

‘It’s not just about power,’ her friend told her. ‘It’s about control. It’s a big responsibility to know how far to go, especially if they are wearing a gag and can’t speak. You have to be able to read their bodies . . . You need to be incredibly sensitive.’

‘But how do you find it erotic?’ Valentina had asked her. ‘It just doesn’t turn me on.’

‘Well, that’s you, and that’s OK. What I like about it is that I can design my own fantasy. It’s not about hurting men, Valentina. You know I love men. It’s about seeing the vulnerability inside a man – his fragility. I love that.’

It was when she explained it like this that Valentina began to get it. And so she set about creating a scene that revealed the fragile core of a man’s sexuality, rather than his masochistic side. She wasn’t sure how it would turn out at all.

She made her hammock out of sheaths of ivory silk. Antonella’s partner for tonight is already lying within, face down, the contours of his naked body visible through the silk.

‘Oh, nice, Valentina . . . It matches you,’ Antonella whispers, indicating Valentina’s backless ivory all-in-one, tied with a single silk ribbon.

Valentina picks up her camera from where she left it earlier; the weight of it in her hands calms the frantic beat of her heart. She cannot help it but, every time she is in this room, she feels a little frightened. Maybe it’s looking at all the paraphernalia on the walls: the whips and riding crops, the chains and heavy, rough ropes.

‘Remember what I told you to do?’ she whispers to Antonella.

Her friend nods. ‘Sure, but I am free to go with my instincts, right?’

Valentina nods in resigned agreement. Antonella sometimes stretched the artistic limits of Valentina’s photography.

Antonella strides over to the bed and stands on top of it. She is a little shaky at first – her heels are incredibly high, after all – but she manages to regain her balance quite quickly. She is now standing over the man in the hammock, looking down at him. It is her current lover, Mikhail, another artist and experimental spirit, just like Antonella.

Valentina takes a shot of her just regarding him, contemplating what she is going to do. She says nothing yet, and Valentina prefers this. She finds most of the taunting phrases of the dominatrix are cliché and frankly not sexy at all.

Mikhail is face down in the hammock. Valentina watches Antonella as she strokes his naked back and bottom, her fingers pushing through his leg hair. She begins to massage his buttocks with her hands, pushing into his firm flesh and circling again and again. She takes her finger and draws it up and down between his two cheeks and then she pushes them apart, and begins to massage him more deeply inside. Valentina hears Mikhail groan, she guesses, in pleasure. Antonella stops abruptly.

‘Do you know what I am going to do to you?’ she hisses at Mikhail. She climbs off the bed and circles the room, inspecting some of the whips and crops hanging on the wall. Mikhail is straining to see her, but he is hardly able to move in the tight hammock. He doesn’t even acknowledge Valentina’s presence.

Antonella finds what she wants and climbs back on to the bed. She totters on the mattress, clutching in one of her hands a long rubber toy, with a curved end, and in the other, a tube of gel. She squirts some of the gel on to Mikhail, and begins to massage his buttocks while, very carefully, very slowly, she begins to insert the instrument into her lover. Mikhail inhales sharply and Valentina watches Antonella working away, bringing her lover closer and closer to the edge. It is beginning to affect her, watching this woman controlling this man, and Valentina can feel herself soften. She wonders if this is something she and Leonardo could try, and the thought surprises her since she has been thinking of no one but Theo since she found out about the exhibition in London.

Antonella has brought Mikhail as far as she wants to, and she removes the plug, leaving him begging for more. She bends down and kisses him on the lips.

‘Oh, no, my sweet,’ she says to him. ‘You have to watch me now.’

Antonella begins to pull at the silk hammock and, just as Valentina planned, the sheaths of material part so that she is able to pull his nipples free, pinching each one with her long nails, before freeing his cock. It is hard and ready for her, and she bends down and presses her lips to it as Mikhail shudders.

Antonella lets go of him and drops to her knees. She crawls under him and lies on her back on the bed right beneath him. The hammock is slung low and he is so close to her, yet not close enough. His cock is just centimetres away from her pussy. She pulls her red G-string off and opens up her legs, completely lost in her persona. Such a performer, Valentina’s friend is. She begins to touch herself and, as she does so, Mikhail manages to free his arm, so that he brings his hand around to grip his cock. Valentina snaps away as her friend and her lover masturbate together. She is trying not to get too turned on, but it is hard not to feel it. She suppresses her primal urge to join them on the bed. Really, it would just be far too complicated to sleep with Antonella as well.

The two of them climax in synchronicity and Valentina catches a shot of Mikhail’s seed as it marks her friend, gleaming in the spotlight, like stardust on her stomach.

Valentina gathers her things and backs out of the room. Now she should leave them in private. Her last glimpse is of Mikhail tumbling out of the hammock on top of the bed, as Antonella shrieks with glee.

She steps into the corridor at exactly the same time as Leonardo walks out of the Dark Room, the most sacred chamber inside the club where Leonardo’s clients are able to act out those deepest fantasies. He is naked, apart from a black satin mask over his eyes. His skin is shiny with oil and sweat.

‘Been working hard?’ Valentina nods towards the steel door, finding it hard not to sound cheeky.

‘As always,’ her friend answers. ‘How did that go?’

‘Well . . . yes . . . I think it went well.’

‘Did you join in?’

She can sense that her nipples are still erect against the slightness of her silk all-in-one.

‘God, no. I have no desire to sleep with Antonella, for some reason.’

‘Talks too much,’ Leonardo says.

The two of them stand in the corridor and Valentina knows she should move, but she can’t help noticing Leonardo’s reaction to her near-naked presence.

‘It did turn me on, though . . .’ she whispers.

‘Maybe we can try that some time,’ Leonardo says, taking a step towards her, and she feels his naked cock brush against her stomach. ‘Would you like to dominate me?’

‘I think I prefer it the other way around,’ she says, bringing her hand down to touch him. He takes his cue and pulls the string of her all-in-one so that it slides off her body. She is naked and all his as he puts his hand between her legs and touches her.

‘Ah, my dear Valentina; always ready for me,’ he says stroking her tenderly before suddenly spinning her around and pushing her up against the wall.

One of the club rules is, ‘No sex outside of the safety of the rooms.’ As Leonardo himself has said countless times, his club is not a brothel or some Berlinesque fetish club. His place is distinctly Italian: explicit yet always with some decorum; always behind closed doors. And yet right now he is breaking his own cardinal rule and Valentina wants him to. She is in such a state about going to London, and confused over whether she should try to contact Theo, that she needs to abandon all normality, even if for an instant. She pushes her backside against him and he takes her wrists in one hand and holds them tightly behind her. She presses against the cool wall and her body begs for him to fill her. She wants him to go so deep inside her tonight.

Leonardo slams into her, and she answers with a groan. She realises she was more turned on by Antonella and Mikhail’s game than she thought. She is already quivering around Leonardo, aching for him to go further and further. Their coupling doesn’t last for long, but it is intense and primal – outlawed sex. Leonardo thrusts in and out of her and she responds in beat to him. She is climbing, climbing, and together they come suddenly, sliding down the wall as one and collapsing on to the floor, curled up around each other.

Valentina leans over and removes Leonardo’s mask. His eyes are closed and he is breathing heavily.

‘What was all that about?’ she asks. ‘We’re not supposed to do it here.’

He opens his eyes, looks apologetic.

‘I know . . . I don’t know what possessed me . . . Sorry . . .’

She kisses him on the cheek. ‘Don’t be silly; I wanted to do it as much as you.’

He pulls her up to her feet. ‘Let’s take a bath, drink some mint tea and calm down.’

Valentina reclines in the bubbling waters of the hammam pool. She lets fragrant steam waft over her body. She hasn’t felt this relaxed in weeks. Leonardo is opposite her in the water. He turns to pour some mint tea out of a little teapot balanced on the side of the pool, and offers her a steaming glass. She takes the glass in both hands and sips delicately, watching her friend closely. There is something wrong, she can tell. His hands are shaking as he hands her the tea and he is refusing to look her in the eyes.

‘What is it, Leonardo?’ she asks.

He sighs and looks up at her, pushing his hand through his thick curly hair and away from his forehead so that she can see tiny beads of perspiration glistening on his skin.