Fiction by Matt - 2006
Copyright Matt Anglen et. al. 1990-2006. Please do not repost without permission.
"When you read a line, particularly a line of your own, you should place the emphasis on each word. This will tune you in to all of the possible interpretations." Brad R. is my drama coach. With his longish-silver hair and his perfect jeans he can make it hard to focus on skills sometimes but it's his voice that I dream about. It's always so under control. He can make a whisper be heard across a room – or a theater – or bellow at the top of his lungs without seeming strained or like he's losing it, you know? He says he's 48 which means early 50's, I wonder if he's too old for me...
"Now in Act 2, Scene 2 – Val and Jillian, you'll be working on this script next week – Sarah says, 'I saw him through the window.' Try it in your mind along with me: 'I saw him through the window;' 'I saw him through the window;' 'I saw him through the window...'
"It's supposed to be 'I saw him through the window," Zack breaks in, trying to show that he's familiar with this, and all, scripts. And lessons. And exercises.
But Brad continues. "'I saw him through the window.' Each of those readings give a greatly different meaning to the line."
"But which is it?" Jenna asks. Jenna is beautiful. Jenna has done a commercial. Jenna has a music video that's going to film. Jenna doesn't want to try to figure these things out for herself.
"There's no way to know without reading the line in context. In this case the emphasis most likely belongs on him," Brad admits, causing Zack to smirk in a way he probably thinks is attractive (okay, he's right, under different circumstances), "but you should test each one."
"Every word, every line?" Val asks, incredulous. As if any of us will ever get enough lines to be overworked by it.
"And if you should get it wrong," Brad warns with a dramatic pause, "You must be prepared for the director to correct you." Thump thump goes my, um, heart. Yes, sir, Mr. Director, if I get it wrong I am prepared to have you correct me. I am prepared to have you correct me. I am prepared to have you have to correct me. Sir. In my mind I emphasize all of these words, all of the time.
For a moment I think "I wonder if he does 22-year-old girls?" but instantly mentally laugh at the question. Oh, he's straight alright. And he very persuasively professes that he and his wife have a "relaxed" relationship – though I've noticed he doesn't mention this fact in front of her. A little over forty, even thinner than he is, always perfect make-up and hair – she's the one who would kick my butt in the blink of an eye. Does she have some way of taking his balls with her when she has to shoot on location?
"This can be done with any line, no matter how straightforward. Throw me an example, then we'll pair off and run through some exercises." Brad turns to his right, looking for Jace or Jillian – they're always the first with a quip, and in Jillian's case, always with a poison quill.
"Do you want a spanking?" Jace asks him innocently.
"Do you want a spanking," Brad booms over the explosion of nervous laughter. I'm glad no one can see my face behind a curtain of hair – for once sitting in the front row has its advantages.
"No way," Zack announces. He's gorgeous, he's perfect, his teeth are capped and his coif is coiffed. And he's insanely jealous of Jace's wit.
"He doesn't mean you personally," Jillian assures him, bringing another wave of laughter and an angry scowl – well, his best attempt at a scowl – from Zack. Even at his maddest Zack has a genetic, irrepressible smile. He doesn't do anger well, but everyone always likes him.
Zack considers himself to still hold the floor and he intends to use it, trying to time his speech to a half-beat after the laugh peaks like we've been taught. "That's not what I meant," he says needlessly – needless except that it gives him a little bit more air time – "How many readings of that line can there be?" Realizing that he's not impressing us, he switches tactics. "The word is too powerful. Ahem, it has an Anglo-Saxon origin, I believe," he pontificates. "It's always going to attract the attention, it's almost – magnetic." He provides this benediction with just a hint that we should remember who is the expert on magnetism.
We all try to consider this line of argument for a second before Brad, eager to get the limelight on someone less threatening, turns to Jace and says, simply, "Refute? Example?"
Jace, I needn't tell you, is the comic relief. He wriggles in his seat prissily (though no more than I've been), purses his lips, pulls the corners of his mouth back. He holds out his hands in front of himself and stares at them as if reading a note. The very picture of a shopkeeper, just at that moment of our impatience he pronounces, in a heavy German accent, "Do you vant a... spankink?" exactly as if he'd never heard the word before.
Gales of laughter. I'm almost in tears. Even Jillian smiles (now there's an evil thought) though she rolls her eyes to show her contempt and immediately runs her hands back through her hair to refocus her thoughts on our real exercise. Zack steams. Brad removes the current sheet of the paper pad on his easel, revealing the first exercise line.
"I've written it out to avoid prejudicing you," he explains, as Scott, on my right, turns all the way around to avoid pairing with me. This leaves me with Marissa, who has a great future in theater – they always need backstage workers. "Read the line, alternating turns, moving the emphasis one word per turn. Don't rush and listen to each other – no thinking about your own next reading." Like we're not going to do that... "Relax and make the line sound natural – NO acting."
"Did you want to start?" Marissa asks politely.
I nod, realizing that, polite or not, the first word is a tough one. "It's just that I don't love you anymore." Oh, good – not. "Um, can I try again?"
"Sure," she assures me. When you're around actors and are not good, you get used to doing a lot of listening.
"It's... just that I don't love you anymore." Hit it, pause, rush the rest. Nice. I can see where that might be right.
"Oh, that's good," Marissa tells me, "It's just that I don't love you anymore." I want to ask what word she thinks she emphasized while I wait for her to ask to try again as well. "Go ahead," is all she says. Oh well, monotones are good for the backstage headsets.
Cut to: twelve-thirty, interior location, coffee house. Ten of us have nothing to do except wait for our agents not to call. Scott's gone off to meet his boyfriend for lunch as always; Katie, having given up on actually getting any work, has a day job; four others seldom join us and two have already left our class of "Elite Eighteen." Brad's wife is in town so he isn't with us today; Marissa is off on "an audition" which probably means a job interview; and Chuck is in a down mood – which pairing with Scott did nothing to help - and is thankfully avoiding us. That leaves eight and a femme-heavy group, depending on how you count Val. The contentious Zack and Jace, the decorative Jenna, the libidinous Val and her partner Dark Jillian; Ashley, the newcomer; Denise, the wife. And me – um, I guess I'm the "hick." I don't have the bodies of Jenna or Jillian, the looks of Zack, the wit of Jace or the bankrolls of Ashley, Denise, or Chuck. Not even the niche of Val, with her Hawaiian looks and bad-A "urban" attitude. But hey – I'm here.
Jenna's telling us about her upcoming music video while Ashley, who hasn't been around long enough to know how impossible it is to get a line, a frame, or anything, is waiting with growing impatience to tell something to Zack, who is waiting to make Ashley listen to him. Sensing she's losing the group's focus, Jenna suddenly proclaims that every little detail which she has be monologuing with, are "simply too boring and mundane for words." Actually, freed from the spell of her tale, I see her point. Instead she rises and, insisting (stridently) that no one get up, heads to the counter for "a little something, I don't know what." Watching Zack with a challenging look she brushes her tiny butt across first Jace's face and then Jillian's before Val gets out of her way – not to avoid the same fate, I suspect, but to keep from strangling her. Jillian is notoriously unfaithful and Val ought to play the lead in an all-female Othello.
In fact, Jillian moves as if to follow Jenna but Val blocks her exit – underscoring her point by loudly pronouncing "Do you want a spanking? Jace, you crack me up." Jillian picks up on Val's warning glare and gives her a look that is pure evil lust – even I feel a tingle from it. If a guy would ever look at me that way, just once...
"I still say it was a bad example," Zack tells Ashley before she can open her mouth. Ashley has long fine hair and long fine legs and a lot to learn but right now she could do a lot worse than Zack and she knows it.
"Oh, give it up, Zack, it was hilarious," Jillian snaps at the one person at the table – or possibly the world - that she's never tried to seduce. Jace straightens himself up at this unexpected compliment – I'm sure he didn't expect the word to be in her vocabulary.
"The word is just too... invested with emotion," Zack insists.
"Oh?" Jace counters lightly, avoiding my eyes. "How about you, Ashley, do you invest in it?"
"Do I invest in what?" Ashley asks, wide-eyed and not used to the multiple stream-of-consciousness style of conversation. She may have played an animated Disney character when she was younger, like, last week.
"Spanking," Val and Jillian explain simultaneously. Jillian leans toward the teen but Val physically pushes her back with a firm forearm.
"I... I don't think so..." Ashley stutters.
"You don't know? I'm pretty sure I've always known whether I was being spanked or not," Jace teases incorrigibly.
"Well, when I was little," she protests, adding "Whatever (big sigh)," as Jace continues without her.
"Denise? Spank your kids?" Oh my God, I think, I am next. What'll I say? Joke? Lie? No, haven't been spanked in years, haven't fantasized about it in days? I'm already blushing, I can feel my cheeks burn.
"When they were really little," Denise admits as my moment of truth draws near. "I mean, a smack on the diaper – I never hurt them, certainly."
"Oh?" Jace continues with feigned interest. "My mom, it was her shoe. She'd take off her shoe and I'd just know..."
"I don't think..." Zack starts, but no one pays the least attention.
"How awful for you!" Ashley consoles him. "How old were you?"
"Oh, just last week, I went home to do my laundry," Jace assures her. Val laughs briefly and Jillian, who I guess saw it coming, gives her an indulgent smile. I giggle, then curse myself for attracting attention.
"Well my fair lady," Jace asks, "Had your bottom warmed recently?"
"What? I don't think so. Did I tell you about that?" Jenna answers from behind me while my mouth is still hanging open. "This friend of Brian's, told me I had been a naughty girl..."
Val and Jillian rise, not to let Jenna back in unmolested (heaven forbid) but to let Jace out.
"And?" Zack asks her, much too loudly.
"I thought you weren't interested," Ashley tells him, annoyed.
"And nothing – I said don't even think about it!" Jenna assures him.
"And give me back my skirt," Jillian chimes in, soto voce.
"No!" Jenna retorts before she realizes she's being teased.
"Zack, get me a cap?" Ashley demands, wanting to cash in on Zack's gaffe.
"Decaf diet non-dairy whipped cream," he promises.
"Caf. I want to be up all night," she tells him. Living on the edge, an actress's life. Trying to sound like she has something, or someone, to do.
"Scoot over," Jace whispers in my ear. We only bonk heads a little when I jump. Amusingly this leaves one empty space and it's between Jenna and Ashley.
"Jill," Jace says sweetly – he's the only person on the planet who gets away with calling her "Jill" – "Ashley was asking me about your first big break. I thought maybe we should ask you." Val looks at him murderously. Jillian, who actually has an occasional but recurring role on a TV series, probably got her "first big break" by sleeping with an older, established actress. When she was around Ashley's age.
"I didn't ask you..." Ashley starts, confused – and maybe a bit intimidated by Val's hovering presence.
"Well, you asked me about first big breaks, and we just heard about Jenna's," Jace reminds her.
"Actually that wasn't my first break..." Jenna tries to start up, but Denise wants to hear something different.
"Yes, Jillian, how did you get your start?" Denise is only here for the supposed thrill of associating with so-called "working actors" before returning to her pampered but boring suburban life.
"You really want to know?" Jillian half-asks, half-snarls. Like a cobra conjured out of a basket, she bobs and weaves into an upright position, prepared to seduce at least three of her listeners. "You sure you really want to know?"
Their attention is rapt, though no less riveted than Val's. Jace stretches his legs out into the aisle and leans way back so that when he speaks only I can hear.
"So. What did you think of today's exercise? Any experience in the matter?"
Blushing furiously, all I can reply is a Victorian (Edwardian?) "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." I try to look at him primly but my heart's in my throat.
"You delivered that line so perfectly I wondered if you had used it on stage or in real life."
I didn't think it was possible for my blush to deepen – wrong. Jillian shoots me a sidelong glance under lowered brows before leaning in to draw her audience all the tighter.
"I... I... I thought you meant..." I try to stammer out.
"Do you want a spanking?" Jace asks me straight out.
I don't know what to say. My chest is so tight I can't breathe and I'm so honestly afraid I'm about to cry that I start trying to think of a plausible excuse.
"Is that what you thought I meant? Hey, pretty funny, huh? Everyone sure laughed. Everyone except Zack," this last part no more than a whisper and then he's gone.
To be replaced by Zack, carrying Ashley's caf-cap half-assed whazzit. This time when I jump I don't bonk anyone's head.
"Um, maybe it'd be better if..." Zack implies, rather than saying he doesn't want to squeeze around me – which I appreciate, believe me. I've had enough guys try to brush across my chest for a lifetime. Though getting up I'm standing face-to-face with Jace, who has backed out of the way a calculated not-enough. This is really going to happen, goes through my mind. But I sit back down. So does he. Close.
"He's wrong, you know," Jace tells me quietly – enough of a non-sequitor to make me look at him directly, though without the heart-pound. "There's no absence of places to put the emphasis." And with that he puts his mouth to my ear and in an insistent whisper asks me, "Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking?"
"Yes," I tell him breathlessly. When I find my voice I say "I'm sure you're right."
Suddenly he's standing as I look on in disbelief. "Well, I have to run," he tells everyone. "Got a script I have to pick up, bus in five minutes." Jillian, Ashley, and Denise have their heads almost touching despite being separated by the table, and Jillian's hand is stretching toward them. He covers it with his own. "Jill, take care of these two, Val, take care of Jill," he directs. Looking at the beautiful people he tells them "And you two, lend a hand."
With this line he extends his hand to me and says "Are you coming, or are you going to give me money?"
My mouth is still hanging open, my mind racing. "I have my car," is all I can think of.
"All the better. Ready?"
"Um, yes, I guess. Yes, I'm ready."
"When you read a line, particularly a line of your own, you should place the emphasis on each word. This will tune you in to all of the possible interpretations." Brad R. is my drama coach. With his longish-silver hair and his perfect jeans he can make it hard to focus on skills sometimes but it's his voice that I dream about. It's always so under control. He can make a whisper be heard across a room – or a theater – or bellow at the top of his lungs without seeming strained or like he's losing it, you know? He says he's 48 which means early 50's, I wonder if he's too old for me...
"Now in Act 2, Scene 2 – Val and Jillian, you'll be working on this script next week – Sarah says, 'I saw him through the window.' Try it in your mind along with me: 'I saw him through the window;' 'I saw him through the window;' 'I saw him through the window...'
"It's supposed to be 'I saw him through the window," Zack breaks in, trying to show that he's familiar with this, and all, scripts. And lessons. And exercises.
But Brad continues. "'I saw him through the window.' Each of those readings give a greatly different meaning to the line."
"But which is it?" Jenna asks. Jenna is beautiful. Jenna has done a commercial. Jenna has a music video that's going to film. Jenna doesn't want to try to figure these things out for herself.
"There's no way to know without reading the line in context. In this case the emphasis most likely belongs on him," Brad admits, causing Zack to smirk in a way he probably thinks is attractive (okay, he's right, under different circumstances), "but you should test each one."
"Every word, every line?" Val asks, incredulous. As if any of us will ever get enough lines to be overworked by it.
"And if you should get it wrong," Brad warns with a dramatic pause, "You must be prepared for the director to correct you." Thump thump goes my, um, heart. Yes, sir, Mr. Director, if I get it wrong I am prepared to have you correct me. I am prepared to have you correct me. I am prepared to have you have to correct me. Sir. In my mind I emphasize all of these words, all of the time.
For a moment I think "I wonder if he does 22-year-old girls?" but instantly mentally laugh at the question. Oh, he's straight alright. And he very persuasively professes that he and his wife have a "relaxed" relationship – though I've noticed he doesn't mention this fact in front of her. A little over forty, even thinner than he is, always perfect make-up and hair – she's the one who would kick my butt in the blink of an eye. Does she have some way of taking his balls with her when she has to shoot on location?
"This can be done with any line, no matter how straightforward. Throw me an example, then we'll pair off and run through some exercises." Brad turns to his right, looking for Jace or Jillian – they're always the first with a quip, and in Jillian's case, always with a poison quill.
"Do you want a spanking?" Jace asks him innocently.
"Do you want a spanking," Brad booms over the explosion of nervous laughter. I'm glad no one can see my face behind a curtain of hair – for once sitting in the front row has its advantages.
"No way," Zack announces. He's gorgeous, he's perfect, his teeth are capped and his coif is coiffed. And he's insanely jealous of Jace's wit.
"He doesn't mean you personally," Jillian assures him, bringing another wave of laughter and an angry scowl – well, his best attempt at a scowl – from Zack. Even at his maddest Zack has a genetic, irrepressible smile. He doesn't do anger well, but everyone always likes him.
Zack considers himself to still hold the floor and he intends to use it, trying to time his speech to a half-beat after the laugh peaks like we've been taught. "That's not what I meant," he says needlessly – needless except that it gives him a little bit more air time – "How many readings of that line can there be?" Realizing that he's not impressing us, he switches tactics. "The word is too powerful. Ahem, it has an Anglo-Saxon origin, I believe," he pontificates. "It's always going to attract the attention, it's almost – magnetic." He provides this benediction with just a hint that we should remember who is the expert on magnetism.
We all try to consider this line of argument for a second before Brad, eager to get the limelight on someone less threatening, turns to Jace and says, simply, "Refute? Example?"
Jace, I needn't tell you, is the comic relief. He wriggles in his seat prissily (though no more than I've been), purses his lips, pulls the corners of his mouth back. He holds out his hands in front of himself and stares at them as if reading a note. The very picture of a shopkeeper, just at that moment of our impatience he pronounces, in a heavy German accent, "Do you vant a... spankink?" exactly as if he'd never heard the word before.
Gales of laughter. I'm almost in tears. Even Jillian smiles (now there's an evil thought) though she rolls her eyes to show her contempt and immediately runs her hands back through her hair to refocus her thoughts on our real exercise. Zack steams. Brad removes the current sheet of the paper pad on his easel, revealing the first exercise line.
"I've written it out to avoid prejudicing you," he explains, as Scott, on my right, turns all the way around to avoid pairing with me. This leaves me with Marissa, who has a great future in theater – they always need backstage workers. "Read the line, alternating turns, moving the emphasis one word per turn. Don't rush and listen to each other – no thinking about your own next reading." Like we're not going to do that... "Relax and make the line sound natural – NO acting."
"Did you want to start?" Marissa asks politely.
I nod, realizing that, polite or not, the first word is a tough one. "It's just that I don't love you anymore." Oh, good – not. "Um, can I try again?"
"Sure," she assures me. When you're around actors and are not good, you get used to doing a lot of listening.
"It's... just that I don't love you anymore." Hit it, pause, rush the rest. Nice. I can see where that might be right.
"Oh, that's good," Marissa tells me, "It's just that I don't love you anymore." I want to ask what word she thinks she emphasized while I wait for her to ask to try again as well. "Go ahead," is all she says. Oh well, monotones are good for the backstage headsets.
Cut to: twelve-thirty, interior location, coffee house. Ten of us have nothing to do except wait for our agents not to call. Scott's gone off to meet his boyfriend for lunch as always; Katie, having given up on actually getting any work, has a day job; four others seldom join us and two have already left our class of "Elite Eighteen." Brad's wife is in town so he isn't with us today; Marissa is off on "an audition" which probably means a job interview; and Chuck is in a down mood – which pairing with Scott did nothing to help - and is thankfully avoiding us. That leaves eight and a femme-heavy group, depending on how you count Val. The contentious Zack and Jace, the decorative Jenna, the libidinous Val and her partner Dark Jillian; Ashley, the newcomer; Denise, the wife. And me – um, I guess I'm the "hick." I don't have the bodies of Jenna or Jillian, the looks of Zack, the wit of Jace or the bankrolls of Ashley, Denise, or Chuck. Not even the niche of Val, with her Hawaiian looks and bad-A "urban" attitude. But hey – I'm here.
Jenna's telling us about her upcoming music video while Ashley, who hasn't been around long enough to know how impossible it is to get a line, a frame, or anything, is waiting with growing impatience to tell something to Zack, who is waiting to make Ashley listen to him. Sensing she's losing the group's focus, Jenna suddenly proclaims that every little detail which she has be monologuing with, are "simply too boring and mundane for words." Actually, freed from the spell of her tale, I see her point. Instead she rises and, insisting (stridently) that no one get up, heads to the counter for "a little something, I don't know what." Watching Zack with a challenging look she brushes her tiny butt across first Jace's face and then Jillian's before Val gets out of her way – not to avoid the same fate, I suspect, but to keep from strangling her. Jillian is notoriously unfaithful and Val ought to play the lead in an all-female Othello.
In fact, Jillian moves as if to follow Jenna but Val blocks her exit – underscoring her point by loudly pronouncing "Do you want a spanking? Jace, you crack me up." Jillian picks up on Val's warning glare and gives her a look that is pure evil lust – even I feel a tingle from it. If a guy would ever look at me that way, just once...
"I still say it was a bad example," Zack tells Ashley before she can open her mouth. Ashley has long fine hair and long fine legs and a lot to learn but right now she could do a lot worse than Zack and she knows it.
"Oh, give it up, Zack, it was hilarious," Jillian snaps at the one person at the table – or possibly the world - that she's never tried to seduce. Jace straightens himself up at this unexpected compliment – I'm sure he didn't expect the word to be in her vocabulary.
"The word is just too... invested with emotion," Zack insists.
"Oh?" Jace counters lightly, avoiding my eyes. "How about you, Ashley, do you invest in it?"
"Do I invest in what?" Ashley asks, wide-eyed and not used to the multiple stream-of-consciousness style of conversation. She may have played an animated Disney character when she was younger, like, last week.
"Spanking," Val and Jillian explain simultaneously. Jillian leans toward the teen but Val physically pushes her back with a firm forearm.
"I... I don't think so..." Ashley stutters.
"You don't know? I'm pretty sure I've always known whether I was being spanked or not," Jace teases incorrigibly.
"Well, when I was little," she protests, adding "Whatever (big sigh)," as Jace continues without her.
"Denise? Spank your kids?" Oh my God, I think, I am next. What'll I say? Joke? Lie? No, haven't been spanked in years, haven't fantasized about it in days? I'm already blushing, I can feel my cheeks burn.
"When they were really little," Denise admits as my moment of truth draws near. "I mean, a smack on the diaper – I never hurt them, certainly."
"Oh?" Jace continues with feigned interest. "My mom, it was her shoe. She'd take off her shoe and I'd just know..."
"I don't think..." Zack starts, but no one pays the least attention.
"How awful for you!" Ashley consoles him. "How old were you?"
"Oh, just last week, I went home to do my laundry," Jace assures her. Val laughs briefly and Jillian, who I guess saw it coming, gives her an indulgent smile. I giggle, then curse myself for attracting attention.
"Well my fair lady," Jace asks, "Had your bottom warmed recently?"
"What? I don't think so. Did I tell you about that?" Jenna answers from behind me while my mouth is still hanging open. "This friend of Brian's, told me I had been a naughty girl..."
Val and Jillian rise, not to let Jenna back in unmolested (heaven forbid) but to let Jace out.
"And?" Zack asks her, much too loudly.
"I thought you weren't interested," Ashley tells him, annoyed.
"And nothing – I said don't even think about it!" Jenna assures him.
"And give me back my skirt," Jillian chimes in, soto voce.
"No!" Jenna retorts before she realizes she's being teased.
"Zack, get me a cap?" Ashley demands, wanting to cash in on Zack's gaffe.
"Decaf diet non-dairy whipped cream," he promises.
"Caf. I want to be up all night," she tells him. Living on the edge, an actress's life. Trying to sound like she has something, or someone, to do.
"Scoot over," Jace whispers in my ear. We only bonk heads a little when I jump. Amusingly this leaves one empty space and it's between Jenna and Ashley.
"Jill," Jace says sweetly – he's the only person on the planet who gets away with calling her "Jill" – "Ashley was asking me about your first big break. I thought maybe we should ask you." Val looks at him murderously. Jillian, who actually has an occasional but recurring role on a TV series, probably got her "first big break" by sleeping with an older, established actress. When she was around Ashley's age.
"I didn't ask you..." Ashley starts, confused – and maybe a bit intimidated by Val's hovering presence.
"Well, you asked me about first big breaks, and we just heard about Jenna's," Jace reminds her.
"Actually that wasn't my first break..." Jenna tries to start up, but Denise wants to hear something different.
"Yes, Jillian, how did you get your start?" Denise is only here for the supposed thrill of associating with so-called "working actors" before returning to her pampered but boring suburban life.
"You really want to know?" Jillian half-asks, half-snarls. Like a cobra conjured out of a basket, she bobs and weaves into an upright position, prepared to seduce at least three of her listeners. "You sure you really want to know?"
Their attention is rapt, though no less riveted than Val's. Jace stretches his legs out into the aisle and leans way back so that when he speaks only I can hear.
"So. What did you think of today's exercise? Any experience in the matter?"
Blushing furiously, all I can reply is a Victorian (Edwardian?) "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." I try to look at him primly but my heart's in my throat.
"You delivered that line so perfectly I wondered if you had used it on stage or in real life."
I didn't think it was possible for my blush to deepen – wrong. Jillian shoots me a sidelong glance under lowered brows before leaning in to draw her audience all the tighter.
"I... I... I thought you meant..." I try to stammer out.
"Do you want a spanking?" Jace asks me straight out.
I don't know what to say. My chest is so tight I can't breathe and I'm so honestly afraid I'm about to cry that I start trying to think of a plausible excuse.
"Is that what you thought I meant? Hey, pretty funny, huh? Everyone sure laughed. Everyone except Zack," this last part no more than a whisper and then he's gone.
To be replaced by Zack, carrying Ashley's caf-cap half-assed whazzit. This time when I jump I don't bonk anyone's head.
"Um, maybe it'd be better if..." Zack implies, rather than saying he doesn't want to squeeze around me – which I appreciate, believe me. I've had enough guys try to brush across my chest for a lifetime. Though getting up I'm standing face-to-face with Jace, who has backed out of the way a calculated not-enough. This is really going to happen, goes through my mind. But I sit back down. So does he. Close.
"He's wrong, you know," Jace tells me quietly – enough of a non-sequitor to make me look at him directly, though without the heart-pound. "There's no absence of places to put the emphasis." And with that he puts his mouth to my ear and in an insistent whisper asks me, "Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking? Do you want a spanking?"
"Yes," I tell him breathlessly. When I find my voice I say "I'm sure you're right."
Suddenly he's standing as I look on in disbelief. "Well, I have to run," he tells everyone. "Got a script I have to pick up, bus in five minutes." Jillian, Ashley, and Denise have their heads almost touching despite being separated by the table, and Jillian's hand is stretching toward them. He covers it with his own. "Jill, take care of these two, Val, take care of Jill," he directs. Looking at the beautiful people he tells them "And you two, lend a hand."
With this line he extends his hand to me and says "Are you coming, or are you going to give me money?"
My mouth is still hanging open, my mind racing. "I have my car," is all I can think of.
"All the better. Ready?"
"Um, yes, I guess. Yes, I'm ready."
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