Chapter Text
Papa was not like other fathers; he did not hit Wolfgang. He took him round the world and told everyone what an amazing boy he was, and after Wolfie played the violin or composed a sonata or sang with his sister, Papa held him in his lap, showering him with kisses, petting him, bestowing gentle words of praise. Sometimes tears even streamed from his eyes, and Wolfie would say “don’t be sad, Papa,” and Papa would say “I’m not sad, my dear, dear little boy, I am happy, so so very happy.”
Wolfie loved being pet and praised and fawned over, and he was used to it—not just from Papa, but from everyone. Mama, sister, aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors, but also kings, queens, dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies. Everyone. But he loved it best from Papa.
He did not hit him—except for one time. He asked Wolfgang to sit back down at the clavier and keep practicing, for tonight he would be playing for an empress, and it was an oh-so-important step forward for their whole family, and “you must make a good impression.” But Wolfie was bored of practicing and wanted to go play with his sister and his kitten, so he pleaded and argued, and finally, when that didn’t work, crossed his arms and refused. And before he could even understand what was happening, Papa yanked him by the arm, and bent him over his knee, and swatted his bottom. He swatted it so hard that Wolfie burst out crying, more with the shock, even, than the pain of it; he hit him again, and again, and again. And Wolfgang shrieked “Papa, Papa, please, I’ll be a good boy, please stop, I’m sorry Papa, I’ll be good and practice and be a good, good boy,” and then as suddenly as this had begun Papa clutched him to his chest, and pet his hair; and Wolfie kissed his hands, desperate to make him love him again.
“I lost my temper, my sweet little boy,” he was crying, crying right along with Wolfie. “I am so sorry, son. I’m so sorry. Papa lost his temper. It was foolish. You are such a good boy. Good even taking your punishment. Papa is only hard on you because I love you so very, very much. You’re Papa’s good, wonderful little boy.”
And that night Papa ran him a warm, sudsy bath, and then held him as he fell asleep, whispering to him that he was “good, so so very good,” and somehow this praise and petting made Wolfie’s heart even warmer than it normally did.
~~~
He and Bäsle were play-wrestling all over the floor one evening, and when she had him in a secure chokehold and her victory was all but guaranteed, he cheated a little by opening his mouth and biting her arm as hard as he could. She screamed, then laughed, proclaiming he was a “naughty, naughty boy!,” and then she rolled him over onto his belly and spanked his arse.
He and Bäsle had played plenty with each other—poking and prodding at many body parts, squeezing and stroking others, even kissing and licking some when they felt especially brave—but much as they liked making jokes about farting and shitting and all the other funny things bottoms could do, they’d never touched each other’s bottoms before. In fact, no one at all had touched his bottom—not since the one time Papa bent him over his knee and punished him.
So he was not at all expecting to enjoy the spanking; he could hardly believe it, but he liked the feeling just as much as he did any of the other things they’d done together. If not more. When she did it again, he closed his eyes and let his lips drop open; when she did it a third time, he could not stop a long, high moan from escaping his mouth.
And then she stopped—watching him curiously, no doubt—but he whispered “please,” his voice breaking, and he heard her laugh. “What a numbskull!” She said, and then she swatted him again, and he moaned louder and rubbed against the carpet until he spent inside his trousers.
Bäsle got up, brushing the wrinkles from her dress, and he rolled over, panting and sweating. He stretched his arms out toward her, opening and closing his hands in wild need and desperation.
“What now, Wolfie?” She asked, grinning.
“Come on, stupid, aren’t you going to tell me what a good boy I was?” He demanded. “Taking my punishment?”
“You’re such a shitwit!” She giggled. She left the room, and he wrapped his arms round himself in a tight hug.
~~~
It was deeply important to him to be godly and good, and besides, ever since he met Papa’s friend with syphilis—saw the way it made his skin sluff off and his whole body stink—he’d been terrified of venereal diseases. So he made a promise that he would never do the most intimate thing until he was married.
But there were things that didn’t carry the threat of illness or eternal damnation which he liked very much, anyway.
Bäsle wouldn’t punish him again after that day—“you looked like a stupid little dog, Wolfie, humping the carpet!”—and he missed it and wanted it very badly. When he and Mama traveled to Paris, he found that there were many establishments in the big city where you could pay women to do anything you pleased; and though Mama would’ve had a fit had she known, he quickly became a frequent patron of such places.
“I will touch myself,” he told them each time. “Only please punish me.”
And once it was all done, and his bare arse was stinging red and his hand was wet and sticky, he paid handsomely and asked to be held and pet and coddled.
One woman was his favorite, because she was big and strong; most girls couldn’t hurt him no matter how hard they hit, but she always did. He sat in her lap afterward one night, tears flowing freely down his cheeks because it had hurt so badly, and she stroked his hair and whispered to him in French. “You’re a good boy, so good taking your punishment, you didn’t make a sound, what a good good boy.”
And because it had felt so good and hurt so bad, and because he was so homesick, and before he could stop himself, he cried, “was I really good, Papa, was I really good, do you promise.”
He felt her hold him tighter, squeeze him in a hug right against her chest. “You are always good for me, always a good boy, so so good.”
He cried harder, clutching at her, hiding his face in her bosom and then kissing her hands, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”
And while he got dressed again a little while later, she ran one large, pretty hand through his hair and told him there was a place across town that he might like even better than this one, he ought to try it out and see what he thought, “but never stop coming to see me here, at least sometimes, my sweet little Wolfgang,” she made him promise, and he smiled and did promise.
~~~
The next time he did try the other place, and as he entered the dim, smoky room he was amazed to see it full not of working girls, but boys. A pretty old woman approached him and asked what he’d like, just the same as at the other places, only this time the person she called over was a handsome, tall, muscular man, with full red lips and curly hair and veins popping out his arms.
If Wolfgang had met such a fellow in a royal court, he would have been in awe of him; if he’d met him on the street, he’d have been terrified. Here, though, in this strange place—where he hadn’t taken a full breath since stepping inside—he was following him to a bedroom, asking him polite small-talk questions between nervous giggles, feeling his hands on him the moment the door was locked behind them.
And he took it bravely, his tiny body contorted over the huge man’s leg, his bare bottom stinging worse than it ever had—at least, since he was very small and his father had punished him like this. He was crying silently, tears running down his face and into his mouth and off his chin, but he would not fuss—he would be good—“so you’ve been a naughty boy, have you,” the man growled—“yes, I’ve been very bad,” said Wolfie—“but you’re so good for me now, aren’t you,” the man replied, and suddenly Wolfie’s own hand was not enough, and he rubbed himself furiously against the man’s muscular thigh, crying out “yes, yes, so good, so good!”
And after, the man allowed him to sit in his lap, the same as the women always did, and Wolfgang hummed and cooed and curled into the embrace. He squeaked in surprise when the man gripped large handfuls of the tingling skin on his arse, and then whined softly when he began to stroke and soothe it gently.
~~~
Stanzi obliged his strange fancies. Even before they were married, when he was living in her mother’s home and they stole away for secret precious minutes together—all heavy breaths and wandering hands and desperate giggles—he asked her what she might think “if I wanted you to punish me.”
“As in,” and she grinned at him, her soft pink cheeks all flushed, “spank your botty?”
“Yes.”
She considered it, momentarily, cocking her head like a shy little bird. It made him wild for her when she did that. “Well,” and her pretty lips broke out in a broad smile, “I don’t think I would say no.”
And it was all he could do not to pounce on her; he kissed her gratefully with his mouth open wide, tears beginning to fill his eyes. “Wolfie,” she moaned, and kissed him back, “do you think we have time to try it now?”
If he had not known before that day that he loved her, he did now.
She couldn’t know it, surely, but by allowing this thing, she had won him forever. She could not be rid of him now if she tried. That night, while her mother snored across the hall, he crawled into Stanzi’s room undetected and wriggled beneath her covers. “You fiend,” she whispered, trying not to laugh. “My sister’s right there!” For indeed she was, fast asleep in the next bed, but Wolfgang cared little. “I’ll be quiet,” he promised, not knowing if he really would, and he slipped her nightdress up out of his way, taking a big gulping breath of her sweet smell. “I must make you feel as good as you did me.”
More than an hour went by before he tip-toed back to his own chamber, face dripping wet, hair a mess, nose running and jaw aching. He’d made her finish four times.
~~~
For let it never be said of him that he was not the appreciative sort. Papa had rejected half a dozen pleas for his blessing to Wolfgang and Stanzi’s marriage, but Wolfie still wrote him with a thousand rapturous thanks when the letter of begrudged approval finally did arrive. By then, they’d already wed, anyway.
Stanzi did not like his father. “He treats you cruelly, Wolfie, and I don’t like it.”
“Shut up, Stanzi.”
“I won’t, because it’s true!”
“Don’t speak of things you don’t understand. You don't know him like I do.”
One night, when they had their own ruddy-cheeked child stumbling around and being spoiled with kisses and cuddles and toys and every sweet known to man, Stanzi started to cry in bed.
“What is it, my sweet little wife?” Pleaded Wolfie, who for his part was in excellent spirits, for the baby was sleeping soundly for once, and not crying for mama; and so she had time for her husband, and had allowed him to grind himself to satisfaction on her thigh while she punished him. It was the first time in a long while and he felt drunkenly happy, but he hated to see her sad. “My sweet little Stanzi-manzi. Tell me. Tell me.”
“Can you imagine hurting him?” She sobbed, her thick dark curls all tangled and wild over her tear-stained face.
“Who, sweetheart? Who? The baby?”
“Yes, the baby. He is so innocent, so helpless...so sweet. You’d never hurt him, Wolfie.”
“Well, of course I wouldn’t! Sweetheart, I don’t understand.”
“He hit you like this, didn’t he?” She exclaimed, and the particular vindictiveness in the way she pronounced “he” told him exactly what “he” she meant; she reserved that tone for one person, and one person only.
Wolfie took his arms away from round her. “Only one time,” he said flatly, and truthfully.
“One time is too many,” she cried. He rolled over and went to sleep.
~~~
A man had not touched him since those days in Paris. Sometimes he remembered the roughness of the hands, the hardness of the thighs, the strength behind the swats—so different from the soft, sweet silkiness of a woman, so different from his wife and her reverent gentleness even while she punished him. Sometimes he missed the pain, the stinging and aching and sobbing real pain, and allowed his mind to wander to the memories of it while he and his wife made love, and he felt like a very sinful person because it made him so excited every time.
One night, late, he went secretly to see Salieri, because Stanzi was anxious about money and the baby and losing yet another apartment to Wolfie’s debts, and besides she was pregnant again and sick and scared; and so he took it upon himself to make things right. “Can’t you ask the emperor,” he said, smiling with as much charm and guile as he could at the man, while they both munched on Italian sweets. “Surely he must have some position for me?”
Salieri bit into another sweet, smiling, too, and Wolfgang held his breath hopefully. But when the man opened his mouth, lined with powdered sugar, all he said was “does your wife know you’ve come here?”
“My...wife? I don’t understand, Signore.”
“Does she know you are here? With me?”
“Well...no, I suppose I did not tell her where I was going. I don’t want to worry her—you see, Your Excellency, she’s quite ill, and she—”
“I don’t believe she likes me very much,” said Salieri, shrugging his shoulders, and Wolfie stared. He still didn’t understand. Because he didn’t know what to say, he laughed instead. Salieri laughed too, and then suddenly he stopped.
“You people,” he said, that sweet smile all gone now. “You Mozarts,” and he said their name the same way that Stanzi said “he” when she meant Wolfgang’s Papa. “You are always asking for things. Taking, taking, taking. Do you ever give anything?”
“I...Signore, I’m not sure I...I want to offer my services, my music, to the emperor, the way you do. You understand, don’t you, sir?”
“Well, there are plenty of composers at the beck and call of the emperor already, Mozart, you know that. Though I do have much influence with the man—perhaps I could—hmm. Well. We may be able to come to an arrangement. What other sorts of services do you have to offer?”
And the man stared at him, his large dark eyes boring into Wolfgang’s, waiting, just waiting, for an answer—undeterred by Wolfie’s nervous silence over so many moments, still only waiting, waiting.
So he tried, finally, to speak. “To...the emperor?”
“To me.”
“I don’t...understand, sir.”
“I think you do.”
Wolfie felt tears well up in his eyes; he giggled nervously, reached out for another sweet. Salieri slapped his hand away. Wolfie whimpered.
He did understand.
“I’ve been...bad.”
“I suppose you have.”
“You can punish me,” he pronounced, slowly, carefully, voice trembling, hands trembling, body trembling beneath the lavender silk of his suit.
“I think someone certainly must.”
He did. When it was all done, Wolfgang kissed Salieri’s hands, knelt before him like an animal, let the tears run down his face. His bottom ached; Salieri was strong, and he’d hit him very hard, so many times, so many times. There was a wet spot in the crotch of Wolfie’s trousers, and a matching one over Salieri’s knee. “You are revolting, you are perverse,” he told him, and Wolfie agreed, and apologized desperately.
“Didn’t your father ever bend you over his knee, boy?”
“Oh yes, sir,” replied Wolfgang, still kissing the man’s hands; he cried anew when Salieri tore them away. “He did, but only once.”
“Pity he did not do it more often. You may not be so filthy then, so sinful, you pathetic, vulgar, spoiled child.”
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Was I good for you, Signore? Taking my punishment?”
“Get out, Mozart,” spat Salieri, and wrenched Wolfie by his hair before he got up and left the room.
At home, he crawled back into bed with Stanzi and held her and their son in his arms. The baby awoke, for Wolfie could not stop crying, and the tiny fingers reached out, and touched Wolfie’s face, and with such love and light and trust in his eyes he babbled “Papa, Papa, Papa.”
“Papa,” said Wolfie, too. “Don’t be sad, Papa,” he imagined his child saying one day, when he could speak, and he imagined himself saying back, “I’m not sad, my dear, dear little boy, I am happy, so so very happy.”