Eros

Spring means sex and Granta knows it.


Notes for an abandoned one act play, called Eros:

A man and woman sit side by side. The man is slightly older. She is writing on a yellow notepad. He is reading a large book.

Long silence.

Woman: This is what we’ll play. Finish this sentence…

Man: Okay.

He sets the book down in his lap.

W: (reading off her notepad) ‘The most erotic thing in the world is…’

Pause.

M: You want me to answer?

W: Yes.

M: From there, ‘the most erotic thing is’? Really? (Pause) You’re not trying to tell me something?

W: No. I’m asking you.

M: Serious?

W: Serious. C’mon. Just finish this sentence.

He waits. Thinking. Looks down at his book, then at her. Then he picks up his book and slams it shut.

M: ‘The most erotic thing I can think of, I guess—if I had to say…’

W: ‘In the world.’

M: All right, the most erotic thing in the world is: (He shrugs.) The mouth.

W: The mouth?

M: Mouths…

He lets the sound of the word hang.

W: Whose?

M: (Decidedly now) Upturned, wanting. The desirous mouth. Lips, teeth—tongue. Most erotic.

W: (Unsure of this) Whose...?

M: Must be the mouth. For me it is, anyway. Yes, that pensive, hot, half-closed, delectable bud. Soft, swollen, kissable…You see?

She turns away, shaking her head.

M (cont'd): Why? What would should I have said?

She shrugs, goes back to her notepad, and begins crossing things out.

W: It wasn’t a test.

M: What? I was being honest. Give me some credit for originality, at least.

W: No, I just thought you might get beyond the anatomy and think of something more…than just a part.

M: It’s all parts, isn’t it? All our parts?

W: It’s so fucking obsessive. Really it is. You might as well just have said…

M: What?

She scowls at him.

M (cont'd): Oh, I could have.

W: You were practically describing one anyway. Some juicy woman’s in a magazine.

M: Well it would have to be a woman’s.

He smiles at her, waiting. Then she smiles back, upset that he’s got her laughing now.

W (pouting): I was just hoping for something else…

M: Like?

W: Like…(She sighs) Well something, I don’t know, more. Sunlight on hardwood floors, for instance, a lazy day with coffee and newspapers, and us walking around the flat half undressed…Making love on the floor in the midday sun.

M: Mmmm. Floor love. You see, now, don't you? This is precisely why I love the mouth. It's where these phrases come from. The locus.

W: I could punch your locus right about now.