Sometimes when we talk about polyamory it’s important to get perspective, how the different people and relationships relate to one another. But sometimes it’s important to reflect on the individuality of each, and how a single person can play a large role in the big picture. For me, Oz is one of these. This is how our story goes.
Chapter 16 – Jules: The Woman Who Turned the Tide
I drew a picture of Jules in the first month of knowing her and we both agreed that it was a true representation of her. Jules raved for days that it captured her body dimensions and attitude exactly, down to the wide-legged stance, the lit cig in her hand, the Harry Potter dressing gown. La Devastadora I called her, Jules’ badass alter ego, named for her affinity for Spain and Spanish, her devastating skill in the bedroom. La Devastadora was what I saw when I looked at her.
Chapter 15 – The Optimal Number (and Lorin Part 3)
Lorin asked me about my optimal number, the number of partners I could realistically maintain without neglecting any. At that time I was sure it was three. I suppose that after the introduction of the term “polyamory” to my life, I had started to think of the “poly” part in its multiplicity, its potential to keep growing. If I wasn’t drawing the line at one partner, one relationship, why draw the line at two?
Chapter 14 – Jules: Secondhand Love Story
When love struck again, I took it to him, my deepest confessions, my biggest worries. I needed someone to talk to that didn’t have as big of stakes as Oz would as my primary partner. Lorin was patient and used to giving advice. He was the perfect fit. These are the words we traded in those first few weeks of her.
Chapter 13 – A Wedding and a Silent Funeral (and Flora Part 3)
Oz and I were married in a Unitarian chapel in North London, and afterwards two old-fashioned London buses. came to ferry us south of the river to the reception. I wanted my wedding to be a meeting of elegant opposites, a blending of cultures, preferences, personalities, a coming-together. And yet, for all its success at bringing together so many other disparate things, the wedding was nothing if not a convergence of lovers that started out well but quickly went south.
Chapter 12 – Flora (Part 2): The Crumble
Here’s what she claims: she and Felix were clean. Here's what we can guess: Lorin was clean when he last got checked roughly two months previously. I’d bet he was clean at the time of the threesome, and if he was, I was. We all had to admit though: No one knew for certain.
Chapter 11 – Lorin (Part 2): Our One Night Together
We were clearly more than friends, but less than partners, still speaking every day, airing our grievances, but unable to be anything like what we had been. I encouraged him when he got down; he told me how I was free to go, he would understand, but he also told me what missing me did to him. I don’t know what to say about the impulse which led we who were poly to chase a behaviour that the monogamous have all but perfected. All I can say is that I admit that my jealousy for his time and his attention was strong.
Chapter 10 – Lorin (Part 1): The Other Man
It was a whole new arena. To be honest, I was shocked at my own surprise; after all, until the dawn of 2015, men had been all I’d ever known. But in 2018, for the first time I was swiping through male profiles on Tinder, meeting men outside of a school setting, a chance encounter, a longtime friendship. Lorin was one of the first I met. And, miraculously, he was by far the best.
Chapter 9 – Flora (Part 1): Remember Me Like This
Flora’s skepticism was her greatest gift to me. In questioning my motives for my actions I reaffirmed their importance to me, not as a blind ritual, but as an intentional act. My explanations to her gave me confidence, and it was confidence I needed at the time. They also, in the long game, fed the skepticism that keeps me questioning, keeps me open to incorporating new points of view and changing the way I live to fit new modes of thought, new understandings. Flora was a part of my evolution. She was also there for a pivotal part of it.
Chapter 8 – Oscar: Lover Come Back
It dawned on me there in the desert, in the quiet: there was something still surreal about the fact that we were moving transatlantic, that our flights were booked, our bags half-packed. My mother had stopped trying to suggest other options. I was going, and he was coming with me.
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