Paradise

Simon, a middle-aged architect separated from his wife, is given the chance to live out a stereotypical male fantasy: freed from the travails of married life, three nubile lingerie models move into his apartment and use him as a sexual object. An enlightened '80s man, Simon tries to enjoy his unlikely situation to the fullest while still treating his women as human beings--though from the beginning they claim that he can hardly tell them apart. Convinced that satisfaction is only the first step toward disappointment, Simon worries that his women will move on, that his state of grace will come to an end, and that he will inevitably be left alone in an empty apart-
ment, with his life behind him. Barthelme's version of "paradise" is both a gentle satire of the cult of the midlife crisis and a meditation on the melancholy of fulfilled desire.