There Are No Grown-ups Read online

  Finally, over brunch, we summon the courage to discuss our plans with friends of Simon’s who are visiting from London. One of them, a single British banker who’s nearing forty herself, grimaces and then goes silent.

  “You look horrified,” I say.

  “Yes, I mean, I just think it’s extraordinary!” she says, blushing.

  Soon after the brunch, I get an email from an editor I know at a women’s magazine in New York. She’s short on first-person essays and wonders whether I have any ideas.

  As a freelancer, I’m not used to being asked to write anything. I quickly send her three story ideas: one on making friends in Paris, another on the travails of renovating my kitchen and a third on planning a threesome for my husband’s birthday. I honestly don’t realize that there’s an obvious front-runner.

  She replies almost immediately, and wants to know details about the threesome, including whether I’ve already found the other woman. Soon I have a contract obliging me to deliver a 2,800-word essay titled “Fortieth Birthday Threesome.” She says I can opt not to publish it under my real name.

  To be fair, I was planning to have the threesome anyway. But after I sign the document, I realize that I’m now more or less contractually obliged to go through with it. I’ll be paid by the word, and a sexless version, in which I back down, would probably get less space.

  More critical than whether I might have sex for money is whether I’ll have sex at all. I’ve realized that women aren’t falling over themselves to sleep with a soon-to-be middle-aged married couple. Simon and I rule out advertising online, since that seems like an open call for venereal disease.

  We decide that the ideal third party would be a sexy acquaintance. She’d be vetted (everyone knows acquaintances don’t have herpes) but easy enough to avoid afterward. A candidate soon emerges. She’s an American friend of a friend whom I’ve met a few times at dinner parties. By chance she’s seated behind us at a concert, with a man who appears to be her date. For the first time, I notice that she’s quite attractive. She’s tall and thin, with a little ballerina’s waist. And I’m pretty sure she’s sassy.

  “How about her?” I whisper to my husband, as the music starts.

  “Yes!” he says, too loudly.

  After the concert, the four of us chat. I make firm eye contact with the woman, work out that her name is Emma and pretend to be fascinated by her views on the performance. When I suggest that she and I have lunch, she seems flattered. A few days later, I get gussied up to meet her for Thai food. I’m pleased to see, when I arrive, that she has dressed up, too. Does she realize that she’s on a date?

  I’m usually so concerned about what other people think of me that my lunch companion could be bleeding to death and I wouldn’t notice. But the threesome planning has made me more attentive. Over soup, I listen carefully to Emma and quickly understand something that would have once taken me years to realize: under a pond of sassiness is a lagoon of insecurity. The common theme of her stories is that she clings to boyfriends who mistreat her. I’d mistaken tall for self-possessed.

  She’s probably too emotionally fragile for a threesome, but I broach the topic anyway, to get some practice. I do this under the guise of exchanging girly confidences, saying, “You won’t believe what my husband wants for his birthday.” I explain that I’ve agreed to this in principle, but that I haven’t yet found the third party.

  I think she understands that I’m propositioning her. But instead of taking the bait, she morphs into the Cassandra of threesomes. She describes the ex-boyfriend who pressured her to go to bed with him and his other lover, and the couple who swapped partners for the night, then never swapped back. She warns me that I’ll be scarred by images of my husband doing unspeakable things to another woman. “And what if it’s someone who’s incredibly hot? How could you possibly handle that?”

  Not only is Emma out of the running, she talks of future lunch dates at other Asian restaurants. To my horror, she seems to want to become my friend. I’m suddenly sympathetic to those male “friends” of mine who disappeared the moment I got engaged. Why stick around?

  That night I tell Simon about my “date,” which cost me fifty euros and consumed half of my workday.

  “Thanks for taking care of that,” he says, without looking up from his computer. It’s exactly what he says when I’ve waited at home all morning for the plumber to arrive, or I’ve replaced the rechargeable batteries in our phones. Planning the threesome has become another one of my administrative tasks.

  Nevertheless, my new man’s-eye view of the world is thrilling. I now notice women everywhere: browsing in bookstores, in line at the supermarket. I even scan my book group—middle-aged expatriates who like to read about the Holocaust—for candidates.

  Though I’ve only managed one failed seduction, my posture toward the world has changed. Instead of sitting pretty and hoping that others notice me, I feel like someone who decides what she wants and goes after it. I’m less interested in what others think of me and more focused on what I want from them. I can suddenly envision myself walking into a room and demanding a promotion. (That’s easy for me to say, since I’m freelance. “I want a promotion!” I’d say. “But you don’t work here,” they’d reply.)

  It’s also energizing to put this once-furtive fantasy on the table. Threesomes suddenly seem to be everywhere, although the message about them is paradoxical: every straight man supposedly wants to have one, but no one seems to have had a good one. A friend tells me that he bedded two women on the night of September 11, 2001, as they all watched the news on television together. But like many threesome stories, his is a cautionary tale: one of the women developed a serious, unreciprocated crush on him. “Inside every threesome is a twosome and a onesome,” a character on a TV show warns. When I discuss the planning with my therapist, a Briton who works in Paris, he warns me that introducing a third party could damage my marriage.

  I’m undeterred but still no closer to finding the other woman. When the magazine editor emails asking for an update, I explain that Simon and I have extended the deadline a few weeks past his actual birthday.

  I decide to look at some websites. Perhaps not everyone on them has gonorrhea? I quickly see that we have competition. At least a dozen couples—all of them claiming to be gorgeous and under thirty—are seeking women for a threesome, too.

  Since I can’t compete on looks or age, I decide to distinguish myself by sounding desperate. My post reads: “I’d like to give my partner his best birthday present ever: an experience with me and another woman. Will you help me?” Fifteen minutes later, I get a reply that’s literate and nice.

  “Hi, I also have a boyfriend with the same fantasy (not very original, I know, but boys will be boys!!). Maybe we could end up doing a deal (though not necessarily). If we like each other, I’d be happy to help out. What kind of scenario did you have in mind?”

  She signs it “N.”

  It’s probably imprudent to pledge loyalty to an anonymous woman who scans “no-strings” websites, but I decide on the spot that I won’t respond to anyone else. I like her sisterly tone and her perfect spelling. I’m not sure about the exchange deal, but that doesn’t seem to be mission-critical for her. (Though when I read her message to Simon that night, he immediately says, “I’ll swap you.”)

  We exchange several more emails. I call myself “P.” “N,” a Briton living in Paris, claims to be a straight, divorced, disease-free mom in her late forties. She’s relieved to hear that I have kids, too. She says that she responded to my ad out of a kind of sexual altruism, and she quotes the French expression “One need not die an idiot.” This sounds like the equivalent of “not being in a rut.”

  As I’m putting on a dress to go meet N. for coffee, I’m suddenly struck by the strangeness of what I’m about to do: try to convince a stranger to sleep with me and my husband. It’s now real, and I’m nervous. I’ve o
nly ever been on the receiving end of seduction attempts. How exactly do I convince a woman to take off her clothes?

  Simon, who devoted years of his life to exactly this question, gives me a little pep talk.

  “With women, you have to listen to all the stuff they say. They have all these complex emotional issues, and you have to try to figure out what they are. Just keep asking questions. Be pleasant and reassuring but also slightly mysterious.” He’s probably afraid that I’ll back out, because he adds that, to keep life interesting, “sometimes you have to stick your neck out.”

  “It’s not my neck that’s going to be sticking out,” I say.

  I’m already sitting down when N. walks into the café. She’s a pretty, slim brunette with a friendly face. I notice that her makeup is fresh. She’s eager to make a good impression, too. I’m certain that my husband will like her.

  I try to seem riveted as she describes her boyfriend woes, her life as a single mother and the health issues of her elderly father. Despite the peculiar circumstances, she’s clinging to the conventions of female bonding.

  I steer the conversation toward sex. She says she’s never been with another woman and isn’t sure how she’ll feel about that. She doesn’t mention the possible swap with her boyfriend. When I show her a picture of Simon, she just glances at it. For her, this is more about the two of us.

  We part warmly with a chaste double-cheeked kiss. I wait several days before sending her a note explaining that she’s been in my thoughts, and that I found her charming “in every way.” She replies immediately, saying that she’s very game for our adventure, but that she’d like to meet again to discuss our plans in more detail.

  Plans? I’d imagined the threesome unfolding spontaneously. But now I’m goal oriented. If that’s what she needs, I’ll do it.

  At our second meeting, her insecurities surface: Do I think this counts as cheating on her boyfriend? (“Of course not!”) What kind of women does my husband like? (“Brunettes!”)

  We lay down ground rules for the threesome. To avoid it becoming too thrusty and pornlike, the two of us will be in charge. My husband won’t make a move unless we allow it. She and I will go to the small, furnished apartment that he uses as an office, and he’ll join us there once we’re ready.

  “Do you think he’ll agree to these terms?” she asks.

  “He’ll just be grateful to be in the room,” I say.

  Everything seems to be settled, but again we part without fixing a date. I send the usual lovely-to-see-you follow-up. She replies that she enjoyed it, too, but that she’d like to meet again to talk some more about our plans. I’m beginning to doubt whether she really intends to go through with the threesome. I’m also getting tired of putting on makeup every time I go to meet her, and I’m running out of dresses. Maybe I should have bought the watch.

  But when I complain to my husband, he assures me that this is the normal pace of seduction.

  “Obviously she’s not ready yet,” he says. “She has some sort of hesitation. You need to work out what it is and help her through it.”

  On the way to my third meeting with N., I decide to loosen up and become less calculating. I tease her about all the planning we’re doing, and joke that I’m going to have to script our threesome using storyboards and cue cards. I confess that this is all a rather big deal for me; she says the same. For a while, I even forget that I’m trying to get her into bed. We coquettishly call each other N. and P.

  This new playful mood seems to be what was missing for her. After about an hour, she takes out her calendar. We schedule the threesome for a week later, the twentieth, over lunchtime.

  When I get home, Simon is waiting up for me.

  “I decided to just be myself,” I tell him.

  “Oh, no,” he says.

  I share the good news that we have an actual date for our threesome. To keep his expectations in check, I mention potential glitches, including the fact that her father is eighty-six.

  “So? He won’t be there, will he?”

  “You know there’s a possible problem,” I say.

  “He might hand in his dinner pail? Drop off his perch? Buy a one-way ticket? The best for us would be if he checked out of the hotel on the twenty-first, earliest.”

  A week later, N.’s father is fine and I’m getting ready to meet her. “I have a threesome in two hours,” I keep telling myself. I’m not going to die an idiot.

  * * *

  —

  I meet N. at a café for a quick coffee, then we head to my husband’s office around the corner. On the way, I insist that we stop at a little food stand to buy supplies, in case we work up an appetite later. Clearly, I’m shopping to calm my nerves.

  But when we get up to the office, it’s N. who’s nervous.

  “You’re in charge, okay?” she says. I don’t especially want to be the boss of the threesome, either, and we’re both relieved when my husband arrives. They introduce themselves, and he’s immediately very physical with her, which breaks the ice. We have a sort of group hug, and then we agree that he can take off both of our dresses.

  My first surprise is that women are allowed to wear jewelry in bed. N. even keeps her large hoop earrings on. My second is that a threesome is so, well, sexual. I’d focused so much on the logistics and the catering, I had almost forgotten that we were all going to be naked.

  My third surprise is that when you’re detail oriented like me, threesomes are confusing. You quickly lose track of who’s at which stage. There’s a lot of ambiguous moaning. My husband tells me afterward that he got a little lost, too.

  It’s a polite threesome. I get the sense that we’re all trying to divide our attention equitably, so there’s no clear twosome or onesome. Occasionally, N. and I ask each other, “How are you doing?” like concerned friends.

  After about forty minutes, I’ve had enough. I wonder whether I might check my email. N. is quite beautiful, but seeing versions of my own lady parts on her feels too familiar. I realize that part of what appeals to me about men is that their bodies are different.

  I try to stay attentive—it’s a birthday present, after all—but soon I’m just scratching both of their backs while they continue. When I glance at the clock again, I’m surprised to see that only an hour has passed. I had no idea that sex could last so long.

  Finally, they tire themselves out. There’s a sweet moment at the end when the three of us lie together under the covers, with the birthday boy in the middle. He’s beaming. I’ll later get a series of heartfelt thank-you notes from him, saying it was as good as he had hoped. “It affirmed for me how much I like the female form. When you have two, it accentuates that.”

  N. seems pleased, too. As we walk home together, she says she’s surprised by how erotic she found the whole experience, especially being with me. She hints that she’d like a repeat performance.

  I’m flattered, but I’m not planning on it. My own birthday is coming up, and I would like a watch.

  You know you’re a fortysomething man when . . .

  You’re jealous of your young son’s firm urine stream.

  A good night is when you only wake up twice to pee.

  Some of your favorite athletes are the sons of guys who used to be your favorite athletes.

  Your last friend who was still trying to pick up people in nightclubs has finally given up.

  You appreciate the beauty of people in their twenties, but you know for a fact that you’ll have little in common with them.

  You’re no longer willing to sleep on anyone’s couch.

  8

  how to be mortal

  AS A SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, the threesome is okay. As a literary experience, it’s life changing. In my essay about it, I stop trying to sound like an omniscient narrator, which was always an awkward fit for someone like me. I foc
us instead on describing my limited perspective as precisely as possible. In other words, I just decide to be myself.

  When I email the essay to my editor, she replies right away.

  “People who read this will want to be your friend,” she writes. I’m so excited by her response, and by finding this new way to write, that I decide to put my name on it. Simon considers this a small price to pay for the best birthday of his life.

  The magazine runs the essay at three thousand words, practically without changing anything. Not every reader wants to befriend me. But something even better happens: after reading the piece, people feel like they know me a bit. I can’t always connect with others in real life, but at least I’ve learned to be myself with them on the page.

  There are awkward moments. A friend of my father’s discovers the magazine in a dentist’s waiting room and shows it to him. (My dad compliments me on the writing.) Simon’s male friends and colleagues keep emailing to congratulate him, but his family—who I’d thought were comfortable discussing everything—never mention it. A few women I know complain that I’ve raised the bar on spousal gifts: their husbands are now demanding fortieth-birthday threesomes, too.

  The essay also gives me a sudden sex appeal. Men who’d never even flirted with me now smile knowingly, or make lingering eye contact. Several women hint that they’d have been up for a threesome, had I approached them about it. (“I’m ready,” my husband says about each potential offer.) Even my therapist seems to find me more interesting. When I change the subject from the threesome, he steers me back to it.

  “You were saying how great it was,” he says.

  “I didn’t say it was great,” I reply. (He later admits that he looked up the essay online.)