Dark Aemilia by Sally O'Reilly Read Free Book Online

A feeling of pure happiness begins to take possession of me. There are arguments; there are things I should say to him. But what are they? ‘I had to.’
    ‘You have risked your place – your station.’
    ‘I have.’ I begin to laugh, half-drunk with the madness of it. ‘Such as it is. Do whores have a place in this Manworld? Have we been allocated a tier of Being?’
    He leans down and kisses me for the first time, and I won’t describe it because I can’t. The world has shifted now; madness is closer.
    ‘This room is ours, and secret,’ says Will.
    We kiss again. Madness, madness, it’s at my feet.
    ‘Will you come to bed with me, Aemilia?’
    I stare at him, unblinking. I should say something. I should make him wait. This is what I have instead of virtue: the power to make one man wait. Only it seems I don’t even have that false virtue; I can’t play the Anne Boleyn game. Withhold and promise, promise and withhold. I can’t do either. I am lost.
    He draws me closer and unpins one of my sleeves. It is one of Hunsdon’s gifts, patterned with angels. My naked arm gleams pale in the firelight.
    ‘Are you an angel, too?’ asks Will, eyes shining. ‘Or a witch?’
    I look at him, solemn as a virgin bride.
    He lays the sleeve down on a chair by the bed and begins to unpin its fellow. I watch his fingers, my breath coming faster.

Scene IV
    From that day on, we meet in that secret room as often as we dare, and our shuttered love flourishes. I was happy with the lovemaking of Hunsdon, but this is of a different order. Sometimes gentle, slow and almost sacred in its intensity. Sometimes raw and ugly, raging, screaming and obscene. I find that Will loves most what he hates strongly; that what I do to give him the greatest pleasure revolts him even as he comes, jerking and crying out my name. I, who have been fucking a man I saw as father-like since I was sixteen, have no shame. I see bed as a place to try every version of delight that a body might endure, and in Will I find a lover who does everything to please me. The more we do, the greater his desire, and the greater his desire, the closer I feel to a sort of ecstatic disappearance. I want that. I want to reach a height of passion of such a degree that I might never return to myself, but remain there, locked inside him, and he in me.
    I like it best at the brightest hour of morning, with the shutters open and the sunlight streaming down upon us as we go at it, open-eyed. ‘See this?’ I say. ‘See this?’ He buys a heavy mirror at the Royal Exchange and carries it to our room one night, and it reflects all we do. I hardly sleep when I am apart from him, and cannot eat. My ribs stick out and my poor dugs have nearly vanished and my lord worries for me, fearing I have a tumour or some other malady. If it is madness, it is also the most precious and bright-hued time in my life.
    * * *
    I am lying on a riverbank, looking up into a cloudless May sky. Skylarks are singing and the Thames is lapping at my feet. I close my eyes. The sun warms my cheek. My chemise tickles my skin. A fly lands on my arm and waves its foremost legs at me. I sit up and look around me. Will is sitting beside me, clutching a wad of foolscap and reading intently. His shirt is unbuttoned, so that I can see the pale skin of his chest. I want to lean across and touch it.
    He looks over at me, frowning. ‘You haven’t answered me,’ he says.
    I look at him, distracted. ‘What was the question?’ I say, smoothing down the sun-warmed folds of my chemise.
    ‘The question I just asked you.’
    ‘Ask it again.’
    ‘You say you want to be a poet. But what sort of stuff is this? A bosom-brained Court lady could pen something like it. Where is your learning? Where is your wit?’
    He throws the pages down. I remember what Simon Forman said, and pick them up. I can do better. I know I can do better.
    ‘If I worked on them… so they were improved. What then?’
    ‘I don’t know. You could