“Do you think me beautiful?”
The Pope was startled by this change of flow in the conversation. But he replied with a smile which contained a hint of lechery.
“Your beauty is well-known, madam, and likewise your accomplishment.”
He placed an impudent emphasis on the final word and his eyes moved down to her neck and the low bodice which revealed the rising swell of her breasts.
Lucrezia's heart beat rapidly. This thought of giving herself to a lifelong enemy, of having his prick gouge her where her dear father's and beloved Cesare's had been before, was a bitter pill. But she had nothing else to offer.
“My accomplishment is admirable,” she said brazenly, “but it demands that return be made.”
“I see. If I don't mistake you, you are offering to be my mistress at the price of your brother's freedom? as far as my persuasion can achieve it.”
Julius' penis had moved and staggered up at the thought. This would be sweet vengeance, indeed. The old man dead, the son in prison and now the daughter to lie under him while he made her a harlot, punishing her body with his bludgeon to push home the subservience of the Borgia family to his will in the most sadistically dominating manner. And why need he keep his word. She had no way of enforcing it. She was completely at his mercy. She had to take him at his word.
“Your brother would be unable to resist trying to avenge your family's honor,” he hedged, feeling for how serious her proposal was.
Her hand came under the table at which they sat and rested on his thigh, a warm, foreign pressure, harbinger of things to come.
“He shall never know,” she said.
His eyes moved over her. The whiteness of her soft skin at the half-bulge of her breasts was a spur. It was so little of that beautiful body to see and it made the hidden remainder superbly exciting.
He leaned forward and kissed the white, soft patch and Lucrezia closed her eyes to hide her shame. She felt his lips glide over the revealed bulge and his fingers pull her dress away at its top so that he could look down the front. The man was a piggish brute.
But while her thoughts were those of hatred, her actions belied them and her hand moved up his thigh and pulled at the hard core of flesh she could feel under his robes. The Pope drew back his head and looked at her. She opened her eyes and smiled, forcing her look to be one of invitation.
Julius was suddenly hot with desire. To know that this famous beauty would be his, all naked in a bed, her whole body at his disposal. It was too much for a man like him to resist? particularly as he was not bound to make any return.
“I agree to your terms,” he said.
She took her hand off his erect penis and he felt naked and filled with passion.
“How shall I know you will keep your word?”
“I will draft out the letter and send it off immediately.”
“Very well.”
Lucrezia was well aware of the probability of trickery, but her bargain was a long shot. She had to take a chance if anything was to be done for her brother.
Julius, now, could hardly keep his hands off her and as they stood up he took her in his arms and pulled her to him. He crushed his lips hungrily on hers and she fought down her anger and opened her lips so that she could flick her tongue into his mouth.
She drew back as his hand began to fumble with her body.
“Later,” she said.
He laughed fiercely and rang a bell for his servants.
Lucrezia watched while the letter was written. When it was powdered and signed, she took it in her hands and read it with a glow of hope. It explained that due to new information which had come to light, Cesare Borgia was, in fact, no longer considered guilty of the motives which had previously been ascribed to him. It asked, on behalf of the Pope, that he be returned to Rome as soon as possible as his services were needed.
The letter was sealed, a courier summoned and then dispatched to Ostia that the document might leave on the next ship setting sail for Spain. He had hardly left the Vatican when he was intercepted and the letter taken from him to be burnt to ashes within minutes.
Lucrezia, all unaware of the promptness of the treachery, feeling that there was a good chance of Cesare's rejoining her within the next month or so prepared to fulfill her side of the bargain.
The Pope excused himself for a few minutes to give her time to undress. While she stripped herself of her few garments, bitter and almost tearful at preparing to be ignominiously used by the oldest enemy of her family, the Pope was inviting one of his nearest cardinals, Cardinal Rimini, to secrete himself in the papal rooms and witness all that followed. For so overjoyed and proud was the Pope that the beautiful, luscious daughter of his old enemy was to open her legs in subjection to him that he could not keep it to himself. Only by having a witness could he be sure that he would be believed if ever he told the story. The thought of a voyeur?and how that would further humiliate Lucrezia?added to his own lecherous expectation of enjoyment.
So by the time Julius returned to his bedroom, where Lucrezia lay on the bed, naked, not looking at him, Cardinal Rimini had slipped into the papal apartment and was peering through the crack of an open door at the beautiful and unexpected sight.
“So this is the luscious Lucrezia Borgia,” Julius said, with a slight break in his voice as he saw her curved nudity. He flicked his tongue over dry lips. Her buttocks and breasts were the most superb he'd seen in his life, full and juicy but with a firmness which indicated a power in the act and a luster which made them look as smooth as he was to find they felt. Her shoulders were slim, her waist tiny, which accentuated the voluptuous quality of her rotundities. Her thighs were soft and full, with muscles hidden under the surface which could work like a Trojan when her body was afire.
“A bargain well made,” he added, with theatrical hypocrisy.
Lucrezia turned her eyes toward him as he stripped off his robes. He had an ugly narrow body, with a rough, pockmarked skin. His prick which pointed out at her like a cannon seemed out of proportion to the rest of his body. It looked wicked and capable of producing pain and desecration.
“How do you find that?” he asked, taking it in his hand and holding it toward her. Obviously he'd been told by other conquests that he had a prick second to none.
“I have seen its equals,” Lucrezia lied with a haughty irritation.
“Never its superior, however,” he chuckled.
He came toward the bed and the sight of his prick almost frightened her. Belonging to a desired friend she would have regarded it with a trembling anticipation. It promised a brutal and therefore ecstatic penetration. But, belonging as it did to an enemy, she felt it had the power to humiliate and destroy her.
The Pope stretched out on the bed beside her and his hands trembled as they began to feel her body. She shivered with repressed antipathy as she felt his hated hands foraging her breasts and buttocks, stroking her thighs. She hated him more than ever now that the moment had come and she saw in his eyes as he bent and ravaged her lips, a gleam of triumph mingled with his passion.
She felt no answering passion. His body, his face, the whole hostile idea of his position repelled her. He was the master. She had sold herself to him. He was not lost and reveling in his passion, he was owning her?with passion?but cruelly, knowing that she could not escape him, had no option but to submit to what he demanded from her body.
“Ah, I want you, I want you,” he whispered hoarsely, as if the very sound of the words increased the power he felt over her.
“You're mine, mine. Lucrezia Borgia, you're mine!”
She uttered a little cry at the wanton ring in his words and the cry was muffled in her groan as, with a quick movement he mounted her and thrust into her dry vagina.
The dryness, unresponsiveness of her flesh tore at his prick, drawing a hoarse cry from his lips.