Eye-opening (Saturday Night, Part One)

I spent yesterday in a nervous haze, knowing it was a matter of hours before I'd see Ben in his play.

Polly, Willow, and I met in a bar across the street from the theater, where I sipped some wine and tried to calm down. I could barely speak, I was in such a strange, unbalanced state. Part of me hoped that the moment I saw Ben on stage, he'd become a real person again, not a star in one of my mental movies, and my feelings for him would dissipate. I hoped he wouldn't be as good-looking as I remembered, or as charismatic and intruiging.

We were in the fourth row. The lights dimmed, and there he was.

A while later, he was naked. On stage. Naked Barman Ben.

I thought I was going to have heart failure.

In my fantasies of Ben, things never go beyond kissing. That's about as much as I would ever hope for, as much as I could handle.

Seeing him naked, even in a theatrical context, sent me into system overload. I could barely pay attention to the dialogue, or anything else going on. I was also trying not to stare, on the off-chance that he saw me in the audience and caught me checking out his package. Ben's in good shape and has a decent body, but I was pleased to see that he wasn't super-buff. I need him to have imperfections and don't want him to be flawless.

There was something about seeing him without clothes that bothered me. It was the same feeling I get when I sleep with a guy too soon; a sense of regret, not at the act itself, but at the loss of mystery. I also felt very shy looking at his body, which isn't the way I would have been with any other male actor on that stage.

I don't know if Ben saw me. It's a pretty small theater, the audience was partially lit for some of the scenes, and I have bright blonde hair (the lead singer of Glam Band has told me several times that he can always spot me in the crowd when he's singing, and I don't even stand near the front at their concerts). I think I caught his eye once, but it's hard to tell, because he was in character.

Speaking of which, he is quite a good actor (great, as if I needed another reason to like him). Objectively speaking, he was easily the best part of the play, which was good overall, but a bit uneven and self-indulgent. Ben, however, gave his character layers, endearing nuances and, overall, it was still the Ben I know from Cozy Bar. If the play did anything, it reminded me why I found him so damn alluring in the first place.

After the show, I was a bit shell-shocked. I think we all were. The ticker-tape in my head repeated the same words over and over:

I just saw Barman Ben naked. Naked Barman Ben. Naked.

We waited outside the theater for a while, but fifteen minutes passed and that seemed like the cut-off mark before it would have been stalker-ish, so we left. I didn't mind not getting the chance to talk to him, because I was a bit stunned and speechless and might not have had much to say, anyway.

Besides, something even better happened later that night, at Cozy Bar. Something that not only revealed Ben as far from flawless (and not in a good way), but has also given me great ammo on how to attract him.

To be continued...