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It was close to midnight when they arrived not back at Jarret’s
palazzo
but the Gritti Palace Hotel. There the concierge fussed not over Amy but Jarret. She could not help but wonder how and why he had become such a well-known figure in Venice. The night manager offered them a bottle of champagne in the bar and there Amy and Jarret sat alone except for a man at the far side of the room.

‘When Ernest Hemingway was here in Venice, chasing after a beautiful young Italian girl and writing
Across the River and Into the Trees
, between his rooms here at the Gritti and above Harry’s restaurant on Torcello, we often met. He would have liked you, found you beautiful, and been enchanted by this romantic love idyll of ours.’

‘Is it just an idyll, do you think?’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t question that, and maybe I was
wrong to try and define what we have together.’

Jarret was such a different man with her when the sexual chemistry was working between them as it was now that they were alone and in the peace and quiet of the bar. She could see the lust and love for her in his eyes. Something in his entire being seemed to change. Both were equally aware of their erotic passion, so much so that words were not necessary. Theirs was an overwhelming desire to be intimate with each other, to seek a world of sexual oblivion together that was once more taking them over. And that was when Amy liked Jarret best.

‘What’s your room number?’

Amy told him, and there was a tremor in her voice. He squeezed her hand. His was trembling. It was then that she realised Jarret was just as emotional about their love affair as she was. That was an odd confirmation to her, but a confirmation none the less, that neither Fee nor Savannah could change their feelings for each other. It somehow reassured her that their love was theirs, and that together, no matter who or what, they would make it work.

‘You get the key. I’ll follow in a few minutes. I’ll wait until there’s no one round to see me,’ he told Amy.

‘And what if they did? You don’t actually think they would make a fuss about me having a man in my room, do you? I’m sure Ernest Hemingway felt no need to sneak his amours up the back stairs. Really, Jarret, this is 1958. How very old-fashioned of you.’

He looked surprised. ‘In Venice it’s always better to
be discreet. Venetians love a scandal, and we can’t have that.’

‘Is this love affair always going to be top secret?’ asked Amy, who was not much liking the idea of his sneaking up to her room.

‘Not top secret, but we should keep it to ourselves and not let the outside world come in and spoil it. Discreet will do, and that will be difficult enough. Amy, I’m a selfish bastard, I want you for myself, for us when we’re together to enjoy a haven away from people and places and things. You’re an oasis where I can quench my thirst, an island unto yourself where I can bathe in your sunlight.’ He bent forward and whispered in her ear, ‘And when I come inside you, it’s like finding the home I never dreamed I would have, and all the passion and excitement of my life at its peak, having those two things at the same time. I think about fucking you all the time but it doesn’t mean I want the world to know about it.’

That was how Jarret felt, but what about her, Amy? Strangely not very different from him. Her love for Jarret, their sex life, was intensely personal to her. Only his expressing their intimate life so well made her realise that while she wanted the world to know she and Jarret were lovers, she didn’t want to shout it from the rooftops. She found that somehow perverse, odd, not a very solid foundation to build a life together on.

He smiled and kissed her hand and rose from his chair. She left him in the bar and went to get her key. It was early days in the love stakes. She adored him and wanted
him. He could say anything, do anything, as long as they were together.

Amy showered very quickly, and brushed her hair, and had time to make up her face. She looked incredibly pretty and sexy, just the way she wanted to look for Jarret. She slipped into her black crêpe-de-chine nightdress: an expensive extravagance she had treated herself to in Paris, a birthday present to herself which she had not as yet worn. It had thin shoestring satin straps and was low in the back, very nearly to her waist. The bodice had inserts of black lace and her breasts could clearly be seen through the lace. She looked in the mirror before she slipped the dressing gown, a kimono of the same black crêpe-de-chine, over her shoulders and slid her arms through the wide glamorous sleeves. She was quite overwhelmed by what she saw: an Amy she had never known before. She liked this sexy, beautiful woman waiting for the man she was giving herself up to so completely.

She was no stranger to great sex, long and luscious orgasms, completely satisfying, but she was unused to sex such as she and Jarret were having, where a man controlled her with his thrustings, demanding that she dissolve in orgasm after orgasm. A man who loved her with a powerful passion that was more than sex, more than love even. Her heart raced in anticipation as the door opened and Jarret walked into the room.

He walked directly to her, dropping his jacket on to the floor, pulling at his tie, unbuckling his belt. ‘You’re
always surprising me, seducing me with being more than I want you to be.’

He slipped the kimono from her shoulders and it fell to the floor. Jarret turned her round once to look at her and then, taking her by the hand, led her to the bed. It seemed impossible to Amy that this was only the second time that they would have been to bed together. It was for her as if they had been having sex all their lives. She wanted him desperately and saw that same desperation in his eyes. There was no kiss, no caress. He was erect, rock hard. She had only to see that and she lay down on the bed, her knees bent, legs wide apart, the luscious black silk draped sensually round the paleness of her thighs.

Jarret pulled her up against the many pillows on the bed and then lay on top of her, placing his enormously engorged sex against the softness of her cleft. ‘I like to watch your face while I’m fucking you. It’s your hunger, your greed for sex, your love for me, that excites me. Your writhing in pleasure, how you hold your breath before you come, and then your release. I like to watch all that while I feel the warm gush of your come flow over me.’

A little vulgar, a lot sexy, this talk during sex from the usually silent Jarret. There was no doubt that his words excited them both, made them feel even more raunchy than they already were. Without any foreplay or hesitation he thrust violently into Amy. Unable to hold back she opened her mouth to call out, not in pain but pleasure, but he anticipated her and placed a hand
gently over her mouth to keep the sound at a minimum. He kept it there for some minutes while he took her slowly, exquisitely. She picked up his rhythm and went with it, contracting and easing, and using her pelvis in dances of pleasure for him, wanting always to give as much pleasure as she was receiving.

All the while he was generous with his praise of her sexual abilities, telling her, ‘You feel so warm and wet and luscious. It’s so thrilling the way you embrace me with your sex.’

He was no less generous about himself, telling her, ‘For all the rest of your life, no man will ever fuck you better.’ His confidence was well founded, she never doubted it was true.

Once again, after he came and only then, he caressed her breasts, taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking until he dozed off. Amy was asleep when he awakened her with a kiss. No words of love or passion for her, he merely rolled her over on to her tummy. Still half asleep, she instinctively raised her bottom by going on her knees, her arms and head resting on the pillows, her eyes still closed.

She felt Jarret raise the silk of her nightdress up over her bottom. As if by instinct she imperceptibly rocked slowly back and forth on her knees. To see that luscious rounded bottom simulate the act of being fucked was for Jarret a tantalising tease.

Amy was still dwelling in that land between sleep and awakening when Jarret placed his large rough hands on her firm, fleshy, rounded orbs. A brief caress before
his hands slipped under her bottom. Slowly he sank his erect and pulsating phallus into her tight, warm and satiny place. With hands holding her firmly by the waist, he was able to keep her very still while he screwed her down with sex, brilliant fucking, where he left not an inch untouched by his probing penis, changing the tempo when he chose to. He rode her to a song of sex where he was both composer and conductor. She his muse, his blissful delight. He was marking Amy with sex, for himself, for life. It was obvious to them both that that was the way he spoke to her of love. It was during that early-morning intercourse that Amy realised how intensely private his love for her was.

He was gone when she awakened. She reached out. He wasn’t in the bed next to her. Amy felt a sense of loss so painful she had to cover her face with her hands and take several deep breaths to calm herself. Tears stained her cheeks; her sobs broke the fragile control she had over herself.

That he was gone was one thing, but the premonition that he would never be anything but temporarily there for her was another. Knowing that was pain for a woman in love, was an attack on the heart that was very nearly unbearable. When two people love each other as she and Jarret did, there was a need for continuity, a sharing of all things, the good and the bad to the end of their days. That was how Amy imagined life dealt with true love. Was that so wrong? Too romantic? With Jarret it was, came the answer.

After some time, she was able to calm herself. It was
then that she realised she was helpless to do anything other than follow her heart, but that she would also have to remember: no matter the intensity of the love she and Jarret had for each other, theirs was the long-term love that would change his life. Of the three kinds of love that Fee said Jarret dealt with: sexual, temporary and forbidden, she sensed theirs fell into the latter category:
forbidden
.

How could one be so happy and so sad at the same time? Was she over-reacting? Of course she was over-reacting. She would wait for Jarret to tell her their love was forbidden. Until then, love each other they would.

Amy made up her mind to be strong-willed so as never to suffer the pain of loving Jarret. She would expect nothing, ask nothing of him, wanted only what he wanted to give her. They would live each day, each hour and minute, as it came. She had arrived somewhere with that thinking, a place that made her feel immediately relaxed about loving Jarret as she did. She reached out to place her hand on the pillow where his head had rested and found a piece of notepaper.

Chapter 9

Amy took a water-taxi from the Gritti to the
palazzo
. This was the first time she would have entered Jarret’s house from the canal. It was a grander façade and in better condition than the rest of the
palazzo
. Somehow, it didn’t go with the interior and its decadent and faded, broken and shabby furnishings, trying to be antiques of quality. It was impressive. The building also made Amy wonder how artists such as Fee and Jarret could afford to live in such a place. By their own admission they were struggling painters, and poor as church mice.

The taxi gave several short blasts of the horn as the driver helped Amy out on to the first dry marble stair rising out of the water. She took two more stairs and was standing at the entrance to the
palazzo
, flanked by a pair of age-old and weatherworn marble unicorns that appeared to be guarding the door. Amy used the heavy bronze knocker several times. The echoing sound broke an eerie silence except for the lapping of water against the stone stairs.

There was something unreal about her being here, in the same way that there was something illusory about her being so very much in love with Jarret. Standing in front of that door, waiting for him to come and answer it, she realised that in love as she may be with him, and
willing to turn a blind eye to many things as she might be, only his behaviour towards her could provide the ultimate reassurance.

She heard footsteps, Jarret’s footsteps. A smile crossed her lips. Elation swept through her body. Jarret was there on the other side of the door. She was empty-handed. How silly, she should have brought flowers, sweets, something. She heard the bolt being shot and a key turn, and her heart raced. The door creaked open. She thought, Never mind, I’ve brought myself. The iron-studded door was pulled back and Amy readied herself to rush into Jarret’s arms. She only just caught herself in time.

‘Oh, dear, am I such a bad replacement? That’s what it says on your face, Amy.’

‘Replacement?’

‘Temporary replacement is what I should have said. Come in, come in.’ And Fee bent forward and kissed Amy on each cheek.

The sight of him dressed all in black – turtleneck jumper, trousers, well-polished boots and a Moroccan caftan heavily embroidered in silk braid – brought her up sharp. A necklace of chunky amber and silver beads hung nearly to his black leather belt. Fee looked bright-eyed and happy. She had never seen him look otherwise.

‘I thought you were going to stay with your friend Alfreda?’

‘Change of plan, and a good thing too. If I had gone to stay with her then you would have had to spend the day alone. There would have been no one to take you round Venice today,
and
I got us an invitation to lunch at our
friend Principe Marino Colonna Bouccati’s
palazzo
. He longs to meet you and show you his collection of contemporary paintings along with some of the best Italian Renaissance works you will see anywhere. Most of Venice is talking about Jarret and Fee’s new friend, the art historian from New York.’

They were by now walking through the ground-floor rooms. Amy stopped Fee. ‘Where’s Jarret? And why am I not spending the day with him?’

‘He’s up in his studio waiting for you. He’s leaving for Paris with Peggy Guggenheim in two hours’ time. He couldn’t say no to accompanying her there, and had to go anyway.’

‘He never said anything to me about it last night.’

‘He didn’t know last night.’

Amy knew the house well enough to break away from Fee and head for the studio. She burst in on Jarret who was calmly rolling up some canvases. Just seeing him, the warmth of his smile for her, centred her. All anxiety vanished.

‘I missed you this morning.’

‘And now you know you’re going to miss me today. Fee really does talk too much. I wanted to tell you myself.’

‘Do you have to go?’

‘Yes. But all’s not lost. Fly to New York via Paris. We can have tomorrow together.’

‘You mean, fly with you and Peggy Guggenheim?’

‘No, there’s no time for you to get yourself together before we leave.’

‘Do you have to go?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about me?’

Jarret stopped what he was doing and went to Amy, took her by the hand to sit with her on the settee. ‘Peggy is not a woman easily said no to. We’re neighbours here in Venice and she’s an influential woman in the art world. She wants me to travel with her, so travel with her I will.’

As much as she wanted to disagree, Amy knew Jarret was right. Peggy Guggenheim was a legend in the art world. A woman with an eye for modern painting who did something about it, with a New York gallery in the late 1940s that showed Jackson Pollock when no one else did; who sponsored him and so many now famous painters and sculptors so they might keep painting while she stockpiled works of art.

She was many times over a millionaire who recognised true art and bought from and supported what would turn out to be some of the greatest of the modern painters of the twentieth century. She had steeped herself in modern art and the men that painted it, had managed to have them as friends and lovers and even to catch Max Ernst as a husband.

The New York art world knew all about her genius as well as her legendary tight-fistedness when it came to money, her eccentricity, vanity, power and charm. She in her own right was one of the big names of the art world of the twentieth century, constantly looking at paintings, collecting, and still with an eye for art and an intelligent word about it that everyone listened to. She
kept the bulk and best of her paintings in her
palazzo
in Venice, along with a collection of yapping little Chinese dogs, that was a museum all its own and sometimes opened to the public. Peggy Guggenheim was a formidable woman.

She had chosen Jarret to accompany her, and even a man in love could not turn down such an offer. Was he her lover? Amy hated herself for even thinking about that, but she had seen Jarret and his charm, his sexiness at work, with the Greek painter and her friend from Paris. Jarret had the seductive charm of a virile man who was also part child, a victim of his talent, a fragile being in a hostile world, and would not a much older woman with a penchant for painters find him attractive?

It was knowing in her heart that Jarret and Fee were ambitious for themselves and their work, and her unease about how far they would go to get what they wanted, that compelled Amy to ask herself: Prey on an older woman, make love to a famous name, was Jarret capable of that? No, she answered herself, not the man who had made love to her the way he did. In spite of what she believed, she asked him, ‘And?’

Amy detested the way the question came out. It made her seem jealous, and she was for a moment, insanely so. Once she recognised that she snapped out of it. Jealousy was an emotion she had no time for. She had seen it in others and found it despicable. Having never experienced it before, she found it a destructive and horrid feeling and one she would never allow herself again.

Jarret’s eyes were cold as steel and fixed on Amy’s when he answered her, ‘And I hope one day she’ll buy a painting of mine for her collection.’

Art was one thing, his and Fee’s hustling was another. She had no doubt that Fee had had his hand in this, but the passion between Amy and Jarret was set apart in its own way. Amy was determined to stand up to Jarret’s treatment of it. ‘If you had called me, I could have been ready to travel with you,’ she responded.

‘You weren’t asked. I was. Don’t make more of this than there is. Subject closed, I think, don’t you?’

Amy thought, Closed but not forgotten. A lesson well learned? It was obvious there were to be Jarret and Amy in a secret world all their own, Jarret and Amy together and apart in public. His life, her life, their life. And who was to know, maybe she could be happy in that sort of love affair? And maybe they could make it work? And when she wasn’t happy? And if it didn’t work? Well, she could always leave.

Jarret was no fool, he saw everything she was thinking in her face. He had not expected to be so disturbed by her anxiety over the situation, nor fear that she was not as much in love with him as he’d thought she was. He was a hardened seducer of women and had always made it a policy never to explain himself or his actions; that had always worked to keep the women who wanted him quiet and unquestioning for fear they would lose him.

He hardly realised he was breaking his policy when he told her, ‘Look, she wants me to escort her to a gala in Paris tonight. All the art world will be there. How
could I say no? And I didn’t want to say no. That doesn’t mean that I’m happy to leave you, I’m not. I know you must be in New York the day after tomorrow. Get to Paris tonight and take a night flight to New York tomorrow. That way we can have all day together in Paris.’

It was nearly midnight when Amy checked into her hotel round the corner from the Place Vendôme. She very nearly sighed with relief when the concierge recognised her, greeted her warmly, said that he could accommodate her with a room for that one evening only, and made no fuss about her having no luggage.

Once she was shown to her room she fell exhausted on to the bed. Emotionally drained, confused from the mixed signals she kept getting from Jarret and Fee, happy to be back in Paris and strangely relieved to have left Venice behind, she wasn’t at all sad that this was the last night of her travels abroad. Though she was not ready to leave Jarret, she was quite ready to return to New York and life as she knew it. Or rather as she had known it. She had been on an odyssey that was rich and filled with wondrous experiences, and now needed time and space away from them to evaluate.

Amy was far from being a foolish young woman, she was very much aware that the life she had been so content with could never be the same. A larger world was what she’d been looking for, and a larger world was what she had found. That and a deep and profound love for a man who professed to return that love. She had
changed, expanded as a person, and her New York life and work would have to follow.

Amy lay there, eyes closed, relaxing from the frenetic but fun day she had had with Fee in Venice and her harassing journey to Paris. There were so many imponderables when she was away from Jarret. She was always finding new ones. Odd, for example, that he had not asked her to stay with him in the flat he’d told her he owned on the Left Bank, in St Germain.

Was it only this morning that she had said goodbye to him in Venice, only last night that he had made such magnificent love to her, that sex and orgasm that had taken them over and done more than consummate their relationship? It had changed their lives and made them the richer for having found each other.

Amy pulled the scrap of paper with his Paris telephone number written on it from the pocket of her skirt. She rolled on to her side and, taking the telephone, asked the concierge to get the number for her. Her heart raced at the very idea that she was about to hear his voice. His telephone rang and rang. There was no reply. Amy replaced the receiver and made excuses for his not being there. He had said he would get away from Peggy as soon as possible.

She called at one, and at two, and at two-thirty in the morning, and then she began to cry. Disappointed, frustrated, feeling stupid for being in Paris at all, she fell asleep.

Amy had asked for a call at eight o’clock and now the
ringing of the telephone was incessant. It pulled her from a deep sleep, but once she was awake she was very much awake. She asked for Jarret’s number to be tried again. Almost immediately he was on the line. It was outrageous but she almost burst into tears from sheer relief that he was there. His voice … she had almost forgotten what a marvellous voice he had.

‘
Bonjour
.’

‘Hello, it’s Amy.’

‘I’ve been waiting for your call. I’ve been so worried that you hadn’t managed to get here. All sorts of terrible things went through my mind – that we might not have today together, that you couldn’t make plane connections, that we were destined to be parted before we could make plans for the future. The very idea was like a light going out of my life. Where are you?’

‘At the hotel where I said I would be.’

‘Give me the address. I’ll be right over. And don’t bother to get dressed.’

Amy gave him the address and he was off the phone without even a farewell. She had had her chance before she gave the address to tell him that she had called until three in the morning, that she could have been waiting for him in his bed, in his flat, so why hadn’t she been? Why had he put them both through the misery of being apart longer than they had to be? But it all sounded so churlish after his words, the expression of his anxieties, revealing to her how much she meant to him. The light going out of his life.

It wouldn’t take long for Jarret to get to the hotel.
Amy went into top gear. It was not a matter of not getting dressed but of getting undressed. She had fallen asleep in the clothes she had travelled in, had not unpacked her shoulder bag. From it now she took her Paris-bought nightgown and black silk kimono, a tooth brush, a small make-up bag, and started peeling off her clothes.

She bathed, and was changed and looking incredibly relaxed and beautiful, standing by the window gazing out across the rooftops of Paris, when his knock on the door came. The timing was perfect, the maid having just finished laying a small table next to the windows with breakfast for two. She had only to leave the room.

He didn’t wait for an answer but opened the door. They stood there, he still in the hall, Amy standing by the window. They gazed at each other for what seemed like an age, and often after that meeting Amy would remember those moments as a turning point in their young but intense love affair.

Something was implicit in their being alone together. If there had been any doubts whatsoever on either of their parts that the feelings they had were other than genuine they vanished once and for ever in those few minutes in that hotel room. It proved to be such an emotional moment for them that neither of them could speak.

Not even when Jarret crossed the room to stand before Amy and take her hands in his, and kiss first one and then the other, and then drop to his knees, wrapping his arms round her while he laid his head against her belly, could Amy speak. She merely placed her hands
on top of his head and ran her fingers through his hair. Jarret opened the kimono and rubbed his face against the crêpe-de-chine of her nightgown. His lips sought her mound beneath and he pressed a kiss upon it, and another. Amy took him by the arms and pulled him up off his knees.