Shakespearotica: Meet Orlando

As promised, I'm back with an excerpt from my new story As We Like It, which is in Shakespearotica: Queering the Bard from Storm Moon Press.

In this scene, Celia and Ross are watching the wrestling when they first see Orlando. If you now the story of As You Like It, you'll know that there is indeed a wrestling scene shortly before Rosalind is banished from the dukedom. Like the original, my Celia and Ros(s)alind will meet Orlando again. The story is told from Celia's point of view.

We sneak beneath the stands to watch the fights from the shadows. The bouts are held outside the palace walls, one of the few places where village dweller and noble can be found together, although even here the nobles stick to their private boxes. The sand is warm, though it has been in the shade under the arena’s seats all day.

The fights are not a sport for ladies. My father is watching above us, but the noble wives will be sipping tea inside the palace. We have a very different view of the action than the men get from their boxes. We lie on our bellies, our eyes level with the bottom of the electrified steel cage that surrounds the fighters. A bout is just finishing. The loser is slumped against the wire, conscious, but too broken and dazed to pull his back away from the electric current. An attendant pushes him off it with his booted foot and hauls him away.

“I give you Charles, Duke Frederick’s undisputed champion.” The umpire lifts the victor’s hand high. “Three brothers he has overthrown already tonight. One, I hear, is unlikely to live to see another day. Who else will dare to meet his challenge?”

Silence.

I’m half afraid Ross will leap to his feet. But though he is stronger and taller than me, he is still slight-figured and only of average height at most for a man. He is a boy next to Charles. I think he likes to watch the wrestlers and dream of having a body like theirs, all hard, glistening muscle. Taking repeated blows and falls and getting back up for more. I try to understand his yearning for a different shell to house his spirit. But it’s hard enough to imagine how he must feel lying on his front with his ribs meeting the sand through a thin layer of flesh where once he had breasts.

A voice breaks the silence. “I will face this Charles.”

The umpire opens the gate to allow the new fighter into the cage, and we see him rise into view opposite us. He is removing his shirt as he climbs the steps into the ring. The crowd murmurs, sizing up his physique. He flings the garment into their midst and steps into full view. Charles is a monster beside him. The image is enhanced by his growling as he tries to frighten his opponent. He is twice the width of the newcomer, a foot taller, older, battle scarred.

“And what is your name, young man?” The umpire asks, emphasizing the “young”.

“Orlando, sir.” He is soft-spoken, yet his voice carries.

Orlando pulls off scuffed boots and drops them outside the gate, and then unbuckles coarse cotton trousers. I thought Ross’s clothes were scruffy, but Orlando’s are so torn and full of holes,  it is barely less modest when they are gone. His plain grey briefs are mean in comparison to Charles’s silver satin shorts, covered in sponsorship logos. Charles laughs and the crowd joins in. Orlando merely waits, unmoved by taunts.

“Best of three falls,” the umpire shouts. “You know the rules: there are no rules.” The crowd knows his lines by heart, but they roar, nonetheless. The umpire leaves the ring, barring and padlocking the gate behind him. His only real task is to count down each fall to see if a combatant can get up in time to fight on or lose the round.

Shakespearotica: Queering the Bard, edited by Salome Wilde, is available from Storm Moon Press, Amazon and Amazon UK.