Monday, August 08, 2005
THE HUNTING PARTY(Part 1)
Fifteen years ago last weekend I managed to start working my way into a relationship. With a bisexual man. How strange, thought my female friends, gay and straight, who pretty much took me for a dyke and seemed to feel I had - momentarily at least - taken leave of my senses in grand style.
The fact he was as queer as I was did not matter to them. Now they could worry about my dying of AIDS.
The fact he was over fourteen years younger and quite nice looking had no impact either. If you want a baby, have your own, I heard. Or, you've got yourself a BoyToy. That he certainly was, and we had a lot of fun together.
I viewed the whole thing with some trepidation. "Regard it as an experiment," said my therapist, a young woman in training who I worked with for quite a while. I had never been in a long term relationship with anyone, so I felt her advice for now was good.
When D and I first hooked up, in that first fresh glow of our relationship, we did what apparently other bi couples attempt.
We went out on a hunting party, looking for another couple just like us. Mirroring becomes a big part of your equation, you are so blown away by the fact you found another human being quite like you in your bisexualness, that you need to pinch yourself.
And pinch another couple. Just to make sure it's all real.
We answer an ad in the local free press in Los Angeles, and meet a likely sounding pair who suggest drinks in Santa Monica. Our couple-in-waiting make their entrance, and they are identifiable right from the start. They've described themselves well, very well. S, the boy in this arrangement, makes eye contact with me as they're walking in the door.
It's an intense look, and I find myself wishing I could run across a broad or two who would look at me the way he does. His wife J is a beauty too, but for some reason it's S where our eyes land first.
He is pretty close to being an almost dead ringer for Sting, or Billy Idol. More Billy Idol, I think in retrospect. Personally I always loved that raspy rough voice of his and the fuck-you attitude; his drugs were probably badder too. S had punk blond hair, he was about six feet tall, strongly built, in black leather jacket and pants. And he's a Brit too, he sings with a local rock band.
I have no recollection of what she did for a living. Somehow marketing is clawing at the back of my brain. Actually though I have very little recollection about J at all. Other than a few comments she made while we chatted away over drinks.
I realized pretty quick that she was going to be the weak leg of that famous four-legged chair.
You know about the four-legged chair theory of polyamory? It takes four strong legs to make a good chair. But if one of them is not up to the task, it tends to make the rest of the chair a little iffy. This was J's situation. She didn't really really want to be here. She was doing this to keep an eye on him.
They had been married only a short while, but early on S began making noises about playing as a couple. He had grown up in the British school system, and we all know what THAT is like. Experiments with bisexuality become the norm. S was no exception, and he obviously enjoyed his experiments. Because here he was, some years later, ready to take up where he left off.
"Isn't he a dish?" J says to me quietly at one point. Dish was not the word, he was fucking gorgeous, with a fun, sarcastic kind of attitude about things. I concurred with her, trying not to drool over him as she and I talked.
But her comment made me realize why she was really here. He was going to do his thing with or without her, so she figured she had better enlist if she knew what was good for her. She couldn't prevent it from happening, but she could certainly keep an eye on things. So nothing would get out of hand.
What was her worst nightmare? I didn't want to go there. Numerous women I believe probably do exactly what she did. They have to. It's part of the grand American tradition of being "a good sport."
TO BE CONTINUED
The fact he was as queer as I was did not matter to them. Now they could worry about my dying of AIDS.
The fact he was over fourteen years younger and quite nice looking had no impact either. If you want a baby, have your own, I heard. Or, you've got yourself a BoyToy. That he certainly was, and we had a lot of fun together.
I viewed the whole thing with some trepidation. "Regard it as an experiment," said my therapist, a young woman in training who I worked with for quite a while. I had never been in a long term relationship with anyone, so I felt her advice for now was good.
When D and I first hooked up, in that first fresh glow of our relationship, we did what apparently other bi couples attempt.
We went out on a hunting party, looking for another couple just like us. Mirroring becomes a big part of your equation, you are so blown away by the fact you found another human being quite like you in your bisexualness, that you need to pinch yourself.
And pinch another couple. Just to make sure it's all real.
We answer an ad in the local free press in Los Angeles, and meet a likely sounding pair who suggest drinks in Santa Monica. Our couple-in-waiting make their entrance, and they are identifiable right from the start. They've described themselves well, very well. S, the boy in this arrangement, makes eye contact with me as they're walking in the door.
It's an intense look, and I find myself wishing I could run across a broad or two who would look at me the way he does. His wife J is a beauty too, but for some reason it's S where our eyes land first.
He is pretty close to being an almost dead ringer for Sting, or Billy Idol. More Billy Idol, I think in retrospect. Personally I always loved that raspy rough voice of his and the fuck-you attitude; his drugs were probably badder too. S had punk blond hair, he was about six feet tall, strongly built, in black leather jacket and pants. And he's a Brit too, he sings with a local rock band.
I have no recollection of what she did for a living. Somehow marketing is clawing at the back of my brain. Actually though I have very little recollection about J at all. Other than a few comments she made while we chatted away over drinks.
I realized pretty quick that she was going to be the weak leg of that famous four-legged chair.
You know about the four-legged chair theory of polyamory? It takes four strong legs to make a good chair. But if one of them is not up to the task, it tends to make the rest of the chair a little iffy. This was J's situation. She didn't really really want to be here. She was doing this to keep an eye on him.
They had been married only a short while, but early on S began making noises about playing as a couple. He had grown up in the British school system, and we all know what THAT is like. Experiments with bisexuality become the norm. S was no exception, and he obviously enjoyed his experiments. Because here he was, some years later, ready to take up where he left off.
"Isn't he a dish?" J says to me quietly at one point. Dish was not the word, he was fucking gorgeous, with a fun, sarcastic kind of attitude about things. I concurred with her, trying not to drool over him as she and I talked.
But her comment made me realize why she was really here. He was going to do his thing with or without her, so she figured she had better enlist if she knew what was good for her. She couldn't prevent it from happening, but she could certainly keep an eye on things. So nothing would get out of hand.
What was her worst nightmare? I didn't want to go there. Numerous women I believe probably do exactly what she did. They have to. It's part of the grand American tradition of being "a good sport."
TO BE CONTINUED
