So This Is the Woman My Partner Is In Love With

A story from the frontline of polyamory

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I see her before I can even order my flat white. My stomach lurches and I over-smile at the young blonde woman taking my order. The walk to the table, near the back, feels like a march to the executioner’s chair.

She’s smaller, prettier and more feminine than I remembered, and there is a vulnerability in her blue eyes. When I’ve seen her on the dancefloor, she’s always seemed a bit spikey and prickly. Maybe just shy, I’d thought.

When she stands up and tells me she has a cold, so it’s up to me whether I hug her or not, I hesitate for only a second. Surely, I am immune to a virus I’ve had so recently, and besides, I’m afraid of so much more than colds.

This is the woman my partner is in love with.

She looks casual in a cozy-looking grey jumper and dark green trousers, and I feel somehow overly feminine in my long black skirt and purple top.

I keep the anxiety at bay with chit-chat for a while, as we talk of how we’ve each come to be living in this small hippie town and what our profiles are (She’s a Manifestor, of course). It all seems to be going much better than expected, and I begin to relax — a little too much.