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The first time - the day Tedesco found out - was the worst day of Aldo’s life.
He’d been in Tedesco’s apartment; they’d been fighting. That was not unusual - typically they had days-long rows, starting with snarky comments traded in public spaces, loaded looks, Aldo growing more and more arch, goading Tedesco into louder and more pointed comments.
At first, Lawrence would try to diffuse things, taking Aldo aside and attempting to de-escalate. “Why do you let him get to you?” he’d asked on one memorable occasion, standing quite close, his hand on Aldo’s shoulder. Thoroughly distracted by the proximity and that simple, brotherly touch, Aldo had shrugged, not quite meeting his best friend’s gaze. “He doesn’t get to me ,” he deflected, “but let him have the last word? Thomas, really? He’s trying to shut me up and I’m not going to allow that to happen.”
After a few attempts at intervention, Lawrence had gradually given up. His work was becoming more complex, more political, and he didn’t have the time or the energy to meddle in Aldo’s messes. Aldo felt the absence keenly. This only made the arguments worse.
Culminating the argument in Tedesco’s apartment wasn’t common, but it wasn’t new, either. Usually if they met by accident in the street they would finish their discorso behind closed doors - they’re still cardinals of the Church, of course, with the power and authority and reputation of those titles to uphold.
This time Aldo was standing by the door, leaning forward, his chest heaving, his fists clenched. Tedesco was seated in a wingback chair, nearly sprawled, polishing his glasses and gloating.
By this stage of the argument he was in the habit of devolving into Italian, sometimes Venetian slang, knowing that Aldo’s Italian was inherited and only recently studied. It entertained him and infuriated Aldo, knowing that Aldo would be struggling to keep up and respond. Aldo felt his face flush at the smirk on Tedesco’s face. “ A parte l'ovvio piacere che provi nel sentirti parlare ,” he began, his tongue nearly tripping over the words in his haste and irritation, “ nel sentire la tua lingua -”
Tedesco paused in his task, looked up, and smirked. “ La mia lingua ?” he parroted, amused, and Aldo had no idea where this was going.
“Your language? Hearing yourself talk?” Aldo waved a hand, enforcing how obvious Tedesco was forcing him to be. His hand dropped when Tedesco pulled himself out of the chair and stalked forward, forcing Aldo to stand as straight as possible, hating that he still did not meet the other man’s height. Tedesco took another step forward, then another, forcing Aldo to take a step back until his back nearly hit the door.
“And to think all this time you’ve been distracted by la mia lingua ,” Tedesco purred, the sound full of delight and malice. Aldo’s jaw worked as his mind raced; Tedesco was baiting him, waiting for him to fall into a trap - what was he saying, what had he said - something about his language, his -
Tongue. Lengua meant language in the sense of tongue. The word was the same for both.
The penny dropped and Aldo couldn’t catch it in time, couldn’t save himself: he blushed, already bracing himself for the vindictive smile that spread across Tedesco’s face, less than a foot away. He averted his eyes, knowing he was losing ground, knowing he was losing the argument, knowing he was losing what little dignity he had left.
“Stop changing the subject,” he muttered, knowing it was weak, knowing it was useless. Even his voice lacked the conviction he so usually felt. He was utterly thrown off balance and Tedesco was still so close. The Venetian cocked an eyebrow and gave a low chuckle and Aldo really didn’t like where this was going. He raised a hand as if to push the bigger man off - as if he had a chance of moving a man as immovable as Tedesco - and Tedesco batted his hand away, the gesture stingingly indifferent, before he stroked the back of his hand down the red buttons of Aldo’s cassock, a mocking gesture meant to intimidate, until -
His hand brushed too low. Aldo realized it at the same time Tedesco did: he was half-hard. This ultimate mortification was hidden in the folds of his priestly robes, but very obvious to the glancing pass of Tedesco’s knuckles.
His breath choked in his chest. Both of Tedesco’s eyebrows winged up - he had not imagined - and Aldo could not look away, horrified, feeling every muscle in his back lock up against the next onslaught, not knowing what humiliation Tedesco would devise for him now. Tedesco glanced up, met his shocked gaze, then very deliberately brushed his hand over Aldo’s burgeoning erection again. Aldo sucked in a shaking breath, his eyes slipping closed in a last-ditch attempt to hide, his face flaming. Tedesco grinned cruelly and Aldo could hear it in his voice.
“ Ecco, non c'è da stupirsi, è per questo che vieni nel mio appartamento ,” Tedesco murmured, brushing a third, damning time, his coffee breath hot on Aldo’s face. “ Vuoi tutto, non è così ?”
And Aldo broke, twisting away, scrabbling for the door behind him. “ Basta, bastardo ,” he gritted out, but it came out breathy, wavering.
“Had enough discussione ? Ready for a different kind of discorso ?” Tedesco was warming to the subject.
Aldo twisted his whole body away, managing to catch Tedesco in the chest with his elbow, and the larger man backed up, still grinning. He gestured towards the door, a broad sweep of his hand with mocking graciousness. “You want to go? Vai . I won’t stop you.” And Aldo found the knob and twisted the door open and fled without looking back.
**
He realized as soon as he got to the ground floor - too keyed up to wait for the cramped, slow elevator, he’d nearly run down the stairs, and was standing on the sidewalk with his heart pounding and his breath coming too quickly, his nails digging into his palms. He realized why Tedesco had let him go: he was still hard, still uncomfortable in his slacks, beneath his cassock. It wasn’t visibly obvious but it ached when he tried to walk. And there was nothing he could do about it on the street, no way to adjust, no way to calm down. He grit his teeth and refused to think about it, refused to imagine Tedesco gloating as he started the short walk back to his own apartment.
It was worse once he’d gotten into bed. He’d added a cold shower into his usual evening routine but had to forego most of his evening prayers; his erection had flagged but his whole body was still hot and restless with adrenaline, the fight trembling in his limbs, transmuting itself into arousal along his skin. He threw himself into bed, bunched his pillow under his head, and squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on slowing his breathing and his heart rate. He’d never run from Tedesco before. But then, he’d never been humiliated on this level before. He’d never been hard during one of their arguments before.
Had he?
After an hour he realized his hips were shifting, grinding, humping subtly against the mattress, and he flung himself onto his back, arms outstretched, sweating, gasping, indulging in self-pity. This had never happened before, surely? This must be some machination of Tedesco’s. He must have forced this to occur. There was no way - surely, there was no way -
His hand slipped lower, feeling his belly twitch with over-stimulation, and it took only a firm grasp to bring himself to full hardness. He moaned under his breath in agony and relief. He hadn’t done this in so very, very long - hadn’t needed to - but now - he gripped tighter, stroked slowly, then harder. Sparks danced behind his eyes, and he was hit with the memory of the brush of another man’s hand -
“No,” he begged under his breath, curling into himself, willing away thoughts of Tedesco. And he realized that this was perhaps another reason the Venetian had let him run: knowing that he would end up here, hard and aching and unable to separate the temptation from the man who had inadvertently brought it to light. Aldo choked out a sob, tears forming under his lids as he stroked himself, hard and slow. The resulting bursts of pleasure were as much despair as they were release, and he fell into a tortured sleep.
**
Aldo avoided Tedesco for days, nearly fleeing at the suspicion that the Venetian might be in the room he was about to enter. Worse, he couldn’t avoid thoughts of the man, startling every time he thought he smelled that odious vape pen, occasionally startling those around him when he would unexpectedly jump. Lawrence noticed it once, a shameful encounter that Aldo didn’t like to remember.
“You seem… distracted, my friend,” Lawrence had said, sitting down next to him, casually slinging an arm around his shoulders, a throwback to their seminary days in which the golden glow of youth had forgiven any transgressive familiarity like this. Aldo’s ears had burned. “Do I?” he demurred, not meeting his best friend’s gaze. He shrugged slightly, not wanting to dislodge that arm, feeling the touch in his whole body. “Just busy, these days, I’m afraid.”
Lawrence squeezed his shoulder comfortingly and Aldo lectured himself to not lean into the touch. “Don’t forget to take care of yourself, too, Aldo. You’re not good to anyone burned out.”
At that, Aldo had glanced up into his face, cocking a sardonic eyebrow. “You’re one to talk, Thomas,” he quipped in return, alluding to Lawrence’s nearly-famous lack of self-regard, drawing a laugh from his handsome best friend. Aldo allowed himself to smile in response, though he could feel the tension in his body ratcheting higher with longing. He shook his head, averting his gaze again. “No, I’m fine, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Just so, you know that I do. You’re important to me, Aldo.” Lawrence had squeezed his shoulder again - Thomas - and Aldo, coward that he was, thanked him ineffectually for his concern and invented some appointment that he was late to attend, and fled.
**
After three, nearly four weeks of torture, it was Tedesco who put him out of his agony by introducing a new agony. Aldo was holed up in the library staring at the pages of a tome he had no hope of reading; the light was weak and he was exhausted, his nerves frayed, his sense of self deteriorating, his fear of discovery driving him to distraction, his stomach unsettled - he’d nearly gone to confession a dozen times, but what would he confess? That he had argued with Tedesco, that he had been aroused by the encounter, that Tedesco had discovered it? That he had continued to experience arousal, and shame? That this was far from the first time he had been aroused by another man?
A hand on his shoulder should have caused him to jump, but he was so tired that he simply turned and looked up into Tedesco’s face, and was half-certain that he was imagining it. That his constant preoccupation with the man had simply summoned the man into being.
Tedesco scanned him for a long moment, then simply said, “ Ti aspetterò .”
Aldo watched him walk away, trailing the scent of that damned vape. He turned the phrase over in his fogged mind seeking hidden meaning. I’ll await you. I’ll anticipate you. I’ll expect you.
**
And so it began. Aldo would arrive in Tedesco’s apartment, furious with Tedesco for driving him to distraction, furious with himself for giving in. They would argue - sometimes continuing a slight from earlier in the day, sometimes finding something new to instigate an argument - and it would culminate in Tedesco crowding Aldo against the closest surface, his caustic, biting Italian words breathed against Aldo’s flaming face, the back of one strong hand brushing down the front of Aldo’s cassock, first to his sternum, then to his plexus, then to his navel, and finally lower, the Venetian watching the humiliation build on Aldo’s face until Aldo could no longer meet his gaze, waiting, wanting, needing - and then Tedesco would brush lower, and find Aldo hard as stone.
The first time, Tedesco had paused again, leaving Aldo furious and aching, trembling, his whole body taut and ready to shatter. Tedesco had laughed in his face and called him patetico , whether for his need or his obviousness, Aldo hadn’t known, and thrown him out into the street again. And when Tedesco saw that this only drove Aldo’s shame and fury and longing higher, and brought him back the very next night, things had only intensified.
The next night - and for several weeks afterwards - the argument had felt mechanical, almost contrived, as though Tedesco was only going through the motions until he could get Aldo cornered, stammering and flushed and angry, until Tedesco could get his hands on Aldo, could coax him easily to full hardness, full humiliation. Yet Aldo felt himself provoking the Venetian, increasingly desperate for the moment that Tedesco would reach for him, even knowing the consequences.
Weeks later, Tedesco had grown bolder. “ Finocchio ,” he growled out, watching Aldo choke on both the shame of the slur and the feeling of Tedesco’s hand cupping his throbbing cock while he passed mocking fingers down Aldo’s face, forcing the shorter man to try to push them away. Tedesco had laughed, low and cruel, as he gripped Aldo’s shoulder (the same one Thomas had squeezed only days earlier, don’t think about that now, don’t -) and turned Aldo to the side, toward Tedesco’s dominant hand, and Tedesco had continued to rub him through the cassock. Aldo brought his hands up to slide over Tedesco’s shirtsleeves, a pretense of pushing him away, but Tedesco held him firm. Powerless, aroused, furious, Aldo clung to the larger man’s arm as the pleasure tore through him; he came so hard he couldn’t breathe, slumping to the wall as the shudders weakened his knees, Tedesco’s hand gripping him mercilessly through his cassock.
Tedesco let go abruptly, and stood over him as Aldo tried to regain his breath, his heart racing in his ears. He stared at the floor through a veil of tears until he felt Tedesco’s hand under his chin, forcing him to look up into the other man’s burning gaze. “ E quello che sei: ,” Tedesco had pronounced triumphantly. “ Disperato, patetico e debole .” He shoved hard at Aldo’s jaw, then flung a hand at the door, and Aldo had scrambled out, nearly falling over himself in the effort to escape. He managed the walk back to his own apartments with his release drying in his pants, breath hitching with the effort not to break into tears in the street, sobbing once he was alone in his own shower.
**
Later again, weeks later, Tedesco ripped open the buttons of Aldo’s cassock and grasped him through his slacks. It was winter, and Aldo was grateful for his coat to hide the way he had misbuttoned himself back up afterwards, fingers trembling with adrenaline and fury and release, and the next morning spent a painful half hour sewing a missing button back on.
Weeks after that, Tedesco shoved him carelessly down into a wingback chair, its legs tilting precariously as Aldo fought for balance, and stood over him menacingly. “ Dimostramelo ,” he demanded, his tone almost bored, while Aldo with shaking fingers unbuttoned his cassock and parted it. His hands fluttered to his thighs, untethered, until Tedesco growled, “ Tutto, idiota, voglio tutto ,” and then with shaking hands Aldo unbuttoned his slacks and withdrew his cock.
That time Tedesco had watched him, simply stood over him and watched him, and Aldo had struggled, flaming with shame and humiliation, failing to perform until tears were streaking down his cheeks, and then Tedesco had kicked the side of the chair and snarled “ Vai ,” and Aldo had hastily shoved himself together and fled again.
**
Sometimes it was still a fight. Sometimes Aldo arrived full of sound and fury and they shouted at one another, mocked and belittled and wounded each other with their words. On those occasions they would start at opposite ends of the room and eventually meet in the middle, hands gesticulating, eyes flashing, spittle flying, and on one memorable occasion Tedesco had turned Aldo and bent him over the kitchen counter and reached under his cassock. Aldo squirmed, trying to fight him off, not because he didn’t want this but because he didn’t want Tedesco to know he wanted this, because he didn’t want to admit how desperate he was for what Tedesco was about to do.
With one hand on the small of his back, Tedesco held him in place while his other hand unbuttoned Aldo’s slacks and wrapped his hand around Aldo’s hard cock. Aldo had cried out and Tedesco had growled Silenzio in his ear and jerked him, quickly and expertly, until Aldo was shuddering apart and coming hot streaks into Tedesco’s hand, his torso twisted away so Tedesco couldn’t see his pleasure or his humiliation. Tedesco released him and left the room, closing his bedroom door, leaving Aldo debauched and cold on the kitchen counter. It was several long moments before Aldo realized Tedesco had abandoned and dismissed him, and he cleaned himself up and left quietly.
**
But he slept now, deeply and dreamlessly, and woke feeling refreshed each morning. His mind felt clearer, somehow no longer crowded with the guilt and shame and all-consuming fear that Tedesco was going to turn him in, was going to actually destroy him. Somehow it seemed Tedesco was content to control and humiliate him in private. And somehow it seemed that a knot Aldo hadn’t known he was carrying in his chest was loosening. Someone knew his secret. And while it hurt that it was Tedesco, hurt that he was allowing Tedesco to do things that could be considered abuse except that he returned for them, willingly again and again; it hurt that Tedesco had chosen to use his secret to hurt him, but it hurt a lot less than he had imagined it would. There was a sense of being fully seen, fully and finally known, that soothed parts of him that had been hurt for a long longer and a lot worse than this.
**
His father, standing over him, in the bedroom Aldo shared with two of his brothers. Aldo, fifteen, cowering on the floor, blood on his fingertips from the welt where his father’s belt had broken the skin of his shoulder.
“No son of mine,” Aldo’s father paused to draw breath, winded from the effort of the shouting and the whipping. “No son of mine is a faggot. No son of mine è così perverso.” He paused, wiped his mouth, then spit: “Get out.” Aldo’s mother, weeping in the kitchen, wouldn’t look at him as he left.
And so began two and a half terrible years of his life on the streets of New York, until the seminary took him in at eighteen. There Aldo discovered the things his mind could accomplish when nurtured properly. The things he could accomplish when he’d had enough to eat and a safe place to sleep. And so it had gone for years, burying the shameful parts of himself, focusing on the praise where he could get it. And he’d been the best, and the brightest, and he’d risen quickly, and he’d molded himself into the model deacon, priest, monsignor, fleeing NYC, ordained a bishop, an archbishop, fleeing the States, settling in Rome, becoming a cardinal. He’d known his path and all it contained.
Until now.
**
Until the day of the vote. He hadn’t dared go to Tedesco during the Conclave, knowing how close the cardinals were roomed together. Hadn’t dared try to exist in parallel spaces in such close proximity, terrified that he would be discovered. Worse, that Lawrence would find out - and Lawrence was already fraying around the edges, driven deep into his own crises, carrying the weight of the whole Conclave on his shoulders. Aldo didn’t know how to shoulder some of that burden so instead he focused his energies in the only way he knew how: through his efforts to take the whole burden onto himself. He could lead; he would lead; he would take on the whole Church if necessary. He had been known for his patience and compassion and his liberal views, and he would do his best by the Church or die trying.
And he would not let it go to Tedesco.
But then, it didn’t.
It went to another man, an unexpected man, who was nonetheless kind and good and compassionate in a way that belied his quiet strength and his unshakeable faith. A beautiful man, Aldo had been loath to admit, and had found himself resenting Benitez from the first meeting: for his apparent lassitude, his apparent deep self-awareness, his apparent iron resolve, and finally, after many nights of prayer and contemplation, Aldo discovered: for the way he had drawn Lawrence’s eye. It was obvious to Aldo that Lawrence’s eyes followed Benitez whenever he entered a room - the dining room, the theater, the Sistine, for God’s sake. And Aldo’s eyes followed Lawrence, watched the softening of tense shoulders, the quiet peace of consideration on his best friend’s face.
As an act of penance Aldo made an effort to be friendly to Benitez, and found him kind and officious at all times - not exactly warm but certainly willing to be amicable. There always seemed to be a part of himself held in reserve, in censor, and while Aldo didn’t trust it, he eventually let go of the anxiety and mistrust it caused. There seemed to be no outward purpose of the young man’s self-censure, and at times Aldo wondered if he was imagining it.
And Aldo burned, watching Lawrence grow closer to Benitez, knowing that Lawrence would be as friendly as ever but would never let Aldo come any closer than he already was.
**
They were back in Tedesco’s apartment tonight, finally freed from the Conclave, and Aldo was desperate. Furious, trembling with rage and anger and hate, directed at Tedesco, Benitez, even Lawrence, especially at himself. Tedesco was seated in that wingback chair, still in his scarlet mantle, sprawled, looking at Aldo with a gleeful kind of contempt.
“ Se fosse Tommaso ,” Tedesco mused, without preamble, “would you be in there with him right now? Getting on your knees for him like I could make you do for me?”
Aldo hadn’t known that Tedesco could hurt him in a new way, but here it was. Never mind that this was a bluff - Tedesco had never sexually participated in their many encounters, beyond touching Aldo. The pain slammed straight into his solar plexus and made him draw in a gasping breath, and he watched Tedesco observe that his barb had landed. Tedesco smirked, toyed with his pectoral cross, then removed it and set it on the table. “Does he know what you are, Finocchio ? Or do you think he would reject you if he knew?”
“How dare you even suggest that -”
“Or do you think he wouldn’t care?” Tedesco continued as though Aldo hadn’t spoken. “Do you think he’s too preoccupato with il nostro nuovo Papa Innocenzo ?” He glanced up in time to see the new flush spread across Aldo’s face, his hands gripped into fists at his sides. With an obscenely casual shrug, Tedesco removed his scarlet mantle, still streaked with dust from the explosion in the chapel. He stood and laid it over the back of the other chair, and unbuttoned his cassock, indifferent to Aldo’s eyes tracking his every movement, prey frozen before the predator.
“Benitez,” said Aldo lowly, deliberately, with conviction,“is twice the man you will ever be.”
Tedesco’s head snapped up, his eyes burning. Aldo met his gaze, shoulders relaxing, hands easing out of their fists. This wasn’t part of the game. This, Aldo believed. And Tedesco could hear it. The Venetian stalked closer, his cassock unbuttoned; he circled behind Aldo and the shorter man couldn’t help the nervous swallow as his body braced, not knowing what to expect - a blow? An uninvited, searingly intimate touch that he hated as much as he craved? - but Tedesco entered back into his field of vision, his lip curled with disgust as he surveyed Aldo.
“You didn’t win the Papacy,” Aldo continued, evenly, with a strength he didn’t know he still possessed, “because you don’t deserve it.”
“Every vote you received was a joke,” Tedesco retorted, but Aldo could see that he was off-center, reacting, not in control.
Aldo nodded once. “No, I know that. I didn’t deserve it either.”
They stared at each other while a new silence descended, not the weighted indrawn breath before Tedesco reached forward to deliver humiliation. Aldo’s gaze didn’t waver. “ Finocchio ,” Tedesco breathed, but it sounded searching instead of scathing, and Aldo inclined his head.
“Yes,” he said simply, and Tedesco gaped at him. And Aldo realized that he didn’t know what was going to happen next. Neither, it seemed, did Tedesco.
“So you’ll go to him now, instead?” Tedesco spat bitterly. “ Dopo Tomasso, passerai a Vincente? Ma ha davvero importanza quando sei in ginocchio ?” He stalked closer, eyes burning. Aldo was transfixed. “Does it even matter which man? Per quale uomo ti prostituirai ?”
Aldo flinched. Tedesco came even closer, contempt twisting his face. “And will you think of Tommaso when Vincente is before you? Eh? Il nome di Tommaso in your mouth when his hands are on you?” Tedesco’s chest was heaving with anger - real anger - Aldo didn’t know if he’d ever seen Tedesco truly angry like this before. Maybe in the auditorium, lashing out with fear and rage after the news of the terrorist attacks. Usually when they argued here Tedesco was loud, abrasive, irritated, escalated, but then the final sexual humiliation was delivered with a controlled precision.
This time, Tedesco seemed out of his own control, his hands flexing at his sides, his cassock billowing. He was wild and fierce and Aldo was trapped in his sights.
“Or will you forget him?” Tedesco was right in his face now, breath hot on Aldo’s cheek, eyes like coals. “ Lo dimenticherai as soon as you have left him, just as you -”
This close, Aldo could see the exact moment Tedesco froze, words on his tongue, his eyes widening with something like shock. There was a ringing silence.
“Just as I - what?” Aldo asked, his voice coming out higher than normal, trembling slightly. He realized that he had crossed his arms over his chest, self-protective, self-comforting, grounding.
“Just as - as you - as you have forgotten Tomasso ,” Tedesco stammered, but he was backing away now, and Tedesco never retreated.
Aldo narrowed his eyes. “I will never forget Thomas,” he vowed lowly, beyond caring that this was an otherwise damning admission, distracted as he was by Tedesco in this unusual state. Tedesco had backed off several feet and stood there, color high in his cheeks, as unkempt as Aldo had ever seen him. It was… unnerving. Disarming. He looked wrecked, for a change, his eyes huge in his face, and Aldo wasn’t sure what to do with the sudden power imbalance. The sudden switch.
They stood on the precipice for another moment, neither daring to move, then Aldo caved in the face of this much unknown and turned to leave. His body ached with fatigue. His fingers had barely brushed the doorknob when Tedesco whispered, “ Proprio come ti dimenticherai di me .”
Aldo spun on his heel but Tedesco was staring at his hands. “ Che cosa ??” he sputtered, certain he had misheard, but Tedesco didn’t look up, just kept his gaze fixed downward, miserably.
“Of course you will never forget Tomasso ,” Tedesco said, his tone quiet, humbled. Aldo had never heard him like this before. “Of course you will not. You think I do not see? You think I do not watch the way you watch him? I tuoi occhi lo seguono ovunque . Every time he come in the room, there is nobody but him. Per te .” He shrugged, almost as if to brush off his own words, but it looked equally miserable.
“Wh- what are you saying,” Aldo began, taking a daring step closer, then another. “Te - Emine - Goffredo. Cosa mi stai dicendo? ”
Tedesco half turned away from him then, flapped a hand at him and the door. “ Vai . Go to him. It’s where you want to be.” The dismissal, which usually would have stung with the humiliation Aldo craved, did nothing to allay Aldo’s suspicion that something was wildly amiss.
“That’s not how you usually dismiss me,” he murmured finally, and Tedesco’s shoulders heaved with something that might have been a laugh. “ Sì, beh. Well. Non è così how you usually come to me.”
And something clicked in Aldo’s brain. “You,” he said, breathless, wondering. Tedesco didn’t look at him, and then he knew. “ Credi che dimenticherò Tomasso just as you think I’d forget… you.”
Tedesco flinched. Aldo felt the room spin around him and for a moment wondered if he might faint. He staggered to the other chair and clung to its high back for a moment, trying to regain his equilibrium. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tedesco take a half step toward him, his face shuttered and drawn. Aldo lifted his head and their eyes met.
“Goffredo,” Aldo said, heartbreakingly easily. “I could never - This - This is not meaningless to me. This,” he lifted a hand, gestured back and forth between them, encompassing the two of them and the room and everything that happened between them, said and unsaid. Tedesco watched the gesture. “I thought -” and here he swallowed, the familiar anguish rising up in his throat. “But this…was not… it’s not… good, for either of us. You can’t deny that.”
“No.” Tedesco shook his head, but came closer, reaching out to touch Aldo’s face, the barest brush of fingertips. “But it was what you wanted. What you expected of me. So, I gave you. And, beh ,” here he spread his hands, a universal Italian gesture to say: here we are.
Aldo stared at him, so unaccustomed to a complex, emotional Tedesco that he was at a loss for words. “And what,” he asked, so slowly, realizing that he had never stopped to consider this before. “What do you want?”
Tedesco looked up at him, eyes shining, and Aldo caught his breath, heart pounding in his throat. “ Permettimi ,” Tedesco said, but it wasn’t a question or a request, and then he was cupping Aldo’s face in his hands and kissing him and kissing him and Aldo couldn’t breathe, and his heart was slamming its way out of his ribs and his whole body was shaking. He tried to gasp for breath but press closer at the same time, and Tedesco made a broken sort of noise into his mouth that had all the blood rushing to Aldo’s face. He reached up and gripped the Venetian’s arms, fingers slipping on the sleeves of his cassock. Tedesco released him just long enough to start to shrug it off, but then paused again. “ No, non potresti volerlo … you could not possibly want,” he started to say. “Not after I have used you most cruelly…”
His eyes searched Aldo’s face and Aldo could not breathe. “Goffredo, you - you didn’t do anything I - didn’t want,” he finished, dropping his gaze to the floor, stomach turning over, shame suffusing his face as he remembered the depraved hours he’d spent in this apartment over the past year, furious and humiliated, letting Tedesco take him apart first with his words then with his hands. The way Tedesco had touched him, over and over, had drawn out his fury and then unendurable sexual pleasure, possibly hundreds of times. Aldo was startled back into the moment when Tedesco cupped his face again, so gentle that Aldo felt tears start to come to his eyes. Tedesco’s own eyes were shining.
“Then permettimi , and I will do something even better.” And now he was kissing Aldo fiercely, and Aldo was pushing the cassock off his arms to pool on the floor around them, and Tedesco was stroking his hand down the front of Aldo’s scarlet buttons in a mimicry of their initial encounters, brushing lower with each stroke before feeling for his cock, fumbling the front of his cassock. Aldo flushed in remembered embarrassment but started to undo his buttons with numb fingers while Tedesco lifted the panels and rubbed him through his slacks. “Oh, my God, Goffredo.”
“Did you know it could be così ?” Goffredo murmured, one hand rubbing Aldo to hardness, the other hand splayed across his shoulder blades, holding him close, eyes locked on his face. “ Sapevi che I did not have to hurt you to love you?”
Without warning tears spilled down Aldo’s face, hot and sudden and overwhelming, and his fingers slid numbly off the buttons of his cassock and he let Tedesco pull him close. He buried his face in Tedesco’s shoulder, overcome. “My God, Goffredo, I -”
“Shh.” Tedesco soothed and Aldo let himself sob, let Tedesco stroke strong hands down his back. Months of longing, months of humiliation, of having his dignity stripped away again and again - he’d needed all of that, then, but now, he needed this more. “ Finocchio ,” Tedesco said gently in his ear, and kissed the side of his neck, and Aldo released a sigh that loosened the final knot in his chest.
He felt Tedesco fumbling with his collar, pushing his cassock off to the floor, opening the white tab and the black buttons beneath the black panel, pushing his shirt open, finding his undershirt beneath, Tedesco’s whiskery mouth laughing against his skin. “ Che cazzo, Aldino , why so many layers?” and Aldo was laughing helplessly with him, a wet laugh edged with tears, edged with mania and impossibility, there was no way this was happening. Tedesco spread his black clergy shirt, shoved it off his shoulders and down his arms, effectively pinning his wrists behind him, before lowering his whiskered mouth to Aldo’s throat, and Aldo gasped, his head falling back, his knees going weak, Tedesco’s hand still on the small of his back holding him close.
Turning him, Tedesco maneuvered him to sit in the wingback, Aldo’s wrists still confined in his shirt behind him. He struggled to free himself as Tedesco knelt and unbuckled his pants. “ Aspetta, aspetta ,” he laughed, but when Tedesco made no move to actually wait, he began to struggle in earnest. “Goffredo,” he managed, before Tedesco freed his hard cock, took him in hand, then took him into his mouth.
Aldo’s head slammed into the back of the wingback as his body jerked. He must have made a noise because Tedesco’s hand came up to cover his mouth, and Tedesco hummed around his cock. Aldo squirmed and, shamefully, felt the first stirrings of orgasm already approaching. He tried to say Tedesco’s name but managed only to moan into his palm.
Tedesco sucked him in long, strong strokes, Aldo’s whole body rigid with desire, and right before Aldo lost his mind, pulled off with a pop . “ Aspetterai finché ,” he began, then leaned down to lick at Aldo again.
“Until you what?” Aldo asked senselessly, although he already knew the answer. He rolled his head back and forth, dislodging Tedesco’s hand, overstimulated and already desperate. Tedesco gripped his rigid thighs and sucked at his cock with long slow pulls, driving Aldo closer and closer to the edge until he pulled off again. Aldo was gasping for air. Nothing they had previously done - nothing Aldo had allowed Tedesco to do to him - had been anything like this.
“ Dovrei tell you to leave now,” Tedesco mused calmly, and Aldo sat all the way up, horrified. “You -”
“ Rilassati, Aldino , I won’t do it.” Tedesco chuckled and sucked at the head of Aldo’s cock. He collapsed again, groaning.
“You haven’t done that to me in…” Aldo tried to calculate but couldn’t. “Months,” he said finally, knowing it was an underestimate. “Since… this started.”
“Mmmmm.” Tedesco drew off again. “Letting you go ogni notte … it was challenging. But you kept coming back. And I let myself be greedy. I let myself want more.”
Aldo glanced down at him, surprised. “ You wanted more?”
Tedesco gazed up at him, bearded cheeks hollowed slightly with suction, and Aldo let his head fall back again in exquisite, torturous pleasure.
“ Tutto, idiota, voglio tutto ,” Tedesco said, then reapplied himself to the task at hand so thoroughly that Aldo was fighting to free his hands and fighting not to come. He tried to close his thighs and Tedesco shoved them back apart. The display of force and command had him teetering on the edge, his balls drawn up tight, his stomach fluttering, his teeth sunk into his bottom lip, but -
Tedesco pulled off again, shaking his shaggy head, and Aldo gasped for air, feeling the blush spreading down his chest, shaking with desperation. Finally he freed one hand from his shirtsleeve and braced it on his shaking thighs. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Opening blurry eyes, he glanced at Tedesco, who was sitting back on his heels looking smug. Aldo wanted to reach for him but didn’t know how. Belatedly his own position occurred to him - sprawled in Tedesco’s wingback, his black shirt beneath him, threadbare undershirt rucked up, black slacks open, cock jutting upward obscenely, red and wet from Tedesco’s mouth. He was horrified at himself. He didn’t know what to do about it.
His gaze focused farther and he caught the grin on Tedesco’s face. He appeared inordinately pleased with himself, but there was no hint of mockery, not this time. Aldo opened his mouth to - he didn’t know, to ask? To plead? - but then Tedesco climbed to his feet. And Aldo noticed the way his own black slacks were obscenely tented, and his mouth went dry.
“ Ti piacerebbe , no? To see?” Aldo was helpless as Tedesco unbuttoned his slacks and drew out his cock, stroking it proudly. Aldo’s whole body shivered with fiery desire prickling over his skin, and his cock throbbed on his belly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen another man naked; it certainly hadn’t been like this. He didn’t know what to do. Was he meant to - reciprocate? He shifted, started to sit forward, and heard Tedesco laugh.
“So eager, eh?” Aldo’s face flamed; he couldn’t lift his gaze. Was this more humiliation? He kept his gaze on the carpet, watching Tedesco’s shiny black shoes come to stand between his knees. Tedesco reached down and gripped his jaw roughly, as he had done on so many occasions, to force Aldo to look at him, but this time when Aldo flinched he let go immediately. “ Ecco, Aldino ,” he murmured, his cock still in his own hand, and Aldo threw caution to the wind: he opened his mouth, letting Tedesco set the head of his cock against his lips, letting his tongue come forward to caress the underside of the thick head. Tedesco gave a guttural groan, his own head falling back, pressing farther into Aldo’s mouth; Aldo tried closing his lips and sucking and was rewarded by a thrust that nearly gagged him.
“ Finocchio ,” Tedesco gasped, a word he had used countless times to Aldo’s shame and fury, but this time sounded like a benediction. The hand not wrapped around the base of his cock braced him on the wingback; his thighs trembled but he held still while Aldo tentatively licked and sucked, his hands twitching on his own thighs, not sure what to do.
Finally Tedesco pulled back with a breathless laugh. “ Bravo, Aldino, Dio mio ,” he gasped, then reached down and grasped Aldo’s shoulder, pinning him to the chair, sliding a knee alongside the outside of Aldo’s own trembling thighs, effectively pinning him back in the chair. Aldo was eye-level with Tedesco’s cock, choking on his own arousal, while Tedesco stroked himself hard and fast and watched. “ Ogni notte ,” Tedesco ground out. “Every time you left, così . You left me like this.”
He stroked faster and Aldo was helpless, transfixed. It didn’t occur to him to reach for himself. A droplet of Tedesco’s sweat landed on his own forehead, and when he looked up Tedesco caught his gaze, gave an agonized groan, and came all over Aldo’s chest in burning spurts. Aldo closed his eyes, the desire in his body reaching a fever pitch. Over Tedesco’s quiet groans, he heard himself starting to beg, something Tedesco had not yet forced him to do.
“Please,” he whispered through dry lips. “ Per favore, Eminenza. Goffredo. Please .”
He felt Tedesco back up, then part his thighs, and drop back down between them. A hand snaked up to cover his mouth when Tedesco’s mouth descended, and then suddenly all the heat in Aldo’s body was coalescing in his groin, and his back and thighs and fingers and toes contracted and spasmed to the point of pain, and then -
Tedesco paused and pulled off, just long enough for Aldo to cry out against his palm -
Then Tedesco reapplied himself, and Aldo was experiencing a release so powerful he thought he might suffocate against Tedesco’s palm. His body shuddered so hard he felt the chair creak beneath him; his fingers dug into his thighs, his back arched so hard that Tedesco’s hand was dislodged, and he saw flashes of light as though he were close to fainting.
When he came back himself, Tedesco was standing, tucking his flaccid cock back into his slacks. Aldo blinked bleary eyes. “Goffredo.”
“ Sono qui, Aldino .” Tedesco touched his face with gentle fingertips, tracing his cheekbone down to his chin. “ Quanto sei bello .”
And Aldo blushed, not out of shame or pain or humiliation, but because he’d never been called beautiful before in his life. He let Tedesco take his hand and pull him to his feet; his knees were weak and wobbly. Tedesco freed his other wrist from his black shirt, then gestured at the front of Aldo’s vest, streaked with Tedesco’s drying semen.
“Next time, less shirt, no?” he smirked, his usual bravado surfacing, but Aldo only blinked at him. Next time ?
He must have said it out loud because the smile dropped from Tedesco’s face, and his intense brown eyes became serious, pinning Aldo to the spot. “Yes, next time. You come back to me così, capito ? No more,” he waved a hand. “No more pretending like you don’t want. No more leaving like that. No more,” and he cupped Aldo’s face in his hands, forcing their gazes to lock. “No more, hai capito ? Only così .” And Aldo brought his hands up to cradle the outsides of Tedesco’s strong hands, stroking a caress, and nodded.