dontravis.com
blog post #380
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| Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org |
Got
a lot of hits on last week’s post (My Personal Hero). Hong Kong particularly
liked it. I had more visitors from there than I did the US. Hope they enjoyed
it.
Some
time ago, I wrote a series of 5 stories under the title of The Drama Club, each
with a subtitle. I pulled them out and took a look at them, deciding I want to publish
them as blog posts. Here’s the first one, called “The Jock.”
*****
THE
DRAMA CLUB
Part 1 – The Jock
A tricky, fast-paced scene, the
kind Jarrod Gray liked. He got the lighting right more often than the actors
hit their lines correctly. This was only the second play of the year at Casa
Verde College, but he’d worked hard in high school and summer stock to learn
how the spots created moods and hid flaws in both sets and actors. Now he was the
Drama Club’s lighting director. Not bad for a freshman. He’d outfitted the
superstructure the way he wanted, an easy chair placed so he could watch the
stage below with hand-held remotes for the lights and the curtain. He even had
a mattress in case he wanted to nap or even sleep here.
Jarrod was never more alive
than when dancing across the superstructure, focusing and coordinating lights
without a fumble, a slip, or a mistake. He labored alone among the battens and
baffles high above the stage to enhance the efforts of budding thespians without
a trace of jealousy or malice, doing his best for each.
Jarrod wasn’t impressed by the
lightweight comedy the Drama Club was producing this season, although he liked
Rick Moore in the male lead. Rick was Mediterranean with dark skin and hair so
black it refracted the light, requiring a deft touch from Jarrod. A senior and
the handsomest man on campus, Rick seemed more comfortable on the football
field. Still… the guy’s spectacular looks made up for a lot.
Three days before opening,
Jarrod’s world shifted. Both Rick and the female lead Shelly Weldon were on
stage during most of the play except for a stretch in the second act. From the
catwalks above the stage, Jarrod watched as they exited right and strode into
the wings. Since there were no lighting changes programmed, he moved quietly
along the sky walk, following the cute couple to a small area cut off from view
of the others by heavy black curtains.
As soon as Rick started
undressing the girl, Jarrod scampered for his camera. By the time he reached
the area directly above them again, Shelly was stretched out on a pile of
stacked canvas, and Rick was going at it, full steam ahead.
When it was over, Jarrod rushed back to the lighting
control center, but in his haste, he banged the camera against one of the
support rails. Safely back in his control booth, he discovered he had taken a
whole roll of film.
Jarrod was usually in the
superstructure over the stage before anyone else arrived for rehearsal in order
to check his lights, run through his controls, and fine-tune the settings. An
hour before the curtain went up on dress rehearsal, he heard someone on the
ladder and was astonished to see Rick climb into the superstructure.
“So this is where you hang out.”
The senior’s deep voice turned Jarrod’s knees to water. “Man, you can see
everything from up here.” Rick indicated a catwalk. “How far back does this
go?”
“I can go all over the top of
the stage from up here.” Remembering striking the camera against the catwalk
the other day, Jarrod nervously dropped a pair of electrical pliers. As he knelt
to pick them up. Rick’s voice froze him where he was.
“Did you get an eyeful, you
little fucker?”
Jarrod looked up. Rick’s groin
was right in his face. “Uh. Of what?”
“Of me screwing Shelly, that’s
what. I heard you up there. It’s a wonder you didn’t slobber all over us. Well,
did I do it right?”
“It was awesome!” Jarrod
blurted before he could stop himself.
“I knew it! You spied, you
bastard!” Rick took a step forward, forcing Jarrod hard against the wall. The
rough denim of Rick’s jeans pressed against Jarrod’s face. “Well, you want it
so bad, you’re going to get it!”
Jarrod operated the lighting almost
by remote control during the first act. His mind whirled at the thought of what
had happened a mere hour ago. Conflicted—shouldn’t he outraged?—he rubbed his
bruised lips, yo-yoing between resentment and joy.
Before he drew the curtain at
the end of the first act, he realized he’d been studying Rick, seeing again in
his mind’s eye what was covered by the jock’s costume. Jarrod’s heart took a
leap. Rick had come to him. Exposed himself. Looked to a lowly freshman lighting
director to satisfy his desires. There probably wasn’t another guy on campus who
could say they’d had Rick Moore. Jarrod almost grunted aloud when he realized the
drama club’s jock had chosen him over Shelly.
After rehearsal, he hoped Rick
would scale the ladder so they could discuss the play… and discover more about
one another. He waited an hour after everyone else had left before coming down
and going to his dorm room.
The next day, Jarrod worked
for an hour rigging a camera he could operate remotely. If Rick came back, he
could take wonderful pictures they’d share.
Opening night, he heard a foot
on the ladder before the curtain went up. When Rick’s head appeared at the
opening, Jarrod thought his heart would burst.
“Get undressed,” the star ordered
without preamble.
Unhappy at the jock’s tone,
Jarrod considered ignoring him for all of thirty seconds before tearing his T-shirt
over his head and stepping out of his sweatpants and shorts, growing a bit
uncertain over standing naked until Rick dropped his pants. A shiver played up Jarrod’s
back. They were going to explore one another. Get familiar, more intimate.
Wonderful.
When Rick moved, it wasn’t
anything like Jarrod had imagined. The jock threw him on his stomach across the
mattress, and all Jarrod felt was pain… at first. And then he realized the pressure
of the jock’s body moving against him held a new kind of sensuality. Seeing the
remote control for the camera within reach, Jarrod grabbed it and pressed twice.
Rick froze. “What was that?”
“A… a couple of lights… blew,”
Jarrod panted, anxious for Rick to resume. “Have… to change them before curtain
time.”
Why had he lied? As Rick
started thrusting again, Jarrod forgot about it in the wonder of the moment.
Then Rick ruined it all as he
got up to dress. “You liked it, didn’t you, you little fairy!”
The play was a success. Rick,
his lines and timing finally down, was the hit of the comedy. Jarrod couldn’t
take his eyes off the tall, manly form and forgave his lover’s language and
coarseness a hundred times over as he waited impatiently for the next
opportunity to share an intimacy. But there wasn’t one.
After the end of the play’s
run, Jarrod desperately sought to keep in touch with his lover. He put himself in
the jock’s path at every opportunity. Rick studiously ignored him.
When Jarrod’s roommate went on
a weekend trip; he left a message on Rick’s cell phone inviting him over. No response,
Jarrod trudged across campus to the frat house. Rick, looking more handsome
than ever in cutoffs and a sleeveless T-shirt, scowled upon answering Jarrod’s
timid knock.
“What the fuck you doing here?
Get outa here! Leave me alone!”
Before the door slammed in his
face, Jarrod heard a voice asking if it was the little queer from the theater. It
was all he could do to keep from running. His face and ears red from
embarrassment, Jarrod imagined everyone he passed was laughing at him. Head
down, eyes on the step in front of him, he fled the frat house and ran all the
way to the theater. Disconsolate, Jarrod climbed a rope by the strength of his
arms alone up into the superstructure, into his
world where he curled up on the mattress and cried, leaking tears where once
semen had flowed.
Jarrod’s mortification matured
into fear and then anger, the adult stage of his transformation. He became a
plotter, a schemer. One day, he left an unsealed, unaddressed envelope with
prints of the two photos on Rick’s chem lab desk. Jarrod watched from the
window as the senior arrived and opened the envelope. Those fantastic black
eyes bugged before Rick frantically slid the photos back into the envelope. To
Jarrod’s surprise, the jock gathered his books and put on his coat.
Half-panicked, Jarrod rushed across
the quadrangle toward Thespian Hall. He didn’t bother with the ladder; he
hauled himself up the rope hand-over-hand. Within two minutes, Rick’s menacing
figure stood on the top rung of the ladder.
“Hi, lover,” Jarrod said more
jauntily than he felt.
“Shut your dirty mouth! What
the fuck’s this?” He held up the envelope.
“Mementos,” Jarrod answered.
“Those fucking flashes! They
weren’t spots, were they? I’m gonna hurt you!” Rick took a step forward.
Jarrod managed to hold onto a
shred of calm. “You can do that but think of all the trouble if you do. Those
pictures are bound to come out. In fact, I’ll make sure they do when I explain
the assault to the police. Wonder if the Casa Verde Student Voice would print
them?”
Rick halted in his tracks. “You
wouldn’t spread pictures of yourself like that all over campus.”
Jarrod shrugged. “Why not? It
shows me getting it on with the big man on campus. Not only that, it shows the
big man enjoying it, even though he doesn’t wanna be seen with the little queer
from the theater.”
“You’re bluffing!”
“Am I? Why don’t you come over
here and get undressed? All the way this time.”
“Fuck—”
“Yeah, that too. But right
now, I just want to look.”
From the smoldering anger in
Rick’s black eyes, Jarrod feared he’d gone too far. But the bigger boy got
control of himself and wordlessly began to strip.
Jarrod smiled. This was going
to work. With any luck, he’d turn the macho motherfucker queer before the
semester was over.
*****
How about that? The
bully gets bullied. “Little fairies” all over the world can take heart. The
next installment has a different take as we meet Jarrod in his sophomore
year at Casa Grande College.
Until next week.
The following are buy
links for the recently released The Voxlightner Scandal.
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com. PLEASE DON’T USE
THAT ONE.)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
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