Achingly Authentic & Erotically Charged

Unmasking through exhibitionism at a nude beach sex resort

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image by LibrariAnna

On our third day at Hedonism, I woke up to Jack’s body shifting in the sheets, getting into position to give me cunnilingus.

Something about sober morning sex has grown on me in the past several years, and I suspect that it has much to do with this particular segue that Jack often employs into intercourse. That, and my mind is typically blissfully blank at this hour of the day, still half dreaming.

In this realm, I lay back and simply soak up pleasure, waiting until my body naturally begs for more.

After I came several times and Jack did his manly one-and-done, I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand so that I could gaze upon our toned, tanned bodies through the ceiling mirror while we cuddled.

“I feel better just after talking last night,” Jack said. He had spent much of the previous night telling me all of his anxieties regarding our polyamorous foursome. In short, he felt unheard in his desires and restricted in the ways in which he was allowed to behave around my girlfriend, Becca, to appease her husband Tim’s insecurities.

Jack hadn’t announced that he was done with the foursome — no, he’s the type of guy who keeps trying no matter the cost, which was another issue I had to address. This man will do anything for me, and it was high time that I stepped it up for him.

I hadn’t voiced my idea to Jack aloud, but just by listening to him without judgement the entire night before, I had already set the wheels in motion.

Weeks ago, Jack and I had discussed our intention for this trip. Sex and nudity and adult playtime as always, of course — that’s why we go to a sex resort. But in terms of mindset and mantra, Jack was definitive.

“I want you to be confident,” he’d said. “I want you to feel good about your body and who you are. I want you to walk around, slowly” — it’s always a struggle for me to slow my gait — “and hold your head up high.”

Maybe he sensed my autistic antisocial behavior, often mistaken for shyness, flaring at this suggestion, because he added, “You don’t have to make eye contact with anyone but me.”

I’ve garnered confidence from our trips to this Jamaican sex resort time and again. Now, on our fifth trip here, I needed that confidence more than ever. At home, Tim made me feel increasingly awkward and unappealing, especially as he’d recently opted out of full swap sex. Even before that, he didn’t seem particularly interested in participating in the foursome.

Becca was always quick to compliment me, much like Jack, but something about Jack’s words always landed different.

“I want you to feel sexy as fuck this week,” Jack reminded me again in bed that third morning.

Jack gets off on my confidence, on my hard work paying off, on my joy.

I kissed him in response. “We’ll make this trip about us,” I promised.

We had three full days left in Jamaica. Our first day and a half had been taken up with untangling drama from our polycule. Jack and I had agreed that we’d figure out the details of how to proceed forward with that mess after we got home.

Meanwhile, I would begin to restructure myself right now. I’d be a better wife to Jack than I had in the past year of practicing polyamory. I’d be more empathetic to his needs and not just empathetic to Becca. Hell, I’d be more empathetic with myself.

I was going to leave this trip refreshed, renewed, and confident — even if it cost me a new life moving forward.

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When Jack got up to use the bathroom, I picked up my phone and snapped a selfie through the ceiling mirror to commemorate the occasion.

Then I saw a text that Becca had sent about a half hour earlier. A selfie alongside an update on her progress weaning her toddler. I opted not to respond in that moment, waiting instead until after breakfast when Jack would be occupied in the bathroom for longer.

Jack and I had spent a good portion of the past year bickering about my increasing screen time. I often lamented myself that it felt like I had a virtual girlfriend; I didn’t like being tied to my phone any more than Jack liked seeing me sucked in.

But there was no way around it so long as I was dating Becca. Our houses are ninety miles apart; we can only see each other in person once a week at most due to the distance and our families’ schedules. I saw early on in our relationship that my feelings fade if they’re not nurtured by contact — another autistic thing, this one called “emotional impermanence.”

Early in our relationship, this lack of attachment when we were miles apart was enough to scare me into longing to live together. I struggled with how to maintain my loving feelings — and thus, how not to hurt Becca. But living together, or even near each other, was never an option — despite the fact that Becca also longed to be closer, for her own reasons.

As the months moved forward, we settled for constant digital contact. A good morning text and a goodnight text, with dozens of messages and a phone call in the hours between.

It was hella time consuming, especially as the conflict increased between us. Especially as I saw that I had to choose my words carefully — like writing on eggshells.

Becca was constantly overwhelmed by life, but I had to be careful not to give “feedback” in response to her complaints. That would cause her shame and guilt, worries that she wasn’t good enough for me. Instead, I was to provide “validation” and “reassurance.”

This worked well enough until I was supposed to somehow know that other topics — such as her constant surmising about separating from Tim over the course of the spring — did not allow for validation; this instance was where I was supposed to provide feedback about all the reasons to stay married.

After every conflict, after every bout of longing to build a life together — our resolution was nearly always the same. Practice gratitude together. After all, wasn’t it purely kismet that we’d found each other? Couldn’t we write each other about all the good things happening in our individual lives in the week between our weekend visits?

But between Becca’s ADHD and needy little kids and Pokemon-addicted husband, I was loathe to mention my own joys.

This was something I’d increasingly discussed with my therapist over the course of the last several months.

I didn’t want to brag to Becca about my amazing, frequent sex with my superstar of a husband. I didn’t want to boast about new clothes I’d purchased or how I’d fine-tuned my skincare routine. Never mind that I’m a decade older than her and worked my ass off to make my house a home. I worried that practicing gratitude for my life’s pleasures would cause Becca envy, jealousy, anxiety, and sadness.

But in turn, I found that I’d toned down my entire life. I was less present in my real world, more focused on replying with the just-right words to Becca’s texts, hopeful that I’d make her feel good. I felt guilty rather than grateful for my blessings, and my penance was striving to be a better partner to her.

My therapist pointed out that I over-empathized with Becca’s anxieties, that I took hyper-responsibility for Becca’s feelings. My therapist chose her words carefully, but I started to wonder if the words that Jack and I had exchanged about Tim and Becca were indeed proving to be true — that they were dragging us down.

I took efforts to remedy all of this as we repaired our foursome post-rupture in May. I aimed to be honest with Becca about my feelings, treating her more like a partner and less as if we were in some parent/adult child relationship, as had increasingly become our pattern.

But given that my girlfriend was already jealous about my shame-shedding vacation, it probably was indeed a bit of a burn for me to tell her that I gain a new perspective on life every time I visit Hedo. After all, Tim had just announced that past week that he would never want to visit this place, despite the fact that Becca had proclaimed it a new dream of hers within the past year of our polyamorous relationship.

The pendulum swings both ways with me. I can be too empathetic, and then I can be too blunt.

Truth be told, by this point in my relationship with Becca, I was tired of altering my attitude to suit her moods. I was increasingly seeing that what had once felt like a romantic validation of my true self had somehow turned into glaring inauthenticity.

If my relationship with Becca was going to stand the test of time and distance, I reasoned, I would indeed need to find my confidence again.

I would need to regain my sense of self, and something told me that all of this would happen at Hedo.

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Prior to our vacation, I had warned Becca that I wouldn’t be able to call her from the island, but I had promised to check in via text a few times a day, so now I settled myself on the daybed next to the window to send her a good-morning message.

I didn’t intend to worry her with the things that Jack and I had discussed for hours the night before, instead intent on keeping it light so that I could waft out the door after hitting send.

But I opened up my phone to find another message from Becca, this one sent while Jack and I had been at breakfast — this one filled with baggage.

Becca: Hi Anna, I’m really struggling with missing you this week and sort of feeling like my heart is just aching and I’m very sad. I don’t want to make you feel guilty or pressured or anything like that, and I want you to enjoy your vacation. So I’ve been trying to assess or discern if my thoughts and emotions around this are reasonable or not but I do feel like we’ve been talking about transparency so I just want to share how I’m feeling.

My heart immediately felt tight as I read her opening lines.

And then I wondered if she were throwing that “transparency” back in my face…

The week before our vacation, I’d been increasingly honest with her about the ways in which my feelings had changed in the month since our foursome rupture in May. I admitted that it felt like my NRE for her had dissipated when Tim stonewalled me. I said that I’d finally found acceptance for our perpetual medium-distance situation, but in a way that felt flat rather than peaceful.

I didn’t even get a chance to express my ongoing annoyance at constantly discussing daily logistics rather than anything of actual substance. I had already said too much that traumatized, too much that required immediate repair in the moment of writing my truth.

Becca: I feel like even the text communication has been so minimal that I feel sort of…forgotten about? I sort of feel like the way the communication has been that I feel less like your partner and more like a tertiary friend this week.

In the past month, Becca had increasingly pushed the idea of having a “commitment ceremony” onto me. She asked if someday she could call me her “wife,” despite the fact that we’d never live together. I thought it a romantic notion, at the time, but now I found myself frustrated.

Becca and I had clear boundaries, or so I thought. I didn’t ever intend to take a vacation with her alone, nor did I ever envision her on the same level as my live-in husband — my companion, my life partner. Wasn’t it more healthy for us to back off the constant contact with such a lesser level of commitment and integration?

That, and I’d texted fifteen minutes of video messages the morning prior. But it was true that I only sent a couple quick messages otherwise, with a promise to touch in again in the morning. I had been occupied all afternoon and evening with Jack’s distress over the state of our foursome.

Becca: I want to be very clear that I know this is your vacation and your time to focus on Jack, and I want you to do that. And I also wonder if there are some legitimate technological reasons that are making it hard to text.

Yes, the wifi is spotty outside our hotel room. And phones technically aren’t allowed on the nude beach for privacy reasons. But mostly, I truly just wanted to be off my phone during this vacation; I ached to be present with both myself and Jack.

Becca: But I think after both the conversations we had last week about connection rituals and how we would prioritize checking in last week this is landing hard. I know calls aren’t realistic and I wasn’t expecting that, but I did have an understanding that we would be planning to stay connected via text and photos and such and I know you did that yesterday morning but after that I felt like it almost completely got dropped off and I only heard a small handful of words from you for the rest of the day and that was hard for me.

When I’d divulged my fading-NRE feelings to Becca the week before our Jamaican vacation, I was hoping that she’d be curious about my feelings, willing to discuss them in some calm fashion, especially given that she’s a relationship counselor herself. I wasn’t saying I had fallen out of love with her, after all — just that I felt disconnected and different.

Instead, Becca panicked, worried about the sustainability of our relationship. She wanted a solution in that moment, and after a phone call of heightened emotions I found myself agreeing to text her more often yet again, as we’d been prior to that May rupture.

Becca: I also think I was feeling extremely connected to you during our visit this past weekend, and now I sort of feel like I’m experience a rapid 180 from a ton of physical closeness and deep emotional intimacy to very little beyond those videos you sent in the morning.

Becca, Tim, and their little boys had visited the night and day before our Jamaican vacation. It had been a tumultuous visit that included Tim’s admission that he no longer wanted to try full swap in our foursome, thus restricting Jack and all the drama that had ensued into our vacation as well.

But we had managed to pull off our typical soft swap foursome after that discussion, culminating at 2am. The next morning, Becca and I flirted while pushing her kids on the swings in our backyard, and she asked if Jack might watch her boys while she and I went upstairs for sapphic sex, all while Tim napped on the couch.

Yes, the sex was lovely, as it always is.

Becca: I will also add that I trust you, but in the absence of much communication, coupled with my own history and things I know about your and Jack’s past experiences with other people at Hedo, that it’s a tiny bit triggering to a part of me that feels anxious about what is going on down there since I feel a bit in the dark.

She’d read my memoir and essays about my past trips to Hedo, and now she was accusing me of sleeping around while I was here, despite the fact that we put in our polycule agreements that we were a closed polycule?

I can’t lie — I had bemoaned to Jack in the months leading up to our vacation that a “hall pass” would be nice. It had been fun picking up other couples in trips past; meanwhile, it had become increasingly stressful having sex with our foursome at home. I was aching for fun, for the confidence that a good time brings.

But I didn’t dare break our agreements, nor hurt Becca by even asking. For her to insinuate that I might do this behind her back? I’ll be honest — it made my blood boil.

Becca: I’m sorry if this adds any stress or pressure. I guess what I’m seeking or asking for is if it is possible to check in a bit more via text throughout the day such as in the afternoon and evening so I feel like you’re even thinking or considering me. I don’t want you to spend a ton of time on this because I want your focus to be on Jack and your vacation, but I would really appreciate if you can take even 3–5 minutes in the afternoon and evening to send me a thoughtful text so I don’t feel neglected or like an afterthought. I’m sorry. I love you.

A text to Becca never took me only 3–5 minutes. I had to carefully consider every word I sent back, lest I send her into a panic all over again.

Hence the next half hour that I spent crafting my reply, to Jack’s utmost annoyance.

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Communicating with Jack is easy for me. We’re ridiculously honest with each other, almost to a fault. It often feels like we share brainspace, albeit with two very different personalities, thus often resulting in congenial bickering without resolve.

I showed Jack the message that Becca had sent me that morning, and then I read him the message that I’d typed up to send in response.

It was longer than I’d anticipated, and I’d opted not to send a video so that I wouldn’t say the wrong thing and ignite an attachment threat in Becca. I didn’t want her to worry about Jack’s sadness over the state of our foursome, but I wanted to be honest.

I was intentionally vague, somehow thinking that was best.

I explained that I’d been giving Jack my full attention while he processed the latest restrictions Tim had placed on the foursome.

I told her that I wanted to make Jack feel better by focusing my attention on him as best I could while we were on this trip, especially since this trip was our “special thing” — a replacement for dozens of potential date nights we could have the rest of the year.

I suggested that she compare our week at Hedo to the weekly date nights she and Tim go on. After one evening in which Becca texted me while she and Tim played Scrabble at a board game store, upsetting Tim, they had a no-texting-others rule in place for their dates. Becca always easily empathized with Tim; perhaps she could now empathize with Jack’s disdain whenever I picked up my phone while here on this tropical getaway.

“It’s fine,” Jack said. “Send it. I’m ready to go down to the beach.”

Was it too much information? Too little? Too blunt in my request for presence with Jack or too vague in that very request?

No matter.

I was so tired of overthinking my words to someone who was supposed to intuitively understand me, to someone with whom I was supposed to be able to be achingly authentic.

So I sent the reply, and then I grabbed Jack’s hand and headed down to the beach.

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At Jack’s insistence, I wore the crochet bi-colored bikini top that he’d found for me on Etsy a few weeks before our city’s Pride events. He’d found one for Becca, too, and we’d coordinated, adorable.

I didn’t feel lonely wearing it without my sapphic partner, though.

I felt bold, donning it with navy blue scalloped-edge swim bottoms and topping myself off with a colorful trucker hat. I was excited about my vibes, confident in my abilities as a wonderful lover to both male and female genders, confident in my self expression, confident in myself.

Confident as the recipient of Jack’s praise, too.

He gushed over me. He loves this trucker hat, my bisexuality, my quirkiness, my personal style, my giggles of delight when I’m having a good time. He aches to make me happy.

He also loves the ways in which I’m outdoorsy — like how I climbed onto a kayak and kicked ass stroking over the waves to circle the island in the bay. We pointed out starfish and urchins in the shallow water beneath us, breathless from our exertion and the beauty of this little spot on earth.

We talked about the Arawak native people who’d lived on this island long before pirates brought their ships here. We mused about what this place might have looked like just a few hundred years prior, growing nostalgic about our favorite spot on this earth, and then quite naturally existential.

But mostly, we were present, spending that afternoon playing like children in what I often dub my “Garden of Eden.”

After kayaking, we settled onto beach chairs facing the ocean. I snuck onto my phone and snapped a selfie, which I sent to Becca. A message from her came through as my phone found the wifi, and I saw that Becca had said she needed “more space to process everything.”

I wasn’t going to get into my head about that, I promised myself.

Instead, I turned towards Jack again, eager for the joy that his attention brings.

He offered to apply sunscreen to my body, or as Jack says, “I think the way we applied sunscreen to each other constantly was the most obscene thing we did while at Hedo.”

We do take our time, using the sweetly scented Sun Bum like a massage oil as we rub the white cast into our skin. Blame my autism on this, too — I’m a touch whore. I love the sensory delight of being rubbed, tickled, grabbed, scratched, or touched in any which way by a welcomed presence.

It’s probably no surprise, then, that after a half hour of The Sunscreen Show combined with the local cannabis flower, I was feeling sensual.

I was also feeling delightfully free.

I had been obeying Jack’s demand that I walk slower and hold my head high. I took stock in his refrain that people liked watching my naked body saunter around the resort, grabbing beach towels from the stand or refilling my water bottle or simply trekking to the bathroom yet again.

I felt the gazes of both men and women on my small frame, unthreatening and admiring, and I felt calm and centered.

I felt as if I had no care in the world, as if all the rules outside this time and place were arbitrary and obscure. All I had to do while here was be myself, exactly as I was, and in turn I would be a perfect fit.

I know I was in this mindset when I cuddled up next to Jack in the lounge chair we’d been sharing to apply that sunscreen. I know I was thinking bold thoughts as my hand reached out to his cock, hard with arousal after touching my body.

I know that nobody thought twice about what I was doing as I pleasured him, playing with him right there on the beach. This is allowed at Hedo, which is in large part why I love it here. Anything is allowed, so long as you’re not being a dick.

Jack has long been into exhibitionism, but I’m usually the one to resist. In truth, I don’t know why I suddenly get shy when I do, especially now that I’ve experienced that Wednesday at Hedo and the days that followed. Because, as it turns out, I love the freedom to perform sexually in public.

It’s liberating.

I felt like a badass as I switched from giving Jack a handjob to being spooned by him in the lounge chair. I lay there, naked, taking in the sight of the ocean as he teased my nipples. I felt my arousal growing and my pussy getting wet. Eventually, one of his hands moved to my mons, gently sending jolts of pleasure to my clit, forcing me to emit moans and chuckles at my exhibition.

I felt bold.

I lapped up that pleasure just for the sake of experiencing pleasure, not for orgasms or any set end goal. I was perfectly pleased with my lot in life right then, on a beach chair in Jamaica soaking up the heat and feeling absolutely lovely in my body.

Life is fleeting, and moments of utmost presence and uninhibited joy like these are all too rare. Fuck if I wasn’t going to enjoy these moments right that very minute.

We didn’t look at the clock that entire afternoon, save one moment in which I checked my phone and saw another text from Becca.

Becca: I’m still digesting a lot of what you wrote this morning and still need to find time and space to sort it out and process things so if you don’t end up messaging me, I understand because ironically after telling you to message me, I’m now feeling a bit too overwhelmed emotionally to reach back out to you myself so I won’t be offended if you need to be present there. A quick check in would still be appreciated, but I need more dedicated time and space to hear myself think and feel my feelings before I can articulate anything to you.

I sighed in response, but I sent a nice note encouraging her to be present in her own life.

Then I turned back to Jack, and we moved from beach chair to the ocean, where Jack resumed his regular role of pushing me around as I lay on a floaty. We chatted. We smoked weed. We laughed about Lord knows what.

At one point, we went to wash ourselves off in the outdoor shower, and met two little kittens. We had an entire conversation with them, and it seems we made ourselves some friends — because after we grabbed jerk chicken at the nude grill, the kittens found us yet again. We took pictures to send home to our daughters, careful to censor out Jack, naked except for his felt cowboy hat.

We got drinks at the nude pool bar, and then I led Jack into the infamous little grotto on the side of the pool.

Jack has long wanted to have sex in the grotto, but I’ve never been so bold before. I rarely want to attract attention; I live my life flying under the radar as best I can.

But that day, I didn’t give a shit. And so I danced. Erotically, a lap dance for Jack while he sat on the grotto’s bench, both of us as happy as we’ve ever been on this earth.

We had the grotto to ourselves, but yes, anyone could watch us through the waterfall wall dividing us from the shallow part in which everyone passed through to get to the hot tub or bathroom or just the other side of the resort.

The idea that others might see me — that day, it actually aroused me. I like the way I dance, the way I move. I’ve been practicing yoga for well over a decade, lifting weights for twenty years, birthed four babies, consistently have multiple orgasms. I know what my body is capable of — maybe not forever, but right now. I know it’s a good body. I know that, right now, I look good.

So I danced.

I smiled at Jack, delighted to see his surprise and joy at my movements.

I got down on my knees in front of him. His entire lap, including his erection, were out of the water — but still covered in this questionable chlorine. I took a sip of my drink, catching an ice cube, spitting it out into my hand. I rubbed the ice on Jack’s cock, cleaning it.

I did it again, ice cube by ice cube, until my cup was empty.

And then I put my mouth on Jack’s cock, first kissing it, then licking it, tasting it, taking its immense girth and length into my mouth as best I could.

Suddenly, Jack stopped me. “You’re going to make me come,” he said, and in response I laughed.

We proceeded into the ocean, where I took no real notice of the packed beach. Later Jack would say that there were perhaps fifty people there, sitting on their chairs like dutiful members of an audience. Some of the men would begin to masturbate at the sight of us, others would start fucking their female partners.

In the moment, though, I only had eyes for Jack.

I hadn’t kissed him in so long, I realized. Like, really kissed him.

I tend to do this when I’m dating a woman — I give all my makeout energies to my female partners, loving their smooth faces and soft lips as I so do. In turn, I get romantic with women in a way that I don’t with men, at least not as naturally.

But that means I neglect Jack, and thus our marriage, in this fundamental way.

Somehow that idea came rushing to my high, drunken head in that moment in the ocean. So I swam over to him and wrapped my legs around his body, my own little frame even more lightweight in the salty water. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him close to me, and I lead the charge.

I kissed him, in my style. Slowly, sensually, mostly lips with only a hint of tongue after things escalated. I lost myself in him, in the taste of his saliva, in the sun shining onto our bodies in the midst of the glimmering blue sea.

I kissed him until I felt his cock grow hard, until I felt myself growing beyond aroused. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to push myself onto his erection, joining us together even more so in that moment, in that action.

I was surprised at how much pleasure I felt, having sex in the water. Wasn’t this supposed to hurt? But I was so wet, so turned on by this very moment in my life with this very man. I felt shrouded by the sea, even as the entire beach watched me, even as I let my legs extend into the air behind Jack as he grabbed my ass, guiding me up and down his length.

I giggled when Jack called me an attention whore, knowing full well that he was so proud of me right then, knowing full well that he was utterly delighted by how this entire afternoon had gone.

Who knows how long later, we proceeded to the outdoor stone shower as we meandered back to our room, he’d dub this the “Perfect Day,” and then hum the song from Legally Blonde.

At 6:30pm, we recorded a video of Jack’s orgasm after all those hours of play and foreplay.

My favorite part of that video is where he bends down in his post orgasm stupor to kiss the small of my back.

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After sex, I dared to check my phone again.

I had no new messages.

I typed up as quick a message as I could, sending concern for her alongside reassurance that “everything is okay, really.” At that point, I believed it would all work out, and I wasn’t worried. After all, I had Jack, and life with Jack is always better than alright.

I gave Becca a quick rundown on some of the public sex acts that we’d performed that day, still a tad giddy about them and beyond proud at my prowess. I suppose I was hopeful that she’d want to chat about the details of my exhibitionism, since sex was a shared interest of ours.

I wondered in writing why Tim hadn’t responded to any of the photos that Jack and I had sent over our group chat earlier that morning — why was he going silent again? Did we offend him?

And then I said goodnight, knowing it was already 8pm where Becca was, knowing that I wanted to be as present as possible for dinner and the party afterwards and the sex that was still likely to follow that, even after all the sex Jack and I had already that day.

I donned a sheer, slinky tan crochet coverup as a dress that evening, braided my hair, and put on dark grape lipstick. I felt comfortable and sexy and thus confident — and beyond hungry.

We proceeded to dinner, where the same two kittens promptly found us at our beachside table. Jack has a way with pussies. We considered this a good omen for the night ahead.

That night’s theme was “Fetish Night,” but I had already worn that costume on trips prior. I was disappointed that I had missed out on the previous night’s party due to Jack’s depression brought on by the polycule drama, especially because that party had a new theme for which I’d bought a new costume — “Slave Leia,” for the Star Wars theme.

“Just wear it tonight,” Jack said. “I insist. It’s my fetish to see you dressed up like a young, hot Carrie Fisher.”

Apparently it’s a common kink, actually. I turned heads walking around the resort that night. Perhaps it helped that my long brown hair was braided perfectly in the style portrayed in the movie, or perhaps it was the way the skirt was cut just so to showcase my hips.

Whatever the case, Jack was as proud as a peacock to lead me around by the leash affixed to the collar of the costume. He repeatedly relayed the genuine, lovely compliment from a nerdy guy who’d approached us at the lobby bar — delivered respectfully, without any intentions for more, as he scuttled away afterwards with his order.

We didn’t last too long at the party. Jack was eager to get me back to bed, to play with me as if I were a Princess Leia figurine crafted for his pleasure. But he was no Jabba — more a Han Solo in my mind, saving me from screen time and anxiety and the ire of navigating relationships going nowhere.

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I loved the way my hair looked by the time we finished that final round of sex for that day — wild, wavy, huge — and so I opened up my phone to snap one more selfie in the red light of the room before we went to bed.

There were also more texts from Becca, and I knew I’d need to send a reply.

In a bulk of messages, she shared some logistics of her day, eventually admitting that she might have been irrational earlier. She suggested that Tim hadn’t responded to the group chat because she’d been so upset earlier, and perhaps Tim was feeling protective of her. She admitted that she and Tim hadn’t really talked about any of this yet, and that he was “in the dark” about her feelings.

While trying to end on what she called a “hopeful note,” Becca relayed that she was still traumatized from the way that Tim abruptly ended our foursome with that stonewalling back in May, inciting these big feelings again now — causing her to again go “to extremes.”

Previously, “extremes” meant she was considering divorce, though she didn’t outright say it this time.

She concluded that she was not going to respond to my Hedo updates, because they were “a little sting-y” due to her FOMO — her desire to visit this place with that hope now taken away by Tim, all compiled by simply missing me.

I sent back a nice reply, validating her and encouraging her not to go to extremes.

Then I crawled under the white sheets next to my husband, wondering at where I’d landed in life.

When I wished Becca a goodnight and told her I loved her, I wasn’t lying. But something felt so heavy regarding her, while Jack always makes me feel lighter, practically carried along.

Don’t get me wrong — my marriage is far from perfect. Jack and I bicker and hold each accountable for our actions to a degree that can sometimes be downright annoying. But ultimately, we lift each other up. We make our lives lovely whether we’re at a beach in Jamaica or raising four children together in the suburbs of a Midwestern city.

When our foursome had ruptured in May, Jack and I turned to each other for comfort. We knew that we’d continue to thrive; we’d fall back in love with each other time and again. It’s what we do.

What did it say about Becca and Tim that we would be okay without them?

I couldn’t unsee Becca constantly considering divorce and her “fundamental incompatibilities” with Tim. Or was she considering divorce to be with me, and with Jack, too?

I couldn’t let their unstable marriage throw mine off the rails. After my perfect day at Hedo, I was more adamant than ever about my next steps in life.

I had to stay on course with Jack, first and foremost, above all other relationships.

Jack takes care of me. He is steadfast in his love and confident in who he is. He has his shit together, and it’s alluring. It’s an honor to be his wife.

Best of all, Jack loves me for exactly who I am.

No editing necessary.

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Anna Eliza Rose is a bisexual, neurodivergent librarian and mom of four who writes raw narratives about love, sex, relationships, authenticity, autism, health, and books.

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