Page 73 of Just for a Taste

The lidocaine had faded, but my fingers were number than ever. All of his words and even my own life felt fake right now. The incest, affairs, and secrecy all just seemed like more research into the distant past. But as soon as I placed my hand on his wrist, I could not deny that a racing pulse was coursing through it.

I remained silent, and he continued, “Unlike myself, Enzo Armando had the luxury of living in anonymity throughout his childhood. My father needed an heir, and despite living in our household, Basilio would not suffice. His own mother was a known adulteress, just as his father was a known philanderer. Speculation of his true parentage was a public pastime, and him being taken under my father’s wing was the charity work of a demonstrably pious man. My father raised us both in the Vatican, after all, rather than Florence.

“As I’m certain you’ve discerned, both Basilio and I were mere tools for him—pawns in the game of noble politics. I never once questioned whether he loved me, as I knew he did not. An echo, probably, to his own upbringing. Frankly, I don’t give a shit why he is cruel, and I never have. Love and joy were vague, foreign concepts to me, and nothing to really aspire for. Sometimes I forcefully emulated them, as with Serafina, but they were never true. Beauty and knowledge, on the other hand, were the best aspirations. I stopped trying to play the game early on—perhaps out of an inability to do so, and perhaps out of stubbornness. Perhaps out of spite for being birthed with all these aberrations, then being forced to waste the short life I was granted.”

He took a slow, deep breath, and I knew by the quickening of his pulse beneath my fingertips this was the part he dreaded sharing most.

“For many years, the discipline—a seven-corded whip typically meant for religious self-flagellation—was the punishment of choice for my refusal to play along. The sin of sloth was usually cited. As it became evident that Basilio was an especially skillful puppet master in our preteen years, envy was the preferred rationale. My father had hope in me for a moment when it finally clicked. I discovered itwasquite easy to say the correct thing at the correct moment, or turn people against one another with the simple power of knowledge. So many lovely symphonies I was able to attend! The intoxicating wine tastings, and the pleasure of social power. Then the sin attributed to my whippings became gluttony and greed, as I only bothered using social manipulation for my own Machiavellian gains. It got boring after that, you see, once I realized music could be listened to and chocolate could be eaten alone in my room, away from the annoyance of it all. My last few whippings were for wrath, and those were the ones that weren’t stitched. I hope you never learn why those were given, or what I am still capable of. It was only a few occasions before my father decided it was far easier to groom Basilio into his heir than to domesticate me.”

I clenched my fists and forced myself to stay still. Right now was not the time to make this about me, no matter how much I wanted to throw myself onto him and embrace him. I must have done a good job at concealing this, or else Zeno pretended not to notice, for his voice did not falter when he spoke.

“Shortly after that, I turned to religion for some sort of happiness, but of course, it brought nothing. I do not think I will ever see Heaven, you see, with what I truly am. What, then, would be the point of a life of asceticism in the priesthood, especially when it’s full of politics as well? Sometimes I still prayed when I was able to convince myself that it had a purpose, that He could bring me happiness.” He slowly shifted away from me, pulling his hand back into his chest.

The eyes staring into me belonged to a being of strange contradictions. A scared child and a jaded old man. A blazing flame and frozen solid ice. An angel and a devil.

When Zeno spoke again, his voice wavered and cracked in a way I had never heard before.

“That’s why I started praying again, Cora. Because when I found you, all of this suffering made sense finally. Every lash, every tear I tried so hard to shed, and even my own mortality. It was finally all worth it when I heard you laugh, when you ran your fingers through my hair, and when I drank from you the first time. I am aware I sound crazy, I am aware Iamcrazy, but it’s the horrible truth. You are my sanctitude.”

His voice had risen, a crescendo of volume and passion. My own was soft and gentle.

“I know, Zeno. I’ve always known, and it doesn’t scare me.”

“It should. It scares me. Before you, I’ve never wanted, or needed, or . . .” he trailed off and averted his gaze from me, trembling slightly. He shook his head as though to refuse the rest of the sentence, then, with some strange resolve relaxing his features, took in a heavy breath and forced it out. “Or loved.”

How strange it was to have love declared to me in such a tone of guilt and defeat. How I knew such a thing could only come from this anomalous man, who had somehow managed to understand and treasure the entirety of my being. Who I cherished speaking with every day, who I trusted more than anyone, and who I wanted to share every moment and thought with.

Of course the darkness didn’t matter. Of course the tragedy and isolation associated with living with such a man were irrelevant. Of course I didn’t care that he would die decades before me.

I moved so I was sitting in his lap, my forehead pressed against his. I slid my hands beneath his shirt, and embraced him with my skin flush against his scars. “I love you, Zeno.”

He embraced me tighter and pulled my head into the crook between his neck and shoulder. I wouldn’t tell him that despite his effort to hide them, I still felt his tears roll onto my cheek.

“I love you too,” he said. “I have for so long.”

I gently peeled him from me. His cheeks still felt sticky when I kissed him, but his lips tasted as sweet as ever.

He cupped my cheek with one hand and put his other on the small of my back. In turn, I grasped the back of his shirt, but when Zeno pulled away to catch some air, I became more impatient. The warmth that emanated through his shirt wasn’t enough. I wanted to feel the closeness of skin on skin.

I slid my hands beneath the fabric, and once they reached the ridges of scars beneath his shoulder blades, he tensed.

We’ve been through this, I said by catching his bottom lip in mine.I love you regardless.

He kissed me harder and faster. His hands traveled down my body and found a comfortable spot on my waist. It was all the leverage he needed to press my hips against his and make me feel impatient in another way entirely. I became more liberal with my hands and lightly bit his lip.

Zeno pulled away, grazed his teeth along my earlobe, and sent a shiver along my spine as he whispered, “You’re a wicked little thing,mia passerotta. How pure and chaste I promised to be with you, yet here you are, making me do this again.”

“I have no clue what you mean,” I whispered back with a grin. “Why don’t you show me?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Chapter 39: Messa di voce

Snap.

“Ugh.”

Still seated on the floor, I straightened out my legs and tapped my ankles several times to restore a bit of blood flow to them. A pang of pins and needles rewarded my efforts, and I resigned myself to sitting on the ground a while longer.

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