A VENUS BORN IN LONDON(Charles E.J. Moulton) “Bonjour, monsieur!”
“Pourriez vous me donner Le Figaro svp!”

The somewhat uncertain looking elder man grabbed the magazine from the pile and handed it to me.
« Est-ce que ce du changement est exact ? Merci.”
Next to a broadsheet stand, folks anxious to get by, I searched for return currency in a crowded alleyway.
Buying myself a French paper of any sort was essential to freshening up my language skills.
I took my Le Figaro and headed down the street to the place where I knew my car was standing.
I gazed to the right and ran across without looking left and a car skidded to my left, the tires purring.
He opened the window and yelled in Parisian:
« Vous installez sur où vous, vous allez homme lent ! »
I held up a hand and ran across, shook my head and tried to keep calm. I wasn’t French, so I wasn’t going to argue with him. In a fight, I wouldn’t be able to hold my own.

I had lived in a nice hotel near the Arc de Triomphe named Elyssee Ceramic for a while and the last day of my trip to Chez Paris had been devoted to the Louvré. I arrived there at nine o’clock in the morning and it was now three thirty.
It was time to get back to London.
I have to be honest. I wasn’t looking forward to Paris traffic. Though considering the fact that I had been spending this much time doing research for my article, it was something worth while and I could write it off on my taxes.
I crossed another street and ended up having to run, due to another very nasty French man in a green Opel.
Finally, I came to my somewhat beaten up old red Mercedes and emerged into it. I was not poor and I was quite well respected, so why not go for it and get a Jaguar or something. I was sentimental. I had bought it new whilst working a year in Munich for the Herald Tribune as a foreign correspondent. It had been my first gig abroad.
I slammed the door shut, grabbed my croissant from out of my shoulder bag. After positioning it carefully on the passenger seat I lifted my thermos bottle from out of the bag and poured myself a cup of cocoa. There I sat reading my notations about the da Vinci paintings I had seen. I enjoyed the fact that I was dry and the Parisians were still outside in the cold November rain.
As I said, Paris traffic wasn’t my speciality.
On the way home I kept going over my article.
The Sunday Times presents Leonardo da Vinci, commemorating the 360th anniversary of his birthday. 2012 was apparently going to be a da Vinci year and the National Gallery was opening an exhibition. The Sunday Times had an Art section and already during the summer of 2011 they had come to me with the request of an article series about the painter himself. I willingly obliged knowing what work it would be to fill five articles of material about him. I knew also how dedicated I was. The deadline was February. I had completed my third article: Their titles were: “Leonardo, the inventor”, “The Secret Leonardo”, “Leonardo, the renaissance man”. Now I was working on the last two: “Leonardo the painter and sculptor” and “The private life of da Vinci”. I had read two books on his life and work; I had searched the web for every possible trace of him. Now I heard there was a lecture on his work in the National Gallery next week and I was planning to attend it.

Once back in London, with 213 miles behind me, I was happy to put my feet up on my old sofa in my 700 pound flat in Kensington and read Le Figaro, drinking my cocoa in peace to the soothing sounds of Jean Philippe Rameau’s opera “Platée”.
My feet were aching. I could still feel the pedals at my feet and the rain made my eyes tired, but the expose was coming along well. I jotted down a few details I might be able to fit into article four, three paragraphs about the Louvre’s interesting paintings and the clues that were given in Dan Brown’s fun but farfetched thriller The Da Vinci Code. I eventually put away my pen and pad and turned the TV on.
I found BBC.
The news spoke of nothing but war, storms, boring politics and the new Robbie Williams album, still around after twenty years in the business. The weather was foretold by a perky little thing called Marrietta Merriweather and I honestly wondered if these names were made up or real. I knew a dishy natural biologist named Pamela Jiffy-Drinkwater. For no reason whatsoever I started laughing at these things and fell asleep in the chair with my drink still in my hand.
I woke up around two o’clock at night and the TV still on. On TV there was now an art show and I was still dreamy eyed and somewhat tired when a woman was announced by the name of Sophie Fernandez. Obviously a child of Spanish parents, but born in London. Educated in Oxford in St. Edmund Hall under Sir Malcolm Bull, graduated in 2005 and very quickly becoming an expert in reproductions.
Now she was the principal reproduction artist in London, reproducing at high speed from her very posh studio in Lambeth. I was very impressed that this young lady was only 37 with the looks of someone 25. She had the skills of someone a lot older, but clearly someone that would absolutely turn the head of any man. Dark frizzy hair, nougat complexion, dark red lips, a very beautiful body, that all made it very attractive to imagine asking her if she had any reproduction elements to discuss about the master himself.
The man I was writing an article about was not mentioned but I could not imagine a reproduction artist present in London without reproducing the great one himself.
The documentary about the gorgeous woman ended with a web-page that interested me a great deal:
I vowed to check it out tomorrow.
Tonight, however, I vowed going to bed.

I did wake up well rested that morning, knowing that nothing special awaited me. I wrote for most of that day and ended up calling for some Japanese take-out. Knowing I was assigned to teach a group of students at the University of Art in Kensington how to write a good query letter tonight, I went on my way to catch the nearest route away from a traffic jam. The principal, a certain Mr. Springer, taught them the art of dramatic writing but was unable to teach them how to sell their writing. I was regular guest at the college and no one knew why I was not invited to join the staff. I told them it was by own choice that I refrained from taking on a position, but that was only half true.
The female art director was a frustrated old spinster that hated me because I once had been in bed with her sister and then refused to make her my sweetheart. The art director was a woman that, unfortunately, didn’t know how to dress and who had the most oversized bosom I had ever seen. She also had an extraordinary way of alienating men.
Her sister was kind and gentle and had thrown herself at me. When I understood that actually having a relationship with this girl would be the case of acting the part of psychoanalyst, I backed off and the art director had never forgiven me for not taking on her family.
Nonetheless, she still invited me to work at the school from time to time. I had not been there for half a year now, so I was anxious to see if there had been any changes in the staff or if the students were still the same ones.
My two hour lecture tonight would give the honourable sum of hundred-and-twenty pounds, which I felt was a rather fine sum for an evenings work. They seemed to actually anticipate it when I came.
Maybe it was because of my book “How to write a query letter” which had been published four years ago to rave reviews. I was happy that people read my work.

Driving on toward the school, my thoughts went to Miss Fernandez again. Voluptuous women never left my heart. This woman certainly was voluptuous. It was one of reasons why all my paintings in my flat were reproductions of Rubens, Velasquez, Picasso or Klimt.
I arrived at the school a half hour early and as was rather well prepared for my class, went to the school library and used one of the computers in order to log into Sophie’s homepage.
Her website turned out to be very artsy, very craft oriented and there was a picture of her by a reproduction with a paint brush in her hand. I scrolled from page to page and finally found myself reading her entire section on da Vinci and his technique and craft as a painter. I clicked on to the contacts page and found an e-mail address and an apology for delayed answers due to a very tight schedule. I took the chance anyway and clicked on my AOL and wrote a mail to her.
I told her what I did for a living and then gave a full report about my purpose of writing an article series for The Times. I would be very happy if she could have time to see me, I said. Could she tell me a bit about da Vinci’s painting skills from a painter’s standpoint?
I also said something I was very apprehensive to say, but that I said anyway. I told her that I'd seen her on BBC and that I had been impressed not only by her career, but also by her great looks. Being a great fan of women in art, I confessed, I could definitely see her as a model in a Velasquez painting, her instead of Venus. I was of course referring to the famous Venus with Mirror, where Venus is turned away from the viewer. I did not know how she would react to this. Maybe she was one of those girls who enjoyed compliments. She might also be uptight, in which case I was screwed. Symbolically speaking, that is. I took the chance and sent the message. I could never ever anticipate the answer.
I even left her my phone number.
I know. I was careless, but that is the way men become when they are infatuated with beautiful women.

I taught the class my usual fashion. First a mutual discussion about their creative writing and then their goals. Next up, I included a segment of what writing technique is and what publishers want from written work. The rest of the class was devoted solely to the query letter and how to comprise the information in it, eliminating the “I”-, “me”, “why” and “I think” words.
The students seemed to enjoy my teaching skills and the fact that I had them all write a query letter at the end of the session. The art director and her sister were there and I was very surprised to see that they both were friendly. I think it was because they now both had found boyfriends and were not in any way angry at me because of my past mistakes.
I left the school happy and many a little bit richer.

As I headed on for home, I injected Ralph Vaughan Williams into my CD player and listened to my favourite composition: his Songs of Travel. Ian Bostridge’s recording of it was a masterpiece and I felt my heart surge as he sang the song Let Beauty Awake.
Once home, I threw off my hat and coat, made myself some tea and scones and turned on BBC again.
I must admit that being single had its’ ups and downs.
I was 35 and yet not married.
I was free and did travel quite frequently. I had my affairs and frequently dined with friends, but was anybody dwelling in the abode when I came home? No. Did anybody cook for me? No.
My history with women had been intense and dramatic.
My wonderful seven year relationship with a woman named Vanessa had ended in a screaming row that almost turned her into a lesbian. That threw me into the arms of a very high-life kind of filly named Julie Hart. She had one thing in mind: dancing. It grew very tiresome awfully quickly. My next woman spent all her time knitting and so finally I vowed to stay alone for a bit.

Now, quite suddenly, I felt my heart beat faster just looking at this woman on the television screen. I did not know her, but my heart was pounding more rapidly.
Was I in lust or was I in love? Both? Yes. Both!
There was some documentary about female pandas on BBC and I wasn’t really paying attention. Then, as I went to fetch my hot scones, I saw the answering service blinking.
I went to the machine under the round mirror in the hallway and looked at it resting on the white table cloth.
I was so nervous that I dropped the empty tea cup I was holding in my hand onto the Persian carpet.
My heart was doing a meringue.
The display blinked:
“Three messages received.”
I pressed the button.
Message one was from my dear mother, speaking in her lovely Yorkshire dialect and sing-songing about me being so lonely and stressed out and that I should get myself a girl.
“Hello, luv. This is mum. Just calling to say hi. I know you were in Paris doing work for the magazine. Hope that went well. Try to think of mum now and then. Life’s not just about work, cupcakes. Get yourself a nice lady friend, not a trollop or a smutty crumpet. Oh, by the way, your sister was here. She told me that she can, after all, arrange for you to write the article for the Liverpool Trinity Mirror. Call. It’s a bit lonely here. Bye.”
The second message was from The Travel Book Shop in Notting Hill telling me that my large book about Paris, The Arts and Crafts of Paris by Penelope Smith-Murray, had arrived.
When the third message finally unfolded onto my internal audio display, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest.
A very posh sounding and obviously British, home grown, female voice spoke to me in a very elegant manner:
“Yes, hello, Mr. Murray. This is Sophie Fernandez speaking. I am calling you because you sent me an e-mail about your work. First of all, thank you for your considerate remarks. I wasn’t aware of my resemblance to Venus. I must, first of all, state that I, too, will work at the University of Kensington from next week on. I will teach the crafts and techniques of oil painting to young apprentices, so we will be colleagues. If you like, do call me on my cellular phone: 07086 – 387 44098. Cheers.”

Well, needless to say, I was very happy to hear that I was going to be working with this dashing young woman. I was, nevertheless, too shy to call.
I waited a day.
With trembling hands I did call her that next day and we set up a date to meet at a nice Italian restaurant at Kensington High Street called The Sopranos. It had live music and seemed like a good place for a blind date.
I paced the street in front of the place ten minutes before she arrived. She looked even more fantastic in real life.
She gave me a big smile, obviously realizing who I was. At first there was nothing very odd about our encounter. We went in and sat down, listened to the music and started to chat about arts and crafts. Our food came rapidly and it was really quite lovely.
What started to get strange was when her cellular phone called. I sat back and sipped my wine and tried not to listen to the phone call that obviously was supposed to be private. She spoke to a man that obviously was a closer friend.
She spoke five minutes to this man and finally told him to naff off, very much in the style of Princess Anne. His name was obviously Kent and he was apparently a bore, because she kept eyeing heavenward.
He was more or less trying to tell her to go out with him and she refused. She called him names and said that if didn’t stop calling her she would call the Scotland Yard.
When she hung up, there was strange silence at the table and for a few minutes none of us knew what to say. I asked her if something was the matter and she told me that her ex-boyfriend was following her and couldn’t accept that they had broken up.
I told her to change mobile phone. She responded that she had done so three times. In spite of this he had always somehow gotten her number anyway.
This was a serious matter, I said, so I told her that if she needed my assistance, I would be there for her.
This was a silly comment. I had no idea what to do. Maybe this guy was seven feet tall and karate master.
We spoke for another hour and even sang with some of the songs that the pianist was playing.
I went home and fell asleep in front of a rerun of Dallas.

Next morning, I was back at the Times and gave my boss the first three articles of my Leonardo exposé. He was very happy to receive them, but added that a certain Sophie Fernandez had called and seemed eager to talk to me.
I explained that I had, ditsy as I am, only given her my business card without the cellular number. Somehow, she had ended up talking to my editor.
Once out on the street, I called her.
I said I had three hours before my next appointment and asked her what she was doing during these afternoon moments. She said we could meet in an hour at Leicester Square and pop into a pub.
Unnecessary to declare, I was happy to hear she now wanted me to meet her. However, after the last meeting with her screaming at the bloke at the other end I really didn’t now what to make of her.
I met her, nevertheless, and for one hour we spoke about nothing but art. We even went into the subject of fine art and I mentioned the Velasquez picture of Venus. When I told her that I thought she had a certain resemblance to that woman she grew red. I asked her why. She alleged that the only thing you could see in that picture was her bottom.
Somehow, that ignited the spark.

That evening, I reviewed my next completed article when the phone rang. Sophie called me, because that evening she could come over for a glass of wine.
I answered that I had some sherry and some cheese here at home. I even had some pizza in the freezer. That was apparently good enough for her, because she hung up after saying that she would be there in an hour.
I showered and shaved, set the table and put on some romantic music. Michael Feinstein’s CD of Gershwin songs was perfect. Rose scented candles decorated the room and heart shaped napkins graced the table. My favourite red wine actually had its’ home in my little corner store named Laura’s Goods. I popped down and bought a bottle of Sangre de Torro and some chips. Bull’s Blood might be good to describe my emotions at the moment.
When Sophie arrived she came in a light, cotton, long, white dress with folds and blue flowers. Her black hair was open and spread across her shoulders. I recognized the perfume. Wish by Chopard. It was the perfume of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Her high heeled shoes were so high that it made her at least a head taller than me.
She had a black handbag in her one hand and in the other she held a bottle of a Greek wine, her favourite: Mavrodaphne. Aha, I thought. A connoisseur of sweet wines.
We spent the next two hours eating cheese and lobster and covering a wide variety of subjects until we ended on my couch discussing politics whilst listening to my Rossini recording. Did she like David Cameron? Obama? What about the entire scandal in Sweden about the Swedish sovereign fondling girls? Ah, we persisted. The king is a person just as we are. He has a libido, too.
Cecilia Bartoli now emoted an aria by Rosina from Barber of Seville when Sophie, obviously rather tipsy, did something unexpected. She took me by the hand and pushed me against the wall and undressed me.
I was rather taken aback. I think she noticed, because she started giggling. This was something that made it even more exciting.
All the while, opera stars from the entire globe sang their elevated C’s and G’s and I saw other stars in my inner vision. The seventy minute CD started again while we were on the chaise longue performing devotion.
I remember constructing affection to her while Pavarotti was singing Questa o quella from Rigoletto, which essentially is about making love: if I fancy a beautiful girl. We definitely got into a rhythm during Sherrill Milnes’ rendition of Largo al Factotum. I remember her laying on the couch during Nessun Dorma and her incredible and soft outlet of fecundity during Che gelida manina to the galloping scamper of Verdi’s sensual melody from Aida in the Triumph March. Making love to Verdi is one of the finest things in life. The high note of the Count’s Hai gia vinta la causa aria from Le Nozze di Figaro and realized not only Rodney Gilfrey was happy having reached a climax.
Well, we showered together and soon enough she gave me a sweet kiss and said she had seldom had such a lover.

I couldn’t sleep. I paced the hallways and tried to force myself to count pizza cartons.
I couldn’t write. I had a writer’s block and I began doubting that it had been good for me to be so in lust. We worked all day and met in our flats and made ferocious love during the evenings.
It didn’t take long until we decided to move together into a mutual flat in Kensington. That gave us the possibility to buy an apartment with a large terrace and it was a beautiful thing for a million pounds with reception room, dining room, art studio, writing room, contemporary kitchen, master bedroom with en suite shower, three additional bedrooms, bathroom with wall-mounted shower attachment and guest cloakroom. My mother thought that it was way overpriced. I explained to her that Sophie sold paintings regularly for about a thousand pounds. I had just sold a book to Penguin books about Leonardo. We were nouveau riche.

My mother was very sceptical toward Sophie at first. She thought she was a very expensive prostitute.
It didn’t take more than a year and we were married.
My mother still thought she was a slut.
Maybe it was Sophie’s constant devotion to lace and net stockings.
We had a splendid wedding, though. It was held at Temple Church at Masters House. Our reception was at the Royal Garden Hotel. The Sun was there and even a member of the British parliament arrived and spoke to us about nuptial bliss and how to maintain it with sacrificing sanity. I never knew that the House of Lords had a sense of humour. I felt like I was watching an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
After this superb ceremony, we flew to Barbados and when we came back we were so suntanned that my mother didn’t recognize us.
“Who are these black people?” she said with a smug smile.
The sheer amount of Sophie’s orders was remarkable. She was now painting for the royal family and for the House of Commons, for Johnny Depp and Eric Clapton. She was teaching at five universities and lecturing at the National Gallery. My second book about Leonardo was being published, so we were rich and famous.

The evening a few things changed I had been looking for a certain e-mail from my literary agent. It promised me a financial overview for my contract of the next book. I had accidentally put it in Sophie’s files into a folder that I really had never seen before. I knew it was there and my mission was to retrieve it.
On the desk, Sophie had left a note: if you are missing your e-mail from your agent, look in my PC art folder.
Something labelled Art Files. Uh-Oh.
Sophie was in her art studio in Middlesex, where she was teaching oil painting techniques to fine arts students. I knew that she had three male models there that night, along with three female models and five art students and that they were reproducing The Judgement of Paris, a work by Rubens from 1635 to 1638, whose original hung in the National Gallery. There were a four nude characters in the painting and it had been Sophie’s initiative to choose this painting and reproduce it with students very much like Rubens himself did in his time: as a mutual scholastic collaboration. The original was two meters by one and a half or 57 by 76 inches, so it was a very big thing to reproduce.
The students were no beginners, of course, and they were by now experts on landscapes and models. The work would be finished and displayed in the Gallery for a month, before being hung in the University of Arts in London.
This was the tenth session of its kind and Sophie always had a party with the models and the students until late at night after the four hour work session. I knew that when she left in the afternoon for the tutorship she would be gone until the late evening.
I did find the mail in the files and I did call my agent and sorted everything out. When I hung up, however, I needed to remove the copy of the link back to my own files.
That is when I noticed a little folder labelled Personal inside the first file. Hmm, I thought. What is this? Somehow, I had never noticed this folder. It was mixed up in the file of documents about the students that partook in the class.
These letters, however, were from one of the male models.
Every one of the letters was addressed to Sophie, calling her Sweetheart, Love, Darling, Pumpkin, Marzipan Mushroom and Les Seins de la Magnificence, and Déesse Erotique. The man’s name was Kent.
I recalled our first date. It came back to me like a bolt of lightning. I really had gotten second thoughts about this woman due to the fact that her former lover had called her on her cellular and made trouble. I loved Sophie. There was no doubt about it, but if she had had something on the side with this bloke now for years, then I really would have to show her what I felt and tell her it was me or him.
Was I being silly? I didn’t think so.
The entire correspondence was here. Sophie spoke only highly of me. She spoke of how much she loved me and that she would never want to hurt me. Kent had been her lover for a long time now and he said that he still loved her. He was content on being her nude model at the time and making love to her occasionally in her art studio in Middlesex.

We had two new cars now, due to our success. One black Aston Martin DBS UB-2010 Limited Edition, which Sophie drove to her studio every day, and then the one I mostly drove: the Jaguar Executive X-Type 2,2 Diesel. I turned off the computer and rushed to our garage. I rushed off to her studio, where I suspected she would be fondling her aficionado.

As I was driving there, the CD that had been in the machine all week kept on playing the same tunes by the King’s Singers. I had no recollection of actually remembering hearing the songs. I do not know if I was angry, surprised, sad or terrified.
Well, I parked my vehicle and stepped out. Gathering all my oomph, I rang her bell. She had offered me a key countless times, but I told her that I had no reason to come there except to visit her. Now I wish I had taken her key. No one answered the bell and so I took a few steps back and looked up toward the top floor where Sophie had her studio in the penthouse. Far up there I heard music blasting out of the open windows. It seemed to be songs by the group Earth, Wind and Fire. It was music that Sophie liked herself, but rarely painted to. She would have Vivaldi or Brahms accompany her painting. Now it seemed a wild party was on up there. She had not expected me and I had been planning a long calm day at home.

Soon enough, somebody walked out of the front door and I took the chance of slipping in. I walked up all seven floors, in order to avoid any risk of being heard.
When I finally did arrive up at the penthouse, the music was louder than ever. I knocked on the door and rang the bell, but it was obvious that with that loud music going on there was no way anyone could hear a doorbell.
Then I found the door open. I walked into the open space and saw several unfinished paintings and high ceilings, canvases, reproductions, platforms, costumes, windows and beyond it a very large, almost finished work that I recognized as The Judgement of Paris. It was fantastic work and looked almost like the original that I had studied with Sophie’s help in the Gallery last week.
I had been here before and knew that the large space sitting room kitchen was beyond the studio. That was where the music was coming from. I strode across the floor and with fear in my heart I peaked around the corner and expected to find a wild orgy of strippers dancing on tables pleasing their men with long tongues. Instead, I saw nothing of the kind. Sophie was sitting completely still on her red couch drinking her favourite tea, peppermint flavour, reading the biography of Andy Warhol that she was finishing. She hadn’t seen me yet and so I stood there for a bit. She was drinking tea and eating toast with this loud music blasting through the speakers. By the looks of her, you would think that she was listening to Chopin.
Was this on purpose? Had she actually lured me here?
Well, eventually she did notice me and calmly ate her toast while I stood there and shivered.
She stood up, went to the stereo, turned off the music and turned to me. Slowly, she walked up to me and took off her white robe and then her red blouse and finally ended up in front of me in only a see-through negligee and net stockings.
I asked her where Kent was.
Sophie gave me a long, very low giggle and told me that she had left Kent behind a long time ago. What then were these mails that I had found in her documents? She then asked me if I couldn’t remember that she had specifically asked me to position my agent’s financial overview in her own personal file. I then remembered that she had done exactly that.
Were the mails fabricated?
Yes, they were. No man would ever call a woman a Marzipan Mushroom. Sophie had known that I had had several offers from women on my tours and so now she really wanted to test me. If I were unfaithful and found these mails today while she was away, then I would not have come here.
Now I had proven myself true to her alone.
She had tricked me to proving my loyalty.

Two months later, we found out that my wife was pregnant with the child that most probably was conceived to the blasting sounds of Earth, Wind and Fire song September.
I am sitting in my study and writing this little story, with fondness recollecting having seen the finished reproduction of The Judgement of Paris on the walls of the Gallery. Kent was not there. Who was Kent? Do I know? I am tipsy and my wife is dizzy, but she still told me that she has some tea and toast prepared for me. She has something prepared and she has told me that the music will either be Pavarotti or Aretha Franklin.
We have to be careful, though.
After all, my wife is expecting a baby girl in three months. Making love is very different during pregnancy. Fidelity is a wonderful thing.

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