The Final Act by Bonnie Dee

room and brood, but her roommate was there. Cara Patrick was a chorus member and understudy for both Elena and Trinka’s roles. She sat on her bed, painting her toenails. Heavy metal screamed from the stereo, filling the room with pounding, raucous noise.
    “Hey, buy anything fun? Any clothes I can borrow?”
    “Not unless you want to share my underwear and socks.” Elena tossed her bags on her bed, sank down on a chair, kicked off her shoes and rubbed her feet. The loud music thudded in her head, making her tension headache worse.
    She retreated into the only sanctuary available, the bathroom. The shower’s hot, stinging spray relaxed her muscles, but her mind was still in overdrive, contemplating Michael kissing the Sorenson woman. She’d told Gretchen it didn’t bother her, but of course it did. Elena tried to imagine some way she could have misinterpreted the situation, but the kissing was pretty self-explanatory.
    She squeezed her eyes shut and lathered her hair. Doesn’t matter. None of your business. After rinsing her hair, she soaped her body and drifted into her recurring fantasy in which the bedroom scene in the play extended after the blackout. Michael continued kissing her, moving his mouth from her lips, to her throat, and then her breasts. His hand slipped between her legs and stroked her pussy.
    Elena’s soapy hand followed the suggestion of her imagination, rubbing her clit in slow circles. She braced a hand against the wall of the shower, letting the water course over her, closed her eyes tight and concentrated on her daydream.
    Michael kissed down her stomach to her crotch. His fingers brushed aside her curls and his breath puffed against her as his tongue dipped delicately in between her fold to taste her. Wet and hot, it lapped the length of her sex before focusing on her clit. He licked the erect bud until she trembled on the verge of orgasm.
    Dream Elena gasped and rose to his touch while real Elena moaned and thrust against her hand. Tension built inside her, as she reached the best part of the daydream. From between her thighs, Michael looked up at her with those laser-blue eyes. Without his saying a word, she knew he was as infatuated with her as she was with him. There was no soft murmuring of her name, definitely no declaration of love, but she felt his passion was as deep and intense as her own.
    The steaming water pummeled her back and her finger circled faster. The need for release rose inside her and abruptly burst, like an over-inflated balloon. Her hips jerked as she came. It was over too quickly, and was ultimately unsatisfying. Her pussy still ached to be filled, and she still craved the real thing instead of her own manipulation.
    She lifted her face to the running water. This fantasizing about Michael had to end. She should go out and get laid. Next time Trinka begged her to go club hopping and man hunting with her, she’d take her up on the offer.
    The rest of the afternoon before show time, Elena did laundry and wrote a letter to her mom. Putting words on paper avoided the misunderstandings that cropped up when they spoke to one another, when each woman read meanings into everything the other tried to express. She sat in the warm, sweet-scented laundry room listening to her clothes tumbling in the dryer and writing about how the production was going. She told about the Chicago museums, parks and shows she’d seen in her spare time and thanked her mom for coming to see her perform.
    As she addressed the envelope, she thought of Michael with no relatives or friends there for him on opening weekend. She wondered what had happened between him and his family. Then she got distracted by the image of him kissing the Sorenson woman and another stab of jealousy shot through her. Elena crossed a T in her letter with an emphatic slash. Damn it! She had to stop dwelling on the man.
    In the hallway on the way back to her room, she met Denny, who looked one hundred percent happier since