I was doing a music video. I'm not an actress, by any means, but my friend Jason had practically begged me to be in it, so I relented and said yes. Jason was my best friend in high school, and we had remained close in the years since graduation. For years he had been trying to break into the music world, and things were finally going up for him. His debut CD was coming out and I was going to be in the video for one of the singles. I have always been his biggest fan, so I have to admit that I was excited about his music career taking off.
I had known Jason since I was 14, and we had been everything to each other through high school. Best friends, shoulders to cry on, confidants, sounding boards for ideas. We got along extremely well, and many of our friends thought that some say we'd give up on dating other people and get together. But, for one reason or another, things never worked out that way. Right out of high school Jason got married to his first wife, and I moved away and had my son. We stayed in contact off and on, our friendship always picking up right where it'd left off, as though we'd never been apart. As the years passed, we started noticing a physical attraction between us, though we never talked about it. We'd only ever taken it as far as kissing, but never made it past that. We drifted apart for a few years, but had managed to get back in touch and keep my friendship close. By the time that the video was coming around, Jason was married to his second wife, I was married to my second husband, and everything in the world was in the way of us ever pursuing a relationship. I'd gone back to where we'd grown up for the video shoot, and Jason met me at the airport. Like always, we picked up right where we'd left off, and everything in life seemed to stop in time.
I had always hated the memories from the area where Jason and I had grown up. But being in the places where Jason and I had been felt good. We'd gotten to the set, and I sat with Jason, talking and joking until it was time for me to get ready. For a music video, this was quite a production, I thought. After I was dressed and coiffed, I hung out with Jason and the director, talking about the premise of the video, and what my role was in the story. The song was about two friends who come to the point in their relationship where they could take it beyond friendship, or they could walk away and leave things as they were. I was playing the part of the woman in the friendship, and I gave Jason a knowing look when the story was fully explained, because of the obvious parallels to our own friendship. I joked Jason that he should play the guy in the video, and while he chuckled at the idea, he didn't offer any information as to who was playing my counterpart.
I had heard the song for the video, many, many times. Jason always sent me the singles before anyone else heard them, and this one was one of my favorites. I had it memorized, and often hummed it under my breath. I had a reasonably good idea what was going to take place in the shoot, and the director seemed confident that I could pull my role off pretty believably. We were shooting in a popular bar that was in the area we'd grown up in, and I was supposed to be waiting for the friend to show up in the bar. To my amusement, Jason actually stepped in and took the role of the guy in the song. He told me that if this ended up being the only video that he ever did, he wanted to be in it with me. Something in the atmosphere of the shoot seemed to change at that point, and we were suddenly the focus of everyone's attention. We sat at the bar, chatting away as the camera moved around us, playing our parts of the friends catching up. I picked up my set of keys at the appropriate point in the song, following along. Jason's hand came down on top of mine, with the song, and I saw more than acting in his eyes when he looked at me. Suddenly, I was lost in the song, the music that Jason had written. There was a magic in the air, and I was caught up in it with Jason. Every word of the song seemed to permeate the air around us, and everything suddenly seemed to hinge on what was going on between us. Suddenly we were no longer characters in a video story, the characters had become us. Taking my hand, Jason led me onto the dance floor, and we started to slow dance, like we had in high school at the dances we'd been at. He pulled me close to him, locking his eyes to mine. We were staring at each other when Jason leaned down and kissed me. Gentle at first, the kiss turned hard and hungry in an instant. His tongue explored my mouth, tasting me at will. From my mouth he went to my ear lobes, nipping and kissing at them till I felt like I was going to melt into a puddle right there on the dance floor. I clung to him to remain vertical. His mouth returned to mine, and his kisses were making me lightheaded. "CUT!" I heard the director say, but neither one of us pulled away from each other. We stood there kissing for what seemed like another 10 minutes, until we heard someone clearing their throat behind us. We pulled away, and the director seemed pleased with the way the video was taking shape up to that point. The next scenes were being filmed elsewhere, so we had to leave the bar. Never letting go of my hand, Jason and I left and loaded up for the ride to the next scene.