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  “Ciao, salve, hello, how are you?” They greeted her with warmth, twittering like cute chickens at Marcello who dutifully fingered their efforts and proclaimed them, bello, beautiful.

  Caprice and Marcello climbed the stairs to her house, a wondrous four-story affair left to her by her parents. The living room of the elegant house overlooked the lagoon on one side and San Giorgio Island on the other. They could still hear the old ladies from this height and their gaiety seemed to inspire Marcello, who caught Caprice in his arms. For one brief, delicious moment, their lips met and then she pushed herself away from him.

  She threw herself into a tapestry chair it had taken her mother seven years to complete. Marcello was swift to take first one foot into his hands, then the other, untying her shoes. His fingers worked magic on them and he gazed into her eyes, desperately.

  “You know I love you.”

  “This light is perfect,” she said and he shook his head. He began to strip his luxurious clothing. Her brown eyes never left him for a moment as he took off all his clothes. She ran her hands over the slashed leather doublet that revealed the rich tones of his emerald and crimson-colored camicia beneath it. She couldn’t wait to touch his naked body. She told herself day after day, her interest in him was purely professional, but now as his warm skin reacted to her touch, she knew it was more than that. She stood behind him, allowing her face to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. He had a different scent than Massimo. She always thought of milk and honey with Marcello…something much stronger emanated from Massimo.

  Marcello’s hand touched hers, their fingers entwining briefly. She felt him pressing his spectacular bottom into her belly and her hand left his to feel the sinewy muscle of his well-sculpted torso.

  She stopped at his pelvis and moved away, but not before she got a good look at his big, meaty cock, the head peeking out, pink and glistening from the foreskin. She swallowed hard. She dreamed of him every night and it was getting worse. She ran across the room, but he stopped her.

  “What am I to be paid?”

  She smiled. She had fashioned a career for herself as an honest courtesan, few knowing that she sank everything into paying models for her work. “Your usual fee,” she said.

  “I would like it now, please, Caprice.”

  His forthrightness impressed her. Yes, it was much better this way. She barely paused before continuing across the room. It was large and airy, filled with many antiques and beautiful pieces of furniture, none of which she was permitted to sell by the terms of her father’s will. In five years, at the age of thirty, she would then dispense of the items as she saw fit.

  Caprice didn’t want to think about that now. The inherited treasures bore little interest for her. In fact, she had covered most of them in drop cloths and pushed them aside to accommodate her passion, her art. She opened a desk drawer and removed a handful of zecchino, the Venetian ducat, and counted. She picked up one more coin and took it to Marcello.

  “Thank you.”

  He placed the coins in a leather pouch in his pocket and with that formality over took his assumed position, lying on the sofa on which Caprice’s mother had once forbade even well-healed, properly attired guests to recline.

  Marcello picked up a lute, and placed it strategically across his bare crotch as he laid on the blood-red fabric that draped the sofa.

  Caprice put a smock over her dress, threw the covering off her latest masterpiece and picked up her paintbrush, content with the shadows falling across her subject. She depicted him as near to life as she could, but in her work, the men became women. She hated to paint women, only beautiful men and this was her secret. She’d managed to get a few of Venice’s finest to pose for her. To her it seemed an innocent revenge since none was required to sleep with her, but for all the female friends she had seen suffer and left pregnant by their consorts, this was a pleasant retribution.

  Now, she chewed on the end of her paintbrush and imagined she was the great painter, Titian. Recently, she and Geovanna had sneaked into Titian’s great studio, La Sanseria, to watch the great master paint. Nobody matched Titian’s eye for color and this was where Caprice felt she could excel in her own right. She had met another man, Edouard, a French artist who had taught her the new way of gouache.

  She studied his efforts and felt it had been worth every zecchino she’d paid Edouard to master this method. He, in turn, secured Caprice her first professional commission for his sister.

  Caprice had started with a tempera base, applied an oil paint over this, which gave a wonderful depth and richness to her work. She hummed as she worked on the fine detail of the curved arm of the sofa and felt happier than she had in weeks.

  “I love you,” Marcello said again, and she ignored him.

  He knew better than to speak, but in truth, she enjoyed hearing him say these words. She was worried that she, too, loved him, but that would need to be dealt with later.

  The dark tones she had applied to her rendition of the sofa had lightened as they dried, just as her teacher had promised. She sat back and admired her efforts. She felt she was almost channeling Titian when she laid down her brush and, just as he did, used her fingertips to complete the final touches to her work.

  Her house was drifting into darkness when she looked up and found Marcello’s gaze on her face.

  “It’s finished, isn’t it?” he asked.

  She couldn’t speak. She just sat back and felt the tension streaking up her spine to her neck.

  “May I look?”

  Caprice waited.

  Marcello lay down the lute and moved toward her. “That’s me?” he laughed.

  Caprice shrugged.

  “I have breasts like this?” He leaned in closer to study the work. “It’s beautiful, Caprice.” His hand moved to her neck as if he, instinctively, knew she needed relief. “However, it’s not finished until you sign it.”

  Caprice laughed, a genuine, joyous sound that also made Marcello laugh.

  He handed her a grimy cloth dangling from a chair and she wiped the paints from her fingers.

  She picked up her brush again and paused. Now or never. This was the moment she’d been waiting for and she took a deep breath before signing, Capriccio.

  Marcello gaped. “Capriccio?”

  “My teacher tells me I can make more money if they think I am a man.”

  “How will you get away with that?”

  “By sending my lover there with the finished work.”

  “Your lover?” Marcello gazed down at her now, his eyes alive in the increasing darkness.

  She gazed up at him and he took her hand.

  They’d waited weeks for this moment.

  In the quiet sumptuousness of her boudoir, Caprice was aware of the slapping of boats out on the lagoon, light coming from the just-lit streetlamps and the intensity of Marcello’s breathing.

  “I should wash my hands,” she murmured, but he shook his head.

  “No, I want to make love to the artist and the woman.” His hands tore the smock from her body, his face moving to her throat and chest.

  “Do you know how often I have studied this neckline and wanted nothing more than to lick it?” he asked her.

  She sighed at the sensation of his lips on her breasts, which seemed to swell at his slightest touch.

  “Look at that,” he breathed. “They like me.”

  He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

  Caprice allowed him to remove her stockings, which he rolled down her feet. She had imagined this moment so many times, but had not expected the astonishing heat between them. She had fancied Marcello to be a quiet, passive lover, not the raging tiger who moved up and kissed her with such authority and grace. She found her legs opening up to him and, in spite of the layers of clothing she still wore, felt his fingers burning into her.

  Marcello struggled to undress her, removing her many petticoats. As she finally lay in a chemise and pantaloons, she cried out when he lay on top of her, hi
s rigid cock between them. She had never begged a man to fuck her before, never needed a man inside her so badly. She had never been ready without much preparation, and now, he drew down her pantaloons, his tongue driving her wild.

  He tore them to shreds in his haste to taste her. She didn’t care. She shrieked when his tongue touched her inner folds and wept when it actually moved inside her sopping pussy.

  “Oh God, fuck me,” she cried out, but Marcello was now in charge. Oh, he was punishing her, for sure. He took off her camisole, leaving her jewels on her neck.

  “I love you, my lady,” he said, rewarding her with his hard, driving cock, at last.

  Caprice held his ass in her hands as he plunged into her repeatedly. They rocked together, pushing and pulling at one another, then she felt the explosion in her head.

  Marcello came with a cry, his hands holding her head to him when the door to her room flew open.

  “What’s this?”

  Marcello, still imbedded inside Caprice, twisted around to look.

  “Buono sera, good evening, Massimo,” Caprice said, unable to keep the smug satisfaction from her voice.

  “It’s not a good evening.” Massimo swept into the room in fury.

  Marcello raised himself up on one arm, attempting to remove himself from Caprice, whose legs wrapped around him, keeping him in place.

  “I know, I told you I would wait, but he’s so beautiful, I couldn’t help myself.” She grinned.

  Marcello gaped at her. “You are my brother’s lover?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “We are to share you?”

  “Why not?” she asked, gazing into his handsome face. “I love you.”

  “Now, she tells me.” Marcello tried to move away from her, but she still held him with her legs.

  “Marcello, I can give you everything you want. Both of you.” As if to prove her point, she reached toward Massimo, who was already stripping his doublet and camicia from his body. “Hurry,” she breathed as she felt Marcello hardening inside her again. “Hurry, please.”

  Massimo removed everything as Marcello pulled out of Caprice, who held his face in her hands. They moved over on the bed, allowing room for Massimo. Marcello, a jealous look on his face, watched as Massimo captured one of Caprice’s nipples in his mouth. Without saying a word, Massimo nudged him toward her other breast and Caprice cried out when she felt two mouths working on her. There was a brief moment of anger when both men found their fingers moving down to her pussy, but Marcello allowed his brother to stroke her and resumed sucking and licking the pert breast in his fingers.

  Caprice couldn’t believe two men were making love to her, although this had long been her wish, to share the twins, keeping them for her own. She was in shock when Massimo’s face moved past her pussy and to her ass. Nobody had ever touched her there before.

  “Molto bene, very good,” Marcello whispered and his mouth moved to her waiting pussy, making contact with her quivering clit.

  She came so hard and so fast it shocked them all. She had never in her life had a man lick her to an orgasm and the combination of two tongues on her sent her over the edge.

  “I think Caprice needs two men to fuck her,” Marcello said. “One is not enough.”

  “You are right.” Massimo pushed his brother out of the way. “Right now, our little whore is mine.”

  He took her with his customary impatience and Caprice raised her face to Marcello, holding his cock in her hand as Massimo fucked her. Marcello kissed her and the next thing she knew, Massimo rolled underneath her so that she was riding him and Marcello’s face moved to her breasts again. She loved fucking one man, kissing another.

  For hours, the three new lovers played. At one point, they collapsed on the bed.

  “I’m hungry,” Caprice said.

  “No, not anymore, I can’t,” Massimo moaned.

  “Not for sex. I’m hungry for food.”

  “I’m still hungry for you, Caprice,” Marcello whispered, and as Massimo slumbered, his face moved between her hungry, open thighs.

  Caprice believed she had just died and gone to heaven.

  Chapter Three

  Making love with Marcello felt like being in a strong, warm ocean current that swept her away and yet, she wanted to be swept away. By contrast, Massimo, the more dominant of the Visconti twins, made love to her as if he was proving a point, over and over again. In the small hours of the morning, Caprice found herself awakening to lips on her breasts, dueling tongues at her throat… She shook the thought from her head and tried to focus on what the Countess D’Agostino was saying.

  They stood now, in front of Capriccio’s portrait as Caprice watched the recently married Frenchwoman’s attempts to describe what she saw in the piece to Marcello. It was not that she was stupid. Far from it. She was entirely beautiful and charming and understood the final work to be exquisite, but fumbled when trying to explain the feelings it evoked.

  “I feel as though I know her, that we yearn for the same things.” She glanced at Caprice. “Do you think me foolish?”

  “Not at all.” Caprice reached a languid hand toward the three-tiered silver serving dish and selected another piece of portingale. She could not believe the sweetness of the fruit and wondered if her new state of affairs contributed to her feeling of well-being.

  Though Massimo was the more assertive twin, Caprice knew Marcello was the perfect representative for the artist in handling the client. With a gentle determination that was so winning, Marcello threw out a high price, which she paid, and ordered a second piece.

  “I want a companion piece, sunrise, bright yellows…” Countess D’Agostino paused. “Ah, and tell your artist friend I want the same model.” She handed several more coins to Marcello who glanced at Caprice with a slight incline of his head.

  Caprice, who had been thoroughly enjoying the tempting fruits put before her, was reluctant to leave. All she had at home were a few withered figs.

  “Do you think Capriccio will do this for me?” the Countess asked Marcello.

  “I am certain he can be persuaded,” Marcello replied.

  “And this model, can she be…persuaded to pose again?”

  “I believe so.” Marcello grinned at Caprice when the Countess leaned over to study her new acquisition once more.

  “You must bring Capriccio here to meet me,” the Countess declared. “My brother Edouard told me he was talented, but he is so much more. Tell me, is your cousin terribly handsome?”

  Caprice, who posed as Capriccio’s cousin, scooped a few raspberries into her fingers, another new delicacy she had fallen in love with, and sighed. “My cousin is such a recluse. All he does is paint and sleep.”

  “Really? How…quaint!” the Countess’s cheeks blossomed pink.

  Caprice felt her own cheeks flame. The Countess was falling in love with the artist! “He will be so happy to know you understand and appreciate his work.” Caprice stood finally and extended her hand to the Countess.

  “Please, please talk to him. Just a little tea. I want to meet him.”

  Under the circumstances, she felt it was impossible to rebuff her again so Caprice demurred. “I will see what I can do.”

  “You didn’t!” Geovanna, sitting beside her, sipped a cup of coffee, a new beverage available, only recently, thanks to Geovanna’s consort, Baldovino, who brought the beans home from a voyage to Yemen. “You told her you’d try?”

  “With the money she’s paying me…him…us…I couldn’t say no.”

  “Food must have been involved,” Geovanna said. “If you would just learn to cook, you would not be seduced so easily into making such rash promises.”

  Caprice would have been offended if this statement wasn’t true. With as much dignity as she could muster, she picked up the coffee cup on her paint palette and scrutinized it. Six Raffaellesco Deruta cups arrived, by messenger, hours after Caprice and Marcello had returned home. Geovanna had arrived, bringing her gift of the coffee and
now, Caprice realized, the delicate porcelain cups with finely detailed dragons and ships were miniature works of art. She raised the cup to look at the base. Raphael. She sipped the warm, slightly bitter liquid and smiled at Marcello. “You are in perfect position,” she said and he grunted.

  “I recall you saying this over an hour ago.”

  She laughed and a knock on the door downstairs interrupted them. Caprice moved to the windows overlooking the square. “Oh no,” she groaned. “Geovanna. Quick. You must strip. She must never know Marcello is my model. Marcello, you must dress.” She threw his clothes at him and he scurried to the bedroom.

  Caprice took her time going downstairs and opened her door to find the Countess wobbling on thirty-inch high chopines made of red velvet on wooden platforms. They were the most beautiful shoes Caprice had ever seen. A manservant who helped her up the stairs, stood outside the door to the living room as the Countess raced toward the model reclining on the sofa.

  “Oh!” her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, but she looks nothing like…” She looked at the canvas mounted on the easel and her gaze flicked back and forth between the model and the portrait. “He is a genius,” she said at last. “He makes her look very beautiful.”

  Geovanna’s face darkened, her expression turned murderous.

  The Countess gasped. “Oh! He is here!”

  “He…ah…er…he is very shy,” Caprice said, keeping her voice low in spite of her sudden panic. She did not want her career over before it had even begun. She sent out a fervent prayer to the angels and goddesses of artists everywhere for Massimo not to blunder in and make a mess of it all.

  “Oh, he likes my coffee cups.” The Countess’s eyes shone with happiness.

  “Very much,” Caprice assured.