“Robert chokes you? I seriously cannot picture that,” Lila says.

“Not Robert,” Marla says, and then bursts out crying. “Robert would never choke me. Not even when I asked.”

Robert is a man who uses bullet points on his Valentine’s Day cards to explain the three reasons why he loves her, and they aren’t even all that nice. He is a man who is pathologically incapable of complimenting her.

“And do you know what it’s like to never be complimented by your own husband?” Marla asks. “I always thought it was because he was a judge. He was like, professionally neutral. But then we’re at this work thing and I’m talking to this other judge, and he compliments my dress, like no big deal, and the next thing I know, we’re at his house on the Chesapeake, watching the midterm primaries—”

They burst into laughter. “Hot,” Suz says.

“I personally like to get choked while watching C-SPAN,” Nat says.

“Samesies,” Suz says. “But wait, how did he choke you?”

“He just reached out his hand and choked me.”

“I seriously do not get the appeal,” Lila says.

The Sex Woman reminds them all not to judge. “This is just about sharing,” she says. “Keeping in touch with our desires.”

She turns to Phoebe. “And what about you?”

“I was talking to a total stranger,” Phoebe says. “It was the first time I really wanted to have sex after I got divorced.”

“Wait, you’re divorced?” Lila asks.

“How do you not know that?” Marla asks. “She’s your maid of honor.”

“Let’s focus less on the divorce and more on what turned you on about this stranger?” the Sex Woman says.

“I don’t know,” Phoebe says. She thinks back to that night, that moment of sitting with him in the pink light of dawn. How when she told him she had come here to kill herself, he did not look away. “I liked that he made eye contact.”

“Eye contact can be very sexy.”

“He wasn’t afraid of looking at me. He wasn’t afraid of what I was saying. He wasn’t afraid of the worst parts of me. And this made me feel like those parts were okay. Like I could say anything. Be anything.”

The memory makes Phoebe smile, and the Sex Woman becomes curious. “What is making you smile right now?”

“I actually told him I wanted to fuck, and that should have been embarrassing, but it was really hot.”

“Announcing our own desires,” the Sex Woman says. “That can be very powerful. And now you know this about yourself. Now you know that when you are not in the mood, whenever you are starting to feel disconnected from yourself, you can ask yourself: What are you not being honest about?”

For the rest of the hour, the Sex Woman shows them short tutorials on how to touch themselves with various herbal lubricants, then concludes with a video of two pandas humping.

“May you all know such carnal bliss,” the Sex Woman jokes, and the women laugh and clap. Then the Sex Woman unceremoniously dumps a bunch of sex toys on the coffee table. One of the dicks rolls onto the ground.

“A vibrator can be a memory tool,” the Sex Woman says.

She tells them that, like the pandas, it’s important to stay in communication with their desires. Important to recognize their kinks when they start to show themselves. Important to touch our bodies if we have forgotten what it feels like to be touched. Then she looks at her watch. In only this way, she is like a stripper. Loyal to the minute hand of the clock.

“My hour is up!” She shuts down the projector. “Now, who wants to buy a dick?”

The women laugh. They all reach out, and Phoebe picks up a purple one.

“I almost forgot!” the Sex Woman says. “The complimentary Cum Rags.”

Suz holds one in her hand like it’s cashmere. “Wow—such a good idea.”

“So environmental,” Nat says.

“WHY WOULD VIV hire that Sex Woman?” Lila asks at the restaurant.

“From what you used to tell us about Viv, it’s so like Viv to hire her,” Suz says.

They are having dinner at the White Horse Tavern. The oldest tavern in America, according to the menu. Dark green walls, high-back chairs, and thick wooden beams, yet food that is perfectly on trend. Shaved brussels sprouts and cabbage salads. Scallops in lemon herb sauce. Twin lobster tails on Phoebe’s plate. The house wine sits on the table in clear jugs, like they are Romans. It’s a little watered down and warm, but that seems to be the point.

“But we’re like, not pandas,” Lila says. “Like now when I have sex, all I’m going to think about is being a panda. I don’t see how that’s going to help anything.”

“I thought she was great,” Nat says. “You just didn’t share anything, so she couldn’t help you.”

“Why do I need help?” Lila says. “Our sex life is good.”

Everyone is getting bored of Lila’s refusal to say anything real. Marla turns to Phoebe and says, “So why did you get divorced?”

“You can’t just ask someone that,” Nat says.

“It’s okay,” Phoebe says. “My husband had an affair.”

“Asshole,” they all say in unison, except Marla.

“And you couldn’t forgive him?” Marla asks.

“He didn’t even ask me to,” Phoebe says.

“Are you going to get a divorce?” Suz asks Marla.

“I don’t think we should be talking about divorce,” Lila reminds them.

“Right,” Suz says. “Okay. So, uh, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in bed? Me first.”

Then Suz admits that once she sort of liked it when this guy in college poured hot wax on her.

“I wasn’t against it, but I wasn’t really for it,” Suz says.

Nat once pretended to be a nurse/tennis player in front of the camera for a college girlfriend, but only because it was her camera and she could delete the footage.

“A nurse and a tennis player at the same time?” Suz asks.

“A true theatrical challenge,” Phoebe says.