My plays have been produced in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis; 'Apartment Building of the Blind' will be produced by Soho Rep in New York this summer. A collection of my original fairy tales, 'Petals & Thorns,' was published by Rampant Books in 1995. I'm a movie reviewer for the Seattle Weekly and have had stories
published in assorted literary magazines; I'm also the editor of the theater journal Platform. I wrote the narration for the documentary film 'Le Petomane: Fin de Siecle Fartiste,' directed by Igor Vamos, which has played at various film festivals around the U.S.

(All of the characters except for the Narrator could be played by two actors.)

NARRATOR: So imagine that this is an apartment living room, with a truly hideous green couch, and you're a pleasant enough young man sort of slumped there but not in any resentful way, it's just bad posture. And you're telling me, in that way that's supposed to convince me you have the inside track on this, that sex is good and good for you, that no religion or political belly-aching will ever suppress it, when done properly it benefits the cardiovascular system, improves digestion, and induces an all-around sense of well-being. Imagine that I stick my head out the window and ask this woman on the sidewalk: Miss, why do you have sex?

PASSERBY: Well, I'd like to think that it's an expression of the profound love between me and my boyfriend, but just the other night I had sex with a guy I met in a bicycle repair shop and I came so hard that my eyes rolled back in my head and I made weird grunting sounds that I'd never heard come out of a human throat before and I clenched my thighs so hard that he passed out from lack of oxygen and you know, I'd known this man maybe seven hours and I gave him a made-up phone number because I never wanted to see him again, and afterwards I wrote down exactly what had happened and mailed it to my boyfriend with instructions to open it only
in the event of my death, and I don't know if I'm testing my boyfriend or torturing him, I don't know if I'm going to do this again, I don't feel at all guilty, you know, the answer is, I don't know, I don't know why I have sex.

NARRATOR: Interesting. Next, let's ask this cockroach.

COCKROACH: Well, to begin with I don't actually experience pleasure per se. Orgasms as they are generally understood are a phenomenon known only to higher vertebrates. What happens to me is more like a deep anxiety, a profound tension that accumulates throughout my being, until I'm driven to perform this act that is incomprehensible to me because it's not related directly to food, which is about all I think about otherwise. But after I copulate with a female cockroach, and I'm not even sure how I know she's female, I'm not sure if I can accurately claim to be able to 'see', there must be some subliminal smell that I respond to unknowingly because I
don't actually have a brain, just a ball of ganglia about the size of the ball in a ball-point pen, one of those microballs -- anyway, after I've released my seed, I feel an astounding sense of relief and serenity and were I capable of religious feeling I have no doubt I would describe this feeling as heaven or nirvana, but in truth it's nothing more than a momentary absence of the painful need that otherwise drives me constantly forward towards death.

NARRATOR: Wow. Thanks. So let's put this in a narrative context: These are my downstairs neighbors who just moved into this tiny basement apartment because it's all they can afford, but they're convinced they'll never fight over money -- isn't that sweet?

(Holly and Jeff cast longing glances at each other like moony teenagers, paralyzed with infatuation.)

NARRATOR: Holly, what first attracted you to Jeff over there?

HOLLY: Uhm, he has really nice hands? Strong, but not too big? I don't feel threatened by them, but the idea of him holding me just sort of, y'know, makes me feel all soft gooshy and secure. I mean, he's cute in general, but that was a definite strong point.

NARRATOR: Jeff, how about you?

JEFF: Kind of, the way her skirt hung over her hips and down her, uh --not, like, it's not like she's got a really hot ass, kind of thing -- she does, but it's the fact that she chooses clothing that reveals and conceals in ways that say she's a sexual being, she's comfortable with sexual attention, and that made me feel okay about giving that to her, because often I feel like some kind of, you know, asshole, if I look at a girl's butt with any kind of, uh, hunger.

NARRATOR: She gave you permission...

JEFF: That's exactly it. I knew my attentions were not unwanted.

NARRATOR: Is this true?

HOLLY: Uh-huh. Yeah. But it's not just the clothes, I mean, there were other guys at that party and they were looking at me too and that was not cool, the way they were looking at me.

NARRATOR: But Jeff''s look had another dimension.

HOLLY: Oh yeah.

NARRATOR: Something, could you call it, a spiritual connection.

HOLLY: There was a communion of souls when -- yeah.

NARRATOR: What do you think? Naive bullshit, right? I mean, I've never been smitten like that, eyes-meet-across-the-room, it's a lie. They grew up watching a million first kisses on TV, passionate relationships begun, consummated, and brought to a crashing end in the span of half an hour, and it will take years of therapy to undo the damage to their subconscious
expectations. You're a housefly. Am I right, or am I right?

HOUSEFLY: No, I identified very much with their story. I only live for, I don't know, a day or two, and my relationships last maybe thirty seconds --

NARRATOR: I've been there.

HOUSEFLY: -- so I find it helpful to identify with, for example, Jill on 'Charlie's Angels', who can't keep a boyfriend because she has to be single again on next week's episode, so they usually turn out to be drug dealers or else they get killed. That happens to me a lot. I don't like more recent shows because they all have these sustained storylines, and it just upsets me to know I'll never find out what 'The X-Files' is really about. You know, the electronic buzz of the television set reminds me of the male fly as it circles around, relentlessly narrowing in on me like a shark, you know, in my case it's more like assault -- well, I'm exaggerating, you know, I function purely on autonomous impulses, I have no concept of sexual choice to begin with. I'm an insect; sex is a cold, impersonal act, but, you know, whatever gets you through the night, you
know?

NARRATOR: Hmm. Let's look at couple B across the hall, to whom I've never spoken more than two words before.

(Irma and Bob address the audience directly. They should both be flat, not animated; what they're saying is true, but they want to be as straightforward about it as possible.)

IRMA: I'd been dating Bob for a while, a few months, no particular reason but that it was better than being alone. I had no sense that he felt any different, and that made it tolerable.

BOB: We went to a park, to have a picnic, at the time we were still trying to live up to some image of romance. We were walking through a fairly isolated portion of the park when Irma stopped and squinted at something on the left.

IRMA: A man and a woman were having sex on the grass. They weren't wholly out in the open, but they weren't really hidden, and they were fucking. His pants hung around his ankles, her skirt was riding around her stomach, her legs were wrapped around his naked bottom.

BOB: It wasn't screaming animal sex, but they were clearly enjoying themselves. It wasn't furtive or obligatory. They liked each other. And that was very sexy.

IRMA: It was arousing to watch. I felt flush. But I was embarrassed to be standing next to Bob, to be more aroused than he'd ever made me feel.

BOB: That was uncomfortable. I knew that if we went off and had sex in the park, we'd both be thinking of this couple and not each other.

IRMA: So, finally, without looking at him, I put my hand into his pants and squeezed his erection. I began jerking him off.

BOB: So I did the same. She was wearing loose jeans, and I reached down and slid my fingers into her wet vagina and stroked up and down, in and out. I stroked her clitoris.

IRMA: We both kept watching.

BOB: The couple we were watching never noticed, or if they did, didn't show it.

IRMA: I almost cried when I came. It was good and it was awful.

BOB: Since then, we've grown to find each other's bodies sexy. It's mostly little things.

IRMA: I like the swirl of hair under his navel.

BOB: Her nipples are genuinely pink, not brownish red like most women's. That's kind of sexy.

IRMA: Still, we're very inclined towards oral sex, because that way we don't have to look at each other's faces.

(Back to the Narrator.)

NARRATOR: You see, that green couch made your skin look awful, I couldn't look at you. But when you asked me to take off my clothes, I wanted to do that. I liked the way you slouched down because you wanted me to sit on your lap. I liked the idea that you liked to look at me. So with my eyes turned I started unbuttoning my blouse. But you said, Look at me. Look into my eyes when you do it. And I thought, if I look in your eyes it won't happen. All I see are mistakes waiting to be made. Nothing I see leads me to want your hands around my back or spreading my legs apart, sliding down my thighs or cupping my ass. I should go through life with a blindfold on.

(The Housefly and the Cockroach blindfold her.)

NARRATOR: Without my eyes, everything is yes. Every sound, every touch, every smell, every taste takes me under the surface of the world. Kiss me, slip your tongue between my teeth and let me drink your saliva. Let your voice flutter in my ears and fill the cavern of my brain, lapping to and fro like warm bathwater rolling over my skin. Whisper how you love me and what you love about me until I don't know who I am anymore, until you have entered my soul the way you enter my body and I surrender like the damned. Cast me in a flaming pit and let me catch fire, and what will be left when I burn? That's what I want to know. That's the only question I can't answer for myself. Take me into darkness, for the light is a lie. The only truth is the sound of my voice, and if you don't believe, the truth will strike you blind.

(Blackout.)

The End