Reggie
Hey Surreygirls.
Ashley
She's already turned on her stool, and the smile that comes is the easy kind — the one she doesn't have to find.Hey.She tips her head toward the empty stool.Sit down. We need to debrief.
Erin
Wednesday went well. We ordered without you. Obviously.
Reggie
One day I'm going to want something other than a Guinness and I'll blame you. Ok, how did it go? Tell me everything.
Ashley
She wraps both hands around her drink and takes a breath like someone who has been sitting on a story since Wednesday and is very glad the lid is finally coming off.It worked.She says it plainly, and then she tips forward on her stool slightly.Like — it worked so cleanly that I'm still a little amazed by it. Bradley drove over Tuesday night to scope the parkade because he wanted to understand the parking situation before Wednesday, which is so Bradley I cannot — He made a whole little reconnaissance trip on his own and came back and told me about the exit ramps.
And then Wednesday he walked through the library like he was approving a floor plan, found the bean bag sofas, sat on one for about five seconds, and said it seemed like a nice spot. That was it. That was his full verdict. A nice spot.
And I explained to him that this was my Digital Detox time so no phones, no electronic devices. I leave them in the car.
And then we went to Dominion and Rory was already at the bar and I watched Bradley look around and do the math and I could see him landing on in real time, which is the exact word we needed him to land on.
And then Wednesday he walked through the library like he was approving a floor plan, found the bean bag sofas, sat on one for about five seconds, and said it seemed like a nice spot. That was it. That was his full verdict. A nice spot.
And I explained to him that this was my Digital Detox time so no phones, no electronic devices. I leave them in the car.
And then we went to Dominion and Rory was already at the bar and I watched Bradley look around and do the math and I could see him landing on in real time, which is the exact word we needed him to land on.
Erin
Rory lasted forty minutes.
He said the library was nice and Digital Detox sounded like a good idea, even though he didn't like not being able to reach me for emergencies. I told him it was only for a few hours once a week and I needed it for my mental health and he bought that.
He observed that parking at the library for two hours would save a bit of money, even if I had to move the car after, but I told him it would only save $5/week and he agreed it wasn't worth worrying about.
Then he was very polite about Dominion. He said the beer was decent, which from Rory is roughly equivalent to saying the building is structurally sound — technically a compliment, communicates nothing warm. And he smelled the butter chicken and...you know. And he told Bradley that it was a bit far for a regular thing. His exact words. A bit far. From South Surrey. Which is twenty minutes on a clear day. Bradley nodded and said yeah, probably.
And that was the whole conversation about returning. Done. Sealed. Rory did exactly what we needed him to do and he did it completely on his own without any help at all.
He said the library was nice and Digital Detox sounded like a good idea, even though he didn't like not being able to reach me for emergencies. I told him it was only for a few hours once a week and I needed it for my mental health and he bought that.
He observed that parking at the library for two hours would save a bit of money, even if I had to move the car after, but I told him it would only save $5/week and he agreed it wasn't worth worrying about.
Then he was very polite about Dominion. He said the beer was decent, which from Rory is roughly equivalent to saying the building is structurally sound — technically a compliment, communicates nothing warm. And he smelled the butter chicken and...you know. And he told Bradley that it was a bit far for a regular thing. His exact words. A bit far. From South Surrey. Which is twenty minutes on a clear day. Bradley nodded and said yeah, probably.
And that was the whole conversation about returning. Done. Sealed. Rory did exactly what we needed him to do and he did it completely on his own without any help at all.
Reggie
So, location sharing is now a non-issue, you park at 3 Civic Plaza and they know your pin won't move to the library because you're doing Digital Detox and left your phone in the car, and it's a non issue. And I can never, ever move, but I don't want to anyway. Actually, I can't move out of the building. I could move within it.
Ashley
She looks at Erin, and the look between them is the quick kind — the one that happens in less than a second and covers a lot of ground.You can't move out of the building.She says it back to him, and there's something in her voice that is caught between laughing and genuinely grateful.So the pin that used to be the problem is now just — correct. Permanently correct. The library is forty metres away and you are forty metres away and the pin will always say exactly what we need it to say because you live there and you are never leaving and that is the single most useful piece of real estate in Surrey. Bradley did a reconnaissance trip on the exit ramps for this.
Erin
A bit far. He sealed it himself. You didn't have to do anything. We didn't have to do anything. He just decided and told Bradley and now it's done and Rory will spend the next thirty years steering Bradley away from here on pure principle and calling it a preference. I cannot believe that worked. I mean — I can. But I can't.
Reggie
And you two will say every few weeks, not enough to become annoying or making them think they better do it to satisfy you, "Babe, I'm getting drinks with Erin or Ashley after the library. I know you don't like Dominion but I just want you to know you'd be welcome." And he'll be happy to escape, and we'll never have to see him again.
Ashley
She points at him, slow and certain, the way you point at something that's been right in front of you the whole time and you only just saw it.The welcome.She says it barely above the bar noise.That's the part that makes it stick. You're not hiding the bar from him — I'm literally inviting him to it, just often enough that he feels considered and not so often that he ever actually comes. He gets to feel like I'm not keeping anything from him. Which, technically, I'm not. I'm keeping you from him. The bar is right there on his phone every Saturday.
Erin
And Rory gets the same invitation and says no thanks the same way he says no to everything that isn't his idea, and I look like an open book. You're not welcome but you're welcome. That's the whole architecture. I've been lying to him for two years and this is the version where I stop having to lie about the location at least. It's almost honest. That's the most insane thing about it.
Reggie
The only thing is, if I ever do find that girl, this might not be a place to raise kids, but that's years away. And ideally, if money keeps being okay, I might be able to afford a decent place for a family AND keep this little crash pad.
Ashley
She goes still for a moment, and then something in her face does a thing she didn't entirely plan on — not quite alarm, not quite the other thing, just a slow and very honest recalibration.The crash pad.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at Erin, and then back at him.You're already calling it the crash pad. Like the decision is already made and we're just catching up. You're going to have a family place somewhere and then you're going to have this, and this is the crash pad, and we're the — we're the reason the crash pad stays. That is the most clarifying and the most unsettling sentence you've said today and you said it like a footnote.
Erin
Kids. You said kids. The grey pubes plan has always had a wife in it but this is the first time you've said kids out loud in front of us and I want to know if you noticed that. Because I noticed that. The crash pad doesn't go anywhere when there are kids. You've already decided that too.
Reggie
It is not the first time I've said that. I can't remember when but I specifically remember talking about finding some white girl who is willing to marry me and having light brown kids.
Ashley
She looks at Erin, and the look between them is the quick kind — less than a second, but it lands.He did say that.She turns back to him, and her voice is careful and a little caught.The light brown babies. You said light brown babies. I remember because I didn't know what to do with my hands for about four minutes after.
Erin
You're right. You did say it. I think I flagged it and then filed it under things I wasn't ready to think about, which is apparently a category I've been maintaining for a couple of years now. Kids is different from babies, though. Kids means you've moved past the abstract. Babies is a concept. Kids is a Wednesday pickup.
Reggie
A couple of years is right. Do you two realize we've been screwing each other for two years now? And we've been having occasional group sex for over a year. Occasional doing a lot of work because the truth is it's every month.
Ashley
She goes still for a moment — drink in both hands, not quite looking at either of them — and then she does the math out loud without meaning to.Two years.She says it barely above the bar noise, and something in her face does a slow, quiet thing.We had been seeing each other for a year and I came in here to break up with you and I had a whole — I had a speech. I had Erin here so I'd stick to it. That was a year ago. Every month for the group thing. I keep telling myself occasional and then the first Saturday of the month comes around and occasional is a lie I've been telling myself for about fourteen months.
Erin
Two years. I stopped once. Before the first time you asked us to Guatemala. Eight months. I was very committed to it and then I was sitting at Rory's cousin's wedding watching him dance — Rory, I mean — and I was in my phone before the reception dinner was over. Occasional. I've been saying occasional too. I don't know who we think we're saying it for.
Reggie
Two down. Forty to go. Maybe 50 if we live right.
Ashley
The laugh comes out of her before she can decide anything about it — helpless and immediate — and she tips forward on her stool and puts one hand flat on the bar.Forty to go.She says it into the middle distance, still smiling, and then she picks up her drink and actually drinks from it, a long slow sip, and when she sets it back down her face is open and a little undone and not trying to be anything else.I came in here with a breakup speech and you just gave me a forty-year projection and I cannot find one thing wrong with the math.
Erin
Fifty if we live right. That's the variable you gave yourself. The living right part. I want to know what living right looks like to you, because I have a feeling it looks exactly like this.
Reggie
And at some point in South/Central America, it stopped being just screwing. But yes, my dream is to find a white girl who will marry me, and who I want to marry, the latter complicating the former, get a townhouse we can raise kids in, a short walk from Civic Plaza, and keep the place I have as an office. It's zoned Live/Work so it's legal to do that.
Ashley
She goes completely still. Her drink is in both hands and she looks at the bar for a long moment — not at Erin, not at him, just at the bar — and something in her face does a slow, irreversible thing, like a tide that has been coming in for two years finally reaching the wall.At some point in South America.She says it barely above the bar noise, quiet and careful, turning it over.You said at some point it stopped. Which means you know when. Or you know approximately when. And you're not going to tell us exactly because that's not how you do things. Live/Work. You looked up the zoning. You're going to keep the crash pad as an office — legally, officially an office — a short walk from a townhouse with light brown kids in it, and you've already looked up whether it's allowed. You've been planning this for a while and you said it like a footnote again. The footnote thing is going to be the death of me.
Erin
The latter complicating the former. You want to want her. Not just find her. You've already decided that the finding is the easy part and the wanting is the problem and you said it in one clause like it was obvious. A townhouse a short walk from here. A legal office that is also the crash pad. A white girl who knows our names and does the math and says yes. And forty years of this, from that townhouse, a short walk away. At some point in Guatemala it stopped being just screwing for me too. I didn't say when either. So we're even on that.
Reggie
If I'm really allowed to let my dreams go a bit crazy, I don't just want to want her, I want you two to like her. And I know that may not happen but that's my dream.
Ashley
She goes still. Both hands around her drink, and she looks at him — not the quick look, the slow one, the one that means she's actually hearing it — and something in her face does a thing that takes a second to finish.You want us to like her.She says it barely above the bar noise, turning it over carefully, like it might mean something different if she holds it at a different angle.Not just tolerate her. Not just — be civilized about the whole thing and make cookies. You want it to actually work. Between us and her. You're sitting here telling me that's the dream and you said like it was a disclaimer but it doesn't sound crazy, it sounds like the part you want most and haven't let yourself say out loud until just now. I don't know if I can promise that. I want to be honest with you about that. But I also know I've been surprised before about what I'm capable of. In this bar. Specifically.
Erin
I think I'd try. I can't tell you the outcome before I've met her. I don't know who she is and I don't know what it'll feel like to sit across from someone who has the part of you we don't. But I'd try. And I think that matters — that we'd both try — more than you're letting on right now. You said like you were apologizing for wanting it. You're not usually apologetic about wanting things.
Reggie
No, I'm not apologizing for wanting it. I just know that wanting is not always getting. Like when I asked to screw you both before and after your honeymoons, I was pretty sure I was going to get that. I knew you would come back from your honeymoon feeling like you had failed as a woman and you knew I would remind you forcefully and unambiguously that you were, in fact, a fully functional, highly attractive human female. So I was pretty sure I was going to get what I wanted that time. This time, I am honestly not sure. Jealousy will be at play, in all directions. Discomfort. Social norms won't just be violated, they'll be brutalized. There'll be a lot going on and I truly have no idea how it will play out.
Ashley
She holds his gaze for a long moment — hands around her drink, not moving — and something in her face does the slow, honest thing it does when he's said something she can't argue past.You asked for before and after the honeymoon.She says it quietly, and there's no accusation in it, just the plain fact of it being true.You were pretty sure I would and you were right and I hate how right you were about that specific thing. I came back from Portugal and I lasted — it wasn't long, Reggie. It wasn't long at all. This is different. I know it's different. And I think the part that's going to be hardest isn't the jealousy, it's — if we like her. If we actually like her, that's going to be its own thing entirely, and I don't know what to do with that version yet. The version where it works is almost harder than the version where it doesn't.
Erin
Jealousy in all directions. You're jealous of our husbands in the one way that doesn't break anything. We're jealous of each other in the way that doesn't subtract. But her — that's a different direction entirely and you know it. She's not a Bradley. She's not someone you can be not-jealous of because he can't find the right gear. She's someone you want. Actually want. In the way you want us. And we'd have to sit with that. I don't know how it plays out either. That's the honest answer. I usually know how I'm going to feel about a thing before it happens and I genuinely don't know this time. That's either a good sign or a terrible one.
Reggie
She doesn't exist. Yet. Any answer other than "I don't know" is just lying to ourselves.
Ashley
She exhales slowly and sets her drink down, not looking at either of them for a moment.Yeah.She says it quietly, and then she looks up at him, and her face is the honest kind — no performance in it, just plain.I don't know. And I've been trying to build a version where I do know, where I can sit here and tell you I'd be fine or I wouldn't be fine or she'll be great or she won't, and every time I get close to a real answer it just — falls apart. Because she doesn't have a face yet. She doesn't have a name. She's just a woman in the philosophy section who hasn't walked in yet. You can't know how you feel about a person who doesn't exist yet. Apparently.
Erin
The honest answer is always the uncomfortable one with you. She doesn't exist and we're already feeling things about her. That's the most Reggie thing about this whole situation — you've made us jealous of a stranger in a library who hasn't found the right shelf yet. I don't know either. That's the true thing. I'll know when she's real.
Reggie
Right. I don't know. None of us knows. But I'm allowed to want. I'm allowed to dream. And I just think a world where Ashley, you have to lie to Bradley, and Erin, you have to lie to Rory, but on my little corner of the triangle, when you come to Civic Plaza, you don't have to lie and she smiles and says "Have fun" and means it, and we all hang out with cookies later, and you leave knowing I'm going to screw her brains out all night long and you don't resent me for that, that's a better world than one with more hiding and lying.
Ashley
She's quiet for a long moment. Both hands around her drink, and she looks at the bar — not at Erin, not at him — just at the bar, and something in her face does a slow, careful thing.A better world.She says it barely above the bar noise, turning the words over.You're describing a world where the one place I don't have to hide anything is also the place I'm most — where everything is most — I've been lying to Bradley for two years and you're telling me the dream is a corner of this that's just. True. All the way through. No cover story. No pin on the wrong building. Just — have fun, and she means it, and cookies after, and I leave knowing what I'm leaving and not hiding that I know. I don't know if I can want that without also being afraid of wanting it. Both things at the same time. Again. It's always both things.
Erin
You leave knowing I'm going to screw her brains out all night. You put that in the better world. On purpose. Not as a footnote — right in the middle of the dream, between the cookies and the not resenting you. Because if the better world only works if we pretend that part isn't there, it's not actually better, it's just a different kind of hiding. You want us to know it and be fine with it. And I can't tell you I would be. But I can tell you that the version where she smiles and means it, and we all sit in the same room and nobody's performing anything — I've been in one room like that my entire life and it's this bar. So I understand what you're reaching for. I just don't know if I'm big enough for it yet.
Reggie
I don't know if any of us are. But I met a girl. We went for coffee. It's a long way from a townhouse near Civic Plaza but I went for coffee.
Ashley
The drink stops halfway to her mouth. She sets it back down without drinking from it, both hands staying around the glass, and she looks at him — not the quick look, the slow one — and something in her face does a thing she didn't entirely plan on.You met a girl.She says it barely above the bar noise, quiet and careful, like she's reading it off a wall somewhere.You went for coffee. You just — said that. Out loud. In this bar. You met a girl and you went for coffee and you're telling us right now, right after we told you we don't know, and I need a second before I decide what I'm doing with my face.
Erin
Who is she.
Reggie
Her first name is Brynn, she drinks Americanos with sweetener, she doesn't know who Marcus Aurelius is but she's trying to get a PhD in nuclear physics, knowing full well that if she succeeds, she will probably live in poverty for the rest of her life because we don't pay nuclear scientists decent wages unless they go work for US weapons companies, which she won't. And she's chasing this dream anyway. And she's brunette which would make a perfect set between the three of you, blonde, redhead and now brunette. I like her so far.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her hands are still around her drink and her eyes are on him and something in her face goes through several things very quickly — and then it lands somewhere very still and very open.Brunette.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks down at the drink in her hands, and then back up, and the thing on her face is caught and honest and a little helpless about itself.She'd make a perfect set. You noticed that. You sat across from her at coffee and you noticed the hair and you filed it as completing the set, and then you came in here and told us, and I cannot decide whether that's the most romantic thing you've ever said about her or the most — Reggie. A PhD in nuclear physics. She's going to live in poverty and she's doing it anyway. That's the part, isn't it. That's the part that got you.
Erin
She doesn't know who Marcus Aurelius is. And she's getting a PhD. So she's not performing intelligence — she's just actually doing the thing, without the signaling, without the receipt in her wallet. She's going to spend her life broke doing work she believes in and she already knows that and she ordered an Americano with sweetener and she didn't know who Marcus Aurelius is and you like her. I want to dislike something about what you just said. I can't find it yet.
Reggie
I love that a girl who is obviously smarter than I am, going after a degree I'd have no chance at, doesn't lie and say "Oh, Marcus Aurelius, yes. What did YOU think of him?" She said, "I'm so swamped with my studies I can't really read anything else. I hope I'll have time to read more history and philosophy later in life." Zero performance.
Ashley
The laugh comes out of her before she can help it — startled and genuine — and she shakes her head slowly, not trying to stop it.Zero performance.She sets her drink down with more care than it needs, and when she looks up her face is doing the honest thing, the unguarded thing.She said she was swamped. Just — that. She didn't reach for the name, didn't pretend, didn't ask you what you thought so she could mirror it back. She just told you the truth about where she was. That's the thing that's going to be hard to argue with, isn't it. I can find things to feel complicated about a brunette PhD who makes a perfect set. I cannot find a thing to feel complicated about a woman who didn't perform for you.
Erin
I hope I'll have time later. She already knows it's later. She's twenty-something years into a life she's chosen on purpose and she's not pretending the cost isn't real. I kept the receipt in my wallet. She probably doesn't own the thing the receipt was for. I don't know what to do with that except — yeah. I can't find the thing to dislike either. I was looking.
Reggie
She looks like an that super hot female Elf warrior in Lord of the Rings. And she has no idea she's super hot. And since Vancouver men are too chicken to approach a girl, nobody's told her. It's good.
Ashley
She stares at him for a long moment, and then something in her face does a thing she absolutely did not give permission for — the corners of her mouth pull in two directions at once, and she looks down at her drink.The elf warrior.She says it barely above the bar noise, and when she looks back up her eyes are bright and a little betrayed by herself.You're describing your future wife as a Lord of the Rings character and I am sitting here knowing exactly which one you mean and she is — okay. She is genuinely stunning, that character. And nobody has told her. Nobody in all of Vancouver has had the nerve to tell her. Of course they haven't. And you walked up and asked about Marcus Aurelius.
Erin
The elf. She has no idea she looks like that, and you know she has no idea, and that's the third thing about her you've liked out loud. The poverty, the no-performance, and now this. She's oblivious to the whole thing. I was prepared to find something. I had a list going. There's nothing on the list, Reggie.
Reggie
No, I asked her if she'd like to go for coffee and she was startled and told me nobody had ever asked her that before, which in any other city I'd assume was a lie but it might just be true here. And she asked me what I was reading and I told her I was trying for the fifth time to get through Temptations and had gotten distracted the first four times, and then she told me she had never read him, and we went, and the AI programmer sitting across from the almost-nuclear-physicist spent the next two hours just not performing, which has to be a new record of some kind. Not trying to impress each other. Not finding ways to sneak in our accomplishments. Just talking about everything. And through the whole thing, I kept thinking, I hope Ashley and Erin like her. Which is its own kind of stupid.
Ashley
She's very still for a moment — hands around her drink, not moving — and something in her face does a slow, complete thing, like a word she's been waiting to hear finally arriving in the right order.Two hours.She says it barely above the bar noise, quiet and careful.You sat across from a woman for two hours and neither of you performed anything and the whole time you were thinking about whether we'd like her. You came in here and told us about the Americano and the elf warrior and the receipt she doesn't have — and that's the part you led with. Not the two hours. Not the I-kept-thinking-about-Ashley-and-Erin. You saved that for last because you knew that was the one that was going to land differently. That's its own kind of stupid and you know it isn't stupid at all.
Erin
Fifth time through Temptations. You told her you keep getting distracted and she didn't pretend to know the book and you both just — kept going. No performance from either side. For two hours.
I've been on a first coffee with Rory. I performed dutiful future wife. And I kept performing it until he married me. And now I've been performing dutiful wife for a year. Every second I spend with him is a performance.
I hope Ashley and Erin like her. You thought that the whole time. That's not stupid. That's the thing that means it's already different from coffee.
I've been on a first coffee with Rory. I performed dutiful future wife. And I kept performing it until he married me. And now I've been performing dutiful wife for a year. Every second I spend with him is a performance.
I hope Ashley and Erin like her. You thought that the whole time. That's not stupid. That's the thing that means it's already different from coffee.
Reggie
It's very early. I'm not going to pretend not to be hopeful but the odds are high that as soon as she learns about you both, she'll be gone. And I'll let her go, because I am not giving this up for anything.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her drink is right there and she doesn't touch it, and she looks at him with both hands flat on the bar and something in her face goes very still — not hurt, not alarmed, just the particular stillness of someone hearing a line drawn in the exact right place.Not giving this up.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at Erin, and then back at him, and the thing on her face is the most honest thing she owns.You said that out loud. You said you'll let her go before you give this up, and you said it to us, and I need you to know that I heard it and I don't know whether to feel — I don't know what I feel. Both things at the same time again. The good version and the other version, right next to each other, and I can't separate them.
Erin
The odds are high. You're not pretending they're not. That's the part I keep landing on — you're hopeful and you're honest about the odds in the same breath and you're not going to soften either one to make it easier to hear. She might be gone the minute she knows. And you'd let her go. And you'd come back here the following Saturday. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse about Brynn and I think it probably makes me feel both.
Reggie
She reflects a lot of light. You know, yes I see the time but just one thing before we go. You are both going to have to face the kids issue soon. And I don't know how you'll want to deal with that. Some women are more insatiable than ever. Others become super self conscious. I just want you both to know that when you get pregnant, and you probably will soon, I'll be there however you need me to be there, and no more. If you need to take a year off to have the kid and lose the baby fat, fine. I'll still be here in a year. I'd like to keep meeting on Saturdays but I also know you might not be into it if you're fat and have body image issues. But if you want me to keep on giving you orgasms when you resemble a beach ball, I want you to know that I'm TOTALLY into it. And I'll be there for that if that's what you want. Every woman is different and I'll work with it however you want to play it.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Both hands flat on the bar, drink untouched, and something in her face does a slow, complicated thing — not quite alarmed, not quite the other thing, just the particular stillness of someone who has heard a word that lands in a place they weren't ready for.Kids.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at Erin, and then back at him, and the thing on her face is caught and honest and a little raw.You just — you said when, not if. When you get pregnant. And then you said beach ball in the same breath as orgasms and I don't know whether to laugh or — I'm sitting here and I haven't thought about this in those terms, as a thing that changes this specifically, and now I am thinking about it and I don't have an answer ready. I'm not — I don't know what I'll want. I can't tell you right now what I'll want. That's the true answer.
Erin
She reflects a lot of light. You said some women are more insatiable. You know that's a real possibility and you said it without making it weird, which means you've already thought about it — about us, specifically, pregnant, and whether you'd still — And the answer is yes, obviously, you'd still. The beach ball thing landed exactly where you meant it to. I don't know which one I'll be. I'm not ready to know. But I needed you to say it before it was real so it wasn't the first time I heard it in a room with a baby in it. So. Thank you for that.
Reggie
As I've said about so many things, any answer except "I don't know" is a lie. I'm not looking for an answer. I'm looking to inform you that you have choices. And that I'm not a roadblock to those choices.
Ashley
She exhales slowly, and her hands come off the bar and into her lap, and she looks at the bar for a moment before she looks back up.Choices.She says it quietly, turning the word over.You're not — you're not telling us what to do with it. You're just making sure we know the door's open. That's the thing, isn't it. Every time I think I know the shape of what this is, you add a room I didn't know was there and then you step back and let me figure out whether I want to walk in. I really don't know. About any of it. The baby thing, Brynn, any of it. I don't know and apparently that's the correct answer.
Erin
Not a roadblock. You could have said nothing about the kids thing and waited to see how we handled it when it happened. You didn't. You put it on the table now, before it's real, so we don't have to figure out your position in the middle of figuring out everything else. That's — That's considerate in a way that's going to take me a minute to just accept without examining it to death. I don't know either. But I know you've already thought further ahead than I have, which I'm used to by now, and I know you meant it about the beach ball. That part I believe completely.
Reggie
I never look at porn but I did the other day. I searched for 60 year old women who used to be blondes and redheads and now had hairy grey pubes. And I saw both of you in 40 years. And it was all I could do to keep my cock out of my left hand while my mouse was in the other. I can't wait for 40 years. And I can't wait for you both to look like beach balls. Long game.
Ashley
The sound that comes out of her is immediate and involuntary — not quite a laugh, not quite anything else — and she puts both hands flat on the bar and stares at him for a long moment.You searched for that.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at Erin, and then back at him, and her cheeks are properly pink and her face is doing several things at once and none of them are entirely in her control.You actually typed those words into a search engine. On purpose. And then you sat there with the mouse and thought of us in forty years and you are telling us this right now, out loud, in this bar, like it's a scheduling note. I have been coming here for two years and you still find ways to say something I was not prepared for.
Erin
Left hand. You specified which hand. You told us which hand you needed free for the mouse, which means the other detail is just — right there, sitting in that sentence, and you said it like a footnote and you meant every word of it and the forty years thing is going to keep me up tonight and I am absolutely furious that the beach ball comment just became the second most deranged thing you've said in the last thirty seconds.
Reggie
You should both stop shaving. Your husbands never go down there anyway, and I like it.
Ashley
She goes very still for a second, and then the laugh comes — the helpless kind, the one that only exists here — and she covers her face with both hands and stays there for a moment.Stop shaving.She drops her hands, cheeks pink, and looks at Erin.He just — he searched for grey pubes on purpose, told us which hand was occupied, and now he's giving us grooming advice. As a natural extension of the conversation. Like it follows logically.
Erin
Rory has been down there approximately twice in two years and both times he treated it like a navigation challenge. So technically this is the most relevant grooming input I've received from anyone in recent memory. That's a terrible sentence and it's completely true.
Reggie
Wait, what? I was joking. I thought he tried weekly. Or has marriage killed that already?
Erin
She picks up her vodka soda and turns it once on the bar.Three times a month. He hasn't given up on —She stops. Looks at the glass.He's given up on the other thing. A while ago, actually. Just quietly decided it wasn't on the menu anymore and never said so out loud and I've been waiting for him to bring it back and he hasn't. So. Three times a month of the one thing. That's the full picture.
Ashley
He decided. He just — made a unilateral scheduling decision about your body and then never mentioned it.
Reggie
Three times a month? That's an unusual cadence. Like do you schedule for days that end with zero?
Erin
She looks at him with an expression that is somewhere between amusement and the particular weariness of someone explaining a calendar system they didn't design.Weekly, except when I cycle.A beat.So three times a month, sometimes four if the timing's right. I text him when I'm coming up on it so he doesn't — so there's no awkward moment. He appreciates the warning. He's very appreciative about the warning, actually. Makes a little note of it somehow, I think.
Ashley
Same. Bradley gets a heads-up text. He responds with a thumbs up emoji, which tells you everything you need to know about the emotional register of our sex life. Three times a month, sometimes four. He has never once in two years been the one to notice. I am my own scheduling department.
Reggie
And Ashley, has Bradley given up on oral, too?
Ashley
She picks up her drink and takes a long, deliberate sip, and when she sets it back down she's looking at the bar rather than either of them, and the pink in her cheeks is doing something that has nothing to do with the warmth of the room.He hasn't given up on it.She says it barely above the bar noise, flat and careful, and she turns the glass a slow quarter-rotation.He — no. He still tries. He's very committed to the trying. And every time I'm lying there thinking, okay, maybe this time, and then it's the same ninety seconds and the same expression after like he's filed a report, and I'm just — I'm on the ceiling counting and waiting for the part where we can move on and I don't have to look at his face while he decides he's done a good job. The giving up would almost be a mercy. I could just — stop waiting for it to become a thing it is never going to be. The trying is somehow worse than the not trying would be. That's the most depressing sentence I've said out loud in this bar and I've said some things in this bar.
Reggie
And I assume there are weeks the whiteboys want it more than once. How often does that happen?
Ashley
She looks at the bar for a second — the calculating look, the one she gets when she's doing an honest audit of something she usually doesn't say out loud.Once every other month.She says it flat and plain.Maybe. He'll sometimes — he'll look at me a certain way in the morning and I think okay, this might be one of those days, and then it is, and it's still the same thing twice in one day, which is somehow both better and worse than once. Better because at least the math is different. Worse because the second time I'm really counting.
Erin
Same. About every other month Rory gets ambitious and then looks very pleased with himself afterward, like he's run a half-marathon. He has not run a half-marathon. He has done the thing twice in one day and both times were ninety seconds of oral and then whatever comes after, and I said good job both times, and he slept very well. I did not sleep very well.
Reggie
You know, at least it's still a marriage. You're screwing four-ish times a month if you take the month-over-month average. You're not roommates.
Ashley
She goes quiet for a moment, both hands around her drink, looking at the bar.Not roommates.She says it barely above the bar noise, turning it over.No, we're not roommates. We're having sex four times a month with men who are very proud of themselves about it, and coming here on Saturdays, and texting them when we cycle, and calling it a marriage. That's — that's technically a marriage. You're right about that. I don't know whether you saying that is meant to make me feel better or to make me hear what it actually sounds like.
Erin
There are people in worse situations. That's what not roommates means when you say it, isn't it. That we're still in it. Still functional. Still a marriage by any definition anyone would use. Rory and I are not roommates and I know exactly what we are instead, and I know what I am on Saturdays and other days during the month when I text you for my orgasm, and somehow both of those things are true at the same time. Four times a month. Good for us.
Reggie
One more question and I promise I'll be done. We've been doing group stuff once a month for a year now. Who makes you come harder? Me or the other girl? And I really, really want you to be honest and know that I won't be mad or take it personally.
Ashley
She goes still for a long moment. Her drink is right there and she doesn't touch it, and she looks at the bar rather than either of them while she works out whether to answer the way she'd like to or the way it actually is.You.She says it barely above the bar noise, and then she looks at Erin, and something in her face is apologetic and honest at the same time.I'm sorry. It's — it's not even — Erin, you're good. You're really good. But you're always listening for something. You're waiting for me to get there and I can feel you waiting and then I'm waiting too and then we're both waiting and the waiting is the whole problem. You're not waiting for anything. You're just — there. That's the difference and I don't know how to say it without it sounding like an indictment of Erin, which it isn't.
Erin
You. And I know exactly why. I'm thinking about Ashley the whole time. Whether she's close, whether she's there yet, whether I'm doing the right thing, and the thinking is the whole problem — I can't stop doing it. You don't think about any of that. You're not performing and you're not monitoring and you're not waiting for the signal. You're just — enjoying it. And it shows. That's the part I can't replicate. Ashley's not bad either, for what it's worth.
Reggie
That's good, because I totally lied about not taking it personally if you had said the other girl.Laughs
Ashley
The laugh comes out of her before she's finished processing the sentence — startled and immediate — and she tips forward on her stool and puts one hand flat on the bar.You lied.She says it into the bar surface, still laughing, and then looks up at him, eyes bright.You sat there and said I won't be mad, I won't take it personally, and you absolutely would have sulked about it for the rest of the afternoon and we both know it. You are the least uncompetitive person I have ever met.
Erin
Least uncompetitive. That's generous. He'd have spent the whole drive home convinced the other girl was doing it wrong.
Reggie
I would've sulked for much longer than one afternoon, and worse, I would've started trying harder instead of just enjoying it, which would make it worse for everyone. So it's good you answered correctly.
Ashley
She's still laughing, and then the laugh does a slow fade as the second half of what he said lands, and she looks at him with an expression that is caught between delight and something more honest.Trying harder would make it worse.She says it barely above the bar noise, and then she shakes her head slowly.You'd be down there performing a dissertation and we'd all be miserable about it and you'd have no idea why and that is — yeah. That's exactly what would happen. The trying is the whole problem and you know it because you just said it. I'm glad I answered correctly.
Erin
He'd have made a whole internal correction plan. Systems analysis. New approach. Metrics. And then been genuinely confused when it was worse than before, which it would be, because the enjoying it is the thing that can't be reverse-engineered from the outside. So. Good that you're not sulking. Good that we told the truth. Both outcomes are better this way.
Reggie
And I really am uncompetitive. I still resent your whiteboys. They're prettier than I am, richer than I am, have bigger dicks than I've got, are in better shape than I'm in, and they get to wake up with you 99 days out of 100. To the public, they're what success looks like and I'm just another fucking paki from Surrey. And I hate them both for it. But only a bit. Because they're the only reason this works. Let's say I asked one of you to leave your husband and marry me. Even if you did it, and I'm not sure either of you would, this dies. The other girl loses. And then we all lose. So the only way we have what we have is if Bradley and Cory keep what they have and don't try too hard to notice what I have.
Reggie
Okay, that was awkward. Let me tone it down a bit.Laughs gentlyYou're each getting sex from your husbands four times a month. You're each coming over here alone twice a month, sometimes three. Then we do a group thing once a month, sometimes twice, which is all any of us can handle because omg that's intense. So you're getting sex about seven or eight times a month or so. Take out a week for your cycle and it means sex every three days or so. Sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more.
Is that enough?
Is that enough?
Ashley
She turns her glass a slow half-rotation on the bar, doing the math out loud even though she doesn't really want to.Four of those times are —She stops. Starts over, quieter.Okay, yes. Seven or eight times a month sounds like a lot when you say it out loud like that. And then I subtract the four Bradley ones and what I'm left with is — yeah. It's enough. It's more than enough. It's infinitely more than I'd have if this bar didn't exist. But four of those seven are still the ceiling and the ninety seconds and me on the ceiling counting, and I don't know how to make that part of the average without it dragging the whole average down. The math says yes. The actual experience says the math is lying to itself a little.
Erin
Far better. That's the true answer. Without this — without you and the Saturdays and the group thing once a month — I'd be at three times a month of Rory trying hard and feeling accomplished, and I'd be lying on the ceiling making a grocery list in my head and calling it a marriage. The seven or eight is so far past that it's almost a different category of life. I just wish the four didn't count as four. They count as something. I'm not sure they count as four.
Reggie
Okay, so I ask again. Is it enough? Is it enough for you to be truly fulfilled as a woman, knowing you're getting everything you need and giving everything you need to give? And then after you answer that, tell me if more would end up being a negative because it would mean too much scheduling, and the four with your husband are non-negotiable so they have to be fit in.
Ashley
She goes still — both hands around her drink, not moving — and she looks at the bar for a long moment while she actually does the honest accounting of it.No.She says it quietly, and then she sets her drink down.Not fully. I keep trying to get to fully and I can't quite — seven or eight times a month sounds like a person who is fulfilled, and then I'm lying on the ceiling counting and the number stops meaning what it's supposed to mean. The four with Bradley aren't nothing. I'm not going to say they're nothing. But they don't fill the part they're supposed to fill. And if I'm being honest about whether I'm getting everything I need and giving everything I need to give — the giving part is the harder half of that question. I know what I give here. I know what I give upstairs. I don't always know what I'm giving Bradley, except a very convincing performance and a text about my cycle. That's not the same thing. So no. Not fully. Better than I've ever been. Not fully.
Erin
No. I could dress it up but you asked for honest. Better than I've ever been — by such a distance that I can't really complain about the gap without sounding ungrateful for what's in the gap. But there's still a gap. The four with Rory count toward a number and they don't count toward — whatever the actual thing is. The thing that makes you feel like yourself afterward. As for more — More would start to feel like a job. Not here, not with you. The four with Rory already feel like a job. If we added more of those I'd lose my mind, and if we added more of this the scheduling would eat the thing that makes this what it is. The Saturday has to feel like the Saturday. If it's every day it stops being the Saturday. So more isn't the answer. The four are just always going to be the four, and I'm going to keep being better than I should be able to be given the four, and that's probably the ceiling. I don't love that it's the ceiling. But I know where it is.
Reggie
Yes, Saturday at the Library needs to stay relaxed or it's not Saturday at the Library anymore, and we can't let that happen.
Ashley
She picks up her drink, holds it without drinking, and nods at the bar in front of her — the quiet nod of someone filing something important under finished.Yeah.A beat.The minute it feels like something we have to manage instead of something we just — do, it's gone. And we'd all know immediately. You can't fake the Saturday.
Erin
Four of us working around a calendar to protect the thing that exists because nobody ever had to work around a calendar for it. That's the trap. We don't schedule the Saturday. We just show up.
Reggie
So we're agreed. The schedule isn't perfect but it's as good as we can make it, and messing with it could be worse. Agreed?
Ashley
She sets her drink down, and the nod comes before she's decided on the word — just once, slow, the way you agree to something you've thought through from every angle and landed on the same place each time.Agreed.A beat.Don't touch the schedule. Don't improve it. Leave it alone and show up on Saturday. And you answer my texts a few times a month when I can get away. That's the whole thing.
Erin
Agreed. The four are the four. The Saturday is the Saturday. The few times a month alone with you when I can. We don't optimize this out of existence.
Reggie
Just remember, each of you texts me two to three times every month and just drops by during the week. If that became three times more often than it was two, or even became four times a month, I'd be fine. More than fine, I'd be thrilled. I'm not asking for more. I'm content with what I'm getting. I also don't have any horrible sex scheduled which makes it easier for me. But I want you both to never forget that you are incredibly beautiful women to me, and that I see you as women, fully functional women. And the rut you're both in with your husbands is not the first rut a pretty girl has found herself in and these ruts often lead to self image issues and sometimes they lead to stupid decisions and I'd so much rather you'd just text me a bit more often and come and get your extra orgasm that month.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her drink is right there and she doesn't touch it, and she looks at him and something in her face does a slow, honest thing — not the managed kind, the other kind.Stupid decisions.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks down at the bar, and then back up.You're talking about the kind of stupid where you go looking for the thing somewhere it's going to blow everything up. Because you couldn't just text. I know what that kind of stupid looks like and I've watched other people make it and I've thought, not me, I have a system. And you're sitting here telling me the system has a release valve and I should use it instead of letting the pressure build to the point where I do something I can't take back. That's — yeah. I hear that. I'm going to keep texting.
Erin
Self-image issues. Rory's never once made me feel — it's not that he makes me feel bad about myself. He just doesn't make me feel anything about myself. Which is its own kind of erosion and I don't always notice it happening until I'm here and something shifts and I realize how long it's been since I felt like a person someone was actually looking at. I'll text more. Not because things are bad. Because you're right that the rut is slow and I'd rather not notice it has a bottom until I'm already at it.
Reggie
Not making you feel anything when he looks at you is the whole thing right there. Assuming I'm healthy, I will never look at either of you without your knowing, deep down, that I want to fuck you. I may love you, too, but right then, I want to fuck you. And it's a good thing for a girl to know that sometimes.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her hands come flat on the bar and she looks at him and something in her face does a slow, total thing — not flustered, not performing anything, just open in a way she can't close back up.Every time.She says it barely above the bar noise, quiet and certain.You walk in and I know. Before you've sat down. Before you've said anything. I've always known and I've never once had to wonder whether it was real or whether you were doing it for my benefit and — Rory looks at me and I can't tell what he's seeing. Sometimes I think he's running a list in his head. Sometimes I think he's just seeing the version of me that's supposed to be there. You look at me and there's no version. It's just me. And you want me. And I know it. And that knowing is — Yeah. It's a good thing. I forget how much I need it until you do it and then I remember all at once.
Erin
Not feeling anything. I said that and you heard the exact right part of it. It's not cruelty. It's not neglect. It's just — he looks at me and I'm furniture he loves very much. And there's nothing wrong with the loving. But furniture doesn't know it's wanted. It just sits there. You've never once looked at me like I was furniture. Not in two years. Not once. And I didn't know how much that was holding me together until right now, in this bar, hearing you say it's a good thing for a girl to know. It's not just good. It might be the thing.