For the rest, I believe Southampton's part in Shakespeare's story to be negligible. True, when his patron toyed with studies of the law for a brief while, the poet obligingly fitted out a sonnet in praise of him with a few legal terms remembered from his own days as a NOVERINT. Then, when Southampton entertained day-dreams of serving the King of France, his Will-to-boot came up with comedies which transport the spectator to Nerac and the Louvre. Such things are not profound. They belong, like their begetter, to the surface.
This is not to say that William Shakespeare did not take Henry Wriothesley seriously. He did. Too seriously. And he suffered much pain as a consequence. You will learn of that when I tell you about the sonnets, the story behind them, as that concerns Southampton. Not that he was the only one concerned.
For the pretty Earl's part, Pickleherring is sure that the sonnets were over his head. Beyond him. If he read them at all, that is, which he probably did not, except for the ones that are simply in praise of his beauty.
He died, in 1624, Henry Wriothesley, of a lethargy, having lived in one most of his life, if you ask me.
Oh yes, and Wriothesley should be pronounced as RIZLEY. That's how top people always say it. Rhymes with GRISLY.
Chapter Seventy A Private Observation
I promised to tell you about it if I ever saw Anne fucked. Well, I have not seen Anne fucked, but I've seen her fucking.
Reader, I think it is time that you took yourself in hand. This matter's of some more than riddling interest, as I hope that you will presently agree. Pay heed to what I tell you, if you please.
Late last night I heard sweet noises coming from the room below. It was the sound of lechery. As I listened, I heard thumpings and bumpings, unmistakable in their import, and other intimate, disturbing noises. The summer night was full of provoking music.
Once thinking of Anne being fucked, I could think of nothing else. I snuffed out my candle. I sat still in the warm darkness, my heart beating hard against my breast bone. I was wrestling with my conscience, which instructed me not to look. Did I really want to see my dear little egg-girl under some sweating bull of a whoremaster who had purchased her body for a half an hour's business? Did I truly want to see that sweet young creature tupped?
I did indeed, sir! I wanted it more than anything in the world. My nerves cried out to watch it. And those noises continuing, louder, more urgent, with squeaks too, and squealings, and other indications of delight, I knew I had to watch what was going on below me in Anne's bedroom.
I removed my Ovid carefully, without a sound. I knelt down upon my knees, with my eye to the peep-hole.
What did I see?
I saw my lovely Anne, where she lay arse-upwards. She was naked save for those white silk stockings of hers. One stocking was held up by a black taffety garter. The other was tumbled, all anyhow, down round her ankle. Her young limbs were busy in their lechery. I saw her back first, white and trim and lithe, with her plump little buttocks going up and down, plunging. She was wantoning, and revelling in the act. She has the most adorable dimple in her left bum-cheek.
So she likes to ride on top, thought I, the young harlot! What bliss! What joy! How the fortunate fellow below her on the bed must be pleasuring her! No doubt his cock is spear-hard, big, and thick, and my darling rides him now as not long ago she rode on her rocking-horse.
The chamber was illumined by a blazing thicket of candles. All round the bed they burnt, like a fiery forest. Hot wax dripped down as the flames flickered straight in the gloom.
Anne's shadow on the wall made her look like a succubus.
But having feasted my eyes on my darling I saw then that the one below Anne was not a man as I'd supposed. It was another female, more mature, indeed voluptuous, with long blonde hair that shone bonnily in the candlelight. This woman was also naked, except for a band of black velvet she was wearing about her neck, with a cameo brooch on it. She looked vicious and lascivious, as she lay there with my whore-child in her arms. There was a proud patrician tilt to her ample breasts. Her hair streamed down, half-drowning both bodies as they twisted and threshed this way and that in their amorous disport. I saw that this older woman was clutching a red rose in her left fist. As I watched I saw her swivel her hips under Anne's downward thrusting, tightening the grip of her legs where they held her rider in place. She cried out some demand. I could not hear what. The effect, though, was immediate. Anne redoubled her thrustings. It was as if she was ploughing her companion.
I do not think this other woman was another of Pompey Bum's whores. I'd never seen her before, and I believe I have seen every woman employed in this establishment. Besides, there was something about her which spoke of power and money. Perhaps it was that cameo brooch. The tilt of her breasts and her chin. She had very blue eyes which blazed up at me as she lay there threshing from side to side, and her look was imperious. There was something matronly and aristocratic about her, and while it was plain that she was delighted with what little Anne was doing to her it was at the same time plain that she was really the one in command. Both of them seemed lost in their ecstasy, but the greater part of the pleasure was undoubtedly the blonde woman's.
As I watched, I saw her trail that red, red rose down Anne's white back. There was a blood-red ruby ring on the middle finger of her hand. It caught the blaze of the candleflames.
I watched Anne's bottom going up and down. It was white as snow, and the cheeks were firm and tight. Her whole body has a taut, straight innocence, like an arrow.
Then that arrow hit the target, there on the bed in that magic Arabian cavern of candlelight under me. The ridden woman started bucking and screaming. She threw away the rose and grabbed hold of Anne by the ears. As for Anne, she was laughing, and kissing the woman as she rode her. But the woman did not laugh. Instead, she started slapping at her lover's arse with the open palms of her hands. Then she was bucking again, and screaming again, and scratching with her fingernails deep in Anne's bottom-cheeks, and crying out in her luxury: 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'
They lay still, these two pretty bed-fellows, for a long, long minute.
Then Anne rolled off her customer.
She had given her satisfaction.
My Anne rolled off the fair-haired matron and lay there on her back on the bed beside her.
And gazing down into my secret erotic theatre I saw that between her white thighs, over the faintest down of pubescent hair, Anne had strapped on a whopping dildo, both lifelike and terrible, shaped exactly like a man's prick, a black man's prick. It was with this artificial ebony phallus that my whore-child Anne had been fucking the older woman.
They lay there on their backs looking up at me.
One dark. And one so fair. The fair one fucked. The dark one her sweet fucker.
Amorously impleacht, the blonde hair and the black entwined on the pillow.
Their limbs gleaming with sweat in the candlelight. Their eyes wide with sensual surfeit as they gazed at me. It was disconcerting, madam.
They were beautiful, both of them. They were lovely with the lineaments of satisfied desire. One blonde, the elder, one my dark young charmer, they lay there in the light of the candleflames, spread out for my inspection on the bed.