The fact that Jeremy is older is a turn-on for me. He’s a similar age to my dad, my elder, and I respect his opinions and life experience. He makes me feel cared for and listened to. Sometimes he reads to me or shows me classic films that his parents introduced him to. He’s my best friend, my lover and a father figure.
We met on an online forum when I replied to his question asking if the British Wildlife Centre was a good date idea. We shared contact details, and I quickly opened up to him. I’d been in an abusive relationship in my late teens and hadn’t had sex, or even dated, in the six years after that. The first time I went to his house, I was terrified but excited. Jeremy was adamant we weren’t going to have sex, but I wanted to show him my body, so I stripped for him. It felt incredible to be touched after so long. We began meeting weekly to have sex when his partner was out.
Jeremy made it clear from the beginning that he was in a polyamorous relationship; we can talk to each other about anything, and there’s no judgment. My parents are conservative Muslims, so I’ve never been able to confide in them or ask them for advice. The emotional intimacy we lack, I quickly found with Jeremy. I call him my “cool dad”. But, in the beginning, I felt a lot of guilt, as if I was doing something wrong.
Our relationship is open, and I’ve been seeing someone else for six months, but he doesn’t know about Jeremy. I used to tell the people I was dating, but those relationships didn’t last, and I found that being poly shrinks your dating pool.
Sex with Jeremy is completely different to the sex I had before. It’s gentle, loving and mutual. My ex was a porn addict, which shaped the sex we had, whereas Jeremy doesn’t watch porn. To have good sex, I now think it needs to be with someone who doesn’t watch porn and who has erectile dysfunction, which takes the pressure off penetration. Jeremy doesn’t need to get hard or come to experience pleasure, so there’s less emphasis on making either of us orgasm and more on how we connect emotionally.
Being polyamorous, I’ve been with about 40 people, but at the time I met Laila, I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone new. She came out of the blue.
The age gap means she doesn’t really feel like my girlfriend. My primary partner, with whom I’ve lived for more than 13 years, is like my wife (though we’re not married), whereas with Laila it’s very different. One of the reasons I’m polyamorous is to have different dynamics with different people. For me, there would be no point in having the same feelings for another person that I already have for someone else.
In the same way that parents can love their children equally, I don’t have a limited supply for my romantic partners. I also don’t experience jealousy. But I can feel insecure. I worry about being left for a monogamous relationship, which has happened previously. Last year, Laila was seeing a man she said was like me, which made me think she could get the same thing from someone better than me, younger than me.
I’m slightly disabled – I have advanced arthritis and a long-term back injury – so we can only have sex with Laila on top. I have problems with impotence, but Laila likes it when I don’t get fully hard. She also likes older, plump men (I have a 42in waist).
Sex with Laila is magical, almost spiritual. There’s a very intense emotional quality to the sex we have. Sometimes we take psychedelics or MDMA, which increases the intensity, physically and emotionally. We feel extraordinarily close and in love. Laila comes over about once a week. We spend hours in bed kissing. I lost my job a few years ago, so sometimes I go into town and meet Laila on her lunch break, and we’ll just sit on a bench and kiss.