Mary: What kind of place is this?
Mason: This is Buzz's
Pearl, clowning, takes their order.
Mary: Why is he talking like this?
Mason: He just likes to translate. You know, how some little boys want to grow up to be firemen, Pearl wanted to be a foreigner.
Mary (laughing) : What did you want to be?
Mason: I think I've forgotten until today.
Mary: Mason…
Mason: Mary, are you about to say something I don't want to hear?
Mary: I don't know.
Mason: Well, then listen first. Rejection for me is like those high frequency whistles that only dogs can hear, I usually see it coming a long way off and run like hell. I can't seem to do that with you for some reason. What I said to you out there is qualified as it may have been I've never said to another woman. Well, I take that back, I've said it but only because it seemed polite under the circumstances. Now I… I know, that sounds cold but there it is, they were only words, I just didn't understand what the big deal was about, and now that the big deal may be right in front of me. I am scared to death; it's for the first time in my life, I won't have the words.
Mary: Mason what am I going to do about you?
Mason: I have a suggestion.
Mary: No, I don't need one. I have a hundred things going around my head right now.
Mason: Is one of them to tell me to get lost?
Mary: No.
Pearl brings them coffee.
Mason (to Pearl): Thank you, Pearl. (to Mary) Tell me something: what did it feel like?
Mary: What?
Mason: That I said to you earlier.
Mary: To franticly, I imagine.
Mason: Didn't you imagine it before?
Mary: Yes, many times, who hasn't?
Mason: Was it pleasant at least?
Mary: Yes.
Mason: I am jealous. In one great leap you'd managed to experience far more in love than I have.
Mary: You mean no one has ever told you.
Mason: No. But I never really missed it. Love, if that's what I mean has a sort of dare double quality to it. For some reason all of the sudden I feel like my whole life depends on making you love me back. I never thought too much about the future before but if a woman like you could love me, well, that will be something astounding. The only problem is will it be too astounding to believe it.
The waiter brings them dishes.
Mason (to the waiter) : Wait a minute! We did not order it. (To Mary) Well, I think they just unnerved to have a beautiful woman in the place. I hope, you like oysters.
Mary: Maybe blind folded.
Mason is laughing.
Mary: Well, why look a gift oyster in the… do they have mouths?
Mason: They are all mouth. (Mary looks doubting) Don't say it. I am not an oyster in spite of this almost uncrackable shell. Look outward the marina, do you see the big white yacht with blue flags on it in there?
Mary: Yeah.
Mason: That's ours. It's hardly ever used anymore. We never have any privacy at home.
Mary: What are you asking me, Mason?
Mason: I don't know. Well, I do know, I am afraid to say.
Mary: I don't think it's a good idea for us to be alone right now.
Mason: Oh, you think it's a proposition.
Mary: Mason, there is something you should know. I don't charge anyone else in this but I don't think I believe in sex outside of marriage for me, anyway.
Mason: Mary, I'd… I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you but I think what I really want is just to hold you, feel your hair against my face, listen to your breathing, just be with you anyway you want me to be.
Mary: I thing that sounds…
Mason: What?
Mary (in surprise) : Look! (Takes a pearl from her plate).
Mason: Do you suppose it's a pearl with Him or a pearl before swine?
Mary: Pearl, great praise.
Mason: Gotten for nothing.
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