My love life

My whole love life all in one piece.

It’s Christmas. We’re in an old renovated church turned Waldorf school. I’m in second grade, still getting home schooled in school, as Mama is the teacher. Our classroom is full of music and light and voices and the smell of Christmas. I’m nine.

There’s a huge cake James’ mother, the irish storyteller brought. She baked in all sorts of little things, and if you find one in your piece that will be your fortune. There are pennies that mean you’ll be rich, and twigs that mean you’ll be poor. There’ a baby which means you’ll have one - and most coveted of all there are two rings, which mean you’re going to marry your true love.

As Mama begins cutting into the cake I’m right there in front begging for a piece. She makes me stand aside and let everyone else go first. I’m antsy asking if I can have mine after every turn.

“Would you like a 3rd of the cake? Or a 10’000th of the cake?” She asks James.
“A 10’000th” He exults, imagining that such a large number must be a large amount of cake. “Oh” he says when she gives him a crumb. She’s nice and gives him a normal piece after.
“My turn?” I ask hopefully.
“Wait” she says.

Finally after all of the children have been served she gives me my piece. I go over to James who is sporting a penny in his cake. I’m about to dig in when he glances over - “is that?” He pulls a ring out of mine. “It’s because you waited.” Says mama, never one to miss a lesson.

We all know what this means. Sage - the most beautiful girl in class - maybe the most beautiful girl in the world. Every day she comes in and decides that she likes a different one of the boys, and every day is a new drama, a new fight, a new means of proving our undying love.

But Sage likes me more than any of the other boys. She chooses me more often, and we spend more time out of class together. She is my true love and I’ll marry her. This ring proves it. I give it to her as a promise.

These days I interpret it differently. Not that I’ll marry the love I had then, but that I’ll marry my true love whoever she may be, and wherever she may reside. Mama got a twig and she got fired shortly thereafter and has always been poor. Papa got the baby, but he had a vasectomy and maybe foretelling cakes can’t account for that.

I believe that cake.

---

It’s rare to remember a piece of my childhood when I wasn’t in love with someone. There was Maya who I discovered I liked when I wrote her name on a shell. Grace who used to make me loose at Yahtzee by blinking at me and asking me to “Please just roll one more time” with those beautiful eyes “For me”


I have always felt the power of the feminine and her hold on me. Love has always been a physical sensation. It eats at my stomach and gnaws at my heart. It makes me dizzy and lucid in odd moments. It makes me do stupid stupid things.

But the first time love tumbled me like a stone, was Noms

At first I was in love with her older sister. I confessed on my first day at her house after having watched her in a play. Soire took it in stride and swore me to secrecy again. Having been spoken love released my belly from its claws.

But our families continued to be close. I began to babysit the two younger siblings. Soire and I were twelve, Noms was eight and Sparrow six. Mama needed somewhere to live so we moved out to a Yurt on their land. We’d go into their house to use the kitchen and take showers.

One day I went in and there were no dry towels. “Are there any dry towels?” I asked Noms
“No”

I decided to shower anyway with a damp dirty towel at the end. Halfway through I heard her shout from outside the bathroom window, which I opened from the shower to allowed her to chastely push a towel through. It was warm and dry. She had taken a towel unasked and put it in the dryer - timed it so that just as I was getting out she could hand it to me. It was so unexpectedly kind.

And then, there, wrapped up in a warm dry fuzzy towel -- I fell in love.

---

She was eight and I was twelve. My parents are twelve years apart. Her mother was with a man twenty years her senior, yet at that age four years is an uncrossable gulf. I babysat her. That very fact meant I couldn’t tell anyone. It was my secret and I held it as close to my chest as I could.

Most painful, I thought I was a pedophile. Doomed to a future of attraction to young girls. Yet I also knew I could never harm a young girl by aggressing on her. I decided I was a looking-pedophile. A - non practicing pedophile if you will.

Because fortunately I was in love with her, and I had enough sense - along with insight beaten into me by my mother - to know that different stages have different things that are important, different things that are right.

Step a stage, awaken a hunger too early, and it sets up an imbalance, one that will follow and shape you the rest of your life. I could never hurt her.
I remember a sleepover when she was 12 and I was 16. Two boys her age and three other girls. The games finally came around to truth or dare. She wanted me to dare each of them in turn. If they refused the dare they had to tell an inconvenient truth - who they “liked”

I started out with safe things “Touch the ceiling” “Jump up and down”
“That’s boring.” she said. I figured out what they wanted. “Kiss Arkander on the cheek” those kinds of dares. We moved to kissing on the lips, ears, neck. They broke there most of them, admitting crushes in the room and outside.

At some point I wondered why I did not dare her to kiss me. I was outside of the game. A moderator and safety gap. And I realized how much self control I had built up. Where before love had always made me do stupid things - now? Now I had a stranglehold on my heart.

It ended as abruptly as it began. Four years after she handed me a towel, I watched her shivering in a bathing suit in front of me. She was a large person, but small bodied - and somehow I’d never seen how small she was before. It wasn’t that I stopped loving her, but that the projection broke, and I saw why she wasn’t right for me. I stopped babysitting the children and moved on to college.

I briefly began to grow attached to another twelve year old girl. Key but I had self control now. I messaged her sister - a dear friend of mine - and asked her for every disgusting thing she could tell me about her sister. The list was long and detailed. She didn’t even ask why. From then on whenever I started to think about Key I would imagine the acne on her knees, and her hairy back, and how rude she was when none but her sister saw. A few months later the thought of her wouldn’t even evoke a flutter.

After that I asked for someone my own age.

---

Floydess began with a post about chocolate perfume.

I met her online, at a social media site called experience project. We bonded or over a mutual love of chocolate, and a willingness to give each other our time. We became boyfriend and girlfriend several months later in an “Are we?” “I guess” “Okay” sort of fashion. At the time I had never seen her picture, and didn’t know her real name, but I knew I liked her.

We eventually moved to facebook. She made an account specifically so that her parents wouldn’t see me, and for nine months we explored what being boyfriend and girlfriend meant.

It was a good nine months, and she was a precious girl, but in the end I needed someone real. I broke up with her on my Christmas - her day after Christmas, given the nine hour time difference between us. I had learned a good deal about relationship and how to handle distance, I was ready for someone real.

---

Berra happened. An explosion of light and color, and doing silly things for love. I got my first kiss, lost my virginity, and was broken up with, in the course of seven action packed weeks. It left me stunned, heartbroken. I had seen a woman as I had never seen a woman before, and she hadn’t wanted me.

Moments when I fall in love are fascinating. So small yet obvious. With Berra it was me at home right after a shower. I went into my room naked and the light hit my skin in just the way it had hit hers when she stood naked in front of me - and in that moment I felt what it was like to have that skin. It was so visceral, so real - I couldn’t unsee her. I was filled with an understanding, a compassion, a knowledge of her. I named that love.

Berra had always been jealous. As I had never been jealous at that point I didn’t understand what about my relationship with Libra made her insecure. Libra’s boyfriend was the same - eyeing me as I brought her lunch every day and had long teatimes together.

When Berra left, Libra stepped in to comfort me. She took me to an art museum, made sure I didn’t have to be alone more than I had to, was kind. A month later she told me she was in love with me. To say that I was flattered - Libra is one of the most classically beautiful women I know - would be an understatement.

“My heart is like a fireplace with embers ready to roar up in flames.” I told her one day.
“My heart is like that.” she said - pointing to the sun, in that quiet unassuming way she had that made you listen. I couldn’t fight the sun.

We cheated on her boyfriend behind his back, first kissing, then more. I convinced her to break up with him, and then she went back. It was an emotional time. Neither of us quite had the boundaries, and we fed into each other - expectations ending in ruin.

I remember the summer it bled into, not having sex by then, but still lovers beneath it all - I would sleep the night on her boyfriend’s couch, and go picnic in the sequim sun when he left for work. I hated him, imagining that I was the better mate.

I imagine he hated me too.

One night after an Avatar watching party we went out on a walk to the park where the girls peeled off to talk to each other and the boys started to play fight, first Hose and I - then Aries.

The next day as Libra is on the bus with meet she asks me if I'm feeling okay. “I'm fine -why?” Aries’ whole torso is black with bruises. Oops.

Finally I don't visit after a slightly off putting weekend. There are promises to get together with her again if the two of us are ever single. Promises made to be broken.

I head off to Evergreen

---

The first night, the very first, I meet her - although I don't know it yet. I go off into the woods with a man and two women, one of which I'm attracted to, the other - short little frumpy thing who looks twelve rather than her full nineteen -doesn't. Her name is Yellow, she confesses she's a Lesbian as we crouch around an old stream bed playing spin the twig.

After that I keep running into her. We finally make our way to my room and I teach her magic. We become fast friends. Best friends. I can be just as flirty and kind as I like and she's safe because she's a Lesbian.

She becomes my spy, telling me that my friend Manta, who introduced herself out of the blue in the cafeteria, likes me - giving me the chance to say no without really saying no. I read Manta’s astrology and tell her how poorly Conjoined Saturn and the Moon are for a relationship, and neglect to mention our Sun/Venus conjunction.

Yellow and I start having perfectly safe sleepovers in my bed, and spending most of our time together. She tells me about some of her early trauma and I tell her it's okay to let it out. She asks me if she wanted to “Try out boys" who she should go for. I gallantly volunteer.

I take her virginity that afternoon. We change our relationship statuses that evening.

I’ve been catching glimpses of her beauty, but it’s not till several months in that I really fall for her. It’s not till after that I really see her value. I love her but I don’t always like her. Don’t always respect her.

We last for six months until the end of the school year, but it's not easy. By the end I'm taking back my advice that it's okay to let it all out. Stuff it back in! No one needs to see that much crazy.

Or anger. Yellow isn't great at dealing with her anger. I'm getting better at diffusion, but it's tiring and I'm getting colder and colder in response to her heat. I don't like myself in this relationship and I want out. I want my friend back.

About a month before the end of the year when I've made it very clear we're over, I stop sleeping with her. We've made plans to live together, Yellow, Manta, Silver, and I. Lets get back to being best friends again.

At the end of the year Manta invites me out star gazing. We go lie in our backs and make up constellations and make wishes on shooting stars, and where I used the stars to reject her, now the stars pull me back.

I ask her about liking me earlier in the year and she confirms and the whole world spins beneath me.

I make promises she doesn't understand but it's enough. I have the summer to seduce her and I do. She seduces me too with the most beautiful story I've ever heard.

I fall in love.

---

Summer passes at home. A lonely summer. Manta and I consider what we're going to do come fall.

I'm not worried. Yellow was the one who told me after all. She'll be happy for me. While Manta is subtly probing I just straight out tell her. The response is explosive. She thought she could get me back next year. I talk her down like I always do.

It will be fine.

We all move in together. I've arrived early, Yellow arrives second. She's lost some weight over the summer and it hasn't made her less curvy at all, just more - pronounced. I've never seen her looking this beautiful. Gods.

We all settle in together. Manta and I sharing a room and soon a bed. Yellow settles into the habit of exploding approximately every three days. I talk her down every time.

She's asked that Manta and I hide our relationship from her. Not rub any more salt on the wound. We do - going out a lot, and setting one weekday aside for adventures together.

We thrive on sunlit picnics in the park and illicit kisses stolen when no one is looking. Because Yellow is questioning our relationship at every turn we don't have to. Everything is idyllic between us as Manta learns what a relationship looks like for the first time.

I'm a better teacher this time. We wait a few months to get intimate, exploring each other's bodies first. I, remembering my early desire to just explore, let her find every way I am different from her.

By winter the tension is too much. We try to move out, and when the landlord wouldn't let us, ask Yellow to. The backlash is immediate.

There's a scene where Yellow slaps me across my face with all her little might, screaming about how I'm abandoning her. Then Manta is between us growing deep in her throat like a lioness protecting her cubs. Silver grabs Yellow’s arms and pins them behind her back. Manta is threatening to call the police if she ever gets physically violent again.

After that Yellow stuck to suicide threats and sending me pictures of her slashed wrists with captions like “this is what you made me do.” or “all your fault.”

After we moved her out - with threats of a restraining order - the house was suddenly quiet for the first time. Manta and I basked in cuddling on the couch and kissing in the kitchen. We removed Yellow from our life and I haven't spoken with her since.

Summer passed. I didn't go home this time. Manta went off to work in the

Cascades and we sent letters back and forth. By the time she returned we'd changed houses and housemates. It was so good to see her again.

The second year was harder though. We didn't have Yellow criticising us to make us perfect. We didn't have to go out on adventures or steal kisses late at night. We weren't under attack or recovering from it, and that gave us time to notice what didn't work.

Manta is asexual. I'm not.

She came to that conclusion on the second year. I was forever asking and she was forever saying no, and the asking was weighing on me as much as the lack of sex.

We talked about it and she suggested we open our relationship up. I was wary. My parents separated after opening their relationship up. With no other solutions we decided to try though.

---

Shine and I danced in the same space for a long time before I noticed her. She would occasionally dance close to me so that I'd wonder if she were trying to dance but always dismissed it.

Then there was the Harry Potter dance where she was wearing red boots. I certainly noticed her then.

I have a facebook message sent to myself with her name from mid December that I have no memory of sending but I got it again in late January.

I sent her a friend request on a sliver of courage and I was just sending her a message explaining that I didn't really know her, when she added me back. We started talking, and talking, and it got deeper and more fascinating, and soon we were making plans for tea.

I made Nettle tea and scones, and we talked astrology and life in my living room and when Manta got back after introducing them and talking a little together she and I went out in the rain and curled under a cedar and she brought out her ukulele and played and sung as light from passing cars sung across her face and I fell in love.

Less than a week later she invited me out to the woods to watch the moon and we cuddled and talked and soon we were nuzzling with each other's noses until my voice got husky with desire and I asked if I could kiss her and she said “Yes!”

I have never fallen for anyone else so deeply. I have never loved so much. I have never surrendered so fully. I have never fallen like that.

We spent late nights trysting in the woods till we'd finally untangle ourselves from our blankets and reach around in the dark for our clothes and she'd make old man sounds against the cold.

She taught me to eat strawberries with their tops, and enjoy avocados, and whenever she kissed she would rock her whole body against mine like the sea.

We'd climb trees together, and make alters together, and carry each other on our backs across the sharp bits of the beach. And we made love in tree houses and dorm rooms and everywhere in between.

I went to her house on spring break and met her father and we'd watch movies together, and at night she'd call new “master” and I'd call her “mine" and when her best friend said goodbye she said “I'll see you again,” and it was a promise.

It was so intense I started to lose track of Manta. I wanted to offer the all of me to Shine, not just part. I told Manta that. Asked if she thought we were together because we wanted to be or because of inertia? She listened, as she always listened.

I told Shine I'd leave Manta if she asked me to, and then Shine broke up with me. Then Manta broke up with me because “I was right.” I lived with Manta so I ended up moving out of our shared house and being homeless during finals week. That summer I got depressed for the first time in my life.

I didn’t know if I had the strength for a relationship for a long time.

---

School started up again. I was president of the Magic club and admin of the facebook page. Whenever anyone requests to join I look at their profile and see if they really go to Evergreen.

Crimson was one such requestor. I went to her profile, saw she was friends with a girl who already came to club, and hit add. Except I was on her profile page so what I hit wasn't add to group, but add as friend.

Oops.

Crimson was gorgeous, loved Magic and role-playing and was an accomplished swordswoman. She was sex obsessed, a writer, and a scientist. I could not imagine anyone designed better to lure me.

I started talking with her. Invited her to lunch, and tried to get her into role playing. She in turn sent drunk messages about how she wanted to kiss me and talked to me about anything and everything.

I dreamed her at night, I breathed her by day.

Finally we got into her love life and the ex who she was still sleeping with, and obsessed with, and really in a relationship with by every measure but name.

I wanted her so much, and I knew how to get her, but I also knew that I'm not allowed to steal women away. Not after Libra.

I still got flirty when Crimson came by, heat in my cheeks and heart all fluttery - but I stopped inviting her to lunch or messaging her to make conversation.

The next would have to be fairly gotten.

---

Graceling was a photographer. They (genderfluid I was later to learn) came to Zombies and took photos.

Just as Crimson was fading, around winter quarter, we had an exceptionally small group, and ended up sitting around in a circle introducing ourselves. I said I was a Mythology major, Graceling said they were emphasizing mythology. We both noticed each other, and started talking.

I was taking Physics that year. Twelve hours a day spent on homework. One late night exiting the math lab, I saw Graceling clearly waiting for me.

Stalker? Clingy? Interested?

I invited them out into the woods for a failed bonfire and we ended up curled up together in the dark talking about our love lives. They told me they were asexual. I backed away slowly.

I couldn't deny a draw though, and we kept talking and it came out that the asexuality came in waves and was really quite physical at times, and maybe it would work.

We went out on Valentine's and had a lovely day, and then I went to a “we didn't have a date on Valentine's day" party and stayed late, and I missed my bus and Graceling had offered me rides just earlier that day.

In the car I admitted I was attracted and so did they and we shrugged our way into a relationship.

Graceling is beautiful. Daughter of two fashion photographers in LA, Graceling is aware of appearance, and capable of putting it on like no other. I flattered myself having them.

A month later I learned that I had stumbled into a polyamorous web and they expressed a desire to get back into it. How could I refuse? I don't steal people anymore.

I took sex slow and it just never quite happened. An awkward time where Graceling was sleeping with two other people but not the ostensible boyfriend. I wasn't allowed to say I love you. I couldn't touch when they weren't feeling like it. I held the tension but I wasn't happy.

We lasted all through the following summer and broke it off just as the school year was starting. Maybe it was because we never went that deep or maybe it was having had two breakups in the space of a week but it didn't hurt at all, and our relationship got so much better after breakup. I moved on.

---

Love is the state of seeing deeply. It is come by when you project an expectation onto another and then see beneath it.

It starts as just one glimpse. A poem, a word, a warm towel, an angle of light, a kindness, a song in the dark, but that is only a beginning.

I have never fallen out of love. Noms had the projection break, but I still love that girl with all my heart. I don't like Yellow but I never stopped loving her. Manta got overshadowed but when I listen deep there's still an ember burning for her. There always will be.

So if I have loved you know this. Sometimes, like Shine, I have cut you out of my life, because it is too painful to relate, but I still love her.

If I have loved you I will always love you, and in those dark moments where you wonder if anyone cares, I care.

So long as I draw breath I will always remember you.