How we all met

Hailee asked, a little while back, how we all met. These last few days have been just packed, and I haven't had time to sit and put coherent words together to tell that story. Now though, there seem to be a few quiet moments, so maybe I'll find some time to do that --

Our family came together by "chance" seemingly (if you believe in chance). I don't think any of us really think it was that, looking back now, but at the time, that is what it seemed to be. We were many hundreds of miles apart, and had no knowledge of one another at all.

I lived in Denver, Colorado at the time we first "met." At that time, I'd been married for about 25 years or so to the man who was the father of my two children, and the only man I'd ever been sexually intimate with.

He and I had both been raised Catholic with the usual sort of sexually repressive upbringing, and when our natural adolescent urges met up with the Church injunction against artificial birth control, we found ourselves pregnant and married (in that order) very young. I was just 21 when our son was born, and almost 23 when our daughter followed. I knew very little about who I was when I married, and even less about him. It didn't take me long to figure out that I had sexual appetites that ranged toward what I thought of, at the time, as the "dark" side. It also became very clear, very quickly, that my young husband was not very sexually inventive or adventurous, or actually even "hungry." Over the years, I tried on many occasions to interest him in various kinky fantasies of mine but such overtures always played out badly, and I always ended up feeling dirty and humiliated in the end. Mostly, I just tried to ignore my urges. I had two young children to raise after all, and, as it turned out, my husband was not a terribly effective or reliable wage earner. So I went to college and got my degree, and worked my tail off in the oil and gas and minerals industry. Eventually, all that repressed sexual energy got converted into hard work and paid off in some pretty high powered corporate exectutive positions. But late at night, I'd still lie awake and wish that I had someone to whom I belonged, with whom I could be safe...

And then, one day, I sat down at my new home computer and typed "spanking" into the search engine. One of the things I found were websites and listserves dealing with something called "Domestic Discipline." I timidly showed those to my husband, and he didn't seem quite as weirded out by that idea as he had been with the kinkier stuff. Domestic Discipline was more "acceptable," more "sanitized" than the more garden variety SM I'd always fantasized about... He was willing to sort of accommodate it, although, to tell the truth, I was still doing most of the "driving." We began to participate in a list called 1Household Discipline (which has since gone inactive although the archives remain). I did most of the posting for us both. Later, we also posted at another list -- 1 Domestic Discipline.

Far away, Master was dealing with His own difficult and unhappy marriage. I'll let Him tell what He chooses to about those years, but suffice it to say that His lovely children are the best thing to come out of nearly 30 years of loneliness and frustration with someone who could not seem to love Him at even the most elemental level. Eventually, He went through a painful and devastating divorce which left Him depressed and on the verge of suicide. He has shared some of the story of His adventures with what He calls the "sport fucking" phase of post-divorce life, but eventually, a mutual friend introduced Him to T. That "blind date" turned out to be a gift for us all. They met, talked, and fell quite utterly in love.

Maybe, if we can talk her into it, T will tell some of her history leading to that moment. She'd banged around a lot. Spent time on the old Prodigy BDSM Global list. She'd been around and knew who and what she was and what she would and would not put up with. She had no illusions. She had just about given up on finding "the man of her dreams," and then there was Himself. He was a sad case when she found Him, but T is a bright soul and she soon had Him dragged back from the brink of despair.

And then she got sick. Terribly sick. Horribly, awfully, life-threateningly sick. The earliest inkling that I had of the two of them were occasional posts on the listserve from this terribly frightened and desperate sounding man. He would come home from the hospital late at night and write heart-wrenching posts about this lady that He loved. It would be so clear that the lady was desperately ill, and that there was very little hope for a recovery. I'd read the posts and feel helpless and wordless in the face of His terror and grief. All the usual outpourings of sympathy and support just seemed -- trivial and trite, and so I said nothing.

But, miraculously, one day, the news was better and so was she. Slowly, there was improvement and renewed health and healing. Where there had been no hope, there was dawning joy. His love moved from intensive care and then, finally, came home from the hospital, and got slowly better. Still, I mostly just read what He wrote without comment. He was so taken with another, much more experienced writer on the list, and I was so green and so new, and so overawed with it all.

One day, He posted something about His lady being His collared submissive. That touched off a flurry of stuff on the list. I read, fascinated, but couldn't glean the one basic piece of information that I lacked... Finally, I got up the courage to post the question that I feared would brand me as too naive to be taken seriously be anyone: "would you please explain to me what does it mean: collared submissive?" That simple question was the first direct communication between The Heretic and I. He was most gracious, and I think, delighted to be able to explain. From that moment on, we were wrapped up in ongoing conversation about all sorts of things. I was a willing pupil, and He was an eager teacher.

Eventually, as my husband and I decided to venture further into the realm of BDSM, it was natural to turn to The Heretic and T for guidance and mentoring. We wrote to them off list, asking if they would undertake to advise us. We had in mind that they might offer us a list of reading perhaps, or maybe some good websites we could visit, maybe even a local conference we could attend. Imagine our surprise when they suggested that we come join them for Ohio Leather Fest! EEEEKKKK! It was a 1200 mile drive on the weekend before school started. We said, "yes." I worked to get my classroom ready, piled into the car, drove all night, arrive about noon, slept for a couple hours, and then prepared to meet these "friends" from the Internet for our first ever BDSM conference, our first ever dungeon experience, MY first ever spanking by someone who wasn't my husband -- I was an absolute wild bundle of nerves.

We met them and we loved them. The conversation that started that weekend just never ever ended. We spent a very few, very wild hours at the conference. Too soon, we had to hit the road and drive home to Denver to be ready for the first day of school on Monday morning, but the die was cast. None of us could have guessed that it would lead to our polyamory, although we did talk about poly (in general terms) that weekend.

Soon we were in communication by email and IM and phone whenever we could be. We traveled to visit each other as often as our finances would allow. Talk, talk, talk... Our attachment grew, but Master and I avoided the admission to our deepening affection. We simply did not "go there."

He and T married in the summer of 2001. They planned a reception for September. We decided to travel to be there. And then 9/11 happened and grounded all the planes. Our plans looked like they would be cancelled, but by 9/21, we were together and celebrating with our friends. Late at night, after all the partiers had gone to bed or headed home, He and I sat up on the living room sofa still talking into the wee hours of the morning... Suddenly He looked at me from the far end of the couch and declared, "I love you." My heart stood still in that moment... They were words I thought I would never hear and I was in heaven. He claims I lit up like a Christmas tree. I only know that I was thrilled and overjoyed and absolutely without a clue as to what we would do next. We were, after all, both married... Sigh...

My husband claimed that he was thrilled and happy with it all, had seen it coming and knew it would all be wonderful... that we would just become one big, happy family and it would surely work out...

T was stunned and hurt and angry and well... You name it and she was it...

We had a lot of stuff to work out and wait out and figure out. The feelings we had for each other were not going to simply go away. And neither of us wanted to hurt T any further. We hadn't meant to cause hurt but weren't willing to say "no" to "us" either. We decided to wait.

In November, The Heretic and T moved from one apartment to another. And I was 1200 miles away and no help at all. What could I do? Finally, I hit upon the idea of calling a local caterer and ordering a meal sent to them. Not a "fast food" dinner, but a real homecooked meal... So I got on line and found a local caterer who made roast beef and mashed potatoes and green beans and dessert and salad and rolls... the whole deal... They delivered it to them on the last day of the weekend after they'd been moving all weekend and living on pizza and burgers. When they called me, T was practically in tears. That simple act, of sending real food, made such an impact... and turned the tide. I'd touched my sister's heart in a very real way. T started to say that she thought this whole idea of us becoming one family could maybe work. I've joked ever since that if I'd known, I'd have sent roast beef a whole lot sooner.

Meanwhile, my husband continued to claim that all was well...

We planned to get together at New Year's to make plans. At that time, sitting in the apartment in Cincinnati, we decided we'd move together and try and become a family. And so the decision was made. Still, we hadn't set a date. We got on the plane and headed back to Denver once more, this time, with lots and lots of work ahead of us.

Not long after that, I was IM'ing with The Heretic, explaining how much there was to do before we could actually make the move -- a house to be sold, household goods to be sorted through, and jobs to be given up on one end and found on the other, and so much planning to do. I suggested that perhaps we could be in Cincinnati in two years. The heat coming through my screen was palpable... "Do you think we will live forever? Get here this summer!" He commanded. It was my first real taste of how things would be between us. There would be no hesitation on His part with me. He knew what and who I was in His life and He would have no foolishness about it. And so it came about that the house went on the market in March and was sold and we quit jobs and said goodbye and moved, arriving here in June, one day after school finished in Denver. Master, indeed.

There were ups and downs and adjustments in our first year or so. Coming together as a family was joyous and tumultuous. My husband, it turned out, was not entirely honest in his support for the whole "poly" thing. In fact, through all of our lives together, dishonesty had been a hallmark of his relational style. Not his fault, really -- there are "issues," but in our new, high-intensity, poly household, the stresses became intense and he "cracked." Eventually, in spite of a lot of effort, we couldn't hold on to him. There is some poly community wisdom that says that poly math often means that 2+2=3. For us that turned out to be true. So we are a triad and not a quad. It could be said that was a result of the poly, but I don't really believe that. I think that the poly made the necessity of that clear. It probably should have happened sooner, but we do what we can when the time becomes right.

I'm not sure it that answers the question asked. It is the best I can do this day I think.

swan