A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow - By Levkoff, Andrew Page 0,33

me. The aureus in my palm was warm and basted with sweat, but held at the ready. I moved into view at the foot of Livia’s table just as lady Cornelia rolled over onto her back. She saw me straight away; all was lost! I smiled at her helplessly, beseechingly. To my astonished relief, she smiled back conspiratorially. I held the coin up to the man about to squeeze past me and motioned him to make good his departure in quiet haste. He grasped the hot gold piece, his entire face smiling, and went off to contemplate how he would spend this newfound windfall. There was no time to pour more oil. The African looked only mildly surprised when I took his dripping, gleaming hands in my own and rubbed them vigorously. I winked at him and made a gesture for his continued silence. He winked back at me, but the motion was mimicry without understanding. He started to say something, which I quelled, taking his hands and guiding them to lady Cornelia’s feet. Her expression said she found this pantomime at least as entertaining as her interrupted massage. I did not care; my improvisation was going well so far, providing my heart did not explode in my chest.

Before me waited the unsuspecting Livia. She lay with her ankles just off the table, toes pointed toward the floor, curtains of her unclasped hair thankfully blocking her vision.

“Oh! I think you’ve made a bad bargain, Cornelia.” Livia sighed as I attended to each individual toe of her left foot, pressing and separating, oiling the valleys between each, intent on making each touch a caress.

“And I think we are now perfectly matched,” she replied.

I had no idea what I was doing; fortunately my hands were guided by a higher authority: desire. Technique’s teacher was nothing more than imagining the ecstasies I would feel if our places were reversed. I gave what I wanted to receive. I was reluctant to leave any part of her, but I could not work on her feet forever. Moving up the length of each calf, I drew my fingers firmly back down her lean muscles till I reached her ankle. When Livia released a sigh of pleasure, my chest tightened; breathing became a voluntary thing.

I watched my African counterpart; when he stopped to replenish the oil on his hands, I did likewise. When he moved up onto the exposed, slightly spread tops of lady Cornelia’s thighs, I moved higher as well. Rubbing my hands to warm them, I positioned my thumbs on the back of Livia’s right thigh, as close as I dared to the towel which, were it to rise by the slightest fraction, would reveal all it was tasked to conceal. Pressing gently, I moved in alternating, short strokes down to the back of her knee, then up again, cradling and stroking the front of her leg with eight other beguiled fingers as I went.

Moments passed and somehow I found myself tending to the oiled and toned contours of Livia’s back. I had fallen into a reverie of tactility, no longer certain if Livia’s flesh or my own hands were the recipients of such mindless, focused attention. Every stroke and manipulation moved with but one intent: to elicit a sigh of contentment or a moan of pleasure. And there were many. A stifled cry from the adjoining table broke my mediation. Lady Cornelia’s masseur had found his way to her breast, and despite her earlier protestations, her nipple rose with eager curiosity to the rhythmic rolling of his thumb and forefinger.

“I think we had better stop,” she gasped, pushing his hand away.

“Oh, just a while longer, Cornelia. I am transported.” Livia stretched her arms and legs, an arrow of limbs and torso. “Alexander, you have Apollo’s own touch.”

There’s a coincidence: the masseur they originally hired for lady Cornelia has the same name as my own. Wait a moment!

Livia reached beneath her, grabbed a second towel from a railing under her table and deftly rolled onto her back as she covered herself. “Did you think,” she continued, “even after all these years that I could forget the touch of your hands?” With one arm across her chest, she raked her unbound hair away from her face and smiled up at me.

I did not know what else to do, and it was out of the question that I continue to stand there, stunned and silent. So I kissed her. Livia yielded, twisting on her side, curling up