When he opened his eyes, Domenico was fully dressed, with his scarlet cape over one shoulder.
“Come on, now, they’re calling for us!” He smiled. “You must get the paint off your face, hurry.”
Tonio scarcely heard him. It seemed he was a woman in the clothing of a man; and before he had been a man in the clothing of a woman. Rising on his arm, Tonio tried to speak but he could say nothing.
The tumult in his mind was not thought. And what he was feeling was not happiness. It was the most overpowering relief that he had ever known, and quietly he did anything that Domenico told him to do.
In the dark of the carriage, all the way to the house of the Contessa Lamberti on the road to Sorrento, he devoured Domenico with kisses. And when Domenico reached into Tonio’s clothes, when he felt that scar behind his sex, Tonio stopped in the act of hitting him. He stopped because it was enough to crush him in both hands like something that wanted and needed to be crushed and to press him down again and take him again even as the carriage rocked steadily behind the thin beams of its lanterns.
It was very late that night that Tonio again saw the young fair-haired woman he’d encountered at the Contessa’s house before, in the empty supper room. She was not sad now as she had been then. In fact, she was laughing as she danced, conversing with her partner. Her sharp little shoulders, so nicely rounded for all their straightness, gave her an almost jaunty grace as she moved, lifting her blue skirts all of a piece, and her yellow hair was full of neglected white flowers.
He looked away, however, when their eyes met. And wished that, tonight of all nights, she had not been here. Yet he could not prevent himself from glancing back to her.
The dance had stopped; a tall, white-wigged gentleman was whispering in her ear, and again her little face became radiant with laughter. He had not remembered she had such a lovely neck, or that her breasts had spilled so beautifully into her bodice, and when he saw that snug blue fabric shaping her little waist, he felt his teeth clench in spite of himself. He fancied he could hear her laugh through all these mingled voices. But then she looked shyly away, falling into a seemingly instant preoccupation. She looked as she had before, almost sad, and be wanted desperately to talk to her.
He at once imagined them alone again in some place he didn’t know, as he told her he was neither coarse nor mean, and he had never meant to insult her. He was damned fortunate, he thought, that he did not have two men looking to do him harm, Lorenzo and this girl’s father.
It seemed Domenico sought him out then, just as these thoughts were taking their worst hold, and seeing that beaming face so close to his, feeling himself in possession of this dazzling presence which others desired, he felt again the quick surge of his passion. He could have taken Domenico on the floor of this place. He wanted nothing more than some dark chamber and the danger of discovery.
But he saw that pretty girl again and again. He saw her sometimes sitting alone on the edge of a tapestried chair, her hands idle in her lap, her face abstracted and serious.
And there was about her that negligent air he’d sensed before. It was as if you could take her up, carry her off, and she would never have the presence of mind to protest it. He saw himself raking loose all that blond hair, wiping back the loose strands from her forehead. He imagined it tumbling down around the irresistible slope of her shoulders, and then he saw himself gathering up all those curls again, the better to kiss her neck. This was maddening.
But once after a long moment, she looked up at him directly. He was a great distance away, but it was as if she’d known all the while he was watching her. He could see the dark blue of her eyes, and instead of turning away, he stood transfixed, wishing to God he had never seen her.
5
IN THE WEEKS that followed it seemed to Tonio that surely Guido knew of his little “affair” with Domenico. Yet Guido gave no real sign of it.