Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) (35 page)

‘You want to know what drove your mother mad? It was me, Louise. She made your father sacrifice you to me. I never wanted
you
.’

‘You’re a liar,’ she whispers.

He drops her arms and steps back, looking pleased with himself.

‘What I wanted was quite simple, really. Your father owed
me money. I desired his wife. Conveniently, he was dying. I told him that I would take his wife as mine, in payment for his debt.’

The room begins to spin. She mustn’t faint, she has to stay upright.

‘Oh, but your parents were so
in love
,’ he says nastily. ‘They loved each other more than they loved you, Louise, because your father convinced me to marry you instead of your mother.’

He begins to laugh.

‘The stupid man! Do you think I would let any woman turn me down? Why do you think I brought her all the way from Warsaw to Venice after your father died? As far as I was concerned, I was getting two for the price of one. Your mother did for me until . . .’

A shadow crosses his face, and for a moment Signor Brzezinski doesn’t look too pleased with himself. She sees him collecting himself, his eyes hardening again.

‘Until she got sick, and then . . . when I was forced to place her on Poveglia, well then it was your turn, Louise.’

She looks at the dark, damaged soul of her husband, and she knows that what he says is true.

‘No!’ she says through clenched teeth.

‘You are not normal,’ he continues, spitting at her in anger. ‘You can’t give me a child, and you behave like some kind of depraved creature, fucking the whole of Venice right in front of my eyes. In my opinion you are insane, just like
your mother, and it is time for you to join her.’

He surges forward and grabs her in a headlock, but Belle’s rage is so great that she strains forward and bites his neck. He cries out, stepping back, and she can see her teeth marks and blood springing through the punctured skin.

‘Oh, wonderful.’ Signor Brzezinski laughs. ‘More evidence of your insanity. I think it will be easy enough to obtain an annulment, don’t you? Then I can find myself a new, clean bride, and I won’t have to put up with a dirty whore any more.’

He pushes her back on to the bed, so that she falls upon it, the tray of her breakfast things scattering on the floor. He slaps her face, and she is kicking back. He is not sending her to that island of terror so that she becomes like her mother, hearing the screams of ghosts from the time of the plague. All those poor people dragged out there to rot. She will not be left to wander along its beach layered with the ash of their burnt bones. She remembers meeting her mother’s doctor, a chilling figure, who, despite Signor Brzezinski’s assurances that he was a leader in his field, Belle was convinced was some kind of sadist. He performed lobotomies, for God’s sake. No, she is not going to Poveglia. She would rather die here on this bed now than let that happen. She doesn’t care about her promise to her father any more. She is not going to look after her mother, for her mother never looked after her.

She kicks Signor Brzezinski between the legs, and he doubles over in shock. She jumps up off the bed and makes for
the door, but then she remembers Pina, in the bathroom, and hesitates. Her chance is lost. Signor Brzezinski grabs her from behind and spins her across the room. She stumbles, falling and landing backwards on the carpet. He is standing over her, his foot raised above her stomach.

‘I am going to crush you, Louise, obliterate your useless womb,’ he snarls.

He looks like a demon, Belle thinks. She closes her eyes and waits for pain. In the middle of her fear she feels a second of grief for the darkness that is her husband. How did he become like this?

‘Stop!’

She hears Pina screaming. She opens her eyes and sees her maid pulling at Signor Brzezinski’s arms. Her husband is so surprised he momentarily calms down and puts his foot back down on the floor. Pina continues to pull at him desperately.

‘She’s with child!’ she screams.

Signor Brzezinski teeters back as if he has been drinking, and looks at Belle lying on the ground in front of him.

‘Is this true?’

She is about to say
Of course not
. She can’t think why Pina is telling Signor Brzezinski that she is pregnant. She is Barren Brzezinska. And then a thought occurs to her. It is not her, but
him
. He is the Barren Brzezinski. And she remembers that time with Santos after Signor Brzezinski beat her, when they were not so careful. Since then she has not bled. She brings her hand to her stomach protectively. Of course, that was why she
was sick, and that was how Pina knew. She looks at Pina in awe. At the girl’s flushed cheeks, and the terrified look in her eyes, like a lamb about to be slaughtered. She is so brave to come between Belle and her husband.

‘Yes, I am with child,’ she whispers.

‘Well,’ he says darkly, ‘I am sure it is not mine.’

‘But no one will know . . .’ whispers Pina.

So courageous, Belle thinks. This girl is my protector.

Signor Brzezinski looks at Pina and considers her.

‘So this is my heir?’ he asks the young Sicilian. ‘Some sailor’s bastard child?’

Belle sits up, pulls the hair away from her face.

‘Yes,’ she challenges him, and he turns to look at her.
And you will never set eyes on this baby. We are leaving Venice
.

‘Your condition has saved you from Poveglia, Louise, for the time being,’ he says gruffly. ‘I need this child to be mine. Finally you will give me an heir . . . even if it is not my own flesh and blood . . . but you must be punished for this. Severely.’

She sees the cold flint settle in his eyes, and before she can think, he has grabbed Pina by the arm and pushed her up against the wall. The girl screams, and Belle leaps to her feet and runs over to her brute of a husband, clawing at his back. He is too strong for her and knocks her aside. He swings his arm wide and punches Pina in the belly. The girl doubles over in agony.

‘You bastard!’ Belle screams.

Signor Brzezinski backs away from Pina, who flops on to the floor. Belle rushes over to her and protects the girl within her arms. The child is shaking uncontrollably. Belle has never felt such a killing rage for her husband.

‘You leave her alone,’ she hisses.

‘I can see that there is a fondness between mistress and maid,’ he replies, such venom in his voice. ‘So, my dear, if I have any reason to believe that you are not performing your duties as a respectable wife with child, it will be Pina who will have to take your punishment.’

He walks over to the two women.

‘And I won’t just be hitting her either.’

He shoves his hand between Pina’s legs, and the girl winces in pain and fright. Belle pushes his hand away.

‘I will tie you to a chair, Louise, and make you watch me take this girl’s maidenhead. You will be responsible for her ruin.’

Pina is quaking in Belle’s arms. She pulls the girl closer, feeling her frantic heartbeat against her chest.

‘If you touch a hair on this girl’s head, I will kill you,’ she hisses at her husband.

He steps back and laughs at her. He is the picture of masculine mirth, hands on his hips as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. Her threat is preposterous to him.

‘Excuse me, ladies, I must away, for I have important business to attend to.’

As he strides out of the room, Belle has a vision of herself
grabbing the candlestick on her dressing table and driving it through the back of his head.

Stay calm, she tells herself. Run away
.

She turns to Pina, lifts the sobbing girl’s chin.

‘Are you all right?’

The maid nods, still unable to speak. Belle pulls her to her feet.

‘As soon as he has left the house, we have to go.’

‘But where will we go?’

Belle rushes to the wardrobe and pulls out a carpet bag.

‘Trust me, Pina. I know someone who will help us.’

‘But I can’t go with you! My family . . .’

‘You have to. Signor Brzezinski will hurt you if you don’t. Your family hasn’t protected you. You owe them nothing.’

‘But what if he catches us?’ She hears the terrified tremor in the young girl’s voice.

‘He won’t. I promise.’

Belle has made one more promise to decide another person’s fate. Yet she is confident that soon she and Pina will be safe.

We are escaping, Pina, the baby and I
.

Santos will save them. How can he not?

VALENTINA ENTERS THE DARK ROOM. IT IS SO BLACK INSIDE
that when she raises her hand she cannot see it in front of her face. It is cooler in here than the Velvet Underworld, and she can feel her naked skin goosepimpling with the chill and anticipation. She has no idea how large the room is. Or if there is anyone else in here with her yet. She walks blindly forward in her high-heeled boots, afraid she will stumble. There is a sound in the room. A deep bass throb like a heartbeat inside her head. It is as if the room, though dressed like death, is in fact alive around her.

Suddenly there is a click, and a blaze of white light. In the centre of the black room is a huge light box, made out of a table. Just like her one at home but even larger. Beside the box stands Leonardo, naked apart from a Venetian mask with a fantastic black plume in its centre, and a pair of black leather gloves, exactly as she described it to him. She walks towards him and her legs are shaking. Why is she so frightened? This
is
her
fantasy. Her secret desire, kept safe inside the Dark Room for no one else to find. She is even anonymous herself, the mask she is wearing concealing her identity as well.

She approaches the light box and stands facing it. She recalls the erotic negative she was looking at this morning. This is the beginning of her fantasy. To re-enact the image that Theo gave her.

Leonardo silently offers her his hand, and she climbs on to the light box. She feels the heat of the bulbs beneath the glass, and the blinding light makes her look up, yet she can see nothing and no one else in the Dark Room. She cannot even see the way out. She takes a deep breath, and lies down on her front. She imagines how she might look, her body emblazoned by the floodlights. She is completely naked apart from her boots and the mask on her face. She parts her legs and bends her knees upwards, kicking her high heels out to the side provocatively. She lifts her bottom and exposes herself, feeling a delicious thread of seductivity coursing through her body. She twists herself around and places her hands between her buttocks, then spreads her fingers and pushes her index finger into herself, lifting her backside so that she is showing herself off. She feels wanton, and bold. Leonardo stands behind her, watching, his mask concealing his reaction. She looks at him, and opens her mouth, trails her tongue along her bottom lip.

He comes right up to the edge of the table, so that the light illuminates him from below and gives his masked face an otherworldly aspect.

‘What is your desire, Valentina?’ He speaks in his dominant’s voice.

‘To please you,’ she whispers, pushing her finger further inside herself, and raising her bottom so that she is offering herself to him.

He lifts her hand from her bottom and brings it around and above her head. On either corner of the light box table are leather restraints. He slips her hands through the restraints and buckles them tightly. She feels her nipples hardening with anticipation, her breath shallow. He trails his leather finger down her spine, all the way to the curve of her bottom, and down. She gasps as the cold leather touches her inside. He removes his hand quickly and she is throbbing now, desperate to feel his touch once again. He pulls her booted legs further apart, bringing them down so that she is lying spread-eagled on the light box. He belts her ankles to either corner of the table.

He strokes her legs with his gloved hands, massaging her flesh with the leather, going higher and higher up her thighs. Now his hands are above her backside, pawing and massaging her cheeks. The sensation of the supple leather against her pliant skin becomes more and more intense. Suddenly he stops massaging her. One hand is pushing down on the small of her back, and the next thing she feels his gloved palm smacking her buttock. She gasps from shock, fear, excitement. He spanks her again. The leather stings against her skin, sending her mind into a delirium. He spanks her one more time, and
this time it resonates deep within her, vibrating through her body, stimulating her deep inside.

Oh yes, this is just like her fantasy, but so much more
.

Four. Five. Six smacks and Leonardo stops. She is quivering inside, her passion screaming at him to touch her again. He walks around the table to the top of the light box. She looks at him from beneath her mask. They are two players in her erotic drama. Exposed, and yet protected. She watches him pull each glove off, slowly, finger by finger, and then he removes the plume from the top of his mask with a flourish, dragging the fine black feather between his fingers. She licks her lips, holding her breath with anticipation. In silence he walks around behind her again, trailing the tip of the feather all the way down her back, drawing circles on her skin so that she is imagining them as tattoos of her yearning, imprinted upon her. The signs of what she craves.

Leonardo’s feather has now reached her backside, and he is tipping it under her, teasing her clitoris with it. It is light, caressing her delicately after the severity of the leather smacked against her skin. The contrast warms her blood, makes her soften further inside. He circles the feather, and at the same time she feels his fingers pushing inside her. Not one, but two fingers, up, up deep inside, making her quiver and tremble with want.

‘Oh please,’ she stutters, breaking her silence.

Leonardo pulls his fingers out, and gradually slows the action of the feather upon her clitoris.

‘I believe you are ready now, Valentina,’ he says. ‘For your surprise.’

She tenses slightly. What surprise?

‘Isn’t this what you really want?’