Chapter 3

Nervous about my performance later that evening, Saturday morning spent watching the remarkable videos Chanda had shot and edited actually quieted me. Even seeing myself, though not enjoying the experience, ended up helping.

"For a lummox, he moves beautifully," Miwa commented wryly.

"Mmm," Lindy agreed with a hum that sounded libidinous.

"Sexy, isn't he?" Miwa grinned.

"Mmm-hmm. I just love his deep voice. His expressions, his presence, his whole being, so subtle on stage it's like the every day adorable Joe writ large."

"He gets me all juicy playing off him," Betty added.

"You guys are giving me a big head," I blushed.

"It is getting bigger," Helena commented, continuing her caresses of my cock through my pants that had begun near the beginning of Lindy's play we watched on the monitor. I had been reciprocating when she placed my hand between her thighs where I felt damp panties and the heat beneath them. Everyone chuckled except Natasha who hushed us.

Natasha had looked a bit lost when I saw her arrive at Barnaby's studio. She seemed to cling to both Nick and Naomi who held each of her hands. I asked Nick about it.

"One treatment in each orifice didn't salve her completely," Nick whispered to me. "She couldn't stay awake for another and had most disturbing dreams that made for a restless sleep. We didn't have time for a morning application. This will help bring her back, the things that give her immense pride, directing and writing. But after this we will continue conquering Simon's presence inside her."

The Goth smugness did return, though a bit subdued. Natasha even gave notes between scenes in her usual arrogant and blunt style which I had grown to expect and no longer felt the resistance her style of direction had stirred in me and which Betty never resisted. Tash wrote notes throughout the video, many of which I assumed would be given before the performance to my fellow cast not present.

When the video ended, the last of the three plays shown, I had to ask Chanda how she had managed to avoid the echoey sound which usually plagues recordings of plays on stage. It and the editing between close-ups and long shots gave the videos amazingly professional gloss.

"Directional mic's," she shrugged.

"But ... that means someone aimed them," I remarked. "And there were more cameras than one or you recorded us more than one time to get the different shots, but it seemed seamless."

"Minions," she explained. "I flew them in from Thailand. You didn't notice?"

"Never."

"Well ... I do tend to keep them hidden," she smirked. "It aids in avoiding distraction."

"How many?" I asked.

"Five."

"Wow."

Nick grinned proudly. "She's a remarkable angel, isn't she Joe?"

"Incredible. I want to meet them."

"Sunday night," Chanda promised. "They must remain invisible until then." When I glanced into the empty areas of the space she chuckled. "No, Joe, they're not here."

That brief discussion and the arrival of three pizzas delayed the inevitable. Most everyone had been squirming with hot pussies and erect cocks by the end of Lindy's play. Even Natasha by its end had become distracted. In fact she more than squirmed on Nick's lap, actually bouncing, her black sheath dress riding high up to her waist, and she moaned deeply at curtain call.

Eating became a sensuous, lusty and messy event with lovers feeding each other. By the time most of the pizza had been consumed, Buzz arrived with a bowl of hot towels which we used to continue the sexual interactions. Once cleaned up, the sex began in earnest.

I felt like a sheik surrounded by his harem. Several angels got me naked and caressed me. I tasted Alexandra's powerful lips, both sets, for the first time, finding her drowning nectar to be just as intoxicating as the other angels, somehow even sweeter and muskier as she crushed her cunt against my mouth. Salomé's first taste became the headiest, though.

"Just suck my clit," she told me when she straddled my mouth and lowered her gorgeous dark violet lips and pink insides onto it. "I'm almost there. Yes! Suck it hard!"

The flood, its taste and smell, immediately caused my own eruption inside Lindy's throbbing cunt. Lindy's moan buzzed on Betty's clit sending her over as well while she sucked on Miwa's cunt and received the cute Asian's sweet nectar while Miwa's strokes sped up fingering Alexandra while pulling and chewing mercilessly on the Russian's thick, taut nipples and that robust beauty's moans of ecstasy buzzed at the base of my cock and on Lindy's vibrating clit. I don't even know whose tits I mashed when I came, one in each hand, but I did know both owners of them had cum when I did.

Of the four remaining angels, two had familiar positions riding Steve's cock and mouth. I couldn't tell which twin had which appendage, tongue or penis, inside them, but I heard their squeaks and Steve's pussy muted roar join the chorus of orgasms. Naomi received Tash's expertise at cunnilingus while bringing hers to her lover in a sixty-nine as the Goth finished receiving Nick's curative up her ass with her own particular groan accompanying Naomi's ever grateful "Yes!" And the fourth angel walked around recording us on her top of the line camera, her fingers on the hand unoccupied with the camera trigger vigorously rubbing her own clitoral trigger to join in the simultaneous climactic climaxes even while recording the pile of gorgeous flesh surrounding me on all sides.

Somewhere nearby, dating had obviously moved to fucking between Barnaby and Samantha, the lithe and beautiful young Chinese/Caucasian mixed dancer riding the legendary dancer's cock while astride him on a chair in my favorite position before things got intense and he lifted her off the chair, carrying her weight in his hands at her tight posterior while kneeling in front of the chair before settling her onto her back and fucking her with jackhammer speed while she exclaimed her pleasure over and over again with every panting breath. She definitely sounded multi-orgasmic. Barnaby roared his addition to the orgasmic chorus while Sam squeezed out a last of many squeals.

I asked Lindy afterwards when the May/September romance had reached home base and she shrugged and said it hadn't. It seemed our orgies swept away Sam's resistance.

Jessica, The Chinese/American director of Tash's play and her much more petite Taiwanese lover joined in on the festivities, moving from a sixty-nine to having the petite, plain girlfriend fucking her big boned lover doggy style with a strap on of considerable size and with an aggression and power that seemed to counter expectations from such a small, quiet woman. Wondering about the dildo being brought and causing the women to cum with the rest of us, the added phalange rubbing the Taiwanese lady's clit, Naomi replied to my query with a wink, "I might have invited them for some fun afterwards."

The last of the couplings actually accompanied Nick, Naomi and Tash and resembled rail cars coupling if such cars had been much narrower and taller in dimension than the metallic rectangles one would expect. Vance brought his new boyfriend, as fair haired and pale and hardy as Vance was dark and thin, and the blond man impaled himself into his new lover's anus while Vance impaled Nick's anus and of course Nick impaled Tash's. And of course the two gay men added to the roar of simultaneous ecstasy.

Thankfully Buzz had brought an abundance of hot towels. We did need to share some, but none of us minded. Putting down her camera, Chanda distributed them, asking at one point, "You guys wish to see Lindy's dances?"

Our tired voices answered in the affirmative.

After the orgy and watching Lindy's remarkable choreography even with my participation and especially with Sam's and Barnaby's amazing skills and expressiveness, my nervousness had dwindled to a quiet thrum. Again Chanda had created remarkably professional videos, masterfully cut and with music synched instead of just being recorded as background noise.

"How could you put these together so quickly?" I asked her. "Do you ever sleep?"

"Not much and my minions helped," she answered. Again she chuckled when I looked around in the small space. "No, I shot these myself using Lindy's desire for repetition and concentration on specific movement to gain different angles."

"You could be a Hollywood director," I commented.

"Big fish/small pond," she shrugged, smiling delightfully.

Time and its relentless approach towards performance slowly built my nervousness to the point where dinner, something needed to give me strength to perform, became an unpleasant necessity. Like a last meal before execution, Nick asked me what would be my favorite. He saw my queasiness and chuckled.

"I have a cure for that," he told me.

"More sperm?" I gulped.

He laughed. "Nope. In fact I think all of us could benefit."

We had decided to stick together at Barnaby's before heading to ACT for the evening performance of Lindy's play. A festive and congenial atmosphere had been created there like a rare party which no one wished to end. After having a stroll in the balmy summer weather of San Francisco, just enough coolness and light wind to be perfect, and airing out the space of its funky odors of sex and sweat, we returned to it and chatted amiably, getting to know relative strangers or getting to know friends better. Dinner would cap a most pleasant day, except for my nervous stomach.

Nick took command of the guests. "Everyone sit comfortably on the floor. No touching. Close your eyes. Listen. Listen to my voice. Let it enter your ears and vibrate deeper. Listen to your body." Giggles. "Even the embarrassing sounds, sounds of your stomach or whatever, embrace them. They are sounds of your miraculous body. Breath and heartbeats. The buzzing of nerves. Swallow. Hear it echo inside you. Listen. Listen. Listen to my voice. Join it if you wish." And he began to hum deeply. It expanded and contracted with different vowels. Another hum joined his in perfect synchronicity. Higher. Miwa. He talked while Miwa continued humming. "Feel the tension at your center and at your extremities. Feel the center tension dissipate like dew becoming fog. Feel it move through your arms to your fingers, collecting tension there and let it go out the tips. Feel it still at the base dissipate. Feel it become fog. Feel it slide through your thighs collecting dissipating tension there. Feel the collection add more as it slides past your knees, through your calves and like a gentle steam flow through your ankles and feet and out your toes." He hummed again harmonizing with Miwa. Other voices joined. Mine joined. My body became like a temple bell reverberating quietly, beautifully, peacefully. The other hums joined mine within me in powerful harmony, a cluster of notes yet no dissonance. Two voices radiated there. "I love you," one said. Helena. "Thank you," said the other. Nick. I returned their sentiments in an exact echo. I knew they heard me though none of us spoke aloud. The sentiments thrummed along with the hums.

"Listen for your heartbeat, your breath, the buzzing of your nerves. Hear yourself swallow. Feel the silence that is no silence and the peace there. Good. Open your eyes."

"Corned beef and pastrami and a pickle and cole slaw and cel-ray soda," I said.

Nick laughed. "Then chopped liver for me."

Forty-five minutes later, Buzz and his cousin arrived with bags of food and beverages. My tongue enjoyed every bite of the corned beef and pastrami sandwich with cole slaw added to it just the way I love it. The cel-ray soda washed it down perfectly.

I was ready.

An audience can either floor you or empower you. It can build a wall of fear creating separation from them or create immense feedback loops inspiring you as you inspire them by having unimpeded access to the reception of you as character and storyteller. In the latter, successful situation they become one with you on the stage. And yet, ironically, a wall does need to be constructed for the audience to believe your mimetic reality; a reality in which they don't exist. Seeing the construction of that wall, in other words watching you act rather than be the character allowing their empathy, destroys this complex illusion. Trusting yourself to be in the moment, all the preparation leading up to it and the interaction with the other characters and even the audience has to occur without the actor thinking about it self-consciously. Thinking about the next line or movement, or just adjusting to the difference of strangers' eyes watching you, results in disaster or at least ineffectiveness. You must exist in the moment; thus the Zen of acting.

That's exactly where I existed. Powerfully. Exuberantly. Exultantly. And exhaustively a couple hours later after I plowed my favorite hot, seething furrow with a final mighty thrust, and relaxation finally arrived with my ecstatic and lengthy seeding. I don't even remember Helena turning me onto my side so she could breathe.

And during the performance the next evening, my play essentially ending the Workshop (except for a final discussion, a sort of anatomical analysis of the corpse or corpses of the Workshop, i.e. the five plays, led by O'Casey at the wrap party at Barnaby's studio aided by wine and beer and other spirits in loosening opinions) I watched my Greek angel equal or more than likely surpass me in expressiveness and ability to capture the audience with her Zen moments. Along with the exceptional skillfulness of Nick and Steve and despite my having the most familiarity with the play, she transported me to that weird dwelling in the middle of the desert in which it was set. I existed there with her. I felt her losing her mind to the seduction of the drug and the seduction by Nick and the battle ensuing within her when Steve attempted restoring her as his. Because of her presence and her power, a play I knew literarily inside and out surprised me often and powerfully. Because of her more than anything else, my play worked better than I could ever imagine.

Leaning over her as she sat at the backstage mirror removing make-up, I told her, "You were absolutely brilliant."

Her smile told me she knew. And like Helen embracing her incomparable beauty, I saw truth in that smile unsullied by the pretense of humbleness. "Thanks," she said.

I kissed the top of her head, pressing lips through the thick raven hair onto her scalp. My eyes closed and I smelled her sweat and her natural sweet odor and the perfume lingering from her shampoo and together they smelled like love. Her hands drew my head lower and our mouths met. As our kisses often did, we communicated non-verbally, celebrating our union. When my eyes opened I met her eyes in the mirror and saw her wide, excited smile. I saw mine too.

"Now leave me to change," she ordered lightly.

"You're perfect as you are," I argued.

She chuckled. "You're a sentimental sap."

"It's true and I blame you. You blew my mind, sapped it of all thought."

"Obviously."

"Bitch," I said lovingly.

We exchanged a wink before I left her.

She changed. We all do all the time. Mostly just her clothes, but she changed in my eyes as well. That evening, I had acquired an awe of respect for her, quieting when she reappeared as beautiful as ever in mundane clothing and make-up. The respect took hold though.

Before her awesome performance I had been her tutor for her first foray into acting. Afterwards I realized the pupil had exceeded the teacher. She taught me something or more reminded me of a weakness needing expunging. In past relationships with lovers, I had the terrible tendency to condescend, become the superior male over the inferior female. The tutoring of her had enabled that to some extent. Having that go away pleased me. And it reminded me how much I loved and respected Lindy as well and how I always felt an equal to her. I felt much improved as a man.

While awaiting Helena's change, I found my second lover backstage amongst friends and strangers being inundated with congratulations. Immediately, audience or not, I embraced and kissed Lindy.

"Most people just say congratulations or thanks or something," she commented breathlessly, her tilted smile as charming as ever.

"I'm so glad we're staying together after this," I explained.

Her smile widened as did her eyes and she returned the embrace and kiss with greater abandon, my erecting penis feeling reciprocal heat from her loins. We must have put on quite a display with the intensity and length of our embrace. Eventually we separated and received congratulations from an amused public. And again like Helen's assured self-reflection or Helena's acceptance of her own brilliance or Lindy's professional assertiveness, the unequivocal praise for both my play that night and my performance the night before hardened my vulnerable ego to a greater confidence than I had ever known.

After examining the mortal remains of the workshop and plays with little to criticize except the overly compressed nature of the workshop which O'Casey hoped, what with the success of the plays and their attention, might be solvable for the one that would follow in a year, we five playwrights and O'Casey returned to the party in the performance space of Barnaby's studio building, exiting a smaller practice space there. Lindy and I immediately hid and changed into leotards, a weird costume for me acquired only a couple rehearsals before.

Despite the relaxed atmosphere, more like a dress rehearsal than a serious performance and with a livelier audience than would ever happen for modern dance, "Elemental" as Lindy had christened it ended up nearly flawless. The Dadaist sound score coming out of real speakers instead of tiny tinny ones from Lindy's boombox aided our movement giving a sense of dancing within it.

Except for Miwa we dancers joined the audience for the yet to be titled or completed dance featuring Barnaby and Sam in, essentially, a series of pas de deux plus Miwa, a triptych with the first two pieces nearing completion being performed. Each had their own avant garde score. The first as I mentioned awhile back consisted of a sort of avant garde bolero with one note added to another on a synthesizer until a cluster of notes form and then the notes disappear one by one until the first note becomes the last. The second score contained a bunch of bowed instruments always playing sliding notes and had an intoxicating floating quality to it.

My eyes moistened during the dance and my cock hardened. At least I put warm-up pants over my leotards and the only one aware of my erection was Helena wriggling in my lap and making it worse (or better for her). Moistened eyes came from the beauty of the couple in both their exquisitely skilled movements and their loving interactions. The hard-on came from the sexiness.

Having completed what Lindy considered the penultimate pas de deux to considerable applause, she came on stage and whispered to the three dancers. They nodded and walked briskly and elegantly off stage.

Lindy turned to her audience with her cute smile. "If you guys can give me about twenty minutes, I can give you a sort of rough cut ending for the piece. It feels too much like coitus interruptus right now." We chuckled and nodded and applauded. She smiled wider and sprinted off, my eyes captured by her fabulous full ass shifting in tights.

Time went by swiftly, this being a wrap party in full swing. The avant garde score became dance music of a more popular sort with a thumping bass and syncopated percussion and synthetic notes on top, a contemporary version of disco. Some of us danced. Others drank or nibbled on the high end nosh, Nick focusing on the pâté of course. Helena and I shared nibbles and an ever replenishing glass of expensive champagne and several kisses. Despite the loud, thudding dance music I could hear a different though oddly similar music seeping out from the adjacent practice room.

"Sorry," Lindy grinned unrepentantly when she abruptly silenced the disco music. Couples immediately exited the dance floor and became audience again. She loaded the CD and pressed play. A loud, thick and sparse synthesizer bass line began thumping two beats together sounding like a calm heart. An octave higher at a slower rhythm two instruments harmonized in long breathy lines: a trombone and a bass clarinet. The lines rose in inhalation and fell in exhalation. High above them shimmered sliding strings similar to the previous music.

Barnaby entered languorously wearing warm-up pants and an equally soft top circling around the bed like prop that sat alone on the stage. Miwa followed him soon afterward in similar attire. They had the longest interaction of the dance piece essentially readying themselves for fucking. Removing each other's tops, revealing nearly transparent leotards, they explored torsos. The musical heartbeat gradually picked up speed as did the breaths while strings became less apparent. Caresses went lower and the lovers seemed to reach a plateau when Sam entered and circled the lovers at a distance, closing subtly. Both lovers noticed her, Barnaby seemingly shyly while Miwa observed her much more intensely. She separated from Barnaby with Barnaby showing more reluctance than her and approached Sam. They "discussed" while Barnaby gazed towards them but with a sort of blindness. Finally Miwa essentially tossed the young dancer towards the old legend, disappearing off the stage afterwards. Barnaby rose from the "bed" and met Sam halfway and they began a dwindling circle around the prop.