Threesomes are all well and good, but what porn and erotica doesn’t often cover is the logistics thereof.

I have two local partners, as you know. Normally after a certain munch Partner 1 sleeps over. That munch changed nights, and Partner 2 would like to sleep over as well. I’m fine with that, but I only have a queen-size bed. Partners 1 & 2 are smaller women, both under 5’3, but a queen-size bed might still not be enough for all three of us to sleep. To do other things if we want to, sure — like cuddling or, y’know, other things — but getting all of us sleeping comfortably might not be easy.

So I have to think about the logistics of things.

I used to have another queen bed in the guest room, but it took up too much space so I got rid of it. I’m putting in a small love seat with a fold-out mattress, but it’s not here yet, so where will the third person sleep? I happen to have a really nice queen-sized air mattress that I can blow up and put into the guest room, but then we have the logistics of who’s going to sleep in it. Would it be more fair for me to sleep in it so that one of my partners doesn’t feel left out? Should both of my partners sleep in it while I keep my bed? That would probably be better so I don’t have to disconnect my CPAP. Or should my partners take turns on that night?

I really don’t know the answer, and I don’t think we (the three of us) know it yet either.

Of course, sometimes logistics work out for the best; last year, Partner 1 and I took a family vacation with our kids and her nesting partner. I thought I would sleep on the pull-out sofa in the living room of the timeshare, and they would have the main bed, and she would switch from bed to bed depending upon who she wanted to sleep with. She put the kibosh on that and told me I’d be sleeping in the king-size bed in the bedroom along with her and her NP. (We did not have threesomes or any sort of sex while all three of us were there together, but I found out later that it would have been welcome if one of us had suggested it.) The three of us managed to fit well enough in the bed, and although I woke up early every day (as I usually do) it was perfectly fine.

But we go back to queen-size beds again, like when we were on the way home from TASSP. That night, Partner 1 asked both of us if she could sleep in my bed (both beds were in the same hotel room), and we agreed. NP didn’t have any issues or anything — he’s pretty chill all around — but I did feel a touch awkward at the start. Not that we had sex or anything (she wasn’t feeling well) but still — even though we don’t practice hierarchical polyamory he is still her nesting partner so in my mind he should get the right of first refusal. I know that’s not how it works in practice, but my brain sometimes has trouble with the theory.

The logistics of polyamory are complex enough when it comes to just having multiple relationships. Add in multiple people in the same bed and it gets even more difficult to figure out.

Though, and this is somewhat unrelated, I am reminded of my honeymoon with my second wife. We went to Mexico and the room we had was a suite with two double beds. We told the resort that we were honeymooning and could we get a room with a queen or king, and they said they couldn’t do that, but they would try to figure something out. When we finally got to our room, the staff had pushed together the two double beds to make one massive bed for us, and they even had sheets that fit over two doubles, so it wasn’t like this was something they’d never done before. That bed was actually too big — to get out of it to go to the bathroom, I had to roll over three times just to get my feet on the floor. But I bet we could fit all five people in the main part of my polycule in it with no issues (me, Partner 1, NP, Partner 2, and Long-Distance Partner). We might even fit one or two people from Partner 2’s or Long-Distance Partner’s other relationships. It was a hell of a bed.