TYE: —This ain’t a piss hard-on. —Come back to bed.

JANE: No, thank you. Your face is smeared with lipstick; also other parts of you, I didn’t know lip-rouge ever covered so much—territory. Were several involved? The complete company of ladies?

TYE: I hones’ly don’ remember a’ fuckin’ thing after midnight.

JANE: That I do believe. Have some coffee. It’s not instant, it’s percolated.

TYE: —Aw? Whose birthday is it?

JANE: It’s—our day of—parting.

TYE: Aw, now, be sweet, Babe, please come back to bed, I need comfort, not—New Yawk langwidge or—coffee . . .

JANE: I’ve been betrayed by a—sensual streak in my nature, susceptibility to touch, and—you have skin like a child.

TYE: No shit.

JANE: Yes, I must be a—skin freak. I suppose it’s your rural Southern breeding that’s endowed you with that stuff you’re covered with, too fine to be called skin, more like some rare stuff woven by—who talks like that?

PLAYWRIGHT: Nobody I know but me. —Once I said, “Give me your tongue in my mouth like holy bread at communion.” Proceed from the skin bit, please.

DIRECTOR: Continue—your drowsy numbness, Maestro, please.

PLAYWRIGHT: Mmmm . . .

JANE: Rare stuff woven by—sanctified caterpillars!

[The director chuckles at her extension of the line.]

PLAYWRIGHT: No variation, please.

JANE: Is this real coffee?

DIRECTOR: Yes.

JANE: I’ll have a bit. [She pours a cup and sips.]

[Voices of lady tourists are heard from the courtyard below.]

FIRST LADY TOURIST: What’s this courtyard called?

SECOND LADY TOURIST: Just courtyard and the date: 1812.

FIRST LADY TOURIST: Imagine the antiquity of that!

THIRD LADY TOURIST: Yes, and it’s the last item on the tour.

TYE: Aw, Jane, come here and just hold me, I never had a rougher night in my life.

JANE: I—

TYE: You?

JANE: You returned here at daybreak and immediately fell on the floor. I somehow managed to haul you onto the bed and undress you, discovered the insatiable mouth prints on your, made an urgent phone call . . .

TYE: Call?

JANE: And then I packed your personal belongings and all that hot merchandise you’ve been holding here, put it all back in the boxes. I’d no idea how much has accumulated, this place has become like the storeroom of the Seven Thieves of Bagdad! Exertion of packing nearly blacked me out. Trembling, sweating—had to bathe and change and then get packed myself.

TYE: — You packed? —Babe?

JANE: Yes, this is moving-day for us both, we’re both evacuating the premises, separately, “Babe.” It’s after noon.

TYE: Look, if you’re knocked up, have the kid: I’m against abortion.

JANE: On moral principles?

TYE: Yeh, that’s it, you’re pregnant: don’t git an abortion: have the kid, Babe. I’d pull myself together for a kid.

JANE: You wouldn’t, you didn’t for me.