A Story Set At A College, Because Remember College?

I sure do. Good times. In this blog entry, I present to you a story that is longer than 250 words. Comments, titles welcome.


***

"I'll leave it up to you."

My eyes searched for Michael's, but his were intimately engaged with the ground.

So I caught Eli's instead. Blue as lapis, sharp as laser. Waiting.

I took a deep breath and spoke.

***

My love for Eli blossomed early fall quarter.

It wasn't an at-first-sight thing. Otherwise I'd have been hopelessly smitten since sophomore year, when we both lived in Merriman Hall and etiquette dictated that we sometimes nod cordially to one another between classes. It was an at-first-conversation. The Merriman Madrigals, our residence hall theater collective, had just kicked off its season with a campus-wide call for student vision. Eli attended a couple early project meetings, led by myself and my co-chair, Michael. An unexpected interloper in the incestuous realm of undergraduate theater, Eli applied for one of three directorial slots -- and floored us at his interview. Even his handshake had vision.

In our interview, he managed to touch on Aristotle and Stoppard and the situation in Kashmir and particle physics. We liked the same novels. We liked the same music. Forget sight: It was his voice (so deep!) and his hands (so large, long-fingered!) and his mind (so smart, so smart, I didn't know boys came in that brand of smart) and also, Everything. I was startled, allured, humbled by Eli's perfection.

I wasn't the type to want frequently. I wasn't the type to want less than perfection. And when I wanted, I wanted hard.

But professionalism and friendliness reigned. It was all rehearsal schedules and theater reservations and lighting-booth keys between Eli and me. Work-related e-mails. No emoticons. Meanwhile, fellow Merry-Mads and I attempted background checks on the enigmatic Eli. Gay? Girlfriend? Mormon? It wasn't easy. He wasn't downright sharey, like Lily the Makeup Maven, nor did he frequent the cast parties and indulge in drink as was the wont of Stagecrew Dave. He was transgressively absent from Facebook.

So I did the natural thing and auditioned for his play. Not a breach of any rules — program chairs have dreams and talents too, after all. Michael joined me at the tryouts. It was clear from the pitch that Eli's show -- an adaptation of a short story set at a prestigious prep school -- would steal the season.

When I got cast, my confidence in Eli's integrity let me indulge in proper glee. Eli was no suck-up. I thrilled inwardly at his recognition of my artistic gifts. And I coordinated a series of rehearsal costumes designed to ensure recognition of my legs.

Oh, the mystic pleasures of those first weeks. How I'd say things like, "Hey, Eli." Then things like, "Should I move a bit more downstage?" And eventually "Fatimeh's definitley serves the best falafel in town," before a joyous graduation to: "Rousseau's insufferably dogmatic, and why is the Romantic period so underrated, given the bloodshed the Enlightenment has to answer for?"

Eli felt similarly about the Enlightenment.

Ah, to crush. To make eye contact, to take blocking notes, to count on balled-up fingers the number of times he laughed at my jokes. (Twelve.)

As a director, Eli proved energetic and organized, and even though Michael and I were there to observe his work in real time, he submitted all his progress reports promptly.

Because he was perfect. It was all perfect.

It didn't last.

The cast had developed a custom (drama kids are quick to develop customs) of grabbing drinks post-practice. Eli always declined, not out of any perceivable arrogance or austerity, but simply an obvious obligation to attend to matters of great weight; rigorous study, novel-writing, monitoring the situation in Kashmir. Or so we all assumed.

Of late, the drinks ritual had taken on an aura of urgency, because the Merry-Mads were heavily involved in a long-running alcohol-assisted Shakespeare Off. This entailed two thespians confronting each other in single combat with an excerpt from The Folios, and all of us taking a shot whenever one of them bungled the words, missed a line or said "ere." This evening a highly anticipated re-match was scheduled between Perennial Ingenue Sara and Minstrel Mark. Much was at stake, including honor, and the bar tab.

They went with A Midsummer Night's Dream, and by "Ere I will yield my virgin patent up," we'd all forgotten that Eli expected us to be off-book at tomorrow's rehearsal.

" 'And the youth... mistakenly...' "

"Mistook by me, coxcomb! Bottoms up everybody!"

"Huzzah!" We cheered.

"Fine..." Mark grumbled, before slurring doggedly on. " 'Mistook by me... Pleading for a luvrufee...' "

"Lover's fee, milksop!"

"That's what I said! 'Shall we their fond pageant see?' "

"Lord what fools these mortals be!" We cried in joyous unison. And though the line was correct, we all knocked back another shot.

That was the last thing most of us would remember about that night, though Sara, who lived two doors down, assured me I held my vomit until I reached my dorm. The next day I joined the majority in abstaining from class. I spent several hours moaning beneath a damp washcloth.

But we dragged ourselves to rehearsal, even poor Mark. Class had professors and online student forums and other such venerable institutions to sustain it; the Merry-Mads was our holy creation and required nourishment. We did not miss rehearsals.

Alas, our dedication knew its limits. Eli strode in, jaunty and hale, eager to see his vision ascend one plane higher, freed from the weight of scripts. My heart slid toward my socks.

Our headaches thanked Eli for skipping warm-up exercises, but diving straight into disaster was hardly a relief. Scene One was Mark and Michael's, and they made their way bravely through the first page and a half. That's when the edifice collapsed. The next scene was ensemble, and with thespianic perversity we stammered and improvised rather than confess our crime, willing to sacrifice a mortifying fifteen minutes to the monomania that the show must go on.

"Stop."

When did four little letters ever convey so much scorn? One syllable, one second. A calm condemnation, rife with contempt.

We stopped.

"Well?"

His face was impassable, a fourth wall. We took one mass slump toward the edge of the stage, where we drooped in shared dejection.

"Rough night?"

A rueful bobbing of heads commenced, followed by the winces of those too hungover yet to safely bob. Eli, Eli my love! Never shall I betray you again, forsooth! I stared at my shoes.

"What happened?"

No one said anything. Though Eli was a verified nerd in the noblest sense of the word (see above: particle physics; Aristotle), we reached a telepathic consensus that he was not the breed of dork that appreciated drunken Shakespeare showdowns of a Wednesday night.

"I'm really disappointed." Did I imagine it -- his eyes sweeping over me with a flicker of skeptical dismay, of expectations shattered? Ay me, indeed. Love would not flower in soil parched for want of professional dignity. Or something. My head hurt too much for metaphors. My heart hurt too much to bear the sincerity of Eli's discouragement. He walked away, without a word, and no one called after him.

After awhile someone muttered, "That was fucked up of us." There was a grunt of general assent. How could we have broken the covenant so? Theater was our refuge, our passion. We respected the rules we established for ourselves. We respected one another. And Eli... I shuddered, physically repulsed by my own incompetence.

Many glum moments dissolved in the nauseous ether that had suffused the stage. But then Eli emerged, looking envigorated. He hopped onstage with us.

"We're really sorry, Eli," Mark managed gamely. He received a cordial nod. That opened the tides. Apologies, murmured and mewled, echoed around the theater.

"We suck, man."

"That was totally unprofessional... It won't happen again."

"This show is important to us, and you've done such a brilliant job."

"We're sorry."

"We are the worst," moaned Drama Diva Debby. "We should be beaten."

"I was thinking along those lines, yes." I watched Eli withdraw his hands from his pockets. Then I watched him withdraw a long, thin cane from the props table. Where the hell did that come from? I remembered our play was set in a conservative prep school. Eli was very detail-oriented. Then I began to wonder about Kenny the props guy.

"Right now, everyone in this room feels pretty awful." This was not contested. "Wallowing in the situation won't help. For the sake of the play, we need to push past this." Yes, yes, we all felt very head-noddingly Yes about this suggestion. "What I propose is -- well, call it an acting exercise."

I both heard and registered Eli's words, but my attentions were almost unilaterally fixed on the cane as it flexed in his fingers.

"What sort of exercise?" piped Debby.

"By failing to learn your lines on schedule, all of you have delayed the progress of our show. And since you won't be able to memorize your parts in the time allotted for rehearsal today, we'll have to improvise... Some sort of short-cut to make up for lost time. To move the play forward."

We nodded solemnly, we were following, we were so totally on board.

"No lines? Fine. You'll get in character the hard way."

The nods stopped.

"Those of you who want to remain a part of this production are invited to accept six strokes of this cane." We followed his fist as it held up the cane. "They will not be stage strokes, understand. Call it character immersion, call it an exercise in organizational discipline, call it show business -- but that's the price for staying on."

His hands were now behind his back, but they still gripped the cane; his pose bespoke a militaristic confidence.

No one said anything. But no one objected. Members of other campus societies would balk at such a demand, I figured, but these were theater kids. They accepted dramatic humiliation as their due.

"On our hands?" Sara squeaked.

"Not the target I had in mind."

A protracted silence registered the cast's consent.

"Very well."

Eli instructed the cast to line up outside the greenroom and take turns. Michael and I exchanged a glance. Eli was our director, but in the grander college theater hierarchy, we outranked him. Technically, he reported to us. Would we be subject to the same punishment? Would it be appropriate for us to concede? Last night's carousings notwithstanding, I considered myself a good leader. But nothing in my professional archives provided me with a clear solution, there were no precedents. Michael looked equally perplexed. When the other actors had all filed past him, Eli approached the two of us.

That's when he explained that, given our role as producers and program chairs, we were not obliged to go through with this. We could back out now and not be cut. That's when he said, "I'll leave it up to you."

***

I took a deep breath, and spoke.

"I'm with the cast."

Eli turned to Michael, whose neck had snapped up. "And you?" A stiff nod. It wouldn't be good for morale -- to say nothing of cast cohesion -- for us to avoid the fate of our fellow players. Michael wouldn't suffer being thought a wimp.

Probably, if I was not in love with Eli, I would not have suffered it either. As it was, questions of ethics and credibility barely entered my head. I had my own reasons for agreeing to bend for Eli's cane.

Lord, what fools we mortals be.

Michael and I found ourselves at the end of the sorry queue, and we could hear the muffled cracks as they emerged from the greenroom. No one returned to the stage -- later I'd learn that Eli had concluded each caning with a handshake and orders to go home and study lines.

We didn't say anything. Michael seemed sheepish and vaguely anxious, but I was abject. These were to be the circumstances of my first rendezvous alone in a room with Eli? What happened to the crisp forest sunrises of my imagination... To say nothing of makeout sessions in the lighting booth, followed by long earnest discussions of Tom Stoppard? My dreams were about to be thrashed away.

It'd be one thing if my self-sacrificing solidarity with the cast was born of pure martyrly courage, but I was just as guilty as the rest. I was supposed to be better than this. Worthy. Now he'd learn that not only was I imperfect, I was... What, exactly? Irresponsible? Lazy? A frivolous partier, a thickwit that needs to be whacked a few times before she'll take anything seriously?

Pain I did not fear. I welcomed pain, I longed to show Eli a humble but brave dignity in the face of well-earned chastisement. And... and... Was I really about to enter a room with Eli and no one else, and close the door, and bend over? I squirmed, my hangover sopped up by more pressing ailments.

And then Michael and I were the last ones left. The door opened, my co-chair loped to his fate. I heard the cracking -- oh, Kenny the props guy, did you ever think it would come to this? -- but no eeps or ows from Michael. I allowed myself a small moment of pride for the leadership of Merry-Mads.

But as soon as Michael emerged (he slunk toward the exit without a glance at me), all pride vanished; I was a protozoal lump.

Eli stood in the doorway. I tilted my head up to meet his eyes. A moment came into the world, endured its brief life and died.

"So," he said.

In response I oozed off the floor and walked resolutely to the greenroom. The cane was resting against the back of Eli's neck, his wrists dangled casually over the ends. I wondered how I was supposed to arrange myself.

"If you'd just stand with your hands on the seat of that chair, please," he requested politely.

Normal me would have punctured the tension with some comment, a so is this how they did it in boarding school back in the day, anything to suggest I was cheerfully curious and not at all fazed by this sort of procedure. But normal me had been shattered in the crossfire of love and theater.

I did as told.

I heard Eli take his place behind me. I was thankful for his silence, his business-like detachment. There was nothing for me to decide or perform or attempt... My responsibilities amounted to standing still, and that I could yet accomplish.

And then I felt the light pressure of the cane against my ass -- Eli was measuring. Was he practiced at this? It amazed me how the scrim of respect we hung between ourselves and Eli permitted him to hold onto mysteries that we'd have long since pried out, with drama-kid avarice, from anyone else. At the touch of the cane my breathing got heavier -- my will and my trachea were not aligned, it seemed. But I didn't move.

Then the first crack cut a line across my skin -- sharp, and yet, I sensed, restrained. I realized that Eli was still measuring. He was not so righteous that he would not show mercy to those in need of it.

I did not require mercy.

The next was harder, and the third harder still, and I bit the side of my mouth and closed my eyes and suppressed my heaves with an unprecedented show of physical sovereignty. I ran headfirst toward the pain, the pain from Eli. Remembered his deep voice saying I respect your position...

The last three were vicious, and I understood them as a mark of esteem. This, at least, I was worthy of. The strokes burned worse than last night's whiskey, and I wondered if it was possible for one's body to morph into a single throb.

Still and calm as I'd remained throughout the cane's attentions, as soon as Eli finished, my ragged breaths broke free from the prison of decorum. I stayed in position longer than I should have, panting over the chair, unable to join the world of words and people. Eventually I straightened myself and stared straight ahead at the greenroom wall.

I felt Eli take a step closer to me. This did not help the breathing problem. My skin was cold, my insides hot.

"Very well taken," he said.

I could have cried.

"Thanks."

The breathing didn't seem such a bad thing anymore, it was certainly a more pleasant alternative than exploding.

Eli came closer.

I could feel my brain dissolving atom by atom, my pulse drowning out my thoughts. What do I do what do I do what do I do? The welts singed my skin and sent currents of fire up and down my bones and bloodstream; in each sensation I felt the heat of Eli. Surely I would hyperventilate. Surely I would have an asthma attack.

Say something, for the love of deus ex machina... Just not, You caned me, there. Be calm, flirty, seductive; say something!

"So the new particle collider hasn't swallowed the world in a black hole yet," I choked. Dear. God. I slammed my eyes closed. Exploding wouldn't be so bad.

But when my will executed no detonation, I opened one eye and peered tentatively over my shoulder. Eli was... smiling. A faint and wavering suggestion of a smile, yet a smile all the same. I turned around.

Fuck it.

"No border violence in Kashmir, either." It came out as more of a gulp than a sentence.

Eli didn't answer.

"Tom Stoppard has a new play."

Eli didn't move.

"Aristotle... Well, Aristotle is still very much dead."

The lapis eyes shone brighter than footlights. I'd done my utmost to ruin the intensity, the terrifying time-suspended too-close intimacy the cane had forged, but Eli was still looking straight at me. And that's when I realized that whatever mysterious specimen this boy embodied, he was not so unforgiving of my breed of dork, after all.

I said: "Hey, Eli."

Eli came even closer. He was breathing harder, too. His perfect fingers were still wrapped lazily around the crook-handle of the cane; without taking his eyes off mine Eli raised the cane behind his neck again, then lifted it over his head and over mine; he lowered it down and pushed it against my back, pushing me against him.

"Then I guess there's hope," he said. "The collision of particles will unlock a new era."

I wasn't the type to kiss boys frequently. And when I kissed, I kissed hard.