"Kill me? What do you mean, kill me? You’re nuts. I’m crazy about Carol. And she likes me."

"Hey, Alec, old boy. I’m sorry to be the one telling you this but Carol is beside herself." Ashton’s voice was muted but excited. His animated face finally captured Alec’s attention. "She’s gone over the edge. I’m telling you."

"How the hell do you know what she’s thinking anyway," Alec said. His eyebrows lowered, confusion, disbelief and shock permeated his lanky demeanor. His mind drifted, escaping Ashton’s words.

Alec Wright kind of drifted through life, inwardly engaged in a day to day fight to compete among his peers. And on an average, he barely averaged out. At thirty, he felt himself becoming more frustrated, striking out with the few women he forced himself to interact with.

"I need some lovin'," he’d say from time to time, mumbling his way through his carpenter’s job.

He’d been working at a local theater, constructing props and scenery. And it was Carol, the lead actress, who turned him on. Really on.

Alec was more than just smitten with her; he was consumed with her. His emotional fires made him converse with her at every opportunity he could find during rehearsals. His only success, so far, was sharing cappuccino with her last night at the coffee shop across the street after the director’s last yell, "That’s it for today. See you all at eight in the morning."

It was over coffee when he learned Carol had dropped nursing as a career to get into acting. She went on at length about her stage aspirations. A pretty one-sided conversation he thought, but no rejection this time. Alec knew he was hopelessly out-classed, but she so embodied his idea of a perfect woman he overcame all his inhibitions in his pursuit.

Alec talked about how he enjoyed working with wood and their various textures, scents, strengths and other physical attributes. He had hoped to have his own shop some day, making furniture.

"I love the smell of sawdust in the morning," he quipped. That brought a smile to Carol’s face. He constantly moved around in his seat, a bit out of his comfort level, but indeed, time well spent.

Carol Johns had been rehearsing for only a few days, newly discovered as it were, by the choreographer, Ashton Conrad. She fit right into the milieu of the numerous affected theater types in the show, enamored with outrageous gestures, conversations that included dialogue from well-known movies and a dance-like walk. As if she was always on stage.

That afternoon he asked, "Say, Carol. How about a latté after final curtain tomorrow night."

"Oh, thanks, Alec, how sweet. But I’ve got to go over some dance steps with Ashton. We’re trying to work a dance into the script for Mr. Dodd, the director." She brought the back of her hand to her forehead in her typically show biz affection, tilted her head back and said in farcical dialogue, "Oh, that Ashton is sooo good. I hope I can learn all the steps. And he’s soooo good looking." She skipped off.

"Yeah. Good looking, all right. And as queer as the proverbial three dollar bill," Alec said under his breath. He watched her tight jeans exit stage right and marveled at how well the Levi’s contained and separated her buttocks. Alec shook his head. "She has a perpetual wedgie. That seam seems to run right up her butt." His vision-to-loin connection generated instant arousal. "Shit. Alone again tonight," he mumbled. "So what else is new?"

Alec hammered away at two-by-fours near the rear of the stage, framing scenery for one of the sets. His tool belt and saw sat nearby on the floor. Carol was up front, close to the stage lights with Ashton, practicing the two-step dance to be incorporated into one of the scenes.

The piano player glared at Alec, then motioned to the director. Dodd stormed over to him, flamboyant hands waving high in the air. "Damn-it, man, can’t you hammer quietly? And get those damn tools off the floor. The dancers will be circling back here any moment."

Dodd steamed off with both hands covering his forehead in exaggerated exasperation, then moved them backwards over his head smoothing his longish artist’s hair curled at the back of his neck.

Alec stopped and watched Carol and Ashton practice, his leg bouncing somewhat to the hillbilly tempo of the piano. The dancers two-stepped to the beat, around to the rear of the stage and hopped over his tool belt. Carol didn’t see Alec, lost in the dance routine and her career.

"Christ," Alec said. "He moves more like a girl than she does. Geeze. Carol has a way to go before becoming a dancer. At least the music is cool." He watched until the bright footlights blurred them from view.

A few weeks later, after many failed attempts at getting Carol to go out with him, Alec decided during dress rehearsal that he would corner her behind one of the sets he had made and force a show-down with her. He was familiar enough with the show now. He knew that during that scene in the second act, she exited stage left and had about a five-minute wait before her next cue, before two-stepping back on stage. "That’s when I’ll confront her." His chest puffed up, his lips thinned to a straight line and he ran a hand over his groin.

Alec had the practice, timed right down to the minute. Hearing the familiar music cue, he stooped down in the dim light behind the set and waited. He felt beads of moisture run from under his arms and heard his heart thump. "Christ, I’m getting a woodie," he said.

Carol burst, breathless, into the dark behind the scenery and when hidden, turned back to face the small audience the director invited to view and critique the dress rehearsal."God, I love it. And I hope they love it, too," she said.

"Carol, honey. It’s me, Alec," he said in a low stage whisper.

She swirled around, eyes adjusting to the low light.

"Jesus Christ. What the hell are you doing here? You scared the hell out of me."

"I need you to go out with me. I’ve got tickets to a great movie." He wanted to hold on to her arms to emphasize his ardor but he only groped. "I think I love you." Alec tried to put his arm around her but she flailed and beat his chest.

"Screw off, you little backstage creep. Who the hell do you think you are? I’m a star."

"I love you, Carol. I want you." He closed in on her, pressing her against the scenery framework.

Carol felt his excitement, panicked, kneed him in the groin and pushed him away. In a loud whisper, "You’re... you’re crazy", she said and burst onto the stage a little ahead of cue.

The knee to the groin had glanced off Alec’s thigh. "Shit." He grunted and leaned against the sturdy frame. His shirt stuck to his chest as he heaved short, hard breaths. His excitement persisted, everything throbbed. He flicked a drop of perspiration from his chin, bent down, hands on his knees and caught his breath.

Alec remembered every painful moment about the night the ‘Star’ went home with Ashton after dress rehearsal. Alec had made it home from the confrontation and now, found himself trying to understand what Ashton was saying. Alec knew Ashton’s mouth was moving but he couldn’t make sense of the words. Ashton’s raised, lisped speech and gestures finally brought Alec back to the present. He became coherent again.

"Listen, Alec. Carol spelled it all out to me. She is so incensed, she wants to kill you."

"That’s crazy. She’s not the type," Alec said.

"Wrong. She said she had no time for petty career interferences. After the two of us got to my studio after dress rehearsal, she paced the floor, took a paper napkin from the nearby table, blotted her face and said, "I’m worried. Hell, I’m beyond that, I’m scared." She went on pacing and ranting about never having felt the magnitude of an unexpected and for sure, unwanted sexuality from just, well, some strange guy before. Although I had," Ashton said, smiling, lowering and cocking his head to one side.

"I told her to have a drink, thinking it would help her feel better. I gave her a glass of Chablis. "Here, down the hatch," I said. "A toast to the toast of the show.

Hoping to divert her, I asked if she liked my studio. I watched her as she seemed to space out, Alec. Her expression turned from angry fear to a kind of calm comprehension. She wasn’t hearing me. I saw her eyes widen, as if an idea had hatched, infiltrated and percolated through the complex neuronal network of a scheming actress’s calculating mind. Then she blurted, "Bull crap. I’m gonna kill that creep."

Alec went numb. "I can’t believe this," and sat in the middle of his over-stuffed living room couch and stared across the room at Ashton with vacant eyes.

"I just wanted to warn you. She’s flipped out," Ashton said. "After pacing my floor, she gestured with her arms as if exiting the stage with her usual melodramatic flair and said, "Toodles," and blew me a kiss. She evidently went back to her apartment and planned an elaborate scheme to get you out of her way. You really scared her, man. Later that night she phoned and confided in me. Even if she wakes me up, somehow she feels okay sharing conversations with me. You know, helping her with her career and all. But she’s literally dead serious and got the murder ‘of that idiot tool man’ all planned out."

"What the hell’s she gonna do, shoot me?"

"Definitely not. She’s way too devious for that, silly," he lisped.

"She told me about a packet of emergency medical equipment she keeps for her diabetic mother whenever she visits her here in the ‘Big City.’"

"She’s gonna fill a syringe with some kind of insulin thing, call you to have drinks at your place here, get you drunk with something like Nyquil®, and inject the insulin into a vein."

Alec’s face grew cold, pale and moist. He brought his arm up to his face and wiped his forehead on his shirt. He felt himself sinking into the couch.

"This is bullshit," Alec said. But he could read the reality in Ashton’s eyes.

The telephone rang. Alec’s head turned toward the portable phone on the couch next to him. He looked at it, seemingly lost amongst the large floral design of the cushion. It rang a second time. He picked it up and through habit, snugged it between his shoulder and his ear and said, "What, already."

"Hello, Alec? It’s Carol. I want to apologize. Can I come over?"