A mix of old and young students, the orchestra went about their business with an air of brisk competence. ‘I know what I'm doing,' said their studious expressions as they arranged Joe's music on their stands.
I remembered how college could seem like the centre of the universe. Their seriousness amused me, but I was glad for Joe's sake. His score would get a fair hearing with these sober players and this big, acoustically sophisticated stage.
We hadn't been seated long when the lights flashed three times, then dimmed. Excitement rippled through me. Sean fumbled for my hand. People coughed in the darkness and rustled their
programmes
. Sean's fingers tightened on mine. The conductor - a shaggy, longhaired beanpole in a dinner jacket - lifted his arms. I forgot to breathe until they fell.
The orchestra launched into Joe's overture as if they had played it all their lives. I closed my eyes as the familiar strains washed over me, tart and sweet and intricate. Up until now, I'd only heard this music on a second-hand upright. How different it sounded wound together with the strings and the winds and the light
poom-poom-poom
of the percussion.
I'll remember this, I promised myself, no matter who fluffs their lines or trips over the stage curtain.
I'llJ
remember this moment when everything came together perfectly.
As it happened, no one fluffed their lines - not so the audience could tell, anyway. They were too busy drying tears of laughter.
Captain Blood told the tale of a vampire-pirate and the delectable young innocent who stowed away on his ship, tempting him to break his vow to drink no virgin blood. To my surprise, the play was hilarious, a melodrama pushed firmly over the edge into farce. The student actors played it straight as stone but that only made the awful dialogue funnier.
I hoped the writer didn't mind. I suspected he hadn't meant to be so comical.
The actors, on the other hand, knew exactly what reaction to expect - Joe especially. I shouldn't have been surprised, considering the role-playing he'd done for me, but the way he could milk a laugh with a tiny bit of business amazed me.
He looked at home onstage. He moved without self-consciousness. He spoke as if the words had come to him that very moment. He had presence. Whenever he appeared, he riveted all eyes to him and him alone. The curl of his lip got noticed, or a brief contraction of his fist. The other actors might not have existed. When he sang, women leant forward in their seats and pressed their hands to their throats.
'Good lord,’ murmured the diamond-spangled woman
next to me. 'Rod Stewart meets Pavarotti.'
'Hush,' scolded her bosomy partner. ‘I want to hear.'
During the climactic scene, in which Captain Blood
succumbs to his darker nature and brings the heroine across, Joe stripped off his pirate shirt and clasped the buxom
ingenue
to his breast. As he bent her tango-style over his arm, the muscles of his back rippled under the stage lights. A collective sigh issued from the female members of the audience, and a few of the males, too.
More than a little susceptible himself, Sean transferred my hand to his inner thigh, near his knee. His overcoat draped his lap, sheltering a pocket of warmth. My sex throbbed with longing. I wanted to measure his strong, swollen cock. I wanted to squeeze it through all that well-pressed wool while Joe seduced the girl onstage, while the audience squirmed in its seats and wished that they, too, had someone hot to hold.
Divining my desire, or perhaps just obeying his, Sean nudged my hand upward as Joe and the heroine plunged into a passionate duet.
'Don't make me take you,' Joe begged in fine operatic style.
Sean
moulded
my hand to his gargantuan bulge.
'Make me yours forever,' the heroine trilled back.
Oh, yes, I thought, and began massaging Sean's cock in time to the music. He pressed me closer, but not hard enough to make him come. Though no one paid us any heed, we didn't want to get caught doing something that might embarrass our pride and joy.
Up on stage, Joe sank his teeth into the heroine's neck and swore her blood was sweet as honey and ripe as spring. The longer he sang, the harder Sean got. The harder Sean got, the wetter I grew. The heroine warbled in orgasmic bliss, but down in the stalls I wondered how much more I could take.
The song ended just as I was sure a single touch would bring me off. Sean lifted my hand from him, his palm as damp as mine. He pressed a kiss on to the back of my knuckles and bent close enough to whisper in my ear.
'I'm going to fuck you both silly when we get home.'
I tossed my curls, feigning a coolness I did not feel. 'Promises, promises.'
He bared his teeth at me. 'Count on it, babe.'
My
neighbour
shushed us. We behaved ourselves until the final curtain fell.
As soon as Joe appeared, flowers rained on to the proscenium. Some of the ladies in the audience, professors included, stuck two fingers in their mouths and whistled. Joe took four curtain calls. He could have taken more but, after the fourth, he sternly refused to accept and summoned the rest of the cast.
He handed all his flowers to the heroine. She looked like a walking bouquet.
I'd never been prouder of him. He'd demonstrated a power and a self-possession I hadn't known he had, and he was still the same sweet Joe.
'You're crying,’ Sean accused, and handed me the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit. It was silk and had a monogram. Now that was friendship.
He grimaced when I dabbed my eyes and blew. 'Women,' he said, but his voice was warm. He gave my shoulders a bracing hug. 'Come on, Miss Watering Pot. Let's see if we can shove our way backstage. I want to congratulate the star.'
Shove was the operative word for our progress. With Sean acting as forward, we forged through the narrow corridor that led to the dressing rooms.
I spotted Marianne ahead of us in the crush. She slunk along in the same blue dress she'd worn to work, but a gleaming black chignon confined her flowing hair. A dangle of diamonds swayed from her ears, and her neck looked positively swan-like.
Heads turned as she passed, not simply for her sake, but for her escort's.
I caught a glimpse of his profile as they turned a corner. He was older than her usual, a good-looking man, though age had softened his jaw and good living had roughened his skin. I noted his high brow and hawkish nose. His silver hair was full and smoothly styled, like an ad for male hair products. He walked with his dark wool coat slung casually over one shoulder. Though Marianne held his arm, he did not glance at her, but scanned the crowd with sharp, restless eyes. He looked like he owned the world - or wanted to.
When they reached the student actors gathered outside Joe's dressing room, a flurry of whispers broke out.
'I don't believe it,' I heard one girl say. "That's Desmond
Gerrard
.'
I didn't
recognise
the name, or the man, but that didn'1 mean anything. I wouldn't have
recognised
Walter Annenberg, either. What I did
recognise
was that Marianne had pulled off a dating coup and wanted to make sure everyone - especially Joe - knew she had what it took. I sighed to myself. I wouldn't have cared Marianne had snagged Prince Charles for an
escor
Now, if she'd found someone who made her happy for longer than a week, that would impress me.
'That was a fine performance,’ Marianne's date was saying as Sean and I squirmed into the crowded dressing room. 'Very impressive.'
His voice was serious, professorial. It seemed a bit of a put-on. I wondered if he spoke that way because he was a pompous jerk, or because Joe was so
muc
younger.
'Thanks,' Joe said. Still in costume, he sat before grease-smudged mirror. Our bouquet of red and white roses brushed his shoulder, filling the small room with its scent. Pots of cold cream and crumpled tissues lay scattered across the vanity table. Beneath the remains of his stage make-up, Joe's
colour
was high. A chunky girl in flannel and jeans was helping him remove the heavy foundation. She clenched an orange-smeared tissue in her fist. Clearly, she resented the interruption. Another of his unwitting conquests, I presumed. It crossed my mind that no female under thirty should wear so much eyeliner - not that the girl would appreciate the suggestion.
Belatedly remembering his manners, Joe stood and extended his hand. 'It's a pleasure to meet you,
Mr
Gerrard
.'
Desmond
Gerrard
gripped his palm. 'Please call me
Desi
.'
'
Desi
,’ Joe complied, then cracked a huge grin. 'I know you must get tired of hearing this, but I'm a huge fan of your work.'
Desmond
Gerrard
ducked his head and scratched the smooth skin above his crow's feet. The gesture betrayed the shy teenager he must have been, once upon a time, before he became such an important personage. He recovered quickly, squaring his shoulders and clearing his throat.
"That makes two of us,' he said. 'Marianne tells me you composed the score.'
'That's right.' To his credit, Joe did not ask his idol if he liked it. In fact, before the man could volunteer a compliment, the sight of Sean and me stole Joe's attention. With a flattering lack of hesitation, he pushed through the crowd and swept me into a bone-crushing hug - That he turned to me first made my heart soar with pleasure - and my conscience prick with guilt.
'Kate,’ he exclaimed, loudly kissing my cheek. 'I'm so glad you made it.'
Grinning from ear to ear, Sean pounded his back.
I smoothed Joe's hair off his brow. 'It was wonderful. You were wonderful.'
He let out a throaty chortle that drew every eye in the room. Overflowing with excitement, he dropped a kiss to my neck, then my lips, then hugged me close again. Inside his black pirate's trousers, his sex had swelled to full tumescence. The ridge pounded my hip through the leather and I squirmed at the upsurge of lust this produced. The fact that I'd watched him seduce another woman for the last two hours did nothing to quell my hunger. I
swivelled
forward, pressing my softness against his leg. His erection pulsed more forcefully.
'Bad girl,’ he whispered.
I squeezed his thigh between mine.
Tut-tut,’ he clucked and, before I could evade him, covered my mouth with his. His lips were soft, his jaw hard. Its muscles worked as his tongue breached me, thrusting deep to tease the sensitive nerves along my palate. He sucked my tongue on to the curve of his, a bold, possessive pull that drew me fully into his mouth.
Someone wolf-whistled. Blood flamed in my cheeks but I couldn't break free. Joe's arms wrapped me like steel, flattening my breasts against his half-bare chest. Heat flooded my groin, inconvenient and unstoppable. His chest hair prickled my cleavage. In a motion too subtle to see - I hoped! - he dragged his
pecs
in tiny sideways jerks across my nipples. Oh, he made me ache. Moisture welled between my labia. A trickle quivered on the verge, then spilt over. I cursed my lack of underwear. With nothing to stop it, the trickle rolled down my inner thigh, threatening to tell Joe's fellow cast members a good bit more than they needed to know. Joe flicked his tongue back into my mouth. My lungs began to ache. When finally he released me, I was gasping like an asthmatic.
I tugged my hem down as far as it would go.
He laughed again, enjoying his taste of power. He slung one arm around Sean's back and the other around my waist. 'Come meet Desmond
Gerrard
.' He spoke close to my ear, sotto voce. 'He's a Broadway producer.'
I nodded, my face impassive even as dread knotted my stomach. Did Joe have to be discovered his first time out? With an effort, I ordered myself not to ruin the good impression he must have made.
'
Desi
,' Joe said, pride shining in his handsome face. "These are my good friends, Sean
Halloran
and Kate Winthrop.'
Desi
shook Sean's hand - a single manly jerk - then turned to me. I steeled myself to hide my instinctive mistrust but the twinkle in his eye disarmed me. He pressed my hand between both of his, almost bowing over it. 'You must be Marianne's sister-in-law,' he said. 'She speaks of you often.'
I wondered what Marianne had said to inspire that wolfish gleam. Then again, maybe I was better off not knowing.
'We're treating Joe to a celebratory steak,’ I said, though in fact we'd planned nothing of the kind. 'Would you and Marianne care to join us?'
A tiny gasp from Marianne told me this was not the way she wanted the evening to unfold. A
cosy
circle involving her,
Desi
and Joe, was my guess - with her
queening
it over both of them.
'We'd be delighted,’ said her escort, without so much as a glance to consult her. 'But you simply must let me treat.'
'My cousin Frank has a steak joint across the river,’ Sean said. 'You like pool?'