Service
The Artist’s Model
by TNL
Author’s notes: James Deering (d. 1925) built the house at Vizcaya (near Miami) between 1914 and 1916. I have set this story in the former year, before the outbreak of the Great War in Europe, in order to write about an Anglo-Italian youth of draft age. John Singer Sargent (1856-1925: see Self Portrait, 1907 [Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence]) visited Vizcaya in 1917, painting The Bathers (Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts) during his sojourn there. Sargent used a number of models in this period, but I was inspired by Male Nude, Standing, ca. 1890-1915 (President and Fellows, Harvard College, Harvard University Art Museums) for an image of (the fictitious) Giuseppe Fatone.
1914
Giuseppe sat up in bed, rubbing his neck and shifting around at the soft knock on the cabin door. “Mr. Fatone,” the steward repeated, “it’s just on 7.”
“Thanks, mate,” Giuseppe called, sliding out of the unfamiliar berth in his crisp new pajamas. He was used to wearing pants and a singlet at home, but, on hearing that Mr. Sargent was taking him across the ocean to paint his picture, his mother had gone all the way to Oxford Street to buy him respectable sleepwear.
Giuseppe smiled, thinking of his mamma. He had never met a girl who compared to her: in his experience, all the girls he fancied were Magdalenes rather than Madonnas, and so he offered them a roguish grin, did his business, and went on his way.
He sometimes thought his mamma was a saint. The way she had taken the news of his child, for example: early one morning, he had found Daisy, a nursery maid, crying quietly on a park bench near Goldman’s gymnasium. It had taken him less than half an hour to introduce himself, learn her tale of woe, and comfort her – twice – in the bushes a few steps away. When, three weeks later, she had sent him a tear-stained and misspelled note informing him that she really was pregnant this time, Mamma had simply smiled and pinched his cheek, telling him he was a wicked boy to be so forward.
His father grumbled, but his mother insisted on sending Daisy a shilling each month, to help her make her way in the world.
Giuseppe switched on the bathroom’s single light and examined his face in the mirror above the sink. He felt a little tired, and more than a little hungry: the rough weather of the first two days out had made sleep elusive and food unappealing. This morning, after a run around the ship’s deck, he hoped he would be able to keep his food down.
He licked his chapped lips. They looked no different, in spite of the fact that, for three nights now, Mr. Sargent had kissed him before bedtime. Just a kiss, unhurried, and Giuseppe found himself wondering if – and when – his employer might want more.
There were evenings when, coming home from the bakery or the gymnasium, he would go out and find himself a woman. He admired women, and enjoyed the sex act with them, but no girl had ever stirred the feelings he imagined he would have for his future wife.
Other nights, one of the men at Goldman’s would catch his eye. A nod of the head and a significant glance: that was all. Giuseppe knew all the places in the area one could take a man or a woman for a few minutes’ pleasure.
It gave him an occasional qualm that he felt a certain tenderness for one or two of the men at Goldman’s, feelings he was ill-equipped to express.
He pulled the pajama top over his head, rough fingertips tracing the curve of muscle in his upper arms. The singlet came next, and he glanced down at his muscular chest and trim waist.
He was always the one bending the other man forward over a bed-frame or up against a wall. Giuseppe did not think Mr. Sargent would want it like that, but the thought of the older man pushing up into him was distinctly unpalatable.
His mamma had sat him down the night before the liner sailed, urging him to be a good boy and to follow Mr. Sargent in everything.
Giuseppe untied the laces of his pajama bottoms, letting them pool around his ankles. He doubted Mamma would extend her blanket recommendation to include joining Mr. Sargent in his berth.
He reached for his jersey shorts, pulling them up over well-made calves and thighs. They were a trifle snug in the waist and crotch, and his penis pressed heavily against the fabric. He palmed his balls: the caress was enough to make him harden. Giuseppe ran an incautious finger along his length, shuddering at the twinge of pleasure.
He grinned at himself in the mirror as he peeled the shorts down to his knees. His erection stood proudly, and as his fist moved over tumescent flesh he thought of Gertie, the milliner’s assistant, and the way she always retarded his climax; and Dave, the farrier, and Dave’s friend, Bob, and what it was like when the three of them fucked in the room behind the bar; and then he was coming, long ropes of semen spraying across the chrome taps and porcelain sink.
Slightly winded, he shook off the remaining drops, then turned on the taps to clean up his mess.
When he was finished, he pulled up his shorts, his flaccid cock still solid against the teasing fabric, and opened the bathroom door.
He wasn’t sure what to do about Mr. Sargent.
America was as intoxicating as ether, and Mr. Sargent was suddenly in a rush. The three of them – Mr. Sargent, his valet, Kirkpatrick, and Giuseppe – hardly paused for breath in New York before they were on a train, headed for the southern tip of Florida.
“Oh, yes,” Kirkpatrick said, nodding his head sagely as he pressed Mr. Sargent’s dinner jacket their one evening in New York, “Florida is a paradise, I tell you, Pepe, and make no mistake.”
When Mr. Sargent was around, Kirkpatrick was silent and deferential. Giuseppe could not fault him for that, for the painter had the same effect on him, after all. At first, the younger man had thought Kirkpatrick insufferable, racking his brain for ways to impress himself upon Mr. Sargent’s valet. The evening before they landed at New York, however, Kirkpatrick had sat next to Giuseppe on the Third Class deck and launched into the story of his life.
By the end of the evening, Giuseppe had been renamed Pepe, and he possessed all of Kirkpatrick’s salient biographical details: the valet had begun life in the service of a small manor house in Ireland – hence his often incomprehensible accent when excited – the eldest daughter of which had married an English millionaire and brought him to live in London. Mr. Disney had been a fine gentleman, Kirkpatrick assured Giuseppe – who was beginning to suspect that his new friend had helped himself to a quantity of Mr. Sargent’s brandy – but he had died of influenza a year or so before, and Mrs. Disney had broken up her London staff and returned to County Kerry.
“So I looks abaht,” Kirkpatrick said, confidingly, “and what d’ya know? Mr. Sargent, here, was looking for a valet. Easy. So I joins him, and here we are.”
Giuseppe nodded. He had had little to add to Kirkpatrick’s account and, when the valet pressed him for his own life story, said only that he was a baker by trade and a keen amateur boxer. Several weeks before, Mr. Sargent had seen him at Goldman’s gymnasium and engaged him to join his sketching party in the United States.
“So y’ere sayin’ that Mr. Sargent has not had you?”
“Oy?” Giuseppe replied, although he understood Kirkpatrick’s meaning perfectly.
“‘Tis nothin’,” Kirkpatrick muttered. “Keep yerself clean, me boyo, is me advice.”
The next morning, Kirkpatrick was white-faced and grim; Giuseppe, who had had one glass of wine at table, felt fresh and energetic. He quietly made sure that all of Kirkpatrick’s duties were completed before they docked, cementing good relations all around.
When Giuseppe’s mamma felt especially homesick, she would reminisce about the beauties of Sicily: the clear blue skies, the luminous seas, the lush colors of the exotic plant life. As he stepped out of Mr. Deering’s car at Vizcaya, Giuseppe thought he had somehow been transported back to Palermo.
The nearest town to Vizcaya – Mr. Deering’s Italian villa, in a setting of extraordinary beauty – was called Miami. More like a small city, it was unimpressive to Giuseppe, for whom London was, necessarily, the model metropolis. The streets were muddy after a recent rain shower, and the stucco buildings were mean and rather shabby. Something about the place, though, suggested that this state of disrepair might be temporary.
Their host, Mr. Deering, was an American millionaire, Giuseppe gathered – and, so far, he had met one or two of the species – whose money came from farming equipment. Whatever the source, he was clearly enormously rich: his Panhard touring car, driven by the most beautiful young man Giuseppe had ever seen, seemed evidence of that fact.
The chauffeur handed Mr. Sargent into the back seat, separated from the driver’s compartment by a glass partition, momentarily nonplused by Giuseppe’s presence. Kirkpatrick stepped automatically into the front passenger seat, and, after a slight pause, Giuseppe climbed in beside Mr. Sargent.
He noticed that Mr. Sargent stared intently at the golden curls on the back of the chauffeur’s head for much of the drive to Vizcaya.
The house was very new, and the grounds were by no means finished. It was obvious to Giuseppe that Mr. Deering did everything in the grand manner, and he could tell that Kirkpatrick – no stranger to millionaires – was equally impressed.
As the car drew up to the front entrance, the door was opened by a tall man in livery. As saturnine as the chauffeur was sunny, the butler was, nevertheless, of equal beauty. Giuseppe exchanged a glance with Kirkpatrick as the butler bowed to Mr. Sargent.
“Welcome to Vizcaya, Mr. Sargent. Mr. Deering has asked me to make his excuses to you, as he is still unavoidably detained at a lunch party. He would otherwise have been here to greet you.”
“Not at all, not at all,” the artist replied, seemingly content to stare. “I will simply take the opportunity to rest from my journey.”
The butler’s eyes passed over Kirkpatrick: here was a known quantity. When he looked into Giuseppe’s startled eyes, the Italian – a stranger to any sort of self-consciousness – blushed fiercely.
“Mr. Sargent.”
“Come along, Giuseppe, come along. This is my model, Giuseppe, and I believe that Mr. Deering has made arrangements for him.”
“He has,” the butler replied, clearly relieved. “We have made up a room for him in the men’s quarters.”
“Splendid, my dear boy, splendid.”
There were no women on Mr. Deering’s staff. He was a bachelor, and so, perhaps, felt no need for women in the household, but Giuseppe missed all the pretty details of the woman’s touch.
At the apex of the household staff stood the butler, Richardson. He was a very handsome man, Giuseppe mused, without embarrassment, and he was everything the Italian had feared about Kirkpatrick: aloof, disdainful, and brusque. Mr. Deering’s valet, Bass, was equally chilly, and Giuseppe found it uncanny how he seemed to know the inner thoughts of the rest of the staff.
On the other hand, Chasez, the French chef, was endearing and welcoming, launching at once into rapid Lyonnais French, to which Giuseppe could only respond in halting Palermitano Italian. They took to each other instantly.
Timberlake, the chauffeur, was harder to read. He seemed well-disposed but distant. Rather to Giuseppe’s surprise, he struck up an easy friendship with Kirkpatrick in a matter of minutes.
The footmen – Dorough, Littrell, and McLean – were prone to a certain rough humor, and, therefore, Giuseppe felt entirely comfortable in their company. As for Mr. Deering’s launch driver, the bumptious Nick Carter, Giuseppe soon found himself wishing he could shake the youth like a rat.
He first met them in the servants’ hall, a curiously airless room where he found Kirkpatrick already setting up his ironing board and shoeshine kit. Mr. Sargent had gone off to rest, so Giuseppe had nothing to do until summoned by his master.
Richardson introduced him to the indoor staff – Carter was out servicing the launch – with a brief description of their duties. As Giuseppe tried to stem the flow of Chasez’ welcoming words, he admitted he was a baker at home— “Mon Dieu,” Chasez replied, “c’est superbe – quelle coincidence! Mon boulanger est malade, et vous, M. Joseph! Vous me sauvez, hèlas!”
Giuseppe soon found himself making a batch of rolls for Mr. Deering’s tea.
As he worked, he watched the other men as they passed through the kitchen on their way to the servants’ hall. Bass and Kirkpatrick barely spoke to one another, and Giuseppe suspected that Kirkpatrick rued having taken service with a mere painter after the glories of Mr. Disney’s household in Brook Street.
Littrell kept going up to Chasez and whispering in the chef’s ear. From the Frenchman’s expression, the charm of the flirtation clearly outweighed the time wasted in conversation.
Later, when tea was being served on the terrace, Giuseppe watched Dorough return bearing an empty tray. The footman’s glance strayed to Mr. Sargent’s valet, just as Kirkpatrick seemed transfixed whenever Mr. Deering’s chauffeur walked through the room.
Giuseppe spent the next day posing for Mr. Sargent on the terrace, trying not to squint against the unforgiving sunlight. The artist was not unkind, but he tended to lose himself in his sketching, drawing with quick strokes across his pad. It was only when he finished a sketch, flipping the page over, that he would ask Giuseppe if he needed a break or a glass of water.
As he walked into the servants’ hall, wiping his tanned brow, Chasez appeared at his side. Giuseppe sighed softly.
“‘A leetle help?” the chef coaxed. “I show you how we mek the Parker House rolls?”
“Ta, then,” Giuseppe assented.
As it happened, though, Mr. Deering and Mr. Sargent were dining out. At once, the pace slowed in the servants’ hall; a few minutes later, even Carter had come inside, gulping his iced water before preparing to take the master and his guest out in the launch.
“‘Dancing, tonight,” Bass said, pausing slightly as he made his way through the kitchen.
“Bien,” Chasez replied, tapping Giuseppe’s hand. “Mais non, M. Joseph. Ah. C’est ça, bon.”
After Carter left with Mr. Deering and Mr. Sargent, the rest of the staff sat down to Chasez and Giuseppe’s dinner. It was plain food, and plenty of it, and Giuseppe pushed back from the table feeling full and sleepy.
The footmen were responsible for washing up, and a few minutes later someone wound up the Victrola. The sounds of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” filled the servants’ hall.
“Mr. Fatone is our guest,” Richardson said, holding a hand up. “Mr. Fatone, please choose a partner.”
Giuseppe looked around the room. It had not occurred to him that, with eight other men and no women, he would perforce be dancing with another male. Not that he minded especially: it simply took him by surprise.
He looked quickly around the hall. His eyes slid over Kirkpatrick, speculative, and came to rest on the butler. He crossed the open floor and put a hand on Richardson’s shoulder.
Mr. Richardson appeared to flinch, but he accepted Giuseppe’s lead. The others paired off: Littrell with Chasez, the top of his strawberry blond head barely visible over Chasez’ shoulder; McLean leading Bass; Kirkpatrick tapping Timberlake’s shoulder, the chauffeur looking startled; and Dorough standing alone beside the phonograph.
Giuseppe danced in silence with Richardson.
As the song ended and the music died away, Richardson took a step away and applauded politely. He was joined by the others as a new tune began.
“Mr. Richardson,” Giuseppe murmured, “your lead.”
For a moment he thought the butler would stalk away. Richardson’s stern features relaxed minutely, however, and he stepped towards Giuseppe, one hand resting on the Italian’s hip, the other on his shoulder.
“Where are you from, then?” Giuseppe asked, following the other man’s dancing.
“Kentucky. It’s north of here.”
“Well, everything’s north of here, I reckon.”
Richardson smiled briefly. “That’s true, I guess. And where are you from?”
“Italy. Well, I was born there, but I’ve always lived in England, for as long as I can remember.”
“I’ve never been to Europe,” Richardson said. “Mr. Deering goes, every year, but he never takes anyone from the household. Bass goes, of course, but. . .”
Giuseppe had the impression that Richardson had just addressed more words to him than he was accustomed to say in the course of a single day. He smiled back at Mr. Deering’s butler, and was rewarded by the gentlest of pressures against his groin.
Dorough was now dancing with Kirkpatrick, Giuseppe could see, while Timberlake tended the Victrola. For some reason he felt relieved.
“When we’re finished here,” Richardson was saying, “we go for a swim. Do you swim?”
Giuseppe shook his head. “‘Never learned. I could sit on the edge and stick my foot in.”
Richardson was holding him more closely, Giuseppe noticed, and he let himself brush against the other man’s loins.
“I think you’ll like it,” Richardson said. “It’s quiet, and the water isn’t very deep, so maybe you could get in with us.”
“I might,” Giuseppe replied. “I’ll try, anyways.”
As they were preparing to go out to the swimming hole, the house telephone rang, and Littrell shouted to Timberlake that he would have to go pick up Mr. Deering and Mr. Sargent.
A few minutes later, Carter appeared, slightly damp: he had driven the launch back in the pitch dark, limping along the coastline, feeling his way back by instinct alone.
Giuseppe was talking to Kirkpatrick in the hall outside their rooms when Carter charged up the staircase. “What the hell were you doing?” he roared, looming over Kirkpatrick. Giuseppe took a step closer, instantly protective, and the boatman put up a warning hand. “This is between me and the Limey, all right?”
“It’s not all right,” Giuseppe replied. Carter was large and fleshy, and the Italian knew he could take him in a fair fight. The question was, would this be a fair fight?
“You don’t get to dance with Justin, is that clear?”
“Justin?” Giuseppe muttered.
“What are you on about?” Kirkpatrick said, cowering slightly against Giuseppe. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“Justin is mine,’ Carter growled. “He only dances with me.” Giuseppe put a hand on Kirkpatrick’s shoulder. “Everyone knows Justin is—”
“Nick.”
The three men at the top of the stair turned to look down the stairwell. Richardson stood there, his arms crossed, in a one-piece bathing suit. He put a foot up on the first riser, his unwavering gaze on Carter a warning, and the boatman took a step back.
“He’s mine,” Carter said, once again.
“Nick, leave them alone. Mr. Fatone, Mr. Kirkpatrick, I hope you will join us for a swim. I would be happy to lead you to the swimming hole.”
“Right, then,” Kirkpatrick replied. Giuseppe slipped his arm through the valet’s and started down the stairs.
“Where’d you get your suit?” he murmured. The valet was wearing a candy-striped one-piece suit, and it was slightly long on him.
“McLean,” Kirkpatrick answered. “He has a taste for— Well, at least it fits, more or less.”
Giuseppe’s suit belonged to Timberlake, and was tight enough to leave little to the imagination.
There were no stars in the sky, and the only visible light came from Coleman lanterns carried by several of the men. As Giuseppe stumbled along beside the butler, he tried to think of something to say.
“What’s it like,” Richardson asked, forestalling him, “posing for Mr. Sargent?”
“Tiring, really,” Giuseppe replied. “Not,” he hastened to add, “as if I’m doing any work – only, it’s hard to stand still for so long. It can take an hour, sometimes.”
“I can understand that,” Richardson said. “Do you, ah, have a first name?”
Giuseppe glanced at the butler, whose gaze remained on their path, which led through overgrown grasses.
“I do,” he said, after a moment. “It’s Giuseppe.”
“Giuseppe,” Richardson parroted. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Aye, I suppose it is. My family,” Giuseppe continued, grinning in the darkness, “call me Babbo.” He elongated the o, pronouncing it Bah-boo.
“They don’t. They couldn’t,” the butler protested, turning his lantern to illuminate Giuseppe’s face.
“But they do. It means ‘baby.’ And they call me Beppo – it’s a nickname for Giuseppe.”
They walked along in silence.
“And do you have a name?”
“Ah.”
Giuseppe touched Richardson’s arm. “And it is. . .?”
Richardson coughed into his fist. “It’s Kevin.”
“Kevin? That’s a pretty name.”
The butler was shaking his head, a single curl having worked itself free of his pomade. “It isn’t,” he sighed. He appeared to come to a decision. “You see,” he whispered, having reassured himself that Kirkpatrick was ahead of them and out of earshot, “it’s Irish. Here in America, being Irish is. . .”
“Not a good thing?”
“Well, yes.”
Giuseppe pondered. “In London, it’s not a great thing to be an Italian. The cockneys have a lot of names for us. It used to get me into a lot of fights.”
“‘Not any more?”
“Why, no,” Giuseppe replied. “I started boxing, and I’ve never been troubled since.”
They had reached the swimming hole, and Giuseppe chuckled at the others, already playing in the water. Richardson set down his lantern and turned his back to the pool. Out of the corner of his eye, Giuseppe could see the play of muscles on the butler’s legs and back as he removed his suit. He swallowed, his eyes unblinking, as Richardson dropped with hardly a splash into the dark water.
“Join us,” the butler commanded, and Giuseppe stripped himself naked to sit on the pool’s banks.
The other men were throwing a football around, making a lot of noise: if there were any rules to the game, Giuseppe could not discern them. Richardson swam near him, and every so often their eyes met. Giuseppe felt his loins stirring at the butler’s frank appraisal, and he set a hand across his thighs as nonchalantly as he could.
McLean had come out to the swimming hole with the news that Timberlake was driving Mr. Deering and Mr. Sargent back from their dinner. Wordlessly, the men scrambled out of the water, donning their bathing suits for the walk back to the house.
Kirkpatrick and Carter exchanged angry glances all the way back, and Giuseppe was relieved when they had gone upstairs to their rooms without further incident.
Mr. Deering had a small gymnasium for his houseguests. Giuseppe was not sure he qualified as one, but he was determined to spend at least a few minutes working his muscles, even if it meant being ejected from the room. Early the next morning he went downstairs, intent on using the barbells.
When he pushed the door open, he found Richardson standing, magnificent in his near-nakedness, a dumbbell in each hand.
“Oh,” Giuseppe breathed, “I didn’t mean to—”
“Please,” the butler said. “Don’t worry. Come in.”
Giuseppe’s eyes ran hungrily over Richardson’s naked chest, developed to an extraordinary degree; over his pronounced abdominal muscles; and, then, longingly, over the butler’s jersey shorts, a little tattered at the knees. “I don’t want to interrupt,” he murmured, unwillingly.
“It’s quite all right. Mr. Deering likes us to work our muscles when we have the time.”
Giuseppe suspected that Mr. Deering had his own reasons for encouraging his menservants to develop their physiques, but he had to acknowledge that the results were impressive.
“May I. . .” he hazarded, and Richardson handed him one of the dumbbells.
“Of course,” Richardson smiled, and a sharp burst of adrenaline coursed through Giuseppe’s veins.
“Would you like to take a walk?” Richardson asked, leaning over Giuseppe’s shoulder after the servants’ lunch.
“I’d— Yes, I would,” he replied, “only, Mr. Sargent. . . ”
Richardson straightened up. “Of course. When you’re free, then. . .”
“I will be,” Giuseppe said, quickly, his heart hammering in his chest. He didn’t like Richardson to think— “Once we’re finished sketching, I mean.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Richardson answered, his soft voice tantalizing.
They went for a walk as the sun was setting, a great orange ball in the west, following the path towards the servants’ swimming hole.
“Tell me something,” Giuseppe murmured.
“Mmm? Yes?”
“What happened with Carter last night? Are all the men. . .?”
Richardson cautiously cleared his throat. “Nick – Carter, that is – is. . . I don’t know what the word is. He is Justin’s. . .”
“And the others?”
Richardson put a hand under Giuseppe’s elbow. “Bass and McLean, Chasez and Littrell – well, Chasez will lead Littrell on, flirting with Dorough. . .”
“And you?”
Richardson glanced at Giuseppe. “I have a wife.”
Giuseppe would have stumbled had Richardson not gripped his arm.
“We’re separated,” Richardson continued, his fingers firm around Giuseppe’s bicep. “She is Mr. Deering’s brother’s housekeeper. We will never be divorced, but. . .”
“Oh, I say,” Giuseppe murmured. “I’m not married, but. . .”
“But, what?”
“I have a child. She lives in Kent – that’s near London.”
“Ah.”
They had reached the pool, and Giuseppe noticed there was nowhere they could sit in their summer weight suits. Richardson continued around the water’s verge and into the stand of palms, walking a few feet further until they were hidden from view.
“I don’t know how to ask. . .,” the butler said, his hand guiding Giuseppe’s into his pants pocket. For a moment, Giuseppe was bewildered, until his fingers found the hole in the seam and brushed Richardson’s thick erection. They closed around it, automatically, and he pressed his own hips into the butler’s buttocks, at once stroking and gently thrusting.
They proceeded in silence, the butler’s breath hitching, Giuseppe’s own pleasure growing. As Richardson’s climax neared, he struggled a bit until Giuseppe pulled his hand free. The butler turned, the protuberance between his legs very evident, and pressed his lips to the Italian’s, mumbling: “I want to see.”
Both men struggled with their pants buttons, and in a moment each was holding his erection, anxious hands moving quickly to reach the climax. Giuseppe wondered at the size of the other man’s penis, the abundance of his pubic hair, the mass of his balls. Richardson gasped, his knees buckling, a torrent of his seed falling to the ground, as Giuseppe cried out, eyes tightly shut, his orgasm leaving him dazed and shaken.
This time it was Giuseppe who took a step closer, his lips bruising on the other man’s. They quickly dressed again, and neither spoke until the house was in sight.
“Tonight?” Richardson asked.
Giuseppe ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Tonight.”
“My dear Sargent,” James Deering murmured, tamping fresh tobacco leaves in his Meerschaum pipe as he spoke, “I would be most annoyed if anything were to happen that might cause Richardson to leave me.”
“Hmm?” the artist responded, his features indistinct behind a cloud of cigar smoke. “Richardson?”
“The butler. Look.” Deering cocked an elbow towards the terrace. Both men watched, bemused, as Deering’s butler and Sargent’s model cut across the lawn, climbing a short flight of steps before disappearing around the side of the house.
“Giuseppe is a good boy,” Sargent murmured. “And I shall be quite upset if he finds something here that makes him want to stay.”
“We are understood, then,” Deering said, inhaling his first lungful of smoke. They sat in contemplative silence for a moment, staring out over the waves breaking against the yacht landing at the foot of the lawn.
The artist cleared his throat. “Just to be clear. . .” Deering nodded, following Sargent’s gaze back to the side terrace. “Kirkpatrick is necessary to my comfort.”
Deering inclined his head, but his eyes followed Kirkpatrick and Dorough as they made their way along a path leading off into the woods.
“Ah, yes.”
Sargent snorted. “Not in that way – I’m well past folies d’amour, I’ll thank you. No, he is simply a superlative manservant, and I will want him to leave Vizcaya with me.”
“I do understand,” Deering replied. “I couldn’t do a thing without Bass, my man. But we won’t begrudge them their amusements, when once they have finished their work, will we?”
“Of course not,” Sargent said, reaching for the match safe on the table beside him.
Giuseppe’s room was too public, so they had decided to meet in Richardson’s room as soon as the other men were in bed. Mr. Deering and Mr. Sargent had dined early, with another couple, so the house should have been shutting down by 11.
It was after midnight, however, and Giuseppe could still hear soft voices in the hall outside his room. He sat on top of his bed, knees to chest, and waited impatiently to go to his assignation.
After another half hour had passed, he decided to risk it. The room was dark, and his eyes were used to the dimness, so he walked quietly to the door and opened it. In one direction lay the stairs – all clear. He took a tentative step out into the hallway and stopped.
Bass was standing there, hands clasped behind his back, still in his suit and tie. “Can’t sleep?” the manservant said, softly, and Giuseppe’s hand flew to his throat.
“No, ah,” he whispered, “I couldn’t—”
Bass took a step closer. “Richardson’s my friend,” he hissed, “and if I find you’re doing anything. . .”
“I. . .”
“Go to him,” Bass continued, then paused. For the first time that he could remember, Giuseppe saw the valet smile. “He deserves some happiness. But, understand me: if you hurt him, here,” and he slapped a hand to his breast, “I’ll hurt you, there.” Bass gestured at Giuseppe’s waist.
A door opened down the hall, and McLean stuck his head out in the corridor. “I thought you were coming to bed,” he whispered. Bass made a dismissive gesture towards his lover and leaned closer to Giuseppe. “We understand each other?”
Giuseppe considered the manservant’s stocky build and undeniably powerful personality and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “we understand each other.”
He walked down the hall to Richardson’s room and tried the doorknob. It gave as he twisted it.
The butler was sitting up in bed, his pillow turned lengthwise against the head board, spectacles perched low on his nose as he looked up from his book. “You came,” he noted, setting the book aside.
“I did,” Giuseppe breathed, crossing the few feet separating them. “I had to wait until—”
“I know,” the butler replied, taking off his glasses and setting them on the bedside table. “I thought they’d never shut up.”
“So,” Giuseppe said, as he sat on the bed beside Richardson.
“What would you like to do?” Richardson muttered. Giuseppe could see that Richardson’s dark nipples were erect against milky skin, the only hair on his chest a sparse patch below his belly button. He shifted in his seat, aware, once again, of his own arousal.
“Oh,” Richardson said, sounding pleased, and Giuseppe looked down. His erection poked out of the gap in his pajama pants. “I guess we both want. . .”
“We do,” Giuseppe replied, swiveling so he could embrace the other man. In a moment, the two were lying on their sides, Giuseppe warm in his clothing, Richardson’s heart hammering, their hands moving over skin and fabric.
“Hold on,” Giuseppe said, pulling back. He quickly unbuttoned his top, smiling as Richardson’s big hands fumbled with the ties on the pajama pants. Then, he was naked, kneeling on the bed, and Richardson’s erection arching against the restraining fabric of his boxer shorts was their last impediment.
Giuseppe smiled wolfishly. “Let me,” he offered, fingers already unsnapping the top button. He leaned down over Richardson’s penis, mesmerized by its beauty and its size, and let the purple head slide between his lips.
Richardson gasped above him, but a moment later he pushed Giuseppe away. “No,” he explained, “I want you that way, and then. . .”
Giuseppe sat back, and Richardson forced himself not to stare at the model’s magnificent cock, or at the way his excitement had made a thin sheen of perspiration break out across his heaving chest.
“What if I want you. . .?”
Neither man had the words for their desires, longings which were too secret – too forbidden – to be spoken aloud. Each one wanted to bury himself in the other, to get between the other man’s legs and pump into him until the joyous climax. Both men knew the pleasure to be had on the receiving end, but pride – a selfish pride, truly – made each one unwilling to admit it.
“I’ll wrestle you for it,” Richardson said, and Giuseppe grinned back.
“All right, then.”
“We’ll have to be quiet,” Richardson cautioned him.
“Sure.”
Richardson removed his underwear. The two men knelt in the middle of the small bed, careful not to touch the other’s erection, and on Giuseppe’s signal they began.
Richardson was strong, but, then, so was Giuseppe. The Italian was also a boxer, familiar with many wrestlers’ tricks from hours spent in the gymnasium, but it seemed that the butler had moves Giuseppe had never encountered before.
They twisted in silence over the bed, Richardson sometimes prevailing, Giuseppe occasionally pulling off an inspired feint. In the end, though, Giuseppe lay pinned beneath Richardson, the other man’s knees tight around his waist, his heavy hands pressing the Italian back into the pillow.
“I give,” Giuseppe muttered, and the butler rewarded him with a beautiful smile.
“Next time,” Richardson whispered.
They were quiet as Richardson entered Giuseppe, quiet as the excitement of secrecy and competition and something as yet unquantifiable overcame them, Richardson sinking with a muffled groan against Giuseppe’s slick chest after only a few strong thrusts.
Giuseppe had never spent the night with a lover, but Richardson did not seem to want him to leave. After washing up, they lay in bed together, talking about Kentucky and the church camp where the butler had been raised, about Goldman’s and Giuseppe’s mamma. Later, Giuseppe slid down Richardson’s torso and found his balls, heavy as though filled with sand, and then his waving penis, letting his teeth graze the sides until Richardson cried out in the throes of orgasm.
This time, the sex was slower, more ruminative. Giuseppe supposed that that was because this was not some faceless nobody, someone he would never see again, but, rather, a man he had lain in bed with, chatting, a man he had wrestled for dominance, a man – he realized – for whom he had some of those feelings of love that one or two of the boys at Goldman’s gymnasium had excited.
After he came, they talked some more, and both were surprised when, out of the corner of his eye, Giuseppe could see the first faint signs of the dawn.
“Do you need to sleep?” he murmured, playing with his lover’s fingers.
“I should,” Richardson replied, “but I won’t.”
An hour later, Giuseppe stole back to his room, having watched Richardson – Kevin, now – dress for the day. He fell back on his bed and slept, dreamlessly, until Kirkpatrick knocked on the door with a message from Mr. Sargent.
Giuseppe was relieved when, at last, Mr. Sargent gave him leave to go inside for lunch. He had overslept, missing breakfast, and after last night he was famished.
As he walked into the servants’ hall, his eyes slowly adjusting to the comparative interior gloom after the brightness of the terrace, Giuseppe could see Carter’s arm around Kirkpatrick’s shoulder, a scowl on the boatman’s face.
“Oy!” he warned, quickening his steps to cross the room.
Timberlake was laughing, he could now see, and Kirkpatrick turned, a pacifying hand out, saying: “Not to worry, Pepe – we’re all friends here.”
Giuseppe’s fists dropped to his sides. “Chris?” As the question left his mouth he remembered he had never before uttered his friend’s Christian name.
“Don’t ye worry, boyo,” he replied, playfully poking Carter’s side. “Carter, here, is just tellin’ me to be nice to Dorough, or he – and Timberlake, yet! – will make me see the error of me ways.”
Carter moved slightly, aligning himself with Timberlake, and then Giuseppe and Kirkpatrick were standing side by side. “‘You sure?” Giuseppe murmured.
“I am,” Kirkpatrick said, smiling as Timberlake whispered in Carter’s ear. “And, fellows, I am being verra nice to Dorough, if you catch my meanin’.”
A week passed, and every night Giuseppe slept in Kevin’s bed.
On the third morning, Bass had taken Richardson aside, speaking in a low, concerned tone into the butler’s ear, and later in the day, as Giuseppe was rolling out pastry dough, the manservant sat down beside him in the kitchen, following the Italian’s movements with a knowing eye.
“I think I should tell you something,” Bass said, at last, when Giuseppe had nearly forgotten he was there.
“Yes?”
“I told Richardson that he needed to get some sleep. Mr. Deering will say something soon, I’m sure of it, if Kevin doesn’t take better care of himself.” He allowed himself a small smile. “Delightful as I am sure your evenings are, I would like you to make sure Richardson rests.”
Giuseppe nodded, his face flushed in remembrance. “Of course. I wouldn’t want him to—”
“It hasn’t come to that yet, and it won’t, if you follow my advice. Mr. Deering thinks the world of Richardson – but, you know, he is a right stickler for service, so if Richardson slips, Mr. Deering will notice.”
That night, after they had talked for a time, Giuseppe turned over and readied himself for sleep. Kevin, still leaning on one elbow, coughed slightly and tapped Giuseppe’s shoulder. “Is that it? ‘Good night, Kevin’?”
Giuseppe rolled back. He could feel the heat in Kevin’s groin, but he burrowed into his lover’s chest, murmuring: “I think we should get some sleep.”
“Sleep? Sleep!”
Giuseppe chuckled softly. “Hush, Kevin, you’ll wake someone.”
The butler’s hand strayed over Giuseppe’s flanks, checking for his arousal. “Ah, I see,” Kevin muttered, and Giuseppe was relieved to hear amusement in his lover’s voice: “Bass talked to you.”
“Mmm,” Giuseppe agreed. “And he said we needed to sleep, at least for part of the night.”
“Why?” Kevin replied. “I wanted to talk, to hear about Stefano and Giannina, and Mamma and—”
“Hush,” Giuseppe breathed. “If I let you ‘talk,’ just for a minute, will you mind me and go to sleep?”
“It’ll take more than a minute,” the butler whispered, sliding down his lover’s thighs.
“I know,” Giuseppe said, stifling his groan. “Five minutes – no more.”
“Ten.”
“Ten – oh! Oh, saints preserve me!”
One afternoon, when Mr. Deering and Mr. Sargent had gone into Miami, Giuseppe amused himself by making up a recipe for an elaborate dessert. Chasez let him have the run of the kitchen, watching, bemused, as the Italian used half a dozen mixing bowls, finger testing the mixtures. Normally a tyrant in the kitchen, the chef adored Mr. Sargent’s model, letting him bake whatever he liked, invariably pleased with the results.
They had fallen into an easy camaraderie. Giuseppe was still shy in talking about Kevin, but the chef prattled away – usually in French, if others were present – about Littrell (‘Très beau, non? Et si gentil!’) or Dorough’s increasingly obvious feelings for Kirkpatrick (‘Je pense que c’est l’amour, non?’) or McLean’s charming ways with Bass, and the valet’s corresponding affection for his lover.
“Eet ees sad,” Chasez suddenly remarked, as Giuseppe stepped away from the oven, wiping his damp forehead: “so soon you leave. M. Richardson will be triste, I am sure.”
“M. Joseph will be sad, too,” Giuseppe murmured, sweeping a handful of flour on to the kitchen floor.
They were leaving early in the morning, so Giuseppe and Kirkpatrick said their farewells to most of the staff in the servants’ hall after a celebratory dinner and dancing.
While all of Mr. Deering’s servants claimed dances with their new friends, for the most part the five couples – the butler and Mr. Sargent’s model, Mr. Deering’s valet and one of the footmen, Mr. Sargent’s manservant and another footman, Mr. Deering’s chauffeur and boatman, and the chef and a third footman – danced together.
When it came time to retire, the other men crowded around Kirkpatrick and Giuseppe, their warm smiles contrasting with mournful eyes, each stealing glances at Richardson and Dorough as they did so.
Giuseppe and Richardson did not sleep at all. They huddled together, speaking in loud whispers, and when they made love – as they did, more than once – it was leisurely, so freighted with meaning that both men wept when they were finished.
They said their final, private farewells in Giuseppe’s room, holding each other tightly, Richardson comforting his lover one final time.
The rest of the staff stood in front of the house in the early morning sun, respectful and silent, as Mr. Deering bid his guest adieu.
“I must insist that you return next winter,” Deering said, as he shook Sargent’s hand, “so that you can see how well I have followed your advice in the gardens.”
“I would be delighted,” the artist replied, “but before then, I hope I will see you in London, or, perhaps, in Deauville.”
“I hope so,” Deering said. At his signal, Timberlake opened the passenger door. “Goodbye, dear friend,” he added. Giuseppe was already inside the car, and between them the chauffeur and Sargent’s model arranged a throw rug across the artist’s knees.
Sargent leaned out the window for a final look at the house. “I say again, my dear Deering, what you have accomplished here is—! Well, it’s a kind of miracle.”
“It’s nothing in comparison to your paintings, Sargent, but I accept your praise with all due humility.”
“We’re even then,” the artist murmured, giving his host a final wave.
With a crunch of gravel, the touring car began to move down the driveway.
“Beastly place,” Kirkpatrick remarked, sitting down for a moment beside the window in Mr. Sargent’s suite at the Royal Poinciana Hotel and watching the palm leaves drip rain.
“I hate it here,” Giuseppe replied, looking up from his book, a parting gift from Richardson. He had already read it twice, dog-earing a number of the pages, and he tried not to look at the dedication on the flyleaf too often, as it still made him cry.
If Mr. Sargent noticed his servants’ mood, he never mentioned it.
They spent a week in Palm Beach, where the artist was much in demand for lunches and dinners. Kirkpatrick resumed his professional demeanor, and Giuseppe seemed, after a time, to recover something of his natural exuberance, but it was a quiet party of three that boarded the East Coast Limited en route to St. Petersburg.
The weather was better in St. Petersburg, where they stopped at the Ponce de Leon Hotel, and Giuseppe went out one afternoon to see the sights.
A few minutes after he left, a letter came for Mr. Sargent with a Miami postmark.
It sat on a tray in Kirkpatrick’s room until the artist came back from a dinner given in his honor.
VIZCAYA
P. O. MIAMI
My dear Sargent,
Your kind gift of a bushel of oranges just received. I thank you again for your generosity, dear friend.
Now, what do I find? It seems you have taken, in your party, a member of my household, one Giuseppe Fatone, who is responsible for the many delicate pastries with which you were regaled during your visit to Vizcaya. This will not do, my dear Sargent. I hope you will do the right thing – and restore peace to my household – by returning Giuseppe to Miami, at once.
I enclose a money order for his train fare.
I would, of course, be delighted if you were to accompany Fatone on his journey. A number of the men in the house ask me to send their best regards to your man, Kirkpatrick, which I duly extend.
Hoping this letter find you well,
dear friend,
I am,
yours most sincerely,
Jas. Deering
April 12th, 1914
The artist rang for Giuseppe and, wordlessly, handed him Deering’s letter.
Giuseppe looked up when he had finished. “Mr. Sargent?”
The artist gave him a reassuring smile. “What would you like to do, Giuseppe? Continue on with me, or return to Miami?”
“Oh, Mr. Sargent,” Giuseppe sighed, “I don’t know what to say.”
The painter rolled an unlit cigar between his fingers. “You can always go back to England, my dear boy – and, by the by, I will need to give you money for your return fare – but, were I you, I should go to Miami.”
Giuseppe stared at the braided rug on the hotel room floor. “I think I’d like that.”
“Of course you would,” Sargent said, briskly. “I will ask Kirkpatrick for my checkbook, and wire Deering at once. ‘Write him a letter, as well. And, Giuseppe?”
“Yes, Mr. Sargent?”
“Come here for a moment.”
Giuseppe walked over to the painter and awaited his instructions. With the fingers of one hand, Sargent stroked his beard, then reached out and touched Giuseppe’s chin. He took a step forward and kissed the younger man, murmuring: “There’s a good boy.”
10:51pm April 13, ‘14
To Jas. Deering, Vizcaya, Miami Sent by J. S. Sargent, Hotel Ponce de Leon, St. Petersburg
LETTER RECEIVED STOP ANSWER FOLLOWS YOU ROGUE STOP FATONE LEAVES HERE TOMORROW REGARDS SARGENT
Hotel Ponce de Leon
St. Petersburg
Florida
13th April / 14
My dear Deering,
You are a rogue, and I think I will insist you release one of your footmen to my service, to aid my man Kirkpatrick.
Giuseppe is a good boy. You are fortunate to get him – I’ve never had such confections, and only wish I had known of his unsuspected talents in this line.
I will write to you at length about my visit to Palm Beach – a most extraordinary set of people there, fit for a novelist.
We leave for Wilmington on Thursday.
Again, I am greatly in your debt. G.F. will, I trust, constitute partial payment.
Very truly yours,
J.S. Sargent
“You’re going, then,” Kirkpatrick said, when he returned from the hotel’s telegraphy room.
Giuseppe nodded. “I am.”
Kirkpatrick picked up one of Mr. Sargent’s dress shirts, fresh from the laundry, and unfolded it, checking the quality of the ironing. “I wish I was,” he murmured, setting the shirt aside for a touch-up. “‘Do something for me, Pepe?” he mumbled, sounding unsure.
“Of course,” Giuseppe replied, sitting down beside his friend. Kirkpatrick turned, leaning across the low side table between their armchairs, and gave Giuseppe’s cheek a kiss. “That’s for Richardson,” he said. Moving a little closer, he turned Giuseppe’s face to kiss his slightly parted lips. “That’s for Dorough – Howie. You’ll pass them on?”
Giuseppe rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. “Of course – first thing.” He took one of Kirkpatrick’s hands in his and added: “God, I’ll miss you.”
The train was slightly late arriving in Miami. At first, when Giuseppe stepped down to the pavement beside the tracks, he thought no one was waiting for him. He was expecting the servants’ truck, but a loud oo-gah made him turn his head. It was Timberlake, climbing out of the Panhard, an arm outstretched in a welcoming gesture.
“We’re so glad you came back,” Timberlake began, picking up Giuseppe’s grips as he spoke. “Mr. Deering insisted I meet you with the car.”
They walked along the track, Giuseppe voluble about his relief that Mr. Deering had sent for him, and when they reached the car, Timberlake set down the bags and opened the passenger door.
“Timberlake?” Giuseppe asked, surprised. “I don’t—”
“Welcome to Vizcaya,” a honeyed voice said, and then Kevin leaned forward.
“Kev,” Giuseppe breathed, nearly catching his ankle on the doorframe as he fell into his lover’s arms. “Oh, Kev, I missed you so—”
“I missed you, too, Babbo – you have no idea.”
Timberlake finished loading the car and left the men to their reunion.
Giuseppe pulled back when Kevin’s hand started toying with his trouser buttons on the lonely road to Vizcaya, “Not in Mr. Deering’s car,” he chided.
“Why not?” Kevin said, poking a finger between the gap in the fabric, anxious to touch his lover again. “We’re going to be in Mr. Deering’s bed soon enough, so—”
“Not his bed, Kevin.”
“Of course it is – it’s in his house, isn’t it?” He kissed Giuseppe’s free hand. “Everything belongs to Mr. Deering – everything but you. You belong to me.”
“I do,” Giuseppe breathed, and then Kevin’s hand found the prize it sought, wrapping around Giuseppe’s cock and beginning a slow, loving stroking.
“Welcome to Vizcaya,” he said, slipping off the leather seat to kneel on the hard rubber floor pad, his lips inches above Giuseppe’s erection. “And remember, I belong to you.”
“I know,” Giuseppe gasped, before all coherent thought fled.
© 2001 TNL
