Someone was going out into the courtyard and Damianu broke away from the tree. When Ettore saw the boy, he closed the door behind him, approached him quietly and clutched him in his strong arms, full of burning desire.
Damianu shuddered strongly and closed his eyes, abandoning himself against the strong man's body. Ettore led him down the yard, behind the high fence that hid the tool shed. There, in the dark shadow that had been so often an accomplice of their meetings, Damianu embraced him and pressed against him, making him feel all his excitement.
He whispered against his face: "I feared that today you did not come back. And then I saw you so dark, so sad. But now you're here, finally, you are here with me."
"I left my friend Marcus with priest Portiolu, but I'll have to go back to fetch him. I wanted to see you, first. I wanted to hold you so."
Ettore kissed Damianu - his lips were burning, but it was the kiss of someone trying to forget on the lips of the other his despair and his problems. Damianu felt what Ettore was feeling and began to weep silently.
"Damianu, do not do so." Ettore whispered. "You know I do not like to see you sad, right? If we lose everything, the shame will be hers, even after we have received her in our home. Everybody knows that we maintain her and that she is full of money, that damn stingy woman. Shame will be hers alone. If Tana were a man... I would've killed him! "
"May she drop dead, in good time! May she drop dead, the witch!" Damianu murmured. "But she is attached to life more than the ivy is to the cork tree! She wants to bury us all!"
"In Nuoro..." murmured the young man, "I knocked on every door. I lowered myself, I prayed, begged, I humiliated myself. But they want Donna Tana's signature... and she does want not hear in that ear. She hates me."
"But why do they not have confidence in you? You are a Dore, after all. You have the house, the garden, the horse, the furniture..."
"It is small thing, you know. And then it all belongs to my grandfather, not to me."
"And if Don Antonio was going to ask for a loan..." Damianu whispered intimately caressing his man.
Ettore answered him with a stern voice: "Damianu, I forgive you because you're just a boy! As long as I live, no other family member should humble himself... as I have to do. My name... what matters. But the name of Dore... To grandfather, now, remains little else than the name. "
"Why do you not try again to convince Donna Tana? Try once again..."
"It is no use, and she would enjoy to humiliate, to insult me again, that harpy. I'll rather kill myself!"
Damianu placed a finger to Ettore lips to silence him: "Again! You know I do not want to hear you say that word. You frighten me when you talk like that! No, Ettore, you must not even think about that."
"Then do not talk anymore of these things. After all, they do not affect you, do not concern you."
"Do not concern me, you say? Everything that affects you affects me, you know. You know you are my life, do you not? Listen Ettore when your family wanted you to take as a wife Zana Spanu... She has money, and lots of it. You said she's too ugly and too old for you, you do not like her. But for that... for that I'm here, right? You know that I am yours, am I not? So, why you do not marry her? She still wants you, as no one else takes her. You must marry her... "
"Then I would have to sell myself, Damianu? But yes, perhaps it is time to reconsider it, at this point. Perhaps you are wiser than I. Maybe I'll follow your advice, though... although I might have to go and live with her... although maybe... although maybe I cannot take you with me."
Damianu looked at him frightened and began to weep again, silently.
Hector wiped his tears and kissed him: "See how stupid you are? See how stupid you are telling me these things?"
"I... for you... I'll do anything... I'm just a servant... but I have only you... do not abandon me, Ettore. I'll do everything for you, you know but... do not abandon me, Ettore."
The man kissed him again. The boy offered him his lips still trembling for the weeping, still wet with his tears, and gently sucked his lover's tongue, while the man caressed his little ass, shoving his hand under his pants. Damianu shuddered and pushed against him, aroused.
"Take me, Ettore! Take me! Let me feel that I am yours," he murmured.
For a moment both forgot all the problems; they forgot the whole world. Ettore opened the boy's pants and slid them down to his ankles. Damianu, with feverish hands, opened the trousers of the young man and pulled out of the clothes his fine hard member, crouched in front him and prepared him with his lips and his tongue. After a while Ettore took the boy by the clothes and pulled him up, causing him to rise. Damianu turned, put his hands on the trunk of the tree and offered himself, full of longing and love.
Ettore grabbed him with his big and strong hands by the waist and leaned against him. Damianu liked to feel the hands of his man on his bare skin, and waited holding his breath, now with joy, that his man took him. He felt the strong member of Ettore slipping between his small buttocks and pushed back, relaxing to welcome it wholly into himself. He felt it open him, and take possession of what belonged to him.
Ettore began to move inside him with vigour - he liked too much that boy... to join with him, take him. Every time this gave him an almost wild pleasure. Yes, Damianu was his own, belonged completely to him. Not even his wife had ever given herself to him with so much dedication, so completely.
Since boyhood Ettore had done it either with some of the young shepherds or with a girl of easy morals, venting his instincts and desires with those who were available, and having fun with the one or another. But no one had ever given himself to him so totally; no one had ever been able to satisfy him so deeply and so pleasantly as Damianu.
Ettore remembered how it all started with that boy. Perhaps because of the fact that he had seen him growing in the house, a foundling, but almost a member of the family, he had never thought of Damianu as a possible conquest, in spite of the fact that he was growing to be a pretty boy. But one day...
Among those who had remained faithful to the Dore family even when the decline of the family started, there was Ziu Cosimu, an old servant who had become a pastor "in solus," that is independent, because he was able to buy some sheep that led to pasture for himself.
One day Ziu Cosimu had invited his former masters to go and spend an afternoon at his sheepfold, his guests. He had a sheep pen on the mountain behind the shrine of Sant'Efisio, beyond the forest. All around stood huge rocks piled on each other in a chaotic mess, like the immense ruins of an ancient cathedral, or of a castle, the castle of the giants.
It was said that in a time now far away, before the world as we know it was created by the gods, a terrible struggle had taken place on that land, a struggle with blows of huge rocks that had fallen on the plain flattening on top of each other, raising their pointed forms to the blue sky.
A little more uphill of the sheepfold Ziu Cosimu was a stout rock on which hovered a long horizontal rock - in the popular imagination this group had become the tomb of one of the giants, indeed, "the giant's grave" by definition. During the lavish and tasty snack on the grass that Ziu Cosimu had offered to his guests, there was talk of nothing but local legends.
"I want to climb up there." Ettore announced cheerfully. "Who comes with me?"
Ettore had had enough to drink so was red-faced and in high spirits as he was rarely seen in recent times, after he was widowed. But the others felt sated and tired and said they wanted to rest in the shade of trees.
Only Damianu, who had always harboured a boundless admiration for the young and strong master, followed the man and no one was surprised. All were accustomed to regard almost as brothers Ettore and Damianu and knew the devotion of the young servant to his master.
So the two began to climb. It was the month of May and the afternoon sun bathed the rocks. To the right of the forest towered the rugged top on which the giant of the legend rested in his stone grave. It was difficult to climb, there was a path but one had to jump from rock to rock.
Ettore proceeded nimble and secure, making sure Damianu followed him careful about where he put his feet. Suddenly the young servant paused on some unstable stones; he had the impression he was losing his balance and cried out in alarm. Ettore looked at him, smiled, but turned back.
"Give me your hand," he said extending his arm.
Damianu took the hand that Ettore offered him and squeezed it. He looked down: at their feet the sides of the mountain covered by the forest seemed to tumble down, down to the shore of the emerald sea . All around there were only mountains and valleys, valleys and mountains that followed each other as far as the eye can see, to the horizon. Above them birds in love fluttered slightly and happy, between the sun and wind, in the serene air.
Damianu suddenly felt on him the burning gaze of Ettore wrap him and felt dizzy. He had the impression that the rocks under his feet cleaved and crashed with a roar multiplied by a thousand echoes. But Ettore had pulled him up and held him suspended in the air in the tight grip of his strong arms.
Then the lips of the young man came to rest on those of the boy and adhered to them, forced them to open and his tongue invaded the boy's mouth. The eyes of man were like two swords that pierced his soul. Then Damianu felt the strong, imperious, demanding member of Ettore push against him through their clothes.
Ettore put him down safely on the solid rock, without breaking away from him, and hoarsely but determined murmured: "I want you, Damianu! I want you! You must be mine!"
The boy shuddered, felt drained of all energy and whispered, deeply moved: "I am yours."
With feverish hands, the man stripped the boy and himself, quickly, then drove Damianu to lie down on the warm smooth and naked stone, and went on top of him with his whole body, squeezing him in his arms again.
"You've done it with a man?" he asked with an excited voice.
"Never, Ettore. Neither man nor woman."
"But now you will take it from me, Damianu," the man said and spread his legs with the strong hands and lifted them. It was not a question but a statement.
"Yes," whispered the boy intimidated and with his hand went down to caress the hard member of the man who was preparing to make him his own.
He felt it hard, hot, big and strong, almost frightening. But did not feel it was a weapon ready to run through him, rather like a glowing ember which would cauterize his loneliness, his sadness, and that would heal him. He felt that he was no longer an abandoned foundling, but he eventually would belong to someone.
"Make me yours... I want to be yours..." whispered the boy, awed but eager at the same time.
"Yes, mine!" said the young man applying the tip of his hard member on the virgin hole that he had revealed by placing the boy in that position.
And he pushed with all his manly boldness.
Damianu felt a sharp pain, but closed his eyes tightly and tried to resist, because he knew, albeit vaguely, that this pain was right. Nothing is achieved without pain, Damianu knew it. If he really wanted to belong to the man, he had to accept from him the pain also.
Ettore pushed giving a sharp blow and the boy could not restrain a groan. But if at first he had tightened his eyes, now he opened them immediately, opened them wide and looked at Ettore's face. He saw it was wonderful, flushed with passion, tense and strong as a god who is crushing beneath him the last giant.
Ettore gave a second, strong shot and the boy felt it enter inside him, with the irresistible impulse of an army that, smashed the portals of the castle, conquers, invades, takes possession of it, sweeping away all defences.
Damianu felt hopelessly inert and if before he could instinctively oppose some resistance, now abandoned himself wholly to that invasion. He welcomed within himself the victorious lord and trembling with emotion clutched the back of his lord and master.
Ettore, with one last push, had completely nailed the boy. He froze for a few minutes shivering from the intense pleasure of having made that boy his own belonging.
"Mine! You're mine! Mine!" said the strong young man beginning at last to beat with a strong pace on the small and tender boy's ass.
Damianu felt the overwhelming manliness of Ettore submerge him like the waves of the stormy sea beat the superb rocks, like the hammer of the blacksmith's forges the hot iron, like the woodsman's axe takes down the proud tree. He felt in Ettore the conquering power of nature, the irresistible force that bends everything and wins, that subjects everything, that transforms everything.
"Mine... mine... mine..." repeated over and over Ettore, a triumphant smile on the beautiful lips, a light of victory in the eyes, the tone of a sovereign in the voice.
The pain, which at first had been as sharp as a series of stabs, had become deaf and continuous. Damianu accepted it, because he saw the pleasure illuminate the face of Ettore and he was aware that it was he that gave him that pleasure, and this abundantly repaid him.
After that day, Ettore had taken Damianu quite often, and gradually the boy not only did not more feel pain, but started to feel an increasing physical pleasure, besides the pleasure of knowing he belonged to Ettore, to the man he loved with his whole self, with his entire being.
Most of the time Ettore took the boy right there next to the tool shed, protected by the tall hedge, in the courtyard, next to the little door that led to the vegetable garden and then in the forest.
This, Damianu was thinking while, his hands resting on the tree trunk and the pelvis leaning back, greeted him with great pleasure the strong thrusts of the man who meantime manipulated the swollen genitals of the boy with both hands. And finally, as it happened usually, Damianu felt the supreme pleasure and he came. Almost immediately Ettore reached the enjoyment within him.
They remained motionless for a moment, panting. Ettore took off from the young servant, turned him, embraced and kissed him forcefully in the mouth. Then both tidied their clothes. Ettore went out to find his friend Marcus and Damianu sat down, happy, on the doorstep of the vestibule.
The boy did not yet want to go to sleep, to go and lie down on his couch at the foot of the bed of the old Donna Tana. He could still feel the presence of Ettore, both behind in his channel, and on his lips, in his mouth. This pleasant and strong feeling was one of the few pleasant things in his life.
Another moment that Damianu enjoyed, though now happening more and more seldom, was when Ettore made him study - he taught him to read and write and had made him read all his books. Damianu was a smart guy. Ettore reasoned with him and told him many things, like the origin of man, the history of their land since the time of the Phoenicians to the unity of Italy, as well as of distant lands and fascinating civilizations.
Sitting in the dark, Damianu remembered. He thought back to when the Dore family was rich and happy, when male and female servants filled the house, when beggars and poor children were welcomed and helped, when the guests, who came from neighbouring villages, filled the large courtyard with their horses and their dogs in festive confusion. In those days Damianu was served and respected really like family - were the servants who looked after him, as well as after Matteo, and was not up to the two boys to be servants to others.
All the problems had started on the day of the accident. The father of Ettore fell in the street, right in front of the house, while coming back home. He did not get up anymore. Before bringing him into the house, his last words were to his wife, "Martina, my dear wife... take care of my Matteo," and so the boy, that people whispered to be the bastard son of the dead, was taken into the house by the Dore.
One after another, month after month, the servants had to leave the house and only Matteo and Damianu remained at home, because they were part of the family, and took the place of the servants. The debts of the family ate all their possessions - the bad investments of Don Antonio, the drafts of his son, Don Antioco, and the interests of lenders who had lent money to Don Ettore, consumed in a few years the horses, the grazing lands, the vineyards, and the sheep of the family Dore.
Some days Ettore was cheerful and good, some days bad and sad - he roamed from village to village, from party to party to enjoy life, and because the family didn't refill his purse with coins, he filled it with debts. Then one day Ettore had brought home a girl, beautiful but poor girl, named Cosima - he had married her without saying anything to the family.
Nevertheless Cosima was well received - she was not only beautiful but very good, and had the ability to make good those who lived near her. Even Don Ettore seemed to become another, a better man. But just two years later, shortly after the birth of Lorenzo, that is Renzino, the too much bigheaded child, Donna Cosima had died of a mysterious disease. Dore House was plunged into grief and the guests became fewer and fewer.
Then Donna Tana Dore came from Turin. It seemed that being rich, the fortunes of the family might rise. It was not just for this, however, that they took her into their house, but because, she being seriously ill, asthmatic and completely alone, without family, she needed help and the Dore, having a broad and generous heart, took her with them.
But Donna Tana, despite seeing the needs of the family, held the purse strings tight, and not only that, besides being maintained, annoyed everyone in the house with her moodiness, her complaints, her merciless and villainous judgments. And she often bored everyone telling them always the same things about when she lived at court and was maid of honour to the queen.
Damianu thought that half of the stories of Donna Tana were invented, because every time she enriched them with new details that gave her more importance. Damianu reflected that, with the passage of time, the memory of the old people should forget the details and not always find new ones.
The only one that Damianu could think of as a friend was Matteo, two years older than him, a cheerful and sweet-eyed boy, and somewhat thwarted but good and helpful, as extroverted as Damianu was introverted. The two young men had, in many respects, complementary characters.
Matteo, unlike Damianu, was friends with everybody in the village. But friends in a very special way with the young shepherds not yet old enough to marry. Ever since childhood, he often withdrew with one or another of the boys, sometimes hiding in the forest, sometimes in a "pinnetta" that is one of those shelters made by the shepherds, formed by a circular stone drywall with a narrow opening access and surmounted by a tall straw cone, either in some other safe place, to lower their pants to play with each other as often among them adolescents do.
But while the young shepherds, while willingly having fun with Matteo or between them, were only dreaming about this or that girl and thinking about the day when they finally could do it with one of them, and then one day getting married and having children, Matteo felt absolutely nothing for the fairer sex - he liked only boys like him.
Their secret boyhood games, as they grew, became more intimate and more daring and Matteo felt a great pleasure to suck a good member and to receive head, to taste the thrill of entering a good ass, and to be penetrated. Now, at twenty-two, Matteo was one of the most experienced and talented young men to do those things in the village, so even if the older ones gradually stopped as they started to flirt and pet with a girl or because they were finally married, Matteo always found other boys who, growing up, felt the urges of the flesh and so went with him.
Often they were precisely the older brothers who made meet, at least the first time, and their younger siblings with Matteo. "He likes to do it, and can teach you everything," said the young shepherds to their teenage brothers. None of the young men and teenagers of the village thought badly of Matteo because only the old people, who had finally found the peace of their senses, amused themselves by condemning those who still felt certain urges.
Almost all the boys had gone through those experiences, but sooner or later had abandoned them to be with a girl, so they just thought that, sooner or later, this would also happen to Matteo . Nor were they surprised that for the sweet and good-looking Matteo that moment had not yet come.
Moreover, although rarely, one of the young shepherds, former companions of Matteo in those games of boyhood, though married, for one reason or another did not disdain to try again, in secret, to share the intimate company of the young man. And Matteo never refused these proposals, especially with the most handsome among his old friends.
Matteo had grown up with Damianu and at one point had also experienced the urge to do something with the handsome boy. But just as he was deciding to make it clear, to reveal to Damianu his wishes, he realized that Damianu was the boy of Don Ettore, so Matteo had not dared to do or say anything.
It seemed that Matteo was the only one in the house to have been able to clearly read that in the looks that Damianu and Don Ettore exchanged. And one day he had also managed to see, with his surprise, not seen, one of the secret meetings between the two. He had seen them join, right there behind the hedge, next to the tool shed. The scene aroused him incredibly.
Matteo not only said nothing that day, to Damianu or anyone else, but feeling a deep affection for Damianu, when he thought or he saw that the two secret lovers withdrew for a new meeting, he discreetly watched over them for no one in the house could see them or suspect anything. Matteo had also realized that Damianu, unlike him, was not doing those things with others, but only with Don Ettore.
The first time for Matteo had been when he was fourteen. He had to bring a message of Don Antonio to one of the last shepherds that the Dore had yet in their service. The boy had passed through the forest and had perched on the slopes of the mountain, nimble and quick. He had to go to the fold of "Su Sassu" and knew perfectly the road and knew also how to reach it quickly - he had not to follow the path, but to cut up the rocks. He had to climb, and then descend a short distance.
He had reached the top of the fault and looked down to choose what way to go when he stopped, then instinctively crouched behind a rock watching - Paulu, the sixteen year old son of the shepherd, and Zua, his cousin of thirteen years, that were between a bush and the rocks and, this was the reason that made Matteo stop, they had their breeches down. Paulu was riding Zua just as Matteo had sometimes seen dogs do. Zua was on all fours and Paulu was on him and a little on top and was pumping into the ass of his cousin with quick and vigorous strokes.
Although Matteo had seen the dogs do it, he never thought that even two "Christians" could make it, as the old people said, that is two human beings. Cautiously slipping from rock to rock, without ever losing sight of them, Matteo approached the place where the two young shepherds were doing "those things".
Then Zua had seen him and looked at him with worried eyes, while Paulu, unaware, was going on to hammer into him with undiminished pleasure and energy. Matteo smiled, instinctively, as if to reassure him. Zua had responded timidly to his smile. For a while they looked at each other in silence, exchanging a smile from time to time, until Zua had beckoned him over.
Matteo then had finished his descent and finally appeared before the two young shepherds. This time it was Paulu who stopped and looked at him worried. Matteo smiled to him.
"You like this? Go on..." had said to him.
Paulu kept looking at him worried, still firmly driven into the butt of his cousin.
Zua had slightly shaken his pelvis, to encourage him to continue and had whispered: "Come on, Paulu! Go on..." and had beckoned Matteo to get closer.
Matteo stopped in front of Zua who, removing his hands from the ground, opened Matteo's breeches, pulled out of his already semi-erect member, and plunged down to suck it with an obvious pleasure and skill. Matteo gasped with surprise, then broke into a broad smile. He would never have thought it would be so good to do that thing! Then also Paulu smiled to Matteo and had started to pump again in his cousin's ass, carefree and joyful.
When finally Paulu had vented his cravings, moaning loudly for the enjoyment, slipped from inside his cousin and told Matteo: "Come on, fuck him, now. Zua likes taking it up the ass. Isn't it so, Zua?"
The boy nodded with a jolly face, so Matteo took the place of Paulu: he applied his hard member into the still relaxed, open hole, and sank into him with a single thrust. He started to move back and forth as he had seen Paulu do - he loved it. Paulu had tidied up his pants and was looking at them, now, with a wide smile. Matteo felt very strong and very beautiful sensations moving inside the hot, tight channel of Zua, made slippery from Paulu's seed, and after a few thrusts, he came, in turn, moaning with pleasure.
When the three teenagers finally emerged from the shelter, all three looked satisfied and happy. They sat on a stone, and talked about what they had just done - Matteo was full of questions, and especially Paulu answered with simple pride. Yes, they did it with each other quite often. Yes, it was nice to suck it and have it sucked. Yes, it was good to fuck an ass and to be fucked. Yes, almost all the boys up there really did it.
So also Matteo began to participate in those secret and pleasant moments of pleasure with the shepherd boys and to look for them with increased desire. The first time he was penetrated, was Paulu who did it to him, and as the boy was not yet fully developed, Matteo felt no pain at all but only pleasure.
Now Paulu was married, Zua had a girlfriend, and Matteo, did it with other young shepherds. Although Paulu sometimes, though rarely, still withdrew with him, especially when his wife was pregnant and she did not like to do it with her ardent husband.
"Chie non hat menzus, cun muzzere si coscat" (Who have nothing better, sleeps with his wife), Paulu said chuckling when he wanted to do it again with Matteo.