Bad Actor Read online

  Nobody ever said it was; perhaps indicative of my limited experience or just that Lily hasn’t ever had a big one before (a really big one I mean) and the other girls I’ve been with thought nothing of having a really big one.

  “Do you like what I’ve got, fair one?” I ask, sliding the back of one finger down her throat, over her chest, between her breasts and down over her stomach.

  “I love it,” she growls, pressing her belly against me.

  “Good, because it’s yours.”

  Shaking my arms out of my robe, I push myself out of the chair and carry her with me, taking her to the bed in my arms, all of her mine to play with now. She stares at me, pleading with me to fuck her senseless. Still, I have no illusions; this isn’t going to last long but I’m going to make it count.

  I throw her down on the bed and my cock strains even more when she opens her legs wide and waits for me, her fingers holding her lips open for my cock. I give her a quick lick through her folds before I mount her, just to have the taste of her in my mouth. She’s delicious, smooth, silky and tastes like fuck… desperate, greedy, wonderful fuck.

  I climb over her body and she wraps herself around me immediately, her eyes roving my arms and chest, my stomach, my cock. She bites my shoulder and my pec, shuddering underneath me. I kiss her savagely, push her arms above her head and take control. She’s mine.

  Our hands are fastened together at the sides of her head, my nose is pushed to hers and her eyes are half open when I kiss her gently, tickling my tongue under her top lip, then kissing the pronounced bow of her mouth. I’m holding a lot of my own weight on my forearms but my core is bearing down on hers, the heat between us immense.

  “Theo, be with me,” she urges, “be with me.”

  “Are you taking the pill again?” I ask, our breaths mingling.

  “Yes, darling, please, fill me up. Make love to me.”

  “Only if you open your eyes.”

  She opens them wide and looks up at me, terrified and elated, all at once. I look down to where our bodies are almost joined and aim at her entrance, positioning myself, my eyes back on hers immediately.

  I let my hips tip towards her and sink slowly into her, watching as her pupils dilate, her eyes like saucers. She grips me so hard and shakes beneath me, I have to hold still, kiss her mouth and cheeks, her throat, her mouth again – just to stop myself coming.

  Sharing breath, I groan, “I’ll love you forever.”

  “Prove it,” she gasps.

  “Give me forever,” I demand, sinking even deeper and forcing a few veins to pop in her neck.

  “Done,” she moans, giving me the green light to let myself take her – to enjoy her, to worship her, pour everything I am into her. I feel renewed… I feel a little like an animal being allowed to eat his supper finally.

  I let go of her hands so she can hold on tight as I ram into her, not kindly or carefully, but so she can feel the full weight and size of me for the first time, warning I’ll be unwelcome unless she really wants me. She has to know what it’s like, what I’ll need, how violently I love her.

  She drips around me, digs her nails into my lower back and urges me not to stop.

  The tightening in my body, the almost paralysing need to blow takes hold, but somehow I keep going as she pleads, “Don’t stop, ah god, don’t stop, I’m gonna come… I’m gonna come… I’m coming!”

  I pin her down and fuck the living daylights out of her, riding her hard and wrong as she shakes violently, painfully, screaming and yelling, making sounds no other woman has ever made beneath me.

  I let go of that barrage of sadness and pent-up emotion I’ve held inside me for so long and flood her body, unleashing so many times I lose count, groaning against her ear as I let it leave me and fill her up, coating her in my very soul, giving myself up to her. I’ve never done this before… been with a woman without wearing a condom. It’s agony as she takes and I give, my size and her tightness suddenly very apparent and uncomfortable.

  I slide away slowly and rest my head on her chest. She wraps her arms and legs around me and doesn’t let go, her heart pounding beneath my ear as we recover.

  “You said I’m your girl,” she says breathlessly.

  I lift myself up and look down into her sparkling, delighted eyes. “You were. Now you’re my woman.”

  She strokes her hand along my jaw and murmurs, “And you’re my man.”

  She strokes the back of my neck and sighs when I kiss her throat, inhaling the scent of her, something like roses and fire.

  “Oh god, Theo,” she groans, raising her hips and urging me to slot between her thighs again.

  I push back inside her and the pleasure is so exquisite, it’s almost too painful to bear but I don’t want to leave her – ever.

  I kiss her slowly this time, nudging my lips into hers. Her touch is gentle and we make love so carefully, I hear every breath of hers, every touch, feel every kiss and every whisper of love. In my arms, she becomes more than I ever even dreamed of.

  Our words of love are voiced silently eventually, our eyes, mouths, hands and arms saying everything we need to say. I see in her eyes that she’s braver than me. She hasn’t ever been scared to love. That’s her only flaw as far as I can see: that she loves too fast, too easy, too hard. I feel like a shipwreck washed up on rocks, jagged and splintered, a bit vulnerable around the edges and susceptible to sinking.

  But as we make love, she offers to take me to shore. She gives me the ability to anchor myself as I plunge inside her, her beautiful body my home – my rescue.

  “God, you’re so beautiful, Lily,” I groan, as she rocks with me, my hair still between her fists.

  “I’m sorry but I’m going to be obsessed with your hair forever,” she moans, “it’s the best, the sexiest, the wildest hair… fuck, fuck…”

  She tips her head back as I work my finger around her clit, making her come. Once she’s screamed, I allow myself my own orgasm, gentler than before and less painful. She still grips me as I pour into her tight cunt, but she also allows me to have a home inside her, no requests of her own, just pleasure whenever I want it.

  We lie together afterwards, side by side. Her hair is dry now and I push my fingers through the lengths of it, combing it out. She gives me a love bite on my chest and the sting pleases me though it hurts.

  She’s stroking my face when she says, “You used to scare me a bit, you know?”

  “I used to scare myself.”

  She shakes her head, moving in and giving me the softest, most beautiful chaste kiss. My heart flutters and I feel butterflies in my stomach. I’m not sure we’re meant to admit that as blokes, but that’s how it feels being kissed by Lily Brooks.

  “No,” she says, her eyes bouncing with joy, “not like that.” She slides her hands up and down my back and strokes her nose against mine. “It frightened me how clever… how beautiful… how talented and wonderful and all-round gorgeous you are.”

  I feel embarrassed and pull her into me, kissing her forehead. “Fuck off, will you?”

  She laughs and cuddles into my chest, sighing with happiness. “I’ve tried to hide from what I am for so long. I was with people who offered me no real future, I knew that. Whether I knew it then or not, I know now that the appeal of Paul was that he needed saving. It was a distraction from saving myself.”

  “I don’t understand.” To me, she’s perfect as she is. I curl her hair around my finger, staring at her arse as she lies on her side, pushed up against my body, one leg tangled with mine.

  “A love like ours… it’s going to change us. It’s going to force us into the roles we were born to do. You’re already so close and I feel like soon, I’ll be forced to pitch up alongside you and find my role.”

  I hold her tight and pull the covers over us. “For now, I’m very, very content thinking about nothing but how beautiful your body is and how gorgeous it feels to be holding you.”

  She giggles warmly and accepts my embrace, holdi
ng me in return, her worries and her cares and everything else… silenced.

  I love her and more to the point, I feel loved, for the very first time.

  It’s only dawning on me now, I never felt loved… not really… not ever… until Lily.

  Chapter Nine

  It feels incredibly cruel for her to be leaving me but I’m as complicit as she. The trains are few on Sundays and if she doesn’t get this one, buying another ticket will incur significant cost – both to her wallet and our plans. I need to get to the gym at some point and she needs to get home and prepare for the week ahead. I feel so awful I just bought her a bag of stuff to take on the train with her, including a book, a huge sandwich, massive bag of sweets, bottles of water, crisps and a magazine. How can I fuck her three times and then not spend the rest of the day with her, worshipping each and every inch of her?

  We’re waiting on the platform for the last-minute call to get on the train before it leaves. She’s next to me on one of the metal benches, tears balancing on her lashes. Neither of us wants her to go.

  “I hate this,” she groans, and finally a tear falls.

  “I know, but isn’t it romantic?”

  She searches my face and asks, “Are you happy, Theo? Sometimes, I can’t tell.”

  I smile sadly. “I’m really happy, just sad you have to go.”

  “I know, but are you happy? Sometimes, I don’t know. You’re so talented, but is this life… is it what you want?”

  I wrap my hands around hers and give her a kiss. “More than anything. Which is why, if I’m a bit off or quiet or weird sometimes, it’s because everything’s a lot to process. I have that imposter syndrome thing they talk about. I think it’s as I said last night, I grew up the voyeur, watching from the outside in. It’s a big thing to shake off.”

  She strokes my hair and my jaw. “I mean, are you depressed? Sometimes you’ve seemed it… like with the Susan thing, you seemed… unhealthily fixated.”

  A therapist would only say these things to someone they know well, I hope or else her patients most likely find her pretty blunt! God love my Lily – already trying to pick our relationship apart and find something wrong with me – because she’s only ever been with douches before now.

  “No, not depressed,” I murmur. “I just have that awful flaw that all artists have to contend with of being overly self-critical, which is my problem, nobody else’s. Maybe you’ll kick it out of me, eh? Being with you is going to be the best thing for me, I know it.”

  “Me too.”

  She leans in, arms around my neck, and kisses me for the dozenth time since we got here, soft and tender one minute, deep and yearning the next. She tastes like paradise should taste and there’s no getting bored of it, no wanting to ever leave or say goodbye to it.

  “It’s going to be tough, the next month or so. I’m going to be on stage a lot, I’m going to be exhausted and it’s all crazy, Lily. I can’t tell you how crazy it feels to be doing this, but it almost feels like all my luck has come in with you and the play together… and it frightens me, it does, I feel like it’s all just a beautiful dream and it terrifies me… that old adage you can’t have everything in life.”

  “Yes, but we know one another so well. You can trust me and I can trust you.” She strokes her fingers over my brow, staring lovingly into my eyes. “I will only ever be thinking about you,” she chuckles, “and maybe Mr Giddy-Up.” She gestures at my downstairs department.

  “You can’t call it that, Lily.” I burst out laughing.

  “Why not?” she whispers in my ear, kissing my lobe. “You’re hung like a fucking horse, I adore it.”

  “And what else do you like about me?” I ask, my loins stirring with this talk.

  Her beautiful blue eyes take my breath away when they dance with laughter. “Erm, well, pretty much all of it. Yeah. It’s all Grade A,” she chuckles, grinning, “except your toes. They have to go. We have to get them sawn off. They’re much too gnarled and hairy.”

  I suppress my laughter and pull her in close, kissing her cheek. “It’s only until next Friday, Lily. Then we can be together again. It’ll be amazing, I’ll make plans, okay?” I pull back and give her mouth a quick kiss. “And maybe in a couple of weeks or something, Adam and Susan can come down and we’ll all go out for dinner after the show… that’s if you want to watch it again?”

  “You could read the bible on stage and I’d be there.”

  “Amazing, I’ll square something with Adam.”

  She squeezes my hand and mumbles, “I didn’t mean anything about saying it was shite, you know? Gustav’s play and everything. I’m just a traditionalist and don’t think you need any bells and whistles; you could perform that role in a dentist surgery with six people in the audience and they’d all be talking about it for the rest of their lives.”

  “That’s what scares me, Lily,” I admit, worrying my lip. “This feels bigger than me, it feels like I get swept away up there, like I am truly someone else… that for Gus to have picked me… and it scares me, it’s amazing… but it feels like I soon won’t have any control of it, and I don’t want that to affect us. That’s the last thing I want.”

  She flutters her eyelashes and pouts, “Nothing could ever make me feel differently about you.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, feeling weak, vulnerable, fragile and a wuss.

  “Sometimes, on dark days, I’d re-read old emails from you because they’d make me smile. They’d be full of criticisms, of course, but they’d make me smile.” She strokes the back of my hand, looking down. “Nobody ever sent me an internet delivery of food until you. Nobody else ever treated me with the respect you have. Nobody else comes close and you were right here, under my nose, this entire time” – she looks up at me suddenly – “and yet, this feels like the perfect time, the right time, the only time. It feels like if we’re going through a transformation, each of us in separate roles, we should go through it together and be stronger for it.”

  The platform guy blows his whistle and we’re shocked to realise she has to go. We start scrabbling about for bags and all sorts of bits she’s taking home.

  Before the door of the train shuts, she gives me one last kiss, leaning down and whispering, “Forever.”

  I watch with a horrible pain in my chest as she’s transported away and it almost kills me to make tracks across the platform and further into King’s Cross to catch my own train home.

  Then, there’s a text.

  Forgot to say I love you.

  Forever, is my reply.

  ***

  Monday afternoon. Gustav calls the whole cast in for a meeting in one of the rehearsal studios and looks dishevelled and even more knackered than usual. In his slight accent, he hurries everyone to, “Please sit down,” and flings off his denim jacket, letting it fall dramatically to the floor.

  “So, I’ve got you all here because it’s become absolutely crystal clear that everyone thinks my vision is bullshit and we should cut the crap.”

  I look around me and everyone seems relieved. Either they hated it too or they thought this meeting was about the safety of their jobs… who knows? Gustav looks at me, stood propped against the wall, expecting me to speak for everyone.

  “Where did you get that idea?” I ask, thinking of my wilted red roses back in the dressing room, much like Gustav’s diminished ego.

  “Does that matter? I thought everyone here loved it! How am I meant to trust any of you ever again if you’re secretly keeping these ideas… that it’s rubbish and… indulgent.”

  I have to stop myself laughing like a hyena because of the way he just mouthed indulgent, almost like it’s a dirty word, but also because he looks in pain even having to contemplate not being a perfect director.

  I’ll admit the reason I wanted to work with Gustav is that he is renowned for producing plays that are a little memorable and verge on the side of performance art. He brings something unique and wacky. So if you want to get noticed, you work for him – and
also people know if you can survive beneath Gustav, you can survive anywhere.

  I admit since my conversation with Lily I’ve been wondering if the play should be changed and I don’t know if it should. Part of me thinks performing the original version best, another part thinks it’s a piece of writing over half a century old and we should keep reinterpreting it for whatever time we’re in… it’s what Shakespeare would have wanted… for us to keep his name fresh and current. Call me crazy, but I’m going to go with his vision and say let’s open ourselves to the critics… let them say what they want.

  “Maybe we could fine tune a few things, but I think the overall concept is good. I think it’ll open up a dialogue,” I decide, looking for affirmation from my colleagues.

  Most of them remain clammed up, not wanting to confront the great guy up front.

  Then the girl who’s playing Ophelia says, “Theo’s right. I’ve played Ophelia dozens of times and always the same. Let’s shake some shit up.”

  “You think?” asks Gustav, biting his nails and scratching his beard. Gustav is a character in his own right, a man ravaged by fear of failure and humiliation… but also a man with ideas.

  “I think we should make it incredibly dark and bleak,” says the guy playing Laertes, “I think that’s what people like about Theo. We should highlight the crap going on in the world. We should wear things that don’t cut off our identity but that cut off the earth’s. We should… make this something people go home and feel really uncomfortable about, or else what is the fucking point of art?”

  “THERE!” Gustav yells, his whole body thrown into action as he points as far as he can towards the direction of the speaker. “YES! Our own destruction is inevitable just as Mother Earth’s is if we don’t start making changes and stop this tragedy.” Everyone claps. “Are you all with me? Are we doing this?” Everyone claps louder.

  “We’re doing this!” I yell, and everyone else joins in.