Allison

Saturday, September 10 (After Chapter 12 of Triptych)

ALLISON: You chose a great time for this. Couldn't we have talked sometime when I was sure and positive and knew what the hell I was doing? This is like the most confusing time of my life and I'm in rehearsal and have my senior project to do and ... Heavenly days! Can't anything be simple for once?

aroslav: Hi, Allison.

ALLISON: Breathe. That's all I have to do. Just take a deep breath.

[Pause]

ALLISON: Well if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. [Thick Cockney accent]

aroslav: Please have a seat, Miss...

ALLISON: Doolittle. Miss Eliza Doolittle.

aroslav: Ah. In rehearsal are we?

ALLISON: First show of the season. We open "My Fair Lady" next weekend. Reciting lines helps me relax. Sometimes I get a little frantic and start talking a mile a minute. Then you can't get a word in edgewise. There was once that I went for an interview and the guy only asked me one question and I talked for half an hour and never did figure out what the interview was supposed to be about. I just get started and rattle...

aroslav: Allison?

ALLISON: on and on.

aroslav: Allison!

ALLISON: Sorry! It's nice to meet you.

aroslav: Thanks for taking the time. How about we start with simple information. Name, age, birthdate, college, major. That sort of thing.

ALLISON: Okay. I'm Allison Janine Perkins. I'll be 22 on the 25th of October. I'm a senior at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. I'm majoring in Theatre with an emphasis in Acting and I'll have a minor in Music with an emphasis on voice. I'm about five credits short of a minor in Dance. Just can't put the schedule together.

aroslav: Wow! Talented.

ALLISON: If I was that talented, I'd be at a performing arts school instead of a State university. But I'm getting a lot of opportunity here. Playing Eliza is a good one. Wide range of vocal challenges from accents to music. Transforming from the Cockney guttersnipe to the sophisticated lady without appearing to just throw a switch is a challenge.

aroslav: Have you always been interested in theater and performance?

ALLISON: Yes. I was in my first play in kindergarten and was the only performer who actually had her lines fully memorized. I started singing solos with the church choir when I was ten. If I'd lived somewhere with more opportunities, I'd have insisted on dance lessons, but the best I could get was the minister's wife teaching "Worship Through Creative Movement." It was a strange combination of gyrations and sign language set to the music of popular hymns.

aroslav: I take it religion was also an important part of your life when you were growing up.

ALLISON: Major. Don't get me wrong. I'm not religious. But I went to church every Sunday, sang in the choir, and had perfect attendance in Sunday School for fourteen years. I guess a little of that is still in my system. It will take years to flush it all.

aroslav: Did you study the Bible a lot?

ALLISON: Memorized it. And ... yeah. Studied. I used to study the Bible every day, but then I discovered Sudoku.

aroslav: ???

ALLISON: Turns out that I like puzzles that have an answer.

aroslav: So you've turned your back on religion in favor of brainteasers?

ALLISON: [sighs] No. It's still there. I still go to church, if I'm not up too late on Saturday night. I still listen to sermons and try to believe. But it's so contradictory to life. Okay. I can't find anything in the Bible that says you can't have sex. Oh, if you're married, there's a bunch of things that say you shouldn't commit adultery. But there is no Bible verse that says you shouldn't get a little tipsy or high and fuck the director of the show you're in. Uh ... Not that I ever did that ... exactly. Shit!

aroslav: Who was it?

ALLISON: The stage manager. Stop looking at me like that. Do you have any idea what theater is like? Last year I did summer stock in a little theater in Maine. It was so cold there at night that we about froze our tits off. And there was this one space heater. Not in a dressing room, mind you, but in the stairwell where we all waited for our cues. So that's where we dressed. And undressed. And made-up. And made out. It was easy to go from that stairwell to a guy's apartment. And we'd play dress-up. And dress-off. I'm not a tramp. I only ever did one guy a season.

aroslav: I'm scarcely one to judge. Why so much trouble with women, though? I mean, it's obvious that when you kiss Melody or Lissa you get turned on.

ALLISON: The Bible! No. Not the Bible, but the preacher. They always told us homosexuality was a sin. I don't believe it, but I believe it. And when I feel so tingly, I feel so sinful. I'd do Tony in a heartbeat, but no matter how much I wanted Melody and Lissa or how much I loved them, I never could bring myself to really be with a woman.

aroslav: Could? Has something changed, Allison?

ALLISON: Mmmm. Oh. Well. I think ... yes.

aroslav: What?

ALLISON: Well, once you've done it, you've done it, right? Hell's not going to be any worse if you do it again. You're just as guilty once as twice, so why not?

aroslav: You've done it?

ALLISON: We were sleeping in the same bed and she convinced me that we didn't need to get dressed before we crawled in because we'd been in the hot tub together and we were all naked, so what difference did it make to just stay that way all night? After all, it was just us girls. And she was so sexy and cute. And she kisses like ... Oh man! She's so soft and...

aroslav: Who?

ALLISON: Do you know what she did to me? We crawled into bed and she said, "Give me a goodnight kiss, please?" And it was so sweet. We'd kissed before, I mean with Tony, but let's face it: it was our hands on each other's tits, not Tony's. So we kissed, and our hands got busy. I was just touching her tits; nothing else. But they're so full and round and luscious. I was thinking how like mine they were and what I liked done to my nipples and so I was just pinching them a little and she was breathing in my mouth and I was feeling so good. I didn't realize for I don't know how long that it was her hand in my pussy and not mine.

aroslav: Allison, we don't do sex scenes in the interviews.

ALLISON: This isn't a sex scene. It's important. She was just fingering me and I was getting more and more turned on and was just moaning into her mouth as our tongues were exploring each other and I was pinching her nipples. It was easy to just forget that the fingers in my pussy belonged to a woman. And all of a sudden she stops and pulls away. Then she starts pecking at me lightly with my eyes closed. And while she's giving me these little chicken kisses, she's whispering, "You've tasted yourself before, haven't you, Allison?" And I just moaned some more and nodded my head. Then she brings her wet fingers to my lips and starts rubbing them and I can smell my arousal because it's, like, right under my nose. So I start licking her fingers and pretty soon they're in my mouth and I'm sucking on her fingers and trying to get all my juices cleaned off.