The Strangest Date I Ever Went On

It was late September 2021 in Brooklyn...

Photo Credit: Deon Black

It was late September 2021 in Brooklyn when I decided to download Feeld. Now, Feeld is not your typical dating app. You won’t find parameters like “Want Marriage” or “Want Kids” or other societally repressive bullshit on there. Instead, Feeld has every flavor of sexual preference stenciled into its code of acronyms: GGG (Good, Giving and Game), MMF (Male, Male, Female threesomes), MFF (Male, Female, Female threesomes) and ENM (Ethically Non-monogamous), to name a few. If monogamy is walking on a beach and holding hands together then Feeld is an orgy in the ocean.

As I swiped through people’s profiles, all of this was new to me. I was somewhat fresh out of a relationship with a lovely French man. I was even more fresh out of the most traumatic thing that had ever happened to me, and the PTSD to match. In reality, I was all levels of messed up. But I wasn’t ready to give up tackling the New York Dating Scene. It might be one of the most destructive forces of mankind, but I was determined to get back in the ring and tackle it.

As I vetoed femdom-seeking financiers and Burning Man omnisexuals who had reached nirvana, I soon came across a normal-enough looking man named Clement. From his limited photos, Clement seemed very slim and very French, with round glasses and bouncing blonde-brown curly hair (the kind, I must admit, the men in my sex dreams have). The pictures of him scaling rocks and standing in a lab coat intrigued me. Dark academia vibes. He was a scientist in his late 30s, apparently. The kind whose skin would tan if we hopped on a sailboat together off the coast of St. Tropez. The kind whose strategically placed moles amongst his chest hair spelt out their own constellation, their own secrets to the universe. I might be 12 years younger than him, but perhaps Clement could float my boat. I reasoned this out logically with myself: What the flying fuck have I got to lose?

I liked Clement’s profile, and we matched instantly. He messaged me:

“Drink this Friday night?”

Gosh, I thought to myself. That seems a little forward. I reviewed my own Feeld profile again, just to make sure I wasn’t coming off as a total, desperate weirdo. In my bio I had written,

“I’m heteroflexible and looking for people I can connect with deeply and meaningfully. I’m looking for a fun time.”

Wow, I sighed. How had I managed to sound so groveling and presumptive at the same time? I checked that I had my most up-to-date photos, which included a picture of me skinny-dipping in Wales.

Maybe I was looking for a fun time.

“I’m down,” I responded to him.

We agreed to meet at Bar Pisellino in the West Village that Friday. Yes, I know the West Village is overrun with rich yuppies. But there’s something about the tree-lined streets and fancy boutiques that just sings to me. $300 USD dinners and all. It’s exquisite. And Bar Pisellino had my favorite negronis in town.

Clement messaged me as I rushed out the door,

“Can I bring my friend?”

“Sure,” I replied, thinking nothing of it.

When I arrived at the bar, the sun was setting behind the tall, checkered-windowed buildings of Manhattan. The streets were teaming with people. The deafening whirr of traffic blended into the crowds swelling outside the restaurants and bars, itching to be seated. Bar Pisellino was no exception. I noticed a tall man with brown hair standing beside the clusters of people by the front door. He looked at me. I looked at him.

He must be waiting for his date, I thought. I texted Clement to see where he was. A second later, Clement emerged from inside the bar. He was wearing skinny jeans and black Converse and seemed to be in a hurry.

“Hi” I said, giving him an awkward wave.

“Hey, V,” he said, pausing to look at me from behind his round glasses. He was cute. And he was citing my Feeld name (most people on Feeld use a fake name or a single letter).

“You can call me Tash,” I said.

I noticed that Clement seemed to be standing surprisingly close to the man I had ignored a moment earlier.

“This is Edgar,” Clement said to me, introducing me to said tall, brown-haired man. Edgar smiled at me vaguely. His buttoned-down shirt was smart-enough, but his jaw was shallow, and his teeth were slightly crooked.

“Okay,” I said, struggling to hide my confusion behind a fake smile.

“Good evening,” Edgar said in a mal-adjusted French accent, “There’s about an hour wait for a table. What should we do?” He glanced at Clement helplessly.

“Let’s get beers from the shop around the corner,” Clement said, waving up the street like he was going through a maze, “Then Washington Square Park. It’s not far.”

We stopped at a bodega half a block away from the park.

“What beer do you like?” Edgar said.

“IPAs,” I said. He nodded nervously without looking at me and slipped inside. Once he was gone, Clement turned to me. Like he was interviewing me for a job, he began,

“Have you ever done something like this before?”

I frowned at him, confused.

“This is only my first Feeld date—”

“Your first Feeld date? Ever?” Clement said, “Wow. So, not very experienced. Tell me about your fantasies then.”

His questions felt like someone was repeatedly stepping on the heel of my shoe. Something felt off about him. But I wanted to seem casual and collected. I felt like I was back in secondary school, when I met up with a boy in the year above me who was so much cooler and wiser than me. How old was Clement again? 36 or 37?

“Um, I’m definitely a brat—”

“What do you do for work?”

“I do Data Analytics at Vox Media and I’m a writer. And you’re a scientist? Are you part of a lab or something—”

“Let’s not bother about that. My career is steady and it’s very boring. Have you ever been to any sex clubs or orgies?”

I glanced at him nervously, searching his green eyes behind his glasses. Was this how he normally treated a woman on a first date? By barraging them with questions, while his “friend” had stepped away for a moment? Who even was Edgar? And why was he here, on our date?

It all gave me the creeps. The rushed nature of everything. Priming me open and trying to get me to share things before we’d established any semblance of trust. Picking me, a much younger woman, out of thin air from a kink app. I had been the naïve one here, obviously. I felt the goosebumps on my arm prick up underneath my chiffon shirt. My defensiveness was swelling in my gut like lighter fluid. I started picking up on markers of familiarity. Okay, we’re just passed the north corner of 6th and Waverly. And there’s about a hundred people in every direction you look. They can’t abduct you. Not in front of everyone. Not here, while it’s still light outside. Right?

Edgar returned from the bodega. He had a black plastic bag under his arm, and a beer in his hand that was already open. He handed it to me.  

“Y-You know, you really shouldn’t h-hand a girl an open beer,” I said, trying to sound firm, “I have no idea what you might have put in that.”

“Mec,” Clement barked at him, “Give her one of the closed ones.”

Edgar looked perplexed. He fumbled in the bag. Had he no tact? If they were really trying to date rape me, they were doing a lousy job of spiking my drink. Perhaps they weren’t malicious. Perhaps they were just a bit nerdy and incompetent and they were trying to seduce me.

“It’s fine,” I said, settling with the latter. I took the open beer from Edgar and sipped it as we crossed the street.

The trees of Washington Square Park bowed to us, heavy with leaves between the rows of black Victorian streetlamps. We zig-zagged between tables of chess players and passed a playground where children were climbing on a jungle gym. Over the dwindling hum of cicadas came the beats of boomboxes and the thumping of people rollerblading. We sat down in a fading patch of grass just behind the large, white arch and signature fountains. I sipped the beer. The flavor of the hops was fresh, soothing, sweet, and bitter. I felt a rush of energy, spurred on by the city. There was a calm, gently empowering feel to the air.

“What is this all about, anyway?” I said.

Clement smirked at Edgar,

“We like to share.”

“What?”

“Women.”

“I mean, I got that far. But how? Like at the same time?”

“We each take our time with the girl, watching what the other one does with her.”

I sipped my beer, trying to glaze over my reaction. But inside, I was stunned. Was this what men in their late 30s did? Once they felt stagnated in their careers, and all their friends were having kids? How many girls had they done this with? And how on God’s green earth had Clement and Edgar found each other? Maybe it had once started as an extremely drunk threesome, and they found out that they kind of liked it, after all. I looked back and forth between them. Edgar caught my eye. Clement caught my eye. It was then, and only then, that I really understood. I was on a date with both of them.

“What about you?” I said, turning to Edgar. He was the one I was struggling to connect with. “Is that your biggest fantasy too? Like how many times have you done this?”

Edgar ran his fingers unevenly through his hair.

“W-we had a night together in Central Park this summer with Anastasia.”

“Poutain,” Clement said, gesturing with his hand like he was blowing smoke away, “Incroyable.”

“So you like to watch?” I said.

“Yes. I watch. Then we switch,” Edgar said.

“But isn’t having sex in Central Park dangerous? What happens if somebody finds you?”

“Mais, that’s the thrill of it,” Edgar said, “People see you.”

“Right,” I said vaguely. I pictured them fucking on the lawn in the darkness beside a pond. Under a picnic blanket, for some reason, as old, Upper West Side couples dallied passed them in the moonlight. No, I thought. These people reveled in being seen.

“So, do you like us?” Clement said.

“What do you mean?” I felt myself blushing.

“Would you want to do this? Or are you attracted to only one of us?”

“Cut to the chase, why don’t you,” I said, trying to laugh it off. Clement was hot. But I wasn’t attracted to Edgar enough for it to make this whole fiasco worth it. So I topped it off with a bit of sass.

“In your dreams,” I said.

“Mais, she’s not an easy one,” Edgar said, lighting a cigarette. We were silent for a moment, before Clement reached into his pocket.

“Do you want some cocaine?”

“Now?!” I said, taking stock of all the children that were around, “It’s like 7pm.”

“Just to loosen up a bit?”

Clement took a key from his pocket. He dabbed some coke on the end and snorted it. Edgar did the same.

“I’m good, thanks though,” I said.

“Sure?”

“Yep.”

It was the mother of all red flags. Sure, there were elements of hanging out with them that I liked. The forwardness, strangely, kind of. The insanity of the things they asked me. And also their nerdy nervousness as they made awkward mistakes. But I couldn’t do it. They had been too forward with the sex part. I felt like I had been hit in the face with a baseball bat of their deeply personal questions.

“I have to head back home,” I said, crafting my exit.

They snorted some more cocaine.

“Where do you live?”

“Williamsburg.”

“We had plans to meet up with a friend there for dinner,” Clement said.

“Oh, great,” I said suspiciously.

They decided to take the L with me from Union Square. As we walked briskly towards the station, I threw the beer bottle in the trash. It was a strange moment. We were at a point in the date where I would soon leave them. Soon, they would be swallowed back into the anonymity of strangers in the city, coexisting with me like ships with missed sexual potential passing in the night.

We got on the L train amongst the boom and bustle of early partygoers and friends headed to Brooklyn. I remembered standing up against the doors of the train carriage. Clement stood to my right. Edgar stood to my left. I held onto the vertical rail beside the glass, and they held onto the horizontal rails overhead. They were cornering me, kind of. I had their full attention. It was a brief, thrilling, intoxicating moment. Both of these men were here for me. The people surrounding us, friends passing their phone around to share memes, and a couple holding hands silently together, tote bags resting limply on opposite shoulders, had no idea. We were a silent, secret trio. A three-way disguised as a typical group of friends, hiding before their very eyes. As the train headed deeper into the ground under the river into Brooklyn, Clement turned to face me. He looked me dead in the eyes and said,

“You know, I speak for both of us when I say that we’d love to have sex with you tonight.”

I could feel Edgar’s somewhat clumsy presence standing at my other side. The attention, the dynamic, the triangle with two pairs of eyes leading to me. It was unboundedly hot. Clement and Edgar might have been weird. They might have been cocaine addicts. But never in my life had I received such a mind-bending, thigh-wrenching, pleasure-dome-squirting proposition. I decided to cherish those last 30 seconds with them because I knew. I might have to wait another 25 years on Planet Earth before I received such a proposition again.

 “You asked me straight about sex,” I protested, “How can I trust either of you? If I could have gotten to know you both over dinner, that would have been better.”

“So you want to, then?” Clement said, “We’ll come to Williamsburg and take you out for dinner. We’ll give you whatever you want.”

Edgar nodded.

“I’ll think about it,” I told them.

I said goodbye to them on the platform at Bedford Avenue. I checked to make sure they weren’t following me before I turned in the other direction and headed home. I was still on the fence about going out with them for dinner one day. Luckily, perhaps for my own sake, their invitation never came.