NEW RULE:

Everyone takes off their FitBit / PolarLoop / activity tracker during sex.

(No, not because comparing uploaded data might show simultaneous nookie. Because a FitBit band can scratch a cornea, and a PolarLoop suddenly lighting up red makes it look like you're getting it on with a Cylon.)

There is still that elevated elbow-to-the-head risk when three people are moving around, but at least we can modify SOME variables.

That concludes today's triad-safety PSA.

NEVER MIND.

FORGET EVERYTHING I EVER SAID ABOUT NOT ENOUGH SEX.

Quality over quantity, right?

Man I love these people.

V is for Vertex

Long long ago, in a Trifecta newly born, it felt to me like we were in a mostly-constant state of emotional triangle, and sexual mostly-V. With Red at the vertex. Not that this is news to any faithful reader -- back in the early posts, we observed how there were three relationships, no wait actually FOUR, and the bonds were very strong on each axis of the triangle, etc. ... and at the same time how Chloe and I were just starting to learn about how to be intimate. We still feel kind of like newbies (each of us more or less so at different times), but we're waaaaay more comfortable with the girl-girl lovin' than we used to be.

Over time, I realized that the emotional triangle varies a LOT.

Any two of us might feel closer to each other than the third does to either, and the distance might get prettttty long between any two points. And then shorten up, all of a sudden. Hard to predict. Sometimes, it feels downright equilateral.

Meanwhile the sex -- which has, under the strain of family illness as previously mentioned, been way way way down in frequency -- has been looking more V-like. I dunno whether those two things are related, but there they are. A nice piece is, any jealousy about who does what / with whom / when has pretty much evaporated. So I don't mind at all if Red and Chloe get it on when I'm not around, or when I'm asleep (OK maybe I'm mildly perturbed if it's preventing me from sleeping when I want to, but sometimes I actually don't wake up). This seems to be true all round. Sometimes we find ourselves in what was originally the default scenario, where two people are doin' stuff and the third gets credited with an assist. But mostly, these days, it's Chloe-and-Red or Chloe-and-me. Look at that! Chloe has become the vertex.

I'm still turned on by Red (and him by me, as far as I can tell). And though times are tough in other arenas, I don't feel any less emotionally close to him. Just ... the emotions and the bodies sometimes configure independently. And that feels just fine to me.

Born This Way.

As we've come out of the closet to more and more people over these years, I notice a couple of patterns of reaction. One: Red must be some kind of PIMP DADDY to get two girls on him! Another: Missy must be like the most generous wife EVAR, to share the dude she already had legal claim to. Yet another: Chloe must have magical powers of seduction, and may actually be dangerous. And of course: well, y'all have fun and enjoy it while you can, cuz I tried that [or watched someone try it, etc.] and it never lasts.

Where to begin.

That last one is not really worth wasting breath over. Our Trifecta is a constant exercise in making it up as we go along, with the express goal of having it last forever. We've nailed down another year and a day, and I'm betting on a lot longer than that!

No, what I'm ruminating on today is the tricky business of explaining who we are and how we got to this place, and for that matter, how I understand it myself.

We recently attended our first "poly meetup", which was a pleasant non-hookup-y event in a low-stress venue with some very nice people. We'd been wary of going to any of the groups we learned about early on, because it seemed we might be at risk of sleaze. None of us want people thinking we're looking to expand the triad. So we waited until we came across a group that sounded like it was more family-oriented, not focused on "snuggle parties", and not happening on a Saturday night in a bar. It did feel nice to be among people who are not judgmental, and to hear about some of their experiences. But afterwards we realized: it wasn't clear that any of them were actually in the same boat as us. When we present ourselves as a long-standing three-person relationship, theoretically it could be a V with Red in the middle, or Chloe in the middle, or me in the middle (the default assumption is that the guy is the vertex), or it could be the actual three-way that it is. When we met other three-person groups last week, in some cases it was unclear what their deal was too, but in others it was explicitly "husband and wife plus husband's girlfriend" or vice versa.

I do not know how to describe us, either to new people or existing friends and family, without drawing a diagram:

 Red and Chloe are lovers.

Missy and Red are lovers.

Chloe and Missy are lovers.

By "lovers", yes we mean both physically and emotionally. If you've read much of this blog, you may recall that early on, there was a lot more sexual involvement in the first two cases than in the third -- that has evolved, much to my delight. And when Chloe and I go out just the two of us, people seem to receive us fairly readily as a same-sex couple. But when all three of us are together, the assumption is different.

Dear Reader: How do you imagine that the Trifecta got started? There have been allusions to it over time, but mostly to the effect of "it was Red's idea". When you hear that, what do you imagine? Apparently, the default is "he wanted to sleep with another woman and his wife was cool with that as long as it was a threesome". There is a grain of truth there, but only a grain.

The fact is, I was born bisexual. I realized almost 20 years ago that I'd been wired that way all along: besides having girls show up in my sex dreams and my fantasies, those intense fixations I got on various girls throughout my youth were actually romantic crushes, the same kind as I got on boys (though I couldn't identify them as such because it was too outlandish, too crazy, to be possible). By the time I was able to do so, I was already married (for the first time), and the option of stepping out and experimenting with girls -- never mind a threesome -- was just not on the table. Or so it seemed.

Once I'd been with Red for while, I shared all this with him, and he was not in the least freaked out. For his part, there was also some unfulfilled longing: he simply hadn't been with very many women, and wondered what someone else might be like. (My 20's had been quite lively, so although I was no longer interested in sleeping around, I felt a little sad on his behalf.) That's where it stayed for the longest time. Neither of us wanted to deceive the other, and giving permission to go extracurricular felt uncomfortable, so the feeling was "that ship has sailed, and we're happy sleeping just with each other".

Then a few years ago, an unlikely opportunity arose. There was a woman who was interested in Red, and when he was reluctant to get with her without me present, she agreed to include me ... because Red conveyed, completely truthfully, that I had always wanted to go to bed with a girl and hadn't pursued any opportunity. So this way, everyone gets at least a taste of what they want. Great! It actually was only great briefly, and that's all I have to say about that.

But the next thing that happened was even more remarkable. Red was already friends with Chloe, and I had been in social settings with her a couple of times. They'd had conversations that led Red to think she might be open to a threesome, so he ran it by me and then proposed it to her. (A very entertaining story, if he wants to tell it!) The understanding from the start was that this was to be low-stakes, fun, and if anyone didn't like it well then it's no huge loss.

The rest is history.

The POINT, however, is that we didn't get here because Chloe came along and seduced Red, with me tagging along -- nor because Red wanted to play the field, and convinced me to tag along. My desire to explore being with a girl was at least as big a factor. Far from feeling like the generous cool wife who's willing to share her man, I feel like the luckiest bi girl in the world. Selfish, even, sometimes. I get to have a girlfriend, and keep my husband too?!? That's an embarrassment of riches.

I don't presume to speak for either of my loves when I tell my version of our Creation Story. It's meaningful to me that (a) Red loved me so much that he wanted to help me explore my identity even if it might be scary for both of us, (b) Chloe was so open-minded that even though she'd never had a girlfriend, she was willing to find out what it would be like, and (c) I've grown enough by now that I'm not weirded out by my nature. I can't imagine having only him or only her. I guess that means "poly" is part of how I'm wired too. Long ago I wrote that I don't care about labels: that's true up to a point, but the prouder I get of who we are, the louder I want to rejoice.

"We're here, we're something out of the ordinary if not altogether queer, get used to it!"

What she said.

"Justice inclines her scales such that wisdom comes at the price of suffering." -Aeschylus

So, yeah, this wasn't a new sentiment by the time the Greeks wrote it down. Maybe Aeschylus had a drink with Confucius.

Anyway I'm with Chloe: this "gaining wisdom through pain" business is for the birds. To be fair, there is more than just pain lately: there have been some joyful moments, and as recently as two weeks ago we had most of a day-and-night of just us. But the last stretch of more than 24 hours when none of us was at work and no one else was with us -- a true Trifecta break -- was a month ago, and the interim has been difficult. Especially challenging is the vacation we're on now: in a remote cold place, in a small house with few rooms, with lots of family. Not much chance to get away, talk, process the new and old issues in our heads. Certainly no chance for sex. Not even more innocent intimacy. Red's parents are cool with our arrangement, but there are children present too, and they must be insulated absolutely. Not so young that clues would go over their heads, yet not old enough to understand, they are developmentally in a pretty black-and-white place. Confusion would be harmful. Plus, a vindictive other parent could make all of our lives hell. We have to be restrained, and we are. But it costs. Oh, it costs.

When I realized the other night just how crushing it was for Chloe to see an ordinary expression of affection between me and Red and to think she will never have that ... it killed me. On the one hand, of course that "never" is not true. Eventually this will change. Eventually all of our close family and friends will be in the loop, and if they can't handle it, they may choose to be less close. I will not purposely push anyone away. But I will not ask Chloe to live as a second-hand citizen in my intimate life. It is not fair -- okay, life is not fair, but it is not at all equitable -- to expect her to be the one who's always left out in the cold.

Cold, sometimes, can be just the thing, though:




Yesterday we took a walk in the woods in the snow, just to get outside and clear our heads and have a few minutes to ourselves. It was bracing. And restorative. We saw deer (it looked as though the buck was actually annoyed with the fawn ahead of him, like "hey, slow the heck down, can't you see there are people over there?!? Sheesh, teenagers.") We saw perfect round flat frozen mushrooms. We spent a moment, just a moment, kissing in the cradle of a creekbed. And we documented the occasion by photographing our feet. That's a Chloe thing.

I love her so much. Have I mentioned that? I love her, and us, so much.

Yes, dear reader, there is drama. We haven't even touched on all of it -- there is all manner of potential impropriety, anguished moments between me and Red when Chloe isn't there, ongoing getting-accustomed-to us girls' evolving sexual identity.

Most of all, there is fear of the uncertain. The fuzzy unclarity of what's to come. But here is where high school honors English comes in handy. The second half of the quote above goes as follows:

"But as for the future, that you shall know when it occurs; till then, leave it be -- it is just as someone weeping ahead of time. Clear it will come, together with the light of dawn." -Aeschylus

Hear that, universe? I'm ready and waiting.

Yes, it IS that hot.

There's been a lot of talk around here about our feelings, our struggles, our joint and individual journeys through this uncharted territory.

We haven't said much lately about the sex.

Come to think of it, I'm the only one who's ever mentioned sex on this blog, so maybe that tells you something about where my mind is ... and there's a danger in focusing on it, because it seems the world out there is mostly curious about that part of what a threesome is like. There's so much more to it, and I want to make sure that's clear.

But.

It is in fact totally, screamingly hot. Now, of course: there is a novelty factor. What happens in bed is inevitably new-and-different compared to what each of us was accustomed to before. We are all of an age starting with "4-", so we've been around the block a time or two. But usually with just one other person at a time.

Even then, there's so much to negotiate as you're getting to know another person naked. Do you try a new thing unannounced, or work up to it? If you're not really enjoying that thing the other person is doing, how do you make it clear without being a total buzzkill? Is it okay to laugh during super-hot moments? I mean really, the whole enterprise looks funny, sounds funny, smells funny. Now picture three people in the ring: there may be an audience to what any two are doing. This can be uncomfortable at first.

The recipe for success, apparently, is to assemble three people who are good, giving, and game (credit to Dan Savage for "GGG"). Individuals who have some skill (or more importantly, are perceptive and attentive to subtle feedback), who are generous (your pleasure is at least as important as mine), and who are open to trying new things (and not afraid to say "meh, that didn't really do it for me" if that happens).

So there we are. Two girls and a guy. Each of us really, really digs the others. There are lips and hands and legs and sighs and gasps and tongues and fingers and OMG there are more of all those things than can possibly be possible and ...

I can't write this post.

I thought I could breathe deep and get in there and describe the details ... but I can't. There aren't words. (Also it's a little scary, wondering if Red and Chloe would be horrified. I suppose I will run it by them.) Really, it's kind of shocking for my chatty self to discover I don't have the descriptors in my vocabulary to convey what it's like in that intense, heart-racing place we get to. But I don't.

Hmph. What do I do with that information?

Dreamgirl, and boy.

I love how each of them sleeps.

I've never been a great sleeper; takes me a while to get there, and I wake up easily. With any new lover, it takes a while for me to get used to how they turn over in their sleep, how much of the covers they pull over themselves, how much real estate they tend to occupy in the bed. Red has adapted to me, too: he likes to put a pillow over his head, so he doesn't hear things like cell phones buzzing. He learned years ago to make sure they don't, when I'm sleeping, because I jolt awake at the slightest sound.

The first few nights that we were blessed to have Chloe sleep in our bed -- actually sleep -- none of us really got much shut-eye. There's the whole who's-in-the-middle thing (some people find it too hot, or the extra-arm problem is too unwieldy), and how much space is there, and oops we're having sex again? Eventually we've gotten more comfortable, and more able to ignore each other's shifting and sighing.

Still, I'm usually the one who gets to watch each of them fall asleep.

Red has always been pretty quick to drift off, unless something's rattling around in his brain and making him fidgety, which isn't very often. Chloe, I'm finding, is often even quicker. (Hm, her orgasms are speedier than mine too. Correlation? Sounds like a research study that needs doing!) As with orgasms, I can tell when she's about to fall asleep because her breathing changes. I mean, that's true for everyone of course, but I get to hear it and feel it ... and if there's any light, I get to see her face fall into this angelic form that just makes me melt. Red, he gets this boyish face when he sleeps, that makes me want to cradle his head and let him sleep as long as he can stand it, just so I can watch.

On workdays, Red is typically the first one out the door. He has to get up at the butt-crack of dawn, painfully early really. Sometimes I'm up at the same hour, sometimes I steal a little more rest. Not usually sleep, but at least rest. This morning I got to slide over next to Chloe, apologize for waking her up, and glue myself to her warm, smooth side while she clasped my fingers and said "it's fine". And it was. Within three breaths she was sleeping again, angel style, early sunlight filtering through her beautiful hair. I almost cried. Instead I actually dozed, and dreamed, and though I hated the alarm a half hour later, I knew when I kissed her and slipped out of bed she would go right back to sleep and would indeed be fine.

My cup runneth over, too.

Out on a limb.

I imagine anyone who's been in bed with two other people at once has had the delicious experience of suddenly realizing: you're not sure who that extremity belongs to.

"Wait - there's a hand there? ANOTHER hand? Wow!"

A fun moment for a girl in a M/F/F triad is figuring out whose it is based on size, texture, and the aforementioned hair quotient.

"Hmm, those are soft lady fingers. Ooh."

But my favorite limb, by far, is the leg. Six legs. SIX of them. I've always loved a leg draped over me, or mine draped over someone else. Nowadays, there are so many intertwined legs it's like leg heaven. Sometimes I walk into the room and see the other four legs, bent in gentle embrace, and it almost makes me faint from joy. At that moment, I feel compelled to tangle myself up in them and just loll around for a while.

Which we have dubbed: THE TRITANGLE.

Who you callin' straight??

So that out-of-town trip last weekend was to where my oldest friend (from the first days of college) was throwing an insanely cool birthday party for his husband. Of the 16 people present, 10 were officially gay. As Red and I arrived, one of the other six (Tall Guy) greeted us with "Hey, good to see some other straight people here!" Standard banter for this crowd.

Later that night at dinner, we're pouring out yet another round of wine.

Tall Guy: "There ya go - and here's to the straight contingent!"

Me: "Heck yeah!" *clink*

Red: [elbows me in the ribs]

Me: (whispering) "Oh, right - wait, crap! Do I not count?"


Later, Oldest Friend hears this story and cracks up. Red solemnly observes: "We eschew labels." And that much, Dear Reader, is true.

This post is not about "what is my sexual orientation?" ... Not only do I not care what you call me, or what I call myself, I think the question is boring. I am Chloe-and-Red-o-sexual, is all that matters. No: what arrests me about this moment is the issue of Coming Out.

I noted in passing that a couple of months into our intense, jaw-dropping, dizzingly happy and also VERY SECRET relationship, National Coming Out Day came and went. I had no desire to walk through a cardboard closet door on the college plaza, though I did think that was awfully cute back when I first saw it. But I wish - dearly - that we didn't have to hide so hard. From family, friends, co-workers (all of whom think Chloe is wonderful but whose heads would explode if they really knew why we hang out so much).

We three have traveled out of town some, to get away from it all - which of course has the added bonus of a king-sized bed. (We actually went to a hotel seven miles from home one night, just for that part - I mean, even as close as we are, the queen mattress is a little crowded when it comes to sleeping.) It's been divine to squeeze Chloe's knee at the table, see her kiss Red at the next chair, feel her fingertips drifting across the back of my neck, and not worry that an ex-spouse's best friend might report back on the scandal. There are places where we can walk down the street hand-in-hand-in-hand and no one bats an eye. Then we get back to a bar near home a few days later, and at some point as we're talking and laughing Chloe leans over to kiss me, and at the last second we both spring back: shit! We're not allowed to do that here!

I get that part of being not-altogether-straight, now.

And honestly, it's one of the most painful things so far. It keeps me up nights sometimes. I love them both so, so much. I want to wear a little discreet piece of symbolic jewelry, and decorate them with the same. I want to take all our vacations together. I want to live in the same house, yes-in-the-same-room-why-do-you-ask-Mom?

We joke all the time about trading up to the giant California King size bed. But that's only a fraction of the way in which we don't fit.

A Win-Win-Win Situation.

Last night, worn out from the long drive home, and then blissed out from hours and hours of re-connecting with much-missed Chloe, I slept extra deep. Woke abruptly in the wee hours, and for a millisecond was convinced that it was her body pressed against my back. That was disorienting: it's rare that she gets to spend the night at our house, so ... was I in a hotel room? Were we traveling? Had I forgotten what day it was?

In an instant I realized there were actually just two people in the room, and it was the hairier of the bodies I love to be pressed up against that was really there. At home. Red shifted and slept on, as I got up for a drink of water.

On the one hand, I thought, I am the luckiest person alive. Loved by a wonderful man and an amazing woman. It never occurred to me that one could do this thing. On the other hand, it does invite a host of difficult challenges into one's life.

Like for instance: why do restaurant tables only come in rectangles?

This forces an awkward choice. Two on one side, so who is the odd person out? And does Third Person sit opposite the one, or the other? Are we supposed to remember who sat where last time, for fairness' sake? Little round tables are fine, but there's usually not enough room for all the knees.

And also: who rushes to whose defense when an unpleasant moment descends? Ah, thinks the Dear Reader, this is more what I was expecting. This three-some / three-way / triad / trio / thing must be full of unholy alliances, simmering resentments, and pitfalls just waiting to happen.

Well, it seems that when grownups take a deep breath and choose to give this a try, they may just be Paying Attention much more than usual. Because somehow the three of us are managing to take care of each other's needs, and our own, better than we ever did in any of the two-ways we've ever been in.

And did I mention the crazy good sex?