As I turn the corner, I look quickly around to be sure no one is there. A sigh of relief escapes me, as I take in the empty parking lot; the dark windows beside the stage door.
I pull into my usual spot. Turning I smile at you. "I know it doesn't seem like much, but you said you wanted to see my world."
Leaning over, I kiss you lightly, pulling my keys from the ignition. I open the door, swinging my legs out, as you slide out your side of the car.
"So this is where you spend all your time?" you say eyeing the side door.
"I never said it was impressive." I fumble with my keys finally getting the right one and swinging the door open. "Come on."
You follow me into the dark, the door slamming shut behind us. The lock falls into place with a click. Rounding the corner, I see the faint glow of the ghost light sitting center stage. Opening the circuit box, I flip the breaker that turns on the house lights. A soft glow comes on over the seating. Smiling I take your hand and lead you to the front row.
"Have a seat hon."
"I thought I was going to get the grand tour." you say looking up at me with a twinkle in your eye.
"Nah, there isn't anything that grand to tour in this little black box." Stepping up onto the stage, I turn off the ghost light and tuck it behind one of the legs.
"You going to put on a show for me?" you ask.
"Mmmm. Not yet."
I walk up the isle that runs to the left of the seating, crossing at the top a little walk way that spans from the seating to the booth.
Sitting down in my usual place, I turn on the light and sound boards. Slipping in a CD, I bring the sound up slowly. Just as I hear the soft smooth sound of jazz, I stop, not wanting to over power the room with the slow sexy notes.
Turning to the lights, I reset the black out button. Slowly I start picking out channels and bringing them up. I start with the dark orange wash. As soon as the walls start to pick up the warmth I stop. Just wanting it to be a subtle fill, I bring up a couple front lights. They are jelled even a darker red. Their warmth hardly touches the set, but when you move through them the shadows cast will add to the heat of the room.
As I work, the set slowly is exposed. The outline of a bed starts to show. Other bedroom furniture fills the space. A dresser. A chair. Deep and shadowed. Still dark. A person walking through that light would still just be a shadow. You couldn't make out their face, let alone any expression.
I add a hint of amber overhead. Just enough to warm anything that crosses the stage. Enough to see people moving across the stage, even if the detail is blurred.
I reach over, flipping a switch. Slowly a shadow moves across the stage. You look up. A ceiling fan center stage turns slowly. Lazily. The amber lights catch the motion. The heat of the day is palpable. The cool air pumped into the space by the theater's air conditioning unit can hardley be felt in the face of the heat on stage.
My fingers go to the last two channels I want to bring up. I don't hesitate bringing the hot yellow light to full. Suddenly light floods through the slats on the shuddered windows. White hot strips of light, cross the bed, Casting hot ribbons of light and shadow across the scene.
I stand up, looking down on the stage, remembering the moment, those lights were built to capture. My breath catches, knowing soon enough I will be sharing my own version with you.
Slipping down the back stairs, I walk around to the stage. Slowly opening the door I step into the room, feeling the heat of the day press down on me.
Peering out into the house, I can't make you out. Even the front row is obscured by the lights.
"Aren't these lights wonderful? Can you feel the heat of a New Orleans' summer afternoon? No air conditioning. The fan, just moving the hot humid air, providing little relief."
"You describe that well."
Laughing nervously, a little embarrassed. "I should, it's described in the show."
"Oh, is it?"
I nod, and sit down on the bed. I smile in the direction of your voice. "This is one of the ..." I pause, not wanting to just tell you what the scene is.
Biting my lip, I run my hand across the bed. "The main character, comes in and sits down. The hot afternoon reminding her of days long gone; of a lover, who on afternoons like this, would come to her, not being able to work in the heat any more. Hot and sweaty. Getting home before anyone else. And how he would say he needed a nap, and coax her from her chores and up to his room. She remembers how it felt with the hot still air, that seemed to fight the fan blades ..."
As I talk, my hand moves along my leg. The heat of the lights beating down on my skin. My fingers catch the edge of my skirt, pulling it higher. My breathing changes as I talk. My legs part slightly. My skirt riding up further as my hand slides along my thigh. At some point I quit talking, lost in the moment. My fingers brush against the black lace of my panties.
Sighing, I come back to myself and look up. Knowing you can see me, but that much is shadowed. Leaving it mysterious, making you wonder how far I am going. As it was on the set that day. Was she just talking or was she taking herself back to those moments.
You can not see the blush that has crept into my face.
I find my voice. "It is a very sexually charged scene"
"I can imagine." Is surprises me, how close you sound.
"The first day we worked it in tech, adding the lights, the sound. It was amazing. I had heard the monologue before that of course, but suddenly with the lights, with that fan slowly turning. Her deep dusky voice talking of her love, of making love, covered in sweat. I found myself touching myself. Sitting there up in the booth, no one else around, as we went over it, tweaking it, over and over."
I move my panties to the side. My breathing growing deeper. My finger rubbing harder against me. "At that moment, I imagined what it would be like to be under those lights, to feel the heat of that moment, to forget the fact that it is a stage. Wanting to be there, but not as a memory. Wanting to make it a memory."
I gasp softly as my finger slips into me for the first time. The same as it did that day I sat up there by myself. Adjusting the lighting channels, fiddling with the music, waiting to move on, and hoping we weren't ready to yet.
"I imagined up there in the booth, what those strips of light would feel like on my skin."
Standing, my hands go to the buttons on my blouse. Slowly I start to unfasten them. My hips rocking slowly to the music. "I wanted to know what it would feel like to stand in that light. If I would feel like she did. If I would feel that moment. If I would be as she was, beautiful and mysterious."
I let my shirt slide down my arms onto the floor. My hand moving down to unfastening my skirt, letting it fall to the floor.
"I wondered if I would feel the heat in stripes against me. I wondered if I would feel the breeze from the fan."
I know the lights pick up the contrast between the black lace and my pale skin. My hand running lightly down across my skin, feeling the light beads of perspiration.
Sitting back down, my legs spread naturally over the downstage corner of the bed as I look past you into the blackness of the audience.
"She loved him. Loved him so much that she did things that you just didn't do. This man who wasn't her husband, who had no right to touch her, made her feel things in this heat. Took her places she didn't even dare imagine."
As I talk, my hand moves my panties aside, my fingers shadowed but not so much to hide them sliding into me. A soft groan escapes me.
"She sits here, thinking of the forbidden pleasures she remembered so well. Of the man who captures her soul, despite her obligations. A passion so strong that it overcomes her reason."
I keep reciting bits of the monologue that I can remember. My hand moving faster, my legs spread wide. One hand roams up and grasp my breast squeezing. My motions becoming faster, more frantic as I explain her lover to you. As I talk about her guilt when he is gone, how she remembers promising herself it will never happen again, and yet how when he walks through that door, she can't make herself stay at her ironing, or cooking, or cleaning. How she is drawn up those stairs to him.
No longer able to speak, my fingers quickly moving in and out of me, my back arching. My body tenses. Both the heat inside and outside of me, creating the beads of sweat that roll across my skin.
I cry out, as my body gives way. The only sounds I hear, are those of my own passion. You sitting there watching me, forgotten in the moment.
My breath catches. Slowly I come back to where I am, returning to someone else's words. "Even after he left, and was no longer in her life. The heat of a summer day, was enough to bring him back. The passion lingering in his room long after he was gone. She would find herself sometimes, sitting alone in that room. The fan turning. The windows open but the shudders closed against the hot sun. She would sit and remember the heat and passion, and sometimes for a moment relive it, before returning to her life, in which he never existed."
