Secret Inspiration

A word from the author

Please note, any names of characters resembling among the living or the dead is purely because I lacked the energy needed to come up with original characters. If I have broken copy write laws or offended anyone, I do apologize. Well actually, I don't, but I need to say things like that so that if I have to stand at some sort of hearing or something, I'd have a shot at getting off. (And not in the way you're thinking!)

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Northern Italy - 1928

David had writer's block. Bang! It snuck up on him with little warning and had now it had firmly taken hold of his spirit. The worst part of writer's block is that it is a state of mind, and obsessing about it just compounds the issue. Then one worries about worrying about it; and before you realize it, you've exacerbated the situation to a point beyond repair. "How could this happen to me?" he would ask the Gods of the typewriter.

David had always seen the world through different eyes. He'd always refused to acquiesce to the status quo, and made it a point to write about how society's little rules were a hindrance on the soul. A stance that landed him in hot water on many occasion, so much so that he had to leave his native England for fear of reprisal. He'd been traveling ever since. Italy, Mexico, the Americas... all in search of ways to enrich his soul.

His wrote all along his travels, a few short stories here, and a smattering of poems there; but now, his inspiration had dried up. Truth be told, he was tired. He no longer possessed the energy he had in his younger days. David found himself without the youthful desire to learn about the world and its people. With it, his desire to challenge the conceptions that people back home still clung to had also evaporated. Once, not so long ago, his inspiration had flowed like the waters of a mighty river, and his drive had the power of those giant waterfalls he'd gawked at on his travels. That mighty river had now dried to a babbling brook. Where, before, his mind would scream "For God's sake! Can you people not think for yourselves?" He now thought: "I have neither the time nor the inclination to get excited about anything you have to say to me."

After an hour of staring at his typewriter with nothing to show for it, but a few crumpled sheets of paper, David felt the need to "stretch his legs". Or rather, if he didn't get away from the typewriter, it might end up being hurled out the window. So instead of surrendering to some banal, caveman instinct, he grabbed his coat, which was not really necessary with the weather being perfect, and left his country villa on foot. He took a route which would have him walking along a small gravel road in between the neighboring farms, a route he had walked many times before. Too many times before; especially since these walks only started recently with the onset of his writing disability. He set a fast pace for fair amount of time until quite suddenly, he came upon the boundary of the orchard. A low stone wall, a few feet think, marking the extent of his small empire in Tuscany.

David was half annoyed at himself for arriving so suddenly at the wall. This meant he'd been so absorbed in his self-admonishment that he'd barely looked up to soak up the beautiful countryside; a crime all in itself. When he first bought this old villa, the smell of the jasmine creeping up the east wall was enough to inspire poem after poem about flowers and the wonder of their existence. Now, he'd walked though two and a half miles of paradise without lifting his head to notice a single olive leaf. Disillusionment and age, two enemies of the spirit, have robbed him of his ability to see and appreciate beauty, or even his bloody olive trees.

He climbed onto the wall, which was wide enough to walk on without doing a trapeze impersonation, and started to make his way south. He loved his little wall. It seemed more ancient than the countryside it adorned, and extended over the hill into the Tuscan distance. He christened it "Adriano's Wall", because, David being English, relied on it to deter Italians from invading his empire, as opposed to its more established counterpart in Northern England, built by the Romans, to keep the English from invading theirs. Well, actually it was the Scots, but let's not knit pick over the details. It was a good joke, and one that had inspired bouts of laughter from Adriano, who happened to be one of the Italian neighbors the wall was supposed to ward off.

The memory brought a smile to his face. He remembered the day he first came up with that clever entendre, especially since his "fine joke" as quoted by Adriano was told over and over again to all of Adriano's friends over an obscene amount of wine. Wine and debauchery! Truly, they were the modern day Romans. Laughing, drinking and being utterly vulgar with the level of conversation. All that was missing to transform it into a full blooded Roman orgy were the receptacles to vomit in and the loose women.

The smile suddenly faded from David's lips, remembering the women at Adriano's villa that evening. One woman in particular was more unforgettable than any other; the enchanting Mrs. Alditore, Adriano's younger wife. Never before had he stared at another woman like he had at Carla. In England, beauty was defined by the daintiness and grace of a lady. Soft, pale skin and a softer demeanor were regarded by English poets as the epitome of a lady. Carla was not beautiful in this classical sense, she was a striking parallel. She was graceful; but not is the same way a "lady of the manor" was, she was graceful like a lioness is graceful while it's moving through the jungle. Nor was she slight or petit; she had the voluptuous curves of renaissance paintings... paintings that had inspired other "ungraceful" thoughts in David's mind when he was a boy. Carla was neither genteel nor vulgar, but rather somewhere in between. Above all else that made her irresitable; she had an aura about her, an aura that seemed to intoxicate David's senses. Surely it was this same aura that was possessed by Helen of Troy and Cleopatra; auras which enabled them to bend the will of the most powerful men in the world.

Carla Alditore...

David was now very aware of his surroundings. He was no longer staring at his own dominion in northern Italy, but rather, that of his neighbor. Somewhere, beyond the vineyards belonging to Adriano Alditore, was the villa where, surely, Carla was busying herself with running the household.

He tried to picture in his mind's eye a scene in the Alditore kitchen: busy servants being ordered about by the vivacious "lady of the villa". He tried to imagine her features as she commanded both men and women around the house, her chest heaving as she raised her voice to make herself heard over the sounds of a busy house. He imagined her lush hair, pulled back behind her face with perhaps a few rogue strands, lucky enough to escape and rest on her perfect bosom. He pictured her vividly in his mind, every detail crisp and sharp. David was positive in fact, that he could paint her from memory.

The idea of painting her began to take hold in his mind. Like the bougainvillea growing over his terrazzo, the seed grew to completely block out the sunlight of any other thoughts. He imagined painting her as he first pictured her, in that classic renaissance style of admiration for the feminine form; specifically, the nude feminine form. David imagined trying to transfer her indescribable beauty and allure to the canvas. He wondered how he would paint her; he wondered how he would pose his imaginary Clara in his mind's eye. Carla wouldn't be one of the meek ladies to have their portrait painted with a breast exposed; somehow, David knew that Carla would be far bolder than that. Far, far bolder.

In addition to being aware of his surroundings, David became acutely aware of his arousal too. He could feel his heart increase its tempo and his chest constrict with emotion. He could feel his member swelling with blood, pulsing as if it had a heartbeat of its own. His erection grew to almost painful proportions, surely, the hardest he has been in many years. David reached down and adjusted his trousers to allow his erection to move from its previously painful position to a slightly more comfortable one. Thoughts of David's wife have never inspired such a granitic response from him; in fact, nothing has achieved such a response since he was a young boy. He was a middle aged man with the erection of a teenager.

He continued his walk on top of Adriano's Wall, although his gait had somewhat altered. To an observer, without having spotted the obvious cause for the widened step, one would have been forgiven for assuming he was nursing an injury from the war by the way he dragged his left leg out and around his particular predicament.

"What did you do today David?"

"Oh nothing dear, I just took a walk atop my stone wall, sporting the most impressive erection I've had in decades!"

"That's nice, dear"

The imaginary conversation made David chuckle. Finally, the woes and worries of his recent lack of inspiration were finally starting to peel off his battered brain like the blossoms being blown off a tree in a strong gust of wind. Finally, the aromas of the Tuscan countryside were filling David's lungs reminding him that he was in his most favorite place in the whole world... and he has seen most of the world. Finally, David felt the Italian stones beneath his feet vibrate with the force of the history and passion of this incredible land, its energy rising through the soles of his feet and revitalizing his weary bones!

David stopped walking for a moment, and raised his fists into the air. There he stood, on a low stone wall, with fists in the air posing like The Bronze Warrior, save for the, now dwindling, erection.

"Sometimes, all you need is a walk on your own wall." thought David as he lowered his fists and continued ambling up the wall, this time, with a smile on his face.

He continued for some time, until he reached the end of Adriano's vineyards, where a small clump of fig trees grew. David had always liked figs, which made Adriano's comments about them all the more compelling.

"You know what zis fruit name, Davido?"

"Of course, it's a fig."

"You know why zis is called a 'fig' in inglese, Davido?"

"Are about to educate me on the subject of the English language, Adriano?"

"You Inglese think you know life. But I tella you now, Davido, that ze Inglesi forgot all what il Romani gave to you people. You see Davido, ze Romani knew all about zis fruit anda whata is inside. And they knew that is nota as sweet as the grape. But, Davido, it still is ze sweetest fruit God give to man. You know how come zis is, Davido? Is cause, ze Romani knew ze right way for man to eat zis fruit. You know ze right way to eat zis fruit, Davido?"

"Clearly I have been doing it wrong since I was a boy, my dear Adriano. All this time, I thought you simply put it in your mouth, masticate, savor the sweetness, and then swallow. I didn't know there was an art to eating fig."

"You know, Davido, you speak more truth than joke, in your joke. You take knife, you butcher the poor thing like it dead onion, and you eat like you justa need to fill stomach. That is how inglesi eat, that is how inglesi live; to fill stomach. There is more to ze fig than just filling your stomach, Davido. Let me show you how an Italian eat ze fig, Davido, and maybe you see why we call it ze sweetest fruit God give to man. Maybe you see why ze fig is like life; is not eating that is important, but ze way you eat."

Adriano then showed David how to eat a fig like an Italian.

The memory brought another smile to David's face. Watching Adriano eat that fig was hilarious at first until the clouds of preconception parted, and it all became apparent and obvious. For years, he had been eating "ze figs" wrong, and he had wasted so much time. Adriano might have been drunk, but it became all too apparent that it was, in fact, David who knew nothing.

A sound brought David back from his journey down into his memories. Indistinguishable, yet recognizable as a sound a human would make. David immediately froze mid stride as if not to alarm whoever he had inadvertently ambled upon. He alerted his senses to try and identify the source of the sound. It definitely came from Adriano's side of the wall, a little further up the wall. He didn't know why, but David began to make his way along the wall as silently as possible. Perhaps it was to try and identify the sound if he heard it again, perhaps it was because his subconscious had already deciphered the sound, and David knew exactly what he was about to discover.

In a small clearing in-between the fig trees, lay a man and a woman.

To be more correct, the man was lying down, and the woman was kneeling astride the man's legs with her face buried in his lap. The man was lost to the world, running his hands through the woman's hair, making content mewing sounds. The slight movement of the woman's head left no question as to the reason for the man's contented disposition. The man's eyes were squeezed shut as he grabbed the woman's hair and forcefully pulled her face deeper and faster against his groin. His expression changed from deep contentment to one of carnal distortion, the kind of face someone would pull when they're lifting something extraordinarily heavy. The sounds escaping his, now open, mouth changed dramatically together with his facial expression; where first they were contented mews, they now had become guttural grunts, as if he regressed fifteen thousand years in evolution. With one final cry, the man held the woman's head down as he rose to a half seated position, driving her face deeper still. David could tell the man was forcing her head with a fair bit of strength because the muscles on his forearms were pulsing just as he was holding on for dear life. The man bellowed as if he had been mortally wounded by an invisible spear to the abdomen and fell back down to lie on his back to complete the simile of death. Were it not for the rapid rise and fall of the man's chest, it would have been a faithful reproduction.

David had stealthily dropped to the ground, on his side of Adriano's Wall, and hunkered down as if he were a soldier taking cover to avoid being shot by enemy fire. That analogy was far more honorable than a gentlemen hiding behind a low stone wall trying to remain concealed while spying on a couple fornicating in his neighbor's clump of fig trees.

The man's arms had, in the mean time, dropped to his sides, and David expected the woman's head to bolt up and curse the man for boring her head down on his genitalia so hard; instead, the woman kept her head buried in his lap, but her movements had slowed dramatically. Where before, she was moving in concert with the man's thrusts, now her head moved in a slow and deliberate fashion. Clearly, she did not mind the rough treatment.

David transferred his attention to the man again. Of course he recognized him almost instantly; it was Adriano's grounds man. Where others were employed to tend the vineyards, Mario, the grounds man, would live in a small house on the villa's grounds and see to everything else. Well, Mario was definitely seeing to his duties this afternoon! David had spoken to Mario many times, mostly in connection with how he should look after his own giardino, and he seemed a nice enough fellow... for a grounds man. David definitely had no plans to bring to Adriano's attention the fact that his grounds man was taking a breather from his duties. After all, surely, a content grounds man would be a much more industrious grounds man than, say, a frustrated grounds man.

Slowly, life seemed to return to poor Mario. The first sign that Mario was still among the living was his chest decreasing in frequency yet increasing the magnitude of its laborious task; filling his lungs with the restorative Tuscan air. He craned his neck forward, lifting his head to stare at the top of the woman's head, which was still moving up and down with the grace and rhythm of the Mediterranean itself. Mario then said something to the woman, David couldn't quite make it out, but it was clearly a compliment. Mario's eyes looked glazed over, as if he had had a fairly decent dose of the juice of the poppy, but the expression on his face gave away the game. Mario had been to the absolute heights of human ecstasy.

David had obviously heard of fellatio, but his wife had never dared perform such a dastardly and profane act on him, nor had he dared dream of suggesting she try it. From where David found himself at the present moment, Mario didn't seem to think the act dastardly at all! In fact, if David's powers of observation were anywhere near the level of infantile, he would have to surmise that Mario had had a fantastic experience. David, truth be told, could not recall any moment in his married life, ever having suffered a climax of the magnitude that Mario had just suffered.

From his vantage point behind the low wall, David was staring at the pair of lovers from a perpendicular viewing angle. He could make out that Mario had merely dropped his trousers to his knees before commencing with his sport. The woman, on the other hand was still fully clothed. David had realized that, until now, he had only been concentrating on Mario and not really his companion. This was no servant girl! Her dress looked far too expensive to be that of a mere servitora. Perhaps this was a neighbor's daughter who was having an affair with the Alditore's grounds man?

But alas, David knew it not to be so.

He should have recognized her from the luscious mane of hair that now draped the grounds man's nakedness. As if the universe conspired to pick that moment as David's realization came to pass, Clara lifted her body off the Alditore servant. The sun's rays hit her perfect face and reflected off the remnants of Mario's passion. She looked down at her lover with hooded eyes, her lips pursed in a pout as she rose to a seated position, back arched somewhat as if she were mounted upon a stallion. Her one hand remained wrapped around Mario's semi-revived manhood while the other sensually made its way up over her breasts to her mouth, where her dainty finger slowly collected some glistening fluid from the corner of her lips and she made a show of sucking it. It was clear from Mario's reaction that the show must've restored his interest and vitality; he seemed to grow to double his size in her hand. Clara's pout transformed slowly into a lusty smirk as stared down at his swollen member. Her hand began a slow dance up and down his shaft with her gaze fixed on Mario's lower body; she manipulated him with practiced and expert hands like a skilled weaver operating the handle of a loom. Her hand would rise and then she'd twist her wrist as it reached its zenith before she began the journey back down to the base of him reversing the twisting motion. Her other hand snaked its way in between Mario's thighs, where David could only imagine what her deft fingers were doing.

David's hand moved of its own accord. It was only then he realized that his erection, like Mario's, had returned with vigor! His fingers unfastened the front of his trousers and released his own penis from its confinement and he had begun touching himself.

His eyes never left Clara. His hand seemed to emulate the movements of her hand without his conscious consent. They had fallen into a rhythm, Clara's hand and his own. David bit his lower lip in an attempt to stay his rasping breath as Clara's tempo increased. He saw her lips move as she clearly said something to her lover, David could not make out the words but he noticed her eyebrows arch as she spoke. Mario clearly liked what he was hearing for his eyes widened as she spoke and he nodded furiously when her lips ceased to move.