Page 60 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
“Julianna Orwell?”
“The one and only.”
Jonah’s mind short-circuited. Julianna Orwell. One of the most esteemed directors, famous for her work on Broadway and in the West End. Winner of countless Oliviers and Tony Awards, one of the most respected directors in the entire theatre industry. Holy Jesus Christ on a biscuit.
“You spoke to her?” Jonah asked as he huddled as far beneath the doorway as possible. “Like, actually her?”
Melanie laughed, her beautiful voice rich and lyrical. “Yes. I met her years ago and we’ve stayed in touch. She’s working on a revival and came to seeThe Wooden Horsea couple of weeks ago. She was very impressed with you.”
Jonah could feel his hands turning numb, not from the cool chill of the rain but from Julianna Orwell acknowledging he existed. “Wow. Okay. And she’s considering me for a role?”
“She’s asked if we can meet for lunch sometime next week. Think you can manage that without getting flustered?” He heard her typing on her laptop. “She’s proposed next Wednesday at one, over at The Forge in Chelsea.”
“Yes,” Jonah replied, without a single ounce of hesitation. “Yes.”
“You don’t want to know what show she’s going to be directing?”
“It’sJulianna Orwell, she could be directing a silent show all about dogs and I would want to be involved.”
“Okay, well, it’s not a silent show about dogs. It’sCabaret. I know you’ve done it before, but this will be entirely new staging and a completely different theatrical experience, from what I gather.”
Cabaret.1920s Berlin. Sally Bowles. The Kit Kat Club. Frilly knickers and suspenders, gin and gorillas. The leads dancing through the darkness taking over Germany, hands covering their eyes until they have no choice but to open them or continue to dance until their feet bleed. And, of course, the Emcee, the center of the show.
“Did she... did she say the role she’s interested in me for? Is it Cliff?” He could play Cliff again. Poor gullible Cliff, who tries to view his life through rose-tinted glasses until they shatter, leaving him with the broken shards he flees with, away from Sally, away from Berlin, and away from the horrors that inch closer each moment. Jonah could step back into his shoes, but were Cliff’s shoes more comfortable than Achilles’s?
“Emcee. I know it’s a dream role for you, Jonah. She said your emotional range when performing Achilles really opened her eyes to just what you can bring to a role. It’s a complex character, and she already has some ideas about how they will be played in this version she’s putting together, but it would be an excellent move for you.”
“Better than Bobby?”
“It’s certainly different. But given your success inThe Wooden Horse, now might be the right time to go after something a little different. Besides, you’ve probably lost Bobby now because you didn’t practice, practice, practice.” Despite chastising him, her tone remained lighthearted. “Shall I say yes to next Wednesday?”
“Yes. One hundred percent yes.”
“Fantastic, but keep this hush-hush, okay? Oh, and Jonah?”
“Yeah?”
“Go home and practice those bloody moves. The more options we have the better.”
“I promise I will do nothing else in my spare time.”
“Very good.”
When Melanie hung up, Jonah wanted to run into the rain and scream at the top of his lungs. Julianna Orwell wanted to meet him. She wanted to talk to him about the role he’d dreamed about for God knows how many years, and Jonah felt overcome with the urge to yell about it to everyone who walked past with their heads bowed beneath umbrellas. Yetsomehow he refrained from getting himself arrested for accosting strangers and instead walked with a spring in his step, ignoring the water trickling down the back of his collar. He hummed “Singin’ in the Rain” and wished he had worn a suit and tap shoes so he could do his best Gene Kelly impression while twirling around lampposts.
Dexter threw his head back with a moan as he threaded his fingers through Jonah’s hair. The sounds coming from his mouth were downright indecent, and Jonah bloody lived for them. He could feel Dexter’s thighs trembling beneath his palms as he worked his mouth around his length, and he knew the other man wouldn’t last long, not with the way his grip on his curls tightened and his jaw slackened with each needy pant. God, Jonah loved seeing him like this, eyes closed, a pink tint swiped across his cheekbones and body completely prone to every little thing Jonah did. Jonah kissed his thighs afterward, causing Dexter to twitch slightly as his body worked its way through its intense sensitivity before he reached down to tilt Jonah’s chin up and guide him to his mouth. They kissed lazily for several minutes, Jonah in Dexter’s lap in his dressing room chair, the position not entirely comfortable but neither of them cared.
“Bloody hell,” Dexter whispered, his voice sounding wrecked despite needing to be onstage in less than an hour. “I think that was the most enthusiastic blow job I’ve ever had.”
Jonah laughed and removed himself from Dexter’s lap, scooping his underwear from the floor and chucking it to him playfully. He could feel how swollen his lips were. They tingled slightly, and he reveled in the sensation. “I’ve had a good day, and I wanted to show you how much I missed you.” Julianna’s name was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t tell Dexter about the earlier call, not yet, not until he had something concrete to tell him. Hush-hush.
“Missed me? You saw me Saturday.”
“Yeah, and then you went off-grid for two days like usual.”
Dexter cleared his throat as he reached for the comb on his dressing table to tidy his hair. “I don’t go off-grid.”
“Yeah you do,” Jonah said, throwing caution to the wind by decidingto address the missing-Dexter phenomenon head-on. They’d been not-casual for a month now, and Jonah thought he deserved to know what his boyfriend, if he could call him his boyfriend, did when he didn’t answer messages for two days and vanished off the face of the earth.
