My Best Friend's Nude Scene

When I went home after the first show, I was ready to drop into bed and never wake up. Between the show itself, the hour I spent hanging out with the students afterwards, and of course, my physical exertion with Liz, I spent all of my energy. A few drinks during our after-show dinner didn't help wake me up. But when I walked through the door, Emily decided she wasn't going to let me get to sleep. The real surprise was that she didn't want to fight.

She kissed me several times. I backed away with alarm, which made her angry, but she grabbed my shoulders and held me in place while she kissed me again. I moved my lips away from hers, but I didn't put up a real fight. I was used to kissing her, so even though it felt wrong, it also felt normal at the same time and I couldn't make sense of those conflicting feelings.

"What? You don't want to be with me?"

"I'm not... you know how things are complicated right now..."

"I'm not trying to talk to you about fucking around on me..."

"Emily--"

"Shut-up. Come here..."

She kissed me again, but I pulled away. I was trying to look her in the eye, but even before I could see her in better lighting, I could taste the liquor on her breath. She wasn't drunk, at least she didn't show the usual compromise in balance that hinted she was drunk. Her kissing me was strange, though, to say the least.

"Don't--come on, don't. This isn't going to fix anything between us. Just wait until Sun--"

Her hand cupped my groin and she pressed roughly, feeling that I was hard. She deserved some credit for that, but I had been hard since Liz first took the stage. When she kissed me again, her tongue tapped against my teeth. She didn't usually kiss me like that.

"I don't want to fix anything," she told me quietly. "I'm not trying to win you back. We'll figure out where we stand... Sunday... like you said. Right now, I'm horny."

"Emily--"

"I want to fuck you. Can't you at least do that for me?"

"I don't think I should."

That was an understatement. Emily wasn't repulsive to me. But all of a sudden, things had flipped. I felt loyalty to Liz, and being with Emily while I felt emotionally committed to Liz, while I lusted for her as much as I did, felt like betrayal. But Emily kept kissing me, notching up my sexual desire, and she wasn't gentle at all. It was like someone I didn't know was trying to have sex with me--and yet everything else about her, from her body to her taste, felt familiar.

She had my shirt off as I continued to tell her I didn't think it was a good idea.

She lowered herself and unzipped my jeans, springing my pulsing erection out into the open. I could catch a trace of her smile when I looked down, in spite of the fact it was pretty dark in our living room.

"This guy says he wants to," she said, then her mouth engulfed me. I choked on all my excuses. "Let's just let our bodies have what they want."

Emily never liked blow-jobs. She had always dealt with my dick the way people pick up garbage that's fallen out of the dumpster, and that did nothing to help my ego or make me feel like I could ask for fellatio. I loved having my dick sucked, but she wasn't into it, and when she made that clear, I stopped thinking about it.

I had no idea who was doing this to me.

When she took her mouth off and gathered her breath, Emily said, "I can taste her on you..."

"No... no..."

"Don't lie to me about it," grunted Emily, then she aggressively tongued me again before lowering her mouth on my cock.

She was crazy--at least about thinking she could detect Liz. I worried for a minute I had some taste of her left in my mouth, maybe on my face, but I had washed so good before dinner I could taste nothing but wintergreen gum even while we had our meal. I took measured breaths as she worked my dick, her teeth scraping me a few times too often.

"Don't cum," she told me, then went down on me again. When she released me, she smiled and said, "I want the whole experience..."

She pulled me into the bedroom, and I stumbled along after her. She fell to her knees and put her ass in the air, pulling back her skirt to reveal her red panties. Something I had bought her for Valentine's Day, if I remembered right--and I remembered she hated them. I covered my mouth and shook my head. My conscience and my body were in conflict yet again.

"Fuck me," she said, then hissed. That didn't sound like Emily at all, but any kind of sex anywhere but the bedroom wasn't like her either. "Please, Mike... I want to feel it. I want to feel you fucking me so hard..."

"Just... shhh... just..."

With one finger, I peeled back her panties, welcoming the sight of her ass. Her body wasn't as fantastic as Liz's, but I had always liked the results of her efforts to keep in shape. Like this, her ass looked better than I had ever seen it. I was ready to spill on her right there. My fingers brushed between her legs and I could feel her wetness. She wanted me more than any time I could remember. Emily wiggled her ass.

"Go on. Fuck me," she said.

I put a hand on her ass cheek and steadied myself with the other as I guided my pipe into her. This angle was kind of amazing with her. The tightness I felt made her almost seem like someone I didn't know. With one hand, I stroked her hair.

"Do you want to pull my hair?" she asked, quickly running out of breath. "That's good--go ahead. Do it to me. Do whatever you want. Do with me what you do with her."

"Don't bring her up again--or I'll stop," I said. I didn't want to be mean, but my conscience was having a hard enough time with my surrender.

I pumped into her a few times, but I just didn't have the stamina or the mindset to last too long. She was obviously disappointed that I was slowing and about to quit, pushing back on me like she could make up for my failure.

"Come on, you fucking prick!" she yelled at me. "Can't you at least be good at this? It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Stop it."

When she started another barrage, I tuned her out. To shut her up, I turned her to lay on her back and pushed her up on the bed, grasping her roughly at the warmth between her thighs. I worked my hand on her pussy until she was gasping for breath, much rougher than I had ever been with her before--figuring that's how she wanted it. It seemed unbelievable that, after all our time together in the bedroom, we hadn't enjoyed ourselves because

both

of us wanted more forcefulness. My wet dick rested on her thigh while I leaned over her, my fingers pumping inside her, and she squirmed under my touch.

It wasn't frequent that I made her cum, I'm embarrassed to admit, but I had learned to recognize the sound, a shrill whimper from the back of her throat and a shuddering in her legs. I kissed her forehead, just out of habit, then wished I hadn't.

I got up and tried to remember where I had left my pants--by the door. I started back to the living room. She asked where I was going and, still settling back into my regular breathing, I told her it was better if I slept on the couch. She didn't disagree with me.

That had been a stupid mistake, I told myself. As I felt the heaviness of a tired sleep coming down, I was more furious with myself, my sexual energy at last spent. She wanted to fix things between us and I gave her exactly what she wanted--some reason to think I planned on staying with her. I called myself dumb, then corrected--I was just stupid from the waist down, and letting my dick do my thinking.

Not only did she wake up before me, she was dressed to leave when I opened my eyes. For the day, I mean, which was strange, since she usually spent Saturdays at home. I saw her standing in front of the TV, studying the weather channel forecast, eating a piece of toast. When she saw I was awake, she didn't smile.

"Thanks for last night," she said, then sighed. "I'm going to go shopping with my mom today. It's a little last-minute. But I'm coming to the show tonight. Is that alright?"

I stared at her, wondering what head game she was playing. I had seen her in the audience last night, but I wasn't going to admit that and confront her. Maybe I should have, but it seemed smarter to let her play whatever strange hand she was holding. It could be that she wanted to see if I would stop her or tell her the show wasn't that interesting. I only scratched the divot under my nose and yawned. I nodded.

"See you later then," she said, turning off the TV and picking up her purse from the kitchen half-wall. "We'll talk tomorrow. Like you said. I suppose we can wait that long."

Then she was gone. If she had taken a suitcase I might have thought she was leaving for good. No. Her closet was still full of clothes--she talked about keeping to our regular schedule, including the unpleasant conversation about our relationship on Sunday. That was a bit of a disappointment. If she was leaving me, I could attribute her amorous behavior the night before to breakup sex. One last fling. Maybe it still was, but she was getting her closure early. Probably too much to hope.

I called Liz when I was confident Emily wouldn't be back for a while. It was maybe one of the most insensitive things I could have done, inviting the girl I had feelings for over to our apartment while my girlfriend was out. But she wasn't home, so I left a message on her machine.

After kicking around the apartment for most of the day, too anxious to do much of anything else, I went down to the theater and met up with the students in the show. Liz was there, and she smiled at me. Talking to her was difficult, seeing as she had a circle of adoring students, mostly guys, who wanted to talk to her about the show the night before. Albert stood on the fringe of that group, talking with a short girl I had seen him chatting up before. A few students asked me questions about my scene or wanted to talk about theirs, so I passed the time that way. With about 20 minutes before the box office opened, Jill wanted to run lines with me again, so we went to the men's dressing room and did a speed recital of the dialogue. I'm not sure her confidence was really in any danger. She seemed to be happy to share a private space with me.

"Do you think our scene was sexy enough?"

I gave her a surprised expression and then an uncertain affirmative. "It's sexy enough. It's not really supposed to be... anything more..."

"Maybe you should grab my ass during the kiss."

I almost rolled my eyes. A guy like me is not used to having one woman interested in him and here I was dealing with three. As nice as it usually might have been for my ego, I was overtaxed as it was.

"We're doing what we need to for the scene."

"It's not as exciting as Miss Sachs's and Albert's."

"Well, it's working on a different level. Not every scene should be the same--theirs is pretty out there. I don't want to change ours right before we do it the last time."

"I'm just saying we could do something more exciting."

"Why? Do you want to do it naked?" That left her stunned, and more than a little terrified that I was serious. I smiled and said, "You're doing a great job. I think I'm keeping up with you. People are enjoying are scene--and it is exactly what it's supposed to. Liz and Albert are getting a bigger response because they're doing something a lot more outrageous. We didn't choose an outrageous scene. Don't gauge your success by the noise made while you're on the stage. We're not musicians. Sometimes you're leaving someone with a real emotion they will hang onto and remember--and they won't ever tell you. Just... you know. Trust in what we're doing."

Although Jill thanked me for what I said, I'm not sure I got through to her at all. She wanted to run through the scene again, though we were probably about to get swarmed with everyone coming to the dressing room to get ready for the show. I told her I would run through it one more time with her as soon as I got back from my office. I left, taking the stage crew door into the shop so I could avoid both the crowd and my castmates.

My destination wasn't the office I shared, though, but one of the classrooms. I stepped inside and thought about sitting in the dark, but turned the light on since it wasn't likely anyone would even come down this hall. Even passing out of the shop I could hear what sounded like an unruly mob in the lobby of the theater. That wasn't a great surprise; nobody had been interested in our show yesterday, but no doubt word had gotten around about the grad student who appeared stark naked on stage. Fully nude? Even guys who didn't believe it probably figured they would spare a couple of hours to check it out for themselves. I bet we sold out the theater faster than any show before.

I sat on the floor and tried to rid myself of all my thoughts, to find some moment of Zen or something. Tomorrow would be the day of the dreaded conversation with Emily, letting her know I wanted to end things. I checked my feelings again, just to make sure that's what I wanted. I didn't have any doubts. I told myself that things might not work out with Liz, that we would find ourselves surprisingly incompatible when we started spending time together, maybe even shared a living space. It was a real consideration, and there was a good chance that would happen. It didn't change my mind about Emily, though. My feelings for Liz only exposed my doubts about Emily, but they had always been there. I still loved her, but I thought she needed something I wasn't giving her.

I thought I heard the door open behind me, but I didn't bother looking. If someone was looking for me, maybe they would see me looking exceptionally meditative and leave me be. But they didn't and it turned out I didn't mind.

A pair of arms wrapped around me and squeezed me tightly. The fact she cupped a hand around the bulge in my jeans told me it was Liz. Her tongue rode along the ridge of my ear, then she kissed my cheek.

"Hey," I said.

"I can't believe all the people who came to see the show tonight," she said, and she shuddered. "Is it egotistical to think this turnout is because of me?"

"I don't know. But it's definitely accurate."

"Jesus. I don't think I can do this again."

"Going back to the old roles?"

There was a moment of hesitation. Her hand patted my crotch, just hard enough to make me wonder if she was mimicking a spanking. "Would you like that better? Does it bother you... all those guys seeing me nude?"

"Girls, too," I said, then took a breath. She hugged me tighter. "It's funnier the way you did it last night. That's all that matters."

"Does that you mean you are or aren't jealous?"

I thought about it, then said, "Maybe I am jealous. It probably makes me feel weird... all of these students out there, seeing your bare body like that. Like I want to hide you. But it's your body, honey. I don't mean that obnoxiously. I just mean... it's yours, not mine. I'm lucky you let me have as much fun with it as I do..."

"I'm the one who's lucky. I've never cum so hard in my life as last night... most guys don't do that for me."

I clasped the back of her hand as it hung on my shoulder. "If you get something out of being seen like that... I can deal with feeling jealous. I can't pretend it isn't exciting."

"Maybe I didn't think it through--if I do it again tonight, the faculty might make it hard to keep going to school here. I might be done teaching."

I swallowed as I thought about it, then shrugged. "Liz, that DVD already exists out there... you've been living in fear of it a long time. Maybe you get some dirty thrills from the boys seeing you naked like that... or maybe it's your way to taking ownership of that secret you've been hiding--figuring if you expose yourself to the world no one can hold that over you. Or maybe it's a little of both."

"It might be a bit of both."

"Then you do whatever you have to. If it makes you feel good. You feel good out there?"

"Terrified. And like I might throw up. But yeah... kind of good."

"Then do it again," I said, and she kissed my cheekbone. "Let us worry about the consequences tomorrow."

All she said was she thought I was right. I may have been telling her what she wanted to hear. But then, maybe she was only asking me to find out if I would say the right thing or the wrongest possible thing. Maybe the two of us were more compatible than I thought. I didn't have to say something I didn't mean.

The show went on again. This audience was unrulier and less respectful than the one last night, and I could only imagine a number of them were coming out for a freak show rather than theater. Maybe, I thought with too much optimism, they'll actually listen to the first few scenes and learn to show some appreciation. I doubt that happened. Some of our less confident students turned in weaker performances when the audience proved more talkative or quicker to laugh at things that weren't supposed to be funny. A few of the performers got looser, louder, overplaying their parts--like Jill, I suppose, they wanted to be more dynamic. It would have been better for all of us if we had spent more time rehearsing with Liz doing her thing. Her scene was better than before, but tonight, all of ours were suffering a bit for it.

During my scene with Jill, I tried to keep my head in character, but even I was a bit louder and just a little off. When we kissed, Jill managed to edge my hand down to her ass, which provoked a laugh--one that we really shouldn't have had. For all of the air, though, our scene went over well--louder applause than we had on the first night--and we probably ended up picking up the whole show when it needed a boost.

It's natural in a show like this for everyone to get bored with everyone else's scene. Not really a sign of competitiveness or a lack of support; we just sit through the same scenes so many times during rehearsals that we've seen it performed a dozen different ways. That wasn't the case with Liz and Albert's scene. All of us who had watched it the night before were happy to watch it again from the deck. That's when I got a look at the crowd--the term "standing room only" had never seemed so literal. All of the seats below were filled. I was surprised they didn't open up the deck for all of the additional people that wanted tickets, but the faculty managers of the theater could be quite resistant to change when it wasn't discussed exhaustively in a meeting.

Albert stepped onto the stage after the lights went up, miming the opening of the door. As soon as the audience heard the shower in the background, they started losing it. As much electricity as had been in the air the night before, this was like an aquarium full of electric eels. It felt dangerous. Like we were doing a concert for bikers. These people were here for the wrong reason. I started to think I should have told Liz not to do it nude again--would a bathing suit really be that much worse? Maybe we didn't want this much outrageousness in the theater at once.

The moment Liz stepped out onto the stage, dripping wet and with her hands locked to hide her parts, I could imagine what it felt like to be in a Roman coliseum. The noise was unbelievable. She had not even done anything and they were roaring. Laughing, whistling, cat-calling, and the sound of their approval, almost all in baritone voices, was intimidating. She looked so scared I thought it had to be the fault of the gargantuan crowd and their riot mentality. She had to repeat lines--the first "Sorry" probably went on about 14 times, then she just stopped saying it until she snapped it again during a quieter moment. Albert took the cue and just kept rolling with the lines. Nobody could hear them. There were even moments when Albert didn't notice she had said her line and she had to repeat it for him. If anyone was almost as worried as Liz, it was her scene partner.