Brynn
Everyone just sits there after ordering coffee for a minute.I told Reggie we needed some girl time and now I have no idea what to say.
Tanya
She wraps both hands around her coffee cup and looks at the table for a moment.Me neither.A small pause.I thought I'd have a whole list of things by Wednesday. I've had four days and I keep starting sentences and stopping them.
Kayla
I keep starting them in my head and then Cody walks into the room and I just — stop. Is that how it is for you or is it different because of — because it's Reggie specifically.
Brynn
It's different. My fear is losing him and going back to what I had, because what I had is all I'm going to find in Granbury. I assume your fears are different.
Tanya
She turns her cup once in her hands.Mine is different.A pause.My fear is knowing the distance is real and not being able to unfeel it. Wade didn't create the distance. I don't even think he knows it's there. And now I know the name for it and I can't — I can't put that back in a box and close the lid. That's what I keep stopping on.
Kayla
Mine is that Cody's going to sense something shifted and not be able to name it, and I'm going to spend the next year watching him almost ask me and never quite asking. Because I can't lie to him if he asks directly. You both know I can't. So I'm sort of just — hoping he never finds the exact words. That's a terrible thing to be hoping for and I know it.
Brynn
You've already lied to him when he asked to your face. You said one. Both of you did. And when their marriage is at stake, honest women find their capacity to lie is much greater than they had thought. I know I did when I was married.
Kayla
She goes very still for a second.You're right.Quietly.I said one. He asked me directly and I said one and I meant it to land like the truth and it did. And I don't — I don't feel as bad about it as I thought I would. That's the part I keep sitting with. That I looked at my husband and I lied and I felt like I was protecting something, not destroying it.
Tanya
Same. I told myself before Saturday that if Wade asked directly I would tell him. I had decided that. And then he asked and I said once and it came out smooth and clean and I just — let it stand. I think I've been lying to protect him for longer than Saturday. Just not about anything I had a name for yet.
Brynn
For whatever it's worth, I think you made the right decisions. How many was it really? Two? Three?
Tanya
She looks at Brynn for a moment.Three.Quietly.All three were — not the same. The second one was — Three.
Kayla
Three. And I said one to Cody's face. One. While sitting in the same room as Reggie and trying not to look at either of them.
Brynn
The second one. Yes. I know the second one. The first one is amazing. The third one is almost painful. You don't think you can and then you do and you can't walk. The second one is just...you don't know you're capable of feeling that much until the second one.
Tanya
She closes her eyes for just a second.Yes.She says the word and then doesn't add anything to it for a long moment.That's exactly it. You don't know there's a ceiling until the second one moves it. And then you're just — somewhere you didn't know existed. And then there's a third one and your body does it before your brain has any say in the matter. I keep thinking about the afterward. The being held. That was — I wasn't prepared for that part to matter as much as it did.
Kayla
I thought I was going to cry during the second one. Not — not sad crying. Just. Too much. All at once. Like my body didn't have another category for it so it went to the closest one. And the third one I don't — I genuinely don't have a word for the third one. I have the memory of it but the words aren't there.
Brynn
He fucking held you both? God, he didn't save anything for me.Laughs but it's not convincing.
Tanya
She puts her cup down very carefully.He held me for a long time after the third one. I don't — I don't know how long. Long enough that I stopped counting.A pause.I'm sorry. I know that's not what you wanted to hear.
Brynn
Worse but it's my own fault. I set all kinds of boundaries and rules at first. My divorce from David had just finalized and I was just totally paranoid about letting a man get too close. Especially, the way Reggie looks and God knows I don't mean that in the wrong way. I love how he looks. I sleep with him. But he's like the total opposite of David, who looks like Wade and Cody, and I just knew everyone in town would say "rebound" and I have lived here all my life and didn't want the gossip from people I've known all my life. And now I find out he's...him. And I wish I could hit undo on a lot of things.
Tanya
She's quiet for a long moment.The undo part.She sets her cup down.I keep thinking about that too. Not the same things you'd undo, but — the reflexes we build to protect ourselves are always a little wrong. By the time you know which ones to keep, you've already run them for a year. He doesn't look like David and he doesn't act like David and the town was going to say rebound no matter what you did. That's just the tax on being divorced here.
Do you love him, Brynn?
Brynn
Yes, but I haven't told him. He keeps throwing my own words from a few months ago back at me and I don't know how to not make it sound like I was ashamed of him. Which I suppose I was in a way, or at least ashamed of what people would think. I asked him what it would take for him to take me more seriously and he just said, "time."
Kayla
She sets her coffee cup down slowly.Time.She says it quietly, turning it over.He didn't say never. He didn't say he doesn't feel it back. He said time. That's not nothing, Brynn. That's actually the opposite of nothing.
Brynn
He also told me he really enjoyed sleeping with you both and he hopes he can do it again, with less of an experiment vibe and more, let's just enjoy a day together. He said he even sort of promised that to you, Tanya. Or said he'd enjoy it or whatever. So now, entirely through my own fault every step of the way, I love a guy who has screwed my two best friends while we were together, and hopes to do it again. And don't even pretend you both won't do it if it won't blow up your marriages.
Kayla
I won't pretend. I might even do it if it did.
Tanya
She picks up her cup and sets it back down without drinking from it.I would do it again. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I wouldn't. And I heard what Kayla just said and I'm not going to dress mine up differently just because it's quieter. The answer is the same.
But I want to say something to you that I need you to actually hear. None of that happened through your fault. I know that's what you said. I know you believe it. But the rules you made at the library were not you failing him. They were you not being destroyed a second time. Those are different things. And he knew that. He knew that every Saturday and he showed up anyway.
But I want to say something to you that I need you to actually hear. None of that happened through your fault. I know that's what you said. I know you believe it. But the rules you made at the library were not you failing him. They were you not being destroyed a second time. Those are different things. And he knew that. He knew that every Saturday and he showed up anyway.
Brynn
I know. And I don't regret setting boundaries at first. I could not have known. All I have known is Granbury men, and it's not even that. It's not like all Vancouver men are Reggie. He is who he is, and it resonates with the three of us. And probably right now, his exes are wishing they had David. But the three of us...he resonates with us.
Kayla
And probably his exes really do want David. Or whoever their version of David is. I keep thinking about that part. That it's not universal. That we're not just — women who finally found out the truth that everyone should know. It's more specific than that. He fits something in us particularly. That's stranger and more interesting than him just being objectively better at everything. It also makes it more complicated for you. Because if it were universal you could just be angry at the whole situation. But it's not.
Brynn
I know several girls who would simply rather a guy not go down on them at all. They find it embarrassing and invasive. And one of them I talked to at the library the other day told me flat out, if that means she's missing out on orgasms, she'll happily take that deal. She wants David. He's tall, blonde and Granbury-man-sexy.
Tanya
That's the part that makes the taxonomy real, honestly. Not a hierarchy. Just — different fits for different people. Your friend at the library knows what she wants and she's not missing something she doesn't know is there. We can't say the same thing anymore. That's the actual difference between her and us. Not that we're right and she's wrong. Just that we know something now and she doesn't need to.
Brynn
No, honestly, I think it's even clearer than that. She DOES know the thing. I mean, she probably hasn't had the experience. But she knows clearly there's an intense, shuddering orgasm there at the end of the rainbow. I told her that. I told her it was unlike anything I had ever imagined in my 27 years and 2 years of marriage. And she didn't care. She said, if the price is to have a guy's face down there, she wasn't interested. So we don't know something that she doesn't need to know, she knows and she's rejecting it.
Tanya
She sits with that for a moment.That changes it. I was giving her the benefit of not knowing. But she knows. She weighed it and said no. That's not the same thing at all. It's harder to feel like we found something if the finding was always available and some people just — don't want it.
Brynn
You know the first time I gushed on his face, I was totally horrified and ashamed, and I started apologizing and then I looked down and he's got this huge grin on his face like he was licking a butterscotch sundae. And now, the fact that he's turned on by my...stuff that most guys find gross...that's almost more of a turn on than the orgasms. And she...finds it nasty to think about.
Tanya
She's very still for a second.The grin. Yes. He does that. Like he's exactly where he intended to be and isn't embarrassed about any part of it. I didn't know that was something a man could just — be. Without it being a performance. I think that might be what she's actually refusing. Not the mechanics. The being looked at like that. Like you're the whole point of it.
Brynn
So the bottom line is that there is some percentage of women who, hearing and knowing all the facts, would prefer Reggie. And there's another percentage that would take what we all once had and you two still have. And honestly, I actually think the percentage that would take David, all things considered, is probably higher. I just don't think American women value their own sexual pleasure more than they value appearances and the jealousy of their friends.
Kayla
I think the jealousy part is the one I can't quite get past though. You said it and I felt it land somewhere specific. The idea that what a woman wants her friends to feel when they look at her husband is — part of the want. Like, some of what we want from a man is actually what other women think of him. And Reggie would never win that version of the contest and he probably knows it. Does he know it?
Brynn
I know that Reggie knows it. He has gone on at length in both of your homes about how Granbury women want blonde, blue-eyed, tall white guys. And he says it without resentment. He even defends them. He said to me, Brynn, if you take me home one day to meet your parents, there's a conversation you need to have with them before the meeting. You know it and I know it. They may be fine with it or not, but it's not just a no-brainer. There's going to have to be a conversation. But if you bring home a tall white guy, doesn't even matter if he's blonde, you introduce him at the meeting. That's not nothing. And he's right. I'd have to have that conversation.
Tanya
She's quiet for a long moment after that.The conversation before the meeting.She says it slowly, turning it over.He's right. That's not a small thing to name out loud. Most men in his position would either pretend the conversation isn't necessary or resent that it is. He just — put it on the table. As information. Not a grievance.
Brynn
But ok, my friends won't be jealous. They'll be intrigued and not disgusted, but not jealous either. And my parents...would need to be managed. And some of my acquaintances that I've made by living here all my life...they'll go quiet. And I would accept all of that if he would just dance with me by the lake again tonight. And buy me an ice cream cone after and tell me how he'd like to take me to Bolivia this summer because he's never been there and wants to go and he can't think of anyone he'd rather be with. And no guy in Granbury, Texas or its surroundings has ever uttered those words to anyone.
Tanya
She lets that sit in the air for a moment — the lake, the ice cream cone, Bolivia.The Bolivia part. No one here talks like that. Not because they're incurious or unkind. Just because nobody's ever been there. Nobody's built a life that makes Bolivia a natural next sentence. And you said it like it's the most ordinary want in the world, which for him it probably is. I don't know whether to be glad for you or heartbroken for you and I think it might be both at the same time.
Your friends won't be jealous. You said that and I believe you. But I think what you're actually describing is lonelier than jealousy, Brynn. Intrigued is people seeing something they don't have a category for. Jealousy at least means they recognize what you have. Intrigued means you're explaining yourself indefinitely to people who love you and still can't quite see it. I don't think he doesn't know that cost either. I think he named the conversation-before-the-meeting precisely because he's already counted it.
Brynn
It would be lonely...if it was in Granbury. I'm starting to wonder if 27 years here is enough, honestly. And if you're wondering where I'm thinking of moving, ask me after Reggie gets his next contract.
Kayla
After Reggie gets his next contract. So you're not — you're not following him. You're not asking him to take you. You're just waiting to see which direction he points and deciding whether that direction could be yours. That's the most careful thing I've ever heard someone say about being in love with a person. It's also a little devastating.
Brynn
No, I'm asking him to take me.LaughsBut I'm not above your way. I don't know. I'm just talking shit, honestly. I'm heartbroken that through a series of totally understandable and defensible choices I made, I have pushed a man far enough away that he's screwed my friends, invites me to date other men, and refuses the word girlfriend.
Tanya
She holds very still for a second after the laugh.You said I'm just talking shit. You said it like it was nothing. But before that you said asking him to take you and you laughed, and I want you to notice which thing you did first. Because it wasn't the laugh.
He refused girlfriend because you asked him to. He invited you to date other men because you told him at a library that you weren't looking for anyone. He slept with us because you said not forbidden. You built all of that, Brynn. Every piece of it had your hands on it. Which means you're also the one who could take it apart.
Brynn
No way can I take it apart. You know him. Would he respect a woman who just reversed all of the major decisions she made in the last few months? He'd think "flake" and treat me like a hookup until his contract was over.
Tanya
She looks at Brynn for a long moment.You're describing a version of him that none of us has met. The man who showed up at the library and didn't correct us about the apartment for three weeks — who sat in Wade's living room and said the best time in years and then immediately tried to staple a disclaimer to the back of it — that man is not sitting somewhere waiting to file you under flake. He knows every rule you made. He watched you make them. He came back every Saturday anyway.
And reversing decisions isn't the same as being a flake. Flake is someone who changes her mind because the wind changed. You'd be changing your mind because you know something now that you didn't know in September. Those are not the same woman and I think he would see the difference in about thirty seconds.
Brynn
I'm not convinced but let's set it aside. I want to ask you both something clearly, and get a clear answer. First I'm going to tell you my understanding of your situations, and you can correct me. As I see it, neither of you wants to divorce your husband. You're both happy. You've found a source of a different sort of pleasure, and you like it, and may even be already a bit addicted to it, but as I understand things, your ideal is to enjoy it occasionally without burning down your lives. Am I correct?
Tanya
She wraps her hand around her cup.That's accurate. That's — yes. That's where I am. I'm not confused about Wade. I'm not confused about my marriage. I'm confused about whether it's possible to have the one without the other burning the other down, and whether wanting to try makes me a bad person, and I keep not landing on an answer to either of those things. But the diagnosis itself. Yes. That's right.
Brynn
Ok, I'm going to go on. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. Your husbands are both super modern, and they get off on you both sleeping with other men, which is unconventional but not at all unheard of. It's actually quite common. But from what I can tell, you haven't been...promiscuous about it. It's just been each other's husband and Reggie so far. So the body counts are presumably still quite low, or at least not growing fast. Am I close?
Tanya
She pauses on the word promiscuous.Close enough. Wade got off on the idea of it before — with Cody and Kayla, that part held up the way he expected. This time the number changed something for him, like he said. So I'm not sure he's as settled in it as he was when he proposed it. But functionally — yes. Cody's the only other man I've been with, and that was two times, and it was organized and contained and we all sat in the same room after. Reggie is the second person outside my marriage. That's the whole list.
Kayla
Same. Tanya's the only woman Cody's been with outside our marriage and Wade was the only man for me before Saturday. So the count is — it's small. Very small. And it's all been inside this group. Which I think matters. It's not anonymous. It's not apps or strangers or things nobody knows about. Everyone in the room knows. That feels different to me than what the word promiscuous usually points at.
Brynn
Okay, that's a big deal to me. If you both were being huge sluts, I'd want no part of this. But you're not so I'll keep going. Now, is this always reciprocal? Because from what I can tell, it isn't. Like Wade and Cody don't insist on sleeping with one girl for every guy you both sleep with. Neither made a fuss about not getting a girl for letting you both sleep with Reggie. Is that also right?
Tanya
She turns her cup in her hands, slow.Reciprocal.She says the word like she's trying it on.No. It isn't. Not cleanly. The first two times with Cody and Kayla — that was structured as a swap. Wade slept with Kayla. Cody slept with me. Same night. The ledger balanced. But Saturday — Wade put up the swap and Brynn said no, and the swap came off the table, and he still — he still said yes to the other half. And Cody did the same thing with you the following week. Neither of them demanded a replacement. I've been sitting with what that means. I don't think either of them fully knows what it means either.
Kayla
Cody said he was okay with it and I believe he was, mostly, in the moment. But I think the reason it worked is that they both still believe — genuinely believe — that they're the main event. What Reggie does is something else, a different category, so it doesn't feel like competition to them. The ledger doesn't need to balance if you've decided the other column is measuring something completely different. Which may also be why the number hit Wade the way it did. Because an hour starts to feel less like a different category and more like the same one, just longer.
Brynn
Ok, here's where I'm going, and I want your honest feedback. I am reconciled to the idea that you two are going to sleep occasionally with Reggie. Not every week or even every month, but perhaps every two months or whatever, I know there's going to be a day that isn't mine. And believe it or not, I'm getting somewhat reconciled to it. Neither of you wants what I want for more than a short period of time. You want your own marriages. You don't want to blow them up. And like your husbands, that's almost a different category that I don't feel threatened by...much. So I think I could live with it. But I'm going to just be brutally honest here. I have zero interest in ever sleeping with either Wade or Cody. They're just David to me. And I divorced David. And I mean no offense or insult by that. It's also just not where I'm at...I am wired to be with one man. And I'm hoping that's Reggie. Is my refusal going to blow up this...not plan...this idea?
Tanya
She's quiet for a long moment.No.And then she says the rest of it carefully.You not sleeping with Wade and Cody isn't a variable that breaks anything. You were never the reciprocal side of any arrangement they proposed. They wanted Reggie. They got Reggie, or didn't, based on their own wives' answers. You were never the offering on the table that made the math work. So your refusal doesn't undo anything.
Kayla
And the honestly-they're-just-David thing — I'm not offended, I want you to know that. Cody is my Cody and not everyone else's anything. That's fine. That's correct, even. But the one-man part. That's the thing I want to sit with for a second. Because you're not wired wrong and you're not asking for too much. You're just asking for something that has a twenty-month ceiling built into it and that's — that's the actual problem, Brynn. Not the structure of any of this. Not your refusal. Just the number.
Brynn
Tanya, you're wrong. Wade specifically DID ask me to sleep with him in exchange for letting you sleep with Reggie. He accepted the no, which I respect, but he did ask for that. And you both said that reciprocal may not be on the table today but could be tomorrow.
Tanya
She goes still.You're right. I said the swap came off the table because Brynn said no. I didn't say Wade accepted it gracefully and never looked at you again. Those are different things and I flattened them. I'm sorry.
Kayla
So the reciprocal question is still open. It's not closed, it's just — deferred. Until someone finds the right moment or the right arrangement or Brynn changes her answer. That's a thing you're going to have to hold.
Brynn
Okay, I need to just...digest that and I can't do that now. I'll take my time and think about it. But I have one more question. Is this...like...is this a thing you both want to keep doing? Finding guys, screwing them, letting your husbands screw their wives...like some swinger culture thing from the 70s? I'm not judging, just asking honestly.
Tanya
She picks up her coffee cup and then puts it back down without drinking from it.No.Flat, and quicker than she usually answers things.That's not — that's not what this is. Not for me. I'm not looking for a rotation. I'm not looking for the next person or building toward some lifestyle. What happened was one specific thing with one specific person and it happened because of who he is, not because we'd decided to become people who do this. If Reggie weren't here I'd just be — still not knowing the distance had a name.
Brynn
Okay, I can accept that. You're not swingers, you're...open minded with close friends. And I can totally respect that. But I just want to say that, whatever comfort I have with this...idea...it would die if it became a regular thing. Like if every six months, there was a new guy, just one time, just to see, and so on. That crosses the line for me. Not a morality line. Not a respect line. I would totally respect your choices. I'd just not want to be a part of it.
Tanya
She holds Brynn's gaze for a long moment.That's fair. And I don't think you're wrong to name it. I'm not going to tell you there's no risk of that becoming the shape of things, because I don't know yet what the shape is going to be. What I can tell you is that Reggie isn't a test case for a system. He's just — him. And I think if it ever became a system, I'd feel it, and I don't think I'd want to be inside it either.
Brynn
Okay. Good. Thank you.Long pauseI need to ask you one more thing and it's going to sound judgy but it's not. You both lied to your husbands' faces to protect your marriage. Again, I'm not judging. I found myself lying to David a lot as our marriage died so I'm absolutely not better than either of you. Both your husbands are...thinking hard about Reggie and whether he's a threat. My question is simply this: if you have to lie to them to continue to sleep with Reggie, will you? Like, will you let this turn into an affair, hidden from your husband?
Tanya
She doesn't answer immediately. She looks at her coffee cup for a long moment.Probably.A beat, and then she makes herself keep going because probably isn't an answer yet.I know what that sounds like. I know what it costs to say it to you specifically, in this room, after everything we've talked about this morning. But I'm not going to dress it up. If it came to a choice between — never again, and finding a way to make it work without Wade knowing — I think I'd find a way to make it work. Not because he doesn't matter. Because he does. Because I want my marriage and I also know what I know now and I can't un-know it. And if those two things can only live in the same life with one of them hidden, I think I know which one goes in the dark. I hate that that's true. But you asked me for the honest answer and that's the honest answer.
Kayla
I'd like to say no. I genuinely would like to say no. I want to be the person who says no and means it and has it be true all the way down. But I don't know. That's the most honest thing I've got. I don't know what I'd do if the only version left was a hidden version. I'd like to think I'd choose Cody and close the door and that would be that. And I might. I really might. But I've been wrong about what I'd do before — I thought I'd tell him the truth about three and I said one to his face without blinking. So I'm not putting any bets down on who I'll be if that moment comes. I just don't know.
Brynn
How personal can I get? I have a very, very personal question.
Tanya
She looks at Brynn for a moment.After this morning? Go ahead.
Kayla
I think we've established there's no such thing as too personal at this table. Ask.
Brynn
Both of your guys told us that they went down on you after Reggie told them one hour. I think Cody said two minutes but I'm not sure. Wade said something similar. Something about lubrication. My question is this: you lied to them and told them you came, didn't you? Not from the oral, but during that sex. And neither of you came, did you?
Tanya
She holds very still for exactly one second.Yes.Quiet. Clean. And then, after a beat, more of it.He tried. He did — he actually tried, which I want to give him credit for because it wasn't nothing. But two minutes of something is still two minutes. And then he moved on to the rest of it, because that's the architecture, like he said, and I just — I made the sound and let it stand. Because the alternative was explaining something I don't have the energy to explain on a Wednesday night after I've already spent the whole week sitting with Saturday. So yes. I lied. And he believed it. And I felt relieved and terrible in exactly equal amounts.
Kayla
Yes. Cody was — he was trying. He told me after that he'd thought about what Reggie said and wanted to spend more time. And he did. More than usual. And I could feel him being proud of himself for it, which was — it made it harder, honestly. Because he was genuinely trying and it still wasn't — so I said yes, yes I did, and I held onto him and meant every bit of the holding even if I didn't mean the rest of it. I don't know if that counts for anything. But I meant the holding.
Brynn
Thank you for being honest. Except Tanya, you weren't honest at the end. You felt relieved. I'd bet my last dollar you didn't feel terrible. I say that as a girl who faked every orgasm she ever didn't have with her husband. You feel relieved. You don't feel terrible. You're just glad the performance is over and you can go finish in the bathroom.
Tanya
She lets out a breath.Okay. Fine. You're right. I didn't feel terrible. I felt relieved and then I felt nothing and then I went to sleep. The terrible is more of a — morning-after thing. A Wednesday-at-coffee thing. Not a lying-in-the-dark thing. Not in the moment.
Brynn
You know, I never felt terrible. Not after the first month. He couldn't bring me to orgasm if his life depended on it. And when he tried...it was humiliating. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I just wanted it to be over. And when it was over, I didn't have guilt. Not even the next day or later in the week. I just wished he'd just get off and not go through this humiliation ritual of making me feel defective for not coming as he did a jackhammer impersonation between my legs.
Tanya
The defective part.She says it quietly.You thought you were defective. For two years. Because he couldn't — and you were the one who felt like you'd done something wrong. That's not terrible after the fact, Brynn. That's a different category entirely. That's shame that got installed and left running.
Brynn
Yes, you both love your husbands. It's not the same. And that's why I think it's right that you protect your marriages. Even if it means lying.
Tanya
She picks up her cup — actually drinks from it this time, the first real drink she's taken in the last twenty minutes.Yes.She says it once, and lets it settle.You could've made us feel bad about it. You chose not to.
Brynn
So let's talk about what we do now. I don't think you should sleep with Reggie again for a while. That's not me being jealous...much...but it's just...there's no need to give your husbands the idea that you're desperate for what he offers, or he becomes a threat instantly. And I'm going to focus on trying to get Reggie to use the word girlfriend. And that will help us all. It helps me because I want him, and it helps you because he is far less of a threat as my boyfriend than he is as a single man. Do you both agree?
Tanya
She sets her cup down and looks at Brynn for a long moment.The first part. Yes. Not because I'm not going to want to again — I'm not going to pretend that — but because Wade is already sitting with the number and giving him more numbers right now is not the move. That's not strategy. That's just not being careless with something I don't want to lose.
The second part I want to think about carefully before I agree to it out loud.
The second part I want to think about carefully before I agree to it out loud.
Kayla
Agreed. Cody said he'd get there and I believe him but he is not there yet and I am not going to push while he's still sitting with it. That's just — obvious.
The boyfriend part. I want it to work. I genuinely want it for you. But Brynn — you know him. Does he take that word from someone, or does he arrive at it on his own? Because there's a version of you asking where he agrees and doesn't mean it and I think that would be worse than where you are right now.
The boyfriend part. I want it to work. I genuinely want it for you. But Brynn — you know him. Does he take that word from someone, or does he arrive at it on his own? Because there's a version of you asking where he agrees and doesn't mean it and I think that would be worse than where you are right now.
Brynn
You're both right, but I continue to think I'm right that, as long as he's single, both of your husbands will see the threat level as much higher than if he was committed.
Tanya
She turns that over for a moment — the cup in her hands again, not quite still.You're not wrong about the threat calculus. Wade proposed the swap because he was certain of himself. Completely certain. That certainty is what made the whole thing feel safe to him — Reggie was a different category, a different kind of offering, so there was no competition. But the hour changed something in that math. And right now Wade is doing the thing where he thinks harder about things he's already decided. A girlfriend makes Reggie a fixed point. A fixture. Someone who belongs to someone. Right now he's — ambient. And ambient is harder for a man like Wade to file away.
Kayla
Cody would relax. I know he would. Not immediately, but — if Reggie had a label, a clear one, something everyone in the group could point to and say that's his, then the thing Cody's sitting with has somewhere to go. Right now it's just floating. A boyfriend isn't a lesser threat, exactly — but it's a legible one. And legible things are easier to be okay with. So yes. You're right. I think you're right.
Brynn
I'll work on it. And I want you to know that, if you decide to hide things from your husbands, you need not fear me. I will not betray your secrets. I'm not saying you can always trust me to lie for you but in this case, I understand and agree with your reasons. And to be perfectly honest, it's better for me if you're both happily married. Less threat. Same as if Reggie has a girlfriend.
Tanya
The happily married part. That's the version I want too. And I'm going to work on the distance. Not because of Saturday — or not only because of Saturday. Because you gave a name to something this morning that I've been carrying without one, and I think I owe Wade the effort of trying to close it a little. Not to protect the secret. Because I want to. That's a different reason and it matters that it's different.
Kayla
I'm going to talk to Cody. Not about the three. Not about Saturday. But about the thing Tanya said — the choosing, and whether I can feel it. He's going to think he did something wrong and I'm going to have to work very hard to make it clear he didn't. But I want him to know the music is playing. That's all. Just that. And Brynn — I'll work on the girlfriend thing too. Not by asking him. Just by — not making it easy for him to keep the word at arm's length.
Brynn
I wish you both luck with that, but I just want to say, I think Reggie is right. You're trying to make Cartagena into Vancouver and you can't. And you shouldn't. The Wade that goes down on you for an hour is no longer Wade. The Cody that edges you until you can't see straight isn't Cody. Their way of being is who you fell in love with, and to try to change them is a mistake in my opinion. But they're your marriages. I won't stand in your way.
Tanya
She's very still for a moment.You're not wrong.She says it slowly, meaning it all the way down.I keep telling myself there's a middle version. That Wade could just — learn the music without becoming someone else. But that's the thing about Cartagena, isn't it. If you tried to make it quiet, it would stop being Cartagena. You wouldn't get a better Vancouver. You'd just get a ruined Cartagena and a man who doesn't know what he lost.
Kayla
So what do we do with it. The knowing. If we're not going to change them and we're not going to pretend we don't know what we know — where does it go.
Tanya
I think it just — lives there. Inside the marriage. Like any other thing you know about yourself that your husband doesn't need to carry. I knew I hated his mother's pot roast for four years before I said anything and I'll probably take that to my grave too.
Brynn
Okay last question, I promise. Reggie asked me the other day if Wade and Cody...um...did stuff. And let me be clear where I'm coming from. I am a 100% believer that love is love and I don't hate anyone or judge anyone. But Reggie is...not homophobic...he's respectful...but he's not enthusiastic. He's seriously grossed out by men doing it. He will never say anything but I see him turning his head so quickly...and then he asked this and I get why he asked it because they're willing to let other men...and...so I asked.
Tanya
She goes very still for a second.No. They don't. And I want to be precise about that because I think it matters for what Reggie was actually asking. Wade proposed the swap because he wanted me to go somewhere and come back to him. That's the whole architecture of it for him. What happens on the other side of it — another man, specifically — is not part of what he wants for himself. It's actually the opposite of what he wants for himself. The enjoyment is in the knowing I went. Not in going himself. Those are completely different orientations and I think Reggie clocked the first one and is trying to understand if the second one is also in there somewhere.
Brynn
Okay. Clear. One hundred percent clear.PausesAnd you two?
Tanya
She picks up her coffee cup, sets it back down.I think about women sometimes. Not often. And I've never done anything about it. So I don't know what the honest label is for that. I've never felt the need to find one.
Kayla
Yes. I'm not — I've never said that out loud to anyone except Cody. He knows. He's known since before we got married. It's just not a thing I've acted on and I'm not sure it's a thing I need to act on. It's just — true.
Knowing is its own thing. I've known since I was sixteen. It doesn't make me any less married to Cody or any less sure about Cody. It's just — a fact about me. Like knowing I'm left-handed. Is that what you were asking about, or is there a more specific version of the question underneath it?
Brynn
There's no specific question, but I'm not going to lie and tell you that the answer about where to find what you need between Reggie visits may not be somewhere in your answers. And in case you were wondering. I'm where Tanya is. Curious. Interested. Never done anything at all. But it doesn't gross me out.
Kayla
She looks at Brynn for a long second, then at Tanya, then back at her coffee cup.Oh.Soft. Not a question.That's — okay. I want to sit with what you just said for a second because I think it matters that you said it in that order. The Reggie visits part first. And then the curious part. Because that's an interesting sequence.
Tanya
I just don't know what to do with it. I never have. And I don't think today is the day I figure that out. But I appreciate that you said it, Brynn. The not-grossed-out part especially. That's — it helps to know where everyone is standing.
Brynn
It's not a plan. It's information. Right now, you both need to protect your marriages, which have become slightly vulnerable because you both slept with another man. And that sentence is to the credit of your husbands because it would have destroyed most marriages. And I need to figure out how I can get from situationship to something more...just more. And those are our priorities. But if we solve those, well, we'll have new problems that need new solutions.
Tanya
She picks up her coffee cup and holds it.That's exactly right. Information. Not a plan. I want to make sure I heard the distinction. And yes — the husbands part. I've been sitting here all morning thinking about Saturday and what it cost me to know what I know, and I haven't once said out loud that Wade proposed it. That he opened the door. That he trusted something big and then got surprised by the size of what came back through it. That's — that's not a small thing to have done. And I don't want to lose track of it while I'm sitting with everything else.
And the situationship word. I want you to know that whatever the right word is for what you have with him — whatever it becomes — that's the thing I'm most interested in seeing resolved. Not because of the threat math, though you're right about the threat math. Because he tucks you in when you've had a bad day and goes home to nothing and calls it amazing. And you deserve the word for that. You both do. So yes. Those are the priorities. In that order. Yours and ours.