Shakespeare's Valentine Pt. 01

"Duncan comes here tonight."

She was right on top of her cue: "And when goes hence?"

I was still holding her. I didn't want to talk about Duncan, I wanted to keep kissing her. I threw away: "Tomorrow, as he purposes."

She gripped my face and stared hard into my eyes: "Oh never shall sun that morrow see."

What had she seen in my face? Reluctantly I put her down, and she continued:

"Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men may read strange matter..."

The rest of the scene played itself. She wanted to talk about how best to deal with Duncan; I just wanted her back in my arms. I reached for her after my last line:

"We will speak further."

But she grabbed my wrists and held them down until she'd finished her admonition:

"To alter favor ever is to fear."

Then she reached down and began unbuckling the belt of my jeans as she cooed:

"Leave all the rest to me!"

Victor said: "Let's take ten."

Well, thank fuck!

12.

That night Cherri and I had dinner at a small brewpub, which served the best food in Oakhurst, the small town which housed the Oak Ridge Shakespeare Company. It had not surprised me at all to learn that there were a fair few oak trees growing in the area. Cherri was wearing a fleece-lined denim jacket over a dark red crew-necked t-shirt and black jeans. I had on an old army jacket that I'd picked up in a surplus store, a black t-shirt and blue jeans. She looked grunge-chic glamorous. I looked like a trucker.

The day's rehearsal had been intense. Aside from our first scene together, and a rough staging of 1.7 (Macbeth waivers, and Lady M mocks, challenges, and reassures,) we'd spent the second half of the day on the scene immediately after the murder, in which Macbeth, overcome with remorse, starts hearing voices condemning him for the deed, and Lady M gets the first panicky inklings that this new post-murder version of her husband might not be so easy to control.

We were seated, and suddenly a little shy of each other, the way you can be after working intensely one-on-one with somebody you don't really know. After a little silence, I tried some small talk.

"So, Cherri, uh...where you from?"

She gave me a pitying look. "Mister, you are out of order."

What? I know you're not supposed to ask a woman her age, but what was wrong with...well, shit. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be..."

She laughed and cut me off. "No, Silly, I mean, you're out of order. As in you've done things in the wrong order. You're supposed to try that line before you put your tongue in my mouth, and your hands on my ass."

Hmmm. "Well, in my defense, all that was in what you might call the line of duty. And if I'm remembering correctly, you put your tongue in my mouth first. Just seemed, I don't know, neighborly to reciprocate."

She laughed again, louder. I was starting to like her laugh. "I don't know if I've ever seen a bald man blush before! Your whole head turns pink. It's kind of cute."

Marvelous. "And, by the way, I had to put my hands on your ass. Otherwise, you'd've fallen when you tried to climb me like a beanstalk."

"Ha! Now who's misremembering? I just wrapped one innocent little leg around you! You're the one who grabbed me and lifted me up like you were going to take me for a ride right then and there."

"Believe me, I considered it."

"I know. I could feel you considering it."

13.

So at this point, I'm having what a diplomatic sort of person might refer to as an internal discussion; a barroom brawl between the big head and the little head, brains and balls, lust and...let's think about this for a minute. Cherri had apparently decided to dispense with the small talk and just start flirting. And on one level, I was fine with that. More than fine. I'd wanted to bed Cherri almost from the moment I'd met her, and the way things were going, I might just get my wish sooner rather than later. Depending on how hungry the woman was, and what exactly she was hungry for... And God damn but I wanted her! Individual parts of my body felt magnetized, drawn towards contact with her: hands, lips, arms, legs, chest, cock...

The problem was that I had other responsibilities, which were maybe better served by not leaping into bed with my co-star before we'd even memorized all our fucking lines. I was being paid--not a lot; this is the American theater after all--to rehearse and perform a play, which meant that I had a responsibility to provide a committed, compelling, technically proficient and entertaining performance five times a week over the course of a month. Before that, I had a responsibility to collaborate, over a three-week rehearsal period, with a director, a team of designers, and my fellow castmates to create a framework for my performance and for those of my fellow actors.

Sex could seriously fuck all that up.

Well, the wrong kind of sex, of course, could seriously...ah, hell!

I mean Gil and Magnus were probably having sex pretty regularly, right? They were married after all. And I'd been in plenty of productions in which cast members were dating designers, directors, other actors. I'd seen showmances come and go with no adverse effects to either party. On the other hand... I'd also been in the occasional nightmare horror show in which cast members had broken up mid-rehearsal. The resulting tensions, gossiping, cliques, backstabbing, in one case revenge hook-ups--yeah, plural--had made rehearsals labored and inefficient, and had undermined cast cohesion resulting in a long, unfunny and labored production of fucking Laughter on the 23rd Floor, if you please!

As an unattached adult with 20+ years in a profession in which you're working closely with a constantly changing collection of attractive and talented people, I'd had all kinds of sex. I'd had the sort of sex I suspected might be on offer from Cherri: mutual attraction (I hoped) coupled with a day of working on sexually charged material, and a quest for reassurance that the product you're selling--in our case ourselves, mind and heart, body and soul--is still attractive, desirable, and all the rest of it. I'd had that kind a sex a fair few times. Loved it! It was great! Unless it wasn't.

And if it wasn't, then you had to work closely--in our case very closely--with somebody for seven or eight long, miserable weeks, thinking about whatever...wasn't. Not all the time, but you had to be lucky, because if you weren't you might start thinking about "whatever wasn't" in the middle of a scene, and then you might go up on a line. Or in the middle of a fight, and then you might miss a parry, or come in a little hot on a cut, and...it hadn't happened to me. Yet. But there's a certain amount of superstition surrounding Macbeth; not a play you want to fuck with, where luck is concerned.

On the other hand...FUCK!!!

14.

"Yeah, well, sorry about that, but you're a pretty great actor."

All of the above may or may not have gone through my head in the time it took me to process that Cherri had noticed my erection when we'd been rehearsing 1.5. The good news was that I didn't say: "Of course I had a hardon, you gorgeous bitch! I want to fuck you so bad my brain hurts, never mind my dick!" The bad news was that I wasn't sure if what I had said was any better.

Apparently neither was Cherri. "Why do you say...? I mean that's really sweet, but..."

My mouth was way ahead of my brain. I hoped like hell it knew where it was going. "I watched you rehearse 'Come you spirits...' I've been in this play twice, and seen it who knows how many times, but I've never seen anything like the way you...invited all that evil into you. I watched your legs part, and your hips rocking back and forth, and heard you offering up the milk in your breasts, for me, for us, so that we could have...everything: power, wealth, glory, whatever, and I just...my body just...responded. Honest to God, I've never had an easier entrance. I just stepped in loving you, needing you, so yeah, when you jumped into my arms...hell, I'm surprised I managed to hang on to my lines!"

She was staring hard at me. "Jesus, Honey! Do you know, I could hear it in your voice? Remember the second time we ran the scene? The first time was just...I don't know. I mean I like playing highly sexual women; I think it's something I'm good at. And you know I was really glad that Gil cast you, instead of some incredibly handsome hunk like Kal..."

Thanks a lot! I thought, but did not say.

"I mean...wait, sorry, that sounded wrong. Not that you're not handsome, but, I don't know, for me the line that says everything about their relationship is when you call me your "dearest partner of greatness." You know, in the letter? They're equals; they're partners, and he...I don't know, it just...it feels like a really happy marriage to me."

"Ah ha: Shakespeare's Valentines! The mystery is solved." Okay, for whatever reason we were talking character rather than flirting. I had a moment's pang for what I figured was now a lost night of romping naked with Cherri, but I consoled myself by thinking that maybe that ship still hadn't sailed quite yet. For now, I was happy to chat about our life together as a fictional married couple. And I was delighted to hear Cherri and I seemed to be on the same page. "No, seriously though," I continued, "I agree completely. They confide in each other, they support each other, and they definitely know how to push each other's buttons."

"Mmm hmm," the mischief was back in her voice, "all kinds of buttons in all kinds of ways."

I was actually a little frightened of how easily this woman got to me, and I was just weighing the pluses and minuses of bending her over the four top and giving her a good hard spanking (and having trouble coming up with any minuses,) when she continued in a more conversational tone of voice.

"But what I was saying before, about how glad I was that Gil cast you? Look, I love Kal, and, sorry Darling, but he is quite the dreamboat..."

"Hey, no arguments from me. He's good, and he's good looking, damn him!"

"He is good, but it's more of an action hero kind of good, if you know what I mean. Laertes or Tybalt, but never Hamlet or Romeo. For me, Macbeth's a soldier and a killer, but he's also vulnerable. He's conflicted, and...I don't know, we didn't really get into 1.7 today, but like when I called you a coward--ugh, I should have these lines: 'something, something...live a coward in your own esteem, letting I dare not wait upon I would...' Anyway, I really saw that get to you, and I thought: thank you, Lord, for sending me a goddamn actor; somebody who'll let me get under his skin! Kal and I did Oberon and Titania a few summers back; the man has all the vulnerability of a Sherman tank!"

Okay, not necessarily the done thing to throw your fellow actors under the bus like that, but also not unheard of. I suspected that Cherri was responding to the chemistry between us, which I had certainly felt both at the read through and at the day's rehearsal. Maybe she hadn't had much chemistry with Kal. Didn't know, and didn't care.

I said: "Well, you know what? Right back at you. I watched you respond to everything I put into "My dearest love" that second time through. It's...well, it's pretty exciting to work with somebody so...in the moment."

She leaned across the table towards me, took both my hands in hers and lowered her voice. I leaned close to hear. Our faces were inches apart. "Well, my Thane, I have a little confession to make. I wasn't actually responding to what you said, so much as I was looking forward to what was about to happen in the next few seconds."

"And what was that, my Lady?"

"Well..." she bit her lower lip, like she was trying to keep from giggling. Then she whispered: "Put it this way: working with a talented partner is a pleasure, but working with a talented, handsome, sexy partner who really knows how to kiss...that's just hot as hell!"

15.

It was maybe a half mile walk back to the apartment complex in which the Festival had housed us, and it was mid-January in the upper Midwest. It was probably pretty fucking cold. Couldn't tell you; didn't notice.

Cherri put her arm around my waist and pulled me close. I responded by wrapping an arm around her shoulders. We walked through quiet streets. Our strides synched up pretty well: I was only a few inches taller than her, and her legs were longer. And there was this delicious, warm tingle, like pleasant static electricity wherever our bodies came into contact. She'd leaned her head in towards me, and her hair was close enough to my face for me to smell her shampoo: lavender, with some other herbal something, and just a hint of her own personal aroma underlying it, like a gentle bass line laid under soft jazz.

We stopped just outside the entrance to the building, and she stepped into me, weaving her arms up around my neck. I reached around under her arms, and pulled her close. She wiggled around until she found the bulge of my erection hard against the front of my jeans. Grinding against me gently, she lifted her lips to my ear, and I felt her warm breath against my face and heard the smile in her voice as she whispered the lines from 1.5.

"Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor! Greater than both by the all-hair hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond this ignorant present, and I feel now the future in the instant!" Then she turned her face up to me.

I murmured: "My dearest love..." and brought my lips down to meet hers. Her mouth tasted slightly of the beer she had drunk with dinner, and her lips were smooth, full, soft, and utterly intoxicating. As in rehearsal, I began gently--she'd praised my technique, such as it was, so I figured I'd stick with what had worked--but my heart was beating so quickly, and her lips were so sweet, and her tongue so...saucy--when had we opened our mouths?--and the little sighs and moans she was making were so hot, and my hands dropped down, past the sensuous curve of her waist, to cup her soft round ass, and then she was kissing my neck, and I could smell her hair, and she was moaning! It took me a second to make out the words:

"Let's go in! Please, my Thane! Oh, God! Let me just get my..."

And just then a strange, wonderful, terrible, intoxicating, stupid, brilliant idea popped into what was left of my lust-addled brain, and I said:

"Wait..."

16.

Cherri said: "Huh?"

I held her close, breathed--or maybe panted--in her ear: "Hold on a second."

She pushed away from me. I let her get far enough to look into my face, but no further. She caught her breath, as if she'd just finished a sprint and then said: "Honey, if you're about to tell me that you have a girlfriend, or that you're gay or something, I swear to God, I'm gonna..."

"No, no, no! Nothing like that."

"Then why...?"

I said: "Cherri, how are you feeling right now? Don't think! Just answer."

"Horny as hell, which is why I don't..."

"Is your heart racing?"

"Uh huh, but..."

"Senses heightened?"

"Um...yeah, sure..."

I dropped my voice: "Is your pussy wet?"

A pause. Then she said, cautiously, as if it might be a trick question: "Yeah...it has been pretty much ever since you kissed me in rehearsal this afternoon. Why? Is your cock hard?"

I leaned my mouth to her ear, and pulled her body against mine. I whispered: "You know it is, Sexy, you've been grinding against it ever since we stopped walking."

I could feel her breath on my face again, and hear the impatience in her voice as she rasped: "Then will you please tell me, you...sexy but infuriating bastard, why we are standing here in the cold night air, when we could be in your bedroom or mine--I really couldn't care less which one at this point--fucking our brains loose?"

I said: "Come to my room. Ground floor at the back. Give me ten minutes to explain what I'm thinking, and then...you decide, okay?"

I kissed her gently. "Please, Cherri? I'm not playing head games with you, or at least, I won't unless you want to, but..."

"Fine! I'm pissed, but now I'm kinda curious. Kiss me again?"

I did. A long, passionate open-mouthed kiss. At the end of it, she sighed, and rested her forehead against mine. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but, Honey, you keep kissing me like that, you can do anything you want with me! Why don't guys like to kiss anymore?"

"No idea. I love it, or I thought I did, but then I started kissing you, and that's a whole other kind of wonderful!"

"You are so full of shit. Come on. Let's hear this 'great idea' of yours..."

17.

I ushered her into my tiny living room, and she sat down on an old sofa next to a dinged up coffee table. Cherri looked around: "Yeah, I've got pretty much the same set up. I think your couch is a little cleaner though."

"Seriously? Who did you piss off?"

"Hey, you're the guy in the title. You get all the nice things." She smiled at me as I brought her a cup of hot tea, declined cream and sugar, but accepted a splash of Maker's.

I sat down next to her, close enough to touch, or cuddle, or kiss, and poured some whiskey in my tea as well. We clinked cups, took a sip, and then she put her cup on the table and looked at me like 'Make your case.' Even in the shitty lamplight, she was beautiful, sexy, provocative, exciting. I would run out of adjectives long before I got tired of looking at that slightly triangular face, those enormous eyes, those delicious, full, red lips. But I'd said ten minutes.

"So, Cherri, here's the thing. I don't really know you or your work, and I don't imagine you know much about me or mine, but when I was here in the summer, I saw a bunch of pictures of you, and it looks like you've done some amazing stuff here: Titania, Olivia, Imogen, Lady Cap, Lady Percy, was that Elizabeth in Richard III?"

"Yeah! She was a lot of fun! I've been pretty lucky here, and some other places, mostly in the Southeast. What's your point?"

"I don't get a lot of the big classical roles: I've done Leontes a couple times, and one Claudius. Uh, Cornwall in "Lear," and...let me see: Capulet, Casca, lotta C's, oh, and Caliban too. But mostly in Shakespeare I'm funny character guy: Dromio, Dogberry, um, Launce in Two Gents, Pistol in Henry V, like that, so when these folks called offering Macbeth, I thought: okay, I'm getting a shot at one of the biggies, and I may never get another, so let's go! Let's get off book, let's read around, let's come in with ideas and let's be open; all that good stuff, and then I walked into that rehearsal room, and saw who my Lady was, and I was..."

"You were what? You said you didn't know my work."

"No, but I'd met you, we'd chatted for a bit at the opening party. I don't know if you remember..."

"I remember. I thought you were kind of adorable. You'd done such great work in the season, and then when we were talking it was like you didn't know where to put your hands. I kind of hoped you hit on me a little, but you never managed to get around to it."

"Well, shoes!" She giggled at that. "I wish I could've read minds, because I wanted to...hit on you so bad that night my whole body ached. But I thought, I don't know, maybe you were with somebody, or...and I didn't want to be a pest. Anyhow, cut to a couple days ago: there you are, and we're going to be working together, closely! And now I've got what the Meisner people might call a 'strong secondary objective.'"

"Meaning?"

"Now I want two things. I want to give a kick-ass Macbeth, and--every bit as much--I want you. Which is a little weird. Not that you're not a stunningly beautiful woman, because you are!"

"You're sweet."

"I'm not, though. Pretty much ever since I met you I've...lusted for you. There's no other way to put it. I'm a little afraid to tell you how crazy you make me!"

Cherri leaned toward me, giving me a gorgeous view of the tops of her breasts as they rose and fell above the neckline of her t-shirt. She seemed to be having some trouble catching her breath.