The Paperwork

Night Noises

Los Angeles is either more interesting or less interesting than I thought.



Last night, Darin and I were lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, when we heard this noise outside. A repetitive, constant, short noise.

After a while, Darin said, "That's someone having sex."

I said, "I thought that was a dog barking." I giggled. "Not that one precludes the other."

We listened a while more. After a few minutes, I finally heard one syllable: "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

The sound was completely inhuman and lacked passion: it was timed and monotonal. I don't think the noisy one's partner was thinking about baseball; I think he was looking at a metronome. He's a metronome, she's a Stepford Wife.

The voice went on. And on. And on. Periodic breaks in the action. Then it would start again. The word wasn't always Yes -- sometimes I couldn't make it out.

Eventually I said, "Could they finish already?" Darin cracked up.

I started theorizing about what the situation was. A really, really boring porn movie. Or maybe a scene from a porn movie played over and over again. Maybe they were dubbing a porn movie. Or an extremely untalented actress was making some money while she's waiting for her big break.

Well, it was better than when I hear hollering -- serious, violence-approaching hollering -- out in the street.


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Last Updated: 24-Nov-96
Copyright ©1996 Diane Patterson