Sarah caught up with her as the crowds thinned at the end of the street. Paint peeled on the tavern's shutters, but its thick stone walls promised coolness inside. Raucous laughter spilled from the windows. "This doesn't seem the place for women alone, Corina."
"Reece can guard the door. Besides, I'll wager there are many lonely women who come here." With an enigmatic smile, Corina ducked into the darkness. She was right, there were several women in the tavern. They looked like the type who would not be lonely long. The rotund, sweating proprietor pretended not to notice that they were Quality. He brought what seemed to Sarah a huge bottle of ruby wine, nestled in a basket. They ordered steaming plates of fish and pasta in the spicy local sauce, and Corina poured a glass of the wine for Sarah.
"At home, places like this are everywhere." Corina enjoyed playing the wise woman. "Don't make faces when you taste it, or everyone will know you drink only ratafia."
Sarah rolled her eyes and determined to prove she was at least as old and wise as Corina. She put on her best effort at sophistication and quaffed delicately from her glass. Sarah knew, even now, she had done a pretty good job of concealing the burning of her throat and the bitter taste of the tannic acid in that funny local wine. She smiled at Corina, and managed to murmur, "Hmm, that is quite good, isn't it?" Corina laughed outright and, after a moment, Sarah laughed too. There was quite a bit of laughter that afternoon in the tiny tavern, and quite a bit of wine.
Corina paid the tavern keeper much too much and they stumbled out the door still laughing, into the stabbing light of the Sienna sun. That afternoon was a fog for Sarah. Corina ordered Reece back to the hotel with the packages while the carriage took them to the riverside, through the park near the old stone bridge. Corina was delightful, magic, a perfect friend. Her golden skin gleamed in the sunlight. Her blue eyes danced just as the river danced with light.
It was the quality of the light that Sarah would always remember that afternoon. Corina made the driver stop in the park and she waltzed away, calling for Sarah to follow. Sarah would have followed her anywhere. They skipped after the vendor who sold soft, chewy taffy. It was a childhood thing to do, but the candies were cool yellow like Corina's hair, and palest pink like her dress, and blue like her eyes. The coach swept them up again.
"This is a magic day, no?" Corina affected the accent of the locals.
"Don't let it end, Corina." Sarah lay back in the squabs of the coach, letting the sun penetrate to the very center of her. "Let's think of something else to do."
"Let me surprise you," her friend whispered. They climbed down from the coach and paid the man for his trouble and went laughing up the steps to the hotel. It was not a large affair as she recalled. Small but elegant. The proprietor was impressed by Corina's wealth. Corina was never at any pains to hide that she was very rich, so they had the finest the house could give.
When they entered the lobby, Corina went to have a word with the landlord Sarah wandered out onto the terrace in the small courtyard to seek again the warmth of the sunshine. The haze of the wine was still upon her as she slid into an iron chair perched on the flagstones. Multicolored blossoms wove designs along the walkways that crossed the garden to the French doors of the rooms beyond. The heavy scent of flowers she could not name hung in the air.
Sarah rubbed the smooth skin of her bare arms and felt the tiny, invisible hairs that covered her body, all bodies really. She found herself looking absently at the boy who tended the garden as she waited for Corina to reappear. He was quite handsome, not coarse at all. He had discarded his shirt in the heat. His limbs were well formed, bronzed, but not burnt black, his hair streaked lighter by long days of work in the open. He had a cut across his chest, a fight perhaps or a falling garden tool. The red streak accentuated the mortality, the animal of him. She watched the muscles move fluidly under his skin. He was sweating slightly, well oiled, a living machine.
Perhaps he felt her gaze on him. He looked up, his brown eyes unsure. Surprised at herself, she continued to stare, daring him to return it. He turned hastily back to his work, raking leaves he had removed from the immaculate beds. The light flowed over his body as muscles and tendons, blood and bone moved the rake back and forth. Sarah felt something stir within her, something unfamiliar and exciting.
Corina startled Sarah on the terrace with a brisk accusation of concealing herself. Sarah jumped. Corina's gaze dashed quickly to the boy. "Well, my adventurous friend, are you ready to retire? Or are you enjoying yourself too much to think of adjourning?"
"I was only waiting for you, Corina." Sarah lurched up, blushing.
On the way to their suite of adjoining rooms that shared a large bath, Corina whispered to Reece. He nodded, eyes hooded, and the two girls went arm in arm up the stairs. They stripped off their dresses and slid out of their sandals. A girl brought up buckets of hot water. The elation of the afternoon slipped away. When the girl had gone for the last time, Sarah stood in front of the mirror. Her breasts and hips were already full in contrast to Corina's slim lines. Corina was silhouetted behind the painted screen that hid the tub. How strange to know you would live in this body for the rest of your life. She shrugged on a wrapper and brushed her hair.
Corina stepped out of the bath. In the mirror, Sarah glimpsed a whorl of white lines across her buttocks before the wrapper Corina swirled about herself covered them. Were those scars? What could leave marks like that? Sarah's eyes widened.
Corina turned and looked up from arranging the neckline of her wrapper. She must have seen the shock in Sarah's eyes. She almost flinched in the realization of what her friend must have seen, then hardened herself. Her lips crooked. "My father," she said matter-of factly and tied her belt in a careful bow. "He promised he would never mark me, but he lost control once. I learned all about power from my father, and pleasure, and control." She picked up a brush without looking at Sarah. "He didn't care what I did in public. I was my own mistress. But at Chambroke, I did his bidding." Her voice cracked, and she turned away.
Sarah felt sick. Corina's father beat her? And what did Corina mean that she had learned pleasure from him, too? Sarah didn't want to think. What could she say?
When Corina glanced back at Sarah, she tried a laugh. "Now he's off to India. And I do anything, anywhere I choose. I understand power and pleasure. He taught me well."
A knock interrupted any expression of sympathy Sarah might have been rash enough to offer. Corina didn't want sympathy, but rushed to the door and took a tray from unseen hands.
"Tell Signor Brugelli to remember—half an hour." Then the door shut and Corina turned triumphantly to Sarah, bearing her tray. It held a bottle of wine in a terra-cotta cooler, two dainty glasses, a plate of nuts and dried fruit, and a tiny covered dish.
"Is this what all the fuss was about?" Sarah asked with some asperity. Corina only smiled and put the tray on the table in her room that overlooked the river and the city beyond.
"You don't know anything. Now sit down." Corina spoke as if to a child, but Sarah sat. Corina poured the rich, red-black French claret. "To adventure," she toasted. The clink of the hotel crystal was brittle. She removed the cover of the tiny plate with a flourish. On the green-and-white patterned china lay an array of pickled mushrooms.
Sarah was unimpressed. "What are these?"
Corina's eyes gleamed. "What do they look like? Mushrooms, silly thing. These come from South America. I have wanted to try them for ever so long." She offered Sarah the plate.
"From South America?" Sarah picked up a fork and speared the nearest twisted shape. "Do you think they're safe to eat?" Her specimen did not look appetizing.
"Safe?" Corina shook her head. "Crossing streets is dangerous, but there is so little fun in it, it is hardly worth the risk. Now, for one of these mushrooms, I would entertain a little risk."
"What is the attraction?" Sarah asked as she sniffed the fungi. "Are they like truffles?"
Corina smiled, pierced her own, and popped it in her mouth. "N
o, not like truffles at all."
Sarah pursed her lips, determined not to allow Corina more boldness in trying new things than she had. She bit at the mushroom warily. It was dried, then marinated. She could taste the olive oil and a mixture of spices, perhaps oregano and thyme. But no marinade could cover the bitter taste. She grimaced and swallowed the piece half chewed.
Corina lifted her chin and closed her eyes for a moment; then her gaze snapped back to Sarah's frown. "They taste better with each bite." Corina speared another for herself. After the second bite, Sarah began to agree with Corina. It was not exactly bad. Between the wine and the mushrooms, she began to feel… feel what? She couldn't quite tell. Different. She looked around her, seeing the room, a mirror of her own, for the first time. Dressing table, delicate and ivory, counterpane, wrinkled and puffed, Corina staring at her from the window…
The fading sun gleamed red in Corina's golden hair. The mellow light of the Mediterranean afternoon had turned to liquid fire. Corina's eyes knew everything, all the secrets Sarah could only guess she didn't know. Corina shone with her own internal radiance, a being apart, not needing anyone, aware only of her own desires. Oh, to be a magical creature like Corina, illuminating the stone and dull flesh of the world around you, casting showers of incandescence on everyone you touched, only to reveal how inadequate they were by comparison.
Corina stared strangely at her. Sarah felt lost in those blue eyes. Corina rose and loomed over her, then took Sarah's hands. Sarah felt the contact like a blow. Corina's eyes were those of a goddess or a sphinx, ancient and knowing. "Now, are those mushrooms worth the risk?"
"Corina…" Sarah felt suddenly that her body was not her own, her senses out of her control. She staggered up from the table. "What were they?" she asked, too late. Panic circled in her stomach like some beast that would devour her. What had Corina done?
"Relax, Sarah, enjoy. They only exaggerate what is inside you." Corina's crystal laugh broke over her like shards of light. "They reveal what you have hidden, even from yourself."
The colors of the silken flowers on Corina's wrapper ran together, swirling like a living thing that fondled her body. That didn't sound so bad. The mushrooms made you more… you. The beast inside her disappeared. Instead she looked down at her hands, turning them slowly, and saw blood pulsing through the veins, the texture of her palms, the net of lines, the fine hairs on her forearm. She sat abruptly on the bed. Animal. She was a young animal.
A knock sounded at the door. Sarah watched Corina whirl to answer it in her living wrapper. "Who could that be?" she heard herself say slowly. She reached with effort to her robe. The belt had come undone. She clutched the collar to close it over her breasts.
"More room service," Corina called back. She seemed in control. Had she not eaten mushrooms, too? Corina's voice in the hall was only a hum in Sarah's ears.
Corina led the boy from the courtyard into the room. His hair was damp from bathing, his shirt fresh, open. Sarah realized she was naked under her wrapper. "Corina," she murmured, "why is he here?"
"He's ours tonight. I've paid handsomely for him. Isn't that what you want?" Corina purred.
"Corina, you know I've never—"
"Isn't that what you want?" Corina repeated, refusing to be denied.
Sarah watched the boy, who might have been twenty, as he looked at the floor. She was mesmerized by the firm belly, the smooth skin of his chest. The red welt was like a cord laid across the flesh. Her own body pulsed now in rhythm to some unseen force. "Yes," she breathed. She did want it. Wanting was the only thing that mattered.
"Well, then." Corina drew the boy forward. "Let's see what we have. Strip," she whispered. With fumbling hands, the boy slipped out of his shirt and undid the thick leather belt at his waist. Sarah watched in uneasy silence, feeling her breasts rise and fall. She had never seen a naked man. His breeches pooled at his feet. Sarah's eyes followed them. Then she raised her gaze over the hard muscles of his calves, his corded thighs, to the nest of hair that framed his manhood. Sarah's fascination mixed with a vague disappointment. Was this all? Corina's palm moved over the boy's chest, her other hand on his buttocks. Sarah stared. He looked away, embarrassed, as Corina pinched his nipples. But embarrassed or not, his most male part began to swell. All Sarah's blood seemed to be pushing into her loins. Too much blood, throbbing, demanding something, until the walls of the room receded and Sarah saw only the boy. When Corina achieved what she desired, she drew him to the bed, displaying his erection for Sarah. All that hard staff went inside one? Where? Sarah shrank away, overwhelmed with the physicality of him. But the aching in her own body responded to his body's call, a call she knew, somewhere deep inside, she should ignore.
"You see, he is quite willing, Sarah," Corina said. "Money does wonders. We can do anything." The boy eyes glowed. "Don't look so appalled." Corina shook her head.
Corina was wrong. Sarah should have been appalled. But she was not. He was a gift from Corina, who had taken special pains to see that he pleased. Sarah stood. Her robe fell open. She reached out and ran her hands over the boy's shoulders. Then she was touching him all over, feeling his animal flesh. Corina guided her hands and whispered of desires and possibilities.
Sarah did not care what might be unleashed here. She did not mourn what she would lose. There was only smooth, hard flesh and her power to make the boy respond to her touch.
Corina wanted this for her. The mushrooms wanted it. She wanted it, too. Corina drew them to the bed. The boy was hesitant, but Corina directed his hands, his lips. She whispered every caress. Sarah was all languid desire, held by Corina's eyes. She rubbed the boy's shoulders as he kissed her, arched into him, so that her breasts touched his chest. When he bent to lick her nipples, Sarah thought she might explode. Wanting couldn't describe what boiled inside her. She groaned with need. "Am I dying?"
"You're learning how to live," Corina breathed. She opened Sarah's knees and pressed the boy's buttocks down. The gasp that broke from Sarah's lips was drowned by his hot kisses. If there was some pain, it was the debt she owed Corina. Soon she was lost again in the urgency of desire unfulfilled. Hypnotic whispers from Corina as the young peasant moved rhythmically within her pushed her along. He stopped to caress her most secret parts, a mystery even to herself. Her body cycled further and further from her control, until some dam inside her burst, and sensation flooded in. Her mind focused down to a pin-hole, and all her soul was pushed through it into the light beyond. She gasped for breath and her body bucked against the boy. She opened her eyes to find her hands clutching at his arms. Sobs overwhelmed her in a fountain of feeling. Her body had always known this was possible, if she had not.
The boy stroked her arms, her hair while she caught her breath. Corina sat on the edge of the bed and whispered that everything was possible. Sarah murmured her assent. She was dazed, all senses sucked away by the drug and the boy and her own body. She felt him withdraw.
Corina pulled the counterpane up around her. "Was that what you wanted, Sarah?" She smiled a languid assent. "Now, my turn." The boy raised himself on one elbow. Corina's robe fell open. "You are not done yet, young goat," she whispered and pulled him up.
"Can I share what you shared with me?" Sarah's words slurred, careful as she was.
Corina shook her head absently, her eyes opaque blue. "You are not ready to share my pleasures, Sarah. When you grow up, perhaps…" She went to the dresser. When she turned, she waggled a jingling leather purse. The boy snatched at it as Corina's eyes went liquid with desire, and she tugged him through the bath into Sarah's room.
Disappointment struck Sarah like a shard of glass. She wanted to join Corina, whatever might come next. The door of experience had cracked open and revealed a world she had never known. What else had she missed? She was ready for anything. Didn't Corina realize that? Sarah could see Corina pull the boy's head down to hers through the half-open door.
Sarah dragged herself off the bed, wanting to see what pleasures Corina
had denied her. The coverlet clutched around her, she crawled toward the door. Corina's nails dug into the boy's biceps as her kisses intensified. They left red welts, just like the welt across his chest. Sarah felt the throbbing rise in her again. They were young animals. Corina's robe dropped away. It fell into a pool of swirling colors at her feet. How had Sarah never noticed that Corina held the boy's belt? She couldn't concentrate, what with the covers dripping off the bed and the last of the sun washing them all with bloodred light. Corina's face twisted with desire and Sarah's loins trembled in response. She still felt full where the boy had entered her. The colors of the Turkish carpet under her rewove themselves, undulating serpents of red and blue. What was she seeing? Sarah tried to focus, roused by the boy's grunts of pain, Corina's cries of ecstasy, the slap of leather on flesh. Not right. This wasn't right. But Sarah made no move to stop it. Was it even real? A tiny thread of revulsion wound about her spine, but she did not look away. Each tableau of pleasure or pain melted into the next, as though she looked through a kaleidoscope. She throbbed in conceit with the rhythm of the strap, the coupling that followed. Corina moaned as the boy thrust inside her. Oh, to be Corina, riding her desire into ecstasy. Sarah floated away, body aching, rocked by the mushroom in her blood.
Sarah woke the next morning slowly, confused and hazy. Her head ached. The pain pushed her out of sleep. Light flooded the room. It hurt her eyes. She was curled in a counterpane on the floor. Something ate at her, demanding attention. Abruptly, the merciful confusion rippled away. The bitter, twisted mushroom, the boy, Corina, what she—they—had done. She sat up. She had sacrificed her virginity without a moment's hesitation! What would her future husband say? Her hand crept to her mouth. The overwhelming desire she had felt—was that the mushroom, or something that had always been inside her? She hadn't been frightened by it last night, but she was frightened now. Who was she, that she could lose herself to passion like that? She threw back the quilt and lurched to her feet, stomach revolting. The door to her room, commandeered by Corina last night, still stood ajar. Sarah stared in horror at it as other memories came flooding back. Oh, God above, what had happened last night? She pushed at the door with a trembling hand.
Sacrament Page 15
