A World in Us Read online

  Trying to explain my world to Elena was difficult.

  “The other difficulty is that I come from a milieu where people tell half-truths. Or just no truths. Especially if they are unacceptable. What you don’t seem to understand is that I am also bound up in my values. Unravelling them and chal­len­ging them is like unravelling myself. And I have to be careful because otherwise I myself will completely unravel.”

  “So how come I don’t have the same difficulty?” she said. “I’m in the same situation. I am challenging my life and our society.”

  Everyone lives in their own reality. And Elena’s and mine were worlds apart. My difficulty was that I would always want to hold on to my world of pretence and social norms because if I lost touch with that reality, I risked losing my family. A family I loved very much, but who thought of me as a second-class citizen and a sinner. How could I straddle both worlds and be happy? How could I maintain my sense of self and become the person I wanted to be? Explaining to Elena also crystallised my own thoughts.

  “But your background is totally different,” I pointed out. “You are already removed from your family. And you lived in a commune. Your professional life isn’t corporate or rigid. God knows an actress is expected to be exotic. And more than that, everything about you is positive because you have been forced to stand up for yourself, you have been forced to make the choices that most people don’t make, to their detriment. You had to fight for who you were and your space surrounded by siblings. Look at me; my life has been dictated in four chapters: school, university, career and marriage. I have done what society expects, I have followed the path of least resistance. I am negative where you are positive. I am the good girl. You have fought for environmental issues, for women’s rights. You even phoned up the council twice this week to complain about the dog poo in your street!”

  The road where they lived was one of the poshest in London. And yet it was still strewn with chihuahua droppings, which had an unerring propensity to land right outside their door. And also had the same ability to stick to my boots. Elena had taken to spying out of her window to see if she could catch the guilty parties mid-act. Woe betide them.

  “Above all,” I finished, “you know how to live in a community and share because you have always had to.”

  Elena sighed again. She was so used to an “unboundaried” existence that it was difficult for her to conceive that my life and my security were represented by my customs, my possessions and my walls around some universal space. Since she had never had either, “herself” was represented by her, and her only. She was important, and others…if they didn’t fit into her way of thinking...were not.

  I must have looked mutinous because she reached for my hand and said, “I see that you’re struggling and I’m sorry for it. I just find it hard because you are loving and kind to me a lot of the time. You invite me into your life and then you push me away. It taps into my own insecurities about rejection.”

  Elena and I also had that in common. In fact, we were both fairly dominant women who came from unstable family backgrounds and had married our polar opposites. We both loved clothes and fine dining and dreamt of polyamorous communities. And truly we liked or even loved each other sometimes. Even with the conflict.

  Like countless women of her generation, my mother had raised me with much criticism and sparing compliments. Self-improvement was the goal of her life and therefore of my life. I did not compete with my siblings because I hadn’t had any in the same household. Instead, I had been trained to compete against myself. Which was tough, because it meant that I never won. And then Elena arrived — the sister I never had. Representing what I never was. And perhaps everything I wanted to be. I was jealous and inadequate. Not good enough. I wondered how long I would be able to be able to stand feeling inferior.

  “The other problem is that you are Gilles’s girlfriend. So when you come round, you act as his girlfriend. But I don’t know how to treat my husband’s girlfriend. The only pattern I have to copy is any other friend who I have known for a year. You just have to be patient. Eventually we will have known each other long enough for the two to converge anyway. I will have known you long enough for you to act like my long-term friend and a kind of sister. Without you, our lives would be very dull.”

  “But perhaps easier,” she said insightfully.

  I looked at her and felt my heart melt. She looked lost. A little Elena. Not the actress-slash-singer or the confident, outspoken woman that I perceived when I first met her. It was horrible that she felt like this. Even if it was true. Like our lives would be easier if she weren’t there. Above all, I didn’t want us to lose her. Because we went into it together, I wanted us to come out of it together. That was the whole point.

  “Elena, please don’t say that. Look how much progress we’ve made in just one year. Building a family was never going to be easy. But it’s what we all want, more than anything.”

  As I heard the words, I knew that they had been true once. I had looked forward to this future with such optimism and joy. But with a sinking heart I knew that we were fighting a difficult battle. Because along with the beauty of our relationship, something ugly was brewing. My growing dislike for her, which no matter how hard I tried to quash kept raging inside me. Wine made it disappear, so I had some more.

  Elena, on the other hand, looked slightly happier. She drained her wine in one gulp and stood up. The glamorous femme fatale was back.

  “Let’s go. I saw a wonderful natural shoe store that just opened round the corner. They have gorgeous high-heeled boots there that you’ll actually be able to walk in, unlike those other horrors.”

  She pointed at the bumps that were starting to form on top of my soft leather shoes from years of stiletto abuse.

  “Did you know you’re getting hammertoes because of the shoes you wear? Your feet will look horrid in a few years if you don’t do something about it.”

  Fuck! I thought, cursing inside myself. Why does she always point out my faults?

  24

  Nothing is all dark. Nothing is all light. Our lives might have been hurtling towards a black hole, but there were plenty of stars along the way. For all the conflict and anger…there was love and there was light. And plenty of parties where it seemed that nothing was off limits.

  Like that time my company paid for an overnight stay in London conveniently timed to coincide with Elena’s birthday. The suite was large. Large enough for at least two couples…if not more. Morten and I saw it. And knew what was going to happen.

  “There’s Elena’s party tonight,” he said slowly…taking in the room and its splendidly spacious bed.

  “Let’s go!” I said.

  Sure, polyamory is about love. For some people that’s all there is and all there must be. But for me polyamory meant no limits. It also meant experimentation. And excitement.

  So that night a group of glamorous people who had mostly gone to bed with one another on various occasions gathered together at a famous and highly expensive London nightclub. And then there was me. Just arrived in London. And ready to attack life with gusto.

  “It’s tonight,” I said to Morten. “Tonight’s the night I’m going to push my boundaries.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” he asked.

  “With her,” I said, pointing like my mother taught me not to do.

  He followed my gaze and said, “You know she and I have had sex before.”

  “I know,” I replied. “Which is exactly why she’s the one. I know she’s not a threat. I know she fancies you. So let’s ask her.”

  “Ask her what?” he said, a playful smile curling his lip. “A threesome?”

  “No!” I replied too quickly. “Well, not yet. But just go. Ask her for a kiss. Right there on the dance floor. So I can see you do it.”

  “OK, if it’s what you want,” he said.

  Gilles came u
p from behind me. “What’s going on?” he asked, curious.

  “Morten’s going to ask Tanya for a kiss. And I’m going to watch,” I said, clutching my vodka tonic.

  Gilles plonked himself next to me and held my hand, “This is going to hurt. I did it last week with Elena. She asked me to get it on with someone else whilst she watched. It hurt her. But when we had sex afterwards it was fantastic. It’s like Nietzsche…enjoy the pain, because it’s the only thing we’ve got.”

  Ah, Gilles. Ever the philosopher.

  Then Elena came over and said, “This is going to hurt. But we’re here for you.” She sat on my other side and grabbed my hand.

  So there we were, all three of us in a row, ready for some prime-time voyeurism. I was grateful for the support. I saw Morten ask and wave in my general direction. I saw Tanya look over at us. And laugh.

  Off they went to dance on the floor. It was, most predictably, a slow song. Her hands snaked around his neck and inter­twined in his hair. He bent his head and started to kiss her. Deeper and deeper. And the song went…

  “I prayed that he would finish,

  But he just kept right on…

  Strumming my pain with his fingers,

  Singing my life with his words,

  Killing me softly with his song.”

  I felt like dying. Then he came back after two minutes of hell. I was hurting, but the pain made me feel raging passion. And all I wanted to do was kiss him. Reclaim him whilst smelling her perfume on his stubble. It was mad. Primal. I couldn’t remember feeling this alive. Or this horny. Our kisses were urgent, driven by my desperate need to reconnect.

  Within an hour the club had closed and a party went back to the hotel. Elena and Gilles went home. And seven of us in all, armed with yet more champagne, carried on. As we went up in the lift we all knew what was coming. And our minds were already exploding. Tanya and Sam, Brad and Jessica, and one other. Aaron, a stranger, who was a frequent flyer at such parties but who only ever watched. He was famous for it.

  I’d never been into orgies and group sex. And at that point I hadn’t experimented much. Morten knew. He knew not to rush me. His focus was on me and me alone. Slowly, deliberately he stroked me, my hair, my face and kissed me. I felt the relentless beat of the music, the ebb and flow of the tide. The hunger so raw that it felt like we were all close to the edge. The alcohol and adrenalin were coursing in my veins. The desire mounted so slowly I hardly noticed as we approached the cliff before we took the dive and entered free fall. I was spinning way out of my depth and beyond any limit I had ever known.

  Each couple wound themselves into each other, and for a time we were oblivious of one another.

  All the while, Aaron pulled on his joint and watched us.

  Thirty minutes later I lay half-dressed on the bed with Morten looking at me. I heard deep breaths, moans and sighs around me in stereo. Naked flesh touching my flesh. Precise delicate movements with carnal power. The smoke from the joint wafted around the room, making me dizzy. It was like a symphony. Surreal. Inspirational. And wonderful. Morten took a gulp of champagne and kissed me, letting it pour into my mouth. It fizzed around my teeth and my tongue. His tongue traced its way down and kissed my breasts. He took my panties with both hands and pulled them slowly down.

  When he entered me, I was high. Was it on life? Was it on grass? Was it on love? Was I crazy? I hardly knew.

  And Aaron watched me. He watched me stretch and cry and lose myself. He watched me being fucked, at first gently, but then again and again like an animal.

  My head was tipped over the edge of the bed, and the stranger was upside down. I met his eyes as Morten drove into me time after time. Aaron breathed in and out, blowing the smoke so that the edges curled around my face, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Morten’s hands, Morten’s body, Morten’s kisses on my neck and Aaron’s eyes fucking my mind. He watched me come. The dark stranger in the armchair next to the bed, fully dressed. Watching me. Wanting me.

  It went on all night. The watching, the waiting and the touching. We were all finished, and then someone would start again. Stroking, sighing and bristling with arousal. We sparked off other people’s desire and fell into sexual spirals. There was no shame, there was no embarrassment and there were no masks.

  Polyamory was about love. There was plenty of talking. There was plenty of conflict. And then there was thrusting. And it was amazing.

  25

  “She sounds like she wants to be queen of the hive,” said my therapist as I looked at him both fascinated and appalled. He was saying exactly what I thought. Apart from the fact that I thought therapists were never supposed to give opinions. So in that case he was doing the opposite of what I thought.

  “It’s not a bad thing per se,” he said reflectively. “But it does contradict what you told me was your vision of polyamory. This is more hierarchical. Like a pack of dogs.”

  Yes. That was exactly it. And I was the bitch.

  The others had encouraged me to go to therapy to try to identify where the problems I had with Elena stemmed from. A series of seemingly tiny incidents had created such animosity in me for her that it was scarcely veiled on many an occasion. The harder I tried to mask it, the worse it shone through. And when I tried to recount my reasons and why she bothered me so much, I got so angry that we got into even worse fights.

  This latest therapy session was needed after what Gilles termed “The Eggplant Incident.”

  Walking into my kitchen to prepare the moussaka I had planned for the four of us that night, I spent ten minutes hunting for the all-important — and equally missing — ingredient before I turned to Gilles and asked him in bewilderment whether he had seen an eggplant. As if they regularly played hide-and-seek around our apartment. And not that I held out much hope — Gilles was oblivious to anything in the kitchen and was only interested in ingredients after they had been magicked into a meal for his consumption.

  “Oh, Elena cooked for me after our jog this morning — omelette and eggplant.”

  Right then and there, I lost it. “How the hell am I supposed to cook moussaka without eggplant? And why didn’t you tell me so I could replace it?”

  My life was out of control. My relationships were out of control. The impotent fury I felt on a daily basis struggled in my stomach, bashing my insides with painful frenetic energy. It had to come out. And so it did. My voice got louder and my face got redder.

  Gilles looked at me in surprise from his habitual recumbent position on the sofa. Who is this woman? his expression seemed to say. “Why are you getting so cross?” he said, looking at me as if I’d grown two heads. “It’s only an eggplant.”

  “But I planned the whole week’s meals!” I screamed. “Tonight’s was supposed to be moussaka, and I haven’t defrosted anything else.”

  “Wow! I never thought I’d see the day when I couldn’t eat anything out of my own fridge without asking permission,” he said sarcastically.

  I couldn’t see him anymore. All I saw was hate. And anger. And no logic whatsoever. I threw the ingredients I had already collected on the floor, smashing several eggs in the process.

  “I never said you had to ask fucking permission! But I would rather Elena didn’t come into my fucking house and cook my fucking food without at least letting me know so that I can replace it. You don’t do the fucking shopping. I plan the fucking food, I shop for the fucking food and I cook the fucking food. How dare you play martyr and make like I am being stingy?”

  I rarely swore. But Gilles’s father did. And if there was one thing that triggered him, it was that. He yelled back, “How dare you make me feel like a failure and like I owe you something? I don’t care what you cook or what we eat.”

  With that he turned back to the TV, and I felt kicked in my stomach yet again. I worked so hard to make sure we had lovely food to eat and a lovely home to live in. It was a
n extension of my love for him. I didn’t want him to be grateful. I wanted him to love me like he used to.

  I went to our bedroom and burst into tears, isolated in my frustration. Gilles was acting like a stubborn teenager, and Elena came into my home as she pleased and did whatever she pleased, whenever she pleased.

  When I spoke to Morten, he said coldly, “Gilles told Elena and Elena told me. We think you should go to therapy. It’s not normal to get so angry about an eggplant.”

  We were four. And as it was a democracy, it felt like Elena and I campaigned to get the men on our sides in our different conflicts. Elena’s game demanded that Morten and Gilles attributed percentages in fault and blame ratios. As long as the scales were tipped in her favour, she could bear to hear that she was twenty-five percent to blame. As long as I was the most wrong. In this case, the vote was three to one. The Eggplant Incident had been a clear case. I was one hundred percent to blame.

  Not only of overreaction, but of my apparent issues about eggplants.

  When I tried to bring it up again in an effort to explain myself, Gilles misquoted from Cheers, “Louisa, I am sick and tired of The Eggplant Incident. Get a life.” He made it sound so pointless and petty that I felt belittled.

  “Is it the eggplant you’re angry about?” said my therapist, knowing full well it wasn’t. It was, of course, what the eggplant represented.

  “Of course it isn’t the fucking eggplant. It’s that I am apparently stuck in the mother role whilst my husband and his girlfriend do what the fuck they like. I don’t feel that either of them has any consideration for my feelings. They say they care about me, but actually they only care about themselves. I get taken for granted. I go to work and earn the money whilst she cultivates a great relationship with him and I feel like I am being squeezed out of the picture. I have so little time when I get back from work that my relationship with him can’t compete with theirs. I want to be his wife. But he doesn’t treat me like his wife.”