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My master is dead, and now I must find someone who will treat me well despite my master’s poor reputation. Trying to stop my master’s hedonistic lifestyle notwithstanding, I doubt others will be so kind as to accept my services when they realize I was his manservant.
Manservant -- I think this is not a good word to use in reference to myself. He would often refer to his penis this way. A euphemism. And I am not -- nor was I ever -- his penis. The euphemistic language we would create together allowed imaginings for us both that would cause us to burst out laughing while recalling any number of his many trysts.
“Do you know where my manservant was last night, Leporello?” he would say.
“No, Padron,” I would respond.
“He was exploring a lovely garden,” he would say. Garden...another euphemism for the female parts.
I enjoyed these euphemisms. They allowed our minds to wander on so many different levels; there is an inexpressible sensuality in those double meanings. They allowed us both -- myself especially -- to speak in polite company about any number of sexual topics without the slightest hint to others of our sordid affairs. And no, I was never his ‘manservant’ so much as a servant who also was a man. And I can honestly say I never knew or saw this ‘manservant’ of his. Curiosity is sometimes best left untested, even if others might have misinterpreted its truer meaning.
Perhaps I was his secretary? Secret-ary, certainly, copying all his secrets into my catalogue. Yes. Secretary will do nicely. It has an air of respectability.
Master Giovanni was never the wisest of masters, but I miss him dearly. He paid me well above what others would for the same work. A bonus if I was faithful to keep his indiscretions secret. This was not always so easy as you might imagine. I have a wandering mind, and an even looser tongue. My mind, even now, regrets not being part of his escapades more often. My mind, but not my soul. You see, my mind is not always so uncluttered by disturbing thoughts as his. My soul keeps such thoughts in perspective. Indeed, very few of his thoughts were disturbing to him. And as for a soul, few believed he had one at all. All was fun and games to him. Sin had no meaning to him. The consequences -- good or bad -- never did make him think twice about taking a young maid or a man’s wife or perhaps even his own mother, rest her soul.
“A woman was created,” he used to say, “for only one purpose. To fuck.”
I didn’t like that word. “Use a euphemism,” I told him. “That word is just so...base.”
“What word? Fuck?”
“Y-yes,” I would stammer.
“What word would you have me use, Leporello?” he would say. “Have coitus with? No. Too many words. Enjoy? This sounds like I am having a pleasant dinner conversation, not ripping off the bodice and pulling down the woman’s...”
“Enjoy would be best, your honor,” I insisted. “It speaks of relishing the body, the sight of a woman, the touch of a silken gown."
He got the hint, and in polite company he would use this word when he meant to have a woman in his bed. But he would still use the base word around me while we were alone. Repeatedly. I think he liked seeing my face turn red with embarrassment. I think he liked to tease me. I even think he wanted to bed me on numerous occasions. But I never said "yes," and he never insisted. Such was our relationship. Uncomfortable. Agonizing. Exciting and sensual to a fault.
My favorite part of the job was being the man outside the door, and I suspect some of the excitement of bedding the women was the knowledge that I would be listening to the moans and groans and "Oh, Gods!" coming from the women, from him, even from me in whispered tones. I imagined what was going on behind those doors, and I liked what I imagined. Call it a liquor of fancy. I was always embarrassed to talk of my own thoughts after each of his trysts, though he would ask. Such thoughts went through many hills and valleys, through many rivers and oceans, spanned continents and worlds. How could he understand them even if I explained? He was ever the gentleman, and never pressed the issue directly. But he had other means of persuasion.
Master Giovanni was rather fond of threesomes. So when he asked for me to come into the bed chamber with him and his woman of the hour -- which he often did -- I refused to participate. I have my pride, and my morals as far as they go. But when people said -- as they still do after his death -- that he was always thinking with his loins, they were only half right! He had no sense of immorality -- or at least the sexual immorality that the Church preaches against. The wretch would attend Mass, you know, for the basest of reasons. The upstanding men thought he had come to confess his many sins and repent. Repentance would never come, and confession was for him yet another way to brag. No, Master Giovanni would sit in the back, so as to inspect the women -- especially the married ones -- as they walked down the aisles, as they knelt to pray, as they showed off their new dresses, as they blew him a kiss -- whether they knew him or didn’t made no difference. He was a romantic with each one, but felt no fear that the Lord Jesus Christ was watching his every move. He saw the crucifix, and believed I worshipped a dead god.
“How can a dead god see anything I do? You’re a madman, Leporello!”
I explained that God lives forever, sees everything, and died to take away the sins of the world. Master Giovanni only laughed.
My heart was never at peace in Church when he would do these things. I would partake of the Eucharist -- the body and blood of God -- when my mind was not on his escapades. But not believing its efficacy -- or in the blessings of the celebate life Our Lord entertained -- Master Giovanni never celebrated it, though he was considered Catholic. For that matter, he never repented of his sins -- not for me, for a priest, or for anyone. Certainly not even for the statue of the dead Commendatore when he came to dinner.
What was he thinking when he asked me to invite that wretched statue to dinner? Wretched man that I am not to have been a better adviser to my master.
Now, there were few surprises when it came to my master. He liked the women best, but every now and then he liked the men as he liked the women. How he could do some of the things I have heard men do to men, I would not entertain. Who was I to say that his invitation didn’t have ulterior motives? For there were always ulterior motives with Master Giovanni, if one only looked hard enough.
“Leporello,” he said to me. “Not only will I bed a man I mortally wounded, not only a dead spirit, but a statue! Think of it! A three-way of marvelous renown!”
“Indeed, Master. Should you not rethink this?”
“Never! Ah -- a four-way! For was he also not a Commendatore? Commendatore! Yes. Another martial name for the catalogue. This is brilliant, Leporello. Brilliant!”
“This will be your seventh military conquest, Master.” I recognized the humor in it as soon as it left my lips, but tried to stifle the urge to laugh at my own joke.
Master Giovanni, however, laughed so hard his brandy spilled onto his new riding jacket.
“Military conquest indeed! My ‘sword’ shall find a new ‘sheath’! By the way, did you count the mercenary I met in Lyon?”
“Number Five, Master, under Miltary.”
“Good. Just wanting to be sure he’s in there -- for he was in there, if you get my meaning.”
I got his meaning all too well, and the image it produced haunted me for days and weeks afterward. Though it causes me to reflect little on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, I believe that my master’s desire to dine with and then bed the Commendatore -- that Angel of Death -- was not wise, prudent, or even advisable.
How could I have let my master fall victim to his own folly? I am so ashamed of my role, ashamed of my actions come too late to save him from himself. All that food, all the music, all the earthly delights that fed my master’s mind -- those sordid desires have become flowers I place on his grave. Each time my mind chooses to wander toward those evil, sordid, base avenues I pluck them out like weeds, and place them like daisies upon Don Giovanni’s accursed grave.
“Death is the wage of sin, O Master,” I would say to him, with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. And do you know what he would reply?
“Quoting the priest again, Leporello? Does the Good Book also not say, Love one another?”
I had no answer for him then. I have no answer for him now. Yet, I throw all sensual, disordered, unwholesome thoughts I have to him, through him, at him, as a way to purge myself of his legacy. And yet, the label will forever follow me: Don Giovanni’s Manservant.
Ah, padron sciagurato! Con tuo morte, io son morto!