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sweat across the skin with my fingertips.
He was still breathing hard, his body moving up and down.
I lay beside him, and we stayed there a few minutes, not speaking. The he laughed
into the bedspread. Not bad, Ferelit.
I dug my fingers into his sides, aware suddenly of how much my wrists were
starting to ache. Not bad?
He curled away. All right, really good.
You gonna untie me now?
I don t know. You re good to me when you re tied up.
I ll still be good to you if you untie me.
He turned his head so he could peer at me with one eye over the bedspread.
You ll stay a little bit?
I wasn t prone to rushes of tenderness. I d felt them now and then for Craybill and
Harrison when they were babies. I felt them occasionally for my mother. Other than
that, tenderness and I moved in separate circles.
But I felt one now.
You have scissors in here? I asked.
Desk.
I got up, peeled off the condom, and threw it in the wastebasket beside the desk. I
found the scissors and offered them to Sim. He propped himself up and cut the bonds
128 J.A. Rock
on my wrists. My skin was sweaty enough that the tape didn t grip hard. I set the
scissors and used tape on the nightstand and lay beside him once more.
He closed his eyes, and I leaned forward and brushed my lips against his eyelid. I
liked the feel of his eyelashes against my lower lip. Mm, he said.
I ll stay a little bit.
Calling the Show 129
Chapter Fourteen
Simeck
Ferret, this is Simulator 2600 requesting permission to open front of house, I
said into my headset.
Jesse s voice was in my ear a second later. Roger that. Throw open Findlay s doors
and usher forth the multitudes. And Simulator?
Yes?
Ask Crystal how many tickets remain unclaimed.
Will do.
Audra s voice came through the headset. Oh my God, you guys. Enough with the
nicknames. Unless I get one too.
What s wrong with MacDonald? After Audra MacDonald, one of Broadway s finest
warblers? Jesse asked.
I don t want to be called MacDonald.
I sang a few bars of You Were Meant for Me, in my best Audra MacDonald
soprano as I crossed the greenroom and entered the lobby.
Audra sighed. I liked you two better when you hated each other.
Grady s voice: For real, Sim, what have you done to Ferelit? Have you seen how tricked
out the booth is?
I had in fact seen it when Jesse and I made out in the booth after final dress last
night. There was a Styrofoam wig head with lipstick blood tears running from its eyes;
there was a Nevada license plate and a series of postcards from Berlin s DDR museum
on the wall.
130 J.A. Rock
It s impressive, I said.
In the lobby I told Hillary she could open house. I found Crystal in the box office.
Still twenty-three unclaimed tickets. I went backstage and checked props one more
time.
There was a bit of static in the headset, then, Simulator 2600?
Yes?
I wish to inform you that Grady and Audra have left the booth on a bottled water slash
bathroom quest and are no longer on headset. Is Crystal on headset?
Negative. I paused. Why, that leaves just you and me on headset.
I d estimate we have between three and five minutes.
I ducked into the wings and glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. I
want to bend you over the seventeenth century replica sofa and ram you so hard it
comes off its spike marks.
You move furniture off the spike marks, and I ll have to take you over my knee.
I decided not to dwell on how appealing that sounded. I d like to suck you on the
catwalk.
Living dangerously. I like it. If you were in the booth right now, I d sit you on the desk,
well away from the light and sound boards, kiss you until you turned all red like you do, then lift
your shirt up and suck your tits until they were so sore you couldn t even wear your shirt
anymore.
I took a deep breath. I want to blow you while you re wearing one of these
Baroque costumes and have to fish your cock out of your breeches and feel your satin
jacket against my face and your lace cuffs on the back of my neck.
I want to take one of those silver-headed walking sticks and put it
Put it where? I had a pretty good idea, but it wouldn t hurt to get a
confirmation.
Simulator, the Warbler has returned.
Calling the Show 131
Audra s voice: Did I interrupt your headset sex?
I resent the implication that I maintain anything but a professional and family-friendly
headset environment, Jesse said.
I would bet my future degree that whatever you just said to him was not professional or
family friendly.
He was just answering a prop question for me, I said.
Get a room already.
I left the wings and continued with my preshow ASM duties.
Another opening, another show, I thought.
The performance went well, and there was no drama at the reception afterward. I
wondered if it was really possible that Jesse still hadn t noticed Martha was gone after
nearly three months. Maybe I could find a way to get Martha back from Patrick before
he even found out.
I wrote up my first performance report that night at Jesse s.
He looked it over when I was done. What s with all the exclamation points?
It s my performance report. I can use all the exclamation points I want.
Listen to you. Mr. Hotshot ASM.
I flopped back onto his bed. I am kind of awesome now.
I really was. I d recently declared a self-designed major called Practical Fitness. I
had the hottest, dorkiest, most wonderful boy in okay, maybe I was biased, but I was
going to go ahead and say the world in bed with me. QCP s end-of-the-year talent
show was shaping up to be totally badass, as long as everyone had the sense to veto
Nick s suggestion of Queer Space Picnic as a theme. And Jesse had, over winter break,
become a freaking hoop master. Seriously, he could do passes and tricks that had taken
me months to learn.
Jesse lay down beside me and rubbed my stomach. I squirmed happily. Sounds
like you need to be taken down a peg or two, he said.
132 J.A. Rock
I d like to see you try, I whispered.
He rolled me onto my stomach, straddled my hips, sat on my ass, and pulled my
arms behind my back, holding them at the wrists.
I struggled, but he held on.
I bent my knee and nailed him in the back with my heel. Oh, is that how we re
playing? he asked. He reached behind him and smacked my thigh.
Ow! I yelped. It hadn t hurt much, but I liked making noise.
He scooted forward so that he was straddling my back instead of my hips, which
meant his hand landed on my ass when he swatted again. I went still. He did it three
more times in rapid succession, and I buried my face in the pillow, loving the sting that
radiated under my jeans.
I held my breath, hoping he d continue.
He leaned forward and kissed the edge of my ear, then got off me and flopped
back onto the bed.
I rolled onto my side. Would you ever really put me over your knee?
He was the one who d threatened it over the headset. If he freaked out now, I
could always point that out.
He looked at me, startled, but not horrified. Would you want me to?
Maybe.
Seriously?
Shit. Am I all fucked-up?
You think you re the only person who s into spanking? You ever see a John
Wayne movie?
I laughed. That s different. That s like, society s weird patriarchal fantasies about
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