The Sex Whisperer: Book 1 in the Whisperer Trilogy

by Sadie Rabbit

  “Nervous?” Charlotte asked.

  “I just can’t believe it’s here,” Olivia said. She didn’t want to admit how nervous she was. She tugged at her dress which was riding up her thighs. “You know it’s been more than two years since my last show? I forgot what it’s like. The Dayton Daily’s going to be there, probably a reporter from the City Paper, too. I hate not knowing what they’re going to write.”

  “I think you’re going to blow their socks off — literally,” Kenneth called back from the driver’s seat. “Everyone’s going to be walking around barefoot because their shoes and socks just exploded. The only bad part’s going to be the smell of burnt toenails in the gallery.”

  “Thanks,” Olivia said from the backseat. “That’s a beautiful thought, Kenneth. Really poetic.”

  “I do my best,” he said.

  Olivia could see him smiling in the rearview mirror. He grabbed a cigar from the console, passed one to Mike, and opened the moonroof. After they lit their cigars, Olivia passed out everyone’s masks. “We’re showing up a little late, so I want to walk in wearing them in case there’s anyone outside. We should be anonymous.”

  “Let’s put them on now,” Kenneth said, snapping his in place.

  Olivia and Charlotte did, too. Mike didn’t bother. He sat up front brooding with his cigar.

  Charlotte pointed at Mike’s back and mouthed to Olivia: “What’s his deal?” Olivia shrugged, determined not to let Mike ruin her night.

  When they pulled up, everyone in the car fell silent. There was already a line outside of the gallery, and everyone in it was wearing a mask. They looked eerie in the faltering light, like ghosts lining up before the witching hour.

  “This is so exciting,” Charlotte squealed, grabbing Olivia’s arm.

  “It’s unbelievable,” Olivia said. “I don’t think there are this many people in Dayton who even know I’m a photographer.”

  “It must be the masks,” Charlotte said. “What a way to make a gallery opening into an event.”

  Olivia nodded. “That must be it. Klaus is a genius.”

  “He might be a marketing genius, but you’re the artist,” Charlotte said.

  Kenneth parked near the Second Street Market and the four of them walked side-by-side on the broad sidewalks. Olivia tried to control her breathing. Closer to the studio, she could see Klaus had blacked out the windows. It was impossible to see the artwork inside. What do other tricks do you have up your sleeve, Klaus?

  A thin, tattooed girl with a pierced septum sat on a stool at the head of the line, clipboard resting on her lap.

  “Hi,” Olivia said. “I’m Olivia Hampton.”

  “Finally,” the girl said. “Late to your own party. You’ve got Klaus all worked up. Get your ass in there.”

  Olivia motioned for her friends to follow.

  Inside, the sound and light from the street died off. It would have been completely dark if it weren’t for the black lights. Klaus had hung them vertically so they dangled above their heads like purple light sabers. Turning to her friends, Olivia could see that they were mostly invisible in the darkness — except for the brilliant white glow of their masks.

  Klaus plodded over, his cane tapping loudly on the wooden floor. “You’re going need these,” he said. He handed each of them a small, LED flashlight. “These flashlights are the only way people will be able to see your photos. We’re going to give one to everyone who comes, and they’ll illuminate the works themselves.”

  “Wow,” Olivia said, sweeping the beam of her light across the walls. “You’re a genius.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, “but I do know your show’s going to be well-received.”

  “I think it’d be popular even if people didn’t look at a single photograph,” Olivia said.

  Klaus laughed a deep booming laugh that filled the gallery. “Right you are. But that’s the true essence of art, isn’t it? Ninety percent story and ten percent talent. I’m not even sure if it’s that much anymore. But I do very much believe in your work, Olivia.”

  With that, Klaus reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a single white rose. Its petals shimmered brilliantly under the black light. Olivia took it, stepped forward and gave Klaus a kiss on the cheek.

  “Oh yes,” he said, “I almost forgot.”

  From another pocket, the old man produced another mask. This one was yellow.

  “The artist must wear this mask,” he said.

  “I’d rather just blend in,” Olivia said.

  “Of course you would,” Klaus said. “You wouldn’t be an artist if you said anything else, now would you? Just please wear it, so old Klaus isn’t forced to castrate you.”

  Olivia smiled and put on the mask. Then, she turned to where her friends had been but realized they’d drifted off to look at her work. They were gathered, perhaps predictably, around the new pieces Klaus had urged her to do.

  Olivia approached them nervously. Part of her knew they’d say they liked the photos even if they hated them. That’s one of the worst parts of being an artist, she thought. Everyone tells you precisely what they think you want to hear. They save their real opinions for the moment you walk away.

  “What do you think?” Olivia asked, interlocking her arm with Mike’s.

  “I’m not sure these qualify as photos people want to hang on their walls,” Mike said.

  “That’s probably a good thing,” Olivia said, “since those aren’t the sort of photographs I was trying to take.”

  “What are they then?” Mike asked. He pointed at the piece Klaus said was his favorite: the restaurant sex scene. “What’s that trying to say?

  “It’s commentary,” Olivia said. “It’s some woman acting out her fantasies in her mind while she’s out to dinner with her husband.”

  “Is it you?” Mike asked.

  “No, it’s not me,” Olivia said. “It’s that couple that’s sitting a few tables away from you at some overpriced restaurant, and they look bored out of their minds, like they’re just dying for some excitement. They’re totally silent. They might as well be eating alone. They’re deceiving themselves. They’re deceiving each other.”

  Charlotte came over squealing, interrupting Olivia’s discussion with Mike. “You’ve really stepped your game up,” she said. “These are incredible, Ollie! I could see them hanging in the Met or the Whitney.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Mike said.

  Charlotte drew her head back sharply. “This is a huge night for your wife. Why don’t you go get another drink and loosen up?”

  “Why don’t you get a drink and mind your own business?” Mike said. “I can say whatever the hell I want when my wife’s taking trashy photos like this.”

  Olivia clamped her teeth together. She felt like someone had sucker-punched her. Part of her struggled to breath; the other part wanted to hurt Mike — kick him in the groin or stomp on one of his toes with her heel. Kenneth appeared out of nowhere. He had a firm grip on Mike’s arm, and he pulled him toward the bar. Kenneth, she knew, wouldn’t tolerate anyone talking badly to Charlotte — even one of his closest friends.

  Charlotte grabbed Olivia’s arm and pulled her toward the restrooms. “What an asshole,” she said. “I don’t want to you listen to a goddamn thing he says about your work again.”

  Inside the bathroom, the lights flickered on slowly. Charlotte pulled Olivia to her and gave her a firm hug. Olivia didn’t feel anything at first, but she couldn’t keep her emotions stamped down. She started to cry; not just a quiet cry, but deep, soul-wrenching sobs.

  Her sense of time disappeared. At one point, she realized she was sitting on the floor, the tile cold beneath her. It should have grossed her out, but she felt removed from it. And then Charlotte was pulling her to her feet stuffing tissues in her hand. Guests poured into the gallery now. They sounded like an invading army.

  “Hush now,” Charlotte said. “You’ve got some adoring fans to greet. Thank God for these masks.”<
br />
  Olivia took hers off and looked at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized the reflection staring back at her. It was puffy, red and streaked with mascara. I look like a gargoyle. Charlotte rubbed at her mascara with a moist paper towel, then pulled out a makeup kit.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Charlotte said. She touched up Olivia’s eyeliner, lipstick and base. “Right now, though, think of it as your coming out party. You work really is incredible, and I’m not just saying that because I know you. I think you’ve broken through some wall or something. You’re not just taking photos anymore; you’re making art. I can see that, and I’m a freaking communications major. Let’s just enjoy this moment, okay?”

  ∞

  Olivia couldn’t have found Mike in the gallery if she wanted to. People were everywhere, all with glasses of wine and flashlights in their hands. Beams of light streaked wildly across the floor, walls and windows. Olivia stood stock still, alone for a moment trying to drink it all in. She’d always wondered what it would be like to have a gallery full of people buzzing about her work.

  She should have been overjoyed. Instead, she was heavy with insecurities brought on by Mike. If people don’t want to hang my art on their walls, is it really art? Are these people here because of the masks and free booze? Does anyone truly get what I’m saying with my photos?

  Klaus understood her work, she knew that much. Hope got it, and Charlotte, too. Maybe Thomas would get it.

  Olivia’s stomach flip-flopped at the thought of Thomas. She didn’t know anything about him, and here she was fighting with her husband and thinking about a sex whisperer. Worse than that, she was imagining Thomas was one of the few people in the world who could understand her work.

  “Olivia, is that you?” a young, masked woman asked.

  She nodded yes, and watched the woman pull up her mask. In the dim light, Olivia could see it was Isabelle — her assistant from Wright State. I should have recognized that gravelly voice!

  They hugged.

  “These are incredible,” Isabelle said. “Colin already called his parents to see if he could buy two prints. I’m buying one, and I think Aubrey is, too.”

  “Wow,” Olivia said. “That’s four more prints than I’ve ever sold at a gallery.”

  They both laughed.

  “You’ve got to tell Klaus that I told him to give you a discount,” Olivia said. “Sixty percent, that’s my cut. You have him mark it down that much, okay?”

  Before Isabelle could respond, someone else was tugging at Olivia’s arm, pulling her away, another female asking the same thing: “Olivia, is that you?”

  ∞

  Critics from the Dayton Daily and the City Paper cornered her halfway through the night. They asked for five minutes outside, and Olivia was happy for a break from the crush of people in the gallery.

  Under the yellow haze of the streetlights, the three of them stood huddled, masks pushed up resting on the tops of their heads. It was muggy, and strands of Olivia’s hair stuck to her forehead. The reporters started with softballs. How did she get the idea for the show? Where were the photos taken?

  “What do you hope people take from the show?” the City Paper reporter asked.

  “I hope they take home a photograph,” Olivia said, laughing. “I don’t want to describe my work for someone else because viewing any artwork is a unique experience. I do hope these photos force people to think about lies they may be telling themselves, though. I think we all deceive ourselves in some way, and most of the time that’s good for us. If there are things we’re working really hard to bury, though — things we’re trying to ignore and put off, those have a way of eating up our energy. I tried to take a lot of those things on in this show, and maybe it’ll help inspire other people to take on their own self-deceptions.”

  The reporters scribbled away, their noses nearly touching their notebooks. Olivia looked back toward the gallery and saw a flash of movement. Someone was watching them. Whoever it was slipped behind a semi-trailer. It was a man, Olivia thought, and she was sure he was wearing a white mask from the gallery. It was Thomas. Somehow, Olivia knew it in her bones.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I should get back to the show now.”

  She handed both of them a card. “My cell number’s on the back if you have any follow-up questions.”

  The reporters turned back to their notebooks, and Olivia headed toward the trailer. As she got closer, she could feel her heartbeat quicken in her chest. What am I doing? she wondered. I should be going the other direction if I think it’s Thomas. It must have been a stranger.

  Perhaps. There was something odd about the way the man was watching her, though. It was like he wanted to be seen, like he wanted to draw her to him.

  She took a deep breath. The air smelled heavy and damp, thick with the promise of rain. She rounded the corner of the trailer. When she did, she caught a glimpse of the man rounding the corner of another trailer. Olivia stepped onto the gravel to follow him.

  Now, you’re really being stupid. She forged ahead anyway. When she turned the second corner, she saw a masked man leaning casually against a trailer. He was waiting for her.

  “Olivia,” he said.

  She recognized his voice immediately. It was Thomas.

  “You promised you’d stay away,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “But when I read about the masks, I thought you’d never know if I came. And then … just hear me out. I saw your work, and I saw you talking to the reporters and all the people here, and wow, Olivia. I just wanted to say congratulations. This is really amazing, and your work is really amazing. It’s got to be, right? I haven’t seen a gallery opening this big in Dayton since, well, I don’t think there’s ever been one this big. It’s not even Urban Nights or First Friday, and there’s got to be at least 200 people here.”

  He sounded genuinely impressed.

  “Thank you,” Olivia said, looking down at the gravel between them. Here was a man who was practically a stranger saying all the things her husband should have been saying. “Do you have to say all that with your mask on?”

  Thomas smiled. He reached up slowly, paused, and then pulled off the mask and turned to look her directly in the eyes.

  She drank in Thomas’s features. He was a work of art. Like an older and more weathered version of Colin. His features were delicate, his hair ruffled and his beard not much more than a five o’clock shadow. Mostly it was his eyes, though. They seemed to lap her up like water. Olivia felt like she could stand there forever, staring into those eyes.

  “I’ve already taken up more of your time than I should have,” Thomas said. “Go on.”

  He nodded his head in the direction of the gallery.

  Olivia turned to look back toward the street. When she turned back to Thomas, he was already walking off. Part of her imagined running after him, grabbing his hand and leaving; two screwed up artists setting out to change the world. Instead, she turned back to the gallery and walked alone into the sea of masks. She felt better then; much better.

  ∞

  At midnight, the black lights flicked off and the fluorescents flickered on. The crowds thinned out slowly, a sea of red-faced men and women heading for the door, all of them happy courtesy of the free wine, the carnival of masks and the rather lascivious photographs they’d seen.

  Klaus pulled Olivia past the curtain and into the private storage room. “Two bits of news I have for you,” he said. “Both of them good, I think. Firstly, we sold more than 45 prints.”

  “Klaus, that’s incredible,” Olivia said.

  “I think rather that’s an indication of the quality of your work,” he said. “You plumbed the depths, young lady, and you came back to the surface with proof of your journey.”

  I love the way he talks. Sometimes, Olivia thought she’d like to pay Klaus to come to her house and make up bedtime stories for her before she fell asleep.

  “The number of sales are unprecedented,” Klaus said
. “Our landlord will be most pleased. I think you’ve helped us pay our rent for the next six months, God-willing. The other bit of news is just as good, maybe better. There was a representative here from the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. She carried a red purse and had a boy half her age on her arm. I thought it was her son until I saw him squeeze her buttocks like a melon. That’s unimportant, though, forgive me. She said she’d like very much to show your work this winter.”

  Klaus handed Olivia the woman’s card.

  “She had some interesting ideas on extending your theme,” he said. “I think it would be a most excellent move, most excellent indeed, for you to call her quickly.”

  “Tonight?” Olivia asked.

  “No, no, no!” Klaus said, laughing. “Call her next week. She’ll help you open more doors than lowly old Klaus ever could.”

  Olivia smiled. “Klaus helped me open the first door,” she said, “and that’s the most important door of all.”

  She kissed the grizzly old Russian on the cheek, and then looked down at the card. The woman from the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center was also named Olivia — and she has a penchant for younger men; men like Colin. Maybe that’s why she liked my show so much, Olivia thought, a faint smile blossoming on her lips. It doesn’t matter, though. The CAC wants to show my work! She was so happy she could squeal.

  ∞

  Dear Olivia,

  It was wonderful to stand in front of you last night, talking face-to-face. You looked exquisite in your photograph, but it couldn’t have prepared me for how you look in person. Your work was incredible, too, and I’m sincerely flattered that you took inspiration from one of my whispers.

  Speaking of whispers, I know you weren’t expecting another until your return from Hawaii. I couldn’t help myself, though. I’ve put one together that you’re welcome to listen to at your leisure. I think it says more than I ever could by email.

  Your Faithful Servant,

  Thomas

  Chapter X: Whisper 4: Intermission