Короткие пьесы - [61]

BOB: How did you meet?

MIKE: So well… I enter the cafe near my house. Take a seat… Notice a young girl in the corner. She looked very sad. I feel my first feeling for her – pity. Decided to get acquainted with her. Come up to her and ask: «Hi, where’d you get so tanned?» She isn’t tanned at all. She looks up at me: «Are you kidding?» I say: «Yes, I’m. kidding» I say. We got into conversation. I invited her to my place. Then we got marred.

BOB: When did you spent your honeymoon?

MIKE: We were young and decided to spend a week in the tent on the band of the lake…

BOB: I have another honey moon, not in the rent.

MIKE: Bob, do you have vodka?

BOB: Yes.

MIKE: Let’s have one. It’s clean my throat. (They drink vodka). What about you’d honey moon?

BOB: It was in Caribbean or somewhere else I’d hire a room in the hotel with a view of the sea and invited her to the restaurant in the evening. Imagine candles, red vine and the waves of the ocean behind the windows…

MIKE: But I have no money for this kind of vacation.

BOB: Borrow from somebody.

MIKE: How’d I give it back? I’m on a pension.

BOB: So, you’re on a pension, doing nothing, and Helena works hard all day long. Comes home tired and cooks a meal for you. I’d have not only had sex with you but I’d have divorced from you. How do help her?

MIKE: Keep order in the house. Sometimes do shopping…

BOB: Can you cook anything?

MIKE: I can fry potatoes.

BOB: So, do this. She comes from work, you meet her with fried potatoes, there’s a candle on the table, glasses with wine, fruits, napkins. The house’s cozy and nice. Don’t ever bother her in the evening. Let her think that you were waiting for her not for sex, but because you love her…

MIKE: Bob, I really love her.. And…

BOB: You love her? It’s a different matter. You have to show her your love…

MIKE: How?

BOB: You have to be patient for sex, and eventually you’ll be awarded. She’ll appreciate your efforts and come back to you.

MIKE: While I’ll be patient she’ll find somebody else…

BOB: Well… Please, explain to me how it all happens between you two?

MIKE: What happens?

BOB: I mean sex…

MIKE: As usual… Once in a week we go to bed, cover ourselves with blanket and…

BOB: I we’d details. How long does it last?

MIKE: Ten, fifteen minutes,,

BOB: Then?

MIKE: Then? I usually fall asleep… It works like sleeping peels.

BOB: Do you know that for a really valuable sex you need a prelude.

MIKE: What kind of prelude you’re talking about?

BOB: Say, in the beginning you’re supposed to kiss her lips, then behind her ear… whisper something affectionate. Then…

MIKE: It’s the first time in my life I hear about the prelude.

BOB: How long you’ve been married?

MIKE: It’ll be twenty five soon.

BOB: Oh my! Your silver wedding’s approaching, but you’re still arguing I mean, all twenty five years everything’s been OK…

MIKE: Yes, everything was OK… And suddenly (pause) What about you? How’d you meet your ex-wife?

BOB: When I first saw her in the street, I followed her… I got only one thought in my head, one desire…

MIKE: Sex?

BOB: She was carrying heavy bags. I helped her. Led hero her house. At the door of her apartment we got into conversation, became acquainted. Appointed a date in the cafe she didn’t come. In early lost my mind. Started making scenes.

MAKE: Namely?

BOB: There was a tree growing opposite her window… I climbed the tree, threw a bucket of flowers into her open window with the note that said: «I love you. Come to the cafe». In this way I opened my heart to her. Then I invited her to expensive restaurants, bought presents. This lasted about six months. We went on the vacation, and there, at nights, under the light of the moon and stars, all that happened, and I proposed to her.

MIKE: What about the honeymoon?

BOB: Sure, after the wedding we went away for two weeks and spent the honey moon in Tailand. I’d been dreaming about visiting it for a long time.

MIKE: Did Valentina also dream about it?

BOB: Don’t know. By the way, it didn’t matter by then.

MIKE: Why did you divorced from her eventually?

BOB: I understood that I’d make a mistake… Constant quarrels, jealousy… I got tired, I think, if she’d come to the cafe for the first time, I’d have never married her.

MIKE: Yelena and I’ve never quarreled. She informed me that she did not want to have sex with me quit calmly, without making any scenes. It was so unexpected.

BOB: You, pal, bored her with your dull sex. You don’t have any fantasy.

MIKE: Could you advise me what to do?

BOB: It’s very hard case… Women are very different. Some of them should be taken by power…

MIKE: How come taken by power? It doesn’t suit me…

BOB: I guessed she needs in jealousy… Did you have sex with other women but Yelena?

MIKE: No…

BOB: And did Helena have anybody but you?

MIKE: There was somebody. I met her on the next day after that guy left her. She had such lost and miserable expression on her face. May be she’s waited for him in the cafe and still hoping that he’d come back.

BOB: By the way, when did she tell you that she didn’t want to have sex with you?

MIKE: Two or three weeks ago. Does it matter?