The Motel Tapes

The Motel is situated somewhere in the United States. The building itself is a simple rectangle, brick on the front and cement block elsewhere, 60 picture windows looking out over a parking lot to a fast-food stand, a topless bar and a lumberyard.

The rooms are painted identically in pastel blue and the carpeting in each unit is a coarse tweedlike material, russet with an occasional glimmering metallic highlight.

The central area of each unit is dominated by an oversized bed and a 21-inch Zenith color-television set bolted to its stand. A small subdivision off the sleeping area serves as a combination bathroom, dressing room and closet.

In each unit, there are two easy chairs, one desk chair and a circular table with marbleized top and a lamp running up through its center like a sapling. The dressing-room lamp is suspended from the ceiling by a large chain of gold-colored plastic. There is an overhead sun lamp in the bathroom operated by a wall timer.

Identical prints, unsigned, decorate the walls of each unit: an overturned boat beached beside coiled fishing nets; a waterfall shimmering in sunlight; a nearly perfect mountain seen behind a forest of Douglas firs. And, finally, in each room, there is a printed notice establishing the price ($19 for a double, $14 for a single, $3.50 for each additional occupant) and the check-out time (noon) and banning the presence of firearms, explosives and pets.

The One And Only

Rosalie: He's so big and strong; he's so beautiful when he stands up.

Willard: I'm glad you like him. He's the only one of his kind in the world.

Rosalie: I thought all men had one....

Willard: Oh, they have something--I'm not denying that. It's just that most guys have a lot of trouble making them stand up. Another thing, most guys have little teensy-weensy ones--you don't even know it when they're standing up.

Rosalie: Should I take your word on that?

Willard: Sure. Would I kid you about something like this?

Woman in Love

Warren: Why can't we just meet at your place? When your kids are in school.

Karen: It'd mean too much to me. If I ever let you come into my home, it'd never be the same for me again. I'd feel your presence in every room of my house. Long after you left, I'd feel your ghost walking around. I've got to have someplace that's all mine. Some part of my life that you haven't touched.

•

Warren: I'm working on one little thing--it'd be a way to see more of you. The company is sending me to San Francisco the second week of next month. The gift show. I've told them fine--it'd be a chance for us to be alone. I don't know what your schedule looks like.

Karen: What schedule?

Warren: I didn't know whether you could line up someone to watch the kids----

Karen: That wouldn't be a problem. We'd really be together the whole week?

Warren: Five nights in a row. I'll have to go over to the exhibits every day, at least make an appearance, but there would be plenty of time together. Dee would want to come out the last weekend of the show and do some shopping, but the rest of the time will be ours.

Karen: I see.

Warren: That sounds ominous.

Karen: Well, I do have to get someone to look out for the children; I don't know----

Warren: YOU knew well enough a few seconds ago. You're always saying we don't see enough of each other. This is our chance.

Karen: I don't think I can go through with it. Warren, don't ask me to go with you.

Warren: I've already asked.

Karen: I hate to say no.

Warren: It's because Dee's coming out, too? You think I'm running some kind of female shuttle service into San Francisco?

Karen: It's not that. It's because I love you too much. I don't know how I could handle this. I have such trouble leaving you now after spending just an afternoon with you. I sometimes wonder how I'd be able to part if we spent a night together. And after five days and nights in a row--I could never let go of you after that.

Holding Back

Betsy: Not yet, darling, not yet!

Edward: I can't stop.

Betsy: Don't. Please don't.

Edward: I can't hold back.

Betsy: Don't you dare. I mean it, Eddie. Listen to me. Don't do it. Don't come.

Edward: I'm right ... there.

Betsy: Listen to me, then--stay right there. Don't come.

Edward: Freeze! Just don't move--don't even breathe. You even breathe and it's gonna be all over. It's been too long for me. It's like turning on a faucet.

Betsy: Well, see that you don't turn on that faucet yet, Eddie. What is this? You just got inside----

Edward: I'm trying.

Betsy: Keep talking.

Edward: I'm sorry, baby, it's just been too long between drinks. It's been bad. I walk into a warm shower these days, I get a hard-on. Don't! Really, don't move. You know what happened last week? I had a wet dream, just like some kid. Oh, God, baby, I can't hold it back. Don't move. Betsy, I'm telling you, just don't move!

Betsy: Try to think of something else.

Edward: Sure. I'll just think of something else. It's no good, Betsy, the stuff is just leaking outta me.

Betsy: Stop! Think of cemeteries.

Edward: Graveyards?

Betsy: Think of people dying. Think of cancer.

Edward: Never mind, Betsy.

Betsy: Think of cancer, Eddie. Think of a real awful case of cancer. Think of pus. Think of losing an arm.

Edward: Betsy, it's too late.

Betsy: It's not too late. Think of a person getting their leg cut off.

Edward: I'm sorry, Betsy, but it's all over. I couldn't hold it. It was like I said, like turning on a faucet.

Betsy: You came and I didn't even know it was happening.

Edward: I hardly knew it.

Betsy: Eddie, that was such a dirty trick.

Edward: You think I could help it? I swear. Give me a few minutes and I'll be good as new.

Betsy: Terrific. You'll be as good as new. You want to know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking about someone's arm dropping off from cancer.

The Coatrack

Marilyn: What's so funny?

Tony: You.

Marilyn: What's so funny about me?

Tony: Your nose is hilarious.

Marilyn: To-ny ... what was it? Why were you just laughing?

Tony: Oh, nothing.

Marilyn: Oh, something, you mean. Why won't you just tell me what I said--when I'm being funny, I'd like to know about it.

Tony: It's not something that you said--and it wasn't that funny, anyway. It was the way you came into the room.

Marilyn: How did I come into the room?

Tony: YOU hadda see it. It was the way you did it. It was like you had lived here all your life. You walked directly to the coatrack, hung your coat there on the hanger and then you opened up the drawer and put your gloves in. Next thing I expected you to fry up an egg or something.

Marilyn: Damn you!

Tony: Hey, what's the matter? How could that make you mad?

•

Tony: Seriously. What was it that made you mad?

Marilyn: I don't think you'll ever understand.

Tony: Not unless you tell me.

Marilyn: It was what you were laughing at. You were laughing at my feeble efforts to be domestic. Funny, fun-ny! Oh, shit, Tony, you don't know what funny is until you try to infuse a relationship like this one with any domestic qualities at all. I added it all up the other day and you know how much time I spend with you? I spend a total of four hours a week with you.

Tony: It can't be.

Marilyn: It can't be, but it is. Yesterday I sat down with a pencil and paper and that's what it came out to, a big, fat four hours a week. For you, I'm just an extra thing in your life--but you're my whole life. I've got four hours a week to live my whole life. A grand total of four hours a week in which to satisfy all my domestic urges. You see that as funny. OK, if that's funny, then my whole life is a scream.

Tony: Take it easy, honey, huh?

Marilyn: I'll tell you why you were laughing. What was so funny. You know how impossible it is. It's like one of those cartoons, some duck wearing roller skates trying to climb some mountain. You think that's easy? You think it's easy to walk into a motel room with you and pretend we're walking into our own little home? Tony, I do everything I can, everything I can think up, to make this into something ... decent. Forgive me if I don't find it funny.

Tony: You're a hundred percent right. I wasn't thinking. And I'll tell you something. I liked it. I liked the way you hung up the coat. It was cute.

Man Looking for Real True Love

Tracy: You get yourself undressed. I'm goin' into the little girls' room.

Steven: You know something? You haven't told me how much this costs yet.

Tracy: What'd Bryan tell you?

Steven: Bryan said to talk to you. He said you do your own bookwork.

Tracy: It's whatever you want to pay.

Steven: Give me a number.

Tracy: Sixty-nine, thass my favorite number.

Steven: You're not being fair.

Tracy: Who you callin' not bein' fair? Whatever you want to give me, what could be fairer 'n that?

Steven: All right, a dollar-fifty.

Tracy: Are you gettin' undressed or what?

Steven: I never met a woman so anxious to get me undressed.

Tracy: I just can't wait to see the goodies.

Steven: You think I'm a cop, don't you?

Tracy: YOU a cop?

Steven: That's it, huh? What's the story? Cops don't get undressed. Do I look like a cop?

Tracy: NO cop ever looks like a cop. Until I give 'em a price, then all of a sudden he looks like a cop. Thass the reason they get those guys who bust the workin' girls, just 'cause they don't look like cops.

•

Steven: Do I look like a cop now?

Tracy: Where you from, anyway?

Steven: Boston.

Tracy: Does everyone in Boston speak like you? You got some tan for Boston.

Steven: I got the tan on Montego Bay.

Tracy: Yeah, lucky you. Where that at?

Steven: Jamaica.

Tracy: Thass some scar--you have yourself an operation?

Steven: No, I had myself an auto accident.

Tracy: Well, you don't look like no cop.

Steven: They never get undressed?

Tracy: If they do, it's their ass in trouble. Shee-it, I've had lots of cops in here and sometimes they say, right when they doin' it, that they a cop and how I like that? Long's they humpin' me, I know they ain't about to bust me.

Steven: OK, maybe now you can tell me how much it is.

Tracy: Same thing. Whatever you want to pay.

Steven: Bryan said most of the girls get 20.

Tracy: If Bryan say that, Bryan should know.

Steven: That's what he said. Twenty and the room. I'd like to make a better deal with you. Twice as good. I'll give you $40 and all I want you to do is pretend I'm your boyfriend.

Tracy: I pretend you're my man?

Steven: That's it.

Tracy: Shee-it, I always get the crazies.

Steven: Yeah, right, how about it?

Tracy: Hey, Joe, whataya smokin'? How you even know I got a man? What difference it make? I suck him, I suck you--what difference to that?

Steven: So play along with me. I've been a couple of places and so far it's nothing. Most of you ... working girls treat me like I'm a piece of dirt.

Tracy: Yeah, maybe I treat my man like he some piece of dirt.

•

Tracy: What're you doin' now?

Steven: You know what I'm doing.

Tracy: You gonna just hump me?

Steven: What?

Tracy: I don't know what you think. You think my man just jump on me like some tall dog ona street and hump me.

Steven: I guess not.

Tracy: I tell you one thing--he wouldn't be my man for long. My man eats me. He knows what I like and he eats me like I'm brown sugar. Thass right. And while my man is eatin' me, he likes if I play with him. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he eats me good.

•

Steven: Could I ask you something?

Tracy: Ax away.

Steven: Did you get anything out of that?

Tracy: YOU mean if I like it? I like it fine. I was almost gettin' it on there and I don't go round gettin' it on. You feel like some 69 now?

Steven: Yeah.

Tracy: Hey, my man. he don't stop and rest in the middle of things, dig?

•

Steven: Could I ask you something?

Tracy: Sure, sugar, what's on your mind now?

Steven: How many other men did you see today?

Tracy: When you say how many I see, you mean how many I hump?

Steven: Yeah.

Tracy: Shee-it,.at least a dozen. Do that bother you?

Steven: Yeah, kinda. You had a dozen guys in there today and still you tell me to go down on you.

Tracy: Hey, sugar, whose idea was that? You were the one who say you want to be my man. While my man he always eat me out and he don't never ax how many guys in there before him.

Steven: What're the odds against catching something?

Tracy: Catching a dose? Not likely. If I go round givin' out the clap, I be outta business pretty soon.

Steven: I wish I could be sure of that.

Tracy: Hey, sugar, you know back there at the Alcove, they got a little machine. In the little boys' room. You so worried about catchin' the clap, next time you buy yourself one of them rubbers.

Steven: I hate those things.

Tracy: Don't worry yourself, sugar, you ain't sick comin' in here, you ain't goin' to be sick goin' out.

Daddy's Girl

Sylvia: No.

Bill: NO?

Sylvia: NO. Really. You don't have to.

Bill: I want to.

Sylvia: It's not necessary. Really. I'm more tired than I thought. We don't have to make this into a big production number.

Bill: I thought you'd like----

Sylvia: Don't get me wrong, Will, I----

Bill: It's Bill.

Sylvia: Will, Bill--same difference. Don't worry, I know who you are. It may surprise you to learn I've wanted you for a long time, a good long time. Ever since you started coming into The Shack.

Bill: You've got beautiful breasts. I'd never have guessed they were so large. You must strap them down.

Sylvia: Don't. Don't kiss. Really. You don't have to do anything at all. Just hold me. Just relax and enjoy yourself.

Bill: I am enjoying myself.

Sylvia: Just don't work so hard, huh? I'm too tired for a lot of hard work tonight.

Bill: Ohh.

Sylvia: Come on, darling. Come on, my darling. That's right. Oh, yes, that's right. I'm all shivers.

Bill: Oh, yeah.

Sylvia: Don't hold back. Come on, darling.

Bill: I'm there. I'm there right now.

Sylvia: Ah. Ah, yes, that's good. That's my good darling.

•

Bill: YOU didn't have to do that.

Sylvia: How do you know?

Bill: Huh?

Sylvia: How do you know what I have to do? You don't really know anything about me. Not really.

Bill: I know what you feel like.

Sylvia: I guess so. That's what you know about me, how I feel. It's just that if we ever do this again----

Bill: when--you mean when we do this again.

Sylvia: No, I mean if. I better warn you about something. I can't stand people who think they know what's going on in my mind. If we do this again. I have one request to make. Don't worry so much about making me happy. I don't want to be happy, so stop thinking about that aspect of it. It's enough that I can see you're getting pleasure from me. That's what's important to me. So I don't want you to go crazy trying to make me happy.

Bill: What's the deal? Do you have another guy?

Sylvia: That's not a bad guess.

Bill: IS that it?

Sylvia: You might say that. Oh, Will, don't look like that. He's dead.

Bill: Oh.

Sylvia: Don't sound so sad. He's been dead for six years.

Bill: Who was he?

Sylvia: You'd be shocked.

Bill: Was he someone famous?

Sylvia: No, he was never famous.

Bill: You can tell me. I don't shock easy.

Sylvia: He was my father.

Bill: Your father?

Sylvia: I thought you said you don't shock easy. Everyone gets so uptight about that.

Bill: Do you mean your natural father?

Sylvia: No, I mean my unnatural father. Oh, Bill, of course my natural father. He was very old when I was born. The day I was born, he was 65 years old. By the time he did anything to me, he was senile.

Bill: How old were you? When he screwed you?

Sylvia: You mean when he made love to me. He did love me. And he never touched me until after my mother died of cancer. There was no one sleeping with him then and he just started in sleeping with me. It all seemed very natural.

Bill: You're making this up. I can't believe any of it.

Sylvia: You know something. Will? It doesn't require your belief or your approval or your anything.

Bill: It's Bill.

Sylvia: Why is it Bill, not Will? What possible difference can that make?

Bill: To me there's a difference. You've got to admit it's all a little weird.

Sylvia: Is it? Maybe not as weird as you think it is. I personally happen to know two other women who've slept with their fathers. That's two who volunteered the information. You've got to admit that's the kind of information not many people would volunteer.

Bill: He must've been sick.

Sylvia: He may have been, at the end.

Bill: The minute he first touched you, he was sick then.

Sylvia: Oh, I don't know how sick he was. You've been telling me all night how beautiful my breasts are, how nice my body is. It is a good body. It's a body designed to accommodate a man. Any man. My body never knew the difference between my father and another man.

Bill: What're you talking about?

Sylvia: When my father came to me, I was only nine years old. He was 74.

Bill: That's terrible.

(concluded on page 226)Motel Tapes(continued from page 84)

Sylvia: If you want to know the truth, I think I was responsible for most of it. I was the one who started hugging and kissing and before either one of us knew what was happening, he was calling me Dolly. That's what he always called Mom.

Bill: That sounds so degenerate.

Sylvia: If you say so.

Bill: What happened finally?

Sylvia: Never mind. Really.

Bill: No, really, what happened?

Sylvia: He died. That's what happened finally.

•

Bill: How'd he die?

Sylvia: You're very interested in all this, aren't you?

Bill: I've got to admit, it's fascinating.

Sylvia: Would you like to see a picture of him?

Bill: You carry a picture of him with you?

•

Bill: He looks like a Marine. Very tough.

Sylvia: He was tough. Whenever I look at that face, I think of his strength. He wasn't a Marine. He wasn't much of anything, really. Most of the time, he was a custodian--a janitor at the grade school.

Bill: He was a grade school janitor and he screwed his nine-year-old daughter?

Sylvia: Nope. Not really. He was a retired janitor when he screwed his nine-year-old daughter.

Bill: That must have haunted him the rest of his life. In later life, did he ever say anything? Did he ever go back and try to explain what happened that night when you were nine?

Sylvia: You're funny.

Bill: What's so funny about that?

Sylvia: I think I've upset your head enough for one night. I'm really exhausted and I'm sure you should be getting home, too.

Bill: I'd like to hear the whole story sometime.

Sylvia: He didn't die until six years ago. He was 86 years old then.

Bill: Did he say something before he died?

Sylvia: You're not--it wasn't just that one time when I was nine years old. I slept with him every night until he died.

Bill: Christ!

Sylvia: I guess it must sound awful. But it didn't seem so awful to me. He was an old man, but he made love to me right up until the end.

Bill: By that time, you must have known it was wrong.

Sylvia: I guess it must have been wrong, because everyone tells me how wrong it was. But I'm learning that a lot of things people say are wrong are not all that wrong. Since he died, I've been with other men and I've never found a lover who could come near him in some ways. He was--even when he was 86 years old, he was a magnificent lover.

Bill: I guess I've got to go home now.

Sylvia: It's getting late.

Bill: I want to thank you for tonight.

Sylvia: That's all right. I was wondering what you'd be like.

Bill: I'm sorry if I was shocked by the story about your father.

Sylvia: Everyone is. I don't know what makes me tell people that story. I guess it is shocking and there's no reason you shouldn't be shocked. I suppose it was all wrong all the time. But I'll tell you something. When he died ... no daughter ever missed a father the way I missed him.

A Basically Up-Front Relationship Like Ours

Mac: I can't believe you finally told him. What'd he say?

Elsie: Nothing.

Mac: He had to have some reaction.

Elsie: That's what bothers me. Nothing. But Quince doesn't always react right away. He likes to think things over for a day or two and then react. He may--I can't even guess what he's going to do about this.

Mac: If he's as smart as you're always telling me, he may see this as an essentially liberating experience. It seems to me that anyone in his right mind would want to get rid of the hypocrisy and get into a basically up-front relationship like ours.

Elsie: Mac, I've got to tell you something. I don't think Quince is looking at our little conversation as a basically positive thing. Not yet, anyway. If he is, he's keeping that bit of news pretty much to himself.

Mac: Well, then, that's his hang-up. You can't be blamed if he chooses to live his life by some prehistoric code.

Elsie: It's just that I'm not sure that what works for you is going to work for Quince.

Mac: Well, you tell me he's a basically up-front-type guy----

Elsie: That he is.

Mac: It follows, then, that he's going to prefer a basically up-front approach toward life. And the fact is there's no way I would have gone on fucking you if you hadn't been able to be honest with him.

Elsie: I hate that word.

Mac: I know. That's probably the reason I use it with you. People who attach other weight to the word fucking are not behaving in a rational manner. I don't get how someone who is essentially rational can get so emotional over---- What exactly did you say to old Quincy?

Elsie: Pretty much the same way we discussed it. That I had been unfaithful. That we had been making love for two months----

Mac: Fucking. We had been fucking for two months.

Elsie: I'm afraid, Mac, that's going to have to remain your word, not mine. I also told him the rest of it, that I had made love to three other men during the course of our marriage and that I thought it was only fair that he have the same kind of freedom--without any guilt--that----

Mac: Right on. You went the whole route, then. I know it seems kind of rocky now, but he's going to have to appreciate the fact that you were finally honest with him.

Elsie: It's possible he's going to react to this in a different way than you might. He did say one thing. He asked me what made me think he'd want to make love to any other woman.

Mac: He's just saying that.

Elsie: Mac, please don't be hopeless. I don't mind your being a little hopeless. Just please don't be utterly hopeless.

Mac: It's really amazing. We're all so used to playing games that when someone tries to be up-front, no one knows how to handle it.

Elsie: If you think that, then I'm being unfair to Quince. I can't say whether he knows how to handle this or not. He said something else, something about not taking the wedding vows lightly.

Mac: That's such a back number.

Elsie: To you that's a back number. To me that's clearly been a back number. But you've never met Quince.

Mac: Maybe that should be the next logical step. There's no reason why not. I mean, give him a little time. Once he sees the big picture, there's no reason we can't sit down like mature adults and rap. It might do wonders for old Quincy. It might open his eyes to a lot of things.

Elsie: I don't want to rain on your parade, but I don't think Quince is going to want to rap with you. On the other hand, he may just want to rap on you.

Mac: You're kidding. No one's that primitive anymore.

Elsie: I wouldn't be too sure about that, Mac. I wouldn't count on it.

Mac: I can't imagine him not digging the chance----

Elsie: Mac, you really don't understand Quince at all. If he digs anything, he may dig your grave. I'm serious. I think you ought to know that. When Quince works this all out, he may just decide that the proper course of action is to kill us.

Mac: Far out! I didn't think anyone did that anymore.