The night is most still, most silent as the heavy oak door of the queen's chamber creaks open and a swift figure slips past it. There is a warm glow, almost a serene halo inside, provided by the numerous candles set out about the room. A slim figure clad in white sits at the mirror, absent-mindedly running a carved bone comb through her voluminous hair. Her head turns and a small, yet hearty smile curves her lips upwards.
The figure moves forward from the shadows and speaks in a hushed manner, "Kind mother, art thou one?"
The lady nods in nervous eagerness to please her son. "Indeed so, my lord, as hast thou me sworn to and myself seen the error of my faithless ways." She makes a vague gesture towards the still room, the empty bed. "I am one."
The prince dares now to smile faintly and to stride over the stone floor without even a specific destination. "And pray tell me, how cometh thee upon this?" he asks and lifts the heavy arras from its place on the wall to sneak a glance behind it. "How hast thou repressed the lecherous blood that in my uncle's veins runs, from his tainted heart drawing vigour? How tamed have thou the king?"
Gertrude turns her back to her son and sets away her comb. "In feigned illness dares not touch me he who fears for a tarnished soul." Her eyes catch her son's in the glass and register an unmistakable air of pride. "The threatening devils' claws covet me, I but say and flies he who reason has to repent sins and to dread God's judgement."
Hamlet stands still for one moment, his face breaks slowly into a grin. "My dear cunning lady, I congratulate thee," he declares as he steps briskly towards the straight back and the blonde bush of hair. "But good can come of this."
Alarmed suddenly, Gertrude's eyes dart from her son's face to her own reflection in the glass and back. Hamlet's hand reaches out towards her shoulder and just when Gertrude can almost feel the warmth of his touch, she stands, resolutely denying him the sought contact. She turns, swift as lightning, and strides purposefully over to the large bed in the middle of the chamber.
Hamlet follows her movements with a confounded gaze. "Where to now, my lady?"
Gertrude looks back over her shoulder. "Alas, my night garment not decent seems for discussions at hand," she concedes and with a surprising feeling of chill, her hands raise to rub her arms at her sides.
Her son makes an amazed grimace and studies the white linen clad figure of his mother's with open curiosity. Her graceful features have been hidden by the shapeless nightgown and yet the delicate light penetrates the fabric most shamelessly; enough only to inject an intolerable desire for further details into any man. Hamlet takes a leisurely step towards his mother.
"Hast son then not witnessed a mother's breast?" he speaks suddenly with half-whispered ardour. Anon with steady determination he approaches the bed and the bashful queen whose countenance has started to assume a faint flush of colour. "Hast son not held its touch yet?" He reaches out his hand for the queen and with gentle delicacy caresses her linen-clad arms. "Wherefore doth thou hide?"
Gertrude turns her head from her son; the candlelight catches her profile enchantingly. "'Tis years in the past now since time of such fondness," she claims with thin prudence in her tone. She takes a cautious step farther from the prince and his hands momentarily lose their hold on her. "Thyself, my lord, beseeched have me to pretend virtue I possess not."
Her breath catches in a sharp gasp when prince Hamlet's determined hands catch her by the shoulders and briskly turn her to face him. "Pretend not though for mine eyes," he tells her with a hint of the same passion with which he last addressed the queen in this very same chamber. Gertrude watches anxiously as Hamlet looks from the line of her hair, over every feature of her face and down at her scanty gown. He applies some pressure to her shoulders, guides her gently backwards to the bed and pushes her to sit down on the edge with him. He leans closer and with urgent secretiveness says, "Pretend not for thy son, for I know thee now."
Gertrude looks adoringly into the blue expressive eyes her husband had once passed on to his heir, and upon seeing a glint of open contentment in them, she offers a soft smile. "Dear Hamlet, what hast thou come for?" she asks, gently taking one of the prince's hands in her own. "I have not offended thee once more, have I?"
Hamlet shakes his head. "Nay, my lady. Quite the contrary. For to see if my warnings heeded thou have, if my words thou have taken to heart and banished have thou the king from thine chambers—have I come." He looks on at the queen proudly. "Thou hast me not disappointment brought."
"Believe me, my Hamlet, nay the sun shall rise to a day's dawn when I shall willingly deceive thee," Gertrude breathes eagerly and relishes the touch of the prince's hand sliding down her half-covered arm.
"Indeed, but good can come of this," Hamlet mutters, and his eyes follow his fingers keenly. "And better still to have good in times when despair doth weaken even the strongest minds."
"My lord, what claims thou?" asks the queen, amazed by her son's sudden fit of gloom.
The prince's face takes on a morose look. "Crows laugh at that which greed and lust have brought upon my noble father's kingdom. But vain greed and brutal guile ne'er can rule a land which grief has left in wreckage."
Gertrude senses a deep and worrying sadness in her son, a woe in his clouded eyes and a weariness in his movements. She reaches out her hand to caress the side of his face tenderly. Hamlet's sombre countenance prevents her from daring to speak.
He closes his eyes for a moment to savour her touch but shortly unveils the fervent flame in his eyes again. "Good men turn from gallantry to vanity." His eyes glare straight at his mother as he speaks, "Mothers whores breed, from their lady taking example."
His words revisit the weeks-old cleft in Gertrude's heart and pry at its scarcely healed stitches. She makes a pained sound and her face closes in on her son's. "Oh, Hamlet..." she sighs only to receive a quieting shake of the head from the prince.
He reaches up and runs his hand boldly through her hair. "Nay, my lady," he speaks softly to her. On the queen's quivering lower lip he places a tender kiss. "Despair thou not. The hills may scream and seas rave of injustice and revolting greed, yet ne'er shall hope be lost if but one should hold his ground and breathe of better things. All the same as with thee, my queen." He stops briefly and allows his eyes to roam over his mother's body from her flushed face to a heaving chest, to a pair of dainty hands in the lap of a somewhat transparent nightgown. He speaks with unveiled ardour, "All sins and treachery, yet virtue doth prevail."
Gertrude caresses his cheek with almost apprehensive wariness. "Fair son, thou wringst this heart of mine with each word to such ache and pleasure alike that I remain quite astonished with thee," she says feebly.
Hamlet breaks his stare from his mother momentarily and his hands release the queen to gesture towards the rest of the bed beside them. "Lie thyself down here as I speak," he suggests kindly. "The hour for rest calls, bodies from fatigue to rest and aimless minds to wander. 'Tis not wise to defy." He pulls back a cover and looks up at his mother's puzzled face. "Fear not, I shall bring no harm upon thee," he says softly, and the queen heeds his advice.
With tired eyes too keen on the continuation of the discourse at hand to close Gertrude lies down on the wide bed. Her eyes follow Hamlet at he takes a reclined position next to her. It feels not as out of the ordinary to lie next to the prince as she had thought. In his mature face run the lines of her two husbands.
"What wilst thou do?"
Hamlet's face takes on a mischievous smirk. "I shall outmatch my uncle—by my father's honour I have sworn to it." There is something deeply worrying in his tone as he speaks. "The day approaches when the blessed sun shall not rest ere the fraudulent king his punishment finds. Let my sword bring upon him his reward ne'er to let his eyes wander over my father's lands again," he gazes at his mother fondly, his eyes ablaze with vehement fascination, "or his greedy fingers feel my father's treasures." And his hand caresses the queen's arm.
"How deep thy pain and hatred must be," Gertrude says softly and looks up at her son's tense face as he leans over her with determined stealth. "Thou must rest, my lord."
Hamlet shakes his head in denial. "I find no rest in the night's shadow," he confesses. "No peace claims me from this ceaseless, extraordinary turmoil." He pauses briefly and his eyes obtain a dimmed gaze of admiration. "I feel calm with thou here."
He lowers himself to the woman and catches the thin lips of the queen in a spontaneous tender kiss. Gertrude's hand shoots up to her son's chest, her body stiffens, yet she does not push him away. In spite of having done so many times before, there is something different in this kiss—a sort of exceptional gentleness and yet an unusual urgency. When Hamlet rises over her, Gertrude notices an unfamiliar fire in his eyes, a wild expression of startling desire on his face. A silent subconscious understanding passes between the mother and son, and the queen is stunned to feel her son's lips on her own again, purposefully, insistently prying open her mouth. His hands slide into her hair, over her bared shoulders, down the curve of her side. At her waist one arm snakes around the queen's dainty body while the other hand draws light patterns on the woman's flushed skin.
Hamlet's touch is delicate and vigilant, his undivided affectionate attention both pleases and frightens the queen. Within an all too brief minute he becomes a man in his mother's eyes, which have only ever seen him as a boy. When his voracious lips make their way across her jawline and trail a line of ardent kisses down her slender neck, Gertrude's breath catches in her throat and her torn mind whispers to her insistently that the pleasurable thrill in her body is ungodly. She attempts to tame her hot-blooded self and to push Hamlet's heated form away from herself.
"Refrain, sweet Hamlet," she breathes in a furtive and trembling tone. Her son's clouded eyes fasten upon hers and in them she sees such animalistic passion that she is acutely reminded of her two husbands' nocturnal cravings. It terrifies her how her so innocent son can resemble such sinful men. A sudden stab of realisation in her chest warns her that it must be her own weakness and excessive familiarity that have depraved the prince. In a faint whisper she tells him, "No more…"
Caressing the queen's burning skin, Hamlet refuses to comply and replies in a low voice, "Aye, my lady, sweet, for thou hast made me this dependant on thy flesh." He stares down into his mother's wide astonished eyes to find reassurance of her doubt in her own words of objection. "This fire cometh not from my father."
His lips are on hers ere she can protest again, eager and hungry, as his fingers find their way to and tug with increasing urgency at the taut laces of the queen's gown. Gertrude cannot neither physically nor mentally fight the almost demonic lustful creature her son has turned into, and her stomach churns at each thrilling move he makes. She is torn between the pleasurable sensations he has awakened in her and the scathing anguish of her conscience. In vain she makes a desperate attempt to throw the prince off of her, and her trembling hands cup his flushed face.
The woman's cool touch breaks a mysterious spell in the prince and he flinches back. His eyes are clear suddenly and his breathing calms. He reaches up and very gingerly takes his mother's hand from his cheek. Gertrude watches as he slowly places a row of tender kisses in her palm, on her fingertips and on her wrist, his attention drawn completely to her delicate skin. He repeats his actions on the other hand, and in this affectionate gesture the queen finds an extraordinary expression of kindness neither king has ever possessed or chosen to show her.
His fondness, all of a sudden, puts the queen at ease, and the fearful shaking in her body stops. He is entirely different from the lovers she has previously known, and Gertrude feels her heart swelling with pride at the fleeting thought that her son has grown up a better man than his ancestors. It comes as a surprise to her that her hesitation has mostly disappeared. The bodily desire for pleasure takes over gradually, and when the prince pauses to determine whether she will refuse him still, Gertrude carefully untangles her hand from his grasp and places it on the back of Hamlet's neck. She heaves a deep and relaxed breath as she slowly pulls him down towards her, now with her moral reservations smothered by the promise of an extraordinary night.
Hamlet's approach is more sensitive now, more patient and yet even more fervent. Gertrude replies to each of his instinctive movements with her own, skilful and refined ones. Their bodies entwine in sensual ecstasy and they explore parts of each other they hadn't been privy to for many years. There are no rules in this game, there are no mistakes. Hamlet treats the queen with infinite gentleness the likes of which Gertrude has never experienced, and his mother, in turn, offers him a thrilling lesson in unconditional love.
Hamlet's voice is but an indecipherable husky whisper when he mutters, "Mothers in hell must be made."
