I pretend to look through a magnifying glass. ‘Imagine. The collected work of Serena Folkes coming to light in centuries to come, unearthed in dusty antique shops and little galleries in the back streets of London or New York.’
‘Or Venice itself. You didn’t hold back, that’s why they’re eager to snap you up. You’re out there now and every bit as daring as I suspected.’ His face is wide with laughter, that pebbly rumble from the base of his throat as he unwinds his scarf. ‘Hey. Don’t look so appalled. Everyone has a dark side.’
‘And you want to explore mine?’
‘I want you to explore yours. It’s time to place yourself inside the action for a change, with the aid of some wizardry. See if you want to participate, as well as watch.’ He still sounds so relaxed, his scarf dangling round his neck, his coat open as he leans in the doorway. ‘You’ll see what I mean.’
The photographs show men and women dressed in marionette costumes dancing, feasting, or sleeping. Arms are raised in Bacchanalian delight, bodies are prostrate on sumptuous beds, or resting in poses too awkward for real sleep.
The composition is more stylised than my photographs. More technically adept, too, using studio lighting and exaggerated colour stains.
As I get to the furthest series I see that some subjects are not resting at all. They are being driven from sleep as an orgy is depicted, step by step. It starts with a couple, just like the figures in the lupanare frescoes, half-clothed. They are laying each other down on a big bed in a room styled like a Titian painting, with draped curtains, bowls of fruit, slave girls whispering in the corner.
Soon it’s the people I’m concentrating on, not the composition. In the next picture the couple are kissing messily, pulling at each other’s remaining garments, and in the next the woman is on her back and the man is pushing himself between her legs while other people gather round to watch, including the slave girls.
A familiar heat starts to trickle through my body. The same sensation assailed me in the convent. My eyes travel over the faces, the mouths, the hands, the naked bodies. I remember the nuns drifting round their cells, the shock of the first slap of knotted leather on their downy skin. But this is different, because the people in these pictures are acting, directed by the quiet eye behind the camera.
‘Those nuns were alive and breathing, right in front of you. That’s why you were turned on watching them.’ His voice is soft, and caressing. I can hear it, but I’m barely listening. ‘Let’s see how these images affect you. They’re more extreme, more adult, an even stronger story. This isn’t a private dance, as you so aptly put it. The action involves more than one person.’
‘No technological tricks here that I can see. Just very effective crowd control,’ I sniff. ‘But what’s troubling you?’
I catch him glancing warily at the photographs.
‘The trick is in the way this exhibition forces a response from the viewer. Just go with it. Take no notice. A goose just walked over my grave, that’s all. This is about you, not me.’ He holds up his finger as I try to protest. ‘We’re taking you way out of your comfort zone.’
He waves me on along the sequence. I decide not to query the peculiar way he slips into ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. The scenes progress into a no-holds-barred orgy, beautifully composed and patently not simulated. This is sex by numbers. The hands, fingers, mouths, are everywhere. The women are open, the men are erect, they’re all gymnastic in their positions, beautiful in their physiques. It’s art, but it’s unadulterated sex, too.
‘It’s artificial,’ I remark dismissively. ‘No comparison with the insouciance of my nuns.’
But the display is starting to work on me just as he said it would. The frisson of menace in the room accentuates the chill running through my own limbs. I come to a halt in front of one woman, her face contorted with abandon as she’s groped and penetrated by two men. Not so artificial now. She could be one of those female saints in the Venetian convent’s cloisters, in the throes of religious fervour. The same excited fervour invading me now.
‘The next room will show you the punishment I was talking about. Flagellation brought graphically to life.’
I realise my hand is up as if to stop traffic. For once I want to shake Gustav off, be totally alone. I stumble to the end and turn right, and here is another, smaller room with another huge television screen dominating the far end. This is switched on and is showing an interior of some kind. Just an empty bed, in an empty room. I suppose anything passes for modern art.
The photographs continue to gallop round the room. Here is the same couple as in the last room, but the woman is on all fours now. She is wearing an ordinary-looking dress, but nothing else in the picture is remotely ordinary. For a start her hands are tied to the bed post. Her flowery dress is flipped up over her backside so that it is bare. The man is standing behind her, fully clothed, resting one hand on her rump. His other hand is holding a long thin switch. I’m willing him to get started.
‘Did you ever try it? The whipping? Did you ever use that whip you nicked from the convent?’
Gustav is just behind me.
‘How did you know about that?’
‘I had a suspicion during your presentation. But I’m not entirely a mind-reader. We’ve been through your belongings at your cousin’s flat and in the gallery. Yes, I know that’s intrusive but I have to know everything about you, Serena. So. Did you use the whip?’
‘Once or twice. But since I was called home from Venice it’s never come out of the rucksack. At least, not until you rifled through my stuff.’
‘You can get down off your high horse, Serena. No harm done. Now, take a look at this.’
He waves a remote control at the television screen showing the empty room. A woman, a different woman from those in the photographs, walks calmly to the bed. It is the same bed as in the photographs. It’s all repetitive, a repetitive loop of perversion. I’m beginning to feel horribly claustrophobic. This gloomy house is hemming me in. The people in these photographs look hemmed in too. Cajoled. Diminished. But I am beginning to understand why they are feverishly delirious to be so.
The woman in the film takes up a pose on all fours, and spreads her knees. Then she looks directly at the camera.
Her jet-black hair is pinned up in its usual severe knot. She’s wearing a high-necked white blouse and even a string of pearls round her neck. She grips the edges of the bed with long claw-like fingers, and lifts her bottom.
‘My God, Gustav!’ I gasp, turning to him. ‘What’s Crystal doing at an orgy?’
‘We employed her to take part. This house, this exhibition belongs to me. I used to live here in the bad old days.’ He keeps his eyes on Crystal as she starts to move. ‘She used to be a model, and small-time actress. But most of all she was a muse for the guy who took these films and stills. And no, it wasn’t me doing the filming. I was – otherwise engaged. See? Even though she’s living another life now, in here she’s immortal. Looped over and over for anyone who pays to watch. She’s a permanent installation.’
‘I’ll never look at her the same way again.’ My hands are over my mouth to smother a mad giggle. ‘She was at my opening party, serving drinks, selling my work. She’s still hiring herself out for this kind of thing?’
‘No. She’s my sales director now. Turned over a new leaf. We all have. But she’ll be glad to know this film has opened your eyes.’ He is very close behind me now, his fingers tangling in my hair. ‘Shame, though. She would have been perfect in the role. She’s so nearly nailed the Mother Superior vibe, wouldn’t you agree?’
I giggle again. ‘I could have lent her my whip.’
‘You’re getting it, my little ankle biter.’ His