Lose Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part Two) (32 page)

She has said yes. She can hardly believe it will
happen, that the man in the car beside her will soon be her husband. Their rental open-top Mercedes twists and turns along the Amalfi coast road and she looks out at the jewel blue Mediterranean ocean. Despite her dark glasses and the scarf tied around her head, the sun is still glaring, beating down upon them relentlessly. Yet she feels like a lizard, happy to soak in its warmth and let the hot breeze flow through her as Theo drives them towards Sorrento. It is good to be back home in Italy, where they both belong. Theo may not be Italian by birth, but he is Italian by nature. Like her, he is an advocate of living in the moment and tasting the sweetness of life in the present.

The hotel in Sorrento is beyond all her expectations. It is situated right in the centre of the town, hidden from view by a luxurious garden of orange and lemon trees. Inside the hotel, all is old-style grandeur. They walk through salon after salon until they come out on to a terrace overlooking the bay of Naples and the island of Capri.

She and Theo look at each other. She knows he is thinking the same thing: what a perfect place it would be to spend their honeymoon.

They sit in sacred silence, enjoying a glass of Prosecco each as they watch the sun sink slowly, blushing the sky flamingo pink as it departs. She is happy. It is almost impossible to believe this feeling will last. She can’t help thinking that something will go wrong. She blames it on the pessimistic side of herself: her mother’s voice, or maybe it is the voice of her mystery father, Karel, the Czech cellist. She still hasn’t told Theo about him.

Her lover reaches out and puts his hand on hers. ‘Do you want to come with me tomorrow when I drop off the painting?’

‘I don’t mind. Do you want me to come with you?’

Maybe on the twisting drive down the Amalfi coast she can tell him the story of her father. She wonders what Theo will think of it all, if he will encourage her to go and find her blood father, although how she will do it, she has no idea.

However, Theo says, ‘I think it’s better if you don’t come.’ He brings her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. ‘Ricardo Borghetti, Guilio’s son, is a little bit neurotic about keeping this all very quiet, even though Anita gave the picture back rather than me stealing it.’

‘OK,’ she says, a little disappointed. ‘Well, in that case, I’ll go to Pompeii. I’ve never been there and I’ve always wanted to see it.’

After dinner, they stroll through the gardens and along the side of the swimming pool. It is unlit, still early enough in the season that the pool is not in use at night. Yet, to Valentina, even at this time of night the air is still balmy, especially in comparison to the damp spring climate of London.

Theo is holding her hand. She locks her fingers tightly within his. She is thinking about her life with him. She is finally ready for commitment. She thought it would feel like a sentence to her and yet it doesn’t. Instead, she feels like she has finally been liberated. Again, she considers telling him about her father, and yet she is enjoying the companionship of their silence.

‘Would you like some sex on the edge?’ Theo speaks softly beside her.

‘Excuse me?’ she asks him, a little taken aback by his question.

‘I think that, now we are going to be man and wife, we must make a solemn vow to introduce as much random sex, in as many inappropriate places, as we can . . . without getting caught, of course,’ Theo says, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

‘I see,’ she says, mock serious. ‘So, what is sex “on the edge”?’

‘It involves getting a little wet,’ he explains. ‘Hence the need for a swimming pool.’

‘What if someone catches us?’

‘We can just pretend we are skinny dipping.’ He starts unbuttoning his shirt.

‘Isn’t it a little cold to be getting undressed at this time of night?’

‘Come on,’ he cajoles her. ‘Remind me of my intrepid Valentina, the girl I fell in love with.’ He drops his trousers and pants, and pads over to the pool and slips in.

She doesn’t hesitate, unzipping her skimpy summer dress and pulling it off over her head. She walks over to the side of the pool in her underwear.

‘Don’t actually get in,’ he says.

‘Do you want me to take off everything and then stand here, naked?’ she asks him, incredulously.

‘No, don’t stand, either. I want you to take your underwear off and to sit on the edge of the pool, right in front of me.’

She does as she is told, curious what he has planned for her.

‘OK,’ he says, standing before her in the pool, his hands on her waist, as she sits with her legs dangling in the water. ‘Lie down and, as you do so, lift your legs in the air, like you are in a perfect L shape.’

She looks at him suspiciously. ‘What exactly are we going to do?’

‘I told you, sex on the edge.’

She smiles at him and he flicks some water at her.

‘I love it when you smile, Valentina,’ he says. ‘It is so rare.’

She lies down and raises her legs, resting her feet on Theo’s shoulders. He pulls her towards him so that her bottom is touching the water and her cheeks are resting in his hands. The cool water laps against her, and she can feel him just pressing two of his fingers very, very gently against her clitoris. The pressure is so slight, yet it builds and builds, rippling out and into her. She wonders why he doesn’t enter her. It is as if he is waiting for her to be right on the edge, metaphorically as well as literally, before he will do so.

Instead of closing her eyes, she stares above her. It is a moonless night, pitch dark and yet all around her are hundreds of fireflies, effervescent balls of light. They are charged like her, burning with life. She begins to caress her own breasts, stroke her hot belly, all the while aware of the growing intensity where Theo is touching her. She is pulsing inside her vagina and, as if he knows by instinct her need to feel him, Theo pushes inside her, water lapping against her bottom as he does so. He withdraws and cold water rushes up her, causing her to spasm in response. In he goes again, slowly, surely, further up inside her. Every particle of her being is reaching out for him. It is an incredibly erotic experience. She knows it is not just because they are so exposed, the risk they are taking at being caught, but also because of the depth of their feelings for each other. Theo plunges in and out, building the pressure up inside her, the cold water stimulating her. She hears herself panting from deep down inside her belly. She raises her hands above her head, her arms flung in surrender as her lover comes inside her, and she receives his seed rapturously, orgasming herself in a delirium of her love for him.

Valentina is in the Villa of Mysteries at Pompeii, looking at the frescoes. Considering they had been buried under ash for hundreds of years, they are in amazing condition. She circles the Initiation Room, intrigued by what she is looking at. She has read that there are various interpretations of what is happening in these strange pictures. One is that they depict the initiation of a woman into a special sex cult of Bacchus. The second and most popular theory is that they show the soon-to-be-wed young woman undergoing a series of mysterious sacraments, parallel to the sacred union of Bacchus and Ariadne, ending with a confrontation with Eros, the god of love.

She looks at one image of a young woman kneeling, her head on the lap of a man, her backside exposed, while a woman nearby is holding a long branch with a thatch of leaves at its end, and another dances wildly, showing off her ample behind as well. All of it is painted on to a scarlet background, as if the very colour of the paint is a comment on its passionate content. Red: the colour of sex. It strikes Valentina that the fresco could be some kind of early depiction of not only sadomasochism, but also orgiastic activity with three women and one man present. The bacchanalian cults were famous for their popularity among young women in first-century Rome and, in particular, the practice of orgies. Even then it was something covert, a cult that was condemned as perverse. She considers the very fact that, because something is prohibited, it becomes seductive. Society in general brands the practice of orgies as depraved. She has never wanted to be involved in one herself . . . The closest she has been to it was when she, Theo, Leonardo and Celia were together last year. But that was with two men she knew and trusted. She is not sure if she could join in an orgy with strangers.

Valentina walks back out into the sunshine. Now that she and Theo are going to be married, she has no interest in sleeping with any other man or woman. She supposes her days of erotic explorations will be over. And yet, once they have been together a few years, maybe they will want to investigate other sexual adventures together, such as orgies or fetish clubs. It has always existed, the erotic needs of man. She wonders when sex became more than just instinct, when it entered the realm of spirit and pleasure.

Valentina wanders back into the ruins of Pompeii. There is no shade and she can feel the early summer sun beginning to burn her pale face. She should have brought a hat. It is such a sad place, she thinks. All of this life, arrested within a second. She looks up at the distant silhouette of Vesuvius. Against the backdrop of a sunny day, it appears even darker and more ominous than ever. She tries to shake a sense of foreboding, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t want any clouds on the unblemished blue of her love for Theo. It is in this moment that she decides to let the whole father thing go. She has found Philip Rembrandt, after all. He was more of a father to her than her real father ever was. It is surely enough that he regrets walking out on her, all those years ago, and that he wants to get to know her now. Can she not pretend, like her mother has for years, that he really is her father? Is that not a simpler story to believe in? She feels a sense of relief at the decision. No more soul searching about the past, and no more ghosts, she promises herself. Yet, even so, she feels as if the presence of that black volcano is tugging at her, like a dog nipping at her heels with its sharp teeth. Her sense of foreboding cannot be shaken. In fact, it grows as she gets on the train to go back to Sorrento. It is as if she is being followed, watched, despite the fact that, whenever she looks behind her, she can see no one.

She wants her red Geraniums. That is her first
thought the next morning as she wakes in Vivienne’s bed. She sees the three flowers in her mind’s eye, jammed into the narrow stem of the wine bottle, no longer scarlet but the colour of dried blood. They are sitting on the windowsill of their hotel room in Paris, part of the vista of her memory. She doesn’t want any of the grand clothes or jewellery that Felix bought her, but she wants those dying flowers.

Maria slides out of the bed, gently dropping a kiss on the sleeping Vivienne’s forehead. She gets dressed and slips out the door without even making coffee first. She walks briskly along the broad boulevards of Paris, the leaves of the plane trees glinting green and fresh. It is late August and finally the weather has cooled slightly. The energy of the city feels different around her: less fervid, more at peace. She walks past Notre Dame and across the Seine, back into the narrow streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Madame Paget is away from her desk. There are new arrivals in the lobby, ringing her bell: two young girls, much the same age as Maria, bubbling with excitement at the beginning of their Parisian adventure. She wants to warn them.
Don’t lose your heart in the maze that is this city, for you may never find it again.
Yet she walks past them, head bowed low. She is not noticed.

Maria takes the stairs this morning. She cannot take the lift, for it reminds her of their nights of abandonment, of how much she still loves Felix.

The hotel room is unlocked and she knows before she opens the door, before she enters, that he is inside, waiting for her.

They stand facing each other. He is holding his hat in his hands, and is staring at her intently. She traces the outline of his face slowly, looks at those melting brown eyes, his thick black and grey hair, the story of his face. She tries to commit it to memory.

‘Maria,’ he speaks first. ‘Where were you? Why did you run away?’

She comes straight out with it. ‘I saw you together, Felix.’ She grips her purse to her chest as if it will protect her heart. ‘You were asleep in each other’s arms.’ She gives a little hiccup of grief. She wants to be calm, controlled, yet her emotions are fighting to be let out. She doesn’t want him to see how much she is hurting.

‘But, my darling, we were only sleeping,’ he assures her.

‘Yes, but you were in the same bed.’

‘Matilde had a nightmare. I lay down next to her until she fell asleep, but I must have fallen asleep too.’

‘You were under the covers with her, Felix.’

‘Well, then, I got into the bed,’ he says, sounding almost a little annoyed with her. ‘I was tired.’

She says nothing, staring back at him fiercely.

‘Nothing happened,’ Felix says, emphatically. ‘You must believe me.’

She does. Yet still it bothers her. She cannot bear the thought that he shared a bed with Matilde. ‘I thought you hated her, so why did you get into bed to comfort her?’ she insists.

He looks away from her, out of the little window of their love nest. ‘I do hate her . . . at times . . .’ he stumbles. ‘I wish she had let me die . . .’

‘Because you also love her,’ Maria finishes the sentence for him, her voice a resigned monotone.

He turns to her with blazing eyes. ‘When she slept with that German to save my life, well, actually, it killed me inside. I was so ashamed of what she did. And it broke my heart, Maria . . . It twisted my love for her into this two-faced emotion. I can’t completely cut myself away from her, and yet I despise her . . . I . . .’ He stops suddenly, examining the expression on her face, how she has stepped back, retreated towards the door. He takes a step forwards and grabs hold of her hands. ‘But when I met you, Maria . . . everything changed for me; I began to feel things again. I never thought it could happen that I could love again, but you did that to me. And more . . .’

‘How can you love me when you still love your wife?’ Her voice trembles with emotion.

‘Because the feelings I have for Matilde are different. It is like I have to take care of her. It is a duty. There is no passion between us anymore. But with you . . .’ He pauses, sweeping his hand through his thick hair. She watches it flop back down on to his forehead. He has never looked more beautiful to her than in this moment. ‘Oh, my darling,’ he gushes, ‘you have inspired me so. Despite your innocence, you have opened me up in a way I never expected . . .’

He tries to pull her to him, but she holds her ground, her heart in tumult. She knows what he means: the flagrancy of their passion, how she knows that it would take just a brush of his hand on her cheek, a kiss to ignite them right now. She remembers Vivienne’s words from the night before: ‘The love and passion you and Felix share is too rare to give up easily.’ Maybe she is right. Maybe their love is so great that she shouldn’t walk away from it. Can she be Felix’s mistress?

‘Maria,’ Felix begs her, ‘please don’t leave me.’

Yet Maria knows she is the kind of woman who cannot share. Felix loves her, but he also still loves Matilde; his open hatred of his wife proves that. Felix’s shunning of Matilde in front of others, his inability to forgive what she did – for the woman did act out of her love for him – all these aspects of her lover frighten Maria. His passion is split between the two women. Maria will always be living to please him, afraid that he will tire of her, cast her aside. She is afraid his love will turn to hatred, just as it had with Matilde. And then what will she be? A failed dancer
and
a fallen woman?

Somehow, she manages to walk away. Now all she wants is to go home to Venice. She promises Vivienne she will come to New York one day, but for now she needs her mammas.

That night, Maria boards a train for Milan. She cries all the way from Paris to Milan, curled up on her seat, like a child lost in the woods. She cannot forget the look on Felix’s face as she turned away from him. It is etched upon her heart. His incomprehension, followed by his devastation. He had thought her so completely his. And yet he didn’t run after her. The fact that he let her walk out of the hotel room on her own and down those stairs, and he did not try to stop her, tells her she is right. He loves her, but not enough. He was the centre of her world, but she was never his.

Maria returns to Venice in the clothes that she stands in. She bears the secret of her love for Felix as a scar upon her heart. She never tells a soul how close she came to becoming his mistress. Not her free-spirited mother, Belle, nor her darling Pina, and, in the years that come, not her husband nor even her own daughter. She tells no one that once she was a dancer who traded her calling in life for the love of a married man. She had gambled with her heart, and she had lost.

Maria remains in Venice. Two weeks after she returns, Jacqueline writes to her and tells her that Lempert has offered for her to return to her dance studies, but Maria writes back, turning her down. She could never go back to London, for what if she was to meet Felix again? She could never trust herself if she were in his company one more time, for, deep down, she comes to regret her decision. Even worse, she couldn’t bear it if he no longer loved her. For surely one day he no longer will?

Yet, sometimes, love returns to us in the most unlikely way. Six weeks after she is home from France, the very day she knows for sure that she must be pregnant, Guido Rosselli walks back into her life. The young Italian had heard through Jacqueline of her return to Venice. He had never forgotten her. For Guido had fallen in love with Maria the day she had arrived in London, when he made her coffee with shaking hands. He had never stopped loving her, despite the fact she had run away with Felix. He blames the Frenchman for corrupting her, but he does not judge Maria, for he sees how pure she is, and this purity is what made her so beautiful to him. His love is so great for Maria that he cares not that she has loved another man.

Guido courts Maria studiously. At first she is indifferent. As the weeks pass, she begins to grow used to his company. He seems happy just to float down the Canal Grande in a boat with her, neither of them speaking. He doesn’t touch her or try to win her over with pretty words. He just waits.

It is one such day, about three weeks after Guido arrived in Venice, that Maria feels she should tell him his attentions are to no avail.

‘Guido,’ she says, as they drift down the canal, her eyes flickering over the activity along the quays, her heart, as always, restless. ‘I have to tell you something.’

‘All right,’ he says. He stops rowing and brings the oars inside their boat, so that they are dripping on their feet.

She turns to face him and she is surprised to see that Guido no longer looks so ridiculous to her. She notices how big his eyes are, and how kind. In fact, if he shaved off his moustache, he could be rather handsome. She shakes the thought from her mind and steels herself for his reaction to her news.

‘I have to tell you that I am going to have a baby.’ She squeezes her eyes shut and tilts her face to the skies. ‘So you see, you are wasting your time. I am damaged goods.’

For a moment, Guido says nothing. Maria listens to the sounds of Venice: the call of the stallholders, the splash of oars upon the canal, the lap of water and, in the distance, the toll of a church bell.

‘Maria,’ Guido says. ‘Maria, look at me.’

She drops her head and opens her eyes. He is looking at her with such an earnest expression that she realises he must love her. And, for the first time since she left Paris, there is a small stirring in her heart. He is a good friend, Guido. She knows that he will not abandon her, despite her circumstances. She wants her child to have a father. And thus his next words are no surprise to her, for she has already decided she will accept him. She cannot bear to be alone another day.

‘Marry me?’ Guido says.

After the wedding, amid the tearful hugs and kisses of her darling mammas, Maria and Guido say their goodbyes and move to Milan. She becomes a loyal wife and a devoted mother. She even takes up knitting, and dedicates her life to cooking and nurturing her husband and daughter. This is the grandmother that Valentina has been told about: a gentle woman, with a strong faith, who sought a quiet life.

Maria never left Milan, not until over twenty-five years later she surprised her husband by telling him she wished to go to New York to visit an old friend from her time in Paris: a woman called Vivienne, who was now the editor of the magazine
Harper’s Bazaar
. This information her daughter Tina had always been quite astounded by. How on earth had her mother known such a woman? Yet she never got the chance to ask her, for her parents never returned from their trip to America. Their plane crashed somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and Maria’s secrets lay buried, apparently, forever. That is until the day Theo found the dance film of her, and Anita unearthed those old erotic films and used them in her own art. And so she lives on, Maria, the lithe, sensual lover, the wild-spirited young woman, the believer in the power of love. She lives on in the films, and she also lives on in Valentina.

Only once during their whole marriage – in fact, it was on their very wedding night – did Guido ask Maria to dance for him. Yet Maria had remained seated, her hands pressed together demurely in her lap, the slight dome of her belly visible beneath the white dress.

‘Never ask me to dance again,’ she chided him. And he never did.

Yet, that night, she showed her husband her erotic self. It deepened and enriched his love for her so that he remained faithful to the day they died. And, for Maria, she came close, so close, to what she had once felt with Felix . . . yet, not quite.