Curtains
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Yeah, I got the part by fucking the director. It was his first production, and it was obvious he'd heard too many stories about the perks of running the show. He didn't even know how to broach the subject gracefully, the way he stammered on in some kind of personal code with his eyebrows arching seductively every time he said "something you could, could do, to, you know... get the part." But I didn't mind it. He wasn't a bad fuck. A little rough, you could really tell he was indulging himself on fucking from a position of power. But whatever. I could have picked him up after a few drinks at a bar that night, but hey, I got to skip the part where I pay for drinks and all I had to do was validate his ego. Gotta say it was a little flattering for me, too. Usually you don't try to fuck the backup dancers. It's about the closest to being treated like a star that I've ever gotten.
I'd been told I could be a star, and though they never say so, it's because I'm a red panda. Red pandas are in. It's more than a little condescending, really. The U.S. expands trade with Asian countries, immigration occurs, and for some reason red pandas get to be the cultural marker for all this. We're colorful and lithe, and being a dancer I couldn't be any exception to this. I got that same "bamboo build" (goddamn I hate that phrase) with the toned muscles layered over it, the kind of muscles you get from having a job where it's your duty to move elegantly. Like your body needs to hide its own strength, but can't too much. And now everyone wants to say they have a red panda friend, every production wants to show its diversity and impress the Asian investors by throwing a red panda or two into the chorus line. Every theater director wants to plaster a red-and-white mask all over the city buses and tout its new Discovery, the name you'll be sure to see in the papers the morning after opening night.
But I didn't get into it for the fame. And thank Goodness for that, right? You're not seeing my name in lights. Never mattered to me. If you see a guy's name in lights, you still don't know a thing about them. Just that someone's making money off their ass.
No, I got into dancing to dance, not to be a dancer, if that makes sense. That's why I'd always be the last one off the stage. The director would have disappeared long ago to drink and bitch about the dancers. The other dancers would have disappeared long ago to drink and bitch about the other dancers. The stage hands would always be the last to share the stage with me, having stayed late to drink and bitch about the dancers.
I did my silly little twirls, the leaps, whatever. I wasn't much for audiences, but I liked stages. They were expansive and dynamic and the wood of the floor was always cut and nicked with the memories of past performances. The planks gave with a humanitarian gentleness or resisted your foot with rigid intemperence. Each had a personality. Whether it was dull and common or unique and exciting, each stage presented its own face. And when everyone else had put enough rehearsal time to satisfy their contracts, I could have it all to myself, with just the beasts of burden who pulled the ropes to either watch or ignore me. They could do either or, depending on if anyone had brought any cards with them. If they did watch, they watched from off stage, I supposed out of a sense of comfort with the darkened corners. They smoked like fiends, and you figured if they weren't worried about cops and fines, they really weren't going to let you tell them to stop, either. They would keep beers and sometimes bottles of liquor in the break room refrigerator and wait until everybody else was gone to crack them open and start telling crude jokes and exaggerated stories. I could only hear mumbles from the stage until they would burst out into raucous laughter, perfectly on cue with the punchline. Must be the kind of jokes you never have to wait a beat to sink in.
When they didn't watch me, they seemed wholly involved in themselves. When they did watch me, it was their silence that disconcerted me. I would have my concentration down on milking the longest stretch I could out of a certain move, and just as I seemed to get it, the silence would become obvious. Sometimes I'd simply stayed so late the guys had all trudged out to do what they do. More often they would be looking at me - their necks turned, never their bodies, which maintained the circle they'd protected themselves with - and passing only surreptitious comments between each other. I'd try to smile it off, make them think I wasn't aware they were talking about me. Whether they believed that or not, it didn't paint a picture of the confident, intelligent red panda I thought myself to be. I could only come off either shy or simple, and I had resigned to being seen this way.
Every one of them was built to intimidate and carried a certain edge with them. Their grandfathers had pulled plows on Dustbowl farms for failed crops, or trudged across arctic land to deliver medical supplies they couldn't afford, or broken their bodies in wars fought for interests other than their own. Generations later, they were yanking ropes and lugging plaster cannons to their proper place for the right scene in an air conditioned theater in the tourism district. None seemed appropriately miserable to be proud of themselves. I could see it in the way they carried themselves with a purposeful separation from the part of the production the audience would come to see, and especially in their bodies. You don't need that kind of muscle to open a curtain. You need that kind of muscle because you're young enough to still have an Old Man to prove wrong, but old enough to have friends who've become doctors.
Or maybe I'm just projecting.
At any rate, the director never thinks to ask these types to blow him for a job. Couldn't he? All our paychecks have the same signature. If I were a director, that's who I'd go for. If you can choke down a dick as thick as mine, sure you can open the curtains. But they always seem to get the short end of the stick in these kinds of productions. People forget that these guys gotta know the lines just as well as anyone. Nothing exempts them from knowing the cues. They gotta do more real work than anybody else. I try to tell some of the actors this. They slink back to their dressing room to smoke a joint between acts, they come back and the stage is brand new. They walk right past the stagehands like the scenery was compelled to arrange itself in tribute to the Star of the Show. It was unfair, but I wasn't so sure the stage hands needed our thanks anyway. Not that that held me back letting them know my appreciation. Maybe that's what got me into trouble.
"Trouble" is a relative term. This was way back during the first dress rehearsals, before the show had been running for months and had churned through stagehands as often as the director read the reviews, and we had these three hands who more or less established the traditions that came to define the area just off stage. Probably a good part of the reason I tend to stay so late anymore, too.
One of them missed a cue somewhere and the director snapped. Stormed out of the theater, promised to have them all fired, though this was back before he realized he actually had the power to. We waited for him to come back, but waiting was all it was. The smarter ones figured out soon no one was gonna notice if they left before the pay schedule said they could.
The guys responsible, they'd just laughed it off and dipped into the beer, letting themselves enjoy, for once, the view of a couple dozen skinny young things leaping and bending and stretching. When I was just one of those bodies, I could've sworn their gazes had singled me out. I didn't want to be too suggestive, and yet I wanted to invite their eyes to find me among the crowd. I don't know if I was trying to tempt them. I might have been. My body does what it wants when I get nervous, you know, the special kind of nervous tic only dancers get where the last thing you could do is stop moving, though you don't much control what you do. I remember feeling as if I were moving with exceptional grace as they watched me, and that they were quickly getting drunk.
It was the husky, the mule, and the bull. I just realized it's probably not good that that's all I know them as. So much for all my romanticizing about manual labor, right? Conceited me still never bothered to learn their names. I shouldn't beat myself up over it; they might not have wanted me to know their names.
Let me get back on track. Actually, let me skip ahead a little. Everybody left but me. They had been drunk for a while. Actually, they'd gone through their cache, and I could hear them arguing in that cordially rough way some men do over who had taken more than their fair share. Nobody seemed to really care that equality was achieved, they just argued for the sake of sounding tough. All the while I twisted, playing as if I were ignoring them, but lifting my ears for every word. Their argument soon turned to a crude cock-measuring competition, with each guy boasting about his power and conquests. They spoke with lewd verbosity, dipping into a canon of disparaging terms to exaggerate their successes. My cock twitched under my tights with every word they added to my vocabulary.
It was almost inevitably that I, twisting suggestively on the stage while the men shot off about their dicks, would be hit with the crossfire. In vague demands surrounding specific suggestions, not meant for my ears, the men made me beg for their cocks. They boasted of putting me on my knees. They tugged their leather jackets, made sure every seam hugged the right muscle, as they talked about how they would make me moan their name, how they would make "all those dainty twinks" their loft studio harem. I couldn't keep straight which voice belonged to who, to which of the burly stage hands I could attribute each boast, and it strained me not to turn my neck and give myself away. Though I could feel myself at the center of their attention, their promises about what they could wrench out of me becoming more and more audacious, I felt strangely invisible in front of them. As if they could only say these things and I'd be safe as long as they didn't know I heard them. But they wanted me to hear. I couldn't have hidden the bulge in my pants without running off stage. But even as my cock grew stiff and ached to get out of my tights, I danced in front of them, my fingers and bare toes tingling with expectation.
"Hey Red," one of them yelled, and I turned my head and broke my guise of innocence on command. "Knock off that artsy shit. Fuckin relax." I stopped my show of twirling immediately, then only standing awkwardly in front of of them, trying to figure out how to meet the latter demand. Their six eyes drew onto me. I didn't know which had even made the order. Was it an invitation to join? Or to go away? It took just long enough for me to work it out that by the time I figured I was meant to go they figured out a use for me. They decided to let me stay, and then the voice identified itself in the husky when he teased, "Why don't you come over here and join us, sweet cheeks?"
My feet weren't quite so frozen then. I'd taken the first step before the "sweet cheeks" made my ears lie flat. I'm sure the blush showed in the white highlights of my mask. I walked slowly toward them, waiting for some verbal cue, anything before I'd find myself simply standing good-as-naked in front of them. My cock was as defined as a marble statue under my tights. But they let me walk toward them like off a plank, and soon enough I found myself at the center of their silent stares. They seemed to close in around me, even though they sat still like a tableau out of Upton Sinclair. It seemed like they waited until my eyes had fallen on each one, as if they wanted to me see them, to respect them. The muscles refused to hide even under leather. Though all three wore leather jackets, they didn't match. They would have seemed comical as a gang, as if they had to coordinate their fashion. But you could tell they were no gang. They might not even drink together after work. But their interests were then driven toward the same spot. They sported jeans faded and worn as if each had found one pair that best suited their vanity, and would have worn them just as soon to work as to the opera house. I felt gilded in front of them. I felt superficial in front of them, and strangely enough, I felt valuable. Like a ring in a smashed jewelry store window.
"Are you gonna show us that thing, or?" he didn't really give me another option. I was going to. I was going to be happy to, in fact. After having my dick bulge so obscenely, it would have been an incredible release to just show it to them, say "here." I reached to pull down my pants, but was stopped by a curt "wait!"
It was the mule this time. "Don't just stand there while you do it." I felt silly in the moment it took me to parse what he meant, and then snapped to with a scandalized "-oh." But I started gyrating my hips. I stopped for a moment to protest. "I really- I really don't know how to do this. I know how Michael Jackson dances, I have no idea what a stripper does."
"So?" the bull asked. His voice was gruff and reassuring, like he could keep the other two in line if ever he really had to. "We just wanna see you shake that ass, doll. If I have to make these cheap bastards whip out some singles, I will."
"I ain't paying for shit he does all goddamn day," the mule interjected.
"Well fuck, Glen, someone pays him to do that shit too, right? Give the piece of ass a fiver."
The mule grumbled and whipped out his wallet. He pulled out a five, handed it with annoyed fanfare to the bull. The bull pulled out a ten of his own, and all of a sudden my eyes got a little wide. A single would have been degrading. But now this bull wanted to stuff a Nice Lunch That I Really Deserve After All This Stress down my pants. The husky felt compelled to upstage them both, topping off the pot with a Jackson, and took as his prize the small wad of crisp bills that had materialized. He leaned forward, stuffed them into my pants, and groped me to make a show of having won the contest. He met my gaze as he did. He had these dark, emerald eyes. I'd never seen eyes like them, and they say canines tend to have especially vibrant eyes. He did. I think he wanted me to remember he did.
He sat back down. They waited on me with what seemed like tremendous patience. I think I was waiting for a jeer. But, having paid, they didn't bark at me. I gyrated my hips. I ran my hands up along my body, pulling my shirt up just a little as I did. I turned around, stuck out my ass and bounced my hips to some slow but steady rhythm.
It felt right, like dancing does. I felt like I was dancing. As late as I stayed to practice, I didn't remember the last time I'd danced when I wasn't working. And when I had, I couldn't be so indulgent as to pull my leggings down along my ass slow enough to tease because I know I'm being watched and admired. I'm not used to being watched and admired. I'm in the background. I share the attention with a dozen others who mimic my moves exactly. But here I commanded their exclusive attention.
My fat, stout cock had given me a wet spot before I turned around to show it off to the stagehands. The bull whistled in admiration. The husky parroted him, and the mule sat back with his arms crossed, a look on his face that refused to be impressed.
"Thick as a gourd and just as long as he needs to be," the bull admired.
"That's about what ya need to get off," the husky understated.
"Show us the ass," the donkey demanded. I turned and lifted my striped tail, and leaned over for them. "Yeah, I can use him," he graded me. He stood up, straddled me as I bent over, and mashed his bulging package against my cheeks. The texture of the jeans teased me just as much as the promising prick, and a moan escaped my mouth. "Ah, you know you're gonna love this cock, don't you bitch?"
"Glen, goddamn man, you're gonna make him go limp talking to him like that."
"No, no," he disagreed. My squirming and low moans set the mule's argument well: "The little slut likes it. See?" He turned me around, keeping me bent over in front of him, but now wrapping an arm around my chest to pull me close to him. "His dick's twitching like a radio antenna." I could see the bull's wide smile as he watched my cock drip. It really was twitching, goddamn. The mule spun me around, helped me to my knees, and unceremoniously unbuttoned his jeans. He let his long, fat cock hang out like medal, and I let it come to rest on my outstretched tongue. I sat still and let him slip his stiffening member over my tongue, each time becoming a little more difficult to slide it down the back of my throat. I started bobbing my head for him when he was nice and stiff, and by then the other two had stood up to join him. Their pants shed as well, I felt a hefty dick slapped against the cleft of my ass, grinding underneath my tail just to smooth themselves into an easy rut. From where I was kneeling on all fours, I could only strain my eyes to look up at all of the mule's chest, still chiseled with youthful definition, the kind of hard lines you can't quite sustain once you start working more than you play. His heavy balls slapped against my chin with most every thrust, and when he'd grab me by the top of the head and hold his dick long enough to make me gag, he'd say "Love it so much you can't handle it all, huh Bitch?"
A burly paw yanked at the base of my tail and a meaty tongue lapped between my cheeks. It felt like the husky's snout, and I knew it had to be when the bull straddled my back and grabbed my firm cheeks in his hands to pry them apart so the eager canine could press his tongue deep into my hole. The dog slurped my ass with an eager, even frenetic sense of lust. Long moans were choked off in my throat. I'd certainly had men dive into my ass with insatiable hunger before - but not with such a powerful lust I was actually proud to be its muse. He plunged his tongue into my hole, groaning with satisfaction.
"Look at you eat that ass, stud!" the bull teased, kneading my ass with his thick fingers.
"He's eating that slut's ass like its a roadside buffet," the mule corrected him.
"He's slurping this panda's hole like it's an oasis in the desert," the bull intoned. He spoke more directly to the husky: "You're making the poor thing moan. Just listen to him." His whip like tail batted against the back of my head. I was moaning pretty loud - what wasn't stuffed back into my throat, at least. "Ha ha, he really loves it."
The bull grabbed me by the back of the head and pulled me off the mule's dick. A startled whine burst forward like a hose under pressure. In the moment I was off the mule's dick I remember very distinctly thinking that I might not get that mule's cock on my tongue again, that he might be pushed to the side for another to take his turn, and I hadn't even yet tasted his pre. But when I found myself shoved back onto his dick, his musky juice bloomed on my tongue like a smoke ring.
The husky rubbed his cock between my cheeks. I was slick with his spit, and he had given himself a quick, convenient lube job, something to get the job done without it being too rough. With the bull spreading my meaty cheeks for him, he stuffed his fat head into my ass and his dick slid right in. My eyes opened like storm shutters and a startled cry broke through my lips. I felt a rush from my gut to my head like feeling myself pried open and sunk into like a hand sliding into a well-worn leather glove. He sunk his rod to the balls and let out an understated "oof" as he rested his hips on my ass. The husky comfortably inside me, the bull let one hand wander underneath my body to stroke my cock. "Oh, the bitch loves that," the bill teased, finally getting comfortable with the word. I really did like it, I knew for sure when the bull finally said it. He said it again, that gravelly voice filling the word with such rugged certainly that my dick pulsed in his hand.
I don't know how they all squeezed around me. They seemed especially dangerous packed together like smokestacks fighting for space in a factory skyline. The husky pistoned me with an industrial determination, maintaining a pace just fast enough to always make me work for his dick. The bull drove them both like a shop foreman. They took cues from his intimations, and if he felt they were letting up on me, it became a matter of pride for the mule and the husky to redouble their efforts. The plastered-on grin of satisfaction framed by my red face didn't leave anything to mystery or interpretation. I moaned and gasped and sighed at their command, my dick pulsed with their brute manipulations. My cock leaked fat gobs of pre on the bull's fingers, which he would gruffly shove into my mouth. I tasted sticky sweet, like my prick dripped syrup, and the regular spitting of my ass and mouth made my dick gush it like slick gold.
"I think I'm gonna pop," the mule announced. He held my head down on his crotch as he said it, daring me to make his proclamation a reality.
"Not in his mouth, Stud," the bull said derisively. He yanked my head away from the mule's prick, my lips only a space away from the glistening head. "Quit mushing," he ordered the husky, "and let this stud bury his seed where the bitch deserves it." The husky stole a few more indulgent thrusts before pulling out and letting the mule slide up behind me, his dick wet with my spit. He wasted no time prying my ass open and hilting me, plowing past where the husky had managed. My body shook and I gasped with shrill excitement, the surprising rush making my heart pound inside my chest. And he did it again. He bent over in front of the other two - they sat patiently, teasing themselves and idly comparing sizes as I knelt on all fours, my striped tail draped along my back. The brawny limbs wrapped around me and nailed me to my spot on the stage while the powerful dick drilled me, the mule finishing his duty with a sustained, wearily satisfied groan through gritted teeth as he exploded into me. My dick pulsed when I could tell he was blowing his load, the sensitivity increasing with the unmistakable tensing of muscles. And when he pulled out and slapped his dick against my ass just to clean himself off and say goodbye, the husky took his spot up immediately, recommitting his comforting dick to my ass as the bull took his place at my nose.
It was all just that cordial.
What was I supposed to do, wait? I grabbed the bull's pendulum cock at its base and stuffed it in my mouth. I could taste him as soon as the head of his cock rested on my tongue. He was on every tastebud, the surprisingly sweet juice sinking into them like rain on a parched lawn. A slight groan rose in my throat with every thrust the husky gave me, but I kept myself steadied and calm wrapped around the bull's thighs, thick and secure as a tree stump in a hurricane. "It's a great thing to work with dancers, ain't it boys?" he proclaimed, putting his hand under my chin as he slowly rocked his hips against my snout, gaining confidence in my ability to have my mouth fucked. The other guys agreed with him enough, and he went on, "Every one of 'em loves cock. That's how they get the jobs. They're always somebody else's crop. But it's great when some of the neighbor's fruit falls in your yard, right?" He caught my eyes for a moment then, I guess in case my preoccupation had blunted the force of any of the words. I was in their yard, he meant. And I really was. Off on the wings, the floors weren't as well swept. My knees scratched on the floor and my hands came up with dust. It wasn't the waxed, glistening surface I danced on. I was on the ground where their leather boots had criss-crossed in the dirt to raise and lower the curtains where I lift my legs always higher for the audiences.
The cocks spitroasting me seemed to spread casually into their space. The husky plowed my cheeks with dutiful patience, his fat dick having plied for itself a snug but comfortable fit, even if it had been made a little less so by the mule's brutish tool. The bull's bulky cock slipped down the back of my throat with a patience born from confidence. And all the while my own stout cock twitched and dripped. It couldn't have gone along more smoothly. There couldn't have been less hassle, less resistance. The mule was already cleaning himself off with a rag, tossing remarks like asking the husky to make sure none of his "love spunk" leaked out of me. That was what he called it, really. His love spunk. The husky growled a dispassionate "sure" and sunk his fingers into the side of my stomach. I had expected to be washed over in excitement like an ocean wave, that it would all be reduced to sensation of chaotic impulses. Something mysterious and overpowering and primal. But I just ended up straining my eyes to look up at the bull's broad chest while he fucked my mouth. He pulled it out and patted it against the bridge of my nose, a grin widening across his face. It felt as real and firm and determined as anything.
Their musks filled my nostrils. Even when their scents flooded my nose after every deep breath I could tell them apart, almost as if I felt confusing the two might offend them. And aside from the bodies with a thin film of sweat from the day's work, the curious sappy scent of rosin on their paws tickled my nose. It was sweeter than any perfume. The scented powder had soaked into their hands after hours of tugging ropes. It was like the blossoming of a bouquet of roses in a pile of jocks when the bull grabbed my snout and the back of my head and held my chin against his balls as he pumped into my throat. His labored groans were almost celebratory as he bucked his hips against my face, his dick deep in my throat, the taste of his spunk only creeping up from the very back of my tongue like a weighty shadow. He snorted, pressing his taut stomach against my nose, his fingertips digging into my skin. And when his heavy balls had drained he pulled himself out as if by routine and stuffed his still-sticky cock into his tight jeans.
He sauntered over to where the mule sat still idly fondling himself, watching the husky churn through his motions, each thrust of his hips labored but reliably powerful, like a steamroller. He grabbed me by the fur of my back and posed me so that the bull, standing with a beer and a hand in his pockets, could watch the insistent cock spear beneath the stump of my ringed tail.
"You getting yourself comfortable?" the bull asked. The husky didn't respond, and maybe they couldn't hear it, but the uneven pace of his breath gave away his broken concentration.
"You can't pop, can you?" the mule teased, and that's what it felt like to me. The husky plowed me with rigid determination, his grip getting incessantly tighter on my hips before he could pause, pull or push me this or that way, and finding some other tender spot of my body to clutch. "He can't cum!" the mule shouted.
"C'mon Dan you know the bitch wants it." The bull mused, the oiled baritone giving the statement enough weight to send a pulse through my prick. The husky responded too, considering the way his pace picked up a beat.
"Tell the man you want him to cum, bitch," the bull ordered. A couple groans were all I offered. I was digging my nails into the stage floor to keep myself from busting my balls and falling like a sack of cumrags for the husky to rut senseless. I had to at least keep my composure. But I couldn't say it. "C'mon, bitch," and it didn't sound the least bit mean or even slightly cross when he said it, "Tell the stud plowing your ass you gotta have his load in you."
"I gotta have it, I gotta have it," I blurted out, the ecstasy of saying it granting me a moment of clarity. I composed myself, though the husky was already gaining his stride. I wasn't feeling articulate. I would have said I had to feel him sink his teeth into my shoulder and I'd know I'd satisfied him. But I said "Give it to me, goddamn, bury it deep," and slapped a stupid grin across my face as the husky's triumphant grunts and twitching muscles promised my reward. The husky rocked his hips forward against me, unable to go any deeper, really, but enough to get a general idea across. He blew his load inside me, and the bull and mule simply sipped their beers and watched, saying "Attaboy," when the husky slumped over exhausted onto my back.
He only stayed there enough to drain his head, and with a huff he pulled himself off the ground. I stayed there. I didn't think sitting up would have been any more comfortable. Wouldn't have looked less ridiculous. I felt drunk, or fatigued like after a long day of work. I stirred when the husky got his drink. I sat up, my fat cock now soft but showing evidence of its sprung leak. It didn't take them long to dress. And when they left out the backdoor, I dressed too. Alone in the theatre, finally, I collected the crumpled bills from the stage floor floor and exited under the marquee.