L.

[2.] Cake

On account that Venus had made my Marie with such care, it was a shame that living had decayed his form so. He had grown soft in some places, and brittle in others. But, as formerly stated, he was a beast, and what does a beast know about any matter but its duty? 

And so he went to work, even while his position at court suffered from softly refusing the call to the battlefield, in favor of keeping the fires lit at home. He was not a man made for masculine glory, though he did not consider his youth past. 

If overtures toward me failed, those pleas from Eros' quiver, which are a different sort of battlefield, I found sometimes there came a soft knock on the door of my house.

Usually, these young men he sent were somewhat better than well-scrubbed urchins, with a nice accent around their words and combed eyebrows. 

"The Marquess requests you come along to the house with climbing ivy, and to use me as you will." 

Once or twice, Dasius found himself propositioned in this manner, and came to me sputtering and nearly unconscious with the thrill. See how tedious creatures are so easily excited? Did Marie think me so simple?

I stayed away not out of idleness, but only because I wanted to. 

Sometimes it struck me to be honest. Too honest. Small and passionate eruptions of the spirit. I wrote out a short letter, stuck it in a round bronze jewelcase, and deposited it into one of these young prostitute's mouth. 

"Have him fish it out. Have him guess where it is. Or spit it at his forehead. Whatever it is, I don't care."

The same prostitute came back with the jewelcase some hours later and pitched it hard at poor Dasius, who had opened the door. "He says he does so know what you want and to stop being such a hard old bitch."

This having happened, and Dasius smarting from it, I dragged Dove out of the house that very evening and to a whimsical fete for Easter (truly the most debauched season in any year.) In the house, all pretender courtiers were already in summer dress, and no wigs anywhere, which caused my eye to twitch and heart to palpitate. Barefoot gentlemen pretending to be low-blooded milky kittens of the countryside. Would that I could never have said to have been seen there!

Dasius, being on every account too ugly to be noted, escaped the gaze of such a room. I shall keep him for myself, in his un-dyed shoes and fabric-covered buttons. Halfway up the house's backstairs, I turned to him, and he peered up at me with his gray gimlet-eyes, piercing me with his disquiet. 

"Kiss me here," I said, touching my neck and falling against the wall.

"Fiche-moi la paix," he murmured, covered his face with his hand. Give me peace.

"What did you say to me?"

"Oh pitiable self," he murmured, completely uncomfortable now that his guardian had abandoned him for vice. He was like a man suddenly stranded in the rain.

"Do not talk to yourself like that. You'll leave the house once in awhile if I tell you to."

"God excuse him."

"Who?"

"Me," he murmured.

"Do not behave like an old woman. I cannot stand that."

"Then do not pick on me."

"I said kiss my neck with your full, pretty lips. Do it right now."

"You're embarrassing me," he said.

"There's nobody here." As I took hold of him around the waist, he kissed me. Gentle touch upon the neck, and him in my arms. His coat was a nice silk, deeply gray, and soft on the hands.