LJ Idol Week One - When I'm no longer young and beautiful.
"I think it would be hot to watch you fuck another guy."
I snort through the bite of bison burger I'm in the middle of enjoying, before choking on a piece of errant meat that has gone rocketing down my trachea. "Oh yeah?" I respond sarcastically, defensively, after I manage to get my digestive and respiratory functions back under control. I want to laugh, I want this to be a joke.
It's our two year anniversary, my boyfriend and I are out for a dinner at a pub after finishing a beautiful twenty kilometre hike in the park. It's August 5th, in the middle of a heat wave, and last night we slept with our tent fly off and made love as the stars came out. Everything felt so cosmically perfect, I couldn't imagine ever being happier than I was. And now he's saying these ludicrous things that he shouldn't be saying or feeling. I feel my heartbeat quicken with anxiety as he unfalteringly meets my gaze. "Yeah. Don't you?"
Do I? I don't know. Maybe? My first instinct to the notion of including other people in our sex life terrifies me, makes me believe that I'm not enough for him. But he's not talking about other women, he's talking about another man. I wonder if this is a test, does he want me to say yes just so he can be upset with me? No, no, he isn't one to trap me like that. He is the most brutally honest person I've ever met, and not one to keep thoughts to himself. Maybe he's just thinking aloud.
I try to tell him that I am nowhere near even ready to consider that. I try to be as grown-up as possible, to keep my voice as steady as possible. He laughs at me, doesn't understand how I couldn't be sure about wanting to have sex with anybody but him. He thinks I'm fooling myself. I probably am, but remain steadfast in my conviction; he's the only person I want to have sex with, ever.
"Just think about it," he encourages me. "I think that in a long-term relationship that's something I would need in order to be happy."
His happiness is all that matters to me. I promise to think about it, we finish eating and leave the pub and I feel like an adult and like perhaps ten to fifteen years down the road having sex with other people would be a thing that I would want, too. He says our relationship has been the easiest thing he's ever done. My heart swells with love for him. He's my soulmate, the person who makes me feel the safest. My home, my forever. He would never do anything to hurt me.
I never thought that a year later I would be looking back on this conversation as the turning point where everything started to fall apart.
I snort through the bite of bison burger I'm in the middle of enjoying, before choking on a piece of errant meat that has gone rocketing down my trachea. "Oh yeah?" I respond sarcastically, defensively, after I manage to get my digestive and respiratory functions back under control. I want to laugh, I want this to be a joke.
It's our two year anniversary, my boyfriend and I are out for a dinner at a pub after finishing a beautiful twenty kilometre hike in the park. It's August 5th, in the middle of a heat wave, and last night we slept with our tent fly off and made love as the stars came out. Everything felt so cosmically perfect, I couldn't imagine ever being happier than I was. And now he's saying these ludicrous things that he shouldn't be saying or feeling. I feel my heartbeat quicken with anxiety as he unfalteringly meets my gaze. "Yeah. Don't you?"
Do I? I don't know. Maybe? My first instinct to the notion of including other people in our sex life terrifies me, makes me believe that I'm not enough for him. But he's not talking about other women, he's talking about another man. I wonder if this is a test, does he want me to say yes just so he can be upset with me? No, no, he isn't one to trap me like that. He is the most brutally honest person I've ever met, and not one to keep thoughts to himself. Maybe he's just thinking aloud.
I try to tell him that I am nowhere near even ready to consider that. I try to be as grown-up as possible, to keep my voice as steady as possible. He laughs at me, doesn't understand how I couldn't be sure about wanting to have sex with anybody but him. He thinks I'm fooling myself. I probably am, but remain steadfast in my conviction; he's the only person I want to have sex with, ever.
"Just think about it," he encourages me. "I think that in a long-term relationship that's something I would need in order to be happy."
His happiness is all that matters to me. I promise to think about it, we finish eating and leave the pub and I feel like an adult and like perhaps ten to fifteen years down the road having sex with other people would be a thing that I would want, too. He says our relationship has been the easiest thing he's ever done. My heart swells with love for him. He's my soulmate, the person who makes me feel the safest. My home, my forever. He would never do anything to hurt me.
I never thought that a year later I would be looking back on this conversation as the turning point where everything started to fall apart.