‘You seem very contented here, Carla,’ he said one day. ‘I’m glad. It is good to have a woman about the place.’
The very fact that he had spoken of her as a woman gave Carla deep and unexpected joy. She began to dream of him as a lover again, and her hungry eyes fed on him whenever they could. She particularly liked observing him when he was at work, gazing at his easel in rapt attention or sketching out a cartoon that was laid on the floor. Then her longing almost overcame her since she could take in every detail of his handsome face, or gaze uninhibitedly on his round buttocks in their tight hose.
The trouble was, he regarded her as a different person from the ‘Carlo’ he had once known. Although she longed to share his work as well as his bed, that was impossible and the old intimacy was hard to resurrect now that she was no more than a servant in his house. Carla realised she was in a cleft stick and she could see no way out of it. She was unwilling to risk losing what little she had of him by telling the truth and making him angry.
One night, when Silvio was asleep in the attic, Marco went out to the tavern and returned while Carla was washing herself. Stripped to the waist, she was startled to see him enter with a staggering gait. When he realised that he had caught her half naked his eyes widened and he gave her a look such as he had never directed at her before. She pulled the cloth over her bosom instinctively, but her heart was thudding with excitement as he approached her unsteadily.
‘Carla!’ he said, his tongue thick in his mouth. ‘Lovely Carla! Do you care for me at all?’
‘Of course I do,’ she replied, without hesitation. ‘You saved my life.’
‘Your sweet life!’ he murmured, taking her into his arms. The cloth dropped from her chest and his mouth bent to kiss each of her hardening nipples in turn. A shudder of intense desire passed through her and she longed to press his head to her bosom, to feel the quickening of his lust for her and to let him take her right there, on the kitchen floor.
But, perversely, the servant girl in her rebelled. She had seen too much of how men took advantage of the females living under their roof and it galled her that Marco was behaving in the same unprincipled manner as the brothers Panzani. This was not how she wanted things to be between them.
‘No!’ she protested, pushing him away and covering herself up again. ‘Please, sir, leave me be. I am your servant, not your whore.’
She was surprised to see a look of respect on his face. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said, lurching backwards and clutching at the table to steady himself. ‘I’m not myself. Forgive me.’
‘Think no more of it. Do you need help in getting to bed?’
He burped and shook his head. ‘No, no, I can manage. Good night, sweet Carla. And thank you for pardoning my – indiscretion. It will not happen again.’
Once he had gone upstairs, however, and Carla lay in the dark room alone, tears of regret coursed down her cheeks. What crazed impulse had led her to turn him down when they might have been locked in passion? Had she not dreamt of being his mistress almost since the time they met? Was he not the lover she most desired? She had been mad to reject him, and now she might never get another chance.
Chapter Fifteen
CARLA WAS WELL again. Physically, she had never felt better even though the weather was rainy and she spent most of her time indoors. Marco had so much work that he could afford good food, and she delighted in preparing meals for him and Silvio which they devoured appreciatively.
Yet she was heartsick, and her soul ached for closer contact with the man she loved. She suffered daily torture to have him treat her casually, like a servant, and to see him work long hours when she knew she could ease his burden by giving him a hand in the workshop. She constantly debated with herself, wondering what she could do to ease the situation. Sometimes she was in favour of telling him everything. At other times she thought her best course was to slip away and never return, to flee as she had from home and from Piero’s. But running away was no solution to her problems. Older and wiser, she knew that now. You could remove yourself from whatever, and whoever, was troubling you but the tormenting memories persisted and there was no escaping them.
It might have been easier for her, she reasoned, if Marco had found another woman to love but he was so absorbed in his work that he had no time for such frivolities. She knew he sometimes frequented whores. She had overheard him talking and laughing about them to Silvio, late at night, when they drank wine together. But the name of Elena was never mentioned and Carla was curious about what might have happened between them.
One evening, at dinner, she steeled herself to question Marco obliquely. When he announced that he had been given a new commission for a wedding gift, she asked him, point blank, if he had ever been in love.
‘Never!’ he replied, with a touch of scorn. ‘I’m far too busy improving my skill as a painter. I’ve seen what happens to men who moon after women: they forget everything and follow their dick.’
‘But don’t you sometimes feel lonely?’ she persisted.
‘I’m usually too tired to lie a-bed wanting what I can’t have. If I get the itch I can go to a whore. But I don’t rule out getting myself a wife some day. I’ll want a son to carry on my trade, for one thing.’
‘Is that all you want a wife for, as a brood mare?’ Carla said, her tone bitter.
Silvio looked up from his food. ‘I think a woman can be a good companion. When I was at home there was a girl who was my best friend. We did everything together, but then her parents got her betrothed to another who had better prospects than me. I still think about her, sometimes. I used to tell her everything, and she’d understand.’
Carla smiled in sympathy, since his story was similar to her own. But then Marco said, ‘It’s more lonely being a journeyman than an apprentice. When I take on another boy you’ll have a mate to talk to, Silvio. You can complain about me behind my back!’
Silvio laughed, and Carla joined in. They exchanged a sly glance, for Silvio had sometimes crept downstairs to confide in her when he felt hard done by!
Marco didn’t seem to notice their looks of complicity. He went on, ‘Although I don’t regret setting up on my own the happiest times for me were when I was at my master Piero’s. It was such fun being with the other lads. There wasn’t much trouble, except when a new boy arrived and got on the wrong side of Giovanni, the head apprentice. I think Giovanni was envious of his talent. This boy – his name was Carlo – was untrained but had a natural talent that was astounding. Piero let him do advanced work on the quiet.’
Carla’s pulse was racing and her mouth was dry with fear, but she had to pursue it. ‘What happened to this – Carlo?’
‘Nobody knows. I would have apprenticed him myself – you were lucky there, Silvio, because I couldn’t have taken you both on . . .’
Now you must tell him, now! The insistent voice was screaming inside Carla’s head but she still couldn’t bring herself to admit that she was the elusive Carlo. In her women’s clothes, and with her hair longer and bleached, Marco might not even believe she was the same person. Or, if he did believe her, he might be so disgusted at the deception that he threw her out at once. She was so afraid of losing even the little contact with him that she did have.
So Carla continued to glance at him with secret longing every day, even though her soul was split in two. She knew every curve and plane of his handsome face, the way his dark hair curled fetchingly around his ears and the set of his head when he was concentrating on his art. She knew he was feeling anxious when he chewed the corner of his lip. She understood his restlessness when he had been cooped up all day and hurried downstairs to taste the evening air. She knew what he was thinking before he said it. Living so close to him she often felt as if their two hearts were beating as one, and yet he did not know her.
It became more and more impossible to continue in that way and the tension was beginning to tell on her. She found herself taking it out on Silvio in petty ways, snapping at him or a
ccusing him of things he hadn’t done. When she screamed at him for stealing the last of the loaf from the larder Marco overheard and came downstairs.
‘What is this, Carla?’ he asked, frowning. ‘Why all the shouting?’
‘She says I took some bread when I didn’t!’ Silvio sobbed in anger.
Marco came up to her and stared into her eyes. ‘No, he didn’t,’ he said, quietly. ‘It was I who ate the last crust. I was hungry in the night and had it with the leftover broth. I suppose you were going to accuse him of eating that, too.’
‘I’m sorry, master,’ she said, her eyes downcast. She could feel the heat in her cheeks and knew she had been wrong to make such a fuss.
‘Perhaps you’re overdoing things,’ Marco suggested. ‘You seemed well enough, but maybe the sickness has made you weak in spirit.’
‘I am perfectly well, thank you,’ Carla said in a huff. She didn’t want him to think her feeble-minded.
‘Very well. But don’t upset Silvio with false complaints. He’s a good lad, and I won’t have him treated badly.’
Carla sighed and apologised, but she was more careful after that. Marco seemed to treat her more kindly too, perhaps perceiving that she was under some kind of stress. He often invited her up to his workshop to observe him painting, and liked to ask her opinion on his efforts. At first she hesitated to say very much, but as time went by she grew more bold and ended up surprising him by her detailed criticisms.
‘You have a good eye, my dear,’ he told her, after she had commented on his latest Annunciation. ‘Much of what you say is very sensible. I shall heed your advice about the angel and make the wings more graduated in colour.’
Some of the old closeness she had known with him was slowly building up again, even though the barrier of gender was still there between them. Sometimes Carla felt he was on the verge of baring his soul to her, yet he would stop himself from going too far. It was frustrating, but all she could do was wait patiently for some development in their relationship.
Carla often thought of the time he had made advances to her and wished she could have welcomed them, but although she was eaten up with desire for him she did not regret the fact that she had rebuffed him. If he ever came to her bed she wanted it to be as her equal, in art and love. She could never be his whore, as Elena had been, to be dropped when she failed to please him, or cast off for becoming too fond.
One morning Carla came back from the market to find that Silvio had left. His father had fallen seriously ill and he had been summoned home. Marco looked troubled.
‘I don’t know how I shall manage without him, I’m so busy. Now I’ll have to go to the apothecary myself, to buy some more materials.’
‘I could go!’ Carla offered eagerly.
To her disappointment he shook his head. ‘No, you wouldn’t know burnt umber from raw, nor malachite from verdigris. I’ll have to go.’
Carla bit her tongue. She knew she was perfectly capable since she had done such errands dozens of times for Piero, but she could say nothing. As soon as he left her alone, however, she beat her fists upon the wall in frustration and cried aloud, ‘Oh, how much longer can I bear this? I am living a lie. I love him, yet I cannot let him make love to me! I know him as a woman, and yet I knew him so much better as a boy! I must pretend to be a servant, yet I’m a better artist than Silvio and almost as good a one as Marco himself! How can I bear to go on like this, day after day?’
She climbed the stairs to the workshop and stood in front of the easel, looking at Marco’s current work. His brushes and pigments lay to one side and her fingers itched to pick them up and continue what he had started. It was a portrait of a lady in a pink dress, and she could see exactly how to improve the skin tone of her face and hands, and how to correct the rather clumsy way her arms were half folded in front of her.
Her eye fell on Silvio’s discarded clothes in the corner. Evidently he had changed out of his apprentice’s smock and into his best clothes for the family visit. With a faint smile Carla went over and picked them up. In a dream she pulled off her dress and pulled on the clinging tights then slipped the loose tunic over her head. She tied her hair up and tucked it under his floppy cap then drew on his belt to secure her waist. It felt good to be dressed as a boy again.
Returning to the easel, she took up Marco’s brush and tentatively mixed a warmer flesh tone which she proceeded to apply in minute dabs to the cheeks of the woman in the portrait. There was an instant improvement. Encouraged, she began to work in earnest and soon the picture was subtly transformed into the image of a living, breathing woman.
So absorbed was she in her painting that she failed to hear Marco’s return. Only when he gave an exclamation of horror from the stairs did she swing round and confront him.
‘Silvio . . .?’ He was staring at her in bewilderment. ‘No, not Silvio. Then who – Carlo!’
Carla felt a lump in her throat as big as an egg as he came towards her with arms outstretched, then stopped midway between them, his expression changing from one of delight to one of puzzlement. ‘Carlo?’ he repeated, more doubtfully. She shook her head and the cap fell off, letting her blonde hair tumble free. ‘No, Carla! What on earth are you playing at, woman? For a minute I thought . . .’
‘You thought I was your old friend Carlo? Well, I am! You know me both as Carlo and Carla, Marco. I can keep the truth from you no longer. Please forgive me for not telling you sooner, but I was in no fit state at first and after that – well, the right moment never seemed to come.’
Although she was glad to have got it off her chest at last, Carla approached him warily, unsure how he would take the news. There was so much at stake that she held her breath in anticipation. Marco seemed thunderstruck, his dark eyes piercing her face so keenly that she flinched. There were several seconds of agonised suspense, when she had no idea what reaction to expect from him, but then his face broke into a broad grin and she exhaled the breath she had been holding in a long, relieved sigh.
‘Carla!’ Marco opened his arms wide to receive her. ‘No wonder I felt so close to you. Yet I was afraid. Elena broke my heart and I’d vowed not to let another woman get too close.’
She nestled against his warm bulk, pure relief overwhelming her. He lifted up her face and submitted it to long scrutiny, then nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I see the resemblance now. But I’m confused. Why did you dress as a boy in the first place?’
‘It’s a long story . . .’
‘We’ve all the time in the world!’
He drew her over to the truckle bed in the corner and they lay down on it together. As Carla told her tale from the beginning it felt more like a true confession than any she had made to a priest. Her absolution was Marco’s caressing hand on her breast and his sweet kiss, deepening with passion as the full impact of her womanliness made itself known to him. The long wait seemed suddenly worthwhile as she realised that all her secret desire for him was made known and that he returned it abundantly.
Soon she could feel the thrusting urgency of his erection through his hose and her longing made her groan aloud. Marco smiled knowingly and pulled down his clothes, letting her touch his rearing member. She fondled it delicately, marvelling at its warm strength, and meanwhile he was stripping her of her gown and underclothes, intent on laying her bare to his sight. When she was completely naked he exclaimed with pleasure at the sight of her small, tumid breasts with their rosy nipples taut with arousal.
‘To think that all this beauty was concealed beneath men’s clothes!’ he gasped. ‘If only you’d told me I would have stolen you away at once!’
‘You say that now, but I doubt you’d have been so bold at the time.’
He gave her a rueful grin. ‘You’re probably right. But now is the right time for us, my dear one. I have set up on my own and am beholden to no one. Best of all, my heart is fancy free – or was, until just a few minutes ago.’
‘Are you cross with me for awakening those instincts once again?’ she asked
cheekily, confident now of her own power over him.
He laughed. ‘How can a man be cross at getting a gift from the gods? How can he rant against heaven itself? It would be a sin, my darling, to refuse such exquisite pleasure as I know you can give me. And I can give you . . .’
His hands began to explore her then, softly at first but with increasing ardour as she returned the compliment, caressing his cock and balls with a light touch. Her pussy was soon slavering over him, filling up with love juice as he kissed and sucked at her tumid nipples and stroked her tingling buttocks. The desire she felt was stronger than ever, devoid of the old pain which she had come to associate with thoughts of Marco, for now it was sweetened with the hope of fulfilment.
‘Oh Marco, I thought this day would never come!’ she murmured.
‘Don’t think of the past,’ he advised her. ‘We are together now, and that’s all that matters.’
Passion surged up in him and he moved down to kiss her cunny, sending her off on new flights of exquisite joy. Her body was glowing with an energy she recognised as love, not merely sex. It warmed every hidden corner of her, turning her flesh into a molten mass of quivering ardour. To desire entirely without fear, to yield totally without resistance, was a new experience for Carla and she relished every second of it.
Marco was probing into her with his tongue, lapping up her juices as if he were dying of thirst, and making guttural noises of satisfaction in the process. She wanted to feel him inside her. There was a fierce contraction in her womb at the thought of it. Now he was dabbling inside her opening with his fingertip, rolling it around her wet entrance and producing the most delightful sensations. The urge to enclose his organ in her streaming vagina was unstoppable, yet she was torn between wanting more and enjoying what she already had. The tension made her squirm and buck her hips, urging him on.
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