Adam Thirlwell - Politics

So Nana should orchestrate a threesome. That was the most rational solution.

11

But how do you propose a threesome in polite conversation? This was the question that Nana was pondering, while she watched Anjali sip her hot espresso. How do you broach a threesome?

Well, this is how Nana did it. You do it as a joke. You smuggle it in. You pretend you’re not saying it at all.

First, she praised Anjali’s sexual skill. She said, ‘I so loved what we did, you know. I really loved it. It was really oh delicious.’ This unsettled Anjali, because Anjali was flattered. She did not want to feel flattered. She wanted to feel aghast. Then Nana said, ‘I liked it. I really did like it a lot.’ Nana was smiling. She was smiling a lot. Anjali continued to feel flattered. She was not acting like Humphrey Bogart. By now, Humphrey would have grabbed the dame by the neck and told her that it was over.

Then Nana said, ‘But I’m not sure we can.’ Anjali said, ‘Look of course.’ She said, ‘Look of course. It doesn’t matter. Of course it was a one-off.’ ‘Oh,’ said Nana. ‘Oh but it’s not that I wouldn’t like to.’ ‘Uhhuh?’ said Anjali. Nana said, ‘I mean I spose one way of doing this. I mean. We could do it all three of us. I mean. What about all three of us?’

‘All three of us? A threesome?’ asked Anjali. She was smiling. She was smiling a lot. She liked this idea. That way, she could feel noble and also see Nana naked again.

Nana knew her stuff. She knew what people wanted.

‘Was this his idea?’ said Anjali. ‘Um, no,’ said Nana. ‘Was mine. He doesn’t know.’ ‘All three of us?’ said Anjali. ‘Well yeah,’ said Nana. She was grinning. Anjali said, ‘Uhhuh.’ She was interested. She was grinning too.

12

But there was still the problem of telling the boy.

I reckon that the main difficulty when setting up a threesome is persuading the second girl. I reckon that most people’s idea of the crux is the second girl. Once you have the extra girl, the boy should follow naturally.

But, as Nana knew, Moshe was not an ordinary boy. He was more gentle than other boys. He had ordinary lusts, it was true, but Moshe would also deny them. As Moshe’s girlfriend, you could not just propose a threesome. You could not ask him directly. Moshe, I suppose, could not believe that any girl would like a threesome. He could not believe that a threesome was anything other than a selfish fantasy, a selfish boy’s fantasy.

So Nana cunningly asked indirectly. She discussed it during sex. It was just like a fantasy. It was only a fantasy.

A couple of nights after her conversation in the Architectural Association cafe with Anjali, Nana was describing how there was another woman with them. She was asking if Moshe liked that.

You know that Nana was not really a girl who went for talking during sex. So you can understand the effort she was making here.

Moshe liked it. He liked this other woman being there.

Then Nana added some specifics. Nana was, by the way, lying on her back. She raised her knees, up to her breasts, and looked into Moshe’s happy eyes. As she did this she said, very softly, smiling, ‘And this girl’s Anjali?’

It was a fantasy. They were having sex. So Moshe agreed to this scenario. I can’t see anything odd or wrong about that. The point of a fantasy is that it is completely amoral. It has nothing to do with reality. Moshe grinned. He liked it when Nana described what Anjali was doing to his testicles. It sounded interesting. It sounded technically advanced. And it was making him come. So when Nana said, ‘Why not?’, he only nodded. When she said ‘I mean really why not?’, breathing deeply and happily Moshe nodded. He said, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ as Nana explained how she would sit on Anjali’s face while Moshe licked Anjali.

He gasped. Nana explained what Anjali’s tongue would be doing, and where Moshe would be positioned. He gasped. He said, ‘Yeah we should do it,’ and then he came.

He did not think it would be for real. He did not think that Nana was serious. I told you. It was not his style.

13

In real life, however, Moshe did not have to deal with such a fantasy threesome. No. It was more of a polite threesome. It was decorous.

Nana was looking scared, lying on the floor. And Anjali — because Anjali was that sort of girl, she was into aromatherapy — handed Moshe her pot of Aveda juniper massage oil.

This might seem obscure at first, I suppose, but I do not think it was obscure. It was very intelligent. Alone in Regent’s Park she might have been prone to sentimentality but — on the floor in Finsbury — Anjali was being the most thoughtful.

The conventional view of a threesome, I think, is of blonde girls draping themselves around some toned and attractive boy. Or not even a toned and attractive boy. Two blondes, people think, will drape themselves round any man with money. But this is a very limited view of the threesome. A threesome is not this easy. It is certainly not this abstract. There are all sorts of possible mistakes to be made. A threesome is socially uncertain. The key, therefore, to a successful threesome is to keep everyone involved. And this was exactly what Anjali was thinking. Her plan was that she and Moshe would be gentle to Nana. They would massage her. A massage was not quite sexual, it was not frightening.

So Moshe and Anjali pushed smooth oil on Nana’s legs and feet. And it worked. It relaxed her. ‘Thass lovely,’ she said, closing her eyes, like a starlet, ‘really lovely.’ She scooped her glass of wine up, Ernest Julio Gallo Californian cabernet sauvignon, and it spilled on her blonde furry chin. Anjali licked it off. Moshe stared, excited wide-eyed scared. He stared.

But Moshe was not an expert masseur. Soon he became bored with massage oil. So while patient Anjali moved on to Nana’s hands and fingers, he began to kiss Nana’s stomach. I can see that this might seem forward. This might seem gauchely enthusiastic. And it was. But it also seemed to work. Nana was getting excitable. She said, ‘Kiss me,’ to Anjali, while Moshe stroked and scratched inside her legs.

Anjali put the pot of oil on the window sill and said, ‘This okay? This okay?’ She kissed Nana. She said, ‘I like kissing you.’ She nuzzled down to the base of Nana’s neck, cheek to cheek. ‘That tickled! ’ giggled Nana at Moshe. She looked down and grinned at Moshe. He grinned back. So Nana let her head flop back. She kissed Anjali, shutting her eyes.

This is slow, I know that. No one has even undressed. I know. But this is what sex is like. It is lots of thoughts and movements.

Anjali, for example, was wondering why she had never done this before — having sex with a couple. But then suddenly Nana stopped kissing her. Nana kissed her lightly on the forehead and then looked down at Moshe.

I do like Moshe. Moshe is really so sweet. He was doing his best to make stroking Nana’s inside thigh a pleasure for him. But it was not easy. It was not easy to be that interested when he was feeling slightly sad. But he grinned. And Anjali curved her neck round and grinned at happy Moshe. She looked at Nana, grinning. And then Anjali knew what was wrong.

Nana was anxious for Moshe. She wanted to see Moshe with Anjali. She did not want Moshe to be abandoned. That was what Anjali thought.

And she could do that, thought Anjali. It was not what she had imagined. She had imagined just girl-girl action, while Moshe watched. But if this was what Nana wanted, thought Anjali, then she should be kind. After all, Moshe was not unappealing. If that was what Nana wanted, then Anjali would do it.

Oh, altruism.

Positioned at Nana’s feet, Moshe was sad. He was expecting to be left out. He did not think that Anjali really liked boys. Now that they were in this extraordinary position, he would have liked this to be a trio. It would, he felt, be best if everyone were pleasured. But he was not expecting anything. Moshe just sadly assumed that this was the natural progression of all their mutual kissing and touching. This was what came of eating Go-Go Supreme Pizza deals at five in the afternoon. He had only himself to blame.