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When Pamela Druckerman’s husband asked for a threesome for his 40th birthday, she reluctantly agreed, on one condition — that she pick the other woman.

[Editor's note: This article contains content that is sexual in nature.]

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; he buys food and, lately, diapers. He recently declared that he has enough pants to last the rest of his life. When I asked about his intentions regarding a drawer containing dozens of stray socks, he said his heirs would sort it out.

For his 40th birthday, I had my eye on a vintage watch. It would complement his tattered sweaters and declare to the world that he is, in fact, employed. But when I mention this to him, he balks. He says that what he really wants isn’t a good, but a service: a threesome with me and another woman.

This isn’t exactly surprising. He’d voiced the fantasy before. So had practically every guy I’d ever dated. But this time I say yes. Maybe it’s the moral weight of the big birthday and the fact that he never asks for anything. Maybe I’m daunted by the price tag on a stainless-steel Rolex. Maybe, as a journalist, I can’t resist a deadline, or I pity him heading into middle age consigned to sleeping with the same woman (me) for the rest of his life. And maybe, just maybe, it’s because I fancy the idea myself.

I should say that we are normally quite dull. We don’t swing or have an open marriage. We’re rarely even awake past 10 p.m. Although I wrote a book about infidelity around the world, I ended up concluding that fidelity is quite a good idea. So far, it has been for us. This wouldn’t technically be cheating, but it’s not textbook monogamy, either.

Indeed, the idea of a threesome is so exotic that for a few weeks, it just sits there. I occasionally mention the name of a female friend.

“Would she be acceptable?”

“Absolutely,” he says. It turns out that all of my girlfriends and practically all the spouses of his friends would potentially make the cut, including the pregnant ones.

Although I’m a novice, I’m pretty sure that getting someone we know would be a mistake. There’s the enormous potential for awkwardness. And I don’t want someone creating a wedge in our cozy twosome. I’m envisioning this as a onetime deal.

Anyway, I wouldn’t know whom to ask. My husband and his friends can chat over a beer about getting two women into bed. Heck, that’s porn. But middle-class straight girls don’t tend to compare same-sex fantasies. It’s hard to know who’d be tempted and who’d be appalled.

Over brunch one day in Paris (where my husband and I now live — I’m American; he’s British), we tell some friends about the planned birthday “present.” One of them, a single British banker who’s nearing 40 herself, grimaces and goes silent.

“You look horrified,” I say.

“Yes, I mean, I just think it’s extraordinary!” she says, blushing.

My husband rejects the idea of a sex club as too public. I rule out advertising online, since that seems like an open call for venereal disease. We decide that the ideal candidate would be a sexy acquaintance. She’d be vetted (everyone knows acquaintances don’t have herpes) but easy to avoid afterward.

A candidate soon emerges. She’s a friend of a friend I’ve met at dinner parties but whose name I can never remember. By chance she’s seated behind us at a concert, with a man who appears to be her date. For the first time, I notice that she’s quite pretty. She’s tall and thin, with a little ballerina’s waist. And I’m pretty sure she’s sassy.

“How about her?” I whisper to my husband.

“Yes!” he says, too loudly.

After the concert, the four of us chat. I make firm eye contact with the woman (who I’ve figured out is named Emma), act fascinated by her comments on the music, and wait for my window to suggest that she and I meet for lunch. She seems flattered. A few days later, we exchange e-mails and make plans to have Thai food. I get gussied up, and am pleased to see when I arrive that she has, too. Does she know that she’s on a date?

Usually I’m so self-absorbed that my companion could be bleeding to death and I might not notice. But the pursuit of the threesome has made me more attentive. Over soup, I listen carefully to Emma and quickly understand something that would have taken me years to notice: Under a pond of sassiness is a lagoon of insecurity. She clings to boyfriends who mistreat her, convinced that she doesn’t deserve them. I’d mistaken tall for self-possessed.

This probably means that she’s too emotionally fragile for a threesome, but I decide to broach the topic anyway, at least to get some practice. I do it under the guise of exchanging girly confidences, saying, “You won’t believe what my husband wants for his birthday.” I tell her that I’ve agreed to it in principle but that I haven’t yet found the third party.

I think she gets that I’m propositioning her, but instead of taking the bait, she becomes the Cassandra of threesomes. She describes the rogue ex-boyfriend who pressured her to go to bed with him and his other lover, and the friends of hers who swapped partners and never swapped back. She says that I’ll be scarred by images of my husband doing unspeakable things to another woman. “And what if it’s someone who’s incredibly hot? How could you possibly handle that?” she asks, a bit insultingly.

Not only is Emma out of the running, she seems to be morphing into that most dreaded of creatures: the friend. She talks of future lunch dates at other Asian restaurants. I’m suddenly sympathetic to those male “friends” of mine who disappeared when I got engaged. Why stick around?

That night I tell my husband about the “date,” which cost me $50 and ate up half my workday.

“Thanks for taking care of that,” he says, without looking up from his computer. It’s exactly what he says when I’ve waited at home all morning for the plumber or replaced the rechargeable batteries in our phones. It occurs to me that planning this threesome has become another one of the things I do, like organizing playdates and supervising the renovation of our kitchen.

Nevertheless, my new man’s-eye view of the world is thrilling. I notice women everywhere — at the photo shop, in line at the supermarket. I even scan my book group — middle-aged expatriates who like to read about the Holocaust — for candidates.

I have a belated feminist revelation: Women don’t demand raises and promotions, because we’re trained to sit pretty and let someone else chase us. In my new role as decider, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I just go after what I want from them. It’s refreshing to have some time off from wondering whether I look fat.

And putting this once-furtive fantasy on the table is energizing. Threesomes suddenly seem to be everywhere, although the message about them is paradoxical: Everyone (at least everyone male) wants to have one, but no one’s had a good one. A friend says he bedded two women on the night of September 11, 2001, as they all watched television together. But — as in many stories I hear — there’s an imbalance. One of the women had a serious, unreciprocated crush on him. “Inside every threesome is a twosome and a onesome,” a character on Gossip Girl warns.

I’m undaunted, but no closer to finding a candidate. Fortunately, my husband and I extend the deadline a few weeks past his birthday after realizing that, between work trips and school holidays, we don’t actually have time for a threesome until the end of the month.

Three sets of feet sticking out of the sheets\\”How I Planned a Menage a Trois”\\Photo: BreBa\Beyond, courtesy of Marie Claire

I decide to have a look at some websites. Perhaps not everyone on them has gonorrhea? At least a dozen couples are seeking a woman for a threesome. The couples all claim to be gorgeous and under 30. Since I can’t compete on looks or age, I decide to distinguish myself by sounding desperate: “I’d like to give my partner his best birthday present ever: an experience with me and another woman. Will you help me?”

To my surprise, I get a reply 15 minutes later. It’s literate and nice.

“Hi, I also have a boyfriend with the same fantasy (not very original, I know, but boys will be boys!!). Maybe we could end up doing a deal (though not necessarily). If we like each other, I’d be happy to help out. What kind of scenario did you have in mind?”

She signs it “N.”

It may seem imprudent to pledge loyalty to an anonymous, bisexual woman who trolls “no-strings” websites, but I decide on the spot that I won’t respond to anyone else. I like her sisterly tone and her perfect spelling. I’m not sure about the exchange deal, but that doesn’t seem to be mission-critical for her (although when I read the e-mail to my husband that night, he says, “I’ll swap you”).

We exchange more e-mails (I call myself “P”). It turns out she’s a straight, divorced, disease-free mom in her 40s who claims she was motivated to answer my ad by a kind of sexual altruism. She also quotes the French expression, “One need not die an idiot.” I agree. We decide to meet for coffee.

As I’m getting ready to go meet her (silk sweaterdress, foundation, mascara), I’m suddenly struck by the strangeness of what I’m about to do. It’s real, and I’m nervous. How do I convince a woman to take off her clothes? My husband, who spent years of his life addressing this particular challenge, gives me a little pep talk.

“With women, you have to listen to all the stuff they say,” he explains. “They have all these complex emotional issues, and you have to try to figure out what they are. Just keep asking questions. Be pleasant and reassuring but also slightly mysterious.” He’s probably afraid that I’ll back out, because he adds that to keep life interesting, sometimes you have to stick your neck out.

“It’s not my neck that’s going to be sticking out,” I say.

I’m already sitting down when N. walks into the café. She’s a pretty, slim brunette with a friendly face. Although she’s dressed conservatively, I notice that her makeup is fresh. She must be eager to make a good impression, too. I’m certain that my husband will like her.

I try to seem riveted as she describes her boyfriend woes, her life as a single mom, and the health issues of her elderly father. Despite the peculiar circumstances, she’s clinging to the conventions of female bonding. I steer the conversation toward sex. She says she’s never been with another woman and isn’t sure how she’ll feel about that. She doesn’t mention the possible swap. We part warmly with a chaste, double-cheeked kiss. I wait several days before sending her a note. I tell her that she’s been in my thoughts and that I found her charming “in every way.” She replies immediately, saying that she’s very game for our adventure, but that she’d like to discuss it in more detail. Could we meet again?

I’m not sure what kind of plans she wants to make. We’ll each suck one of his toes? I’ll read him poetry while she pirouettes? The course of things on the day itself seems hard to predict. But by now I’m goal-oriented. If that’s what she needs, then fine.

At our second meeting, her insecurities surface: Do I think this counts as cheating on her boyfriend? (“Of course not!”) What kind of women does my husband like? (“Brunettes!”) We lay down some ground rules for the threesome. To avoid it getting too thrusty and porn-like, the two of us will be in charge. My husband won’t make a move unless we allow it. She and I will go to the small, furnished apartment that he uses as an office, and he’ll join us there once we’re ready.

“Do you think he’ll agree to these terms?” she asks.

“He’ll just be grateful to be in the room,” I say.

Everything seems to be settled, but again we part without fixing a date. I send the usual lovely-to-see-you follow-up. She replies that she enjoyed our conversation, too, but that she’d like to meet again to talk more about our plans. Again? I’m beginning to doubt whether she’ll go through with this. I’m tired of putting on makeup every time I go to meet her, and I’m running out of dresses.

My husband insists that this is the normal pace of seduction.

“Obviously she’s not ready yet,” he says. “She has some sort of hesitation. You need to work out what it is and help her with it.”

On my way to the third meeting, I decide to loosen up and be less calculating. I tease her about all the planning, telling her that I’m making storyboards and cue cards. I confess that this is all a rather big deal for me; she says the same. For a while, I even forget that I’m trying to get her into bed. We coquettishly call each other “N” and “P.”

This new mood seems to be what was missing for her. After about an hour, she takes out her calendar, and we schedule the threesome for a week later, the 20th, over lunchtime.

When I get home, my husband is waiting up.

“I decided to just be myself,” I tell him.

“Oh, no,” he says.

I share the good news that we have an actual date. To keep his expectations in check, I mention potential glitches, including the fact that her father is 86.

“So? He won’t be there, will he?” he says.

“You know there’s a possible problem,” I say.

“He might hand in his dinner pail? Drop off his perch? Buy a one-way ticket? The best for us would be if he checked out of the hotel on the 21st, earliest,” he says.

A week later, N.’s father is fine and I’m getting ready to meet her. “I have a threesome in two hours,” I keep boasting to myself. I’m not going to die an idiot.

I meet N. at a café for a quick coffee, then we head to my husband’s office around the corner. On the way, I insist that we stop at a little food stand, where I buy cheese, sausage, honey, and bread — in case we work up an appetite later. Clearly I’m shopping to calm my nerves.

When we get up to my husband’s office, it’s N. who’s nervous.

“You’re in charge, OK?” she says. Me? We’re both relieved when my husband arrives. They introduce themselves. He’s immediately very physical with her, which breaks the ice. We have a sort of group hug, and then we agree that he can take off both of our dresses.

My first surprise is that women are allowed to wear jewelry in bed. N. even keeps her large hoop earrings on. My second is that a threesome is so, well, sexual. I’d focused so much on the logistics and the catering that I had forgotten we were all going to be naked.

My third surprise is that, when you’re detail-oriented like me, threesomes are confusing. You quickly lose track of who’s at which stage. There’s a lot of ambiguous moaning. My husband tells me afterward that he got a little lost, too.

Overall, it’s nice. I get the sense that we’re all trying to divide our attention equitably. There’s no clear twosome or onesome. Occasionally, N. and I ask each other “How are you doing?” like old friends.

But after maybe 40 minutes, I lose interest. I wonder whether I might check my e-mail. N. is really quite beautiful, but seeing versions of my own lady parts on her feels vaguely incestuous. Although it’s all new, it’s too familiar. By contrast, I find my husband extremely appealing. Part of what I like about men, I realize, are the differences between us.

I try to stay attentive — it’s a birthday present, after all — but soon I’m just scratching their backs. When I glance at the clock, I’m surprised to see that only an hour has passed. I had no idea that sex could be so … long. I realize, with some alarm, that they’re both probably more sexual than I am. I like it plenty, but I’m satiable.

Finally, they tire themselves out. There’s a sweet moment at the end when the three of us lie together under the covers, with the birthday boy in the middle. He’s beaming. I’ll later get a series of heartfelt thank-you notes from him, saying it was as good as he had hoped.

“It affirmed for me how much I like the female form. When you have two, it accentuates that,” he tells me afterward.

N. seems very pleased, too. On the walk home, she says she’s surprised by how erotic she found the whole experience, especially being with me. I’m flattered to have converted her. But I feel like the Christian missionary who realizes — just after the big revival — that she’s actually more of a Jew. I’m not nearly as gay as I thought I was. I’d always felt that there might be something else out there. Now — and not just by the process of elimination — I’m struck by how emphatically I want my husband.

I’m left feeling unsettled. I can’t wait to shower. Sadly, I’m more conventional than I’d thought. In theory, I didn’t mind sharing my husband for an afternoon. In practice, I was shaken up. I wasn’t bored; I was bothered.

Still, I don’t forget my etiquette. I send N. a polite thank-you note. Her reply suggests that she’d like a repeat performance. I’m not planning on it. My own birthday’s coming up, and I think I’d like a nice watch.

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