Casanova LLC

Episode 1

“C ultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life; I have never found any occupation more important. Feeling that I was born for the sex opposite mine, I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it. I have also been extravagantly fond of good food and irresistibly drawn by anything which could excite curiosity.”

― Giacomo Casanova

Claire

Six months ago, the house manager would have answered the call from the doorman and told him to admit this one, lone visitor. Now, I did it.

Six months ago, I had a house manager. And a housekeeper, a chef, a driver, and as many visitors as I would allow up to my home on the thirty-first floor of this building. This building with thirty-one floors.

Six months ago, I had a husband, too.

Now, I was the only one left to turn to the woman waiting in my kitchen, the woman from Sotheby’s whose name I couldn’t remember, and field her questions. To the best of my limited ability, anyway.

Yes, I had paperwork for the Chihuly chandelier in the foyer; the red leather chairs in the screening room were some limited-edition line by Maserati; yes, the car company; no, I didn’t know anything about the safes (he’d had safes? Plural? In the house?); no, I didn’t know if the Viking stove was in working order because I never used it. Weren’t they conveying to the new owners anyway? No, she told me, no. The new owners were taking the place down to the studs. Including the industrial-grade kitchen. Including, and this broke my heart, the dance-like gesture of the curving Italian marble staircase.

When descending that staircase, I could almost believe I was the princess he’d made me.

Six months ago, I had been devastated by the death of the man I loved. A man who had worshiped me. To him, I was even more pristine than the objects d’art that filled our home, never to be touched for fear of damaging their perfection. For all his faults, Richard had prized me above everything else.

Ironic that it was his actions which ultimately sullied me.

Sorry, I said: but did they know the staircase was Calacatta marble? They knew, she said.

Four months ago, I was naive enough to think I might be able to keep my home. But that was after the initial wave of individual lawsuits and before the tsunami of those brought by the US government. The unholy trinity of the IRS, FBI, and DOJ.

They showed no mercy. Rightfully so. The Hamptons house, gone. (I never went anyway. That was his refuge with “the boys.”) The yacht, the jet, the ten-thousand-bottle wine cellar. I hadn’t even known the Vail house existed. The jewelry, my lawyers fought to let me keep until I clarified that I didn’t want any of it. But, they told me, the wives always wanted to keep the jewelry. Yes, well, I only wanted my wedding ring. The symbol of the one thing that had been real about Richard, his love for me. I told them that everything else should—no, must—go to the highest bidder. And all the proceeds to the victims. They were to be made whole. Please.

It is difficult, probably, to be a lawyer—especially an expensive one, especially my late husband’s—and be told not to fight.

To the victims—and the world—my husband, Richard Craven, head of a multibillion-dollar hedge fund, was nothing more than a deceitful, crooked, Machiavellian prick. I had my own opinion. But that didn’t change the fact that now he was gone and I was still here. Not just facing it, but the literal face of it.

Was it wrong I envied him his death?

Now, the Sotheby’s woman clapped her hands and moved on to discussing the art. Art in every house, in his offices, in climate-controlled storage units across the city. We needed to inventory it. Next week, I said. After I was moved out of here.

The art, it had been discovered, was nothing more than a laundromat to him. Dirty money in, clean money out.

From the stock in our home, there was only one I fought to keep. My lawyers argued I’d brought it into the marriage, which was true, if only by a matter of hours. It was by an unknown artist and I’m sure it cost me more in legal fees to keep than it was worth. But to me, it was priceless.

The doorbell rang, a formality, as the front doors were wide open. The fleet of appraisers and movers working with Ms. Sotheby went in and out in tandem with the new owners’ contractor and his subs.

I told her I had a meeting. She said she had everything she needed. She said it kindly, effusively even. She was chipper and professional, not letting on that she knew this—all of this—was a scandal. But I wouldn’t give her any grist for the gossip mill. No tears, no anger, no woe-is-me. When she told this story, and she would, she wouldn’t know exactly how to describe me. Stoic? Composed? She certainly seemed innocent, she would say. But you never really know, do you?

Prior to this…debacle, I was regarded as poised. Elegant and staid and erect. Audrey Hepburn as Princess Anne in Roman Holiday walking down her own marble staircase. A statue. Seemingly solid. But hollow.

Princess Anne before the holiday.

I stole a quick glance at my reflection in the glass of a cabinet door.

Hair in a low bun, no flyaways. Cashmere turtleneck, white. Makeup from my own line, flawlessly applied.

But:

Thinned. Brittle. Tired.

I found myself wondering, what will he think of you now and shoved it down. Had anything ever been less important? Really, Claire.

I turned right, down the hall, into the two-story foyer. Looked to the left.

And there he was.

Leaned against the threshold, ankles crossed. One hand held a tail of his gray scarf, the other ran through his hair. His comfort, obvious. He watched two movers pass by him on their way to the elevator, carrying a swaddled statue between them. They could have been removing a body. As I walked toward him, he languidly bumped off the doorway, buttoned his sports coat, and effortlessly smiled at the movers. When I stopped walking toward him, he turned to me.

It was five years ago. The same moment. I couldn’t stop looking then and I couldn’t stop now. I felt like the silly schoolgirl I’d never had the luxury of being. But you have to understand: his eyes.

They weren’t just beautiful. That would make it easier. They were transportive. They took hold and traveled me. Into another age. Another time. Another person.

Five years ago, that had terrified me.

Now?

“ This is your meeting?” I heard behind me. Ms. Sotheby. I turned to her and she was looking at him exactly as her tone implied: pure objectification. The wavy dark hair, Roman nose, warm olive skin, blue eyes framed by lush black lashes, a strong brow, and a tanned neck disappearing into that gray scarf.

I glimpsed how she’d tell this story. “He’s just a?—”

“I’ve come to pay my respects.” His voice confirmed everything she was imagining about him. The tone was low, masculine, but so grave that it reminded her—and me—of the seriousness of the current situation. Why we were all here.

She stuck out a professional hand. “Caroline Summers, Sotheby’s.”

He took it. “Alessandro Vianello.”

“Well.” When he released her hand, she used her other one to soothe it. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just be in and out, quiet as a mouse.”

His eyes were already back on me. He stepped toward me. I stiffened. His hand lifted?—

“Vianello. Why does that sound familiar?”

His hand dropped.

“He’s a painter.”

“Ahhh.” But I could tell that wasn’t it. Then she mumbled something about it would come to her and she was off, barking a command at a mover.

We looked at each other again.

My hand loosened itself from my body and extended toward him. But just then the contractor walked into the center of the foyer, explaining to the plumber how they were going to blow out this side wall right here and put in a water feature. My hand fell.

I gestured for him to follow me. I walked to the library, but someone was in there boxing up books. Books, as far as I knew, no one had ever touched, let alone read. I headed for—and he followed me to—the soon-to-be-demolished staircase. As we ascended, I saw yet another worker on the landing, measuring the dimensions of the loft, which had been our sitting room. Where we never sat.

I glanced left and saw that my bedroom was free. No one was working in there. We could have privacy, in there. In my bedroom.

No.

I opened a pair of French doors and stepped out onto the roof deck.

The Hudson glistened beyond the railing to our right and lower Manhattan was spread out before us. The February midday sun was high. It hadn’t snowed for a week. It was pleasant enough.

I walked to the built-in glass fireplace and turned it on. For atmosphere as much as for heat. All the utilities had already been transferred to the new owners, that was part of the deal, so at least there was gas.

I saw the covered patio furniture and remembered that I needed to tell Ms. Sotheby’s—Caroline, had she said?—about it. Designer of some kind. I moved to it, lifted a corner of one of the chair covers. His voice stopped me.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I thought we might sit.”

“No need.”

I straightened and looked behind him, avoiding direct eye contact. “So. It was kind of you to come by. It’s nice to see you again.” He didn’t respond. “How are you?”

“I’m good.”

“Good.”

I waited about three seconds too long for him to reciprocate. “And you?”

“Good.” Then I surprised myself by chuckling. “Well.” I gestured back at the doors.

“Renovating?”

“The new owners are.”

“The new owners?”

“Yes. I had to sell.”

“Of course.”

That was it? Given all that had happened, all that had been lost? Reputation, money, possessions, security, friends. Husband.

I inched away from him, closer to the fireplace. Closer to actual heat. “So, what brings you here? What can I do for you?”

If he had truly come to pay his respects, he was six months late. When he’d texted me out of the blue last week, I’d done a double take. All that existed in my text history with him was from that night five years ago, that picture of the painting he’d been working on then. All he’d written last week was he hoped we might be able to meet. And here we were, face to face, five years later. And I didn’t know why we were here, face to face, five years later. It felt like there was?—

“I want my paintings back.”

I stared at him. That didn’t even make sense. “Which paintings?”

“The ones you took.”

I bristled. “I took nothing. You had some kind of deal with Richard, as I understood it, not with me. Regardless, they were sold?—”

“No, they were never sold.”

His tone was so definitive and I, in turn, was so confused. Granted, everything had been confusing and I’d been running on mental fumes for about a year between diagnosis and illness and death and secrets and implosion, but still. “I’m sorry, but I don’t…I only have one. The one that was my…my wedding gift.”

He shook his head, once. “I don’t want that one. That one was properly purchased. I want the others.”

“I don’t have them.”

“Stop lying!” He shouted it, his stone veneer cracking down the middle. “Christ, you people! Do you ever stop swindling?”

My voice did not rise to meet his. “He sold them.”

“No, you’re lying, they were never sold?—”

“I’m not lying, I’m telling you, they were…” but then I felt it, in my stomach. The feeling I’d grown accustomed to over the past half year. The feeling that things I thought I could say for certain about my husband, I couldn’t. That the things I knew to be true were not true at all. “They weren’t?”

The man in front of me shook his head. His eyes were the same color as the winter sky behind him.

I sat.

Or rather, I dropped to the pavers next to the fireplace. Which seemed to startle him, because he lunged forward, a hand shooting toward my descending elbow. But I wasn’t falling. I’d simply lost the will to stand. I was exhausted. Depleted. As if Richard’s wasting cancer had leached into me by association. Passed from host to host like all his other malignancies.

When would this stop? When would it, finally, be over? Or would it never be over? Would people keep coming forward? Would more and more of me be taken until whatever was left wouldn’t be worth keeping?

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” He’d asked a ridiculous question; I’d given a ridiculous answer.

It was something about it being him that buckled me. He reminded me of the beginning of it all. How, when given the option to make another choice, I’d chosen to continue down a path that led, five years later, to this.

Sometimes the moment you thought was the beginning of something, like marriage, was actually the end of something else. Like yourself.

The coldness of the flagstone cut through my black paper-bag-waist trousers—I only wore pants I could cinch to keep from falling off me these days—but I barely felt it. “I’m sorry.” I looked up at him, the sun perfectly placed behind his head, flaming the tips of his wavy dark hair chestnut. “I’m so sorry.”

He peered down at me. “You didn’t know.”He said it like a discovery.

I shook my head.

His hands found his hips and he sighed. A sound I’d heard come out of my own mouth more in the last six months than in my entire life previously.

“How many of your paintings did he take?” I asked.

“Twelve.”

“Counting mine?”

“Not counting yours.”

I looked straight out, through the glass pony wall, out over the Hudson. “I’ll find them. I’ll make it right. We’re cataloging next week. I’ll find them and I’ll carve them out of the lot.” Then something occurred to me. “Do you know how much they’re worth now?”

“No more than what they were worth then. For appraisal purposes, thirty thousand, probably. For me personally, priceless.”

Hadn’t I just thought something similar about the painting of his I had fought to keep? I managed a small, reflective smile. “I understand both valuations.”He was so talented. With Richard behind him, driving the price up, he would have sold those first twelve for easily ten times that amount. “What was the deal, again?”

“He was going to take a ten percent commission.”

“That’s…low.”

He just looked at me. His jaw ticked.

“Do you want to continue with the deal? Because I have a few favors left. In the art world at least. We could do a show?—”

“I don’t want the money. I want what is mine where it belongs. With me.”

Lucky paintings , I thought. Then wondered where the thought had come from. Then took a moment before answering. “You do understand, given the”—I waved vaguely at the building, hoping he took that to mean the state of literally everything —“that they’ll need to be catalogued and appraised first. Court orders and such. Then they’ll need to be bought back before they can be returned to you. It might take some?—”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t technically own them anymore. I don’t own anything anymore.”

There was a long silence. Eventually, his hands dropped from his hips, he unbuttoned his jacket and squatted down, knees pointing at my chest. The fire cast a flicker on his face, even in daylight.

“It’s that bad?”he murmured.

I could only nod.

“I figured the press was exaggerating.”

“They weren’t.”

“What do you have left?”

His candor was refreshing. No one else had just flat-out asked me. “My company. Visage. You know I started it before we married and he never put a dime into it.” He looked skeptical at that. “They’re doing an audit. Should be finished next week. I’ll be vindicated. It’s mine alone.”

“It can support you?”

“… It’s not profitable, at the moment. I had to pause operations when he got sick. But I’ll get it back on track. I know how.”

He nodded, and I chose to take that gesture as a statement of faith in my abilities, because I needed that, even from a virtual stranger. “What else?” I looked down at my left hand. I felt his eyes follow. We stared at my wedding ring. “That’s it?”

I would not tell him that the only other thing I fought to keep was his painting. The painting that reminded me of the one time we’d met, at my rehearsal dinner. That reminded me of choices made, promises kept, and chances lost. So I just nodded.

His eyes found mine again. Then he looked at my whole face. Exploring every shade and texture, as if it were a canvas. What was he looking for? What did he see? Probably nothing. I’d developed a fool-proof mask.

Indeed, his eyes went cold and he looked away, southward, at the Freedom Tower.

Now, I studied him. His profile was much safer than his eyes.

And in that moment, I felt a depth of disappointment I had no right to feel.

Had I actually thought he was coming here to see me? To see if that spark from five years ago, that could have so easily ignited me had I allowed it, still burned?

He turned back to me. “You’re trapped. In all these concerns.”

I had to look away. At the water. “I’m almost out.”

“I thought—” he exhaled roughly. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ve been getting the runaround from lawyers for months, and I came in here with a full head of steam, because I thought—hey.”

His gentle command beckoned me to look at him. Those eyes.

“I thought you knew. Okay? I thought you were in on it. ‘Black Widow’ and all that. But now?—”

I held up a hand. “Why would I have done that? Why would I have wanted him to hurt you?”

He just stared at me. His jaw tensed. Inscrutable.

I threw up my hands slightly. Weakly. I was too tired to even be effectively pitiful. “Why does everyone think…” I drifted off. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t about me. People were mad at me because they needed to be mad at someone and he wasn’t here. “I loved your work. I’m the one who told him about it. About you. I wanted him to blow you up.”

“Well, he certainly did that.”

“You know what I mean.”

I stared into those transportive eyes.

“I do. You’re very clear to me now.”

Then he stood. His hands went back on his hips and he looked down at me.

I looked up at him, but that angle? The fullness of his thighs against chambray slacks, his open jacket revealing a perfectly tailored shirt tight across—what I could only imagine were—washboard abs, his mouth set in admonishment as he gazed down at me… I levered myself to my knees, but that position wasn’t any better. I stood and brushed off my slacks.

“Well, whenever they’re done being appraised, let me know, and I’ll buy them back.”

My head snapped up. “Absolutely not.”

“What do you mean?”

“He broke the terms of your deal. I’m buying them back.” I reiterated what I’d been saying to myself and the lawyers for five months now: “All the victims get made whole.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Yes, I do.”

He shook his head and his eyes found my ring again. “Please, let me unburden you of this one thing.”

“No.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“God.” Groaning, I pushed off the wall, crossed to the glass divider. “Why do people think that matters? Just because you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not your responsibility to make it right? If possible?”

I could feel him staring at me. That had brought him up short. He sounded surprised when he said, “I actually agree. In fact, a wrong has clearly been done here and I want to make it right.”

I turned to him. “What wrong? With what?”

“You.”

“How so?”

“You’re going to make everyone whole. When do you get made whole?”

I didn’t know how to respond. “Alessandro…” Only as his name came out of my mouth did I realize it was the first time I’d ever said it. “I’m sorry. I’ve lost all aptitude for riddles. What are you saying, exactly?”

“I would like to propose a barter.”

“With what?”

“Well. In all bartering, there must be an equal exchange of goods. You are giving me back what I value as priceless, therefore?—”

“Trust me, there is nothing I have, and certainly nothing I don’t , that you could give me that I’d consider pr?—”

“Claire.” And that was the first time he’d said my name. “You know me as a painter. But I have a day job. A service I provide.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “And what priceless service would that be?”

“Love.”

Alessandro

That face.

Her face. Suspended in open-mouthed, breathless shock.

Bellissima.

“Oh. I don’t… I’m not—I mean, I’m flattered, but I can’t—I can’t even begin to think about another relationship right?—”

“I’m not offering a relationship,” I clarified.

“Oh. Sorry. You’re offering—what are you offering?”

“Just love.” She blinked so I went further. “The pleasures of love.”

After one suspended beat, she outright laughed. “The pleasures of love?” When I didn’t return her laugh, she assessed me. “Who…or what exactly are you?”

“A professional.”

“A professional what? Womanizer?”

“Lover.” Color flooded her face in a surge. “A trained expert in the art of pleasure.”

She swung her head around in the direction of the river. I’d knocked her off her axis and she needed the horizon to get her bearings. Her eyes, when they came back to mine, were dropping anchor in a murky depth. “Let me make sure I have this straight.” Her voice was equally murky. “You are offering to—to pleasure me…and in exchange for me giving myself to you , you get your paintings back?”

“You misunderstand?—”

“Yeah, no, I don’t think I do.” She stepped right up to me. “You would have me and your paintings.” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re right. A real win-win.” She brushed past me, toward the door. “For you.”

“Claire—”

She spun around, her eyes firing. “I gotta hand it to you, I have spent the last five months making a lot of deals and I can unequivocally tell you, Mr. Vianello, you missed your true calling. You would have made a helluva financial fraud attorney.” She stabbed a finger into her chest. “But this stone? There’s no more blood to be squeezed?—”

“I can see that.”

“Oh, can you?”

“Yes. In your eyes.”

“My eyes.”

“Yes, they’re soulless.” Her mouth dropped all the way open at that. “But I can change that.”

She shook a bewildered head and stormed over to the far corner of the balcony. I assessed her from behind. The baggy black pants were wind-whipped against her hips. Narrower than I remembered. I could see the outline of her shoulder blades under her white cashmere turtleneck.

She inhaled and turned back to me. “And how long would this take? For you to, you know, transform my soulless eyes with your doing of me?”

Undaunted, I held up a finger. “A pleasurable, professional, trained, expert doing of you.”

She crossed her arms. “Define professional.”

“It is my profession.”

In the silence, the sound of a drill came from inside. I don’t think she heard it, she was so locked into my eyes, understanding filling hers. “You’re a gigolo.”

“Gigolos are imitators. Substitute teachers who have read the books.” I crossed my arms, too. “I wrote them.”

She mumbled, on a laugh, “The arrogance is just—okay, again: how long until I graduate? With my soul diploma?”

“Three nights. I don’t work longer than that. Women get attached.”

“Of course. And where would we engage in this metamorphosis?” She gestured at the flagstone. “Do we just throw a blanket down on the floor or?—”

“Venice.”

She blinked. “Italy?”

“I have a home there. It’s my ancestral palazzo. Where the men of my family have studied women for two hundred twenty-five years.”

She stopped blinking. “Studied?”

“Learned.” I uncrossed my arms. “Become fully versed in all that is female and feminine pleasure.” I stepped toward her. “And how it gets entangled with the pleasure of a man.”

Now her eyes went wide. “And women pay you to untangle this?”

“Barter. In your case, for my paintings.”

She sighed, her ire replaced, once again, by weary resignation. “That’s right. You’re a painter. I forgot.” She slumped against the railing. Then regarded me from the upper corner of her eye, a suspicious cant. “This isn’t real.”

“Would you like to talk to some clients?”

“I absolutely would not.”

“You know many of them. They run in your set.”

“My old set. How did I not know about this?”

“Forgive me, but it seems there was a lot that went on that you didn’t know about.”

We assessed each other.

I took another step forward. “Claire?”

“Alessandro?”

“I have a question for you.”

She closed her eyes, enduring me now. “Shoot.”

“When was the last time you were loved?” Her eyes opened. She stared in the general direction of my knees. “Understood the physical meaning of loving? Of being loved?” One step closer. “When were you last pleasured?” Her eyes met mine. “Captured by a man’s need? His want? His desire not only for you, but to create and witness your desire?” I watched her. “I’m going to be honest with you.”

“Have you not been?”The slightest catch in her voice.

“You had an empty marriage.” Her lips parted for a denial, but I kept going. “A marriage empty of what I describe. You have been kept as nothing more than a part of a rich man’s vast collection. Did he take you off the shelf occasionally? Dust you off? Play with you? Worship you properly? Or did he keep you under glass?”

Her eyes. The acknowledgement of truth mixed with the surprise of familiarity. The way you looked at a person right after they said something and right before you said, “I was just thinking that.”

A silence hung between us. Then she replied, that low, cool, control on full display, “So you–your family–have been getting away with this for two hundred twenty-five years? In Venice?” She huffed a small laugh. “Who do you think you are, Casanova?”

“No, he just started it.”

“Who?”

“Casanova. Giacomo Casanova is my ancestor.”

Her back found the wall. She slumped against it, next to the inadequate fireplace. The winter wind picked up and blew a few strands of her good-girl bun loose. She was looking at the river again. So I kept talking. “For two centuries, we’ve hosted women from all over the?—”

“Yes.” Her eyes lifted. “Yes. Is that what you want to hear?”

“... Is that what you want to say?”

She looked at me in a way that I wasn’t used to being looked at by a woman. I had seen wanting . Sometimes salacious, desperate, lewd, even animalistic. But Claire looked at me with curiosity.

Her shoulders stiffened, as though she were about to jump off a cliff. “Yes.”

She was different than I remembered. We were the same age, I knew, almost thirty-three, and while she didn’t technically look any older, she did look more…seasoned. She was exhausted, that much was clear. But in her exhaustion, there was a steel that hadn’t been there before. She’d been poised and serene, as she was now, but five years ago she had seemed ethereal. Untouchable. Now, she was of the earth.

But beautiful. Still beautiful. Maybe even more so.

Not that that mattered.

I stepped forward and extended my hand. “So. You give me my paintings. I give you the VIP Package.”

She muttered ruefully, “Only the best for me.” Then she sobered and took my hand. Hers was freezing. And possibly trembling. “So, do we wait until you have your paintings back?”

“No. Unlike most people, it seems, I trust you. I leave for Venice tomorrow night, for the season. As luck would have it, I had a cancellation two weeks from now.”

“A cancellation?”

“A royal wedding, apparently.”

“Obviously.” She looked down at our still-joined hands. “Two weeks?”

“To the day. Will that work for you?”

“Actually, yes. I’m moving out next week and then…” She looked off again, toward the Hudson, the horizon. Her open waters. Her eyes came back to mine. “I’ll book a flight tonight. The one thing I have in abundance is airline miles. Richard insisted on paying for flights, even personal ones. Corporate tax deduction, you know? I told myself someday, maybe when Visage got a seed round, I’d celebrate by…” She realized she was rambling and dropped my hand. “I’m talking too much—talking while my brain is processing what I’ve just agreed to and it’s all catching up to—good God, never mind.” Both of her hands stole away behind her back.

I stepped toward the door. “I’ll show myself out.”

“No, I’ll?—”

She came off the wall, and I lifted a hand. “I know the way.”

I got caught in her stare. There was so much going on there.

I knew how to read women. That was my thing. My training. My life. But somehow this felt different. I didn’t know why, but it did. I figured she’d had enough for now, so I said, “Breathe. Sleep.” Never bad advice. I jerked my head at the building, at her home being torn down around her. “You’ll get through this. It’ll be fine. I’ll make it all fine.”

At that, her eyes went moist and I wondered why I had done this? I could’ve pulled someone off the waitlist who just wanted Fifty Shades Lite for a weekend in exchange for a year’s worth of taxes on the palazzo. Why had I chosen a destitute widow, with more baggage than a cruise ship, and nothing to give me but my own goddamn paintings?

Scratch that. I knew why.

“And eat. You’re down, what? Twenty pounds?”

Her mouth opened again. “Eighteen. How did you?—”

“You’ll need stamina.” Her hollow cheeks flushed again and I turned to leave. “I’ll email you the preference sheet.”

I was through the French doors and crossing the loft when I heard, “Preference sheet? ”

* * *

As soon as I left Claire’s apartment, my phone chimed. It was my uncle, and for a fleeting moment I was sure he somehow knew what I’d just done. While irrational, I still opened his text message as if it might bite. But no. He just wanted my flight information so he could pick me up at the airport in two days. I sent it and walked back to my sister’s place in Hudson Yards, where I began the process of packing up after two months in New York. I retrieved my nephew from kindergarten, took him to the Met and then for ice cream, enjoyed my brother-in-law’s famous pot roast, helped put my toddler niece to bed, rubbed Livia’s pregnancy-feet, went to the bar to meet with a few returning guests of mine and, finally, turned in for the night. I checked my phone one final time before plugging it in and saw a text from Claire.

Where should I stay in Venice?

It was after midnight, but I replied anyway. She could wake up to it. You’ll stay with me, but you will have your own quarters within the palazzo. All our interactions will happen one flight below, in the main sala and adjoining bedroom. Fly in on Thursday. Our weekend begins on Friday, ends Monday morning.

Just as I was crawling into bed another one came in and it made me smile.

What time is checkout?

Then, immediately after:

Kidding, sorry.

Then, before I could finish typing a reply:

Are you tested/safe? Then:

Please excuse my directness.

I replied: An important question. I’m tested regularly and will send you my most recent results the day before you travel. You will need to send me the same (for convenience, here is a link to providers in NYC). Additionally, please know I have had a vasectomy. Other protection is available at your discretion, and I am happy to incorporate anything you’d like to use. Also, I will attach a standard NDA. It is, in its way, another form of protection. Once signed, I will send the preference sheet.

I texted the NDA; she returned it immediately. As a final good night, I sent the preference sheet and turned my phone off.

I awoke to seven texts:

1:36 am: I don’t know how to answer most of these questions.

2:47 am: You know what, this is unnecessary. I’m happy to get your paintings back without a barter. I appreciate the gesture, but it’s fine. I’m fine.

2:48 am: No, I already said yes. So yes. Still yes.

2:56 am: Pegging? What is pegging?

3:01 am: Never mind . Googled it. No. No to that.

4:42 am: We really don’t need to do this. I’ll get your paintings back but I don’t think this is for me. It’s not you, I’m sure you’re very good at what you do, it’s me. Apologies for wasting your time.

4:47 am: Maybe a rain check? Do you do rain checks?

I called her.

“I’m so sorry,” she answered, and I could hear the cringe on her face. “You must think—I can only imagine what you must think.”

“I think you should meet me at Raines Law Room tonight at seven so you can ask me whatever you want to ask. Nothing needs to be decided before that.” There was silence. “Okay?”

“Okay, yes, but…” she exhaled. “No, forget the but.”

“Already noted about the pegging.”

“... That was a joke.”

I chuckled. “Yes. See you tonight?”

“Yes. Good.”

“Good. Ciao.”

Claire

I spent entirely too long on my hair and makeup. I told myself it would make me feel more confident. I told myself it would give me armor. I told myself I wanted to look attractive. I told myself to stop talking to myself.

I’d never been to Raines Law Room, but when I looked it up online, I saw that it was a speakeasy of sorts. I decided, finally, on a simple, mostly demure, boatneck black dress. It had a low back, but I wore a jacket over it. Tea-length, flared hem. I chose a pair of black knee-high boots. Appropriate for early February in New York. And also business meetings. Such as this was. I told myself that repeatedly.

I arrived ten minutes early and found the door after walking past it only twice. The problem was, it wasn’t a door, but a nondescript black box at street-level. I entered it and immediately walked down a flight of stairs to an actual door. The brass plaque next to the doorbell had the name of the place.

I rang the bell and a man with a handlebar mustache opened the door so quickly he must have seen me arrive on a camera. I said I was here for Alessandro Vianello. He silently offered me entry with a smooth sway of his hand, closed the door, and asked me to wait. There was a plush red curtain separating the vestibule from the rest of the venue. All I could see was the host station and the coat rack next to it. The lighting was candlelight-low.

He returned from around the corner and informed me that Alessandro was finishing up with another guest. He’d be with me shortly. Would I like to go to the bar in the meantime? I shook my head politely. Would I like him to take my coat? I gave him my outer wool one, but kept the lighter blazer underneath.

A few minutes later, an expensive-looking woman came around the corner and I knew she had to be the other “guest.” Filler and lip injections; perfect red hair; high, fake breasts spilling out of a square-neck cocktail dress. A prime example of fifty being the new forty. Did I recognize her as one of the Housewives Of Wherever?

The mustachioed ma?tre d’ and I exchanged a placid smile and then he escorted me around the curtain and into the bar.

What was he thinking about me? What did he know about Alessandro? What was I doing here? All questions that remained unanswered as I followed him through a railroad-style space, three rooms, one after the other. Low, tin ceiling. The first room was lined with pairs of small club chairs, overstuffed couches, and cocktail tables. The next section had two curtained banquettes on each side. Past this was a bar, or something like it. Like the people mingling there were in a friend’s kitchen, waiting for them to fix a drink. The sound of ice being scooped and shaken was comfortingly familiar. I wanted to go straight to the bar, forget the actual reason I was here. But?—

“Good evening, Claire.” A curtain from one of the banquettes was pulled aside as we approached and a hand, and a face, that face, beckoned me in. The ma?tre d’ held the curtain back and Alessandro stood and kissed me on the cheek and it felt like a breeze, and crisp leaves, and clear water kissing rocks as it rolled effortlessly onward. How long had it been since a simple touch had been so evocative?

We both took a seat and I looked around. The wall next to me was brick. The dark, velvet couches on which we sat were about three feet apart. A small table mounted to the wall stuck out about a foot. Black cocktail napkins were already in place. A filigreed mirror hung above the table and out of it cropped a little wall lamp with an antique shade, casting a sienna hue.

Alessandro smiled, handed me an open drink menu, and I glazed over at the pages of options. I snapped it closed. “Whatever you’re having is fine.”

“An excellent choice.” His smile continued as he pulled a short chain that hung out from the wall. A doorbell-style light illuminated above it.

Within seconds, a server poked her head into our curtained cubicle. “What may I get you?” she asked softly, like the place was a library.

“Two Moonsets, please.”

“Right away.”

She left us. He explained, “It’s a negroni but with mezcal.”

I’d heard of both, but was unfamiliar with each. I wasn’t a drinker. I stuck to wine, mostly. “An excellent choice.” I was trying to be funny. It kind of worked. Maybe. “This is lovely.” I looked around, trying to keep from looking at him.

“It’s basically my office.” He spoke gently, fluidly. It had the rumbly feel of an idling boat engine. One of those vintage wooden ones that George Clooney was always standing up in. “Back when I lived here, it was my special-occasion place. Now, when I’m in the city, it seems like I’m here more than my sister’s.”

That’s right, his family lived here. He’d been born here, if I remembered correctly. His accent was certainly American. There were so many questions I had. Not the least of which was, Is this actually happening? And right next to that, Are you who you say you are? Descendant of Casanova? Really? Am I being played in some way I can’t begin to fathom? I told myself to stop questioning everything. I was along for the ride, however long or short it may be. I could get off whenever I wanted (Out. I meant out. I could get out whenever I wanted). I could leave now, even. If I wanted to.

But I’d have a drink first. Whatever the hell it was.

Besides, if this was some elaborate scam then he was an idiot. Surely, after yesterday, he understood that nothing remained to scam me out of?

I caught his eye just then and my thoughts evaporated. All except one. A new one:

I could have sex with that.

I looked quickly away, but now that I’d let that one thought in, more followed. He was gorgeous. So gorgeous. Wouldn’t I like that? Didn’t I want that? It was so unlike me, to be that superficial. To want that gorgeousness to take me, be on top of me, be inside me. It had been so long since I’d had sex and even longer since I’d wanted to.

So what if this were all a ruse? So what if the whole Casanova thing was bullshit? Look at him. Did I honestly think I could do better in a bar? Then, at that thought: “Do better in a bar?” Who are you? Like you ever trawled the bars.

He was offering one long weekend. Three full days of being devoured, not preserved. By him. He could break the glass and have at it. Which was maybe exactly what I needed. No relationship, no feelings, just…him. Me. Us.

It felt so wrong there had to be something right about it.

How long had I sat here in silence? I was so out of practice being around people, I had no concept of time once my mind wandered. I looked back to him and found he was still looking at me. Worried my thoughts were projected onto my face like a movie screen, I said, just to say something, “You’re leaving tonight?”

“I usually head back a couple weeks before my season starts.”

As if he were a farmer with a crop coming in. He looked at his very fancy watch. “When are you leaving? Am I on a cock—clock?” Good God, Claire .

He didn’t acknowledge my Freudian slip. “Car’s coming at eight. Plenty of time.”

“Well, I don’t believe I’ll need much.” No reason to delay the inevitable. I opened my purse and took out the folded pages.

“You printed it out?”

I could hear the smile in his voice. I smoothed them open on the table. “The first page… Hard Limits. These mostly make sense.” I’d already checked some of the boxes. No anal. No Daddy play. No whips. No BDSM in general. “I have to say, so many of these?—”

“May I?” He leaned forward.

I swiveled the pages around and watched him scan my selections. I could not decipher a whiff of a reaction. Surprise? Nothing. Disappointment? Not a scowl. Enjoyment? Not a smirk. But he tapped a field where I’d written a light question mark. “Did you have a question about spanking?”

The waitress reappeared. I froze, kept eye contact with Alessandro, and remained silent. She set the drinks down, turned to leave, and unasked, slid the curtains closed. They were a dark sheer and didn’t block out the ambient hum of the bar, but they had the effect of blurring what lay beyond them. “They know you well here,” I murmured.

He lifted his glass. “To being known.”

There was a seductive promise in his eyes. I tapped his glass with mine. It felt kiss-like. I drank and reined in the cough that immediately threatened to embarrass me.

He saw it, though. “Too strong? I can get you something else?—”

“No, no. I just didn’t know what I was getting into.”

“How apt.” He raised a sexually-inuendoed brow. “So: spanking.”

“Right, so…” I took another small sip. “Well, not just with the spanking, but generally: it’s a matter of degree. That’s why there’s a question mark. It’s not a simple yes or no. You know?” He stared at me. I picked the papers up off the table and looked down at them, because looking at him had become too difficult. “I don’t know if I like spanking, per se. I mean, I know I don’t want to be, like, taken across your knee, but in the heat of the moment? In the middle of…the act? What if I did want it? Not hard, but some…slapping? Tapping!” I snapped my fingers. “Tapping could feel right. Maybe. I mean…” I took a stuttery breath. I wanted to stop talking, but I couldn’t. “Obviously this doesn’t apply to whips or paddles or—” I lowered my voice—“ anal . But with things that are not a flat out no, I just don’t know how much of a yes they are.” Jesus . I took a quick gulp of my drink.

Alessandro looked on, unperturbed. “This section is just about hard limits. For hard limits, if you didn’t say no, it’s got some yes. Okay?”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And at any point if you don’t want something, or, conversely, you do want something you thought you didn’t, you’re free to do as you want. Have done to you what you want.”

“Oh. Okay.” I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding my neck until I felt it relax. “I can do that? I can do that.”

He stared at me for a beat, then huffed a chuckle. Scrubbed a hand over his face.

“What?”

He shook his head and his face recomposed. “The preference sheet is usually for people who want a safe place to experiment. Push some personal boundaries. I sent it to you because I wanted to make sure you had that option, if you wanted. But your answers on the first page are as I expected. You seek reintroduction. Not reinvention.”

Was that true? I mean, I knew I didn’t want butt plugs . But it was disconcerting to me that I didn’t seem to know what I did want.

He continued, blithely, “No need to fill out the rest. I get it. The general tenor.”

Which felt like a challenge, so I crossed my legs, and flipped to the next section: “No, let’s continue. Sensitive Areas. I have a spot behind my knee that is very ticklish. Should I write that down?”

“Sure,” he rumbled on a chuckle, “but the question is meant to highlight particular erogenous zones.”

I peered at him. “Well, that’s…I mean, those are obvious.”

“I assume nothing. I’ve been surprised before. More than once.”

“No surprises here, I’m afraid.” I sat back. “In fact, if you found one, I’d be more surprised than you.” I brought the glass to my mouth again if only to stop it from talking.

“Where do you especially like to be touched?”

He’d gone off the sheet. His tone was friendly. Disarming. This was just him, Alessandro, asking me, Claire, a question. Which made it more difficult to answer.

Was there a place I wouldn’t like to be touched by him? Just the thought of him touching me literally anywhere had me uncrossing and crossing my legs again. “Uh. The usual suspects, I suppose.” I straightened the hem of my dress. My fingers brushed my thigh and caused a butterfly wing to flutter in my stomach. “My neck. I have a sensitive neck.” I spoke this like some odd declaration.

He reached over—“Here?”—and feathered the exact spot, right under the hinge of my jaw. How did he know that? The butterfly took flight and my entire body shivered from the inside out. The kind of full-body convulsion that prompted the saying, someone just walked over your grave. Mortifyingly, the papers shook loose from my fingers and fell to my lap. “Yep. There.”

He slipped his hand between the pages and my dress, scooping them up. Another too-brief touch. My parched body gulped down the contact. He casually sat back and began reading. “This one might actually be helpful. ‘Any triggers?’ Things I shouldn’t do? Shouldn’t say?”

“Yeah, so, I didn’t—I didn’t get how that was different from Hard Limits?”

“These could be places you don’t like to be touched. Or words you don’t like. A pet name from a past partner, perhaps?”

“Oh. No. Richard never really?—”

“How do you feel about dirty talk?”

“Dirty talk?” I’d heard him, I just wanted to repeat it.

Three years ago, we’d redone all the bathrooms in the penthouse. Richard had been out of town a lot for business, so I’d managed the renovation. Before I signed, the contractor had dispassionately run down the list of improvements we were making. Each product he would be using. Precise type of pipe, marble, tile, hardware. He went over the contract point by point with me.

This conversation was reminiscent of that. Except now I was the thing about to be renovated.

“What, you mean with the ‘good girl’ stuff? Or is it ‘bad girl’? Can never remember,” I joked. Or tried to. But I got nothing other than that benign smile. I tried to answer his question earnestly. “I’m sure it has its…its…its place. Depending. Another one of those matter-of-degree situations. I guess.”

“Right. A world of difference between being called a filthy little bitch and whispering when I’m inside you, ‘I could live forever in your tight fucking?—’”

“Right right right.”

He picked up the pen from the table, cocked it. But then he seemed to remember something. “Not on the preference sheet, but interested in an orgy?”

“An orgy ?”

“A swingers Carnival ball. Happens to be that weekend. Costumes, masks, tits and dicks, you know?—”

“I’m gonna go with no.”

He nodded and went back to the paper. “Let’s see…any particular fantasies you’d like to explore?”

“Like what?”

“Ohhh…cop. Boss. Teacher. Or student. Babysitter. Priest. Voyeur?—”

“So porn categories.”

He lifted both brows.

I lifted a hand. “Don’t get the wrong impression. I watched some last night. For the first time. For a very short time.”

“And?”

“And I’m not a thirteen-year-old boy.”

“What were you looking for?”

I sighed. “I’m not sure they make what I was looking for.”

He watched me. “Which was?”

“Something I could believe,” I scoffed. “Something intimate. But then it wouldn’t be porn, would it?”

“I’m not sure intimacy is something you can observe. I think you have to experience it to know it.”

It was then that it occurred to me he might actually be very good at his job.

He was looking so deeply into me that I felt entered by more than his gaze. He seemed to be making a decision. About me. Like maybe I’d said something that had him rethinking this. Before I could think of what to say next, he gathered up the pages, tapped them on the table, squared them…

And tore them all in half. And in half again. He placed the pile off to the side and took up his drink. “Do you remember your first orgasm?”

“... What?”

“How old were you?”

“What? Twelve. I was twelve.” I tried to answer just as casually as he’d asked. The only problem was that I lied. I’d been ten. Why did I lie? As if lying about two years somehow made it—made me —seem…what? More appropriate? More?—

“Was it easy?”

“I think so. Yes. It was.”

“Tell me how it happened.”

I saw myself in one of my childhood bedrooms. I could remember the room, but not the apartment it was in. We’d moved so much. Let’s say it was the Westport one. I saw my mattress on the floor. The Beauty and the Beast comforter. “One night I woke up. Or maybe it woke me up. And my pillow was already between my legs. And it just…I just…happened.” I took a sip—a large one. Finished it, actually. “I don’t know how much I had to do with it. So yeah. Easy-peasy.” I couldn’t help chuckling at that.

“And was it easy-peasy every time after that?” His smile was not mocking, but sweet, encouraging me to continue.

I returned his smile, an alcoholic burn warming my throat as I did. “I swear, back then I used to so much as look at my pillow and boom.”

Really, Claire? Good God.

“That was—I can’t believe I just...” I unbuttoned my jacket and began shrugging out of it, ignoring how his eyes watched the movement. “That drink is warming. Sneaks up on you.”

“It is. It does. My favorite winter cocktail. Has its own kind of buzz. Mellow. Like a good weed high. Relaxing.” He could’ve been describing his own tone of voice at that moment. “When did it get difficult?”

So we weren’t done with this. “Difficult? Who says it got difficult?”

“Apologies. So, you still climax easily?” He drank again.

Why lie about that, too? I mean, he’d find out the truth soon enough. I took a deep breath. “No. It is difficult. Quite difficult. Pretty much impossible now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal. Happens to a lot of women.”

“So I’ve heard. When did that change for you ?”

I was silent.

“Was it when other people started getting involved?”

I was gathering my thoughts when I heard myself say, “Not just Richard.” Some knee-jerk impulse to unfailingly defend my late husband against things that might, even tangentially, have something to do with him.

Alessandro raised a hand. “It’s rarely one man. It’s men. Those men that are still thirteen-year-old boys, believing that the fantasy of porn is the reality of a relationship. They’re more than happy to watch a woman get off so long as they don’t have to be responsible for it.” He stared at me.

I could only stare back.

“Can you still come when you’re alone?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t tried.”

“In how long?”

I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know.

Graciously, he did not pursue the question. “Do you want to explore this when we’re together?”

“Do you want to?”

“This is about you. What I want doesn’t matter.”

I lifted the glass even though there was nothing in it but a huge ball of ice. Would it be weird if I rubbed it on my neck? I put the glass back down. “I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m sure you do, but that’s the service I provide. I want nothing from you. I don’t want your subservience. Your obedience. Your capitulation. I don’t want to borrow your beauty for my own credibility with other men. I don’t want your deference, or your fidelity, or your love. That is my job: I love you .”

I was so taken aback by those words coming out of his mouth that for a moment I forgot the context in which they had been said.

Alessandro

She appeared overwhelmed, so I turned down the heat. “Would you like to sightsee?”

“Sightsee?”

“Sightsee.”

She had the face of someone tasting a suspicious herb on the tip of her tongue. “What is that? Some voyeur thing?”

A laugh rocketed out of me, surprising us both. “Sightseeing. As in, seeing the sights.”

“Just plain old sightseeing?”

“Yes, Venetian sights.”

“You’re a tour guide, too?”

It was as if every word I said was not food for thought so much as bait. “If you want. Have you ever been?”

“No.”

“Have you wanted to?”

“Yes. Of course. I have an Art History degree. I worked in a gallery with many Biennale artists. Your painting of it...” She folded her hands in her lap. “But it’s only three days. And it seems we’ll be very busy. With other things.”

“You seem skeptical.”

She leaned her head back against the wall. Assessed me through half-cocked lids. Then she sighed, giving up the pretense. “I am skeptical.”

“About?”

You was so clearly the answer that it hung in the air between us like skywriting.

Cheeks flushed from the Moonset, hair swept back, and her demure non-profit-board-member dress. I had to admit that the cumulative effect was my kind of alluring. But I took a moment to see her not as I saw her, but as she saw herself. And more importantly, how that self saw me. As if what I’d presented was a way of taking something from her, not giving something to her. As if I’d pulled her onto a moving merry-go-round, dizzying her.

She was a woman struggling to retake control of her own life and I had made it worse.

I bent forward, elbows on my knees. “You know what?” I rubbed my glass between my palms back and forth, back and forth, slowly, starting a leisurely fire. “I need to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I made assumptions about you and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t?—”

“I withdraw the offer.” She stilled. “We don’t have to barter. I will appreciate the return of my paintings and I leave you as you are.”

She blinked at me. “Wait, no, that’s not—this whole thing took me by surprise, for sure, but…”

“... But?”

She paused interminably. “But just because I’m not sure if I can do this doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

I sat back and she looked down at her lap. “I have a guest. She comes the same weekend every year. And she sits on the window seat in the sala and reads. And every forty-five minutes or so I come in and refill her wine. And I make her dinner and listen to her stories. And she sleeps for fourteen hours each night. And that’s it.” She met my eyes. “That’s what I do. I give three days of fantasy. Whatever that may be for you. Whatever makes you feel whole again.” I smiled. “What do you long for?”

“Oh, God, I don’t know?—”

“Don’t think about it. Three things. Go.”

“Art. Food. Touch.”

“In that order?”

She finally smiled back. “Depends on the time of day.” She worried her lip. “Can I think about it?”

“Absolutely.”

She exhaled for possibly the first time since she walked in here.

“But could you let me know by the end of the week?”

“Oh, uh?—”

“It’s just, it’s a matter of scheduling. I need enough time to?—”

“Right, yes, of course. There’s probably a waitlist.”

I shrugged.

She was silent. Then: “I think it’s time for me to go.” She stood, somewhat awkwardly. “Just out of curiosity…” She smoothed her dress over her hips, down her thighs. “How many women are on—you know what? Never mind.”

She turned around to fiddle with her purse on the bench, revealing to me the swoop of her backless dress, which had been hiding under the jacket she’d shed.

I couldn’t help imagining running my fingers down the flesh along her spine. Their path. The goose bumps they would leave in their wake.

An impulse that had been trained into me.

One I didn’t indulge here. Even if I wanted to.

And then she was gone.