Bucharest, 1898

“Your eyes looking this way, please.”

Mumbling an apology, Dorin Grigorescu moved his eyes back to Alina, who was adding the final touches to his portrait. During his days of sitting for it, he had often relived the tedium by admiring the other paintings hung all over the walls, but one in particular had commanded his attention: a Grecian scene, depicting a beautiful, dark-haired, reclining nude upon a rock, a lyre in one hand and an expression of the deepest euphoria on her face. Kneeling before her, and kissing her eagerly between her thighs, was a second woman, almost as lovely and equally as naked. This was set against a Mediterranean background, with a colony of voluptuous mermaids in the middle distance, who kissed, embraced, and pleasured each other in the same fashion as the lady poet and her sweet muse. If the concept of feminine pleasure could have been translated into an image, this was the one.

Of course, it was nothing less than scandalous material – especially in the studio of a female artist – but he knew better than to expect anything conventional or respectable from Alina Stelea. Although the rumours that she modelled naked for her art students were unfounded (at least in his disappointing experience of her classes), there were plenty of other lurid tales. Bold, passionate, intelligent, irreverent, yet enigmatic, she had been at one time or another suspected of witchcraft, vampirism, dhampirism, atheism, Protestantism, Marxism, having Romani blood, and of having claimed more sexual conquests than Zeus in his wildest fantasies. This too was almost certainly a wild exaggeration, as Dorin could not recall having ever met a single person who had enjoyed that pleasure, or at least had admitted to it. Given her reputation, this was perfectly understandable, but even though his art teacher was at least twenty years his senior, the word “handsome” did her no justice whatsoever, and he for one would not have been averse to joining her shadowy collection of lovers (although, on reflection, he too would have thought twice before boasting about it to anyone).

“There: all done,” she declared, stepping back from her easel, “though you’re lucky, dear, that I didn’t just paint you with your eyes gazing off into the corner. You really are fond of that painting of Sappho, aren’t you?” she added, slyly, and smiled indulgently at his embarrassment. “Really, you needn’t be so shy. I’m pleased that you find my work so stimulating… not that I dare claim much credit for it. I was copying an illustration from De Figuris Veneris, to be quite honest, though I took some license with her face. Do you recognise it?”

“It’s… yours?” he asked, after a careful, and very self-conscious scrutiny of the beautiful, blissful face.

“Indeed it is, and I’m very glad to hear I’m still recognisable after… oh, about fourteen years, it must have been, since I painted this. When I saw the original, I instantly imagined myself in Sappho’s place, with that lovely young supplicant between my legs, worshipping me with her tongue… You’re not shocked, are you? I should hope not. What is art for if not to realise our fantasies? If I haven’t even taught you that, I shouldn’t be teaching at all. On the subject of art, I think it’s high time you came over here, and tell me whether or not you think I’ve captured your essence. Come on now, Dorin. The hours you’ve been sitting there, one would think you might be a little curious to see the results.”

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Dorin stood up, walked over to the easel, took his first look at the portrait, and felt his shame return with a vengeance. It was his face, no doubt, albeit with subtle alterations: the set of the jaw was just a touch smoother, the eyebrows more arched, and the lips slightly fuller. The bouffant of black hair, however, was most unlike his own straight, shoulder-length style, although there was more resemblance there than between his dark lounge suit and the lacy white silk dress worn by the figure in the portrait. He turned his astonished gaze back to Alina, who could not help but laugh at his expression, though not unkindly.

“Do you think I captured your inner self, Dorina?” she asked, archly, but immediately softened her manner at his expression of obvious hurt. “I’m sorry, dear. I shouldn’t have teased you… and I painted this to show you that I think your fantasy is perfectly adorable. Not to make fun of it. I would never dream of that, Dorin. Believe me, it takes real courage to be oneself, and not what the world would have one be.”

“But… you know? How could… ?”

“Darling,” she replied, with a sympathetic if rather patronising look, “I taught you how to paint, and in so doing I’ve seen everything you’ve ever worked on since you found you had any skill at all. I noticed your preference for portraits of beautiful women long ago. I say women, though it did not escape my notice that your subjects – your fine society ladies, your ballerinas, your nymphs, your Aphrodite, your Ophelia… even your Madonna – all have exactly the same face, and I have long suspected whose face that really was. Perhaps I was surprised, but by no means displeased. What a hypocrite that would have made me, as I have always held art to be the perfect little playground for all of our forbidden and impossible desires. But tell me, Dorin: are your paintings your only means of expression? Have you ever, in fact, dressed as a fine lady, or a ballerina, or allowed others to see you like that? No?” she asked, unnecessarily, as he shook his head in mute shock. “That’s a shame, but I do understand. One has to be so careful in this sick, squeamish day and age. There are so few places one can be confident of not being burned at the stake… although I believe I did hear of one ‘gentleman’s club’ somewhere in Calea Victoriei. Can’t say as I know the address, off-hand, but I’m sure I could find it out for you.”

“Err… that’s fine. Thanks all the same… but I don’t have any suitable clothes, anyway.”

“I take your point. I wonder if anything of mine might-”

“Please! I mean… it’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t…”

“You probably could, you know, dear. No offence, but you’re not much in the shoulders, are you? The hips could use a little padding, mind, and you would have to wear a corset, but what fashionable girl doesn’t, these days? I’d be more than happy to let you try on a few outfits.”

“I’d… That’s very…” stammered Dorin, torn between a sense of shame that was beginning to feel increasingly ridiculous, and a sense of longing; intense, unfamiliar, and too confusing to act upon, allowing even his weak and foolish embarrassment to win the battle. “I’d better not, thanks anyway. I mean, I’d like to,” he added, in deference to Alina’s look of acute disappointment, “but I can’t take the risk. I mean to say, if anyone found out… I could be disowned, arrested, my father might even lose his seat in the Chamber… he didn’t even like me becoming an artist, never mind a… a…”

“Never mind, dear,” she interrupted, gently but with a definite note of sadness. “If you can’t, you can’t, and there’s an end to it. Anyway, thank you most kindly for sitting for this painting, and I only hope you don’t object to it.”

“No, of course not,” he replied, feeling at least twice the fool he had before. “It’s… beautiful. I’m honoured, really I am.”

“Always eager to please, and you are one of my best students. Having said that, Dorin… art is a wonderful medium of self-expression, but it will not fill the void of a life of pure self-denial. Please think about that for me… and please remember that you can always count on me as a friend.”

************

Two years later

Dorin’s marriage, more or less arranged by his parents as an exercise in forging closer links with the noble Bibescu family, had been most unsuccessful in all other respects. Cold, distant, and barely consummated, it had swiftly degenerated into a union in name only. His wife Iulia spent most of her days out of doors, in social events and charity work, while Dorin remained shut up in his studio, either working on commissions or gazing hopelessly and longingly over his old works: the ballerinas, nymphs, goddesses, and heroines who were all painted in their creator’s image. One such dreary afternoon, while Iulia was away and Dorin was brooding over his picture of Ruth in the fields of Boaz and a half-empty bottle of absinthe, a letter arrived, and although reading anything at all was a daunting task for him at present, he knew from the signature that it would be worth the effort:

My dear young friend,

Why have you not come to see me for so long? I would most readily forgive you that for my sake, though it upsets me, but I know how unhappy you are, and how unhappy your wife is. Do you not think this charade has gone on for long enough? I wish you had taken my words to heart, then all this might have been avoided, but there are ways you might yet take that will mitigate the harm already done. Please come and see me at once, Dorin. You will find me at my old studio. Come alone, and discreetly. I have a plan, but it must remain our secret. Trust me now, and all will be well.

Your devoted friend and would-be advisor,
Alina.

If it was a veiled seduction, it was very strangely-worded, though that was typical of Alina, at any rate. Dorin, too drunk and apathetic to care, just grabbed his coat and stumbled out of the front door, willing to clutch at the slenderest of straws. His halting, staggering steps finally conducted him, at the onset of evening, to the well-known house on Strada Enescu. Pinned to the front door, which he found unlocked, was a note, which read…

My sincere apologies. I have been called away, but hopefully not for long. Please wait for me in the studio. I have left a bottle of Tokay on the table for you.

Right… Exactly what I need right now, thought Dorin, ironically, though in very little doubt that he would succumb all the same. He entered, climbed the familiar stairs with only the occasional stumble, and soon found himself within the familiar studio, looking upon an all-too-familiar portrait of a lovely woman in a white silk dress. This taunting mirror of his long-suppressed self, smiling benignly upon him in her contended loveliness, was unendurable to him, and since it would hardly have been polite for him to have stabbed and torn the thing to shreds with the palette knife, he settled for the Tokay as an alternative source of solace.

A few minutes and at least as many glasses later, he cast another, decidedly hazy look at the portrait, and although even he knew by now that his perception counted for very little, it did seem as if the figure within it had changed position. Specifically, it seemed to be holding out its right hand, the forefinger extended as if to beckon. At first he dismissed it, but the illusion persisted, so he put down his glass on one of the two tables he could see (thankfully the correct one) and staggered towards it for a closer look. En route, he stumbled, pitched forward, and would have fallen head-first through the canvas, but for the mysterious pair of hands that steadied him by the shoulders, drew him into a close embrace, enveloped him in a cool rustle of silk and the scent of lavender, seemed to whirl him about until all sense of direction and balance was lost (not that much had been left in any case), and deposited him on a chair. It was soft and comfortable, unlike the hard wooden chair from which he had risen, and which he could now see opposite him, now that his vision was clearing surprisingly quickly. There was the table as well, the paintings on the wall that had been behind him (including a very familiar, scandalous depiction of the poet Sappho), and the bottle of Tokay. Unwise as it was, another shot of that seemed a powerfully enticing option to his frayed nerves, so he stood up, took a few steps, and collided painlessly but irrevocably with the empty air, as if it had been a brick wall. He gave a little high-pitched shriek of surprise; raised his slender, long-nailed fingers to his mouth; then finally realised what he was wearing…

It really was an exquisite dress, light and billowy, and he could feel silken petticoats, stockings, and an admittedly less-than-comfortable corset beneath it… and beneath that, he could feel a wonderful fullness and sensitivity in his chest, and an even more wonderful sensitivity and vacancy between “his” legs. Dorina spent several delicious moments merely touching herself and her clothes, lost in thoughtless ecstasy, until the true gravity of her situation began to dawn on her: around the chair, there was mere darkness, broken only by the impenetrable window that looked onto Alina’s studio. She inhabited a tiny island of light and matter in a great black void, and no matter how hard she battered against the invisible barrier and screamed for aid, she realised that it was hopeless, and even her lovely, womanly sobs were a sound of little solace to her.

Not that way, darling. To the right.

The echoing whisper from the void was Alina’s, and although it sounded powerfully benevolent, Dorina’s fear of falling into that dark abyss caused her to hesitate on the brink.

There is nothing to fear… except fulfilling yourself. Trust me, darling. I have not brought you this far to destroy you. Follow my voice, and all will be will.

Dorina steeled herself and stepped out into the void… felt coolness and the caress of silk, and heard the girlish giggles of a group of ballerinas who were standing at the rear of the stage, which was now the only landmark in the surrounding blackness. She looked herself over, saw her tights, tutu, and ballet slippers, and somehow executed a perfect pirouette in her joy and relief (notwithstanding the Tokay, and the fact that Dorin had never taken a single dance lesson in his whole misspent life).

Very nice, dear, but you have further to go: to the right again.

She tripped across the stage, leapt out into the darkness, and found herself with no ground below her, but she was not falling: rather, she was hovering upon gossamer wings, her clothing now reduced to a single light, translucent robe, well befitting the lovely Pre-Raphaelite style fairy she had somehow become. She flitted joyously about her little circle of light, effortlessly performing aerial acrobatics as she awaited further instructions that were not long in coming:

Well done indeed, my sweet one. You’re almost there. Fly down… but be careful. I can’t promise that you won’t feel a slight jolt, but it will all be worth it.

Dorina, fresh out of a series of twirls and loops and surrounded by darkness, had no idea which way “down” was, but followed the voice, flew out of her sphere of light… and fell face first into a soft, sandy surface. Her pretty wings, alas, had vanished, along with every last trace of her clothing, but the air around her was warm, and pleasantly laced with the sounds of waves washing against rocks, the music of a delicately-plucked lyre, birdsong, and soft gasps and moans of pleasure. She looked up from the sand; along the naked form of the beautiful woman before her, reclining upon a rock; and into the infinitely benign face of Alina. As their eyes met, Alina laid aside her lyre, stretched back upon her primitive bed, and parted her perfect legs. The fresh sea breeze was tinged with a deliciously sweet scent as Alina whispered lovingly to her awestruck former student, beckoning her onwards.

“Welcome home, Dorina. Rejoice… and give thanks. That’s right, darling,” she purred, as Dorina’s head slowly but adoringly drifted between her legs, and her full, eager lips settled upon her womanhood. “Mmm… Mmm… Oh yes… Better to have found Heaven late, than never. Oh! Darling… I think you will be very happy here, in my collection. However, just in case you have any doubts… lay down, my love. I do believe it’s your turn to be Sappho.”