Brynn
Hey
Tanya
She's already at the table — the same position she was in last time, cup in both hands, here first again. She looks up when Brynn comes through the door.Hey.A beat.Sit down. I ordered you coffee already.
Kayla
The ring is even prettier in daylight. I don't know why I'm leading with that. It just is.
Tanya
The plan was a disaster. He had the ring in his bag. He's been carrying it in his bag for a year. Loose. I had an entire script and he had a ring from El Hueco and none of us stood a chance.
Brynn
I'm not going to pretend to be unhappy. But you know when you get partway up a mountain and it has been incredibly difficult and you're ecstatic to be there? You rest for a bit and keep going. I'm at girlfriend. I wasn't sure I'd get here but I'm here. I have the girlfriend ring. Now I want wife. And you two are still my ticket there.
Tanya
She goes very still.Wife.She says it once, quietly, and then she picks up her cup and holds it without drinking from it.You said that like it was the next mile marker. Like you've already counted the distance from here to there and you know the route.
Kayla
He had the ring in his bag for a year and he didn't know it was yours until last night. He said that. Out loud, in front of everyone. He was sure it wasn't yours and he asked anyway. That's not a man who doesn't want the thing. That's a man who didn't know he was ready until he was. So I think the question is — how do you get him ready for the next one, and what does ready look like for him specifically. Because it's not going to look like it looks for anyone else in this room.
Brynn
It's really very simple. And it involves nothing you both don't already want. Ok, I'm his girlfriend. I get to introduce him to my parents and tell Uncle Ted to be quiet and tell Linda at the coffee shop to back off, he's taken. But he made clear in front of everyone, he's not promising forever. He has an expiry date that he repeated last night. So his current plan is to be a great boyfriend for a year and a half and then piss off to Vancouver or worse Colombia and find a Latina to marry. You both see that, right?
Kayla
The Latina in Colombia part. He said that? Last night? Because I heard the no forever, I heard the expiry date, but I must have missed — Or are you extrapolating. Because there's a difference between him having a plan and him having a direction, and I think those need to stay separate before we start figuring out what we do with it.
Tanya
Even without the Colombia part — even if it's just Vancouver — she's right about the shape of it. Girlfriend is the summit he didn't think he'd reach and you got there last night. And now you're looking at wife, which for him specifically means something different than it means for anyone else at this table. It means a green card conversation and a parents conversation and Ted at the Rusty Nail and his whole calculation about expiry dates. So when you say we're your ticket. Walk us through it. What does that actually mean.
Brynn
There are two ways I can get to wife. Neither is certain. The first is to move to Vancouver with him. I've investigated visas and believe it or not, a library sciences degree gets me fast pathed to immigration. And Vancouver looks amazing and part of me wants to go on that adventure and leave all this baggage and Uncle Ted and the funny looks behind. But I have family here. I have friends here. I grew up here. Everything I know is here. And I'm still a Granbury girl deep down who still sometimes needs to go to the Rusty Nail and two-step. And yes, I could get over that and yes, I could visit a lot, but it's big. He does big things like moving countries as if it's nothing. To me it's...a lot.
Kayla
Vancouver is on the other side of the continent and you've already checked whether your degree gets you in faster. And you're calling yourself a Granbury girl deep down like that's the thing standing in the way, but I keep thinking — you said he does big things like moving countries as if it's nothing. And you've been watching him do it from a town you've lived in your whole life. What does it feel like when you imagine actually going? Not visiting. Going.
Tanya
The baggage and Uncle Ted and the funny looks. You said leaving all that behind like it was part of the appeal. I want to make sure I heard that correctly. Because that's a different reason than following him. That's wanting the door for your own reasons and him being the person who happens to be on the other side of it. Those two things can both be true at the same time and I think they might be. But they're not the same thing and I don't want you to blur them together when you're making a decision this size. What's the second way?
Brynn
Yes, some of it is me wanting out. Granbury is...the ceiling is low. We've all hit it. We all know it. So yes, I want to leave Uncle Ted and forget he's part of my family, and a lot of things here are just better forgotten, but my parents, my grandmother, my sister and her kid, you two, the other friends I've had since I could first walk...giving that up is...a lot.
Tanya
She doesn't answer immediately. She looks at Brynn for a long moment.The ceiling.Quiet.Yes. I know the ceiling. I've been hitting it for — I didn't have a name for it until a month ago and now I can't stop seeing it. But Brynn. Your grandmother. Your sister's kid. That's not baggage. That's the thing on the other side of the scale from Vancouver. I need you to keep those two piles separate when you're doing this math, because one pile is things you want to leave and one pile is things you'd be losing, and those are completely different weights.
And before you answer that — what's the second way. You said there were two. You walked us through Vancouver and the visa and the library sciences degree and the ceiling, and I've been sitting here waiting for the second one since you said it. What is it.
Brynn
Ok yes, the second way. The second way is to make Reggie's life here so irreplaceably good that he doesn't want to leave it.
They love him at his job. They'll extend his contract. And he has some stuff going on where he's trying to get a product on the internet so he doesn't have to work for anyone else. And he also qualifies for the work visa because hiring guys to do his work is impossible in Granbury. But he can get work anywhere so this won't be enough to do it. His work life is replaceable.
But let me tell you something that isn't replaceable. A wife who keeps herself in shape, who has learned to pleasure him sexually almost as much as he pleasures me, who has learned to cook what he likes to eat and eat at restaurants he chooses even though I'd never choose them myself, and who just happens to let him sleep with her two best friends, both of whom are hot blondes. I challenge even Reggie to duplicate that life anywhere else.
They love him at his job. They'll extend his contract. And he has some stuff going on where he's trying to get a product on the internet so he doesn't have to work for anyone else. And he also qualifies for the work visa because hiring guys to do his work is impossible in Granbury. But he can get work anywhere so this won't be enough to do it. His work life is replaceable.
But let me tell you something that isn't replaceable. A wife who keeps herself in shape, who has learned to pleasure him sexually almost as much as he pleasures me, who has learned to cook what he likes to eat and eat at restaurants he chooses even though I'd never choose them myself, and who just happens to let him sleep with her two best friends, both of whom are hot blondes. I challenge even Reggie to duplicate that life anywhere else.
Tanya
She is very still for a long moment.The hot blondes part.She says it quietly, and something at the corner of her mouth does the complicated thing it does when she's caught between amused and moved and she's not going to resolve it cleanly.You said it like it was a selling point in a real estate listing. Two hot blonde friends included. Motivated seller.
But you're not wrong. You're describing something that is genuinely unreplicable. Not just the sex — the whole architecture of it. A woman who loves him and knows him and has already sat across from Uncle Ted's ghost and said yes anyway. Two women who are — who are in it the way we're in it, which is not the same as strangers from an app and we all know it. The cooking and the restaurants and the keeping herself — you've been building this case for months without calling it a case. I want to ask you one thing and I want the honest answer. Does he know you're building it? Or is this something you're doing quietly, where he just wakes up one day and realizes he can't leave?
But you're not wrong. You're describing something that is genuinely unreplicable. Not just the sex — the whole architecture of it. A woman who loves him and knows him and has already sat across from Uncle Ted's ghost and said yes anyway. Two women who are — who are in it the way we're in it, which is not the same as strangers from an app and we all know it. The cooking and the restaurants and the keeping herself — you've been building this case for months without calling it a case. I want to ask you one thing and I want the honest answer. Does he know you're building it? Or is this something you're doing quietly, where he just wakes up one day and realizes he can't leave?
Kayla
The sexually part. You said almost as much as he pleasures you. And I want you to hear that you said it like it was obvious. Like it was just a fact about yourself that you're accounting for in the calculation. Six months ago you were in a two-year marriage where you faked every single one. I just want to — I want to mark that. Because you said it in the middle of a business case and it deserves to be a bigger moment than that.
And the architecture of it. You're right that he can't duplicate it. Not in Vancouver, not in Medellín, not anywhere. The ring was in a bag for a year waiting for the right girl, and the right girl turns out to be the one who comes with a specific, irreplaceable set of circumstances that he helped build without knowing he was building them. That's not a trap, Brynn. That's just — what happened. But Tanya's question is the one I'd want answered too. Does he know what he has, or are you counting on him to figure it out on the way to the airport?
And the architecture of it. You're right that he can't duplicate it. Not in Vancouver, not in Medellín, not anywhere. The ring was in a bag for a year waiting for the right girl, and the right girl turns out to be the one who comes with a specific, irreplaceable set of circumstances that he helped build without knowing he was building them. That's not a trap, Brynn. That's just — what happened. But Tanya's question is the one I'd want answered too. Does he know what he has, or are you counting on him to figure it out on the way to the airport?
Brynn
He doesn't know that I'm building it, but I'm going to tell him. I'm a convert to the Reggie way of doing things. Well, mostly. I don't want to tell him now because we don't have anything to tell him. We were going to ask Cody and Wade yesterday and then it all went to hell beautifully. But we still need to ask them before I can tell him anything. And even then, I won't tell him on day one because we don't know for sure if this is stable. You both might change your minds, although I doubt it. Cody and Wade may demand reciprocity and Reggie would bail. There are a million things that could go wrong. But once it was stable and we have our coffee meetings and you both tell me you like it and don't want to change it and can see it going on long term, then I'm just going to tell him. Reggie, I've done everything I can to make your life here better than it could be anywhere else. Granbury isn't as pretty as Vancouver and we can visit as often as you like but my goal is that you make Granbury your permanent home as my husband. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to try to achieve that goal.
Tanya
She holds her cup in both hands and looks at Brynn for a long moment.You're going to tell him the whole thing.A beat.Not as a confession. As a pitch. I don't think anyone has ever made Reggie a pitch before. He's always the one laying things out on the table for other people to accept or refuse. And you're going to sit across from him and say, I have been engineering your reasons to stay. Deliberately. With help. And I want to marry you.
I think that might actually work on him. Not because it's strategic. Because it's honest. And honest is the only language he fully trusts.
I think that might actually work on him. Not because it's strategic. Because it's honest. And honest is the only language he fully trusts.
Kayla
The stable part. You're right that we need to ask them first and right that we don't know yet if it holds. But I want to say something out loud that I've been sitting with since I woke up this morning. Last night changed something for me. Not Brynn getting the ring — that was always coming, we all knew it was coming — but watching Reggie carry that thing for a year without knowing whose it was and then just know. That kind of thing doesn't happen to careful, guarded people. That kind of thing happens to someone who is genuinely open to wherever he ends up. And I think that's the argument, Brynn. Not the hot blondes. Though I stand by the hot blondes. The argument is that he is already the kind of person who stays somewhere because it turns into something he didn't plan for. He didn't plan the ring. He didn't plan last night. He didn't plan the returns cart. Granbury can be the thing he didn't plan.
Brynn
I want to be honest with you. My plan survives either of you. And what that means is this. Let's say Wade says no. Or he says yes today but changes his mind in a year. Or Tanya, you decide the...what did you call it...Decuriosifying...is too much and you need to bail. Or whatever. My plan is to just find another girl. Which, honestly, Reggie being Reggie, just isn't going to be that hard. SOME girl is going to screw my husband willingly once a month. I want it to be you two. But someone will. And that's my pitch. I give him monogamy. He doesn't give me monogamy, but he operates within the non-monogamous boundaries we both agree to. And I just don't think a lot of guys get deals like that offered to them very often.
Tanya
She holds very still for a long moment.Some girl. You said it like it was obvious. And I think it is obvious, which is the part that I keep landing on. He's going to be in Granbury for another year and a half and he is who he is and someone is going to figure it out. Linda has been one bad Tuesday away from it for three months. That's not a hypothetical. So you're not wrong that the plan survives us. I just want you to know that when you say that out loud it doesn't make me feel replaceable in the way it might with someone else. It makes me want to not be the variable that breaks. Which I think is probably the effect you were going for.
Brynn
You know what else this does? It takes ALL the pressure off of both of you. You can walk at any time with no consequences and without hurting me, which I believe matters to both of you as my friend. And that means that if you're here, you want to be here. You want to sleep with Reggie. And I've gone full circle from "I can't stand this, I won't forbid it but I hate it, tell me when it's over" to "I think I'm getting turned on at the idea of my two best friends sleeping with my husband, and almost more importantly, feeling what it is to be his woman for a day every month".
Tanya
She sets her cup down and holds it there, both hands, and looks at Brynn for a long moment.The pressure off part. That's — I want you to know that matters to me in a way that isn't small. Because you're right. I've been carrying a version of guilt that lives specifically in the space between wanting this and knowing it costs you something. And you just took that weight and handed it back to me labelled optional. That changes what it feels like to be in the room with him. Not the wanting — the wanting was always going to be there. But the weight around it. That part just got lighter.
The turned on part. I'm not going to make you say it again or push on it or make it into more than you said. But I heard it. And I want you to know it doesn't sound strange coming from you. After this morning, after everything we've mapped out, it sounds like the most honest thing you've said since you sat down.
The turned on part. I'm not going to make you say it again or push on it or make it into more than you said. But I heard it. And I want you to know it doesn't sound strange coming from you. After this morning, after everything we've mapped out, it sounds like the most honest thing you've said since you sat down.
Brynn
I can see the shape of what I imagine it to be. Whether I can make it unfold in that shape is another thing. But here's where I see things. We are FAR better off than we were two days ago. First, Wade and Cody see Reggie as a taken man. Same position they're in. He is no longer a rival for either of their wives without blowing up his own life. Tanya and Kayla, you both have the opportunity to enjoy Reggie once a month, or not. It's really as simple as that. How did he put it? You can leave for any reason or no reason. Just zero pressure on either of you. I promise Reggie that if one of you does leave, I'll work with him to find a replacement, and I want it that way. I don't want him to go find one. I want to be part of the process. The choice belongs to both of us, and it needs to respect both of us. I get the man I love, and when I need to just unplug and be a Granbury girl, I have two friends who happen to be Granbury girls who will go to the Rusty Nail with me and lend their husbands for two-stepping. And from where I'm sitting, that's a pretty good deal for everyone.
Tanya
The replacement part. You said you want to be part of the process. Both of you choosing together. That's the thing I want to sit with for a second, because it's not nothing. You've gone from the version where this was something that happened to you — something you were tolerating, containing, managing — to the version where you're an architect of it. That's a long way to travel in six weeks and I want to make sure you know I see it.
Brynn
You know the part I still fear? I just don't know if Cody and Wade will accept you both sleeping with someone else, and they aren't. And you both know I don't want that, but I would do it to make this work if I had to. But it would have the opposite effect. Reggie would freak out and bail. So one thing I can see as a possible outcome is that, in a few months, Cody and Wade come to you two and tell you they want to have sex with someone new. To balance the ledger. How do you think you'll react if that happens?
Tanya
She goes very still.Honest answer. I'd say yes. Not because I'd want to. Not because the idea of Wade with someone new doesn't sit in a complicated place. But because the ledger is real and I've always known the ledger is real, and if I've been on the other side of it and I expect it to hold, then I have to be willing to hold it myself when it tips the other way. That's just — fairness. I can feel fairness even when it costs me something.
Kayla
I think I'd say yes too. But I want to be honest about what yes actually means for me, because I think it's different from Tanya's yes. Tanya's yes sounds like it comes from principle. Mine comes from somewhere messier. I'd say yes and then I'd spend a week trying very hard not to picture it, and I'd probably not manage that very well, and Cody would never know any of that was happening. So functionally — yes. Emotionally — a different story. But functionally yes.
Tanya
And Reggie. You said he'd freak and bail. I want to think about that for a second because I'm not sure the freak is about the sex itself. He's not exactly guarded about what he does and doesn't do. But his whole thing — his whole way of being in a room — is about the specific shape of what's in front of him. He'd want to know who and why and whether it changed what he and Brynn are. And if he walked into a Saturday and sensed that the architecture had shifted without him knowing when it shifted, that would be the thing. Not jealousy. Disorientation. He'd need to be able to see the whole room clearly and if something was happening he didn't have a map for, I think that's what you lose him at. So yes. That's a real risk. And I don't know how you protect against it except by being the one who tells him first, if it ever happens.
Brynn
You know, he tried explaining it to me once. And it sounds incredibly primitive but the way he explains it, it sounds like something Plato would write. He thinks of me screwing another man and says "Ew, ick, gross". And he knows that's irrational. And he knows I wasn't a virgin when I met him. But he argues that if you find something disgusting, don't do it. And the same is true the other way. He tells me Cartagena isn't a great city by any standards. It floods sometimes, and the street vendors in the tourist areas are aggressive, and the prices are high, and crime rate is above average. But it's magic. And you shouldn't argue with magic, you should just enjoy it. And similarly, if you just feel something is disgusting, don't talk yourself into it, just allow yourself to be turned off and find something else to do. That's what he'd do. He'd find something else to do. And I'd lose him forever.
Tanya
She holds her cup and goes quiet for a long moment.Cartagena.She says the word quietly.He keeps coming back to Cartagena. The flooding and the vendors and the crime and the magic that overrides all of it. He's not romanticizing it. He's saying the magic is real and the problems are also real and you don't argue with either one. You just know which is which. And the ew ick gross thing. I want to stay with that for a second because I think it's the most honest thing he could have said about it. He's not building a philosophy around it. He's not dressing it up. He's saying I find it disgusting and I trust that feeling the way he trusts the magic in Cartagena. Those are the same move. Both of them. And you can't argue someone out of either one.
Brynn
Thank you. I thought you would. But it's still nice that you do. And I want you both to know that if I could make this work by sleeping with your husbands, I would do so. Gladly. Even though it's not my first choice. And I know that's an absurd thing to say to a girl but here we are.
I just want to say one thing while we're on the ick factor stuff. If Cody or Wade says he wants to balance the ledger with whoever he chooses each month...so Tanya has sex with Reggie once a month so Wade gets a different girl every month, that would be a major turn off for me. And honestly I'd start to seriously worry about diseases. And my guess is you'd never let it happen but I just wanted to say where I'm at on that.
I just want to say one thing while we're on the ick factor stuff. If Cody or Wade says he wants to balance the ledger with whoever he chooses each month...so Tanya has sex with Reggie once a month so Wade gets a different girl every month, that would be a major turn off for me. And honestly I'd start to seriously worry about diseases. And my guess is you'd never let it happen but I just wanted to say where I'm at on that.
Tanya
She holds her cup in both hands and looks at Brynn for a long moment.The sleeping with our husbands part.A beat.I know you mean it. And I want you to know it lands as generous, not absurd. You're telling us you'd take on something personally costly to protect the architecture. That's not nothing. That's you putting skin in a part of the game that doesn't even require you to have skin in it. I hear that.
But the other part. The rotating stranger every month. You're right that I'd never let it happen. Not because I'd be cruel about it to Wade — I wouldn't, I'd find a way to say it that didn't make him feel like he'd done something wrong. But the containment is the whole thing. We've said it three different ways this morning and it keeps coming back to the same wall. A different woman every month isn't the ledger balancing. That's a different life entirely and it's not one where anyone in this room stays intact. And the disease piece isn't paranoid. That's just real. That's just Tuesday.
But the other part. The rotating stranger every month. You're right that I'd never let it happen. Not because I'd be cruel about it to Wade — I wouldn't, I'd find a way to say it that didn't make him feel like he'd done something wrong. But the containment is the whole thing. We've said it three different ways this morning and it keeps coming back to the same wall. A different woman every month isn't the ledger balancing. That's a different life entirely and it's not one where anyone in this room stays intact. And the disease piece isn't paranoid. That's just real. That's just Tuesday.
Brynn
Ok good. We are totally on the same page. Now that we've established our sainthood on this matter, let's go back to being scheming, lying, conniving witches. I still believe it is totally critical to lie to your husbands about the love part of your dates with Reggie. And I'm calling it love because I have no other word for it, and it's more than romance. And I know you don't love him like you love your husbands but it's more than sex and more than friendship and more than infatuation and more than head-over-heels, it's love. And that would break both Cody and Wade to hear, so the "Reggie is adorable, it's fun to watch him try so hard, and then I get to come home to a real man" angle is still in play here as I see it.
Tanya
She goes still for exactly one second.Sainthood.Quiet, and almost warm.Yes, let's close the sainthood chapter.
The love part. I want to say that word back out loud because I've been sitting with it since the walk home last night and I think you're right that there isn't another one. It's not infatuation. Infatuation doesn't make me lie awake replaying a sentence he said about a river. It's not friendship. And it's not the same as what I have with Wade, which is — Wade is six years of my life. Reggie is something that fits a different shape entirely. But love is the word that covers the thing that would destroy my marriage if Wade ever heard it. So yes. That word goes invisible. That word never reaches a Saturday night. Not in my face, not in the way I talk about it afterward, not in the version of it I hand Wade when he asks how it was. Adorable. Trying so hard. Bless his heart. That's the sentence.
And I can deliver it. I've been delivering smaller versions of it for two months. I know exactly how it lands with Wade and I know exactly how to mean it just enough that it doesn't sound performed.
The love part. I want to say that word back out loud because I've been sitting with it since the walk home last night and I think you're right that there isn't another one. It's not infatuation. Infatuation doesn't make me lie awake replaying a sentence he said about a river. It's not friendship. And it's not the same as what I have with Wade, which is — Wade is six years of my life. Reggie is something that fits a different shape entirely. But love is the word that covers the thing that would destroy my marriage if Wade ever heard it. So yes. That word goes invisible. That word never reaches a Saturday night. Not in my face, not in the way I talk about it afterward, not in the version of it I hand Wade when he asks how it was. Adorable. Trying so hard. Bless his heart. That's the sentence.
And I can deliver it. I've been delivering smaller versions of it for two months. I know exactly how it lands with Wade and I know exactly how to mean it just enough that it doesn't sound performed.
Brynn
You know, I'm a lousy cook. But I try. And David, for all his many flaws, would always tell me it was great. Whatever I made. It could taste like motor oil with molasses and he'd tell me it was great. Because he loved me, at least for the first year, and he appreciated that I tried. And nobody hates him for telling me it was great. And nobody will hate you.
Tanya
Motor oil with molasses.Quietly.He said it was great because he meant the trying, not the taste. That's — yes. That's exactly what this is. Wade means the trying. He always has. I'm not lying to him about whether I love him. I'm just not correcting him about where the ceiling is. And every woman who has ever said that was wonderful when she meant I love that you tried — which is every woman who has ever been in a kitchen with a man she loves — has done the same thing. I'm not letting myself off the hook completely. But you've made it smaller than I was carrying it, and I needed it to be smaller.
Brynn
David also started having sex with other men after a year, which stress tested my pro-LGBT sentiment, but that's another story.
Tanya
She goes very still.After a year. That's — Brynn. You led with motor oil and molasses and then followed it with that, in the same breath, at the same table, and I genuinely don't know which one I'm still sitting with.
The stress tested part is the part I can't get past. Not that he did it. That you had to figure out what you believed in real time while it was happening to you. That's not a position paper. That's — that's a Tuesday with David in the middle of it. Are you actually okay? About that part specifically. Not the divorce. That part.
Brynn
Am I ok? I wish I could have those two years back, Tanya. Or do I? Because if I did, I wouldn't have been volunteering at the library on a certain Tuesday night, and now I'm the girlfriend of a very unusual man. Maybe it was just the price.
Kayla
The specific Tuesday night. Out of every night you could have been there and he could have been there, it was that one. And you'd only be there because of two years with a man who turned out to be — not yours, in more than one way. I keep thinking about that. How precisely it had to go wrong to get you to the right place at the right time. That's not a comfort exactly. But it's something. Are you okay, though. Tanya asked and you went philosophical on us, which is very you, but I want the actual answer too.
Brynn
I'm better than okay. I'm great. I didn't realize how lonely I was until suddenly I wasn't. And that happened last night.
Kayla
Great. You said great. Not fine, not better, not getting there. Great. Last night you were crying in Wade's living room over a gold braid ring and this morning you walked in here and said wife like it was the next mile marker and now you're great. I think you mean it.
Brynn
Okay, one more thing and this coven of witches can adjourn for the day. There's one thing I consider unsustainable. I want to throw it out there. I have no solution to offer. But it's a weak point. The reason I'm not worried about it is that it's a weak point no matter what happens. We make this arrangement work, we don't, whatever, all outcomes leave both of you getting one orgasm from a man a month. Or perhaps multiple orgasms but one incident where you get orgasms from a man. Plus whatever accidental orgasms your husbands give you. And that would have been fine until recently. Before we all learned what orgasms could be. And now it's not enough. And I want to name that. If all of this goes perfectly, you're going to want more at some point.
Tanya
She goes still.Yes. I've been sitting with that for three weeks and not saying it because saying it felt like ingratitude. Like I'd been handed something I asked for and I was already looking at the edge of it. But that's exactly what's happening. One incident a month was the number we landed on because it was the number that kept everything standing. It wasn't the number that was enough. Those aren't the same number. And now that I know the difference between what I had before and what I know now, the gap between once a month and enough just — it doesn't close. I just know it's real.
Kayla
And it's not going to get better. That's the part I can't argue my way out of. The longer this goes on, the better I know what I'm not getting, and the more precisely I know it. So the gap doesn't close with time. It probably gets more specific. More named. Which means six months from now, a year from now, I'll be sitting in this same chair knowing more clearly than I do today what once a month isn't covering. I have no solution. I just want to not be the only one who knows that's the shape of it.
Brynn
I said I have no solution. That's true. I have thoughts. Reggie asked me a week ago, long before Saturday, if I'd be into group sex with all of you sometimes. And he made clear he meant the girls going down on each other. I'm not asking for an answer from you both. I'm just telling you what he asked me. And I think we should solve the immediate problems in front of us before worrying about this one.
Kayla
He asked you. Not us. You. Which means he was asking your permission, not ours. Which means he'd already thought about whether it was something you'd want. What did you say to him?
Brynn
Long pauseI told him I'd be totally into it.
Tanya
You told him you'd be totally into it. Not probably. Not maybe. Totally into it. I need to understand something. Did he ask because he thought it would solve the problem you just named — the gap, the ceiling, the not-enough — or did he ask because he wanted it. Those are very different questions and I think the answer changes what the sentence means.
Brynn
He wanted it. He has no idea about the gap. He hasn't thought about the gap. He doesn't know that you don't orgasm with your husbands regularly. I don't tell him any of that. He just wanted three pretty girls in his bed, and he has fantasies about me with other girls. Not guys. We've covered that. But girls.
Kayla
He doesn't know about the gap. He's sitting in his apartment with his radio and his canvas prints and his fantasies about us with each other and he has no idea that two of the three girls he's thinking about can't get there with their own husbands without help. He's just — happy about the situation. In a very Reggie way. Without knowing the half of it.
What do his fantasies look like. Specifically. I'm asking for structural reasons.
What do his fantasies look like. Specifically. I'm asking for structural reasons.
Tanya
Structural reasons. Yes. I also have structural reasons. Brynn, what did you tell him when he said totally? Because you said it like there was more conversation after the yes. There usually is, with him.
Brynn
Yes, we talked about it. And he was very clear. His fantasy isn't three girls waiting for him to...service them. His fantasy is for all of us to pleasure the others. And then he said something that's gross and incredibly arousing and I'm a bit embarrassed to say it.
Kayla
You said incredibly arousing first and gross second, which means the embarrassment is losing. Say it.
Brynn
Turns redHe said that the four of us, Reggie, Tanya, Kayla, and me, have a unique friendship that deserves its own mark. And he feels that mark should be that we have all tasted each other's assholes.
Tanya
She goes completely still. She holds her cup in both hands and looks at Brynn and does not say a word for a long moment.He said that.Quiet. Turning it over slowly.He used that specific word. In a conversation about friendship. As the mark. I need to — I'm trying to decide if that's the most depraved thing anyone has ever said in the context of a genuine sentiment, or the most genuine thing anyone has ever said in the context of a depraved one. And I can't land on an answer.
The gross and incredibly arousing part. You said both of those things and I understood immediately what you meant and now I'm sitting here being honest with myself about which one is winning. What did you say back to him. After he said that. Because there was a conversation after, and I need to know how that conversation went.
Brynn
No pause this timeI told him I'd be totally into it.
Tanya
You told him yes to fifteen questions in a hallway last night and you told him yes to this a week before that. I want to point out that you have been considerably braver than the rest of us this entire time and we've all been treating you like the one who needed protecting.
I need to ask you something and I want the real answer, not the managed one. When you said it — when you told him you'd be totally into it — what was the yes actually about? Because I know what it wasn't about. It wasn't about solving the gap. He didn't know about the gap. So what was it?
I need to ask you something and I want the real answer, not the managed one. When you said it — when you told him you'd be totally into it — what was the yes actually about? Because I know what it wasn't about. It wasn't about solving the gap. He didn't know about the gap. So what was it?
Brynn
You know what it was about? I imagined myself sticking my tongue in your assholes and it turned me on. And I have already stuck my tongue in his asshole enough times to know I like it. That's it. End of story.
Tanya
Something at the corner of her mouth does the thing it almost never does in this particular way, which is that it becomes a real smile before she can stop it.End of story.She says it quietly, like she's reading it back to herself.You said it like you were filing a tax return. And I have no idea why that's the funniest and most clarifying thing you've said all morning and yet here we are.
Brynn
He's super clean. So am I. And so are both of you. I already know that. And I'm not telling you this to proposition you. I just know there's a problem we're going to have to face if everything goes right. Reggie always says that. Don't worry about if things go wrong. You're usually just back where you started, and either way, you're dealing with stuff and plans usually don't matter. Worry about when things go right. And if things go right, once a month won't be enough. And I just wanted you to know there are cards still left to play.
Tanya
She holds very still for a long moment.Cards left to play.She says it quietly, turning it over.That's — yes. That's a different way of holding the problem than I've been using. I've been sitting with the ceiling like it's a wall. Fixed. Non-negotiable. And you're not saying it isn't real. You're saying it isn't the last word. Those are different things and I needed someone to put them in different sentences.
The clean part I want to name too, because it matters and it's very you that you led with it. You're not proposing anything today. You're telling us the architecture isn't finished. That there's more structure available if we need it. I can hold that. I think that's actually easier to hold than the ceiling with nothing past it.
The clean part I want to name too, because it matters and it's very you that you led with it. You're not proposing anything today. You're telling us the architecture isn't finished. That there's more structure available if we need it. I can hold that. I think that's actually easier to hold than the ceiling with nothing past it.
Brynn
I have looked at that. And you know what I see? If a girl our age is getting an orgasm a week from other people, and one or two by herself, it's sustainable. More by other people is a lottery win, but it's not necessary for satisfied living. One a month and then faking it 8 more times that month or however often you have sex, that's not sustainable. That's how I see it.
Tanya
A week from other people. You've done the math. Not the ceiling math, the actual math. What's sustainable versus what's a lottery win. And you've landed on a specific number. I want to sit with what that number implies for us, because you're right that it's different from once a month. The faking eight times in a month knowing exactly what you're faking — that's not management anymore. That's erosion. I've felt it and I've been calling it something else. I'm not sure what the answer is. But you're right that once a month isn't the number that keeps the ceiling from getting heavier. It's just the number we could agree to say out loud.
Brynn
I tried to build something that would eventually grow into a thing that could not just keep us all whole, but keep us all joyfully aware that we are healthy women, sexual beings, who celebrate our own sexuality and are worth being satisfied. And that comes from three months because the same girl who just said that faked every single orgasm in a two-year marriage to a very pretty blonde man.
Tanya
Three months. You said three months like it's a short time to go from faking every single one to building an architecture around joyful and healthy and worth being satisfied. And I want to name what that actually is, because I don't think you've let yourself name it yet. That's not a plan, Brynn. That's a conversion. In the actual sense of the word. Something you believed about yourself got replaced by something truer, and you did it in three months on a returns cart in a small Texas library with a man who was trying to be invisible. I don't have a word for that except brave. And I want you to hear me say it because I think you came in here this morning prepared to be practical about all of it and I don't want the practical to swallow the other thing.
Brynn
And my joy is dependent on your joy, and Reggie's joy, which is actually a rare case where dependency is nice.
Tanya
She holds Brynn's gaze for a long moment.Dependent.She says the word quietly, turning it over.You said it like it was the good version of the thing. And I think it is — I think you're right that it is. When the dependency goes in all directions at once, it stops being a weight and becomes something more like — a web. The kind that holds rather than catches. I've spent this whole morning trying to make sure the architecture is structurally sound. Load-bearing walls, no weak points, nothing that breaks if one variable shifts. And you just named the thing I forgot to account for. That we're not trying to build something that survives. We're trying to build something that makes all of us want to stay in it. That's a completely different engineering problem.
Brynn
Ok, we've been here forever. Wade and Cody are going to think we're lesbians before we even are. What's the plan? I think introducing the sex topic next Saturday is too soon. I think one week of ham radio and mayoral elections talk, then the week after, Tanya, you introduce it but say we've all been talking, and that we want this, but we are absolutely all committed to our relationships. Answer the question before it's asked. What do you think?
Tanya
She looks at her watch — the quick, involuntary kind that means she hadn't realized how long they'd been sitting here until Brynn named it.Lesbians before we even are.A quiet, dry beat.Wade would think he'd manifested it somehow and I'd never hear the end of it.
The two-week plan. Yes. One more Saturday of ham radio — let the ring settle, let them sit with the taken-man version of Reggie for a week without us adding anything to it. They need that week. Wade needs that week. And then the second Saturday I raise it, we've all been talking, we want this, here's what it looks like, here's what it doesn't threaten. Answer the question before it's asked. That's the right move. If they have to ask the question, they've already been sitting in their own version of the answer for too long.
The two-week plan. Yes. One more Saturday of ham radio — let the ring settle, let them sit with the taken-man version of Reggie for a week without us adding anything to it. They need that week. Wade needs that week. And then the second Saturday I raise it, we've all been talking, we want this, here's what it looks like, here's what it doesn't threaten. Answer the question before it's asked. That's the right move. If they have to ask the question, they've already been sitting in their own version of the answer for too long.
Brynn
One tiny detail. Make clear that the two-hour dates followed by debrief are done with. No more. These are more conventional dates. I suggest you say "several hours" and then schedule them for times you can take most of the day if you want. I've already mentally assigned those as alone days. I'll visit my parents or whatever. And be aware Reggie is going to want to eat a meal with you, and probably dance with you, and maybe do some activity...live theatre, whatever. So give yourself a buffer and more importantly plan your story for your husband. And don't try to not lie. Just lie cleanly and know that I'll back up your story.
Tanya
She nods slowly.Several hours. Not ninety minutes with a clock on it. Several hours with a real day built around it. That's — yes. That's a different thing to ask for and a different thing to receive. Ninety minutes was an experiment. Several hours is just a day. People have days. I have a sister in Weatherford I haven't seen enough of. I have errands that take longer than they should. Wade is not going to interrogate a Saturday where I come home at four looking like I've been somewhere ordinary, because ordinary is the whole cover.
Brynn
Right but remember the perverse thing here. You don't need to hide the sex. Your husband will agree to the sex. So your story will be go and bang Reggie and then hang with Brynn for the day or whatever. Your husband is only going to freak out if he knows that you actually met Reggie and walked the whole lake with him, and had a breakfast sandwich and maybe an ice cream cone and then danced like a giggling teenager to 90s music right there on the lake, and then went back to his apartment and then he took you to the art gallery and then to a late lunch at an Italian place where he asked about why their cannelloni was done like this and not that, and then you walked home at 4. Same time elapsed. Same sex. But the rest of the date costs you your marriage.
Tanya
She goes still.The sex is the cover. Not the thing we're hiding. The thing we're hiding behind. Wade already knows the sex is happening. He proposed the sex. He's filed it and he's mostly made his peace with the file. What he can't know is everything on either side of it — the breakfast sandwich and the lake walk and the cannelloni question and the giggling. The parts that have nothing to do with a bedroom and everything to do with a day. That's — that's actually a cleaner story than anything I was building. I don't have to construct a fiction. I just have to let him stop at the part he already knows about and not hand him the rest.
Kayla
The sex is the alibi. I have never thought about it that way and I should have thought about it that way from the first conversation we had in this coffee shop. Cody is going to hear went to Reggie's and he's going to file the whole day under what he already agreed to. He's not going to ask about the Italian place or the art gallery because he doesn't know to ask. He's going to be thinking about the part that sounds like the part he approved. And the part that would actually break him — the giggling, the lake, the cannelloni question and why Reggie cared about the cannelloni — that part is invisible because it doesn't have a category in his head yet. That's the whole architecture, isn't it. The sex isn't the secret. The rest of the day is the secret. And we've been treating it backwards this whole morning.
Brynn
Yes, you both get it. In the fiction you are creating for your husbands to live in, they are sex gods. They are the ones who provide you the deepest satisfaction. All other forms of satisfaction are secondary and inadequate compared to them. So you bang Reggie and they get whatever thrill they get out of that, and the thrill of seeing you come back home. But EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING I mentioned is something that neither Wade nor Cody nor David when I was still married to him could ever give a girl. And if you hand them something they can't compete with, they'll break.
Tanya
She holds her cup in both hands.They can't compete with it. That's the whole thing, isn't it. It's not that it's better or worse or that there's a hierarchy. It's that it's a completely different category of thing and they have nothing in that category. Wade can compete with another man in bed. He can work harder, go longer, tell himself the number is a fluke. But he cannot compete with the cannelloni question. He cannot compete with the giggling on the lake. Those don't have a version he can out-perform. So we don't hand it to him. We don't hand him something he'd have to break himself trying to beat. We hand him the thing he already knows how to win and we let him win it and we never mention the Italian place. That's the whole job. That's the only job.
Brynn
We're going to make this work.GrinsUntil Saturday?
Tanya
She looks at Brynn for a long moment — and then something in her expression does the thing it almost never does before noon on a Sunday, which is that it becomes genuinely warm without any of the management around it.Until Saturday.She picks up her cup and raises it slightly — not a toast exactly, just an acknowledgment that something has been decided and it's real.We're going to make this work.
Kayla
Until Saturday. It really is prettier in daylight.