ELENA Uh … what are you doing? You can’t lie there.

DOLORES Just pretend I’m not here.

ELENA I’m at work. I’m working. This is my new job and I’m good at it and I’m working.

DOLORES I’m just going to fall asleep and a thousand years will pass and pumpkin vines will grow over my face and when I wake up, I won’t remember anything. I won’t remember a single thing from the life I had before. I’ll be empty like an echo.

Beat. ELENA puts the whip down.

ELENA Is everything all right?

DOLORES No.

ELENA Do you want to tell me about it?

DOLORES No.

ELENA Because you could, if you wanted. I wouldn’t charge you.

Beat.

DOLORES You look good.

ELENA I feel good.

DOLORES You never feel good. Why do you feel good?

ELENA I was guilty and I was sad and I thought I wanted to be forgiven. But then I realized that I don’t want that at all.

DOLORES No?

ELENA No. I want to be mean. I want to be remorseless.

DOLORES You don’t seem very mean to me.

ELENA I wasn’t. I wasn’t mean. But that was Old Elena.
Now I’ve cut through everything tying me to Old Elena and I’m New Elena.

DOLORES New Elena?

ELENA New Elena is a happy person. New Elena is incapable of moral conscience, and therefore is never plagued by guilt. Your assistant suggested that course of action.

DOLORES He suggested that you become a dominatrix incapable of moral conscience?

ELENA I mean, he didn’t spell it out, but he implied a lot.

DOLORES I don’t think it works like that.

ELENA Old Elena was a mess. Old Elena wanted to be beaten. New Elena wants to beat.

Tell me that’s not progress.

DOLORES I don’t know.

ELENA You should try it too. You look miserable. You could use some progress.

DOLORES I lied to someone.

ELENA So become a person who lies.

DOLORES I betrayed someone.

ELENA So become a traitor. There’s a long history of traitors, most of them are famous.

DOLORES I’m a terrible human being.

ELENA You’re not.

DOLORES Someone should do something terrible to me. I deserve it.

ELENA That’s not true.

DOLORES I have a little person. I have something inside me that will grow into a little person, and I have no idea what to do with it.

ELENA You don’t have to know everything. You’ll listen. It will tell you what to do with it. And even when you fail it, it will love you.

DOLORES How do you know?

ELENA Old Elena used to know a lot of things about that.

DOLORES What if it looks at me and it sees someone it doesn’t like?