Cozy Evening Conversation

“Seriously, this is great,” you say with relish as you finish your bowl of delicious stew and sit back in your chair with a satisfied sigh.

Jayne is clearly pleased with your praise for her cooking. You tried to help but she wouldn’t let you, making you sit and watch as she intently prepared dinner. Honestly you probably would have just gotten in the way - you aren’t totally useless in a kitchen but you’re certainly no chef, as your near constant ordering of delivery Chinese food can attest.

“Well next time you come over I’ll make you a proper Portuguese meal. My favourites are mostly soups really, I love caldo verde, but if I had more time, and fresh cod, I’d have made you Bacalhau ao forno à Portuguesa. It’s my Mom’s signature dish, she’d be so thrilled if you liked it too.”

“That sounds… ok I have no idea what that is.”

Laughing, she says, “It’s just a baked cod dish, but if you enjoyed this beef cozido you’ll be fine with most Portuguese meals. Similar flavours and basically just a lot of ways to cook fish.”

You smile at each other, then you stand and pick up your plate. Jayne allows you to help clean up at least, and she tells you about how her grandfather renovated the kitchen in the 90’s and she really should do it again as it’s a bit dated but she finds it so familiar and homey. As you nod and laugh at her story while you load the dishwasher you are briefly overcome by a sudden sense of near wonder at how much you love her already.

The living room has a small TV that you never really noticed during your first tumble on the couch with her. You resist the urge to check the couch for love stains as you both sit down close.

“I guess you can tell I don’t watch that much TV really, I mainly watch Netflix in my room on my laptop,” Jayne says as she snuggles up to you and idly changes the channel a few times before leaving it on something you both ignore.

“Hallsy, I didn’t come here to watch TV,” you joke as you wrap your arm around her.

After a companionable silence, Jayne says, “I am sorry my sisters saw us, you know, but not for my sake. I hope you aren’t weirded out and want to avoid them for too long, I know they’ll love you and my Mom is going to want to meet you. By which I mean, she already wants to meet you.”

Chuckling casually, you admit, “I am a wee tiny bit embarrassed that your sisters first saw me while we were, you know, but I’m sure they’ll probably just pretend it never happened and I will too.”

“Oh Zach you sweet silly boy. No. They are not going to be normal about it and there is no chance they don’t tease us both, I’m sorry!” Jayne is laughing at your expression but she kisses you softly and says, “Brianna is super reserved and bashful about a lot of things so she might prefer to ignore it but Morgan? Hell nah. She’s going to make sneaky comments and jokes. I doubt they’ll tell my Mom what happened but I’m sure Morgan will use it to bug me. And you too, but in a playful way, my sisters really are pretty cool and I’m sure they’ll like you. Even though you were ravishing their big sister in front of their delicate eyes, you fiend.”

You can’t help but groan, “Oh God. Ugh, well fine I guess I’ll muddle through. But if Morgan teases me too much I’m just going to blame you for everything.”

“Hah! Fair enough.”

Cocking your head to the side, you say, “Hey, that reminds me. You say your Mom is looking forward to meeting me already? When did you tell her we started dating?”

Looking at you slightly suspiciously, Jayne replies, “Yesterday, why?”

“Oh, I just remembered you said something earlier this week when I started calling you Hallsy. Made me wonder if you had mentioned me to your family already.”

Rolling her eyes, Jayne groans, “Fine you egomaniac, I might have maybe talked about you during a family meal or two over the past few weeks. Just as the random guy who has the office next to mine, he seems decent but listen to this story of how weird it is that he goes pee 10 times a day sort of thing.”

“I knew it!” You grin and hug her closely as she pretends to be annoyed. “That’s so sweet Jayne. If I had any friends or family close by I’d have been talking about you too.”

With a mock harumph she snuggles in and says, “Yeah yeah I mentioned the guy at work I would go out to coffee with. And I guess recently I talked about you more, because the girls kept bugging me and telling me to ask you out and my Mom was like a week away from stalking you and asking you to Sunday family dinner on my behalf. Needless to say they were pretty excited when I told them yesterday that we had gone on a date. I, uh, didn’t mention me staying at your place overnight or us making out in an old morgue.”

Laughing, you admit, “Probably for the best, the morgue part especially.”

For a time, you just sit together and talk about work and your lives and just enjoy yourselves. But after a pause in the conversation you feel like you need to bring up the elephant in the room.

“Do you want to talk about earlier?” Wow, that sounds weak, you need to be clear if you’re going to have this talk so you continue, “I mean, about Karissa and TAM and anything else. I would love nothing more than to just sit here with you and chat about anything and everything else until it’s bedtime and I get to drag you off and ravish you again.”

Jayne had been rubbing your thigh in a distracting fashion but she stops and pulls back, just enough to look you in the eye and say, “You’re right. But I’m a big coward about it suddenly so you go first?” She smiles wryly but still waits for you.

With a nod you agree, “Well, I did bring it up. I guess I have some jumbled thoughts about it, but they all concern you and maybe talking it out will be helpful. First thing, the most important thing, is that my absolute focus is on you and what we have. This feels… special. I’m not a total monk, even before I got married I dated a few women, but I’ve fallen for you so hard and so fast it makes me wonder how it can be that after a few days of being with you I feel this strongly. And, a tiny part of me is scared of losing you already.”

Jayne is nodding slowly, her expression solemn. You kiss the tip of her nose and say, “And it may sound silly but I worry about this gorgeous and sexy young woman, who cheerfully talks about dating men and women and more besides, will steal my girl away.”

“Oh Zach, I wasn’t expecting you to be worried about that. I’ve never dated a woman before and never really considered it. Not seriously. I worry about losing my awesome new boyfriend to some hotter younger woman like a week after finally - finally! - starting a proper romantic relationship with him.”

“It is perhaps strange, but it was the first thing that popped into my head,” you say, “I guess because I know in my heart I want you and so I’m not worried about Karissa, or anyone, making me not feel what I feel for you. And you are absolutely just as hot as she is. Also,” you say slowly, “I can’t help but think back to how you’d notice when Karissa was wearing something, uh, alluring? So when she told us what she wanted I had this sudden concern that you might be into her too.”

Now Jayne is blushing, but she doesn’t argue. “Fine. I think she’s pretty and sexy. And while I was totally honest that I’ve never really considered dating a woman I have, uh, made out with women before. In school, partly because I was drunk and acting out for attention but also because I was curious. Nothing came of it though, just drunk straight girls at a club being silly attention whores.”

The admission somehow tugs something deep in you. It’s nonsensical, but you feel a tiny hint of fear? You’re not sure exactly why, if Jayne mentioned some guy she dated 10 years ago you wouldn’t care, but you have to acknowledge the flicker of fear was real. You’ll think about that more some other time maybe.

“So. I don’t want to say this is all your decision Jayne but I understand how it’s different for you, even though I’m also more than a little concerned about doing anything that would jeopardize this wonderful new relationship. Also, it feels to me like opening up a relationship or adding a partner is something you do when you’re bored of each other, right?”

She’s doing that adorable thing where she taps her bottom lip with her index finger. You recognize it, and it means she’s deep in thought and really mulling something over. “I guess so, in a way? But I’m no expert on open relationships by any means.”

“To put it mildly, neither am I,” you say virtuously.

“But I don’t think that’s what Karissa wanted, or what she was asking for, was it? She doesn’t want to be some side piece for a couple who wants to dabble in threesomes. And she doesn’t want my permission to date you too, she wants to date us. So it wouldn’t be us as a couple and then Karissa, it would be all three of us equally. Right?”

Lost in thought, you finally laugh and shift on the couch. Quizzically, Jayne moves enough for you to pull out your phone. Shaking your head you say, “I’m sorry, I just realized I lack the vocabulary to even talk about this stuff. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I need to Google it.”

“No, that’s a great idea, we need to at least understand properly how to discuss it accurately,” Jayne agrees.

So what follows is a few somewhat eye-opening and embarrassing Google searches. You and Jayne read a few websites together, then stumble through a very confusing forum thread about hierarchical versus non-hierarchical polyamorous relationships which you barely understand but seems to have made everyone in it very angry. But regardless, you both get the gist of it. Probably.

“So, Karissa is interested in a triad, where each person dates the other two. I guess?” Jayne looks at you and you say, “Hey, this is a lot to take in, I’ll admit I’m not 100% sure I get it. But I do agree that most of it isn’t what Karissa described, like she doesn’t want to date you, openly, with my permission. And she doesn’t seem to want to date us, and other people.”

Jayne says, “Oh I’m not 100% sure either, but I think different people use the terminology in slightly different ways sometimes. But yes, it sounds like she wants not an open poly relationship, exactly, but this?” Jayne points at your phone and taps on a link, opening a new page.

You hold your phone at an angle so she can read it out loud, “‘Polyfidelity is a form of non-monogamy, an intimate relationship structure where all members are considered equal partners and agree to restrict sexual activity to only other members of the group.’”

Suddenly, you realize you’ve been talking about this for over 15 minutes and neither of you has simply said you just weren’t at all interested. Huh.

“Uh, Jayne?”

“Yeah…” you wonder if the same thought has occurred to her because she suddenly looks away, shyly.

“Do you want to actually try this?” You still feel a hint of fear, but you have to be honest, you can’t pretend the thought of somehow dating Karissa as well as Jayne isn’t exciting.

“I don’t know Zach! I keep waiting for you to say ‘absolutely not’ and you don’t, and then I start wondering why I’m not saying it either! What do you think?”