Quickie

Argh! Everything’s happening too fast! Sorry, this will have to be a pretty straightforward summary so I can get back on track…

So Loup and I decided to jump in the deep end together. I know, I know, after all the agonizing and monologuing about Gar, etc. But here’s why. He gets it, first of all. The open relationship, I mean. So that means less time moralizing, more time practicing. Or setting agreements, managing expectations, fighting it out… doing the sorts of thing that really matter. And his willingness to talk — openly and without self-consciousness or restraint — is a welcome change after my blackbox experience with Gar.

It took a little work to remind myself that I wasn’t cheating on Gar. He was never comfortable with the open relationship — that, we both understood — and after the break-up, it was technically no longer even an issue. Because although we still played, there was no existing relationship — that, he had emphasized — and no agreements, no boundaries. Yet I always acted in consideration of his feelings, treading lightly (or not at all), guessing and second guessing.

But with everything pulled to a grinding halt, it was clear that avoidance wasn’t really working out for me. So I decided to proceed, albeit with caution.

I invited Loup over for drinks. Drinks and a little open relationship conversation turned into a wrestling match. A couple of nights later, I had him over again. More talk, more play. I was still hesitant, though. I told him to be patient.

***

Gar came over to say hi during my warm-up. We were chatty and close. I mentioned that I was going to watch Pirates and, when he asked, I told him it was with Aru. Off-handedly, I remarked that Aru must have really liked the movie as it would be the second time he was watching it.

“Ah, kinda like me and Blood Diamond,” Gar said. I nodded at the recollection. Though he’d watched it just 4 days before, there wasn’t anything else on and besides, he wasn’t complaining. I only realized the precise parallel that he was drawing after he wished me a good workout and headed back to work. Blood Diamond had been our first date.

He came up to me again about a half hour later. “I know this is none of my business,” he said cautiously, “but this movie you’re watching with him — is it a date?”

I told him I didn’t know, that it was too early to say. But I stumbled badly, caught off guard. I rushed into an assurance, painting over anything between Aru and me, as little and as innocuous as the truth was.

He listened to my halting answer, then looked down. “I just got that empty stomach feeling, you know? I guess there’s still some… attachment…”

Then the empty stomach feeling hit me. Oh god. Loup. What have I done?

“Gar, I don’t know what we are,” I started, flustered. “It would have been arrogant of me to presume — and I didn’t want to hold myself back just because I didn’t know — and you wouldn’t say anything…”

“I’m saying something now,” he pointed out, clearly proud of himself, but with a hint of recognition that it may have come a little too late.

***

I should have waited a little longer…

Or I could have been waiting forever…

Hindsight is dangerous like that.

***

Once in Gar’s bed, I pull him into my arms and hold him close. We talk. It’s still hard, but it’s getting somewhere. Gar and I agree to cold turkey. And I finally get to ask if there are any barriers we should set. “Yeah,” he says. “Can it not be someone I’m living with…?”

Fuck. “Because it’s Loup or because it’s a housemate?”

“Just the thought of knowing what’s going on in the next room…” He makes a face.

I hesitate, but I push on. “Loup and I have been talking. There’s a pretty good fit between our views on relationships — “

His interruption is sudden and uncharacteristically direct: “Have you slept with him?”

I am, again, totally unprepared. No. It’s all I can say. My vaunted openness leaves me as I cower. So I tell him no.

***

In retrospect, I didn’t owe him an answer. The extent of my responsibility was to tell him that I couldn’t meet his request but was willing to take it into consideration — not meeting Loup in the apartment, for example.

But at the time, in the panicked scramble to breathe, as the fears of a meltdown set in, all I could think was how untruthful I had been and was being, how I should have been more careful — with him, with Loup, with the whole bloody thing.

But in the days that followed, as I mulled over possibilities and realities, I realized that this attempt to pull away from my one and only reliable social network was, again, avoidance. If I’ve learnt nothing else, it’s that that doesn’t work. And so, again, I decided to proceed. With discretion and sensitivity. And a sense of responsibility for my own happiness.

Developments and complications continue to dovetail. More in future posts.