Lights up. HONEY sits at table, reading. TRIXIE enters upset, hurls book at HONEY.

TRIXIE
You whore!

HONEY
Trixie! How was your day, sweetheart?

TRIXIE
I saw you, Honey! I saw you at the library. Reading. With her. You were reading Kant with that slut Frances! At our table. Kant!

HONEY
I don't know what you're talking about.

TRIXIE
How could you do this to me? After everything we've been through together. After Mortimer J. Adler and Locke and David Hume. Those first coy weeks of deontology. Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the beach. Our summer of utilitarianism in Europe. Through empricism and rationalism. I stood by you even through your objectivist days. For chrissakes, Honey: Rand!

HONEY slams book closed and stands.

HONEY
What, and you're so chaste? Remember your "study group"? And what about the night you spent at Elijah's discussing Heidegger?

TRIXIE
That was on Nihilism. It didn't mean anything. And how can you compare that to Kant. Our Immanuel!

HONEY
It's not like Kant's so sacred. It certainly wasn't that night we both played Scruples with Professor Gieserich and ended up in a hot three-way debate of the categorical imperative --

TRIXIE
You said that you wanted to experiment --

HONEY
C'mon, you know I only did it to please you. And you didn't have to keep saying his name every time we talked about the categorical imperative for the next month.
Do you know how much that hurt?

TRIXIE
I couldn't help it, he's an expert. He knew his way around Kant better than any man I've ever studied under.

HONEY
You know what? I was in the library with Frances. She's a logical little undergrad, and she was hungry for Kant. And you know what else, she was hungry for my interpretation, she wanted my treatment of Kant. You can have your Professor Geiserich, Frances responded to my analysis in ways that you never have.

TRIXIE
I'm sure she was faking it. No real woman would be satisfied with your amateurish fumbling.

HONEY
You bitch!

TRIXIE
Skank!

HONEY
Harlot!

TRIXIE
Former business major.

HONEY
You. . . you heartless wench!

TRIXIE
You're nothing more than a . . . .a hedonist!

HONEY is shocked, then bursts into tears, sits. TRIXIE softens, crosses to HONEY, strokes her hair to comfort her.

TRIXIE
I. . .no . . . please don't cry. I didn't mean it.

HONEY
No, you're right. I really am. I am a hedonist. I don't deserve to read Kant.

TRIXIE
You're not a hedonist. Really. You're not. I wouldn't read Kant with a hedonist.

HONEY
Do you mean that? Do you really think I'm worthy of The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals?
(indicating the book she was reading)

TRIXIE
Yes. The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals.
(Picks up another book, actually "The Machiavellian's Guide to Womanizing".)
And even The Critique of Pure Reason. Two months in business school don't make you a hedonist.

HONEY
Are you sure? I mean . . . business school.

TRIXIE
Kant forgives. And so do I. Read to me, Honey.

TRIXIE opens book, hands it to HONEY. HONEY begins to read.

HONEY
Trixie?
(Pause.)
I love Kant.

TRIXIE
I love Kant, too.

They kiss. Blackout.
"Girls Who Crave Kant" IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

"Girls Who Crave Kant" debuted December 3, 1999.

TRIXIE: Merideth Nepstad
HONEY: Allison McCabe

Performed at Best of No Shame on April 28, 2000.

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