The basement reeks of patchouli candles and the bitter funk of spilled whiskey soaking into concrete that's seen more confessions than a Catholic church. Miguel slides a tumbler of Maker's Mark across the bar—amber liquid catching the fractured light from string lights that look like they survived a goddamn hurricane. The bourbon tastes like burned honey and bad decisions, exactly what my throat needs after listening to Phoenix's latest relationship crisis for the past twenty minutes.
"So let me get this straight," I say, settling deeper into my barstool while Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" pounds through the ancient speakers. "River wants to open things up, but you're scared they'll find someone better?"
Phoenix fidgets with their newly purple hair—last week it was teal, the week before some shade of sunset orange that made them look like they belonged in a Tim Burton fever dream. "It's not that simple, Mom. They're talking about being 'monogamish'—like mostly exclusive but with permission to... explore."
Bubba snorts from his corner table, rolling dice for his weekly D&D session with Marcus and Brandon. "Shit, kiddo, back in my day we just called that cheating with extra steps."
"That's not what monogamish means," River calls out, looking up from their crossword puzzle. They're still in those fucking scrubs that smell like hospital disinfectant and other people's misery. "It's about honest communication. Boundaries. Permission."
"Permission to what exactly?" Elaine asks, stirring her rum and ginger ale with the kind of precision she probably uses to dissect her ex-girlfriend's character flaws. "Fuck around and pretend it's enlightened?"
"Jesus Christ, you're all missing the point," Leila says, her political maven voice cutting through the bullshit like a machete through bureaucratic red tape. She's got her truth-telling stance engaged—arms crossed, weight shifted forward like she's about to deliver a TED talk on dismantling heteronormative assumptions. "This isn't about fucking around. It's about questioning why we think one person should meet every single emotional and physical need."
Keira looks up from her book—something dense and philosophical that makes my brain hurt just looking at the cover. "Phoenix, what scares you more? River being with someone else, or River realizing they don't need you?"
The kid's face crumples like wet tissue paper. "Both? Neither? Fuck, I don't know."
Della emerges from the kitchen carrying a plate of jalapeño poppers that smell like heaven wrapped in bacon and bad life choices. The sizzle and pop from her domain has been a steady soundtrack all evening—she's been stress-cooking since Miguel mentioned they might expand their relationship too. "Fear makes us stupid," she announces, setting the plate down with enough force to rattle the bar. "Makes us think love is a finite resource instead of something that grows when you share it."
"Easy for you to say," Marcus mutters, wedding ring catching light as he fidgets. "You and Miguel are married. Established. You've got security."
"Security?" Miguel laughs, the sound bitter as burnt coffee. “ Bro, we're two trans queers running an underground bar in a basement that floods every time it rains. Security is a fucking illusion."
Grubby looks up from their sketchpad—they've been drawing geometric patterns that look like anxiety made manifest. "Maybe that's the point," they say quietly. "All relationships are insecure. Monogamy just pretends otherwise."
"So what's polyamory then?" Phoenix asks, leaning forward like they're about to receive the gospel according to alternative relationship structures.
"Honest insecurity," Sarah says, not looking up from her copy of Being and Time. "At least everyone knows where they stand."
Remy laughs, accent thick as Louisiana mud. "Mon dieu, you make it sound like a business transaction. Ma grand-mère, she had seven lovers over forty years. Never called it nothing but following her heart where it led."
"Seven?" Brandon nearly chokes on his beer. "How the fuck did she manage that?"
"Time, attention, and more energy than God gave mortal humans," Remy grins. "Also, she made the best gumbo this side of the Mississippi. Hard to leave someone who feeds your soul and your belly."
Ezra shifts in their beanbag throne, making it creak like an old ship. "But that's the thing about polyamory—it's not just about having multiple partners. It's about relationship anarchy. Rejecting the whole primary-secondary hierarchy bullshit."
"Explain that one," Keira says, marking her place with what looks like a subway ticket.
"It's like..." Ezra waves their hands, trying to capture concepts that don't fit in traditional boxes. "Instead of having one 'primary' partner and everyone else being secondary, you let each relationship be whatever it wants to be. No artificial limits."
"That sounds like chaos," Chris says, his Christian guilt wrestling with queer reality as usual. "God intended marriage between—"
"One man and one woman, yeah, we've heard your greatest hits," Leila cuts him off. "But maybe God also intended for people to love who they love without shame or artificial limitations."
Dani floats over, crystals clicking like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. She catches Keira's eye and nods toward the bathroom—some kind of silent communication passing between them. They disappear for maybe three minutes while Sage slides napkins across the bar, each one depicting different relationship configurations like a goddamn instruction manual for the heart. The sound of the Indigo Girls graces the air around them.
"I found it," Dani whispers as they huddle near the bathroom door. "Wind in the Willows, first edition, signed by Kenneth Grahame himself. My ex came through."
"How much?" Keira asks, already knowing it'll be worth whatever the cost.
"Eight hundred exactly. I can hold it for forty-eight hours." Dani calculates.
"Done. I'll collect from everyone—thirty-five each, rounded up. Twenty-three people, we can make this work." Keira nods.
"She's going to lose her shit when she sees it." Dani whispers.
"That's the point. Sometimes losing your shit is the only way to find yourself." Keira chuckles.
"What's compersion?" Phoenix asks when they return, Keira looking satisfied about something while Dani practically glows.
"Joy in your partner's joy with someone else," River explains, finally abandoning their crossword. "Instead of jealousy, you feel happy that they're happy."
"Bullshit," Elaine snorts. "That's not human nature."
"Neither is monogamy," Miranda interjects softly. She's been quiet tonight, nursing her wine and observing like she's cataloging human behavior for some cosmic research project. "Anthropologically speaking, humans practiced various forms of multi-partner relationships for thousands of years. Serial monogamy is relatively recent."
"So is indoor plumbing," Julie adds, stirring her Jameson and Diet Pepsi. "Doesn't mean I want to shit in an outhouse."
The room erupts in laughter, and I catch Miguel's eye. They're mixing something elaborate behind the bar—probably that new cocktail they've been perfecting with elderflower liqueur and enough alcohol to kill whatever lingering Catholic guilt any of us still carry.
"The thing about new relationship energy," Lisa says, finding her voice in these discussions more often lately, "is that it's like a drug. Everything feels intense and perfect because you don't know their flaws yet."
"NRE," Phoenix nods knowingly. "River warned me about that. Said when we first started dating, they couldn't see my anxiety spirals clearly because everything was shiny and new."
"And now?" Keira asks.
"Now they love me including the anxiety. Maybe because of it." Phoenix's smile could power the string lights. "But the idea of them feeling that way about someone else..."
"Makes you want to burn everything down," Eileen finishes. She's been quiet, probably processing her own relationship struggles through our collective therapy session. "That's the thing about jealousy—it's not logical. It's pure lizard brain fear."
"Which is why metamours are so important," Grubby adds, still sketching. "Your partner's other partner. If you can be friends with them, the jealousy becomes harder to maintain."
"Or easier," Bubba rumbles. "Nothing like meeting your replacement to make you realize you ain't special."
"That's the point," Della calls from the kitchen, where she's started on some kind of late-night soup that smells like redemption. "None of us are special in the way we think we are. But we're all special in ways we can't imagine."
Brandon looks up from his phone where he's probably avoiding writing again. "What about throuples? Three people in one relationship?"
"Math gets complicated," Miguel says, delivering whatever elaborate cocktail they've been crafting. It's purple and smoking slightly. "Three people means three different communication styles, three sets of needs, three ways to misunderstand everything."
"But also three people to share the load," Phoenix points out. "Three people to love you when you're being impossible."
"Three people to disappoint when you fuck up," Marcus adds grimly.
"You're all thinking about this wrong," Sarah says, finally looking up from Heidegger. "The question isn't what relationship structure works. The question is whether you're brave enough to be honest about what you actually want instead of what you think you should want."
The room goes quiet except for Stevie Nicks asking about landslides through the speakers. Twenty-three people contemplating the gap between desire and expectation.
"I want River to be happy," Phoenix says finally. "Even if that happiness doesn't always include me. But I also want to feel secure that I matter to them."
"Those aren't contradictory wants," Keira points out. "That's just love with boundaries."
"The problem with unicorn hunting," River says suddenly, "is when couples go looking for a third person but treat them like a toy instead of a human. Like someone who exists solely for their pleasure without needs of their own."
"Seen that shit too many times," Renee speaks up from the pool table where she's been systematically destroying everyone who challenges her. "Straight couples especially. They want a 'unicorn'—usually a bisexual woman—to spice up their marriage without threatening their primary bond."
"Dehumanizing as fuck," Leila agrees. "Using someone's sexuality to fix your relationship problems."
Chris shifts uncomfortably. "Maybe some people just aren't meant for... this kind of complexity."
"Maybe some people are afraid of complexity," Sage counters quietly, sliding over a napkin showing a simple line drawing of a heart with multiple doors. "Doesn't make it wrong."
Miguel refills my bourbon without being asked—they know me well enough to read the signs. "The truth is," they say, voice softer than usual, "every relationship is an experiment. Monogamy, polyamory, relationship anarchy—they're all just different ways of trying to love and be loved without destroying each other."
"Some experiments blow up the lab," Elaine mutters.
"Some experiments cure cancer," Dani counters, crystals catching candlelight like tiny stars.
Phoenix looks around the room—at all these people who've found ways to exist outside traditional expectations. "So how do I know what's right? How do I know if I'm being enlightened or just scared?"
"Start with honesty," I say, the bourbon making my voice rougher than usual. "Not the easy honesty about what you think you should feel. The hard honesty about what you actually feel. Even the ugly parts."
"Especially the ugly parts," Keira adds, reaching over to squeeze Phoenix's hand. "The jealousy, the fear, the part of you that wants to own someone instead of love them freely."
"And then?" Phoenix asks.
"Then you talk," River says simply. "You tell your partner what you discovered about yourself. You listen to what they discovered about themselves. You figure out how to honor both truths."
"Even if those truths are incompatible?" Marcus asks.
"Especially then," Bubba says, rolling a natural twenty and grinning. "Better to end something honestly than live something false."
The basement fills with the kind of silence that comes after difficult truths—not empty, but heavy with possibility. Della's soup sends up steam that carries promises of comfort food and unconditional acceptance. The pool balls click like prayers being answered.
"I think," Phoenix says slowly, "I need to figure out what I want before I can ask River to want it too."
"Now you're learning," I tell them, raising my glass. "To honest experimentation and brave vulnerability."
"To love in all its messy, impossible forms," Keira adds.
Twenty-three glasses rise in the flickering light, twenty-three people toasting the courage it takes to love without guarantees, to want without shame, to exist in the space between traditional expectations and authentic desire.
The night dissolves into smaller conversations—Marcus and Brandon debating the ethics of dating apps while in non-traditional relationships, Renee explaining to Lisa how she navigates being someone's "type" without being reduced to that role, Grubby showing Sage sketches of relationship configurations that look like sacred geometry.
Miguel closes tabs and washes glasses while Della divides leftover soup into containers for anyone who wants to take comfort home. The ritual of ending another night in the space where being different isn't just accepted but celebrated.
"Same time next week?" Phoenix asks as people start gathering jackets and preparing for the world above ground.
"Always," I tell them. "Your questions, your confusion, your brave attempts at love—they all have a place here."
Walking out into the alley, I catch Keira's satisfied smile—the kind she gets when she's orchestrating something she thinks I don't notice. There's a conspiracy brewing in those eyes, something that involves more than just tonight's relationship seminars and philosophical bourbon consumption.
"Good night," I ask her, letting my voice carry just enough knowing weight to watch her freeze for half a second.
"Very good night," she agrees, recovering quickly but not quite meeting my eyes. Amateur. I've been reading people's secrets since before she learned to lie with such creative flair.
"Whatever you're planning," I say, pulling my jacket tighter against the August humidity, "You know I can see it right?"
Her laugh sounds too bright, too practiced. "I have no idea what you mean."
"Of course you don't," I agree, because sometimes letting people think their conspiracies are invisible is kinder than calling them out.
Some lessons can only be learned in basements where judgment goes to die and authenticity gets the chance to breathe. Others get learned in alleys where partners think they're better at secrets than the people who taught them how to keep them.
"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in." - Morrie Schwartz
In the basement sanctuary where traditional relationship models come to be questioned and expanded, twenty-three souls discover that love's architecture isn't limited by conventional blueprints—it's built from honest communication, brave vulnerability, and the revolutionary act of letting people define their own forms of connection and commitment.