House of Love: Valentine’s Day edition – Some Like it (Red) Haute!

In my last post, I mused, “Can I reclaim the fun [of this journey]?” Fortunately, the answer is a resounding Yes!

It had been a difficult and emotional week. In addition to feeling lonely and much less loved, I also had a heated discussion with Viktor on Thursday night. Of course, feeling less connected to one’s partner is never good, but it felt especially vulnerable in the run up to Valentine’s Day. Thankfully, by the conclusion of our intense conversation, I was more at ease with the situation and ready for the holiday.

This year for Valentine’s Day, we had decided to go to the House of Love party at House of Yes with Gigi. Given the event’s coincidence with the holiday, the theme was Red Haute. Despite planning my costume for weeks, the morning of Valentine’s Day, I was less excited about this year’s plans because last year had been so amazing (See this post and this one). Plus, my last venture to House of Love had not been a great success, so I had some trepidation about what the night would bring. Time would tell…

In spite of a less than enthusiastic outlook, I headed into my Friday with an upbeat attitude, which was rewarded in spades. My usual Friday S Factor class was great and I had an awesome dance, unlocking new emotions and finding new movement.

After class, I returned home and mulled over my conversation with Viktor from the night before, which had centered on my use of dating apps. He felt that I should consider getting off of them for awhile and, as I thought more about it, agreed that it would be healthier and less goal-oriented approach for me to limit myself to meeting people in person.

As I set about deleting Fetlife, OKCupid and Feeld, I messaged any existing matches and advised them to contact me via kik if they were still interested in staying in touch. Within a short period of time, I heard back from Bunny, the male half of a couple with whom we had an upcoming date. We had a fun and flirty exchange of texts, which fueled my energy and infused me with feeling sexy and excited for Gigi’s arrival for our usual House of Love pregame of wine and cheese.

Suitably dressed and made up (Gigi had done Viktor’s makeup), we headed to the event. In the car heading to the venue, we set our intentions and desires for the night ahead. Mine included not making a fool of myself in front of Cooper and his girlfriend, Wendy (the pair had coincidentally bought tickets to the event as well), receiving a kiss from Cooper, kissing at least someone else, having fun, feeling sexy and confident, relaxing into the night, and not having my feet hurt from dancing in my new shoes.

At some point during the car ride, I received a text from Cooper advising that he and Wendy would not be attending that evening’s event after all. He ended his text with Mwah! so before we had arrived, I had already manifested two of my desires (my kiss from Cooper and an inability to make a fool of myself in front of them since they wouldn’t be there! Although I was also disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see them.). It was an auspicious start to the event!

Once we were settled at House of Yes, we decided to wait in line for the photo booth. While awaiting our turn, we saw some friends and also met a couple who were interested in hearing our poly/open relationship story. As Viktor and I talked honestly to the woman, her male partner spoke to Gigi. Somehow he was under the mistaken impression that Gigi was Viktor’s girlfriend and asked her, “Do you ever feel left out?” Gigi had no idea what he was talking about and it was, at first, a confusing, and then, amusing, discussion once the oversight was corrected.

Photos taken, we headed to the dance floor. Viktor and I had made the commitment to really enjoy Valentine’s Day together and because I was feeling more in need of attention and love, we had agreed that he would be less focused on finding others and that the night would be more about me. We stuck to this plan and it worked out beautifully.

At some point during the night, Viktor had to step away and I was dancing on my own. Shortly thereafter, I was approached by a guy whose name was Ari. He asked me if I was there with anyone. I told him I was there with my husband but expressed my desire to dance with him.

Apparently, he had other plans than dancing. Instead, he said, “I need to get you a drink,” took me by the hand and started pulling me, but we were headed in the opposite direction from the bar. Oh, perhaps we were going to the bar in the other room? But wait, no he was taking me to one of the VIP areas! He made me a drink and proceeded to compliment me and kissed me. He told me how attracted he was to me — heady compliments for sure — and then said, “My girlfriend will love you.”

Truly intrigued (this night was getting even more interesting), I replied, “Well then, I’d love to meet her.” Ari left to go find his girlfriend wherever she was and left me in the VIP area for quite some time. I was beginning to think he had forgotten about me when a guy entered our section and introduced himself as Adam. He asked me where I was from. I explained that Ari had brought me, but he was more interested in knowing where I had grown up, etc.

Adam and I proceed to get to know one another and were soon kissing. Then Ari returned very briefly, kissed me and then disappeared again. Admittedly, neither Ari, nor Adam, were particularly consent-oriented, but, in the moment, I trusted myself and chose the role of pleasure researcher rather than that of consent monitor. Moreover, it was not the most conducive environment for a teaching moment.

Ari returned, this time with a woman named Nina (not his girlfriend) and Ari, Nina and I shared a joint kiss, before Ari headed back out to the dance floor once again. Adam, Nina and I talked for a bit, and soon Adam was kissing Nina and then pausing to kiss me. After some time, Nina departed, leaving Adam and I to ourselves to continue kissing and eventually more. Amidst all of this, Ari appeared and introduced me to his girlfriend Brittany with whom I shared a brief kiss. There was then a flurry of sexy activity with hand jobs, blowjob requests (which I emphatically declined), breast fondling and a drooling incident (as he was kissing me, Ari drooled/spit? on me. Gross; I told him to never do that again!). Ari invited me to come home with him and Brittany, but I declined.

I eventually decided to take my leave of Adam and Ari and return to Viktor and Gigi, both of whom I easily found on the dance floor. We continued to enjoy ourselves as we danced late into the night, departing House of Yes at 4:15. Viktor and I arrived home at 5:00 AM and began to enjoy some intimacy; it had been a week since we had sex and we were excited to be with one another, especially since it was Valentine’s Day.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Who was calling at this hour? It was Gigi and she was locked out of her apartment. We immediately invited her to come over and spend the night in our guest room. While we awaited her arrival, we knew that we had about 15 minutes, so we resumed having sex and were able to finish quite pleasurably before she appeared at our door. It was a pretty amazing quickie! We then got Gigi settled into in the guestroom, excited to have an impromptu slumber party.

The next morning (or rather, 3 scant hours of sleep later), Viktor and I woke up still feeling quite amorous and proceeded to have morning sex, which is super rare for us (mostly because it is rare for us both to be getting up at the same time). However, it proved to be super orgasmic and we were both blissfully spent by the time Gigi was awake. Then, Viktor made us all breakfast, which turned out to be such a fun way to continue the energy of the night before. Overall, it was an epic night filled with sexy vibes and had definitely been red haute!