I have an idea for a movie where a woman, who discovers her husband is having an affair, seeks out the woman he’s having sex with. The wife, Eva, is a sexually conservative fiftiesh woman. Lily, in her late thirties, is a sexual free spirit.
The husband, Adam, and Eva (yeah yeah it’s on purpose) got married right out of college. He and Lily meet at a jazz concert. She is sitting in the seat next to him. He’s not with his wife, because Eva’s not a jazz fan. The two start up a conversation during intermission and it goes on from there.
When Adam refuses to stop seeing Lily, Eva takes measures into her own hands. Not wanting to get divorced, she shows up at Lily’s apartment with the hope of intimidating her to stay away from her husband. When this doesn’t work, Eva returns, pleading with Lily, who listens and responds by telling her all the things that are missing in her relationship, according to her husband – which really sets Eva off.
But before she can say anything, Lily, who is not attached to any kind of future with Adam, adds, “I can help you get your husband back. I can help you, but you have to be willing to change and you have to trust me as your teacher.”
Eva can hardly believe the nerve of this woman! She storms off, indignant, but six months later, desperate to save her marriage, she goes back to Lily’s apartment.
But by then, Lily has fallen in love with Adam and is not feeling so generous.
“I will be giving you my time, my knowledge and eventually your husband back. What will you give me in return?” she asks. “What is your marriage worth to you?”
After a lot of emotional back and forth, the two come up with a financially substantial year long contract.
Lily also draws up a list of agreements between Adam, Eva and herself – which includes that she and Adam will continue having sex until his desire for his wife returns.
Initially, Lily works just with Eva, who rightfully so doesn’t trust her and is a stubborn student. Lily pushes Eva to go to places that are so radically beyond her comfort zone, several times she walks out and threatens to break their contract. But as she starts to feel her progress, a real friendship begins to form between the two women. And on a deeper level, Eva finally begins to trust her wild feminine self.
“You’re a porn star!” Lily high fives Eva after she masters deep throating her dildo.
Things get even more intimate, when Lily comes into the married couple’s bedroom and watches them during love making. She interrupts and instructs them on all sorts of points, including demonstrating for Eva how to suck Adam’s cock like a Venetian courtesan, and demonstrating for Adam how to give his wife a squirting orgasm. Lily invites them to both see each other’s mystery. She helps them to talk dirty, as well as be more honest, sensitive, vulnerable and present with each other.
During these sex lessons, everything arises on both sides from feelings of inadequacy and jealousy, to Adam and Eva being more turned on than either have ever been in their lives.
Then Lily enters into their love making, and the three explore ménage style, trading places, penetrating and receiving one another, sometimes all at once.
The climaxing moment takes them all by surprise, when after one such hot and steamy evening together, Adam looks deeply into Eva’s eyes, as if falling in love with her again for the first time. Witnessing them, it’s Lily’s turn to feel jealous. And coincidentally, it’s the last night of their one year contract.
The last scene of the movie shows Lily walking at night down a busy New York city street. She is crying because she knows she needs to let Adam and Eva go. In her knowing, she begins to smile, wiping her eyes and face. She stops and looks around at all the lights, colors and different people. She hears a jazz rendition of the Chris Issak song, Wicked Game. The singer ends with the words: “No I don’t want to fall in love – Yeah I want to fall in love…with you.” She opens the door of the club and walks in.
This is the kind of romance I can believe in – because in it, everybody has to stretch and grow.
As a woman who has been on both sides, the subject matter of “love triangles” has always intrigued me. Not for the Hollywood ménage thing, but for healing that’s possible when sex takes me to my edge. My edges are where all the magic happens.
If sex doesn’t take me to my edge in some way, I’m bored. It’s not that I need drama. I’m just sick of the dream of happily ever after. I’m so bored with all the guilt that’s passed back and forth between men and women for the sake of keeping their relationship together. I’m bored with the portrayal of the innocent, self righteous wife or husband who’s been “wronged,” and the Hollywood split between good and evil, particularly between the virgin and the whore, the good wife and the bad other woman. I’m bored with couples getting divorced because one of them has an affair with somebody else. And frankly I’m bored with traditional therapy that just makes couples talk each other dry.
As always, I write what’s on my mind to stir your inquiry. I’m not justifying breaking agreements or having affairs. I’m just wondering what it would really take for two people to change and grow back together after having grown apart. Because they didn’t just grow apart overnight. They’ve been on auto pilot for years.
As a sex and intimacy coach, I see how men and women compromise and enable each other to stay comfortably happy. As their passion fades in the process, they either settle for mediocre sex or seek out the affections of others. Sadly, most people assume that this is normal and par for the course in marriage – just like we assumed, not too long ago, that at a certain age we should get married and after that, have kids, etc. And in many parts of the country, like my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio, this is still true.
My question is: Why is this still the dream?
Recently a friend asked me, “When or under what circumstances do I experience the most intimacy?” My answer to her was, “When there is both safety and danger.”
Marriage, in my opinion, robs the romance between two people, of all its beautiful danger. Because when we feel too safe, when we know what’s next, we go to sleep, we die a little.
To the degree we go to sleep in our marriage will be the intensity of our wake up call. Depending on when we fell asleep in our dream of happiness is how far we have to come back from the past to be in the present moment.
Imagine being asleep for ten years! That’s how shocking it feels when your husband or wife tells you they’re no longer in love with you. It’s not that he or she’s a bad person or you’re a bad person, you just fell asleep. You needed something to wake you both up.
In the heroine’s journey, a woman must not only seek out, but create relationship with her arch enemy and turn her enemy into her ally.
No one ever told me why Lilith was kicked out of Eden. Did she call Adam a dick? Did she tell him to go pick his own damn fruit for breakfast? Did he catch her pleasuring herself in the garden without him?
I’ve always been curious about what would happen if Adam and Lilith bumped into each other lifetimes later. And even more curious about what would happen if Eve and Lilith met. How might the world be different if this notorious triad ever got together and healed the split between woman and woman and man and woman?
The focus of Session 6 of the Women’s Sexual Mystery School is on Becoming Our Own Best Lover. Self desire and self pleasuring is as much a part of loving ourselves as anything else. And the more we can expand our capacity to feel pleasure on our own, the more able we are to give and receive pleasure with others. We meet Saturday September 5 in Santa Barbara, California. You can sign up or get more information at www.SexualMystery.com. Can’t join us this round? Get on my site e list and receive my free e book “How to Make Men Flock to You: Secret Attraction Practices Every Woman Should Know.” Like anything I’ve shared? Please pass this link onto others. This little Goddess mystery school needs your support. Thank you so much!
Love n Shakti, Lisa
