Chapter 6

The next day, Friday, Lindy blocked my play exquisitely with simple, graceful movements, subtly reflecting her choreographic style. All three actors, Steve and Nick and Helena, worked brilliantly together. But a significant change happened early on.

As soon as the actors finished her first scene blocking, Lindy stood in front of Mr. O'Casey and asked, "Could we use the thrust stage? Three sides for three characters would really improve the impact."

Expecting a yes or a no, full throated laughter surprised Lindy. When it ended, Sean explained, "I knew it would be you who figured out the resources here. Why else would I give you such an extensive tour of the facilities?"

"But our sessions and the auditions, everything happened here," said Natasha gesturing to the auditorium and the proscenium stage. "I figured the other spaces were in use or something."

"Have you seen any other activity at ACT?" Sean asked. "The company is on vacation for two months, at least the actors."

"So why not tell us?" I asked.

"It's like this, my lambs. There are thousands like you with talent near equal to yours. So why take notice of any little play amongst those thousands? Thousands and less than a handful get noticed and appreciated and the playwright becomes sought after for his or her next bit of writing and becomes a professional instead of an amateur wannabe like yourselves. This is an opportunity, a significant stepping stone to becoming that rare professional. There will be people in the audience who can make this a stepping stone instead of just a brief flash in the pan. But you can't be lambs for them to notice. You have to roar. You have to excite them, exhilarate them. You have to demand to be noticed. No shyness or you disappear back to your little rooms and your puny audiences and your vain talent. Invisible, amateur, vanity productions will be your future until your nine to five job takes even those little efforts away because lord knows you can't survive on your talent.

"This workshop gives you minimum resources both physically—in set and costume—and with time. So you have to maximize everything, squeeze every drop of resources you have, be inordinately imaginative and aggressive. Shyness or laziness will make you invisible. Only Lindy seems to have grasped this. Bringing Barnaby Cole into this. Extraordinary. And expanding the resources available to her. Yes my dear, you can have the thrust. In fact it will aid in your set building."

"Then I want the theater-in-the-round for Lindy's play," Natasha demanded.

Sean chuckled, "Of course. Anyone else?" He waited as playwrights and directors consulted. Everyone else decided to stick to the proscenium. "Good. Okay. Let us move my lambs and lionesses."

Shocked and concerned, I walked with Lindy. She noticed my expression and tittered. "We're covered, Joe."

"What do you mean?"

"After rehearsal yesterday evening, Naomi teamed up with Salomé for drinks with Sean. While Salomé took his focus, Naomi inquired for me about moving my play to the thrust. He told her he thought it was a good idea, an idea like he just said he wanted the playwrights to reveal their chutzpah by suggesting. Naomi left Salomé to complete the seduction and told Miwa to bring me to Tash's apartment."

"So you couldn't tell me before?"

"I had other things on my mind."

"And you've worked out a new blocking scheme?"

Lindy nodded. "Tash and I visited Barnaby at his apartment later on last night and hashed out new blocking for your play while Tash collaborated with Barnaby on mine. We bounced ideas off each other. Barnaby sought my opinion at first and I sought Tash's and that warmed Tash up to bring my opinions into her blocking."

"And you didn't inquire about the changes in venues before you started blocking on the proscenium because... ?"

Lindy chuckled. "Sean wanted to be impressed, so we impressed him."

"But he gave his permission..."

"Not directly. It was given to a third party so to speak and barely consciously since Salomé happened to be massaging Sean's penis at the moment and bending low enough for him to view her lovely breasts and erect nipples."

I chuckled. And then I remembered something. "But what about the projection establishing Snake's youthful looks to the audience?"

"Got it covered." She nodded at the thrust stage which we arrived at and I watched as three large narrow LED monitors arose from the edges of the thrust. Also a large screen arose concealing the back stage area and a beam of light hit it. A video, dimmed as it projected through the house lights and onto the rising screen and appearing clearly on the monitors, showed a play recently produced which the titles revealed to be directed by Sean O'Casey. Actors could be heard as they performed the beginning of the play. Sean and Naomi emerged from the light booth behind me.

"It's perfect," Naomi exclaimed giving a peck on Sean's swarthy cheek.

Lindy asked me, "Ever written a screenplay?"

Before I could inquire further, she hopped onto the stage to reblock the beginning of my play. The screens retreated into the floor.

"Hey Joe," said Naomi sitting beside me and placing her ubiquitous sketchbook on her lap.

"How did you know about the monitors?" I asked.

Naomi giggled. "Let me show you." Setting aside the sketchbook, she stood and took my hand and led me back to the enclosed light booth. Slipping a DVD into a player, we watched the empty thrust stage appear on a monitor in the booth. It became occupied by Sean and Salomé.

Salomé wore only panties and an open shirt that revealed her incredible breasts. She stood in the center of the stage as Sean scurried backstage and returned with a simple wooden chair placing it behind her. They kissed. His hands caressed her breasts and full bubble butt. Her hands unbuttoned his black shirt and his black jeans before she knelt and unzipped and pulled his jeans and boxers to his feet. His dark cock bounced free. She pressed him onto the chair and removed his shoes and socks and jeans and boxers. Gazing seductively up at him, Salomé licked his glans before pressing her lips around it and lowering until his cock completely disappeared.

Naomi covered my ears with two headphone cups and I heard his moan. She unfastened my pants and freed my cock as she pushed me into a seat. Her actions mirrored Salomé's. My glans entered her throat. But we didn't have time to witness the entire sex scene. While fucking me with her mouth, she fast forwarded. I watched the blow job comically sped up. Then Sean left the black beauty on stage, his half hard cock bouncing amusingly. The monitors and screens arose as they had done minutes before. Salomé awaiting his return became the image on the screens. He dashed back and knelt between Salomé's thighs and began cunnilingus. Still fast forwarding, it amused me to see. Salomé's torso remain motionless while her head shifted from staring down at him and lifting up towards the ceiling like giant rapid nods. Her legs moved like wings, opening wide and closing on Sean's shoulders. The fast forwarding ended as did Naomi's deep throat. I heard a low moan from Salomé's orgasm, her head back, her hand pressing Sean's head into her groin, her body shivering in convulsions of pure pleasure.

Naomi naked below her waist sat down on me reverse cowgirl style and guided me into her succulent heat while Sean replaced Salomé on the chair and Salomé took the same position as Naomi. All of us, on tape and in the flesh, moaned.

However our copying the earlier fuck didn't last. While Naomi remained in my lap rising and falling, I heard Salomé murmur, "I can't see your cock fucking me." So they moved from position to position, Sean entering in various configurations, stroking several times in each before she moved to the next until they created the pile driver position with her on her shoulders only, her legs wrapped around his waist while he fucked forcibly down into her cunt. She gazed at the image of them fucking on the screen at the back of the stage. "Perfect," she moaned, then realized, "You can't see."

"I can ... see your ... perfection ... in the flesh," he told her in gasps.

"Not ... good enough," she gasped in return. "Shift ... about ... thirty ... degrees. Yes. Perfect. Watch yourself ... fucking me."

He glanced back and saw them fucking magnified. "Fuck!" he exclaimed. His eyes moved back and forth from the real to the projected until they closed. "I'm cumming!"

Immediately Salomé pushed him out and grabbed his cock, watching the actions on the screen. Her mouth sucked. She felt his cock expand. Her mouth retreated, wide and ready as the first spurt shot inside. She pulled his cock lower and the creamy white spurts landed on her deep black chest and buoyant tits. Her other hand busy stroking her clit brought her to an undulating climax as she squeezed the last remnants of cum from Sean's softening cock.

"Oh fuck!" I moaned as I lifted and Naomi pressed down. My previously rubbing fingers ceased moving on her clit and just pinched. Her fingers pulled and twisted her nipples, having extracted them from shirt and bra during the fuck.

"Oh ... Gods," she murmured quietly, but her shivers and buzzing cunt wall told of an explosion of bliss equal to mine.

When we recovered we laughed hysterically. Quickly dressing, we returned to our seats, mostly amused eyes watching us. The exception was of course the bitch Natasha.

Lindy winking at me returned her attention to her blocking which ended up being a lot farther along than I anticipated. It embarrassed me I had missed so much. I turned to Naomi sketching away. She turned to me and kissed me gently. "Nope, no regrets," I thought with a smile and proceeded to take notes.

Only during a break did I remember to ask about the screenplay Lindy mentioned.

"It is so cool," the Irish twins near us began, Maddy and Maggie talking in their usual tandem. "Steve has a cabin in Death Valley. We bought a bunch of flowers that look kind of like poppies. All the girls will be there being Snake's harem, all spacy and stony. Snake lures Helena to us, and when Steve arrives..."

"The play begins," Lindy finished. "We'll be filming at Helena's apartment and at the suite, showing the progression of her fixation on drugs until she finds the perfect drug with Nick as supplier."

"Doesn't my play sort of show that?" I asked.

"It won't be exposition. It will be too quick for that. Quick edits, you know?"

"About her love for Josh and her desire for drugs and the drugs winning out."

"Exactly."

I contemplated the possibilities and discovered it excited me. "Okay."

"Great!" everyone chimed in in various ways.

"When do we head down there?"

"Tuesday before sunrise," Nick told me. "I'll fly us. There's an airstrip nearby and a friend of Steve's will meet us there."

"Fly?" I asked.

"I have a jet and I'm a pilot. So is Salomé."

"Why am I surprised? I'd hoped for a late morning next week," I sighed and shrugged. "No rest for the wicked."

"Nope," Nick said and shared his chuckle with his angels.

After Lindy finished blocking which ended the single rehearsals and the directors would all work separately starting that evening, Natasha decided to spend an hour extra time through dinner working on Lindy's play in its new space. Nick helped us by buying pizza. Stumbling at the beginning, the play began to find a flow that would continue to the final curtain.

The flow happened when Natasha finally let go and accepted advice from Barnaby. She started blocking us for the in-the-round space, move from here to there when you say that, like she had earlier on the proscenium.

"Fuck this," she finally said midway through the first act. "Barnaby, can you help my actors dance?"

But it didn't really look like dancing. Like the Dadaist syllabic utterances Lindy used for the music for her early morning choreography, i.e. ordinary talk becoming musical, our movement resembled the movement of every day reality but enhanced with extreme subtly. When I walked to a mark across the stage or into Betty's arms for an embrace and a kiss, I controlled it like a dancer controls his movement. And yet watching my walk, the audience would see it as just a man walking except somehow better, more graceful, more expressive than the norm.

It's good that we started early on the rehearsals, because at 7 when the evening rehearsals were to start, a very tired looking O'Casey interrupted us. "I think we're ahead of schedule, and I want to reward your good work with a break this evening," he told us wearily. "We'll start the evening rehearsals in earnest tomorrow."

"Salomé must have fucked him all night," I whispered to Betty.

"With Salomé, you never want it to end," Betty giggled quietly. "She's the most experienced sexpot in existence. By the way, Nick wants us to meet for his Tales tonight."

"Cool," I responded. I saw Lindy and Miwa holding hands at the edge of the stage, Lindy nodding and smiling at me in seeming agreement to my sentiment.

"You say that many of your daughters are granddaughters or great granddaughters. Why is that?" I asked Nick beginning the Snake Tales session that evening. It was a question mulling in my mind since Tuesday.

"It often takes more than one generation for the immortality trait to appear," he explained. "I bring a minion to conceive the angel."

"It's like incest," I surmised. "The recessive gene needs another to create your angel. These minions are your offspring?"

Snake nodded. "They are of my seed, but often generations past the original seeding. The immortality gene remains within each generation. Only twice has an angel emerged from the first impregnation. For it to happen I need to..."

" ... fuck your own daughter," Lindy completed.

"Exactly," Snake responded, the look of guilt surprising me. "It's not something I'm proud of. A father should definitely not fuck his daughter. It ... damages her psyche. And I'm not really tempted anyway. At least not usually."

"So ... why the exceptions?" I asked.

"Relentless seduction," Snake answered, his eyes staring into Helena's with a hint of sadness but also pride.

"Mom's more stubborn than me," Helena murmured.

"And just as exquisite," Snake added. "Even emerging from her mother's womb, her beauty awed me. And it continued to until ... She refused my minions. She insisted it would be me to break her hymen. I had never been enthralled by any woman like I was by her, so ... my resistance proved brittle to say the least."

"You should see them together," Helena smiled. "She melts at the sight of him and he does anything but melt. He gets hard and stays hard throughout the visit."

"So she only has you to make love to?" asked Lindy.

Helena answered unashamedly, "It was necessary for her to marry to make her pregnancy legitimate. She seduced an older widower, a quiet, unassuming man who owned land for grapes and olives. He adores her. They have a warm and loving relationship that includes as much sex as he can handle. But it seems Mom needs Nick to truly sate her huge libido. Nearing sixty, she's just as passionate."

"And as beautiful," Snake added.

"And the other first generation angel?" I asked.

"That would be me," Alexandra, the statuesque Russian beauty responded proudly. "Mother pursued sex like a warrior vanquishing her enemy, practically raping the weaker men. Her conquests were many and varied. She craved variety. Father was her biggest challenge, her most worthy adversary. In the end more often than not she found herself submitting, dominated, and she loved it."

"She was fun," Snake smiled. "And unlike past pregnancies in which she found ways to essentially abort the child, the product of our lustful battles she carefully gestated and happily though painfully birthed and obsessively nurtured and loved and taught to be as powerfully dominating as herself."

"Mom was an incredible woman," Alexandra smiled fondly.

"A force of nature," Snake grinned. "More than enough digressions though. Back to California and Esther and ... Simon."

All the older angels except Rosa murmured breathlessly, "Simon?" Helena looked confused. Naomi looked ... ashamed? I couldn't help chuckling.

"What's so amusing?" asked Betty.

"You react to the name like he's a villain. It reminded me of the old arch villain in turn of the century melodramas: Simon Legree fondling his long waxed mustache as he chuckles malevolently."

"Interesting," said Nick. "A waxed mustache speaks of vanity. Perhaps he inspired the villain's name. Probably not. Simon rarely appears the villain preferring to slide back into the shadows before his villainy becomes obvious."

"Then there is another like you?" Lindy inquired.

"Not like me. At least I hope not."

"But ... another eternal wanderer?"

Nick chuckled. "Never call him a wanderer. It would be too suggestive of the Wandering Jew. He's too proud of an Anti-Semite to allow that."

"But ... eternal?" I asked.

"Let's just say we've been a pain in the ass for each other for a long long time. For example..."

"Simon. So glad you could make it," says Don José, shaking the tall handsome blonde gentleman's hand as he enters Don José's large party room in his Napa California Villa. The year: 1869. "Simon Pope, this is Nickolas Postumus."

"You look much changed ... uh ... Nickolas," says Simon grasping Nick's hand hard. "Come up in the world have you?"

"Simon," says Nick, equally crushing his old nemesis's hand. "You haven't changed."

"So you know each other," Don José smiles.

"We've crossed paths a few times," Nick replies loosening his hand and escaping Simon's grasp. No pain registers on either man's face. Nick's face shows a troubled smile while Simon's smile is smug as usual. Nick addresses the cause of his concern.

"And you are?" he asks the withdrawn and tense woman standing just behind Simon. Her narrow face framed by thick brunette hair reveals its Semitic origin from a pronounced nose and deep brown eyes. Despite cringing tightness of her forehead and between her eyes, he can see her beauty. Wide mouth and soft, pale, not very Semitic skin have a sensuous quality as does her full breasts on a slim torso which needs no corseting.

"This is Esther, my ... assistant," says Simon with a malevolent grin. "She is very good with numbers."

"Like the number 5 as in five inches," Nick smirks, his eyes glancing down to Simon's crotch. Simon tightens. Nick leans into Simon's ear and whispers, "Raping another Jewess I see. Afraid that without coercion the ladies would laugh at your puny penis?"

Noticing the antagonism, Don José pulls Simon away. "You must meet my friends," he says.

Simon glances back angrily, especially when Nick keeps Esther from following him. "Esther," he growls.

"She'll be fine with me, Simon," Nick insists. He and Esther watch Simon reluctantly being led to one of the Spanish/American vineyard owners, the blond man's face reforming to take care of the business at hand.

"I..." Esther gasps with fear.

"Shh," Nick whispers. "He won't harm you. Not anymore."

"But..."

"Shh. I want you to meet my sweet and gentle granddaughter. I believe you need sweet and gentle and female right now."

Their eyes meet; hers fearful and his compassionate. She nods. His hand takes hers. The contact feels warm and surprisingly erotic, especially when his fingers interlock with hers. Leading her through the partygoers, rich Spanish/American landlords and their mistresses, they exit through the backdoor of the large room to a patio surrounded by a lush garden. The walk continues along a garden path until they step between two rows of grapevines with small green fruit.

"Where are you taking me?" asks Esther softly. She sees a group of brown skin Mexicans a few yards ahead, a handsome half-breed towering over them. They seem to be discussing something important as the handsome man nods and sniffs a clump of grapes. A gorgeous deeply tanned Native woman appears from the group of males, smiles and waves and approaches them.

"Hello Nick," the beauty says. "Who is your lovely friend?"

"Simon's here," says Nick.

Immediately Rosa's radiant smile disappears, becoming a look of concern mixed with anger. "Oh my poor dear," she says to Esther. "My name is Rosa."

"Esther," Esther chokes out. When Nick releases her hand, she feels suddenly even more vulnerable than she had before. But Rosa's replacing hand softens the blow.

"Come with me, Esther," says Rosa, her other hand gently brushing across her forehead and through her hair. "I believe you will be more comfortable away from men."

Eyes brimming with tears, Esther sniffles, "Okay."

Walking briskly, they arrive at the kitchen door within seconds. Esther notices the warm smile in which the plump Mexican cook greets Rosa.

"The tamales smell wonderful, Maria," says Esther in Spanish. "Do you mind if I fill a plate?"

"Of course not my dear," Maria replies. "How about some sangria?"

"Good idea," Rosa smiles and watches Maria carefully pour the fruit laden wine from a punchbowl into a carafe. "Gracias," she says.

"Da nada," Maria replies with a big smile only lessened by a look of concern for the fright in the other woman's face.

Handing the carafe to Esther and grabbing the plate of tamales with forks and knives on top and Maria draping burgundy colored cloth napkins over her shoulder, Rosa leads Esther up steps to the second floor and into a richly appointed room of white lace and Spanish landscape paintings on the wall, sitting on a woolen rug below a fairly large four poster bed.

"Grab the glasses beside the water jug and come sit with me," she requests Esther. Esther complies, handing the carafe and glasses to Rosa and tucking her legs under her skirt while Rosa sits cross-legged on the woolen rug.

After pouring the sweet and fruity red wine into the two glasses, Rosa raises hers for a toast. "To your much improved life."

"What do you mean?" asks Esther as she clinks glasses with the native beauty.

"Drink and eat, my dear," Rosa smiles benevolently. "Maria's tamales are the best in California. We'll talk, okay?"

Esther nods and swallows a mouthful of delicious wine. She tastes a small corner of the tamale and practically swoons and proceeds to demolish at least half of them. Watching the woman stuff her face makes Rosa giggle.

"I'm a pig," Esther realizes with a mouth full of delicious food.

"I bet you never have been," says Rosa.

"You'd lose that bet. Just ask my father." With the last word her eyes tear up.

"What happened? Did Simon kill him?"

"No," Esther sniffled. "My father ... sold me to him."

"Did you see this transaction?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

"Simon ... showed me the contract. I know my father's signature. I guess I'm worth a thousand in gold. I knew my father needed the money. A flood damaged much of my father's inventory. He's a haberdasher in St Louis. I took over for my mother doing accounting and running the register when she died with my stillborn brother. I know my father could be mercenary. He told me my beauty attracted clients and he dressed me to show off my cleavage, but I saw the twinkle in his eyes when he told me. He thought it was a funny idea and so did I. But to sell me? We loved each other. He taught me everything and constantly praised my intelligence. We had millions of wonderful conversations. And he sold me?"

"Did he tell you he sold you?"

"No. Simon ... God I actually thought him handsome and sort of sexy when I first saw him and he asked to see my father in his office. He gave me such a friendly smile, not wolfish like some other arrogant rich men I've encountered. But when he emerged from my father's office smiling with full arrogance on display, he showed me the contract and my father's signature and then ... the next thing I remember is being in a carriage heading towards Kansas City strapped to the bench seat with my wrists and ankles tied, my throat parched as desert sand. I caught Simon's eye looking disgusted at me.

"He ordered me to drink. I drank from a leather bladder, really sucked from a sort of nipple and the liquid actually tasted like milk only thinner. The dryness disappeared, but everything went hazy and I lost consciousness again.

"I vaguely recall our travel by train and buggy to San Francisco. I would be awake but not, kind of a shell of consciousness. I noticed other blond men not as handsome as Simon leering at me and ... I felt nothing. No disgust. No fear. Nothing."

"Minions," Rosa murmurs.

"Hmm?" Esther questioned.

"Never mind. This purgatorial state of yours between consciousness and unconsciousness, when did it dissipate?"

"That was weird in itself. The next morning after our arrival in San Francisco, he brought me to his bank and had me drink coffee. He called it coffee, but it was thick and vile and lingered on my tongue. He made sure I drank it all, and in my state I didn't resist. Moments later I became fully cognizant, more than usual even. But when he ordered me to peruse a large stack of papers in front of me, despite my being sold to him and wanting to resist him, I felt compelled to do so. Examining the top page, I realized it was a loan proposal. All of them were. He wanted me to study them, crunch the numbers; note any possible additions to the proposals unmentioned by them and adding to the costs and asking for my opinion in accepting or rejecting them.

"Of course I had never been a banker, but he insisted it was in my blood. The way he said it showed me his hatred for Jews, the whole usurer thing, the Shylock thing. Thing is, maybe he's right, at least in choosing me. I like accounting. I love crunching numbers. I took to the proposals like a duck to water. He stayed to answer questions about determining acceptance or rejection but only through maybe three proposals before he left me alone in the little room satisfied I'd do well."

"And how long has he kept you it that little room?" Rosa asks.

"Going on four months now. Only during the day though. At night ... He and his brothers or whatever they are..." Esther trembled and sobbed.

"Shh. That's over now," Rosa comforted, kissing Esther's forehead.

"But that taste in the so called coffee," Esther continued unsteadily, "I discovered its source. I knew it the first time he made me ... suck him and he shot his ... seed into my mouth. I tasted his brothers' seed and though similar it had to be his. And ... I need it. Like an opium addict needing his pipe. I thought this was punishment, and when they fucked me in the ... in my ... they took my backside, that was punishment, but worse was when he stopped feeding me his semen. It's like I hurt all over and felt so anxious my guts tortured me like being whipped from the inside and I felt nauseous and even vomiting didn't help."

Suddenly her eyes become cold and empty. She rises to her feet and her musculature tightens ready to dash away. Just as she bounds towards the door, Rosa tackles her. "I need you now," Rosa screams telepathically to her grandfather.

A couple minutes later Snake arrives and immediately removes his boots and his pants and rubs his penis to hardness. "Check for her hymen," he orders Rosa.

Sitting on Esther's chest, Rosa tears open layers to her cunt and pushes in a digit. "It's gone," she tells Nick. "And he fucked her anus."

Nodding angrily, he breathes steadily to calm himself and kneels beside Esther. "I've brought your medicine," he tells her, laying his glans on Esther's lips.

"I ... that man pulled me away. I ... I didn't..." Esther pleads, her tongue lapping at his glans between words.

"I know the man," Nick as Simon grumbles. "He can be quite convincing. Now make me cum, you bitch Hebe."

With well trained skills, Esther suckles, licks and rubs her lips up and down on Nick's glans and shaft. "Have Pedro guard this door and..." Nick sighs sadly, "have Ricardo challenge Simon to distract him. You may have to lose your good friend."

"He'll be proud to be of service, grandfather," says Rosa just as sadly standing beside the door. "Is she worth his loss?"

Nick nods and Rosa nods back and exits the room. Seconds later Nick moans and fills Esther's mouth with his cum. She swallows it greedily. Her eyes open wide and her body tenses. "Nick?"

"I'm sorry, sweet Esther. I needed to counteract his essence with my own."

Sitting up, she wipes her mouth aggressively on her sleeve. "So you're like that monster," she grumbles.

"Only in the power of our semen. I would never enslave you. I could never hate you the way he hates you. In fact ... I'm very much enamored by you." He leans in carefully and touches his mouth to hers. At first she pulls away from the kiss. Suddenly she launches herself against his lap and kisses him vigorously. Pulling away she tightens. "What did you do? Why do I want you so?"