by Ellie Monago
“Can we just get a gelato and go home?” I say.
“Sure. The only other thing we have to do is stop by Tennyson’s boutique.”
“I’m really tired, Doug.”
He squints in evaluation. Finally, he says, “OK. A gelato and then home.” I give him a big hug and smack a kiss on his cheek, and he laughs.
I knew it would be OK if I just told him what I want and how I feel.
But I can’t share it all. For him to know the whole of me would change everything. He’d never look at me the same again, and I’ve always loved how he looks at me.
He knows about my mother’s depression. He knows she could barely function, let alone attend to me emotionally. He knows about the poverty and the neglect.
There’s the father I never knew and the mother who didn’t give me enough love, but that’s it. No more. Layton and Ellen—that’s another level.
As it is, Doug thinks that the reason I’m not crazy about his parents is because of my childhood. Imagine how he would consider my thoughts and behaviors, especially ones he didn’t like, if he knew the rest. Imagine how easily I could be dismissed. It’s OK if Doug pities me, just a little, but if he knew everything, he’d be disgusted. And I couldn’t live with that.
CHAPTER 14
Andie’s driving again, though I notice she’s dressed a lot more conservatively this time. Actually, she’s dressed like I was the first night, in jeans and a cute top.
I wind her up and let her go. I ask questions about her favorite restaurants in the AV, the best sangria, a great manicure, a skilled hairstylist. I’m doing a Doug trick: make her feel like a valued authority. But unlike him, I’m not paying attention to her recommendations. I’m just killing time.
Much as I like Andie, the last thing I need is to be around someone who can read me. I want to be in my bed, shades drawn, covers pulled up to my chin, watching a Netflix marathon. I feel like this night is destined to end badly, but I didn’t know how to get out of it. Declining the second invitation seemed like terrible form. There might not be a third.
“You seem sort of quiet,” Andie says as we’re pulling into a parking space across from Hound. “Is everything OK?”
I could tell her about the notes. Then she’d forgive my strange mood, and it would cement our friendship.
“Just tired,” I say.
Hound is still cramped, serpentine, and dark, but this time, Andie and I are the last to arrive. June, Yolanda, Raquel, Tennyson, and Gina are assembled around the conjoined table, with shots lined up for all of us, including me. It’s an offer that’s hard to refuse, in my current fried state. My nerves are crying out for a salve.
“You made it!” Gina seems truly happy to see me. She’s in a shapeless T-shirt, her mushroom hair anchored by a headband.
“Hey there!” June looks like she’s in good spirits, too, much more coiffed than I’ve seen her before. Her auburn hair is usually in a ponytail, but tonight she’s styled it into spiral curls, and she’s in full makeup. I wouldn’t have thought it before, but she can be nearly as attractive as Tennyson and Yolanda.
“Tequila,” Tennyson says, by way of greeting, pointing at the shot glass intended for me. “We’re starting with a classic tonight.”
“It’s a nice bed for the Golden Revolver,” Raquel adds.
Tennyson laughs. “It’s not called a Golden Revolver!”
“Whatever.” Raquel is looking unusually sexy tonight in a low-cut shirt and push-up bra. Something else is different. It takes me a second, and then I realize she’s not wearing her glasses. She and June got the same memo. Andie and I missed it.
“Down the hatch,” June says. She lifts her glass in my direction, as if to toast.
“Salud,” Yolanda says.
“Mazel tov,” from Andie.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that each woman is tossing her drink back in turn and I’m just susceptible to peer pressure or if it’s that earlier I noticed Sadie has way more than enough milk and one pump and dump wouldn’t impact her at all. It could be nerves or that the shot glass is just sitting there and I hate to waste anything. It could be a desire for obliteration. Whatever the reason(s), it’s salud and down the hatch and mazel tov for me, too. The other women congratulate me, like I’ve done something brave.
“Sometimes you just need to look after yourself,” Tennyson says approvingly, as if this is a version of treating myself to a massage.
From there, it doesn’t seem like much of a leap to my first Silk Purse. Both go to my head quickly, and I see, with perfect clarity, why alcohol is essential in life. All of a sudden, I’m in the moment and forgetting all the stresses of the past couple of weeks. My inner censor has been muted. I feel verbally limber and loose enough to banter with the best of them. I’m even feeling, dare I say, a little bit sexy. If I had a button to undo, I would. If I get the next round, I might even flirt with the bartender.
Then Gina says, “Let’s get down to business.”
Tennyson does a mock spit take. “Gina, seriously?”
“The guest of honor is already liquored up,” Gina answers.
I look around, wondering who she’s talking about. Then I realize they’re all looking at me.
Gina leans toward me just slightly, her mushroom hair especially voluminous tonight, her eyes intent on mine. It occurs to me that Tennyson could just be a figurehead, and Gina might be the true power. She’s certainly coming off like the ringleader tonight. “Let me ask you something crucial. Why are you monogamous?”
Now I want to do a spit take. “What—what do you mean?” I stammer.
“You’ve probably never even thought about it before, right? You’re monogamous because that’s what marriage is. Because you think it’s the only way to do it.”
“Listen,” Tennyson drawls, “marriage is an evolving institution. I mean, women used to be property.”
“Now men and women make each other property,” Raquel says. “Controlling each other. You know, ‘You love me because you won’t have sex with anyone else, even though it’s totally normal to want to.’”
“Have you read Esther Perel?” Gina asks. I shake my head. I wish I hadn’t had that Silk Purse. It’s hard to keep up with this conversation. “Esther Perel talks about how sexual desire is activated by novelty, while traditional marriage says that denying yourself any other partners is a prerequisite. That’s a paradox. A double bind.”
“No wonder there are so many affairs.” Tennyson raises her hand. “I mean, guilty! Vic and I decided that we were going to do it differently this time around. No one owns anybody, and we can accept ourselves and each other as sexual beings. That’s why we’re so happy.”
“Why are you so happy?” I ask stupidly. I’m not quite following.
“Here’s the deal,” Tennyson says. “Normally, you’re monogamous because you think the only other options are eternal dating or being in a relationship and cheating.”
“Or you’re monogamous because you only want to be with your husband,” I say. “And he only wants to be with you.”
But I already outed myself at the last girl’s night. They know I don’t exactly want to be with Doug. I want to want to be with Doug. That’s a big difference.
A part of me has always known, deep down, that the AV was too good to be true. I’ve been waiting for the bottom to drop out . . .
Tennyson is giving me a slightly dubious look, a smile playing at her lips. Can every one of them really see through me? This is a nightmare. “If that’s the case—if you and Doug only want to be with each other—then you opt out.”
“Opt out of what?” I say.
“The spreadsheet.”
I look at Andie, and I see that she knows exactly what the spreadsheet is. Of course she does. I feel blindsided by my new friend. She couldn’t have given me some sort of heads up? I would have prepared something to say. Or at the very least, I wouldn’t have had a shot plus a Silk Purse after a year of abstinence.
“The
spreadsheet is where everyone states their preferences,” Andie tells me quietly. “There are couples who are primarily monogamous, with an occasional hall pass. And some who have ongoing relationships outside of their marriages.”
“Each couple comes up with their own rules,” Yolanda says. “It might be that same-sex is OK but opposite isn’t. Or they can only be with the third party together. You can only be with someone if I am. We get to veto each other’s potential partners. No sex in our house or in our bed. No sleepovers. Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I see her really warming to this. Where Yolanda is concerned, the more rules the better.
“Some couples opt in for a while and then opt out,” Andie says.
“And then some,” June says, her eyes dancing, “opt back in.”
Is June involved in this? She’s not even part of a couple. She just gets to sample everyone’s husbands without any complications at all? It doesn’t seem quite fair.
“The spreadsheet is really dynamic.” Tennyson polishes off the rest of her drink. “Each couple has to decide together what they really want. It leads to all kinds of really intimate, revealing conversations. You’ll know Doug better than you ever imagined you could just by talking about all this stuff. About your truest desires.” My stomach plummets just as Tennyson stands up. “Anyone want another?”
Raquel tosses hers back and then rattles the ice in her now-empty glass. Everyone else, including me, says they’re OK.
A hush falls over the table once she’s gone. “I don’t really know what to say,” I tell them.
“You’re not expected to answer tonight,” Raquel says. “It’s a lot to think about. Obviously, you need to talk to Doug.”
He’ll dismiss it out of hand, I’m sure.
We’ll dismiss it together.
“People are so jealous and paranoid because they’re afraid to lose,” Gina says. “Think how liberating it would be to set your marriage free.”
Raquel reads my expression because she says, “No, really. You go off and you’re with someone else, and you get that euphoria, right? You get the initial infatuation. Then you go home in a great mood, and everything’s lustier. But we all have our eyes open. We all know exactly what that is, and we don’t fool ourselves into thinking the grass is greener on the other side. In the end, we’re all going home to our husbands and wives. There are no affairs here. It’s all out in the open.”
“That’s the key,” Yolanda says. “We’re open here. And there are no divorces. Families stay together.”
I glance at Tennyson. She’s on her second marriage, right? But maybe her first marriage didn’t have the spreadsheet.
“Families are stronger because they’re headed by two people who know they’re not just stuck with each other, you know?” Raquel’s eyes are bright, even in the dim. “We all want to go home to our husbands.”
She really means what she’s saying, but a part of me just can’t imagine wanting to go home to someone who looks at me the way Bart was looking at her that day at the block party. Like he wanted to rip her limb from limb. Or was that just the intensity of his sexual desire? Because he’d just been with, say, Tennyson, and now he was hot for Raquel?
It doesn’t compute, and yet, these are smart women. Vital, interesting women. And they’re telling me that this works. They want me to be a part of their community. I mean, really a part of their community. I’d wondered if I’d be accepted; now it’s much more than that. I’m actually desired.
Or Doug is.
“This probably sounds kind of insane, right?” June says. “Every one of us thought so, once upon a time. But it actually works.”
If it works so well, what happened to her husband?
“We’ve never asked someone to join this fast,” Raquel says. “Usually, it takes a while of getting to know someone. But with you, it was unanimous after the last girls’ night. We were like, ‘Why wait?’”
I’m slightly flattered, warped as this whole scenario is.
“There’s something about you,” Yolanda says. “We all felt it. It’s like, we knew we could trust you.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way.” Raquel goes to push her glasses up her nose and then realizes she’s not wearing them. “But you’ve got this kind of awkwardness, like you’re wrestling with yourself. You’re all earnest and hopeful, but it’s like you know better than that; you don’t want to get crushed. And I don’t know, we just all really responded to that and wanted you around.”
“Because it’s not just about sex,” Gina says. Then she laughs self-deprecatingly. I didn’t know she had self-deprecation in her. “I mean, obviously, with me, it’s not about sex. We’re really good friends. We lean on each other. We can share anything.”
It seems like Gina has been doing the hardest sell. Maybe she’s the mastermind behind the spreadsheet. Her marriage needed an arrangement, and she’s the definition of an overachiever. She found Oliver a neighborhood full of women to do what she doesn’t want to.
Tennyson returns with two drinks in her hands and plants one in front of Raquel. Then, feeling no need to catch up on the conversation, she says, “Affairs are rampant. It’s not sleeping with other people that kills marriages. It’s the secrecy. Secret fantasies and longings. Self-denial. And eventually, betrayal. It doesn’t need to be that way.”
“It’s an experiment,” Andie says. “You can try it, and if you don’t like it, you just forget all about it.”
I study her, trying to gauge what she has and hasn’t done, and whether what’s done can really be undone. If Doug has sex with one of these women, I’ll always know that. If I have sex with one of their men, I’d always know that, and so would they.
Is that part of the allure? How incestuous it all is? That they’re all bonded by intrigue and drama?
“You have a favorite meal, right?” Gina looks at me, and I nod. “You don’t want to eat it every day for the rest of your life. You want to switch it up. Your taste buds want a different experience, and everyone gets that. Well, sexual appetites are the same way. Why do we accept our appetites around food but not sex? No one insists on gastronomic monogamy. On gastronogamy.” She and the others laugh.
“Let’s go around the table,” June says, “and everyone can say the biggest advantage to the spreadsheet.”
“You don’t have to stifle your true nature,” Tennyson says immediately. “I want a life partner, but I still like variety. Vic is great in bed, but he can’t be every man, you know?”
“You don’t have to wonder if the grass is greener,” Andie says. Does she mean that she was with someone else, and it made her realize her own grass was just fine? That she and Nolan tried and then decided to opt out? I’m assuming she’s not part of the spreadsheet now or she would be a girls’ night regular.
“Well, you know my grass isn’t greener,” Raquel quips, and everyone laughs. I assume she means her actual brown grass and not Bart.
“It’s affair prevention,” Yolanda says quietly. “He’ll have his experiences, but he’ll never leave.”
“You have someone else to do the dirty work,” Gina says. “You know, to have the sex you don’t feel like having. It takes the pressure off.”
“Sometimes you’re more sexually compatible with someone other than your husband,” June says.
“It’s always good to get some new inspiration,” Raquel says.
It occurs to me how incredibly confident they all are (with the exception of maybe Yolanda). Are they that way because of—what should I call it—swinging? Swapping? Orgies? Polyamory?
Gina says, “This isn’t all about sex. It’s not even primarily about sex. It’s about freedom and openness. It’s about accepting one another’s choices and accepting yourself. I wasn’t always so comfortable being asexual. I used to feel like I had to pretend, but now I can just be who I am. It’s a legitimate choice, to choose not to have sex, and since Oliver can meet his needs elsewhere, I know my value to him is about much more than sex. It’s a true partne
rship. Society tells women they have to be sexy, and sexual. Fuck that. It’s freeing not to want sex. I feel so in control.”
“And Oliver is really OK with that?” I’m thinking it, but Andie asks it, like an act of ventriloquism.
Gina nods. “He likes clarity in all things. This way, he knows exactly what he’s getting and when. He knows the bottom line. It’s like all the best business deals: it’s clean and everyone profits.”
“What do you even call this kind of arrangement?” I say.
“Openness.” Tennyson smiles.
“Neighbors with benefits,” Yolanda adds.
“Don’t you get jealous?” I ask, and they all laugh. Jealousy is clearly well-covered territory.
“Of course!” Raquel says. “We help each other through it. We’ve all been there.”
“Jealousy is human nature.” Tennyson finishes another drink ahead of the rest of us. “But I don’t want to control my jealousy by chaining up my husband and keeping him in a cage.”
“Unless that’s what he’s into,” Raquel says. More laughter. “This isn’t an arrangement that just benefits men, Kat. In my experience, it benefits women more. Men have always known who they are and what they want—they’re encouraged to from childhood—but women? We’re supposed to make everyone else happy.” I feel myself flush. She can’t know, and yet . . . “So we have a lot to figure out about what we really want. It’s more complicated for us, and society is more judgmental. We’re prudes or we’re whores or we’re just old married ladies. But think about this: If no one had to know, if you could shed your inhibitions just for a day, or a week, what would you want to do most? What would you want to try?”
I realize it’s not just rhetorical; she’s actually waiting on an answer.
Andie comes to my rescue. “Whatever it is, you can try it with Doug.”
“Truly,” Raquel says, “my communication and my relationship with Bart have never been better. And my self-image has never been higher.”
“We accept you even if you don’t want to be a part of this,” June says. “It’s not mandatory. It’s a perk.”