5: Theatre Desires (3)

Lila, Elara’s understudy for Titania, was a sweet, ambitious girl of twenty-two with wide, innocent eyes. She watched Elara’s transformation with a mixture of awe and confusion. She also noticed the lingering touches, the charged looks between her lead and the director.

During a Wednesday matinee, Elara felt a familiar, sharp cramp in her abdomen. By the end of Act II, she knew: it was severe enough to risk fainting on stage. During a quick blackout scene change, she rushed to Kaelen in the wings.

“I can’t go on,” she gasped, pale. “It’s my stomach.”

Kaelen’s eyes flashed, not with concern, but with calculation. He looked past her to Lila, who was hovering nearby, wide-eyed in her matching fairy costume. “Lila. You’re on. Now.”

Panic flooded Lila’s face. “But I’ve never… the second act finale…”

“You’ll learn,” Kaelen said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He shoved Elara towards his private backstage office, a small, soundproofed room cluttered with scripts and props. “You. In there. Don’t make a sound.”

He turned to Lila, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a different, darker nook behind a towering flat of the Athenian forest. The matinee audience was rustling, waiting for the show to resume.

“Please, Mr. Kaelen, I’m so nervous,” Lila babbled.

“Nerves are a lack of control,” he stated. He backed her against the flat, his body caging hers. “I’m going to give you something else to focus on. Something real.” Before she could process his words, his hand slipped between her legs, under the short costume skirt. He found her cotton panties and pressed his palm hard against her.

Lila squeaked in shock.

“You feel that?” he whispered harshly. “That’s your center. That’s where all fear lives. And I own it right now.” He rubbed his hand in a rough circle. “You will go out there and you will be brilliant, because if you’re not, I will take you back here after the show and I will finish what I started in a way you won’t forget. Do you understand?”

Tears welled in Lila’s eyes, but a strange, traitorous heat was also spreading under his insistent hand. She was terrified, but also acutely aware of his power, his proximity. She gave a tiny, shaky nod.

“Good girl,” he said, giving her one final, firm press before removing his hand. He straightened her costume with a chilling efficiency. “Now go. And be magnificent.”

Lila went on. Her performance was raw, unpolished, but vibrated with a genuine, terrified energy that captivated the audience. From the tiny window in the soundproof office door, Elara watched it all on a monitor, her own pain forgotten, replaced by a sick fascination and a twist of jealousy.

After the curtain fell to respectable applause, Kaelen went to his office. He looked at Elara, who was feeling better. “Wait here,” he commanded.

He found Lila in the shared dressing room, still trembling as she removed her makeup.

“My office. Now,” he said.

Lila followed, a lamb to the slaughter. Inside, he locked the door. Elara was there, told to sit and watch in a corner chair.

“You did… adequately,” Kaelen said to Lila, circling her. “But adequate isn’t enough for my theater.” He stopped in front of her. “You still hold back. You need to understand the stakes.”

He pushed her to her knees before him. Lila looked up, tears streaming, but made no move to resist. The authority he wielded was absolute.

“Unzip me,” he ordered.

With trembling fingers, Lila obeyed. He sprang free, thick and already hard. He gripped her hair.

“Open your mouth. This is your first lesson in commitment.”

As Lila hesitantly took him in, her inexperienced mouth stretching wide, Kaelen looked over at Elara. “Watch closely,” he told Elara, his voice thick. “See what happens to those who need more direct motivation.”

Elara watched, her own body throbbing with a mix of revulsion and arousal, as Kaelen fucked Lila’s mouth with brutal strokes, teaching the understudy a role she’d never rehearsed.

______

Marta, the veteran costume mistress, had seen directors come and go. She was in her fifties, stern, with a no-nonsense attitude and clever hands that could mend anything. She’d noticed the shift in backstage dynamics, the fear and desire swirling around Kaelen like fog. She disapproved, but kept silent, buried in her work amid racks of period dresses and tunics.

Her silence broke when she found Lila sobbing in a costume fitting room, a small bruise forming on her thigh. Marta confronted Kaelen in his office after hours.

“This ends now,” she stated, her arms crossed. “I won’t stand by and watch you abuse these girls. I’ll go to the board.”

Kaelen leaned back in his chair, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Marta. The heart of the theater. So moral.” He stood and walked around his desk. “But you’ve been here so long… You must miss it. The passion. The physicality of it all.”

“Don’t you dare,” she warned, but took a step back.

“All those years,” he continued, advancing, “pinning hems on young actors, feeling their bodies under your fingers… it must have been a special kind of torture.” He backed her against a rack of Victorian coats. “That stern exterior… I’ve always wondered what was underneath.”

“Get away from me,” Marta hissed, but her voice lacked its usual steel.

“Or what?” he chuckled darkly. He reached out and pulled at the high collar of her practical linen shirt. A button popped. “You see, Marta, I think you’re a hypocrite. I think you love the filth back here as much as anyone. You just need someone to force you to admit it.”

He ripped the shirt open, revealing a sensible lace bra. Marta gasped, but made no real effort to cover herself.

Her eyes held a decades-old hunger and Kaelen saw it.

Kaelen spun her around to face the mirror on the wall. He pulled her skirt up, her sensible underwear down. “Look at yourself,” he commanded, his mouth at her ear. “The stern costume mistress. Brought low. Exposed.”

He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t fondle her. He simply unbuckled his belt and entered her from behind in one ruthless thrust. Marta cried out, a sound of shock, pain, and profound release. Her hands braced against the mirror, fogging it with her breath.

“You’ll say nothing,” he grunted, pounding into her with a relentless pace born of conquest. “Because if you do, everyone will know how wet you got for the man you claim to despise. They’ll know how your old cunt clenched around him.”

Marta’s protests died in her throat, replaced by ragged moans. She came violently, her body betraying a lifetime of restraint, shuddering against him. When he finished, he stepped back, tucking himself away with cold precision.

Marta slid to the floor, a broken heap of torn clothes and shattered dignity.

“Fix your clothes,” Kaelen said, straightening his cuffs. “And remember: you are now part of the production. My production. Your scissors and pins serve my vision… in all its forms.”