Venera Dreams Read online

  Dean supports her as Carlo leads them to their room. Jana keeps her eyes closed the whole way, surrendering herself to her man.

  That night, Jana gets no rest. Feverish, she keeps getting jostled awake by the ceaseless clatter of the heavy downpour. The rain is so thick that she cannot even identify morning when, at 7:30, Dean rises from his deep, snore-filled slumber. He pulls open the drapes, but it’s still so dark outside. Will she ever get to lay eyes on Venera?

  Dean emerges naked from the bathroom, his skin still glistening from the shower. She thinks of inviting him back to bed for a morning romp, and the thought of sex makes her aware of feeling queasy. She rushes out of bed, but she doesn’t quite make it to the toilet in time and she vomits all over the bathroom floor.

  Dean finds her trembling on all fours. He dampens a clean towel, cleans her up, and brings her back to bed. He slips under the covers and presses her against his chest; she lets herself breathe him in. She shivers a few times, but she eventually starts to feel warm and drowsy …

  … The sound of Dean’s voice brings Jana back to consciousness. He’s on the phone, talking in Veneran. She still hasn’t asked him about that.

  He hangs up, and she asks, yawning: “Who was that?”

  “I called the front desk. They’re sending a maid over to clean the bathroom.”

  That jars her out of her torpor. “What? No! Don’t embarrass me like that. Call back. I’ll clean it.” But she’s thinking: You should clean it, Dean. And I shouldn’t have to ask.

  “You’ll do no such thing, amora. I’m taking care of it. There’s nothing embarrassing. We’re paying for service, and we’re getting it. You need fresh air, though, but you also need to keep warm. Did you bring any sweaters?”

  She nods; Dean rifles through her luggage, pulling out her clothes carelessly. Defeated, Janna feels weak again. She’s hungry, but the thought of food turns her stomach.

  He comes to bed and dresses her. She lets him, neither cooperating nor hindering. He wraps her in extra blankets pulled from the bottom drawer of the dresser. He leads her outside; it’s still raining: a cascading wall of grey obscuring everything. But there’s no wind, and the balcony is well protected and dry. So he sits her on a chaise longue, and she closes her eyes, exhausted.

  Despite the rain, the air is hot; the balcony is almost as sweltering as a sauna. Yesterday’s unseasonable cold spell has entirely dissipated. Nevertheless, there’s still a hint of chill in her bones. Jana breathes in the moistness of Venera. It smells intoxicating: flowery fragrances mixed with salty brine; sex in a woman’s bedroom.

  Under the blankets, under her clothes, she places a hand between her legs. She’s wet, hungry to be touched. She slips two fingers inside herself, wishing it were Dean’s fingers. She lets herself glide on that fantasy …

  … Until she hears a woman yelling, from within their room.

  Jana gets up and walks inside. Dean is gripping the maid’s wrists together. While she struggles, the maid continues to yell at him in Veneran. There are fresh, red scratches across Dean’s cheek. There’s barely controlled anger in his face: he wants to hit this dark-haired woman, hurt her, whoever she is. Never in the past two years has Jana seen Dean violently angry.

  The scene leaves Jana confused; already sexually alert, she can’t help but respond to Dean’s show of strength. But it scares her, too, as does her own arousal.

  The pair notice Jana. The distraction is enough for the maid to escape Dean’s hold. She hisses at the couple, but the effect is more caricatural than menacing.

  Dean and Jana catch each other’s eye; as if on cue, they both start to guffaw. Scowling at Dean, the maid, gesturing like a madwoman, screams something Jana can’t decipher, then flings the door open and flees.

  As abruptly as the laughter began, it ends. The weight of secrecy, strangeness, alienation, and tension that has been mounting since their arrival in Venera — momentarily dampened by that unexpected burst of complicity — bears down on Jana. Now, it is Dean himself who appears secretive, strange, alien, and the source of Jana’s disquiet.

  Almost as quickly, the mood shifts again; Dean’s customary male brashness dissolves under Jana’s gaze. He closes the door, then stands awkwardly, his face flickering concern, culpability, love, vulnerability. He extends a hand toward her, and she takes it. They sit on the bed. A few times in short succession, he opens his mouth as if to speak but seems unable to find the words.

  Now, Jana thinks. Now is the time to clear up all the mysteries aggregating around Dean and his relationship to Venera. All he needs is a persuasive nudge … Jana brushes his ear with her mouth and whispers: “Talk to me, love.”

  And he does. But Jana is immediately angered by the sounds he utters. He’s speaking Veneran.

  She interrupts him, shouting: “I can’t believe you’re making fun of me like this!”

  Instead of laughing or escalating the heat of the argument, Dean looks bewildered, frightened.

  He speaks again but trails off after only a few words of Veneran. Again he tries; but, still spouting Veneran, he stops abruptly. He hurries to the desk. Picking up a pen, he writes on the hotel notepad, but tears off sheet after sheet. He yells a foreign word that has the unmistakable blunt venom of an oath. He slams his fist on the desk. Turning to Jana, he repeats pleadingly: “Amora, amora, amora …” — his favourite endearment, which she now gleans is not his own romantic coinage but the Veneran word for love — followed by a string of syllables she cannot understand, punctuated by a final, defeated “Amora …”

  Then, he grunts angrily and, shaking his fist, spits out a sentence in Veneran. With one final, tender “Amora” for Jana’s benefit, he rushes out the door.

  Jana thinks of following him, but the adrenaline rush that followed her discovery of the altercation between Dean and the maid has dissipated, and now she feels weak, her skin burning. Remembering her hallucination in the lobby, she doubts everything that she has just witnessed. Sleep. Sleep will restore her and restore reason to the world. She buries herself in the bed, but her feverish slumber is anything but peaceful. She slips in and out of consciousness, haunted by nightmares and nightmarish hallucinations, by half-human monsters and distorted memories of past humiliations and betrayals, by visions of Dean and the maid conspiring against her.

  When Jana wakes, despite the tumult of her time in bed, she feels like herself again. Whatever fever or ailment or virus or poison had assailed her has run its course. If she’s still weak at all, it is because of hunger. It feels good, though, to want food again. She has no idea how long she slept. There’s no sign of Dean. A quick hot shower, and she’ll go down to the hotel restaurant. And then she’ll deal with Dean’s absence on a full stomach. For now, she’s ready to dismiss everything that’s happened since their arrival here as a fever dream.

  But Jana had forgotten about the state of the bathroom. It still has not been cleaned. Best to deal with it on an empty stomach, she reasons. Being careful to set aside one clean towel for herself, she gets the job done. Part of her wants to indulge in a long shower, but she’s too hungry; she makes do with a quick in and out.

  The layout of the hotel is labyrinthine, echoing her first impression of the city as she and Dean were led to the hotel upon disembarking. The halls are cavernous — badly lit and undistinguishable one from another. Which floor is she on? Has she passed by her own room repeatedly? Jana’s hunger makes her disorientation more acute. Finally, she is rescued by a solicitous young porter who finds her wandering in the halls and leads her to her destination, the restaurant. The same porter once again comes to her rescue afterward, once she has spent nearly an hour trying to find her room. Both times, in fractured English, he refuses her offer of a gratuity.

  The next day, the rain still shows no sign of abating. Daytime or nighttime, there’s scarcely any variation in the light; a relentless dark grey aura shrouds Venera.

  Dean has yet to come back. Suspecting that the maid is her best lead to find her
wayward lover Jana goes to the front desk, which, to her surprise, she finds with no difficulty.

  It’s her first time in the lobby since they arrived and she suffered that disquieting hallucination. The sight of the embossed Yggdrasil on the front desk unnerves her. She can’t shake the impression that it’s somehow organic, alive. That some kind of preternatural life force pulses through it, emanating outward in concentric circles of corrupting energy, decaying the fabric that coheres reality.

  Jana swallows her apprehension and strides toward the desk with what she hopes is confidence. She’s not certain, but she thinks she recognizes the clerk from when they arrived. A tall, bony man whose extreme thinness makes it difficult to estimate his age. The hue of his pitch-black hair, gelled in place tightly against his skull, probably comes from a bottle. “Excuse me — do you speak English?”

  “Of course, miadama.”

  Jana gives him their room number. “Two days ago, we called to have the bathroom cleaned. I’d like to speak to the maid, please.”

  “One moment, miadama.” He opens a cumbersome ledger and murmurs, “Si, Natasha,” then he tsks.

  Jana asks, “Is something wrong?”

  “The maid in question has not reported for work since being sent to your room.”

  “What’s her full name? Is there a way I can get in touch with her?”

  “Miadama, that is confidential information. We have been unable to contact her ourselves. Why did you want to talk to her? Is there any information you could give us as to her whereabouts or what happened to her?”

  The clerk’s tone is now accusatory. She hesitates, not knowing how to respond. The prospect of revealing that Dean has fled with no explanation, leaving her alone, is too humiliating. Under the clerk’s probing gaze, she can feel guilt spell itself on her face, although she is guilty of nothing. Another man emerges from the back offices. He is portly, dishevelled, exuding stern paternalistic authority. The two Venerans confer in hushed tones — not that Jana could understand what they say, anyway. But she does catch the name “Natasha” a few times. Interrupting the men, she mumbles incoherently: “No … I mean … How could I … I don’t — ” They turn to look at her, staring at her, judging her silently. Finally, she blurts: “If you hear from this Natasha, please let me know. I need to speak to her. It’s a private matter,” and turns on her heels before either man can say anything else to her.

  But the geometry of the hotel once again confounds her. Instead of locating the stairs that would lead her back to her room, Jana finds herself at the threshold of the exit, the relentless rain, falling a few centimetres in front of her, splatters from the ground to her bare calves. As Jana ponders whether to go forth in the heavy downpour and explore Venera with no raincoat or umbrella — she can’t spend the entirety of her time here, in the world’s most exotic city, holed up in a room waiting for her boyfriend — a familiar voice addresses her. “Miadama?” It is Carlo, the porter who greeted them at the boat, now brandishing an umbrella. “Miadama, the weather has not been kind since your arrival.”

  Although she barely knows this man at all, Jana experiences a flood of comfort at his proximity. For an instant, she feels safe; yet, she knows her face betrays her distress. She quickly recovers, but in the silence Carlo has been studying her. She softens and nestles into the male possessiveness of his gaze, finding refuge in its brash, unspoken promise of protection.

  He asks: “Have you yet seen anything of Venera?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I think, miadama, that you need to get out, to explore. Let me guide you in this terrible weather. Let me show you what I know of Venera, for she is the most beautiful and mysterious of cities.” Carlo opens the umbrella, his left hand extended in invitation.

  Jana ducks under the umbrella and grabs his arm, unashamedly kneading his strong biceps. She smiles at him, as chastely as she can manage under the circumstances. “Thank you. Let’s go!”

  Although Carlo is from Venera, and not Italy, to Jana’s ear his accent has that same musicality that she associates with Italian. His English is near-perfect, peppered with the occasional local expression or mistranslated colloquialism. As they walk arm-in-arm, he speaks nonstop, acting the eager tourist guide. Amid the dense downpour, Jana cannot see anything, cannot attach his words to any concrete reality. She soon stops paying attention to the words themselves, letting his voice and his male musk lullaby her into forgetting her anxieties and the strangeness of everything that’s befallen her since arriving on the island.

  Finally, Carlo and Jana take refuge in a small restaurant. “It is unusual for the island to be hit by such heavy rain, miadama,” he tells her after exchanging a few words in Veneran with the hostess.

  “Please, call me Jana.”

  He bows his head. “Si, Jana.”

  They are led to a small booth, near a roaring fireplace. The fire is delicious. Jana closes her eyes and lets the heat caress her face.

  Once she opens her eyes, she says: “Order food and wine for us, please. Surprise me. Delight me. It’s all on me, of course. You’ve been so kind.”

  He starts to protest but catches himself. “It is you who is so kind.” He gets up, finding the waitress at the bar.

  Jana takes in her surroundings. The mood is warm, earthy, intimate. Eschewing electric light, the entire place is lit by fire: candles, lanterns, and, of, course, the fireplace. The walls are of vermilion-red brick and the structure and furniture is some dark brown — in this light, almost black — wood. The decor is minimalist: no artwork, no photographs — although some of the wood panels have carved details; she can’t quite make out the shapes in the near dark, but the flickering light seems to reveal monstrous, nightmarish, even menacing faces. She assumes the horrific character of what she perceives in the carvings is the result of her own somewhat grotesque frame of mind, which Carlo’s charming — almost too charming — company has only superficially suppressed.

  Carlo returns. She asks him about this place. “The Kibbudea is an old establishment,” he explains, pointing to the placemats, on which the name is spelled in Romanesque script under an ornate logo; although Janna cannot grasp what it depicts she is repulsed by its ferocious aura of obscenity, “predating even the Roman conquest, when the goddess Hecate sent her shapeshifting soldiers to take over the vermilion trade for the empire. Neither Hecate nor the Romans ever did find the gardens. Venera waited them out, and eventually the Romans retreated as their empire collapsed. So, too, the Northern hordes who built their temple to Yggdrasil where now stands the World Tree Hotel hoped to discover the holy secret of the sacred spice and profit from it. Over the centuries, some of the Vikings left, others died out or were assimilated.”

  Jana finds none of these digressions interesting. All this superstition about gods and worship … she tries not to let her irritation show — Carlo is being so nice to her — but she sees in his reaction, now that he pauses for breath and takes a good look at her, that he has become aware of her impatience with the directions the conversation has taken.

  Clearing his throat, Carlo answers her question more directly: “The priestesses of the goddess — the true goddess, Venera herself; not this counterfeit New Age Earth Goddess the current government espouses — once prepared food for the deity in these kitchens. But there has been no sign of Venera herself for generations. At least since the Nazi occupation. Maybe even before. In her absence, the Kibbudea — in Classical Veneran that means ‘food for the goddess’ — has passed into laic hands.”

  Jana fidgets uncomfortably, barely acknowledging Carlo. The near dark, already somewhat disquieting, takes on a suffocating quality; the carvings now appear even more monstrous, inspiring a gnawing, creeping terror. She admonishes herself for being so easily susceptible. “Surely, you don’t believe all this. Shapeshifters? Goddesses?” She regrets her disdainful tone even before the words are out of her.

  Carlo’s face betrays a flash of hurt and anger, which settles into disappointment
. He forces a smile. “Venera is like nowhere else on Earth. The gods may be dead everywhere else, but here many of them still thrive, miadama.” Carlo puts an unmistakable cold emphasis on that formal word of address, announcing to Jana that he’s shutting down the complicity that had been building between them.

  The wine arrives, interrupting the palpable awkwardness. To Jana’s surprise, it’s a mulled wine, served in a glass decanter mounted on a trivet, below which oil burns in a boat-shaped terracotta dish. The wine is so dark, its charred redness is almost black. It smells delicious, its aroma already sumptuously intoxicating.

  Carlo inhales the bouquet of the warm alcohol and instantly — Jana can see in his face — snaps back into his persona of the subtle charmer, as if it were an inevitable reflex. Good — she wants things to thaw again between them. She needs a friend, here in this faraway island and now in these bizarre circumstances. He pours her a drink in a wooden mug into which are carved demonic — or perhaps angelic? — figures engaged in an orgy of oral sex. Venera is notorious for this kind of grotesquely erotic artwork. She clutches the warm offering to her chest and, despite her skepticism, is overcome with a sense of ritual, maybe even transcendence. Jana closes her eyes, taking in the rich odours of the wine. In a near-whisper, she tells Carlo: “You’re right … Venera is like nowhere else.” As she sips the dark liquid, she notices his gaze soften with a hint of genuine warmth.

  They sip the wine in companionable silence, for which Jana is grateful. She doesn’t want to say the wrong thing again, and with every sip she feels her inhibitions slip away. In this lightheaded state, she fears it would be too easy for her to let loose some ill-considered words that might again break this comforting illusion of intimacy.

  Meanwhile, the wine continues to weave its spell, making her feel giddy, despite the nagging mysterious unpleasantness with Dean, despite the grotesque surroundings. She recognizes by now that the beverage is laced with vermilion. A small part of her is concerned about once again imbibing the powerful euphoric spice that left her so ill recently, but she suppresses her worries and lets herself relax.