“Love Cubed” was the working title of a novel I wrote in Miami under my pen name Kemila Velan. It’s about three people who had fallen in love and were living together as a polyamorous threesome during Miami’s real estate boom and bust between 2005-2008. At first I wanted to call it “Boomtown Fever,” named after the documentary I was simultaneously working on with local Miami filmmaker Lisandro Perez-Rey, but he didn’t want to mix up our very different ideas on creative projects. In retrospect, I don’t blame him. My novel was kinda sleazy, and his project was important and groundbreaking, not just for a future audience, but for me as a storyteller. As I interviewed real estate developers, city commissioners, artists and community activists for my column “The Devil’s Advocate” in the Biscayne Times, Lisandro pointed a camera on me. I found myself going through the transformation I had started writing about in my “Sirens” novel based in San Francisco: from naïve little girl to big shot entrepreneur named “Kemila Velan.” Yeah, you know how method actors become their characters? I didn’t know I was a writer who does same thing.
Suddenly I was no longer a scrappy journalist-activist writing local stories for the community newspaper. My new identity led me to a startup called Genesis Exchange in Coconut Grove, so I re-named the novel “The Genesis of Change.” Then two years later, I quit that startup, changed the title to “Love Cubed,” and pitched various parts of the novel to Bitch Magazine and Latina Voz Online Magazine. But they weren’t interested in stories about polyamory so when an investor I met introduced me to Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee, I decided I would turn the novel into a series of comics. And thus, my imaginary feminist media empire was born: The Femmebots. One version of the story became a live action music video at film school. Then I rewrote it into an animated comedy series of women working at tech startups in New York, pitched it to Adult Swim and various other media outlets, and waited for my wild success but it never happened. I think it’s because I forgot who I was along the way. Even though I had changed my name back to Melanie Feliciano, I had forgotten to just be a writer.
Maybe now that I’ve gotten lots of distance from that time in my life, I can go back to the original story and re-write it with a much more objective, introspective and thoughtful lens.
Here is an excerpt:
The day after we returned from New York, exhausted and craving silence after the trip’s uncomfortable threesome tension, Jacine arrived. All three of us went to the airport to pick her up, and of course Rayder made a production out of it by creating a banner that read, “Welcome to Miami, your VIP car is waiting!” I told him Jacine had a taste for the finer things in life, and imagined herself a budding celebrity. So I kinda fell in love with him a little deeper by this generous act of warmth for my best friend.
“That’s what we do,” Rayder said jubilantly as he drove 90 miles an hour down the 836 to the airport.
I had butterflies of excitement to see Jacine. It had been six months since our Thailand adventure. So much had changed, and I knew that’s why she decided Miami was the next destination on her world traveling itinerary. In the back of my head I was a tiny bit concerned for her, given her stripteasing background. Miami was all bling and had the potential to suck someone like her right into its abysmal, shark-infested waters.
She looked taller and brighter and prettier than I remembered. Her Colgate teeth sparkled, her smile was that of a woman who had never been so happy before in her life. She hugged me. “I’m so glad to see you, Kemila. I’m so glad to be here!”
Her body felt solid in my arms and I drew back. “You’ve been running every day!”
“Yeah, after Matt left, it was all I could do. Otherwise I was crying.”
I avoided her real emotions by introducing her to Bella and Rayder.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Jacine beamed. She kissed them both on the cheeks. Already she was so Miami.
On the car ride home, she asked point blank how things were going.
“It’s not easy,” I reluctantly confessed. “The trip to New York was a big test. It stressed us all out but it was a good learning experience.”
Rayder cut me off. “The relationship is always very rocky.”
We were all silent. I changed the subject. “So what do you think you want to do while you’re here?”
“Just gotta make some bills to pay my debt, girl. Maybe work at a club? What do you think?”
Bella took over. This was certainly her department. “I’ll set you up with my friend Pamela. She’s always looking for dancers. And you can always do promotions for quick money.”
“That’s how I started out when I first moved here,” I said. “You meet a lot of people who may lead to other opportunities.”
Having Jacine in the house neutralized the tension caused by New York. She was a deus ex machina. As always. When we lived in San Francisco, she came to my rescue when I had no drugs and nothing to wear for my birthday party.
She cooked dinner for us every night, usually savory concoctions she’d learned in Thailand. The house carried the aroma of love and garlic.
“Mmm, Jacine, it smells so good,” I said, laying my keys on the kitchen counter and diving my head into the pot.
“Really? What does it smell like?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot you can’t smell,” I said. Jacine had lost her sense of smell as a little girl. She had told me the reason why, but I had already forgotten. Perhaps now that we were all living together in this weird intimate situation, I would ask her again. “It smells like coconut tastes with a big chunk of garlic smashed in the middle.”