by LS Harteveld

Since a year I know what I am.
Where “what” stands for a more or less self-invented word, although others are using it, or have used it, as well. But it’s not a word you can feed to your spell checker without getting it back underlined in red.
Compersionist.
I like the idea of my lover Big with another woman or other women (plural). I can count on one to be there, exactly in that spot where I like those women most: Out of sight, never or rarely discussed or talked about. Yet mysteriously hovering just outside the boundaries of my life with him. That woman? Is his wife.
I have absolutely no reason to assume he doesn’t have sex with her. Least of all that he wouldn’t find her attractive. But I can’t be certain of the sex. I just know that if he uses only half the skills on her, as he does on me – to make her feel special and like she’s the only and most attractive woman on earth – and if she’s only half as fond of his husky whiskey voice, his suave manners and irresistible melancholy, it would be impossible according to every law of nature, man and the heavens above, that they wouldn’t have sex.
I used to believe I was waiting for him to divorce, and be the chosen one. I used to believe this was all temporary. But as soon as I let go of that idea – and God placed some useful pointers on my path as God always does – I saw I was actually benefiting from that ethereal presence, in the form of his lawfully wedded wife that was omnipresent, yet hardly ever spoken of.
That I could think about her without feeling anger, or disappointment, and even with mild curiosity. Mild curiosity, that rapidly grew into brazen fascination if I thought of him and her making love.
And I didn’t stop there.
I thought of all the others whose name I d heard, or whose existence had been hinted at by him. And the women I had seen with my own eyes, who had responded with laughs and openness and a whole body that screamed DEFINITELY WOULD, in response to whatever it was he had said to make them laugh.
And again, I was fascinated.
I m heavily invested in my own personal development (my tagline is “An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living”), so I dug deeper and I ve been able to trace this habit to be fascinated by a cheating lover- rather than scared or repulsed- back to when I was as young as sixteen.
And if I m really bold I can honestly say that my strongest feelings have been reserved for men who I thought, or knew, were not faithful. Or the feelings were invoked in a phase where I suspected it. Sometimes to be disappointed by his fidelity later. But the bottom line has been that a man needs to be a player to draw out my most deeply rooted devotion and my undying fascinations for All Things Him.
Which is why another name suddenly surfaced. Someone who I had been in love with online, and who broke my heart before we even met. He did something to ensure I would know he was with someone else. And even with whom. I was hurt, and furious. I felt insulted and played with. Like someone had deliberately led me on, won me over, and now felt free to destroy my castle of emotions with the same determination he had recently displayed to win my heart.
He blew it.
I took the bait and have no doubt I responded in the exact way he wanted me to. Or did I?
With my recent interest in compersionism in general, and my own feelings and sexual orientation in particular, I reviewed the incident that happened a long time ago. It was one of those memories that seemed to have foot long thorns to it, and I had always kept my distance.
But in the light of my compersionism I needed to know; had my reaction been authentic?
Or had I responded from the same, conditioned blind anger people seemed to have collectively adapted ever since Christianity invented monogamy?
Had my response been compersionist worthy?
For reasons of privacy I can’t share exactly what happened but trust me: he deliberately leaked his rendez vous when he was still with her. It was not something he did afterwards. At best she was in the bathroom but he was with her. Thinking of me, the woman he had not met yet but who would be stopped if he got the information of his whereabouts and whatupabouts, out.
Maybe he was thinking of other distant admirers like me. Or exes who still felt warmly for him. We would ALL be stunned and brought to a halt.
Maybe he was thinking about his friends who would be impressed with his conquest, consolidating his place in the male hierarchy. But whatever it was, he was not one hundred percent present, with the woman he was with. And he was not investing in any of us, to make us feel loved, like we were the only one and the most gorgeous woman on earth. He was deliberately setting us up against each other, so that we would all be aware of each other’s presence. So that we would all know that none of us was, nor would ever be, the only one.
And that?
Is something you cannot get away with, without immediately seeing it underlined in red. With absolutely zero suggestions for an alternatively.
Not even, or maybe especially not;
“Did you mean compersionist?”

<3 LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

My diaries and erotica, including the seductive “Big” with two years worth of compersionism done right, are available at Lulu .

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