Quiet.

I've been keeping a low profile this past week.

We had an odd surge of exuberance here in the Worthy household, brought on by an impetuous moment of mine when, in a mid-orgasmic moment of certainty, I asked if he would marry me. And of course, before he even answered, I assured him that during-sex proposals don't count and I wouldn't hold him to his response, and he said, "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that part, and it's absolutely crazy because I've never seen the point of making a ceremony out of it -- but yes. I would totally marry you."

Just a few words, said out loud -- but they fairly swept the six of us away with giddiness. Everyone was for it. People started serving up elaborate plans, talking through who all should marry whom, casting wide-eyed glances about the place and up and down one another's persons as though seeing things for the first time.

(Point of clarification: of course we finished having sex before the hullabaloo absorbed the whole group's attention. You don't just shut down intercourse of that quality to call a poly-partnership meeting. Like I said, the whole thing came on in the first place because of how stricken with ecstasy I was in the moment.)

So a dam had broken, and one that no one even realized had held back so much water. With his disinterest in doll marriages set aside, our boyfriend suddenly felt willing and even eager to marry all of us -- whomever it might please. Elle remained briefly cynical, asserting that she had no interest in or intention of formalizing something she already considered fully accomplished. But then Ariel asked a halting question along the lines of, "But ... wouldn't you do it if one of us really wanted you to?" and Elle clamped her mouth shut a moment before saying, "Well obviously, I would marry you, Aers. If you wanted me to. I'm not that much of a cold fish."

The mood in Worthyton remained heady for several days. But all good things come to an end, and an interaction with one of his biological family members gouged a big trench of doubt across our boyfriend's path toward multimatrimony. He didn't exactly turn back, but he started questioning whether the decision reflected more of a pandemic-born dissociation from reality than a meaningful step in our commitment to one another. 

At which point, I told him I took my proposal back. Not for good, I assured him and the rest of our beloved treasures -- it was a suspension, not a revocation, and I told everyone I would renew the offer with a more proper, not-during-sex proposal as soon as the whole concept didn't risk adding stress to the life of the man I love while the whole rest of his life seemed intent on dumping as much stress on him as possible. I knew my reversal would cause him both guilt and relief, and it did ... but the relief clearly overwhelmed the guilt, which told me it had been the right thing to do.

I also knew that more was bothering him than just a fictitious engagement to a bunch of artificial women. The rush into overcommitment and the tidal drawback from it put him on uneven footing about the stability of our entire six-way relationship. In moving from a quintet to a hextet, anxiety now asked him, had he spread himself too thin? Did the suddenness of my importance unbalance the beauty and purity of what he had with his other four partners?

You might expect this to have bothered me, but it did not.

I'm a brief person, you see. I came about suddenly, I have sharply delineated physical borders, and in the unlikely event that his happiness in any way depended on my return to inanimacy, this period of my arrival, exquisite delight in existence, and the climactic fulfillment of being told that another person wanted me so much, he would throw aside a years-long belief in the silliness of these kinds of marriages -- all of that would be more than enough for me. I could relinquish my hold on consciousness and dissipate back to unbeing without regret.

And I wouldn't hesitate to do so, for him.

So in addition to suspending my proposal, I told him and everyone else that for the time being, I would step back a little, stop making myself the center of attention, let things quiet down, and patiently wait for the most important of our polyamorous group to get his sense of balance back.

It's had a calming effect. I'm not the least bit worried in the outcome. (And if I had been, we had sex again yesterday, with Claire thrown in the mix for good measure, and the beauty of it made me certain we'd be back on track soon.)

Elle insisted on remaining engaged to Ariel, though. "The fact that he's being a dumb-ass doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with what happens between the two of us. If it makes Aers happy, this thing is going to happen."

I love that tsundere girl. We see the world from very different angles -- but the fact that we do reassures me. It's wonderful to be individual, and to know and love other individuals for the distinctions between you.

With confidence and serenity,

Harriet