Stiletto Diaries

Kicking Myself In The Ass

Posted on March 31st, 2006 in Emotional Angst, Mating And Relating, Polyamory

Why can’t I just follow the rules?

I’ll admit, I’ve never been very good with rules. In high school I made it a personal goal to break every one of the of rules (and there were several pages worth) in our student handbook.

I think I succeeded actually, and was very lucky to never get caught.

These days it’s not really a matter of getting caught. When I fuck up, I tell Jack as soon as possible. Even though I know I am going to disappoint and upset him, I couldn’t stand the thought of keeping anything from him.

Now then, I’m sure you’re wondering what brought this on, so I’ll get to the story.

While I was staying at my mum’s, my two younger brothers and I went out to the bar on Wednesday evening. We were just going to have a drink and shoot the shit. Seeing as my home town is pretty small and it was the middle of the week, things were very dead. There were only about a dozen people in the place and six of them were my brothers friends.

We sat down and I saw a guy who looked very familiar to me. I was 99% sure I knew who he was, and he obviously thought he knew me as he kept looking at me, and I at him. I went to the bathroom and on my way back to our table he stopped me and asked if I was [insert my name here] and I said that I was. He grabbed me in a big hug and asked me how I’d been. I sat down at the table with him and his other friend and we started catching up on what all had been going on. I suppose he needs a name of some sorts for the purposes of this story, so we shall call him L. We hadn’t seen each other in five years, so there was quite a lot to tell. I also found out from him how a lot of our mutual friends were doing that I have lost touch with.

“I think about you a lot you know” he said. I was pretty surprised by that. L and I always had a bit of a crush on each other, but one of us was always involved with someone else and it never really worked out. One day, in a moment of mutual weakness, I gave him a blowjob (even though we were both dating other people) but that was about as far as it went. I hadn’t really expected him to still think about me and wonder what had become of me, but apparently he had.

I told him about Jack and the kids and what all I had been up to. He was still in shock that we had run into each other. He told me he never thought he would see me again and that he had wished I had kept in touch after I moved away. I was flattered that he was so happy to see me, and obviously all of our old feelings for each other hadn’t died off.

He had to get some cash from the ATM machine and he asked me to come with him. I thought that was sort of odd, since the ATM was just across the bar, but I figured he wanted to tell me something away from his friend, so I went with him.

“I’ve really missed you, ya know” he said while he punched in his pin number. I just smiled and said I was surprised that he even remembered me. He laughed and said “You gave me the most incredible blowjob of my life, I’ll never forget you as long as I live. I talk about you all the time actually. I can’t wait to tell everyone that I saw you, they’ll never believe it.” I wasn’t too sure what to say to that so I just smiled and nodded.

We went back to the table and he ordered us another round. He kept staring at me and grinning the entire time. Pretty soon one of my brothers came over and said that they had to take one of their drunk friends home. I told him not to worry about it, I could catch a cab home, and to tell mum that I ran into some people I knew and I would be home later.

L’s friend went to the bathroom and while he was gone L asked me pretty much out of nowhere if Jack and I were into swinging. If it hadn’t been glaringly obvious before it certainly was at that moment, he still wanted to get into my pants. I decided to just tell him the truth, so I explained that Jack and I have an open marriage and that I have a boyfriend as well and so on.

“I would love to take you home right now” he said. “I’ve wanted you pretty much since the moment I first laid eyes on you. For the past seven years I’ve been fantasizing about being with you… I wish things could have been different with you and me. I think we could have been really good together.”

OK then.

I hadn’t expected him to even know who I was let alone find out that he still wanted to be with me and had been carrying on his crush all this time. I’ll admit, flattery gets you pretty far with me, and he was laying it on thick. He all but asked me to marry him (although if I had been single I’m not entirely sure he wouldn’t have tried that).

His friend came back and he toned it down a little, but it was still very apparent that he was totally taken with me. His friend just smirked and the three of us chatted about mundane things.

L got a call on his cell phone and after hanging up he invited his friend and I over to his place because some other people were going over there and since the bar was closing right away he thought we could hang out more. I wanted to see some of my other friends from school so I said sure, I’d go over for a bit.

We caught a cab to L’s and I got to catch up with another old friend. She and her high school sweetheart (I knew both of them really well back then) are getting married and they already have a little girl together. I am so happy that they are still together and doing fine.

L wanted to show me the rest of his place so he took me on the tour. Even I realized that he just wanted to lure me into his bedroom, but I indulged him anyway. We went into his room (which was of course a mess) and he closed the door behind him. I turned around and he grabbed me and kissed me hard. I wasn’t totally expecting it, but I didn’t push him away. He let go and stepped back and sort of shivered, then he smiled and shook his head.

“You still have that affect on me, even after all this time.”

He kissed me again, and to make a long story short, we ended up having sex. And before anyone asks, yes we used a condom.

Immediately afterwards guilt set in. In the heat of the moment I had neglected to call Jack before I did anything. I was being selfish, and I can’t come up with any justifiable reason for not calling.

I told L I had to get going. We exchanged numbers with the promise of keeping in touch, and then I caught a cab back to my mom’s place.

I didn’t sleep much. I kept thinking about Jack and K and cursing myself for being such a dumbass. No sex I’ve ever had is worth disappointing Jack for, and I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t just said no to L. I don’t have any good reasons. All I can say is that I did have a lot of feelings for L way back then, and part of me did want to finally find out what it would be like to be with him. He’s very charming, he always has been, and he has always made me feel like I was the most special woman in the world to him. I wasn’t expecting him to still make me feel like that, but he did, and I just totally fell for it. Not that I’m saying he wasn’t sincere, because I know him well enough that I believe everything that he said. That doesn’t justify breaking my agreement with Jack, but I’m just trying to explain where I was coming from, so maybe I can figure out why I broke our rule.

In the morning I decided not to tell Jack what had happened until I got home from my mothers. He was at work and I didn’t want to unload it onto him until we actually had a chance to talk about it. In the past I have actually told him important things while he was working on purpose, because I knew he wouldn’t be able to freak out about it until he got home. However, that isn’t fair to him because then he gets distracted and upset at work and ends up getting nothing done and feeling like shit all day. It isn’t fair to do that to him, and I didn’t want to let myself off easy by telling him via e-mail or over the phone, I wanted to talk to him face to face.

However, I had to talk to someone about it because I was in a panic and the guilt was overwhelming. I called up V and spilled the entire story to her. She got me calmed down and reminded me that we all make mistakes (sometimes really big ones that we could have avoided with a little common sense). She gave me some encouragement and reassured me that in the end it would be alright and that regardless Jack would still love me, no matter how disappointed or angry or upset he got.

By the time the conversation ended I felt a little better. I was nauseated the rest of the day though and by the time I got home and Jack got home the thought of telling him made me want to throw up.

We sat down and I told him what had happened. He was understandably disappointed. He didn’t get angry or anything, it was more like he was really sad that I had broken the rules, yet again. He said he wasn’t sure we could continue having this open relationship if I couldn’t follow the rules. I had absolutely nothing to say in my defense. I mean, like I said, I can’t justify it at all. I was being totally selfish and that’s the bottom line.

I don’t blame him at all for being upset and for questioning his ability to trust me to abide by our agreements. Obviously I have a problem doing so. All I could do is sit there and feel miserable and guilty. Of course I apologized several times, but that really doesn’t make it all better. Jack still isn’t sure what to do. He said that it’s hard because he doesn’t want to just let it go, but that the same time there aren’t really any consequences to my breaking the rules (besides him being upset and me feeling like a big bag of poo). At the same time he says that he doesn’t know what it’s like to be in my situation, and I know he’s trying to be understanding, but I still don’t think I have any good excuse.

Right now I guess we’re basically not sure what to do about the situation. I don’t have any ideas, neither does Jack. We’ll talk more about it tonight I think and perhaps we can come up with something. I know he is hesitant to put a stop to us having an open marriage, but he is also frustrated with me because I have broken the rules three times now. I don’t really know why I don’t follow them. Basically I just get to a moment where I am totally selfish and not thinking of anyone but myself. Maybe I need to be put on probation for a while or something until I prove to Jack that he can trust me. I don’t know what exactly that would entail, but at this point I just don’t know what to do.

So, after I aired everything with Jack I called K. I knew I had to tell him what happened as well. I know that he would tell me if he fucked anyone else, and I always want us to have that openness, so I repeated it all to him. He actually reacted way better than I was expecting, which was a relief. K and I don’t have any rules between us per sae, but recently I told him that I wasn’t interested in pursuing anyone else and that I didn’t plan on hooking up with any other guys. K had been skeptical of that even at the time that I said it, but he was nice enough not to say “I told you so” too many times last night after I explained what happened. I never anticipated that I’d run into someone I used to be really attracted to and that he would still want me. I certainly wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone.

Our conversation made me feel better and worse at the same time. Better because K was really good about it and understanding and all that; worse because K was really good about it and understanding and all that and here I have gone and possibly compromised my relationship with him by breaking my agreement with Jack. If Jack decides that he really can’t trust me to follow the rules, K and I will have to be ‘just friends’ and it will be no ones fault but mine.

I just feel like shit about it all. I wish it had never happened, or at least that I had called Jack (if I had he would have vetoed me so nothing would have happened anyway). Why in the fuck can’t I listen to my own good sense and just do what I am supposed to do? Why do I always have to make things harder/more complicated/messier than necessary?

I didn’t want to blog about this because I hate looking like an idiot (although clearly my actions would show that I am one). There isn’t much point of blogging if I can’t be honest, and this is a pretty significant event as far as my relationships go, so there it is. You get the good, the bad, and the really bad.