Page 2 of Fiorenzo

Fiore took more than a little pride in his cabin. The scarlet curtains in the porthole window—as broad in diameter as the span of Fiore’s arms and well below the water-line, as if there remained any hopes that theKingfishercould ever return to sea—precisely matched his own scarlet sash. Deck prisms set into its ceiling, original to the ship, gave ample light by day. By night, he had hanging lanterns scavenged from scuttled gondole, their angles softened by curling brass laurel leaves. His own sketches adorned the walls; peculiar corners of Halcyon beneath bridges and behind staircases, alongside figures and portraits of strangers and bed-fellows.

The cabin’s most prominent feature was the bed, for reasons beyond even Fiore’s profession. He’d cobbled it together out of the remnants of a whaleboat snapped in half by leviathan’s jaws and deemed beyond repair, fit only for scrap. While he couldn’t make it seaworthy again, he could remove what remained of its keel and all the planks of its hull below the water-line and use them to fill in the jagged gaps until he had what seemed like the prow of a whaleboat sailing through the floorboards and out of his wall into the center of his room. A dozen or so cross-beams sufficed to support a mattress he’d sewn into its peculiar shape.

Fiore could glean little of what the bauta thought of this chamber at first glance. But even beneath the mask and cloak, something in the gentleman’s stance as he strode in at Fiore’s invitation, how he turned his head to look about at all its features, and the way he laid a reverent hand on the bed’s gunwales and slid his fingers up towards its prow, made Fiore think he was at least somewhat impressed.

“Now,” Fiore said, shutting the door behind them with a soft thud. “How would you like me?”

They couldn’t kiss if the gentleman wished to keep his mask, but he might have Fiore on his knees before him or bent over to take him from behind. Some gentlemen—more than most folks might expect and much more in line with Fiore’s own preferences—wished to have Fiore inside them, and perhaps this gentleman would prove of that sort.

The gentleman hesitated. “I’m afraid you may find it strange.”

Fiore doubted he would. He had a whole sea-chest of treasures ready for gentlemen who wanted him to bind, gag, switch, or flog them. To the particular gentleman standing before him tonight, he said, “Try me.”

Again the gentleman hesitated. “I would like to watch you.”

Fiore raised his brows. “Watch me as I…?”

“Pleasure yourself.”

Easily enough done. And, as Fiore had predicted, far less strange than the gentleman supposed. He smiled. “As you wish.”

A hard swallow travelled down the gentleman’s slender throat.

If Fiore had read the gentleman correctly, he seemed the sort who enjoyed a bit of a tease. To that end, Fiore withdrew out of arms’ reach and set his fingers to work unwinding the scarlet sash from around his waist. Some fellows liked to keep the sash as a token. Fiore charged more for that; about double the cost of its replacement. Tonight he folded it over his arms, letting the scarlet fabric flow smoothly over the back of his hands, before laying it aside across the bow of his bed for the gentleman to peruse as he wished.

The gentleman spared the sash a lingering glance. Then his dark gaze flicked back to meet Fiore’s own.

Fiore bit back a knowing smirk. His fingertips fell to the buttons fastening the knees of his breeches. Then they arose to address the fall-front. This was the part that seemed to draw the interest of most fellows, and the bauta proved no exception. Fewer buttons than the waistcoat, though Fiore found a way to draw them out almost as long.

The breeches joined the sash on the bed. Their loss offered a mere glimpse of his prize before the hem of his shirt fell into place like a demure linen curtain.

Fiore bent to unfasten the garters of his hose in a manner which he knew elongated his whole frame. Some gentlemen liked to claim these as souvenirs as well, and again, Fiore felt willing enough to let them, for a price. The bauta made no mention of it, though if his hungry gaze were anything to go by, he felt sorely tempted. And if Fiore’s fingertips did rather more caressing of his own calves than necessity demanded, the gentleman didn’t seem to mind in the least.

Garters and hose tossed together on the bed. And at long last he drew his shirt over his head, hiding the gentleman from his view for a mere instant.

When he threw the shirt aside and met the bauta’s gaze again, the sheer intensity of the longing in the stare behind the mask seemed ready to devour him.

A grin stole over Fiore’s face. He had the gentleman in the palm of his hand, without laying a single finger on him.

Still smiling, Fiore performed a quick turn for the gentleman. Not half so elegant as a ballerino before the opera, perhaps, but graceful nonetheless and offering what he’d been told was a magnificent view. Though he had no looking-glass of his own, many of the fellows who hired him had declaimed the beauty of his behind. Several—for Fiore worked with many artists, some as a courtesan and still more as a model—had rendered it in pencil, ink, paint, or sculpture. He wasn’t vain enough to ask to keep any of the resulting artworks, but he did appreciate the opportunity to see himself from another angle.

“Does this meet with your approval, signore?” Fiore asked, tossing a coy glance over his shoulder.

While Fiore couldn’t see anything of the gentleman’s face beyond the dark and compelling eyes, he saw plain how the whole shadowed frame had gone rigid, and it was with a certain hoarse quality that the gentleman replied, “Indeed.”

Which Fiore found rather more inspiring than he’d anticipated.

And so, without further ado, he crept onto his bed and knelt atop the counterpane to face the gentleman at the prow.

Fiore smoothed his palms over the tops of his thighs as he settled into his performing posture. There was something about the bauta’s evident desire for him that provoked an answering desire within him—perhaps a touch of narcissism on his own part, but so be it. Either way it meant that as he trailed his fingertips down the center of his own bare chest and over his navel through the soft nest of hair surrounding his cock, he was already at half-mast.

The gentleman’s hand clenched on the prow. The long and elegant fingers within his black glove attracted Fiore’s notice. He imagined how their silken grasp would feel around his prick. Another time, perhaps.

For tonight he had only his own hands.

A few slow strokes sufficed to bring him to a full stand beneath the bauta’s compelling gaze. Fiore wondered if the gentleman would remark on his scars. The worst of them remained hidden by the nest of dark hair surrounding his stone-purse. The one which sliced up the left side of the mast to split his foreskin, however, refused to be hidden.

The gentleman’s gaze lingered on the scar. Or perhaps he merely appreciated Fiore’s proud stand. Regardless, he said nothing of either; just clenched and unclenched his hands against the boat’s prow. Though Fiore noted a hitch in the gentleman’s breath as he gave his cock a swift jerk.

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