At 3:06 a.m. on April 12th, I woke up in the bed of a married man.
I am the other woman.
I could explain to you how I got here, or justify why I'm still doing it, but that's not really the point.
What you need to know is this:
His significant other isn't an anonymous girl who he has been with for a few weeks, and who he'll eventually break up with. They've been together for years, since high school in fact, and they got married this fall. She isn't someone that I've never met. We had classes together, and we had some mutual friends. We were never particularly close, but I do know who she is, and I know a few of her relatives.
He and I have a history, as something that could have been, but that never really worked out.
I was in over my head with him back then, and I am now, as well. He pushes every boundary I have, physically, mentally and emotionally. I was in a bad place when he and I started talking, in a worse place when we started hanging out, and a year later, I'm in a fantastic place. He has played a huge part in that.
We hold no illusions of grandeur when it comes to the possibility of what we are becoming something more. I don't expect that he will leave his wife, and that we'll end up together behind a white picket fence, living happily ever after.
Do you think I'm a terrible person yet?
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I could tell you about things that have happened in my past. I could tell you about having a gun held to my head by a stranger, and being told that I wasn't walking out of the room, and how I felt nothing. I could tell you about being told my whole life that I will never have children and then finding out I was pregnant by losing the baby. I could tell you about being attacked by my best friend, and having to drive 17 hours home from another city, with him in the car afterwards.
I could tell you about the most terrible year of my life and why I am that girl who can't really be held accountable for her actions as a result, but that part would be bullshit. Please know that because I'm giving you back story, does not mean that I want you to erect a cross for me to crawl up on. My history is not an excuse.
Everyone goes through terrible things. It's in the dealing and the moving on that you find your metal. I know that I can take a better beating than most people can give, and still get up and walk away after.
So, why do I do this?
Well, because I'm selfish. He gives me something that I need. Never, not for one moment, has he accepted weakness as an excuse from me. He sets the bar perpetually higher and then tells me to jump.
I do this because I give him something that he desires more than his wife. He loves his wife, of this much I am sure, but I give him things that he would never ask of her. I'm an open minded person, willing to try anything twice, and he is a dominative sadist.
So, what does that really mean?
It means that when I go to see him I must remember my place, always. It means that occasionally I end up in tears, black and blue, and sometimes I'm covered in welts. It means that he believes that that is beautiful, and that my willingness to submit makes me stronger than him.
It means that we have a "safe word" and that I have the right to use it, he trusts that I will if I ever need to, and that I have only had to use it once.
It means that I trust him unconditionally.
It means that I put my life in his hands fully, completely and without question.
I suppose that I should really tell you where this all started...
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It began before I can remember. His family up the hill from my grandparents. I remember being a kid and driving past his house. His uncle once gave me a necklace, a big piece of tiger's eye. He told me to keep it always, because it would keep me safe. I never really knew him because of the age difference, so we'll skip ahead until Grade 9.
I was the classical awkward grade nine kid, as were all of my friends. Everyone spends those first couple of weeks trying to find their new home, and I landed firmly with the punk kids. I don't remember why I started talking to him, but I very slowly became aware of the fact that I had his attention.
The thing that sticks in my head is having a fantastic new pair of 14 hole Docs. If you've never worn them you'll not appreciate this but lacing and unlacing the traditional way, like your sneakers, is a pain. I fought with them for about two weeks before he finally stopped me and said, "You know, the boots are hot, but you're going to be so much happier if you take them off for half an hour and let me fix them up for you."
Shortly thereafter, I'm running to geography with my boots laced properly, white laces and no understanding of what that meant. We won't get into that whole discussion, but know that I didn’t understand, neither did he really, and when we both knew better we did better.
My next vivid memory of him is in my Grade 10 music class. He had made it through to Grade 12 without an art credit, and so he needed one to graduate. I played the cello, and he decided to learn the bass. I remember him sitting behind me in orchestra, and wearing a dress one day. I remember him referring to it as my "jam-jar" dress because of the lace around the top edge. I was hugely embarrassed at the time , and being confused as to why I really cared what he thought. A month later he asked me to wear it again, and I did.
About a month after that we went to a concert as part of our live music appreciation requirement for our class. The teacher was a little concerned about the two of us going, she saw something that I didn't, I suppose.
My dad drove us, and J tried to convince me to skip out on it to go hang out, but ultimately I talked him into going to the show. I stood in front of him and danced with him, and realized I had his attention, yet again when I felt his hand slide around my waist. As my dad drove us home, with me in the back seat, I felt him slide his hand back from the front seat and wrap it around my ankle.
A few weeks later, just before my sixteenth birthday we hung out at his place. While I was getting ready to go over, I busted out a matching set of lingerie that I still can’t explain owning, the most "grown up" thing I could think of, knowing I was in over my head. I recall that he said he thought I would look fantastic in his jeans. He is 6'5" and about 225lbs or so. At the time, I was 5'10" and about 130 lbs. I put them on just for shits and giggles, and I absolutely swam in them. I threw on his belt as well and realized that the lace on my spankies was showing over top of the denim from the jeans. So did he. A little later that evening he kissed me for the first time.
We never slept together in high school. We never even dated, but if you ask him what he remembers, he'll tell you that there was a day that he walked up to me in the hall, picked me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he kissed me. When he tells you this he'll get a look on his face and he'll tell you that he thought we would be like that forever. If you ask him, he'll tell you that he thought he would be waking up next to me for the rest of his life.
But there came a day, he went to kiss me in front of a teacher, and me, being the girl I was, I turned my head. In that moment, if you ask him, he'll tell you that his heart broke because he knew that the timing wasn't any good. I was still too young, and cared too much what people thought. I didn't know it at the time, but starting in that moment, he slipped away.
I didn't know I was missing a chance, I didn't know that there was a chance to be missed. The age difference had escaped my radar, and the next fall when I came back to school, he was gone.
I saw him one day, about five years later, in a Tim Horton's in our home town. He didn't even say hello. He looked at me and I saw a sadness cross his face. I didn't know how or where to start, so I just gave him half a smile and walked away.
It was a few weeks later, he added me to Facebook, and eventually after that he messaged me, and suddenly we were talking again like no time had elapsed, he was back in my world and I back in his. We were texting throughout the day, every day, talking at night, and in nearly constant contact. I moved to Thunder Bay, and then back to Oshawa. A year passed and we were still texting and talking constantly, but we never talked about his girlfriend, or whether he had one even. It just never came up.
We agreed to meet up one night when we were both up in our home town. It was quite late, about 11 p.m. I drove past his parents house and picked him up. He opened the car door and he looked happier than I had ever imagined he could. He got in the car and said, "Hello love, it's been too long."
And that was the beginning of the end...
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