‘Does this often happen?’ she asked, surprised.
He gave her a wink. ‘More often than Piero dreams of. That’s the beauty of having him tucked up in bed upstairs. Sometimes we have two or three girls smuggled in!’
‘I can hardly believe it.’
‘What’s the matter, are you jealous? Maybe we’ll sort one out for you sometime. You could easily creep downstairs once old Piero is snoring away.’
‘Oh no!’
Too late, Carla realised that the dismay in her voice was too strong. Marco grinned. ‘You’re still a virgin, is that it? Perhaps you should visit a whore. I know a good woman. She’s used to helping young boys through their first time.’
Carla said nothing, afraid of giving the game away. But Marco did not forget their conversation. One afternoon he said casually, in front of the others, ‘Why don’t you come down tonight, after Piero’s asleep? We’ve got two girls coming and we’ll arrange some good sport for you.’
Carla didn’t know what to say. If she refused they would think her a prude or a weakling, but if she accepted she might get herself into deep water. She said she would, but then reasoned that she could pretend she had fallen asleep and forgotten all about it.
She wasn’t to be let off that lightly, however. When she didn’t appear, Matteo crept up to the master’s bedroom and shook her awake. Piero was still snoring away, so Carla had no excuse not to follow him downstairs where the older apprentices were whispering and flirting with two young girls. She felt weird, seeing them sitting in the laps of Luigi and Marco. A sudden feeling of jealousy took her by surprise when she saw Marco kiss the pale neck of his girl and stroke her blonde, curly hair.
‘I’ve brought Carlo down for kissing lessons,’ Matteo announced, making her blush horribly.
‘Only kissing?’ Luigi said. He glanced at his girl and she giggled. ‘Nina’s a good kisser, aren’t you sweetheart? Are you prepared to show a novice how to do it?’
‘Mm, maybe. It depends what I get in return.’
‘Saucy minx!’ Luigi pushed her off his lap. ‘Go over there and give him a proper tonguing. Make his toes curl and his cock stand up, then you might get a good time later. Off you go.’
There was no way Carla could get out of it without looking a bigger fool than she already felt. She stood there, stiff as a board, while Nina sidled up to her with an amused grin. ‘Have you really never kissed a girl before?’
Carla nodded, wanting to sink through the floor. Yet the girl intrigued her, with her knowing brown eyes and mature, voluptuous body. Here was someone of around her own age who already knew far more about love and life than Carla had dreamt of. She felt as much in awe of her as she had of the two whores in the apothecary’s. But beneath it all she was still terrified of discovery.
‘Come on,’ Nina said, taking her by the hand. ‘Over here where we can be comfortable.’ She made Carla lie down on one of the boys’ beds then lay alongside her. ‘Take me in your arms, then! Now slowly bring your lips towards mine until they meet in a kiss – that’s right.’
Carla was amazed to find that kissing another woman was not so different from kissing Stefano. When she thought about it, there was no reason why it should be, but somehow she had imagined that men and women’s bodies were totally different all over. It was a revelation to her to be able to kiss quite passionately without worrying about the fact that Nina was of the same sex as herself.
The other girl’s mouth was fresh and sweet, her little tongue active and probing. Soon Carla was enjoying the kiss immensely, letting her lips move against the softness of Nina’s while their tongues duelled playfully. Then, when the other girl drew away, she felt a definite twinge of disappointment.
Carla looked up to see the faces of the apprentices ranged all round the bed, regarding her with amusement. She looked away, abashed, and they all laughed at her.
‘If that was really your first time you put up a jolly good show!’ Luigi said. ‘How was it for you, Nina? Did you prefer this young virgin’s kisses to mine?’
In response, the girl hurled a pillow at him. This gave him the excuse for a pillow fight and soon the couple were attacking each other with abandon while the other apprentices warned them to keep the noise down.
Their warning came too late. The heavy tread of Piero was heard on the stair, accompanied by his grunts and mutterings. The two girls were unceremoniously bundled out through the back door to make their escape into the night. By the time the master appeared all candles had been extinguished and the lads were apparently asleep in their beds.
Piero sniffed the air. ‘What can I smell? Candle wax, sweat and a woman’s perfume. Have you been up to your tricks again?’
Only a stifled giggle answered him. He re-lit one of the candles and held it aloft. Carla held her breath as she huddled beneath a blanket in the corner. ‘Carlo, what are you doing down here? Back upstairs, this minute!’
She did as she was told and soon the house was quiet again. Before Piero got back into bed he forbade her to leave the room at night again. ‘Those boys are a bad influence on you. Before I know it you’ll be carousing and whoring with them, and not concentrating on your work. I’ve seen it happen to Luigi and Antonio, but I’m damned if I’ll let it happen to you. You’ve got real promise!’
Carla was secretly pleased that he valued her so highly, but she had no intention of giving up the company of the other apprentices. She might stay in her bed at night, but during the day she would relish the easy camaraderie that she had with them, especially with Marco. They were developing a real friendship, and if he had to go out of the workshop for an hour or two she could hardly wait for him to come back. She took every opportunity she could to talk to him or help him with his work, and when he acknowledged her with a smile or word of thanks it made her day.
Around the middle of June the workshop suddenly became a hive of frantic activity. Marco explained that Carnival was approaching and there was a huge demand for all kinds of painted scenery, traditional-style towers of paper and wax, elaborate masks and head-dresses – all of which Florentine artists were well able to provide. Piero’s workshops became stuffed from floor to ceiling with columns, arches and backdrops made out of wood or plaster and painted to look like the real thing.
Carla enjoyed helping out. She was given free rein with some of the items and was particularly pleased with a beautiful female mask she made. The skin was like porcelain delicately tinged with pink, and the eye-holes had real lashes fixed around them which she had made from horse-hair. Even Piero admired it, and his next words astonished her.
‘It’s too good to waste on any customer, you shall wear it yourself!’
‘Me?’ Carla exclaimed. ‘But where? How?’
‘You shall ride on the float with the other lads. They need a woman for the masque they’re going to perform. You’ll do perfectly. Your figure is quite womanly, since you’ve not got your manly muscles yet.’
She did not know what to say at first. The others began to agree with Piero, saying she would be perfect for the part of the pretty young girl married to the rich old man. When Carla discovered she was supposed to cuckold her husband, played by Giovanni, with a younger lover, played by Marco, she began to find the prospect more attractive.
‘You’ll be riding on the float in the procession,’ Piero explained. ‘It will stop every so often and the masque will be performed, with the others providing the music.’
‘The crowd throw coins and gifts,’ Matteo added with a grin. ‘I ate so many sweetmeats last year that I was sick as a dog afterwards.’
‘Trust you!’ Marco said, cuffing the boy affectionately.
‘So, will you do it?’ Piero asked her. He was smiling at her quite benignly, for a change. She nodded. ‘Good fellow! Or should I say, “Good girl!”?’ To Carla’s surprise he planted a juicy kiss on her mouth. ‘Mm, your lips could make me believe you were a woman – in the dark!’
‘You watch him, Carlo!’ Luigi grinned.
‘He might come on to you after lights out!’
While they all worked hard at the preparations the lads began talking about what happened at last year’s carnival. It sounded as if the Feast of Saint John the Baptist was a celebration marked by licence and excess. Carla listened, goggle-eyed, whilst the older apprentices went into detail.
‘Remember that girl with the enormous breasts, Marco?’ Luigi said.
‘How could I forget?’
‘While you tupped her from behind she let me rub my cock between her tits.’
‘Yes, and what an arse she had! Great fleshy buttocks you could really get a handle on. And she squeezed me with her cunt as if she were milking a cow. Gave me the most fantastic climax, I can tell you!’
‘What was her name? I’ve forgotten.’
‘Er . . . was it Emilia?’
‘Yes, that’s it! I hope we’ll see her again this year.’
‘Me too. This time you can fuck her while I get to come between her fat breasts. I can hardly wait!’
Hearing their frank talk Carla was assailed by mixed emotions. She was curious to know what went on between a man and a woman, but at the same time she felt absurd pangs of jealousy at the thought of Marco making love to another woman. She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help herself.
Marco caught her eye and must have sensed something of what was going on inside her. He gave her a wink, saying, ‘Don’t mind us, Carlo. We work hard and we play hard, that’s just the way we are. Some day I intend to settle down with a good woman, but until then I shall have as much fun as I can find.’
‘You’ll find plenty on the 24th!’ Luigi grinned. ‘It’s a shame you’re going to be dressed as a woman, Carlo, or you might get your share too. But I doubt any girl is going to be attracted to a man in a gown.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Giovanni put in, with a wry smile. ‘Some of the priests don’t do so badly!’
That night Carla was in a turmoil. It was bad enough having to pose as a boy, but to be dressed as a girl would be quite an ordeal. She guessed that she was going to have to take some ribbing from the other apprentices. If they only knew! Most of all she was upset at the thought of Marco making fun of her. She had begun to desire him passionately. She was quite sure of that now, although the knowledge had come as a shock to her. But hearing him talk about being with other girls had awakened such fiery longings within, that it was all she could do to avoid flinging off her tunic and hose and revealing her woman’s body to him there and then.
She moaned softly in her distress, safe in the knowledge that Piero was out on the town. He had gone off to the tavern – on one of his binges, as Luigi had described it. Apparently they happened once a month or so. It was the first time Carla had been alone at night and she lay sombrely examining her feelings while she hugged herself beneath the thin coverlet. Her body was warm and soft to the touch. Would it please a man like Marco?
Slowly her hands crept to her aching bosom, where the nipples were sticking out like bronze finials on the alabaster domes of her breasts. Carla brushed them experimentally with her fingertips and felt a hot spasm of energy flood down towards the tingling niche between her thighs. She tried to remember what it had felt like to have Stefano inside her, but the memory was already becoming blurred. Her old life seemed a lifetime away, the village where she had been born and bred more like a foreign country.
Sighing and moaning, Carla played with her nipples with one hand while the other one parted the overheated labia and felt the soft, damp warmth within. Something was throbbing steadily down there, a small nub of flesh at the top of her private place that seemed to have a hot appetite of its own. Tentatively she began to rub the spot, and the tingling sensations intensified. How strange it felt to be giving herself pleasure in that way! But she reasoned that if a man’s fingers could caress and stroke her the way that Stefano’s had, then her own could do it just as well. And there seemed no other way to quench the fire that had been kindled in her body.
Suddenly she heard noisy footsteps treading heavily upon the stairs and she knew that Piero had returned from his drinking bout. He came swearing and grunting upstairs and Carla knew that her chance of finding relief must be postponed if she were not to attract his unwanted attention. So she turned over onto her stomach, pretending to be asleep.
Piero flung the door open and then cursed a few times. Making no attempt to light a candle he sat on his bed and struggled with his boots, cursing again until he had managed to remove them and fling them across the floor. Carla listened to the succession of noises in resignation, hoping he would just tumble into bed and settle down. He was bound to snore, but she had more or less got used to that.
‘Wench!’ she heard him mutter. ‘That’s what I could do with, a nice fat wench!’
Carla heard him stagger to the piss-pot and fill it, then he flopped down heavily on his mattress, making the floor shake. Relieved, she flexed her legs and rustled the sheets, preparing to sleep, but that was her undoing. As if he had suddenly realised that he was not alone, Piero rose from his bed and came over to hers with an evil-sounding chuckle. Dread clasped at her heart with a tight grip.
‘I might not have a wench, but I’ve got a boy!’ she heard him mutter. ‘And he’s mine, to serve me any way I want. You gave good head, boy. Let’s see if you can give good arse, too!’
Carla trembled as the covers were torn off her, exposing her prone body in its thin shift. Now her sex would be discovered and she would have to take the consequences! She felt the weight of Piero’s knees on either side of her own, but still she dared not speak or move. His hands pulled up her shift but she kept her thighs close together and her buttocks clenched. She was terrified, and yet the hot excitement she had been feeling just minutes before was still with her, ready to be ignited once again. Tom between fear and desire she wondered what would happen next.
‘If I use some oil it won’t hurt you,’ she heard Piero say. ‘Open your legs, there’s a good lad. I’ve got a stiffy fit to paint with.’
Strong hands pushed her thighs apart and then a warm, oily finger was placed in the crack between her buttocks and began to burrow its way in. At first she resisted, but soon the feeling changed from being painful to being pleasurable. Piero began to wind his finger round and round in her, loosening her up, and she began to move her mound against the mattress, finding the friction most gratifying.
‘That’s right!’ Piero cooed. ‘You get used to it, lad. A fellow can take another’s prick without shame when the need is great. It doesn’t make you any less of a man.’
He was pressing a second finger into her, opening her anus and making the wild throbbing in the front of her body accelerate to fever pitch. Carla stopped worrying about whether he would discover the truth about her. She stopped caring what he was about to do to her. All she wanted was to wrest every bit of satisfaction from the experience that she could.
So when Piero’s thick tool began to worm its way into her backside, Carla relaxed and let him enter her without obstruction. His thrusting soon produced exquisite feelings in her, both back and front, so that the twinges of pain that accompanied them hardly mattered. She raised her pelvis and thrust back against him, glorying in the heightened sensation that this activity produced.
It didn’t take long for her master to achieve his climax. With a volley of curses interspersed by gasps and groans, Piero clutched so hard at her thin shoulders as he came that she squealed aloud. He mistook her anguish for protest and pulled out of her rapidly, mumbling apologies.
‘Didn’t mean to hurt you – gone too far – sorry . . .’
He rolled off her bed and on to the floor with a thud. Carla lay in stunned silence, feeling the darkened room whirling about her ears as she tried to recover from her frenzy of sensuality. Her body was still hot and needy, but she was also exhausted and continued to lie, face down, until the feelings subsided and drowsiness took their place.
She was vaguely aware of Piero clambering
back into his own bed and of everything going quiet again. With a deep sigh, Carla turned on her side and prepared for sleep. Her bottom was sore, and would no doubt feel worse in the morning, but at least Piero had not explored further than her arse and was still under the impression that she was a boy. For that, at least, she was grateful.
Next day Piero was contrite. Although he was obviously in a bad state himself, he gave her some apothecary salve for her inflamed anus and brought her a posset of healing herbs. ‘Sorry I was a bit rough with you last night,’ he said, gruffly. ‘You can stay in bed for a bit if you like.’
But Carla didn’t want to lie in bed like a mardy child. She had dreamt of Marco all night and was eager to see him again. In her dreams he had been taking her from behind, not like Piero, but the way he had with the big-bosomed girl. His hands had played with her breasts while he thrust into her, making the hot throbbing grow more and more urgent until something burst within her like the sun filling the horizon, flushing her through and through with flurries of voluptuous warmth. She had never had a dream like it before, and the memory of it was still with her like a glorious flower, blooming secretly in her head.
When she went down into the workshop Marco was there with young Antonio. Both Luigi and Giovanni were out on business. He looked at her strangely when she appeared, and her heart seemed to revolve like a tumbler. His quizzical face searched hers for clues until he said, ‘There’s something different about you this morning, Carlo. You didn’t lose your virginity last night by any chance, did you?’
Carla stifled a giggle, since this was ironically near the truth. But she shook her head. ‘No, of course not.’ She didn’t want to tell him what Piero had done to her.
Marco grinned, tousling her hair affectionately. ‘You know, you’re going to make an awfully pretty girl at the carnival. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t end up quite fancying you. Better mind I don’t get too drunk, or I might make a pass at you!’
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