26 dicembre 1777 Piazza San Marco, Venezia Sunset turns the Canale Di San Marco into an endless stream of spilled Chianti.
Masked courtesans totter carefully from their boats to ply their trade inland. Hungry eyes peer out from behind the soft velvet of full-face Moretta masks, most held in place by a button on a thread, clenched between the teeth.
Some of the wearers are young and beautiful. Some old and diseased. Rich women dress as paupers. The poor borrow disguises to spend the night as nobles.
In Venice, anyone can be anyone.
Everything is possible.
Nothing is certain.
It is the day after Christmas. The Feast of St Stephen. The start of Carnevale.
The most decadent festival in the history of the world is only hours old and it is screaming its arrival like a newborn child.
Six months of wild indulgence is born.
Music. Art. Sex.
And more decadent things.
Darker – deadlier – things.
Piazza San Marco is already a dance floor. Embroidered coats, Carnevale capes and shimmering new costumes swirl in the crisp winter air as mingling and flirtation commence against a backdrop of string musicians. Vivaldi is dead but the Red Priest's music is more in fashion than when he was alive. Inside a cafe, female violinists play 'La Tempesta de Mare', and for a fleeting moment a group of men pause and listen before heading on towards Il Ridotto, the state-run gambling house at San Moise where most of their wages will disappear.
From behind his long-nosed, deathly white mask, a man known as The Boatman watches them all.
He is in the centre of it but not part of it.
Piazza San Marco is the magnet for decadence, the epicentre of European sexual tourism. This is the place the poet Baffo dubbed the barking ground for bitches of all breeds to come and lift their tails.
At the far end of the square a street theatre performs on a raised platform. Centre stage is a broad-chested actor playing the role of the adventurer, Capitano Scaramuccia. He is dressed in a feathered hat, flowing black cape and thick belt with steel sword. From behind a small silver mask finished with a long ivory nose he is regaling an already drunken audience with tales of beating the Turkish army and running off with the beard of the Sultan.
The Boatman drifts away from the crowd's laughter and wanders the streets, drinking in the sexual aroma of the early evening.
He decides to dine well.
A hearty zuppa pomodoro, followed by a rich, roasted haunch of lamb. But no wine. Not yet. He needs a clear head.
Afterwards he will walk off his feast and be ready for business.
He meanders north-east through backstreets and over stone bridges towards the brothel at Santa Maria Formosa. From there he'll head into the finer quarters of Sestiere di Dorsoduro.
He fastens his coat as a biting wind blows in from the canal, and hears someone say there's a stormy high tide on its way. He doesn't think so. Most forecasters are fools. They don't have the sense to predict that night follows day. The Boatman knows more about the elements than they ever will.
Still, he'll be careful. Watchful. As always.
Two courtesans – both wearing silver cat masks – make pawing motions as they approach him. The smaller one lets out a loud and playful 'Meeeooow!' then purrs and wriggles against his hip.
The Boatman feigns disgust. All but jumps out of her way.
The courtesans laugh at him and teeter off on their platform shoes. They're oblivious to whom they've just brushed shoulders with. Unaware of how lucky they are.
One of their nine lives – gone for ever.
Tonight in Venice, the two cats and ten thousand women like them will have sex with tens of thousands of strange men who've travelled from all over Europe to lie between their legs. The Boatman won't be one of them.
The pleasure he is seeking is much less fleeting – far more permanent.