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From: Christopher Marlowe <xtofermarlowe@yahoo.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Yes, And {Marlowe} (MF)
Lines: 344
Date: Thu,  3 Feb 2005 06:10:06 -0500
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The informed reader will know there is no single neighborhood in Chicago
that can claim to be the "Improv District" where this story is set.  It
follows that the place, the characters, and the institutions are fictional,
and any resemblances to actual counterparts are coincidental.  This is true
even though, as a parallel to Chicago's actual improv culture, the Improv
District may have evolved parallel corporate and human institutions. 
Historical and public figures may appear; they are used fictionally.

   Variances between the history and culture of the Improv District and
reality owe to the necessities of storytelling, and to my own ignorance and
failure of observation.  

	-- XM

=======


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<1st attachment, "YesAnd.txt" begin>

Yes, And
========

by Christopher Marlowe
(c) 2005 Christopher Marlowe, all rights reserved.


I'm late.

My Level III class at the Improv Citadel, in the
improv-theater district of Chicago, off of Clark street on
the north side, runs from 7:30 to 10:30 every Thursday
evening. It's now 7:40. Brian, our instructor, is hell on
late-comers: You're learning to put on a show, he says. The
audience gets to come late, you don't. Don't get in the
habit. Respect your fellow-players.

Work ran long today. Work never runs long, but today it did,
followed by a train-wreck of delays all the way through to
now. No time to search for cheap parking; I'll have to take
the expensive, but near and certain, garage.

I go in the front door, past the box office, and down the
stairs to the classroom. Jim and Harley are already in an
exercise in the "stage" area. I bow my apologies to Brian,
settle in, and try to figure out what the exercise is.

A sensible person would ask. I can never ask. It's not just
that I'm an introvert. I'm forty; the rest of the class is
just out of college and headed (they think) for Saturday
Night Live. The cultural references I try to insert in our
scenes go nowhere; most of the group hasn't even seen
Casablanca. Improvisational theater is a great art form.
When it works, it really, truly is worth it; I can
transcend my shy, nebbishy self. Most of the time, I don't
fit in.

The one exception, maybe, is Ellen. At another improv
theater/school, they'd put her into their main-stage show
for paying customers after only six months of classes. She's
done an audition tape for HBO. Tell her to sing, she'll
have an original song, off the top of her head. I've never
seen her lost. She's tall, athletic, blonde, with a
presence that fits a brassy character: "Billy," she told me
when we met five months ago, "I've got to get you into a
make-out scene with me." I instantly promised her my vote
for Class President.

I focus again on Jim and Harley at the front of the room.

"Captain Jim!" Harley cries, "The evil Doctor... Jones has
seized the city!"

"Yes, and... we must stop him!" says Jim.

"Yes, and it is off to the Atomic Rocket Plane with its
invisible cloak, to visit justice upon the evildoer!"

"Yes, and now we're off, on our way to the city!"

"Yes, and there the scoundrel is!" says Harley.

"Yes! And we will thwart your evil plans, Doctor Jones, if
it is the last thing we ever do!" cries Jim, shaking his
fist.

"Billy, in as Jones," Brian says. I stumble to the front of
the room. I think I see the game; I've heard about it.
It's "Yes And," in which you exaggerate the improv virtue of
accepting and amplifying the reality offered by the other
players. If everybody supports each other's realities, the
audience will believe; the chain reaction will give the
scene a life of its own.

I plant my fists on my hips. "Yes! And I, Doctor Jones, defy
you, Captain Jim and Harley! Nothing will stay my plan of
destruction! See how I level entire city blocks with a wave
of my hand! But... where the hell are you? This must be the
work of your cloak of invisibility!"

"Yes," Harley says, "and though the people flee from your
terrible power, your powers are no match for our Ray of...
Wholesomeness!"

"Yes," I respond, "and a sad day it is for me, too, that I
should meet my doom from the likes of you, Captain Jim and
Harley! Wherever you are. Already I feel my toes shrivelling
under the force of good, wholesome values! My fortress at
the edge of town begins to crumble!"

"Yes!" Jim says, "And so all the people of this great city
will fear Doctor Jones no longer, for what can he do with
shrivelled toes?"

"And scene," Brian says, "Okay, you stuck to the game, and
managed to work a story from it, and a genre parody..."

Level III has the first of its two performance dates coming
up, so we move on to games an audience might recognize from
Whose Line is it Anyway? The ten of us line up at the back
of the stage for World's Worst.

"The World's Worst -- hairdresser," Brian calls. Ellen steps
downstage center, makes snipping motions, saying, "You
know, this is my favorite part of the job, cutting the hair,
cut-ting the HAIR! Cutting! AND CUTTING! AND CUT-TING!"

She steps back; I got nothing. Audra takes her place: "Well
you know that sore on this thumb here -- see? -- it was
draining pus and I-don't-know-what for weeks, let me help
you with that, sugar..."

Could I be... an overwrought hairdresser? A heterosexual
hairdresser? An eerily calm hairdresser? I'm batting ideas
down as soon as they come, my lips working furiously with
the one or two I think might be worth trying, because God
forbid I should do improv without the security of a
rehearsal... Of course! A clumsy hairdresser! Dan finishes
his hairdresser, I step forward... but Harley beats me
to it. I step back.

Okay -- now! Harley's done! "The World's Worst -- bus
driver," Brian calls. I barely have time to shuffle my feet.
Overthought and outmaneuvered again.

Inside my head, I'm brilliant. I just can't put it onto
a stage.

That's how it went till ninety minutes are gone. Time for a
break. "Twenty minutes max," Brian calls. "We've got a lot
of work still to do tonight."

I spent almost half the break in the classroom, making notes
of the planned run order for the upcoming show, plus copious
reminders to myself for the costume idea Brian had. That
done, I decided I wanted a Coke and a bag of Chee-tos.

The Improv Citadel is on a block that backs on a convenience
store, a sandwich shop, and an all-night drug store. An
alley divides the block in the middle, affording the
shortest path from the IC to the convenience store. As I
approached the alley, I passed about half my classmates
coming out. At the middle, I met Ellen.

"Hey, Billy," she says, "getting a snack?"

"Oh... hey," I say, "Yeh. Right. Thank you." Nothing if not
smooth, me.

Ellen chuckled. "You know, Billy, we haven't done that
make-out scene yet."

"Oh, ah" Yes... and? She is right there. Standing near
enough... well, near enough to touch. Near enough to... what
the hell. Accept and amplify. I put a hand behind her waist,
bring my face to hers, to kiss her, quite chastely, on the
mouth. One of those kisses with the lips extended, as when
they don't want anybody thinking that they hang out with
that tongue thing at all, ever, no indeed. Plausible
deniability.

Yes? And? Ellen's eyes go a little wider, for a moment, then
close a bit. Her face comes forward to mine, to offer a
kiss of her own, with lips alone, but the kind of lips that
could put you in touch with the tongue if you were really
interested.

Yes, and there is a third kiss, the kind that comes before
your lips have a chance to part from the last one.

Yes, and with that, the tongues enter negotiations. I bring
my other hand up behind her head, she sets her bag from the
drug store on the lid of the trash hopper next to us.

Yes! And... I feel my penis begin to shift in my pants. It's
full-on hard in the few seconds it takes to stop counting,
or timing, or taking whatever statistics of, our kisses.

Yes. And -- what to do about this palpable... intruder?
Create a diversion! My hand moves from the small of her back
to cup her breast. She draws back half an inch, not opening
her eyes, smiles a little, then kisses me, harder, deeper:
Yes.

And... I feel the weight of her breast in my hand, stroke
her nipple with the back of my thumb, feel it rising,
becoming more definite with each stroke. Ellen's breath
becomes ragged, her kisses urgent -- yes -- and as I slip my
hand under her sweatshirt, we slip into the shadows between
two trash hoppers. With the smooth, delicate skin of her
breast in my hand, I feel its delicate structure, tug at the
nipple gently.

"Yesss," she said, and I lift her sweatshirt to kiss her
breast, blow gently on the wetted skin, roll the pink areola
between my lips, play with them with my tongue. Ellen
cradles my head in her arms.

Yes; and now what? I slip my other hand down the back of her
jeans, slowly, but not so slowly, I urge myself, as to give
the impression I don't belong there. She inhales deeply, then
slips her own hand down the back of my jeans.

Yes!

And the last consecutive thought I have is... are my nails
clean enough?

My hands grasp her jeans and panties at the hips. My face
slides downwards from her breasts, leaving a trail of wet
kisses on her belly. As I approach the waistline, I pull her
pants down, slowly, keeping up with my mouth, as warm,
smooth skin gives way to hot, scented hair. I breathe out,
slow, hot, to raise her scent; I breathe in, to take it
in. She leans against the wall, so her legs can come a
little apart, then turn my head so my mouth can play
through her bush. I kiss the thigh, first on one side, then
the other; my lips touch the front of hers, once lightly,
twice grasping; a brief, hot exhalation, then my tongue
traces the edge of each lip, works in to draw itself past
her clit. I thrust, lap, stroke for a while, as Ellen's
voice begins to enter her breathing. Yes, oh, yes.

And I want to finger her, to feel how wet she is, to explore
her deeply, to claim her... my right hand comes up, feels
her slick warmth. I spread her wetness around her opening. I
explore, feel the moist, tightening inwards, feel, at the
pad of my middle finger, a G-spot, firm, rough. I crook my
finger to stroke it: Come hither, yes?

And it seems she does. She stifles a cry into a thin,
high-pitched wail, twines her fingers through my hair to
hold me to her as she thrusts her pulsing cunt at my face.

Convulsive thrusts give way to a convulsive pull at my
shoulders to stand me up, then she works at my belt and the
waistband of my jeans. Soon my cock is hard and free in the
air. Ellen begins to bend down, but I kiss her, saying,
"Uh-uhhh." I slide wet fingers along her pussy, saying,
"Uhhhmmm?" Her eyes close tight for a second, then she says,
"Mmmmm;" she nods.

Our pants are down around our ankles; there is no
question of getting out of them or laying ourselves down.
We're in an alley between two Dumpsters. This is not going
to be gourmet sex. All this is geography; in the mind
between the two of us, we aren't anywhere but together. It
is all yes... and.

She leans back against the wall so she can use the bend of her
knees to spread herself. I haul my pants up enough that I
can step into the ring of her legs. My left arm is around
her back, my right beneath her, feeling as my cock slips
along her cunt, her eager cunt. I slide in with only a
little bit of guidance, I push once, twice, all the
way inside her warmth. I am overcome with the feeling of
triumph, of being home. Dear God, let me finish this
before we fall over, I think, as she, too, begins to call,
urgently, softly, "Oh God, oh god, oh god..." She is wet. I
can feel her juices in the hair between my cock and balls.

I push, I grind, I thrust. The head of my cock finds the
mouth of her womb high up in her. She clutches me harder
each time my thrusts flip against it. You're asking me where
I am? If anyone ventures into that alley? How a siren might
sound over on Clark Street? I don't know. As my come gathers
in me, up behind my balls, I'm not there. I'm in her arms. I
am in her eyes. I am in her cunt.

Her fingers dig into my back, and a look of utter
astonishment seizes Ellen's face as she lets out a soft, low
bellow, then an alto, "aaah-aaah-ahhhh," then another
stifled, high wail. It's contagious. My arms clasp her
greedily against me as my hips slam forward. My come
pulses out of me.

Yes. Oh, yes. And in a few seconds we become aware how we've
propped ourselves up in a pose out of some game of Urban
Twister. We laugh. I have to pull my pants up again lest
I trip trying to hop over hers. We get ourselves arranged.
I find my arms ache, wanting to be around her. We nuzzle
a bit, exchanging three slow, gentle kisses.

"Class," she said.

"Chee-tos," I said, "No dinner tonight." We parted, trailing
fingertips along each other's arms, she for the Improv
Citadel, I for the junk food. Maybe it's good that we not
show up together after break, glowing. Would we hold hands?
When would we stop?

* * *

When Ellen and I meet in later classes, she always has a
smile for me.

But -- no. I know she's just being polite, or maybe dulling
the cognitive dissonance. I won't fool myself: In the
stray-animal shelter of life, there are the ones the people
visit, and the ones the people keep. I am not a keeper.
Never have been. Never will be.

I'm still not quite fitting in with this Wednesday night
group. Brian says I should work more on finding common
ground, take what we do share and work from that. He wants
me to stick it out.

But, no: I'm thinking of transferring to the Saturday
section of this class. It's supposed to be bad to break up
an ensemble like this, but I just can't seem to make my
improv work in this group.
<1st attachment end>


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