HSA-281: Ropes

The company went silent. Lily expected the scene to be awkward. She and Josh practiced it a dozen times, often in front of the other cast members. A dress rehearsal played differently, though. They’d come to the love scene organically, not clipped into scenes to practice. She’d spent the last act as Crystal falling in love with Jake. They’d finally sunk into the characters in a way that rarely came before opening night. It wasn’t Josh hovering over her on the bed, but Jake. No more careful positioning. No more awkward “are you ok?” moments. Jake pressed down on her, nothing keeping them apart except the small shift and her underwear. Josh’s character had to be naked for the scene due to what came next, the tragic end. At the pinnacle of their love scene, Carlos would barge in and murder Jake. Until then, though, the two actors would mime a passionate lovemaking that encapsulated the entire story in one moment of frustrated joy.

Josh’s breath was hot on her neck. A sheet covered his backside to keep an unflattering view from the audience. Lily stole a glance out at Marvin and the other cast members. All of them looked enthralled, helping to quiet her anxiety. Impressing an audience brought one type of joy, impressing the director another, but impressing the cast won the lot for Lily. Not the false praise which they offered up after every single scene, but the true astonishment in their eyes watching her become a character so completely. Not one of them saw Lily pinned beneath Josh. All of them saw Crystal pinned beneath Jake. Everything was going so perfectly.

Lily felt his dick press against her thigh. Her eyes shot to him, not out of embarrassment or shock, but but because she didn’t want him to break. Her silent plea came too late or did not move him. “Sorry,” he hissed, trying to hide his own shame as he buried his face in her neck. The illusion faded. He was Josh again, betrayed by an inadvertent erection.

Lily’s eyes shot to Keith, the otherwise Carlos, who mercifully took the hint and barged in with the scene’s conclusion. The cast’s faces turned from the true awe into the banal interest within an instant. Even the director leaned back in his chair with a frustrated sigh. As a naked Josh threw flat lines back and forth with Kieth, Lily scrambled back in the sheets. When the moment came, she belted out her scream, trying not to injure her voice. The lights went down. When they came back, Josh had on a robe and stood with his head hanging as a few went over to offer platitudes of encouragement.

Martin clapped his hands. “Alright everyone, that was great. Lighting is saying they got what they needed. Everyone was amazing. Keith, I loved that energy at the end. I know its late for changes, but I think we might have over planned the choreography at the end. Could be better if you go in whenever you think its best. We still need the moment between Crystal and Jake — the realization moment — but any time after that you can barge in and tear it away. Let’s wrap up. Guys if you could reset us back to the diner scene, I want to do a little quick work with Lily and Josh. The rest of you are amazing — still amazing. Get a good night’s rest and try to be here before five tomorrow.”

The two dozen members of the cast and crew started to move amongst a burst of conversation. Lily skittered back to her small dressing room, wanting to take off Crystal’s clothes as quickly as possible. Backstage of the Crown Theater contrasted dramatically with the vastness of the stage. Narrow hallways led to small rooms cluttered with all sorts of odd things which no one ever seemed to use, but no one ever wanted to throw out. Lily lucked into one of the private rooms. She even had her name on the door in a little chalkboard plaque. The door didn’t exactly close all the way, but that was more than the rest of the cast got. She flung the door back and grabbed her jeans, wanting to be changed before anyone came in to bother her.

No one did come, though. Maybe they all sensed her nerves or frustration. Or maybe they were all simply exhausted and wanted to get out of the theater for a few hours. She’d heard Keith talking about the crew buying drinks somewhere. Going would have been nice, but she didn’t like to drink before a performance, let alone the debut. Finally, a knock on the mostly closed door stirred her from melancholy. “Martin’s waiting for you,” one of the chorus girls said. “You were great tonight,” she added. Lily thanked her. Even if she didn’t mean it, it was nice to say.

Lily made her way back toward the stage. The hallway leading toward the auditorium looked very different than the same hallway leading away. Going from the stage back to the dressing rooms, the hallways filled with the loving clutter of the theater, happy notes of encouragement, rich colors of cloth and set dressing, and years worth of small graffiti left by actors wanting to remember their time in the theater. Going to the stage, on the other hand, showed the bones of the old building. The actors never worked with the lights or the rigging, but the short walk to the stage offered a glimpse into the other half of the theater world. While wires, cables, and other technology had weaved into the fabric of the world behind the curtain, ropes still dominated the area. Lily didn’t know what any of the ropes did. The theater was old and some of the original mechanisms still remained from its earliest days. Others clearly had a continuing purpose, she thought, because otherwise they wouldn’t be taut.

Josh and Martin waited on the stage, seated at the small table meant to evoke the feeling of an old diner. Martin moved the chair out beside him. He picked up a bottle from the table and poured her a drink. Josh already had half of his gone as he slumped his head forward. “C’mon, have a drink. One won’t do anything other than ease all our nerves.”

She moved gracefully to the chair and took the drink with a smile. “So I guess we’re not working?”

“No, we’re talking. That’s a kind of working,” Martin said.

“Talking about how I keep fucking things up.” Josh said.

“Yeah, if you want to put it that way.” Martin topped off his own drink, corked the bottle, and put it on the table between them. He took a big gulp, let out a long sigh, and knocked his hands on the table. “I ever told you two about my first acting job? No, course I haven’t. Here’s a lesson for when you become big stars and need to give advice to people who will eventually become big stars. You save your inspirational stories for the exact right moment. Could I have told you this story the first time Josh popped a hardon during that end scene? Sure. Would it have helped? I don’t know. But when I tell you now, it’s got all this pressure behind it, which makes it more powerful and dramatic. Right?”

The two actors shrugged. Lily sipped her drink. She hated straight liquor, but it gave her something to do. The longer she and Josh didn’t talk about things, the more difficult it became to look at him. They’d had a few of these difficult scenes to work through over the past few weeks. The scene where he hits her might have even been worse because of how terrible it made Josh feel. They’d made their peace with it while eating an entire pie between the two of them. Martin seemed to be a more proactive pie in this case. In the meantime, Lily’s eyes went anywhere other than her costar. She’d never looked up above the stage, she realized. High above them, the ropes stretched across between the light riggings. She thought she saw them moving.

“I started out in a play written by this guy who I thought was a fucking genius,” Martin continued. “Real avant garde sort of douche bag who we all worshiped like the second coming. Full stop, he probably could have gotten half that cast into a Manson cult if he’d been smart enough to rub two brain cells together. Yeah, he wasn’t actually a genius, and it only took me six months to figure that out. No, he was a puffed up guy who wanted to fuck actresses so he ‘became’ a director. Anyway, he put together this show all about exploring sexuality because no one has bothered to look into that aspect of humanity very much. I honestly couldn’t tell you the first thing about the plot, but at the end of the first act there was this big orgy scene. Sex throughout time schtick. The lead was a modern day Madonna who they dressed, I kid you not, like Madonna from her titty cones period. Others were in these big period costumes, which actually were fantastic. One woman got to wear this gorgeous six piece Victorian dress that came off in layers throughout the scene until she’s wearing a crotchless corset and holding a riding crop. — Look I was young and thirsty once, too.”

“You’re gay, Martin,” Lily reminded him.

“Eighty-nine percent, as I tell my husband. If Tilda wants to crawl into bed with me, I’m just saying I can’t be responsible. Not the point. I was in the scene, too. I was Archibald, a Kaiser era German. Even had one of those stupid little hats with the pointy thing on top of it. As one of the more prudish era participants, I was meant to observe until finally capitulating to the advances of an Amazonian goddess or something or the other. The problem, of course, came from having to watch all these fit, tight bottomed men prance around for five minutes before I even opened my mouth. I’m a red-blooded man, after all, and you can only think about fish sandwiches for so long before nature takes its course. Time and again, I would get called out in rehearsal for breaking focus. I’d take off my little hat and cover my crotch with it, or I’d turn to the side or try to sneak behind a piece of furniture.”

Josh grabbed the bottle and refilled his own glass. “Jesus, Martin. How is this helpful? You can block a scene and get emotions out of a rock, but maybe don’t sign up for the big brother program any time soon.”

“Let me get to the point first.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Ok, well, the point is, no one really gave a shit about my dick. Even the people I wanted to give a damn about my dick. Hell, the audience loved seeing actual erections, it meant something real had happened. The pair of you are young, sexy, and wriggling around on top of each other pretending to be in love. Not getting a hardon would be something to freak out about.”

“That’s not what’s throwing me off,” Josh said, quietly.

Lily tapped her glass, “What is?” She finally looked at him, but he looked away, cheeks turning red.

Martin looked at his two actors focusing on one and then on the other. His eyes lingered on Josh. “Ohhhhh. Oh, fuck. I’ve fucked up. I thought this was, uh. Stage boners are one thing, but —”

“I’m sorry, now I’m confused.” Lily said, a flutter of nerves spreading out from her stomach. All of this conversation seemed like a terrible idea. She wasn’t superstitious, but she did know the real possibilities of getting inside an actor’s head before they take the stage.

“I should let you two talk,” Martin said, but made no move to leave. After a few seconds, he spoke again, “Actually, I think I might have a responsibility to the show to get this worked out here and now. It’s not uncommon for two actors sharing —”

“No, I’ll — you be quiet — look, Lily,” Josh said, but she held up her hand.

She suddenly understood. How could she have missed it? “You’re in love with me?”

Martin grabbed the bottle and slid off his chair, meandering out into the seating while whistling obnoxiously. Josh finally straightened up. “I don’t know. We’ve spent all this time together working on the show, and our characters are falling in love and out of love, and it’s all a big mess. Somewhere along the way, my actual feelings started to get tangled up in it, too. We wouldn’t be working, just out at a bar blowing off steam, and I would look at you and think about how beautiful you were. I would think about how wonderful you are at acting. Which, obviously, made me doubt whether what I felt was real. Who was I falling for, you or Crystal? And that made me wonder if I was even myself any more. Maybe I was taking on a lot of Jake’s head space. So I didn’t say anything. One night I got really drunk. You weren’t exactly sober, and you wanted to dance with me. That was when I got sure it was real because even then I didn’t want to…sleep with you — I mean, I did, but I wanted to be with you more.”

Lily smiled, softly and kindly. She’d had her own set of feelings about Josh, but nothing so complex. “This all comes out in the form of an existential crisis and a woody?”

He laughed. “It made it feel wrong. The sex scene. If I can’t separate my feelings from Jake’s feelings, then being with you so…uh, intimately, felt dirty.”

She didn’t know exactly what to say. Her eyes wandered again, looking first at Martin pretending to be absorbed in his phone and then up again at the scaffolding above the stage. Movement again. She pointed, “Is there someone up there?”

Josh looked crestfallen, but he did glance up. “Bunch of ropes. Some of them might be moving. Probably people backstage still messing with things.”

She took his hand in hers. “Josh, I want you to know that I feel stuff for you, too. But you’re right, it’s been complicated with the play. So what I think we should do is get through this first performance. After that we can go out for dinner and actually get to know one another. We can leave Jake and Crystal here and spend our little weekend finding out if Lily and Josh get along.” She glanced at Martin and scooted closer to Josh. “As far as the scene goes, we’re not us. We’re them. We do what they would do. If you get excited, I’ll take it as a compliment to my acting. I swear. It’s only as weird as we make it, like Martin inelegantly put it. No one cares about your dick except you.”

Martin appeared behind them with a loud clap. “We all good? My stars work out their little romantic problem? Great! Go the fuck home and rest.”

Crystal and Jake were alone on stage. The rest of the world quieted as Jake pressed down on her. Crystal could feel the tension in his muscles, not because of nerves but because of concentration. His lips pressed against hers as the lights flashed on. Her hand stroked up the side of his flank. She smiled in their next kiss. His eyes closed as their noses blunted together awkwardly. Jake’s knees nudged hers apart. She pulled the sheet taut, knowing it clung tight to his naked back. The sheets rubbed roughly against her skin. His cock moved against her thigh. He didn’t wince or pull back or lose the moment. Jake would be excited to feel his cock graze against her inner thigh. So would Crystal.

With her other hand, she moved her underwear to the side. His eyes widened, excited. The head of his dick pressed against her wet lips. His hand moved under the shift and up to grope her breast. Jake’s hips moved, unintentionally, driven forward by pure instinct.

The door burst open. Carlos barged in. Jake pulled away from her, springing to his feet to confront the story’s villain. Crystal saw the slight glisten of precum on Jake’s softening cock. She pulled the sheet up to cover her body, adjusting her underwear in the same moment. The two men struggled. The shot thundered. Crystal screamed, and the world went black.

Applause brought Lily back. A stage hand offered her help getting out of the bed. She took the sheet with her, momentarily unable to leave the scene’s emotions behind. Josh moved quickly off stage as someone wrapped a robe around him. The applause grew louder and people started to whistle. Beyond the curtain, she could see the shadows of someone moving on stage. Martin’s tinny voice came over the speaker system as she moved off stage. Her foot caught in a spool of rope. She kicked it away and almost fell over. She wanted to see Josh.

People rushed passed her, all of them offering praise, but she didn’t care. The backstage labyrinth echoed with the shouts of the stage manager calling people up for the curtain. She curved around to behind the stage, a thicket of rigging, wires, and ropes empty except for one middle aged man pulling various levers. He looked confused to see her, but still told her it was an amazing performance. She smiled and asked how to navigate through to the far side of the stage. “Shouldn’t come through here for that, go back and take the normal hallways,” he muttered, but she didn’t stop. She pushed past him and fumbled across every single thing until she emerged into the hallway at the far side.

A gaggle of performers tittered between one another as they swept off stage. Suddenly, Keith wrapped her up in his arms, “That was fucking amazing, Lily! Did you see the audience? Jaws literally on the floor, swear to god.”

“Keith, Keith! Where’s Josh? We’re uh..due back on stage.”

“Oh, he’s coming. He’s coming. They have to redress him, you know. I get to keep this blood on my sleeve. I think I saw Harry Carter out there, Lily. The Harry Carter. A good review from him will light a fire under this production. I think Martin might have lost a year of his life watching Harry Carter’s reaction during the finale. Oh, here he comes.”

Josh made his way down the hallway, dressed in the costume he wore for most of the show. Lily smiled, and he smiled back. She offered out her hand to him, but he swept toward her in a rush of wind. His lips met hers. Keith gasped and bounced on his heels, silently clapping. The stage manager bellowed out their names, barely audible over the roar of the crowd. Josh broke the kiss, took Lily by one hand, and Keith grabbed the other. She almost floated out onto the stage.

She couldn’t see the audience, but their cheers rang in her ears. She bowed. Josh bowed. Keith bowed. They all bowed. The rest of the company returned to the stage. Everyone bowed again. The applause never stopped. The theater itself shook from the incessant thunder of it. Lily looked up to see the brilliant lights, the shimmering curtains, and the ropes holding everything together.

Josh waited on stage. Lily heard the last of the crew going out the back door. It wasn’t unusual for a few members of the cast to hang around for practice. They knew how to lock up. “Hey,” he said as she came onto the boards, “told Keith we’d catch up.”

The stage hands had reset the stage to the opening scene. Crystal’s bedroom, a little different than it appeared in the final scene, but it was the same bed and the same stiff sheets. Josh sat on the bed his phone in his hands. Beneath his feet, she noticed the ropes attached to the underside of the bed. That’s how they pulled it off stage so quickly. The more she looked, the more she noticed how everything in the theater ran off of someone pulling strings. “I thought we might talk for a minute.”

“Sure,” he said as she approached him. “You were amazing. Even before our…whatever you want to call it. Moment?”

“You, too.” She reached him and let her hand caress his cheek. It was something Crystal and Jake had done a hundred times over the weeks of rehearsal, but she’d never done it to Josh. His skin was smooth and slightly sweaty. He nuzzled into her hand, kissing the palm. “We could finish the scene, you know?”

“You still want to work on it?”

She laughed. “No, knucklehead. The scene. We’re alone. We have the bed.”

“Oh…oh!” His face broke into a wide grin as his arms wrapped around her. She lowered her mouth to his, and they kissed for the second time.

She moved him back onto the bed, straddling him as he shifted to the center. Immediately, she regretted starting down this path. Her body was sore and tired from a long performance. She’d showered backstage, but not had a chance to really prepare. Lily didn’t know if this was how she wanted Josh to experience her for the first time. Still, something about being back on stage, back close to the moment when his cock had pressed against her in full view of the public, goaded her on. She would never forget that moment, and she wanted to make damn sure that Josh didn’t forget the night either. Without further hesitation, she pulled off her t-shirt, letting her apple sized breasts fall into view.

If Josh felt the same hesitancy, he didn’t show it. Her one claim of privacy, and his maddened libido drove all other concerns away. His hands moved up to grope her flesh, kneading the soft tissue as his fingers grazed over her nipples. She could feel him getting hard through his jeans. She pressed her pussy down against the rising cock, eager to feel his length pressed against her again. Their mouths met again, but not for a loving, simple kiss. Their tongues tangled together in a wild battle of lust. The theater started to fade into their haze of lust. The few lights remaining on gave the stage a reddish glow. Josh’s hands moved lower. Lily hopped off of him, shrugging out of her jeans as he did the same. Within moments, he was down to his boxers, but he paused to watch her. Lily liked the attention, slowing her strip. She turned as she started pulling down her panties, letting him see each inch of her ass as the fabric rolled down.

Naked, she bashfully let her hand hover over her pussy as she stood beside the bed. Sensing her unease, Josh pulled down his boxers, letting his cock pop out. Lily stared at it, knowing a few hours earlier it had been pressing so close to her, almost inside of her. She thought of beginning with her mouth, but didn’t want to wait. Instead, she noticed a strand of rope lying under the bed. She bent over, picked it up, and pulled it taut between her hands. Josh smiled, but looked a bit worried. She climbed back on top of him, letting his aching dick slide against her lips before she pressed it down against his stomach. She could still feel it throbbing as she settled down. He tried to squirm, to get inside of her, but she wanted him to wait. She wanted him to remember their first time.

Taking the rope, she gently wrapped one end around his hand, fed the rope through the bed’s railing, and tied the other end to Josh’s other wrist. He grinned at her, nipping at her breasts as she leaned over him. Raising her body off to finish the knot gave Josh the opportunity to angle his cock. Lily feigned surprise as she sunk back, his dick slipping inside her with ease. She wrapped her arms under his muscular shoulders and pressed her full body down onto his length. Both of them groaned. Josh prayed he wouldn’t come too soon. He wanted to grab her ass, force her to go slowly, but the ropes held tight. With every passing second they seemed to grow tighter.

Lily rocked her hips along Josh’s length. She loved the feeling of a throbbing cock inside of her, and it had been far too long since the last visitor. She looked down at Josh. He wanted to touch her so badly. His eyes drank in her form with pure lust. The adoration of a crowd distilled down into one man’s pure desire. She reveled in it, craning her head back as the waves of pleasure started to build. Looking up into the rafters of the theater, she saw the ropes moving, slithering down toward them. That’s strange, isn’t it? she thought. Her attention went down to Josh as she heard a muffled cry. A new rope covered his mouth, gagging him to near silence. His eyes flashed with a moment of panic which faded into quick acceptance. She smiled, bent to his nose and kissed him.

More ropes started to slide across their skin. Some wound their way around Josh’s arms and legs. Another few slid along Lily’s sides, crawling up to rub against her breasts, pulling tighter with every jerk of her hips. The tighter they pulled the better it felt. Josh moaned around the ropes blocking his mouth. His eyes rolled wildly as his hips bucked up toward Lily’s grinding pussy. A rope slide between them, wrapping around Josh’s cock and squeezing, making him harder than he thought possible. Another pair slid slowly along either side of Lily’s slit, impossibly smooth and lovely to feel. A knot in the rope pushed into her mouth as she orgasmed, blocking her passionate screams of pleasure.

All of the ropes suddenly pulled taut. Lily yanked away from Josh, but only truly felt the sudden absence of him inside of her. The ropes drew her down to the bed. Tendrils around her ankles gently pulled, spreading her legs apart. Josh rose off the bed in the same moment, suspended in mid air by a hundred or more of the ropes. Lily saw them coiling around his cock like a snake slithering across sand. Small ones wrapped around his balls squeezing them in the same rhythm that they rubbed against her clit. Josh landed on top of her, his eyes a haze of dreamy lust. The ropes pulled them together as his cock slid back inside of her. They both groaned as all the ropes tightened again, squeezing them to a new level of ecstasy.

They started to move. Lily didn’t know if it was Josh or the ropes working through their unseen mechanism making them fuck like marionettes. Her mind could only process the pleasure. The ropes continued their work, rubbing her nipples, grinding against her clit, probing her ass, squeezing her throat — all while Josh’s cock throbbed inside of her, harder and bigger than she thought possible. They faded into the motion and the pleasure. She wasn’t Lily any more. She was Crystal again with Jake finally inside of her. She was Guenevere secreting away to a mossy glen to meet Lancelot. She was Juliet, pulling Romeo to her marital bed while knowing the doom which hung over them.

Josh started to grunt, a frustrated and bestial noise from behind the gag. Lily squealed, her eyes trying to offer encouragement. His cock twitched and cum sprayed inside of her. The strange tendrils continued their work, milking out the spunk into her pussy with careful and precise squeezes. Her body throbbed in time with the strings holding them in place. She tried to move, but the tangle of cords held her in place. Josh’s cock softened and slid out of her. The ropes pulled him away only to replace him an instant later with a hardened knot that pushed inside of Lily with blunt force and sent her over the edge into a quivering mess.

She didn’t know how long the orgasm lasted, only that when it ended, she wasn’t the only one screaming.

Keith had come back, probably wondering what was keeping them. After a few moments, Lily realized she couldn’t actually hear him screaming. It was vibration in the ropes. The same ones pulling off Keith’s clothes as they wrapped around his hardening cock.

Report of HSA Agent Angela Blackburn
Case #281
The Crown Theater, particularly a set of ropes found within

On the evening of April 8th, local law enforcement relayed a call to the HSA regarding an unusual phenomenon at the Crown Theater. The scene on arrival of our team was as follows. Five individuals had been completely enveloped by ropes. Three females and two males. The individuals were all in a state of subdued consciousness which I would describe as induced by intense pleasure. All five had the ropes penetrating them in different areas, none of them seemed to object. Removing the ropes was impossible as whenever some were untied or cut, more would take their place. The level of ‘cocooning’ already achieved discouraged further experimentation.

From evidence at the scene, we determined the identity of three of the participants. The other two have been narrowed down to a few possibilities. Three of the victims were involved in the active production at the theater, but other than putting them in the location, we do not believe this is relevant. Interviews with the director and other cast members have led us to conclude that Lily Valentine and Joshua Paulson may have begun an intimate relationship either freely or under the influence of HSA 412. It is possible their emotional connection activated or incited the object, in the case the ropes, in some fashion.

While under observation, the ropes continued to move, seemingly at the desire of those entwined within. Various pairings were brought together after one or more of the participants grunted and vibrated strands connected to the prospective partner. Otherwise, the entwined individuals were in a state of constant stimulation by the ropes.

No source of the ropes could be located. That is to say, too many sources of the ropes were found to find any one source. Where they disappeared into the walls of the theater, we would simply find corded knots when the wall was torn down. In some cases they seemed to all lead to the roof, but when cut we would discover the ropes anchored into the ground at six different points. Removing those would lead us back to the walls or the roof again. Even under constant observation, the ropes seemed to be endless.

The Crown Theater was constructed in 1957 by a German immigrant, Frank Smith, previously known as Franz Himmel. Himmel’s history before his arrival in America in 1957 is untraceable, and he disappeared shortly after construction of the Crown Theater completed. Urban rumor at the time indicated that Himmel hung himself. Otherwise, the theater is free of any suspicious stories on record. Interviews with crew members have indicated that many questioned the purpose of some of the many ropes found backstage, but none ever pursued an answer. My personal hunch regards Himmel’s arrival as something other than coincidence. In the manifest recovered from REDACTED, an “unending system of ropes and pulleys” is mentioned and regarded as extremely dangerous. The similarities to such a system, Himmel’s vague origins prior to 1957 and German connection, and the inclusion in the manifest would lead me to believe we have located item #281.

Unfortunately, with no way of extracting the victims, no way of isolating the theater, and the significant danger the anomaly poses, we are forced to recommend a full containment and eradication.