Up Against The Backstage Wall
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Names have been changed, but the story is true.
Just before my daughter became so ill that I had to retire from acting, I was cast in a two-character stage production in Los Angeles in an actress’ dream role, that of a widow (Maggie), a successful artist, living alone on a small Island off the coast of South Carolina.
In this script, Maggie’s husband has been dead for 15 years, and she’s never been able to move on. The other character, Nick, is a big-name box office movie star, twenty-five years younger than Maggie. He suddenly loses his marbles in an “I can’t fucking take it anymore” breakdown, just as a major production he’s to star in is getting ready to shoot. He impulsively takes off in his Porsche, leaving his Malibu home, and drives East, with no end in mind, able to steer clear of any paparazzi. He gets lost and ends up at the ferry that goes between the mainland, and Maggie’s Island. He shows up on Maggie’s beach at twilight, while she’s talking to her dead husband. That’s when the play opens.
The writer had a crush on Keanu Reeves at the time, and that’s who she visualized while she was writing the script, but I smile now, remembering how she became completely tongue-tied when in the actor’s presence. I remember being over the moon when I was cast, not only because it was a killer role, and not just because it was a well-known director and Burbank producer, but also because the writer had really wanted me for the role. So, I was cast, but we needed a Nick.
Now this is hilariously sexy: the call-back actors, of which there were seven, had to do a kissing scene with me. You see, the chemistry had to be there, or there couldn’t have been a vibrant story to perform and offer paying audiences. Hell, those guys were all gorgeous, they were right for the part, and I knew some of them. I hadn’t yet met the last one who was auditioning to read with me. I’ll use ‘Jack’, because he is now recognizable, so due to privacy and respect, I don’t want to put his name out there. So. We did the scene, and when the time came for us to kiss, magic mojo arose. The chemistry was exploding all around us and there was a moment when he looked into my eyes, and… everyone else disappeared (the writer, director, and producer were present), and my body felt like a ripe fig on the verge of exploding. He started coming towards me and I moved towards him, and there was this palpable, stretchy, sweet demanding charge between us… and then he kissed me. My panties were drenched even before our mouths came together. That kiss went on and on, and from somewhere off in the distance, I heard Jay the director yell ‘cut’! They were laughing, high-fiving, and Jack was cast on the spot.
Rehearsals were wonderful, and I’ve always been one who loves the creative journey towards opening night. My partner Paul was performing a play in NYC, and I was all on my own. Jack and I got to know each other very well. It was an intense rehearsal schedule of eight-hour days, five days a week, for a month. I missed Paul like crazy, but hell, I was working with a guy who had literally been cast as a Greek god. To give an idea, just imagine the real Apollo, blue-black hair, electric blue eyes, and a ridiculously cut body that was almost too good to look at without sunglasses (he was doing major men’s underwear spreads then).
The play is an erotic love story. Nick and Maggie have a slow burn in the first act and end up naked & fucking just before intermission. In the second act both characters are wound around each other physically and emotionally; the conflict being that Nick wants to bring her back to Hollywood with him, and she 1. Must let go of her husband, and 2. embrace herself as a woman who is loved by such a man, and not care that she’s old enough to be his mother. (Yes, the ending was sappy, she did go, and audiences loved it). I was intermittently birthday-suit-in-the-stage-lights-naked in Act Two. Let me tell you, it is an exhilarating feeling to be completely naked on stage.
Every performance after the Act One lights went black, Jack picked me up off the prop bed and carried me in his arms off-stage — both of us skin to skin with nothing else. I was married, I’m monogamous, and he knew that. We’d quickly change into our Act Two wardrobe, which for me started out as a wispy sundress, while Jack’s was a towel around his hips. He had to be in bed for the top of the Second Act, which was a ‘’following morning” scene, and I’d enter as lights came up. We’d be given ‘places’ about seven minutes before lights up, and he’d stand behind me in the wings.
Beginning with the first dress rehearsal, he’d hold me from behind, hard and tightly to his body, right up against him, and every single time his cock would be insanely hard & pulsing between my cheeks, right against my pussy. Oh dear, remembering that right now, I can feel his length, his powerful strength, and his fiery heat. Every fucking time he’d whisper things in my ear. Like “God I need to fuck you” or “Your husband needs to stay in NY, [growl], but he should be getting work here and not leave you alone!” Or. “How can he stay away from you anyway? We need to fuuuuuuck baby”, gems like that, and I’d be… I’d be… dying, knees buckling, and gushing rivers, like Mt. Vesuvius before it blew, like the damn Niagara Falls, and praying I could still walk and stay in character. Say what you will about actors, but the show must go on, at all costs. I did my job.
