The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (17 page)

If only he would let me find that out.

‘We’re from different stock,’ he wrote.

‘Not that different!’ I exclaimed to myself. We may have met in a kept woman’s house but I came from an honest family. My parents were good people who taught me right from wrong.

‘To continue on this path will only bring misery to us both. It is for the best,’ he finished his letter.

‘Those words should harden your heart,’ my friends told me.

My heart would never do as it was told. I could not give up on my love.

Chapter 22

Augustine’s was not the only heart that would not do as it was told.

I had no reply to my email, but the following day, I was still buoyed by the thought that Marco had been in the house while I was there and that he was interested enough in me to sketch me with such delicacy. I thought about the things he had said about Sauvageon’s sketches and wondered if he was actually projecting his own thoughts: that to produce such a beautiful drawing takes a special degree of feeling between the artist and his subject.

Back in the library, I sat down at the desk. I opened my laptop and logged on to the Palazzo’s network. I sent a message of greeting.

This time I got a reply.

‘Did you get my email?’ I asked.

‘I did. I’m sorry. I was busy. I should at least have responded in the negative.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘Marco, I have been meaning to make a confession to you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. That beautiful dress you bought for me, the one I was supposed to wear to the ball. I didn’t wear it. My friend Bea did.’

Marco did not respond.

‘I had an idea that it would fun to double-bluff you on the disguise front. I guessed that you had sent me the dress so that you would be able to pick me out easily in the crowd of masked revellers. I thought you’d make a beeline for the dress you’d picked out so I persuaded Bea to wear it so that I could observe you from afar. You see, wearing the dress would put me at something of a disadvantage, given that I assumed you would be wearing the same as every other man at the party. I’d never be able to pick you out until you revealed yourself to me. I wanted to see you from a distance. Just for a little while.’

‘I see.’

‘But, of course, you weren’t even there.’

‘No.’

‘You were in Hong Kong.’

‘I was.’

He still wasn’t going to change his tune on that front.

Of course, having seen the whole scene, I knew for sure he couldn’t have mistaken Bea for me. Now, I was just trying to draw him out.

‘I hope you’re not offended,’ I pressed on. ‘I realise that the dress must have cost you a fortune. Perhaps it was an ungrateful thing to do – pass your gift on to a woman you don’t even know – but I was also feeling very vulnerable about our first meeting in person. After that morning in the library, I was left with the sense that you suddenly knew me rather better than I knew you.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I would have thought it was obvious. You called all the shots. I was the one who stripped off. There might have been a camera.’

‘There was no camera.’

‘I believe that now.’

‘You do? Why?’

‘You’d have put the footage on YouTube, surely.’

‘I’m really not that kind of man.’

I let the screen stay still for a moment, giving him a chance to take the conversation forward. He didn’t and so I asked.

‘Marco, do you ever think about that morning?’

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds passed.

‘Yes,’ his answer appeared.

‘But what do you think about when you remember that day? Just the words on the screen? I at least got some physical enjoyment.’

‘I got plenty of enjoyment thinking about you following my instructions.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been better to be able to see me at the same time?’

‘We agreed, no cameras. I didn’t want to betray your trust. It was enough for me just to think that I was having some influence over you from afar and to receive your confirmation.’

‘It was quite an experience for me,’ I said. ‘To let you give me those instructions.’

I waited for a moment again.

‘I’ve often thought about repeating the experience.’

As I typed those words, it was difficult not to glance in the direction of the shelves which I now knew for certain concealed the door to Marco’s very private office. I forced myself to keep my eyes on the screen and a smile off my lips, but it was thrilling, thinking that he was almost certainly just a few metres away from me, sitting at the desk I had explored in the room where I had discovered so much about him. And about his feelings for me. After a minute, his reply came.

‘Me too.’

‘We could do it again right now, if you like. I’m waiting for you to tell me where to start.’

‘There’s nothing in the drawer,’ wrote Marco.

‘I know,’ I wrote back. ‘I’ve already checked. It doesn’t matter. I can use my fingers.’

A pause.

‘It’s not the right time. Silvio is in the house and—’

‘Silvio won’t come in,’ I typed. ‘He hasn’t disturbed me in the library since the first couple of days I was here. I can’t think of a better time. You’ve already got me thinking about that morning back in February. Are you really going to let me go back to my hotel in a state of frustration?’

I looked at the words I’d just typed. They seemed slightly out of character, a little too forward. ‘Frustration’? I wondered if I’d made a mistake and pushed too far too quickly. But then I thought of Marco on the other side of the wall, hiding in his little office. What a coward. He deserved a bit of a prod.

‘OK,’ he wrote at last. ‘If it’s what you want.’

‘Is it what
you
want?’ I asked him in reply.

‘Of course. I always want to think of you in the library, turned on by the thought of me.’

‘Turned on
by
you. Following your instructions. Talk to me, Marco. Tell me what to do.’

‘What are you wearing?’ he began.

Chapter 23

What am I wearing? You
know
, I wanted to tell him. Because you’re looking right at me now.

Instead, I played the game. ‘It’s hot outside today so I am wearing a summer dress. I’ve had it for years. The fabric is linen. It’s been washed countless times and it’s very soft and worn. The dress is blue like faded denim. It has a fitted bodice with short cap sleeves and a big skirt. It’s a shirt dress, with buttons all the way down the front. I’ve undone the top two buttons so you can almost see the top of my bra.’

‘What’s that like?’ Marco asked.

‘It’s cotton,’ I said. ‘Because of the heat. It’s a pale pink colour, with lace round the edge of the cups. It isn’t underwired but it fits me perfectly and holds me in place very well. The main fabric is quite thin. You can see the outline of my nipples clearly.’

‘And knickers?’

‘They match, of course. They are bikini style, but quite scanty. They cover my pubic hair but you can see the shadow through the thinness of the cotton.’

‘On your feet?’

‘Sandals. But now . . .’ I kicked them off. ‘Nothing.’

I thought of Marco’s sketch of me sitting at the desk with no shoes on. It must have been made the day I got soaked on my way to the library and had to take my shoes and socks off because they were so wet. I’d draped the socks over the bench in front of the fire to let them dry. Now I had no socks on because it was so hot.

‘I’ve painted my toenails,’ I told him. ‘It’s a deep sparkling red called “I’m not really a waitress”.’

‘Sounds sexy,’ he wrote.

‘It is.’

I stretched one foot out in front of me and admired my own handiwork. I was putting on a far better show than I had the last time we did this, now that I knew Marco could see me if he wanted to, yet I was still careful not to give my secret knowledge away. Was he at the spyhole already, sending his messages using a laptop or a tablet? I had to assume that he was. Had he moved his chair into that tiny dark corridor? Did he have his sketchbook open on his lap, ready to capture me for posterity with his expert pencil strokes? Was that all he did? Did he merely set down the scene with a pencil or was he touching himself as I touched myself?

‘What are
you
wearing?’ I ventured to ask.

‘This isn’t about me,’ came his reply.

‘OK. Tell me what you want me to do next.’

‘Undo some more buttons on your dress. Undo them all, so that it falls open and your underwear is exposed.’

‘OK.’

Slowly and very deliberately, I began to undo the buttons. The dress was old and the buttons came undone easily, so I hesitated between each one, prolonging the moment when the dress would fall open completely.

‘Stand up. Push the dress off your shoulders. Let it fall to the floor.’

I stood up. It was different this time. I did not feel as vulnerable as before. Not now that I had knowledge of Marco’s little secret. I was playing him. I was in control. This moment was going to be a game-changer. I decided I would force Marco into a situation where he had to reveal himself. I would be so wild and wonderful that he simply could not resist.

I moved my chair so that it no longer faced the desk directly but instead faced the mirror. Knowing that the mirror had been placed to enable Marco the best possible view, I played up to his ingenuity and made sure that he got my whole reflection. I moved my chair a little closer to the mirror too.

I let my hand stray to the front of my knickers. I pulled the fabric to one side, exposing just a glimpse of my pubic hair.

‘Are you touching yourself?’ Marco asked me.

I typed with one hand. ‘You know I am.’

‘Good,’ he wrote. ‘Do what you usually do to turn yourself on.’

‘Tell me what that should be?’

‘I don’t know,’ Marco’s words appeared. That was odd. It was almost nervous. I couldn’t stop myself – I glanced in the direction of the hidden door. ‘Stroke yourself?’

‘OK.’

I began to play with my clitoris. Moistening my finger between my lips, I started to circle the little pink nub. I held my labia apart so that it was more exposed. I kept glancing to the screen to see how Marco responded.

‘How does that feel? Is it good? I want you to think of my hands upon you. I want you to think of me standing behind you and holding your breasts while you continue to play with yourself.’

I let my head loll back, consciously emulating the pose in Marco’s drawing. I let my mouth fall slightly open as I began to breathe more heavily. I wasn’t faking my excitement.

I opened my eyes again for Marco’s next instruction.

‘I want you to imagine that I am between your legs now. I am standing in front of you with my cock in my hand. I want you to open yourself up to me. Make yourself wet so that I can slip into you. I want to be inside you.’

He had not suggested such a thing before. The thought of it made me more excited than ever. Continuing to touch myself, I looked steadily in the direction of the place where I knew the spyhole to be. I imagined his eye to that hole. I was looking straight into it. I kept my gaze right on him as I started to come.

The ‘ping’ of a message notification broke through the moment.

‘I think that’s enough,’ Marco wrote.

I stood up abruptly.

‘What?’ I said out loud. ‘What’s the matter?’

But of course, Marco couldn’t answer that. Not when he wasn’t supposed to be able to hear me. I typed my frustration for his benefit.

‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ he responded.

‘But we are,’ I wrote. ‘And I was enjoying it. Weren’t you?’

‘That’s beside the point. This isn’t right. I shouldn’t have got involved in this. You should leave as soon as you can after you’ve got all the information you need regarding that sketchbook.’

‘I didn’t come to Venice for the sketchbook,’ I confessed then.

‘Then I don’t know why you did come here,’ wrote Marco.

‘Are you crazy?’

‘I’m just not sure I understand what you’re getting at.’

‘The sketches were an excuse. Though they seemed like a Heaven-sent one. Like a sign.’

‘A coincidence.’

‘A coincidence that you could have stopped from developing any further. When I asked to see them, you wrote straight back to me. Why would you have done that if you didn’t want to see me too?’

‘I wrote back out of politeness. I always respond to email.’

‘Not true,’ I pointed out. ‘And in any case, you don’t seem to find it so hard to tell people they can’t come to the Palazzo. You told Bea that the library was no longer open to members of the general public only a couple of weeks ago.’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘You could have said the same to me. But you didn’t, because you wanted me to come here again. You wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see you.’