Image of You
I saw her again this weekend
It took all my restraint not to tell her the truth
I did say one true thing:
"There’s this image of you I can’t get out of my head
it’s Sunday evening, at dusk, your blinds are shut but your whole studio apartment has this dreamlike glow
the loud hum of pouring rain. some bad film playing from across the room. the whimpers of your huge overactive husky have finally worn down
and you: beneath me, squirming, biting your lip, eyes shifting, back arched, completely under siege
your body, it’s not fair. it’s terrible, how perfect it feels to grab you by the waist and use you like an object and hear those genuine love sounds come singing out of your pretty little face."
maybe i only do things like this so i can say things like this.
And last night I saw her again. She was staying at her friend’s house in the city, we fucked on her friend’s bed. I treated her like I loved her. It wasn’t as good as the first time, naturally.
Then I went home to my girlfriend. We fell asleep together.
The next morning GF woke up disturbed: “I had a dream that you were cheating on me. I had a dream you were trying to convince me to do polyamory, and that you were cheating, it was terrible.” She wasn’t accusatory like girls tend to be when they have these dreams, just disturbed.
It’s amazing, girls can tell when you’re cheating, even with zero evidence. Their bodies can smell it, unconsciously. They have a hunch and their hunch is correct. We can feel each others’ energy. We can't hide from each other, not really. Nothing woo or spiritual about it, they just know.
My Place
GF is out of town this weekend. How convenient.
Me: Do you want to see my place tonight?
Jen: Sure :)
All right, how about 5.
Sure :)
Great. Don’t bring the dog.
I don’t hate your dog I just — I just want to fuck you. That’s the reality of this situation. I just want to take you up the elevator to my downtown high-rise apartment with the sun pouring in through the huge windows and I want to remove your clothes and throw you on to my bed and seriously I just want to fuck you.
I just want to wipe that smug little grin off your face, I just want to hear those desperate little moans and cries you produce when you’ve lost all control. I just want to get you hot and wet and stupid: eyes shifting, legs shaking, heart pounding, lips biting, alive. I just want you totally raw like the very first time. I know I’m clean and I know you are too.
I’ve got a lot going on, I swear, but this week has been mentally reserved for you. You have reminded me of life. You have reminded me how it feels to want, viscerally, like an idiot caveman. I can’t be driving up north all the time so let’s make today worthwhile.
Let’s have one more good night before we retreat back into ourselves. Let’s pretend this is the start of something and not the end. Let’s pretend you know anything about me and you love me anyway. And in this moment you need me like I need you.
Let’s pretend I don’t have a girlfriend. Let’s pretend I don’t have another life I’ve put on hold because I’m so obsessed with that feeling I felt with you in your apartment last weekend. Let’s just play pretend, let’s continue to indulge in what is hopefully mutual physical therapy.
Let’s not let this be the last time. See my flaws and love me anyway. Not love in the boyfriend-girlfriend possessive kind of way, just hear me when I say that I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong and I want to see you again. I’ll never tell a soul, it takes too many words to explain and nobody’s got the time.
I live in a world of stories, contradictions. I engage in stupid, dangerous activity just to give myself something to write about. Lately this is you. In the future I will reflect on this moment, on these actions, and I will forgive myself, like that guy on the cross.
I’ll reflect on you: how you were such an inviting host, how you’re a little stiff at first but then I touch you and you turn to jelly. I’ll remember how eager you are to talk about yourself, and how that’s just fine because I love to listen, and it is surely in my best interest to remain mysterious. Considering the circumstances.
The idea of cheating has been so normal to me, for so long, that I’ve lost my perspective. It’s not like I’m doing it all the time, especially not so intimately like this, but every so often I hear some talk, or I come across some thread on the internet where people discuss “cheaters” and I feel completely out of touch.
These people have never been me for a second. They have never been in a long relationship with someone who checks all their boxes but no longer excites them due to the sheer passage of time. Familiarity breeds contempt. I wish I still loved her, physically, it would give me a lot less to think about.
The sad truth I think you’ve come across independently is that we are not compatible with long-term monogamy. That even the best of times get old. That it’s natural to want change, to feel something new. But people never move on at exactly the same time, so at least one party is always seriously damaged in the trade.
But who wants to always be in partner-seeking mode? Who wants to sleep alone? When you're single you want a relationship and when you're hitched you want to be single. Or maybe it's just me. I don’t know. I treat her well. I help her manage life, I make her happy. But I also need to make myself happy, and lately that has led me to you. So come see my place.
She's Gone
Jen, I am a piece of shit. I’m a bad bad man. But you have just a teensy tiny bit of explaining to do, WHY does it only matter to you who else lives here after we have sex?
You could’ve asked me at any point before — who is your roommate? Who else lives here? Why is there only one bed? But you didn’t. You waited until just after we had incredible fantastic unforgettable simultaneous-orgasm sex, you waited until about 2 minutes after that happened, that marathon of teasing and playing and good old fashioned natural fun, you waited until the very climax of THAT and THEN about TWO MINUTES LATER you decided it’s time to start caring about trivial bullshit like “who else lives here.”
Who cares. You’re gone now and you’re gone forever and it’s for the best. This is what I expected would happen.
The last thing I told her is that I wouldn’t go back on the apps. I meant it. She doesn’t believe me. I don’t believe me either. No goodbye, no hug, she just left. I get it.
I think I was hoping that she would be okay with the fact that I live with my girlfriend, that she was on the same page about what this was, that we just meet up sometimes and have really good sex and cuddle and talk about life and that’s it. But she didn’t want that, she wants a relationship. And that’s fine. Good for you, I said, you know what you want. What else is there to say.
Now I girl-proof the apartment. Put everything back the way it was. I never really knew Jen but god I will miss her.
The sex was incredible. We both had that “damn you…” face— equal parts joy and scorn. Happy to have found someone who can make you feel this way but bothered that they suddenly have such power over you. Both of us feeling approximately that, at once, breaking down— it will be hard to forget.
Every so often I would hear a sound in the distance and freak out, thinking my girlfriend is home, and mentally prepare for the new worst moment of my life. She’s not, she’s in San Jose, she’s far away, is what I force myself to think so I can remain hard and stay in the moment.
Now Jen's gone and Fuck I really hope she doesn’t investigate me, question this whole situation. What info does she have. My name is James on the app, delete everything. delete the pictures, fuck she’s on the train right now fuck fuck fuck go get your phone fuck… okay she unmatched me, hurts a little but it’s for the best, she’s probably just gone. Good. Fine.
Wait, We’re So Back
40 minutes after she left, she called me.
I said “fuck it” and told her everything. The whole truth. I sent her all the notes written above. Now she wants to see me again.
Monday Morning: I am a new man. Happy to share a little bit of life with the coworkers. Jazzed to complete that report I was dreading last week. Making weekend plans. Showing some genuine enthusiasm about life in general. Telling Jokes. What’s your secret? Why so chipper? Nobody asked but here it is: I am cheating on my girlfriend.
I have found new love. And it is only love now that I’ve told her the truth: that she’s not the only one. It is only love now that she has the ability to ruin my whole life. Apparently that is what it takes for me to feel something. I may never forget last Friday night. I broke the fourth wall:
Me: “Okay, this will probably be the last conversation we ever have. Can I just be honest with you? You want the truth? Can you handle it?”
Her: Yeah, I’ve heard it all.
“Have you really?
How about this: I lied to you about everything. The girl I live with in that apartment is not my ex, we’re not broken up, we are in a happy long-term relationship, completely integrated into each others lives, families met, social circles intertwined: I’m her best friend, her rock, her mentor, her everything, the reason she lives, and here I am cheating with you.
Here I am driving all day to Salem to see you and fuck you raw again and again and then driving home and crawling right back into bed with her. And if she knew anything about anything it would just about kill her.
Have you really ‘heard it all?’ What if my name is not James? What if everything about me was a lie, and I’ve been covering my tracks every step of the way so that in a situation like this, gone-nuclear, you couldn’t find me again if you tried?”
…
Suddenly she’s intrigued.
So does that mean you don’t want to see me again?
Oh baby, of course I do.
Love is trust. Love is weakness, humility. Love is not when man and woman fuck and have a baby. Love is when I give you the power to ruin my whole life, just to feel something.
Love is stupid and irrational but it’s the very best part of being alive. I would know, I just turned 25.
*insert gif of Leonardo DiCaprio biting his fist* Uh-oh, Boner Alarm on aisle My Cargo Shorts! Standing by and ready for cleanup!
She's going to tell his gf. Calling it now. Place your bets gents.