me here was but the cutting edge of what awaits all of us.
The scent of burning wax lingered.
And then he heard Guido’s footsteps ringing on the stones, and he thought, Ah, so this is the final humiliation, he is leaving me here.
His cruelty had never seemed so exquisite, so overpowering. Ah, the hours we two have spent together, this hideous marriage of exhausting work that mounts again and again to sublime torture.
And what have I learned? That in this as in all else I am alone, which I knew before, and come to realize with each passing day to its fullest meaning?
It seemed he was drifting.
And then quite suddenly he realized that the iron latch had been slipped into place against the door and that Guido had not left him.
He felt his breath halt. He could see nothing. And for the moment hear nothing. But he knew that Guido was there watching him. And such a sharp stab of desire caught him he was appalled by it.
Desire radiated from him. It radiated out into the darkness and seemed to find the four walls of this enclosing place, and he turned around waiting, waiting.
“Love you?” came Guido’s voice. It was so low Tonio strained forward, as if yearning for it. “Love you?”
“Yes…” Tonio answered.
“I am in a hell of desire for you! Have you never guessed? Have you never looked beneath the coldness? Are you so blind to this suffering? In all my life I have never wooed and suffered as I have over you. But there is love and love, and I am spent trying to separate the one from the other….”
“Don’t separate them!” Tonio whispered. And he reached out like a child, grasping for what he wanted. “Give it to me! Where are you? Maestro, where are you?”
There seemed a rush of air, a soft shuffling of garments and steps, and he felt the near smarting touch of Guido’s hands, hands that in the past had only struck him, and then those arms enclosing him. And in this moment, he understood everything.
But that was but the last glimmer of thought, and he knew just how it had been and how it would be, and he felt Guido’s chest, and then Guido’s mouth tore at him.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Now, yes, everything, all of it…” He was crying.
Guido sucked at his lips, his cheeks, his fingers digging into him as they gathered him up as though he were fit for devouring, and it seemed all cruelty was alchemized into a great outpouring that sought no parodies of hate or punishment, so much as the swiftest, most desperate union.
He sank down on his knees, pulling Guido with him. He was leading the way. He was offering himself, giving what Domenico had always given him, yet never asked of him.
The pain was no consideration in it.
Let there be pain. And though he could hardly bear to release this mouth that was opening his and widening his, and sucking even at his teeth, he lay down flat on the stones and said: “Do it. Do that to me, do it. I want it.” Guido’s weight came down full-length above him, crushing, him as he felt his clothes torn loose, and the first nudge terrified him. He gave a long gasp and then all of his body opened up, welcoming it, refusing on any account to deny it, and when it came again, short, but hard and thick and pounding, he found himself moving with it. For one instant they were bound together, Guido’s lips pressed to the back of his neck, Guido’s hands working his shoulders, clutching him close, and then from Guido’s guttural cry he knew it was over.
But he was stunned, wiping his mouth, and charged and craving. He could not keep his hands off Guido, but it was Guido who lifted him, Guido’s arms so tight around his hips that he held Tonio up in the air as his mouth surrounded Tonio’s organ with a wet warmth, a delicious ravenous sucking. It was stronger, more violent than Domenico had ever been. He gritted his teeth not to cry out, and then fell back, released, turning over to bury his head in his arms, his knees drawing up as the last shocks of pleasure faded.
He was afraid.
He was alone. He could hear the silence again. And the world was coming back, and he could not even lift his head.
And telling himself he expected nothing, he felt that in this moment he could