The Play

Author's note: This is a bit of an experiment in form, playing with tension, pace, and narrative. More of an abstract flashing of memory across your mind than anything. &, I'll forever love exploring the electricity between artists. Hope it turns you on.

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It was a play that brought them together. A big play, in a small historic theater near a river, in a make or break you city. Each at different points in their striving -- you know the life of artists, full of stops and starts. Successes, lulls, stumbles. The crest of luck that pushed them together was set in motion by them both nabbing lead parts.

On the stage is a bed, another dragging rehearsal winding down.

"How are you feeling? Just checking in." He pulls his shoes back on.

She flashes him a telling look, they were both struggling to achieve the author's specific vision in this, a critical scene.

"Processing."

In the wings they can hear the murmur of conversation. The tone matches the frustration she feels. The director playwright commanded -- "reach for him this way." So she did. "It doesn't ring true," he would critique. "That can't be the case!" -- she would shout in her head.

She looks back at him. The charge between them is undeniable. It wasn't for their characters they were touching, exploring, kissing, breathing each other in -- but they lent it to them, gave them the real through the lens of imitation, under the guise of each not knowing.

"Seeing as we're done for the day, want some company to process with?"

She takes a deep breath and tilts her head up, slowly exhaling, telling herself it's a bad idea. She turns to look at him and holds his gaze -- "Yes."

The door of her walkup is lit softly by a light above, the only sound is that of a cricket, hidden from discovery and so unwaveringly playing its song. The shuffle of their feet ends at the small, square landing of her stoop, and like gravity -- constant, inevitable -- he draws her into him without a word.

Her fingers press gently to halt his lips. "Promise me, this doesn't distract from the work. Promise."

He holds her face and nods, sincerely. If anything -- he thinks -- this is what's making them so mechanical, restrained. The fear of this release before an audience. It's too much shared honesty to put on display, it would slide into the absurd. There's a fire in his chest, he leans in for what he's tasted under pretense -- he's nervous. In the depths of their kiss his hips lean against hers, pressing her back into the door. The tender caress of her tongue against his knocks out his knees.

The latch sounds its click and the warm glow of a lamp at the end of a hallway, reflecting off the glass of a tall window, draws them in, to the beckoning of her bed.

He momentarily pulls back, reaching for the phone in his pocket. He hits play -- Interpol: Public Pervert, Not Even Jail, The New. Mood is everything. Clothing is pushed off, rolled against skin while the soft parts of their thighs meld and intertwine. Bodies pulsing against one another, he soon presses himself into her, exhales of shock at the sensation, rocking against one another, a needful grumble from his throat -- a throat she kisses and feels the vibration against her lips.

His hand tangles in her hair, pulling her head back so her lips are positioned beneath his -- he takes them, greedily. He moves her so she's pinned between his girth and the pillows cushioning her from the firmness of the wall. Pulling her hands behind her back, then holding her ankles wrapped behind his waist, she begins to tremble and cry out. He slows down, goes deeper, holding her gaze as he pushes her towards her pleasure, rolling his hips in a way to guarantee his aims are won. He wants her to completely melt down on him, tenderly, helplessly. He succeeds in his desire, she relaxes into him as the height of her orgasm ebbs away. In her trembling she didn't notice he came with her, nearly swooning, yet he managed to keep his focus on heightening the sensations rocking her.

He pulls her lips onto his, rolls her onto his chest, resting inside her. Grabbing for the comforter he wraps it around their waists. Kissing her deeply he holds her hair in one fist, her jaw in his other palm -- never wanting to leave her embrace.

Sleep soon conquers the weary lovers.

It's a week and four days later, when after multiple punishing rehearsals full of frantic changes and an opening night, they're back pressed against one another. He knows how much she sacrificed in last night's performance. Her body gave out after the curtain dropped. He brought her back home. She sent him away, reluctantly, then slept until noon. Night finds him back in her bed.

"Where do your thoughts roam? You're so quiet, but I can feel it."

"Don't encourage me," she whispers, "I'm trying so hard to stay focused."

"Please -- I'm out of my head. I have to say it, we've been expressing it, I've been loving you with my whole being, everywhere, in front of everyone. It's no secret."

Quiet.

"Your body betrays you," he starts again, "in the way it responds to my touch, be it here, alone -- or there, where the world can see and know it. It's not purely an act. Tell me you think of me as much as I do you."

"Constantly," her voice has the lightest touch of disquiet. "The way you look at me in our scenes, you are the one looking at me -- you -- and I'm looking back. We're naked in front of each other all the time, in every way. I'm working so hard just to keep up, to embody my work, and -- to ask me to release into this? I have an impossible time allowing myself what I want, you have to understand -- "

"I do. I can tell you I honestly do. Though, this feels -- frictionless. I won't be foolish, messy as it is, I won't keep this from myself or from you what this feels like."

"How does it feel?"

"Singular. Given to us. Like we need only acknowledge it. I know you feel it too."

She waits a long beat, then turns to him, "yes."

He reaches his hand down between her legs, cups her thigh and pulls her onto him.

"Please -- tell me, again."

"Yes."

He gently thrusts against her, inside her.

"Yesss."

Her warm breath across his lips as she says this drives him slightly mad. He senses her vulnerability and honors it with a tender kiss. Her gliding on him makes his insides ache at the electric pleasure. She's an intoxicant, he's addicted to the truth of her. The way she's able to access herself, and share it with him, with a public seeking the sacred parts of life through art(ifice). The way he fits between her legs, the way she smells when he's touching her and the alchemy of her scent draws him further into delirium. The gentle sounds of need escaping them both, he takes her mouth with his to intermingle their groans.

Tasting her is bliss, he pulls back and draws his tongue against her collar bone, up her neck. The delicate, salty sweet of her sweat elicited from their efforts -- he feels himself rushing towards release, needing to step it back. Slipping a hand between them he caresses her while rocking deep inside her. Her response makes him weak, the music of her voice as she quietly pleads for him to keep touching her like this, it's not long before he feels her body tense on him. He shifts atop her, all his weight behind his thrusting coaxing out every pulse of orgasm. He can't hold on much longer and lets her know.

She holds his back, keeping him close as he roll his hips against her, he catches her neck in his palm and crushes his lips to hers. His arms give way as he releases into her, he catches himself on an elbow, head dropping onto her shoulder, chest heaving.

"Baby -- huuuh, mm," he breathes, his lips finding hers again.

"I know, I know."

He draws her to him, so her heart beats up against his, through the cages that try to protect them. Both now enjoying the mellowing softness, throbbing, aching, relaxing.

"I can't deny it, and you've known that from the moment you walked into the audition -- the air changed," she whispers in the half dark of her midnight room, "you'd won me immediately."

He feels his body alight and wraps her in a tighter embrace.

"I didn't realize, all this time -- weeks, months -- I was holding my breath. Waiting for you... to hear you say that." He presses his lips to her neck, whispers, "please, keep me. I don't want to know what any of this looks like -- without you."