Broken Strings

I want to be an actress. I have the face, the body, and now I have the attitude.

The face and body I received from my parents, two wonderful, liberated, Americanized Swedes.

The attitude I received from one Professor Francois Fantoche.

Msr. Fantoche teaches the arts thespian in a small, decrepit looking structure just a few blocks from Broadway; it truly is 'off Broadway.'

Msr. Fantoche is a wiry Frenchman with a thirties pencil mustache and the blackest eyes I have ever seen. They are pure pupil, and when he looks at someone they feel the look all the way down to their soul.

I had heard of Msr. Fantoche from a friend of mine, a rather mediocre actress who I hadn't seen for some time, but who brushed into an audition and mopped the floor with the other aspiring actresses, myself included.

Her face was attractive, but spoonish. Her hair was limp and brown. Her body had small breasts.

But she exuded that day, she filled the audition room with her spirit and put the rest of us to shame. Agog at the craft I had seen, I followed her down the hallway to a restroom.

"Betsy," I said, locking the door behind me. A steam radiator whistled in the corner and she sat with one cheek upon a sink and smoked a cigarette. She glanced at me, then went back to gazing out the window. There was, in her attitude, a certainty, a worldliness, that I had never before seen.

She was, in a word, accomplished.

"What happened?" I asked, stalking across the small black and white tile floor and stopping in front of her.

"Oh, you know." She flicked ash out the window and it drifted away on the wind. Smoke curled out the window and was wafted away. Magnificent. She had intrigued me by dismissing me.

I wouldn't have it. I couldn't have it. I had to know her secret. I grabbed her wrist and felt the raw power under her skin. She tilted her head slightly, her lip quivered slightly, her eyebrow raised in question.

She said, "You were better than me?"

I knew she was questioning all my previous attitudes towards her. I had brushed her off at other auditions. I had not acted nobly.

I lowered my eyes. "You're right. You have no obligation to me."

She studied me then, amusement in her commonplace, brown eyes. She tossed her head to flick her hair back, and it was a marvelous movement, a majectic movement.

I looked dead at her then. "But you must tell me."

For a solid minute we stood in tableau, her casual and mocking, me earnest and desperate, my hand feeling alien upon her wrist.

And she said the word: "Fantoche."

Interestingly, I had heard the name before. I had heard it at a party, some whispered rumors about a maniac that demanded all, but produced results--if you were really serious.

Fantoche.

I let go her wrist. I mumbled thanks, and sorry for the way I had treated her.

Looking out the window, she flicked her cigarette again, and this time the dismissal took.

I walked out of the bathroom, out of the audition hall, and didn't think twice about leaving before my second call had come.

It would have done me no good to stay--Betsy had already gotten the part.

I walked the streets, oblivious to the appraising looks of admirers.

I had always been beautiful, I was used to the looks, now I wanted more. I wanted what Betsy had: I wanted the muse.

Finding Fantoche was simple enough, I merely called SAG.

While I had them on the phone, I asked of his history.

A drama teacher from a college in France. A few bit parts in movies and TV plays. A short stint on Broadway. And now he operated an acting school.

It wasn't much of a resume.

Still, the way Betsy had reduced me, and the other actresses, told me that his secret wasn't in his resume.

I went to the building that housed his drama school, and was not heartened. The thing was brick with boarded up windows. A bum in an overcoat--his dirty feet sprouted obscenely from filthy, green wool--slept in the doorway. A variety of ancient handbills were plastered on the front. A hand painted sign announced Fantoche's presence in the building.

I gently toed the bum and he shifted position. I knocked on the door.

"Shaddup, ma," the bum droned.

There was no other answer to my knock.

I grabbed the handle of the door and pressed it down, I entered the building.

It was dark inside, and I could feel the creep of rats, hear the whisper of spiders. I walked straight down the ancient carpet. My high heels tapped when I walked over threadbare places, and I stayed to the center of the aisle lest I brush against the cobwebs infesting the corners of the hall.

I entered a theater.

"No!" A small man with slacks and a tee of horizontal stripes--black and white, thank you--stood upon a small stage and browbeat a beautiful woman. "You are a hopeless cow! You will never be an actress!"

The woman, I had seen her at cattle calls, was sobbing indelicately. She wore an evening dress which showed her grand figure--I knew her breasts had to be worth ten thou--and was huddled with her face in her hands.

"Please! Give me a chance! Let me prove myself!" She looked up at him, her make up run with tears.

"I spit on you!" And he did! He spit full in her face.

For a moment I almost turned and walked out. I could never put up with such abuse. I could never--

But I wanted what Betsy had. I wanted what this man had.

How badly did I want?

Bad enough to at least find out more?

On the stage, the woman put up the back of her wrist and wiped the spittle from her face.

"No." the man's voice was different now, and with a shock I realized that I had been seeing a performance. The play had been so real, however, and I had believed it so totally--yes! This was the man I wanted. This was Fantoche!

Msr. Fantoche reached down and gently, caringly, lifted the woman with a hand under her upper arm. "You must not fight spit. You must love spit. You must love all. You must not resist the wonder of life, you must revel in it. There is no difference between shit and love."

Nodding, her eyes fixed upon his delicate face, the actress murmured, "I will try harder."

She would try harder? She would try to accept spit from this...this existential asshole?

Yet, I still did not move. As their play had transfixed me, so did their common conversation. There was that indefinable aura about Msr. Fantoche that demanded attention.

"Very well, my dear." He walked her to the side of the stage and picked up her purse and make up bag and handed it to her. "Have a good day."

They pressed cheeks and the woman descended from a stair at the side of the stage and walked towards me.

"Who is it?" Msr. Fantoche demanded of the darkness, looking in my direction.

He had been thoroughly engrossed in his method, yet he had been aware of me. A little nervous, a little afraid, a little brazen, I stepped forward.

He arched his thin eyebrow and smoothed a mustache with a pinkie. "Who recommends you?"

Recommends? Uh oh. I could fake it. I could push it, but somehow I thought--even though I was miles from his dark look, I sensed he could see into me--he would know.

"No one," I answered. "I did get your name from Betsy Fennum, however."

I stopped at the lip of the stage. He came forward and hunkered down and stared at me.

I have been stared at by the best of them, but this man, as I have said, knew my soul. His eyes entered mine, brushed aside my contrivances and false illuminations, and settled upon the one facet of my soul.

"So, you wish to be an actress."

I was silent. In truth, there was a warmth beginning in my vagina. In truth, I could not speak for the nearness of him.

How could such a slight man impose such a feeling upon those about him?

"Very well," he had a very, very slight French accent, "Come up to my domain. We shall examine you." He said it like a doctor telling me to put my feet in the stirrups.

For a moment I warred with my instincts. For a moment I told myself to turn and leave. I lost.

I mounted the steps at the side of the stage and walked towards Msr. Fantoche.

He had placed two chairs in the center of the stage, and he sat in one and watched my entrance with an utter and absolute lack of emotion.

I sat.

He said, "You are a cow tit. You swing those udders like they mean something, and your soul is empty."

I felt my heart stiffen. I began to blink rapidly. Air became a luxury, and I felt like a spider just before the needle fixes it to the board.

"Furthermore, I do not think you can be an actress. You have not the spirit for it. You are just a paper plate in the banquet of life."

Against all reason, impelled onward only by my intuition that this man held secrets that would unlock the acting universe for me, I said, "I can learn."

How had I, the terror of the audition hall, been reduced to servitude? What had he done to me?

The secret was in his eyes.

"You have not the spirit," he repeated. He leaned forward and took my clammy hands in his warm ones. "My methods are harsh. I will spit on you, I will use you. I will slap you and kick you and relieve myself upon you. In the end you will be reduced to a cinder of yourself, and then...then perhaps you can learn. And perhaps not."

I was silent.

"Leave here now. Do yourself this favor and go. Return to your senses and never see me again."

I didn't move.

He sighed. "Very well. Suck my cock. And act like you enjoy it."

I am not naive, but I am not casting couch material, either. Still, this man had what I wanted.

I got down on my knees, unzipped his pants, and extracted a flaccid, rather common member.

I flapped it back and forth, kissed it, and--

"No! It is not a cock! It is your heart! Kiss your heart! Make love to your heart! Forget acting and get into it!"

I tried again.

"No! Slurp it like a lollipop! Immerse it with your spit and caress it with your throat!"

I tried again.

"No! It is not diseased! It is a world of candy and babies and lust!"

I tried again.

"No--"

When I went home, an hour later and two hundred dollars poorer, my jaw was aching.

And he had not come.

No man had ever not come under my ministrations.

But he was not interested in coming. He was interested in making me real.

This was the heart of Fantoche's teaching: the world is not a stage, and people are not actors.

What is real is real anywhere, even on the stage, especially on the stage, and if I could not convince him with his cock in my mouth, I was a pretty poor actress, indeed.

I returned the next day, determined to prove myself.

He slapped me that day, and spit on me, and took my hair in his hand and ground my cheek against his shoe.

Yet, by the end of the day, I understood that a bootblack has feelings, and if I could not touch a bootblack's heart, I was a pretty poor actress, indeed.

And I returned the next day. He had the face of a famous actor painted upon his fanny, and I spent the day convincing his ass that I just had to be his leading lady.

And the next day, he shat upon the stage, and I had to emote to the mound of excrement why he should not divorce me.

And the next day, and the next and the next.

I had to cuddle his testicles as if they were warm teddy bears; I had to be a worm trying to crawl out of his asshole; I had to pee in front of him.

A handyman was working on the stage lights, leering down at me.

"No, no. Pee as if you are refreshing the world! The world is thirsty and will die if it does not have your water!"

The handyman dropped a light bulb.

"Why do you allow yourself to be distracted!" He shook his head and lifted me from my squat. He sat me down in a chair.

"My dear, are you sure you do not want to quit?"

I began to cry real tears then. "I have come so far!"

"And you have so far to go," he inspected me soberly, watched the washing of my tears. "Don't you understand? As those tears are real, you must make love to the audience. You must shit upon the audience. You must suckle the cock of the audience and eat it's pussy. Love, hate, it is all the same, and there is only them, out there," he indicated the empty theater with a sweep of his hand. "They are your muse. If you cannot believe in them there is nothing else."

I blinked.

The muse was...the people. The muse was sitting, watching me all the time. And yet the muse was something more. It was the secret behind Fantoche's eyes. It was everything, and it was nothing. The universe was eyes, and they were looking at me. He was looking at me. The handyman was looking at me. The empty chairs were looking at me. It was a moment of epiphany, and I finally understood what Betsy knew...and Fantoche.

I am alone in the universe, and if I could believe that, and live it, then the universe would live for me.

It was insanity, and yet it was perfectly true.

I knew the secret of failed marriages and dead puppies.

I knew the secret of wars and impotent generals.

Mostly, I knew why Msr. Fantoche stared at me the way he did.

He had hated himself out, through the stage, and there was nothing left in him but love. A hopeless, despairing love.

And that was the price I had to pay.

I stopped resisting, and I paid the price.

The next day I convinced Msr. Fantoche. I douched before him, and convinced him that the outgushing was the essence of my life, and that the world should love me for it.

Bizarre? Yes.

No.

I had arrived.

And the next day I convinced him.

I emoted at the handyman so hard he actually forgot where he was and reached a hand down into his pants.

And yet, I was not done. I had one final lesson to learn.

I showed up for my final lesson.

A dozen bums sat in the rows before the stage. I didn't know where Fantoche had gotten them from--probably just ushered them in from the street.

They sat in the old chairs and watched me. Men and women, young and old, crippled and whole, despaired and...despaired.

And it was up to me to transport them.

Msr. Fantoche came up to me behind the curtains. "You have your audience, no?"

I nodded, and I was not timid. I would never be timid again. Life, death, there was no difference, so long as the world watched me.

Msr. Fantoche squatted down and motioned to me to squat with him. With a pencil he drew a bird's eye view of the stage on the floor. "This is you." He made a circle. "This is them." He made X's in rows.

"They watch you, and you feel them watch you."

I nodded.

"Now make them feel you feel them."

He looked up at me, his eyes black and fathomless.

"Everything in the universe is connected, so be a supernova."

I did not have a script this day. I was led to the center of the stage and told to undress. I did so easily, ignoring the smelly, homeless people who were not ignoring me, who were fascinated by my every motion. And it was not just the sex of my body, the unveiling of my meat, that fascianted them; it was the secret of my essence being revealed, it was my soul in every single movement.

Msr. Fantoche waved to the handyman, and thick strings were lowered.

Strings were tied to my wrists and ankles. Strings were connected to my hair in the front and back of my scalp. Strings were connected to my ears.

Strings were connected to my elbows and knees. Strings were glued to my nipples and pubic hairs.

I stood in the middle of the stage and inspected the strings. I was a 'Little Marion,' a marionette. I was an infant, ready to learn to walk. I was a scribble to the hopes and dreams of the audience. All I had to do was decipher the messages they sent me.

Msr. Fantoche, strings in hands, slipped off the front of the stage. He went into the audience and handed the strings out and gave soft cautions as to how they must be gently tugged.

The play began. I felt pressure on a foot, I lifted the foot.

I felt a tug on an ear and tilted my head.

I nodded in time to somebody's tapping foot.

I danced hither and thither, aligned by the strings that ran to the rafters and down to my body, strings that rooted me to the pulls and hopes of the crowd.

Music started somewhere and drifted through the building. I aligned my motion with the music, the music with my motion.

Emotions played across my face, and I became aware that for every body motion, there is a corresponding facial twitch.

The strings brushed against my charged and overly sensitive skin.

The strings lifted me, elevated me, transported me.

The strings transfigured me, made me something more.

The strings brushed my nipples.

I understood then, how to give voice to all my understandings and all my desires.

"I want you!" I yelled.

The audience was spellbound. It knew to whom I was speaking...I was speaking to it.

"I want you to love me!"

Strings twitched slower, I jerkstopped.

I hung in the communications of my love.

"I want you to love me as I love you."

Silence.

"Love me."

Deeper, awed silence.

"Unreservedly."

Hand claps started then. The applause swelled and touched me, little boomings of sound that impacted upon my skin.

I could feel my audience then. I could feel their want and desire. I could feel their sweaty skin, so lovely, and their smelly privates, so incredible.

As they gave to me, I listened, and I gave back.

I emoted back along the strings and touched them, wished them well, wished their lives to be in accord, wished that they could string along with the universe as easily as I.

The handclapping slowed.

A shadow moving in the audience, then Fantoche was behind the bright footlights.

"Come," he said. "Let yourself go, and I will have nothing left to teach you."

Gratefully, I reached down to my pubes. I moved slowly lest I break the strings. I wanted the audience to feel this, to give my strings enough leeway that I might perform this final act for them.

I parted my labias and touched my button. I moaned, and my head went back.

My breasts arched, became twin points of fire for all the world to see.

My breathing deepened and I felt the warmth mount within me.

I licked my full, red lips, rubbed my nub around and around.

The audience held it's breath, waited.

I felt the crescendo building within. I felt the waves climbing one upon the other. I felt the nerve endings of my body carry the waves within, harder, faster, higher...until I was blinded, unable to see, swallowed by the harsh glare of the stage lights, and my sex exploded into a thousand pieces, a millions pieces, and settled into an ocean of infinite warmth.

I sprawled upon the floor, my body glowing with perspiration. My eyeballs had rolled back in their sockets, far back, and there was nothing but white showing. I was but dimly aware of slumping to the floor.

The strings, not tightly tied, fell away.

I was free. I was free to be the greatest actress that ever lived.

And you can see me anytime you want, standing on stage, giving you my love, all of my love, totally and unreservedly.

You are my muse.