The Lovely Lydia's Blog for January 2020

Lydia, tell us a little about yourself.

Well, certainly! How much time do you have?

In all seriousness, in addition to uploading photos to this site, I had it in my mind to include a monthly blog post, wherein I could answer some questions I've often received, from the perspective of a femme lesbian with an endlessly high sex drive. (You're always free to submit your own questions in the comments section.)

Early Life

Let's begin at the beginning. I'm a child of the Seventies and Eighties, proudly Generation X, born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. My dad was a native Glaswegian, and my mum was half-English, half-American. We spent several weeks every year visiting relatives in the American Southwest, and that always made the USA feel like a second home. I have fond childhood memories of the Grand Canyon and Disneyland in particular. 

I have one sibling, a sister, who's a whopping 18 years older than I. She always felt like a loving aunt more than a sister. You see, my parents had only ever intended to have one child... they didn't count on having a "happy accident," as my dad always lovingly said of me, channeling his inner Bob Ross. The same year I was born, my sister moved to the USA to live with our maternal grandparents in Arizona, where she studied to become a nurse. So I never grew up with her. She moved out when I was all of four months old, and Mum and Dad had to start parenting all over again just when they thought they were finished! 

I remember being a rather quiet and introspective child, a trait that I probably got from my similarly reserved mum. But I also remember making friends easily when I started school. I went to the same private girls' school in Glasgow that my sister had attended, and whilst most of the teachers who'd known her had since retired or moved on to other places, a few of the older teachers remembered her fondly as a good student. That perhaps would have given me the pressure of something to live up to, but I fared well scholastically and never felt I was living in my big sister's shadow.

It was at that school where I met my first girlfriend. We were both 12 years old, and I'd known for half my life at that point that I liked girls -- even if I didn't fully appreciate what that meant, till puberty forced the issue! 

I can still remember the moment I realised I liked girls. I was 6 years old in 1984, and I saw a music video on the telly, "Lucky Star" by Madonna. I don't know if it was her dress, or her moves, or her singing voice, or her pretty face, or a combination of all those things. But even my little 6-year-old self knew from that moment on that there was something about girls that made me feel all funny inside, in a way that just didn't happen around boys. 

My coming out was fortunately very easy, as my dad said he'd long suspected my attraction to girls. When I found myself unexpectedly attracted to this particular girl at school, I bared my feelings to my dad... and rather than challenge me or shame me, he drew me into a hug and simply said that if I'm gay, then that's how God made me and that I should never feel embarrassed about it. And it was he who encouraged me to push through my fears and go talk to her. 

I absolutely, unabashedly idolised my dad. He was the kindest, most decent person I've ever known. He guided me, he encouraged me, he gave me direction. I miss him every day, and it will always haunt me that I never got to say I love you and goodbye to him, as he died suddenly of a heart attack when I was living half a world away. 

I often think that he would be disappointed in how I turned out, but perhaps that's just a case of comparing my achievements against his, which would be an impossible standard for almost anyone to live up to. He was a successful businessman, beloved in our neighbourhood and community, and very active in charitable work and our local Quaker meeting. He had me volunteering with him in soup kitchens from when I was just a little girl, because he wanted me to understand the importance of helping the less fortunate, and of seeing them not as abstractions but as flesh-and-blood human beings in need. When you look people in the eye, he would tell me, you can see both their despair when they come to you for help and their gratitude when they walk away with their material needs met and their bellies filled. As I said, he was an exceedingly good man, and he did his best to live out the values of the Sermon on the Mount in his everyday life.

It was his influence, and those formative experiences, that eventually led me to choose humanitarian aid work as a profession. Just like my big sister, I wanted to help people. And that was the best way I knew how.

On My Own

But like most teenagers enjoying their new-found freedoms away from home, I was a wild child in undergrad school. I fared well enough academically, but it seems every moment not spent in a classroom or in my studies was filled with going to parties, flirting with lots of girls, and sleeping with no small number of them. Seems there were plenty of lugs about -- lesbians until graduation -- even back in the Nineties! If a girl caught my eye, I'd come on strong and hope for the best. Sometimes things didn't work out, but quite often it did. I'd taken my childhood lesson of "just go talk to her" to heart -- perhaps not in the way my dad had intended, but I reckoned that this was my time to live life to the fullest, before I had to grow up and embark on a career.

I went to grad school in Costa Rica and did my first field work there following graduation. I expected grad school to be a more serious time of transition into the real world. And in some ways it was. But in my personal life, I was even wilder than I'd been in undergrad school. Nor did things change once I was out in the working world. I took my job very seriously, but I also very quickly developed a sharp divide between my job and my private life. And my private life, to put it simply, was a nonstop blur of booze-fueled parties and lots of sex. 

I was enjoying the local cuisine to the fullest, to be rather crude about it. At one point I was dating three women at the same time, and I gave no thought whatsoever to whether pursuing anybody was inappropriate. There was my grad-school advisor, an unhappily married woman, and others that I'd be better off not describing at all. If I wanted someone, I went after her. 

I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans one year when I was living in Costa Rica, and I practically threw myself at a pretty girl, who ended up shoving her hand down my drawers and finger-banging me right there in the street, with a crowd gathered round and cheering. Later that evening, I had drunken sex on a balcony -- again with people down on the street looking on -- with a woman I'd met just hours earlier. I knew before then that I had an exhibitionist streak, but I'd never pushed the envelope quite that far. And this all happened when I was dating the three women back in Costa Rica that I mentioned!

I was living an incredibly reckless life. But I loved women, and I loved sex, and I couldn't get enough of either.

When I got news my dad had died, my whole world came tumbling down all at once. On flying back to Costa Rica after the funeral, it occurred to me how ashamed my dad would have been of the way I'd been acting. I needed to get my act together. I had it in my mind that a change of scenery would be just the thing I needed to finally buckle down and behave myself. And so I ended up accepting a new assignment in Uruguay. 

But it didn't take long for me to slip into my old habits. My dad's death hit me so hard that I was numbing myself with alcohol practically every moment I wasn't working in the field. And of course I found a whole new banquet of beautiful women to indulge myself in. 

Within a few weeks of arriving in Montevideo, I found myself at what amounted to a drunken orgy at Punta del Este. We were bar-hopping almost all night. People were making out everyplace. Some were having sex on the beach. Eventually, couples and groups started splitting off and heading to hotels and resorts to have some private fun. 

The group I was with had all chipped in to rent a beachhouse for the weekend. It was a mixed group of men and women. I was there with three other women, one of whom I was sleeping with, and another one I had my eye on. The two of them were friends but nothing more. The woman I was with -- let's call her Lucia -- was bisexual and about as perpetually horny as I was. Her friend, she told me, was a lesbian, but she didn't advertise the fact and was rather demure about most things in her life. 

Like me, my date's friend -- we'll call her Gabriela -- was completely femme and could pass for a straight woman. She was a few years older than I and was embarking on a career as a model. She had the body and the beautiful face for it, too. She had long golden-brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a gleaming smile. Tall and slender, yet curvy in all the right places. I was completely smitten with her. And the fact that she didn't just say yes and start sucking face with me when I propositioned her strangely made me all the more attracted to her. I wanted her bad, but I was going to have to bring my best game to win her over. 

Gabriela wasn't there with anyone for the weekend. Lucia said she'd tagged along to mostly hang out, have a few drinks, and maybe do some flirting. 

There were also two guys in our group, who were friends of Lucia and the third girl in our group. She'd been sexually active with one of the guys, but they were no longer seeing each other. This group of guys, in turn, had taken it on themselves to invite a group of their friends, including a couple whom I'll call Pablo and Maria, and Pablo's male friend, whom I'll call Hector. They're important to the story.

I started hitting on Gabriela almost as soon as we got there. I slid up next to her on a sofa by the fireplace and tried to put my moves on her. To her eternal credit, she knew I was half-drunk and so didn't take offence to what were probably some very inappropriate overtures. Best I can recall, she just politely smiled, sipped on her glass of wine, and kept her elegant and gorgeous demeanor about her, whilst trying to make small talk the best she could, considering my level of sobriety. The most I got out of her was a kiss on the cheek when she excused herself for the evening. 

I spent most of the rest of the evening with Lucia. We were pounding whiskey and wine coolers till the wee hours, and at some point we stumbled to our room and had a sloppy drunken three-way with Maria, whom I'd also been hitting on hard. Pablo, her boyfriend, was incredibly turned on by this and had been encouraging Maria to make out with both me and Lucia. Pablo and Hector had come to the party with Maria with the intentions of having their own three-way with her, whilst doing their own share of drinking and flirting and seeing what else might come up, so to speak.

I was so drunk that I could scarcely recall anything that happened after the fact. I know for certain that I was naked in bed with Lucia and Maria, and I know that Pablo and Hector were in the room at some point. I seemed to recall that they were standing there watching us get it on, possibly pleasuring themselves at the sight, but I also seem to remember seeing their faces either at the bedside or actually in bed with us. I just couldn't recall. At some point I blacked out. 

I came to at around 4:30 in the morning. Lucia and Maria were sleeping naked on either side of me. I was sweating on that hot summer night and decided to get up for some water. But the room began to spin as soon as I sat up, and my head felt as if someone was pounding it with a hammer. Then I felt my stomach churning, and it was a mad dash to the loo to heave up the contents in my stomach. 

I stumbled back to the bedroom and got my clothes on. Deciding I needed some fresh air, I went to the living room, where I pulled open the glass slider and sat on the sofa facing the screen door. I closed my eyes and wondered when my head would stop throbbing. 

A few minutes later, I heard a sweet voice softly speaking my name from across the room. I opened my eyes to see Gabriela, looking radiant in her nightgown. She said she awakened to the sound of someone retching in the loo -- what an impression I was making on this goddess of a woman! -- and, seeing someone sitting on the sofa, came out to see if the person was okay. I thanked her for her concern and told her I was just hung over. I did my best to recount the events of the evening to her, whilst she patiently listened and smiled, even though she probably didn't care to hear any of it. She said she was going off to get dressed, after which she'd fetch me some coffee and aspirin. She gave me a peck on the cheek and glided out of the room. 

I closed my eyes and relished that kiss. She was like an angel. Way out of my league, though, I decided. In any event, she deserved far better than a first-rate fuck-up like me.

Soon after, I heard the shuffling of feet behind me. She couldn't have come back that quickly. I opened my eyes to see Pedro in his boxer shorts, his hair sticking up in every direction, as he yawned and stretched. He saw me and wished me good morning as he sat in the recliner next to the sofa.

He started talking about the events of the previous night. Sure enough, I had seen him and Hector in bed with us, as the two of them fucked Maria whilst Lucia and I gave each other our attention. He kept going on about how hot it was watching the two of us go at it whilst he and his pal were doing Maria.

I told him I'd have to take his word for it, since I didn't remember much of anything. He said he kept asking the two of us if he could join in. Lucia apparently humoured him at some point, and the four of them carried on after I passed out. Pedro said he asked me too, but I never responded.

Now he was asking me if I'd just been playing hard to get. I told him no, that I couldn't remember him asking me anything, but that I didn't swing that way anyhow.

By now I could see a bulge forming in his shorts. He grinned and said the same stupid thing I've heard so many times -- "Maybe you just haven't been with the right guy."

I closed my eyes and muttered to myself, "Oh, fuck, not this again."

I felt a thump. I opened my eyes to see that he'd sat down next to me. With a stupid grin, he told me I should "just try it out," pointing to the bulge. 

Have you ever actually tried one? 

Did you have a bad experience with a guy? Is that what turned you gay?

You're too pretty to be gay. I don't think you really are.

I have to deal with arseholes like this all the time. Usually they give up and go bother someone else once you've convinced them you're really not interested. 

I told him my head was pounding and to please go away. 

That just set him off. If he was able to have his way with the other two girls in bed, why not me? 

You think you're too good for me? Is that it?

I told him to fuck off and tried to stand. But in my condition, it didn't take much to make me lose my balance -- and that's just what happened when he grabbed my arm from behind. I landed on my back on the floor in front of the sofa. Before I could react, he was on top of me and straddling me. 

Don't you tell me to fuck off, bitch. 

He started unbuttoning my shirt. I tired to fight him off, but he smacked my hands away and ripped my shirt open.

As he pawed at my breasts through my bra, I screamed for help. 

He slapped me hard. Shut up, bitch.

I kept yelling as I flailed at him, trying to slap him back, scratch him, anything. But he had me pinned, and he was in the process of yanking off my jeans when his friend Hector came in the room. I was hoping he'd come to help after hearing my scream. Instead, he asked Pedro what was going on, and Pedro asked him to help hold me down so the two of them could fuck me.

But before Hector could do anything, out of the corner of my eye I saw a foot making contact with Pedro's face. He rolled off me, holding his face in obvious pain. 

I looked up to see Gabriela, offering me her hand. I took it and stood, stumbling out of the one cuff of my jeans he hadn't yet pulled off, and followed Gabriela out the front door. Behind us, I could hear Pedro angrily screaming at us while Hector did nothing but laugh.

Gabriela put me in the passenger seat of her car and sped off. She'd just finished getting dressed when she heard me scream for help, and she came out to see me pinned on the floor. If she hadn't acted so quickly, I don't want to think about what could have happened. 

There I sat, barefoot, in my knickers and bra, my shirt hanging open with the buttons torn off, and my angel had swooped in and saved me. She said she was taking me to her house to keep me safe. I could sleep off my hangover, and when I was ready to be alone again, she'd take me home.

I was shaking like a leaf. The only thing I could think to do was thank her.

I'd had to deal with some real dicks in my days, but that was the only time I was very nearly raped. It shook me to the bone, and it made me come to terms with the fact that I was running with the wrong crowd and needed to reassess my life and my priorities before it was too late. I was being far too reckless, and I definitely needed to stop drinking. Obviously, it wasn't my fault that I was assaulted. But in that moment my mind was on loop: If only I hadn't decided to go that stupid party. If only I made better decisions.

Making bad, impulsive decisions has been a hallmark of my life. I've never been good at making decisions, and I often regret my choices after the fact, once I come to realise that the choice I made was probably a stupid one. 

But what about Gabriela? Why was she even at the party, when as far as I knew, she did nothing but have a few glasses of wine before going off to sleep by herself? Why did she have friends like Lucia? She seemed so out of place in that environment.

When we got to her house, Gabriela got me out of my tattered shirt and lay down in her bed with me. She curled up behind me and held me whilst I began to sob, letting all my pent-up sorrow flow out like a dam breaking under the stress.

I cried myself to sleep. When I awoke, I could see through the bedroom window that the sun was setting, and Gabriela wasn't there. I'd obviously needed the sleep, and my head felt much better. 

I heard people talking in another room. Looking at the foot of the bed, I saw a spread-out bathrobe that Gabriela must have left there for me. I put it on and followed the sound of the voices to the kitchen, where Gabriela was sitting at the table with Lucia. When she saw me, Lucia sprang up from her seat, drew me into a fierce hug, and apologised profusely. By the time she'd woken up enough to register my screams that morning, Gabriela had already driven me away from the beachhouse. She'd brought my purse, jeans, and shoes, and she'd wanted to make sure I was okay. 

She said she felt responsible for letting things get out of hand in the bedroom the night before. Turned out Pedro and Hector had indeed been hitting on both of us, but I was so drunk that Lucia basically distracted them with herself whilst protecting me and letting me fall asleep.  

Lucia took me home soon after, but it was Gabriela whom I couldn't get off my mind. She was the one who'd saved me, after all. And whilst I did care for Lucia, in the end she was not all that different from so many other girls I'd been with. Gabriela was different, in so many good ways. 

After that day, Gabriela called me every morning and every night to check up on me. She lived only a few miles from my apartment, so I'd go visit her two or three times a week. She became, for all practical purposes, my counsellor. She'd make a nice dinner, and then we'd usually talk till the wee hours. We also spent a lot of time together on the weekends, sometimes with Lucia and sometimes without.

Turns out she and Lucia had been friends from childhood. From Gabriela's point of view, Lucia had fallen in with the wrong crowd when they were teenagers. They were still best of friends, and Gabriela said she continued to tag along with Lucia most places to try to keep her friend out of trouble as much as she could. She loved Lucia and didn't want to see her friend implode.

I felt she was doing the same for me. For one thing, she actually got me sobered up, which at that point in my life was no small feat. I almost felt I was her project -- that if she couldn't save Lucia, perhaps she could at least save me. And I don't mean that in a bad way, as I think I would have kept spiraling downwards without her help. 

I felt I was slowly falling in love with her, but I didn't dare say that to her. Meanwhile, Lucia and Maria were spending more time together. Maria had since broken up with Pedro, after she learned of what he tried to do to me. For a while, Maria, Lucia, and I were a sort of romantic triad, but I could see that Lucia and Maria had far more in common with each other than either did with me, especially as I was trying to extract myself from my wild and reckless lifestyle. 

I spent more and more time talking to Gabriela on the phone and going out with her on the weekends. Slowly, bit by bit, I came to know more about her. She wasn't quick to open up. Then one evening, she finally let it all out -- she'd come from a strict religious home, and her parents had placed extremely high expectations on her. Seeing the potential in her natural beauty when she was quite young, they groomed her for a career in modelling. 

Things were going well until, in her mid-teens, she fell head over heels in love with another girl. She said she never realised she was attracted to girls until then, and it created a terrible dilemma in her life. Everything her parents and her Bible studies had taught her emphasised that homosexuality was disordered and wrong. The only person she could confide in was Lucia, who had already slept with lads and girls alike. 

Gabriela had always assumed she would save herself for marriage and harboured romantic images of her wedding day with the man who won her heart. But what now, if she liked girls instead? She thought perhaps it was a phase she'd outgrow. She thought maybe she'd come to like boys and girls both, like Lucia. Most of all, she worried about being a sinner. She confessed her feelings to her priest, who would assign a penance, but then she'd be right back in the confessional, week after week. 

She struggled with her feelings for years, feeling terribly guilty for liking girls and for hiding it from her parents and her church. On her eighteenth birthday, she decided she couldn't live a lie anymore. She knew what would happen when she came out, and she was right. Her parents condemned her and cast her out. Soon her entire family had essentially disowned her.

I remember crying as she told me her story. It couldn't have been more different from mine. My dad hugged me when I said I was gay. Gabriela, in contrast, had lost her entire family. And yet somehow she hadn't fucked up her life over it. She told me that night that even though her family had turned their backs on her, she never lost her own pride in herself. Instead, she felt she had something to prove. She consummated her relationship with her till-then clandestine girlfriend and decided they were no longer going to keep their love hidden in the shadows, conforming to others' expectations. Gabriela's modelling career took off, and she felt vindicated. 

But she and her girlfriend slowly drifted apart, and she'd been on her own ever since. She'd thrown herself into her work, but she was lonely. That was one reason she still hung around with Lucia, even though their lives had taken very different courses. She felt she had no one else.

She kissed me that night -- and not on the cheek. Things were changing. We both felt it. She confessed her feelings for me, and I was floored -- in the best possible way! There was no way this beautiful angel could be in love with me. But she was.

She did make clear that she wouldn't tolerate any sleeping around, drunken behaviour, and all the things I used to do when she met me. Seems I'd won the heart of a decent woman. When my lease was set to expire, she invited me to move in with her. 

That changed everything. For the first time in ages, I felt responsible and in control of my life. My work improved, and whilst I was still awfully tempted by some pretty women I met, I behaved myself and remained true to Gabriela. 

Trying to Grow Up, and Failing

We were together for two blissful years. Those were some of the best years of my life. I felt loved, secure, and in control of my life. I know my dad would have loved Gabriela and been so proud of me for settling down with such a good woman.

But then I had to go and fuck things up. I got restless. I loved Uruguay, and I adored Gabriela. But I was still young, and I wanted adventure. I wanted to see more of the world. Selfishly, I also wanted to return to an English-speaking part of the world.

I ended up getting an administrative job with a human-rights NGO in Vancouver. That meant I wouldn't be working much in the field any longer, but the pay was marginally better and the work far less stressful. 

But Gabriela broke my heart at the last hour. She'd been reluctant about the idea of leaving her home country ever since I started talking about going someplace new. She would have left for me and for no other reason. She even travelled to Vancouver with me for my interview and seemed to love the city and surrounding region. We began talking about our future lives in a new place. I was so excited.

In the end, though, she decided she couldn't leave Uruguay. Everything and everyone she knew was there, and she simply couldn't tear herself away. She was also nervous about the paperwork and immigration issues, though her modelling agent could easily have got her a work visa. And whilst her French was decent and English was passable, she was nervous about language barriers. Plus, the culture of Canada was so different from Uruguay. The climate was different. Everything was different. She let the excuses pile up. 

But I didn't blame her. I know how she felt. I'd been travelling ever since I was a wee lass. I wasn't even thirty years old, and I'd already lived in three countries, soon to be a fourth. Gabriela, aside from travelling for photo shoots, had scarcely been out of her own country.

It was looking to be a bittersweet ending for us, but in the end neither one of us would give. In hindsight, I knew it would have been far easier for me to simply stay put. I had everything I could have possibly wanted with her. And I stupidly threw it away.

Life went on, and it didn't take long for temptation to have its way with me in a new city full of beautiful women. I had one steady girlfriend and a handful of flings on the side, but I was determined not to let myself go off the deep end again. 

About six months or so after arriving in Vancouver, I met a black-haired, green-eyed beauty with a smoking hot body and an irresistible smile. We'll call her Tracy. I met her in a yoga studio. Gabriela had turned me on to yoga when we lived together. For her, it was a way to keep her mind clear. For me, it kept me healthy and limber -- I liked having a limber body in bed, I have to admit! -- but it also opened my mind to Eastern philosophy. 

There were no Quaker meetings in Uruguay, so I'd adopted my own habit of sitting silently for an hour, as the Quakers do, every Sunday morning. I found it was a rather simple transition from that to developing a meditation practise, loosely based in Buddhist teachings. All these things had an opportunity to blossom when I was living the good life with Gabriela in Uruguay. And at the time, I thought how fortunate I was to have got into yoga in Uruguay, as yoga led me to bump into Tracy in Vancouver.

Our relationship progressed very quickly, and the sex was absolutely mind-blowing. Within a few months, I was moving in with her. 

We were together for over five years. That's the longest I've ever been with anyone in my life. I still missed Gabriela, but I'd found someone I could be comfortable with, and I convinced myself that was good enough. She wasn't my everything, but for the most part I was happy. After a few years of being together, we'd settled into our routines with each other, like an old familiar married couple. We did yoga in the morning, she made breakfast, and we kissed and took our separate buses to work. We'd come home, she'd make dinner, and we'd snuggle up on the sofa and watch the telly till it was time for bed. It was comfortable, and rather nice.

On the other hand, her sarcasm sometimes got on my nerves. She also wasn't great at being romantic, and she never said "I love you" enough. To her, wild and kinky sex was the way she expressed her love. Which was all well and good, but sometimes some simple affection is nice, too, you know? A card, some flowers, a candlelight dinner... would have have been nice once in a while.

She could also be secretive, which I suppose should have been a red flag. But I never thought much about it. Some people are just private people, and it's okay to have secrets. The abruptly ended phone calls when I walked in the room didn't register with me, nor did the ever-increasing late nights at work. No, it wasn't until I came home early one day and found her in bed with one of her ex-girlfriends, both of them naked and frolicking, that stupidly naive Lydia figured out what was going on. 

Once I was over the initial shock, I didn't fly into a rage. I didn't cry and ask why she betrayed me. I simply stormed to the hall closet, grabbed a suitcase, and packed it full before stomping out. 

Then I broke down and cried. 

How stupid was I? How long had this been going on? Had she ever actually loved me? I felt used, sick to my stomach, and dirty. I felt I'd wasted five good years of my life giving my heart to her. 

I checked in to a hotel, feeling sorry for myself and deciding what to do. Then I did what I usually do when the shit hits the fan in my life: I ran. I knew when Tracy wouldn't be home, so I dug into my savings, hired a moving company to move my stuff from our apartment to storage, and bought a plane ticket home to Scotland. 

I gave my employer the requisite two weeks' notice, lying to them that I had a terminally ill relative who needed me back home, and I didn't know when I could return. Meanwhile, I hit the classifieds, looking for freelance work similar to the editing and bookkeeping I'd been doing for the past five years. Somehow I'd make this work. 

Back Home, and More Failures

I ended up renting a pretty little cottage in Inverness, up in the Scottish Highlands. I knew the area well. My dad's parents were from Inverness, and my cottage was only a mile or so from their house. We went up that way to visit a few times a year, and I always loved the remoteness and the natural beauty.

I had very little income coming in, but I didn't care. Nor did I have a relationship of any kind. For a good six months, I did my best to just live simply and quietly, in the middle of fucking nowhere. And it felt so good! I needed the downtime to reset, and it was wonderful to be back home in Scotland. I spent most of my days hiking, biking, shopping, and strolling about. Every day began with black tea and yoga, and every day ended with an hour of meditation. It was quite idyllic. 

I devised a plan. At the end of my six months, I decided to take a tour of continental Europe. Apart from some brief holidays in Paris and Rome, and a few journeys down to Andorra owing to some family connections there, I hadn't seen much of the continent. So I resolved to satiate my wanderlust. I could drive, hike, boat, bicycle, take a train, whatever I felt like. I'd drain most of the money I had left, but I didn't give a flying fuck. I could take the time in Europe to decide what I wanted to do next, and when I got back, I'd set out to do it. Simple.

Except life doesn't usually work out the way you intend, does it?

My journey began with a ferry ride from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Whilst taking in the sights in Amsterdam, I happened across a gay-rights festival. There were booths, musicians, speakers, food, you name it. Gay-rights rallies were never my thing; whilst I admire the tremendous work done by those to secure rights for us all and to make the world less hostile towards us, I've simply never been comfortable being an activist. I just want to be with a beautiful woman (or women, as the case may be) and live a quiet, contented life.

As I was watching a band perform on one of the stages, I happened to spot a woman standing off by herself. Yes, you know where this is going. But I swear, all I ever intended to do was strike up a conversation with a local! Most everyone else seemed to be there with friends or lovers, but she looked to be all by herself. And I couldn't help wondering why such a beautiful lady would be there all alone.

She smiled as she saw me walking towards her. I asked if she spoke English, and she said she did. We'll call her Agatha. She said she was a lesbian but something of a loner. Turns out she was in middle management in a banking firm in Amsterdam and didn't have much of a life outside of work. So she came by to take in the sights. 

She was so friendly! She was tall and slender, with short-cropped blonde hair and modest but eye-catching curves. She wore a white tee-shirt that was pleasantly snug, along with a pair of equally curve-hugging jeans and a pair of flats. Her blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and I saw some endearing crow's-feet crinkling at the sides of her eyes as she smiled. That smile was radiant. It could have lit up the whole city all on its own.

I'd never experienced love at first sight before, but that was what this felt like. It seemed as if we'd known each other forever. We went out for tea and exchanged numbers. When I told her I was leaving town in a day, she said she wanted to take me to dinner first. I agreed, and we met up the next evening for a delicious meal. The entire time, she was flirting hard with me from across the table. Against my better judgement, I was falling in love deep and fast.

We held hands as we strolled along the water. Then she kissed me and asked me not to leave. 

What? But I had an entire holiday ahead of me. I had a whole continent to see! What about the Baltics? Scandinavia? Switzerland? Russia? I wanted to see it all. 

But I was being swept off my feet. If I left, I might miss my chance with her forever. 

So I accepted her request, and she took me to her house for the night. We talked well into the evening, but eventually we ended up in her bed, making passionate love.

My holiday had been cut short, but I was opening up yet another chapter in my love life.

To make a long story short, I moved in with her, found an admin job with an NGO similar to the one I'd left in Canada, and started learning Dutch. Things were moving very fast. Then she surprised me with a ring and proposed to me that Christmas!

Finally, I thought, things were looking up. Despite all my past mistakes, I was going to get another chance to set things right and maybe have a happily ever after.

But wouldn't you know? I managed to fuck things up again.

I can't share a tremendous amount of detail about what happened next, out of respect for all involved. But I'd happened to reconnect with someone by chance who was very dear to me. I'll call her Gina. And even though we both knew better, we let our feelings get the better of us. Gina lived in the USA, and we carried on something of an online affair. Yes, in hindsight, it seems I probably deserved to be cheated on by Tracy back in Vancouver. Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

Of course I got caught, and I did my best to explain my way out of it. Selfishly and stupidly, I asked if there was anyone in Agatha's life that she'd always been tempted by but never acted upon her feelings. There was, and I focussed her attention on exploring those feelings. I convinced her that we could both satisfy our long-held fantasies before we settled down, and then we wouldn't spend the rest of our lives wondering what if. Basically, I was talking her into an open relationship so I could have my cake and eat it too. 

Agatha did date the other person, and the the two of them got sexually involved for a time. I even joined in on a couple of occasions. 

But as you can imagine, a relationship weakened by deception was doomed to fail. Agatha and I had both agreed to end our outside relationships before our wedding day. She brought her now former lover to the site for our wedding, and I did the same with Gina. But whilst Agatha and her ex were on their best behaviour, I got caught in a compromising situation with Gina, on the morning of our wedding day. It was one of the stupidest things I've ever done. Tempers flared, arguments ensued, and by the end of it, the wedding was cancelled and I left in embarrassed humiliation.

Coming to America

That's when I came to the Pacific Northwest, where I've been pretty much ever since. My sister was living in Seattle, and I'd already connected with her daughter, my niece, after spending most of our lives worlds apart and not knowing each other. Gina, conveniently, happened to live in the area as well. 

Gina had a child from a previous relationship and was living with a handful of her lovers in a polyamourous arrangement -- including a man I'll call Tim. He's now the live-in boyfriend of my current girlfriend, whom I'll call Cathy. Gina's primary partner, whom I'll call Mary, was also closely involved with a man I'll call Scott. All these people are important to the rest of this story. And Gina was sleeping with all of them save Cathy, plus another man who didn't live under their roof.

I didn't know how she did it. She held down a full-time job and also managed to wrangle the schedules of a house full of people, including her own daughter, and still managed to make time for multiple romantic relationships. She was like the den mother to everyone in the house. Though the youngest of the group, she was in many ways more mature than, or least on par with, the others in her brood. She'd had a troubled childhood, marked by neglect and her parents' divorce, and she'd acted out in ways that weren't healthy for her when she was younger. She eventually fell in love with Mary, the two of them got involved with Scott in a kind of menage a trois, then Tim came on the scene, and eventually four intertwined lovers ended up living under one roof. It should have been chaos, but everyone seemed happy. And it gave Gina some needed structure and responsibility.

I'd met all of her lovers before, And though what Gina and I had whilst I was engaged to Agatha was technically a polyamourous arrangement, the fact that I got caught fooling around with Gina behind my fiancée's back on my wedding day was evidence enough that I hadn't been truly ready for the polyamourous life -- or evidently, for that matter, the married life. But now I could see firsthand how well Gina managed to make her polyamourous life work, and how simply being open with all your lovers about all your other lovers seemed to cause much less stress, if you could manage to juggle so many relationships and make them all work togeher harmoniously. The temptation towards jealousy and possessiveness, I knew, was something I'd have to work out if I were to commit to the polyamourous life, but it seemed worth a try. It was, in my mind, better than the alternative that I'd been failing to make work.  

Long story short, I came to America with the intention of moving in with Gina's brood, ready to give polyamoury a serious try whilst knowing I wouldn't have her all to myself. Not long after I moved in, Tim started bringing Cathy around to spend the night, to the point that she was there more than at her own place. She and I struck up a friendship, but it never went further than that -- even though she flirted with me quite hard at times. 

For my part, I was completely fixated on Gina. Our relationship deepened now that we were under the same roof. But Gina was struggling with a host of other problems that were now manifesting themselves much more sharply. And without going into detail -- it's a tragic tale for another time -- Gina took her own life. 

Words can't express the anguish and the guilt I felt. I very quickly descended into a downward spiral. And again, as is typical for me when times are hard, I ran. 

I just needed to get away and clear my head. I thought about visiting Tracy up in Vancouver. I hadn't spoken with her since the day I'd stomped out without a word, after catching her in bed with an ex. She was only a few hours away. Maybe we could reconcile, and I could at least get away for a little bit. Maybe, I thought selfishly, she'd even console me with some amazing sex. 

I clearly wasn't thinking straight, and fortunately Cathy was there to talk me out of doing something that probably would have ended in pain and humiliation. I just wanted to be with someone, and I didn't know where else to turn. That's when Cathy stepped in to console me. After letting me cry on her shoulder, quite literally, she offered me an intimate weekend together. She'd had her eyes on me, and I'd kept rebuffing her. But I gave in, and she got what she'd so long been after. I went along with it because I thought it might help, but it really only made things worse. It didn't numb my pain in the slightest. 

I had to leave, if only for a while.  

So I took a leap of faith and phoned Gabriela. If anyone in the world would take me in and let me lick my wounds for a bit, it would surely be her. 

And to my tremendous relief, she did. And she was as radiantly beautiful as ever. She still lived in Montevideo, in a bigger and nicer house than when I'd left her. Seems the modelling career had been good to her. She wasn't seeing anyone and in fact had only been in two relationships since she and I had parted. One of them was with Lucia, her childhood friend and my former lover. But they were too different, and crossing the line into intimacy damaged their friendship irreparably. That made me sad, knowing that Gabriela loved Lucia and already had so few people in her somewhat reclusive life. But she'd made the best of it, and she was thrilled to have me for a visit. 

Wisely, she didn't let me rekindle anything romantic, though I harboured a fantasy at the back of my mind that she'd change her mind and let me stay, and we'd get a second chance to build a life together.

But I couldn't live off her good will forever, and when it was obvious she wouldn't let a new romance bud between us, keeping the past in the past, I decided it was time to go back home to America. Cathy had been texting me and asking when I was coming back. And she was the one who met me at the airport on my return. Our romantic encounter before I'd left was still on her mind, and she was fairly relentless about pushing things further. But I just couldn't do it. I needed a fresh start with new people. 

I ended up getting my own apartment, and I saved up to lease some studio space, where I began teaching yoga and meditation classes. This was in addition to my freelance work in editing and bookkeeping, which was practically full-time work for me at this point, all in itself. But I couldn't think of anything to do but throw myself into my work. It was a good distraction.

Then I decided to go back to Quaker meeting. I hadn't been a regular attendee since I was 18 -- I went off to college, and other things tended to take up my time. It was nice having a spiritual centre again, and my years of Buddhist meditation -- which had grown out of my Quaker upbringing! -- helped ground me as I got to know people in the community.

I had a brief but very nice relationship with a woman who attended the meeting. She was around ten years my senior and had suffered through lots of broken hearts. She ran a full-time art studio and sold her wares locally and online. Hers was a low-key, simple life typical of most Quakers, and in many ways her calm contentedness and her warm smile reminded me of Gabriela. We usually spent the weekends together at her house, and we talked on the phone most nights during the week. It was a pleasant, relaxed relationship... and the sex wasn't bad, either! 

But neither of us ever talked commitment. She was done with committed relationships, and I wasn't ready for that anyway. For me, it was a much-needed time of healing with a gentle soul. 

The relationship ended when she sold her house and moved to Portland, to be nearer to her elderly and ailing mother. We kept in touch by phone for a while, but over time the calls slowed to a trickle and eventually stopped. 

Meanwhile, I dated a couple of my female students from my yoga and mediation classes. One of them was into tantric sex, which I must say I enjoyed and learned a lot from! Another was into BDSM. I'd already developed a taste for light S&M from my relationship with Gina, but aside from those few enjoyable encounters that had involved dressing the part and getting to play dominatrix, that phase had long ago fizzled out. Now it was being rekindled anew. Out of that relationship grew my fondness, which persists to this day, of roleplaying, complete with costumes, for sexy adventures.

And I won't even get into the relationship I had with the divorced woman who was a recovering fundamentalist Christian. Let's just say she flipped out and called me a tool of the devil when she decided to go back to her ex-husband. That was flat-out nuts. 

All this time, Cathy was still phoning me and flirting with me. I agreed to a couple of one-night stands, only because she was beautiful -- and relentless! -- and I was horny. But I felt I was leading her on and so resisted taking things further. I just didn't want the hard work that had to go into the kind of full-time relationship she wanted from me. The most she was able to talk me into was to let me be her booty call. For the time being, that worked out for both of us. 

I even slept with Mary, Gina's one-time primary partner, who was now living with Scott full-time. They'd pretty much gotten out of the polyamoury scene and were married and raising both Gina's daughter and a baby of their own. We'd slept together one time before, literally on the night Gina took her life. We had no idea till after the fact, and as you can imagine it put the brakes on any further development of our relationship. The second time, a few years later, was more out of nostalgia than anything else. We've had a few casual encounters since then and remain good friends. 

Overall, I was directionless during that period. I didn't know what I wanted out of life. In my private life, all I had were open-ended, uncommitted, sex-based relationships, mostly because I wasn't sure I could handle anything more. 

Seeing my frustration, and knowing she was getting nowhere with me as far as a long-term relationship, Cathy ended up introducing me to a friend of hers. I'll call her Judy. She was about my age and very pretty, but she also had a biting sarcasm that she even admitted tended to keep most people at arm's length. It was quite clearly a defence mechanism. In some ways, she reminded me of Tracy, except a little more affectionate -- and yet slightly more aloof at the same time. 

Judy had lived a troubled life. She struggled with addiction, and she'd alienated most of the people she knew. They'd given up on her, but I could see underneath the surface the woman who just wanted someone to love her and take care of her. Not that I felt I was in any condition to take care of anyone! But I did like her, and perhaps offering her some encouragement and intimacy would be just what she needed. 

Cathy had introduced us as a favour to Judy, who was indeed looking for someone to love but couldn't get out of her own way. I did my best, and eventually I ended up practically living at her place. But there was always a distance to her that made her hard to warm up to. Her mind always seemed someplace else. I showered her with affection, but I always felt it wasn't enough. Not enough for her to end her other two relationships that she had on the side whilst I tried to get her to focus on us, that's for certain. Now I knew how Cathy must have felt in her pursuit of me.

I spent many weekends alone in Judy's place, waiting for her to come home from another date that she'd end up complaining to me about. Other times she'd ask if I could head out for the night because she planned to bring her date home. I'd just go back to my own place, feeling underappreciated and like I was spinning my wheels trying to help her. I guess I was never good enough for her.

But then she got sick, and there was no one else who cared enough to be there for her but me. Her other boyfriend and girlfriend, the ones for whom I had to go back to my own place so she could bring one (or both) of them home and sleep with them, couldn't be arsed to spend any significant amount of time comforting her or tending to her needs. It all fell on me, save for some welcome visits from Cathy that also brought Judy some comfort. She also had two younger nieces who'd frequently hung around her place despite their parents' protestations that their aunt was bad news. Those two, along with Cathy and me, were, for all practical purposes, Judy's only company in her time of need. And I was the only one with Judy when she received the terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. I was the only one who comforted her as she writhed in pain and sobbed, asking why this was happening to her. I let her take out her frustrations on me. And ultimately, I was the only one in her hospital room with her, holding her hand as she slipped away.

I sank into another deep depression and in the process made some incredibly stupid relationship choices. When we were together, Judy had directed me towards someone close to her who'd wanted some pointers on lesbian sex and relationships, thinking that I'd have something useful to impart, given my admittedly abundant experience on the topic. Judy felt like too much of a fuck-up to offer any kind of useful romantic or relationship advice. So I obliged, never expecting to actually fall into a sexual relationship with the person. But I did, and I shouldn't have. I'll leave it at that, and suffice to say that trying to drown my sorrows over Judy by having even more sex with this person, and eventually someone close to her, was highly inappropriate and leading nowhere good. I'd cut myself off from just about everyone after Judy's death and had thrown myself into something I never should have.

It was Cathy, of all people, who pulled me out of my self-destructive spiral. For as much as I resisted most of her advances, you would think she'd eventually give up on me. But she was tenacious -- a more tenacious person you will never meet! -- and she got me into some much-needed counselling. 

Marriage, Divorce, and the One Who Never Gave Up

The road back was difficult, but I made it through with a small group of dedicated friends. There was Cathy, who never gave up on me, and someone else I'd met when Judy was sick. I know she wouldn't care if I used her real name here, but I'll refer to her as Shelley. She was Judy's primary-care doctor, and I saw her many times throughout the illness. I didn't see her anymore after Judy was gone, but she knew my sister. As I mentioned, my sister was a nurse, and the two of them had worked together at the same clinic in the past. My sister mentioned me to her in passing, and that led to a phone call from Shelley, just to check up on me and see how I was doing. I dumped all my sorrow and depression on her, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact, she invited me out to coffee that weekend.

She was a spunky, red-haired tomboy, and though quite a bit older than I, she had the energy of someone half her age. She also had a beautiful smile and a delightful optimism. I learnt that she'd overcome a lot of struggles in her life, particularly with regard to her sexuality. She grew up in a conservative Catholic home in the U.S. Midwest, and it was expected that she would grow up to get married and have children. And that's exactly what she did. She married a man and had two sons. But she'd also wanted to have a career in medicine, and no one was going to tell her no -- not even her husband, who thought she should give up her career once their first boy was born.

She loved her boys and her job, but she grew more distant from her husband. It wasn't until she confided in a female friend that she realised she had to confront the feelings she'd had since she was a girl -- that she was attracted to other women. Growing up, she'd played with the boys, and she enjoyed playing rough. No dolls and frilly dresses for her. She enjoyed track and tennis, and she had a crush on the family doctor -- female, of course -- so much so that she managed to get a summer job in the office when she was young. She worked there every summer throughout her school years, and in the process she fell in love with medicine itself. She knew she wanted to be a doctor, and she set her mind to making it happen.

Like me, she went to a private school as a girl -- a Catholic school in her case -- and like me, she had to wear a skirt as part of a uniform. She told me how much she hated that skirt, and how she'd rip it off and throw on a tee-shirt, jeans, and sneakers the moment she got home. Then she'd hop on her bike and go play with her friends, who were almost exclusively male. 

When she and her male friends got older, she said she'd find herself checking out the same girls they were. She was subtle enough about it that they never caught on -- or at least they never said anything -- and she felt embarrassed every time it happened to her, like she was doing something sinful.

Her husband-to-be lived in the same city where she attended med school. He fell in love with her, and they married, settled down, and started a family. But when the cracks in their relationship started to form, it was her female friend who made her come to terms with her sexuality. 

They didn't set out to do it, but they ended up falling for each other and having an affair. She said she felt so alive, and truly loved for the first time, when she was with this woman. 

But then they were caught, as always happens with these things. And her life came crumbling down around her. Her husband divorced her, many of her friends abandoned her, most of her church turned its back on her, and her professional reputation even took a hit. 

After that, following a long period of pulling her life back together, she was determined to date but never to remarry. She moved to the Seattle area to get a fresh start, and she found support in a new, more progressive church. She dated a few men in the years that followed, but she also dated women. And by the time she met me, she said she'd sorted out for certain that she was indeed a lesbian. This is something lots of people struggle with, sometimes for their entire lives. I admired her for working through her feelings on her own and coming to terms with her sexuality. 

I unloaded everything about my life on her once we grew more familiar with each other. And to my surprise, she didn't judge me for making stupid mistakes, as so many had, and as I'd done to myself so many times. She helped me be a better person, and she said I made her feel attractive and loved. 

I liked where this was going, but neither one of us was going to push things. It had to feel right. When it did, we took the next step: engagement. Some time after that, we were married in my Quaker meeting. Her boys were in attendance. So was Cathy, who said many times after I got engaged that she wished I could have been a catch for her, but that she was happy for me all the same. Once I was engaged to Shelley, I told Cathy no more weekend hookups or booty calls. And she respected that, enough so that we remained very close friends.

I was happy and in love, and it felt so good to finally be settled down and have my unfortunate past behind me. Shelley and I ran more on love than on passionate sex, though the sex was still good! It was a new chapter in my life, and at my age it arrived just in time. I needed to be a responsible grown-up, and now that I was a wife, I had an excuse to be so. I still ran my meditation and yoga studio, but for the most part I became the dedicated homemaker to a woman who worked long, hard hours and brought home the bulk of the pay. She was just thrilled to have someone loving to come home to, and I did the best I could to fulfil that role. Pity that my cooking sucks, though. Most of the warm meals she arrived home to came out of a box. But she always appreciated the effort and the thought.  

Shelley had big plans. Now that she had a fresh start on life and love, she felt rejuvenated and ready to take on some challenges, some that she'd put on the back burner for most of her life. In particular, she had her sights set on making one of her biggest dreams come true -- opening her own private practise. My sister would be the in-house nurse, and I'd handle the billing. Mary, Gina's former love, expressed an interest in working the phones and the front desk. Plans were set in motion. 

At the same time, I could sense a change in Shelley when we were at home. She was just as sweet and loving as ever, but it seemed as if something was weighing on her mind. At first I thought she was feeling overwhelmed by all the plans she was making for her private practise, but when she became less intimate, I suspected something else was amiss. This was more than just the dreaded "lesbian bed death."

She kept assuring me nothing was wrong when I pressed her, but eventually she broke down and told me everything. She said that whilst she loved me dearly, something was missing for her. As much as she loved being with me, she felt somehow out of balance. She said she'd felt this way in the past when she was with a woman, but she thought she'd worked through it. It was either something lingering from her religious upbringing, or there was something deeper, perhaps biological or psychological, at play. We'd talked about this very thing during our courtship and engagement, and I too thought she'd worked her way through it. 

I tried to address it by attempting to bring more male energy to the relationship. If she felt like two women were ultimately too much yin without any yang, I could at least try to compensate. But I'm just too femme and couldn't pull it off convincingly. Even in the bedroom, where I had a lifetime of abundant experience, it seemed that dominating a woman with a strap-on can only do so much.

Truth is, I'd already been aching for more sex for quite some time. As a highly sexual person, I felt I was starving. I loved and desired Shelley, but more and more often she'd use excuses to brush off my sexual advances. It was a very frustrating time for both of us. She knew I wasn't having my physical needs met, yet I knew it wouldn't be right to push her.

Fortunately, I'd sown my wild oats and then some. My love for Shelley was what mattered most. I tried to make things better intimately for both of us, but I also took matters into my own hands when I needed to, and that was quite often. The point is, I had ways of working things out, and I was learning to strike a balance. The old Lydia would have run off. But Shelley was my world. I would have found a way to be content living with things the way they were, for the sake of love.

I told Shelley as much. But she just kept insisting it wasn't fair to me. More than anything, I think she was angry at herself for having spent so many years working out her sexuality, only to realise after marrying a woman that she might have been bisexual all along.

Mary was, of course, also bisexual, and she knew Shelley through me, so I got Shelley's permission to tell Mary what was going on between the two of us. (Cathy was bisexual too, but Shelley seemed somewhat intimidated by Cathy's often explosive bluntness.) My thought was that perhaps Mary could help Shelley work through her feelings in a way that I just wasn't equipped to do. 

The only thing that ended up happening was that Shelley developed feelings for Scott, Mary's husband. And having to admit that to me made Shelley feel even more miserable.

So I came up with an idea. I talked to Mary and Scott, telling Scott of Shelley's attraction to him, and I asked if they'd be comfortable setting up a date night with Shelley. They'd long been out of the polyamoury scene, but I also knew that they still hooked up with other people occasionally as a couple, to keep things spicy. 

Scott was game, admitting that he was also attracted to Shelley now that everybody's cards were on the table, and Mary said she'd do what she could to help. The one who needed persuading was Shelley herself. She felt horrible even thinking about such a thing. The last time she cheated on her spouse, her marriage imploded. But I assured her this wasn't cheating. For now, it was no more than a date that could lead to more. I was giving her a permission slip to go have some fun, and hopefully it would help in some way. If she and Scott did hook up, and she was able to confirm her feelings for men through sexual contact with a man she knew and trusted, then we could adjust our relationship accordingly. 

Polyamoury was nothing new to me, but this was unexplored territory for Shelley. Perhaps, in hindsight, I shouldn't have tried talking Shelley into doing something she wasn't completely comfortable doing. I just thought I was helping. I didn't feel possessive of her or threatened by the idea of having other people show her affection. I just had to convince her that this was a completely different but perfectly healthy way of looking at relationships. No secrets. Only love and affection and honesty all round.

When I told Cathy what was going on, she asked if my permission slip for Shelley gave me a permission slip as well! I had to disappoint her by assuring her it didn't work that way. My only interest was in helping Shelley. But I gave Cathy credit for being ever relentless!

With a mix of reluctance and excitement, Shelley went off on her date. She came back and told me, quite excitedly, that she and Mary had really hit it off and that Scott had kissed her. She said talking things out with the two of them helped tremendously, as she was able to see another relationship perspective beyond just the closed two-person arrangement. She felt excited about where things might lead and hoped that it might help us sort out things with our own relationship. 

A week later, Scott organised a romantic weekend for the two of them. When Shelley came home after their rendezvous, she hugged me and thanked me for talking her into exploring this avenue. That was a very good sign! She didn't give me a load of details, other than to suggest that the sex was deeply therapeutic. 

She said the weekend had brought back memories of her dating years, when she was trying to find herself. She'd love the roughness and physicality of being with a man, and she loved how men made her feel. But she told me shortly after we met that she loved women in a different, much deeper way. She said she connected with women on a more emotional level, and she loved how soft and beautiful women's bodies were, not to mention that women needed no coaching on how to stimulate another woman's body. By the time she'd met me, she'd decided that whilst she enjoyed the company of men very much, it was women who truly made her heart melt. 

I could understand that. And whilst I could certainly fulfil the female part of the equation for her, I obviously couldn't give her what a man could. She asked how I'd feel if she chose to continue being intimate with Scott every once in a while. Over the weekend, they'd discussed keeping their options open, an idea that Mary consented to. And of course I said yes. 

Now that things were out in the open and she was getting her needs met, our sex life got better too. So everybody won. 

But over time, "every once in a while" became practically every weekend, and our sex life began to wither again as she got her needs met outside our marriage. Around the same time, she began telling me it wasn't fair that she was able to enjoy her extracurricular activities but I couldn't, and she encouraged me to open things up with Cathy if I ever had the urge. I maintained that I didn't want to, that she, Shelley, was my only love. But the way things were going, it was awfully tempting. I just knew where that road would lead if I gave in, and my impulse control had never been good to begin with. 

Shelley persisted, and ultimately I had to sit her down and ask her why she was pushing me so hard on this. Did she not want to be with me anymore? Did I not size up?

She insisted that wasn't the case. But at the same time, she admitted that she and Mary were "hitting it off," and that was one of the reasons she enjoyed spending so much time with the two of them. I felt she was saying that she found herself to be very compatible emotionally with Mary, which was something she hadn't bargained for. My hunch was that Shelley and Mary were attracted to each other but weren't certain about taking the next step. 

Knowing Mary quite well myself, I knew that the two of them were similar in many ways. Even when I'd met Shelley, she reminded me of Mary. And that remained true behind closed doors. I led things in the bedroom with both of them, whilst they were both more reserved.

Then one day, in the middle of a conversation about Scott and Mary, Shelley came out and proclaimed that she and Mary "understood each other," and it stung me rather hard. Did that mean I didn't understand her? Did it mean I didn't do for her what a combination of Mary and Scott did?

Whatever the case, it left me in an awkward situation. Shelley said she still loved me, and I believed her. But I had to ask her: Did all her talk about Mary mean that she wanted to be intimate with Mary as well? It took some coaxing, but she finally admitted that she was quite attracted to Mary, and she admitted to me that they had kissed on occasion. 

I was very angry with her. Shelley knew she could talk to me about anything, so why would she hide this from me? To me, this was no different from cheating. Shelley countered that this was exactly why she felt she couldn't say anything to me. She'd gotten together with Scott so she could scratch her heterosexual itch; she could get her lesbian loving at home from me. And so she resisted getting involved with Mary, even though they did give in to temptation a couple of times. She swore they weren't intimate, that things never progressed beyond kissing, and I believed her. 

I phoned Mary the next day, and she was surprised that Shelley hadn't told me about their kissing sessions; in fact, Mary was under the impression that Shelley had told me. So I made perfectly clear to both of them that if they wanted to pursue a sexual relationship, it was fine with me, and in fact I'd rather have them do that and know about it than have them cheat behind my back. This wasn't the original agreement, but I told them I understand that things change, and I accepted Shelley's apology for hiding the facts from me, even as I knew what this would mean for the dynamics of our marriage. 

So as Shelley began heading off for not just romantic weekends with Scott but now full-blown threesomes with Scott and Mary, she left me no choice but to open up a relationship with Cathy, just to get my needs met. I felt justified doing it, and of course Cathy leapt at the opportunity. 

That was the beginning of the end of our marriage, as both of us ended up being more intimate with our lovers than we were with each other. Shelley and I were still great friends, but we got to the point where we were almost never home with each other. Our sex life had virtually ceased to exist, because we were getting all our needs met through our secondary partners. It was clear we were growing apart. I still loved her deeply, but our relationship was dying. 

Mary was the unexpected development in the plan. Had Shelley not hit it off with her so well, and she'd only been involved with Scott, I think we would have stood a fighting chance. But I ended up being a third wheel in my own marriage.

Eventually, I laid my feelings bare to Shelley. I pointed out the obvious -- that something intended for her to meet her needs that I couldn't fulfil had turned into something else entirely. We were replacing our relationship with our outside relationships. We didn't do anything together anymore. We spent the night at our lovers' houses more than at our own. Everything had gone off the rails. 

Shelley understood how I felt. She said it was obvious to her as well, but she was afraid to say anything about it, as it would mean we'd have to confront things just as we were doing at that moment. She didn't want to admit that our marriage was in trouble.

We agreed to place a moratorium on our outside relationships for just a month. We'd take the time to refocus on each other and get to know each other again. We would rekindle our intimacy, and hopefully I could do a better job of meeting her sexual needs. 

We pulled out all the stops. We had date nights, we did kind little things for each other, we made sure to say I love you every day, and we were very affectionate. The sex became more abundant and, on my end, more creative. 

But it didn't work. It all felt forced, and we both knew it. The air had gone out of the balloon. 

I knew it was over, but I wouldn't let myself admit it. I felt like a failure as a spouse and a person. So I frantically kept trying to make things work -- even up to the day she came to me in tears and asked for a divorce.

I begged her to reconsider. I wouldn't agree to a divorce. I suggested keeping our marriage closed for another few months to give things time to work. She backed off under my protestations, and we did give it another try. But in the end, she'd found a happiness with Mary and Scott that she couldn't find with me. Shelley and I were great friends, but it seemed we were a mismatch as spouses. I simply couldn't give her what she needed, or at least I couldn't do it as well as the three of them could together. Shelley framed the situation as a need for me to be free to be myself, not tied down with her and her problems. But truthfully, she felt guilty about everything that had happened and just wanted out. She'd officially checked out of our marriage.

Shortly after that conversation, I moved in with Cathy and her boyfriend, Tim. She let me stay as long as I wanted, and to date I've never left. 

But I couldn't just turn off my feelings for Shelley. We'd been through so much together. For my part, I still loved her. I sobbed and hugged her tight the day we signed the final divorce papers. I felt like an utter failure as a human being. I felt unlovable, even as Cathy showered me with affection and tenderness. It was funny that I'd pushed her away for so many years, and in the end she was the one who treated me best and loved me the most. 

I think that with Cathy, I was afraid I'd revert to being the old Lydia, the reckless and stupid one. I'd done my best to settle down and be a faithful spouse after a lifetime of wild living, and I think I was afraid Cathy would bring my wild child back to life. 

With her, some of the old Lydia has come out. Not the irresponsible one, thank the heavens. But the sexual Lydia is indeed alive, well, and thoroughly satiated. Cathy knows my wants and needs, and she meets them all and then some with her considerable talents. She's even talked me into doing things I never thought I'd do -- like sex shows, on stage, in front of a live audience. Cathy makes a portion of her living as an exotic dancer, and she eventually wore me down to try a sex show with her at a club that allowed them. It was terrifying at first, but the terror soon gave way to a thrill of excitement. Seems my old exhibitionist self wasn't quite dead after all these years!

As for Shelley, her relationship with Scott and Mary didn't last. Remember how I told you Shelley wanted to open her own private practise? A doctor friend of hers in Idaho offered her a partnership in his practise, following the retirement of his former partner. That left her to choose between a career move or her relationship. Mary was willing to move with her and perhaps have some role in the doctor's office, but Scott was too attached to his work, friends, and connections in the Seattle area. In the end, Mary chose her husband and Seattle, and Shelley went off to embark on a new chapter in her life. In some ways, it feels as if everythng Shelley and I went through was an exercise in futility, if in the end she walked away from the relationship she chose over our marriage. But perhaps it was just meant to be. In any event, all of us continue to remain friends, and Shelley and I are still intimate when we get together for a visit. Nothing will ever come of it, but being together always reminds us of the good times we shared. 

I'll talk more about Cathy (and maybe the sex shows) another time. But that brings me to the present. I don't know if this will be my last chapter or my happily ever after, but I'm being guardedly optimistic that it will be both. Cathy finally won me, and she's been very good for me. I can only hope I return the favour.