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Chapter 1 - The Noblest Antiquarian Bookstore

Jane Prynn sat stroking a first edition Hemingway. She opened the book, spread the pages, and ran her fingertips across the cream colored paper. Absorbing the print through her touch, the scene in the paragraph began to emerge in her mind. She could smell the acacia blossoms, taste dry dirt on her lips and hear the elephants grunting in the distance. She closed her eyes and remembered the night Ernest Hemingway came with a roar on top of her as they lay on the ground beside the yellow flames of a fire that glowed against the black fathomless African sky.

There would be many great lovers for Jane Prynn. Over the years she would have notable figures from all walks of life and throughout history. Among them were numerous authors, a famous French chef, a detective, a director, a former president, a composer, a minor king and even a superhero. She wasn’t yet very old and she wasn’t crazy. She was, however, fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Mr. Max Impudente, owner and proprietor of the Noblest Antiquarian Bookstore in Greenwich Village.

Max Impudente was a compact little man from Tuscany who’d owned the Noblest for as long as anyone in the neighborhood could remember. His long white hair was meticulously greased into place and tied in a thick braid which hung down his back. He was always freshly shaven and dressed as if on his way to brunch at a fashionable hotel. Jane noticed him sitting outside his shop on mornings when the sun formed a bright triangle beneath his awning. He’d sit drinking fresh brewed espresso and smoking a hand rolled cigarette at a small café table installed for this purpose. So years earlier, after Jane quit her job at Bantam Publishing when she was unceremoniously passed over for promotion by her boss’s nephew, she turned up at the Noblest in response to the ad in the window.

Help Wanted

Literary Background Required

Travel and Benefits Molto Bene

When she entered the shop for the first time, she was mesmerized by the floor to ceiling shelves of books leaning precariously against the walls. It felt as if one pulled out the wrong volume, it would upset the entire bookshelf and send its contents spilling onto the floor. Yellowed bits of paper clung to posts throughout the store identifying all different subjects: fiction, non-fiction, biography, cooking, philosophy, psychology, erotica . . . It was organized chaos and in contrast to the micromanaged sterility of Bantam Publishing, it appeared to be the perfect place to decompress so she could figure out what to do next with her life.

Jane Prynn had just turned thirty and the world seemed beckon her somewhere outside the corporate literary world, indeed outside the boundaries of all aspects of the world she had known. Reading manuscripts all day every day had drained her. Initially, she fed off the imagination of other writers, entering their worlds eagerly and happily. Not infrequently the authors became her lovers, both men and women. Yet these were not writers of great capacity. And she learned quickly that even the ones who wrote well could not, on most occasions, sustain the gravity of their work through their personalities. It seemed that inspired ideas could come from people who seemed rather ordinary. But perhaps with great authors, great thinkers, great artists it was different.

There came a point where she could no longer be sated by the stories or the authors themselves. The feeling left her hungry for more intense experiences and if she could not write them herself (and indeed up to that point Jane Prynn had been more a reader than a writer), she would have to live them.

This conclusion came to her as she sat reading the want ads over breakfast at her local diner. Gazing down at the bright blue circles of ink enclosing ads for readers and editors at various publishing houses, she placed an open hand on the page and drew her fingers together into a fist. She left the crumpled paper on the table and strode out the door into a drizzle of spring rain. On the way back to her apartment, she saw the help wanted sign in the window of the Noblest Antiquarian Bookstore across the street.

She pushed the door open. Inside the Noblest, the air was stagnant and rife with the scent of aging paper and the faint aroma of mold. It was, as she always found, comforting to be surrounded by so many literary masterpieces and she felt the faint hum of excitement run through her body.

“Can I help you Signorina?” Max Impudente almost floated to the cash register, weaving with practiced ease through the overflowing stacks of books on the floor.

“I’m here about the job, is it taken?”

“Why no, it is not.”

“Well, I’m interested.”

“Then let us see if we are interested in you.” The phrase “we” she came to realize pertained the shop’s proprietor as well as the shop itself, peopled as it was with the opinions of the authors contained within.

The interview proceeded in a common fashion until the discussion of travel and benefits arose.

“Miss Prynn, you are no doubt able to assist me in the management of the Noblest, but in truth, that is a rather small part of the job.”

“What else then?”

“Miss Prynn, I am an entrepreneur and where I see a demand, I try to fulfill a supply. Some of my clients have very unusual demands, ones that cannot be met within the scope of regular modes of commerce. They are not looking for merely goods, books and manuscripts,” he waved his hand dismissively, “they have a love and passion for literature and for artistry in many different subjects. They want to explore their passions to the fullest in the area of their particular interest or expertise. Some of them appreciate great masterpieces, some create great masterpieces, but in their deep appreciation for literature and art there is the desire to bring some aspect of it to life.”

“How do you mean?”

“When we read a novel that is a true work of art, our images of the people and places in that story stay with us forever. They inhabit our inner world, yes? They give us, at times, the comfort and joy of real people. Now what if you could taste the food prepared for Babette’s Feast, make love to history’s greatest romantic characters – those you have fallen in love with, make love to the authors themselves. Le capische? Are you starting to understand?”

“I see . . .” she leaned back in her chair, but she did not see, not yet. He went on.

“These clients, they have tastes both hard and soft, like art itself can be both painful and pleasurable. The roles they wish to play vary, their looks, their ages will vary, but I promise you each experience will be unique and exquisite. No expense will be spared for the environment and the authenticity. You, Jane Prynn will taste a range of fantasies in which you will be the focus and your experience as a woman will complete itself in ways most woman only touch in their dreams, each time che bella sorpresa, a beautiful surprise!”

He lit another cigarette and gazed into the Cooking section. “You must be committed to the role you are playing, you must use all of your wit and sexual capabilities to the fullest. You will study before each of these trysts to perfect your knowledge of the subject matter. It will be academically demanding, but the physical rewards, in my opinion, will more than compensate you for your efforts.”

Jane sat frozen in her chair staring at the little man watching the smoke curl around his head.

“Here.” He handed her five hundred dollars and a card from Bliss Spa. You take this and you ask for Bernadette. I will arrange today for a haircut, manicure, pedicure, wax, massage, et cetera, et cetera, all of these womanly things must be done at once. If you accept the position, we have important business tomorrow.”

“What kind of business?”

“Jane Prynn do you really expect me to tell you how the first chapter ends? Do you not want the pleasure of discovery?”

Before she let her rational mind shut down this most unusual opportunity she took the crisp hundred dollar bills and agreed to turn up at nine am the following morning just to play one hand of what was surely the old man’s game.

* * *

Chapter 2 Food and Wine - The French Chef

“Buon giorno,” Max Impudente glanced up from a collection of Wallace Steven poems.

“Are you a sensualist my dear? Do you long for the brush of fine silk against your thigh? The touch of a fingertip against the small of your back? Can you appreciate the marriage of flavor between a fine Cabernet and rich milkchocolate?”

Before she could answer what to her seemed like a pompous and ridiculous set of questions, he pointed across the stacks to one of the yellowing signs staples on top of a bookcase.

“The cooking section?”

He held up a Louis Vuitton suitcase and a plane ticket.

“Indeed this is a most delicious first project. It will be a banquet for the senses. Go back in the office and get changed, the outfit on the top with the shoes packed in the left hand corner.”

She walked to the back of the store and stepped into Max Impudente’s office. The walls were covered with book jackets. They formed a patchwork across the expanse of wall. In between the covers were photographs of women. Beside “The Biography of Jackie-O” there was a photograph of woman standing on the deck of a yacht in a 1950’s style bikini wearing a large pair of oval dark sunglasses. Underneath “The Life and Times of Cleopatra” there was a photograph of a woman with the straight dark hair and almond shaped eyes of the Queen of the Nile. Below that, a photograph of a woman in hunting clothes holding a rifle was stapled to the cover of Isaac Dineson’s “Out of Africa”. It was a remarkable display which told a most unusual story. If any of it were true.

“Please hurry, you mustn’t be late, there will be plenty of time for me to tell you about your predecessors.”

She stripped naked and placed the suitcase on the desk. When she opened the bag, she could see that layers of clothing were packed neatly into separate compartments. She removed the outfit on top. It was a white silk halter top and a short black silk skirt with slits on either side. A starched white linen apron was folded beneath them and a felt bag of Jimmy Choo shoes was nestled in the corner of the suitcase. The shoes were sandals with thin cords of black leather attached to stiletto heels. They weighed nothing and she wrapped the soft straps securely around the curves of her ankles. Stepping back from the desk, she examined her post-spa presentation in the mirror on the back of the door.

The Swedish masseur had pummeled her body, the limbs stretched and pulled into a supple and languid state, the likes of which she had never experienced. It affected her posture, which was now straight without being rigid, and her walk which was confident and fluid. After a vigorous rub down with sea salt, her skin felt like polished stone.

While her facial features were not particularly striking, they provided a serviceable palette that was significantly enhanced and refined with expensive make-up and eyebrows that arched definitively across her brow. Her breasts were round and full, the nipples prominent and enticing. Her legs were long, smooth and tanned. Red glossy toenails gleamed at the tips of her feet. She put on the blouse and skirt, with nothing underneath. She closed the suitcase and returned to stand in front of Max Impudente.

“You surprise yourself Jane, but you do not surprise me. I have watched you pass by my shop, as I watch everyone who passes in front of the Noblest. But you . . . risplendere . . . you glow through your plainness. I could see that.”

She stared at him. He grinned briefly, exhaled a plume of smoke and looked down at the folder in front of him. Read this on the plane, you leave for Paris at 7. There’s a car waiting outside . . .

To be continued...