Tale of the Unicorn Hunter, Part II
Hello my loves! I haven’t updated this blog in a while because honestly, it was an all-consuming spring into summer (as I’m sure you’ve had, too). Rona horrendousness and personal complexities aside, I previously alluded to the breakup between Master Moon’s play partners and myself; it was a messy thing, a brief but harsh flurry of words flung like javelins — and then silence.
Master’s a far more forgiving person than I am, so the three of them smoothed things over. That’s fine by me; I’m sorta braced to catch him in the event of repeat explosions, and he knows what happens once might happen again … but I felt nothing but relief. It’s probably the BPD, but once someone’s bared their inner ugliness like that, it’s hard for me to forget it.
And I’m sure a huge part of that is my own resentment, because life generally feels like tiptoeing through a field of spun-glass roses, constantly terrified that I’m going to make a misstep and infringe on someone else. It’s why I’m most comfortable alone — because I know I won’t accidentally hurt myself. Not like that.
Yet instead of completely isolating myself in the wake of that mess, for the first time ever in my life I had a crew of female friends there to catch me. Due to the unique combination of the pandemic herding so many of us onto the Internet and ageism rearing its oogly head in the fandom community, earlier this year I found a group of kickass, hilarious, sex-positive pals that I shall henceforth refer to (in order to protect the not-so-innocent) as the Coven — and I can’t overemphasize how much they’ve changed my life.
It’s actually the Coven that made me realize I hadn’t continued the Tale of the Unicorn Hunter, aka how Master Moon aka Daddy and I actually met! I related the first part of that story (our meeting in cyberspace) just before receiving my cancer diagnosis, so obviously I got a bit sidetracked from that smexy narrative 🤣
So let’s pick up that trail, shall we? (catch up with the first part of the story here!)
CW // graphic depictions of sex, y’all
I definitely took a bit of a risk meeting Moon in a city an hour and a half away from where I lived — doubly so because there was a huge blizzard bearing down on New England that very Sunday afternoon, and my car had a taillight out. But Ove (my first husband) and I were expected in Canada to meet his family for the holidays on Tuesday, and I didn’t want to leave the US for the better part of a week without meeting Moon first.
Yes, compulsion is a delicious, undeniable thing, and a giant assbuttface all at once.
The thing that made me want to meet him so badly was that we connected on a creative level. Since everything was out there in the open, sexually speaking (yay for being able to scroll through a potential partner’s kinks! —FetLife certainly has its dangers, but being able to see if someone else aligns with you up-front makes a lot of things easier), our conversations were intellectual, engaging, and incessant — to the point where I neglected a story I was elbow-deep in at the time (which is a Very Big Deal in Elegyland).
We agreed to meet at three o’clock at a store that was in the downtown stretch of his home city. It was close to where I’d gone to undergrad, so I knew the area reasonably well, and even with the snow falling like mad, I arrived early (a bitch is nothing if not prompt).
Master didn’t have a cell phone at the time — this was in the long-ago year of 2013, mind — so after a few prowling circles around the block (and nearly getting stuck on a hill, because manual transmissions are fussy as hell), I heaved the somewhat-reliable car into a snowbank and arrived at the store right on time.
The incense section had a decent vantage over the street, so I stood there, motionless but riding the ol’ adrenaline roller-coaster every time a dark figure neared. I don’t remember exactly what clothes I had on (black pants and a black shirt under a winter coat, how positively original), but I do know I was wearing a pair of defective boots that I’d lazily patched up with pink argyle duct tape.
I was keeping such a keen eye on the road in one direction that I didn’t see him coming (from the other way, natch) until he was suddenly there, framed in the snowy doorway and heralded by the tinkling of the door’s new-age chimes.
There’s always that disconnect between seeing a person in photos and then meeting them in real life — and I was completely mesmerized by him from the very first moment. He was (and still is) so dynamic, like a flame made flesh. He’s Lebanese-Italian, so the dark hair/dark eyes/burnished skin combo made me completely derpy as he strode up to join me with nerdslinger swagger, himself dressed in a black pea coat, sweater, jeans, and combat boots.
He glanced down and back up at me — and the very first thing he said, hitting me with a charming grin, was, “You have tape on your boots.”
It’s such a him thing to say. From another person it might’ve been rude or condescending, but from him, it was devastatingly cute.
We poked around the shop a bit, chatting nervously — and I was so excited. He was like the first real person I’d ever met, so vivid and unpredictable.
And every time that dark gaze locked on mine, I felt that magical tug of recognition. Like hey, I can’t believe it took this long to meet you.
We popped up the street to a chain coffee shop, and I was so nervous to sit down facing him (I’m dreadful with eye contact, especially when I’m on edge) that I focused on a water stain on one of the ceiling tiles.
He hit me with that disarming grin again in the middle of exchanging life stories. “You’re cute.”
I know I blushed redder than Rudolph’s nose, because again, with 27 years and 3 years of marriage under my belt, I’d never been asked out. Dudes said yes when I did the asking (well, sometimes — xoxo Sev and Ethan), but Moon was the first one to make that move before I got overanxious and did it myself (ref: the time I almost said those three words first … but that’s a tale for another day).
Truthfully, I’m a mediocre-looking person — pale, curvy, ruddy, freckle-cheeked, with eyes set close together like a quokka’s and a tendency to go into a flop sweat when it’s least convenient — so I’ve never been in the position of thinking a guy was hot as he’s staring me into my seat like he wants to tear me apart.
Having determined that he wasn’t about to axe-murder me and that we needed more privacy than the coffee shop could offer, we headed outside to my car. There was a moment when he was leaning back on the fender and I thought he might kiss me — but he didn’t. Just watched me (smug bastard!).
We laughed all the way through the ride to his house, both disoriented by each other as much of the snow. The car trundled through streets I’d know better in the weeks and months to come, including a wonderful little bookstore and Stephen King’s house, finally lurching to rest in a low-income housing development that looked like an utter labyrinth.
Moon was watching me as I shut off the car, leaning back nonchalantly against the far window.
“Come here,” he said, jerking his chin and tossing his deadass-sexy hair, “I need you for something.”
It was a perfect kiss. Hot, sexy, lingering but leaving me wanting more. Even though he was a scandalous four years younger than me (and a full decade younger than Ove!), I knew he wanted me. And I wanted him, too.
Reality came crashing back as we went inside to find one of his roommates refurbishing a bureau in the middle of the living room — and he was so mortified that I knew his reaction was genuine.
It turned out Moon had been through a lot in the months before we met, losing his job, car, and apartment all on his most recent birthday. By the time we were getting to know each other he’d gotten back on his feet, and was taking the city bus to his call center job a few towns away, living with this erratic set of friends in the three-bedroom unit.
It was a night of utter chaos, but on the upside it gave us an excuse to sequester ourselves in his bedroom, snuggling up under the pretext of watching Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
[uh-huh]
Ten minutes in, we were all over each other, and I didn’t even think to be self-conscious as we stripped down. That’s the power of his disarming hawtness.
He hooked my ankles together with his work lanyard, playfully (and consensually) slapping my ass — and omg when I saw his cock for the first time, the thirst was real. Like, on-the-verge-of-fainting-in-the-desert-level THIRST.
We debated whether or not to use a condom — and anyone who thinks verbally discussing limits isn’t hot has clearly never experienced the joy of doing so.
I was on very solid birth control. We’d both recently been tested as clean. The sexual circuit of Master-me-Ove was secure.
He then (in a very Moon move) blew up the condom, which we named Chuck and quickly banished to the closet, where he would reside for the next six months, fully inflated, until we ceremonially popped him when we moved out. Anyone who doubts the efficacy of condoms has clearly not witnessed one endure with the tenacity of Chuck.
And then… oh then...
It was the Cinderella moment of sex, my frens.
I was already smitten, and he was just so damn comfortable to be with personally and sexually, I felt safe. I felt like I was home, even though my actual home was ninety blizzard-blanketed minutes away.
Orgasms were had. Articles of clothing were retrieved from the twisted strata of blankets. We ate frozen pizza. Snuggled. Giggled together over stupid stuff. Fucked. He fell asleep with his arm around me as I lay awake, creepy-watching him and praying I wouldn’t fart or something to break this magical spell.
The next morning I perched on the foot of his bed as he was getting ready for work, I asked him, “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
And there was that heart-melting grin again as he asked, “You want to be my girlfriend?”
Of fucking course I did.
I gave him a ride to work sixteen miles away. The thought of him having to take the bus when I could’ve stolen a few more minutes with him and given him a more comfortable start to his morning… Not on my watch.
The roads were clear enough (boo), and I headed home, away from the inland city back to the seacoast. Later Master would tell me that he’d announced to everyone at work about his amazing new girlfriend, the one who was married but poly.
I had a bit less fun; despite knowing that we were well along the road to divorce (N.B.: polyamory is NOT a fix-it for a broken marriage; again, we knew we were using it as a bridge, not a band-aid), Ove and I stood outside our basement apartment, staring out over the harbor, chain-smoking as I related everything that had happened and Ove tried to contextualize it all. We got pretty good at convincing ourselves that things weren’t going to be rough or rocky as we forged our way forward … and though overall it wasn’t a terrible breakup, it wasn’t without pain.
I’d met Ove when I was just barely 23, so this was a strange sort of full circle — but everything was so profoundly different seeing it from the far side of the loop.
And everything’s so different again now, seen from a vantage of six and half years.
From the far side of so many adventures and disasters — Master being falsely accused of fathering another woman’s child, our ill-fated (and mercifully brief) move back to Los Angeles, finding out I had Borderline Personality Disorder and seeking treatment, my cancer diagnosis and treatment — our relationship has only emerged stronger than ever.
I know that with the tonelessness of the written word that probably sounds poncy as fuck, but I’m as surprised as anyone. When your nuclear family goes nuclear and you’re left adrift, it changes the way you see people. Like I said before, you learn to look for the ugliness as a sort of self-preservation, waiting for the other person to bare their ugliness like dripping fangs.
We’ve certainly had our clashes over the years, like anyone, but through it all Master has been my anchor, my omphalos, my rock. He’s helped me grow, because inside him is the most profound and unexpected thing of all — not ugliness or resentment but true unconditional love.
There’s a lot more to our story, of course (including three cats, numerous creative projects, sexual adventures both together and apart), but I think I’m reflecting back on the beginning of our story because it’s coming up on our birthdayversary week — as in, the one-week span in the year that includes both of our birthdays and our wedding anniversary (because yes, we’re just that bonkers).
I’d started out hunting a unicorn, and even though it seemed like a doomed quest, I actually found one. The rare, awesome human who helped me, a fully toxic princess, learn to grow past the old scars and find happiness even when things seem bleakest.
Ugh, I’m getting soft in my old age. But the world would be such a better place if there were more people in it like Master Moon, who aren’t just performative on the outside and cruel on the inside, but truly, utterly kind right down to the core.
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