Border Crossings
4 All Greek to Me
5 April 2016
IT WAS A SHOCK to my system to get off the plane in Athens where the temperature was 47° Fahrenheit. It was 96° when I boarded the plane in Bangkok and just plain hotter than hell when I transferred in Abu Dhabi. But Athens was cold and the airport, by comparison to the last two I’d been in, was practically deserted. Passport control stamped my book and waved me through without more than a cursory glance. There was one store in the airport and it didn’t have a phone SIM.
The thing about Greece is that I could read the letters of their alphabet. That’s thanks to a course in New Testament Greek that I took years ago. If you can read the letters, you can sound out the words. And if you are educated at all, you will find many Greek words have an English equivalent that isn’t far off from the sound of the Greek. Like ‘train’ is τρένο, pronounced ‘traino.’ Roll the r. Anyway, I found the train station, asked for directions from the ticket agent and boarded the train. It’s also helpful that since the Olympics in 2004, nearly every sign in the city is in both Greek and English.
I MANAGED TO FOLLOW the directions to my apartment and my host was very nice (and pretty, of course) and helped me get settled in. We sat on her top floor deck to have a smoke and looked across the roofs to the Parthenon. Yeah. That brought it home. I’m sitting in an apartment in Athens looking over the rooftops at the frickin’ Parthenon! Kalli gave me directions to a nice taverna not far away and I had a delicious meal with a quarter liter of red wine for seven euros. I was in heaven.
Kalli, however, was another of those who didn’t drink coffee. As pretty as she was, it was the only flaw I could find. She was an actress and was performing in a play on the east side of Athens over the weekend. It was a political drama that revolved around the refugee crisis.
Yes, there is a refugee crisis in Greece. Over 300,000 have come into the country this year. The US, with a population of 360 million people, is in a panic because of the ‘threat’ of 200,000 Syrian refugees entering the country after careful screening. The whole country of Greece probably doesn’t have enough food to feed that many extras. The Greeks, living in a country with a population of twelve million, just keep pulling the refugees out of the water and feeding them, even though their own country is nearly bankrupt. They are a people with a huge heart.
Because of the unrest and potential demonstrations, though, Kalli advised me not to come to one of her shows. She did tell me where to get good coffee in the mornings. In most of southern and central Europe, a coffee is a single shot of espresso. It is always served with a little biscuit or cookie and a glass of water. A shot of espresso is about two swallows, but people stretch drinking it over two hours. For a guy who liked a sixteen-ounce Starbucks Americano, it was a lot to get used to.
Now the long blade of the sun, lying
Level east to west, touches with glory
Thebes of the Seven Gates. Open, unlidded
Eye of golden day! O marching light
Across the eddy and rush of Dirce’s stream,
Striking the white shields of the enemy
Thrown headlong backward from the blaze of morning!
Yes, I performed as part of the chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone back in the day. Paula had the title role. And we did it in full Greek masks. I have no doubt that the incredible translation by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald not only influenced my writing, but probably even slipped into it. I believe that in four performances, we had a total audience of maybe fifty people. An artistic success, but not a popular one. Nonetheless, when I looked down on the theater at the Acropolis, I could still hear those lines echoing.
COMING TO GREECE was a lifelong dream. It was one of the reasons to travel around the world. The Parthenon. The Temple of Zeus. The Dionysian Theatre. The museums. The art—what the Greeks still had after the Brits left. I’d seen almost as much Greek sculpture in the British Museum. But it was better to see it here. On the Acropolis that had been a fortress for four thousand years. I wandered around Athens for three days discovering something new each day. Including Greek coffee with half an inch of muddy grounds still in the cup after I’d finished. And still, it seemed as though I had only scratched the surface.
AND THE BEAUTIFUL ACTRESS who let me use her second bedroom was also a delight. Just not how you are thinking. I met her boyfriend the day after I arrived. He was nice, too, but didn’t speak English quite as well as she did. Her day started around noon when she got up to walk the dog. It ended about three in the morning when she walked the dog after returning from performance and going out with the cast. I know she returned sometime in the late afternoon or early evening to walk the dog again, but we seldom crossed paths. I got up around five in the morning and was usually sound asleep by ten at night. Old habits die hard and it didn’t seem to make a difference what time zone I was in; I still woke up at five a.m.
I LEFT THE KEYS on the table by the door the morning I left with a note that said ‘Thank you for your hospitality.’ I boarded the train north an hour later with too much excitement to be sad about leaving Athens. The Plains of Thessaly tugged at my heartstrings.
If you are reading this, you’ve probably read some of my other stories. A story I wrote a long time ago and titled “The Four Faces of Carles” was reworked, spiced up, and released as The Props Master 1: Ritual Reality. I got a bit of flak over the story because it seemed like it picked up in the middle. Well, it wasn’t the middle, but it wasn’t the beginning, either.
A Long Time Ago: First Novel
I’D JUST FINISHED writing my first novel—oh so many years ago. It had been a struggle from the day Paula left and I sat with a blank sheet of paper in my typewriter. But, at last, it was finished. I typed “The End” on page 120. I had no idea that most novels were longer than 40,000 words. I was proud of my first ‘book-length’ manuscript. I’d had a few of my plays produced, but people had been encouraging me to write a book. With my love of mythology, it seemed natural to weave a new myth into the fabric of the Greek canon.
My soon-to-be second ex-wife, Belle, read the first page and exploded in laughter. It had to do with the opening line: “Dust billowed explosively with each step as the explorer trod out of the canyons lecturing to himself.” Okay. Not my finest work, but it was my first. All I needed to do was find a reader who would appreciate my genius.
Elliot was one of the guys I’d met in a dramatic theory class as I got my advanced degree in playwriting. He was trying to move from writing novels into plays. He agreed to read it and let me know what he thought. I visited the next day (it didn’t take long to read) and waited anxiously for his assessment.
“Wow! It’s really freeze-dried,” he said.
Well, that wasn’t exactly the response I was looking for, but it was better than laughing through the first page.
“What I mean is that you have all the ingredients necessary to make a novel, but it’s so compact that you start and it’s over. If you added a little hot water, you’d have a whole, satisfying cup of coffee.”
It was my first draft. Of my first novel. I had things to learn.
I WALKED THE THREE MILES from Elliot’s apartment to mine that evening trying to figure out what was missing. Elliot had challenged me to look at my main characters and interview them. Ask them questions. Give them challenges like the exercise we’d done in tossing out a challenge to explain a subject from the character’s perspective. So, I started formulating a bunch of questions I’d ask of my main character, J. Wesley Allen. What was it like to be isolated within your mind? How did you manage to accept the reality of the myth within the context of your Christian belief system? Where did you expect to end up when you spent the night on the mountain?
I was nearly run over at an intersection where I’d ignored the red light. Jerking back into the present, I heard a voice as clear as if he was standing beside me.
If you’d just shut up, I’d tell you about it. The entirety of that which exists, has being only because it has been remembered from the collective consciousness of humanity. As long as someone remembers something, it exists in what we call reality. It may exist in a different time frame or at a different dimension than we imagined, but it does exist.
I ran home and grabbed a notebook. I listened to Wesley and wrote down what he said. Thus was born The Book of Wesley. (http://bookofwesley.blogspot.com/2013/08/x.html)
A popular quote that has made the circuit of writers for the past several years, without attribution, is “If you hear voices in your head and they are ignoring you, you are probably a writer.” Wesley’s was the first of many voices that I would hear in my head over the coming years.
Back to Greece
THE FIRST NOVEL I ever wrote was released as The Props Master Prequel: Behind the Ivory Veil. A lot of that novel is set in Greece in an area called The Metéora. I’d written about it—in detail. I’d researched the area and read everything I could get my hands on about it in the days long before the Internet. In libraries! But I’d never been there.
THE REALITY was so much more magnificent than what I’d imagined that I was glad I had delayed the release of Behind the Ivory Veil until I had actually seen the Metéora. From the moment I saw the spires of rock from the train window, I was enthralled. Legend has it that in a battle between the Gods of Olympus and the Titans they displaced, huge meteors were hurled against each other. Hence the name Metéora. The spires of rock that jut up out of the Plains of Thessaly became an obvious retreat for religious ascetics who could truly isolate themselves from civilization by perching at the top of these rocks. Monks began living in the caves sometime in the eleventh century.
THE LARGEST AND HIGHEST of the monasteries was begun in the fourteenth century and is still in use. The walls of the monastery extend out of the sheer cliffs of the rock on which it is built. I had imagined rocks a hundred feet high. We were talking about cliffs a hundred meters and more up to the walls of the monastery!
The taxi took me directly to my hotel in Kastraki for five Euros. From my window, I could see the Monastery of Agios Nikolaos Anapafsas. It’s one of the lower relics and would be the first that I visited. It was too late in the day to make the visit after I’d checked in, though. I walked through the village and spotted several taverna that would be good places to stop for a meal. I won’t make this a travelogue and describe every item on the menu that I ate. I will mention, however, that my meal included lots of meat, coffee, dessert, a complimentary shot of raki—the Greek equivalent of moonshine. Oh, and a half-liter of good red wine. Total cost was about €10. I was definitely liking Greece.
A Long Time Ago: Back to the Book
SEVERAL YEARS AND A DOZEN DRAFTS of Behind the Ivory Veil later, Dee Dellas read the manuscript. She smiled at me when I sat to get her critique.
“It’s good,” she said. “But it’s not ready.” She paused and looked at me. “Let me rephrase that. You are not ready.” I wasn’t sure what she meant. By that time, I’d completed two more books in what I deemed would be my breakthrough series and was well into the fourth. I just waited, hoping the older woman would enlighten me.
“You write about passion, sorrow, loss, and hope,” she finally continued as we sipped our coffee. “These are subjects we Greeks know well. Your playwriting education has shown you this. We invented the tragedy. We invented the comedy. We invented the satire. We know passion. You write about them, just as you write about the beauty of the Metéora. But you don’t know them.”
“Well, I can’t really travel there,” I said. “I don’t have the money. But I did a lot of research.”
“Everything you say about it is completely accurate,” she said as she held up her hands in surrender. “One day, though… One day you will travel to Kastraki. You will sit beside the well of tears where the women gathered each day to mourn the loss of their children killed in the war or kidnapped by the communists. You will look up at the impotent citadels on the rocks. You will weep because you have known great joy and great sorrow. Then you will be ready.”
Back to Greece
SUNSET WAS MAGNIFICENT with light reflecting off the high rocks long after the day was done. I walked from the restaurant back toward my hotel and past the central plaza. In the center of the plaza was a circular wall about two feet high. A tree was planted in the center with flowers around it. Kastraki had city water and sewer, now. The houses were plumbed. The well of tears had long since been filled in.
But I sat next to it and wept.
MY FIRST EXPERIENCE of a normal European breakfast opened my eyes to the joy of boiled eggs. In my family, we ate cold boiled eggs on Easter. Those were the eggs we’d spent Saturday coloring. The packets of dye were potent enough to leave both the eggs and our hands stained through. Then Mom and Dad would hide the eggs early Easter morning and my little sister and I had to race to find them all before church. There was always one egg that didn’t get discovered until June.
But eating the eggs involved cracking the gaily colored shells and peeling them away from the hard, cold white, often tearing a significant portion of the white away with the shell. Then we salted the eggs and ate them. For days. Seldom for breakfast, but often as an after-school snack.
The only other time I ever saw my mother boil eggs was in the summer so she could make deviled eggs when company came to dinner. I still love deviled eggs, though I’ve discovered that of three different wives, none had the same recipe. And even my sister’s are not the same as our mother’s.
So, having a hot boiled egg in an egg cup with a plate of cold cuts and a plate of cheese with hot bread was a real treat. It took me most of the remainder of my trip, however, to master the art of removing just the top half of the shell and using my egg spoon to scoop out the egg as I ate it from the other half. (Big end down, of course. I can’t remember if that makes me a Big Endian or a Little Endian. And that has nothing to do with computer bytes. Look up Gulliver.) I dawdled over my breakfast in the hotel dining room where the teenage hosts had set a table for one amidst all the other tables set for two or four.
I was smearing butter and strawberry preserves on yet another piece of warm bread when all hell broke loose in the hall adjacent to the dining room.
“Just pack your shit and leave!” a woman screamed. “You were supposed to be a help on this project.”
“I can’t help that you’re sexy. And you enjoyed it!”
“I can’t work like this. It’s my final project and you aren’t taking it seriously. I wanted to be out to catch the first light this morning. I’ll be lucky if I get anything shot today at all because all you can do is fuck and play video games. Just go back to Thessaloniki. And when you get there, clear your shit out of my apartment. I don’t want you around when I get back. I’m through with you!”
“Stacy…”
“Just go! I have work to do.”
The door slammed and a tall skinny guy came through the lobby with a backpack and his nose almost touching his cell phone. He didn’t even look at the food. He stumbled through the front door and slammed it closed behind him.
THE DRAMA FOR THE DAY apparently being over, I finished my coffee and went to my room. The San Giorgio Villas was a nice but inexpensive hotel. The room was large and the bed comfortable. I opened the French doors to the little private deck where I knew I would later sit to have wine and a smoke—probably while I was writing. First, though, there was the matter of an adventure to be had. All the monasteries that accepted visitors were open today and I planned to do a walking tour.
When I left, I couldn’t help noticing the Greek goddess who was now seated at the table I’d abandoned, drinking coffee and eating her egg. She didn’t look up when I passed, but I was thankful that I’d already put on my dark glasses so my stare wasn’t so obvious. Wow!
The maps were good. I stopped at a little grocery store and bought a couple bottles of water and a bag of nuts and dried fruit. Agios Nikolaos was the closest and the walk to it took only about twenty minutes. Well, thirty minutes, but the other ten were taken up by me stopping to take pictures every ten feet. There was a sharp contrast between the classical ruins of Athens and the monasteries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They each held their own mystic grandeur. After I finally climbed to the base of the spire, I had to make my way up the steps to the monastery. The first thing encountered was the classic rope lift that at one time would have been used to lift supplies and people to the entrance, still a hundred feet above.
I’VE USED THE OLD JOKE about them changing the ropes whenever one broke, but scratched at the base of the pulley track was a sort of memorial with the number of people who had died when the ropes broke. It sent a shiver down my spine.
Of course, now there is a narrow set of steps that have been attached to the cliff so that visitors can climb up to the entrance, pay their three euros, and tour the sacred halls. The artwork was exquisite. I joined a number of tourists who had arrived on a bus just before I got there and their guide pointed out the significance of the art as we crammed more people into the tiny chapel than it was meant to hold. It was a relief to reach the rooftop and be in the open air.
Parts of the monastery were not open to the public. This was still an active religious home, and though there were not many monks, they still had their duties, religious services, and living quarters in the tiny monastery. My guess was that at peak occupancy, fifty monks would have made this space feel crowded.
The rooftop garden, though, was a place where I could well imagine spending a lifetime of quiet meditation. Mountains were visible on the other side of the little village of Kastraki. Behind me, the bulk of the next and even higher spire of rock cast its shadow on the tiny monastery. I sat out there for quite a while, even after I’d snapped dozens of pictures.
AND SO MY DAY WENT. A road now looped around to the base of the next three monasteries, but from the road there was still a climb of several hundred steps. The day was sunny and bright. Before I had reached the second monastery, which I discovered was actually a convent, I was hot and sweaty. I sat at its gates to drink some water and rest after the climb and a cat stalked down off its perch near the gate and decided my hands would be better put to use by petting it.
“WELL,” I SIGHED. “Got my hands on a little Greek pussy at last.” The cat didn’t get the joke and I don’t think the Japanese tourists approaching spoke English.
I climbed all the way up to Meteoron, the highest of all the monasteries, next. I think it might be the largest, as well. What got me was that after I climbed up to where all the buses were disgorging their hordes, we had to walk down nearly two hundred steps before we could cross over to the spire on which the monastery actually sat and climb up to it. At one point the passage had been cut through the rock and was narrow enough that people coming from opposite directions did some very personal rubbing getting past each other.
THE ARCHITECTURE, the artwork, and the history of this monastery were incredible. It included three museums and a gift shop for the three-euro admission. One of the museums was purportedly of traditional dress of Greece, but proved to be primarily military uniforms. Amidst this collection was a painting that has been reproduced frequently. It shows a monk on one spire shooting a German soldier attempting to plant the Nazi flag on another. The resistance here in the Metéora was intense.
My resistance was failing. Or at least, my endurance was. I’d been walking and climbing for several hours in the heat and stopped at a vendor in the parking lot to buy a walking stick with the word ‘Metéora’ burned into one side. I’d need it when I followed the shortcut from the next monastery down to the village. I’d been told about the path, but hadn’t found any sign of it, so I asked the ticket guy about it. He nodded and told me to continue straight down the stairs next to the spire when the main path turned to cross over to the parking lot. The path I was looking for started at the bottom of the stairs.
The bottom of the stairs entered a construction zone where they were staging materials for the constant repairs and rebuilding of the monastery, so the first thing I had to do was climb over piles of sand and gravel. There were only two exits from this construction yard. One was the service entrance where, presumably, trucks delivered the materials. The other was a narrow path past the garden. I followed it into a different world.
THE ENCHANTED PATHWAY story is pretty common, especially in fantasy literature. This was the kind of path that led you to believe those stories of fairies and unicorns could be true. It was cushioned by a thick fall of leaves, but the scuff marks indicated that it was not completely abandoned. I was thinking that if I lived in one of those monasteries on the pinnacles, I’d come down here to meditate.
Well, that was about as far as my mystical ramblings could take me, but I could certainly imagine old Doc Heinrich treading down out of the hills on this path, lecturing to himself on Schliemann’s discovery of Troy. What I wasn’t expecting as I listened to quiet forest sounds and disturbed a flight of butterflies that seemed to be everywhere at once, was the sound of a woman weeping.
Damsel alert!
What can I say? I simply have a soft spot for women in distress. That’s why I wrote that whole series of Hero Lincoln stories, unrealistic as they were. I followed my ears and the sounds led me along the path to a stone footbridge on which sat my damsel. The beautiful Greek goddess that I’d seen in the hotel.
“Excuse me, are you all right?” I asked. She looked up at me but said nothing. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Greek, but can I help you?”
“It’s okay,” she said and sniffed. “I speak English. You just surprised me. I’ve been here for an hour and didn’t think anyone else used this path.”
“They told me about it at the hotel,” I said as I pushed back my Panama and mopped my brow. It was considerably cooler here in this little forest than on the roads to the monastery, but I was still sweating. “We’re staying in the same hotel, I think. Do you need some water?” I unslung my daypack and retrieved the two bottles of water I’d picked up before I started the trip. I’d indulged in the food carts earlier and had never broken into my second bottle. This would lighten my load. She took the bottle gratefully.
“I didn’t bring water with me. You are far cleverer. I’ve been carting this equipment all over creation looking for the perfect spot and when I finally found it, the light started to go and I twisted my ankle. I’ve just been sitting here crying since then,” she sniffed. “Thank you for your kindness. I’m Anastasia,” she said, holding out a delicate hand. I took it, and for some reason did not shake it, but bent to kiss her fingers. I don’t know if she got anything out of it, but it sure gave me a charge.
“AROSLAV, AT YOUR SERVICE. What brings you out here in the wilderness alone?”
“I’m a cinematographer,” she said. “Well, a student. I’m supposed to be working on my final project for my graduate degree. Ha! What I’m really doing is lugging fifty pounds of camera equipment up and down these slopes feeling sorry for myself.”
Oh, my! This was the shrew that threw her boyfriend out of the hotel this morning? Wouldn’t you know.
“I’d be happy to help schlep your equipment back to the hotel. Do you think you can walk? Otherwise I’ll go get an ambulance,” I said.
“Please, don’t leave!” she said. There was a trace of panic in her voice. “I mean, yes, I think I could walk, but I didn’t want to abandon my equipment. It’s all I have.”
“Um… Perhaps if you used my stick, you could support yourself enough that if we go slowly, you’ll make it. If you take my pack, I’ll shoulder yours. Believe me, with the water gone, my pack hardly weighs anything.”
“I’m sorry I can’t promise you the same thing.”
We made the exchange and she helped adjust the straps on her pack for me. I don’t think the pack I’m carrying around the world weighed as much as her equipment bag. Oh, well. I was in pretty good shape, all things considered. It’s just that after all the climbs in the heat today, I was pretty well fagged out.
Anastasia gripped my arm in one hand and my stick in the other. It took us close to an hour to reach the main track that would take us back to the hotel.
“I didn’t know about this track,” she said.
“How did you get up there?”
“I had a taxi drive me to the peak and then started walking. Don’t tell me you walked up that steep trail!” she said.
“I walked, but I went by way of the roads. I visited four of the seven monasteries today.”
“My God! You must be exhausted. And still you came to the aid of a stupid girl who let her ego get in her way.”
“I must say, that has been a high point of my day,” I laughed. We were on pretty level footing now, but she kept hold of my arm, less for support than companionship.
That feeling when you know you’ve been hooked but don’t want to fight being reeled in? Yeah. That. I figured Miss Anastasia had men do just about anything she wanted and that I’d be schlepping her equipment around for the rest of my stay in the Metéora. I didn’t care. I liked the feeling of her hand on my arm and the way she was leaning against me. There were worse ways to spend a few days.
As soon as we were back at the hotel and got her equipment into her room, I contacted the host to ask for an ice pack. It amounts to a plastic baggie full of ice wrapped in a towel, but it’s cold and it works. Anastasia hobbled out into the lounge area, still using my staff for support, and deposited herself onto one of the sofas with her leg raised elegantly onto a pillow. She had quickly changed from her jeans into a pair of shorts and it was a damned good looking leg and ankle that I applied the ice to.
She grabbed her tablet and started tapping on the screen. That looked like a good idea, so I retrieved my laptop and settled into a chair nearby. Before long, we were each lost in our own worlds. My mystery had stalled when I left Thailand where a good portion of it is set. My word count was falling daily, so I decided to devote my energy to the do-over I was contemplating. That was going to bend some people’s minds as they figured out what was happening. I grinned and launched into the story.
“ARE YOU PLAYING GAMES on your computer?” Anastasia asked a little harshly. I saved my file and noted that I’d already written nearly 2,000 words in the new story.
“No,” I said. “I don’t really have time for games. I’m working on a new story.”
“A story? You’re a writer? Are you writing about your travels?”
“Let me see. Yes, a story. Yes, I’m a writer. No, I don’t write about my travels. I tell lies for a living. Maybe that didn’t translate right. I write fiction.”
“Really? Why are you clear out here?”
“Well, a few years ago I had an epiphany. I woke up one morning and thought, ‘I’m a writer. I could do this anywhere. So why am I doing it from a basement in Seattle?’ At that point, as the song says, I sold the house, closed the shop, bought a ticket for the West Coast. Only my ticket was a pickup truck and travel trailer. I traveled around the U.S. for over two years, through forty-four states and three Canadian provinces. Then I decided to spend the winter in Hawaii. So, I stored the truck and trailer and rented a cabin on the Big Island. I was daydreaming and looked at a map one day and discovered I was halfway to Japan. It seemed silly to go back to Seattle, so I decided to just keep going west. I’ll get back to my truck in a few months. End of the story of my life.”
I heard her stomach growl. It was loud enough that she blushed and laughed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I skipped lunch.”
“It is getting on toward dinner time. Even by Greek standards. Do you feel up to going down to a restaurant? I could go and order something to take away.”
“I’ll still be limping, but it would be a shame to deprive you of an evening in one of the terrace cafés. Could you do with company?”
“Anastasia, I am a healthy if not particularly young man. To deny myself the company of a beautiful and intelligent young woman would be unheard of.”
“I just need to stop and freshen up a minute first,” she said. I helped her to her room and returned the melted icepack to the kitchen. My experience with beautiful women told me that I had at least half an hour to wait while she ‘freshened up’ so I didn’t hurry as I washed my face and trimmed my beard a little. I changed to my relaxed drawstring pants and a pull-over shirt instead of my hiking jeans. When I emerged from my room, a vision of loveliness awaited me. She was dressed in a simple full skirt and a kind of loose blouse that slid down over one beautiful and silky shoulder. She took my offered hand and limped the hundred yards into town to the nearest taverna. My furtive glances at her shoulders confirmed my opinion that she was not wearing anything under the blouse.
We sat and talked as we ate dolmas and drank wine. When we’d finished one half-liter of wine, we ordered another. When it was gone, we ordered coffee. I’m not sure what her reasoning was, but I simply didn’t want to end being in her company. I found that we had a great deal in common when it came to artistry and our opinions on various movies.
“I like foreign films,” I said. “I mean films that are not in English.”
“Why?”
“I can turn off the sound and just read the subtitles as I watch the action unfold. I hate most of the music used in movies,” I said.
“I have friends who write the scores for films and feel they are unappreciated and unnoticed. Even if you hate it, they would be shocked to find that you even were aware of the music,” she said.
“It’s manipulative,” I answered. “A scene that is cinematographically uninspiring can be made into something of terror, suspense, or heart-wrenching sorrow with the addition of a few musical notes. I end up thinking, that isn’t how I really felt about that scene. I felt angry, not sorrowful. That music manipulated me into crying.”
“I am amazed. I’ve never heard anyone talk about how the music affected them. I’m going to write that into my thesis and do my project without music. That means that the words and imagery have to convey what I am trying to get across. I don’t think anyone has taken that approach at our school,” she said.
“Well, I wouldn’t develop an entire thesis based on my personal reactions,” I laughed. “I’m just a writer.”
“But that’s what you do with words, isn’t it? If someone picks up your book, you can’t have the right music score playing in the background while they read. You don’t even have pictures… You don’t write picture books, do you? You have to depend on the words to tickle the right emotions. I have to depend on the cinematography because I only have the dialog. When you use a thousand words to describe a setting and invoke a feeling, I have to do it with ten seconds of pictures.”
WE DISCUSSED THAT until the honey cake and raki was served. I thought she was giving my little observation more enthusiastic consideration than it deserved. But it was fun.
“So why did you pick this little place to come on your trip around the world?” she asked.
“It figured prominently in the first novel I wrote, which, by the way, has yet to be published. I started working on it again last winter, but when I decided to go around the world, I put this at the top of my list of places to visit—just to see if I’d really done that good a job describing it. I’m glad I waited. It is so much more than I imagined,” I said.
“What inspired you to write a story set here?”
“Well, two things, really. I am a pagan and in the process of finding my path, I studied mythology. Inundated myself with the stories of Greek myths, Celtic myths, Norse myths, Native American myths. So, I thought about mythology a lot. I read Campbell, Graves, Bulfinch, and tomes of work on modern paganism and ritual. I was also doing family research. I came across the name of a great, great, some number of times great grandmother. It was Serepte Allen. I have no idea what kind of person she was, what she looked like, or how she spoke, but I fell in love with her. Somewhere in the back of my mind she became a goddess of Greek mythology whose identity had been hidden behind an ivory veil and whose story had yet to be told.”
We had another coffee and she pushed me to tell her the story of Serepte. Not my novel, just the myth that I’d created to fit within the canon of Greek mythology. When I was finished, we noticed that we were the only ones sitting on the terrace. I signaled our waiter and asked to pay the bill, apologizing for how late we were keeping him.
“It is nothing,” he said. “So many times, the couples who come here are at odds with each other. It is a pleasure to see two people so enthusiastically enjoying each other’s company.” He brought the bill and Anastasia immediately slapped a fifty euro note on top of it.
“What is my half?” I asked lamely as the waiter took the note away to make change.
“Ari, in spite of the way I look and some of the way I act, I am not a woman who manipulates men into paying my way in the world. It’s a cliché. Beautiful woman never needs to pay for anything because men are always willing to buy for them. Well, I claim equal privilege. I meet a beautiful man and I am happy to pay his way. At least to buy him dinner,” she laughed.
We stood and I retrieved the walking stick. She used it less on the way back to the hotel, leaning more firmly against me.
“Could you tell that story to a camera?” she asked as we approached the hotel.
“The story?”
“The goddess behind the ivory veil. I’ll give you writing and acting credit. And a copy of the film. I’m afraid that is the same pay I will get since it’s an academic project. I’m not saying there is no commercial possibilities for it, but I’ll split anything earned from it with you. What do you think?” she asked.
“I think I have had a wonderful evening with a beautiful woman and am tipsy enough to agree to anything. Perhaps we should both reconsider this in the morning. Say at breakfast?”
“I’ll plan to meet you at nine o’clock,” she said at her door. She gave me a typical Greek kiss, brushing just the corner of her mouth against each of my cheeks as she made a kissy noise. Then she was gone and I was left to relive every moment that her blouse slid off her shoulders and to imagine that I’d pushed it just a little farther.
“IT WOULD BE like theater of Dionysus,” she explained as she pointed to her sketches on her tablet. I’d been surprised to find her waiting at a table set for two when I emerged from my room at nine. She was ready and enthusiastic. “I imagine you telling it as if you were the choragus and it was the prologue to the play. Think of the play as the novel you are going to write. So, you need a little invocation of the gods and then just tell the story as if it were a retelling of a common myth.”
“Isn’t it a little out of character to do Greek theater in hiking boots and jeans at a monastery?” I laughed. It had been years since I was last on stage. And in that play, the ingénue had run off with another… younger man. But still…
“I thought of that. The setting is not such a problem. At the Metamorphosis, there is that courtyard that already looks like a theater setting. We could do it there, but I was thinking the bridge.”
“The bridge?”
“Where you found me yesterday. That stone arch crosses a rivulet. It’s such a substantial bridge for such a small stream.”
“I WOULD GUESS that in the rainy season, it is more than a rivulet. I can well imagine it flooding the banks as it rushes down to the river.”
“Yes! That. I wish I could film that. But the bridge itself is definitely Greek and the setting is isolated enough that we could film there for hours and not see anyone else.” Hours? “As to the particular location, what if you were dressed as a monk? One of their long robes and a pillbox hat. It would be better without the hat. I wonder if they have the kind with a hood that could just be pushed back. It would look more antique that way.”
She was certainly enthusiastic. And what did I have to lose? I was out here to go on an adventure. This sounded like an adventure, and even if she ended up a shrew, I was spending time in the presence of a sexy, tall, incredibly desirable goddess.
“Sure. What do I need to do?”
“Well, the script is yours. Can you handle it if I interrupt and change camera angles? We need to do it with a sense of continuity. And I don’t want to have to do a voice-over. I’ll use a wireless mike and record sound with the tape. If you work on the script and flow this morning, I’ll go into Kalambaka to get the costume. There’s an ecclesiastical vestments store there, believe it or not. We’ll prepare everything today and plan to film tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s good. The rain today isn’t going to help the filming.”
“I hope it’s better tomorrow. That bridge had fabulous light at noon.”
We were agreed and I went to work on the script. Fortunately, I had some material already on my computer because I’d been reading the parts of the story that I’d already started reworking. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the whole book with me because it was written in days before computers. I had 350 typewritten pages in storage, but I wasn’t going to cart that much paper around the world with me.
LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, after I’d spent some time wandering around reciting lines and looking like an idiot, Anastasia presented me with my robe. I didn’t think I’d seen one like this on any of the monks I’d passed.
“Can you believe they make the ones they sell the tourists out of wool? I wouldn’t put your precious body into something that scratchy for any film!” My precious body? Isn’t that pouring it on a little thick? “I found a fabric store and they had this brown cotton. I bought a bunch of it and took it to a seamstress who cut and sewed according to my specification as I watched. We had quite a good time once I showed her what I was working on. Apparently, she used to sew for a theater in Vienna years ago. And I left her with a project that she’ll have completed by the time we’re done tomorrow evening.”
“Another project?”
“Something for me to wear. Now let’s try this on.” She started to follow me into my room and I checked quickly to see that it was neat. We went in and I stood in front of the mirror as I slipped it on and tightened the rope around the waist. I looked at her.
“What?”
“Aroslav. Ari, dear. You can’t wear your jeans and hiking shirt under it. It’s all lumpy.” I started to fumble around with my belt under the robe, trying to stay decent in front of her. “Oh! I forgot. You’re American. I’ll step out into the hall until you’re dressed.”
I suppose that was pretty dumb of me. Of course, any European male would have just stripped in front of her and pulled on the robe. In fact, if I’d been in a theater dressing room, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, myself. But somehow it didn’t seem right to just strip in front of this goddess. Especially considering how she tended to affect me. After I’d gotten my physical responses under control, I opened the door again and Anastasia swept past me into the room. So much for control. She turned and examined me in front of the mirror, twisting me around to see every angle.
“You have sandals, don’t you?”
“Yes. They are getting rather worn.”
“That’s good. In fact, I think I need to distress the robe some. It looks too new. If you are the storytelling monk wandering down from the monastery, you wouldn’t be dressed like you just came off a tailor’s pedestal. Take it off. I have some work to do on it.”
Oh, what the fuck. I untied the rope and pulled off the robe, standing there in nothing but my briefs. She looked at me critically.
“Putting on just a little around the middle, aren’t you?” she laughed, patting my belly lightly. Shit! “I like it. It shows maturity. Men don’t start to thicken like that until they are around forty. You’re perfect.” She pointed and said, “See if you can do something about that while I’m working on the robe.” It took me a moment to realize she was talking about the rope belt in my hand and not my chubbing cock. “Maybe wrap it around a tree and try to fray it a little.” She turned and left. I certainly hoped she meant the rope belt.
THE HEMP ROPE was five or six feet long and had a knot at each end to keep it from unraveling. I re-knotted it a little farther from the end and started picking at the fibers to make them loosen up. In a brilliant flash of inspiration, I walked the two blocks to the river and balanced myself on the rocky shore while I soaked the rope. Then I put it on a rock and used another rock to beat on it. I did a good job on it and by the time I was finished, it was thoroughly distressed.
Walking back to the hotel, I saw Anastasia beating the robe against a tree. The way it was swinging, it was obvious that it was also wet. She waved me over and we compared the jobs. She’d found a mud puddle and ground the garment into it before wringing it out and beating it against the tree. We decided they certainly didn’t look new any longer.
We walked back to the hotel and she took my arm to lean against me. She was still limping a little, but apparently there wasn’t much damage from the twist the day before. I didn’t think she was leaning on me to support her leg.
“I was thinking of getting a pizza and a bottle of wine for dinner tonight and eating on my deck,” I said. “Care to join me?”
“Make it two bottles. But don’t get the one labeled ‘Karma.’ You’ve never tasted wine so sour. The guy at the pizza shop should have something better. Let me contribute.”
“You bought last night. I think I can handle a pizza and a couple bottles of wine,” I laughed. “I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
Dinner almost didn’t fit on the little table on my balcony. The pizza was the chef’s ‘special creation,’ as he kept repeating. By itself, it nearly covered the table. I pulled the bedside table out of my room so we’d have a place to put the salad and the wine. The chef had insisted that I needed a Greek salad to go with the pizza and, even served in a box, this was exemplary. Greek salad is onion, tomato, peppers, cucumber, and olives covered in oil and vinegar. Usually, in America, a Greek salad has crumbles of feta cheese on it. This one came with a seasoned slab of feta, nearly half an inch thick and six inches square. We didn’t have plates but I managed to raid the downstairs kitchen for a couple forks and water glasses we could drink the wine from.
I WAS SURPRISED when Anastasia started her tablet and showed me pictures of the bridge where we’d met.
“I was thinking we have two choices for the beginning. I could have you coming uphill and shoot from this angle as you stop on the bridge and do your bit. But the more I got to thinking about it, that angle is better for something else I’ve got in mind. It would be more dramatic for you to be coming down the path to the bridge and pausing as you look out over the valley. If we time it right, you’ll come into the light on the bridge and we’ll be finished before the shadows hit it.”
“When did you get these pictures?” I asked.
“That’s what I was doing at the bridge when I twisted my ankle. In fact, I fell just after I’d taken this shot,” she said pointing to the one from above.
“Let’s try to avoid a repeat of that tomorrow,” I laughed. She had me recite my prologue as she made notes and asked if I had it written out and if she could have a copy so she could follow along.
“Sure,” I said, “but it’s more of a guide than a script. I might not say it exactly the way it’s written.”
“Well, I won’t correct you for messing up a line,” she laughed. “I was just thinking of breaking it down into scenes so I can shift camera angles. We’ll shoot once straight through, and then I’ll take portions and shoot them over. I can play the video back on my tablet so we get you in the same position for each cut.”
We finished our meal and had a companionable smoke with our last glass of wine. I cleared up the garbage and stuffed it in a plastic bag. One nice part about a room in a hotel, rather than a home, was that there was maid service and they’d pick up the trash in the morning. Anastasia paused at the door as she was leaving. She touched my cheek.
“You’re a great collaborator, Ari. Thank you.” She left. With two empty wine bottles, I realized I’d considerably exceeded my half-liter norm. I flopped back on the bed and was asleep in a minute.
Behind her Ivory Veil,
Euterpe’s empathic pregnancy advances apace with Health’s.
In the fullness of time, Hygeia is born of Health.
But behind the ivory veil another child gasps her first breath.
Euterpe calls her symbiont child Serepte.
Anon, times change.
An instant as gods measure time.
Men cease offering the sweet scent of burnt flesh.
Starving from neglect, the ancients give way to new gods
And flee Olympus
As the Titans gave way to the Olympians.
Apollo gathers his muses to him and numbers them.
But one is missing.
“Euterpe!” he calls and she must answer his summons.
But behind the ivory veil, the child goddess Serepte is held.
“One day, my child,” the muse sings out,
“One day a hero will come. A mortal will release you into the world.
And on that day, you will be the goddess you were born to be.”
And here we wait.
Millennia are but an instant to the immortals
But eternity to men.
Her story is forgotten by all but a hand of faithful
Who await the mortal hero to rise
And free the goddess from her prison
Behind the Ivory Veil.
“CAN YOU FEEL THE LIGHT?” Anastasia asked. “It’s moving. We need to do it again straight through and keep you moving slightly so the sun stays in your eyes. Take a drink of water, Ari. Your delivery is beautiful. Just try to stay in the light as you speak. We can position you wherever it is convenient when we do the cut-aways. Once more from the top. Here, let me straighten your hood. Don’t forget to brush it back before you start the recitation of the muses. That’s very funny, by the way. I love it.”
That was it. I gulped down some water, she straightened my hood, and I walked with my staff back up the trail for my entrance. She called out that she was running the camera and to enter. I did.
If anything, the timing of the second run-through was better. I’d stumbled over some words in the first go-round. This second time, I made a few changes as I was going and we were off. I thought she’d drop the camera, though, when I set Terpsichore dancing around a pole.
Following in Apollo’s entourage, his heavenly muses
Listen to the sun-god’s lyre and fawn over him.
That pleases Apollo.
Polyhymnia, singing praises to her patron god Apollo.
Calliope, still reciting the epic poem she had begun just last year.
Clio, correcting the historical allusions in the poem.
Thalia, making fun of the proceedings and flaunting a rubber chicken.
Melpomene, weeping for a hero lost in battle, fatally flawed.
Erato, reciting a love poem written for Asklepios and his bride.
Behind them all dances Terpsichore, clutching a pole as she drops her clothes,
And encouraging the lagging Euterpe to pick up the tempo with her flute.
When we shot the cutaways, she had me redo that one three times so she could film it without jiggling the camera as she laughed.
We filmed for nearly six hours. Yeah. That long to get the inflections and the angles that she wanted. She set up a shot that was very difficult and then had to abandon it because when she reviewed the footage, she could see the shadow of the camera on the bridge. We reshot a scene because I had a coughing fit when one of the damn butterflies flew into my mouth. And then when she played two pieces from beginning and ending after each other, we discovered my voice had changed and I needed water and a rest for half an hour before I could get my voice back to the same timbre as I had when we began. I probably recited that silly prologue forty times by the time we were done for the day.
We were both exhausted.
“WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Something you haven’t had on your journey. I know! Steak. I know they have it at the Kastoria. We’ll go there for dinner. This is my treat and not repayable. It’s because you were so wonderful today. I adore the idea of no music in a piece that talks about the lyric muse. How do you feel about drum and tambourine? I could hear them in the little break before the gods start fleeing. Come on. You don’t need to change clothes. Let’s go eat,” Anastasia rattled on. To say she was a little hyper would be an understatement.
“Anastasia, please. I’m exhausted. I couldn’t eat a steak tonight if you bought the whole cow. I’m tempted to just get another pizza, but even it would be too much. Can we put off the celebratory dinner until tomorrow night?”
“Oh, poor baby! I’m so inconsiderate. You need some comfort food. I’ll run out and pick us up some pastitsio. And wine. Go to your room and relax. I’ll bring it in and serve you. Go ahead and lie down. I’m so happy, Ari. Let me do this little thing for you.” I nodded and went to my room while she danced out of the hotel to get food. Danced? I thought she could hardly walk. I was too exhausted to argue.
It’s not that I was sleepy. In a way, I had my own adrenaline rush going, but I wanted to express it in words. I hadn’t written anything on my do-over yesterday because I was working on the script and on delivering the speech effectively. Once my brain was put in autodrive mode for the taping, I started hearing my character talking about the problems of being a single parent. I almost had someone use her name. I mentally edited that out. It was just a name I’d grabbed out of the air. I knew from my experience here that the character wasn’t a Stacy. And how bad would it be if I never named her? Would my readers completely freak out if they went through the entire story and still didn’t know her name? It was going to drive some of them crazy, but I wanted to see if I could do it.
I was still thinking about the scene when Anastasia came back to the room with carry-out containers, plates, glasses, and flatware from the kitchen downstairs. That was the guest kitchen. The kitchen just outside my door was the hotel kitchen and only the hosts used it. I discovered that when I tried to heat water for coffee my first morning here.
I HAVE TO ADMIT that pastitsio was on my list of food I wanted to eat when I visited Greece. I’d had delicious moussaka in Athens, but pastitsio was my idea of a big fat Greek meal. And it was. I immediately realized what the problem was with mine when I saw the half inch of béchamel baked to a crusty top layer. Beneath that, macaroni, ground meat, cheese, and tomato sauce. Enough layers to make the whole thing close to three inches thick. Accompanied by the good wine and the beautiful company sitting beside me on my bed with our plates in our laps, I was in a state of bliss.
We talked about the production in a calmer manner and our feelings about how the day had gone. Frankly, I hadn’t performed on camera or on stage in a long time. It was kind of a rush. Anastasia felt that she had the makings for a great final project.
“Tomorrow we’ll do the other part,” she said. “It won’t take as long and it will be fun.”
“What other part? I thought this was everything.”
“Well, almost. The first time I heard you tell me the story, I thought, ‘I want to dance Serepte.’ You know I was trained as a dancer. You didn’t know that? I thought I said. Anyway, I have this idea of doing little short shots of me dancing behind an ivory veil. I bought the fabric when I got the things for your robe. You look kind of sexy in that, you know? But that’s what all those slow wistful shots of you turning your head are for. They’ll be transitions as I cut to the dance. It only comes in the last few minutes of the speech, starting with the line about weaving a gossamer tune. I love that line, though some audience members who don’t know English that well might miss the allusion. I thought it was great.”
“So, what do I need to do?”
“I’ll just need you to be an inspiration and to help set my props and turn the camera on and off. They’ll be static shots, but I still need a camera operator. Maybe you can even do a slow zoom on one of the shots. You’ll help, won’t you?”
It was hard fucking work out there on a hillside making a movie. But, damn, she was cute!
“Of course I’ll help. But I’m going to sleep about right this second.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” I stretched out and she leaned in to kiss my cheek. When she left, I would go brush my teeth.
But she didn’t leave and in the morning, I discovered her curled up against me, both of us still dressed.
A Long Time Ago: Kiss Me, Kate
I SLEPT WITH KATE ONCE.
Just once.
Sometimes the memory of it sneaks up on me and leaks out my eyes. I was a senior in college and even though we hadn’t made it official, it was assumed that Paula and I were going to be married before we got diplomas. I wasn’t fooling around on Paula. It was all very innocent. Like Kate.
Paula and I had reached the stage where we really liked giving each other orgasms. She’d never let me go down on her, nor would she give head because those were reserved for marriage. We’d started by simply dry humping but, by this stage, fingers were our weapon of choice. The problem was finding a place to do the deed. Paula was convinced that if she came to my apartment, her long-protected virginity would be a thing of the past. She was probably right. So at least once a week, we would grab a blanket from the back seat of my Corvair and go turfing. There was an almost abandoned park behind the campus with locks on its gate, but I’d discovered the key on my ring of keys for the theater. I’d unlock and we’d go to our favorite spot to spread the blanket and pleasure each other until we fell asleep. Often, we were still there at sunrise.
I had a finger in Paula and she was rubbing my precome over my rampant cock. I had to keep my underwear pulled up lest she accidentally see my prick, and of course, her panties covered my hand, even with a finger buried in her. We’d mashed our lips together to keep from screaming out when, right in the middle of a perfectly good come, Kate fell over and onto us. My finger went a little deeper than usual and Paula screeched. She pulled back, not letting go of my cock, and, suddenly released from the confines of my drawers, I geysered into the air. Kate was in the trajectory.
“Ack!” “Oh!” “Fuck!” etc.
“Don’t rape me. Please!” Kate screamed.
“Kate?” Paula and I said as one.
“What are you doing out here?” I managed to say, withdrawing my finger from Paula and automatically giving an extra flick to her clit. That elicited another squeal from my almost fiancée.
“I’m sorry. Oh! Paula! Ari! I’m so sorry. I’m sorry!”
“What are you doing out here?” I repeated.
“I was just… I’m sorry! I was looking for a place…” she paused and then whispered. “For a place no one would find me. For a long time.”
Paula was in instant caretaker mode. She was great. I just hung around and held the two women in my arms, even when Kate wiped the semen off her T-shirt and looked at it curiously before wiping it on the blanket.
Kate had been alone and depressed all school year. We found out she had no friends. We knew her because she had been on set crew for Madwoman of Chaillot as part of her volunteer hours for Intro to Theater. I had thought she was a little stuck up. How easy it is to make judgments about why other people act the way they do. She was a shy, scared girl who had no friends and was away from home for the first time in her life. I just wanted to hold her and protect her.
I woke up in the morning a little chilled, even with two women lying more or less on top of me. Kate’s peach-scented hair was in my face. I inhaled deeply and, without thinking, I kissed the top of her head. Paula stirred and I looked at her.
“You can’t have both of us,” Paula whispered. “It just wouldn’t work.”
Six weeks later, Paula and I were married. Kate stayed our friend through graduation, but when we moved to go to grad school, we lost track of her. Sometimes, especially after our tumultuous two-year marriage ended, I wondered if I’d made the right choice.
Back to Anastasia
LIFE WAS PRETTY STRANGE, but this might have been the strangest day of my life. What could get stranger than preparing and performing a monologue in front of a camera on an otherwise deserted path between spires of rock and monasteries, dressed like a monk? The fact that the cinematographer was a beautiful, articulate, young Greek woman who looked like one of the best sculptures of the ancient world come to life? The fact that I woke up next to this goddess, who kissed me softly on the cheek before she ran to her room to prepare for our ‘adventure?’ Or the fact that the hosts in our hotel had moved us to a more private table for two at breakfast where I stared dumbly at the vision before me as she described the scene she had in mind?
I had a concern that the film she was making no longer captured the intent of my story. This was never supposed to be a story in which the goddess was the lover of the hero who rescued her. But at the same time, this wasn’t my story. It was simply based on some of my words and she was very artistic in her presentation. I understood that I hadn’t hired her to film my story. She’d hired me to provide words for her movie.
‘Hire’ might be a little strong word. Not like I was being paid, but Anastasia’s touches had become frequent and, in a way, intimate. We had not engaged in any passionate kisses or embraces but, when we walked, she often slipped her hand through my arm or into my hand. Her light little kisses on my cheek did as much to arouse my attention as a French kiss might have with someone else. I was becoming incredibly enamored.
Anastasia had a taxi take us to the foot path with the equipment. I shouldered the pack and followed her uphill. Maybe she had just done a great job of turning me into a convenient pack animal. The path narrowed and I followed her shapely backside up the path and didn’t care.
For the past three days, I’d seen her mostly in jeans and T-shirts. Her jeans fit very well and I’d long since realized that she simply did not wear, or need to wear, a bra. Today, however, she wore a kind of loose trousers that were tight at the waist and elastic at the ankles, but were soft and billowy between. I’d call the style a harem pant, but I always thought of those as transparent. These were light tan and opaque, but they still showed every move of her muscles and sway of her hips as she walked ahead of me. I was glad I had my walking stick in hand because I would otherwise have been tempted to reach out my hand to touch her butt.
Once we made it to the bridge and had recovered our breath, we set about putting together the scene. This involved her putting the camera on the tripod and me climbing up in a tree to run a rope across the stream above the bridge. The camera had been set up downslope for my monologue, looking up at me. The position today was on the uphill side of the bridge, looking down across the valley.
We did several test shots with Anastasia setting the camera and then going to the bridge to dance when I turned it on. I was enthralled by her movements. In addition to the harem pants that clung to her as she moved, she was wearing the peasant blouse that slid from shoulder to shoulder and down her arms. She finally agreed that she was ready and we would shoot the first scene. This would be the scene that I had to do the most work on as a nylon cloth—essentially a parachute—would be released from the rope I’d strung. I needed to be zoomed in and pan with the fabric as it floated down. I couldn’t get ahead of the parachute because Anastasia would be beneath it and take shape under the cloth.
“Put your robe on,” she demanded. “I want to be able to see the storyteller for inspiration as I dance.” I quickly shed my clothes and pulled on the cotton robe in which I’d been filmed. I tied the belt and pulled the hood up, not quite concealing my face.
“Is this inspiration enough?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m dancing for you, Ari. For you.”
She got in position behind the tree, I started the camera rolling, she pulled the cord and the parachute fabric floated in the air. I was able to keep focused on it, though at one point I thought a breeze was going to lift it away from the bridge. Instead, as it drifted down, it covered Anastasia and her form took shape beneath it.
HER DANCE was even more sensuous beneath the moving silk than it had been when she was just dancing on the bridge. When I did my thing on the bridge, the sun had been in my eyes. But filming from the other side, Anastasia was backlit. And that was revealing. Really revealing. I didn’t know she was going to strip before she started to dance. I was so focused on following the fabric as it descended that I hadn’t seen her enter the bridge from behind the tree. Now that the camera was correctly focused on just the area where she danced, I could step back away and just watch. I wondered how often she had done dances draped in silk like this. It was flawless. One moment the fabric would be clinging to her shape as she moved and the next it was billowing back up in the air and looked like it would be caught in the breeze. She danced for several minutes as the camera ran. Then the cloth billowed out as if caught in the wind, and settled to the bridge. Anastasia was not there.
“Cut!” she called. I shook myself back to reality as I reached over to turn off the camera. “Let’s see what it looks like,” she said, coming up beside me. She started the playback on her tablet. I automatically put my arm around her as we watched and suddenly realized I was touching her skin. My attention was drawn from the tablet to the naked goddess in my arms.
“My God! You’re beautiful!”
“Do you like it? I think we got it in one take. There’s a flaw where my hand stuck out one side right there, but I don’t intend to use it uncut. It will be in short bursts. What do you think?”
“I think you’re beautiful.”
“You said that. Thank you.” She turned toward me and my hand slid around her bare back. She seemed to realize for the first time that she was naked. “Oh,” she squeaked. “You weren’t watching the tape.”
“How could I?” I pulled her toward me, my other hand wrapping around her waist, and I kissed her. She folded into my embrace like she’d been born there, my personal, private goddess. I discovered in the next minutes exactly what the globes of that round ass felt like beneath my fingertips. We didn’t grind against each other, but her hands loosened my rope belt and opened the robe so we were held, naked against each other except for my briefs. Anastasia pulled away slightly, her soft but modest breasts raking against my chest.
“Get ready to film again,” she whispered. “This dance is truly just for you. Something to remember me by.”
She left my embrace and returned to the bridge. I started the camera and stood watching in amazement. Her first move was to throw the silk into the air and let it settle on her again.
Knowing this time that she was naked, her movements seemed even more sensual. She was no longer concerned with staying fully behind the veil, but let it slide over her body as she emerged from it and then covered herself again.
I admit that I have been to strip clubs. Well, that’s where I met Alice. But I have never seen a veiled dancer or a more inspiring and sensual display. If strip clubs had dancers like this, they could charge any amount and patrons would still leave enormous tips. I was transfixed.
“Take the camera off the tripod and handhold it as you come closer, Ari,” she directed. She was still directing, even as she danced and settled down on her knees on the silk. I released the camera and kept taping as I approached. I was on the uphill side, so the bridge was only chest high as I walked toward it. Anastasia’s eyes drifted closed as her hands began to caress her body. “This is your movie,” she whispered. “Tape anything you want.”
That was an invitation I could not refuse, and although I spent some time focusing on her classical face, I let the camera drift down to capture her breasts as she softly stroked them. She seemed to know instinctively where I was pointing and rolled slightly away from me so I could photograph the sensual lines of her back and butt. She lifted her leg and pointed her toes, accenting the shape of her calves. Every move was a continued dance to display herself to me and I taped it all.
“You like foreign films,” she whispered. “Did you ever see Six from Germany?”
“Yes. I’m disappointed I’ve never been able to locate it online. It had some very sensual scenes.”
“The one with her foot on the table?”
“Yes, though they talked too much.”
“Film me.”
Her sensual moves brought her around to face me and her legs slowly opened. Her pubic hair was waxed smooth around her lips and neatly trimmed into a triangle above. As she continued to move, the flower of her sex opened before me. The concept of the scene in the film she mentioned was that cameras in porn are always moving around. They zoom in and out. They pan left and right. They never just hold still and let you enjoy the simple beauty of a woman’s sex. As she opened herself to me, and to the camera’s eye, I held the camera still and looked over the top of it at the treasure she displayed.
The only motion was in her pussy. Little pulses as I watched her. I glanced up and saw her eyes locked on mine and a deep shuddering breath shook her breasts. Looking back at her pussy, I saw her juices begin to flow. The hood of her clit drew back and it flushed a deep red. The changes were happening with no move on either of our parts to touch and help them along. Her vagina was opening further and pulsing in and out as her breathing became ragged.
“Almost,” she gasped. “Almost.”
I lifted my head enough to send a soft breath of air over her pussy and she moaned.
“Yessss.” The fluttering of her pussy sped up and fluid poured from her lips as she whined and then relaxed.
I kept filming until the gates of paradise began once again to close and she shifted her legs closer together. I pulled back with the camera, panned to her face once again and recorded her angelic smile. Then I turned the camera off.
“We’d better dress and get out of here before someone comes along,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
She retrieved her clothes from behind the tree and slipped on the pants and blouse as I pulled on my jeans. I stopped when I realized my briefs were soaked. How had I not even been aware that I’d come? I pulled them off and wore my jeans commando. In three days, we’d only seen two other people using the path, but I was still in the tree untying the rope when we heard voices coming down from the monastery. We greeted them as they crossed the bridge and we packed the gear. They asked if this was really the way to Kastraki and we confirmed. The family happily continued on down the hill.
Anastasia and I walked silently, hand-in-hand, back to the hotel. I deposited the equipment in her room and she turned to kiss me again. It was long and luxurious and my hands found both her butt and her breasts. She bit her lip as she looked at me.
“I need to get the editing done and see if we really have a movie. I’ll see you later on.” She gave me another light kiss and closed the door.
I LEFT MY DOOR UNLOCKED that night, but she never showed up. I didn’t fall asleep until late, after I’d polished off a bottle of wine and a meat platter from the taverna. I tried to write, but the story I was working on didn’t seem to have the same kind of fire as the one I’d just watched.
Between the wine and the late night, I barely made it out of my room before they quit serving breakfast at ten. The host seated me at my original table for one and brought me coffee, which I drank gratefully. When she came back with a refill and my egg, she handed me an envelope. She placed a hand on my shoulder in an unusually intimate and caring gesture.
“Miss Anastasia left this for you.”
“She’s gone?”
“She went to the train station before we started serving breakfast. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry,” I said. “We finished the project we were working on. Thank you.”
Brave words.
There were two flash drives in the envelope. One was marked ‘Behind the Ivory Veil.’ The other said simply, ‘Serepte.’ I’d watch them some other time. I wasn’t ready yet. There was a short note in the envelope, as well.
Aroslav,
Thank you for helping me on this project. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever worked on. If I can get a visa, I plan to continue my studies in America. I have an idea about filming another prologue with a Western theme… maybe in Wyoming. Hope you will be able to collaborate again. Love, Anastasia
Anastasia had been my Greek goddess, Serepte. I wondered if she could also become my Indian princess, Laramie Wyoming Bell.
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