and for the first time, I truly believe in my heart what my eleven men have been trying to tell me for months. They all look so happy and content. There is so much friendship and love between them that only adds to the relationship we all have together. And they love me. They really love me. I can feel it in the way they treat me every day.
“The sweetest,” Danna says.
“But we are the luckiest. I mean, I know we’re great, and they’re lucky to have us but, this is a dream life.”
“It’s more than a dream life,” Danna says as York brings her a chilled glass of wine. She smiles up at him, and he leans in to kiss her. When he returns to the rest of his brothers, she turns to me with wide eyes and a cheeky smile. “He knows he’s next in on the baby-making schedule. We’re going in reverse order alphabetically! I can tell he’s eager to get started, and I don’t blame him. There’s something so hot about having sex without condoms.”
“Yeah, there is.” It suddenly dawns on me that if I don’t want to get pregnant, we’re going to have to start using contraception. Tonight is the first night I’m able to have sex since Dale arrived, and I’m both nervous and excited.
“Do you think you’ll have more?” Dale stirs in Danna’s arms as Gordon booms with laughter at something Samuel has said, and Danna instinctively jiggles him up and down soothingly.
“I’d love more, but not for a while. I want to finish school. The boys have insisted that I enroll here and complete my course.”
“That’s good. You should. You have the support.”
“Exactly. And then, who knows?”
“Have you spoken about how it could work? I’ve joined a polyamory group online, and some just leave it open to chance. Others, like us, try to structure it. I mean, I’m up for trying to give each of them a child, but some of it is out of my hands.”
“I know what you mean. It seems crazy to think about going through pregnancy so many times, but I get why people do. Now Dale is here, if it’s this amazing each time, it could become an addiction.”
Danna laughs, her eyes sparkling in a way that tells me she’s already there. “There are worse things to be addicted to than having kids.”
“True.”
“Although my belly still hasn’t gone back to how it was before… to be honest, I don’t think it ever will. Add a few more pregnancies, and I think my body will be disagreeing.”
“I was worried about the stretch marks, but now I kind of look at them like an achievement. My body has done this amazing thing, and now Dale is out in the world, the little marks he left behind are kind of precious.”
Danna reaches out and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze. “You know, that is a beautiful way of looking at it.”
“Trey has a crazy positive outlook on life. He always manages to turn a negative into a positive. I’ve been learning from him.”
“That’s awesome, and that’s part of why living with so many partners is great. Each one brings something new to the relationship. If I’m down, I know who to go to. If I need advice, I might choose someone else to confide in. If I need cuddles and no questions, it’ll be someone else. And if I need a challenge, I’ll choose another.”
“It’s true. They are all so different, and that’s what makes being together so amazing.”
I smile over at my boys, who fill this house and my heart with so much joy.
Later in the afternoon, Mom shows up with an oversized elephant for Dale and a bunch of flowers for me. It’s not the first time she’s visited since he was born, but it is the first time her arrival hasn’t filled me with trepidation. We seem to have reached a plateau in our relationship. She might not truly understand the lifestyle that I’ve chosen, but she can at least see that it isn’t a negative thing. My boys are true gentlemen, fixing her a plate of food and her favorite drink. She laughs and jokes with Danna and me, not about our relationships (we’re not quite there yet) but about babies. She tells me things about my childhood that she’s never shared before, and by the end of the afternoon, I feel closer to her. She squeezes me in a tight hug on the front