by Primula Bond
Everyone is in a state of insanity. Those who aren’t watching are doing it themselves. On the dais I can see Mrs Weinmeyer in her white flowing gown, lying on her back, one slim leg hooked round the arm of her throne as a man in clinging snakeskin swipes his narrow pelvis at her.
The sight of her, of all the others enjoying this orgy, the escapism, the madness, suddenly blinds me like a flash of lightning and I pull away from Mr Weinmeyer. I stagger away from him. Before I pick up my camera I need to cover myself. My bodice feels tighter than ever, making it difficult to breathe now. As I try to stuff my breasts into some kind of order they push and squeeze, only half encased, ready to bounce out again. I flick my fan at Mr Weinmeyer and give a deep curtsy as if letting him have his fondle and then teasing him like this was all part of the pretence. Even in my tripped-out state I know I mustn’t anger him.
What did he call me? Putana. That means ‘slut’ or ‘whore’, if I’m not mistaken. Well, that means I’m playing my role perfectly. But still I have to work.
To my relief Mr Weinmeyer sweeps a low bow in return, and hands me over to a newcomer who I realise has been hovering on the edge of the circle as if biding his time. All the costumes are padded to exaggerate people’s contours, so that women’s breasts and hips look huge, men’s shoulders and groins are massive. This new participant wears a tricorn hat which casts a deep triangular shadow over his fully masked face, a glorious green velvet coat and tight-fitting breeches and a white ruffled shirt. His muscular calves are encased in green stockings and he’s wearing traditional black buckled shoes.
Topping the ensemble of the newcomer is a single long, petrol-blue peacock-tail feather, complete with the round, staring evil eye, the same as the five feathers Crystal has pinned into my powdered headdress.
We are a perfect match.
My suitor sweeps me into a sedate, swan-necked waltz, spinning me so fast that the lights and the watching faces become a nauseous blur. Everyone falls away as if they, too, know who he is. Mr Weinmeyer knew. He’s handed me over. I belong to the newcomer because he’s the only person dressed in the same emerald green as me. He’s my soul mate, come all the way from New York to find me.
With a relief unlike anything I have ever felt, I realise that it is Gustav. I press up against his firm, warm body, feel the hardness already nudging inside his breeches. I wish I could rip his costume off right here. I want to yank off the full-face mask to see that hidden mouth, biting down to hide the waiting smile. His hands, one on my waist, the other guiding my hand through the dance, are holding me like he never wants to let me go.
I keep my eyes on him to anchor me through the endless spinning.
‘Gustav! Oh, God, this is brilliant! You came after me! Come on, let’s get the hell out of this madhouse! The Weinmeyers will understand.’
Gustav pauses in the middle of the dance, holding my hand up above my head as I spin beneath his finger. But he doesn’t speak. A mask can’t emote, but a body can, and there’s something alert and watchful in his body language. Did he hear me? Is he considering his answer? Is he still angry at what passed between us, or relieved that he’s found me? Does he want to kiss me or yell at me? Is that a slight tilt of his head in a yes? Or is that sharp shake, making the peacock feather jump over his hat, to indicate a no?
‘You look so gorgeous in that green costume. You’re even wearing a peacock feather like mine!’
I raise my hand to touch the feather, lower it to pull off his mask, but he snatches my hands and keeps them trapped inside his highwayman’s gloves.
He pulls me close up against him, so close that the big gold buttons on his coat dig into the fleshy tops of my breasts where they bulge out of my overworked bodice. Has he just arrived, or has he seen everything that’s been going on? The people groping me? Mr Weinmeyer trying to take me from behind? Gustav’s hard-on, packed inside his breeches, barges against my stomach. Well, whatever he’s seen has turned him on. My body quivers in delirious response.
I stand on tiptoe, start to yell his name again. But he still doesn’t speak. I must have broken some kind of ballroom etiquette calling his name. I wish I could wrench our masks off and get out of here, but he’s following the anonymous code to the letter, because abruptly he kicks his shoes together at the heel and lifts his hand in farewell. As he backs away through the frenzied crowd I try to push my way after him but I am grabbed by someone to stop me.
I punch out and realise that it’s the woman in white who was being ravaged by the two men earlier. Her yellow wig has slipped slightly to reveal a raven curl in front of her small, neat ear, slightly pricked. I’m seeing things now. Did he also spot the similarity? Has the sight of a Margot lookalike spooked Gustav and chased him away? Or is he playing some other cruel game?
I run round the room looking for him. He’s not there, but he can’t have gone far because there don’t appear to be any doors into or out of this room. Perhaps he’s escaped another way. I push through one of the tall open windows and hang over the balustrade draped with flags and heralds, searching up and down the quayside below. I lift my mask to see better. But there’s no sign. No emerald-green coat or peacock feather.
I put my hand over my mouth to stop me screaming with frustration. I have to find him. The cold, salty air is like nectar as I take great gulping breaths. Gustav is playing with me. He must be waiting for me somewhere, or if he’s still testing me he’ll have taken the more straightforward route and gone back to the hotel so we can talk properly without masked madmen capering all around us. Or is he disgusted, after all his efforts to fly over here to get me, to find me having the time of my life with a bunch of stoned strangers and about to be ravished by Mr Weinmeyer? But surely he also saw me pulling away? I’ve done nothing wrong tonight. Nothing.
Yet more explanations. At least I know he’s made the first move. If he wants me to grovel he can sweat for a little longer. I’ll find my own way back.
I grab one of the golden flags draped by the window, hitch myself over the balcony and slither down onto the gold carpet below which is now deserted. I notice a calle crossing at the end of the private walkway. My vague reckoning is that it must lead towards the Rialto, in which case if I can get to that bridge I can make my way back, albeit in a roundabout way, to the Hotel Danieli and the safety of Crystal’s unemotional wisdom before Gustav gets there.
I realise too late that not only have I again rejected the advances of my host but I’ve forgotten my manners and failed to say farewell. Well, I’ll make sure they’re pleased with what I’ve done. This assignment has been a gift. I’ve got some fantastic pictures and film here. I peel off my gloves and wrap them round the camera to keep it safe inside the little purse. I’ll call on my patrons tomorrow, make it up to them.
Just as I reach the street I collide with a wall of jostling, dancing people. On the other side, the way I want to go, I think I see the peacock feather. I try to push through, but instead I’m grabbed and pulled into the swelling tide of masked people and dragged away from where I want to go. Some are gliding silently, some batter my senses with violent revelry, banging drums, tootling tuneless trumpets, some are jerking like puppets or deathly as corpses, but all of them seem to turn their heads to stare through me as they parade beside the water and over the grand arch of the Rialto Bridge.
Noise and colour echo off the surrounding buildings. My feet barely touch the ground as I am swept along, everyone drawn like magnets along the narrow alleyways on the other side of the Rialto where they are forced to pause to let other parties pass.
I try to kick and punch my way out of the group, desperate now to get back to Gustav, but my struggles and screams are drowned in the torrent of noise. We flood on through the city until I recognise the colonnades at the west end of Piazza San Marco, and then we plunge straight into the glare and music and colour.
Floodlights are suspended from the corners of the cathedral and the Doge’s Palace and they spin and change colour, bouncing light off the
walls and windows and shops, making the kaleidoscope of masked figures already twirling like dervishes in the centre all the more confusing. At least I know where I am now. I just have to make my way down the edge, past Caffe Florian, out towards the lagoon, and I’ll be home. Please God, let him find his way there.
But it’s not so simple. Even the orchestra playing outside the famous Caffe are dressed as vampires, blood running down their chins as they scrape away at their violins like those brave souls who played on the Titanic until it went down. There’s no escaping this crowd. Gustav will be as caught up and lost in it as I am. Panic swells inside me. I have no choice but to give myself up to the pushing and pulling of the other masked revellers. Suddenly, flickering amongst the multicoloured costumes, I think I can see the woman in the gold mask who tried to stop me earlier, her gold wig fallen off completely now, coils of black hair flying round her bare shoulders.
She isn’t watching me, but this is still becoming like a horror film. I need to get a grip. It can’t be the same woman. If it was, how could she possibly find and follow me in this crowd?
The dancers move round each other in spirograph circles and the woman is extinguished. I make a mental note to ask the Weinmeyers who she was and what the hell was in their drink before I’m lifted right off my feet and tossed across the sea of bodies toward the corner of the square where it opens up to the sea, and as I land into a net of hands I see my peacock-feathered highwayman again, leaning against the final pillar watching. He raises his hand and beckons me.
The clapping and stamping crowd throws me towards him. Flamenco music clashes with hip-hop, the strings outside the Caffe Florian battle with a heavy-metal thudding from over by the lagoon, and I am hurled out of the crowd into the space beyond.
Gustav catches me like a wedding bouquet, drops me to my feet and runs with me, but instead of heading for the hotel on the Riva della Schiavoni he drags me towards Harry’s Bar.
‘I thought I’d lost you, Gustav! Why did you leave the ball?’
He presses a gloved finger hard on my painted mouth. That’s our special gesture. All my despair has evaporated. Gustav is here, and that’s all that matters. How could I have doubted that he’d see sense and come for me?
‘OK. I’ll go along with the silent treatment, if that’s what turns you on. We have all the time in the world to talk. But can’t we just go home?’
Gustav shakes his head and I let him lead me away until the music becomes muffled by distance, and after a while we reach a slimy walkway edged by elegant barley-sugar pillars beside a tiny canal where a collection of empty, somewhat funereal gondolas are coralled, bobbing and fidgeting like wild horses.
I glance up at the brightly lit windows across this canal, silhouettes of partygoers jerking behind the billowing curtains of other palazzi. We are alone together in this madness. No one will come looking for us.
Gustav tightens his grip on me and steps onto the first of the parked gondolas. It tilts violently. He pauses, gets his footing in the elaborate buckled shoes, slips slightly on the elevated heel, then steps across to the next gondola and the others tethered in a row until we reach the last one, which has a big black canopy of thick velvet curtains, its floor strewn with black and gold cushions.
‘Can’t you talk to me now we’re alone?’ I whisper, but he just chucks me unceremoniously onto the thick pile of cushions. The brute force of it, the suppressed anger, or perhaps the impatience to have me, turns me on. He grabs the mooring rope and lashes one of my hands to the bench seat.
‘Where’s the silver chain?’ I ask, tugging on the rope, but he grabs a gondolier’s pole, pushes us off, and soon we are rocking gently in the middle of the canal. He’s expert at this. Another of Gustav’s many secret skills.
Gustav keeps his head averted, as if I’m a cargo of stolen booty. His tricorn hat and green spangled mask with the long, hooked bird’s nose make a strange profile as he punts us up another dark, dank canal, dips under bridges where occasional costumed revellers still trail, their voices and feet echoing dully, slowed by too much partying.
I watch the bend of his leg, the ripple of muscle working in his strong thigh and calf as he balances on the stern of the boat. He looks gorgeous and muscular in the costume. The tight breeches are like the jodhpurs he wore when we went riding in Lugano.
I wriggle with frustration as well as cold. The drugged wine is beginning to wear off now, but in its place is a fresh, ferocious lust. I lie back in the cushions, feeling the dip and sway of the boat as we drift through the city. I try to pull the cumbersome headdress off but Crystal has pinned it on too tight. My hair feels matted and damp beneath it and my head is aching. A cold drizzle is falling outside now, but sweat is itching between my breasts.
The gondola bumps up against the side and Gustav flings another rope round a post. I can’t see where we are because he pulls the curtains closed, but there seems to be more noise here than before. Then he crawls across the cushions, flicking his green frock-coat out of the way to get at the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons that are straining to contain the swell under his green velvet fly. I squirm with wicked, renewed, impatient desire. We have been apart for too long. I will never let this happen again. He unpicks each button. The corner of his white shirt pokes through the opening.
I watch, and wait.
He leaves the breeches unbuttoned, puts his glove back on, then pushes my legs open so that he can kneel between them. He raises my dress up over the rumpled silk bloomers, settles the lovely fabric round me as if to frame the sight, then yanks down the bloomers and throws them into a corner. A demented giggle bubbles inside me. I’ve lost count of the knickers I’ve lost over the last few weeks. But Crystal chose these especially from the little dress shop, and if I lose them she will be furious.
I slide down the cushion so that I am underneath him.
‘Couldn’t we undo this now?’ I whisper, wrenching at the rope. ‘It’s hurting me.’
He starts to loosen it, and there’s a bit of give round my sore wrist, but then he shakes his head. He wants to keep it there, the alternative to our silver chain. Why didn’t he bring it with him? Surely tonight would have been the perfect occasion to tether me once again? The leather fingers of his gauntlets are rough and catch on my skin as he pushes my legs further apart. I’m squashed down in the cushions now, and he is heavy on me.
The water slaps beneath the underside of the boat. It could almost be slapping my bare buttocks, spread open on the cushions. Presumably in Casanova’s day they wore delicate lace drawers, I think drowsily. Or perhaps Casanova’s conquests came to him well prepared, sans culottes. Just the way Gustav likes it.
My dress rips slightly as Gustav’s gloves rove up my stomach, over the swell of my breasts. This strong, silent treatment is incredibly horny. Through the meshed slits in his green mask he can see me laid out beneath him, pale and semi-naked on the black cushions. The green velvet fly falls open and there it is, already hard, standing thick and tall like a church candle in the moonlight. I’m loose in every sense, awash with desire as the sensations tangle and build inside me. My skirt is a cloud around us. He lowers himself over me, his invisible eyes searching my face, pushing me into the cushions. He holds himself tight within the grasp of his leather gauntlet, running his fingers up and down thoughtfully for a moment.
‘Don’t stop now, Gustav!’
There’s a sudden roar as a motorboat slows down beside us, its wash banging the side of the gondola despite the speed limits imposed on the city. Raucous singing and shouting come from the crowd on board, and the boat hoots several times. They are just the other side of our canopy, as if they’re waiting for us to come out and join them. Or explain ourselves. A searchlight moves over the closed canopy of curtains as if they know we’re in here.
Could it be Crystal, alerted that I’m missing?
Gustav and I freeze like criminals on the run. He turns towards the searchlight, still holding himself like a baton, then slowly looks ba
ck at me. Something’s not right. The wash of the boat has opened the curtains slightly. Surely the idea of being caught, seen, should be kinky and fun. But it isn’t. It feels degenerate, and dangerous, especially when his hand slams down on my mouth.
I scrabble at him to try to get upright, but he’s holding me down too hard. He’s hurting me and I can’t breathe. I grab hold of his shirt and it comes out of the breeches. My fingers scratch slivers of cool skin.
A large troop of revellers runs over the bridge above us, whooping and shrieking. I peer upwards. Through the gap of the curtains I think I recognise the bridge and the buildings around us. The flowing tide of pageantry slows as people notice our rocking gondola. I can only see their feet pausing, some bare, some booted, some buckled. The noise seems to rouse Gustav, too, because he lifts my legs and hooks them over his shoulders.
As he moves me and I realise the people up on the bridge can see, I reach round his back to pull him closer and my nails catch not on Gustav’s smooth, muscled back but on a ridge of bumpy, jagged scars. Too late he jerks back violently and knocks my hand away.
I try to scream, but his hand is still smothering me. This isn’t Gustav, you stupid, stupid girl. These are burn scars, all over his stomach and back! I kick furiously but he tries to push himself harder at me, aiming himself deep between my legs. He starts to thrust at me, and somehow I find the knot in the rope round my wrist and as I pull it loose I raise my knee and shove it, hard, into his groin, then kick him again, right in the balls this time, with the one sharp-heeled shoe that I’m still wearing, so that he rolls away from me, yelping, as I crawl out of the enveloping cushions.
I’ve hurt him badly but he still finds the strength to grasp at my ankles to stop me getting away. I kick his hand away and stamp on it. That will hurt, too. All Pierre Levi will have of me is one slipper. Just like Cinderella.