Only the thought of Marco could have produced such wanton lubricity. With her mind fixed on him Carla proceeded to rub herself, gently at first then with increasing pressure. She conjured up an image of his friendly, handsome face and saw his eyes looking straight into hers as she murmured ‘Oh, Marco!’ reverently, as if the mere repetition of his name could work some potent magic to carry it across the air to Florence and in through his window to his soul.
Now her libido was rampant as, in desperation, she applied more friction to her bulging clitoris. Soaked with love dew her fingers slid easily back and forth over the throbbing nub, dipping occasionally into the moist entrance to bring new sensations of delight. Carla removed her left hand from her breast and thrust it deep inside her quim while she continued to stimulate her clitoris. ‘Ah, now!’ she breathed, imagining that she was filled with Marco’s penis. She could almost taste his lips on hers as she felt her body straining towards a climax.
All the lovers she had experienced were now fused into one lusty male in her fantasy, and that man was Marco. His phantom spirit was inside her, filling her completely and satisfying her beyond all expectation as she clenched in wild rhythm at her own fingers with her inner walls and told herself she was feeling his stout cock. The soft sighing of the wind outside became his loving murmurs, and the touch of the bedcover upon her overheated flesh became his caress. Entranced by the illusion, Carla felt something trigger inside her at last and knew that her first orgasm was approaching.
It crept up on her, starting with a deliciously warm tingle and accelerating into a wild rush of feeling so vivid that it made her gasp. The spasms gripped her over and over, taking her into realms of ecstasy that she could not have imagined, and letting her float there in a state of utter peace until the gentle throbbing began to fade and she was led back down again, like an airborne leaf floating down to the surface of a lake.
It had been so beautiful, so strange, that feeling of being completely possessed by something overwhelmingly personal, yet alien. Carla lay in a trance, trying to recapture the feeling, but after a while it evaded her. Then came a rush of pain, a feeling of abandonment that led her to cry out Marco’s name once more, but this time in torment. It had all been a fiction. There was no Marco to take her in his arms and tell her he loved her. She had conjured a ghost and now she was alone, as she would always be alone. Marco loved Elena, not her.
Chapter Thirteen
FOR THE NEXT few days, Carla was like a mouse stalked by a cat. She kept looking over her shoulder whenever she went into the garden or a remote part of the villa expecting Bruno to jump out at her, but he never did. Whenever she did see him he ignored her, but that only made her want him all the more.
‘If I cannot have Marco, then at least I might have some fun!’ she told herself, petulantly. But there was no one else in the Panzani household who made her pulse race so fast or filled her heart with hope and longing. She could not help remembering how he had waylaid her in the garden then dragged her off into the bushes, their lewd talk accompanying the most wonderful foreplay. She’d had the distinct impression that if they hadn’t been prematurely interrupted he would have kissed her nether mouth and brought her to the height of bliss, heights that she had already begun to explore by herself. Surely he realised they had unfinished business!
For a whole week she suffered the ignominious frustration of ‘look but don’t touch’ while Bruno strutted with his friends and flirted with any woman who came within his orbit – except Carla. Then on Sunday morning, when the rest of the family were at church, Carla was startled to find him suddenly appear before her as she threw out the slops.
‘What have we here?’ he grinned. ‘Little Carla, all hot and bothered. Why not take a break and come with me? I know somewhere we can relax together. It’s quite private, no one will find us.’
‘I cannot. I have my duties in the kitchen,’ she protested. His sudden appearance had thrown her and her indignation at being ignored had surfaced, making her manner off-hand.
‘You should not allow your kitchen duties to override your duties to me,’ he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it all right. I shall tell Marta that I had some urgent needlework to be done and you just happened to be at hand.’
His smile was tempting, wickedly suggestive, and Carla knew that if she agreed to go with him she would be in for more dalliance. The temptation was too great. Already her heart was vaulting like a street-tumbler and she could feel her breasts swelling in anticipation of his touch. This time, with no chance of being interrupted, he would surely lead her to heaven.
He led her by the back stairs up to his bedroom and once she was inside he locked the door behind them. The situation was beginning to seem so much like the one that Lisa had got into with Tommaso that Carla began to wonder whether Bruno was of similar inclination. Or did he have some even more bizarre preference? Realising that she was now trapped with him for better or worse, she felt a wild flicker of fear run through her.
‘You’re probably wondering why I’ve been ignoring you,’ Bruno began, taking her face between his hands and gazing deep into her eyes. ‘If I told you the truth I doubt you’d believe it.’
‘Try me,’ she murmured.
‘Then I shall come clean and confess. I haven’t approached you because I feared my own recklessness as much as I feared the ridicule of others, but now I can contain myself no longer. I admit that I’ve been totally smitten by you. I thought I was immune to the charms of women, that I could use and discard them at will, but your sweet face and lovely body have obsessed me from the moment we met.’ His eyes brightened, shining with the light of sincerity. ‘I admit it, Carla: scorn me if you will, but I have fallen head over heels in love with you!’
She drew back in shock, quite unprepared for such an admission. At the same time that she registered his words she heard another voice in her head say, but I don’t love him!
‘You look upset, my darling,’ he said, disappointment obvious in his face. ‘Am I to suppose that you have no such feelings for me? Is my devotion to be in vain?’
‘I – I don’t know what to say.’
‘Then say nothing, only look on me and smile. I lay my heart at your feet, sweet Carla, carissima. Just tell me your heart holds no passion for me and I shall trouble you no more. Only say the word.’
‘I – cannot deny that I feel passion for you, sir. How could I not, after what passed between us last week? But as for love, I know not.’
He seized her, his eyes staring so importunately into hers that she felt all of a flutter within. ‘Passion? You feel passion for me?’ She nodded, unsure what to make of this sudden turnaround. ‘Then passion shall suffice!’
Bruno was staring so indecently at her that she thought him quite mad. Overriding her disquiet, however, was an overwhelming urge to throw herself into his arms and feel the heat of his body suffuse hers, to have his lips and hands explore her ravenously while she returned the compliment. Carla wanted him to take her without mercy, to force himself upon her and plunge deep into her secret heart. She knew it could only lead to disaster but right then she didn’t care. It was extraordinary: she had never felt quite like it in her life.
‘Take me, then!’ she whispered, her whole body trembling with anticipation.
He lifted her and carried her over to the big bed where he dumped her unceremoniously. Unbuckling his belt he threw it aside and pulled off his jacket, then rolled down his hose. His cock sprang up with self-confident lust, causing her insides to swoop and clench with desire, making her moan with longing.
Bruno wasted no time in undressing her. When she was fully naked, and he clad only in his shirt, he fell upon her and began to ravish her with his mouth. First his tongue plunged in between her lips like a marauding pirate, sucking the fresh saliva from her mouth and biting at her until her lips felt raw and swollen and she gasped for breath. Then he moved to her neck where he sucked the flesh strongly, sending tickles down her spine. Carla felt her s
tiff nipples brush against the hairs of his chest where they peeked through his shirt and longed for full, naked contact. She pulled at the fine lawn until it ripped and he chuckled with perverse glee at her desperation.
‘Wait, impatient woman! I shall remove it, so!’
He pulled it summarily over his head and she fell to kissing the broad expanse of his chest with its fleshy planes, small hard nipples and exciting furriness. There was something animal about him that unleashed a similar bestiality in her. Heedless of everything except her own appetite, she licked and bit her way about his body until her mouth found the rearing prong of his erection.
‘Yes, sweet temptress, oh yes, indeed!’ she heard him cry, as her mouth closed over the viscid ball of his glans.
Carla thought she would swallow him whole, so great was her appetite for that fleshy organ. She took the whole of his shaft into her mouth, letting him poke her in the throat whilst she held her breath so as not to gag. Delighting in his blind, relentless quest for orgasm she felt her insides melt and quiver in sympathy as she encouraged him with licks and sucks to move nearer to his goal.
But Bruno was not content with satisfying only himself. ‘Shift yourself around!’ he growled. ‘I want to suck you too.’
She swivelled her naked behind until her quim was near his mouth and sighed with rapture as his cool tongue pressed itself against the torrid, swollen tissues of her vulva. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, her legs spreading wide to allow him more access. She could feel his tongue darting right inside her, his lips sucking the delicate flesh of her labia right into his mouth and soon her pussy was swimming with the mingled juices of his saliva and her secretions.
Carla felt the unstoppable rise towards orgasm begin and knew that this time it would be all the more satisfying because her lover was initiating it. She continued to lick at the tumid shaft while she caressed Bruno’s taut scrotum, and yet her attention was divided between the object of her lust and her own exquisite delight. Her tongue grew lazy as the cunnilingus increased her sensations until she was entirely focused on her own imminent release.
Suddenly Bruno’s hand brushed across the tips of her nipples and she gave a gulping cry as her climax was finally triggered. The swirling ecstasy filled her consciousness as her body vibrated on a higher plane of sensual bliss, scarcely aware that he was thrusting hard into her mouth in a desperate bid to join her. Only when the hot stream filled her throat did she realise that he had reached his zenith too.
Afterwards she lay in his arms, limp and still throbbing, while he murmured endearments into her hair. Dazed by the intensity of the experience she hardly heard him at first, but then scraps of his speech began to penetrate her erotic stupor, filling her with amazement.
‘ . . . only one I ever truly loved . . . be mine forever . . . adore you . . .’
Carla couldn’t believe her ears. She blinked and stared up into his dark eyes, sure he must be making fun of her, but he seemed in deadly earnest. It was then she grew afraid. No man of noble birth said such things to a serving maid! What mad devil had seized his brain? What did he want of her?
‘I – I have to return downstairs,’ she told him, wriggling from his arms. ‘They will be missing me.’
‘I miss you!’ he sighed, lugubriously. ‘Every minute of the day that you are absent from my sight. And when you are within view I can scarcely bear to see you. What cruel torment you cause me, my pretty one!’
‘I cannot help it, sir,’ she said, struggling into her clothes. ‘I never asked for this. It is all of your own making.’
Bruno wagged his forefinger at her. ‘But you encouraged me, you minx!’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I meant no harm.’
‘Harm? How can such bliss be harm? That is the paradox, is it not, that love can be so painful and yet so blissful, all at once.’
Carla thought of Marco and her heart warmed in sympathy. But she merely shrugged and made for the door. He leapt from the bed and caught her in his arms before she could escape.
‘Stay, lovely girl! Let me kiss those sweet red lips one more time, I beg of you.’
She struggled, but his insistent mouth crushed hers and for a few seconds she gave herself up to the sensual contact once again. As soon as his grip slackened, however, she eluded him and hurried through the door, genuinely concerned that they might be looking for her down below. The minute she entered the kitchen Lisa gave her a sly smile as if to say, ‘I know exactly what you’ve been up to!’
Something prevented Carla from confiding in her friend, however. She felt uneasy about the relationship that was developing between her and Bruno, unsure of where it would lead. It was one thing to enjoy a romp with a lusty young man, but quite another to find him emotionally entangled when his station was so far above hers. Carla was unsure exactly what the consequences might be but, knowing something of his amorous history, she was quite sure that it could not turn out well for her.
She tried to avoid Bruno as much as she could after that, but he lay in wait for her round every corner. Sometimes he snatched a kiss in a dark corner, sometimes he pushed her into an empty room and gave her a quick grope, but that was what Carla had come to expect. It was the usual treatment meted out to young female servants by lecherous noblemen, and generally it went no further than mild sexual harassment.
What disturbed her more were the gifts and notes that she found under her pillow almost every night. First it was a pretty silver necklace. Then she found a ring set with a cornelian. A perfumed handkerchief with a delicate lace border came next. His love letters swore eternal fidelity, talked of ‘overcoming all obstacles’. This theme was continued with a pink silk square on which was an embroidered heart bearing the legend: amor vincit omnia. It was when he began writing poetry to her that she really became alarmed.
He was not even very good at it! The first verse that he addressed to her read:
Goddesses in human form
Do not often grace our world,
You descended from above
And now my song is ‘Love unfurled’!
Carla did not mention these covert gifts to anyone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find hiding-places for them. She never felt under her pillow until she was alone in the bedroom, but she was constantly afraid of discovery. Then, one day, Bruno encountered her in the garden and dragged her off to a quiet corner, his expression radiant.
‘I have told my father of my love for you!’ he proclaimed, exultantly.
‘Oh no!’
Carla clasped her hand to her mouth, but he gently pulled it away and kissed her fingers.
‘Don’t fret, dearest. I am sure he will allow us to marry. Of course he is upset now, but that will change when he realises how sincerely I adore you.’
She wriggled free of his grasp and ran headlong, back through the ordered serenity of the garden with her heart hammering in her ears. Knowing that Bruno’s infatuation could lead to nothing but trouble for her, she still couldn’t quite dismiss the spark of hope that his words had caused in her. What if she were to marry and be accepted into the Panzani family? She would become a lady! For a few brief seconds her heart soared with pride.
But no sooner had the thought taken hold than it was scornfully dismissed. More likely old Giorgio would blame her for seducing his son and stealing his affection. She might be allowed to become his mistress, but no more. And what of her love for Marco? It upset her that, for several days, she had given him no thought at all being so bound up with Bruno’s courtship of her. What a fickle temperament she must have!
For several days Carla tried to avoid Bruno, but at last he caught up with her on the stairs.
‘Come to my room!’ he begged in a low voice. ‘I must speak to you.’
‘I cannot . . .’ she began.
But he caught hold of her wrist and began to drag her up to his bedroom on the next floor. Carla was terrified. If she resisted him there might be a scene and then everyone would know what was going on. She agreed to co
me quietly, but insisted that his door remained unlocked. Sitting primly on the edge of a stool she listened while he paced up and down, gesticulating, as he spoke his mind.
‘My father is not keen on the idea of me marrying you,’ he began. ‘So here is what I intend. There is a full moon in three days’ time. I shall meet you in the garden at midnight and we shall make our escape. I have some money, and I shall take jewels that we can sell. When we are far from here we can find a priest to marry us, then I hope father will accept you as one of the family. If he does not, I shall stick by you all the same.’ To Carla’s dismay he flung himself onto his knees in front of her. ‘I love you, sweet girl, and am determined that nothing and no one shall come between us.’
She took pity on him then, stroking his dark hair back from his brow as she said, ‘Bruno, listen to me. What you feel is not true love but only calf love. You will grow out of it if I go away and let you recover, as if you’d had a sickness. I think that would be best for both of us.’
‘No!’ he cried, distraught. ‘You must not leave without me! We’ll go together – right now, if you wish. I cannot live without you, Carla. You must understand that.’
He began kissing her pussy rapturously, through her skirt. She felt his head pressed to her mound of Venus and there were tremulous stirrings within, but she resisted them and stepped back from him. ‘Bruno, I’m going now,’ she said, firmly. ‘And I advise you to put me out of your mind. Goodbye.’
‘No-o-o!’
His agonised cry echoed in her ears as she hurried downstairs, full of disquiet. The situation was getting out of control and there was only one way she could think to put an end to it. She must leave the Panzani house, leave poor Bruno to his melancholy love and let him slowly forget her. But just as she entered the kitchen Lisa rushed up to her.
Artistic Licence Page 20
