Shakespeare's Valentine Pt. 03

Uh oh.

66.

I knew because I liked her. Oh, I was in lust with her too, but the lust was easy. Cherri was a beautiful, passionate, generous lover, and there was nothing I looked forward to more than the time we were spending exploring each other's bodies. Well, nothing except for all the other time we spent together, rehearsing, talking and joking, giving each other shit, discussing our characters, or the play, or the director, or the other actors. I looked forward to walking with her through gray streets towards institutional apartments in shitty weather. I looked forward to falling asleep next to her, listening to her breath coming slow and rhythmic and easy.

Maybe it was just the work. The rehearsal process tends to amplify and intensify emotional connections. People fall in love for the duration of a contract, and then don't see each other again until an audition three years later.

Maybe. I didn't think so.

I also didn't know how Cherri felt. Although there seemed to be hopeful signs.

Oh well. Like I'd known from the moment I'd set eyes on her at that table read: I'd have to be goddamn careful.

67.

I said: "Cher, just so you know, you don't need my permission, or anybody else's for that matter, to make yourself happy in bed. I mean not unless we're playing "Naughty Schoolgirl and Stern Headmaster" or something, which I would be totally down for..."

She giggled. "Sounds like fun. Which one am I?" Then she put her arms around me, held me tight and said: "I know." She gave me a soft kiss, said: "Thank you." She curled up and laid her head on my chest, and closed her eyes. In a small voice, she said: "Sleepy. Do you mind?"

"Of course not, my Lady." I leaned back on the couch, and prepared to give my award-winning performance of the pillow Othello didn't use to smother Desdemona. Before long, I heard Cherri's breath even out. Soon my eyes closed, and I was down for the count.

68.

We dressed for dinner. By which I mean I put my boxers, jeans and t back on, and Cherri replaced the plaid pjs with something between sweats and yoga pants, and an Oak Ridge Shakespeare Festival t-shirt from a previous season over a bra. I couldn't swear to panties. Then she made a salad with chicken and apple slices and a dressing which involved vinegar and something with fruit in it. It was delicious, and I said so.

"Thanks." We'd just finished, and Cherri continued, as I started to load the dishwasher. "I was never a particularly good cook, so I sort of became a good combiner. Lots of salads and sandwiches and wraps and stuff like that."

"That's a good skill to have, particularly in New York, where restaurant meals can sneak up on your budget, if you don't know where to go."

"DC too. It's actually a great food town, but unless you know some of the better small places..."

"Is that where you're from? You never told me."

"Didn't I?" She grinned. "No, I suppose I didn't. It was too much fun flirting with you. I grew up in a small kind of horsey, country clubby town called Great Falls. In Virginia, maybe an hour west of Washington. Now I have a place in Bethesda, which is on the Maryland side of things. Still basically a DC suburb. How 'bout you?"

"Raised in Spokane, resident of Brooklyn by way of College at UW, and grad school at Northwestern."

"Ooh, I love Chicago! I've always wanted to work there."

"Oh, it's a great town, although it's tough to break in if you've already got your card. They like to discover you, so that when you become a movie star, they can claim you and mount your head alongside Garry Sinise, John Malkovich, Tracey Letts, and Amy Madigan."

I'd finished the dishes, and now I came and sat across from Cherri. I studied her face, felt a goofy smile creeping onto mine.

"Good evening, my Lady."

She smiled back at me. She had a beautiful smile. "Good evening, my Thane." She sighed. "This has been such a lovely day..."

Wait a minute. Was there a 'but' coming?

"But...we really should do a little work on the play."

Oh. Okay. "Sure." I think I kept the relief out of my voice. "You want to run lines?"

"Well," there was some mischief in her voice, "remember that scene we rehearsed a part of last night?"

"Scene we...what?" The penny dropped. "Oh! You mean, uh, Act 1, scene 5a?"

"Um hmm." And now she was purring. "We really only covered the end of the scene. I think we need to talk about the beginning."

I said: "We could do some table work. As in: I could bend you over the table and see how that works."

Cherri giggled. "Maybe we'll rehearse that sequence later this week. Actually, I've been thinking quite a lot about blowjobs."

69.

We were still seated at the table, possibly the place in the whole apartment least conducive to the activity she had just mentioned. I did not immediately get up and move to, well, pretty much anywhere else in the apartment, because I am an adult. I have self control. Took virtually every ounce of it to stay seated, but I managed it. Instead I said: "Well thank God somebody has. I don't know how long it's been since I've thought about a blowjob."

Cherri said: "Fifteen minutes?"

"Oh no. More like forty five."

"Minutes?"

"Seconds."

She laughed. "Okay, not that I haven't been dreaming about blowing you for the last week. And I do intend to be on my knees pretty soon sucking a nice creamy load of cum out of your cock for dessert. But, and I am not kidding, I have been thinking about blowjobs, and how they relate to Macbeth, and I do kind of want to talk about it."

Recovering from that little speech took a minute. "Alright, let's talk. Let me just..." I reached down to disentangle my suddenly erect dick from the gap at the front of my boxers.

"Oh, did the thought of my pretty little mouth wrapped around your nice, thick cock of yours get you all hot and bothered?"

"You're an evil little minx, you know that?"

"Which brings us to what I was thinking about."

"Seriously?"

She frowned, then grinned. "Part of the problem is...I really am having such a wonderful time being with you, in bed and out of it. I sometimes don't even want to think about the play, because, fun as it is, we both eventually have to go to these hellish, isolated places. But," she blew out a breath, "I've been thinking about this, and...anyway. First day of rehearsal, that second pass through 1.5: the kiss, and you picking me up, and my panties were soaked before we were three lines in, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"I could almost taste the need coming off you. The whole scene, you were reaching for me, and I knew that if I let you get your hands on me, I'd just lie back, and spread my legs, and let you...just have your way with me. Gil and Victor could have watched, for all I cared, you had me so worked up."

"I think I literally reached for you. Towards the end. And you grabbed my wrists..."

"Uh huh. And then at the very end, I kind of started to unzip your fly, like I was going to take your cock out, and just get on my knees."

"Oh fuck, Cher!"

"I know! For the rest of the day, I was...choreographing the next few minutes, for the Macbeths. You know: what did we do next? And I got a little stuck, because the way I would behave sexually with a husband, or a long time lover, is usually different than the way I'd behave with a new guy I had the hots for. But you were both, you know? You were Macbeth, my husband, but you were also this interesting and attractive man I'd met once and wondered about."

"Okay, is that what we're exploring, these...different approaches?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm kind of leading up to. So that night was our dinner, and when we got home, I figured we were heading to bed, but you stopped us."

"Yeah, dumbest idea of my life. I could have spent five more nights in bed with the most beautiful, sensual, compelling woman I've ever..."

"Dai, Honey, please...don't!" Her breath was coming short and fast. "When you talk like that, I just want to kiss you, and your kisses..." A deep breath. "Whew, this is not going to be easy. I'd planned to take you up to my room. We'd kiss and make out some, and then I was going to blow you, because..."

Cherri paused, and her expression became thoughtful. I said: "Because?"

She looked up and stared straight into my eyes. "Because that's what I always used to do. And that sounds kind of messed up, saying it out loud. But the thing is...so many of the guys I got with, the sex, the fucking, it was all about them, and that...sorry, I know I said I wanted to talk about the play..."

"No, no, keep going."

"Thanks, I think...so yeah, all about them, which usually made sex unsatisfying for me, but which also put pressure on me to...get it right for them. But oral, that's all about pleasing your partner, right?"

"I...sure. I mean, I like eating pussy..."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"But it is more about giving pleasure than receiving, I suppose."

She was nodding, slowly. "But it's also a bit of a power trip, isn't it. I mean, if your cock is in my mouth, not only am I controlling your orgasm, but I can potentially hurt you...a lot."

I considered that. "You mean like teeth? I think that sometimes kind of adds to the excitement for the guy, if he thinks about it at all."

Cherri's eyes opened wide, as a new thought struck her. "Yeah, but there's more, which is particularly relevant to the Macbeths. Okay, this is seriously fucked up, but it's super helpful for me. Maybe not so much for you."

I'd caught some of her excitement. "Tell me!"

"You're sure you want to hear?"

"Yeah, come on, give!"

70.

"Okay, think about the last blowjob you had."

"Jesus, if I can remember that far back..."

Cherri chuckled: "Aw, poor baby! Well, if you're patient and let me work this through, maybe we'll refresh your memory."

I took a deep breath. "You know, you really are a temptress. Okay, last time would have been with the last woman I was seeing semi-seriously. What about it?"

"Did you cum in her mouth?"

"Doubtful. She didn't like the taste. Sometimes she'd let me."

"So sucking you was foreplay. When you were hard, and maybe wet enough, you would move on to the main event."

"Sure."

"At the end of which, you'd cum inside her?"

"Well, inside a condom. She had issues with the pill."

"But what if you'd been married, and interested in having kids?"

Where was she going with this? "Obviously, same scenario but without the condom."

"In fact, you'd be sure not to cum in her mouth, because you wouldn't want to waste an opportunity, particularly if she was--sorry about this--closer to our age, right? If she's in her late thirties or early forties, conception is much chancier."

I was starting to understand. "You're saying the Macbeths, and maybe Macbeth in particular, would consider a blowjob a...like a waste of resources? That makes sense, I guess."

Cherri was shaking her head. "Yes and no. On one level it's a whole lot darker. First of all, I don't think Lady M would approve of oral sex even if she could conceive of it. A 11th century Scot, and a Catholic? She would consider it not just a waste but a sin, since she would consider one of her primary functions to bear children. But think about that same 11th century woman actually letting, or even making, her husband cum in her mouth."

I got it then, and the image was appalling in its viciousness. "Oh, hell. He'd see it as her...eating their children."

She nodded. "And so would she. So. No oral. Straight mish in Inverness, right?"

"Right."

Cherri gave me a wicked grin: "Until I decide you might need a little persuading to murder Duncan, and I call up some spirits to "fill me from the crown to the toe top full of dire'st cruelty." Then all bets are off."

"Ahh, now that's...interesting."

"You, Dai, know how good a blowjob feels, don't you? Just the thought of my warm, wet lips wrapped around your shaft makes you want to throw the table across the room to get at me, doesn't it?"

I'd already begun to stand, but she held up a hand. "Uh uh! Sit, boy!" Then she giggled. "Your turn to wait for my little idea."

71.

Sit, boy, forsooth! "Do I at least get a treat?"

Cherri made a little show half of closing her eyes and licking her lips. "Uh huh," she purred, "and so do I. Now," her voice returned to a normal, if slightly breathy, pitch, "so as far as I'm concerned, those spirits are totally real to Lady Macbeth. It's not rhetoric. She's inviting them into her, and she has to react physically to their, um, entrance. I always had them sort of rushing in between my legs, because I liked the sort of masterbatory image of Lady M ravished by her own cruelty. But if these things are literally demons coming into her body at her request to devour her humanity..."

I quoted: "Come to my woman's breasts and take my milk for gall..."

"Exactly. They'd enter all of me, wouldn't they? The whole human; every orifice: eyes, ears, mouth, maybe even the pores of my skin, as well as vagina and anus."

"Sure," I was fascinated by this window into her process, "making sure every part of you, every sense is enlisted in the service of what you're planning to do. Or in service of what you're planning on getting me to do."

"That's the thing, isn't it? In my imagination, you're my tool. I mean you're also my husband, and I love you..."

"Yeah, but do you any more? Have these spirits of yours left any of the good stuff like love behind?"

She sat back, thinking: a new idea: "Oh, shit! You know I think they have! I mean, this is a literal faustian bargain I'm making. I think I'm using them, but they're using me because of course they are. I think they do leave my love for you intact, so that I can see and be destroyed by what I've helped to make you into. Oh fuck, they even leave me my grief for my dead child, because I'm sane just long enough to hear of you murdering Macduff's kids, but that...just topples me over into the abyss."

"And maybe literally off the wall of the castle. That's how you die, right?"

"Maybe. Probably. That's how what's-her-name, in that Macbeth movie that Playboy financed back in the 70's, that's how she died. Oh fuck, Dai, this is amazing!"

She leapt up, and pulled me out of my chair, hugging me tight. Then she kissed me, hard and quick. "Oh my Thane," she laughed, "you're even fun to descend into madness and misery with. Or something."

I was laughing too. "It's a delight working with you too, my Lady! All this from thinking about blowjobs!"

"Right?" And before she continued, I had a second to think how weird and wonderful it was to connect with somebody on so many levels at once. We'd just had an in-depth professional discussion, which had touched on some pretty bleak and horrible stuff. And maybe it had altered the chemistry between us for the moment, but it hadn't dissipated it. Then Cherri was talking again, still full of the energy of discovery. "I just assumed the sexual spirit--the succubus, or whatever it was--came in between my legs, because of course it would? But I don't really need demonic help fucking you. We're married. We know how to do that. No. The succubus comes into the ear, closest to the brain." And now her breath was at my ear, and her voice had dropped to an excited whisper. "She's teaches me all the other lewd, depraved, unnatural things I can do to you to keep you in my sexual thrall," then, a seductive murmur; slower, predatory. "Like sliding your thick, hard cock between my soft red lips, and sucking...and sucking...and sucking, until the pleasure is too much, and you explode inside my mouth, allowing me to devour your seed."

71.

Now her hand was between us, stroking me through my jeans. "Almost time for your treat, Lover." She breathed. "You just sit on the couch. I need to go and, um, powder my nose. Don't move. I'll be back in a sec."

"Yes, my Lady."

Her forearms snaked around my neck, and she pulled me to her. Her tongue flicked at my mouth until my lips parted to allow her inside. The kiss was languid, messy, slutty, and sexy as hell.

She broke it off, patted my cheek, and said: "Good boy."

I sighed, smiled, and watched her as she sauntered off toward the bathroom.

"Woof." I said. But too softly for Cherri to hear.

72.

I don't remember what was on my mind as I waited for Cherri. Most of the blood in my body had probably already fled south. Bet I was smiling though. She'd called me fun. She'd said she was having a wonderful time being with me. Yeah, in retrospect that's pretty much all there was on the radio.

73.

Then she was standing in front of me, back in the black babydoll: soft pink skin and rough black lace, green eyes made sultry with shadow and liner, lips full and smooth with lipstick the color of maraschino cherries. My resourceful Lady had found a new path to beauty. I'd been introduced to sophisticated Cherri. I'd won the trust of vulnerable Cherri. I'd shared a bed with Cherri au natural. I'd bantered with exuberant Cherri, and comforted forlorn Cherri.

Hadn't met slutty Cherri yet. But I suspected we'd get along just fine.

74.

But of course I had. The woman I was falling in love with contained multitudes. She was a creature of infinite resource and sagacity. Her price was above rubies. Age could not wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. I could've gone on.

"Did you miss me, Lover?" She seemed to read the answer in my eyes. "Mmmm, there's that look again: a starving man with a banquet in front of him." She giggled, and ran her hands up her body, caressing her breasts. "Not sure what part of me you want to eat first?"

"That's one of those rhetorical questions, right? Because you look so fucking good, I really don't care."

"That's good, because you don't get a choice. Stand up."

I stood up.

"Take off your shirt."

I took off my shirt.

Cherri stepped close, and ran two fingers across the upper part of my chest. She spoke as she stepped around me, tracing my shoulders. "You know, I love your body. Such broad shoulders..." she ran her hand down to my bicep, squeezed. I reflexively tensed. "Mmmm, nice! And I know how strong you are. You pick me up like I'm nothing. Last night, God, I thought you were just going to slam me onto your cock and do me up against the wall!"

"I thought about it."

"Mmmm, maybe we should try that the next time you, um, don't paint me."

"Maybe we should."

She came back around to face me. "Jesus, the look in your eyes! You'd do it right now, wouldn't you? Or you would if you didn't know that I had other plans," she wrapped her arms around my neck, and pushed her body against mine, grinding her naked pussy against the bulge in my jeans, "for that nice, hard dick I can feel through your pants."

"And what might those be?" I growled as she continue to rub against me, "oh fuck, that feels so good!"

"I want to get on my knees, just like this." She suited the action to her words. "Then I want to look into your eyes while I take off your pants. I want you to see how much I need it." I felt her hands pulling at my belt, unbuttoning my jeans, and unzipping your fly. My eyes never left hers. Jeans and boxers fell in a pool around my ankles, and I felt her wrap a warm hand around my shaft. "Then," her eyes broke away from mine to look at my cock, hot and hard and pink, the swollen head inches from her lips, "ooh look how hard it is for me!" She opened her hand and rubbed the soft skin of her cheek along the length of it. "Then I want to take it between these slutty red lips, and kiss it and lick it and suck it until you blast a big load of cum into my pretty little mouth!"

Her tongue snaked out, lapping the head of my dick as if it were an ice cream cone. I groaned. "Mmmm, are you ready?" she was panting now, almost as hard as I was. I nodded, and she nodded back. "Uh huh, uh huh, you ready to watch your little slut swallow this big cock? Huh?" I was nodding, staring down at her, and then my eyes were shut tight, and my body shook, as Cherri devoured me.