A week after the party, Pup and I were in the car headed towards Rex’s place. He lived rather close to Azure, and so it was fairly convenient for Pup to arrange an evening with her while I went to see Rex.
I know this sounds absurd, but I was nervous that this was going to be awful. We had crazy heat-of-the-moment sex at a party, and while that involves a certain kind of chemistry, it doesn’t really guarantee that we’d have any sort of chemistry sitting down and just talking. Or, you know, having sex that wasn’t crazy porno impulse sex.
Also, I wasn’t that sure he was kinky. Which I wish I could say isn’t a total dealbreaker for me, but I’m busy. And I hate to say that I don’t want to give away time unless I’m totally into it, but, well, yeah. I have a job that’s pretty demanding and, as it stands, my free time is rather limited. So, okay, I’ve been kind of triaging people and interests. For as selfish as it feels, one of my good friends insists that this is a form of self-care.
So my worst-case scenario was I get there, we have nothing to talk about, we either have some tepid sex or just stare at each other in total discomfort. I expressed this in the car to Pup, and he replied, “you have to stop insisting that everything is going to be terrible.”
There was certainly evidence that it wouldn’t be. Rex and I had been texting a little during the week, and the tone had been pretty playful. He was clever, but kind of full of it. Not to mention I legitimately could not get even remotely one iota of a plan out of him as to what to do, so I didn’t know what to wear. (Yeah, I know, shut up.)
I’d decided on the outfit I’d literally worn the day before to work, mostly because an intern turned to me in the elevator and said, “I’m sorry if this is weird but you look incredible.” So, I took her word for it and just washed the blue dress that managed to skim my curves without looking tight or inappropriate and lint-rolled the blazer. Also, I wanted to look like I’d come right from work (it was a Friday) and hadn’t given much of a fuck. (In reality, I’d had time to go home, eat a quick dinner, walk the dog and change clothes.) But then Rex threw this curveball to wear comfortable shoes and I was thrown for a little bit of a loop. My comfortable shoes are my workout shoes. So I wore boots and figured we weren’t hiking. Or hoped we weren’t.
“Just enjoy yourself,” Pup added. “Don’t think too much about it.”
Later on, after he’d played with Azure, Pup took me back upstairs into a different room. He put me on my hands and knees and slid inside me. “Look at that,” he murmured in my ear, “you’re still wet from him, baby.”
I’m not going to lie to you. Our poly isn’t always perfect, my life usually isn’t that sexy. For every Friday night spent in lingerie or some scanty costume at a play party are another three or four spent in sweatpants catching up on Netflix and doing laundry. But I had a great time, I did something brave and, after a really tough shit-constantly-happening-everything-going-wrong kind of year, I got back out there.
