Page 29 of The Two Wills

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

—from Sonnet 3

During the evening meal my stomach danced with so much excitement I could barely eat. When asked why, I smiled most ridiculously and blamed my triumph on the stage, holding secret my upcoming visit with the Poet in his private quarters—alone.

As soon as the sky darkened, I groomed my hair, washed all my diddly bits, and stole some of Sam the Hedgehog’s orange flower water. (I dared not ask permission for fear of questions.) A warm mist had settled over the camp as I made my way across the field. Every follicle on my body tingled with anticipation. When I arrived, his tent was illuminated from the inside by flickering candles. The Poet’s giant shadow showed him sitting at his table, scribbling away with his quill, as if he were wrestling a one-winged dove. I stared in awe at his magnificence.

I chewed a bit of ginger root to cover any sourness of breath and then coughed to alert him of my presence.

“Hughes?” he called.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I am alone, just as you instructed, sir.”

“Good. Indeed. Come in!”

Upon entering his confines, I saw that he was half naked, wearing only his britches as he scratched at the paper. His starched collar was still attached while his bare torso glowed golden in the candlelight. Sweat-drenched chest hairs plastered themselves against his taut muscles. My eyes lingered upon his pink nipples before wandering down the furry path betwixt his navel and pouch. I imagined what it would be like to watch him bathe. Better yet, were he to let me bathe him.

Fearing he would notice my hungry stare; I steered my orbs to the contents of his tent. (It was the third biggest in the encampment next to Burbage’s and the comedian Will Kemp’s.) The Poet’s bed was covered with a very well-sewn quilt and four goose down pillows. Atop the quilt were two red roses, one nearly unopened and the second in full bloom. Seeing them inspired a hundred excited caterpillars in my belly to turn into butterflies. Could he have laid flowers on the bed for me?

“Your quarters is very nice, sir,” I mumbled.

“Are very nice,’ ” he corrected. “And don’t mumble. Actors need to speak properly. It’s good practice.”

“Right, sir, sorry,” I spoke more loudly. “Your quarters are very nice.”

He snuffed a “Thank you,” stood, and took up the papers he had been scribbling on. He looked at me from foot to head like he had that first day he saw me. I fumbled with my hands, taking them in and out of my pockets. He stepped forward, one, two steps, much closer than was proper. I smelled his breath, still tinged with the beef stew from dinner. He placed one finger at the top of my forehead and drew it down across the bridge of my nose, then across my lips and finally let it rest on my hairless chin, which he tipped up so we’d be eye to eye.

“You know what this face has done to me?” he said.

“No, sir.” My voice peeped like a titmouse. I coughed to lower it and cocked my head coyly. “I hope whatever my face does …” I took a sensual pause worthy of an Italian. “it pleases you, sir.”

A bead of sweat meandered down his chest. I pictured my head laying there in the hot puddle, playing with those pink nipples, sniffing his scent. At that very moment, as if he had witnessed my sinful thoughts floating out of my ears, he took my hand and placed it where I looked. I felt the wet warmth of his skin, the prickle of his hairs, the beat of his heart.

“You’ve set this afire, lad,” he said.

“I have?” I wanted to note every detail of the moment, hoping to remember it for the rest of my life.

“You have!” He tapped his temple with his other hand. “And this as well.”

“Ah. Your brain, sir?” I pretended to understand, though I didn’t fully. I assumed he was leading me to that place I had longed to go, so I followed. “Can you explain more, sir, if you will?”

He removed my hand from his bare chest, which almost caused me to cry out in protest. “Have you ever been in love, Hughes?”

“I have, sir,” I said, remembering Barnaby Stubb. I continued, as if I were a wizened man of forty rather than eighteen, “Alas, it was but a childish love.”

“Was it so?” He squeezed his lips to subdue a grin. “Why did it end?”

“Well, my dearest moved off to Devonshire. But really it was my love’s cur of a father who didn’t much like we Shoreditch youths, calling us ‘commonplace’ and ‘dirt’—meaning me, sir, since I worked cleaning privies and am, for certain, a bastard.”

“Your past matters little to me, lad. I care most for your future self.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Carry on, Hughes. What did you feel when your beloved left?”