Knowing His Secret (2 page)

Tristan King had already barged on to the center stage of my brain and refused to give up the limelight. I had spent the short ride back to our duplex speculating about him. There was no ring
on his shapely finger, but in this day and age that's pretty meaningless.

Tom had given me a brief
rundown on the cast in general: investment hot shots summering in the Berkshires. That's about all I knew about any of them except that one of them had captured my attention in a way that took me by surprise. I couldn't quite sort it out. I didn't know the man at all. I had very little on which to base my feelings. But there
was
a feeling.

I wasn't kidding myself. A Brooklynite girl with a liberal arts degree from an obscure New England school,
mostly untraveled, solidly middle-class roots--someone like me wasn't going to attract a man like Tristan King. In spite of that, fantasies are better with a 'real' human being populating them. My vibrator and I had just about worn out Hugh, Ryan, Johnny and Ben. For the next seven weeks, at least, I'd just found my new 'sexiest man alive'. I thought that would make a much better choice than a 'star'.

I opened the wine and reached for a glass above the sink. "Hey Jenn, glass of wine?" I called into the living room.

"No," she sat up and yawned. "I went out with Isabel and Cally after work. God, it was so nice to have a slow dinner out like normal people."

"I know. I ate a ham sandwich right before rehearsal. Now I'm starving again." I sat down in the ratty recliner next to the couch. "I really think I'm going to enjoy the job, though."

"Great, you're welcome to it. I've done my thing with the Mahkeenac Little Theater."

"I was surprised at how good the guys were on the read-through. There's some actual talent in that Little Theater."

"Who'd Tom cast?"

I rattled off the names of the five actors.

Jenn whistled. "That's a lot of ego on one stage."

"How well do you know them?" I was hoping for a few details on Tristan.

"Not well at all. I worked with Richard and Brian in
Present Laughter
but the other three I only met at after show parties."

"Tristan King?"

"Yeah, I met him. I think he was boinking the girl who played Joanna."

"Is he involved with her?"

"Far as I know he isn't involved with anyone. None of them are. These amateur theater types spend their summers 'playing' with each other, passing one another around like a bowl of popcorn. There's a cat fight once in a while, but otherwise it's a surprisingly amiable bunch."

"They seemed to know one another well."

"All of the guys, with the exception of Tom of course, work on Wall Street within a few blocks of each other. They're all richer than Croesus, but Tristan is the acknowledged 'king' of them all. Pun most definitely intended." She got up, yawned again and stretched. "I'm off to bed."

"Sleep well." I flicked off the TV
and took my wine into my bedroom. I dropped my clothes on the floor and crawled into bed with a steamy book I'd started over the weekend. The hero was just about to return from a long absence and I was expecting a very hot reunion. I wasn't disappointed.

I put the book back on the night table and drained the last drops of wine from my glass.
Then I reached into the drawer and brought out my trusty rabbit. A girl at Bennington had hosted a "Slumber Party" in our dorm and probably made a small fortune selling all of girls the latest 'toys'. I plunked down nearly a hundred dollars for my little bunny, but it was well worth it. Considering the state of my so-called love life it was an investment in my mental health.

I lay back against my pillow and adjusted the settings just the way I like them. The efficient little machine would have worked even if I had thought about doing laundry…it was that good. But this night I was
n't thinking about laundry at all.

Nope, I had Tristan King's face
buried between my thighs and he was humming encouragement for me to let myself go. His eyes were fixed on mine as he worked his tongue across my clit, sucking and kneading it with his mouth. He had two perfectly groomed fingers inside my body and he was stroking the spot that no man has ever tried to find. I know where it is and so does my rabbit, but Tristan became the first actual man to seek it as I closed my eyes and surrendered to the vibrations and the fantasy.

My climax
started intensely and crashed through my body.  Tristan vanished in the selfish moment of orgasm where all that exists is sensation, pleasure and release. I caught my breath and let my heart slow down to normal rhythm. As I drifted off to sleep I reminded myself to make note of the color of his eyes. If I was going to imagine them gazing into mine, I'd better be able to fill in the details.

Two

I made sure to have a better dinner the next night. I didn't want my stomach grumbling at me halfway through the rehearsal. I was the first one at the theater. I unlocked the front doors, turned on the house lights and the stage lights. Tom had obviously been on the stage some time that day as it was now marked with the outline of the set that would soon be built. I went up on stage and walked the perimeter of the room that was nearly identical to the diagram in the back of the playbook.

I went back to the green room to put a pot of coffee on and fill the water pitcher with ice and fresh water. When I came back to the stage, Tristan was walking the set lines. The business suit was gone and he had a pair of white shorts and a melon colored shirt on.  I could see the warm tan of summer on his long limbs and the sun streaks in his hair as he paced out the floor marks
under the stage lights.

He had magnificent legs. They were masculine and defined but natural. Whatever he did to keep himself in such good shape, it didn't involve a lot of squats, thank God. He leaned down to pick his script off of the floor and I felt a little rush of heat watching his ass flex under the shorts. He turned around just as I was mentally peeling away his clothes
--again.

The shadows of the stage concealed me as I watched him for several minutes. He opened up his script and began to read the
major soliloquy the coach makes near the end of the play. Tom had surprised us all by deciding to rehearse the play in reverse. We'd start with Act 3 and work backwards. It was an unusual strategy that I would realize later was positively brilliant.

Tristan paced the floor as he called forth the character and voice of the coach. He wasn't projecting his voice as he would in a performance; he was simply reciting the speech naturally. If I closed my eyes I could see an old and bitter man. If I opened them I saw a
wonderfully
gifted
man in a beautifully crafted package.

I could feel a flush working its way from the tops of my ears down my neck. My nipples tightened against my bra and I actually salivated watching him concentrate and move around the stage.
Difficult as it was to accept, I was deep in the throes of an adolescent crush. I hardly knew the man. Tristan King was the sexiest man I had ever been near and he was turning me on just by
being
.

I began to feel the same kind of burn on my cheeks that I had gotten when my sister mercilessly teased me about being infatuated with a movie star when I was thirteen. I was irrational then and I felt the same way hiding in the shadows from a man who barely knew my name.

With heavy footsteps and a little 'ahem' as I rounded the edge of the stage left curtain, I announced my presence.

"Raina, I did
n't know you were here." The smile he flashed immediately reminded me of where I had placed that mouth in my fantasy the night before and the thought threw me off.

"Oh, hi. Ummm. I was just getting…I mean I was starting the coffee. And the water. Well, not
starting the water
, just putting ice in…" I didn't think it was possible to sound more stupid then I did at that moment.

He had the good grace not to notice. "Would you mind running lines with me before everybody gets here?"

"Sure, I'd love to," I said a bit overenthusiastically. He went over to the edge of the stage and sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the apron. I sat beside him and did the same.

"From the beginning of Act 3."

"Okay." I was amazed at the amount of dialog he had already committed to memory. He was nearly able to make it through the entire act without a prompt from me. I watched his mouth as he spoke the lines and got quite lost in the discovery that his eyes were an intricate hazel--shades of umber and olive mixed with a whole spectrum of woodsy browns.

"Raina?"

"Oh, sorry." I looked blankly at the page. He had been reciting a fairly lengthy set of lines and there were several speeches in a row.

"Daniel," he said as he leaned closer to me and pointed to the place in my script. "You're Daniel."

"Of course…" I read the line but I could feel the color rise in my cheeks. He saw it too. In spite the serious lines he was delivering, there was a crinkle of a smile around his eyes. He knew he had me flustered and it amused him.

I was relieved when Brian and Tom came through the theater doors. I never quite regained my composure for the rest of the evening. Thankfully most of what I had to do was make notes of the blocking. Tom directed the carefully movements of the men around the
taped off space. Act 3 began to take shape.

As soon as rehearsal wrapped up, I slipped back stage to turn off the coffee and rinse
out the mugs. I was putting the mugs back in their place when I heard Tristan's "G'night, all" faintly reach the back of the house.

Tom and Cole were the only two left in the theater when I came out from backstage. They invited me to Newly's Tavern for a drink
but I decided to head home. I was working on the resume I'd be sending out when the summer job was over and it was time to get real about working. I wasn't looking forward to pounding the pavement in New York.  I was looking forward even less to living with my parents until I found a job that would allow me to move out.

There was no way around it. I was going home to Brooklyn and back to the familiar Park Slope neighborhood where Jenn and I grew up. Jenn would be at Bennington, a long way from home. Sometimes the thought of being without my best buddy was enough to make me tear up. It had to happen someday, but that wasn't much comfort to me as the hours and days counted
down to the end of the era--Jenn and Raina, BFF's.

We took the opposite shift jobs with the separation in mind. Both of us knew we'd have to wean ourselves off of our constant companionship. We had literally been passing in the halls for weeks with me at Tanglewood and her night work with the theater.

I was kind of quiet as we watched an hour of some Adam Sandler movie we'd both seen a half dozen times. Jenn asked me what was on my mind.

"Oh, a couple of things."

"Like?"

"Like how much I'm not looking forward to moving back with mom and dad."

"I hear you. I love your parents, but it does seem like a step backwards."

"And how much I'm going to miss you."

"Aw, Raina, I'm gonna miss you, too. You're the only sister I've got." She patted me affectionately on my leg. Jenn was from a family of three boys and her. Mine was all girls, me being the youngest of three.

"And about…"

"What?"

"Tristan King. I think I've got a
crush on him."

Jenn laughed so hard I thought she was going to choke. "Honey, Tristan King cannot even
spell
middle class. I'm quite sure he considers Brooklyn only a small step up from Armpit, Idaho."

"You think he's so shallow that he wouldn't…"

"Raina, I don't think, I know. Wait 'til you start seeing all the other players in the drama of our incestuous Little Theater. None of the 'queens' are going to let you near Tristan. He's one of
theirs
."

Three

The following night I found out exactly what Jenn was talking about. Wednesday, two leggy, suntanned blondes came waltzing in in the middle of the rehearsal, stopping it cold. They swept in as if they owned the place and I guess, in a way, they did. Their families heavily endowed the theater and they both frequently played leading roles. They were featured prominently on the 'who's who' board in the front lobby.

"Tom, you horrible old man. I don't think I can forgive you for this all-male play," one of the blondes
pouted as she planted a kiss on each of Tom's cheeks. "I had to volunteer for
costuming
just to be near the boys." The 'boys' on stage smiled with varying degrees of warmth. I happily noticed that Tristan seemed the least impressed.

"And I," piped the oth
er one, "am going to decorate the set. From the description in here, it won't be much of a challenge." She playfully slapped the script in her hand on Tom's head.

The two of them carried on several minutes of banter with the men
up on the stage. There was a great deal of hair flipping, shoulder touching and laughter at things I failed to find the least bit funny. Everyone seemed to know everyone very well. I felt about as invisible as a piece of gum stuck under the seat.