The Food for Thought Friday people have asked: 

Where is the riskiest/most adventurous place that you have had sex?

Did you get caught?

My answer:

Richard Wagner died in his rooms at a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice. The locals, naturally, turned this great historical building, rich in artistic associations, into a casino. 

Wagner’s old digs at night. See the dark area on the second floor, towards the left? We were there

A few years ago I went to the Casino de Venezia with Niamh, a girl I’d met in Dublin. Gambling bores me, and she said she didn’t care about casinos one way or the other. But I wanted to have a look at Wagner’s old rooms, and she came along because we were sharing a bed so we might as well share this too. Also, I’d promised and demonstrated that if she didn’t do as she was told I’d smack her arse. So there was that. She was fond of the hairbrush, in particular.

I guess I should admit that I’d answered her ad on Fetlife, once I realised I was going to be in Ireland for a while, so even before we’d met we’d both established that Niamh was a girl who liked doing as she was told. And getting a smacked arse. Anyway, there we both were. Niamh still wore that afternoon’s wonderful summer dress, the top of which was held up mainly by her breasts. I wasn’t so glamorous, since I was in jeans, but at least I had on decent shoes and a jacket. 

Once we were in the top floor I asked a few casino staff where the Wagner rooms were. They didn’t know. They’d never heard of Wagner. If I wanted an explanation of anything you could do with dice and some cards – in public, at least – then they’d be happy to help, but this Wagner fellow … They’d shrug and hold their hands open and empty.

I got annoyed with this, so when I found a closed door I opened it, and when I found a closed curtain I drew it. When I found the back stairs we went down them to the mezzanine floor where Wagner had lived. And died. It turned out that someone had made a Wagner Museum out of Wagner’s old rooms. It was closed of course. Well, it was closed in the sense that it was dark and there was no-one there. But I turned the door handle, and it opened.  

I wondered about security alarms, and decided that I could probably bullshit my way out of trouble if an alarm went off, and I held the door open for her. Then I followed, and after a minute it was clear that if there was an alarm someone had forgotten to switch it on. Italy’s cool like that. 

I moved through the exhibits, feeling a certain mix of excitement and disappointment. Excitement because we’re here, where Wagner lived! And this is his stuff! And disappointment because I’d hoped for some sense of communion and connection. But there wasn’t. There’s his piano, but he’s dead. He’s not here. 

Wagner’s Rhinemaidens. They may kill you but it’s worth it. Drawing: Arthur Rackham (detail)

But there was a certain kind of homage to the great man when Niamh came back from her exploration. I kissed her, and then pushed her dress down to her waist, so her breasts were bare.

Like a Rhinemaiden’s. Like a Flower Maiden. Then I put light pressure on her shoulders and she sank to her knees, unzipped me and took out my cock. She licked, then kissed my glans, then opened her mouth a little wider. Oddly, it was me who said, “Ahhh.”

So I was standing there, my cock deep in the mouth of a bare-breasted Irish girl, when I heard something. A security guard had walked onto the mezzanine floor. He’d seen us. I put my hands on Niamh’s shoulders and squeezed, to let her feel how pleased I was with her, though my cock was already conveying that information, and to obscure her peripheral vision.

Then I looked at the security guard and shrugged the apologetic Italian shrug. Niamh was still sucking me, oblivious. He considered for a second or two: is a couple having oral sex in the museum likely to steal things? Or are they innocents pursuing innocent and harmless pleasures? He didn’t smile, but he lit a cigarette (yes, I know; it’s an old building) and wandered back to the stairs. 

Later I pulled out of Niamh’s mouth and took her by the hand. I opened the window out onto the Grand Canal. There was a ledge with a stone barrier. There were also lights lighting up the front of the casino, but they left pools of darkness at the sides of each projector. So that’s where I bent her over, smacked her pretty little ass, and took a condom from my wallet and put it on my cock. And put my cock in her. 

You’d think that was the riskier situation, but it wasn’t. Our view was fantastic, lights and gondolas and vaporetti, and the throng of people, and so was the softness of her cunt and my hardness sliding slowly together, and the gritty stone under her breasts, uncomfortable in the good way, and our urgency slowly building.

It’s a good place to fuck. Venice is a city for lovers, because without us there wouldn’t be the money to pay to preserve all those drowned streets and buildings. So there aren’t many people in Venice, I don’t think, who don’t like the sight of bare breasts joggling while their owner gets pumped from behind.

But they missed out. Even when Niamh and I came, fairly close together, and not completely succeeding in suppressing orgasm noises (we sounded like donkeys coughing), not a soul noticed us.