October 28th, 2024.
"Pleasure~ Pleasure~ Pleasure~"
Those were the only words Josh Barkley remembered from his dream hours ago, soft feminine whispers that still echoed in his head. He could still practically feel her lips and her tongue on his ear and on his neck; his shivering back arched from a lightning-bolt of sudden arousal.
Waking up with a boner wasn't exactly uncommon for a man his age, but that dream must've been different. He'd woke up harder than he'd possibly ever been, and it took some patience and negotiating with his body before his dick finally calmed down. Josh wouldn't normally mind, but this simply was not the time for that. Josh had been pretty stressed lately.
The so-called actor had little true experience despite his aspirations, and now the time would soon come for him to finally star in an official production at his University, quite the big one as well.
It wouldn't be until tomorrow that the play would officially be premiered to an audience, but even now at rehearsals, Josh still had butterflies in his stomach about the whole thing. It was what he'd wanted, but maybe they could postpone it until he was ready in a few decades or centuries?
"Earth to Joshua?" He heard as he was suddenly snapped out of his reverie. Hannah rolled her eyes; Josh blinked blankly at her for a moment until he came back to lucidity. Oh, yeah. They were backstage, practicing their lines for tomorrow. Hannah was wearing faded blue mom-jeans, sneakers, an X-Men t-shirt and her hair was light brown at the top and led down to dyed blonde hair. Her skin was tanned, as she'd been on holiday in Florida that past summer.
"Uh, sorry." He muttered and rubbed his eyes. "Just tired, I guess." Hannah sighed.
"Look, I get that. But all this hard work's gonna pay off tomorrow, we can't have you zoning out when we're trying to put this together. By the way, you want to go over this section again? I wanna make sure you have your lines." Hannah explained as she showed him the notes.
"I've got it down, I think I just need some rest. You know we've all been obsessing over this for ages. I think I'm starting to see the lines written in my eyelids when I sleep." Josh joked. He only hoped he could remember to act at the same time. They were to star in their university's production of a Shakespeare type-play. Before he'd read the play, Josh bad dismissed it as being 'written by some old dude or whatever'.
But despite Josh not initially being interested in performing this kind of material, the actual plot and characters proved themselves to be quite intriguing. Tragedy, betrayal, powerful kings, that sort of thing. In any case, he got the lead part and he was damned if he wasn't going to give it his all.
What also interested him (and made him very uneasy at the same time), was the romantic subplot his character would have. He wasn't exactly a natural at comfortably expressing intimacy in his real life, let alone faking it convincingly on stage in front a live audience. But on the other hand, he got to kiss and hold Hannah. Even if it was incredibly chaste, there were worse things than that.
Josh was a mature adult, he wouldn't normally get butterflies due to a simple scene of intimacy, but his head felt funny when Hannah kissed him. She was really helpful with giving him advice and pointers for his first public performance, and she was so talented herself. He wasn't quite sure if he was in admiration of her ability to slip into a character, or jealous. Or both.
"Fair, I get what what you mean. This dialogue's been so drilled into our heads I think 'hark' and 'alas' are going to permanently be a part of my vocabulary." Hannah joked.
"Hey, I mean you could pull off an old timey vibe. Or, really any vibe. Your acting is like, insane, you make me wanna do better when I'm doing scenes with you." He found himself blurting out. Hannah grinned.
"Thanks, I mean it's just something you learn with practice and study like anything else. I come from an acting family, so I had a head start on you. You never told me, why do you want to act? You had no experience, right?" She asked. Josh nodded.
"I had one part in Highschool, I was pulled in last minute when I had hardly any interest in acting. It was a big part too. I guess it made me feel good, leading an audiences attention like that and captivating them. I supposed I liked acting just as much as anything else, that's why I continued with it." He shrugged. Hannah smiled.
"That's a great reason! I can tell you really like it. And you're definitely going to get better if you keep at it. What would you have done if you didn't pursue acting?" She asked.
"I was actually planning on being a Hockey player, but that's mainly cause my dad wanted me to be an athlete since I was a little kid. And I had five brothers who are also into sports, They trained me like crazy, too, I was the only kid in my fifth grade class with abs." Josh said as Hannah chuckled. He neglected to mention that as a result, he basically didn't know any girls until he was much older.
In the last few years since Highschool, he hadn't really kept his athletic regimen up. Somewhat regretfully, those aforementioned abs weren't as obvious and he was starting to transition from lean to more sort of pudgy. Not that it was a bad thing. Hannah was kind of a big girl too, not fat or anything, just big. Most of her weight seemed to go to her lower body, not that he noticed. Well, okay he noticed, but he didn't mean to. With Sam and Grayson, she was the only woman he was friends with who wasn't super skinny.
"Well, this has gotta be easy compared to hockey, right?" She asked. Well, the preparation was a lot more hectic and chaotic. But it was only acting. And he actually had fun, too! And, most importantly, he got to be around women.
He didn't mean that in a creepy way, it was just that he spent the first 18 years or so of his life in locker rooms or packed in his oldest brother's car with loads of their raucous friends and brothers. It was actually nice to be around people that weren't a bunch of smelly meatheads. He'd always been so self conscious around women, he honestly had no idea what they actually looked for in a guy, as a romantic partner or even as a friend. Was he too manly, not manly enough? But here, none of that seemed to matter.
And yes, two of his friends were girls, but it was Grayson and Sam. He'd only been acquaintances with them until recently, and they were both pretty androgynous and uninterested in feminine things anyway. This was especially true for Grayson, who'd definitely had a "not like the other girls" streak since High-School.
In any case, it was nice. That was why he was hesitant with Hannah, despite how he was so smitten with her. And there was also the fact that she was way too good looking and talented for him.
"Definitely hurts less. I'll be fine, I think I really do just need some rest. Then I'll be ready for the craziness tomorrow." He said.
"Your first time's always nerve wracking. It's nothing to be too worried about, but everyone worries. I still get butterflies every single time. The worst time was when I had to go nude in a production, though." She mused as they both gathered their things to leave.
"That's a thing?" Josh scratched his head.
"Yeah, it's fairly common, the whole cast was nude for an important scene in Hair, if you've seen that. It was meant to be a symbol of, like, defiance and freedom. I think it was inspired by political demonstrations the creators had seen. Anyway, it wasn't sexual or anything." Hannah nodded. Josh laughed as an idea came to mind.
"Has there ever been any fucking on stage?"
"Hah! Like, real sex? I imagine not. Simulated, sure, but no real sex. I'd totally buy a ticket, though." She laughed.
"Ha- wait, a sec." Josh stopped himself as his phone notified him of a text. It was from Grayson.
