AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before we begin, I'd like to ask my reader to imagine a fictional world where semen and unprotected sex are incapable of causing harm.
The characters in my story exist in that happier world. One can dream.
***
"Congratulations!"
"Yes, congratulations! I don't know you, but Paolina is such an extraordinary person. I wish you so much happiness together."
Congrats and best wishes came at me steadily throughout the early stages of the evening, from virtually every corner of the crowded house. I had met none of these people before, and few of them knew each other. But they all seemed to know me.
"You know, I really admire you for this," said an earnest, mild-looking man pushing fifty. No name on his name tag, only the number "12." He put me in mind of someone's pastor.
"I couldn't do what you're about to do," he continued, "but it's such a brilliant choice. Are you nervous?"
I was fielding several variations on this theme from various guests. (Paolina preferred the word "congregants.") It wasn't enough to make me question my... correction,
our
decision, but I did feel the floating chill of performance anxiety in my stomach. Irony, anyone? It wasn't as if I would be doing anything.
The gathering was beginning to hum now--a small miracle, seeing as we were mostly strangers. The blend of music and rising chatter set me more at ease. It was a bass chatter. Of the roughly thirty invited guests (a drastically limited guest list) only two of them were female--not including our hostess Heidi. Heidi had arranged most everything, right down to the numbered name tags.
In another context, so much male energy and so few women could have been a problem. But there seemed to be nothing but chill vibes and good will in Heidi's house tonight.
As for Paolina, Heidi had spirited her away to an upstairs bedroom before the first of the guests arrived. Paolina had spent the morning at a pricey salon, and she returned looking drop-dead gorgeous. Wardrobe and makeup were next. She too, felt the butterflies.
"It's only natural," I noted. "After all, you
are
the star of the show."
"Ah, but you're the guest of honor," she replied. "You know... in your own inconsequential way."
Heidi shooed me out of the room, and I went downstairs to greet our arriving guests. Four weeks from that night, I would see Paolina in her wedding gown on our wedding day.
***
It all started several months ago, when I'd asked Paolina to marry me. She said yes, making me a very happy man. But a difficult hurdle remained.
"You know I love you with all my heart," she said, "more than anyone I've loved before. I will be willingly yours for the rest of my life. I can forsake all other men for you. But half of me will die a slow death if I can't be dominated when I need it. Dominated by a woman."
"You mean Heidi."
"Yes," she said. "It might change someday, but Corey... can you really live with that after we're married? I don't need it often, but I do need it."
"I can live with it," I said gently. "There's nothing much I can do about it. But I do wish I could provide it for you myself."
"I know."
I would have preferred to have been everything Paolina needed. But how would that have been possible? How is it possible in any relationship?
Paolina enjoyed--fully enjoyed--so many others. She loved men, but she never took men seriously. (She called them boys.) To Paolina, males were just irresistible playthings. Somehow, she saw me as an irresistible exception.
Had there been a few dozen clones of me to keep up with her needs, monogamy just might have been an option for us. Our open arrangement was a solution--imbalanced though it must have looked from the outside. It just made sense for Paolina's happiness, in the way that wings make sense for birds. I'd reached my fill of other partners. I didn't desire anyone else. Paolina did.
Even when our relationship was first inching toward serious commitment, a couple of years ago, I hadn't asked Paolina to give up her liaisons with other guys. It gave her such joy, especially coming home to "us" afterward. To ask her to stop would have been cruel, like asking a musician to renounce her instrument because her partner preferred silence.
I'd never had much use for the dramas and heartaches of jealousy.
Not that I was immune. I'd never seen Paolina fuck another man before (though she'd asked once or twice if I'd be interested) because I strongly suspected that would be too much for me.
But! The mere thought of Paolina's sexual history flipped a switch deep inside me. Whenever she shared with me the details of her past encounters, from years ago or the night before, she knew I'd give her the fucking of her week. I would turn into an animal. Paolina had only to bait the hook with some random recollection, and I'd end up fucking her like the world was about to end. That she had an inexhaustible supply of stories only added fuel to my fire.
But now I had asked her to sacrifice a part of her life she really loved. For the sake of my happiness, she agreed to it. I could easily make room for Paolina's need for female domination, but in my bones I knew I could no longer be happy sharing her with other males. Not in the context of marriage.
"You won't miss them?" I asked.
"I'm sure I will, from time to time. But I know what it means to you. I'm making you this vow, and I'll keep it."
My throat tightened at this. Best to lighten the mood.
"Does this mean I finally get to watch you and Heidi together?"
"Shut the fuck up," answered Paolina.
A few weeks after my proposal, I came home to the sound of laughter. Heidi and Paolina were in the living room. While I had been working late, the two of them had enjoyed a bottle of wine. In fact, they were well into their second bottle. Paolina was explaining how neither she nor I wanted a bachelor or bachelorette party.
"I'm thirty-three years old," explained Paolina. "How many more vibrators do I need?"
Heidi laughed.
"What's
your
excuse?" she asked. "Don't you like blowjobs from strippers?"
"How would I possibly know a thing like that?" I answered innocently.
"Yeah, right," said Heidi. "I know all about you. If you were alone in a room with a hooker, you'd pay her to sit down and tell you about all the guys she's fucked."
Paolina burst out laughing. "Sorry," she said with mock contrition. "I talk too much." She stifled a further giggle.
"Oh my god, I've got it!" exclaimed Heidi. "You know what your bachelorette party should be? Oh, this is too good. You need to text all the people you've ever fucked before--"
"All of them?" responded Paolina, in feigned horror.
"--
all
of them, even the nameless randos, and here's what you do. You tie Corey to a chair and make him watch you fuck them all over again, just for old time's sake!"
Heidi all but squealed at the thought, but Paolina caught the look in my eye.
