Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
Holden
Five years earlier…
I paced the backstage area of the Kennedy Center. The green rooms were so much more lavish than the one single experience I had in ours at school. There were quadruple the amount of rooms. Katherine and I each had our own private dressing room and while I couldn’t speak for her, mine was sparkling clean with fresh cut flowers on every surface. Empty makeup trays were there, waiting for anyone to add their own brushes or palettes.
I didn’t wear makeup.
But maybe I should?
Everyone in class was trying to convince me to put some on, but I couldn’t bring myself to smear my face with cream and concealer and eyeliner. It just felt… weird.
And wrong.
McCay had left a small pouch of items on my table and it taunted me. Finally, with nothing else to do and forty-five minutes until curtain, I grabbed the bag and opened it, holding up the bottle of foundation that weirdly was a perfect match for my skin. Clumsily, I started applying it, unsure what to do when I reached my scruff. Do I just put it on over my coarse, stubbled facial hair?
Also, why the fuck was it so greasy?
I did my best blending it, wiping my dirty hand on my jeans after. Then I picked up the eyeliner. How much should I fucking use? Leaning toward the mirror, I closed one eye and tried to draw a smooth line across my top lid. When I pulled back and examined it, it was a fucking mess. I looked like a meth head on a bender. A drunk koala could have done a better job.
I grunted and yanked a makeup wipe from the box beside me.
“What the fuck are you doing?” A deep voice boomed from the doorway.
Normally, that would make me jump.
But I half expected my father to show up today. Instead, I kept my eyes on my reflection and wiped off the shitty eyeliner.
“What does it look like?”
His heavy footsteps thudded along the marble floors as he entered my dressing room. “I can get on board with the acting thing, but fucking makeup? What if an image of that leaked to the press. My campaign with the conservatives would be tanked.”
I snorted and shook my head. “You’re marrying a theater woman, Dad. You better get used to hanging with dirty, dirty liberals and men who wear makeup.” I paused, finally sparing him a glance over my shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
“Duncan called me,” he said and that made me stop in my tracks.
“What?”
“He said you quit the football team. Have been drinking more. Acting weird. Dating that girl again.”
“That girl has a name. And she’s the best thing to fucking happen to me.”
“Son, that is what every college guy says when they’re getting their dick wet regularly ? —”
I launched at my father, gripping the lapels of his Hugo Boss shirt and throwing him against the wall. Dad wasn’t a small man by any means, but he was rusty. Too many hours campaigning and working and having affairs. Not enough time in the gym.
“Don’t you fucking talk about her that way,” I snarled at him. If I’d been a little more out of control, I might have slammed my fist in his nose. “Just because sex is the only thing you care about, don’t fucking put me in the same category as you!”
But Dad only smirked that cocky little half fucking smile of his. “She’s really under your skin, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “In all the best ways.”
Dad put his hands up in surrender, though his smirk remained. "Alright, alright. No need to get violent."
I released his shirt and took a step back, still seething.
Straightening his clothes, my father tugged on the cuffs of his shirt and regarded me carefully. “There’s still time to make the second half of the game,” he said finally. “Half-time only just started.”
"There’s a whole cast of people here counting on me. The team can play without me but if I leave now, there is no show.”
Dad shrugged. “They’ll get over it.”
“No. They won’t. And honestly, neither would I.”
“You really believe you belong here?” He stepped toward the vanity and gestured at the makeup strewn across the table. “Putting on fucking makeup and playing dress up?”
“I think I belong here more than I belong in law school if that’s what you’re asking.”
Stepping closer, my dad allowed his large hand to fall to my shoulder, gripping me hard. I tensed as his fingers dug into my muscles. Part of me wanted to give in. Go back to the way everything was before when life was easier. Not better… but simpler. I went to class. Won some football games. Chugged some beers. And had a whole path paved for me for the future.
Now? I didn’t know what to fucking do. I just knew that when I was on stage, something shifted inside of me. An adrenaline rush I’d never experienced before took hold of my body.
It felt like home.
“I’m not going anywhere tonight,” I say, holding my ground. “But if you want to stay and watch the show, I’d like that.” With a pause, I glance down at my grandfather’s spinner ring. The man I despised so much, I wore his hideous ring as a reminder to not turn into him.
I barely had any family left. As much as my dad and I didn’t get along, I didn’t want to lose him. Not entirely. “I don’t want to hate you anymore.” The admission comes out with a crack of emotion in my voice.
My dad sighed deeply, his grip on my shoulder loosening. "I just want what's best for you, son. I know we don't always see eye-to-eye, but you're still my boy. And I love you.”
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a white leather flask, passing it to me. "This belonged to your mother,” he said. “Your grandfather got it for her on our wedding day.”
A flask.
A fucking flask.
From my grandfather.
No wonder the woman drank herself to death. From the moment she and my dad entered this union, they were plying her with alcohol.
I took it from my dad and turned the flask over in my hands. Inside, liquid sloshed around and I realized it still had alcohol in it. Brushing my fingers over the ornate engraving on the side —my mom's initials - the wave of emotion slammed into me. I looked back up at my dad, his eyes sad but sincere.
“Good luck tonight,” Dad said. “Or… break a leg or whatever.”
As he left my dressing room, shutting the door behind him, I clutched the flask tightly.
How many times did Mom tuck this flask into her purse on her way out the door? How many functions and luncheons did she add nips of gin to her tonic water when she thought no one was watching?
Sadness gripped my throat, strangling me, pulling me down into the darkest depths of the ocean.
I was exhausted from constantly battling against it. Part of me wanted to give in and let the waves consume me, while another part fought to stay afloat. It was a never-ending internal struggle that left me feeling lost and confused.
I twisted off the cap and lifted the flask into the air. “This one’s for you, Mom.”
I took one single healthy swig of the gin and winced.
One sip wouldn’t hurt anyone.
In the green room, the entire cast was buzzing. We weren’t at places yet, but we might as well have been with how everyone was congregating outside of the dressing rooms.
The room was filled with the scents of hairspray, perfume, and nervous sweat. But amongst it all, I caught a whiff of Katherine's rose-oil scent that always reminded me of a garden in spring.
Over the sea of cast mates, I spotted Katherine, her blue eyes warm and wet and her smile spread wide when she saw me, too.
It was like the sea parting to reveal a shiny pearl at the ocean floor, her eyes sparkling and her smile radiating warmth like the sun.
Her dress was a work of art, the delicate blue lace draped like a veil over her svelte body, the blue mask on her face pushed up on her forehead and her hair in an intricate twist at the nape of her neck.
I pushed my way through the people toward her and barely let her get a word out before I crushed her against me, taking her mouth in a firm kiss.
“Are you okay?” she asked when we finally separated.
“I’m nervous as fuck and I vomited twice in my dressing room. But I’ve also never been better.”
Katherine giggled. “I know what you mean. At least this show is less intense than that Scottish play.”
That Scottish play?
I tilted my head, not knowing what she was talking about.
“You know,” she said, eyes widening. “The Shakespeare play. The Scottish one.” Leaning in, she whispered, “Out, out damn spot!”
“Oh. Macbeth?”
A collective gasp surrounded us and everyone who had been chattering moments ago went silent.
“Holden,” Katherine whispered, her eyes wide. “You can’t say that in a theater! It’s cursed.”
I snorted a laugh. “I’m sorry… what?”
Addison smacked Holden across the arm. “It’s bad luck to say that in a theater!” she shrieked and threw her arms into the air, theatrically. “We’re fucking doomed now.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
Katherine shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s well-known theater lore.”
Theater lore I just broke.
Great.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and tugged her flush against me. “Well let’s prove to them that it’s bullshit, huh?”
She chuckled and squirmed against me as I pulled her close and dipped my mouth to her neck. “Holden, stop. Everyone’s here.”
I leaned into her ear and whisper, “From what I remember, that’s one of your fantasies, isn’t it? Being on stage. Having an audience.”
The pink tinge to her cheeks deepened into a coral hue. “Maybe,” she whispered, her lips a breath away from mine. “You’re terrible, but I like it.”
I grinned, my heart hammering in my chest as I leaned in and closed the tiny gap between us, kissing her deeply. Urged on by her gasp and the way she melted into me, I slid my tongue against hers, her hands coming up to clutch my shirt.
My grip clutched her waist, my fingers digging into the delicate lace of the dress.
“Places!” A deep voice shouted behind us, startling me so that I jumped, my grip on her dress tightening as I jerked my hand back. The sound of a tearing hit me first and Katherine gasped as she twisted to look at the gaping hole I’d left in her dress.
“Oh no!” she cried, clutching the torn fabric together.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry ? —”
“I can fix it!” Bailey said, tugging Katherine away from me toward the dressing rooms.
The stage manager's voice rang out again, more insistently this time. "Places, everyone, please!”
“Fuck,” I muttered running my hands through my hair.
“Good one, asshole,” Addison said.
“I clearly didn’t fucking mean to rip her dress.”
“I’m talking about what you said earlier. The dress is just the beginning of the curse. You fucking doomed the whole show, Holden.” Addison flipped her red hair over her shoulder and turned away from me to walk toward the wings.
When I looked around, I was met with scowls from every single one of my castmates.
Well, fuck. Now I was enemy number one. All because I said the name of another Shakespeare play.
Shuffling toward the wings, I tugged my mom’s flask from my pocket and took another glug.
I was officially tipsy. Onstage, I already fucked up several of Shakespeare’s classic lines and nearly ate shit during the first fight scene when my new shoes slipped against the recently mopped stage.
Grunting, I plopped down into the wings and grabbed a paperclip from the stage manager’s station, ignoring the dirty look she gave me as I scraped the bottom of my new shoes, hoping to scuff them up a bit and add some traction.
“Holden,” Katherine whispered, suddenly beside me. “Are you okay?”
I rubbed my dry eyes, hoping to mask the effects of my mom’s flask from her. “I’m fine,” I said, avoiding her searing gaze.
“Are you sure? You seem off?”
I grabbed another Altoid from the station and popped it into my mouth, hoping it would mask the scent of alcohol on my breath.
“Holden?” Katherine repeated gently, her fingernails brushing my jaw and turning my face to hers.
I took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I promise I’m okay. A little off my game, but fine.”
She nodded although I wasn’t sure if she believed me or not. I stood tossing the paperclip into the trash can beside me before wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her against me.
“Oh,” she gasped, her wet mouth popping open, blue eyes lowering in a haze of desire.
“We have the love scene next,” I whispered in her ear.
“W-we do.” She pushed onto her toes, kissing me deeply, her tongue spearing into my mouth.
With a growl, I pulled her flush against my hard dick and she gasped in my mouth.
“Holden—”
“Tonight?” I asked. I needed to be inside Katherine. We’d waited so long. I’d been good, hadn’t I? Hadn’t I earned this—her—finally? “Can we … tonight?”
“Oh God, yes.” She lunged at me once more, her silky robe falling open, revealing the sheer nightgown and nude bodysuit she wore beneath it, giving me a glimpse of my future.
“Waiting a few more hours is going to be impossible,” I groaned.
Her eyes glinted as she glanced at the stage. “Well, we both get a preview in a few minutes,” she said, referring to our upcoming sex scene.
“Fuck me,” I groaned.
Hopping onto her toes, she nipped my bottom lip and whispered, “That’s the goal, Holden.”
McCay told us weeks ago that the Romeo and Juliet love scene was one of the most controversial in history. It’s not exactly written into the script. There aren't any lines. Some productions choose to nix it altogether and start Act 3, Scene 5 with Romeo and Juliet waking up in bed the next morning.
But that wasn’t McCay’s style.
She was nothing if not controversial.
I rushed on the stage and ran my clammy hands over my pants. The show was more than halfway over and I still couldn’t get my shit together.
It didn’t help that I was still tipsy from nearly finishing the gin in my mom’s flask.
Nervous energy rippled through my guts until I looked up to find Katherine sitting on the edge of the bed, clad only in her silky nightgown costume.
Her small breasts heaved with a massive exhale when she saw me, her eyes flashing with desire as they skimmed down my open shirt.
Fuck.
She looked…
She looked incredible.
So incredible that my cock grew hard immediately seeing her like that. Knowing she wanted me and got off on a little bit of voyeurism made me throb for her.
I slowly crossed the stage to her, our eyes locked. My focus was back, the nervous jitters still present, but for the first time in the entire show, I felt grounded here with Katherine. Up until I caught a glimpse of her tongue slipping through her lips, wetting them.
She was going to be the fucking death of me.
Still sitting on the bed, she allowed me to take my time coming to her, her expression a potent combination of pure innocence and wanton lust. And the juxtaposition of the two was a fucking wet dream to any red-blooded man.
I cupped her face, tilting her mouth up to mine and skimmed my thumb across her cheekbone, so razor sharp, if I didn’t know better, I’d think she could cut me and make me bleed.
Her lips parted for me, an offering, and I took them like the starving man I was, grunting at how fucking good she tasted.
She melted against me as I gathered her in my arms and I swallowed her little whimper of surprise as I delved my tongue into her mouth. Fuck the fucking rules of stage intimacy. Did they want this to look realistic or not? Didn’t they want untenable chemistry?
If there was one thing Katherine and I could provide, it was that.
The heat between us was scorching; an out of control inferno and Katherine and I were the crumbling houses losing their foundation.
Her hands found my shoulders beneath my open shirt and she pushed it down off my arms. I tossed it aside before yanking her nightgown off and tugging the prop sheet over us.
Within moments, Katherine had my pants undone, as McCay had blocked us to do and she tossed them aside, downstage of the bed, so the audience got the full illusion we were naked.
Effectively, we almost were.
Katherine’s flesh-toned bodysuit did nothing to conceal her hard nipples pushing against the thin fabric. A damp spot had already appeared between her legs and I groaned, desperate to sink inside that soaking wet heat of hers.
My boxer briefs also did nothing to conceal how fucking turned on I was in the moment.
All in all, we were screwed.
Her eyes took me in, shrewd and assessing, skimming over my chest and down my body beneath the sheet until she drew in the tiniest little gasping breath.
We’d performed this scene dozens of times… the blocking hadn’t changed much between Keith’s version of the show vs the classic Shakespeare version.
And yet, tonight felt wildly different.
Katherine had a reckless abandon to her that I’d never seen before. Or was I imagining it because I was still drunk?
Was it a combination of both?
Reaching down, this is the part where usually Katherine pretends to touch my cock, typically miming the stroking movement between my legs.
I drew in a sharp breath and swallowed my grunt as her hand found my cock, squeezing it hard.
Oh, she wanted to play?
I can play.
And it’s a game I’ll win.
We both will… I’ll make sure of that.
I grasped her jaw and kissed her savagely, like a man possessed. She squeezed me again, stroking me from root to tip and my groan exhaled against her mouth.
I dipped my hand between our bodies and tugged her bodysuit to the side, revealing her damp pussy to me and only me beneath the sheet before I plunged a single finger inside of her.
She bucked off the bed, lower back arching, head tilted back, her neck exposed to me in an offering I couldn’t resist even if I wanted to.
I latched my mouth to the curve of her shoulder and nipped while I circled my thumb over her slick clit.
“You like it?” I whispered in her ear. “You like me touching you in front of an audience?”
“Yes,” she sighed quietly.
Thank God our sound designer had sworn to us that our microphones would be off for this scene. McCay had cleverly said no one wants to hear the suckling sounds of kissing amplified over a sound system.
“You love people seeing you unravel, don’t you?”
Eyes flashing, Katherine yanked me free from my boxer briefs and gripped me firmly in her palm. It was so wildly unexpected that I groaned, pulling my fingers free from her pussy to catch myself before I lost my hold where I braced my body weight over top of Katherine.
I couldn’t say anything as she positioned me at her wet entrance, biting her bottom lip and clinging to me as she circled her hips dangerously.
Releasing her hold on my cock, she dragged her fingers through my hair, drawing my eyes to hers once more.
With a wicked curve of her lips, she pulsed her hips once more making my tip slide in, breaching her opening, just the tiniest bit.
“Want to play a game?” I asked her, my voice only a decimal above the sound of breath. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to her ear and added, “Just say yes.”
“Yes,” she sighed against me.
“Ready to lose your virginity, Rose?”
“Please, God, please… yes.”
Still lined up against her, I thrusted pushing all the way inside with a satisfied sigh. She also gasped, her hands fisting the white sheets around us and she whimpered, crying out, wriggling against me.
Nothing has ever felt this good.
Fucking nothing.
Katherine was what I imagined heaven would be like. Tight, wet heat clamped around me, tightening impossibly more.
At this rate, I wasn’t going to last long.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
I pulled out slowly, relishing in the slick drag of my cock within her cunt, then pushed back inside, even deeper.
Her hands clawed and clutched wildly like a drowning woman seeking a life-preserver as I started moving faster, thrusting harder.
The blood in my veins slowed as each frenzied thrust drew me closer and closer to release. I circled my hips, harder and faster all the while Katherine met me thrust for thrust, mewling and whimpering.
Outside of our breathing, the rhythmic creaking of the bed as we moved together in passion was the only other sound to be heard.
“Christ,” I muttered. “Are we going to need an audience every time?” I asked with a teasing smile.
With that question, she exploded around me, arching into the wave of her pulsing orgasm, biting her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out in the most stunning display.
Once she came, I was frantic in my movements, the muscles in my arms and chest straining with restraint as I braced myself above her. My body slick with exertion, I fought against the overwhelming urge to close my eyes, not wanting to miss a single second of this moment with Katherine.
Energy zipped up my spine and shot through every nerve and muscle in my body, electrifying me and sending me spiraling into a blissful oblivion.
With a final twist of my hips, I buried myself as deep as I could inside her before pulling out just in time.
As I emptied myself into the sheets, my body connected with Katherine's, taking her mouth in a final, passionate kiss, like two stars exploding in a galaxy of ecstasy.
The audience was dead silent when we finished, still laying there, nose to nose, staring at each other. The world around us came back into focus, the reality of what just happened, what we’d just done slammed into me.
And my heart plummeted.
I just fucking took her virginity.
In front of hundreds of people.
While drunk.
I reached down and pulled her body suit back over her before adjusting my boxer briefs, quickly noting the sheets had some blood stains on them, mixed with my cum.
Fuck.
It wasn’t my job to dispose of the sheets after the scene, but I had no choice now.
Protect Katherine’s virtue at all costs; even if it cost me my performance in this show.
The lights went dark and as we always do, Katherine and I pretended to fall asleep as the lights changed from night to dawn, signaling the beginning of our next scene.
I was careful as I stood up for the next scene, making sure the stains were out of view of the audience as Katherine began her lines.
“Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.”
I grabbed my pants, pulling them on beneath the sheets as she continued her line.
Somehow, we managed to get through the scene, and I even said most … if not all of my lines correctly.
“More light and light, more dark and dark our woes,” I said as I handed Katherine her nightgown and robe, even though it wasn’t exactly in the blocking.
She gave me a curious look, but obliged me, putting her clothes back on just as Addison entered as the Nurse in our scene.
“Madam,” Addison said, giving me a strange look when I jumped.
“Nurse?” Katherine said, standing from the bed and crossing to Addison for their quick exchange in the scene.
In doing so, she left a bit of the sheets open and rumpled and I launched myself at them, gathering all the sheets in my arms, so clumsily that both girls jumped, swiveling to look at me strangely.
Addison’s eyes dipped to the sheets, narrowing briefly.
I cleared my throat and rushed forward to Katherine, tugging her into my arms for a final goodbye kiss before I left the scene. “And trust me, love, in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.”
With the sheets still in my arms and both girls looking at me like I’d fully lost my fucking mind, I mimed climbing out the window and off into the wings of stage left, sighing in relief.
I didn’t stop when I got off stage, instead, I booked it up to my dressing room and shoved the sheets into the waste basket that was in there.
Not a permanent solution, but for now at least, they were out of the way of prying eyes.
Sagging against the door, I exhaled, my heart pounding in my chest.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
What if we’d been caught?
Katherine would never forgive me.
And I would never forgive myself.