I started acting in plays during my junior year in college. To my surprise, it was fun and exciting and a great way to make friends, and especially to meet girls. Acting was also a good way to explore emotions and to experiment with situations.
That next summer would prove my point about meeting women, about emotions and about the limits of experimenting.
I spent that summer at home, in my medium sized home city. The community theater always puts on two plays in the summer, one a comedy and one a drama. Eagerly, I tried out for the first one , a comedy, and was chosen to be in the cast.
The director was Mrs. Audrey Cunningham, a woman of a certain age, probably early fifties. She was tall and well preserved for her age, with long honey brown colored hair. She looked a little like an older Michelle Dockery from "Downton Abbey." When she wore skirts, I enjoyed admiring her shapely legs. Mrs. Cunningham's husband was a lawyer, and her daughter, who was a year older than me, and had been the Homecoming Queen at high school. Both Mrs. Cunningham and her daughter were real lookers.
Mrs. Cunningham had directed and starred in many plays, and she was a cornerstone of the community theater. She could be friendly, but she was also a strict no-nonsense director. Mrs. Cunningham had studied acting as a younger woman, and she tried to use professional theories to help our volunteer actors play their roles better.
In rehearsals, and in the four scheduled productions, I got to know Mrs. Cunningham and to understand how much she valued acting talent. I think she took a shine to me and was glad that I was part of the cast. Even though our age difference was maybe thirty years, I did find myself daydreaming sometimes about Mrs. Cunningham. A time or two, I massaged my nine inch cock while thinking of her, and shot off a few salutes to her.
Try outs for the drama were the week after the comedy was over. This was an edgy play about a marriage in trouble. The main parts were a wife and husband, several friends of the couple, and a younger man with whom the wife has an affair.
This was tricky stuff for our local audiences. An out-of-town and more experienced theater director offered to direct us if we would do that play. The community theater board couldn't pass up his offer, and auditions were scheduled.
I got the part of the romantic interest, the young man. That wasn't much of a stretch because I was by far the youngest volunteer available. No surprise there.
What was a surprise was the selection of the wife part. Several women tried out for it, but the director selected Mrs. Cunningham for the part. Needless to say, I was elated, and that night I "saluted" her again.
I've never had fantasies about older women. Heck, I was young and had been pretty lucky with the young gals, and my cock size didn't hurt. Evidently, I was a good bit larger than most boys, and benefitted from some word-of-mouth recommendations. Older women just hadn't been on my mind. But if an older woman could tempt me, it would be Mrs. Cunningham.
Rehearsals began in mid July for performances in mid August.
The first day, we read through our lines. There was sophisticated dialog between the husband and wife characters and among their friends, revealing the hardships and rewards of marriage and the challenges of fidelity and passion. As her love interest in the play, my lines were upbeat and positive as if to portray my character as a reasonable challenge to an established marriage of a beautiful older wife of a successful man.
The script called for kisses between us but also a prolonged bedroom scene. During the first reading, we skipped the action and only read lines. Still, I could feel my cock pulse and leak a bit as I read the stage directions about embraces, kisses, and being in bed with Mrs. Cunningham.
The next rehearsal was a walk-through to make our marks on the stage floor and gain an understanding of not only our positions but also to think about how the audience could best see us.
It was then that I first kissed Mrs. Cunningham. Of course, these things are largely faked, lipless kisses, or just brushes against lips. The first time, I let Mrs. Cunningham take the lead. She let her lips come close to mine, then backed away before touching. The director stopped her there, "Audrey, what kind of kiss was that?" he asked.
She looked surprised by his question. I suppose she had done many of these stage kisses before, and that was what she thought was proper.
"Try it again," the director called out.
My heart raced as Audrey, or I should say, Mrs. Cunningham, and I returned to our marks and said our lines. I didn't wait for her to take the initiative. Instead, I embraced her firmly, but did not touch her anywhere that would cause her to be alarmed, and pressed my closed lips to hers. I held it there for a few moments. No tongue, just lips pressed.
"That's better," the director called out. "If you don't believe it, the audience won't either."
Of course, bigger problems came with our bedroom scene. Fully clothed, we lay side by side and said our lines, such as, "Oh, we shouldn't do this," and other more passionate words. We began lying side by side under the covers, our bare shoulders showing while we talked. We were to kiss, then I was to lay on top of her to indicate sexual contact.
After the rehearsal, the director pulled us to the side, along with the set builders, and encouraged us to find ways to make the bedroom scene convincing. He said, "If you are embarrassed, the audience will know. So find ways to either fool the audience or to be genuine yourselves." Then he asked the construction crew to slightly angle and elevate the bedroom set so that the audience could see better.
This was a dual scene, with our set on one side of the stage and the husband in his living room on the other side of the stage, talking with a friend. The action shifted from the wife's bedroom talk and love making on one side to the husband's scene on the other side by raising and lowering the lighting of each side.
At the next bedroom scene rehearsal, the directed asked Mrs. Cunningham and me to dress so that our shoulders were bare. I just went topless and she wore sort of a tube top thing that bared her shoulders.
As we went through the scene, the sheet fell as I moved, revealing more of my chest and my back. Mrs. Cunningham remained mostly still, but occasionally her top could be seen. The director asked if she could try other garments that might work better. So at the next rehearsal, Mrs. Cunningham allowed herself to be seen in a bathing suit top. Of course, that concealed everything, but it was nice to see more of her figure and more of the shape of her breasts. She was careful only to remove her clothes at the last moment as she slid into the bed.
I also adjusted my attire for the bedroom scene. I thought about boxers, but the erections I got were too much for flimsy boxers. So I settled for nylon stretch athletic shorts. Even then, my cock pushed upward almost to the waistband. Night after night I lay on top of Mrs. Cunningham, and she had to know that she was making me hard as a rock.
After the first week of rehearsals, I asked Mrs. Cunningham if she would like to meet for coffee during the daytime to discuss our roles. She agreed, and we met at a local café.
I asked her, "How do you feel about our scenes?" "How do you think we can improve?"
She replied, "Considering the nature of some of our scenes and our lines, I think we've come a long way, don't you think?"
"Yes," I said, "I do think we have improved, but in college we have been learning about Method acting and various techniques to get into the characters."
Mrs. Cunningham said, "That's fascinating. I always try to find new ways to get into difficult parts, but frankly the type of plays we usually do don't require very strong efforts. This one does."
"Right," I agreed, "It depends on our words and emotions and actions and even our attire. Which do you think affects the others? It's not just our dialog. It's not just how we feel on stage. It's not just how we move. It's not just what we are wearing...or not wearing."
Mrs. Cunningham looked thoughtful.
I jumped in, "Here's what I think. I think that in this scene, since it's a bedroom scene where a beautiful wife is about to let a younger man have sex with her, our words and actions are defined by the playwright, but we need to bring our emotions to the surface, and maybe what we wear...or don't wear...can make the scene seem more real to us and therefore to the audience."
"What are you saying?" she asked.
"I'm just wondering if we should be less guarded about what we wear in that scene," I told her.
Again, Mrs. Cunningham looked thoughtful.
I continued, "For instance, I wear only my pants that are a kind of revealing underwear. You wear shorts or pants and the top. Do you think you would be more into the scene if you were to lie there under the sheet in your lingerie?"
Immediately, Mrs. Cunningham smiled, "You're leaning to be a good actor. Everything you've said makes sense. In fact, listening to you makes me understand that I haven't been very committed to my character and to her feelings. I think you're absolutely right, just thinking about wearing lingerie under that sheet in front of an audience is making me feel that character more."
"That brings up another issue," I said. "Has it occurred to you that your husband will be watching in the audience? Will that influence you?"
Mrs. Cunningham drew a deep breath, "I've been thinking about that since I first read the script. Actually, it's that that has probably caused me to withdraw from fully committing to the part. I don't want to upset my husband."
"How can I help to prevent any problems?" I asked. "Would it be a good idea for me to meet him?" We agreed that it would, and set a time for me to come to their home.
