SCENE TWO: BRENT’S IN THE BATHROOM

Brent walks into the bathroom to take a pee. While he stands there he takes a closer look at the Scope bottle. He thought it was the biggest he’d ever seen. But now sees that it’s about the same size as the one Linda Zapatos keeps in her office.

As he turns to zip up, he sees a t-shirt with a rainbow on it sticking out of a hamper. He hears a key working the door to the apartment. He looks through the door and into the living room where Kate is passed out on the couch. Next to her is a photo of three hard looking women and the one in the middle is…

LINDA ZAPATOS.

The door to the apartment starts to open. Brent turns the light off in the bathroom and jumps into the closet, into a space about one inch taller and one inch wider than he is. He gets turned around and pulls the louvered door closed in front of him.

LINDA ZAPATOS
Katie! Katie! Are you here? Oh, there you are. Aren’t you sweet, all curled up on the sofa.

BRENT DAVID (muttering softly to himself)
Holy (bleep), it’s really her. I am so screwed. OK, don’t panic. When she goes to bed, I’ll just sneak out the door, and nobody will ever know.

LINDA ZAPATOS (to Kate)
Sweetie, are you going to sleep out here? That can’t be good for your back. Wow, you are out cold. Sleeping like an angel. We’re going to do some fun stuff tomorrow! Do you remember Margot and Leslie? They’re coming over bright and early and we’re going to take you to Great America! I hope you didn’t eat too much tonight, you know how weak your stomach is when you’re on the roller coasters! Hee hee. Wow, you are really asleep. I’m gonna get cleaned up now, so that you can have as much time as you need in the morning.

BRENT DAVID (muttering to self)
Please be more than one bathroom. Please!

Linda Zapatos walks into the bathroom and closes the door. Brent is now trapped in the bathroom with her. He can see her through the slats in the closet door and hopes she can’t see him. He also hopes that she doesn’t need anything in the closet.

Linda starts to take off her clothes, which consists of her Rainbow Warriors uniform. She obviously changed out of her spikes and is wearing black tennis shoes over her white stirrup socks with a green stripe. She looks at the hamper and mutters…

LINDA ZAPATOS
There’s my lucky t-shirt. It’s a wonder we won tonight without this thing.

Brent closes his eyes out of fear. Fear of being caught and fear of seeing a 5’6, 200 pound woman in the nude.

He opens his eyes as he feels the door begin to rattle. What he sees is burned into his mind for eternity. Linda is topless, wearing only a pair of red granny panties and is pulling her bathrobe off a hook. He closes his eyes and sees her veiny breasts in his head. He nearly shrieks with horror.

Linda puts the bathrobe on and belts it. Brent checks to make sure he hasn’t gone blind. He is hoping she will hop in the shower, giving him an opportunity to escape.

He can see her standing at the vanity looking at herself in the mirror. She turns on some sort of small appliance that looks like a little fondue pot.

She then turns and flips up the lid on the toilet, bunches her robe up in the back, drops her panties and sits down. She opens a drawer and pulls out a copy of Vine Line and starts reading.

Brent hears noises that he didn’t know could come out of a woman. Even the Big Shoe. At one point she audibly groans and starts wafting the air with her Vine Line. She opens another drawer and pulls out a lighter and fires up a candle.

All Brent can think of is that it’s too late.

The noises continue, only now they are accompanied by an audible splash down. Brent closes his eyes and is startled by a vision of the Big Shoe eating chutney. He opens his eyes and he sees her unrolling enough toilet paper to carpet the bathroom. He closes his eyes and sees chutney. He is trapped in a living hell.

Linda flushes the toilet but does not get up. Brent can hear the noise the toilet makes as the water escapes the bowl and it begins to refill. He sees Linda lean way over on one cheek and bunch up her robe on one side.

LINDA ZAPATOS
Oh, back for an encore, eh?

She flushes again.

Now she stands up and looks into the mirror. She checks on the little fondue pot and pulls out a small brush. She dips the brush into the pot and it is then that Brent figures out what’s in the pot.

BRENT DAVID (mutters to self)
No! She’s going to give herself a bikini wax! Please God, take me now!

Linda does not remove her robe though. Instead she applies wax to her upper lip. And then between her eyebrows. And then, most horrifically, she pulls her hair back into a pony tail and applies wax to a pair of very visible sideburns.

Linda then pulls out a thin roll of paper and puts pieces on the wax on her lip, forehead and cheeks.

Brent is horrified by her shrieks as she quickly tears off the paper.

LINDA ZAPATOS
Wow! Feel that burn! Whoo!

She turns and starts the faucet in the shower-tub. Brent is waiting for her to pull the tab on the faucet to send the water up to the showerhead. Instead, his greatest fear is realized. After she gets down testing the water temperature she puts the stopper in the drain. She’s going to take a BATH!

Linda grabs the bottle of Scope and starts to drink it like Gatorade while she stands watching the tub fill up. She drops her robe around her ankles and takes another hit off the Scope. Brent recoils in horror as her red panties fall to the floor around her ankles. Even though she has her back to his closet, he can see a spot that could use some of that wax.

She turns and puts the nearly empty bottle of Scope on the counter and then climbs into the tub. Brent is scared because the one thing she can see directly in front of her is the closet in which he’s hiding. She slides down so that she’s under the water up to her chin.

She closes her eyes and Brent thinks he hears whirlpool jets start up in her bathtub. He then realizes she’s making those bubbles. They continue far longer than should be biologically possible. Linda leans forward and Brent can’t see what’s reaching for. When she leans back she has something in her hands that reminds him of an oversized water pick. It’s battery operated and he can see Linda fiddling with it. She submerges it for a second, then resurfaces and watches as it shoots out a thin line of water. She makes an adjustment so that the stream of water is thicker. Then the pick disappears below the water again.

Brent becomes shockingly aware of it’s use when Linda begins to arch her back.

LINDA ZAPATOS
Mitch, can I see you in my office?

She says this softly. Brent can hear the dull roar of the water pick below the surface of the water.

LINDA ZAPATOS
Mitch. You’ve been a bad boy. As your boss, it’s up to me to punish you.

Brent does not like where this is going. He ponders for a moment the possibility of throwing the still plugged in wax machine into the tub, but decides against it.

She continues to scold the imaginary Mitch and Brent tries to remain still in the closet. He thinks to himself that at least he has solved the mystery of her sexual orientation.

Then he hears her continue her dialogue, which is just above a whisper.

LINDA ZAPATOS
Carrie? Why don’t you join us? You’ve been bad, too.

Brent closes his eyes and tries to ride it out. At one point there’s actually enough thrashing that he can hear water hitting the linoleum floor. Then it stops. He hears Linda set the water pick thing on a shelf near the tub, and is disoriented to see a big sponge pop to the surface as she begins to stand up. Linda towels off and pulls the drainplug. She towels off, then puts her robe back on and tosses her red panties into the hamper.

She turns off the light and he can hear her walk down the hall. Brent wastes no time. He slowly opens the door to the closet and slinks down the hall towards the door and freedom. He opens the door, closes it as quietly as he can behind him and runs down the stairs, out the door, and down the street.

He runs and runs and runs and after seven blocks realizes he’s been running the wrong way, completely opposite of where his apartment is. But he doesn’t care. His torture is over. He’s a free man. His innocence gone forever.

ON THE NEXT FRONT OFFICE: Brent recounts his time in living hell at Hotel Zapatos.