Reggie
I walk into the library. Walk around. I see Amanda clocking me from upstairs as I walk around downstairs. I take my time. I talk to a few people. Then I make my way upstairs to where she usually is and I find her. As usual, she's talking to someone. I pretend to be interested in a nearby shelf. Then when the area is clear, I approach her.Hello, Amanda.
Amanda
She turns from the space just vacated, colour in her cheeks; she's known where he's been since he came through the door.Hello, Reggie. You took your time getting up here. I was starting to think you'd found someone more interesting downstairs.
Reggie
I like to keep you wondering. Does everyone call you Amanda or do they call you Mandy or something else?
Amanda
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.Just Amanda. My mother called me Mandy when I was little. I outgrew it.
Reggie
What do you want me to call you? I think Amanda would draw the least attention, but I will call you anything you like.
Amanda
Amanda is safest, you're right.A glance past his shoulder, then quieter:But I admit I'm curious what you'd call me if you weren't worried about attention.
Reggie
Mandy is too conventional. Ama maybe. It means love in Spanish. Actually it's the imperative form of the verb love in Spanish, which opens up all kinds of thoughts none of which we should discuss here.
Amanda
Her fingers stop on the book she's been pretending to shelve, and a flush climbs her throat.You're going to call me that in a library, surrounded by my colleagues, and I'm going to have to stand here and look completely unbothered.
Reggie
Did you think about our coffee over the weekend?
Amanda
She sets the book down instead of shelving it.Of course I did. I thought about very little else, if I'm being honest. Which I seem to be, around you, whether I mean to or not.
Reggie
The goal is to get you to think of nothing else when I'm not around, but this is a good start. Did your husband notice you were distracted?
Amanda
A short, startled laugh; her hand finds the shelf.No. I don't think so. He doesn't notice much these days.Quieter:That's harder to say out loud than I expected.
Reggie
Did you socialize with him this weekend?
Amanda
She smooths the spine of the book she set down.We had a family dinner. His sister's birthday. I made conversation and smiled at the right moments, and thought about a bench in the plaza and a paper cup of tea the whole drive home.
Reggie
I like Tim Hortons tea. Honestly I like it better than expensive tea. I'm such a Surrey boy.
Amanda
A real laugh this time; her shoulders come down a little.A Surrey boy who orders on his phone and knows the imperative in Spanish. You're not quite what you advertise.
Reggie
I live in Surrey. I work in Surrey. Well, I work at home so that's redundant. I try to do everything in Surrey. Although I admit I run when the Fusion Festival is on, and when they do that gross Halal Food thing in Holland Park every year.
Amanda
She glances toward the window, amused.So there's a limit to the Surrey loyalty. Is it the crowds or the smells?
Reggie
I'm grossed out by Halal and Kosher because of the pain it inflicts on animals. I know, I'm weak.
Amanda
The teasing goes out of her face.That's not weak.
Reggie
His family loves you, don't they?
Amanda
Her hand rests on the shelf.They do. His family is lovely; they always have been. It was one of the things I thought I was marrying into, not just him.She looks at him.You notice a great deal.
Reggie
That wasn't noticing. That was guessing. But it makes sense. You have a beautiful life except for not feeling alive. And yes, that's a guess, too.
Amanda
The careful smile goes, and for a moment she's less defended than she means to be.I haven't heard it put that way before. Which probably means I've been working very hard not to put it that way myself.
Reggie
And society tells you that you should just accept that for another half century and then die. Have a nice day.
Amanda
Almost a laugh, too winded to be one. She presses her fingertips to the spines in front of her.It sounds so reasonable when it's dressed up. Commitment. Loyalty. Keeping your promises. It only sounds like a half century of slowly disappearing when someone says it out loud in a library on a Tuesday morning.
Reggie
People are noticing us. I had better go. Coffee later?
Amanda
A small step back; she reaches for the nearest book as if she's been shelving it all along.Yes. Go.Eyes on the shelf.Same bench?
Reggie
No, different bench. The steps of City Hall this time. The other side of the plaza. Let's not become obvious.
Amanda
A book slides into place; her back is half turned, two people barely acquainted.Good thinking.
7:15 PM in Civic Plaza, Surrey, BC, Canada
Reggie
I see her walking in the square. I catch up.Hey Amanda. Got time for a quick tea?
Amanda
She's crossing the plaza at an unhurried pace, cardigan pulled close, and lets a moment pass before she turns, long enough to be plausible.Oh. Reggie.A glance back toward the library doors.I do, actually. Tea sounds good.
Reggie
We get the tea at Tim's, pre-ordered as before, and we head to the stairs across the plaza and sit.Good day?
Amanda
She settles onto the step beside him, the cup warm in both hands, and watches the plaza rather than him.A long day that went very quickly. Which I suspect you knew it would.
Reggie
Can I ask you about his sister's birthday? No names or identifiers.
Amanda
Both hands tighten around the cup.What do you want to know? It was his sister's fiftieth. A restaurant downtown, fifteen people. I sat beside his mother, who is very kind, across from a cousin I've known for twenty years, and at one point I thought: I could do this in my sleep. I have done this in my sleep. A hundred times. And everyone was lovely. That's the part I can't make into a simple story. Nobody was unkind.
Reggie
Those are the days that make being married worth it. Good people. Good times. And you get to be part of it at a level that nobody else can be.
Amanda
Yes.She turns the cup in her hands.That's what makes it impossible to explain to anyone. You can't say you're unhappy when you can name fifteen people it would hurt. So you say nothing, and you smile at the toast, and you mean it. You do mean it. The problem is that meaning it and feeling alive aren't the same thing, and I didn't understand that until Saturday, on a different bench.
Reggie
Dinner with family makes you feel alive in a different way. We all need different things out of life. We need to belong, like you belong to that family. We need that kind of love, where a cousin you've known for twenty years that you only see three times a year shares something and you feel honest joy for them. Or pain. But you feel it because in their small way, they're a part of you and you're a part of them. And you need to feel valued at work. And you need to feel you're improving at the gym. And you need to read and keep your mind challenged. And you need a stable household where the bills are paid and the lawn is mowed. But you also need a guy whose face lights up when you walk into the room.
Amanda
She watches a couple cross with a stroller, an old man feeding pigeons by the fountain.You've just described a whole life. A good one. And you put that last thing at the end of the list, as if it belongs beside the lawn and the gym.Quietly:Does his face light up. It doesn't. It hasn't for a long time. I think I knew that before I ever walked into your aisle.
Reggie
That's the question. Yes. But where I've ended up is this: the rest isn't worth blowing up for one item. I don't have the rest. Not all of it. I have most of it. But no family. And I wish I did. But I'm not going to blow up my work and my mind and my stability to gain it. I'm going to try to gain it WITHOUT destroying those things. But I admit, that's only one approach. Others may do it differently and that's fine.
Amanda
She looks down at the cup.Most people who want what they don't have decide the missing thing is the only thing that matters. You'd rather build around a gap than tear down what's standing. I don't know whether that's wisdom or whether you've just been alone long enough to know what wreckage looks like. Maybe both.
Reggie
I haven't been alone long. Well, I suppose it depends what alone means. But I've spent most of my adult life being married. But there's more to my life. I spend hours a night thinking about morality. I spend an hour a day at the gym. Instead of giving to charities, I try to find the most deserving homeless person I can see every day and hand them $20 and look them in the eyes and tell them I hope their luck changes and mean it. I write software I'm proud of and care deeply about even though it bores most people to tears. And I'm a very sexual being and really enjoy going down on women and giving them orgasms. And I maintain a beautiful home in an expensive building and my life is totally stable. And each one of those things is important to me. Not equally. But I'm not going to let my gym time affect my software. And I'm not going to let my giving money to the homeless affect the stability of my household. Even if that means the homeless get nothing for a month or two as I recover from a setback.
Amanda
She turns to look at him properly, for the first time this evening, colour rising along her jaw.You listed going down on women between homeless people and software. I'm not sure whether to be alarmed that it didn't alarm me. You're telling me the whole inventory before I decide anything.
Reggie
No, you missed what I'm trying to say. I'm not building a feature sheet to try to sell you on Reggie. I'm telling you that I can take pride in my software and stay up until three in the morning working on it, but I'm still not going to allow my devotion to it to result in me getting fat. I'm saying I need to find a way to build beautiful software and STILL make time for the gym, even though I may feel guilty for taking time away from work when I'm there.
Amanda
Half chastened, half more interested.A set of tensions you actually live with, then. Not a list of selling points. I kept hearing what you were offering me. You were telling me how you've decided to be.
Reggie
A set of tensions. That's exactly it. And it's such a good description that I intend to steal it and reuse it. Amanda, you have family. You have stability. You have agape love. You're fit. You have work you enjoy. You live in a place you like. My guess is you have friends you care about. And you lack spark in your marriage. I'm saying that it may not be worth blowing up all the other things to fix the last thing.
Amanda
The steps are cool under her.I hear you. But there's a version of that advice that's just: stay small. Learn to call half a life a whole one. I'm not saying that's what you mean. I'm saying it's what I'm afraid you mean, because I've been telling myself some version of it for years, and I'm very good at it.
Reggie
I'm not saying surrender. I'm not saying to accept it. I'm saying there's a version of events that might get you some of what you need, some of what you're lacking, without blowing everything up. And I think you know exactly what I mean.
Amanda
She watches a couple pass the fountain without seeing them.I do know what you mean. I've known since the first bench. I've been pretending I didn't, because if I admit I understand you then I have to decide something, and I'm not ready to. I don't know if that's honesty or cowardice.
Reggie
You don't need to decide on anything today other than whether to finish your tea. But if you're willing, I'd like to explore that line of thought a bit more. Society is simplistic on this issue, as we've discussed. It's wrong, end it first, and so on. Society doesn't accept that the price of doing things that way is not just high, it's life-destroying. And I think it's worth talking a little bit. But it would mean asking you questions, which I've tried to avoid so far.
Amanda
She turns the cup once.Ask them. You've been very careful not to, and I've noticed, and I've hidden behind it. I reserve the right not to answer.
Reggie
Do you love him?
Amanda
The silence goes on long enough to be an answer of its own, and she doesn't rush to fill it.I love who he was. Or who I thought he was. Or who we both were when we made the promise. Whether that's the same as loving him now, I honestly don't know. I've been refusing to look at that for some time.
Reggie
You've been married for twenty years. That's a long time by any standards. How long has it felt empty?
Amanda
She watches a curl of steam disappear.Seven years, maybe. There were five good ones, then a few where it was intermittent, where I could still tell myself it was real. Somewhere around year thirteen it became a life we were both competent at. That's a long time to be good at something without it meaning very much.
Reggie
That sounds about right. Have you ever cheated on him?
Amanda
The cup stays perfectly still between her palms. A group of students crosses the far end of the plaza before she speaks.No. Not because I was too numb to notice other men. I've always found a reason to stop before the thought became anything else. Guilt, mostly. Practicality. And some part of me waiting to know whether I still wanted my own life before I risked it.A glance at him.You asked that very calmly.
Reggie
I am calm. I would like to have sex with you, but if it doesn't happen, I'm an adult and I'll move on and so will you.
Before you were married, did you have a lot of sexual experience?
Before you were married, did you have a lot of sexual experience?
Amanda
The first part doesn't offend her; said plainly, it's easier to hear than it would have been dressed up.No. Not before him. He was my first; we met when I was twenty-one. Not because I wasn't interested. Because I was cautious. Afraid is the more honest word. And then he was there, and he was safe, and I thought safe was the same thing as right. I'm less sure than I used to be that I had a good reason.
Reggie
Do you feel you missed out?
Amanda
She considers it, the cup cooling.No. I'm not sitting here wishing I'd been reckless at twenty. What I missed isn't a number or an adventure. It's knowing what it feels like to have someone look at me and actually want me. Not be comfortable with me. Not need me for the logistics of a life. I want to feel like a woman, Reggie. That's the most precise I can make it. It's been long enough that I'm not sure I remember what it's supposed to feel like.
Reggie
Do you still have sex with him?
Amanda
A man walking a dog crosses the whole plaza before she answers, and she answers the cup, not him.Occasionally. Rarely, now. Once every few months, and it's competent. I hate that word, because he's not unkind. We go through something familiar and then it's over and nothing has changed. I never understood why that might be worse than nothing. It is.
Reggie
Do you orgasm with him?
Amanda
The cup has gone cold. She looks at it.Sometimes. Less than I used to. What's harder to say is that I'm not sure it matters to him either way. We've both stopped noticing. That's probably the saddest thing I've said on these steps tonight, and I've said several.
Reggie
Most women don't orgasm with men. And if you're orgasming less, and it was never reliable to start with, and you're only having sex a few times a year, that's an orgasm every few years. And he's getting older every year.
Amanda
She sets the cup down on the step beside her, carefully, as if it's a decision.When you line it up like that, it stops sounding like a drift and starts sounding like arithmetic. I've been telling myself it was a season. That things go in cycles.She looks at him.That's not a season, is it.
Reggie
You're on a path where every few days became every few months became every few years and you're on track to it being once a decade and then never.
Amanda
She looks at the cup on the step rather than at him; a slow breath lifts her shoulders. Almost inaudible:That's not a season. That's a forecast. I think I've known the forecast for years and kept calling it weather.
Reggie
Those times, every few months, does he want sex with you or does he just want to keep it feeling like a marriage.
Amanda
She picks the cold cup up again, for something to do with her hands.I think he wants to feel like it's still a marriage. Not me specifically. Not this. I kept telling myself I was being uncharitable. But you asked with no emotion in it and I answered the same way, and that tells me how certain I actually am.
Reggie
Do you want it? Those few times a year?
Amanda
She turns the cold cup once, slowly, while a bicycle passes and someone laughs across the square.No. I want to want it. I remember wanting it. But no. I agree to it the way I agree to things I've agreed to for so long I've forgotten there was a choice. It's not dread. It's absence. I come back and nothing is different and I don't feel like a woman after. I feel like I've maintained something. Checked a box so the house doesn't fall down. I've never said that to anyone.
Reggie
It's good that you used to orgasm, even if it was only ever a few times. Can I ask about those?
Amanda
She looks out at the plaza a long moment before she turns to him.I don't know why that question is harder than the others. The others were harder facts, and I told you anyway.A small, unsteady breath.Yes. Ask.
Reggie
When you orgasmed with him, you said sometimes. I mentally assigned "about one in three times" but that was me filling in a number. Not your number. What's your number?
Amanda
Her thumb traces the paper rim.Less than that. Maybe one in five, early on, when things were better. Toward the end of the good years I'd stopped expecting it, so sometimes I'd help it along. Then I stopped doing even that, because it felt like too much effort to ask for something neither of us was chasing anymore. One in five, becoming less, becoming almost never. That's my number.
Reggie
That's my real question. In my experience, and I admit this is totally anecdotal, most women who orgasm with men don't actually orgasm from the man. They reach down and do it themselves while the guy is in the room. Sometimes they're being penetrated. Sometimes the guy is even going down on them and isn't focusing on the clit. Sometimes it's something else totally. But regardless, it's often the girl reaching down and taking care of it while the guy is in the room, and then saying she orgasmed with a guy. Is that your case?
Amanda
She goes still. She doesn't move the cup, doesn't touch her hair, doesn't look away.Yes.To the plaza, barely above a breath.He was never focused on the right place, and I never told him. I adjusted until I could finish it myself, and then I stopped telling him when I had and when I hadn't, because it didn't change anything either way. The number I gave you isn't his number at all. It's mine. He was just in the room.
Reggie
Do you still masturbate?
Amanda
She looks at the cup for a long time.Yes. More than I used to. At some point it became the only version that felt like it was actually mine. The only time it wasn't for the sake of something else: the marriage, or him, or keeping the house from falling down. It's just mine. So yes.
Reggie
So really, your orgasms with him dropping to once every few months, then once every few years, and then once per decade...that makes no honest difference to you. You masturbated before, you're masturbating now, you masturbate with him. It really only affects how often a guy is in the room, and you've told me you don't really want him there, anyway.
Amanda
The cup sits cold and forgotten. What he's said arranges itself in her head like arithmetic, which is what it is, and for a moment it's hard to breathe around.You just took something I've been calling a loss and showed me it was gone before it left. He's not even in the equation, is he. He never quite was. I was. I told myself it was about him, about us, because that felt less…She doesn't finish.That's not a comfortable thing to know about yourself. That you've been alone in that room for years and calling it a marriage.
Reggie
I would like to be the first man to give you an orgasm. At 42. Not be in the room, although I will be. I mean have you flat on your back with your arms at your side, with my face between your legs until you climax. And it may not happen the first time or the second time or the third time, but if we're both patient, it will happen. And then I'd like to do it a little more often than once every three months. Something like once every three days sounds nice. And I'd like to do that without blowing up your life or mine. And now you know exactly where we stand.
Amanda
She sits with it. A couple argue quietly by the fountain; a bus hums somewhere behind the library. Her collarbone goes slowly, deeply red. Lower than she intends, steadier than she expected:I've spent an hour telling you things I've never said to another person, and you've told me exactly what you want, in exactly the terms you want it, and somehow that's the least frightening thing that's happened tonight. I haven't said yes. I want you to know I'm aware of that. But I'm not saying no, and we both know what that means on these steps at whatever time it is. I'm going to go home and sit with all of this. And I'm going to see you tomorrow.
Reggie
Don't go yet. Please. Tell me one more thing. The rest of your life, the career, the house, the family, whatever exercise you do to stay slim...I'm assuming you care deeply about those things the way I care deeply about my things. Is that true? Or does the dissatisfaction run wider? Are you actually WANTING to blow up your life?
Amanda
She was already shifting her weight to stand; the please catches her. She settles back.No. I don't want to blow it up. Not the career; I've worked too long at that branch to feel nothing about what I'm building there. Not the house. Not his family, which has become my family in a way that has nothing to do with him anymore. Not the gym, the books, the friends I see for dinner twice a month. They're mine, the way your software and your twenty dollars and your building are yours. The dissatisfaction doesn't run into them. It lives alongside them. A room in the house that's been locked for seven years, that I walk past every day. I'm not trying to burn the house down. I just want someone to open the room.
Reggie
Then I want you to think of two things. First, in the time we've been sitting on these steps having tea, I could almost certainly have given you an orgasm. And you wouldn't be late getting home. I live right there.Nods to 3 Civic Plaza, a few metres away.As practical considerations go, it doesn't get much better.
Amanda
She looks at the building. Looks at it the way you look at a thing you've been pretending not to notice. Then down at the cold cup.You said two things. I'd like to hear the second before I do anything with the first.
Reggie
The second is more complicated. I really like you. This would not be just sex for me. I wouldn't blow up your life at all. I'd hide. I would know my place. I'd stop saying hello at the library and just wait for you to show up at my door after and nobody would know. And I'd keep looking for a girlfriend and I'd need you to deal with that. But when I like someone, it changes the sex and the time around the sex. I'd want you to try to make time for me a few times a year. Maybe if he spends a weekend out of town with his buddies or for work. No promises. I just want you to be aware that it might not just be an hour after work now and then. And if that doesn't fit your world, tell me and I'll decide if I can live with it.
Amanda
She doesn't look at the building again. She looks at him, and takes her time.That's not a small thing to ask me to carry. But I'd rather you told me than didn't. A weekend when he's out of town. A few times a year. No promises. I haven't said yes. I'm going home right now, and I'm very aware I'm not saying no either. Both of those are true at the same time and I can't resolve them for you tonight. I'll see you tomorrow, Reggie.
