Non-Monogamous Anonymous
my first work of fiction. a short story about a writer in brooklyn. yes it is fiction.
He mentions his fiancée and I choke. The revelation of her existence prompting the chia seeds in my smoothie to feel like gravel coming back up. As he leaves, I let my gaze walk him out the door, hoping he’ll turn back at me and steal one more look. For the last 8 months we’ve been doing this dance. On my lunch break I hastily light a joint even though I shouldn’t, whip out my phone, and open a fresh tab in my internet browser. As my thumbs skate across the keyboard, the letters merge together to spell out the words: “adultery definition”. I hold my breath until a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church appears and flashes its judgment at me through the screen. If I pursue him, I, Aura, am an adulterer. Adulteress if I’m feeling swanky. I am not.
Sam. He comes in every Monday. 11:34 am. A flat white. Not on our menu or in my wheelhouse, but I try my best and he lets me. It took me some time to realize this. That he is a structured man. At first I hoped for him daily, staring out the windows as I lazily wiped them down, praying he’d walk in, before I realized his pattern, his regularity. I don’t know much about him beyond his name, and caffeine habits, and that the extra order I’d handed over was for Mel. The fiancée. His fiancée. And yet I already want to give him everything he wants. In this, I believe we share an understanding.
A few days later I lay on my roommate Talia’s bed complaining.
“If I wanted to sit around and listen to people oversharing, I would pick up the phone and ask my therapist’s office if they’re hiring.” I proclaim.
“I promise you’ll get something out of this.” said Talia.
Her girlfriend’s boyfriend’s girlfriend suggested she catch a meeting at the last potluck they shared. And in turn Tal, unsure of who she was becoming in her new world filled with what she referred to as metas and comets and constellations, asked me to be her emotional support dog. I’m always trailing behind her. Not because I lack a life or a brain or a backbone or anything demoralizing like that, but because she’s always getting herself into these precarious situations. I can’t help but want to sit back and observe. Her chaos is my favorite channel. I can relax and keep my hands clean. Provide a loving hug or a well rolled j when needed. I halfway put up a fight until we step out from the Jefferson L train stop. We arrive at what from the outside appears to be a borderline decrepit warehouse. Tal checks her texts for the details pertaining to which buzzer to ring. She looks over at me as I stare up and off. I can feel her wilted gaze on me and sigh.
“I can’t find it.”
1F. 2A. 3G. 4L. 5J. 6H.
I poke at every option on the grid until the door hums, letting us inside.
I’ve had one relationship exactly. Last summer there was Jo, this tender gender-fucky plumber from Hudson. Freckled and broad shouldered, they would dutifully bring me stolen garden flowers and cheap beer foraged from the bodega I lived above. I met Jo when they came to fix the sink at the cafe when the water went out. They flashed a suggestive smile at me, and one thing led to another before there they were, calling me daily to eat me out in the shade of a cluster of trees during our walks through Prospect.
I could’ve stayed there on my back in the dirt with Jo forever, but they wanted more than me. They wanted me, and Karina, and Seth, and God knows who else. If I stayed in that relationship, no doubt I’d inevitably have ended up here. Seeking support from other heart-shattered, but still hopeful, souls. No more Jo and yet somehow I am anyway. We spend a few minutes wandering through the labyrinth of the warehouse until we find the room and 12 chairs set up in a semicircle, like an amphitheater waiting to be filled. We’re early and it’s just us and a soccer mom with her hair tucked behind her ears and any sign of joy in her life likely tucked back there too.
Tal occupies two seats for us while I make myself comfortable at the snack table, grazing on baby carrots and stale crackers I presume Soccer Mom brought, while the rest of the souls trickle in.
“Jeb couldn’t make it today, his wife’s going through an uncoupling, but I’m here so let’s get rolling!”
I crane my neck around to put a face to the voice I’m sure in my gut I know.
Sam.
7pm? On a Thursday? I’ve never truly considered us engaging outside of the shop in the 8 months I’ve been grinding his beans. Only at night, in bed with my hand down my sweats, and occasionally in the bathroom during my lunch break.
He catches my eye and smiles. I quickly take a seat.
After the meeting and listening to Sam lead the group through their shares of the week, I’m even more curious about him than before.
He asks me to coffee, and I decline, offering up drinks instead, sick of the stench of espresso. The next night, over the course of several glasses, it is revealed to me that he and Mel have been in an open relationship for the last two years.
That as long as they’re both comfortable with who the other sees, it's all gravy. That he’s been eyeing me for months but didn’t want to put me on the spot in my place of work. I come home from drinks and jump into Tal’s lap on the couch, kissing her on the head, grateful she made me tag along to that meeting.
After about a month of seeing Sam later, I stroll up to a bar clad in my pinstriped blazer and my least dingy pair of jeans. I smudged something dark around my eyes that I found on Tal's shelf in the bathroom, in an effort to give myself an air of intensity. She and Sam have ten years on me. I want her to know I'm serious. That I know how to operate in their world. That I'm deserving. She chose this spot and once I digest the mood, set by l.e.d. lights and mounted fish heads, it strikes me that I'm overdone. Too polished. Too trying to be cool.
"Aura? I'm Mel!"
Barefaced, she quickly hustles up off her seat at the bar to wrap me in her delicately tattooed arms. I take her in and make mental note of her details: as many cartilage piercings as days of the week, her collarbones lightly radiating notes of jasmine and citrus, the loose braid over her shoulder reeking of sickly-sweet conditioner.
“Yea, it's nice to meet you." She tells me about herself, her work over drinks, occasionally pulling up pictures on her phone to show me the minute details of their apartment. An 'interior elevator' she calls herself.
Decorator, a title too simplistic to truly capture the depth of her eye for design. Part of me wants to laugh at the rebranding, but I can't. Her taste is exceptional. I recognize the Tiffany's lamp and the plush of the gargantuan Moroccan rug they got on their last trip together. I've laid with him on that rug. Its fibers swaddling us both in soft. I feel a tsunami of guilt over the memory.
In an effort to shake it off I tune in closely, the rasp slipping out of her beautifully down turned mouth making it easy. I watch and sip and respond and watch and sip and respond until I start to question if my pilsner has psychoactive properties. In talking with her I feel the wires in my brain criss and cross and criss again until the guilt is transmuted into something else entirely.
She asks me where my heart is, and after taking a pause to truly inhale the question, I tell her it's in writing, dreaming of bleeding in ink. Later that night I find myself swaddled in the great rug once again. This time, instead of feeling the wooly scratch of beard on my back, it's a tickle from her saccharine braid.
The next day I go to hand Sam his drink, and drop it. My sleepiness sending it spilling onto the floor. I stayed up till 3…no, 4, typing every word that graced my mind.
Funny how impacted I feel after sex. Creatively charged and ready to rev. I feel like sex is a medium. A playground for me to stretch and expand upon my ideas. In Mel's arms I probed her about their relationship. How it started, where they met, how I ended up entangled in their sheets. "Whose idea was it? Are you two actually happy? How do you hold space for him as you lay here with me? Are you secretly sad? Can we go again?" She generously spilled out answers for me and my mind guzzled it all, until I was swimming in detail.
"God I am so sorry, I don't know where my head is today."
"It's still with her isn't it? Sounds like you've been approved."
"She told you?"
"She tells me everything and I her. No need to freak out, I'm happy you hit it off so well. Really. As long as Mel and I are radically honest with each other we can see this thing all the way down however we see fit."
The concept of radical honesty leaves me dumbfounded. I can't help but feel confused. Like everything I know and understand is wrong. As if there's never been any understanding in the world for me at all, but I want to see this all the way down too.
We make plans to have dinner somewhere only he of the two of us can afford, and I send him off, fresh flat white in tow. Later my lunch break becomes just a formality, as I sit on the rickety stool in the supply closet, typing the 30 away in my notes. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a third rail. Wired and alive.
"And when the 1000's of submissions come pouring in, I get to sharpen my knife. Pouring over so much new work I see plenty of talent and equal amounts of error, but I get to fine tune what we do choose. Work closely with the writer to put out something special." He explains between chews. Sam works with journalists writing about serious things, like tax evasion and the terrors of asbestos.
I tell him about my personal essays and how they lean more towards the interpersonal relationships in my life. He mentions his pal who works on the Modern Love column. How that could be something I should work towards.
He pulls out his phone in front of me, sending my name to her. His attraction to me, a cosign.
"God I want that. I need that." A fire expands between my legs. I feel myself blush. The thought of being published.
"You can have it. I think you've got that something special."
"And how would you know? You haven't read a word of my writing."
"I can see it in your eyes. See it resting between your teeth. You have bite. You just need something to dive into."
"Well to tell you the truth, lately I've been feeling like I may have found that something." I beam. Grabbing the dessert menu, I pivot the conversation towards something less career oriented.
“So what sounds more appetizing right now, the orange blossom creme brulee or the chocolate tart?”
Smirking he says, “Why not both, the tab is on the Times.” I smile back hoping to dissolve the covetous look on my face. After dinner we head back to their brownstone and spend two and a half hours burning off the expensive calories.
Sticky and breaking the silence, he brings us back to work. "I really mean it.” He calls out from the bathroom.
“Mean what?” I say, voice raised over the sound of running water.
“That you should feel free to share your writing with me. I'm not just a lover, I'm a resource for you too." He offers kindly, rejoining me under the duvet.
“Yea you definitely are.” I say. A knot buckling in my throat.
He doesn’t feel the tension gathering and agrees. I lay my head on his chest, concluding the conversation. The weight of my skull a punctuation. He soon after falls asleep, the bottle of lambrusco we shared catching up to him and his 33-year-old body. I look at him that way for a while, his jaw slack and mouth agape. I lay next to him and take in the thread count. The life he and Mel have together. The creative capital they possess. The time to pursue people like me, all the way down.
That night I slither out of his marital bed and call a car to deliver me back to my singular empty one. I stay up till dawn writing in a manic frenzy, sure my furious keystrokes will wake Talia up out of her sleep through our shared wall. In the morning she knocks on my door asking me to debrief my night with her, two steaming mugs of chai in hand. I tell her I need her to do something for me first. I’ve always admired the writers featured in the Modern Love column. I’ve always wanted to be one of them. Raw. Exposing. Radically honest. She knows this about me. I won’t let her read it first, afraid her response might deflate my momentum. The mouse hovering over the submit button, Tal looks to me for confirmation.
My heart, my art. I tell myself. That’s what I’m doing this for. Inhaling experiences until my insides are encased in stories worth telling. The stories of my life. I was there, so this is mine to tell, right? Right. I shake the doubt out of my head like I’ve got swimmer’s ear and urge her to press send. My hands are clean.