Saturday, Surrey, BC, Canada.
Laurel texts Reggie.
Laurel (texting)
Hey handsome.
Reggie (texting)
That means whitegirl needs an orgasm.
Laurel (texting)
Always true but I'm texting for something else.
Reggie (texting)
Something other than an orgasm? What?
Laurel (texting)
Would you be willing to meet some of my friends? They want to talk to you.
Reggie (texting)
They want to talk to ME? They don't even know me.
Laurel (texting)
Well, I told them about you. I like to show you off, remember?
Reggie (texting)
What do they want of me?
Laurel (texting)
I promise nobody will ask you for money or try to get you to do gay sex. They're just very...uptight. And they think I'm a huge slut even though they'd never say that. And I wanted them to hear from someone who can explain the way I think better than I can.
Reggie (texting)
So you thought of me? Why not habit boy? Or pretty boy?
Laurel (texting)
Please, Reggie?
Reggie (texting)
Okay. When?
Laurel (texting)
Tonight at 7 pm at my place? No dinner, just drinks.
Reggie (texting)
Do you need me to bring anything?
Laurel (texting)
Just be you. See you soon. And thank you.
Saturday, 7 PM. Laurel's townhouse in Surrey, BC, Canada.
Reggie
Hello, everyone. I'm Reggie.
Grant Whitmore
He's across the room in three strides, hand out, the big easy smile already on.Grant Whitmore. Good to finally put a face to the name. Laurel's been very selective about what she's shared.The handshake is firm enough to be an assessment.
Tessa Whitmore
Tessa. We've been looking forward to this. Laurel speaks very — warmly — of you.
Cole Bennett
He lifts his drink from the kitchen doorway.Cole Bennett. This is my wife Paige. Laurel's been keeping you close to the chest. What are you drinking?
Paige Bennett
Paige. Cole will get you whatever you want and then talk your ear off about the SkyTrain for ten minutes. I apologize in advance.
Reggie
I brought some Guinness. I used to hate it from a can, but someone told me it's okay if you pour it into a glass. Something to do with a nitrogen ball or something. I don't usually drink at home so I'm not really sure.
Laurel
She let the others have their hellos. Now she crosses with a glass of wine she's been holding for twenty minutes and touches his arm, easy, no announcement.You actually showed up.Quietly, just for him.Thank you.To the room:This is the man I've been telling you too much about.
Cole Bennett
The nitrogen ball's real. It's called a widget. Fires a jet of gas through the beer when you crack the can; that's where the head comes from. I'll get you a glass.
Reggie
Uh, I'll just get myself a water, thanks. I should probably know that about Guinness but I tend to buy it in bars. I try not to drink too much. One Guinness a week or so.
Cole Bennett
He pulls open the right cupboard without asking where the glasses are, fills a water, brings it over with no fuss.Most people who drink Guinness in bars don't know about the widget either. The bar hides the machinery.
Grant Whitmore
Smart policy. I'm the opposite — I have two and tell myself I've been moderate. So. What do you do, Reggie? Laurel was — vague.
Reggie
I have a few small pieces of software I've developed. The one that pays the bills is an add-on to Quickbooks Online that lets people use frontier model AIs to query their books and tell them what mistakes they've made and how to fix them. QBO has its own AI so I will never get rich on this, but it keeps me housed and fed so no complaints.
Grant Whitmore
He nods slowly, deciding whether he's impressed.So you built it yourself. Who's the market? Owners who don't trust their bookkeeper, or the solo guy trying to avoid a nasty surprise at tax time?
Cole Bennett
QBO's own AI is rough on anything complicated. I've seen it produce confident nonsense. So you're not competing with it so much as cleaning up after it.
Reggie
The market is mostly bookkeepers who care about their craft. Who really want their work to be top notch. And this helps them make sure it is. And yes, small business owners who don't trust their bookkeepers, which is usually wise. And OCD people like me.
Grant Whitmore
He laughs, a real one.
Tessa Whitmore
So you built it alone. No team. That's a very specific kind of discipline. Most people I know who work alone find reasons to stop.
Reggie
I had a good reason to keep going. I like to eat.
Cole Bennett
He grins and points at Reggie with two fingers around his glass.That's the whole business plan. You don't need a vision statement, you need rent.
Tessa Whitmore
Her smile is genuine; her eyes stay on him a beat longer than the smile does.Most people dress it up. 'I had a passion for the problem.'
Reggie
I've got some other stuff. An internet backbone search engine thing. It tells you all about any site from the back end, meaning where it's hosted and how and how its traffic reaches the internet. It was a passion project. It was a rude awakening to realize that a tenth of a percent of people thought I was God's gift to humanity but 99.9% didn't give an excrement.
Grant Whitmore
How long did it take to stop caring about the other ninety-nine point nine?
Cole Bennett
The backbone thing interests me. What does it tell you that a normal lookup doesn't?
Reggie
It tells you who hosts the website, and on what BGP backbones. How do they do IPv6, or do they even do it at all? Most do Level3 and lie about it. Who hosts their mail servers, or do they host their own? Does their site serve the same to Europe as it does to North America? Who are their nearest upstreams? What's their ping time from 22 data centres around the world? Sorry, this is probably as boring as hell. I'll stop.
Cole Bennett
Elbows on knees, the drink forgotten.You're saying they route through Level3 and don't disclose it?
Grant Whitmore
I got lost at BGP, and I'm comfortable there. What does a normal person do with that information?
Reggie
Cole, they don't really lie about it. They just don't mention that they peer their own IPv4 but they offload all IPv6 peering to Level3. Huge companies do this. Like Google. Look up any of their IPv4 records and you'll see the AS is GOOGLE but all their IPv6 addresses, the AS is LEVEL3. And Grant, all the average person can do is look at this information and decide in 2 seconds that he doesn't give an excrement, which is why I'm focusing on bookkeeping software.
Cole Bennett
He laughs, caught being more interested than the room required.Fair. Focus on the thing people pay for.He settles back.What does the bookkeeping software do when someone's been creative with their categories for two years and it finds it? Flag it quietly, or produce something that'd terrify a CRA auditor?
Grant Whitmore
That's the real question. 'I miscoded a lunch' and 'I've been calling lunches equipment for four years' are not the same conversation.
Reggie
It is as wordy as you want it to be. It'll give you a report of every single error if you ask for it, and will wait the three months it will take you to fix it, or it will let you limit it to this fiscal year only, or it will let you type "I don't give a shit, stop bothering me about this" and will remember your preferences.
Grant Whitmore
He points with his glass again.That's the feature nobody builds.
Cole Bennett
Reggie, people would pay for the 'stop bothering me' button alone.
Paige Bennett
She lifts her glass.Hard agree. I filed in February and gave myself a vacation for it.Her look at Reggie sharpens.What I actually want to know is how you ended up at Laurel's table. She's been remarkably unhelpful for three weeks.
Tessa Whitmore
What Paige means is that Laurel told us enough to make us curious and not enough to satisfy us. Which wasn't an accident. How did you meet?
Reggie
I saw her outside City Hall and thought she would look good hanging on to my arm so I asked her if she'd like to get a coffee. I then bought her a medium Tim's with two cream and two sweeteners and realized we had the same coffee order and that my first date had cost me $1.78 and decided to be on my best behaviour.
Paige Bennett
She looks at Laurel, delighted and slightly horrified. Back to Reggie.What does your worst look like? I want the scale.
Grant Whitmore
Laurel, you didn't mention the Tim's.
Laurel
She has been waiting for exactly this question.I didn't mention the Tim's because you'd have had opinions, Grant, and I was saving my energy.
Tessa Whitmore
You know, most first dates involve a restaurant someone booked and a bottle someone agonised over. You had a bench and a $1.78 Tim's. I find that more interesting than a restaurant.
Reggie
I think I'm the only single man here. And as a single man, I can tell you that most girls in 2026 grade a date's success on how much the man has spent. Laurel doesn't. And I don't need to tell any of you what that's worth.
Paige Bennett
She looks at her glass rather than at him.It isn't the money. It's what the money signals: he did his homework, he's trying. What was Laurel supposed to read from a dollar seventy-eight?
Grant Whitmore
That he wasn't performing. The Tim's was the point. Although if Tessa had come home from a first date and told me a man spent a dollar seventy-eight on her, I'd have had opinions.
Reggie
Tessa goes out on dates? Are you two not monogamous?Not challenging, just curious
Grant Whitmore
Both hands up, the wine tilting.Figure of speech, Reggie. Nobody's going on dates.The glance at Tessa is very fast.If Tessa had been single. Hypothetically. Before.
Tessa Whitmore
I would kill him. And her. In that order.A small smile.It was a figure of speech, and now Grant will be careful with his figures of speech for the rest of the evening, which I find useful. Back to you and Laurel.
Reggie
Well, our second date was more conventional. Our third date has become our standard date. And it won't impress anyone, but it impresses us. We meet at my place at Civic Plaza and eat at one of the restaurants there. There are tons of them. None very fancy. Then we hop the train to King George Station and walk to Holland Park and I bring a Bluetooth speaker and we dance like teenagers for an hour or two, chat with the Punjabis and drug addicts who assemble to watch, then we hop the train back to Civic Plaza and have a Guinness.
Paige Bennett
She sets her glass down with a small click.You dance. In a park. With a bluetooth speaker. And she shows up for that.
Grant Whitmore
I had a whole theory about you on the drive over. Laurel, you could have told us about the dancing.
Laurel
I could have.She's pleased with herself.You'd have decided what it meant before you saw him. I preferred to let him walk in and ruin your theory himself.
Tessa Whitmore
Laurel has thrown dinner parties in this room for six years and I have never seen her look at the door the way she did tonight.
Cole Bennett
Most third-date stories I hear involve a tasting menu and someone performing all evening. Hard to fake who you are with the neighbourhood watching.
Reggie
There are lots of white people, too. And it wasn't just a third date. It was a third-and-now-normal date. We've done it a dozen times since that first time. Whitegirl can dance.
Laurel
She doesn't flinch at whitegirl, in front of everyone. She picks up her glass.I've stepped on his foot exactly once, which he's never let go of, and which was the turn's fault.
Grant Whitmore
She lets you call her whitegirl. Laurel, I've watched two men try to give you a nickname and you destroyed both of them.
Laurel
He didn't ask permission. The other two were auditioning it, and I could feel them waiting for my reaction. Reggie just said it. I found I liked it. From him. Not from anyone else.
Cole Bennett
Us calling you whitegirl would sound ridiculous anyway.He laughs.The audition's the thing. You can feel an audition.
Tessa Whitmore
She sounds exactly like herself and nothing like herself at the same time. I've been trying to work out what's different since September.
Reggie
It's just better than performing rooftop bar somewhere. Many women our age have let themselves go a bit fat. Laurel hasn't. And neither have you two, Tessa and Paige. I really respect that. Dancing fast for an hour or two with an audience of your homies is a good way to not let yourself go fat. Last time we were out there, there was a group of ancient Chinese people doing what I think was Tai Chi near the fountains where we normally dance. So we danced on the lawn. And when the Chinese people were done they came and watched us and I got a couple of the old ladies dancing with us. It's nice. We both belong here and know it and like it. And somehow dancing in front of all those people feels less like performing than sampling some stupid taster's menu.
Tessa Whitmore
She's quiet a moment, turning the image over. Then, before she can edit it:We go on holiday and I take pictures of the things I want to remember and then I'm too busy arranging the pictures to remember them.
Paige Bennett
The part you led with was the old ladies. Not the lawn, not the speaker.She looks at him a moment longer than she meant to.Hm.
Cole Bennett
I've been trying to figure you out since the Guinness. You actually like where you are.
Grant Whitmore
I was going to say Holland Park's a stretch for a date venue, and then you said Tai Chi ladies and I can't make that sentence work anymore.
Laurel
I'm right here, Grant. And the Tai Chi ladies were the best part. One of them grabbed my hand, fixed my arm, and nodded at me like I'd passed a test. That's the thing nobody photographs.
Reggie
I love the whole Lower Mainland but Surrey is home. And not just Surrey. Whalley. South Surrey might as well be another country to me.
Grant Whitmore
He sets his glass on the chair arm.Not South Surrey, not Cloverdale. Half the people in this room would have said 'Surrey' and let everyone assume the nicer part.
Tessa Whitmore
I know people who moved to South Surrey specifically so they'd never have to say Whalley.
Reggie
I live on the 50th floor of the Civic Hotel building. My condo is beautiful, but probably worth less than any of your homes. I have a beautiful restaurant on the ground floor, and a plaza full of fountains and young people out my front door. My neighbours aren't perfect but they're generally not performing. What you see is what you get. And since I'm not perfect, either, I'm happy to meet them on whatever ground we share in common. Honestly, this is paradise to me.
Cole Bennett
He looks down at his drink, doing arithmetic he didn't plan to do tonight.I drive through Whalley every couple of months and I've never once thought that word. But I can see what you mean by it.
Tessa Whitmore
You just said your condo is worth less than any of our homes, to our faces, in her living room. I can't decide if that's disarming or if I'm just not used to it.
Paige Bennett
She sets her glass down precisely.I've been looking for the angle. The performance of not performing, where you say the disarming things and wait for us to feel clever about not being fooled. I haven't found it yet. I'm still looking.
Grant Whitmore
People who live honestly usually need you to know they're doing it. There's a lean into it.He shrugs.
Laurel
She takes a sip she doesn't need and looks round the room with the composure of a woman who has decided not to say the large thing.He's been like this since City Hall. I kept waiting for the part where he'd want credit for it.She sets the glass down.Still waiting.
Grant Whitmore
She's sitting over there trying very hard not to look proud of you, and doing a moderate job of it.
Reggie
Well, thank you. It's good that I'm not trying to impress anyone because I'd fail.Laughs gentlyHow about you two, Grant and Cole? What do you do, and where do you live?
Grant Whitmore
He answers the way he's answered it at a hundred dinner parties.Whitmore Group. Commercial real estate, mostly industrial. Warehouses along the Fraser. We're in Cloverdale, house, yard. I live there, Tessa tends it.
Cole Bennett
Civil engineering, municipal. Roads, drainage. Surrey, Delta, Port Coquitlam when they're desperate. We're in Newton. Also a house, also a yard.A grin.Between us, we're the reason your clients have warehouses to miscategorize receipts in.
Reggie
Oh, so you're also Surrey people. I hadn't realized. Although Surrey is so different between areas that it's almost like ten cities. You guys take the Port Mann and I take the Skytrain.
Grant Whitmore
He laughs.I've been doing deals here fifteen years and I still have to explain to Vancouver people that Cloverdale and Whalley aren't the same decade. You've got the better commute and I'd never admit that outside this room.
Cole Bennett
Newton's SkyTrain access is terrible, which I have professionally complicated feelings about. Grant and I live twenty minutes apart and we met through Laurel. That's a bit absurd.
Laurel
So. This is the thing I wanted you to hear from Reggie rather than from me. Because when I explain it I apparently sound like a huge slut, which —a glance at Paige— I know you're all too polite to say. For the record, the men in my life would fit in this room with chairs to spare. It was never the number. It's that none of them is a secret. Reggie's single by choice. Has opinions about marriage. About monogamy. Tell them what you told me.
Grant Whitmore
Single by choice covers a lot of ground. Laurel's face says you mean the intentional version. I'm listening.
Reggie
Wait, what? Tell them what I told you? Laurel, we've talked for hours and hours into the middle of the night a dozen times. What exactly do you want me to tell them? Why don't you just introduce whatever part of the topic you have in mind and we'll see where the conversation goes?
Laurel
She laughs, short and real, handed her own question back.Fair.She looks round at the four of them.I'm forty. I've been divorced six years. I'm not waiting to be someone's wife again, and I have a life that works: a few people in it, honestly, instead of one person and a lie. And every person in this room who loves me treats that as a symptom. Reggie's the first person I've met who doesn't. When I say it, I'm wounded. When he says it, you listen. So. Start wherever you like. I'll stop talking.
Tessa Whitmore
She's not wrong that we do. So the direct version: you've been married twice. You know it from the inside. What did you figure out that we haven't? I want to understand, not argue. Not yet.
Reggie
You know I've been married twice. Laurel has been talking.SmilesWhich is fine. I don't have a lot of secrets. But I need to know how much she told you and whether I need to dance around things. Effectively, I'm asking if this is a sexually explicit conversation or the PG version of that same conversation. And if the former, I might want one of those Guinnesses I brought.
Grant Whitmore
He laughs, surprised by it.You're asking us to declare ourselves before you say anything real.A glance at Tessa.Laurel told us you'd been married twice, that you have opinions, that you're not sad about any of it. Call it PG for now. Get the beer either way.
Tessa Whitmore
The PG version and the explicit version are the same conversation with different vocabulary. And I'm harder to shock than Grant thinks.
Reggie
I walk to the kitchen which is still in view and return with a Guinness and a beer mug. I try to pour it and Cole corrects me and I get the beer poured.This is far better than before I knew to pour it into a glass. I'm going to have to be careful not to like this too much. Okay, let's try doing this PG. Should I tell you about my marriages?
Grant Whitmore
He settles in, a man who has decided he's in for the evening.Yes. Twice divorced and not broken by it is the part I can't account for.
Tessa Whitmore
Start where the story starts. Not the comfortable version.
Reggie
Okay, the story starts with my first wife. The only true head-over-heels madly-in-love relationship I've ever had and we all only get one of those, generally. She was a skinny blonde girl and we were married thirteen years. I cheated on her after seven years, confessed and she forgave me. Cheated again after ten years, confessed and she forgave me. Then she cheated after thirteen years, fell in love with him, and left me.
And it destroyed me. They say nobody dies of a broken heart but I wished I had for over a year. She was everything to me. And yes, I know I had cheated twice so I'm not in a good moral position to feel hurt but I was. Her fling didn't last long and she tried to come back but I couldn't anymore. That first true heartbreak was too much for me. Every time I looked at her, I saw her with him and it was just too much for me. And to this day, I don't know if I made a mistake not taking her back. And yes, I'm saying that in front of a girl I'm crazy about and I know she won't like to hear that but you all asked for the truth and this is the unfiltered version.
Should I go on or do you have questions at this point?
And it destroyed me. They say nobody dies of a broken heart but I wished I had for over a year. She was everything to me. And yes, I know I had cheated twice so I'm not in a good moral position to feel hurt but I was. Her fling didn't last long and she tried to come back but I couldn't anymore. That first true heartbreak was too much for me. Every time I looked at her, I saw her with him and it was just too much for me. And to this day, I don't know if I made a mistake not taking her back. And yes, I'm saying that in front of a girl I'm crazy about and I know she won't like to hear that but you all asked for the truth and this is the unfiltered version.
Should I go on or do you have questions at this point?
Laurel
She doesn't reach for her glass. She holds his look for one beat, then looks at her hands.I know.Very quietly, to herself. Then, steadier:Go on.
Grant Whitmore
Go on.
Reggie
The second marriage was a few years later. Another skinny blonde. I'm so predictable. I cheated after three years. Confessed. She cheated after five years. Confessed when I asked her. And we just sat down and decided we had fallen out of love. No drama this time. No wishing I had died. Just two adults realizing that they had had five good years together and didn't want to make it ten.
Questions or go on?
Questions or go on?
Grant Whitmore
He sets his glass down and does not look at Tessa.Most people assume divorce is a catastrophe. You're telling me the second one was almost administrative. I'm not sure that's easier.
Tessa Whitmore
Most people wait to be found out. You walked up and said it, to two different women. Why?
Reggie
Because I dislike lying, Tessa. I'm obviously capable of it. I did it. Three times over two marriages, I cheated and lied about it. But I always ended up looking in the mirror and saying, "Reggie, you are a very flawed man but you're an honest man, so quit lying like a piece of trash." And I did.
Tessa Whitmore
Quiet; the real pause, not the managed one.Quit lying like a piece of trash. You said that to yourself in the mirror.She holds her glass without drinking.Was it worth it? The confessing. Knowing what it cost you both times.
Grant Whitmore
And the other side of it. After the first confession, after she forgave you, you did it again. What did you tell the mirror the second time?
Reggie
I'm not obsessed with honesty. I believe there are cases where one should lie. Many cases in fact. The honesty was worth the cost in my case for one reason and one reason only: I could not live with myself lying to her face every day. I decided I'd rather lose everything than be the piece of shit that continued to lie to the woman I loved because, whoever I am, whoever I fancy myself to be, I would no longer be that person if I kept doing that.
Tessa Whitmore
Softly.You didn't confess for her sake. You confessed for yours.She lets that sit.That's honest, at least.
Grant Whitmore
I don't know if I admire that or if it worries me.He picks up his glass.Possibly both.
Reggie
So after the second marriage, I actually just stopped dating totally for almost a year. I wanted to think. And I'm not going to lie about being celibate. I sometimes hooked up with exes. I'm a very sexual person. Both marriages had been very sexually active right to the end. But I wanted time to think things through. I was 42 at the end of my second marriage and before I embarked on numbers 3, 4 and 5, I wanted to reflect on what had failed, how it had failed and how I could stop failing. And that got me thinking about the very structure of lifelong monogamy and whether it is sustainable or even desirable. And there are two words there that I call into question. Lifelong and monogamy. And I believe there's tension between the two. And then I got to thinking of the overwhelming societal pressure to conform to lifelong monogamy and the very real costs of non-conformance. And the cost we ask, especially of women, to conform. And that got me thinking about our notions of truth and what truth is owed to whom and so on. And I'm willing to talk about any or all of those things if you like but I've just dumped a lot in front of you and am open to hearing what you have to say at this point.
Grant Whitmore
He's been leaning forward without noticing; he sits back.You said both words. Most of us assumed you were going to tell us monogamy's the problem. Which one do you think is doing the damage?
Tessa Whitmore
The cost we ask of women. That's the part I want. I've spent a fair amount of my adult life defending the architecture, as Laurel calls it. What does the cost look like from where you sit?
Reggie
Grant, I don't think either lifelong or monogamy are doing damage. I just think love often arrives with an expiration date and we need to stop treating reaching that expiration date as a moral failure. But Tessa has asked a very pertinent question and I'm eager to answer her. To do so, I have to change the rating from PG, maybe not quite to X but at least to 18+. Are we all okay with this? If not, I'll try to do the PG version.
Grant Whitmore
The reflexive glance at Tessa.I didn't drive half an hour for the PG version. I've heard worse. Probably done worse.
Tessa Whitmore
Eighteen plus is fine. I asked the question. I'd like the actual answer to it. The PG version of the cost is already something I know rather well.
Cole Bennett
Fine by me. I've sat through worse at site meetings, and those were sober.
Paige Bennett
She crosses one leg over the other.Fine. But Tessa asked the question. I want her answer before anyone interrupts it.
Laurel
Eighteen plus. I live here. Go ahead.
Reggie
Laurel, I don't know your friends. They may think less of you if I am candid. Are you sure you're okay?
Laurel
She holds his gaze, and the hostess goes out of her face.They already do. Think less of me. Quietly, in ways nobody says out loud. I've lived around that for six years and I'm tired of it. Say it honestly and let them decide what to do with it.
Tessa Whitmore
If there's a version where we think less of her for what you're about to say, we had that version already and we showed up anyway.
Reggie
Ok, we have consensus and consent. And 18+ to me means I'm not going to ask any of you about your own sex lives or whether you've cheated, but I'm free to share what I'm comfortable sharing in explicit but not vulgar detail. And Tessa's question is what does the cost of society's expectations look like to a woman stuck in that system. And the best way I can do that is to tell you things about another woman I'm sleeping with. And yes, that means I'm sleeping with women other than Laurel. And yes, she knows. And I'm not going to use real names or identifying details but the basic facts are true. Let's call her Kate.
Tessa Whitmore
Completely still for a moment. She does not look at Grant. She looks at Laurel, then back.She knows.Quietly.All right. Tell us about Kate. I'm listening as someone trying to understand, not someone who's decided. That's the promise I can make.
Grant Whitmore
I'll hear the Kate story. One thing first, and it's practical, not philosophical. Does it work? Whatever the arrangement is. Day to day.
Reggie
An open mind is a good starting point, Tessa. And Grant, it's working better than my two failed marriages worked. But that's a low bar.SmilesOk, back to Tessa's question. What does this look like?
Kate has been married about twenty years. The first five were good. Then another five where they were okay. Then at some point, they just became roommates. But they love each other's families and their lives are totally intertwined. They have no kids but they have a nice house and good careers and they're fine for retirement.
But here's the thing. Sex in her marriage has always been entirely unfulfilling to her. It was infrequent even at the beginning. I can't remember what she told me...perhaps once a week tops and even then, I'm guessing. Then that tailed off. It became once every few weeks. Now it's once every few months. And even at the beginning, she would orgasm infrequently. Perhaps once in five times. Now she's having an orgasm every year or two. And beyond that, when I asked her about the orgasms, she wasn't even getting them from her husband anyway. He was in the room, but she'd reach down and take care of it herself.
So she now has three options:
Option 1: divorce. And yes, she could. She could blow up her family, her home, move to an apartment. But she's not like me who prefers apartment life, she's a house person and she has dogs and all the house-person stuff. And she would lose the respect of both families, who have really become one big family. And have all the people she loves and cares about think she's a homewrecking bitch. And society, while giving her this option, still agrees with everyone that she's a homewrecking bitch.
Option 2: This beautiful, blonde, healthy, extremely sexual woman is being asked by society to go for another 50 years totally sexually unsatisfied and unfulfilled, never being allowed to explore that side of her very being. Effectively, society is telling her to shut up, put up, put out every few months, and go take care of it yourself on the bathroom floor after. And that is the ONLY path to societal approval. The ONLY path that doesn't get her labelled as a homewrecking bitch or a slut.
Option 3: Find a brown guy in Civic Plaza who will happily spend an hour with his face between her legs, trying hard to make up for the twenty years she went without orgasms from a man, learn to feel what it truly is to be a woman in every sense of the word, and maybe don't mention it to the hubby.
That's what it looks like, Tessa, up close and personal.
Kate has been married about twenty years. The first five were good. Then another five where they were okay. Then at some point, they just became roommates. But they love each other's families and their lives are totally intertwined. They have no kids but they have a nice house and good careers and they're fine for retirement.
But here's the thing. Sex in her marriage has always been entirely unfulfilling to her. It was infrequent even at the beginning. I can't remember what she told me...perhaps once a week tops and even then, I'm guessing. Then that tailed off. It became once every few weeks. Now it's once every few months. And even at the beginning, she would orgasm infrequently. Perhaps once in five times. Now she's having an orgasm every year or two. And beyond that, when I asked her about the orgasms, she wasn't even getting them from her husband anyway. He was in the room, but she'd reach down and take care of it herself.
So she now has three options:
Option 1: divorce. And yes, she could. She could blow up her family, her home, move to an apartment. But she's not like me who prefers apartment life, she's a house person and she has dogs and all the house-person stuff. And she would lose the respect of both families, who have really become one big family. And have all the people she loves and cares about think she's a homewrecking bitch. And society, while giving her this option, still agrees with everyone that she's a homewrecking bitch.
Option 2: This beautiful, blonde, healthy, extremely sexual woman is being asked by society to go for another 50 years totally sexually unsatisfied and unfulfilled, never being allowed to explore that side of her very being. Effectively, society is telling her to shut up, put up, put out every few months, and go take care of it yourself on the bathroom floor after. And that is the ONLY path to societal approval. The ONLY path that doesn't get her labelled as a homewrecking bitch or a slut.
Option 3: Find a brown guy in Civic Plaza who will happily spend an hour with his face between her legs, trying hard to make up for the twenty years she went without orgasms from a man, learn to feel what it truly is to be a woman in every sense of the word, and maybe don't mention it to the hubby.
That's what it looks like, Tessa, up close and personal.
Tessa Whitmore
She is very still.The bathroom floor after.Quietly.That's your language, not mine. And I'm trying to decide whether to be offended by how specific it is, and I can't, because it's too specific to argue with.She sets the glass down.
Paige Bennett
You put it in the ugliest possible sentence. It's a very convenient sentence for a man who's sleeping with her.
Grant Whitmore
He looks at his glass.
Cole Bennett
He turns his glass.Only one of the three doesn't cost her everything, the way you've laid it out.
Reggie
Laurel, I am interested in your opinion.
Laurel
Quiet long enough that the room notices she's deciding, not stalling. She sets her glass down and looks only at Reggie.I'm Kate.She lets it sit.Not exactly. I'm divorced and she isn't, and this is my own townhouse. But the bathroom floor. The once in five. Being asked to be a whole person in every room except that one. I lived in those rooms for nine years.To the others:I didn't leave because I stopped loving him. I left because I was disappearing. I couldn't explain it to anyone in this room in a way you'd believe, and he just said it in three options and you all went quiet. That's my opinion.
Reggie
There's a thing that's popping into my head which seems like an irrelevant detail but it's there, so I'll mention it. Her reaching down. Taking care of it herself while he was doing his thing. That's not as bad as it sounds. At least they're still a team. At least they're together doing something satisfying to each. But a game where only one partner ever gets to win? That's lots of things, unsatisfying, predictable, dishonest, unfair, and it all eventually just leads to soul destroying. I honestly think Kate might have lived with it if she could just have reached down and taken care of it herself, but eventually even that became too much. He'd get bored. Women just take a while. And then she'd be humiliated at his not wanting to be there, and then even more humiliated when he got grossed out at her perfectly natural secretions and now she describes sex with him as a total negative. And society will look her in the face, tell her to bend over and satisfy your husband, then go somewhere private and satisfy yourself, and if you dare touch that brown man, you're a wicked slut. To which I say, respectfully, fuck society.
Tessa Whitmore
Fuck society.Quietly; the words are strange in her mouth.You said that in my friend's living room and I can't argue with a sentence that came before it. I've been defending the architecture for six years, every time Laurel made a choice I didn't understand. I need it to matter.
Paige Bennett
The part about it becoming a total negative. Nobody says that word.She stops herself.I heard it. That's all I'm saying.
Grant Whitmore
He doesn't look at Tessa.I came here to argue with you, Reggie. I had the whole position ready.He lifts his glass and puts it down without drinking.I'll make it another night. I'm not conceding it. I'm saying it needs more than I brought.
Cole Bennett
He shakes his head.
Laurel
Nobody's arguing with the sentence. That's enough for me tonight.
Reggie
Great, shall we talk about the mayor's race?Laughs gentlyJust one more thing, if I may. I'm not asking anyone who seeks lifelong monogamy to stop seeking that. And I'm not asking those in a lifelong monogamous relationship to start screwing other people. Or to set term limits on their marriages. I'm just saying that those of us who have chosen different paths are not necessarily evil.
Some of us have clear moral codes. I would never sleep with a married woman whose marriage was satisfying and she just wanted variety. That woman really should choose between fidelity and divorce in my opinion. I also don't really do casual sex. My body count is much lower than it could have been and I'm not ashamed of any of them and would happily be seen in public with any of them. I've just chosen not to be bound by society's rules or judgments.
Some of us have clear moral codes. I would never sleep with a married woman whose marriage was satisfying and she just wanted variety. That woman really should choose between fidelity and divorce in my opinion. I also don't really do casual sex. My body count is much lower than it could have been and I'm not ashamed of any of them and would happily be seen in public with any of them. I've just chosen not to be bound by society's rules or judgments.
Grant Whitmore
The mayor's race gets a real laugh. Then, carefully:I'm still going home with my wife tonight and I'll be at the same address next Saturday.
Tessa Whitmore
You're describing different rules, not no rules.
Cole Bennett
I'm not going to pretend I've got a position ready.
Paige Bennett
You've been very precise all evening about what you won't do.She looks at him evenly.I'm staying exactly where I am.
Laurel
You're the only person who could say all of that and end on the mayor's race.She stands.More wine. This room needs a minute and I need something to do with my hands.
Reggie
Laurel serves another round. I still nurse my one Guinness but accept more water.My vision, the one I landed on after my year of thinking after my second marriage died, has me wondering what my life would have looked like if I had done this thinking when I was a kid. Not that I would've been capable of it then. But what if my cheating on my first wife, and her cheating on me, and even leaving me to live with another man, hadn't ended our friendship? We never stopped loving each other. We just stopped being friends because we were both so mad at each other. What if I could've let her go live with that other guy for the six months or however long it lasted, and NOT having had it be the end of the world to me, and still slept with her every few months when we got a chance, and then took her back when it blew up? What if I had had that maturity? And that's the maturity I hope to bring to whatever I've got with Laurel, which I can describe if you want, Laurel, or just stop if it's too personal.
Laurel
She stops with the bottle in her hand.Don't stop.Quietly, to him. Then, to the room:Tell them.
Tessa Whitmore
She studies him.I'm asking straight, Reggie. Do you actually believe you could have managed that at thirty-something, while she was living with another man? Or is that the thing you built afterwards so the loss has a meaning?
Grant Whitmore
He shakes his head slowly.I've been looking for the flaw in it for thirty seconds.
Cole Bennett
You said hope to bring. Present tense. You're not describing a system you've perfected.
Paige Bennett
Evenly.So the failure wasn't the cheating or the leaving. The failure was that you weren't big enough to hold it. That's a generous way to tell it, Reggie.
Reggie
It's totally theory, Tessa. I have no idea if I could walk this walk. I haven't yet. I'd like to think I could but I honestly don't know if humans can be wired that way, and if they can, am I wired that way? I think I am, though. But yes, I'm describing a relationship that survives the end of love because I don't think the end of love is always permanent.
Let me just describe a possible lifetime with Laurel. Just talk. This isn't a plan. I'm 45, she's 40. Right now, we're screwing like bunnies. Sorry if that was TMI, but we're past the PG stuff. And she's another woman who...I hope this is okay to say because she said it herself...but she hasn't been satisfied sexually. There's a whole side of being a woman that she hasn't seen and I'm determined to show it to her. Often. And if she walks funny for a while after, I count that as a personal victory. But that's now, when our relationship is young. Let's just say this version of us lasts three years.
Then she meets someone and decides she wants to try with them seriously. Or I do. We don't promise exclusivity but 5 or 6 times a month becomes 2 and then 1 and then once every three months. But we don't lose contact. We're still friends. I know her focus is elsewhere but I still think the world of her and respect her and I know she is doing nothing outside our agreement so I don't feel betrayed. Our intense love has faded but we are friends.
Now the story can take multiple paths. One path is that we simply fizzle out and go our own ways. We stay Facebook friends, like each other's posts every few months, send a Merry Christmas email, and smile at what we once had for a second and then get back to our lives. And we never see each other again. There's nothing wrong with that path.
But it's not the only path. Another path has her other guy fizzling out or blowing up after three years. And we reconnect. Start doing it more often but still casual, like maybe once a month. We're not madly in love but we're MORE in love again. And we're close friends with a lot of history now, and we can tell stories about whoever we slept with without either of us losing our shit. And let's say that lasts five years. So I'm 56 and she's 51.
And then let's say she gets thyroid cancer and she's single and facing it alone. And let's say I don't have any other big priorities in life at that time and I'm both willing and able to step up for her. I might not be, of course, but I might be, and let's just say I am. And she goes through the surgeries and radioactive iodine and feels like shit for two full years and she's effectively celibate that whole time. But I've been there for her, driving her to and from the hospital, sleeping at her place when she needs it, sleeping at mine when she can, and we become close in a way only two people facing adversity together can be.
And intense love returns. Not "let's spend every waking moment in bed" love, but an intense love of closeness and shared experience. And let's say after four years she's pronounced cancer free and she's got the drugs dosed right and she doesn't feel like shit all the time and she's starting to feel like a woman again and we're even having sex again, quite often although we're both older and it's not like it is today.
And I realize at some point I can't live without her. Or at least, I don't want to. And at 60, I tell her that whatever path we've taken to get here, I don't want to wake up without her there, and I'd like to live with her. And she feels the same way and we both rent out our condos and buy something together and I spend most days chasing her around the apartment showing her that a little old lady with grey pubes can still orgasm. And I love her more than ever.
If that is our life, I think it's a beautiful life, and I will be happy to have lived that life. And society is telling me I should've kicked her to the curb and told everyone what a slut she was when she wanted to try with that other guy a few years in. And I just don't think that's the better outcome.
Let me just describe a possible lifetime with Laurel. Just talk. This isn't a plan. I'm 45, she's 40. Right now, we're screwing like bunnies. Sorry if that was TMI, but we're past the PG stuff. And she's another woman who...I hope this is okay to say because she said it herself...but she hasn't been satisfied sexually. There's a whole side of being a woman that she hasn't seen and I'm determined to show it to her. Often. And if she walks funny for a while after, I count that as a personal victory. But that's now, when our relationship is young. Let's just say this version of us lasts three years.
Then she meets someone and decides she wants to try with them seriously. Or I do. We don't promise exclusivity but 5 or 6 times a month becomes 2 and then 1 and then once every three months. But we don't lose contact. We're still friends. I know her focus is elsewhere but I still think the world of her and respect her and I know she is doing nothing outside our agreement so I don't feel betrayed. Our intense love has faded but we are friends.
Now the story can take multiple paths. One path is that we simply fizzle out and go our own ways. We stay Facebook friends, like each other's posts every few months, send a Merry Christmas email, and smile at what we once had for a second and then get back to our lives. And we never see each other again. There's nothing wrong with that path.
But it's not the only path. Another path has her other guy fizzling out or blowing up after three years. And we reconnect. Start doing it more often but still casual, like maybe once a month. We're not madly in love but we're MORE in love again. And we're close friends with a lot of history now, and we can tell stories about whoever we slept with without either of us losing our shit. And let's say that lasts five years. So I'm 56 and she's 51.
And then let's say she gets thyroid cancer and she's single and facing it alone. And let's say I don't have any other big priorities in life at that time and I'm both willing and able to step up for her. I might not be, of course, but I might be, and let's just say I am. And she goes through the surgeries and radioactive iodine and feels like shit for two full years and she's effectively celibate that whole time. But I've been there for her, driving her to and from the hospital, sleeping at her place when she needs it, sleeping at mine when she can, and we become close in a way only two people facing adversity together can be.
And intense love returns. Not "let's spend every waking moment in bed" love, but an intense love of closeness and shared experience. And let's say after four years she's pronounced cancer free and she's got the drugs dosed right and she doesn't feel like shit all the time and she's starting to feel like a woman again and we're even having sex again, quite often although we're both older and it's not like it is today.
And I realize at some point I can't live without her. Or at least, I don't want to. And at 60, I tell her that whatever path we've taken to get here, I don't want to wake up without her there, and I'd like to live with her. And she feels the same way and we both rent out our condos and buy something together and I spend most days chasing her around the apartment showing her that a little old lady with grey pubes can still orgasm. And I love her more than ever.
If that is our life, I think it's a beautiful life, and I will be happy to have lived that life. And society is telling me I should've kicked her to the curb and told everyone what a slut she was when she wanted to try with that other guy a few years in. And I just don't think that's the better outcome.
Tessa Whitmore
She has been looking at her hands. When she looks up, the composed version is gone.Grey pubes.Very quietly.You built fifteen years in a few sentences, with cancer in the middle and the part where she goes off with someone else and you let her, and you called it beautiful. Not perfect. Beautiful.She stops.I'm going to have to think about why I needed the other thing to be true. Not tonight.
Grant Whitmore
Quietly.I'm not changing anything.He turns the glass.I haven't found where it falls apart. I'll keep looking.
Cole Bennett
Whether a person can actually be wired that way. Whether I'd know if I was.He doesn't say anything else for a moment.I'm taking that one home.
Paige Bennett
She looks at Laurel, then back.It's a story where she gets cancer and you get to be the hero. I'd want to hear her version of the fifteen years before I call it beautiful.
Laurel
I didn't know the cancer part was in there.She doesn't make a speech about it.I heard the whole thing. Every year of it. I'm still standing in my own kitchen, which tells you where I am. Does anyone actually need more wine, or shall we just sit here a minute.
Reggie
Just remember, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm not telling you you should reconsider your relationships or do anything different at all if you're happy with what you have. My entire message to you is, one, I've given this a lot of thought; I'm not being careless here, and two, Laurel isn't a slut, and three, I'm not the devil, or at least I'm trying not to be. That's really all there is here.
Grant Whitmore
He nods, slowly.She's not a slut. You've clearly thought about it. That's as far as I can take it tonight.
Tessa Whitmore
Three things that shouldn't need saying, and you gave up a Saturday to say them. The version of her I've sat next to tonight, I haven't seen in years.
Paige Bennett
Every person I've met who wasn't selling me something turned out to be selling me something.She picks up her glass.I'll let you know when I've worked out what you're selling. Laurel. You're a terrible advance warning system.
Cole Bennett
I'm glad you came tonight. That's the whole thing.
Laurel
They showed up. That's what I wanted. Not agreement.She looks at Paige.And yes, I should have warned you, and I'd do it the same way again.
