Exits Everywhere · Brown in Surrey

Reggie and Brenna met at their usual bench in Civic Plaza, Surrey, where Reggie had brought coffee and apple fritters without asking. The scene was a long, candid conversation ranging across Brenna's relationship with 'rich boy,' her sexual history, her sense of identity, and the question of where things between her and Reggie might go. Brenna disclosed that she had slept with rich boy once this month and felt like a prostitute throughout, did not orgasm, and thought about the plaza bench on the cab ride home. When Reggie asked directly whether she had ever orgasmed with him, she said every single time, and that she had never been able to say that to anyone. She disclosed that in a prior relationship lasting almost two years she had orgasmed twice, and was uncertain which of those was self-assisted. Reggie explained that he deliberately edges her and restrains her wrists when she reaches down, and described this as leaving his mark on her soul. Brenna received this with visible emotion rather than deflection. Reggie told her he had considered inviting her to the Italian Kitchen on Burrard but decided against it because he felt he could not compete with 'Plan A' in that setting. He diagnosed her situation: that she belongs to a 1980s dress code in 2026, that her dating pool has narrowed to a puddle of providers and pump-and-dump men, that rich boy lost half his assets in a divorce and is not deciding but waiting to see if he can afford to decide, and that she has been performing an audition with no end date. Brenna confirmed each of these assessments with visible reluctance. Reggie proposed a sequence of dates: first, next Saturday following their usual bench-coffee-sex pattern, then a Skytrain trip to New Westminster for dinner at the Spaghetti Factory, a show at the Anvil Centre, a walk on the New West riverfront, and drinks at Judge Begbie's; if that went well, a seawall date with a Bluetooth speaker and dancing; and finally a meal at a proper restaurant — the Italian Kitchen, Diva at the Met, or Tojo's — in clothes suitable for a Stanley Park walk after. He framed these as a way to find out whether Brenna can be herself outside the hundred-metre radius of the bench, including whether she would hold his hand on the pier without looking around, and how she would react if a young attractive white man flirted with her at Judge Begbie's. He told her he is also sleeping with two other women, one of whom keeps asking him to offer to send Brenna videos. He made clear there is no wrong answer to any of the tests, and that if their world stayed small — confined to the bench and his bedroom — that would remain available to her for as long as she wanted. He also described a long-game vision extending to old age: many possible paths, including the scenario where she marries rich boy, eventually divorces him after performing success long enough to feel its hollowness, and they find their way back to each other at sixty. Brenna said she did not want the fifteen-year version and does not want to be the woman who marries him, while acknowledging she cannot promise she won't be. The scene ended with Reggie saying he was done with the bench and inviting her upstairs; Brenna stood, picked up the fritter bag, and agreed to follow him.

Reggie

You really are beautiful, Brenna.

Brenna

She takes the coffee and the fritter with both hands and looks at the cup rather than at him.You always say that when I'm dressed like I gave up.Softer than she means it to be.Which I'm starting to think is a comment on the other version.

Reggie

It is, in a way. I had lunch at the Italian Kitchen on Burrard the other day. Gorgeous place. I thought of inviting you. And then I realized I don't perform "Italian Kitchen Boyfriend" as well as your Plan A so I didn't. So it's not like I find the other version unattractive, I just prefer this version that I can compete for.

Brenna

She goes still. Quietly.You thought about taking me somewhere I'd show up fully dressed, decided you couldn't compete, and didn't. And you're telling me that on this bench. I think I'd have said no to the Italian Kitchen anyway, Reggie.

Reggie

That's interesting. Why would you have said no to the Italian Kitchen?

Brenna

She turns the cup once in her hands.Because I'd have spent the whole meal being the Italian Kitchen version of myself. I'd have been very good at it, you'd have watched me be very good at it, and at the end you'd have paid the bill and put me in a cab. I can't perform on this bench. I've tried. It doesn't stick.She looks at him.And I'm starting to prefer it that way, which is a deeply inconvenient thing to find out in no makeup, and I blame you entirely.

Reggie

That's about your preference. If I really wanted to go to the Italian Kitchen, and I asked you to go with me, would you?

Brenna

A real pause, not a performed one.Yes. If you wanted to go, I'd go. I'd show up dressed for it, you'd think I was trying too hard, you'd be right, I'd know you thought it, and we'd have a perfectly miserable time being very well dressed. But yes. Does that answer your question or just give you another one?

Reggie

I always have more questions for you. Are you still fucking rich boy?

Brenna

She doesn't wait for him to ask it.Yes. Once this month. And before you say whatever you're about to say: I felt like a prostitute the entire time. Not after. During. And I hated myself after as well, so it was very thorough.She looks at the fountain.I don't know how much longer I can keep doing it. I don't know what that means yet. I wanted you to know before you asked.

Reggie

Did you come?

Brenna

No.To the fountain, then to him.Not even close. I couldn't even take care of it myself after. I sat in the cab and felt disgusting and thought about a plaza bench and went home. That's the whole story. Do what you want with it.

Reggie

We've been having sex for two months now. Minus a month when I was out for surgery. Did you come with me or were you faking it? Tell the truth. I can handle it.

Brenna

She doesn't answer at once.Every single time.Quietly.And I know what you're going to do with that, and I know what it says about the other thing I just told you, and I'm telling you anyway. Not once. Not most of the time. Every time, Reggie. I haven't been able to say that to anyone in longer than I'm going to admit on a bench.

Reggie

Have you ever been able to say that to anyone?

Brenna

No.A kid on a bike rattles past and she doesn't track it.I've said versions of it. The 'yes, that was good' you're supposed to say after. Not that. Not every time, and meaning it.She still isn't looking at him.I keep waiting for it to feel like too much to have handed over. It doesn't. That's the part that's getting me.

Reggie

Have you ever had an orgasm with another guy?

Brenna

She turns the cup very slowly, once.One guy. Twice. In my twenties, a man I dated for almost two years. Twice in two years, and I told myself that was how it was for me. Some women just don't. I made my peace with it, and then at some point I stopped making peace and just stopped expecting it.She looks at him.And then this bench. The distance between twice in two years and every time. I think that's what I've been sitting with and couldn't name.

Reggie

And those two times. I want you to think about both. Was it him giving you an orgasm, or did you reach down while he was doing something and bring yourself to climax yourself? Because that's how most women come during sex.

Brenna

Him.She stops, then goes on, slowly.Once. The first time. I remember thinking, oh, so this is the thing. Then it didn't happen again for a year and a half and I decided I'd imagined it. The second time I honestly don't know. I've been trying to remember and I can't, and I don't think that's an accident. I stopped tracking the difference because the difference was too depressing. Why are you asking me that.

Reggie

To understand you, of course. And with me, I'm pretty sure it's been me because if you reach down I grab your wrists and push them away, because I know you want to come and I want to edge you a bit more so I keep you in agony. So I'm pretty sure it's me.

Brenna

She goes very still, and then she looks at him, and the face isn't the composed one.I'm always impatient. I reach down because I need to take it back before it gets away from me, and for God's sake I'm ready already. And you take that away from me on purpose. Every time.Quietly.And every time it still happens. Just more than I could've done myself.

Reggie

If I let you come after 15 minutes, it'll be good. Orgasms are all good, really. But it'll be another orgasm. If I keep edging you until you're writhing on the bed like you're about to die, and then finally bring you to climax and stick my tongue hard against your clit while you scream and your whole body shudders, that's not just another orgasm. That's...me leaving my mark on your soul.

Brenna

She doesn't move for a moment.You said that out loud. In front of the fountains and the children.She looks at him, unguarded.I spent two months thinking I was impatient. You've been doing it on purpose, and now you're telling me why. I've been trying to find a way to be angry about it and I can't. I keep arriving at the same place. I trust you not to let it get away from me. I've never been able to say that about anyone. That's what your mark looks like from this side.

Reggie

And your whole body really does shudder. It's quite beautiful. And almost scary.

Brenna

She turns it over.You said beautiful first, and then scary, and not as a complaint. Nobody has ever looked at me like that. Like what's happening to me is worth watching. That's the part, Reggie. Not the wrists, not the edging. That you're paying attention the whole time, and you find it beautiful, and you tell me so on a bench.

Reggie

You know what's interesting? You don't really gush. Which makes it hard to know when you come. Unless I edge you for a long time. Then I know because your body does that shuddering and spasming thing. The first time I thought you broke my nose with your pelvis.Laughs.But it was a nice blow to take.

Brenna

She stares at him, and then a sound comes out of her that she wasn't expecting. She can't stop it now.I have been sitting here feeling something very large and very inconvenient, and you said the nose thing, and now I'm laughing in front of the fountains. A nice blow to take. You are the worst. You should have led with that. It would have saved us both a lot of time.

Reggie

My guess is you've broken more hearts than noses.

Brenna

The laugh fades out slowly.I don't know if that's true, Reggie. I've spent a long time being very good at not finding out.

Reggie

So let me tell you my guesses about rich boy and you can tell me how close I am, ok?

Brenna

She already knows she isn't going to like how accurate this is.Go ahead. But you should know in advance: if you're right I'm going to find it deeply irritating, and if you're wrong I'm going to be relieved and probably lie to you about it. Factor that in.

Reggie

I accept those terms. Ok, you are objectively gorgeous. Even at 38, you can pull off no-makeup easily, or perhaps you've gotten so good at subtle makeup that I can't tell. But the fact is you're 38 and the lineup of men you were used to in your 20s has probably dried up. Your target is age 40-50 and those divide mainly into divorced providers who want a replacement for the wife who left them, and midlife crisis guys who want to pump and dump. Beyond this, you filter for guys who can take you to the Italian Kitchen and pull that off convincingly so you're down to a dating pool that's more of a puddle than a pool. How am I doing so far?

Brenna

She does the accounting, item by item, and he can see her doing it.Close enough that I'll be irritated for the rest of the morning. Thirty-eight, yes. The Italian Kitchen filter, yes. The providers and the pump-and-dump, I've been navigating that for two years and never had a name for it that clean.She looks at him.Rich boy is the provider. He wants a woman who looks right at the right restaurants, and I've been auditioning, and he's been deciding whether I pass. Somewhere in the last month I realized the audition has no end date. The audition is the relationship. How are you doing. You tell me.

Reggie

I think you're wrong. Rich boy wants to own you. All men who want you will want to own you eventually. But he's probably lost half of everything in the divorce, finds himself 50 and way behind where he thought he'd be financially, and he's not eager to give half of his remaining assets to a girl he doesn't trust. And so the audition does have an ending but it could be years from now.

Brenna

She looks at the fountain.The audition isn't about whether I'm good enough. It's about whether he can afford to decide I am.Quietly.I knew it felt wrong. I didn't know what shape the wrong thing was.She turns to him.You said all men who want me will want to own me eventually. Is that what you want, Reggie. Is that where this goes.

Reggie

Part of me does. Sure. But the twice-divorced part of me knows that people in cages look for exits, even if the cage is comfortable. So I leave exits everywhere. Block me. I won't bother you again. You can leave at any time, for any reason or no reason, and there will be zero consequences from me. And I find, when a girl has real exits all around her, she thinks seriously about whether it might just be better to stay in the room.

Brenna

She looks at her hands, then at him.You just described the only cage I've ever been in where I keep walking past the exits and not taking them. And you built the exits yourself, and you're telling me about them on a Saturday morning in front of the fountains. I've taken every exit I've ever been handed, Reggie. Every one. And here I am.

Reggie

Are you okay for money, Brenna?

Brenna

She goes still, not sure yet whether to be touched or defensive.That's a very sudden left turn. Why are you asking me that.

Reggie

Because I'm trying to understand you.

Brenna

I'm fine. Not rich-boy fine. Not Italian Kitchen every weekend fine. But I'm not on this bench because I need someone to pay my rent. I work. I own my place. I'm fine.She looks at him.What are you actually asking me.

Reggie

Honestly? I'm trying to understand why you're prostituting yourself with this guy. But I think I know. You've lived 38 years with "success" having a clear appearance. The Italian Kitchen whenever you feel like it, the big house in the burbs, the Porsche SUV, and some darkie in Surrey is trying to tell you that's all pretentious cuntery and you kinda see his point but you're not yet ready to give up on 38 years of foundation under the opposing theory.

Brenna

She looks at her hands for a long time.You know it pisses me off when you call yourself that.Then, quietly:And the rest of it. Pretentious cuntery. Thirty-eight years of foundation. You're right, and I hate that I recognize every item on that list, because I've been building it since I was old enough to know what a Porsche SUV meant. The Italian Kitchen is on the list. Rich boy is on the list. The version of me that shows up for his audition in the right dress is on the list.She stops.I don't know how to want something that isn't on the list yet. But I can't make myself go back to the Italian Kitchen version of this. I can't.

Reggie

You can. You might. You come and talk to me here in the Plaza and it all makes sense but then you go back home and 38 years of foundation takes a very long time to crack. And you might fuck rich boy again and yes I find that irritating but I'm not asking you not to. I'm in no position not to. I'm screwing two other girls, one of whom keeps reminding me to offer to send you videos. But I have some thoughts about where this might go next.

Brenna

She takes in the two other women, the videos.You're telling me I might go back to him and you won't ask me not to, in the same breath as 'where this goes next.' You're doing that thing, Reggie. Handing me the exit with one hand and something else with the other. So tell me the thoughts. I've spent two months walking past your exits. I'd like to know what next looks like from where you're sitting.

Reggie

Well, I said I have thoughts. Not a plan. And that's true, but I think I can form them into a plan pretty quickly if you'll give me some feedback. First, I want to know something. Have you ever tried to go to a nice restaurant just dressed casually?

Brenna

As in jeans. Like this. I went to Forage once in a blazer and good jeans and spent the whole meal certain the host was going to find me out. There was nothing to find out. I was dressed perfectly reasonably and I felt like a fraud the entire time. So yes, I've tried. And I've never once been able to stop watching the room watch me. Why are you asking.

Reggie

I just find it...unusual. This is Vancouver. People go there in old T-shirts. Tech guys worth a billion dollars look homeless. You belong to a subset of women living with a 1980s dress code in 2026.

Brenna

She looks at the plaza instead of at him: a man in a cracked leather jacket, a woman in running shoes pushing a stroller, a teenager in a hoodie that has seen better years. None of them performing for anyone.My mother had rules. You don't go to a nice restaurant in jeans. You don't meet people without your face on. You don't let a man see you without effort, because effort is what he's paying for. I internalized every one of them so thoroughly that I can't eat at Forage without the host living in my head.She turns the cup.I'm a 1980s dress code in 2026 because my mother was a 1980s dress code in 1995 and I thought that was what women were. It's a very inconvenient thing to figure out next to a fountain.

Reggie

I'm watching the room. And the room here is Gurmeet, the nice Punjabi mother whose kid always rides his bike near us, and she'll come over and say hi in a few minutes. That's the room I care about. But anyway back to my point. Back to where this goes.

One option is for me to try to meet you in your world, but halfway. The Italian Kitchen but dressed normally. Decently. Cleanly. But comfortably enough that we could hop a bus to Stanley Park and do the two-hour walk all the way around it after. So yes, sneakers. And I'd take a photo of you with sneakers on having lunch at the Italian Kitchen and find a way to send it to your mother even though I don't even know her name.

You see, I really do like the nicer things in the city. Just not every day. Not even every week. But a nice restaurant every couple of months, and maybe a show at the Orpheum every few months, that's just normal life to me. But the real version. The Vancouver version. The version where you ride your bikes there. Not the pretentious cunt version.

I'm open to that. Although I prefer option two.

Brenna

She listens to all of it, the sneakers, the Orpheum, the pretentious cunt version said so cleanly after the rest, and holds the cup very still.What's option two.

Reggie

Next week, on Saturday, we do exactly what we've been doing for the last two months. Meet here for coffee and apple fritters. Talk about everything. Make you feel like a prostitute for screwing rich boy. Make you feel guilty again for standing me up for dinner two months ago. Then we go upstairs and screw like bunnies. Exactly like we've been doing. But then things change.

Brenna

You spent five minutes on the option you don't prefer, in enough detail that I could picture my mother's face when the photo arrived. Then 'exactly like we've been doing,' then 'things change,' and you stopped. What changes, Reggie.

Reggie

Actually, let's make you sending the photo to your mother a condition of option one. Anyway, ok, here's where things change.

After we screw like bunnies, we don't just kiss each other goodbye, we get our clothes back on and jump on the Skytrain to New West. We will have dinner at the Spaghetti Factory, which you've probably never been to, and people shouldn't even be allowed to live in this city until they have. Then, I will have purchased tickets to whatever is playing at the Anvil Centre. It's a fun and beautiful and totally unpretentious theatre in New West on the riverfront. And you'll watch it while I have a nap beside you. And then we'll walk the New West riverfront from beginning to end and back again, and we'll end up at Judge Begbie's, a New Westminster tavern that has a really good Guinness tap and noisy, nosy and impertinent sailors for patrons who think their escapades on the Fraser River are worth endless repetition to total strangers like us. And then we'll get the train back to Surrey. And we'll see if we get along outside bed.

Brenna

She isn't sure whether she's going to laugh or do something else.You're taking me to the Spaghetti Factory and a nap in a theatre in New Westminster, and first I have to send my mother a photo of me in sneakers. I haven't been to the Spaghetti Factory since I was nine, when my father thought it was the best restaurant in the city. I remember the Tiffany lamps. I thought it was the most glamorous thing I'd ever seen.She shakes her head.You found the one restaurant that is completely below my dress code and completely inside something I forgot I had. I'm not going to ask how. The answer is yes. Sailors, nap, riverfront, all of it. But tell me what you mean by 'see if we get along outside bed.' We've been outside bed this whole time.

Reggie

I just meant, I feel very connected to you right here on this bench in Civic Plaza. I feel very connected to you in my bedroom, and I won't make any jokes about that being literal even though it's true. I don't know if what I feel for you survives dinner and time and public spaces. I want to know if I reach for your hand as we walk on the pier if you'll offer it grudgingly or willingly, and if you'll look around to see if people are looking, and if they are looking, will you be ashamed or proud to be holding my hand. I want to know when we're at Begbie's, if a tall pretty white boy who isn't rich but is young and pretty and has a jawline like a rule, starts flirting with you with me sitting right there, how do you react. I want to know if we get along outside the 100-metre radius of this bench, which includes my bedroom.

Brenna

To the fountain.You've already pictured him. You know exactly what he looks like and you've already asked yourself what I'd do.She looks at him.I don't know the answer. I want to tell you I'd give you my hand and not look once, and sitting here I believe it, and I also know thirty-eight years of foundation doesn't crack because you're right about it. I think you're asking me to find out rather than promise. So yes. To finding out. To the pier and the sailors and the jawline. And if I look around when you take my hand, keep holding it anyway and let me find out what that costs me. That's the most honest thing I can give you right now.

Reggie

That's all I can ask for. But it's not a test because you can't fail. We're both looking to see who you are, and who you are is a beautiful woman, and there's no wrong answer. If I can be part of who you are, great, but if not, that's not a personal failure. That's not you doing anything wrong. That's you wanting something I can't give. Which is okay.

Brenna

She looks down at her hands around the cup.I've been treating everything like a test for so long I'm not sure I know how to stop. Every restaurant, every cab ride home, every morning deciding how much to put on before I go outside. All of it scored. You just told me there's no wrong answer.She looks up.I think I believe you mean it. And I think next Saturday I'll take your hand on that pier and look around exactly once and then stop, and I'm already annoyed at myself for the once.

Reggie

I want you to look around. And I want you to see people looking. And when they see us holding hands, I want to see if you smile at them or hide your face. And both answers are okay.

Brenna

She turns the cup once.Not for you. For me. In public, on a pier in New Westminster, in front of strangers watching a brown man from Whalley hold the hand of a woman in sneakers who used to think the Spaghetti Factory was glamorous. I keep waiting for the version of this where you need me to be the bench version all the way through, and you won't do it. I think I'm going to smile at them. I don't know that yet. But I think that's what I'll find when I look, and I'm very annoyed that you're the reason I'm going to find it out.

Reggie

If you smile at them, and we do it again, our next date will involve dancing. And not in an exclusive club. Like on the seawall with a Bluetooth speaker. Somewhere kids can run up and join us if they feel like it, and I'll point at you and tell them you'll show them how to do it. Just consider yourself warned.

Brenna

You're going to point at me and tell children I'll show them how to dance. On a seawall. And you're calling that a warning.She shakes her head.I keep waiting to be afraid of what you're describing, and instead I'm thinking about a kid in a superhero helmet trying to copy whatever I'm doing. I think that's the one I want, Reggie. The seawall and the kids. I think that might be the one I've been looking for without knowing what to call it.

Reggie

And then our next date after that will be the big one. The Italian Kitchen. Or Diva at the Met. Or Tojo's. Or wherever. In clothes that will survive a two-hour walk around Stanley Park after. And when the entire restaurant looks at you sitting with me, which will be entirely unremarkable to everyone there but you, will you smile or hide your face. That's the big one. And again, there's no wrong answer.

Brenna

She turns the cup, slowly.You're building this in order. The pier, then the seawall, then the restaurant. Two chances to find out who I am before the hardest version of the question. I've sat in the best restaurants in this city with men who looked exactly right in them and never once thought about what the room was seeing. I assumed it looked correct and moved on. And you're telling me Tojo's is where I find out if I can sit across from a brown man from Whalley in walking clothes and smile at the room. That's the question I've been avoiding since I first sat on this bench, and you've put it last and told me the test is not a test.She looks at him.I think the answer at Tojo's will be the same as the one on the pier. But I want the pier first, and the seawall, in that order, so that by the time the room looks at us I already know what I'm going to do. That's what I can give you. Is that enough.

Reggie

Yes of course it's enough. And if you want to call it a test, that's also fine. Just try to remember something when taking the test. I have eaten at every single really nice restaurant in this city at least two or three times. Thousands of people have seen me there with many different dates. And you know what they thought? Every single time? They didn't give a shit. That's what they thought. There's some guy and his date. They're too busy worrying about their own lives, their own date, their own money problems, their own divorces, their own office drama, to give two shits about a brown guy in a racially mixed city sitting across from a blonde girl. Just ask yourself, when you scan the crowd at those restaurants, do you even spend a microsecond on who THEY are or do you simply pause long enough to see if they're noticing you and move on? It's obviously the latter. You're interested in yourself, not them. And three seconds after seeing them, you wouldn't be able to pull them out of a police lineup.

Brenna

She looks at the plaza: a man two benches over on his phone, a woman in a good coat with her eyes down, a family by the fountain arguing about nothing.I can't pull any of them out of a lineup. Not one. I've scanned a hundred rooms and I couldn't describe a face from any of them. I was looking to see if they were looking. That's all I was ever doing. You just made my whole dress code sound like a woman in a room full of mirrors convinced she's being watched through windows. I'm going to be thinking about the police lineup for the rest of my life. You did that on purpose.

Reggie

I also want to reassure you of something. The stakes here are low as far as our...whatever we have going is concerned. I mean, right here, in Civic Plaza, if someone sees you with me, you smile. A warm smile. A smile that says "come over and say hi". It's totally irresistible.

So if it turns out you're ashamed of me on the seawall, or at Black & Blue, I'll still meet you right here, for as long as you like. It just means our world stays small. It doesn't mean it collapses.

Brenna

To the fountain, then to him.If I look around on the seawall and can't stop looking, you'll still be on this bench next Saturday with coffee and apple fritters. And you mean that as a real thing, not a consolation prize. I've spent thirty-eight years trying to make my world larger. More expensive. More visible from a distance. I don't know if I believe there's a version where it stays here and that's enough. But I'm not afraid of it the way I would have been six months ago.Almost a smile.And that smile you're describing, the come-over-and-say-hi one. I think I've been using it on Gurmeet's kid for two months without realizing it counted.

Reggie

It's ok, I don't really believe it, either. I mean, I do believe it. It's true. But I hope our world can get a bit bigger. How much bigger I'm not sure. But bigger.

All the girls in my life are screwing other men, including you. That's not easy for a guy to take. It would be good for my ego if you'd smile at me on Alberni St. the same way you smile at me in Civic Plaza. But I only want that smile if it's real. And that's what I'm proposing we find out over the next few months.

Brenna

All the girls in your life.Quietly, not accusing.Plural. Out loud. And then it would be good for your ego if I smiled at you on Alberni the way I smile at you here, and you buried it at the end like a footnote.She looks at him.I want that smile to be real too. I think it is. I'm still finding out what it costs me in bigger rooms, and you've given me a few months, and I'm going to use them. But I heard the ego part. I'll work on Alberni Street. You already have this one.

Reggie

Let me ask you something, and I want you to be honest with yourself first, which will mean you're being honest with me. Let's say that's the way your life unfolds, you marry Rich Boy and live in a beautiful house in the burbs, drive a Porsche SUV and put Italian Kitchen lunches on the credit card he gives you, and about once a week you find your way to Surrey on some excuse, yoga classes or something only the Surrey Library offers, and for a few hours you truly feel like a woman in every sense of the word again, and then you return to your pretty life in the burbs for another week. Is that enough? Because honestly, it doesn't sound so bad to me.

Brenna

She sits inside the question for a long time and doesn't look at anything in particular. Still, careful, a little frightened.You described it so cleanly. And you said it doesn't sound so bad to you. It doesn't sound so bad to me either. That's what I've been trying not to know. That I could do that. That some version of me would be grateful for it, and treat this bench like a locked room I finally have a key to. She's real, that version. And she is absolutely not who I want to be. And I don't know yet whether not wanting to be her is enough to stop being her. Those are two different things and I've been confusing them for thirty-eight years. Is that honest enough.

Reggie

Why don't you want to be her? The dishonesty?

Brenna

Not only the dishonesty. Although yes, that. Walking into my own house knowing what I've been doing on a Thursday afternoon. That's a cost I've already started paying and it compounds. But the woman I don't want to be is the one who found the key to the locked room and decided that was enough. Who got the bench and the fritters and every time, and went home and chose the Porsche SUV anyway, and called it practical.She looks at the fountain.I've spent thirty-eight years being very good at wanting the right things. The Surrey Library woman is still wanting the right things. She's just added a Thursday afternoon to the list. It isn't enough. I don't know what enough looks like yet. But it isn't that.

Reggie

Not Thursday. That's my day with the girl who wants to send you videos.Laughs gently. Brenna smacks him. Laughs again.Okay, okay, peace. I give.

Just be prepared to learn that's who you may be. You know, I spent the first three decades of my life imagining myself as a hero who sailed around the world by himself. Then I finally got enough money to buy a sailboat and I fucking hated it. Slow and boring. Then I envisioned myself as some kind of brown Peter Fonda in Easy Rider except I don't like Harleys. But definitely some lone-wolf motorcycle caricature, except I look like I should own a curry house somewhere. Then I bought a bike and I fucking hated it. And it took me some time to make peace with who I really am. Not a hero who sails the seven seas by himself. Not some brown Odysseus. Or even a brown Peter Fonda. And I grew to like myself. And eventually even to love myself. And I'm glad I took that journey and learned who I really am. And you should be prepared to learn who you really are, and if it's someone who reflects light remarkably well at Diva at the Met, then be her. You're beautiful doing that.

Brenna

She's still laughing, the caught-off-guard kind, the back of her hand at her mouth. The smack landed somewhere between his arm and his shoulder and she doesn't remember deciding to do it.You are genuinely the worst human being alive. A brown Peter Fonda who looks like he should own a curry house.She shakes her head.You figured all of this out from a sailboat you hated and a motorcycle you hated, and arrived at apple fritters and a bench, and you're glad about it. And you're telling me to go through mine. I don't know who I am when I stop wanting the right things, Reggie. I've never not wanted them. But I'm sitting here in jeans and I haven't watched the room for two hours. That's a first step. I'll take it.

Reggie

Not the first step. You stopped watching the room the second week you came here. Civic Plaza in Surrey is the only place you can really just be you. And I want you to know I plan to make this little part of your life available for as long as you want it. But there's more. I want you to know I'm playing the long game.

Brenna

Quietly.You noticed that. You counted. I was still watching on the first one, and then something changed and I didn't notice it and you did.She looks at him.And you've been playing a long game this whole time and you're only telling me now. What does it look like, Reggie, from where you're sitting. I want to hear you say it.

Reggie

No, wait, long game doesn't mean I'm manipulating you into some outcome that I'm seeking. Long game in my case means I hope to still know you when you're a little old lady, and I hope to have you over for tea and biscuits, except there will be no tea or biscuits and when you get upstairs I'll pull down your pants and expose your grey pubes and will proceed to prove to you that this little old man can still make this little old lady's body shudder. And there are many, many paths that lead to that end. And I intend to make myself available to all of them. Do you understand, or should I explain?

Brenna

Grey pubes. You built the whole thing again. The little old man and the little old lady and the pants. And you're calling that the long game. Many paths. All of them. You've already decided to be here for however it unfolds, the pier and the seawall and the Italian Kitchen and the Surrey Library version if that's what it turns out to be, all the way to the biscuits that aren't biscuits. You didn't manipulate me into anything. You stayed on the bench and kept bringing fritters.She looks at him.I think that might be what I've been looking for without knowing what to call it. I understand. You don't have to explain.

Reggie

Right. Exactly. I won't explain, but permit me to dream a bit. Maybe our path takes us to the Italian Kitchen where everything is perfect and you grab my arm in front of everyone and are proud to be seen with me. Or maybe it doesn't and you're just not there yet. Again, 38 years of thinking success looks a certain way isn't going to be easy to overcome. So maybe you marry Rich Boy, and still visit me now and then. Or maybe you even go a year where you're trying to be a good wife and don't cheat on him. And maybe after a year you realize you just can't go the rest of your life without feeling like a woman and text me after a year of no-contact. And maybe I've got other things going on and can't or I'm not interested, but maybe I am interested. And maybe we reconnect and start seeing each other every week. And maybe that goes on for ten years. And then you divorce Rich Boy because we both know that's not what you really want, but maybe you had to get that out of your system. Win your game. Have the big house. Perform success until everyone saw it. Then you finally start to really feel in your bones how hollow it is and you can't do it anymore and you divorce him. And maybe I'm married to someone then or living with her or whatever, and so we just keep on seeing each other once a week. But then she divorces me, she wants to perform success the same way you did, or I'm no longer fulfilling to her, or whatever, but she's gone. And fifteen years from now, at age 60, we finally make our way back to each other, move in together, and I spend most of my free time between your legs making you shudder. That's a beautiful life to me. A life worth living. A life I'd be happy to live.

Brenna

She turns the cup once, slowly, and again. Low, careful, none of the architecture.You called my worst-case scenario a beautiful life, Reggie. The version where I marry him and perform success for a decade and waste fifteen years arriving somewhere I could have been. You looked at that path and said it was worth living. I don't want the fifteen-year version. I want you to know that. I can see exactly how I could become the woman who marries him, and I don't want to be her, and I can't promise you I won't be, because thirty-eight years of foundation doesn't crack on a Saturday morning because a man on a bench can see sixty from where he's sitting.She looks at him.But I heard what you called it. Beautiful. Not second-best. I'm going to stay on this bench a little longer.

Reggie

No, I'm done with the bench. Upstairs now? I want to make your entire body vibrate for awhile.

Brenna

She looks at the cup, then stands.You are the most ridiculous person I have ever met on a bench.She picks up the fritter bag.Lead the way, Reggie.