Original subtitles

Everything was going great.

I'm in a six-year relationship.

We've got a town house, a cocker spaniel, a cat,

circle of friends,

favorite restaurants within a five-mile radius,

mutual funds- not too aggressive...

a guest room for when we're not speaking,

CD collection, vacation videos, engagement rings,

our whole future completely mapped out.

And then I met her.

I didn't have too many personal rules.

I try to drink a glass of water every day

and return my mother's phone calls within 24 hours,

and I didn't get involved with involved people.

Lacie and I were friends

from doing stand-up comedy at the same club.

I felt comfortable around her.

I could talk to her.

A couple times, I actually called her for advice-

which I never call anybody for-

about how out I should be in my act

and how much it might hurt me if I were.

She always said the same thing to me:

"Just be real."

That was her bottom line.

One night after a show,

this director approaches us about a play he's casting,

wants to know if we'd be in it.

Oh, you two would be perfect as lovers.

Listen to me.

I needed to have some fun.

That's why I agreed to do the show.

I've been waiting on rude customers

in an overcrowded deli by day,

and then driving by the house of the last woman I'd slept with

to see if her car was in the driveway.

It was long hours with the food service and the stalking.

I didn't even expect to get the script, to be honest.

I mean, in my hometown, Los Angeles,

people are always telling you they want you for something.

They cannot live without you

and then never talking to you again.

The play was about a lesbian artist

who cheats on her girlfriend with a man-

sort of science fiction.

Anyway, I wanted to do it.

Yeah, I was intrigued by the sexiness and danger of it.

Having only ever been with one woman besides Audrey,

it seemed like a good way for me to explore a little

without cheating, which I would never do.

No, if I'm going to be with someone,

I'm going to be with them forever, no matter what.

That's just how I am,

maybe because I come from an unbroken home.

I saw people making each other miserable on a daily basis,

but I never saw anybody leave.

And Audrey is there for me.

I know she's going to be there at the end of the day,

at the end of everything.

She's picking out songs for our ceremony,

interviewing potential sperm donors,

completing the picture of home and family we both believe in and agreed to.

I was excited about the challenge of making the love seem real.

That's one of the things I love about acting.

You get to create a life from scratch,

and in this life, you get to experience everything from love to hate,

free of obligation, free of consequence.

I thought I could handle a made-up relationship.

I wasn't too great at handling real ones,

and not just because my mother left when I was three,

but because if I'm going to be in a relationship,

I got to feel good more than I feel bad,

and that just hadn't turned out to be the case.

Granted, I'd only been in two long-term relationships,

one with a man when I was 18...

my 32-year-old neighbor, Rick, from across the hall.

Well, moving was a breeze.

The other with a woman named Cass.

I really thought I could make that one work out.

Audrey wasn't real happy about me doing the play.

She was worried about the time commitment,

worried about our relationship.

She was worried about the passionate kissing scene

between me and Lacie on page five.

She made up a whole rule about it.

No tongues, no noises.

Which, all I could think of was,

"Cool title for an indie film."

"Honey," I told her, "There's nothing to worry about.

"ln six years, I've never felt anything for anyone else.

I'm not going to feel anything now."

Well, Lacie seemed safe to me.

She's very back east, no bullshit.

Whatever she says is exactly what she means.

Have you read this play?

I don't think I can do this.

I'm not doing this play unless you do.

I don't know.

I've been busting my ass

trying to make it in Hollywood for ten years.

So?

So this play's not going to get me a sitcom,

and I don't know how much longer I can maintain a sense of humor.

Right off the bat,

rehearsals for the play are extremely intimate.

For every ten minutes we spend looking over the script,

we spend several hours getting our psyches probed by Gabriel, the director.

It is necessary for you to get to know each other

so you can be convincing as lovers.

I think this guy's a real meticulous director.

Dominic?

Unless he's just a nosy queen.

Let go. Let go.

Regardless, this is my definition of hell.

All right, how's your sex life?

How-like, how's my sex life?

Um, how's-are you talking about me or the character?

You.

You, you, you.

Oh, um, what-

fine.

Normal.

How's Audrey?

My Audrey?

No, your Aunt Tillie's Audrey.

Yes, yes, your Audrey.

How many Audreys do you know?

No, I don't know

any other Audreys.

I-I-she's fine.

I mean, I don't know.

Why wouldn't she be?

I mean, we're working on it.

What- what do you want?

What do- what do I want?

Me or the character?

Vous, vous.

Naturellement, vous.

All right, look,

it is necessary for you to get to know each other

so you can be convincing as lovers.

Lacie, what's going on with you?

Well, I was bisexual then, but we were sitting at the bar,

and she shoved her knee into my crotch.

Lacie has no problem spilling her guts to Gabriel.

No matter what he asks,

every shocking detail just comes streaming out of her fearlessly.

Plus, I was doing cocaine then.

And I liked giving head to guys, actually,

but eventually I realized I just liked women more.

So I tried to get him

to tie me up.

Then I was playing darts with her,

and I said, "If I win, will you come home with me?"

Anyway, people see me as tough.

Besides, I had had a lot to drink,

and it was really late to be naked on the balcony

with so much tongue,

but not before a cigarette

or her fingers in just the right place.

Because we met at a bar, we were just so turned on.

Well, that's how I hear it.

I think I have more information than I need.

Ah, Dominic.

Prepare a sponge bath.

Who are you?

Questions in therapy are hard.

Well, I don't know; I don't know.

I'm hungry.

I'm busy.

I'm committed.

I should be committed.

I'm claustrophobic.

Look, I don't-can we just blame this on my mother and move on?

God, I hate therapy.

I hate therapy so fucking much.

I just keep throwing out answers at her,

hoping to be right,

hoping to fill up 50 minutes without leaping out of my chair

and smothering her cynical, condescending face

with a needlepoint pillow.

I have anger issues.

Audrey and I have been seeing Katherine for five years at this point,

sometimes alone, sometimes together,

to work out the kinks.

We're very different people...

philosophically...

spiritually...

socially.

We want different things.

She wants to take trips, see the world.

I want to stay home and focus on the dreams I've had since long before I met her.

We tried to break up once after 2 1 /2 years.

We'd had another huge argument,

lying on the bed, crying and exhausted.

And we both just looked at each other

as if to say, "Enough."

We'd both hurt each other enough.

It was time to let go.

It was like these heavy chains fell off of us.

There was this sense of independence and peace.

It felt so good.

We decided to move in together.

With Audrey, I have security.

I have pizza night and joint tenancy

and bulk toilet paper jammed into the cupboards.

And I could sleep at night knowing we're going to be here for a while.

Can I get a martini for-

I'm sorry; tell me again.

Laurie, right?

Lauren.

I told you, like, five times.

God.

So you own the garbage disposal business?

Yes, I do.

I own it.

This girl is pretty in a sad, drunk kind of a way.

I love people with plights.

I feel like bar people are my people-

Maybe because my mother's side of the family

hits the bottle good and hard.

I'm happiest at the bar.

It's dark; it's easy to dream.

And after a couple of beers,

I'm the person I've always wanted to be.

Oh, this stinks-

I live right around the corner.

No.

Do you want to come to my place?

Okay, yeah-

I love going to bars and leaving with strange women,

because I don't have to pretend to be somebody I'm not

or live up to someone's expectations of me,

and anybody can be interesting for one night.

So what if they don't like you.

Fuck 'em!

Robin makes me laugh.

Fuck Hollywood.

I'm morosely introspective.

She rejects self-examination.

My therapist says anger is really veiled sadness.

Fuck her.

Like she could give

a shit about anyone's opinion but her own.

I'm sure people do have judgments about me.

I just don't happen to care what they are.

See, I want to know every judgment

anyone ever had about me so I can rectify my flaws.

Why, when it's so much easier to be oblivious?

Yeah, but then how do you grow?

How do you learn about yourself?

Oh, I'm sick of learning about myself.

I mean, you know, I want to evolve and everything.

I do.

I mean, I really do, but how evolved do you have to be?

100°/°.

100°/°?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Maybe this is hard to believe,

but I try to be the best possible person I can be,

like Gandhi or like Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ?

Wait, why would you want to be like Jesus Christ?

Why would you not want to be like Jesus Christ?

He was one of the greatest men who ever lived.

Because I know how it turns out.

She laughs at me.

She blatantly laughs at me,

but she makes me feel just frigging terrific about myself.

Relationships.

A personal observation I've made is that once I've begun

to schedule lovemaking into the appointment book,

the "relationship" is on its way to the good-bye-and-good-luck phase.

If I can't be late to a lunch meeting

because I just couldn't keep my hands off her,

if it's irking me

that she's touching me while I'm doing my crossword puzzle,

and if she's reporting to me

how many days it's been since we've made love,

and I'm arguing back that we might not have fully made love on Tuesday,

but didn't I kiss you while I gave you a back rub?

Shit is on the outs.

For my lover Cass and me,

these things occurred at almost exactly the same time

as I became totally incapable of hearing her.

I listened to her right up until the moment she opened her mouth.

Did I tell you about this ridiculous audition

I had in New York this one time?

I'm getting my hair-

And then the sound of her voice

would cause me to go completely deaf,

and I'd watch a silent movie

in which the only character on the screen was my girlfriend,

but all I could hear were my own thoughts

as I stared at this mouth opening and closing.

I wonder if I can get to the gym in time

to get in a 20-minute aerobic workout before I have to go to work.

I'd check back in to see if anything important was getting said.

I said I want chocolate, not vanilla.

Go downstairs-

I go right back to where I came from.

I'm not proud of this behavior, but-

and my therapist would congratulate me on this-

I'm aware of it, and that's the first step toward healing.

One time during this phase,

Cass and I decided to take a weekend away in the mountains.

We said to each other we would fish from a rowboat on the lake.

We smiled as we planned how we would hike.

We schemed about what we would cook.

But we each knew what we were really up to

was attempting to resuscitate our extremely weakened sexual relationship.

The time of the mountain getaway had been about six months

since we'd had exciting, free-spirited sex

and 22 days since we'd had any sex at all.

I knew this because she'd remind me-

sometimes with words, sometimes with facial expressions.

Pouting had become a way of life for her face.

Sometimes I'd come home and she'd be naked,

waiting for me on a picnic blanket,

having created a park in the middle of our living room,

there on the very L.A. off-white carpeting with the big, brown stains.

She'd put it to me blunt.

Aren't you attracted to me?

And I'd stare at her, haunted, frozen.

I used to be.

Honey, I'm just so tired tonight.

When we first started going out, it had been very sensual and sexual.

We'd do weird stuff.

One time, she actually pissed on me,

which most people find revolting, but which I'm proud of.

It wasn't much, maybe an 1 /8 of a cup or so.

I don't want to die without having done

every bizarre thing available to be done

which doesn't break any of my personal rules.

Urinary contact doesn't offend me ethically or spiritually.

It's simply somewhat disgusting, so it had to be done.

So anyway, we're on our way to the mountains,

and I'm behind the wheel of my Toyota 4Runner

with her in the passenger seat next to me,

and we've put several coastal cities between ourselves

and nearly a month of strained celibacy back in North Hollywood,

and yet you can cut the discomfort on the ride up to the cabin with a knife.

It's my fault, see?

It's not her.

It's me.

I'm never in the mood anymore.

It's me. It's mine.

It's all on me, my own failing, my bad.

She is blameless, and I am wrong.

Let's all dance around with daisies in our hair.

She's touching me in the car.

She's doggedly running her fingers along my neck, my thigh.

Her touch is speaking to me perfectly clearly.

It's the first time I've heard her in months.

"Don't fail me now.

"Get it together.

Perform."

And I am having my very own private panicking festival.

I'm going to have to touch her.

I'm going to have to taste her.

I'm going to be alone for two days in a cabin with my lover,

and I just want to turn the car around

and go back to North Hollywood and watch a sitcom

and not have to be an adult or a woman

or most especially a lover.

That is what I want least.

We arrive at the cabin right at dusk.

A bare little porch bulb invites us into our moon-flecked love nest.

We open the door.

It's cozy.

It's rustic.

It has a bed.

Shit.

She goes to sit on the bed and I think, "Oh, no.

Oh, God, she's going to want it now."

See, and we've had the conversations.

We know that I'm not into it,

and she's already accused me of being too neurotic

with intimacy issues be able to have a sexual relationship.

Here's the thing:

what if she's right?

What if I'm really just a frigid bitch?

If there were just some alcohol around-

I could get it all happening.

But there's no alcohol.

There's only an emotional relationship

slathered with the strain of 22 days of failure

and a bed, a big oak bed.

The big oak bed is voicing itself to me, saying,

"I am here at this romantic resort in the woods

"expressly for the purpose of being made love in.

"Only somebody utterly screwed up in her head

"would not want to embrace her lover and tumble onto me

and my back-to-nature patchwork quilt cover immediately."

Now the sky breaks wide and gives us a rain worth dying for.

It's the rain which defines romance

with the thunder laughing at me.

Cass comes and puts her arms around me.

She's got me now.

She looks into my eyes

and lightning flashes with insane sensuality through the window.

At this moment, I realize

Mother Nature is on Cass' side.

And it's as if she's grounding me,

sending me to my room with a firm voice,

"Get in there and don't come out until you've done right

by your poor, underappreciated girlfriend."

She's looking into my eyes.

She's got her arms around me.

Oh, my God, she's going to kiss.

She gives me a warning hug.

The hug foretells of things she knows will come

whether I like it or not.

I'm going to go take a shower.

She undresses and steps into the bathroom,

and I am left to regroup.

As she's showering, my options, as I see them, are these:

1 : Tell her I don't want to

and spend 48 of the most miserable hours of my life

in a wooden structure with a woman who could easily access matches.

Or 2:

Go for it.

Go for it large.

Take the bull by the horns

and take her with a passion and a courage so forceful

I surprise even myself.

ln the middle will not work,

you see, because it would be too vulnerable.

It would be Lacie being intimate with Cass.

No.

Nope, it must be grand, broad, the work of a Leo.

She's stepping out of the shower,

and now, as rules would have it,

it's my turn to shower, only I don't.

I grab her.

She looks at me more than a little surprised,

which shakes me up, but I recover

and lead her to the bed.

It occurs to me that she's never particularly liked sex

when her hair is wet,

but I breathe deep and open the towel.

I know this body.

I know all about this body.

I roar, inside.

As I take control, I can feel myself gaining in confidence.

I'm back three months ago

before she started becoming dissatisfied and unhappy all the time,

before she started wanting me to be someone else,

before all the baggage was all over the goddamn place.

And I make love to her,

and as I do, I can hear her voice.

I can hear so many voices.

Her familiar moans are saying, "See?

This isn't so bad, is it?"

And now the bed board pipes in,

drumming its approval with a rhythmic song, "You've got it.

You've got it. You've got it."

And I can hear Mother Nature raining her tears of joy for us and for me.

And the moon's light is saying thank you to me.

And the stars are applauding, crickets are celebrating.

They're all talking.

And it's loud, and it's loud, and I'm there, and I'm there.

And then I hear-

"It's over."

What's this?

This voice is unrecognizable to me.

"It's over," I hear again.

The voice is calm.

It's clear.

I've heard this voice before, but it's been so long.

It's my own voice.

And it is over.

And I listen, and I converse with her,

and I let her hear me.

I let her hear my voice,

and it is over.

We drive home in silence,

her in her world, me in mine.

And that is when I figured out I'm just not cut out for relationships.

Maybe you just weren't right together.

Being that I'm either at work or rehearsals,

communication on the home front starts to break down.

ln fact, it breaks down to its most primitive form,

the post-it note.

"Honey, can you please clean your hair out of the shower drain?"

"Honey, if you're going to be late, can you at least call?"

"Honey, I think we need more therapy."

"Honey, tomorrow at work,

can you please steal more post-it notes?"

One day, I come home to find one such note

stuck to the answering machine that says simply, "Listen."

It's a message from Gabriel, calling to see how I'd feel

about posing for publicity shots-

With Lacie in a topless embrace.

Oh, God.

Holy shit.

Audrey has already heard this,

and she has been acting a little unstable for the past 5 years, 1 1 months.

She's out buying bullets and guns.

What did he say?

What did he say?

Embrace, naked embrace?

Me and Lacie in a naked embrace?

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Topless.

Only topless.

Totally topless!

Oh, this is bad.

This is very, very bad.

This is really pushing my luck with Audrey.

This is really going to get me killed.

This is really, really starting to turn me on.

I hear the garage door open.

I sit on the couch.

I get back up.

I sit on the couch.

Dishes. I'll do dishes.

She enters the house and stands in the doorway.

Maybe she's staying.

Maybe she's leaving.

It all depends on what I say next.

Hi, honey.

Are you armed to the teeth?

Did you hear the message?

Uh, yeah.

Well, that guy's got a lot of nerve.

I guess.

You're not doing it.

This is a very defining moment for me.

I'm flashing on a scene from my childhood,

my mother yelling at my father:

Don't clean the pool in your dress shoes!

My father cleaning the pool in his dress shoes,

not to spite her, but because they're his shoes.

The day of the photo shoot,

I shower twice and shave my armpits in a back-and-forth, crisscross fashion.

I really wish Audrey wouldn't stand in the doorway

of every room I'm in with her arms crossed.

I kiss her good-bye, which she does not unfold her arms for,

but follows me with her eyes,

her glare burning hot guilt into my back.

By the time I get to the photo studio,

I feel like a virgin porn star

about to walk onto the set for the first time.

And there's all these people there-

Gabriel, his little assistant,

the photographer, the makeup guy.

But for some reason, I don't see anyone but her.

How you holding up?

Sipping her cup of coffee like it's routine,

so calm, so together.

The photographer sets the lights and drops two pillows on the floor.

Make-out music is playing on the stereo.

Okay, girls.

Kneel down on the pillows.

Face each other,

and take off your shirts.

Wait, wait.

I am entirely too prudish and sober to be thinking about doing this.

I mean, even at the gym,

I get dressed with my upper torso shoved halfway into my locker.

We lock eyes briefly as I savor the fleeting moments of my mystique.

My heart is pounding, my neck and my belly and my-

there's a lot of pounding.

Lacie starts undoing her blouse.

There's no stopping this thing.

I slowly open my own blouse,

and we let them slip off our shoulders and down our backs.

Below her face, I can see a blur of naked flesh.

I refuse to look down, even for a second.

Then he tells us-

Hold each other

and look longingly into each others' eyes.

"Longingly"?

I think, "But not too longingly."

I cannot believe that I am pressing my naked chest

into her naked chest,

skin on skin, breast on breast,

nipple on nipple.

Lacie, Lacie darling, lower your arm.

Lacie, lower your arm.

Robin, tilt your head,; tilt your head just a little.

Yes, and now go in for the kiss.

Go in for the kiss.

Go in for the kiss.

Yes.

Yes, and, oh, hold together.

Yes, oh, hold it.

Hold it.

Oh, please, God.

Wonderful, wonderful.

Oh, I'm very, very happy.

Sip.

Ah.

Wipe.

Next rehearsal, I see Lacie in a whole new way.

Like, when you have a sexy dream about someone,

and then when you run into them, you still kind of feel it.

"Glad you could stop by, stranger."

"Oh, come on; you know I have to work."

"Some people with a lower self-esteem might think you were avoiding them."

"But not you, right?"

Gabriel is staging the play;

directing us where to cross, when to sit, and so forth.

"Are you sick of me?"

"What?

How could anyone ever get sick of you?"

"Really?"

"As crazy as you are?"

"Hey."

"Come here."

Okay, begin the mount.

Get on top of her.

You, you, pull her to you.

Passionately.

Kiss her; kiss her.

And we get to the part where, as the script dictates,

I am to lower my body onto hers and kiss her passionately.

I'm nervous about this.

I'm not usually nervous about this, but in this moment, I am-

very nervous.

But I want to be good in the play, so-

Take me home.

I take direction well.

Open and receive.

Kiss her hard.

Open-

Mouths.

Oh, my God, that's great.

Ah, oh, you bit me, you bitch.

Oh, oh, Mama.

Oh, Mama.

Oh, I think you got it.

As rehearsals progress, I find myself doing a lot of things

for the sake of the play-

Holding her closer, kissing her longer.

ln between scenes,

we're getting more and more familiar with each other.

She's holding my hand,

touching my shoulders.

I'm playing with her hair,

taking a bite out of the apple she's eating-

each of us pushing the envelope,

raising the stakes a little more each time.

Are we in character?

What are we in?

Life becomes a series of blurry lines.

It seems almost impossible

to tell what's right or wrong anymore.

I mean, if I touch her, it's okay,

but if I feel something, it isn't,

but if it's the character that feels something...

Audrey and I go to Santa Barbara for the weekend

before rehearsals get too intense.

She gets mad at me on the first day

because I'm not taking enough pictures of her.

She gives me the cold shoulder for the rest of the weekend.

I go out and sit on the balcony with her,

getting ready to feel sorry for myself

like I usually do when this kind of thing happens.

Only I can't.

I'm thinking about Lacie.

Her face.

I keep thinking about her face,

trying to remember what she looks like,

what she was wearing the last time I saw her,

thinking about when I'll get to see her again.

She'll never be with me.

She might.

She could.

But she won't.

The post-rehearsal good-bye hug gets more and more imaginative.

I might be pushing it.

That thought has crossed my mind.

But I'm always careful not to let things go too far,

not to let myself feel too much,

to only do things really good friends might do-

really, really close friends.

Anyway, I have to do what it takes in my head to make it okay.

It's foreplay.

I mean, for the play.

We need rules.

We need rules and bylaws, charters and amendments-

whatever it takes to put an end to this.

I call Robin on the phone.

I thought we should talk,

because, well, I guess you probably know why.

Uh-huh.

I mean, I just can't be- I'm sorry.

I'm trying to control myself, but-

Well, it's not just you.

I know, but I can't.

It's not-

I think we should see each other only at rehearsals.

What?

I don't want that.

I know.

Neither do I,

but, look, I'm going to have to take a step back here

for my own good.

I don't want to do anything

that's going to make me hate myself later.

I don't see you getting out of your relationship,

and I don't want to be the cause of any problems anyway.

You're not the cause of my problems, okay?

Audrey and I have problems, and they're playing themselves out.

Look, I did not mean for this to happen, but I can't help it.

I can't help how I feel.

Neither can I, but we can help how we act.

We're not animals.

I know, but what if it's bigger than that?

Whatever it is,

it's not worth breaking up your relationship for.

I mean, you've got a model life.

Once this play is over, these feelings will wear away,

and we can just go back to things the way they were.

I'm confusing you.

Well, maybe I need you to confuse me.

You know, I have not been happy for a long time.

No, no, I can't.

It's just not right.

I'm sorry.

You'll only make it worse, you know?

What do you mean?

By being such a good person.

She only makes me want her more.

I've forgotten who I am,

and Lacie was just starting to remind me.

I played her some of the songs I've been writing,

and she starts talking to me

about how I should record them professionally.

She has a way of making it seem like the easiest thing in the world.

Just take out my life savings;

hire musicians, an engineer; rent a studio.

Maybe it is.

I had this dream where I'm walking on the beach,

and every time the tide comes in,

it glitters the shore with quarters and nickels and dimes.

And I run up and down the sand just filling my fist with loot

till I feel myself starting to wake up.

And I grip hold of these coins like they're real,

like I can steal something from my dreams,

something that's worth keeping when I'm awake.

I don't want to break Audrey's heart.

I don't want to let Lacie go.

I came out to my mom

in the parking lot of the Golden China Restaurant

on the corner of Venice and Robertson.

Eating is about the worst thing you can do

right before you shatter someone's universe.

Much worse than eating before swimming.

I meant to tell her inside the restaurant,

but the moment just kept getting away from me.

We're standing in the buffet line,

the glory of the world laid out before us.

It's broccoli evergreen.

It's amber waves of chow mein.

We believed that unlimited amounts of food could bring us together.

We relied on it for that.

Just as I open my mouth to speak,

Mom shoves a warm plate into my hands.

Stock up on shrimp.

It's worth the most money.

Okay, maybe now is not the best time.

She's too happy.

She's having that smorgasbord high she gets,

that blend of joy and panic.

Like, if we'd go on vacation at some hotel,

she'd keep dragging us down to the pool because we paid for it,

waking us up at 6:00 a.m.

Why aren't you swimming?

You should be swimming.

Because you had to claim what was yours

while you had the chance.

You had to take your life into your hands.

We sit down to eat, and Mom starts talking constantly.

She has talked nonstop since I can remember.

I think she always sensed I'd have bad news for her one day

and didn't want to ever give me the floor.

Oh, and guess what.

Freddy came by today, and you know what he said?

He said he knows you're not

the most beautiful girl in the world,

but he still really likes you.

Oh, I think that's sweet.

I don't understand you.

I don't understand

why you won't give him at least a chance.

Oh, by the way,

what ever happened to that guy?

Oh, what's his name?

Oh, you know,

he had the fancy sports car

and that good job with the whatchamacallit,

making monster movies.

What was wrong with him?

And what about whosemajig?

You know, he was halfway decent.

Oh, no.

It's like she knows what I'm about to tell her

and is intentionally summoning

the ghosts of heterosexuality past to distract me.

God, why is this taking so long?

I should be out by now.

I should be throwing darts in some leather bar by now.

Oh, honey, look.

But then she's reading her fortune.

It says I'm going to have a happy surprise soon.

Looking so sweet.

Oh, a happy surprise. I wonder what that could be.

So naive, dreaming about her future.

I don't want to wipe that look off her face.

Oh, honey, do you have something good to tell your mom?

No, no, I'll call her later.

I'll leave it on her machine.

I'll send her a get-well card.

Mom pays the bill, and we start walking out to our cars.

I can feel the orange chicken kicking around in my belly,

like, "Come on! Come on!

Tell her!"

I stop in my tracks.

Everything becomes a blur.

The sunlight off the windshields is blinding me.

I can barely make out my car up ahead,

pointing toward the street, the future,

someplace I want to go.

My knees buckle.

I drop something.

Then Mom's silhouette rises up in front of me

like a dark gray ghost.

She's picked up my car keys,

and she's dangling them in front of my face like, "Here.

"Take it.

I dare you to take your life back."

I grab the keys and walk Mom to her minivan.

Sweetheart, I know.

Okay, so I'll call, and we'll be all set.

And just as she opens the door, I say, "Mom"-

I've got something to tell you.

Oh, my God; oh, my God.

Right away, she doubles over onto the front seat.

It's all right, Mom.

Mom, what I have to tell you is-

I'm gay.

Okay, I really wanted to say, "I'm a lesbian,"

but I thought, "That is way too many syllables

to be pummeling at the poor woman," you know?

Les-bi-an.

No.

No, not nice, not necessary.

You know, I just said "gay."

I'm in, I'm out of there; no one's badly hurt.

So clawing at her chest, she says-I'm not making this up.

Oh, my God.

I feel like when Kennedy was killed.

Kennedy?

I'm like, "Really, Mom?

Bobby or Jack?"

Well, because I needed to know for my journal.

At this point, I'm sweating.

I'm totally schvitzing from every pore.

Coming out to your mom-

nothing betting for getting the heart rate up.

Oh, it's a real fat burner.

So here's Mom now hanging onto the frame of the car,

clinging to it like the last branch of a dying tree.

She says:

Now, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Now, how do you know this is not just a fad?

Mom, it's not a fad, okay?

People have been gay forever.

It's just now they're coming out of the closet.

Well, fine.

That's fine with me.

But why do they have to come out of my closet?

And she blames herself

for not breast-feeding,

blames Dad for peeing with the door open.

She processes.

She grieves.

She takes a brief but thorough tour of the five stages of loss.

And in the end,

she hugs me.

And she says:

I love you.

I've always loved you.

And I'm like, "What?

"What?

"That's it?

"That's it?

"She loves me?

"She just loves me, and that's it?

"All those years of dread and nausea,

"pretending, fantasizing in my room, and that's it?

"She loves me?

"No torn garments?

No dirt on her head?"

The universe does not cave in.

ln fact, I feel like the whole world

just opened up its arms to me.

I say:

You're the best, Mom.

And I climb into my four-door Toyota-

the closest I can get to a sports car-and turn the key.

Sinéad O'Connor is playing on K-ROQ,

and I crank it as loud as I can.

She's singing, "I want your hands on me."

And I just start singing right along with her,

thinking about all the hands I want on me,

all the hands I'm going to damn well have all over me.

Grown up.

Guilt-free.

And I jam west on the freeway so fast, I feel like I'm flying.

Opening night is intense-

being on stage with her, creating our own reality.

Audrey didn't come to the show.

She said she was afraid of what she might see.

The two of us reacting off each other,

the hot lights, the energy, the applause,

the crowd, the Aqua Net-

and coming off stage afterwards to compare notes-

You got, like, the biggest laugh.

You got the biggest laugh.

You got the biggest laugh.

And I don't know what happened,

but all of a sudden,

the words just came bursting out of my mouth:

Want to go out for a drink?

We go out-

To the local girls' bar-

Sit at a tall table, drinking beer from the bottle,

our skin tinted red from the gel disco lights,

our bones vibrating to this loud, sexy beat.

I hold her hand under the table,

lean in to listen to her speak.

I need to hear every word.

Brush close against her cheek,

smell her perfume, her oil.

Breathe it in.

All the way in.

She touches the back of my neck with the tips of her fingers,

and this time, I feel it-

All the way down.

I excuse myself to the bathroom-

Collapse against a sticky wall.

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

I'm married.

Audrey is waiting for me at home in our bed,

the bed I made and now must lie in.

Oh, my God.

This could really happen.

She looked at me

as if she wanted to add me to her health plan.

Now what do I do?

This is the girl I want to marry,

and I don't want to marry anyone.

"Six years" keeps flashing like a road sign in my head.

Don't blow it.

Think about what you're doing.

Six years is a long time.

I promised her I'd always be there for her,

no one else would ever matter.

Marriage doesn't work.

Marriage takes a beautiful relationship

and squeezes all the love out of it.

Relationships are hard work.

Everyone knows that, but you stick it out.

You don't just up and run when something new comes along.

And what if I leave Audrey

and things don't work out with Lacie?

Then where would I be?

Robin's the all-or-nothing type.

I can't be alone.

She won't accept anything less than forever,

and I don't see how I can give her that.

I need someone to ground me, someone to see me.

I need to be free.

I can't go back to being just me.

I like having my own place, being in my own rhythm-

I've been just me before, and I didn't like it-

looking for a single with central air,

saving quarters for laundry-

Not having to be home at a particular time-

Not shaving my legs, talking to my cat-

Talking to my cat-

Chatting in chat rooms, dating people who don't get me,

fake smiling, fake laughing-

Eating at odd hours-

Coming home alone-

Being spontaneous-

Leaving the lights on, leaving the TV on-

Being left to my own thoughts-

Trying not to hear my own thoughts-

Having the bed to myself-

Hogging all the covers, no one complaining,

waking to silence.

Starting all over again.

I don't want to start all over again.

No.

This is my life.

This is my life.

I've got the pictures to prove it-

albums and albums of pictures

of the two of us being a couple in hundreds of settings,

watching sunrises off volcano tops, sunsets from the pier.

Evidence of us.

This is not a play.

This is real.

So how come-

So how come at the end of the night,

when it's time to get in my car and drive home without her,

I feel like I'm going to die?

Back on Katherine's reclining leather chair.

Back to the futon, Coronas in hand.

I close my eyes.

She tries to hypnotize me.

"Five, four, three, two, one.

Deep sleep; deep sleep."

I'm wide awake,

wide awake to this world I made.

I wish she could put me under and send me on my way

in a permanent dream state

where I believe all things are possible.

What are you going to do, Robin?

I don't know.

What am I supposed to do?

You're supposed to be happy.

The next day, we don't have a show, and I don't hear from her.

Good.

Saw this coming a mile away.

Now I can get on with my life.

Can I get a Diet Coke

with about that much rum in it?

I decided to just get back into dating

to meet a nice, single girl

and put this whole thing behind me.

I find the likely candidate down at the end of the bar.

I slide in next to her,

and I think make a really nice connection.

We chat; we converse.

Everything's going great.

But just as I'm getting ready to buy her another drink, she says:

What are you doing here?

You haven't stopped talking about this girl all night.

Can I get a check, please?

The next morning, I'm lying in bed beside Audrey,

staring out the window.

I feel so alone with her, more alone than when I am alone.

I used to think it was worth any amount of pain

to keep my promise to her, but...

Sun's coming up.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

She knows.

And we'll go through what we have to go through

to get to the other side-

sell the house, divide the pictures, take off rings.

Try to get happy.

Remember that house we kept passing

on the way to our cars after rehearsal?

That house where you turned to me that day, and you said-

"I love that house."

This little corner house with the peeling paint...

Well, all I've wanted ever since then

was to live in that house with you

for the rest of my life.

What about the people who are living there?

Would you forget about them?

Well, I can't, you know, I mean,

because I worry about these kinds of-

Yeah, I know.

Maybe you worry too much.

You think?

Forever, huh?

I can see that.

You can?

On a minute-to-minute basis.

What else is there?

I don't know what the fuck that means.

How are you holding up?

Shit, sorry.

What the fuck is her name?

So?

Are you going to say your lines?

I just forgot my line.

Cut.

Dominic.

Don't disappear like that.

Well, did you hear the message?

Yeah.

The guy's got-

Cut.

Yeah, I don't want to do anything

that's going to-f-f-f-fuck.

Cut.

Dominic?

Rub something.

Take two.

Mom, what difference does it make if he's not-

what's the difference if he's not-

what difference does it make?

And action.

What-oh.

Then you just move in.

Then you just get married.

And then you start arguing over holidays,

and you-and you have-

It's very important that you get to be-mother's fuck.

And cut.

And cut.

Can I get another martini for...

Want to come home with me?

Yeah-oof!

Oop! Oop!

Yeah.

Whoop!

And cut.

That's good.

Slowly-oh, shit.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

All right or a little more?

Back and forth?

Yeah.

How's that?

Yeah, okay.

And do it again.

Lighting here.

Getting a good laugh?

Mmm.

I don't want to do anything

that's going to make me h-hate myself later.

I don't see- sorry.

I don't- I fucked up.

I feel faint.

Oh, boy.

Oh, ooh!

Take one.

God, that's great.

Ow!

Phew!

Ow.

Fuck!

31.

Oh!

You bit me, you bitch.

Get the fuck away.

Cut,; great.