Thirty-five minutes after we had arrived at the restaurant I was sitting in my car, texting Jack. I told him my lunch date had gone well. I said I was going to maybe join my date at his house for a couple hours, if that was okay? Jack asked if we were going to have sex. I knew it was likely, almost certain. But I said that I didn’t know. Radical honesty was still just a concept for me, not a practice.
Jack texted back, “I think you do know. Go ahead. Have fun!”
I told him I would be back around 4PM because my date had a conference call at 3:30PM, so I was certain I’d be on my way by then.
“Okay. Be careful!” he said.
At first glance his house looked like all the other houses in the neighborhood of large Craftsman homes lining a maze of cul-de-sacs on a hillside. I was surprised by the commonness of his taste, until I noticed the front door, large and heavy with a circular iron knocker in the middle, like a castle, or a dungeon. I knocked. The door swung open and there was Viktor, beaming in the doorway. He had changed into a brightly colored concert t-shirt and a pair of loose printed hippie pants in every shade of the rainbow, a sort of casual flamboyance.
As he invited me in, I noted several pairs of shoes near the door—women’s and men’s—and slipped mine off. Next to the shoes there was an imposing Steinway, colossally shiny, practically playing its own song. A sign on top, near the keys, requested people kindly keep their beverages off the piano. It was the first of many indications that they entertained frequently.
“I’ve played since I was a child,” he said, gesturing to the piano. I was impressed but not surprised.
He expounded for a moment about his favorite composer (Rachmaninov) and the superiority of the piano concerto in the classical music genre (I had no opinion, except that I was not particularly keen on opera and preferred jazz). Wrapping his soliloquy, he asked if I would like a tour.
I let out a tiny gasp on first sight of the kitchen.
“We designed this ourselves. Marin did all of this,” he said, gesturing to an ornately tiled wall behind an enormous bronze range.
He said his partner’s name as if we were acquainted. I wondered about her. Was she an artist? A designer? What did she look like? How did they meet?
He poured us each a glass of wine, which we carried downstairs. He showed me an enormous dressing area filled floor to ceiling with costumes, coats, dresses, hats, and shoes, and said something about people fucking there when they hosted parties.
Around a corner we walked into the kitchen of an adjoining apartment. He had mentioned this space, which they called the Escape Room, when we talked about where we could meet, since I could never host with Jack and Asher at home. (This can be a challenge for nonmonogamous people—where does the sex happen if you’re both partnered? If there are kids? If there is no money for hotels?)
Back upstairs, as if he had read my mind, he asked if I would like a robe to change into.
“Yes, please.”
He disappeared into a room he never mentioned—I assumed it was their bedroom—and returned with a black velvet robe lined with red satin that featured a massive dragon on the back. He thrusted it toward me in a bulky wad. I paused.
“Oh!” he said. “Allow me.”
He held it open from the shoulders, inviting me to put it on as if he were offering my coat following dinner out. He thought I had paused because I was expecting courtesy, but no. I was standing frozen in time because I had a feeling my life was about to change. For the first time in eight years, I was about to disrobe and have actual penis-in-vagina sex with someone new, a man who wasn’t my husband. The robe was my invitation to undress.
I felt everything but calm.
I removed my sweater first,
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