He asks Anthony to move it, along with the easel, from the bedroom to his study every morning and back to his bedroom in the evenings so he can look at it whenever he wants. Master tells me that other than myBoy with a Basket of Fruit, this is the best present he’s ever been given. I don’t tell him that it is actually a present for me.
Master promisedme one more good year, but he was being optimistic. His health begins to decline dramatically that summer. As I’m administering an experimental medication intravenously, one he must have every day for half the month in order to prolong his life byat mosta few weeks, Master says in a throaty rasp, “Look who’s playing doctor now.”
“Yes, but I’m a much better patient,” I tease.
Master smiles and pats my arm. I kiss his forehead and promise him a blowjob when this nasty bit is through. Master is seldom able to orgasm these days, but he likes the attention paid to his manhood and I like it too.
It’s a hard day when I must convince him that walking is no longer safe. Even with his walker, he stumbles a lot and I’m afraid I’ll turn my head for one second and lose him. I witness my Master crying in sorrow for the first time, and I cry with him, kneeling at his side with my head on his lap while his shaking hand attempts to stroke my head.
Sir comes by in the mornings to help me lift Master into his chair and we wheel him outside to theloggiafor breakfast, which for Master is mostly pureed foods that I feed to him by hand since his hand tremors are so bad now. After breakfast I take a swim while the men converse, mostly Sir updating Master on the business and whatever improvements or repairs he’s made to his boat. I use this time to meditate and if necessary, cry in the water without Master watching.
I’m returning to them after the pool one morning with my towel thrown over my shoulder and shaking out my hair, when Master says to me brightly, “Mattie, look at you. All grown up. How’s your grandfather?”
I’m taken aback, not only by the name but because of the reference to my grandfather. The doctor warned us that Master may have problems with memory and get easily confused as the disease advances, but this is the first time he’s ever exhibited such behavior.
“Grandfather’s well,” I say to him as I sit on a pillow at his feet and rest one arm across his lap. Master gets anxious when I’m away for too long. It’s a strange role-reversal that I welcome because I too want to be as close to him as possible. “He wanted me to tell you hello.”
Master nods, a childlike delight on his face, “A good man, your grandfather. And you, Mattie, how are you doing in your schooling?”
“Straight A’s,” I tell him, and he seems happy to hear it. He reaches behind him as if to pull out his wallet and pay me $50 like he used to do whenever I told him of my academic progress.
“Where’s my wallet?” Master asks.
“It’s inside, but that’s okay. You can give it to me later. How’s work going?”
“Bah,” Master says and waves one hand dismissively, which amuses me because it’s what he used to say then too, always trying to protect me from the less savory aspects of his career. Master reaches out to touch my hair, which has grown longer now, the way he prefers it. “My golden boy,” he murmurs. “All grown up.”
I take his free hand and squeeze. “I love you, Master.”
He nods, still with a pleasant smile. “Tell your grandfather I said hello.”
There aregood days and there are bad ones. Master’s speech gets progressively worse until he gives up on speaking altogether. He doesn’t want to use the tablet either because his hand shakes too much. I sit next to him in his adjustable bed and show him pictures of the two of us, some taken after our scenes and others from our parties in New York. There are some of us on vacation too, or here around the villa. Most of them are of me, which was never my intention, but Master was generally the one behind the camera. When I show him the one of me dressed in gold, he starts nodding excitedly and points at the photograph as if to convey something important.
“You always liked to see me in gold,” I tell him. “Gold bangles, gold cage, gold collar…” I have an idea then. I ask Sir to watch over Master for an hour or so, and I send Anthony to a beauty supply store for gold powder. I spend the next hour dressing up so that I look just as I did in the picture. When I strut into the bedroom in my golden accessories, Master’s eyes light up and his lips start to move excitedly. He can’t say much now, but I know what he’s thinking. I come close to the bed and lean down to guide his hands to my collar. I help him position it around my neck and Sir fastens it in the back. Then I place his hands on my shoulders, my chest, my cage, and my ass until his fingertips are also shimmering in gold. Wherever he can reach, I let him explore. He whispers something and I lean in close to his mouth so that he can repeat it in my ear.
“Mio bel ragazzo.”
My beautiful boy.
When things don’t makesense to me, I often seek out the teachings of great thinkers and philosophers to try and find meaning to the terrible and triumphant things that happen to a person. This is probably why my psyche got so twisted after my kidnapping, because my mother convinced me that I deserved it, that I was asking for it, and it made sense to me in a cosmic sense, because if I didn’t deserve it, then why would it happen?
Master has always been a strong man in every sense of the word, so it is a particular kind of torment to watch him slowly lose mastery over his body and his mind. To see his strength of spirit slowly fade, to see him become a prisoner to this wretched disease. Even though the nurses assure me he’s not in pain, I know that he is suffering. For a man who thrives on power and control to have to rely on someone else for his most basic functions, this is the ultimate indecency. I try to search for meaning in this cruel twist of fate, but like so many things in life, it is truly meaningless.
Master is never alone. I bathe him, feed him, and dress him. I exercise his muscles and joints, and I take him for walks in his wheelchair around the villa and down to the shore. I read to him in the afternoons in his study and I play for him in the conservatory. Over meals, I recount to him some of our favorite memories. Sometimes his eyes flicker and his lips try to move to share in my excitement or to argue with me, and I carry on the conversation as if he and I are going back and forth. This is as much for me as it is for him. I know my Master is in there, trying to communicate with me, wanting to be seen and be respected, and I will not abandon him now. I willneverabandon him.
Sir comes by frequently and tries to help where he is able, but service is not Sir’s strength, and I cannot be distracted right now from my duties. When Master becomes bed-ridden and a slave to the machinery necessary to keep him alive, I refuse to leave his bed except to go to the bathroom. Sir finds me on day three—Anthony snitched again—and sits me down for a talk.
“You must take time for yourself, princess,” he says gently. “To swim or take a walk. I won’t let you burn yourself out taking care of your Master.”
“But Sir,” I begin weakly.
“This is not a request, Giovanni,” he says sternly, even though he’s holding my hand to his lips and his eyes are unbearably sad. “This is your Sir’s rule.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He also insists that his mother Evelina come live with me in the manor to help with food preparation and watching over Master so that I may take two hours to myself every day. I spend most of that time down by the ocean crying, but the sea is forgiving as she has always been and accepts my tears as her own.
IfI ever doubted Sir’s patience with me, I do not doubt him now. He knows that with Master’s intense care, I must devote myself to him exclusively, but Sir is always available for a hug or a cuddle or a bit of levity. When I start to feel anxious about our future and what might happen to me after Master is gone—something I don’t like to contemplate at all—Sir assures me that he has a plan already and that he will care for me and provide for me in all the ways I am accustomed to with Master. I suspect he believes I’m worried about money or maintaining my indulgent lifestyle, but those are not my concerns. When I express my anxieties about not being able to properly serve him at present, Sir says, “I will wait for you, Giovanni, until the time is right, but I want you to be mine eventually, if you’ll have me.”
