Slow Surrender by Tan Cecilia

Author:Tan, Cecilia [Tan, Cecilia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781455529278
Publisher: Forever
Published: 2013-03-05T07:00:00+00:00

Eight: Possessing and Caressing

I took a few steps into the room, and an older gentleman in a full suit and tie stood up from a table and shook my hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said. He sounded like a butler from a BBC TV show.

“Likewise,” I said, then turned to the man who loved surprising me. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Please have a seat and join us while we finish the wine,” he said, directing me to a chair at the table with a light, surreptitious caress along my back. Now that I was inside, I could see the room was a suite, with a sitting room and a bedroom. “I think you and Mr. Martindale have some interests in common.”

The table was set for two, but most of what I saw was the remnants of fruit and cheese. I wondered if the wine had come in a gift basket. At the center of the table was a swooping glass sculpture, classy and expensive-looking.

“Isn’t the Tate about to open a major exhibition of the pre-Raphaelites?” I asked as I sat down. I knew perfectly well they were, but it seemed very British to me to open the conversation with a question.

“Oh yes, a hundred and fifty works, a major undertaking,” Martindale said. That set him off talking about how tricky it had been to assemble them all, and somehow we got from there to the relationship between the pre-Raphaelite painters and the pre-Raphaelite poets, which I didn’t know that much about. I was pleased to hear Martindale describe the pre-Raphaelites as “art punks,” though, which was one of the points I made in my thesis. They were shocking and in-your-face in the oh-so-genteel Victorian age.

James poured the last drop of the wine into Martindale’s glass and said, “Let us not forget what a complicated time period that was to express any form of sexuality.” When he said the word sexuality, his foot slid against my ankle. He didn’t activate the vibrator, but I could feel it pressing against me as surely as if his hand had been there.

Martindale sniffed. “People today think the Victorians didn’t have sex. In fact, they produced more words of pornography per literate adult than any other culture with printed publications. The difference is that they had many more reasons to hide it.”

“My point exactly,” James said. “It was the expression, not the action, that was complicated. One could do a lot as long as it was not known about, not talked about. Art, on the other hand, is about making ideas visible.”

“People look at some of these paintings now and see a pretty picture. But I agree with you wholeheartedly, Karina. The audience of the day might have been shocked. Scandalized.”

“What do you think of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid?” I asked him.

“Oh, it’s practically pornographic, isn’t it?”

“Is it, Reg?” James finished his own wine, tipping back his head and showing his long, smooth neck.

“Well, you can debate it,” Martindale said, “but I

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.