The Art of The Affair

20

After locking up, we stood on the pavement for a moment together.  Then he took my hand and pulled me around back to his bike, and my heart dared to hope that he wasn't breaking things off with me after all.  

After giving me his helmet, we raced off into the night again.  Anyone who saw us would only know it was him.  They wouldn't know who his passenger was.  Tonight I didn't care if everyone saw us together.  There was no going back for my heart, and what we'd done had especially changed things forever.  

It was time to figure out how to tell Ron, and I needed to find a job of my own again.

A short time later, I was washing up a little in his bathroom.  My panties were temporarily destroyed, soaked through and through from our combined fluids.  He brought me a pair of his boxers, and while it wasn't the smartest idea to wear another man's clothes home, I was the only one who did the laundry anyway. I slipped them on and enjoyed the secret thrill of wearing something that was his.  When I emerged, he asked why I was smiling again.

"You got serious-looking on me for a bit but now you're smiling again.  Do tell me what's going through that brilliant head of yours."

He was waiting for me on the loveseat.  It was where he slept, as it turned out.  It folded out into a small hideaway bed by night and turned back into a piece of furniture by day.  I couldn't imagine that it was comfortable, but I knew I'd gladly sleep beside him on it if we ever got there.  Speaking of which...

I sat down next to him as he lifted his arm and nestled against him.  After picking at his shirt for a moment, I finally asked about what had happened.

"When George was training me the other night, we were discussing Katie," he paused.  "Apparently your husband is under the impression that you two are about to start trying for a kid."

My head shot up off of his chest and I frowned up at him.  

"Ron wants kids.  I don't.  And we are not trying at all.  I told you I wouldn't sleep with him if it came up and I haven't.  Why would you take what George said and run with it?"

"It was stupid, I admit it.  I got jealous."

"Really?" I scowled.  "All this time I thought it had something to do with you getting promoted and it turns out to be something lame?"

I start to stand up but he pulls me back down.  Somehow I end up on my back with my head in his lap, with his arm weighing me down like a log.  He stares down at me with another one of his intense expressions and begins tracing a finger down the side of my face.  

"Remember when I said I wanted to murder him for kissing you in front of me?"

"It was on the cheek," I retorted.

"So?  I wanted to murder him.  I'm in love with you, stupid.  There, I said it.  I want to flatten anyone who looks at you and I guess I'm going to have to get a handle on it."

He'd just told me that he was in love with me but I couldn't even enjoy it.  The memory of the words he'd spoken and the pain they'd caused was still fresh. 

"You guess? Draco, you showed up after work that night and said it wasn't going to work. Do you have any idea how much pain that caused for all of the hours and minutes between then and now?"

"I can guess.  I'm sorry.  It was just intense, and it was stupid of me...and then when you didn't fight me on it-"

"You wanted me to grovel?  Beg?"

"No," he frowned.  "Maybe?  I've never done this before and I'm fucking everything up.  I was waiting to kiss you because I wanted it to be someplace memorable, someplace nice.  And what do I do tonight?"  He pauses, his jaw tightening. "You not talking to me all night drove me so fucking crazy that I fucked you in the office, of all places.  Just the thought of you being knocked up by him-"

"I don't want kids, Draco.  I told you this."

"Fine, great.  I don't want kids either," he shot back.  "What does that have to do with anything?  He pressures, you cave...it was all real inside my head.  Ever seen Eyes Wide Shut before?  That Kubrick film?"

"I vaguely remember it."

"Remember how he fucked everything up because he got jealous?"

"I guess it's been too long.  I just remember something about an orgy."

"No," he snorted.  "Christ, Kubrick is amazing.  This film isn't about a fucking orgy.  Because she's a woman, he doesn't think his wife is a sexual person, and that she couldn't possibly cheat on him and blah blah blah."  He draws a breath in and continues passionately.  "But when she confesses that she'd nearly tossed it all out the fucking window not very long ago," he gestures, "for some guy she locked eyes with in a lift, he goes off on some pity party, soul-searching infidelity spree, or an attempt at one.  Point being, we're some jealous fuckers, babe.  It twists us into something primal and makes us do stupid, stupid things."

"It was stupid, you git."

"I really am sorry."

I purse my lips and exhale forcefully through my nostrils.  It's unhealthy but I want him to apologise again and again.  After thinking it was over, it soothes the wound to hear it.

He strokes the side of my face for so long that I nearly grow drowsy.  The truth was, I'd forgiven him the moment he'd come for me.  He wasn't the only one in love.

"Did you say you loved me?"

A slight smile on his lips made it even harder to be mad at him anymore, and when he leaned down to press a kiss to my lips, I knew this wasn't the last time we were going to have a fight.  We were two stubborn people who felt this - whatever it was - very deeply. 

In other words, love is a temporary madness, and we were both afflicted.