Chapter 9: The Kitchen
After working in La Contessa's service for several months I've become accepted as part of her household. My days are a mixture of serving my mistress in whatever sex games she decides to use me for and a variety of domestic tasks.
Whenever the mood takes her, she will summon me to her boudoir to serve her. She enjoys administering corporal punishment and possesses a massive chest covered in erotic carvings, full of whips, paddles, floggers, tawses, and canes which she uses to deliver severe punishments. She has a choice of clamps and pegs for applying to nipples and genitals, which she takes delight in squeezing to make me twist and squirm.
She has ropes and cords to bind me and her skill at rope bondage is extraordinary. She will tie my balls up and put me in bondage so tight the knots leave marks where they've pressed into my flesh. She likes the pattern of white ropes against my olive skin. She puts me into a hog-tie position and all manner of predicament bondage.
She has a huge collection of dildos and strap-on cocks of varying lengths and girths to create different sensations, some in polished wood, others covered in kid skin leather. Her favourite, which she used once on me, is a dildo of solid Murano crystal. She keeps a selection of candles and one of her past-times is to watch me squirm as she drizzles hot wax over my bound-up cock and balls.
It comes as no surprise she takes pleasure in offering me up to her friends given how she involved her guests in my torment at her party. Often I'm blindfolded and have no idea whether it's a man or woman, a real cock, or other object being thrust into my orifices. I'm made to suck cock, and to lick cunt. Her visitors are often masked and dressed in costumes, so there's always a sense of theatre in her play. As for La Contessa, she always looks magnificent. She has a vast wardrobe but whether she wears corsetry or a gown, she always looks stunning.
I've come to relish serving her. I submit to her freely and offer myself for whatever she desires, and to whomsoever she invites to the palazzo.
In between those times when she seeks to use me for her pleasure, I'm given domestic chores to run for her. Typically, these involve things like cleaning the marble statues in the palazzo, polishing the silverware, or dusting the frames of her art collection. I enjoy these tasks, the last one in particular, as you can imagine. They give me a chance to scrutinise La Contessa's magnificent collection of erotica. I swear there's not an item in the palazzo that isn't suggestive if you look close enough. For example, her dinner service has images of seduction and fornication disguised within it.
I'm not confined to the palazzo though, and am often given errands to run, which take me into the vibrant and debauched streets of my beloved Venice. I collect dresses from her couturier, hats from her milliner, wigs from her wigmaker, fine wines, and champagne from her vintner, the best French perfume from her perfumer, cakes and sugared biscuits from the patisserie and even offal from the butchers to feed her dogs.
I'm even accepted by the rest of the household staff now and have established a good working relationship with them. I make an effort to be helpful. I'm mindful of Julia's advice on my first day concerning the tensions between La Contessa's household staff and slaves, but can't say I've experienced any hostility towards me. My easy going manner means I get on with most of them, the female staff appear to have taken a special shine to me!
The only exception is old Lucio, who's always watching me. I don't report to him for any of the tasks I undertake, only to Julia who conveys La Contessa's orders to me. I believe this is a source of resentment for him, even though I'm careful to do nothing to antagonise him. Julia is aware of it and, though agreeing I've done nothing to upset him, she warns me to be wary as she says Lucio is La Contessa's eyes and ears in the palazzo.
In between participating in La Contessa's sexual games, the various errands I'm given and Julia's service to her mistress, we steal as many opportunities to make love as we can, though not nearly enough for my liking!
Julia has no set work pattern as she is more or less permanently on call to serve La Contessa. She can be summoned at any time of the day or night, and is often called to her boudoir in the early hours of the morning after La Contessa has returned from a supper, ball, or visit to the theatre to assist with her undressing.
Julia doesn't mind in the slightest. Quite the contrary; she says she enjoys serving her at these times as La Contessa is often relaxed and chatty. She gossips to Julia about where she's been, the aristocratic Venice elite she mixes with and titbits about who's fucking who, often in a highly amusing way. Julia laughs, saying she often returns tipsy, having quaffed many glasses of champagne or
malvasie
, a delicate white wine popular in Venice these days. She says La Contessa is even more beautiful than ever when she's had a drink as she looks flushed. I comment, as a joke, that it sounds like Julia wants to go to bed with her, but Julia turns defensive, embarrassed by the suggestion.
Although a firm mistress who expects high standards of servitude, La Contessa is a fair employer and gives her staff days off. On the occasions when Julia and I have the same leave we will go into the city for a stroll or share a rich hot chocolate and pastries at Café Quadrie, one of Venice's supreme indulgences. La Contessa pays her slaves generously for the unique services she requires from them, so we can dress up in respectable clothes and frequent the cafes around Campo San Marco. Julia believes La Contessa indulges such behaviour by her special household staff because she's making a statement. She's so rich and powerful even her servants can be seen in fashionable places.
We often end up in one of the secret courtyard gardens I know of, and where I used to take clients when I was walking the streets. There we take the opportunity to indulge in al fresco sex if it's quiet enough. Julia will go out with no undergarments to make things easier, and we'll find a hidden corner of a garden where we can make love. Sometimes we get a chance to meet up in Julia's room either during the day when it's quiet or when Julia has finished work. I'm more than content with my life at the palazzo, and my decision to serve La Contessa.
I treat La Contessa with the submissive respect she's due and is expected from me, but this still allows for a modicum of social contact beyond serving as her sex toy. She is a cultured and engaging woman as well as an awesomely strict dominatrix. Although rare, these moments give me a great deal of pleasure and afford me an insight into La Contessa's mind beyond her sadistic cruelty. Having gained this, I can well imagine why Julia gets such satisfaction from serving her. I've seen them together and they have an easy rapport. I think Julia is the only person I've not heard La Contessa speak harshly to, though I'm assured by her it's happened on many occasions.
On discovering my interest in art, La Contessa is happy to discuss the subject with me. On one occasion she was thrilled when I told her about the secret frescoes of the Last Judgement hidden in a locked baptistry in the church of San Giovanni my father took me to see. As a youth I remember being shocked by their content but they left a lasting impression on me, and I guessed they would appeal to La Contessa's taste.
The frescoes depict the seven deadly sins and the punishments in hell meted out to the fallen who have succumbed to them. The scene portraying lust is particularly graphic and, when I describe the pictures of naked bodies on racks being punished by black devils with pitch forks, she insists on me taking her to the church there and then. The priest was reluctant to open up the baptistery at first, but nobody denies La Contessa! Through a mixture of cajoling, seduction and threat she soon has the priest eating out of her hand and only too eager to show the frescoes to her. She insisted it was for reassurance of how the sinful would be punished in hell, but I saw how her eyes lit up when she saw the scenes of debauchery before her.
"I'm most grateful to you. How satisfying to see how the sinful will be punished in hell. It is a lesson for all of us to heed," she commented to the priest, but she did so with a mischievous glint in her eye. And when we emerged from the church, she was thrilled.
"What a shame the artist died centuries ago. I would have him fill one end of my ballroom with a fresco so perverted it would shock everyone! My slave, I must act out these scenes with you! You saw how one was wrapped in chains and suspended from the ceiling and whipped with a flail, poked with knives and prodded with forks. How I should love to do that to you, my slave."
"Whatever you wish, mistress," I reply submissively, but secretly wishing she would!
"I'm sure you have many sins to atone for my slave. And not only those committed before entering my service," she added suggestively.
The visit to the church has been one of the highlights of my service to La Contessa. It gives me great satisfaction to have introduced those frescoes to her and brought her such pleasure.
The opportunities to share such intimacies with La Contessa are rare and most of my tasks are more mundane. Typical of such errands is one Julia announces one day. I'm to sit in the scullery in the basement of the palazzo adjoining the kitchens and polish La Contessa's shoes and boots. Now, at first I mistakenly think this should not be too onerous a task but I have grossly underestimated the sheer quantity of footwear in her wardrobe. So, when the maids appear with several barrow loads of shoes, I know this task will set me up for the day. The job comes with dire warnings from Julia.
