Rethinking Boundaries

The morning after my lovely evening spent chatting with Emma and Lena, Emma pulls me aside to chat with me, Lena in tow.

“We wanted to ask a bit about the boundaries in your relationship with the others?” Emma asks once we’ve gotten out of earshot of everyone else. Beside her, Lena nods, looking somewhat bashful.

“Why’s that?” I ask, my tone betraying my interest in the question.

“We’re kinda, sorta, maybe…interested.” Emma admits with a smile.

“Interested?” I repeat, raising an eyebrow.

“Interested, yes.” Emma says.

“We think you’re cute and cool and we wanna date you. Mia and Paige too!” Lena chirps.

I feel my cheeks start to heat up at her words. “Really?” I ask, my smile widening.

“Yeah!” Emma says, seeming excited herself.

“That sounds really lovely. I’d love to date you both too.” I say earnestly.

Lena grins and Emma looks pleased with herself.

“Well, for my relationship with the others: we’re a closed polycule, and we only date people if everybody agrees-” I start to say.

Emma interrupts me. “Wait, a closed polycule? Like fully closed?” Emma asks.

“Yep, that’s what we talked about when we started this whole thing.” I confirm, nodding.

Lena and Emma exchange a glance, before looking back at me.

“Okay, I think we should maybe talk with all your partners.” Emma says.

“Y’all haven’t really been doing a super closed thing.” Lena agrees with her girlfriend.

“Huh?” I ask.

“People in closed relationships are normally more open about the fact that they’re closed. We thought y’all were pretty open, so I reckon we should chat with everyone here.” Emma says.

Lena nods in agreement with her.

Emma puts a hand on my shoulder as I start to panic. “It’s okay. Have you had much experience doing polyamory before?” She asks.

I shake my head. “Not before this relationship. None of us have.” I admit.

“Let’s chat to everybody about it then. We’ll make sure everyone’s on the same page about where the boundaries are.” Emma encourages with a smile.

I relent, knowing this is probably a conversation that’s been a long time coming.

At Emma’s encouragement, I gather the rest of my partners, and we all sit down in the living room together.

There are seven of us: Mia, Ivy, Skylar, Paige, Emma, Lena, and I.

Emma starts the conversation off. “So Gemma mentioned you’re all in a closed polycule. Is that about right?” She asks.

There’s agreement from the five of us, and Mia’s the one who decides to speak up.

”What’s this about?” She asks, understandably a little confused.

“Y’all haven’t really been acting super closed.” Lena explains a bit.

“What do you mean?” Paige asks.

“Well,” Emma explains, “Like I said to Gemma, people who are in a closed relationship are usually a lot more open about the fact that they’re closed, and often talk about things before developing emotional connections with other people. Closed people usually form connections all together, but that’s not really how things have happened.”

Paige nods slowly, still looking confused but doing her best to follow along.

“You and I kinda have a thing going, don’t we?” Emma asks the shy girl, a teasing note to her voice.

Paige nods again, blushing a bit.

“But we haven’t made anything official, have we?” Emma asks again.

Paige shakes her head this time.

“I think it’s important to talk about things, and I get the sense that y’all haven’t really talked about this much after you initially decided things.” Emma says.

“What made you ask about all this?” Mia asks with a knowing smile, already having a sense for the answer.

It’s Emma’s turn to go slightly red this time, as Lena holds in her laughter. “I…well…Lena and I might be…interested.” She uses the phrase again.

Mia turns her smirk to Lena, who winks in response.

“Anyway don’t worry about that for now, let’s talk about boundaries.” Emma says, clapping her hands together.

“Actually we do need a bit of clarification about that.” Skylar interjects. “In the nicest way possible, it’s not really any of your business otherwise.”

“I think it’d be nice to hear them out.” Ivy says.

“About anything else, I’d agree. But our relationship is ours.” Skylar says, her tone apologetic but firm.

“That’s okay, I get it. I have feelings for Paige and Gemma. I wanna talk about things and see if we could maybe act on them.” Emma admits. “Lena has feelings for-”

“Hey, I can say it myself!” Lena interrupts her.

Emma falls silent and shoots Lena an amused glance.

“I think Mia and Gemma are really cool.” The brunette says, smiling at both of us in turn. “I’d wanna see how things go too.”

Skylar smiles at them both. “Thank you for being honest and open about that.” She says.

“Of course!” Emma replies. “I think openness and honesty is best for any kind of relationship, romantic or not.”

I don’t have to look at my girlfriends to know that all of us agree. That’s what we decided from day one of this whole thing.

“So, talk to me. How do you feel about this whole closed polycule thing?” Emma asks, looking around at the rest of us.

“Hold on, why are you the one asking?” Mia asks her, partially teasing, but I can see that she’s a little floored at the way this discussion is going.

“As I understand it, none of y’all have much previous relationship experience. Is that fair?” Emma replies.

She’s right on that one, none of us do.

“I do. I’ve been in plenty of different relationships before I found my Princess here.” Emma says, putting her arm around Lena and squeezing her briefly.

“And I’ve also talked a bunch of queer teenagers through their long distance discord polycules and friend circles.” Emma reminds us all.

“Wait what?” Mia laughs.

Emma waves off Mia’s questioning look. “A story for another time. Point is, I have experience with this stuff.”

Skylar nods slowly, still not looking fully accepting, but seemingly willing to have the discussion.

“Okay then. Well I guess I didn’t realise we weren’t staying fully closed. You’re probably right that we could be better at talking about things earlier.” Mia says. “I don’t mind being more open and not needing us all to date the same people. I thought I’d be more jealous at the idea, but I trust you all.”

“I trust you all too, but I don’t like the idea of being open.” Skylar responds. “I want to make sure we’re protecting what we have. I think being a closed polycule helps us do that.”

“Yeah but haven’t you been getting closer with Olivia without us?” Mia asks, a teasing note to her voice.

Skylar freezes for a moment, apparently having not thought about that. Then she smiles, amused. “Okay, that’s true. I don’t know, I still don’t like the idea.” She replies.

“I think we’re doing a pretty good job at protecting what we have. Some of us might be flirting with people outside this whole thing, but I think that’s fine if we trust each other. I don’t see any issues with it.” Ivy says.

“Yeah but what if one of us ends up trying to date somebody who the rest of us don’t like?” Skylar poses the question.

“We don’t have to date everyone we flirt with.” Mia replies. “We can just flirt for the fun of it.”

Skylar inclines her head to acknowledge the point. “True. I don’t know, I don’t really flirt for the fun of it.” She responds.

“We know.” Mia says, before making a point of clearing her throat to pretend to hide her next word. “You and Olivia.”

“Okay, point taken. I do like her, and I guess I haven’t been super closed either. I’m not a fan of the concept, but if what we’re doing now is being open, that’s fine.” Skylar says. “As long as we make sure to value our existing connections over new ones. If someone starts causing problems for us all, we shouldn’t let them get in the way of each other.”

“We won’t.” Ivy reassures her. “I think we love each other too much for anything new to get in the way of what we have.”

Skylar grins at her. “Always the sweetheart.” She chuckles.

Ivy smiles back. “And you’re always the one making sure we look out for one another.”

“”Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.”” Mia and Lena quote at the same time, before looking at each other and bursting out laughing.

“What about you Paige?” I ask her. So far she hasn’t said much, and she looks a little worried. I hope she’s okay.

All eyes turn to her, and Paige gathers herself to speak. “I-I’m really sorry.” She says in a small voice. “I didn’t realise I wasn’t being closed. I really hope I haven’t messed things up.”

Skylar gets down on her knees in front of Paige and takes her hands. “Hey, it’s okay. I promise. None of us really thought about it. This is why we talk about things. We’re okay.” She says softly, lovingly.

Paige nods, wiping away the single tear that had begun to well up in her eye. “Thank you.” She says, embracing Skylar.

The two of them hug for a few moments, before Skylar separates to let Paige say anything else she wants to. “I guess if everybody else is okay with this, I don’t really mind. I’m happy now. I just really don’t want to hurt anybody.” She says, sniffling.

“You haven’t hurt anybody, it’s okay.” I tell her. “Like Skylar said, none of us realised.”

Paige nods, smiling gratefully at me.

“It sounds like we’re all happy to be more open.” Ivy notes, looking around for any objections.

“Got any thoughts Ivy?” Mia asks her.

She shakes her head. “Not really. I’m fine with whatever the group decides, because I love you all and I trust you. Open or closed, we’ll be together. That’s what matters to me.” Ivy says.

“I think that about sums it up.” I say. “Let’s agree that we can all be more open then, and just talk about things when they come up?”

My girlfriends all nod in agreement, and I turn back to Emma. “Well, I guess we’re an open polycule now.” I tell her.

“Slay!” The tattooed sapphic says, and I smile at her. “Any other boundaries we should be aware of?”

“Uhhh well…” I reply, gathering my thoughts. “The stuff we agreed on at the start is no drugs, no men, and none of us are having kids.” I list off what I can think of.

“No men is fair I guess, I could live without most of them, but what about femboys?” Lena asks, almost indignantly.

I’m floored at her response, but Mia replies immediately. “I forgot they existed! Oh my Gaia.” She laughs.

“Femboys?” I ask.

Ivy, Skylar and Paige are similarly confused, while Emma bursts out laughing at her girlfriend’s question.

“Yeah femboys! Y’all haven’t met one? They like identify as men or sometimes nonbinary or gender fluid, but they dress super feminine!” Lena says, tapping away on her phone.

A few seconds later, Lena shows us a picture of a femboy. I’m again floored. “Okay I admit, that person is pretty cute.” I say.

Lena passes the phone around and my girlfriends all agree. “I’d be down but it depends on the person obviously.” Mia says.

“I’d consider it.” I admit. “To me, no men is more about no masculine men. Like big muscles, short hair, straight guys? No way.”

Lena nods. “I get it! I’m bi, so I love the idea of men. It’s really hard to find a man I’m actually interested in though. He’d have to like women in a lesbian way, you know? And obviously, not be a piece of shit.” She says.

Emma is the only one who even remotely looks like she understands what Lena’s saying. I guess it’s hard to understand as a group of mostly lesbians.

“If that’s a femboy, they’re cute.” Paige says.

“They’re pretty adorable.” Ivy agrees.

“Okay fine, kinda cute.” Even Skylar says.

“I guess if we come across the right person, maybe?” I muse.

“Also, we gotta talk about the no drugs.” Emma says.

The rest of us look at her.

“Harder drugs I definitely understand, but what about stuff like weed? I don’t think that’s bad.” She puts it to us.

Mia shrugs. “I don’t really have a problem with it.” She says.

“Neither do I.” Paige says. “Plenty of my friends do it.”

“I’ve never really been around it before.” Skylar says. “I’m a tiny bit worried, but I guess there’s much worse things from what I know.”

“I don’t mind, as long as it’s not too much.” Ivy says.

Everybody turns to me, and I shift in my chair uncomfortably. “Okay yeah, I’m uncomfortable with it. There’s no real logic behind that, I guess I’m just scared that it would make us do dumb things.” I say.

“Remember my birthday last month? How you were worried that alcohol was gonna make us all be stupid?” Lena asks, gently ribbing me.

“Yeah true. Is weed worse than that?” I ask, genuinely.

“If anything, I think alcohol is worse.” Emma says.

“Okay, fair. I’d still be worried, but I guess it’s not fair to restrict any of you if you want to try it. Just promise me you’ll be safe?” I ask to everybody around me.

“We promise.” Mia says, smiling at me. The others echo her words.

“What about the no kids thing?” I ask anxiously, really hoping they don’t have a problem with that one.

Emma shakes her head. “Oh that one’s fine, I love kids, I love working with them, but I never wanted any of my own. Helping other people’s kids is good for me.” She says.

“I don’t want that responsibility. I like being me, I don’t wanna stop for a kid.” Lena says simply.

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Anything else?” I ask the two of them.

Emma and Lena exchange a glance, before turning to the rest of us.

“We just want to make sure that you’re all okay with us building romantic connections with you.” Emma asks.

There are nods all round. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we like your company, both of you.” Mia tells them.

Even Skylar agrees with that one, nodding with a smile.

“I think we should leave the ‘making things official’ for another time.” I say. “But I like you both.”

“I was gonna suggest that too.” Emma says. “And we like you too.”

Emma shares a look with Paige, as Lena shares one with Mia.

I lock eyes with Ivy. There’s a warm feeling in my chest as it sinks in just how awesome my life really is.