Virtually Mine: a love story Read Online Free PDF Page A

down and cozied up to Dustin, looking over his
shoulder at their scene.
    Dustin scooted away a bit and handed
Wissy her own copy.
    Wissy accepted the pages. “I was thinking
we should just jump right into character, see where it takes us.”
    Dustin wrestled with what to do. He
thought about Wissy’s job in casting. He thought about what Kate had said. “We
don’t have to do the whole kissing part yet.   I mean if you’re—”
    Wissy moved away. She tossed the scene
aside and stood. “Maybe an exercise would help. Ooh. I have one. We’re going to
speak to each other without words.”
    “We are?” Dustin stymied as to how that
was possible.
    “Go ahead, Sweetie,” she coaxed. “Stand
up.”
    Dustin stood a few feet away, but Wissy
waved him closer. “Come as near as you want, feel the chemistry building for
the scene, but resist actual contact.”
    Confusion clouded Dustin’s mind. “Don’t
touch you?”
    “Let me show you,” Wissy offered. “Turn
around.”
    Dustin pivoted, not altogether sure what
to expect. From behind Dustin, Wissy moved her hands slowly around his face and
neck, millimeters away, never grazing him.
    She whispered softly into his ear. “If we
do it right, we should be able to unearth what these characters are feeling
without even so much as the slightest physical brush. We just light the match
under it, let it simmer a little, disturb the molecules as they say and... Do
you feel that?”
    With Wissy’s warm breath and the sound of
her sultry voice in his ear, Dustin’s resolve fell as his temperature rose.
“This is an excellent exercise,” he pronounced. “I’m just a
little...whoa...okay...”
    “You’re not nervous about this, are you?”
Wissy teased. “Come to think of it, maybe you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t
rehearse the kiss. Maybe we should let everything we’re feeling here compound,
right up until the actual   performance.”
    ♥   
♥    ♥
    Kate
paced opposite the sink where Charlie still busied himself with her garbage
disposal. From his vantage point under the sink, he had to fight not to watch
her willowy legs as they passed. They were just legs, he told himself. He had
seen legs before, just never from this exact angle.
    “What do you think they’re doing right
now?” Kate asked.
    “Well, I...” Charlie blustered, “I try
not to think about those kinds of things, things I can’t—”
    Kate stopped pacing. She hopped back up
on top of the counter. “You’re right. Why am I torturing myself? I should just
focus. Think about...I don’t know, I should conjugate verbs or contemplate
asparagus or—”
    “Sometimes I think of pi,” Charlie
interjected, understanding the feeling.
    Kate seized on the suggestion. “Back home
in Virginia, my Mom makes the best pie. It’s this apple custard with little
bits of apricot jam dotted in it. I’m telling you, Charlie, there’s not a
sweeter thing that could ever touch your lips.”
    Charlie felt himself going even paler
than he normally was. In fact, he came close to passing out altogether. “I was
thinking of the mathematical kind of pi, solving it, but—” Charlie tried to
scoot out from under the sink smoothly, but he banged his head soundly on the
cabinet frame. “Ow-ow-ow,” he yelped, before he could stop the words from
exiting his mouth. He’d always felt like something of a doofus, but never more
than at that very moment.
    Kate jumped off the counter. “Charlie,
are you okay? Let me look.”
    Kate’s close proximity only increased Charlie’s
anxiety. She brushed the hair back off his brow. “Hold still. Lemme see.”
    Charlie winced. “It’s only a
little...blood and—”
    Kate examined Charlie’s scalp. “You
sure?   I could put some ice or...we
don’t have ice. How about ice cream?   Ice cream might work.”
    As quickly as he could, Charlie rose to
his feet. In fact, he rose so quickly that he made himself a bit woozy. “That’s
okay. I should... You look good...I