Chapter Three
I met Brady at my children’s daycare. He was a teacher in the room with the school-agers. I would see him walking around. You usually notice a male teacher because it’s not something you see very often in daycare. I would always nod or smile, but it wasn’t until my oldest went to Pre-K at the elementary school that I really spoke to him. I liked him instantly. I could tell right away that under that overly enthusiastic “HEY LET’S SIT IN THE YELLOW CIRCLE!” voice, he was every bit as jaded and sarcastic as I was. He was a total cutie-pie too, although I knew right away that he was gay. He was not especially tall but had lovely blue eyes and a very genuine smile. He almost always wore black, head to toe, and he had a shaved head that he covered with a gray newsboy cap.
He had a gift for calming people. He was always very cool and collected with a very soothing nature. He could calm the “helicopter” parents down when they would get upset because their little poopsie had a tantrum over the building blocks. And then he would lean over to me as if to say, “Are you believing this shit?” I would stifle my laughter until they left and he would say, “Good grief, lady, UNCLENCH!” I loved that he saw me as one of those “cool” moms.
We often talked about running and home renovation since it turned out he lived right in the same neighborhood as me in a house that needed about as much repair. I gave him some home renovation catalogs and he gave me his iPod so I could steal his running playlists. We ended up becoming Facebook friends soon after, and since we both have a major love of coffee started texting and meeting at Starbucks once in a while just to chat. This made my husband pretty uncomfortable. Not because Brady was gay, but because he probably knew I was telling him how unhappy I was at home.
Brady knew of Nate but didn’t have much contact with him since he worked the afternoon shift. He knew that Nate had quit his job, thinking it would spur him into finding one much better. But our situation worsened as there were very few jobs out there for someone with no skills other than those that were considered hobbies to most employers. I often told Brady that I was frustrated with Nate’s lack of forward propulsion, and that I didn’t know if I wanted him depending on me for the rest of my life. Brady offered to ask a couple of his friends if they knew of anything in the art industry that Nate might be suited for. But of course, in the middle of a recession, there was nothing available.
Brady was actually able to find a new job with a Director’s title, though, so he left our daycare. We continued our Starbucks chats and went out to dinner every few weeks as well. I had only ever mentioned Matt to Brady once before, that I had this broker “friend” who seemed to be flirting with me and that he was pretty easy on the eyes. That was right after my branch visit in April. It was all very black and white to him, however, and he gave me the “He’s married. You’re married. He’s a douche for even texting you… Don’t even go there” speech. So I didn’t mention it again and quickly changed the subject.
He had just recently met a new boy named Justin that he was very excited about. Justin was tall and blonde and totally adorable, a little younger than Brady, maybe 27 or so. Brady showed me his pictures, and we gushed about him instead. Then we hatched a plan to get a bunch of our mom friends together with him and his gay friends for a night of dancing up at our local lesbian bar within the next month or two.
The next time I talked to Brady, however, I was in a bit of a panic. I texted him to see where he was. He responded having a cigarette outside, so I just drove over there. I told him I had asked Nate for a separation. He immediately raised his eyebrow at me and, taking a drag, said, “Does this have something to do with that old douche?” I grabbed his cigarette and took a drag myself. I don’t even smoke. “Um, no, not… really?”
“Do we need to go get some coffee?”
“Probably.”
I wasn’t about to tell him just how close Matt and I were becoming. I admitted that we were still talking fairly often, that I valued his opinion, and that he had been a really good friend to me so far. Brady was not impressed.
“I think you are playing a dangerous game here.”
“How so? Nothing has happened… yet”
“‘Yet’ being the key word. I just think that it’s making it way too easy for you to make impulsive decisions. I know you aren’t happy, but you married this man. You have kids by this man. Are you sure you can’t work it out, somehow?”
“Brady, I can’t even stand to touch him. Not even just to kiss or hug him. I’m so completely pissed when he gets near me; all I want to do is punch him in his stupid face. Who quits a job without having another one when you have two little kids at home? Who?! He does. Because he knows that I’ll find a way to get by. He has an entire history of nothing but selfish behavior. Why should I have to put up with that for the rest of my life? He doesn’t have to contribute anything to this family, but I should just suck it up?”
“I know, but you don’t think counseling would help?”
“Counseling is not going to make me find him attractive. I’m not sure that we ever had much of a spark anyway. And now, ever since I lost weight, it’s like he’s even more clingy and starved for affection. I can’t even walk across the room without him trying to paw me and it makes me crazy.”
“But if it wasn’t for this other douche, would you still feel this way?”
“He’s not a douche. But yes, it’s been like this for years. How are you supposed to be attracted to or have any respect for someone who acts like a spoiled 15 year old? He won’t take on the simplest task without me having to practically write him an instruction manual. He simply refuses to grow up.”
“Well, have you figured out what you are going to do about the house?”
“Not really. He’s not going to be able to afford it on his own, so I will keep it for as long as I can so the kids don’t freak out. He’s going to go stay with his friend for now and try to get an apartment eventually. Even then, he’ll probably need a roommate to help pay for it and figure out how to do everything for him. He’s never paid a single bill in the entire time we’ve been together.”
“Yikes. He’s about to get a rude awakening.”
“Sure is,” I nodded.
“Okay, well I just hope you know what you are doing.”
To be honest, I didn’t know how I was going to pay for everything myself. I figured my mom would help me with a lot of the girls’ necessities, just as her mother had helped her when she left my dad. But I didn’t question my decision at all. I hate to say it, but once he was out of the house, I felt immediately at peace. No more having to come up with excuses to avoid affection and sex. No more having to be his therapist while he went on and on about his unhappiness and lack of confidence yet watching him sit on his ass year after year in front of the television, never doing anything to change his circumstances. I was solely responsible for me and my two daughters, instead of three children.
Matt became my happy place. In the summer, he finally got his Burlington client to agree to a meeting, and we made our plans to work in a Raleigh visit around that. Our once-playful flirting seemed to intensify by the hour as we started counting down the days until we saw each other again. Where we had once discussed meeting up for a cup of coffee or a quick lunch, it had now become, “I really need to be alone with you for a couple of hours.”
We had danced around the topic of sex through our texts and phone calls, but it was mostly conversational in nature up to that point. “This is what I hate about sex with my wife…” “Well, this is what I hated about sex with my husband…” We hadn’t really discussed it as far as what we wanted to do with or to each other, but it became abundantly clear that we were both extremely curious.
I admitted to him that I checked out his shoes when I was down there in April. “It’s totally involuntary, it’s just something I do when I see a smokin’ hot man,” I explained. I could practically hear him grinning and running his fingers through his hair.
“Well, I don’t know if you
noticed but I also have really big hands…”
“Yes, I did notice that you have very nice hands,” I replied suggestively. “You seem very confident discussing this particular topic, Matthew. I’m not sure what to make of that.”
“I’m very confident, baby, no problem there. I mean, let’s be real, here. I can’t imagine that something small is going to look good, and it’s probably not going to feel good. And I want you to feel really, really good. Really.”
“Really?” I teased.
“Yes, really. And… I’m used to four hour bike rides. STAMINA, baby!”
“Well, I think that covers everything then! See you in six hours!”
That ramped up the heat of our conversations significantly. I suppose, in the past, I would have considered myself to be somewhat of a prude–not so much when it came to the actual having of the sex–but at least the discussion of it. To me it just wasn’t a topic you necessarily analyzed over a midday phone conversation. Yet I found myself sitting on a bench outside in the courtyard of my office building listening to Matt tell me in explicit detail about all the places on my body that he eventually intended to lick. I didn’t bother to mention to him that I never cared for oral sex in the past, from anyone, because now I would suddenly catch myself daydreaming about how that might be with him. His strong hands wrapped around my hips and thighs, drawing me forcefully closer to his perfect lips, my hands running through his hair, desperately grabbing on to him, while he gazed up for my reaction between tongue strokes. My God he could be a sexy motherfucker when he wanted to be. He was never vulgar though. It was as if he just “got” me, and every word that fell from his mouth was phrased exactly the way I needed to hear it.
If the phone calls were racy, the texting and emailing was worse. We were truly terrible, horrible, no-good people. After dropping a good 20 pounds, I was feeling pretty good about myself by this point, and decided I was going to do something I had never considered before: take a “provocative” picture and send it to him. I figured I had a pretty good butt overall. So I put on my most adorable pair of silky light pink panties with little hot pink hearts. There I stood, slightly bent just so in front of my bedroom mirror to get the perfect shot on my iPhone. I was so proud. I would have rather died a horrible painful death than to share that with anyone in the past, but sending it to him made me happy somehow. I knew that it would surprise him and please him, and that he would know exactly what to say. I was right. He received the file on his phone and immediately told me I looked absolutely incredible. Then he made a point to view it on his laptop to tell me again that I looked even more delicious on the big screen. That was awesome.
It was not awesome when about a week later my friend Katie in New York sent me a late night text.
Hey chickadee, whose butt is that on your Instagram page?
I’m sorry, what was that?! Heart attack commencing in 3… 2… 1….
Yeah there’s a pic of someone in some pink panties up there! Is that you?! Damn girl, you are getting tight! :)
PARDON!?
HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!
I was not aware that you could have “followers” on Instagram; it was a fairly new camera app for me. I had only used it once in the past to take photos of my kids for Facebook. The only reason I even used it this time was just in case I wanted to edit my buttcheeks, and I didn’t even do that!
You can imagine how happy I was to learn that my soon-to-be-ex mother-in-law was also a follower, as well as a few message board people, my second cousin twice-removed, and someone named Squid that I didn’t even know. I hoped he was nice. My heart continued to pound out of my chest as I frantically deleted the picture and the entire list of contacts. Maybe no one else saw it. I prayed no one else saw it. Katie assured me that even if someone else did see it, at least my ass looked fabulous. I struggled awkwardly to explain to her what possible reason I could have for taking a picture like that. Well, um you see, I’ve lost some weight and I just wanted to see what was going on back there…
I don’t think she bought it, but like a good friend, she never let on.
Once a few days had passed with no concerned phone calls from my in-laws, I felt safe to tell Matt what had happened. He agreed that this was only the sort of thing that could happen to me, and we both got a good laugh out of it. Lucky for him, it didn’t discourage me from sending him future pictures. I was just very careful not to ever use that app again.
I was finding my confidence and becoming so sexually charged by him now, saying and discussing things I would have never considered before. I liked to joke with him that I couldn’t wait to wrap my legs around his neck when I saw him, just to get a rise out of him. When he would ask me what I was up to at night, I would tell him I was just thinking about him and wishing he was lying there on top of me. His reply back was On top of, next to, underneath, on every side, it’s going to be great, babe. Miss you and want you xoxo. I told him I missed him every single day, and I did. I really did. And there was no doubt that I wanted him desperately. He seemed to feel the same way.
Our conversations may have been like one big dick tease, but I was starting to worry about his actual expectations for when we finally saw each other again. I really didn’t know if I could be an adulterer. That sounded so filthy and depraved. I definitely wanted to sleep with him, more than anything. But wanting to and actually going through with it were two different things. I had a constant internal struggle going on because I still considered myself to be a very honest, moral person. Judgmental of others who weren’t, in fact. Yet I knew that as soon as I saw him, well, I was going to be on him like flies on shit. But I didn’t even have a separation agreement in place yet. He was obviously still going home to his wife every night. How could we do this? Did he forget that we were married to other people again? I couldn’t blame him. It was easy to do, given how wrapped up we were in each other.
After several more indecent conversations that left us both practically basking in the afterglow in our offices, I finally broke it to him. “Matt, you know we can’t do that this time, right babe? You know, when you come up here… I mean, you know how bad I want you, I do, but we can’t… can we?”
“What? Make love?” he asked.
I’m pretty sure that in my head I just fell out of my chair and roared with laughter. Oh my God, did he really just call it that? Who, other than old people, calls it that anymore? Oh… wait… go on.
“Uh huh…”
“Yeah, I don’t know, sweetie,” he replied. “I’d have to think about that. That’s a really big step.” He didn’t sound that convinced, looking back.
“Look, I definitely want to see you. I cannot freaking wait to see you and get my hands on you, to be perfectly honest. I’m going to eat your gorgeous face when you get here, but I don’t know about… that… yet”
“I just want to spend some time with you, Mal,” he replied. “To kiss you, and see what happens. You know that I’m crazy about you, but I have no other expectations, okay? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Do you still have that scruff on your face like before? You are going to have to shave that. You know I have sensitive skin!” I warned him.
“No, ma’am. It’s gone… I got rid of it weeks ago.”
“Okay, good, because even a little bit of stubble will scratch my face all to pieces.”
“If I have to stop and shave in a restroom sink, I will do that for you, sweetie.”
“This is going to be one hell of a built up kiss, isn’t it?” I teased. “It better be good.”
“Oh, it will be. I already know that. Who knows, it may end up being incendiary.”
I found him so incredibly sexy when he used big words. Especially when I could understand them.
“Maybe we should plan an activity or something, so we can spend some time together outside,” he suggested. “Aren’t there a bunch of wineries out near Burlington toward Greensboro? Or we could go shopping at the outlets
?”
As long as you don’t mind me kissing you in public, repeatedly, I thought to myself. After all, I did want to make out with him at least a little. I agreed that either of those would be a great idea, but that they might add considerable travel time.
“Let me check out some places and I’ll get back to you,” he offered.
“Okay, you just tell me where to be.” God bless that man for always taking control of everything.
“Hey, Matt?”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“I just can’t wait to see you,” I gushed.
“Ahhh, me too, sweetie,” he sighed. “I feel like a lovesick teenager!”
He found a little family-owned winery that was almost midway between here and Burlington. Perfect. The plan was that he would drive up on a Sunday and spend the night in a hotel in Burlington. I would take the day off of work Monday and drive out to the winery to meet him once he was done with his appointment. That would give us a few hours together before he had to head home. I didn’t know how I was going to survive the next six days until he got here.
****
Each morning was a new text.
6 more days until I see you!
5 more days until I kiss you!
4 more days until I hump your leg, LOL!
3 more days XOXO!
2 more days OMG!!!!
The day before he was supposed to drive up, the plan changed slightly. He called me that morning. “You know, I was just thinking… Why am I spending the night in Burlington? Couldn’t I just stay in Raleigh tomorrow night and drive out to Burlington first thing Monday morning? It’s only an hour or so, right?”
“Yeah, I would say so, depending on if you stay somewhere right off of 40,” I replied. “But that’s taking you a little out of the way, isn’t it?”
The Other Other Woman Page 5
