OK, the girls went back to school.
Shhhhhh . . . can you hear the quiet?
It is so awesome. It’s not even like quiet, it’s like an emptiness.
So fucking awesome.
I am giddy with emptiness.
Giddy emptiness is not the ideal place in which to sit when you are hoping to entertain with your words.
Hold on . . . let me think for a moment.
Shut up.
I am thinking.
Giddy emptiness.
One time? A very long time ago.
Mark and I are hanging out with some friends. A lovely outdoor patio at a favorite restaurant. There’s a band playing Cat Stevens and Neil Young songs. It’s early evening and it’s one of those perfect warm nights when I just can’t believe that this is my life . . . my husband, my friends, some music, a few beers. The warm air on my skin, the dusky colors of the early evening sky. There is laughing and talking and singing . . . It’s perfect.
Don’t you love those moments when you realize . . . in that very moment . . . that you are in the middle of a perfect moment?
So fucking awesome.
Of course that moment always passes.
Into the next.
The evening darkens and cools, the band packs up, the laughing and talking get louder.
We order another round of drinks.
And I find myself talking to a friend. A man I have known a while, and to whom I am attracted in that, “How cool is it that we are both happily married and so we don’t have to actually figure out what this flirty thing is between us? We can just have this flirty thing, because there is absolutely no chance of it going anywhere.”
Happy sighs at that excellent memory.
Except his wife is not here this evening. And we are both drinking.
And something is different. I am not so lost that I am unaware that things have changed between us. There is an energy coursing through our conversation that has never been there before. Our words are playful and witty, and there is no physical contact, but I am aware that our words? Are closing a gap between us. And that the physical contact that has not been made? Is being planned.
I am aware of these things, but I turn away from that knowledge. I am having so much fun. I feel attractive and desired and sexy as hell.
I am all giddy, and to sustain that giddy? I empty my mind onto the patio floor beside me.
I am giddy emptiness.
It feels as though choices are being made, but I don’t recall having made them.
And this moment? This moment that has followed that earlier perfect moment?
It too feels perfect.
Sigh.
We linger long into the evening. Long enough for some of us to have sobered up a bit and for others of us to get completely fucked up. I am among the former. The man to whom I have been talking is so drunk now? That he is openly announcing his adoration of me, proclaiming to the table that if we weren’t both married? We would be together.
Everyone laughs and smiles and agrees . . . we are two sides of the same coin, this man and I! If we weren’t both happily married? We would be amazing!
I can hardly breathe . . . the words are thick and meaningful in the air.
The evening is coming to a close. I am sad but also relieved. The ending of this moment has been taken out of my hands.
And then, unexpectedly, it is handed back to me.
Somehow? It has been decided that this man with whom I have ventured too far this evening?
He is too drunk to drive home.
And so I am to venture farther with this man. I am to drive him home. In his car.
And Mark will follow in a few minutes and pick me up at this man’s house.
I do not know how this plan is made.
I only know that I am giddy.
And I empty my brain of what I know, of what I sense, of what I see.
And in this state of giddy emptiness?
I drive.
So . . . There was the moment that was perfect.
And then there was the moment that felt perfect.
And now there is the moment that comes next.
It’s an ugly moment.
That begins with a hand slid across and up my thigh. Insistent.
And in that split second? As I struggle to shift the car into third and try to fend off his fingers? My brain is filled with all that is about to be lost here. With all that I have placed at risk this evening. With how incredibly stupid I have been.
And his hand is insistent. And my words are being ignored.
And so as I finally get the car into third, I swing right from there up into his face, smacking the bridge of his nose hard with the back of my forearm.
And then the car is filled with angry words and bitter accusations and curses. Complaints of promises made and then not kept. Hateful angry cruel words.
And I am silent.
And I drive.
It’s a short drive.
Whatever was between us?
Has changed yet again.
And the moments keep piling up.
Accumulating.
In my life with Mark.
And this morning? Together here in this quiet empty house?
I am giddy.
Giddy emptiness of a more thoughtful kind.
A perfect moment.
With Mark.
this post, my friend, is hitting me
a bit close to the bone tonight.
sigh.
Sorry for that hitting.
Sigh.
I can breathe now.
I was praying, scared that this story would come out a different way.
“Please, Kris, no, don’t do it..”
Thank you.
Not even.
You’re welcome.
Love you.
been there and didn’t but sometimes it’s the perfect end to the evening that Mark will be meeting you there and save you from yourself. Makes you look at your life through rose colored glasses-and the girls are in school!
I know!
It was an awesome rose-colored day.
Mark doesn’t have to save me often, but when saving is required?
It is always from myself.
Sigh.
God. That feeling of safe sexiness, before you had to mess up his facial bone structure? It truly is the best.
Happy sighs.
Safe sexiness?
That’s the best.
It so is.
You and ‘pretend’ Nigel entertain me to no end. It’s almost annoying. The spot-on banter, the incredible writing, the sexual innuendo.
But mostly?
It’s addictive.
Oooooh . . . I like being addictive!
Nigel and I?
Or rather, I?
I am awesome.
Of course she’s awesome.
I totally write her that way.
You are still awake and looking to get a sneaky last word?
Well, of course you are . . . because that is so something I would do.
And you?
Are me.
I love that pretend you thinks you write me.
What a good idea I had to create you.
Happy sighs.
I cannot tell a lie…while this was a great post (and I am so glad I got the damn blog to load)…the comments on this one win for me.
Ah Nigel.
Also? I never cross any lines ever. EVER.
Really?
You have never crossed a line?
How intriguing.
Is that because you are all strong?
Or because your lines are widely drawn?
Hmmmm?
I used to have wide lines. so they wouldn’t get crossed.
after stepping out and seeing what wide lines can do to the innocent bystanders? My lines have shrunk. And we are both happy now with our lines.
You’re welcome.
I’m playing here all week.
Not if I cut these marionette strings, you’re not.
Nice work with the back of the hand to the nose!!
:)
Thank you, sir.
I love this. Shows that all the “what ifs” with former flames or would be flames are just that. What if. Getting lost in all the what ifs of past boyfriends/lovers can be nice at times but absolutely nothing beats the amazing life I have now with my amazing husband!
This story is not a “what if.”
This story is a “what the fuck?”
And yes . . . my life here is lovely.
Um.
wow.
I read every comment and got all lost and had to go back and read the post again.
I feel like I need a smoke after all that.
Puff.
Puff.
Look!
Smoke rings!
How did you resist and he did not? purely alcohol?
ok so assuming you both equally love your spouses, was it just the alcohol that tipped the scales? or was there something else? why were you able to resist and he was not?
and reading a response to a comment, I think I got my answer…
What I left out of this story, because I didn’t know it that night?
Was that my friend’s wife (who I also loved) was sleeping with someone else, and was about to leave him.
And so scales were tipped.
But I didn’t know that on this night.
I have probably said this before, but either you have the best stories or you have stories just like the rest of us and you write them the best.
I’m not even sure that sentence made sense.
And sometimes it is just as fun to read your comments as it is your posts!
That sentence?
This . . . either you have the best stories or you have stories just like the rest of us and you write them the best.
The best fucking compliment.
Oh my god.
Thank you.