The Girl Behind The Curtain (Hidden Women) by Stella Knightley Read Free Book Online Page B

fantasies when he picked out the dress of my dreams with its skirt like a waterfall of feathers. The dress now hung in Bea’s wardrobe. She had offered to return it to me whenever I wanted but I was sure that I would never wear it if she did. Would it ever see the light of day – or evening – again?
    As it was, I had worn the dress for just a few minutes. I’d put it on in my office at the university in Venice because Bea insisted that I should. When I looked at myself in the mirror that day, I did not know that Marco had been watching me for all those weeks. Did he imagine me as I saw myself then?
    What if I had done everything differently? What if I had worn the dress as Marco planned and waited for him in the silent library, while the rest of his guests partied raucously in the courtyard? What might have happened?
     
    He would have come to me. I was sure of that. I would have been wearing the servetta muta , the mask designed to keep its wearer quiet. He would have shown himself to me and the nature of my mask would have bought me time to take in his appearance without revealing my shock at the damaged living mask of frail flesh and paper-thin skin that was his face. Perhaps he would have taken my hand. The sound of his voice would have anchored me in the moment. It would not have taken long for me to see past the façade and greet him with the happiness I always felt at the thought of him and the written intimacy we had already shared.
    He was ready for me that night. He must have been confident that against the romantic backdrop of the party, our first meeting would be a suitable beginning for a lifelong romance. Exactly how had he imagined it? Had he imagined me finally taking my mask away from my face and meeting him eye to eye? Stepping into his arms and breathing in the warm scent of expensive aftershave I now knew from the time I pressed his jacket to my face in his secret room? How would our first kiss have been?
    And after we kissed? What then? Would he have locked the door to the library, so that we could make love on the desk at which I had spent so many hours?
    I pictured him lifting me in his strong arms and carrying me there. I conjured a thought of him sitting me on the desktop and kissing me still as he unlaced the bodice of the perfect Dior gown. I imagined him loosening my breasts and caressing each of them in turn, burying his face in my cleavage, breathing me in.
    Perhaps he wouldn’t have stripped me naked that day. Instead, he might have pulled down the bodice to let my bosom free, then pushed up my skirt to reveal my soft white legs. I remembered how he’d once told me that to see a woman half-undressed could be just as erotic as seeing her entirely bared to the world.
    I wanted to see him naked. I would have undone his trousers so that his penis sprang free, already hard for me and eager to be inside. I would have fallen to my knees in front of him and taken him into my mouth, delighting in the flavour of his strengthening flesh. I would have sucked him until he begged me to stop.
    At last we would have lain down together on the rug by the fire, with the Dior dress beneath me to cushion me from the hard floor. On our glorious bed of silk, we would have joined our bodies together in the ultimate way. We would have locked eyes as he entered me, reminding ourselves that this was not just a physical act. It was not just our bodies we were joining.
    As he slipped inside me, how complete I might have felt.
    I would have wrapped my legs around him, holding him close to me. I would have grabbed his firm square buttocks and tried to speed up his thrusting, driving him deeper and deeper inside. I would have felt his orgasm building inside him. I would have heard the telltale change in his breathing and felt the urgency in his pace. At the same time, my own ecstasy would have been gathering in intensity. We would have come together, of course. Losing control like two swimmers caught up in a tremendous