Whispers of the Flesh by Louisa Burton

awake the rest of the night, wondering what to make of that dream. In its immediate aftermath, he’d briefly nurtured the notion that it might not have been a dream at all, but a real diabolical visitation. However, even with his mind prone to flights of fancy as it tended to be during nocturnal musings, he’d had to conclude that it had been no actual succubus ravishing him in his sleep, but rather his demon-obsessed mind.
    “What do you think of our bathhouse?” inquired Lili from the arched doorway of the edifice, which looked rather like a Roman temple fitted out with wrought-iron furniture and scatterings of jewel-toned pillows.
    Its white marble walls had been eroded by time and the elements, but it was still a beautiful structure, the focal point of which was the square, mosaic-floored pool in which he had spied Lili and Elic coupling the night before. The water was glassy-smooth except at the far end, where it rippled as it emerged from a conduit to the underground cave stream; presumably it flowed out through a similar aperture that David couldn’t see from where he stood. The open roof, which emblazoned the water with sunlight, was supported by four pillars with a life-size figurative sculpture at the base of each.
    David was about to respond that it was a very lovely bathhouse when he realized that the four statues were of couples locked in sexual concourse, each position more indecent than the last. Two depicted acts of intercourse, the other two of oral copulation, the male being the recipient in one case and the female in the other. The male’s generative organ was unnaturally large, a thick, veiny column about a foot long. David’s scalp tingled when he noticed a tail with a little tuft at the end, ears that came to a slight point, and two stubby horns that were barely visible within the satyr’s cap of tightly curled hair.
    He had been aroused already, remembering that dream. It didn’t help to be in such close proximity to the exotically seductive Lili. The delicate pressure of her arm linked with his, the silken brush of her skirts and huge puff sleeves, and most intoxicating of all, her perfume, which made him think of night-blooming flowers in a Persian garden . . . jasmine, he thought. These things provoked in him a low hum of desire, like the resonance from a tuning fork, that made him keenly aware of every inch of his body—especially of that all too excitable organ between his legs, now stirring heavily beneath his coat as he took in these ribald statues.
    Lili said, “The man who built this bathhouse, and the villa that once stood where the castle is now, regarded this valley as a pleasure retreat. Of course, the Romans had a rather sportive view of fleshly matters. It was simply a leisure pursuit to them. I do hope you aren’t shocked.”
    “Of course not,” he said, but wanting to mitigate that bit of fiction—for truly, the mouth that belieth killeth the soul—he added, “I suppose I am a bit taken aback, but not
shocked
per se. I have viewed the Pompeian artifacts at the Secret Museum in Naples, so I do realize that artwork portraying satyrs was frequently quite obscene. I will confess, however, that the . . . well, the lifelike size and quality of these statues, and the skill with which they were executed, makes them all the more . . .”
    “Titillating?”
    Incredulous that he was discussing such matters with a female—and not some trollop, but a lady of obvious breeding and cultivation—he said, “Clearly they were created with titillation in mind. I suppose what truly shocks me is that they remain standing after all this time. I would have thought they’d have been removed long ere this, on moral grounds.”
    “You said yourself they’re beautifully executed. They’re exquisite works of art.”
    “Art? They are prurient in the extreme.”
    “Which means they cannot be regarded as art?” she asked.
    “To my mind, no.”
    She smiled at him in a way that made him feel