He grunted, lost in a world of sensual suspense, and she braced herself to give him what he wanted. Raising her hand high she looked down at the two pale moons of his buttocks. They were plumper and firmer than the thin, sagging buns of the priest, and when she brought the flat of her hand down on them the flesh felt pleasantly cushiony so that her hand bounced a little. She giggled, enjoying the slight sting on her palm, raised her hand and repeated the action. Faster and faster she slapped until she had a noisy rhythm going, but then she grew afraid that it could be heard downstairs.
‘What’s the matter?’ Piero grunted peevishly. ‘I was just getting off on it. Why have you stopped?’
‘I thought the others might hear . . .’
‘Let ’em! I’ll tell them I was giving you a good thrashing. They’ll never believe it was the other way around!’
He chortled in delight, which only increased her determination to give him a good seeing-to. This time she began a relentless series of stinging slaps that had him wriggling in the sheets like an eel as he strove to achieve his climax. Again and again she brought her hand down on the reddening cheeks, first the right then the left, feeling the muscles grow taut in an attempt to fend off the blows.
Piero was groaning almost continuously and quite loudly now, so she wanted it to be over. At last his moans reached a crescendo and from the way he shuddered and swore she guessed that he was soaking the bed with his ejaculation. It seemed to go on for ages, accompanied by constant shaking and noise, so she was sure that if anyone had been listening at the keyhole they would have known exactly what was going on in the master’s bedroom.
After his orgasm Piero lay inert, breathing heavily, and Carla went over to her own bed where she could lie more comfortably. Her own body was still full of unrequited desire, but she did not expect any more attention from Piero that night. He was clearly exhausted and would soon fall asleep, even though she had done all of the work.
‘Oh Marco!’ she breathed into the night air, her cheek wet with tears. ‘How much longer must I keep my secret from you?’
Again she thought of him coming to make love to her in that room, like a ghost, invisible to everyone but her. This time she imagined him taking her in his arms and kissing her fervently, his lips passing down to her breasts where they licked and suckled like a hungry child. Even at the thought of it her womb leapt for tortured joy and the aching void intensified.
Then she imagined his warm, sweet lips traversing her tense stomach, playing teasingly around her navel while she tingled and moistened down below. She could almost smell the musky, aphrodisiac aroma of his sweat that she had often breathed in the workshop driving her wild with desire. How wonderful it would be to grab a handful of those dark, glossy curls and stroke the creamy skin of his nape while he mouthed his way down to heaven!
When his lips finally reached those hidden folds they would be tenderly swollen and slick with her own essential oils, testament to how much she wanted him. Carla sighed aloud, then paused in her fantasy, afraid of waking Piero. But by now he was snoring at full blast and she knew nothing short of a thunderstorm would rouse him. Carefully she parted her labia with her fingers and felt the smooth, inner lips that guarded her most precious sanctuary. If only she could have saved herself for Marco! But it was too late to regret her loss of virginity. All she could hope for was that, some day, he would bring her the total fulfilment which had so far evaded her. That would really be worth waiting for.
Slowly Carla introduced her forefinger into her own pussy, feeling the velvet walls close around it as she moved further in towards her womb. Imagining it to be Marco’s penis she gave it a loving squeeze. Her secretions started flowing more strongly and soon her hand was so covered in her own wetness that she dared not move it in and out too fast in case it made too much noise. Her thumb was pressed against the pulsating button of flesh at the top of her vulva, and the hot, tingling sensations were spreading through her, filling all her lower body with wonderful warmth and vitality.
She wanted to go on pretending, to make believe that she really had Marco as her lover, but although her body craved further stimulation her mind would not continue. It seemed such an empty pastime to be day-dreaming about the man who lay sleeping on the floor below. Perhaps he was engaged in similar activity. If so, she guessed he would not be thinking about her, but about pretty Elena, whose body he already knew intimately.
The thought depressed Carla, making it impossible for her to gain any more satisfaction from her self-pleasuring. With another sigh – this time more frustrated than voluptuous – she turned over on to her side, curled one arm protectively around her head and prepared for sleep.
Chapter Ten
THE WORKSHOP HAD been a pleasant place that morning until the news broke that Piero had given Carla the chance to work with him on another important commission: a fresco in one of the family chapels in Santa Maria Immacolata. Now Giovanni’s jet-black eyes had that hard expression in them that Carla had come to fear.
He spat venomously as he complained, ‘That job should be mine, Piero! I am the senior artist here and yet you have overlooked me once again in favour of an upstart who’s not even apprenticed. What the hell is going on here? Is he your fancy boy, that you give him such preferment?’
Piero tried to soothe him, placing a hand on Giovanni’s arm that was rudely pulled away. ‘Now don’t fret, Giovanni, there’s a good reason for my decision and you’ve a right to know it. You are working on the Belloni portrait and that must be finished for the wedding. I can see what an excellent job you’re making of it, and when the couple see it you may be sure that they will commission more work from you. By the time that happens I expect you’ll have set up on your own. But in the meantime this fresco must take priority and there’s no one else I can give the job to except Carlo.’
‘What about Marco and Luigi?’ Giovanni persisted, sulkily.
‘They are both busy with the Ciari project, while Antonio and Matteo lack experience. I didn’t make this decision lightly, I assure you. If you’d been free you would have been my first choice for this fresco. But it will be good for Carlo to have the experience too.’
Giovanni muttered something under his breath that sounded obscene, but the wind had been taken out of his sails by Piero’s tactful response and there was little more he could say. Even so, Carla could tell he was still riled and she feared the consequences. Much as she was looking forward to working on the new fresco with Piero she knew that this was just one more black mark against her in Giovanni’s Book of Grievances.
The fresco in the Verazzi chapel was to be scenes in the life of the Virgin, starting with the Immaculate Conception and leading through the Annunciation and the Madonna of the Milk, to the Stabat Mater and the Pietá. A tall scaffold was erected in front of the wall to be decorated, and after they had applied a thin coat of lime the cartoon was pricked out in charcoal by Piero whilst Carla prepared more plaster for the area they would work on that day. She then hastily ground the pigments and mixed them with water bound with egg white for the painting. They had to work very quickly, before the plaster set, so only a small area could be done at a time. While Piero re-drew his outline, Carla applied red and yellow ochre where it was needed and soon the glowing colours began to take on a life of their own.
It was wonderful working by candlelight in the peace of the chapel, with only the occasional murmur of a prayer or rustle of a priest’s robes to disturb their peace. Piero worked in silent concentration on the wet plaster, gesturing his wishes rather than uttering them, and soon a kind of unspoken communication developed between them. By the end of the day the scene with Saint Anne was completed. It took up just a sixth of the wall.
‘Well done!’ Piero smiled as they descended from the scaffold together. ‘I’ve seldom had a fresco go so smoothly on the first day.’
‘Will I be able to do more tomorrow? I mean, not just mix paints and apply them broadly but put in some of the detail?’
; He smiled at her, his expression kindly. ‘I don’t see why not. I trust you to do the job properly, and it will be good practice for you. But you’ll soon find out that wet plaster is an unforgiving medium. You must work with broad strokes, not fine ones, and the effect must look good from a distance. Still, I’m prepared to let you experiment, since it’s only by trial and error that you will succeed.’
Carla felt honoured. She was getting a full apprentice’s training without having to go through all the formalities and preliminaries. No doubt if Giovanni’s suspicions were confirmed and he discovered that she and the master really were lovers he would call it favouritism, but she believed it was because of her innate skill.
When they returned to the house there was an excited atmosphere amongst the others which puzzled Carla at first, but she soon found out what it was all about. Marco came up to them, glowing-eyed, and announced that he had acquired his own premises just round the corner in the Via Calimala and would soon be leaving to start up his own business.
Carla’s heart instantly sank like a stone, although she put on a brave face and pretended to be glad for his sake. But the moment she had been dreading had arrived. Marco would be leaving her alone: what would become of her dreams, and her secret identity then? Who would protect her when Giovanni’s spite expressed itself physically, as it surely would when she had no one to take her part?
Piero took it badly too. ‘You gave me no warning,’ he grumbled. ‘How am I going to find a replacement for you at such short notice?’
‘Well, there’s always Carlo here.’
‘He’s not a candidate right now,’ Piero said brusquely, dashing her hopes. ‘I need someone who can pay the fees.’
‘So you’re using him as slave labour meanwhile, isn’t that it?’
‘How dare you!’
Piero went to strike at Marco but then stayed his hand, probably realising that the lad was beyond his control now. Carla listened to their exchange in despair. Her position in that household would be even more like drudgery from now on. She knew that she could never be accepted into the Guild while Piero knew she was a girl, but she longed to have more status as an artist all the same.
The lads wanted to have a bit of a party, to give Marco a good send-off, and although Piero protested at first when they offered to chip in he could hardly refuse. Carla wondered how she could bear to attend. They would expect her to be jolly and wish him well, not one of them suspecting what heartbreak she was secretly experiencing at the thought of him leaving. It was an ordeal she dreaded.
Yet, on Marco’s last morning, he took her aside before she went off to the church with Piero, and said something that made her heart sing. ‘I mentioned that I’ll be needing an apprentice or two, didn’t I? Well, if you want a job I’ll consider taking you on. It will take me a few weeks to get settled, mind.’
‘Oh Marco, do you really mean it?’
Carla looked straight into his lustrous brown eyes, elated at the thought of working in close proximity with the man she loved, of sharing his house and table.
He put a friendly arm around her and gave her a hug. ‘Of course I mean it! You’re wasted here on that buffoon Piero. I could train you up properly, give you some jobs to really show off your particular skills. And I wouldn’t take all the credit for it either, like he does.’
It sounded like a dream come true, but like most of her dreams Carla did not quite trust it. She resolved not to brood upon it, though. Marco had said he wanted her, and that was enough. She could enjoy the party now.
When she and Piero returned from their labours at Santa Maria Immacolata, preparations were already under way. The lads had festooned the downstairs workshop with anything they could find in the way of ribbons, flags, rosettes and banners. It looked a riotous mess, but who cared? It was obvious to anyone who walked in the door that a celebration was in progress and that was all that mattered.
They had bought several flagons of Tuscan wine, great cartwheels of bread, crocks of olives and balls of fresh goats’ cheese wrapped in vine leaves. There were other apprentices there too, friends and neighbours, but Carla was disconcerted to find a few women amongst them. She had become unused to female company over the past few months and their presence disturbed her. A superstitious voice told her they might detect that she was one of them and expose her as an impostor. It was a recurring nightmare for her.
Once the party got under way, however, she forgot her fears as each of the lads took it on themselves to entertain the rest with bawdy jokes, songs and dances that soon had her in fits of laughter. Marco was the chief butt of all their jokes: Marco, who would soon no longer be one of the lads but a journeyman, a master with others working for him.
By rights Giovanni should have attained that status first but he was poor and in debt, while Marco’s family were able to pay the Guild’s matriculation fee. It was no surprise to Carla to see Giovanni get more drunk, more quickly, than anyone else. It was his way of coping with the ignominy of the situation. He sang a vicious song about the devil raping an old maid and Carla shrank from his fiery, lustful eyes as he bellowed out the obscenities.
Then, around midnight, the door opened and three whores entered, including the pretty Elena. A great cheer went up from the men and some of the women guests discreetly disappeared. Carla was tempted to leave too, but Piero was barring the way to the stairs and she didn’t feel like pushing past him so she stayed in her corner, trying not to look too conspicuous.
‘Dance for us, ladies!’ Marco called, holding his beaker aloft. ‘Show us your fine bodies in action! Dance like the Three Graces before Hermes, and let your movements speak of love!’
They obeyed, casting off their jewel-bright satin dresses and performing in their flimsy shifts so that the nipples on their round breasts and even the dark vee between their thighs was clearly visible. Carla watched their slow, weaving dance with fascination. They moved to the sound of Luigi’s flute and Antonio’s little drum, bending and swaying in an ever-changing circle that sometimes turned itself inside out when they pirouetted under each others’ arms.
‘It is a very old dance,’ Marco told her, his voice slurred with alcohol. ‘Old as the hills.’
He began to laugh in an odd, almost hysterical way that Carla disliked. His eyes grew dim and his head nodded to one side as his neck could no longer support it. Suddenly he slumped against her, throwing his arm around her neck, and she felt a surge of such violent longing that she could hardly control herself.
Elena came to her rescue. She broke from her sensual dance and came over to pull him into her arms. ‘Come on, sweetie, it’s me you want not him!’ she said softly, kissing his cheek. ‘Why don’t I put you to bed? You look like you’ve had enough for tonight.’
Carla wanted to fight her off, to claim him as her own, but she knew that would spoil everything. It was so hard to have to sit there and smile, to watch Marco being carted off upstairs by Elena and Luigi and to know that the other girl would be sharing his bed that night. She gazed wistfully after him until she realised that Piero was watching her, and then she blushed. He came over to where she was sitting and tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Let’s go upstairs too. This party will go on all night if someone doesn’t make a move.’
She looked up, hating him in that moment since she knew very well what he wanted of her. All she wanted was to weep for her Marco, to savour the promise of working for him after she had endured the misery of his going. Not that she could say anything to the master, of course, not yet. Glumly she followed him towards the door but as she went she was aware of Giovanni’s hard, taunting eyes on her all the while. Could he possibly have guessed about her attachment to Marco? Or was he just relishing the fact that he would soon be able to taunt and torment her without hindrance?
Once they were in the topmost room Piero practically tore the clothes off her in his eagerness to explore her tired body. Carla let him paw and mouth her as he wished, she was far too drained either to r
esist or to take an active part in the proceedings. She lay on his bed with her legs spread while he worked up his erection, struggling to make it hard enough to get inside her. At last he managed to push it in and Carla, detached and remote as she felt from him, was aware that her body was responding in the way it was now used to, becoming soft and wet for him even though the rest of her was indifferent.
As he pumped away she marvelled at how routine it had all become for her, how soon she had become used to these nocturnal practices. Soon, though, everything would change. Marco would send for her and she would go to live under his roof, become his apprentice. What would happen after that she had no idea. She simply did not want to think about the choice she might one day have to make: whether to keep her secret along with her apprenticeship, or whether to confess her secret in the hope of winning his love. If she took the latter course it would almost certainly cost her the chance of becoming an artist.
Piero’s labours came to an end in a volley of shuddering groans and his cock shrank almost instantly, flopping out of her vagina. Carla hoped that meant she stood less chance of becoming pregnant. It was the other great fear in her life that if she grew big with child Piero would forget about making her his wife and she would be cast out onto the streets and left to fend for herself. There would be few options for her then.
She pushed Piero’s head away from hers, hating the stench of his wine-sodden breath, and he fell over onto his back. There was a noise at the door and she sat up in alarm, wondering if a rat had entered the room, but she could hear nothing more. Gently she extricated herself from her master’s grasp and managed to get up from his bed without disturbing him. She then sought her own bed with a need that was deep and urgent. She had to be alone with her thoughts and feelings, to examine just how she felt about Marco on the eve of his departure, when he was spending the night in the arms of another woman.
Artistic Licence Page 15
