The Best Life Yet

[Reverie]

Ugh, it's so hard to try not to write here when stuff is going on, even if I'm supposed to be getting work done. I need this place, haha.

So over the past couple of days, Dustin had his first lizard attack. It was triggered by my date night with Rider on Tuesday. I posted a picture of Rider in the Mexican restaurant we went to, and then later, when I was texting with Dustin on the car ride, I told him, "When I get home, I'm going to go catch up on some GoT I'm behind on." And he said "Don't Throne alone!" just joking around, and I said, "Oh, I won't be alone—I'll have Rider and the cats with me!"

And he seemed fine while I was texting him. We made plans for the coming weekend (we've got Sunday), and then for the following weekend (Rider will be out of town, so we get the whole weekend together). We ended our text convo with lots of love and warm feelings.

Yesterday morning, I texted him my usual good morning text that I do when I first get to work. Generally he hits me back around 10:30 or 11:00. But he did not. Time passed. I think he usually naps from 11:00 to about 2:30, so I thought maybe he'd decided to catch up on some sleep and sleep straight through till the afternoon. 2:30 came and went. By 3:30, I knew something was wrong. I even knew what it was. I had a flash of just knowing, though I don't know how: he'd seen my Facebook pic of Rider after I'd gone to sleep, and it had upset him.

I tried my talk myself out of believing it. He's just busy. He didn't used to text super frequently, remember? Maybe he's just taking a break from his phone. Maybe something happened to his phone. But I still had that sinking feeling.

Around 4:30, I went on Facebook and saw he'd been active on there. And then I really knew. He wasn't hiding from his phone. He wasn't too busy. He just didn't want to talk to me. I got so upset! I biked home and tried to call him when I got there. The phone rang two and a half times and then went to voicemail. He's one of the only people I know who still leaves voicemails, so I thought I'd leave him one in turn. I'm sure I sounded super glum, but I just told him I missed him and wanted to hear his voice. I was very, very sad that he'd pushed the call to voicemail.

I sat on the edge of my bed for a while, wilted, just wanting to cry. Eventually I lay down and started to text him. While I was composing the text, the phone rang. It was him, and he'd confirmed my fears. I'd been totally right about all of it. He told me he'd been upset and jealous about seeing the photo, combined with knowing I was having a TV date with Rider. He said he'd just decided to take a break from his phone for most of the day because he didn't like how he'd started looking at it every five minutes to see if he had a text from me.

He said it hurts him that I'm married, and it hurts him to be apart from me, and if he were smart, he'd walk away right now, but he's not—he's an idiot. He said he feels obsessed with me, that he thinks of me every ten seconds, that he's always wanting to text me, talk to me, be with me, and that that has never happened to him before. He said I've set the bar so high that I've ruined him—no one else could possibly clear it. He'd never known that it was possible to feel this way about someone, and he has no idea what to do about it, so he just backed away for a little while. But then he listened to my voicemail and had to call me back.

I told him that he can take a break anytime he wants, but will he please at least warn me, so I'm not freaking out. I told him I'd been sitting on the edge of the bed close to tears. I told him how much I love him and miss him too, and how I understand—oh, do I—how much it can suck to be in the position he's in. But I'll help him. If there's a particular kind of reassurance he needs, I'll be happy to provide it. The books will help. Time and experience will help. I explained how I was hurting so much too—whenever we're apart, I miss him like a pain in my bones. And to hear that he's hurting just devastates me. It sucks so much that I could hurt him just by living my life.

He sounded genuinely surprised that it sucks for me too, and that I'd been miserable not hearing from him. And then he was super sorry. And then we just talked about how much we love each other and about regular everyday shit and I think we both felt better.

When we got off the phone, he immediately texted me:

"Love you Reverie. Sorry you had to feel that way. I have nothing but love for you. This is new to me in a very deep and real way. I know we'll figure it out ♡"

And that text just meant the world to me. That apology even though he was hurting too. That admission that the struggle was because he is new to this. That certainty that we can work it out. He's just so good!

And then I had an idea. I texted him about it before Rider and I left for rehearsal: I'd write him an email letter, explaining in detail what I was feeling. He texted me back immediately, saying how it's funny, but he'd just been thinking of writing me a letter, too, though a handwritten one. We are so exactly on the same page, so much of the time.

(continued . . .)

 

[Reverie]

(. . . continued from previous)

So last night I stayed up (too) late, writing him a letter. In it, I explained how I'd known somehow in advance that he was hurting and why. I offered him a couple of little, easy solutions for stuff like that: for a while, at least, I'd refrain from posting stuff like that on my Facebook when we weren't together. And I'd also limit the details I allowed to come through about what I was doing with Rider. He doesn't need to know that stuff, and if it hurts him, then I won't tell him. I remember when I was at that stage of struggling about things. I remember when seeing a picture that Kelly took of Rider would feel like a gut punch and throw me into a tailspin for days.

I didn't have to volunteer this stuff, but Dustin is so new to poly that I am pretty sure he wouldn't even know what to ask for, or whether it would be OK to ask for stuff like that if he needs it. So I volunteered it. If he tells me it's not necessary, then that's fine too.

I talked to Rider about it in advance, not wanting him to notice and think something weird was going on. He looked sad for a moment, then said he understood, and asked only that I still take all the pictures I would normally take, and send them to him so he can send them to his mom. He said he emails his mom my Facebook pictures so she can see what's been happening in our life together. I almost cried from how touched I was by that—all of it. He's so very sweet and good.

In the letter I also explained to Dustin how much I love him already, and how he speaks to my very soul. I told him so many of the little things and big things that I love about him. I told him, in bare bones, about how the things he'd said at the bar that day were my Impossible Dream, and how I'd opened the coffin to find it not dead after all—starved but awake, waiting to be set free by the right phrases, which happened to be the ones that he'd spoken. I told him that I wanted, to the best of my ability, to do everything with him and satisfy as many of his needs and desires as I was capable of.

But. I also had to tell him that there were two things he could not have from me. One of them was purposeful destruction of my relationship with Rider. The other one was government recognition of our relationship. I told him that if, someday, he desires some sort of commitment event, and it makes sense to both of us at the time, that is not a thing that is off the table. I told him that nearly everything he could possibly think of wanting to do with me, I'm open to, if and when the right time arrives.

I'd already had a conversation with Rider where I apologized, near tears, for no longer being able to be as hierarchical as we'd originally discussed. I explained to him that I cannot tell him where or how far things with Dustin will go because I don't know that myself, but that I can no longer rule anything out except leaving Rider. Rider's reaction has been the most impressive display of compassion and courage that I have ever seen in my life. He's just taking it all in stride, and even said this to me recently:

"Life has a way of sneaking up on you, doesn't it? This is the path that we wanted, and this is what I signed up for. I'm not saying it's been easy, because it has not. The last two months have been incredibly difficult. But I know this is the life that we wanted to create. I know also that things will balance out eventually and the stuff that has been so difficult will get a bit easier."

So I felt completely in the clear and guilt-free to offer Dustin the possibility for anything. I put my ducks in a row ahead of time.

The other thing I felt like I could honestly offer Dustin, and so I did, was closing to new partners on my end. I am so, so, so, so polysaturated right now. SOMEHOW, I found TWO lovely creatures who both touch my very soul and fill me up to the roots of my hair with love and affection and big, crazy feelings. Polysaturation aside, I know firsthand how much harder it is to have your partner add new partners after you than to deal with an existing partner, and I just don't want to inflict that on him. I feel like two months in is a pretty reasonable point to have the exclusivity talk with someone, and that's basically what this is, except my existing partners are included in the exclusivity. I guess, like, the polycule is not polyfi, but I am willing to be. They can still see whomever, but I am totally full.

And the last thing the letter contained was just a request to keep taking things as they come, just being together when we can fit it into our schedule, and see where it goes.

This morning, Dustin texted me and said he'd read it several times and had stayed up for most of the night thinking about it. He thanked me for sharing my feelings, and said he loves me and will be seeing me later. We're supposed to go hiking after work and then I'm spending the night.

I have never known such gratitude as I have toward these two wonderful men. The shit they put up with just to be with me—not that I'm doing it on purpose, I'm just being as authentic to myself as I can be, but still—I know it's really, really hard for both of them. I know it's really hard for Dustin to break out of mono programming when this was never something he wanted for himself. I know it's really hard for Rider to open to the possibility of there maybe, at some future point, being no top dog, when he's been top dog for so long. I know they both miss me terribly when I'm not around. And yet. They are both still so full of effort and grace and apologies and compromise and solutions and love. For me. How on earth did I get so lucky?

Rider and I had a conversation at some point recently where we were talking about timing. It's almost a good thing that Dustin happened when he did. If he'd come along before the wedding, I wouldn't have been ready. If he'd come along too much later, I think the transition process would have been even harder on Rider than it has been. We'd have been settled into some kind of calcifying routines that constituted "what our marriage is" and it would have been more difficult work to limber ourselves back up again to acceptance of new people. Instead, Dustin came along shortly after we'd had time to catch our breath after our honeymoon and moving into our new place, before anything felt like "the new normal" yet. Everything was already shaken up and resettling. It was kind of perfect.

I'm very eager to leave work and have a full conversation with Dustin. And to read whatever he's written me, if indeed he ended up doing it.

My life is so strange. And so good. And so ALL THE FEELINGS GOOD AND BAD EVERY WEEK. But mostly good. And strange.

 

[AutumnLeaves]

Reading your blog fills me with such warm feelings of beauty for you and your guys, even when you're struggling. I'll be over here in my corner rooting for maximum happiness for all of you.

 

[Spork]

Well, and I would try to gently remind Dustin (maybe you are) that the things he is feeling for you...while not invalidated by this fact in the slightest...are very much NRE. Like to try and glory in them in the moment, but know that in time there is a natural process where things get more comfortable, less roller-coaster-ish, where the vulnerability doesn't feel so terrifying and you're not full of fear and doubt and intense ups and downs like this. More comfortable with "how it is." That is just the nature of relationships. He has not had something like this before, so it feels new and mind blowing and crazy-making. But the crazy does calm down in time.

An exercise that I learned, and I talked about in my blog, was to find a memory, a mental image that brings joy and comfort related to your partner, and fix it in your mind. For me, it was how Zen looks into my eyes, the way his eyes look when he looks at me. When I felt fears and doubts, I would use the memory of that to center myself. Because NO ONE (in my opinion) can look at another human that way unless they truly love them. It affirms and validates your place in their heart and mind and life. Because even without a bunch of poly-processing involved, in the thickest part of my NRE with him, I still had fears and doubts. Sometimes he would send me an email or a text that came off a little cold, not on purpose, just communicating in some clipped and factual way about something, and I would feel this weird pang of fear that he was upset with me or unhappy with me... And I'd stop and think about how he looks at me. And I'd be ok.

I shared that exercise with a friend who was struggling with her Master, who is also poly and has a wife, with some insecurities, and she thought it would be helpful to her too. Maybe it could help you and/or Dustin?

And once things mellow out, into a sort of normal, he might find that poly is really quite perfect for him, that he might want more than one partner himself...he has never really explored it, so he doesn't really know. But he can have a freedom to evolve and be true to himself in whatever direction the future could take him, with you, that he would not have in a typical monogamous relationship, even if he thinks that's something he wants right now in the thick of the NRE feels.

You guys are awesome, all of ya. Thanks for sharing your story!

 

[Reverie]

I have a ton going on right now AND my laptop, which is the thing I usually write my posts on, has taken a shitter. I'm hoping it's just that the RAM has come unseated, but I haven't had time to open it up and find out. I'm currently on my office computer but always feel bad about doing non-work on it. But maybe less bad since I've worked late almost every night for the past two weeks.

Things are pretty good. Perry's party was a blast, but I got too drunk by the end of it. Dustin couldn't get there till very late. He and Rider coexisted pretty well, and Rider gave me some space with him since he'd had me all night. Perry had given Dustin some molly (I didn't take any because I was already so drunk) and we ended up hanging out in Perry's room till the sun was almost up—Dustin and his bestie and Ayuki and one of the bestie's other exes. Photos later surfaced of me in some compromising (but still clothed) positions, haha, but Rider was not upset by them. One really, really cute pic of me kissing Dustin made it into the Facebook album. I think it's the only kiss pic I've ever had taken of me where I was not making some kind of fucked up face, haha. We both look perfect and peaceful and passionate and in bliss.

Oona later told me that a contingent of the partygoers were put off by how I switched boys mid-party—going from dancing and being goofy with Rider to rolling around on the bedroom floor with Dustin. She said I should "ease people into" witnessing me being so poly . . . but . . . Oona cares a lot more about what people think of me than I do. She always has. She often starts statements off with "You don't want people to think" and mostly I actually don't care that much. Either people respect me for who I am, or they don't. She says that if Dustin ends up heartbroken, I'm going to look like the bad guy to people who think I should have known better and cut it off sooner. But people surely know he's an adult making his own decisions. If they want to judge ME for not nannying him by walking away, then let them. I know I am not doing anything wrong.

I had Sunday after the party with Dustin. I'd gone home with Rider to help unload the gear and sleep in my own bed, but I woke up pretty early and biked the 7.5 miles to Dustin's place. We spent pretty much all day in bed, aside from briefly going to breakfast at my favorite diner (which is a lot closer to Dustin's place than mine). I would said I was in his bed from 11:30–2:30, and then again from 3:30–9:30! We basically just had a holy fuck-ton of sex and napped on and off.

I've historically NOT been a fan of the sexathon. Usually I prefer shortish (maybe 15–20 minute) sessions. While deep in NRE I might go for multiple times per day (I think my all-time record was 7, but that was just the once—usually it's 3 max) but, overall, sheer time spent having sex is not huge.

It's different with Dustin. For one, he just takes a really long time and can't always get there. But it's not a problem for me with him. I don't get bored. I don't "get mine" and then count the minutes till it's over. Sometimes neither of us care if either of us get off—it's the journey and not the destination. I think we had sex for like 90 minutes straight at one point that day. And that was just one of the many times. We tried four or five times to get out of bed once evening rolled around, but one of us would stand up and the other would marvel at the first one's beauty, and we would end up horizontal again. We'd spoken of getting ingredients to cook before his 11:00 gig, but it got so late that we barely had time to grab a quick bite out. We're ridiculous.

By the end, I was completely covered in his sweat, and his hair (which he usually combs straight) was a curly golden halo sitting on top of his head. And we were both so worn out! He pulled some muscle in his hip and was kind of limping for 24 hours. We went straight home after his gig and passed out immediately.

Monday morning, I was too sore to want to bike, so Dustin took me to work and said he'd pick me up later and we could do happy hour. Rider agreed to pick me up in the car from Dustin's if we could stop on the way home to have a cheese date. So I had happy hour till 7:30 with Dustin (well, happy hour till 7:00, then sex on his living room floor) and then Rider picked me up. Dustin offered to walk me outside and say hi to Rider, which I thought was very sweet. The boys hugged and chatted while I folded my bike up and tucked it into the car. I was very proud of them, especially Dustin.

Rider and I had a very romantic date at the cheese shop at the farmer's market. They have a little French restaurant there, and I guess on Monday evenings an old guy comes and plays the accordion. We ate camembert and reminisced about the portion of our honeymoon that we spent in Paris. Then we came home and did a little more catching up on GoT. I think we still have three episodes to watch.

Dustin and I had some deep conversations while we were hanging out for happy hour and after. It turned out that he had been confused and when I told him I wasn't going to add any new people, he'd thought it was just totally going to be me and him and Rider, but I really hadn't intended on cutting things off with my ongoing other connections. It gave me pause. I realized that that was one way I could compromise with him—dialing things with Cherry back to friendship (not too difficult since we'd never actually had sex yet) and resuming being platonic with Jerry (also not too difficult because he's very long distance and that was really mostly friendship to begin with). And probably with Aurora too, though that's a tougher thing right now because we're flying her out here in October. I will cross the bridge of what to do about that later.

So I communicated those intentions to Dustin. He thanked for being so honest and said, "I don't want to change you. I love you for who you are. Just do what you feel is right."

And I said, "That is what feels right to me, for now at least. I’ll let you know if the other side of my bisexuality starts speaking up again in the future, but I really am so satisfied for the moment that I don’t also NEED a girlfriend."

So on Tuesday, I got together with Cherry, and I told her what was happening. She was a little disappointed, but since things had not gone much past friendship with her yet—just a few kisses—she'd not had her heart set on much more anyway. I told her I definitely still want to be her friend and leave the other stuff open-ended if things change. We went on to have a great hangout after that, with chatting and margaritas and a nice hug goodbye.

I called Dustin on the way home and told him I'd had that conversation with her. It turned out he had been kind of on the edge of his seat about it. He'd been thinking there was a chance I'd decide to change my mind once I was over there and end up sleeping with her instead of dialing it back. And I was attracted to her—I always am—but I had no overwhelming urge to do anything about it. He sounded so relieved that it was almost comical.

We talked for a while longer, and he said something positive about poly for the first time. He said, "Who knows. Maybe it'll turn out that this open relationship thing is the thing that will save me. I always burn everything to the ground after a while. Maybe this will make it different."

That statement inspired such hope in me, I can't even express it properly. Even if he did say other opposing stuff later (story to come), that one little oasis of being able to see that it might work seemed like progress in itself.

(continued . . .)

 

[Reverie]

( . . . continued from previous)

Yesterday was my actual date night with Dustin. Holy cow, you guys, it was soooo amazing. He picked me up from work, and the only place nearby that the movie we wanted to see (The Dark Tower) was playing at a decent hour was kind of across town at a popular seaside tourist area, so we drove up that way. We were hungry and had time to kill, so we found a craft beer bar with happy hour. The food there was pretty good. We split a kale and quinoa salad with a veggie patty and still had leftovers.

Then we headed over to the theater and got a round of drinks at the theater booze stand and went into the movie kinda early. For the movie, my expectations were really low, so I was not disappointed, but I actually liked it OK, and so did he. It wasn’t TERRIBLE, but the fight scenes were pretty cheesy. And it only gave some weird snippet of story. It wasn’t bad as a stand-alone thing, but it of course has nothing on the books. The seats were those two-person cuddle couches, and the theater was nearly empty, so we did some surreptitious fooling around like teenagers, giggling and all. It was fun even though the movie wasn’t great.

Afterward, he wanted to go to the amusement pier. I hadn’t been there since I was literally a kid, like 18. We did all the typical date things there: kissing by the railing over the ocean thing, kissing on the ferris wheel overlooking the ocean and under the moon, air hockey, a photo booth...the picture turned out terrible but we had a good laugh.

And then our booze was wearing off, so he suggested a nearby old dive bar and we had a round of martinis. Some drunken asshole with a chip on his shoulder there got really aggro with him for no reason, and I could see Dustin forcibly restraining himself from punching him in the face. His ability to keep his cool was impressive to me.

Then we left and cut through this little park that was super cool! It had a deserted playground, so we played on it, and at one point he put me on his shoulders and was riding me around and I felt all wobbly. And we watched spiders spinning webs, and a bat’s shadow swooping past a streetlight catching bugs.

And there were these weird “pod” things where the walkway ends in sort of a lookout spot. I think the "pod" part was made as shade for the overlook. Anyway, the walkway ends in the pod, which is open on the other side, and looking out past the street, you can see the moon and the ocean and the ferris wheel. And there's a railing.

We totally sneaked standing up sex against that railing. Even though there was a homeless guy passed the fuck out like 6 feet away. I was wearing a skirt that was long enough that it could be lifted all the way up in the back without it being obvious from the street side that it was lifted. And he was behind me and we were staring out over the ocean, at the moon and at the ferris wheel spinning in the distance. And I just wanted to freeze that moment forever. We dared not risk it for long. But the time we had was very, very hot.

And then we left the park and he was hungry again, so we stopped at the grocery store and got bread and cheese and wine moments before it closed. After eating, we traded foot rubs and then he initiated oral on me on the couch (his brother was out of town) and it was so good! He's finally learned my body well enough to get me off that way—it was the first time.

We had sex for a while, but it started to get so late that he felt bad and wanted me to get some rest, so we vowed to continue in the morning. We got ready for bed. I was checking my phone for the first time all night, since he was out of the room putting some things away, and I was lying on my stomach sideways across his bed, and suddenly he walked into the room strumming his guitar and singing an old love song, looking directly at me. He sat down next to me, singing and looking at me so peacefully, then gave me a kiss when it was over. It was so super sweet!

We turned the lights off and cuddled up and started talking in the dark. He said he likes me so much that he likes the in-between parts even better than the sex parts, which is as it should be, I think. But maybe that’s new for him. He also said he thinks I’m smarter than he is, and I told him I don’t think that’s true—it’s just that our smarts lie in different areas, and it’s nice to complement each other like that.

But then he said a bunch of things that make me still not sure how things are going to work out. The poly thing is still rough for him. He said that when I’m with Rider, if he thinks about it, he “feels like he’s being cheated on” even though there’s no deception happening. He said it takes his head out of the game during sex sometimes to think that I do that with someone else. And he said that even though he doesn’t want me to change anything about myself and would never ask me to, in his ideal world, I’d be married to him, not Rider, and we could start a family. He was very clear that he’d never try to convince me to do something that wasn’t right for me, and he was also very clear that a day may come when he has to do what's right for him, and that might be to break up. It’s hard, hearing him talk like that and seeing him hurting.

Then he asked me, what if [an old friend of his who I've met a few times] called him up and wanted to hook up with him, wouldn’t I feel weird about that? And I said that with her, probably not very weird, because I know they’re old friends, and if they were going to go off and be mono together it would have likely already happened. If he wanted to date her while also keeping me around, that’d be fine. The part that would potentially make me upset is the idea of losing him completely to someone.

We are definitely in very different places of thinking about the concept. He seems to be harboring a desire to possess me completely, even while acknowledging aloud that I am an autonomous creature who cannot be possessed. I have no desire to possess him, but I do really want to build some kind of life with him, if it is at all possible. But I'm not sure he sees that as possible without mutual possession. Maybe he can learn.

All I know is that I need to stick around as long as possible and see where things go. Every part of me is demanding it. He's such a good fit for me in so many ways that I really just need to see if we can resolve the small number of things that are not a good fit.

Some things resolved themselves. For example, I can no longer bring myself to give a flying fuck about his unconventional spelling and grammar, now that I've learned how utterly brilliant he is at so many other things. I can easily overlook how he purposefully stays out of politics, now that I've witnessed how much goodness he spreads in his daily interactions with individuals. And we are somehow making the opposite schedule thing work really well—it was just a matter of both of us being totally willing to make whatever time we can.

But the poly/possessiveness thing . . . I don't know. Even if he's a perfect fit for me in terms of preferences in food and drinks, cool hobbies, household cleanliness, physical size and proportion, sweetness of demeanor, over-the-top romance, playfulness of spirit, level of honesty, willingness to take the lead, level of preferred PDA, directness of communication, sexual preferences, sense of humor, and generosity—even though that's a TON of amazing stuff we click perfectly on—monogamy or non-monogamy is a binary, and I don't know if it'll wipe the rest of it out.

I feel like . . . if it has to end, it'll be the craziest heartbreak I've had since I was 25; like now that I know a Dustin exists, I can't un-know it, and part of me would pine for him till I died; like the color would dribble out of the world and I'd be perpetually somewhat dissatisfied. I know he feels the same way. And so, we keep trying.

 

[JaneQSmythe]

Oona later told me that a contingent of the partygoers were put off by how I switched boys mid-party—going from dancing and being goofy with Rider to rolling around on the bedroom floor with Dustin. She said I should "ease people into" witnessing me being so poly . . . but . . . Oona cares a lot more about what people think of me than I do. She always has. She often starts statements off with "You don't want people to think" and mostly I actually don't care that much...

I have had acquaintances (my definition of "friend" is really restrictive) say similar things to me...other peoples' reactions are SO NOT my problem. If one of my boys or SLeW has a personal beef with my behaviour then I will discuss that with them and take that info under advisement - and I may very well decide that I am NOT going to change my behaviour and they can then decide how they will respond to that.

More often, the boys will tell me the next day about the "looks" that the three (or more) of us were getting at a concert or festival. My response (since I am notoriously oblivious at the time, just enjoying myself) is generally, "Well, then, maybe we gave them something interesting to talk about later".

 

[Reverie]

My long weekend with Dustin was both beautiful and terrible. We had about 74 hours together, and I would say about 95% of it was good. The bad, though . . . whew. I'll try to explain.

Friday was good—great, even. He picked me up from work and we went to the little Indian grocery near his house to get a few specialty items for the curries I was planning to make. We went to the fancy wine store and he bought us three nice bottles. Then we went to my place and I cooked a three-dish Indian dinner. After dinner, we had amazing sex, and then I baked cookies (in only an apron, at his request).

He "helped" by fucking me from behind while I stirred the raisins and chocolate chips into the dough, and then, in addition to a couple dozen regular cookies, we made one big sheet-sized cookie by squishing the dough into the whole pan together, with him standing behind me and putting his arms around me and both of us with our hands in the dough. After they were in the oven, he was licking the dough off the mixers and spatula and off of his fingers, and it was getting all in his mustache and beard and I snapped a picture of him, giggling hysterically. He was so cute all covered in cookie dough, grinning like a little kid.

After the cookies came out of the oven, we had a couple with some soy milk, and then had sex again. Then it was 2:30 a.m. and he felt like he wanted to go out for a drink, so we went down to the illicit after-hours club he sometimes goes to. (Technically our city doesn't allow booze served after 2:00.) The club is in a warehouse downtown near all the homeless encampments. It was interesting. Pretty much everyone there was all fucked up on something or another. People were dancing in weird costumes and selling and snorting drugs openly. We stuck around for only one drink and then went home, where we ended up falling asleep on the couch, then moved to the bed. All in all, it was a dream of an evening.

Saturday night, we very nearly broke up, or maybe we even did for a little while. That morning we'd slept in a bit, woke up and had sex, and then I'd cooked breakfast tacos. Because we'd gotten a late start getting out of bed, by the time we were done with breakfast, it was time to leave for his gig.

I traveled with him and his band and one additional chick friend to a city about 90 miles away. Their gig was at a brewpub, and we all rode up in their big band van. Due to the holiday traffic, the drive took nearly three hours, which was actually kind of fun because everyone was just joking and laughing. Dustin drove and I rode shotgun.

When we arrived at our destination, there was enough time after they set up their gear for Dustin and I to go for a little romantic walk on the beach. Some people were building cool sand sculptures. We saw an old man fall off his bike, and Dustin ran over to help him. He's so sweet and aware and always the first person to help out if someone needs it, even a random stranger.

We got back to the venue and started drinking whiskey out of the back of the van. The brewpub was also giving us free beer. And then there was the coke that Dustin had bought at the club the night before. Most of us started to get very intoxicated, but I didn't think too intoxicated. The band played a really good show. Dustin was playing guitar (sometimes he does that and sometimes he plays bass). They were on from 7–10, and by the end, the venue was packed and all kinds of people were dancing, including me and the chick friend.

The show ended and we loaded all the gear into the van. The bass player is a sober guy, and he had agreed to drive home since Dustin had driven up. I was excited because that meant I could cuddle with Dustin on the middle bench seat. So I was sitting between Dustin and his bestie, and the drummer was in the back and the sober guy and the chick friend were up front. Dustin was next to the window and I was all cuddled up to him.

Then, suddenly, shit started to spin sideways. He started lamenting to me how he feels like he gives me 100% but he only has 50% of me. How sad he is on nights we aren't together. How he doesn't think he can go on with the way things are. He was slowly increasing in volume from murmuring in my ear to a raised voice, until everyone in the van was getting dragged into the drama. I tried to calm him down and ask that we wait to have this conversation until we get home, but he wasn't having it. "THE VAN IS A PLACE FOR HONESTY!" he proclaimed. And he said that the honest truth was that he wants to be the one married to me, and to have kids with me, and it makes him crazy that I'm married to someone else.

His friends started jumping in, trying to chill him out. I was crying at this point, because everything he was saying sounded like he was breaking up with me. Kind of publicly. While I was trapped in the middle of a van. It was hell. The conversation spun wildly, and it did not stop till after we (finally) arrived at his bestie's mom's house, where we'd originally joined up with everyone. Everyone spilled out of the van with relief. But it was clear that Dustin was in no state to drive us back to my place, and neither was I. So we were stuck there. The bestie had called up a couple more chicks, trying to make a party out of the evening and salvage it.

I went into the bathroom and cleaned the mascara tracks off of my face. And now it was my turn to be unrelenting in awkward conversation. I think we were actually broken up at that point, and I had a single-minded determination to reverse that, citing that Dustin had told me to fight for him if he tried to leave me. So we conversed outside in the driveway, and then out back by the pool, and then in the kitchen.

During one break in our grueling, drunken conversations, Dustin tried flirting with one of the girls that had shown up, who I guess is someone he'd hooked up with once. It was insanely painful to watch him basically purposely trying to make me jealous. I wasn't getting jealous, just terribly hurt that he was trying to hurt me on purpose. There were many moments where he seemed almost smug and satisfied that I was hurting, and seeing that in his eyes, which were normally so tender and full of love for me, well, it just shredded me. At one point he said, "Oh, this hurts? Well now you know how I feel every night we can't be together. It doesn't feel good, does it?"

After a time, the drama ramped down. I thought things were starting to get a little bit back to normal again. It felt to me like our conversation was at a half-decent stopping point, like we were back together again, if wounded and tenuous. Dustin had sobered up enough to drive. I was emotionally exhausted. We talked a little more on the drive back and seemed OK, but then when he pulled into my street, he asked, "Are you ready for this?" and I asked, "For what?" and he said, "I'm just going to drop you off and go home."

And I lost my shit.

I was crying and begging like a lost puppy for him to just come inside, and he was standing his ground. And then suddenly, he looked past me, out the passenger window, and said, "But . . . there's a parking spot right in front of your place."

"What?!" I swiveled my head around in shock. "That never happens."

And he sighed. "That's a sign, isn't it? That's how things always are with us. I can't believe there's a parking spot right fucking there. The universe wants us together."

I resumed my begging. "Please just come inside. Pleeeease." And so he did. And we took a shower together and went to bed.

(continued . . .)

 

[Reverie]

(. . . continued from previous)

My eyes popped open in the morning like one of those old-timey window shades that someone has pulled on and let go. We were all cuddled up together, but my mind started turning the events of the evening over and over.

Sure, I'd gotten him to come inside, and sure, he was in my bed, but by the light of day, did I really even want him there? Did I want to be with someone who could do what he'd done the previous night:

- Turn on a dime from loving me and being cuddly to picking a fight
- Be willing to pick that fight while trapped in a van with his closest friends and pursue it until I was a sniveling puddle of tears
- Be smug and satisfied that I was hurting
- Try to make me jealous on purpose when I was already down
- Almost leave me without warning and have his mind changed only by a parking spot

???

But . . .

What about all the rest of it? What about all the good stuff? Because the good is so very good. The way he loves is so perfect for me—the language he uses around love and sex; the way he expresses affection; the way our bodies fit together; the way he puts romantic songs on Spotify and interrupts my cooking to dance together. And we only just 100% figured out sex together to the point where it is consistently amazing, maybe the best I've ever had. And I really cannot even explain the crazy universe magic that happens that always seems to be trying to tell us "yes, this is what's right" (and, yeah, even that damned parking spot).

So I was just lying there, thinking, feeling really upset and confused and sort of stunned and bruised. And he woke up and asked me if I was awake for good, and I said yes. And I sighed and said I was just thinking.

And he hugged me so tight and apologized. We talked for about an hour, wrapped up in bed. He apologized at least 20 times over the course of that. He explained that it had been something that had been building up in him and it just blew up—and too many intoxicants did not help the matter. He said that he didn't really regret saying any of the things he'd said, as they were all true, but he regretting being an asshole about it. He said, "I once warned you that I can be a real asshole."

And I said, wryly, "That warning is just a collection of words till one sees it in action."

He said that even though he does feel like he's getting shortchanged that he gets "only 50% of me" and even though it does hurt like hell, he still wants to stay together. He asked that I please give him a pass just this once. I didn't have to think long on that to tell him I would. And then I had to go call my mom, since we'd had a phone date scheduled that morning.

I talked to her for about 45 minutes. While I was talking, Dustin texted me from the bedroom with more apologies. I brought him a cup of coffee and a kiss. He looked astonished that I was being sweet to him. When I finished my conversation, I went into the bedroom and he pounced on me, crying into my shoulder and saying how I didn't deserve to be treated the way he'd treated me. Saying how he's totally mine and he won't try to break up with me again. Saying that even if he had left last night, he knows that the minute he got home he would have called me and asked to come back, because I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him and he's never loved anyone so much before.

I hugged him and told him that I love him. I did feel the need to say, though, that stuff like the previous night CANNOT keep happening. I CANNOT explode my life for him, and it's unfair of him to ask me to. And I WILL NOT tolerate being on the receiving end of semi-public explosions and drama like that. That is so not my bag.

He said he understands that I can't explode my life—that's not actually what he wants for me, either—and that he won't treat me that way again. He did ask for some glimmer of hope that it'll get better—that it can actually work out. I told him that I struggled for years figuring out how to make poly work for me, and I'm OK with it now, that meeting him actually helped.

He looked thoughtful for a moment and then asked, "If you struggled for so long, isn't it possible that it's not really what you wanted? That you were only doing it for your partner?"

I felt a whole range of emotions at his saying that. Like, on the one hand, I was thinking about how Rider and I had actually sort of closed, at my request, because YES, I was struggling AF for a long time. And that made me feel primarily guilt—guilt because I was now putting Dustin through the same thing, and guilt that I'd turned on a dime upon meeting Dustin. And guilt that maybe I couldn't really accurately reassure Dustin that it would get better. What if it never did? What if he, not really feeling "poly," never found his own version of what he is to me: a catalyst and a carrot for making it work.

On the heels of the guilt, I felt a great sadness. It seemed an unfair trick of the universe to have given me a poly partner who was willing to try to be more mono with me when I wanted that, only to nearly immediately send me a mono partner who would suddenly make me feel more poly. It's like both of them want different things from me, and I'm only capable of giving one what they want when I'm giving the other what they don't want, in either direction. To get cool enough with the situation to give Rider the type of poly that makes him happiest, I had to meet Dustin. But to give Dustin the relationship shape that would make him happiest, I'd have to leave Rider, which, of course, I cannot do.

Perhaps the kindest thing to do would indeed be to cut Dustin loose. But I can't. Because then I would be the miserable one. I literally cannot picture a satisfactory version of my life without him in it, at least, not at this time. He has added a depth and possibility that I had no idea could exist. It makes the life I had before him seem shallower, somehow. That sounds terrible. But I sort of feel like, unbeknownst to me up until recently, I'd been running some sort of treadmill of work-party-sleep-repeat and—even though I still do that with him too right now—he's shown me a door to some other possible future. He wants more than that for himself eventually, and he wants me along for the ride. I don't know that I can close that door without completely eviscerating myself and feeling hollow for a long time to come.

After the guilt and then the sadness, I just felt a little defensive. Because I did choose poly for myself, before I even chose Rider. It was a perk in Rider, when I found him: here was a person actively trying to do the thing that I wanted to try to do. All of those emotions cycled through me before I opened my mouth, and this is the one that came out of it, the defensiveness: "Yes, it's something I wanted too. It wasn't only for him. It hasn't always been easy, but nothing always is."

And I told him I'd prepare some bookmarks for him in More Than Two that should help with the jealousy stuff, to at least get us through the NRE when everything seems extra intense in both the good and the bad. And he said OK, he'd keep doing the reading, and he'd keep trying, and he'd stay with me. I asked him if it would make things easier for him if I called him on nights I wasn't with him, and he said it would. So I'm going to try to do that, even if just for a few minutes. I remember needing reassurance. I remember wanting to videochat with Rider every night when we had to be apart for more than a night at a time, no matter whether he was hanging out with Kelly or not. It always helped me when he'd agree to do that, so hopefully my calls will help Dustin.

(continued . . . )

 

[Reverie]

(. . . continued from previous)

We spent most of the next two days just being close to each other and lazy. He did have his normal Sunday night gig, but we came home right after. He was pretty sick from how fucked up he'd gotten Saturday night. He was puking and having hot flashes Sunday evening, and he still could barely eat for most of yesterday.

He told me he wants to lay off the booze for a while and said he'd more or less been on a bender since our weekend in the desert. I told him I'd commit to doing that with him, if he'd like. He said that'd be very helpful, as it's always easier with a buddy. I asked how long—a week, two weeks, a month? He said let's start with three days. So that's today, tomorrow, and Thursday. I'm actually looking forward to it. I like a good drinking sabbatical.

We had a ton of sex and a ton of naps, and we tried once to watch part of a movie but kept falling asleep. We had almost zero screen time all weekend, just being wrapped up in each other, cuddling and talking and making out and fucking and sleeping. We did take one short little stroll around the cemetery when we were both craving green space but he was too under the weather to go for a real hike. He apologized probably over a hundred times over the course of Sunday and Monday. I kept telling him I'd already forgiven him.

It was really nice just being lazy with him for two days. The sex, oh my god, the sex. I had no idea it could even get so good. We both got off multiple times on both days, which had never happened before. We've gotten so good together. And we've been doing this thing where we just stare into each other's eyes for very extended stretches of time, and it feels like the blue discs of his irises almost expand to fill my entire field of vision so that it almost seems I am inside of him looking out. That sounds really weird, but it's almost psychedelic without drugs. It's like we're connecting in every possible way: hands linked, eyes linked, mouths meeting for kisses, covered in each other's sweat, and with him inside of me. It electrifies me and puts goosebumps all over me.

I've also figured out how to get him off just by touching him, using coconut oil. That's really hot too, because it gives me an opportunity to taste him at the end—something I greatly enjoy. So, yeah, that side of things is going well.

Whoa, he literally just texted me as I was typing this and said this: "I can't stop seeing you stare into my eyes. That's the most intense feeling I have ever felt in my entire life." I swear he reads my mind sometimes; we are on such a crazy wavelength together . . .

Anyway, we continued our lazy time right up until Rider was about to fly in. Dustin said he finally felt rested for the first time in longer than he can remember. He thanked me repeatedly for such a restful weekend and for being so sweet to him and perfect. Then I helped him pack his stuff up, and we said our goodbyes. After everything, even though there was one section of terrible in the middle of an otherwise good weekend, the weekend ended with my feeling closer than ever to him. Fighting and his apologizing and our making up and each of us crying, and then all the closeness and sex and processing . . . it took some of the NRE sparkle-shine off and left us with a better understanding of each other. I'm still not sure what will happen between us, but I know that we definitely got to see more sides of each other than we had before.

Around 7:30, I went to pick Rider up from the airport. The traffic was terrible. He had brought me a little heart-shaped pizza back from our favorite pizza place in Florida. What a sweetie! On the way back, he regaled me with tales of his adventures: mostly drinking in bars, eating in diners, and watching football. He'd had a good date night with Allie, too. I'm happy for him.

We ate the pizza and I told him about my weekend too. He said I must really like Dustin because the van drama would have been a deal-breaker for him. I did not say "well, duh!" but I was thinking it.

Then we watched an episode of Game of Thrones, and then we had sex. I'm discovering that my body does not like adjusting to the size difference between Dustin and Rider. Rider is easily thrilled with things that are not PIV, and so if I'm not feeling the need for an orgasm, then we don't necessarily do that. We do plenty of other stuff—kink combined with hand-jobs, strap-on, oral, etc.—but less PIV than we used to, because I like variety and I'm getting a ton of PIV with Dustin.

The downside to this is that because there is a significant size disparity, if I'm only with Rider in that way once per week, then the time that I am with him, it kinda hurts. I've tried lots of silicone lube, then lots of coconut oil as lube, then breathing through it, and I'm still having a sensation of being so full that it is uncomfortable-borderline-painful. This has been happening for a couple weeks now. I don't remember this from the beginning stages of being with him, so I suspect the level of turned-on-ness that NRE provided made it easy to tolerate or something, and then from then on, I was just used to it. Even when I would come back from a trip and hadn't seen Rider for a few days, I remember being noticeably tighter, but not uncomfortably or painfully so. So I'm not really sure what's going on.

Or maybe it's the kegels that I've been doing on Dustin to try to be grippier for him during sex. Maybe they've, like, beefed up my walls or something. But I'm not really sure what to do about that. Because I don't want to STOP them because the flipside of this is that sex with Dustin has gotten phenomenal now that we are a better fit. We both come more easily and the sensations send me to the moon. This is a poly conundrum I have never, ever considered: that my body could actually adapt to one partner in a way that leads it to nearly reject another.

Rider has always been big for me and unable to do certain positions unless I was turned on beyond caring about the pain, but even basic missionary and cowgirl have become a touch masochistic. I guess I am just really super lucky that he's genuinely happy with minimal PIV; I think for most guys, this would be a capital-P Problem. But I have no idea what I'd do about it if it were. Maybe some kind of stretching exercises before sex? I'll have to look into it. It'd be good if I can get to a place where I'm not gritting my teeth through it when it happens.

After sex before bed, I always have a wash-up and facial care routine: pee, rinse, face creams, brush teeth, etc. Last night I made a phone call to Dustin part of that routine. I talked to him for only six minutes, so I didn't take too much time out of Rider's time or disrupt our pre-bed cuddling too much, but I think it made Dustin really, really happy. And Rider didn't seem to mind it, so that's a win. I was also happy to hear Dustin had had a nice dinner with his friends and was feeling a lot better, health-wise.

I'm actually typing this on my work computer while staying late at work because my laptop is still busted. I'm going to try to get it fixed tonight. I have so much work I'm behind on that I should probably not even be writing but, ugh, I just had to talk about the Saturday debacle. I'm probably going to end up putting in late hours one night this week, plus extra hours while my kitten is in surgery for his neutering on Saturday.

So far my week is shaping up to be three dedicated Rider nights (Monday, tonight, and Friday), two dedicated Dustin nights (tomorrow and Saturday), one work night (Thursday), and an up-for-grabs night (Sunday). What I do Sunday will likely depend on how much work I have left to do by the end of that week. I think Dustin actually has the night off for once, rare for a Sunday, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get away. I would like to, if I can. I felt a little guilty when he was raging about "getting only 50%" and the fact of the matter is that most weeks it's less than that—just in terms of my time. Since love is infinite, his space in my heart cannot be measured in percentages—I feel him in every corner of my being.

 

[Mya]

Wow, that sounded pretty dramatic! I hope Dustin learns to cope with the situation and that there won't be more drama like that in the near future. I'm glad you're otherwise having such a good time with him though, it seems to make up for the not so great bits.

 

[Reverie]

I have had acquaintances (my definition of "friend" is really restrictive) say similar things to me...other peoples' reactions are SO NOT my problem. If one of my boys or SLeW has a personal beef with my behaviour then I will discuss that with them and take that info under advisement - and I may very well decide that I am NOT going to change my behaviour and they can then decide how they will respond to that.

More often, the boys will tell me the next day about the "looks" that the three (or more) of us were getting at a concert or festival. My response (since I am notoriously oblivious at the time, just enjoying myself) is generally, "Well, then, maybe we gave them something interesting to talk about later".

Yeah, I feel you on all of this. Life is too short to live the life that other people want you to live. If I'm actively being a jerk, sure, I'd like a chance to have my eyes opened to that and reconsider. But most of the stuff is just people being judgmental and I don't give a damn about my reputation.

 

[Reverie]

Wow, that sounded pretty dramatic! I hope Dustin learns to cope with the situation and that there won't be more drama like that in the near future. I'm glad you're otherwise having such a good time with him though, it seems to make up for the not so great bits.

I really hope so too. I'm more than willing to work through struggles with him privately, but explosions and arguments in front of a group of people are not my thing. I'm obviously not a SUPER private person (hello, rambling blog posts!) but it's distracting to say the least to have an audience while in the act of hashing out interpersonal issues.

I guess it's not completely surprising to me that he's not the best at holding stuff in till an appropriate time, though. He's so passionate in so many ways that I guess it makes sense that some of them are inappropriate-explodey ways. At least he never said anything cruel actually about me, like previous partners have been known to do while being emotional and angry—I can tell he really loves me and everything about me. It was all railing about the situation. It gives me hope that if he can make peace with the situation, things will continue along just fine.

 

[Spork]

Ugh, the 50% thing. You can't have 50% of a person. Have they cut you in half? It don't work that way! Remind him of the comparison with multiple siblings in a family. Two kids don't have half a Mom and half a Dad. Each of them has a full relationship thing with their parent persons. Relationships can be good or bad, close or distant, they can start and stop. But they can't be cut up like a pie.

He has a 100% relationship with a 100% Reverie. Even if you did not also have a Rider, you wouldn't be makin' babies with him right now anyways, and nobody knows what the future holds. He's just saying bad things to himself that feed icky feelings because he's in mega-scary-vulnerable-NRE-town.

Time of course is limited, but unless you're locked in a room together 24/7, NO ONE is gonna get 100% of your time. That wouldn't even make sense!

But I think the fact that he can find ways to cope normal, and this blowup happened when ya'll were jacked on coke and booze, does point to the substances as being a factor in the problem...and I hope you two might think about that in deciding what to partake of together in the future and how much, eh?

 

[Reverie]

Other than work being crazy, it's been a good couple of days. I finally fixed my laptop (the RAM had indeed jiggled loose). Tuesday night I had a really, really good talk with Rider. He was saying that he feels like our life is a little boring, and he's worried I'll get bored with him. I am not bored, per se—I am constantly too busy to be bored—but I do agree that our main shared hobbies of playing with the band, going out to bars, and occasionally watching some TV could stand to be expanded upon.

With previous partners, I'd shared a love of Scrabble, reading side by side, going to the beach, hiking and other nature activities, etc., and it gave us stimulating stuff to keep doing when the NRE wore off. Though Rider does also like reading, he mostly just does it on his commute; after he's home, he is mostly into music and sports. When I'm in a creative downswing like I am right now, I don't much feel like writing new songs. And I'm not really much of a sports person, though I can get into the party atmosphere of a football party, and I do enjoy attending an occasional baseball game since I used to play as a kid.

When we first moved here, we did a lot of exploring the city, which kept things new and exciting for a while. The problem is, the main type of "exploring" we did was staking out new bars and cheap places to eat happy hour food. Several factors make that less feasible than it once was. One of the biggest is that we've pretty much already explored the areas convenient to us (home and work) now. We could branch out farther, but the traffic makes it discouraging sometimes. The other biggest one is that I'm super broke these days now that my IBR student loan payment was increased from $16/month to $270/month. And then there is the whole "trying to eat healthier" thing and the "not sure if it's healthy for alcohol consumption to be a hobby" thing.

So I told him I'd be happy for us to take up a new hobby together, if we can think of something we both would like to do. I also said I'd be willing to take turns every other week finding a fun, random, cheap or free activity for us to do.

I definitely don't find Rider boring. As always, I think he's smart, sweet, funny, fun to be around, talented, and all that good stuff. He never bores me—we can have fun together doing almost anything. But it is true that now that we are at the stage where we are not staring at each other all the time and are ready to face outward to the world side by side, it would be good to have some kind of shared project other than just the band, since the band is mostly Rider and Perry's baby and I'm just taking orders.

I suggested us teaching the kitten tricks as our shared project, and he said, "I dunno—that kitten is pretty derpy . . ." which is true. I'm not sure he'd be able to learn. My older cat is really smart for a cat, and always has been, even as a kitten. But the new kitten is definitely not, lol. It's OK, though. We love him anyway. And Rider and I will think of something!

He also said he felt conflicted about how many accommodations I was making to make things easier on Dustin, but not because he didn't want me to make them. He actually thought it was really nice of me and it made him think highly of me that I'm willing to go out of my way to help Dustin adjust. His conflicted feelings were coming from more of a place like "where are the ones for me?" and I was surprised because he had not said he was struggling in a while.

So I asked him if he was, and he said, no, not really, but he just wanted to feel like he is still interesting and pretty to me. And I said that of course he is, but if he wants me to do something extra for him to meet a need he has to feel that way, I'll be more than happy to do it. But he'll have to tell me what things specifically I can do—what scratches those itches for him—so that I'm not just stabbing around in the dark. I know him well enough to think of a few things, but I don't want to be missing out on some good ones that would be super-effective. He said he'd think about that and come back to me.

He also said that he worries about losing a sense of connection to me now that I have "brain-synced" so hard with Dustin (which, in Rider-speak, means the coincidental stuff, like how I'll mention Dustin and his text sound will go off immediately after). Apparently he worries that my getting super close and synced up with someone else means that I will "un-sync" from him.

And it's true that early on in my relationship with Rider, we would more often be thinking or wanting to do the exact same thing as each other—it's because we were intensely focused on the same things (writing our songs, introducing each other to new music, showing each other our favorite things) and we were starting to develop "couple" routines (breakfast at a particular diner on Sunday; beer at a particular weeknight bar after a hard work day, etc.). While, lately, we are pretty established in our routines and don't spend a lot of time thinking about or remarking upon them.

But that doesn't mean our connection has diminished. If anything, the reason we can free up that brain-space for thinking about and remarking on other things is because our connection is so solid that dwelling on it doesn't have to be at the forefront of our minds. At least, that's how *I* feel it. I asked him what I could do to ramp up the sense of connection on his end, if he's not feeling the same way.

He was able to come up with some more immediate suggestions than for the "interesting and pretty" thing: more "three minutes" (which is when we meditate on each other's eyes for three minutes before sex) and more cuddle time before I get up to pee after sex (or if this makes UTI stuff dodgy, maybe just come right back to lie down for a while after peeing instead of doing my face routine before coming back). Those things I can easily do!

After my talk with Rider and before we retired to the bedroom for sexytimes (bondage and a HJ, with "three minutes" before, and cuddling after), I spent a few minutes on the phone with Dustin. The full moon was peaking, and we were both standing outside looking at it. Coincidentally, after the convo I'd just had with Rider about "what is there exciting to do?" Dustin asked me to think about what we should do when we hung out the next day. I figured it'd be good practice for doing the same for Rider, so I agreed to do some brainstorming.

So that was Tuesday.

(continued . . . )

 

[Reverie]

( . . . continued from previous)

Yesterday, work was stressful, but I persevered. It's going to be like a 60+ hour work week for me when this all is over. But after work, I got to see Dustin.

During the day, I did some brainstorming about what to do with Dustin. I discovered that there is a planetarium at a nearby university, and also a botanical garden. Both of those things seemed very Dustin+Reverie-friendly, and the planetarium has free shows on Weds nights. But the garden closed at 5:00. Bummer. So I brought news of the planetarium to him.

He thought it was super funny, because he'd also thought of going to a planetarium, but a different one across town! We decided that mine was closer, so we'd go there. But first, he said, he had something he wanted to do first.

"Kiss me again?" I asked, giggling and putting kisses all over him.

"Actually, yes. I have a place I want to take you to make out—a surprise!"

This is where it gets really weird: it was a garden! Not the garden I'd been thinking of (which closed at 5:00), but a sprawling rose garden that didn't close until sunset. There were many little gazebos with benches in them, and after wandering around for a while, we chose one to make out in. It was so romantic! (Except for the june bug that tried to land on our heads.)

What are the chances that he assign us "homework" of coming up with a plan, and we both come up with the exact same plan, a planetarium and a garden, just in different locations in the city? It seems completely unlikely, but it happened!

After spending a time in the garden, talking about all the plants and stopping to kiss and smell roses, it was time to cross town to the planetarium. The traffic made the drive kind of long, but we made the best of it. First, we conducted a sunflower-seed taste test between the two brands he'd bought: his favorite (which I'd never tried) and one of my two. I called it a tie. Then, he started sneaking his hand up my skirt, and we ended up pretty seriously messing around. I was so turned on. The sun was going down, but it was still pretty light out, and the whole risk factor was quite thrilling. I even went down on him for a few seconds at a red light once we were off the freeway because he commanded me to do so. SO. HOT.

Once there, we walked across campus, cutting through a geology building and stopping to look at the posters. The planetarium was up on the roof of a tallish building, and we were about half an hour early, so we climbed up a flight of stairs to an upper roof part that looked out over the ocean and the mountains. The last colors of the sunset were still pretty brilliant and fading away behind black shadow hills. The breeze was just starting to chill. We kissed.

The planetarium show itself was not great. The presenter was an awkward grad student who had not yet figured out how to speak publicly without very long, exaggerated, "uhhhhhh" and "ummmmm" between every few words. It was jarring. And it was super cold inside that room. I ended up taking my jacked off and turning it around backward, so it was on Dustin's arms, which were around me, and making it kind of a blanket on me. But it was neat to learn more about the planets and the constellations. I learned how to find Taurus and the Pleiades, and learned why the North Star appears stationary. Pretty neat stuff.

We ended up exiting the building from a different entrance, but we both have a good sense of direction and knew exactly where to go to get back from the car. I felt him calculating it the same as I was, for the same length of time, then we both lifted our hand in that direction and started to walk.

Once we got back to the car, we were hungry and tired. We'd not eaten anything but sunflower seeds, and neither of us had had a drink in two days (today is day three!) so no calories there either. I'd brought our Indian leftovers, so we went back to his place and reheated them, had a brief conversation with his brother's girlfriend, then went to bed.

The sex, as always, was amazing. My entire insides shudder with delight remembering. We tried some crazy new position for a while where he was standing in front of the bed, and I was facing him with my feet on the bed and my legs bent at 90º, and he was holding my ass and bouncing most of my body weight up and down just with his arms. I was offsetting some of it with my arms on his shoulders and my feet on the bed but—still!—that had to be a lot of work. I don't even know how he thinks of these things!

After sex, we lay around talking for longer than we should have, till probably half an hour after bedtime. I don't even remember about what—life, the universe, and everything, probably.

On night two of no drinking after weeks of usually drinking, I often have sleep issues: night sweats and nightmares. That's exactly what happened. I had this crazy nightmare that Dustin and I were in a terrible car crash and ejected from the vehicle, but instead of being thrown forward, we were thrown straight up in the air—so high that I knew it would kill us when we finally hit the ground. But we were holding hands and I grabbed him closer and kissed him and said, "One last kiss before we die—at least we are together!" And I woke myself and him up by actually grabbing him in real life.

Apparently I just grabbed the shit out of him while sleeping and scared him half to death. Whoops. He cuddled me close, though, bringing me back to warm, cozy reality. Though he did say that as long as we both died instantly "it wouldn't be a bad way to go."

This morning when I woke up, I was at first soooo sleepy, but then when I stood up and started moving around, I felt pretty good. There were a couple things I was bummed about: 1) how much work I have left to do this week and 2) I'd forgotten yesterday to bring food to work for today, so I'd be hungry. But I griped about that stuff for only a moment, then went back to relishing my last minutes with Dustin before work.

Turns out my griping to Dustin about my food led him to go to Trader Joe's after dropping me off. He picked me up some stuff for lunch, and surprised me by dropping it off with a kiss shortly before lunchtime.

Hours passed with no communication, and then one other really weird OMG-is-he-psychic thing happened, too: I was on IM with my bandmates, and I messaged them at 1:54 asking "For next week's gig, I'm good with my small amp, right? Or do I need to borrow Dustin's big one?" At 1:55, Dustin texted me out of the blue asking me the same question: Did I need his amp? Because I am welcome to it if I do. HOW IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?! How does he do it? It's fucking uncanny! So weird.

The rest of my week's schedule is this:

Tonight: Work on work stuff at home
Tomorrow: Work and then date night with Rider (Japanese curry!)
Saturday morning: Take the kitten for his neutering, then work till it's time for him to get picked up.
Saturday afternoon: Pick up the kitten, drop him off at home, then heading to Dustin and the band van for what will hopefully be a smoother gig road trip than last week.
Sunday morning: Dustin and I might go to the beach for a while after waking up.
Sunday afternoon: Do work at Dustin's place.
Sunday night: Fancy dinner with Dustin at his friend's nice restaurant (at friend's invitation), then return home to be with kitten some while he heals.

I really, really would prefer to stay with Dustin Sunday night after dinner, but I think kitten probably will need his mama, and Dustin agrees.

I'm sleepy—afternoon doldrums—and have to get more work done now.

 

[Reverie]

Ugh, the 50% thing. You can't have 50% of a person. Have they cut you in half? It don't work that way! Remind him of the comparison with multiple siblings in a family. Two kids don't have half a Mom and half a Dad. Each of them has a full relationship thing with their parent persons. Relationships can be good or bad, close or distant, they can start and stop. But they can't be cut up like a pie.

Y'know, I've actually forgotten to do this comparison in conversation with him. I totally will the next time it comes up. (If it does, which I hope that it does not.)

He has a 100% relationship with a 100% Reverie. Even if you did not also have a Rider, you wouldn't be makin' babies with him right now anyways, and nobody knows what the future holds. He's just saying bad things to himself that feed icky feelings because he's in mega-scary-vulnerable-NRE-town.

Time of course is limited, but unless you're locked in a room together 24/7, NO ONE is gonna get 100% of your time. That wouldn't even make sense!

This much, I definitely have told him. I've told him that he does have 100% of me—I'm always "his girlfriend" even when we're not physically together. And I've reminded him that more often than not, it's our respective work and other commitment schedules that keep us apart, not my poly-ness. He has two free nights next week—only two, and one's a maybe—and there's a chance I have to rehearse with my band on his "maybe" night. Next week, therefore, he's going to have 100% of my free "can spend on relationship" time that we are both available for. And some weeks that'll be one night, and some weeks, it'll be two or three, but it's always BOTH OF OUR schedules to blame.

But I think the fact that he can find ways to cope normal, and this blowup happened when ya'll were jacked on coke and booze, does point to the substances as being a factor in the problem...and I hope you two might think about that in deciding what to partake of together in the future and how much, eh?

Yes. This has been discussed a lot at this point. Dustin said last night that he "hasn't been that bad in a long time" and "if it makes [me] feel better, [he] suffered physically for days after it" (of course, it doesn't), and he freely admits that it was the substances that made shit go completely off the rails.

Hence the break from drinking, and hence he has promised me not to hit it that hard again this coming Saturday. I guess I'll find out on Saturday how capable he is of keeping those promises. He gets a do-over, in a way. I know that he's not an actual cokehead the way that his bestie is. His bestie always has coke, and is always on it. Dustin is a mid-grade recreational user.

As for me, I can take or leave the stuff. I don't really enjoy it—the "high" of uppers for me usually just makes me feel vaguely unpleasant like I've had too much coffee—but the energy boost is helpful when I'm trying to keep pace with people who are on it. Before meeting Dustin, I hadn't touched it in years and years and years. I'm far more of a psychedelics person. But, with rare exception, I do try to keep up with my company, if the company is good.

After last Saturday, though, it's pretty tempting to take the advice of Johnny Cash: lay off that whiskey, and let that cocaine be!

 

[Reverie]

It's probably just hormones (I'm due to bleed any day), but today I am questioning LITERALLY EVERYTHING about my life: financial plan, career choice, romantic future, reproductive choices, geographic location . . . is 35 too early for a mid-life crisis?

 

[Refusnik]

It's probably just hormones (I'm due to bleed any day), but today I am questioning LITERALLY EVERYTHING about my life: financial plan, career choice, romantic future, reproductive choices, geographic location . . . is 35 too early for a mid-life crisis?

Maybe but based on my experience and that of most people I know, it's spot on. I started questioning all the same things around 36 when I lived in LA, had a super stressful job and began wondering WTF am I doing here? There was a lot heartache and headache upfront but now, 7 years later I see it as primarily a good thing because I'm quite a bit happier and have a pretty firm grasp on what I want from life. Of course it could just be hormones like you said, in which case ignore this.

 

[Mya]

I feel you! I'm also questioning pretty much everything in my life right now, and I'm turning 32 next month. 30's crisis is the new mid-life crisis?