“I would, except it seems like… you know… this is my room. 310?”
“Prove it!”
His hands went up in an exaggerated fashion as he opened the door again, then closed it. It was apparent that this was rolling funnier than the original scene, at least so far. Albert liked to play obnoxious characters, but he was a more natural fit for the normal guy caught in a bizarre situation. “I can’t bring you the door. Where is your room key?”
“I don’t know–get the hell out of here!”
“Again, it’s my room… maybe you should get the hell out!”
He searched the room, looking under the bed and on top of a dresser (that wasn’t really there) and a few other corners.
“Where did you put the towels?”
He gave the audience a mugging, confused face, and that got a pretty big laugh, Albert was much more comfortable with this side of the exchange, I could tell; even his fellow students who had seen it before were laughing like seeing it for the first time.
“I didn’t… I don’t have any towels. I just got into this room. I’ve never been here before. So… I guess… what did you do with the towels?”
“Shut-up!”
“No!” he snapped back childishly. “Don’t you have any towels in there?” More quiet, which brought greater laughter. “Where are your clothes?”
“They’re out there!” she shouted. After a moment, during which laughter built again, she asked, to a greater response, “My clothes aren’t out there?”
“Oh, god,” murmured Albert, and the audience was laughing right along. Even I laughed a little bit. “Is this… I think I found your key card?”
“Give it to me!”
“I’m not going in there!” he said, holding for more laughter. “It says, um… 410. Yeah. You’re in 410. You’re definitely in the wrong room.”
“See? I told you!”
“No, you’re… this room is 310. You’re supposed to be in 410. So you’re definitely in the wrong room. How long have you been there?”
“Bring me my room card–and my purse!?”
He again looked around, again finding nothing, and the audience continued to laugh. “You have no purse. No clothes. There’s not even a sheet on the bed. So… um… listen. I’m just going to get hotel security. Okay? They can help sort this out–”
“Do not get hotel security!”
“It’s alright. I’ll just… I’ll be…”
Liz entered the stage from the left. The audience lost their minds, most of them laughing, but there was a simple wildness that wasn’t just humor. Just like she thought the scene should play, she was naked. Soaking wet. Like when Albert had done the scene in his boxers and speedo, her hand was clutching her crotch–but she wore nothing underneath; she had more to cover than Albert did, though Liz’s body was undeniably better, so she also had an arm draped over her breasts. It was more mashing than concealing, and they seemed to look bigger, producing fantastic cleavage, as she stood there shivering in front of an audience that would not quiet down. I had my hand over my mouth and was full of more fear and shock than hilarity. I’m surprised I had any blood left above the waist to keep me conscious.
“Sorry,” Liz had to say about ten times until the audience finally heard it. Albert had no choice but to stand there and stare, petrified. She kept shifting from one foot to the other, the panic on her face probably equal parts real and performance. “I think I got the wrong room.”
“No shit!” he exclaimed, then covered his eyes. The audience roared loud to that line–every line would get a bigger laugh now, I suspected. They were supercharged. This was the kind of lawless theater Albert had been aiming for. I wondered if it was at all possible he had planned this–had always had designs to get Liz naked on stage. Then I decided he couldn’t have played all of this to such perfection. He was just incredible lucky to find her in the right frame of mind to volunteer.
She told him, breaking up her speech over the audiences loud replies, “Look… I got a bit drunk last night. Just… drinking. I like to drink. Who doesn’t?” Again, a really big laugh. She could have read a tax form and gotten laughs, standing there like that. “I bent my card when I stuck it in the ATM… I’m always sticking things where they don’t belong.”
I’m sure that line made more sense when a guy was playing the naked person in the wrong room. It didn’t matter. It still brought the audience to their knees.
“I came back here, my card wouldn’t work on the door. I needed to get in… obviously…”
“Obviously. Even though… this is not your room.”
“Well, I know that now,” she huffed out, and more great laughter bounded back. “The maid, she didn’t speak English well. She kept going on about how this was… you know…”
“Not your room?”
“Not my room,” agreed Liz. Pause of long laughs. “She told me to go to the front desk, I wasn’t going to do that, she was right there… she could open the door. I guess I got a little… short with her…”
“You look like the ‘short’ type,” said Albert, pointedly–again, funnier when it’s a woman directing it toward a guy.
“So I threatened her… I might… you know… call immigration… if she didn’t let me in.” Albert shook his head as a few in the audience booed Liz–the gloves were off, all normal protocols and politeness were falling apart in the excitement. I had heard probably a dozen whistles since she had stepped out on stage. “What? It worked… she let me in.”
“To my room.” As the laughs subsided a bit, Albert paced, hand over his eyes. “I guess that explains why there’s no towels–and nothing’s been cleaned except the missing sheets.”
“Look, can you loan me something? Just a… jacket or something?”
“It’s 72 outside,” Albert shrugged, starting to enjoy the situation. “I didn’t pack any additional clothes. I’ve got a suit in the car for my presentation tonight–that’s it.”
As the giggles continued, Liz just stared helplessly at Albert. She asked, “Can I borrow your pants–”
“No!”
Greater laughter. There were whispers passing around the students I was seated with, and I couldn’t even hear them over the noise from the audience. I felt so strange–bad for Liz, humiliated on her behalf, but also incredibly aroused to see her out there.
The lines continued as I moved my eyes back and forth from my nude friend on the stage, arms still trapped in place to conceal her body, and the audience that was rapturously watching her. As I scanned the crowd, preoccupied with thoughts of how many of Liz’s students and fellow colleagues in the master’s program were seeing her in this compromising situation, I noticed one face more familiar than the others.
Emily. After all our arguing, she had come to see me in the play. I could only imagine what was going through her head.
The scene continued for 8 more minutes, the intensity of the exchange picking up as the two characters realized they were not only from the same hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, but that they had gone to the same high school. The moment brought about a tremendous amount of laughter when Albert made the mascot call with one hand and Liz mirrored, flashing her tits to the happy crowd, before remembering her state comically and covering up again. It got more ridiculous as they realized they had once been on a date together in middle school. She had skipped out on the bill–which was hard to accept the gender-swap, maybe just a little, but the audience went with it–and he had never forgiven her. Liz’s character confessed to her insecurities and that she had forgotten her “purse” on the date and didn’t want to ask for help. They had never spoken to each other again until that moment, apparently. They shared details about their pasts and figured out, taking the long way around–at least 8 minutes’ worth–that they had never really gotten over each other.