The Casanova Embrace Page 8

"Go to the luncheon yourself. Tell them I'm sick. Tell them anything."

  It was beginning to weary her. There could be no resolution now. There could only be his continuing tirade which left her completely unmoved. It is like watching a stage performance, she thought. She heard his voice, repetitive, grating, and tried not to listen. Finally he strode out and angrily closed the door behind him, shaking the glassware and bric-a-brac throughout the house. She was thankful the children had already gone off to school and that the maid had not yet arrived.

  Surprised by her calm, she sat on the dining room table and sipped coffee. The focus of her thoughts was on Eduardo, triggering a delicious sense of expectation. As if in reply, the telephone rang. She got up, walked swiftly, felt joyous because she was certain that it was he.

  "I will be there, darling," she said into the receiver. There was no question in her mind that it was he. I feel it, she told herself, hearing his response. You see.

  "Are you getting psychic?" he asked. She sensed his amusement.

  "I feel you," she said.

  "About noon?"

  "Of course." She heard the click, but kept the phone to her ear, her eyes closed, trying to imagine his closeness.

  Again, she did not park the car in the apartment lot, finding a space about a block away. She wore a kerchief and large sunglasses and walked past the desk clerk quickly. The deliberate surreptitiousness made her anxious and she longed for the day when such pretense would not be necessary. She had, she knew, conquered her fear of Claude. His discovery would be just a matter of time. Even that morning she had longed to tell him. "You are not my man." She wanted to shout it at him. "You were never my man." But she had held back. There was, after all, some pragmatism left within her. Her mother had once said and she had remembered: "Don't throw out your dirty water until you are sure you can have clean water."

  Before the door had barely closed, she reached out for him, held him, clung to him. Tears spilled out of her eyes. He moved her away from him and looked at her.

  "You are crying," he said, kissing the tears, actually licking them with his tongue.

  "It's because. I am so happy."

  He kissed her eyes now, her cheeks, gave her a long lingering kiss on her lips, his tongue darting inward as she sucked it. "You are my life now, my darling," she whispered.

  She reached for his hard penis, unzipped his pants, kneeled, caressed, kissed his hardness.

  "My beautiful Eduardo," she cried. "My wonderful, beautiful Eduardo." A tremulous shiver began inside her and she knew the waves were beginning to come, delicious wonders happening to her. When finally she drew his hardness into her, she felt herself floating on an endless sea of pleasure and when his own release came, she knew she was on the verge of fainting with the joy of it.

  When she became calm, she knew that she had lost track of time, had actually been outside of herself. Each time was better than the time before. How greedy I am for him, she thought.

  "Can I possibly go on living without you?" she whispered. She could feel his gaze on her. He was smiling.

  "Is it that strong?"

  "Beyond all words."

  He shrugged. He seemed younger, boyish. She patted his forehead and smoothed his hair. Turning his eyes upward, he stared at the ceiling.

  "What are you thinking about?" she whispered.

  He was silent for a long time. When he spoke, the words seemed ejaculated, as if they had been accumulating in his brain, pressurized.

  "I am thinking about my own futility," he said. "And those bastards who seek to destroy me. But I will fool them. I will cling to life and I will have my revenge. I will taste their blood and it will be like wine. I will drink it. The streets of Santiago will run with it and we will all get drunk on it."

  His words frightened her, as she envisioned the literal embodiment of the image he had contrived. What did that matter, she wondered. What did any of it matter as long as they were together. But she remained silent. His inner rage had intimidated her. Whatever he does, I will do with him, she vowed. She wondered if, despite the terror in his heart, he felt the need for her, as she needed him.

  Suddenly he sprang from the bed and repeatedly banged a fist into his palm, his lips mumbling indecipherable words.

  "What is it, my darling?"

  He continued to flay his fist in his palm. His eyes seemed glazed, his lips twisted and tightly fixed. After a while, his anger spent, he relaxed and lay down beside her again. She saw glistening perspiration on his forehead and upper lip, feeling the cooling process as her fingers caressed him.

  "It is like fighting Goliath," he said.

  "But David won."

  "At least he had a weapon, a slingshot, and he knew how to use it." He tapped his forehead. "I have only this." Then he pointed to her. "And you."

  "Me? Am I a weapon?"

  He smiled. But it seemed a mechanical gesture, not warm.

  "Everything I touch becomes a weapon."

  "I would die for you, Eduardo."

  "Die?" He shook himself. "Who asked you to die?"

  He said it gently. She wondered at first what he meant. Then she turned the question inward upon herself and it was unanswerable. Who indeed? She had lived the contented, mostly conventional life of a diplomat's wife. The whole focus of it was to support her husband's ambition and her children's welfare. How irrelevant it all sounded. Yes, she decided. She was quite prepared to make any sacrifice for Eduardo. Even to die.

  That night she moved out of the bedroom she shared with Claude and into the spare room. Claude stood against the wall, leaning on it, posturing under a patina of bravado to hide his humiliation. She felt no pity for him.

  "I won't stand for this tantrum much longer," he said, searching for his old sense of imperiousness. The threat seemed empty, without conviction, which annoyed her. Then do something, you stupid man. This is just the beginning of your defeat. I will torture you.

  "I vow that I will leave you if this persists." She remained silent as she gathered her clothing, emptying her drawers. She wanted him to recognize the finality of it.

  "At least you might think of the children," he said flatly. It was, after all, his last refuge. She snickered. He must think his children matter to me.

  "I warn you." He pointed a finger at her but she walked right past him, her clothing piled in her arms. He followed her to the guest room. By then, all pretense had disappeared. His eyes had brimmed with tears, which she saw peripherally as she put her clothes in the dresser. She marveled at the lack of pity in her heart, as if he were a total stranger.

  "If only I could understand," he said, sniffling, his voice cracked with emotion. She knew he was making a great effort to control himself. "At least, you owe me some explanation."

  "There is none," she said finally, tired of his watching her, annoyed at herself for not telling him. Could he be so stupid as not to suspect?

  "You realize that you are ending our marriage," he said. "Is that what you want?" His voice was barely audible.

  "There is no marriage here."

  "But why?" He was pleading now. Was it the moment to tell him, to confess? It was, she knew, not out of regard for his feelings that she held back. Somehow, she reasoned, it would hurt Eduardo. Even Claude, his manhood challenged, might be capable of revenge, of harm. Say nothing, she told herself. Not now.

  "This is all pointless, Claude."

  "I have a right to an explanation."

  "You have no rights. Not any longer." She stared at him, her eyes deliberately fixed on his face, observing his confusion and his pain, unmoved. It must have become unbearable to him. He turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind. She felt elation, freedom.

  See, Eduardo, she screamed within herself. I have made my commitment. To you. Forever.

  V

  The game of nations, Dobbs knew, was an exercise of enormous complexity, like playing chess on the deck of a sailboat in a gale. One had to think about the pull of the tide, the whip of t
he wind, and the subtleties of roll and pitch as the pieces slid in disarray, to be reassembled from memory while the matrix of the original play etched and faded in the mind.

  Within minutes of the explosion, agents had obliterated all, hopefully all, of the trail signs. Electronic eyes and ears, fingerprints in his apartment, any telltale signs. The FBI would find nothing. But I know how he died, Dobbs assured himself. And, yet, knowing this was not enough. He had to know why. How, otherwise, could he explain to himself how wrong he had been?

  Fingering the files, he opened another. It was a Uruguayan transfer, another stitch of information in the intricate fabric. Latin America was one vast American intelligence pool, he mused, snickering again at all that human rights political talk. This was the real world, he assured himself, tapping a finger on the first page of the report. Two faded photographs lay face up, clipped to the papers. Looking closely, on the top of the picture he saw the faces of two young men smiling back at him.

  On the left was Eduardo, about twenty. It was 1956. Beside him was a taller, more assured youth, arrogantly swaggering into the lens, dripping with self-importance. He turned the picture, seeing the name, Raoul Benotti. He had died in that plane crash in Venezuela, the one that had been bombed.

  Dobbs knew that Benotti had been marked, fingered for execution. He had followed the trail of the executioner, had watched as Eduardo orchestrated his unique weapons, the women, aiming them with telling accuracy. But how had he set the charge within them? That was what he had to know.

  The picture was taken at Punta del Este, just outside Montevideo, where the families of the oligarchs of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay watered in splendor. It was also the mating ground for these families. They would pile into the hotels and villas overlooking blue waters and incredible white beaches, with retinues of chaperones, servants and assorted retainers, to exhibit their wealth and progeny.

  While families frolicked, the Latin male exercised his venery and the ornate bars and beach clubs sported traditional lures, women in search of fleeting affluence among the wealthy princes, married and unmarried. The other picture clipped to the file was of a young woman, Elena Mendoza, then twenty-one. One could see the villainous smirk of the conquistadors, barely softened by the splash of Indian blood which gave a slight slant to her eyes. There was a brief notation that she had died of pneumonia in a Chilean prison six months after the coup, but not until they had extracted what they had required, set before him now, as casual as hors d'oeuvres at an afternoon tea.

  Women, always women, Dobbs hissed silently, feeling his own malevolence crying out from somewhere inside his petrified libido, as he forced his concentration on the words.

  It was not the first summer that Eduardo had visited Raoul, whose family rented one of the larger villas in the south end. But their boyhood games had graduated from the surf as playground to the nightclubs and bars, where, goaded by the risen sap of their young manhood, they might follow the scent of chucha, pussy.

  To Eduardo, whose motives had already become obscured by political passions, Raoul, with his smooth good looks and casual self-confidence, was beyond comparison with what Eduardo felt was his own meager portion in that area. Raoul, he was assured by the prince himself, could seduce a stone, and was eager to exhibit his prowess at every opportunity to the audience of his spellbound friend.

  He was even, as Eduardo was to witness, skilled in extracting honey from the protected hives of the oligarchs, whose panting princesses could always find ways to dodge their duennas for a few passionate moments with Raoul. Or so it seemed.

  "That one," Raoul would say, as they sat idling on beach chairs, ogling the big-titted girls with their trailing duennas, parading before them along the surfline as if they were flesh in a slave auction. "I fucked her in the cabana. Like an Arab. They guarded the entrance while I sneaked under the tent." He howled with joy. "I also fucked her maid and her mother."

  "Her mother?"

  "See that one there." He pointed to a patio in the distance, where a woman in a gauzy dress stood into the breeze, her body outlined by the wind. "She is the hottest potato in the sack." He laughed again, proud of the pun.

  "Somebody will stick a knife in your ribs, Raoul," Eduardo said.

  "What is life without danger?" he replied.

  "I envy you," Eduardo said sincerely.

  "There is an art, a rhythm to this business," Raoul said, prodded by the compliment, lifting a bronzed, muscled arm to wave to a girl heading their way.

  "That's Anna," he whispered, watching as the graceful figure approached. "Her father is a German, an ex-Nazi." The girl's hair was blonde, her eyes blue, underlining the credibility of his identification. Raoul had a fund of knowledge about these things that was awesome. "A stud must be extra careful," he had lectured. "Jealousy is a double-edged sword. Besides, I wouldn't want to stud my toe." He howled again, the sound trailing off into a suppressed giggle as the girl approached. She kneeled beside him in the sand.

  "This is Eduardo," Raoul said, jabbing a thumb in Eduardo's direction as if he were inanimate, which was the way he felt. The girl had eyes only for Raoul. Her gaze pugnaciously washed over his tight bronzed body, resting briefly at the lump in his crotch which, Eduardo knew, Raoul had deliberately accentuated by tightening his buttocks against the canvas seat.

  "The sun is strong today," Anna said, insinuating herself into the arc of the umbrella shadow. Raoul reached out and stroked the fine hairs of her arm. She did not pull it away and Eduardo imagined that he could see the hairs rise in response. If he had done it, the girl would have pulled away as if his fingers were charged with electricity.

  It was a gesture of propriety, Eduardo knew, a staked claim, since Raoul was hardly interested in conversing with the girl and ignored her attempts at conversation or mumbled bored responses. The girl didn't seem to mind. The great Raoul was touching her and that was all that mattered.

  "You will be at the party tonight," Anna said, suddenly anxious. Eduardo watched the tightness form on her lips. It had been the reason for her coming in the first place.

  "You didn't forget?" she asked, the anxiety palpable.

  "Tonight," Raoul mused. He smiled. "I must check with my friend."

  "You can bring him, of course," the girl said quickly.

  "I go where he goes. He is my guest." Raoul said, knowing he was torturing the girl, increasing the tension.

  "Eduardo will be very welcome. There will be lots of pretty girls." She had turned her blue eyes toward Eduardo, penetrating in their entreaty, since Eduardo now held the key to the invitation.

  "I go where Raoul goes," Eduardo said, feeling his own malice. Raoul winked at him. "Very good," his wink said. "Play with her." But Eduardo could not sustain his cruelty. "Why not," he said.

  "There is your answer," Raoul said, suddenly tightening his hand around Anna's slim wrist, acknowledging her presence in a more direct way. He swung his legs in an arc, spreading them slightly as he flattened his feet in the sand, placing himself before the squatting Anna so that she was crotch high. He could see her eyes dart to the bulge at his crotch, grown larger now, as the stud had fixed on his target.

  The girl seemed to sense the attention, perhaps feeling the fledgling anxieties of impending forbidden pleasures. Raoul bent over and stroked her bare shoulders. This time the girl moved, tore herself away, for appearances' sake. Raoul was a blatant exhibitionist and enjoyed the perpetual gaze the women lavished on his person.

  "Let's swim," he said to the girl, reaching for her hand. The invitation offered more than the obvious and Raoul turned and winked to Eduardo.

  "You, too, Eduardo. Come on, it's hot as hell here." He looked at the girl. "And getting hotter."

  Eduardo joined them, following them into the water. He watched them dash ahead into the surf, Raoul's sinuous bronzed body arrogantly assured, literally dragging the girl along as she giggled with expectation and anxiety. The surf was calm now. Little rivulets of waves, miniatures of an angrier s
ea, spent themselves impotently, darkening the edges of the white sand.

  They were out chest high quickly, snuggling together like flotsam logs, entangled in each other's limbs. Eduardo approached them hesitantly, diving like a porpoise, the intensity of his own activity designed to mask his interest. Raoul had lowered the girl's shoulder straps and was nuzzling his bare chest against hers. The waters hid what was going on below, but they were blue and crystal clear and Eduardo swam close underwater to get a better view. Raoul had freed his erection from the sides of his swimsuit and had directed it into the crotch of the girl, who was obviously savoring it through whatever sensations could find their way upward through her one-piece bathing suit.

  Eduardo surfaced in confusion and embarrassment, annoyed at his compulsion to be a voyeur, which he felt was somehow demeaning, unworthy. He had surfaced quietly behind the girl's back. Raoul winked at him, smiled broadly, enjoying his own performance. He raised one finger, a signal to remain attentive, looked down at the girl, then swung her around to face Eduardo, his hands cupped on her breasts.

  "Look at the latest in bathing tops," he cried. The girl struggled to free herself, but Raoul had her wedged against his body, his erection, the startled Eduardo surmised, lying now in the furrow of her buttocks.

  "Please, Raoul," the girl protested, facing Eduardo, her eyes rolling in exasperation. Eduardo tried to look away from the tan hands wrapped snugly around the white melons on her chest.

  "You like the style, Eduardo?" Raoul shouted.

  "I'll scream," the girl pleaded.

  "One scream and I will take the top back to the store," Raoul said teasingly as he stuck his tongue in her ear. She stopped struggling. Eduardo felt her humiliation and dipped his head in the water to cool his burning cheeks.

  "You shouldn't be upset," Raoul said soothingly now that the girl had quieted. "He is my friend. A friend of a friend is a friend. Tell him that you are also his friend."

  The girl hesitated.

  "Tell him ... or.... "Eduardo sensed the first hint of malevolence. Surely the girl had also felt it.