Les Hommes Ch. 03

Roger takes the opportunity to get up and pour us a second drink. He's ready for another Manhattan, gets me another G&T. As he pours I ask, "What kind of club?"

"Well, I guess you'd call it...kind of...it's more or less a couple's club."

"Couples like husband and wife?"

Roger puts the drink in front of me and sits down. He nods appreciatively at my ready comprehension. "Yeah, like that kind of couple. There are a few unmarrieds as well, like Ted and Sarah aren't married, planning for it, I think they're saying October, who does a fall wedding? But not yet. Still, most of us are married."

"Good for you, good for Ted and Sarah too. But what exactly is a couples club? What do you get together for books or music or parcheesi or something?"

"Oh, nothing of that sort."

"What on earth does any of this have to do with my problem?"

"Well, I'm getting to that."

"Couples...," now the word hits me. "Couples? Jesus, if you tell me this is some sort of swingers thing. Is that how she got involved with Farrell?"

"Oh, no, not that at all. Pas de tout. Let me explain."

"Then get moving."

"You're right Bill, And when you're right you're right. I told Claire this morning I'd lay it on the line and talk turkey with you, give it to you straight up, mano a mano, like what we're doing right now. You deserve that after what you've..."

"Bill! Fuck. Get to it."

"Oh. Yes. Right. So this couples club, that's what it is, was founded, I think it was maybe 10 years ago, by this group of six friends. See these guys already belonged to this executive, very exclusive kind of club. They were the up-and-comers, kind of next generation of leadership, the young Turks someone called them, although I'm pretty sure none of them is actually Turkish. It's just an expression. The kind gets invited to these clubs, lucky bastards, pardon my francais. Most of the other guys in the club were stuffy, rich old goofballs who only used the club for, you know, like lunches and sipping brandy and networking and maybe a little racket ball."

"Bill, so help me..."

"But these new guys, the guys who founded our club, they were younger and they had different, I guess it's fair to say, different, really quite different, if you think about it, interests. I mean they still were in the big club and still used it for networking and such but then they broke off a kind of offshoot club, very, very reclusive..."

"Exclusive."

"...thank you... and hush-hush, one that was a better match for what they were interested in."

"For their interests." That was Anna again inside of me.

"Yes, exactly." He beams at me, pleased again that I'm following the story line. He follows that with a pained smile and another pat of the forehead.

"Listen to me Roger, I don't see where you're going with any of this. But I'll play along to see if you ever get to the point."

"I will. I'm working on it. It's not that easy to explain."

"Let me help. What were their interests?"

Roger perks up. All he ever needed was this one prompt. "Their interests? Oh, easy. Sexual relations with women," he says, somehow with a tone of reverence. "Specifically sexual intercourse with attractive women."

"Sexu...?"

"And even more specifically fucking attractive white women who are in a relationship, like they're married or at least living together with some sort of commitment,..."

"Wait! Did you...?" It threw me off balance, this 'fucking' thing. I don't think I'd ever heard Roger use a curse word before. And I know I'd never heard him say anything so bizarre before.

"... like my cousin Elizabeth, she does that cohabitation thing. It's not for me, not for me or for Claire, thank God, but it seems to work for her, Elizabeth. You might have met her two Christmases ago when she visited. Of course that was before she started cohabitating with this guy, I think his name is Quigley, weird huh? But her mother, that's my Aunt Judith, just about went off the deep end when...."

Time froze. I didn't mind the babble since I wasn't listening. Finally I looked at him. "Fucking? Did you just say, fucking?"

"I did."

"Fucking women?"

"Jawohl, mein herr." He has five words of German too. "I think I might have said it three times," he says with a grin.

"A club for fucking women?"

"Bing! Yes, that's it. Exactly! Sexual intercourse. Now you've got it," says Roger with a nod of approval.

"And this club? You said you're in it? You and Claire?"

Roger nods vigorously, relieved I guess to finally get to the nub of the matter.

"And Farrell, he's in the club too? And Anna? That's where it...?"

"Oh, no. Again. You've gotta drop the Farrell thing. No, no, no, no, no. Nothing to do with us. Far as I understand it he's just a white colleague of hers and that was just a ...well, we all slip from time to time and, judge not, lest ye be judged and..."

It finally hits me. "White. You said, 'white'. Farrell is white, and you said, 'fucking white women.' You mean...?"

"Oh, yes. Didn't I say that? Funny, you would have thought I would lead with it. Be forgetting my own head next." Ha, ha! "Yes, mais oui, Black men. I mean the founders and the guys now. I guess their membership grew a little over time, but I know some dropped out too, like this one guy Johnathan, really big guy, you'd have to see him to believe it, he had to move to Seattle for work, so naturally he can't still..."

"Roger, focus! Give me one minute of focus. You're telling me that you and Claire are actually in this club?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"You're telling me these guys have sex with Claire?"

"They do indeed, been almost two years now and..."

Roger speaks almost casually, relieved it seems to be on solid factual ground. But let him worry about that. Because my head is about to explode.

"These guys fuck her with your permission?"

"Well, I'm not sure you'd call it permission."

"Then what is it?"

"Well, it's hard to say. But kind of like just what she and I agreed to when we joined up."

"What you agreed to? My God what's wrong with..."

"Yup."

"This club? You said it's black guys fucking married white women?"

"Are you listening Bill? Already told you about Ted and Sarah..."

"Yeah, leave them aside."

"I will if you will. You're the one keeps bringing them up."

"What's wrong with these guys? Can't they get their own girlfriends or wives?"

"Oh, no. Pas de tout. Most of them are in relationships, it's just they're the kind of guys, you'd have to know them to really get this, the kind of guys who need something...you know?...more. Why they started our club in the first place. You know? To get something more."

"Yeah, great idea. For them at least."

"Yessir, it is." He sits beaming at me.

"Why married women? Why not single girls? And why white women? Isn't that kind of racist?"

"The married part, or like Ted and Sarah, not that we want to go back to them but you should see her, youngest girl in the club, like 21 I think, but Ted is already 32 or something, he can't quite keep up haha. But I'll leave them out of it haha, anyway the married part is easy to explain."

"Well, then do it for God's sake."

"Ummm, well see these guys are super busy executive types. Almost all of them, like I said, have wives or girlfriends. They're not looking to date or get involved in a new romance or in some big emotional thing with a girl. Cause one of them dates a single woman she's going to get ideas, about commitment, about becoming a couple and maybe even about marriage. Girls, right? That's not what the guys want. See Bill, it's pretty much just the sex they need, or sex and a little socializing, a place to unwind and some nice variety in the women. I mean they're really nice and sweet and kind to the girls, respectful of them and of their marriages too. But what they're there for is the sex."

"Oh, I get the part about guys wanting to get laid. So what?"

"So what they do is they find white couples, like me and Claire, maybe like you and Anna too, where the wife is already fulfilled emotionally, is really happy in her relationship, but just needs more sex than her husband, or a boyfriend like Ted, can provide. So it's not like the wife is looking for a commitment either, keeps everything in balance, right?"

"Just the sex?"

"Yeah that's it."

"So the women just want to get laid too? Is that it?"

"Ummm, I guess it's a little more than that, but it's more or less right. The key thing is the wife isn't looking for an ongoing relationship either. The wife already has that and is happy with it. With her husband I mean."

"Happy wives?"

"Bing! You've got it. So you think about it, getting recruited into the club is kind of a feather in your cap, right?"

"I..."

"Right. Understood. I know you don't wear a cap very often. If you did it would look pretty silly with a feather sticking out, but I guess the feather thing would be up to you. I mean if you wore the cap to begin with,"

"Chrtist's sake Roger, settle down."

"Yessir. Can do mon ami. All I meant is it's quite a compliment to you and Anna, about how she is emotionally satisfied, how you two are in love and have a fine, loving, stable relationship. Just like the guys she's not out looking for a romantic partner. She might be looking for some other things."

"Jesus, Roger! Anna had one fling 18 months ago. It's not like she's a cat in heat out there prowling around!"

"OK, if you say so."

"Yeah, I do say so. What about the white thing?"

"Yeah, I agree that's kind of weird. What can I say? The black guys like it, the white girls like it. I don't think it's going to change. Not soon anyway. There was this one couple who wanted to recruit his friend from work, guy with a really pretty Vietnamese wife. The guys thought it over but deep-sixed it. I'm not saying that's right, just what they want and so long as the girls are happy with the arrangement, it's going to stay white couples."

Time to let him have it. "Fucking insane! This is completely fucking insane! YOU are completely fucking insane."

"Well, hold on there, Billy-boy. Try not to judge in advance. Book by it's cover, n'est pas? Good advice, right? Our club may be a bit unusual, but I'm telling you it works for me and Claire. Gotta think a little outside the box to appreciate it, gotta be open to new ideas, that's for sure. But it works for the other couples too. I could introduce you to a few of them, you'd see what I'm talking about. Happy wives and happy husbands too."

I shake my head sadly. What an idiot.

"But what's it got to do with me and my wife? My God! You're not telling me Anna is in this club too?"

"Well, yes, and..."

"Oh, God in heaven."

"...and no."

"What do you mean yes and no? Roger, what the f..."

"Billy-boy, shush! Keep your voice down, you keep on like this and everyone on Wolf Creek Drive is going to know your business."

He finally said something that made sense. I moderate my tone and shift in closer to him. "Anna is in this club thing you're taking about? Yes or no?"