Call me Ismale.
Delores's off-off Broadway play "A Rose" had not fared well; tonight's performance, the sixth, would be its farewell. Before we rested on the seventh day, our young cast cast caution windward and costumes skinward. Our actors' bodies, fined-tuned though faux-tanned, are our instruments, and we wished to unwind all stops. Delores's lackluster drama bored all as we all trod the boards, and we wished our appearance to be lauded and applauded despite the troubling wordplay tripping on our tongues.
Venus, our mourning star, a thirty-year old veteran of off-Broadway disasteroids, argued "Nothing divested, nothing gained." Cometose no longer, she would not blaze and fade without fazing someone's blade. She prepared to pare to the bare, and encouraged her entourage to act naturel.
Lithesome Lesley, rail-thin with thinly-veiled hunted eyes, announced "I'm game."
Tall, taciturn and tailored Durwood would endure whatever the others would do, after he wetted his vessel with rum, rum, rum, you dolt.
Vestal Virginia gasped, gaped, gulped, and swallowed. The thought of our youngest, prettiest, ambitiousest removing her clothes simply left Virginia cold and dimply. And besides, wouldn't an audience have paid extra to glimpse her pudenda? "How do I benefit by being seen a bit?" Virginia unburdened.
Venus left Virginia reeling, and stared her gazers at me. "Choose: clothes - shoes or close showing? Nude tonight or not all right?" Venus demanded.
Since Virginia's decision depended on my decisiveness, and not wanting to scare her from the skin arena, I proposed a missionary position. "Let's start with clothes, but close as stars, free as the breezes should the moment seize us. No pressure to undress us; just bless us, pray no mess ups. We'll engage the audience bit-by-tit; they will gauge our tawdriness slit-by-clit."
We agreed like musketeers -- our costumes would be off for once and none for awe. We grasped hands with happy glances, our mind's eye spying our nice alliances. No one told Delores before this; her words were her bond, imprisoning her reason where performance was important.
The audience was a critical mass, though not enough to keep the show afloat. Barely sixty customers waited warily, unaware of the coming sexy bare legs.
The curtain rose, the play flows. Who knows whither the clothes goes? "A Rose" is arose for the rows.
Everyone entered stage right, but left barefoot. We padded on the pads of our peds, mindful of splinters and toe nails. When first I had seen her, Virginia's delicate ankles delightedly rankled my calm demeanor. Venus's flat feet slapped happily, while Lesley's great gams glided gamely. Durwood planted his plantars firmly, so swilled he could not be swayed. My own toes chose to wiggle their piggles to mark it.
The ex-costuming was casually character-driven; by the intermission, everyone still wore most of their costumes except the scarves and coats, and belts and shawls, and sweaters and aprons. We were down to blouses, shirts, pants and skirts. The blinding spotlights made Virginia's thin blouse look transparent to the naked eye, and the naked I wished to transport blond Virginia to some bland light spot.
Venus rallied us with a pep talk between act's scenes, tallying our cloth losses with obscene facts. "What ho, Ambition! they'll see our stern, or stuff we're made of. Friends, Roam hands, Cuntrymen: Lend me your rears! Are we mice or are we mounds? Flesh or fowl? Super salacious?"
"Play on, MacBuff!" we exhorted.
Venus arising in the second act downstage, her back to the audience, with teddy top and bottom less. She bounded, showing herself sweetly bubble-bottomed, as though a good prick might do her all in. Her legs began in the pink, her knees dimpled daintily. The length of her thigh enthralled the slavering crowd. She acted nonchalant, though goosebumps migrated to her flying V. She turned sideways to the stage, no more, keeping her proud bearing rolling, rolling down the writer. A profile in sewerage.
Next Durwood wandered clownly as a lout onto the stage without a stitch. Full frontally declaiming, he seemed oblivious that between his legs, his flap-doodle noodle slapped side to thighs. A harry rotter, Durwood's length outstripped his hairinest. Not to put too fine a point on it, his pencil sharpened narrowly. He didn't seem to mind its girthless heft, because it made up in bounciness what in lacked in bulkiness. He conducted himself heedless of the salient baton keeping time to a silent tango.