Doppio Zero, Greenside

Sunday, December 19, 2004

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I've dragged myself out of bed, and I'm having breakfast with Kathy. Ordinarily, it wouldn't be all that difficult to get out of bed to be with Kathy. But I've been in bed for three days now with some kind of vicious throat infection. And today I have to go to work to catch up on stuff I missed due to being sick. Hence the difficulty in de-bedding myself.

Kathy's cool. A delicious, buxom blonde, into light D/s (just like me!), a sub (not like me!), and into polyamory.

I'm really peeved with being out of action these past few days, cos I didn't have to work on Thursday, and Kathy invited me to spend a day and night with her at a hideaway in Hartebeespoort. Ugh! Missed that!

Thursday morning I dozed. Until Chantal phoned to say, "Hey Roy, I'm going to see a 2 o'clock movie. Wanna join me?" She's a buddy of mine who I do trance dances with.

"Sheesh, Chantal," I say, "I've got flu, but I've got cabin fever. I'll come see a movie with you."

Now Thursday morning was quite a productive time for me. I managed to work out some stuff around polyamory, and why it's attractive to me, and why I've avoided it till now. MMM, my buddy with four girlfriends, is also into poly. But his poly is a different type to my poly. He's into polygyny, and I'm into polyamory.

Polyamory is about having multiple love partners. Polygyny is about having multiple sex partners. Might SEEM similar superficially, but they're very very different things.

My realisation about my polyamory needs has to do with how I've been in relationships before. I've been a serial monogamist all my life. I've never cheated on a girlfriend. Not once. Not even to kiss another. Sure, I flirt, but nothing else. What happens to me is that I get serious tunnel vision. To the extent that I sense I may actually be slightly obsessive. I think that's what ultimately ended my relationship with Jacqui... the fact that I was committed to being in a relationship with her without some kind of ordinary growth period. How can it be that I was fully committed, that I KNEW that this was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, without actually KNOWING her all that well first? The quick answer is that something in me NEEDED to be committed to her. Needed to be in a long-lasting relationship.

On Thursday morning, lying half asleep with a kiln in my throat, I found myself wondering about serial monogamy and why I didn't want to join MMM and his four girlfriends with my three babes (Karen, Kathy, and Helen) for a group session over New Year. He's very excited about this. I'm completely NOT excited by it. I'm not into group sex. I'm not into swinging. I'm not into casual sex. (Yes, it's true I DO casual sex, but that's simply cos I can, and there's satisfaction of a kind in it. It's simply not fulfilling.)

And then it comes to me. All my life I've yearned for family. I've been an outsider, a loner, someone who is majorly alienated from society. When people play happy loving couples with kids and pets, I'm genuinely puzzled. I simply don't understand what they're feeling. But I yearn for it.

So serial monogamy for me has been an attempt to clutch onto one person to provide that feeling of family, without the misery and hectic stuff that I experienced as a kid.

When I was five years old, my dad came home from work. I rushed up to the front door, which was made of stained glass, and the sun shone through it. He opened the door, leaned down to kiss me, and his beard prickled against my cheek. I remember the feeling: "I'm not one of them. I don't belong here. This is not my family." From that moment on, I was completely alone. My mom was a serious alcoholic. My dad was a weekend alcoholic. He used to lose his temper and smash things, including my mom. I don't remember any of the events. I've blocked it out. What I do remember is that until I was about 15, I slept with a knife under my mattress.

So why polyamory? Simply put, it provides a sense of family, a sense of interconnectedness, a network of loving people. I'm still coming to terms with this insight, so it'll have to remain simplistic and naive for now.

So by the time I got the call from Chantal, the cabin fever of being in bed all day was too much. And I wanted to burble my insight to someone. She's a shaman, specialising in dance and movement through her TREAD workshops, so I thought it would be great to get out and chat.

We saw GARDEN STATE. Gets a full ten out of ten on the Roy-O-Metre. An amazing movie about family and belonging and pain. It's one of the tightest scripts I've seen, and the acting is sublime. Very understated, this is a comic gem.

So Chantal and I chatted. And that was great. Getting my thinking straight. And she chatted to me about some of the stuff in her life, and I was able to listen with my own shaman's ear, and offer my insight to her. A win-win afternoon.

That night, I took a Stilpane to sleep. It was left over from an old prescription. I don't normally USE medication. And Stilpane is hectic shit. So one tablet just knocked me out. Friday morning was throat despair. So I smsed Doc Pete from backgammon, and asked him what I should take. "Andolex and Panado," he smsed back. Eventually, I managed to get myself out of bed and headed for the pharmacy. Bought the Andolex and Panado and crawled back into bed. Phoned work first to tell them I wouldn't be in. Which was when I was asked if I could come in on Sunday. "If I'm feeling better," I said.

The Andolex only kinda half-worked, and the Panado only kinda half-worked, but Friday night passed. Saturday passed too, with me feeling feverish, and drawing quite a lot on my palmtop. And reading John Le Carre's latest, ABSOLUTE FRIENDS. Awesome book. I love this man. He's one of the best living writers. Him and John Irving, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, and Milan Kundera.

This morning arrives, and the fever and bone ache have gone. I'm sore and tired and grumpy, but fine. Still having difficulty swallowing, but hey.

The grumpiness disappears as soon as Kathy sits down. Laura, our gorgeous young waitress currently a learner in Grade Nine at the Deutsche Shule brings us menus, and we order. I've got to be at work at 11, and it's 9:30 now, so there's not much time.

So it's banter, and catching up with Kathy, and not much more. But that's totally cool. Cos I'm very comfortable in her company.

Let's see where this polyamory stuff takes me. Right now, it's time to head to the edit suite to cut episode seven of Go_Open.