The Method Actress Ch. 01

"But you play war video games... You shoot people and maim them and blow up their fucking heads. So you're pro-war and pro-violence."

"It's a game, Lara..."

"There you go." Lara didn't say anything more, and after a moment, Ellie understood. "BDSM is a game, not a political manifesto on gender roles. Getting spanked by a guy I like doesn't mean I want to lose the right to vote, or that I should stay in the kitchen. It only means one thing: that I like to get spanked by a guy I like. End of story."

Ellie went silent for a bit in order to think, at one point telling Lara she was still there and asking her not to hang up. "OK, your point makes sense, but... I'm still... not completely comfortable doing BDSM in a society with so much sexism."

"Woah, woah, wait a second!" Lara's tired voice disappeared, and she started giggling. "Are you interested in trying in BDSM?"

"What if I am?"

"Well, it's just... surprising... I mean, coming from you. You just don't look the BDSM type, like at all." Ellie chuckled. When it came to how she looked and her demeanor, she looked like an android devoid of any understanding of sex, and she wasn't particularly into it either. "OK, here's how I'll put it: if you're a woman in 2021, and you're into dominating men, you're fucking lucky, you're the luckiest you could ever be. You were born at the right time, and your fetishes lines up perfectly with what activism wants to hear. You can talk about it openly, you can scream it on top of rooftops, and the media will give you a voice and make a point of celebrating you."

"And if I'm into being dominated by men?"

"Then it's bad luck, honey. You're in an awkward fucking position. All the work you've done to fight for your rights, all the times you've stood up to sexism, all the actual, tangible efforts you've made for equality... poof. Gone. No one will care. They'll see you on your knees in front of a man, and that's the only thing they'll focus on. If you like dominating men, you only have to deal with sexism, and you have the full support of activists behind you. If you like being dominated by men... then you'll have to face sexism AND a large portion of the movement that's supposed to be on your side. Girls like me, we get twice the amount of shit, and a lot of it is from our own sisters. When you're like me, you often feel alone."

Ellie listened as she went to the fridge to pour herself some more wine. What Lara was describing to her wasn't the brightest, most positive picture ever. There was a lot of harsh truth there.

"Truth is Ellie, you'll be an embarrassment to many women. They'll see you as an awkward taint on women's rights. And there's lots of men out there who will love you for the wrong reasons—they'll see your submission as the proof that deep down, all women want to be inferior, because again; lots of people go by this logic that if you kill in video games, then you must be violent."

"Lots of idiots," Ellie muttered.

"Well, the world's full of them. When I shoot my BDSM porn, I know that somewhere, there's a woman pitying me and seeing a brainwashed victim. And I know that somewhere else, there's some pathetic sexist feeling vindicated as I suck a cock with a collar on. He's frustrated that women called him out for his sexism, he's angry that women aren't as obedient as he'd like them to be, so he watches BDSM and tells himself: I knew it; deep down, women want men to take control of them, I was right all along. It's the video game logic."

Ellie drank a whole glass of wine. The problems with Julie's character were now fully evident—not her character as in her personality, but the character itself; what she could represent. Or rather, what people would choose to see through her.

"Intentions are one thing," Ellie mused, "but interpretation is another."

"That's right. You have your intentions when you do something, Ellie, but people can always choose to interpret it their own way. You can't change that."

"Yeah... It's what scares me about BDSM. I don't want to enable men who'll twist it the wrong way."

"Well, if you're going to keep it in the private eye, just find a guy who you know is not a sexist and do it with him. You wouldn't date a misogynist to start with anyway."

Yeah well, there was the rub... What Ellie had in mind... it wouldn't be in the private eye... What she considered dealt with the most public of contexts. What she considered dealt with screens projecting images across the entire planet.

"Listen honey, I get you," Lara said. "It's a mindfucking thing. Being sexually submissive to men, given everything that's going on these days... it's awkward. You can't act like it's not—it's in an awkward danger-zone, like a minefield. You'll just have to deal with that."

After that, Lara declared she had to go to sleep. Ellie thanked her for the convo and hung up. Now she was alone again, engulfed in the darkness of her room and the darkness of an uncertain mind. But just like the downtown's skyscrapers shone outside, there were still rays of light in Ellie's mind. There had to be ways... there just HAD to be ways with which Julie could do all the things she did, and still send a clear, healthy message; one no imbeciles could distort.

Yes. There had to be. Ellie had liked Julie from the moment she had read the first page. Now she was loving her; loving her for what she represented. Nuance. Complexity. A message that wasn't simplistic and reductive. There had to be ways for Julie to suck cocks left and right and still align with the values Ellie believed in.

She poured herself another glass of wine, drank it all in one go, and then called Jonathan. Directors never turned-on silent mode during the night—there could always be an urgent call from a producer, or a change of plans from the studio. The phone rang for a little bit, but then he finally picked it up.

"Urgh..." he groaned, all sleepy. "Who is it?"

"Hey, Jonathan. It's Ellie."

"Ellie... Oh, Ellie, hey. Why are you calling so late? Wanna apologize for the snail prank? It's weighing that heavy on your conscience?"

She chuckled. "You know I won't do that. No, I'm calling for something else... I wanna, uh..." Fuck. For the last seven years, she had always been offered roles. Becoming a renowned, respected actress meant you didn't need to go to directors—directors came to you. Ellie took another sip of wine to rid herself of her embarrassment, then spoke. "I read Obsession's script. I really loved it, especially Julie's part. And... well... Jonathan... I would really... REALLY love to play Julie."

There was a silence at the other end of the line for a moment. "Oh, Ellie, I'm... I'm flattered, really. You're the best actress I've ever worked with, by far, you know that. It's just... you don't really fit Julie's casting."

"Physically? The script just says she's blonde, I can dye my hair. And yeah, it says she has a hot body, but... Well Joe, you don't really know what my body's like. I always dress super baggy and tomboy, and my costumes in the other movies covered me a lot."

"I don't mean just physically. It's... your energy, the feeling you bring on screen... Ellie, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"Are you like, asexual?"

Ellie chuckled. "It's the vibe I give off, I know. It's how I dress and act. But no, I'm not. Listen, you know me, I'm a method actress. I can completely transform into a role. Annie and the other women I played did have an energy more like mine, I recognize that. But Jonathan... I can play Julie better than anyone else."

Jonathan sounded really awkward on the other end of the line. "Ellie... I really can't see it. At all."

"I'll prove it to you," she said. "Let me audition. Please, just let me audition, at least give me a chance."

He must have heard the uncharacteristic trepidation in her voice. The always calm, always quiet Ellie had now a lively, shaky voice. "Ok," he said, still unconvinced. "We're starting the auditions Monday. Are you free?"

She had to meet another director for a possible role—a prestigious role in a prestigious period film. That director was a great one, but she was also renowned for her ferocious temper. If Ellie cancelled the appointment, she would surely lose the role.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm free Monday."

"Alright, then. See you Monday."

After hanging up, Ellie took a deep breath. Julie was HER character. And no one else would play her.

***

It was Sunday morning. She had slept four hours, woken up at 8, and decided she could wait no longer. Ellie was now dressed in her every day, baggy attire, looking like a hoodlum, and was walking out of her car to her destination: The Sex City. She entered the sex shop and promptly headed for the BDSM section. There, a young woman welcomed her with a professional smile.

"Can I help you? Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"Yes," Ellie said, with her trademark calm that hid the excitement she was feeling. "I'd like to see your collars. Also, do you have these suction dildos? The ones you can put on walls? I'd like one, please."

***

Ellie was back home, and the living room's heater was set to a higher temperature than normal. The reason was simple: normally, she wore clothes at home. The thespian took off her shoes, socks, and clothes in front of the large, glass curtain wall, stripping naked before the city downtown. Thankfully, she was an art film actress, not a big studio star—paparazzi's bothered celebrities, and she wasn't one.

She looked at her reflection in the glass and smiled.

Ellie was toned and fit thanks to daily exercise and a healthy diet. Lara was ten times hotter than she was, with her perfect large breasts and Playboy model body, but Ellie had stopped feeling jealous of her a long time ago. She was more than proud of her own physique, now; a lithe, firm, and healthy-looking physique. Plus, there was much more than the body when it came to looking sexy. A lot of it was in the attitude.

Well... that was something Ellie had little experience in. Everyone described her as androgynous. Her attitude and demeanor were that of a tomboy seventeen-year-old, hardly that of a confident, feminine woman who could seduce men left and right. Not that this was a problem: she was an actress, and one of the best ones in the industry. Still completely naked, Ellie walked over to her laptop and searched for "nude model posing," on the Internet.

For a whole hour, she watched videos upon videos of naked models posing sensually for the camera, analyzing their every movement and every single detail of their body language. She assimilated their gestures and applied them to herself, arching her back, straightening her posture, exaggerating her curves with slight changes to her pose. After that, she turned towards the curtain wall again. Ellie's heart stopped.

The window washers were there, and they were looking at her dumbfoundedly. Oh God... She knew them too. Well, not personally, they had never spoken, obviously, but they would show up every Sunday, and Ellie would always wave at them and show them what she was cooking herself that day—a cute little interaction they always had. Hell, did they even know she was a girl and not a young boy? Given how she usually looked, with her hoodie covering most of her face and her demeanor, they must have thought she was a fellow male, albeit a slightly effeminate one. That would have explained their aghast looks as they looked from behind the window.

Ellie realized they had to have been looking for a few minutes now—minutes during which she had her back to them, doing little sexy dance moves as she was leaning towards her laptop screen. The window washers had had a great, sexy look at her ass. It was extremely embarrassing... but Ellie didn't run away or cover up.

"I'm Julie," she told herself. Julie would relish in showing off her bare body. Instead of running away, Ellie stood her ground and smiled, applying the body language she had just analyzed. She stood in front of the window washers, proud and sexier than she had ever felt, and started to walk towards them sensually.

They just looked at her, dumbfounded as they floated in the middle of the air. "I'm sexy," Julie told herself. "I'm beautiful, I'm hot and I can seduce any man I want." She brought herself to the curtain wall and turned around, pressing her bare bottom against the glass and rubbing herself up and down the window like strippers did against their dancing poles. Ellie then turned around to show off her full-frontal nudity some more, running her hands across her chest and her tits, biting her lips and making her eyes flirtatious.

It was so fun. The three men were literally hypnotized—she could control exactly where their eyes went just like you could control a cat's head by dangling a shiny object in front of its face. Ellie had just turned these guys into mindless, drooling drones with nothing but her bare body and her attitude. It felt so powerful. SHE felt so powerful. Finally, she turned around once more, leaned forward, and pressed her ass against the glass, miming a slapping gesture to them. Chuckling, the three men "slapped" the glass.

"Am I sexy?" she screamed, loud enough that the guys were able to make out what she was saying.

They nodded and gave her thumbs up—she was more than sexy, that much was clear.

"Okay, enough," Ellie laughed, feeling her cheeks go red. She signaled for them to go, and they did. "Phew," the actress went. Wow. That was something else. She couldn't believe she had just made a total slut out of herself in front of window washers. More than that, she couldn't believe how fun it had been.

Her stomach growled, but she didn't have time to make herself another salad—she had an entire identity to learn. Ellie quickly ordered a pizza on the phone and moved on to her next task. She put on the leather collar she had bought, and then placed the suction cup dildo against the curtain wall. Ellie walked to the other end of the room and stared at the dildo. It stood horizontally against the glass window, staring at her. She felt like she was in an Old West showdown, like a cowboy staring at her opponent.

"Okay," she thought, closing her eyes and putting herself in Julie's shoes, even though ironically, Julie was always barefoot during blowjobs, taking off all her clothes to increase the asymmetry between her and the men she blew. "This cock is all I want. It's all I need. Nothing else exists. It's my goal, it's my objective, and there is nothing else."

Ellie opened her eyes and looked at the dildo again. She focused on all the uncertainties in her life and all the things that brought her stress. She had not played a role for a whole year now, and that was risky for an actress. Move out of the spotlight for too long, and you'll be less desirable. Actors who kept working all the time kept getting jobs. What if that sabbatical year she had enjoyed would end up destroying her career?

And she had cancelled her appointment with the other director for Monday. That director wasn't gonna take it well—she had lost that part, and maybe that director would give her a bad name. Maybe a rumor would start to spread: Ellie Price cancels her appointments, she can't be trusted, she's not punctual, don't bother contacting her...

And now she was fighting to be cast as a submissive cocksucker. What if she DID get the role? What if the movie would get lambasted left and right, and she would be decried for playing a sexist, pathetic character who would be seen as the ultimate symbol of internalized misogyny?

All those things brought her stress levels up, so much so that Ellie was now genuinely reconsidering playing the part of Julie. But it was only temporary stress, the sort one could easily stop by listening to some music or thinking about something else. Ellie would chase away her stress by closing her eyes and doing some breathing exercises, but she wasn't Ellie, now. She was completely naked with nothing but a collar on. She was Julie. And Julie's method for calming herself down was there, stuck to the glass wall.

"It's not just a cock," Ellie told herself. "It's a hard cock. It's hard, and juicy, and thick, and I want it in my mouth so bad. Think like Julie, think like Julie." Sucking cock was more than sucking cock for Julie. Sucking cock didn't mean wrapping her lips and moving her head until the man ejaculated and her chore was finally done, it meant more. Sucking cock was an experience—it was a way to close all thoughts, to focus on something simple and peaceful, a repetitive, hypnotic action that brought her relaxation.

Like yoga. There it was—Ellie had found the perfect parallel to her own life. She felt the stress she had conjured up running through her body, and now she needed to get rid of it. Ellie went on all fours, slowly, and started crawling towards the cock. The closer it got; the faster Ellie wanted to get to it. The actress reached it and wrapped her lips around it, filling her mouth with it. She closed her eyes and focused on nothing but the cock, losing herself in the repetition, the texture of the dildo, how it felt in her mouth. After a while, the stress lessened, and she thought almost only about the blowjob.

But something was missing. Ellie could see what Julie liked about it; she could understand it, but she could also tell something was missing. This was just a dildo. There was no overwhelming feeling of testosterone above her, no strong and manly presence, no personality, no background, no prior history. That's why Julie didn't just go around sucking off any phallic shaped objects, she needed to suck actual cocks attached to actual men. There was another element from the script that was missing—the hands on her head. Julie LIVED for a man's protective caress of her hair, or his violent grabbing and pulling of it. Ellie needed to experience how that felt.

She caressed her own hair while sucking, then tried pulling it. Didn't really work. She could lie and pretend many things as an actress, but there was still a reason why actors needed to work together.

The doorbell rang. Pizza was here. Ellie had completely forgotten about her hunger, but now she had an idea. She walked up to the door and opened it.

"Hey, Ellie Price, all-dressed?" the delivery guy looked up and went mute.

"Evidently not all dressed," Ellie quipped with a smile, posing in the entrance like a playboy model. She looked at the delivery man—he was her age, somewhere in his late 20's, and his look was a cross between a lumberjack and a hippie, with a long red beard, a little bit of a belly and strong looking arms. "Yeah..." she mumbled to herself. "You'll do."

"Do for what?" he mumbled.

"Shut up and come in," she said, dragging him inside and closing the door behind her.

"Uh, ma'am?"

"I said shut up." She put the pizza box on her kitchen counter and took the delivery boy's hand, dragging him into the living room. The poor, confused guy noticed the dildo on the glass wall. "OK, so I'm getting into BDSM and I have literally zero experience in it. Just hold my hair while I suck the dildo, ok?"

"What?"

"Hold my hair, it's not complicated." Ellie went on all fours again and untied her ponytail. Her hair fell loose across her bare shoulders, and she threw an impatient look at the still confused young man. "Come on." Hesitant, he brought his fingers to her hair and grabbed them lightly. Ellie rolled her eyes and threw him another look. "Dude. Seriously?" The befuddled lumberjack tightened his hold on her hair, enough that Ellie could now feel "owned" by him. "Perfect!"

And she threw her mouth on the dildo once again, sucking it passionately with her eyes closed. Yes! Yes, it worked now! The guy's hand holding her hair while she sucked, it made it so much better! She felt degraded, humiliated, excited. Ellie was even starting to get a little aroused. Could it be that she was into being submissive? She had never been turned on thinking about it or had fantasies of the sort, but now that she was trying it out... it was kind of hot. Ellie could see why Lara and Julie would be into it.