The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes

Take Me to Carnevale

Maxim Jakubowski

They had arranged to meet in a small cafe on the left hand side of Campo Santa Maria Formosa, right opposite the church and the hospital. It was February. It was Venice. A thin morning mist still shrouded the city, floating in from the lagoon, like a shimmering curtain of silk, half obscuring the old stones, the canals and the normal sounds of the floating city.

The connection had been made over the Internet.

He hadn’t even brought his laptop with him on this Venice trip, but the apartment they were staying in, which he had agreed to house-sit for friends travelling in India, had a computer in almost every room and a wi-fi connection and it had been, for both of them, almost too much of a temptation. Like allowing their fate to be decided by the vagaries of electronic availability.

Emma had been sitting on one of the sofas, half reading and half daydreaming, while he listened to music on his iPod. Right then the soundtrack by Nick Cave for The Assassination of Jesse James, he would remember later.

“I don’t know,” Emma had said, and he had known exactly the precise words she had uttered, just from reading her lips behind the threnody in his ears. It was something she often mumbled when things were not quite right.

He’d switched off the music and turned towards her. “What is it?”

The green of her eyes emerged from a sea of sadness. “You know. .” she replied.

He knew. Oh yes, he knew. They were just going nowhere, and no earnest conversation could put them back on track. Even in Venice.

They had reached the city a week or so earlier, arriving at Marco Polo airport. To save money, they had not gone to the extravagance of taking a water taxi but, instead, the bus which took them across the Ponte Della Liberta to Piazzale Roma where they had caught a vaporetto down the Grand Canal to the Rialto Bridge stop and, following the map they had been emailed by his friends, had somehow made their way on foot to the apartment, dodging the customary labyrinth of small bridges and lesser canals.

By now they had seen a multitude of churches, several handfuls of Titian and Canaletto paintings, eaten too much exquisite food to jade the best of palates and suffered an indigestion of baroque and classical architecture and the silences between them were growing longer.

From their bedroom window, they could see St Mark’s Place and the Doge’s Palace and the Campanile across a bend in the Canal. But the weather was cold and humid and the old building’s heating was stuttering at its best and they’d had to wear sweatshirts most of the time both inside and outside.

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.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said.

They had been shopping in Mestre. In Venice, the prices were much too unaffordable. She had found him a sleek black silk suit made in Thailand, which Geoff wore with a black shirt and a scarlet bow tie.

“My prince of darkness!” Emma laughed. As if he now reminded her of a vampire.

In contrast, the dress they had acquired for tonight’s event for her was white and made from thick linen, falling from her bare shoulders to her ankles with ornate elegance, thin, almost invisible straps holding the dress up above her small, delicate breasts, unveiling just a discreet if appetizing hint of gentle cleavage. Underneath she wore just dark hold-up stockings reaching to mid-thigh, their black veil as sharp as her luxuriant pubic hair. A perfect conjugation of nights, when she cheekily raised the dress to her midriff, exposing herself to him.

God, she was stunning! Her lipstick was fiery red and she had surrounded her eyes with a grey circle of kohl.

In the end they had gone shopping for masks together at Mondonovo, on Rio Terra Canal, near the Campo Santa Margherita, where masks could still be found that were replicas of the old historical, traditional models, and were different from the traditional fare on offer to gullible tourists in search of local colour.

For Geoff, in his black outfit, they had chosen a larva, also called a volto. It was white, made of fine wax and should have typically been worn with a tricorn and cloak, which he had of course absolutely no intention of doing. After all, this was the twenty-first century! The shape of the mask would allow him to breathe and drink easily, and so there was no need to take it off, thus preserving anonymity.

Emma, on the other hand, had been coaxed by the old wrinkled lady at the store to select a moretta instead of the more traditional bauta. It was an oval mask of black velvet that was usually worn by women visiting convents. Invented in France, it had rapidly become popular in ancient Venice as it brought out the beauty of feminine features. The mask was finished off with a veil, and was normally secured in place by a small bit in the wearer’s mouth. As this was not appropriate to participate in a modern party, Emma’s model had been modified so it was held by a clip at its apex that was attached to her mountain of curls.

“Bella,” the old woman had said when Emma had tried the mask on.

“Bellissima,” Geoff said in turn, with a painful stab of fear coursing through his stomach, as Emma stood, fully attired in dress and mask, and the jungle of her curls peering impudently above the formal mask.

“Grazie mille,” she laughed.

There was so much more he wanted to say to her. Like “Do you really want to go?” or “What will you do if another man proposes to you?” or “Do you still love me?” but the gondola they had booked had just arrived. They walked down to the waterside entrance of the building. The night air was cold and the sky full of scattered stars whose reflection glistened over the waters of the small canal like a million phosphorescent fish.

Geoff read the address out to the gondolier in his French-accented Italian.

“It’s party time,” Emma said.

The half-abandoned palazzo dominated the Grand Canal halfway between the Ponte del Rialto and the Ponte dell’Accademia, with the Campo San Polo visible from the ornate balconies on the landside of the building.

The tall man who wore the white mask with the elongated beak, similar to the head attire medics had worn in the years of the plague, when pepper had been lodged into the furthest reaches of the bird of prey-like beak to shield its wearers from the illness, had been hovering near them most of the evening. They had briefly been introduced by Jacopo, earlier on in the festivities. Occasionally the man would approach them with new glasses of champagne and would whisper in Emma’s ear, or casually allow his leather-gloved hands to brush against her bare shoulders. His English was nigh perfect, albeit with West Coast American inflections. Geoff couldn’t remember his name. Real or otherwise. They had been introduced as Byron and Ariadne.

As neither Emma’s nor Geoff’s Italian was fluent enough, they had been isolated in the margins of the party and its flowing conversations. They had both drunk too much by now. Which meant Geoff was retreating, as he did, into longer and longer silences, whereas her demeanour was becoming looser, more joyful by the minute. How many times now had she wondered at the sheer elegance of the evening and its incomparable setting, the candles illuminating the cavernous, marble-floored rooms, the gold dishes laden with fruit, the never-ending flow of booze. She was intoxicated by both the alcohol and the sense of occasion. Was this the adventure she always claimed she was seeking when he would raise any questions about the future?

A hand took hold of his. Geoff turned round. A woman in a red velvet dress and a white powdered wig pulled him a metre or two towards her. He looked up at her. She had endless legs enhanced by thin six-inch heels. Behind her mask, he could see her eyes were the colour of coal.

“You are English, no?”

“Indeed,” he answered.

Her scent was sweet, cloying almost.

“So you like our Carnevale?”

“Absolutely,” he responded, ever polite.

Her purple lipsticked lips moved into the shape of a kiss. “Is it your first time in Venice?” she asked.

“Not quite,” he answered. “But the first time I’ve been here at Carnival time, though.”

“Ah. .” She moved nearer to him.

He realized they were now alone in the large room; the woman with purple lips, Emma, the tall guy and him. Somehow all the nearby partygoers had drifted out silently into the other neighbouring rooms, leaving faint echoes of conversations and the tinkling of crystal glasses sort of suspended in the tobacco smoke-infested air.

He took a step back.

“Oh. . Shy?”

“No,” he muttered.

“So?” She extended her left arm and her fingers swept across his dry lips.

“Your woman isn’t as shy, I see,” she remarked.

Geoff’s heart dropped all the way down to his stomach as he glanced round. Emma was now being embraced by the tall stranger, who held her tight against the far wall of the room, his hand burrowing under her dress, his face muzzled into hers. Her eyes were closed.

“Come,” the woman with the white powdered wig said, taking him by the hand and leading him to a low couch at the opposite end of the room.

He followed, as if in a trance. Time slowed down to a crawl.

Her cunt tasted of exotic spices. Pungent, strong, savage. His tongue lapped her generous juices with quiet and studied abandon.

She spread her legs wider apart and pressed his head down firmer against her. Geoff gasped momentarily for breath.

“Lick me harder,” she ordered him.

Once she had tired of his worshipping the thick folds of her labia and the invisible radiating heat pulsing through her opening all the way from her innards, she pulled him on to the worn-out couch and slipped his trousers downwards and began sucking him off.

Somehow, even though she was talented and imaginative, he failed to get totally hard, and she gave up within a few minutes.

“No worry,” she said. “It happens.”

Red-faced, he looked her in the eyes, attempting to find out how old she might be behind that mask. Her skin was spotless and taut and her unending legs were those of an athlete at the peak of her form. He gulped and recalled instantly the taste of her and its striking flavours. She had been on her knees and rose to her feet. He just stood there, his black silk trousers bunched around his ankles.

“Undress,” she said. It was more of an order than a suggestion.

He meekly obeyed.

He wanted to turn around and see where Emma was. And the tall man. Their own noises had been muted, distant, but nevertheless insidiously present all the while he had been involved with the purple-lipsticked woman. She sensed this.

“Do so as you are. Don’t turn,” she said, unclenching the black leather belt that circled her thin waist. “Look down to the floor as you undress.”

He noticed the smudged purple stains of lipstick on the mushroom tip of his cock, like dried wine against the ridged flesh of his masculinity. He pulled the trousers down over his laced shoes. Then kicked the shoes off and quickly slipped off his socks. Surely there was no more ridiculous sight than a naked man wearing just black socks? He then pulled himself up and began unbuttoning his shirt. As he did so, he saw the woman reach for her matching red handbag, which had been lying on the couch and pull a devious contraption, all leather straps and ivory trunk from it.

His stomach froze.

There was a faint cry from the other end of the room.

He was now naked.

The woman pulled her ruched dress upwards and belted the strap-on to her waist. The artificial cock jutted ahead of her like the prow of a boat. Hard, inflexible.

“Maybe this will give you a hard-on?” she suggested. “Legend has it that English men are much appreciative. .”

He knew he could say no, and just leave the room with no further words of protest. But the word wouldn’t pass his lips. And then he knew he could not leave Emma here alone anyway.

The woman indicated the couch and how he should bend over its sides and she positioned herself behind him.

Now, through the corner of his eye, he could finally see Emma and the other man. She had also been stripped naked, and wore only the hold-up black stockings. The pallor of her body was unbearable to look at, as was the shocking contrast between her skin and the dark as night material of the stockings.

The other man’s cock was thick and dark pink and was ploughing her roughly and systematically, pulling out of her almost all the way with every stroke and then digging back into her up to the hilt with every return thrust. Machinelike, metronomic, like a deadly instrument of war. Emma’s face rhythmically banged against the wall with every repeated movement in and out of her.

Geoff felt the pain explode through his own body as the woman’s artificial member breached him with one swift movement. He swallowed, almost bit his tongue

As he did so, he realized why Emma was so silent. A red handkerchief had been stuffed into her mouth. He couldn’t help noticing the handkerchief was the exact same shade of red as the lipstick she had decided to adorn herself with to attend the party.

Also, her hands were tied behind her back with brown fur-lined metal cuffs.

She must have agreed to this.

There was another huge stab of unbearable pain as the strap-on began stretching him and he felt himself being filled like he had never been filled before. For a brief moment, he feared he was going to defecate, as the pit of his stomach went totally numb, but the pressure against his inner walls soon reasserted itself and the pain slowly began to recede. Not that being fucked in this manner gave him any pleasure. He felt as if was becoming detached from his own body as it was being defiled.

And his eyes kept on hypnotically watching the abominable movements of the other man’s massive member inside Emma, the way the tight skin around her opening creased inwards and then outwards again as she was being implacably drilled, and the eyelet of her anus winked open and shut with every movement below it. There was sweat dripping from her forehead. Her calves tightened, her ass cheeks shook, her hair was undone, her curls spilling in every conceivable direction as if moved by an invisible wind rising from the nearby lagoon and flying over the Giudecca to shroud the city on its way to the marshes and Trieste.

From the tremors mechanically coursing through her body, Geoff knew Emma had come. The stranger had succeeded in raising her senses, playing her like Geoff had rarely been capable of doing.

But the man did not cease.

He would continue fucking her until she begged for him to stop.

Would she ever?

Back at the apartment, they at first could not bear to look each other in the eyes. They went to bed in total silence, still coated by the dry sweat of their exertions, of their shame.

They slept late into the morning.

After breakfast, they took a vaporetto to the Lido and later to the Isola di San Servolo — a trip they had agreed to undertake a few days before they had stumbled across the website which had lured them to the party.

Over dinner in the San Polo district, they began communicating again.

“Talk about an adventure!’

“I suppose you could call it that. .”

“Regrets?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Were you jealous?”

“A little, I suppose.”

“You?”

“No. It’s. . how can I put it. . life. .”

“Certainly one way of putting it. .”

They tried to go for coffee at Cafe Florian, but it was closed on Tuesdays in winter. They made their way back to the apartment. There was no power. They tiptoed their way through darkness to the bedroom.

“It doesn’t change anything, does it?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, spooning against him.

It was at that precise moment Geoff knew he was about to lose her.

That it was too late to plea, beg, affirm his love, however impure it now was.

He didn’t sleep that night. He stayed awake in the darkness, listening to the vague sounds of the Canal delle Due Torri lapping against the building’s rotting stone facade and the imperceptible melody of her breath, as her chest moved peacefully up and down against him under the duvet.

He smelled her, listened to her as if trying to fix these memories in his brain once and for all. What he would one day be left with.

Geoff finally succumbed to sleep around seven in the morning.

When he awoke, she had left the apartment.

The morning went by. He tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate on the text, whether a week-old newspaper or an anonymous serial killer thriller.

Emma returned at the beginning of the afternoon. She was wearing that black skirt he had once bought her in Barcelona and which held so many memories. The one with the giant sunflower patch sewn into its flank. And a T-shirt he had once loaned her in the early days of the affair when their lovemaking had proven a tad rough and messy and he had left compromising semen stains across the blouse she had been wearing that day. The T-shirt that advertised “Strangers in Paradise” across the Aubrey Beardsley-like face of a woman.

He was sipping a glass of grapefruit juice at the kitchen table.

He welcomed her.

“Had a good walk?”

“No.”

“Oh. .”

A shadow passed across the room shielding her eyes from his examination.

“I saw him again,” Emma said.

The pain inside returned.

“Have you fucked him again?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“There is another party tonight. A different palazzo this time, near the Campo San Silvestro. He’s invited me. Wants to introduce me to some of his friends. .”

“Do you want to go?”

“Yes.”

“Without me?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I still love you, you know.”

“I know. But love is not enough. I need adventures, you see. On my own. I don’t want to be owned. .”

“I’ve never tried to own you, you know that. You’re too much of a gypsy to be kept in a cage.”

Emma smiled. “You can come, if you wish, I reckon. As long as you’d promise not to interfere and allow whatever happens to happen. .”

“I don’t think so,” Geoff said. “Don’t much care to repeat the other evening’s foursome. Just didn’t feel right to me somehow.”

“I understand.”

She walked to the bedroom they had been using; she was holding a large Rinascente canvas bag.

“What have you got there? Been shopping?” he asked.

She looked away. “No. .” She hesitated then came clean. “It’s the outfit he wishes me to wear tonight.”

“Can I-”

Emma interrupted him. “I’d rather you didn’t see it, Geoff.”

That evening, he left the apartment to wander the narrow streets and have several coffees in a row to allow her to dress in privacy.

By the time he returned, she had already left for the Carnevale or had maybe been picked up.

She did not return that night or the following day.

His days and nights were haunted by obscene visions of her with other men, and the abominable images of alien cocks of all shapes, sizes and shades invading her. Her mouth, her cunt, her arse, her hands. Orgasmic flush invading the delicate pallor of her skin. The indelible marks of hands, ropes, whips and paddles across the familiar geography of her body. And the sound of her voice just saying, “Yes”, “Yes” and “Yes” again, like Bloom’s Molly. And the grateful acceptance of her smile, of her eyes.

Finally, she reappeared halfway through Carnevale.

She looked radiant. More beautiful than ever.

“You haven’t shaved,” she remarked. “It’s so grey.”

“Couldn’t be bothered,” he said. “So, you’re back.”

“Not really,” Emma said. “I’ve just returned to pick up my stuff, my clothes and all that.”

“I’m sorry,” Geoff said.

“It’s the way things are,” Emma remarked. “After Carnevale ends, Master has promised me that the adventure will continue. He wants to take me to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and also the carnival in Rio one day. .”

“How exciting,” he said bitterly in response.

“Don’t be like that, please, Geoff,” she protested. “You should be happy for me. Respect what I am doing, surely.”

“I find that difficult, Emma. I would have given you everything. Surely you realize that.”

“I know, but it would never have been enough. You know that. I’m young. I have a life to live. My life. ”

Her skin shone in the pale light coming through the window, the curls in her hair like the gift of Medusa.

Geoff closed his eyes. Promising himself he would not open them until she had left with her belongings.

He never saw Emma again. He stayed in Venice until the end of Carnevale. At dinner one evening, he met another woman, a legal interpreter from Arizona. They had a few drinks together and he was pleased to see that he could still chat up a woman, be reasonably witty and seductive. But when he took her back to the apartment and undressed her after some willing fumbling and a cascade of mutual kisses, he wasn’t capable of fucking her. Just couldn’t get hard enough, despite her assiduous ministrations. Lack of inspiration or wrong person, he wasn’t sure.

The next day as he sat at a cafe by the Rialto Bridge, he caught a glimpse of a small water cab racing down the Grand Canal. A woman was standing at its prow. For a brief moment, he thought he recognized Emma. Same skirt and T-shirt, but the embarkation was moving too fast for him to be certain it was actually her. At any rate, she was alone on the small boat, standing erect behind the driver, facing the breeze.

Shortly after, his friends returned from India and he quickly made his way back to London.

He left the two masks they had worn on that fateful evening behind. Not quite the sort of apparel you could wear for the Notting Hill Carnival.

He would never go back to Venice.