Don Marco set to prepare his homilies, with diligence. Then he asked Don Sergio to read them. The old Priest fully approved them and with enthusiasm, "Beautiful, full of vigour and gentleness. And of sound doctrinal teachings. I'm grateful to you, Don Marco. It's just a pity that the presents will be few and even less the listeners. But, who knows, we always hope that the good seed falls on fertile land, at least once in a while. If your homilies were useful even to just one person, it would have been worth to do them, remember it."
The Sunday, at the door of the church, after the Mass, Don Marco stopped to talk with Maestro Perri, "My compliments, and thank you very much for your sermon. You touched my heart. It has been a real pleasure to listen to you."
"Well, thank you. If just somebody else listened..."
"Eh, who knows. I hope so."
"You were the only man, in the church."
"Yes, poor Domenico is ill. Normally he comes quite often. It is a desolation to see the church almost empty."
"Maestro, why don't you play the pipe organ at the ten 'o clock Mass next Sunday ?"
"I would do it most willingly, but the organ is broken and to repair it is too expensive."
"But, don't you play the violin?"
"Yes, sure."
"Then, come with your violin and play it from the choir, I pray you."
"Well, yes, it would be a good idea. You may count on that, I will prepare something during this week!"
"Thank you. And tell me, where is Domenico house? I would like to go and visit him, as he cannot come to the church."
"Oh, he will be glad. Come, I will show you the way."
Don Marco, in his free time, was going around the village greeting people, asking the name of youth and child and remembering them so that he was able to greet them by name when he met them again. He helped old people to carry their heavy loads and he went to visit whoever he heard was ill. Little by little everybody started to greet him, even those who continued to stay away from church.
One evening, while he was strolling and chatting with the Maestro, they passed in front of the village tavern. From inside came music and a merry racket, "They are amusing themselves." the Maestro said, shaking his head.
"Why not to go inside to drink a glass of wine?"
"To the tavern? But, Don Marco..."
"Why not? I bet that not one of those people inside that tavern never comes to church. So, I think it right that I be the one who goes to meet them."
"But, a Priest in a tavern!"
"I believe that Our Lord would have gone into a tavern, even if it isn't written in the Gospel. And to drink a glass of good wine, cannot do us arm. Come on, Maestro."
"Well, all right. Let's go", the Maestro said, quite uncertain that it was a very good idea.
They entered and for a moment the silence dropped. Don Marco greeted, "Good evening everybody", and went to a corner where there was an empty table and the two men sat down.
The tavern keeper went to their table: "Reverend, Maestro. It is an honour..." he said with a suspicious air.
"Two glasses of white wine, the good one", Don Marco said putting a coin on the table.
"Two special whites for the Reverend", the host shouted towards the tavern boy and put the change on the table.
The boy came with the two glasses and put them on the table. He looked at the Priest with a provocative air and a brazen smile.
"What's your name, Priest?" he asked aloud.
"Don Marco."
"Dommarco? What name is that? Domenico, Domiziano, domestic, donnish... but dommarco?" the boy said and everybody laughed aloud.
The priest laughed, "Well thought. And you, what's your name?"
"I? I am Beniamino." the boy answered, clownishly bowing.
Don Marco smiled to him: "A very nice name, just right for a boy with such bright and gentle eyes." he said.
The boy looked at him, surprised. Suddenly became serious and mumbled: "Thank you. Nobody ever said such a kind thing to me."
The boy went away to serve other customers, but time and time again looked towards the Priest. Another of the customers pushed towards the Priest one of the girls who were in the tavern, "You don't ask her, her name?" he shouted aloud and laughing at the same time.
Everybody turned to look, attentive and amused. Before the Priest had time to say something, Beniamino intervened saying aloud "Hey, Filippo, why don't you play another song? A nice gavotte, go on, so I can dance with Margherita! Right, Margherita?" he said taking the girl who had been pushed towards Don Marco and bringing her away.
Several couples formed and danced. At the end Don Marco clapped his hands and soon also the Maestro clapped, then other people. Then, the man who had played, went near the Maestro and said, "Maestro, why don't you play something for us?"
"I don't know, it's not necessary."
"Yes, Maestro, please!" Beniamino said.
"Please?", Don Marco said.
So, the Maestro stood up with a shy smile, took the violin that the man was handling him and started. He played sweet music, sad and merry at the same time, with tones of a gypsy's music. Everybody listened in a perfect silence and Beniamino, leaning against the girl, continued to look at the face of the young Priest.
Everybody was silent as the last note was played and then everybody clapped his/her hands. One of the men offered to the Maestro and to the Priest a second glass of wine, that both accepted. The atmosphere in the tavern was back again to the usual. After a while the two men stood up, said their farewells and proceeded towards the exit.
At the door Beniamino barred their way, "Promise me that you'll come again!" he said, determined.
"Willingly, Beniamino", the Priest answered with a smile.
"I rely on that, Don Marco. I count on that." the boy said with a radiant smile.
When they were outside, the Priest said: "A good boy, that Beniamino."
"Yes, perhaps. Do you know how he earns a living?"
"Working as a tavern boy, no?"
"And selling his body to men. That's why at the beginning he provoked you in that way."
"Poor boy. Who knows what pushed him to such a painful deed?"
"He was left an orphan of both parents when he was still a child, he was eleven. Abandoned to himself."
"Doesn't he have relatives?"
"Nobody, at least here in our village. His parents had just moved here and nobody knew them. His father was ill and he died after one year. And his mother killed herself one month after his death."
"My God! Poor boy! He has to be really lonely, notwithstanding his carefree air. He has very beautiful eyes. He still has a clear soul."
"Perhaps."
Beniamino was a very beautiful boy, of an unripe beauty but he yet had a well shaped body, for his seventeen years. When he was left orphan for a while he made a living begging. Until a day, while he was picking blackberries in the bushes, two soldiers of the castle grabbed him, dragged him into the bush and while one of them kept the boy still, the other had lowered his breeches and raped him. Then the two men shifted places and the second soldier raped Beniamino. The boy was twelve. After a while two monks going up to the Abbey found the boy, thin as a rake, naked and sobbing. They succoured him, tried to understand what happened to the boy, but Beniamino was too ashamed to tell them. He just cried and kept silent. The two monks covered his body and took him to the Abbey.
At the beginning Beniamino felt good. He had a pallet of food and clothes. He helped in the kitchen. What he didn't really like was that life settled by the slightest details, but he didn't have nothing better. At fourteen he had become a nice lad, plump and mischievous, restless. He had to be often punished for his infractions to the Abbey rules. Once he was caught secretly drinking the Abbot's wine and was brought to Dom Cesare. The Abbot decided to give him an exemplar punishment. Made the boy lower his breeches, lye on his lap and begun to beat him with a paddle. Beniamino felt pain even if not so strong, but together he felt pleasure and became aroused. The Abbot noticed that and having always had a strong liking for boys, he too become aroused. He stopped beating the boy and started to caress his reddened little ass.
"Beniamino, I don't want to hurt you, you are such a handsome boy. Why do you always do wrong things?" the man asked him with a suddenly sweet voice.
Beniamino liked those caresses: "I don't know", he answered with emotion.
The Abbott hand was now caressing inside the boy's thighs, then reached his hard member and caressed it.
"Oh, Beniamino!" the Abbot murmured, preying on his desire.
He made the boy stand up, pulled out the boy loose shirt and caressed him on the chest, than again on the ass and one of his fingers rummaged into the fold, lingered to titillate the small hidden hole and Beniamino quivered. The Abbot pulled the boy to him and kissed him. Beniamino, docile, let the man do what he pleased. And let him do anything, even when the Abbot turned him around, penetrated him with unexpected gentleness. Beniamino liked it very much. How different this was from that time the soldiers raped him by doing the same thing! The Abbot caressed him, kissed him, said to him sweet words, while pushing his manly rod in and out of the boy's small, tight, warm hole. He took the boy for quite a long while, until at last the man tensed, throbbed and unloaded himself in the depth of the boy, lowly moaning like a wounded bear.
But then, the Abbott seemed to became once again the hard and severe man he always had been: "Beniamino, you are the son of the Devil! You made me yield to temptation! Go away, away, I don't want to see you any more!" the man said with burning eyes.
Beniamino didn't understand what was now happening, hurriedly dressed and went out of the room. The Abbot gave orders so that the boy was sent away from the Abbey. He asked the tavern host, a tenant of the Abbey, to take the boy and to make him work and live there. But the Abbot desired the boy. So, when it was time to go to meet the host to control his incomes and to receive the tithe, the Abbot, with the excuse he wanted to personally check the situation, went down to the village. He went to the tavern keeper house and asked the man to send him Beniamino with the books of accounts.
When the Abbot was alone with the boy, pulled him in his arms, started to kiss him, lowered his breeches, made the boy bend on the table and, from behind, he again carnally united to the boy with vigour, until his greed was again sated. The host was a shrewd man. He had guessed, by the Abbot glance and by the boy's expression, what had happened. And thought to have a gain on that. After all, if the boy let the Abbot fuck him, he could do that with other people and the host could make good money from that.
He did notice, for instance, how the soldiers Captain always looked at Beniamino. So, one night, the host went where the boy was sleeping. The man was not interested in boys, but he had to be sure, therefore, sitting near Beniamino, he woke the boy up and asked him to give him head. At first the boy was astounded. He never did such a thing before. But when the host pulled out his good stake and the boy had it in his hands, the boy felt excited and willingly complied to the strange request. He liked the feeling of the hard and throbbing meat inside his mouth, against his tongue and sucked, bobbing his head up and down, guided by the man's hands, until the host exploded in his mouth. Beniamino, quite instinctively, drank all the warm cream.
"Did you like it, Beniamino?" the man asked while putting back his member inside his trousers.
"Yes." the boy quietly answered.
Then the host made a short speech to the boy: "Listen, as you like doing those things and seeing that there is people that likes you, if you let them fuck you, each time I'll give you a copper coin. OK?" So Beniamino did it with the Captain, then with others and at times again with the Abbot.
He was sixteen when he had two peculiar adventures. The first was in the spring. Coming back to the village after an errand he did for the host, he was crossing the Counts' woods, his personal game reserve. Feeling a little tired for the long walk, he lay down in a small clearing, under the sun. The Count, riding his horse, passed that way, saw the boy and stopped, "What are you doing here? Don't you know that nobody can enter my game reserve? Who are you?"
"I'm doing nothing bad, My Lord. I'm the tavern boy and was going back to the village and was just resting a little. Passing through the woods this way is a lot shorter." Beniamino said standing up and bowing to the man.
The Count dismounted his horse, tied the reins to a branch and approached the boy: "You should deserve a punishment." he said looking the boy up and down.
"My Lord, I did no evil."
"You entered my wood without my authorisation." the Count said, walking around the boy and looking at him carefully.
Beniamino read in the man's eyes lust. He was an expert, nowadays and thought to profit of that to get himself out of trouble.
"My Lord Count, tell me how can I receive your forgiveness. Anything you want, I'm ready", he said with a tempting voice.
"Anything, you say?" the man asked, visibly attracted.
"Sure, My Lord, anything and with pleasure."
"With pleasure?" the man asked leaning his whip handle between the boy's legs and brushing lightly against his basket.
Beniamino just untied his breeches twines and let them slip down to his hips. He saw the Count eyes shine with lust.
"Turn back, then." the man said with hoarse voice, happy for the fast availability of the boy and grasped him by the hips. "Bend a little forward, boy", he commanded, then penetrated Beniamino in a few strokes.
Beniamino knew very well how to give pleasure to men. He moved and waved slightly his little back, to meet the thrusts of the excited man. The Count had always loved girls and boys, but he really liked this one. He rode Beniamino with a wild pleasure, increased by the evident pleasure the boy was showing while taking his rod. How different that boy was from the other country or servant boys or girls, that pleased the Count just out of fear. And finally the Count unloaded with a cry of victory, deep inside the boy.
"You are a good boy." the Count said to him afterwards. "I don't want to punish you. And, by the way, I often come here alone to ride on Sundays morning."
"I understood, My lord."
"If you'll be here for me, I'll give you a coin, my boy."
"You can count on it, My Lord."
The second adventure, happened in Summer. Beniamino, on a Sunday afternoon, was at the torrent behind the hill to bathe himself. It was a quiet and secluded place he had discovered some two years before. There he could undress completely, wallow in the fresh waters, then lye under the sun to dry. In two years, nobody ever passed in that spot. On Sundays the tavern was closed, so all the time was free for him. In the morning he had gone to the usual meeting with the Count. He went back to the tavern just to eat, and now was enjoying the warm afternoon. He was stretched on the grass, naked, his eyes closed, when a shadow intercepted his closed eyelids. He looked up, and recognized Giannotto. He sat up. The man was looking at him with a smile. When he met Beniamino's eyes, the man said, "Hey, do you know that you are a really handsome boy?" and, crouching near him, he passed his hand on the boy's chest, on his belly and then on his genitals that at once answered to that caress, swelling. "Do you like that, eh, little rascal!"
"Yes."
"I too, like it. Feel here, how hard it has become. It's a long while since I have had sex, and even if you unhappily aren't a girl...", the man said, starting to undress.
Beniamino thought that the man had a really nice body, even if a little too hairy. The man made the boy lye again on the grass and lied on him. Beniamino widened his legs, offering himself to the man. Giannotto put the boy's legs on his shoulders and started to enter him. The boy welcomed him into his warm channel, very excited and they started to make love. Giannotto took him with a passion that the boy never meet in other men. This one was caressing him, kissing him, holding him with vigour and tenderness at the same time, while pumping inside him with fiery and hot joy.
"Boy, you're better than a woman." the man murmured at the end, satisfied, caressing the boy.
"And you are a true man." the boy sighed.
"Modestly, I am. Boy, I want you again."
"On Saturdays afternoons, here?" Beniamino proposed.
"Yes, perfect. You are the tavern boy, right?"
"Yes."
"And do you know who am I?"
"Yes."
"You'll not betray me?"
"Never, I swear."
"Be careful, beware!" the man said in a menacing tone, dressed again and left.
Beniamino thought for a moment about following him, to stay with him and to be his boy. But after all it was more pleasurable in the tavern life than the wild life with an outlaw.
Winter came and Beniamino didn't go anymore to his Sunday's meetings as it was too cold, in the open. The Count himself had said to him that it was better to stop. The boy, reluctantly had said that to Giannotto too. But one evening the tavern keeper, with a worried and mysterious air, told Beniamino to go into the stable. Surprisingly to Beniamino stood Giannotto who said, "I couldn't resist any more. I want you."
"But, to come to the village, it's dangerous for you."
"But it's worthy. Come here, quick", the man said pulling the boy on a heap of hay.
That rough man, not so clean and yet tender, fascinated Beniamino, that he gave himself to Giannotto without further fuss. He liked feeling that strong manly body on him, he liked to feel how the man entered him with so much pleasure and virile gentleness. He liked to enjoy him, for him, with him and making the man enjoy him.
Giannotto's visits became regular. Until somebody recognized him and reported his visits to the Count. So, one evening the Captain with four soldiers entered the tavern, "Where is Giannotto?" he asked to the bewildered clients.
"There is no Giannotto, here. And you have no right to enter here, if not as normal clients as this tavern belongs to the Abbey and is not under the Count jurisdiction!", said the host worriedly.
The Captain ordered his soldiers to search the tavern and started beating the host who was opposing him. Beniamino blocked the Captains arm before another blow was struck, but then the man gave the boy a backhanded slap.
"Captain! You don't behave so, when you come to fuck my ass!" Beniamino hissed looking hard into the man's eyes. The Captain stopped and looked at him grimly. Beniamino, in a whisper, continued: "Go away and never come back with the soldiers. Or else I will tell everybody the real reason why, so often, you come to drink wine here." So the Captain called back his men and went out, furious.
Beniamino leaned to help the host who was lying on the ground, "Brighten up, everybody! Nothing happened!" the boy said aloud and started again to serve the clients, with a wide smile.
The Captain never again showed up at the tavern.
Beniamino begged Giannotto not to risk coming to the Inn again, "Let's wait for the weather being fine again, I'll come to meet you." he said to the man with affection.