Kate Messinger writes the Substack Eat Your Feelings, a love advice column answered with food.
There is a book about an enchanted unicorn that enters the zoo on what should be a relaxed day off, gets spotted by a bunch of rowdy kids, and spends the whole rest of the book trying to escape getting caught. Because, if you know anything about unicorns, they lose their magic once you catch them. This is also true for the other type of unicorn, the type for adults that comes into a couple as a magical, fuckable addition to liven up the monogamy with a little outside sparkle in the form of the rare bisexual woman who wants to sleep with them both, leaving with nothing but a trace of glitter and reignited passion for those involved.
There is a misconception in our modern world of ENM polycules that being a unicorn gives you a no-strings attached ability to gracefully trot in and out of an established dynamic and not make a mess. In relationships, we seek out a third to bring back the connection, keep things spicy, or maybe as a last ditch effort before the inevitable breakup – but no matter the intention, we know that by adding a third we’re shaking things up between the couple. That’s the point. We rarely consider the cameo once they walk off stage, unscathed from the hard work of coupledom, leaving a burning building in her rearview. However, as a former sexual unicorn now sitting on the floor reading about magical unicorns to a tiny human who knows nothing about the other meaning, I can now say that playing the third isn’t always a happy ending. Sometimes you get caught.
It was a hot August day in Bushwick in 2015, the kind where you can feel the falling asbestos from the elevated train create a sticky layer on your bare, sweaty skin. I ran into J, an old flame who had fizzled out the summer before, while I was on my way home from some one night stand I wouldn’t remember. I had really liked J. We used to meet up at the dive bar so he could “teach” me pool, his thick arms wrapped around me to show me the right form, my ass pressed just right to show him he was a good teacher. The conversation and the attraction was there, but each night he’d leave me at my doorstep, horny and annoyed. After a few blue balled nights, he told me that he had trouble cumming, and that even trying was not worth the hookup. I felt defeated, not only had I been a bad feminist, lying that I didn’t know how to play pool just to get laid, but I also was letting a man’s boner control my happiness. I had let him go then, but now, after talking to J on the street about the Olympics and my attraction to the Jamaican runner in the female hurdles, I swear I heard his boner tingle through the muggy, cancerous heat.
We went back to my place and put on the race. I told him how much the athlete had turned me on, how I’d been looking into exploring my dormant bisexuality through a new app for threesomes called Thrinder (later changed to Feeld for legal reasons). For the first time, he fucked me to completion, giving me the validation I’d been hungry for and a realization that my lingering interest in women could be a great tool in my domination of men. In bed, we set up my account: “a unicorn looking for a ride.” He came again as I got my first message.
M was an artist in a long term relationship. She had kissed a few girls, but her interest had been piqued recently in having a threesome. Her boyfriend was okay with sharing and she thought I was beautiful. Lesbians always say that your first crush will be your doppelganger, and they weren’t wrong. M and I both had dark hair and curly bangs, a similar 2010’s hipster-waitress-in-Brooklyn vibe, and apparently, an attraction to women that look like us. I messaged her back while doing squats at the gym.
“You’re gorgeous. I’m at the Crunch Fitness in Bushwick and I can’t stop thinking about kissing you and your guy in the surprisingly clean showers.” I flirted. I screenshotted the text and sent it to J, hoping to get another chance to prove my feminine ability to make him cum.
“No way! I work out there too!” She responded and I ducked behind the weight bench frantically looking for another curly haired woman on her phone. “And yes, those showers are suspiciously pristine…” she wrote. Only gym bros and some Hasidic ladies in sight. I responded with a dumb string of emojis.
“So, should we get a drink tonight at that tiki bar across the street? Just us ;)” I shut my phone, grabbed my things, and ran out into the heat, sweating more than I should be.
Why was I so nervous? I had fucked many men via the apps who lived in my neighborhood, and never once hid from them. In fact, if this had been a man, I would have told him to meet me in the unisex bathroom (also weirdly clean). Something felt different about M. I wanted to impress her, know about her, and most shocking, not manipulate her into sleeping with me. I was nervous, and for once, I was being pursued. I agreed to the tiki drink, and spent the whole rest of the day in a panic.
She was even cuter in person. And nervous too, smiling a lot and asking me a ton of questions. I tried to be cool, but our nervous giggles were the same as our curly bangs, just waiting to be swept aside by whoever was courageous enough to make the first move.
“My boyfriend knows I’m meeting you.” She explained when our drinks came to an end. “I don’t think he expects me to bring you back home, but would it be crazy if… if you wanted to, of course… if you came back to our place? I want you to be comfortable, and no pressure, but… I like you.”
The honesty. Her eagerness. Her vulnerability to just say what she wanted up front, without having to feign apathy. It was a lightning bolt in the fog of fuck boys I had let myself persue. “Of course. Let’s go.”
It was instantly awkward with the addition of a male presence. He was surprised to see us both, suddenly overwhelmed with this fantasy coming true. We sat together on the couch sharing a joint in silence, looking eerily like sisters. I let myself feel her heat next to me, sink in the moment of wanting someone that bad, and knowing they wanted me back. She took a deep breath and grabbed my face, kissing me hard as our bodies pressed against each other, my bangs and fingers curling around hers. She pulled me into the bedroom.
The mattress on the floor became a tangle of our bodies. Our matching tan lines, our hair, our fair complexions, it was as if we were a mirror image coming together into one. I felt her thighs quiver and mine follow, my hands in her, and hers out, reaching for someone else. The boyfriend. I had forgotten he was even there, watching, aroused, waiting for his turn.
I had always thought my bisexuality was activated by a male presence, that the sexiness of the experience was due to the male gaze on my performance with another woman, but here in the tangle with her and him, I knew he was the third wheel. Eventually he was beckoned in to fuck her from the back as she made me cum, but I made a focused effort to keep my eyes off him and praise towards her.
After we all came multiple times, and he said something about work in the morning, I floated out of the room like the enigma I had entered as. To him, I was a blessing igniting his partner’s flame. For her, maybe it was just the same, a unicorn granting a magical wish. But for me, I was changed. I had entered asa bisexual spectacle meant to be a bit part in the grand story of their romance, and here I was, caught in the feels, going home alone.
We kept texting, the couple and I on the transparent and above-board group chat, trying to find another time to meet. But between three people’s schedules and two people’s menstrual cycles, the second time never came. Unlike my male fuck buddies, where I was always pushing for a hookup even if I didn’t like them much, I let this one fizzle away. Maybe I wanted her all for myself and knew it was impossible, or maybe I was too much of a good feminist to drag her relationship into the drama I knew I would bring if we continued seeing each other, but I never saw M again. The allure to sleep with men that I didn’t really like seemed to disappear too. I wanted someone who wanted me like M had, without all the complications of a third. M was my first time being with a woman, and my last time being a unicorn.
Not long after the experience, I met my husband. He saw my bisexuality as a part of me rather than a performance, and while sometimes we invite others to join in (unicorns, themselves), he treats me like a magical creature beyond the bedroom. Maybe I needed M to see that I wanted to be more than a cameo, that being a unicorn only really works if you don’t want to be caught.
"Unicorn"? I feel SO out of the loop.
Here's to the ever elusive unicorn.