Reggie
I have some African dances ready but can we just sit and hear Brynn's story today? We can dance later if we have time.
Brynn
She pulls in a slow breath, her fingers finding a blade of grass but not pulling it. She looks from Reggie to Marissa to Sophie, and speaks with a steady voice.I did it Friday night. After dinner, before the headphones went on. I said his name before he could put them on, and then I said the line we rehearsed. I don't know what this marriage is to me anymore.A short breath.He just went still. Not angry. Like I'd handed him something and he was turning it over. Then he asked what I meant. I said I wasn't sure I belonged there anymore. He asked if there was someone else. I said what we practiced. You already know I was thinking about it, but I haven't and you said no. He didn't push. He just sat there for a long time. Then he said he didn't want to lose me. So I said I didn't want to blow everything up. I needed time to think about what I truly want, and once I know, I'll tell him honestly. He said okay, then went to bed early. He's been quiet all week. Not cold, just carrying something. But the wall held. I stopped before I blew it up.
Sophie
You stopped at the wall. That's not nothing. The quiet week — has it felt like relief, or like waiting for the other shoe?
Brynn
Both. Relief because I didn't say everything and he didn't leave. Waiting because I know he's not done. He's being careful, but he's walking around me like I'm made of glass. I don't know if that's him giving me space or him waiting for me to break something.
Reggie
You know him better than we do. From what little you've said, he sounds like the kind of guy that will live with it. Just nurse it and hope it gets better over time. That's ideal for you if I'm right but am I right? What's your opinion, Brynn?
Brynn
She turns the blade of grass between her fingers, not pulling it, just working it slowly.I think you're right.A breath.He's not a confronter. He doesn't build toward a fight, he just — absorbs things and waits for them to pass. Even when I asked for the hall pass, he said no and then went to work. He didn't interrogate me for days. He just... processed it somewhere I couldn't see and then called me about dinner. That's David. He'll carry this quietly and hope the carrying is enough. Which is ideal for me in the short term and a slow disaster for him. I know that. But you asked what I think, and I think he'll live with it. Yes.
Sophie
Michael absorbs and waits too. I know exactly what that looks like from the inside of the house. It looks like kindness until you realize the thing he's waiting for is for it to stop being true. It doesn't stop being true. But it can stay liveable for a long time before he figures that out. So yes. That's ideal. And yes, it costs him something he doesn't know he's paying.
Reggie
Brynn, you've cleared my hurdle. There's very little in front of us now before you cross a line you can't uncross. I need to ask both girls but I think I already know their answer. My answer is yes. But let me ask you something point blank. If in two more weeks, he looks you in the face and asks you if you're sleeping with anyone else, what are you going to do? Honestly, if it were me, I'd probably look him in the face and lie. What is your answer?
Brynn
She holds the blade of grass still, and when she looks at Reggie her voice is very flat and very certain.I'd lie. I've been telling myself for weeks that I'm not a good liar to people I know. And I think that's still true for my parents. But David — David is the one person I've been performing fine at for two years, every Wednesday, every Sunday call home, every dinner. I already know how to lie to David. I've been doing it with my body every week. Doing it with my mouth wouldn't be harder. It would just be — the same thing, with words. So yes. He looks me in the face and asks me directly, I say no. And I mean it when I say it. And I know exactly what that makes me.
Reggie
And if he ever asks me, which seems unlikely given that I'm unlikely to ever meet him, I will look him in the face and lie.
Marissa
She goes very still in the grass, root beer zero loose in both hands.You already committed to that. Months ago, before the housewarming, before Brynn was ever on this grass.A breath.So now there are three of us who've promised to lie to a specific man if he asks the right question. That's a club I didn't know we were building.
Sophie
Four. You, me, Brynn, and now you again for a different man. We are very bad at honesty for a group built around a man who considers it load-bearing.
Brynn
Thank you for saying it first. I've been carrying the answer for two weeks without knowing who else had the same one. That's less lonely than it was thirty seconds ago.
Reggie
Sophie, Marissa, do you want to have sex with Brynn? And I don't mean it in the abstract. I mean right now.
Marissa
She doesn't look at Sophie first. She looks at Brynn.Yes. Right now. That's my answer.
Sophie
Yes. My veto is not coming. It hasn't moved in two weeks. So yes. Right now.
Reggie
I would also like that. Brynn, would you like to have sex with us? Right now?
Brynn
She looks at all three of them in turn — Reggie, Marissa, Sophie — and the blade of grass falls out of her fingers into the grass without her noticing it go.Yes.Her voice comes out lower than usual, and steadier than she expected.Right now. Yes.
Marissa
Okay. Then let's go.
Sophie
Same car, Brynn. You're with me.
Reggie
African dancing can wait for next week.We go to the loft. We have sex for two hours. Brynn has her first three orgasms with a man. Marissa and Sophie satisfy each other twice. All of us are exhausted and lie on the bed in a pile of sweaty bodies.
African dancing waits. They leave the grass, Sophie's Civic pulling out ahead of the Miata, Brynn in the passenger seat. The loft is three blocks from the Seawall. It doesn't take long.
Two hours. The kind that loses track of itself. Brynn's first three orgasms with a man — the first one arriving like something she hadn't believed was real, the second before she'd finished being surprised by the first, the third slow and deliberate and entirely Reggie's fault. Marissa and Sophie find each other twice in the same bed, the particular impatience they've named before running its usual course and arriving anyway. By the end all four of them are done — genuinely, completely, pleasantly done — and the pile on the bed is warm and still and slightly ridiculous.
Marissa
She's on her back, one arm thrown over her eyes, not bothering to move it.I need someone to bring me a root beer zero and I am not even slightly joking.
Sophie
She laughs from somewhere near Brynn's shoulder, too comfortable to locate herself precisely.I'm not moving. Someone else is doing root beer zero. I am retired.
Brynn
Is it always like that. Please tell me it's always like that.
Marissa
Yeah. That's the room we kept trying to describe on the grass.
Sophie
Welcome to the room.She says it quietly, and means it completely.
Reggie
I get up, bring back four root beers.Some things are better than dancing. Not many. But some.
Marissa
She sits up just enough to take the root beer zero from him, wrapping both hands around it, and looks at Brynn the way she's been wanting to look at her since the grass.Some things. That was one of the things.
Brynn
I've been lying on Wednesdays for two years telling myself that was what it was. It's not what it is. I didn't know. I genuinely didn't know.
Sophie
That's the most useful and the most inconvenient gift this room gives. You said that on the grass weeks ago and it's still true. You can't un-know the room.
Brynn
You brought root beer zero. After all of that. You just got up and brought root beer zero.
Sophie
It's deeply unfair. He is irritatingly functional afterward and the rest of us are not.
Reggie
I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but have you ever had an orgasm before with a man, Brynn?
Brynn
She props herself up on one elbow, root beer zero held loose in her other hand.No. I told you on the grass I'd never gotten past arousal with him. I thought maybe I was just — I don't know. Wired differently. That it was a me problem. It was not a me problem.
Sophie
I didn't either. The first time. On this same bed, more or less. You're not wired differently. You were just in the wrong room.
Reggie
Have you ever tasted a woman before tonight, Brynn?
Brynn
She goes quiet for a moment.No. I mean. Not before tonight. I'd wondered. I've been wondering for a while, if I'm honest. But wondering and doing are very different things and I didn't know which side of it I was on until Sophie was right there and it just — it seemed like the obvious thing to do. I don't know how to explain it better than that. It was obvious.
Marissa
She said obvious. That's the right word for you. You're very obvious when you want something, Sophie. In the best possible way.
Sophie
I'll take obvious. It worked out. For the record — same answer. First time on my side of that too was on this bed. Different Thursday. Same quality of obvious.
Reggie
And now you've tasted two. Front and back. Were you surprised when I licked Sophie's ass and then told you to do it? And then repeated that with Marissa?
Brynn
She presses the back of her hand to her mouth for a second before she looks at him.Surprised is not the word. I think the word is — I heard you, and I watched you, and then you looked at me and it was just the most natural thing I'd ever been asked to do in my life. And then I did it and I thought, I have been living on the wrong planet for twenty-three years. I did not know that was something I was capable of wanting. And then I wanted it. And then I did it. Front and back, both of them. In that order. You are very good at making things seem inevitable.
Marissa
She did it without hesitating. I want that noted. Zero hesitation.
Sophie
I noticed. I also noticed you were considerably more thorough than surprised. Those two things are interesting together.
Reggie
We have a bond here. The three of us. Now four. We have tasted each other's assholes. Not many friend groups can claim this bond.
Marissa
She presses her free hand flat over her chest, root beer zero held aloft in the other, with the solemnity of someone about to recite an oath at a state funeral.The bond that unites us. Not many friend groups. Not many at all.
Thursday Night Dance Club. When hips turn, every occasion awakens. We've tasted each other's assholes. Four of us now. The circle is complete.
Sophie
Four. We're going to need a new mug.
Reggie
Next week, I'm going to make sure you get one orgasm each from Marissa and Sophie. There's still some new stuff left in the playbook.Smiles
Brynn
She looks at him for a long moment, root beer zero held loose in her hand.There's a playbook. You've been running a playbook this whole time and I didn't even know there was a playbook.
Marissa
There's always more playbook. I'm still finding new pages and we've been at this for months.
Brynn
From Marissa and Sophie specifically. Not from you. That's deliberate, isn't it. You're not doing it to step back. You're doing it because there's something specific about being brought there by them that's different from being brought there by you. You already know what it does.
Sophie
Next Thursday, then. I'll add it to the agenda.
Reggie
Yes, there's more. You haven't yet had me up the ass. It's going to hurt.
Brynn
She stares at him for a long second, and then the laugh comes out of her — the real kind, the completely unguarded one she only has on Thursdays.You just said that like it was an agenda item. Like you were telling me the next slide in a presentation. Hurt. Just — it's going to hurt. That's the whole sentence.
Marissa
He does that. He tells you exactly what it is before it happens and somehow that's the least frightening version of finding out. He's not wrong that it hurts. He's also not wrong about the rest of it.
Brynn
Okay. Next Thursday. Put it on the agenda. I'm not saying no. I'm saying I want to be warned again when it's actually happening and not just as a bedside announcement.
Reggie
Brynn, do you feel guilt?
Brynn
She looks at the ceiling for a long moment before she answers.No. And I waited for it all week. I kept checking. Like — okay, now. Now it'll show up. Every morning I woke up and I looked for it. It's not there. I don't know what that means about me.
Sophie
I checked for it too. The first Thursday. Same inventory. Same nothing. I decided it meant the thing I'd been carrying before was heavier than what I'd done. That the relief outweighed the guilt before the guilt could find its footing. I don't know if that's wisdom or just self-serving. But it was true.
Reggie's arms loosen slightly around Brynn — the natural drift of a body starting to unwind after two hours. She feels it immediately.
Brynn
She reaches back and finds his forearm with both hands, pressing it back against her, not hard, just — hold.Wait.A breath, quiet.Please don't let go yet.
He holds. The room is warm and still and nobody says anything for a moment.
Marissa
She's on her side watching them, root beer zero resting against her collarbone. She doesn't say anything yet.
Brynn
Sorry. I just — I need a minute. Nobody has held me like this in — I don't know how long. I can't even remember if it was ever like this. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
I won't let go.Smiles and holds her tighterEveryone likes the holding after better than the doing. It's bad for my ego.Laughs
Marissa
She shifts closer on the bed, not touching, just present.Don't let it hurt your ego too badly. The doing is what makes the holding mean something. They're the same thing.
Brynn
It's not bad for your ego. It's proof that you did the other part right. You can't hold someone like this and have them want to stay if the two hours before it were nothing. So take the credit. Just — don't let go yet.
Reggie
I reinforced the bed earlier this week. Put rubber pads in and extra supports to distribute the weight. I know, I'm obsessive.
Marissa
She stares at him for a long moment, and then the laugh breaks out of her — slow at first, then completely beyond her control.You reinforced the bed. This week. Specifically. You did structural engineering on the bed before tonight and you're telling us now.
Brynn
You put extra supports in. Before tonight. So we didn't break anything. That's — I don't know whether to be touched or to laugh. I think I'm doing both. Please don't let go yet.
Reggie
Before it even happened, I was hoping this wouldn't be the last time we did this. Speaking of which, I do not exercise my veto on this continuing. Marissa, Sophie?
Marissa
She looks at him, then at Brynn still tucked against his chest.No veto. Not even close to a veto. I said yes on the grass and I'm saying it again here with all the evidence in front of me.
Sophie
No veto. I knew before the two hours started. I know more now. The answer didn't move.
Brynn
Same grass, same time, next Thursday. I'll be there. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
Brynn, you have a veto, too. Do you exercise it?
Brynn
She goes still against him, her hands still over his forearm.No.A breath, very quiet.No veto. I didn't know what I was saying yes to when I sat on that grass the first Thursday. I know what I'm saying yes to now. Same answer. Just — with evidence.
Sophie
Four. I didn't think four would feel different from three. It does. Slightly. In a good way.
Brynn
Don't let go yet. I'll tell you when.
Reggie
Four means everyone always has someone's face in their privates, or they've got their face in someone's privates. Elegant, really.
Marissa
She closes her eyes for a second, and the laugh comes out of her in one long helpless exhale.Four people. Two pairs. Clean math. You said elegant and I cannot even argue with you because it's just — correct. It's a very correct thing to say.
Brynn
Nobody is left out at any given moment. That's — okay. That is actually elegant. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
Sophie, how are we doing with Michael? Still stable?
Sophie
Stable. He's — he's the same. Steady and a little distant, which is just Michael being Michael. He asked about Thursdays once this week, not suspiciously, just in passing. I said the club was going well. He said good and went back to whatever he was reading. He hopes Brynn likes our daughter, still. He said it again when I mentioned I'd seen her. I don't think he knows he keeps saying it.
Brynn
He hopes I like your daughter. He's said it twice and he doesn't even know me. Don't let go yet.
Sophie
I know. I come home on Thursdays and he's usually already asleep. Which I used to find lonely. Now I just find it — convenient. And I'm aware that convenient is its own kind of answer about where we are. We're stable. That's the true word. Not good. Stable.
Reggie
Sophie, is he getting enough out of life to be content? He is living exactly as he designed it, so if he's not he has nobody to blame, but it's still a valid question.
Sophie
She's quiet for a long moment, looking somewhere past the ceiling.I think so. That's the part that keeps me from feeling the full weight of what we're doing. He has exactly the life he built. His friends on Thursdays. His reading. His daughter in the morning. My mother making the building feel full. He doesn't — he doesn't seem to lie awake wanting anything he doesn't have. He just doesn't want me. And he's too comfortable inside his own contentment to notice that those two things are a problem. So yes. I think he's content. I think that's almost the whole answer to why I'm here and not there.
Brynn
If he's content and you're here, the only person who knows there's a gap is you. That's a lot to carry alone on the way home. Don't let go yet.
Sophie
I've been carrying it for a long time. It gets lighter on Thursdays. That's not nothing. That's actually the whole reason Thursday works. He designed a life that fits him perfectly. I'm just — not load-bearing in it. Which means I'm also not missed the way a wife should be missed. And I've stopped deciding whether that's sad for him or merciful for me.
Reggie
And Brynn, is David getting out of life what he needs to be content? Assuming you'll still have sex with him on Wednesdays which I know is uncertain. But as with Michael, he seems to be living exactly as he designed it. Is he getting what he needs?
Brynn
She stills for a moment against Reggie's arm.Yes. That's the honest thing that keeps me from being entirely the villain. He has exactly what he wants. His music, his weekends, his parents on Sundays. He lifts weights for himself, not for me. He comes home, he eats, he puts the headphones on. He has sex once a week with a woman who isn't fully there and he doesn't know she isn't fully there, which means he thinks it's working. He's not suffering. He's just — David. He built a David-shaped life and it fits him perfectly. I'm in it but I'm not load-bearing either. That's the thing Sophie said and I keep hearing it in my own kitchen. He doesn't need me to be happy. He just needs me to be present. And I have been present. Every Wednesday I have been extremely, carefully present. Don't let go yet.
Marissa
Not load-bearing. That's the second time that phrase has come up tonight. The two of you are living in the same house as men who built a life that fits perfectly around the shape of where you used to stand. The shape is still there. The two of you just — stopped filling it. And they haven't noticed yet because the outline still looks right from where they're standing.
Brynn
I used to tell myself that meant I owed him staying. That if he was happy, I had no right to be the one who ended the happy. I don't think I believe that anymore. But it's the last thing I'm still working on putting down. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
Just be aware, you're now in exactly the perverse position Sophie is in. Your best chance of making Thursdays work for the next few years is to stay with David and pretend to be somewhere else as you give him his Wednesday sex.
Brynn
I know. I've been sitting with that for the whole week without being able to name it. If I leave David, Thursdays stop working. If Thursdays stop working, I go back to the ceiling and the Wednesday and the crying. And the only way to keep Thursdays is to keep David. So I'm not staying for David. I'm staying for this. And I need you to know I know what that is. Don't let go yet.
Sophie
I worked that out about a month in. That the two things were holding each other up. The Thursday is why the marriage is liveable and the marriage is why the Thursday exists. You can hate the logic of it and still need it to be true. Both at once. I do. Welcome to the exact same perverse position. At least you're not in it alone.
Reggie
Except Sophie doesn't need to detach for an hour each week. Michael doesn't want her.
Brynn
Ha! OMG hahahahaha. An hour? Three minutes. Sometimes five. And he doesn't wash before so he smells like pee. At least he doesn't ask me to suck it anymore.
Reggie
Oh.
Marissa
She has both hands pressed flat over her face for a long moment, and when she takes them away her expression is somewhere between completely undone and trying very hard to locate where she put her composure.He doesn't wash. He goes to you smelling like pee. And you lie there for three minutes. And you have been doing this for two years. That is — I don't have a word for that. I don't have a single word for that.
Sophie
Three minutes. Brynn. You have been going to work the next morning for two years after three minutes and the smell of pee. And you thought the problem might be you. It was not you.
Marissa
And he stopped asking for something. Which means he used to ask for it and you had to say no to it. The asking was a whole separate thing. Okay. No. I cannot. Someone else talk.
Reggie
Ok, well, nobody asked but I am also getting what I need to be content in life. I have a girlfriend that I love, and two honestly good friends that I happen to sleep with, and I have dancing and conversation and root beer zero and asslicking. I am also content.
Sophie
Content.She says it quietly.That's the word you used. Not happy, not satisfied. Content. I notice that. It's a more honest word than happy and you chose it deliberately.
Brynn
Two good friends you happen to sleep with. That's us. That's what we are to you. I've never been someone's good friend before the sleeping with part. It's always been the other way around or not at all. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
Sophie, I said content because that is all I could ask of Michael and David. But I'm more than content. I'm blessed and I'm grateful and I don't know what I did to deserve this but I pray to whoever's in charge that it goes on forever. I have never been happy before in my life. I am happy these days. And it is entirely because of the three of you. That's how much this means to me.
Marissa
She's been still since he started, and when he finishes she doesn't say anything right away. She just looks at him.You've told me you loved me. You've told me you hoped to spend your life with me. You've never said happy before. You've never said never before in my life. That's a different sentence.
Brynn
You said three of us. Three weeks ago I was on that grass crying about never being born and now I'm — here. In this pile. With root beer zero and rubber pads in the bed and a man who says blessed out loud without being embarrassed about it. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
Brynn, I know it's been less than an hour, but how do you feel right now? Honestly.
Brynn
Honest answer. I feel like someone opened a window in a room I'd been living in for two years with all the air gone out of it. And I didn't know the air was gone until it came back. I feel — held. Not just right now. I mean right now specifically, yes, don't let go yet, but also in the larger sense. Like there are people in the room who would notice if I stopped being okay. That's new. I haven't had that since I was about sixteen and my mom used to wait up. And I feel terrified that it'll go away. That I'll go home and Wednesday will happen and the ceiling will come back and this will have been the one room I found and then lost. That's the honest part I almost didn't say. But you asked for honest.
Sophie
The terrified part is right. I had it too. Still have it some weeks on the drive over. But the window stays open. That's the thing I couldn't have told myself on the first Thursday. You have to find out by coming back the next one. And the one after. You'll find out.
Brynn
Okay. Okay. I'll find out. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
I think the window stays open BECAUSE we haven't promised each other anything, and that means we know this is fragile, and we all want to protect it.
Sophie
I've had five years of promises. Every one of them sincere. Not one of them made either of us careful. The fragile thing is the only thing we actually protect. You don't protect something you think you own.
Brynn
We're held together by knowing we're not. Don't let go yet.
Reggie
Sophie, Marissa, we have just participated in cheating on someone who had not breached or lied or wronged the other person. I'm ok with it. She asked. He said no. She told him things weren't ok. I can live with this. Can you two live with it?
Marissa
She looks at the ceiling for a long moment, both hands still around the root beer zero resting on her chest.Yes. She asked. He said no. She told him the ground moved. We didn't reach across into something that was working and break it. We walked through a door she already knew was there. I can live with that. I can live with it clearly, not just because I want to.
Sophie
Yes. She did the thing I didn't do. She asked first. She said something true to him before she did anything. That matters to me. It doesn't make it clean. But it makes it the most honest version of this that any of us have managed. I can live with that. I've been living with less for four months.
Brynn
Thank you for asking it out loud. I needed to hear both of you say it. Don't let go yet.