The Making of a Gigolo (14) - Erica Bradford

by Lubrican

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Chapter Fourteen

Bobby found Tilly and Jake in the hallway. Tilly hugged him.

"I don't think this is a good idea," she whispered in his ear.

"I know," he whispered back. He pulled away from her and looked at Jake, who looked a little worried. Bobby didn't think it had anything to do with Tilly hugging him.

"So ... this was your idea?" Bobby asked Jake.

Jake seemed to give himself a mental shake and looked at Bobby.

"Yeah," he said, his voice a little husky. "I just think it's time I got out more."

"You get out all the time," Bobby pointed out. That was true. Ever since Tilly had started having babies, which people just naturally thought were Jake's, he'd been going more places with his wife and being seen in public.

"I know," said Jake. He smiled a tentative smile. "There's no critic like a kid," he said.

"I thought the idea was for you to be the critic."

"What do I know about this stuff?" asked Jake. "The last musical I went to was in this auditorium." He pointed to the doors that led to the stage. "That was for an assembly we had to go to. It was called 'Bye Bye Birdie,' and I still don't know what it was about."

"Okay," said Bobby, as if something had been explained. "But why drag Will into it too?"

"You can't hide," said Jake. "I tried. I don't want him to go through the same thing I did, sitting alone someplace, hating the world, because you never have anything to do with it."

He would have gone on, but the sound of Erica and Will's arrival made them all turn and look at the couple coming up the hallway. Bobby peeked in through the double doors. Mrs. Staffordshire was apparently through with her comments, because the first act had started again. From the little Bobby saw it wasn't much different from when they'd done it for him. He turned around as Erica pulled Will's wheelchair to a stop. She looked almost panicked.

"They're going through it now," he said, for lack of anything else to say. "I think Mrs. Staffordshire gave them a pep talk."

The women dithered, while the men sat, looking stern, until Bobby just pulled the double doors open and stood back. Neither woman moved until Jake said, "Tilly!" She and Erica both jerked, and the chairs started moving again.

The two men were pushed past the young actors, most of whom stopped and stared, instead of making the motions that were supposed to suggest a country fair was going on in Brigadoon. The song "McConnachy Square" was being sung, and by the time the men were sitting side by side at the front of the stage, only about half the kids were actually singing. Julia bellowed "KEEP SINGING!" and the song began picking up voices, one or two at a time, until suddenly no one was looking at the two men in wheelchairs.

It was almost comical how the kids, in trying not to look at the two men they thought of as "cripples," fell back on the only routine at hand at the moment. That routine was the lines and movements they had practiced for so long. There were still occasional darting glances toward the front of the stage but, by and large, the actors were suddenly very interested in their lines, and who they were supposed to be interacting with.

Meg Brockie, the amorous dairy vendor was introduced, along with Angus McGuffie, her employer, and then Archie Beaton, the plaid merchant, and his son Harry. The plot tumbled on without the stops and starts that were usual as the audience met the McLaren family and found out that Harry Beaton was still madly in love with Jean McLaren, who was about to be married to another man that day.

Erica finally felt capable of leaving Will alone, and joined Julia Staffordshire to watch as "Waitin' For My Dearie" was sung by Emily Emerson, playing the part of Fiona. Bobby just stood by Tilly, on the opposite side of Will, and watched with them.

There were the inevitable hang-ups, as players who had had to pretend they had props, and imagine the sets that hadn't been finished yet, interacted with the real thing. But, for the most part, Erica only had to prompt things four or five times as the kids ran through the first act. It was a first for them all, because that act had never been done from start to finish in one episode.

In fact, working on that first act took the whole night, because once they got started and actually did it, the kids wanted to correct every little problem. It was one of those "elephant in the room" situations where, to be able to ignore Will and Jake, the kids concentrated on the only other thing available to take up their mostly full attention.

That is not to say that no one paid any attention to the two disabled men. A fair number of the cast were off stage at any given time, and clusters of teenagers gravitated toward each other to sneak quick and not-so-quick peeks at the two wrecked men sitting at the front of the stage. Those men just sat and watched, their faces not quite stony, but certainly not betraying any clue as to what they were thinking. It was like they were some kind of grotesque statues.

Eventually Bobby took Tilly's elbow and led her to the stairs and down to sit in the seats. That movement drew Erica's eyes, which took in Tilly's hand in Bobby's. Later she looked for them and saw them in the second or third row back, off to one side so they could see around Jake and Will. They were still holding hands. Erica had no time to evaluate that information, because the show ground to a halt as a set change was made to move to the forest, where Meg was going to try to seduce Jeff. They had never had all the sets to deal with before and had to figure out a way to stand them side by side off stage. By the time they had that figured out and the two actors were on stage, and Erica turned to look, Tilly was sitting alone.

Bobby had left the auditorium.

The next week wrought almost astonishing changes for the whole group of people involved with bringing Brigadoon to life. Some of those things were directly related to the production, and some were not.

It didn't quite work out the way Jake had thought it would. His and Will's presence, just sitting in their chairs at the front of the stage each night, didn't really do anything about stage fright.

The elephant was still in the room ... two of them, in fact. What their presence seemed to do was require the kids, on some mystical social level, to completely ignore the two men, at least initially. The best way to do that, it turned out, was for the uncomfortable teenagers to pretend they were the characters in the musical, and give that their full attention. And, once the two disturbing men had been examined through hasty peeks, the kids who weren't on stage turned their attention to the production, to concentrate on something not so disturbing. Nobody even thought about asking what the two men thought.

It took four nights before a teen, walking past them, shyly said "Hi." That was returned with a similar greeting, delivered in a deep voice.

Then it became "Hi, I'm Sarah," or, "Hi, I'm Jimmy." It was inevitable, once the elephants were found to be able to speak, that someone ask, "So ... what do you think?"

It turned out that that person was, of all people, Tabitha Jenkins, the cheerleader/artist who kept coming to play practice, even though the sets were finished. She was forever dabbing paint here or there, to improve her canvases, but spent a lot of time just watching rehearsal too. She was the one who eventually spoke more than one or two words to the men. She was walking from one side of the stage to the other, trying not to disturb the flow of the funeral in act two, and so chose to walk around the arc of the front of the stage. She stopped behind and between the two men.

"So ... what do you think?" she asked.

Will had been asked that question almost nightly by his sister. His initial judgments had been kept to himself, because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. He had been vague in his comments, for the most part. But things were coming together rapidly. When the kids actually paid attention to what they were supposed to be doing, the improvement was almost palpable.

Jake was the only one who could turn his head far enough to actually look at her, over his shoulder.

"Men aren't supposed to like this stuff ... are they?" He grinned.

"I don't see why not," said Tabitha. Jake wasn't so hard to look at. His face looked just like the face of any other older man.

"I'm definitely into it," said Will, looking forward. He didn't even try to turn, because he knew the tight skin on his neck and shoulder wouldn't allow it.

"Cool," said Tabitha.

That was it, for that night. But the elephants had been spoken to. Other teens had seen her stop, and seen her mouth moving ... seen Jake turn and address her. Their curiosity was not assuaged by Tabitha when she was questioned.

"I just said hi," she claimed.

Those who had seen, though, knew that much more had been said than a simple one word greeting.

That led to more kids wandering by the wheelchairs ... and more words being exchanged. Their youthful curiosity had been pushed away by the strangeness of the two men, but familiarity with that strangeness seemed, somehow, to allow curiosity to bubble back up to the surface.

Rough spots were identified, and Erica stopped things to go over those scenes, again and again, until the roughness was smoothed over. That meant large numbers of kids had nothing to do. Watching the same scene over and over again was boring.

The two men at the front of the stage were not.

It took another three days before Donald Thompson had the courage ... or foolishness, depending on how you looked at it ... to finally say what was on every young mind in the place.

"So ... what happened to you, anyway?"

He was immediately corrected by four of the nine kids who, for some reason, had nothing better to do than stand around the two men in the wheelchairs. Jake corrected the correctors.

"It's a normal question," he said. "I was in a mining accident, and my buddy Will here was in Vietnam."

That was all that was said at that moment, but the dam had been cracked. On a Thursday evening, when the boy playing the part of Jeff bumped into the edge of a set and drove a long splinter into the flesh above his knee, Erica stopped everything and took him to the nurse's office, hopefully to find antiseptic and bandages.

That left the whole group alone with Will and Jake ... and with nothing to do.

Erica got back to find the entire cast standing, or sitting, in front of the two men. Will was describing how the helmet he had been wearing had shielded the top and sides of his head from the napalm, which was why his hair looked completely normal, even though it was above a ruined face, with a lump of scar for an ear.

Had she known this would happen, Erica would have done anything to prevent it. She would have believed quite strongly that such a description had no place in the ears of teenagers ... that they would neither understand nor be able to tolerate such graphic knowledge.

She stood, jaw slack, though, as first one then another teen asked questions about what it was like to be in that much pain, and to be afraid that you might die, and to say things like, "If that happened to me I don't think I'd want to live."

Part of her amazement was that such a serious conversation was being thoughtfully approached by all present. She could tell by the pink tint on Will's right cheek that his emotional level was high, but he didn't pull back or tell them to leave him alone. Jake drew the line when someone wanted to see the stump of his arm, but even that seemed to be just a wave that sank back into the sea of interest and questions.

It had only been quiet for ten seconds ... a somewhat natural lull in the group conversation, as kids evaluated what they had just heard, and before another question could be voiced, when Erica cleared her throat.

"We're here to practice, not grill these men," she said.

She was left astonished when the group rose, almost as one, and went back to work.

From that moment on, Jake and Will were almost never left alone long, as they sat on the stage. What Erica never learned, though, was that once the kids' curiosity was satisfied, they began to ask the men other questions.

Those questions had to do with what the men watched the cast do every night.

Something else that happened while Will and Jake were being "normalized" by the kids, and which also caused a lot of uproar, was when a pair of men walked down the aisle between the right and middle seats of the auditorium and asked for Erica. She told the kids to keep working on the scene being rehearsed and went down the steps to meet him.

"I'm Erica Bradford," she said, approaching the men.

They were about as different as it was possible to be, physically. One was much older and short, while the other was so thin and tall that he looked almost emaciated. She held out her hand to the short man, who was half a step ahead of the tall one.

"How can I help you?" she asked.

"I hope it's the other way around, actually," he said smiling. "I'm Chester Chumley. This gentleman with me is named Sidney McGregor and I've hired him to provide his services to your musical."

"Services?" Erica was at a loss. "I don't understand."

She knew who Chester Chumley was, of course. Everybody in town knew about the Chumleys. She'd never actually met either this man or his wife, though, and had no idea whether whatever he was talking about came with strings attached or not. Most rich men didn't do anything without some kind of strings being attached.

"I'm a bagpiper," said Sidney, reaching past Chester to take the hand Chester had just released. "I live in Kansas City and belong to a bagpiper club there."

"I've heard that there are several places that a real bagpiper might add drama to the production," said Chester. "I made some inquiries and found Mr. McGregor through his club and hired him. I hope I haven't overstepped any boundaries."

"No," said Erica a little weakly. "This is wonderful!" She didn't know quite what to say next. "It's still a week and a half before the show opens, though," she said.

"I asked Mr. McGregor to make himself available for as many rehearsals as you think is needed," said Chester. "I'm sure he doesn't need to be here every day, but I did want him to exhibit his talents. That's why he's here today ... if you have time."

"I brought my pipes," said Sidney, unnecessarily. His eagerness to show off was plain. "Though I left my costume at home," he added.

"Well!" said Erica, deciding not to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. "Are you familiar with Brigadoon?"

"Intimately," said Sidney, his voice very firm.

"Perhaps we could rehearse the funeral scene," said Erica.

"Give me ten minutes," said Sidney. "I'll come in from the back and parade down the aisle. I'll climb up onto the stage and then you can decide what to do with me after that."

Erica was delighted.

"Don't tell them what's going to happen," said Sidney. "It's so much more fun to see the expression on their faces when they hear me for the first time."

He left and Erica turned to Chester.

"Is there anything ... um ... associated with this gift?" she asked.

"Do you mean do I want anything in return?" asked Chester, smiling. "No. I do not. When my friend suggested this I thought it was a brilliant idea. I don't know if bagpipes have ever been heard in Granger or not. This will bring a little culture here. That's enough for me."

"Who is your friend?" asked Erica. "In addition to thanking you, I must remember to thank ..." She didn't know whether to say "him" or "her" and finally decided on something politically correct, "this person for suggesting it to you."

"His name is Bobby Dalton," said Chester. "I believe you've met him already."

Erica was astonished. Bobby Dalton was this man's friend?

"Yes," said Erica, feeling like she was expected to say something. "I have. I'll remember to thank him."

"Would it be all right if I stayed and watched the fun?" asked Chester.

"Of course!" said Erica.

She went back to the stage where she "decided" that the scene currently being rehearsed needed a rest and called for everyone in the funeral scene. It had been planned to play a record of bagpipe music, during the production, with speakers out on the edge of the stage, but none of that had been brought together yet. One of the kids had taken to humming "Amazing Grace" at the appropriate time.

For Erica, it was priceless as, when the time came, and Steven started humming, there was a ghostly racket from the back of the auditorium. It quickly stabilized into the familiar drone peculiar to the bagpipe, and then Sidney entered the auditorium playing the tune on the chanter of the pipes.

Everybody froze. Even though he wasn't in costume, Sidney had a ramrod stiff, almost military bearing as he marched slowly down the aisle and mounted the steps. By the time he stepped onto the stage itself, every person in the place was staring at him. The music brought an upwelling of emotion to Erica and she felt tears in her eyes.

This wonderful gift would be fabulous beyond calculation when the auditorium was full of spectators. She turned to look at the old man whose name was sometimes said in hushed tones, because of his power in this town. He was grinning like a kid, watching the piper along with everyone else.

Another thing that affected the lives of two of the people involved in the production happened away from the school.

Erica was having more and more trouble with flitting thoughts of her brother's hard penis. Those thoughts always assailed her as she stroked it, looking at it, anticipating when it would spurt. First those thoughts were of his penis dangling over her sex, as she lay back on a bed. But then, over time, that penis got closer and closer to her, until the tip nosed between the lips between her legs.

Most girls wonder, at one time or another, what it might feel like for a man's penis to be inside her. Erica was just a little late at getting to that point in her life. That didn't make it any less upsetting, though.

The scene that kept playing through her head was from that old blue movie, where the "substitute teacher" was replaced with her, and the penis descending toward and then penetrating the vagina on the screen was Will's. When she couldn't get that scene out of her head, her mind searched for something else to replace it with.

What it selected was the scene where the substitute looked down at the stiff penis, opened her mouth, and then moved her head down.

Erica Bradford thought it made all the sense in the world. To stop thinking about having intercourse with Will, all she had to do was concentrate on having oral sex with him. Basically her libido was stuck in her teens, even though she was much older. And what she chose to do about it was something a teenager might have come up with.

She didn't warn him. One minute she was stroking him, while he moaned his appreciation, and the next minute her mouth closed over him.

She didn't know what to do after that point.

Once Will stopped freaking out, he taught her.

The most momentous event that happened that January, as far as the people associated with the production of Brigadoon were concerned, started with pure routine, though it was exciting nonetheless.

When all the costumes were ready, Christy Brown showed up to take the photographs that would be used on the posters announcing the show. Those posters would be plastered around town. Attendance at these things was always good. Some of that was because there was nothing else to do in Granger on a Thursday night. The show was scheduled to run Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Someone once calculated that the entire town could fit into the auditorium if it had twice as many seats. Rather than try to pack the house, though, they ran three nights so that everybody got a chance to come if they wanted to, and it was on whatever night was best for them. The other reason people came was because Erica's predecessor had produced very good shows. Several strangers, people from Hutch, had showed up in the past.

Christy had done this before, and she had told Erica that what she preferred to do was watch a run-through of the show, during which she would take pictures at candid moments. That way they didn't look too posed. In addition, there would be group shots and individual portraits of the "stars" of the show. What wasn't used for the flyers would be made available to the yearbook staff, which always did a section on drama and musical events during the year.

That put Christy at the front of the stage ... with Jake and Will.

She knew Jake, of course, and had sat with him and Tilly at different town celebrations in the past. She had taken pictures of their older child for the yearbook of his school. She had heard of Will, though she'd never met him.

She tried to keep what she was feeling out of her eyes as Jake introduced her to Will. She wasn't all that successful. It made for some awkwardness, initially.

But Will and Jake, as they sat there watching the rehearsal night after night, had gotten into the habit of talking to each other about the differences and similarities they saw as the cast matured. Will often shared their observations with Erica, at home, while they ate a late supper, or masturbated, which was now a routine they rarely missed, unless Erica was on her period.

As a consequence, they began to make recommendations to Christy about when a good shot might be coming up. As she stood and watched, the voices that she heard sounded completely normal. Will's voice had a barely detectable almost lisp, that was a result of the tight skin on the left side of his mouth, but other than that, what she heard didn't conjure up anything in terms of a mental image of the speaker.

Familiarity with something strange had reduced the strangeness of it, as far as the kids were concerned. It worked that way with Christy, too, somewhat more quickly since she was more mature. Christy was there for three hours and for most of that time she was standing within ten feet of the two men. She was already used to Jake. It didn't take her all that long to put Will into the same category ... a man to whom something terrible had happened, but who was still a human being inside.

By the time she was ready to do the group and individual portraits, her feelings of revulsion when she looked at Will had lessened. He sounded so completely normal when he talked about which kids had the best expressions on their faces, or seemed to be the most involved in the scene they were acting in.

She was packing up her equipment when Tilly came to pick Jake up, and greeted her too. Erica was still busy with something back stage, and that left Christy alone with Will.

"You're good at that," said Will. "I don't know that much about photography, but I can tell."

"Thanks," said Christy. "I love what I do."

She would never be able to explain why she did it, but she turned to him and said, "I understand you were in Vietnam."

"Yeah," he said.

"My husband ... my ex husband now ... he was there."

"When?" asked Will.

"Nineteen-seventy and seventy-one," she answered. "It's what destroyed our marriage."

"Before my time," said Will. "But Nam destroyed a lot of marriages."

"He didn't get ... hurt," said Christy.

"Lucky," said Will.

"I'm sorry you did."

"Why?" he asked. "I mean you don't even know me."

"Nobody should have to go through that," she said. "I hate war."

"Don't get me started," said Will.

"I always felt like what happened ... between Richard and me ... was my fault," she said.

"It wasn't your fault," said Will. "Somebody had to go. It turned out to be him."

"You don't understand," said Christy, thinking of the fact that she'd gotten pregnant while her husband was off fighting. That he'd cheated on her didn't make her feel any better. That she loved Bobby and loved their child didn't help either. She still felt some responsibility for the marriage breaking up.

"Why don't you tell me about it," he suggested.

"He wouldn't come home," she said. "He could have, but he kept going to schools and getting promoted and going back to Vietnam."

"Oh," said Will. "A lifer. I know the type."

"And he had ... other women," she said. She was still trying to justify things in her mind, years afterward.

"Yeah," said Will. "That happened a lot too. If it's any help to you, most guys only did that because they thought they were going to die, and that was about the only thing that could take your mind off the war for a little bit."

"I don't think that was what happened to him. He did something with supplies and was stationed in Saigon. As far as I know he never went into battle."

"Oh," said Will. "A REMF." His voice sounded derisive.

What does that mean?" asked Christy.

"It's not very polite," said Will. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, really," said Christy. "He told me so little about what his Army life was like. I'd like to know."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"It means rear area mother fucker," said Will. "They had safe jobs in the rear and never took any chances. They had luxuries like cold beer and steak and soft beds." He stopped, but then added, "And toilet paper. I could go on and on, but I won't."

"I can't put all the blame on him," said Christy. "It was just as much my fault. I cheated on him too."

"Oh," said Will. He sounded sad.

"It was after our marriage was already dead," she said, somewhat defensively, "but I know I shouldn't have done it."

"Sometimes the wrong people get married to each other," said Will. It was no skin off his nose, but this woman was the first normal woman to talk to him in a long time. She wasn't all weepy and pitiful about his condition either, though he'd seen the horror in her eyes when she first met him. That horror wasn't there now, though. It was nice to have a normal conversation, even if it had to be about the war.

"It was nice to meet you," said Christy, picking up her bag and shouldering it. "You were very helpful in alerting me about good shots."

"Sure," he said. "No problem."

She hesitated. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

Here it came. They always wanted to know some intimate detail about his injuries. He almost sighed.

"Shoot," he said.

"Why are you here?"

"Here at school?" he asked. The question wasn't what he expected.

"Yes."

"Oh," he chuckled. "Jake had this crazy idea that if the two of us sat out here while they practiced, it would freak the kids out and then, when it came to the real thing, and we weren't here anymore, they wouldn't get stage fright."

"Really!" She seemed astonished.

"Yup," he said. "We're just here to scare the dickens out of them."

She looked fully at him.

"Is it working? You don't seem all that scary to me."

"I think it did at first," said Will. "Now the kids just sit and talk to us whenever they get a chance. You wouldn't believe what teenagers talk about these days," he said. "I can't understand half of it, because it sounds like a foreign language half the time."

"How interesting," she said. "I have to go. I hope to see you again sometime."

Will watched her walk away. She was a babe. In the past, that would have hurt, because it made him think about things that weren't good for a man in his condition to think about. Now he had Erica, though, so it wasn't so bad. Now, when he went home, the feelings a woman like Christy had caused to surge in him ... could be dealt with.

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