The Harlot, the Prince, and the Kitchen Boys

By Conor Grayson

Finally, Kate thought she was ready. Her slip is lifted high on her back and pinned, the soldier’s rough but sure fingers reach around the girl and unfasten her bloomers, lower and then remove them. Kate felt herself firmly bent into the pillory position, fastened into it. This was also a precise process, and executed slowly. Just when she thought the punishment would begin, and she exposed to all the high and low born of Venice alike, the magistrate turned to address the crowd. His speech is lengthy, but few hear him. None see him, instead gazing at the young woman’s bare exposed with elegant bottom, and all of the other parts she is showing off to St. Mark’s Square, and to God.

~*~

The Contarini boy, Vincenzo, heir to a century of scheming and striving, of family wealth beyond reckoning, and an enemies list as long and stormy as the Adriatic. At the time of the incident Vincenzo was 23. He was uncommonly handsome, but headstrong. The Contarini blood flowed hot in his veins, making him quick to brawl, to draw his sword, to take one of his page boys to bed, their mouths in the smoky Venice dawns slick with dark red wine and each other. None of this was surprising, from a man of his family, but it wasn’t productive either. And so finally his father had found a match and forced a courtship. A few false starts were expected, but to find the boy in bed before the marriage, and that foreign harlot in their midst, eyes sparkling like the fires of Byzantium in the candlelight: it was too much to let pass. It was an affront to the family name, a dozen generations of sacrifice. The harlot, Kate, was passed immediately into the care of the house guard, still unclothed. The bride, who knows what became of her. The servants were banished to the kitchens, where he was certain the head cook would stick them in corners for a good while as their fates were considered. But he would deal with his son there and then.

After a resounding lecture, which echoed through the suddenly silent halls of their palatial manor, the family patriarch, Gasparo, seized the still naked young man and pulled him roughly over his knee. The boy’s rounded bottom glimmered like marble, and he lay in resignation over his father’s lap, as calm and compliant as the Pieta. Vincenzo had always been pliant during a spanking, and only during a spanking; it was a mystery the family head didn’t direct all of his orders in this manner. Gasparo ran a hand over his son’s bottom, heard him sigh. Vincenzo had all the fierceness he needed, and would lead the family well, in time. But a fiery heart must be disciplined by a careful mind, and until his son’s own brain matured, Gasparo would have to perform this discipline. The patriarch’s broad, sword-hardened hand crashed down decisively, Vincenzo cried out, and soon all the saints in heaven could hear the boy’s cries as he was spanked. When the boy’s bottom was the color of fever, the man called loudly for his sword belt. “You’re lucky I don’t use the flat of the steel itself on you, boy,” he growled, removing the sword and then flexing the thick leather belt, inlaid with scenes of Roman glory, a gift from a Florentine years ago. Gasparo had used this belt in battle and in discipline, and his approach to both was the same: that mercy was a virtue only after the fight was won. Discrete servants had placed his son over a pile of pillows, the battlefield of his noble bottom uppermost. Let us meet this rebellion in the field and break its lines, the patriarch thought. And then he raised up the belt and swung.

Later, as Vincenzo cuddled in his father’s arms, he confessed that it had been Kate’s suggestion to bring the young bride in, and the serving boys. He had merely intended to bed the harlot, as it seemed all of the city’s nobility had done. But Kate had wanted more from the family scion. “So great is her appetite, father,” he whispered. “I am half cowed by what she is. Surely no mortal can contain such lusts.” And Gasparo thought darkly to himself, I have had similar fears. The next day, they would begin their examinations, and their inspections. He would see just how deep the harlot’s depravity truly went.

So, how was our harlot brought so low? It is no small thing to receive a thrashing in St Mark’s Square, by the captain of the guard himself, before a gathered citizenry. What high crimes of harlotry had this young lady perpetuated? Surely she was not the first young person to tour the bedsheets of Venice, though she had done so more eagerly than most. Nor was she the first woman of high birth to speak sharply to city officials, though her tongue was unusually harsh. Rumor in the city was rampant, and sifted through the canals like mist. Kate’s name was much exchanged that morning, and in the days to come. But only the captain, and the members of the Doge’s court of justice, knew the truth. Kate had been caught in bed with a young man of the Contarini family, who had been promised to a young Florentine girl of advantageous match. Unfortunately, the young bride was also in the bed, as well as two serving boys, barely 20 years each. A resulting scandal had been avoided, but the Contarini family was furious, and demanded the foreign strumpet be dealt with. She had been spanked soundly over the family matriarch’s knee, turned out of doors with her bottom still bare, and a vicious stem of ginger carved and inserted into her bottom. So maddening was the item that she had to be bound to the door frame to keep from fleeing. Yet her suffering did not lead to penitence, and it was determined that a fiercer admonishment was necessary to break spirit of this beautiful, iron-willed harlot.

At last the interminable speech resolved. The magistrate stepped back, and the captain of the guard stepped forward. He was tall and stern, with the trim, muscular body of a younger man. A veteran of long campaigns in Savoy and France, the candle of his mercy burned more wanly than another man’s might, and his sense of justice burned brighter. Privately, the captain admitted that he considered this aspect of his duties a privilege.

The crowd stirred, like a hungry animal at feeding time. Their eyes were trained on the girl, yes, but also on the whip that rested on a long table at the pillory’s right. Nearly three feet long, it was made of thick bamboo that had been braided with rawhide across its full length. Over the years, its stiffness had become a wicked pliability, having been tempered on the backsides of pickpockets and revolutionaries alike. It would not easily cut flesh, but would stripe and burn it terribly—especially skin that was tightly stretched and bent, as the shapely flank before him was.

Kate felt the soldier’s calloused hand on her bottom, examining her, as if she were a fortress he was preparing to lay siege to. He parted her lewdly, but only for a moment, so that only he could see what she revealed. “Such is her wantonness,“ he thought, “that even now, at the moment of justice, her excitement is visible to me.” He smacked her bottom hard, twice, then a dozen times more. She gasped at the sting of it, and the humiliation: to be assessed like a horse at market, and then smacked like a child! It seemed more than Kate, in her great pride, could bear. But soon the captain stepped back, and as he did so he picked up the whip. “Such harlotry is an insult to the moral life of this city,” he said aloud. “In the name of the Doge, and by the grace of God, I will bring this strumpet to atonement!”

~*~

Meanwhile, far below in the kitchens, beyond the sounds of the prince’s chastisement, two young men did indeed stand in their corners. The main kitchen was large and somewhat cave-like, with a high ceiling festooned with hanging garlic, onions, herbs, curing meats, and all manner of ladles and spoons, each one of which could be taken to the boys’ bottoms at any moment. Yet the kitchen staff bustled by them, and the head cook ignored them. When they had first been caught, the guards had marched them quickly through the silent corridors, the first thunder of Gasparo’s anger beginning to break in the prince’s room. The boys, whose names were Tadzio and Benetto, noticed the frescoes that limned each shadowed wall, the fawns and nymphs whose nakedness matched theirs, but, frozen in timeless joy, seemed to bound towards a far different fate. The boys were reminded of their nakedness, and ashamed by it, but had no way of covering up; their clothes were still scattered on the prince’s floor. The guards escorting them had been rough but indifferent. To be a house guard of the Contarini manor was to be practiced in the art of impassivity, no matter what depravity or shocking display broke out before you. And so the guards had marched the boys along, only occasionally speeding them up with sharp slaps to the two moon-white bottoms before them. When they had reached the kitchens, finally, and the guards had quietly confided to the head cook about the evening’s events, the kitchenmaster had looked momentarily shocked. But, understanding immediately how grave and delicate such information was, the cook had removed the shock from his face, and silently pointed to the corners. The boys understood, and immediately took up their posts. That had been two hours ago. Despite the heat of the place, they both shivered slightly. Surely their punishment would be harsh, but why was the wait for it so cruelly long?

Behind them, the sounds of the next day’s meals being prepared: the rapid knocking of vegetables being chopped, onions diced, snicking invisible blades and sharp orders given. A stock was being seasoned, its kind earthen scent becoming general in the air. And then, suddenly, the head cook’s voice. “Tadzio, Benetto, out of the corners, now!” They lowered their arms, stretched sore muscles, and turned in shame to present their nakedness to the full and busy kitchen. The head cook waited. He was well over six feet, and broadened by age and hard labor. His normally thoughtful face looked harsh, and the disappointment in his eyes was real. The boys moved to stand before their justiciar, who had positioned himself directly in front of the great stone hearth that dominated the room. Its fires lit him up as though onstage, and all eyes were on the boys as they waited for him to speak.

“So, you who I have raised since you were babies, tonight you decide to maybe throw it away, yes? And your fathers in their graves whom I promised, that I would protect you. Five years we fought together, the three of us, and how proud they were of you. Tadzio, your father was the best swordsman in Venice. Truly! And you, Benetto, how fierce was Vincenzo, your father. When they lay in their lifeblood at Ravenna, I promised I would raise you, both of you. And how you repay me tonight.”

The boys squirmed. It was true, their fathers had been soldiers, and had served with the cook against the French. The Battle of Agnadello had been a disaster for Venice, and their fathers were both among the slain. The cook, cast into despair by the slaughter, had hung up his sword and vowed to learn a trade. Soon afterwards, he got a position in the duke’s kitchens, and took the boys into his household. Soon it was clear that the cook had some natural gift, or maybe he was willing to work that much harder than the others. But over the years he had proven his worth, his palette, and his commitment to the duke. And so he had advanced, and raised the boys as he did so. The discipline growing up had been firm and frequent, as the toddlers became young men, and the cook rose into his current position. Tadzio and Benetto recognized their stepfather’s tone. But it had been years since they had heard it, and never like this.

The cook dragged a chair into position, sat down heavily, and patted his knee. “Tadzio, you first.” The boy didn’t move, and the cook nodded to one of the scullery maids, who had been watching from the shadows. She eagerly grabbed one of the spoons and moved toward the boy. Tadzio clocked immediately what was coming, and tried to scamper over the lap that had seemed less inviting the moment before. But the maid, whose name was Betsy, moved quicker, catching him by the elbow and holding him fast, her rough hands like iron on his bicep. She began walloping Tadzio’s bottom, and he wriggled in her grip, yelling, humiliated to be corrected by a scullery maid, the lowest of the low. He bent his wiry body away from her like a sail in the wind, but the lass held him fast. As Betsy spanked the boy, she thought of all the times he and his companion had neglected their duties to go fishing or swim in the canals, leaving her to add their duties to her own. She knew the masters of the house would not accept excuses for work left undone, and it would be her hide. And she had had enough hidings back in Glasgow, let alone what she endured now as a scullery maid in this grand manor house. So now, faced with the opportunity to show herself a force to be reckoned with, she took to it with spirit. Besides, everyone else got to give out smackings in this sprawling home. Why couldn’t she?

At last, when his backside was a splotchy red, and the boy was blinking back tears, which he tried to hide for the shame, she let go of his elbow. He refused to look at her, looking only at the ground. She was afraid to gaze too openly on his nakedness, in front of the cook. But she stole glances. He was grown, if still boyish, and Betsy blushed, thinking thoughts she did not normally permit herself.

“Well now, young man! Are you ready to climb over my lap, or shall the dish maid have another go at you?” Tadzio’s head shot up as he realized the cook’s words were for him.

“Oh yes, you’re still getting this spanking. What all that was isn’t my concern, but your choices in the prince’s chambers are…”—and here the scullery maid’s eyes flicked to Tadzio, unable to imagine what business he could have had there—“…and it is my duty to see to it that it never, ever happens again. Because the next time that it does, the duke won’t give you to me to deal with, he’ll take your head, and your brother’s head, and that will be it. I swore I would protect you, and despite your pigheaded goddamn foolish choices, I intend to do it!” The cook grabbed Tadzio here, pulling him over his broad lap, and began to spank the boy with a terrible focus. The scene was much like what had happened to the prince a few hours before. By the second minute, as Tadzio’s already marked bottom began to turn purple, the boy was crying openly. And by the fourth minute he was begging, kicking wildly but futilely over his erstwhile father’s lap. Yet the spanking continued. It would be a full five minutes before the cook even paused for breath, and Tadzio’s sobs had moved past panic into a weak and steady wail. The cook said nothing, but with powerful arms he lifted the boy up and set him on his feet, unsteady at first, but held fast.

The young man sobbed in his erstwhile father’s arms, supported by him, red bottom glowing in the great room’s low firelight. As Betsy had begun her ministrations, the kitchen staff had begun to wrap up their work. And now the workers had completed their tasks and retired for the night. A million passageways ran from this kitchen to the estate’s myriad wings and great halls, and the scrubbers and preppers and tenders knew them all. They could melt away without sound or sign, and so had done so as the hour of discipline advanced. The only commotion now was the gentle crackling of the hearth and the low sobs of the punished boy. The scullery maid stood half in shadow, aware of having taken a great liberty, in spanking Tadzio, and fearful of taking another. But the cook ignored her now as he slowly unfastened the sobbing boy’s arms, kissed gently his glistening brow, and then, spinning him gracefully, as though Tadzio were a dance partner, bade him return to the corner with a gentle swat on his beleaguered bottom. Tadzio hurried forward and tucked himself in, linking his arms in the small of his back and letting his hips roll forward, so that his back straightened and his bottom raised. The cook was pleased to see this subtle act of submission. He recognized the signs of having received the message, a difficult objective at times with these two.

The cook turned now to Benetto, who had been watching the unfolding scene in horror. “So boy, shall the potscrubber have a go at you too, or are you going to accept what’s coming to you?” Benetto, not wanting that fearsome spoon to be his warmup, obediently came forward, put his hands on the older man’s lap, and then lowered himself over. The cook surveyed the young man’s hindquarters, all pale and goose-fleshed. He had not had to spank either of the boys in many years. And he did not want to do so now, did not want to hurt these lads that, despite their tendency toward mischief, he truly loved like his own sons. But for all the reasons he had conferred previously, this evening’s offense was a borderline lethal mistake. They have never been in battle, he thought. And the idea filled him with a sort of grim satisfaction, that his boys would never be attendants to that terrible display, the pageantry of bloody waste to which the dukes and kings of these city-states subjected their vassals. This ignorance was a blessing, he thought, to see the world through a window that was not the grime-darkened one of a soldier. But that blessing came with a risk, because his boys did not fully grasp the danger that walked like a companion beside these great men, the dukes. The Contarini family, every one of them, were vicious, proud, delighting in violence. His boys gallivanted upon the edge of a knife, in this household. How easy it would be for one of them to trip.

And so the cook, again holding in his mind the terrible risk his boys had taken, began to spank Benetto with great force. The boy’s whimpers became pleas, and then sobs, and then pleas again. Yet the cook continued to warm the lad’s bare bottom. In the dancing firelight the mottled red flesh became dark and terrible, in great contrast to the pale, muscular legs that kicked frantically, flashing in and out of the shadows. Benetto’s cries had begun to retreat into one long cry, a steady, flat wail of suffering and sorrow, when the cook moved lower, attacking the boy’s snow-pale thighs. Benetto was the more muscular of the two boys, and his long, sculpted legs were like birch limbs in autumn. But under his stepfather’s assault, those great trunks reacted like a birch tree set to flame. They writhed in a red and terrible heat, as their owner desperately tried to escape the cook’s palm, and Benetto’s cries focused again into a howl of anguish that filled the kitchen and beyond. For two full minutes, the cook spanked the boy’s legs, going as low as his knee hollows. So sensitive was this secret field of flesh, the soft white strip just above and behind the knee, that to discipline this site wrung a “daddy, no” from the almost-grown man. Even as Benetto said it, he retreated into himself in embarrassment and shame. Yet he knew that there was truth behind his exclamation, and the cook did too. He had acted foolishly, like a child, like he had not been raised with dignity and careful structure, though under the cook’s attentions he and his brother surely had been. For both boys, this spanking had to be administered without mercy, so that they could not just hear, but feel and know their failings, the perilous choice they had made tonight, and the way the making of this choice was an act of deep disrespect towards their stepfather and his love. Benetto, without being able to articulate any of this, knew it somehow, deeply, as he sobbed out this “daddy, no,” as his stepfather spanked him behind his knees. And the cook knew it too, and understood a message had been received, in the bone-deep way that pain and shame can instruct a young man. And so, hearing this, he soon returned to the boy’s bottom, and redoubled his efforts as he brought this moment of discipline to a close. Though of course, to be spanked on one’s bottom, not even to receive the manly dignity of a flogging, was itself a shameful thing in this house. But it was far better than the unbearable hell Benetto’s now smoldering thighs had endured. Finally, with one more mighty blow to each cheek, the cook brought Benetto’s spanking to a close.

It was some time before Benetto fully registered that the spanking had stopped, and gathered himself enough to try to rise. Like his brother, he did so shakily, held carefully by his stepfather, who then embraced him tightly. Benetto muttered tearful apologies into the cook’s broad shoulder, the specifics of which were lost to the deepening night. Eventually Benetto stirred again, and, instead of being turned and swatted into the corner with his brother, was told to stand straight, and Tadzio was called out of the corner to stand next to him. Their spankings done, the two young men were even more aware of their nakedness now. But they stood obediently in the half-dark, hands at their sides, the firelight playing over the tight pale frames of their bodies. A faint and anxious sheen had settled over their bare torsos, battered bottoms, and corded limbs. It was sweat, of course, but in the silent room it was like morning dew, like innocence restored. But that was not yet their fate.

“So, you’ve both been well spanked, and I imagine your bottoms are sore enough right now to remind you of how serious this was. But this isn’t the end of your punishment.” The cook was standing in front of them, arms crossed, his face, what little they could see of it, compassionate but stern. He regarded them for a moment, then turned and walked to the great central hearth. This, the smoking heart of the whole estate’s food system, was a great stone fireplace, kept burning night and day, and around which its full circle maybe a dozen individuals could work at once, and often did. Now there were but a few slowly cooking items, like a dozen potatoes in an open clay bowl, set to gently roast overnight and chopped into a duchess’ breakfast at dawn. In the center of the hearth was a great cauldron, in which the soup they had smelled earlier was very gently simmering. It had taken well more than an hour to prep this soup, which would feed much of the household in the next couple days. The cook approached the cauldron, scented it, considered. And then he seized a great handful of uncut nettles in one hand, and a great handful of chili powder in another, and dumped them both into the broth. The boys gasped. The soup was ruined, and there wasn’t time the next morning to make another batch and let it simmer long enough before it had to be served. They couldn’t understand why the cook would sabotage his own cooking so catastrophically. And then, suddenly, Tadzio understood.

The cook, registering the boy’s realization, nodded grimly. “This soup is ruined,” he said simply. “Fix it.” The boys looked on, dumbfounded, and so the cook began to elaborate. “You are going to fix this soup, tonight. By my reckoning, you have two hours before you run out of time for it to cook through before morning. So you better get to it.” Again, the boys hesitated, until the cook stepped forward and, seizing Benetto by the arm, swatted him hard on his bottom, causing him to yelp and spring forward. Tadzio moved as well, not wanting his stepfather’s motivation on his already terribly sore behind. As the boys strained to lift the cauldron off the heat, and then slowly waddle their way to a far vent in the floor to empty it, they heard the cook intoning behind them. “If the soup isn’t ready on time, it’ll be the stablemaster who tends to your backsides, I don’t care how sore they are. And the pages too, and hell, even that potscrubbing scullery maid again. Anyone who that soup is intended for is going to hear from me why it wasn’t ready, and come looking for you, with my blessing!” And here he began to pace around the boys, who continued to struggle with the full, heavy cauldron, trying to reach the vent. “If the soup is off, you’re in for it. If the soup is late, you’re in for it. And if this kitchen isn’t as clean as it’s ever been when the sun comes up, you’re in for it! Do I make myself clear?” The boys at last reached the vent, and, muscles straining, tipped the hot liquid into the hole in the floor, the rest of the soup’s contents spilling everywhere. They knew they would be working until the sun rose, and the chances of escaping another hiding the next morning were slim. “And don’t even think of putting on a stitch of clothing until you’ve presented yourselves in this kitchen tomorrow along with your work product. Do you understand?” The boys nodded miserably. The full retinue of kitchen staff would be present at dawn, as was required. They would be on display for all of them. And if they didn’t work like lightning tonight, all night, the staff would likely be witness to their spankings as well.

As the boys righted the cauldron and began to frantically search around for the huge array of herbs and aromatics that the soup demanded, and something to cut them, the cook behind them went to leave. But instead he stopped, frowned into the air, as though contemplating something invisible. His frame was poised on the threshold, their stout, heavy-shouldered stepfather, the warrior who hung up his sword. The man turned and approached the boys. Grasping each by the shoulder, he pulled them both close in a hug. “Dig in, boys, and show me you’ve learned this lesson. You’ve a tough night ahead of you, and likely a difficult dawn. But you’re good boys, and there is dignity in the return to righteousness, though it may not feel like it at the time. Make me proud.” And with this, he kissed each lad hard on the cheek, patted their bottoms gently, and turned and loped up the stairs and into the palace night.