Soap Opera Sunday, Episode 11

Please check out the other soapy stories at Brillig's great blog. To catch up on my stories, go here.

So after giving up on dating and becoming a full-time fag hag, I let the gang talk me doing their next community theater show. I had been quite the actress in high school and did a few things in college, but it had been ten years. I auditioned anyway, though I was completely out of practice and nervous. Though it did help that I'd gotten drunk with most of the people who were casting the show. And so I was in - a few lines, but a lot of scenes as parts of crowds and customers and what have you. In suited me perfectly.

The show itself, not so much. Did you know there is a stage version of A Clockwork Orange? There is. And it's easier to read the script of the play that to read the novel or to sit through the movie, FYI. The stage version is not quite a musical, more like a play with music. And it's just as violent as the movie. (The director of. . .let's call it ME Theater was really into to doing edgy shows)

So as rehearsals started, we did a LOT of trust games and exercises. We also hung out a lot - even the people who hadn't previously been a part of the ME Theater/Kathy Griffin (not the real one) gay mafia in crowd started hanging out. Naturally, the four of us straight girls in the cast discussed the attributes of the four straight males in the cast (there were about 30 people in the cast and 10 on crew). We agreed that two were too young to contemplate (being 16 and 20), that one was odd (if you know the book/movie/play, he played Alex) and they thought the fourth one was cute. I didn't - he had too much hair. I hate long hair on guys. Especially when it grows up and out - like Napoleon Dynamite.

Naturally I was paired with Long Hair for one scene. We had to dance together. Well, it was actually that he was supposed to thrown me around a lot and I was supposed to look graceful while remaining uninjured. My friend C., the only other single straight girl in the cast, had hit on Long Hair the night before. She discovered that he lived with his ex-girlfriend (until their lease ran out in two months), that he was 27 and had returned to college to finish his BA in theater and that he was extraordinarily open. Too open for C. As he and I began dancing together, I decided that even though he was weird (sure, I loved history, but he was a Civil War re-enactor!) he was really sweet.

Long Hair was different from most theater guys - especially the straight ones. He was so open and outgoing and relentlessly honest that he freaked people out on occasion. Me included. C. and a few of the crew girls had crushes on him, despite his oddness. Even I liked his blue eyes.

As the opening of the show drew near, there came a night when all the Droogs (the gang of guys that perpetuates much horror throughout the show) had to get their heads shaved. Long Hair was one of those guys.

Without his hair, he was HOT. HOT in a totally bad boy way. I reminded myself that I had sworn off dating. And kissing. And anything else that might happen around a hot guy. All was fine until the night the cast went to the gay bar together (ME Theater was very popular in the gay community and often did showcases at gay bars, trying to entice patrons to attend the actual shows).

Hot Guy kept STARING at me. And I started STARING back. I was on the dance floor and he was on the sidelines but it felt like we were dancing together, you know?