It’s a disgusting piece.
Undeniably, the craftsmanship is exquisite. There is a talent behind it comparable, I would insist, to Bernini or Bouchardon.
It was, of course, Bouchardon’s Faune Endormi that immediately came to mind when I came out to the garden and saw it, but where Bouchardon’s sleeping faun is poetry, this… thing… is pornography.
The realism, the authenticity that compels you to study and admire every detail in his faun or his Cupid, or in Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, in this thing it demands you look away in shame.
It’s as if, at any moment, its chest will heave and the veins protruding beneath the skin will pulsate as it comes alive, shakes off its white marble prison, and stands up. I imagine it rising and standing upright on its plinth, staring down at the two women in the garden with it, with sinister lust and fervor in its eyes, and I shiver.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the old lady asks me.
-
Two days ago, I received an email from her, though probably written by someone in her staff, asking me to come to her manor “with all due speed”, promising me the revelation of a work of art that would, as it was put, astound both my mind and my body.
I entered the grand foyer, greeted by a man in a black suit and bowtie who informed me that, “Signora de Fruticeto will be brought to you in a moment.”
And sure enough, only a moment later he returned, pushing a woman in a wheelchair. She seemed pale and sickly, holding an oxygen mask to her face, but her eyes gleamed, revealing a smile as she saw me. She extended her left hand to me, which I gripped cautiously, and as if that annoyed her, her smile disappeared.
“Sick, even dying, but I am neither as old nor as frail as I look,” she said sternly, removing her mask, but a second later her smile was back.
“I have read all your articles,” she said. “And enjoyed them all. You are very talented and knowledgeable. I am so pleased you decided to come.”
“Thank you,” I said. “How could I refuse? Your invitation was quite intriguing, Mrs. de Fruticeto.”
“It’s Miss de Fruticeto, darling. And you won’t be disappointed, I assure you. Now, what should I call you? Is it Miss or Mrs. Grant?”
“Miss,” I answered. “But Sophia is fine too.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “I am so glad to hear that. Do you know what a satyr is, Miss Grant?”
It seemed that our exchange of pleasantries was already over.
“Certainly. A creature from Greek and Roman mythology, and a recurring motif in European art through centuries.”
“Indeed. And they were horny little bastards too. Did you know that to lie with a satyr was said to bring luck and good fortune?”
Startled by the sudden profanities, I stuttered, “I did not know that. I’m… I’m not sure that is correct.”
“Oh, it is. No woman could stay unaffected. Horny as hell they'd make you, just by looking at them, and any woman lucky enough to get fucked by one was then granted a life in wealth and luxury.”
“I… see,” was all I could say.
I glanced at the man I assumed was her assistant, or butler, or whatever rich people call their servants these days, still standing behind her, searching his expression for any guidance on how to react to the out-of-place words uttered by this seemingly dignified lady, but he stared ahead, impassive and unaffected.
"Let me explain why you are here, Miss Grant,” Miss de Fruticeto said. “My family comes from a village in the Apennine Mountains in Italy called Castel Fruticeto. Have you heard of it?"
I only had time to open my mouth halfway before she continued, not waiting for my answer.
"No, of course you haven't. No one has. There's not much to see. Tourists and travellers overlook it, and even mountain hikers only accidentally stumble upon it now and then. But there is an old castle there, the Castrum Fruticis Intonsi, from which the town and my family derive their name, and..."
"The castle of the untrimmed bush?" I injected, translating the Latin phrase, unable to hide a tiny smirk.
"Very impressive," she said. "And I did notice your raised eyebrows, Miss Grant, and yes, some have indeed suggested that the name "Fruticis Intonsi" was the villagers' facetious allusion to the Countess Gelida, who lived there in the 18th century. But it referred to the untended gardens there, that is all."
"I apologize," I said.
"Not at all. Now, this very Countess Gelida was my 5th great-grandmother. And you'd think that, being a countess and living in a castle, she was a wealthy woman, but she was not. She was as poor as the rest of the people there. At least, until later."
She paused for a second before she said, "Frank, you can take us out to the garden now."
As I walked behind them towards two massive doors behind the curved staircase, she continued speaking.
"I have followed and loved you and your work for years, Miss Grant, and as I said, I have read all your articles. The way you describe art, I can tell you are like me; that it is not just a statue or a painting to you, but a living, breathing thing - affecting you, speaking to you. Touching you back as you touch it. You can leave us now, Frank."
We had walked out into a magnificent and massive backyard, with brick pathways winding through beds of shrubs with flowers of every color imaginable, fountains of different shapes and sizes, and slim cypress trees stretching towards the sky above.
"That is why I have chosen you," she said.
"Uh, thank you," I mumbled, not even looking at her but staring at the statue that stood on a circular patio in the middle of the garden.
-
And now I must have been standing here just staring at it for several minutes. Truly a disgusting piece.
It is definitely of a satyr, or a faun. Not from the more recent Roman myths, where these creatures had hideous faces and goat legs. No, this is a handsome man with human legs, curled hair, pointy ears, and tiny horns on his temples. With flexed muscles, he is reclined on a plinth less than two feet tall, supporting himself on his arms, legs slightly apart and looking down on himself as if admiring his own erection.
Because that's what it is. A huge hard-on, twice the size of any, though there haven't been many, that I've ever seen in real life, pointing proudly to the sky - veins, wrinkles, and folds intricately detailed as if it was created not only to be seen but to be touched.
Perverse and immoral in ways art should strive to avoid, yet I cannot take my eyes off it, and I feel my fingertips tingle with the desire to explore it.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she finally says.
The word I want to respond with is "obscene", or maybe even "vulgar", but what comes out is, "It's... mesmerizing."
She glances at me, seeming quite delighted with my response, with what I can only describe as a knowing, sly smile.
"A strong believer in these ancient fables and lore, Countess Gelida commissioned it," she says. "Who the artist, or rather, the wizard behind it is, no one knows. And whatever you yourself choose to believe, the fact is that shortly after, months or just weeks, they say, after it was finished and placed in the castle garden, and the Countess had begun to, shall we say, fulfill her part of that mythological arrangement, she did become very rich. Maybe it was a gift, maybe it was a sudden inheritance, but...
"Stop. Are you saying she... she fornicated with this thing?"
"Fucked it. Yes, of course. And it worked. As it later worked for her daughter, and her granddaughter and so on, and as it has worked for me."
"You all...?" I stuttered.
"Countess Gelida soon moved to Florence, which is the city I was born in, and became part of the aristocracy there until she died, much too young, I should add, and this piece, this culmination of true alchemy of art, was passed on, from mother to daughter, mother to daughter. And our wealth only grew with every generation."
She grabs the wheels of her chair and moves over to the side of the statue, where she leans onto it, affectionately, as if placing her head in a lover’s lap, and begins to stroke its cock with her fingers.
“I myself don’t have a daughter to pass it on to,” she continues. “I despise men. Roughhewn, hairy beasts are what they are. Not clean, smooth, and delicate like a woman. Like you. Or as pure and polished as this. Men demand, command, and appreciate nothing. But this one…”
To my bewilderment, she leans even closer, sticks her tongue out, and licks the shaft of it.
“This one is acknowledging. Grateful. Devoted.”
She kisses it several times before she opens her mouth wide and takes the head of it between her lips and starts to perform fellatio on it, and to my dread I realize the sight is turning me on.
I watch in silence, my arousal getting stronger with every glide of her lips up and then back down, until she sits back in her wheelchair and looks at me.
“You can feel it, can’t you? What it does to you?”
My first thought is, it's not him, it's you, but that isn't really true. It's not her. Though what she just did was indeed arousing, I'll admit, she is, after all, just a sick, old lady with apparent objectophilia, the sexual attraction to objects. She's not unattractive, sure, but not sexy either.
And it's not him. Because it's not a "him". It's an "it". And I'm not like her. To me, it's just a statue, a piece of stone. However shaped, whatever it resembles, I could never be turned on by it.
But I am. I feel hornier now than I can remember having been in a long time; my nipples are already stiff, scraping against the fabric of my bra, my pussy is wet, warm and throbbing.
If I were alone with this thing, hell yes, I would fuck it.
And why not?
I, too, own objects that I sometimes long for and lust after. How often have I not hurried home after an arduous day, with nothing else on my mind but the contents of my bedroom dresser's top drawer? And how often have I not opened that drawer, looking for one of the more innocent things I also keep there; a phone charger or maybe a cigarette lighter, and then the mere sight of the pink vibrator made to look like a woman's lips and tongue, or the purple dildo shaped like two cocks, one above the other, has turned me on?
Lifeless gadgets, but still the targets of, and the reason behind, my desire.
Is this thing any different?
No. Just as I then would throw myself down on the bed and ravish my pussy with one of my toys, I now want to climb on top of this thing and let its cock enter me as deep as it can possibly get.
It is obscene and vulgar, but that's what it is meant to be. That is why it's beautiful.
"Come here, Sophia," Miss de Fruticeto says, and I walk to her.
She has seen it in my eyes. In my blushed cheeks. She reaches for me and starts to unbutton my blouse, and I let her. I help her remove it completely, and then I unclasp my bra and take it off, and she puts her hands on my breasts.
"So beautiful," she moans as she fondles them tenderly and pinches my nipples between her fingers, and lightning rips through me.
I take a step back and open the buttons in my jeans, and when I pull them down, she gasps for air and clutches for her oxygen mask.
I hesitate, but she waves her hand at me.
"I'm fine," she whispers.
When I have undressed completely, I let her touch me again. I have never been with a woman, never contemplated it, but this feels different. Even as her fingers stroke my pussylips, it feels more like a preparation. Like a mother brushing her daughter's hair before a date.
"When I am gone, everything I own will be yours," she says. "Him too. I give him to you as I give you to him."
And with her watching, modesty and bashfulness gone, I climb up on the statue, mounting it, and as soon as I can feel its marble cock against my cunt, I lower myself down on it.
I expect it to be cold and coarse, but it isn't. It's warm and smooth. Maybe it's the sun's heat radiating from it, and the wet anticipation of my insides, but it feels almost real.
I move up and down on it, and it's immediately more gratifying than any real cock I've had, any real man I've been fucked by. Everything is just right: the movements, the speed, the variations. In complete control, blessed by the freedom of egoism and selfishness, yet my body insists I am making love to a real person - with a chest to lay down on, shoulders to hold on to, lips to kiss.
I lean down and kiss his lips. I let my tongue run across them as my hips move faster. As I get closer and closer to a forceful orgasm, I forget all about the old lady's presence, forget about the overtness of the garden, the vulnerability of my naked body.
I am alone with my lover, and soon, much too soon, he makes me come.
I slump down on it, panting and sweating, but keep its cock in me, still slowly gliding up and down on it, wanting more. When the last trembles subside, and my breath is steady again, I start moving faster, but then feel her hand on mine.
"Take your time," she says. "And when you are done, come to my study. I won't be around for much longer. Months or just weeks, they say. There are papers for you to sign."
