'Hey!' Joe's eyes snapped open. 'I need my beauty sleep.'
Sean dragged the scrunched-up covers below Joe's waist. He wasn't fully hard yet and his erection wilted in the snow-chilled air, sagging back over the waist of his grey-plaid boxer shorts.
Joe groaned wretchedly. 'Now, look what you've done.'
Too bad, pillowhead.' Sean smoothed my hair back from my face. 'Can you reach him?'
I gauged the height of the footboard and the distance to Joe's softening groin. 'Only with my hands.'
'On your knees then, Mr Capriccio.' He shook Joe's calf. 'No point wanking off when the mouth of the century can put you to sleep with a smile on your face.'
'Christ,’ said Joe, hardly a flattering response, but he did grab the nearest post and heave himself upright. Sean tugged his boxers further down his hips.
Now that Joe was near enough to see what Sean and I were up to, his flagging erection rose. Encouraged, I cupped the weighty sac in my palm, following its curve back until I could press the firmer pad of his perineum. His involuntary jerk of response sent a thrill through my well-filled sex.
He touched my lips with his finger. 'Do you mind?'
Rather than waste time reassuring him, yet again, I bent forward and kissed him where it counted.
Being somewhat fresher than Sean or I, he came before either of us, then scrambled back under the covers to watch. He wore a contemplative look, his eyes quiet, his mouth softly curved. It made me wonder what he was thinking. Was he happy that Sean was happy? Was he memorising my response to Sean's personal repertoire of caresses? Or was he reviewing Captain Blood's last rehearsal?
‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said as Sean began his final ascent. 'My Uncle Joe the cop finally got back to me about the noise complaint.'
'Uh huh,’ said Sean, kneeing my legs apart so he could pump a little deeper. I doubted he had the faintest idea what Joe was talking about. He steadied my hip with one hand. 'Yeah, babe, that's it. Tighten around me. Man, you're good. You feel like you got a fist in there.'
'What did he find out?' I asked, though my concentration wasn't much better than Sean's. The outermost edge of an orgasm flirted around my cunt, there and then not there, there and then, oh, yes, it was definitely circling closer. I tilted back to take more of Sean's wonderfully fat rod. My hand slipped over his where it cupped my mons, urging him to work me harder. Our gathered fingertips brushed the place we joined.
'Sweet,’ he gasped.
I heard Joe's next words through a fog of gathering need.
'Well, the estate agent is out. It wasn't a man. Uncle Joey couldn't get a name, but the switchboard operator said the caller was definitely an older woman,’ Joe scooted close again and braced my shoulders for Sean's driving thrusts. 'I figure old Mrs Perelli must have had her hearing aid turned up that night.'
'Mrs Perelli. Right.' Sean gritted his teeth, his frantic pumping driving me to the brink. 'Right, right.' Coming hard, I bathed his cock in a hot flood of cream. 'Right, right, right. Ah, God.' He followed me with a groan of. complete sensual exhaustion.
For the first time in a week, we all slept satisfied.
Finally, the day of Captain Blood's opening performance arrived. Nervous as Tennessee Williams' cat, Joe had invited and disinvited us a dozen times during the previous week. 'You're going to hate it,' he moaned over the breakfast table, his hands shaking too badly to manage his bagel and coffee.
'We're not going to hate it,' I said. I spooned three teaspoons of honey into his mug. The honey was my attempt to reform Joe's sweet tooth. He permitted the interference, grudgingly, when I told him it was better for his throat than sugar.
'You might hate it,’ he insisted. 'You can't be sure.' 'How could we not be sure?' Sean asked. Knowing Joe's preferences well, he spread a thick swathe of marmalade across a bagel half and tucked it into his friend's frowning mouth. 'We've heard most of it already.'
This was true. In the past two weeks, a parade of panicked cast members had snaked up and down my basement stairs, desperate for a few hours of coaching from their lyricist-composer. Joe agonised over the responsibility. He wasn't the musical director. He was still learning himself. What if he steered his fellow actors wrong? But the moment they arrived, he was patient and calm. The women, especially, gazed at him as though he'd hung the moon. Poor heartsick things. All he cared about was their grasp of the three Ps: posture, projection, and phrasing. Despite his worries, they improved under his tutelage. Plus, he spent enough time shoring up their fragile egos for them all to leave smiling. If only he could have done the same for himself. 'Basket case' was not too strong a term for Joe's current state.
'We'll love it.' I rubbed the back of his clammy hand. 'Partly because it's wonderful and partly because we love you. If you want an unbiased opinion, you'll have to ask someone else.'