Around five weeks out from my wife’s 30th birthday, I began to panic. Thirty was a milestone birthday, and it required a gift of some significance. Upping the stakes further, it would be her first birthday since we tied the knot.
Jewelry really wasn’t Maria’s thing, and given that her fashion choices were so quintessentially her, I knew that surprising her with an item of clothing would be a gamble. Amidst all this impotent fretting, I received an email from a woman saying that she’d read and enjoyed my writing about sex. I got messages like this every once in a while, but this one was particularly flirty—the sign-off mentioning that I should look her up if I ever happened to be in Toronto.
In the next set of exchanges, Carla mentioned her high sex drive and penchant for novelty. A few days later, she attached some pictures. The shots were of a tall, beautiful, slender yet curvaceous brunette in various states of undress. The idea that my writing had piqued her interest in me was really not helping me to hone in on Maria’s 30th birthday gift. Until suddenly, it did.
In her latest communique, she mentioned that having a threesome with a guy and another woman was on her sexual to-do list. It just so happened that it was also on my wife’s. And although I’d had a debauched sex life due to my work, having a regular old-fashioned threesome had somehow evaded me.
Given the audacity of the plan taking shape, I asked for Carla’s number and called her as opposed to plotting this out over email. In a voice that sounded exactly like Pam from the Office, she enthusiastically consented to my plan. That plan was just this: I would fly her the 2000 miles from Toronto to Vancouver where three of us would hole up in a hotel room, emerging periodically for food and drinks. Carla already seen and gushed over pictures of Maria on Facebook, and I felt confident that Maria would feel similarly enthused about her.
My next move was to make sure that Maria would be amenable to a sexy weekend while retaining something to surprise her with on her actual birthday. Together, we selected dates, ultimately choosing a weekend around two weeks after her birthday. I figured that I would reveal exactly what I had in store for her with enough lead time for Maria to get excited and prep. And in the event that I totally misjudged the situation, I’d still have a couple of weeks to apologize and get her a more traditional gift. Once I confirmed the dates with Carla, I reserved a chic, boutique hotel room and bought her ticket out west.
Ultimately, I did end up getting Maria some more traditional gifts for her to open on her birthday, but the pièce de résistance was a birthday card/brochure I’d made featuring pictures Carla had sent for that very purpose. I waited with bated breath as she absorbed the images and read through the details of what I had planned. To my immense relief, my audacious gift elicited not a slap but a hug. Through tears of joy, Maria exclaimed that this was the best gift she could have hoped for. At that moment, I was king of the world.
There were a couple of things thing worrying me, however. Try as I might, I hadn’t managed to establish that the Carla on the phone was the woman in the dozens of pictures I’d been sent. Apparently, she didn’t have a webcam—making verification that much more difficult. I was also just too damn polite to insist that she send me a selfie of her face next to a copy of today’s paper. “I promise it’s me,” she said, when I alluded to my doubts. But I was also fixated on another scenario in which Carla just didn’t show up. Not being the type to keep my paranoia to myself, I told Maria, who was typically unflappable.
“If she isn’t the woman in the picture, we’re not obligated to spend the weekend with her,” she said. “And if she doesn’t show, you and I get to have a dirty weekend together. It’s all good.”
Maria spent Friday afternoon in prep mode. She got a mani-pedi, a bikini wax, and picked out some hot lingerie to wear. I checked into the room, provisioned it with condoms, lube, various sex toys, water, snacks and put a bottle of bubbly on ice. I took a shower, then headed out to the airport and girded myself for an imposter, a no-show, or Carla in all her glory. Sure enough, there she was, looking even more gorgeous than in her pictures.
We got into a cab and started making out—but a minute or two in, she warned me that if we went any further, she wouldn’t be able to stop. It was a remark the cabbie heard and shot me a sharp look in the rearview. Maria was waiting for us in the hotel bar when we arrived. We ordered some cocktails and engaged in some excited and slightly awkward conversation. Maria suggested that we go and get dinner, which prompted Carla to suggest that we head upstairs instead.
“I’m not really that hungry,” she said. “Maybe we’ll be hungry later?”
With that, Carla grabbed Maria’s hand and started guiding her towards the elevator. Maria, looked over her shoulder, winked and mouthed “oh my god” and then “thank you.” I immediately threw some cash on the table, grabbed Carla’s case and gamely followed them into the elevator, barely concealing my shit-eating grin from the intrigued concierge.
In the room, I poured the girls some bubbles then went into the bathroom to try and regain my composure. Given that neither of them had been with a woman before, I was concerned that things could take a while to get going. It turns out, I didn’t need to worry: By the time I reemerged 90 seconds later, both were in their underwear hungrily, making out with their hands all over one another. After watching them 69 for a few minutes, I was ushered into the fray.
The rest of the weekend was something of a blur. As expected there was quite a lot of sex, interspersed with trips to bars and restaurants. By the end of day two, however, Maria’s thirst for lengthy sex sessions had been slaked and she was egging us to spend more time out of the hotel room. Though Carla was reluctant to put clothes on—as was I, honestly—we finally ventured outside. In all, a successful weekend.