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of him. Her only project was to make herself better, for him. Her Dorina would be sparkling, vibrant,bright—everything he deserved. She slept with the windows wide open and in the morning the air was filled with honey. It seemed impossible that this should be her life, that she had made it this far, and no one had told her, not even her mother, that she must go back to London. Young ladies of sixteen were not supposed to live like this, in the honeyed air, singing on the stage with men. Yet it was so.

Love’s Confinement

    In the bowels of the theater were all the magnificent ropes and gears and pulleys of the stage machinery, as complex and fine-tuned as any clock or warship. These great works of wood and rope were pulled and pushed and held down by stage workers, moving the flats of painted scenery to create spectacular effects. It was a dark, churning space, crowded with men who must work in silence at the limits of their physical strength, and whose any mistake might kill someone.
    Anna and Benucci retired to this space below every night, near the end of the last act. Once there, they would fold themselves into a small wooden closet that the workers would gingerly raise through a trapdoor in the middle of the stage—so that the two lovers might emerge at last in a state of final marital bliss.
    They had to practice it many times for safety and timing.
    Benucci went in first, with his wide, foxlike grin. A lattice above the door let the light in. He held out his hand to Anna and shestepped up to join him, turning so her back rested snugly against his front.
    He settled his arms around her. “Comfortable?” he asked, his voice sounding at once above her head and through her heart.
    “Oh, yes,” she said.
    The men slid the door shut.
    “Just rest against me,” he said in a low, easy tone. “We’ll be out soon.”
    She realized that she had been holding herself rather stiffly, and she sighed a little and let her head lean back against his shoulder. He had large, nice hands, and they held her easily. His face inclined in such a way that his calm breath touched her ear in soft and stroking intervals.
    The men outside were talking. It was so dark and quiet where Anna and Benucci were that it seemed the outside must be far away. Anna could not help herself. She lifted Benucci’s hand and put it to her left breast. Her heart beat so fast that she thought she would faint.
    His hand held at her breast and his breath caught. Still they did not move. Then he sighed through his nose and circled his hand and pressed there so that she was pressed totally against him. And then she took his hand and put it under her bodice and he pressed and squeezed there, while his other hand stroked her hip. She had never been held so raptly, so completely, with such open ardor.
    There was a rattling at the door. Benucci quickly took his hands away. Anna giggled. She thought her eyes must be as big as an owl’s. The man outside explained what they were working on. He said that everything was very safe.
    “Are you all right in there, or should we let you out?” he said.
    “Perfectly all right,” said Anna.
    “Not causing a stink, is he?” asked the man jauntily. “Not getting too ripe for the young lady?”
    She smiled and said, “Signor Benucci perfumes himself in roses.”
    The door closed again and the box lurched and seemed to hesitate.Benucci twisted down to kiss her and she turned up to meet him. They made no noise but rustling and sighs, the soft wet
tsks
of lips meeting and drinking and parting. There was a holler from without and the machinery cranked into motion, lifting their conveyance into the air. The sensation of weightlessness, of unhinging, brought a moment of fear, and with it, of greater exhilaration. Benucci pressed himself against Anna and flicked his tongue along the side of her neck, just near her shoulder, and she did not know or care where she was in the world or what she did, as long as there was this,