A Very Short Romantic Comedy

ACT I

“Do I love you?”

His question shocked her. Was he trying to be clever? He sounded confused, helpless, like he had missed something that was really important. He was terrified, as if asking, “Is there a spider on my back?”

She hedged her bet. A gentle tease; a test. “Well, let’s see,” she said through a smile after wetting her lips. She put a finger to his face, actually touched it, traced a line that cut deeply from his brow to the bridge of his nose.

“Your skin is pale, a bit clammy. Your eyes are ...” There she paused, trying to find a word for it, decided on, “trapped.”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, that’s not it. Not at all.”

She put her palm on his cheek to stop his rant. “No fever.”

“You sure? I’m feeling awfully warm.”

“You are? Well, that might be a symptom.” Still smiling, she asked, “Swollen glands?”

He put his own fingers to his throat, where he thought his glands should be, the ones that hurt when he swallowed.

“How ‘bout other glands?” This she said with a laugh in her voice. When he didn’t get it, she lowered her eyes and raised them and lowered them more pointedly until he did.

“Well, yeah, there’s that. But ...” he didn’t finish the “but” and she figured out what he meant by the shrug that followed.

“Still, it is some evidence.”

“C’mon, be serious,” he whined.

It took her a while to say, “I am very serious. You’re asking me if you love me. Not if I love you, right?"

"Uh, that's right."

Well, no one ever asked me that question before.”

“Really?” It hadn’t occurred to him that the question was unusual, although, when he considered it, he didn’t remember ever asking it or even hearing it asked. Another thought led him to say, “I suppose all the guys you know always know that they love you, huh?”

Once she figured out the meaning of that convoluted sentence, she really let go a laugh. “That’s right. Sooner or later, they all know that they do. Or that they don’t.”

That’s when his breathing got away from him.

ACT II

“You’re hyperventilating,” she said, her smile all gone. “Relax.” and when he didn’t, “Do you have a paper bag?”

He gasped. “Am I gonna heave?”

His chest was heaving plenty. She put her palm on his chest, and repeated “relax” a few times, but the words and action had the opposite effect on him. His pallor turned almost gray, but with silly red dots on his cheeks and the tip of his nose, clown make-up.

Finally, she was really alarmed. She took his face quickly with both hands and pressed her lips to his, blew a lungful of air into him. That did the trick, and his shoulders sagged.

ACT III

When she inhaled, his tongue was sucked into her mouth and with it, his question was finally and certainly answered.

By the time her lips unstuck from his, their bodies were lying side by side, tangled in a pile of semi-discarded clothing, bed sheets twisted like sheet metal after a tornado.

Finis

Copyright © 2006 by Mort Borenstein