I call in sick. Obviously.
I have to process the morning. I mean: woah! Let me get this straight: a woman (a married woman) proposes to me, on a primary-school playground, takes me home, has her way with me and then leaves. I'm a fuck boy! Thank God for the New Millennium and the equality of sexes. I don't know what women complain about: "Aw, he only wants me for my body… Aw, he's so shallow…' I mean, it works for me. Let us all be liberated!
I lie on the bed for a while. A dumb smile on my face. It's the smile of satisfaction, of having all my anxieties and desires drained from me: I am free from want, like some Easter guru. It's the dumb smile of a cow that just got milked.
I notice the way the light of the day that comes in through the gaps in the curtains changes its hue as the sun rises to its zenith. I inhale the smell that impregnates the sheets: it's glorious in its baseness. It's raw and heavy, and it's the smell of sex.
I caress my penis, flaccid and sticky. I toy with it for a bit until it's a little turgid. I bring my fingers to my nose and breathe in. It's her.
A thought strikes me. For moment I wonder whether I should wait… Maybe I shouldn't do what I already know I'm going to do. I know I should just get out of bed, change the sheets, have a shower, and make the most of the day. I should clean up the house, get dinner ready, maybe organise some activity for Chloe: that little girl can spend some quality time with her dad.
But (don't I know it?) I have a new appetite to satisfy.
The morning activity has not fed my hunger. In fact, it's doubled it.
I can go for weeks without an orgasm. I almost forget all about them. Then, I hide in the toilet, phone in hand, and jerk off. Once, twice, three times. I only stop once it hurts to touch.
The more you have of something, the more you want it, I guess.
I think of those people, the obsessive types, the guy covered in tattoos, the woman that's had too many cosmetic procedures, the junky that can't shake the monkey off their back, the voracious eater that sticks two fingers down their throat hoping to create some empty space for more food. Clean for a while, then back to the trough: that's me.
So, I close my eyes, and I picture the woman. I replay our conversation, her impatience and my initial reticence: how sweet and empowering it is to make a beautiful woman wait. I see us walking up the stairs.
I caress my dick. I'm already hard. I want to call the woman's name, but I realise I don't know it. Did we ever introduce each other? We must have. What was it?
I see myself lowering the curtains. I see her dark hair against the white blouse, her white teeth between the glossy, parted lips. I remember what her body felt like as I ran my hands against her back, her thighs, her buttocks. I remember the resistance her skin offered to the caress, how the flesh pushed back under my touch.
I begin to stroke my dick. Harder.
I think about sucking her clit, and I rejoice because her smell is still hanging in the air inside the room. I'm stroking faster: I can barely keep up with my memories. I need to see it all, again and again, but I have no time to linger, no time to indulge in details.
Her broken breathing, hear moaning, the way she groaned when she orgasmed resounds in my ears: I go over this part again and again; I breathe in heavily, savouring the scent that comes up from the pillow.
'Come on!' I say, loudly, as if speaking not to myself but to someone in the room.
My hand tightens its grip and keeps going up and down. Up and down, up and down, up and down.
Then I come. And I laugh.
I breathe slowly. The come on my stomach loses its warmth and dries up. Only then, I reach for a Kleenex.
As time passes, and I uselessly replay the events of the morning in my head over and over, I have to work hard to skip the part when she says, 'I thought you were angry.' I don't want to ask myself exactly what she meant.
Instead, I think about her husband. I feel superior to this man: my ego swells up again, engorged with the pride of having stolen another man's wife without repercussion.
What's this man like? I wonder if he's old and incapable of satisfying his wife's needs. This wouldn't be unimaginable in this neighbourhood: rich husband, pretty saucy wife. A power couple for sure, but still with an imbalance in his favour. Corner office, off-piste ski trips with the mates, regular mentions in the Financial Review. Yet I fucked your wife, buddy...
Or, maybe, he's fat. I giggle to myself, drawing him up in my mind: obscenely obese, dripping with sweat, gasping for air. He's grotesque, embarrassing, but the woman is stuck with him. I licked her, and I fucked her, and I totally enjoyed it.
But maybe he's not fat after all. Or ugly. He's simply not-so-secretly gay. I now play with this scenario: did she know when she married him? Maybe she could guess but ignored her instincts – what was it? Self-preservation, the idea of a frictionless existence steeped in opulence, or maybe self-deception, the thought that certain mannerisms or certain comments didn't mean what they ended up meaning. So, now what? Do they live in separate rooms, and, while he screws the caddies from the golf course or the waiters during his way-too-frequent business trips out of town, she finds her solace with guys like me – guys who are always ready and don't dream of the pool boy while they screw her?
I want to see her again. Thinking about her drives me mad. I skip lunch and jerk off again.
Now, the room smells like me, and the light outside is fading away. While I was feeding my gluttony for pleasure (while I jerked off all day), and I depleted my reserves of Endorphins, I never took care of dealing with that nagging, gnawing worm that was eating me inside, with her last words: 'I thought you were angry…' These are now coming back to me, and I have nothing left to keep me occupied in order to ignore them.
I check my phone. It's late, and it's almost time to pick up Chloe. I feel like I wasted the day, but I giggle to myself as I jump in the shower: I want to forget what I did wrong, and I want to remember what I did right, so I put on this pitiful, false show for my own use. I even sing under the warm jet of water.
The rest of the week goes in pulses: every day at work, I daydream about the woman; the nights are long (time has the habit of slowing down when you need it to pick up the pace and get us to the good part), and then in the morning Chloe and I rush out of the door with half an hour to spare. I want to get to St Ignatius. I want to kiss Chloe goodbye and watch her happily walk away with a friend to play with. I want to look around and – the woman would appear, beautiful, redolent of musk, cladded in silk and velvet, diamond earrings catching the morning light. I would know she has made an effort to choose her clothes. She would want to follow me to my apartment…
But she's never there. The days pass, and I don't see her. As I don't even know what her kid looks like, I can't tell if someone else has dropped the kid off, or maybe the kid is sick, and the woman has no reason (no excuse) to come to the school.
'I thought you were angry.'
Then, the doubt that I have worked hard to ignore this week becomes harder to silence.
Now her words become louder in my mind. Their noise drowns out all the rest: the sex, the moaning, the grappling of bodies. I just see her face. After all, I realise, she was disappointed.
Next week will be Sarah's week with Chloe, and I'll banned from the school grounds. No pick-up. No drop-off. No possibility of seeing the woman.
One morning this week, this mum, Alice, gives me the book she has promised.
'It helped me a lot, you know,' she says handing me the volume.
The title is not How to Deal with the Fact that Your Husband Was a Fucking Hero, but it may as well be. She has lost a man she loved. She has good memories of him. I have gone through a divorce with a woman that has drained all the joy out of the life we shared together, and that is still hanging around to remind me what an asshole I am.
'Thank you,' I say.
'I hope you can…'
I can't focus on what she's saying. I nod and smile, and I wish she leaves me alone. I don't need kindness right now. I don't need a book to know that Sarah was a bitch, and that I'm better off without her, if that's the message after all (which might not be, as these books, like mediators and therapists, don't take sides.)
Alice stares at me for a minute.
I wonder if she's asked me something, and she's now waiting for an answer. I flap the pages of the book and say:
'Boy, I'm sure there's some good stuff in here.'
I know I sound phony, but I'm desperately looking around for the other woman.
'I thought you were angry,' her memory whispers again.
Living with Sarah I always thought I had to be considered, attentive, patient. Searching for her pleasure was the quest I was on, like Indiana Jones climbing up Mount Clit looking for the lost gem of O. That was the story. Looking back, it didn't do me any good. Not one iota. Sarah would stare at the ceiling, showing me how patient she was being with my needs and with my inability to meet them. Patient, obliging, sensible Sarah, who never enjoyed a single penetration! Not a single lick would bring her joy. No amount of rubbing and fingering would thaw her frost.
Well, that was then, and now is now. If this other woman wants to see angry, I'll give her angry. If that's a challenge, I'm ready to accept it.
I imagine myself doing it. Doing. It. The way I want it, which, I imagine, is the way this woman likes it. I bring her to orgasm over and over. I am a love god, a demon under the sheets, a hungry animal, and she's my prey. I dream this dream over and over with no variation, just to keep my ego buoyant.
Friday comes. I now fear I'll never see her again, that I will never be the love god, the demon, the hungry animal. I hope there's some literary justice here, that the best is saved for last, and that she will appear at the last minute to make the wait worth waiting.
But she's not here.
Then it's the weekend. Sarah and I trade Chloe: it's a miracle it doesn't happen at midnight on a bridge in no-man's land, like it used to be when the East and the West traded spies during the Cold War.
Sarah barely looks at me.
I was her husband for years. She had married me before our families and our friends. She had sworn she would always be with me. I understand the self-deception we all put on in these circumstances, but a little courtesy would go a long way. I certainly it would look a little more… human. After all, she is the one who has broken it off.
I push myself to smile and not give her any satisfaction.
'Did you have fun with dad?' Sarah asks Chloe.
She asks with this special tone: 'Isn't he an asshole, your dad?' This is what she wants to ask. This is what she wants Chloe, our daughter, to think.
I bite my tongue and say nothing. I let Chloe say whatever she wants. If I say, 'We had a great time!' or 'We did lots of things!', it would be too easy for Sarah to say that she hasn't asked me, that she has asked Chloe.
Chloe shrugs her shoulders and says nothing.
She has already learned not to take the bait and stay neutral. It's heart-breaking, but it's inevitable, and it's the best thing. If she picks a side, she will become an active participant in the hostilities. At that point, all bets would be off.
'See you next week,' I say.
They don't turn back. Neither of them.
I wonder if I'm losing Chloe as well.
So, as soon as we've traded the girl, I walk away into the next week alone with myself.
I don't mention the woman to Doctor Connor. Would she think I'm bragging? She would definitely 'put it into perspective', which is not what I need, or what I want, right now. She asks me how my week has been, which is her usual conversation starter, and which allows me to easily steer the session into familiar territory, but I secretly savour the time when I will reveal the story of that morning romp with the nameless woman.
Recently, I've been thinking about another encounter. This one happened many years ago. I don't know why this memory has resurfaced now.
This happened many years ago. I was in university at the time. I got invited to a party, that was held in a university building. Loud music, ping-pong tournaments, bottles of warm beer, guys and girls doing lines in the bathrooms. I arrived with a couple of friends, and straight away we pretended this was awesome and we were having a great time. We danced. We stood around a ping-pong table waiting for our turn which never came. We wondered through the rooms, looking for something to do. We danced some more.
Around midnight, we saw a few people we know. They were all a little tipsy, and they looked like they're truly having fun. We joined them, hoping that the happiness is contagious.
There was a girl with them. Russian. Or Easter European, at least.
'How do you like the music?' I asked.
'It's great, but I need a break,' she said.
That's all it took. Sometimes, it is as easy as that.
We walked outside and sat on the steps. I remember it was a warm night, and I was wearing a Velvet Underground t-shirt. She commented on it.
'Do you like Lou Reed?' I asked (not liking the band or even his solo production one bit, but having purchased the shirt because of the banana logo).
'I think he's great.'
I nodded.
'Yeah. Pretty great. The Godfather of Punk,' I added.
She looked so happy and carefree. I probably was too.
I don't know why this encounter comes to mind, but it's a happy memory, and I like to play with it, as if it was an old toy, from an almost forgotten childhood, that you find at the bottom of a box in the attic.
'What do you study?' I asked
'Comparative literatures.'
I asked her what that is, and she told me about Pushkin and about Flaubert and about some German author I forgot. She told me about the word love and how differently various cultures used it, and how hard it was to truly translate any language into another. It was all in the fine details, she said.
She girl looked pretty, but it was her happiness that I found so attractive.
I leant forward and gave her a tiny peck on the lips.
She giggled and then kissed me back.
We went to her place. She lived in one of those complexes devoted to student accommodation on the outskirts of the campus.
I kissed her neck and lifted her t-shirt. In the penumbra, I looked at the small, delicious breasts, the round areolas and the thick nipples. I took one between my teeth and nibble. I noticed she has hairy armpits, which to this day I find extremely attractive. She gave off a faint smell which mixed the moments of her day, the scent of some cheep perfume, beer, and sweat, for me to enjoy.
She giggled and unbuttoned her jeans. Then she lowered her cotton undies.
I rejoiced at the sight of the blonde fluff that covered her mons veneris.
I kicked one shoe off, then I tried with the other, but, I must have been a little drunk, I tripped and fell on my ass.
She had long, fine, blonde hair that fell on my face as she helped me up.
We dropped into bed, and, for a moment, I stared at her. She had minute features: a small nose, blue eyes shaped like almonds, a small mouth. Her hands were long and feminine. Her legs were long. It was all in the finer details with her…
She kept her eyes closed while we kissed. She was lost in the moment. She caressed my torso gently with her hands, then she silently moved down. I lowered my underpants, and she took my dick in her mouth. She took it in her mouth, gently. I could feel her tongue, coarse and warm, licking my shaft.
I rested my hand on the back of her head and watched it go up and down. Behind it, the milk-white skin of her back, her small ass, and her legs crossed at the ankles.
I didn't want to come too soon, so I said:
'My turn.'
She smiled. I noticed the small teeth.
I lay on my back, and she crawled up towards my face, moving up up up. I watched her without asking.
The girl rested, kneeling, with her hands against the headrest and the thighs open above my face.
I looked up at her face, almost invisible under the cascade of hair.
She lowered her pelvis and rested her pussy on my mouth.
I began to lick it, then she started moving back and forth, so that I could run my tongue along the whole length of the opening. I parted the plump labia and licked until the anus.
She giggled and moved back in the other direction. When I ran my tongue on the clit, she started swinging back, slowly.
I indulged for a moment on the anus, small, elastic, but the pendulum had already changed its direction.
Meanwhile, my erection was calling. But it had to wait, and I had to leave it alone.
The girl now wants me to focus on the clit and planted her mons pubis on my face.
I licked her. Slowly slowly slowly. Then voraciously. I wanted to possess this body. I wanted to be inside her. So, I lifted her for a moment and licked a finger. As soon as my tongue was back on her clit, I started massaging her anus. I enjoyed feeling the resistance is offered initially.
Then, the girl tilted her body forward and offered her spread butt cheeks to me. I felt her fingers around my wrist, and she guided my hand: I pressed my fingertip against the asshole; I felt the creases against the skin, then the muscular wring wrap itself around my finger with a sucking feeling.
I moved my finger gently inside her, while I kept licking her.
She was moaning little whispery 'oohs!' of pleasure.
It was her voice that made it impossible to resist any longer. I grabbed her ass and moved her down on the bed.
She took my dick with one hand.
'So nice,' she said, with that delicious, almost French-like, accent that Eastern Europeans can put on, like the sound of a turtle dove.
I gave her stomach a little kiss and licked her nipples, then I kissed the girl on the mouth.
She giggled. She could probably taste her own pussy in my breath, and this tickled her.
I put my glans against her vulva and looked for the opening. Then, I pressed and slid in.
She giggled again, then she held me by the shoulders and pushed her pelvis against mine so that I could go further in until there was no length left, until my pubis touched her parted labia.
I eagerly started to move back and forth with big pushes. I listened to the sounds she made.
She gave me a little shove, and I turned on my back. Then, she rode me. Her eyes were closed, her fine, silky hair was moving back and forth. The girl brought her hands up and tormented her nipples. She bit her lip. Her fine, elfin features were flushed.
I held her waist as she moved back and forth on top of me. I wanted to say something, to let her know how she was making me feel, but everything that came to mind sounded stupid: 'You're amazing!'
The girl changed her motion slightly to rub her clit against my skin, then she shivered a little and moved back a little to get me all the way in.
The laughed and rested her head on me.
'You haven't finished, eh?' she asked.
'Almost,' I said.
'I know what you want,' she tells me, her eyes becoming slither as she smiles mischievously.
She lifted one leg and extracts my dick from inside her, then her face was down against my crotch again. She took my dick in her mouth and sucked with eager, slurping, sucking noises. The moaned as she did this.
I reached with my hand towards her damp pussy and caressed it gently.
The girl fondled my balls, pushing my dick farther inside her mouth. She ran a finger back and forth on my perineum what was oversensitive and tingling with pleasure.
Then, I cried out a strangled 'Fuck!' as I shot my load in her mouth.
'Yes, fuck,' she said and laughed again and rubbed my stomach with one hand, shooting tingling sparks through my limbs.
I don't know why this memory comes back to me now.
We lay on her bed. I wanted to know all about Pushkin and how different cultures use the word love. I enjoyed the warmth of her body against mine on that warm night. We were sticky. We were smelly. We were happy.
I asked her about her home country, her friends.
She told me everything, and she asked me about my life.
I felt no need to hide anything, and I held her hand.
'I haven't seen them in so long. I'm a little excited,' she said, musingly, seeing invisible images beyond the dusk of the room. 'I leave in the morning. This was my last night. I'm so glad I met you.'
And that was it.
She had her bags packed.
Stunned, I asked to drive her to the airport.
'Oh, I'm going with my friends,' she said.
She gave me a little kiss in the morning, and I made an excuse not to stay another minute, or I wouldn't have let her go.
As I tell this story to Doctor Connor, she wears an inscrutable mask.
'I guess you gave me more detail that I needed, but it's nice that you feel like you can trust me. It's all about trust.'
I cannot remember how much detail I gave her. Did I tell her about the Russian girl's nipples, and about how she sucked me off, and how I licked her, and about the way we orgasmed? For a minute, I was back in the past… The doctor's office was gone, the quick scribbling, her judging eyes on me.
Our time for the week is up.
'Why did you want to talk about this?' she asks me, like a stern teacher asks a naughty kid why he wanted to break a window or write a dirty word on a wall.
'I don't know why. I've been thinking about it lately.'
This isn't a lie. It isn't until I walk out of the building that I realise that the next day after my night with the girl was the day I got together with Sarah.