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.