Our affair in Mexico was also the kernel of inspiration that gave root to my collection. He was the man who had introduced me to the wild passions and delicious shadows of the erotic world, who made it safe for me to explore those depths after Christopher had tainted them.
It was impossible not to think of the Englishman who had ruined my childhood now that I was back in Paris. I had fled to the city because of him and eventually fled from it when he had found me again. I had no doubt that one-day he would discover me once more; he was a tenacious but patient stalker. He would never suspect that I had joined my family though, partially because it was him who had worked so hard to tear us apart.
I mulled over the similarities and differences of the two love triangles I had shared with my polar opposite sister. Christopher had never outwardly appeared as anything but a gentleman. Mama had loved him, Seamus had relied on him to take care of us when he himself was absent on a drinking and gambling bender and he had spent considerable time teaching English to us kids. He was all but promised to Elena, a girl eight years younger than him, from the time she was fifteen. With her, he was kind, courteous and wise, if a bit aloof. They spent hours talking about politics, history and literature, their heads together over an open book at the kitchen table while Mama cooked, I sketched, and the twins ran around the house playing games.
With me, as soon as I turned thirteen and developed the kind of body that was hard for men to ignore, Christopher was impassioned. It began with innocuous touches, murmured endearments and encouragements to touch him back, tell him that I loved him. It had taken me years to realize that even though he didn’t beat me, he was still a monster, one who brandished love as a weapon of manipulation instead of his fists. He had groomed me to be his since I was a young girl.
The sexual acts didn’t start until I was fifteen and they never escalated to vaginal sex. That, he always said, he wanted to keep for our marriage night. Mama didn’t suspect anything untoward when he took me ‘out for gelato’ or into Rome to see some art gallery or another. I spent the night with him often, with my mother’s blessing. He never hurt me but I was always scared nonetheless.
I didn’t know something was really wrong with our relationship until I mentioned it to Sebastian and Elena one day when they were bickering about Sebastian’s exploits with a local girl. I’d innocently divulged that kissing was nice, the only thing I liked about sex. Even though I was eighteen at the time, I didn’t understand the consequences that my naive comment would bring. Sebastian had immediately asked if Christopher and I had made love and when I assured him that we hadn’t, not fully understanding the question, he had relaxed slightly but told Mama that I wasn’t allowed to be alone with Christopher anymore.
Two weeks later, Cosima had sent a letter telling me that she had the money to send me to L’École des Beaux-Arts and I knew that the twins had orchestrated it to get me away from him.
Elena had reacted differently, obviously. We had never been close but after that confession she was cruel to me, calling me names and inviting Christopher over nearly every day but never letting him out of her sight, kissing him in front of me in a way she had never done before. She must have known how desperate he was to get me alone, how much yearning filled his eyes as he stared at me while his lips were locked with hers, but she wasn’t angry with him for it. She was angry with me.
I was happy to leave them four months later to start school in Paris. By that time, Sebastian had left and Cosima was long gone. I was alone in Naples and I would be alone in Paris, but at least I would be without the two malevolent presences in my life.
Cosima told me years later that Christopher asked for my information all the time, that Mama began to notice his erratic behavior and that she still allowed Elena to move in with him. She also told me that for that half a year our eldest sister had lived with him, he had not been kind to her. I didn’t know the details and I’d never really delved into it before but it wouldn’t surprise me to know that he had sexually and emotionally abused her, taking out his heartbreak and desperation on her because he couldn’t have me.