Out for Summer

It had already been a full day at work, but it wasn’t over yet. I drove to the university campus and parked, placing a permit hanger on my rear-view mirror before stepping out into the warm air. I took off my tie and threw it on the passenger seat, rolled up my sleeves, and grabbed my notebook. It was finals week, the last week before summer and the campus was already sparsely populated, I saw the occasional cap and gown as graduation ceremonies would be going on into the weekend. I thought of Sierra for a moment, sometimes I wondered what I would do if I ran into her, she was still a student here after all, but for how long? She was young, so it’s possible she still had a year or two left. Chances were one in a thousand of running into her anyway.

The air inside the building that housed the college of business was cool, I took the stairs rather than the elevator to the top floor, listening to my steps echo through the empty hallways. The building was older, probably built in the seventies, I was somewhat surprised to find the office suite I was going to had been heavily updated. I felt I was walking into the office of a tech startup, it looked liked they’d lifted a page from the office layouts I’d seen at Google and Apple. The place was largely empty except for a man in his late thirties wearing a t-shirt and jeans reclining on an organic-looking sofa with his sandaled feet up on an equally organic-looking communal ottoman idly swiping on a iPad Pro.

“Hello, are you Jim?” I asked glancing around the office for anyone else, figured this had to be my contact.
He sat for a moment as if he hadn’t heard, then got up and glanced over his iPad as if I was an old colleague coming to pay him a visit.
“Yes, you Jason?” He asked calmly.
“Yes, pleased to meet you.” I said, shaking his hand.
“Come on back, let’s get started.” He said walking back to a small corner office.

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect when I accepted this consulting job. It was only a part time position at the university, just barely manageable in addition to my full time job, but the salary and benefits were generous for the number of hours. I figured that now that I was single, this would be a good use of my extra time.

I also wasn’t quite prepared for dealing with IT in an education setting. It certainly was different from the more formal, professional business environment I was used to. Jim’s office doubled as a small server closet with a floor to ceiling rack lit up like Christmas. It was messy, disused parts littering the tables and floors. A flight log sat open on the table indicated he was probably an amateur pilot. And against the far wall leaned an Ibanez electric guitar, and near the window overlooking the manicured campus lawns and trees was a set of effects pedals hooked to an amplifier gave some indication how he probably spent a few of his breaks (or perhaps some of the time he should have spent working). Against one wall was his workstation, 4 monitors hooked to a Mac. He pulled up a OneNote notebook that was the mother-lode of information for this project, I was a bit taken aback at the lack of organization and operational security. In one file here were plain text admin passwords for a dozen servers I’d soon be managing, all of which lacked any apparent naming convention and were just esoteric or mundane proper names, including a misspelling of a Greek deity (ahhh, the students of today, the future of America). Chances are, they were just named whatever popped into the student/researchers head at the time the server was hastily brought online for a research project. I was happy to have Jim to say the least. He inherited an even bigger mess than he was bequeathing to me. My first task was the risk and cost/benefit analysis of this entire shebang.

By the time I left Jim’s office the sun was sinking behind the mountain to the west. I paused in the stairwell to text with Her for a bit. Things were going well, our hearts only seemed to grow closer with each passing day, but with that, the longing grew to be with her. While I wouldn’t trade my relationship with Her for anything, long distance relationships are poignant beasts, they make you even more aware of your loneliness in some ways. I was beginning to sense that I was entering a new chapter of my life. The world seemed wide open in terms of opportunities for relationships and career, but it was also far more lonely, I had less reason to go home than ever; probably why I had taken this second job, a few extra hours a day hardly seemed to matter. My spirit hungers, but I’m unable to see anything that could satisfy it. For so long, being a Christian had lent purpose to my life, being a father, a husband, a spiritual leader, and teacher. Life used to be one big journey to heaven with all my friends and loved ones, but what was it now? I felt I’d left my place of comfort and been thrust into a wild, forbidding, empty wilderness. I felt a continual deathly, hollow silence in my life, like those empty hallways in that school building let out for summer.

Guess I can always ask The Boss.

The Rainbow’s End

Last night, Her and I talked. I feel she and I are both at a crossroads in our lives. We are traveling blindly, following our hearts. Both of us free to seek new companions, and after all, we are both very sensual people, we’ve both had ‘meaningless’ sex before. We both agreed that sex is never meaningless, but it can feel so empty when the other person you are having it with doesn’t connect with you; you don’t know what they are feeling, in the moment and sometimes even later on. Free of my wife I should be out picking up girls on a nightly basis. But, here I am alone again tonight. In some ways I’m frustrated with myself.

I left work late today after a long video chat with Her. We keep coming down to it, both of us baffled by our feelings for each other, how they can be so strong when we haven’t met.
“I love you baby.”
“Love you,” she smiled a sweet smile that melts my heart every time, I feel so connected to Her when I look into her eyes, even if it is only through a pixelated screen.
“Talk to you later.”
“Ok.”
I started the car and put my playlist on shuffle. This playlist is kind of the playlist of my life, I try not to play it too often, but it is my go-to when I’m not sure what to listen to. I don’t necessarily put songs that I’m entirely in love with on it, just songs with meaning for whatever reason. If my life was the film, these were the soundtracks that were played to punctuate the major events. There’s a bit of my childhood, and high school, and my friends, good times, bad times. I just keep adding to it, there are songs that my wife and I shared, ‘our songs’, songs of love, romance, and plenty of old Swing standards. For example, Polka Dots and Moonbeams is on there.

I pulled out of the parking garage.
“Think I can fly, think I can fly when I’m with you, my arms are wide, catching fire as the wind blows,” came the song over the stereo from my phone, accompanied by a cascading synth melody.
Yes, Sierra is in the playlist too, how could she not be? This was a song that twenty-year-old girl played for me on a particular late night drive, befitting her youthful exuberance. It isn’t a great song per se, Galantis is somewhat too gaudy and overproduced for my tastes, but one particular lyric always sticks with me,
“Even if we’re strangers til we die…”
Sometimes I wonder if Sierra thought about that lyric as I did when we were together. That our relationship was never meant to last, and we would share an intimate physical relationship for a time, and then return to being strangers until we die. Seemed like that was the plan. I have trouble regretting it; it had its time and place.

As I drove, I thought about Sierra for a time, picturing her smiling there beside me. Thinking about her betrayal and how it all ended. Another song came on.
“Can you find the time to let your lover love you? He only wants to show you…” Christina Perri sang.
This was one of Her’s favorites, and it meant a lot to me since she’d sung it to me herself. The song’s infectious idealism of the love of soulmates (and seabirds that mate for life) is almost bordering on the sappy side, but, somehow it works so well, but only if sung with such genuine heart as Christina and Her sing it with. I felt so warm inside hearing it on the drive home, hearing Her’s lovely voice in my head.
“Baby we’re fate, baby it’s fate… not luck.”

After dinner, I walked with my sister and her dog to the liquor store to get her cigarettes and a bottle so we could make some cocktails. I was texting some more with Her, she was watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s, one of my favorite movies, I was a bit sad I was missing it. It made me think of a post I’d made a long time ago now. Her and I talked some more. It was a continuing theme with us, we both never wanted to be trapped again, we wanted to be free, yet we kept coming back to how empty the idea of sex with other people seemed to the both of us at this time, we had become… monogamous, yet we’d never met one another nor were we tied together by any vow or expectation. We admitted our love freely enough to one another, but we were both very much aware it likely wouldn’t be forever.
“‘People don’t belong to people. I won’t be put in a cage…'” She quotes Holly to me in a text.
That final scene in that film, it all comes together so beautifully. Holly has a point, after a manner she is right, no person should ‘own’ another and put them in a cage. She is terrified of commitment, of falling in love, of losing. She won’t even name her own cat and call it hers. In some ways, that’s how Her and I were being, and perhaps it is some wise caution for two people thousands of miles away who’ve never met. But, Paul’s monologue, as he stands out in the rain leaning into the cab, perfectly delivering Capote’s immortal words that cut to the heart:

You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, ‘Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.’ You call yourself a free spirit, a ‘wild thing,’ and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

You have to have courage to belong to someone else because that’s life, people do it, they fall in love and sometimes they fall out of love, or they hurt and cheat each other as Her and I have done to others and had done to us. It’s all a risk, it’s scary, and people get hurt, but good still comes of it, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and the memories and music and meaning remain. We’re after the same rainbow’s end, Her and I, why not seek it together?

Man In A Shed

“The lieutenant took my bike and my trailer last week, and I’ve been trying to get them back, he said he’d get back to me several times and hasn’t,” the young man pleaded, he was dressed in a patchwork black hoody, ripped jeans, and sandals, a guitar slung over his back.
“Well, I can have him give you a call, do you have a phone?” The lady behind the counter and bullet proof glass responded.
“I don’t have a phone, I’m poor and my bike is how I get around,” the man continued his pleas.
“Ok, I understand…” said the lady with a tinge of sympathy.
I had been indignant yesterday when I discovered that my car had been towed away in the middle of the night. At first I had suspected thievery, but then recalled my expired tags and the fact that the city police were oft compared to the gestapo by the locals. I had been on the phone with the police and the tow company, and been back and forth to the station and the DMV several times already. Finally, after those trips and almost $300 in office fees and fines, the police were preparing the release I could take to the tow company to get the car out, of course, after I’d paid their fee for the tow and the day in storage. But, as I sat in the waiting room at the police station I couldn’t help but count my blessings as I saw shabby transients shuffle up to the counter and plead their case. I was there with paid time off from my job, a sister with a car to drive me around, and I was armed with a cell phone and credit card to get me out of this mess, others were not so fortunate.

“Ok, Jason, sign here, and take this over to the tow company.” the lady behind the counter called for me.
I handed her the signed paper, took the release, smiled and said “thank you” before walking out into the daylight.

I was over the battle of trying to get my car road legal, it was costing me more than it was worth at this point, so after retrieving it from the tow company, I called Saul up and went into town to do some car shopping. With my wife’s and my finances now legally separated, I could finally take care of this. When I go car shopping I never seem to be able to stick exactly to my budget. Happens every time, still I felt I got a great deal for the money, and it won’t break the bank. Dropped the tired old car off at the junk yard to lay her to rest along with the memories. Sierra and I had had many a good time in that car, we’d dented the front end, damaged a shock mount, shredded tires, and busted the fog lamps, but it had all been worth it.

My wife was still furious when she found out I’d purchased a new set of wheels when I came over later for visitation with my son. I know at this time just about anything will upset her, and there is no getting around that. As far as she’s concerned, I’ve moved on easily enough, transitioning happily into bachelorhood complete with a new car and girlfriend. Not quite, the girl I am in love with is on the opposite side of the continent, and this transition wasn’t as happy for me as she was making it out to be. I feel it more than ever that my life has lost its purpose. It was all so clear before, I was a Godly Christian man, my wife’s husband, and my son’s father. I had purpose, I was somebody, there were people who needed me. Now what was I? I was living for myself for the first time in how long? While life is easier now, it is less fulfilling. It feels vain and hollow. Every aspect of my life used to be dedicated to others, whether they be my wife, my son, family, my friends, my church, my community, or my God. All that was gone. Sure, I paid child support and alimony, but that was taken with grudging acceptance from the recipient. Now I got up for myself, went to work for myself, made car payments for myself, planned my evening for myself, went to bed for myself. All this, more than anything, made me want to crawl back to my wife and beg her to take me back. Beg her to let me be her strength once again, to be admitted back to the family and care for her and my son day in and day out. Could I do that? Would she even consider it? In the end, I feel things would just end up for the worst. It is me that is broken. I was the one who did this after all. I fucked up the plan. Was it worth it? Sometimes I think it was, sometimes not. Do I try to step back into the role I used to take? Is that the adult, manly, noble thing to do? Maybe, but I think the most responsible thing I can do right now is to stay the course, give it more time, sort out my thoughts. Try to make a clear headed decision for once. But, how can I do this when I’m in love with another woman? I want to be with Her and I can’t just ignore my feelings.

Stormy Weather

We’ve selected a family law practice to handle our uncontested divorce, paid the retainer, and have set an appointment to sign the agreement. Over the past few weeks, we’ve toyed with the idea of reconciliation, but it seems clear that it won’t happen. We both have conditions, I have mine, she has hers, and they are too far apart for us to agree to even begin counseling towards reconciliation. In some ways, I feel we are moving too fast, but my wife tells me, “I’m bleeding, I want this to be over so the wounds can heal.” Each conversation we have, makes us both feel that divorce is the best option.

We had a long conversation regarding custody and visitation the other night, and I feel we are on the same page. We compared notes, research, our experience, the advice we’d received from lawyers and counselors, and we still come to the same conclusion: since our son is still practically an infant, he should live with his mother (his primary attachment) for now. But, we agreed that he needs to have a close relationship with me, his father, though. So, we’ve agreed to liberal visitation throughout the week during the evenings and I spend most of each Saturday with him. I’m pleased that my wife seems to be able to set aside her personal feelings and hurt and focus on our son, we’ve both committed to working together as co-parents for him, evaluating and changing our arrangements to suite him as the need arises. I appreciate some of the good advice I received last post, it did help me gain some clarity and stop focusing on my own guilt in the situation, and rather on what would be best for our son.

When it rains, it pours. My wife had a little fender-bender the other day, and we went over budget this month with our finances. To add further complications, my old car decided to overheat on the way home, so I spent all evening under her bonnet with a couple of floodlights for company trying to get the old girl running well enough to make it to work this morning. I drained the radiator, the oil drenched sludge that flowed out seems to indicate a leaky head gasket, luckily no coolant is in the engine oil or I’d be in real trouble. Still, I was only able to do a band-aid fix for now by flushing the cooling system and refilling it, but she held stable temperature-wise on the drive in this morning.

I’d probably not be feeling too good, but as long as I have Her, I find it hard to complain. She’s become an inextricable part of my life. Even though we are miles apart, somehow we share every day together. It seems clear to me more than ever that one day we will meet, and I know that can’t be a bad thing. That very thought gives me more hope than I’ve had in a long time.

In other news, I’ve done some reflection on this journey, and tried to form it into a somewhat coherent story. It is like taking a winding path through the mountains, hills, and forests, and then as you walk across the plain you look back and can see how far you’ve come on each leg of your journey.

The Rise & Fall of Naive Adulterer: Part 4

The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.

“My wife can’t wait till 7 so we do it as soon as I get home. So, just got to my car, here we go. Whatever happens, I love you.” I texted as I unlocked the car.
“I love you too baby. I’ll be thinking of you.” came the final reply.
She had been an amazing comfort throughout the last few days as the threads of my life began to unravel, and it became clear that I’d have to come clean. She’d shared the whole day with me, but from here I had to continue into the gathering darkness alone, and hoped there would be a dawn. I was about to blow over the whole stack of cards, send the whole world crashing down around myself and everyone I loved. I had gotten off the phone with my pastor moments earlier, it was too late to go back now, I’d confessed to him already, and he would be there when I got home to confess to my wife. I’d spent the last few days in damage control since my wife had seen that fateful message window. I’d tried to say that the blog was just me dealing with some feelings and it had some very personal things, and some embarrassing things about my wife that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing. I said I’d developed some friendships with those in the blogging community and communicated with some of them privately, and that was the message window my wife had seen. Try as my wife did to get me to show her all of this, I refused. She finally gave me an ultimatum: show her everything, or she can’t go on with me. I still wouldn’t show her everything, but I would tell her all. Part of me thought I shouldn’t even do that. Part of me said, ‘write a fake blog with fake posts and share that with her, or just show her the messages and say you were having an emotional affair.’ But, I was mentally exhausted, completely spent, tired of the lies. It was time to give up Naive Adulterer. He and Jason would need to become one man. My wife deserved to know the truth after all this, much as I knew it would shatter her world.

It was the longest drive home ever. I finally pulled up to the driveway, and walked inside. My wife was at the bottom of the stairs, a friend had taken the baby for a few hours so the house was empty, the pastor pulled up just then, I was glad he was there. We sat down at the dining table, my wife’s face painted with concern, the pastor’s with a stern grimace from the severe pain he was trying to hide of the boy he’d known since birth that had destroyed his life, and the life of his wife and child.
“What’s this about, Jason?” She asked.
I stared at the table, unable to begin.
“Have you been unfaithful?”
I finally managed, “Yes.”
My wife breathed out heavily, her face drooped with disappointment.
“How could you.” She whispered, holding back tears, finally she asked “Who was she?”
“Her name… was Anne.” I choked, trying to hold back my own tears, I knew the tremendous hurt each word inflicted upon my wife’s soul.
My wife’s face was a mixture of anger, sadness, disappointment, and heartbreak, she’d turned bright red. The pastor just stared off into space, in utter disbelief.
“Did you see her more than once?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I’m not sure, six, seven times, I think.”
“How could you, you bastard.” Tears streamed down my wife’s face as we cried for a few moments.
Finally, the pastor broke in. “Jason, you need to tell her about the rest.”
“There was another?” My wife asked, surprised.
“Yes.” I breathed deeply between the tears.
“Who was she?”
“Her name was Sierra.”
The words struck my wife like bullets, wounding her deeply.
“How many times were you with Sierra? When did it start, and when did it end?”
“I’m not sure, I think about six or seven times as well, maybe more, it started in October and ended in mid-December.” I spoke more evenly now, just letting the tears come and stream down my face and onto my shirt and tie, and rolled up sleeves lying limp across the table.
“You bastard, how could you. Was that it?”
I paused, not wishing to go on, but I knew I had to. “No.”
The word hit her like a freight train.
“Jason! Three? Three women? All behind my back? While I was at home caring for your son?” She cried, her voice full of indignation, “Who was this third girl?”
“Lisa.”
“How many times were you with Lisa?”
“Twice.”
“Are there any more?”
“Yes… Nancy.”
“How many times with Nancy?”
“Three times.”
“Is that it?”
“No, there is one more.”
My wife was exhausted at this point, in utter disbelief as her world crashed around her.
“Tell me.” She whispered.
“Her name is ——, but I’ve never met her in person, she’s the one you saw messages from.”
“Ok, so, she was supposed to be the next girl.”
“I don’t know, she is different than the others. I don’t know what will happen.”
“What will happen? Do you want to be with this girl instead of me? To run away with her? Do you love her?”
“I don’t know… yes, I love her.”

I had come clean. We sat around that table, tears drying in the setting sun over the sea in the distance, stares of disbelief as our minds refused to make sense of what I had done. We wrestled with the double life, the constant deception that I had lived for over six months. More would come out. I had lost my faith, it had eroded away to nothing. Perhaps it had been ill founded, or Satan had entered my heart and sin had seared it till it was dead and black. The pastor promised my wife his full support, and the church’s support, and as he got up to leave, told me he’d pray for my soul, that the little boy he once knew and trusted would come back to God. Nothing more could be decided then. My wife was in complete shock, we all were. I knew in the coming days many people would find out, people at church, our families, many of our friends, they would know the truth about me. The hurt and pain wouldn’t stop here.

This was never supposed to happen like this, I am the destroyer of lives and dreams. What kind of monster am I, that I’d be capable of this?

The Rise & Fall of Naive Adulterer: Part 3

Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self destruct.

I remember being fascinated by the death drive in psychoanalysis when I was in my Psychology class. The very idea that humans have an innate drive and instinct towards death and self-destruction, like a hidden desire. Sometimes I wonder how much I exhibit this.

It was your average fateful Saturday, little did I know the events I was about to set in motion. I’d gotten up to get the baby and give my wife a chance to sleep in before she had to get up to prepare for work at her part time job. Plus, it gave me a chance to text Her away from prying eyes. We said our good mornings, she was a cutsy, girlie girl, something I just happen to find very attractive overall, frequently repeating the last characters in a word like she had suffered a stroke at the end of her sentence, I found just about every silly thing she did adorable and endearing. We shared our laughs, and our flirts, teasing, pushing and pulling, it was all natural, made me smile and brightened my day as I played with my son, and then prepared his breakfast.

My wife got up, we shared coffee, chatted. We’d been on a good streak actually. We’d been paying off debts with our tax return, gotten some new furniture and rugs, it was time to talk about getting rid of my old beater and buying a new car. The romance was gone, but we were a life team, and a good one at that, despite some dark moments of misery, malignant spats, and overall inability to stimulate a modicum of sexual fervor. But, as an adulterer, my needs were being met on the side. Though, She had made me think about what was out there, what I was missing, but I doubted I’d ever leave this marriage situation much as I dreamed about it, there were far to many obstacles at that moment.

I talked with my wife, as she prepared for work. I can’t recall what about now. I paused part way through our conversation to check on a message from Her. I can’t recall what about now, I think we’d been talking about tickle spots on the body, just a little casual flirting.
“Who are you messaging?” My wife asked.
“Just texting Saul,” I replied.
“No, you’re not. That’s a different chat app, and why are there heart emojis, is that another woman?!” my wife looked concerned.
I suddenly realized she’d caught a glimpse of it as I passed the mirror, how could I be so careless.
“Ummm…. no, it’s just Saul” I stammered.
“Then show me.”
She had me, I hadn’t texted Saul in days, there was nothing for me to show her. I couldn’t show her this chat log, or any chat log that would come close to satisfying her suspicion.
“Jason, just show me, whatever it is, I want to know,” she started to cry, tears streaming down her face.
I couldn’t, I couldn’t show her. Not all those things I’d said to Her, not the love, not the desire, not all the secrets, they would hurt my wife beyond belief. I had always said to myself that if I was found out I wouldn’t share the truth, there would be no point, it would just hurt her. But, I needed something, some excuse, some half-truth. What was the closest thing?
“I can’t show you,” I said.
“Why? Why can’t you show me. It’s another woman, isn’t it? Who is it? Please, just show me,” my wife continued pleading.
“She’s a friend, I can’t tell you more,” I said.
“Why are you doing this? It is another woman, Jason please, I need to see!” She was crying, holding out her hand for the phone.
I paused, breathing deeply. I had to give her at least some of the truth now, and figure out how much to reveal later.
“I have a blog,” I began, “That’s how I met her, she read my blog.”
“A blog? About what?”
“I write, stories, memories, thoughts. About a lot of things.”
“I need to see it, and I need to see those messages.”
“I can’t show you either.”

The Rise & Fall of Naive Adulterer: Part 2

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Hearing her voice had started to really change things for me. At first she would only sing to me, leaving a voice memo in my email, she had a beautiful voice. She was also socially awkward, imprecise, cute, whimsical, and even occasionally haughty. I loved her messiness, the way she enunciated her words in funny ways at times, her occasionally nervous habits that would come through over the audio. Every detail painted a picture in my mind of who she was. And she’d bring to life in my mind the many characters in the story of her life, her controlling, egotistical husband, her waffling former affair partner, her ex-boyfriend, her sister. Most love interests she had in her life seemed either cruel or petulant, with very little in between, at least from her perspective, she seemed to think I was different though, and maybe she is right, and maybe not. I’d seen her picture, she was truly a vision of beauty. I could see her speak in my mind’s eye. I’d record memos back to her. I sung her a few of my favorite songs, usually old standards. We shared much, swapping songs, interests, movies.

I’d told Her my favorite movie, and she went to watch it. Once I’d finished with the wife and baby for the evening, I joined Her, sitting down at my own TV and getting to the same part. It was corny, but we sat there sharing the same movie from hundreds of miles apart, chatting away on our phones and laughing. We could just be ourselves. No posturing or self-consciousness. Sometimes we were corny and goofy, sometimes dirty and crude, sometimes dripping with desire and lust, sometimes sappy and lovey, sometimes sarcastic and witty, sometimes critical and philosophical, sometimes fantastical and dreamy, sometimes passionate and intense, sometimes somber and empathetic. We could be all ways that we were with each other, sharing it all like intimate lovers, transitioning seamlessly like old friends. It was a beautiful relationship.

When we finally spoke on the phone for the first time, it was more of the same, and an hour flew past in what seemed like five minutes. Could it all be real, or was it merely too good to be true?

The Rise & Fall of Naive Adulterer: Part 1

All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.’

The vibration of my phone on my nightstand woke me in the dim morning light. It was Her. How had it happened? When had it started? Had it always been this way and I just didn’t see it? I had loved waking to her texts the last couple days. Had it only been a couple of days? My life before Her seemed like it had been a dream, not true memories. There was tense amorous anticipation with each message. Almost like trembling, hesitation, bated breath. We described the sensations we were feeling to each other, butterflies in the stomach, our hearts beating faster. Were we fooling ourselves? Playing with each other? Or was this real? We’d never seen each other in person. It had started with an innocent off-hand message regarding a mutual friend, then some innocent flirting, and then suddenly we were discussing intimate details of our lives and exchanging pictures. Now we shared every day together, not because of some formal agreement, but because we wanted to, it was as natural as breath. I had searched my instant messaging app’s history to see if I could pinpoint when it all happened, we’d exchanged so many messages that the history had all been erased back that far.

It was love, there could be no question of it, or at least it was what both of us knew of the feeling of being in love with someone. It was terrifying. We were both adulterers. We both had loved people other than our spouses in the past, but never had we found mutual love, or love this intense in our lives. We spoke about turning back many times, but we knew we couldn’t turn our back on what we’d discovered, or we would regret it forever. I had never had any serious thoughts that I’d leave my wife for another woman. I couldn’t foresee having those feelings. But I was having them. That doesn’t mean that I’d make good on them, I couldn’t see the future, but they weren’t just fantasies, they were serious considerations now, despite the huge obstacles in the path: we were both married, we lived hundreds of miles from each other, and we had never met.  I wanted to grind those obstacles to dust by sheer willpower. But was I actually willing to step over the edge of the abyss?

Is this the beginning of the end to our story?

Dark Passage

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

This last Sunday, the Elder was teaching from the pulpit. I suppressed a smile, sitting back in the pew, I knew I shouldn’t be, but I couldn’t resist flipping between my Bible app and Kik, talking to the girl.
“Jason, I believe you taught a class on this subject last fall, did we miss anything before we move on?”
I snapped to attention.
“Well, first thing that comes to my mind is in the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4, ‘Hear, Oh Israel. The Lord-‘ note the use of the tetragrammaton, Yahweh…” I said donning my disguise.
Who was the real me these days, who is Jason? The adulterer, pleasure seeker, womanizer, hopeless romantic, or this apparently nice young man who teaches Bible classes and takes care of his family.

“Jason… Jason! You’re in another world,” My wife said as I carried the diaper bag and held my son’s hand from his Sunday school class.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, escaping my daze.
“You always seem to be staring off in space or at your phone and smiling. What’s going on? I know you are talking to someone, who is this girl?”
It was the first time she’d ever used a singular before when accusing me. She always talked about my ‘girls’ or ‘girlfriends’ that I’m seeing. But, it had been that way before I had my first thought of cheating. It had always been that way, she always thought that another woman would steal me away from her as had happened with all her past boyfriends. She was right, it was just a girl this time. I had never worn my heart on my sleeve like this, a little bit with Sierra, but here I was far more careless. The girl had sown her seeds in my heart, seemingly while I slept, and now they’d blossomed. It was more than flirtation, more than desire, there seemed to be actual substance, romance. It was scary, but thrilling. I feared what it could mean. Could it lead to the destruction of all I knew and held dear? I couldn’t decide if that’s what I wanted, or not, but the fact that suddenly the mere suggestion was there in my mind was something foreign and demanded answers. But, I am blind, feeling along a dark corridor, not knowing what is at the end, whether it would be better or worse, and still wondering if it wouldn’t be best to turn back and return to the light, to what I know.

The Thrill

Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I’d move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I’d meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically – whether actually more realistic or not – I’d tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn’t anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

The afternoon was warm, I crossed the asphalt parking lot that shimmered in the heat, coat under my arm, loosened my tie, rolled back my shirt sleeves, wiping sweat from my brow. Slumping into the driver’s seat, I fired up the ol’ girl’s venerable 6 cylinders, they rumbled to life without protest besides the fan belt squeaking a bit before settling, thank God for German engineering, at least when it comes to motors and leather seats; the rest of her was falling apart. Tuned the radio, slapped the dash lovingly to un-stick the tachometer’s needle.

Everything was bathed in a dull orange haze, the shadows of the palm trees lining the boulevard growing as the sun lazily sank across the sky to the west. Oldies on the radio, AC is hardly functional, so it is all the windows down, that’s ok, I like to feel the breeze. Pulling to a stop at the red light, right to home, or left? I could make it to the beach before sunset, park, leave my leather shoes in the sand and feel the cool sea water between my toes, smell the salt in the air. Look out at the golden waves next to the pier as I’d done many times before, ask them for answers, but the answer would always the same: “the tide tarrieth for no man.” Maybe I’d get back in the car, continue South, as far as the old girl would take me, I bet she could make it to Mexico, Panama, maybe beyond. I used to dream like that when I was in high school, that I’d just keep driving, and when the car broke down I’d pull a gas can and match from the trunk, douse the car and torch it by the side of the road and watch it burn before continuing on foot, I’d make a new life at the next town, starting over with nothing but the shirt on my back and shoes on my feet. But no, not today, I’d go right, away to home. Passing Sierra’s apartment as I go; I always avert my eyes from the parking lot there, stop myself from searching for her car, just press the gas and keep driving.

The sun sinks behind the mountains casting a long shadow across the valley. The hills are a vibrant green with the recent rains, clouds were dark and full in the distance towards home. When I was a kid, I remember imagining what this valley looked like millions of years ago. Many of the mountains are the ruins of old volcanoes, little more than hardened magma chambers remained, ancient overlooks keeping their silent watch as the eons march on. My young mind would imagine dark, towering spires billowing smoke and belching fire, pyroclastic flows streaming down the sides, glassy obsidian scars across the scorched black land, pretty much the land of Mordor where the shadows are. Of course, that was silly, it was probably all under water at that time, a verdant archipelago formed as the plates shifted thrusting the volcanic range upward above the primordial sea. I remember resting my head against the window as my parents drove back from the city at night, I’d doze in and out, looking up at the star filled sky above the cold mountains, it certainly looked like a scene from Middle Earth. I remember a night sky like that one as Saul and I drove down the road at 2 am. We’d spent all summer under the hood of that beast of a car, I put the hammer down as I dropped her into 2nd, torque spinning the rear wheels throwing me back into the seat, I’ll never forget the growl of the intake and roar from the exhaust as the fuel dumped into those insatiable cylinders, like some awakened beast. I hadn’t expected it to terrify me as it did, freezing the blood in my veins, my skin tingled, but I shifted upwards through the gears whenever the roar of the motor reached an unbearable scream, the scenery flashed past in the headlights. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road for even a second even though I knew every undulating curve like the back of my hand, Saul watched the speedometer for me, “150… 155, what have we created?!” In contrast, there were no stars the night I drove that road with Sierra next to me in the passenger seat, the fog hung low as a shroud beneath the sky as we spoke in muted voices as if in a dream (now it was a dream of a dream I suppose), her hand resting on my knee, face lit by the glow of her phone’s screen. We knew what we were doing, we’d made our choice, the sexual tension and anticipation between us was palpable, you could cut it with a knife, tingly sweet, chill warmth of the first day of spring, a calm before the storm, a volcano waiting to erupt. The feeling at that moment made everything that would follow worth it all, or so I tell myself. As I lay in bed at night, I can still see us, play back the moments, I have it mapped out on the bed exactly, like a diagram of some perverse dance steps. On my side of the bed she was laying with her head at the foot as I pulled off her pants, her tanned body lit by the dull glow from the lamp on my nightstand as she pulled me close, kissing my lips, her breath quickening, moaning desperately, and hungrily thrusting her hips against me. We rotated around the bed as we went, counter-clockwise, until we were spooning where my wife’s sleeping form is right now, that was where we climaxed together. As I lay here squinting in the darkness, I remember, but it doesn’t seem like my memory, it wasn’t me, it was someone else, in another time, and another age. I keep coming back to it though, maybe it changed me somehow, or perhaps it was just confirmation of a change that had already happened. But, now I’m wondering what the future may hold. Where does this story go? What is this new-found muse which stirs my imagination? Why am I still doing this? Seeking what I hope not to find. Is it just the thrill?