Acting Up

“So you want me to kiss him for your general entertainment?” I asked, sitting on my shaking hands.

My heart was thumping in my chest, did Vanessa have any idea how much I actually wanted this?

“As an actor, you’ll probably end up kissing plenty of guys for parts, so you might as well get used to it.”

Susan and her boyfriend Caspian stifled a laugh, whilst Paul just looked at me with an amused grin. He was most probably straight but clearly comfortable enough with himself to not consider this a big deal.

The same could not be said for me, however. I’d fantasized about a moment like this for forever. To make matters worse, Paul had been the centre of my fantasies for the past few weeks.

My palms were sweaty and my cheeks were burning. Had the others noticed? Had Paul? Would it be suspicious if I chickened out?

Or even more so, if I didn’t?

I leaned forward and carefully kissed Paul’s lips. I was about to pull away when the small crowd cheered.

“C’mon, give ’em a proper snog,” Caspian said, in a horrible attempt at a British accent.

That’s when Paul gently cupped my face with both hands and teased my lips apart with his tongue. Soon I was lost in his scent, the softness of his hands, and the oxytocin flooding my brain.

Our onlookers shouted encouragement but I could hardly hear them. Without realizing, I’d grabbed Paul’s hair in an attempt to stop him from pulling away.

When he finally let go, he looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Did he know? Was he going to freak? Fuck, was he going to tell the others?

He surprised me by saying, “If this was an audition, I’d definitely give you the part.”

I considered myself considerably lucky, where I grew up was a haven.

For starters, the church my parents took me to on Sundays was very open-minded. When one of our members came out as transgender, our entire community showed up for Pride to show support.

Our school was a relatively safe space and my parents made a point of never using any kind of discriminatory language around me and my three brothers.

Yet, every time I considered telling anyone that I might not exactly be straight, I stopped myself at the last moment.

What if it wasn’t true? What if I was only curious?

What would happen if I ended up wanting to be with a girl after all? Wouldn’t I have made a lot of drama and difficulty for the people around me for nothing?

I decided that I wouldn’t commit until I was more sure. That’s how I ended up graduating high school with my “innocence” completely intact.

My parents saw a future for me that they hadn’t dared imagine for themselves, but the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life was become an actor.

At school I was known as the kid who could quote whole scenes from movies and TV shows and in the privacy of my room, I’d practice Shakespeare.

My love for acting was no secret but when it came to telling my parents that I wanted to pursue it professionally, I simply couldn’t.

Luckily, my brothers staged an intervention. Before I knew what the fuck was happening, I was starting my first term at The New York Acting Academy.

I was finally in a place where I felt I belonged, I even found a best friend in a matter of days. Vanessa and I bonded over our mutual love for indie sci-fi and smores.

Everything was easy, until Paul showed up a week after school had already started.

I couldn’t get the kiss out of my mind and everytime I looked at Paul, I felt... guilty.

He’d started behaving differently around me. Not a bad kind of different, just not like it was before.

I had a deep, gnawing feeling that he knew. I was convinced that he’d figured out that what was supposed to be a silly game, for me meant so much more.

Yet he said nothing.

Not to our classmates and most definitely not to me. It was driving me crazy that I didn’t know what he was thinking. I hated that I considered his opinion of me so important.

At least he wasn’t spreading rumors and I decided that he must be a decent guy. Someone else could easily have made this very difficult, maybe even intolerable.

Could we still be just friends?

One rainy afternoon, Paul and I were paired off to do an improvisation exercise. He took me to a far corner of the room and said, “We need to talk.”

“Ok,” I breathed.

“I’ve been thinking about how to approach this, but I guess I’ll just say it.”

Crap!

“Did we make you do something against your will the other night?” he asked.

“What?! No, ofcourse not.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Ok, good. Because all this time, I’ve been worried that it might’ve been your first time.”

“It was,” I said without thinking.

“Holy fuck! I stole your first kiss?!” Paul said in shocked panic.

I couldn’t bear for him to think that he’d done anything wrong, so I blurted out, “It’s OK... I wanted to kiss you.”

Fuck! Did I really just say that out loud?!

“Does Vanessa know that you’re...?” he asked calmly.

“No!” I said strongly. “No one knows. I’m not even quite sure... I mean...”

“Listen,” Paul said. “You don’t owe anyone an explanation until you figure things out. Even then its none of their business.”

“How are you so cool about this?” I asked, honestly curious.

Paul didn’t have a chance to answer, as Mr. Keane asked us to present our piece.