"We will meet in my room at midnight,” the Maestro explained. “There will be no cameras."
Her stomach did a flip. She was not sure if this should make her feel better or worse. “Signor Ambrosiano,” she ventured. “You are sure that Grigori is all right with all this?"
"Let's find out, shall we?” The Director proceeded to explain the matter in Dasklovian. The former wrestler looked straight ahead, neither at her nor at the Italian.
"Vrastoya,” he said simply, indicating his capitulation as soon as Ambrosiano had finished laying out the matter.
And that was that. Not a word more was spoken with regard to the matter for the rest of dinner. They spoke of various subjects instead, with the Italian serving as translator. Julie paid keen attention, and she was sure Grigori was, too. She picked up a number of new words, and some simple phrasings that she hoped might prove of use in communicating with him in the future. She also learned some more about the man personally.
He had grown up very poor in a coal-mining region. His father and brothers had worked in a mine with the worst safety record in the whole of the old Soviet Union. Several cousins had died in those dank, black depths, not only from tunnel collapses and explosions, but from black lung as well. His father and uncles were spared, though, ironically, his own mother contracted the breathing disease from cleaning the men's clothes each day. The woman, a dark haired beauty with skin of porcelain, had succumbed when Grigori was only five.
Two years after that his seventeen year old sister had been killed by a jealous boyfriend, who then killed himself. His father turned more and more for answers to the bottom of a vodka bottle, leaving Stefans, his elder brother, to raise him. Grigori was a strong, stoic boy, who gained much mettle defending his motherless family against the much bigger schoolyard bullies. By the time he was sixteen he would defeat even most of the hard muscled miners, including his own father.
The old man eventually threw his son out in a drunken rage and Grigori joined the army of the newly formed Republic of Dasklovia, which was born shortly after the fall of Soviet Russia. A civil war was brewing at the time, and apparently he saw much in the military that he would speak of to no man. After this had come the circus, and now the movies.
Julie in turn related her far more mundane existence, as the youngest of three sisters on a three-generation farm deep in the Iowa Corn Belt. As was typical in families such as hers, she was given a disproportionate amount of beauty, which made her quite popular with the boys and quite hated by the girls, her sisters included.
Her mother, never noted for her warmth or her tact, flat out pronounced that with a body like hers, Julie was going to be hard pressed not to end up a whore.
"Men will only ever want one thing from you, and once they have it, you can bet they won't be looking to make an honest woman out of you,” she would preach while clipping sheets to the wash line or stirring endless pots of gravy.
As far as the family was concerned, that prophecy had been fulfilled the day Julie announced she was going to California to pursue her acting. In their minds, tinsel town was Sodom with traffic lights and tanning booths. The only solace she got was from her father who took her quietly aside a short time before her departure.
"Is this what you want?” Asked the balding, overall clad farmer who never spoke more than five words at a time unless it was down at the diner, sitting on the men's side, over seven am coffee chatting about the crops, the weather or last night's ball game.
"With all my heart,” she replied, with just as much economy of words.
"Okay,” he hugged her. And that was that. Julie's mother was not allowed to say another word about the matter.
Julie nearly forgot she was naked telling this story. The Dasklovian had been watching her so intently, hanging upon her every word, she felt as if he were wrapping her in some kind of cloak. Never had she felt that a man wanted to know her more, or that she in turn had wanted to know him. It was as if every detail was coming alive in the re-telling of their journeys, as if everything were meant somehow to lead them to each other.
And yet there was this third party who had brought them together. This Italian. This eager man of passion and culture, switching back and forth in his emotion and language, bridging the gap and melding them, making them one, spiritually, as it were, in the same way a sexual union did for their bodies.
By the time Julie was aware of looking down at her plate again, they were past dinner and onto dessert, sipping strong, Italian coffee from tiny cups and nibbling on heavenly soft pieces of tira misu. The hours of the night were growing short.
"Eleven thirty,” he clapped his hands. “Time to go our separate ways. We meet again in thirty minutes."
Ambrosiano rose to his feet and they both followed suit, Julie feeling rather as if they'd been dismissed by a ship's captain.
"Thirty minutes,” he repeated. “Don't be late."
She looked at Grigori. Pursing his lips he blew her a kiss, making her blush head to toe. She wanted to run and jump on him right now or fall at his feet to be ravished. But the Director had given his orders. She must wait. A half hour more and then she would know sex as she had never dreamed it in her life.
And so it was down to this. The longest night of Julie's life now reduced to the longest thirty minutes.
Chapter Four
Ambrosiano's room was lit by moonlight, the silver rays cutting a swath from the balcony to the large, soft looking bed. Curtains, sheer white, hung from the immensely tall windows. At the moment, they were caught in the light sea breeze, the salty air billowing them like horny ghosts, animated over the scene they were about to witness. Julie entered the room as she had been prepared by Frederica, in a long, sheer white nightgown. The gold of her thatch was visible and the pink of her still taut nipples. She felt more like a virgin sacrifice entering this palatial room than either an actress or a casual lover.
The gray white marble was cool under her bare feet. She thought of laying on it, rolling over the hard unforgiving surface, offering up her body and being fucked there by one of the men or both.
This was the old prince's room, gilded in silver, with a rounded dome, silvery stars and night clouds, a crescent moon at each of four equal points along the circumference. It still echoed the power, the magic of ages gone by. There was no artificial light and as the tall, double doors were closed behind her she was quite curious. And more than a little anxious, seeing neither man about.
Was she the first one here?
"Hello?” She turned about, surveying the priceless space, fit for a museum of the age of Michelangelo. So much to capture the eye. Paintings on the wall, sculptures and a few very naughty things, too, obviously added by Ambrosiano. Her knees went weak as she saw the set of stocks, about waist high. There was a kind of rack, too, near the bed. It was upright at the moment, though it looked as thought it could be lowered to a horizontal position. Along top and bottom there were spaced leather cuffs, covered in fur. Chains also hung here and there, which gave her the impression that a prisoner could be secured on this device in any number of ways. Most intriguing of all was an open chest, filled with various devices, including whips, chains and a large leather mask.