Juliet Takes Stage

I am kneeling between Ken's thighs. Though he is still clothed, I am naked. It seems appropriate; he has made me feel naked since the day I walked into his Beginning Acting class five years and a lifetime ago.

"Allison," he murmurs, his fingers running through my hair.

"Yes, Ken," I say, unable to disguise the tremor that his voice, his caress raise in me. My eyes remain locked on the raised front of the button-fly jeans just inches before me.

"Tell me what you want, Allison." His strong, warm voice is low, and I tremble all the more, knowing what he wants me to say.

"I want to heal you, Ken," I whisper, my voice high, thin, and warbling.

I can hear the smile, even as the lump in his jeans seems to grow, to rise. "Oh, sweetheart," he says, "you do that every day that I'm blessed enough to see you."

My heart fills my throat, leaves me breathless.

"But that's not what you want right now, is it, Allison." Not a question, not really: he knows me, knows me better than I do myself in so many ways, and I am raw clay before him, the girl he made and remakes, just by looking at me. By desiring me. By speaking to me in that low, throaty voice so full of love, desire, and control.

"N-no, Ken."

No. Not right now. Healing him, yes, I want that, but now? This long, long, lonely, lonely first year in college, I've been halfway across the country and we've barely seen each other, and all I've had to keep me warm has been his emails and his letters — letters full of stories of his adventures with other women, from Dana, his teacher, to Cindy, who broke his heart, to Rachel, the Big Easy, to Veronica, his first Juliet, to all of the rest — and they've left me wanting, left me needing so many things. Wanting them right now.

I stare up into his eyes.

"Tell me what you want, sweetheart." His fingers trace a silver-soft line down from my ear to my collarbone, and from there to the nipple that aches at the tip of my breast. With middle and forefinger, he gives my nipple the gentlest of pinches, sending a spark all of the way to my toes, back up to the crown of my head, and then down into my crotch, which flowers open, so that I can feel the cool air of the room flowing over then. "Whatever you want, you can have. If you ask." There is power in words, he always says, and I love the power that his words have over me, that my words give me over him.

"I..." Exquisitely conscious of his fingers, his voice, I barely notice my own hands sliding up to the insides of his thighs. They are warm and substantial, even through the jeans, and they ground me, even as they lead me upward toward the object of my quest. "I want... to eat you. Ken. Please." It has been months since I have had his cock — thick, heavy, and just long enough — inside of me. In my mouth. In my hand. In my cunt. In...

"You want to suck my cock, Allison?"

"Yes. Ken. Please."

"And?"

"And..." Why am I embarrassed? Why do I feel once more like the virgin I was before Ken first took me into his bed? He knows what I want, and I know he knows how he makes me feel. How many times has he told me, There is no shame in love, Allison? "I... want to fuck you, Ken." Here, in the classroom, where he brought me tonight, knowing that this is one of my oldest, most fixed fantasies. Here, where we've never fucked. As we've never fucked...

He waits, the other hand sliding up my arm and finding my other breast, which had been feeling deprived, but now, oh...

"I want... I want you..." I want you. I want you so bad. I want you so bad, it's driving me mad.... "I want to fuck you, for you to fuck me."

I can hear the smile grow, and feel his caresses intensify.

But that's not all I want.

Name it, I hear him saying in acting class. If you don't know where to go next, name what's happening — what's really happening. Name what you want. "I want you to f-fuck me, Ken. Please. And... And fuck my ass. I want you to fuck my ass, Ken." My voice finds its strength as this confession of the desire.

His breath catches. "Really?"

"Please." The desire, the need has been building in me over the last month, since he sent me the story of his affair with Rachel, the actress he met in New Orleans, of how, when they were both nearly totally spent, he slid into her ass and fucked her there, the one place he has never fucked me, and that it never occurred to want him to fuck me, and the air flows between my open cunt lips. "I want... I want to give you everything. Everything."

He slides down off of his desk chair and onto the floor with me, and his hands slide over my ribs, down my sides, over the ass I've never really thought of except as a place to sit — until I read about what he had done with Rachel. His mahogany eyes fill my world, and once more I cannot breathe. "You gave me everything, Allison. Even before you gave me your virginity." He leans forward, his body pressing against my naked one, and whispers huskily into my ear. "I told you — "

"I gave you back your life."

"Yes." His hands, like his cock, are large, and wide, and each slides over one of my ass cheeks, one up, one down, so that one thumb finds its way to circle the opening between them, and the long fingers of the other hand trace the moist, trembling lips of my cunt from the back. "Fuck, Allison...."

It fills me with pride and desire to hear that I've had that effect on him. "Please, Ken. I want you to come in my mouth, in my cunt, in my ass. I want..."

His fingers find my clit, and he pinches it just as he pinched my nipples, leaving me gasping for air. "And what are you going to get out of this, sweetheart?"

"Hnh?" I'm struggling to focus on his words when the pressure of his fingers around my lips, around my clit, against my anus are forcing out all other awareness.

"I want all of those things. Fuck, Allison, I want to fuck your mouth and your cunt, and hell, yes, I want to fuck your sweet ass." His thumb presses against my asshole, and I gasp as he pushes it just far enough to force the muscles to open. "But — "

"But?" I whimper.

"What are you getting out of this, besides giving this old man a heart attack?"

"Not... old," I groan, as I always do when he gets stupid like that.

"Old enough," he moans back.

Most girls get a crush on a teacher at some point. Most boys too, I suppose. Only a few ever actually get to turn the fantasies to reality.

I did. With Ken.

He did, with his teacher, Dana.

Dana did, with her teacher, John.

I know this because of the inscriptions in the book of John Keats's poetry that's sitting on the floor beside my knees. John inscribed the book to his student Dana on her eighteenth birthday. Dana inscribed it to Ken on his.

And last spring, Ken gave the book to me for my eighteenth birthday, and changed my life.

"I..." I grunt, pushing myself back, onto his thumb. The feeling of his finger, of his flesh pressing in, pushing into someplace where nothing, no one has ever gone fills me with heat; my nipples buzz with need and my cunt lips flutter against his searching fingers. "I get... you." I look up into his dark eyes, whose lids are drooping with lust. "I get to know that I am blowing your fucking mind, you old fucker. I want to feel you come all of the way up my ass and know that I've taken you somewhere no one else has."

He kisses me, and a tremor of passion passes between us. "Jesus," he murmurs against my lips, pulling me against him, pushing his thumb deeper into me. "God, Allison. What's gotten into you?"

"You!" I pant.

~*~

I took Ken's Acting classes through all four years of high school — and his Poetry and Advanced Comp classes Junior and Senior years. My friends used to tease me about being his biggest fan, which I guess was true; I loved his classes, and even I would have admitted that I had a huge crush on him. Hell, I wasn't the only one: a bunch of my girlfriends did too — and at least a couple of the boys, for that matter. He's a good-looking man, definitely, and that rumbling voice and those eyes... Well, they did things to me that I honestly didn't even have words for at the time.

But it was more the passion with which he taught, and the passion for the subject that he inspired in me and in the other students that put me under his spell. I'd taken acting classes before I got to high school, but they'd never felt like a personal journey of discovery before. He would ask all of the classic acting-teacher questions: What do you want? What's in your way? What are you going to do to get what you want?

But where those questions had always seemed academic before, suddenly, under his piercing gaze, they felt inspiring and deeply, deeply personal. He was asking about the character, about her motivation, but he always said, What do YOU want? He always said, Every character is just some aspect of you, some part of you that you don't usually show the world. So don't ever think of the character in the third person: you are the character, and the character is you.

The first time I ever thought of Ken sexually was actually in the middle of an acting class. We were working on Shakespeare monologues, and I had just done Juliet's "Gallop apace ye fiery-footed steeds" speech, which I still dearly love. I had worked hard on the iambic pentameter the way that he had been teaching us, and I had made sure that I understood — really understood — all of the words, and I had sung the speech like an aria, which had felt really good at the time. The rest of the class had applauded energetically — even Erica Travers, who hated everything I ever did, who hated me for no reason that I could ever see. But when the applause died down, Ken just sat there against his desk at the foot of the stage, face stony.

"Very pretty," he grunted. "The scansion was great, and you're on-voice, which is a nice improvement." Now he scowled, dark eyes flashing. "But. What. The. Hell. Do. You. WANT."

I was caught off-guard by his question, by his tone. I could see my shock reflected in the faces of my classmates. "I... Juliet is waiting — "

"Not Juliet, Allison. YOU. And I know what you're doing: you're standing on a stage, dancing back and forth, looking like you have to pee."

The class tittered. Erica looked like she'd just been given a Christmas present in April.

Now Ken stood, walking to the foot of the stage, and I had to fight the urge to step back, to hide — even though I was humiliated, I knew my need to do what Ken was asking, to learn what he was teaching meant far more to me than my own puny ego.

Still, I couldn't let go. I couldn't see what he wanted me to do. "I'm..." I huffed. "It's... It's just a monologue, Ken — there's no one else on stage, I mean, who could I want anything from?"

"Just a monologue?" he asked, voice low and intense in a way that I found sparked all sorts of interesting responses in my body. "Listen to me, Allison — it's not just a monologue, not just one of the greatest soliloquys ever written." He turned to the class, who were scattered through the seats of the little theater that served as the acting classroom. "What's the difference between a monologue and a soliloquy, anyone?"

The other students, who were all sitting wide-eyed, shrugged or shook their heads.

He turned back to me, his gaze piercing me.

"A... a soliloquy," I rasped, trembling, "is a monologue where the character is alone on stage."

"Thank you, Allison. But just because the character is alone doesn't mean she doesn't want something from someone."

I want YOU, I thought, for the very first time, and was scared speechless by the intensity of the feeling.

Sensing my agitation, Ken turned out to the class again. "Who could she be talking to?"

"To herself?" said Erica, looking pleased to be able to show me up.

"To the audience?" said Jordan, my friend, who looked as if she wanted to throw her arms around me and pull me off of the stage.

"Both good," Ken granted. "And in Shakespeare's plays, characters talk directly to the audience all of the time. And in that case, it's just like talking to a character on stage: you've got something you want from them, something you want them to do." He looked back up at me, and I found myself trembling again. "But in this case, we know who she's talking to — she tells us in the first line."

"The sun," I croaked.

"Exactly," Ken said with a grin and a nod, and I felt as if a fist had just released its grip on my heart. "Phoebus was another name for Apollo, the sun god, whose fiery-footed steeds pulled the chariot of the sun across the sky. So, Juliet, what do you want?"

"The sun to set."

"Really? Is that what you want?"

"Romeo," I gasped. "She wants... I want him to... come."

I hadn't meant it as a sexual innuendo, but it was a classroom full of sophomores — they heard sexual innuendo everywhere. A fierce round of giggling rippled across the little auditorium, and I blushed.

But even as my skin caught fire, the image appeared in my mind's eye, clearer than any DVD: that was exactly what Juliet wanted, for Romeo to come, to climb her balcony and climb into her bed, and undress her, and...

Ken cleared his throat. "You guys think Allison's joking — but she's not. Juliet's a young woman — younger, even, than you guys — but it's her wedding night, and she's very clear about what she wants to happen. Learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods. You guys didn't invent sex, believe me. Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die..." Here he grinned out at the class; then he smiled up at me, and gave me a wink. "Anyone know what she means by die here?"

Silence.

Ken smiled at me, but his gaze was dark and full of low, banked fire. "Elizabethans used the phrase the Little Death to mean... orgasm. Come, Romeo, come, thou day in night!"

Again the class tittered.

My blood was racing.

Ken's eyes locked on mine. "Oh, I have bought the mansion of a love, but not possessed it, and though I am sold, not yet enjoyed. Allison. Juliet. What do you want?"

"Romeo."

More titters.

Ken cut them off. "And what's in your way?"

"The sun won't get out of the fucking sky."

Laughter, this time — no doubt to hear little goody me use that word — but Ken and I let them laugh. He nodded up at me. "And what are you going to do to get what you want?"

"I'm going to beg the sun to set, to hurry, and night to come — Thou sober-suited matron — and bring me my Romeo."

"Exactly," said Ken, eyes aflame now. "Do it again."

I did the monologue again, and I know the scansion was probably not as good, and my voice was all over the place, but I begged, I pleaded with the sun to hurry the fuck up, to bring me my Romeo, my husband, my lover, so that he could climb in my window, and pull off my clothes, and fuck me.

And Romeo — who had been a faceless, featureless figure to me before — suddenly had a very specific face: it was Ken who I saw leaning over me, Ken's long, thick fingers tearing away the mall-bought clothing from my fevered, quivering body, Ken who kissed me and — gently, patiently, insistently — initiated me into a mystery I was only beginning to understand that I wanted to solve.

When I finished, I felt spent, drained; my panties were damp and my bra felt incredibly tight, but I was barely aware of them. The class applauded again, even more loudly this time. But all I heard was Ken's hands clapping, Ken's voice, as he sat there on his desk: "Wow. Allison. Wow."

~*~

I am bent over that desk, staring up at the small stage where my sexual initiation began — though neither of us knew it at the time — and then back at him: my teacher, my lover.

Ken is behind me, kissing, licking, nibbling his way slowly up the backs of my thighs, and I feel my fingers grasp the front of the desk. Determined not to give in too easily, not to dissolve immediately into a sexual, submissive puddle, I ask him, willing my voice to something like an even tone, "When you taught me all about... Juliet — about how horny she was, about how she wanted Romeo — " His tongue draws a long line up my left hamstring to my round ass, and in spite of my resolve, I am struck speechless for a moment. " — Where you... Where you thinking of Veronica, of watching her play Juliet, of wanting to —?"

His tongue circles my asshole, and I gulp. "Yeah," he murmurs, into the incredibly sensitive spot between my cheeks. "I was thinking about how sweet and sexy she was as Juliet, of the incredible amount of subtext she managed to get into and when he dies..." His lips press against my bum, and I groan. "But the minute you started the monologue, she went right out of my head. Seeing you, kneeling there... As a teacher, it's hard not to pick up on the students' feelings: anger, sadness, happiness. But you, I could sense your excitement, your desire. Could see your nipples pressing through that damned Beatles t-shirt. First time — " He presses his tongue against my rectum, and thrusts in, making me cry out, those same nipples doing their best to drill through the wood beneath my chest. He withdraws his tongue, and my whole body quivers, a small orgasm — a Little Death — flowing through me.

"Had to shove my hands in my pockets because watching you got me hard, right there." He begins to kiss his way up my spine. "That was the first time I ever thought of you sexually, Allison."

"Me too," I pant. "Me too, you. You were who I was thinking of. I... wish... Wanted you just to jump up there, take me in front of everyone, fuck me right up there, everyone watching, Erica fucking Travers seeing how you made me feel..."

He groans into my back, and I feel his cock, hard, between my knees, sliding up between my thighs as he stands. "You were my student. You were a fucking sophomore. You were barely sixteen."

"Didn't mean I didn't want you. Wanted you so bad, Ken."

"Allison." I can hear him, feel him breathing hard behind me as his hands tremble, fumbling to open the lube. The length of his cock is pressing up now against my cunt lips. But that's not where he's going this time.

His left hand is fever-hot as it presses down on my left cheek, opening my bottom to him again. The lube gel, however, is cool as he squeezes it from the tube against my asshole, and I shiver. With the index finger of his right hand, he begins to work the slippery gel into me.

Terror is beginning to grip me, and I know that I have to think of something other than that slow, insistent invasion. "D-did you and Dana fuck this way?" Ken's teacher — his first lover.

He grunts, and adds a second finger, evoking a low groan from me.

But I won't stop: I continue through gritted teeth, "Did she, Ken? Did she take you up her ass?"

He pushes his fingers all of the way into me, pressing all of the air out, leaving me breathless. At his mercy.

"Yes," he whispers. And I hear the splash of lube again — one-handed, into his palm, this time. "Yeah. She wanted to teach me... everything." I can hear the slurp as he applies the gel to his hard cock.

Oh, God. He is. He is going to fuck my ass. "Know you did with Rachel."

"Did that bit turn you on?" He withdraws his fingers, and I can feel the cool air tickle the open ring of muscle.

Turned on. Holy fuck. "And... Veronica? Did you... stick your cock up into her little, tiny ass?"

"Huh. No, actually. And her ass wasn't so tiny. It wasn't anywhere near as beautiful as yours." He kisses the ass in question, and then stands.

My ass, my whole body flushes with the compliment.

I can feel him closing behind me, can feel the fronts of his muscular thighs pressing against the backs of mine.

Can feel the thick head of his cock, slick and hot, pressing against my asshole. The head stretching me open. Beginning to push in.

Out of habit, I don't ask about Meredith. We never talk about his wife.

We've never fucked in the bed they shared. Every other room in his house. In the theater, fulfilling the fantasy that was born that day when Ken and Juliet taught me what desire felt like. But never in their bed.