Things I Never Told My Wife
True confessions of a Shakespearean actor
Chapter 19
WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE that summer. Daphne insisted that we needed something more party friendly. I guess as we reached our mid-thirties, she’d begun to seek more social interaction. Billy would be in kindergarten in the fall as Shelly entered first grade. The original play group Daphne had taken the kids to was splitting up as their children entered different schools. She felt this was the perfect time to make any necessary changes in school district or social circles. Most of the students in her cadre at school were near our age with a couple younger and a few older. It was definitely broadening Daphne’s circle and I was amazed at how it was affecting our social life. We went out with friends or had friends into our home at least twice a month.
I let Daphne drive the new house hunt. She’d been successful with the original house in Seattle and certainly knew the area and what the schools were like. I was amazed when I saw the house on East Queen Anne, just a few blocks from the Queen Anne Elementary School. It was a new house in an old neighborhood. A builder had selected the site for his own dream home and went all out in the quality and elegance of the construction. June kept me working pretty steadily in addition to my teaching gigs, so we’d amassed plenty of money and Daphne decided we should spend it on luxury in our home. It would certainly make a great party house.
It had five bedrooms and five baths with two laundry areas. I thought that sounded like overkill until I toured it. The five/five included a mother-in-law apartment on the first level with its own entry but also accessible from the rest of the house. We moved in August instead of taking a special vacation around the kids’ birthdays. Roberta moved in with us.
Her son, Jack, and Billy were thick as thieves and moved into one of the large bedrooms equipped with bunk beds. Shelly had her own room, separated from the boys by a jack-and-jill bath between the two rooms. Our master suite was at the opposite end of the third floor with a private deck that looked out toward the Cascades. That left us one bedroom and one bath that were mostly unused.
“Don’t worry. Shelly will be a teenager before you know it,” Daphne said. “She’ll want her own bed and bath soon enough. The boys will want to split to private spaces and have the shared bath between them.”
I was still stuck on the part where Shelly would be a teenager before I knew it. How could that possibly be? She was just six and going into first grade. I couldn’t cope with considering her a teenager. She was my little Shelly. I had a pang of missing CeeCee again. Twelve years. It wasn’t like I was unhappy. I loved Daphne and our kids and life in general. But there was still that empty spot where CeeCee had been.
Roberta could be a problem. She had her own apartment on the first level. But her son slept up here on the third level with our kids. She was now a full-time live-in nanny. She ran the kids to their schools and events. She cooked dinner most nights. She was as often in our family room or living room as she was in her own apartment. We were practically married to her. I wondered, in fact, if living with her appealed to Daphne for reasons other than being a nanny.
“Terry,” Daphne said as she moved on my cock, nearing an eruption. She started squeezing and releasing rhythmically, a sure sign she was ready and a sure way to fire my release.
“God, yes. I love you,” I panted as the pulses began. Daphne whined her release and collapsed on top of me.
“Promise that if anything happens to me, you’ll marry Roberta.”
“What?”
“She’s young, cute, she adores you. She’s already a third of our family and our children are like brothers and sister. Marry her if I die.”
“What could happen to you? You aren’t sick, are you?” I fought off panic with visions of CeeCee running through my head. My gasps for breath had nothing to do with the earthshaking orgasm I’d just had.
“I’m going to become a teacher,” she sighed. “I’ve seen pictures of the teacher I’m interning with. She’s not much older than we are but she looks ancient. The kids are killing her.”
“Daphne, you scared me. Please don’t ever suggest anything like that again. I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Remember, I’m a teacher, too. I don’t think I’m aging that much out of the ordinary.” Yes, I’d spotted a few gray hairs. I was still at the stage of plucking them out.
“Your students are fresh, beautiful, at the peak of sexuality, and keep you young and interested. Mine will scarcely be housebroken. So far, all I’m doing is sitting in the back of the classroom watching and being afraid I’ll catch something from them. It’s like spending eight hours a day living in a petri dish with live cultures all around me.”
“What a charming illustration,” I laughed. “I should be wearing a surgical mask when I kiss you.”
“That would be interesting but, somehow, I don’t think it would be much fun. I love the way you kiss. I’m nine months away from graduation. I want us to take a vacation as soon as we can. God knows when I’ll get another one.”
“Hmm. I just received word that my high school class reunion will be in August, right after I close Macbeth at Rainier Youth Theatre. Why don’t we start with a loop out East? Maybe take in some shows and try a theme park again?” I asked. Daphne smiled at me.
“Nothing I would rather do than meet your high school lovers.” She rolled her eyes. “But we should probably at least include visits to the grandparents on the loop, so I guess we could time it right. Maybe I’ll take the kids to Arizona for a week with Mom and Dad before you close the show. That will make for fewer miles when we’re looping out East. You could finally show me your old college campus, too.” Daphne was in rare form. She’d never really quit squeezing my cock in her pussy after we orgasmed and, even though I’d nearly popped out when she asked me to marry Roberta, she’d managed to keep just enough interest there to keep things steeping. I was beginning to regain interest down there.
The sudden thought of the OU campus reminded me that it was Sarah’s senior year at my alma mater. How time flies when you are having fun! I’d been in touch with Mark and Frankie to make sure things were okay on the home front. They couldn’t sing Sarah’s praises loud enough. And I managed to siphon off funds to send to Sarah for her allowance and expenses at college. There was a new artistic director since Julian’s retirement. I’d met her on a couple of occasions and she seemed like a good person. I didn’t worry about Sarah’s education.
I didn’t think of it much after that. Daphne had switched gears and her movements were compelling. I kissed her and began stroking into that hot wet paradise I’d come to love.
Freshman orientation started the day after our little chat. Shelly was in first grade and Billy was in Kindergarten. Roberta was running the kids while Daphne interned in a second grade classroom and I started teaching my fifth year at PCAD.
“Othello? Really? I thought for a while you were only going to produce comedies,” Jan said as we chatted before classes started on Tuesday. “Then that trick with Lear took us all by surprise.”
“I’ll be back to comedy next year. I think we’re ready for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You know, though, that I’ll be in LA over break filming Henry IV. Then in the summer, I’ll be doing the Scottish play at Rainier Youth Theatre.”
“We need to get you to direct something besides Shakespeare. Consider a good small-cast drama for fall next year and follow it with your Shakespeare in the late spring. This year, your Othello will be in March at the Rep. I know they influenced your play selection.”
“Yes, although I wanted to do the show soon anyway. The fact that they offered me James Hart for the title role definitely influenced me. I think our cast really benefitted from working with Aldo in Lear. It brought their performance up. But why would you want me to direct a drama in the fall? That’s your slot.”
“I’m taking a sabbatical. I’ve been here fifteen years and have chaired the department for ten of them. It’s time for me to renew my creativity and to work with someone other than college students. What you’ve been doing with your summers and breaks helps keep you fresh. This will be good for you, as well.”
“I’ll think about it. Planning two shows will tax me a bit. Especially since I’m planning a family trip right before school starts. Daphne has already ordered tickets for The Lion King in New York, I think.” We laughed and I headed to my office to meet my new TA.
A steaming hot cup of black coffee was on my desk and a steaming hot Reese Little was sitting at the TA’s desk. Reese had been in my classes since she was a freshman and I always appreciated the eye candy. She had a penchant for vintage clothes and was wearing a knee-length black dress with a plunging neckline and a strand of pearls. It seemed more appropriate for a cocktail party than as a teaching assistant. Her hair and makeup were perfect for the era of the dress—somewhere in the late thirties or early forties, I guessed. I didn’t think I’d be having my TA warm up the movement class. She stood in her four-inch high heels and still only came up to nose high.
“Hi, Terry. You get to have me this year.” The way she said it made it sound like I could actually have her. I’d have to wait and see how high maintenance she was before I made any move in that direction. Everything about her screamed ‘American Express!’ I didn’t think my Starbucks gold card would impress her.
“Hi, Reese. Welcome to the nuthouse. My first class is in fifteen minutes. I don’t think that’s enough time to do a full job detail, so why don’t we schedule that for later in the day. Have you looked at my schedule? I see you already got part one of the job responsibilities down.” I smiled as I sipped the coffee.
“I looked. I already slotted a time for myself at three, after your audition class. I’ll have the order for Othello scripts ready as soon as you approve the number. I assumed you’d want to use the French’s edition again. Jim is slated for an overview of the production concept next week on Wednesday. We’d better mosey on over to The Box for your first class. Ready?”
Hmm. This was going to be interesting. I realized my typical job assignment was always the same on the first day and wondered if she’d studied with a former TA. Would she always be this prepared? I picked up my coffee, locked the door and followed her swishing skirt to The Box.
“All right, campers, listen up!” she shouted as she walked into the theatre space. “This is Intro to Stage Movement and Terry Reichert is your professor. We presume everyone is present for every class. Believe me, Terry will remember each of your names. We start this class with some warmups, so if you aren’t prepared to move or are dressed the way I am, strip.” With that, she reached behind her and unzipped her dress, letting it fall to the ground. She wasn’t naked. She wore a French-cut leotard with a plunging neckline and thigh high hose. She slipped out of her heels and kicked what she’d been wearing behind her as she started the stretches.
I watched the class and saw two guys strip down to jockeys and T-shirts. After the first stretch, one of the girls pulled off her skin-tight jeans and shirt to start working out in just a bra and panties. Another peeled off her skin-tight jeans but left her T-shirt on. This year’s class might become the most interesting I’d had. I watched Reese as she finished the warmups and gathered up her clothes, pointing her ass toward me as she bent to recover them.
“They’re all yours, Terry.” I noted that she hadn’t even broken a sweat. Her hair and makeup were still perfect.
The fall was marked by two things that affected me as much as anyone else. The first was the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11. My meeting with Jim for the concept was put off a week as none of us were sure exactly how we should deal with this. Daphne’s and the kids’ schools closed as soon as the news hit and didn’t start session again until Thursday. We didn’t close at PCAD, but most classes had long discussions of what had happened and how it affected us. It was a frightening week for everyone.
The second thing didn’t seem like it should affect anyone, but the long-term impact on me and my family would be felt. I was reading the schedules of each of the theatres in town and stopped abruptly as I read the season for the Seattle Repertory. Abigail Harris moved to Seattle to take a full-time position with the Rep. I wanted to see her but was frightened by having her so near. Nonetheless, I bought season tickets to the Rep for the first time.
Daphne and I saw Proof, a new play by David Austin and Abigail did a superb job as the tormented mathematical genius daughter of a deceased math professor. It was a moving story, an intense mystery, and Abby was brilliant. I dragged Daphne with me to the opening night reception, telling her that I had gone to school with the leading actress.
There was quite a press in the reception area as the season ticketholders were invited to meet the four characters in the play. It was part and parcel of working a regional repertory company. You have to keep the coffers filled. I’d paid an extra hundred dollars to be invited to the reception. We finally made our way to the front of the line.
“Abigail, you might not remember me. I’m…”
“Terry!” she exploded and wrapped her hands around my neck, giving me a big kiss. “Sorry about the makeup smudges. How could I forget you, Terry?”
“Well, it’s been a long time. This is my wife, Daphne. Daphne, Abby and I attended Ohio University at the same time.”
“I see. It’s nice to meet you, Miss Harris,” Daphne said. Her voice sounded decidedly cold.
“It’s wonderful to see Terry settled down with a beautiful woman,” Abby said. “We only overlapped at OU for a year, but I got to play his mother in Hamlet. How did you track down that I was here?”
“We live here now,” I said. “I’m teaching at the Pacific College for the Arts and Design.”
“What? Not on stage? Daphne, the one thing that everyone remembers about Terry is that he was a fantastic Shakespearean actor. I can’t believe he gave up acting to teach.” Abigail was doing a great job of playing the part of a classmate I hadn’t seen in fifteen years. Daphne relaxed.
“He still is a great actor,” Daphne said, warming to Abby. “In fact, he’ll be off in LA to film Shakespeare’s Henry IV with Kenneth Branagh this winter. But you should see the shows he directs with his college kids.” Daphne warmed to singing my praises. Abby pursued another line.
“You must have the temperament of a saint to put up with a theatre person. I haven’t been able to keep up a relationship for more than a couple of years. I fled here from New York to escape my last mistake. Are you a theatre person, too?”
“I used to wash costumes at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where I met Terry. Now I’m just a few weeks into my internship as an elementary school teacher.”
“That confirms it. Definitely a saint. I don’t think I could stand to deal with children all day. Do you have any of your own?”
“We have two,” I interjected, feeling a little left out of the conversation. “A boy in kindergarten and a girl in first grade. The second and third most important people in my life.” I wrapped an arm around Daphne and squeezed her to me.
“Despite my general discomfort with children, I find that I still envy you.”
“Are you going to tour with the show when it closes here?” Daphne asked.
“No. I’m done touring. I’m staying right here as part of the resident company. I only got to do this part because Mary-Louise had another commitment until this company hits the road. She’ll join them at the end of November and I’ll stay here. Hopefully, I’ll have a little more time to explore the city after this rush is over. So far, all I’ve seen are the theatre and three bars that are walking distance from here,” Abby laughed.
“Terry, we must invite Abigail to dinner as soon as she has free time. You’d join us wouldn’t you, Abigail?”
“That’s so nice of you!” Abby said. “I’d love to. But don’t go to any special trouble. I’m pretty much a simple midwestern girl.”
I watched this whole interplay with some sense of amazement. By the time we left the theatre Abby and Daphne were best friends and had exchanged contact information with a promise to ‘get together soon.’ I hadn’t really expected that turn of events, but Abby was nothing if not discreet. I was confident she wouldn’t do anything to damage my marriage.
Nor was I going to. Of course, if Reese had stripped in my office the way she had in front of my class, I’d have helped her out of the last article of clothing she was wearing but I was content to believe she was a tease and had no intention of going further. She was also the very image of efficiency, usually ahead of me regarding what I needed. While Deborah had led my classes in warmups, Reese actually worked as my assistant in the classes. And she was good at it. We’d split the group for various exercises and each take part of the class. She led warmups every morning. She ran lines with my audition students. Life was good.
We had Abby as a guest just before Christmas and the three women hit it off like gangbusters. I was polishing my lines for Henry IV and even though Branagh was being faithful to Shakespeare, he’d made a number of cuts for film that I would never have made in a stage performance. I rehearsed once with the ladies alternating reading lines with me. And all too soon, I was on a train to LaLaLand.
Why a train? Well, I’m an idiot. I realized how much 9/11 had affected me when I sat in front of the computer to buy my ticket to LAX. I couldn’t do it. I switched to Amtrak and Daphne kissed me goodbye at King Street Station before I boarded for the trip south. Even with a sleeper car, the trip on the Coast Starlight was no more costly than it would be by plane and, considering the amount of time it takes to get in and out of LAX, didn’t seem to be that much longer. I looked forward to having a drink in the lounge and studying my lines in relaxing comfort as the train rolled along.
That was my intent and that’s how I started out the trip. I took a break to stretch my legs when we pulled into Portland but didn’t stray too far from the platform. It was only a twenty-minute stop. I just watched people streaming toward the train from the station while I sipped my coffee.
“Oh! Excuse me! I was looking the other way. Is this the first class car?” A dirty blonde in a long coat with earbuds in her ears. I didn’t quite spill my coffee when she ran into me.
“Yes, this is the one,” I said. She looked blankly at me before quickly reaching up to snatch a bud from her left ear.
“Sorry! I forgot I was wired for sound. Did you say, ‘yes’?”
“I did. The porter is standing right there next to the door. I’m sure he’ll help you.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” I watched her hurry on to the door and the porter took her rolling suitcase. If the size of it was any indication, she was planning a long stay somewhere. My own bag was not small but my daily wear would be at the studio, not in my suitcase. I tossed my cup in the trash and boarded for the next leg of the trip.
I got a lot accomplished. Memorizing the script for filming is much different than memorizing it for stage production. The script I’d been sent was not broken down in the same scenes as the original but rather in shots. Some scenes had a dozen or more shots. I also didn’t have a complete script. I had only the sections in which I appeared. I spent quite a lot of time comparing the shooting script with the play to get the context for each scene correct.
By five in the evening, my eyes were crossing. We’d just made Eugene, Oregon and I was ready for a drink. I strolled into the first class lounge car and ordered a single malt scotch then climbed the stairs to the dome to look out at the night sky. I sat and looked out at the last light reflecting off the mountains as I sipped my scotch and let my lines run through my head on their own. There were only a couple of other passengers up there as the night was closing in rapidly. I noticed one of the passengers in the car was the blonde I’d encountered a few hours ago, bobbing her head and occasionally singing aloud with the music she was playing. I grinned. She’d obviously been drinking for a while—perhaps even getting high.
She was older than I first thought—probably near fifty. A pretty well-preserved fifty. And an obviously happy fifty. She continued looking out the window long after the lights of Eugene and Springfield were behind us and there was nothing to see outside but darkness.
“Oh, I know you!” she said as she started to stand. “You’re the guy who knows all about the train.” I’m not sure where she got that idea. I’d only pointed her to the first class car. “What do we need to do to get fed around here?” I glanced at my watch.
“First seating is in five minutes. I was about to go to dinner myself. Would you like to join me?”
“Oh, how nice of you! Yes. I hate eating alone.” Her smile had never left her face and I figured at least she was a happy drunk. She joined me as we moved to the stairs and kept one hand on my shoulder as I went down first. The other hand held the remainder of her drink. We got seated and shortly had ordered. I had the Amtrak special steak and she had the Norwegian salmon. We chatted and I found out she was headed to her sister’s house in San Francisco to spend the rest of the winter.
“It’s nice you can get away for such a long trip,” I said.
“Oh, Portland is just too cold and dreary at this time of year. I called up Melody and said, ‘Throw your husband out. I’m coming to visit.’ Not that she’d really throw him out, but she might tuck him away somewhere for safekeeping.”
“I can imagine. You look like you could eat husbands for breakfast and spit them out later.”
“Do I look like that much of a predator? Ah well. That’s life. Watch out, boy, the cougar is upon you.”
“I am frightened.” We laughed and enjoyed our meal, swapping stories. I’m usually pretty careful about how much I reveal of myself to strangers. It would have been easy to brag that I was going to be in a movie with Kenneth Branagh, but all I said was that I had business in Los Angeles and left it at that.
“How about a nightcap?” she said after dinner. “Let’s go enjoy the spectacular view again.”
“Not sure there will be much of a view, but I’ll join you.”
“If there’s no view outside you can just look at me!” That was blunt enough. We got our drinks and returned to the dome car. They’d turned the lights down so as to keep as much reflection off the windows as possible but there was still nothing much to look at. She’d settled leaning into me and when I glanced down at her, I noticed more cleavage than I’d seen before. Her blouse seemed to be unbuttoned nearly to her navel. “There. The view’s not so bad, is it?” She chuckled and raised her lips to kiss me. I put my hand on her cheek and kissed. I’ve no idea how long we kissed. No one else was in the dome car and after a while, my hand drifted downward onto her shoulder and then farther to her chest and slipping inside her bra to cup her breast. All the time, she was rubbing my cock and making little moaning sounds.
“Why don’t we take this to my room,” I whispered as she started trying to get my zipper down.
“Shy? Don’t want to get caught having sex in the glass dome?” she giggled. “Okay. I’m good with that.” She pulled away and stood up. Her blouse was completely open and her bra was pushed up above her breasts. She didn’t bother to put anything together—just grabbed my hand and headed for the stairs. I know the bartender saw us. I suspected the porter at the other end of the car caught a pretty good view as I unlocked my door. We stumbled into my room and clothes started flying. There wasn’t much left to removing her blouse and bra. Of course, she went straight for my belt buckle as I stroked and played with her tits. As soon as she had it loose, I reversed the activity and pushed her slacks down over her generous hips. Not fat, mind you. Just plenty to hang onto.
She stepped out of her slacks and panties as I pulled my shirt over my head and then I took a good look at her. Older, yes, but well-proportioned and in pretty good shape. Her breasts sagged a bit but gravity has that effect after a few years. Even Daphne’s pert little titties started to sag after Billy was through using them as a boob buffet. She was shaved bare and I could scarcely see her slit as she stood there. We pulled each other close and held our naked bodies tight against each other as we resumed kissing.
I moved her toward the bed and when we stretched out, I began exploring her with my fingers. She was slick and moaned a lot as I rubbed the smooth pussy but I could not for the life of me find her clit. The entire terrain was smooth, without so much as a little bump. She still seemed to like it and humped my fingers energetically. I just couldn’t help thinking that this must be the pussy they used to model Barbie dolls from. It was totally featureless.
Until she rolled over and got me behind her. The one prominent feature was her pussy hole and I filled it with my cock. We rocked back and forth with the motion of the train and it felt damn good. It took a bit with the amount of alcohol I’d had to drink but eventually, I felt my balls boiling.
“Where do you want me to come?” I husked.
“Are you shooting blanks?”
“Yes.”
“In me. I want to feel you spurt.”
It didn’t take many more thrusts until she felt exactly that. I felt her pussy clench on me as she whined, but that was the extent of her orgasm. We collapsed in the bed and before long were asleep.
I woke up to the feeling of being sucked. I choose those words carefully. She wasn’t bobbing. She wasn’t blowing. She just had my cock in her mouth with suction applied. I wondered where this was going since she wasn’t moving at all. I lay there for nearly half an hour with my cock hard and in her mouth without her moving. Eventually, I nudged her head with my hand.
“Hmm?” she asked.
“I appreciate being in your mouth and all, but you aren’t going to get anything out of it unless you slide up and down a bit.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I forgot to do that.” She still wasn’t very active and I wondered if she was really awake. There was enough action, though, that my semen started perking and I blew another load in her mouth. I relaxed. She just stayed there with my cock partially in her mouth. Not really sucking much but keeping the tip against her tongue.
We had breakfast together about seven and she went to gather her things so she could get off the train at Oakland—as close as the train comes to San Francisco before it heads down to San Jose and then Salinas and south. I helped set her bag on the platform and she pressed herself into my arms to kiss me goodbye.
“It’s been a long time since I did that,” she sighed.
“Had sex?”
“No. It’s been a long time since I gave it away for free. Thanks.” She turned and pulled her suitcase toward the station as I stared blankly after her. Free?
That’s about the time when I realized neither of us had told the other our names. I’d had anonymous sex on the train with a professional who didn’t charge for it.
Of course, I never told my wife about that.
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