by Joey W. Hill
Hard work gave the subconscious mind a chance to work out the tangles of life's more complicated issues. Over the next few days, the end run toward opening night took up most of her waking hours. She and Harris were neck deep in production details, while at the other end of the burning candle she and Madison pursued the endless ways to market the event.
Promoting a BDSM erotic event in the mainstream community was a delicate tap dance, but with Madison's passion for her theater's mission and Julie's marketing savvy, their efforts started to bear fruit. Ticket sales that had started initially as a harrowing trickle became a solid flow when they stepped up the social media campaign and secured radio and TV spots. Madison's loyal customer base, Logan's wide network of BDSM club members and the students helping with the production proved invaluable at spreading the word.
On the production side, there were run-throughs to review scenery, light and sound cues. The cast run-throughs were different from formal rehearsals, much heavier on the technical end and blocking than on running lines, because this first offering was intended to be a glimpse through the looking glass at the BDSM world. The show was billed as unscripted, organic, unfolding on stage according to the direction of Dom to sub, which helped increase buzz about it.
Avant-garde theater typically didn't command large audiences, the players doing it more for love of the medium than an expectation of big ticket sales. However, Wonder was offering an inside glimpse at a world that fascinated the mainstream. When they'd sold two hundred and fifty of their four hundred ticket capacity, Madison was ecstatic.
Julie was happy, because she could turn her attention back toward the production itself. She and Harris focused on improving the stage elements for each performer so their presentation would be even more dramatic, without messing with the integrity of the scene itself. She also made sure each of the initial run-throughs or any significant changes were reviewed by Des, Logan or whatever expert they recommended to double check safety matters. All the stage hands and cast members were required to sit in on a comprehensive safety discussion with her, Logan and Des.
"We're all responsible for the safety of our performers," Logan told them. "A Dom can get stage fright like anyone else and miss details he or she wouldn't normally. So if we all watch out for one another, we have a good show on every level."
"It's fun, it's play, it's intense in all the right ways," Des had added. "And it only stays that way if we watch out for one another every fucking minute."
Julie had concluded the talk with a reminder. "During the show, if there's anything that worries you about what's happening on, behind or around stage, you bring it to Harris's or my attention immediately. We want this to be a resounding success, but we won't hesitate to stop a scene right in the middle if someone is at risk. We want people to learn about the beauty and reality of BDSM, and keeping people safe is a very real, true part of it."
Des had been sitting in the back during her little speech, but when she'd said that, her eyes had shifted to him, held. His lips curved and he gave her a slight nod. Knowing his concerns about "performing" BDSM scenes, she was bolstered by his approval.
She had met Missive and spoken with her a few times as part of the show prep. She was everything Des had said she was. Slim, blonde, young and beautiful. She was also pleasant and smart, so helpful and service-oriented that Harris had suggested they lure her back as crew for future productions.
Desmond had told her a lot about Missive. She had no permanent attachments in the scene, and possessed an adventurous submissive nature that enjoyed a wide variety of experiences. Yes, she and Des had done quite a few rope scenes together, but she'd also volunteered as Logan's sub for his whip instruction classes at his club. At least three other Masters and Mistresses in the cast had had the pleasure of doing scenes with her for violet wands, fire and role play.
Outside the scene, she was an engineering student with a busy lifestyle. Des suspected she might have a vanilla relationship in that world, but Missive preferred to keep that part of her life private.
Knowing all of that should have made it easier for Julie, and spending some one-on-one time with Des did help. As promised, he'd taken Julie on a two low-pressure, no-sex dates in the little spare time she'd had. The first had been dinner at Mac's Speed Shop, a popular pseudo-biker and BBQ hang out that had to-die-for mac-and-cheese and brisket. They'd listened to a great live band, Des's arm stretched over the back of the booth behind her, her leaning into his side, tapping her fingers to the music on his thigh. The noise made conversation a lips right against the ear requirement, and they kept one another laughing with the conversations they shared, and half aroused from their close proximity.
She was a hypocrite, because the casual, safe atmosphere unleashed her inner tease. She'd pressed up against him when she spoke in his ear, and he acknowledged it with a snug arm around her waist, fingers sliding intimately into the back pocket of her jeans. Light kisses exchanged became deeper, more lingering, his eyes heating on her face when they broke apart, but he hadn't taken it further than that. When he dropped her off that night, he'd given her a kiss that had left her vibrating, but he hadn't asked to come in. She'd told herself she wouldn't offer, and then spent the rest of the night aching from her own stupidity.
Not until after the performance. Take it slow. No one has ever died of sexual frustration. Yet.
Whenever he came to the theater, whether it involved meeting with Harris about his own scene or helping out some of the carpentry guys, he always came to see her first. He'd kiss her, then wrap his arms around her, letting her tuck her head beneath his chin as he held her for a lingering few seconds in an embrace that conveyed romance, affection and sexual interest all at once. It was the best part of her day.
Once when he came to do that, she was in the pit with Shale, where they were discussing her scene needs. The Mistress was doing a provocative cage scene with her sub, Troy, the handsome blond male who worked with Logan at his hardware store. Shale was a nurse but always reminded Julie of a cross between a tall, slim fairy and a biker chick with her snug jeans, heavy metal rock T-shirts and her love of motorcycles.
"Des," Shale said fondly, giving him a hug and brushing her lips along his cheek. Julie had decided the man was known and loved by everyone in the BDSM community. "I never thought I'd have the pleasure of seeing you up on a stage again. It's made us all love Julie even more. I suppose you'll be doing something suspension related?"
"Yeah." Des borrowed Julie's water and took a swig, handing it back. Julie noted Shale's speculative look at the casually intimate gesture. She maintained a look of bland innocence, though she really wanted to succumb to a cocky and far too premature yeah, that's right, he's my man smugness. The amusement that touched Shale's features made Julie wonder if she'd detected that. Des did say she had a rotten poker face.
"He's a circus performer, Julie. Don't let him hide his gifts from you. He can do it all. Rope, fire, electric, roleplay, whip, wax, impact...name your freak."
Des made a noncommittal noise. "I'll always learn new stuff, but I'm a rigger at heart."
"Yes you are," Shale agreed, and elbowed Julie. "His suspension will be a crowd favorite, but he prefers the quiet stuff. That's where his heart is."
Des shrugged. "Give me a few coils of rope, and a nice quiet outdoor place with a stream, a big tree...that's the best."
He lowered the bottle, wiping his lips with the back of his arm as he put Julie squarely in his view and considered her with frank and thorough interest. "A tree with a branch thick enough to hold us both. I'd stretch you out on it, tie you face down. Then I'd slowly fuck you while the tree sways with the wind." A thoughtful look crossed his face. "I'll have to work on finding the perfect tree for that."
The carpentry team called to him, pulling him out of whatever setting he'd placed her in his obviously busy imagination. Handing her back the bottle, he swiped a cool, damp kiss over her stunned lips, then strode back toward the wings.
S
hale nudged her wrist, reminding Julie she was holding a bottle of water for her suddenly dry throat.
"He goes from casual and friendly to intense like that in a blink. It's hard for a woman's heart not to be tipped by it, isn't it?"
"Yeah." But instead of feeling good about that, Julie thought of Missive, the face she now put on every sub he'd ever had or would have, before and after her. She took a swallow of the water.
"He's always been careful to maintain boundaries, though," Shale mused. "I've never known him to date a sub, and we've been in the same circles for about five years. There's obviously something a little different with you. He's more engaged, and his eyes have a harder gleam." Shale fluttered her fingers toward her own long-lashed ones. "More predatory, in the right ways. But I suspect you know that, since you just took another swig of water at the thought."
Julie snorted, but she was feeling better. "Should I be afraid or happy, or send him packing?"
Shale smiled with a Domme's feral pleasure. "That's always the question, isn't it? Good luck with that."
As Shale left her, Julie watched Des. Though he was involved in a scenery issue, she had a feeling he was as aware of her as she was of him, particularly after dropping that distracting visual.
Their second date had occurred in her little room at the theater. The day had ended at nearly midnight, after the Consent version of a dress rehearsal. After Harris left, and it was just her and Des, he'd taken her to her room, pushed her onto her bed and given her a foot massage that had her moaning with pleasure. He turned her on her stomach and also gave her a full body massage that had her vibrating but limp as yarn, the day's exhaustion covering her like a blanket.
When he'd pressed a kiss to her cheek, she knew he was getting ready to leave her. She found his hand with her eyes closed and held it. "Stay a while," she mumbled. "Watch TV or something."
He'd obliged, stretching out on the cot with her. She'd adjusted so she was sprawled against him, cheek pillowed on his chest, arm wrapped over him as he brushed his lips against her temple and she made a contented noise. He channel-surfed her small TV while she fell into a heavy doze.
Nothing had marred her opinion of him. His sense of humor was as uncensored and outrageous as hers. Their intellects were well matched. While she wanted to see how his performance with Missive made her feel, and she was determined not to move beyond flirting and simple enjoyment of his company until then, sometimes she wondered who she was fooling. Even the most casual interactions with him had a way of making her feel like she was falling deeper into a sweet abyss.
Then there was the other side of things. She read up on Type I in her spare time and, the more she liked him, the more she worried, because what he'd said at Bob Evans told her he wasn't a typical Type I patient. But except for that discussion, he'd made that subject off limits. Would that change after opening night, if she was still okay with their relationship?
Truth, she didn't want to wait until after opening night. Maybe some part of her worried that what she saw would ruin everything, and it would be over before it had barely started. Maybe if she had something more to solidify their relationship before then, it would help her perspective, help her weather whatever that night would bring.
No, she wouldn't try to control fate that way. She was going to trust her instincts. Opening night was going to be the start or finish line, and that was that.
Chapter Eight
Opening night. No matter the show, opening night was always special, infused with a tremendous energy and excitement. And nervousness, because no amount of run-throughs or rehearsals were ever enough, especially in community theater, where they were limited because of day jobs, school and other scheduling factors for a volunteer cast and crew. From cast choice to opening night, they'd had six weeks to prepare for the show that could make or break Wonder.
Jitters were to be expected, but Julie had been down this road before. She embraced and transformed them into an ebullient excitement, letting that flow of positive energy ground her cast and stage crew. She created an infectious "we're going to totally rock this" feeling. Hell, things could always go wrong and they would, because that was the nature of the business. Part of the fun was figuring out how to make it work so the audience thought everything went exactly as planned.
Tonight, though, she had a niggling barb in that rainbow-and-unicorns flow of energy. When Des was with Missive tonight, it would be for a performance, she told herself fiercely. Yes, Sand Kilroy, one of the actors she'd dated, had screwed his leading lady. A couple of them. He hadn't limited himself to the theater manager. But he wasn't Des. Des made her feel extraordinary, a way no other man had made her feel.
Tonight she'd have to watch him do the same thing for another woman. For the past week, she'd been unable to tune out her cast members, raving about her "coup" in convincing Des to join the line-up.
"He takes subs on an indescribable journey," Tony, one of the Masters, had told her. "It's spectacular to watch, even for a Dom. He may not like performance, but when he's in the zone, it's like he was meant to be on a stage."
Des had told her that she was different. What did he have to do to prove it? Why the hell should he have to? She knew why she was back to square one on this crap. For the past several days, as her insecurities mounted, there'd been no more time to spend together. This was why, in romance novels, the hero was a gazillionaire who ran his empire on two languorous hours a day, and the heroine always had a mega-important altruistic job that never seemed to take up any of her romance time. A job that in real life would have denied her a social life of any kind or even regular showers.
Yep, she was doing the panicking thing, just like Marcus said. She was back to thinking she shouldn't do this with anyone, ever again. The stage was her lover, the one that had never let her down. She didn't need the rest of this. She was already composing a text to Des in her head.
REALLY REALLY REALLY can't do this. You're too perfect, and I can't handle that. Please don't talk to me again. Consider this a restraining order, one on the honor system. You don't want me and I can't want you. I am too fucking fragile.
"Stop it." She slapped herself, earning a startled look from one of the lighting guys rushing by. It was all right. He'd just figure it was some pre-performance superstition. She ignored him and slapped the other cheek.
She wasn't doing this. She had a performance to run. She had to be on her A+++ game. Fortunately, the muses sent Madison as a reminder. The theater owner appeared at her elbow like a serial killer popping out of a closet, making Julie yelp.
"Hey. You okay? You look so pale. Did you eat anything today?" Pulling out a pack of peanut butter crackers, Madison put it on the podium where Julie would be posted in the wings. Harris would be in position on the other side. Tonight was really all his show, because on performance nights, the stage manager was the hub of the wheel. She was just here for troubleshooting support and to see how the show unfolded so they could evaluate and adjust afterward to make the next one even better.
Madison handed her a bottle of water. "I think you lost ten pounds rushing around these last few days, and I gained it through nervous eating. It's filling up out there. We sold out, Julie. Can you believe it? You said that almost never happens. Tell me not to be terrified."
Thank God. Just like that, Julie clicked back into the role she knew, finding her footing and her joy again. Damn man.
"Totally be terrified," she said, giving Madison a maniacal grin. "That's the fun part. Over the next two hours, you get to slide from terror into handspring happiness when the audience abandons their reserve and gets fully into the show."
"What if they don't?"
"There is no don't. There is only doo. Which is why I carry doggy poop bags." Julie did her best Yoda imitation and chuckled as the joke visibly derailed Madison from her one-track catastrophe scenario.
"You idiot." Madison poked her. "Anything I can do to help?"
"No, we're good right now. Harris and his t
rusty production book are in charge of it all. Look at him over there. He looks like Napoleon ready to launch a full scale invasion of Europe. He's a god and he doesn't even know it."
"I think he threw up in the bathroom a little while ago."
"It's his little ritual. Don't worry about it. It's going to be fun, because it's so unscripted. That's exactly why it's going to be magic." Putting an arm around Madison, she gave her a squeeze. "Your man is there in the front row looking for you. Just go enjoy. You paid me the big bucks to be here and handle this."
"Oh yeah," Madison said dryly. "I traded on our friendship and gave you enough to cover your weekly groceries, and you took that only because I insisted. You lived in the theater these past few weeks."
"Because I wanted to. It's the place I feel most at home."
In ways that weren't always healthy, but her self-actualizing side could just shut the hell up and go eat a pint of ice cream. "Now scram. Nervous owners are bad luck backstage on performance night. Just be ready to accept all the congratulations at intermission."
Or do damage control, but Julie held that thought to herself. The worst would come if it came. No sense in wasting energy on it.
"I think you made that up, but I'm going." Madison hugged her impulsively and then disappeared, heading down the side steps to return to the audience. Julie could hear the crowd building, but it was one of many details she absorbed right now. She watched the lighting and sound guys taking their places, making final tweaks. She heard the radio through her headphones on the podium beep and crackle, Harris doing last minute checks. Performers moved through the shadows on her periphery.
One of them was standing silently, waiting nearby yet out of the path of the stage hands. Mistress Lilith apparently had her own ritual for getting her and her sub into the proper mindset. As she threaded a whip through her fingertips meditatively, her sub knelt at her feet, his head down as she stroked the bright red hair at his nape. He had a tattoo of a snake down his spine, visible since he wore only a pair of jeans. Lilith was in a silver catsuit. Neither of them looked nervous.
