Me Against Her (Cate Blanchett x OC)

Day 1

For someone who was in a foreign country and completely out of place socioeconomically, the kiss was a bold move. Improper, almost. 

"This is amazing," Cate said, breathless.  

"What is...this?" My boldness was unrelenting. 

"I don't know," She put her head in her hands, "and I don't want to think about it. I just don't want it to end." 

"Me neither." 

"Cancel our flights." 

"What?"

"Just cancel them, before I regret it." 

I pulled out my phone and did as I was told. 

"My son has a recital on Thursday so I have to be back in Sydney by then. I want to spend three more days alone with you. Here in LA." 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." 

She did regret it the next morning, however, and we got into a fight.

I woke up with a start, and the harsh whiteness of the ceiling did nothing to console me. Cate was still asleep in the next room, her blond locks spilling all over the pillow and her slender bare arms draping over the comforter. Her fingers were long but had a slight stoutness to them that suggested a fierce grip. A slim band of silver encircled her ring finger like a warning.

That was when a God's eye view of what we were doing infiltrated my consciousness and replaced my own. I was alone in a hotel room with a married woman thousands of miles from home. All we had done up until this point was kiss. She even insisted on not defining what we were. But emotionally, I knew that we had been in the equivalent of a relationship for a while. The boundary between faithfulness and infidelity was not a gradient - it was a binary. She cheated on her husband. She cheated on the father of her children. With me. Her subordinate.

To give proof of how emotionally in-sync we were, she woke up thinking the exact same thing.

"This is so wrong, Edith." She said after she put all her clothes on, and began tying her shoelaces a bit more meticulously than usual.

"I know."

"We should catch the next flight back to Australia."

"But we already extended the hotel reservation..."

Warmth started to drain from her manner, "Yes, and it was a mistake. Just because we made a mistake once doesn't justify making it one more time, Edith." She started pacing up and down the living room frantically, "God, what the hell am I doing...I have a husband. Four children..."

"How about this?" I proposed, "It's all over when we go back to Sydney. In three days we pretend this never happened." 

She stopped in her tracks and shot me a quizzical look, as if waiting for me to admit that I was joking. I was not. 

"How can you stop feelings like that? We're not machines, Edith. We can't be switched on and off at will." 

"But it already started, whether we like it or not. Might as well decide when to put an end to it." 

"You're out of your mind."

"Think about it, it might not even be up to us. How can you keep this a secret when we're surrounded by people we know? Who know us as boss and employee? At a company that you run with your husband of 20 years?" 

She paused, the wheels of her mind turning. "I'm not ready to go back there...not like this..." 

"You need a break. Spend it with me. We don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"God," she pleaded, "but there are a thousand things I want to do...with you." 

"You better narrow them down, ma'am," I smirked, "because we only got three days." 

-----

The usual activity choices were obvious, but they were more limited than open because Cate was a celebrity. We shut off our phones, drove to a spot that no one frequented in Malibu, and sunbathed while fully clothed, as neither of us brought a swimsuit. We wandered through the Getty Villa with sunglasses on, and after dinner, drove aimlessly on the highway, following the sunset on the horizon, and our own hearts. I was behind the wheel, and she was staring out the window from the passenger seat. 

"This highway goes straight to Sacramento, did you know that?" she said, "God I want to drive up there with you someday. It's only five hours." 

I didn't say a single word. A few minutes later, she spoke up again when we missed our exit back to Beverly Hills. "You missed the right turn..."

"No, I didn't. We're going to Sacramento." 

She started protesting hysterically, but I knew that a part of her was aroused by the spontaneity.

She had never done this before. 

"You're barking mad...what about our stuff back at the hotel?"

"We'll come back and get it. We brought a change of clothes with us to the beach. And we can buy toothbrushes."  

"You're insane, you know that?" 

"We don't have a lot of 'someday's left. And don't sit there and tell me that each time you visit LA, you don't dream of getting out of here as soon as you can." 

"I dreamed about it so many times when I lived here before...and each time it happens, it's no less thrilling than the first time." She leaned over and gave me a quick peck, the spot where her lips touched my face now an epicenter of warmth, "Still, let's please stop by somewhere soon for toiletries. I'm already panicking that we won't find a decent place to stay." 

We checked into a motel just before midnight - Cate's suggestion this time, not mine. She hadn't stayed in a motel since she was a teenager, she said. There were two queen-sized beds in a small spare room, and it was cozy enough to make up for its lack of material comfort. 

We sunk into the couch, turned the TV on, and kissed for a while, our bodies released from the burdens of gossip from people we might know. The Affair was playing, so we binged a bit together over wine that we bought at a 7/11 - late night cable was uncensored, and showed all the steamy sex scenes in full. Cate and I said nothing during them, but I knew she was turned on, but the undertone of infidelity hit the brakes on her desire. 

It was a long day, so I was already half-asleep when Cate got out of the shower with a towel around her. 

"Don't peek - I'm sleeping naked tonight." She said as she walked towards her bed, "You left me with no other choice." 

"My eyes are closed," I said to reassure her, "but my imagination is wide open." 

"Just keep your hands where I can see them," her voice trailed behind me, "good night, darling."