A World in Us Read online

  “I don’t understand why,” said Morten’s father when he heard about it. “Why do you have to go and publicise it? Isn’t it enough that you do it in private?” He was supportive of our situation, but critical of anything he considered unnecessary thrill-seeking.

  Elena sat up and started to speak, but I stepped over her and said, “You have to stand up for what you believe in. We believe in the ability to choose your relationship configuration, and we’ve been criticised for doing so. Fighting for the right to choose, if not the choice itself, is important.”

  Afterwards, Elena had thanked me for sticking up for her.

  “No one’s ever done that before,” she added, a little sadly.

  “I wasn’t sticking up for you, really,” I bristled at her comment. “I was sticking up for my principles.”

  Secretly I suspected that Elena wanted the article more for the fame than for fighting against the patriarchal system of marriage. But hey, did it really matter?

  “Well, I think you were sticking up for me. And it felt good.”

  It had taken some careful consideration before I agreed to take part in the article, and I had grilled Elena carefully about the editorial content. She assured me that not only would she write it, but I could veto anything if I thought it was out of line. It depended on us all taking part, because an article where four people were willing to “come out” was far juicier than an article that made a claim of open marriage without any supporting evidence.

  But as it turned out, we were all screwed eventually. The article came out in the twentieth-anniversary edition. The cover was emblazoned with gold. It looked rich and glamorous…until you opened the pages where our story made it look cheap and tawdry. The text was fine. But the headlines told a different story.

  “I’m Elena…meet my boyfriend Gilles and his girlfriend Louisa…who sleeps with my husband Morten.”

  They had “forgotten” that Gilles and I were married. It made the headline more sensational.

  “Elena and Gilles (left) sleep together, while Elena’s husband Morten (right) has sex with Louisa.”

  The photographer had told me not to smile in the photos. I was to look sultry and sexy. And in the tiny hope that I might look halfway decent in a photo for once, I obeyed him. As it turned out, every photo of me — not smiling — was grim and looked like I was as miserable as hell. Which was naturally the first thing my mother called to my attention the next time we met.

  I was tired of defending our life to the outside world. Tired of pretending there were no problems. Other people got support in their relationships, but for us there was little support, few therapists and lots of moral outrage.

  I spent my time alone in Paris, waiting for the moment when I could move. And as my sense of isolation grew, so did my insecurity.

  21

  For the next months I commuted as often as I could. I was lonesome and emotional. It was such a big step, such a big change. And people at work were starting to notice my inability to deliver.

  I hoped that Gilles was doing everything that he had promised me to make our future brighter. The reason for his moving over to England had been to pursue his career in fitness. But after four months there was no sign of an inclination to get a job.

  Our instant chats were as breezy, loving and naturally full of quotes as they had always been. We hid behind other people’s dialogue to avoid the uncomfortable questions. There was no communication around his professional aspirations and, loath to nag him, I sourced my information from Morten over the phone.

  “Do you know how Gilles is getting along in the job hunt?”

  “Not well, according to Elena. He’s depressed,” said Morten.

  “How come? Is there something wrong?”

  “Nooo. Not exactly.” Morten speculated for a minute. “I think he feels the pressure of your expectations and finds it hard to motivate himself to get a job in an area where he has little confidence.”

  “How can he feel the pressure of my expectations? We don’t talk about it. He’s projecting the pressure on himself.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, I know. But even I can hear how dis­appointed you are in him. He probably hears it too when you talk.”

  I inhaled the unfairness of it all whilst acknowledging that he was right. Because I was more than disappointed. I was angry at Gilles. And I couldn’t make myself not be.

  “I have only ever wanted him to be happy, and as the years have gone by, I have lowered my expectations until now all I want is for him to find something that motivates him. It doesn’t even have to be paid, especially since I support him financially.” I couldn’t resist rubbing it in one more time to Morten and immediately regretted it. I felt mean and stingy and mercenary. Polyamory was bringing out all my bad sides.

  Every three weeks or so when I could get over to England we congregated at Elena and Gilles’s place. At least that’s how it felt. Elena and Gilles were the couple, and Morten was my boyfriend and the third wheel. I looked at Elena with our two men at her beck and call and started to feel sorry for myself. But Elena, a contradiction as always, wrong-footed me.

  “It’s odd,” she said. “You’d think I’d be really happy with two men here, and in some ways I am. But somehow there is always a piece missing, and when you come over it’s like we’re complete.”

  My heart warmed, hearing her words. Feeling ostracised simply by geographical distance was doing nothing for my sense of security. I felt like I was busy working to support Gilles’s relationship with another woman and receiving nothing in return. It was at times like this when I badly needed to feel loved and appreciated that words like Elena’s mattered most.

  “In any case, you’ll be here permanently in two months’ time and then we can be together all the time. Just the four of us.”

  So close and yet so far. I had barely warmed to her before I felt ugly tentacles of conflict reach up to claw me back into the murky depths of dislike. I didn’t want to be together all the time. I badly needed to touch base with Gilles. I was losing him. We were unable to communicate about his life, his future and my worries. We needed to work on our relationship and change the dynamic somehow. Because right now he was my primary partner only according to our marriage certificate. He confided in Elena, had better and more regular sex with Elena, and spent more time with Elena — when they weren’t arguing or on a break. I felt trapped by my own restraints. I didn’t want to ask the questions that would help me understand what was going on for fear of learning what I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t work on our relationship as long as all his energy was flowing into her. And my energy, which found no way into Gilles, was flowing into Morten. I clung to the hope that when I moved to England it would be different. Elena and I would work on building a relationship; Gilles and I would be spending more time in each other’s company.

  “Where are you tonight?” typed Gilles.

  “Hungary. Rolling out this project. Well, not rolling it out right now. Actually watching ‘Iron Man’ on hotel TV with room service,” I typed back.

  “It’s a hard life!” he replied. “But wasn’t Robert Downey Jr. on your list? You know you can actually get off with real people, darling. You don’t have to sit there watching celebrities.”

  I could have gone out. I could have had a good old snog to make me feel better. But I knew that it would make me feel more alone than ever.

  “I’m not interested,” I said. “Open relationships would be even better if there was more time in the day. Plus I am too depressed to flirt properly without alcohol and have a breakfast meeting tomorrow.”

  “Why depressed?” said Gilles, concerned. His family had a history of depression, and in his mind there was nothing worse than this.

  “I miss you,” I said. “Everything seems worse when we’re apart.”

  “I miss you too, darling. But remember we’re together for life. A
couple months is a drop in the ocean. The future is ours. Me as a personal trainer and you as a top exec.”

  “How’s that going, by the way?” I dropped it in at what I hoped was a natural part of the conversation.

  “Good. I was going to get a job, as you know. But then I real­ised that my body is my ticket to a new career. If I am going to start my own personal trainer business, I have to look the part y’know.”

  “I think you already do. And so do my friends. Whenever you put those half-naked bodybuilding pose pictures up on Facebook they ping me asking what it’s like to have sex with someone so fit.”

  “Do you tell them about the night of five times?” said Gilles, quoting Friends.

  “Yeah honey, if there was a night of five times it hasn’t been with me lately.”

  “Ah well,” he replied offhandedly, “not long to go now.”

  “You were telling me about your plan…”

  “I’m building my own website. I spend most time on that and at the gym now.”

  “Are you OK for money then? You must be running out,” I said.

  “No worries, that five grand you transferred has lasted. Elena and I stay in most nights.”

  I wondered what Morten was doing all this time. Whilst Gilles and Elena were having sex. But I didn’t want to ostracise Gilles, criticise him or, above all, lose him. So, as usual, I said nothing.

  22

  I had longed for them all from abroad. For Gilles, my constant, my hero. For Morten, my romantic, my open and enlightening soul. And even for Elena, the irrepressible but exciting drama queen. Together we made a strong team to fight for poly­amory. So far we had survived society’s backlash, family backlash and logistical nightmares. All for the sake of love.

  When I finally reached England, we’d decided to move to Notting Hill. Out of all the areas in London, it was the only one I’d really heard of — romanticised by the film — and somewhere I envisaged a bohemian lifestyle of music, togetherness, parties and love. I wasn’t far off. Our apartment was just next to Portobello Road. Morten and Elena lived a stone’s throw away.

  “You see, you and Elena have the stuff. Ladies’ Stuff,” explained Morten, giving it a capital “L” and a capital “S.” “Gilles and I don’t really need the stuff. So it’s really your apartment and Elena’s apartment. Gilles and I can just move between them.”

  And so they did. On the several mornings a week when we’d spent the night with our poly partners, Gilles and Morten would pass each other at 8 a.m. on the road back to their respective homes five minutes apart and give each other a secret grin and wink. Only they knew what they’d been up to.

  We lived much of the time in a loved-up bubble. Evenings spent together cuddling on the couch. Nights out at glamorous parties. Flexible friends over for dinner. Days out ice skating, the four of us holding hands as we whizzed round the rink.

  But Elena took a lot of energy. Her emotions were transient. When she was up, it could have an exhilarating effect. We had parties, went shopping, went to the cinema to dance and sing to Mamma Mia at the top of our voices. She was the life and soul of the party. When she was down, it took its toll on all of us. For Elena suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder…which meant that her journey was a tough one, and so was ours. From the times we had to pick her bodily up off the floor, distraught, to the time we spent two hours trying to cajole her out of bed for Christmas lunch. Elena was an actress and a singer. A very good one. But she’d been out of work for years. She’d say, “I have an audition.” Or...“I’ve got a part in a music video.” Or…“They want me to sing in their band.”

  And each time we’d applaud. Maybe this time she would go for it. Maybe this time she’d be happy with it. Maybe this was the turning point for her depression.

  Self-sabotage was Elena’s way of binding people to her. She needed rescuing. And victimisation was her excuse. As well as mine. The foretelling of the loss of both my partners threw me back into my childhood drama of abandonment and rejection. We took turns in playing victim and persecutor, whilst Morten and Gilles were the rescuers. When we weren’t playing victim and persecutor, Elena and I were friends. The foursome worked. We went to museums together, we watched films together, we ate together. We were like a family.

  But as months wore on, it became more and more obvious that the relationship was becoming romantically unbalanced. That initial lust just kept on going. And the longer we spent with our new partners, the less able we were to be with our spouses. And yet, it was still magical. Imagining a relationship where you could keep your husband as your best friend and occasional bed partner whilst incorporating a new love kept us all clinging to the hope it might work: past and future intertwined. Current and past loves committed — through choice — into a family.

  In every family, there are issues. But families are bound by blood. And in the end, we…were not.

  Elena’s and my issues clashed. So much so that it was she and I who went most often to couples therapy. Not just once, maybe ten times in all, both of us entrenched in the “rightness” of our point of view (that’s a lot of money and effort just to persuade another person that you’re right).

  This story pivots on our relationship. But as all stories are, it is one point of view. There is also Elena’s story.

  Her story of us.

  Her story of now.

  And her story of the past.

  But it’s hers to tell.

  23

  “I love the idea of a community,” Elena said, sipping on her glass of sauvignon blanc. “I have always lived with many siblings, and Morten and I always thought that a parenting team of two was too small.”

  We were taking time out over an expensive glass of wine to dream aloud together. It was a passion we had discovered that we shared.

  “I never lived with any siblings. I spent most of my time by myself. I guess that’s why I like the idea of a community,” I said.

  “Oh my,” she said. “I never even had my own room. What was it like?”

  “Like I didn’t have to share!” I said, laughing. “Very unlike now.”

  Elena was wearing my Joseph silk blouse and hadn’t asked to borrow it. To be fair, she had donated half her wardrobe to me because she thought it suited me better. She didn’t like my wardrobe (and had thrown some of it out). But it still irritated me when she assumed she could borrow clothes. Growing up as an only child meant that I lived by the ethos “What’s mine is mine. And what’s yours is mine.” She looked at my new boots and sighed.

  “I wish we were the same size feet.”

  One side of me said, Thank God we aren’t. Because she’d probably look better in them than me. The other side of me said, That would be really cool. So what I said was “Mmmmm.” And drank some more wine.

  As was always the case, I knew we would be hearing from those two voices later. They were like Statler and Waldorf, the two old men shouting from the balcony in The Muppet Show. They provided regular heckling on my life.

  I often heard the voices in my head. There was a scared ego inside of me that craved control and power. The child within that had developed barriers and boundaries as a framework for her life. Many of my battles were to try and dismantle this. My possessions, my home, my space, my security. And yet I didn’t function the same way about Gilles. He was not “mine” to share. He was a person who chose to spend his time with both of us, ranking neither one of us above the other. Most people found this aspect of poly life inconceivable. How generous it all seemed.

  “Why did you get so upset with me the other day when I pointed out what I liked in your house?” Elena said. “You’re so difficult to understand sometimes.”

  “It’s hard to vocalise something that I have never felt before. But it’s like you have taken the place of my mother.”

  That hadn’t come out right. “I don’t mean like my mother,”
I said, trying to clarify and failing miserably. “I mean like my mother in that she is the only close female who has been involved in my household before. You were pointing out what you liked. But what I heard was everything you didn’t say. The things you didn’t like. I felt judged and then criticised. It made me feel insecure, and I don’t like feeling insecure. No one does. Even my friends don’t give an opinion until they are asked. And even when I ask, they may not tell me. Or they’ll say something like ‘Well, I preferred the brown, but the pink is more you.’”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” said Elena uncomprehendingly. “If it were the other way round I would want you to tell me straight out that something was ugly.”

  I wasn’t quite sure whether this was true. Hadn’t she been hurt on numerous occasions by my honesty? The problem was that my honesty only ever came out to play in our arguments. It was not when I was at my most tactful.

  “But I don’t,” I said. “I need tact. I need gentleness. I know it must sound ridiculous. After all, most people strive towards honesty. But you must admit, you and I are in a relationship that has no guidebook. For me especially; I never even had a sister, and this is like having an immediate wife. Without the sex, of course.”

  At that rather repugnant thought, we both reached for our wine glasses. We were so much like family in that sense that by then any direct sexual interaction was out of the question.