Asher and Jules

“Am I not enough for you?” He asked from his place on the bed.

Jules had to fight the urge to roll her eyes with everything in her.

“Did I ever say those words?” She said.

They were going in circles and Jules was beginning to get dizzy.

“Not in exact words but yeah, you kind of did.” He scoffed.

Great, now he was hurt. Jules didn’t fault Asher for having emotions, he was human after all; but the way he moped and dragged himself through the apartment like a corpse, made Jules feel like a villain.

“I told you because I wanna talk about it, I don’t wanna keep secrets.” She said.

Asher stared at her for a moment, but to Jules, he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking through her; beyond her. Asher was checking out and she could feel it.

“This is about me not having a penis isn’t it?” He said matter of factly.

Jules sighed, exhaustion couldn’t even begin to explain what she was feeling in that moment.

The pressure of Asher’s need for validation in that moment was exhausting; he was like dead weight, leaning on her.

Jules felt like it her was responsibility to make him feel good, validate his masculinity, and just thinking about performing such a daunting task made Jules want to sleep for ten days.

“No Ash, this isn’t even about sex.” She said.

Asher scoffed.

“You said you want to open this up.” He said, gesturing between them.

Jules was beginning to realize that this was all one huge mistake. Clearly they had a lot to talk about and work through, and now was not the right time to be opening anything up.

“You know what, I think we should stop talking about this.” She said.

Asher looked at her surprised.

“So that’s it, convo over, just like that?” He said, throwing his hands in the air.

Jules sighed, her hands coming up to rub her temple. She really thought she and Asher could’ve at least entertained the conversation. Jules had expected to be met with at least a bit of curiosity; instead, Asher made everything about him.

Asher spoke to Jules like she was attacking him, like the mere idea of having multiple relationships somehow made their relationship less valuable.

No one expected either of them to have just one friend, then why couldn’t they have multiple partners?

Asher and Jules dropped the conversation, and for the following days the house was tense.

Though Jules wanted to allow Asher to sit with himself and process, she didn’t want her distance to be misinterpreted as being upset or something far worse; so she swept their dispute under the rug and attempted to return to their life pre their conversation.

As days turned into weeks, and weeks became months, Jules and Asher’s relationship returned to normal. The tension that came with the topic of opening up their relationship began to fade, and life began to smooth out; that is until one night before bed.

“I’m sorry.” Asher said, looking up from his iPad.

Jules stopped in the doorway that led from their bathroom into their bedroom.

“Sorry for what babe?” She said.

She hated that her mind was jumping to the worse.

Asher sighed and set his iPad down on his nightstand before he turned to face her, his hand stretched out, a pleading look on his face.

Jules’s stomach was a cocoon of nervous butterflies, but she decided to hear her boyfriend out. So she placed her hand into his, allowing Asher to pull her onto the bed.

“You said, ‘I’ve been reading a lot about open relationships, and I wanna know how you feel about them.’ But all I heard was ‘Asher I miss cock’. And for that I’m sorry, I must have forgotten my listening ears in my nightstand that day.” He said as he looked at her.

Jules couldn’t help but laugh, but she understood where he was coming from. Change is hard, which is why Jules simply wanted to talk about it, but for Asher, even that was a big step.

But now Jules was curious, where was this change of heart coming from?

“What’s got you thinking about this?” She asked.

“I was on Reddit, and my God, the people of Reddit do not fuck with non monogamy! But then I found a non monogamy Subreddit, and that led me down a rabbit hole of Tik Toks, some YouTube videos, and even more subreddits. And when I finally put my phone down I was like, love built on choice rather than obligation because of some social contract is nice. Non monogamy isn’t about fucking the whole town, it’s about experiencing life and having someone to talk about your experiences with.” He concluded.

Jules could only nod; she had her reservations in the beginning too. She was going against her social programming after all, and that was scary. But she was glad that Asher had dug into the topic more for himself.

“I’m not ready to hop on Tinder and start swiping, but I’d like to open this discussion up again.” He said.

And so they did. They started slow, talking about crushes, threesomes, and even watched porn together.

As June turned into July and July turned into August, all Jules and Asher did was talk.

“How would you feel if I gave my anal virginity to someone?” Asher asked one night as they were cuddling.

“Your hole, your choice. I have no interest in that.” She said.

While Jules would try pegging if Ash asked, she wasn’t dying to peg him. Sure, she’d slipped a finger in his back door a time or two, but that was more for laughs than for pleasure.

As the blazing Texas heat turned into perfect sweater weather, Asher and Jules began looking at apps. Asher being the scientist of the two, was constantly finding articles and studies to read, and Jules even got in on the action.

The couple traded YouTube videos, articles, and books back and forth, and got extremely nerdy about non monogamy.

They got into conversations about misogyny, the patriarchy, Asher’s masculinity, gender, and so much more.

For Asher and Jules, it was like meeting all over again, and they couldn’t help but fall more in love with one another.

Then, after hours and hours of discussion, they finally got onto the apps.

“Ooh, OkCupid has a feature where we can kind of connect our profiles! How do you feel about that?” Asher asked.

Jules smiled brightly.

“Hell yeah!” Said Jules.

So they did, and after setting up one another’s profiles, they handed each other back their phones, and they were off, ready to explore the world of online dating.

So, what did you think of Asher and Jules’s conversation? Did you like it, maybe love it even? Or did you absolutely hate it. I know non monogamous relationships sometimes get a bad rap, so I wanted to write something nice and light.

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