Maybe he should have chosen the Caribbean where they could have lazed naked on a beach and the warmth might have seeped into their mood. But Emma had never been to Venice and he had promised her he would take her anywhere she wanted, and she was aware that Roberto and Marta had offered them the apartment here should they ever wish to visit. Geoff had been to Venice several times before and, to be frank, had never been too much of a fan. In summer, the canals smelled and he disliked being just an anonymous part of the tourist crowds. In truth, he was not a great traveller.
Emma, on the other hand, was twenty years younger and always sported an enthusiasm for new places and experiences that he no longer could pretend he had. And he secretly knew he’d never possessed the joy or curiosity even when he had been younger himself.
Although it remained mostly unsaid they both knew to a different degree that their relationship was doomed. The age difference, the opposing temperaments, the cultural differences, the weight of his own past, her own ambitions in life. But love still bound them. His, full of despair that she might well happen to be the last great love of his life; hers, full of wonder that Geoff had somehow become the first great love in her life but with her mind, her imagination nagging her daily about the roads not taken and all the future roads that were still to be reached.
In an effort to combat the due date on their affair, they had come to Venice. In her mind, she had wanted to confront beauty. In his, it was just a melancholy vision of past literary memories of Thomas Mann, Byron, Dickens or Nic Roeg, which resonated in the greyness of his soul, the delusion that a trip to a new place could repair the stitches that were coming apart in their affair.
“Carnival begins tomorrow,” he had pointed out to her.
“Really?” she had exclaimed, her eyes widening in anticipation.
“Yes.”
“Will you buy me a mask?” Emma had asked.
“Of course.”
“And I will get one for you,” she suggested. “Something darkly romantic, that would just suit you.”
“Why not?”
“And we acquire them separately, and they remain secret until the first evening we go out and wear them. A surprise!”
“A lovely idea,” Geoff had readily agreed, the fleeting thought of Emma quite naked except for a delicate white Carnival mask shielding her face, and her green eyes peering through the disguise already warming his heart and suggestible loins.
His finger lingered on her knee, and he shuddered. The electricity between them still worked.
“Can we go online and read all about the Carnival?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. They made their way to the guest bedroom where the nearest connected computer stood on a rickety trestle table their host often used to mix his paints on.
Above it, by coincidence, hung slightly crooked on the wall by the window, was a gaudy painting of a woman in chains wearing only a black mask which obscured her eyes. Roberto’s latest BDSM variation.
They surfed freely for the next couple of hours, learning all about Carnevale and its origins, the stories of Casanova, the types of masks and their significance. One link led to another and yet another until an aimless stroke of the keyboard took them to the website where out of sheer prurient curiosity they arranged for the meeting in the bar on Campo Santa Maria Formosa the next day.
At first, Geoff had been somewhat hesitant, but Emma’s enthusiasm had swayed him.
“It will be an adventure,” she said.
“I suppose so,” he answered.
“Don’t be so old,” she added.
Geoff smiled wryly. She always knew how to silence him.
“Yes, it’s all because of Attila the Hun.”
They were sipping espressos at the back of the small cafe. The man was in his fifties and had silver hair and was explaining how the earliest inhabitants of Venice had been exiled all the way to the lagoon by the invasion of their native lands by foreign hordes.
“Fascinating,” Emma commented.
“And the bridge that connects us to the Italian mainland was only built by Mussolini under a century ago. Before that we were isolated and you could only reach the city by water.”
Geoff ordered another round from the hovering waitress. Mostly San Pellegrino mineral water; neither he nor Emma could cope with too much coffee at this time of day.
“It’s a party,” the man who called himself Jacopo said. “But we try to organize matters so that we adhere to all the old traditions of the Venice Carnevale, not the diluted versions that have sadly evolved over the years since Carnevale’s heyday.”
“We understand,” Geoff said. Emma looked him in the eyes, and nodded.
“It is strictly by invitation, of course,” he continued. “Normally, we try to restrict attendance to pure Venetians, but as you know, there are fewer of us now. The younger generations are all leaving the city. So sad.”
He looked at Emma. Her dark hair shone glossily; she had washed it just before they had left the apartment to walk here. When wet, her curls ironed out naturally and her hair extended then to the small of her back. Geoff observed her, too. She looked luminous. Already excited by the prospect of the party they were being informally interviewed for. As if a fire was rising inside her, bringing light to her features, heat to her hidden senses. Geoff recognized that gleam in her eyes. It was invariably present when she had been fucked. He kept on watching, transfixed as Jacopo’s words swept soundlessly over him. The man with the silver hair also kept on observing Emma, as if weighing her in his steady gaze.
Geoff returned to reality, reluctantly abandoning his vision of Emma’s fascinated attention to the man’s words.
“Naturally, you remain masters of your destiny. A polite ‘no’ will always be an acceptable response to overtures, although it is hoped that all guests will participate freely and openly in the proceedings.”
Again, Emma nodded, her chin bobbing up and down.
Geoff sighed discreetly.
It was true that they had often discussed the remote prospect of others joining in their games, their lovemaking. But they had never reached the stage where they had actively done anything about it.
Something inside him — something rotten or diseased? — had always imagined what it would be like to see Emma mounted by another, harboured the curiosity to witness how another man would touch her, make her moan. Because he found her so beautiful, part of him felt she should be shared with the whole world, so that all and sundry could truly understand why his love for her was so strong and overpowering. But it was a long road from thoughts to the realities of the flesh.
She had even asked, “Would you be jealous if it happened?” and he had been obliged to dig deep into his thoughts and had finally answered quite truthfully “I’m not sure, maybe if I could watch. I wouldn’t want you to fuck another man behind my back, that’s for sure.”
“Wonderful,” Jacopo said as he rose from the cafe table. “You are a lovely couple. I think you will enjoy our parties a lot.”
They had jointly agreed to attend the opening of Carnevale the next day. He had slipped over a piece of paper with the address.
“Every party takes place in a different locale,” the man with the silver hair had said. “They can only be reached by the canals, so you will have to make arrangements accordingly.”
They all shook hands and he departed.
Left alone, Geoff and Emma looked at each other. He tried to smile, but couldn’t raise the right rictus. He knew already that they would go. Emma had always been a woman of her words and once a decision had been taken, only hell and high water could ever change her mind.
“Well,” she said.
“Hmmm. .”
Emma was dressing.
“Don’t wear panties,” Geoff suggested.
“Really?”
“Yes. I think it would fit in with the spirit of the occasion.”
Emma chuckled softly. “If you say so. Anyway, the dress is quite heavy, so I shouldn’t feel the cold. .” She gave him a twirl. He applauded theatrically.