Chapter 8
Eight
“He wore your armor. He moved just like you. I thought I’d defeated the mighty Achilles.”
—“Answer Me,” The Wooden Horse, Act Two
Dexter didn’t kiss like Bastien; he kissed like a long-lost lover starved of affection for thousands of years. His lips, soft,
ridiculously soft, pressed against Jonah’s and it seemed as if Dexter were trying to devour the air from his lungs. He let
Dexter turn him, Patroclus taking the lead, even though his mind should have been screaming at the change of blocking, something
they should never do, something Colbie would scream at them for later if she ever found out, and felt Dexter’s fingers sneak
below the shoulder of his tunic. Dexter didn’t disrobe him, not like Achilles usually did to Patroclus; he only showed a glimmer
of Jonah’s skin, enough to tantalize, enough to tell the audience more would be revealed, but in private, a moment for the
characters and the characters alone.
He’d been so used to kissing Bastien, to the stubble lining his jaw no matter how freshly he shaved, and the way his body moved against his.
They’d established a delicate balance where they could create a romance onstage and not allow it to leak out past the stage door, but Dexter?
Jonah didn’t have any rules in place with him, unspoken or not.
It left an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, one he didn’t know how to navigate or place.
Of course, professionalism came into play.
Jonah knew full well a kiss between actors meant nothing.
But Dexter kissed him like they’d known each other forever, their lips as familiar as the rising sun, a promise of summer after a harsh winter.
And when Dexter sung to him, his voice reverberating off Jonah’s skin, the moment became absurdly intimate, despite being viewed by hundreds of people.
As Dexter lowered him down onto the bed where Achilles and Patroclus made love, he pressed his lips to Jonah’s again, the
second kiss not in the script, but Jonah cupped his cheeks as the lights dimmed on their scene. His skin felt surprisingly
cool beneath his palms. As the world turned dark Dexter’s lips remained on his, and just as Jonah attempted to pull away Dexter
seized his bottom lip between his teeth and bit him. He fucking bit him. Jonah’s hand immediately covered his mouth as Dexter
parted from him and exited the stage. Jonah drew his fingers back expecting to see blood. They were clean, but the pain still
lingered.
The precious twelve minutes until Jonah needed to be onstage again were spent in his dressing room, changing from Achilles’s
casual wear into his armor as Sherrie fussed around him. He stood, looking at himself in the mirror, his bottom lip slightly
redder, plump, and he wondered why the idiot bit him. Normally, he wouldn’t mind a bit of nipping and teeth grazing, but that
would be in the bedroom, not onstage in front of six hundred people, especially when it wasn’t even in the bloody script.
Did Dexter bite in the bedroom? Did he like to scratch and nip at exposed skin while fucking? No. No. Jonah did not want to think about Dexter having sex. He could imagine his stupid lips pouting as he gasped and groaned, and
really, the thought should have repulsed him. But it didn’t. He really needed to find a date to get the stupid horny images
out of his system; even thinking about Dexter in an intimate position was crossing a line he didn’t know he would ever even
get close to.
Dexter behaved himself for the rest of the show, and Jonah didn’t want to admit it but he did a bloody good job given he’d
never performed Patroclus before and only knew his track from observations and his knowledge from before The Wooden Horse took to the West End. He died beautifully in Jonah’s arms, his death surprisingly realistic, his body turning into a dead
weight as Jonah held him. As the middle part of the stage lowered, taking them out of sight, he didn’t look at Jonah, he simply
walked away, back to his dressing room—no, Bastien’s dressing room—and then waited for his call back onstage for the bows.
Bastien would usually stand by Jonah’s side at the end of the show, the cast clutching hands as they bowed for their audience and basked in the applause.
But Dexter stood three bodies down from him, a snub if Jonah ever saw one, and completely reveled in the fact he got the biggest cheer of the night.
The audience propelled themselves to their feet the moment he came onstage, the sound deafening, only to fall slightly when Jonah walked on right after him.
He gathered the remaining applause and ran with it.
Dexter’s return to The Wooden Horse could be seen as nothing other than a success. He’d saved the day, ran to the theatre at a moment’s notice, and took on a
role he’d never played before. As they left the stage, he saw Colbie standing there with a gigantic bouquet of orange and
red flowers, an unsettling surprise given he didn’t have a clue their producer was lurking in the building. She handed the
flowers to Dexter and pulled him into a hug then gushed about just how good he’d been, how proud he’d made her, and just how
excited she was for him to come back as Hector. She said nothing to Jonah as he passed, not even a scolding for allowing Dexter
to change the details in the sex scene.
“You should give me your phone number,” Dexter said as they shrugged their coats over their shoulders after getting changed
before heading out of the stage door to the inevitable crowd waiting to fawn over Dexter. “Chances are I’m going to be on
for Bastien again tomorrow unless he makes a miraculous recovery overnight.” He adjusted the collar of his coat, then picked
up his flowers from Colbie. Jonah looked at the man’s coat, long, tan and . . . was it cashmere? The thing must have cost
a fortune. “I would like to hear if you have any notes for me,” Dexter said, his tone serious.
Jonah zipped up his own coat, the black thing he picked up in a thrift shop back home, and raised an eyebrow at him. “You
want my opinion on your performance tonight?” After their exchange before the show, Jonah was a little surprised Dexter was
even talking to him.
“Yes,” Dexter said quickly, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Is that a problem?” He produced his phone
from his pocket and unlocked it before passing it to Jonah. “Give me your number and I will text you later. I’m assuming you
don’t want my notes on your performance?”
Jonah knew how pathetic he was being for not wanting to give Dexter his number. He didn’t want to text him; he didn’t want to have any more contact with the man than absolutely necessary, but he put his number into his phone anyway and handed it back to him.
“Your assumption is correct.”
“Right, well, thanks for giving me your number at least,” Dexter said, a small, genuine-looking smile on his face. “Right,
um, see you later.” He opened the stage door and his little smile turned into a huge one as he saw the crowd of people waiting
there to greet him.
Jonah followed out after him, taken aback by just how many people were there. He hadn’t seen so many people outside of the
Persephone before, and part of him felt a little vulnerable as a few of them jostled forward to talk to them. He’d heard about
sizable crowds waiting at stage doors for other shows, usually one-night-only concerts where a big name had flown over from
Broadway to perform. There were often small crowds gathered at the Persephone, but nothing like this, bodies everywhere with
beaming faces and programs stretched out to be signed. He could see Omari farther down working his way along the line, sharpie
in hand. Clearly no one else in the company seemed remotely bothered by Dexter joining the cast; the problem lay with Jonah
alone. He needed to pull himself together.
“You were amazing,” a woman said, clutching her program before holding it out to Jonah. “Would you mind signing this, please?”
He took a sharpie out of his back pocket, the cast now well versed in keeping a good stash of them on hand at all times, and
scrawled his signature across the front of it.
“Would it be okay to get a picture?”
“You were so good, oh my God, like so good.”
“When you sang ‘The Melody of Achilles and Patroclus’ I cried.”
“Would it be okay to get a picture of both of you, please?”
Jonah noticed Dexter beside him, only to see him nodding enthusiastically. The girl who asked nestled between them while her
friend took a photo, then they switched places so another photo could be taken.
“Thank you,” the first girl said. “And, I hope it’s okay to say, but this is my ninth time coming and tonight was my favorite. You guys as Achilles and Patroclus were absolutely perfect.”
“That’s so kind of you,” Jonah said, as Dexter allowed a blush to spread over his cheeks. “Dexter did a great job, didn’t
he? Hardly any mistakes.” He felt Dexter’s eyes burning into the back of his head. “You’ll come back and see him as Hector,
right?”
“We’ve got tickets for the first performance,” she replied enthusiastically before moving aside to let them sign more programs.
Other cast members were filtering through the crowd as Jonah finally reached the end of the line, and he saw Omari waiting
for him. The taller man pulled Jonah into a one-armed hug, then lightly kissed his cheek.
“Fabulous tonight as always, my love,” he said. “I’m going to a dance workshop tomorrow morning if you fancy it?”
“Where do you get the energy?” Jonah smiled at him.
“If you took the vitamins I told you about and ate the food from that list I sent you, you would have more energy to be like
me,” he replied seriously.
“I wasn’t expecting you to actually have an answer for that, you know.”
“I have an answer for everything.”
“I know.”
Omari smirked at him. “See you tomorrow. Don’t stay up late eating ice cream and crying, okay?”