Shakespeare's Brat

A Comedy of Errors-2

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been known to have alternative means of keeping my cast members in line, specifically my female cast members.”

“Certainly you’re not talking about…”

“About s*x? No.”

“Oh.” She looked bewildered not knowing what he meant.

“Before I fire a cast member, if I’m particularly pissed off at them, but I think they might still have a place in my play, I often spank their naked touches to get my message across.”

“Spank?” She looked at him dumbfounded.

“Yes, very hard, with a belt or paddle or my bare hand.” He waved his palm in front of her, with a slightly threatening gesture.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Tempest replied.

“You wouldn’t want to try me,” he said, with a smile. “Now get out of here, be at rehearsal promptly. And if you ever want to act in any theatre in this town, you’ll behave yourself as a professional, not the b***h you’ve been with me.”

Tempest nodded, rose from the chair and exited the room, trying to decide if she had won anything or not. She had a part in the play, she guessed. Perhaps that’s all the triumph she could expect.

With Tempest gone, Lilith returned to the dressing room to continue where she and Orlando had left off.

“She’s quite a b***h,” Lilith said, when they were safely alone again.

“Oh, I told her I’d spank her if she gets this way again,” Orlando said with a laugh. “Should have scared her enough to get her cooperation. I thought it was just a good joke.”

“Do you have to keep her at all?” Lilith asked. “I mean, isn’t she just going to be trouble. She’s already antagonized just about everybody with that arrogant glare of hers.

“She’s a damned good actress,” Orlando said remembering the brilliant audition she’d had. “Better than you are my dear,” he informed the lusty woman. “But, not likely better in bed.”

“You really are horrible, Orlando,” Lilith purred, though she was taken in his arms, and happily letting him pull away her massive costume one more time.

Summarily dismissed, Tempest remained outside Orlando’s dressing room door, considering the man who’d just challenged her. It was rare to find anyone, least of all a man, who would confront her, and she rather liked it, in a bizarre sort of way. Orlando would be quite a catch, she thought to herself; though that business of spanking was clearly absurd. Yes, the director may have taken “round one” of their contest; but it was hardly over. In addition to priding herself on being a great actress, she knew she was a devastating femme fatale, who could easily woo men into submission. She knew she’d have no trouble with Orlando Shakespeare, once she got under his skin. And she was all the more enticed by that nasty bulge under his tights. Winning this man over would be a pleasure.

Sometime later . . . .

“I’m late, how’s it going?” Orlando asked, running down the side aisle of the theatre, practically out of breath.

“Rocky, if you ask me. Little princess Tempest up there wants to do the scene her own way,” his assistant director Grey informed him.

“And how’s that?”

“Exactly the opposite of what you wanted.”

“I see. Why don’t you run it for me,” Orlando suggested.

“On your marks again,” Gray shouted to the cast.

The two watched the scene unfold.

“See what I mean?” Gray whispered.

“Yeah. Little interpretive genius,” Orlando commented. He admired her spunk, even if it was misplaced.

“But you didn’t want it that way,” Gray reminded him.

“No. That interpretation would work for Kate, but not for Bianca.”

“Gee, I wonder why?” Gray said sarcastically. “You’d better explain it to her. She’s pretty well pissed off the entire cast, and I know she’s pissed me off. I’d fire her.”

“You just have to know how to handle her,” Orlando said, with a pleasant smirk. “Tempest,” Orlando called out, getting the brunette’s attention. “You remember how I asked you to rehearse this scene?”

“Yes, but it works better this way,” she retorted immediately.

“Well, it’s very nice acting, but it’s not what I want, so you do it my way. Run it again from the opening.”

Orlando stepped back and let his assistant direct the scene.

“She didn’t change a damn thing,” Gray said exasperated when the run through was over.

Orlando didn’t say a word this time, but raced up to the stage apron, and jumped up with ease. He motioned Tempest aside.

“You seem to have forgotten, my dear, there is one director here. That is me. Gray just follows my instructions. You play the scene my way, or I’ll find someone else.” He was pleasant but very sincere in his gentle admonishment. It wasn’t like Orlando to scream until he was really pissed off. Then holy hell broke loose, and there was no one who wanted to be within ten miles of the man. Now, he was as calm as a sleeping puppy, but very pointed.

Not knowing Orlando’s disposition, Tempest offered yet another objection. “You’re making a mistake,” she said. “I know this character, I know how to play Bianca. You’re getting in the way of my performance.” She had a way of screwing up her face when she was excited, her cheeks were blushing and her eyes began to flash. There were muffled “Ooos” and “Ahhhs” throughout the listening cast members. It was almost predictable the outcome of this battle, they could have cast lots on the how long it would take before Orlando took the actress backstage.

“If there is a mistake, Miss Tempest,” Orlando explained patiently, “then you can let it be my mistake, not yours. I trust you’re actress enough to change your style to accommodate me?” He was painfully patronizing.

“Certainly,” Tempest answered, as if the director was besmirching her competence as an actor.

“Then show me,” he said. His eyes for just an instant flared with a spark of anger.

His “Bianca” was taken aback, but she was into character again before she could truly understand the meaning behind this brief conference with Orlando. Unfortunately, her lack of appreciation for Orlando’s sincerity would be a disastrous error in judgment.

Orlando watched the scene from the wings, the luscious bosomy Tempest hardly changing an inflection in her crisp clear voice. She moved just the slightest bit differently, but it was the same Bianca that came through - Tempest’s Bianca, not Orlando’s. She was one stubborn hellion.

“Tempest,” Orlando called sharply from his position, moving forward to where she stood.

“How was that?” she asked, thinking her changes appropriate.

“Dreadful,” Orlando answered. He assumed a cool calculating posture and stared the actress down. The tension filled moment seemed so brimming with possibilities. It was explosive, though Orlando took great pains to contain his emotion. “Do you know what I did to Lilith the night you so rudely interrupted us in my dressing room?” the director finally asked her.

“No, I don’t know that. I wasn’t paying attention,” she replied.

“Well let me show you.” He briskly took the woman by the hand, and leading her to a convenient chair at center stage, he sat down, pulled her over his waiting knees, and began to spank her bottom, that was looking very luscious in its next to nothing pair of stretchy lycra shorts.

“What the hell are you doing!” Tempest roared the instant the first smack landed. She kicked and screamed for all she was worth.

The cast surrounding them watched delighted by the sight of Miss Prima Donna getting her due. Several applauded the action, and offered jeering whistles of approval.

“Stop it now, you f*****g asshole!” Tempest shouted. Her legs were all over the place, while her hands tried desperately to cover her smarting bottom.

Orlando, oblivious to the raging woman, continued his fiery blast, laying one blow after another on Tempest’s wiggling bottom. The smacks were hard and jolting, and went right through her garment. If one were to peak underneath, it would surely be blushing with a fine red hue. When her hands went up to cover her behind, he grabbed them with his large left hand and pinned them against her back.

“Stop this now!” she stormed, and stormed again, but it was to no avail.

“Do you want to do the scene my way?” the director finally asked her.

“Get your bloody hands off of me!” she answered.

“Do you want to do the scene my way?” Orlando repeated, his voice rising, as did the fury of his smacks.

“Stop this now!” she wailed again.

“I want an answer.” He accompanied the demand with several more fierce smacks.

“I won’t,” she vowed.

“Then I won’t stop.” He started in again, zealously spanking the wiggling bottom with great gusto. The steady staccato rhythm looked so fierce, the watching cast stood there in awe of it. Though they’d often heard about Orlando’s infamous spankings, few had had the opportunity to view one first hand.

“Stop!” Tempest was crying, still flailing her legs, though some of the spark that began the foray was beginning to diminish. Either she was too exhausted, or she realized that she was not going to win this battle. It would only get more painful.

“You do the scene my way?” Orlando repeated his initial query.

“Yes, yes, I will,” she wailed at last. “Just stop. Please!”

And true to his word, Orlando slowed the spanking, then stopped altogether.

Before the director could prevent her from doing otherwise, Tempest bolted from his lap, and then from the stage. The humiliated crying actress disappeared behind the curtain. It was clear, there would be little more accomplished, at least until she had recuperated.

“Start with Act III, any scene she’s not in,” Orlando ordered. “And don’t get sloppy just because I’m gone,” he said, charging off. He needed to recuperate himself; it had been a long time since he’d had such an unwilling woman over his lap. He didn’t know whether to feel depleted or inspired.

Retreating to his dressing room, Orlando poured himself a glass of wine and ran a cool wet cloth over his sweaty face. It was all an act, all this magnificent drama, not just the play, but life itself. Ah, how could she not see it? What was the woman trying to accomplish being such brash little brat? “My god, she’s the kind I’d like to fall in love with,” he said aloud. “If I could stand her. If she could stand me.” He chuckled to himself, and downed a gulp of wine. “I suppose I’d better find her, or see if I have to replace her,” he thought to himself.

Leaving his dressing room, Orlando listened for the sounds of his actors rehearsing the play. He wondered where the well punished actress could have gone; and he turned toward the ladies dressing room, an obvious place to start his search. Before he got there however, he practically ran into the object of his search, both of them jolting back at the sight of the other.

“I’ll be going,” Tempest announced, when she’d gathered his wits.

“Going where?” Orlando asked.

“You don’t want me in your play, I have other places I can be.”

“Oh, but I do want you in my play, I wouldn’t go to such lengths if didn’t want to keep you.”

“You certainly have a strange way of showing it.”

“You don’t find getting your bottom paddled, affectionate?” he asked. He replaced his anger with a teasing good humor. “You should find out what it’s like bare-bottomed.”

“You’re fooling with me, and I don’t like it,” she said indignantly.

“And I don’t like actresses who act like bitches,” he said. “You get back to the stage, apologize to the cast, and get on with the play.”

“I can’t do that!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, yes you can, and you will. You’re too good an actress, and too proud a woman to go down so ungraciously. Remember, you’ll have to work with these people at one time or another in your career, as long as you work in this town. You might as well mend the fences now.”

He’d gotten to her. Pride. Professionalism. Career. Just plain stubbornness would not keep her away. She hated the humiliation, but the humiliation would be worse if she left, and that made her angrier still.

She bit her lip, and gave the director a foul looking glare for a woman so innately beautiful. “I’ll make amends as long as you don’t spank me again,” she said.

“I won’t promise that,” he advised.

She was hoping he’d give just a little, but it was clear he had the upper hand.

“Okay,” she said. “But never again, you understand, never again.”

“Never is a very strong word, Tempest. Don’t let yourself get caught in its trap.”

He watched the chagrined and confused young beauty sashay her way back to the stage. And thinking it better to leave her alone in her moment of embarrassment, he returned to his dressing room to bask in the triumph.

The embarrassment was far worse than the pain of her spanking; but Tempest managed to get through it with an uncharacteristic self depreciating laugh that the cast accepted in good humor.

What was most remarkable about the incident over Orlando’s lap was the force, the delicious power of man that spanked her; and the most provocative yearning that this act had initiated in her loins. Thinking about the episode later, she blushed to herself, knowing that despite what she’d told him, she really couldn’t wait for another journey across his knee, just to see what lovely things would follow. Maybe this escapade wasn’t a waste after all..