The Lover's Hand

The painting was vertical, life-size: a female nude stark against a shadowed background. Her right was arm raised in a languid curve above her head, emphasizing the lush swell of her breast. Her hair, center parted, had been lightened by lemon to a shade paler than the fur between her legs. There was no pretense to the painting; it depicted neither Venus nor Eve but a dangerous seductress of the modern age. Neither did the setting suggest ancient mythology or classical history but a Roman interior of the present.
Her nakedness was exaggerated by two accessories: turquoise beads that spilled voluptuously between the erect nipples of her breasts and a posy of full-blown red roses held loosely in her right hand. Her left hand suggestively stroked the inside of her thigh.
There was no disguising that the figure incited lust. She might insult the morals of decent society but her wickedness was delicious. Men crowded in front of the showcase of Collona Gallery to gawk -- furtively but with longing. They might cry “vile” but their blood was stirred.
Joanna had been lured to the Collona by whispered gossip of the scandalous work. Over the course of the day the crowd had thinned but even so it took awhile for her to wedge her way forward. When finally she stood in front of the gallery showcase she let out a gasp. The face in the painting was not of some idealized muse fitted together from the best features of many women. It was not the face of some unattainable goddess or aloof fabled queen. She shut her eyes against the image. It was the face of her friend, Louisa.
Joanna had to steady herself against the stone arch before she could re-open her eyes. This wasn’t possible. Louisa had come to Rome accepted as a student of the sculptor Thomas Crawford. Two short years later she was successful enough to open her own studio. Some considered her Virginia Dare a work of genius. Certainly a woman of such promise would not …
But the face in the painting had an uncanny resemblance: completely familiar and very strange. The features were Louisa’s but they were arranged provocatively. Her gaze was not shyly downcast but sensuously direct, heavy-lidded eyes flirting with the viewer. Her reddened lips were parted, the tip of her tongue visible, erotic and lascivious. She was totally unselfconscious, unashamed of her nakedness.
Joanna turned her blood cold. The rumors were true: there could be no doubt this was Louisa Lander -- all of her. The shocking implication that she’d posed for such a painting would disgrace her to the point of ruin.
The tower apartments were empty when Joanna reached home. Faint, she sat as her mother had long ago instructed, cradling her head in her lap. It was not just the shock about Louisa. For the past two years she’d struggled with guilt and regret over her own unforgivable behavior. Vittorio had not spoken to her after the night she posed; she assumed he despised her for the very weakness he’d preyed upon.
Since then Joanna hadn’t trusted a man, much less a handsome man, until Kenyon Wade. She’d affected an air of aloofness that encased her in ice but Wade had chipped away the frozen façade. She’d become so susceptible to him that she encouraged his advances even after the brutal lesson Vittorio taught. Nymphomaniac. Joanna suspected that was what she was since she’d read about the rare sexual pathology in Harper’s Weekly. A woman plagued with erotic desires, with sexual longings.
Suddenly Joanna heard Miriam on the tower stairs. She forced herself to sit upright. It seemed imperative for her to appear as if everything was normal. She tried to calm herself with reason. Louisa must have done something to induce Vittorio’s revenge; Joanna knew with nauseous certainty that her own future was in terrible jeopardy unless she somehow avoided doing the same thing.