Things I Never Told My Wife
True confessions of a Shakespearean actor
Chapter 13
THURSDAY MORNING, I got to PCAD ready for my first class. It was a good thing I was early. Jon stopped me the hallway as I was just locating my office.
“Terry, what Shakespeare do you want to do? We’re late getting the season brochure printed and we need to distribute it at the show coming up in two weeks.”
“A Shakespeare? When am I directing a Shakespeare?”
“Early spring. We have a small cast production before winter break, then your show goes into rehearsal as soon as we get back. As soon as you are well underway, we’ll be casting the musical for late April. We should have talked about this when you were here during the summer but somehow it got missed.”
“Can I get the selection to you tomorrow? I’m going to be late for my class if I don’t get moving.”
“Of course, of course. Sorry to throw this at you in your first hour here. Your office is just down the hall there on the left. I need to run, too.”
“Sure. See you.” I rushed to my office and ran face-first into a gorgeous young blonde standing just inside the door.
“Sorry! I’ll get out of your way. Just came by to make sure you knew where your first class was.”
“Thank you. I was held up in the hall. I’m Terry Reichert. And you?” I held out my hand to accept her offered shake. Good, firm, warm handshake.
“El Andrews. Not an initial. Just short for Elinore. I’m your TA.”
My what? Oh, my god. I had a teaching assistant. When she’d said ‘TA,’ I had a completely different thought. I looked her up and down quickly and critically. She wore a form-fitting black leotard with a low scoop neck that showed the start of impressive cleavage. Her skirt was as tight and form-fitting as the top. She had golden blonde hair, perfectly applied makeup with bright red lipstick, and matching painted nails. Everything about her screamed ‘High maintenance!’ I liked my definition of TA better.
“El, I didn’t know I had an assistant. Let me drop my pack here and you can show me where my class is held.”
“Sure. Here’s your office key. Don’t know what you have in your pack, but better safe than sorry. Need any books or anything?” I shook my head no as I backed out of the office. She followed and locked the door behind us. “This way.”
She led me to a classroom with about twenty students already seated at neat rows of desks. A soft chime sounded over the speaker system, PCAD’s reminder that the class period had begun. El stepped confidently in front of the class and called their attention.
“Hey, everybody. Let’s get started. I’m supposed to take attendance. If you aren’t here say, ‘aye.’ Okay, all present and accounted. This is Terry Reichert, our new acting instructor and coach. Terry, it’s all yours.” El stepped to the back of the room. Everyone focused on me. This wasn’t going to work at all.
“Okay. We can’t get started until we get some space to work in. Push all these desks back against the walls and stand in a circle in the middle.” Students hopped up at once and in just a couple of minutes were standing and laughing in a rough approximation of a circle. “We’ll be doing a lot of movement in this class so we need the floor space. If we’re going to sit, we’ll sit on the floor. Let’s start with some stretches.”
I was prepared, of course. I’d worn jazz pants and a T-shirt—standard rehearsal dress in Ashland. I grinned at a couple of the guys who couldn’t quite stretch in their tight jeans. I watched as El simply unzipped her skirt and kicked it off behind her so she was in her leotard and ballet slippers. Black tights would have been a little less distracting. A little. We all went through a ten-minute stretching routine. I didn’t make a comment about how anyone was dressed. I figured they got the message.
“Now, look around the circle carefully at everyone standing here. I’d like each of you to introduce yourself by putting your name in a sentence that will tell us something about who you are or how you see yourself. I’ll start. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is missing Terry this season.” I figure that would get things started and show them what I wanted. Way too optimistic on my part.
“I’m Tom and this is my first year at PCAD.” Boring.
“Jim has never taken an acting class before.” Boring.
“Deborah loves wild flowers and bright colors.” I looked at El and she grinned.
“The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role goes to… El!” Everyone laughed at her very loud announcement, complete with a suspenseful pause before she announced her name. I nodded. That was better. I turned to the guy next to her.
“Rick has marked himself safe from PCAD orientation.”
“For the best tips on baking a casserole, talk to Janie.”
Things started moving much better and the class all got into making up a fact about themselves. I didn’t want to let them get too comfortable yet, so when they’d all introduced themselves I called one to stand facing me.
“Traci, tell me who is wearing a bright pink leotard.”
“Huh? Uh. Were we supposed to remember what everyone was wearing? Um… I don’t… No, wait! That girl who likes flowers and bright colors. It starts with a D. I don’t remember!”
“Okay. Go back to your place in the circle. Deborah, you’re up next.” The girl in the hot pink leotard faced me bouncing on her toes. “Does Mike have a beard and mustache, just a mustache, or is he clean shaven?” She looked daggers at me for a moment and then closed her eyes. While they were still closed, she pointed to her left and a little behind directly at Mike.
“A goatee.”
“Good job! Mike, get up here.”
The class went on with the exercise and a couple other short ones before I motioned everyone to sit. We all dropped to the floor.
“Observation. Association. Memorization,” I said. “If El gets her wish and wins an Academy Award, she’ll have learned an entirely different way of memorizing her lines than she uses on stage. Scenes are not shot chronologically. Often script changes come out just before you walk in front of the cameras. Tim, if you are the understudy for four different actors and one falls sick, you’ll need to review the lines for that part, put the lines for all the other parts out of your consciousness, and walk on stage following the exact blocking the other actor used. We will do a lot of exercises that get you into your acting head.”
A soft chime indicated class was over and people started to move.
“Watch the call board for a different classroom assignment. Put the desks back in order for the next class, and read the first fifteen pages of The Actor’s Way by Maureen Rogers for Tuesday. We’ll be putting some of her concepts into play. Good job, everyone.”
I did—subtly, I hope—observe El shimmying back into her tight skirt as several others grabbed discarded bits of clothing. I thought they’d all be better prepared next week.
“Are you allowed to take a class you are TA for?” I asked El as we walked back to my office.
“Oh, I’m not taking your class. I took it from Cora three years ago. I just wanted to see what kind of guy I was working for,” she laughed. “I won’t be there for every class, but it was a fun refresher today.”
“Well, you certainly helped with our introductions. I was about to halt it and explain the difference.”
“Like I said, I already took the class. You started out almost exactly the same way Cora did. I don’t know why they’ve got you stuck in that little classroom, though. I’ll see what I can do about getting us a bigger open space. We have them here. I’ll take care of posting an announcement on the call board as soon as I find out. I’ll text you in case I don’t see you.”
“You’re starting out as a great assistant.”
“Do you want me here for specific hours?”
“Why don’t we wait to see how my schedule works out? I’m sure I’ll need some regular help, but it’s not like I’m going to have you grading papers. Things will get more intense as we move into production of the Shakespeare after break.”
“I’ll probably hang around a lot anyway. One of the perks of being a TA is to have a quiet place to study. That’s why there are two desks in your office.”
“Unless I’m having a private meeting with another student, that will be fine.”
“Have you selected your Shakespeare yet?”
“No. That’s the big task for tonight when I get home. Jon caught me off guard this morning when he asked me what I’d chosen.”
“Well, have fun. I’ve put in to be your Assistant Director for that unless you discover someone else you’d rather have,” she said. I settled into my desk chair and began arranging things I’d brought along. I didn’t have another class until two o’clock and it would be a bit less strenuous than the Intro to Acting class. Audition Art and Practice would focus more on memorizing monologues and how to behave and what to expect in an audition.
“You aren’t going to audition for a part?”
“I’ve played a lot of good parts here. I need to get experience behind the scenes so I understand better what’s going on. I’ll audition for a part in the musical.”
“Okay. Sounds good to me. As soon as I pick the play, you can start by ordering scripts.”
“I heard you got put in a lecture classroom,” Jon said. “We’ve never held that class in a lecture room. Someone new in scheduling must have slotted it. You should be in The Box. No one is using it during your class time. El has already posted the change on the call board.”
“It gave us a chance to be creative yesterday. What I’m interested in is whether any of them wear appropriate clothes today. There were a few stretched seams yesterday,” I laughed. I’d figured it out already. I’d been tested. Someone wanted to know how I’d react. If they’d told me there was no other space, I was prepared to hold class in the hallway. I was glad the box was available, though. I could work a number of different exercises there.
“So, did you pick a play for March?”
“Yes. I think we’ll do Two Gentlemen of Verona. It has some excellent female roles as well as being a comedy. And since it is generally credited as Shakespeare’s first play, I figured it was appropriate to be our first play as well.”
“And it has a small cast.”
“That figured into the decision. I don’t know what I’ll have to work with yet, so this show will give me an opportunity to audition a lot of people for a limited number of roles and then cast more of them as townspeople and extras. Oh, and El will be my assistant director.”
“Good. She needs that experience to round out her degree. I completely expect that Richardson will cast her in the spring musical. You should hear her voice. Great talent,” Jon said.
“I’m looking forward to it. She’s been johnny-on-the-spot with classes so far. I’ll have her order scripts so I can look them over and make a few cuts.”
“Work with her on that cue book, as well. And don’t forget the stage manager will need a book. Have her order a few extra and we’ll put them in the library.”
“Will do.”
“I didn’t know Shakespeare plays were so hard to get as an acting script. What version do you want?” El asked me on Monday after class.
“Oh, I should have told you all that last week. Order the Mowat version, directly from the Folger Shakespeare Library,” I said. I had no real commitment to that edition, but most of our scripts in Ashland came from there so I figured it was a safe bet for me. The problem was that they were sometimes 200 pages long with all the commentary and scholarly discussion in the front. But maybe a few of the students would learn something besides their lines.
“Okay. I’ll call them and have the office cut a P.O. We’ve got accounts at, like, French’s, Baker’s, and Dramatists’ but the play isn’t available from any of them.”
“Any time you are dealing with classics, it will be like that. There’s no royalty other than the cost of the scripts themselves. Most commercial licensing companies live off the royalties, not the book purchase,” I said. “Oh, and Jon said to remember to order copies for you, the stage manager, the tech director, and the designers, then also to get half a dozen extras for the school library. For you, me, and the stage manager, get two copies each. We’ll need sketchbooks that we can paste the pages down on so we can write cues and notes in the margins. I prefer to use a nine by twelve book unless the script pages are exceptionally large. Spiral bound. Make sure they have at least as many pages as are in the script.”
“Wow! Yessir.” El got busy looking up the phone number for the Folger Shakespeare Library sales department. I was happy to have that administrative garbage off my desk and on hers. I headed out to my next class.
I settled in to my class schedule and once rehearsals started for O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten, I had some serious time coaching actors and was thankful it was a small cast. Getting a college kid to appropriately act out the role of a middle aged man dying of consumption was a challenge. Jon was directing and I was the acting coach. I needed to listen carefully to what he told actors in his notes regarding position and inflection. Then I would meet with the actor the next day and work with him on lines, diction, and stage presence. Like most college productions, it was on a short timetable and was performed at the Seattle Cascades University stage the week after their first show closed.
I was also working hard to get the script marked up and coordinate designs with costumes and scenery. Not only that, we needed to figure out how we were going to get a trained dog on set. We’d be working at the ACT theatre for our performances with a two week window of occupation that included two weekends of performance. Load-in of the set would take place on Sunday and we’d have tech rehearsal all day Monday with a dry tech in the morning—just tech crew and no actors—and wet tech mid-afternoon—actors get moved around on stage like mannequins while lighting and scene changes are affected. Dress rehearsals would begin on Tuesday with opening night on Thursday. We set our period and theme and I went back to work on the cuts I’d make.
“How about one of those invisible dogs clowns use?” El asked as I bemoaned not having considered the play requiring a dog. I looked at her as I considered her suggestion. I looked at her quite often and I thought she probably knew it, because she often sat or walked in such a way that I would be sure to notice. I smiled.
“I think you’ve got something there, dahlink. Yes. Launce and Speed and Panthino are all classic Shakespearean clowns. We might just be able to capitalize on that aspect. It’s a direction I hadn’t thought of going but now that I think about it, I like it. Yeah. I could just kiss you for that one,” I said as I started scribbling notes to share in our next production meeting.
“Okay.”
“Hmm?”
“You can kiss me for that one. It might motivate me to find others as well. I respond well to motivation.”
“I um… don’t think that’s wise. I’m a professor and…”
“An instructor. Jon is a professor. Maybe you can work your way up to assistant professor in a couple of years.”
“Well, I don’t think that kissing students would enhance my chances of that.”
“I’ll just be sitting around waiting. You go ahead and think.”
Holy shit. If we weren’t sharing an office and having a teacher/student relationship, I would lay one on her. I managed to keep things platonic. Lustfully platonic.
I made it through the semester and was considered an active part of the staff. I told my audition students that I expected great things of them when we auditioned for Gentlemen. In the meantime, I’d received a call from June.
“Two weeks of work in Orlando over your break. The first product is a men’s grooming line and they’ve got a seriously funny concept that will let you stretch your acting skills. This company has done a lot of market research and has some dynamite young writers working for them. And the pay is scale plus expenses. You can fly first class and there are first class accommodations,” she said when she called.
“What’s the second week?”
“The second week is a product launch for a tech company. Not as fun as the first week, but still scale and expenses. Same production company shooting both sets.”
“Let me run it by Daphne. She might want to come along.”
“I could probably get at least airfare covered. Let me know tonight. I need to respond to these guys.”
I talked it over with Daphne and she declined to accompany me.
“The kids aren’t old enough for Disney World and I’d just end up sitting in a hotel room with two bored brats. Why don’t I schedule a late Christmas celebration with my parents and go to Arizona for a couple of weeks? They’d love to see their grandkids and I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it happen without abandoning you here in Seattle. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll miss you, and our little rug rats. But it’s a smart idea. How about if I book my flight from here to Arizona and then to Florida? That way you don’t need to herd them by yourself.”
“You’re such a good daddy.” I managed to get my call into June to accept the contract before I got dragged to bed for a very pleasant night.
That’s how I ended up in Orlando in January. I guess the peak of the tourist flood was past and people were just beginning to breathe again after the Christmas rush of visitors to the Wonderful World. We flew coach from Seattle to Phoenix and I got a chance to see my in-laws briefly at the airport before I scurried away to catch my flight to Orlando. First class. I kicked back with a couple nice scotches and a really decent meal.
There are no non-stops from Phoenix to Orlando, so I chose the one that would give me the longest single flight so I could get some rest before connecting south from Atlanta. The first class flight attendants were the best and prettiest I’d seen on a flight. Granted, I didn’t fly that much, but for jobs like this one, I was pretty happy with the very personal attention they paid. I think if I’d had one more drink, I’d have ended up joining the mile-high club. When I got to Atlanta, Doris pressed a card into my hand with her phone number.
“I’m based here. I have two days before my next flight. Call me.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have two days in Atlanta and I called her from Florida to apologize. Never leave a woman hanging.
I spent a quiet Sunday adjusting to the time zone while I lay beside the pool at the Hard Rock at Universal Studios studying my scripts. Each day, I’d shoot one scene for each of the products in their men’s line. The next day I’d shoot a different scene for each one of them. It was obvious why it was set up this way. The first scene for each of the products I would be a caveman. In the second scene, I’d be a Roman. Third scene, a Renaissance man. You get the system. In the last scene, I’d be a typical young guy on the move in an imagined future. Since each of the scenes required extensive costume and makeup, it was important to shoot everything for one scene of each product in one day. Clever.
I showed up Monday morning and was conducted to makeup. They’d decided that in order to break into the shooting more easily, they’d shoot the contemporary scene first. I was amused to find two women were going to be included in each scene, artfully draped across me. This could be fun.
I knew it was going to be fun when I recognized one of the actresses.
“Abigail? My god! How are you? It’s been so long!”
“Terry? I can’t believe it. Is CeeCee with you?”
“Oh, Abby. I sent you a note but it must have gone astray. I lost CeeCee in June of ’89. It was that fucking cancer that came back.”
Tears sparkled in Abby’s eyes and I knew they were reflected in my own. After all this time, it still hurt to have lost that incredible woman.
“That was when I was still off on my round-the-world exploration. I attended school in Paris for a year and just decided to keep exploring for a while. We… need to dab our eyes and not smear the makeup. It’s almost time to start working.”
And work we did. Abby and I had a natural chemistry and she had worked with Candy, the other actress, for quite a while. I found out later they were roommates. Before the day was over, the chemistry had expanded to include all three of us and we were having a blast working with the director. He was pleased and before the end of the day, we went back and reshot the first two products to bring them up to the same level as what we ended at.
“That’s a good day’s work!” Solomon yelled. “You kids need to get food and sleep. We have a winner here and I’m anxious to have you ready tomorrow. Tomorrow we do Ug the caveman and his two women. Ah! This is good.”
Abby and Candy had a whispered conversation and then Candy disappeared. Abby took my arm.
“We have a lot of catching up to do. Let’s eat.”
Apparently, catching up included being naked in my bed and screwing half the night. I hoped we weren’t too tired to give Solomon a good show in the morning.
“Abby, you’re as beautiful as the first day CeeCee and I took you to our apartment. I can’t believe we hooked up again.” We lay in bed kissing and drawing little figures on each other with our fingertips. I’d always had a bit of a thing for redheads, even though CeeCee was blonde and Daphne was brunette. Abigail’s mahogany tresses were a pleasure.
“We’re only just about to hook up and I need this, Terry. Please. Make love to me.” I reached for a condom and she pushed my hand aside. “I haven’t been with a man in four years. I’m on birth control. Please, just love me for the night.”
That wasn’t difficult to do. I was hard as blazes and Abigail was ready and willing. I rolled on top of her and she positioned me. She took hold of my hips and pulled me into her incredibly tight hot furnace. She was still one of the tightest pussies I’d ever been in. It was easy to believe she hadn’t been with a man in four years. I moved in and out of her until we’d both found a rhythm we liked. Kissing and touching each other was great, but finding my cock in Abigail Harris’s pussy was heaven. We were both a little older than the first time we’d been together. God! That was twelve years ago. We’d both learned a lot about stamina and pleasing our lover. Still, it was Abby’s pussy and my bare cock. It couldn’t go on forever. She started panting and her pussy made little squeezing motions on my cock and I lost it completely. I started pumping into her and the more I pumped, the louder Abby got as she came on my cock.
“Terry, you really send me.”
“I can’t believe we got together after all this time.”
“I think of you as one of those persons who will always be my lover, even if it is years between times. Of course, tomorrow night, we’ll have to satisfy Candy.”
“What?”
“Candy’s been my lover for over a year now. She’ll be insanely jealous if I don’t share. That’s why there have been no men for the past four years. I’m completely bisexual, but mostly I prefer girls because they aren’t as messy. Speaking of which, I need to go drip out for a minute. Then we can start over.”
Abby headed off to the bathroom and I lay there wondering what I’d gotten myself into.
The next day in the caveman getups was long and exhausting. I have to admit the girls looked pretty fine in their little fur bikinis. And Abby was right that Candy would want her own connection to me. We were so exhausted by the end of the day, though, that we just went to our own homes and crashed. I don’t think I even bothered with dinner. I made it up with the amount I ate for breakfast.
I don’t think the Romans actually dressed their women in togas that barely covered their buns and dropped enough to show cleavage. And if I was in the right position, they showed a lot more than that. Solomon probably got a pretty good eyeful, too, but he didn’t shoot any of that. This had to be acceptable for TV. I enjoyed being fed grapes by the girls, though I’d had enough by the end of the day.
Makeup was simpler for the Roman piece so we got the work done in good time to leave the studio, have dinner and all three head back to my hotel room. I mean, I really had a luxury room with a king size bed and a jacuzzi. Staying at my place was a no-brainer.
Candy was just as good looking as Abigail, but with light brown hair instead of mahogany red. Looking at her pussy, though, it was hard to distinguish between the two girls. Both were shaved smooth and I didn’t feel any stubble when I licked them up and down. Abby handed me a condom before I sank into Candy.
“I never know where her pussy’s been,” Abby whispered to me. “She’s never brought anything home, but better safe.” That was true enough. Getting VD while I was on a shoot would definitely be against my agreement with Daphne. She’d be forced to find out.
Candy could pull her legs back so far it was like they were under her shoulders. Even with a condom, sinking into a girl for the first time with her in that position was astounding.
That was how things went for the rest of the week. Then they had to go back to their day jobs while I got shot with my face in front of a computer screen trying to figure out how to click a mouse. Where do you want to go today?
“What are your real jobs?” I asked before they took off on Monday morning.
“She’s Aurora. That’s Sleeping Beauty. I’m Belle, the beauty who got the beast. We work in the Magic Kingdom.”
We still managed to get together the next week. In fact, about every night one or the other or both girls were in my bed at night. Friday night, we vowed to stay up all night having sex. I didn’t last, but the two girls seemed to have no difficulty carrying on without me.
That’s how I managed to fuck two Disney princesses at the same time. And neither one had to sing ‘Someday my prince will come.’
Of course, I never told my wife about that.
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