Julie fell to her stomach, pressing her cheek to the grass. The world below her had a heartbeat, and it was slow and good. Grigori pulled his shaft from her, a slow, lazy withdrawal of so much flesh. She felt the loss of it, as she had the first time. His shape and size were so distinctive, she doubted she would ever forget its contours. Or what it did to her insides.
He did not immediately cover her over with her dress. Instead, he treated her to a fresh tongue bathing, licking out both her come and his. It was a cool, breezy come down, the perfect post-coital activity. He was continuing to show his earlier devotion, taking the time to kiss her pussy and various places on her buttocks, as well. As a finishing touch, he licked the surface of both globes.
"If you're trying to get back in my good graces,” she purred. “It's working like a charm."
* * * *
Giovanni fell to his knees after the Dasklovian left. To his knees in the sand because of the simple act of charity, the pure surrender to him of his Dasklovian blank slate, his unwritten script, his as yet unfilmed mystery. Down the throat he'd drunk the wisdom of the elder man-following ways more ancient than both of them.
Tears of salt did he shed, salt to return to the salt of the sea. No man knows for what he cries. At least not if he thinks hard and truly on the matter. All grief is interchangeable and commingled in the end in the mighty seas of change. The seas once sailed by the likes of Odysseus and Achilles.
And this sea before them, this Lago Romano once ringed on every side by garrisons and legions loyal to an emperor-what of it? And his film, indeed all his films together, what did they matter in the scheme of things?
There was only one thing left now. And that was lust. Yes, he'd chosen well his protagonists. One had come to him already and soon the other would follow. So, too, had they been with each other. A film about lust, that is what he would make. Lust and punishment and the stripping away of inhibitions. For this he would have to make love slaves of them both-to him and to one another.
Kneeling and crawling and begging.
Fulfilling the vision. Writhing bodies. An orgy for three, worthy of Caligula himself. Giovanni smiled-or rather watched himself smiling as he rose. This, too, was cine … film. All of life was one lens, viewed through another, light refracted back upon itself, creator, creation, image, imagination, imaginer, all one thing. Above all they would have to learn this, his actors. Hercules, of the fabled feats, wrestler of bears and fair-haired Aphrodite. Succulent young things, to restore the vitality of an old man. Ambrosiano, madman, genius, and now vampire.
Five wives had done little to slake that passion. Nor had the hundreds of lovers who'd graced his silken sheets, dryads and satyrs taken from Rio to Monte Carlo, from Rome to Riyadh. He'd learned from all of them, though the wisest was Lucia. She had been wife number one and also four. The darling of the Italian cinema, beloved for decades, she had only grown more beautiful with age. And more deadly.
The secrets to her charms were the moods that ruled her. One moment light and gay, the next, furious and vengeful. Never had he known a more generous heart, capable of appreciating every form of beauty, or a more treacherous one. She had carried him through storms, nurtured and loved him and given orgasms that would make a man want to slit his own wrists afterwards, so as not to have to feel the terrifying let down from such a height.
When she grabbed your hand, with a twinkle in her eye, her smile fixed perfectly, brows dancing, you could forget your normal life and all the troubles and worries. You were in the care of a goddess. But deities are notoriously fickle, and eventually a man is dropped, left dangling on a string.
Had he not divorced her, once, and then again, there is no telling what would have happened. They could not live with one another. And yet there had been no life for them apart either.
In one of the final interviews she gave, shortly before the fatal skiing accident she had told a panting cub reporter, nearly young enough to be a grandson, “I have never truly acted, never taken directions, never simply memorized lines. What I have done really is to mold myself, to submit to a director, to become what he wishes, the vessel of his whims, the captive of his imagination, his utter and complete slave."
Once, on the set of a movie in the Amazon, they had made love for an entire night in the rain, whole waterfalls of the stuff pouring upon them as they struggled and slipped and grappled from position to position, assuming every possible sexual connection known to man. Dark haired, and shapely, with perfect breasts on her small frame and perfectly shaded aureoles, she was like some native princess, or a slick, wet panther.
The next morning, far from being tired, he had more energy than he'd ever had in his life. In a flash at sunrise he'd reconceived the entire picture and by noon had moved it in an entirely new direction, one infinitely better than before. The brilliance of his insight was clear to everyone except Lucia. For some reason, she became more sullen as the day wore on. No empty vessel of devotion this day, Lucia Sorentano played the part of a pouting, clawing fury. Things escalated till finally, shortly before lunch, she stormed off the set after receiving a bamboo splinter by accident during filming. Demolishing her dressing room, she ordered a helicopter to fly in and carry her back to her villa in the Alps.
He had tried to follow after her in vain, beseeching her return. There was no one else on earth he had ever begged like that. Not the pope, not the president of the Italian Republic. Only Lucia. In some ways, Julie was her re-incarnation. Apparently no one else had seen the potential in the blonde American for Academy Award performances. Nor had they managed to probe deep enough to touch on her temper. He'd seen glimpses of that fiery spirit so far, and whether she knew it or not, she was the Maestro's match. She had said no to him once today and she would do so again. Eventually, she would learn her power and then she would fly the coop forever.
The Dasklovian, in turn, represented Giovanni himself, many years ago. Ambrosiano had never wrestled a bear or a tag team of angry Uzbeks, but he had hoisted crates nearly his own weight at the seaport of Livorno as a dockworker. So, too he had worked nearly every job on a movie set before getting his big directing break when he was barely twenty. It was an unprecedented opportunity at such a low age, but the man who'd mentored him and given him the job was himself a legend in his day and considered unquestionable in his decisions. Ambrosiano had never looked back, and he suspected this young wrestler was the same.
It was all in the eyes, a hunger, a restlessness. This Dasklovian would never be fully at home on this earth. He was a thinker, a dreamer, a stranger, the power of his mind so perfectly camouflaged behind so many muscles. It was this essential feeling of disenfranchisement, of utter disconnection, that was the hallmark of a great director. For the director must let go, setting sail on the imaginations of others, entirely free of all moorings, able to stake a tent anywhere, marking his place in the unknown. And hopefully leaving behind him a road map for others to follow.
At the moment, there was no map. He was flying blind. It would be the actors who would flesh out the contours, provide the landscape. And in order to accomplish this, they would have to learn to serve him. Emotionally.
And sexually.
"Frederica!” He called for his assistant from the door of the house. “We will have dinner tonight … the two actors and I. You will inform the cook. The finest wine is to be served."
Dark haired, olive-eyed Frederica asked if he had a preference as to the type. She had been with him since she was eighteen. He had found her working at a cafe in Rome and offered her a chance to star in a movie. It was her body he wanted and over the next ten months he uncoiled a magnificent seduction that kept her tending to him with baited breath. What he lacked in sheer virility these days he made up for in charm, as well as knowledge of female anatomy.