Her One Obsession (8 page)

With every word she spoke Haver kept thinking how young she
was, how naive, how obsessed with Gideon – and how little she really knew her husband. But he did believe her and had to accept that she was a strong and loyal young woman, one who would be the backbone of Gideon’s life. He did not particularly like Dendre but did not feel strongly enough about her to dislike her either. She was an earth mother type, wearing long patterned skirts and glass beads. She had an interesting face devoid of cosmetics, a secret soul – not something he either admired or desired. He liked his women beautiful, intelligent, chic and decadent. He also knew that to be the kind of woman Gideon preferred for his notorious sexual escapades. No, Dendre would be no problem so long as she remained obsessively in love with her husband.

‘That was quite a speech. I think you and I understand each other,’ he said.

‘Yes, I guess we do,’ said Dendre with a smile, the tension she had been feeling thankfully dissolving.

‘Even standing in Gideon’s shadow, his fame and success may cause you problems. I want you to understand that you may call on me at any time, and if I can help I will.’

‘That’s very kind,’ she answered, but the ice in her voice told Haver she would never call on him.

He couldn’t help but think that she was wise to let him know they would never be friends, merely casual acquaintances. That suited him perfectly.

‘Wait here a moment, will you, Dendre?’

Alone in the quiet of the library a terrible sadness came over her. She rose from the sofa where she had been sitting and walked to the open fire to lean on the mantelpiece. The honeymoon was over along with the hardships of the life she and Gideon had been living. He was getting everything he wanted and for that she was thankful. If she was certain of anything it was that whatever changes were happening in their life, the one thing Gideon would not want was for her to change. Rise to the occasion, yes, but not change herself or what they had together.

Haver returned to the room. Over his outstretched arms, he was carrying something wrapped in black tissue paper. He went directly to Dendre.

‘This is for you. Would you do me the honour of accepting it?’ he asked.

Dendre was nonplussed. She wanted no gift from Haver but instinct told her she was being ungracious. She felt decidedly awkward in this strange situation. Why had not Frieda taught her the proper way to handle such matters? Orlando came to mind. What would her brother do? He had a natural graciousness that she lacked. And then she worked it out by making herself believe she was Orlando.

‘I would not be depriving the lady for whom you bought it?’ she asked.

Rather a gracious way of accepting a gift, thought Haver. He was for the second time that night impressed with Dendre.

‘It was for no specific lady. I buy beautiful things when I see them. I would really like you to have it and wear it this evening. I think it would suit you.’

With that she took the package from his arms and went to the desk where she carefully unwrapped a Chinese silk embroidered shawl. She was overcome by its beauty and hardly knew what to say so she said nothing, simply kept staring down at it. Haver finally picked it up and shook it out. The black silk shimmered in the light from the desk lamp. The plum-coloured embroidery was magnificent. Haver draped the shawl around her and tucked one end of it through the drab blue string belt she was wearing over an ill-fitting, worn black knit dress.

‘It suits you just fine, Dendre,’ he told her.

He fluffed her hair and pinched her cheeks to colour them then stood back and looked at her. ‘You’re a handsome woman, Dendre.’

‘Now that you’ve fixed me up,’ she said knowingly and with some petulance in her voice. His condescension was irritating to her. His world was a foreign place and not one she really cared to visit.

She only now began to understand what Gideon had meant when in those first days after they had married he had told her, ‘You know, Dendre, the reason this marriage is working so well is not only because we love each other but because we are so different and respect those differences. We dip our toes into each other’s lives and gain something special from the experience.’

It came as a shock to her to see that Gideon was right. They would each of them lead separate lives because she was no more
suited to live his than he was hers. Tonight she was dipping her toes into Gideon’s world and she was going to make certain she damn’ well made a good job of it, enjoyed what she could of it, and kept her own counsel. She was about to make her debut as Gideon’s adoring wife, his faithful shadow, stylishly adorned by Haver so as not to show him up.

Dendre and Gideon may have bussed it up to Haver Savage’s town house but they returned home in Haver’s chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Dendre was waiting for Gideon to say something about the evening but he remained silent. Sitting in the back seat with Amber in her Moses basket between them, Dendre kept running the events of the night through her mind. Gideon had been so at ease, so charming, he’d gathered the guests around him without even trying. They’d adored him. He was amusing, utterly disarming, so much more powerful than anyone else in the room. Every time she found herself alone or out of her depth in conversation with someone, he would be there to save her or include her in the group he was with. She could see envy in the other women, wondering as to how she could have captured his heart.

Gideon leaned over the Moses basket and kissed Dendre on the cheek. He took her hand in his but said nothing. It was she who finally broke the silence. ‘You seemed right at home with those people. Happy even.’

‘I was and I am. Not at all your scene, I know. But never mind, you’ll get used to the art world and make your own place in it,’ he told her, and that was the end of it. He turned away from her and looked through the automobile window, watching New York City at night flash by.

Chapter 8

Gideon was a joy to sleep with. Going to bed with him was always an adventure, and not just a sexual one. This was the time when he chose to discuss his work with Dendre or to speak about their life together – how much he loved her and Amber. He also talked about his dreams and aspirations. And this was the time he listened to her opinions and considered them. Dendre soon realised that six in the morning was truly their most intimate hour of the day when he belonged only to her. After that Gideon thought only of his painting and his freedom.

Since he had known her, there had never been a night when, last thing before falling asleep, he did not hold her in his arms and kiss her, not a morning when he didn’t awaken her with a kiss. More often than not, that first kiss fired him sexually and they would start the day only after they had sated their lust in orgasm.

Arriving home from Haver’s, both she and Gideon were for too charged up to sleep. Gideon was especially effervescent, bubbling over with happiness. He was high as a kite that had broken away and was rising higher and higher on a soft, warm wind. Dendre saw an aura of wild passion around him. She wanted to be where he was and was drawn to it, actually gave herself over to it. After settling Amber she went to the middle of the studio where she found her husband sitting on the chair Haver had last sat in, contemplating his own work. His eyes were bright with excitement. She imagined how fast his heart must be beating, pounding even. She knew her own was.

Gideon turned away from the paintings at the first sound of her footsteps. He held out his hand to Dendre and she took it and was guided by him to stand before him. He had a strange and exciting glint in his eyes that she could not remember seeing
before. It was terrifyingly sexy, depraved even. All she could think was how much she wanted to be perverted from her virtue and morality. To be more intemperate and sensual than any other woman had ever been. She saw in his eyes a man who could and had been a viciously sensual man, one who enjoyed sex in that way. Until now, in their erotic life together, he had only hinted that he could be such a man. Dendre had never taken those suggestions seriously until this moment. Now she wanted to be his debauchee, to reap the sexual thrills of anything that might give them both the ultimate orgasm. She felt as if she had been holding back on the wilder shores of sex and therefore cheating them both.

Standing in front of Gideon, she asked him in a voice husky with lust as she undid the belt round her waist and handed it to him, ‘Are you going to take Haver Savage as your dealer?’

He watched his wife seductively slide the shawl from her shoulders and let it slip to the floor. She could feel the sexual excitement coming off him as she raised her dress over her head and provocatively threw it in his lap. She stood before him naked save for her white stockings held up by garters of lace around the top of her thighs. Days after they began living together he had decided she would always remain naked under her outer garments, open and ready for sex wherever and whenever either one of them wished to give vent to their lust.

Gideon could hardly take his eyes off her body, sexual heat shimmering in his eyes. She cupped her breasts in her hands, pinched her nipples. She struck erotic poses and her naked body shone in the light, incredibly voluptuous. He was brimming with delight, thinking of the many ways he would fuck her tonight. He was thrilled with this sexual protégée of his. He had taught her to love sex and orgasm, her own body, a man’s penis, and she revelled in his teachings. She was now a woman experienced in erotic hunger and how to sate that particular appetite. He loved her for her submissiveness, her obsession with him, her strength and willingness to pay any price so as to remain by his side as wife, lover, friend.

She was constantly surprising Gideon by her steely determination to rise above her own limitations so that she might add to his life. In private she was changing while in public she remained
the passably pretty, rather limited wife of Gideon Palenberg. Perversely, he liked her limitations, her dullness, as much as he enjoyed the other Dendre behind firmly locked doors. It suited him, he actually loved her more for it. They both appreciated that she saved him from having to take care of himself. That was the power she wielded over him.

Gideon rose from his chair and went to her. ‘Yes, if Haver and I can strike a deal that suits us both, I will go with him.’ While he spoke he tied her belt tightly around her breasts, making them appear even more voluptuous than they already were. They were firm, the skin taut, round, and her nipples oozing mother’s milk. She looked terrifyingly sexy, incredibly raunchy, spurting milk, her stance defiant, challenging.

‘Do you like Haver?’ he asked as he fondled her breasts.

‘No,’ she answered. Her voice had a tremor in it.

Gideon knew that tremor well. When out of control with sexual desire, it was always there in her voice. She was being particularly assertive with her sexuality tonight and he admired that in women just as much as when they suddenly collapsed in total submission to a man’s sexual demands.

‘You will get used to him. After me he is going to be the most important man in your life,’ he told her.

‘Let’s just forget him for now,’ she pleaded.

‘Forgotten,’ Gideon told her, and lowered his head to take one of her nipples in his mouth and suck hard from her breast.

Dendre thought she might swoon, so powerfully sexy was it to have her husband suckling from her breast. She felt both ecstasy and pain: Gideon feeding from her nipple, the tight belt tied around her breasts. The sensations were exquisite. She groaned, she whined, she came. She begged him to stop.

‘Oh, no. This is just the beginning,’ he told her, then bent to her other breast.

His searching fingers found her wet and warm with overflowing lust. He used them to bring her on and between the force of his penetration and his mouth sucking her dry of milk she went quite over the edge of sex into a yearning for any sort of depraved sensation she had not previously tasted nor imagined. She told that to Gideon who was in much the same state.

He all but tore his clothes from his body and told her while
doing so: ‘You are sublime like this, thrilling. You excite me beyond measure with your lust for me.’

He untied her breasts and now draped the belt around her neck, leading her to a pipe that ran down the wall. He bound her wrists together first then turned her to the wall and tied her to the pipe. He left her for a few minutes, returning with a scarf that he put round her eyes.

Fear had gripped her, yet she was also feeling a new kind of excitement. ‘I don’t think I like this,’ she told him.

But Gideon was not there. He had gone to the fridge to fetch one of the bottles of champagne Haver had sent home with them. She called to him several times and still there was no answer. It was quiet in the studio, even the silence felt sexy. She was cold and her heart was racing. Then she heard a shot and jumped.

‘What was that?’ she asked.

And this time Gideon did answer. ‘This is a game of trust, depraved sex, and love. Did you think I was shooting at you?’

‘No. I know you’ll never harm me.’

‘Right answer. Now you get a glass of champagne,’ he told her.

He went to her and after ordering her to open her mouth, poured the wine into it slowly so she would not gag. It dribbled from her mouth and ran down her body. Gideon licked the rivulets on to his tongue. He took several swigs of the wine before he placed the bottle on the floor and untied Dendre from the pipe. With the belt still round her neck, he led her to a blanket he had spread on the floor.

She found it oddly thrilling to have sex with a man she could not see. Once lust had overtaken her and reason was abandoned, Gideon ceased to exist for her. There was only his mouth, his lips, his rampant penis, his caressing hands and sometimes vicious thrusting, the sting of her belt on her flesh when she broke the silence he insisted upon. She lost count of her many orgasms, of the times he had come. She could only remember how divine it was still to have the taste of him in her mouth, to submit to his every sexual demand.

They continued their sexual extravaganza for hours and she dozed in his arms from time to time. When Gideon finally took her blindfold off and untied her hands she saw for the first time
the bruising round her breasts where he had first tied the belt, and also that he had turned her into a living Palenberg painting while she had been asleep. The nimbuses around her nipples were painted a light amber colour; the nipples red and bruised from his sucking, had been left as they were. There was a chain painted round her neck in dark blue; lovely designs in a henna colour on her arms and legs.

‘I’m more beautiful than I ever imagined I could be,’ she told him with tears of pleasure in her eyes.

Spent himself, he wanted still to see her come once more as his creation. He used an object of jade, Japanese, seventeenth-century, carved into a handsome sculpted penis. It had been a gift from Haver during the time when he’d first arrived in New York and they had spent days and nights enjoying sexual orgies with several luscious ladies.

He found it extraordinarily erotic to control Dendre by sex and orgasm. Even more so tonight when the world was his and he had painted her, marked her as his creation, a work of art that only they in their lust would see. Her orgasm was strong and copious. When, for the last time, he removed the jade from her cunt it glistened as if dipped in nectar and he licked it clean.

He raised her from the floor and took her to the bath where he washed her. She was too exhausted to speak, her heart full of love and passion from having seen him lick her come. How many men loved a woman enough to enjoy her like that? Not many, she was certain. And once more she was grateful for his love and lust for her.

Lying next to her in bed, he kissed her good night and told her what a marvellous lover she was. He promised her similar nights of splendour would be theirs forever.

Later he kissed Dendre awake and placed a docile Amber next to her.

‘It’s very late. I’ve seen to her already so you might have an easy morning.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Dendre.

‘I have an eleven o’clock meeting with Haver.’

Dendre sprang to life and sat up in bed. She had never slept so deeply nor awakened so late in the day. Her morning kiss had in the past come no later then six o’clock. Gideon liked to be at
his easel no later than seven, no matter how late in the evening he might have been working. She felt somehow disorientated: her husband was dressed for uptown in his black coat with its velvet collar. He was not lying next to her to press that morning kiss upon her, but instead had given her Amber as a replacement.

She kissed her baby and wondered if Gideon was already drifting away from her. Husband and wife gazed into each other’s eyes and she waited for some small sign of reassurance that this was not the case. She very nearly shouted with joy when she received what she most desperately needed: a second kiss for her and one on Amber’s forehead.

‘I’ll be home as soon as I can. But that may not be until early evening, possibly even later. I intend to hammer out all the details of the deal with Haver so we never have to do it again.’

When Gideon returned home triumphant it was nearly eleven in the evening. Dendre had placed the small table they dined at close to the fireplace. The moment she heard the intercom buzzer go with his signal, she lit the candles and fussed with the small arrangement of flowers she had splurged on with what little money that was left in their weekly budget. Her afternoon had been spent cooking a celebratory meal for them on the two-ring electric cooker: chicken in a cream and mushroom sauce with buttered rice, ice cream with her home-made butterscotch sauce and walnuts. His favourite meal. The second bottle of champagne that Haver had given them the night before stood cooling in the galvanised bucket she used to mop the floor.

Gideon was moved by the sight of the small table and lit candles, Dendre standing by the open fire, Amber in her arms. His wife and his child, the goodness and purity of their souls, stood out as bright stars against the drab and harsh surroundings of the loft.

He went to Dendre and kissed her and the baby. ‘You may not like change, dear Dendre, but you certainly rise to it. How did you know I hadn’t dined out?’

‘I didn’t. But this is home and we always eat at home except when we go out with my mother and father,’ she told him.

‘I made my deal with Haver, got everything I wanted and so did he. I feel like the happiest man on earth. Also the hungriest.’

She pulled the bucket up off the floor and handed it to Gideon
and they both laughed. Her toast to him was: ‘Watch out, world. The Palenbergs have arrived!’

In those first years after Haver took Gideon on, the three Palenbergs remained in the studio, living very much as they always had except for a larger budget. But there were drastic changes in their social life. They now had one. They went out more, mostly to first nights of exhibitions. They entertained art pundits and painters, even a few collectors. A visit to Gideon Palenberg’s studio became a much sought after invitation. Gideon could now afford to drink and did, only the best champagne.

But Gideon and Dendre had been too poor and too hungry, had worked too hard, to be frivolous with the advance of money Haver gave them every month. Half went into the bank and they lived on the remainder. Dendre kept their accounts in order.

Once word was out that Haver Savage had a new discovery the art world flocked to The Haver Savage Gallery, but in vain. There were only two paintings to be seen and neither was for sale. It was eleven months before the doors opened on the first one-man show of Gideon’s work. Everyone who was anyone in the New York art world was there.

But of those present no one was more excited and less surprised by the astonishing brilliance of the exhibition than Herschel, Frieda, and Orlando.

Gideon saw them enter the gallery. He had imagined they might feel out of their depth, looking their old, middle-class, styleless selves, feeling uncomfortable among the sophisticated and elegantly turned out crowd. Not in the least. Orlando had obviously taken Herschel in hand and delivered him to Brooks Brothers. He looked more like an Ivy League professor than a furrier. Harvard had taught Orlando that it was more than a university. It was a way of life. He was as well dressed as his father.