The Threesome

The threesome happened on a Tuesday. I know it seems an odd day to decide to try that kind of thing, but that was how it was.

Daniel came home from work, sloshing spring snow off his shoes at the door. Paul was already tucked into his bottle of Evan Williams - Green Label, of course. I was tucked into a stiff blanket on the couch that seemed to breathe with the shift of bodies. Ready for sleep or stupor or whatever would come.

A documentary on some band I’d never heard was on television. Daniel was wearing his shabby gray stocking cap which he pulled off in always the same way. His right hand came over his head and pulled back so his brown hair would come out perfectly mussed. He dropped his skinny body onto the other couch and changed the channel. I tucked my frost-numb toes under Paul’s legs to try to warm them and drifted away, drunk on the sound of their voices clamoring over one another.

I woke to the shift of Paul’s body attempting to stand. Daniel had gone to bed. The whiskey bottle sat empty on the coffee table. I righted myself and helped lift his staggering torso toward his room. Instead, he pulled me toward the bathroom and shut the door.

     What are you doing? Am I supposed to help you piss?

     No, I need to talk to you.

Kissing my neck, bunglingly pulling my hair back.

     Daniel wants to, you know, he wants you. I told him I’d ask.

     You want me to fuck your roommate? No. No. God. Ew. No.

I pictured his square but boyish face, the loveliness of his blue eyes. A flush of something rose in me. I was somehow flattered? Maybe intimidated. Surprised.

     Why not? I’ll be there, too. It’ll be alright.

     You cannot be serious. Now I now you’re joking.

     No. We want to do this. Come on. How many times in your life will you have two young guys wanting to try this with you? This might be your only chance.

Now I just stared at him, his drunk-slit eyes. If I were more sober, I thought, I would run. But I was across town in a blizzard and too drunk to drive. I thought of that rape-y Christmas song that always bothered me, the man trapping her in his house in a storm, plying her with booze.

     That’s a little insulting. You don’t know what people have asked me to do.

Paul didn't realize I’d had more men ask me for threesomes with their friends than with mine. It suddenly came to me that maybe every man is a bit gay and they like to prop women in the middle to make it okay.

     We’re all friends. It’s not that big of a deal. You don’t like him or what?

And the truth was, I did like Daniel. His long, lanky body and fat mouth that turned down at the corners, even when he was laughing. His apologetic presence. I had seen him watch me. While I smoked or ate or read, if he were there, I felt him noticing. Noticing the length of my neck as I laughed or the curve of my breast when I pulled on my jacket.

So I agreed. Before I could stop myself.

     Okay.
Stern.
     But lights off and everyone does what I say.

I suddenly felt very powerful, the way people with guns must feel, everyone on the floor, begging me for something, and I could give it to them. Or I could not.

We opened the door to Paul’s bedroom and Daniel was sitting on the bed with his shirt off. His shoulders were rounded and he was picking at barely-existent fuzz on a blanket. His face when we walked in was meant for a worthier moment. We found a donor, it said. It’s a girl, it said. It said.

It seemed strange, at first. Having so much attention focused on me, this body. The feeling of walking into a surprise birthday party. You hadn’t been expecting so many eyes on you at that restaurant, but there they all are. They’re all calling out for you and everything is about you you you and part of you wants to turn and walk back out that door to the street where no one knows it’s all about you but they’re all here already so you stay and just pull on your dress uncomfortably and smile.

I was the only adult in the room. Their giddiness, which they tried to smother with as much machismo as the frail painter-waiter can muster, filled the room like a thick smoke. Lips and hands flew in every direction, touching and talking and pulling. A movie montage, except that instead of ending up in a ball gown or boxing gloves, I was just some naked girl. Their touches were rough and hurried; they were wrestling over positions and vantage points. I had become only a body, but that body was a thing to be revered.

Once the lineup was agreed upon and everyone had settled in, the boys' bodies began to relax. Paul’s was familiar and comfortable as a favorite hangover sweater. I knew every jerk and moan he was capable of. Daniel’s touches softened and lingered and his kisses just grazed me. His skin felt smooth and cool and smelled of outdoors. He sighed with every contact our bodies made.

During smoke breaks, we debated going out into the cold, early air; they never smoked indoors. But we were already naked and it seemed like too much. We huddled around an open window, shivering in the nearing-dawn moon. Occasionally we would share kisses or jokes, trying to keep things light and ordinary.

When we finished our cigarettes, Paul went and sat on a chair in the corner and plucked absently on an old acoustic guitar. Daniel and I kissed. The thing no one will tell you about a threesome, the thing you never see in dirty movies, is that someone always ends up with their feelings hurt. That’s just how it’s designed, you see? Someone will get bored or feel ignored or be fazed out. No matter how fair you try to be, your body tells you something different, tells you what it wants. It feels cruel to be in that position of power, see-sawing between the latent brutality of two male egos.

After a while, when Paul had that look that said that the guitar was the only thing he could conceive of, Daniel took me by the arm to his room.

His twin mattress sat on the floor next to a fish tank. It occurred to him to be ashamed of this. He shrugged at me.

     I’m a student.

     I know.
Reassuring.

I just wanted him to keep touching me so kindly. As though he supposed there may be a person inside this holy anatomy.

I sat on the corner of the mattress and he joined me. He kissed my neck and whispered into my clavicle.

     I’ve wanted this for so long.

     Yeah?
I feigned surprise.

     When you sleep over, I shower with the door open. I really do. And I, well...
He glances at me, shamefully.

     What? You can tell me.

     I beat off in the shower and I always hope and imagine that you’ll come in and join me.

This really does surprise me. It’s so pathetic and desperate and lonely. I imagine him in the shower, just stroking himself, waiting for me while I sleep in the next room, not feeling a thing.

     That’s the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.

And he pulls me down on top of him and touches me in that sweet way and kisses me with that downwards mouth.

When I wake for work, everyone is still entirely asleep. I sneak into Paul’s room for my clothes and dress quickly in the dark, icy bathroom before anyone besides the cat can hear.

While I drive home, squinting over the morning snowshine, I think about all these other people driving on Maple Street at 7:37, off to work or school or daycare. I watch them glare through sunglasses at red lights, absently fumble with the radio. I catch their eyes as I pass them, imagine what it is to be them. I wonder how many of them would hate a surprise birthday party as much as I would.