Alice Moore

Amorous Actresses

Chapter 1

Tight Fitting

As told by Fancy Jones I was the only one left in the costume shop. That’s what comes of being an undergraduate major in Drama at the U. The teachers leave earliest, then the graduate assistant, then the people who don’t care about their work, then there’s me left. Me is Fancy Jones; my parents had been reading too much 19th century fiction when I came along. They’d never read a modern sex book either, because they never told me anything but, “Don’t.” And that’s been perfectly satisfactory. I’ve had boy friends and all and an occasional hand in a forbidden place, but nothing else. I don’t even know what a dick looks like, except from drawings on washroom walls.

I was getting hungry too. But I had one more fitting. The drama department was doing Romeo and Juliet next and we were in the midst of costumes. Dr. Koenig had done the sketches. Now we, as Costumes for the Stage Drama D117 had to follow the costume through from the first to the final fitting I’d drawn Mercuctio. He was going to be dressed in black velvet and black tights with silver trim and red slashings, to symbolize the fact that he was going to be slashed in the fight with Tibalt. Dr. Koenig was a little bit more psychological in her explanation, but that was it.

I was going to have to measure… let me check my notes, Jim Benson. I’d never seen Jim and he’d never seen me, but I was supposed to push the end of my tape up beside his testicles… see I’m so inhibited that I can’t even call them balls… and see what his inseam was. I’d pointed out that he was wearing tights, which didn’t have an inseam, but Dr. Koenig said, it was all in the practice. Some of the other student’s laughed. Ginny had whispered to me, “afraid of a handful of balls?” She was right.

Oh, where is Jim Benson aka Mercutio? I wanted something to eat. I was dreaming of the hot dogs in the fridge back at the apartment. I could see the thing now … ooops, I wonder if Freud would have anything to say about that symbol.

“Ahhh… Miss?”

I turned. What a gorgeous guy. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark mustache and a great body. He was wearing a grey university athletic shirt with short sleeves. On his left arm there was a dark blue tattoo of an eagle perched on a nest, ready to take off. The rest of him was encased in grey sweats. He may have been color coordinated in grey down to his shorts, if he was wearing any. I checked.

Nothing much that I hadn’t seen live showing. I glanced at my assignment sheet, “Jim Benson, Mercutio?”