by Daryl Banner
The air between us is so still, I wonder if either of us are breathing.
Then, his grip relaxes, but he doesn’t yet let go. With a face as hardened as stone, he says, “Don’t.”
I was just trying to talk to him in his, uh … native language. How is that wrong? “Am I that bad at it?”
The corner of his lips bend into a scowl.
“That’s a yes?” I press on, my hands still caught in his powerful yet strangely gentle grip. “Horrible? I’m just horrible and awful at sign language? Is that it?”
His eyes run all over my face, as if searching for something. Did he get lost in my words? Did I speak too quickly?
I keep going. “Am I really that bad with my hands? Do I look dumb?”
Still, the beast before me stares wordlessly.
“Should I start typing on my phone?” I ramble on, unable to will myself to shut the hell up. “Would you prefer that over reading my lips?”
Then he jerks on my hands, pulling me in, and our lips collide.
My eyes cram shut as he takes over, his warm mouth consuming mine. Clayton’s hot, jagged breath dresses my face, his powerful hands still clasped over mine and keeping me in place, trapped in his kiss.
Holy fucking shit.
Then it’s over, just like that. He pulls away and lets go of me in one fluid motion, jabbing the button to bring the basket slowly back down to Earth.
And I’m just staring at him with what might be the biggest what-the-hell-just-happened expression on my face. I don’t even notice us swaying, nor feel a trace of the fear of heights I just had. All of my attention is one hundred percent Clayton Watts and those lips.
Seriously, though … what just happened?
The basket shudders when it hits the stage abruptly, and Clayton swings open the cage, escaping Bertha as fast as if his pants caught fire.
“Clayton?” I call after him pointlessly. He’s off the stage in seconds, headed down the aisle into darkness. The auditorium doors open, flashing his beautiful silhouette at me for a moment before they shut gently behind him, closing me in with the cold silence and the warm sensation of his lips still on mine.
I can’t do this again.
Fuck, she tasted so good I already want another taste.
No, this can’t happen. I’m not losing my head over a girl, not right now.
But her eyes … Standing that close to her, I could have poured myself into them and made a home.
What the fuck am I talking about?
She’s a sophisticated city girl from New York. I’m the dirty scum of a poor Texas nobody. She can do so much better than me.
Why did I kiss her?? Why would I fucking do that to myself?—or to her? I’m sending the wrong message. A kiss means “come here” when I should be teaching her the signs for “get the fuck away from me”.
And she learned signs. She learned them so she could talk to me with her hands.
I can picture her now, looking them up online and mimicking the hand motions in front of the screen. She did that for you, Clayton. I’m so fucked.
I stop at a giant abstract sculpture made of wire and glass panels just outside of the School of Art and collapse onto one of the benches that encircle it. On that bench for an hour, I stare at the horizon as it ignites with angry shades of orange and pink before being chased away by deep blues, then darkness. That sunset pretty much sums up my mood: up in the air with Dessie’s mouth on mine, I was ignited, and back down on the ground, I’m the shadows.
I pull out my phone and text Brant, asking him what he’s up to. I desperately need to distract myself. My phone shivers twenty seconds later, Brant asking me where we keep the chocolate syrup because he’s got a girl in his room and they “have ideas”. With a sigh, I inform him that we have none, then shove my phone back in my pocket, ignoring his response. That was more distraction and imagery than I needed.
Two girls pass by, and the conversation they were clearly having is paused as they sip the straws of their beverages suggestively, but it’s their eyes that do all the drinking, staring me down as they pass. One of them, a pretty brunette with curls down to her boobs, gives me a wiggle of her long fingers, sporting blood red nails.
I look away, annoyed. Girls like them used to be my thing. I was the expert. I had the skills that Brant was jealous of, even back when we were kids and our voices were still changing.
It’s the strangest thing, for the last memory of your own voice to be that of your twelve-year-old self, an unreliable voice that cracked at the worst of times, a voice that turned rough one day of the week, then boyish and squeaky the next.
But that squeaky voice couldn’t dare stop me from going after all the pretty girls. Little Clayton knew how to talk to them. He wasn’t afraid.
It was little dorky Brant who had all the trouble, and I was the one who coached him that day at Laura’s party. “You can’t think of a girl as someone you want,” I told him—my cocky, know-it-all self who acted like I had all the answers a dumb twelve-year-old would ever need. “You have to see her as someone who wants you.”
“I feel like I’m gonna puke,” whined little Brant. It always annoyed me how much he complained.
“Walk up and ask her why she hasn’t offered you some punch yet,” I teased him, nudging him with my elbow. He pushed me off, annoyed, and I saw the fear in his eyes. It didn’t make me sympathize with him; it made me want to laugh at the scared little fucker. “You’re such a chicken, Brant.”
“Shut up, I’m not.”
“Watch me,” I told him, puffing up my chest. “Watch and learn, little bro.”
We weren’t brothers, but I loved acting like the older brother Brant never had, in all the best and worst ways.
I walked up to that girl he’d had his eyes on ever since fifth grade. It was that easy. I strutted up to Miss Courtney and enjoyed the conversation Brant was meant to have. And at nine o’clock that night, it was me kissing Courtney in the closet under the stairs while everyone else’s fingers turned orange eating Cheetos and playing Twister in the living room.
I’d done some pretty sick shit back when I could hear. I was on top of the world and acted like I owned it, no matter how poor I was, no matter how I felt after Dad took off before my sixth birthday with some blonde bitch he met online, no matter how bad Mom’s hoarding problem got for those three months before he came back. I wouldn’t let anything stop me, even when Brant was furious with me for taking Courtney from him. “Snooze you lose,” I recall telling him in my room before he hurled a PlayStation controller at my head and pounced on me. In the heated struggle, Brant sliced open his arm pretty bad, and a trip to the emergency room earned him twelve stitches and a crescent scar he still has to this day.
He didn’t forgive me for a while. The last time I ever heard his voice, it was in the hallway at school right in front of my locker where he shouted, “I’m sorry I ever looked up to your selfish, coldhearted ass! You’re not my friend! Fuck you, Clayton!”
Not two months after that exchange, I lost my hearing forever.
And Brant’s loving, final words to me would be thereafter locked in my mind. When he saw me next, the only apology I received was in the form of his lips moving, creating words I couldn’t understand. Then I couldn’t even see the lips anymore as they began to blur behind a sheen of my tears.
I blink away the memories, startled to discover how dark it’s gotten. The only light that touches me now is the nearby lamppost. I pull my phone out, the screen blinding me, and type a message to Brant:
ME
We DO have caramel sauce, tho.
Behind the salsa....
back of the fridge
I grin to myself, a chuckle pushing past my lips before I rise from the bench. Hands in my pockets, I stroll into the calm, breezy night, the moon my only guide, and consider what the hell I’m going to do about a certain beautiful Theatre girl.
The water in the shower is just perfect, turned up almost too hot, bathing my skin
in its liquid fire. His face is still burned into my brain. His breath touches my skin like we’re still trapped five zillion feet above the stage in that shaky metal basket. I can imagine it so vividly, so I think, why not go for it?
I slide a slippery hand over my breast.
“Oh, God,” I can’t help but moan.
If he were in this shower with me, it’d be as tight a squeeze as standing in that rickety basket. I can see the water soaking his shirt, picturing it in so much detail, it’s like he’s really here with me. The more the water drenches him, the more his firm muscles reveal themselves.
My nipples are so sensitive. I can’t stop moving my hand over them, up and down, then in circles.
“Fuck,” I breathe, quivering.
The water is almost too hot to bear, and so is he. My fingers run lower, tickling down my stomach. I keep myself on edge, anticipating the sensation I want to feel so badly. I deliberately take my time, torturing myself. My fingers are Clayton’s. My touch is Clayton, evilly crawling his fingers down my body too slowly.
“You’re so bad,” I whisper into the water, echoes of my own voice hissing all around me in the white noise of the shower. “You’re so, so bad.”
Then my slippery hand plunges between my legs. No muzzle or hand or gag can possibly hope to snuff out the moan that escapes my trembling lips now.
Clayton Watts is down there working a cruel sort of magic on me.
“Don’t stop,” I beg him.
He doesn’t. My fingers that are his fingers start to move quicker. I sway so badly, I catch a stream of shower water in my gaping mouth. One hand down below, I keep a set of fingers working my increasingly sensitive nipples. I’m so horny I feel sick. My insides are coming undone fast. I know I’m about to come.
Clayton … Clayton wants me to come for him.
“Yes,” I agree, the word turning into a sizzle on my tongue, my face scrunching up in sweet agony. “Yes.”
The impending waves of ecstasy chase up my body as I race over the cliff of orgasm. I lean forward into the wet wall of the shower, face flattened against the tile as I plummet off the edge, my fingers working me into a state of delirium as I moan my release through the steam and the water and the heat.
It’s not often that you can say you feel dirtier after a shower.
I breathe deeply, recovering as I press against the shower wall. I suck in one lungful of air after another, my hands stuck right where they are, half hugging the sensitive parts of my body.
As the thrill of orgasm departs, reality makes a quick replacement of the joy I was chasing, and I realize that I’m all alone. That kiss we shared while we swayed in the air two days ago, it’s already so far gone that I’m having doubts it ever really happened.
Clayton Watts, you teasing asshole. You’re driving me insane. I’m so obsessed with you.
Then, my moment is further stolen from me by a loud knock at the door that leads to my suitemates in the adjoining room, followed by the words, “I need to pee! For the love of God, can you hurry up??”
I kinda thought I was alone. I was so lost in my fantasy, I wonder self-consciously if she heard any of my moaning or whispering dirty things through the noise of the shower.
Shutting off the water, I dry off—which is literally impossible in this tiny chamber that fills up with steam in a matter of five minutes—then dismiss myself to my room wearing just a towel as the desperate, squirming suitemate barges her way into the bathroom. No eye contact is made and my door’s shut and locked before any due awkwardness can ensue. Still, that doesn’t save me from the deadpan stare I get from Sam sitting cross-legged on her bed, who I didn’t realize was here either. Did everyone in the world return to their rooms during the one shower I take in which I chose to get myself off?
No matter, I hide in the closet and dress myself for tonight’s read-through. Even though rehearsals don’t start until Monday, they’ve scheduled a reading of the script with all the cast and some crew heads tonight before we all break for the weekend to learn our lines.
The whole way to the School of Theatre, I find my heart thrumming heavily between my footsteps. I don’t know if it’s because auditions happened last Friday—exactly a week ago today—or if I’m somehow channeling the bold recklessness that a few drinks gave me before I sang my heart out at the Throng.
I enter the rehearsal room and dozens of eyes are on me at once, the noise of chatter cut in half by my arrival. I’m stunned by the reaction, worrying for a second that I’d gotten the time wrong and I’m late. There’s a set of long tables arranged in a U, around which actors and designers are seated with scripts set before them, ready.
“D-lady!” calls out Eric, who magically appears, waving. “Got a seat for you!”
I smile mutely at the others in the room, then put myself in the empty chair at his side. When I look up at the person seated across from me, I’m stabbed in the chest.
Clayton stares down at his script, his mess of hair casting a shadow down his face. He knows I’m here. He saw me and now he’s avoiding all eye contact.
Yeah, this is all about you, Dessie. I roll my eyes.
But I can’t help myself from staring at his thick, round shoulders in that red-and-black plaid button-down he’s wearing, how it tapers up the trapezoidal shape of his neck muscles where that coil of black ink runs up his neck like a deadly, poisonous vine. Two buttons of his shirt are undone, giving me a cruel and tormenting peek at the top of his pecs. Clayton’s face is still drawn tightly to his script. I doubt even an earthquake could pull his attention up to pretend to acknowledge me.
What is he even doing here??
“Sorry,” Eric whispers to me.
I jerk, turning my face. “For what?”
“It was the only seat,” he murmurs quietly, barely heard in the noise of the room even sitting right next to me. “I got here seconds before you did. Besides, the view isn’t that bad, eh?” He gives me a wink.
I smirk, narrowing my eyes. “No idea what you’re talking about, Other Eric.”
“Gay Eric would be more accurate,” he amends, “and that makes me twenty times more interesting than the Erik-with-a-K. Really, that’s what we should call him. Ugh.”
Oh. I hadn’t realized, since no one said it outright. “Well, then,” I mutter back. “You can have all the fun you want staring at Clay-boy. He’s all yours.”
“I wish,” he breathes with a rueful glance.
Right then, Nina Parisi enters the room, and all the chatter wilts away in the same manner as paper shriveling up to nothing in the presence of fire. She seats herself at the head of the table, then flips open her script and coldly welcomes us to the first reading of Our Town. She proceeds to give us a speech about what she hopes to accomplish with this brave, unique production and her “big picture”.
And it’s taking everything in me not to look up and drink in the delicious sight of Clayton across the table from me. Why does he have to make things so hard? He’s the one who kissed me and ran away. He’s the one who’s acting all weird, not me. Also, I’m pretty sure if I dare to look at him, he’ll know instantly that not an hour earlier, I had my fingers up my hoo-hoo getting off to fantasies of him in my dorm shower.
Just the thought makes me sweat.
Soon, Nina has us run down the line and briefly introduce ourselves. “I’m Kat, the stage manager. The actual stage manager, not to be confused with the role of ‘Stage Manager’ in the play, to be clear,” says a curvy, olive-skinned woman to her left with a mop of red and black hair gathered in cute nests by her ears. “Astrid here, assistant director,” announces the girl next to Kat, a pale thing with twenty braids piled up and pinned to her head. “Alice, or Ali, costumes,” says the next, listless and sleepy-eyed.
As the intros move down the line, I betray all that resolve I built up, daring myself to look at Clayton.
He’s staring right at me.
I look away at once. Damn it. The person to my left shifts in their sea
t. There’s a fraction of a second of silence before I realize it’s my turn. I rise suddenly for my intro, despite the fact that no one else did. “I’m Dessie, playing my … playing the role for … of Emily.”
My face red, I clumsily drop back into my chair as Eric rises from his, endearingly following my lead. “Eric Chaplin O’Connor here. I’ll be playing Simon Stimson.” He sits back down, then gives me a wink of encouragement, which only makes my face redder.
I look up to find Clayton still staring at me, except now there’s a hint of amusement in his wicked eyes.
I scowl at him, despite my incessant flushing, then mouth the words, “Stop staring at me,” across the table.
To that, his smirk only widens, now touching his dark eyes, and then he slowly shakes his head no.
He is so infuriating.
The introductions have come around the table, and the round man to Clayton’s right rises, who I belatedly recognize as the orange-bearded guy from the mixer, except with glasses. “Hey! I’m Freddie, your lucky sound designer, and this here’s Clayton Watts, assistant lighting designer. And … please audition for my show. Auditions are Tuesday in the black box at six, with callbacks Wednesday. Uh, thanks. Appreciate it.” He awkwardly sits back down, and then the person to Clayton’s left continues the round of intros.
Clayton keeps watching me with that wolf-like, hungry glint in his eyes.
I don’t know whether to be turned on or scared.
“Great,” says Nina, the intros finished. “Let’s get right to it. Act one, scene one.”
Is this some sort of game to him? Kissing girls he likes, then running away and expecting them to chase after him? I’ve had my fair share of game-playing guys in my past. Sure, I dated very few of them, but I never had one that I could properly call a boyfriend. Everyone in New York City was shopping for the next best thing. Everyone knew a hundred other people. Games, that’s all the men there could play. Whether on the stage or off, everyone was an actor, even if they never stepped foot on a stage.