Chapter 13
Two days later I meet Sandra and she looks at me curiously.
"You didn't last long, did you, honey," she says.
I tell her briefly about the bar, about Manolo and Eduardo and Lupe, but I don't tell her about being raped. That was more than I had bargained for and I still don't want to think too much about it. "I can play Lilly without even thinking about it now. I know her every move, her every glance and expression. Bill can lay for me all he wants and I'll be ready. You watch!"
Somehow, though, the incident in the alley made me stronger. I remember my dream of long ago, my nightmare, when I was chased up an alley by Puerto Ricans only to find Bill standing over me in the end; I understand now the fear I had of sex, how the Puerto Ricans symbolized that fear and how Bill symbolized my faith in myself. When I had that dream I still needed to cling to Bill because I had no faith in myself, but in that alley facing those Puerto Ricans for real I learned to have some faith in myself. I didn't need Bill there. I came out of it all by myself.
I think back to the first day of acting school and how Mark Langstrom warned us that our hang-ups would show in a bright spotlight on stage, and I know that I've overcome my biggest hang-up, my fear of sex, and no matter what else happens on that stage, whatever else shows up, I'll be one of the sexiest Lillys that he's ever seen. Lilly of the Valley won't blush, I think to myself, and smile.
The night of the final rehearsal comes and there is an excitement that has been absent from the previous rehearsals. We are all in costume, and for the first time we are going to run through the entire play without stopping. Everyone that has had anything to do with the production is in the theater to watch; there must be close to forty people out there and more filtering in.
I feel appropriately sleazy in my tight-fitting dress, with no bra and only a pair of silk bikini panties, and I have an image of Lilly firmly in my mind, an image that owes much to Lupe. I wonder if Lupe would recognize herself in Lilly were she to see the performance, and decide that she probably would. Lupe's powers of observation were keen.
Mark Langstrom is everywhere at once, going over last minute suggestions and instructions with everyone. He comes up behind me and whispers in my ear that I look lovely and I grin happily. The curious thing is that he has worked with almost all the actors and actresses during the past rehearsals except me. He worked hard with Bill and I was surprised at how well they seemed to work together, Mark making suggestions and Bill trying to find a way to incorporate them into his character. Yet the whole time Mark didn't say more than a word or two to me, and what he did say was of minor importance. Yet I caught him watching me closely several times, and I could never tell if he was pleased or disturbed with what he saw. At several points I was about to ask him what he thought but I would always back away when I was with him. If he had something to tell me he would tell me, I would say to myself, and ask nothing.
Then just before curtain time I see him go down to the center of the auditorium about halfway back and slouch down in a chair as if to say that he's done all there is to be done and the rest is up to us. I watch him for a moment, see the lines on his forehead that I've never noticed before, the tiredness around his gray eyes where the worry and countless small tasks of directing a play have etched into his skin. It suddenly occurs to me why he's such a good director. It's because he gives you the feeling that everything is all right, that it is all under control, and he takes the whole burden secretly and without confiding in anyone lest he upset them. He hears problems and complaints from everyone but can never complain himself; he has to be completely self-contained through the whole chaotic ordeal, and he manages somehow to do it. For a moment tears fill my eyes as I look at him. He looks suddenly so miserable and helpless, so vulnerable, like a little boy confronted with something he can't cope with. And I realize for the first time that somehow I have come to love him simply for what he is, not for the glamour or prestige or power of his position, but simply for the man he is, and it upsets me to realize how secretly I came to love him. Before, I knew I was attracted to him as a sex object, attracted to his piercing gray eyes, his dark handsome face, his lean body and casual manner, his reputation, but these were all impersonal, sexual, romantic. But there is no romance in the sad figure slouched exhausted in the chair, alone, no longer in touch with the very play he created and directed, only a bittersweet hunk of very human humanity, a personal, private, individual that has worked himself into complete exhaustion in a very lonely job. And that is the Mark Langstrom I have come to love, to see as he is and love.
I don't see Bill at all until the play begins, then I see him as a college kid. I haven't spoken to him in a long time off stage, and I'm beginning to recognize him in his part better than I remember him in real life. Only tonight it is different. I see him immediately as Bill, ruthless and eager to outshine me, full of paranoia and competition. And I'm thankful that he'll never enter my body again because he suddenly seems vile to me, loathsome. I have to snap my mind quickly back to Lilly and force myself to see him as the college kid before I blow my part.
The play goes smoothly enough, I feel. Bill tries immediately to intimidate me by trying to upstage me but I've learned how to handle that kind of thing. I use my breasts and hips to best advantage, and soon I can feel the visual energy of the audience planted firmly on me. I can tell the second Bill gives up the attempt, and I slow down a little too and the play flows better for both of us, though I can feel the hostility of Bill's eyes when he looks at me. But he doesn't try any more tricks with me. I think it must surprise him how far I've come in a few short weeks.
By the time the scene with Bill in bed approaches I'm really into my part, completely lost in it as if Jennifer doesn't even exist. I've convinced myself that I'm attracted to the innocence that this college boy represents to me. Standing beside the bed both of us strip naked; in the strange lighting it seems weird, almost unreal, yet as I look at the college kid I snap back to my real identity and see him as Bill, see Bill's long, dangling cock in front of me. The scene is supposed to culminate with a simulated fucking scene, Bill behind me, and at the last moment he is supposed to simulate jabbing his cock up my asshole instead of into my cunt, thereby defiling and debasing my romantic impulse, playing my love for a cruel kind of sex.
I'm on the bed now, and at his first touch I almost cringe. I don't want Bill touching me any more, and I fight to get him oriented back as the college kid to make his touches easier. Bill uses the opportunity to good advantage; his hands are all over my breasts and hips, and as the scene continues he slips his fingers into my crotch and up into my cunt. There's nothing I can do but let him feel into my body and keep reminding myself that I'm Lilly, and he knows that I'm helpless. When the moment comes for him to supposedly jam his cock up my asshole I feel a sudden jab at my pussy and realize that he has stuck his cock up my cunt and is really fucking me. Despite my shock I manage to scream in supposed pain and outrage then fall limp and let him have his way. The bastard, I think to myself, biting my lip as he slides in and out of me, the bastard! I wonder if Mark Langstrom can tell he's really screwing me up here; I hope desperately not. Then I feel Bill straining and suddenly he is coming inside me, bursting like a coiled spring suddenly released, and I feel the tension of the performance draining from him into me. Then the scene is over and I'm off stage dressing quickly and hoping that his damn sperm won't run down my leg during the last few minutes of the performance. I resolve to stuff myself with a tampon the next night so he won't be able to pull any shit like this again, the fucker.
The last few minutes go smoothly and the curtain falls and I feel the tired exhilaration of having completed a performance and the slightly queasy feeling of knowing that nothing stands between me and the real thing now but twenty hours. After the performance we change clothes and return to the stage area where Mark is waiting for us. He says a few things to a few people, glancing at notes he has written during the performance, and then tells us to relax and forget about it all until tomorrow evening. As I'm walking slowly out of the auditorium I hear his voice suddenly call my name.
I turn sharply and look at him.
"I'd like to talk to you a moment," he says.
I go sit down by him and wait for him to tell me something, expecting some kind of criticism of my performance, but instead he just looks at me wearily and smiles as if his whole body is drained. Again I see the fatigue around his eyes and feel myself pulled toward him, and without thinking I lean toward him and softly rub his temples with the heels of my hands. He closes his eyes and receives my caress thankfully, and when he opens his eyes again our hands are together, our fingers laced. Neither of us says anything; there's no need for words. Words are plays and conversation and scripts and criticisms and directions, but touch is all there is to feelings, all that is needed.
We sit there like that for several minutes in silence. I feel his hand relaxed in mine, and once he closes his eyes for several seconds and lays his head back against the chair. Then he shakes himself back to wakefulness and looks at me softly.
"Can I drive you home?" he asks.
I squeeze his hand in answer and we go out through the empty auditorium to his car parked outside. In five minutes he is parking in front of my apartment, and together we climb the steep stairs to my floor.
Inside I pour him a glass of wine and we sit listening to music and looking out the window at the people driving past, at the lights of the city towering around us, and at the occasional pedestrian that walks past below. I feel the immensity of it all pressing around me like some huge indefinable beast, not exactly threatening, just awesome, incomprehensible. It makes me feel my own insignificance, my own tiny speck of humanity in this human sea, and I know that Mark is feeling the same thing. We go through our days and our lives as if it's all earth-shakingly important, suffer and sweat out our work and our loves, and only rarely do we take a good look around us and put ourselves back into perspective like this, and in some strange way it is a comforting thing to do.
I don't exactly know when we come together. I simply realize at some point that we are lying on the couch with our arms around each other and our lips glued together, our tongues seeking the hot softness of each other's. And it strikes me how strange it is, and how strange I feel. Strange because for the first time in my life I'm lying in a man's arms and it's no different than talking or holding hands, or looking into each other's eyes. I know what is coming as sure as I know I'll make it tomorrow with Lilly, yet it seems so different from all the sex I've had. It isn't exactly sex and yet it is, or perhaps it's so much more than sex with the sex acting as the medium. Whatever it is I feel suddenly like I've released a huge load and relaxed in a way that I've never relaxed before, yet I'm also feeling hotter, more turned on, then I ever have before. Mark's hand traces down my neck and I shudder as I feel it move onto my breast. I thrust my breast into his hand and press my thighs against his, and slowly as we feel each other I lift my knee between his legs and rub up into his crotch with it. I begin to shake as I feel his hard cock with my knee, and I can't stand being dressed any longer.
I sit up and pull my clothes off, and I'm aware of Mark's eyes caressing my bare flesh as it appears, washing over my bulging breasts and darting in to see my throbbing cunt. I sit naked, smiling, and let him look at me. Then I begin undressing him, pulling his clothes off until he's lying there nude with his cock stuck up in the air like a flagpole, his balls cupped by his thighs and rounded full. I feel my belly tighten, constrict with a kind of hunger that is new to me, and I lower my lips to his organ and slowly suck at the swollen bulb of his prick. And what a prick, I think, what a beautiful cock he has. I've never really thought of a cock as being beautiful in itself before, but now I'm awed by the size and symmetry of it, by the strength of it, the power. I want it inside me but not yet; first I want to love it, to suck and even abuse it a little, to squeeze it and bite it and caress it until I've worked it to its full power.
I slip down lower, my mouth formed in an oval, and I suck on his balls until I'm sucking so hard that he winces. I smile to myself and lick them tenderly, slicing my tongue into the softness of his scrotum between his nuts. Then I slide my tongue back along the root of his cock. He raises up and my tongue finds his asshole and with a kind of frenzied ecstasy I penetrate him with my tongue, rubbing his fully extended cock with my hands, scratching lightly at his balls, until I feel him jerking in my fingers and know that it's time to let him inside my oven.
I sit on top of him and lower my cunt around his penis, wetting the tip with my flowing juices, sinking lower and lower around him as he strains upward, thrusts up into me. Finally, with all my strength, I bear down on him and grind my cunt over him until I feel him jabbing up so high that it hurts, and the pain makes me want more of him, more and deeper. His hands sink into my bouncing breasts and we heave and strain together feeling our pulse in our locked genitals, feeling our love merge sexually into a final climax of ecstasy. He pounds harder and I grind and thrash on top of him, and as he's coming I come too, and with a kind of wanton abandon I've never really acted out before I take his hand and force his finger up my asshole all the way and it feels like I'm having a double climax.
Afterwards I lay with my head on his pubic hair and idly lick his cock clean of love juices, letting my tongue wash around and around his stem and balls while he lies and moans under my ministrations. I feel his body relaxing and know that he's falling off to sleep, and I feel sleepy too, but I don't want to let his cock out of my mouth, and finally I fall asleep with it still in my mouth and it's the best sleep I can ever remember having.