Mischief and sexuality hung heavily in the air that summer. It was the summer my friend Stacie and I ran the children's theatre at the summer stock theatre where we had done our college internship. We worked hard and so in the evenings when we had free time, we played hard too....
One night Stacie, William and I had one of our "special" meetings after dinner. Basically we decided that we would go to all of the "forbidden" or "off limits" places on the lot and take pictures of ourselves with a Polaroid camera just to be rebellious.
We played with an assortment of props in the prop shop; we tried on lingerie in the costume shop, snooped around guest artist cabins and most forbidden, we crawled to the top of the catwalk high above the main stage and sat on the rails (a very precarious position and certain death if we had fallen).
Our last forbidden place was in a professor's trailer. We had seen him leave earlier and assumed because it was a Saturday that he had gone back to check on his kids in Illinois before he had to be back for rehearsal Monday afternoon. We giggled as we bounced on his bed and snapped pictures. We snapped pictures of us in his kitchen pretending we were him, prim, precise, and very jovial.
I tried to ignore William's obvious plan to get into both of our shorts when we plopped on Dave's bed a 2nd time and William put his arm around both of us. There was an uncomfortable sexual tension in the air and I popped up first and said we better go before someone passing by heard us inside.
Suddenly, some headlights flashed their warning across the wall of the trailer. Katie and William rushed out the door and to the back of the trailers in case someone saw them. I smoothed the comforter out on Dave's bed and then rushed out the door myself. A hand from the darkness grabbed my arm and said firmly, "What are you doing here Kels?"
I swallowed hard and turned around to see Dave's quizzical gaze, "Oh hi Dave! God you scared me! We,.....I was just taking a walk around the lot and I thought I saw your door open so I thought I better check and make sure there wasn't a raccoon inside or...anything."
"Thanks Kels. Are you taking pictures?" He fingered the Polaroid that hung around my neck and then eyed the pictures sticking out of my shirt pocket. My nipples were hard with fear and they tightened further when Dave grazed their tantalized tips as he grabbed the pictures and shuffled through them in the moonlight.
Tightness grew in my chest and butterflies created chaos in my stomach. "This isn't good Kelsey; I think you'd better come into my trailer." I didn't say anything I just followed him up the stairs and stood shivering in the entry way.
"Where are Stacie and William?" He demanded.
"Um, I don't know. They probably went back to their cabins. Look Dave, I'm really sorry. I really respect you and I just want you to know we were just playing...."
"Save it Kelsey. You invaded my privacy and the privacy of others, you rifled through theatre property and worse you got up on the catwalk, do you know what a liability that is?" He was truly angry and I was getting nervous. I hoped he wasn't going to tell the artistic director. We would have been fired immediately for the catwalk thing alone.
"Yes, God I'm so sorry! It was really stupid..." I pleaded.
"Yes it WAS STUPID!" He shouted in a whisper.
There was a weird silence as I didn't know what else to say. In college, I had babysat his kids, watched his dog when he had been out of town, I shouldn't have done these stupid things.
"Dave it was just a prank, we didn't mean any harm." I wanted him to let me off the hook.
Another long silence and then he said quietly and very steadily, "Kels, I'm going to need you to take down your shorts and panties and bend over and put your hands on the bed."
