Wednesday, May 21, 2008

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Violante



Dr. Violante Scaravaggi had somehow made it to the Rialto today, in spite of the crowds that thronged Venice for the Regatta Storica.

They watched the annual gondoliers' race, the Historic Regatta, together. The Grand Canal was decorated with silken banners, damask hangings, and colored drapes, to welcome the dramatic flotilla that formed a procession down the waterway, in honor of the 700 year old custom that was taking place.

The procession was led by a ceremonial bissona with a gilded statue of Neptune clutching a garland of gladioli, rowed by 18 renaissance-clad men. A flotilla of additional bissone and caorline followed -- dramatic, breathtaking, gondole with their prows of golden goddesses, silver horses, heraldic crests and allegorical figures trailing colorful silk in scarlet and purple; the entire city was festooned with flowers, the Venetians decked out in 15th century costumes, a pair having been specially chosen as the Queen of Cyprus and the Doge to reenact the ancient ritual of throwing a special ring in the water.

All summer long, teams had been competing for the final rowing races between the different districts, and each crew had strong support of a faction of the local populace, Violante told Cupp. The special racing barques, she said, were used only once a year, always rowed by crews in 15th century attire. It was an exciting, splendid event, as much a part of Venetian tradition as the Palio was to Siena.

Now they were relaxing over a fine dinner at Madonna. Cupp had ordered squid, shrimp and lobster salad with lemon dressing, a house specialty, followed by vitello al limone with a 1971 Bollinger Brut champagne and an additional bottle of 1964 Barolo Grand Prix de l'Opéra.

The professoressa spoke of the Islamic studies in which she was deeply involved, and Cupp was learning a lot of fascinating things he never would have come across otherwise. At present, Violante's conversation was centering around giraffes, ostriches and ostrich eggs. She told him that Egyptian sovereigns from as early as the 15th century BC had sought giraffes as imaginative gifts, that it was in this same 15th century that a certain Queen Hatshepsut of the 18th Dynasty sent a naval expedition to the Land of Punt – possibly the Somali coast – to return with ostriches, ostrich eggs, ostrich feathers, and a live giraffe.

It had been noted, the professoressa said, by Mamluk historian al-Maqrizi that in the year 1292 a giraffe was born in captivity in Cairo. Then she started telling him all about a special expedition that brought a prized live giraffe to Tamerlane -- from Cairo to Samarkand. The poor giraffe had to walk the whole distance, 3000 miles. This event had been recorded, Violante said, by a Persian historian named Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi, as well as by a dude named Clavijo, a Spaniard who went along on the trip with the Egyptian delegation.

Supposedly the guy who presented the giraffe, together with a whole bunch of ostriches, ostrich eggs and feathers to Tamerlane was a Mamluk ambassador named Manglay Bugay. The route of this trip, said Violante, went around the southern flank of the Caspian Sea through Khorasan, Soviet Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan, crossing the Oxus River (now the Amu Darya), until they arrived, 34 months after starting out, in Kesh, Tamerlane's birthplace.

It must have been quite an event. Cupp only wished he could have brought his tape recorder to get the whole fascinating story down as she told it; he was sure it could somehow be worked into his book on the 20th century as an interesting juxtaposition of how times had changed, or something.

Cupp had invited the professoressa to dinner with one object in mind – she knew Gaia Blumenthal well. It could be that she was in the know regarding the hush hush world of this secret organization, the Odalisques, about which his curiosity was so thoroughly aroused. Furthermore, as a native and a scholar, she would be able to direct him to sources, would understand the library system in Italy, which would be Greek to him. She would have shortcuts, allowing him to obtain intelligence as quickly as possible, giving him ammunition to work from. He couldn't simply go to Gaia Blumenthal himself and start referring to Odalisques when he didn't even know what in hell he was talking about. Once he had a firm base to start from, then and only then could he raise the subject.

Cupp questioned Violante on her relationship to Gaia Blumenthal. The answer was as he guessed; they had known each other well for years, they had a great deal in common. Gaia was a phenomenon, Violante said, a superwoman – many-faceted, knowledgeable, knowing.

"I am so fortunate," Violante said, "to have such a wonderful relationship with her. It is a very meaningful friendship."

Cupp registered the distinct possibility that Violante herself could know something about the Odalisques. He would be cool about it, but he would find out.

Here was quite a fascinating lady, exuding charm, able to talk on just about any topic. As a rule he never would have been caught dead in public with a woman of her age – for sure she was 45 plus, although still attractive; however, 32 was the invisible mark at which he generally drew the line – and yet, a strange thing was happening – he was beginning to be beguiled by her.

She was telling him now about her interest in horses. As a dressage and show jumping enthusiast, she was one of the 200 members of Milan's exclusive Centro Ippico di Castellazzo.

"The Italians, you know, have had a profound influence on horse riding," she said, "first with our cavalry tradition, and then the great Federico Caprilli practically singlehandedly invented the entire modern equestrian system with the forward seat. Caprilli is considered the father of show jumping, you know. Now only the British still ride the old way."

Violante illustrated what she meant by sitting back in her chair, placing her legs forward, "as in the old park seat style. For me," she said, "this is an awkward, unaesthetic way to go over fences. And almost everyone else in the horse world rides Caprilli's Italian style ... così... " Again she moved, this time backward, leaning only slightly toward the table, to demonstrate the seat made famous as to give Caprilli the undisputed title of progenitor of modern equestrian sport. Cupp could not help letting his imagination run wild as the professoressa's movements became provocative.

"In Italy equestrian clubs have mushroomed, and show jumping now is the second most televised sport in all of Europe -- after calcio, or soccer, which we also call football," she said.

She told him all about this guy Caprilli's principles of natural equitation, which had been adopted by all the rest of the world except Great Britain. "Balance and firmness in the saddle are the sine qua non," she said. "The rider must accompany with the weight of his body, with his hands especially, every movement the horse makes, offering no interference."

She spoke also about what Caprilli said about maintaining a constant light tension with the movement of the hands during the jump. "Just as soon as the horse has sprung," Violante explained, "the rider should let his trunk follow the displacement forward of the center of gravity without lifting his seat too far out of the saddle -- at the same instant he must move his hands forward -- così -- allowing the horse to stretch his neck and shoulders -- giving the horse full rein --"

Cupp could not help thinking, as she illustrated, what the professoressa would be like in the kip. He had not foreseen this keen interest in bedding her, or even being this attracted, and he had to wonder about the power she was beginning to evince over him -- could it be possible, he asked himself, that Violante might even be an Odalisque? It was logical, since she was such a good friend of Gaia Blumenthal's. As the evening wore on, Cupp found himself more firmly convinced that his speculation could indeed be the case.

He found an opening in which to broach the subject of research assistance. He said, "I was wondering, Violante, if you might be able to direct me -- in a very important piece of scholarship I'm laboring over."

The dottoressa looked up from her pernicotte. Mellowed by wine, she smiled. "Of course, if it is at all possible, I would be glad to. What is the field?"

To say the Odalisque would be too obvious, too gauche. Instead Cupp answered, "The sacred harlot." That should be hint enough.

Making a point to study her face for signs of recognition, Cupp found none. If Violante knew what he meant, she did not betray it. Probably Odalisques were trained not to let on. Cupp continued, "Do you know anything about such women? What they might be called?"

"The hetaerae," she replied, without hesitation. "In the time of Pericles, the hetaera was renowned, given an honored place in society. But you know, this was also true in Venice, which many people do not know. Yes, Venetian women were esteemed in this way as well."

Aha! Now maybe they were getting to something. Hadn't Gaia Blumenthal, an American, chosen Venice to live, many decades ago? She was a member of this Odalisque bunch; Venetian women were famous for this type of activity ... Cupp was sure there was a tie.

Violante continued, "Venetians were accustomed to paying dearly for amorous dalliance, you know, and Venetian women always enjoyed secret influence from their special position as courtesans. Many women of `citizen descent' made their mark in society as high class harlots, composed Latin orations, and presided over literary salons of Venezia. As these women were distinguished for their intellect, one paid for pleasures with them accordingly. A few of them were even made `Daughters of the Republic,' a very high honor."

"Where would it be possible for me to find information on this subject here in Venice? As soon as possible?" Cupp asked. "Do you think I might be able to find someone to be my research assistant?"

"I'm sure this could be arranged. It sounds like an interesting project."

"Yes, indeed. Would you be able to suggest someone to help me, by any chance?"

She thought a moment. "Yes, I have someone I could recommend highly," she said. "I will speak to him tomorrow. His name is Guido Cavalcante -- like the poet of the Duecento who was Dante's elder friend and influence on the dolce stil nuovo. He would be able to find anything you would need right here in Venice."

There was one further question he had to ask. He had not for the life of him been able to discover what the word Arthur had used on the tape, cicisbeo, meant. Looking around to make sure no one was listening, Cupp lowered his voice to ask, "Violante, can you tell me this -- what is a cicisbeo?"

She burst out laughing. "Maybe you are looking for a good job?" she asked, "you wish to apply for a position as my cicisbeo?" She couldn't stop laughing. "What a good idea! Maybe we will try -- "

"At least let me in on the secret," Cupp fretted, but Violante only chuckled all the more.

"We shall see," she said, "a suggestion of intimacy to her tone, "what kind of cicisbeo you will make. We do an audition, no?"

Again he felt it, that mysterious invisible power she held, a force that could not be described in words. He tried to figure what it could be – perhaps her perfume? He had heard many European women used their vaginal secretions as bases for special formulae scents that were irresistible to men. Could that be it? He had to admit in spite of her age, Violante had a certain magnetism one didn't ordinarily encounter. How was it that a woman of this age could so appeal to him, he wanted to know? He wanted to fuck her, by golly. And just imagine, if she were an Odalisque, besides, and that were thrown into the bargain -- yes, he was sure that any woman with this kind of allure had to have something very special going for her, so it stood to reason Violante was an Odalisque. Everything fit in place: the magnetism, her friendship with Mrs. Blumenthal, knowing about the hetaerae but not wanting to reveal the truth about the Odalisques. Yes, he had her number.

He was curious to know what she'd be like in the saddle and he didn't have to wait long to find out.

They crossed the Rialto bridge with its 12,000 poles on the way back to the hotel. Shortly after, he watched Violante disrobe. For a woman of her age, she had an excellent body – weight evenly distributed, no bulges, rolls of fat or cellulite; nothing flabby or droopy. Remarkably well-preserved, all in all, while obviously not in the prime of youth. He was dying to see her rear view, in order to find out about those dimples, but she had already climbed under the sheets and it would sound peculiar if he asked her to turn over, suddenly, with no bridge leading to the request. She might think he was a sodomy freak and get turned off.

Darts of desire rose, as Cupp's breath quickened and his cock grew big. With swift flicks of his tongue he investigated her inviting, sensuous, and petulant Bardotesque bouche. He was immediately pleased to see there were no turnoff signals; she did not smell bad, like so many woman past their late 30's did; her breath passed inspection (they had both eaten garlic), thus far she displayed no negative habits, her breasts were not pendulous; fortunately her pubic hair was still coarse and profuse, not having thinned out or faded in color as with so many women of a certain age it was prone to do -- no, there was nothing at all disgusting about her bush, in fact, as he stuck his finger up her cunt right now, he was really pleasantly surprised -- she was moist and secreted a copious amount of lubrication. Could be taking hormones. Her kisses were succulent, her rising passion pleasing, exciting.

Why was it that over the past decade or more he had developed such an antipathy toward older women? Well, this one would be different, because she was, he was now certain, a genuine Odalisque. She had to be. How else could she be arousing him to this degree? But he must have positive confirmation.

Choosing a comfortable pause in their erotic play to turn the professoressa on her stomach, Cupp sought to inspect for indentations, to make absolutely sure she did indeed have the dimples of the Odalisque. The light streaming in through he shutters shone squarely on her generously proportioned, inviting buttocks.

No dimples.

Cupp's erection went down with a quick flop, just shrank like a pricked balloon. Christ. He had looked forward to this with such anticipation, only now he felt as emotionally deflated as his peter. When he was thinking about balling a real odalisque, even just over dinner he'd felt his rod almost busting through his britches. Now he felt like he'd been hit in the balls. What a cruel letdown.

He should have known better. It was probably her age after all, plus also the dottoressa might just be too cultured, too much of an intellectual threat. He didn't need a woman to challenge him to supremacy on that score. This he hadn't ever realized during their nice discussions at dinner, but it must be the case, because now, as his dick lay limp and her kisses and tactile probings grew more urgent, he was sure he'd made a serious mistake. Except now it was too late.

Violante, observing his problem, pulled away. "Don't leave," she cautioned, finger to her lips, and pranced out of the sack to the john. In seconds she had returned with his collapsible travel cup, which she had opened and filled with warm tap water.

"Up, su, su," she commanded, as if urging a horse over a hurdle, motioning him to raise his buttocks. Then she placed the cup of water just under his balls. The sensation of his testicles floating in water was pleasurable, and Cupp lay back and sighed.

The dottoressa applied herself to subtle licks, flicks, tongue stroking and the art of giving him a royal blow job the likes of which he had never in his life experienced. Odalisque or not, she was a thoroughgoing expert at the subtleties of fellatio, of that there was no doubt. This gimmick with the cup -- he wondered how he'd missed that one -- was a great secret to know, a terrific turn-on -- man, getting head this way was the way to go, it beat anything he'd tried in the eating department -- look at his rod, for Christ's sake, it just kept on swelling until it got so enormous he thought it would burst wide open, at which point Violante pulled the cup out and straddled him.

Her motions were hard, twisting, grasping, and her eyes seemed transfixed, afire, her pouty mouth almost cruel; there was something definitely perverse about her, Cupp had known it on the spot when he first met her at Gaia's, when he'd noted she had the look of a genuine vicieuse -- right then and there he'd known here was a signora who'd die from wanting to get his prick shoved between her legs, and he'd been right, yeah, right about her perversity --

He loved to look at this bitch in heat, watch her getting his cock. You could tell she was a class A horsewoman by the way she fucked. She did a lot of sensuous smiling between clenched teeth, and there was something about the way she rode him where you knew she'd shine in the show ring-- now astride her mount in the proper British style, yes, that was it, assuming the old park seat in the manner of the English, feet forward -- he liked the way she slid back that way on his cock -- man, it felt good, like she was competing on her steed in the World Cup at the White City, emerging the winner of the round.

It caused slight pain to his prick but it was a good pain, he wanted more, more pain like this, like this, more more more more more pain, yes, that was good ... and now Violante had become the challenging Italian rider, assuming the forward seat pioneered by that fellow what's his face, pivoting now from the cavalry seat and taking control in the manner made famous by – what were their names, all those Olympic riders she had talked about? Christ, it was incredible, what she was doing to his prick.

As he watched her fucking, he could see the skilled and consummate sportswoman at work. A person knowledgeable about horsemanship would say she had good hands ... yes, those hands, he could tell from the way she held them over his chest ... he was fascinated by her technique, but the way she used those hands ... supple-wristed, enthusiastic, inspired, the action seeming independent of the shoulders and the rest of the body ... moving so adroitly now, his cock in her ... Christ ...

"Quanto mi piace," she was sighing, "si, si, che bello! Ah, dai, dai!"

But as always there came that moment to Cupp where he could watch no longer, and now, as he felt himself sliding thorough the joy juices of her pussy to that point of no return, he gripped her buttocks in hunger, a satyr, and catapulted into a passion mounting like a volcano, relishing the sense of crime it all aroused in him, the thought of the peak that would send him over the top. And then he became violent, now approaching dissolution, as he heard himself groan into the beginnings of an excruciating ejaculation, the exquisite emission he had been seeking as his reward, and as the ecstatic moment came, he felt himself spurt a load of come into her wet canal, filling her with the moisture of attainment and triumph.

Afterward, eating figs in bed together, he bummed one of her Nazionale Italian nonfiltertip cigarettes. Smoking together with somebody you've just banged the shit out of was one of the most truly sensuous activities Cupp could imagine.

Re the figs, Violante told him there were a lot of jokes in Italian involving double entendres with the word fig: in Italian figga meant fig, whereas ficca, which sounded almost identical to the non-Italian ear, meant vagina or cunt. The words were so similar you couldn't resist all kinds of off-color remarks. Cupp filed this away as useful information for the future, in case he should ever ball another Italian lady, which was a likely possibility.

In the meantime he turned to Violante. She looked satiated, happy, fig in petulant mouth that only 20 minutes ago had contained his cock and sucked it to such perfection. He'd have to remember that trick with the cup of water. Wild stuff, man, wild. So she didn't know from Odalisques.

Plain old getting laid or not, she was the best damned fuck he'd had in a long time -- at least in the past two days.

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - A Call to Belle



The day at the Lido was uneventful -- lots of starlets parading around for the paparazzi, flashing their tits in the camera. Cupp ran into Trisha Stonemarten with her live-in lover, a Frenchman at least 15 or maybe even 20 years her junior, dressed in the style minet, with exceedingly tight pants that drew attention to his protruding crotch. Well, Trisha could afford such luxuries on the 80 million he'd settled on her. The two of them had been holing up in London for a couple of years now, so it looked like Jean-Luc or whatever the fuck his name was had hit it lucky. Virginia O'Hara, another ex, he'd run into his first day in town. She too had a young stud, although Cupp did wonder what was going on, since every time Ginny got heavy into a sex thing, her bladder acted up and she had to have it cauterized. Cupp had always believed Ginny's bladder problems stemmed from her Irish Catholic guilt. She told him she was writing a novel.

Back at the hotel at last, Cupp was still turning the Odalisques over in his mind. Lying in bed unable to sleep, almost without realizing it, he began to tug at his penis. Pure nerves. What was the world coming to if he had to resort to jacking off? All of a sudden he found himself with a giant hard-on and no hole to shove it in. Christ almighty. It was the fucking Odalisques. But then, an inspiration dawned. Of course, why hadn't he thought of this before?

Cupp reached for the phone. "Operator? I'd like to make an overseas call -- to New York City -- Ms. Belle de Jour -- that's right, the United States of America -- area code 212 -- yes, I'll wait."

Cheerful, sixtyish, red-headed and buxom Georgia Belle Pokriss, alias Belle de Jour, proprietress of a booming slave-master emporium, the eponymous Belle de Jour on 9th Avenue at 10th Street, had been his great and good friend for nearly half a dozen years now, even though his sex proclivities didn't run to the fare offered at her highly successful establishment.

Looks-wise, Madame de Jour was definitely stuck in the 1940's, which had been her personal belle époque; she had never outgrown the pompadours and tits-pointing-straight-out look of a pin-up girl, even though she was well past her prime. Cupp thought of her as a sort of poor man's Vera Hruba Ralston or possibly Ann Dvorsak, starring in a Hollywood musical about the Klondike; it was also feasible she could be a saloon keeper in Dodge City. At any rate, she was given to blowzy, showy décolletage, Frederick's of Hollywood waist cinches and Merry Widows, textured hose, uplift padded bras, garter belts, pasties, and Lili St. Cyr undergarments. Much-peeled skin and a small nose made excessively so by rhinoplasty gone wrong completed the picture.

Even over transatlantic connection you could hear the action emanating from the Belle de Jour cubicles -- dominatrixes with whips yelling at cowering customers, nearly 85% of whom were involved in law enforcement – lawyers, police captains, judges, prison wardens, politicians and the like, all of whom gladly forked over one thousand dollars minimum per half hour without blinking, and who went absolutely apeshit being ordered around, insulted, spat upon, put down, pistol whipped, manacled, kicked, crapped on and otherwise tortured and abused by Belle's squadron of capable specialists.

"Mrs. Belle de Jour -- overseas operator from Italy -- ready now with your call to New York City, sir -- Ciao, Venezia, hello New York, Mrs. Belle de Jour. Go ahead, please, sir."

"Drink it, you asshole," Cupp heard somebody hollering in the background. "Drink your own filthy, rotten, smelly come or I'll rub your face in your poo poo."

"Hello, Belle? Belle? This is Gary -- "

"Gary Cupp! Honey, how y'all?" Belle's normal voice was pure Texas hog-call, although she boasted being a native of Plains, Georgia, and after the Carter women, the town's most famous female celebrity. "Where're y'all callin' from, Cupp honey?"

"Belle, what's going on? Didn't I just hear some guy screaming in the background?"

"Oh, that? That's Judge Bennett from the Southern District. He's got a big decision to hand down tomorrow. Came here for a little R & R. Where are you, Gary, honey?"

"I'm in Venice -- Venice, Italy, Belle, not California, not Florida. Wish you could be here too, Belle. The canals are beautiful."

"Oh, now don't I wish so too, Gary, and isn't that right sweet of y'all to say. How come you're callin' all this distance?"

"Belle, there's a reason. Listen, Belle." Cupp lowered his voice, in case somebody might be listening outside the door. He wished he'd brought his scrambler along for the trip. "Listen carefully, Belle."

Just then there was more agitation from Judge Bennett, and Cupp grew impatient. Finally the judge subsided, apparently having gotten his rocks off to satisfaction, so that Cupp could get down to basics. He told Belle what he could and asked her if she knew about a secret sex society of women called the Odalisques. She did not. Cupp was disappointed.

He asked her to keep her ear to the ground, just in case, and Belle said she would.

Feeling let down, Cupp said goodbye to Belle. Vaguely, he wondered about the decision Judge Bennett was handing down tomorrow, and then, still unable to sleep, opened the shutters. Lights and colors reflected in the rippling waters below, shapes dissolving in sweeping curves, melting images shifting into abstraction – Cupp thought once more about Gertrude Stein. God, it was terrible, but so totally telling of the 20th century. He was including it in his book, of course. He couldn't let that happen to him -- he had to find out, and he was ever more certain now that what Gertrude Stein hadn't known, Gaia Blumenthal for sure did.

He was taking her to lunch at the end of the week. In the meantime, he had another idea. It just might work.

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Cupp & Isolde



At last he was completely naked, and stiff enough to knock down a steel door with his pecker. Cupp's eyes traveled to Isolde's golden, inviting triangle érotique. "Come here," he beckoned from his seat on the bed. "Take my prick -- it's yours."

She approached and knelt at his feet. Her hands on his knees, she took his long, fat member in her narrow mouth slowly, serenely. When he shoved in to the hilt with a sudden thrust, it seemed almost too much for her, but she opened her small orifice wide to swallow him whole down to his root. She let him slide partly out again to run her artful young tongue over the tip of him, then applied herself to serious sucking of his shaft. Covering it with her fingers as if it were a bud of infinite delicacy, she pressed the sides of him with the inside of her silky mouth and licked away, slowly, silently, while he watched in fascination.

When her pumping became vigorous and her mane of taffy hair hid the action from view, Cupp pulled her tresses away with an impatient yank in order to watch once again the marvel that was taking place in his lap. He felt himself, incredible as it seemed, growing even harder, ever larger, expanding further as once again she received him far down into her oral cavity.

Now came a gentle brushing with her lips, and then she offered deep prolonged sucking. He groaned a long sigh of pleasure, ecstatic at the thrill of his own magnificent stiffness.

Isolde, coming up for air, licked her lips. With considerable esprit, she bounced on top of him. "Ja, ja," she was exclaiming in approval.

She drew his tongue between her teeth and savored it like a candy bar. God, his cock was huge. Cupp, her breasts in his hands, holding them reverently, now bent to move his lips to the top of her nipples, brushing them with his tongue to wet them, circling their pinkish orbs repeatedly in his gently rotating fingers.

Isolde drew her stomach in and out and was panting, "Ach, ja, ja," as his lips pinked her breasts again.

She ran her hand up and down his chest, smiling as he leaned in to suckle her neck, to nip her inviting ears. Then his hand traveled to her bush, so pale, so blonde and vulnerable, where his fingers stroked and wound themselves in the curlicues of hair until, in a sudden, impulsive and inspired muff dive, his tongue moved to partake of the creamy white froth that had congealed at the inviting crevice of her delicious sex. He licked and nibbled at the small clit that was distended and inflamed from arousal and from expectation of what lay ahead.

Her thighs were moist with flowing juices that literally poured out of her trembling, quivering cunt. Cupp closed his eyes to better permit his tongue to explore her mysterious, cavernous depths, until his desire could tolerate no further foreplay.

"Open your legs," he commanded hoarsely, and stuffed his throbbing organ into the pocket of her wetness.

He mounted her, offering her the steady pressure of his enormous rod, feeling her welcome him as he filled her, his hands simultaneously exploring the delights of her torso, caressing and stroking her erect nipples, inviting them to partake of yet deeper desire. Mixtures of sweat and secretions of hot juices were pouring from the secret recesses of her cunt and swelling buttocks, as she opened her mouth wider and clung to him tighter, and their movements grew more insistent, demanding the full pleasure they both craved and strove toward.

"Ja, ja," she kept hissing.

He directed her body with his hands, watching her as she alternately raised and lowered her haunches. She was on top now, slithering on him, sliding on his powerful organ. He wanted to take possession of her entirely, and as he felt the fever of satyriasis overtake him, he wound around her, swiveling in her puss, totally engulfed with the lascivious joys of the corruption of flesh, shivering at the thought of her velvet succulence and how his prick was just made for this kind of fucking.

Now he was giving her a slow tease. She was totally oozing, dripping with the wetness of pleasure, just begging for it, as his prick bulged inside her, his joy stick covered with her cunt juice. As the burgeoning urgency increased, he became dizzy from the intoxicating animal smells, mounting now into a frenzy from the churning and knocking and thumping, his peter thrusting into ever wilder, rising strokes, his blood growing denser, the suction between them increasing. The cheapness, the tawdriness was a delight beyond any he had known.

Her hips circled faster, her body arching ever upwards, seeking for him to penetrate her deeper, as she shoved her buttocks toward him hard and cried, "Gib mir! Gib mir!"

Isolde started to shake as she rose toward a thundering climax, buckling her loins like a Valkyrie atop her steed.

"Tell me you like my cock ... Say it! Say, 'Cupp, I love your fucking cock!'" his voice resounded in her ear.

"Ja, ja!"

As the tumult mounted and the torrential surge within him reached an apex, he spurted a yard of come into the slippery channel between her legs, releasing at the same time a whoop of supreme and glorious exultation as his body culminated its desire and his own Isolde brought him to the outer limits. Isolde, Isolde ...

Spent, Cupp fell back on the bed, her name on his lips. Isolde, Isolde. Christ...

For damned sure, Tristan never had it so good.

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Priscilla at the Danieli



As Arthur made his way through the middle of back canals, narrow streets and crumbling bridges, he knew his life had been turned upside down, that he would never be the same, and yet he was still feeling ambivalent. Gaia had unleashed something in him that was demanding fuller expression, but the waiting was making him impatient. How much longer would these "treatments" continue?

Today she had done less work on his body than usual, thus they had talked more. He'd related many details of his troubling background -- about how not only had he failed to be accepted by the set design union but unbelievably had also been turned down the following year by the costume design union -- under similar circumstances.

"Never let anyone say Arthur Hartmann takes defeat lying down," he affirmed. "I bounced back, determined to try again."

Unfortunately next time around he had developed a fever of 103 and been unable to take the exam. To rethink his options he had gone to California where he'd lived with a girl (not Pris) for a year in an attempt to put his life on a new footing. Who could say if it might even have worked out, had he not had problems with tenants subletting the loft and been forced to return to Manhattan, where he had ever since dedicated himself -- and not without success -- to painting rather than theatre design.

The Academia was open till six. Arthur headed past the dark narrow houses and low palaces for another look at the 18th century Venetian masters, and emerged as the museum was closing. On his way back to the hotel he decided to stop at one of the cafes. St. Mark's and the pavement's stripling of pigeons were softly blurred in the softening atmosphere and lights had begun to gleam on the water.

As always after seeing Gaia, his mind spilled over recreating the session in his mind. He wondered what she had meant today when she said, "Male sexuality can often reach a danger point unless countermeasures are taken ... the Odalisque experience corrects this decline ... " Did she have him in mind? Was he headed in that direction and in need of bailing out?

He was conscious, despite intentions to the contrary, of a tremendous transcendence. How often had he sworn he was above that? When he had lived in California, he had, along with 80 per cent of the residents of the Golden State, entered therapy, where he had associated himself, for a period of five months, with a fellow billing himself as a "Jewish leprechaun," who made it a sine qua non of the treatments that his patients avoid transference. No problem, Arthur assured this guy, who always wore a gold shamrock and star of David around his neck, and proud to be above such infantile unconscious processes, Arthur had kept his word.

Now Gaia! Her name repeated itself over and over in his mind hundreds of times a day. There was no escaping he was totally under her spell, that she was in his reverie day and night, the chief object of his fantasies. In his daydreams, she invariably held the answers to all his questions; they spent hours together, during which time he was admitted to the mysteries, prepared for his Odalisque experience, and granted a new power. His painting flourished when Gaia, interested in him as an artist, brought up his canvases and launched him on the international art scene. His life was made, he was acclaimed world wide, he became the quintessential man of his age. All through Gaia Blumenthal.

It perturbed him that in reality there was a certain distance between them, perhaps brought about by the difference in their ages, a fact that made her all the more unfathomable and beyond his reach. Thus he found himself studying her all the time for signs of approval, hoping, through microscopic examination, he might reach her core and claim it for himself.

At the same time he resented his fashioning her into the goddess on a pedestal, the way devotes did with swamis. Talk about transference. Swamis got away with murder, hypnotizing people with their saffron robes, mumbo jumbo mantras, by design maintaining enigmatic silence in order to enhance the illusion and further suck in the gullible. Why was it disciples elevated gurus into the superhuman, endowing them with that his-shit-don't-stink quality?

And why was he feeling so resentful of Gaia at this moment, placing her in an unfair position? After all, she more than anyone was trying to bring him in touch with his own sexuality, wasn't she?

The answer was complex -- partly because he was horny and in a bind, without knowing how long these preliminary Odalisque treatments would last, and because Gaia had him on the hook,. She was holding up his life, putting him through all this shit with no commitment when or even if he was going to be initiated into the Odalisque mysteries. She kept telling him he wasn't ready yet, that he was being prepared. He wanted to say, bullshit, I am ready, goddamnit -- but in the meantime, he was holding himself at bay. The last thing he wanted was to rock the boat.

Now if this had been the ancient of days, he could go to a temple goddess for his total sexual experience, if not as complete as the Odalisques, at least beyond getting merely his rocks off, which would be all he could do with the available pussy he saw strolling around the sights of Venice.

Even Donna had been placed out of reach. Luscious, gorgeous Donna, his own discovery, for God's sake, about whom Gaia had said, “This is a suggestion. I never give orders; you're free to make your own decisions. But my advice is it would be better for both you and Donna not to pursue a personal involvement at this time."

After that, what could anyone say? That was as good as telling him his entire future as an acolyte would be jeopardized if he succumbed to his natural desire to make love to Donna. Despite the bullshit about "suggestions" Gaia was controlling his life, and he didn't like it.

Basking in the afterglow of the sun's rays with a glass of white wine, he puffed on his Medico and wondered if the tobacco shop had repaired his Dunhill yet. He missed his favorite pipe. He paid his check and turned toward the Merceria where the tabaccheria was located. The band was playing "I've Got You Under My Skin."

Just then, Arthur caught sight of a blonde girl some 100 yards ahead. As she turned sideways, his heart leapt. It was Donna! Suddenly it became vitally important he reach her, that they rap, compare experiences.

"Le gambe! Le gambe!" Crowds rushing home to dinner pointed at his legs, which were getting in everybody's way. Arthur got pressed to the wall in the process, lost sight of Donna -- if the girl had been Donna; now he wasn't sure -- and faced a sense of deprivation. It wasn't fair, he told himself -- it had been he who found Donna, after all, not that he was asking for an award, but it seemed unjust that she was now so totally out of his life.

He didn't feel hungry for a full dinner, but bought some chunks of coconut from a sidewalk vendor to tide him over till morning, then returned to the Danieli. Past its oriental-gothic lobby, he mounted the grand marble staircase. In his room, he stripped down to his shorts and opened the heavy green shutters to peer out at the shimmering broad canal below, enjoying the sensation of the breeze that relieved the heat of the room and blew pleasantly over his semi-nude body. Munching coconut with a glass of Bardolino from a half-split he'd been saving for an occasion like this, he reached for his sketch pad.

As the sun melted into the lagoon bringing darkness, below on the canal came a procession of gondole bearing orchestras and a chorus of Neapolitan singers.

'Na voce, 'na chitarra e o pocche luna
E che vecchiù pe'f 'na serenata.
Pe' sciuspirar d'amore chiano chiano
Parole dolci pe'n'un amuruta.
Te voglio bene, ben', tanto bene,
Luntano a te nun pozzo chiù campa!
'Na voce, 'na chitarra e o pocche luna ...


After they disappeared, Arthur turned on the radio. From the United States Armed Forces Overseas station in Naples came American rock music:

Baby, I'm so hot, hot baby,
You're the one
That makes me hot ...


Someone was knocking at his door.

"Who is it?" Arthur called out. "Chi è?"

"Sono io!" came the joking reply. "Priscilla! Open up!"

Arthur bounded to the door. "Hey, why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

"I wanted to surprise you."

Pris had changed little over the years: she still had the same dresden complexion framed by rings of short brown hair, the large, inquisitive clear blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. She was wearing a white lace dress and looked terrific -- tan, rested, and ten years younger than her chronological age. The eye operation had done wonders for her.

I got a way of dancin'
Dancing with abandon.
I'm gonna take what I can get
Take it while the gettin's good ...


While he was glad to have his solitude relieved, Pris' vibes seemed more obtrusive than he had remembered.

"Well, tell me," she wanted to know, "everything you've been up to. God, you've been in Venice for ages -- it doesn't take that long to see everything here -- ten days? What do you do with your time? Have you met anyone interesting? Don't you get lonely? It must cost you a fortune to hole up this long at the Danieli--"

Plotzing on the bed, she launched into a spiel about the cruise she was enjoying, the people, the parties. All the while she was going on, Arthur kept telling himself this was surreal, it was out of a film. Where had his life gone and had so much of it really revolved around this woman? Somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, he must have stepped over a line ...

If I don't get my kicks,
Somebody else is gonna take my share.


Arthur's balls ached. He could feel the heat spread in his guts, all over him. Pris licked her lips and started in on cigars, about how her boyfriend, who incidentally was impotent, had some special Cuban ones flown in from London. She was saying how unnecessary Havana cigars were, how anybody really hip realized this.

"A younger man," she said, "knows the best Cuban growers emigrated to Jamaica, the Canary Islands, the Dominican Republic, Mexico -- using Cuban seeds, they're getting a higher quality crop than Cuba. Young cigar smokers all know this -- it's only the old farts, geriatrics who still cling to the mystique of Monte Cristos."

"Really?" Arthur was thinking how as ultimate proof one belonged to the human race, life offered symbols, some of which were rites or milestones -- marriage, family, home -- all of which had been denied him. He was alone, rootless, a gypsy nomad wandering the earth, hung up waiting for Gaia Blumenthal's nod of approval, itching with a restless claustrophobic prurience, in a hotel room with Pris ... any old port in a storm? No, not that, really -- he and Pris were old friends, fuck buddies, after all -- still, why could there be no romantic illusions, no sense of poetry, no dreams?

"Blue mold in '78, black shank in '79, and then Hurricane Jeanne that hit the Pinar del Rio tobacco center in 1980, flooding the fields with salt water, washing out the plants, finished Cuba for good," Pris was saying.

I wanna make it with you, baby,
Right here, right now, any which way,
I gotta make it with you, baby.


"Did you know," Pris asked, "that Che Guevara was once in charge of Cuban tobacco affairs?"

"It seems I may have come across that piece of information somewhere," Arthur said.

"Well, Cuba's living on its image now," Pris said, "as long as cigars are concerned.".

Below, the canal was teeming with water traffic, ferries, motorboats, police launches. Pris came up behind him as he gazed out the window.

"I've missed you," she said, her arms encircling him, one hand sliding down his chest past the waistband of his trousers, the top of his shorts, until it found his penis. Arthur stiffened.

"So have I," he said.

She went to her knees, taking his shorts with her. In seconds, his erection was in her mouth. Arthur's eyes closed as he let out a long, low groan from the sharp thrill of her tongue gliding, flaring over him, covering the shaft of his erect organ. Moments later she whispered, "Shut the window and come to bed."

There was the fierce desire they sought to hold down and couldn't until intense mounting friction brought them both quickly to the brink. It was a release he had been needing, and for a filler it served its purpose. Still, Arthur confronted tristesse and ambivalence. Certainly Gaia couldn't begrudge him a little nookie during his long, parched wait for the Odalisque.

But why was he thinking of Gaia? Did he require mama's approval to take a leak, for God's sake? And Jesus, why such resentment along with the admiration and attachment?

Arthur donned his trousers, shirt and loafers, anxious to escape the room's oppressive boundaries.

"I'm going downstairs," he said. "I'm all out of tobacco."

"Are they open at this hour?"

"I think so. I'll see," he said.

"I have to get back to the group," Pris patted his fly. "Just stopped in for a quickie, darling. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Let's try to see each other again later in the week, shall we?"

He could walk away from Pris any time.

I'm hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, baby,
And that's plenty cool ...
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, baby ...


It wasn't just getting laid, he told himself. But then, to be honest -- it wasn't a whole lot more.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Meeting Gaia



To reach Gaia Blumenthal's late 15th century Venetian palace-museum, which stood slightly off the waters of the Grand Canal, one walked through a courtyard filled with cascading creepers, oleander, and pots of fern.

The Palazzo Pazzi had long been associated with the illustrious Florentine family for whom the Medici church of San Lorenzo Pazzi Chapel was named. The Pazzi Chapel was the site of Lorenzo's wedding to his Orsini bride and also the oraisons of Michelangelo. A branch of the Florentine Pazzis, moving to Venice, built the magnificent palace in which, since the late 1940's, Mrs. Gaia Blumenthal had dwelled.

As they entered the foyer though an arched doorway framed by panels of opalescent art glass, Arthur, looking past the Brancusi sculptures and two Braques greeting them, glanced overhead to behold a vaulted ceiling decorated with Venetian mosaic in earth tones encrusted with gold, which matched the marble-inlaid-with-alabaster motifs of the walls. They paused briefly, then headed for the great hall.

Overhead light from above provided by an enormous crystal chandelier in classical renaissance style contained two tiers of electrified candles that were reflected in over 500 Baccarat crystal and antique French pendeloques, ending in a brass base finished in gold ormolu. It was under this impressive piece that Gaia Blumenthal stood, dressed in exotic robes – a gown of metallic threads with shoulder patches of bright colored silk and underarm gussets, diamond-shaped sections of cloth sewn under the armpits edged with braid and lavishly encrusted with sequins.

The robe, of a vivid rose-lilac hue, decorated with curvilinear arabesques, ended in a small train. She wore ropes of bright pearls around her neck together with a tabara, the broad sleeves of her costume peaking in a lappet which flapped to partially conceal hands, except when she lifted them to gesture in delicate circular movements.

Although Arthur was well-prepared for the formidable woman and had looked forward to this moment with inordinate expectation, he found the impact of her presence overwhelming.

There was a timeless quality to her; one had the sense that she was neither young nor old. Immediately one was drawn to her clear amethyst eyes and the titian hair like spun copper, to the bell-like musical voice that welcomed them in mellifluous tones. He thought of Jolie Gabor, Mystinguett, Marlene Dietrich, Ninon de Lenclos, Sarah Bernhardt, Francois Villon's poem Ballade de la Belle Héaulmière, les grandes cocottes in the Colette tradition whose fascination remained in tact, perhaps even increased with passing years. There was something unusually alluring and mysterious about such women -- softly veiled, chimerical, as if they defied gravity by their miracle of endurance -- and by their seeming to be beyond ruination, disease, decay or deterioration.

One could allude to their "secrets" -- the late Mae West allegedly drank a quart of fresh sperm a day to maintain her youthful skin – hence she was surrounded, in her Rossmore Street dwelling in Hollywood's Hancock Park, by all those musclemen as a source of supply. One could claim these women of a certain age had all kinds of hormone shots, plastic surgery and miracle drugs, but the fact remained that they had endured, had outlasted, and through that sheer act of survival asserted a strength of will.

Gaia Blumenthal had prevailed through two global wars – had experienced the cosmic battles of two great continents, had outlived her generation. While she did not seem ancient there was a quality to her of – what was it, Arthur wondered, confronting her now as the bewitching hour of crépuscule flecked through the mosaics, sending refracted light into the chandelier to be reflected back into the mirrors and then to fall on Gaia Blumenthal's wrinkle-free, smooth creamy skin, compelling eyes and red-gold hair -- a quality of everlastingness, yes, that was it.

How many nights of passion had been hers, how many acolytes had lain with her in incredible initiatory experiences, to receive the ancient Devic Odalisque secrets which were within her range of powers, contained in the temple of her body, the pleasure grotto of her vaginal cavity? How many wild steeds had she ridden to ecstasy and enlightenment? All that mattered now was that he reach her, that he put his message across to her sympathetic heart.

For an impetuous split-second, Arthur wanted to quote the immortal bard's lines, in tribute to Gaia: "Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety/But she makes hungry where most she satisfies/ For the vilest things become themselves in her/ that the holy priests bless her, when she is riggish."

Recognizing the impulse as gauche, Arthur stepped forward and smiled. "Mrs. Blumenthal -- I'm Arthur Hartmann."

"Arthur -- I'm so happy to meet you."

"Mrs. Blumenthal, I -- "

"Please call me Gaia."

"Gaia -- I'd like you to meet Donna Lotz."

His heart was pounding, nor did he have the taste to explore the Picassos, Derains, Gris, Tanguys, Ernsts or Giacomettis which at any other moment would have impinged, for now there was nothing more riveting than the octogenarian wonder of a woman whose bejeweled hand still held his,

"Howard Born -- Born Yesterday."

Arthur heard the booming baritone from the east wing, over at the end of a long foyer where a large green Carrara marble fireplace ornamented with onyx and round antique mirrors stood. Oh, no, he thought, chagrined. Don't tell me.

"Come va? Molto lieto."

"Bonsoir."

Arthur sighed, resigned that he and Donna were to share yet another social occasion with the Three Musketeers of Beekman Place.

Garrison Cupp squinted at them, then greeted them with a degree of cordiality. He appeared relaxed, with a crystal cocktail glass in his hand in front of the 15th century fireplace. Many of the other guests, a dozen in all, would appear to be Europeans. There was much greeting and introductions all around. Before any further social amenities, Arthur was compelled toward Matisse's Odalisque in Orange. He must see it. They moved on to the west wing.

A shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling decorated with rosettes and shield-bearing colophons together with three large rondel paintings embedded in the ceiling, its dark green painted surface and shallow gold coffers stimulating the effect of fine old leather binding provided an effective setting for the magnificent, compelling 6 by 8 foot canvas that was Henri Matisse's chef d'oeuvre.

Arthur was immediately drawn to the sidelong glances of calm and the haunting aura of nostalgia that complemented the mood of simplicity and aloneness and contrasted with a vivid sharpness of outline, even an angularity, in Matisse's rendering. The Odalisque's eyes were thoughtful yet forthright and alive, but her feelings were concealed in the secret recesses of an ordered, almost silent beauty. The painter had captured perfectly a moment of elegant spontaneity and discretion, had created surprising juxtapositions with his background colors -- sour citron, acid veridian, rich golds and coppers that mingled adroitly yet did not detract from the essential orange draping.

Like some harem beauty idling languidly in the carpeted luxury of a sultan's palace, she seemed transfixed, transformed, but the most interesting thing of all to Arthur was that the pose, similar to Ingres' Grande Odalisque in the Louvre, allowed for the rendering of the Odalisque dimples -- the only Matisse Odalisque painting to do so.

After giving full hommage to the Odalisque, they moved on to another collection highlight, Braque's Le Bonheur est Chose Legère. Sensing the presence of Garrison Cupp behind them, Arthur engineered Donna to a Giacometti sculpture grouping.


Tonight, it was apparent, would not be the proper moment to broach the subject of a loan for the Cupp Museum, or possibly to even show Gaia Blumenthal his slides or his floor plans; Cupp realized that he would have to do so later in the week when he invited her to a more intimate dinner. But being here tonight did give him a good idea of the large choice of art at his disposal. As he explored the works, he realized there was plenty here he would welcome in his museum. Singlehandedly Gaia Blumenthal had helped to shape every major artist among the Fauves, Cubists, Futurists, and Blue Riders, and her acquisitions, reflecting her rare taste and connoisseurship, bore the mark of a woman who closely identified with her works, who had known and encouraged each and every artist represented.

It was certainly an impressive sight, Cupp allowed. He knew when he and Gaia had a chance to really sit down together, they were sure to have much in common, because the very goal she had accomplished by launching the four schools that shaped modern European art was the exact same thing he was attempting to do on the other side of the Atlantic with contemporary painting. She would definitely understand and sympathize with his aims. And her acquisitions would offer him a wide range from which to choose -- Derain, Vlaminck, Von Dongan, Klee, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Balla, of course Matisse, Gris, Braque, Picasso -- and he hadn't even seen the whole museum yet.

"Don't you feel Braque was seeking to overcome the fleeting passage of time -- by attempting to immortalize it in this work?" Cupp turned to ask the lady at his side.

She was Dottoressa Violante Scaravaggi, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Padua, to whom he had been introduced moments ago, a handsome, aristocratic Italian woman in her late 40's with a strong patrician profile, dark hair, and the look of a vicieuse who remotely reminded him of opera singer Roberta Peters in the American Express commercials.

"Perhaps you are right," the professoressa replied, "but for me the highlight of the Blumenthal has always been Matisse's Odalisque in Orange. Have you seen it?"

"Yes, indeed. It's something I want to keep going back to."

"Shall we have another look then?"

"Let's."

On the way back to the Odalisque, they passed Gaia again. He marveled at her expressive lilac eyes, but the most remarkable thing about her, he decided, was that she was so spry, able to move without a trace of stiffness of the joints, arthritis or any of the usual deterrents of age. What, he wondered, was the secret of her sprightly, animated, youthful demeanor? Curiosity peaked him as he and the professoressa regrouped, past Le Bonheur and on back to the Odalisque.


Donna looked especially ravishing tonight, Arthur thought, reinforcing his conception of what an odalisque should be ... luscious, sensual, subtle, her long silky hair worn loose, her clothes muted Victorian colors. "You look like something off the palette of Monet, Manet, Degas -- " he complimented her as she moved to view the canvases with a sinuousness that did not deny her vulnerability. Tonight her hazel eyes and honey-colored hair almost seemed to match each other in the smokey, hazy museum light, and her skin glowed with a golden softness as she contemplated, through dark lashes, the Matisse Odalisque.

Could it be, Arthur wondered? She had the mark. How incredible it would be if Donna were an odalisque, and he had discovered her? He had concluded if she were an odalisque, she did not as yet know it as this was her first trip to Venice and she had never previously heard of Gaia Blumenthal. Wouldn't it be splendid if he could unveil a new odalisque? The tobacco shop had developed the photos overnight, but thought he had told them to print up some 3 by 5's, they had goofed, only made contact sheets --a big disappointment, but with a loop you could just make out the identifying indentations. He would look for the proper opening to show them to Gaia.

They paused by one of Mark Rothko's numbered canvases, which appeared to be sending messages to Donna. Arthur told her how he had known Rothko in the 60's in Manhattan, how they had been beer drinking buddies at a neighborhood hangout, Chinatown Charlie's, which had since been torn down, and how Rothko had encouraged him, had even taken him to his studio on West 53rd Street several times. Those were the days. Arthur allowed himself to sink into brief reverie. It all goes by so fast, he thought. Rothko a suicide, Chinatown Charlie's gone, so many other changes life had wrought. Blink and it's over. He hoped he would have the opportunity of finishing his tasks in life. How terribly important the link to the Odalisques was. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to become an acolyte. He must engage Gaia alone.

Arthur's sense of anticipation grew as he could scarcely wait for his private moment. Dinner on the garden pavilion was centered around a large rectangular table placed in the center of the room, to the side of which was a bolstered divan and tabouret. The semi al fresco surroundings were decorated with ferns and other potted plants, while the table was set with gleaming silver, expensive crystal and china, the latter which proved to be a rare 1887 Sevres design; in the center of the table in a crystal bowl floated gardenias, fresias, gladioli, and at each place setting was a small individual twig basket of peach blossoms wrapped with raffia bows. Napkins alternated colors in hues of lavender, mauve, pink and écru. In the candlelight, Gaia's mystery seemed heightened; it was as if she possessed a secret of life that went beyond the world of appearances.

Dinner, served by two footmen, progressed: terrine chèvre frais, accompanied by crusty freshly baked Italian bread, tiger shrimps with a delicious mayonnaise of lime sauce, garnished with water cress, followed by a vitello tonnato and a salad of fresh mozzarella together with newly picked basil, roasted peppers, fresh tomatoes and olive oil, the cheese unlike any one could obtain in the States. The wines included a sturdy Barolo, a pleasant Nuits St. Georges, and a rather elegant Palazzo al Bosco Riserva.

The atmosphere over dinner, contrasting with the grandeur and formality of the palazzo-museo and its luxurious surroundings, remained casual and convivial. Everyone expressed interest in hearing lore of Gaia's fabled past. With some reticence she spoke about artists she had known. Her first acquisition, she said, was a Georgia O'Keefe sold to her by Alfred Stieglitz, whereas her most recent one had been a canvas by the Corsican artist Charles Levier – by coincidence, a guest on Priscilla's boyfriend's yacht, the man who was supposed to be related to Napoleon, which Arthur supposed everyone in Corsica was.

"Von Donegan," Gaia reminisced, replying to a question, "was a lovely friend. His Dutch wife was a vegetarian, so they lived on spinach, kale and swiss chard. Poor Von Donegan would often escape to my flat for a decent meal. His wife always wore a coral brooch and had a lyric spinto voice. She was particularly touching as Liu in Turandot -- "

She recalled days at the Café de la Rotonde, le Dôme, la Cupole, and all the gatherings there.

"Brancusi! You know, at his atelier we always ate on counters that were covered with layers of white dust from his sculptures. Brancusi cooked the meals himself, using the same furnace, in the middle of the studio, that he used to heat up his tools and melt his bronze. Louis Aragon often joined us – he was not yet married to his beloved Elsa -- "

A dessert of sorbets with tuiles, thin curving almond slices, had been placed in front of them. "In 1924," Gaia continued her reminiscences, "the Compte de Beaumont organized the Soirées de Paris, rented Cigale, a music hall in Montmartre, and engaged Stravinsky, Lifar, Toumanova, Massine, Danilova, Picasso, Ernst, de Chirico, Miro and others for the décor, dance and music. It was the greatest ballet, and very social."


Cupp had found himself seated at dinner next to the dottoressa from the University of Padua, whom he learned was fully dedicated to scholarship and who he gathered was on a close friendship basis with Gaia.

"Do you speak Italian, Mr. Cupp?" the professoressa asked. Her moorish mystery seemed well suited to the air of the Palazzo Pazzi.

"Please call me Gary. No, I'm afraid that other than English and schoolboy French and Latin, I speak only Papayamento."

"Papayamento? I've not heard of that tongue."

"It's the official language of Curaçao. It's sort of a pigeon Dutch-Indian-African-Spanish and Portuguese, with smatterings of English, French and Creole overtones. It's a member of the Indo-European language tree, its basic root being Sanskrit."

"How fascinating. And how does it happen you speak this language -- Papayamento?"

"Well, you see, I lived for two years in Curaçao with a Norwegian girl."

"Oh, that certainly explains it, then."

After dinner Cupp relaxed with a tulip shaped glass of dark, smooth, rich tasting, sensuous, slightly prune-flavored port in one of the private dining areas of the palazzo-museum. He had passed through the assembly room, the refectory with its mosaic flooring and intricately carved coffered ceiling, and admired many paintings, including Modigliani's Sans Lendemain, to arrive here, where bisque moiré walls contrasted with a deep red marble fireplace that illustrated a procession of animals. Sliding doors leading to the museum they had just left were embellished with tiny nailheads forming charming arabesques, while round mirrors over the fireplace reflected romantic images of antique painted panels, the latter being reproductions of the Quattrocento Cantoria panels by Lucca della Robbia in the Sacristy of the Duomo in Florence -- a refreshing contrast to the 20th century art that comprised the museum.

Placed on a Steinway grand piano, as well as visible in other corners of this highly lived in looking room, where the guests now congregated, were many interesting photos of Mrs. Blumenthal at varying stages of her life, most of them taken in Europe. Cupp, now together with Aiuto and Born, rose to inspect striking mementos in the form of silver framed photographs: Gaia with James, Nora and Giorgio Joyce in Trieste, wearing a white linen day suit of broderie anglaise together with a saucy toque of the period; with Man Ray and Eric Satie, she in a black jet lace gown, jet dog collar and birds of paradise in her hair; with Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, wearing Palm Beach palazzo pyjamas; dominating the picture alongside Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill, Brecht and Helene Wiegel at the Romanische Cafe, in appliqued dolman sleeves and a doll sized hat with short veil perched coquettishly on her forehead; with Franz Werfel and Gustav Mahler, in yards of pearls and feather boas, together with a deep-crowned Gloria Swansonish hat; with Thomas Mann, Klee and Kandinsky, wearing a cape with baroque beading; alongside Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty, wearing, she said, a reconstructed 1912 Poiret of dazzling sea green and blue sequins, redone in the '20's to form a fringed lampshade skirt; the ages of Gaia, the '20's, the '30's, and on into other decades, here descending a curving grand stairway, there in cloth of gold gown, with amazon-inspired breastplate designs on her bosom, a train of gold fringe, long dangle earrings and a dramatic cigarette holder, sporting a headdress designed by Stravinsky's fiancée -- everything gleaming out at him from the polished silver.

"It is very interesting, is it not?"

Cupp turned to the dottoressa by his side. Together they strolled to the opposite side of the room and sat down next to each other on the divan. "Tell me more about your work," Cupp prompted. "It must be interesting at the University of Padua. I understand it's a fine school."

"It is one of the oldest in Italy, founded in the year 1222, a school that has graduated some of the highest thinkers of all time – Copernicus, Goldoni, Oliver Goldsmith, Casanova, Thomas Linacre, who founded the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fransisk Skorina, who introduced painting to Russia, William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, George Wirsung, discoverer of the pancreatic duct, and Giovanni Capodisttria, the hero of Greek independence. The Padua chair of mathematics was once held by no less than Galileo Galilei; and none other than the great Dante Alighieri, il nostro sommo poeta, came here as well."

"You're in distinguished company, I must say."

"Yes," her smile was suggestive, "but also the company here this evening I am enjoying very much."


At last Arthur was to happen upon the moment he had been waiting for. While Donna's attention was claimed by other guests, he confronted the Odalisque in Orange once again.

Ever since he was a child he had reveled in the beauty and fascination of geometry, in triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons; Pythagoras's theorem enchanted him, and he had always felt that a natural sense of geometry should be firmly rooted in every great artist. Since his discovery of the significance of the Mark of Venus, the fosse or Odalisquian dimples, he had enjoyed applying to their likenesses as represented by painters throughout the ages a tape measure to determine precise dimensions, and had found significant geometrical truths to be contained therein.

Soft classical music was playing from the stereo. Arthur did not immediately perceive Gaia hovering at the doorway, watching him closely as he measured distanced between anatomical depictions on the canvas. Finding the measurements to coincide with figures already tabulated in his head, Arthur was elated. Geometric equations, circles, angles, triangles, and Pythagorean mathematics swarmed in his head. With a note of triumph to his voice, he muttered, "3.1415 -- it checks out!"

"Pi – as always – with an Odalisque -- "

Arthur looked up to see Gaia, a faint smile playing upon her lips. "You and I must talk," she said.

"Yes," Arthur replied, unable to contain his excitement. "I've come to Venice to see you -- and this -- " He indicated the Matisse. "Since last month, Gaia, I've been in a curious state. My link with the past is gone. I feel at once bereft and yet free. It's as if something is there waiting, something that wasn't open to me before. I believe -- " he lowered his voice, afraid of being overheard, "I fully believe it's the Odalisque."

He watched as her hand rose in a delicate gesture, exposing partially a slender arm that was covered by a broad, bell-bedecked sleeve ending in a long lappet. Brushing away a strand of unruly copper hair, she did not remove her violet gaze from him.

He continued, "I wrote you two letters which I never sent. I felt it was important to tell you these things in person. Whatever I know ... about the Odalisque ... is the result of painstaking research. And yet, at that, I know next to nothing. But I want to know, I -- "

"How can I help you?" her voice was gently encouraging.

"It's the Odalisque I'm after," Arthur said. "To know, to learn, to have the experience, to become an acolyte. Only you can lead me to the next step. My information is so limited. I realize the idea of the odalisque merely as a genre of painting or a harem concubine is useful to conceal the true meaning, to keep the riff raff, so to speak from realizing the incredible truth -- that women exist whose sensual natures are so highly tuned they surpass the ordinary woman, and that these odalisque women can take a man to undreamed of areas of eroticism, after which he is totally transformed."

Arthur raised his eyes toward the Matisse painting, as if seeing further inspiration from its depths, in order to convey his heart's desire to Gaia Blumenthal. "I know Henri Matisse was an acolyte: he wrote of the Odalisque, `I know they exist; I have seen them.' I realize that throughout history, some people have discovered tantalizing bits and pieces of information bordering on the real nature of the odalisque, they had inklings, they got whiffs; but the earthshaking truth, the complete knowledge, evaded them. Sometimes they tried to portray this in literature or art but essentially failed, not being truly au courrant. Voltaire, for instance, is a case in point. I'd stake my life on the fact that he was not an acolyte, despite his having written a book called The Odalisque, pretending -- a book which incidentally I read in the New York Public Library.

"Nevertheless, certain ideas may have either been filtered down to various sources throughout history, and/or some of these people could have overlapped. What I'm referring to specifically are the hetaerae of ancient Greece, in the time of Pericles, and the nayika or sacred women of India. Possibly also the vestal virgins, certainly in Tibet, perhaps in Rome as well, though there I'm not so sure. Even the geisha, and the whole idea of the cicisbeo, which is so very Italian, are, I concluded, bastard reflections of Odalisquian reality.

"There's a whole tradition among the ancients of the sacred harlot, which no doubt sprung up from Odalisque reality -- and that whole concept of feminine power in the sexual initiation. The Chinese, the Tibetans, the Indians, the Greeks -- all of them were aware of this power held by the female as initiator into the sexual secrets, which lay way beyond the realm of mere sexe ordinaire as practiced by the common man.

"The way I account for it is this," Arthur said. "There may have been a deliberate effort to conceal, and rightfully so, but much of it did filter down. Just look at the secret schools of the Troubadours, the Provençal poets, all these groups -- the Palmers, Palmieri, mesistersingers, jongleurs, giullari, jesters and freemasons and knights ... all of these people spoke a double and sometimes triple language. So the message is there for the person who can interpret. To the Provençal poet, love was `to serve, to fear, to conceal ...'

"It became obvious to me, all things considered, that these things can be interrelated and could easily and probably do overlap with the Odalisques, simply because the Odalisques are such an incredibly ancient order. It's almost mind-boggling to realize they are directly descended from the Devas, but even if I didn't know that, thanks to my father, at least I would have discovered it from Skeat. When I saw this confirmed, Gaia,” Arthur again lowered his voice, "it absolutely blew my mind. Then too, when I made the connection to Von Reichenbach with his Od force, which is the same root, I realized he was interrelated.

"Knowing as I do that there is something so potent, almost magical in the Odalisque erotic experience, that there is something in the rituals which open a man so that he is never the same, so that he can grow beyond himself, become greater than himself, it became obvious that I had to have this experience."

Gaia smiled again, seeming almost the patient mother to a small, excessively enthusiastic son. She said, "You're correct about the chain being unbroken from the dawn of time, and correct also about several distortions or bastardizations -- debased odalisque erotic art -- existing in history. And you're also right about the deliberate effort to conceal. I'm sure you understand why this is necessary -- "


Puzzling things were taking place tonight, of that Garrison Cupp was certain. With a nose acutely trained to intrigue, a result of many run-ins with the Mafia, the CIA, FBI, IRS and other subversive organizations, Cupp, tuned to conspiracy, could always sense the stirrings of anything sub rosa, thus in passing a few feet from the spot where Gaia Blumenthal stood talking to Arthur Hartmann, and pausing to overhear portions of their conversation, he was immediately convinced his instincts had been correct once again.

Moving slightly away to avoid suspicion, Cupp tried to catch a drift. It seemed they were talking now about Donna. Arthur was showing Gaia some photos of her, evidently the ones he had snapped on the Brenta cruise.

"You see," Cupp could hear Arthur explaining, "it's nearly impossible to pick up the dimples on a contact sheet. You might get a hint ... " He handed her a loop, over which she bent to examine the proofs. Cupp heard her complain about it being hard to see, even with the loop, to which Arthur replied something about yes, but Donna did have the dimples, though. What dimples? And why the hell were they so seemingly important? What the hell did it all mean?

Then Cupp, by mere inspiration, chanced to glance up at the Matisse Odalisque, and it struck him. Sure! Yesterday when he had observed Arthur photographing Donna's backside, he had become aware that she had dimples on her butt. Glory be, so did the fucking Matisse Odalisque. And yet, why should that be so significant? How come these two were making such a big deal over it?

Sensing from their glances in his direction that they had become aware of his presence, Cupp moved over to the left, where he pretended rapt absorption in a Modigliani, from where he able still to overhear a few further morsels of information.

Gaia said something about talking to Donna alone, how it was a very select process, only a few women in every age had the qualities ... and then, straining his ears, he heard Arthur say that he wanted to be processed, that he would pay any price at all. For what, Cupp was uncertain, but to be sure, something highly cloak and dagger was taking place here, something of serious import from which the average person was barred.

Cupp signaled to Howard Born, who, as was his general habit, had come to dinner this evening with a tiny recording device in his pocket. His men always carried spare equipment just in case, since over the years it had proven invaluable to always be prepared. Howie immediately caught Cupp's signal; their manner of communication, deeply ingrained with the years, needed no elaborate verbalizations, mere flicks of the eye often sufficing to relay what would take other people five minutes of conversation. Born flipped on the tape and Cupp knew they were in business.

"What cooks, boss?" Howie asked, brushing up against Cupp in the refectory.

"I'm not sure," Cupp relied, frowning. "Could be significant. We'll see later. We'll play the tape in my room."

"Problem's gonna be the background noise -- all the music, the crowd, the dogs barking outside -- "

"But we should get something," Cupp said. Anything was better than nothing at all. Cupp knew even a small portion could be telling.

Cupp wandered back in the direction of where Gaia and Arthur still stood. This time, pretending an interest in some Man Ray Rayograms to continue eavesdropping, he heard Arthur pose a question regarding secrecy, to which Gaia replied that the Odalisques all took vows of "silence on the nature of the eroticism."

"But surely some of the men talk?" Arthur said.

Gaia replied, "Men who become acolytes never talk about their personal Odalisque experiences, since they value them far too highly and the experience is so personal, so charged with meaning, that the acolyte wouldn't dream of telling anyone."

At that point Arthur said yes, but how about other guys, the dudes who may have heard about it but couldn't qualify for acceptance as acolytes. If they go so far as to be rejected wouldn't they talk? And (Cupp wondered if Arthur weren't taxing Gaia's patience with all these questions) Gaia told Arthur he'd be surprised; sometimes, she said, some of these guys might try to blab but most people out there who weren't among the cognoscenti just simply didn't believe them, thought the whole odalisque thing implausible, a big cock and bull story, so out of desire to not place themselves in a bad light, these guys shut up about it.

"Still," Arthur persisted, "some of it has leaked to civilization in one for or another. I mean the sacred harlot, the hetaera, and so forth, the tradition of a man being required, as he was in ancient times, to go to the temple once in his lifetime for the experience with the sacred woman, and that a woman had to give herself at least once in her life to a stranger, and so on."

Gaia explained that all this was true, that debased, profane, degenerate forms of the real megillah did come into existence but that the difference was like night and day. It was just like how the Catholic Church had borrowed from paganism and the mystery schools, that various groups had borrowed from the Odalisques, and thus the kind of thing Arthur was talking about was largely not the genuine article. Only the Odalisque, Gaia said, has the true original system, the genuine ability.

"I know it's expensive," Arthur said. "Frightfully, but -- "

"-- but also rightfully so."

Cupp was forced to move away when Gaia and Arthur cast furtive glances his way once again. But having heard enough to know he was in the midst of something important, he couldn't wait to play the tape, to see what he had missed.


"The whole reason I've come here," Arthur paused, allowing the import of his words to have full impact, "is because I want to be accepted as an acolyte, I want to have the Odalisque sexual initiation."

Gaia's deep sguardo reached him and held on him for what seemed like an eternity, and as Arthur felt himself being pulled into her powerful being, riveted to the beam of energy that emanated from her mysterious lavender orbs, it was as if he were caught in an eddying spiral current in which he suddenly felt sharp darts of white light, tiny sparks actually flying out from the corners of his eyes. The atmosphere of their joint field was so charged it nearly lifted him off the ground. The amazing thing was that gazing into her ageless eyes, spun as he was in a whorl of dizziness into heights he had never before been, the woman in front of him no longer seemed Gaia Blumenthal, 80 or more years old, she was all-woman, female incarnate, welcoming, encircling him, she was a youthful 23-year-old nymph whose vibrating, high energy light pulled and sucked at him until he thought he must be hypnotized, spellbound. Arthur's gaze held on her, galvanized.

At last, after a long silence, Gaia said, "Will you come to see me tomorrow?" Her mellifluent voice was low, conspiratorial. "Four o'clock?"

She touched his arm for a brief instant. Arthur could feel the electricity of the charge prickle him until the hairs of his hand stood on end.

Gaia raised a frothy, sequined, bejeweled sleeve to gesture toward the other guests. "We mustn't discuss this further tonight. You do understand. Now, I must see the others... "

His eyes followed her as she adjusted her silken tabara and swept away in the direction of the refectory.

Later, as Arthur and Donna bid Gaia goodnight, she said meaningfully to Arthur, "We’ll see one another -- soon."

And Arthur was conscious of a sweet contentment that poured over him, the likes of which he had not felt in his entire life.

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Friday, May 09, 2008

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Cupp


Garrison Cupp woke on the dot of five, as was his habit each day. No matter what hour he might have gone to sleep the previous night, he never slept past five in the morning, a practice he had observed all his life. He was, after all, an Aries, a pioneer, a believer that the early bird catches the worm. For 47 years, Cupp had awakened with the conviction that it was the most important thing in the world to get up, because something absolutely fabulous was going to happen. The eternal optimist, he believed in the future, in his own place in the scheme of things, and in the important contribution he was making to society. This trip to Venice would fortify all expectations in that direction.

What to do in the canal city when everyone else was still asleep presented no problem to Cupp, who had always been resourceful. First he showered and shaved, finishing those activities in about half the time they would take the average man, feats which were a keen source of pride to him. Next, glancing at the clock and seeing it was still only 5:20, he mixed up a batch of the sweet-smelling herbs bought at the Seven Sisters of New Orleans and Algiers, Louisiana, which he had brought with him from New York, to apply a henna poultice to his genital organs. While the treatment (good for increased potency) was taking effect, Cupp glanced through a pile of books: Fodor, Baedecker, Murray, Mary McCarthy's Venice Observed, Mrs. Ruskin's Effie in Venice. He could flick through several volumes in a matter of seconds and get the general drift of things. By the time he had sniffed out all the aforementioned tomes, the henna pack had dried.

Cupp washed it off, hiked up his pants, reached for his copy of Major Douglas' 1907 classic Venice on Foot, grabbed his tape recorder, and left his room at the Danieli. It was still not even six o'clock. He had accomplished a great deal this morning, while the majority of the world was still wasting time in bed.

Many people didn't realize it, but Garrison Cupp, with customary introspection and understanding, had come to know himself as a man constantly germinating, assimilating, sifting, sorting, working out relationships, putting pieces together, weighing, balancing, making comparisons, synthesizing -- activities which consumed him day and night; as a result, his concerns could never be those of the ordinary person; he could scarcely be expected to bog himself down with mundane problems like worrying about dirt, stains on clothing, frayed cuffs, or the fact that he might have accidentally worn the same pair of undershorts three days in a row or have forgotten about having his laundry done.

For close to three decades now he had been laying the groundwork for a major achievement, although the world at large was as yet unaware. However, one day they would hear what it was all about. Every one of his actions had its rationale, Cupp reflected, though it might not seem so to outsiders at first glance. Perhaps at present no one entirely grasped his particular mindset, his iconoclasm, his genius. But when he built his art museum, they would! Which was the greater part of the reason he was here in Venice.

Downstairs it was possible to obtain a decent albeit expensive breakfast of brioches, juice and coffee for under thirty dollars. He was the only guest. The morning mist having spread over the al fresco dining area, Cupp chose eating indoors, while glancing over yesterday's International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and Rome Daily American. He was mildly perturbed by a mention of himself in the latter paper, which in its gossip column section, "Along the Via Veneto," announced his arrival in Italy -- "Prophylactics heir Garrison Cupp," they referred to him, no doubt taking cues from the stateside National Enquirer, which, during his last bastardy action, had heralded the story, "Prophylactics Heir Shuns Product That Built Family Fortune." This headline troubled Cupp for several reasons.

Theseus Prophylactics, Inc., of Elizabeth, New Jersey, represented only a small part of the Cupp family's interests, the larger portion which was begun on India rubber in the 19th century, spearheaded by his great-grandfather, Garrison Cupp, Senior -- or GC I. It had been his grandfather, Garrison Cupp Jr., or GC II, who had started Theseus, both as a sort of hobby and as a service to mankind. In the vanguard of lubricated tip contraceptives, Theseus had cornered a lion's share of the market, continuing to steamroll in sales well through the 1950's. Its popularity diminished somewhat with the introduction of the pill and later with the peaking of the IUD, but had picked up again recently with the plethora of bad press given female contraceptives and the onset of HIV/AIDS. Still, at no time had Theseus ever accounted for more than 12 per cent of the overall family income.

Cupp Tire and Rubber Co., the major earner, had always been the chief source of the Cupp wealth, whereas the Enquirer, and now the Daily American, made it sound like the entire family fortune had been made in birth control. Still, the Enquirer had been right about one thing -- Cupp did not use Theseus products.

Like his father, GC III, GC IV maintained a hands off policy toward family affairs. His father, a great gentleman-sportsman, habitué of Newport and Palm Beach, globe-trotting playboy and raconteur, had been a leading figure in polo, bridge, golf and backgammon, and an almost daily luncheon guest at 21, where he had his own statuette. Unfortunately GC III had died several years ago in a mysterious unsolved murder that had been hushed up, apparently the victim of a cuckolded husband in Florida.

Next it was Cupp's mother's turn. Having long been an admirer of William Van Alen's 1930 Chrysler Building with its many-splendored Art Deco touches, including its dazzling entrance of stainless steel, glass and black African marble, it seemed appropriate that Jessica Cupp, in 1966, had chosen this building for her suicide plunge.

That the world was a small place never ceased to amaze Cupp, who since landing in Venice two days ago had run into no fewer than two dozen people he recognized from New York, Hollywood, Florida and London. It was "the season," and everyone was here -- even two of Cupp's ex-wives. The next week would be replete with great balls, yachting parties, water festivities, and the film festival, held on the Lido, as well as the Regatta Storica on the Grand Canal. It was exciting to be a part of all this, and fortunately he was invited to several events. But above all, he was looking forward to meeting Gaia Blumenthal.

He had written her and received an answer. She would be expecting him. Having known both his father and his grandfather, she had recognized his name immediately. As soon as he had arrived in Venice, Cupp had rung her Palazzo Pazzi to invite Mrs. Blumenthal to dinner, but the person answering the phone had said she was fuori Venezia, out of town for a few days. He hoped she would return his call soon.

Finishing what the Italians called the prima colazione, Cupp seized Major Douglas and his tape recorder, to follow the Major's well-trodden path toward St. Mark's Square, where the streetsweepers and camerieri were just spiffing things up for the day's customers at Quadri's and Florio's. Already the mosaics gleamed in the emerging morning sun, the five great Byzantine domes a spectacle of eastern opulence, caught, as were the minarets, spires and arched windows, in the light of early day.

Cupp always enjoyed a leisurely stroll of Venice's ancient Byzantine and medieval monuments, mingling with tourists, being jostled in the narrow alleys and byways, except that it was still too early for other people. Cupp moved on toward the Piazetto, toward the pink and white creamy marble Doges' Palace and the Sansovino Library, but buried in the Major's recommended route, he had somehow managed to become thoroughly confused, something that often happened to him; even between Madison and Park in Manhattan he sometimes found himself with no sense of direction.

Winging it, he came out somewhere in a back alley close to Venice's second most important canal, the Cannareggio, and as the location contained a bench, and since nothing more threatening than intermittent garbage gondolas and vegetable vaporetti intruded, he decided to plant himself here to embark upon his next hour's work.

"Art is not truth! Art is a lei that makes us realize truth! Nature and art are two different things; they cannot be the same ... through art we express our conception of what nature is not. You remove the traces of reality and the idea of the object is what leaves us with its ineffable mark ... "

Cupp read the quote, Picasso's, into the tape. It had to be the most profound statement about art, perhaps about the entire 20th century, that had been uttered. That the idea of a thing was more important than the thing itself (Ding-an-Sich?) was absolutely mind-boggling, sheer genius to have thought of, and suggestive of infinite permutation. Hadn't Plato said something similar? Could he ever get off on this!

For so many years now he had been toiling at a tome which was to reflect the roots and interactions of art, philosophy, history, fashion, manners, social attitudes, and ideals of the 20th century. This morning's taping demonstrated but one of the many methods he employed to come by his material for the opus magnum. This particular technique he referred to as his explication de texte, thanks to the waspish Valentin-Henri Texier, his beloved prep school French teacher. At Exeter students sat in a circle around what were called the "Harkness Tables," one of the main teaching distinctions at the school. Presiding over these tables, M. Texier would assign a passage of no more than a few lines for the explication. One would then dissect the words one by one for precise meaning, following which a commentary was in order in the form of precise critique.

This method of careful scrutiny, inaugurated in the French lycée by Napoleon in the early part of the 19th century, a method still used in France today, suited Cupp's intellectual bents to a "t." In his own variation, he would simply expound on his thoughts into the tape, then have a secretary type up what he had said, a lot of which was often pure crap and unusable, but some of which might sometimes contain a gem -- you just simply could never tell when a sentence or two here and there, uttered perhaps inadvertently, could take shape into an idea of major proportions. The thing was to keep talking.

Since Cupp worked hard at his projects, it distressed him to know that behind his back, people had the gall to snicker over him. Let them get up at five every morning to talk about Picasso's theories of art.

It also bugged Cupp no end that the painters he had selected for his personal art collection had yet to make their mark in the world. He had bought these unknown, emerging artists because he believed in them, then had done everything in his power to promote them. He still believed in them. There was his third wife, Trisha Stonemarten, for instance, who alongside Salvador Dali was, in Cupp's opinion, one of the two greatest masters of the second half of the twentieth century. Trisha attacked cosmic subjects in a style that was not derivative. While in the decade following their split he had continued doing his utmost to forward her career, despite the negative criticism of the many who undermined both her ability and the fact that she had taken him to the cleaner's in the divorce settlement, it was just tough to get a decent bite out of critics, museums, curators, galleries and private collectors.

He had really put himself out for Trisha, before, during and after the marriage, but for some unfathomable reason, her neo-cubist-abstract expressionist, quasi-dadaist/surrealist/minimalist canvases with their faint overtones of fauvism, pop artiness and impressionism that were midway between contemplative and disruptive, just didn't go over with the public. This, despite her being innately a true giant of the contemporary scene.

He had finally placed Trisha's canvases in a few small museums in Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and this, with considerable effort. Galleries the world over which had agreed to take her work (mostly with arm twisting, bribery, and always on consignment) never did more than tepid business on her. Sometimes he could not help the distinct feeling that some sinister force out there was against him. It had been ascertained that both the CIA and the Mafia had conspired against him in the past; now Cupp had to wonder what these two organizations might have to do with the problems he had confronted with his art.

So he was stuck with 22 rooms full of what clearly were the greatest unsung treasures of the 20th century, works he had paid a lot of money for, which by all rights should be appreciated and recognized -- but sadly, for which there was no market whatsoever.

The answer was to devise a market. Hence, the ingenious plan he was now hatching, by which he would be vindicated. This scheme would insure not only Trisha's and his other artists' reputations, but his own as well, with the added fillip of replenishing his dwindling estate. And furthermore, it would enable him to go down in history as a patron of the arts who had foresight and wisdom, who through thick and thin had stuck to his guns, who, refusing to allow himself to be influenced by public opinion, ended up being its prime mover and shaper. As the Medicis were to Florence, Cupp would be to the world, in this enhanced age of globalism.

Quite simply, the plan was that he would build an art museum. New York needed another one, and as it so happened, Cupp owned the land to build it on, property he had inherited. Primer real estate could scarcely be desired: a seedy hotel on 42nd Street, just off Times Square, in an area that was in the process of a renaissance. One of the big three insurance companies had recently offered him a handsome sum for the property, but the site was not for sale at any price, since it was the ideal location to build the museum that would be the apotheosis of his life, a museum totally dedicated to artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Times Square was perfection -- the museum would get all the subway and Port Authority traffic. This was a big gay area, and gays were enthusiasts of the arts. They might even manage to convert a few derelicts who were still hanging out in the environs -- particularly over on 8th Avenue. All in all, the project just had so many beneficial side effects that it had to go over big.

The main problem was going to be convincing the public to revere the works he planned to display there, largely his own personal acquisitions -- Trisha Stonemarten, to be sure, plus others of his proteges: artists like West Coast abstractionist Minerva Miller or the primitivist Lucille King; Dario J. Luis, whose specialty was the rendering of matador's assholes -- contrapunctual, highly ambitious conceptions; or even the tragic Anton Jacob, a past master (in both senses of the expression, since he was now deceased) of the last wave of cubism, who if the truth were told, had been able, at the top of his form, to give old Pablo a run for his money. Unfortunately Jacob had died penniless, his canvases were now next to worthless -- a terrible tragedy. Cupp had seven of them, now hanging in rooms on the third floor of his triplex -- an area no one but he himself had visited in the 18 months since his 5th wife Didi, an aspiring rock singer, had moved out.

The eight rooms upstairs were ideally suited for a recent new project he had undertaken -- indoor gardening, the growing of narcotic plants, magic mushrooms, soporifics, hallucinogens, aphrodisiacs, stimulants, hypnotics and other nepenthe. Here he could relax, tend and inspect his various species of psychotropic Psilocybe, dature metel, deadly nightshade and henbane, cannabis of different species, the opium poppy (papaver somnifora), his wolfbane, soma and peyote, the interesting Heimia syphilitica and Nymphaea ampla, as well as experiment in his small chemistry lab with extracting alkaloids. It was an absorbing creative outlet, but something he was keeping under cover -- it was, in fact, so top secret that even his closest associates, Aiuto and Born, as yet knew nothing about it.

But a propos of the art museum and the obstacle of getting the public to share his tastes, he had hit upon the answer to that one. The way was to hang his own fare alongside other, established works. Thus, over the past several years he had been corresponding with important private collectors and boutique museums, explaining to them that he wished to exchange ideas of mutual interest.

He had approached each collector as a fellow art enthusiast rather than a person who wanted something out of them. He had been prudent, scrupulous about never hitting anyone over the head, but merely feeling them out. Already he had canvassed collectors in the New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington areas. He had spent a delightful weekend with the Mellons in Pittsburgh and Virginia, to duly admire their acquisitions, which with due respects he honestly felt, despite their touted value, lacked the cachet of his own.

His father and Paul Mellon had been school chums who maintained a friendship over the years, due to a shared interest in horses. Finally on Sunday, after courting Mellon all weekend long in the tack room, paddock, ring and trails of his magnificent country dwelling, Cupp had cornered him to ultimately broach the subject of the projected museum. Mellon had been politely receptive, had all but endorsed the idea and had even offered to put Cupp in touch with his own people at the Mellon National Gallery and so forth. He had not said no to the possibility of loans. Now, if using Paul Mellon as bait he could hook Gaia Blumenthal, he would have it made.

As his museum would feature 20th century art, no loan could have greater impact than one from her. Her Palazzo Pazzi Museum, the works in which were valued at upwards of $500,000,000, was utterly unique. The Blumenthal owned Matisse's Odalisque in Orange, which was a good example of the type of painting he was going to need for the Cupp -- a real attention-grabber, something to which the critics would instantaneously gravitate.

Mrs. Blumenthal would be a joy to meet: she was one of those highly cultured, fabulous old women of a certain age of Hebrew persuasion, who like Misia Nathhanson, Alma Mahler Werfel, and Gertrude Stein before her, had been both inspiration, subject matter, muse, and source of unending support to countless gifted artists.

Secretly, though Cupp prided himself on his individualism and response to a different drummer, he nevertheless harbored a frustrated desire for the recognition of his peers.

The museum would provide this, of that he was certain. Thus, his great mission here in Venice was of utmost importance. The next few days would be crucial, in which he would solicit from Mrs. Blumenthal her cooperation, in the form of a promise or semi-commitment to offer some of her better-known works such as the Matisse Odalisque in Orange, to loan on a long range basis, say for a period of a year or more -- this would be ideal, would allow time for his museum to establish itself, after which all the artists of his own choice would have made their mark. For with their acceptance at a major museum, there would be no question of their value -- having a captive audience, their stock in the art world would skyrocket.

He saw no reason why Mrs. Blumenthal would begrudge him a few of her important acquisitions, since after all, it would be in the interests of humanity. The lady had had many years of personal enjoyment from her collection and she had in the past been known to make loans, so he could foresee no major obstacle. Others had responded; she ought to as well. After all, if Paul Mellon, for Christ's sake, had as good as said yes, what possible snag could there be? At any rate, he had brought along a batch of slides of his own works to show her, so she could get an inkling of what the permanent collection to be housed at the Cupp would boast.

Cupp had finished his morning's work on the book project, was pleased with his output and ready to return to the hotel to pick up Aiuto and Born. Along the way back he allowed for much pausing on bridges to better view the local scene and discover intriguing new delectibilities and amenities of the water, as well as out of the way rii, as Venetians called their canals. The squares and open market stalls, dappled with golden sunlight, were showing signs of activity.

"Le gambe! Le gambe!" the Venetians called out to him, "Legs! Legs!" as pressed to the wall in the narrow corridors, he hopped between the greengrocers and the fish shops, watching in the canals the fascination of refuse collection and fire engine gondolas.

Predictably, he became lost, first ending up somewhere around Verrocchio's equestrian statue of Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, then finding himself at the Arsenal. Having managed this morning to get a good view of all the many winged lions -- golden, marble, bronze and stone – that graced Venice, he came out to what, according to Major Douglas, would seem to be the Church of San Zaccaria, which allegedly contained the body of the father of John the Baptist, a place where priests in the 16th century had arranged nude bathing parties and nuns had entertained their lovers openly. When the police tried to raid the place, the sisters pelted them with stones. He wondered what, if anything racy, was going on there today. The place looked quiet enough.

Cupp ran his fingers through his long, bushy pepper and salt hair, contemplating pigeons, vendors, cafés. He was thoroughly mixed up now. But persevering, he ended up on the Riva degli Schiavoni and hailed a gondola to take him back to the hotel.

It was 9:30 – finally late enough to connect with civilization, to ring Gaia Blumenthal to see if she were back yet. He went to the phone in the Danieli lobby.

When the party at the other end heard Garrison Cupp was on the line, he said, "Oh, yes, Mr. Cupp. Mrs. Blumenthal phoned in and I gave her your message. She wishes you to attend a small dinner party she is hosting Wednesday evening. Why don't you bring your wife along?"

Cupp explained he was presently wifeless, but accompanied by two male companions. Would it be all right to invite them?

"By all means," the secretary replied. "Eight o'clock, then?"

"Wonderful," Cupp answered. "We'll be there."

Jubilantly, he hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. Only thirty-six hours to countdown!

Soon now, very soon, he was going to start seeing some real action.

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