later tonight. It must be love if I’m ready to do that. I reach out for him but he pulls my hand away. He’ll come if I do that. He lies on his side so his stiff penis is pressing against my thigh and I will him to touch me between the legs.
And he does. Puts his hand inside a glove of warm fluid. Rests there for a moment, then he pushes my legs apart and leans forward to press his mouth against the folds of my sex. I hold his head in my hands and feel like crying. My sex is his, it would seem. I’m about to cry, but the tears choke inside me and won’t come out. This is a ladder-man, remember. He’s ethereal: sometimes no more than a trick of the light or a nuzzle of river-damp air.
I hear a soft creaking sound nearby; it must be the tree ticking, it is the heartbeat of the tree we’re lying up against. When I was a child I thought that each tree had a heart inside its trunk.
The ladder-man lifts his head and I can see he is all too real. He begins stroking me down there until it becomes unbearable. He holds my whole sex in his hand like it’s a pomegranate he’s testing for ripeness. The pomegranate is pulsing and about to burst open and he can sense this no doubt. He squeezes my ripeness gallantly and possessively.
We both want each other to come first. I want him inside me now more than I will after I’ve come, I know that, so I take control; pull him on top of me and reach down and guide him inside. He’s so stiff it hurts when he pushes in, but once he starts thrusting it feels like he’s started talking after all these months of muteness. A feeding frenzy follows. The sheer lightness of him after Guido Rizi is such a surprise. He comes very quickly, but he stays partly aroused and doesn’t withdraw. (I knew there would be no keeping up with him this first time.)
Eventually he loses his hardness and slips out of me. In the moonlight his wet penis is still distended. He nudges me gently and turns me over onto my side so that I’m facing away from him. Lifts my hair, kisses the wet nape of my neck. With his free arm he reaches between my buttocks and his hand is squeezing the ripe splitting pomegranate again. Testing the fruit. Juicing it, kneading it, encasing the seeping pomegranate in his spread fingers until the fruit flutters and pulses and the woman in his clasp decides there’s no need to restrain herself. She yells out loud for both of them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Morisco Boys
Today will be my final sitting for the Magdalen painting. As I wait for Enrique Rastro to join me in the shady cloister, I wonder if I will ever look upon this scene in the convento again.
The building constructions are continuing. It’s been ten years since the demolition of the old Mudéjar building and it will be dozens more before the renovations are complete. Some of the gardens in the vicinity have been uprooted to accommodate a Roman fountain and pond. Two artisans come stomping across the courtyard, leaving streaks of calcined lime and clay upon the grass. In spite of these contaminations, the friars still manage to find places for secluded reading beneath the trellises and remaining trees.
A tall boy I’ve seen a few times before wanders past. He stops abruptly when he sees me and casually drifts back, staring at my red dress as if it’s a peacock tail. ‘Hello,’ he says without any shyness.
I wish I could remember the child’s name. What did Enrique call him? Luis? That sounds right. I saw him on the gallery with Diego Velázquez. This boy seems to feel I’m a friend not a foe. He points to a person partly obscured by the shrubbery. He’s annoyed this friar has taken his own hiding-spot.
‘The man will vacate the space soon,’ I pacify Luis. ‘He’ll get up from there when they ring for the next Holy office.’ ‘Maybe,’ Luis concedes. ‘But he’s still stolen my place.’
He tells me he’s hoping to catch a glimpse of two new boys who arrived in the convento a week ago, but who haven’t
And he does. Puts his hand inside a glove of warm fluid. Rests there for a moment, then he pushes my legs apart and leans forward to press his mouth against the folds of my sex. I hold his head in my hands and feel like crying. My sex is his, it would seem. I’m about to cry, but the tears choke inside me and won’t come out. This is a ladder-man, remember. He’s ethereal: sometimes no more than a trick of the light or a nuzzle of river-damp air.
I hear a soft creaking sound nearby; it must be the tree ticking, it is the heartbeat of the tree we’re lying up against. When I was a child I thought that each tree had a heart inside its trunk.
The ladder-man lifts his head and I can see he is all too real. He begins stroking me down there until it becomes unbearable. He holds my whole sex in his hand like it’s a pomegranate he’s testing for ripeness. The pomegranate is pulsing and about to burst open and he can sense this no doubt. He squeezes my ripeness gallantly and possessively.
We both want each other to come first. I want him inside me now more than I will after I’ve come, I know that, so I take control; pull him on top of me and reach down and guide him inside. He’s so stiff it hurts when he pushes in, but once he starts thrusting it feels like he’s started talking after all these months of muteness. A feeding frenzy follows. The sheer lightness of him after Guido Rizi is such a surprise. He comes very quickly, but he stays partly aroused and doesn’t withdraw. (I knew there would be no keeping up with him this first time.)
Eventually he loses his hardness and slips out of me. In the moonlight his wet penis is still distended. He nudges me gently and turns me over onto my side so that I’m facing away from him. Lifts my hair, kisses the wet nape of my neck. With his free arm he reaches between my buttocks and his hand is squeezing the ripe splitting pomegranate again. Testing the fruit. Juicing it, kneading it, encasing the seeping pomegranate in his spread fingers until the fruit flutters and pulses and the woman in his clasp decides there’s no need to restrain herself. She yells out loud for both of them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Morisco Boys
Today will be my final sitting for the Magdalen painting. As I wait for Enrique Rastro to join me in the shady cloister, I wonder if I will ever look upon this scene in the convento again.
The building constructions are continuing. It’s been ten years since the demolition of the old Mudéjar building and it will be dozens more before the renovations are complete. Some of the gardens in the vicinity have been uprooted to accommodate a Roman fountain and pond. Two artisans come stomping across the courtyard, leaving streaks of calcined lime and clay upon the grass. In spite of these contaminations, the friars still manage to find places for secluded reading beneath the trellises and remaining trees.
A tall boy I’ve seen a few times before wanders past. He stops abruptly when he sees me and casually drifts back, staring at my red dress as if it’s a peacock tail. ‘Hello,’ he says without any shyness.
I wish I could remember the child’s name. What did Enrique call him? Luis? That sounds right. I saw him on the gallery with Diego Velázquez. This boy seems to feel I’m a friend not a foe. He points to a person partly obscured by the shrubbery. He’s annoyed this friar has taken his own hiding-spot.
‘The man will vacate the space soon,’ I pacify Luis. ‘He’ll get up from there when they ring for the next Holy office.’ ‘Maybe,’ Luis concedes. ‘But he’s still stolen my place.’
He tells me he’s hoping to catch a glimpse of two new boys who arrived in the convento a week ago, but who haven’t
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