Poodles

We cautiously edge toward an open window, whose slightly raised blind leaves a narrow orifice for us to slip through. The dim light within reveals a seedily furnished bedroom. An attractive woman in bra and half-slip lies on the bed, gazing up at a shirtless man who stands alongside. Some fast-food items are on the table.

SAM:

You never did eat your lunch, did you.

MARION:

(sitting up) I better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.

SAM:

Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off? It's Friday, anyway--and hot.

Sam sits on the bed. They caress and intermix kisses with conversation.

MARION:

What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport?

SAM:

Well, we could laze around here a while longer.

MARION:

Checking out time is three P.M. (They sink down on the bed, facing each other. More kissing and caressing.) Hotels of this sort aren't interested in you when you come in, but when your time is up-- Oh, Sam, I hate having to be with you in a place like this!

SAM:

I've heard of married couples who deliberately spend an occasional night in a cheap hotel.

MARION:

When you're married you can do a lot of things deliberately.

SAM:

You sure talk like a girl who's been married.

MARION:

Sam, this is the last time.

SAM:

Yeah? For what?

MARION:

For this. Meeting you in secret, so--we can be secretive. You come down here on business trips--we steal lunch hours and--I wish you wouldn't even come!

SAM:

All right, what do we do instead? Write each other lurid love letters?

MARION:

(rises from the bed and goes to get her clothes) I have to go, Sam.

SAM:

I can come down next week.

MARION:

No.

SAM:

Not even just to see you? To have lunch--in public?

MARION:

(putting on her blouse) Oh, we can see each other. We can even have dinner--but respectably--in my house, with my mother's picture on the mantel, and my sister helping me broil a big steak for three.

SAM:

(picks up his shirt and sits in a chair) And after the steak, do we send Sister to the movies? Turn Mama's picture to the wall?

MARION: