No. I had no reason to complain. Things were going amazingly well. That last soliloquy remained to be written and that would determine the final, overall cast of the play, but that was all. I was stubbornly holding onto that, having some ambiguous feelings about my characters, or maybe I just liked making everyone nervous.
The play was quite simply a phenomenon. Grehen and Bud Carlton had called in some favors and used their connections to make sure that certain critics came from Chicago and LA just to have a special dinner at Seymour's and sample his cheeky Michigan wine, and that started everyone talking. That's when college drama was a hot topic, and I didn't even have to get involved. That was all it took. Mars Rattley came out from Hollywood and despite the secrecy, people found out he was interested and that blew the lid off. Rehearsals had to be forcibly closed and campus security sent over two rent-a-cops to oust the crowds of people who'd taken to attending. They even closed down a mini-scalper business that had sprung up selling center aisle seats to the rehearsals.
Things kept on getting better between Lexi and me. The passion in our affair was at an all-time high, and for all intents and purposes, she'd pretty much moved in with me. We were something of an open secret on campus now, and everyone looked the other way simply because the play was such an impossible success that it granted me a kind of general dispensation or temporary deityhood. Alums would stop by, Dane Tipton, the college President would smile benevolently at us, I could do no wrong.
Even so, I worried. I worried about success, and I worried about what I still felt was my tenuous hold on Lexi. Yes, she loved me. She said it time and again. She gave me whatever I wanted sexually, except for submission. That she said she couldn't do because she didn't have it in her. She wasn't that way and you can't give something you don't have.
And I wondered myself. Just what was it I wanted from her? I didn't need for her to wear a leash and collar or lick my boots. I didn't want her to call me "Master" or kneel when I came into the room.
What I wanted was to know that she'd be
willing
to do that for me. What I wanted was a visible manifestation of all those "I adore you's" and "I've never loved anyone the way I love you's". I wanted to know that she loved me enough to put herself in my hands, to cede control to me. I admit it—I'm twisted, I'm warped. That kind of thing is important to me. It speaks to me of trust and love and deep devotion. She claimed she couldn't give that to me because it didn't speak to her in the same way it did to me. Fine. I could respect that if it were true. But since that time she pushed my hand away, her claim that she couldn't give that kind of love to me was starting to seem more like she wouldn't give it. It felt like a choice she made, maybe not consciously, but a choice nonetheless. She was denying me.
But then, I was aware too that I never came out and demanded that kind of obedience from her. I never demanded that she give me control over her. I couldn't. Were I to demand it and she were to refuse, that would be it. I'd lose her, I'd lose everything. I'd find out how little power I actually did have over her, over everything.
A master doesn't really master anyone. Other people surrender to him. If they withhold that surrender, he's nothing. What can he do? Threaten them? Leave them? We exist because of the grace other people grant us.
* * * * *
Well fed, well fucked, full of success and with things going amazingly well, I began to look around for things I could destroy, ruin, and fuck-up. That's what I do. That's how I operate. It's what happens. I began to pick at the relationship.
I started with jealousy over Grehen, logically enough. Lexi was taken with him. I started attending rehearsals to see what the story was. I thought I'd make him nervous—he was, after all, directing my play, the play I'd written, the play whose meaning I knew and he didn't.
The first day I attended, he stared at me for a while, then came over.
"Ah, so you're going to stay then, Russell?" He spoke American well. I had to remind myself that he was acting, putting on an American accent. His Irish was still recognizable beneath it if you listened. "That's fine, that's fine. I'll be interested to hear what you think,
after
wards." There was the slightest emphasis on this last word.
"I have one thing to ask you, though. Here in the theater, I'm in charge. I'm the play, so to speak. So please—no second guessing. No suggestions, no objections, no deep sighs or penetrating stares. The play is out of your hands now and God knows you've done a marvelous job, a staggering piece of writing, man. But now your plays given over to the actors and you're a spectator. It's the only way we can work, if you see what I mean. I hope you're okay with that, now."
He had piercing green eyes, totally free of guile, as cool and compelling as pools of glacial melt. He was a very handsome man, very well put together. There was a sense of order about him. You could tell he'd always lived in clean and orderly spaces.
"Of course, Cormac," I said. "I only want to observe."
"Fine then. That's fine. I suggest you go with April then. She can help you get settled and explain what we're up to. April, why don't you take Russell up to the good seats?"
I knew April—April Louterbeck. She was in my fiction class, a very attractive, lissome blonde who did everything in her power to look decadent and bohemian, including having her nostril and lower lip pierced, but despite the black teeshirt and oversized cardigan against the chill of the theater, she still looked fresh and starkly innocent, with straight blonde hair that framed an elfin face with intelligent blue eyes, a swanlike neck, and flawless skin that reminded me of rose petals. She appeared to be another one of Cormac's protégés, of whom there seemed to be an army, all of them with stopwatches and clipboards. I liked her from class though, and liked the way she always seemed to be shyly flirting with me.
She smiled conspiratorially to me now and led me back about ten rows to a seat on the aisle and we chatted while Cormac worked with the crew over some lighting cues. They had a new head electrician that day and he wanted to get things right.
"I'm so glad you finally came down here." She turned in her chair, framing her tits in her arms. As I say, she was always boyishly flirty toward me and I found it charming, possibly because she wasn't all that good at it and I felt I could handle it easily enough.
"The rehearsals are going well?"
"Well it's brilliant, It just really is, Russell." I made my students call me by my first name. I know it's corny, but Mr, Backuss is worse. "Reading it is one thing, but seeing it performed and watching Cormac work out the parts is just so incredible. You realize how much depth there is and how many ways there are to play it. It's like a ballet, a mystery, and they're not even trying yet! The actors aren't really even putting themselves into it yet. Mr. Carlton really made the right decision in getting Cormac, he really did. He's just awesome! This is a whole education right here and the play was just made for him, he has such insight into these characters."
I nodded. I hadn't realized there were "so many ways to play it". To me there was just one way, the way I'd written it, with Max being exploited by a scheming, conniving Allison who destroys his true love with Jessica.
But April seemed very much taken with Grehen too. In fact, they all were, and watching him work I soon saw why. The man was very good at what he did, highly professional and thoroughly experienced, clever and creative on the fly and very adept at drafting people into working with him and getting them on his side. He was an expert manager, a people handler, delegating responsibility and making others believe he trusted them. He was, in a word, slick—eminently slick.
