Free Virtually Mine: a love story by Susan Rohrer Page B

just as Dustin and
Wissy took the stage, scripts in hand. They waited for Antonio’s cue to start.
    Dustin shuffled his feet. He looked up at
Wissy with a chagrined expression. “I’m sorry,” he read. “I don’t mean to... I
know that thing that happened between us yesterday, it was unprofessional.”
    Wissy stepped toward Dustin coyly,
playing against the written words. “What were we thinking? We just won’t let it
happen again. That’s all.”
    Dustin took a step closer. “We should
draw boundaries.”
    “And stick to them.”
    Dustin brushed a tendril away from
Wissy’s cheek. “Absolutely.”
    Ever the coquette, Wissy gazed longingly
into Dustin’s eyes. “Because, we don’t want to let this interfere with our
working relationship.”
    “There’s that,” Dustin replied,
millimeters away from her.
    Kate squirmed in her seat at the back of
the theater. The innocence of her own portrayal of this character was far from
Wissy’s take on it. It was one thing for Kate to contemplate what was going on
between Dustin and Wissy outside of class, but it was quite another to see it
play out right in front of her, sparking like the fourth of July.
    Their kiss started softly, and then grew
in its intensity. Kate wanted desperately to avert her attention, but somehow,
she couldn’t help but watch. With each bewildering moment, the knife sunk
deeper into her heart.
    Mercifully, Antonio cleared his throat to
curtail the scene, but Dustin and Wissy continued to kiss, lost in the moment.
    Hot tears brimmed in Kate’s eyes.
Finally, she tore her gaze away, unable to watch any longer.
    “Well, then,” Antonio interrupted. “Very
good.” Antonio turned to the class. “Who can tell me why that scene worked?”
    ♥   
♥    ♥
    “It’s the chemistry. Plain and simple,” Samantha intoned as she handed another
day’s pay to Eric. “You’ve got it with the lens, they imagine it’s with
them—three hundred fifty-eight of them by last count—all across this nation. I
have a proposition for you, Eric.”
    Eric marveled as he spotted his sizable
take, especially since he’d only agreed to this job to fill in the financial
blanks between acting gigs. “I’m listening.”
    “Our license with you is domestic, but my
instinct is that you could have global potential.”
    “As in around the world? That globe?”
    Samantha sashayed past her desk toward
Eric. “I thought it might be interesting to discuss it over dinner. Say eight
o’clock. My place.”
    Immediately, Eric’s radar went up.
Everything in him told him this didn’t seem to be an entirely business-oriented
proposition. “Your place. That might be—”
    Sam moved closer, toying with him. “Are
you as bored with take-out as I am, Eric?   I’ll cook.”
    Eric swallowed hard, his mind racing.
    Samantha held his gaze, her meaning
plain.
    Eric cleared his throat, stalling for a
way to redirect. “Well, no, actually I...I think I’d rather just keep my
position with you...domestic, I guess.”
    Smoothly, Samantha retreated a bit,
completely unruffled. A shrewd expression arched across her brow. “Darling, do
you know how many there are of you, how many beautiful faces with
underdeveloped talent and sub-par personalities populate L.A.?”
    Eric raised his hands apologetically.
“Hey, I’m not looking to rankle anybody. I just need this job.”
    “And you only have it because you are an
unknown,” Sam reminded. “The minute you become known, you’re useless to me. Did
you realize that?”
    “No, I—”
    Samantha waltzed away. “Yes, that’s
precisely my on-going challenge, to find stupendously good-looking Imaginaries
who will never succeed in compromising their value to me by making a legitimate
name for themselves.”
    His ego bruised, Eric’s eyes flashed.
“Hey, I was into three callbacks on an infomercial last week.”
    Sam sat. “Was it by any chance for male-patterned
hair loss? They must have noticed that you’re