When next he saw her at the gym, Michael didn’t feel any great connection between them. The clouds didn’t part, no golden ray of sunshine lit her like a spotlight—it was not a This is your path, Michael kind of thing. No, it was a slow burn, with the eye contact lingering a beat longer, his smile growing deeper, hers a little more welcoming.
They talked about fitness. Obviously it was a shared interest, given where they met. The third time he saw her, Michael felt comfortable correcting her form on the tricep pushdown. She thanked him. The next day, she corrected his squat, letting him know to put more of his weight back into his heels. Soon after, they were working out together, and he felt an unexpected chemistry. Conveniently, he kept his wedding ring in his gym bag, and the gym bag in his locker, so the subject of his marriage didn’t come up.
Not immediately anyway.
After a month or so of pumping iron, stirring the endorphins, it was a natural progression that the conversation turned more personal. Michael found it easy to open up to her about his marital struggles—the lack of intimacy, of touch of any kind—that sat at the center of his frustration and sadness.
Laura. That’s what he called her, his wife.
It felt strange not to use Natalie’s real name, but Michael had good reason for the ruse. The object of his desire (and yes, he now desired her) worked for the same company as Natalie. The more they spoke, the clearer it became to him that he was crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed. He understood he was playing with fire that would eventually burn him, but his brain seemed to have shut down. Reason abandoned him and compulsion took over.
I’m lonely and alone. I’m getting older. Why should I live this way? Yes, they were justifications, but not without merit. The word “divorce” had rumbled in his head countless times, and eventually it came out to Natalie.
“This isn’t working,” he told her.
A sexless marriage, a loveless union—it was joyless for him, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t been trying to rekindle the romance. Michael made a point to be generous with his touches and gratitude, buy flowers and thoughtful gifts, and do his fair share of the chores and childcare duties. He talked openly about his desires and needs, and it was he who had suggested marriage counseling.
The counselor revealed that their real problem wasn’t sex, but a lack of communication and support. He and Natalie simply didn’t talk. She was too tired to hear about his day, to talk about hers, or to make plans for the future. He correlated Natalie’s mounting work pressures with their subsequent relationship stress and lack of intimacy. It seemed to Michael that Natalie’s insomnia came later, as she became suspicious that he was hiding something. Michael had no doubt his hurtful behavior was at the root of her sleep difficulties. She tried to get him to admit to his affair a month after it started, but he wasn’t brave enough to tell her the truth.
“Are you seeing someone? I have this feeling you are.”
“No,” Michael assured her. “Of course I’m not. I would never.”
Oh, how easily that lie came out. So convincing was his denial that he almost believed it himself.
He’d taken his new workout partner for coffee one afternoon following an extra strenuous, sweaty session. They chatted with ease. Without the weight and worry of running a home—bills, kids, job—he was free to be himself. He could vent a bit, and she could do the same. She recounted for his benefit her series of failed romances, and in those stories, they found a common thread of frustration.
“It’s not about sex,” Michael said as the two sipped on lattes and nibbled decadent desserts. “You want to feel wanted, feel loved. My wife and I stopped being friends. We’re basically business partners now.”
Despite the counseling, Natalie simply didn’t want to talk about the state of their marriage. She avoided it at all costs, preferring instead to focus on things she could control: the kids’ activities, treatment for Addie’s asthma, her work. When relationship issues did come up it was more a list of grievances than a productive dialogue. Instead of coming together, they pulled further apart.
Did she notice the changes in him before the affair progressed? If so, she never commented on how he started losing fat and adding muscle, or bought grooming products he’d never tried before. He stopped asking for sex, too, because in his mind he was already having it with another woman.
Michael knew from discussions with the marriage counselor that he had grounds for divorce. He felt deprived in the marriage and couldn’t imagine a fulfilling life without intimacy and a loving partner.
At least, that’s what he told himself the day he crossed the line. It was a long, slow, tender kiss, the kind he remembered from his much younger years. There was freedom in it, and danger too, but it was more than that—he felt alive for the first time in ages.
He made all the trite excuses.
I deserve this. I need this. Nat’s not committed to fixing our problems.
That’s how a kiss became more, like the famous line about how one goes bankrupt, first slowly, then all at once.
There was no going back. He couldn’t undo what he’d done. He could have stopped it at that though, a one-time-only thing. A fling. An indiscretion. Nobody needed to know. Nobody would have been hurt. But he couldn’t stop. It was as if he’d mainlined a narcotic more addictive than heroin.
They had their ways of communicating in secret, using apps that allowed for discretion as they planned their next rendezvous. Sweaty sex. Tender sex. Glorious sex.
Eventually though, reality seeped into his bubble. His lover began to feel used, a second fiddle in Michael’s life. She felt dirty, wrong, and sad all bundled into one. So instead of enjoying their liaisons, Michael spent those encounters coddling and reassuring her the best he could. But it was never enough. She wanted him all to herself.
That’s when it hit him, like he’d awoken from a dream. This wasn’t a game he was playing. There were real lives at stake, not just Natalie’s and the kids’, but his lover’s as well.
It was as if an invisible switch flipped inside his chest. One second he was all in; the next he was all out. But getting out? Well, that was going to be a problem. He might have been ready to walk away, but she was not. She made all the threats.
I’ll tell your wife.
I’ll call you at all hours.
You can’t just dump me like I’m trash. What if your kids find out? Have you seen that movie, Michael?
Up came his hand. He stopped himself though. Instead he pushed her hard onto the bed. She cried out, but more from fright than pain. He straddled her on the sheets where they’d made love only a half hour ago, pinning her down. He set his hands upon her throat, but resisted a powerful urge to apply exquisite pressure. He felt the desire though, palpable and pulling as a siren’s call, one fueled by that rage that could go from a few flames to a conflagration in a snap, a snap of his temper, or a neck. He thought how easily it could happen, how quickly he could let his anger consume him, and his grip around her throat tightened ever so slightly.