The Casanova Embrace Read online

  "They seem to go mad for him."

  "There is more than what meets the eye," she sighed, looking up into the sky. "What a lovely night." Her hand reached down and covered his as if the need to touch a stranger's flesh seemed important. The feel of her made him shiver and he felt his loins react, the blood surging.

  "I doubt if I will ever find a man who moves me," she said, squeezing his hand. "Perhaps it is me. Sometimes I am convinced it is me."

  "You are lovely," he said, his throat constricting. He felt the heat of a deep flush.

  "You are very kind to say that, especially since there is really no need."

  "I mean it."

  She squeezed his hand.

  "I know," she said.

  "It is not easy to be a woman in this society," she said. Apparently she had given the matter a great deal of thought. He caught the spark of her intelligence, the political implication, and felt himself drawing closer to her.

  "It comes from generations of thinking of us as chattel, as a commodity for their instant gratification." She chuckled. "I hate men. Yet, I forgive them. Can you understand that?"

  "Yes," he lied, admitting his confusion to himself. He had only a partial understanding.

  "This thing with Juan. It is not the first time it has happened."

  "Perhaps you're too honest."

  "Perhaps."

  "And what will happen when you find a man that moves you?" He was feeling courage now. The soft gardenia, salt-tinged scent of the night air, the faint rhythm of the surf, the nearness of her flesh goaded his manhood. He felt the throbbing of a compelling erection. He looked at her. Her kimono had opened and he could see the nipples on the white globes of her breasts. His breath seemed to catch and the enunciation of words became difficult.

  "I will follow him everywhere. To hell and back," she said firmly. "I will have need for only one man then."

  "And if he betrays you?"

  "Well then.... "she hesitated, searching in her mind. "Then I will kill him...."

  He shivered, feeling the strength of her conviction. She pressed his hand.

  "There is nothing on earth I would not do for a man that moves me. But he must be only my man. I would be faithful to him until death. I do not seek the embrace of a Casanova. He must be mine, and mine alone.... "Her voice drifted into silence. "I am talking nonsense," she said.

  "You would do anything for him. Anything?" He was confused, since he had not yet tasted the power of it.

  "Of course," she said, responding again.

  "And would the same be true of a man? If a woman moved him?"

  "I cannot say. I'm only a woman." But the thought must have lingered in her mind. "I would be perfectly willing to direct a docile slave. Perfectly willing. Unfortunately it has not happened." She turned to him and smiled. "And you. Would you take advantage of such power?"

  He shrugged. "Why not?" It was so far from the realm of his experience, he could afford to be cavalier. After a pause he said, "But how do I find it?"

  "Search for it," she said turning toward him, opening her kimono further. He looked downward to the thatch of dark hair between her legs. She watched his eyes.

  "Fish the waters," she said. "Someone will bite the hook." He felt the awkwardness of his innocence. "And you, my benefactor. Let us see who moves who." A hardness had begun to seep back into her, which he noted indifferently. His desire was overwhelming him.

  "I've never been with a woman before," he blurted, feeling his helplessness. Somehow he trusted her with this secret. She moved a hand down to his crotch, caressing his erection.

  "Well, there doesn't seem to be a physical problem," she said, unzipping his pants and holding the hard flesh in her hand.

  "Do you think I can move you?" he gasped, his breath shortening. He felt an exquisite lightness as her fingers touched him, then a consuming sense of urgency as concentrated pleasure engulfed him and a sound gurgled in his throat.

  "I am ashamed," he said, after he had recovered himself. She cradled his head in her arms and moved his mouth to her breast.

  "Never be ashamed of your pleasure," she said. "It is a gift. I envy you."

  "But I have failed...."

  "Shh." She caressed his head and he sucked her nipple in some vague memory of his infancy. He felt the security of it, the warmth of her flesh, the odd comfort of her caress.

  "You are beautiful," he whispered.

  "You are also beautiful," she said, stretching out on the divan, helping him remove his clothes. He felt the flood of his manhood begin again.

  "You see. Life is renewable."

  He felt tears run down his cheeks, the scent of her filling him with a joy he had never known. Then her hand was guiding him and he was enveloped by her. It is paradise, he thought, as all the hurts of his life were suddenly being sucked out of him. Her body moved under him, tantalizing.

  "I love you," he said, feeling his body overflow again, the delicious, mounting, unbearable pleasure, the release of all that had ever pained him. "I love you," he said again, hoping that he might hear her respond. But her breath barely moved against his cheek and he knew that he had not moved her.

  "And if I had moved you," he asked later as they sat quietly on the divan looking into the blackness of the sea.

  "Then I would follow you forever, even to the edges of hell."

  Dobbs put down the file and shook himself, as if the physical act might loosen his momentary fixation on Elena Mendoza. So they had really wanted to know this man, Eduardo Allesandro Palmero, to crawl inside his soul. It was something he knew that he, Dobbs, also wanted. And it annoyed him. Somehow it seemed unprofessional. The soul, after all, should be a private place, hidden, buried from all prying eyes. Even his.

  VI

  Frederika Millspaugh unwrapped the plastic covering of her tuna fish sandwich, unlocking the strong, pungent fishy odor. The Amtrak New York to Washington train had just left the Philadelphia station and was gaining momentum, heading southward toward Wilmington when she remembered the sandwich, which she had thrust into her handbag on her way out of Harold's apartment. It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and while she had made the snack as a hedge against her later hunger, the condition arrived earlier than expected.

  The odor made her feel conspicuous, slightly foolish, even a little greedy. She knew that the man sitting next to her reading a book in the Spanish language surely must be smelling it, offended but politely ignoring it. Seeing him, as he had filed behind her into the train, she had a vague premonition that she had somehow engaged his interest. But he had settled in as the train left New York, opened the book and had moved little, apparently absorbed by what he was reading, proving again her faulty perception. She had paid little attention to him up till then, but now felt uncomfortable as she looked at the white bread and the badly made sandwich. The lettuce had been wilted to begin with and the sojourn in her warm pocketbook had increased its disintegration. But the observation did not turn off her hunger. She actually felt her stomach yearn for it, making embarrassing noises, which the man surely must have heard. After all, you can't not smell or not listen, she thought.

  "Would you like a half a tuna fish sandwich?" she asked him. He turned slowly from the book, his silvery gray eyes briefly moving over her face like a spotlight, then darting to the sandwich. He smiled, showing white teeth.

  "You might as well share in the feast."

  He slapped the book shut, seemed to look at her with some interest, which secretly flattered her. His eyes had, from the first moment, already captured her interest.

  "Why not?" he said. She could detect the carefully practiced English pronunciation that masked his obviously Latino background.

  She handed him one half of the sandwich, which he took between long, delicate, tapering fingers. He had well-cared-for hands, she noted, conscious of her own cracked nails.

  "The train is a little boring at night," she said. "All I see when I look out the window is my own face."

  "Ev
en in the daylight the view is not inspiring." His language was precise, unquestionably studied. "I mean the landscape, not the face." There was an air of courtliness about him, she thought. A phony, she decided, in her habit of deprecation. She was quick to label people by the amount of sincerity she imagined them to have.

  "You seem to be greatly absorbed in that book," she said perfunctorily, hiding her distrust. It was an annoying defense mechanism, this compulsive putdown. But she had learned it was safer that way. Better to be surprised by people's goodness.

  "Yes. It is absorbing. Written by Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean author."

  Chile, she thought, remembering. Allende. A few years ago it might have prompted a passionate reaction, perhaps even violence. But that was another Frederika, the revolutionary Frederika. She could barely remember that other person.

  "You're a Chilean," she said, vaguely interested. That was another aspect of her latest incarnation. She could be only vaguely interested. Her juices, like the tides, had ebbed. It was the way Harold had put it, and despite her protestations, he was exactly right.

  "Nothing seems to turn you on any more, Frederika," Harold had told her over drinks in that kitschy little place on Sixty-eighth Street around the corner from his apartment. She sipped a beer, watching the singles rat race taking place around the bar with mild contempt.

  "Maybe I've felt it all. Maybe there is nothing left to feel."

  All weekend she had wallowed in self-pity, but even that condition lacked any real engagement.

  "Accept, Frederika. Accept."

  She watched Harold's face, the once straggly beard scraped clean along the cheeks and chin, although the thick mustache was still there, well trimmed, with only the hint of a droop at either end. He wore wire-rimmed goggles now. The little grannies were discarded, and the hair, once down to the shoulders, was clipped neatly with the ear lobes showing. He wore one of those tapered imitation leather shirts, split down to mid chest, with a big shiny gold medallion hanging from his neck. He was acting Playboy macho and it was more amusing than sad.

  He even fucked differently, she had thought, with a kind of practiced cerebral technique, which was also amusing, but offered little in the way of sensual delights. But that was another matter. Even getting laid had become a bore, which was one reason she rarely dated anymore. Actually, after the curiosity had passed, it had always been a bore, a kind of heatless submission.

  "I'm a burnt-out case," she said with mock cheerfulness.

  "At twenty-eight?"

  "Twenty-nine."

  He was an editor at H. K. Books now and they had attended a cocktail party at the apartment of another editor, which was the excuse for the weekend in the first place. Everyone seemed very into money and "things," although they were the first to admit, almost apologetically, she thought, that most of what they published was "pure shit" but that was what the public wanted.

  "It's over, Frederika," Harold said. He put a hand over hers and squeezed it.

  "Over?"

  "The way we were."

  "Christ, Harold. That's the title of a movie."

  "Jeez, you're right." He felt embarrassed, shrugged and tossed off his neat Chivas, about which he had made such a fuss with the waiter.

  "If only you can stop being the voice of my conscience," he said. He had been the most radical of them all. She had met him briefly at Berkeley, then later when they went with Mailer to the Pentagon. She smiled, remembering that she had once been his "woman" and they had spent most of their time in crash pads and sleeping bags. Who were those people, she wondered. Last night, lying next to him, not sleeping, she had smelled the real Harold. Apparently the musk had worn off and the pores of his body had cleared and the smell of the old Harold had come again into her nostrils, masculine-sweaty, and the memory of it had made her eyes mist with sadness. Gone. It was all gone.

  "I'm sorry," she told him.

  He ordered another round.

  "It's over," he said again. He looked at her and she could see his hazel eyes behind the glasses, a bit frightened, but clear, with that unmistakable quick intelligence which people recognized as a sign of leadership. "The moving finger writes. Hell, we changed the fucking world, Frederika."

  "Big deal."

  "They're starting to write books about us. We're becoming legendary romantic figures. We did it and it's over." His cheeks began to flush. Little red circles like dabs of rouge appeared on his cheekbones. "For everything there is a season."

  "My God, Harold."

  "There's truth in it, Frederika."

  "First a movie title. Then the Bible."

  "Well, we're no longer a subculture."

  "Mainliners, eh?"

  "Yes. As a matter of fact. We're getting into leadership positions. We're going to run the whole goddamned country."

  "No shit." She was being deliberately deprecating again, resuming her pose. He put his hands up and shook his head.

  "You can't leave it alone. You can't forget it. Still got to live like it was in the sixties. Come on, Freddie." He hadn't called her that for years. "Phase out. You got to come down off the mountain."

  He was, of course, absolutely right. But she was caught in limbo now, treading water. She had tried, really tried. The magic word had been relevance then, and even when she entered Georgetown Law School it had seemed, at first, like a new beginning. Most of her classmates were still part of it, or so it seemed. But whatever it was that had moved her then had disappeared and she had dropped out.

  Even now, waiting on tables in Clyde's Omelet Room, where the tips were pretty good, she would see some of her old Georgetown classmates. They were lawyers now. Into money, as they told her, or so she imagined that they told her. They seemed like shadows, apparitions now, barely perceptible as people. Like her mother and father living in that fancy condominium in San Diego, hustling to fill up their leisure, somehow getting through the day with tennis and shopping and gossip, then rushing to make the scene at the happy hour in the private condominium club.

  "Maybe you should see a shrink?"

  "I've been there, Harold," she said tossing off her beer. Her stomach felt bloated. "I've been everywhere," she sighed.

  "Oh, come off that tired-of-it-all shit, Freddie. You're even beginning to look the part." He must have known that his words had bit deep. Despite all, her vanity had not been crushed. By some fluke, she had maintained her looks without even trying. None of the previous abuse had shattered them. The bad food, the pot, the occasional pills, uppers, downers, speed, LSD. The lack of sleep. The sleeping around. Recently she had caught herself trying to remember all the men she had gone to bed with. She could barely remember their faces, although she could recollect some odd shaped penises.

  "You're still beautiful, Freddie," he said gently. "I don't mean it that way."

  He hadn't. She knew that. When she had taken off her plaid shirt and faded jeans, she had stood before him for a moment, displaying her nakedness. It seemed the best moment of the weekend and it had happened when she had just arrived, like giving her a ticket of admission.

  "Jeez, Freddie. You still look like a young kid."

  Actually she hadn't been laid for nearly six months and had barely paid attention to her body. She liked what he had said, had enjoyed that first touching, as if it were the harbinger of more to come. But it was all illusion and it had quickly gone sour. She consciously manipulated his body to make him come quickly. Which he did. She felt nothing, wondering if he had really felt pleasure. The image fled quickly, dissolved by the voice of the man beside her.

  "I am a Chilean," the voice said. He turned toward her and bit into the sandwich. Then he put up one finger as he waited for the dryness to dissolve.

  "It's a bit dry," she said. "We should have something to drink with it. Feel like a cup of coffee?"

  He stood up. He was tall, and waiting for her to move into the aisle, he let her pass and they walked in the direction of the snack bar. She felt him watching her. Then he quic
kly stepped ahead of her to open the door between the cars. At that range she could smell his breath, slightly fishy. His hand had looked strong as it gripped the door handle. At that moment the train lurched slightly and she touched his arm, feeling the hardness of his taut muscle. At the snack bar, he ordered two coffees, which were served in styrofoam cups. They leaned against a little counter opposite the snack bar. She could see his face now, although it seemed slightly hidden behind the mist of steam from the hot coffee.

  "You're a long way from home," she said, oddly observing her own curiosity.

  "Five thousand miles, to be exact."

  "That's further than it is to Europe."

  "And to some parts of Asia."

  "What the hell are you doing so far from home?"

  He smiled, not joyously. There was a hint of deprecation.

  "I'm not here by choice."

  "I see," she said. Sipping his coffee, he seemed to be withdrawing from her. She barely read the newspapers these days and Chile was remote.

  "Were you in prison?" She had remembered something about Chilean prisons, torture, juntas. Perhaps she had seen references on the cover of some magazine. Politics were anathema now. A bore, she had told herself. Earlier in her life she had been too greedy, and her taste buds had become jaded, beyond sensation.

  "Yes. As a matter of fact." The answer startled her, drawing her interest. He finished his coffee and she followed him back to their seats. He stood aside politely to let her through to the window side. She continued to hold the coffee container. When he sat down he opened his book.

  "Were they cruel?" Did she really care, she wondered.

  He closed the book.

  "Cruel?" He watched her now, his eyes roaming over her face, searching her.

  "They tortured you?"

  He grimaced, lines spreading in a frown across his forehead.

  "I try not to think about it."

  "Is that possible?" She knew it was. Hadn't she blotted out whole chunks of years from her memory, willed them out of her thoughts whenever they tried to emerge?