Chapter 4 - Making a Match II

   Not to dump something big then stand back and act like its no big deal, but... I'm in a three way relationship. Getting that out is one thing, but explaining and qualifying and quantifying it properly so you don't get the wrong idea would seem somewhat important to me. Why tap dance around the issue.

   There's always a straight to the point, nice and pat explanation. Then, there's nuance and how its not like... whatever. In that sense, I would guess that simply stating I'm in the three way relationship is the former. Leaving naturally the latter, so here goes.

   It might have been done at first, in college, for originally the typical reasons as everyone else trying it or doing it. You're young, you only live once, why end up 80 years old, sighing and wondering... what if I had just... but that was just the start. Hey, I had just discovered my kinky side with my new boyfriend I was so into. In any relationship? One partner smacks the other partner's ass and grins. The other? Sticks their rear end out and smiles lasciviously, and says something cute. Like... my team mates smack my ass harder than that, right on the field during games.

   Its going on in all or almost all relationships to one degree or another. Kinky couples just turn the volume up on that song. In that way, we were no different than most other college couples. We differed from the "norm" though, if calling kinky normal isn't too bad of an oxymoron to use. I swatted his behind, instead of the more normal reverse of that. That's just being fun or adventurous in the bedroom, though. We turned that song up louder than normal, so to speak. Same song playing though.

   There's an aspect of "sharing" that's powerful and intoxicating, in addition to being a seductive act. Young girls? Share. All there is to it. People think its all modern, that girls are a little more open about it these days, but honestly its always been there it was just an open secret. I blame the internet for these open secrets all being listed and given acronyms. If you quit listening to and reading of what people claim and simply make observations, it quickly becomes crystal clear. Most girls all place high ranking on a select few boys around. Like any limited resource, these high value boys are fought over. Either through conflict, competition, or by whatever other means the girls can make use of. And honestly, the message is clear.

   Most girls are chasing this small handful of boys. Only a few girls can win them, or win them for a time. Place a limited resource out anywhere, for children or adults or even old people. You can compete, or you can share. These are those seemingly magical boys, that date a different pretty girl every night of the week, if they choose to. The boys that are bored and yawn when another pretty girl is doing back-flips to get him to notice her. The girls at the top of the pecking order, pass these boys around and take their turns dating them. Hey, when you're done on the see-saw, can I be next? Sure. You shared with me last week. Both girls get a week long see saw ride. If the same two girls go the route of an eye scratching contest? Only one can win. Moreover, they run the risk of both losing and some third girl swooping in while they're at each other, and make off with that prize.

   They're more likely to share the see saw next time.

   Boys categorize their peers into useful piles. We know each other. We get along. We're friends, we're buddies, we're like brothers. We're acquaintances, we're real friends. Boys are more prone to be taught to differentiate acquaintances from true friends. Girls tend to lump all acquaintances, and friends, and everything else? All under the umbrella of "my friends".

   The one girl you actually hate in the group? Its your "friend". You cut and snip at each other all catty, and have the little games of one upping each other in all ways. But girls have their own acquaintance/friends categories too. There's friends, and best friends. Sure, some girls proclaim best friends quick, and turn their back on it lightly. Others, treat it like something important.

   Anyways, best friends will share a guy. The open secret is out, and if this is in any way shocking to you? You need to get out more. If you hear a guy bragging how he's fucking his girlfriend's best friend and room mate, and its been going on a while? The girlfriend is either clueless for the time being, or more likely? The girls already agreed to the share. If you tell the girlfriend, and she simply won't believe it, and that's not like her to be so blind? Its often a share.

   Now guys? I trust you both. I'm going to the store, then to run a few errands. I'll be a couple hours. Don't you do anything I wouldn't do. Ha. The alleged "player" boyfriend thinks he's the man, he's having his cake and eating it too. He walks around with a new found swagger. When he's suddenly "caught"? That was planned too. Well. You like my best friend so much? Date her then, you bastard. The girls might even have a light spat over it, then quickly resolve to not let "some boy" ever come between what they have, as best friends. The boys all fall for this show, and never learn.

   Please. Its planned. Both girls, as well as about 50 others in the near vicinity? Know exactly what's going on, and moreover what's going to happen and when. Getting caught, switching girlfriends, etc. The girls are gossiping about it all in the bathroom when they crowd in there. The boys are the only ones who are clueless.

   And more often than the people that should get out more realize? The best friend, room mate girls... simply share, and even somewhat openly. Yeah, sure. Its my turn. Friday night? I'll get him drunk, I won't be as drunk as I seem like, and... you do an oops at my bedroom door that won't be locked and join in before he can say no.

   Well, that's a garden variety three way that night. Some of them turn into temporary three way relationships, but there are caveats. There's typically a traditional couple. There's also the proverbial third wheel. Everyone knows who is who in all this. When there's a row over it a little later? Its almost always because the third wheel and one of the base partners are getting into each other and sharing emotionally outside the bedroom. You're not mad your best friend is sleeping with your boyfriend, you dared her and put her up to it. You're mad she has the nerve to try to make a real play for him, beyond the physical fun. Here, you can ride my new bike! That turns into... you're not going to ride my new bike more than I do, sister.

   The weird thing is? Its not cheating. Its planned and allowed fun for you and your boyfriend. You're the girlfriend that smiles and waves on Friday night as he goes out with the boys. You're the fun girlfriend.

   One point out of many, is that its done for lighthearted fun. I didn't run around a lot in high school, and didn't at college either. Then? Wouldn't it just be decadent to... and I did. My one team mate room mate had shared with the other team mate room mate one weekend with some lucky boy. The one, was not only my team mate and room mate, she was my actual best friend, little sister, all that.

   She was the bad girl, I was the good girl. I wanted to be a little more bad, to have fun. But remember, if you will. Our own hot private game, was pretending I owned him and he had to do anything I wanted in bed. I'll emphasize the "anything" part here. I wasn't the kind of girl to run around, and he wasn't the sort of guy to run around on me. It was sweet and funny, because I had to badger and threaten and cajole him into it. Wizzy was a dyed in the wool nice guy. I mean, any other girl brings that up, even a whiff of it? Yeah! Great idea. Right the hell now a good time? Woo!

   Not me. Any more resistance to my fun plan, and I'd have had to put a gun to his head, to march him into her bedroom. It was deliciously bad fun. It changed very quickly though, yet so deftly none of us realized it until it had happened. We all cared about each other. Equally. He was in big trouble if he didn't spend time with her or was just having fun with no strings.

   She was no third wheel in the end, which happened quicker than we realized. She was in private, a full and equal partner. In public? He held either of our hands, either of us or both of us hung all over him. Everyone did a double take. How was this quiet polite guy pulling this off. How was the perennial good girl suddenly dressing sexy and admitting the three way publicly. How was the consummate bad girl suddenly off the market, and adopting jeans and T shirts more often like I did.

   She was damaged goods. She had been repeatedly drugged and gang raped and whore-d out by her madam mother to the boys and men of their small town and whoever else had the cash and was interested. A seemingly idyllic small town? Run by a criminal that ran it with an iron fist.

   Love, actual love? Was an abstraction to her. It was something from black and white movies on weekends. Having an actual dad, a actual mom that stayed with him, and tests could confirm dad was actually the real dad? Was something again, from the world of black and white movies. A bygone era.

   It started out as a fun lark. Then a couple more, then... it suddenly became a trial run for her learning and experiencing what an actual adult relationship could and should be. I was choosy with my few boyfriends. I stayed in and did without until the right guy came along. She was... getting sex because love was something interrupted and ruined by her 14 year old's trauma. She had the highest level panic attacks, to get into any car with any boy. A boy couldn't so much as buy her a pencil. She couldn't enter a convenience store with any guy that was simply planning on buying her a candy bar and a soda pop.

   I was her therapist, best friend, older sister, everything.

   She was allowed to tell him, that she loved him. As long as she thought she meant it. She would beg him pitifully to really put it to me? So she wouldn't have to go away if I felt ignored.

   By the time he got shot, we had plans that if nothing changed by the time we were all graduated and out and about? Me and him were definitely getting married, but... the "room mate" in public? Would in actuality be a second wife. An equal partner. I know practically anyone, that's male or female, understands two people being dead serious about the relationship. This was no different, except for one small detail. The extra girl in it.

   She was as devastated as I was at his murder. Yet, whereas she seemed to "recover" back into what she had been at the start? A setback in her improvement, to be sure. She got off easier than I did. I lost all emotions, and my life changed drastically.

   So. When Panic was Wizzy reincarnated? I finally got the nerve up to share it with her. Who he really was. She didn't roll her eyes, but she wanted to meet him. She was happy as all get out, that I finally had a relationship after years of... well? I ended up like she had been, before this all started. I went out to score the minimum number of partners, just often enough to keep me going. Like a starving person, eating enough to keep breathing. You do survive, but you can't hardly call it living.

   She reverted back to this after his death, but went from her original "monthly" plan to less often. Me? I ironically ended up the same way. A light version of her, in her sex only, love is impossible, world view.

   After she met him and stayed the weekend? She admitted. Yeah. It is crazy, but... I can see it and hear it and feel it too. Then, she did it. Hey sis? Yeah, honey. If its really him? Where's me. Wizzy was going to have two wives.

   Once again? It was Wizzy 2.0, all over again. I had to sweet talk and cajole him into it. And once again, it quickly turned into what we had enjoyed in college. Its him though, it has to be.

   In college? When the former MP learned as I learned about the dark secrets in her past? He was livid. He was her boyfriend and lover. But also part big brother, part father figure, part everything. He got to see the breakdowns, bad ones. What damaged goods looks like from the inside. The self hate, the self loathing. She's quite pretty, and seeing her a hot screaming mess for hours was torture for us as well as for her. Maybe even more so. Her running theme? You know, and you still want me. I was the town's public toilet.

   When he said... if I ever get my hands on this asshole that did this to her? I'm going to beat him to death with my bare hands. It was that cold dispassionate look of a father who wasn't kidding.

   Before he was shot, I found out that he wasn't kidding. He made good on his threat.

   And like any parents, shielding a child from the true nature of exactly how cruel and unyielding the world can actually be? She didn't need to know that he had done that. Nor naturally, that me and him and a third person had straight taken out her mother as well that night.

   The only mercy he showed her whore of a madam mother, that had put her up for not just sale, but wholesale? Or is that hole-sale. Sorry. Wizzy was all about puns and plays on words. So is Panic. But, the only mercy he granted her was that she didn't know it was coming and it was painless. The son of the man that ran the town with an iron fist? Knew it was coming, and it wasn't quick. Mister Big's demise? Somewhat in between these two extremes. But yeah. We took those three out that wild night? Like we were ordering pizza.

   She's as happy and as well adjusted as she had been just before Wizzy was shot. We finally made it back to what we had originally and had treasured. But now?

   She's finally growing and blooming. She has a no sex yet relationship, with a great guy. He's a little younger than her, but she's pretty enough to pull that off. They look like two old time teenagers hanging out. Nothing technically going on, but it seems everyone else but them sees it plain as day. When's the wedding.

   Her full bloom? She's never in her life put off sex like this before. I can't believe the circle is closing. She's finally going to take flight, not just glide and flutter, a safe and prolonged fall that only looks like real flying. This fucking world we live in. She should have had this at 14, instead of what she got instead. She's in her thirties and finally about to get there, if nothing fucks it all up.

   The guy? That's Junior, or JG if you prefer. He's also known as "Pigeon Man", but that's a computer geek thing he shares with Panic. A fellow tech geek. When those two pull something off? They say one or both "flapped". Because if one or both of them uses their technical prowess to accomplish the gray area goal quietly? That's Pigeon Man showing that he still has it. Pigeon man, after all? Is... the terror that flaps in the night.

   Its so juvenile and silly, that its sweet.

   JG likes Szarabjorna Sturmer, a lot, and its obvious. She likes him back equally, and its like waiting for the national anthem to be played before the sporting event. Me and Panic are just waiting to hear the first few notes.

   JG has been told, in no uncertain terms. If Zar wants to be with him? That's her choice. The fact she's in a very real close romantic relationship with both of us? We're both equally happy if she stays, or tries to finally fly on her own and take flight. We've both, told both of them this? Over and again.

   Oh. Last thing. In college after it became obvious and routine? We all three slept in the same bed. With our three way relationship as it was, I would hope its kind of obvious we all did more than simply sleep. And yes, what you might think also went on? Did. Me and her, well... we had sexual contact and more, and quite regularly. Yet, only with him. We never touched each other once without him there.

   Its been that way for years now, again. He goes and stays at her apartment in the city where she works, for ten days a month. She works a 20 day on, 10 or 11 days off schedule. Its a DC thing you don't see as much as elsewhere around the rest of the country. DC in fact, has a lot of caveats and that's just one of them. Or, she comes in for the ten or eleven days off to stay with us.

   We're not... your typical middle aged people acting like teenagers and carrying on. Look at us, how wild and crazy we are. Everything is as serious and as romantic and as wholesome as it could possibly even be... it just has two girls instead of one, that's the only thing out of the ordinary.

   Christ almighty, listen to me. I sound like a pain pill addict, explaining that since the doctors did this and had to, because of a bad car wreck? It somehow explains it away, and absolves all responsibility for being a real life junkie. Yet, when the accident victim had no choice but to use pain pills too long and getting hooked was inevitable? You have a soft spot in your heart for them, or at least as much as you can muster.

   Szarabjorna, and the three way relationship? Kind of like that. It was as close as she could get, to a real adult relationship based on love and trust and all the good stuff. If she was meant to go off of the "pain pills" but got hooked and couldn't go off? Please don't think of her as some... ultra modern turbo-whore like so many women are these days. Everyone viewed her as just another pretty face in college, and saw her as a fast girl that was into one night stands and flings that never lasted. A typical bad girl.

   When in fact? She was anything but.

   Here, I'll give you a little karma lesson. God, the full circle of it all. Wizzy introduced me to karma. I picked it up from him. Now Panic? Is another karma follower. And here I am. I've gone from being taught karma, to experiencing it. I'm now an agent of karma, and I'm explaining it to someone else. If we have a soul that lives on after our death? That's Wizzy's. His karma seed he planted in me, has grown into the big tree.

   The tree is mature I guess, because I find myself explaining karma basics to anyone who asks about such things.

   The tree, is dropping seeds now.

   Oh, your karma lesson. Right, right. Here's one. There is no good and bad, not really. The traditional introduction? Stealing is bad. But, if you don't steal that loaf of bread to feed your starving wife and child? What was good, is now the worst thing possible. In fact, you can find no end of these examples. So, its clear. There is no right and wrong, no good and bad. There's only what it is, to you, in your situation at the moment.

   Zar was a sports star at a big top ten university right alongside me doing the same, she was just a bigger star. You could say that a girl averaging a different boy every month or thereabouts, and refusing to date or do anything with a boy outside of the bedroom, was... bad. We all know its being bad. We laugh, and say it with relish and zeal.

   And that's what everyone saw, bar none, to look at her. But now I peeled the curtains back for that quick peep into the backstage of the performance. Now, you can see it. She was hurt, bad. Really bad. How she didn't take her own life after the 4 years of hell she lived in before escaping never to return, ever? None of us can fathom. But... after 4 years of the entire little town seeing her as the little whore daughter of the big whore madam mother? The whore of whores that took on dozens of guys on those dark nights they sold her out? To the town, she was just pretty garbage.

   She escaped. Like a person out finally after a 4 year stint in prison? She wanted to be with a boy. No one can fault her. And when she found out she was a hotter mess than she knew, and was phobic and panic stricken at everything but sex that has to do with a normal relationship, well... she quite simply did the best that she could do, given her circumstances. Wait long enough, you'll get hungry enough. You know you want that big, full, three course meal. But if for whatever reason that isn't in the cards, you'll eventually just pull into the nearest drive through and your meal gets tossed through your car window in a paper sack.

   Good, bad... pah. She did the best she could manage. Here's your second introduction to karma lessons.

   Killing human beings? That's just wrong.

   Really. Your husband or son gets drafted to go fight world war three. Do you want him to return home a disgraced coward? Because in world wars, they keep guys from the same zip code together when they draft them and put them on the front lines. Know why? Its no accident. Men are way more likely to suck it up no matter how terrified, and try... when guys they grew up with and live with are around. And when its over if they live... they have to go home and face everyone. And if you're the coward in town?

   Your buddies all saw it, and know. Everyone from your hometown will know. Your mother and father and sister will know what you were. And that everyone else managed better than you did. Men that were afraid to fight? Didn't get the pick of the litter to participate in the baby boom that followed world war two. Like every other guy got. You didn't have to be a hero with medals, you just had to stay alive and not get labeled a coward.

   Imagine it, what that would even be like. Because that, is what our great grandfathers went through. You were in combat, and failed. The ugly fat chick in town when you get home? Would rather not fuck you let alone marry you and bear your children, unless she has no other choice. And the guy down the street, that was drafted but got plopped on working a chow line somewhere? He's no hero, but he's no failure. He fed the heroes. He helped. He gets to come home, and still get a pretty wife and moderate respect from the men.

   These men that failed in combat, in front of their peers? Many of them killed themselves after they made it home. And the chow line worker, that risked nothing but boring work for a year or two? He gets almost as good a deal, as the couple guys that wear medals.

   The chow line worker, risks nothing and gets almost everything. Of course the hero gets everything, its his just reward. But the guy that failed in combat? He's punished beyond all proportion to his crime. Hell. Chow line? Might have been a bigger coward, who will ever know.

   But remember the start of this. Killing? That's just wrong.

   No its not. Defending your country, and all the helpless women and children and old people back home? The more enemy you kill, the more ruthless you are at it? That's not just good, that's great. You deserve all the wonderful things, all the little perks, that go along with it. You have high status. The prettiest women flock to you. Other men respect you and admire you, and many will hero worship you.

   No end to the drinks you get at the bar from well wishers. Hey, just my little thank you, guy. Good job. The waitress? You get a double slice of the apple pie. You get women all but fighting over you, and you get a pretty wife. You're her big hero. Her girlfriends are all jealous she landed you. She does dirty things with a smile, because she actually loves her husband.

   And this hero guy? Could be a young serial killer looking for his first chalk outline... before getting drafted. Wow. I get to kill people? Awesome. I get rewarded for it? Double awesome.

   Now look at the so called coward. He could well be like he is, because his parents were big on church. Memorize these ten commandments. Oh hey, thou shalt not kill? We were just kidding about that one. God wants you to kill!

   Its supposed to be "good" to follow the rules. Don't steal, don't kill. Oh, snap. The great depression is on? Ah, steal food or money, commit a few felonies. What are you, some asshole who won't do what it takes to keep his wife and child from starving to death? The hell's even wrong with you. Oh, snap. World war kicked off. Killing is good! Killing is natural! Look at mother nature, its fine!

   And the "good" kid, who followed the rules, thou shalt not kill? Not killing is wrong. You? Are not bad... you're just terrible. Enjoy the rest of your miserable existence, we're all kind of curious you haven't figured it out yet. When are you going to finally do the world a favor, and just hang yourself. We have a tip board pool going down at the local bar, on that one. The preacher? Has dibs on July.

   So, there you are. The so called rules, are fine only as long as everything else is fine. The situation itself? Actually determines what is good, or bad, or right, or wrong. Its no belief, its simply the truth. Its obvious. Karma is not a religion, its more of a practical way of viewing everything as it really is. For what it truly is. Religion? Seeks to look at everything... as it should be. And if everyone or almost everyone participates or so much as pretends to? It sort of creates what should be in the first place.

   That's not real, though. Its a group delusion.

   Karma? Allows for all the bad in the world to exist. And all the good. When good things happen to people that do good things? Sure, it squares up with any system. Same as when bad things happen to people who do bad things. Square deal there, as well. But what about when great people, have horrible trauma befall them. Like Szarabjorna. Karma allows for it. And when you scratch you head at many puzzling things. Things religion can't explain away. Karma has your answers. All of them.

   Girls actually like assholes, much more than they like nice guys. What the hell? Not what I was taught.

   Thou shalt not kill, my dimpled well tanned ass. War, self defense, police... all wonderful and its all about people killing.

   Thou shalt not steal, huh? Another fairy tale.

   Karma, is all powerful. It allows for all cases. It covers all bases.

   Many if not most religions? Teach you to be a sort of pacifist. Love thy enemy. Turn the other cheek. The weak are the most powerful. The meek, shall inherit the earth. Really? Show me one example of that, in mother nature.

   Love thy enemy. The first mouse to take this out for a spin, and invite the next door cat over for a sleepover on the porch? Is dinner.

   Turn the other cheek. Real smart, your adversary will bite that one off, too.

   The weak are the most powerful? I can't make an example, without bursting out in laughter.

   The meek shall inherit the earth? That's where you're wrong, kiddo.

   None of this squares up or makes any sense under traditional religion. All of it makes perfect sense, under karma. There is no... leap of faith, to karma and embracing it and feeling it working. Honestly, just common sense. No invisible man, that lives in the sky. He can hear your thoughts, he can read your mind. No cosmic Santa Claus, rewarding the pious and destroying the wicked.

   Other cultures, look up at the torture scenes of Christ nailed to the cross. All the blood, all the wounds and torture. Its really more than a little macabre, when you stand back from outside our culture and really see it for the first time.

   Karma? Makes perfect sense, when explained correctly. To nearly anyone. Especially outsiders.

   Unfortunately though, in our culture? Karma is a last port of call for people looking for something, anything... that will help them make some sense of this crazy world we live in. And? karma, wants nothing from you! There's no real church. No one begging for money. No golden chalices and ornate statues and buildings and robed figureheads talking in a strange language.

   We walked to town, and watched the morning mist and fog, give way to the beams and shafts of light that warmed and spotlighted things perfectly. I stood a few seconds, and enjoyed my emotions being back again. A poignant shaft of light shown down, and illuminated this one tree, just so. It was beautiful. Like a sunset or a sunrise, or a beautiful day with brilliant blue skies, and just enough clouds to form interesting roiling caricatures in the sky.

   I have to watch, because I can cry now. I can feel again. The universe? I feel its pleased with me, that I answered its call for years. Its giving me back steadily, all that was robbed of me when I was 21 and tasted... well, you know what I tasted.

   I'm more at peace with this strange world and the equally strange and quixotic universe we exist in. Perhaps even more than if it had all went normal for me. I stood there, and smiled. A real one. Not one I learned to make and refined and perfected to hide. I didn't grab his hand. I just put mine out without looking. His hand? Without him looking, just naturally finds mine.

   Just for a moment, everything is perfect.

   "I like the mist and the fog. I know you like a clear sunrise, and seeing the watercolors in the sky."

   "Its fine. Without your fog? That perfect shaft of sunlight, couldn't do that. Its... just beautiful."

   He nodded.

   "And what about you. If it was a clear morning, would it be all right."

   He paused.

   "Its like you're asking me, why I like blue instead of green. No reason. It just is."

   There's karma. It just is.

   "Its fine. Stand here and enjoy it a little while. I know its your kind of morning."

   When the little breaks in the misty fog, had finally adjusted around and it changed and was gone... we continued the walk to town. We're extra early. Getting a head start on some good, wholesome ritual.