Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:46:13 -0500
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthierdc@gmail.com>
Subject: Marlowe

				Marlowe
			 	The Fourteenth Tale of the Daphne Boy
				by George Gauthier

Author's Note: This is a tale of an eternally youthful boy and those he
encounters in England during the late XVIth century AD.

This is the fourteenth in a series of tales about an undying youth named
Alexander or Alex in this story. The other stories in this series so far
are 'Antebellum', set in the American South just before the Civil War,
'Daphne Boy', set in Roman Syria, 'El Dorado', about the conquistadors,
'The Erythraean Sea', set in Arabia just before the rise of Islam, 'Stupor
Mundi', about the Sixth Crusade, 'Ferghana', a tale of the Silk Road in
Central Asia, 'Zulu' set mostly in Southern Africa during the Anglo-Zulu
War, 'Sol Invictus' set in the Roman Empire during the reign of the
dissolute androgynous and sexually insatiable gay emperor Elagabalus
'Reniassance' set in Italy around 1500, 'Gupta' set during the Golden Age
in India in the century AD, 'Palmyra' set during the crisis of the IIIrd
century that nearly destroyed the Roman Empire, 'Tobago', set in the
Caribbean and South America during the middle of the XVIIth century, and
'The Apostate' set during the age of the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate
in the mid IVth century.

It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and
non-consenual sexual activity between adult males, and considerable
non-sexual violence including combat. If any of this would offend a reader,
read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where
they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever
jurisdiction applies. It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to
both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in
its aim.

It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only
minor poetic license for the sake of the story. This tale, after all, is
fiction. It is not a historical monograph. Only the the playwrights Marlowe
and Shakespeare are actual historical persons. The rest of the characters
are not intended to resemble any actual person living or dead.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of
tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the
archive. See also my series 'Naked Prey' in the historical section, my 'Mer
Boy' series in Gay/Beginnings, and the 'Track and Field' series in
Gay/College. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors
on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome at georgegauthierdc@gmail.com.

			Chapter 1. The English Midlands, 1589

"Your turn, young Alex. Let the lads and the serving ladies see what exotic
dances you have brought from the Continent. Folks, put your hands together
to welcome Alex the Gypsy boy."

One patron guffawed and shouted genially: "A blond Gypsy! Now I have seen
everything."

"Not yet you haven't--not yet, anyway." I retorted but with a smile. "Not
till you have seen this genuine dance of the Danube Gypsies."

I then bowed to the audience gathered in the tavern, mostly locals
including the tavern girls plus my fellow players and other stage folks, as
I stepped over to the cleared area near the bar. As I went, I stripped off
my doublet and blouse and tossed them away rather like in a strip
tease. This was a dance you did in your hose alone (or preferably less,
thought that would be a little too much -- or rather much too little -- for
a tavern in Elizabethan England.) As it was I would be dancing bared to the
hips in skin tight hose that molded themselves to my rump and legs like
some kind of pre-modern spandex. Extravagant padded codpieces were already
out of fashion, so I went with simplicity. Mine was a simple silk pouch
attached by ties to the front of the hose.

I picked up a tambourine and coached the musicians in the simple tune that
I wanted them to play. They caught on quickly. Then I launched into a
suggestive Gypsy dance that I knew all would like. It had a catch tune they
would likely remember too. The audience could not understand the
sentimental lyrics in the Romany language, but love is a universal
language, easy to translate into tone and movement, especially the way I
gyrated my hips and swayed my slim svelte body. Soon they were tapping
their feet to the rhythm and even humming along with the chorus. That tells
you that you have won over your audience, something every entertainer hopes
for with each performance.

I sang of a handsome young lover, a simple horse trader and tinker,
despairing of succeeding in his suit with his lady love, the object of his
affections being far above him on the social scale. In a sense the song and
story were timeless and I like to think I did the young lovers justice. The
evening was a warm one that spring day of 1589, and sweat glistened on my
torso from the energetic dancing. I like to think that my movements and
sweaty body suggested sexual congress. After all, as a wise man once said,
the dance is a vertical expression of a horizontal intention.

One of those most entranced with my dance was one Will Reardon, the most
recent addition to our company. Only seventeen the pretty Shropshire lad
was graced with fine light brown hair and blue eyes. Will and I were much
the youngest and shortest in stature of that company sharing almost the
same height and build. We had been hired as boy players for our slight
physiques, light tenor voices, and youthful looks. Adolescent males called
boy players worked for the theater companies performing all the female
roles, since women were socially barred from the English stage.

My performance was so well received that I did another dance to a livelier
tune, this time without singing. I whirled and leapt and even added some
acrobatic flourishes that had everyone smiling and clapping. Afterwards I
sat at the table of the guest who had scoffed about the blond Gypsy. He was
in good humor and bought me a mug of ale.

"Now I really have seen a blond Gypsy for I have watched Gypsies do just
those sorts of dances. Well done young man."

I sat there in my tight hose chatting, basking in the approbation of the
audience, especially the other players. All in all, it was a pleasant hour
of so. Later, I went out to bathe before going to bed. My attention to
hygiene was regarded as quite eccentric in those days, for I bathed at
least daily. There I stood near the well, in the gloom of late evening,
moonlight painting chiaroscuro effects on the corrugations of my nude body,
as I sponged myself clean of sweat and dirt, never minding the harsh soap
of the day. Will bathed with me but contented himself with a more modest
ablution of his face and upper torso. He kept his hose on as he washed.

From the close attention young Will paid to me, I knew he felt some
attraction to me, but was he consciously aware of his own inclinations?
Even though I am shorter than most men and slight of build, I do present a
pleasing appearance, though admittedly I am pretty rather than handsome. I
had stopped growing at seventeen so had never attained my adult
musculature. An inch short of five and one half feet (165 cm), my frame
carried only eight stone seven (119 pounds or 54 kg), though I had a fairly
strong upper storey for a runner and a wiry musculature generally. Still I
was quite slender and boyish -- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders and a
flat but corrugated chest and belly sporting well-defined
abdominals. Regular exercise kept me at an competitive athlete or dancer's
level of fitness. It was why I had the tight buns that I knew Will was
ogling.

What Will could see close up was comely youth (a "cute twink" in modern
parlance), apparently of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers and
prettier than any boy rightly ought to be. I was quite slender and boyish
-- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders and a flat but corrugated chest and
stomach sporting well-defined abdominals, prominent ribs and sharp hip
bones, with a firm round rump. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves,
and belly showed how very little body fat I carried. I like to think my
manhood is more than adequate but I wouldn't be scaring the horses. It
takes both my small hands to cover an erection, but only one when it was
soft.

My features were delicate with an almost elfin quality: a flawless bronzed
complexion, a straight nose, finely arched brows, a chiseled jaw line, high
cheekbones, and large green eyes with eyelashes so long they could never
have been meant for a boy, topped by a blond thatch. My naturally pale skin
wore the tawny gold that results from long exposure to the Mediterranean
sun.

Perhaps my young friend noticed the unusual lack of hair on my fore arms
and in my pits or how the bronze tint of my skin continued unbroken by
pasty white below the low waistband of my hose, as indeed it did. I had
only recently given up my latest identity as a sea captain so I still
retained the all over tan from those days. Aboard my own ship at sea in the
tropics I habitually went naked.

Yes, I saw him gulp as he noticed. He was one of us then. Good.

It's not just that I was horny. True, my inclinations were quite as strong
as in my true youth, but time and experience bring perspective and
calculation and restraint. I had no need to rush things. Even if we never
fully consummated our relationship, I wanted this young man's
friendship. If that was all he was prepared to offer, a chaste friendship,
I would accept it. I would not seduce him through trickery against his own
true nature. That would be selfish and uncaring and ultimately
unsatisfactory for the both of us.

As to why my age was only apparently seventeen, that goes back to my birth
in the second century BC in southern Germany. For reasons I have never
understood, I had stopped growing and aging before reaching my eighteenth
birthday. By the late fifteen hundreds, I had seventeen centuries behind
me, not seventeen years, but I still looked like a youth in his late
teens. No, there had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in
blood with eldritch powers. I cannot explain my eternal youthfulness, why I
looked (and still look) like a boy in his late teens. It just happened that
way. Something genetic at work, a benign mutation, I suppose.

Once I finished washing, I sat on a low brick wall and chatted a bit with
Will while I air dried. He could hardly keep his eyes off me. I pretended
not to notice, speaking of everyday things. When I was ready I walked up
the outdoor stairs still bare assed. As I reached the top of the stairs and
turned down the corridor to the room and the bed that we boys shared, I
glanced back to catch the boy ogling my ass. He started guiltily. Again I
pretended not to notice. This sort of seduction is such fun. Adding to the
delight, I was fairly sure by now that the boy was yet a virgin.

Will and I then pulled back the covers of the bed we shared. It was by no
means unusual in those days for travelers or even members of a household to
share a bed. Furniture was expensive. Will and I had a tiny room to
ourselves, little more than a closet really but it was luxury compared to
camping out and sleeping on the ground under a wagon. Will stripped his
hose off for bed. I was already naked. Like everyone back then, we slept in
the nude, without a nightshirt much less pyjamas, a later import from India
in the 18th and 19th centuries.

I almost laughed as I saw his eyes grow wide at my unself-conscious
nudity. I blew out the candle and went to open the shutter. I knew the
moonlight would cast interesting highlights on my slender form. Let him
carry that sight into his dreams this night. I lay next to him, a hand's
breadth apart with only a light sheet covering me from the waist down. The
sheet could not conceal my hard nipples or the mound at the fork of his
legs, but I was far too polite to stare. We talked briefly a bit more. I
did want him to relax. I certainly was not going to force myself on him or
to force the situation. He was too nice a kid for that. We drifted off into
slumber.

The next morning I woke up from the dawn's light streaming through the open
shutter. Will's face was on the pillow next to mine with a slender leg
thrown over my own. His knee was actually touching my manhood. At this time
of the morning, we were both hard and his erection had poked against my
hip. I ran my finger along his shaft. The head had emerged from its
foreskin and a clear drop of fluid glistened on the tip. I took a taste
then breathed in deep to absorb the smell of this lovely boy lying next to
me. I realized he must have ejaculated during the night during a wet
dream. Was it about me? I wondered. I hoped so. Suddenly his eyes flew
open, and he looked about wildly. Evidently still lost in the memory of his
latest erotic dream, he wasn't sure what was fantasy and what was reality,
but there he was: nude, erect, lying next to the naked young man of his
dreams. Suddenly he look frightened.

"We didn't... I mean you and I, uh ... We're both..."

"Hard? Yes, That happen most mornings with boys our age, doesn't it?"

I let him off easy, not having to fully articulate his real question. Had
we had sex last night, two males together? No we had not, but I was sure
now that he wanted it, and at some point, he would get his wish, ours
really. Let him come around to it in time, as he got to know me better. I
was in no hurry. A languid seduction is just what both of us needed. A
quick consummation would spoil my plans for this delightfully innocent
young man. Also, I needed it to be his idea too. I never forced things on
my partners. Having been enslaved as a youth myself, and on several
occasions since, I valued personal autonomy. He hurriedly changed the
subject.

"Er, how do you know those gypsy dances, Alex?"

I gave him an abridged version of my past encounters with gypsies. I had
travelled with the gypsies many times over the centuries and learned their
language, stories, and dances. In times of prosperity I had welcomed their
caravans onto my property. Aside from their welcome company, I found it
advantageous to cultivate ties with the nomads. They were conscientious
about never stealing from friends and allies, whatever might happen to the
possessions of my neighbors. I never took a cut, but I sometimes told them
which noble had more wealth than was good for his soul, if you take my
meaning. If I had to disappear suddenly, I could always hide among them,
invoking sacred guest rights conferred on me and 'my kin' in perpetuity.

From that night on, Will and I grew physically closer. He did not object if
I reached over and pushed a lock of his hair back from his pretty face,
looking into his eyes with my smoldering gaze. The next night I grew
bolder, softly caressing his shoulder and his pectorals and tweaking his
nipples. I turned on my side so I could run my hand down his side to rest
on his hip bone.

Within a week, he would not demur when I lay beside him and spooned myself
to his back and backside, our naked bodies in total contact. He could feel
my erection pressing against his cleavage but said nothing, just gulping
and squeezing his eyes shut as I circled his aureoles with my thumbs. It
was all I could do to keep from laughing, but that would have devastated
the lad, and really hurt his feelings, not to mention damaged my chances
with him. After a week he let me reach around in front to hold his ballsac
in my hand and to stroke his erection languidly, not trying to bring on an
orgasm but to get his pre-ejaculate flowing. Soon he was allowing me to
swirl the fluid around the head of his glans, or to present a finger to him
to lick off.

"Don't be shy. Take a taste of yourself Will. Here smell it
first. Good. Now reach out with your tongue and lick it up. There. What do
you think, now Will?"

"Actually it tastes kind of sweet, but not bad at all. Can I taste yours?"

I gave him a taste but even then did not push him too far too fast. I bided
my time. He was fighting a losing battle against his own inhibitions. His
body told me that he was clearly hoping for, but did not dare to ask me to
bring him to an orgasm. I wondered if he had ever tasted own cum.

Then one morning I woke him with a kiss on his lips. His eyes opened wide
with delight. I kept kissing him: his face, his chin, his nipples and down
his chest. I swirled my tongue in his navel and tugged the sheet off his
hips and down to his ankles. He sighed in acceptance. Now he was stripped,
defenseless, and ready. He could deny me nothing. He reached up and grabbed
the headboard and spread his legs wide, as if stretched in bondage on the
rack. He was excited by what he hoped would happen but admitted that,
though he had heard about it, no one had ever taken his manhood into his
mouth. I licked his glans, tugging on the flange and poking my tongue at
his piss slit, making him shudder as he closed his eyes and he gasped a
plea. "Oh yes, please."

"Pay attention," I admonished. "You will be tested on this later." Surprise
and delight danced in his beautiful blue eyes.

"Promise?"

"Definitely, but for now lie back and learn from your master."

He had a long ivory member, smooth not gnarly with veins, very like my own
and truthfully a little longer. It took both my small hands to cover him
and even then not all of him. No one had ever played with him as I did that
morning. No one gives better head than another male and I had nearly two
millennia of practice. As I licked him, his smooth cock started to plump
up, losing its curvature, straightening and lengthening as the head, the
only part of him hidden from view, emerged from the foreskin, to point
toward the belly button. Then the cock lifted completely off the boy's
belly, cantilevered out from the root, rigid but dipping rhythmically with
the throb and beat of his heart, all the time leaking a clear fluid which
spread in a limpid pool on his belly.

My hands and lips now caressed this exquisite boy, stroking the length of
his legs, sliding along his flanks, delving between his thighs into his
crack making love with my hands but touching the boy's proud cock only with
my lips and tongue. I swallowed him to the root, snuffling in his wiry
bush, sucking, bobbing my head up and down its length then pulled off just
in time. The ball sac pulled tight against the fork of the boy's legs, its
globularity in contrast to the cylindrical column of the engorged
member. The head purpled, its tiny lips spreading open. Abruptly, with only
a quick intake of breath and a tightening around the boy's half-closed
eyes, his proud cock engorged beyond its previous impressive girth and
began spurting and spitting his white seed onto his chest. Even after six
strong spurts, the gism continued to drain from the still tumescent shaft
but now in a slow flow, like a lazy river, emptying into and collecting as
a pool in the hollow of the belly.

I used the tip of my finger to gather some of his chrism and brought it to
my lips and then to his. I lapped some of it up and took him back into my
mouth, sucking and tugging on a cock that the moment before has spit his
essence onto his belly. He whimpered begging me to stop. It felt so good,
it hurt. He shuddered as I teased his softening member, belly twitching as
he practically sobbed with pleasure. I was happy too. I had so wanted his
first experience to be memorable.

Later I did indeed test him on his lesson for the day. He proved to be an
apt pupil, enthusiasm making up for lack of technique. That would come soon
enough. All in good time. As indeed it did. Within two weeks we had
explored each other's bodies thoroughly, inside as well as out,
experiencing male love in all the ways that we are capable of it.

			Chapter 2. London

Our changed relationship did not go unnoticed by our company. For one
thing, we now rode our tumbrel or walked beside it bared to the waist,
letting the sun kiss our hides. As the days went by I rolled his waistband
lower and lower on his hips. He found he too liked showing off his slim but
wiry physique.  Soon the top of his hose was closer to his groin than his
waist. Among ourselves the company now referred to the pair of us as the
"lovebirds". Poor Will was so embarrassed at first though later he grew
proud of the sobriquet. Whatever the strictures of the larger society,
stage people are much more tolerant of same gender attachments.

The English Midlands corresponded to the early medieval kingdom of Mercia
which I had visited a generation before the Danes put an end to that
kingdom and seized its eastern lands as the Danelaw in the late ninth
century AD. The countryside was much more thickly settled by the later
sixteenth century, though forests and wastes still separated the country
villages. I encouraged Will to join me in running the rough roads of the
day ahead of our train for exercise.

I always try to keep up my speed and stamina. There is survival value in
being fleet of foot -- more than once I had simply outrun my foes or gained
a big enough lead to shake pursuit entirely or to hide or even to double
back to spring an ambush. Mostly though I ran for its own sake. The steady
rhythm of the long distance runner is hypnotic: the legs scissor like a
metronome, the rib cage expands and contracts to take in great lungfuls of
air, the arms pump to maintain balance, the feet slap the earth, all of
which induces a state of day dreaming and euphoria. Moderns call it a
runners' high.

Will and I had little to fear from robbers, two young lads naked to the
waist, wearing just hose and soft shoes. Anyone could tell at a glance that
we had nothing worth stealing. So we ran unmolested. Running ahead also
gave us time alone away from our company, time to talk, time to share hopes
and dreams. We could also stop off at a pond or a river for a swim,
although twice mischievous village lad ran off with our clothes. Poor Will
wrapped his arms around himself. With an anxious look on his face he asked
me:

"What do we do now, Alex?"

"We wait, Will -- wait for our caravan to catch and provide us a change in
clothes. Or we could maybe fool around..."

"What if they are watching ... those kids that ran off with our clothes?"

"Should we invite them to join in the fun?" but I was kidding. I knew Will
was too new to male love to be so brazen. So I suggested we practice our
acrobatics. This was, all at one time, useful, fun, and sexy. I rather like
acrobatics in the nude. In ancient times all acrobats performed naked. The
whole idea is to display the power and beauty of the human body. Dubious at
first but enthusiastic once we got going, Will found himself smiling then
giggling as he challenged me to match his feat. The practice helped him to
be less self-conscious of public nudity. Good. His trim body was a delight
to watch and he really needed some color on him. There were few enough
chances in Tudor England for a boy to run around in the buff and to show
off his body. I see that as the birthright of young males but too many
societies have frowned on such brazen display of the human form.

Still Will turned body shy and embarrassed when our caravan arrived. He
clutched himself as we walked up our wagon stark naked to rummage for a
change of clothing. Since we were much the same size we could share my
clothes. We did recover our hose and shoes that second time when the tavern
owner dragged his mischievous son over by his ear to present the travelers
with their filched garments.

We eventually reached London, our tour of the Midlands completed. Here we
would winter over. Some of us would work as individuals for the theater
companies permanently domiciled in London, others in other pursuits. The
struggling young actor was a cliche even then. In truth I was a very rich
man, really slumming with this acting gig, but it was a lot of fun to get
away from the usual thrust and parry of the business world and go around
strutting the stage.

Of course in a sense I have been an actor all my life, forced to change
identities and tell tall tales as I moved from land to land or even to
different continents. I can seldom stay for even twenty years with one
identity or in one place since I do not age as others do. Through
theatrical tricks I can give the impression of getting older over the
years, even without makeup. I change my style of clothing, from the casual
dress of of a youth to the flashy dress of a young man and later the more
sober raiment of a mature man. I speak differently, first with the shaky
unsure voice of a youth, then the confident voice of a young man full of
himself, later in the more cautious and thoughtful speech of a man in his
thirties. I changed my hair styles, from that of a tousled twink to the
carefully groomed locks of a vain young man, to the shorter and more sober
cut of a maturing man no longer in his twenties.

Such subterfuges can be effective for only so long. I do not like to rely
on makeup except for very short term disguise. I spend far too much time in
the nude exercising, sweating and swimming, cleaning my body in shower or
bath to rely on such trickery as false crows' feet put on with ink or
powders to make the hair at the temples gray. In my sleep my relaxed body
looks especially youthful, as my lovers could plainly see.

After a while, even the people well disposed towards me, begin to
wonder. The danger was not from them but that men of power would suspect me
and torture me for the secret of immortality. I have no such secret to
reveal. Hence, prolonged torture was always my greatest fear -- torture by
those who would not accept the truth until my body was wrecked. True, I
have considerable recuperative powers thanks to my remarkable
vitality. Scars always disappear with time, but I could hardly expect to
recover from all out torture.

Indeed I am not truly immortal; I simply do not age and I seldom get
sick. My remarkable vitality includes an immune system that protects me
from most diseases and mitigates the ravages of the worst. I even survived
the Black Death, recovering completely. Still I am not
invulnerable. Someday I will die from foul play or misadventure: a gun, a
knife, an accident, a war, and earthquake, or shipwreck. Something or
someone will kill me. Indeed my life has been one of continual ups and
downs. I had experienced a complete reversal of fortune time after time.

There was something of a pattern in my centuries of living, where periods
of wealth and freedom came interspersed with periods of captivity and
slavery, even sexual slavery. The truth is that all my long life I have
been both blessed and cursed by a lovely form and face that inspire
admiration and lust in the heart of any male who appreciates a beautiful
boy. I am small and pretty and uniformly bronzed from habitual nudity. So I
looked entirely too much like I belonged to someone as his catamite or
pleasure boy.

And if not already such, then I was fair game for capture and taming. With
my androgynous if wiry physique and fine-boned features I fell far short of
normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual
characteristics like beard and body hair. I was smooth even at the fork of
my legs. Since I had stopped aging before my beard grew in I have never had
to shave. The upshot of it all was I often wasn't taken seriously as a
male.

I have had much experience of rape and sexual servitude over the
centuries. Enslaved at fourteen by a Roman tribune as a spoil of war, I
became my captor's catamite and body slave until sold on to a merchant in
Massalia, modern Marseille. My new master also kept me nude and used me as
a messenger and pleasure boy but later put me to work as a scribe as
well. Set free by his will when he died suddenly of a fall from a horse, I
traveled to the East and made my first fortune in Alexandria, working in a
boy brothel while investing in mercantile ventures on the side. That is
where I took up the Roman habit of having all my body hair, little as it
was, plucked with tweezers. After several decades of plucking it stopped
sprouting. Now I was completely hairless and would stay that way forever.

In the early first century AD I spent a few years in ancient Antioch as a
Daphne Boy, enslaved for an unjust debt as a temple prostitute. The cult of
the nymph Daphne is allied to that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Male
acolytes, for that is what they called us, offered themselves to boy
lovers. We were very popular because we were scrupulous about personal
hygiene, trim and fit, and hand picked for our beauty of face and
form. Although we could not chose our clients, the life was pleasant
enough, with bright airy accommodations, good food, and decent
treatment. The priests let us keep tips from our clients so we had a bit of
coin to spend on our two days off per month.

Other periods of slavery before and since were not so pleasant. I had spent
a year in the Colosseum as a gladiator, forced to fight for my life before
the crowd. I became quite the favorite, fighting naked and armed with two
knives. They called me the Killer Catamite because I was regularly given to
my fellow gladiators as well as to rich spectators who paid gold for the
chance to fuck me fresh from my latest combat, chained for their safety,
still covered with my sweat, the dust of the arena, and the blood of my
foe. Another time, centuries later, I was enslaved as a pearl diver in the
Persian Gulf, forced to pleasure both the guards and my fellow divers.

Yet Fortune has smiled on me often as well. Longevity and centuries of life
experience made it possible to accumulate several separate fortunes and to
hide emergency caches of gold and jewels all over Europe, the Mediterranean
world and beyond, though very few east of Persia. Some were unearthed by
others. Their good luck and my bad, but I always paired me caches in each
region for just such an eventuality. Of course, at this time I had no need
to dig up buried treasure. I had financial and business investments all
over Western Europe which I managed through correspondences with Dutch and
Italian and Spanish bankers plus several trusted stewards. That was what
financed my indulgence in a career in the Elizabethan theater.

The Elizabethan Era was one of those golden ages that mark the advance of
human civilization, like Periclean Athens or the Rome of the Caesars. It
marked the height of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of
English poetry, music, literature. and the theatre. It was not only a
cultural flowering but an age of nautical exploration and expanding
trade. Who has not read of the exploits of sea dogs like Raleigh and
Hawkins, Frobisher and Drake. These men were navigators, explorers,
privateers, and patriots. Only the prior year, the sea dogs had led England
to victory over Spain's Invincible Armada.

It had hardly seemed possible. England was an underpopulated island kingdom
while Philip of Spain could draw on the resources of not one but two vast
empires with territories on every known continent. As King of Spain he
ruled the lands of the Spanish Habsburgs in Europe: Spain itself, all of
southern Italy and the islands of the Western Mediterranean that lay
between, plus the Spanish Netherlands. Abroad, he controlled the riches of
Mexico and Central America and the West Indies plus half of South America
as well as the distant Philippines. As King of Portugal he commanded the
resources of that world girdling sea-borne empire as well. Portuguese
possessions included Brazil in South America plus a string of islands,
archipelagos and coastal trading stations from the Azores, Canary Islands,
Cape Verde Islands, all around the rim of Africa to Muscat in Arabia,
India, and the East Indies.

By the dynastic politics of that era, Philip had claimed the Portuguese
throne after the loss of the last Portuguese king Sebastian I. The man had
died without an heir during a reckless crusade in Morocco in 1578. Philip
had asserted his own distant claim to the Portuguese throne and made it
good by force of arms. It is not well known in modern times but the Philip
of Spain who sent the Armada h as once been King of England and Ireland as
husband and co-ruler with Queen Mary I, elder daughter of Henry VIII. He
was also allied by blood, religion and politics to the Austrian
Habsburgs. With such odds, the victory of the English had seemed virtually
miraculous.

Elizabethan London was a rapidly rising commercial center. Its many small
industries were booming, especially weaving. Trade routes reached beyond
nearby Western Europe all the way to Russia via the White Sea, to the
Levant, and the Americas despite Spain's claimed monopoly on trade with her
colonies there. London's rise as a port was aided immensely by the
destruction of the great commercial city of Antwerp by the Spanish in 1572,
letting London take first place among the ports on the North
Sea. Immigrants flocked to London not just from the British Isles but from
abroad. Among these were the Huguenots, French Protestants, the heart of
their commercial class. Only the toleration extended to them in 1598 by the
Edict of Nantes slowed the flow of this energetic populace for century till
Louis XIV foolishly revoked it in 1685, returning France to official
intolerance of Protestantism.

London's population rose to some 225,000 in 1605, up from a mere 50,000 as
late as 1530 during the reign of Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII. In the
center of the City, the houses of the middle classes retained their
medieval style half-timbered construction, with dormers and gables and
upper storeys that projected over the streets. Population density was very
high, much like that in the crowded cities of backward countries today.

For fear of pestilence, theaters had to be built outside the City of London
proper. The first theatrical district was located north of the City wall,
in Shoreditch. Later the south side of the river became the main centre
with theatres like The Globe, The Rose, The Swan, and The Hope.

I tapped some of my secret resources to enable us to live in more comfort
than our earnings as boy players would allow. Will and I took up lodgings
in one of the better inns in London, one I had purchased in secret. I
insisted on fresh foods, clean water, frequent laundering of linens, and
prompt service for which I paid better wages than others did. As always I
try to be a fair employer, not taking advantage of the help, but I do
demand and get what I want.

The staff at the inn were surprised at my insistence on having hot water
for daily bathing for the both of us. They were flabbergasted when I
imposed weekly bathing on the staff. Despite the higher pay, some workeers
refused to bathe so frequently, so I let them go. I also had drinking water
brought in by cask from a clean spring in Sussex though we mostly drank
small beer against thirst.  Drinking small beer instead of water was one
way to escape infection. Due to poor public sanitation, local water
supplies could be infected with cholera and other diseases. Now the process
of brewing beer from malt involves boiling the water, which kills germs,
and the resulting alcohol is also toxic to most water-borne pathogens.

It took him a while before I could persuade Will to part with his body hair
especially under his arms and at the fork of his legs. Though all he had
were mere wisps, he regarded those as tokens of his burgeoning manhood.

"You sure it isn't that so you won't get any hairs in your teeth when you
go down on me?"

"It's about much more than that, Will, or even about shaving your pubes for
the sake of hygiene, so you won't collect any critters down there or in
your pits. It's also about making you smooth and touchable everywhere. It's
about making your cock look larger and more prominent, sprouting right out
from your belly wall. The root won't be hidden anymore in a messy
tangle. As to tokens of manhood, your cock and balls are the true tokens of
manhood, since your balls dropped. Hair just hides them."

"You really think so?"

"Look at it this way, Will. You like being naked. You like letting others
see you naked such when we go skinny dipping in a creek or pond. You sleep
naked under the blankets and never bother with a wrap when you go to the
jakes in the night no matter who or how many might be watching. Lose the
hair, and it would make you even more naked than you are now. Body hair is
the very last covering, the last thing you can take off. Wouldn't you like
that Will, getting as naked as you possibly could?"

He agreed though he was pretty nervous as I soaped him up then took a
straight razor to the wisps at his groin and his armpits and denuded him,
though the boy was visibly trembled as the sharp edge of the razor glided
along the bottom half of his shaft and all around the root. Not that it
really needed it, but I stretched out the boy's scrotum and drew the razor
over that too, turning the blade so it glinted wickedly and threateningly
in the candlelight as it ran over the ridges and curves of the boy's
vulnerable scrotum.

For good measure, and because it was sexy and provocative, I shaved the
boy's anal region too, though Will had virtually nothing back there. I just
wanted Will to pose there, trembling on all fours, as I scraped a straight
razor along his cleavage and then down the back of his dangling
ballsac. The boy was so complaisant, naked and on hands and knees, legs
wide apart, offering the most intimate parts of his body for inspection,
for exploring fingers, and so trustingly, for the edge of a blade that
could emasculate him in an instant.

Will stood up afterwards and ran his fingers over his groin and ass crack,
relieved that everything was still there, though it now felt so strange and
smooth. And yes, his cock did look bigger, more blatantly on display than
before.

Will's hormones did the rest. The boy felt a wave of heat wash over him as
his ball sac pulled tight to the fork of his legs. He erected almost
immediately, his manhood tumescent, the engorged cock jutting straight out
with its fleshy glans shaped like an arrowhead at the end. A string of
precum hung from the head of his cock, all purple and swollen. I thought
Will looked so very sexy strutting his stuff, hands on hips. It was a
composition bursting with youthful male assertiveness.

"Gosh it does feel smooth and sexy. I think I am going to like it like
this, Alex."

Living with Will was a delight. It was not just the great sex. He had a
sunny personality and a fine character too: smart though not overtly
intellectual, guileless, cheerful, level headed, and industrious. He was a
lively conversationalist, talking fluidly and excitedly with everyone about
everything. In short the boy was an incessant chatterbox with an insatiable
curiosity.

Though assertive he was never rude or crude. He liked puns too, the worse
the better, and would as soon elicit groans as chuckles. An accomplished
mimic, he did hilarious imitations of our mutual friends and of some of the
good and great we came across during our theater career. That said, he also
was a dreadful gossip, though never a malicious one. That is how I remember
him best, not in bed but talking and smiling, which he did a lot. His
company was good for me as I like to think mine was for him.

Much as we enjoyed London, Will and I liked to get out to the country in
warm weather a few days at a time, maybe a month, though we no longer
traveled with theatrical companies. A little peace and quiet were welcome
after the hustle and bustle of London. The greenery and the fresh country
air was a welcome change to the stench of a crowded city of the early
Modern period. I had never resided in England for any extended period
though I passed through on business, mostly in the Southeast. This time we
traveled everywhere in southern England and even beyond. We followed the
Ridgeway Trail, ancient even when I was born, to the circle of monoliths at
Avebury and the Uffington White Horse then south to Salisbury for
Stonehenge and Maiden Castle (the one in Dorset).

Whether along the seashore or riverbank, Will and I could frolic nude
swimming and splashing. I liked to carry him on my shoulders then dump him
unceremoniously into the water, head first. He would come up spouting like
a whale, then scull hard with his hands to splash water in my face. Or he
would swim underwater, grab me around the waist and upend me. Turnabout was
fair play, after all. I like grappling with him best of all, dunking each
other or tripping and going under, our slick wet bodies in ever changing
contact, touching, grabbing, holding. Sexual love is physical and I loved
physical contact with Will's sexy body. And vice versa.

Once we clambered out of the water, we dried our nude bodies in the sun,
often playing catch with a tin dinner plate which we used like a Frisbee. I
loved watching Will running after the flying disk, snatching it out of the
air. His coltish athletic form darted here and there, bending and twisting,
jumping and lunging, occasionally tumbling to the ground, then bouncing
back up, a kinetic and sensual display of clean smooth limbs, tight torso,
and taut buns, all to accompaniment of laughter and jokes and excuses, like
blaming a missed catch on a sudden change in the wind or a clumsy throw on
my part.

Maybe it was the company or the sunny setting or the sheer joy of physical
exercise, but the game always left our spirits exuberant with the love of
life. When we finally stopped we came together and hugged. What a great way
to have fun. It was a form of play that was noncompetitive, good exercise,
and a wonderful way for two young males to bond.

Then we would settle on the sand or the grass for a picnic lunch including
a nice white wine we had left cooling in the water. It was a welcome change
of pace to be outdoors in the nude, the warmth of the sun kissing our
limbs, the smell of the sea or woods in our nostrils, sometimes with spring
wildflowers turning the surrounding field into a magic carpet of
color. Will and I liked to go around just before we were ready to leave and
pick a few flowers to grace our rooms back at the inn. There we were were
two nude boys, bending over to pluck flowers, shamelessly displaying our
bare bums. Sometimes we placed a particularly fine blossom behind our ears
and kissed. It was wonderful smelling the perfume of the blossom and the
scent of good clean boy together.

On visits to the south coast, we sometimes climbed to the ruins of an old
abbey in Sussex, closed and looted by Henry VIII, perched on the bluffs
above the shore. There we frolicked in a naughty way that would have
shocked its former inhabitants. Or maybe not. There are all those stories
of licentious monks though much of that has to be Tudor propaganda to
justify the throne's theft of their wealth.

We also visited the Lake District, which offered beautiful panoramas of
lakes and mountains, called "fells" even though they rise up. (I have the
same problem with the English calling a range of chalk hills "downs".) The
reason there are so many lakes there is because of the low mountains which
induce heavy rainfall. The Lake District is the rainiest region in England
with rainfall averaging 80 inches (2,000 mm) per year. The area is cool and
rainy and often foggy, with air and water temperatures too low for swimming
(or prancing around nude) but it is great for hiking, walking and climbing.

Leave it to the English to call it the Lake District then bestow the title
of lake on only one of its many large bodies of water, Bassenthwaite
Lake. Except for the occasional tarn, all the rest are meres and waters
such as Derwent Water and Windermere.

			Chapter 3. Marlowe

One day I met up with Will at the tavern where we had taken lodgings,
coming upon him chatting with a voluble and strikingly handsome young man
in his mid twenties. Will introduced him as Christopher or Kit Marlowe. I
knew the name. Marlowe was already famous as a poet and playwright. He had
written the sensational Tamburlaine, one of the first English plays in
blank verse and its sequel, Tamburlaine, Part II, both of which I had seen
performed. I mentioned that to him, telling him how much I had enjoyed both
parts. That brought a smile and a nod in appreciation.

Marlowe or Kit as he insisted we call him was graced with an intelligent
and animated face neatly framed between fine arching eyebrows and a pointed
chin. He was a good conversationalist and soon we were talking like old
friends. I found the man to be utterly charming though quite guarded about
some topics, like his foreign travels. It was only months later, after we
grew intimate, that he admitted that while traveling abroad he worked for
Queen Elizabeth's spy master, the formidable Sir Francis Walsingham.

Later I learned that Kit had been suspected of Catholic leanings, always a
matter of suspicion for the authorities in a Protestant kingdom threatened
by the Iberian powers. The talk was that Kit had traveled to the Continent
to be ordained a Roman priest. The lead the authorities at Cambridge
University to deny his diploma, but a letter from the Privy Council
straightened that out. It helps to have friends in high places. At the
moment the young writer was working on a play that eventually was staged
under the title of The Jew of Malta.

"You two boys look scrumptious. I am also impressed by the variety of roles
you have played with that traveling company. Maybe I can find work for you
with some of the people I know in the theater. I am good friends with the
actor Edward Alleyn who is head of his own company, the Admiral's
Men. Their sponsor is no less than Charles Howard, First Earl of Nottingham
and Lord High Admiral of England. He it was who singlehandedly scotched the
closing of London's theaters in 1584."

"Good for him!" I intoned sincerely.

I was impressed. Kit really did have friends in high places. I knew that
Alleyn was the leading actor of the day and that Marlowe had written the
lead role in Tamburlaine specifically for him.

"So how do you think we should celebrate our new found friendship, Will and
Alex?"

Our celebration began with a hearty meal and good drink and ended with a
three way love-in in Marlowe's comfortable rooms. Marlowe had a nice lean
physique though his skin was rather pasty from living in cool and rainy
England. His bed was big enough for three large men, plenty of room for one
man and two slender youths. He put me or Will on our knees, head down, rump
up as he thrust away. If I were getting fucked, then Will would put his
back to the headboard and present his cock to me for service. Or vice
versa. We were bottom boys and loved having both our holes filled at the
same time. That was our pattern most of the time. Kit seldom let us fuck
him though he would reciprocate our oral service. He certainly knew what he
was doing in that department.

Outside of the bedroom, we three became fast friends, attending
performances at all the playhouses, strolling the street fairs, taking part
in holiday celebrations, dining together frequently, and playing cards at
the taverns, though only for low stakes. I could have made my living as a
card sharp, but I had mastered that trade only so I myself would never get
cheated. I passed some of the tricks and tell-tales along to Marlowe who
had suspected that some of his regulars cheated. They did. Kit did not
confront them, which would have provoked duels. He simply stopped playing
with them. If they sat down at the table, he threw in his cards and
withdrew. Others picked up on this. In time, the cheats found it hard to
get their former marks to play with them. Serves them right.

Christopher Marlowe's reputation and connections gave us entree to Alleyn
and his Admiral's Players. Our first parts were minor ones, just filling in
when too many regulars were indisposed from illness or for crowd scenes. In
short order our good looks and competent readings landed us regular jobs
with the company. Besides the usual assortment of background roles as
males: messengers, soldiers, or pages we undertook female leads or
secondary leads. Our youth, svelte figures, and pretty boy good looks made
us naturals at it. We soon edged out competitors and became, for a while,
the most preferred boy players on the Elizabethan stage.

In time we caught the fancy of numerous stage door johnnies would offered
comforts and coin for us to spend the night with them or even to live with
them as their kept boys. For the most part our suitors were rich merchants,
nobles, or men placed high in the church. It was quite common for low-paid
boy-players to supplement their incomes that way. Even the straight lads
worked as part time rent boys, what we call gay-for-pay these days. We
turned all offers down cold. That angered some of our suitors. One of them
spoke to me saying.

"Who do you think you are to turn me down, you little blond tramp? I know
you run around in those skin tight hose of yours to troll for custom. I
ought to tear them right off your skinny ass and fuck you right here in
your changing room. Why be so exclusive? I know you bend over for Kit
Marlowe, so why not for someone like myself, a nobleman and not a commoner,
so much better favored and far richer."

"Sir, you misunderstand. Yes, I can run around and I can fuck, but I don't
do either for money. As for Will, he is not for rent either."

I punctuated my remarks by producing a hidden dirk and pointing it at the
man's groin. He left hurriedly. Will and I did accept straight forward
invitations as guests at parties and gatherings. Our role there was to be
decorative with the understanding that our company and our bodies were not
for rent. Will and I broke many hearts in those years, to hear the dandies
tell it.

Eventually my exquisite androgynous features and long blond locks made me
the obvious choice to originate the role of Helen of Troy in Marlowe's
'Tragical History of Doctor Faustus'. My costume was padded in all the
right places to provide a pert bosom over my own flat chest and to round
out my narrow hips. Costume and makeup are not enough. To complete the
illusion of femininity, a boy-player has to master the way women walk,
quite different from a man's walk, as well as a repertoire of gestures and
facial expressions. Mind you, I never cross-dress for fun, though I have
found it useful in the short term as a disguise to help me escape and
evade.

In all modesty, I dare say mine was a reasonable facsimile of the face that
"launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium". Marlowe
wrote that line for his Doctor Faustus with me in mind for the role of
Helen.

One featured role that I played as a youth was Edward II's second male
favorite Steven. I caused something of a scandal too for my stagecraft. I
had persuaded Alleyn to let me add silent bits in scenes where I had no
lines. In one, as a grand lord ushered a messenger into the king's chamber,
I slipped out from under the covers stark naked and pulled on a tight pair
of hose, though careful to keep my bum to the audience, then exiting
unconcernedly. In another, I passed through the garden shirtless, sweaty,
and out of breath supposedly from off-stage sword practice. I wore only
tight nearly sheer hose rolled way down on my hips, kissed the king on the
cheek, nodded to his disapproving interlocutors, then left. These were ways
to make explicit what was only implicit in the script, that the king's male
favorites were indeed his homosexual lovers and that he flaunted them
before the court.

In truth I flaunted my body on the stage whenever I could, performing
acrobatic stunts to warm up the audience before the play. It was not just
juggling and tumbling, and handstands, but also really hard stunts hanging
from a pole, holding my body out horizontally like a flag, or twisting my
hips up overhead and doing splits -- feats that look impossible for a youth
as slightly built as I am, but I did them. In truth, I am far stronger than
you would think just to look at me. I maintain myself at a level of fitness
that very few ever attain except guys like the ubertwink Eike von
Stuckenbrok, the stunning German acrobat and modern dancer. (Check out some
of the videos on YouTube or MySpace of this extraordinary and beautiful
"equilibrist", as he calls himself. I don't mind admitting that I fell in
lust with him at first sight.)

I also coached my fellow actors in their staged sword fights, showing them
how to choreograph the action so it looked dramatic but was safe to
execute. Even a blunted sword can inflict serious injury. You can easily
blind a man with a careless move. Years later I choreographed the duel
between Hamlet and Laertes with special attention to the bit where they
switch the poisoned sword. For battle scenes, my main contribution was to
drill the soldiers so they kept themselves and their weaponry out of the
way of the principal actors. An errant pike could reach halfway across the
stage.

I got up very early and used the stable yard of the tavern to practice with
sword, dagger, throwing knife, and sling. Pistols were so primitive and
inaccurate in those days, that it was hardly worth my time to perfect my
aim. My skills with weapons are as much the result of constant training and
practice as of my natural gifts of speed and agility. I had to keep them
up. My hand to hand combat skills are also better than excellent though I
had no worthy sparring partner to help me stay in practice. I did what I
could. I taught Will some unarmed fighting techniques to well, mostly ways
to disengage and disarm to allow escape from assailants. Will did not have
the killer instinct in his heart. It was one of his most endearing
characteristics.

Will got bigger roles too, sometimes as a male sidekick, more often as lady
in waiting, good friend of the leading lady, tavern mistress, that sort of
thing. He acquitted himself well and was in demand because he was a quick
study and could memorize his multiple roles faster than anyone else. He had
a good sense of timing on stage. Many of our contemporaries were far too
anxious to begin declaiming their speeches, stepping all over each other's
lines and their own. With the acoustics of the open roofed theaters and the
sometimes restless crowds, an actor has to slow down, pause, and project,
delivering his lines a little slower than with natural speech.

Though not well schooled Will was literate. He could read well enough to
learn his parts, I introduced him to some of the more popular poetical
works in circulation including those of Shakespeare. He also liked reading
the cheap block-books, short and heavily illustrated, the best sellers of
the day, their pages printed from whole carved blocks of wood rather than
metal movable type. I loved to watch him reading, seated in a comfortable
chair, sunlight streaming through the window and making his hair look
almost blond. Then he would realize I was staring and flash me one of his
open and honest smiles. He truly was a sweet lad, utterly without guile and
happy with the life we shared.

Kit Marlowe was a frequent and welcome guest at the inn and in our
bedchamber. His tall body was well knit, and he was nearly as fastidious
about hygiene as we were. As a master wordsmith, he was an engaging
conversationalist and had a fine sense of humor, funny without being
cruel. He drank probably more than he should though he had a good head for
alcohol. It did not make him truculent or boorish. I liked they way he
would drop by and pick up a conversation right where we had left off when
we last parted. He was fascinating company.

As my frequent guest he could not help but notice the modest but very real
comforts I surrounded myself and Will with. We lived in a suite of rooms,
really two airy rooms with a doorway cut between them, a bedroom and a
study, both facing south for the sun. We had clean linen on our bed,
wholesome well-cooked food, stylish and well-made clothing, Nor did I skimp
on beeswax candles for illumination after dark. He was shrewd enough to
realize I must have other resources to afford this level of comfort and
hospitality. He actually interrogated me about my means.

"Alex, much as I find your company delightful and the table you set
satisfying, in behalf of my sometime patron Walshingham I have to wonder if
you are a spy in the pay of a foreign power. This comfort, though moderate,
is far beyond the means of a boy player. I know for a fact that neither of
you is a kept boy, not even mine, as much as I enjoy sex with you
both. Please understand that if the answer if yes, then I will give you
time to get clean away. I could not bear to see you put to the question in
the Tower. And I know there is no guile in Will. I will protect him no
matter what, for I am very fond of him myself. My word on it. Tell
me. Where does your money come from? "

"All right, Kit. I give you my word that I am not an agent for a foreign
power. It is true enough that I am a man of means, quite substantial means
actually, far greater than these surroundings would suggest. Indeed I own
this tavern. The fact is that I am heir to a large mercantile fortune in
the Low Countries, all earned honestly. Before settling down to a hum drum
life in the counting house I prevailed on the trustees of my fortune to
give me several years in London, specifically in the theater to sow my wild
oats. I am bound to take up the business when I reach twenty-four. Please
don't spoil things for me. You are young only once."

Though Kit raised a skeptical eyebrow, he accepted my word and my story as
good enough to assuage his conscience. He did not feel duty bound to report
me to the authorities. I was gratified that he had been willing to give me
a head start for friendship's sake and to take Will under his wing. He was
a true friend. Actually the kernel of my story was true enough, as far as
it goes. I was on a sabbatical from the world of business, like the
spiritual retreat I once took in Gupta India as a saddhu or monk.

Then Will and I got caught up in the scandals swirling around our
playwright friend. These centered on his alleged atheism, sorcery, and his
sexuality.

As to charges of heresy and sorcery. It was nonsense. I was there. I edited
his drafts of Doctor Faustus. Some hysterics seemed to think that the
playwright was as guilty of sorcery as his protagonist, not being able to
distinguish make-believe from reality. Of course the author had studied
sorcerous incantations, to add verisimilitude to his text. He certainly did
not subscribe to any of that magical nonsense himself. Anyway, all Kit's
plays were passed by the censors, so they could not have been really
unacceptable to the authorities.

Nevertheless, the word went around that Kit was a member of a shady group,
men who studied science, philosophy, and religion, the so-called "School of
Night", said to be satanists and pagans who worshipped the pagan gods at
night. The group allegedly included politicians, poets and scientists like
Sir Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman and Thomas
Harriot. Richard Chomley, an anti-Catholic spy for the Privy Council,
charged in an affidavit that Marlowe had read an atheist lecture aloud to
its members.

Now atheism at that time was a charge equivalent to treason, since the
monarch was the head of the church. To be against the church was to be
against the monarch, its head. However, atheism was also a name for
anarchy, an easy charge to bring against the politically troublesome who
wanted change.

Was Kit an atheist as his enemies charged? In those days, good Protestants
would use that as a pejorative term for Catholics, a rather quaint usage I
thought even at the time. A good Catholic after all had to believe in the
five main deities of the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, plus the Virgin
Mary and Satan. That was two or three deities more than Protestants
professed faith in. Was the man a disbeliever? In the end, yes. Like many
skeptics and cynics down the ages he considered that the faiths of mankind
were generally held to be true by the common people, to be false by
philosophers, and to be useful by the state. I could hardly disagree with
that assessment, cynical though it might be.

In early of May 1593 several bills were posted about London threatening
Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands who had settled
there. One of these, called the "Dutch church libel", was written in blank
verse and contained allusions to several of Marlowe's plays. It was signed,
"Tamburlaine".  Marlowe's colleague Thomas Kyd was arrested and indeed when
Kyd's lodgings were searched, a fragment of a heretical tract was
found. Kyd blamed Marlowe suggesting that when they had shared rooms, two
years earlier, the document had found its way among his papers quite by
accident.

Marlowe's arrest was ordered 18 May. Marlowe was not in London at the time
but was staying with Thomas Walsingham, cousin of the late Sir Francis
Walsingham, Elizabeth's principal secretary in the 1580s and then her spy
master. His friends' influence got him released on his own recognizance,
with the understanding that he should await their lordships' pleasure.

Twelve days later, on 30 May, Marlowe was murdered. And therein hangs the
tale. What really happened? I was not there myself, but I am sure it was
not merely a drunken brawl, as the authorities would have it, nor do I
believe Kit would draw a blade on an unarmed man, one he knew well. Kit had
spent the entire day with three men, all of whom had worked for the
Walsinghams and the underworld. One of them was carrying dispatches for the
Queen. The man who actually killed Kit, Ingram Frizer went to prison only
briefly. Within a month he was awarded the to the Queen's pardon and went
back to work for the younger Walshingham. The fix was in.

I am no detective, so I never managed to untangle the various threads, the
most promising of which lead to the government. I judged then and still
think now that Kit was likely was caught up in political struggle against
his friends, the politicians identified with the School of Night. The
charges of heresy must have been a smokescreen. Certainly the Church did
not object to his burial in St. Nicholas churchyard, which is in Deptford,
very close to where he was slain. Without a clear target other than Frizer,
obviously merely a tool, I had no one to visit vengeance on. I was not
about to take on the Queen's spy chief with so little to go on. Even had I
been sure, I have to be careful. Taking on a government is really out of my
league, immortal or not.

At the time rumor had it that the fight in the tavern was not merely over
the reckoning, but over a rivalry for a "lewd love", i.e. a male
lover. Kit's death was deemed punishment for his "epicurism and atheism." I
was implicated in both. Many thought I or Will was the object of that lewd
love.

It was certainly no secret that Will and I were a couple or that we
sometimes took male lovers on the side. We had slept with Marlowe many
times. This charge of "lewd love" was opportunistic. It can hardly have
been news to anyone at that late date. If that were really Kit's offense
they could have convicted him of it many years earlier.

Scholars still argue over Marlowe's personal history and character. Was he
gay or not? Of course he was not gay in the modern sense of exclusive
preference for the male gender. In Elizabethan times sexual congress with a
lovely boy was often indulged in as a change of pace or to take advantage
of a target of opportunity. I think it fairly obvious from his poetry that
Marlowe appreciated a pretty lad at least as well as the next man and
likely more than most.

Just read his enthusiastic depiction of the beauty of tragic youth Leander
in his poem 'Hero and Leander', how all men loved him, even the fierce
Thracians, how Marlowe compared him to the cupbearer of the gods, pretty
blond Ganymede, Zeus' live in boyfriend, how much Poseidon lusted after the
boy in exactly the same way Zeus did. Alas the youth met a tragic end,
dying while swimming the Hellespont for his nightly assignation with his
lover Hero, sadly, despite the name, a girl, a simple regrettable fact that
the poet could not get around.

Anyway I can testify from personal experience that he certainly liked to
sport with me and Will in bed. He was an experienced, thoughtful, and
enthusiastic lover, going so far as to compose naughty couplets on our
joinings as we cavorted in bed. I knew him for only fours years yet the
impression he made on me is unforgettable. His was one of the five or six
most engrossing personalities I ever encountered, my true loves
aside. Another was Leonardo da Vinci, of whom I have already written in
these narratives.

I think what I hated most about the whole sorry business is that it put
Will into jeopardy temporarily. Sweet, innocent Will. At least I managed to
extract us from the scandal well enough that we could stay on in London and
continue our theatrical careers.

			Epilogue

Taking a sabbatical from business and stepping before the footlights of the
Elizabethan stage was a decision that I have never regretted. Okay, maybe
it was my version of running away to the circus, but I not only had a great
time, I met some of the most fascinating people in history. I had been not
only been on hand to see the premieres of the works of Ben Jonson and
William Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, but I had known those men
personally. After Kit's death, I worked for the King's Players in some of
Shakespeares' productions.  I like to think that it was boy players like me
and Will who were the inspiration for all that cross dressing stuff in
plays like 'As You Like It'.

Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive!

Will Reardon was one of my true loves. We were lovers, best friends, and
fellow workers in a career that both of us relished. Acting was good for
both of us. It got us out of a rut: me from the world of business, him from
a lifetime of rural drudgery. He died of dysentery one year before the
Virgin Queen herself, in 1602, at age thirty. I had him buried only paces
away from Marlowe's grave. I think of him often, whenever I watch one of
Shakespeare's plays especially the outdoor theater in Central Park or hear
some phrase of his quoted so often since as to become a cliche. Bless you
Will Reardon of fond memory.

Did Marlowe write the plays of William Shakespeare? No. Emphatically not
true. I was there. Kit really did die at that tavern in 1593, twenty years
before the death of the Bard of Avon. I saw the body. He did not go into
hiding and ghost write Shakespeare's plays for him. The notion is silly. I
myself have seen the Bard of Avon scratching away or pacing impatiently
when inspiration faltered and a speech would not work. Shakespeare wrote
Shakespeare, though sometimes in collaborations, and he had his bad days
too. And bad plays as well (e.g. Coriolanus). At his best though, he
surpassed Marlowe. That I must give him.

One last minute correction, made when this was just going to press: that
tin plate Will and I tossed like a Frisbee must have been made of
pewter. In my defense, may I point out that pewter is an alloy which is at
least 85 percent tin and sometimes as much as 99 percent. So I was not far
wrong.

Oops! My calico cat Winifred has just jumped into my lap to remind me that
it is her supper time. Right now she is playing nice, purring, looking up
at me appealingly, her body language indicating impatience but nothing
more. Not yet. If I don't take the hint she will get more confrontational,
putting her paws up on my chest to stare me in the face. If she has to, she
escalates to kneading my flesh with her paws, the way she did as a kitten
to signal her mother to let her nurse. Unfortunately for me, her mother had
thick fur on her belly and I am sitting here in just bikini briefs. As a
kitten, her claws were tiny little things. Now they are rather formidable
when fully extended from the sheaths. Not that she wants to hurt me, not
intentionally. Kneading is a signal, not aggression.

Nor does she try to hurt me if I am asleep though her method of getting my
attention is rather assertive. If I am taking a nap she resorts to nipping
my nose. I wake up staring into her green eyes almost literally nose to
nose. Not that she is angry. She just blinks and waits for me to bestir
myself. Then she steps off my chest so I can breathe more easily.

This evening, supper is canned tuna fish, packed in water. It is her
favorite. Indeed "tuna" is one of the few words Winifred really
understands, as far as I can tell. I just have to say it out loud and she
gets all aquiver with her fur fluffed out and runs into the kitchen,
circling below the counter, meowing till I set the bowl in front of
her. Then she purrs loudly and glances up at me occasionally for
reassurance before turning her attention back to the food. All the while I
have to stroke her and talk to her encouragingly. If I leave, she will
chase me down, meowing and carrying on, maybe stropping my legs, till I
rejoin her in the kitchen.

Like most cats Winifred doesn't want her food just dumped in front of her
like for some barnyard animal. She wants due attention paid to her at this,
the most important part of her day, her dinnertime. Thus I must kneel
beside her and stroke her all the while as she crouches at her bowl and
gobbles her meal. I suppose the steady stroking reminds her of how her
mother would lick her as she nursed. Not that I really mind. Feeding
Winifred appeals to the nurturing and indulgent side of my personality.

She sometimes makes me think that I am her kept human. What is wrong with
this picture?

That's why I won't be getting back to my writing, not with my lover Jeffrey
due here any minute. I cannot let him see this narrative. He does not know
my secret so I will send this off for publication and log off my
computer. You can probably guess that I do not have a Windows setup. I gave
up on Microsoft entirely with Windows 98. As I have said before, I am not a
masochist. (Don't get me started on Vista which friends have complained
about for years.) I now use an iMac. Count me a fan of Justin Long in those
amusing PC versus Mac commercials.

Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to
cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth
written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of
modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are
real. The events described really did happen just as I have written.