Today
in this fabulous new personal essay, author (and fearless Nerve intern) Caitlin MacRae
examines why she’s
had way more threesomes than dates. Here in the Insider, Caitlin’s given us
an inside glimpse of what’s it like to bare all to the world in essay-format
(especially when your Dad reads the site!), and includes one threesome offer that didn't quite make it into the final essay. Good reads. I’ll turn it over to Caitlin:
Inside “triangulation,” and the anxieties of Intern
Caitlin.
I am notoriously secretive.
Some of my family members didn’t know I lived in New York until four months after I’d moved. I keep a blog
whose existence I have shared with almost no one, which I guess defeats the
purpose. Suffice it to say, my sex life isn’t something I’ve ever shared in
great detail.
But sometimes, here in Ye
Olde Nerve Offices, we have these “pre-meeting meetings,” which consist of an
overly caffeinated crew of surprisingly shy sex writers taking a much needed
break in the conference room. It’s like pre-gaming, office style. And in one of
those meetings, a certain Nerve employee mentioned an awkward aborted
threesome, and like a bolt from the wild blue yonder, it hit me. Threeways! I
know those! I’ve been asked into more of them than I’ve ever been asked on
dates! That’d be fun, right?
Well.
Some things sound like a
great idea at the time. And then the ramifications start to settle in, creepy
little anxiety barbs that dig deep into your brain. When our editor, Will Doig,
suggested I work this three-way history of mine into an essay, I was super into
it. And the more I wrote, the more I realized how incredibly uncomfortable I am
closely examining my history, my motivations, my life in general. When I write,
I tend to snuggle up in the abstracts; it’s safer there.
So now I get to think about
the things I’ve done; people might actually read this little thing. My dad, for
example. My dad might end up reading about my threeways. (Hi, dad.)
This slice of my sexual life
is now out of my hands like so much pie at a picnic.
Enjoy, y’all.
Here’s a little anecdote
that ended up on the cutting room floor…
I am at a bar, and it is a particularly wonderful
night, the kind where strangers are putting just the right songs on the jukebox
and slow dancing with one another and buying rounds like the world’s ending. A
pair of those strangers is a couple, an older man and his inexplicably gorgeous
Brazilian wife who cannot be more than a few years older than me. They invite
the whole bar over to their house, just down the block, overlooking the sea,
and in the spirit of friendship and perfect nights we all accept. At some point
in the night, after the leathery-faced men have passed around the weed, and the
young women are nursing bottled girly drinks, the man-half of the couple comes
up to ask if I’m okay, if I need anything, with his hand on my back. He says,
“You know, I think my wife is into women,” the hand on my back now making small
circles. Really, I think to myself. Fascinating. “Do you want to stay the
night?”
I politely decline.
“You sure?”
I look over at his wife, who is still gorgeous. Then
I look at him, and he could be my father.
Yeah, thanks though.
His hand is now resting right above my ass. He asks,
again, if I am sure. As though somewhere in the past several seconds I will
have decided that the best way to end this night is to be sandwiched between
his old skin and her fake tits, while his young son sleeps downstairs. I smile
and say, Nah, man, I’m all right, really, take my last few hits from his bong
and leave, exhaling smoke as I walk down their fancy staircase and back to my
house, where I’ll jack off and go to sleep.
Sometimes it’s just easier that way.
…and here’s the
essay.
