Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One)

by Evie Blake

  ‘To our new life in Venice,’ he said in Polish, turning to Louise’s mother. ‘May I always be able to take care of my two very special ladies as your dear husband would see fit.’

  Louise remembers that her mother paled at the mention of her dead husband, yet she did not cry, but held her son-in-law’s gaze with defeated eyes.

  What has happened to that man? While her mother lived with them he never made demands on Louise. She was so young when she married him. And he said he would wait until she was ready. Yet underneath his courteous mask, there were demons lurking. Sometimes at night she would hear him yell out from his bedroom, followed by the crashing of furniture. She would sit up in bed, afraid to go in, wondering if her mother could hear him as well. She put it down to what he had endured himself before they left Poland. Of course such events could break a man . . . to witness the murder of his entire family . . . and yet on the outside it seemed to make Signor Brzezinski stronger, more successful and determined. She never found out how he had become so rich; or how he managed to get her and her mother out of Warsaw after her father died, right under the noses of the occupying Germans. As her mother used to remind her again and again, they owed him their lives.

  Louise’s mother seemed to avoid Signor Brzezinski during daylight hours. She never really recovered from the death of her beloved husband. She couldn’t settle in Venice, and had no comprehension of Italian. As the years passed, she receded into a fog of confusion. She was a young enough woman yet, and still very beautiful, her Slavic features drawing men to her. She could have remarried, and yet she remained with Louise and Signor Brzezinski until that terrible day eleven years ago. By then she seemed not to know where she was any more. Inside her head, she moved between Italy and Poland. She would see her dead husband in their house. And often Louise would find her standing stock still like a ghost herself, talking to the empty air around her, saying again and again, It was wrong, Aleksy. It was wrong. Look what we have done to her.

  If she tried to ask her mother what she meant, the older woman would look straight through her and ask her who she was.

  Where is Ludwika? she would say. What happened to my little girl?

  Signor Brzezinski insisted it was for her mother’s own good that she should go into the new hospital on the island of Poveglia. He told her there was a new doctor there, making incredible breakthroughs in mental disorders. If anyone could bring her mother back, it would be him. Yet every time Louise visited her mother – which she had to admit was less and less frequently, for she found the whole experience on the island disturbing – she seemed even more lost to her. She spoke no more, and wandered along the shoreline of the miserable island communing with unseen spirits rather than recognising her own daughter.

  It was the night after her mother left that Signor Brzezinski changed. Louise was upset, sobbing into her pillow, for with the departure of her mother she was racked with guilt. What would her father think of her for letting her mother go to that dreadful place? Signor Brzezinski came into her bedroom, and at first Louise thought he was there to comfort her. He climbed into the bed next to her, yet instead of taking her in his arms as she expected, he pulled her hands away from her face.

  ‘Stop crying,’ he ordered her in Italian. She was so surprised that she stopped almost immediately, staring at his shadowy face in the darkness of her bedchamber.

  ‘Now that your mother is gone, Louise, it is finally time for you to grow up.’ He pulled the straps down on her nightdress so that it dropped to her waist, and pawed roughly at her breasts with his hands.

  ‘No, not tonight,’ she said to him in Polish. ‘I am too upset.’

  To her deep shock, her husband slapped her hard across the face. She gasped in horror, raising a hand to her stinging cheek, tears beginning to well in her eyes again.

  ‘Don’t ever resist me. You are my wife and it is time you did your duty. I want a son, Louise.’

  Up until now, Louise had managed to retain her virginity, but that night Signor Brzezinski ripped it out of her.

  Afterwards he was kinder, even held her in his arms as she sobbed in shock and fear. She remembers his words, and still they confuse her.

  ‘It’s your turn now, Louise,’ he whispered. ‘Make me love you.’ He sounded almost desperate as he said it, a tremor in his voice, like a man who actually had a heart. Something Louise now believes he could not possibly possess.

  Oh how he hurt her this morning. He seems to be getting worse and worse. And yet she can’t leave him. She promised her father on his deathbed. It was an oath she swore on her mother’s life, to marry Signor Brzezinski and protect her mother. She cannot break that promise. It is sacred. Her mother might be an inmate on Poveglia, but maybe one day she will come to her senses and return home. Louise has to remain in Venice, at least until the day her mother dies. If she can escape into her double life, maybe it is enough to help her survive her marriage.

  Belle moves stiffly along the narrow laneways of Venice, the nightmare that is her home receding gradually. Her husband has gone out with some of his business associates, but he will be back later, drunk and more foul than he was this morning. She needs to purge herself of his smell and his touch the only way she knows how.

  Down by the bridge, it doesn’t take long to pick up an anonymous sailor. He is tall, and black as the night, his spicy odour so strong he banishes the scent of her husband immediately.

  She leads him to an alcove, a short walk from the bridge, but he shakes his head.

  ‘Will you come to my boat?’ he asks, in a low, melodic voice. Normally she would never agree to this, but today she wants to take risks. She nods her assent, and he pulls her to him, puts his arm around her waist, almost lifting her off the ground he is so tall.

  He leads her to the harbour, where all the boats are jostling together, their rigging creaking and moaning across the stillness of the lagoon. He offers his hand as he leads her up the gangway and on to the deck.

  ‘Is this your boat?’ she asks, wondering if he is some kind of exotic West Indian pirate.

  ‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘I’m first mate. But would you like to meet my captain?’

  He grins at her, and his teeth are so large and white in his dark face that he startles her. So this is his game. she thinks. Is she a gift for his captain? Or has she been acquired under orders?

  He takes her below deck. The odour of men is powerful. Sweat, strength and sex. For a more sensitive woman an overpowering scent, probably unpleasant, yet Belle is excited by it. She is in a male den. It heightens all her senses, makes her feel even more wanton.

  The First Mate leads her into the Captain’s quarters, and shuts the door behind him. To her surprise, there is no one in the room. She turns to her companion, gives him a questioning look.

  ‘Oh, he is coming,’ the black man says, bringing his hand down to trail her face softly with his finger. ‘But first I have my orders . . . to prepare you.’

  She catches her breath as her chest tightens. What is this beautiful man going to do to her? Anticipation sweeps through her, and suddenly her body is no longer in pain. The stinging memory of the hairbrush is gone for good, and her body is softening, opening up.

  ‘Well now,’ she says coquettishly. ‘Blow out the candles first, why don’t you?’

  The Captain, as pale as his first mate is black, holds her in place. His right hand is pushing back her fringe, his left hand cupping and lifting her chin. His breath is upon the back of her neck, and she can feel his naked body pressed into hers, the length of his penis against her back. She is aching for him to be inside her, but he is holding back, watching the First Mate kneel down in front of her. In the flickering light of a lone candle, he slowly unlaces her boots and carefully unfastens her stockings, placing them one by one on the Captain’s chair. The last two precious items of clothing that remained upon her body until this point. He lifts her legs one at a time, strokes their length before kissing each of her toes. At the same time the Captain ha
s moved his right hand and is now caressing her right breast. As her nipple hardens between his rough fingertips, she imagines herself slick and sweet as syrup.

  She has never done this before. Shared her body with two men at once.

  She can smell the salt of all the seven seas in the creaking wood of the Captain’s cabin, hear the coaxing whisper of the lagoon palming the hull as the First Mate begins to lick her gently. She gives a tiny gasp as he pushes the tip of his tongue deep inside her. Oh where did this exotic, beautiful man learn to do that? This is so much better than one on one. She can feel the competition between captain and first mate. Who is the better lover? Who can make her climax first?

  The First Mate pulls away, and upon his captain’s command the two of them pick her up and carry her to the far end of the cabin, where it is darker still. She can see that they have spread some cushions upon the floor. Of course the two of them have planned this all along. They lay her down upon the cushions, placing themselves on either side of her, opposite ends to each other. The First Mate is on her right and begins to lick her again, while the Captain pushes his finger into her, exploring her wet warmth brewing, pulling his finger out and tasting her in his mouth. She rolls on to her right side, knowing instinctively what they want. This is what makes her so good. This is why they come looking for her. All the men of Venice want to know her, all the sailors, soldiers, adventurers and opportunists. All of them want her. She is one of the treasures of this city.

  She lifts her hands as if in prayer and strokes the First Mate’s penis before guiding it into her mouth. She hears his groan of satisfaction as she flicks her tongue around its end. At the same time the Captain thrusts hard into her and she squeezes her legs tight around him, pushing her backside into his stomach. Oh yes, she hears him say. And something else. Maybe another woman’s name, but what does she care? All she wants is to obliterate the pain and hatred of this morning with all this loving. The Captain’s powerful length is thrusting in and out, one hand holding her head back, the other squeezing tight her waist, and the primal sensation of this along with the delicacy of the First Mate licking her is sublime. She is so close, and she wants it to be perfect. She coaxes what is inside her mouth. She can taste him and she knows he is ready. Now the Captain is thrusting more urgently, and she rides with him, faster and faster, up and up inside her.

  The boat rocks gently beneath them as their legs writhe in unity. The velvet of the cushions brushes against them, heating their skin, sticking them to each other, as the three of them, strangers and yet divinely connected, climax at the same time. She opens her mouth, flicks his penis into her hand with her tongue, bringing him to the edge, as the Captain flies open inside her. She shudders in response around him, again and again, so whole and yet so fractured within a second.

  They are still now. Connected to each other by their limbs, their heartbeats, their fading need. She can hear the two men panting, coming down. She feels as if she is sinking through the cushions, the wooden floor of the cabin and into the deep waters of the lagoon beneath them, at one at last with everything around her. She is whole again, no longer broken.

  Belle stares out at the lagoon, pausing on the quay as she passes the boats. All are in darkness, as if every sailor is abroad in Venice, drinking and carousing. She has left her Scottish captain and Jamaican first mate behind on their boat, drinking rum. Money was exchanged, a handsome sum, and they bade adieu with respect. She has no desire to ever see either of them again. The evening served a purpose, and now she must return home, most likely to be raped by her husband, but at least she has the satisfaction of knowing that she has had her pleasure first.

  As she turns away from the harbour, she notices the white boat she was looking at the day the Doctor was at her apartment, and remembers the sailor she saw as she hurried home the other day. Of course it was the same sailor she had seen on the boat. One and the same. She wonders idly who he is. There was something different about him.

  She shivers, despite the fact that it is far from cold. It is as if she has a premonition. She looks at the white boat again. A church bell tolls like a warning in the black night. She thinks how like a phantom vessel it looks. As if it has come out of the mists of another dimension. She thinks of the haunted island of Poveglia, somewhere out on the dark lagoon. Her mother and the other lost souls, both alive and dead, who inhabit that dreaded place. She tries to suppress the memory of the last time she set foot on Poveglia’s cursed earth, which is not real soil, but the burnt bones of its victims turned to thick ash. She instinctively puts her hands over her ears to shut out the ravings of her mother as she walked away. Who are you? Where is Ludwika? What have you done to her? It was as if she knew that Louise was becoming Belle. A prostitute, her parents’ ultimate shame.

  There is a flare of light. Someone on board the phantom ship has lit a lamp. She sees a flash of a face, indistinguishable, with a golden ring about it, like a vision of the future, a circle of hope. She wonders if it is the mysterious sailor. The golden ring shrinks to a point of light within the lamp, and she can no longer see its bearer. She shakes herself as if from a deep sleep, and begins to walk away. Yet the image of the light, the face and the ghost boat remains inside her head. She feels as if the lamp was lit for her, as if he is searching to find her in all the dark.

  Valentina

  VALENTINA READS THE EMAIL IN DISBELIEF.

  Away until next week. Have fun. Love Theo x

  He has never stayed away this long before. Why does he not want to spend time with her? She doesn’t care if he is seeing someone else. That’s not the point. It’s the fact he is avoiding her that hurts. He knows how she hates to sleep alone. It is her weak spot.

  Valentina was reared to be independent and emotionally self-sufficient. Her mother, in the role of professional single parent, needed no man to look after her, and this ethic was ingrained into Valentina. Although their apartment in Milan was their base, her mother ensured that Valentina got to see as much of the world as possible by the time she was an adult. She wanted her daughter to be wise beyond her years, skilled in the art of manipulating men. Yet Valentina grew up shy and antisocial, secretly craving not her mother’s approval, but her affection. Maybe her difficulty with men is due to the fact that her father disappeared when she was so young. And now her lover seems have disappeared as well. Is she as unloving as her mother? Has she driven Theo away? He asked her to be his girlfriend, in other words to enter into a proper relationship with him, and she told him she would think about it. Is he just giving her a bit more time to make up her mind? Yet she doesn’t need any more time. She can’t do it.

  She has only ever been in love once in her life. After that disaster she swore she would never let her guard down again. Her mother warned her, but Valentina disregarded her advice. Even at the age of nineteen she would do anything to prove she was different from her mother, and so she fell head over heels in love with her photography tutor at college, Francesco Merico. It didn’t matter to her that he was ten years older than her and married. When she was with Francesco she had his undivided attention. It was the first time in her life that she felt she was the centre of someone else’s world. He wrote her poetry, took endless photographs of her and of course initiated her in the pleasures of lovemaking. Valentina gave him everything – her thoughts, her creativity, her virginity and her heart. She cringes now when she remembers how naïve she was. She really did believe he was in love with her too. She believed him when he told her he was going to leave his wife.

  She lived in this blissful escapism for seven whole months. For Valentina their secret trysts were romantic and exciting, their forbidden lovemaking erotic, and she felt worldly when she was with Francesco. At last she was a woman.

  It took just one moment for her fantasy to fall apart. She was on an errand for her mother, collecting a dress she had had altered at Prada in Galleria, when she saw Francesco ahead of her, with his wife. Immediately she pulled back and concealed herself in the cro
wd. She watched her lover as he put his arm around his wife’s shoulders, protecting her from the bustle of shoppers. They did not look like a couple on the edge of a break-up. But there was worse. As Francesco and his wife paused to look in Gucci’s window, they turned slightly towards her and she could see Signora Merico more clearly. She was very pretty, with blond hair, and a cherub’s face, and she was quite obviously pregnant. Valentina tore her eyes away, and looked up into the soaring iron and glass of the Galleria arcade. No, it could not be true. She lowered her eyes and looked at the Mericos again. Signora Merico was pointing at something in the window, her other hand resting possessively on the dome of her belly. Her condition was undeniable. Valentina glanced at Francesco. She couldn’t resist it. He was talking to his wife animatedly, oblivious to Valentina’s proximity, and she saw upon his face the expression of love she had thought belonged to her.

  She doubled over in shock, gasping and imagining herself crashing head first into the old mosaic floor. An old lady passing by asked her if she was feeling all right. Si, si, grazie. She managed to pull herself upright. The last thing she wanted was Francesco seeing the nakedness of her pain and humiliation. She turned on her heel, fleeing through the packed Galleria. The cruciform avenues of the shopping arcade seemed to last for ever, as her body moved as if in slow motion, her heartache dragging her down like chains around her feet. Finally she emerged on the other side, the familiar bulk of La Scala in front of her.

  Valentina will never forget the pain of that heartache. It was as if she were physically sick. By the time she got home, she was hyperventilating, choked with emotion and almost unable to breathe. She was relieved that her mother wasn’t there to say I told you so. She couldn’t even make it to her bedroom. She curled up on the hall floor in a foetal position, tearless, but sobbing inside. Yet this is not the end of the story.