Jack’s first girlfriend after we opened our marriage was a woman named Kat who had an orgasm when they kissed in the parking lot after their first date. Two, actually. She came twice while standing on asphalt next to a Toyota Prius. He wasn’t sure that’s what was happening so the second time he checked to make sure she was alright.
“I’m just really sensitive,” she said.
When he told me about it after he got home, the best I could muster was an eye roll. No one has orgasms like that, I thought. I didn’t bother saying it out loud because he hadn’t asked for my opinion. He didn’t seem to care what I thought.
Less than two months had passed between when I met Viktor and when Jack met Kat, but to him it might have felt interminable. He never begrudged me the experience I was having with Viktor, but he did express concern—would it ever happen for him? I tried to encourage him that someday the tables might be turned—he could be dating someone he was really into while I had no interesting prospects. But the evidence seemed to support our conclusion—online dating is easier for women, especially when it came to nonmonogamy. In our experience there were more men than women who were willing to date knowing they weren’t the only one, and without the expectation of a wedding ring at the top of the escalator.
I was glad Jack met someone he liked. I felt happy for him to have a new friend, and I felt less guilty about my feelings for Viktor now that he would get to explore something new, too. They’d been out a couple times but not slept together yet. I wasn’t looking forward to it happening, but I knew it was coming. Whenever I thought about it, I tried to brace myself by turning the tables mentally. I’d had a great time with Viktor, but I still loved Jack very much. If that could be true for me then surely he could go out with Kat and have fun with her and love me all the same. I repeated this in my mind over and over and over again.
None of my friendships was mutually exclusive; who said sex had to be? Why did having sex with someone change anything? Wasn’t it just an activity, like playing cards or dancing, with fewer clothes and more sweat? Surely Jack could feel something with and for Kat without those feelings undermining what was between the two of us. Intellectually, at least, I believed this was true. But my emotional body seemed to have something else to say about it. The thought of Jack having sex with someone else made me feel physically sick.
It was a Tuesday night and I was leaving for my second ayahuasca retreat the next day. I would be gone until Friday. It was unfortunate timing—Jack had given me concert tickets for our recent wedding anniversary to a show that was that Friday night. When the retreat was announced and I realized the conflict, I was disappointed. I didn’t want to miss my opportunity for a night out with my husband, but the retreats didn’t happen very often and, especially given how much was changing in and around me and us, I felt like it would be a good idea to get away and go within.
Jack was understanding and said he would find someone else to take to the concert.
“Please not Kat,” I said. I suggested someone else he could take.
My intention wasn’t to be controlling, or at least I didn’t want to seem controlling—I just felt superstitious about him using my anniversary tickets for a date with his girlfriend, like it would energetically taint our marriage or something (but sex with someone else wouldn’t?).
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