Page 84 of The Two Wills

Upon nearing my twenty-second year, I suspected the time was near when I would be forced to move into the male roles, though as luck would have it, only the lightest golden down formed on my cheek—easy enough to scrape away. My feminine beauty lingered, and the higher range of my voice stayed fresh upon demand, while I could also call on my lower voice, if need be, as I had done for Marlowe’s Edward II and other plays. The Poet claimed my prettiness would have been wasted playing a man, and so I remained a lady upon the boards … and every so often in his bed.

There was the time he had stolen the green satin dress and black sheep’s wool wig from the tiring house, asked me to wear them, and then proffered me with a leather strap one might use for punishment.

“Be her with me,” he begged. “Like the time you saw us on the beach in Dover.”

I complied, but my mind turned in circles throughout. Strangely enough, during this encounter where I was dressed as Rose, he requested I enter him for the first time.

“Go slow, lad,” he whispered, his eyes scrunching in pain when merely the tip of my cock had traversed his entrance. “Fie! That’s sharper than a serpent’s tooth!”

“Are you certain you want this, love?” I asked, as I pulled back.

“I do, my sweet,” he said. “Proceed.” Then he took a deep breath, led my pizzle back into position, placed the rope in his mouth, and bit down.

So, in the dress of green satin and the wig of black sheep’s hair, I pressed my Rose’s thorn full into him and felt the Poet’s hole open for me. He groaned again in pain but begged me further until I was fully inside him. Once he had relaxed, it felt most delicious and warm, and I relished the feeling. As I imagined Rose might if she had a cock. I growled, “Do you enjoy it, boy? You are mine now. I never even did this to my husband!”

I then slowly increased my pace until I brutally released myself inside him. When I reached to turn his face so that I could kiss him, I saw wetness in his eyes and suddenly wondered if it wasn’t the pain of my thrusting, but the memory of Rose that had turned his heart so melancholic. I had thought I had been done with doubting, but once again the beast returned. After I removed myself from him, and we both lay on our backs staring at the ceiling, I asked, “Are you certain it’s me you love and not her memory more?”

“’Fore God!” he exclaimed, pulling the wig from my head and kissing my brow. “Would I have chosen you to love, while I could have had her all along? Would I risk all, my reputation, my life and very soul, to be with you? No, lad. I love you true. These dressing games are merely for a lark. Sure, they stir memories, but the melancholy is half the play. Can’t you see that I always wrap my arms around you and sleep with you in your natural state as a man?”

And it was true, he did always bid me wear only my flesh when we cuddled after, his poet’s arms around my young man’s chest, his other hand diddling my man’s parts. And surely the real Rose could never have done what I had just done. He seemed to appreciate my cock almost as much as I appreciated his. And to be fair, there were times I would also ask him to dress in a barrel-maker’s apron, imitating Barnaby Stubb’s roughness, while I’d imagine Barnaby as he had been the last time I saw him, with his black beard, full head of hair and broad shoulders. I’d fantasize that he had snuck away from his apple-cheeked wife and babes and met me in some field of blue corn flowers, taking me as he had done so long ago, whispering “Shh, shh, say nothing, my lad, I love ’ee still.”

So, it was true for both of us, at times we thought of our past lovers while we made love to each other. There were even two occasions where we dressed up as Rose and Barnaby at the same time, our characters saying all the things we’d wanted them to say and doing all the things we’d wanted them to do. But always, after we spat our spirit, we’d disperse our costumes upon the floor and entwine our bodies for dreaming. It was then, we as ourselves, I felt most loved.

Did we satisfy and provide all which the other lover needed? I suppose some disappointment is the way of all amorous friendships—at least those not set upon a stage or in a book. As the Poet always said, the audience has little desire for plays about long-standing love. Once one has achieved the forbidden, passion’s shimmer dulls and the poets lift up their pens.

When King James took over the throne after Good Queen Bess’s death, we got the wonderful news that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men would soon become the King’s Men. The Poet and all the sharers were ecstatic. Having the support of the Crown was the highest honor for any playing company and included a huge increase in fortune for the sharers. And while I cannot claim it as a certainty, some believed the company gained King James’s support because of me. His Majesty, a notorious sodomite, did appear to enjoy my performances even more than the Queen had. It seemed for a while that anytime he wasn’t off working on his new bible translation, he was there in the audience gawping at me shamelessly. I worried if one day I might be approached for more than my acting, but after each court performance the Poet, perhaps knowing the King’s intentions, would sweep me off instantly.

In other good news for the company, the King’s Men were finally allowed to move into the Blackfriars, the indoor playhouse they had longed for all those years ago. The Poet at last got his dream of having—and writing for—both a dedicated, large outdoor stage for the public in the good weather (the Globe) and a more intimate, indoor one for the colder months, wherein the company could charge much more for the luxurious seats (the Blackfriars). Both were exceptional stages.

But, alas, all was not just celebration in the months that followed our promotion to being the King’s Men. During that time, the Puritan naysayers increased their public protests against the acting companies.

“Sin! Sin!” they cried again at the gates of our playhouse. “The devil dresses these boys in order to tempt men to Hell!”

The Poet and his fellows, as before, laughed at the zealot’s cries, calling them fools and false prophets, and telling the players not to worry. King James was an even greater lover of plays than Queen Bess. Still, it made players of ladies’ roles nervous. Our country with its fickle, mad reverses when it came to religious observance, was not to be taken lightly. When I would pass those mad-eyed men, spitting as they called me sinner, in their black clothes with their ugly faces, I turned my face away in case they did have some connection to God and would report me to him. It was a terrible time.

But by that winter’s end came even worse news.

“The plague is back,” the Poet said to me, as I lay in bed one afternoon after a performance. “Up in Warwickshire.” He had received the news in a letter from his wife. His face looked grim in a way I had not seen before. He rarely spoke of his family to me, and sometimes it felt as if there were two Wills, at least, the brilliant poet and actor whom I and all of London loved, and this older, smaller man with a shrew of a wife and three children in the country, where he’d spend half his time focused on the price of wool and purchasing more property, and the other half suing people for unpaid bills.

He finished reading the letter, his brow furrowed with concern. “Anne writes that several have died around Stratford, and that our son, Hamnet, has taken ill. Though she isn’t certain its plague, since there are no buboes. But for safety, she has moved Judith and Susanna to the small cottage in the back. She asks me to return home to help.”

I took his hand and kissed it. “If you must. I can go with you.”

“No, you mustn’t,” he said, and then, seeing my dejection, quickly added, “It’s not that I don’t want you there. I always want you. But if it is the plague, I refuse to put you at risk as well. I couldn’t bear to lose you.” His eyes began to water. “My poor Hamnet. I barely have seen him in all his eleven years. I should have been there more.”

What was I to say? It was true, of course. He gave far more time and attention to his plays, his company, and me, than he did his children or wife. I felt compelled to offer comfort, “Hush, hush. Do not speak so. You did your best. You visited him just last Lenten season. And you’ve provided for them beyond most fathers. Why, I never even knew my father.”

He appeared not to hear my worthless words, and instead his mind stayed its own course.

“When last I saw him,” he said, “Hamnet had grown so much—nearly as tall as you. I began to see myself in him, luckily only the better parts. He has a full head of thick hair, and the way his voice crackles …”

The Poet began to sob, which I had never seen him do before. For the first time, there was no wall, no barrier to his heart. I let him weep into my shoulder until the torrent was over.

“I need to let the fellows know I’ll be gone,” he finally said, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt.

“I’ll help you pack your things,” I said. “I can also go get some vinegar and nutmeg from the market for your protection.”

By horse, if traveling quickly, it would take him two days to get up to Stratford-upon-Avon. That would mean at least six days gone, which seemed far too much time away from the company, his writing table, and me. He had once confessed he hated the countryside, with all its small-minded people and their capacity for gossip and looking down on how he conducted the business of his marriage and family. But upon learning of Hamnet’s illness, he was determined to transport all the newest medicinal supplies that only London could provide. He even talked of bringing a doctor who had perfected a blood-letting treatment thought to have cured many plague sufferers.