I had nothing to say to that and things went downhill from there.
For the first time since we met, well, since we started dating, she left without us having sex again. Hell, we didn't even shower together.
And that led to a miserable week. To paraphrase the Willie Nelson song, "she was always on my mind," and I couldn't concentrate.
When I damn near cut a finger off working on a new storm window I figured it was time to find a less dangerous pastime. So I opened my trusty Google Chromebook and started doing what I do best, research.
The Google search term "polyandry" brought up about a bazillion hits. There was the dictionary, of course, followed by Wikipedia. Then the general sites,
National Geographic
traced how widely it was found.
Atlantic
discussed it in that overly-intellectual way of theirs.
The journals, though, provided what I was looking for and there was plenty to work from. From the very formal studies of the
American Psychology Association
to individual monographs from my favorite compendium of professional journals
Jstor
to things in something called
The Journal of Deviant Sex
, it was easy to come up with thousands of sites.
Ultimately, my research brought me to the conclusion I had kind of casually given when Jennifer asked her question - "What about polyandry?" Polyandry made much more sense for a variety of reasons than the more common "polygamy" when group relationships were being discussed.
The ease of bringing a man to climax (you know, rub the damn thing for 30 seconds and SQUIRT) compared to the difficulty of taking a woman to orgasm was part of it.
But there was a psychological aspect I hadn't thought of. One of those stodgy, oh-so-formal journals had compared polyandry with a mother having more than one child and loving them all. Another more freewheeling journal discussed the purely physical sensations that required two men to give a woman. In that article, I learned a whole new lexicon, some of the terms complete with acronyms. Double Penetration (DP), for example, was the focus of one article in
The Journal of Deviant Sex
which went into great length on technique. It turned out a woman could be doubly penetrated using a realistic dildo, but, according to Dr. Thorsen who wrote that particular article, no woman found that as satisfying as two men being involved.
Often, it turned out, polyandry was associated with another little kink that had its own acronym, ANR. That's Adult Nursing Relationship. That particular article had my dick get hard with its almost poetic description of the "special intimacy" and "unparalleled sharing" such a relationship offered.
I learned about MFM relationships with the female (the F) being in the center of the three-way relationships, and the males (the Ms) roughly equal in status. There was the FMM relationship with the female at the top of that particular pecking order, but an "alpha" and a "beta" male as part of the "throuple," another word I learned that day. And there was the MMF relationship, much rarer as near as I could tell, with two alpha males sharing a single submissive female.
I learned of Dommes with their Subbie paramours, typically almost slaves. I learned of what I thought of as truly dangerous relationships, with a dominant female regularly hurting, hell, practically torturing one or more of her partners. In the extreme, I learned of the modern Amazons who demanded their men's balls, literally castrating them, before they would marry them
Most important, I learned that when it does work, it always includes the MM part of the MFM group becoming sexually intimate.
That presented a real problem for a completely heterosexual man like me.
But just as suddenly, I understood that I would have to overcome my, well, my aversion because if that was what Jennifer wanted, or maybe more accurately, what she
needed
, then it's what I would have to do.
I smiled as an unexpected thought came to mind - -
What the hell, you might like it.
I called her on Wednesday.
"Hello, David," she said and I could hear the distance in her voice.
"I apologize," were my first words.
"Oh?" she said and I thought I might hear a bit of softening.
"Please come on Thursday. We'll play until eleven and then you and Mark and I will sit down, share drinks, and plot our future," I kept going when she started to reply, "because, Jennifer, I can't see my future without you and if that includes Mark, we'll find a way."
"Good," she said and I could hear the smile in her voice now, "because I am having trouble seeing my future too."
"Without you in it?" I asked, trying to put all of the innocence I could muster into my voice.
She laughed her full-throated laugh, said, "You can be SUCH an asshole. See you Thursday," and hung up.
I felt better, and could concentrate then. Tuesday and Wednesday I made storm windows, carefully fit, primered, and painted them, and then practiced. It had been a while since I had been on stage so I ran through the setlist, freshening my memory with chord progressions and lyrics. At least I didn't have to master any solos with Patrick in the band.
Thursday the gig was for eight to eleven. We would do six twenty minute sets, and I had the thirty songs in my head. We would do
All Along the Watchtower
at the end of each set to give dancers time to dance to the song that, in our version with Patrick having plenty of time to improvise fresh leads between verses, would clock out at about five minutes. The crowd would be a bit tired when we took a break. It wasn't our first rodeo and I might be rusty but not THAT far out of it.
The Club was, unimaginatively named
Club 51
after county road 51 on which it was located. It was an interesting venue. The county road ran through a rural area and
Club 51
was located on a crossroads (I had suggested to Gene, the owner, that
Crossroads
would be a better name since the Club featured a lot of blues along with classic rock and roll and the concept of a crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to be able to play the blues is big in that genre), associated with a convenience store/gas station that served the surrounding rural area. It had that same sort of rustic feel I recognized from the movie
Roadhouse
, but you didn't need Dalton or Wade Garret to keep the crowd under control.