“I’d cut out your own heart if I could, too.”
“Oh, you’re too kind.”
Magdalena caressed his cheek. He had the most marvelous cheekbones. A ship’s navigator could use them as a sextant to align ships and stars. “Listen to me—whatever happened in the past is past. That’s why it’s called the past. In time you will love someone again and you won’t have to be afraid.”
“Her?” he asked.
“Her.”
“When you talk about the future as if you know it, you sound deranged.”
“My father was the king of the gypsies—Mamma told me that. I have his gifts.”
“Your mother lied to you. There is no such person as ‘the king of the gypsies.’ And you know even better than I do you aren’t supposed to call them that. Your father may have been Roma, but he couldn’t do magic and neither can you.”
“Ha,” she said. “I can’t do magic…says the boy in training to turn wine into blood.”
“I said you can’t do magic. I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.”
“Someday you’ll see I’m right. Someday you’ll know.” She bent to kiss his forehead.
“You may do that again.”
“You like having your forehead kissed?” she asked, running her fingertips through his hair.
“I like being able to see into your gown.” He touched his forehead again over his left eye. “Right there. Best angle.”
She kissed him where he asked her to because it gave her the chance to smell the fireplace smoke in his hair, a warm, earthy scent. Very male and mouthwatering. Well worth the price of flashing him her breasts.
“I have no plans on having any surgery,” she said. “Although I thank you for your entirely unsolicited advice. I visited the good Danish surgeon because he’s writing a paper on the particular condition I have, which is now believed to be caused by a hormonal abnormality in the womb as opposed to the work of the devil.”
“Good,” he said. “Surgery carries risk. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
“Because you like me so much?”
“I don’t like you at all. But, as you said, you provide me with food and willing victims. Therefore my continued ability to function is in your hands.”
He smiled at her, the sort of smile that dared her to slap him. And she considered it. Then again, she was a sadist. She wanted to slap nearly every man on earth. She refrained. For now.
“I should never have brought a baby priest home.” Shaking her head, she walked to the fireplace to warm herself. “I’m always bringing home strays. At least Moussilini pulls his weight around here. Haven’t seen a mouse in six months.”
“You want to put me to work for my keep? I will work.”
“Can you work?”
“I can reach items on high shelves.”
“I have a much better idea. Up.” She crooked her finger at him.
He pointed at his lap. “Mus is asleep.”
“He’ll forgive you for waking him. You’re his favorite.”
With a sigh, Marcus plucked the sleeping Moussi off his lap. The cat went limp in his hands as Marcus carried him over to his basket and laid him gently inside.
“Stay,” Marcus said to the cat.
“That is a cat, not a dog. He doesn’t respond to commands.”
Together they watched as Moussi turned in a circle in his basket, turned in a circle again, and then laid down.
“How do you do that?” Magdalena asked.
“I have no idea,” he said with a shrug, a surprisingly adolescent gesture from Marcus. Then again, he had been a teenager until three days ago.
“Let’s see how well you respond to commands. Come up to my bedroom.”
He cocked that eyebrow again and she wondered if he’d practiced that in the mirror.
“Not for sex,” she said. “Your gift is up there. Also I need a guinea pig to test a new toy.”
He looked at her, not moving, not blinking.
“If your eyebrow gets any higher, it will end up on the back of your neck,” she said.
“What toy is it?”
“It’s nothing invasive, I promise,” she said as she strode from the room. “I test the butt plugs and vibrators on myself. Come, come.”
She patted her thigh as if calling a dog to her.
Magdalena half-expected he wouldn’t follow her. She half-expected he would simply leave as she walked away. It’s what she would have done in his shoes as it was the most sadistic thing. Someone offers you a gift, but says you must earn it? Walk away. Reject the gift, reject the giver. Nothing hurt more than having a gift rejected. To his credit and to her pleasure, he followed her up the main stairway to her bedroom.
“You keep your bedroom door locked?” Marcus asked as she unlocked the door with a key she wore tied to her wrist with a red cord.
“I value my privacy. You will, too, whenever you have privacy again.”
“I doubt I will. Jesuits tend to live in community. Makes it harder to have a private life.”
“Which is what you have me for. Tell me ‘Thank you, Magda.’ ”
He exhaled. “Thank you, Magda.”
“Good Bambi.”
She opened the door to her bedroom and switched on the Tiffany lamp at her bedside.
Marcus remained standing inside the door.
“Do you like it?” she asked, as she sat on her bed. “My bedroom?”
“It isn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Something less…girlish.”
“This room isn’t girlish. It’s feminine. Like me.” She stretched out on her side and the robe parted to reveal a long bare leg. The room was entirely white but for the deep blue tile floors. White padded headboard and footboard on the bed, delicate white table and chairs, white and gilt dresser, white and gilt chandelier glowing with the softest gold light.
“I assumed there would be whips on the wall, chains on the bed, and for some reason I pictured swords crossed over the fireplace.”
“I think you’re describing your dream bedroom.”
“My dream bedroom wouldn’t have crossed swords over the fireplace. Crossed scalpels, however…”
He glanced over his shoulder at her with a look on his face to curl a girl’s toes.
“Now I know what to give you for Christmas next year,” she said.
“Obsidian blades, preferably.”
“You should take your shirt off,” Magdalena said as she casually twirled the cord of her black robe. “It would please me.”
“I’m not taking any clothes off until you tell me what you’re doing to me.”
“I’m not telling you what I’m doing to you until you take your shirt off. And if you don’t take your shirt off, you won’t get your Christmas gift.”
“A gift you already said I would regret taking from you.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a miracle of God when two sadists alone in a room together manage to agree on anything, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Less theological musing, more stripping.”
“I may not want this Christmas gift after all.”
“I know you aren’t modest, Bambi. I’ve seen you naked.”
“That was a different situation. I was trying to prove a point.”
Magdalena laughed her lowest, most throaty laugh, the one she used when seducing rich men into handing over their wallets. Last summer her lover Alessandro had taken her, the girls, and Marcus out on his boat for a lazy day in the sun. Antonia, Bianca, and Caterina colluded together the night before the trip, deciding to tease and torment Marcus as much as possible on their trip. A pretty nineteen-year-old Jesuit? Magdalena’s new pet? How could they resist? Once they’d cast anchor a few kilometers offshore in the deep blue waters of the Mar Tirreno, the three girls set up their chaises longues and stripped off their bikini tops and started teasing him—Marco, come put oil on my back… Marco, come put oil on my front… Marco, come tell us all about Jesus… They’d all
stared at him, daring him to refuse, daring him to do it. They were all at least five years his senior, all three beautiful, sadistic, and very well-trained prostitutes. And her girls were absolutely certain they were scandalizing him with their naked breasts and their incessant flirting. In response to their requests, he’d simply replied, “in a moment,” before stripping off every last stitch of clothing, folding it neatly, and then diving off the side of the boat into the water. Five minutes later, now wet as well as naked, he’d climbed up the ladder, wrapped a towel around his waist, and dutifully applied the tanning oil to the backs of each of Magdalena’s suddenly subdued employees. Her girls had stripped half-naked. He’d stripped completely naked, and in doing so he’d put their shamelessness to shame. No longer was he “Marco” or “Magda’s Pet.” After that day he was “Signore.”
“Still waiting,” Magdalena said. “And you’re still wearing your shirt.”
“Can you at least give me a hint why you want me to take my shirt off?” he asked. “I’ve seen what you can do with a branding iron. I don’t want to have to explain a phallic-shaped third-degree burn to the school nurse.”
“I have no intention of branding you. Not tonight.”
“Will this involve bleeding?”
“Anything could involve bleeding when you and I are involved.”
He still didn’t make any sort of move to undress. With a sigh Magdalena left the comfort of her big soft bed and walked over to him.
“Here. I’ll help.”
First she slid his jacket off him and hung it on the corner of her dressing screen. Then she unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and waited for him to say something. He didn’t.
“It’s not like you to be shy,” she said. “You know you have a fabulous body, if a bit too thin for my tastes.”
“My reticence is neither cowardliness nor shyness. I’m feeling vulnerable tonight, and I would prefer it if you didn’t take advantage of me in my current state.”
Magdalena laughed in his face. Loudly.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
“No.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I wouldn’t either.”
Magdalena unbuttoned the rest of his shirt buttons. “Are you really feeling vulnerable tonight or are you playing me again?”
She and Marcus had yet to have a conversation where one of them didn’t attempt to fuck with the other’s mind. She’d gone as far as telling him she was dying of cancer to see how he’d react. He’d gone as far as telling her he’d fallen in love with her and was leaving the Jesuits to be with her. She’d almost believed him and had laughed so hard when he’d revealed himself that she’d almost wept. If he told her he was feeling vulnerable, two motives were possible—he was feeling vulnerable, or he wanted to play with her mind. The first was possible but unlikely. The second was a near certainty.
“As you are continuing to undress me,” he said, “it’s clear my answer to that question is irrelevant.”
“It’s not irrelevant. I simply care about my desire to see you shirtless more than I care about your desire to remain shirted.”
He exhaled heavily as she pulled his shirt out of his waistband. She let the tails fall as she took his hands one by one in hers and unbuttoned his cuffs.
But she didn’t take his shirt off, not yet. She placed her hands flat on his chest. “Your heart is racing. I make you nervous.”
“You make me very nervous.”
“Are you nervous or are you aroused?”
“You could tell if I were aroused.”
She glanced down. Pity. “Nervous, then. Are you worried I’m going to hurt you?”
“I would be a hypocrite if I were. I hurt Caterina frequently.”
“Caterina is a masochist. You are not a masochist.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Cheeky.” She stroked his chest from his collarbones down to his waist and up again. She didn’t linger in any one particular place. She merely wanted to familiarize herself with his body, his skin. The day on the boat she’d only watched him undress, watched him walk naked to the side of the boat. She hadn’t touched.
Now she wanted to touch.
“I suppose I must have some masochistic tendencies in me to join the Jesuits.”
“Why did you?” she asked as she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and slid it down his arms. He had warm skin, smooth as only the skin of a young man of twenty can be.
“I felt called to join. I can’t explain it.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t been called?” she asked as she held out his shirt in front of him and then pointedly dropped it on the floor.
“Not often, but sometimes.”
“Tell me when.”
She ran her hands up and down his arms. He had marvelous arms—beautiful, firm biceps, well-defined even in repose. Lovely veins from his hands to his elbows. She could see his pulse throbbing in his right wrist. The urge to bite that throbbing vein was nearly overwhelming.
“When I’m sitting in class and being taught things I already know by a priest who likely wouldn’t recognize Jesus if Jesus were to walk up to him and slap him in the face with a wooden sign reading ‘Hello, I’m your Lord and Savior’ in three languages.”
“When else?” she asked, circling him, not taking her hand off his body for one second. She stood behind him and caressed his back with her fingertips. His flesh bristled at her touch but he didn’t move away.
“When I remember I have a baby sister I barely know,” he said. “I would like to be in her life, but she’s in New York and I’m here. Her mother sent me a Christmas card and Claire signed her own name in purple crayon.”
Magdalena could hear the smile in his voice, the wonder that children grew so fast, the sorrow that Claire was growing up so far away from him.
“Flawless…” she sighed as she tickled his back with her fingertips, starting at the top of his shoulders and scoring his skin gently all the way to his hips. “Not a welt. Not a bruise. Not even a freckle. You are a pure blank canvas of flesh.”
“Tempting, isn’t it?”
“If you let me I would whip you until your back was broken open to the sinew, open to the bone.” She was aroused just thinking of it.
“Have you ever whipped anyone that hard?”
“Yes,” she said.
He whistled, impressed.
“Jealous?” she asked.
“I covet your sadism,” he said. “And your willing victims.”
“He was my slave and he was dying. He asked me to fulfill all his masochistic fantasies before he grew too ill and weak to enjoy them. I hastened his death but gave meaning to his life. His words.”
“Your cruelty was an act of mercy.”
“It always should be. Remember that.”
“Yes, Magda.”
He said it like a teenage boy might say “Yes, Mother.” She nearly got her whip out then and there. Instead she untied the silk cord of her robe and drew his wrists together behind his back.
“Magda—”
“Hush. This is part of your training. You bind Caterina’s hands when you beat her. You should know how it feels.”
“I know how it feels.”
That raised her eyebrow, but it didn’t stop her from wrapping the black cord around his wrists and tying it off. “Who dared to bind your wrists before me?”
“You do not want to know the answer.”
He’d hinted at some trauma in his childhood, something to do with his sister Elizabeth, something that caused them to write letters to each other once a month but avoid being in each other’s company whenever possible.
“I am inclined to agree with you. Simpler question: do you like it?”
“No.”
“Do you dislike it?”
“I’m annoyed by it.”
“By it or by me?”
“Both in equal measure.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, but I can imagine my finge
rs would start to go numb if I stayed in this position for longer than a half hour.”
“See? This is why I do these things to you. You must learn empathy. You need to understand what your slave or submissive will feel.”
“Lesson learned.”
“Did you do this to Kingsley?”
“Tie him up? Of course.”
“I mean, did you tie him up and interrogate him?”
“Often,” Marcus said. “I liked making him tell me secrets he didn’t want to tell me.”
“What secrets?”
“He told them to me, not you.”
“You’re discreet. Like a good lover. Are you a good lover?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“You’re deflecting because you don’t want to answer and the answers you do give me you give begrudgingly. You are a terrible submissive, Bambi.”
“I’m not a submissive.”
“That certainly explains why you’re so very wretched at it. Now answer the question. Are you a good lover?”
“I admit I’m not certain how to answer. Pray tell, Magda—how would I know?”
“You would know if you weren’t. If your lover didn’t respond to you, if your lover didn’t come back begging for more…”
“Then I was apparently a very good lover. Kingsley was quite enthusiastic, very good at begging. And rather shameless about it.”
“What did he beg for?”
“More. Always for more.”
“More what? More sex? More pain?”
“Yes and yes. More everything.” He paused as if letting himself remember something. “More affection mostly. I’m…not as affectionate as I should be. As I should have been,” he corrected.
“What stops you from showing affection?”
“I…” He sighed, a surprisingly defeated sound, unusual from someone so defiant. “I don’t know.”
“Because you aren’t very good at it?”
“I haven’t had much practice in my life. I was close with my older sister Elizabeth until we were separated by my father. I kept to myself after that, as much as I could. Until Kingsley. But even after that, when I met my baby sister the first time, I didn’t hold her. Kingsley did, but I couldn’t.”
“How did you feel when you saw him holding your baby sister?”
“I felt…jealous.”
“Jealous? Of a child?”
Winter Tales Page 18