Many Loves in Many Places

It was in the early spring when I had found a moment, during my jolt to the City, to sit down with my feelings in Union Square. With a new book that I picked up at the bookstore, trying to explain my own headspace to my intergenerational boyfriend of 3 years was a feat that I had to overcome. Competing only with coming out as a young gay man, the coming out that my generation and upbringing had granted me to not thoroughly do in the traditional sense, the thoughts of the confrontation were tearing at the heart. The love was real. But I was not going to be broken by my realization of these feelings. The therapy that I needed was hopefully found within the pages of the book in my lap. I surely wasn’t getting any leads from the outside.

When I was a young twinkling, early in my young days, I had gone to the City for a 24-hour layover between college and home. I had certain feelings floating around at the time, but my already weathered mind had been open to all possibilities when it came to passion and love. Somehow, through some kink chatroom I perused more than occasionally, I found myself meeting up with an interesting man who was, mysteriously, a few years older than I at some meeting spot on the Upper West outside of an intimate's store. After a brief hello, look up and down, we were heading to a wine bar to have cheese and smoky merlot to cheer our lost souls on the rainy day.

The talk was sweet: art and film intertwined with brie, honey, and a love of writing. We both understood the freelance life; the life of freedom until the phone is in danger of turning off, or something of that manner. We were both hustling as free agents trying to define ourselves in a world of a thousand no names and vast spaces of quicksand. We understood each other when not many others would.

The wine dried up and we took a stroll around a few blocks ending up at his third floor apartment on Central Park West. Upon opening the door, he told me to strip down. This may, or may not, have been a part of the kink situation I met him in. He handed me a pair of his yoga pants. “Get in these,” he subtly commanded. “I can’t have my apartment infested by downtown bedbugs.” This was somewhat true, as I had told him that I was staying in a hostel south of 23rd. I obeyed, if not for fact, for kink. He threw my dirty downtown visitor clothes into his en-suite washer.

I walked into his spot clean studio apartment, no bigger than my dorm room was in college. Full bed, beige sheets tucked in, 3-seat grey sofa with fluffed pillows, art up and down every wall. Eyeing up his collection of books, CDs, and DVDs on tower cases from floor to ceiling, I was in love. He turned to his stereo and started an album of echoing experimental instrument, and maxed the volume. We went through the kink situation, though my eyes kept wandering around his labyrinth of comforts as he proceeded.

“Do you like tea?” he asked when he was done.

“Yeah, I do,” I answered while looking at a portrait on his wall.

“That’s me. My father did it a while back.” He boiled the water.

Sooner or later our legs were intertwined and we were humming each other lullabies of life’s past, touching one another softly with each breath. The minutes and hours passed by and the echoes of the lighthouse turned a second, and third, album repeat. I don’t know what it was, but for some reason this guy made me happy, comfortable, and excited. There was something special about him. I just wanted to lie in his arms and talk for hours. His eyes and mine touched in depths unseen.

“Why are you crying?” he asked as my mind met the situation.

“I’m not.” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “It’s because I don’t live here. Because I have a life back in Buffalo.”

“I know.” I sighed as he assured and smiled.

“What if I told you I had a roommate?” he asked.

“Roommate? I have no problem.”

“A little more than a roommate…” I had no problem, but I just smiled. He knew.

It was around 10 pm when we rolled over and he saw the clock. As if the gong rang, he jumped up, threw his pants on, and started fluffing the pillows. I sat up and looked at him. He was trying to hide something. “I should get going!” I started making my way to the dryer next to the bathroom.

“Oh, no! You can stay!” I was confused.” Put these on!” he held out his yoga pants which were on the floor next to the bed.

“I don’t want to be a problem with-”

“You aren’t a problem. It’s fine!” He stopped cleaning for a moment and looked at me. “Listen, if you want to go, you can go. B isn’t going to bite you, unless you want him to. He’s really nice. Shy but secure.”

His mouth went flat as I listened to the street horns below. “Fine! I’ll stay, as long as I won’t cause any issues.”

“None at all!” He smiled as I took his yoga pants to become presentable.

B came in the door a few minutes later, and there was no issue. We actually hugged the moment he came in. One of those good hugs. We all sat on the sofa, watched some black and white movies from the Criterion Collection, and cuddled on the sofa. Somehow, through some strange love coincidence, everything was fine and there was no need for an explanation. That night, we all shared a bed as no one wanted, or allowed, me to go back down and sleep in my roach infested hostel.

It was beautiful. Those are the only words that passed through my brain as I picked my stuff up from the hostel and trained home the next morning. Sure we all kissed, made out, and all that fun stuff, but I had butterflies. I had butterflies at the thought of both of them. We connected on such a deep unspoken level.

We stayed in touch, and grew our relationships more through the years. I saw them just about every time that I was in the city, and I fell back in love with them during every single one. I even went on a weeklong yoga retreat with B, getting closer to him than ever. In the off times, I sent them letters and cards to remind them that I was thinking of them. However, I knew I didn’t have to. They trusted me, and knew me, that I would come around any time that I could. They also expressed their support in everything that I do. I couldn’t ask for more.

However, therein lies the problem which brings me back to sitting in Union Square with a book on polyamory in my hands. Somehow I needed to come out and explain my own sense of love to not only those that were close, but to a love of mine that I had been seeing in Buffalo for a bit. I do not know why I hadn’t brought it up at the onset of things getting serious. I wanted to protect my own sense of self? I didn’t want to lose him? I wanted to live my life in, my own sense of, polyamorous peace? I didn’t want to be bothered? What was so difficult about this second coming out?

I looked in the book. I read the pages, flipping through trying to find some depth of an answer. However, instead of answers, I found something more profound that only I could express. There was no solution in the book, but an absolution within myself that said, ‘It’s okay.’ I no longer felt the guilt. Many others felt the same way that I did, holding love in the heart for many. The closer I looked through the book, and thus within, I found that I had many different forms of love which sprouted from my travels. The only burden I bore was to keep the love alive within others, showing them that they still meant a lot to me and that there may be a reciprocated feeling.

I now call all of these people “special people”, and there are a few special people in my life: one in Buffalo, some in New York, and one in San Francisco. Not all are sexual, but all include a deep understanding of each other that came through some type of vulnerability. I live in Buffalo, constantly seeing my main partner, but still keep a strong connection to that couple in New York. When I am there, just a close text can send some butterflies through my stomach. Seeing them, it is a field of roses in my heart. You don’t get that kind of special love with everyone. With them, absence does make the heart grow stronger. The support, and attachment, is untouchable, and all I had to do was to not close it off.