Bumped: Navigating the Feelings of Non-Monogamy

April 2021

Jack and I really do discuss things to death. 

I admitted to Jack that I had liked the one-on-one more than I thought I would. I hadn’t expected to be so aroused by the entire situation. I felt both independent and empowered. I was desirable, and good at sex, and it wasn’t just about me and Jack. I was like that on my own account.

I was also unexpectedly proud of Jack’s one-on-one experience with Tarah. I liked imagining them together, and Jack was more than happy to repeatedly share the details. I wanted to hear about how he’d fingered her in the shower, about how her pussy felt in comparison to mine, about her giggles when she had to push Jack away before he came. 

I loved hearing about the words she used to describe Jack’s penis — “a delicious cock.” I had never really thought about what made a cock delicious, but when I compared Ned’s crooked, skinny member to Jack’s wider, straighter one…well, yum, Jack. The comparison suddenly made me grateful for what I had at home, and I recognized the thrill of Ned for what it was — a novelty.

Jack and I weren’t feeling jealous of the other’s experience. I know this confounds many of my friends, so maybe you feel the same way. Sure, we’ve been jealous of each other at tons of points, but those feelings tend to creep up when one of us goes out and the other stays home to care for our four wildest creations. We’re more jealous of the outing than the actual sex act, as evidenced by my swell of jealousy every time Jack goes on his yearly Man Trip weekend, where he doesn’t have any sex whatsoever.

Jealousy over our independent sexual experiences, though? It’s nothing like most people expect it would be. Maybe this stems from confidence in our relationship. Maybe that confidence is bolstered by our direct, honest, open communication. 

I know everything Jack’s thinking, as he thinks it, and he knows everything I think, too, as soon as I can figure out the right words to put to my feelings. I’m patient with his blurting, he’s relatively patient with my processing, and eventually all the details are filled in to the point that we feel like we’ve lived the others’ experience ourselves. 

So Jack and I were still good, perhaps even better than before. I’m sure you’ve already picked up that the Jack parts of my story are always good. He’s unwavering in his love and support, even through my mental health issues and this part of our story, where I go haywire. You’ll see.

He wanted whatever would make me happy, always has, but he also admits that he, too, wanted an adventure. And it didn’t hurt that he’d gotten a handjob from a hot blonde.

Well, not an entire handjob. There was more to the story, as Jack revealed that Easter Sunday. We spent that day divulging the details in every moment that we could get away from the kids and the constant reminder of Jesus’s crucifixion to clear sins like, ahem, this possible one.

I’m kidding. We actually didn’t see it as a sin. I hadn’t been to church in over a year, but I didn’t miss it. I felt more spiritually enlightened through yoga, nature walks, and sex with Jack than ever before. And now, through connecting intimately with others. It was overwhelming — I had a lot of thoughts — but it was not a sin, of that I was sure. It was a sensual experience between consenting adults. It felt joyful and soulful to connect in this way. 

But back to that unfinished handjob. Jack told me that he and Tarah had gone upstairs to rinse off after they’d left the hot tub the first time, where she’d started giving him a handjob. Then Tarah stopped, abruptly, to tell him that we all had to slow down. “We need to talk to our spouses first,” she’d said, accompanied by that sexy giggle of hers. Jack had groaned, but he also agreed. 

Now, Jack was halfway to cumming by this point, so his normally crystal clear memory is a little fuzzier than normal on this conversation. Much fuzzier than I would have liked it to be. It seems that Tarah told Jack that she liked us, and it was obvious that Ned and I had crushes on each other, but that we needed to go “sleep around a bit” before proceeding further with them.

“Why?” I pressed Jack. Seriously, what the heck? I didn’t want to sleep around; I wanted to work on cultivating a relationship with them. Hadn’t it been going well?

Jack just shrugged. “We’re new, so she said we need to figure out what we really want. And something about getting bumped.”

Neither of us had any idea what that meant. Bumped. But we figured that they had experience, and we were new to this game, so we’d let them lead.

Ned and Tarah had already warned us that their calendar was packed with family birthdays in April, so there wasn’t another date on the horizon just yet. In the meantime, Jack and I both continued to communicate with Tarah via Snap, naughty photo exchanges included. At work, Ned and I were easily spending over an hour together every day, and then we’d Snap well into the evening, too.

The flirting felt fabulous. Ned constantly “threatened” to take me in my office. He wanted to press me against the wall, ravage me. He’d Snap me throughout the day: “Remember that time I made you mess up the pH balance of your hot tub?” and “I wish you were under this desk sucking my cock right now” and “I loved seeing you on your knees in front of me.” Then he’d saunter down the hall outside my room to gauge my reaction, his eyes crinkling at the corners, revealing the smile underneath his mask. 

Yes, there were feelings, just like Tarah warned there would be. I liked them at first, but honestly, it’s hard to remember the good parts of Ned now. I let myself be vulnerable; I opened up and let him see a part of me that so few people ever see. It’s hard to remember the times that he’d lock those brown eyes on me and made me feel wanted. He knew I melted when he looked at me like this, when he touched my arm ever so slightly, when he bumped his body into mine. It was an adrenaline rush, and it turned my mind to mush. 

The feelings seemed more than casual, especially when Ned and I talked about them. One day, alone in his room, he held his eyes on mine, the tension between us growing. We let a moment of silence lapse before Ned said, “It’s weird, right? The last time you felt all this was probably in high school, with Jack. And what did you do then? You married him.” He paused, probably for a bit of dramatic effect, still staring at me. “We’ve got to figure out how to do this in a new way. It’s different.” 

We weren’t just flirting. We were discussing. I don’t do small talk; if I like you at all, I real-talk. I tell you about my kids, my marriage, my parents, my thoughts on religion and God and death and book censorship. I ask good questions, but only a few, and then I listen for a long time. I make you feel seen. I connect.

Of course, I wasn’t this self-aware at the time. Practicing non-monogamy, as it turns out, is the ultimate fast track to self growth or self destruction. If you’re paying attention, you learn a lot about yourself and come out ahead in life. If not, manic behavior ensues and, well, implodes. You’re going to watch me be a dumpster fire for awhile, but here I am telling you about how I found myself, so stay with me. 

I thought all this real-talk with Ned was, well, something. I didn’t think “love” yet, not at that point. I hate using that word about Ned, and I think that really says something right there. I know love, because Jack. 

Still, at that point, I’ll admit that I was smitten with Ned.

All that talking. All that connecting. All that time together, day after day at work. Do you realize that I spent as much awake time at work as I did at home? That’s a lot of proximity to a new friend you’re beginning to fuck. 

We talked about managing our time and calming our emotions while we waited until the next time we could play together. We talked about balance, and living in the moment. We talked about finding flow in our art — his woodworking, my writing. It felt like we saw each other, but Future Eliza would eventually roll her eyes at this sentiment. 

We also talked about relationships constantly. We talked about that word, “bumped,” and what it meant. Well, I tried to. That’s when things got stilted for the first time.

When I asked him to tell me what Tarah had meant by “bumped,” Ned emitted a sound that fell somewhere between a chuckle and a huff. His face took on a serious sheen as he shook his head. “A bump. Like getting bumped off the rails. Or a bump in the road.”

He confirmed that opening up their marriage had been difficult at first. Of course this wasn’t shocking — who does this, right? 

But Jack and I had talked endlessly about our wants and desires, our worries and considerations. It felt like a journey we were on together. While it wasn’t a typical path for a married couple to take, it all felt seamless so far. I was eager to understand Ned’s point of view, curious if things would become “tough” on my marriage if we continued to proceed forward. 

“Could you tell me how it affected you two?” At that point, I saw Ned as my guru, guiding me through non-monogamy. I didn’t yet know that he was the worst possible person to do this. 

Ned scoffed and turned to his computer. “No.” 

Now, I totally understand that “no” is a complete sentence. I get that he didn’t owe me an answer, and I get that I had asked him a very personal question, but I didn’t expect the awkward silence that followed, the way his eyes glossed over and broke contact with mine. 

I put it on me. I suddenly felt rude for asking. I’d overstepped the bounds of our conversation, our friendship. Too intimate, Lizzie. Too personal. Nevermind that he’d cum on my tits in my bathroom just a few weeks ago. Nevermind that he and I had been stealing moments for the past two months to talk about all things intimate. Nevermind that he had just been doling out advice to me on how to proceed with opening up my marriage, warning me that things could be “tough” without giving actual examples. I put it on me.

I apologized and changed the subject to something more chipper.

I didn’t see the pattern yet — of course not, it was just beginning. I didn’t see that Ned avoided talking about anything emotional in great depth. I didn’t really see how he’d totally shut down, ignoring my questions, refusing to answer me with anything other than what Jack and I came to call his “poetry” — just words, pretty sounding ones, but detached from meaning and depth. Words that would ultimately benefit him, keeping me in my place, to be used as he wished.

Jack could always see that something was “off” from his position on the sidelines, but I brushed aside his concerns too quickly, too callously. I was already in too deep. I trusted Ned, because I thought we were in some sort of friendship where we told each other the truth. I thought that my confusion was due to my lack of experience and expertise in this arena, and being overly eager to learn, I fell into his trap.

When Ned told me that they had been “bumped,” he made it sound past tense, as if it were better now. He often talked about growing old with Tarah; he always said she was his soulmate. I assumed that their love was comparable to the great love between me and Jack.

It was a mistake to trust anything he said, as I later found out. We took a wrong turn when we let them lead. Perhaps we weren’t thinking clearly, because our encounter with them was like emotional Viagra to us. 

Since meeting them, Jack and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It was like high school all over again, but better, with the confidence of middle age. 

My session with Ned had made me feel more aware of myself. I hadn’t given much of a thought to how Jack saw me during sex for years. I had taken his admiration of me for granted, brushing aside his compliments, thinking Jack’s just trying to get laid.

The week after Ned and I hooked up, he complimented me at work. “I knew you’d be good,” he’d said with a smirk. I pressed for details. How does someone know that, especially about me? 

Ned had an answer ready. “You’re cute in the way that you talk, with your hands and your facial expressions. You get into it when you tell a story. You’re very animated. It’s fun to watch you…whatever you’re doing.” He winked.

I took this comment to heart and I immediately began to apply this new confidence. Combined with my new reverence for Jack’s “delicious cock,” this had quite the effect on our sex life. 

It’s stupid, but for years, I was intent on being “perfect” about sex. I suppose part of it is that I’m squeamish, maybe? Jack is the one who does the worst jobs at home — cleaning up puke and poop, killing bugs, cleaning bathroom drains, cutting up raw chicken. He’s more paranoid about germs than me, but I’m the one who doesn’t like to get my hands dirty. 

Up until that year, this extended to our sex life. I didn’t want anything to be “gross.” Fluids were gross. My squirting, despite Jack’s insistence that it was hot, was gross. Ass play was gross. My spit was gross, his spit was gross, his cum was gross. 

I make attempts to keep sex clean — yes, I still do that. I put down a Turkish towel over our sheets before we have sex. We clean up pretty quickly afterwards, avoiding UTIs and sticky situations. We wash our hands after butt play. I wait to cleanse my face until after sex, so that I don’t recoil when Jack rubs his cock on me or makes me drool. 

I didn’t want to look stupid or silly either, which was a psychological extension of my “gross” idea. I didn’t want to look stupid sucking Jack’s cock, or being slapped in the face with it, or having him cum on my face. I didn’t want to look silly wearing a costume, or being on all fours in front of him, or having my hair messed up. I didn’t want to look stupid while being spanked. 

I knew that sex was supposed to be a time when you let loose, so yes, there had always been gross and silly stuff happening anyways, despite my squeamishness. I was a squirter, after all. I would cream all over Jack’s cock; I couldn’t help it. Jack always reassured me that he liked it, but I’ll admit that it was akin to my mother telling me that I was beautiful. Of course he was okay with it, I thought. Meanwhile, I worked hard to harness my feelings around humiliation and apply them to my arousal as a submissive. It worked for me.

Then, I had let loose with Ned, because I knew that this was key to good sex, and of course I wanted to be good with him. I was trying, as any of us would with a new person that we’re interested in. Now, with Ned’s validation and that little experience, I not only believed it — I embraced it, and I brought it home to Jack. 

Jack was not upset about this at all.

I sucked Jack’s cock with more vigor than I had in years. I let him rub that beautiful dick all over my face, whether it was smooth and dry, or wet with my saliva and his precum. I lapped up that precum like it was liquid candy, relishing in the taste and consistency. I locked my eyes on Jack’s as I sucked his balls to his specifications, while gyrating my pelvis against the sheets, wagging my ass in the air for both my own pleasure and as a visual for him. 

I wanted to be vulnerable with him. I wanted to look ridiculous, as dirty as possible. I wanted him to see me as his little slut, intent on providing him with pleasure, desperate for him to pleasure me back.

I used my words, my moans, whatever I could utter to tell him exactly how I felt in that moment. I pleaded for his cock in my pussy when I was ready. I thanked him profusely while he fucked the orgasms out of me. I redirected him when I needed something different, and then I panted for more like a hungry whore. 

Jack and I are good at finding positive feedback loops. We figured that sleeping with other people was a part of this current loop of amazing sex and togetherness. Perhaps that’s why I embarked on dating another couple. Perhaps it’s what ultimately convinced Jack, too.

So, not long after I let Ned cum on my tits, I texted that couple on Kasidie from way back when. The cute ones that had partied at Hedo. I know, I know. I do this. I get manic. But it makes for quite a story.