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Selling It Book Nine

On the Seedy Streets of the City

Thisbookandallitscontentsarecopyright2020byAmandaClover. Allrightsarereservedandnoportionsmaybereproducedunlessfor theuseofbriefquotationsforreviewpurposes.

Allcharactersappearinginthisstoryareovertheageof18.Thisisa workofparodyandanyresemblancetorealpeopleorsituationsis coincidental.

After School Activities

I was carried along by the rush of students headed for the doors of Peach Valley High School. The final bell had rung moments ago, signaling the start of a race to be the first out of the parking lot. The younger students, or at least the ones without older friends, were heading out front to line up for the buses. I was on my way to the parking lot. Almost to the door. Almost done, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I was pulled into the environmental sciences classroom, the door slamming shut behind me. Mr. Hooper, bald, bronzed, and wearing a sweater a size too small for his paunch smiled at me.

“You’ve been dodging me all day, Miss Douglas,” he said. “We had an appointment right after school. I paid in advance. Carl gave me your rates. Blowjob no rubber. You’re going to let me eat that teenage pussy will you blow me. We can do a sixty-nine or—”

“Sorry, Mr. Hooper,” I said, shrugging out of his grasp. “Something came up. I have to cancel your appointment. I left your money in the drop locker.”

“I don’t want my money back,” he growled, his brow furrowing. “I’ve been waiting for this all week.”

I’m sure he had been. Some of these teachers could be downright needy. But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t lying to Mr. Hooper. All my appointments had been cancelled and refunded. All their envelopes left in the locker we used to exchange money. I wasn’t sure why Mr. Hooper hadn’t bothered to pick up his cash, but I couldn’t do the job.

“You little slut,” he said. “What’s wrong with me? Are you too good for me?”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. My eyes were telling him ‘yes, absolutely I am too good for you’ but I smiled sweetly and said, “Of

course not, Mr. Hooper. I’m just really busy now. I have some stuff I need to take care of and I didn’t want to hold onto your money if I wasn’t sure when it would be done. Now, can I go?”

“No,” he said, pressing closer. He reached around me, roughly grabbing my left breast through my shirt. He squeezed my tits and wheezed against my neck. I let him carry on for a moment, feeling the bulge in his khakis against my ass. “Maybe I’ll just bend you over and fuck you. No rubber. Fucking cum in that little pussy. I bet you’d like that.”

“Mr. Hooper,” I said softly. “I’m giving you one final warning.”

“And then what?” He sneered grabbing at my other breast. “I can get you kicked out of this school.”

“If you don’t let go of me right now, I am going to spray you with bright red pepper spray. So your shirt will be soaked and you’ll be blind and in agony for twenty minutes. The bottle is already in my hand. I don’t want to use it, because we’ll both probably get in trouble. Seeing as how I’m the victim and I’m like thirty years younger than you, well, I think you’ll get in a lot more trouble.”

“Fucking bitch,” he said, releasing my breast and stepping back.

“I can be,” I said. “When people don’t treat me right. Sorry, Mr. Hooper. Maybe some other time.”

I had the audacity to wink at him before stepping out of his classroom and joining the tail end of the students rushing out of the building. Jasmine was waiting for me just beyond the doors wearing a pair of red Chanel sunglasses that I bought her for her last birthday. She flashed me a smile.

“Hey, slut,” she said, nudging me with her elbow. “I thought you were in trouble for a second there.”

“Yeah, so did I, but I told Mr. Hooper to behave,” I said, sliding my own sunglasses onto my face.

“So since your schedule is free of pervy teachers, want to hang out?”

“Free of pervy teachers, but I have to take dinner to my dad and then pick up some extra hours.” I said as Jasmine followed me out to my car. I dropped my book bag onto the passenger seat. “I’ll hang out soon though, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, text me if you want to meet up somewhere,” she said. “Don’t fuck anybody I wouldn’t fuck.”

“You’d fuck anybody!” I shouted after her, earning a stare from one of the more prudish senior girls. Although that wasn’t true. I had already fucked at least one guy Jasmine would never ever fuck: her father. She didn’t know it, but every time I had sex with Mr. Hadad I felt like Jasmine came closer to catching me with her father. I knew I had to be more careful.

I waved goodbye to Jasmine and drove to Ricci’s Pizza by the boardwalk and picked up a large pie with anchovies and onions. Just how my dad – and absolutely nobody else on earth – liked it. The pizza stunk up my car all the way to the Chesapeake. That was where I had my dad stashed while my mom was being a disgusting slut at our house. I went up to his room at the hotel and knocked on the door.

“Pizza delivery for Mr. Douglas,” I said in a fake voice.

“I know it’s you, Payton,” he said, opening the door. I was glad to see he had shaved today, unlike the last few days, and had actually bothered to put on clothes other than sweatpants. I smiled brightly at him and carried the pizza over to the little hotel table strewn with his laptop and work files. He cleared a spot for me to set the pizza down.

“How are you doing, daddy?” I asked.

“Better,” he said. “I talked to an old client today. He might be interested in bringing me on as their company’s bookkeeper. It’s a really good job. It would mean a raise.”

I could tell he was holding something back, so I pushed him a little, “A raise and what else?”

He mumbled an answer. I put my arms around him from behind, pressing against his back and breathing the familiar scent of cologne.

“What was that?” I demanded.

“Relocating to Washington,” he said. “His legal firm moved to Seattle a couple years ago and I guess they’re really successful.”

I let my arms slip off his shoulders as I backed away. Sadness and happiness swirled inside me. I was glad for my dad finally seeing a way out of his money hole and towards a possibly successful future. But I couldn’t lose him. I loved my dad so much. I barely wanted to be around my mother, but I could talk to my dad about anything.

“So what are you doing tonight?” He asked, chomping into a slice of pizza. “Do you have work?”

I guess there was one thing I couldn’t talk to him about.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Not here at the hotel though. I have some odd jobs, um, downtown.”

“You’re being cagey,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re an adult, you don’t have to tell me anything. Just be safe and be smart, alright?”

“Yeah, right, daddy,” I said and hugged him. I squeezed my breasts against his face and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”

“Alright, sweetie,” he said.

I left him munching on his favorite pizza. My job was downtown, but I needed to get my bag out of my car. I’d parked it in the employee lot, which meant going through the employees only area of the hotel. Technically, I was still an employee, though my boss Burt Becker had kept me off schedule whenever I needed free time.

“Hey, Payton!” he called as I passed the open door of his office. “I didn’t know you were here tonight.”

I stopped as he leaned against the door frame. He had stopped wearing his hair pieces and was letting his baldness show. Not even

a combover. He looked nice for Burt, wearing a mustard-colored tie and a white hotel jacket with “MR. BECKER” on the gold nametag. It was a step up from the shabby suits he used to wear.

“Hey, Burt,” I said, turning back. I let him embrace me and kiss my cheek. He sniffed at my neck.

“You smell like anchovies,” he whispered.

“Yeah, delivering a pizza for my dad,” I said. “And I’m not working tonight. Not here.”

“But you’re working?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because if not, I might be able to put together enough cash for…”

His words trailed off as I put my hand on his. “Not tonight, Burt. I… I’ll make time for you soon though.”

“Thanks, Payton,” he said gratefully.

I started to turn away, but I turned back again and kissed him on his lips. My kiss surprised him. I let it linger a little, pressing against him, letting him feel my body, my tits, against him. My tongue tasted the soda he had been drinking. Dr. Pepper I think. He started to kiss me back and I pulled away.

“I promise,” I said.

I knew Burt had it bad for me. He probably thought he loved me. I didn’t love him, but I felt something for him. Something, maybe friendship, but with sex. Or maybe it was more than that and I just hadn’t figured it out yet. Whatever it was, I didn’t have time for a real relationship.

He watched me go as I walked out the back way from the hotel to the employee parking lot. There was a bag packed in the trunk of my car. I took it out and started walking, crossing the bridge and heading through most of downtown as the streets became grimier, the sidewalks strewn with more trash, and the businesses were ugly with sun-worn advertisements, flashing lights, and security gates.

I felt my phone buzz in the pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out and it was a text from Bruno, the disgusting gorilla of a man who worked as Madam Delilah’s muscle.

“Regal Hotel. Room 315. It’s unlocked.”

That was simple enough. The Regal was diagonally across from the corner of Brandywine and Colfax. Down the street was a methadone clinic, a carnitas restaurant, and what looked to be a dive bar called Tommy’s. The sign for the four-story Regal claimed it was a “FINE HOTEL” but the neon was out and the lobby of the hotel visible through the smoky windows looked like a breeding ground for cockroaches.

I tried not to look at the women on the corner of Brandywine and Colfax, but I knew they were looking at me as I walked into the Regal. The fat guy in the wife beater behind the hotel desk was watching Pornhub on his phone and he might have been jerking off under the counter. He didn’t even look up at me. There was a sign next to him advertising hourly rates. Truly a disgusting establishment.

I walked up the stairs, past an unconscious or maybe dead bum, and up to the third floor.

Room 315, like the rest of the hotel, was a dump. Peeling wallpaper, a cracked window, and a bed that looked like it was broken somehow in the middle. There was a tiny bathroom with a ruststained toilet and a shower that would probably make me dirtier. A cockroach scurried across the wall as I set my bag down on the rickety table. There was a note for me and an old-fashioned room key.

I picked up the note and squinted to read Bruno’s childlike scrawl.

“Bring customers here if you need to,” I read aloud. “Room cost out of your end. Get the money first. I know how much you should earn for the night. You work until 4:00 AM. Don’t steal Madam Delilah’s money.”

I let out a long sigh. There was no good side to this. No silver lining. I had to earn ten-grand to pay off Madam Delilah in the most humiliating way possible. I had to transform myself into a street hooker.

High School Girl to Working Girl

I transformed myself with my clothing and makeup, shedding my revealing but casual school outfit for tight and pink short-shorts, fishnet stockings, heeled boots, and a tank worn over a black lace bra. I went wild with the makeup. Full “thirteen-year-old’s first makeup kit” look with foundation, fake lashes, thick eyeliner, blue eyeshadow, candy red waterproof lipstick and a beauty mark. I also wore silver earrings in all three of my piercings in each ear, which hurt because I almost never wore earrings in two of those.

The result of all this was that I looked hot like a cartoon character. Hot like an anime girl or something. Not hot like myself. The sort of oversexualized, brightly colored slutty look that you’d see on hookers in a movie from the eighties. Was it over-the-top? Yeah, that was the point. I wanted to look the part. That outfit was more body armor than anything. But I bet the men driving by would take notice.

The fat guy at the counter even looked up at me and whistled as I walked out. I flipped him off and he shouted, “I can give you a discount if you give me some service!” I kept my middle finger up as I walked out of the lobby and into the warm California night.

The girls were waiting for me on the corner. They looked me over with expressions ranging from suspicion to hostility, to sneering amusement.

“You the new girl working for Bruno?” asked a hugely fat white woman in an outlandishly tight dress and a drag queen sized blonde wig. Each of her breasts was as big as my head and her hips looked like they would barely fit through a door.

“Caitlyn,” I said, afraid she might smash me like a bug.

“Okay, Caitlyn,” said the fat woman. “I’m Big Betty. This is Carla, Nina, and Peggy.”

She gestured to a slender, acne-scarred Latina girl who did a good job of hiding the scars, an attractive young redhead with great tits stuffed into a one-piece bathing suit and a pair of shorts, and a voluptuous black girl with a face marred with sores that I guessed were probably from meth. Her makeup wasn’t doing such a good job of hiding the scars, but she was still attractive.

“Hey, Caitlyn,” said Peggy, the black girl. “You get that outfit at Party City?”

The girls all laughed at me in my ridiculous hooker outfit.

“It’s my first night,” I replied. “I’m sure when I’m as burned out as you four I’ll look like an ashtray with a layer of concealer.”

Peggy and Carla looked stung by my insults. Nina let out a snorting laugh and Big Betty lifted one of her eyebrows like it took effort.

Carla spoke harshly, “Here are the rules, bitch. You work the john that picks you, don’t try to poach anybody’s trick. Leave regulars alone. You don’t touch those either. And don’t talk shit to the johns about any of us. You got that?”

“I got it,” I said.

“Use a condom,” said Nina.

“If she doesn’t have that figured out, she ain’t going far,” said Peggy.

“I’ve got condoms and lube and wipes,” I said, hefting my purse. “I looked up what to bring on the internet.”

This started them all laughing and made me feel like an idiot. Nina finally said, “Don’t listen to them. I was as dumb as you on my first night. Now they’re all jealous.”

They started arguing with each other about this, but their argument was cut short by the arrival of our first john of the night. A large

black Ford pickup truck rumbled to the corner and stopped. The window purred down and a middle-aged man with a buzz cut leaned out. He had small eyes and a hard set to his jaw, but he was handsome like an old Marine or something. Not the sort of guy I imagined picking up a prostitute from a street corner.

“Any of you ladies available for a date?” He said and then followed the question by spitting off to the side. His beady eyes fixed on me and he grinned. “How about you, new girl? You want to party?”

I stepped forward, taking this as my chance to prove myself. The other girls were glancing at each other and muttering, probably jealous that I was singled out right away.

“Yeah, I love to party,” I said, sauntering up to his truck. “Do you have the cash?”

“You know I do or I wouldn’t be here,” he said, his smile dropping a little. “What you got? Show me those tits. Pull it up. Yeah. Oh, yeah, squeeze ‘em a little. Real nice. Turn around. Bend over like that. Put your ass out. That’s a good one, baby. Okay. What do you call yourself?”

“Caitlyn,” I said, pulling my bra back down over my breasts.

“Well, alright, Caitlyn,” he said. “Come around and hop in.”

I glanced back at the girls on the corner, smiling at how easily I’d just hooked my first customer. Big Betty smirked, Peggy looked away, Carla gave me a blank look, and Nina looked like she was about to say something.

“See you soon,” I said to them and winked.

“Hurry it up, sweet tits,” said the man. “You got my dick hard as hell.”

I heard him say something to Nina and Big Betty answered him, but I couldn’t make it out over the rumble of his truck as I walked around the hood. I climbed into the roomy cab next to him and he laughed and rolled up the window.

“There’s $400 in the glove box there,” he said. “I get whatever I want for that much.”

“Yeah, that works,” I said, taking the cash out of the glove box.

“Wasn’t asking,” he said as he put his foot down on the gas and pulled away from the corner. He drove me a few blocks south, just across the river, and pulled into a vacant lot behind a drugstore. There were no lights and the adjacent business seemed to be a shuttered cell phone store. My john left the truck idling and looked over at me, taking his time to admire me sitting nervously beside him. “Aren’t you a little cupcake? Yeah, I picked a good one. Go on. Take it all off.”

“All of it?” I said, glancing down at the zippered boots.

“Everything,” he said. “And I ain’t asking you again. Get it off.”

I suddenly didn’t want to find out what he would do if I didn’t obey him. I stripped off the tank top and unbuckled the bra, my soft teenage mounds still perky despite their size. My nipples stiffened in the cool airconditioned air.

“Call me Chuck,” said the man. “Ain’t my name, but it’ll work. I’m sure you aren’t really Caitlyn.”

“No,” I admitted, looking away from him as I put one boot up on the dash and started to unzip it.

“Get your damn boot off my dash,” he snapped.

I put my foot down immediately, apologizing as I zipped out of the boots. He took his cock out and started stroking himself as he watched me strip off my shorts, fishnets, and panties. I sat back to face him and glanced down at his hard cock sticking up from his lap. It was about average in length, but had such a big cockhead, so fat and blunt, I wondered if he did something to it like pumped with a cock pump or something.

“Don’t just look at it,” he said, grabbing my hair roughly. “Suck it.”

Chuck didn’t give me much choice as he pushed my face down to his lap. I parted my lips and take him into my mouth. He immediately pushed me down, gagging me. He held my head down with his left hand, making my eyes water and nearly making me puke. It was hard to breathe. His right hand reached across my back and he smacked and roughly squeezed my ass. He gave me room to move my head up and down in his lap as he began rubbing his fingers up and down my crack. He wasn’t gentle about it, slapping and squeezing his fingers against my asshole before he reached past it to massage my pussy.

“Shaved, I like it,” he growled. “You got a sweet little asshole. It been broken in yet?”

He let me up to answer him, gasping, “Y-yes.”

“Good,” he laughed, pushing my head back down and giving my asshole another squeeze with his fingertips. “Means I don’t have to be gentle with it. Here. Suck on these a little bit.”

He pushed his fingers into my face and forced them into my mouth. I sucked and drooled on his fingers until he was satisfied, at which point he pushed me back down on his hard cock and started massaging his wet fingers into my ass. He pushed one digit past my tight knot and then another. I moaned around his cock as he fingered my asshole. He chuckled the whole time.

“Them Internet videos got you girls trained to be real good sluts,” he laughed. “Oooooh, and you know how to suck a dick too. You ready to get fucked now, darling?”

“Condom,” I croaked when he finally let me up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll put a jimmy hat on,” he said. “But for me. I don’t know where your ass has been. Now turn around and show me that booty.”

I turned around, still trying to catch my breath, my face against the side window as Chuck smacked a big hand against my ass. I whimpered, my breath steaming the glass. He squeezed and spread

my cheeks, exposing my worked asshole, still wet with my own saliva. He fumbled for something in the center console next to my hip and I heard a plastic rip as he tore open a condom wrapper. He grunted once and then shifted closer to me, rubbing his cock and its fat head up and down my ass crack.

“Play with your pussy if you want,” he said.

“Y-yeah, alright,” I replied, reaching a hand between my legs and rubbing my clit. I was scared of Chuck and worried about what he was going to do to me.

I had good reason to worry, I learned as he pressed his huge tip against my asshole. No amount of fingering could have prepared me for that first savage thrust as he stretched my poor ring wide and buried his cock in my clutching bowels. He grabbed my waist and pounded his fat cock into me, driving me against the glass of the passenger window and making my breasts swing and slap against the door itself.

A low, wordless moan escaped my lips. I tried to make it sound like I was enjoying myself, but I was really just hanging on and trying not to cry. It hurt. He fucked my ass and it hurt and he didn’t care about me. He pounded into me, harder and harder, and it never felt good. The truck steamed up. His sweat dripped on me. I forgot to even rub my clit as he rammed in and out of my tender hole.

“That’s it,” he growled. “Squeeze my dick with that asshole. Oh, you dirty little slut.”

He reached around me, grabbing me by my throat and making me rise upright on my knees, one hand braced against the door. He fucked me upright, kissing and biting my shoulder, roughly squeezing my bouncing tits. Everything he did was unpleasant and made me more afraid right up until he let out a bellow of pleasure and I felt his cock twitching deep inside my ass.

Even after Chuck had cum, he kept partially erect and it hurt when he slid his cock out of my ass. He made me strip off the condom and

tie it in a knot. He pushed my head down and made me suck him, “Until I can’t smell your ass or the rubber on my dick.”

I felt disgusted by what he had done to me and what I had done for him. I was crying silently by the time he offered, “Want a ride back?”

“N-no, I’ll walk,” I said, trembling as I buckled up my bra.

“Hurry up and get dressed then,” he said. “Or I’m going to fuck your ass bareback for wasting my time.”

I dressed in a rush, my clothes disheveled and my makeup a mess. He practically shoved me out of his truck and screeched away, leaving me standing alone and shaking in the dark parking lot.

I thought about going home. Calling for a ride. Calling the cops. No. I wasn’t giving up on my first customer. This wasn’t going to be easy. My aching ass could attest to that. But I was going to show Madam Delilah that I was stronger than she was cruel. I took a deep breath and fixed my clothes. I crouched down and by the light of my phone I fixed my makeup as best as I could.

And I started walking. I crossed back over the river and thought about how those other girls on the corner had recognized Chuck. Nina had even tried to warn me, but she had stopped short and they’d let me get into his truck. Those bitches. All of them.

I was a few blocks away, the Regal’s glowing sign in sight, when I realized I was being followed by a car. The white Buick pulled alongside the curb, matching my speed as I walked back towards the corner. In the distance, I could see the girls watching me and laughing at me. They knew they had given me an asshole john and this was my walk of shame back to their corner. I stopped walking and faced the car. It pulled to a stop and the tinted window hummed down to reveal a very elderly man with wispy white hair and bushy eyebrows.

“Hey there, sugar,” he said, his smile revealing a gold tooth. “You working tonight? Haven’t seen you around before.”

“Yeah, I’m working,” I said, leaning against the roof of his car. To my surprise, he reached out and grabbed my breast, squeezing it like he was testing fruit at the grocery store. I pulled back and gave him a dirty look.

“Real ones!” He laughed. “Can never tell these days. You’re real pretty. You eighteen? I’m not into that kiddie stuff.”

“I’m nineteen,” I said.

“Good! How much for me to suck on those beauties and then you suck on my pecker?” He licked his lips in anticipation.

“$150,” I said, only slightly inflating the price. “$200 for no condom.”

“Not bad for a fresh one like you,” he said. “Not all strung out like most of ‘em. Okay, sugar. Get in.”

I walked around to the passenger side of the old man’s car, stopping to flip off the girls on the corner. I was disappointed to see they were dealing with customers themselves and weren’t paying any attention to me. I climbed into the musty old Buick next to the man.

“I’m Ernie,” he said, holding out the same big, wrinkly hand he had used to squeeze my breast.

“Caitlyn,” I said. I grasped his hand to shake it, but he brought my hand close to his face and pressed his lips to my knuckles. I insisted, “I need the money before we go anywhere. And I don’t want to go far.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He counted out bills and handed the roll to me. “$200 just like you wanted. And there’s a spot just down that alley up ahead. I use it all the time.”

All the time? Yuck. I suddenly wished I hadn’t offered this guy a blowjob with no condom. Too late to back out now. He was being nice and much more respectful than my last customer. I sighed, folding the cash into my purse as Ernie pulled his Buick down an alley and to a dark spot behind some dumpsters. I think we were behind an out-of-business computer store.

Ernie was all over me as soon as he put the car into park, kissing me with his big watery lips and groping my breasts with great enthusiasm. Tongue-kissing an old man in his car in an alleyway wasn’t exactly topping my list of date nights, but in the darkness it was easy to let him lead with his desires and pretend I was with someone else. He palmed and squeezed my breast under my shirt and through my bra as our tongues twisted together.

He only broke the sloppy kiss to insist I take off my top. He let out a whistle as my big teenage tits bounced free of my black lace bra.

“Well gosh dang it those are some fine tits on you, sugar,” he murmured. “Tan and creamy and pink in all the right places. Mmmmm. Let’s see how they taste!”

He went right for them, kissing and licking all over my tits as I moaned and pretended to be getting off on what he was doing. He had this rhythmic way of sucking on my nipples that did feel nice. I stroked his thin hair and cooed with exaggerated pleasure as I reached down to his lap. Not much of a bulge there.

“Oh, sugar, these beauties have got me singing,” he moaned. “I feel like a young man. I didn’t even take a pill today.”

He sat back in his seat and I leaned into his lap, opening his pants and fishing out his red, wrinkly cock. It was half-mast, at best, as I slipped it into my mouth and began sucking. It tasted awful. Bitter and unwashed. I resisted the urge to gag and let my saliva clean away the bad taste. I sucked hard and bobbed as much as possible on his little soft stump.

“Ohhhhhh, that’s it, darlin’,” he moaned, pushing down on my head. “Suck it good. Suck that pecker. You like it, don’t you?”

“Mmmmmhmmm!” I replied, playing with his droopy old man balls as I sucked. I wish I could say I rocked Ernie’s world, but no matter how enthusiastic I was with my cocksucking, he barely stayed hard at all. It took more than five minutes. His cock and balls were sloppy with my saliva when he finally started wheezing. I sucked harder, moaning around him as his fingers tightened in my hair.

His orgasm was trembling and small. Salty cum, warm and thick, but not plentiful spilled onto my tongue and mingled with my saliva. I sucked as he groaned and his cock oozed out more of his salty spunk.

Thoughtlessly, I swallowed, feeling his cum stick in my throat. It took a few more swallows to get it all down.

“Dirty girl, Caitlyn,” he laughed, letting me up from his lap. “You swallowed it, didn’t you?”

“Y-yeah,” I panted and gave him a blushing smile. “It was, um, yummy.”

“Oh, yeah?” He reached for his wallet. “Well here’s another twenty for that. You’re good with your mouth. Next time don’t be afraid to put your pinkie up my keister. Usually makes me shoot off right away.”

“Ah, um, okay,” I said, taking his money and folding it in with the rest of my cash. I wiped my chin and lips with a wet wipe. Then buckled up my bra and pulled my shirt down.

“Need a lift anywhere?” He asked, starting up the Buick’s engine.

“I can walk,” I said, getting out of his car. “Thanks, Ernie.”

The bitches were waiting for me on the corner. Nina was gone, apparently off with a customer. Peggy looked at me with concern.

“You okay?” she asked.

“No thanks to you,” I snapped.

“Watch it, bitch,” said Carla. “We all get rough johns sometimes. If you aren’t up for it, then you’re not gonna make it out here.”

“Alright, that’s enough, Carla,” said Big Betty. She put a meaty arm around me. I wanted to sock her, but she said, “Sorry, darling. That was a mean trick. We’re supposed to look out for each other.”

“Some looking out,” I said, still wanting to smack her.

All the same, I didn’t resist as she guided me across the street and over to the carnitas place. Called “John’s” appropriately enough. We stepped inside. It was weirdly crowded with lowlifes eating tacos. Big Betty gestured to the Latina behind the counter and walked me over to a table. She settled her fat ass onto a chair.

“Food is on me,” she said. “At least have something to drink if you ain’t hungry.”

“Alright,” I said. “Lemonade.”

“So you went with Chuck and then Ernie picked you up?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “That’s a good taste of what’s out there. You’ve got to avoid the Chucks and pick the Ernies clean. There are some other types. The young guys who’ve never been with one of us before. The lookers who just want to jack off and will try to do it for free. Lots of kinds. But the other one you really gotta know about are the cops.”

“I haven’t seen any tonight,” I said, nodding gratefully to the waitress and drinking greedily from the lemonade.

“Patrol cars come and go, but there are two cops working vice around here. Detective Diller and Detective Fitzpatrick.” Big Betty paused to take a long slurp of her horchata. “You need to stay away from them both. Diller, he’s a bull in a china shop. Thick neck, buzz cut like Chuck, and a total roid head. He will use any excuse to feel you up or worse. Fitzpatrick is okay. Redheaded boy, generally plays by the rules. Don’t go falling for those blue Irish eyes of his. He’ll take you in like Diller and you’ll spend the night in jail.”

“Cops are bad,” I said. “Got it.”

“Vice cops are bad,” she corrected. “Patrol cops usually leave us alone. They’re the ones you’ll count on if you get attacked. Do you have a gun?”

“No!” I almost spit out my lemonade. “It’s alright,” she said, lowering her voice. “Pepper spray?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good for now, but remember if you use it in the car you’re going to get a dose too. You need to get a gun as soon as possible.” She put her purse up on the table and showed me the little blue pistol in her purse. “I can maybe hook you up with something if you want. It’s sort of whatever is available.”

I thought about it for a few seconds. I didn’t really want to carry a gun around, but the idea of someone like Chuck, but worse, grabbing me and doing things to me…

“Alright,” I said. “How much?”

“I’ll find out,” she said. “I know a guy. It’s sort of whatever is available. Anyway. I’m going to eat something. If you’re not, you should probably get back out there.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, taking the lemonade with me. “Thanks, Betty.”

She was already talking to the waitress about her food and didn’t even look over as I departed. I had the feeling I’d just past my first couple tests as a street hooker. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

Nina was waiting for me on the corner with Carla. Peggy must have been picked up by a customer or gone for a break. Nina gave me a sympathetic smile while Carla looked like she was ready to continue our shit from earlier. I was ready for it. I didn’t have a gun in my purse, but I wasn’t afraid of Carla. Which was probably overconfidence on my part.

A car pulled up at the corner before we could start in on each other. It was a late model car with an unrepaired dent on the rear passenger side door. The window rolled down and revealed a handsome younger man. He had short corn rows and big honeybrown eyes that appraised the three of us standing on the corner. “Hey, baby,” said Carla, stepping towards the car. “What’s your name?”

“Jerome,” said the man, his voice deep and his smile genuine. “Why don’t you all come over here. Let me get a look.”

We posed for him, shoulder to shoulder, leaning down and showing our tits or in Carla’s case her stick-thin body. Despite her skinniness, she had a catlike way of moving her body that held the man’s attention. Nina and I had to rely on our curves. While he was checking us out, I was checking him out. He was wearing a dark blue work coverall and he smelled like gasoline and motor oil. He must have worked at a mechanic or a lube place.

“Mmmm, I want to take you all with me,” he said, the words rolling out of him like smoke. “Don’t think I can afford that sort of party. Can I take one of you girls home for $150?”

“That’s a little short, baby,” purred Carla. “But we can have fun for that much. We’ll just pull around back—”

“You can take me home for that much,” I said. His smile widened and he said, “Well get in, honey.”

Carla shot me a murderous look as I pushed past her and wiggled my way around to the passenger side of his car. The smell of motor oil was much stronger as I got it. His smile looked even better up close and I could also see he had a great body under those dirty coveralls.

“Caitlyn,” I said.

“Nice, I like that,” he said, pulling away from the curb. I could see Carla still glaring in the side mirror. “I’ve never seen you out there before. Are you new?”

“Yeah, my first night, actually. Do you pick up girls often?”

“Oh, not that often,” he said. “I can’t afford but once a month. Maybe twice if I get overtime. I want to save and set myself up before I think about getting a girl and starting a family or whatever. So you ladies are how I pay myself back for busting my ass at work.”

“I get it. Relationships are complicated.” I reached into his lap and stroked his muscular leg. “But I’ll take care of you real well tonight, Jerome.”

“I knew you would,” he said, flashing that smile again.

The drive to Jerome’s house was long enough that it started to make me nervous. He actually drove out of the city limits to the north and into the sparse housing in the hills. Jerome lived in a trailer on a sparse plot of land.

“I own the land though,” he said as he pulled up to the trailer. “And I’m saving for some place nicer.”

“It looks fine,” I said, thinking of my accommodations at the Regal.

“I’m gonna grab a quick shower,” he said. “You mind?”

“Um, well, I do need to get back,” I said.

“Real quick,” he said, walking to the trailer’s bathroom. I heard the shower cut as he began undressing in full view of me. He smiled at me as I watched him, revealing his undershirt and underwear marked with the sweat of his labor. His body was incredible. Dark tattoos on dark skin. Rippling muscles. His cock was uncut and impressively long and thick. He winked at me before stepping into the shower and pulling the curtain. I could see his legs under the curtain, water spilling into the shower’s plastic pan and gurgling into the pipe.

I was nude in his bed when he stepped out of the steamy bathroom wrapped in a towel. I was soaking wet under my practiced fingers. I’d been touching myself while picturing those glistening muscles and that thick cock.

“Oh, I see you are ready for me,” he said, grinning at me as he dropped the towel and climbed onto the bed. “Let me taste that pussy, honey.”

His strong hands pushed my legs apart wide and he pulled one over his muscular shoulder and back. His tongue lashed the silky folds of my pussy. He gazed up at me as he licked me and kissed my pussy. He pushed two fingers deep into my tight cove and rubbed his knuckles against my sore asshole.

“Fuck,” I moaned, my fingers twisting in the tiger-striped blanket. “Ohhhh, Jerome. Oh my god.”

He sucked hard enough that it almost hurt, but it didn’t. When I winced because he was pushing a little too hard with his knuckle on my asshole he backed off without me saying anything. He kept licking me and sucking me, pumping his fingers into me and rumbling with pleasure as I gasped and wailed. I had stopped exaggerating how good it felt. He was going to make me cum.

Just as he had me on the brink, he popped his lips from my aching clit and lifted his head up. His chin glistened with my nectar.

“I need you to feel this dick, honey,” he said, climbing atop me and kissing me. “You got a condom?”

“My purse,” I said, fumbling for a condom as he kissed me and thrust his tongue into my mouth. One big hand encircled my right breast. He was forceful and yet careful not to squeeze or pinch too hard as he fondled my breast. I managed to find a condom with my fingers, feeling his bare cock rubbing against my folds and almost begging for him to thrust inside me.

He kept kissing me and moved down to kissing and sucking on my breasts as I unrolled the condom onto his big dick. Ribbed. For my pleasure.

“There you go,” I gasped. “Fuck me, Jerome. Ohhhhh, I need it.” “Yeah, you do,” he laughed. “Turn over. Let me see hat fat ass, honey.”

I probably shouldn’t have trusted him, but I did. I turned around, face down and ass up on his bed. I offered myself up to him like a creamy cupcake on a tiger-striped platter and he slid his big cock into my eager cove.

“Godddd damn,” he groaned, sheathing his whole length in my pussy and hitting my back walls. “Damn I love that thick white ass.”

Jerome hammered me with powerful strokes. He knew just how to get me to the edge and back off again, leaving me clawing at the

headboard and throwing my ass back onto his cock. We collided with loud slaps of flesh. He held my slender waist and my pussy devoured his dick.

“Get it,” I cried. “Ohhhh, yes, give me that dick. Give me that DICK.”

“Can you handle it?” He laughed. “Oh, no, I think it’s going to make you cum already. You want that, honey? You want that girl? Cum on that big dick. Don’t fight it!”

He slapped my ass as I started to cum. There was no helping it. His dick was just that good and he knew how to use it. My thighs shook and my tits swung as he slammed in and out of me and made me cum so hard that I almost went cross-eyed. Even when he backed off with the intensity, it still felt amazing, like a drawn out, low-level orgasm that just kept going, fluttering along his shaft.

By the time he was finally ready to cum, the whole back end of the trailer was shaking with the force of our fucking.

“I’m going to bust all over that ass,” he groaned. “You’re fixing to get that big load all over those fat cheeks. You ready for it?”

“Yesss,” I hissed. “Oh, give it to me! Cum all over my ass!”

Three more thrusts slammed into me, my inner walls trembling like he was beating a drum with his cock. I grabbed the headboard tightly and thrust my plush rear back against him, slapping my soft cheeks against his muscular hips.

“Ah! Fuck! Here it comes, honey!” Jerome yanked his cock from my clutching depths with sudden urgency and stripped off the latex condom with a loud snap. I arched my back and looked over my shoulder just in time to see his huge cock explode. The first spurt of cum reached all the way to my shoulders. The next fell warmly on the middle of my back. The last pumps spurted past his fingers and splattered down the crack of my ass and all over my cheeks.

“Ooooh, yeah, baby,” I cooed, reaching back to spread my ass wider for him. “Shoot all of that cum.”

“Yeah,” he moaned, shaking and sweating as he squeezed out the last drops. “Oh, yeah. Mmmmmm.”

He fell back onto the bed, spent. I looked around the room for some way to clean up and he gestured vaguely to a dirty towel hanging off a chair. I wiped myself down and gave cum-smeared crack another wipe with the moistened towelettes from my purse.

Jerome watched me cleaning up with a bored expression on his face.

“All tired out?” I giggled, cleaning sweat from my tits.

“Got work early,” he grunted. “You better get going.”

“Get…you’re not driving me back?” I stared at him incensed.

“Naw, I need to get to sleep,” he said. “I was gonna play some video games and then pass out. But you can get a Drivr up here.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, recalling that I gave Jerome a big break on the cost of hiring me because I thought he was cute. Not so cute now, sitting there lazily scratching at his washboard abs and watching me get dressed. He even smacked my ass while I was trying to pull on my panties.

Thank god, he was right about the Drivr. A car was waiting for me at the end of the drive by the time I had fixed my makeup.

I just had to pay for it out of the money I’d just made. I had a feeling Big Betty or one of the other girls was going to lecture me about giving bargains to handsome men and letting them driving me out to the distant suburbs.

Aftermath

Nine guys. Not nine total, nine more after my time waster with Jerome. If anything, it only picked up the later it got. I fucked three guys between two and three in the morning. I was sore. I felt filthy. And I was exhausted. Like I’d just run a marathon, only my hips and

thighs had done most of the work. My hair was a mess and I hadn’t even bothered to fix my makeup after the second to last guy came all over my face even though I told him not to do it.

“You look fucked up,” said Nina. “Need a pick me up?”

She offered me some coke from a compact in her purse. I shook my head.

“It’s only addicting if you have an addicting personality,” she said, snorting from her fingernail and snapping the compact shut. “You want to go get some breakfast?”

“No, I have to get home,” I said. “My car is parked downtown.”

“Oh, yeah, be careful about that,” she said. “They’ll tow you. Oh, fuck straighten up. Here he comes.”

Bruno arrived in a black BMW. I followed the girls over to the driver’s side of his car. Big Betty handed over her cash first. He wasn’t happy about her amount, but he let it go. He was happy with Peggy and Carla. He groped Nina’s ass while counting her money and then told her to get in his car. She rolled her eyes at me as she obeyed. When I stepped up to the window, he almost smiled. Almost, but I think he was incapable.

“Let’s see,” he said, motioning with a big hairy gorilla hand for the money.

I splayed my earnings out in his palm. He counted the money with one hand and reached a big arm out of the car window and under my tank top. His fingers forced under my bra and he roughly squeezed my breast.

“You’re short,” he said, pinching my nipple hard.

“My first night,” I said. “I made some mistakes.”

He pinched harder. I cried out.

“Don’t make mistakes. Next time, I fuck your ass if you do it. Fuck up after that and I get rougher.”

“G-got it,” I said. He pulled his hand out from under my bra. “Wear something sexier.”

I started to answer defensively, but he had already rolled his window up and was driving away with Nina. Peggy leaned against me.

“That’s why you got to be careful of Nina. She fucks him all the time. She acts like she doesn’t like it, but she loves him. She will rat you out to Bruno if you say shit.”

“Happened to me,” said Carla. “Called him a limp dick behind his back. She told him and he dislocated my shoulder throwing me around.”

“Never trust Nina,” said Peggy.

“I don’t trust any of you,” I said.

“Good girl,” said Big Betty and she reached out and squeezed my ass almost like Bruno had squeezed my breast. I shook my head and the girls laughed at me as I walked away. I went back to the Regal to change out of my hooker costume. I washed my face and showered, but I still felt filthy. Even after I put my normal clothes on, everything fit differently, like my body was puffy and swollen by everything that had been done to it.

I felt like a zombie walking back to the Chesapeake. A couple cars slowed down like guys were checking me out, even in my normal clothes, but I just kept walking and they pulled away. My legs were numb by the time I crossed he river and staggered into the Chesapeake’s parking lot.

I was so focused on getting in my car that I nearly jumped when a voice called out to me from nearby.

“Payton? Are you alright?”

I was surprised to see Burt Becker waiting for me in the parking lot of the Chesapeake. He had his jacket off and was wearing a faded tshirt from a strip club that had probably closed ten years ago. His bulk pressed down the corner of his car on its suspension as he leaned on the side of it.

“Oh, Mr. Becker,” I said, rubbing my eyes and blinking away the trance of exhaustion. “I, um, I was just..”

He looked me up and down slowly. His tone changed as he came closer. “Oh, Payton, what have you gotten yourself into?”

I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t relate everything that had happened that night. So I just started crying. Burt caught me in his arms and held me against him as my tears soaked his shirt.

“I’m supposed to…supposed to be at school in two hours,” I sobbed.

“I don’t think you’re making it,” he said. “Let me buy you breakfast, okay? We can talk.”

“I just want to rest,” I said. “I don’t know where to go.”

“Come on,” he said, walking me away from my car and over to his.

“I’ll take you home with me.”

I didn’t object. I probably should have, because leaving my car at the Chesapeake was going to be a pain in the ass tomorrow. I was happy to be with someone I almost trusted. He drove me to the house he shared with his sickly mother and we entered through the basement where he kept his apartment. I took another shower, almost falling asleep under the warm water.

He had laid out towels and a robe that was way too big for me on the bed. I collapsed naked onto the towels, but as tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was on overload from everything I had just experienced. The ultimate, thrilling, terrifying, disgusting, dangerous reality of where selling it could take me.

Burt knocked at the door behind me.

“You asleep?” he asked softly.

“No,” I croaked, my face buried in the bed.

“Mind if I come in?”

“Don’t mind,” I managed.

“I know you said you were tired,” he said. “But I brought this.”

Another random document with no related content on Scribd:

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The treatises of Benvenuto

Cellini on goldsmithing and sculpture

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on goldsmithing and sculpture

Author: Benvenuto Cellini

Translator: C. R. Ashbee

Release date: February 20, 2024 [eBook #72995]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Edward Arnold, 1898

Credits: deaurider, A. Marshall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREATISES OF BENVENUTO CELLINI ON GOLDSMITHING AND SCULPTURE ***

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the chapter.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

The new original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain

THE TREATISES OF BENVENUTO CELLINI ON

GOLDSMITHING AND SCULPTURE.

TO T H E M E TA L

W O R K E R S O F T H E

G U I L D O F

H A N D I C R A F T, F O R

W H O M I H AV E S E T

M Y H A N D TO T H I S

W O R K , A N D TO

W H O M I L O O K F O R

T H E F R U I T I T I S TO

B E A R .

REFLECTOR

CHAPTER III. ANOTHER METHOD OF CASTING FIGURES IN BRONZE OF LIFE SIZE OR A LITTLE UNDER 114

CHAPTER IV. HOW TO CONSTRUCT FURNACES FOR CASTING BRONZE, WHETHER FOR STATUES, ORDNANCE, OR OTHER SUCH-LIKE THINGS 127

CHAPTER V. HOW TO CARVE STATUES OR INTAGLIOS, OR OTHER WORKS, SUCH AS DIVERS BEASTS, IN MARBLE OR OTHER STONES 134

CHAPTER VI. OF CARRARA MARBLES 135

CHAPTER VII. A DISQUISITION ON COLOSSAL STATUES WHETHER MODERATELY OR VERY GREAT 139

CHAPTER VIII. THE MYSTERY OF MAKING GREAT COLOSSI 141

A GLOSSARY OF ITALIAN TECHNICAL TERMS FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS.

AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND OBJECT OF THE TREATISES & OF CELLINI’S

POSITION AS CRAFTSMAN AND AUTHOR.

This translation is intended for the workshop; & to bring home to English craftsmen, & more particularly to my colleagues and pupils at Essex House, the methods and practice of the Goldsmith of the Renaissance. It is with this end in view that the work has been undertaken, and I am in hopes that the knowledge of this may induce my critics to give it a kindlier reading, aware as I am of its many shortcomings.

To the translator of the treatises two things are necessary, Italian scholarship and a thorough knowledge of workshop technicalities; these two qualities are difficult—perhaps impossible—to combine, and I am conscious of grave deficiencies in both, but more especially in the former. My endeavour has been to follow the lead set me by John Addington Symonds and to make this first English translation of the treatises serve, if but in some far-off measure, as a continuation volume to his masterly translation of the Autobiography. I have in many cases, therefore, adopted his manner of handling the subject, but inasmuch as the more technical and less directly personal matter with which the treatises deal, demands a somewhat different treatment, I have sought to retain what I would call the workshop vernacular, without at the same time sacrificing the archaism of the old Italian dialect.

Cellini’s graphic touch, which gives their manifold brilliancy to the varying passages of that wonderful autobiography, is equally evident

in the treatises. But this very vividness increases the translator’s difficulty. The book is full of amusing workshop pictures and anecdotes; but it is always a workshop book. Cellini sees each process before him as he describes it, we, however, only hear the description, we do not see the process, hence it is often to the expert metal worker alone that some of the more complex technical narrations appeal, while the translator is as frequently in doubt as to whether he has realised the picture the author sought to draw. If, in my English rendering of some of these pictures, I have gone astray, I trust that my errors may be pointed out by those who are better able to follow the author’s meaning.

Apology is perhaps scarcely necessary for what will often appear to be loose or ungrammatical English; this may be an offence to the stylist or the pedant, & it certainly at first sight jars in what purports to be a scientific text book. It would have been perfectly easy for me to cut out the improper stories, trim up the phrases and give precision, accuracy, and even grammar to certain of the sentences, but this would not have been Cellini. We have him not writing, but rapidly & with a delightful forgetfulness and confusion, talking his treatises to a scribe, and then omitting to revise them; it is the spirit, therefore, of the spoken word, not the careful writing, that I have sought to render.

Another difficulty hampers the translator: the absence of any living workshop tradition upon which to fall back when his subject becomes too technical. In our day of the subdivision of labour the study of the ‘ Eight branches of the glorious Art of Goldsmithing’ as it was in Benvenuto’s time is a thing of the past. Except in a few instances where workshops are conducted with the enthusiasm of the artist rather than with the itching fingers of the tradesman, there is no such thing as an all round grasp of the Art such as Cellini postulates. To the tradesman, the sculptor’s ghost, the working jeweller, whether of Birmingham, Bond Street, or Clerkenwell, in the thousand and one gimcrack shops where they sell ‘merry-thought brooches,’ & ‘our latest stock of Christmas presents,’ the glorious Art of Goldsmithing has no meaning, or rather is a thing not of eight branches but of a hundred subdivisions, fanned into existence by a hundred callous machines, and workshop tradition has been destroyed by ‘the

Trade.’ For the same reason the circle of readers will be small. To those of us who in recent years have been seeking to lift the art of the goldsmith out of the slough of industrial despond, to show once more what the human hand and fancy can create, and to relegate, without repudiating it, the machine to its right place in relation to human endeavour, all this manifold production of rubbishy trinkets, useless ornaments, and things made for ‘the Market,’ is stupid and wasteful, and makes for the destruction not the ennobling or beautifying of life.

But though small, the circle of my readers will be an earnest one. To such as are setting the standard of modern Art and Craft, to those who are fighting the trade, and seeking to relate the creations of their hands to their reasons for existence in life, this book of the aspirations & traditions of the old Italian will have some value. Fortunately their number is increasing, not only in England, but in Europe & in the United States. In the workshops of men like Frampton, Alfred Gilbert, Simmons, Fisher, Nelson Dawson; among the artists of Glasgow & Birmingham, or among the keener creative spirits in New York, whom I have found ready to welcome every genuine inspiration of the hand, will the real readers be found.

It is perhaps not my province as a translator to criticise the artistic merit of Cellini’s work, but as my hope in placing his treatises before English craftsmen is to familiarise them with his methods, I may perhaps be allowed to give a few words of warning. We must not take Cellini at his own valuation, and we must remember that he did not draw that subtle distinction between designer and executant that we nowadays are wont to do. The fact that every aesthetic criticism is inevitably biased by the style of its period must be taken into account by the student, if such criticisms as I myself, speaking as an artist, should venture to make, are to be of value to him. To Cellini’s best-known critics this applies in equal measure. Vasari, Delaborde, Milanesi, Brinckman, Symonds, have each had their point of view so to speak. To some, like Vasari, it has been coloured by what the Germans call ‘die Voll-Renaissance,’ of which Cellini in the art of goldsmithing was undoubtedly the central figure. To others, like Delaborde, it was influenced by the Romantic Reaction of the early

Nineteenth Century, and to them his work was ‘an exploded myth.’ Criticised from the modern point of view—the point of view that distinguishes between goldsmith and sculptor, between craftsman & designer—we cannot rank him among the highest. There is a want of feeling for proportion in such work as we have of his, & the whole is marred by the overcrowded detail, often very exquisite in itself, of the parts; the craftsman indeed invariably overpowers the artist. Above all there is a want of spirituality in all his more important work, a want of refinement of soul, if one might so term it—a vulgarity. There is none of the εὐηθεια of Donatello, the graciousness of Ghiberti or Duccio, the mingled strength and sweetness of Verocchio, the simple grandeur of Pisanello. Michael Angelo’s manner perhaps we can trace, but of his inspiration and his self-control there is none.

If we take Cellini from the point of view he would himself have wished us to criticise him, he challenges us first as a sculptor & a designer of the figure. In this sphere, however, he falls far short of the standard he calls upon us to judge him by. Affected & uneven and imperfect in handling is his work when set beside that of earlier masters. Attenuated as we see in the nymph of Fontainebleau, thick & exaggerated as in the Perseus at Florence, leaden and stiff as in the Neptune and Cybele of the salt, there is about his figures always something manqué, they seem indeed to have in them the effort of a decaying school.

Much the same criticism applies to his work as a medalist. There is an absence of reserve & the fine feeling for his limitations which puts him to my mind far beneath Sperandio, Marende, Francia, or other of the great Cinquecento medalists, and it needs no artist to point to the superiority of the Greek coins with which with redoubtable modesty he compares his own.

To estimate his position as a jeweller is all but impossible, as there is not one jewel remaining that can be authenticated as his. If, however, we may be allowed to gauge his position as an artist from such pieces as are attributed to him in the Rothschild, Vienna, Paris, & Chantilly Collections, and of which I give some specimens on pages 22 and 24, I should be inclined to place him on an equal footing with any of the great masters of the early Renaissance or the

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