The Doge's Daughter
By Gabriella West
Copyright 2011
Smashwords Edition
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The Doge's Daughter
I grew up in the Doge's Palace in Venice, among priests. My family disposed of me at a very early age - I have 10 brothers and sisters and was just another mouth to feed. When the cleric came offering money and saying that their son could have a brilliant career as a castrato singer, my family was not shocked, but honored. My parents trusted the Church, though I knew that trust must be misplaced when the kindly priest who had so smoothly negotiated with my mother and father almost immediately ordered me to pleasure him as we crossed the Grand Canal towards the Doge's Palace.
It was a strange scene - a windy, rainy night, the figure of the gondolier barely visible ahead of us. We were in the cabin, supposedly to shelter from the rain. I crouched down by the priest's feet. He opened his garments. I was 11 years old, tired, miserable, afraid, but some spirit took over me that night and I skillfully moved my mouth over his member until he was satisfied.
The next day, it all seemed like a dream. The priest introduced me to my peers - other sheepish children who looked as if they were sleepwalking through their lives. The actual cutting was done unexpectedly one night - they dosed me with warm wine and tied me down. What shocked me the next morning was that they had left me some of my equipment. I had confusedly expected everything to go.
We were trained to sing, but some of us were more adept than others. I enjoyed being part of the group of singers, yet I knew I was not one of the stars. I wondered what would befall me.
On one occasion about a year later we sang before the Doge, his wife and daughter.
It was the Lady Elisabetta's birthday, in the year 1627. There she was, a shy and chubby 12-year-old with a mass of brown hair and gentle eyes. She clapped excitedly after the performance and asked if she might speak to us. To my surprise, she headed straight for me. She stopped in front of me and smiled.
I looked at her silently, unsure of what to do or say.
"But why are you among these boys?" she asked curiously, with that bluntness that the nobility often have. I found it charming, actually. Coming from a lower - much lower - class, I had to be cautious, indirect, always thinking of my survival.
I blushed in confusion. "What do you mean, my Lady?" I said. My voice was high and some of the others tittered.
"But aren't you a girl?" Elisabetta asked in wonderment. "Those long lashes - they're longer than mine."
She reached her hand into her pocket and brought out a sweetmeat. Before the priests could interfere and take it from me, I put it in my mouth. I could not help but smile as the delicious morsel dissolved on my tongue.
"That pleases you," she said with satisfaction.
"He is a boy, my Lady," one of the priests said gravely, standing by her elbow and giving me a patronizing look. "As if your kind didn't make me what I am!" I thought.
"Thank the lady Elisabetta," the priest ordered me.
"Thank you, your Ladyship," I said, lowering my lashes and bowing.
She giggled. Perhaps that wasn't the right way to address her? "And what is your name, then?"
"Piero, your Ladyship."
"Piero," she repeated caressingly. The priest looked stunned. Perhaps, I thought, he was annoyed that anyone else should find me attractive, even in such an innocent way. He had had me brought to his room last night - no doubt he was afraid I would blurt out the sordid details of our encounter. I never would. I knew better than that.
We smiled at each other. "I shall ask for you," was the last thing she said before she moved down the line, politely greeting my friends.
As we walked back to our quarters in the Palace I was surrounded by a teasing crowd. "Oooh, she likes you...she thinks you're a girl!" was one of the kinder comments.
Yet my comrades were good-natured. We all hated what we were, and knew we could do nothing about it. Better to accept it and to allow others to admire us, misplaced and exploitative as that affection almost always was. Most of us were being used by the priests at night, yet we did not dare protest; it was so much in the order of things. We barely acknowledged it to each other.
It was a lonely life, amid so many people, so many demands on our time. Whether I was spending my hours in singing lessons or lying face down on a priest's bed enduring his assaults, I was still following orders. I would arise from the bed with an aching body and no feeling of pleasure while the priest lay panting and utterly satisfied. I was a favorite, with my silky hair, soft skin and feminine mouth.
They all had to have me. But I never had any sense what the years ahead would bring.
* * *
An old priest shook me by the shoulder one cool spring morning several years later as I lay in bed, dreading the start of another day. "I've been told to take you to her Ladyship," he mumbled. As the priests got older, I found, they lost their air of power and became rather pathetic and sad. I got up obediently and dressed before his bleary eyes, wondering what would happen with the Lady Elisabetta. I was 15 years old but still looked like a young boy - slim, girlish and androgynous. It was hard to imagine that she had much changed. The only thing I had heard about her in the intervening years was that she was betrothed to Prince Michele of the house of Savoy, whose father, the Duke, ruled a state far to the west of us Venetians.
I trotted along behind my escort as he took me through corridor after corridor in the rabbit warren that was the Palace. One particular area looked like a brothel (or so I imagined) with voluptuous women lying around barebreasted on beds and couches. They seemed to be waiting for lovers. I slowed my steps, fascinated. In one room, whose door was half-open, I was shocked to see a man mounting a woman, taking her from behind like a beast. His body covered hers and we could not see her face. I stopped and stared. The priest stopped too. We watched together. I felt myself trembling and suddenly aroused.