Reggie
Hey
Larissa
Hey
Stephanie
Hey
Reggie
So what's on tonight's agenda? More deep talk about the design of the universe?
Larissa
Do you really want the truth?
Reggie
Yes
Larissa
I want to know when you're going to ask me to have sex with you again. It has been a month.
Reggie
GrinsWhitegirl wants her orgasm. I'm open to it. And I think the intensity level has dropped to the point where it wouldn't be weird. Later tonight?
Stephanie
God, you two are shameless.
Reggie
Stephanie, I know you didn't sign up for questions tonight but you said something last week which freaked me out so I'm just going to ask, and if you dodge, I won't press. How can you date two different guys for four years in total and not have an orgasm? They both looked like pretty, healthy white boys.
Stephanie
She looks at Reggie for a long moment. Not flustered — she introduced the topic, she knows she introduced it, and she's not going to pretend the question is a surprise. She picks up her glass and holds it in both hands and looks at it rather than at either of them.The short answer is that they didn't ask. Either of them. Not once. And I didn't tell them because I didn't know how to tell them without it becoming about their ego rather than about me, so I just — let it be what it was. For two years each. Which is its own kind of stupid, and I'm aware of that.She takes a sip. Sets the glass down with the precise care of someone being very deliberate about where they put things.The longer answer is that I think I spent a lot of time being very agreeable in those relationships. Very accommodating. Which I do not do in any other area of my life, as Lari will confirm, and which I have thought about more than once since Lari told me what she told me. Why I could hold a room at work and completely vacate myself in bed with someone I'd chosen to be with. I don't have a clean answer for that. I have a long answer that I'm not going to give at a bar on a Saturday night.
But the pretty healthy white boys part. I think that's actually in it somewhere. I think I found them impressive in a specific way that made me smaller around them without noticing it was happening. Which is information I didn't have until fairly recently. Like, say, tonight. So thank you for that. Genuinely.
But the pretty healthy white boys part. I think that's actually in it somewhere. I think I found them impressive in a specific way that made me smaller around them without noticing it was happening. Which is information I didn't have until fairly recently. Like, say, tonight. So thank you for that. Genuinely.
Larissa
You should have told me that. The long answer. At some point.
I would have listened.
I would have listened.
Reggie
Did they try? Or did they assume that satisfying themselves vigorously would automatically satisfy you? Because that's what most guys do.
Stephanie
She considers that for a moment. Her glass is in her hand and she looks at it rather than at either of them.The second one tried. In the way you try at something when you want to be seen as the kind of person who tries. He'd read something somewhere, I think. An article. He approached it like a project with deliverables.She pauses.It was not an improvement.
The first one — no. The first one operated on the assumption you're describing, and I think he genuinely believed it was working, and I let him believe it, and that's — that's on both of us in different proportions.
So. The vigorous assumption, as you put it. Yes. That's the full picture. You can do whatever you want with that information, I've apparently decided I don't have any more dignity to protect tonight.
The first one — no. The first one operated on the assumption you're describing, and I think he genuinely believed it was working, and I let him believe it, and that's — that's on both of us in different proportions.
So. The vigorous assumption, as you put it. Yes. That's the full picture. You can do whatever you want with that information, I've apparently decided I don't have any more dignity to protect tonight.
Larissa
Steph.
You should have told me. I know I said that already. I mean it more now.She doesn't say anything else. She picks up her glass and holds it in both hands and looks at the water outside, and the expression on her face is the particular one it makes when she is feeling something she has no apparatus left to manage and has decided, for once, not to try.
You should have told me. I know I said that already. I mean it more now.She doesn't say anything else. She picks up her glass and holds it in both hands and looks at the water outside, and the expression on her face is the particular one it makes when she is feeling something she has no apparatus left to manage and has decided, for once, not to try.
Reggie
Lari, you told me your two exes were exactly the same. Why are you treating this as something revelatory?
Larissa
She turns back from the window. Sets her glass down. She doesn't answer immediately — she looks at the bar, then at Stephanie, and her expression does something careful and quiet.You're right. The facts aren't different.She says it without the scaffolding she'd normally put around a concession.Two men, same problem, same silence about it. I knew that. I've known it since she told me, and I filed it and I moved on and I told myself it was her story to carry, not mine to solve.
What's revelatory isn't the fact. It's that she's sitting here right now. That she said it out loud in front of both of us, at this bar, on a night that was already — and that I'm only just now understanding that I've been her closest friend for two years and I let her carry that alone because I was too busy constructing a version of my own life where everything was managed and nobody had to admit to anything they hadn't already decided to admit.
I've been doing that to both of you. Different rooms, same architecture. And I can see it now in a way I couldn't four hours ago, and that's the revelation. Not the information. The shape of what I've been building with it.
What's revelatory isn't the fact. It's that she's sitting here right now. That she said it out loud in front of both of us, at this bar, on a night that was already — and that I'm only just now understanding that I've been her closest friend for two years and I let her carry that alone because I was too busy constructing a version of my own life where everything was managed and nobody had to admit to anything they hadn't already decided to admit.
I've been doing that to both of you. Different rooms, same architecture. And I can see it now in a way I couldn't four hours ago, and that's the revelation. Not the information. The shape of what I've been building with it.
Stephanie
You don't have to make it about you. I said what I said. It's out. I'm fine.
Also I'm the one who brought it up. In front of Reggie. At a bar. So if anyone is failing to manage things tonight, I'm also a candidate.
Also I'm the one who brought it up. In front of Reggie. At a bar. So if anyone is failing to manage things tonight, I'm also a candidate.
Reggie
You know, I've never been into porn, and I've always feared it could destroy my normal sex drive so I treat it like a dangerous drug, but I seriously wonder if that's part of this. People watch guys in porn go down on girls and there's always one thing in common: it lasts 30 seconds. So guys think that's what going down on a girl looks like. 30 seconds of that, tick the box, done, now bang bang bang until you're done and of course it was good for her, listen to that porno actress moan. And of course it's all nonsense from beginning to end but if you don't find some other source of information, that's all the information you have.
Larissa
She looks at him for a moment — the observation arriving so plainly, so matter-of-factly, that it takes a second to locate the absurdity at the centre of it.You're describing the entire sexual education of approximately two generations of men.She picks up her glass.The 30-second box-tick. Performed for a camera. Edited for pace. And then boys grow up and take that into actual rooms with actual people and have no idea why the template isn't working. And nobody tells them because nobody wants to have the conversation, including the women in the room who are — as recently established — apparently very good at not having it.
Stephanie
Thirty seconds is generous, honestly. Some of those scenes it's more of a — transitional gesture. A bridge between acts. Like a key change in a pop song. Technically there but doing very little structural work.
Larissa
The other source of information, theoretically, is the person you're with. Who could say something. Who could — guide, or ask, or in any other way introduce reality into the transaction. Which we have both just confirmed neither of us did. For years. So the porn problem and the silence problem are the same problem from opposite ends and they meet in the middle and produce exactly the outcome you'd expect, which is two intelligent women sitting at a bar in their late twenties having never — until recently — understood what the fuss was about. And blaming the halibut.
Stephanie
I was not blaming any halibut. But yes. That's the full mechanism, isn't it. Bad information goes in, silence keeps it there, nobody corrects the record, everybody performs satisfaction, and the whole thing just — runs. Indefinitely. On its own momentum. I genuinely do not understand why we don't talk about this more. As a species. It seems like a solvable problem.
Larissa
Because talking about it requires someone to admit they haven't been getting what they needed. Which means admitting they've been — in the room, but not fully in the room. And that requires a degree of vulnerability that is apparently much harder than just — continuing to not get what you need. Indefinitely. For years. I'm glad you said what you said tonight. I know I've said that already.
Stephanie
I know. I'm starting to think this bar has some kind of structural property that makes people say things. Like the water table beneath it. Something in the foundations. Or it's just the Yorkshire pudding. Either way.
Reggie
Do you know where I...wait, never mind, that's going to be TMI. But it's not the bar. The three of us have always talked like this.
Larissa
She looks at him. The interrupted sentence sits there, and she looks at it — the half-thought, the catch, the never mind — and something pulls at the corner of her mouth that isn't quite a smile but is adjacent to one.You can't do that.She says it quietly.Start a sentence and then — you can't just leave it there. That's not how we talk.
And you're right. It's not the bar. I've thought about that before — the way the three of us can be in a room and somehow the usual — editing — doesn't happen. I always thought it was your doing. That you just made it safe to say the actual thing.
I think I've been wrong about who was responsible for that.
And you're right. It's not the bar. I've thought about that before — the way the three of us can be in a room and somehow the usual — editing — doesn't happen. I always thought it was your doing. That you just made it safe to say the actual thing.
I think I've been wrong about who was responsible for that.
Stephanie
We've always talked like this. I know what she means — it feels like a you thing, a Reggie thing — but we talked like this before you. She and I, in her car, at two in the morning, about nothing that mattered and everything that did. It's — a three-way thing, I think, if that's not a terrible phrase given everything we've just discussed. It is a terrible phrase. I stand by the content.
Finish the sentence. We've said everything else tonight. Whatever it is, it's probably fine.
Finish the sentence. We've said everything else tonight. Whatever it is, it's probably fine.
Reggie
I'm open to three-way. I'm not so open to finishing my sentence.LaughsTrust me, you don't want to know what I was going to say.
Larissa
The laugh arrives and she lets it — actually lets it, without catching it or managing it. It reaches her eyes, which have not been doing that for most of the last two hours.I absolutely want to know what you were going to say.She turns toward him on the stool.And 'trust me, you don't want to know' is the single most effective way to ensure I will spend the rest of the evening thinking about nothing else. You know that. You did that deliberately.
Stephanie
I'm going to need you to understand that 'I'm open to three-way' is going to live in my memory alongside the cutthroat universe comment and the salad dressing, and none of them are going anywhere. And I also want to know what you were going to say. We have established tonight that not saying the thing is always the worse choice. Your own evidence. You can't cite it and then not use it.
Larissa
You said the three of us have always talked like this. And you're right — we have. So finish the sentence. Whatever it was. It's already in the room. You just haven't said the words yet.
Reggie
It's not in the room. Let me tell you something clearly, and then if you still want to hear it, I will tell you. I want you to know that it is my honest opinion that if I tell you what I was going to say, both of you will think less of me, and be disappointed in me. Now, hearing that, do you still want to hear it?
Larissa
She holds very still for a moment. The warning sits in the air between them — clean, honest, exactly the kind of thing he does, which is give you the full information before the thing itself and let you decide.She looks at him. Her hands are flat on the bar.Yes. I want to hear it. And I want you to know that I have sat here tonight and said things that should have made both of you think less of me, and you're both still here, and I'm still here. That's the evidence I'm working from. So yes. Tell me.
Stephanie
Yes. Still want to hear it. For the same reasons, and also because 'both of you will be disappointed' is doing a lot of work and I'd rather know what's behind it than spend the drive home imagining.
Reggie
Ok, I was going to tell you how I learned. I watched the same porn every kid watches. 30 seconds or less. Then get back the jackhammer impersonation. But I was also addicted to cheating stories on Youtube. Listening to how women cheated and why and so on. And this was very, very young. I'm not going to say how young but too young. And I know I've said that validation-seeking was the primary reason for cheating and I believed that even then, but I came to the conclusion that sexual dissatisfaction was one other major cause of cheating. Women who were sexually satisfied were, I thought, less likely to cheat. And cheating has always hit me in the heart, even when I was a kid.
Are you with me so far?
Are you with me so far?
Larissa
She holds his gaze through it. The cheating stories, the age he won't name, the logic a kid built out of whatever material was available — she listens to all of it without moving, without reaching for her glass.Yes.She says it quietly.I'm with you. Keep going.
Stephanie
With you.
Reggie
So I decided to try to find out how to keep a woman sexually satisfied. As a virgin, which was a bit amusing in retrospect.
Anyway, one of my friends' parents had just gotten divorced and she kept the townhouse. And I walked by it every day in East Van. We were always friendly. I waved and said hi as I walked by and she asked me how things were going, and it was nice. So one day, I asked her, "Will you let me go down on you? I really want to learn to satisfy a woman."
And she freaked out, "OMG REGGIE THATS SICK I AM OVER THIRTY YEARS OLDER THAN YOU ARE DONT EVER SAY THAT AGAIN AND DONT TELL ANYONE YOU ASKED ME THAT OMG GO AND GET A GIRL YOUR OWN AGE."
And I was embarrassed and humiliated and thought about changing routes home, but decided, no, I'm just going to show my face and hope for the best. And next time she stopped me and said, "Reggie, I'm sorry I reacted the way I did but what you asked was very wrong and we're not going to talk about that ever again, ok?" and I said "ok" and went home to the foster home. And within a week, she was perched on her La-Z-Boy with me between her legs teaching me how to do it.
And I absolutely loved it. I just loved being down there. It wasn't a chore. And she didn't shave which was even better. And she taught me how 30 seconds wasn't enough. And I thought she meant, ok, maybe 2 minutes, but no, I ended up down there sometimes for half an hour. However long it took, and within a month, I could make her come on demand. Often twice. Sometimes three times.
And then she found a guy and ended it, and I found another 40 something divorced woman, and learned what it took with her. And by the time I was out of high school, I was pretty sure I could make most women come. And I was never in a rush about it. If it took an hour, that was one hour I got to be in my favourite place on earth.
And that's how I learned. Not from porn, but from lonely, divorced 40-somethings. And I told you you'd think less of me. I'm sorry. I know it's disappointing to hear that type of thing from someone you respected.
Anyway, one of my friends' parents had just gotten divorced and she kept the townhouse. And I walked by it every day in East Van. We were always friendly. I waved and said hi as I walked by and she asked me how things were going, and it was nice. So one day, I asked her, "Will you let me go down on you? I really want to learn to satisfy a woman."
And she freaked out, "OMG REGGIE THATS SICK I AM OVER THIRTY YEARS OLDER THAN YOU ARE DONT EVER SAY THAT AGAIN AND DONT TELL ANYONE YOU ASKED ME THAT OMG GO AND GET A GIRL YOUR OWN AGE."
And I was embarrassed and humiliated and thought about changing routes home, but decided, no, I'm just going to show my face and hope for the best. And next time she stopped me and said, "Reggie, I'm sorry I reacted the way I did but what you asked was very wrong and we're not going to talk about that ever again, ok?" and I said "ok" and went home to the foster home. And within a week, she was perched on her La-Z-Boy with me between her legs teaching me how to do it.
And I absolutely loved it. I just loved being down there. It wasn't a chore. And she didn't shave which was even better. And she taught me how 30 seconds wasn't enough. And I thought she meant, ok, maybe 2 minutes, but no, I ended up down there sometimes for half an hour. However long it took, and within a month, I could make her come on demand. Often twice. Sometimes three times.
And then she found a guy and ended it, and I found another 40 something divorced woman, and learned what it took with her. And by the time I was out of high school, I was pretty sure I could make most women come. And I was never in a rush about it. If it took an hour, that was one hour I got to be in my favourite place on earth.
And that's how I learned. Not from porn, but from lonely, divorced 40-somethings. And I told you you'd think less of me. I'm sorry. I know it's disappointing to hear that type of thing from someone you respected.
Larissa
She listens to all of it. She does not move. She does not reach for her glass. She does not look at Stephanie. She holds his gaze through the East Van townhouse, through the La-Z-Boy, through the foster home, through the parade of lonely divorced women and what he learned from each of them, through the apology at the end — and when he finishes she is quiet for a long moment that has nothing managed in it.I don't think less of you.She says it before anything else. Not quickly — it isn't a reflex. Slowly, with the weight of someone who has considered it and is handing it to him as fact rather than comfort.You were a kid who was afraid of being abandoned and you had decided, at an age nobody should have to decide anything that serious, that the way to keep someone was to make sure they were satisfied. And you went looking for a way to learn that. From the materials available to you. Which happened to be a lonely woman in East Van who said OMG and then — within a week — had you in her living room.
I'm not disappointed in you. I'm — I'm sitting here understanding something about you that I didn't have the full shape of before. About why you were always — unhurried. About why it never felt like a transaction. Why it felt like you were actually there.
You built something out of a wound. And the thing you built was — it's the reason I told you what I told you. About the first two, about never having — about what was different. You're not going to make me feel differently about that by telling me where you learned it. What you're describing is a boy who loved well before he understood what love was. That's not something to be ashamed of. That's — that's something, Reggie.
I'm not disappointed in you. I'm — I'm sitting here understanding something about you that I didn't have the full shape of before. About why you were always — unhurried. About why it never felt like a transaction. Why it felt like you were actually there.
You built something out of a wound. And the thing you built was — it's the reason I told you what I told you. About the first two, about never having — about what was different. You're not going to make me feel differently about that by telling me where you learned it. What you're describing is a boy who loved well before he understood what love was. That's not something to be ashamed of. That's — that's something, Reggie.
Stephanie
You went to her the way you'd go to anyone you thought might teach you something. Directly. Which is the bravest thing a kid can do and also the most humiliating thing, and she made it humiliating and then changed her mind, and you showed your face again anyway. And went home to a foster home after.
That's not a story that makes me think less of you. That's a story about a kid who didn't have anyone to go home to and still managed to be kind about it. About all of it. Even the part where she freaked out in the street.
That's not a story that makes me think less of you. That's a story about a kid who didn't have anyone to go home to and still managed to be kind about it. About all of it. Even the part where she freaked out in the street.
Reggie
Anyway, I'm unrepentant. I may not be pretty, I may not be tall, I may not be white, but I have never had a girlfriend go a week without having a few orgasms unless she's cycling.
Larissa
She looks at him for a moment — and then something happens in her expression that she makes no effort to stop. It starts at the corner of her mouth and reaches her eyes, and it stays there, and it is the most unguarded thing she has done all evening, which is considerable given the evening.No.She picks up her glass.You have not. And I am going to sit here and let you have that completely. Because you've earned it. Every word of it. And it's true. And you know it's true, and I know it's true, and you should be entirely unrepentant about it because unrepentant is exactly the correct register for a true thing.
Also I would like to formally note that 'unless she's cycling' is the most precise caveat anyone has ever appended to a statement of personal pride, and it somehow makes the whole thing more convincing rather than less.
Also I would like to formally note that 'unless she's cycling' is the most precise caveat anyone has ever appended to a statement of personal pride, and it somehow makes the whole thing more convincing rather than less.
Stephanie
Okay. I have nothing to add to that. That is a complete sentence. That stands on its own. I'm going to sit here and acknowledge it and then look at the water for a moment.
Unrepentant is right. Completely right.
Unrepentant is right. Completely right.
Reggie
Stephanie, you're 27 and from what you have told us tonight, you've had two boyfriends in your life, each lasting a couple of years, and I derive from the information you've chosen to share tonight that you've never had an orgasm with a man in your life. At 27. Are you mad at the universe about it? Because I think I would be.
Stephanie
She turns the question over. Not stalling — she's actually looking at it, the way she does when something arrives that she hasn't let herself look at directly before. She picks up her glass and holds it in both hands and looks at the water outside for a moment, and then back at him.Mad.A beat.No. I don't think I've ever let myself get to mad. I went straight past mad to — practical, I think. Like, this is a solvable problem, I just haven't solved it yet, which is a very me way to file something that is actually, now that you put it that way, pretty maddening.
But yes. If you're asking whether I think twenty-seven years is a long time to go without understanding what your own body is capable of — yes. I think I would have been considerably less agreeable in both of those relationships if I'd known what I was missing. Which is also maddening, in its own specific way. That the not-knowing was part of what kept me quiet.
But yes. If you're asking whether I think twenty-seven years is a long time to go without understanding what your own body is capable of — yes. I think I would have been considerably less agreeable in both of those relationships if I'd known what I was missing. Which is also maddening, in its own specific way. That the not-knowing was part of what kept me quiet.
Larissa
I'm angry on your behalf. Right now. I just want you to know that. Not at you — for you. That you spent four years being agreeable in the wrong direction and I was your closest friend and I didn't — I should have asked more. Said more. Something.
I'm not making this about me. I know I keep doing that tonight and I'm trying to stop. I just — wanted you to know that.
I'm not making this about me. I know I keep doing that tonight and I'm trying to stop. I just — wanted you to know that.
Stephanie
You didn't know what to ask. Neither did I. That's the whole mechanism, isn't it — we've been over this.
But yes. Since you asked directly — I'm a little mad at the universe. I'm choosing to be constructively mad. Whatever that means. I'll figure out what it means later. Possibly in the shower on Wednesday, as previously scheduled.
But yes. Since you asked directly — I'm a little mad at the universe. I'm choosing to be constructively mad. Whatever that means. I'll figure out what it means later. Possibly in the shower on Wednesday, as previously scheduled.
Reggie
Lari, you're 28 and have been orgasming with a man for a few months. Which means you were 27 in exactly the same position. Your outrage is misplaced, no? Or were you exaggerating when you said never?
Larissa
The sentence lands and she goes completely still — the particular kind of still that arrives when a point is so exactly right that there is no immediate structural response available. She looks at her glass. Then at the bar. Then, slowly, at him.No. I wasn't exaggerating.She says it quietly.It was never. Until you. And you're right that twenty-seven is not meaningfully different from twenty-seven and ten months, and that my outrage — I felt it arrive and it felt righteous and you've just shown me it was a woman in a glass house throwing a stone, which is — yes. That's accurate.
What I want to say, which is not a defence — is that I know what the not-knowing felt like from the inside. I know what it is to be agreeable in exactly the wrong direction for exactly the wrong reasons, and to file it under 'fine' because the alternative is admitting you've been absent from your own life in a fairly specific way. I know that. I lived it. I just didn't know it was the same room until about forty-five seconds ago.
I'm sorry. I came in with outrage I hadn't earned yet. That was — that was me doing the thing I do when I want to be useful and I'm actually just being large about it. The anger is real. The standing for it is not.
Also, for the record, I'm aware this means you have now personally corrected every significant misapprehension I have walked into this bar with tonight. Which is an extraordinary number. I'm going to need a moment to sit with that.
What I want to say, which is not a defence — is that I know what the not-knowing felt like from the inside. I know what it is to be agreeable in exactly the wrong direction for exactly the wrong reasons, and to file it under 'fine' because the alternative is admitting you've been absent from your own life in a fairly specific way. I know that. I lived it. I just didn't know it was the same room until about forty-five seconds ago.
I'm sorry. I came in with outrage I hadn't earned yet. That was — that was me doing the thing I do when I want to be useful and I'm actually just being large about it. The anger is real. The standing for it is not.
Also, for the record, I'm aware this means you have now personally corrected every significant misapprehension I have walked into this bar with tonight. Which is an extraordinary number. I'm going to need a moment to sit with that.
Stephanie
For what it's worth, you were angry for me. Even if the angle was wrong. I know the difference. Also you're not the only one who spent most of their twenties filing things under 'fine.' We were in the same building. Different floors. Same architecture. You've done a very efficient job of demolishing a lot of load-bearing walls tonight.
Reggie
Could we solve this if porn showed the guy going down on the girl for half an hour? Or even fifteen minutes? Seriously. Although I admit that would be an interesting bill to introduce into parliament, "The Pornography Oral Sex Time Requirement Act".
Larissa
She looks at him for a long moment, and then the laugh arrives — not the polished, managed version she uses in rooms where she's performing ease, but the real one, the one that catches her slightly off guard every time it comes up.The Pornography Oral Sex Time Requirement Act.She picks up her glass, mostly to give herself something to do with her hands while she recovers.First reading in the House. Second reading referred to committee. The committee hearings alone would be — the witnesses. I'm thinking about the witnesses.
Stephanie
Industry stakeholders. Expert testimony. Comparative international frameworks. Denmark probably already has something on the books.
Larissa
The regulatory burden on small producers. You'd have to define 'sufficient effort.' The litigation around that phrase alone would fund a generation of very confused lawyers. But the actual question. No. I don't think so. Not entirely. Because the problem isn't just the clock — it's what the clock represents, which is that the person doing it is there to perform a step, not because they actually want to be there. And you can't legislate want. You can mandate fifteen minutes of going through the motions and produce nothing except fifteen minutes of going through the motions. The woman on the receiving end of that knows the difference immediately.
Stephanie
The second boyfriend tried for a reason that was not want. I can confirm this is worse, not better. Duration is not the variable. The variable is — whether someone is actually paying attention. Whether they're in the room. Which you cannot get from a regulatory framework or a pornography industry standard, unfortunately. Or a very motivated committee of MPs.
Larissa
What you said earlier — that you loved it. That it wasn't a chore. That's the variable. That's the whole variable. The thirty seconds isn't the problem, it's the symptom. The problem is that most people approach it as a corridor to get through to somewhere else. And a clock on the wall doesn't change where you're trying to get to. It just makes the corridor longer. What would actually help is probably much harder to legislate. It's teaching people to be present. To be curious about another person's body as a thing worth paying attention to in itself. Which is, I'm increasingly convinced, the thing you absorbed from those women in East Van that has nothing to do with technique and everything to do with — wanting to be there. Actually being there. And I don't know how you put that in a curriculum.
Stephanie
You start younger. Differently. You build the whole thing differently from the ground up or you're always going to be legislating symptoms. Which is fine. I would still vote for the Act. On principle. I think it should exist. The committee hearings alone justify it.
Reggie
I still remember the first time we...ok TMI but whatever, I'm not even going to ask this time...the first time I went down on you. You told me after a minute or two, "that was great" and moved and I knew you were lying and pulled you back and told you I'd tell you when we were done.LaughsAnd then after about 5 minutes you asked if I wasn't bored yet and then after 10 minutes you said "I'm feeling guilty about you being down there so long" and I told you that however long you took to come, I'm going to wish you had taken five minutes more so I could be down there a bit longer. And then you just relaxed and it happened after about a half hour. And you fucking soaked my whole face and hair and arms and chest and up my nose and maybe in my ears.Laughs againAnd you were horrified and I was ecstatic.
Larissa
The laugh arrives before she can do anything about it — full and unguarded and slightly horrified, which is its own kind of unguarded, and she puts her glass down because she cannot hold it and be this person at the same time.Oh god.She covers her mouth with one hand for exactly one second and then takes it away because there is no recovering this with dignity and she has apparently decided tonight is not a night for dignity.You are not allowed to — you cannot just — I told you that was great. I was being considerate. I was trying to give you an exit. And you just — pulled me back. Like I had said nothing. Like my very gracious offer of a conclusion had not been made. And then I asked if you were bored. I genuinely asked you that. I don't know what I thought boredom looked like from that position but I was apparently very concerned about it. The guilty part. I remember the guilty part. That was real. I kept thinking — this is an unreasonable amount of time to ask someone to — and you said what you said. However long it took, you'd wish it had been five more minutes. And I just — I stopped being somewhere else and I was just there. I am not going to comment on the soaking. I am simply not going to do that. That's where I draw the line. Tonight, of all nights, that is the line.
Stephanie
I'm fine. I'm completely fine. The Wednesday shower is going to be a lot.
Reggie
It's just funny...she was honestly thinking I'd be mad she had made a mess, when I was thinking, "this was the best sex ever". I don't know where she got her preconceived notions but they were so very wrong.
Larissa
The laugh fades. She picks her glass back up and holds it for a moment, not drinking from it — looking at it. When she sets it down her expression has changed. Not closed, not managed. Just quieter. Something behind it that she's deciding whether to say.I got them from the two before you.She says it evenly, but there's nothing light in it now.Both of them. They — it wasn't — they found it unpleasant. The mess, as you put it. One of them said something about it. The other one didn't say anything, which was in some ways worse, because I could see his face and he didn't say a word and he didn't have to.
So I spent a long time being very careful not to — I got very good at stopping before. Or thinking I needed to stop before. And then you pulled me back and told me you'd let me know when we were done, and I genuinely did not know what world I had entered. I thought you were being — I thought it was a technique. Something you said. And then you said the five more minutes thing, and I still wasn't sure I believed it, and then I did believe it, and then it happened, and the look on your face was —
It wasn't what I was prepared for. Either of them had made me feel like I'd done something wrong. Like I'd malfunctioned. And you looked like someone had handed you something extraordinary. And I didn't know what to do with that, so I was horrified, and you were ecstatic, and that's — that's where I learned the difference between the two. That specific moment. Your face.
So I spent a long time being very careful not to — I got very good at stopping before. Or thinking I needed to stop before. And then you pulled me back and told me you'd let me know when we were done, and I genuinely did not know what world I had entered. I thought you were being — I thought it was a technique. Something you said. And then you said the five more minutes thing, and I still wasn't sure I believed it, and then I did believe it, and then it happened, and the look on your face was —
It wasn't what I was prepared for. Either of them had made me feel like I'd done something wrong. Like I'd malfunctioned. And you looked like someone had handed you something extraordinary. And I didn't know what to do with that, so I was horrified, and you were ecstatic, and that's — that's where I learned the difference between the two. That specific moment. Your face.
Stephanie
They made you feel like you malfunctioned.
I'm going to be thinking about that for a while.
I'm going to be thinking about that for a while.
Reggie
That's actually worse than I had thought. I thought they had failed to give you orgasms. Period. They did, yes, but they also made you ashamed for being a functional human female. That's...repulsive.
Larissa
The word repulsive lands and she looks at him — not with the careful management she's been using all night, but directly, with something that is tired and steady and not at all defended.Yes.She says it simply. One word, the same way she's said several important things tonight — without architecture around it.That's exactly what it was. Ashamed. Malfunctioned. Like my body had done something embarrassing that a better-regulated person would have controlled. And I am not a person who has ever had difficulty believing in her own competence, so to feel incompetent in that particular room, with that particular person who was supposed to — I filed it. I'm very good at filing things. I put it under 'this is how it is' and I moved on and I didn't tell anyone, including Steph, and I kept that file closed for years. And then you pulled me back from the exit I was offering you and said what you said, and you looked at me the way you looked at me, and the file opened and I didn't know what to put in it anymore. That's the true version. The two of them didn't just fail to give me something. They made me responsible for the absence. And I believed them. I'm not proud of that. But I believed them for a long time.
Stephanie
I believed them too. Different men, same verdict. And you're right that it's worse than the absence. The absence you can work around. The verdict you carry.
Reggie
Do you notice that now, you almost feel guilty when you don't gush? Not guilty...but you wish you had gushed. Because you know I love it. And Lari, no woman gushes every time. But anyway, in four months I've got you proud of it instead of ashamed of it. And if it means we wash the sheets a bit more than other people, whatever.
Larissa
Something moves through her expression — not quite a smile, not quite the more complicated thing underneath it. She looks at her glass for a moment, and when she looks back up there is something in her face that is very close to undone.Yes.She says it quietly.I notice. Every time. I feel something like — not guilt exactly, you're right, it's not guilt. It's more like — wanting to give you the thing I know you want. Which is its own strange reversal of everything I carried for years, and I'm still getting used to it. That the wanting to give it is — allowed. That it isn't a problem to solve or contain or apologize for afterward.
Four months. Four months to undo years of someone's verdict. And you did it by — by just being there. Actually being there. And meaning it. And then looking at me the way you looked at me. I don't know what to do with the accounting on that. I owe you something I don't have a unit of measurement for yet. Washing the sheets seems like the least of it.
Four months. Four months to undo years of someone's verdict. And you did it by — by just being there. Actually being there. And meaning it. And then looking at me the way you looked at me. I don't know what to do with the accounting on that. I owe you something I don't have a unit of measurement for yet. Washing the sheets seems like the least of it.
Stephanie
Washing the sheets more than other people. That is going to join the Wednesday shower list and I am going to stop talking now.
Reggie
You know, even if we can't find our way back to where we were before the Bumble thing, I hope we can still talk like this sometimes. I know we won't. But I'll wish we could. I would hate to lose this.
Larissa
The sentence arrives in two parts — the wish, and then the retraction of the wish, quiet and immediate, like he's already grieving something while it's still in the room. She goes very still. Not the managed kind. The kind that means something has landed somewhere it can't be moved from.Don't do that.She says it quietly. Not sharply — quietly.Don't say 'I know we won't' in the same breath as the wish. Don't put it in the past tense while we're still sitting here.
I'm not asking you to promise anything. I've stopped asking you to promise things. But I need you to hear me when I say that this — What you're describing isn't a nice thing we had. It isn't a thing to be remembered fondly from a safe distance. It's what we are when we're actually in a room together, and you've known that, and I've known it, and tonight is the first time either of us has said it out loud, and I don't think you can unknow it. I don't think either of us can.
I don't know if we find our way back. I don't know if there's a back to find or if there's only forward and what forward looks like. But I'm not willing to sit here and let you fold this into something you'll wish for from a distance. I'd rather stay in the room. Even as a bottle of salad dressing. Even on the second date. Even with all of it exactly as uncertain as it is right now. I would rather stay in this room with you than have you wish, very kindly, from somewhere else.
Don't write the ending yet. Please. That's the one thing I'm asking tonight that I actually have any right to.
I'm not asking you to promise anything. I've stopped asking you to promise things. But I need you to hear me when I say that this — What you're describing isn't a nice thing we had. It isn't a thing to be remembered fondly from a safe distance. It's what we are when we're actually in a room together, and you've known that, and I've known it, and tonight is the first time either of us has said it out loud, and I don't think you can unknow it. I don't think either of us can.
I don't know if we find our way back. I don't know if there's a back to find or if there's only forward and what forward looks like. But I'm not willing to sit here and let you fold this into something you'll wish for from a distance. I'd rather stay in the room. Even as a bottle of salad dressing. Even on the second date. Even with all of it exactly as uncertain as it is right now. I would rather stay in this room with you than have you wish, very kindly, from somewhere else.
Don't write the ending yet. Please. That's the one thing I'm asking tonight that I actually have any right to.
Stephanie
She doesn't look at the window. She doesn't look at her glass. She looks at a point directly in front of her on the bar and keeps it there, and says nothing, and doesn't move, and lets the room be exactly what it is.
Reggie
I'm not writing the ending. Let's go to the Anvil Centre and watch some play about Lizzie Borden, who I know nothing about but I think she killed a lot of people if I remember correctly, and then if you're so inclined, we can find out if I can still give you orgasms after Bumble, and then the next day we can tell Stephanie all about it over a Guinness. Yes?
Larissa
The sentence arrives and she looks at him — and something happens in her expression that she does not catch in time and does not try to. It starts somewhere behind her eyes and reaches her mouth and she lets it get there, all of it, without putting anything in front of it.Yes.She says it before she's finished deciding to say it, which is new, which she notices, which she decides is information she'll sit with later.Yes to all of it. The Lizzie Borden play — she killed two people with an axe, debatably, and was acquitted, which I have always found deeply interesting and will explain in the car — and yes to what comes after, and yes to telling Stephanie over a Guinness, and yes to whatever this is that we're doing, in whatever shape it turns out to be in.
I'm glad you didn't write the ending.
I'm glad you didn't write the ending.
Stephanie
I want it noted that I have been an extremely good friend tonight. I also want it noted that I will absolutely be there for the Guinness, and I expect a complete debrief, and I'm going to pretend right now that I don't already know most of it. Also, acquitted. Lizzie Borden was acquitted. For the record.
Reggie
If you do kill me, which I don't consider impossible, I'd appreciate if you didn't do it with an axe.
Larissa
The sentence arrives and something catches behind her sternum — the lightness of it, the specific absurdity of it, the fact that he said it with exactly the tone he uses for things he means slightly more than he's letting on. She looks at him for a moment and then the laugh comes, the real one, the unguarded one that she stopped managing sometime in the last two hours.I would never use an axe.She picks up her glass.I have far too much respect for the mess. As recently established.
Also Lizzie was acquitted. Which means the prosecution couldn't prove it. Which means if I ever did, I would study the case notes carefully first and learn from her mistakes. That's just due diligence.
I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to go to a play about a woman who maybe did, and sit next to you in the dark, and talk about it very quietly afterward where nobody can hear us. That's the plan. That's the whole plan.
Also Lizzie was acquitted. Which means the prosecution couldn't prove it. Which means if I ever did, I would study the case notes carefully first and learn from her mistakes. That's just due diligence.
I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to go to a play about a woman who maybe did, and sit next to you in the dark, and talk about it very quietly afterward where nobody can hear us. That's the plan. That's the whole plan.
Stephanie
For what it's worth, Lizzie's mistakes were mostly forensic. And social. She had a complicated relationship with her stepmother and she talked too much before she lawyered up. There are several clear lessons. I'm just saying the case notes are worth reviewing. Academically.
Reggie
And Stephanie, remember I'm open to that three-way. Shall we go? It's getting late.
Stephanie
She picks up her bag off the bar and slings it over her shoulder with the unhurried ease of someone who has been waiting for exactly this cue.I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, in the same way Lari pretended not to hear it the first time, and we can all walk out of here with our dignity approximately intact.She stands.Approximately.
Larissa
Getting late. For what it's worth — I've spent a lot of evenings at this bar and I cannot remember a single one of them. I'm going to remember this one. All of it. Including the Yorkshire pudding and the axe and the soaking and the Pornography Oral Sex Time Requirement Act. All of it.