It was round and hard as something made of wood is hard, and suddenly, as Tonio caught his breath in his throat, he was holding the heavy silken scrotum in his hands. It was eerie, the lightness of it and the heaviness of it, the seeming fragility of what hung suspended within it, and bending down, he sought to take the whole of it in his mouth, tasting the loose hairy flesh, the saltiness of it, the deep fragrance and heat that came from this place. He drew up and took the organ itself.
It touched the back of his mouth as he went up and down on it, his teeth stroking it, and between his own legs there came the first violent explosion as his own sex sought the little friction it needed from where it did not know nor care.
But he could not stop his movements. The passion was rising in him almost from the moment it had crested, and he was devouring this brutal, unyielding thing as his hand held the soft heaviness of the scrotum, tight yet gentle at the same time. And again it reached its inevitable summit, and he rose up, rigid against the Cardinal, feeling nakedness against his own nakedness and not caring if the world heard his strangled cry. The Cardinal was writhing against him; he was mad for him, and yet so innocent as if he did not know what to do, as if he could not do anything except Tonio’s bidding.
Tonio stretched out on the bed, reaching back for him as if he were a cloak to be drawn over himself as he spread his legs. He felt the Cardinal kissing his bare back, his hands massaging Tonio’s buttocks, and then Tonio’s hand reached for the weapon itself and showed it the place.
This was pain; this was being impaled, and yet it was irresistible, a splendid overpowering, the first thrust bringing a groan from him, and then he felt his entire body moving in the same rhythm and it seemed a throbbing circle of pleasure radiated through him from that orifice and that cruelty, and gritting his teeth, he was giving the most blasphemous assent.
When the Cardinal finished in one last excruciating series of shocks, it was with a wailing cry as if he too suffered and could contain it no longer, falling back away from Tonio, his hand out to hold onto him as if some force might tear Tonio away.
An hour later perhaps, Tonio awoke. For a moment he did not know where he was. Then he realized the Cardinal was standing by the bed and looking down at him, the Cardinal’s back to the open window full of the slow progression of the stars.
The Cardinal was speaking, and now his hand lay on Tonio’s shoulder, and seeing Tonio’s eyes were open, he touched Tonio’s cheek. “Could God damn me for this ecstasy?” he breathed. “What is the lesson in it?” It was again an astonishing innocence. And such a childlike animation to the eyes, the face as majestic as ever with its smooth, slightly slanting eyelids, the mouth turned down at the ends.
“I was damned for it a long, long time ago,” Tonio whispered, and felt himself slide immediately back to sleep.
When next he awoke the sky was a deep rose color beyond the rooftops, the clouds streaking it through and through with gold. There were the faint distant cries of geese in the air, and somewhere the lowing of cows. And as a cock crowed, it seemed the warming air split this room asunder so that all its brocade and enamel tumbled into itself, as shabby as the contents of a draper’s in a back room, layered with dust. Motes moved heavily in the first beams that hit the carpet, and each little gust of the warm breeze carried with it the scent of fresh-turned soil. It penetrated the fragrance of incense and wax which before had been intact.
Tonio roused himself at once. He wondered why the Cardinal hadn’t sent him away. It seemed such a charitable courtesy. But the Cardinal lay asleep against his pillow, and even now reached out sluggishly for the warm cleft in the sheet that Tonio had left.
Tonio dressed silently, and made his way down the dim gray halls.
And entering Guido’s bedchamber, he saw that Guido had fallen asleep at his desk. His face was buried in his arm. The candle had died in its own wax.
For a long time, Tonio stared,