THE AFFAIR (3 page)

I wanted only to comfort this man. He felt familiar to me, this stranger who’d shown me such compassion. This time there would be no call to ask my husband what I should do. I would do what I wanted.

I felt him pulling away from me and I backed away also. Maybe I’d only imagined the intense heat searing me. Despite the chill of the rain I could feel heat rush to my cheeks and was glad of my olive complexion. My blush would only be internal for feeling stupid in mistaking a stranger’s kindness. We gazed into each other’s eyes for maybe five seconds.

“Do you believe in fate?”

He asked me this only a moment before I found myself in his arms again, his lips covering my own, tasting the rain on his tongue and the sweet mint of his breath.

His mouth filled me with a heat that I knew but had abandoned long ago. It was as if I had found my life again. I no longer wanted to die.

I don’t remember putting my groceries in my car, but I must have, because later I took them out. What I do remember is the man silently holding out his hand to me. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me. And I wanted him.

I do remember him opening the door of his Jeep Cherokee to let me in. That was the first moment I became conscious that I was soaked. I worried about ruining his seats. He smiled at me and kissed my hand.

I truly wish I could say that I was so overcome with passion that I was unaware of what I was doing, but that wasn’t the case. I thought about the book and later the movie,
The
Bridges of Madison County
, and how I had argued that the woman had no right to cheat on her husband, that he’d done nothing wrong, that she just wanted to have an affair.

Well, I was now that woman. My husband by the usual standards is the ideal mate. He loves me, of that I’m sure. He provides a good living for us and he’s the perfect father. In fact, I think the only thing about our life that bothers Larry is my “flights of fancy,” as he calls them. He’s teasingly told me on several occasions that he would never commit me, that he’d take care of me himself. I know he means it as a joke but the possibility of it happening is always with me. Now I no longer cared. It didn’t matter.

While I was sitting in a Jeep with a man whose name I didn’t know, I knew it didn’t make any difference. I was going through with it.

The thought of asking him to get condoms crossed my mind. I briefly thought of AIDS, then how irresponsible I was being. I could be driving away with a serial killer. I just wanted for once to do something that had not been pre-approved by my husband. Besides, I knew instinctively that this man wouldn’t hurt me. There was some connection to him that I felt in my being.

If one of my daughters had done something so incredibly dumb I would have read her the riot act, and I did attempt to do so for myself. The hotel was only a couple of blocks away, right in my own small town where anyone could walk in and see me, but I truly didn’t care.

I didn’t care at that point that my thick, cinnamon- colored dyed hair was soaked and tangled and falling in heavy curls down my back and over my face. I didn’t care that I was a total mess and that the desk clerk looked at us curiously.

I knew the stranger had signed us in as Mr. and Mrs. and I got a tingle. I might as well have stepped in front of a moving train. That was the impact this stranger was having on me. For some idiotic reason, though, it felt right. I felt as if I were truly his wife, his mate, and that this was a proper thing I was about to do. I wasn’t about to commit adultery. I was only going to make love with my husband, my true husband whose name I did not know.

Inside the room I sat on the edge of the bed in my wet clothes. He went into the bathroom and returned with a stack of towels. He held out his hand to me and I stood, again knowing what he wanted. I lifted my arms as though I were a child and allowed him to undress me.

He toweled my body dry so gently that I would have thought I was in a dream if not for the surge of desire filling my entire being. I wanted him physically and spiritually, not in a religious sense. I mean that I wanted his spirit to mate with my own.

I admit I felt better dry, and I smiled at him. He smiled back, took another towel, and began drying my hair strand by long strand. He kissed each blotted strand, touching it as though he was remembering doing it before.

He moved from my hair to my ears, drying them, kissing them, touching them. He did this over every inch of my body.

“I was beginning to think I would never find you again,” he whispered against the small of my back, but I heard him. I didn’t question what he meant. I knew.

I was trembling so hard that he pulled away to look at me. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“A little.”

His smile was my reward. My fears drained away, leaving me feeling wild, decadent, and free. I took a towel and did for him what he had done for me, drying his body, kissing him tenderly.

My fingers searched his body furiously for landmarks and craters I evidently knew existed. I had made love with this man many times before. I shivered, wondering how that could be possible.

One of us pulled the covers back from the bed. I’m not sure which of us, only that suddenly we were under the covers holding each other, touching, and we were both crying softly.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said to me.

“And I’ve been trying to find you,” I answered.

When we came, it was together. I knew then what it was I’d been missing, what my husband who I knew without a doubt loved me could never give me. He could never give me this supreme feeling of connection, but it wasn’t his fault.

We lay together for the longest time, still touching. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said to him. I didn’t want him to think I was some kind of tramp.

I started to pull away and he tightened his arm around me. He had a strange look in his eyes. “This is not the first time we’ve made love,” he said authoritatively.

“What are you talking about?” I turned so that I could look in his eyes. These were my feelings, my thoughts. How was it possible that he was having them?

“What are you talking about?” I asked again. I don’t know you. I don’t even know your name.” Yet the feel of his skin under my fingers called me a liar. I knew every cell in his body. Intimately.

“Can’t you feel it?” he responded. “Our meeting was not an accident.”

The strange thing was that I knew it wasn’t an accident, but to admit to what I thought it really was would mean that my life would now take on a different meaning. I had to do something to pretend that my life hadn’t just changed forever. I wanted to believe that his words gave me reason to worry, that perhaps I had just slept with a stalker, no matter how incredible it was. Maybe I had better think of some way to escape. I had to believe that the words this stranger spoke made him sound like a nut. If I didn’t, it would mean that I was nuts.

“Are you saying you planned this, that you’ve done this type of thing before?” I was offended and wondered how it was that he happened to have plastic bags.

He stared at me a moment before answering. “I didn’t plan today. In fact, standing in the rain getting soaked was the last thing I had on my mind.”

“I sat in my car watching you. I saw you coming out of the store and your bags break. I never intended to get involved, but when you stood there crying, I watched people walking away from you, looking at you strangely. Before I knew it, I was out of the car, running into the store to grab plastic bags.”

He looked me over, his voice sounding insulted. “No, I don’t remember having done this, if you mean by this, our meeting in the rain.” There was a slight shift in his body. His eyes softened and his lips stretched into a smile.

“It was fated for us to meet. I’ve been waiting years for you.” His eyes were smiling at me yet his words to any sane person were those of a person that definitely belonged on Prozac. And I was trying to the best of my ability to be a sane person.

“What’s your name?” It was a little late to think of getting acquainted, but I still needed to know who I’d slept with, so that when I went to confession I could tell on him also.

“Chance.”

I looked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

He hopped out of the bed and walked across the room, lean and muscular. I feasted my eyes on his beauty, on his strength, not feeling ashamed, not minding that I was a middle-aged woman with not so firm breasts and an extra twenty pounds on my five-five frame. I didn’t care. I felt beautiful and I knew he found me beautiful as well.

Chance brought me back his wallet. I examined the picture and the name. Chance Morgan? I held my left hand out for him to examine. “I should have told you this sooner but I’m married.” He merely smiled.
Okay,
I thought,
this joker has more problems than I do
.

“I’ve been married twenty-six years. Yesterday was my anniversary.”

“And today you wanted to die. You came to the store because you could feel yourself giving in to the sweet invitation of death. You had no idea that you were searching for me until you found me, but then you knew. I saw the recognition in your eyes. I felt it in your touch, in your response to me.”

“I’d like for you to be just a little bit crazy maybe. It would make all of this easier for me. Listen, are you…are you on any kind of medications?”

“No medications, anything else you want to know?”

“I was going to ask if you’re nuts, but thought maybe I shouldn’t, just in case. Perhaps I should be nice to you until I return to my home, my life, and the safety of my husband’s arms.”

“Is that really what you want after all the time we’ve wasted not being together in this life, to just leave me and return to your home?”

His eyes suddenly looked so sad. I felt I had betrayed him, and in a way that hurt more than what I had done to my husband. I had denied the life that Chance seemed to be remembering.

I once again felt shame snaking through my body warming my skin, making me feel flushed and vulnerable. I gazed at him, seeing something that I could swear was love in his eyes and rushed to finish the statement I’d started. “I mean, for picking up my groceries, and for letting me cry on your shoulder, but I really have to go now. My husband is waiting for me.”

I replaced my still damp clothing and glanced at my watch. Ten
P.M.
I couldn’t believe it. Where had the time gone? Had I really made love to a stranger in a hotel room only a few miles from my own home? A stranger that now claimed we’d done this very thing countless times?

I didn’t know what to say. What does one say to a lover they don’t quite know?

“Listen, it was nice meeting you.”

I made my way to the door, for the first time wondering if Chance were married, if he had a wife who could be waiting for me in some hidden corner of the room. I shivered at the thought until it became real in my mind. I was thinking at any moment she could spring up, grab me, and plunge a knife into my body. I imagined my husband’s shock. The newspaper would spread the news for days. Our town didn’t have very much action. A woman murdered by the hands of a stranger she’d picked up in the parking lot of the grocery store would be very big news.

My husband didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve the snickers of having to bury an unfaithful wife. I knew it would worry him that I’d been unhappy enough to do this. I didn’t want him to think that this had been going on for months or years. I had reached the door when I felt the tears starting up again.

“Dimitra,” he called out to me. “What’s your name this time?” he asked. His voice was pleasant, not threatening in the least.

I turned around sharply. “My name’s Michelle. Michelle Powers.”

As I was looking at him, a strange sensation laid claim to my soul. Dimitra, the name he’d called me gave me pause. I rolled it around on my tongue. That name was familiar to me.

I wanted to back away from Chance, yet at the same time I wanted never to leave him. I felt what he was saying was true. This stranger had a claim on me.

“Well, Michelle, I’m sorry I made you cry. I can tell you’re frightened and have no idea what I’m talking about. I also know you’re wondering what you’ve done and if I’m going to stop you from leaving.”

He smiled then. A sadness that broke my heart filled his eyes. I remembered him holding me in the rain and suddenly it was crystal clear. There was no way this man Chance would ever hurt me, or had ever hurt me.

“I have to go,” I said to him, then remembered that my car was still in the parking lot.

“If you’ll close the door so I can get dressed, I’ll take you back.” He offered.

I closed the door rather sheepishly. I had been about to make a grand exit without transportation. “I should call my husband.” I looked at him as though for approval before reaching for the phone. I dialed, waiting impatiently for Larry to answer.

“Hi, Larry.” My voice sounded low and muffled as if my mouth were stuffed with cotton. I breathed easier as Larry didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.

The concern in Larry’s voice was not making me feel the guilt I should be having right about now. I was only glad that there was no Peaches. No one to bring into my lie. No one that Larry would ever see, or talk to, to either confirm or deny my tale.