Короткие пьесы - [51]
JULIA: Now you talk about “our business”…earlier you called it different.
Michael tries to hug Julia. Julia pushes him away
MICHAEL (surprised): Hold up! What is this?
JULIA: Don’t touch me… Do you remember the “Sacred Trip” you talked about right as we walked off the TV set?
MICHAEL: I didn’t really know what I meant by “A Sacred Trip”… Just wanted to get the sex going…
JULIA: We giggled together while we scrubbed the make up off… You stuffed the roses the show host gave us in your vest pocket and we went for coffee with Ann and Tom.
MICHAEL: I remember how long we had to talk and moon at the restaurant before they decided it was time to go.
JULIA: Our journey started as we flouted from the sofa to your bed…
MICHAEL: I was floating….drifting… to you…
(Pause)
JULIA: Me too. (Beat) Now it’s turned into an obligation… We never sit on the sofa…You never light candles. Right to bed… Our trip lasts only fifteen minutes.
MICHAEL: Julia, that’s a terrible way to talk! We are fine together.
JULIA (cynically): You’re fine!
MICHAEL: You don’t get any kind of pleasure?…Some..?
JULIA: Cosmic flood?… Ecstasy?… Vibrations?… Needling Sensation?…Well….
MICHAEL: Well…what more can I do?
JULIA: Value me more… Why don’t you ring the ships bell anymore?
MICHAEL: I will ring it… on my own yacht…
JULIA: Yacht!… Where…?
MICHAEL: Soon we will really be floating on the waves. I’ve always dreamed of sleeping on a boat…
JULIA: Where is the money… for this yacht?
MICHAEL: I’m saving for it!
JULIA (exasperated): You have no house, and you are saving for a floating palace!
MICHAEL: Why do I need a house?
JULIA: Don’t you want a family? Children?
MICHAEL: I don’t want all that… until…
JULIA: Until what? Michael, how old are you?
MICHAEL: Thirty.
JULIA: I’m thirty-three. I’m a woman…
MICHAEL: I see…
JULIA: You don’t see any thing! I want my own home… I want…ch…
MICHAEL: I didn’t know…
JULIA: When I hint about “home and hearth” you always change the subject…
MICHAEL: I just never understood your gist.
JULIA: Remember when we went to the zoo? There were those little baby monkeys. They had such cute expressions. They were so inquisitive and had such pleasure… Rolling around with each other. Hugging their mother….They even seemed to look at me with devotion…love…
MICHAEL: They didn’t make that much impression on me…Monkeys are monkeys…
JULIA: I wanted to take them in my arms. Right then, in the zoo, I knew how much I wanted to be a mother. To hug my babies. There is nothing so joyful as to think of a happy, sweet smelling, and warm baby. You felt nothing watching the baby monkeys?
MICHAEL: No… Nothing.
JULIA: Michael, how long do I have to wait? We have been together long enough.
MICHAEL: Not enough!
JULIA (exasperated): Two years is not long enough? Let’s stop and look at our relationship. You first of all love sex…
MICHAEL: Love without sex doesn’t exist. We really show love through sex.
JULIA: You think you’re a good lover?
MICHAEL: Sex is my specialty… Yes, I think most of the time I’m a good lover…
JULIA: But you don’t even know my hot spots!
MICHAEL: Well…your… we never….
JULIA: You think my erotic zone is my ears? Why are you always playing with my ears?
MICHAEL (also angry): You have never objected…
JULIA: I have a lot of patience…You don’t know anything about me, and you don’t want to know!
(Pause)
MICHAEL: What more do you want? I spend a lot of thought and energy on work. I expect a better job…. Better pay… I’m working longer. I’m working my way up the ladder. It’s hard to find this little time to spend with you.
JULIA (bitterly): And I thought in the end you would ask me to be your wife!
MICHAEL: What kind of a wife would you be? You don’t like to cook. Every time you spend a weekend here I have to clean up for an hour. You don’t even rinse your glass. Every time you want a drink you take a new glass from the shelf.
(Pause)
I’ve decided that if you get pregnant, I’ll marry you…
JULIA: How could I have become pregnant with you? I had no confidence that you’d marry me! And now you say you want to live on a boat!
MICHAEL: Well maybe… I…
JULIA: Michael, my time for kids is slowly slipping away. I’m really getting stressed about it…
MICHAEL: I don’t have those problems…
JULIA: You men don’t understand mothering. All women want to get married!
MICHAEL: Not all! My girl friend before you was dead sure she didn’t want to get married.
JULIA: Why did you break up?
MICHAEL: She cheated on me… and not just me… I have to admit she was sort of like a leaf just blown where ever nature and excitement took her…
JULIA: So since I was on the TV show you thought I was like her too? Sort of a prostitute?
MICHAEL: Well… you went to bed with me quickly… I think all women are like prostitutes… “Under their skin”…
JULIA (crying): What? What did you say?
MICHAEL: It’s not me; it’s a rhyme of Rudyard Kipling… But he thought that all women are lesbians. “The colonel’s ladies and Judi O’Grady are lesbians under their skin”…in their souls…something like that…
JULIA (bitterness mounting): Thank you for your gratis opinion about women.