Prologue:

I watched him as he paced at the foot of the bed. He ran an anxious, shaking hand through his chestnut hair as his lips moved soundlessly quite like a fish exposed to air. Tension emanated from every taut muscle. Patiently I watched and waited for him to speak, to match his lip movements with sound. None of his stress affected me or poisoned my contentment. Covered in white sheets, yet naked all the same, I rested indolently in bed. I never had his stamina.

The indigo of the night sky outside the widow, colored the room a strange dulled blue. The whole scene contained a dream-like quality. Everything, the huge bed, the bay windows, the white walls, wobbled precariously on some invisible edge. Some sort of precipice seduced us from below with the moment, and some sort of cliff reminded us of everything else. Swirling, and fading, reality and I parted as I almost began to fall asleep.

“Liv, you know she’s pregnant,” He stated, finally. With the push of a heart beat, emotion filled out every spidery vain, jammed into every pulsating capillary, then gushed into my brain. I hid it, though, because … that’s what I did. His eyes, so very, very bright fixed on my face. I smiled a catty almost impish smile. Sitting up, holding the sheets to my chest, I said the only thing that came to mind, “So?”

“I’m going to be a father. Some little person is going to look up to me … and what are they going to learn? That it’s okay to cheat?” he exclaimed while he gesticulated with fervor akin only to his actions in bed. I knew I would have to tread carefully. Too apathetic or too empathetic would be the end to us.

“Calm down,” Luckily I was practiced at this; he had a similar freak-out on his wedding night. “What are you going to do?” His mind usually operated analytically, he just needed to be reminded of that.

However valiant my attempt, it failed. I heard a frustrated groan reminiscent of a caged animal’s, so strangled one would think a noose squeezed his neck. I couldn’t help but note how sexy he looked. Like live wire, he conveyed energy and passion and such delicious angst. He only wore boxers; the rest of him was enticingly exposed. My smile deepened, sharpening my features,.

He remained quiet, though. My question hung in the air, the proverbial elephant in the room. My smile stopped; I knew I’d have to take him seriously, now.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to divorce her or are you going to break up with me? What?” I leaked out a bit of negative energy leak into my voice. He stopped moving as if some god turned off a switch. I pressed on, stepping into a morass of ugly, disjointed emotions.

“You’re getting so worked up over nothing. When we started,” I spread my arms wide to illustrate the point, “this, we both knew you’d stay with her, get married, have kids, the whole shebang. And every time one of those things happens, you freak out but nothing happens, nothing changes. So why bother?” A flurry of motion burst out of the corners of my eyes. Amidst white sparks, He shot forth like a bullet out of a barrel. I inhaled one hasty breath as the mattress rocked. Two wide splayed hands gripped my arms as he leaned over the bed.

“Do you really not care?” He said. I frowned; he broke the rules. That was the one question we both silently promised not to ask. I didn’t ask: Do you really not care that your wife is sitting at home, waiting for you? Do you really not care that she thinks everything is perfect? Do you really not care that when they find out, they’ll hate you, hate us?

My power of speech receded into my chest. And we stayed like that, even the air seemed to vibrate over us; him, leaned over the bed, me sitting up, clutching a sheet as protection. In the midst of every beat, my heart exploded into a shower of sparks and noise. I didn’t even realize it but my breathing gained a sort of weight to it. I tried to attribute it all to shock but the truth …

“It doesn’t matter,” the words quivered as they descended from my mouth. I attempted to say more, to explain but a flash of cold engulfed me.

He let got and returned to his upright position. At first, I thought that ended our little quarrel. To the contrary, he wanted space for delivery.

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t matter’? I’m risking a solid marriage for something that ‘doesn’t matter?” he said. Until that moment, I never felt any true passion for this dispute. I assumed it would blow over like it was supposed too. However, every word he said broke an unspoken boundary.

I mean, wasn’t I a guy’s dream? I didn’t intrude. I didn’t demand. I felt comfortable in my position as “other woman”/mistress/whore. Why did he have to ask, no, command for more? Couldn’t he get that from her? An emotionally stable and mature woman did not commit adultery, so why did he expect me to act like one?

“Brian, if your marriage was ‘solid’ you wouldn’t be here with me. I’m tired of this. Goddamn it, what do you want from me?” I erupted, my face contorting slightly. Something similar to triumph, arouse out of those intense eyes. He slid unto the bed, ignoring my frantic motions to keep the comforter over me, letting it slip down.

“So you do care,” He smirked, the nerve of that man. A virulent urge to shut him down gnawed at my insides. The balance of power, in one movement shifted and I wanted that status quo back.

“Shouldn’t you continue your hissy fit over your impending fatherhood?” I snapped. Suddenly, he encircled my waist and pulled me to him. In my mind, I heard a sharp smack as if someone threw bricks into water. My eyelids pushed back in surprise.

“What the hell?” I muttered before his lips touched mine. If possible his smirk deepened, he flipped me over. I rested on top of him, painfully aware of my clothes-deficiency.

“Have you ever had one of those moments when everything is so perfectly clear?” An undeniable change swept across the room. He treated me so playfully, contentedly when a minute earlier he almost broke it off?

“I don’t know what just happened,” Sometimes complete honesty really works. “You’ve lost me somewhere. Weren’t we arguing?”

“I got what I wanted.” The words: DANGER, DANGER, WARNING flashed over my vision. The man with the weight of deceit and decisions vanished to be replaced by some cocky bastard … my cocky bastard. He might wear that ring but who really knew him?

“What?”