Angelica's Grotto by Russell Hoban Read Free Book Online

this your kind of thing?’ Website after website offered free samples and previews and promised the earth if he would sign up. The women were young and pretty, some of them beautiful; many of the men were heroically endowed. Several times he was on the point of signing up but shrank back at the thought of giving his credit card details and e-mail address to whatever might be lurking out in cyberspace.
    Eventually he stumbled on to a website called Angelica’s Grotto. The homepage, to Klein’s astonishment, featured the Ingres painting,
Angelica Saved by Ruggiero
. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, responding as always to the Ingres Angelica’s blonde attractions. ‘O God! the tastiness, the marzipan, the utter confection of her goodies and her sweeties and her rosebuds. Angelica, yes! Her nudity and her bondage – what more could a hero ask for! The tightlittle crease of her firm young flesh where her right arm crosses her bosom! “How long?” says her expression. “How long must I await the hero’s pleasure?”’
    Turning away from the chocolate-box Angelica on the screen he got one of the Redon books off the shelf and looked at the
Roger and Angelica
pastel, so intense in colour, so full of danger and unknowing. He took a magnifying glass to the tiny figure of Angelica who seemed more than a story, who seemed the heart of a mystery, chained to her rock and awaiting death or rescue.
    ‘Lost and helpless,’ he said. ‘Lost and helpless and seductive in the darkness and obscurity, in the purpureality of her rock, her body glistening with spray as the sea-wind moans, the waves crash on the rock, the monster bellows, the hippogriff shrieks. The rock is like a face islanded in darkness; Ruggiero on the hippogriff is almost lost in the murk, battling against the darkness and the monster Orca. So much lostness!’
    He went back to the computer and Angelica’s Grotto. CLICK HERE TO ENTER, said the screen. Klein clicked and got a beautiful naked young woman with long dark hair crouching in the shadowy opening of a cave by the sea. ‘Another naked Angelica,’ said Klein. ‘No chains, but is anyone without chains? Her face – what is it saying? Is she waiting in her grotto for a rescuer?’
    YOU HAVE FOUND ANGELICA, said the screen. THIS SITE IS ABSOLUTELY FREE. ENJOY IT! BROWSE MY GALLERIES TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT. RING ME UP AT THIS NUMBER IF YOU WANT TO CHAT.
    There were seven galleries in Angelica’s Grotto, each containing twenty to thirty thumbnail photographs which could be enlarged by clicking on them. Klein scanned themthoroughly, entranced by Angelica’s beauty, the suppleness of her body, and the expressions on her face as she was penetrated in every orifice. From picture to picture she was by turns pensive, shy, coquettish, dreamy, surprised, but always submissive and eager to please. She looked no more than eighteen, with little pointed mermaid-breasts and the face of a Waterhouse nymph. ‘How can she want to do this?’ demanded Klein. ‘Can she possibly enjoy it? Has she read Ariosto? Does she want to be rescued?’
    In the first gallery Angelica and her colleagues performed in rocky and sandy places by the sea but after that they moved indoors. Sometimes she was nude, sometimes in white knickers and bra, suspender belt and stockings. She was active with single partners of both sexes and with groups, using her hands for whomever she could not accommodate more intimately. Klein regretted that she had removed her pubic hair; the baldness of her genitalia seemed degrading. He examined each photograph carefully, looking at many of them several times, but the one he returned to most often was the one on her homepage where she crouched alone in her shadowy grotto, her face thoughtful.
    ‘Angelica,’ he said, ‘what are your chains and what is your rock?’ With his eyes inches from the screen he went over the pictures hour after hour. ‘Probably I’m on the edge of madness,’ he said. ‘On the