All the boys, big and tall, babyfied and manly, ran to him and embraced him and clung to his arms as he made his inspection of the painting they had done by the long day.
The teacher waited in silence, giving the Master a humble bow.
Through the galleries we walked, the entire company, the teacher trailing behind.
The Master held out his hands, and it was a privilege to feel the touch of his cold white fingers, a privilege to catch a part of his long thick trailing red sleeves.
"Come, Amadeo, come with us."
I wanted one thing only, and it came soon enough.
They were sent off with the man who was to read Cicero. The Masters firm hands with their flashing fingernails turned me and directed me to his private rooms.
It was private here, the painted wooden doors at once bolted, the burning braziers scented with incense, perfumed smoke rising from the brass lamps. It was the soft pillows of the bed, a flower garden of stenciled and embroidered silk, floral satin, rich chenille, intricately patterned brocade. He pulled the scarlet bed curtains. The light made them transparent. Red and red and red. It was his color, he told me, as blue was to be mine.
In a universal tongue he wooed me, feeding me the images: "Your brown eyes are amber when the fire catches them," he whispered. "Oh, but they are lustrous and dark, two glossy mirrors in which I see myself even as they keep their secrets, these dark portals of a rich soul."
I was too lost in the frigid blue of his own eyes, and the smooth gleaming coral of his lips.
He lay with me, kissed me, pushing his fingers carefully and smoothly through my hair, never pulling a curl of it, and brought shivers from my scalp and from between my legs. His thumbs, so hard and cold, stroked my cheeks, my lips, my jaw so as to make the flesh quicken. Turning my head from right to left, he pressed his half-formed kisses with a dainty hunger to the inner shells of my ears.
I wonder if it was more what women feel. I thought it couldn't end. It became an agony of rapture, being caught in his hands, unable to escape, convulsing and twisting and feeling this ecstasy again and again and again.
---
He watched me as he spoke, and it seemed now and then I heard him clearly, though he had not moved his lips or made a sound.
I grew agitated. God, don't let me think of God. Be my God.
"Give me your mouth, give me your arms," I whispered. My hunger startled and delighted him.
He laughed softly as he answered me with more fragrant and harmless kisses. His warm breath came in a soft whistling flood against my groin.
"Amadeo, Amadeo, Amadeo," he said.
"What does this name mean, Master?" I asked. "Why do you give it to me?" I think I heard an old self in my voice, but maybe it was only this newborn princeling gilded and wrapped in fine goods that had chosen this soft respectful but nevertheless bold voice.
"Beloved of God," he said.
Oh, I couldn't bear to hear this. God, the inescapable God. I was troubled, panic-stricken.
He took my outstretched hand and bent my finger to point to a tiny winged infant etched in glittering beads on a worn square cushion that lay behind us. "Amadeo," he said, "beloved of the God of love."
He found the ticking watch in the heap of my clothes at bedside. He picked it up and smiled as he looked at it. He had not seen many of these at all. Most marvelous. They were expensive enough for Kings and Queens.
"You shall have everything you want," he said.
"Why?"
Again came his laughter in answer.
"For reddish locks such as these," he said caressing my hair, "for eyes of the deepest and most sympathetic brown. For skin like the fresh cream of the milk in the morning; for lips indistinguishable from the petals of a rose."