‘Who is…?’ Steve stammered.
This time both Felicity and Felix glared at him.
‘Steve, darling, you’re a babe in the woods on this,’ Felicity exclaimed dramatically in her pristine English accent. ‘It is totally understandable that the collector should wish to remain anonymous when he is selling such an extraordinary work. Darling, it’s… humiliating to have to part with such an asset, worse than losing a child. One has one’s reputation to think about. My late husband Mamet never divulged the fact that he was selling any of his collection – it’s a strict no-no. Everyone understands that.’
‘But if we knew where these extraordinary paintings sprang from, we could double-check their authenticity.’
‘I understand the bank’s concern, but ultimately it is my money,’ Felicity reminded him curtly.
Felix yawned politely, then checked his watch. ‘I don’t mean to hurry this along, but I have a lunch date at one… and if we don’t have a sale, a phone call to make.’
Steve scanned the papers in front of him, lifting the old letter up to the light and peering closely at it while Felicity rolled her eyes at Felix, who threw her an indulgent little smile.
‘Looks good to me… ’ he finally proclaimed.
‘At last!’ Felicity reached for her gem-studded mobile phone and punched in a quick text, then looked up at Felix, smiling. ‘The money will be in Baum Galleries’ account by the end of the day. Felix, you and I have some serious celebrating to do, and I, for one, can’t wait.’
*
Moments later Felix closed the door of the gallery and turned to Chloe. ‘Your sister works for the Voice, doesn’t she?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Leak the sale; we just broke the record for a Hopper. 25.5. Felicity bought the Yellow Square.’
‘Congratulations, Mr Baum.’
‘Thank you, Chloe. And get Susie on the phone.’
‘I tried. She’s switched off.’
‘What about that clown of hers? ’
‘Alfie? He told me she’s not taking calls from us until after the first shoot.’
‘Which is when?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Bullshit! I’m going over there.’ He grabbed his coat and made a beeline for the door.
‘I wouldn’t bother. Alfie told Dustin she was heading to East Harlem,’ Chloe called out from behind the reception desk. Felix stopped in his tracks; a distant memory resounded at the back of his mind, laced with a sudden fear.
‘East Harlem? Odd choice for sightseeing. Did he say why she’d gone there?’ he asked, his back to the desk.
‘Nope.’
‘Never mind. Are those guys an item now?’
‘Kind of, but you know what Dustin’s like – he’s dedicated to his job, and Alfie’s kind of part of the brief, right?’ Chloe deadpanned, then returned to the art magazine she’d been studying.
Pleased that he did at least have a spy in Susie’s camp, Felix spun slowly on his heel, debating his next move. He couldn’t help feeling some chagrin that Susie hadn’t rung him. He hadn’t talked to her since the limo had dropped her off at her apartment the previous night, after the Frick. Her touch still vibrated under his skin: real, undeniable, even more disturbing – potentially addictive.
‘Maybe you’re right, Chloe, maybe it would be politic to leave her alone until she’s ready,’ he said, heading back towards his office.
‘You know artists: egos like blown glass. Breathe on them too hard and they shatter,’ she replied, quoting him.
‘A genius observation,’ he joked back.
‘A genius mind,’ came the reply.
The gallerina’s adoration was reassuring, even if it was feigned. Dear Chloe, ever the ambitious rookie. But that, he reflected, was why he’d hired her in the first place. That and her legs.
*
Once inside the confines of his office, however, the need to communicate grew until it became an overwhelming, undeniable urge. Pacing like a caged animal, Felix reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. After hitting the message command he began texting:
Susie, I need to see you, hear you, taste you.
His fingertip hovered above the send command, then hit delete.
‘You coward,’ he said out loud. ‘You goddamn coward.’
He walked to the window. Outside it was grey and small daggers of rain broke the air; somewhere a car alarm was going off.
He thought about Susie and what enactment she might be shooting in the morning. It was bound to have an erotic element, with her as the central figure. All kinds of scenarios flooded his imagination. Susie half-naked with another man penetrating her; being taken from behind, on all fours, on her back. The thought, once intriguing, now nauseated him. She might be in costume, role-playing, her face behind a mask, but it would still be her. And who would the man be? Someone she’d picked out of a club, a professional whore? It has to be me. I will be immortalised in her art; I will have my name linked to hers forever. What a fantastic historical footnote that would make in a hundred years’ time in some museum’s catalogue on significant 21st-century artists, he told himself, already composing the quote:
The man behind the mask is rumoured to have been the American gallery director Felix Baum. Considered the most powerful art dealer of his time, he was solely responsible for placing the infamous Susie Thomas firmly on the world map. As is illustrated in this image, their relationship went beyond professional…
It had to happen. Thank God, he had Dustin now in place to put pressure on Alfie. If the two men were now lovers, Dustin would be able to wrangle information out of the Englishman.
Still staring at the window, Felix was dimly aware of a flock of seagulls wheeling across the pewter sky. It provided a brief respite from the revelation that he didn’t only want to possess Susie Thomas sexually; he wanted to possess her talent. He’d never felt like that about any of his other artists. With faint dismay, he also realised he was jealous.
It was a novel sensation. Sure, he’d been professionally jealous in the past, but never sexually possessive. He’d never understood when his own lovers, both male and female, had got upset with him at his own inherent promiscuity – after all, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t completely honest with them when he was making love to them. Until now, he’d been incapable of understanding the desire for exclusivity. It was an uncomfortable epiphany.
He marvelled at this new pain – the masochism of poets and songwriters. Could he use this for a new pleasure? Turn it inside out and exploit it for his own gain? He meditated for a moment, switching his brain off and reaching down to sensation only. No was the answer that emerged. There was no masochistic joy in imagining her with another man. All he sensed was a profound and overwhelming desire to be inside her again, to be fucking her and her only. It was as if she’d infected him with a need for intimacy.
Appalled, Felix collapsed onto the sofa, his phone burning in his palm, his fingers itching to dial her number, to hear her voice – the song of the sirens calling Odysseus to his death, the voice of Echo calling for Narcissus.
‘Making contact is out of the question,’ he said out loud, then stuffed the phone down the back of the sofa. A second later he heard its muffled ringtone. Clawing at the leather, he yanked it out.
‘Susie?’
‘Hate to disappoint you, Felix, but it’s Donald.’ The art historian’s clipped diction sent Felix’s hopes crashing.
‘Oh, hi. What’s up?’ He checked his watch; it was going to be a long afternoon and an even longer night…
*
The next morning Susie found herself standing naked on the set of the shoot having her red pubic hair dyed temporarily black. She’d spent the whole morning half-expecting to hear from the mysterious Miss Latisha while, at the same time, battling flashbacks of the sex she’d had with Felix: visions that flooded her with a hormonal memory that made her weak at the knees. It had been over two days since they’d made love and
yet he hadn’t even texted her. She couldn’t quite believe it. On the other hand, it did fit with his womanizing reputation. But there was no way she was going to ring him first; that would be far too revealing. Aside from being an impossible situation, it was taking all her discipline to concentrate on the work at hand.
The make-up artist studied her handiwork with a critical eye, then began smearing white pancake across Susie’s skin and face to make her paler.
Susie glanced back across the studio towards the set. A large copy of the original erotic Chinese painting sat on an easel beside the set, ready for a comparison. On the set itself a vintage midnight-blue Chrysler was half-parked on a golden-beige backdrop that covered both the back and the floor – duplicating the gold silk the original painting had been painted on.
The props sat on a long worktable on the other side of the studio, while the three Asian female extras sat waiting on stools at the edge of the set, all in full costume and make-up, their hair (as was Susie’s own) oiled, tied back and slicked down, ready for the Minnie Mouse headgear to be placed over their scalps. The male extra, a porn star Alfie had cast, stood furtively smoking in a corner of the studio in costume as Alfie, his feet clad in dust bags, moved across the set making last-minute adjustments.
The make-up artist finished, having narrowed Susie’s lips and applied black eyeliner to make her look Chinese. Susie studied her transformed face in the mirror. Satisfied, she slipped a bathrobe on and slowly moved across the set, checking each detail and pausing to smooth out a crease in the floor cover. Finally she examined the meticulously polished bonnet of the car.
‘Alfie, the bonnet’s going to reflect the lights. Make sure we get an angle that doesn’t bounce too much white. Also we’ll have to move fast as my body paint is going to muck up the bonnet pretty quickly if I wriggle about.’
‘He only needs to be entering you, right?’ Alfie lowered his voice discreetly, indicating the male extra.
‘Right, no need for full penetration. As long as he can hold the pose, we should be able to get plenty of photographs.’ Susie cast a critical eye over the extra, a tall dark-haired Caucasian in his late thirties. He had nothing in common with the character in the erotic etching except for his impressive member and his black pubic hair, but with a face mask and traditional wig covering his features it would be almost a perfect match. Susie turned to Alfie. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Roberto. Handsome but high-maintenance. He was the only one I could find who had the goods, though. Like, all nine inches of it.’
‘Roberto!’ Susie yelled out across the studio floor. The male extra swung around. ‘A pleasure to meet you. You should be entering me in about ten minutes, if that’s okay with you?’ she yelled cheerfully, as Muriel and Alfie broke out into grins.
‘Okay? You kiddin’? I’m honoured. I’m kind of a huge fan of your work. Alfie probably told you, I’m kind of an artist myself—’
‘Fantastic.’ She cut him short, scared he was about to go into a long monologue about his own amateur painting. ‘And you were okay with signing the confidentiality clause?’
‘Totally got it. Respect to the guru.’ Roberto gave a mock salute.
Susie turned back to Alfie. ‘Good casting, Alfie – reliable as ever.’
‘Yeah, I’m a wizard. With the amount of time you gave me I deserve a medal. Seriously, I had to pull on every contact I had in town and haggle the fee on big boy over there. He wanted a credit – apparently he’s famous in his world, this is slumming it for him. But he finally settled for a signed catalogue from the show. You like the girls?’
The three women – two in their twenties and one in her forties, all Chinese – now stood in a row. They were a perfect physical match for the three servants in the painting. Susie nodded her approval.
Muriel was busy at the props table. The Minnie Mouse headgear was lined up on wig stands, alongside the silk fans, which had been beautifully reproduced and embroidered with an emblem of TWA.
The prop-maker, bent over the table, was carefully placing the last painted face mask on the table. Susie had gone to great lengths modelling the faces in clay while constantly referencing the original artwork, then casting the clay masks in polyester resin, then painting them with the exact same expressions, each forehead marked with a small circular dot of colour as she’d originally decided. They now sat on the prop table to one side of the studio where the three women, clad in their silk robes, were having the final touches applied by a make-up artist. The first one, the youngest servant, dressed in a pink silk robe identical to the one in the original painting, stood still as Muriel slipped on the wig. The effect was uncanny: the Minnie Mouse ears made of human hair mimicked the traditional hairstyles exactly and yet it was possible to make the direct connection to the Disney character.
‘Unbelievable, Muriel! You really worked your magic on this: a total collision of the two cultures, which is exactly what I’m looking for,’ Susie told her, then turned back to the set. Making a square with her fingers, she walked backwards and forwards, framing it. This was the time she loved, when her visual imagination overrode her intellect and she was functioning in the moment, in instinct. She found the right position, then moved the camera. ‘When you’re ready, can I have everyone in position except myself, please?’ she announced.
Ten minutes later the three women were grouped carefully around the car bonnet with the golden backdrop in position, their fans held exactly in place, face masks and wigs on, eyes (elongated and fringed with black eyeliner) gleaming through the narrow eyeholes, the folds of their robes pinned to mirror their painted counterparts precisely. All the jewellery in the painting had been replicated: Susie wore a red coral earring in her left earlobe, the only one visible in the painting, a coral bracelet on her left wrist and black ties around her ankles, as well as a red rose in her hair. Every single detail was identical to the original painting except for those elements that had been replaced with American icons.
Roberto, now in his wig and face mask, his pale blue robe painstakingly tied behind his back, the complicated knot and fold mirroring the robe in the painting, his feet clad in Hilton-branded slippers instead of the black half-slippers of the original painting, stood in profile, his erect penis poised over the car bonnet.
Susie gazed through the camera lens, checking that the framing and proportions of the grouping matched the original. The camera was a little close, so she moved it back a couple of feet and adjusted the image to the correct mid-shot so it seemed to float against the golden-yellow backdrop and floor covering, capturing the ambience of the painting.
‘Alfie, I think we have it. I’m going to step in, call out any adjustments as per usual. Got it?’
Alfie, now over at the easel with the original print placed on it, checked the image himself. ‘You’re right, the trick is going to be getting your feet in exactly the same position.’
‘I’ve thought about that. Look for the spatial relationship between my feet, the fan held by the servant standing behind the bonnet and the point where the man is holding my ankles. Use those as the reference points and we should get it right.’
Just before Susie stepped up to the set, Muriel painted the dot on her forehead. It was like a ritual, the last gesture in a sacred ceremony, and it immediately helped her to get into character. Even now, dozens of staged photographs later, she felt the thrill of her own identity falling away as she stepped into the tableau. She didn’t need a mask; the costume and the sense of being in character in a staged image were enough to make all the shame and disappointments that had been her earlier life, the crushing smallness of her childhood, evaporate without trace.
She’d had her feet reddened to mirror the bound feet of the Chinese woman visible in the frame – only she’d deliberately kept her feet large, free and Western, with black nail polish on the toenails. Using both hands and careful not to tear the fine very pale blue silk robe, she hoisted herself onto the car bonnet, the metal cool and slippery under her
bottom. Roberto, the male extra, lifted her ankles, and despite the clinical atmosphere of the studio and the objective professionalism of the re-enactment, Susie couldn’t help responding; the feel of his hands gripping her ankles high over her, parting her and exposing her in such a manner, was intensely arousing.
Muriel, printout of the original painting in hand for reference, fussed around the set, adjusting the folds of the falling robe, then repositioned Susie’s left hand, which propped her weight up against the bonnet.
‘How’s it looking?’ Susie asked as she tried to plot the mise en scène with her mind’s eye; she’d memorised the placement of the figures within the original painting but now she dared not move her head. From what she could see, the three other women appeared to be at the right proximity to both the two central figures of herself and the man, and the car bonnet.
It was an extraordinary sensation, as if they had all been transported back to Qing-dynasty 18th-century China, the smell of incense burning, the silk-draped walls of the wealthy merchant’s house muffling the silence, the soft shuffle of slippered maidservants, and her own expectant eroticism at being prepared for lovemaking in such a ritualised manner. Susie always loved this role of playing director, as if she had the power to change events through crystallising a moment in history. Even as a fictionalised event, it was intensely affirming.
‘Pretty close.’ Muriel’s voice broke unceremoniously into Susie’s reverie. ‘I have the folds spot on.’
‘Let me know when you’re ready,’ Roberto growled from behind his mask. ‘I can hold this for about ten minutes, unless you want me to pop Viagra.’
Susie winced as the porn star’s thick New Jersey accent broke the fantasy. ‘Ready now,’ she instructed, and he slipped in.
‘Alfie?’
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