When the Fresco Came to Life, I Watched a Goddess and Her Angels Make Love

I was in Italy with twenty-three friends; magic was in the air.

Original illustration by Tara Savelo

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“Tonight is going to be a more playful, sexy night,” the matriarch of my sex-positive cult community explained. Twenty-three (23!) of us were sitting at a long dining room table, gently lit by a chandelier above. It was our second night in Umbria, Central Italy. Over the past eighteen months, community members had organized this trip and rented out an outrageously large and ostentatious villa. (“That’s a castle, not a villa,” a friend texted when I sent her a video of the property.) After a year and a half of planning and preparation, we were finally there, drinking wine, feasting, and being merry.

Before us were three massive bowls of mouth-watering pasta, all doused in heavy creams. I was on my fourth helping and had unbuttoned my pants two plates ago. I wasn’t feeling my sexiest.

“After this meal?” I joked, pointing at the cornucopia.

To be fair, I hadn’t been feeling all that sexy or horny before dinner, either.

I’ve noticed a significant change in myself recently. I’m entering a slower stage of my life, involving less sex, fewer drugs, and earlier nights. While this could be a temporary lull, perhaps I’m just getting a little older and need more rest.

Given my ambivalence towards this new, undefined era, I was reticent to attend a trip with my twenty-three of my more wanton friends, where our evenings would be spent naked, entangled in each other, in positions so involved, they were too daring to document in the Kama Sutra.

But I remembered that while these people are, in one sense, debaucherous, they are, first and foremost, my friends. And reducing them to just sex and partying would be no fairer than those of you who reduce me to just sex and partying. (Something, I’ll admit, I’ve contributed to by being a brand. And while it has served me well professionally, it does lead to personal conundrums—ones I’m currently over-explaining. But do me a favor and indulge me just a little further before I delve into the sexy, magical scene I witnessed.)

While a welcome extension and expression of our friendship, sex is not the foundation. And though I usually command any room with my main character energy, I can be an NPC (non-player character). I don’t have to be “on” for these friends. I don’t have to be the firestarter of the orgy. I don’t have to crack jokes or make things interesting. My friends love and accept me for me—regardless of whether I am an energetic sex gremlin or a lethargic sloth.

And so, while slightly nervous about the play that evening, I told myself I could just exist as a voyeur.  

After tiramisu, we all moseyed up to the ballroom, a massive room with a thirty-foot-tall ceiling. There, surrounded by centuries-old art and furniture, some of my friends would play while the rest of us watched. 

The ceiling fresco was the centerpiece of the ballroom. It was simply marvelous, as all Italian frescos are.

It depicted a young Aphrodite sitting on a throne of men and women. She wasn’t exactly grinning, but she wasn’t not grinning. Her face flushed ruby red, and her body was gorgeous and zaftig. She wrapped a white toga around her body, and it acted as a swing for her to sit on. Beside her were two naked angels. Somehow, all three looked into each other’s eyes simultaneously—longfully and lustfully. The angels, too, almost grinning. 

Next to the male angel were two young women offering roses to one another. On the other side of the female angel, a circle of women floated in the clouds with a soft, unfocused gaze out into the distance. Beneath, a choir of cherubs sat, their faces pudgy and full of life. One played the lyre while the others lounged and listened.

I’m not one for ghosts or fairy tales, for witches and astrology, but my mind and spirit remain open. A small part of me has always thought the artwork comes to life in a villa like this. Once guests pack their rental cars and lock the gate behind him, the characters peel themselves from the walls and shake themselves from a two to three-dimensional form. The age-old feuds between the cherubs continue. They no longer remember why they’re squabbling, but they’re determined to win the argument all the same.

Amidst their arguing, Aphrodite floats down to the marble floor and does a back bend, each vertebra popping into place. She shakes out her hair, her curls landing on her collarbones. The cherubs stop arguing and begin their duty as servants, predicting her needs—a carafe of local wine and a chaise to recline. With her thirst quenched, Aphrodite then proceeds to make love to the angels, whom she had been staring at for the past umpteen weeks but unable to touch.

That playful evening, my imagination came to life. I and the other voyeurs were the cherubs, and my friends Monica, Christos, and Sabrina became Aphrodite and the two angels.

The soft couch cushions in the center of the room were perfect for them to play. The triad, nude and on their knees, began to familiarize themselves with each other’s bodies. I watched Christos wrap his hands around Monica, pulling her in tightly. Monica’s lean yet curvy body softened under Christos’ touch. Sabrina, on her knees at Monica’s feet, slowly began to work her lips up Monica’s frame. She kissed her toes, up her slender calves to her powerful thighs. Aware of the audience watching her, Sabrina curved her back, popping her ass into the air. 

Sabrina was—is—a goddess, a short vixen, compact and strong. Her ass, a force onto its own, is only rivaled by her smile, which perpetually twinkles. But when she has sex, her smile is replaced by a hunger—a desire so visceral she becomes another being. (I know this firsthand from the one time we fucked; it was glorious.) To see her worshiping Monica, another goddess, was like seeing two radiant beams of light merge to create an even more impressive luminescence.

Sabrina began tenderly kissing Monica as Christos bent low, spread Monica’s legs, and began to feast. Monica moaned into Sabrina’s mouth as her body shook with pleasure. Sabrina grabbed Monica’s nipples and pinched. Monica reflexively arched her back, pushing her cunt into Christos’ wet tongue. 

I stared directly at Christos’ juicy, hairy ass as he was on all fours, lapping up Monica. Then I stared at Sabrina’s. My eyes darted back and forth between them like a Kit-Kat Clock. Monica pushed Christos’ head on her pussy, and Christos’ asshole puckered. His testicles, hanging low, looked so vulnerable. His meaty cock (which I’ve had the pleasure of taking on multiple occasions) was standing erect, concealed from my angle. 

As I stood up to get a better view, a septet of cherubs (my friends) emerged from all corners of the room and surrounded the goddess and her angels. They pulled up chairs a respectful distance away—three on the trio’s left and three on their right. Each wore matching wide-brimmed sunhats obscuring their faces and had their limbs at hard right angles, mirroring the person across from them. The seventh person stood tall behind the triplet in a Sphinx pose with both her arms raised and bent at the elbows. It was undeniably cultish community-ish.