Let me preface this tale by stating unequivocally that I am *not* an actress, nor for that matter have I ever held any particularly strong aspirations toward becoming one. Learning lines is a tedious and torturous exercise comparable only to last minute panicked exam revision, while actually acting in front of an audience tends to offer all the enjoyment and thrill of a particularly intense and violent stress migraine. Plus the whole 'acting' thing requires a degree of actual skill and talent which, if I'm honest, seems to largely elude me. (This may all be simple false modesty. In one early school production I was reviewed as 'adequately portrays the character...' High praise indeed, I'm sure you'll agree.)
However, University is nothing if not a time for experimentation and pushing one's boundaries so, being the arty, creative and largely unbearable type, I signed up to various performing societies. The less that is said about my so-called 'Dramatic' performances the better, as I quickly realised my forte was very much crafting the words rather than delivering them.
My favourite of these groups was simultaneously the most ridiculous and amongst the most pretentiously middle class pursuits I've ever embarked upon - a sketch comedy collective.
Yes, I know. I can *hear* the cringing already.
In my defence - and taking it as read that we were young idiots who didn't know better - we were a lot less shit than we could have been. We were at the very least self aware of how pretentious and awful Student Sketch Comedy could be, and did our very best to avoid it.
To protect the innocent, I won't use the real name of our group in case there's any trace of us remaining on the internet, so will instead only refer to us by the name I suggested but which was cruelly overlooked - The Soggy Biscotti.
I joined principally as part of the production team, chiefly with an eye to editing sketches and making them be less shit. This would often result in me simply writing them from scratch and instead making them differently shit in a whole new and exciting fashion.
I'd also - infrequently - perform too. I preferred not to wherever possible, but sometimes there'd be a sketch which I knew I could nail or, more commonly, which I was *told* I was the right fit for. I'd sometimes argue the toss, but usually would end up performing and to my own surprise enjoying it.
But enough preamble. I'm sure the comings and goings of my University social life aren't what brought you to this post so, fear not, I'll now skip to where it gets (relatively) interesting.
The Soggy Biscotti's big show for the year featured a running gag series of sketches written by me about a couple who couldn't keep their hands off each other. It was intended as something of a lampooning of the unbearable 'new relationship' constant fawning over a partner of which I'm sure we've all had to witness friends enact. Naturally this was taken to an absurd extreme in that our two characters - Roger and Virginia - would spontaneously engage in lewd sexual acts in inappropriate situations, entirely unable to resist.
Yes, it was somewhat semi-autobiographical.
Essentially these two characters would keep popping up (pun somewhat intended) throughout the show, including Python style in other unrelated sketches, fucking each other. Honestly, it was funnier that it sounds.
I'd written the sketches very much with two members of the group in mind to play the roles. However, to my surprise the director informed me in no uncertain terms that in fact *I* should play Virginia. Partially because he felt it would be unfair for him to subject some other poor soul through the ridiculous sketches I'd written, but mostly because;
"You and Dave are the only combination anyone would probably want to imagine having sex."
I chose to take that as a compliment.
Dave was handsome leading man material. Not that sketch groups have a leading man, but in the sense that he was so phenomenally enjoyable to look at he was always placed front and centre of the posters. It was no secret that everyone very much fancied Dave. Several newcomers had joined the group purely hoping to catch his eye, only to leave as soon as they discovered he had a girlfriend and apparently no interest in being swayed.
As such I had mixed feelings about now being informed I was to have repeated simulated sex scenes with him. So near to your heart's desire and yet so far. It was the ultimate cruelty.
Rehearsing such scenes is as unbearably awkward as you'd probably imagine. Performing 'comedy' simulated sex in front of a responsive and laughing audience is one thing - there's actual gratification there, albeit in a way that very much confuses the brain! - but in a cold rehearsal room with only friends present who all know the gags and don't find them funny, it's truly agonising and, let me assure you, not *remotely* arousing, regardless how attractive the man pretending to fuck you from behind may be.
Mercifully, we both were able to lean into the awkwardness and find it funny. Had we not, I genuinely believe the sketches would have cut, or we'd never have been able to look each other in the eye again.
But then came the performances. And a live audience really does change everything.
I'll not bore you with the full details of the sketches, but suffice to say the show included more half a dozen appearances of the pair of us simulating increasingly graphic sexual acts including me wanking him off under a towel, him enthusiastically grasping and moulding my tits while I attempted pottery, me riding him on a surfboard, him fucking me from behind in several increasingly absurd circumstances and, my personal favourite, a scene in which I'm on my knees in front of him pretending to give him a blowjob while he enthusiastically tells me how excited he is for me to meet his parents. They then arrive and I leap up to stand politely beside him. As he introduced me I smile and say hello, allowing the yogurt I've been holding in my mouth the entire time to spill down me...
High brow stuff, as you can tell.
The first performance went without a hitch. First night's are mostly relief that you're getting laughs and assurance that the sketches work. Plus everyone is far too nervous to allow rogue thoughts to slip in. Plus you need all your wits about you for the momentous piss-up that ensues.
But then the second night follows. Everyone is far more relaxed. You know the show works. You're now less anxiety ridden than you'll not remember what your supposed to say. You can actually *enjoy* yourself.
Which is precisely what started to happen.
I first noticed it during the handjob sketch. I simulate wanking him off so all an audience sees is my hand action bobbing up and down beneath a towel. To avoid awkwardness I'd always done this slightly higher on his torso than was anatomically accurate so that I wasn't simply pummelling his cock. But as I was going through the motions I felt my hand brush against something. I was delivering lines at the time so didn't have time to really process what it might have been, so I thought nothing more of it.
Actually, that's not true. I idly wondered in between sketches if I'd accidentally grazed his cock, but tried very hard *not* to think about it.
Next came the pottery sketch in which he sits behind me 'Ghost' style and feels up my tits while I fashion something phallic out of clay. (High brow, remember?) Now during rehearsals he'd been a little tentative about this scene given that it involved the actual manhandling of a tactile piece of my anatomy, but I'd told him that the more he went for it the funnier it would look.
And I was right. It got big laughs.
But, entirely unexpectedly, it also got big nips.
There he was, grabbing and groping and squeezing my tits and - hello - suddenly my nipples decide to join in despite not once having shown the slightest inclination to get involved during any part of the rehearsal process. But now, with his hands firmly around them, there was no way he could possibly not notice.