Nights in Black Satin

by Noelle Mack

  “I’m not so sure you’re teasing.”

  “Oh, Sarah…” He drew her down to him and gave her a long, luxurious, tender kiss. “Let’s lie down together.”

  “All right.” The bedroom upstairs was where she most liked to be. When the door was closed, she got the feeling that the world had disappeared once more. Its high windows caught the reflected, shimmering light from the canal below no matter what time of day it was. It was where this adventure had started and she felt safe there, as if they would find their way back from it too.

  She looked around the drawing room for something to wrap herself in so she could scurry up the stairs ahead of him. Not that she was sleepy.

  “Hey,” she said suddenly. “What happened to the art stuff we bought?”

  “Upstairs. Most of your things are there.”

  “You can lie down and I’ll draw you.”

  He stood. “Very well. Though you are more worthy of being immortalized. I might have to commission a portrait. You as Diana, naked by moonlight.”

  She grabbed a large remnant of silk and covered up. “Nope. Not any more. You’re going to be the naked one.”

  Once they had gone upstairs and he’d shut the door, he took his time about undressing, as if he enjoyed her looking at him.

  “You’re so vain.”

  He smiled. “You wanted me naked. You should dress or you know what will happen.”

  Marco slid off his breeches and pulled off his shirt, throwing them at her. She caught them and buried her nose in the shirt, loving the warm man smell of it.

  “Wear it.”

  “Thanks.”

  She unwrapped the big piece of silk, grateful to shed it because it was hot, and slipped his shirt over her head. Airy. Wonderful. It came down to her knees. She rolled up the sleeves. “Where’s my stuff?”

  “In the desk.”

  She flipped down the writing surface and got out the paper and the ingenious pencil and its leads, pausing to run a hand over the fine, handmade paper. You just couldn’t get quality like that in modern times. This was paper that would last for centuries.

  He looked for water in the ewer and basin, and gave himself a brisk little bath, drying off with another towel.

  “I saved you clean water.”

  Naked, fluffing his pubic hair absent-mindedly, he walked around like God had just made him and he hadn’t figured out how to sin yet.

  She wanted to jump him, but she wasn’t going to. If she restrained herself, the sensual energy would flow into the drawing. “Go lie down.”

  He turned his back to her, making a rude gesture that made her laugh, and crawled onto the bed, on all fours, giving her a great view of big balls between muscular thighs.

  “Stay that way.”

  “I thought you wanted me to lie down.”

  “I do. In a minute.”

  Naked, he was just too damn tempting. She stood up, and walked to the bed, reaching between his legs to caress his balls. On all fours with that mane of black hair, he looked like a lion. He glanced over his shoulder, proudly male as always, but in this position, a little submissive.

  Sarah cupped his testicles and fondled them lightly, making them sway, playing with him. She could feel his cock stiffening but she didn’t touch it. Not yet.

  He murmured appreciatively, getting into what she was doing. Sarah began to stroke his buttocks and the inside and backs of his thighs.

  “Ahhh…” He set his knees farther apart. “Do my balls again. Your touch is so light and it is exciting.”

  She did as he asked. His cock was rigid, but she still didn’t touch it.

  “Harder now, Sarah,” he whispered. “Hold my balls tight. Not so they hurt. Just tight.”

  Her hand was filled by his heavy sac. He moaned a little. “What are you thinking about?” she whispered. “You came into my fantasy. I want to know yours.”

  Marco dropped his head. “It is not that easy for a man.”

  “Tell me. You don’t have to look at me. I don’t think you want to.” Her voice was as caressing as her free hand moving over his hard buttocks and thighs.

  His groin muscles tightened and his balls did too.

  “That women are watching me in this position. I am nameless. Brought to some hidden place for their entertainment.”

  “A slave.”

  He breathed out a yes. “I like to be dominant but not always. Once in a while—”

  He shut up when she tightened her hand around his balls just a little bit more. “Go on.”

  He took a deep breath. “I am expecting to be sexually used but I don’t know how. Still, their eyes on me are arousing. They are talking about me.”

  “Hold your cock.”

  “But I might—”

  Sarah reached around and clasped his throbbing rod, squeezing it hard. Her grip on his taut scrotum eased up. Then she alternated—tight, then light—from cock to balls and back again.

  Marco was sweating.

  “I know that the bitchiest one will jerk me off hard.”

  Sarah could take a hint. She moved her encircling hand over his silky-hot shaft in long strokes from the base to just under the head. Her hand pounded and pulled, stimulating him into a frenzy. Marco began to moan.

  “Harder…harder…. please.”

  She let go before he reached the point of no return, making him cry out with frustration. Sarah stroked his hair, soothing him, then got her hand into it and pulled. He braced himself and stayed motionless.

  It was a ritual battle but he was getting off on the roughness. And so was she. Wearing his shirt almost made her feel like a man. If he wanted to take it, she could give it. If he wanted to submit to a woman for a change, she wanted to be the one.

  “You need to come hard,” she said. “Really hard. You’re ready. Put your head down. All the way down. Show your cock and balls and keep your ass spread.”

  He obeyed—and he gasped when she grabbed his cock with one hand and his balls with the other, working on him with all the strength she had until he rose with a roar, spraying jets of pulsing come into and over her hand.

  It was tough to hang on but oh, was he beautiful.

  With a hugely satisfied groan when she finally let go, Marco flopped on his back on the maroon velvet comforter. “Clean me up.”

  Sarah laughed. “You don’t stay submissive for very long.”

  “No.”

  He sprawled, utterly spent, a tired smile on his face while she got the washcloth and did what needed to be done. In another minute, he was sound asleep, one big hand on his chest and the other covering his cock a little protectively.

  Sarah pressed a kiss on his forehead and curled up in an armchair, still not sleepy. Just watching him would be enough for now. She wanted to study him for a while, think about the complexity that made him who he was.

  They were taking each other through transformations so quickly that she scarcely knew what would happen next.

  She forced herself to look at something besides his body, and saw her drawing things laid on the desk—oh, boy. Sex with him had a way of making her forget about everything else for a while.

  Sarah got up. She set a lead into the pencil and took a few sticks of charcoal, and then picked up the paper, returning to the armchair and settling herself comfortable. Looking from him to the paper, she sketched swiftly, letting her gaze move over his body once more. Marco’s chest rose and fell as he breathed—other than that, he was absolutely still. She drew one long line that connected thigh, knee, and leg, and amused herself drawing his toes—he had heroic-looking toes—then used a thicker line for the back of his calf and the heavy muscle of his thighs. For his cock and balls she changed to a very thin pencil lead, capturing the luscious detail.

  He was fun to draw—the combination of length and strength worked on the page. Marco was deeply relaxed, emanating an animal contentment in his sleep, his strong profile tucked into the bent arm that was flung over his head. Stirring in his dream, he brought
a hand up and rested it over his heart.

  Veined and strong, his hand expressed the essence of his physicality. She wanted to remember exactly how it felt when he caressed her, wanted to be able to look at the drawing and have him come to life in her mind, as if he was about to open his eyes and murmur a sensual invitation, or roll over boisterously, naked and fully alive.

  His shoulders were made of muscle that flowed into strong shapes. She drew those and picked a piece of charcoal to add in his black hair with swift strokes.

  Done. The key to a good drawing was knowing when to stop. It was perfect. He could consider himself immortalized.

  Far away in his dream, Marco slept on, oblivious to all that. Sarah set the drawing aside and blew him a kiss.

  More seamstresses came and went in the two days before the gown was done. She had been dressed in it by the maids, watched solemnly by Ombra, whose huge green eyes seemed to miss nothing. No one could see the gown when Sarah left the palazzo with Marco. Like him, she wore a very full black cloak, to which she’d added the customary veil over her elaborately dressed hair. Underneath it all, she was a courtesan at last. Elegant. Empowered. Sensual. Dripping with jewels. Crèmeier than the crème de la crème. She was going to knock Venetian society on its splendid ass.

  They set aside their masks when they leaned back against the luxurious cushions of the gondola, shielded by the open cabin that let them look out.

  In a few minutes the gondola swept out into the Grand Canal, going in a different direction from her first trip in it, moving through the water with no sound but the dip of the gondolier’s oar. Under the mellow moonlight, the stately marble palazzos at the water’s edge seemed to glow with a light of their own.

  Other gondolas were gliding to and fro, disappearing suddenly through water gates into crooked little canals or under arched stone bridges that threw their dark shadows over the glittering waves. The small lanterns attached to the prows looked like stars floating above the water, as if they had fallen out of the night sky above, about to be extinguished.

  Despite the presence of so many others and Marco’s body close to hers, she felt oddly alone, wondering what it would be like to travel to a rendezvous with some other lover, dressed in black in a black boat, and nearly invisible. But she couldn’t imagine being with another man. Real courtesans had to. She didn’t.

  The old palazzos loomed over the water, half in moonbeams and half in shadow. The city came truly alive only in the night, Sarah thought. It was a beautiful sight, but there was something untrustworthy and unstable in the air.

  The gondolier moored the boat outside a palazzo that she recognized. She hadn’t known that the masquerade ball would be held here, although Marco had pointed it out only yesterday.

  They had gone out in the evening to view a flamboyant sunset that turned the whole city crimson, as if Venice were floating in a sea of fire. They had come home this way, and she had asked about this palazzo.

  Marco had said only that it belonged to an English duke. The walls were of dark stone, unlike its neighbors, and there was something slightly sinister in its aspect. She hadn’t wanted to imagine why, glad when their gondola went swiftly by.

  “You didn’t tell me the ball would be here. Why?”

  He gave her a cool look. “You wouldn’t have come. I wanted you to.” There was something deeply seductive in his voice that lulled her and kept her from pursuing an answer. She entered the palazzo on Marco’s arm, masked again. They went first to an anteroom where an attendant relieved them of their heavy cloaks. On an impulse—she hated wearing it—she took the mask off and handed it to the attendant as well.

  Marco sighed and did the same. “We might as well. We will be going back to our own time eventually and no one here knows us. Besides, most of them are already drunk.”

  The sounds of carousing coming from the ballroom were proof of that. They returned to the vast, high-ceilinged space, coming in by a different door into a whirl of dancing and drinking, and paused before they descended the stairs.

  The whirl moved more slowly, and stopped completely within two minutes. Her sense of uneasiness increased as she stood there, the cynosure of all eyes. The musicians ceased playing and stood up to look at her as well.

  The seamstresses Marco had hired had outdone themselves. The full-skirted gown was like nothing she had ever worn. Made of black satin, it had a bodice insert of pale pink silk that looked like her skin, as if the dress was cut open to the waist. The illusion of nakedness made the men stare openly and drew jealous looks from the women.

  Marco had given her jewels that belonged to the patrician family whose lives they had borrowed. The heavy pearls were warm against the skin of her throat—she reached up to touch them—and an emerald-and-pearl pendant nestled between her breasts. The teardrop pearl earrings that completed the set trembled as she surveyed the crowd, suddenly struck with stage fright.

  She knew she looked good. One of the household servants, a Turkish girl, had made up her eyes with subtly colored kohl and whitened her skin with some kind of powder that was probably lethal, and, as a final touch, reddened her lips with carmine. The overall effect was dazzling. But it might as well have been a mask.

  Sarah understood at that second what it meant to be a courtesan. Her face, her body, the jewels she possessed, and her finery were what was valued in this society, not her. Talk about being looked at like a piece of meat. She was the most beautiful steak ever.

  Ta-da. Her grand entrance was underway, and she felt like a fool just standing at the top of the ballroom’s staircase. Suddenly all she wanted to do was head home. Being stared at by a thousand people felt really weird.

  They whispered and pointed. She had a feeling some of them had to be talking about her hair; Venetian women went to great lengths to lighten theirs and blondes were much admired. Sarah’s pale tresses outshone all the others, and she knew that Marco was proud to be seen with her. For what it was worth.

  She liked being with him but not this bunch. She realized with a start that the great Venetian painters must have used their rowdy friends as models for party scenes, not aristocrats encased in brocade. They all seemed so unreal and strangely stiff. A lot of the men wore wigs and calf pads and high-heeled shoes, and the women outdid them with artificial curls, stuffed bodices, and velvet beauty spots.

  The storied past was not as glamorous as she had imagined, not by a long shot. She saw nothing friendly in anyone’s eyes, only their cold appraisal of what she had on and what she had been born with. She looked from face to face. There were beautiful women, handsome men, and the merely ordinary of both sexes. It was their expressions that were similar. Haughty. Mean, even. Like her and Marco, most had removed their masks. She wished they hadn’t. A richly dressed older man moved to the forefront to inspect her from head to toe and gave her a disapproving frown.

  “All of Venice is here tonight,” Marco whispered to her. “The beautiful and the damned.” He smiled graciously at the assembled company.

  “I can see the beautiful ones. The damned might be more fun to party with.”

  Marco made a deep bow directed at the older man at the foot of the stairs. “Some other time, perhaps,” he said softly, though gritted teeth. “That is the duke. Curtsey. Nod to him. Smile graciously.”

  “Screw the duke. I’m an American. I don’t have to.”

  “But you must. Play your part, Sarah.”

  She forced a small smile and dipped a bit, inclining her head in the general direction of the duke. Those who had paused to admire her beauty turned away.

  What a welcome. She and Marco went down to the ballroom arm in arm as the music began again. She got through the pavanne he had taught her, and two more dances after it, but she refused a Venetian dandy who proffered his hand for the next one. Marco shot him a hot-tempered glare and the reject slunk away, looking to comfort himself with a glass of spirits and a plate of oysters.

  There were numerous card games going on in the corners of
the echoing ballroom and curtained alcoves for amorous couples as well. Sarah wondered if she was supposed to ignore them. She didn’t. Fluttering fans and eyelashes were working wonders on the men, who whispered lewd things into pretty ears, judging by the excited faces of the women.

  A bolder one reached into the bodice of his companion’s dress and gently revealed her breasts, propping them up on the top of her corset and playing with her nipples as she rested one hand on his breech-clad thigh, sliding it higher and higher until Sarah looked away.

  “They do not care who sees them,” Marco whispered, guiding her through the crowd. “It is no different from Carnival in our own time. You liked that well enough. Come, we will sit in an alcove. My God, these people smell.”

  The crush of sweating, powdered beauties and the fops and gallants who pursued them, full of wine and passionate intent, was overwhelming. The music had a sensual rise and fall to it, she noticed, swelling to crescendos that had some of the women in a near-swoon in their partners’ arms.

  “Yes.”

  He led her by the hand into an alcove in the back, signaling to a servant and giving an order for food and drink. When it came, he waved the man away, drawing their curtains partly closed so they were not on display.

  The music grew wilder and louder but they stayed where they were, watching. Suddenly a man led a young woman, a redhead, to the center of the ballroom and made an announcement. The music stopped. Apparently she had lost at cards and must pay the agreed-upon forfeit: to strip in front of everyone.

  The young woman laughed, not minding in the least. She removed the sash around her waist first, aided in undressing by several women who were as giddy as she was. They unhooked this and unbuttoned that, kneeling to lift her skirts and show her bare behind to the crowd before they removed all but her shoes and stockings.

  Someone handed her a mask without eyeholes and the woman tied it on. Her lips were full and red, and she smiled like a Las Vegas showgirl. She bent over, displaying her white buttocks, inviting all comers to feel and fondle her as they wished.

  Several gallants gathered around her, stroking her bare behind while she shivered with pleasure. One man kneeled under her and caressed her full breasts. She moaned, asking that the mask she wore be tied tighter…and that more men touch her willing flesh.