WHEN WORDS FAIL

Some would describe Monique Carcuela as the archetypal beauty, a stunning marvel of classic, isometric proportion. Those who knew her before what has been referred to with comic understatement as 'her fall,' describe the ambient peculiarity of her proud, symmetrical bearing. Her stunning intelligence was as crisp as an intaglio. Her superbly toned dancer's body seemed to meld with the wind as she walked. 

People talked of her dignity as if it were a lost set of house-keys, something of consequence transformed suddenly by careless oversight. If she's remembered at all it is for her role as the weary muse behind Currado Malaspina's most controversial piece to date - The Baba Kama Sutra.

In the days when every art student saw themselves as Brassaï's heir apparent, the striking couple were  were constantly caught on film despite their silly attempts at discretion.  

Dressed and outdoors they appeared to be just friends, casual comrades in a gentle crusade against French neo-bohemianism. At the time just a few of us knew what was really cooking behind that threadbare veil of propriety.

Who ultimately rejected whom is still very much a matter of scholarly speculation. There is ample evidence to suggest that their brilliant flame extinguished on its own. 

One thing seems to be certain.

Malaspina is a far better lover than he is a draftsman!

FROM MEDIOCRITY TO PRURIENCE

They say it happened when his first wife left him for a Malaysian cage fighter. Others insist that it dates back to his student days. From my perspective as one of Currado Malaspina's oldest friends, I always point to his clandestine romance with Monique Carcuela, the wife of the poet and erstwhile Ecuadoran ambassador to France, Manuel Carcuela.

Monique was a dancer, or so she pretended. Lithe, nimble and utterly irresistible. To the ambassador she was a trophy and a glamorous shill. Fastened to his arm she stood as fraudulent witness to his vanished manhood. 

To the young, dashing  and perpetually hung-over Malaspina, Monique Carcuela was low hanging fruit. In those days Currado was a minor master of seduction. He collected women like green stamps and traded them up when they ceased to be of use. When the gorgeous ambassador's wife asserted her near mystical hold on Currado's imagination he became  incurable.

He was her slave and together they built a theology based upon the acrobatics of lust.

That's when it happened!

That was when Currado Malaspina stopped painting third-rate abstract paintings and started to use his graphic acumen to celebrate good old-fashioned rough sex.

What a lousy cheap gimmick!