All's Well(62)

“Onstage?” he whispers.

Yes, says a voice. Stage, stage. My voice. My lips brushing against the hollow of Hugo’s ear, making him shudder. My legs straddling him, unafraid. My thighs squeezing his ribs. My spine curving forward so we’re face-to-face, mouth to mouth, breath to breath, under the falling stars.





CHAPTER 19


GLORIOUS IS THE afternoon sun coming in through the theater windows. Bold. Golden. Friday rehearsal. We’re gathered on the spiral stage, right along the dark iris of Helen’s eye. Above us is the painted blue sky, under which Hugo and I fucked only hours ago. Made love? No, definitely we fucked. The sounds I was making. Hugo called them inhuman. But hot, he said. So hot, Miranda. I’m getting hard again just thinking about it. Oh god. Hugo’s mouth saying the word hard. About his cock. That was hard. For me. You, Miranda, he said.

Here now on the stage, I shiver deliciously.

“Cold, Miranda?” Grace asks me.

“No, Grace. I’m wonderful, thank you.”

I smile at them all, my gathered acolytes, and I can’t help but feel a vibratory connection with them today. As though we’re all one body. All of us have fucked beneath the falling stars. All of our cells are lit up like a million twinkling lights. They sit in a circle, still catching their breath after the admittedly exhilarating warm-up I just led them through. Gazing at me with their wide-open eyes as they are so wont to do these days. So riveted, so fixed is their attention. I’m still wearing the poppy dress from last night. Not because I was too tired, too soul-sad, to change, not like the old days. No, I wanted the smell of our sex on me. I wanted to exude his scent of wood. I wanted to find threads of his golden hair on the poppies all day and watch them turn fiery in the light. I wanted to feel the skirt that he pushed up around my thighs when he fucked me—for the second or was it the fourth time?—brushing against the backs of my legs as I walked the bleak school corridors, while I sat at my desk going over my rehearsal notes, skipped to the theater.

“Miranda?” Ellie says now. “I found these on the stage.” She holds out her hand to me. I see three buttons winking in the bowl of her palm. Iridescent blue. Belonging to a man’s pale blue shirt.

I look at the buttons under the hawk stare of Grace. Who sees all. Can see my hands tearing at his shirt. Letting the buttons scatter across the stage.

Careful, Hugo said. Which only spurred on my hands. I snatch them from Ellie’s open palm now.

“Thank you so much for catching these, Ellie. I’ll let wardrobe know. Maybe someone’s costume is coming apart.” I smile sadly. The life of the theater, this.

“I don’t know anyone who has a costume with these sorts of buttons,” Grace offers behind me.

“Well, maybe the costume department is getting creative,” I say, turning to her. “Maybe they’re doing something we don’t know about.”

Grace stares at me. Darkly, very darkly. I remember that I couldn’t find my underwear last night. They’re here in the theater somewhere, and I can only pray the students or Grace won’t find them first. Hugo and I looked everywhere, we really did. In the prop box. Behind the stage. On our hands and knees, looking. Stopping then and again to fuck.

“Anyway,” I say, smiling, “why talk about costumes when there’s so much else to discuss? The new set, for instance?”

And I wave a hand at the painted sky, at the pillars, the walls of the court all around us. I invite them to take in Hugo’s set. I want their responses. This is not a fascist regime, after all, but a community.

“Well, what do we think?”

They nod as one body with many heads. They are clearly awed. They crane their necks to contemplate the details of Hugo’s painted cosmos with their mouths open, their eyes wide.

“Incredible, isn’t it? Show them the starry sky, Grace.”

Grace looks at me a long time, her arms folded in front of her. What? I mouth at her. But she just turns and marches back to the lighting booth. Angrily flips a switch, and we’re surrounded by the spinning stars I sighed under.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” I ask.

“Yes, Professor,” they murmur. “Wonderful.”

“Isn’t it wonderful, Ellie?” I say, turning to Ellie. She’s showing a bit of cleavage today, I notice. Wearing lipstick too, a dark wine color.

“Yes, Professor,” she says. “I love the constellations so much.”

She smiles tremulously. Glowing as much as she humanly can. Trevor’s sitting beside her, I see. And look, he’s putting his hand on her shoulder. Are they dating now? They must be. He’s smiling at her a little even, a secret smile. One that suggests intimacy. Not unlike the smile Hugo gave me earlier when we passed each other in the hall and my insides immediately became fire. I look at Trevor, smiling at Ellie, patting her shoulder. Rubbing it, really. Did they fuck last night? I wonder. Was it Ellie’s first time? Perhaps Ellie was fucking Trevor while I was fucking Hugo. How amazing would that be? Each of us flushed and grinning in the spinning dark of our own overturned world. Our backs arched, our heads tilted, making inhuman sounds at the stars. Perhaps we both walked home without underwear last night. Singing a tune to the spring night that the sweet black air carried. The whole town heard our joy. We didn’t even feel our steps on the spongy earth so damp and green with growing things. We floated. We were so happy. We fell into our beds and we lay there grinning and grinning. Our faces hurt from happiness, and for once, we welcomed the pain.