Under the Spotlight- Part 2/3

Roger's embarrassment is not done yet, and the finale is still to come. Make sure to check out Act 1 in the last post first!

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Act 2: 

After improvising some line about remembering that he had a spare suit in his car, he quickly walked off stage with his muscular back facing the audience. Once he disappeared into the curtain, he began quietly yelling for the prop master, but he was nowhere to be found. Also gone was the random rack of clothes that had been hiding in the wings for decades, so as he rushed around, Roger only had time to grab someone’s suit coat and walk back on stage. 

“Darling! Is it my birthday already? I thought I wouldn’t get my present until tomorrow.” 

With her quick change successfully completed unlike her costar, Natasha was in a skin tight dress and now playing Roger’s girlfriend. Walking circles around him, she began to massage his tense body, and it seemed to be having an undesired effect on his lower half.

“Can I unwrap my present early?”

“I’m so sorry love, but the weirdest thing happened at dinner earlier. I had time to grab a spot of food before coming here, and then…”

As he began to sit down, the small blazer completely ripped down the middle, and the ruined fabric fell in two pieces down each arm. Natasha was really hamming it up now as she jumped up from the prop bed to kneel in front of her blushing boyfriend.

“I was joking before, but what else is about to come off? Did you somehow trade outfits with a stripper?” 

“That time in the gym must have really filled out my shoulders.”

“Then flex for me, Romeo. Let me see that body that’s all mine.”

Doing as told, Roger stood up and began to flex his muscles as he faced the audience. His tanned chest seemed to glow under the lights, and I heard the audience getting into it more now. If there were any repeat customers tonight, then they knew what normally happened here. Natasha would have her birthday party, and in the commotion, Roger would meet his demise. But that always happened fully clothed. 

Roger’s biceps were glistening in sweat, and his trimmed chest hair was as well. He was breathtakingly gorgeous, and if only he wasn’t so cocky, we would have all adored him. As I saw that blush spread further across those beautiful cheekbones, I wondered if there was something more human under there. Just maybe… 

“Oh, I just can’t resist anymore- come ravish me!”

With strength that I didn’t know she had, Natasha pulled Roger towards her as they fell into the throes of passion on top of that bed. The audience was losing it as Natasha’s legs comically kicked into the air before wrapping around Roger’s ample ass. She was kissing him all over as Roger tried to break free for his cue. 

“Oh honey, that special suit jacket wasn’t the only birthday surprise that I had planned. In fact…”

And this is where everything went so, so right. Roger lunged into a standing position without even feeling Natasha’s fingers hook into the two small holes that had come undone on each side of his tearaway pants. I don’t know how he hadn’t noticed earlier that we’d swapped them out before the show, but they’d stayed together right until they were needed.

In comical slow motion, the back half of his pants fell to the floor as the front stayed gripped in her hands.

“You got me exactly what I wanted!” 

As Natasha jumped to meet him, we all started streaming on stage, holding balloons and shooting party streamers into the air. The only one that was still was Roger who was somehow so very, very visible in the middle of all of this chaos. With his pants gone, he was now standing there in only his shoes, his nylon socks held up with leather garters on those strong calves, and an impossibly tiny pair of baby blue bikini briefs that were trying their hardest to stretch over his large frame.

We all took a cue from the audience and focused on Roger as he stood petrified on stage. His hands hung limply at his side, too embarrassed to even move them to cover up his impressive bulge and thick pubes that were showing over the stretched waistband. You could have heard a pin drop in the eerie quiet before one camera flash went off from the audience followed by several more. I saw our one underpaid usher try to stop the cameras, but it was too late.

Finally urged into action as he saw how many photos of him would soon end up online, Roger finally spun around to try to find his pants, his jacket- just anything to cover himself up with. Seeing the bed sheet that had been flung into the floor, he reached to grab it, but I was too quick and stepped onto it to keep him from getting it.

Standing back up, he had rage in his eyes as he looked at me, and he had no idea that even more photos were taken now of him. From the back, his tiny briefs had been wedged between those glorious cheeks, and he was exposing almost every inch of skin that he could.

“It was you- you’re the one that did it!” 

He was about five minutes early with that line, but Roger’s embarrassment had finally taken over his need to impress the critics. That was usually what he said when he discovered who the killer was right before falling to the ground, but now, he was saying it to me even though Joslyn was the one who’d dropped the ‘poison’ into his pasta in the previous scene.

“What are you talking about? It’s me- your best friend!” 

“A best friend wouldn’t do this on the most important night of their life!” 

Reaching forward, he grabbed onto my shirt and yanked it apart. Buttons went flying as my own chest was exposed to the crowd. My mouth was trying to hard not to break into a smirk behind my trimmed salt and pepper beard as I backed away from Roger. Following me back under the lights, he just kept going. 

“You’ve always been jealous of me- my career, my body, everything! Do you know how hard I’ve fought for this? Do you?”

He truly believed the words that he was saying even though he’d never had to go to an open casting call in a crowded building downtown. He’d never had to squeeze into a borrowed pair of LaDucas and dance for hours just to be told that they’d gone in a different direction. Oh no, Roger had never felt rejection like that which is what would make what happened next even sweeter.

He lunged at me, and we fell in a heap on the floor. The audience, even the return viewers, probably had no idea that anything had gone wrong. Everything we’d done had been in character, and only one thing would be able to prove to them that this show had gone off the rails.

Roger’s body was gyrating around on top of me, but he never landed a punch. He wasn’t angry enough for that, but he was too flustered to even know what to do. He couldn’t handle this humiliation, and he was just lashing out. And then, it all stopped. As we tussled, we both heard the pop and froze. It could have been anything, but we both knew exactly what it was.