Authors: Jessie K
She couldn’t look at him. “I know.”
“Jesus.” Matthew rubbed his chin and took entirely too long to speak again. “Was that why you never answered my texts or called me back?”
The flutters returned with a vengeance. He tried to contact her? Oh, she was an asshole. “No… um, that was because I gave you a fake number.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think…. I thought you wouldn’t want anything else to do with me after finding out how old I was….”
“You mean how old you pretended to be?”
“Okay, after you found out how old I pretended to be… I just had such an amazing time, and I knew you’d never call me back.” He hissed at her to keep her voice down, and Lynn obeyed. “There were too many gorgeous women on stage and then there was little ol’ me. I thought I was just some, like, pity fuck. It would hurt a lot less knowing you couldn’t reach me anyway.”
There was a long pause. He didn’t look at her. “I don’t think you understand how beautiful you were.”
Were
. Lynn bit back the tears growing within her. Seeing him here, like this, was intense. She didn’t expect to ever see him again, despite the numerous fantasies she had about randomly showing up on his doorstep, wearing nothing but a thin lace nightie, ready for him to sweep her off his stoop and into his bedroom.
She thought of him constantly. Of the acting advice he gave, the patient way he taught her to suck his cock, how his hands moved her hips in rhythm to his thrusts, pushing her over the edge into multiple orgasms. No one had ever touched her like that or made her
feel
like that. Hell, she hadn’t even known she’d wanted them to.
Matthew awakened something in her horrifically control-freak life and made her feel free for the first time ever. He had made her whole.
And she crushed him and any chance they had at being together. Her parents would never approve, never again let her venture off on her own if they knew she had spent her “evening with Dana” in the city actually getting fucked again and again until she cried tears of joy between gasping orgasms. They would lock her in a tower forever.
But he wouldn’t and couldn’t understand. He was this amazingly brave older guy, living the life he wanted, beholden to no one. She was legal, yes, but she was a kid. Mommy and Daddy still got to make the rules for her. And now she had confirmed that she lied again, at least by insinuation.
He probably hated her. That had to be why
Romeo and Juliet
was his debut directorial production—to give her one final middle finger before finding some other beautiful girl to bed and erase all memory of her.
For all Lynn knew, he’d burned the sheets after she left.
“Are you mad at me?”
He still refused to look at her. “I’m not mad. I just wish you had been honest with me. I asked you to be honest with me, and you lied.”
Fuck.
“No one can ever know about this, Lynn. No one. I could lose my job and you could be expelled. We need to be professional about this. I am your teacher now. I know you’re a great actress and for that, I’m excited to have you. You’re the kind of talent everyone would die for in a class.”
She brightened slightly at his compliment.
“But what happened between us? That was a one-time event, just two partners having a good time after an audition. Nothing more. Do you understand?”
“But I—“
“Nothing more.” The bell rang. Lynn fidgeted towards the door, but he held out a hand. “I’ll write you a note. Sit.”
She obeyed with a slight thrill rolling through her. He wasn’t exactly dominating in the bedroom, but he issued instruction. It was impossibly sexy, even better than the porn she watched on her phone late at night and better than she dreamt. She was a goddamn idiot for never seeing him again. She had to make it up to him somehow.
“Tell me you understand, Miss Viggiani.”
“Please, call me Lynn.”
“You have to call me Mr. Flint.”
“I’d be delighted,” she teased. His furrowed brow stopped her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. For everything. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again and I felt completely embarrassed because of my age and lack of… experience. I never expected this to happen, I swear.”
“I know. I didn’t either.” Matthew still refused to look at her and ran another hand through his hair. She wanted to do it for him. “Lynn, promise me this will never come up again. We are professional actors who graced the stages of Broadway. Professionals who cannot fuck this up. This is your job now.”
Something about the way he called her a professional actor tickled a fantasy in the back of her brain. Not a fantasy of the flesh, but a fantasy of something more… something great. “I understand. I do. And I promise.”
“Good.”
Awkward silence permeated the space between them. Lynn didn’t know what else to say, what else to do. What was the protocol for being in the presence of an incredibly sexy man you once fucked into the midnight hours… but who was now your teacher?
And, if she had it her way, her director?
“So…”
“I’ll write you a note.” He walked around his desk and scribbled a pass on a post-it note.
She just wanted him to look her in the eye. No, they couldn’t be involved ever again. Yes, they were professionals playing a part. But an intense longing just needed him to admit he missed her the way she missed him.
“You are mad at me.”
He handed her the slip of paper. “I could never be mad at you.”
Their eyes finally met. Lynn knew, without a doubt, he meant it.
PART TWO
“Bitch, you never texted me back!” Dana jumped in behind her in the snack bar line. Only underclassman endured the hell that was the hot lunch line, and the only decent thing school had going for it, besides the theater department and sexy new teacher, was their pizza sticks. “We were mid-convo!”
“Sorry.” Lynn pocketed her phone. Matthew didn’t have her real number and she refused to take his. There would be no way he’d text her, but it didn’t stop her from wishing. “My phone got taken away. You’d think they’d be over it by now. My god, they want us hauling around tablets and laptops for class, but god forbid you have a cell phone out.”
“It wouldn’t be an issue if those assholes in the front office didn’t block all chat applications on their server. I mean, accept we’re going to talk to each other one way or another. We don’t live in the dark ages and this shit isn’t exactly new. It’s the twenty-first century version of passing notes, but far more environmentally friendly.”
“Preach it, sister friend.” Lynn high-fived her. “They’re fighting a losing battle.”
“What dicks. I hate teachers, especially the hot ones. Those assholes think they can be bigger hard-asses because their students want to do them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about Captain Kirk Chris Pine, right? He’s sex in a uniform, and Mr. Flint is basically his darker-complexioned twin, but screw him. He was part of the generation that took cell phones everywhere! It’s like a technological sin for him to take away your phone. Especially when you’re texting me. Especially then. Screw him. He’s King Dick.”
Lynn snuck a glance over her shoulder before grabbing the cardboard boat of pizza rolls. “Dana… do you remember the night we went into the city over the summer? We pretended we were visiting your cousin or whatever, and you covered for me while I snuck off to that audition?”
“With that asshole director everyone claimed was ‘so visionary’ but he clearly couldn’t see the fucking talent you have and didn’t cast you?”
“Dana.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Anyway. So, you know how I stayed out way too late….”
“Because you totally banged super-hot actor? And I died of envy? Yes. Yes.
Yes
.”
Lynn flushed and hurried out of the line before the lunch lady at the register could bore cross-shaped holes into her face. “Right, well super-hot actor is the king dick who took my phone.”
Dana ran into Lynn’s back. “Oh my god.”
“Shh!”
They sat down at their usual table in the back corner, where things were a little more private. Seniors had laid claim to the corner for forever, but Lynn and Dana were part of the elite group of juniors permitted to sneak in the previous year. There was wide debate about continuing the tradition of letting in any juniors this year, and Lynn was grateful nobody had been chosen yet, leaving their space a little less crowded for the time being.
“Yes. It’s him!”
“Oh god.” Dana fanned herself. “Captain Kirk is the super-hot actor. Goddamn, Lynn. I’m so impressed. Teach me your secrets.”
“Funny.” Lynn bit into a too-hot pizza stick and winced. “What a fucking day.”
Dana tapped her fingers on the table. “You aren’t… you aren’t going to transfer out, are you? Because you can’t freaking leave me during our senior year. You just can’t.”
Lynn said nothing. It’d be a lie to say she hadn’t considered it. “Professional” or not, it was going to be unimaginably hard to sit in class with that man every day like nothing happened. And if she did get cast in the play? She’d die if he coached her platonically. Die.
“Look, I’m not saying I don’t get it, because I would totally understand if you felt the need. That’s huge. I mean, if someone found out, you could get expelled, right?”
“Probably. And he’d get fired. Then again, it was just over the summer, right? He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when we… you know.”
“Bumped nasties?”
“Dana.”
“Tickled his pickle?”
“Seriously, quit.”
“Schnoodlypooping? Bam-bam in the ham? Tonking? Entering the castle? Laying the pipe? Parting the pink sea? Playing hide the cannoli?”
“Will you… bam-bam in the ham?” Lynn laughed. “What the hell?”
“Whitewashing the picket fence?”
“Good god. You are a mess.” Lynn rubbed her temples. “We did all of that, yes. And it was all fucking amazing. And it could probably get me expelled and him fired. This is terrible.”
“Terrible, yeah.” Dana nodded empathetically. “And hot. You banged the hottest thing to ever happen to this school, Lynn. Captain Kirk! In the hot pants!”
They fell silent as Aria Levens and her crew walked past.
“In trouble on the first day, Viggiani?” Aria clucked her tongue and laughed. “Not setting the stage for the whole year, are we? I’d hate to see your chances for
Romeo and Juliet
fall flat because you had too many points to your name.”
“Eat shit and die, Levens.” Dana smiled sweetly.
Aria scoffed. “Just a warning for our friend here. No need to get hostile, Moss.”
“Fuck off, Aria.” Lynn didn’t feel like dealing with her. Not now. Aria was the last person in the school who could catch wind about her history with Matthew. “The big girls are talking.”
“I can’t wait to own you in the auditions.” Aria bared her shark-like teeth and waved with three fingers.
“She’s worse than last year.” Dana flicked her off. “I can’t wait for her to contract herpes.”
“What a glorious day that will be.” Lynn nodded and slumped in her chair. “Dana, what do I do? I can’t leave. My parents would never pull me out, anyway. Not without good reason. And they can
not
know about this summer. They wouldn’t even let me finish by correspondence, so changing schools is out of the question. And I can’t leave you. But I also can’t get expelled, and… what?”
Dana had been chewing intently on her straw. She cleared her throat. “I’m just wondering… um, do you even want to transfer out? I mean, do you want to, you know, get back with…”
“He’s my teacher, Dana.” Lynn whispered. “We’ll both be fucked. I can’t do that to him.”
“I know, I know. I’m just asking. It’s my duty to ask. If you feel yourself slipping, you tell me immediately. It’s also my duty to protect you.”
Lynn blew a kiss at her and Dana returned it.
“Okay, but if it was one hundred percent certain you wouldn’t get caught…”
Lynn sighed, feeling the same twinges from before wind up in her middle. “In a heartbeat, Dana. A goddamn heartbeat.”
Suppressing her feelings was harder than she expected. The threat of discovery and expulsion was certainly huge, and she’d hate herself forever if she got him fired over their interlude last summer. It wasn’t his fault—he had tried to resist her advances several times throughout the course of the night without ever actually saying no. He was a perfect gentleman, something she wished she could keep in her life forever.
But there was a chance he could ruin everything for her, too. Theater was her therapy, her entire life. Mommy and Daddy Viggiani liked to pretend their absent methods of parenting didn’t cause any damage, but Lynn didn’t ever feel healed until she touched the stage.
Tapping into all of her suppressed emotions, letting them out in a controlled manner under the pretense of being someone else, was freeing. She had gone from staring down a straight blade in the bathroom to smiling. Theater had literally saved her life.
There was no way she could give it up.
Yet, Matthew was a blood infection gathering under her skin. He was everywhere in her, burning hot, and impossible to draw out. Memories permeated her every moment for the rest of the day; she couldn’t concentrate in economics or Latin, and making it to the final bell was torture. Every time she slipped into the restroom, a fantasy of him sneaking in behind her played out in her mind.
By the end of the day, she had decided to go after Juliet with more force than she’d used for any other audition. She would get those one-on-one sessions with him, and she would make him suck out his poison by whatever means necessary.
Lynn couldn’t be forthright about her feelings for him—her overwhelming desire to strip bare before him and let their souls collide together like sweet poetry. But she could speak to him through her audition.
She picked a monologue from
Hamlet
, where Ophelia confessed her love for Hamlet to Polonius. It was hugely ambitious, but Lynn needed this chance. Matthew needed to know this performance was just for him.
She locked the door to her room, usually unnecessary in the empty sarcophagus of her giant home, and dimmed the lights. She paced around the room, trying to get into character. Matthew had once told her, “Remember the moment and bring it into the scene.” It would take all of her to bring their moments into the scene, but she had to nail it. For him. For her. For them and whatever future they could have, even if it was just one more night together to say goodbye.