This was eerily close to a video Phoebe had caught Matt watching once. When she found him, she made it a point to join in on it, because he was so embarrassed to be caught. So they sat there and watched it and they critiqued the plot as if they were critiquing a television show—as if they didn’t enjoy it at all. But at some point during the billiards game, they fell silent. They watched as the man went up behind the blonde and stroked her arm, put her on the table. And Matt reached out for Phoebe. They had good sex for the first time in months, but after, Matt never brought it up again. Neither did she.
“You joke, but for pandas, it’s the matter of their continued survival,” the Sex Woman says. “And for you as well, no?”
The women nod.
“So, bride-to-be, this brings me to you,” the Sex Woman says.
“How in the world does this bring you to me?” Lila asks.
“Before you enter into your captivity, I mean, marriage,” she says, and winks, “I am here to give you the skills you need to make sure you always want it with your husband. I want you to leave here knowing that you will have not just a good sex life but the longest, and the wettest, and the hottest sex with your man.”
But first, she needs a little information.
“What’s his name again?”
“Gary.”
Then she asks Lila to describe her current sex life with Gary in one word.
“That’s so personal,” Lila says.
“That’s what we’re here to be, my bride,” the Sex Woman says.
“Okay, well, wonderful,” Lila admits.
“Wonderful!” the Sex Woman says, then asks the other women to do the same.
“Evolving,” Nat says.
“Verbal,” Marla says.
“Dead,” Suz says.
“Germinating,” Phoebe says.
“Now, I want you to think about the last time you got really turned on. See if you can locate what it was that got you so turned on. What made you really want to have sex? Not because your partner wanted to, and not because it had been weeks and you started to worry about how it had been weeks. But because you were overcome with desire. Because you didn’t want to do anything else but fuck.”
Then the Sex Woman passes out pieces of paper. They all write things down, and eventually, the Sex Woman says, “Let’s start with the bride. What was the last thing that really turned you on about Gary?”
Lila blushes and looks at Marla. “I can’t say with Marla here.”
“I am very aware that Gary’s a human being who has sex,” Marla says. “In fact, I caught him once.”
But Lila looks flustered. The difference between Lila inside Phoebe’s hotel room and Lila outside Phoebe’s hotel room is becoming jarring to Phoebe. Phoebe has become used to Lila’s honesty, the storming in, the sitting down, the immediate confession about whatever it was that was making her unhappy. It made Phoebe feel like a priest or a therapist. But out here, around these women, Lila is private. Guarded. Like it’s too difficult to be honest in front of Marla. Or maybe there is something about her sex life that she is terribly embarrassed about. But what is it?
“Oh, don’t be a bore,” Nat says. “This is your sex workshop, by the way.”
“Okay, fine, he’s a really good kisser,” Lila says.
“Can you be more specific about that?” the Sex Woman asks. “Do you remember a specific kiss? Was there anything special about it? Was it passionate? Did he use tongue?”
“Like a regular amount of tongue.”
But then her face gets red, like she’s already admitted too much.
“Why don’t I move on,” the Sex Woman says, and turns to Suz, who talks at length about a man she met at her college reunion, a man who used to tease her, a man who knew her before the Little Worm. Then Nat says something about her wife, Laurel, gardening, the dirt on her face, the passion she had for doing something totally unnecessary.
“The last time I was really turned on, I was being choked,” Marla says.
“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.”
