“I’ve known what I wanted my life to look like since I was a kid. I specifically remember a moment when I was seven years old. Prior to that, when it would come up like it randomly does in childhood, I always told everyone that my husband was going to be an important chef. I don’t know why. Maybe I liked to eat.” Alka pauses. “Actually, now that I think about it, I think I believed cooking was the heart of the home. We were always gathered around the kitchen island while my mom cooked, so I just thought cooking was the most important thing. It brought family and love together.”
“I can see that. My brother and his boyfriend cook together a lot. It’s cute,” I say.
“Right? Anyway, when I was seven, my mother had been trying to teach me to make my bed. I hated it. I didn’t want to make my bed. I thought it was stupidly unnecessary since I was getting back into it later and would just mess it up again. I told her, ‘I don’t need to know how to make my bed. My husband will do that.’ My mother, always pushing a female into my life, argued, ‘You’re going to make your wife do all the cookingandcleaning?’ Obviously, I was frustrated that I literally just said husband and she corrected me with wife.” Alka looks at me. “That’s a whole other story.”
I nod in understanding. It always is.
“Naturally, I corrected her. ‘I said, myhusband, Mom, and no. One husband will cook and one will know how to make the bed.’ She looked at me like I had two heads. It was kind of funny.”
I smile in response.
“But what I never knew how to articulate at that age is I always saw myself with two husbands. It was a conversation and argument I had so many times growing up. It started out with my parents trying to ‘correct’ me, insisting a marriage is between two people—a man and a woman. I eventually convinced them that there was no woman in my marriage and never would be. They did end up being very supportive and accepting parents in the end. Not relevant to the story, but so you don’t think they’re dicks.”
“Had to work dicks in there somewhere,” I tease.
Alka laughs. “Weareon Kala. It’s necessary.”
I grin and bend to pick up a shell as he continues.
“Anyway. I also managed to convince them that what I’ve always known about myself is that I’m polyamorous. Even before I knew what it meant, I felt in my heart that’s who I am. Yes, they eventually accepted this ‘alternate lifestyle’ as well. But the thing is… Living that life is turning out to be more challenging than seven-year-old me ever dreamed it would be.”
“I’m confused. I thought youwereliving it. That was your opening line. I think it needs a little work, but it’s very clear.”
Alka grins and shakes his head. “My husband is an adult content creator. Sometimes, it’s easier to say I’m in an open relationship than it is to say I’m polyamorous because Oscar and I have two separate kinds of relationships outside of each other. He sleeps with other people, and I… Well, I’m not going to say I haven’t on occasion, but I’m interested in finding my second husband.”
“Which hasn’t happened,” I guess.
“No,” he answers, his tone sounding both sad and frustrated. “My husband says I’ve stopped looking, and I’ve argued with him about it over the last couple days, but… I have. I’ve given up. Today, I decided that it’s probably just not going to happen, so I suggested that it’s time we stop waiting for it and move on to the part of our life together that we’ve been putting off—kids. He accused me of using it as another excuse to stop looking for love. I got upset.”
He doesn’t continue, so I take a guess. “Because he’s right.”
“Yep. He’s absolutely right. If I’m busy raising babies, that’s a really good reason not to have time to ‘put myself out there,’ right?”
“Seems legit.”
Alka nods. “I feel a little guilty now, but I’m so damn tired. I’ve tried. Every time I think I’ve found someone, it just falls apart. I don’t trust myself to fall for someone because now I feel so desperate to get to that place I’ve longed for my entire life that I’m going to make stupid decisions just to get there. I mean, get this...”
He grips my arm for a minute.
“Almost two years ago, there was this new guy at work. Declan. Ugh, he’s gorgeous. Kind and funny and maybe a little damaged, which we all know has its own appeal, right?”
I nod. He drops my arm.
“I tried. I made it clear. I even pretended to be his fake boyfriend for a while so this other guy would leave him alone. In the end, he chose someone else. A different guy at work. A math man who’s, like, uber fucking smart. It stung. I was so damn convinced that Declan was just… it, you know?”
I nod again. “I do. My first real boyfriend once I got to college turned out to be an abusive, manipulative, controlling asshole. It lasted for like seven months. He broke up with me, but I begged him to take me back. I promised I’d be a better boyfriend, that I’d love him better and whatever. At that point, I knew something was wrong in our relationship. Iknewthat. I knew it wasn’t healthy, yet I stillbeggedfor him to give me another chance. For him to love me again. That’s how much he fucked with me.”
“Please tell me he’s now buried six feet under,” Alka says.
I shake my head, but then I shrug. “I don’t know what happened to him, honestly.”
“I’m going to put it into the world that he’s hit with a mack truck.”
I chuckle and bow my head, brushing the smooth surface of the shell I picked up. “But this is where I understand how you feel. I don’t trust myself to be a good judge of character. I’m the baby in my family. My brother is fifteen years older than me, so I’m, like, the true baby. By the time I got out of the house and to college, I was ready to live, but the first thing I did was fall for someone whose only interest in me was control. Now, I’ve spent the last year not trusting myself to meet other peopleandlooking over my shoulder as if he’s going to materialize out of the ether.”
“It sucks. I’m sorry that was your first relationship experience.”
I shrug. “I thought coming here on my own for the summer would give me a while to kind of reset. I could find my confidence again. Learn to recognize unhealthy people or at least the kind of people that I don’t want to be around. Isuppose we have the same method in a way—announce the thing that’s going to set the tone right off the bat and see what happens.”
