She hadn't felt La Petite Mort creep up on her yet in regards to this show. She had a feeling that she and KSL would still be friends, and she and Super Director would be living in the same building very soon.
She made her way backstage as she got to the theatre to check on the props, when she was hit by the smell. Backstage smelled like a combination of everyone who had lived out this play all month. It was their sweat, their perfume, their makeup, their deodorant/antiperspirant. They had made that smell the smell of the play, and it would never smell like that again. It filled her with a sorrow that she didn't realize she had for this play. Sure, it had been fun, but the cast hadn't grown especially close during the run, in fact had branched off into couples pretty early on in the process. They were all very nice people, but they hadn't gone out of their way to socialize and bond with each other.
The play went very quickly and without issue. The technical director ordered pizza, and they snacked as well as drank whisky from flasks and just enjoyed each others company. The technical director said he was going upstairs to lower the swing, and she scampered after him. It had been her favorite set piece, and she loved hearing the crowd be impressed as it lowered from the ceiling, going unnoticed until that moment. It was fully functional and held up to 400 pounds.
Swinging indoors was something that she would never get over, it just felt amazing. They stayed in the theatre for a long time taking turns swinging, but not so high as to hit the back of the stage wall. She begged him to keep it up there for the future, as it brought her an enormous amount of joy. KSL took tons of photos of her swinging, all hideous looking. She made him delete them right away. She was a little sad that she was the best photographer of the bunch, thereby making her invisible to the experience when she looked back.
They went to a smoky dive bar after cleaning up the theatre and dropping their stuff off at the car. She had gotten more flowers for the end of the run, and it was going to be sad to be without them in a week. As they walked to the bar, KSL asked what was said about him the night before in his absence.
"She said that your dick was small but you must have been good in bed because you made that other girl squirt. She also warned me to stay away from you. In fact, BFF said the same thing earlier today."
"Did she now?"
"Yep, she said that people are saying that we are fucking. Of course I asked her what people, and really it was just the woman from the board sitting behind us at the play the other night. Apparently she thinks sitting next to a person at a play constitutes fucking. Anyway, I asked her if everyone's opinion of me is so low that they think I'm fucking around on my husband."
"And she said no, that my reputation was the bad one." He scoffed. She nodded yes. He was upset but there was nothing she could really do to console him. He'd really dug his own grave on that, and wasn't making it any better with her.
They had time before everyone else showed up at the bar, so the kiss came up again. "I asked BW, I asked Millennial Girl, and this Disney Friends With Benefits isn't a real thing." She decided to ask him the selfish question "You said that night you would have kissed me before. When?"
"When? There were so many times; whenever we were saying goodbye, when we pulled away from a hug...it just felt like there should be a kiss afterwards. Now I feel like I fucked up our friendship."
"Don't be like that." She said. "I'm sure we'll be just fine."
