ELENA You’re very likable. If it makes you feel any better. You’re not the type of person I like very much, but I like you.

DOLORES You do?

ELENA I do.

A beat. DOLORES doesn’t smile, but almost.

DOLORES Thanks.

ELENA I know this isn’t my job anymore, but—you need to take care of yourself. Calcium supplements. Vitamins. Are you seeing a medical specialist?

DOLORES I thought you were a dominatrix incapable of moral conscience.

ELENA I’m just asking.

DOLORES I don’t know very much, I guess. And I fuck up a lot. And you didn’t ask me what I thought. But if you want to know, I think the things you carry with you, the things that are maybe the most important things—you might try to put them down but you can’t. If you woke up in a hundred years, you’d still carry them with you. Maybe over time your heart bends to fit the weight of those things and that bending will turn you into a different shape. But not a new shape. Just a different one. That’s what I think.

DOLORES crawls out from under the table.

ELENA Where are you going?

DOLORES I have to write a letter.

She leaves. ELENA looks after her.

Beat. The real world begins to filter back in.

ELENA puts the whip down. She sighs.

ELENA My heart is a strange shape. A different shape. But not a new one.

Not dominatrix-shape after all. I wish it were dominatrix-shape.

It was good though. Wasn’t it good?

While it lasted.

(a deep breath)

OK. I can do this. I’m going to do this.

Here I come.

I’m ready.

ELENA walks back out into the world.

Scene Fourteen

CONSTANTINOPLE stands at the bottom of the basement stairs.

He faces us.

Across from him, MORGAN faces us.

DOLORES, now alone, sits holding her stomach.

Sometimes their voices interweave in a choral effect.

Sometimes they don’t.

Partway through, CONSTANTINOPLE starts to move up the stairs. Stair by stair.

CONSTANTINOPLE Dear Mom—

MORGAN Dear Constantinople—

DOLORES Hey kid.

CONSTANTINOPLE I don’t know how to write, so I’m thinking you a letter, and maybe you’ll understand.

MORGAN I’m writing you a letter to take with you.

DOLORES I’m bad at writing. Or talking. Or feelings. But here it is.

CONSTANTINOPLE You’re … wow.

And this was … wow.

And there were moments that were just … really … wow.

MORGAN You’re beautiful.

And this was beautiful.

And I’ve never been so sad in my life.

DOLORES You’re the only other person in the world who’s ever lived inside my skin.

We might understand each other better than anyone else on the planet.

Even if I don’t think I know what to do with you.

CONSTANTINOPLE Parts of it sucked too. But I thought it was beautiful.