Lubricity

So, what can I say?

Since I last wrote, I've spent a fair bit of time with one of my soon-to-leave gentleman friends, and then this past week and weekend, a lot of time with the ex.
On the gentleman: hanging out with him had gotten really, really good.  Comfortable, smooth, physically much more knowledgeable than our first encounters. It made me think that I could easily date someone who's not my ex; that there are lovely, dateable people out there who I enjoy, and who have something quite different to offer me physically than the ex.  I had an extremely nice, extremely physical, extremely relaxed weekend.
And then he got very busy, and disappeared from my life for a week, coinciding with the ex having a week during which we planned a lot of things together.
It started Monday night, when I invited him over for a drink in response to him saying he wasn't doing well.  I meant it only as a drink, though he eventually slept over.   And eventually we had (rather explosive) sex, though fraught with uncertainty on my part.  I rejected him initially, it went down quite poorly (seemed to make him feel much worse, which wasn't what I wanted), I realized that I was actually a bit annoyed with my gentleman friend for not communicating in response to planning questions, and that I had a needy, hungry lovely boy in my bed, and so set about seducing him after all....all the while troubled by the thought that the ex only really looks me up when he's not doing well.  When he's on the up cycle of his moods, he does coke with strangers, ends up in discos, and just generally has a ball whereever he is, whatever he's up to. When he's feeling fragile and depressed, he seeks me out, or tells me, and then I seek him out, because I worry.  I'm also concerned that I'm one of the only people he seeks out.
So this past week saw Monday night being quite nice, and then an evening of pizza and going to the movies on Thursday....with a break between dinner and the movie in which I was propositioned to be eaten out.  But of course, ma cherie.  I had a splendid evening, overall.
Friendly, mostly non-sexual or romantic contact Friday.
We took the train on Saturday to go visit friends of his in another city.  The birthday party is fabulous, the level of contact between us all day is lovely...and then evening, too much alcohol.  We go for a walk.   We talk about us, frankly.  He eventually tells me that what he's been telling people about us is that he's always taken the possibility of us getting back together very very seriously...but just not yet.  Maybe after February 2010, when he gets back from two months in India.  Tells me implicitly that he still rather likes me, rather enjoys me; tells me explicitly that seeing used condoms in my trash hurt him rather a lot.
We go back and have glorious, sweaty, intense sex on the futon on the living room floor, where we're sleeping that night.  He has a particularly intense orgasm bracketed by endearments, and I don't really.  (I have a gentle, I'm a bit drunk and my body's weird orgasm, which seems unfair.)  We spend the rest of the night sleeping entwined, waking up only to kiss a neck, a shoulder, and to shift arms or legs closer, tucking them further under or against.
We spend the rest of the weekend as cuddled as if we were still dating--we fall right back into that dynamic.  And I think he enjoys it--enjoys having me back with him in this city, with his friends (who have all missed me, apparently.)  I enjoy being on the road with him--we've done this so many times, we're so good at it, and he's so comfortable to be around on a train, in a harbor, lunching on a boat in the sunshine.
We get back around 19.00, and I wander off to meet my gentleman friend for dinner, an existing plan, and one the ex knew might involve this friend staying over at my place.  (The gentleman friend is homeless, prior to his departure from the UK on Weds.)  The ex goes quiet by the end of the traintrip home, perhaps a bit tired or deflated, perhaps just hungover and worried about work on Monday.  In any case, friend decides not to come over tonight, much to my great satisfaction; I message the ex and make sure he does know this, and eventually come home to find a FB message that the ex is in a horrible funk after a fabulous weekend.  I leave a message and email to the effect that if there's anything I can do to help, to please let me know.
I worry strongly that my perceived unfaithfulness is part of the problem.  Everyone wants to be loved as intensely as they love, I imagine, or at least to not have the evidence that the object of your affections is seeing other people made explicit.  If he is, he's never mentioned them to me, though I've been assuming that's he's had at least a few random hookups since we broke up in May.
But on reciprocity in affection: up until about Monday, I was doing my very very best to be broken up with this boy completely.  I was working to sever any remaining emotional bonds; working to remove any privileged status he might have.  And I thought I was quite close--I went into meeting him Monday night planning that he wasn't going to stay over, that he was now firmly a friend, and certainly no sex.  Perversely, he seems to have arrived at an opposite point in whatever process he's going through--that we are and should be more than just friends, that he does want to spend time with me.
It's nice he actually told me.  Especially the notion that he's telling me that he hopes we get back together spring 2010 has me a bit irate-was he ever planning to tell me?  Should I have been informed of this?  Why should we get back together if the first time we both got really seriously stressed at the same time, we lost all spark and passion, and in his case, apparent motivation to be with me at all?  There's going to need to be a lot more conversation around this someday.
I've informed him he's basically undateable at the moment, which he agreed with, given the number of professional projects he's focused on, as well as personal growth stuff.  He acknowledged that perhaps short term flings would be of interest, but that was all.  That's intrinsically what I'm doing with my gentlemen friends with their moving dates to North America, but I don't think the ex knows that.  And perhaps I'm enjoying these gentlemen rather too much, which the ex does know about.
He's pointed out that I'm apparently much much more fun to be around now than I have been in many months--probably in a year or more, probably due to general stress levels, both of which I'll buy.  He is too, when his mood isn't distant and weird.

And now he's off somewhere in a funk after an emotionally intense weekend, and I worry that the fact that I have other men staying over with me casually is part of the problem for him.  I feel culpable, and concerned about the status and timeliness of my project to disengage from my convoluted relationship with him. 
Also interestingly enough, I would apparently rather have a buffer of a night on my own between nights with partners--having sex with two different people without showering in between (a plausible possibility for how today might go), actually makes me squeamish.  Ditto for sharing sheets on my bed between people.