he'd thought when he'd been shown the final results.
There were thirty or forty masks displayed on the wall; mostly of men. He thought that he vaguely recognized some of the faces, but he couldn't have put names to any of them. They were all handsome; some of them almost beautiful. He remembered Katya's crazy talk about the parties she'd had in the house. How she'd seduced Valentino. Was this collection the inspiration for that fantasy? Had she dreamed of fucking the famous because she had plaster copies of their faces up on her wall?
The door at the other end of the wall of life-masks was, like the last, deceptively light. This time he paused to puzzle out why, and examining it a little more closely, had his answer. It was fake. The large rusted nails weren't iron at all, but carved and stippled wood; the patina of antiquity had been achieved by a skilled painter. It was a door from a movie-set; all illusion. And if the doors had been made that way, what about the tapestry and the bas- reliefs and table carved with grotesqueries? They were all most likely fakes. Stolen off a back-lot, or bought from a studio fire-sale. None of it was real.
He pushed the door open, and came into a second room, this one much smaller than the first, but just as cluttered. On the wall opposite him hung a large mirror, its gilt frame elaborately carved with naked figures, men and women knotted together in configurations which looked both sensual and tormented. He seldom let a mirror go by without putting it to use, and even now—knowing he wouldn't like what he saw—he paused and assessed his reflection. He was a sad sight, his clothes in disarray from his trip through the shrubbery, his face like an inept copy of its finer self. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn't turn back; he was in no condition to present himself to Katya. Even as he was thinking about this the door to the left of the mirror creaked a little, and—caught by the wind— opened a couple of inches. Forsaking his sorry reflection, he went to the door and peered into the room beyond.
The sight before him put all thought of retreat from his mind. Inside was an enormous four-poster bed, its columns decorated in the same lushly erotic style as the gilded frame of the mirror. A swath of dark purple velvet hung in ripe folds like a half-raised curtain. The red pillows heaped on the bed were just as excessive, creamy silk fringed with lace. The sheet, which was also silk, was pulled back, so that the sleeper was left uncovered.
It was Katya, of course.
There she lay, face down; her hair unloosed, her body naked.
He stood at the door, enraptured. The pillow she lay on was so soft and deep that her face was almost concealed, but he could still see the high curve of her cheek, the tender pink of her ear. Was she awake behind her pale lids, he wondered, her nakedness a deliberate provocation? He suspected not. There was something too artless about the way her legs were splayed, too childlike about the way her hands were tucked up against her breasts. And the final proof? She was snoring. If this was indeed a performance then that was a touch of genius. The perfectly human thing which made all the rest so believable.
His eyes went to the cleft of her buttocks; to the gloss of the hair that showed between her legs. He was suddenly stupid with lust.
He took a step toward the bed. The floor creaked under his weight, but thankfully the noise wasn't loud enough to stir her. He continued his approach, his gaze fixed upon her face, looking for the merest flutter of a lash. But there was none. She was deeply asleep; and dreaming. He was close enough now to see that her eyes were in motion behind her lids, watching something happening in another place.
At the bedside, he dropped down onto his haunches, his left knee popping loudly. There was a faint dusting of gooseflesh on her limbs, he saw.
He couldn't resist the temptation to reach out and touch her skin, as though he might smooth the gooseflesh away with his fingertips. Surely she would wake now, he thought. But no, she slept on. The only sign that she might be surfacing from sleep was the slowing of the motion of her pupils. The dream was leaving her; or she was departing from the dream.
He was suddenly alarmed. What would she think if she woke to find him this close to the bed, his intent so unquestionably voyeuristic? Perhaps he should go; quickly, before she woke. But he couldn't bring himself to move an inch. All he could do was kneel there, like a suppliant, his heart beating furiously, his face a furnace.
Then, in her sleep, she murmured something. He held his breath, trying to catch the words. It wasn't English she was speaking, it was an Eastern European language; probably her native Romanian. He could make no sense of what she was saying, of course, but there was a softness to the syllables; a neediness, which suggested they were supplications. She turned her face up from the pillow, and he saw that her expression was troubled. Her brow was furrowed, and there were tears welling beneath her lids. The sight of her distress bothered him. It brought back memories of his mother's tears, which he'd watched her shed so often as a child. Tears shed by a woman left to raise her sons alone. Tears of frustrated rage, sometimes; but more often tears of loneliness.
'Don't . . .' he said to her softly.
She heard him speaking, it seemed. Her entreaties grew quieter. Then she said: 'Willem?'
'No . . .'
The frown nicking her brow deepened and her lids began to flutter. She was waking up now, no doubt of that. He got to his feet, and began to retreat to the door, keeping his eyes fixed on her face. Only when he reached the door did he finally, regretfully, relinquish sight of her and turn away.
As he slipped through the door he heard her speak. 'Wait,' she said.
He was sorely tempted to exit rather than turn and face her, but he resisted his cowardice and looked back toward the bed.
She had pulled the sheet a little way up, to partially cover her nakedness. Her eyes were open, and the tears her dreams had induced were now running down her cheeks. Despite them, she was smiling.
'I'm sorry,' Todd said.
'For what?'
'Coming in here uninvited.'
'No,' she said sweetly. 'I wanted you to come.'
'Still, I shouldn't have stayed . . . watching you. It's just that you were talking in your sleep.'
'Well it's nice to have somebody listening,' she said. 'It's a long time since anyone was with me when I slept.' She wiped the tears from her cheeks.
'Are you all right?' he asked her.
'Yes, I'm fine.'
'Were you having a bad dream?'
'I can't remember,' she said, glancing away from him. He knew from his acting coach what such glances indicated: a lie. She knew exactly what she'd been dreaming about; she just didn't want to tell him. Well, that was her business. God knows everybody was allowed their share of secrets.
'What time is it?' she said.
He glanced at his watch. 'Almost four-thirty.'
'You want to go for a walk before it gets too dark?' she said.
'Sure.'
She threw off her sheet, and got up out of bed, glancing up at Todd as she did so, as though to assure herself of his scrutiny.
'I'm going to bathe first,' she said. 'Would you do me a little favor in the meantime?'
'Sure.'
'Go back to the Gaming Room, where we met last night, and—'
'Don't tell me. Fetch your whip.'
She smiled. 'You read my mind.'
'As long as you promise not to be beating me with it.'
'Nothing could be further from my mind,' she said.
'Okay. I'll get it. .. but no beating.'
'Take your time. There's still plenty of light in the sky.'
He left her feeling oddly light-footed, pleased to have an errand from her. What did that say about their relationship? he wondered as he ran. That he was naturally subservient? Ready to do her will at the snap of her fingers? Well, if so, so.
He found his way back down to the big house without difficulty. Marco heard him in the Gaming Room, heavy-footed as ever, and came to see what all the noise was about.
