Page 13 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
Dexter raised his hand to hush him with a laugh. “Wait a minute, threaten you? When the hell did I threaten you?”
“When you said I’ll see how an Olivier really doesn’t mean that much?”
“Why would you think that’s a threat?”
“Because it is one?”
Dexter continued to laugh and shook his head. “Wow. You’re even more insecure than I first thought.” He took a deep breath and let his laughter subside. “Look, Jonah, let’s be professional here.”
“I am being professional!” His protest sounded whiny, desperate, like a child. “You can’t go changing scenes half an hour before going onstage without talking to the creative team first. I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t waltz in here and expect everything to change for you.”
Dexter’s posture changed from cocky to somewhat vulnerable, his shoulders turned in, his height seemed to shrink. “Why don’t you like me, Jonah?”
Jonah opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again, any words he might muster running away from him.
“I stood up for you on the tube with those guys, just so you know,” Dexter said. “I tried to make it better. I could see the situation was proper shit for you so I tried to help and you still have a problem with me.”
“You didn’t need to say anything because it was nothing to do with you.” Jonah knew he sounded spiteful, his tone sharp, set out to harm, but he couldn’t stop himself. “And don’t talk to me about ‘not liking you’ when you’re the one who has come here and caused problems. Like, no one’s asked for your opinion, Dexter. I don’t care if you think I messed up a line or was behind a couple of beats, it’s none of your concern.”
Dexter appeared to be carefully considering his next words before frowning and taking a deep breath. Jonah readied himself for more criticism or an explanation for why itwasDexter’s concern, but the reasoning never came. “We’re switching the bit in the sex scene. I will take the lead,” he said, turning to open the door. “Break a leg, Jonah.”
Eight
“He wore your armor. He moved just like you. I thought I’d defeated the mighty Achilles.”
—“Answer Me,”The Wooden Horse, Act Two
Dexter didn’t kiss like Bastien; he kissed like a long-lost lover starved of affection for thousands of years. His lips, soft, ridiculously soft, pressed against Jonah’s and it seemed as if Dexter were trying to devour the air from his lungs. He let Dexter turn him, Patroclus taking the lead, even though his mind should have been screaming at the change of blocking, something they should never do, something Colbie would scream at them for later if she ever found out, and felt Dexter’s fingers sneak below the shoulder of his tunic. Dexter didn’t disrobe him, not like Achilles usually did to Patroclus; he only showed a glimmer of Jonah’s skin, enough to tantalize, enough to tell the audience more would be revealed, but in private, a moment for the characters and the characters alone.
He’d been so used to kissing Bastien, to the stubble lining his jaw no matter how freshly he shaved, and the way his body moved against his. They’d established a delicate balance where they could create a romance onstage and not allow it to leak out past the stage door, but Dexter? Jonah didn’t have any rules in place with him, unspoken or not. It left an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, one he didn’t know how to navigate or place. Of course, professionalism came into play. Jonah knew full well a kiss between actors meant nothing. But Dexter kissed him like they’d known each other forever, their lips as familiar as the rising sun, a promise of summer after a harsh winter. And when Dexter sung to him, his voicereverberating off Jonah’s skin, the moment became absurdly intimate, despite being viewed by hundreds of people.
As Dexter lowered him down onto the bed where Achilles and Patroclus made love, he pressed his lips to Jonah’s again, the second kiss not in the script, but Jonah cupped his cheeks as the lights dimmed on their scene. His skin felt surprisingly cool beneath his palms. As the world turned dark Dexter’s lips remained on his, and just as Jonah attempted to pull away Dexter seized his bottom lip between his teeth and bit him. He fucking bit him. Jonah’s hand immediately covered his mouth as Dexter parted from him and exited the stage. Jonah drew his fingers back expecting to see blood. They were clean, but the pain still lingered.
The precious twelve minutes until Jonah needed to be onstage again were spent in his dressing room, changing from Achilles’s casual wear into his armor as Sherrie fussed around him. He stood, looking at himself in the mirror, his bottom lip slightly redder, plump, and he wondered why the idiot bit him. Normally, he wouldn’t mind a bit of nipping and teeth grazing, but that would be in the bedroom, not onstage in front of six hundred people, especially when it wasn’t even in the bloody script. Did Dexter bite in the bedroom? Did he like to scratch and nip at exposed skin while fucking? No.No.Jonah did not want to think about Dexter having sex. He could imagine his stupid lips pouting as he gasped and groaned, and really, the thought should have repulsed him. But it didn’t. He really needed to find a date to get the stupid horny images out of his system; even thinking about Dexter in an intimate position was crossing a line he didn’t know he would ever even get close to.
Dexter behaved himself for the rest of the show, and Jonah didn’t want to admit it but he did a bloody good job given he’d never performed Patroclus before and only knew his track from observations and his knowledge from beforeThe Wooden Horsetook to the West End. He died beautifully in Jonah’s arms, his death surprisingly realistic, his body turning into a dead weight as Jonah held him. As the middle part of the stage lowered, taking them out of sight, he didn’t look at Jonah, he simply walked away, back to his dressing room—no,Bastien’sdressing room—and then waited for his call back onstage for the bows. Bastien would usually standby Jonah’s side at the end of the show, the cast clutching hands as they bowed for their audience and basked in the applause. But Dexter stood three bodies down from him, a snub if Jonah ever saw one, and completely reveled in the fact he got the biggest cheer of the night. The audience propelled themselves to their feet the moment he came onstage, the sound deafening, only to fall slightly when Jonah walked on right after him. He gathered the remaining applause and ran with it.
Dexter’s return toThe Wooden Horsecould be seen as nothing other than a success. He’d saved the day, ran to the theatre at a moment’s notice, and took on a role he’d never played before. As they left the stage, he saw Colbie standing there with a gigantic bouquet of orange and red flowers, an unsettling surprise given he didn’t have a clue their producer was lurking in the building. She handed the flowers to Dexter and pulled him into a hug then gushed about just how good he’d been, how proud he’d made her, and just how excited she was for him to come back as Hector. She said nothing to Jonah as he passed, not even a scolding for allowing Dexter to change the details in the sex scene.
“You should give me your phone number,” Dexter said as they shrugged their coats over their shoulders after getting changed before heading out of the stage door to the inevitable crowd waiting to fawn over Dexter. “Chances are I’m going to be on for Bastien again tomorrow unless he makes a miraculous recovery overnight.” He adjusted the collar of his coat, then picked up his flowers from Colbie. Jonah looked at the man’s coat, long, tan and... was it cashmere? The thing must have cost a fortune. “I would like to hear if you have any notes for me,” Dexter said, his tone serious.
Jonah zipped up his own coat, the black thing he picked up in a thrift shop back home, and raised an eyebrow at him. “You want my opinion on your performance tonight?” After their exchange before the show, Jonah was a little surprised Dexter was even talking to him.
“Yes,” Dexter said quickly, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Is that a problem?” He produced his phone from his pocket and unlocked it before passing it to Jonah. “Give me your number and I will text you later. I’m assuming you don’t want my notes on your performance?”
Jonah knew how pathetic he was being for not wanting to give Dexter his number. He didn’t want to text him; he didn’t want to have any more contact with the man than absolutely necessary, but he put his number into his phone anyway and handed it back to him.
“Your assumption is correct.”
“Right, well, thanks for giving me your number at least,” Dexter said, a small, genuine-looking smile on his face. “Right, um, see you later.” He opened the stage door and his little smile turned into a huge one as he saw the crowd of people waiting there to greet him.
Jonah followed out after him, taken aback by just how many people were there. He hadn’t seen so many people outside of the Persephone before, and part of him felt a little vulnerable as a few of them jostled forward to talk to them. He’d heard about sizable crowds waiting at stage doors for other shows, usually one-night-only concerts where a big name had flown over from Broadway to perform. There were often small crowds gathered at the Persephone, but nothing like this, bodies everywhere with beaming faces and programs stretched out to be signed. He could see Omari farther down working his way along the line, sharpie in hand. Clearly no one else in the company seemed remotely bothered by Dexter joining the cast; the problem lay with Jonah alone. He needed to pull himself together.
“You were amazing,” a woman said, clutching her program before holding it out to Jonah. “Would you mind signing this, please?” He took a sharpie out of his back pocket, the cast now well versed in keeping a good stash of them on hand at all times, and scrawled his signature across the front of it.
“Would it be okay to get a picture?”
“You weresogood, oh my God, like so good.”
