ISHTAR's apartment. BEN has just come in. He wears a wet trench coat, a muffler, a hat. He carries a tiny box of orchids. He is talking to the dog.
BEN: Hello, Boy! Hello, doggy-doggy-doggy-dog! Recognize me? I'm Ben? Hello old Boy my love, hello doggy-love! (To Ishtar): Hello, honey!
ISHTAR: Ben! Oh, how wonderful! You shouldn't have... They are - exquisite!
BEN: Ready to go?
ISHTAR: Ready to go? No... I thought, you might like to eat in for a change...
BEN: You've been cooking...
ISHTAR: Didn't feel like going out, just for this once...
(He takes off his coat, etc.)
BEN: You - you're cooking for me? Oh, Ish, Ish! Why didn't you tell me - I could have...
ISHTAR: Surprise!
BEN: You mean that you really... really wanted to cook, for my sake...?
ISHTAR: I have been cooking almost every day of my life, you know!
BEN: Women don't generally cook for me...
ISHTAR: Women? You're with me and you think about...?
BEN: Darling - I am much flattered... It's... it's so unusual for me...
ISHTAR: I am cooking for us! C'est normal...
BEN: I saw your husband at the grocer's... that was yesterday...
ISHTAR: Did he see you?
BEN: We said hallo! I looked at his basket. I thought, he's cooking - I'm cooking, it's sort of a waste, isn't it? It was just a passing thought...
(She pours drinks)
ISHTAR: How did you feel, seeing him?
BEN: You ask questions like my analyst... Fine... No animosity, certainly... But guilt, yes... guilt... I suppose, seeing the food in his basket... Steak, lettuce, mushrooms... milk... I couldn't even dream that you would be cooking for me, today... I feel a bit worse now, if you ask me... A bit more guilty... Why the heck? I don't know... I went to see her yesterday and I told her that I had felt guilty seeing your husband... She's flabbergasted, by the way, my shrink is... That I found you... By the kind of relationship we have together... She thinks it's thanks to her, that she made it possible... that it's the good results of her therapy beginning to show... She's a much conceited woman... I let her believe that she's right... As if something like you could have been planned, as if it could occur in anybody's life in any other way but through a miracle... But I can't tell her that, it would make her jealous... She wants to believe that she is manipulating me, you see... I have to play it very wise with her, with fingerspitzengefuehl, you know what I mean...? She needs to believe that she is engineering everything my life, etc. She needs to think that she's God... She probably thinks that I'm probably wrong to trust this relationship so much, that I'm going to fall right on my face, she expects that, but it won't happen, why on earth should it, I am happy, you know... I am happy... Does a child commit to his mother? Yet, all his happiness derives from her... Yet, the happiness I'm feeling is uncanny, magnificent... Thank you for the happiness... So, she must believe that she is manipulating me, my shrink does... She's hard to take, sometimes...
ISHTAR (laughs).
BEN: I have to keep her quiet and happy... Lest she decide that we must stop seeing each other... I know her all too well, you see...
ISHTAR: Would you give up seeing me if your shrink asked you to?
BEN (agitated|): Do I know...? She's supposed to know what's best for me... I pay her for that, don't I? She is SUPPOSED to interfere in my life...
ISHTAR (a little bit nonplussed): You mean you actually would....?
BEN: ... Jeeez, I don't know... Look... Why am I talking about my shrink...? How did we get onto that subject... What's for dinner...? Ruining a dinner you are making for me by thinking of my shrink...
ISHTAR: No big deal, really... Spaghetti and pesto... Very soothing... I'm making the pesto myself...
(noise of blender)
ISHTAR: Had a good day?
BEN: Saw three producers, in succession.... Two actors... Had lunch with a fourth producer... Just a normal shitty day... I still can't believe that I met you... I tell everybody: I have met a magnificent woman, the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, and she demands nothing from me... It's a most abnormal thing... They look at me, they don't quite believe me... Jeez, I walk in the street and I think: I have managed the most magnificent relationship, I look at the crowd and I think: poor asses, if you knew that I have managed, after all the messes in my life, an undemanding relationship... (ISHTAR puts on Monteverdi) And now, she even cooks dinner for me... I wish I had known when I was coming here... That you would be cooking dinner for me... It would have put an additional spring in my step... I pinch myself... Nobody has cooked for me since my mother... and even my mother...
ISHTAR: I am putting in the spaghetti... We have eleven minutes... (she sits back, with her drink... silence...) Would you mind making yourself useful... grating the cheese...?
BEN: Can I - move?
ISHTAR: Please, make yourself at ease... wherever...
BEN (sits close to her, with a bowl in his lap, grating cheese): Ish... Ish... Ishy-Fishy... I know I am going to bring up a foolish subject and maybe fuck-up everything... But, Ish, I need to know... If I wanted to have sex with you, what would be the conditions...
ISHTAR: I am off sex... at least for a while...
BEN: I see... thanks for telling me, squarely and honestly... You don't mind my asking, do you?
ISHTAR: Why should I?
BEN: Do you have any idea... stop me if you don't want to answer... if you're ever.. Or when you're... off being off... Could you conceive of telling me... or giving me a sign, a signal...?
ISHTAR: I think I would.
BEN: Only to me...?
ISHTAR: Of course!
BEN: Oh, Ish! Ish...
ISHTAR: C'est normal...
BEN (showing the grated cheese): Is that enough?
ISHTAR: Splendid! You did very well...
BEN: I suppose, you will want papers... You'll want me to see your doctor, I suppose... unpleasant topic, but we are civilized people, aren't we... But still, nothing would be changed, would it... I mean, our relationship would remain the same...
ISHTAR: The same as now, you mean...
BEN: Two totally independent people, two perfect friends... but having sex... you think that this is possible...?
ISHTAR: Why shouldn't it be? I am talking, in principle...
(a ring) The spaghetti is cooked, I think...
(She gets up.)
ISHTAR: What do you do for sex right now, Ben...?
BEN (increasingly agitated): Not that much... nothing dangerous... you know me... I... listen... honestly, no sex at all.. Not in a long while... that... that's what so great about you... That I can trust you, fully... absolutely... Were it only for that - I'm sorry - I could not let you go... I wouldn't know what to do with myself if you went out of my life... And that... that's the end of independence, isn't it...? You see... it's hopeless... maybe... maybe we should just forget about it...
ISHTAR: Forget about sex?
BEN: Forget that I ever brought up the matter... Go on as we are doing now... Maybe forever... Then nothing can happen to us... Can there? Whatever happens, we can remain friends and trust each other, fully... the perfect solution... forget about this conversation... forget that I ever said anything...
ISHTAR: How could I forget that?
BEN: I will forget... When one is friends, like we are... there can be moments... When one knows one would break the trust if one didn't bring up certain things... doesn't hide... desire is not something to hide... Godammit, I am not ashamed of it... There's such a thing as sex, after all... Even if, between you and me, it's not needed... Not yet... I had a dream... We were going out together, you were wearing a dress on which the most beautiful nude body was painted... But it was only a dress... silk, a very narrow silk sheath... I kept telling myself, it's only a dress... it's not her body, it means nothing...
ISHTAR: It was not my body... that's interesting...
BEN: Ishy-Fishy...
ISHTAR: Could you stand the sight of my body?
BEN: What do you mean: could I stand it? You mean - remaining unmoved? No, of course not! I'm quite sure I couldn't!
ISHTAR: Is that what came to your mind, when I asked you this question?
BEN: This? Of course! What else could have...
ISHTAR: Are you sure?
BEN: Ish... I never even think about that other thing...
(Silence. He's sitting, she's standing, serving the spaghetti.)
ISHTAR: Let's eat!
(Silence.)
BEN: I am sure it wouldn't matter one bit, Ish...!
ISHTAR: Let's eat, dear!
(She stops serving the spaghetti. She calmly opens her dress and shows him her chest.)
(Lights dim out.)
END OF ACT THREE