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By Root 755 0

my bed. It was doubtless for that nefarious reason that he introduced me to his partner, Danny, who collected everything from Important Art to Rare Books to Major Antiques to Fine Wines and was willing to consider acquiring me. It never occurred to me that there was anything strange about a newly sober person falling in love with a wine collector. Why not? I thought. I could resist all those euphoniously named châteaus. And Danny was intelligent, generous, Texan, a great raconteur. Prior to becoming an antiquaire he had been a publisher in London. (His money was old—for Texas—inherited, and still green.) He was well read. He was witty. He had published Nobel laureates and trash novelists alike, and he could do the most fabulous imitations of both. (He would, for example, drape himself in a leopardskin scarf and do a Jackie Collins. Or he would do the perfect I. B. Singer singsong.) As if these literary credentials were not enough, he had a glorious estate in the Berkshires, once owned by a friend of Edith Wharton’s—an Italianate villa near The Mount, called Lunabella. Lunabella had its own conservatory, its own indoor swimming pool (which connected with the outdoor swimming pool by a secret passage), its own ballroom (with a painted, vaulted, starry sky). Edith Wharton had invited Mr. Fullerton there, but he had never come.

Danny Doland from Dallas was my last chance to go two by two into the ark with silverware. Danny Doland from Dallas was my last stab at normality. If I had got in trouble seeking my dybbuk, my demon lover, then surely I would be safe with this portly and proper burgher, with auctions at Sotheby’s and suites at Claridge’s, with dinner parties for eight (at eight), before which Danny Doland actually rehearsed his own jokes and wrote insulting yet flattering descriptions of each guest on the place cards, as if for a celebrity roast.

Make no mistake, I was madly in love with Danny Doland. I am not now and have never been a cynical gold digger. When Danny and I met at that first dinner in the Berkshires, at Wheatleigh, on a hot summer night, our eyebeams locked, and we both tumbled.

His eyes were washed-out blue, smallish and glittering. He was blindingly bald, with a double chin and an ample paunch, which his tallness disguised—except in bed. He wore yellow suspenders and red bow ties. He carried a silver-headed cane, which he sometimes twirled. He wore silk boxer shorts with “DD” monogrammed on one leg. He sometimes even wore spats. Somehow, in my warped mind, these things connoted safety. (I was not used to men who wore underwear at all—let alone custom-made underwear.) I had had a goyboytoy, and Danny Doland was no one’s toy; little did I know that Danny Doland had his hand on the joystick every bit as firmly as Dart—albeit in another fashion.

At that first dinner, our eager conversation blotted out the world. Danny loved Italy, Turner, Blake; he collected my film stills. He pronounced business “bidness” and important “impordant.” He actually had been following my work for years and owned an early painting of mine I had somehow lost track of. It flashed through my mind that I could get it back by marrying him. But even without that, I would have fallen for his fatal charm. For Danny was funny, cuddly, warm. Like going to bed with a hot cup of cocoa. After five years of going to bed with an auto-da-fé, it seemed appealing. I went home to Lunabella with Danny and tumbled into bed.

Hot cocoa. Even the images we used in bed were about food.

“I want to pour chocolate syrup over your cock and lick it off,” I said.

“You’ll have to beat me to it first,” said Danny (without, however, explaining how he was going to bend over that far).

In an age of uncommitted men, Danny was loaded with commitment. He gave me jewelry on the second date (an Art Deco pin—“we’re pinned,” he said), proposed on the third, and on the fourth gave me an elephantskin Filofax with his name (or his initials) written beside lunch and dinner on every page. He planned safaris in Kenya and château rentals on the Rhone. He was going