Cheyney Fox (40 page)

There was something else Cheyney was experiencing, an extraordinary sense of freedom. With this day behind her and her name flashed around the world as a candidate for America’s first lady of the arts, Cheyney Fox was through, finished forever with that part of her life that had for so long belonged to Kurt Walbrook, and to Austria. She had, for years, been executing a secret plan. This day was the culmination of it.

In the morning she would be gone from Austria to return only for the odd visit to the museum, a concert in Salzburg, and to ski on Walbrook Mountain with her son; as an American in transit who could say and do as she pleased without fear of offending her husband and his friends, his country. No longer would she have to pretend that
Anschluss
, the union with Nazi Germany that took place in March 1938, never happened. The old Austrian aristocracy — friends, relations of Kurt — who welcomed Hitler’s armies and still, behind closed doors, asserted that they had been right to do so; men and women who still mourned the passing of their führer — would never be a part of her life again.

Cheyney and Takashi allowed themselves meaningful smiles before they parted. “Shall we say, as soon as you are able to get away?” he asked. She raised her glass, and, to a seductive nod of her head and a twinkle in her eyes, they parted.

Senator Harvey Wigan, known at home along the rugged northern Atlantic coastal state he represented and in Washington as Harve, or Senator, finally extricated himself from the gaggle of attractive women fluttering around him. Spotting Cheyney about a third of the way up the ramp was his incentive. He made his way toward her as quickly as his long legs would carry him without making his pursuit too obvious.

Eyes fixed on her, he took in every nuance of beauty in the woman he had been wooing for the past few years. The senator was a stoic New Englander, a typical native son, whose philosophy of virtue as the highest good had served him well. It had made him one of the most respected men in the Republican party. He could hope to have the White House in his sights in four years or maybe eight. A handsome widower who served his state and his country well because he concentrated his attention
on ethics and, as required, could control his passions, indifferent to passing pleasure or pain in himself or in the people he represented. In short, a person of great self-control and fortitude, able to rise to austerity when he had to. But inside that crusty facade lived another man, who could and did let go, so long as it never challenged his ethics. A soft pussycat of a man, as soft as he was hard. A man with an appetite for sex, who exercised it in lovemaking rather than whoring, who might attract the most exciting available women on the political circuit.

He hardly took his eyes off Cheyney as he walked toward her. The tall, slim-hipped Cheyney, with her long back and exquisitely rounded buttocks and breasts, who satisfied his sexual fantasies. The intelligent creative mind that excited his life. The sensitive loving mother who, against all odds, was able to understand and practice real and constructive family love. From her he had learned what a truly loving family relationship could mean. This fascinating and complex woman, who he meant one day to make his wife, was unaware of him, lost in a painting, yet drew him magnetically toward her.

How beautiful she looked to him, dressed as she was, all in black. Cheyney had chosen very carefully what she would wear that day. A dress of crepe de chine silk with a deep V neckline that plunged to below her breasts to accentuate a sliver of exposed creamy flesh to attract, even titillate, without being vulgar. Its skin-fitting bodice eased itself into a skirt, cut on the bias, that fell to just above her knees. When she walked it moved with grace, sometimes swirling, at other times clinging to the curves of her strong, sensual body. The sleeves, by contrast, were lusciously ballooned, and the crepe de chine, black on black, damask pattern of full-blown roses finished tight to the wrists. Black stockings and high-heeled black alligator pumps encased legs that seemed to go on forever, and feet slender, long, and elegant.

He was no more than five feet away from her. He stopped and studied Cheyney’s face under the elegant, wide-brimmed hat, a sombrero shape of finely woven straw lacquered black. Under it her long, shiny, coal-black hair was pulled back in an intricate, pretzel-like twist at the nape of the neck.

Her large, violet-colored eyes danced with excitement as she
stood engrossed in the De Kooning painting from his woman’s series, 1952–53. She had eyes for nothing else. What of herself was she seeing in this volatile, sexual, cruel, big-breasted woman of De Kooning? The good senator studied the painting, the slashes of color, flesh, red, big frightening black eyes, the devouring mouth, all so powerfuly female and aggressive, they nearly jumped off the canvas. He sensed that, if she could, the woman would eat him alive. She was depraved sexual madness, gloriously female, gloriously cunt, the woman, all paint and canvas, sucked him into herself, and his heart skipped a beat for the ecstasy of her, and the genius who created her.

Someone grazed his arm and, in excusing himself, broke the spell of the moment. He set his attention back on Cheyney’s face. So pale and flawless a skin, he thought. He imagined the feel of the high cheekbones, the jawline, and the shape of the chin in his hands, familiar to him from the many times he had held her face and caressed it, made love to it. How many times his finger had traced the long, straight slope of her nose, a perfect nose, such as might have graced the Venus de Milo. Those times were part of his life now.

He focused on her lips and her mouth, so sensually perfect and alive. Mouth and lips that mastered the art of erotic lovemaking. Today covered in the perfect red. He sighed, dazzled, as he always was, by her beauty and her style.

Still she hadn’t seen him, not even when he went to her and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. Only when he spoke did he gain her attention.

“Cheyney, what a great achievement. We’ll be leaving all the Washington crowd directly after lunch. If you like we ca …” She stopped him by placing a finger gently over his lips.

“I won’t be going with you, Harve. A change of plan. I hope you don’t mind.”

Of course he did. But there was something, a tone in her voice, a look in her eye that prescribed his actions. Harve was a shrewd politician, a careful man who knew the danger of pushing or pulling when the time was not right. He took her face in both his hands and with great affection kissed her on the lips. He smiled, then, without a word, slowly turned on
his heel. Before he even took a step, Cheyney placed a hand on his shoulder:

“Lunch? We can at least have that together.”

He hesitated for a few seconds and then turned back to face her. He was encouraged by the look of relief in her eyes and then more so when she said, “Oh, good. There is a sumptuous buffet for my guests. You will love the food, and for you and me, the Austrian minister, two princes, three great painters and a sculptor, two museum directors, and four of your Washington bigwigs,” — she had good grace to take a deep breath and laugh at herself before she continued — “a table set in the sun where we can watch the black swans in the moat and have a perfect view of the white marble sculpture garden and the tree-covered mountains beyond. If you had said no, I should have despaired. Now I know, with you by my side it will be, as it always is, interesting and amusing.”

The words were all the right ones, but the eyes — he saw nothing of what he wanted to see in the eyes. Desire. Flickers of her carnal nature; love, passion — those emotions she sometimes had for him. Not there today. Today’s message was friend, affection. He settled for that.

Chapter 35

I
t was late afternoon. Takashi was waiting for her. The baroque splendor of the eighteenth-century room was bathed in the golden light of a sun that was dropping fast now in a still-clear and bright blue sky. She pushed the pair of twenty-foot-high doors open and burst into the bedroom once reserved for the visiting Royals of Europe. He was standing by the
window, the light a frame behind his body. She saw him and calm entered her soul where, moments before, all the fragments of her life and her work had been been churning away.

Takashi’s naked beauty, his fiercely masculine and yet soft and tender sensual looks, instilled in her a sensation of quiet that could leave her open and vulnerable, on the one hand, and, on the other, bring all her quiescent sexual passion wide awake. Her need for intimate physical contact became acute. He was, when lust was all important to them, as it was now, as fire and ice for her.

The body, such perfect young flesh. The skin the color of bronze, and so smooth and silky, with the texture of fine polished marble. Not broken by a blemish, not a hair, except for the mass of black covering his pubis and accentuating a formidable penis, that, like the licentiousness in his dark and smoldering Oriental eyes, his voluptuous lips, exquisite mouth, promised ecstasy and always delivered more. Instantly captivated, Cheyney was disarmed of her need to stay or be in control. She was mesmerized by him, and their mutual lust for each other.

He ran his fingers through his straight black hair. She watched his every movement as he walked toward her. Her anticipation was heightened even more by the need she recognized in his eyes, the passion, the love she saw in them.

Scent of freshly cut lilacs; deafening silence mingling with the golden light to envelop their senses. Her heart beat faster as he reached out and slowly pulled the long pin from her hat. She watched him remove it, riveted by this simple action, that, to her eyes, appeared as slow motion. He placed it on the Louis XIV commode next to her.

It was their eyes that spoke, and what they said sent a shiver down her spine. He raised a hand to unbutton the sleeve fastened tight around her wrist and then turned its palm up and licked a small spot in its center with the tip of his tongue, then sealed it with a kiss. And again, he tasted her flesh from the palm of her other hand. The taste of her was always an aphrodisiac for him. He felt her tremor of bliss, her sigh of nervous passion. She lowered her long and luscious lashes and took a deep breath. Takashi stepped behind her and opened, one by one, the tiny concealed fastenings at the back of her dress and
then slowly eased it off her shoulders and let it slip to the carpet. He lowered his head and placed a kiss upon her shoulder.

Facing her once more he saw a tear poised in the corner of each eye. Her breasts tantalized him, the already erect nipples and pale pink nimbus, the weight and superb roundness in his hands, ignited the flame that always smoldered within him for her. He ran his hands from the sides of her breasts down her body, and with the tip of his tongue he licked away first one tear and then the other as he broke the thin cords of her panties from her hips and slowly slid the patch of black silk from between her legs.

The mood suddenly changed. Not that he became less tender. More that the sight of her standing in black high-heeled shoes, naked but for provocative dark stockings held in place by long garters attached to a belt of matching black lace, signaled sex. It triggered the animal passion they shared, their desire to feel the thrill of hot, molten sexual bliss.

In one swift action Takashi swung Cheyney off her feet. He cradled her in one arm and wrapping one of her legs over his hip, his fingers teased her more intimate lips and adeptly opened a floodgate of pleasure for her. Her heartbeat racing, she bit hard on the soft inside of her mouth, trying to quell the sensation that she was dissolving. He burst into her with one swift, sharp thrust. She gasped, and again and again called out his name. He silenced her with a kiss that she hungrily responded to while she clung to him, arms around his neck. And then, slowly and determinedly he made love to her with his raging penis so that they both might feel every excitement their coupling generated. At the same time, he buried his face in her breasts and grazed and sucked her rigid, needy nipples with his lips.

In a passion of pleasure, she encouraged him for more. She was helpless to do otherwise, because with his every exquisite thrust, she was able to give a little more of herself to him. He carried Cheyney to the large, canopied bed, draped in black silk damask. There Takashi and she shared in his sexual possession of her. She took him not with passive resistance but with active receptiveness that stirred their sexual lechery. They fucked as one being with two souls.

While their bodies eagerly submitted to the sexual rhythm
of passionate intercourse, he whispered to her, “Oh, how good wanton love can be when both say yes to it. No substitute for this.”

His words inflamed Cheyney. She could bear no more and came in such a violent passion that she called out, “Yes, oh yes!” before she silenced his words and all their thoughts with a kiss where mouths opened and tongues met and made love as well.

Takashi, now having achieved sexual release and his own private ecstasy, continued to make exciting and imaginative love to her. Every orgasm Cheyney had was now enjoyed carnally by Takashi. Eventually with gentle kisses and caresses he finally calmed Cheyney’s sexual passion.

In bed, between sexual trysts, they drank chilled champagne, and they dozed in each other’s arms. Finally Cheyney spoke. They were lying on their sides, facing each other, against large soft pillows covered in white linen and ecru-colored Chantilly lace. Pools of soft, warm light filtered through the silk lamp shade, casting an erotic glow over the bed, their lust.

“You make the world stop and let me get off. When we make love, it’s a deep and abiding erotic love, all-consuming. That it should have happened once seems a miracle to me. That it should happen, as it does, every time, an even greater miracle.”

While she spoke, he stroked her hair. Then he raised her from the cushions. They sat opposite each other, resting on their haunches, in the middle of the bed, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. He placed her hands one on each thigh, and did the same with his, on himself, and then he bowed his head and remained that way for several minutes. A silence descended upon them. A deep, spiritual, soul-searching kind of silence, cleansing, healing, rejuvenating.

When Takashi finally raised his head and looked once again into Cheyney’s eyes, he was able to see another kind of woman in them. He reached around her and slowly pulled the pins from her hair, unbound the twist at the nape of her neck, and watched her waist-length hair tumble down around her shoulders. He brushed out the long and lustrous tresses and arranged them most carefully off her face and down her back. “Don’t
move” was his gentle injunction, more compelling than any command.

When he returned to her, he sat on his knees before her once again. He took some of her hair from either side of her face in his hand and draped it into shoulder-length pieces, brushing them until they shone like silk. He sat back and viewed his work with great pleasure. She was magnificent in her nakedness, veiled only with her long, straight, black hair, the wisps at the sides framing her face.

He dressed her in a splendid eighteenth-century white kimono, heavily embroidered in burnished gold. The pattern of chrysanthemums danced in the lamplight. He was meticulous in arranging every fold around her. When he had finished, he held a hand mirror for her to look at herself. Tears came to her eyes, she never imagined that she could still look pure, that there might still remain a vestige of innocence in her soul. But there was, and Takashi knew how to read it. He took her in his arms and they made love again. This time their intercourse was as if she were a young girl again, a virgin. They allowed themselves the pleasure of letting their passion build slowly, very slowly, into a frenzy of lust and from there into the secret twilight zone of depravity.

When he awoke she was gone.

Cheyney moved quietly through the deep seclusion of the wood, trying not to disturb the things around her. The higher she went up the path that curled up into the mountains, the more she was aware of the quiet, the profound solitude. It was still dawn. Gradually, imperceptibly, the forest brightened under a sun that broke through tall fir trees heavy with the weight of new growth. From the other side of the valley she could hear the throaty sound of birds answering the hoot of an owl. But where she climbed it was quiet, so still.

Cheyney felt the woods strange and holy, with the sun growing brighter through the trees. Prayer, that was what it was like. She climbed swiftly with a surefootedness leaving Schloss Garmisch-Konigsberg, and Takashi, the museum, and all the life that her thoughts had assembled, behind her. She forgot herself. There were only two places in this world where Cheyney’s psyche was empty, where her struggles and her pains dissolved. Here, at this hour of stillness, walking and climbing
the mountain. Only here and when she was locked in the arms of Eros with Takashi was there no sense of separateness, of the oppression of being human.

After a time the noise of the day imposed itself. She listened to the song of many birds, the murmur of the wind, the rustle of leaves, and the chatter of insects. Through the morning mist gathering slowly below her in the valley, she could just make out the village with its streets and shops and houses, the church spire poking through. And Cheyney imagined that she was that thick mist. Immersed in the fantasy, the romance, she was once more wrenched into seeing the paltriness of her own life.

The glory of the dawn had been fast fading away, and Cheyney was once again aware of her daily routine of being caught in the habit of work, the struggles between man and man, her own weaknesses and strengths in her quest for identity, love, power, and security. Her own inward pain and the everlasting sorrow of mankind.

“Why do you do it — go back down into all that so-called civilization, all that brutality and vulgarity and noise put together by man, and add to it?” she asked of herself aloud.

Cheyney pulled her Hermes head scarf off, shook out her hair, and ran her fingers through it several times. She unknotted the scarf and flapped it sharply before retieing it. She plunged her hands into the slash pockets of her suede culottes, bent down and pulled her socks up. One last look down into the valley where the mists were breaking — she could just see the turrets of the museum, Schloss Garmisch-Konigsberg, clinging to the side of the ridge. Then a farewell look at her momentary heaven. She started down the mountain path to the valley below at a fast walk, and with every step she was energized. The adrenaline started flowing back.

Again she spoke to herself aloud. “I’ll tell you why you do it, rush down this mountain to the madness and the badness, and ugliness, and the good and the evil of life, Cheyney. ’
Cause
, it
is
life, and you’re only here once. Just once. And before you die,
you
are going to make sure it was all worth it, the good, the bad, and the heartbreak.”

It had been a long, hard road, with its twists and turns, its peaks and killing depths, but at last Cheyney Fox was where she wanted to be. Alive and well in herself. Her own woman.
She had no need to rationalize her actions or her feelings anymore. “Okay, Cheyney, it’s time to hop back on the world. Now let’s see where you go. There’s all that power you wield, and success to enjoy, and delicious money to play with, and exciting things to discover, and deals to be made, and Taggart to love and care for, and more mountains to climb, and sex to be tamed by.”

The path flattened out now. She was in the valley, on the edge of the village. Cheyney began to hum to the rhythm of her shoes on the cobblestones. She felt on top of the world.

The village streets at that hour in the morning were almost deserted. The only sign of life, the milkman, whom she didn’t know, the butcher, whom she did, hanging up a whole pig, between hooks heavy with fat and sassy-looking links of sausage, a whole calf’s liver. She said hello to the milkman, who doffed his hat, and she waved to the butcher and walked on in the direction of the bakery. Suddenly she stopped and placed her hands over her ears. It was the hiss of that German woman’s venomous words.

They made scant impact on her, except the “rich and famous.” Yes, she had done a great many things to be rich and famous. And why not? Poor and unknown had been a living death for her. After Kurt died she had made a conscious decision. It was a matter of balance. Leveling the scales of justice vis-à-vis Cheyney Fox.

Cheyney knew that she was disliked as much as she was revered. The old Cheyney would have hated that, wanted to be universally loved. The new Cheyney could not care less. Remembering the woman’s words was for Cheyney, standing on the village street in front of the open window of the butcher shop, just another confrontation with herself. The insinuations were no problem for her because Cheyney accepted herself totally. She was prepared to confront other people on anything because she had first confronted herself on everything.

Cheyney Fox, more than rich and famous and successful and powerful, felt a very strong woman. Her strength lay in her unsparing acceptance of Cheyney Fox. That was her real power. Gained by being able to communicate with herself. And, having achieved that she could communicate with anyone else. The hissing woman had been a coward; Cheyney felt fearless. Cheyney
suddenly wanted to tell it all, just the way it had been. David Rosewarne came to mind.

She walked down a short road of uneven stones that ended in a cul-de-sac, pretty for its hanging baskets of spring flowers and eighteenth-century crooked houses. The scent of daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips mingling with that of freshly baked bread, cinnamon, and vanilla, was dizzying like a heady perfume. She walked through the open back doors of the bakery and into the kitchen. The clink and clang of bread pans, cake tins, baking sheets, the whirring of heavy-duty mixers, the hissing of the gas jets of the huge ovens greeted her as did Gunther the baker and Gerta, his wife. Klaus and Heinrich, their helper sons, accorded her a nod.