Okay Fine Whatever

by Courtenay Hameister

  Joe’s kissing style wasn’t my cup of tea (very wet, like he was kissing me with the inside of his lips, which made me wonder if someone had once told him his kisses were too dry and he overcorrected), but there was definitely enough sexual chemistry to pique my curiosity.

  With Joe, I’d come to expand my horizons, but, weirdly, I stayed for the intimacy.

  After our second date, Joe came back to my place, and Things Happened.3

  After a highly successful rolling-around session wherein we never even bothered to get fully into my bed, we were lying on top of my comforter giggling quietly and talking, and Joe did the most surprising thing: He took my hand. And as we continued talking, he softly ran his fingers up and down my forearm as if he’d been doing it for years.

  We’d just had what was definitely casual sex, but this physical act was such a convincing simulacrum of actual intimacy that it was jarring.

  And after thinking about it, I decided it made sense.

  He was married, so of course he was comfortable with physical and emotional intimacy. He’d agreed to a lifetime of it. With someone else, sure, but that’s really splitting hairs.

  We lay there for about a half an hour that night, his hands running over my arms, my back, his fingers running through my hair, and we talked about his marriage, my work, and how he’d become so skilled with his tongue. (He’d read a book, it turns out, called She Comes First, which I will tell you, men, was much appreciated. I mean, I own the equipment and sometimes even I’m befuddled by it.)

  Then he started talking about his work, and I was mostly listening to him, but part of me was so distracted by this unexpected tenderness and the softness of his hands that I had a hard time focusing on the mechanics of how to build a fully integrated enterprise platform.

  This was exactly what I was looking for. This kind of intimacy. This kind of touch. I wanted it so much that the more my arms tingled, the more my chest ached.

  Except for the niggling details of him being married and us not having anything in common, it was perfect.

  After about thirty minutes of the best afterglow of my life, Joe got up and got dressed in the dark, something I’m sure he’d become good at in the past few months.

  When he was ready to go, he sat on the bed and kissed me.

  “Is this awkward for you?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  I was a little shocked. Those are two thorny questions that have a high probability of not getting the response one is hoping for. It wasn’t awkward and I was okay, but it was lovely to be asked.

  It turned out that yet another thing Joe was adept at was having difficult conversations.

  His decision to become polyamorous had forced him to have so many of them with his wife that he’d become a pro. This was incredibly refreshing in the “Let’s hang out sometime,” impossible-to-tell-whether-you’re-dating-or-not-due-to-imprecise-language Portland dating scene.

  I started taking advantage of the skills Joe offered on a fairly regular basis at the same time I was dating other people. Sometimes we’d meet at my house, sometimes at a bar.

  One night he called me and said his wife was on a date and did I want to come over.

  To his house? With his five-year-old twin daughters there?

  That was a whole different ball of wax. Or can of worms. Or house with a family that could come spilling out.

  I have no issues when it comes to polyamory—adults can do whatever they want with their bodies and hearts and marriages. But when you bring children into the mix, I’m definitely uncomfortable.

  But what if Joe were gay? Would I say, I’m okay with you marrying a man as long as you don’t bring kids into it? I’m either down or not down, right?

  I decided that if I was okay with polyamory, I had to be okay with it even if kids were involved.

  I agreed to meet him at his house after his girls went to bed.

  As I was getting ready, I imagined what his house would look like. Who made most of the decorating choices, him or his wife? And what did he do for his at-home dates? Would I walk in to candles and wine? And would they be candles his wife had bought at Bath and Body Works on $8.95 Candle Day?

  I walked through the front door and was immediately bombarded with family stuff: Photos of all of them in matching denim shirts and khakis taken by a professional photographer. Video games and toys everywhere. A miniature easel and whiteboard with a drawing of a little girl in the sun with flowers coming out of her head.

  Come on.

  It was like she knew Daddy had a date and she wanted her to be racked with guilt and question the entire concept of nontraditional relationships.

  Little shit.

  “Have you had other dates here?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he replied. “My wife does it all the time.”

  It reminded me of those teen movies where one kid has been suckered by a group of ne’er-do-wells into coming along on some ill-fated shenanigans, like breaking into a public pool or killing a hobo. Invariably, the new kid asks, “Are you sure this is cool?” And the leader of the gang who will later be impaled by a fence post says, “Sure. We do it all the time.”

  I rocked from foot to foot as we chatted quietly for a little while.

  “Where are the girls’ rooms?” I whispered.

  “Oh, they’re downstairs,” he said. “But you don’t have to whisper. They sleep really soundly.”

  Do you have that in writing somewhere? I don’t want to get nitpicky, but this could get life-alteringly uncomfortable for all of us.

  Since I wanted to get out of any common areas of the house, we moved to the guest room and started kissing. Right after we pushed his daughter’s soccer gear off the bed.

  Hello, boner-killer.

  Joe said he had to leave the door slightly open just in case one of his daughters woke up—he had to be able to hear them.

  Really? What if we were in flagrante and one of them came up and gently pushed the door open without us hearing a thing? I imagined it happening, the door slowly opening to reveal a daughter, who my brain decided to picture as Cindy Lou Who. The giant, disappointed eyes. The antennae.

  Antennae or not, I didn’t want to do that to a kid. I didn’t want to be the reason her father had to explain what polyamory means. I also didn’t have the money to pay for a lifetime of therapy for a five-year-old. That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably. I’d rather cover her college tuition.

  Problem was, I definitely wanted to have sex with Joe that night. He had the kind of skill that if you thought about having sex with him, you couldn’t get the idea of it out of your head until you had it, like really good sushi or the right to vote. Plus, wasn’t I supposed to be stepping out of my comfort zone? I got up and pushed the door closed as much as I could while still leaving enough space so that Joe could hear his kids.

  His kids.

  He kissed me. I kissed him back. He kissed my neck. I looked at the door. He pulled my sweater down and kissed my breast. I thought about how quiet a five-year-old’s footfall was on carpeted steps. They were like cats, only bigger. He pulled my skirt down. I pulled it up and pulled off my underwear—that way if I had to stand up quickly, I’d appear fully clothed with only one boob out, which seems slightly less traumatizing for a child than Dad and a naked lady.

  He went down on me. This was perfect. It was quiet and still gave me a great view of the door. It was also by far the fastest way to an orgasm—when it came to power and accuracy, his tongue was like a wet, soft Tomahawk missile. Which would be of no use to the Defense Department but was quite useful for me.

  I allowed myself to close my eyes for just long enough to get where I needed to go while keeping eagle…ears on the stairwell. (Do eagles have good ears? Their heads are completely smooth. That’s weird. Note to self: Look that up right after you stop having sex with polyamorous married dudes with kids.) I came, and then I did everything I could to get Joe off as quickly as possible while still checking for ominous shadows in
the doorway. It was like watching two people have sex in a horror film, when you’re just waiting for the killer to come and use one whale spear to turn them into a sexy shish kebab. Except that I was one of the two people, and the killer was a five-year-old wielding a Polyamory Barbie (now with two Kens!). Thankfully, she never showed.

  When we were done, I put my boob back in its holster and pulled on my underwear—no afterglow this time.

  Joe kissed me at the door and said he’d text me later to make sure I got home okay.

  I got in my car and knew immediately.

  The devil-may-care, try-everything-once attitude I was attempting to cultivate in myself had, for the first time, steered me wrong.

  I thought about all the times when I was a kid that my parents probably thought I was sleeping soundly, but I wasn’t. Conversations I’d heard, laughter that wafted up to my bedroom from their gatherings, strange silences that I knew held something I shouldn’t know about.

  Even though Joe and I hadn’t gotten caught, I hated thinking that I might have been one of those memories for his girls.

  Was that orgasm worth it? I could’ve just as easily given one to myself. I’m very good at it.

  So far, I’d had some great experiences, some solidly so-so ones, and one that almost made me see stars from physical pain (the Brazilian). But this was the first one I truly regretted and that I felt had, ever so slightly, turned me into a worse person instead of a better one.

  I still enjoyed spending time with Joe and thought I’d probably see him again.

  Just no more at-home dates with polyamorous men. Too messy, and too much of a chance that you’ll come into contact with the people they actually love.

  As it turns out, some boundaries are good.

  1 I don’t know for sure that tantric sex is boring, but if Sting’s seven-hour tantric-sex session is any indication, I’m not interested. Sex should never require an hour for lunch and two fifteen-minute compensable authorized breaks to be used at my discretion.

  2 Quick clarification: Swinging is generally when couples swap partners, and it’s usually fleeting and more recreational, whereas polyamory is usually defined as a more permanent situation where people become involved emotionally with other people. But of course there’s some crossover. Polyamory and swinging, as you can imagine, don’t have hard-and-fast rules. But there are other things involved that are hard and fast. Bam! Sex joke!

  3 We did it.

  Dating the Polyamorous II

  In Which I Learn Who the Boss Is, and It’s Not

  Judith Light

  As I was dating Joe, I continued to trade messages with Jeremy.

  He would periodically check in with me on OkCupid chat.

  JEREMY: Hey! How’s it going?

  ME: Okay. But I’m getting frustrated. Why doesn’t anyone have a sense of humor?

  JEREMY: It’s Portland. Everyone’s in their safe space.

  ME: True. I’m in mine right now. (It’s the Ikea cafeteria.) How’s by you?

  JEREMY: I’m okay. I’m with this girl who wants me to pee on her, though.

  ME: Holy shit. What’d you say?1

  JEREMY: I already had sex with her in front of her boyfriend at his request. I feel like I’ve done my due diligence with this person.

  ME: Come on. You did not do that.

  JEREMY: He had a voyeur thing.

  ME: What was it like?

  JEREMY: It was like fucking, but I was just more conscious of what my gut looked like from the side.

  ME: Now you know what it’s like for women to have sex.

  JEREMY: Touché. Anyway, he’s her boyfriend…he should pee on her. Not me.

  ME: See? If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t know that rule.

  JEREMY: Yeah, you’re welcome.

  His sex life was so varied and fascinating, I couldn’t look away. We started talking about sex more often, and because I didn’t think we’d ever see each other again, I felt totally free to say things that it’d take me much longer to reveal to someone I was dating. During one conversation, he said that his girlfriend had asked him to tell her what to do to another man via text, in real time.

  ME: That sounds complicated.

  JEREMY: Nah. It’s just sexting, except there’s someone physically there taking your place.

  ME: So it’s like sex by proxy. Seems like you got the short end of that stick.

  JEREMY: It was fun. I like dominating her.

  There was a lag in the conversation as I typed and deleted and retyped my next comment.

  ME: I’ve always fantasized about being dominated.

  And another, shorter lag.

  JEREMY: I could do that for you. I’m good at it.

  This was a wrinkle I wasn’t expecting. I had been dating a lot, but clearly I was still a total amateur at deciphering whether someone was interested in me.

  ME: I thought you weren’t interested in me in that way.

  JEREMY: No! I just thought that when you said you wouldn’t be good at polyamory, you meant you weren’t into trying it with me.

  A wave of adrenaline washed over me from the tip of my head all the way down my torso. It crashed right around my vagina.

  The idea of actually being dominated by someone after thinking about it for so long left me almost breathless.

  Like Sally in When Harry Met Sally, my fantasy fodder has been the same for my whole adult life: I’m a secretary and my boss expects more of me than just dictation.2 I’m not sure why I chose secretary, but I type about ninety words per minute, so if I’m going to fantasize about a job in the clerical milieu, that one makes the most sense. Also, naughty secretary sounds much sexier than naughty stenographer. But I digress.

  In the fantasy, my generic, slightly blurry boss pushes me up against his giant dark wood desk, shoves his hand down a pair of much sexier panties than I generally wear, and forces me to do things. He’s holding something over my head—figuratively—so I have to do whatever he says. I say no initially and try to fight him off, but once we’re in the middle of it, I start to like it.

  Oftentimes it’ll include one of his male colleagues who just happens to be in the office after hours. Maybe they’re working on a project together. Something businessy?

  Nothing derails a sex fantasy faster than trying to figure out the details. Like, what’s he holding over me? Is it just that I really need the job, or have I been embezzling money? And what kind of company is it, anyway? No one has secretaries anymore. He must be really old if he can’t send his own e-mails.

  In any case, I’ve had this same fantasy for years, and it’s worked for me over and over again.

  It’s pretty inconvenient to be a feminist and have a constant fantasy of being overtaken by two men.

  According to Psychology Today, one explanation for why women have rape fantasies is “sexual blame avoidance.” Because so many women have guilt about their sexuality, a scene in which they’re taken against their will allows them to escape any sense of culpability, so they can enjoy their fantasy guilt-free.

  That wasn’t me.

  Thankfully, the same study also turned up a different explanation for what appears to be disempowering daydreams: certain women, for whatever reason, are the opposite of those women who have guilt around sex. They’re so open to sexual experiences that they can have fantasies that go beyond the bounds of what is considered sexually appropriate behavior without any emotional repercussions.

  I think because I started having sex so late in life, I’m far more open to divergent sexual experiences than a lot of my friends. I’ve always felt that my late start gave me free rein for a couple reasons. One was that once I tried sex and realized how much I loved it, I felt cheated, like the universe owed me a lot of sex and I was going to do whatever I could to get it. The other was that I figured if you held on to your virginity for long enough, you could remain a virgin emeritus for the rest of your life, avoiding judgment from friends, lovers, and maybe even God, who I haven’t yet decided
exists (I figure that, unless I get hit by a bus, I have about twenty years to figure that out).

  So at the moment Jeremy made his offer, my hesitation about indulging in my fantasy with him wasn’t about crossing some self- or culturally imposed line of sexual norms; it was more about whether I thought I would actually enjoy it. Did I actually want to be dominated in the real world, or would it make me feel truly subjugated instead of pseudo-subjugated?

  And who was this guy, really? I’d never talked to his wife. Maybe he wasn’t married anymore because his wife was cut up into stew meat in his freezer.

  When you have anxiety, it’s sometimes hard to differentiate between excitement and trepidation. This was obviously a little of both.

  He said we should meet for a drink to see if we might want to meet for something else.

  I wanted to. But it was a lot at once.

  Then again, the OFW Project had brought me this thing that I theoretically wanted. I continued to be curious about polyamory and about what it felt like to be dominated. Wasn’t it my job to sally forth into the unknown in spite of my fears? Wasn’t that the whole point of this year? To take these offers from the God of Questionable Sexual Choices just as I would’ve in my twenties if I hadn’t hated my body at the time?

  I swallowed hard and agreed to meet Jeremy that evening at a new Japanese fusion place near my house.

  It was a cold, industrial space with polished cement floors, bright red tables, and matching bright red wooden chairs. My dread ball started growing in my chest about an hour before I arrived at the bar, and when I got there I wondered if the décor was the universe trying to wave a red flag at me.

  We hugged when we saw each other, leaning in gingerly and doing the upper-torso, two-pat, I-don’t-know-you-that-well-so-don’t-make-it-weird special.