Delta's Diary

Dream Woman

Dream Woman

I dreamed about Karelle last night. Weird. I haven't dreamed about her in ages. I haven't even thought about her in a while. A long while.

In this dream, we were out on a date and then we went back to her place. For some reason, we spent the night on the porch instead of going inside. The next morning, I looked in the house and saw her wife milling around in there, oblivious to our presence. I started to panic and Karelle told me to calm down. I did. All at once the panic went away and I was just like, “I can't do this anymore.”

Then, suddenly, I was on a bus heading out of town.

If only our real break-up had been so easy. She would tell you I ghosted her. I guess I kind of did. But before I ghosted her, we met up three times. I tried to explain that I couldn't see myself dating a married lady anymore, not with my thirtieth birthday looming large.

By the time you're thirty, you should have your s**t together. You shouldn't be hanging around with married people, snapping up whatever crumbs they'll give you. That's what I'd decided.

Karelle kept telling me she was perplexed. Throughout our relationship, I always said I was cool with the arrangement.

And that was true.

At the time.

But people change and situations change and maybe it wasn't just turning thirty that caused this shift. Maybe it was hearing what my brother was going through with Becca. It isn't something we've ever talked about directly. He tells my mom and my mom tells me, but either way, the thought of how much Becca's affair hurt him got me thinking differently about my own life and how I might be hurting other people.

The thing with Karelle wasn't always an affair. It wasn't always hidden.

At the start, her wife knew all about us. We sat down together and spelled out parameters. Nancy didn't have much of a s*x drive anymore, whereas Karelle was experiencing a s****l renaissance. Karelle wanted to try new things in bed, but she wanted Nancy to be on board.

And Nancy was on board. At first.

I don't know what changed, or even when it changed. I should have clued in earlier than I did. Like when Karelle told me not to call the house because they were having problems with their phone line. That was obviously a lie. Or when she gave me a new email address to use because her old one had been “hacked.”

I should have caught on. I should have realized what was happening.

But I didn't.

Not until Karelle mentioned that she and Nancy were going on holiday. I asked if we could tack on a little getaway for me, because it sounded like fun. Karelle kept coming up with reasons why it wouldn't work, until finally she blurted out that Nancy had told her to end things with me and she had told Nancy that she did.

But she didn't.

We were still seeing each other. We just weren't supposed to be anymore. It had gone from being a poly situation to being an affair. We were having an affair.

We still kept getting together, though. We still kept having s*x. I didn't feel bad about it at the time. I guess I figured what Nancy didn't know couldn't hurt her. If she thought things were over between us, then she believed that she'd won. Let her believe that.

It made me feel good that Karelle still wanted to see me.

And the s*x was great.

We were an unlikely couple, with her being older and all. She was much more voluptuous, too. After we broke up, I missed those big boobs and that belly. I missed lying in bed with her, being the little spoon, feeling her warm body pressing up against my back.

Her skin was so smooth.

It felt good to cuddle after s*x.

She'd been wild, with me, and I missed that too.

Karelle wanted to try everything. I got the sense that she'd never really slept with anyone but Nancy, and that Nancy was boring in bed. But maybe I told myself that to feel superior.

It's hard to feel superior when the woman you're attached to goes home to someone else, when she's not even supposed to see you anymore.

After we broke up, I also missed the cash Karelle always had on hand. It kept me going after my full-time gig fell through and I could only get part-time work. Karelle never called me on it, but she must have known money was missing from her purse each time she left my place. I got the sense she hit the ATM before coming to visit.

She had so much more than I had: a house, a career, a wife, a dog. They had it all.

I had next to nothing. When we broke up, I had absolutely nothing.

But at least ending it was my choice.