13 Jan Fourth Wall

Act I: The Conflict

Theater 201 — School of the Art Institute of Chicago —Professor Robert Wellers

“Class—listen up, please. Who would be the first to show me you’ve actually done your reading assignment and tell me what the ‘4^th wall’ means in stage terminology?”

I tapped my laser pointer wand on the top of the worn oak podium I stood behind to the simple four-four time of a metronome. I pushed the small button, and a green beam raced across the audience of youth I was speaking to, stopping with a hesitation occasionally on one student’s chest before racing along until halting on the next victim.

“It’s a simple question….” I spoke in a tone meant to feel like a personal jab at each of them. Eighty-seven enrolled students with varying degrees of lazy youth blankly stared at their hands holding cell phones with lit screens caring nothing about learning a Goddamned thing I’d been teaching. The sight of it all instantly assaulted my eyes and gave me an anguish deep inside the pit of my stomach. My gut feeling curdled like expired cottage cheese sitting with a burning ache deep inside to rush up in its exit via a wet stream of splatter.

The fact is, I’d known from day one of this class that not a single one of them held any hope for a future whatsoever in acting. Still, here I stood, wasting my time and lengthy education, continuing to make the futile attempt at pushing just one of the bastards to the point of proving me wrong. To at least strive to be invited to do a vaginal crème or Rexulti ad, making it possible for them to say they accomplished one effort at being a paid actor. The whole idea was preposterous and infuriated me to the core and ultimately led me to take Rexulti to quell my depression, of my feeling like a mid-life waste of effort.

My eyes continued to painfully scan the dimly lit auditorium—searching through its one hundred seats that were anchored in a half circle surrounding the stage I stood. My stage. Their faces were not highlighted by the row of stage lights in front of the fourth wall but instead illuminated by the glow of the technology stealing away their attention from me. And yet I stood, hoping to find that one glimmer of hope sitting in awe and lifting their hand to answer with the excitement of winning the money while beating their opponents at Jeopardy. Just one single student who would give me my sanity back covered in a neatly wrapped smile bearing a bright blue bow taped boldly across their glowing face, tearing its way through the gift-wrapping paper and spitting the correct answer out for all the others to hear on this typically thankless day I spent as professor of theater. Were my years of study and thousands of dollars invested in this career a complete waste? Couldn’t I turn just one student 180 degrees and prove I wasn’t a complete failure? That I didn’t suck at passing along a heritage of theatrical culture into this godforsaken future of fine arts?

It was the single question that continually burned inside my body, scorching my heart just a little more each day as the heated iron of failure edged ever closer to branding that lifelong scar for all to see. I pictured both of my parents shaking their heads in the embarrassed spilled pride drowning them inside their graves as if dying in the outside world of reality was not painful enough that now their son bore the branding of failure, scarring my forehead forever.

Then, at the one decisive point of facing the taunting demon inside my head and conceding all of my worthlessness to it, I spotted a possible savior who had the potential to redeem my value as an educator. She came in the form of a very pretty trembling youth peering back at me with excited gleam. She sat stiffly in her seat like one of Michealangelo’s smooth white female statues whose missing limbs were unnoticed because of her overwhelming beauty. All I could imagine seeing wrapped in her quiet trembling gusto was every molecule of her excited effort in getting my attention to call on her for the answer to my question, would have coerced a missing limb to rise into a valiant wave with an imagined hand stretched high above her head waving with such enthusiasm it naturally led me to call upon a face I failed to recognize.

Oddly, she sat alone in the middle of twelve empty seats surrounding her as if she were a leper marked with a tattooed L on her forehead, making certain everyone else would shun her. The one student that likely strived at taking in my every word I’d spoken as if it came directly from the book of Paul quoting the red lettered words of Jesus’ dialogue.

I scanned the room temporarily ignoring the young lady as I gave the rest of the inattentive class one last chance to prove their value. “Again, class—who can tell me what the term ‘fourth wall’ stands for on a stage?” I watched as she again excitedly waved, almost pleading to me to call upon her.

It’s a simple fucking question and is key to being an actor on stage. Without it there would be absolutely no point to the entire endeavor of what we do up here! I said loudly to myself.  At least, I presumed it was spoken inside my head! It’s all I seemed to fill my days with lately. Speaking to myself since no one else gave a shit to the words coming out of my mouth. And then again, I screamed inside my head, My God, I’m attempting to teach imbeciles!

And then I did hear my own voice loudly, this time clearly outside of my head as each word tumbled and stumbled over another around in the air, tossed roughly and abruptly out into the wide-open between all of them—and myself… but I caught myself staring at the body sitting all alone in the middle of the sea of dropped mouths suffering from the shock and awe I’d apparently just delivered.

The pale young lady’s hand quickly dropped like a heavy statue arm would have after being sliced from the shoulder of famous works by sculptors from the past. The growing rumble of dismayed students’ murmurs among themselves seemed to have silenced the loud thud of the young woman’s arm when it contacted the hard wooden chair arm with the speed at which it dropped and landed. I watched as the pain of both my words and her elbow making contact erased the smile on her face quickly as it instantly morphed into embarrassment with her eyes retreating just as fast to her lap.

I knew instantly I should apologize. Not because of the mass of brainless students who playing with their phones while completely ignoring my lesson. Pardon my language, but they could kindly go fuck themselves, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. But the poor ghostly-white girl with dark shoulder-length hair, dressed in fairly nondescriptive attire and now appearing as if I’d just run over her puppy—well—she was the catalyst for my feelings of remorse, even though it had been an accidental faux pas on my part. Misdirected from the class of disrespectful spoiled wastes of youth.

The rumble began to dissipate as I stood at the podium, attempting to collect myself. I wanted to look at the young face I’d apparently crushed the spirit of, but my muscles wouldn’t allow such movement back to her. My neck felt like a crane that had ceased for lack of oil pressure in its lines. It was actually my lack of humanity towards the innocent young girl that likely felt drawn and quartered in front of the entire student body. She, the only soul who showed the first sign of the bravery it certainly must have taken to raise her hand above the sea of disrespect she was surrounded by. And I slapped her back into her cage of self-effacement.

I slowly forced myself to sneak a peek at the circle of empty seats and face my victim just in time to see her sidestepping past the last empty chair and the ten or twelve to her left holding shifting bodies as if avoiding even the mere touch of her clothing to theirs. The sight of their reaction to her repulsed me, and I wanted to dress each of them down for their inhumane treatment—but my heart raced, realizing the girl would likely not be back to class—and I held no clue who she was. My heart ached to the point I was spurred to quickly back away from where I stood, merely saying, “Class dismissed for the day,” before quickly closing my laptop and racing up the outer steps to the door she’d just disappeared through.

* * * * * *

The stampede of students filled the hallways to the point that not even the simplicity of the girl’s clothing, compared to the sea of loud, colorful outfits wrapped around all the other bodies, would allow her to stand out enough for me to pick her out. The crowd was far too massive, their movements too quick, making the hallway appear full of victims jumping from a sinking ship and swimming madly to save their own lives. My eyes darted from one face to another and then in the opposite direction of the flowing current in my rabid search for the unknown student. I knew I’d probably wounded the young student’s psyche beyond repair by accidentally catching her in the crosshairs of my condemning crassness.

I wasn’t certain what was happening inside myself. This wasn’t the usual attitude I held for this generation of—people, if one could actually acknowledge the self-filled urchins of spoiled and ignored offspring as human. I’ll admit that I hated most of them with a passion that existed throughout my entire body, from the tip of my head through my soul to the tips of my toes. Most of them were merely sponges soaking up their parent’s financial assets without any direction other than feeling entitled to whatever pleased them, with no thought of the costs to the family. Wretched little beasts that took that same attitude directly into my class, wasting my valuable time and talents. After all, my existence here on earth was no longer as infinite as I once felt it was. My biological clock was ticking while the sands encased in the crystal hourglass had been spilling through the tiny tunnel from the top reservoir with an increased pace, the bottom rising ever closer to where it once had trickled slowly.

I’d softened without ever realizing until this precise moment I stood frantically staring out into the ocean of my disdain in search for the single soul I sought to repair. A minute ago, I would have been content hurling my usual barrage of resentment at their ignorant squandering of resources given to them at no personal expenditure other than trading time for knowledge. A barter very few appreciated like my generation had.

This one soul did, though. I could see it in her eyes in the nanosecond. I just couldn’t break my learned habit of expecting nothing but sarcasm and ridicule from the—young adults—who appeared more like slaves shackled to their seats rather than paupers begging to be spoon-fed experience from someone who experienced life before them.

My heart began to slow from its racing at the disappointment of rescue quickly dissipated into another failure. The mass of heads continued to bounce and move from side to side like marbles scattered wildly onto the sidewalk, me appearing nothing more than a tiny katydid hopping up and down, attempting to find that one-in-a-million that apparently had—gotten away.

I forced myself to turn away and walk in retreat, knowing the only thing now that could smooth the rough edges this last day of the school week was the sipping of a smoked bourbon served neat at the local tavern where many faculty came sulking their woes of the torturous lives they too led attempting to pry open the dead eyes of spoiled little darlings playing the part of escaped indentured servants who were away for the first time from coddling parents clueless of how their hard-earned nest egg was being tossed into the flames of waste.

* * * * * *

This place, this little hole-in-the-wall tavern, was where many of us fellow ‘educators’, doing our time at the institute, scampered to after long days of being work-hardy squirrels attempting to survive the fruitless nuts fallen from the trees that seldom produced any worthy, fully mature fruit.

Now was that time of day when we came in to lick our wounds and have the bartender/priest/personal psycho-therapist dole out our preferred medications in varying flavors and colors. He would, of course, offer his platitude of sympathy dealt in moments of false concern to help drown our woes, showing just enough attention as to tempt us into returning the next afternoon, ensuring his financial numbers were being met while leaving our spirits high as a kite.

Life, I’ve found out, doesn’t really lead down the path to any ‘golden years’ like we’ve all been bumfuzzled into believing. All the hope for aging into such Shangri La can be compared to the sprinkling of shiny sequins atop a pile of dog shit. It may look nice, but it still stinks to high heaven. No, the true story is that life is nothing more than a twisted path to disappointment and failure.

“Afternoon, Professor…” Tony belched the greeting out as per usual.

“I’ll take a strong one, my good man. An oak-smoked Woodford Reserve, neat—and filled to the brim.”

“Yes, sir, Professor, just like the good doctor ordered!”

The exuberance in his voice felt forced, as always. But I knew he would deliver the requested prescription very timely, so I smiled at his standard line and patiently awaited my pleasure for the day. Lord knows I’d earned it today, and my tongue danced impatiently inside my mouth at the anticipation of it being splashed across its tiny tastebuds, if not only for the second it would be able to soak in the flavor before my throat would demand me to swallow down the speedy deliverance of calming relief to my nerves. It was a regiment that had become a habit I knew well.

“Good afternoon, Professor Weller,” a familiar voice called down from the far side of the bar. I didn’t notice her when I entered and sat down as my brain was still preoccupied with a certain young student. This part of the daily equation was out of character for me. I didn’t usually think much of women anymore, having become a settled bachelor after being divorced.

But I turned to force my usual smile I painted onto my facade, knowing that Margeret Winstead, an art Professor specializing in oil and acrylic painting, was likely already three drinks ahead of me and spoiling to be taken home and ravaged like a middle-aged sex-starved likely black widow. Oh, she wasn’t unattractive for her age and there had been many a late evening where temptation played like a very talented opponent to my hard-to-beat adversarial side. Occasionally to a point I would likely fold and concede, but something always came up and spirited the conversation a different direction until it vacated completely. I felt it completely inappropriate to mix pleasure with another who feeds from the same spigot. It can cloud the waters very quickly and lead to a toxic and chaotic mess. Her classroom was not too far down the hall from where mine was. Much too close and just not my cup of tea to play such a risk to my—career, no matter how poorly I now felt it had been. But I smiled with that same ‘deal me in’ hand like most every other late afternoon, and with that smile came the sound of her glass being slid down the countertop along with the bumping of chair legs as I watched her saunter in that quotidian stumble out towards her ‘fourth wall’ where I sat. I would now be her audience for the remainder of the evening it seemed. I would watch her performance with the usual lackluster responses, so I didn’t prod her to dive deeper into her Martha character from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf role. She did, in fact, resemble Elizabeth Taylor a bit from the old movie, only far less… pretty. But, my God, that would be a huge hurdle for any mortal woman to reach.

The thought of the ‘fourth wall’ quickly reminded me of the young lady and my failure to find her. It was, after all, the catalyst for presence here at this earlier-than-normal hour, I suppose, to lick my wounds, dose my guilt with Tony’s elixir, and attempt to decipher the entire reason of my suffering so greatly from what had transpired. Would she return to class on Monday? I questioned as Margaret edged ever closer.

Margaret’s more than ample breasts were pushed up out of her blouse creating a fleshy valley between them and I noticed very handedly at her obvious effort of showing. It felt as if she were a wild cougar in heat, the only thing missing were wild screeches exiting her mouth in waves of fingernails scraping down a chalk board.  The missing sounds emanated very loudly from her glazed over eyes though. How many times had she begged me to come home with her so she could paint an acrylic nude of me after the two of us making love together. She never was subtle about her cravings of having me on top of her in a sweat drenched passion.

Tonight—if she brought it up, I just might take her up on the invitation. I did have a hankering to blow off some steam. Such thoughts were managing to grow a bulge in my trousers that usually remained vacant. I confess, my eyes searched to see down her cleavage even deeper as she pushed those Grand Tetons against my arm while mounting her barstool next to mine. I instantly forgot about class today and instead toyed with the mental vision of my fucking the hell out her as she screamed in that low register growl and then lying sprawled out on the covers recuperating as she stood completely nude at her easel painting my naked body, my happy now spent and flaccid penis nestled into the sheets next to me like a well-fed and tired puppy. Her dipping her brush into various colors of bright creamy paints from her pallet and then making the bristles dance across the canvas spreading the oils and melding them into a masterpiece of a man in euphoria, hot and sweaty from the aggressive sex we’d just completed.

“You look—um—different—tonight… Poffess… Professor… there’s… there’s… a… a… your eyes… have… a… glaze… they’re… glist… glisttsss… glistening…” she smiled, her eyes appearing well-dosed in alcohol. I knew she’d likely not even remember doing such nastiness if I walked her home. I could do a quick cum and go. She’d told me a million times how she lived just down the street in a downtown upstairs loft. Just a few short blocks away.

I leaned into her, close enough I could smell the Gin on her breath, it was woodsy but with a sting. I touched my tongue to her lips and before I could plunge it in deeper, she sucked it into her mouth and sighed, as she lightly pinched it in between her teeth, not giving me a chance to retrieve it. Instead, our tongues ended up dancing together in a twisted wrestle to explore each other’s tonsils like teenagers on the couch once the parents went to bed.

It had been so long, and I told myself I was too old for this, but my testosterone told me to shut the fuck up and go for it. My stage presence of a normal reserved and educated façade quickly dropped to the floor like a role that no longer fit. It was surprising, but she came up for air before I did. Her spell cast, I knew where this evening was going to end. I just didn’t know what colors would be used to paint it into a memory to hang on my wall.

I noticed Tony, the bartender, look over to the door. I turned out of habit, suddenly feeling like I’d been caught with my hand down a father’s daughter’s pants and not wanting to feel the punch to my face from out of nowhere. Expecting the forthcoming blow and turning towards it, still stealing the air from my gut but not from a fist to the stomach but rather whom I saw standing just inside the tavern. She stood peeking around through the dimness, eyes likely attempting to adjust from the bright late afternoon sun to this more cavernous lighting.

I was speechless when I realized who it was. It was her, just standing there as her brightly backlit silhouette slowly darkened with the door pulling itself closed, sealing the daylight from entering any longer. It was really her. And it felt very odd that she would just happen in. Her white skin glowed and I suddenly felt as if I’d been inculpated by my very ungodly imaginations from an angel sent to condemn me for thinking them. I sat speechless as Margaret tugged on my arm, pleading my attentions back to her and her sexual needs I’d just been cultivating, getting her ready to bare her fruits for me.

I suddenly felt snagged into a very weird quandary. The mouse trap had snapped tightly across my neck holding me before able to enjoy the cheese. Act I closing—leaving all to wonder where this production may go.

* * * * * *

Adeline Elise Blanc, or Addie, as she’d always preferred being called, stood like a deer in headlights once her eyes met and locked onto the Professor’s. Her lips faded from being upturned in a smile, to tipping downward the moment she spotted her art professor’s hand pulling at Professor Weller’s attention. The moment felt to her like Mrs. Winstead was a spoiled young child screaming out loudly, “Mine!” even though there was nary a word spoken between anyone. A quiet cloud of muted silence seemed to fill the sparse room. Instantly feeling the awkward cloak of now spoiled aspirations, Adeline’s eyes hurriedly searched for a place to sit and recuperate in any hidden away spot of the darkest corner she could maneuver to quickly. She was too paralyzed by surprise at being spotted to simply turn and flee back out the door. That would be an act too obvious. She did feel caged in an odd way, captured by both professors, yet somewhat ignored at the same time. She felt like a girl suddenly dropped into another country with no one to call out for help as if she didn’t understand the language. But she spoke English very well. She spotted an empty table in a far corner to the left where she would be seated behind her two teachers that sat at the bar. They would have to turn with some awkward discomfort to observe her. Adeline quickly slithered over to the shadowed area like a snake escaping being snared.

Tony, being the lone employee tending the tavern since it was still early for the normal Friday evening crowd, nodded at the three or four patrons sitting at the bar, and made his way over to the newcomer who sat quietly alone.

Act II: The Complication

As Tony stepped through the swinging gate at end of the bar by the liquor shelves just to my left, I took this as an opportunity to escape the clutches of Margaret as I pulled away, whispering, “I’ve got to head to the John for a minute or two—be back…”

Her fingers tightened at first around my arm before letting go and reaching for her Gin and tonic, swirling the ice and clear liquid in the glass. “Hurry back, Robby, she whispered back as if she were my mother, demanding I return to being under her supervision. The feeling suddenly felt very tawdry after hearing her speak. My immediate attention being drawn away from the previous sexual feelings of lust and instead to emotions I was unsure of the intention or meaning they laid at my feet. The girl. I looked over her way and at my surprise her eyes beckoned me to come to her, but her face held no readable reason. I knew I must attempt to find out. I’d somehow been given a second chance at talking with her. I knew though I would likely be short of the time for much of a conversation with her and be back to Margaret’s side in the expected lapse of a restroom trip.

Before I could stop myself or have the time to talk myself out of this—situation with Margaret, I turned and leaned back in close to her ear, whispering, “Margaret—a student just stepped inside and sat in the corner. There was a—a bit of a conflict today in my class—and I’m certain the reason she is here—is to talk about the interaction earlier. It actually led me to dismiss early, which is the reason I’m here so early….”

Margaret interrupted, “Robby—we’re um, still going to my loft later—aren’t we?” This conversation suddenly changed elements within, and it seemed to have quickly sobered her up a bit.

“I believe so…” I sighed, “…but I have to take care of this and see that it’s resolved. You understand, don’t you? I can’t have an upset student reporting me to the Dean.”

“Wow—it must have been serious?”

“It wasn’t a good day for me for me Margaret… not in my best of form. I… uh… unleashed some tensions unexpectedly onto her. Frustrations from my other students not giving a shit about my efforts in giving them a purposeful education.”

“Sounds very…” she brought the nearly empty glass up to her lips and sipped. “… very—distressing. Maybe we’ll talk it over at my place after…” her hand slid from the table down to my groin where she softly rubbed until there was movement that led her to grasp my growing erection under the fabric and giving it a pressured tug up and down several times. “… I can—release some of that—tension from your—hard to swallow day….” and she licked her lips seductively forcing me to slow my—rise to my feet as I pushed her hand away hoping the beast downstairs would quickly settle back down.

“We’ll talk in a bit… I’ll have Tony get you a refill on your drink… on me.” And I looked back over my shoulder to survey if my student still sat in the corner or had pulled another disappearing act. She was. She was talking to Tony who’d obviously went over to take her order, and I felt relieved.

As Tony returned towards the bar, I veered away from the restroom door I was about to enter and redirected my pathway to the dark corner where the girl still sat. I wanted to talk to her before she scampered away like a frightened rabbit again. As I slowly approached ever closer, she appeared as if she could bolt at any moment if I showed any of the same signs of the unbridled verbal aggression I’d shown earlier. I found myself attempting to calm her in a smoother much quieter voice like a cowboy would a wild mare pressed into the corner of the fenced holding pen before attempting to mount her. “It’s okay—I only want to apologize for my earlier outburst. I promise…” I said very gently.

She looked up at me and answered. “I didn’t just accidently stumble into this place, Professor Wellers….”

“Call me Rob… please….” Her accent was very European, and I suddenly realized I’d never heard her speak before. I was intrigued by the angelic-ness of her tone and cadence. She’d snagged my attention with her short response, and I felt the feeling of being reeled in like a hooked fish to her net. “Will you forgive me for my unkindness? It was never meant to be directed at you. It was because of….”

“I understand why you lost your temper…” she almost whispered. “I… I… just….”

The softness of her speech continued to lure me like a melodic chant from a spiritual healer. Her voice calmed my nerves and gave me an odd reassurance that everything would be okay.

“… I just… I… don’t know how to… how to translate from my… my language to… to yours—what I want you… you to know.”

Her eyes rolled up at me and the hazel in her iris’ held a hypnotizing effect over me. I was completely mesmerized, and I wondered if she was able to see the control that she now wielded over me. I felt a tinge of embarrassment that I’d lost dominion over myself so easily and to someone so young—and with so little effort on her part. All she’d done was walk into a small out-the-way tavern and bat her sweet eyes and here I was, a 45-year-old professor of theater used to performing on stages in front of hundreds of people focused on me—but my voice now felt as if it were trembling like a child’s.

“I… just want… to… to learn from… your… your… experi… experience? Is right? No?”

My eyes became lost in hers. They were soaked with innocence and naivety. A girl at least twenty years more youthful than I—at the least, and I instantly felt very foolish. I held perversions in my thoughts as I imagined her naked skin moist with anticipation of being with me. I felt suddenly trapped between an older woman throwing herself at me for a long time, constantly attempting to overcome my refusals—and now—now I was being unintentionally seduced by a youngster in comparison. Not necessarily only sexually seduced, but mentally. I wanted to infiltrate her mind, penetrate her thoughts, and nestle in tightly, allowing her to continue stroking my ego. Was this how pathetic old men really acted? Had I now reached that point of male aging? From the gentlemanly scholar to the dirty-minded old geezer?

“I would love letting you do just that… me—teaching—you… but… I don’t even know your name. I know nothing about you and actually—I’m embarrassed to even say, but I don’t remember seeing you in my class until today. How is this possible?”

Tony strolled back to the table we sat and placed her drink on a napkin in front of her. “Would you like another, Rob?”

I looked up and replied, “Yes, and… please… put another gin and tonic on my tab for Margaret, would you please?”

Tony smiled with an evil wink at me and said, “Certainly, Professor.” I hoped the girl didn’t catch any of silent banter that just transpired between Tony and me.

“So, you would—tutor me, maybe?” she asked.

I must have worn a look of confusion because she immediately followed up with letting me know her name.

“My name is Adeline Blanc. My friends call me Addie. But I haven’t really made many friends yet.” She smiled with the innocence of a child before continuing, “… and you… please call me Addie.” Her smile grew even wider as if she now knew by my look that she had captured me like that fish, and I was willingly allowing her to pull me to her boat with no fight whatsoever—practically jumping into her net.

“And the answer to your question… ‘fourth wall’…” she paused, and I felt it was for effect, much like any good actress playing a part, “…it is the audience.” She stopped and lifted her eyes with intention as they found mine easily already entranced. And then she smiled and continued, “… the scariest wall in the house at times. Being so focused on the stage and the actors with intention.”

I reached out and touched her hand that was placed on her drink, waiting to taste until after our dialogue no doubt. After her statement, which I found very covertly flirtatious, her hand gently lifted her glass along with mine until they slipped apart, further up and to her moist glossy lips and sipped.

I could feel Margaret’s eyes stabbing at my back like two heated daggers warningly penetrating my shirt pushing against my flesh with a reminding searing sting. Ready to plunge deep and cause severe pain at any moment if I don’t abruptly drop the baby girl in the bathwater and come back to where we were—headed—together. I felt completely torn into two separate souls battling one another at what to do—which path to take. What would benefit me the most.

Addie leaned forward after swallowing her drink. “Mz. Winstead looks like she would like to see both of us hanging from a tree, swaying in the wind. Did I interrupt something more than just two colleagues comparing school notes?” she smiled coyly. “I can’t force myself to picture the two of you being any more than two professors from the same school chatting about their day. Am I wrong?” her eyes changed to a possible look of coming disappointment.

I felt someone grasp my hand—and it took me by surprise when I realized who was carefully tugging my fingers over off the edge and underneath the table. It was mere seconds before I felt the hot moist crevice of fabric between her warm thighs. It felt silky and smooth. Addie leaned in and said, “You can go finish your conversation with your professor…” each breath between words sent tingles up my neck, “… so you can come—teach me what I don’t know so much about?” Her hand tensed and squeezed mine tighter pushing it in tighter against the flesh of what I imagined was that spot where one leg met the other.

“My god, Adeline… do you know what you’re doing to me?” This could get me fired and I’m tenured.”

“I’m an adult, Professor Wellers…” she looked at me as if I were the child now and she the adult, “… I’m of legal age of consent and I’m attracted to you. I have to go back to France at the end of this semester—so I don’t have so much time to get what I want.”

“What? A souvenir from America?” I attempted to smile through my feeling cheap all the sudden. I’d obviously hoped for more than she was going to be willing to give. Even though she’d not wasted any time playing games before pushing her point. She was very direct on what she hoped to acquire, and I smiled, even though I felt the foolish pang for thinking there could be more. I had no imaginable right to feel anything but flattered by such a young and gorgeous student being attracted to me. Yet, I felt what I felt. As if I were a jilted high school boyfriend. Adeline managed to take me back to a time nearly forty years to a point of my adolescence where a heart got broken in the matter of minutes. And for no logical reasons at all other than hormones and estrogen colliding into a chaos of miscalculated actions with unforeseen repercussion. Teenage romance dying a horrible dramatic death.

I realized in these moments that I’d gone from an educated college professor of theater… to that of a heartbroken high schooler in the matter of less than a day. I never saw it coming. I never saw her coming. The ability of keeping my hormones as under control as possible—now brought me to an entirely different moment of severe humbleness that hadn’t been like all those years back.

I was of course, now doing exactly what was suggested of me only moments earlier by her. I was headed over to a woman more in line of my age and agilities—to break our date for the night. It would be all done so I could instead go romp in hotel room with a college student, full-well knowing it would be nothing more than a fleeting memory of pretending I was young again. A French girl could never really be attracted to an older college professor. Could she? Only if she lost her mind—yeah right, but I would be able to create a memory of teaching her all the ‘ins and outs’ that an experienced man’s ability could provide. And that memory could be replayed over and over in the privacy of my own bed for a long, long time.

I was slowly slinking over to Margaret to break her likely re-intoxicated heart. The woman who was doing everything possible to seduce me just couldn’t compete with the beautiful young thing, even if it would only be a night’s worth.

Something happened in my brain on that semi-walk of shame to her. Something I can’t even imagine how it broke through the confines of my normality and mundane-ness I’d been accustomed to living nearly my entire adult life.

I wanted both—women or girls. I suddenly felt—kinky and wickedly enticed by these thoughts enough to tell Margaret—that Adeline may be into—hummmm—a fleshy exploration of sorts? It had to be the bourbon taking control of my brain or at least giving it that ‘what the fuck do I have to lose’ attitude.

I couldn’t believe it even made it off the runway of my lips. I amazed myself sometimes. I needed to be more theatric and off-the-cuff. I was older, yes, but I wasn’t dead. I had two women wanting me. It was the greatest male challenge of any man’s lifetime and every man’s fantasy no matter how many times he may deny it to his spouse. A three-some. But a very particular equation of a three-way, nothing to do with another male involved, no matter how selfish that may be. Two women—and me. Call me old-fashioned… but female bodies clashing together just make a more pleasurable and inviting visual statement in a positive way than—the other. I gulped as I lied my fantasy into making it seem like it was truly going to be a reality if I played the part with—gusto. The words were coming outta my mouth and, and, she was nodding and listening! I guess I was really selling it. My acting education coming into fruition as far as a positive possible outcome on at least one end of the challenge!

“So, you think she wants to— ‘share’ us both, sexually?” Margaret questioned. Her eyes almost immediately saying no… but her mouth begged to say—okay… it’s not—out of the question, “… so—Margaret… I looked back at Adeline wondering if I sold this… could I sell her on it too? And then I looked back into Margaret’s eyes. “… a hard no—or a—she does look young—adventurous, and—really kinda hot, don’t you think?” I awaited her answer with anything inside my bloodstream, but patience.

Margaret looked hard at me. I mean, her eyes dug deep, and I wasn’t certain if she was about to pluck my pupils out with hidden claws or tell me to deliver that tasty young dish to the table.

“Well…” I pushed from my watering mouth thinking… just who in the hell am I playing in this tragic comedy?

“You really want this don’t you Robby? Having this would be your Shangri la—huh? Your crème de la crème, your cake and eat it the fuck out of it too, wouldn’t it?” Margaret took a long sip from her gin and tonic. “Do you have a smoke, Professor?” she asked.

My fingers reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a pack of KOOLs. “Amazingly enough… I do. Love the menthol, it’s like a breath of fresh air…or act 2, the nude scene of an off-Broadway play. It feels refreshing—but a bit of a rush too.” Who the hell am I tonight? And how long was this brave ability going to last? I had urges I thought were long dead.

“Go get her, Robby. You won’t settle down until you’ve tried this whole “throuple” thing out. I’ve read novels about this crazy stuff so… I guess I’ll be your Huckleberry….”

Holy shit, a menage-a-trios with a French enjue and an artist!  I thought. And then it hit. The thought, I could be in a bit of a quandary now. Time to sell it to the young foreign student to share a bed fucking two older professors… what are the odds on that, I attempted to quickly calculate inside my muddled brain.

“Well, Robby—go get the young girl. Bring her over here—and let’s—all—chat about this little equation about twisting our bodies into a big fuck-knot. The idea is actually—wetting my whistle.”

Adeline watched every step I took as I slowly approached with a likely look of a scared young boy making the walk to ask the girl he was infatuated with—to ‘go with him’. And in a strange way, that’s exactly what it was. I’d been trying to equate a way to make this whole ‘thing’ feel like purchasing a Testarossa. No one actually needs one when a Toyota will get you there—but the thrill will never be the same as hitting a 160 down the Autobahn. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if it were for the sex, or merely the challenge of ‘closing the deal’. I couldn’t manage a classroom of the bothersome little bastards before… could I actually jostle this into something that just might pay out in book of unforgettable memories?

“So, Professor Wellers… you look like you just got caught stealing the neighbor’s sheep? Did she tell you to piss off?”

I somehow forced a coyness across my face, at least, it felt that way. “No… nothing like that, Addie. In fact, I’ll just spit it out there… what she had to say… maybe just drop it on the floor like a basketball for you to dribble around before you shoot….”

She smiled. She then looked over to Margaret. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. I mean, they’re both women, they both have uterus’s. They link up, like Bluetooth or something. Adeline would know immediately that I was lying. But I had to play it through, didn’t I?

“Actually Adeline, Margaret tells me she finds you as attractive as I and….” My eyes trailed upwards and emphasized by looking and nodding upward. “… she’s been interested about painting you in the nude… after… after… we all….”

“Let’s go tell her, I’m in. Sounds wild! Sounds, crazy!” Adeline began to stand as my legs just shook. I tried to maintain a cool, but… well… hell… somehow, we are on our way to Margaret’s loft to get naked and painted.

* * * * * *

I had no idea. I couldn’t even imagine what the experience would actually be like. As a high school boy, I’d fantasized about—but—but actually doing it. The awkward pink elephant in the room immediately left when the loft’s iron door closed and the sheets on the bed pulled back. The shock of seeing Margaret… a fellow professor… here in her home… her studio. I’d just never pictured it to look like this. I knew she had money; it was obvious from how she dressed and her jewelry, but this place was beyond belief.

I felt the brush of a hand on my back. I looked and it was Adeline’s.

“Back home we call this—manage a trois—yes—no?” she smiled.

All I could muster was a, “Oui, oui…” and truly, I meant it in the American way, I needed to urinate and was trying to be discreet—but it brought giggles from both—girls. Let me just say that one thing led to another and… it will be a pleasurable memory seared into my brain as long as I live. I know it’s all got to end at some point, this crazy odd throuple, but God I hope it’s not tomorrow!

* * * * * *

Three is a number that doesn’t… it’s not… it’s not divisible…it’s against everything… especially when you are the odd man out, but yet, the only man in. I was going completely mad. One on one was great. But it becomes an I Owe You to one or the other from me. They get to play the weak, poor me I’m jilted tonight… while I’m spreading more seed then Johny Appleseed himself between the two with nary a time to rest. It was great for the first few weeks… but after a while… I was dropping the pounds through sweating my nights away at the loft in a bed sandwiched between two very sexually hungry women. It was killing me. I think—literally and not just figuratively. I began privately thinking—If I could only lose one—but keep the other on the side. Have my cake and eat it too, but on my terms. My mind drifted away as my head fell back onto the couch pillow. I think the last thing I heard was a tune by Eric Clapton. Layla. I was exhausted.

* * * * * *

It was one of those moments where your brain swims and you are caught in the current of it all just paddling along just enjoying what feels like a sunny breeze blowing across your body. The ebb and flow moving me along in perfect rhythm, too lulled to worry I may have been caught in an unforgiving undertow, the silent riptide that sneaks up and pulls you out to deep sea as you struggle desperately flailing to make it back to the shore that is racing farther away. I think I knew it was a dream—but the panic began to build and take hold. My brain became my rescuer although as it began playing out various scenarios of the two women that now seemed to have that same unrelenting grip on me. They were pulling me in different polar opposite directions, but with similar outcomes. Me under their control, their sexual pawn to use as an instrument in bickering back and forth. Each always sneering at me through wicked but wanting eyes in the end. Jealousy lives and becomes a dangerous vice clamping ever tighter in a woman’s psyche. I now imagine under these circumstances, that all women would end up living the same scenario attempting to share just one man between the two. I didn’t know how to cope. I felt drained and dehydrated like a prune shrinking in upon itself in a slow death dying from too many orgasms swallowing up nutrition not able to be replaced. I’d become a machine.

Adeline was so young and desperately wanting to stay here in the U.S. Her visa was running out and I guess I knew her reason for me was one of being the vehicle to enable her to stay and not necessarily one of ‘love’ or satisfaction. Margaret though, was an artist who owned pure brilliance in her craft. Her eye for color and balance along with focal point was nothing short of a purity that came straight from her soul. She too knew about wasting her life attempting to teach students who’s minds were anywhere and everywhere other than preparing themselves for their worlds to come.

Her loft home was a museum of beautiful works hanging along stretched wires fastened to the old structure’s hundred-year-old bricks. Each painting lit by its own beam of light from bulbs twisted in different angles from the tracks in the ceiling high above. I felt like I was in the Guggenheim every time I was there. Which was very frequently now. Addie had moved in, and I practically lived there too, now unable to come up with excuses to stay at my place very much. I’d enjoyed my cake, but it was becoming hard to keep feasting on it, the sweetness beginning to grow more and more bitter and tart.

Margaret’s latest painting was a huge oil-based nude of the three of us in bed. It was—incredible, I must admit. It had to be about 48” by at least 72” and done with mixed shades of mellow tans, whites, and browns of the bedspreads we lay naked on. Our nude bodies were built up in thick globs of bright colorful unnatural colors that blended together where each of our skins met and touched. She’d chosen each of our colors to represent our different personalities but where our bodies touched those colored oils melded us each together as one in a monotone blur. The likenesses were incredible. I’d asked her if the tear drops slipping from each of hers and Adeline’s s eyes held any specific significance. When I asked, I got the stink-look from both of them simultaneously as if I were a completely heartless prick for not ‘getting’ it. I think that was likely the night that led me to later on I realized something very pertinent. This ‘equation’ between the three of us was much more complicated in its intricate web we shared than one could have ever foreseen. The women now felt like two black widows, and I was the one male with his eyes not glued to the game—if I looked away, it could surely spell danger.

Anyway, Margaret, like me, was truly wasting her talents teaching high school kids that only wanted to skip, screw, or anything but study. Her true call was her after school—work—where she painted true masterpieces that no one but Adeline and I were afforded to see and appreciate. She obviously had hordes of money, the surrounding furnishings and creativity she’d put into her loft didn’t come from just a professorship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She must have come from money. I know my paycheck of a $120,000k a year sounds good, but Chicago living isn’t cheap, and especially in the area her loft was situated. I knew she was now supporting Addie from her bank account and usually paid for everything when we all went out together.

As I pictured the evening she began painting us, Adeline and I still lying stark naked underneath a sheet, I remember feeling very awkward when she walked over from her easels that held the large canvas, to the bed and bent down at our feet. She was attractive in her own way. She wasn’t young or tight-bodied. Neither was she drop-dead gorgeous like Adeline. I mean, Adeline also held that foreign card of international intrigue… OUI, oui, I said to myself, but this time meaning, yes, yes. But Margaret was well proportioned and jiggled in all the right places. She stood there with her paint brush in one hand, naked as a jaybird, her breasts swinging as she bent down and grabbed the tail of the sheet and just ripped it away from Adeline and I, my erection still standing tall. I think I knew at that moment that one of them would have to go. I was just seasoned and set in my old-school ways to keep them both much longer. As much as I was loving every moment of what I’d happened onto, I knew one of these spiders would eventually turn on me and I wasn’t ready to meet that kind of demise—even with the incredible acts of perversions I was enjoying.

Now came the deliberations of who, which one. And, of course, how. I woke up very warm yet filled with cold chills sandwiched between the two sleeping women. I turned my head to Adeline and studied her face that lay still, the moon shining through the skylight creating shadowed lines across her cheeks from the framed glass. I then turned to my other side where Margaret lay lightly breathing in and out, her breasts rising and sinking with each inhale and exhale. She too painted by shadowed dark lines across her face and upper torso. I watched her breasts move; I rolled over towards her as the sight of her skin growing goosebumps that seemed to bring on the hardening of her nipples. It stirred my body to act upon the visual display of her vulnerability of my awakening her in the middle of the night.

I reached over and pulled her hand to my erection and pushed it into a fold of her skin from her side, wrapping her fingers around it and gently squeezing as I watched her eyes slowly open. When she realized what was happening, I quietly shushed any words that might come from her mouth and wake Adeline. I leaned in and whispered softly, “I just want you tonight—just you….” The moment was likely one of the most sensuous I’d ever experienced.

She carefully crawled from under the sheets and slowly pulled my legs off the edge of the bed as she knelt and leaned putting her face down into my lap, taking me into her mouth.

It was all I could do to keep from wailing out loud as my body finished in a most incredible orgasm. When I finally opened my eyes, certain I could maintain the silence, I looked down at Margaret, still on her knees. She gave me the approving evil eye of enjoying having me only to herself.

My choice had been easier than I’d imagined, and I would talk privately to Margaret later in the professor’s lounge at work.

* * * * * *

“I’ve enjoyed our little experiment, Margaret, really—I have. It’s been a lifelong young man’s fantasy, and I feel privileged to have gotten to live it. But I’m not that guy. I’m really not. Just like I’ve never owned a hotrod. Not as a kid nor a man going through any kind of midlife crisis. I think I probably knew who I wanted that first night all of this began cooking up.”

“Are you sure? Something like this getting out—could—could ruin both of our careers here. What if she becomes angry and revenge-filled?” her eyes stared deep into mine and it felt as if she were insinuating some kind of necessary way of thinking. A mentally forced vibe of how to wrap Adeline up and out of this situation without living in any fear of nasty repercussion. “We can’t just tell her to leave and not come back—that this—little—affair of sorts—is now over without discussion.”

“Her Visa is up a week after finals… she’ll be—shipping out in two weeks—back across the pond….”

“But possibly not quietly, Robby. While I don’t love my job at the institute… I’m not ready for my father to find out what I’ve been doing to fuck it all up! He’d write me off… out of the will and out of his life! He’d be appalled I was having sex with a fellow professor and a female student. Especially that part!”

I looked around fearing we were now speaking much too loud for a place right here in the heart of the faculty. I lifted my cup of coffee and leaned in a bit closer. “Meet me tonight at Monk’s Pub—say 8pm and we’ll talk this out away from prying eyes and curious ears.” I got up and finished, “Good luck with Class, Margaret.” And winked as I turned to leave.

As I walked into the auditorium class, my eyes scanned the seats until they halted at Adeline’s. We locked stares for a moment until I knew if I remained looking at her, she would sense something different. I forced a mischievous smile and looked down at my laptop. I opened my email to check for messages before opening class up for discussion of The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s comedy of a situation not all that far off from mine.

My eyes snapped open abruptly as a very menacingy email stood out from the laptop’s screen. The sender’s address only said, ‘Unknown’, but the subject matter is what caught my eye after reading it. Before opening the email, I glanced back out at the seat where Adeline had been sitting when I came in. She was gone.

My eyes scanned the seats and faces where I knew she’d been mere seconds ago. Another quick vanishing act? Should I chase after her… or open the email first and catch her later?”

“Class—,” I hesitated before closing my laptop and continuing. “… open your assignments and check for their readiness. I’ll be back momentarily.” And I walked down the few steps to the aisle but then quickly scaled the slope to the door. Upon crossing the threshold, I peered out at the nearly empty hallway, most of the students having entered the classrooms as several doors quickly closed within my vision. I scanned the few bodies that continued down the hallway to the right and left, seeing no one that resembled Adeline. “Damn!” I said aloud. “She’s done it again!” I finished in frustration. Feeling like it would be pointless to go down either side of the hallway. I had nothing to do but return back inside the auditorium. I turned and re-entered, pulling the door closed behind me before walking down the decline I’d practically ran up only seconds earlier. The faces scattered throughout the semi-circle of seats all seemed to watch me as I made my way back up to my podium. It had been about two months since my outburst the day I’d chased after Adeline the first time. The students had actually been acting a little more like interested students with slightly more respect since that day.  I say ‘acting’ because I knew that was exactly what it had been. The sea of leopards had not all magically changed their spots in any lasting way but would certainly return one by one to their original lackluster of learning, once the shock of my verbal lashing had worn thin, which was likely close to coming up.

I most certainly saw looks of wonderment at why I had exited so quickly again, and why I’d come back so soon instead of dismissing class like last time. Oh well, I thought as I re-opened my laptop, my eye travelling quickly back to the odd-looking email sent from the ‘unknown’ sender. When I looked closer, my heart skipped a beat or three. MURDER? with a question mark was typed in bold caps filling the subject line. I wasn’t sure if I should delete it immediately—or open it up and read its contents first. The entire thing with Adeline disappearing as soon as I opened my laptop and seeing the email—gave me an uneasy queasiness deep in my gut. Had she somehow heard Margaret and I talking? Murder hadn’t been discussed at all. I’ll admit, there was a strong feeling full of hint in that direction from Margaret—but there had been no discussion using anything of such a thing out loud. Not at her loft, not in the teacher’s lounge, nor on any phone call, text, or email. I’m not that stupid even if there was a common desire or plan to do such a thing to her.

I attempted to start my lecture on The Taming of the Shrew, but my mind raced as my focus kept being drawn back to my laptop as if it would magically bestow what was written inside the content of the email left unopened but staring at me. The word MURDER kept knocking at the back of my brain as if the word itself would forcefully push its exit from my mouth by its own accord if I didn’t keep hold of it tightly inside my cheeks. I could feel it though, it twisting the ugly taste of its meaning around my tongue attempting to keep it lassoed securely. It quickly was evolving into an evil conscience of its own as if the action had already taken place, its vocal soul wanting to set me up by pushing the felonious word unwillingly from my lips.

“Students!” I spoke with an abrupt annoyance at the sight of them once more placing their attention on their phones, the bright screens lighting the offending culprits as if the detective’s spotlight was directed at their eyes. “Okay, class. The weekend is  over. It’s time to wrap our heads around this fantastically dark comedy of William Shakespeare’s. He was ahead of his time wouldn’t you think? This was written back around 1590 to 1594… and it still holds our attention in the theatrical setting of today.” It appeared it wouldn’t matter what I said as the entire class was still busy waking up and wrapping up their weekend texts. “Class! It’s murder… er… Monday, I mean. Yes… a murderous Monday for all of us I’m sure—but….” My throat locked up. If I’d already actually committed the heinous crime… I would give myself up this easily, I questioned myself ending it with a quiet snark. What the fuck I thought—no one was listening to me anyway—I might as well read the damn thing.

My eyes scrolled downward as my finger tapped the email twice, opening it up and filling the entire screen of my laptop. The bold message was typed in large capital letters that stood all alone like the purposely placed boulders of Stonehenge, only the purpose of this was far more handedly stated: LET’S KILL HER SO WE CAN BE TOGETHER… ALONE.

The question perplexed me. The who—the which—or was it actually an unknown? The day moved very strangely after reading the message. How had I gotten myself into this jam? Better yet… how would I remove myself from it? Was the email from Margaret stating she was ready to talk murder? Giving me a hint before meeting at Monk’s this evening?

Or… had Adeline overheard us and now wanting to turn the tables, help me remove Margaret from our equation? I knew she wanted me to somehow save her from being deported back to France. Or… could someone somehow be onto a plan that was never planned or spoken aloud? What the hell? This perplexing turn of events had told me one thing for certain. Three isn’t divisible by one alone, and one can only go into two for so long before there is an odd number left over to sulk and scheme against the other two. It’s a mathematical impossibility to come out Even-Steven—everyone fair and square. I’d never thought about murder except for acting it out in play-form. The word alone sounds so damn theatrical and ominous, but to actually mull it over for real seems felonious and dangerous by itself. I’m no killer—am I? Maybe for survival—self-defense, but not for the usual reasons—greed, jealousy, or just the thrill. Sex can be the centerpiece of each of those reasons.

The sex was incredible with each of these women. Alone—and together—but good enough to keep one? And not the other? What to do… what the fuck to do? I now needed to find Adeline—and secretly talk to her—before I met Margaret covertly this evening at Monk’s Pub.

I closed my laptop and slid it into my bag, throwing it over my shoulder and turning to my desk to make certain it was cleared, everything intact and put in place. I turned a mere minute or two later and began to walk down the steps from the stage when she caught my eye. Adeline was back and sitting alone in the middle of the auditorium. It appeared to be directly centered in the intersection of left to right and front to back, about the exact same spot I’d first seen her. Before this macabre relationship we’d stumbled into.

She watched, focused on my every move much like a sniper, their rifle poking out from the curtain, as I slowly stepped down to the main floor and began walking up the elevated floor towards the aisle to her seat.

“Did you get my email?” her voice echoed out in the empty auditorium. Her eyes sharply tracking me like that sniper waiting for the kill shot. Did her action depend on my answer to her question she just asked? Either squeeze the trigger or meet and hash out the details of how to commit… murder?”

“So, you sent the email? Why the clandestineness of it being ‘unknown sender’?”

“I’m desperate, Rob. A girl wants what she wants. You seem to hold the key to most of what I want—what I need—what I require to—stay here and be—happily… satisfied.”

“Most? I’m not sure how that particular word fits into the—um, mathematical—equation. Can you explain further?”

“Keep coming…” she patted the seat next to hers, “… it’s not really a discussion I want to have this far apart. I need to be able to—touch you while we figure this out. I’m far more convincing in my appeals using my actions along with my words.” She coyly smiled with her devilish grin. “I’ve enjoyed helping you cum to me, in me… on her, and of course—on me…” she licked her lips seductively.

I continued to sidestep down the long aisle where she sat. My heart raced in a way unfamiliar to how it had with her before. The lights now dimming on their own from the timer recently installed by the school because of the costly bright lights being accidently left on overnight more than once.

“Ewwww… lights dimming on cue, very nice, Rob. Very nice. Now I can attempt to convince you of my idea of ‘what to do, what to do’ with much more… action.” Her voice sounding ultra enticing in her lower, raspy register with her French accent. My trousers immediately tightened mixing her current words with the memory our naked bodies rolling and tumbling over Margaret’s in our last mutual tangled sexual perversion.

“Can I really give this up?”

“What in the world do you mean by that, Robby?”

She never called me Robby, that was Margaret’s pet name for me. I was Rob or Professor Wellers to Addie… always. Then it hit me. I’d actually spoken out loud a thought was kept internally. I attempted to recover my faux pas. “I was just thinking about—about our last tryst… with you… me… and… Margaret… it’s … it’s… well… it’s every man’s fantasy to… share… and now with your email… it seems the sharing may be… coming to a… a rather… brutal end?” I finished my sentence in question.

I cautiously sat, not knowing exactly how this conversation was going to go. That’s when I felt her warm hand cup my… balls… through the fabric of my pants and gently squeeze….”

“You don’t think I’m capable of—keeping you satisfied all by my lonesome, Robby?” she pulled me in closer, our faces now close enough I could taste her perfume and feel her heated breath on my lips.

“Marry me, Robby boy… so we can be together. Here, in your country. I don’t want to lose you by going back home. We can… we can… find a way to free us from the hold over us that she has. We can stay in the loft… we could… we could even sell her artwork… we could have us… and everything… together….”

And there it was floating in the air between our lips, my junk held in her softly squeezing hand, her soft tongue attempting to probe my mouth with murder all around me wistfully floating in dangling verbiage.

“Let me prove it, Robby…” she whispered seductively, “wiggle yourself out of those pants… I can give you better than she gave you that night you didn’t know I was watching.”

A chill ran up my spine at her words as I obeyed in unzipping my pants and lowering them to the floor.

As Adeline did her best to show me how satisfied she could keep me—my head fell backwards uncontrollably as I moaned aloud, “…Let’s do it, babydoll… murder….” I said as I tugged her head into me closer before the eruption.

As I was tugging my trousers back up around my waist, visually checking our surroundings to make sure no one out here on the outside of the ‘fourth wall’ had been spectating, I blatantly spat out, “You know she’s loaded, her family is filthy rich…” and I awaited her response as I finished buckling my belt. Upon hearing no immediate response, I continued, “…We could literally… have it all… the loft, each other, and… the means to do and go where we wanted… anywhere in the world….”

“How could we accomplish this, Rob?”

If I wait to marry you and let you go back to France while I marry her… and then after… an amount of time to safely pass the test of scrutiny… Margaret could have… an… an accident… a horrible car wreck… or drowning… or….”

“You’d forget about me after enjoying it all with her….”

“No, Adeline…” I pulled her closer to me as I stood in front of her still perched in the folding theater seat, her chin now back in groin, “… I could never forget… us….”

“Promise me, Robby?” she quietly said… repeating my name the way Margaret spoke it.

“Yes.” I immediately answered. “… So… it’s a plan?” I questioned as I looked down into her dark eyes.

“Don’t make me come hunt you down Robby….” she called out as I made my way up the incline and exited through the door. My heart pounded after now experiencing a very scary change in Adeline’s demeanor. I would have never guessed I could have felt honest fear from her, but I sincerely did, my legs trembled as I walked down the sidewalk towards Monk’s to see the crazy bitch who suggested I murder the other crazy bitch. Oh, the crooked web we weave….

Act III: The Climax

“You won’t believe what I just experienced.” I leaned into Margaret’s ear and greeted her at Monk’s Pub as she sat drinking a gin and tonic.

She lifted her glass to her lips and sipped, almost acting as if she hadn’t heard my statement. She appeared disinterested and unaffected.

The Taming of the Shrew came to mind in the space between my greeting and her answering. Was I really going to choose the gruffer and more direct, less attractive and much older ‘shrew’ over the more beautiful, young sexually dynamic foreign delicacy, just because of her ‘endowment’? Her ability not only to satisfy my lust, but make it where I could actually travel wherever the wind blew me in a fashion, I’d worked hard for myself to achieve on my own? Before my ‘golden years’ would turn to rust? I’ve suffered struggling to make ends meet the lifestyle I deserved for years by merely babysitting spoiled-rotten brats who couldn’t care less about what I attempted to teach them. And for what? Just to live more humbly than I deserved for all my efforts and to be so disrespected for doing so? I questioned internally.

And then it came to me. I could have my cake and eat it too by following through with the plan I’d suggested to Adeline. I’d rather end up with her and enjoying screwing the hell out of each other on trips around the world instead of fearing every dark corner knowing one day she may be hidden in the shadows with a razor-edged knife ready to gut me in an alleyway.

“What did the bitch tell you?” Margaret asked.

Her response shattered my ability to think with any rationale for a moment. I kept stumbling over trying to remember if I’d actually mentioned I’d met and talked to Adeline. I tried to replay my first words I’d spoken into her ear when I arrived. I was definitely wired from the chill that Adeline had given me… but had I mentioned seeing her? I tried to replay the moment again in my head. You won’t believe what I just experienced. Those were the exact same words I recalled and believed were one hundred percent accurate. Nothing more, nothing less. I pulled back and looked into her eyes. I attempted to study them with an unmatched verve. I wanted to see an innocence in the sparkly reflection of her hazel iris’s but all that shone through was a vague question of “did I just fuck up miserably” that emanated through the fog of cigar smoke hovering over our heads as it was pushed downward from the large ceiling fans above.

“What’ll ya have, Professor?” the bartender leaned forward inquiring.

“A Guinness Stout, please….”

“Gotcha covered.”

My eyes never left her face. Her eyes on the other hand scanned the room with rapid nervousness, before the vacancy suddenly filled with a familiarity of satisfaction she too had grown to enjoy. So visible to me that I found myself quickly turning to see if it truly was who I fearfully expected.

“Hey lovely, playmates…” spilled from Adeline’s mouth.

Her hand immediately went for my crotch as she appeared to be smiling at Margaret. Her other hand reached around and squeezed Margaret’s waist, pulling her into the two of us in an overwhelming awkwardness that was surely felt by all three of us. I knew I felt it. I believed I felt the death of our throupleness in this shared moment… without even one last naked perverted hoorah to kiss goodbye. I was glad we were all in a public place where nothing crazy would likely explode in the odd chaotic mental gasps of our certain finality. I think I instantly knew that things were not going to work out to plan. Nothing we’d mutually planned or even independently planned without the other knowing. It just suddenly died even though we were clinging onto the tattered threads out of something I can no longer comprehend or label.

Adeline’s hand fell away from me as she now took the hand that brushed my crotch in a sad goodbye and pushed me aside, instead wrapping both hands around Margaret in a tight embrace. I swear I saw her whisper something in her ear, but I couldn’t or wouldn’t let myself believe it. My head was now spinning, and I hadn’t even gotten my drink yet.

Greed of money, hunger-filled lust and the selfish struggle of winning it all by dying with the most. Those were the thoughts swirling around in dizzying circles behind the scenes inside my brain as I reached out for my Guinness that the bartender was holding towards me. As lightheaded as I was, I still pulled the dark glass holding the liquid to my mouth and swallowed several large gulps. Partially attempting to drown my thoughts and dull my senses of what tonight was bringing.

After ingesting one or two more heavy drinks of my foaming pint, I smiled to myself acknowledging my evaluation I’d just come to. Yes, these three dark things in life truly do sow the seeds that lead to growing something as ugly as murder from once virgin untainted soil of an unexpected temptation we are taught to avoid as children. Most of our parents fail to spell it out, hoping we will just inherently understand the dangers, while some of us read it in a Bible or have it driven into our souls from years of sitting in the pews hearing it preached… but in the end… temptation is that temptress bitch who  sneaks upon us from the darkest shadows hidden behind a set of devilishly dazzling eyes set on hypnotizing us ruthlessly into situations we can’t seem to turn our backs on. Not without at least a tiny taste of what it offers. Greed, Lust, and desire will kill us every time we allow them inside unguarded.

Some never see its ugly ending come, instead only gasping out repentance filled with regret with our last dying breath, like an actor playing out in the final scene of the show.

Me, though… I saw it all coming on like a freight train speeding down the tracks towards me. My hands weren’t even physically tied into a knot as I casually lay on the track in comfortable silence. Hell, I guess it could be considered freakish, but I somehow welcomed the carnage about to be delivered as the three of us exited out of the bar, me tucked in between two beautiful ladies as we sauntered into the cool night air of a crowded downtown Chicago sidewalk. I took in all the sites of the tall skyscrapers towering overhead seeing them as if I’d never seen them before. The city lights, the hustle of the bustle of people paying no attention to anything but themselves as the performance of my lifetime, my perfomances de classe mondiale was certainly about to come to a closing climax! The two women who’d given me every dream, I ever wished for, yet every nightmare as I struggled to make a choice of who I’d exit the stage with. Such a challenging decision in picking one’s leading lady to close the show of life with while the other just slips away into obscurity, no Emmys, Oscars or Golden Globes to hold close to their chest—just quietly vanish without  applaud for their efforts.

I looked down at Adeline and then over to Margaret smiling at both with true appreciation as I watched each retrieve something from their bags which I assumed must be for me. It was the harsh surprising reality I was about to receive, and I can honestly say I indeed did not expect.

The scene to place so fast and so unrehearsed on my part that at first, I thought they were actual Oscars they were both giving me. That was before the electrifying jolting stings hit me as they each began plunging ice cold steel blades into my body with an unmatched vigor over and over, repeatedly. Their eyes seemed to be frozen with chilled vengeance that I must have somehow served them without meaning to. It seems I’d fallen into their snares and was now bearing the focus of their hunger of bloody retribution from a triangle I’d been lured unwitting into by both of them. I must have been too focused on my own cravings to see it all barreling down and closing in for the final coop d”état. Two thrill killers who expertly shifted the plotline and left me to bleed out alone in an ever-growing puddle of my own blood as it trickled from my nose and mouth along with oozing from numerous punctures and slices.  I was left filleted like a cold cod displayed on a pile of ice in the showcase of the market for all to see. My face unable to lift from the concrete as words attempted to push from my mouth as I watched the two actresses exiting stage left while passersby on the far side of the fourth wall were all too disinterested in the act to witness the final curtain call as the pendulum makes its final swing bringing my brief moment of calm to a wilting close as the balance of equilibrium rights itself once more.

I so wanted my time to end from the audience’s perspective, not here center stage waiting for the lights to dim to total darkness as the clickety-clack of two sets of high heels disappeared into just another ordinary Friday Chicago evening.