Read Online Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) by Evie Blake - Free Book Online Page B

begins to ring. Who on earth could be calling her at four in the morning? Theo? She rummages in her bag and pulls out her phone, but when she looks at the screen it is a number she doesn’t recognise. She didn’t give Alexandro her number, she is sure. She thinks briefly of the stranger in her garden. Could he have got hold of it somehow?
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Signorina Rosselli?’
    ‘Yes, who is this?’
    ‘Excuse me for calling at such an unsocial hour . . .’
    ‘And who am I talking to?’ Curiosity overwhelms her instinct to cut off the call.
    ‘My name is Leonardo Sorrentino. I was hoping that you might be interested in doing some photographic work for me.’
    ‘You’ll have to go through my agency,’ she answers abruptly.
    ‘No, I don’t mean fashion photography. I am talking about your other kind of work.’
    Valentina is silent for a moment. Very few people know about her erotic photography. She hasn’t even got it up on her website. How did this man get her number?
    ‘Who told you about my other work?’
    ‘I am afraid I can’t say, as the party wishes to remain anonymous. They are sponsoring a visual project I have initiated, and seem to think that you would be the ideal person to document it, especially since you are a woman.’
    ‘I am not a documentary-style photographer,’ Valentina protests.
    ‘I know that.’ He pauses. ‘That’s precisely why we want you. We’d like you to approach the project from an artistic angle. We need you to show another viewpoint, break down stereotypes . . .’
    ‘I really don’t know what you are talking about.’
    ‘Let me explain, Signorina Rosselli. I run a club. It is a special place, for those of us who desire a particular way of expressing our sexuality.’
    ‘What kind of way?’ asks Valentina, dark visions of terrible things in her head.
    ‘I guess you would know it by the name of sadomaschoism, but I do feel that is a rather unfortunate name for what we do. It is more sex games . . . or sex with stories, I call it.’
    S&M. Valentina’s interest is piqued. She has always been fascinated by this, although she has never indulged in it and never thought she would want to. Isn’t it demeaning for women to be tied up and have things done to them? Yet shehas to admit that sometimes when she and Theo make love, she has an urge to ask him to tie her up. She doesn’t know why. Does that show that there is a part of her that is weak and submissive?
    ‘So,’ Leonardo continues, ‘are you curious enough to call by tomorrow evening and have a discussion with me?’
    ‘Okay,’ she says slowly, not sure how she will feel in the morning. Well, she can always cancel. ‘Can I ask why you’ve called me at such an hour?’
    ‘I saw you earlier tonight at the exhibition but I didn’t manage to catch you before you left. And then I had to work . . . so I have only just knocked off now. I assumed you would still be up; Stephano told me you went off clubbing with your friends.’
    So it was Stephano Linardi who recommended her to this man. He must have showed him her memory stick of images. That was quick work. She should be grateful to the gallery owner, but she still can’t help resenting his rejection of her photographs.
    Valentina can’t sleep. She opens up her iMac and logs on. Types in
S&M
. Several disturbing images come up immediately. A woman trussed up with a thick, coarse rope, her wrists and ankles tied together. A girl hanging from some kind of hammock made of lengths of rope that twist around her body so that her breasts poke out and her private parts are exposed and vulnerable. Do these women actually enjoy this? She shutsdown her computer and snaps the lid closed. She wishes she had someone to talk to. But there’s no one close enough apart from Theo, and he is unavailable of course. What would Theo think of this ‘project’? Somehow she knows that he would be all for it. He often calls her his intrepid Valentina. He used to like her