(On stage are Sarah, table, chairs, tape player, miniskirt, and tank top. All females are played
by males, and vice versa.)
(Chopin starts, Lights Up, music plays for a moment before Sarah stops
it.)
Shit. (stretches as if her back and chest are in pain, removes shirt to reveal
bra)
Aren't they great?
I just got them a month ago, and they hurt like Hell.
I have to massage every day to keep the scar tissue from hardening. (remove bra, lie on table
to massage)
I have wanted a tit-job since I was seven years old. I found out it was possible about the
same time I realized that big boobs were something that boys liked and I didn't have yet.
Over the next several years, it became clear that big boobs were something boys really liked and I
would never have.
I finally decided: I'm twenty-three years old, I'm five feet, ten inches tall, I'm done being
able to share an A-cup with my car keys and lipstick.
Every woman I talked to told me I shouldn't do it. My sister screamed at me.
(Sister, yelling.) "How could you? How could you do that to your body? How
could you do that to yourself? How could you do that to womankind?
"How could you do that before I can afford to do it, too?" (Sit, Sarah puts on tank
top)
Talking to my male friends went like this.
(Enter male, who passes Sarah without looking) "Hey, Sarah."
I'm considering breast implants. He pauses for a moment to hide his enthusiasm. (Male
stops, pauses, turns)
"Why?" (touching her arm)
He touches my arm to draw attention away from the fact that he's looking at my breasts.
Then he pays me a complement and hugs me so he can feel them against his chest.
"You're beautiful. (hug) I mean it, you're perfect." (several uncomfortable
beats before release)
After that, he brings it up every time he sees me.
"Are you still thinking about getting implants? (touching her arm and staring at her
chest) Not that I think you need them, I was just wondering what you had decided."
The male of the species holds the curious belief that, so long as he doesn't look at our
eyes, we won't notice where his are pointed.
We notice. (exit male)
But that's the point. I was tired of being invisible. (changes into skirt)
Since I was thirteen years old, it hasn't mattered that I've been valedictorian, or president
of my sorority, or that I've never had a piano teacher I couldn't outplay within a year. It has
mattered that I didn't have tits, or a nice ass, or even have child-bearing hips. Boys, teachers, my
friends, even my parents seemed to think of me as nothing but tall, bony, and unattractive.
There are two kinds of women: those who let men hold them beneath glass ceilings, and
those who let men support us on glass floors in exchange for the opportunity to look up our
skirts. Hard work and sacrifice never brought the attention, the opportunities, or the respect I can
get now just by showing some cleavage.
Coming out of the clinic, I was still half-stoned from the anesthesia. I was leaking into the
gauze pads under my arms, and I walked like someone had beaten the crap out of me.
Then I caught my reflection in a window. (She poses. Enter male, who takes chair and
tape player upstage, facing audience. Sarah will take another chair and positions it behind
him.) For the first time in my life, I was sexy.
I got into a cab, and the driver was absolutely gorgeous. (male starts tape player)
And he was listening to Chopin- "The Raindrop Prelude"- it's been my favorite piece since I was
six. The way he moved his long fingers on the steering wheel, he had to be a musician.
I caught his eyes, and it was like we were looking into each other, like we had been
waiting all of our lives to meet like this, lock eyes in the rear-view mirror, and fall madly in love
with each other. (male adjusts mirror) Then he tilted the mirror so I was looking at his
chin, (look at mirror, look at chest) which meant that he. . .
"Where to?"
I'm sorry. I'd rather walk. (she stands- he stops tape player and exits)
They’re only about a pound of extra weight, but my back doesn't know how to carry
them, my legs don't know how to balance them, and my skin is too small.
For eighteen years, I woke up every morning and played piano for an hour. Now I sit at
the keyboard, and I can’t play more than a note without these things getting in the
way.
I look ridiculous.
No, I look empowered. (put Aqua’s "Barbie Girl" in tape player)
I'm going dancing tonight, and men will be powerless to resist. They will pay attention to me, they
will spend money on me, and they will do whatever my big, fake tits and I ask them to.
That's what I wanted, right?
(Lights Fade as music plays)
"The Saline Solution"
IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED,
TRANSMITTED,
PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE
AUTHOR
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