Unrehearsed

I hovered in the wings, listening to Emma and Louis shouting at each other in character on stage. They were supposed to be shouting at each other in a flashback sequence, when their characters were young and had an affair. It was one of the trickiest scenes in the play, and I'd heard this argument dozens of times, so I was pretty well familiar with it.

Louis played the love interest of my character. Almost 30, Louis was about ten years older than I was. We, along with about ten other amateur actors in town, had been cast in the latest original play by Andrew Wilkinson, a locally renowned avant-garde playwright. He was known for his gritty and creative plays that usually featured gay or queer characters. The present play was titled, "The Waste Land," drawing on themes from the Eliot poem.

Rehearsing opposite Louis had been fun. He was tall and roguishly handsome, with scruffy hair and a charmingly boyish way of speaking in a Brooklyn-like accent. Under normal circumstances I'd probably have nursed a crush, but I always tried my best to keep things strictly professional; this early in my acting journey, I couldn't afford to keep my eye off the ball. Besides, he was straight. His girlfriend, Gwen, a beautiful if slightly anxious young woman, had shown up to many of the rehearsals and was in the audience tonight to support him.

I listened to Louis and Emma continue to berate each other on stage as the lights changed color in a trippy dream sequence. The scene coming up after this one the one part of the play that we'd rehearsed minimally. It was a sex scene between Louis' character and mine. Wilkinson said he didn't want to ruin the natural grit and vitality of the scene by fully rehearsing it. Rather, we'd play it by feel in the moment. Wilkinson liked to push boundaries with fairly adult content, but of course the plan was to simulate the actual sex acts and use creative blocking to make it look as realistic as possible. The scene was designed to be a landmark in the play, a watershed moment that would draw audience members into the story with eros and rawness and make them feel as if they were actually in the moment. It wasn't even tightly scripted, relying instead on a heavy degree of improvisation.

The lights dimmed as Emma's scene with Louis finished. The audience of about a hundred clapped as they walked off-stage.

As the lights went out and I walked onto stage in character, I could feel a stirring in the audience. Everyone always said it was electric performing in Andrew Wilkinson's plays; something about the intense creative process and raw emotion always seemed to bring people together.

The set for the scene was bare except for a bed in the middle of the stage, with a colorful bedside table and lamp. I was supposed to start the scene sitting on the bed, facing away from the audience, waiting for Louis to enter stage left. My character, Miles, was supposed to be meeting Louis' character, Sam, for the first time.

I sat down on the bed facing upstage, and waited for the lights to come up. I took a deep breath and tried to fully inhabit my character. It was all about feeling and tension and the myriad nuances of relationships and intimacy.

The stage lights came up. Facing away from them, I couldn't see the audience in the small black box theater, but I could sense them there.

My character was a gentle preppie from the suburbs, nervous and confused as he meets the enigmatic Sam for the first time. In truth, he was anxious about his place in the world and what it would mean to be an out gay man.

As Louis entered from stage left, I could see him in the corner of my eye, silhouetted in the entrance. I turned, not in the direction of the audience, but trying to keep my attention on Louis.

The first few seconds of the scene were silent, and I shifted my weight onto my left leg, the one that was more dominant. I felt I had to communicate a tension, a wariness. I wanted to convey that Miles was nervous, but still wanted to keep the peace. I took a deep breath and said, "Hello, Sam. I'm Miles. From the internet? We've never met. Uh, you know that."

I paused for a second, thinking things through. My character was supposed to be slightly awkward and a bit passive, but confident. I stood and said, "I have to admit I had a drink or two before getting to the motel. A little nervous. Sorry."

I walked over to stand in front of Louis and scratched my forehead.

Louis chuckled softly, his voice low and smooth. He stepped closer to me, his hand outstretched. "It's okay, Miles," he said, his voice warm and gentle. "No need for apologies."

I paced back and forth for a moment, showing my character as nervous. In truth, I was a little nervous too. I had kissed on stage, of course, but had never done a whole sex scene.

"Do you play any instruments? You look kind of like a band guy. You play guitar, I guess?"

Louis' character shrugged. "Was. Guitar."

I tried to convey my character's confusion. "Why'd you leave? It's not what you wanted?"

"Guess I got tired of guitar-playing," Louis said, his voice low and smooth, "and decided to go to art school."

I looked up at Louis, the lights casting shadows over his face, and he smiled down at me. He was close, and I could feel the heat radiating off of him.

"I'm going to my parents tonight," Louis said, staring at me. He took a step closer to me.

"You should go," I said, trying to sound awkward, but still trying to keep things light.

Louis took another step closer and I felt his breath blow towards me. "I don't want to."

"You should go," I said again, trying not to raise my voice.

Louis took a step towards me and suddenly I felt his breath on my face. I swallowed and looked up at him. He was close, and the tension between the characters was mounting. Not to mention my own professional nervousness.

"I don't want to," Louis said, leaning in so close I could smell the musky cologne he wore to get in character. I stared up at him, and let the feelings of my character flood over me: tension, desire, fear.

He leaned in even closer, and I could feel his bulge pressing against the front of my pants. That kind of proximity was something you couldn't fake on stage. Hope Gwen didn't mind too much.

"Go," my character hissed. "Before it's too late."

"Too late," Louis said, and his lips made contact with mine. I could feel his excitement and fear, the things he was feeling.

I closed my eyes and leaned into him as he kissed me. I threw my arms up and wrapped my arms around his neck and he lifted my feet off the floor.

I felt the audience, that wonderful attention and energy, on me. I could feel their gaze on me, and on Louis. I could feel them watching us, and I wanted to turn my head and look at them, but my character's desire had a hold of me.

Louis pushed me against the bed, not gently, and I felt his weight on top of me. Again, we had barely rehearsed this before, and I was surprised by the intensity of the moment. It's hard not to have your own personal reaction when a beautiful man is on top of you like that, even if you're a professional. I didn't know what the audience would think.

I closed my eyes as Louis kissed me again, my character's desire for Louis overpowering and merging, in its own way, with my own.

After a moment, Louis rolled off of me, and I lay back on the bed. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, feeling awash in the sensation of the audience.

Louis was down on his knees, looking up at me. He took my hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing my fingers. He kissed each finger deeply and slowly, as if just kissing each digit would render his character whole. I looked up at Louis and he looked down at me, his eyes penetrating. Desire and intensity radiated off of him.

I swallowed hard and Louis brought my hand to his mouth, kissing my fingers again, his lips grazing each finger. The audience was silent now, and I could feel them watching us. You would've heard a pin drop.

Louis took my hand from his mouth and pressed my palm against his crotch. I was surprised, but I realized my character would be too. Did I feel something hard through his pants? It was hard to tell. I was focused on what was happening between us in the moment.

Louis pulled me on top of him and I straddled his legs, feeling his bulge again. My character was wary, interested, and aroused in equal measure.

When he pulled me down to him, I felt his excitement, his aggression. I could feel the power he could hold over me. I wanted to give him what he wanted, what my character wanted.

He kissed my neck, sucking on my earlobe. When he pulled away from kissing me, he looked into my eyes.

"You like that?" he said, his voice low.

I nodded and his face was inches from mine. He smiled and his eyes radiated something that I couldn't put my finger on. Damn, he was good.

Louis leaned up and kissed me, his lips gentle but insistent. He tasted like cigarettes and alcohol, again more character prep, and I could feel the stubble on his chin against my skin. My character wanted him, and Louis knew it.

I felt the audience's eyes on me and I closed my eyes, concentrating on my character and the moment. Louis was aggressive and my character was aroused, and I wanted both of them to feel good.

Louis kissed down my neck, his lips soft and soothing, like a cat's. He breathed alcohol and nicotine onto me, and I pulled his face to mine, my character now in full thrall to Louis'.

When Louis pulled back, he looked into my eyes and I pulled his face up to mine, my character's desire for Louis radiating from me. A minute passed, and then another, and Louis didn't stop kissing me.

The audience settled in, and Louis kept going and going just kissing. This was the sort of thing Wilkinson especially loved: exploring an idea until it was almost worn out. It was the sort of performance where an actor could explore and push the boundaries of what he or she could do, pushing that actor to the very limit.

In the little rehearsal of this scene that we'd had, we'd just lay in the bed calmly, riffing on some potential dialogue and practicing a fairly chaste kiss or two. It was a very different thing now, of course, with a real audience. Very different.

Filled with a ravenous desire for Louis', my character pulled Louis closer and kissed him again, harder. Louis let out a deep moan and wrapped his arms around me, rotating us and pushing me against the bed. I felt his cock grow against my ass and my character moaned.

Louis pulled away, panting. I opened my eyes and saw the audience, rapt, watching us. This was powerful. This was sexiness.

Louis looked like he was at an inflection point that many actors arrive at in the midst of an emotionally intense scene; he could fully give himself to the character and the play, or he could become self-conscious. In this moment, I saw why Louis was such a powerful actor. It was because he always made the right choice.

The color of the stage lights subtly shifted, and the old grey, blue, and red lights turned more vibrant. The stage was now bathed in red light, almost a glow. Every pair of eyes was on us. Louis looked at me and stroked my face and my character moaned.

Louis pulled me up to him and kissed me again, deeply this time. He moved his hand under my shirt and lifted it up, and I raised my arms, letting him remove my shirt. He ran his hands all over my body. Being bare-chested like this had scared me when I first started acting, but at this point I was more accustomed to it. But somehow this still felt more raw and sensual than most. For one, we hadn't seen or really touched each others' bodies yet in rehearsal.

He stroked my body and kissed me deeply, letting his hands wander all over my skin. I moaned into his mouth as he touched me, enjoying the sensation of his fingers on my soft skin. He slowly undid my belt and unbuttoned my pants, and then pulled them off me, revealing my white boxer-briefs. I felt briefly self-conscious about the way the lights of the theater immodestly highlighted the outline of my bulge. I looked down at myself for a moment and saw the outline of a semi beginning to form.

One of the possibilities we had discussed with Wilkinson was a simulated blowjob or handjob, something that could be performed in the moment of the scene, while on the bed, at least. I didn't know what Louis was going to do, but I awaited his direction.

Louis took my hands and I let him pull me on top of him, my character's desire for him overwhelming now, and I wrapped my legs over his body, feeling the surprising hardness in his jeans against my own groin. He rubbed himself against me, and my character let out a moan as I felt this new sensation.

After a moment, he gently pushed me back down onto the bed, and I felt my character's desire for him in full measure. He moved his hands up my leg and kissed my thigh, moving his lips from my thigh to my hip. He kissed my hip, and I felt a strange sensation between my legs as I realized he was about to test the limits of this simulated sex idea.

He ran his tongue up my hip and then over my hipbone, over my abs, and then over my chest, kissing and touching my body. It was clear he was exploring the possibilities of this moment, but he didn't push it to the limit yet.

He continued exploring me, kissing me, licking my body. He teased my nipples, moving the tips of his fingers back and forth across them with a feathery touch. He pulled at my nipples, kissing me and licking me, my character confused and aroused. He stopped and looked into my eyes, and I could feel the intensity of his desire for me.

But my character was confused, too. We were both so unsure about this prospect of sex; for my character, real, and for me, simulated. I was wondering if it was possible to truly simulate sex in an art form that relied so much on performance, on physical achievement.

My legs were on either side of Louis', and he smiled at me. The audience stared in suspended and silent anticipation. Louis looked at me and took my hands and placed them on the inside of his legs. He broke eye contact with me and looked down at his pants, nodding. I lifted his shirt a bit and began to undo his pants.

He seemed to be giving up control to me, letting me explore this moment now.

I looked at his body, which was in shadow, and then peeled his pants down. Beneath them he was wearing a pair of dark blue boxer briefs, the outline of his manhood clear to me. I wondered what Gwen thought about that, if she could see from this angle.

Now in control, I wanted to go with the lustful feeling of the scene, but didn't want to cross any lines. Where were the lines though? Wilkinson had said, when it came down to it, to let the scene make the decisions.

I looked into his eyes and he smiled at me, biting his lower lip. He pulled his shirt off now, leaving both of us in just our underwear.

Louis' hands came up to my waist, and he pulled me against him, pushing me now onto my stomach. I felt his hard, decidedly unsimulated length against my hip, and I felt myself tremble at the sensation.

Bucking my hips back against him, I felt his manhood press against me for a moment, and then he pushed himself against me more firmly. A small moan escaped me.

His hard cock, contained only by some stretchy fabric, rubbed my asshole and taint through my own thin white boxer-briefs. Just two scanty layers of fabric.

I felt the audience's eyes on me and tried to will myself to stop twitching. This wasn't real, I reminded myself. The audience was watching us, but this wasn't real. We weren't about to have real sex, and I had to hold myself together. Louis might have been hard as a rock, but he was a straight man who was just a terrific actor.

Louis put his hand on my back, and I felt him stroke my own back, running his hand down my back and over my ass, massaging my buttocks and pressing his hardness against me. He really did feel so hard.

I kept throwing my body against his, my own cock hard and uncomfortable in my underwear. I looked up at the audience and saw them in the dark, the glowing red light creating a sensual and intimate atmosphere.

I felt Louis' hardness press against me more firmly, and I threw my head back. Looking up at the audience, I saw the rapt attention. The audience was on the edge of their seats.

The beads of sweat on my neck and chest were now slick and irritating, and I was getting hotter and hotter. I was so hot and so aroused and so aware of the audience.

I felt Louis' hand slide down my back, grasping the waistband of my underwear, and he pulled them down just a little, exposing the top inch or two of my crack. Testing the waters? Being fully naked in a scene wasn't too out of the ordinary for an avant-garde production like this, but the sexual intensity and level of direct contact weren't usually quite at this level, to say the least.

Louis' hands were on my hips now, with my underwear slid partially down in back. He was moving his hard cock against me, holding my ass cheeks in his hands and pulling me against his body.

The feeling was too much, and I moaned softly. I felt the audience's stifled, almost shocked ooohs and aaahs as Louis started to thrust his cock against me more firmly. This part was definitely not simulated, and they could tell. This was hands-on. My character squirmed with each thrust, feeling the hard shaft of his cock against me and moving my hips in time.

Louis' hands moved to my back, and he began to massage my shoulders, slowly stroking them. I felt his weight behind on the bed, his erection thrusting against me.

And then, I felt him move his hands to my chest. He moved his hands to my nipples, and I felt a wave of pleasure as he pinched and pulled at them.

I felt my character's arousal as I moaned again, and gasped. The audience murmured, presumably taken off-guard by such raw sounds of pleasure. I was still viscerally not sure what was real and what wasn't, but intellectually tried to remember that I was here to do a job, one ultimately of artifice. That it wasn't about me and my body, but about my character and his.

Louis moved his hands now, and he flipped me onto my back again, and I felt him position his cock between my legs, the head of his cock pressing against my asshole through the light fabric of our respective underwear.

He rubbed himself up and down my crack, and, boxer-briefs be damned, I felt his hardness press against my ass.

The stage lights shifted again, dimming slightly to a glow that was more subdued but still allowed the audience to see everything. Somehow this lighting felt even more intimate.

Louis kept running his cock up and down over my crack, and I felt him touch it to my asshole again. He pressed against it, and I felt my character's body respond. At this point I had no idea whether we were going to even go for one of the simulated sex acts. Somehow this seemed even wilder, even though it was all technically staying in the rated-R zone without going NC-17.

I felt a strange patch of moisture around my asshole, and realized it was precum leaking through Louis' underwear. His real precum.

This was not something I had ever anticipated on the stage. I wondered if the audience could see the wet at the head of his dick, and I felt the urge to shift my position a little to make it show. To bring the audience into the realness of that.

I saw in Louis' face again the look of being at a moment of artistic crossroads, as if he were making a decision.

I saw in Louis' face again the look of being at a moment of artistic crossroads, as if he was making a decision. As his increasingly damp cock pressed against my asshole through his underwear, I realized that he must have been thinking about whether or not to go for one of the simulated sex acts, to push the scene even further. Although, to be honest, what we were doing felt more transgressive and raw than any simulated sex.