Method Acting

 by Justin Black

There's a lot to be said about being the best... and we were, the
critics agreed, the best acting school in Chicago. Arguably, we had
the best schools in New York and L.A. beat as well... but you're
never going to overcome the snobbishness on either coasts to get them
to admit that. Not that it mattered. We were the elite. I can show
you a list as long as your arm of our alumni who have gone on to
national -- even international -- fame. And somehow, I was one of the
lucky ones: through a lot of luck and a lot of hard work, I became,
at the tender age of 27, one of a select group of instructors at our
prestigious school.

We worked in groups, close-knit teams who worked largely
independently of each other, assembling productions which were
presented regularly at the theater attached to the school.
Performances at this theater were world-renowned; it was a must for
tourists to the Windy City to catch one of our performances. We
played to packed houses every night, which, along with the fees we
charged to our students, made the school quite profitable an able to
support our sizeable staff of instructors.

Our group was called "Frenetic Inertia." I don't know where the name
came from. It had been around for years, long before any of the
current members of the group were involved. The current members
included playwrights, directors, actors, technicians, though no
matter what our individual areas of expertise, we all pitched in and
did whatever was necessary. Cross-training in disciplines was the
rule, not the exception.

I had just come off of a successful production of a play I had
written and directed, called "Barely There." It was, like many of our
successful productions, a broad farce, this one notable for the fact
that the lead actress spent much of her stage time in her underwear.
This was no accident. Our productions were ferociously competitive,
and working under the premise that sex sells, I deliberately set out
to create a sexy, vibrant play which would have the added benefit of
some very provocative promotional material. It was a success: "Barely
There" ran for four months -- nearly a record -- and was destined to
be one of the highest-grossing productions of the year.

The lead actress for "Barely There," -- and absolutely knockout
blonde named Jill Thompson -- never let me live down the fact that I
had cast her into the play, and that it was me who had her prancing
about the stage each night in bra and panties. She playfully vowed
revenge pretty much after each performance. At 35, Jill was in
fabulous shape, and was teetering on the edge of heading for Broadway
to make her name as a top theatrical director. We knew it was pretty
much just a matter of one more season or so before we'd lose her
talents.

After the close of "Barely There," we were faced, as usual, with the
challenge of choosing our next production. Although we were
constantly bombarded with scripts, sent in by hopefuls around the
world, we, more than some of the other groups, liked to keep our
productions in-house as much as possible. We loved to "workshop"
plays, taking extra time to allow them to evolve and change before
bringing them to the stage. This time, however, we broke the pattern
just a little bit by allowing Val Curtain to submit her newest play.
For those who've never heard of her, Val is one of the hottest
playwrights in Chicago, in addition to her numerous contributions to
the world of television. She was, at the time, working on cracking
that elusive market in feature films, and although she'd had two of
her screenplays produced, both films had stalled before securing
distribution. She was bold, aggressive, and a true genius at comedy,
and so when we got word that she had something for us, we leapt at it.

"Uncle Leo" was the working title of the play, a broad farce of a
detective mystery. I was out of town presenting an acting seminar in
Tampa, Florida when the selection committee voted in favor of it, but
just on Val Curtain's reputation alone, I approved of the choice.

Normally, with our group, it was standard practice for the
playwright of any given production to also direct. This made a lot of
sense, especially when it was a workshop production, and the
playwright could allow the nuances of the rehearsals to guide any
rewrites. Val, however, let it be known that she wasn't interested in
directing at all, but would happily attend the rehearsals and do any
necessary rewrites that the director might require.

The director would be Mandy Pallor. Mandy was a real piece of work.
She was relatively new to the group, but came toting her reputation
with her. It was stellar. Mandy had come from Broadway to work with
our group. She was one of the leading advocates for gay and lesbian
drama, and was, at age 35, already becoming a household name,
appearing on numerous talk shows as an advocate for gay rights. In
person, Mandy was unique. She was almost asexual. She gave out no
vibes at all. She never spoke of any relationships. She was never
seen with anyone. Mandy was a mystery, but she was such a fun and
vivacious person that she was a joy to be around. Everybody liked
Mandy.

So it was that I was quite happy to hear from her while I was still
doing my seminar out in Tampa.

"Have you read Val's script yet?" she gushed over the phone.

"No," I told her, "I haven't had a chance, but I'm going to as soon
as I get back to Chicago."

"They told you I was directing?"

"Yes, they did, and I'm really excited about having you back in the
director's chair. Last time was great fun."

"I'm looking forward to it too," she said. "And that's kind of what
I'm calling you about. I want you to play one of the leads."

This was unusual. It was practically policy with the entire acting
school that open auditions were a must. Students were usually favored
out of those auditioning, but we've had some absolutely brilliant
finds from people coming in off the street. Pre-casting, however, and
especially from the group itself, was rare. The only other time it
had been allowed, ironically, was when I cast Jill in "Barely There."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I mean, that seems a bit hasty, don't you
think? You're bound to find someone better." This wasn't false
modesty; I never considered myself a great actor, although I
absolutely tried my best every time I was cast in something.

"I'm sure," Mandy insisted. "I have my reasons... and I'll explain
them to you once you get back and read the script. But I'd like to
get your commitment now, if I can."

"Without even reading the script?"

"Yeah. You'll just have to trust me on this."

"I trust you," I said. And I did.

My return home was less than idyllic. Beth, my girlfriend of three
years, and I were going through what appeared to be an inevitable
split. Her job as a rep for a pharmaceutical company kept her out of
town for months at a time, and it was tearing us apart. It seemed
that the time we got to spend together was entirely wasted on
fighting about why we stayed apart so much. This time was no
different. In fact, this time was worse, because now I was actually
looking forward to the next time she would leave town.

As usual, I drowned my problems with work, and got hold of a copy of
Val's script as soon as possible.

"Uncle Leo" was everything I expected it to be: funny, brilliant,
extremely well-written but with a sense of real humanity that most
farces tend to ignore. As I read it, however, I couldn't figure out
which part Val wanted to cast me as. Most of the male parts were
relatively minor, and could be played pretty much by anyone, good or
bad, without affecting the overall production.

Except for one.

I can never do justice to the wonderfully serpentine plot of "Uncle
Leo" -- you'd do better to find a copy of it for yourself -- but
briefly, it's the story of rich, curmudgeonly, and lecherous Uncle
Leo, and his evil, unscrupulous niece, Kimmy. The story revolves
around Kimmy's plot to swindle her uncle out of a box of his late
wife's jewels. It's the way she does it that makes the plot unique
and the perfect vehicle for comedy. Kimmy convinces her boyfriend Sal
to disguise himself as a woman -- her "best friend" Sally -- and have
Uncle Leo's lecherous desires distract him long enough for Kimmy to
pull off her heist.

It wasn't until my second reading that it hit me: I knew why Mandy
had called me: the party.

To backtrack: about a year earlier, shortly after Mandy had joined
our little group, she had invited us to a fund-raiser for one of her
many gay rights advocate groups. This one was quite legit, and was
fashionable among the city's elite; or at least those of the elite
who wanted to portray themselves as "concerned." It was a "Gender
Bender" party: all of the guests were encouraged to present
themselves as the opposite sex. As you can imagine, with any such
event, camp was the order of the night, and most of the patrons
paraded about in ridiculous costumes. (It actually made me wonder
whether the beneficiaries of this fund-raiser took offense at the way
these people were presenting themselves.)

Being a "serious" actor -- and, to be frank, wanting to impress our
new, illustrious member -- I took a different tack: I went for
realism. To be honest, it was Beth's idea. When Beth heard about the
party, she got this strange look in her eyes, and delightedly leapt
upon the idea of transforming me. I asked her why, and she said,
"Because ever since I met you, I wondered what you'd look like as a
woman. You have the facial structure of a girl..."

Not exactly inspiring words, but even I had to admit it was true. My
facial proportions had a kind of "off" look to them. As an actor,
this often worked in my favor, as make-up could transform me
effortlessly into a variety of different looks. I'm not bad-looking,
by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm certainly not the macho
type. Body-wise, I'm kind of ambiguous as well. Definitely not in
shape, I'm certainly on the chubby side, with softer curves than
you'd expect on a guy. Never had a problem with self-image, though.
I've always been comfortable in my own skin.

Beth saw my attributes as "raw material," and when she set her mind
to making me an art project for Mandy's party, she went all out.

I won't go into too many details, except to say that Mandy's efforts
were very, very impressive. At the party, I was, more often than not,
mistaken for the number of people who turned up that hadn't dressed
for the occasion. Proof of this was the fact that I was hit on by not
one but three guys that night.

Beth found this hilarious... and admitted that it was a turn-on for
her. I didn't think too much of it, except for the discovery that my
girlfriend had a few kinks to her that I didn't know about.

I was sure that Mandy remembered the impression I made at that
party, and that this is why I was being asked to play the part of
Sal/Sally. Not "asked," I corrected myself. The part I'd already
committed to. It wasn't that this really concerned me, though. I was
certain that, if the part was something I couldn't do, Mandy would
accept my refusal, but this wasn't something I wanted to do. In our
group, it was the roles that seemed difficult or demanding that were
the most challenging and, ultimately, satisfying. All throughout my
career, I'd played against type with wonderful results.

>From my interpretation of the play, the key to playing Sally was
going to be complete believability. Both the feasibility of the plot
and, by extension, the effectiveness of the humor was based almost
entirely around the fact that the audience had to believe that Uncle
Leo was head over heels for Sally.

"The audience has to believe that Uncle Leo is head over heels for
Sally," were Mandy's exact words the first time we met to discuss the
part. Sure enough, she brought up my performance at the party, noting
that her brother, Stanley, had taken a serious shine to me all during
the party, and, she added with a chuckle, was still thinking things
over after he found out the truth.

"I've lined up some great people to help with your make over," she
said. "It'll be fun."

"I'll be the judge of that," I said. I knew the hell I went through
in preparation for the party, and the idea of doing it through
rehearsals and an unknown number of performances was daunting. I'd
played a zombie a while back, and getting made-up for that every
night was misery, and created a skin rash that lasted for months...
and that was just for a week-long Halloween run.

When I found out that Jill had come on board as assistant director,
I had my suspicions as to whether or not casting me as Sally had just
a little to do with her vow to get even for her under-clad
performance in my last play. I knew, however, that Mandy wouldn't
stake her reputation on something so frivolous as Jill's revenge
fantasies, so, while it might be a stroke of luck for Jill, this was
going to be a very serious project.

Even before the rest of the cast had been auditioned, Mandy started
working with me, plotting out my impending transformation. Mandy was
well-known for her belief in method acting, and she made it clear at
the outset that this was going to be one of her most ambitious
projects.

"The way I see it," she said at one of our early production
meetings, "one of our challenges is to make the audience believe in
Sally even though they're in on the fact that she's really Sal. If,
during the course of the play, you can suspend their disbelief, it
will put them firmly in Uncle Leo's shoes, and give it that extra
emotional kick."

Fine, I thought. But at that point, I had no idea how extensive a
challenge this was going to be.

The "transformation team" -- that was actually how they were going
to be listed on the programs -- was also brought in prior to casting
the rest of the play. I have to admit, I was less than thrilled at
first that the mother-daughter team of Missy and Hannah Carpenter
were going to be responsible for my gender reassignment, although
they were, in fact, perfect choices for the part. Missy was a master
seamstress, and could create just about any costume known to mankind
strictly from memory. Hannah was a make-up genius, everything from
special effects to simply making our starlets look like starlets. I
guess that was going to include me now.

The reason I was uncomfortable with the idea of having those two
working on me had nothing to do with their abilities and everything
to do with their personalities. Missy was a jokester, and took great
delight in the discomfort and embarrassment of others... in a good-
natured way, I have to add, but in such a way as to make such
situations ten times more uncomfortable and embarrassing. I was
dreading what I knew would be her constant ribbing.

With Hannah, the situation was just a little bit different. I was,
secretly, nuts about Hannah, and the idea of having her seeing my
manhood so thoroughly challenged bothered me. What was she going to
think of me after this?

I'd find out, that was for sure.

The first wardrobe meeting was a hoot -- for just about everyone but
me. Val, Mandy, Jill, Missy, and Hannah sequestered me in a room as
we went over the script page for page, brainstorming costuming ideas.
My ideas -- understandably conservative -- were all but ignored. It
was as if I wasn't even there.

The others were really enjoying themselves, and the squirming I
started to do as their ideas grew more and more fanciful added to
their amusement. Worst of all, this brainstorming was giving Val new
ideas of how to polish the script even further, and it seems that
every improvement involved putting me in more and more embarrassing
situations. This was deliberate. "It's the perfect way to get
laughs," she explained, simply, and there was no argument to this.

I didn't have that much objection to sweetening the script with more
laughs; the problem I had was that a large number of their funny
ideas was in direct proportion to how much of me got exposed onstage.
I have to admit that one of my biggest setbacks as an actor is my own
modesty. Being less-than-svelt, I've always been shy about exposing
myself, and that was precisely the direction in which our creative
team was headed.

An example of this brainstorming involved Uncle Leo's first
encounter with Sally. As the scene was originally written, Uncle Leo
accidentally stumbles upon Sally going through the contents of his
desk in his private den. Uncle Leo is such a lecher that instead of
being infuriated over this invasion of privacy, he is far more
intrigued by the sight of an attractive woman bending over his desk
and, appropriately, gives her a playful whack on the butt. Funny. But
not funny enough, apparently. The girls thought it would up the
laughs immensely if Sally was in a skirt short enough so that Uncle
Leo -- and the audience -- got a nice gander at her panties. Forget
about my protests; they didn't count. Instead, they took things even
further. Since Sally's visit to Uncle Leo's office takes place at
night, Mandy pointed out, why not put Sally in a nightie?

"Why would Sally bother to get dressed for bed before she goes to
the office?" I asked. "For that matter, why would Sal even bother
keeping up the charade when he went to bed?"

Val had an answer to this. The girls, she pointed out (Sally
included) had to sleep in the same room with another female guest.
This necessitated Sally having to maintain her charade around the
clock. This female guest didn't exist prior to my question, but I
could see Val's mind whirring with the comic possibilities.

I learned to keep my mouth shut pretty quick.

The day before auditions to cast the rest of the play, I spent
several hours with Missy and Hannah doing make-up tests and having my
measurements taken. It wasn't all that bad, in spite of the fact that
I was pretty much stuck in a chair for several hours. Missy and
Hannah had fun teasing me about the costumes Missy planned to make
for me, and it would have been a great day until Hannah dropped a
bomb on me at the very end.

"I want you to go to the Brixton Spa, and talk to Tammy. She's going
to wax you."

"Excuse me?"

"Wax you. We don't want to mess with shaving you. This is going to
go on for a pretty long time, and with a razor, we'd have to keep on
doing it. Trust me, you'll thank me in the end..."

Hannah was wrong. The next day, while Mandy was determining who my
co-stars were going to be, I was undergoing tortures that the
Inquisition might have found useful, as I was rid of my body hair. To
my surprise, the order that Hannah had put in also included a
Brazilian wax (her idea of a joke?) and having my eyebrows waxed as
well. (No joke, and I understood the reasoning there.) I refused to
do the Brazilian, obviously, but submitted to everything else. By the
time I left, I felt very different, and surprisingly vulnerable. I
could only hope that my bangs covered my new eyebrows. I don't think
they did.

Mandy was sympathetic to my ordeal, and appreciative of my
dedication to the role so far. I asked her if she'd found our Uncle
Leo yet, and she gave me a quirky smile.

"As a matter of fact," she said, "I have, and he's someone I've
worked with before in another company."

"When can I meet him?"

Another quirky smile. "Actually, I have an idea about that..."

Two days later, I was sitting in the backstage make-up chair, being
worked over by Hannah's skilled hands, about to play a part in
another of Mandy's experiments in method acting. In fact, her plan
was ingenious.

When Mandy had run through her auditions, she used scripts from a
different play as material for the actors to read. This was very
deliberate. It was also deliberate that none of the actors, even
after they had been accepted, received copies of the script. They
were told there was a "printing error" and that they were going to
have to wait.

The reason I was there that day was to have Missy and Hannah go all
out in creating Sally... and that it was my female alter-ego that
Uncle Leo would be meeting for the first time. Not only that, Mandy
had made arrangements that Uncle Leo and I would be alone together
for fifteen minutes before the rest of the cast arrived. The only
other observer would be Mandy, hidden away in the theater's sound
booth, watching the action.

"His name is Josh," Mandy told me as I was being made up. "I've got
to tell you, he's an eccentric sort of character. Not exactly a
ladies man. Kind of nerdy. I don't think he dates much. But he's a
great actor and really dedicated to his craft, which is the main
reason I chose him."

"Okay..."

"He's not the best looking guy in the world, but he's one of those
actors -- just like you -- who's a chameleon. You can inspire him to
become anything you want him to be. I'm so happy he auditioned."

"And so what's the plan for today?" I asked. I was already getting
jittery, feeling some butterflies.

"Well," Mandy said, "we'll let Missy and Hannah have their go at you
-- I've arranged it so that they'll have plenty of time to get you
put together -- and then I have it arranged so that Josh will arrive
first. That way you two can meet, and I can see what kind of
chemistry you have."

"Isn't that kind of deceptive?"

"It's totally deceptive!" Mandy laughed. "But Josh has worked with
me before, and he knows all about my little tricks."

"What about my voice?" I said. I think I was stalling for time
without even really knowing it.

"You'll be fine. Just raise your pitch a little bit, without being
obvious. Your voice is more feminine than mine is..."

I couldn't argue with her there. Mandy was outside every fifteen
minutes for a cigarette break, and they had definitely taken their
toll. Actually, I didn't have time to argue with anything, as Missy
and Hannah were keen to get started, warning me that they had a lot
of work ahead of them. As we headed off to the backstage dressing
room, Mandy gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, "By the way, I
like the eyebrows. You're going to look fantastic!"

There was not a doubt in my mind that my nervousness was showing
when I entered the dressing room, nor that Missy and Hannah picked up
on it like sharks to blood. Both had big grins on their face, looking
as though they were holding back fits of laughter.

"Are you ready to become a woman?" Missy asked, exchanging a sly
glance with her daughter.

"I guess so," I said with a sigh of resignation. "Where do we start?"

"Strip!" said Hannah.

"What?" I said, mortified.

"We're going to start with your clothes," Missy explained, "so we
need to start from the bottom up." She went over to the large table
on which she had laid out a pile of clothing and picked out several
garments. "I know you're modest," she said -- she'd costumed me
before, and was aware of how shy I could be about my body -- so we'll
let you put on your undies in the bathroom."

I felt myself blushing as Missy handed me a pair of pink panties
with black lace trim and a matching bra.

"You remember my roommate Candy?" Hannah asked me as I took the
flimsy undergarments from Missy's hand. "You should see her lately.
She's been working out and dropped a lot of weight. She was going to
give away her entire wardrobe, but I managed to snag it all before
she made it to the Goodwill box. So we have lots to work with, and
you're about the same size she was before she started working out."

Great, I thought. I stood there, waiting.

"What are you waiting for? Let's get going."

"Where's the rest of what I'm supposed to wear?" I asked.

Missy didn't even blink. "Let's start with underwear and just work
our way up."

For a few moments, I thought this was a joke, but when neither of
them did or said anything else, I realized that they were serious. My
shoulders slumped as I headed to the bathroom to get my humiliation
underway.

I struggled with the bra a little bit, but figured it out, then
slipped on the panties. Fortunately, they were roomy enough to cover
me -- I guess -- and I avoided looking in the mirror as I took a deep
breath and stepped back into the dressing room...and came face to
face with Jill.

The smile on her face was priceless. It was a smile of victory.

"Just wanted to wish you luck," she said, which, of course, was
complete bullshit: she wanted to see me in a bra and panties. "Have
fun," she said, walking away, exchanging more of those secret glances
with Missy and Hannah.

"That wasn't necessary," I said.

"No... but it was fun!" Missy said. That was when she and Hannah let
go of the giggles they'd been holding back. "Now let's get to work..."

And it really was work. After Missy had fitted me with water-balloon
"breasts" (Candy was a busty girl, so I had some big cups to fill),
she started handing me different outfits to try on. It turned out
that Candy wasn't quite as large as I was, and a lot of the clothes I
tried fit a bit too tightly or just didn't hang right on my more non-
existent curves, so it took some time to find the four or five
different combinations Missy wanted to have on hand for Mandy to
choose from. Several pieces were set aside for Missy to alter.
Several fit straight "off the rack." The first order of the day was
to choose an available outfit for my first meeting with my co-star.
And we went fairly conservative: a pleated, knee-length black skirt
and a white blouse. Missy had me put on pantyhose, and we struggled
with some of Candy's old shoes finding a pair that weren't going to
absolutely kill my feet. We eventually settled on a pair of black
flats that Missy had "altered" with a utility knife.

"Now comes the fun part," Hannah said as she sat me in the makeup
chair and covered my new outfit with a large smock.

The makeup phase was tedious. All I did was sit in a chair while I
was brushed, painted, blended, and god-knows-what else. Hannah
experimented quite a bit, and three times just washed my face clean
and started over. Missy gave her opinions and advice, but I kept
quiet, since Hannah insisted I not watch the procedure in the mirror.
Finally, after a good, solid two and a half hours of work, Missy was
ready for the last step: a wig of long, red curls.

"Red?" I asked. My hair is brown.

"This was Mandy's idea. She saw the wig at my house a while back and
thought it would work for you."

"Whatever..." I said as it was secured to my head, then styled
appropriately. I have to admit that, by the time we were done, I was
eager to see what kind of magic the girls had created.

My first reaction to seeing my reflection was mixed. At first, in
spite of all of the paint and finery, I still saw me, and it looked a
little ridiculous. In fact, it took several long moments of intense
scrutiny to begin seeing things differently. While it was true that
I'd never be mistaken for a supermodel, it was also true that my face
really did lend itself to feminization, and I found that as I
experimented with different facial expressions, just a few simply
adjustments increased the effect immensely. Missy and Hannah just
stood by and watched as I made seductive glances at the glass. They
were pleased with what they saw, and, in time, so was I.

"This is sensational," I said, casting myself a "fuck me" glance.
"Hannah, you are remarkably talented. I could never pull off
something like this."

"It's not as hard as it seems," Hannah said modestly. "The hardest
part was picking out shades that match your skin tone. Things like
that."

"You think I'd pass out on the street like this?" I asked.

"No doubt," Missy said. "I've seen lots of women who don't look as
good as you do. But you're going to have to work on your voice a
little bit."

I figured that if I was in it this deep, I might as well go all the
way. Besides, Josh wasn't due to arrive for at least an hour and a
half. So I worked with Hannah and Missy at altering my speech
patterns. I didn't necessarily have to raise the pitch very much. In
fact, when I did, both Hannah and Missy were in agreement that it
sounded completely fake. But we discovered if I just spoke softer,
with more of a singing quality, it made my voice sound pleasantly
feminine. I'd have to keep reminding myself to stay "in character,"
but if nothing else, I figured it would be a really good acting
challenge.

As per Mandy's instructions, I sat alone in the theater at the time
Josh was told to arrive. I had about fifteen minutes to spare, and I
found myself getting a little nervous over the prospect of what I was
trying to pull off. Throughout my career as an actor, of course, I
devoted so much time and effort to creating character illusions. At
the same time, however, all of these situations were circumstances
where an audience was completely aware that this was an actor
attempting to suspend disbelief. This was different. This was a
complete deception, and while I treated it as an acting challenge, I
was aware that there would be a lot more happening than just fooling
someone with a costume.

I knew, of course, that the most effective way to embody a part was
to allow it to take over, to go from the point of willing yourself to
adopt the looks, tones, gestures, and total persona of a character to
the point where the character actually controls you in a way. This
was something I'd successfully experienced before, and always with
very satisfying results. I was already aware, however, that this
would take me into uncharted territories in my psyche.

Two years earlier, I got the opportunity to play Hitler in an
original play by a local history professor. I took the role very
seriously, and that meant coming to terms with very basic conflicts
between my values and a value system completely alien to me. Crossing
those boundaries fascinated me, and I believe I was able to
successfully trip switches and alter myself from the inside out.
Could I do that with Sally? The idea fascinated and intrigued me.

My first encounter with Josh, I knew, would be the first step.
Having never met the man, I realized that this was going to be a
blank slate. Everything Josh would think about me would be based upon
this creation of Missy and Hannah. I had no idea how long Mandy would
allow this charade to go on, but I promised myself that I would study
Josh's reactions to me very, very carefully.

I actually jumped when the sound of the front door in the lobby
opening echoed through the theater. I was seated at the large table
we would be using to do the initial "table read" for the play,
shuffling some papers around, but so nervous now that I wouldn't be
able to read anything if I tried.

When the door to the theater opened, I turned towards the sound...
and was immediately disappointed. Josh poked his head in the door,
and Mandy was right: he really did look like a geek. Big, thick
glasses, in unimpressive frames. Bad skin. And his outfit of a plaid
shirt and jeans, which didn't fit him, completed the picture.

But he smiled at me when he saw me.

"Is this where the rehearsals are?" he asked.

I nodded and smiled. Remembering to control my voice, I said, "Yes,
it is."

Josh held out his hand. "I'm Josh."

I shook his hand, noticing for the first time that neither Missy nor
Hannah had thought about doing my nails. I still had guy hands.
Somehow, though, it seemed to make my transformation more believable.
Less was more.

"Are you in the play?" Josh asked, sitting down next to me. The
smell of his cologne was strong, and I made an effort to think of it
as a scent which would attract me. And, in fact, this triggered an
entire slew of thoughts, all at lightning-like rapidity, of my role
in the situation I in which I found myself.

For the novice, the hardest thing about acting is forgetting who you
are, ignoring that you're someone pretending to be something else,
and feeling the role. Lots of actors never get there, never lose the
awareness of who they are and what they're doing. I have to admit
myself that I only reach that point rarely, usually only with a
fantastic part and under an expert director. When it happens, it's
sublime. It just doesn't happen very often. In this particular case,
there were additional motivations to get in character: Simply put, I
didn't want this guy, whom I'd never laid eyes on before, wondering
what a guy was doing dressed up as a girl trying to start a
conversation... at least, not until Mandy came to my rescue and
explained the situation.

It's almost as important for an actor to be aware of how those
around him are reacting as it is to react, and in the case with Josh,
this took on a unique complexity. Being aware that I genuinely
projected the image of a reasonably attractive woman, and judging by
the smiles Josh gave me as he settled in, I had to assume that he
felt some attraction to me. What difference did that make? Before
this, I wouldn't have thought it made any difference. But now, in the
hot seat, as it were, I was suddenly feeling the difference in the
way his eyes were studying me. I guess what had my mind whizzing the
most was the simple fact that I knew how I reacted in the presence of
an attractive woman, the thoughts that went through my head
reflexively, and knowing that this was the way Josh was currently
thinking had me feeling... well, I won't say uncomfortable, exactly.
Just out of place. Uneasy.

"Have you worked with this group before?" he asked me.

"Several times," I said.

"This is my first time," he said, "but I've worked with the director
a few times, with other groups. She's terrific."

I nodded. "I've worked with Mandy before too."

Then he gave me a smile that just had to be calculated and
deliberate. "So I guess you're the star, huh?"

"What makes you say that?"

"You've got star quality," he said. Now I was convinced that he was
flirting with me. The thing was, the awkwardness of the way he led
into his flirting had me fairly convinced that he wasn't really all
that good at it.

"I don't know about that."

"Well," he pressed on, "you had my attention the moment I stepped
into the room, I can tell you that for sure."

I tried to smile back at him. "Thanks." Was it a flirty smile? I
don't know. I didn't have enough control over my characterization yet
to know.

"So what's this company like to work with?" he asked.

"Very professional," I said.

"So I've heard. That will be great. The last company I worked with,"
he said, rolling his eyes, "were just too wild and crazy. You
wouldn't believe the things that went on backstage."

The tone of his voice as he asked the question all but begged me to
follow up with, "Really? Like what?"

"It was practically an orgy, every night," he said with a suggestive
smile. "People couldn't keep their hands off of each other. I don't
know what caused all of that energy, but it was there, I can tell
you." Then he paused for the exact right amount of time and said,
"You ever work with a company like that?"

Of course, I immediately picked up on the subtext of the question:
Do you have a wild, erotic streak in you?

Immediately, I was at a crossroads. Should I put out his fire right
away, or should I play along? Even though I knew Mandy would end the
charade shortly, I thought it would be kind of cruel to string him
along, even for a short time, so I shook my head.

"No," I said, "I try to work only for serious theater groups." Did
that sound snobbish?

"You're missing out on the fun..." he said with a sly smile. He was
keeping up the flirtatious line of conversation, hoping I'd play
along. It was, in a way, kind of painfully obvious, and I almost felt
guilty not accommodating him. But, again, the fact that I knew that
this line of conversation had, of course, no chance of going anywhere
and he didn't, it seemed almost cruel to lead him down a dead end.

"So what part do you play?" I said, changing the subject.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't have any idea. Mandy's
being really secretive about all of this. I haven't even seen a
script. Have you?"

Playing along, I shook my head. "No. Not yet."

"That's too bad," he said. "I thought maybe we could share a script."

Okay, I thought, this guy doesn't know when to stop.

Fortunately, before I had to brush him back again, several other
people entered at once. Mandy was among them, and she gave me a
secretive smile as she passed. I looked around, and the only person I
recognized was Jill. The entire cast, it seemed, were newcomers.

Mandy got everyone in order and seated around the big table and gave
the prerequisite director's speech. She explained that she was trying
some new things this time around, and that she hoped we were all good
sports and willing to play along with some of her games. I thought
this was the perfect time for her to let everyone in on my little
masquerade, but she just carried on to some details about the script
and how we should all be honored to do one of Val's plays, and so on.

After this, she said, "I don't know most of you, but I think it's
great to get so much fresh blood into the group." She pointed at
Jill, and said, "Jill has been with the group a long time, and we've
worked on several projects together." Then, she held her hand out
towards me and, to my surprise, said, "And Josie here has worked as
an actor, a playwright, and a director for our group..."
Josie?

Not much happened that first night. Mandy asked the new actors to
introduce themselves and mention some of their achievements, after
which she told everyone that there were still some printing
difficulties with the scripts but that we would start rehearsals
anyway, and that we would be getting ready for a table read the next
day.

"Josie?" I asked Mandy after everyone -- but Jill -- had cleared out.

"I wanted to see whether everyone bought the illusion," Mandy
explained with a bright smile. "They did!"

"Okay," I said, "so how long before let everyone in on the joke?"

"Well," Mandy said, "I was going to tell everyone at the end of the
rehearsal tonight... I really was. But once I saw the way people were
reacting to you -- or, to be more specific, how they were not
reacting to you, not seeing anything out of the ordinary -- I thought
I could keep things going a little longer, just for observational
purposes. How about you? What did you think about it?"

"It was a little strange."

"How did you think about the way Josh reacted to you?"

"I thought he was a little flirty."

"No doubt about that. He wanted to get into your panties."

I'm sure I blushed a little as Mandy laughed.

"But that's good," Mandy said. "That's what he's supposed to want."

"That's what you say," I said, but with a smile.

"Well," Mandy said, an intrigued look in her eyes, "what do you say?
How does it feel to be sexually desired as a woman?"

I had to think a moment. "Well, it's awkward, for one."

"Why?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"Let's pretend nothing's obvious. I want your observations."

"In the first place," I said, after a little thought, "I wasn't even
close to losing myself in the character. I was still way too aware of
being a guy dressed up as a girl, so there was no way I could really
think like a girl. Hopefully, I can get there, but not yet. So my
initial reaction to Josh was how desperately he was trying to
establish some kind of connection. As a guy, I'm thinking, 'Whoa,
slow down, man...' I'd never approach a woman like that."

Mandy nodded. "Now, try to think like a woman, and give me your
reaction."

I laughed nervously. "I don't know that I can."

"Try." Mindy was predictable, if nothing else.

"Okay..." I said, slowly, stalling for time. "I think he's a little
bit creepy.

Jill, who had been meandering around the theater, came and joined in
on the conversation. Her ever-present smile was annoying.

"What do you think he'd be like in bed?" Mandy pushed on.

"Excuse me?"

"Thinking as a woman, of course," she explained, "what do you think
he'd be like as a lover?"

"Okay, okay," I said, smiling, "this is all very funny, but the
joke's over..."

"I'm not joking," Mandy said, in such a way as to instantly convince
me she wasn't. "We're pursuing this deeper. Every woman has to come
to some kind of decision about the people she decides to go to bed
with. I want to know what Sally's assessment of Josh would be."

Jill wasn't saying anything. She was enjoying herself too much.

"Just relax," Mindy said. "I'm just asking for Sally's opinion."

I forced myself to calm down and to start putting myself into a
girl's mind set. A bit reluctantly, I said, "Okay... well, he comes
across as being so desperate... I don't think he'd be very good. He'd
either be too eager to please, or he'd be terribly clumsy. I don't
think he'd have any finesse at all."

"Good," Mandy said. "I think that's a great observation... not to
mention the fact that I think you're probably right. Now," she said,
shifting in her chair, with a quick exchange of glances between her
and Jill, "let's take things even deeper."

"Oh, let's not..." I said, half joking.

"No, no, we're doing great so far."

"Easy for you to say."

"I know it's tough, and I know it's awkward, but it's fascinating."

"I guess I'm just having a tough time letting go, you know? I mean,
I've got this gay stigma nagging at me."

"I understand. And that's what you've got to get over. If you become
a woman, it's not gay at all for you to think sexually towards men.
You've just got to reach that point."

I nodded. "I'm trying."

"I think," Jill said, "you need to go through another rehearsal as
Josie... without the others knowing it."

"But isn't that a mean trick to play on them? I mean, Josh is making
a fool out of himself flirting with me. If I was him, I'd be really
pissed off when I learned the truth."

"I'll sell them on the idea," Mandy assured me. "And, in fact, a big
part of the reason I'm pushing for this is to help Josh in his
characterization. Josh will understand Uncle Leo's vulnerability to
such a deception." Mandy smiled at me. "So, what do you say, Josie?
One more day?"

I couldn't say no to Mandy. I never could. "Okay. One more day," I
said. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to take all this crap off and
go home."

Jill smiled. "Why don't you just wear it home?"

I looked at her as though she was nuts. "I ride the bus home."

"Well, it would definitely help you hone your persona," Mandy said.
"You'd pretty much have no choice."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I said, pulling off my wig and heading for
the dressing room.

------------------------

"Before too long," Hannah said, her pretty face twisted in
concentration as she drew sharp black lines under my eyes, "you'll be
able to do this by yourself."

Missy, who was going through another pile of donated clothes,
searching for suitable outfits for Sally, chimed in, "Now there's a
valuable life skill for you!"

"Who said you can't learn anything in the theater?" I joked, trying
hard not to reflexively dodge Hannah and her persistent mascara.

"What do you think, Sally?" called Missy. "You want to go for
something a little sexier this time around?"

"I don't think that's necessary," I said.

"Oh, come on," Hannah said. "Live a little!"

Missy held up a white skirt and asked Hannah, "You think this is too
short?"

"I think," I interjected, "that if you have to ask, yes, it's too
short."

"It's fine," Hannah said, trumping me.

I looked at the skirt. It was light and flared out. The kind that
are really fashionable with teenage girls. My only thought was that
it was going to be a new challenge for me to face, moving around in
something like that without showing things I was sure I didn't want
shown.

It took considerably less time for Hannah to work her magic with me
this time, and soon, I was ready for Missy, who dressed me in the
aforementioned skirt and a black turtleneck, which was tight enough
to emphasize my considerably-stuffed bra.

"I like this outfit," Missy said. "The flare of the skirt makes up
for the fact that you don't have any hips."

"You trying to hurt my feelings?" I joked, checking myself out in
the mirror, doing a few experimental turns to see just how this skirt
would move.

"Naw," Missy said. "You have a magnificent ass. Can't wait to see
what the audience thinks of it..."

I could wait quite a while.

Val showed up at this rehearsal, which was fairly unusual. She
usually didn't start turning up until we started work shopping the
play, but Mandy explained that the reason for her appearance was that
she had added some material to the script and wanted to hear how it
sounded voiced by real actors. This seemed reasonable, but the smile
Mandy gave me when she said the words "new material" raised a caution
flag.

Josh was friendly to me as ever when he arrived, and I did my best
to be charming but aloof. I have to admit that I was a little taken
aback when Josh pulled out my chair at the table and held it for me
until I sat down. What the hell was that all about? Never mind. I
knew.

With Val sitting in a corner of the room taking notes, we were given
our scripts and launched into a dry table read before we really had a
chance to read over anything.

It had been several days since I'd read the earlier draft of the
script, but I could already tell that Val had already done some heavy-
duty polishing of the dialogue. And each change she made was exactly
right.

Josh -- who, predictably, had chosen the seat next to me -- kept
looking at me whenever something provocative would happen. I think he
was a little surprised -- pleasantly -- when we came to the scene
where Uncle Leo walks in on Sally, bent over his desk in her
nightgown. He gave me a mischievous look, and I just know he was
picturing me in a nightgown.

Damn. I was blushing.

We carried on with our table read, often breaking down in laughter
at Val's wonderfully witty dialogue and outrageous situation. As the
play carried on, however, it became more and more apparent that Sally
was the source of most of the outrageous humor. I was actually a
little surprised that no one even suspected my true sex if only
because of the script. It was completely obvious that Sally was a man
in the script. The only conclusion I could come to was that the cast
thought that Josie would be masquerading as a man when it came time
to play Sal. Incredible. At the same time, I was very proud of the
fact that I had everyone fooled, and, truth be told, it was much
easier to get more into the character of Sally when I had an entire
group of people believing me.

I was cruising along, actually pushing things further and further,
when I came to a scene I hadn't encountered in the earlier script.
The scene took place between Sally and Uncle Leo, and it involved
Sally creating a subterfuge while the evil niece essentially robbed
Uncle Leo of his fortune. According to the plot, it was absolutely
essential that Sally hold Uncle Leo's complete attention. That was
important: his complete attention. And that was where Val decided to
take things completely over the top.

In an earlier scene -- the nightgown scene -- Val had included a bit
where, when Uncle Leo first discovers Sally, he playfully gives her a
whack on her exposed ass. Val revisited this idea with her new scene,
in that Sally's subterfuge to hold Uncle Leo's attention is by plying
him with the idea that she liked being spanked, and wanted Uncle Leo
to do it again.

Of course, spanking always has an element of humor in it, and the
idea the Sal -- a man -- would be turned over Uncle Leo's lap made
things all the more hilarious... in theory. Things were, however,
slightly less hilarious from the point of view of the one being
spanked in front of a live audience.

As we read the scene, I gave Mandy a concerned look, as if to ask,
How are we going to pull this off?' She just smiled reassuringly, and
while I had every confidence that we would pull it off brilliantly, I
couldn't help wondering what kind of indignities I would be subjected
to in order to maximize the hilarity of Val's masterpiece.

When we made it through the first table read, there was a burst of
applause from the cast. It was pretty much the first time any of them
had any inkling of what kind of play they'd be participating in, and
I don't think anyone was remotely disappointed. As we were getting
ready to call it a day, Mandy said, "Well, before we leave, does
anybody have anything else to share with us?" She gave me a look of
invitation.

I was frozen on the spot. It just seemed like the most awkward thing
in the world to stand up and announce to everyone that I was not what
I seemed. What was I going to do?

Other members of the cast contributed a few thoughts, mostly
expressing their admiration for the script and a few ideas as to what
they felt about their characters. All the while, Mandy was giving me
these looks, as if to say, Okay, it's time now...

Finally, I just shook my head. She responded with a look of
exasperation, but didn't say anything until everyone had cleared out
for the night but me, Mandy, Pam and Val.

"Why didn't you tell them?" Mandy asked.

"I couldn't. I suddenly got completely self-conscious, and thought
everyone would just be furious at me." Mandy knew my personality: I
hated having people angry with me.

"Well you're going to have to spill the beans soon," Jill said, "or
Josh is going to ask you out on a date." She was smiling, but we all
knew that this was entirely possible.

"What I don't get," I said, "is how they all think that Josie could
pass for a guy if these," I said, cupping my 'breasts,' "are real. Do
they think I could just strap these down?"

"Maybe you can just take them out of your bra and toss them onto the
table at the next rehearsal," Mandy said.

"I've got to find a way to break the news to everyone without
seeming like I've been lying." I insisted.

"That's easy enough," Mandy said. "I'll take the blame. I'll say
that I put you up to it as an experiment. Which, in fact, is true."

"Will you tell them?" I asked.

Mandy nodded. "Sure. Next rehearsal."

"Thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me," I said with a weak smile, "my
bra is killing me..."

The cat was out of the bag at the next rehearsal, at which I turned
up as Joey. Mandy went through an elaborate explanation of her
experiment to a rather stunned cast as I sat in my chair, painfully
self-conscious. I couldn't help notice Josh, who was avoiding any eye
contact with me. He looked as though he might be a little angry over
the whole thing, and I can't say I would blame him for it. To her
credit, Mandy did her best to absolve me of the blame, and soon,
after the shock faded, I started getting compliments about the
effectiveness of my masquerade. Even Josh -- perhaps to save face --
admitted that he'd been considering asking me out.

By the time we began working, everything was fine, although
everyone's perception of how things were going to work onstage surely
had changed considerably. This was apparent immediately once we
started blocking.

Blocking, simply, is the plotting out of how actors move onstage:
where everyone stands, where and when everyone walks, stands, sits,
gestures, etc. In many cases, learning the blocking for a play can be
just as challenging as learning dialogue, and many directors, Mandy
included, like to jump into blocking right away. Having worked with
her before, her approach was familiar to me: she approached the task
with broad strokes at first, and then continuously fine-tuned
everything, pretty much right up until opening night.

Right away, I started to feel that the blocking of this play, for
me, was going to be very challenging. It was also apparent that Josh
and I were going to be spending a lot of time getting very close.

I was kind of hoping that time would run out before we got to the
spanking scene that night, and to my relief, Mandy called an end to
things right before I would have ended up over Josh's lap. That
meant, of course, that the next night, this would be where we
started, and, as we were leaving, Mandy pulled me aside and made me
regret that rehearsals had ended when they did.

"I'm going to call in Missy and Hannah for tomorrow," Mandy told me,
"and we'll get you dressed up."

"Why?"

"Two reasons," she said. "First, it's going to make the mechanics of
blocking the spanking scene easier for me. But more importantly," she
went on, "I want to see how Josh is going to react to you when you're
back in costume. He's obviously uncomfortable with some of the more
intimate moments between the two of you now that he knows the truth,
and I want to see what I can do about putting him more at east. This
is critical. It really is at the heart of the play."

I understood what she was saying. I didn't especially like it, but I
understood it... and agreed with her.

----------------------------

Josh and I stood opposite each other onstage, with Mandy in between
us. The rest of the cast had their attentions turned on us. There
were many smiles in the house, mostly from the women. It was becoming
more and more apparent that there was something strangely satisfying
for a woman to watch a man going through the ordeals of femininity.

The timing of this particular scene was complex. At first, Uncle Leo
pursues Sally around the stage, trying to pin her down for a kiss.
Everything changes suddenly, however, when Sally realizes that she
had to keep Uncle Leo occupied, and she becomes the pursuer. This
leads to her proposing that Uncle Leo take her over his knee, and
Uncle Leo eagerly accepting.

Everything went fine right up until the moment where things change.
Mandy tried several ideas as to how Sally could indicate that she
knew she had to keep Uncle Leo's attention, but nothing worked.

Then, from the audience, Jill spoke up. "I have an idea."

Mandy looked at her. "What's that?"

I think Jill deliberately kept a straight face as she said, "Well,
up to that point, Uncle Leo's been chasing her, right? She needs to
let herself get 'caught'."

"And then what?" Mandy asked.

"She needs to let Uncle Leo kiss her."

There were giggles from the cast, and Josh gave an undisguised look
of discomfort. I looked at Mandy -- just as uncomfortable as Josh --
and waited for her verdict.

"Not bad," she said. "But we need to up it a notch, I think. Let
Sally kiss him. Hard and passionately. That'll make sense with the
plot and get a laugh from the audience." Mandy turned to me and
smiled. "You up for it?"

"I don't know, Mandy," I said.

"Come on. Let's try."

"Can't we just pretend for now?" Josh asked.

Mandy shook her head firmly. "No way. One thing I've learned from
experience is you get these awkward things out of the way
immediately. There are going to be giggles and discomfort and all
kinds of things happening here. We need to just keep doing it and
doing it until it gets boring to both of you." She looked at me and
said, "That ought to sound familiar to you..."

I knew what she meant. A while back I had directed a play where two
teenagers had to kiss, and at first, they had fits of giggles and
awkwardness. I made them do the scene over and over again until it
got to be a pain for them. That solved the problem.

Of course, I never expected something like this to be applied to me -
- and especially not like this -- but I listened carefully as Mandy
worked out the actions move by move.

"Josh," Mandy said before our first shot, "up until today, you
looked at this attractive creature and saw a girl you would have
easily dated. Am I right?"

"Yeah," Josh admitted.

"Well, I want you to recall that. This is Josie. She's a sexy woman.
Think back to yesterday. Use your recall."

Josh nodded. I don't think he was convinced. At all.

"I could clear the set if you don't want the cast watching," Mandy
offered.

"No," I said. "They need to get used to it too."

"Okay, then," Mandy said. "Let's get to work..."

I had to become Sally. It was the only way for me to deal with
having Josh's face just inches from mine, having to reach out, grab
the sides of his head, and bring his lips to my own. Only a girl can
be comfortable with this, I told myself. Only a girl...

The first attempt was, predictably, a disaster. I missed his mouth
completely, inspiring laughs from everyone. In many complex moves,
the mechanics have to be broken down, and, when it comes to the
stage, sometimes even the most simple everyday motions become
incredibly complicated when they have to be executed consistently. In
this case, Mandy had to choreograph our movements: the tilt of our
heads, the positions of our hands and feet, and so on. It took four
or five step-by-step, slow-motion run-throughs to even get things to
work right. Then we brought it up to speed.

And then, Jill opened her mouth again.

"Why don't you have Uncle Leo grab Sally's butt once he realizes
that she's supposed to be hot for him.

More laughter... except from Mandy, who was considering the way it
would look from the audience.

"Good idea," Mandy said finally.

'Oh, good grief...' I thought.

Mandy worked out a sequence of events: When Sally grabs Uncle Leo to
pull him towards her, he flails his hands helplessly in the air for a
few moments, then gets over the surprise and finally drops his hands
and brings them back up over her ass. This worked fine right off the
bat, although for me, it was kind of a sensory overload, having to
kiss a guy and then having my ass fondled. I wouldn't have a chance
to get used to it before Jill -- sweet, helpful Jill -- upped the
ante again by suggesting that Uncle Leo instead bring his hands up
under Sally's skirt to do his fondling.

By this point, it was like being in the middle of a tornado: You
don't try to understand what's going on, or what's going to happen
next. You just deal with the reality of the moment, and the reality
was that there I was, kissing Josh while his hands kneaded my ass
through a very thin pair of nylon panties. (Never thought I'd have a
moment where I wished I was wearing pantyhose...)

"How's it look?" Mandy called down to Jill after our third run-
through.

"Pretty damned sexy," Jill said, which, understandably, drew some
laughs from those watching.

"How about it, Josh?" Mandy asked. "How does it feel to you?"

Josh blushed at this. "Uh... it's okay."

"Is Sally a real girl to you yet?"

"No," Josh admitted. "Not yet."

"We probably should have waited a little longer before telling you,"
Mandy said. "Imagine how you'd feel if you didn't know..."

"I'm trying not to," Josh said.

"Well you need to. It's time to drop your hang-ups and approach
things as a true actor. Live the role. Live the part. Imagine what
Uncle Leo would fee if he had his hands all over a gorgeous girl's
ass..."

Josh nodded. The hard part about dealing with something like this
was that Mandy was so convincing.

We spent so long working out that one kissing scene that it took up
the entire evening. So much for Mandy doing a rough blocking. Was she
simply aware that this was going to be one of the toughest scenes, or
was she simply enjoying herself too much?

"Why can't I wear pantyhose?" I pleaded the next day as Hannah and
Missy transformed me.

"It won't work with the spanking," Mandy said.

"Why not?"

"Just trust me, okay?" Mandy said. "I can see in my head the way
it's going to work. Besides," she added with a smile, "do you gain a
reputation as a man who begs to wear pantyhose?"

"I don't like Josh's hands all over my ass without a little more
cover."

"You'll get used to it," Hannah said.

"How do you know?" I retorted. "How many geeks' hands have you had
on your ass?"

"Cute," was all she could say.

"If you want to really freak him out," Missy cackled, "on opening
night, just do the scene without panties!"

While Hannah and Missy were sharing a laugh over that, Mandy said,
simply, "No, that wouldn't work, because Sally's skirt is going to be
flipped up when she gets spanked.

I gave Mandy a look. "Say that again...?"

"Yeah," Mandy said. "Val revised the script. When Sally goes over
Uncle Leo's knee, he flips up her skirt."

"Mandy..."

"Don't gripe about it," she said. "Read the script first. It's way
funnier. Besides, you'll be facing the audience. I want them to see
your facial reactions. The only person who'll see anything is, well,
Uncle Leo."

"That's reassuring," I said.

"So," Mandy said to Missy, "make sure you pick the right kind of
panties for the scene."

"Is the audience going to see them at all?" Missy asked.

"We're still deciding that, so assume that they will..."

SMACK!

"Ow! Son of a bitch!"

>From the audience, I heard Mandy's voice: "That's not your line..."

I was d****d over Josh's lap, my skirt flipped up over my back. I
reached back to rub my ass, stinging from a sharp swat from Josh's
hand.

"This shit hurts!" I said.

"You big baby," Mandy taunted me. It was, predictably, her idea that
Josh really whack me the seven times required in the script. "If the
audience knows you're really getting swatted," she said, "it will be
funnier."

I don't know how enthusiastic Josh was about the whole idea, but I
did notice that his attitude towards me had changed since the day
before. He wasn't so cold and standoffish, and he smiled when he saw
me. He also called me "Sally." What was that about?

One thing was for certain: he didn't have a problem laying into me
once I was over his lap. Mandy wanted his swats to have the loudest
possible sound, and we actually experimented with different
techniques. Midway through these tests, Mandy requested that I go
back to the dressing room and have Missy suit me up with nylon
panties rather than cotton, since the cotton seemed to be absorbing
some of the sound. I had to make that humiliating walk backstage to
get my panties changed.

"You're getting red," Josh said a little later, after the umpteenth
swat had landed. I didn't need him to tell me that, and I also didn't
need the thought that he was looking closely enough to make that
observation.

"She is?" Mandy said with a strange enthusiasm, climbing up on to
the stage to take a look.

"I want to see too!" said Jill, who followed Mandy.

This was too much, and I rolled off of Josh's lap and pulled my
skirt down. "That's enough!" I said.

"No, no, no," Mandy said, "it's important. Let me see."

"Why is it important?"

"Just do it," she said.

No one can resist Mandy. On a play, the director is God. So I turned
so the rest of the cast couldn't see and lifted my skirt from behind.

"I have an idea..." said Mandy, and my blood ran cold.

We never had time to explore Mandy's idea. It was time to go home. I
headed to the dressing room, and as I did, I reached up to tug off my
wig.

"Don't do that," I heard Josh call to me. When I turned to look at
him, he said, "Wait until you get back to the dressing room."

"Why?" I asked.

Josh looked around uncomfortably. "I want to keep seeing you as...
Sally."

"I think it's a great idea," Mandy said when I discussed the matter
with her a little bit later.

"Every rehearsal?" I said. "Isn't that excessive?"

"Maybe," Mandy said. "But isn't that what this theater group is
about? We take things further than any other group? I mean, I know
it's a hassle, getting made up and dressed each time, but soon,
you'll be able to do it yourself, and the time it takes will go down
significantly. But much more importantly, I want Josh thinking of you
as a girl. The more complete his illusion, the better."

"Well," I said in resignation, "you've gone the extra mile for me
enough times that I'm sure I owe this to you."

Mandy smiled warmly. "Do you think you owe me one more? Kind of a
big one?"

"What?" I asked, completely suspicious.

"I was wondering whether you'd come in tomorrow for a few hours."

"I thought that was our day off."

"It is. But are a few things I want to work on with you two."

"Care to fill me in on what that might be?"

"I just want to do some improvising, to watch you react to each
other, make some suggestions, try a few experiments."

I stared at her. "You seem to be taking this way too seriously," I
said.

"Not at all," she said. "Isn't that why we're here? To push the
envelope? To try new things and new approaches?"

I felt a twinge in the pit of my stomach, since what she was doing,
oh, so, cleverly, is more or less feeding me sentiments that I had
expressed in the past. So of course, I couldn't argue the point very
well without being a complete hypocrite.

I had no choice but to agree.

----------------------------

"Okay, now I sense some tension between you two," Mandy said as we
sat in the back room of the theater. Mandy was sitting in an
overstuffed chair opposite Josh and me, who were seated together on a
love-seat... deliberately.

"Of course there's some tension," Josh said.

"Explain it to me," she requested.

"I wouldn't think I'd have to. I mean... we're sitting so close, you
know."

"No," Mandy insisted, "I really want to hear it in your words."

Josh rolled is eyes. "He's a guy."

"So," Mandy said, "the aesthetic aspect doesn't matter to you."

He gave her an inquisitive look.

"I mean," she explained, "back before you knew this information, you
certainly weren't this uncomfortable."

"Of course not," said Josh.

"You found her attractive."

Josh looked like he was going to start squirming. "Yes."

"Is it fair to say you lusted after her?" Christ, she sounded like a
defense attorney.

"I wouldn't go that far," he said, very awkwardly.

"You mean to tell me," Mandy said, "that the other night, when you
had your hands up her skirt, fondling her ass, you were totally
unaffected?"

"No, I won't say that," he said defensively, "but that was when I
thought, you know, I was fondling a real girl."

"So," Mandy said. "How do we get past that stigma?"

"Why should we get past that stigma?" Josh asked. Good point.

"For the same reason we do a lot of things here, Josh," Mandy said.
"To see if it can be done, and if it can be done, how, and when we
know how, finding ways to apply it to other situations. That's why
we're the best."

Goddamn, I thought, she missed her calling.

"And for you," she continued, "it's a way to hone your acting skills
beyond the usual bullshit methods. Not only get past Sally's little
secret, but be able to tap into your natural, a****l male drives and
emotions and bring them to the stage. To get past the wall. You know?"

What the hell else was he going to say? "I guess so."

Mandy smiled triumphantly. "Good." Then she turned towards me and my
blood ran cold. "And as for you, Sally," she said, "You've got some
walls to tear down as well. The thing is, the more you can become
Sally, the less unpleasant being close to Josh will be for you. And
if you can turn the situation around so that you can enjoy Josh's
attention, that would be a true triumph."

"Turning me gay would be a true triumph?" I said.

"Absolutely not," she said in that tone of voice that defied you to
even try to prove her wrong. "The exact opposite. If you are Sally,
being attracted to a woman would make you gay. Not a man." I was
going to say something -- I can't remember what -- but before I had
the chance, she said, "Okay, now, before I go any further, I want you
two to turn a little, face each other. And Josh, put your arm over
her shoulder. Even if it makes you a little tense, I want you to
start getting used to it at least a little bit."

We both did what we were told, and yes, it did make us both a little
tense.

"Josh," Mandy said, "tell me about the walls that are in your way of
accepting this challenge."

Josh had to think a moment. Then, knowing Mandy wasn't going to
allow him to get away without answering, he said, "Well, most of the
time, when I'm with a girl I'm attracted to, I'm secretly trying to
lure them into going to bed with me. In this case," he said, turning
his head briefly to look at me, then back to Mandy, "there's no way
to succeed, you know?"

"But you pursue other girls with whom you know you can't succeed,
right?" I wasn't sure whether that was a dig at him or not.

"That doesn't matter," he insisted. "What matters is that the
possibility is always there."

"The possibility is there with Sally," said Mandy.

"No, it's..."

"I mean, it's true that you couldn't really fuck her," Mandy said,
"but there's nothing that says you couldn't get a blowjob from her..."

As my eyes went wide, and I glared in shock at Mandy, my peripheral
vision also caught Jill -- of all people -- walking in the door. Here
eyes went wide, too.

"Did I come at a bad time?" Jill said.

"No," Mandy said, calmly. "Come on in and join us."

I was, at the moment, too stunned to speak. I knew I should refute
what Mandy had just said, but what could I have said that wouldn't be
the most obvious thing in the world?

Jill sat next to Mandy, obviously very curious as to what she had
just walked in on. "So," she said, too casually, "is Val writing a
cocksucking scene into the play?"

I know for a fact, from the heat on my face, that I blushed scarlet.

Mandy, of course, found this amusing. "No, no, nothing like that."
She proceeded to explain the discussion we had been having when she
walked in, concluding with the possibility that Josh had a shot of
getting head from me... from Sally. Jill was just as amused as Mandy
now.

"It's still not the same," Josh said, which wasn't all that much in
the way of coming to the defense of my dignity.

"Look," Mandy said, "I know that this seems really over-the-top
here, but the truth is that we have to get all this sex stuff out in
the open, because the sooner we stop feeling awkward about it, the
better. So it's good that we talk about it all. I mean," she said to
Josh, "wouldn't you feel at least a little bit ambiguous about the
idea of Sally giving you head? I mean, it would still feel good,
right?" Typical of Sally, she did not pose the question rhetorically.
She waited for Josh to answer.

"I guess so."

"So from a strictly physical sense, there has to be at least a
little interest there."

"Maybe." Good old Josh. Hang in there.

"And," she said, turning to me, "if you can put yourself into
Sally's mind..."

"There would have to be at least a little interest there," I said,
mocking her slightly.

"That's right." She gave us a serious look and said, "Look, guys,
what I'm trying to do here is challenge you both. The ultimate acting
challenge. Something we'll be proud of. I wouldn't do it if I didn't
respect you both well enough to know what we can accomplish. I'm not
trying to humiliate you. I'm trying to make you proud. Of yourselves.
And I'm asking you: do your best."

Josh looked at me and I looked at him. Then we looked at Mandy.

"I want you to do something for me," she said.

We both waited.

"I want you to kiss."

I felt a twinge in my stomach.

"I want you to devote yourself to your craft," she continued. "Josh,
I want you to see this beautiful girl next to you and kiss her to
show her what a man you are, that you're worthy of her affections and
her desires." She looked at me. "And I want you to be that woman."

Josh and I looked at each other again. He didn't move. And neither
did I.

Mandy shook her head sadly, then said, "Jill. Come here."

Jill's expression mimicked our own now. "Huh?"

"I said come here."

Jill got up from her seat and walked over to Mandy.

"Okay," Mandy said, "I want you to kiss me."

"Excuse me?" Jill said.

"You heard me. I want you to kiss me passionately, as if I was a man
you'd been lusting after for years."

"Are you serious?" Jill asked, following immediately with, "Why am I
asking this? Of course you are."

"But what's that going to prove?" I asked. "You like kissing girls."

"But Jill doesn't."

"You're trying to shame us into doing it, aren't you?" Josh said.

"No. I'm just trying to take away some of the stigma. Plus show you
that Jill's got more guts than either of you."

Jill grinned slightly at this.

"Come on, Jill. Show them," Mandy said.

I think the most accurate description of what was happening at that
moment was that Jill realized that the situation was hopeless --
there was no way she was getting out of this -- and so she decided to
take things completely in the other direction and go all out. Jill
was famous for her competitive streak, and I could tell it was just
about to kick in from the grin on her face as she first walked to the
far end of the room, got into character, and then sashayed towards
Mandy with a seductive smile on her face.

"Hey, baby," she said as she lowered herself into Mandy's lap,
dr****g her arms around Mandy's shoulders. "I've been looking for
you."

"You have?" Mandy asked, playing along.

"Oh, yeah."

"And why's that?"

"I've missed you."

Mandy smiled softly, looking into Jill's eyes. "I've missed you too."

"You have?"

Mandy nodded.

"And what have you missed about me?" Jill asked in a little-girl
tone of voice. Words simply don't do justice to how convincing Jill
can be when she turns on her magic.

Mandy played her part just as perfectly. Pressing her nose to
Jill's, she smiled and said, "I missed those soft, perfect lips of
yours..." at which point, with a subtle tilt of heads, they pressed
their lips together. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised -- I
guess I shouldn't have been, though -- when Jill began kissing Mandy
in earnest, and although I don't think she brought her tongue into
play, she did just about everything but. Midway through, I could even
hear her sighing with pleasure as the two women made out. Even when
they broke the kiss, Jill went back for a few more soft smacks to
Mandy's lips. Afterwards, Jill turned to me and smiled: it was a
challenge.

It's hard to explain just how competitive Jill can be, and how
compelling her challenges are. Competition was a great driving force,
at least whenever she and I worked together. And now, she was
throwing down the gauntlet.

I wasn't going to let her show me up.

I looked at Josh, and while he might not have been struck with the
same amount of determination as I was, he realized what was going on.

"You guys ready to try?" Mandy said. I could see that her face was
flushed. I'd be prepared to swear Jill, who was still sitting in her
lap, was turning her on fiercely. Of course, that was Jill, too: ever
the tease.

I don't know if it's really possible to put into words the processes
involved in acting. I think it's different for each person, first of
all, and each approach is, therefore, unique. For me, it's a mental
exercise, a transformation. The most important thing, I think, is to
completely forget about me. To take my own life, my personality, and
push it aside into a dark corner somewhere, so that the person I'm
trying to be is allowed room to expand and take over. That was where
I had to go now, and without a lot of preparation. I knew it wouldn't
be great, and that it would certainly get better in time, but I had
to push forth -- if nothing else than to avoid getting upstaged by
Jill.

I guess I should also point out that I had absolutely no idea how
Josh prepared himself, so I had no point of reference as to what was
going through his head. When I turned to look at him after watching
Jill's performance, however, I could see that there was something
going on. The look in his eyes was completely different... almost a
little scary. I realized -- not at once, it took a moment -- that he
really was looking at me as a man would look at a woman he finds
desirable. What I didn't know, of course, was whether he had arrived
at this look through sheer will or whether he had the ability to
really manipulate his internal emotions, that he really saw -- and,
by extension, desired -- Sally. The latter idea made me feel...
strange, flushed, reactions which I used to flesh-out Sally's
persona. It was strange -- and, in a stranger way, a tribute to the
craft -- that a mere exchange of looks locked us further into our
roles. Of course, I wondered what help the look on my face was giving
him.

I soon had no time to ponder these things, as Josh's arm tightened
around my shoulder, drawing me closer to him. The look on his face
was unmistakable: he was going to kiss me. I had a barrier to break
through: Sally had to want to kiss him back.

When our lips met, for a fraction of a second, I panicked, but it
was Sally, who was panicking: allowing a man this kind of intimacy
was an invitation for much more intimacy, and it meant taking a risk.
And although it wasn't as much of a risk as an anatomically correct
woman might be taking, I tried putting this thought out of my mind
and focused, instead, on all of the blowjob talk that had gone on
only a few minutes earlier. That was the implied threat.

Josh was really kissing me, sucking hard at my lips with such fervor
that it almost seemed inevitable that I would have to deal with a
tongue at any minute. Instead, however, he pulled his lips from mine
and began kissing the side of my neck. This was completely
unexpected, and completely threw me. Whatever 'strategy' I had to how
I was proceeding went out the window as I got chills throughout my
body, short-wiring my thoughts. I was so overwhelmed that I didn't
even notice Josh's free hand sweeping up my bare leg, under my skirt
to rest on the side of my hip. I had disintegrated in three seconds
flat, and that was the moment Josh chose to return his lips to mine,
this time, sure enough, teasing my lips with his tongue, and when I
reflexively sucked at his tongue, he took that as an invitation as it
pushed past my lips, seeking mine.

That was all I could take.

I pulled my head back, moaning, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I reached down
and eased Josh's hand from under my skirt. "Okay, that's enough."

"What's wrong?" Josh said, with a smile that deserved to be slapped
off of his face.

"Time out," I said, as I heard the sound of clapping from where Jill
and Mandy were sitting. They had even bigger smiles on their faces.

I felt my face flushing hotly.

"That was great!" said Mandy, and while she wasn't making fun of us,
it was obvious that she was greatly amused by the performance. She
turned to me and said, "How do you feel?"

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"I mean, do you feel like Sally? Are you Sally?"

Suddenly, I understood the question, and answered, very honestly,
"no, not now. I'm a little too self-conscious."

"Well that's perfectly understandable," she said, "under the
circumstances. But was there a moment, during all that, when you were
Sally, when you were connecting with Josh on a strictly male/female
basis?"

I hesitated before saying, "Yes."

"And what was it like? How did it feel?" I could tell from the look
in her eyes that she was genuinely fascinated -- in that scientific
way she had when she was truly learning something -- in what I had to
say.

"It was a little overwhelming, if you want to know the truth," I
said. "You know, once we... locked up there... it was as though I'd
allowed something to get started that I couldn't control, and it
struck me that this was very much what a woman would feel like,
letting a guy get past that basic line of defense. And then, when
lover boy here ran his hand up my skirt, it was a totally female
reaction that I felt. I felt, like, violated, taken advantage of. He
knew he had me overwhelmed, and he exploited it."

"Did that make you angry?" Jill asked.

"Angry, yes," I said. "And... well -- as Sally -- disappointed, too,
because while I think I -- as Sally -- was enjoying the kiss, the
hand up my skirt just ruined the moment completely."

"So you're saying you liked my kiss?" Josh asked, ruining the moment
again, in a way.

"It was overwhelming," I said. "I just got lost in the moment... and
when you went down to my neck, I couldn't even think."

Josh nodded, a bit too proudly.

"What about you, Josh?" Jill asked. "What were your thoughts?"

Josh looked a bit startled, as though he wasn't expecting to be
asked this question, then, after just a bit of thought, he replied,
"Well, remember that I first encountered Sally here without knowing
anything about her... and I just recalled my first impressions of
what I thought. It was easy."

"What were those first impressions?" Mandy asked.

"You know," Josh said.

"Tell me again, then."

Josh cleared his throat. "Well, you know, this is a hot chick that
I'd love to get to know a lot better."

"So," Mandy concluded, "you were able to get back into that mind-set
just now?"

Josh nodded. "Sure. She really does look cute."

More blushing on my part.

"And so, in your mind," Mandy continued, "you were able to go back
to wanting to fuck her?"

Josh was taken aback for just a moment -- Mandy had a way of doing
that -- then said, "Hmm. Maybe not... maybe not fuck her, because the
reality would set in and ruin that, I think. But I did think about,
you know, getting a blowjob from her. And that worked."

"How did it work?" Mandy asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, " she said, "did you get sexually excited?"

I really wanted to leave the room at this point.

Josh nodded. "Yeah. I guess I did."

"So," Jill added, somewhat unnecessarily if you ask me, "you're
telling us that while you were making out with Sally here, you got a
hard-on thinking about her sucking your dick?" Jill liked crossing
the line from time to time, and that was where she was headed.

"I was able to make it real in my mind," Josh said, quickly. "And
those things... happen."

"Mm-hmm," said Mandy. She turned to me and said, "Okay, I want to
talk to Sally now."

I understood and nodded.

"Sally, what do you think of all this?"

I adjusted my voice to sound more feminine -- I'd been practicing --
and said, "I guess I should be flattered. But... but I'm definitely
not ready to take our relationship that far." I looked at Josh.
"Sorry Josh."

Josh smiled confidently. "Just give it time..."

"And Sally," Mandy continued, "did you feel aroused when Josh kissed
you?"

"Yes," I said. We were getting back to the psychological game Jill
had started. "I liked it."

"Do you want to kiss him again?" Jill asked, with a twinkle in her
eye. It was a dare.

Resolved, I said, "Yes," and turned back to Josh. I think he was
just a little bit surprised at my brazenness, but didn't hesitate at
all in putting his arm back around me and drawing me close to him.

This time, I initiated the kiss, a series of passionate little
smacking kisses until he grabbed the back of my head and thrust his
tongue into my mouth. To his credit, his free hand didn't make a
beeline up my skirt, but did caress my hips over my skirt, turning me
a little so that he could get a good squeeze of my ass. I got the
sense that Josh and I were competing, too, and he was doing as much
to assume character as I was. I'd been in situations like this
before, however, this was taking things to a completely different
level. One thing it did have in common with similar improvisations
I've done is that you never quite know how far things like this can
go.

In a single, swift move, I swung my legs around to straddle him, a
little self-conscious about the fact that this made my skirt ride up
my thighs and that Jill and Mandy were now probably getting quite a
show. I continued kissing him and felt both of Josh's hands kneading
my ass, helping my skirt ride up even further. With my legs spread
wide on either side of his hips, I was very conscious of the fact
that we could very well be fucking in this position. I was also aware
that there was, in all likelihood, a very stiff cock right below
where there should have been Sally's vagina.

Okay, so where do we go from here? I very quickly got an idea and
put it into action. I pulled my lips away from Josh's, then gave him
a mischievous look and licked my lips. Then, to what I'm sure was his
amazement, I slid off his lap, down to my knees on the floor, and,
looking up at him, undid the buckle of his belt. I unbuttoned his
pants -- licking my lips again -- and eased down the zipper. Then I
stuck my tongue out at him, said, "Psyche!" and very quickly sat back
up on the couch.

Josh was completely undone -- no pun intended -- and, with the
astonishment still on his face, he said, "You fuckin' prick-tease!"

The girls exploded with laughter as Josh reached down and readjusted
his clothing.

"What?" I asked, "Did you really expect me to blow you?"

Still recovering, Josh stammered, "Well, uh, no, but..."

"I sure did!" Jill squealed delightedly as she and Mandy started
giggling again.

Mandy tried to put Josh at ease by saying, "That was great! You were
lost in the character! Wonderful."

"Why don't you stand up, Josh?" Jill said, prompting a new round of
giggles.

"Look, look," Mandy said, trying to anchor us once again, "Let's use
this experience, guys. The point here is to get rid of the bugaboos
of intimacy so that we don't have them impeding our progress on the
stage. Josh, Sally, I want you to have the same comfort and ease that
ex-lovers would have. Believe me, we'll make it work so well in the
play, and it will take things to another, sublime level. You've got
to trust me on this. From now on, I want you two only relating as
Josh and Sally. It will mean everything."

Mandy was inspired, which meant that Mandy was obsessed, which
meant...

---------------------------

The news that Hannah had to be out of town for two weeks inspired
Mandy to suggest that, instead of having Missy or someone else do my
make-up, I learn to do it myself. It would certainly be a time-saving
skill to have, and since cross-training was always encouraged within
our group, I came to see it as a valuable skill to learn.

What I didn't realize was that it wouldn't be as easy as it seemed.
Hannah spent one of our supposed days off instructing me, during
which I made myself up three or four times. Each time, something was
off or wrong, and, sure enough, when Hannah fixed my mistakes, it was
easy to see the difference. At the end of the day, she suggested that
I assemble a small make-up kit and practice at home.

It was now carved in stone that I only appear on the set as Sally.
Val even re-wrote the scenes where I was supposed to appear as Sal so
that I was always Sally on the stage as well. She 'implied' Sal by
having my voice change, and even changed the ending of the play, so
that instead of Sal revealing his true identity to Uncle Leo, the
play ends with Jill's character leaving Sal behind... with Uncle Leo,
leaving the audience to ponder what would happen next. (I had to
admit, this ending was twice as funny as the original.)

I guess I should point out that, ever since the day of the big
kissing fest, Josh's attitude towards me had changed significantly.
He was friendly, a lot more easy-going, and acted for all the world
as if we were ex-lovers with an intimate history behind us. Aware of
this, I acted the same way. I didn't flinch or cringe when he got
close to me -- which he did a lot. He even started putting a hand on
my shoulder when we'd look over the script, and I deliberately moved
my body into his to establish that sense of closeness.

It was all a little weird, I'll admit. But I could handle it.

On the first day Hannah was away, I got to the theater early and
started getting myself transformed, but even with Missy's help, it
took a lot longer than I'd hoped and ended up taking so long that
Mandy had to rearrange the rehearsal and work on 'non-Sally' scenes
first. (Fortunately, the day's schedule didn't have much for Sally do
to.)

After rehearsal, Mandy took me aside and suggested that I get ready
for the part at home before coming to the theater.

"How can I do that?" I asked. "It's going to look awfully silly for
me riding the bus to the theater fully made up."

"If you want," she said, "I can pick you up and drive you. It's out
of my way, but I don't mind if it will save us from going through the
problems we went through tonight. Or, better still," she added, "you
can bring one of the costumes home with you, and get dressed as well.
That way, even if someone does see you, it won't make any difference."

While the idea of being dressed as Sally outside the theater seemed
somehow wrong, I had to agree that it made sense from a practical
standpoint. It just meant crossing one more line...

"This is getting a little weird," Beth said. It was sheer
coincidence that she got to spend a day home on my first day I had to
be Sally at home.

"You know how life in the theater is," I said as I sat in front of
the dresser mirror, painting my face.

"Yeah, but don't you think this is going too far?"

I smiled to myself; I hadn't told her about that afternoon with
Josh, Jill, and Mandy. If she thought my getting made up at home was
going too far, what would she have thought about Josh and I lip-
locking? "It's just for a few days," I said, "until Hannah gets back
into town."

"Yes, but what if something should happen?" Beth pointed out. "What
if you get stopped by the police or something? Would you really want
to spend a night in jail dressed as a girl?"

"That's not going to happen," I said. "Mandy will be driving. It'll
be okay. And if something did happen, we'd just explain that we're
with the theater group." Actually, I did know this would work. One
time, I was stopped by the police with a sixteen-year-old actor in
the back seat, covered in stage blood and holding a prop shotgun. It
was an anxious moment, but I had the cop laughing after I explained
things.

I wished that Beth would have to leave before I finished getting
ready, but no such luck. It was a surreal, uncomfortable situation, I
can tell you, walking around in a bra and panties in front of my
girlfriend, rushing to get ready. And when I was finally done, she
became strangely distant, as if she believed I was a different person.

She didn't even kiss me good-bye, cracking, "It'll ruin your
lipstick..."

"You look great!" Mandy said as I climbed into her car. I'd chosen
the short skirt when I selected a costume to bring home, and realized
that I'd have to be careful about getting out of the car.

"It was a little awkward running into one of my neighbors down the
hall," I said.

"He probably thought that you were your sister or something. You're
completely convincing."

"I just know that he's a horn-dog," I explained, "so I know what he
was thinking as he passed by."

Mandy smiled. "Get used to that."

"Right..."

The Spanking Scene, as Act II, Scene 3 was now called by everyone,
was proving to be a difficult scene to block. Val had Mandy convinced
that it would be the highlight of the play, but that it would take
perfect timing to pull off. This meant that a lot of work would be
going into working out each move, each line, and each gesture. This
also meant that I would be spending quite a lot of rehearsal time
d****d over Josh's lap with my skirt thrown up over my back.

It took quite a while to even get to that point, and the stage
directions were more like an elaborate dance, leading up to the
moment when Uncle Leo manages to grab Sally and fling her over his
knee. I think we spent an entire day on that little maneuver alone,
much to the cast's delight at my embarrassment. Mandy hadn't quite
decided whether she wanted the audience to see my panties or not, and
we tried every different angle you can imagine, with the final
decision being that my ass would be pointed away from the audience,
with the laughs coming from my facial reactions during my spanking.
This was something of a relief, but my joy at not having my pantied
ass in the audience's face was short-lived once we started working on
the actual spanking itself; emphasis on the word "actual."

"No," Mandy said after we tried out the third or fourth idea, "this
is only going to work if Josh really whacks you."

I had run out of suggestions: Josh smack the side of the sofa, Josh
smack a piece of leather, even using sound effects. Mandy was
insistent.

"When you're really spanked," she said, "everything works, visually
and audibly. We can see your body get slammed forward a little, we
can hear the sound, we can see how Josh's arm and body are moving.
The audience has to believe you're getting spanked. We've got to do
it this way."

"But does he have to do it hard?" I asked, remembering the three or
four tries we had done the "real" way.

"Of course," she said. "That's the only way to get that sound and
reaction we're talking about. Surely," she taunted me, "you're tough
enough to take a few whacks on the butt every night."

"Can't we pad me or something?"

"Nope. Wouldn't sound right."

I sighed. "Well, how many whacks?"

"The script says seven," Mandy said. "Depending on how it plays, we
might be able to get away with six..."

The only respite I could get away with is that some of the times,
when we were just running through the blocking, Mandy would allow
Josh to ease up. But for the first real run-through of the scene,
once the blocking was sketched out, with the entire cast watching,
she set Josh loose.

Seven hard whacks on the ass from a big guy like Josh is a lot of
whacks. I did my best to be a trooper, and not only endured the
spanking, but did my best to improvise a set of facial expressions to
give Mandy something to work with as we progressed. Fortunately,
after the scene was done, Mandy called for a break. I said nothing to
nobody, disappearing backstage with my tortured ass on fire. There
was a full-length mirror backstage, and, after making sure no one was
looking, I turned half-way around, raised my skirt, and pulled my
panties aside to survey the damage, distressed at how red Josh had
turned my bottom. When I turned to go back to the dressing rooms, I
saw Val standing over in a corner, watching me, an amused smile on
her face.

By the end of that week, I had gotten used to dressing and making
myself up at home and riding with Mandy. In fact, I was enthusiastic
about the idea because riding with Mandy was much preferable to
taking the bus. (Having lived in Chicago for years, I simply learned
to live without a car.)

Mid-way through Friday's rehearsal, however, Mandy announced that
something had come up, and she couldn't give me a ride home. With the
prospect of riding home on the bus as a woman looming over my head, I
was quite relieved when Josh offered to drive me home. So relieved,
in fact, that I didn't think of any possible risks of such an action.

"I'm sorry I have to hit you so hard," Josh said shortly after we'd
gotten into his car, headed for my apartment. "It's Mandy, you know.
If I held back any, she'd just make me hit you that much harder."

"I know, Josh," I said. "It's not you."

"I've got to admit," he added. "It's a pretty sexy scene."

Just that once sentence confirmed how much our relationship had
changed. I was convinced that Josh needed to believe in Sally, that
it was the only way he could get through the incredible situations in
the play. I could understand this. How much easier must it have been
for Josh to perform with a woman than a guy in drag? All I could
wonder was just how far he had convinced himself.

"Do you ever notice," Josh asked, "that sometimes, when I'm spanking
you, it gets me excited?"

Where the hell did that question come from? I wondered.

"No, I haven't," I said. "And why are you telling me this?"

"I thought you'd be amused by it," he said. "You're there, wiggling
around on my lap, and I'm there..."

"I get the picture, Josh."

He chuckled. "You're embarrassed, aren't you?"

"You're the one who should be embarrassed," I countered. "You're the
one who can't control yourself."

"I've got no problem with it. I really enjoy myself onstage with you."

I was half-tempted to say something like, 'Only because you can't
remember I'm a guy', but somehow, it just didn't feel right to break
whatever illusions were in place. In a way, I almost felt trapped,
that I had to be Sally in order to preserve the progress we were
making, that the whole production would be at risk now if I broke
character, onstage or off. I wasn't sure whether it was because I was
comfortable with the roles we had drifted into, or whether Josh's
considerable presence was exerting a strong influence -- getting
stronger all the time -- over me. I didn't want to shatter his
illusions. I had to admit to myself that I honestly enjoyed the
attention Josh had been giving me, the special treatment. These
weren't sexual feelings on my part, even though I was more or less
convinced that there was a strong sense of sexuality on Josh's part.
In the deep level of introspection I began to experience about
getting inside Sally, I wondered just how many 'normal' relationships
echoed this dynamic: Men who are interested in women strictly for sex
and women who go along with it for security. It was a strange
parallel to even think about.

And so instead of bursting his bubble, I said, "That's just because
I'm the one on your lap..." I meant it to mean that it was me instead
of him getting smacked, but after the words left my mouth, I realized
that I had inadvertently implied that he was getting excited because
it was me on his lap, as opposed to someone else. I doubted this
would be true, of course, but that was how it sounded.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked. I wondered just how deep that
question really was.

"Sure. It's always a great experience working with Mandy."

"I mean working with me." Well, he couldn't be more blatant than
that, could he?

"You're great to work with too."

Then there was silence, and I found myself rather desperately
wishing that there wasn't as I struggled to think of a "safe" subject
to talk about. I knew -- instinctively -- that there were thoughts
going around inside Josh's head that probably shouldn't have been
there.

Before I could think of something to break the silence, he did.

"You know," he said, "I've never really been very successful with
the ladies, if you know what I mean."

I knew what he meant.

"My looks... my personality. I've just never been a babe magnet."

"We've all got different talents and abilities," I said, realizing
as I said it just how dumb it sounded. Truth is, even if I'd had an
hour to think it over, I probably couldn't have come up with anything
better.

"Well," he said, "the reason I'm telling you this is that... the
other day, that day we kissed for the first time, it was actually...
pretty special. It was something I don't get to do an awful lot."

I could have shot him down in an instant by saying "You mean make
out with guys?" but I kept my mouth shut.

"I enjoyed it."

"Does that mean you really think of me as a girl?" I asked.

"You are a girl," he said, flatly.

That gave me chills for a reason I couldn't understand.

"I just want you to know these things," he said. "I don't want you
to be mad or upset about it."

"I'm not. It's just... a little awkward."

"I know."

Mercifully, we pulled up at the entrance to my apartment building at
that moment. I was getting out -- there were people on the streets,
so I was very careful about how I swung my legs out of the car --
when Josh laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "Can I kiss you good
night?"

There was too much to think about and not nearly enough time to
think, and it was almost reflexive that I leaned back in and let him
give me a smacking kiss on the lips. But I made damned sure I didn't
let it linger, and, with a hearty, "Thanks for the ride," I was off
to the safety of my apartment.

Safety? Maybe. But one thing I discovered that night was that I
wasn't safe against my own dreams, and I think there's no way you can
get the full picture of what was developing without me telling you
about that first dream.

It was pretty simple and straightforward, actually. In my dream, I
was flat on my back, naked. And I was Sally. I know I was Sally
because when I looked down at myself, my view was obscured by two
soft, sizeable breasts. Just beyond my tits, I saw Josh's big face,
smiling that same smile he smiled before he first kissed me, coming
closer. He was naked, too, moving up between my open legs.

The dream jumped forward in time a few seconds, and now Josh was on
top of me, thrusting into what had to be my vagina, his big body
rocking the bed upon which we were lying. But the strange thing was:
I felt no sexual pleasure. In fact, it was so obvious that it wasn't
just a coincidence. It wasn't sex I was experiencing, it was Josh's
enthusiasm, Josh's devotion to fucking me.

I woke up confused as hell.

-----------------------------

"This is a joke, right?"

It wasn't the first time I'd asked this question in reference to the
script and it wouldn't be the last.

"No, no," Val insisted as she looked over my shoulder at the new
pages. "I'm very serious. They'll roll in the aisles."

The pages in question were, beyond a doubt, inspired by the little
scene Val had walked in on a few days earlier, when I was checking
out the damage to my poor, abused butt in the mirror. Now that was
what Sally was going to do, onstage, with her poor, abused butt
facing the audience.

I knew it wasn't a joke. And I knew that now, more than ever, there
was an incentive for Josh to really lay into me during the spanking
scene. I also knew that the new material really was funny. I further
knew that I was stuck, and that I would be flashing my panties -- and
a little bit of reddened cheek -- to hundreds of people every night.

It was typical for us to try out any new material right away, to see
how well it translated from the script to the stage, and so we
altered the scheduled rehearsal just a little so that we could go
through the spanking scene with the mirror flash at the tail end, no
pun intended. What I didn't know was that a photographer from one of
the entertainment papers would be there, too, taking pictures for a
story. It was bad enough having her snapping away as I was getting my
ass reddened, but when I saw the flashbulb go off as I faced the
audience and raised my skirt, I had a good feeling it would come to
no good.

Of course, I was right. The story came out the following Thursday,
with a HUGE picture of me and my white-with-black-lace trim panties,
about thirty percent of a rosy butt cheek on display. That was bad
enough. What confused me, however, was the cut-line beneath the
photograph. I never spoke to the photographer the night she was at
the theater. Mandy did. And the cut-line read, "Actress J. Hollings
comes out the worse for wear in a scene from Chicago's Frenetic
Inertia Theater Company's production of Uncle Leo."

Actress?

And why "J." instead of "Joe" or "Joey." Coincidence?

Of course not.

"I meant to do it like that," Mandy told me later. "I was thinking,"
she said. These were three words I was coming to dread more and more.
"That image of you standing with your ass half showing: that's a
sexy, provocative image. It'll make a great poster."

I couldn't help but cringe.

"But more important than that, I started thinking that there's no
way anybody's going to look at that image and not think you're a
girl. And that's going to draw in male theater-goers, and curious
female theater-goers. I was thinking that if we keep your real
identity a secret, it will be a great gimmick. Even during and after
the play, people will be wondering, 'Is that really a girl, or is it
a guy, or what?' If we play it correctly, we might be able to stir up
some great publicity, give this thing legs. What do you think?"

"You don't care what I think, Mandy," I said.

She smiled. "You're right."

"And what about my reputation?"

She smiled even wider. "Sally doesn't have a reputation. Not yet."

The good-night kiss was a mistake. Definitely. Beyond question. It
took the dynamic between Josh and me to a completely different level,
although I admit, I was slow in picking up on it at first. I enjoyed
Josh's company and the attention he showed me -- rather naively, I
guess, in hindsight -- and didn't quite realize just how much the
line between reality and illusion was blurring for Josh. It wasn't
until Jill took me aside during a break in rehearsals one day that
this was explained to me.

"You know," she said, "you're going to have to do something about
Josh."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I think you know."

"No," I said, "I really don't."

"That boy's got a big-time crush on you," Jill said with a smile.

"Get serious."

"I am serious. He's carrying a torch. You might not want to admit
that to yourself," Jill said, "but there isn't a doubt in my mind
that he's wanting to get into your pants."

"There's nothing there for him to get into," I said flatly.

"Maybe not. But there are... other thing he's after."

"How can you be sure?"

Jill chuckled. "That's just about one of the only differences
between you and a real girl. If you were a real girl, you'd know."

This actually gave me pause, and I asked, "You think it's serious?"

Jill shrugged. "Don't know. This is kind of uncharted territory."

"Tell me about it. What do you think I should do? How should I
approach this?"

"I guess that depends upon where you want to go with all of this."

"Well, obviously, I'm not looking to have a relationship with a
man," I said.

Jill said, "Then you're going to have to have the 'big talk' before
too long."

"I think you're reading a little bit too much into this, Jill..."

"Maybe I am," she said, "but it's easy to see how Josh could fall
for you. I mean -- and this is really a compliment -- you've really
become convincing as Sally. There are times -- a lot of times -- when
I have to remind myself that you're not a girl. I think Josh has
stopped trying. And that makes sense, because it really makes life
easier for him." She shrugged and sighed. "Something to think about."
Then she added, "That is, unless you're interested in trying
something with him... as Sally."

Trying not to sound angry or indignant -- because, if this was part
of one of Jill's games, that would mean a victory for her -- I asked,
"Whatever makes you think that?"

"Well... it's just that. We were kind of all wondering whether you
might be going there. You seem so relaxed around Josh. You smile at
him a lot. And, well, you know how theater romances go..."

In truth, I did know how theater romances go: they happen a lot. I
can't count the number of times two actors who have an onstage love
interest take the romance offstage with them. It's -- understandably,
in most cases -- the most natural thing in the world. But not in this
case.

"No, I don't think you have to worry this time... but who's been
wondering'?"

Jill smiled. "Just idle talk, you know."

In fact, I didn't know... but Jill wasn't about to tell me.

A few days later, my panty-covered derriere was on the front page of
the entertainment section of the second-largest newspaper in Chicago,
and there wasn't one person in the theater group who didn't know
it... and didn't think it was a hoot. I tried to downplay the matter,
and was a complete flop. So I gave in, laughed along with the idea,
and got down to business.

Jill's prediction that the situation with Josh was going to expand
was prophetic. It expanded in the literal sense of the word two
nights later as we were once again rehearsing the spanking scene.

By this time, we were off-book and had the complex blocking more or
less worked out... which, of course, meant that Mandy could now start
building upon what we already had to make it even better. (If you
think this is frustrating for an actor, you're right.) Mandy made me
go through numerous variations of facial expressions and sounds with
each swat, looking for the perfect combination. It wasn't just a
matter of building my reactions. It was a complex curve of shock,
surprise, indignation, outrage, pain, self-pity, determination... all
in different combinations. It pushed my skills to the limit, for sure.

It also meant that I spent about three solid hours d****d across
Josh's lap. I was grateful that Mandy wasn't requiring full swats
during this ordeal. That was about all I was grateful for, especially
mid-way through the rehearsal, when Jill, sitting in the audience,
made a suggestion.

"Hey, Mandy," Jill's voice shouted out from the darkness, "I've got
an idea: What if, after Uncle Leo flips her skirt up over her back,
he yanks her undies down too?"

"What good would that do?" I asked immediately. "You wouldn't see
anything anyway!"

Jill stepped up on the stage. "You would if Uncle Leo, like, yanked
up really hard on the waistband first and then pulled them down. Just
enough for the audience to see it happen. Then they'd know that Sally
was getting whacked on her bare butt. What do you think, Mandy? A
little bit funnier?"

"Not to me!" I said.

Mandy held up a finger to silence me as she thought. I waited in
anxiety for her answer, and my heart sank when she turned to Josh.
"Why don't you try it? Let me see how it looks." Then she looked over
at me and said, "No, wait. That's not going to work."

I felt relief flood into me... until she called out, "Missy? Are you
still here?"

"Yes," called Missy.

"Go and get a different pair of panties for Sally here. The ones
she's got on won't stretch at all. You need to get a pair made out of
spandex or something."

"Give me a minute..."

"Hey, wait," I said, still d****d over Josh's lap, "don't I get a
say in this?"

Mandy shook her head. "No. We're just going to see whether it works
or not. If it does, you can wear a thong underneath your stage
panties or something."

"But Mandy..."

"What are you worried about?" she asked. "The only one who's going
to see anything is Josh..."

She said it like it didn't matter at all what Josh would see...

Josh was a strong guy. The first time he tried the panty gag, he
lifted my hips completely up off of his lap and caused the leg bands
to dig into my skin so much that I shrieked in surprise.

Mandy liked the shriek. But the hips thing didn't work well, and the
panties didn't come far away enough for the audience to see what was
going on. Missy was dispatched to the store to pick up a bigger size,
and we continued going over the other aspects of the scene... with my
panties down, since it seemed like a foregone conclusion to everyone
that this was the way I would end up onstage.

When Missy returned, I was allowed to roll off of Josh's lap and
change panties. I should point out, however, that I was not allowed
to do this backstage, but had to do it in front of everyone, reaching
up under my skirt and very carefully making the switch, while I dealt
with giggles galore from the cast.

Newly outfitted with bigger undies, Mandy called for us to run the
scene again, and, so, once again, I found myself being thrown over
Josh's lap, having my skirt flipped up over my back, and feeling
Josh's fingers grip at the waistband of my panties. This time,
however, when he pulled, instead of getting my hips lifted, I heard
the sound of fabric tearing as the new panties gave way and came
completely off in Josh's hand.

Predictably, there were roars of laughter.

"Just keep going," Mandy said.

We played the scene -- me, pantyless -- until Mandy saw something
she didn't like and yelled, "Okay, hold it a minute!"

That one minute turned into ten as Mandy tried to solve a logistic
problem with the set. These ten minutes were spent with me d****d
over Josh's lap, painfully aware of the fact that my bare ass was on
display for him. If the things Jill had said earlier about Josh's
feelings were true, I could only imagine what was going on in his
head in this situation. And, in fact, I didn't have to imagine,
because as Mandy carried on about the depth of one of the stage
flats, I felt Josh's hand rest upon the back of my thigh, just below
my exposed butt.

As Mandy continued to talk, I felt Josh's fingers caressing my thing
and moving slowly upward. What was I going to do? I was mortified at
the idea of letting everybody in on what was going on, Mandy was
insisting we hold our places, and I couldn't really turn to whisper
for Josh to knock it off. And so I endured in silence as his finger
rested on the crack of my ass and lightly caressed up and down for
the entire remainder of Mandy's tirade. When it came time to get back
to the scene, I was in a cold sweat over the experience, and so
distracted that I didn't hear Mandy instruct Josh to "let her have
it" for the spanking.

That first whack nearly sent me through the ceiling.

Mercifully, Mandy allowed me to skip the scene where I checked out
the damage in the mirror.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" I shouted. I had
pulled Josh into one of the storage rooms so we could be alone, and I
was livid.

Josh seemed genuinely surprised that I was angry. "It was just a
joke. I was only k**ding..."

"You were only sexually assaulting me up there, that was what you
were only doing!" You'll be interested in knowing that, out of habit
now, I was chastising him in Sally's voice.

"It wasn't sexual assault, it was playing around!" he said
defensively and, it seemed, just a little angrily.

"That's easy for you to say! It wasn't your ass!"

"Look," Josh said, really mad now, "if you don't want that kind of
attention, then what's the fucking deal with all of this flirting
shit? If you don't want me interested, then don't tease me."

"I wasn't teasing you! I was being Sally!"

"Yeah?" he said, moving his face really close to mine, "well, we
both know that I want to fuck Sally, and since you do know that, you
ought to know that if you keep on letting me get close to you,
something's going to happen!"

"What's going to happen?!" I shouted. "I mean, Jesus Christ, Josh,
what could happen?!"

Now, in the arguments I've had in the past -- as a man -- we would
be getting to the point where one of us would be preparing to throw a
punch. And so it took me completely by surprise when Josh grabbed me
by the shoulders, slammed me up against the wall and kissed me,
completely overpowering me, pinning me.

The next ten seconds were right out of Hollywood.

To this day, I can't explain why I kissed him back. There was not a
bit of lust in me at the moment. Instead, all I can say is that it
was the path of least resistance to channeling my anger and fury. I
could have tried to fight back, but he was stronger than I. I could
have rebuked him, but that would have escalated the situation.
Instead, my instincts told me to roll with the punches in this
instance, to diffuse the situation... even though, in the back of my
mind, I knew that I was only complicating matters that much more.

He pulled his lips away from mine and began nibbling on my neck --
he now knew, of course, that this sent me into sensory overload --
and gruffly he mumbled, "You had me so fucking hot out there...
couldn't you feel my cock pressing into your belly when you were on
my lap?"

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what
to do. And I didn't know what was going to happen next.

"I can't stop thinking about you," he said as he bit into the flesh
where my neck meets my shoulder. "Jesus Christ, you're so fucking
hot..."

His hand thrust roughly up my skirt, grabbing one side of my ass. I
wasn't wearing panties, of course, and I felt completely vulnerable
and helpless.

He kissed me again, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, making me
suck his tongue. And I guess I should have known where this was going.

He pulled his lips away from mine, and pulled his head back far
enough to stare into my eyes. My entire body went into chills when I
saw the look he gave me. It was a look that said, "You have no choice
in this matter at all..."

That was when I felt his hands on my shoulders, pressing downward,
and it clicked in all at once what was going to happen, and that the
look in his eyes was absolutely accurate. With my back against the
wall, I slid down, dropping to my knees in front of him, looking up
at him, powerless as he smiled at me. I was already committed, even
if the thought hadn't solidified in my brain.

Where was everybody? I suddenly wondered. What if someone walks in?
It was a futile thought. He was in command. He knew it, too.

"Take it out," he said. It was an order, and it was meant to
subjugate me, to show me my place. He could have done it easily
himself. Instead, he was making me do it.

I didn't apply my false fingernails every day. It was too much of a
pain, and it restricted me. On this day, however, for some reason,
Missy had insisted I put them on so that I could start getting used
to them, which meant that I had to fumble with Josh's zipper with
these ridiculous talons, making it all the more difficult and
challenging. When I finally got his zipper down, I reached in. My
heart was beating in my throat, and cold sweat trickling down my back
as I felt his cock through the cotton of his underwear. He was huge
and hard as a rock, and it took a bit of maneuvering before....

"Goddamn," I said out loud when his enormous dick jutted out of his
fly. The first thought to strike me was that, considering Josh's lack
of success with women, his endowment was like a cosmic joke, a
supreme waste of potential. He could make some woman quite happy with
what he had. And there it was, this monster, just inches from my
face, sending a musky aroma to my nostrils that, goddamnit, made me
feel more feminine than ever.

I still had the presence of mind to realize that, in the first
place, I was committed to giving my confused paramour a blowjob. If I
were to stop now, there was no telling how he'd react except that it
wouldn't be pleasant one little bit. Second, there were still people
in the building, and the altercation this would cause -- as well as
the reason for said altercation -- would be worse for my reputation
that actually giving a blowjob. Third, if I was committed, I might as
well get it over with before someone did catch us.

With that in mind, I reached up and wrapped my hand around Josh's
cock and held it still while I opened my mouth and slid my lips over
the head, moving forward to take in as much as I could right off the
bat. I got maybe halfway before I worried that my gag reflex would
kick in, so I pulled my head back until I just had the head in my
mouth and moved forward again. I wasn't fooling around here. I wanted
this over quickly. I started on a rhythm, using my hand also to
stimulate him.

How long was he going to last? My guess -- and my hope -- was not
much longer. Considering how excited he was -- and how excited he
supposedly was while I was d****d over his lap earlier -- he probably
didn't have much to go. Although most of what I heard in my head was
my own sucking and slurping sounds, I was paying attention to the
sounds he was making, his breathing, the occasional moan and grunt.
He had to be close.

And then what? I swear to you, up until that point I genuinely
hadn't thought about giving a blowjob and the consequences
thereafter. Maybe I should have, as part of preparing for becoming
Sally, but this was the sort of thing that I guess I'd deliberately
put out of my mind. So now, I had to think about it all at once. It
was an inevitability that I was about to get a load of cum in my
mouth very, very soon, and the only real question was: how was I
going to deal with it?

As it turned out, I didn't even have the time to ponder the matter.
I was momentarily overwhelmed when Josh grabbed the sides of my head
and began thrusting his hips forward, fucking my mouth, his breathing
coming in sharp gasps as he drew closer to the edge. By the time I
got my bearings, I felt him filling my mouth with jets of semen.

I forced his hands away, and held my mouth so that the head of his
cock was surrounded by my lips. It wasn't a pleasant taste, but I
knew that I was going to have to go back onstage in a while, and I
sure as hell didn't want anyone to see me with cum stains down the
front of my dress. And so -- like a good little girl -- I waited for
him to finish, then, closing my eyes and grimacing, I swallowed,
letting his entire load slide down my throat. I barely made it
without gagging.

But I made it. And when I decided that he had no more left to give --
I had no point of reference, but it seemed like he'd given a lot -- I
slid down to the floor, gasping at the mild shock of cold concrete
against my bare ass.

Now what? I thought. I couldn't think of anything at all to say.
And, apparently, neither could he. The deafening silence was broken
up by the sound of Josh raising his zipper. I couldn't watch. After
this, I saw his hand come into view, offering to help me to my feet.
I was so stunned that I felt woozy and couldn't trust myself to stand
on my own, so I accepted the offer. Once I was on my feet, I tried
looking up at Josh, but he'd already turned away, headed for the
door. I knew I was a mess. My lipstick was, of course, gone, and I
was sure my mascara was running; my eyes had been tearing up from all
of the gagging I'd done. A glimpse in an old prop mirror off to the
side showed me that I looked exactly like a woman who'd been crying
her eyes out... which was what some of the cast saw before I managed
to make it to the make-up room. Missy wasn't there, fortunately, and
I managed to put myself back together quickly.

When rehearsals resumed, Mandy had decided to move on from the
spanking scene, and the next scene required me only to perform a few
lines of dialogue as a background character. But with even this light
work load, my performance was seriously off. I was in a daze. The
performing was enough to take my mind off of things temporarily, but
at the same time, I couldn't really focus on it.

When rehearsal was over, Mandy drove me home. It hadn't occurred to
me that everyone in the cast knew that Josh and I had disappeared
into the prop room, nor that some of our fighting could be heard. Not
until Mandy asked, "Is everything okay?"

Right then and there, I could have made my big confession
but...strangely, I couldn't. "No," I said. Then, with a half-hearted
chuckle in my voice, I said, "Just a lovers' spat."

She tried a few times to get me to talk about what happened -- of
course, she thought it was just a bad fight -- but I evaded her
questions each time. I couldn't wait for the ride to be over so that
I could escape to the sanctity of my apartment.

No sooner had I closed the door behind me did I start to cry...
harder than I can ever remember crying. What I couldn't quite figure
out was exactly why I was crying.

It wasn't that I had been ****d, although it's easy to see how I
might have been reacting that way. What happened between Josh and me
that night was, hard as it was to accept, voluntary. It was a
decision I made.

Neither was it the fact that I had actually made the decision. It
was what I had begun thinking of as a "Sally moment." I now had the
ability to sublimate my own personality to the point where I could
deal with thinking as a woman. It was a woman who made the decision
to defuse an otherwise volatile situation by exploiting a man's
sexual drive, and in that it did accomplish that goal, I couldn't
really call it a tremendous mistake... or maybe I could. I guess it
depended on what was going to happen next with Josh.

The physical act of giving a blowjob -- not the stigma of doing it
as a man, just the physical part -- wasn't all that pleasant, but it
wasn't intolerable. I mean, women do it all the time, right? Nobody
says you have to enjoy it.

I had to be brutally honest with myself, and that meant admitting
that the real reason I was upset was the fact that after the
"sacrifice" I had made, Josh was completely ignoring me. I'd secretly
hoped that giving him head would have made things better between us,
and they didn't, and I felt like a fool. What did he think of me now?
As a man or a woman? I felt like my self-esteem had been shattered
and shot down. Worst of all, I didn't really know what I wanted to
happen. I certainly didn't want Josh falling head over heels for the
image I was creating. What was I hoping for? And how would I feel if
I got it?

I made an effort to emotionally detach myself from the next few
rehearsals, which was easy, since we were at the point of the
production where we focused more on technical details than we did
performances. Whenever I direct a production and come to this point,
I actually encourage my actors to hold back a little. During the
progress of any long-term play, there's going to be a performance
"peak," where the actor is at his best. The biggest (and most common)
mistake a beginner can make is to peak too soon, so that by the time
the production makes it in front of an audience, the actor's best
performances are behind him.

Mandy subscribed to this theory too, and motivated us accordingly.
That helped me a lot, and made it easier to hide the fact that I was
an emotional wreck.

During these days, I stayed away from Josh and he avoided me
whenever possible. Even though rehearsals put us in the most intimate
of positions -- locked in a deep kiss, or having his hands up my
skirt, or, especially, d****d over his knee with my skirt up and my
panties down -- Josh aggressively avoided communicating with me
offstage, and it made me ache inside. Unfortunately, I wasn't the
only one to notice. After rehearsal one night, Jill took me to the
back room for a chat.

"What's going on between you two?" Jill said. Typically, she wasted
no time getting to the point.

I thought about playing dumb and ask her what she was talking about,
but I knew that it would be a waste of time. Instead, feeling my
heart in my throat, I said, "It's complicated."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I'm not sure. Do you promise that it won't go outside this room?" I
knew this was a tough question for her to answer, since Jill was a
notorious gossip.

Finally, I guess, her curiosity got the best of her, because she
gave her word.

I sighed heavily. "I'm going crazy is what's happening. I'm turning
into Sally... for real."

"What does that mean?" she persisted.

"It means that I'm falling for Josh... I think." I felt my eyes
welling with tears.

Jill was genuinely stunned. "What?"

"Like I said: It's complicated."

"How did this happen?"

"Well... it was like you said before. Onstage romances, you know."

"Does... does Josh know about this?"

My stomach tightened up. If I was going to come clean, I was going
to have to come clean all the way. "Oh, he knows about it, all right."

Jill picked up on the subtext of the way I said it. "What does that
mean?"

I sighed again as I felt the first tear roll down my cheek. I was
going to have to redo my makeup if I was going to go home as Sally.
"Well... do you remember the day we had that fight?"

Jill nodded. "Yeah. You never said what it was about..."

"What it was about," I told her, "was Josh playing with my ass while
Mandy was giving us stage directions."

Jill's eyes went wide. "Really?"

I nodded. "Yes. And I got him backstage and let him have it...
but... I realized this later... the reason I was so agitated was
that... as much as I hated it, I liked it too. I was angry over my
confusion."

"Wow..." Jill said. "So that's why you two are..."

"There's more to it than that," I interrupted her.

She just looked at me, waiting for me to continued.

I had to say it. "During our fight," I said, "or, rather, after our
fight... I..." I stopped.

"What?" she urged.

Another sigh, then a sob, then, "I ended up... giving him a blowjob."

Jill blinked and stared blankly. I don't think it sank in at first.
Then she sighed. "How did that happen?" she asked.

"To tell you the truth, I can't really say. It was one of those
crazy situations, where my emotions were just exploding all over the
place. He kissed me -- more to shut me up than anything else --
and... I just lost control. Next thing you know, I'm on my knees with
a dick in my mouth."

Jill shook her head. "This is too much to take..."

"Tell me about it.."

"I mean, you really... you know?"

I nodded. "Yep."

"All... all the way? I mean, did he... you know... finish?"

I felt my face flushing, and knew that Jill was making a mental
picture of it all. "He finished all right."

"Did you..."

"I swallowed."

"Oh, my God," she said, burying her face in her hands. "I can't
believe it."

"Anyway," I said, really wanting to move things along, "after it was
over, he just... he's ignoring me."

"I'd think you'd be grateful," said Jill.

"Yeah, you'd think that. But I'm not. I'm upset that we're not
friends anymore. I'm upset that after I went ahead and... you know,
finished him, he's ignoring me."

"Maybe he's just ashamed," she suggested.

"Yeah, I thought about that too."

"You should talk to him."

"It's too awkward right now. I mean... I don't know how he sees me.
Everything's changed. I mean, I went from... well, whatever he
thought of me playing Sally, to the girl -- or, God forbid, the guy -
who sucked him off in the back room. That's a whole world of
difference."

"Do you want me to talk to him for you?"

"Hell no!" I snapped. "I don't want him to know that you -- or
anybody -- knows what happened."

Jill got silent for a second, then asked, "Well... what do you want
to happen?"

I sighed again, and then the tears really came. "I don't know..."

As traumatic -- and humiliating -- as my conversation with Jill had
been, it had a dramatic effect on me. It made me realize that I was
going to have to have that conversation with Josh sooner or later,
and there was no reason in the world not to have it sooner. And so it
was that the next day, during a break in rehearsal, I approached him
and asked him to meet me in the back room. (Yes, the very same back
room...) He hesitated for a moment, then followed me.

For a few long moments, I couldn't figure out how to start. He just
stared at me, wondering what was going to happen. Finally, I took a
deep breath and said, "Okay. I need to know some things."

"Okay," he said, unsurely.

"First... what did I do to piss you off at me?"

"Piss me off?"

"You haven't talked to me since... well, since the last time we were
back here. I want to know what I did that was so bad."

He looked confused. "You didn't do anything."

"Then why the silent treatment?" I was really fighting back tears. I
figured crying wasn't going to help my cause at all.

"I figured you were pissed at me," he said.

"What?"

"I mean... well, hell, after what happened. What you did. I figured
you were furious with me."

"But... you didn't... force me."

"Maybe not," he conceded, "but I didn't leave you much choice in the
matter."

"Josh... please understand. When I'm with you. When we were
together, and connecting... I really am a girl. In my heart, in my
head. In soul, if not in body. But I really, really am..."

"I know that," he said. "I can feel that."

"So you should also understand that... what happened here... I
wanted it to happen. I made it happen. I felt the connection. I
wanted to please you. I wanted the kind of closeness that only
something like that -- something physical -- could bring us. And then
you turned cold on my right after and... shit, you're making me
cry..."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I wanted us to be closer," I continued, "and I did just the
opposite."

"It wasn't you," he said. "It was me. I've never been a hit with the
ladies, Sally. All my life. I don't have the looks or the money, or
the coolness. I'm a loser. Theater is the only thing I'm good at.
Pretending I'm anyone else but me. So, when you came along, and I
felt you really becoming Sally, really becoming someone I was crazy
about... well, it made things hard for me to understand. I felt
terribly guilty even having romantic thoughts about you. And then
when... when we were here that last time, I felt like I was just
being greedy, forcing you into a situation for my pleasure. I just
couldn't face you after that. It wasn't easy these past few
rehearsals, especially in the scenes we had together."

"So... now that you know how I feel... how do you feel now?"

He thought this over. "I'm not sure. I... I think I want to kiss you."

He didn't have to say another word. I practically fell into his
arms, and we kissed, long and passionately, and I felt his hands cup
my ass and pull me towards him. All the while, there was a tiny,
rational voice trying to tell me how insane all this was, but I
easily ignored it. Josh broke our kiss for a moment and whispered
breathlessly, "I want you to come home with me tonight."

I nodded and pressed my lips to his once again. This time, it was a
commitment. And it would take some time before I realized exactly
what I was committing to.

Jill noticed Josh and me walking back to the stage area. Josh tried
to hold my hand as we walked, but I didn't feel comfortable with that
in front of the rest of the cast. Although we had playfully shown
affection towards each other before -- as part of staying in
character -- this time, since everyone was aware that there had been
a rift between us, somehow I felt that a show of affection now might
be interpreted the... well, in this case, the right way.

Josh was called to the stage for a scene I wasn't in, and Jill
approached me.

"What happened?"

I don't think the depth of what had happened really struck me until
I explained it to Jill. I told her about our reconciliation, and when
I told her that he wanted to take me home, her eyes widened.

"Are you serious?"

I nodded.

"And you're really going home with him?"

I sighed. "I didn't think I could say no."

"And..." She searched for the words. "You realize that he's... well,
he's going to be expecting a lot out of you."

I nodded again. "Uh-huh."

Jill shook her head in disbelief. "Boy, Sally's come a long way,
hasn't she?"

I nodded, more slowly this time.

"You know," she added, reaching over and squeezing my hand, "I have
to admit: You've gone a hell of a lot further than I did, running
around in my underwear."

"Tell me about it..."

I had about two hours to think about things before rehearsal ended.
As it happened, it was one of those nights where I had little to do
but think. Unfortunately.

Of course, the main idea pervading my thoughts was the fact that
Josh and I were approaching this relationship from two completely
different angles. Josh was sexualizing it, which made perfect sense,
since he'd obviously been craving a real sexual relationship for some
time. We always want what we can't have, right? On my end, however,
it was an emotional relationship. For reasons I hadn't yet fully
realized, being Sally, and being wanted as Sally was obviously
fulfilling a need I hadn't even realized I had.

I knew that, in a short while, I'd be helping fulfill Josh's side of
this equation, and the butterflies started stirring in my stomach. I
didn't know how far he'd want to take things, but I had to assume
that I was going to have to deal with a lot, maybe more than I was
prepared for. I tried not to think too much about it, for fear of
backing out and making things even worse than they were.

Before leaving that night, I slipped backstage to the costume room
and grabbed one of the nightgowns that weren't chosen for the current
production and slipped it into the purse that I had begun carrying.

Josh had to have been as nervous as I was, because as we drove to
his apartment, he talked about everything but us and our current
situation. This didn't bother me at all, since I was catatonic. My
stomach was in knots. What was I getting myself into? Still, I had
the wherewithal to ask Josh to stop at a convenience store on the way
to his apartment.

This was an ordeal in itself, and I cringed when I saw a man at the
counter instead of a woman, since I had to stand there in front of
him and endure his slightly lecherous grin while he checked out a box
of condoms, a tube of lubricant, and a package of douche. I wanted to
die.

Josh's apartment was a wreck, but I almost didn't notice. Once we
were inside, he offered me a beer, and I gladly accepted. I sat on
his living room couch while he fetched it for me. My palms were
sweaty. My stomach was in knots.

He came out with our beers and sat next to me, dr****g an arm over
my shoulder and tracing the outline of my bra strap through my blouse
with his finger.

"Here we are," he said.

"Yep," I replied. "Here we are."

"You seem nervous."

"I am nervous," I said. "This is all very, very new to me. You know
that."

He nodded. "Yeah. Don't let me rush you. If I'm doing anything
wrong, don't' be afraid to tell me.

For a second, I wanted to tell him that this was all wrong, but he
stopped that thought dead in its tracks by reaching up and turning my
face to his. When he moved in for a kiss, I was ready, and accepted
his tongue into my mouth, hearing myself sigh roughly. When he moved
his lips down to the side of my neck and, simultaneously, stroked my
knee with his hand, I was overcome by chills throughout my body. I
let myself moan with the sensations and felt his hand move up to my
thigh. He kissed me again, and I sucked at his tongue. There was
nothing subtle about it. Neither was anything subtle about the way he
took my hand and placed it on his crotch. He'd worn sweats to
rehearsal, and so I could easily feel his massive cock, already hard
and ready to go. I gave it a squeeze, and that inspired him to break
our kiss, shift a little, and then pull his pants and underwear down
to his ankles.

"You don't waste time, do you?" I commented as he cuddled back next
to me and I now had his cock in my hand, running my fingers over the
shaft, down to his balls, and tracing circles around the head with my
index finger. I looked down at this massive piece of meat and, of
course, my thoughts drifted to the idea that he was going to want to
fuck me, and that I genuinely didn't know if I could take it.

Thinking almost strategically, I told myself that if I could get him
off with my mouth now, it would buy me some time. Strange thought,
and even stranger that I now found myself motivated to give the best
blowjob I was capable of.

I kissed him one more time, then slid down to my knees on the floor
in front of him, face to face with his dick, just inches from my
lips. I looked up at him and smiled, but I wasn't quite sure how
convincing my smile actually was. He was surely convinced, however,
when I ran the flat of my tongue up the length of his shaft, and
watched his eyes close in pleasure.

The rest didn't take long. He was already on the edge, and I was
eager and aggressive enough to pull him over, using my hands, lips,
tongue and mouth in unison. He gave me plenty of warning: I felt his
thighs start to tremble, heard a long, low grunt, and then, when I
felt his body start to spasm, sure enough, he erupted. At the moment
he began to let go, my mouth was off of him, so the first shot was a
solid splat in the face, followed by another before I could react and
cover him with my mouth. From there, I kept pumping him with my fist
as I felt my mouth fill up and cum oozing down my forehead, cheeks,
and nose. He filled my mouth so much, in fact, that I worried I
couldn't swallow it all without gagging, so I let it drool out of my
mouth, down my chin and neck. It was totally gross, but he didn't
seem to mind as his hips jerked convulsively and the last jets of the
thick fluid landed on my tongue.

I was sure I was quite a sight to behold, and so I just knelt there
until he'd recovered enough to look down at me, at which we both
chuckled at my dilemma.

"I think I need to clean up," I said, licking my lips and squinting
my right eye as cum started to drip down into it.

He pointed. "The bathroom's over there..."

Staring at myself in the mirror took off some of the glow of what
had just happened. Most of my make-up was either rubbed off or washed
off. I looked terrible, actually, and I scrambled for my purse to get
some make-up. I'd also brought the bag I'd gotten from the
convenience store, and so I set about preparing myself for the rest
of the night.

Let's just say that it can be unromantic preparing to be romantic.
After I'd fixed my face and hair, I changed out of my clothes and
used the douche to clean myself out thoroughly. Then I took about
half the tube of lubricant and injected it deep inside myself so that
it would be there when the time came.

If the time came.

I put on the nightgown I'd snatched from the wardrobe room at the
theater as well as a clean pair of panties. Then I went back out to
where Josh was waiting patiently on the couch. He smiled when he saw
me.

"Turn around," he said.

I did a turn. The hem of my nightie was high enough to give him a
flash of the very bottom of my panties.

"Come here," he said.

I approached the couch and he lunged out and grabbed me by the
waist, and before I could even react, I was over his knees again, in
a position I'd become familiar with.

"This time," he said, "it's for real..."

"Be gentle," I pleaded. "I'm still sore back there from earlier, and
I..."

WHACK! I squeaked as Josh slapped my ass harder than he'd ever
slapped it onstage.

"Hey!" I said. "You..."

WHACK! The second smack had me nearly sobbing as my bottom started
to burn furiously. I felt Josh take my panties down so that they were
around my thighs, then WHACK! WHACK! Two hits in the exact same spot,
which made me involuntarily squirm on his lap. As much as it hurt, I
couldn't help be being turned on by being so helpless and under his
power.

WHACK! WHACK! Another pair, on the other side, that had me squirming
even more.
Then, as I waited for yet another round to blister my butt, instead,
I felt his hand rest on my burning cheeks and a finger burrow between
them. As he discovered the lubricant, I heard him chuckle, and as he
did, I realized that the fact that it was there was a tacit
acceptance of what he wanted to do to me. This gave me chills, which
doubled when he penetrated me deeply with his finger. It was a tight
fit, which, naturally, concerned me. And when he managed to wedge two
fingers inside me, the pain was enough to make me wonder whether I
really knew what I was getting into.

Josh's probing was turning him on, too, and I felt his cock start to
swell under my belly.

"I'll make you a deal," he said. "I won't spank you anymore if you
get down on your knees and suck my cock."

With my ass throbbing, this was a deal I could handle, and I gladly
rolled off his lap to once again take his giant dick in my mouth,
only this time, I was acutely aware of the fact that I was getting
him hard so that he could, in essence, take my virginity. In one
sense, I was kind of hoping that he'd enjoy the blowjob so much that
he'd be content to come in my mouth (there's a thought I wouldn't
have had a few weeks earlier!), but I knew that wasn't something I
could reasonably hope for. Sure enough, after only a few minutes, I
felt his hands on my shoulders, lifting me off my knees as he stood
up. His dick popped out of my mouth, and I was soon on my feet, his
arm around my shoulder, guiding me towards the bedroom.

When we got to his room, he sat me on the bed, and I watched as he
removed the rest of his clothes. He wasn't buff by any definition of
the word; in fact, he was only a little less out of shape than I was.
I hardly noticed that. All I noticed was his hard cock, sticking out
in front of him, inches from my face and looking absolutely enormous.
It was at this point that I seriously considered begging off, and
wondering how he would react. After all, I was perfectly willing to
bring him off with my mouth, right? How upset could he get?

I was so preoccupied with what to do that I didn't react when he
came forward, grabbed me by the hips, and rolled me over onto my
stomach. I squirmed a little -- it was all happening too fast -- and
felt my panties being pulled down again. He pulled up on my hips so
that my ass was in the air -- a perfect target -- and, panicking, I
decided to stall for time by making him go into the bathroom and get
my lubricant.

"Don't move," he ordered with mock ferocity, "or I'll beat your ass
before I fuck it..."

Lying on someone's bed with your face pressed into a pillow and your
ass up in the air is a strange place to ponder one's fate, but there
I was, listening to him pad into the bathroom as I waited. If I was
going to try to dissuade him from what he was about to do, I
certainly needed to do it from a different position, but at the same
time, my poor ass was still throbbing from the last spanking and I
didn't particularly want to end up over his knee again any time soon.

I heard him return and felt my stomach tighten. All I could hear was
his breathing, and then the soft, squishy sounds as he applied
lubricant to his dick. Then I felt his fingers on either side of my
hips as he stepped into position. He moved forward and I could feel
just the slippery tip of his cock sliding up and down the crack of my
ass, teasing me of, ahem, big things to come.

One hand left my hip and guided his cock to the right spot. I
squeezed my eyes shut and waited.

"Ow! Shit! Stop!" I shouted involuntarily as he made his first
attempt at entry, stretching me something terribly but not coming
close to entering as his cock slipped and shot upward. It was enough
to really hurt, but when I tried to move forward away from him, he
grabbed my hips and pulled me back, emphasizing his displeasure with
a hearty smack on my already bruised ass cheek.

"Don't move," he ordered. I was fascinated by the tone of authority
in his voice, and it more or less came out of nowhere. Even more
fascinating was the fact that I wouldn't have even questioned
disobeying. He had me in his spell. Looking back on all this now, I
realize how easy -- well, maybe not easy, but certainly doable -- to
simply get up, throw my clothes on, and walk out with my ass intact.
At the time, however, that would simply have been impossible.

Josh made another abortive attempt at penetrating me, with pretty
much the same results, except that it hurt a little more.

"Josh, maybe we should..."

I didn't get any further, because, with great determination, he
lined himself up again, then grabbed both my hips and, holding me
firm, thrust forward. I screamed: it felt like I was being split in
two as the head of his cock made its way past my defenses. The pain
was so great that I reflexively jerked my hips forward.
Unfortunately, he was holding on so tightly that it pulled him
forward too, and he fell on top of me, in the process driving his
cock pretty much all the way inside me, making the pain even worse.
He tried to move, but I begged him to stay still and let me try
getting used to it. He waited a few moments, then started moving his
hips. I was in too much pain to argue, and I cried into my pillow as
he began fucking me, each stroke bringing new pain with it. All I
could hope was for it to end quickly, when a little voice in my head
reminded me that he had just blown a huge load less than forty-five
minutes earlier: I was in for an ordeal.

Josh picked up the pace, and the thought that struck me was that he
was only out for his own pleasure now. He didn't care how badly he
was hurting me. I was full-blown crying and sobbing now, and he
either didn't notice or didn't care.

I don't know how long he thrust into me -- it seemed like hours --
before he slowed down for a moment and then pulled out. Had he come
without me knowing it?

No.

Instead, he flipped me over onto my back, spread my legs and heaved
my ankles up onto his shoulders. He reached down to line his cock
with my ass again, and, through my sobs, I tried to beg him not to do
it. I didn't even get a chance to get the first word out before he
drove himself inside me again. I guess it didn't hurt quite as much
this time, but that didn't matter as he leaned forward and began
pumping his hips wildly. His efforts had pushed me forward, and now
the top of my head was slamming into the headboard with each push. I
reached up with both hands and tried to push back, but was only
partly successful.

His hands grabbed the backs of my knees and pushed them forward up
to my chest, letting him thrust even deeper into me as he doubled me
over. My eyes were squeezed shut, but the one time I forced them
open, I saw his face, looming over me, twisted in a face of passion.
The moment was frozen in time, and the most vivid part of the
recollection was a drop of sweat which dangled momentarily from his
nose before being knocked off by his movements and dropping squarely
into my open mouth.

Soon his breath was heaving as he moved faster and faster, knocking
the wind out of me with each thrust, until finally, I heard him grunt
loudly and stop dead in his tracks. I was so supersensitive that I
could feel his cock pulse as he jetted his seed into my body right
before he collapsed on top of me, letting my legs splay outward as
his sweaty body came in contact with mine. He was gasping for breath,
and as he rested his cheek against mine, a rivulet of drool spilled
out of his mouth and dribbled down my face.

His cock was still inside me, but I felt it deflating. This did
little to ease the pain, however, as I waited for him to pull it out
entirely, which, at last, he did. I was still sobbing, and I felt him
roll off of me then put his arm around me. Only then did he ask, "Are
you okay?"

I had a hard time speaking through the sobs. "No," I said, "I am not
okay... You tried to kill me with your cock..."

It was as if all of this had just dawned on him. "No, baby, I
didn't. I just got a little carried away..."

"You son of a bitch," I countered. "You knew you were hurting me."

"Look," he said, "I'm really sorry..."

I rolled over and let my feet drop to the floor, gingerly standing
up. As I did, I looked back to see that his cock -- and the sheets --
were stained with blood. My blood. I made my way painfully to the
bathroom, where I did my best to take care of things.

Josh insisted I sleep with him, and I don't know why I agreed, but I
did. He cuddled next to me, but I didn't reciprocate. I was angry,
hurt. I felt violated. And even though I'd entered into this knowing
full well what was going to happen, I felt as though I'd been taken
against my will. The glow I'd been feeling -- I don't know whether it
had been love, or infatuation, or both -- had faded.

In the morning, I felt Josh's hand under the top of my nightgown,
toying at my nipple. I feigned sleep for a few moments, and when he
moved, I realized that the head of his cock was poking into my ass.
There was, of course, no way I was going to go through an ordeal like
I'd done the night before, but I also knew that he was ready to go. I
forced myself not to think about what had happened just a few short
hours ago, rolled over and kissed him lightly on the lips before
turning back the covers and kissing my way down his belly to take his
cock in my mouth yet again.

I didn't care to reflect upon how routine sucking Josh's cock was
becoming. I was even learning some of the tricks to getting him off
quickly, and so it didn't really take very long. There was some irony
in the fact that this time, when he came, I had a hard time
swallowing the thick load he had deposited in my mouth, gagging twice
as I forced his sperm into my belly.

After he was satisfied, I got out of bed and went into the bathroom.
It still hurt to walk. Once there, I showered quickly, then went
through the process of making myself up and getting dressed. I
cringed in humiliation as I looked into the mirror and saw the stains
on the front of my blouse from the blowjob I'd given him the night
before. I also noticed that the elastic waistband of my panties had
been pulled out of shape by the all-too-eager Josh the night before,
and I couldn't keep them from falling down my legs. This was
especially bad news because I'd already made the decision that,
rather than face what was going to be a painfully awkward ride home
in Josh's car, I was going to take the city bus.

Josh made this easier for me by falling asleep immediately after his
blowjob, and so I quietly slipped out the door.

Chicago is the windy city, and I worried about what that wind was
doing to the hem of my skirt as I waited for the bus, particularly
now that I was sans panties, but I think I did all right. I was self-
conscious over the fact that there was a guy boarding the bus right
behind me who probably got the hint of what I wasn't wearing, but I
let it go. I just wanted to get home, and, within half an hour, I did.

Mercifully, Josh seemed to get the message about my feelings over
what had happened. For me, the bloom was entirely off the rose, and
although I still continued to be Sally, Sally and Josh were no longer
an "item." And since this was now fine with both of us, it didn't
interfere with the progress of the play, which opened to a packed
house, who laughed themselves silly over the dilemmas poor Sally was
put into. We kept the mysterious aura of my identity a secret, and,
indeed, in the program, I was listed under my first initial instead
of my first name. It generated a serious buzz about exactly who I was
and what I was, which, apparently, sold tickets. This was proven when
a Chicago reviewer questioned whether I was a man or a woman, that he
couldn't tell, and asked his readers for opinions. Ticket sales
soared.

Actually, the question of my true sex was almost inadvertently
revealed during the second week of the play, when, after I'd been
thrown over Uncle Leo's knee for my nightly spanking, Josh yanked on
my panties a little too hard, and, to the audience's hilarity, they
practically came off in his hand. I had to face the downstage mirror
very carefully that night.

And that's all there is to tell... except for the story of that one
night, which, I suppose, I owe you all for being so patient.

It was a Sunday matinee, and we were playing, once more, to a packed
house. It was in between the second and third scenes in the second
act, a situation which found Josh and me alone on the left side of
the wings for a good ten minutes before having to enter. Josh and I
had grown comfortable with each other again, although there were no
hints that we pursue our once-burgeoning relationship. Except, that
afternoon, he walked up to me backstage and whispered, "Hey, Sally..."

I turned. He hadn't addressed me by name for a while.

"I've got a problem."

"What's that, Josh?" I asked.

"During that last scene," he said, "I got..." His voice trailed off.

"You got what, Josh?"

In response, he grabbed my hand and directed it down to his crotch.
Sure enough, I felt a powerful erection through his pajama pants.

"Cut it out, Josh!"

"You've got to help me."

"Help you?" I asked, realizing what he was asking midway through the
question.

"Here?" I asked, incredulously. It amuses me that I was more
mortified of the location than what he was asking me to do.

"I can't go out onstage like this. Everyone will see..."

It was somewhat unbelievable to me that he was so upset over being
seen in his condition when, just minutes before, I was flashing my
bright red ass to an amused audience.

"Please, Sally," he said.

There were about six minutes before we had to make an entrance. I
had time. And truthfully, I didn't want to argue the point backstage
and waste time losing the argument. And so, I dropped to my knees
right then and there and fished out his cock, wasting no time getting
busy. I used every trick I'd learned, listening both to Josh's
breathing and the dialogue onstage, waiting for our approaching cue.

To Josh's credit, he was much more quiet than normal, and it
actually took me by surprise when he started spurting into my mouth.
Typical of Josh, there was a lot of cum to deal with, and I had to
swallow a few times to avoid having to go onstage with cum down the
front of my costume. But when he was finally done, I tucked him back
into his pajamas, gingerly wiped my lips, and allowed him to help me
stand back up.

That was when I saw Jill standing in the corner of the room, a
mischievous grin on her lips. She held a finger to her lips, not
wanting me to let Josh know she was there, then disappeared out the
door.

--------------------------------

This was all several years ago. The play had a good run. Josh never
approached me for sex after that one backstage tryst. I think he knew
that it was his final shot, and he accepted that. After the play
closed, he left Chicago, and we never heard from him again. Sally
seemed to fade away, too, since after the play, I didn't have an
excuse for running around Chicago in skirts. Val has often teased me
about writing a one-woman show for Sally some day. We'll just have to
wait and see.

I can never look Jill in the eye, to this day, without knowing what
picture she's conjuring up in her mind...