He knew it was inevitable, had to be proffered, promoted, sold.
In the days of yore you made appointments not to have sex so you could get things done. "We need to go to the grocery store," meant no sex for an hour. Now everything was something that had to get done.
They were in bed, naked - she caressing with her Kindle.
"Ya know," he said, "We should start making appointments to make love."
She looked up, did her bobble-head thing, skidded a finger across the screen. "Sure."
He was pleased with himself. "To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, today is Monday ... so we could make an appointment for Wednesday, for example. And get to bed earlier than usual."
"I get it," she said.
"Either of us could make appointments, depending on our schedules."
"You don't have to oversell this."
"Okay. I'll stop."
"Just send me a reminder," she said. "Text, not email."
A welcomed response! She doesn't check her personal email every day, so she wants to make sure she knows about any appointments because she'll obviously be looking forward to them.
"I don't always open my email," she continued, "So if I don't get your message you might get pissed."
"... I wouldn't get pissed."
"You'd be disappointed."
He might be disappointed. Having to think about if he'd be disappointed or not was getting him pissed.
She plopped the tablet on the bed and faced him. "So ... when one of us makes an appointment ... should there be a memo attached? An agenda? Bullet points?"
He wasn't expecting such details about details. "Yes. There could be bullet points."
"Or maybe just an outline. Hierarchical."
"That might work," he said.
"Or simply an abstract. No specifics."
"That'd work, too," he nodded. "We could mix it up. Some outlined, some we'll just wing it."
She bunched up the pillows, nestled her head. "Should we bring along any devices or accessories?"
"... Sure. Although we have all of them here in drawers and under the bed, so we don't need to bring them anywhere. I guess we could get them out and line them up beforehand."
"But what if one of us makes an appointment to take place in the living room or kitchen?"
He was stumped. The last time they had sex in one of those places they didn't need appointments.
True, he didn't miss them. The kitchen table was too low, he had to bend down, afterwards his back always hurt, usually for days. And that was at least five years ago when he was young - even though at the time he thought he was old.
"Gee, we haven't had any appointments like that in probably five years, I bet," he said, trying to sound wistful.
"Ten," she said.
If that's true, it means I thought I was old ten years ago, he realized. But thinking about it now, he was obviously young ten years ago...
Would he think in ten years that he was young now? He made a mental note to remember that he was old, so in ten years he wouldn't fool himself, like he was doing now.
"What are thinking about?" she asked. "Fantasizing about our appointment?"
"Yes," he lied.
"No you're not. You look frightened. Like I might want to have an appointment in the kitchen, and you'd hurt your back."
"... Now that you mention it, maybe in all memos announcing appointments in the kitchen, we should always include four thick books to prop up the table legs."
"I'll make a kitchen memo template," she said.
"And send it to me so I can use it."
She snickered. "You'll never send out a kitchen memo."
She was right.
Their first appointment was scheduled for Thursday night. They decided not to put together a memo, but just 'wing it' to see how it'd go.
But when they got into bed, she noticed that something interesting was on PBS at nine. They watched it, then went to sleep.