The Remedy by Michelle Lovric

at his evident amazement, taking it, no doubt, as pleasure.
    The sight of his hostess is more appetizing than the dinner. And clearly the fascination’s mutual. She notifies him of the fact in bodily language. From the way she looks at the food travelling into his mouth, he can tell that she longs to kiss him. From the fluttering of her eyelashes as he takes a long swig of the flavored water he divines her desire to have him do the same with her. And from the luster of her eyes he realizes with a flush that she desires not merely the deed of kind with him, but that she already feels something else for him: a tenderness, a welling affection.
    He is not even sure if she is painted, after all. Her coral lips have left no imprint on any of the glasses at dinner. The delicate shadows that enlarge her eyes are naturalistic in color. If she is painted, then it is as if her paint has united with her skin instead of merely lying atop it.
    With soft gestures, she mimes a question. Would he like her to sing? A private performance, in the intimacy of her own room?
    Why not? It can only delay things a little, and give him time to digest the difficult food before the main part of the evening’s entertainment. He smiles and mimes the applause that she will soon merit, holding his large hands up to his face.
    And so she sings. Her voice, without accompaniment, tinkles in volleys of delicate notes. It is an Italian love song. That is, it can only be a love song, the way her face glows and her eyes fill with dew. Even her tiny ears are translucent with love in the candlelight.
    She really means it. The thought cuts through him.
    She’s singing about me.
    It can only be that famed phenomenon, thinks Valentine, his belly swilling alarmingly and a multitude of bats beating their wings in his chest, love at first sight.
    Love at first sight, that the women sigh for and the poets find such good meat for their productions. He knows he is a handsome man, and that his height and figure are worthy of admiring attention, but he feels in his heart that even after such a short time this discriminating woman has fallen for something more visceral, that she has divined the pure animating soul of Valentine Greatrakesand that she alone of all the women he has known has found just the right things about him to love. He does not know if her extraordinary perceptiveness comes from a kind of native intelligence of her own, or if he has suddenly, perhaps as a result of Tom’s death, become transparent, and the coincidence of their meeting so soon after—why, he saw her first the same day he heard of the murder—has rendered him permeable to the sudden adoration of an unknown woman.
    He has been in Venice many times, known not a few Venetian women, and her repertoire of subtly beckoning gestures is familiar to him. But there is something quite different! There is no doubting the genuine passion that is being enacted in front of him, albeit softened by a becoming modesty. Valentine thinks of Massimo Tosi and his description of the actress as a kind of nun. He understands now what the inarticulate fellow was stumbling at.
    Suddenly he is anxious to lead her to her predestined altar: the bedroom. He is afire to unwrap and suckle her breasts, slide over her belly, and to heave himself into her peach-fish, her warm place, and not stop, not for a very, very long time.
    He’s known lust before, but nothing like this. All previous desires seem by comparison mere bridesmaids of feelings, bystanders to a main event, palavering about trivialities, nothing but dust to this.
    It seems she feels the same way, for as he shifts in his chair, she too is wriggling and frowning slightly, and they rise as one and turn to the archway which must only lead to the bedroom. They have not yet touched but the air between them hangs slackly It seems they both feel weakened by their passion for they too sag on their feet and walk limply toward the open door of the chamber.
    Valentine