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On their first night - their wedding night - he pokes her in the eye with his thumb (trying to gently brush her hair out of the way), she knees him in the balls (trying to sweetly slide her leg against his), and they manage, via team effort, to roll somewhat vigorously off the bed. He tries, manfully, to take the brunt of the fall, but instead of cradling her head against his shoulder to lessen the impact (his intention) he ends up pulling her hair and punching her in the solar plexus.
"Ooof," says Viola, the wind knocked out of her.
"Still turned on over there?" Orsino asks, rubbing his shoulder where it impacted with the floor.
Viola gets her breath back and nods firmly, like a merchant sea-captain deciding to take on new cargo. "I'm hot for it," she replies. "Take me."
She's still wearing her wedding-dress, though, a modest white number with way too many buttons up the front. She gives up on undoing them about halfway through and just starts trying to worm her way out from the gauzy fabric. Her arm gets stuck in a sleeve.
"Oh, the, fucking, zwounds," she pants, her head falling to her chest in defeat.
"You know," Orsino says conversationally, pulling the dress from her shoulders and holding it still so that she can peel out of it, "for two souls mingled in one flesh, I still feel distinctly like two fleshes."
"At the rate we're going, we'll never even get to the flesh-mingling part," Viola says.
When they do get to the flesh-mingling part, about fifteen minutes later, Orsino is mostly thinking about his split-open lip and Viola is mostly thinking about her red, throbbing knee and neither of them pays particular attention to the sex.
-
On their second night, having learned from their experience, they each take off their clothes on opposite sides of the room and arrange themselves carefully on the bed.
"See?" Orsino says, as they move gently, slowly, softly, carefully, delicately, cautiously, tenderly, and sensitively together. "We can manage it."
"We're doing great," Viola agrees, orgasming methodically.
-
On the day before the third night, Feste shows up.
"My lord," he says, bowing ostentatiously to Orsino, then turning and bowing to Viola. "My new-made lady."
"I was a lady before I became his lady," Viola answers, playing along.
"But he was your lord before he became your lord, and yet the sense is different," Feste replies.
Orsino rolls his eyes. "What brings you here?"
"A message from your new-made sister. She says to come see her - maybe she wants to pursue her old suit again."
"The suit she pursued was the suit I was wearing." Viola smiles. "How's Sebastian?"
"I'm not allowed to say."
"What aren't you allowed to say?" Orsino asks.
"I'm not allowed to say that Sebastian is sick," Feste replies promptly.
-
"Where's my brother?" Viola demands, bursting into Olivia's mansion. She trips on her dress as she staggers over the threshold and barely recovers in time to avoid a fall, holding herself up against a convenient table as she catches her breath. Her shoes are a mess from running through the mud to the carriage. Her hair is in wild disarray, a frizzy cloud around her shoulders; her eyes are wide and bright.
"Oh, God's eyelids," Olivia mutters as she goes to take Viola's elbow. "This is why that idiot clown wasn't supposed to tell you anything. Your brother just has the flu."
"Oh," Viola says, running a hand through her hair.
"He'll be fine."
"Oh," Viola says again.
"I need to ask you a favour, though," Olivia continues, walking her deeper into the house. "There's a land deal that he was supposed to close today, and he's vomiting all over the place. I was hoping that you could go instead."
"Hoping that I could - " Viola blanches, as if from a sudden imbalance of bile. "You mean, go as my brother." They keep walking, down a hall, across a dining room, through a corridor, past the ballroom, until they reach a large, heavy wooden door.
"That's what I mean," Olivia confirms, and swings the door open.
It's Sebastian's dressing room.
-
It hasn't even been a week since she was last in breeches, but somehow it feels longer; the rows of trousers, knots and knots of ties, the crisp high-collared shirts - they all seem like a world she abandoned months or years ago, like another life, like something belonging to another person.
There's not much time before "Sebastian" has to be at the meeting, so Olivia helps her undress, unbuttoning and untying, pulling quickly at the yards of fabric that swirl about her waist. Viola shouldn't feel embarrassed - she's been dressed and undressed with and by other women all her life - but she remembers all too well the feel of Olivia's hands, the warmth of Olivia's body, the smell of Olivia's perfume: remembers them from when she was a boy and Olivia her suitor.
Standing naked in her brother's dressing room, with her sister-in-law standing beside her fully clothed, Viola shivers.
"It's easier to bind if someone is willing to help," she says softly, and hands Olivia a long swath of fabric.
Olivia nods. "Start at the back?" Even as she says it, she circles around behind Viola, touches her cold fingertips to Viola's skin, at the dip of her spine between her shoulderblades. She holds the cloth in place and begins to pull it around to the front.
"Over the nipples first," Viola murmurs. Behind her, Olivia nods. Her pale hands pull the fabric tight over Viola's breasts, around and around, again and again. Viola finds it hard to catch her breath.
"Flat as a boy," Olivia says finally, tying off the fabric.
The rest of the dressing goes quickly; Viola's had plenty of practice, and it comes back to her quickly, the slide of breeches over her thighs, the tightness at her throat, the weight of a coat on her shoulders. Only a few minutes later, she's standing in front of the glass, buttoning the last button.
Olivia comes up behind him, and Viola breathes in sharply; they look beautiful together, the way that he'd thought that Sebastian and Olivia looked beautiful together.
"You play the part of my husband nearly perfectly," Olivia says, her hands on his shoulders.
"Nearly?"
Olivia's arm snakes around Viola's waist; in her hand is a rolled-up piece of cloth. Viola laughs.
"By all means, make a man out of me," he says.
Olivia does, securing the cloth inside his trousers. Then she draws her hand out and cups him from the outside, checking the line and definition of him.
"Now you're perfect," Olivia says.
Viola turns around, and smiles at her, and because they're sisters, he kisses her gently on the lips (as sisters do). They linger only for a moment.
"Okay," he says. "Where's this meeting?"
-
On their third night, when Orsino returns home, he doesn't find his wife waiting for him.
"Sebastian?" he asks, confused.
"No," the figure in front of him answers. His chest is rising and falling rapidly under his high-buttoned waistcoat.
"Cesario," Orsino breathes.
"I thought you might have . . . missed your friend," Cesario says, coming closer.
Orsino nods mutely.
"Might have missed his counsel," Cesario suggests.
"I did," Orsino answers. His voice is harsh, rasping out of his throat.
"Might have missed his manly embrace."
"Yeah, yes. I did."
Cesario stands on his tiptoes to bring his mouth up next to his husband's mouth. "I thought you might have missed his kiss," he says, and brings their lips together.
"You are such an asshole," Orsino laughs breathlessly, when the kiss finally ends. Cesario laughs, too, and captures his mouth again.
-
On their seventh night, Orsino presses his wife against a wall in one of the sitting rooms, just barely concealed behind a curtain, and slides into him hot and slick and effortless, kissing his soft, feminine throat.
-
On their twelfth night of marriage, Viola and Orsino call for a tailor.