The Steam-y Room

The Steam-y Room
Script by Ceil

Setting: Mid-morning - Lakeland Country Club - Exercise and Recreation Area

Holly has just completed forty minutes on the step machine in the women's exercise room, and heads to the women's locker room. Her mind has been wandering incessantly over nothing else but the ever-so- gradual return of her body's natural shape and form. As she is about to change into a sauna towel, she looks skeptically at her nude image in the mirror.

Holly: (biting her lip) "Getting there..."

As she wraps the towel tightly, she utters to herself,

Holly: "Maybe, I can melt the rest."

At the men's sauna room, Roger has just finished dousing the heated rocks with water, the steam the rocks provide saturates the room. As he tucks his towel around his waist, Roger returns to the redwood bench against the sauna's wooden walls and lies on his back. He closes his eyes and relaxes his body, taking in the soothing steam. Suddenly, someone abruptly enters...

Roger looks up from his prone position and gasps in astonishment. At the very same moment, Holly enters the sauna. Looking up from the floor, Holly gasps at the sight she is beholding.

Roger is still lying on his back on the bench, but has gotten up on his elbows.

Roger: (amazed) "Like a dream, I will you here, and there you are!"

Holly: (vexed) "Why do we keep getting into these situations!" "What are you doing in the WOMEN'S sauna room?!"

Roger stares a disappointed look, then says, with his eyes shifting to and fro.

Roger: "Last time I looked this was the men's sauna room."

Holly looks to the door then, tosses her head back and forth. She sighs in disbelief.

Holly: (raking her hair with her fingers) "Ohhh, what am I doing HERE?"

Holly pouts and puffs a breath as she starts to veer to the door.

Roger sits up on the bench and smiles eagerly at Holly.

Roger: (with raised, bushy eyebrows, trying to sound humorous) "It's fate!"

Holly pouts again, then turns and retreats to the door. As she begins to open the door, the vision several yards in front of her, stops Holly in her tracks. Holly gasps.

Roger: (getting up) "What?"

Holly has backed into the sauna and now looks out the door window apprehensively.

Holly: (enraged) "Alex! She's standing in the hallway with Margot Jory, that watchdog of hers at the Foundation! They'll be jabbering for hours now!"

Roger: (tactfully) "So what do you care?"

With Holly's back to him, Roger appreciatively eyes all of her figure, as he sits on the sauna bench .

Holly: (turning to him; nearly shouting) "I can't let her see me come out of the MEN'S sauna room!"

Roger is still lingering his sight on her legs, then with the alarm of Holly's shriek, Roger proceeds to lock his glance with hers. Holly notes his stare and pulls the top of her towel tighter around her body. Holly turns back to the door window.

Holly: (matter of factly) "Knock it off, Roger."

Roger stares at the bottom of her towel's shadowy region.

Roger: (grinning) "I can't help it if I enjoy what I see."

Holly, still peering out the window, cracks a smile in spite of herself.

Roger looks up from the bench and quietly approaches her. Holly is so intent on the two women's garbled discussion in the hallway; with the hiss of the sauna rocks, she doesn't hear Roger's footsteps.

Roger: (looking down at Holly's right shoulder) "Hello my friend, I've missed you."

Holly: (startled, turning her neck to him) "Will you get away from me!"

Roger: (still looking at the accumulating beads of water on her skin) "I wasn't talking to you; I was talking to your shoulder."

Roger breathes deeply and sighs as he begins to peer out the window. Holly suppresses a giggle.

Holly tries to sound forceful, as a lion tamer to her charge.

Holly: (grinning) "Back! Back!"

Roger: (grinning, yet hopeful) "Why don't you try to shoo my away with your towel?"

Holly: (stares for a moment at Roger with contempt) "Oh, you wish!"

Roger: (savoring the sight of the shadows of Holly's towel) "Oh yes!"

Roger acknowledges her pretenses and reverts to the bench.

Roger: (moving his attention to the back of Holly's neck) "You know, if we are in here for hours, there wouldn't be much left of us with this heat and steam."

Holly: (carefully wiping the window glass with her fingers) "Then we'll have to die here, 'cause I'm not leaving 'til they do!"

Roger: (calmly and intently) "That's the way I always planned it."

Holly: (distracted) "What?"

Roger: (soothingly) "I always planned to die in your arms."

Holly looks away from the window, as she looks down, she wipes the beads off her forehead.

Holly: (dryly) "You would like that, wouldn't you."

Roger: "You have to promise me you will hold me in your arms."

Holly: (annoyed) "Oh, why of course. I wouldn't miss it."

Roger: (calmly) "Thank you."

They lock eyes. Roger's eyes glisten lovingly at Holly in the sauna's dim light. Holly shakes off her stare and returns her gaze to the hallway.

Holly: (agitated) "Come on Alex, you sack of weeds!"

Roger gets up from the sauna bench and moves to Holly.

Roger: (grinning) "...Bag of wind."

Holly tries to contain a snicker but fails. Roger goes back to the bench and lies down on his back.

Holly: "I notice you haven't offered to leave, have you?"

Roger: (looking at Holly with a satisfied smile) "Are you kidding?" "The two of them are so hard up, they would be all over me!"

Holly: (under her breath) "They would have to be hard up, to be all over you..."

Roger: (relaxing his arms under his head) "What?"

Holly: "Don't get crazy over yourself, Roger."

Roger: (looking up at Holly from the bench) "It's not me, that I'm crazy about Hol."

Holly turns her neck to look at him skeptically. Roger smiles urbanely.

Holly ignores his hopefulness and returns her view to the window. Roger relaxes his shoulders, settles back on the bench and closes his eyes.

Turning to the room, Holly notices Roger's prone posture on the bench.

Momentarily defeated by the two women's vigorous conversation outside the sauna, Holly retreats to the wooden bench just across from Roger's.

Roger is totally motionless. Holly looks at the entire space of the room and then at the hissing rocks in their enclosure. She breathes in deeply.

Holly: (in her thoughts) "While I'm stuck here I might as well take in the advantages of this sauna."

Looking straight ahead now, Holly begins to take in Roger's long lean figure lying against the redwood panels.

Holly recalls to herself that if the circumstances were different, she and Roger would have had a welcome laugh over this predicament. A laugh and then some.They would have reveled in the seductive nature of it all and luxuriated themselves in each other...

Without realizing it, Holly suddenly finds herself rubbing her thumbnail along her front teeth and tongue. She drops her hand to her side. Still sitting, Holly looks up to the window, then back to Roger. Her view is once again hypnotized to the sight of Roger's unabashed frame. All Roger would have to do is look at her with those enticing eyes... she could always feel the warm, electric sensation course throughout her entire body.

Shaking her head from her inspirited thoughts, Holly breathes in much deeper and eases her shoulders and head against the redwood wall. At the same time, Holly closes her eyes.

The sound of Holly's deep breath, prompts Roger to turn on his side and rest his head in his hand. He stares at Holly's peaceful face. Holly senses Roger's intense gaze and looks over at him.

Wordlessly, Holly stares back at Roger. At that very moment, he is so devastatingly handsome and inviting; as much as Holly tries to deny it to herself, she finds herself drawn to him.

Roger: (with anticipation) "Does this mean you will stay?"

Holly: (apprehensively) "Of course not!"

Holly begins to get up from the bench. Roger sits up and looks to Holly with momentary disappointment. Holly goes over to the door and spies out the vaporous window.

Holly: (relieved) "Good, they're gone!" Holly opens the door and slowly peers out.

Roger: (encouraging) "Stop by again, anytime!"

Holly: (confidently) "Not likely."

Holly exits the door.

Roger, pleased with himself that at the very least, he could manage some progress with Holly, gets up and vigorously douses a hefty dose of water on the simmering rocks. The steam erupts throughout the room. Roger smiles triumphantly as he settles back against the bench. Holly is halfway down the hallway as she stops her hasty tracks and glances longingly back at the sauna. She breathes in, and heads to the women's change room.

Holly: (rubbing the tension from her neck) "All I need is a cool... make that a cold... shower."