Communion Blood (58 page)

He kissed the curve of her neck, the froth of corsage lace against his cheek, and the emerald-and-diamond bauble of her earring. “No man should ever be unkind to you, Giorgianna.”

Her sigh was deep and heart-felt. “If only that were true,” she said, shifting in the curve of his arms so that she could kiss his mouth more easily. The kiss lasted a long time, going from consoling to something more urgent, more carnal. As she broke away from him, she stared into his dark, compelling eyes. “One final time, Conte. I do not want to part without loving you one last time.”

“Nor I.” He answered her kiss with his own; one that summoned up the passion of her music and the desolation of her heart. With his arms around her, slowly he unfastened her lacings and slowly he slid the shiny taffeta off her soft, rounded shoulders; he held the fabric in one hand as he caressed her neck and back with the other as she sighed in anticipation. Her stiff corset held her opulent body rigidly, but he released the laces on that, too, all the while continuing their evolving kisses. Only when she was naked to the waist did he step back. “I will miss you, Giorgianna.”

“You will miss my body, you mean?” She was trying to coquette now, but sadness took all the mirth from her.

“Yes, for it is part of you. I will miss your laughter and your singing and your art. I will miss the smell of your perfume and the touch of your hand.” He let her clothes fall over a low stool. “I will miss the silences we have had.”

“Oh, Conte,” she whispered. “How good you are. You are never clumsy. You always know what I seek.” Her hands came to rest on his shoulders. “There is one thing I would want from you, one thing I have not had.”

Ragoczy shook his head. “As much as I may do, I have done already.”

“Not that. I have a husband for that,” she said, almost playfully. “You have not undressed for me, though. Before you go, I would like to see you naked, just once. Please. I want to have that for a memory.”

He did not respond at once. “I have many scars, dolcina. I fear they would distress you.”

“Scars?” She was perplexed. “Are they so horrible?”

“Well, they are very large, very wide,” he said, holding her eyes with his own. “You might be repelled by them.”

Her laughter was a bit too bright, but she did not stop. “What man reaches twenty without a scar or two.” She touched his shoulder. “You see my flesh. This one time let me see yours.” Her plea seemed to have been set to music for it worked upon him as if it were more than words.

He shrugged a little as he considered her request. “Why not, if it would please you?” His expression was affable; concern lurked in his eyes, so he looked away from her in order to spare her any distress. “But I must warn you that they are severe.” He loosened his neckbands and began to unfasten the frogs of his justaucorps; she batted his hands away.

“No. Let me. I have wanted to do this for ... for ages.” She took over his task, working the frogs from their fastenings. When she had opened the justaucorps, she started on the small ruby studs closing his waistcoat. These were a bit harder-going, and it took her a litde longer to undo them all. Then she was down to the camisa. “No sign of sweat, and on such a hot day.”

“I regret, dolcina,” he said as she took hold of the ties holding his camisa closed, “that those of my blood do not sweat—or weep.” He stood very still as she tugged his camisa open and began to slide it down his arms. Then she loosened his small-clothes, exposing the whole of his torso.

“Oh,” she exclaimed in a small voice as she saw the wide swath of

white tissue stretching from the base of his breastbone to the bottom of his pelvis. She crossed herself. “God and San Egidio!”

“I said they were bad,” he reminded her as gently as he could. “If you find them too repulsive—”

“Yes,” she said distantly. “But I had no
idea...
These are ... they
are...”

Ragoczy met her gaze. “They are from old wounds—very old.” They were the last scars his body had acquired, from his execution by disemboweling.

“But, Dio mio, Conte
...”
She struggled to find words to express what she saw. “No wonder you do not often go naked.”

He saw the distress she felt; he pulled up his breeches and closed his camisa. “There. You need not look at them again.”

“No,” she said, pulling his hands away and then reaching to the small of her back to unfasten her skirts and petticoats. “No, I want to touch you, all of you, and your scars.” She gave a sudden giggle. “No
wonder
you cannot do the act of men.”

Although the scars had less to do with it than his undead nature, he echoed, “No wonder.”

“How long have you—” She stopped herself. “Forgive me, Conte. I should not ask.”

“A very, very long time. I was ... quite young when it happened.” He said it calmly, no lingering trace of dismay, and this seemed to reassure her.

“Oh.” She stared again. “They look almost.. . fatal.” Her fascination was intense. “How could you live through such wounds?”

He was tempted to tell her that he did not survive them, but that would impose knowledge on her she had sought to avoid, so all he said was to repeat, “It was a very, very long time ago.”

She looked at his face once more, then flung herself into his embrace. “Appalling,” she exclaimed. “You have endured so much, Conte.”

He held her as if sheltering her from a storm. “Everyone has much to endure,” he whispered as he began to kiss her again.

“Oh yes, oh yes,” she answered. “Everyone.” She knelt down before him and began to stroke his scars, her face rapt. Occasionally

she touched his penis, and once she licked it, watching to see if there was any response in his flesh; she circled his flaccid organ with her hand, squeezing as if to force it to stiffen, and when this did not happen she resumed her attentions to his scars, although she continued to glance from time to time to discover if he was reciprocating her excitement with his own. She rubbed the head of his penis against her breasts, and fondled him with a determination that puzzled him. When she made a gesture of frustration, he touched her hair.

“Giorgianna,” he said tenderly, “dolcina, I have told you that I cannot take pleasure in that way; believe this. It is I who should be giving pleasure to you.”

She stared up at him, her eyes dazed. “But you have given me so much. I thought that I should do as much for you.”

He lifted her to her feet. “Dolcina, I have pleasure in your pleasure. As you are fulfilled, so am I.” He took her face in his hands, looking deeply into her eyes; there was excitement there, and something else: regret? grief? chagrin?—he could not tell. “If you would let me love you, I will be amply rewarded.”

There was the sound of a slamming door a room or two away. Both of them looked up, startled out of their splendid privacy.

“It’s the servants. Packing.” She laughed a little breathlessly. “How good you are,” she said. “If it is what you want, then love me. Love me.”

He sensed her desperation as he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, her throat, her bosom; her response was rapid, febrile. As he bent to take her nipple in his mouth, she cried aloud, her head flung back, her whole body quivering. She showed her excitement in a number of ways that were new to him, in giggles and sighs and purrs. This was a greater arousal than any she had shown before, and for a moment it troubled him. Then he was caught up in her frenzy as it grew with every kiss, every touch he squandered indulgently upon her; as he slipped his hand into the apex of her thighs, she achieved her release with high, clear sounds like the calls of birds tossed on the wind. Her spasms were so ecstatic that she nearly knocked them from their feet as she held his head pressed to her throat.

“What did you do to me?” She blinked as if she had been wakened from sleep. “I have never felt anything so ... so
complete.”

He kissed the comer of her mouth. “You were exquisite, bella mia dolcina.” The ephemeral rapture was fading but enough of it remained to intoxicate him.

“How do you know what I want? How do you know when to dc it?” She gave him a hug that was almost playful.

“I know from you,” he said, no longer caught up in her passion.

“Was it because this is the last time?” she asked, sadness returning to her voice. She moved out of his arms, her face averted. “You do not need to console me. I understand, better than you know. There will be nothing more between us.” Looking down at the tangled pile of their clothing she said, “Gran’ Dio, what will the servants say?”

“If I help you dress, they will say nothing,” Ragoczy replied; she was pulling away from him as surely as if she had placed a screen between them.

“If we hurry,” she agreed as she reached for her petticoats.

Ragoczy left the palazzo half an hour later, as impeccably dressed as if he had just come from the hands of his manservant. He left by the front door, going quickly to the stable one street away where his horse waited. He was preoccupied with his thoughts and so did not notice Giorgianna leave by the side-door.

There was a sedan-chair waiting for her, one with curtained windows. The bearers took her up and carried her to the Gesu, where three priests received her; she had covered her head with a lace- edged shawl but otherwise was in the same clothes as those she had worn when she received Ragoczy. She was taken to a small study near the vestry and told to wait inside.

“You would do well to occupy your time in prayer,” advised the tallest of the priests.

“Of course,” said Giorgianna, going through the door into the stuffy chamber. There was a writing table with a Savonarola chair behind it, and a stool in front of it; she sat on the stool, folded her hands and did her best to look pious when she was actually frightened.

Some while later the door opened and the three priests entered the study, going behind the writing table. One of them—the oldest—

took the chair and took a sheet of vellum from the table drawer, then set a quill and a standish out.

“Signora Marchesa,” the shortest of the three said. “Have you done as we have ordered you?”

“I have tried, Padre,” she said, barely able to keep from shaking.

“You spent time with Ragoczy da San-Germain as we ordered you to do?” the oldest demanded.

“This very afternoon. Not two hours gone, Padre,” she answered; the vein in her neck revealed the speed of her pulse. “I did my best to rouse him, as you told me I must do. I could not do it.” She saw the skeptical expressions and hurried on. “I am not inexperienced in these things, Padre. I used all the skill I have, but he could not stiffen.”

“He had no desire,” said the tallest.

“He had desire enough to make love to me without union,” she responded shortly. “He is a passionate man. But he does
not... he cannot..
. He is impotent. He does
not...
rise.” This last was difficult for her to say. “He is as generous a lover as any I have known, but he has never done the act that generates life in the womb.” Her face was burning now, and her chin was up. “After what I have seen, I do not think that he can.”

“What have you seen?” asked the oldest. “And remember, your salvation is lost if you he to us.”

Giorgianna nodded and crossed herself. “Then God knows I tell you truth: the Conte is badly scarred. Very badly. I have never seen anything so hideous on a living man.” She swallowed hard. “From the base of his ribs, all down his abdomen, and across it from one side to the other, he is scarred. I tried all that I know, but I could not stir his manhood to life. After seeing his scars I do not believe he can be made erect.”

The three priests leaned together and whispered in Latin. Finally the shortest one looked at Giorgianna again. “What did you do to try to waken him?”

“Please.” Giorgianna shook her head. “Must I say?”

“This is for the sake of your soul, Marchesa.” The oldest priest

pointed to her. “If you would save yourself from the Sin of Eva, yot must tell us.”

She huddled down on the stool; she felt smirched and belittled, but she answered. “I touched him, in many ways. I stroked him, squeezed him. I used my hands
and...
and my mouth to try to stir him. There was not so much as a twitch. A eunuch would have more life in him . .. there.” Her face was scarlet and she was sweating; she could smell the odor of her body and it disgusted her.

“But were you sufficiently ardent?” asked the tallest. “Did you do your work with a will?” He flicked his tongue over his dry lips. “Did you offer yourself with hunger?”

“Yes. Yes!” she responded, despising herself for saying so much. “I offered myself as eagerly as a whore on the Via San Giacopo.”

“You were wanton?” the oldest inquired, making the word filthy as he wrote on the sheet of vellum in front of him. “You plied yourself in a way to fire a man’s deviltry?” He held the quill poised.

‘Tes,” she answered, her voice dropping to a near-whisper.

“Were you, perhaps, too forward?” asked the shortest. “Did you distress him with your sluttishness?”

“He did not kiss me as if he were distressed,” she said, wanting to be gone from this place, from Roma, from the world.

“Then he
did
kiss you,” said the tallest. “How many times?”

“I did not count them, Padre. Many times. And I kissed him.” She hated them for making her last time with Ragoczy a thing of depravity rather than apolaustic gratification.

“You encouraged him?” the oldest persisted.

“Yes.” She did not want to admit how much she desired him, or how great her culmination and transports had been, for that would cheapen them forever.

“And he was captivated by your charms?” The oldest priest was watching her from the tail of his eye.

“He seemed to be,” she said. “He caressed
me...”
She almost said
tenderly
but that would have revealed too much. “He caressed me fervently.”

“You made no protestation,” said the shortest.

“No. You said I was to excite him. I did all that I know to do from

the times I have been with him, the things that have always brought the greatest fulfillment to us both, as much as he has fulfillment. He has never insisted I do anything that does not gratify me. If I had refused him, he would have done no more to me. He is not one to demand more than I am inclined to give.” As soon as she said it, she wanted to take it back; she had said too much, exposing their intimacy to this condemning scrutiny.