A Preliminary Invitation The Duchesse
Anna-Marie Brignole, in her black and bronze Chinese dressing gown, sat drinking her morning coffee in her penthouse apartment, on the Ile Saint-Louis, overlooking the Seine. She had not been able to clear her mind of the image of the young man she had seen standing a little to the side, in front of Gustave Caillebotte's 1875 painting, "The Floor Scrappers," the day before, at the Musée d'Orsay, when she had stopped to look at some late nineteenth-century paintings, after finishing the business she had with M., the director of the museum, which involved a sizeable donation.
Taken by the young man's beauty, she stayed to listen to his spiel, and was charmed, as she had not expected to be -- generally put off by institutional or academic chatter about art -- by the way he saw the painting and discussed it before a group of American tourists. When he spoke, he made her understand how the spirit of nature, when permitted to operate through the human consciousness of the ubiquitous presence of nature, inherently informs the discipline of both manual labor and the aesthetic of the fine arts and makes a bridge between the two. The way his English was inflected and distorted by his French pronunciation gave the beauty of his voice a deep coloring. His was a contralto voice that was gentle, almost feminine in sweetness, but never inaudible.
The duchess prided herself on her instinct for discovering protégées – Imala, first and foremost, and Stéfan, for example, when she first met him at the Musée Galliera with Luc Bastienne, the night that Luc spoke there. Regarding this museum guide who had captivated her, there was more to him than what appeared as he took people from picture to picture and illuminated each one. She was sure of it.
When the duchess was bothered by a gnawing curiosity, by a sense of something only half-known or only partially understood, it was impossible for her to rest until she had satisfied the need to have a full understanding of what it was that was piquing her interest. This intolerable sense of the incomplete drove her back to the museum on this wet Thursday morning. She was not there to introduce herself to the young man but to observe him some more, to watch him and listen to him, as one watched and listened to a performance of a piece of music that had bewitched one's senses, and her observation made her keen to see more of him, but not only in this setting. She wanted him for herself, and she hit upon the perfect ploy.
"There is a delightful young man upstairs, a guide I saw discussing The Floor Sanders. Who is he?" she asked M., stopping by his office to inquire.
Without thinking, M. said, "Oh, that must be Janine."
"Janine?" the duchess repeated simultaneously puzzled and enlightened.
"Jean," M. quickly corrected himself, but not before the duchess understood what it was that had intrigued her.
"I do seem to have a sixth sense, do I not?" she said, quite pleased with herself.
"Your powers of penetration, your Grace, are legendary," M. said with a smile that showed the perfection of his teeth and the fullness of his lips, and with a courtly bow that showed the grace of his breeding and the elegance of his figure.
"I would like you to do something for me," Anna-Maria said. "Imala is among the artists who will be exhibited at the fair that opens at the Grand Palais tomorrow. I'd like it if you could give this `Jean' a pair of tickets to the show. Don't say I gave them to you. I'd like him to see the show, and I'd like to see him."
When, that evening, the crowds had finally left the Musée d'Orsay, and it was as empty as a railroad station at three in the morning, when all the vendors' shops are shut, and the lowered portcullises are the most common sight -- but here the magnificent paintings remain to be seen even when there is no one to look at them -- M. texted Jean, who was changing his shoes, and asked him if he would stop by his office before he left.
"Oh, dear," Jean worried. "What have I done?" He reviewed the events of the day, trying to recall if he had done anything that might have offended or disturbed anyone, but there was nothing he could identify.
"Silly girl," he chastised himself, "always imagining the worst before anything has happened. I am hopeless, as Laurent keeps telling me."
Pulling his head and torso back into the room, from the open window overlooking the Seine, out of which he had been leaning, enjoying a few surreptitious drags on a forbidden cigarette, when Jean entered, M. greeted him saying, "You have a secret admirer, and I am not at liberty to say who." He smiled mischievously. "That's what makes it secret, my dear, but I've been asked to give you these tickets to the opening tomorrow night of an exhibition at the Grand Palais."
Since her show at the "21" Imala Tamim's reputation in the Parisian art world had blossomed, and now – with some influence peddling by Anna-Maria -- she had been invited to participate in the annual group exhibition at the Grand Palais. She had already sold the painting of Stéfan in the posture of an odalisque that she had exhibited at the "21," and was pleased when the purchaser, a manufacturer of leatherwear and crafted silver, who lived in Barcelona, consented to lend it to her for this show. Along with that painting were the two prototypes – complete paintings on canvass – of "Scenes from the Book of Tobit," for the stain glass windows that were being installed at Saint-Eustache, the triptych, "The Bois de Boulogne at Night," and the collage, "An Accident on the Champs Elysees."
Stéfan, her model for the odalisque and for the Tobit set, would be at the opening, too, in a double capacity, as a participant whose series of photographs, "Mothers Scolding Children" was on display, and as a photographer of the event, commissioned by "Le Monde*,*" for the weekend supplement. Stéfan had taken Imala's advice with regard to finding something to do that engaged his active as well as his receptive disposition, and taking pictures, he found, fascinated him, and he was good at it.
The duchess paced nervously inside the Grand Palais, within the confines of the corner where Imala's paintings were hanging. Her perturbation had less to do with anxiety about the successful reception of her protégées' work and more regarding her fear that Jean would not show up, and equally, if diametrically, that he would, for she was eager to see what he would be like outside the Musée d'Orsay, how the others would receive him, and if she really would be able take him under her wing, as she hoped she would be able to do. She had a project in mind for him...if.
She would have been much relieved to know that her anxiety regarding Jean was unnecessary. He would be there, but she would have to wait. Laurent arrived at Jean's place on time, on his motorcycle, and took the elevator up to the two rooms Jean occupied on the seventh floor, in a Haussmannian building, on the corner of the Boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg and Rue de Grenelle.
"You're not dressed yet."
"I wanted you to see me like this first," Jean said, posing in only heels and high-tops and lacy panties, a leather choker circling his neck. "This is how I want you to see me every time you look at me tonight. Is that crazy?"
"It's beautiful, and that's the way I'll see you. But we'll be late, so get into whatever you're actually going to wear."
"We won't be that late," Janine objected. "But even so," she proceeded with impeccable logic, "it's ok. Girls are supposed to be late. It enhances your appeal when you keep people waiting. It adds to your mystery."
"You want to be mysterious?"
"The person who gave me these tickets is. And besides," he said coyly, "I don't want you to get tired of me."
"I'm not getting tired of you."
"Prove it," Janine said, putting her arms around Laurent's neck and rubbing her palms over his chest, teasing the fabric that puckered where his nipples were. Laurent did not need to be asked twice. He surrendered himself to Jean's seduction. That's why they were late to the Grand Palais.
The duchess spotted Jean, who had wandered towards Imala's exhibit, directed there by the attendant who took tickets at the entrance, who had been instructed to do so.
"Jean," she said approaching him. "I am so happy you could come."
"Thank you," Jean said, "but..."
"I am Anna-Maria Brignole. I saw you talking about the Caillebotte, at the museum the other day, and I had to see you again." She introduced Jean to Luc and Stéfan and Imala, and Jean introduced Laurent to the duchess, but since she was on the board of directors of Radio France, they already knew each other, and she introduced him to the others.
Their affinity was immediately obvious. The duchess observed everything with a keen eye and an inner delight. It would take. She could go ahead with her plan.
Seeing Imala's paintings and Stéfan's photographs brought out a part of Jean that Laurent had not seen much of, despite suspecting it was there. Jean's ability to see into the work and through it and around it when he commented on it filled Laurent with pride, which he quickly became ashamed of: Janine was her own person, not a piece of feminine property. Laurent's pride, pride in ownership, as it were, did not disturb Janine at all. She thrilled to the feeling of belonging to him -- it made her feel a delicate swelling and stirring of sexual desire. That he should take pride in his belongings invested her with a sense of her own value and delighted her – enhanced her sense of femininity -- that she was found pleasing to him.
Janine's expressions of enthusiasm for the paintings and photographs confirmed what the duchess had expected when she decided to invite her to see them, and it excited Stéfan with a sexual urgency he had felt, as far as he knew, only for Luc and Imala to hear her speak, and to feel the way she touched his arm as she pointed to a detail in one of his pictures. Although Jean and Stéfan both were dressed as boys right now, it was clear to both of them that that was not the all that encompassed them. They knew it by each other's touch.
Afterwards, when the Grand Palais was nearly deserted and its cavernous vastness was almost oppressive, the duchess invited them for drinks and a late night supper at the Café Franklin, across from the Grand Palais. As is the case when a group of friends walk along the streets at night, in a city, going from one place to another, they broke into pairs. Anna-Maria and Imala took the lead, followed by Luc and Laurent, followed by Stéfan and Jean, whose fascination with each other caused them to lag far behind the others, who stopped from time to time so that they could catch up. When they did, it was clear that they had revealed their femininity to each other. They were holding hands.
When they reached the café, the six stood outside, prevented from entering by the volume of the techno-style music blasting from within, even onto the street.
"I have a better idea," said the duchess. "Let's get a cab and go back to my place." Luckily, one of the large ones that could hold six was approaching. Laurent saw its green light and hailed it.
It was a crisp, clear night with a full moon that was inlaid within a shimmering pale rose corona. The Seine, full from yesterday's rain, flowing rapidly, shone in the moonlight. The duchess instructed Martin to tell cook to grill enough salmon for six and to open several bottles of Bollinger in celebration of... "so many things that are and are to come."
What was to come was not to remain a mystery for long. It was the actualization of an idea she had been toying with for a while but which began to seem realizable when she saw Jean.
"I'm going to open a gallery," she said, "and I would like to hire Jean to run it, to be its curator. I will get in touch with my lawyer and my accountant in the morning. I've had my eye on a place in the Marais." Then she yawned and covered her mouth with the side of her fist. "You are young," she said, "but I need my rest, especially if I must deal with money and real estate matters in the morning. So I think it's time that we say goodnight."
"Do you need a cab, Imala?" Stèfan asked.
"I will stay with Anna-Maria tonight," she said, kissing her cheek, "but I'll call you in the morning when I'm ready and you can come over to the studio."
"They are all such wonderful boys, perhaps just because they refuse to be boys," Anna-Maria said, once they were gone, taking Imala around the waist, "and I am tired, my dear. You really ought to find someone your own age."
Imala kissed her. "Don't talk nonsense, she said, slipping her hands around Anna-Maria's neck and unfastening the clasp of her necklace and then unbuttoning her blouse. "I've seen so many girls who would die to have breasts as lovely as yours."
"Pshoo," the duchess dismissed her, but smiled nevertheless. "You are in love with an idea."
"I am in love with you," Imala answered and loosened her hair, which she had pinned up. It fell in waves over her shoulders and covered her ears. Anna-Marie pushed it back so that she could behold the fullness of Imala's face. As part of the same gesture, she pressed her lips against Imala's sensuous mouth and as she did she breathed in her special perfume. Imala yielded, as she always did, and the rapture Anna-Maria felt radiating from her increased her own.
2
"You have no reason to be nervous," Laurent said, looking at himself in the mirror as he dried himself with a scratchy white towel.
"You can talk, you big lug. If I looked like you and had your personality," Janine said, taking his handsome cock in her hands when he let the towel fall, and squeezing it, "I would not be nervous either."
She looked up into his eyes and kissed him. In her heels she was nearly his height and she rubbed her chest against his. He ran his hand over the bare flesh of her thighs above her sheer stockings.
"The only time that I'm really sure of myself is when you make love to me. Then I know who I am and I am sure of myself."
"In my arms or wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whatever you're wearing, you are beautiful and complete, and you amaze me when you talk about art," Laurent said rather sternly, administering a lesson he wanted her to get through her head.
Janine kissed him and shuddered with pleasure. "There it goes again."
He put his hand over her snatch, feeling the cock and balls pressed underneath her panties. She groaned. "I can't be late on opening night."
"No you can't," he said smiling gaily. He held her at arms length and prevented her from getting her lips near enough his to kiss him.
"You brute," Jean said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She unfastened the clasps of the ankle straps of her shiny red heels and kicked the entirely strappy shoes off. She took the tuxedo trousers that were laid out across the bed and slipped the trousers up her legs feeling the electricity of worsted wool sliding over nylon, and put her heels back on. She wore taupe lipstick, nail polish, and eye shadow, and got into the tuxedo jacket, black with narrow and pointed lapels.
Being wise in the ways of young lovers, and herself still lecherous even at an age that was for many beyond lechery, Anna-Marie sent a cab for them, and directed the chauffeur to be late. Similarly she scheduled the opening for half hour later than she had told Janine. As far as she was concerned, everything was going perfectly. She could not have been happier with the way the gallery turned out or with the workers who redid the space, which was very badly set up previously, she told Luc and Stefan. Nor could she be happier with Jean who was proving himself to be every bit as extraordinary as the duchess had intuited when she saw him standing before paintings at the Musee d'Orsay and explain them. She was particularly pleased with Jean's text in the catalogue for the exhibit:
"In Imala Tamim's paintings we are made aware that we are no longer concerned with the cubist fragmentation of the visual surface, where all the planes vie for prominence, pushing and shoving their way around the canvas, and none of them attains it. The cubism of the early twentieth century shows its practitioners' anxiety about democracy: Just as one constellation starts to emerge, another breaks through and destroys any integrity, any order, that the picture might be starting to have for the viewer. Additionally, cubism challenged the hierarchy of perceptual fields inherent in perspective. Nor is cubism interested in richness of expression, intimate or epic: Rembrandt or Delacroix. Tamim is. And she seeks to reflect subjective interior apprehension as it presents itself as an apparently objective, but voluptuous, surface, at once entirely fraudulent and completely real."
Anna-Maria and Imala arrived at the gallery early. They walked through it making sure everything was in place. The buffet table was set and the caterers were furnishing it. There was plenty of good champagne, and it was cold.
Both canvases devoted to the book of Tobit were on display as well as "The Bois de Boulogne at Night," and the collage, "An Accident on the Champs Elysees." Several other things were being exhibited for the first time. Watching the artist craftsmen fabricating the actual stain glass rendering of the Tobit pictures, Imala want to do it herself. The result was "Jeremiah and the Holy Spirit in the Hills above Jerusalem as the City Is Being Destroyed." It took up the gallery's entire front window, where it had been installed two feet away from the actual window glass, so that spotlights could be in place behind it to illuminate it.
Stèfan's pictures, "Mothers Scolding Children," were also being exhibited, as well as the new work, "Butte-Chaumant*," *and a photo essay. "Rolls" showed his subjects not only as themselves but as they fit themselves into roles, or, in some cases, as roles took hold of them.
Imala had no doubt about Stèfan's work. She admired it and took special pride in it, having made it happen by her suggestion that he take up photography, but she was attuned so much to him that she experienced the pre-opening jitters that she knew he must be having.
Stèfan, in fact, was not plagued by pre-opening jitters. His head was thrown way back, nearly off the bed. His legs were spread, stretched in the air, and resting on Luc's shoulders. He was skittering in bliss as Luc penetrated him and withdrew and penetrated him again and withdrew and penetrated him again.