cw: this post contains spicy language, including descriptions of physical and energetic intimacy.
you are and always have been
(selection from with an everlasting love which I wrote in May this year)
a light in my darkness.
if the journey was long,
if our hearts were breaking,
if love was all that’s left,
it is enough for me.
if you were ever my burden,
it’s because I wanted to carry you.
I have been part of a polycule, and then a chosen family, for the better part of the past ten years. I first met StarChild — my spouse — and then shortly thereafter I met their polycule, and in the years since we have lost loved ones and gained family members and eventually we chose to leave the country together in one tremendous effort that is still ongoing.
I believe it’s fairly typical for members of polycules to develop new relationships with one another when new people come into the group. It’s one reason that polycules can be messy as all hell. When Rose was pregnant with Robert, our six-year-old, Rob and Rose and I decided to be co-parents together, so we did the doctor and midwife appointments together as we could, and made plans for our new little one, and I drove us all to the hospital when Rose went into labor.
Earlier than that, when I was in and out and in and out again of the hospital with Alex during the worst of his mental health experiences before he turned eighteen, Rob was with me for almost every single visit. He would drive, he would put his name on the hospital paperwork alongside mine so I wasn’t the only person getting phone calls at 2am, he held me while I sobbed on the floor in hopelessness so very many times. He showed up in all the ways that he was capable of, to help me, to help Alex.
When I started having multiple court dates and CPS calls related to my second youngest, Sam, Rob accompanied me yet again; to the court in the early mornings, sitting with me while I replied to emails from my attorney, holding me while I sobbed and screamed. He was there when I saw Sam for the last time before I left the states. He knows the deep pain I carry because he’s looked in my eyes while it happened and watched me tuck it away for later because I could no longer manage to feel it.
we are both Leo sun signs, both strong in our convictions that we are correct, both deeply committed to showing up as who we say we are.
Ever since before we all left the states, Rob has been doing magical work to ease the way for us to get where we all have chosen to go. And because he would never falter, it has taken everything he had to give and more. Now that we are less held down by things in the states that needed dealing with, there is more room for him metaphorically to breathe, but it does not change the fact that he has been near death for months now.
When I wrote with an everlasting love, that was my own working of putting words to the reality that I have grieved much already and that while I am not ready to lose him, I can see a little beyond the grief to the place where there is love and joy and forever-ness.
I came back to Australia in early September. I was so fucking grateful to see Vincent again finally, and Ash, and StarChild, and Robert, and Rob. I felt almost frantic with the worry that I’ve been carrying for so long, hoping and hoping that he would stay alive, stay with us, please stay with us a while longer. I didn’t know what I could do to help him remain, but I wanted to try. I needed to.
a woogity explainer of sorts:
People like those I surround myself with are often not really human. We have regular looking human shaped meatsuits that we inhabit, and for all intents and purposes we function as human, mostly. But part of knowing ourselves (for those of us who are also studying in the Path of Light tradition) is understanding all the pieces of who we are, and if we are non-human, that is a thing to be aware of and to learn about. If I have power and am learning to use it, then I need to know its shape, its flavor, its strengths, its weaknesses, so that I can follow my oaths and my will to the best of my ability.
Rob (and here the name and the pronouns are like a wallpaper of descriptors that serve as signposts for people who just need to know who I’m talking about; because Rob is not necessarily the correct name and he/him are not the correct pronouns, although I have permission to use them like this) is non-human. I am non-human; Rose and StarChild and likely some of my kids are non-human. We acknowledge this about one another and we do our best to learn to be the best version of ourselves that we can, no matter what that looks like.
Rob is fae. Rob is specifically a fae person who needs to take in energy to sustain the body from outside the body itself. People like this who are not disciplined and not willing to control themselves could be easily described as energy vampires; people like this who are disciplined and willing to control themselves have to spend a lot of time finding consensual ways of sharing in the energy of others, in order to stay alive.
I have known for some time that Rob needs this, and it has been painful to see him merely surviving each day, always cold, always hungry, always one moment of too much effort away from a fainting spell.
It’s like knowing he needed a kidney transplant but also knowing that my blood type hasn’t matched in the past, and why would my blood type change?
so I did what I could: I stayed close to him as much as I was able to.
I sat by him on the couch. I would check in with him as he sat on his bed throughout the day, making sure he had water, tea, food, snacks, company, whatever it was that might help in that moment. I wanted to do the thing I’ve trained for as a death doula. I wanted to help provide the support for him to have a good death, a good death of his choosing.
It started with a few moments of closeness as we sat together that seemed suddenly more intimate. He leaned over and asked if he could whisper in my ear, it’s difficult for the intrusive thoughts to take over when my feet are tucked under your cock. (I am not human; I am trans, physically; and I am something closer to male than female, energetically) This made me laugh, and the feeling of being seen and understood by someone who will always respect my boundaries was beautiful and I wanted more of it. Waves of energetic effervescence seemed to rise in bubbles around us from any places we touched.
Once while we sat next to one another I reached up to rub the back of his neck, smoothing his hair out of the way, and then as I brushed his ear by accident, gently, I remembered how sensitive and private his ears are. But the way his breathing changed while he let me continue to touch his neck and hair was, I can’t lie, extremely wonderful. Another time, I fell asleep against him and while I was mostly conscious, I took his left arm that was gently around me and pulled it close to myself. If I could just stay like this. If everything could be okay, just for these moments, let me have this.
and then, it shifted
Rob invited me to attend a convention a few weekends back, with the full understanding that if I decided to go, I would set the pace. If I didn’t like it, if I wanted to leave, if I wanted to play, if I wanted to watch, if I wanted to do anything at all, it was my call to make for the both of us. It was a kink festival, and what he wanted to attend was the expo during the day; there would be acts on different stages, and lots of vendors, indoor and outdoor space, and plenty to do in the city as well when we weren’t at the festival. Then there was the after-party, when the vendor tables would be cleared away and the music would be louder and deeper, and there would be play parties happening in the dark throughout the place.
I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I was honestly kind of scared because what if I didn’t like it. What if all the things I was now feeling and thinking ended up being things I didn’t want to do? But I wanted to go. I wanted to try it out; the worst that could happen was that I didn’t like it, and nobody was going to shame me about how I felt about any of it one way or the other.
We sat down and talked to StarChild beforehand, to give them as much context as we could, and to make sure that they understood that this was partly for me and equally for Rob, because Rob could pick up the ambient energy and use it to replenish his own. And I wanted them to understand that Rob had been getting a trickle of energy from me already, because somehow and somewhere along the way, our energies have become very compatible. Rose was already aware, because Rob communicates with her all the time anyway, and I’m damn fortunate to have a co-parent + life partner who is so beautifully happy for me to be experiencing something this meaningful.
There was a long day of driving on Friday and eventually we made it to the Melbourne suburb where we stayed for the weekend. I barely recall what we had for dinner or if we had any, but what I do remember with my physical and energetic memory is the feeling of just sitting together, just holding each other, just slowly and carefully tracing lines across one another’s arms. Melting a little at a time into puddles. I turned my body into his and put my face in the warm curve of his neck after I told him, I’m in trouble, because you’ve started to smell good. I sniffed his skin and he gasped. I pushed my nose in and inhaled, then I carefully licked, and then I briefly lost my shit and bit him.
It’s an ebb and flow, you know? It goes back and forth. It gives and takes, it pushes and pulls. It’s a dance and a weaving-together. It’s the way a sine wave traces itself in sound. I have perfect pitch; I can see music, usually Beethoven. It’s a brief moment of clarity and mutual belonging. It’s the doing and it’s the time for breaths in between.
I made up my mind and asked how he felt about kissing. This was going to do me in if he said he enjoyed kissing. It would be even worse (better) if he was good at it. There are only two people in the world that I have kissed that I think can almost match me; one of them, I am married to. The other one is Rob.
We slept in separate beds that night because I wasn’t ready to do anything else. On the following day, we grinned at each other a lot as we had breakfast and coffee and got ready to go. We held hands and didn’t stop holding and touching each other. I bought a vibrator at a booth full of colorful toys. We walked outside and saw a really fun skit, then we bought a spiky rotary toy that sent sparkles across my skin when I rolled it up my arm. Later, we went shopping around downtown to find me something to wear for the afterparty, because it has been years since I had clothes that made me feel exactly as desirable and confident as I wanted to. Rob’s jaw is still on the floor in the shop where I found a pair of corset-waisted jeans and a tight button-up vest that both shows off cleavage and downplays it, which is perfect for a nonbinary person like me.
It was dark and loud when we got there and there were several play scenes already happening. The bass was vibrating through the floor and the air and so many queer people dressed up in all the ways they wanted to be were there, just being there with each other, or watching, or laughing and talking. It was profoundly beautiful. And Rob and I just wrapped around each other and rocked back and forth in time to the music and after a little while I needed to sit down because the energy was pretty heady. We found a short stairway in the corner of the hallway outside the main room and then we stayed there for hours, completely losing track of time, holding and kissing and touching and reaching and asking and taking and ebbing and flowing together. I took off my glasses and I could only see his face, or his neck, or his arms, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
After the party started to shut down, we went back to where we were staying and I’m not sure how late we were up that night but I don’t think I checked the time. We slept in the same bed. And I woke up feeling so warm and good and happy and whole.
it’s been twelve days
I’m someone’s boyfriend now. I’m boyfriend-shaped. And my girlfriend (god I love queering language in this queer relationship) is feeling healthier. He’s even generating his own body heat most of the time. THIS IS AN EXTREMELY BIG DEAL!!!!!!!
I can’t single-handedly give him all the energy he needs, but what I can give him, I will do so willingly. I’ve already said, what I give you is yours, no strings attached. I will learn to balance my own energy and take plenty of rest so that I can replenish myself, and I will have mind-blowing sex as often as we like which will have a delicious side-effect of giving him some life-affirming energy. I am willing to learn to take better care of myself if it means that my friend, my co-parent, my lover, my girlfriend, my beloved, can live for longer.
I’ve never written anything like this for you before. I’ve never shared anything this intimate without using as many metaphors as possible, and I wanted to write this because I can’t keep it to myself. This new relationship and the way it’s come to be is one of the most affirming things that’s happened to me. It affirms my gender identity, my literal physical appearance, my energetic appearance, the ways that I give and take energetically when I am intimate with someone. May it last for years and decades.
xox,
Nix
featured image is a photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
