The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [89]
“But it’s so real!” Awa peered closer. “What is that gold circle floating behind your head?”
“I think it’s about time to eat,” said Manuel, reluctant to own up to artistically rendering himself in a similar fashion to what he did for the men he had struck down on the Lombardy battlefields, even if he had nominally done the painting as one of Saint Luke—it would take too long to explain, anyway.
That night, after a dinner that might have been awkward even without the revelation that the nun in filthy bandages was actually a Moor, and the arrival of a rather drunk Monique midway through, and the eventual disclosure that Manuel had not actually earned very much money at all, the artist and his wife finally escaped their guests and household, closing the door to their bedchamber with the finality of masons sealing a crypt. Then they fucked with far more passion than they had been able to raise over the last hour of entertaining, Katharina only giving her husband enough time to rinse his business before kneeling before him, kissing his stomach as she worked his member with a practiced hand. Manuel sighed, more content than he had been in ages, and then she took him in her mouth and he tousled her hair, groaning happily.
“Did you miss me?” Katharina asked, dropping him from her mouth and scooting backwards just as he reached the edge of the slope upon which there is no purchase. He teetered, clenching the muscles he did not know the names of, and the pressure relaxed. He scowled happily at his wife, who had gotten to her feet and was quickly undressing.
“Like a leper misses his limbs,” said Manuel with a bow, pulling his trousers the rest of the way down. He had washed and changed upon gaining his house that morning and almost wanted to keep them on, so much had he missed the feel of genuinely clean clothing upon his flesh, but for some reason Katharina always insisted they be completely nude after dark. During the day she delighted in finding ways to accommodate him through her sometimes cumbersome dresses, in sliding his codpiece aside just enough to flick his foreskin with her tongue, to have him squeeze her breasts almost to the point of pain through her bodice, but once the sun had set she would not tolerate so much as a stocking upon him or her.
“Not more?” she pouted, the light of the full moon making her body glow like alabaster, and making Manuel once again contemplate taking up sculpture to better honor her.
“More than words can say,” he said through a mouthful of shirt as he got the last garment over his head. “More than art can show, more than—ah.”
Her foot had intercepted his chest as he reached the edge of the bed, intending to crawl on top of her.
“Ah,” he said again, gently lifting the foot to his lips. She kicked him lightly on the chin.
“How many, Niklaus?” Katharina said firmly, her voice unwavering even as he took her big toe into his mouth. “It must have been quite a few, for you not to confess freely. The Moor?”
“No!” said Manuel, genuinely taken aback. “She wouldn’t even let me sketch her, and besides, she reminds me of Lydie.”
“Really?” Katharina had no idea how the stone-quiet and spruce-stocky Moor reminded her husband of their niece. “The big dyke, then?”
“Dyke? Really?” Manuel clicked his tongue at his wife, although his friend had more than once referred to herself as Schielands Hoge—the biggest dike in Rotterdam. “Mo’d break it off if I suggested it, and she won’t let me sketch her, either.”
“Hmmm,” said Katharina, stretching her foot past her husband’s ear, finally letting him lower himself. “Let me work on them, they’ll have their skirts over their heads before you can mix your flesh tones.”
“That’s, well, that’s, beautiful, really,” said Manuel, but he wasn’t thinking about painting his companions, he was gazing raptly at his wife’s profile as he slid down beside her and kneaded her breast. “Christ Christ Christ, have I missed you, Kat.”
She gasped and he squeezed harder but then she was sitting