Chapter 4
Just about the time Rafe had decided to make me a free for all I went to the theatre with my dad to see a show that was on the tryout circuit prior to a Broadway opening. The play was an insignificant comedy, but when I saw it, I thought it was the greatest thing ever to hit. In plain English I was stage struck. Daddy knew the young lead who was in his platoon a number of years ago and we went backstage to meet him. I gaped like a schoolgirl and the distinct odor of greasepaint smelled like ambrosia.
The gritty dressing rooms and chaotic backstage area from which magic was made put me in a daze and I resolved to get into the theatre. Meeting Cal Ebsen was one of the big thrills of my gradually opening up life. He clearly ate up the stupid rambling that I was doing while telling him how I enjoyed his performance.
"Come up to New York and I'll see you get some complimentary tickets....if we run, that is," he offered.
I had no doubt that this was going to be an all time smash hit and told him I certainly would when I got to New York. Naturally the show folded after two performances which told me I had to learn a lot more about the theatre. I mention Cal Ebsen because he was one of the surprises on my list of Census Bureau follow-ups. But more about that later.
I spent the next few months getting involved with some little theatre groups in Washington and then with an acting coach who had more to teach than stage technique.
Mischa Petrovsky was a comical-looking man nearing his sixties who had been with the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia and had sought asylum in America. He found oddly enough that his opportunity in this country was far less than in the Soviet Union and he was relegated to a teaching position here. But the die was cast for him and he couldn't return to his homeland without facing severe recriminations.
"So you vould like to learn tsu act," he said skeptically the first time I went to his modest studio.
I did an amateurish audition piece and waited with embarrassment as he finally assessed it
"Ve haf a lot of verk tsu do, young lady," he sighed, tugging at his sideburn as much to say, "Why did you pick me?"
For the next three months I spent three sessions a week at his studio and finally we both began to feel that something honest and true was beginning to happen with me. I presented scenes from Clickov and then my sessions were rescheduled to become part of a small workshop he held for serious actors. He had only scratched the surface and I had plenty of catching up to do, but I progressed steadily.
At one of our private sessions our strict relationship of actor and teacher changed. We were working on a monologue from "The Sea-Gull" and we discussed what was happening internally with Nina, the actress.
"Vere does it hurt? In your heart? In your soul?"
Mischa badgered, standing up. He was fully involved in the point he was making and grasped me by the shoulders.
"Just inside. Nina is being torn apart by her love for Trigorin," I replied.
"Then feel it!" he commanded. "Make your guts ache with the same kind of hurt she feels. You're playacting. How can you know your own depths if you don't come tsu grips with the raw guts of that woman!"
I tried the monologue again and came closer to the feeling we talked about Unmistakably the feeling was sexual and my insides craved for relief. My pussy was secreting insanely and my breasts were swelled with stimulation. Mischa stood inches away from me and I kissed him fully on the lips. He responded instantly by holding me ever so close. Instead of subduing my sexual urges his gnarled old body only increased the throb in my pubis. To my amazement his ancient rod was rearing its head and bobbing against my thighs. We kissed again and I tasted his tobacco tongue glancing off my teeth. I had to have this man and within the next few minutes. Between the tension of the scene and the sudden surge of desire that flowed between us I felt I would burst unless we went to bed immediately. Mischa's need was equal to mine and his thin strong fingers plied my tits through my blouse. We undressed each other and I felt his frail but potent form press into my body on the chaise lounge that was handily nearby.
His birdlike fingers snuggled into my moist muff and he immediately found my clitoris. In no time it was erected and pulsing with a rapid flow of sexual feeling. The heat in my body was unbearable. Mischa sucked noisily on my nipples and I felt his sticklike rod come knobbingly alive. His red battered peter flexed under my fingers and he guided it against my raging vulva. With one quick slip he entered and thrust with a slow measured rhythm. The feeling was glorious.
"Ve take a little vile tsu get there, but ven ve there, the duckies, they know it," Mischa murmured.
And God, did I know it. His rhythm was maddening and I felt the sopping spongy walls of my vagina lapping and sucking at his hard-on. He pumped inexorably and I began to hear his breathing getting heavier as his strokes became broader. He was slapping his whiplike rod with the ease of experience and I was being driven wild by his continuous action.
As I bucked and swiveled my hips to feel him hit, his hands returned to my breasts and for every stroke I got a pinch that sent my nipples into frozen erection. My crisis came storming in my pussy and I wrapped my legs around his hips to lock him in my womb forever. But the old fellow hadn't quite been brought off and so I waggled my pubis and twisted to increase the friction on his rod. He caught his breath and gave it a final gust of "ooomph" and I felt him shatter inside with an orgasm.
As he withdrew his spent penis he hummed "Ayayayay," under his breath and I would swear he looked twenty years younger.
"So now you know how to play Nina," he sighed contentedly.
The old acting coach was an object of my adoration and I couldn't wait to get going on another "role," particularly the offstage scenes where it is understood that the hero and heroine are rolling in the hay.
"But you should not be vasting your talents on an old man like me," he said self-consciously.
"If you think I'm wasting my time, you're an old coot," I replied, a little hurt.
"Veil, if you insist, there alvays is Caesar and Cleopatra."
And so I searched through G.B. Shaw's play to find a suitable monologue. The after-scene instruction was really what I looked forward to, however.
It got to be a marvelous little game and I came to know Mischa very well. He would spend hours reminiscing about his experiences with the state theatre of Russia both on and off the stage. During the second World War a company of actors would travel to the front to raise the spirits of the defenders of the Soviet Union against the invaders of the Third Reich.
"Vun time after the Germans vas on the run, the Red Army captured a prize they didn't expect," he narrated. "Two truckloads of field whores. Ach, vat a time that vas. It vas pitiful, but it vas comic, too. For two days ve had a drunken orgy vit these women. They vas so scared, but all they knew how tsu do vas fuck. There was vun, a big farm girl who had the stamina of a bull and she vouldn't let go of me. For six hours straight she kept me locked in her thighs. Every time I thought ve had enough she vould squeeze her tits against my mouth and I chewed until they vas raw. My ding-dong vould come to attention and she screamed that I should never leave her. Her pussy vas like a bowl full of butter and I churned and churned and she came every time."
I listened and my own vagina was popping with stimulation. I took Mischa's hand and placed it against my quivering damp. His hand lingered and he played a pizzicato on my swelling vulva.
"Churn me too. Whip my butter," I beseeched and the amazed Mischa kissed my swelling sex. His tongue curled about my clit and the tiny beast pushed at his hot red probe. He began sucking at the sensating node and my canny screamed with desire.
His long lashing tongue flicked into my slot and my interior melted. He thrashed inside me raising the hackels of lust and I was goose bumps inside and out I closed my thighs around his hoary head and his teeth nipped at my labia, sending me into shuddering spasms of delight
"Come, sit on papa's knee," he said pulling his head out of my roaring grotto. He stripped his" pants and his gnarled branch of a rod swayed with potency. My thirsting pussy fitted over his spout and I slid luxuriously down his length. His hands squeezed my breasts and he pumped his lap upward so I could feel his sticky rod in my belly. I rocked easily in his saddle filled with his lusty spear and I was on top of the world. My breasts were like jelly in his hands while his churning action below beat me into a squirming lather. Hot flashes raced from my tits to the tip of his rod and if there ever was a case of ensemble playing this was it. His rod was forged in my molten cranny and in the white heat of my burning cunt our simultaneous crises built to a clanging crescendo. I half expected to hear the sizzle of frying come as we exploded together.
"But you are vasting your time here in Vashington. You must go tsu New York if you expect tsu get into the theatre."
I almost burst into tears, but I was overjoyed at the same time.
"You think I'm ready?"
"No vun is ever ready," he scowled. "In this country you must be lucky and get a break. Here in this town you have no chance. You go where the theatre is. I vill give you the names of some people who could maybe help."
I began to say something, but he read my mind.
"You give an old man much pleasure, but your life is still to lead. Ven you get tsu Broadway, send me a ticket," he sighed.
We kissed and I fought back my tears. This gentle old cynic who was old enough to be my grandfather was one of the few selfless people I'd met and I would never forget him.
Pops was understanding as I knew he would be and he staked me to a month's rent and a few hundred dollars in mad money for my big adventure. Three days later I was on a plane and bound for the concrete giant that has swallowed up so many who came for the opportunity it flashed in neon and lights.
That was three years ago and now I don't have one wide-eyed illusion left about the theatre. But I'm good and I know it and I know my chance will come. Oddly enough it may come from this weird side job as a Census Bureau enumerator. But I'm jumping the gun.