supplicium post mortem

© Casey Morgan 1995

[This is the first tgi story I ever wrote, penned before I met M, and before I had ever played. Commentary here.]

1.

It was ten o’clock at night in early June and the air felt like breath for the first time that year. When you went outside and walked around, it smelled like Florida. I had spent my first Equity day-off getting high with my roommate Judy. We took blankets out to Walden Pond and lay around in the sun from about ten a.m. until three thirty, at which time Judy had gone home and packed for her great-aunt’s funeral. I’d smoked pot before but never got high until that day. I’m not generally into drugs. Maybe I’m a goodie-goodie, but I was always afraid they’d fry my brain cells or make me do something I regret. On this occasion, though, Judy talked me into it.

“You can’t expect me to spend two days in Fairfield County Connecticut and not get stoned first,” she told me. I agreed because I knew going home was horrible for her. Though there might have been something else working in the decision. It was the first summer I’d had an apartment (albeit with my college roommate and her cousin). We were all part of a summer stock company. Judy was the designer, I was a director, and our third roommate, Andrew, was one of the actors. My play was up first, and after a week of eight-hour rehearsals I could barely think. Still, the legitimacy, the sense of adulthood intoxicated me. Maybe that’s why I agreed to get high. I don’t know. The point is I had.

And I was regretting it by ten o’clock. After Walden Pond, I’d gone to Quincy Market and gorged on chocolate ice-cream smush-ins. By the time the pot wore off, my stomach ache had set in. When I got home, Judy had left, and Andrew was nowhere to be found, so I crashed on the couch. When I awoke, I remembered what I’d done. That was when my stomach really started to hurt. I thought the best remedy would be work, so I sat down at my desk and got out my script. The play was Cloud 9, and I had to finish blocking the first act the next day. The harder I concentrated, though, the more I heard in my head awful snatches of my conversation with Judy.

“How was it seeing Klaus again?” I had asked her. Her German boyfriend had just arrived in Boston for a three-week visit, and I knew she’d missed him.

“It was…different,” she said.

“Different?”

“Fantastic, but different.” She took another drag on the joint, and so did I.

“What do you mean?” Judy usually took no prompting to go into the most intimate details of her sex life. She simply refused to be ashamed of anything she did. I admired this and hoped I might someday become as liberated as she was. Today, though, she turned over onto her stomach and squinted at me, as if I’d irritated her.

“You’re a real piece of work,” she told me. “You’ve been listening to me tell about my lovers for two years and you’ve never once told anything in return.”

“There’s nothing to tell. You heard all about my aborted kiss with Justin.” My virginity and pathetic lack of experience was something Judy accepted, even if she did vigorously encourage me to Go For It.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “There’s always something to tell. You must have fantasies.”

“I dream about making out with Hugh Grant, if that’s what you mean.”

“That is not what I mean.” Judy seemed pissed off at me. “You are my best friend, Casey, but I’ve got to say I’m sick and tired of being your tutor or your erotica supplier or your voyeurism satisfier, or whatever it is I am to you!” At first I’d thought she was joking, but now I thought she was weirded out on a combination of pot, funerals, and Klaus, and was taking it out on me.

“I know you’re not as pure and naive as you make yourself out to be,” she said. “It’s not possible. And I take your Nothing To Tell line as an insult to my intelligence. You must have fantasies that are a little bit smutty.”

“Well, sure.”

“So let’s hear one.”

“No way, Judy.”

“What do you mean, no way? Think of all the embarrassing stuff I’ve told you!”

“Look, it’s nothing personal, and I know I shouldn’t be ashamed of fantasies, but I am.” I saw her cock her guns for another attack against Shame. Words came from my chest, not my brain: “I hate myself. As much for the fantasies as for being ashamed of them.”

She shut up. We finished the joint, then went swimming. Afterwards we lit up another (the third, I think), and I asked Judy to reapply the sunscreen to my back. I was wearing a black, one-piece in the style of a 1930′s bathing suit, the kind that fit like Calvin Klein Boxer Briefs. It had a big scoop back. Judy’s hands were always soft and squeezy, and when she rubbed the lotion on my back she also gave me a little massage.

“That’s great,” I said. “A little higher.”

“Casey, I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“Uh-huh.” I felt deliciously relaxed as Judy kneaded my back in the frying sun.

“I hate to think of you hating yourself.”

“I don’t usually,” I said, feeling a little dizzy.

“The thing is, I feel strange talking about what Klaus and I did last night. I mean embarrassed strange.”

“But you’re never embarrassed.” I couldn’t tell if it was the massage or the pot or what, but my body felt heavy and buzzing all over, like I was floating in humming water.

“Well, this particular incident embarrasses me. So here’s what I propose: I’ll tell you what Klaus and I did last night if you tell me your most embarrassing fantasy.”

“Come on Judy, I said I didn’t want to tell.”

“Please, Casey. It would mean a lot to me. See, it’s going to drive me crazy if I can’t talk to someone about last night, but if you don’t tell me something equally embarrassing then I’ll feel gross.”

“Oh I don’t know…” It was all starting to feel really dreamy. She was my best friend. She was genuinely asking for my help. “I’m afraid you’ll hate me, or think I’m sick.”

Judy burst out laughing. “That, I think, is impossible given my experiences. Please, Case. What good is it getting stoned if you don’t tell embarrassing secrets while doing it? Don’t be a Puritan.”

“I’m not a Puritan!” I’m as broad-minded as they come. I was directing Cloud 9!

“Prove it.”

“All right,” I told her. “If you promise not to think less of me.”

“Less of you? The smuttier it is the more highly I’ll think of you.”

She left for her funeral with an amazed respect. Still, I wondered if I would be able to live with the embarrassment now that I was sober. I kept imagining Judy was thinking about it, but probably by the time her family had worked her over, it would be the farthest thing from her mind. More likely, it would be completely blown off. That can happen, can’t it? Over the course of a friendship people forget all sorts of things that seemed important at the time. I couldn’t even remember what our first fight had been about.

But I couldn’t forget the secrets we’d traded that afternoon.

“OK, Casey, that’s everything, told in luscious detail I might add. Your turn.”

“I think my shoulders are burning.”

“No stalling! Your nastiest fantasy. Come on, I know there must be a sex-drive under all those brains.” She knew how to prevaricate, that was certain.

“OK, OK,” I said, “but rub some more sunscreen on while I tell you.” Judy sat up and got the bottle. I heard her shake it and then squeeze some icy liquid across my shoulders. I turned my head away from her; she massaged it in. “This particular fantasy involves Andrew.”

“Fantasies involving roommates, very normal. I hope it gets better.”

“Well, I never really got to know him until March.” I had directed Another Country that spring and Andrew had been in it. (The play, on which the Rupert Everett movie is based, takes place in an English Public School in the 1930′s. Andrew was English and had been to Public School himself. He taught me a few things.)

“Nothing like directing an all-male cast to put fire into your loins.”

“During the play he started that joke. You know, when he acts like he’s a prefect and I’m a junior, and he calls me by my surname and condescends to me.”

“I’ve never seen Andrew best you in a verbal duel.”

“True.” I smiled. “I beat him even when he’s calling me Morgan.”

“Get back to the fantasy.”

“Well, in this fantasy his joke is true. We are at boarding school in England and he’s a prefect and I’m his fag.” A fag (no homosexual connotation) was Public School lingo for a boy in his first year, generally paired with a senior.

“So you’re like a cross between his servant and his ward?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve seen pictures of the guy who really did fag for Andrew in his last year. Scrumptious!”

“Well, in this fantasy I’m a boy myself… or something.”

“Groovy.”

“And, well, there’s a lot of veiled eroticism, like with him subtly trying to seduce me within that homoerotic genre.”

“Don’t get academic.”

“I’m not. I just mean that when he flirts with me, it’s like a man flirts with a man. The heterosexual gender politics are gone.”

“Uh-huh. Get to the good part.”

“Well, there are also scenes where I’ve got into trouble for something and am sent up before him for judgment, etc.”

“Etcetera?”

“And. . . there’s a long cat-and-mouse interrogation, which no matter what I say I know is heading one place.”

“Where?”

“With him telling me . . . to come to his study after Games. When I do, he lectures me. Then he tells me to bend over. And gives me six with the cane.”

“Interesting.”

“But even though it hurts like hell, it’s not sadistic or anything. It’s just…”

“Exciting.”

“I guess.”

I was still wearing my bathing suit sitting at my desk. I hadn’t taken a shower yet so I could smell the sunscreen. It made me shaky inside to smell it and remember what I’d confessed to Judy, but the memory was making my heart beat between my legs. I put my head in my hands and felt the sunburn on my face, which was just starting to radiate. I’d have to put some aloe on later. A little gust from the courtyard blew across my bare legs. I ran the toes of my left foot along the back of my right knee and felt I was burned there, too. I was burned all over, which was probably why I wasn’t cold in my bathing suit late at night. I could hear the Spin Doctors blasting from the living room. It’s a matter of Cain and Abel, and I can feel your leg beneath the table.

“Morgan!”

My heart slammed against my ribs. The Spin Doctors had stopped. I turned around in my seat and saw Andrew leaning on my doorjamb, arms crossed, remote in hand.

“I thought I’d find you here,” he said in his deep, resonant accent.

“Jesus Christ, Andrew! You almost gave me a fucking heart attack!”

Andrew shook his head. “Didn’t your mother ever wash your mouth out with soap?”

“She sure fucking did,” I said, “and this is the goddamned result.”

He tilted his head back and squinted at me. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to my work. “Good fucking luck, Aldington.” My chin got a little hotter when I realized I’d used his surname. I hadn’t meant to encourage our game, especially not tonight. My heart was beating in a way that felt like hunger pangs. I heard Andrew put the remote down on my bookshelf and walk over to the window. I stared forward, into my script. “Do you need something?” I said. “Because I’ve got work to do.”

He was sitting on the edge of my unmade bed, leaning back on his hands, legs stretched, ankles crossed. Unluckily for me he was wearing oxfords with no socks. I have a thing for ankles. Also for knees. Andrew had the knobbiest knees and most delicate ankles I knew. He was 6’1″ and had wonderfully shaped biker’s calves. He was wearing fairly skimpy shorts which showed them off well. He also had on my favorite shirt of his, a slightly small, ribbed, Henley-neck T-shirt with banded arms. I could tell he’d got sunburned, too. His knees were pink, as were his cheeks and arms. I thought his chest and back must be especially red, since he refused to wear sunscreen, but I couldn’t tell for sure since they were sheathed by that lucky, lucky shirt.

“You’re getting a bit snitty for my taste, Young Morgan,” he said. Our age difference was a bone of contention. He was older than most undergraduates, describing himself as an “older student,” but nothing could get him to reveal his age. Even Judy was mum on that point. When I’d asked him point blank he said, “How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know. Thirty?” This had shocked him and he acted insulted, so I suppose he was younger. Maybe twenty-six. But when you’re nineteen, anyone over twenty-one is old. In typical fashion he had turned his age to a strategic advantage in our serial one-upmanship, insisting on calling me Young Morgan or Young Casey (sometimes even Young Casey Morgan) whenever he could.

That night, as usual, I wasn’t having it. “I’m snitty? Sue me.” He glared, winsomely. “What do you think you’re going to do about it, Old Aldington?” The joke didn’t work so well in reverse, but I knew its stupidity annoyed him.

“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about, actually.”

I took a deep breath because I realized I hadn’t been breathing for several seconds. But then I felt a ripple of exhilaration in my stomach. The game was so loaded now. I never realized it could be so thrilling to be thinking of my fantasy while doing this little role-play, all the while knowing Andrew was wholly oblivious to the implications! For the first time my secrets felt like a source of excitement rather than embarrassment.

“I’ve been up at the Cloisters,” Andrew began. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. “I’ve heard things. Rumors, one might say. And these rumors have given me pause.”

“Shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps I should. In this case, my source was one hundred percent reliable.”

“Is that so?” I felt a wobble in my voice.

“Yes, it is.”

“Is his name Deep Throat?” I was groping for wit, and I knew it. Andrew just made a tsk-ing noise with his tongue.

“Morgan, this cheekiness is getting you nowhere.” I laughed in a burst. “Perhaps you won’t find it so amusing when I tell you what I heard.”

He was bullshitting. He might have been a fantastic actor, but I was his director and I knew him inside out. This was, admittedly, one of his better performances, but I was not seduced. “Go ahead, burst my bubble Aldington.”

“Very well. The actual text doesn’t bear repeating, suffice to say I had a chat with my cousin. And she told me about your outing this afternoon.”

I put down my roller-ball pen and crossed my hands to keep them from trembling. “I thought she went straight to Connecticut,” I said evenly.

“That’s what she told you, yes. But in fact we had time for a talk over tea in the Square.”

Judy would never have told him. She’d never betrayed my trust.

I laughed again when I realized what Andrew was doing. “If you mean the pot, yes we got a little stoned, so what?”

“She didn’t tell me that part, though the fact has been duly noted. No, what I heard about was the conversation you two had.”

It was patently impossible. He was bluffing. I’d had enough of his lukewarm insinuations and was about to tell him to piss off, but then I remembered. I remembered the last thing I’d told Judy as we were walking back to the car:

“Sometimes I imagine that Andrew knows about it, and he acts it out with me, all the details.”

“Do you ever think of actually telling him,” Judy had asked.

“No way. Never in a million years. And if he guessed, I’d deny it.”

“Why?”

“I’d be too embarrassed.”

“So you’d lie?”

“Definitely.”

Andrew was enough of a bastard to be able to tell when I was embarrassed and push the point.

“Do you remember the conversation?” he asked.

“Maybe. We had a lot of conversations.”

“I think you know the one I mean.” He stood up and approached my desk. He put one hand on my script and the other on the back of my chair, leaning over me. I could feel the heat from his body. “Is it true what Judy said?”

“I doubt it. You know what a sex-fiend she is.” When Andrew sat down on my desk, facing me, I realized my mistake.

“I didn’t say anything about sex.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I only asked if she was telling the truth, and I think I have my answer.”

I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. I knew I was giving myself away, but I didn’t care. Judy might have told him. She might even have told him I wouldn’t admit it. But if I never did admit it, he’d never know for sure.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d find it so funny,” he said, examining my pen. “Because if what Judy says is true, you’re in for a good dressing down.”

I pushed away from the desk, but Andrew was on his feet, gripping the arms of my chair, imprisoning me. “Fuck you, Andrew. I’ve got work to do and I’m not interested in your pathetic little mind games.”

“Aren’t you?” He pulled my chair back towards the desk with me in it and held it between his pink knees. “Our Morgan doth protest too much, methinks.” I laughed again. He put the palms of his hands on the chair and spoke quietly: “If you tell me to my face it’s not true then I’ll leave you to your work right now, and have a chat with Judy when she returns about libel.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not true.”

“Look me in the eye when you say that.”

“It’s not-”

“No, look me in the eye. You looked away.”

“It’s-”

“Stop with your hands. I’m looking you in the eye, you’re looking me in the eye, so what’s this with your hands?” A flood of blue iris, and I couldn’t tell him there were stars in the sky.

“Well?”

“I…” My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. I knew I could make myself say no. But the moment had taken on a weight. If I told him no, he’d never bring it up again. I’d go back to my blocking, and he’d go watch Monty Python reruns. The event had become fire. I’d hate myself even worse if I did nothing. The cowardice would eat away at me, like every missed kiss, every unasked-for date, each phone call not made. It would wake me up in the middle of the night and make my teeth hurt.

Andrew leaned forward so that his mouth grazed my left cheek, sending shivers down my back and arms. He opened his mouth. His breath warmed my ear. And he spoke very quietly: “Don’t be a Puritan, Casey.” I smiled despite myself. Andrew sat back on my desk and crossed his arms. “I’m waiting for an answer,” he said.

I looked down at my script and sent the words into the room like a telegram. “Yes.”

“What was that?”

“I said, yes. I suppose it is true.”

I don’t think he expected me to say that. When I looked up, all the superciliousness had vanished. His cheekbones swarmed red.

“I’m glad you told me the truth at last,” he said. I had the feeling he meant it. And I had the feeling he wanted to kiss me, or cry, or both. But before anything happened, he stood up and put his hand on my shoulder, clutching it hard.

“Very well.” The old arrogance was back. “I think you know what to expect. I’ll see you in my study in ten minutes.” He walked to the door. The script on my desk blurred a little, and my heart beat between my legs. I heard his voice down the hall: “Don’t even think about being late.”

---

2.

All I could think about was my clothes. I suddenly felt indecent sitting there in my bathing suit. I didn’t want to go into his room dressed like that. But then I remembered why I was wearing my bathing suit. Everything was in the laundry. In the washing machine. I’d put them in when I got home and then forgotten to put them in the dryer. The only things in my closet were black opening-night dresses, rain-pants, and a few odd costume pieces. I ran on tiptoe down the hall to Judy’s closet. She’s smaller than I am, but she likes her clothes big. I rummaged until I found what I needed.

Back in my room I swore at myself. You are such a fucking idiot, Casey! Why do you leave your laundry until there’s no underwear left, you idiot? I decided the bathing suit would have to do; I didn’t think Judy would like me borrowing her underwear, and I wasn’t going to wear her pants with nothing underneath. So I put on her French-cuffed shirt, buttoning it with weak fingers, then her black poly-blend trousers that had suspenders sewn in. Over that I put her black woolen vest, with its twelve god-dammed buttons, and her black tailcoat. The vest and tailcoat she’d gotten at a flea market in England. They had a label in them from 1914, and she wore the whole ensemble for street theater. I’d always coveted the outfit, and even though she might have let me wear it, I was too afraid to ask. I went back into her room in search of a tie, but the best I could find was a thin, black rayon scarf. When I looked in the mirror, my stomach lurched. It was more dramatic than I’d imagined. My short-cropped hair was curling on top because of the humidity and looked very much like Colin Firth’s in Another Country. My chest was on the small side, and under the vest it was all but unnoticeable. Altogether, my un-whiskered five foot three inches were the spitting image of a fourteen-year-old boy. Except for the bare feet.

I dug up my black Doc Martens and put them on, without socks. I strode with watery knees to Andrew’s door. And knocked.

“Come!” he barked. I turned the knob and pushed the door open before I had time to get scared. He was standing behind his desk, which was situated across the room, in front of the window and facing the door. He looked at me, then at his watch: “I said ten minutes. You’re early. Wait outside.” With that, he resumed rummaging in his desk. I was on the verge of laughing, so I stepped backwards and closed the door behind me.

Back in the hall, the giggles wore off and my face got hot. In retrospect I suppose you could say my mind was evolving through the classic stages of denial. But at the time all I could think of was a plausible exit line. Pretty good, huh Andrew? Did you believe me? Or: The joke’s on you, Aldington. Judy fed you that whole story just to see if you’d go for it. We made a bet, and thanks to you I won. Or: Let’s forget it, OK, Andrew? You’re my roommate and we’ve got to live together the rest of the summer. Or even: I have one rule, and it is never to fool around with my actors.

But slowly a new kind of embarrassment washed over me. Maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe Judy didn’t tell him what I thought she had. On reconsideration, it was too unbelievable to be true. Judy was fiercely loyal. She was always telling people what a great director I was, promoting my current projects. She could be counted on to quell any rumors about me. (For example, that I was a lesbian; that one circulated periodically because I hadn’t had a boyfriend since I was thirteen.) She lobbied for me when I applied for to summer stock. She’d practically created my reputation for being the hardest working, most sophisticated director on campus. She even found ways to tastefully alert boys I liked to my crushes and-

Oh, Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ, no. Please. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t have thought I wanted-

“Come!”

Like a reflex, my hand reached for the knob. I felt like I was going to throw up. I cast my mind back to Alexander Technique and lengthened the back of my neck in hopes of overcoming the tension. My neck and shoulders relaxed, then my upper arms and my back, my-

“Morgan!”

I gasped. It was like pulling off a Band-Aid; I clutched the knob, and all in one movement opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind me.

Andrew was seated behind his desk. He had put on a long-sleeved shirt, the one he’d worn in Another Country. The sleeves were full, full enough to roll all the way up his biceps, the way you’d roll up a T-shirt. “Come here,” he said in a low voice. I took a few steps forward. “Closer.” I took four more steps. “Stop.” Right in the middle of the fake oriental rug. Now I knew how my actors felt when I wouldn’t let them lean on the furniture. Andrew came around the desk and walked slowly past me to the door. I followed him with my eyes.

“Did I tell you to turn around?” he said. I tried to look back at the desk, but I couldn’t bring myself to have him behind me where I couldn’t see. “Well? Did I?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

I looked at the floor. “No, Aldington.”

“Right then.” He watched me expectantly. I slowly turned back around. “Thank you.” The last remark carried the familiar sarcastic edge. This was deep. I’d blown my chance for a graceful exit. And I was glad.

I concentrated on the window. It was open, and a light breeze was toying with the papers on his desk. I tried to guess which would blow off first. It was a Monday night so there was no noise in the courtyard. All I could hear was the flapping papers on the desk, and from somewhere nearby a choir practicing. It grew louder until it filled the room and the apartment. Andrew walked past me and set the remote control on his bookshelf.

“Right then.”

I recognized the music. It was my CD, evensong at King’s College. I’d used one of the cuts in Another Country, but otherwise I tended to listen to it when no one was home. I didn’t want to be thought of as religious.

The choir exhaled from nearby atoms, little lungs. Like oil, it cut the air, dehumidifying it, leaving it empty and spacious.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” Andrew’s voice jolted. He had sat down behind his desk and was leaning back in his chair, fiddling with his fountain pen. “Well?” I stared at the rug again. “It’s not a rhetorical question.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” He seemed to consider this, and I heard him slap a pile of papers about to be blown away. The Tallis Cannon puzzled together, its harmonies almost too beautiful to bear. My face felt hot. At first the music had relaxed me, but now I realized it was making things worse. Beneath the serene, sleep things forbidden. Sex in a disused organ loft, vespers sung by a boy’s choir below, one or both of us already in trouble, due for punishment, doomed.

“What are we going to do with you?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know.”

“If you’re going to be difficult then this will be worse than it needs be,” he said. “You’ve already let yourself in for plenty with your comments to my cousin. You then proceeded to lie about it until I wormed a confession out of you. And if that weren’t enough, you smoked cannabis this afternoon, which I might remind you is not only an offense punishable by expulsion, but is also patently illegal.” I was smiling again, though I didn’t mean to. “It’s nothing to snigger over,” Andrew said, with some irritation. “All in all, I find your disposition insolent and your behavior thoroughly indecent. You’re going to get something to remember before the night is through, I assure you.”

He looked me in the eye meaningfully, then strolled towards the door until he was standing behind me again. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I felt like arguing, but I wasn’t sure of the protocol. I struggled not to smile, focusing instead on the cannon, second to last verse, trebles alone.

If in the night I sleepless lie,
My soul with heavenly thoughts supply;
Let no ill dreams disturb my rest,
No powers of darkness me molest.

My strategy backfired, and I was laughing. I turned to Andrew as if to say, This isn’t working, but he grabbed me from behind, held my upper arms and put his head on my shoulder, like he does when he comes to hug me in rehearsal.

“You can’t break, Casey. It’s ruining the scene.”

“Sorry.” I was blushing again. He’d called my bluff, by coming right out and saying it. Until this moment I’d felt all alone, as if I was the only one pretending, while for him it was reality. But calling it a scene united us. It was just like an improv, and the rules applied: 1) Stay in the scene; 2) Never deny your partner. (The second rule meant you shouldn’t say no to something your partner invents. If he says, How’s that bullet wound? you can’t say, I don’t have a bullet wound.)

“You’re the one who taught me how to stop breaking,” he said. My stomach lurched again, but with affection for him. “Don’t worry,” he told me, putting his arms around me, “I won’t really hurt you.”

I laughed again, all in a jab.

“The scene is over when I close that door. And if you want to end it sooner, then just call Scene.” He took his arms away and held my wrists at my sides. “All right?”

“OK.” Already it was easier. The tightness had left my chest. All that remained was pre-improvisation nerves. This wasn’t a sex game based on some twisted fantasy. It was only an acting scene. I knew just what to do.

I’ve been told I’m somnambular. It means I can meditate quickly and be hypnotized with ease. It has something to do with the brain’s facility with reaching the alpha-level. Freshman year, Judy had a Mexican lover who practiced hypnosis. One night I let him practice on me. The thing about hypnosis is that you never really forget yourself and come under the hypnotist’s control. It’s more like a deep game of make believe. As you become more relaxed, you decide to believe the hypnotist’s suggestions as if they were truth, and you ignore the parts of your brain that tell you otherwise. If the hypnotist says, You can’t bend your right elbow, you decide to believe it, and you disregard the knowledge that you have full mobility.

Andrew let go of my wrists and sauntered back to his desk. I quelled rebellion in my brain. I was only thirteen. I couldn’t contradict him. If I resisted, I’d only be sent to the Headmaster, who’d be far less sympathetic, especially to the marijuana. This, in fact, was my lucky break. Know your enemies, know your friends, however dangerous the latter may be. When I found my voice, it was higher, and thin:

“I’m very sorry, Aldington.” And it was acquiring a trace of his accent, like pollen. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It won’t happen again, I promise.” My stomach was wrenching now, and my wrists felt empty. I glanced up at Aldington, who was sitting on the edge of his desk, arms crossed.

“That’s better,” he said. “I should think so, too.”

I started chewing the inside of my lip.

“But I’m afraid,” he continued, getting to his feet, “That sorry won’t do this time.” As I gave in to the fear, and the shame, and the embarrassment, I felt, underneath the usual nerves, a fullness, like coming across a whole shelf in the library exactly pertaining to your research. The fear and embarrassment felt good because they had no repercussions outside the scene. I was finding my own slogans to be true: Acting is the ultimate disguise; everyone thinks it’s pretend, but you can be more sincere than real life ever allows. Like the Bronte children when their father brought home a mask, making each wear it while he asked them questions, so that they might feel the freedom to answer truthfully.

“I’m going to give you fourteen whacks,” Aldington said. “Four for the marijuana, four for the business with my cousin, and six for lying about it.” He let this sink in. “Have you anything to say?”

Rule number three: Up the ante.

“Yes.” I swallowed to steady my voice. “I told Judy those things in confidence. She was wrong to break her word, and wrong to peach.” I disregarded the part of the brain which supplied American words. “So I don’t think it’s fair that I’m punished for that.” I glanced up at him again. He considered.

“If memory serves, Judy told me she’d never promised to keep any secrets. True?” I was sure I’d made her swear, but… Promise you won’t think less of me… Fuck. “I suppose so.”

“Right then,” he clipped. “Judy obviously thought it was in your best interests to come to me about it, and considering the way things have progressed tonight, I’m inclined to agree with her.”

“Yes, Aldington.”

“However, I grant you a measure of unfairness for doing it behind your back. So we’ll knock two off the sentence and make it an even dozen.”

“Yes, Aldington.” And I thought you only ever got six.

“Right then. Bend over.”

The last two words sent an icy shock through me. I’d read them hundreds of times, but this was the first time anyone ever said them to me out loud.

Rule four: The time is now.

I took a deep breath and bent over with my hands on my knees, as if I was reading the book spines on his second shelf.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Bending over.”

“Are you cheeking me, Young Morgan?”

“No, Aldington.”

“I hope not, because I’m at my limit. Any more and I’ll crucify you, understand?” I nodded. “Now get over here.” He gestured to the table along the left wall of his room. It was really a door on sawhorses, and was strewn with photographs, pieces of wood, nails, and painting supplies. He used it to make frames for his photos.

As I watched my Doc Martens make the year-long journey across the rug, I heard his voice, and it was full of scorn. “Where did you go to prep school?” I stopped and tried to think.

“Um, Dalton?”

“Never heard of it. But if it’s one of those progressive American schools, I’m not surprised.”

“Yes, Aldington.”

“Shut up. Stand there.” He pointed to a spot in front of the table and waited for my feet to arrive. “Bend over and touch your toes.”

It was so formal, so deliberate. He’d actually thought this through. I’d always imagined the ritual would be exciting, but actually standing there next to him was worse than I anticipated. No overpowering. No forcible throwing over knees. You had to submit to your punishment without a fight. Not only that, but you had to assist, bending over to give them a clear shot. I couldn’t do it.

“Morgan?” And I couldn’t control the burning lump in my larynx. “Hey,” Andrew said softly. He had one hand on the table, and he put the other on top of mine. He smiled gently and mouthed the word Relax.

My throat fell into tears. Tenderness from the man who was my scene partner shattered whatever resistance I had. I bawled down the front of my shirt, all the while clenching my teeth to try to stop it. I heard him rustling above his bed for a handful of Kleenex. I plugged my eyes with tissue, but I couldn’t stop the sobs. I couldn’t resist the delicious pain in my throat which came with crying. He waited a while, then spoke, half-serious, half-joking.

“Now what on earth are you blubbing for when your punishment hasn’t even begun?”

“I d-don’t… know.” Begging, silent. Prayers for a lifeline.

“You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Yes!”

“Well, that’s very clever of you.” The snarkiness helped. I got control of my breath. If only my eyes would…

“Of course, if you’re going to cry out, you needn’t worry about anyone hearing. They’re all at prayers.” A flurry of well-played echoed in my head. He was good, just like I’d always told people. Fearless, hard, inventive. I was able to clear my eyes and blow my nose.

“Now then, are you going to take this like a man?”

Bingo. Tears atomized. Jaw hardened. I thanked the deity for my macho complex. Judy always said it’s what comes of being a goodie-goodie for too long. It usually exhibited itself around set construction and power tools, an anxious flight from the label woman. Andrew knew, of course he knew, and with my fear he fashioned rescue.

“Or are we going to have to stop again for this infernal blubbing?” Saved.

“I’m ready.”

“Good. Bend over.”

It wasn’t any easier, but my masculinity was on the line. I reached down with bitten fingertips, past knees and ankles to the beat-up toes of black school shoes. There, inverted, backs of knees protesting louder than the brain, I grasped for solid ground.

“Knees straight, feet together.”

Give me something to hold with hands, not this taut dusting of shoes, not this feeble stretch, precarious pose. Give me fulcrums against the throwing forward, the sudden lurch bouncing off of the cane. . . But Andrew didn’t have a cane. I was sure of it because we’d turned Boston inside out looking for one during Another Country. My backside, now higher than my head, started to tingle with fear as I wondered, for the first time, just what he was going to use to beat me.

“In case you’re wondering,” from the other side of the room, “I don’t have a cane handy, so we’ll have to make due with this.” Upside down between my legs I saw in his hand an eighteen-inch ruler.

“Lucky for you,” he said. “If I had the cane, you really would get something to remember.” He stood to one side, and with the tip of the ruler he flicked the tails of my coat upwards, so that they lay on my back. Backside uncurtained, my knees felt empty. I’d have taken twenty cuts, I thought, if I could have them standing up. I never imagined I would feel this exposed, or that bending over could possibly be this humiliating.

I knew the ruler was flexible and whippy. I also knew it could hurt if Andrew wanted it to. I’d thwacked myself on the thumb with it once by mistake, and it had made my eyes sting. But more than anything, I wanted him to start, so it could be over, so I could stand up straight. Andrew was enough of a bastard to know this and to make me wait. He paced behind me, flexing the ruler, building suspense, working on the nerves. I couldn’t stand watching him upside down, so I closed my eyes and started to count. When I got to eight I heard it. Then I felt it. A sharp sting that spread all the way across my rear. The pain only lasted for a second, though, and was replaced by a not-unpleasant tingling and warmness. He hadn’t hit me very hard after all, and I felt him come to the table and look at my face. I stared at my shoelaces, frayed and worn out. He returned to his place and cut through the air with another whap. It was harder than the first, but the pain still didn’t last more than a couple of seconds. But, he’d landed the second almost exactly on top of the first, so when the initial sting subsided, it was followed by a somewhat stronger tingling, like a sunburn on a sunburn. He came around again and brought his face next to mine.

“You’re not going to blub, are you?”

“No.” Never.

“Good.”

He delivered the next ten slowly, with plenty of time in between for the bite to wear off. He seemed to know just when the sting had receded, and then followed it up with the next cut. The whacks got harder as he went along, or so it seemed. It could have been an illusion, though, because he was managing to get every one in the same place, smack in the middle of the right side and part way across the left. I guess this is what they mean when they talk about someone having a good eye. No one whack hurt too much in and of itself, but the effect was intense. It was like getting addicted to cocaine; each stroke shortened the recovery time until there was none, at which point the terrible smarting increased geometrically. I moved my legs a little to try to relieve the all-over twinge, but Andrew told me to stop or I’d get extras. Part of my brain began to consider calling Scene, but it was roundly outvoted by my overweening machismo.

You lived through having your wisdom teeth pulled, it said. Charles Oakley throws himself into people and tables and camera equipment every day diving after loose balls. Half the NBA plays on injuries that would have anyone else bed-ridden. If they can do that, you can take twelve whacks from this bastard.

After the fifth stroke, Aldington began to lecture me, continuing the talk between well-aimed whacks with the ruler. “There is a limit-one finds it by experience-beyond which it is never safe to pursue private vendettas.”

The stomach offered its contents for inspection but was blocked by a rigid esophagus. I recognized his speech. It was from Stalky & Co, “The Impressionists,” favorite scene, favorite chapter. In the book, it is delivered by the Head as he licks the heroes to “within an inch of blubbing.” Like Andrew, the Head pauses between phrases for emphatic swipes with the cane. It is meant to communicate to Stalky and his friends that the Head has seen through their entire snowball and knows them start to finish. I had read this scene many a night with a flashlight, trying to envision the action implied by the dashes, while my right hand wandered down the sheets. But what did it mean from Andrew?

“Because sooner or later,” he continued, with an enthusiastic crack, “One comes into collision-with the higher authority who has studied the animal-Et ego-in arcadia vixi.” He finished it off with a full-armed swing that, despite my efforts, provoked a yelp. “That’ll do,” he said coolly.

I stayed were I was and tried to breathe. My backside was smarting in twelve layers at once. I jiggled my knees and just kept sucking in air, sucking the pain away at the same time.

“Stand up.” To my surprise, standing up was more embarrassing than bending over in the first place. The reason for the submission was gone, so the act glared in the new context. I felt my tails fall down over the backs of my legs, and I felt the fire from that one stripe spreading through my whole backside, filling it with a kind of heavy heat that made me feel my pulse there. My head had filled up with blood, and I could feel it draining away, leaving in my cheeks only the warm prickle of shame and sunburn. I turned towards the door, concealing my face from Andrew. The event had been much different than I’d imagined. It had been an experiment. I’d tried it. It hadn’t hurt all that much. It was over. So, OK, I didn’t need do it again. No big deal.

I wanted very badly to get out of my clothes. They were making me feel gross.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Aldington barked. I turned and looked at him for the first time. His face was flushed, too. “Don’t you have something to say?”

I answered before my brain could think: “Bugger yourself!”

A hand clamped around my arm just above my elbow, pulling me up to my toes.

“No,” he growled.

I tried to pull away, but he was too tall and I was off balance. He had me hook, line, and- “Thank you. You say, thank you.”

“Thank you!” I shouted angrily. He held me by the arm and swung me around until I was pressed between him and his desk.

“Now,” he said, his face close to mine, “About that mouth of yours.”

---

3.

This time I was stunned. My heart was knocking so hard I thought he could hear it, or at least feel it in my arm. All the coolness and formality had gone, and he was angry. Really angry.

“You know what I think, Young Morgan? I don’t think you’re in control of that mouth. I think it’s in control of you.”

“Let me go!”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. You’re going to stay right here until we’ve had a little chat.” He had both my arms in his hands now, and was pushing me against the desk with his thighs.

“Ow!” I flinched as the edge pushed into my sore backside.

Something like a smirk came over his face. “Hurts, does it?”

“No.” I’d never give him that satisfaction. “It’s my arms. You’re holding too tight.” He laughed a little under his breath.

“But I’m barely touching your arms. You’re the one struggling. I’m not squeezing them at all right now, and still you look… uncomfortable.” I turned my head away. “So. Why is it you’ve got the filthiest mouth in the whole school?”

No answer.

“You say your mother washed your mouth out with soap, but apparently it made no impression.”

Still no answer. I’d stopped struggling.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, child!” I flinched again as he took my chin in his fingers. “Don’t you give me the silent treatment, Young Morgan, or I’ll make you sing from here to Tuesday week.”

It was a disaster. I’d used all my will power to get through the beating. I didn’t know if I could last through another punishment. And I couldn’t believe he’d dare to beat me again. He was probably just trying to scare me, to impress me with his authority or something stupid like that.

“The trouble with you, Morgan, is that no one’s taken you in hand. You wasted your time at some poor excuse for a prepper, and now you think your cheap little stabs at bravado will earn you respect. Whereas I’m afraid the only thing that will earn you here is a very sore arse.”

I was hating this. He wouldn’t give me a dignified exit. He wouldn’t give me an inch.

“I’m sorry, Aldington,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’ll try to do better. I… I’ve learned my lesson, I promise.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Please don’t wash my mouth out with soap. It won’t do me any good at all. It’ll make me worse!”

He straightened my collar and adjusted my tie. Then he put his arm around my shoulder and started to walk around the room with me, uncle and nephew on confiding jaunt in park.

“I’ve noticed a pattern, Young Morgan, and I’m wondering if you noticed it, too. I’ve noticed that when you think you’ve got nothing to lose, your mouth spews the most appalling Billingsgate. But when the hammer is raised to strike, as it were, that same mouth quite suddenly comes over repentant.” He was relentless. “Have you noticed that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, I’ve noticed it. Which is to say I don’t take your compunction very seriously.”

I think I hated him. “Yes, Aldington.”

“Now, as far as the mouth washing is concerned, you should have no fear on that score. No, with a boy as recalcitrant as you, Morgan, the only thing for it is a good spanking.”

We were standing by his table again, and I froze. My face burned so fully I couldn’t see the whole room, only what was in front of me, which was Andrew’s bed and his muscular arms, now almost entirely exposed beneath his rolled-up sleeves. I looked directly into his eyes to gauge how serious he was. I didn’t like what I saw.

“If you’d had a proper upbringing, if someone had taken the trouble with you sooner, then perhaps you wouldn’t be in the mess you are now.” This wasn’t the way the scene was supposed to go. “But let me assure you I am going to take the trouble. I refuse to see a boy go up the school with a squalid vocabulary like yours.” He’d taken me by the shoulders again. I was beginning to panic.

“Please, Aldington. I don’t need to be punished again.”

“I beg to differ, Young Morgan.”

“What if I promise to reform?”

He threw a glance at his ceiling: Can you fathom the nerve of this one? “Do you think it’s unfair. . . Do you think you don’t deserve it?”

Silence gives consent. Bodies mutiny minds. Tongues progress to rigor mortis.

He shook his head and ruffled my hair. “It can’t be helped, it must be done, so down with your breeches, and out with your bum!”

I laughed, weakly. I knew that rhyme, but again, it was the first time I’d heard it out loud.

“Well?” he said. “What are your waiting for?”

I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe he was going to make me take down my pants for an actual spanking. It was indecent, surely.

“Now,” he warned.

I reached for buttons at the waistband and un-fastened the fly. But the tails and waistcoat would have to come off before the trousers came down. Why, oh why had I wanted to wear trousers with suspenders? Sewn in. I closed my eyes as my uncoordinated fingers took off the coat, unbuttoned all twelve buttons on the waistcoat, and peeled the braces off my shoulders. The trousers were big around my waist, so they fell straight to my ankles, brushing along my badly burned legs. I’d been hot all night, but now there were goose pimples on my thighs.

Then, before I’d opened my eyes, he’d snatched my wrists and pulled me to the edge of the bed and over his lap. I gasped when I landed and his thighs knocked the wind out of me. It was all I could do to keep from crying again; but the renegade part of my brain that was watching the scene from the outside was thrilled. I was right on top of those knees I’d coveted for so long, and he had pushed the scene to its limit.

All the same, I thought I could up the ante: “Please, Aldington. I’m sorry. Honestly. I didn’t mean it when I said it didn’t hurt before. It hurt terribly. I swear!” Pleading when there was no hope gave the scene a delicious awkwardness.

“Changing your tune at the guillotine?”

“It’s the truth! Please, Aldington, let me off.”

“Tell me one thing, Young Morgan.”

“What?”

“Have you ever had a spanking before? And I don’t mean a few swats on the bum. I mean an honest to goodness spanking over someone’s knee?”

“No! Never.” I felt one hand come to rest right where he’d so recently given me twelve of the best. No one had ever touched me there before. No one had ever gotten past first base with me.

“That settles it, then,” were his awful words. “You’re long overdue, and this negligence can’t be allowed to continue.” He pulled up my shirttails and reached for the waistband to my underpants. “What the hell is this?” he exclaimed.

I buried my face in the bed as I answered: “My bathing suit.” He pulled my shirt up farther to get a look at the whole thing. If he tells me to strip, I thought, I’m calling scene.

“Very well.” His voice sounded a little subdued. “I’m prepared to let you off a bare-bottomed licking, since it is your first time.”

I looked up from the bedclothes. “Thank you, Aldington.”

“But I’ll have to make up for it in other ways. Agreed?”

That most certainly was rhetorical.

For the first time in several minutes I heard the music again clearly. It was a slow, quiet hymn, intended to be sung at vespers.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our feverish ways;
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise!

I felt his hand leave me.

In deeper reverence, praise.

I felt it strike.

He kept his promise. Where before he’d concentrated all the whacks on the same place, now he was spreading them out, as if to cover as much territory as possible. Again, they weren’t terribly hard, but they came faster and with more frequency. If I’d thought my trousers had offered little protection, now I saw how wrong I was. He might as well have been spanking me bare, for all the good my bathing suit did. I breathed in with each smack so I wouldn’t accidentally cry. I couldn’t always keep from squirming, though, and whenever he felt me wriggle he’d grab my waist more tightly and lighten up on the whacks, until it was all a constant, slowly building sting and warmness. I was too distracted to count, but after about the fifteenth blow, he stopped. My shame and embarrassment and humiliation had become too much to fight. Sometime during the spanking I’d given into them, like they say you give in to drowning. And once again, the part of me that wasn’t in the scene found it unbearably delicious. I was laying across Andrew’s now sweaty thighs, and at my fingers were those beautiful ankles. I could see he was getting a blister from wearing no socks. I ran my finger around the sore spot, without touching it. Then I untied his shoelaces. He didn’t say anything, or even stop running his hand over my tingling backside, but he let me pull his shoe off without acknowledging it. Then he used his bare foot to remove the other one.

“You’ve got a very nice bum, it must be said.” I froze, with my thumb on his heel. “Not everyone gets to give a whacking to a bum like this.” I could feel a hardness under my stomach, like a very tight and tense muscle. Except I knew Andrew didn’t have a muscle there. I put my head down so he wouldn’t see my face. It was the first time I’d ever felt an erection. I’d never had that effect on anyone before. It made my chest hurt under my clothes.

“OW!” He’d caught me off guard and delivered a hard smack to my thigh, just below my bathing suit. “That’s my sunburn!”

“Shut up,” he hissed. “I’ll give you the sunburn.” And with that he pelted my bottom with a storm of spanks until I was wriggling to get off his lap. “Does it hurt yet?” he asked me.

“Yes!”

“Sure?”

“Yes! I swear it hurts.”

“Are you sorry for all the grief you’ve given me?”

“I’m sorry!”

“And what about that mouth?” He kept up the catechism on my backside. “Am I going to hear any cheek in the future?”

“No! I promise you won’t!”

“Have you learned your lesson?”

“Yes!”

“And are you grateful to me?”

“Yes! Ow, yes! Thank you, Aldington!”

He gave me three last emphatic smacks on the spot where he’d used the ruler. Then he hoisted me to my feet.

“Get dressed,” he said. My backside was still smarting and throbbing as I pulled my trousers back up my tingling legs. Gently I replaced the suspenders on my shoulders. I fished my vest and coat off the bed, where they’d got crumpled, and put them on. Andrew went over to his desk and began straightening it. When I had buttoned the last of my twelve waistcoat buttons, I let my hands drop to my sides and enjoyed the wonderful combination of looking at him while feeling the pain in my arse give way to a warm tingling.

“You can go,” he said, without looking up. My stomach fell. I was hoping at least for another lecture. I waited a few seconds to see if he changed his mind. He didn’t. I turned around, with not a little reluctance, and walked, measuredly, out the door. As I passed the stereo in the living room, it turned off by itself. Then I heard Andrew’s door close.

---

4.

Late that night I was lying on my stomach with my head on my arms, looking out my window across the courtyard. My sheets were clean, and I was wearing gray Calvin Klein boxer briefs and a white v-neck T-shirt. It was past three o’clock. I couldn’t sleep.

Thankfully, the occupant of the rooms opposite mine had got home and was making himself a sandwich. He looked like Jaylin Rose. I sometimes imagined climbing around the courtyard on the fire escapes and knocking on his window. He would stop whatever he was doing, which was usually just fiddling around, open the window, and say, “I was wondering when you’d come.”

After the door had closed that evening, I’d waited for Andrew. After half an hour, it seemed clear he wasn’t coming out. And I wasn’t going in. The excitement of the scene had been tainted-or maybe tainted is too strong a word. Let’s say it was thrown into question by Andrew’s behavior during the final sixty seconds. I’d upset him somehow, upset Andrew himself. Unlike his arrogant surnamed counterpart, when Andrew was angry, he got quiet. He could never come out and say, Wow, you are pissing me off, or Hey, that hurts my feelings. Whenever Andrew was mad, the emotion got tangled with some fucked-up combination of uneasiness and resentment and self-loathing. Which is why, once I’d started living with him, I’d confided to Judy:

“I’ve changed my mind, Andrew is Fine.”

“Of course he’s Fine! If he weren’t my cousin I’d have him myself.”

“You know what Fine stands for, don’t you? Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.”

“That does it,” she said. “I can’t restrain myself. Where is he? WHERE ARE YOU, YOU FINE, FINE HUNK OF A MAN?”

But when Andrew got that way, it made me uneasy, and resentful. That night I was vacillating, typically, between feeling gross and guilty for upsetting him, and feeling furious at him for making me feel that way. So when he knocked on my opened door, I felt both relieved and nervous.

“You asleep, Casey?”

I kept looking out the window. “No.” I heard his bare feet cross my floor, then I felt the bed go down as he sat on the edge. I turned my head. He was wearing his maroon silk pajama bottoms and the banded-sleeved T-shirt from earlier. He leaned towards me and put something on the bookshelf next to the head of my bed: my copy of Stalky & Co. I’d never noticed it was missing. I watched him gazing into my dark room. I could hear one the hymns from earlier playing in my ears, like an echo. After a while Andrew pulled one knee up on the bed, so he was facing me. Very lightly, as if he was only feeling the blanket, he ran his hand over the lump in the sheets that was my feet.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

“Sure.”

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he almost whispered.

“Of course not. I would have called Scene if you had.”

“You’re a hell of an actor, then.”

“I came close, a couple of times, but you always backed off.”

He looked more relaxed. “I did?”

“Yeah. I don’t mean to say it didn’t hurt at all. In fact I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that by the end it hurt like bloody hell.”

“Sorry.”

“No. It was the scene. It didn’t hurt hurt.” He looked uncertain. “It doesn’t hurt now, for instance.”

He got embarrassed. “I thought… I mean, I saw you laying on your stomach.”

“That’s because my back is sunburned, idiot.” He must have felt better because he threw me a practiced glare. I kicked him in the back with my knee.

“Careful,” he said. “Mine is too.”

“You didn’t wear any sunscreen, did you?”

“I don’t believe in sunscreen.”

“I swear to God you’re going to get skin cancer. Have you ever seen skin cancer?”

“I don’t believe in skin cancer.”

“You should put some aloe on it, at least.”

“Will you do it for me?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said. “Lie down and take off your shirt.”

His shoulders were freckled, and when I put my palms on his back, it was very hot. He flinched.

“Hold still,” I said. I squirted the green gel in a squiggley line down his back. He flinched again and wriggled his shoulder blades.

“Ah!”

“Cold?”

“Yes.” Gently I spread the gel over his back, shoulders, arms, and neck. I used only my finger tips and rubbed with small, light strokes. It took a long time, and once I’d finished, I started again.

“You’ve got a hell of a straight eye,” I said.

“What? Oh, you mean…”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve got plenty of experience.”

I laughed a little. “You mean you do this all the time?”

“No.” His face was in his arms because I was doing the back of his neck.

“What do you mean, then?”

“Well… let’s just say I got enough in my time to know what it feels like.”

My fingers slowed, and I felt that tickling ache in my ribs. “Really?”

“Of course, by the time I was old enough to get my own back, they’d abolished corporal punishment altogether.” My lungs started to feel hot.

“And is that what you were doing tonight?”

“What?”

“Getting your own back?”

“No!” He turned onto his elbow. “No. I was trying… I didn’t want to let you down.” It was my turn to flinch. I felt like someone had taken a spike and jammed it right between my ribs, like a lethal Heimlich maneuver. Andrew turned over and gingerly lay down on his back. “Any chance of you doing the front?” I didn’t look at his face as I squeezed the aloe over his stomach and fuzzy chest. “That tickles!”

All my attention was focused on my teeth, which were clacking against one another even though I was burning all over. I had finished his arms and chest and was moving on to his stomach, when Andrew put his hands over mine.

“Casey. What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said, pulling away.

But he took my hands again, and held them on his hot stomach. “Liar.”

“Really, it’s nothing.”

“It bloody well is not nothing. You’re holding back so hard it’s making your teeth chatter.”

“Look, it’s really embarrassing.”

“For god’s sake tell me,” he said. “Nothing is worth this.” I clamped my jaw down hard. Then, under his breath he said, “You’re scaring me.”

The event had become fire. The same as before, only different. I pulled my hands away from his and wiped them on my thighs.

“I just… I just,” I let the words walk out my mouth, as if they were free. “I just really want to kiss you.” Silence. “Look, let’s just forget it, OK?”

“No,” he said. “Let’s not forget it.” His hands were at his sides, as if he were keeping them there.

“Andrew-”

“I want you to kiss me, Casey.”

This was the worst thing I’d heard yet. A cloudburst of tears.

“Hey, hey hey. What is it?” He sat up and took my head in his arms. “Casey, what?”

“Don’t you see?” I wailed. “We can’t. This sucks! This sucks through a giant straw!”

“What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?” I pulled away, furious. “What’s the problem? First of all, I’m directing you. I never get involved with actors. Second, you’re my roommate, and I never get involved with roommates. It’s like incest.”

“Come on, Casey, don’t be a Puritan.”

“Stop saying that!” I shouted.

“Sorry! Sorry.”

“You know why I don’t get involved with my actors. It’s not fair on them. It tips the balance of power too much in my direction.” Andrew lay back down. I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face in my hands and sniffled.

“Look, Casey, ” he began. “I know you have all these rules for yourself, and everyone knows how professional you are, and how principled you are. Everyone respects you.”

“So?” I hurled back at him.

“So, I think, and it’s just my opinion, but I think the scales are even between us. And I don’t think you should be worrying about things like power and roommate incest, or whatever it is that’s bothering you.” But the spike in my chest got worse, not better.

“I hate crying!”

“Why?”

“My face gets all splotchy and my nose turns red, and my eyes get puffy.”

Andrew laughed a little. “Look at me.”

“No.”

“Casey.” He said it with the same kind of warning voice he’d used earlier in the scene. I took my hands away from my face. “I think you look adorable.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“I don’t know how to say this,” I got up and blew my nose. “So I’ll just come right out and say it… I don’t want to have sex.”

That made Andrew laugh. “Do you think every guy who takes you over his knee wants sex?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come here,” he said. I went and sat on the edge of the bed, as he had done before. “It’s just a kiss.”

“I know.”

“You do what you have to do,” he told me. “But I’d very much like you to kiss me.”

The director in my head didn’t give the actor time to think about it. I leaned over him, brought my lips to the corner of his mouth, and kissed him. He didn’t move. I moved my lips closer to his until they were touching, and I let them stay there. Then I opened my mouth the slightest bit and took his lips in mine.

“That’s much better,” he said, running his fingers through my hair.

The kissing was warm, and wet, and slow. I took his tongue into my mouth and sucked it. I could feel the heat from his chest under mine, all the while his fingers in my hair were sending shivers through my back and breasts.

“I was wondering when you’d do this,” he whispered, kissing my ear. I gasped. My whole body was shivering. I took his mouth in mine again, and stopped his words. And I could hear in my tingling ears the words from that song:

Breathe through the pulses of desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, its heats expire
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire.

As I kissed him.

O still small voice of calm!

And kissed him.

O still small voice of-

END