This story was originally written for an Adaptations assignment – albeit very heavily inspired by an article I wrote and published to In the Margin last year. For said assignment, I decided to rewrite the balcony scene with a different context. In the original play, Romeo and Juliet supposedly are cisgender. However, in this version, both Romeo and Juliet are trans, with Romeo being as decidedly ‘out’ as someone could be in the vaguely mediaeval setting and Juliet being closeted. I’ve kept many other aspects of the plot the same. I’ve also had other ideas of how to continue the story – perhaps Rosaline and Friar Lawrence both work together due to both being a part of the church, perhaps Mercutio and Tybalt don’t die and Mercutio lobbies his connections to the prince – but either way I know I’d also end it on a more optimistic note than the original play. Whether or not I one day decide to continue and ultimately finish this story is ultimately up to the whims of inspiration.
The tea is rapidly cooling on its coaster as she shivers outside her window, the space too small to quite be a balcony but too large to simply be called a sill. She’d asked her attendant to prepare it to calm her nerves before she slept, but instead, it rested just inside her window, steam now barely managing to curl around the edges of the cup before collapsing back in on itself.
She shouldn’t have gone to the party.
This thought was counterintuitive, sure. ‘Twas a party to celebrate her own betrothal, to the young and well-bred Paris. It was practically all anybody worth mentioning in the household was talking about – from the servants abuzz with gossip that the young master was finally settling down to the cousins and uncles with their dour wives muttering in approval at the pansy boy who’d much rather paint and study than commit himself to furthering their family’s honour finally becoming a man.
But if she hadn’t gone – if she’d found someway or somewhere to rush off to, some excuse to attend only the minimum and then to retreat to solitude away from prying eyes – she wouldn’t have met that boy with the fiery eyes and ill-fitted, moth-bitten suit. The one who she’d watched pine for Rosaline by her side adorned in ostentatious rosary as her final attendance to high society before sending herself off to church to devote herself to the Lord.
The boy whose gaze had slid, awkwardly, from her dearest cousin, who had locked eyes with her, had seen her curls and the dusting of rouge across her cheeks, the awkward way her pants were tucked. Who’d followed her to the garden, glint in his eyes as he took her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to it, mask doing nothing to hide his reddened cheeks as his awkwardly chopped hair fell down around his ears in wisps. Who’d then absconded as quickly as he appeared, as shouts of “Montague!” had thundered from Tybalt’s lungs inside.
The same boy that now stared up at her as she lamented from her window – she very nearly yelled aloud, alerting the entire estate, had it not been for his hand pressing against her mouth as he leaned in, pressing his soft chest to hers.
“Shall we together be newly baptised, so that we may be called but love?”
She gently removed his hand, but made no other move to change their position, worried to upset their balance and send them tumbling, sure that the noises would alert the servants in their stairways. “And what man would that make you, to hide in the night and spy on my private thoughts?”
The boy’s eyes seemed to light up, as if a current running through the air between them had lit and sparked something behind them. He leaned back, ever so slightly, but his breath still ghosted her face.
“Well, I’m afraid I don’t know what you might call me, if it’s a name you seek. My name is offensive to myself and indeed, likely an enemy to you. I hate to even see it written, lest it fills me with rage,” he pauses, “as I imagine is the same for you.”
“So you are a Montague. And the boy I spoke with, if your voice is any indication.” She had not met many men with a voice like his, lilting like a melody, softened on the edges with less gravel than her own.
“Many call me the scourge of the house. You may call me Romeo. And what shall I call you, who shines with beauty as if the sun, or indeed even Diana herself?”
“I imagine you already know it. Why are you here, Romeo of Montague?”
Romeo scoffs, and leans back, placing his hands on the edge to steady himself. She’s finally afforded a better view of him – skin shiny in the moonlight with sweat, jacket long since discarded. The way he props himself up, she can see the way his shirt is unbuttoned down to the bosom, allowing the barest sliver between the space where the fabric bunches of smooth, shining skin, idling slowly down to a glimpse of linen. It had since been loosened after their meeting at the party, leaving all soft curves and wide lines that had something roiling in her gut, a flash of white-hot desire settling heavily over her skin.
She’d always been bad at discerning the sins of envy and lust.
“I know what they call you, goodness knows it was plastered all over yours and Paris’ little engagement party. But you’re like me, daughter of Capulet, I can feel it in my bones as surely as I feel the hot air around us now.”
The task of dragging her mind from the heat of the moment was a hard one – oh, dear – and she shook her head as she gently extricated her legs from his, moving from her sitting position into a kneeling one as she moved to shield any view of him from the room. “If any other members of my household find you here, they’ll have you killed.”
“I’d say it would have been worth the trouble, then, to have met you like this.”
“I’m trying to tell you to leave, for your own safety! How did you even manage to find my quarters amongst the rest of the estate?”
“Given they didn’t find me when I first made my way here for your little soiree, I’d be impressed if they managed to realise something was amiss. And as for finding you, perhaps it was fate itself, drawing us together. So how about we get to know each other better, Capulet?”
She could feel the frustration tugging at the junction between her eyebrows, the anxiety in her heart and dancing across her skin. She could also feel the devastating fondness pricking at every corner of her being, settling beneath her muscles as if melting through every defence she’d tried to make.
“I hope you know what you’re getting into, Romeo of Montague. I have obligations. To my family, to the city of Verona. These are not so easily forsaken, and I cannot have you thinking otherwise. I'm the heir to my family, the groom to be of dear Paris. So you cannot think me so naive, and you cannot be so reckless to put either of us in danger for this. I need you to swear it. Not upon Diana, who would spurn me for my birth as if it was within my control, her mood impetuous and ever-shifting. Not upon the sun, whose rays are harsh and show people what I prefer hidden by the veil of night.”
“Then I’ll swear upon myself.” His voice is confident, light and smooth and airy with all the energy of the sun, his smile infectious. “For what are men like me if not Godly in the creation of perfection from the flawed vessels He shaped? Ah. I should say. . . What are people like us?”
She could hear a servant creeping through their halls downstairs, she swore it. Or perhaps her attendant had quietly appeared to collect her tea that she had all but forgotten on the coaster inside her room. She could hear a million different creaks and shuffles and gentle brushings of fabric throughout the house, feel small vibrations of movement and taste the danger on the air. A million different possibilities, a million risks of the so-called young master of house Capulet being discovered half out the window with the belligerent scourge of house Montague curled just within reach. She knew the dangers, had heard the whispers of her proclivity for things unbefitting her station all her life, had been tormented by the whispers and the accusations and the rumours all her life.
Yet, in this moment, with this boy reaching up to pull her just that bit closer, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She followed his pull and leaned to brush her lips against his ear.
“You may call me Juliet.”