HOW TO PLAN A MENAGE A TROIS

At a loss for what to get her husband for his birthday, Pamela Druckerman asked what he’d like. The answer was both a surprise — and a challenge.

At a loss for what to get her husband for his birthday, Pamela Druckerman asked what he’d like. The answer was both a surprise — and a challenge.

The question on my husband’s birthday is always, ‘What do you get for the man who has nothing?’ My husband isn’t a shopper. Standing in front of his closet, he once declared that he has enough pants to last the rest of his life. When I inquire about his plans for a drawer containing dozens of stray socks, he says, “My heirs will sort it out.”

For his 40th birthday, I decide to buy him a vintage watch. It will declare to the world that — despite his tattered sweaters — he’s an employed adult.

It’s an expensive, non-returnable gift, so I mention my plan to him one night before bed. He immediately baulks. He says that what he really wants for his birthday isn’t a good, it’s a service: a threesome with me and another woman.

I’m not exactly shocked by this request. He’d floated the idea of a threesome before (though never as a gift). And though I’d never done it, going to bed with two women is a standard-issue male fantasy, and the plot of most heterosexual pornography. And we are in Paris, if that counts for anything.

He asks for the threesome spontaneously — but seriously. And, just as spontaneously, I say “yes”. As a journalist, I have trouble resisting a deadline. And I like the idea of a gesture to show that I’m not slipping quietly into middle age.

We agree on the threesome in principle. But the idea is so exotic that for a few weeks it just sits there. Occasionally, I mention the name of a female friend.

“Would she be acceptable?” I ask him. “Absolutely,” he says each time. It turns out that practically every woman we know — all of my female friends and the wives of practically all of his male friends — would potentially make the cut, including the pregnant ones.

That hardly matters, because at first I’m too embarrassed to even raise the topic with anyone we know. And though I’m a novice, I’m pretty sure that recruiting a friend would be a mistake. There’s the enormous potential for awkwardness on the day itself and long afterward. And I don’t want someone creating a wedge in our cosy twosome. I’m envisioning this as a one-off.

Anyway, I wouldn’t know which girlfriend to ask. I’m not sure who’d be tempted by the idea, and who’d be appalled.

Finally, over brunch, we summon the courage to discuss our plans with friends who are visiting from London. One of them, a single British banker who’s nearing 40 herself, grimaces and then goes silent.

“You look horrified,” I say.