To be honest, I responded sooner than I was ready to. I never had an expectation or even a formulated guess of what the situation would need to look like in order for Sammy to be interested in me. That’s the beautiful thing about fantasy. No explanation needed. And now I had one I didn’t know what to do with. The new information weirded me out but it made the impossible possible. My fantasy was now alive. I felt compelled to respond with what my heart knew rather than what my mind would mull over and decide if given the chance.

I was scared and I was excited. I had so many questions and I had no idea where to start. I told Sammy that I felt the same way she did. She was ecstatic. Sammy had put into words so poetically the things my heart would have said if it had known how to and was just a touch braver. I told her I would need some time to process. She understood.

The rest of the night (morning, at this point), we talked about behind-the-scenes stuff. I had started falling for Sammy during the first massage. For Sammy, she knew there was something happening during our texting, but she had been mostly in denial up until the second massage. She caught herself making a playlist especially for me, for our second one, and she didn’t ever do that for clients. She wanted me to know that she took her profession very seriously and that she did not mingle those kinds of feelings with her massage business. She apologized, having known what I was feeling now, if it caused any confusion or discomfort for me. On that note, she said I would need to find a different massage therapist. I was tickled.

I asked Sammy if there were others (in our tiny town) who knew about their open arrangement. She said there were. “Do you ever worry about becoming exposed in that way, or is it not a concern?” I genuinely asked. She answered me. “I personally don’t know what could come of it. If we are leading with our hearts, respectfully communicating as best we can, I think more good could come of the example than bad from the judgments. What would be your worry?” Honestly, I didn’t know how to answer because it was self-explanatory (to someone like me) why one would worry about that. It was embedded in my question. If one was exposed, they would most certainly be judged. And that was a thing full of terror. My whole life, I feared being judged. And for something as taboo as sex life…dear God…hold on.

Sammy confessed that she had sent Superbloom and her lover away after the birthday dinner just so that she could have this conversation with me. I wondered then about the logistics of their relationship and their other relationships. When do they find time to be with lovers and with each other? How do they work it out? Sammy told me that she and Superbloom shared a couple of days a week together and two weekends a month. They had met young and been together for nearly a couple of decades, inseparable up until the opening of their marriage. I didn’t know what to think…or to feel. Was I sad for them? Impressed? A question to be answered later…or never. I knew that my opinion didn’t matter but the mind has a tendency to make sense one way or another out of what’s foreign (and therefore disturbing). It wasn’t working.

Sammy asked what made it possible for me to be with her that night, and I forgot that she couldn’t have known that. I explained my recent choice to sleep in my own room occasionally. She thought this was creative…progressive…revolutionary! And on top of that, when she had asked about Anthony’s intrigue around our connection, the most that I was able to say was, “He asked if he could watch. I told him no, probably not. He said that was okay, that I could just tell him everything so that he could enjoy the details, but he doesn’t believe that I will.” From this, she exclaimed, “That’s amazing! What an open, trusting, lighthearted man you found!” She wasn’t wrong. Although for me, that flavor had much more complexity. And I didn’t tell her then that his comments were more dismissive than they were “full of intrigue.” I had never wanted to talk about him in a way that had others not thinking the best about him, and here was another specimen. Anyway, he was open, trusting, and lighthearted. He was a lot of great things, so why dive into clarifications that seemed unnecessary?

With that previous bit of conversation, we opened another door that I didn’t know was still shut for Sammy. I had (quickly and technically, almost accidentally) spoken to Anthony about sexual possibility with Sammy. He had no objections to our connection. I conveyed this to Sammy.

Then she realized.

This was a go. We.

She had been trying to put this fantasy out of her mind, she said, and now….

[This is where they cut the tape. You now see only a black screen or cute kittens sleeping for about an hour. Awww…aren’t they cute?]

Lights out (phone lights out) just before 5 a.m..

Previous –> 16…conscious. Next –> 18…orgy.