Tonight he had on a light jacket because a cold front (or well… as cold as it got in Texas) had just come through. I held onto the jacket instead of him. The ride was even scarier without something more solid to hold on to, but I refused to wrap my arms around him. Mostly because I wasn’t sure I would have the willpower to unwrap them if I did.
When we arrived, I was off the bike in seconds. I think I said goodbye. Honestly, I was so panicked that I just bolted. And he let me. When I slipped inside my apartment, I risked a glance back. He was still on the bike, and after a second, he started it back up, and took off. I watched him go, battling crazy urges to follow him.
No matter what I was feeling… there couldn’t be anything between us.
***
Wednesday, I waited in the greenroom until the very last minute, so that the class would already be full by the time I got there. I had my headshot and resume with me as assigned, and I took a seat with Cade way off to the side, so that there were about a dozen people between Garrick and I.
About a minute after nine, Garrick called the class to order.
“Alright, then. Like I said Monday—we’re not wasting any time. We’re jumping into the thick of things. Today, you’re doing mock auditions using cold readings from A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. If you haven’t read it, you should be questioning your major right about now. I’ve split you into pairs. Those assignments along with the side you’ll be reading are on the table to my left. I’ll send you outside and you’ll have ten minutes to prepare before I call in the first group. You’ll note that the scene I’ve chosen from the play is the scene leading up to the climactic moment where Stanley rapes Blanche, his wife’s sister.”
“Dude, he rapes her?” That would be Dom, obviously one of those ones that should be reconsidering his major.
“Yes, Dom. Now the difficulty of auditions is that you often must depict climactic scenes without the benefit of having an entire performance to build to that point. You’re going into this emotionally blind. The moments before you audition are extremely important. You have ten minutes to find a connection with your partner and with your character. Good luck!”
He stepped to the side, and it was like Black Friday at Walmart as actors rushed the table, trying to grab a side and find out their partner. I wasn’t really feeling up to jumping into the mob, but Kelsey grabbed me by the elbow and didn’t give me much choice.
I grabbed the side, recognizing the scene. Garrick wasn’t kidding about starting right at the cli**x. Blanche is pretty much bat-shit crazy already. I glanced at the assignment sheet and wouldn’t you know it… I was paired with Dom.
I pressed a hand to my forehead, a dull throbbing beginning just over my left eye. Dom swung an arm over my shoulder a moment later.
“What do you know Blissful, we’re together again.”
I shrugged off his arm and headed toward the door. “Let’s get this over with, Dominic.”
When I exited the theatre, pairs were already camped out in various places throughout the hallway. The only spot left was directly in front of the theatre doors, which was almost guaranteed to make us the first group picked. That meant we’d have less preparation than everyone else. The thought made me feel like I was going to break out into hives, but clearly the world was against me today. Whatever, at least I’d be done with class early.
“Alright, Dom, let’s see what we’ve got.”
I spent most of the ten minutes explaining the play and the scene to Dom. He was one of those guys that had a good look and was pretty good at playing the over-confident douche bag (mainly because he was an over-confident douche bag), but that was about it.
“So, my guy is drunk, right?”
“Yes, Dom.”
“Sweet. And you’re crazy?”
I sighed. “Well, sort of. I’m a little delusional, and you destroy those delusions.”
“Great. Then I attack you.”
I rolled my eyes. What was the point?
“Yes, sure. Anyway, I’m going to open sitting in the chair, and you’ll enter from stage left, okay? I can’t imagine him making us do the whole scene because it’s kind of long.”
And that was all we had time for because the door opened and Garrick’s eyes fell on me. “Bliss, Dom, you ready?”
Dom pulled me to my feet against my will, and said, “Sure thing, Garrick.”
Ready was the exact opposite of how I felt. I hated being unprepared.
Garrick took our headshots and résumés and looked over them in silence for about a minute. I grabbed a chair and moved it to the center of the room and took a seat. I folded my audition side so that the paper wasn’t too big and unwieldy. He had us introduce ourselves as if we’d never met him, and then he gave us permission to begin.
The scene opened with Blanche dressed in all her finest clothes (including a tiara) talking to imaginary suitors at an imaginary party.
It took me a few seconds to get into the scene because my own feelings of dread and unease were so contrary to Blanche’s blissful ignorance. But once I got there, it was easy to block out the room around me and lose myself in her laughter and her dreams and her delusions. When Dom swaggered into the space, I had to admit, he made a great Stanley. Despite knowing absolutely nothing about the play, he exuded Stanley’s charisma, his absolute disregard for Blanche.
I used my unease about the situation with Garrick, letting it seep in and directing it towards Dom. After another half a page, Garrick stopped us.
“Good, good. Bliss, you started a little unsure, but you were dead on by the end. Dom, I think you’ve got a really good grasp on Stanley.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “But… I’m not feeling as much connection on your side as I am with Bliss. She’s aware of you at all times, adjusting her movements to your movements. I need to see you reacting a little bit more. Let’s skip forward to right before you re-enter from the bathroom. Start with Blanche calling Western Union, and let’s see if we can’t really concentrate on connecting with each other.”
I nodded, moving to the opposite side of the space where I had planned to put the imaginary telephone. He’d chosen possibly the hardest part for me to start at. We skipped right over the part where Stanley tears down the nice perfect world I’d dreamed for myself, and I had to convey the same fear and paranoia anyway.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Fear. Paranoia. How I would feel if someone found out about Garrick and me. Or if he found out I was a virgin. Hell… how I felt right before I stopped us from hav**g s*x. That was fear and paranoia at its finest.
Feeling a little more confident, I opened my eyes and pantomimed grabbing the telephone. Since I still had to hold my script, I had to forego pantomiming the earpiece and just pretend to talk into the receiver. I gasped into the phone, asking for an operator.
The fear felt so real that tears pressed at my eyes without any effort on my part. I babbled on, panic rising up and choking my words.
My voice broke over my calls for help. The feeling of being trapped came too easily. It was suffocating.
I heard Dom walk up behind me, and I froze. I backed away, and he stepped between the imaginary door and me. He leered at me, and I didn’t have to pretend the revulsion I felt.
I tried to leave, and he stepped in my way. I asked him to let me pass, but he stayed put. Laughing, he started slinking towards me, and I felt the thump of my heart jump slightly.
I slipped out of character just long enough to think that we were doing a really good job. Far better than I had thought we would. Then Dom’s grinning face entered my vision and I was right back in it.
I tried to flee from him, but he kept coming, still laughing. Then his hands closed around my forearms, pulling me up and against him.
I fought, contorting my whole body to try to pull away.
He pulled me against him, squeezing harder, hard enough that it actually hurt, and a little shiver of unease trailed up my spine.
His face was right up against mine, so that I felt the heat of his breath against my face. I was supposed to crumble, defeated, and he would take me off-stage for the rape scene, but that’s not how things actually went.
Dom dropped his script, gripped my neck and pulled me forward into a kiss.
Shocked, I pushed against him with my free hand, but he kept going, not realizing that it was me protesting, not Blanche. I pushed and writhed, but he was too strong, and his lips were pressed against mine so hard that I couldn’t say anything to make him stop. I was gearing up for my final move of protest, a swift knee to the junk, when Dom was ripped off of me.
I gulped in air, and saw Garrick, who was seething, release one of Dom’s arms that he’d had twisted back at an odd angle.
“Where exactly in this script did you see that particular stage direction, Dominic?” Garrick asked, his tone deadly quiet.
I wasn’t wasting time with the logical questions. I flew at Dom, shoving him backward.
“What the hell was that, Dom? The rape scene occurs offstage, you a**hole!”
He grabbed my wrists as I went to push him again.
“Hey, I was trying to connect. I was improvising. That’s what actors do!”
Garrick’s hand came down on Dom’s arm, and he squeezed a little harder than was probably appropriate. Dom let go of my wrists immediately, and I backed away.
“Be that as it may,” Garrick began. “Actors also respect each other. Unless you’d like to be accused of assault, you okay something like that with your partner before hand.” I could see Garrick’s calm façade cracking. “Now go. You’re dismissed.”
I could tell Dom was pissed. He gave me a scathing look, and pushed open the door so hard that it banged against the wall outside. I just could not catch a break this week. Was the world dropping shit on everyone else or just me?
There was a feather light touch on my arm, and then Garrick was in front of me, cradling my arm in his hands. A bruise was already forming where Dom had grabbed me during the scene. Garrick ran a hand over his face, and then looked at me. He said, “I probably could have handled that better.”
I didn’t realize how much my head was still pounding until I laughed, and the movement sent pain ricocheting through my head. I closed my eyes on instinct. Garrick’s fingers brushed along my jaw, sending an earthquake of shivers across my skin from where we touched. I kept my eyes closed, because as long as they were closed, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, right? But if opened them, and I looked at his gorgeous face and I saw those lips… I’d be crossing into a completely different territory that was most definitely wrong, wrong, wrong.
A whispered, “Bliss…” was all the warning I had before his lips were on mine.
Chapter Eleven
I thought of how bad an idea the kiss was for exactly three seconds before I stopped thinking all together. His tongue swept into my mouth, searching and furious and demanding. It was passion in its rawest form. I’d always pretended to understand chemistry when directors talked about actors having it together on stage, but now I got it. Whatever happened when he touched me was like a chemical reaction—molecules changing, shifting, giving off heat.