Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) (29 page)

Louise drags herself out of these dark dreams. They give her a strange taste in her mouth, and an uneasy feeling, as if she is a player in a drama she doesn’t know the story of. When she sits up stiffly in bed, she is surprised to see Pina, still in her uniform, asleep on the chair beside her. What could the girl still be doing in here?

‘Pina,’ she whispers, but the child is in a deep sleep. Louise
looks at her face in repose, free from fear or worry. She looks like an angel. And then it hits her. She
is
an angel. This girl she has barely considered before is asleep on the chair next to her bed because she is protecting her. A woman nearly twice her age.

‘Pina.’ She leans over and shakes her gently by the arm. Pina wakes with a jolt. She looks confused for a moment, and then embarrassed when she realises where she is.

‘Oh, madam, I’m sorry . . .’ she stutters, her cheeks flaming red.

Louise clasps the girl’s hands.

‘No need to be sorry, Pina. No need.’

‘How are you feeling, madam?’ asks the girl, her bright cheeks beginning to calm down.

‘Sore.’

Louise takes a breath, pulls back the covers and swings her legs out of the bed. She gasps with pain as she stands up. She is not sure where it hurts the most. Her ribs, or her legs, or her head. There is a deep throbbing in the small of her back, where Signor Brzezinski punched her. Stupid man, she thinks. If he wants a baby so badly, why is he damaging its potential bearer?

‘Madam, I think you should get back into bed. I will bring you more poultices to take the pain away.’ Pina’s eyes are wide with concern.

‘I have to go, Pina.’ It is hard even to talk, and each word is forced out of her stiff mouth. The bastard slapped her on the chin as well.

Pina opens her mouth, dumbfounded, and Louise waits for her protest. Then the girl snaps her mouth shut again. Her next words surprise Louise greatly.

‘You must love him very much,’ she whispers.

Louise turns to Pina, leans on her shoulder and takes another breath.

‘I do, my dear. Will you help me?’

It takes them a while to dress Louise, so slowly, so painfully. By the time she is hobbling through the narrow alleyways of Venice, the sun has risen, yet it is still early enough for it to be safe for her to leave the house. It was Pina who came up with the idea of pretending to be Louise and getting into her bed, in the unlikely event of her husband looking in on her. Usually after beating her so severely he avoids facing her, and the marks he has made on her, for at least a day or two. Louise is sure he will not want to look at her for several days at least this time. It makes her pleased to think of her lowly maid fast asleep in her silk sheets, tasting a little luxury for once.

She pulls her cloche hat as low as possible over her forehead. Her husband forgot to be careful last night, and despite Pina doing her best with make-up, Louise has a black eye. She has decided she will wait for Santos for one hour, and if he has not come by then, she will disguise herself as a sailor boy and look for him down by the boats. If his schooner is gone . . . well then she doesn’t know what she will do.

She sits in her apartment, waiting. She is in the old rocking
chair by the bed, a blanket wrapped around her. She is still shivering from the beating she took, and feels as if the dampness from the rain yesterday has taken a hold in her bones. She closes her eyes and begins to drift, the sound of the lapping water like a lullaby. She imagines Pina singing to her, the only other soul apart from Santos who seems to have a care for her heart.

‘Belle . . . Belle . . .’ She hears his voice first, whispering. It is him, and yet he sounds different. Shocked.

‘Oh Belle.’

She opens her eyes, the lids heavy, and her vision is blurred for a few seconds. In the fog of her room she begins to make out Santos crouched down in front her. A look on his face she has never seen before. No more gaiety. Just horror.

‘My darling girl!’ he exclaims.

What’s wrong? she thinks. Why is he looking at me like this?

And she realises. He has never seen me beaten so badly, she thinks, her head pounding dully. This is the first time since she met Santos that Signor Brzezinski has laid into her with such force. She had always been able to explain away the other minor bruises. She didn’t want Santos to know about Louise. But how will she explain all this? She wasn’t thinking this morning about how Santos might respond to her beating; she just wanted to see him.

Santos pulls back her blanket and looks at her. He puts his hand to her bruised eye, and she flinches when he touches her.

‘Who did this to you?’ he asks, his voice hoarse with anger.

She is unable to lie to him.

‘Who do you think?’ The words stumble out of her slowly, stuck inside her stiff mouth.

He comprehends, and his face clouds with anger.

‘Show me,’ he commands.

‘No,’ she says, weakly, ‘I don’t want to.’

‘Show me what he did to you because of me.’

His voice is harsh. It almost frightens her. She rises slowly from her chair, unfastens her dress and lets it fall to the ground. She is so sore, she can hardly lift her arms to take off her chemise.

‘I can’t . . .’ she whimpers.

He leans over her, and lifts the chemise up over her head.

She stands before him, a blackbird with broken wings. She looks into his face and sees anguish in his eyes. He falls on his knees in front of her and buries his head in her stomach.

‘Forgive me,’ he mumbles into her soft belly.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she whispers, pushing her fingers through his hair, gripping his soft curls.

He pulls away and looks up at her. His eyes are blazing.

‘I will kill him,’ he hisses.

Fear shoots through her. She has no doubt that Santos would be true to his word, but she cannot let him go near Signor Brzezinski. She cannot risk her lover being hurt, or arrested for murder . . . executed. The thought makes her sick.
Signor Brzezinski has tainted everything in her life so far. She cannot let him destroy Santos.

‘No,’ she begs, stroking Santos’s hair. ‘No, my love, please don’t . . .’

‘I cannot promise you that,’ Santos says sternly, standing up and circling her within his arms. ‘He is a monster to beat a woman. How can you expect me not to want to right this wrong?’

‘No, no.’ Louise can feel the edge of hysteria mounting within her. She cannot put Santos in danger . . . and what about her mother? If Santos didn’t kill Signor Brzezinski but maimed him, she knows exactly how her husband would make her pay. He would ensure that her mother
never
gets to leave Poveglia. He would allow that cruel doctor to do a lobotomy on her. He has threatened as much before. For Signor Brzezinski is the one who committed her mother. He has all the power.

The fear builds inside her, and now, held in her lover’s arms, the shock from her beating begins to hit her. Last night she thought Signor Brzezinski might kill her. She thought she was never going to see Santos again. She begins to shake uncontrollably, tears falling down her cheeks, running into her mouth.

‘Please, Santos.’ She is sobbing. ‘Please don’t go near him.’

‘Ludwika,’ he says gently in Polish. ‘I won’t ever let him touch you again.’

Always Santos has called her Belle. To hear him speak the
name her parents christened her, to hear the Polish words roll out of his mouth makes her feel as if she is being carried on a wave, away from reality and into the land of her heart. She is shedding the skin of her other self, showing him who she really is. She collapses into Santos’s arms, and cries from deep down inside her belly, bringing up the grief of all these years. Her father dying. Her mother going insane. Her loveless wedding that felt like a funeral. The loneliness of her marriage. Her husband becoming a monster. Santos holds her in his arms, stroking her hair, letting her saturate his shirt with tears.

‘Ludwika, my beautiful Ludwika . . .’ Again and again he chants it. Gradually her tears subside. Santos bends down and scoops her up in his arms. He carries her to the bed and lays her down. He smoothes her black bob with his hands, and she feels comforted by his touch. He lies on the bed next to her, takes his damp shirt off so that he is only in his trousers. He strokes her naked battered body, and she has never seen him so serious, so subdued. He begins to kiss her. Every mark her husband made upon her body, Santos kisses. He kisses her bruised eye and her sore chin. He kisses bruises blooming on her chest and breasts, the burn on her wrist where Signor Brzezinski twisted it. He rolls her over and kisses all the way down her spine, to the point where her husband punched her. He rolls her back over and kisses her swollen legs. He crawls back up her body and kisses her belly, where the pain throbs deepest. Although he doesn’t say a word, Louise can feel his
love upon her skin. It is the most healing balm of all. With each kiss her physical pain recedes, and her heart expands.

‘Make love to me,’ she whispers, looking into his jewel eyes.

He frowns.

‘Are you sure, my little blackbird. I don’t want to hurt you.’

She shakes her heavy head at him.

‘You could never hurt me, Santos,’ she says.

He hovers over her, studying her face with concern.

‘This has happened to you because of me. I am not worth it,’ he says, stroking her cheek gently. ‘I cannot stay here with you for ever, Ludwika. I cannot give a woman like you what she needs.’

She takes his hand in hers, and lays it on her breast. Her nipples harden beneath his touch.

‘Yes you can,’ she says hoarsely.

It is the trust he sees in her eyes that finally turns the key to his heart. He sees that she would die for him, and he feels in awe. He wants to worship this woman who risks all for him.

He bends down and kisses her softly on the lips. Louise loosens her hold on his hands and closes her sore eyes. She feels him trailing his hands lightly down her body, and cupping her sex within his palm.

‘Oh please, Santos, make me better,’ she whispers. ‘Make love to me.’

He kisses her again in reply, and tenderly pushes her legs
apart, bringing his fingers back inside her and caressing her deep within. She is melting, all pain transformed into passion. Her raw emotion courses through her body, so that each time he tips her with his finger, the sensation becomes more and more intense.

She cries out his name.
Santos
. And in reply he enters her gently, pushing his way deep inside her. She opens her eyes, trembling with desire and emotion, and looks into the face of her lover. He is gazing at her in a way he has never looked at her before. It is as if her vulnerability has made Santos vulnerable, for his eyes are laced with tears as he climbs deeper and deeper inside her. There is no need for any more words. They are in complete harmony. He feels her pain, and she feels his passion. Together they climax in perfect unity, the love between them overflowing like a flood of emotion submerging them.

SHE TURNS ON THE LIGHT BOX IN HER STUDIO IN THE
apartment. White light blasts upwards, splashing on to the walls and ceilings of the room, leaving the corners untouched, the doorway to her own little darkroom bathed in shadows. She wants to know what this negative is of, yet she doesn’t feel like setting up her darkroom and enlarging it yet. She is going to cheat and take a look using her light box and special zoom-type loupe.

She takes the negative out of the plastic cover and slides it on to her enormous light box, which is in fact a converted counter top. She picks up her loupe and bends down, resting it against the image and pressing her eye into the piece.

What she sees makes her hold her breath for a second. This isn’t mildly erotic like the other photographs; this is full-on erotica. It must be rare, she thinks, to have a picture like this from the twenties. It must be worth a fortune. Is that why Theo gave them to her?

She stares at the negative and its contours seep into her subconscious. It looks so much like an image from one of her dreams.

This picture is different from all the others. It is the same model, she imagines, but instead of a close-up, she gets to see her whole body. It looks to have been taken outside, as the woman is lying on her front on brilliant white stone or marble, obviously in the full blaze of sunlight. It appears almost as white as her own light box. This dazzling background sets off the tonal contrasts on the woman’s naked body. Her legs are apart, and bent upwards at the knee. She is wearing a pair of black button boots. Her torso is twisted around, as is her head, and she is wearing a white Venetian mask which completely obscures her facial features, apart from her mouth, which is parted slightly as if in anticipation. She has a dark helmet bob, the signature hairstyle of the twenties. All of these elements of the model – her parted legs, her twisted back and head – are moving towards one central focus in the picture. Her right arm is reaching back towards her bottom, creating an angular line as her elbow bends. She has pushed her hand between her bottom cheeks, parting them slightly, her fingers spread. Her middle finger is pushed right down and is pulling up the most private part of herself. She is offering herself to the viewer.

Look at me, how open I am for you, waiting to feel you inside
.

The blinding white light beneath her body has leached to
the area between her legs, so that is edged in white. It reminds Valentina of a halo, and gives the image an almost spiritual quality, incongruously. It is also intensely erotic. Valentina bites her lip. She just loves this image. It is beautiful, stylish and sexy. It is everything she wants to bring into her own erotic photography. She imagines enlarging it until it is really big, framing it and putting it on their bedroom wall. What would Theo think of that?

She is jolted out of her reverie by a loud crash. She opens the door of her studio and listens. She can hear noises coming from the kitchen. She runs down the hall, and flings open the door to see a blackbird frantically flapping around. How did it get in here? The window is closed. She stands rooted to the spot for a moment, watching the blackbird seeking a way out. It swoops towards the sink, its wings slapping against the draining board, and takes off again, skimming over her head. She can feel the panic of this little bird. She can’t bear to see it trapped, and frightened.