The fencing salons, where in the past he’d sought a soothing exhaustion, had become his torture chambers, peopled with the most tantalizing bodies, those healthy, whole, and sometimes feral young noblemen he had always kept at arm’s length.
Now it was chests gleaming under open shirts, arms tense and beautifully muscular, the bulge of the scrotum between the legs. Even the scent of their sweat tormented him.
Pausing, he wiped his brow and shut his eyes. Only to see a moment later the young Florentine Count Raffaele di Stefano, his most enduring opponent, staring at him with an undisguised greed and fascination, his glance now guiltily turned aside.
Had it ever been simple fear of these men that goaded him? Had there always been this unacknowledged desire?
He straightened, ready for the Count’s blade; in a frenzy of movement he bore down on him, driving him backwards, seeing the Count grit his teeth. His round black eyes had lashes so thick at the root the eyes seemed lined with black paint. There were no visible bones behind those smallish, rounded features; and the hair, so black it might have been dipped in ink.
The fencing master forced them apart. The Count had received a scratch and the fine linen shirt was torn from the shoulder. No, he didn’t wish to stop.
And when they came together again there was no enraged pride in the Count, merely his lips working in concentration as he struggled to get beyond Tonio’s immense reach.
It was finished.
The Count stood panting; the dark hair of his chest rose even to the base of his throat where the razor had sheared it away. And yet that mask of flesh over his nose and face was so smooth Tonio could feel it beneath his fingers. That shaven beard was so coarse it would actually cut.
He turned his back on the Count. He walked to the center of the polished floor and stood with his sword at his side. He could feel the eyes of others measuring him. He could feel the Count approach. The man gave off an animalian scent, delicious and hot, as he touched Tonio’s shoulder. “Come dine with me, I am alone in Rome,” he said almost abruptly. “You are the only swordsman who can get the better of me. I want you to come with me, be my guest.”
Tonio turned to look at him slowly. The invitation was unmistakable. The Count’s eyes were narrowed. A tiny black mole gleamed on the side of his nostril, another on the line of his jaw. Tonio hesitated, languidly lowering his eyes. And when his refusal came it was a murmur, a stammering, as if he were in a hurry with only the time to be polite.
Almost angrily, he splashed his face with cold water, wiping roughly with the towel before he turned to the valet to receive his coat.
When he stepped into the street, the Count, who had been dallying at the wine seller’s opposite, raised his cup in a slow salute.
The richly dressed young men in his company nodded to Tonio. And Tonio, fleeing, lost himself in the milling crowd.
But that night, in a dreary ill-ventilated villa, Tonio allowed himself to be caught in a darkened alcove by hands and lips he hardly knew.
Somewhere far off, Guido played for a small assemblage, and Tonio led his pursuer farther and farther from the danger of discovery, until he could no longer keep those strong fingers at bay.
He felt the man’s tongue force his mouth open, he felt the hardness against his legs. Finally he freed it from its breeches so it might make a cavern out of the crush of his thighs. He was Ganymede in those moments, carried upward with all the sweet humiliation of surrender in the shape of the young boy already fashioned for conquests of his own.
And in the nights to follow, all his conquerors were older men, men in their prime, or even streaked with gray, quick to savor young flesh, though at times he startled them as he dropped down to his knees to take into his own mouth all the force it could contain.
When it was finished, he knelt there still, his head bowed as if he were a first communicant at the altar rail, as if he were feeling the presence of the Living Christ.
Of course he shunned these partners afterwards, if partners they could be called. And he was never alone with them in any place that belonged to