The Twenty-Five Lovers

 

The Twenty-Five Lovers

(or “The Weight of Venetian Blinds”)

A Comedy in One Act

By Benjamin Gavarre

benjamingavarre@filos.unam.mx

The Twenty-Five Lovers (or “The Weight of Venetian Blinds”). © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

A sharp, tender comedy about two exes bound by seventeen years together, a ledger of twenty-five catastrophic past lovers, and a crooked window blind. Confronted with the shameless flirting of a ruggedly unhandsome handyman, both men reaffirm an unbreakable pact forged from joyful cynicism, domestic survival, and lifelong devotion.

 

CHARACTERS

• HOWARD (40): Vice President at a Fortune 500 firm in Midtown Manhattan. Solid, masculine, direct, and surprisingly handy with a toolkit. He punctually pays the ConEdison bill, the gigabit fiber Wi-Fi, building assessments, and streaming subscriptions; he carries an executive platinum health plan worthy of an oil baron, and he is the only living soul capable of bleeding Jay’s pre-war steam radiators, rebooting his mesh router, and clearing his cloud storage without an aneurysm.
• JAY (64): A “spry sixty-four-year-old.” Power-walks six miles through Central Park daily after a heavy leg day at Equinox, looks easily ten years younger, fiercely self-reliant, cultured, with dry, biting irony and an elephant’s memory. Was Howard’s partner for seventeen years and legal owner of the West Village co-op apartment, but remains completely helpless around any consumer electronics manufactured after 1998.
• JESSE (32): Jay’s companion of the week. Broad-shouldered, thick-forearmed, rugged, and unapologetically ugly, but so disarmingly cheerful, sweet-tempered, and enthusiastic about any task—mechanical or carnal—that it is impossible to dislike him. Addresses everyone by first name with instant, blue-collar warmth.

SETTING

The living room of Howard’s apartment in a pre-war West Village brownstone. A handsome, masculine interior: exposed red brick, a deep chesterfield leather sofa, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with hardcovers, a heavy oak coffee table, and at the back, tall sash windows where a heavy wooden Venetian blind hangs noticeably crooked. Late afternoon autumn light.

SCENE I

Jesse, standing on a sturdy wooden stepladder in a ribbed white tank top and worn Carhartt jeans, works with a pair of pliers on the blind’s metal header box. Jay, dressed in sleek athletic joggers and a fitted black gym tee—fresh from his workout—lounges on the chesterfield with a glass of club soda in hand, admiring Jesse’s back with a slow, contented smirk. Howard, perched on the sofa's armrest in business casual, taps briskly on Jay’s iPhone.

HOWARD: (Without looking up from the screen) You had fifty-two tabs open in Safari, Jay. Fifty-two. And background Bluetooth scanning turned on since last month. No wonder you called me during an executive board presentation claiming your phone had a Russian virus.

JAY: (Stretching out long, toned legs with athletic vanity) A man walks six miles down from Hudson Yards after heavy front squats, Howard. At that point, the brain has no bandwidth left for cybernetics. Go ahead, tap the quad. Feel that. That is what a self-sufficient sixty-four-year-old looks like.

HOWARD: (Gives Jay's thigh a solid, unceremonious slap without looking) Yeah, rock-hard, like Arnold thirty years ago. But your steel quads didn’t stop you from pulling the plug on the apartment's main router yesterday because you needed an outlet for your Vitamix. (Hands the phone back) It's all set. And I scheduled auto-pay for ConEd, the fiber Wi-Fi, and your building dues, so you don't have to walk down to the bank branch like an 1890s Rockefeller clerk.

JESSE: (From the stepladder, wiping his brow with a thick forearm) Hey, Howard, you got a beefier Phillips head anywhere? The one in your kitchen drawer is pretty stripped and this bracket is torqued down like crazy.

HOWARD: In the red toolbox under the sink, Jesse. I’ll go grab it.

JESSE: Don’t get up, man, stay off your feet. I can muscle it with these pliers anyway, I’ve got decent grip strength. Right, Jay?

JAY: (Purring with amusement) Terrific grip strength, Jesse. Quite an impressive display of fine motor control.

HOWARD: (Looking at Jay sidelong) How sweet it is to see youth showing reverence for their elders.

JAY: Elders my ass, pal, I've got more hair on my head than you do. Jesse and I talk peer-to-peer because we operate at the same metabolic baseline. The only corporate stiff in this room is you with your executive VP title. Though, God bless your corporate rank.

JESSE: (Wrestling the metal rail) Why? You guys get free cafeteria sushi?

JAY: Far better than that, Jesse: an uncapped, platinum executive health insurance plan. If it weren’t for Howard’s corporate package, we’d still be washing bedpans in the basement of Mount Sinai to pay off that specialty cocktail that gave his cerebral cortex an allergic blowout.

HOWARD: (Laughing in spite of himself) You never miss a chance to tell that one.

JAY: It was a masterpiece of domestic farce! Picture it, Jesse: Howard in intensive care, babbling in three languages, me sitting on a hard vinyl hospital recliner for seventy-two hours straight. And when they finally discharge him, the billing coordinator hands us an invoice that looked like the Pentagon’s black-budget ledger. They practically had us under hostage negotiation at the front desk until Howard’s corporate Cigna card dropped like Archangel Michael with a platinum broadsword.

HOWARD: You conveniently left out the two times you had to scrape me off the asphalt with a spatula.

JESSE: (Turning around, surprised) You got hit by cars twice?

JAY: Worse! He bought a motorcycle. Mid-thirties crisis—decided he was Steve McQueen. Three wipeouts in four months along the FDR Drive. Two required emergency suture work. On the third one, I confiscated the bike and handed him the keys to my Volvo sedan. I preferred giving away my car to identifying his dental work on the Queensboro Bridge.

HOWARD: And you love that I have that car, because who drives up to your brownstone at midnight when your antique steam boiler pilot light goes out?

JAY: That’s reciprocal logistics, Howard, not charity. Besides, you still owe me hours on the therapist's couch for the twenty-five specimens that paraded through this apartment when you decided to "find yourself." (To Jesse) You see, Jesse, this man is an industrial magnet for the most exotic psychiatric talent on the Eastern Seaboard.

JESSE: (Grinning) Lay it on me while I get this screw loosened.

JAY: It all kicked off when he dumped me for an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. Howard was completely head over heels: walked out on our routine, packed his bags, swore it was the love of the century. And do you know what the distinguished oral surgeon did whenever the mood turned intimate? He shielded his mouth!

JESSE: (Cracking up) No way! For real? Bad breath?

JAY: He had an existential phobia of open-mouth kissing between men! A licensed medical practitioner who spent eight hours a day elbows-deep in strangers' salivary glands swore male saliva carried cytomegalovirus bacilli! There was poor Howard, reduced to kissing the guy's forehead like a pious nun, until he opened the doctor's closet and discovered more psychological skeletons than the crypt beneath Trinity Church.

HOWARD: (Smiling, shaking his head) He had charisma. A little unhinged, but great at dinner parties.

JAY: Oh, dazzling. Just like the gourmet lunatic who tried to spike your morning cold brew with equine tranquilizers. Or the label-obsessed grifter who made you buy Saint Laurent cashmere on Madison Avenue, while he was crashing out in deep Staten Island—and the minute he lost his seasonal retail gig, he landed on your doorstep with three garbage bags begging for political asylum. And the shady underworld character? My personal favorite. Got into a petty argument, decided to set fire to the curtains, and when his Zippo fizzled out, he took a leak right in the center of the living room rug. On my original Persian wool.

JESSE: Man, what a dirtbag. You should’ve clocked him one, Howard.

HOWARD: I shoved him out onto the hallway landing in his boxers. And I had the Medeco deadbolt re-keyed the very next morning, because right after him came two Puerto Rican guys who sounded like Long Island prep-school lacrosse bros, and an eighty-year-old Palm Beach retiree who spent day three telling me how to rearrange the mid-century credenza because he assumed he owned the co-op board. Since that week, nobody gets a key.

JAY: Sound public policy. Speaking of which, Howard, do we have ice? Going over your psychiatric caseload has dried out my throat and my soda is lukewarm.

HOWARD: (Standing up) I’ll grab the ice bucket from the freezer. Wrap up that bracket, we still have to drive over to your place to bleed your radiator valves before sunset.

(Howard exits toward the kitchen hallway.)

SCENE II

The moment Howard disappears down the hall, Jesse drops his pliers, hops lithely down from the stepladder, and pulls his ribbed tank top off over his head to wipe his damp chest. Jay looks him up and down without the slightest pretense of subtlety.

JESSE: (Stepping closer to the sofa, flashing a broad, easy grin) Hey, Jay... is that dentist story on the level, or were you just running your mouth to turn me on?

JAY: I swear on everything I own. Come here, step into the light—let’s see if you got plaster dust in your eyes.

JESSE: (Chuckling low) Yeah right, plaster dust. You just want Howard to walk back in and catch us red-handed. You’ve been drilling holes into my back with your eyes since we walked through the door. I was practically sweating up there.

JAY: (Rising slowly to his feet, inches from him) Does that bother you?

JESSE: Man, are you kidding? I’m always game to lend a hand. Come here...

Jesse catches Jay firmly around the waist with both hands, easing him back against the high leather arm of the chesterfield, slipping a thick knee right between Jay’s thighs. Jay plants one hand behind Jesse’s warm neck while his other hand slides brazenly down into the back pocket of Jesse’s jeans. Their faces are barely an inch apart, breathing the same air, locked in an embrace that leaves absolutely zero room for plausible deniability.

Just then, Howard walks back into the room holding the stainless-steel ice bucket.

Neither man flinches. With Broadway-caliber cynicism, Jay and Jesse simply freeze their momentum half an inch before their lips touch, not pulling away, not altering their grip.

HOWARD: (Stopping dead on the hardwood, raising an eyebrow) Am I interrupting a routine building inspection?

JAY: (His hand still wedged snugly in Jesse’s back denim pocket, tone velvet-smooth) Perfect timing, Howard. Jesse caught a hot metal burr from the bracket in his left eye. I was blowing it out.

HOWARD: (Surveying the tableau with clinical detachment) Naturally. You were blowing the metal burr out of his left eye.

JESSE: (Blinking aggressively, his lips two centimeters from Jay’s mouth, grinning good-naturedly) Yeah, man, when I snipped the tension cord, a stray shaving popped right under the eyelid. Stings like a bastard. Blow one more time, Jay, I think it's still floating around.

JAY: (Breathes a gentle, steady puff of air directly onto Jesse’s mouth) Almost got it. You have to maintain steady, concentrated air pressure to trigger the tear ducts.

HOWARD: Fascinating. And to stimulate the ocular tear ducts properly, it is structurally essential for Jesse to be shirtless, with his knee planted between your groin, while your right hand has a five-finger grip on his rear cheek through twelve-ounce denim?

JAY: (Looking down at his own hand with mild, professorial wonder) It’s an anchor point, Howard. If you blow into someone’s eye without securing your foundation, your center of mass drifts and you risk scratching their cornea with the bridge of your nose. It’s basic biomechanics.

JESSE: (Steps back without a trace of guilt, pulling his tank top back on with cheerful ease) Boom, came right out! You called it, Jay—lungs of a marathon runner. Thanks, man. (Hops right back onto the stepladder) Let me cinch this last toggle and your window is bulletproof, Howard.

Jesse gives the cord one firm pull. The heavy wooden blinds glide down and snap into a dead-level, perfectly horizontal position.

SCENE III

Howard sets the ice bucket on the oak table. He drops ice cubes into three heavy lowball glasses, uncorks a bottle of small-batch rye whiskey, and pours a generous measure into each. He glances up at Jesse, then over at Jay, who has re-seated himself with the angelic composure of a choirboy.

HOWARD: (To Jay, in the relaxed, conversational tone of someone checking the subway schedule) I'm going to shoot straight with you, Jay: he’s ugly. With all due respect to the skilled trades, the guy is genuinely, breathtakingly plug-ugly.

JESSE: (Climbing down from the stepladder, laughing from the gut, completely unfazed) That’s literally what my mother told me every Sunday growing up, Howard! But she said I make up for it with good vibes, broad shoulders, and knowing how to fix things. Besides, in dim lighting without a shirt, I do the job, don't I, Jay?

JAY: (Taking his lowball glass) You have a rugged, industrial charm. Very mid-century WPA mural. And more importantly, you aren’t afraid of cytomegalovirus, which gives you an enormous competitive advantage in this co-op.

HOWARD: (Shaking his head, swallowing a laugh) You are a shameless mercenary, Jay. You show up at my place—well, your place—with your latest companion to fix the window blinds I haven’t had three free minutes to handle between quarterly earnings calls; you drag out the full ledger of my twenty-five romantic trainwrecks; and then you stage an erotic optometry demonstration in the middle of my living room just to see if I’ll lose my temper.

JAY: (Looking at him with fond, wickedly sharp eyes) And are you going to lose your temper?

HOWARD: (Raises his glass with absolute certainty) Hell no! Do I look like an idiot? If I put on high-and-mighty airs and pack my bags over wounded pride, who loses? We have a bulletproof emotional trust fund here, pal: you supply the co-op deed, the sedan parked downstairs, and hospital vigilance when I fracture my skull; and I supply the ConEd bill, the gigabit Wi-Fi, the executive health coverage that kept us from washing bedpans until the year 2050... and lifetime tech support.

JAY: (Grinning ear to ear) Above all, the tech support.

HOWARD: Because you can act as nimble as you want at sixty-four, log your daily six miles, and bench-press Jesse with one arm to blow in his eyelashes... but if I disappear from your life, within forty-eight hours you’re taking freezing-cold showers, completely off the digital grid, begging an automated ATM machine to understand English. So nobody’s storming out, nobody’s offended, and nobody’s surrendering their keys or the car.

JAY: (Rises, clinking his heavy glass firmly against Howard’s, his gaze brimming with indestructible affection) Deal, Mr. Vice President. To be fair, no other tenant on this island could handle my personality or provide such magnificent dinner-party material.

JESSE: (Reaching his glass into the middle, beaming) Cheers to that! And hey, whenever you guys need a heavy credenza carried down the stairs, a stubborn lock greased, or another foreign object blown out of an eye, you’ve got my number. My rates are low and I take trade.

HOWARD: (Clinking Jesse's glass, laughing out loud) Cheers, Jesse. You earned the rye. (Clapping Jay firmly on the shoulder) Drink up, silver fox. Let's get uptown and bleed your radiator before you catch pneumonia in that museum you call an apartment.

All three drink deeply, laughing together in easy camaraderie, as the golden afternoon light dims and the

CURTAIN FALLS

 

The Twenty-Five Lovers (or “The Weight of Venetian Blinds”). © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0