Why Theres A Wench

The beautiful sounds of Shakespeare's words were like a talisman in her head. She'd made sure they didn't raise her heartbeat, but soothed her, helped her get into character, made her calm and feel the essence of Katharina. She

was

the cheeky, strong-willed and venomous daughter of Baptista of Padua and not simply another character within a play. Okay, okay, it wasn't just any play it was Shakespeare. It was

The Taming of the Shrew

. And Ariella Clarke knew she was bloody lucky to be able to play this role in England, with the Royal Shakespeare Company. This was the role of a lifetime.

"Well, go with me and be not so discomfited: proceed in practise with my younger daughter; she's apt to learn and thankful for good turns. Signior Petruchio, will you go with us, or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?" recited John Clayson, the seasoned performer playing Baptista. His voice was deep and resonant, and that was why she had chosen him to be the voice she focused on for calm before she went on stage to spar with her romantic co-star, Ian Silsbury. The incomparable Ian Silsbury. He was as handsome as he was insufferable. And Ian was bloody handsome.

Oh, he was polite enough and had been pleasant to work with so far as he prided himself on being a complete professional. However, his life was a different matter altogether. The way he paraded himself around with all those air headed women and ended up in tabloid scandal after tabloid scandal, and yet he seemed to think nothing of it. In fact, he seemed to think that any press was good press and let the scandals vault his career into stardom. Of course, that was Ari's impression. He could have made on talent alone. He was bloody brilliant, and everyone knew it. Except him, it seemed. And that was what Ari found

most

annoying about him.

After Ian's mini-monologue, it's my entrance

, she thought and smoothed the front of the beautiful sixteenth-century Italian gown. She moved closer to the door she was to enter from and blocked out Ian's voice, or tried to, focusing only on the last four lines of his dialogue that marked her entrance.

"As though she bid me stay by her a week: if she deny to wed, I'll crave the day when I shall ask the banns and when be married. But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak."

Ari pushed open the doors that were made to look like heavy oak and walked down the steps, trying not to make the hollow stairs beneath her clunk loudly with the special heels made for the women in the show. Instead of just wearing the typical black character shoes for this show, the costumers went all out and had made them replicas of 16

th

century Italian heels. Each dress had matching shoes made of almost the same fabric but with a different pattern as the dress, and each shoe was obviously embroidered and beaded by hand. It had taken weeks of practice learning how to walk in them because they were deceptively high. And they were told, every single bloody time they were worn, that they were worth a king's ransom.

Ian continued with his lines. "Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear."

"Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing: they call me Katharina that do talk of me." She said aloofly, only giving Ian the mere mention of a glance.

She could hear him smile moments before he spoke. "You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate, and bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst; but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate, for dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate, take this of me, Kate of my consolation; hearing thy mildness praised in every town, thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded, yet not so deeply as to thee belongs, myself am moved to woo thee for my wife."

Ariella acted as if she were bored, playing with the end of her fan, looking around at the scenery, tucking in strands of her hair, and had heard this before from another man. This was true; for in her past many men wooed Kate in the hopes of getting to her younger and fairer sister, Bianca. And Kate was tired of this game. However, it was hard for Ari to pretend it was old hat.

Ian was handsome. Gorgeous. In truth, he was breathtaking. His hair was as black as midnight, and he kept it short but wild so that the curls teased the collars of his shirts and was the perfect length to run hands through. His skin was pale, though not as fair as hers, but had become less so as he'd gotten older, and he wore scruff on his face made him appear much more enticing. His eyes were the color of a spring meadow during a rainstorm, a cloudy green that would turn to molten emerald when he was angry or Ari speculated when he was perhaps in the throes of passion, but she'd always pushed that particular thought out of her head. His voice was pure seduction -- low and clear with a rumbling, infectious laugh. It wasn't fair that a man as good-looking as he, could make you want him so desperately with his voice and be such a git when the scene was over.

Their on-stage banter continued until Ariella came to one of the best bits in the scene, where she stared Ian down from across the stage, and they inched toward each other getting snarkier and angrier; each barb getting a little more venomous until they were at a point where Ari got to slap him straight across the face! And the director never asked her to pull her slap, nor did she. The director insisted. A stage slap just didn't look real from the audience. There was always a seat where the angle was bad, and you could tell it was faked, he had explained, and he would not have the audience brought out of the story with a fake slap. He said he'd quit first.

Ariella remembered discussing the slap with her co-star before their first attempt. Ian had just laughed. He'd said, "I doubt you could slap me hard enough to make my face red, poppet." And since that moment, she had been trying her bloody hardest to leave a hand print!

"Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me."

Ha! Not on your life, you blow hard

; she thought as she said her line, taking a step forward and letting herself be drawn into his gaze, letting her anger be fueled by his bravado. "Asses are made to bear, and so are you."

"Women are made to bear, and so are you."

Chauvinistic ass

. "No such jade as you, if me you mean."

"Alas! Good Kate, I will not burden thee; for, knowing thee to be but young and light―"

"Too light for such a swain as you to catch; and yet as heavy as my weight should be."

Yes, I know you love that line because I haven't left a hand print yet. Just wait

...

opening night, with my adrenaline running

...

you won't know

what

hit you!

"Should be! Should―buzz!"

"Well ta'en, and like a buzzard." She looked at him square in the face and wondered if his eyes had always looked quite that fiercely green before. It was unsettling.

"O slow-wing'd turtle! Shall a buzzard take thee?"

"Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard."

"Come, come, you wasp; I'faith; you are too angry."

"If I be waspish, best beware my sting."

If only he knew the truth about that. I am not a woman to be trifled with. So why do I always feel like he's toying with me? Like he is right now? Every time we do this scene he looks at me more and more like he's going to devour me!

"My remedy is then, to pluck it out."

"Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies."

My god

...

is this

...

? No. This couldn't be

; she thought to herself.

This is foreplay! This is verbal foreplay! How could I have missed this? And why did no one at the table read bring this up?

Because they all knew it was foreplay.

"Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail."

"In his tongue."

Oh, bloody hell. I'm blushing. I know I am. Don't smile Ariella. DO. NOT. SMILE.

"Whose tongue?"

Shit. She saw the look of revelation in his eyes. He could obviously see the blush in her cheeks, and that fact just seemed to make her cheeks go even redder. He could certainly see her embarrassment. Hopefully, the audience couldn't pick up on it, and she commended herself for being able to turn her need to smile into a mock flirtatious sneer. But her eyes would give her away. She knew it. And she couldn't hide it. Not from Ian.

"Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell." That line had always sounded like a challenge to Ari as she spun on her heels and prepared to leave. Until Petruchio uttered his next line -- a very blatantly sexual line. She'd always known that but they'd never played up the now very obvious foreplay before.

"What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman."

She shook her head mentally, knowing that this line of thinking was going to get her into serious trouble, and she was going to forget the rest of her lines. And while it was only final dress rehearsal, she was not going to make the company stop because Ian Silsbury had flustered her so with his broad shoulders and the intricate needlework of his black work collar accentuating the wisps of black hair at the nape of his neck, and the way that stupid rakish smile was starting to make her knees weak. Wait, when had she gone from a professional actress to a weak-kneed teenager drooling over her favorite actor? This was not okay. Not okay by a long shot!

"That I'll try." The resounding slap was deafening. She really struck him this time and there wasn't much force behind it but there was meaning and intent. And Ian had the look on his face of a victor, not some bloke who had just been smacked.

"I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again."

"So may you lose your arms: if you strike me, you are no gentleman; and if no gentleman, why then no arms."

Why does he look so bloody smug?

She couldn't figure it out. He was still in character, and he was warning Katharina that he would make good his threat, but Ian had triumph in his eyes. What would possibly be his triumph when she'd finally gotten her way and hit him with a stinging slap that she could still feel in her fingers?

"A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!"

"What is your crest? A coxcomb?" She stuck out her tongue as she'd once seen in

Kiss Me Kate

, the Cole Porter Musical about this very play.

"A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen."

"No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven." Another double entendre. Damn Shakespeare. Ari almost choked on the word gcock,h and had to keep her eyes steady not to look down at Ian's crotch, which was very hard. And a small squeak of surprise caught her off guard when she failed and did look. As she made it obvious, she heard the director in the audience roar with laughter.

"Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour."

"It is my fashion, when I see a crab." She thought he looked like anything but a crab at that moment. He looked more like the cover of a historical romance novel. A far less cheesy cover as Ian was fully clothed, didn't have the flowing Fabio hair and didn't have a fake tan.

"Why, here's no crab; and therefore, look not sour."

"There is, there is."

And stop looking at me like that you fool

! She wanted to shout at him. She was having the devil of a time concentrating with his pools of emerald heat looking at her the way they were. His presence was affecting her on a far more visceral level than it ever had before, and she was not comfortable with where that was coming from. At all.

Bastard

.

"Then show it me."

"Had I a glass, I would."

In your dressing room, you ass

.

"What, you mean my face?"

"Well aim'd of such a young one."

Yes, you bloody moron

. She sniffed loudly as if it added to the insult.

Doubtless, if he looked in his mirror, all he would see was his handsomely rugged good looks and winning charm

, she reminded herself. That was what she was looking at right now. The high cheek bones that had a light pinkish hue from arguing, and the scruff on his cheek that mad him look rather manly. There was no doubting his maleness. Whenever she was near him, she could smell him. He gave off this amazing scent of raw male mixed with a fresh outdoor smell as if he'd just come from walking in a forest.

"Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you."

"Yet you are wither'd." He wasn't too young. He was the perfect age for her, in truth. He was about ten years older, and she wondered why he'd never been married. Then she thought about the scads of affairs the paparazzi had publicized and remembered. Why would he want to get married if he could date brainless bimbos whenever he needed "company"? And yet it puzzled her because he was far too smart to want brainless anything. He seemed like the type who would be bored out of his mind if he couldn't carry on a decent conversation with someone.

"'Tis with cares."

"I care not." She wasn't sure that statement rang as true as it did in yesterday's run through. Oh this whole thing was absolutely maddening! Why was he affecting her so? Why was her body tingling at the sound of his voice? Why was he looking at her with smoldering eyes, practically daring her to kiss him?

"Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so."

"I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go."

"No, not a whit: I find you passing gentle. 'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen...." Ian's monologue went on and gave Ariella time to think a moment. Suddenly, her view of him changed. And the only thing that changed tonight was her slap. She'd slapped him in a way she'd never slapped him before, and that had made all the difference.

That wasn't the only difference. He'd stirred something in her tonight that he'd never stirred before. Feelings she thought, coming from him, would repulse her. And now he was filling her head with his smell, with his presence, his deep amorous voice. All of this was getting to her in ways no other co-star ever even tried. However, she was worried. Worried that he was putting this on for better reviews. Worried that she would just become another tabloid item to him. But then, he'd never dated anyone he'd worked with.

Dated? Had she just put herself in the dating pool for Ian Silsbury? Wasn't that kind of thinking a bit too grand? She chided herself for thinking along those lines. She knew better. He was just playing off her feisty acting, and giving her the fuck me eyes nothing more nothing less. There was no reason whatsoever to think that when this scene was over, he was going to want to date her. It was merely wishful thinking. And again, she chided herself of even thinking that because Ian Silsbury was the

last

person, she'd ever want to be in a relationship with!

"...O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt."

"Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command."

"Did ever Dian so become a grove, as Kate this chamber with her princely gait? O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate; and then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!"

"Where did you study all this goodly speech?" She swore to herself. If he doesn't stop, I'm going to jump him where he stands. She had to pinch herself to stop her mind from getting any farther off track.

"It is extempore, from my mother-wit."

"A witty mother! Witless else her son."

"Am I not wise?"

"Yes; keep you warm."

She only had one more set of lines to speak before her exit, and then she could watch Ian with much more critical attention. She wanted to see if he could not keep his eyes off her, even if he was trying to.

She moved away slightly but made sure to stay in his peripheral vision, as a test to see if when she passed out of it for a moment, if he moved to keep her in his sights. He did. Every time she moved a bit stage right or stage left, up stage or down stage, just to get herself out of his view, he'd change position. Then it was her exit. She said her last line and flounced offstage to head to her dressing room.

She knew they would be breaking for lunch soon, thank heavens; she was famished. She'd overslept this morning and downed a quick cup of coffee on her way to the theater and never got to eat her croissant, that was now hard as a rock. She hit it a couple of times against the side of her make up table and sighed. So much for a quick bite to tide me over until I could grab lunch.

She heard a knock at her door and called, gcome in.h

Eddie, the stage manager poked his head in and said, "Miss Clarke, we're breaking for lunch. Call time is 2:30 back here. Alrigh' luv?"

She smiled at Eddie and said back, "Thank you Eddie. I'll be ready!" She struggled to get a difficult bobby pin out of her tangled mess of curls, and didn't hear the door open this time. She swore softly when she pulled and several hairs ripped from her head, but that didn't startle her nearly as much as feeling a hand resting on the back of her neck as someone took over the job of removing the pins. She gave a startled little jump and looked up into the mirror and saw Ian standing there looking at her as he undid her hair, the curls cascading beautifully down her neck and face.

"What the hell are you doing in my dressing room?" she asked, her voice a harsh whisper. She hoped he would think she didnft want to alert anyone to his presence there, but the truth was that she suddenly couldnft breathe.

He didn't answer. He just bent over and placed a kiss on her shoulder letting his lips linger there, soft and warm. Ariella tried not to close her eyes at the lush feeling of his lips on her skin, but she couldn't help it. She did, however, manage a very halfhearted, "stop that."

"That wasn't convincing at all," Ian replied, his mouth still wandering over her neck and bit of exposed shoulder. His fingers were beneath the cascades of her red hair and very deftly undoing the laces of the bodice of her dress. He stopped at the first couple of laces to push the shoulder of her dress and the chemise down enough to expose the creamy freckled flesh of her skin and go back to kissing it.

"You shouldn't be here Ian. I'm sure the paparazzi are just outside and dying to catch you in flagrante delicto," she teased, hoping the idea of a scandal would get him to stop, but it didn't seem to make one bit of difference.

"I could give a hang about the press, Ari," he said using her nickname as if they'd been friends for ages. It felt natural to hear it coming off his tongue, falling like dew from a flower. His tongue. Oh what his tongue was doing to her shoulder was maddening. Drawing little patterns in the flesh like a pen on paper, making her whole body shudder with gooseflesh.

"What are you doing, Ian? We don't even like each other," she said, once again trying to find an excuse for this not to happen. Yesterday, this wouldn't have happened. Yesterday, there was no spark. Today, there was a bonfire. It was everywhere around them, on stage, now off.

He loosened the laces just a bit more so the other shoulder fell from her body but she was still mostly covered. "Oh, I think it's gone way beyond like, don't you?" Ian's voice rumbled low in his chest as his dark head bent over neck and she stared at herself in the mirror. She could see the wanton look on her face. This was what he saw when he looked at her today. Her blue eyes sparkled and her lids fluttered slowly. The pink flush to her skin started under the square neckline of the bodice even where it fell now, just covering the lace top of her corset and chemise.

And here, in this dress, in time and place, she had never felt sexier. With Shakespeare's words ringing in her ears, in Italian renaissance clothing, she had never felt more sensual, more alluring.

Tugging on Ian's hair, she lifted his head and brought his mouth to hers, tracing the outline of full soft lips with the tip of her cherry red tongue. She felt, rather than heard, him groan before he returned the kiss; his lips scalded hers and she couldn't help but moan as well. His hands made quick work of the remaining laces of her dress only to curse at the authenticity of her costume when he found the second barrier of clothing that had to be undone.