Lance Armstrong in the Bedroom
By Lucas Cox
JEFF (Male, Age late 20’s to early 30’s, chubby and balding)
DOUG (Male, Age late 20’s to early 30’s)
AUBREY (Female, Age late 20’s to early 30’s, petite and thin)
Setting: A living room with two reclining chairs.
DOUG: So, is Aubrey still handling her cancer thing pretty well?
JEFF: Oh yeah dude, she’s doing great.
DOUG: Great? What? Is her cancer gone or in remission or something?
JEFF: No. At least I hope not.
DOUG: Jesus Christ man. Why in the hell would you say something like that about your wife?
JEFF: Dude, she looks the best she’s looked since college. They should put cancer in a can and sell it at health food stores. Lymphoma Lite or the Lazy Lymphoma Diet.
DOUG: I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Her fricking hair is gone and she looks like a damn skeleton. How can you tell me that she looks better than she did in college?
JEFF: I didn’t say she looks better than she did in college. She was sexy as all hell when we were in college, her body was nails, God she was hot. Oh, and I said that she looks the best she’s looked since college.
DOUG: She looks like absolute death!
JEFF: Well maybe it should be called the Death Diet then. I admit that I miss her hair sometimes. And she’s as pale as a dead polar bear, and her eyes are always bloodshot with bags under them, and her skin is all dry and ashy, her breasts have deflated a few cups, and sometimes she has to stop and vomit during sex, or I suppose she vomits during anything… but I am telling you dude, her body is so hot now! She’s lost almost two hundred pounds now! I mean, I never thought that I would ever be married to, or even be living with something that would be able to drop two hundred pounds of bodyweight and not die. Shit, I work in an office and live in the suburbs, not on a farm.
DOUG: (Staring at JEFF) You are the most cold hearted asshole that I have ever met in my life. You and Aubrey have been together since you were little kids and now you are celebrating the fact that she has cancer.
JEFF: Oh come on, you watched her slowly triple her bodyweight since we graduated high school. You remember Craig’s wedding three or four years ago?
DOUG: Well yeah. I was the best man you dumbass. And it wasn’t even two years ago.
JEFF: You remember watching Aubrey eat an entire level of the wedding cake by herself? And then she cleared half of that table of those little mint things they have at every wedding? And then she ate a ham… not some ham, but “a ham” at the wedding reception? And she washed all of that crap down with two pitchers of beer. You saw that, right?
DOUG: Yes. I was the best man at the wedding.
JEFF: Yeah, well, did you happen to see the look on my face while my wife was trying to destroy mankind with her mouth? I swear to Christ I had tears in my eyes, dude. They were tears of fear. Tears of regret.
DOUG: But you love her. That’s why you married her you numb-nuts! Besides, I think she was just eating to compensate for the fact that you’ve never gotten her pregnant. She wants kids, man. She’s wanted kids ever since she was a kid.
JEFF: She weighed over three hundred pounds and I’m supposed to put a baby in that?
DOUG: Are you saying that you wouldn’t even have sex with her?
JEFF: No. No. I’m saying that I didn’t want to get her pregnant because that would just add more landmass to planet Aubrey.
DOUG: You are the biggest asshole in the world! You don’t talk about your wife like that, you just don’t.
JEFF: You have no idea how many benefits have come with her massive weight loss. I can sleep without hanging on to the edge of the bed because the mattress slants to her side. When I leave the toilet seat up she actually realizes that it’s up when she sits down on it. Her car is getting better gas mileage and she’s eating like way way less, so that’s quite a bit of extra money in my pocket right there.
DOUG: (poking JEFF’s stomach) Well Aubrey may have lost all the weight, but I think I’ve found where it all went.
JEFF: (swatting DOUG’s hand away) Kiss my ass.
DOUG: I’m just pointing out the fact that you’re bitching about how fat she was and now you’re the one packing it on. You are the living definition of a selfish prick.
JEFF: I’m relaxed now. I’m not all stressed out about having an oil tanker for a wife anymore. And there sure as hell is a lot more food in the fridge for me to eat.
DOUG: You’re a colossal dick weed, man. You are a giant tumbling dick weed.
JEFF: What’s she going to do? What? Divorce me? She has cancer. It isn’t like she’s in the prime of her life and ready to climb back onto the dating wagon. I can put on a little weight if I want to, and she’s even told me that she likes a little meat on her man.
DOUG: She meant muscle, not fat.
JEFF: I’m eating more calories because of all the sex we’re having. I can actually pick her up and throw her around the bed a little. And she’s so pissed off about having cancer that she sort of takes that anger out on me under the sheets; you know what I mean? It’s that angry sex. She’s like a bald little Lance Armstrong in the sack. It’s great.
DOUG: Lance Armstrong? So her cancer has made you gay now? And it’s the chemotherapy that’s causing the weight loss, not the cancer.
JEFF: Don’t think that I’m going to be offended by your 5th grade attempt of slamming my sexuality. I’m saying that it’s like having sex with an athlete now. And you’re right about the chemo I suppose. Maybe when she’s cured I should remove the door on the microwave or something. You know, so she can still meet her dietary needs for radiation.
DOUG: Microwaves don’t work that way. And knowing that you are willing to shorten your wife’s life in the name of weight loss changes my entire opinion of you. And what will you do if the worst should happen. If she… if Aubrey dies?
JEFF: She’s not going to die. Besides, even if she did die, it would open up a whole new world of getting laid for me. Do you have any idea how many women will spread their legs for me when I tell them about how I stuck with my wife while she had cancer, and then she died? I’ll lose my hearing from the thundering sounds of panties dropping wherever I go.
(DOUG is staring at JEFF. He is completely dumbstruck over the heartlessness of what JEFF has just told him)
(AUBREY enters the room. She is smiling and carrying a box of doughnuts in one hand)
AUBREY: Oh hi Doug! I am so glad you’re here! I have got the greatest news!
(DOUG stands and AUBREY hugs him)
JEFF: (looking at the box of doughnuts) Are those for me hun?
AUBREY: Unfortunately, no. Today I am celebrating because my cancer is in full remission!
JEFF: (stands and hugs AUBREY) Oh my god honey! That’s great!
DOUG: That’s the best news I’ve heard all year! (hugs AUBREY again)
AUBREY: Yes! And now I feel great and I have my appetite back!
DOUG: I’ll call my wife and the four of us will go out for dinner tonight!
JEFF: (taking cellphone from his pocket) I’ll make reservations at Spago! We’re going to eat like royalty tonight!
AUBREY: No. Let’s not go to Spago’s. It’s too expensive and I would rather go to a place that has a buffet. Oh my god, I am starving! I haven’t felt hunger in almost a year and I have to say that I have missed this feeling a lot! I’m going to order some pizzas. You guys want anything?
JEFF: No baby, I’m good.
DOUG: I’ll have some cheesy bread if you’re calling Domino’s.
AUBREY: Actually I was leaning more towards Pizza Hut. Oh well, I’ll order from both. And then we can clean up and go out for dinner tonight!
DOUG: Let me call Kayla and have her come over to have some pizza with us. She’ll love to hear the good news.
AUBREY: Oh yes! I’ll order another pizza so I won’t have to share!
(she begins to exit the room but stops)
Either of you guys want a doughnut? It was the discount dozen at Krispy Kreme’s and I’d offer one to you both, but there’s only one left.
JEFF: (taking the last doughnut from the box) Thanks honey.
(AUBREY exits the room)
DOUG: This is great news!
JEFF: (slowly and sadly eating the doughnut) Yup. It sure is.
DOUG: Oh don’t tell me that you’re pissed about your wife beating cancer and getting her life back.
JEFF: That isn’t what’s bothering me at all.
DOUG: Well what is it? Tonight you can have that happy, live like there’s no tomorrow sex. And she won’t throw up on you either.
JEFF: Don’t be so sure. She’s probably going to have two large pizza’s to herself, wash them down with two liters of Mountain Dew, then she’ll throw a couple kilos of buffet food down her gullet along with beer and soda tonight. Oh, and she’s already eaten eleven doughnuts by the way.
DOUG: You are the biggest asshole in the universe!
AUBREY: (yelling from offstage) I just ordered three extra larges from Domino’s and three more extra large from Pizza Hut! Oh, and don’t worry, I got lots of cheesy bread too! Do you think I should call them back and order more if Kayla’s going to be coming over? Yeah, I’m going to call Domino’s and get another large!
JEFF: Shit. (staring straight forward and finishing his doughnut)
THE END