MASHA: My employer had five children, one of them an infant in arms. Well, I worked for this family for a year, paid the company off and was going to go home. I called my husband once a month. Every time I called he said: “I miss you so badly, I miss you”… But then all of a sudden he said: “ May be you’ll work another year? Though I miss you badly…” And here I hear the small town telephone operator’s voice interfere in our conversation. The operator said: “Don’t believe him, he’s lying. No sooner you left than he brought a girl to your place the next day, and she has been living in your flat. She struts around the township in your clothes”. I froze like the Liberty Statue with the phone in my hand and hear him screaming: “Don’t believe, don’t believe her! She’ s angry because I refused to date her”.
IRINA: And what about you?
MASHA: I dead-dropped on the floor. Cried for two days and decided: I’ll find another husband.
OLGA: But they aren’t lying about.
MASHA: I called home to an old classmate. She told me that they were seen here they were seen there. She wears either my fur coat or my hat, not to mention my tights; she has probably worn them out. But I tell my friend on the phone what a great life I have over here, I traveled here, and I traveled there. And actually all my travels: were walking about downtown and back.
OLGA: Irina, this is the example we should follow.
IRINA: Yes, Masha – well done!
MASHA: Don’t interrupt me. They are having the “perestroika” in full swing, and didn’t get any salary. They ate all our pigs and rabbits; there was nothing to eat, nothing to do, and they started arguing. Then my ex-husband comes to my friend whom I call, and says, that he would like to speak to me, that he loves only me, and allegedly wants to come here to America.
OLGA: Wonderful, invite him here!
MASHA: Oh, no, let him suffer a bit; I stand firm.
OLGA: Look, while you’re standing firm, he’ll again pick up another mistress.
IRINA. It’s for me. Hi, Jack! Fine!
OLGA:(
MASHA: Greeting each other. She asks how old he is.
OLGA: She’s worried about his age.
MASHA: Now about his height. He is very tall and asks her how many centimeters are in one meter.
OLGA: Why?
MASHA: Because she told him her height in centimeters. He likes to walk.
OLGA: So does she.
MASHA: He likes music.
OLGA: How splendid!
MASHA: She is making a date for this weekend.
OLGA: That’s a good girl;” grab the bull by the horns”.
MASHA: He’s very busy.
OLGA: What are they speaking about?
MASHA: Wait. He asks how often she takes a shower.
OLGA: What does he need this for?
MASHA: How she dresses, when she goes to bed…
OLGA: Well, I never! And what now?
MASHA: Keep silent.
OLGA: Why is she yelling? Why don’t you answer?
IRINA: What! Did you eavesdrop?
OLGA: No, no way. I don’t understand English anyhow.
IRINA: I didn’t finish my conversation because of you; he understood this, hung up the receiver.
OLGA: Why were you yelling?
IRINA: None of your business, I don’t know what to do. I was so eager to get to know him better…
MASHA: Leave it alone! He hung up because he understood that you’re against…
IRINA: Against what?
MASHA: Against sex.
IRINA: What sex?
MASHA: Sex on the phone.
OLGA: What is this?
MASHA: The phone sex is like this: when you speak on the phone, you’re having sex at the same time… Both pleasant and safe and excites the other person too.
OLGA: Girls, I hear this for the first time. As far as I know we didn’t have this kind of sex in Moscow…
MASHA: At home telephones can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Only big bosses had them and one – at the post-office.
OLGA: Well, I never! Just think what they’ve made up.
IRINA: He didn’t say anything about this. How can you prove this?
MASHA: He didn’t really say, but hinted at it. He said to you: Now I’m lying on the bed, I have taken a shower…
IRINA: Yes, I heard.
MASHA: Well, that’s it. What more proof do you need?
IRINA: And still it doesn’t mean anything.
MASHA: A friend here, knowing that I was looking for a husband warned me against telephone sex. Such things happen here.
IRINA: I can’t believe this.
MASHA: Why did you yell at him?
