Mona Mansour
Dramatic
LIZ, early 30s
LIZ is speaking to her girlfriend/partner, MAEVE. They’ve been together for a few years, and while MAEVE likes to talk endlessly about their relationship, analyzing each and every minutiae of feeling, LIZ quite frankly finds this a buzzkill. They have started to fool around but got stopped because MAEVE wanted to “process,” and LIZ has told MAEVE she’d rather talk about anything else than their relationship.
LIZ I just don’t want to spend all our time talking about our sexual enjoyment. Every day, every WEEK, we spend time talking about our shit, our SEXUAL shit, whether we can fully relax or not. Why, why not, what it means to completely GIVE IN, why we feel we can’t, we have need to have time BEFORE, but not AFTER—before we need the tonal change, the tonal shift, into sex. And it’s hard, because this world is fucked up and you get pushed in this world, just to go out and buy soy milk or whatever can be a trial, and you have to wear sunglasses to protect, to see out but not let them see in . . . my God—and in fact this same protective covering is what we need to let go of when it’s time to FUCK, be fucked, etcetera, and I gotta be careful not to use that word at the wrong time with you because some days it just hits you as dirty, the whole thing, and fuck or be fucked sounds either (a) crass or (b) like I’m just this suburban person trying to BE sexual and therefore (b1) that’s even worse, because what’s worse than an actual asexual, nonsexual, nonsexed person saying words like fuck, and so on? Nothing. I’m made needy, I’m made dirty, by saying that word. God I’m sick of myself.