How do affairs begin?
I'd been asking myself that question repeatedly for months, and even after revisiting our interactions, I still couldn't figure it out.
My seductress embodied what it meant to be a woman. She was the prototype of woman. She was soft and sweet and pretty enough for the entire lineage of women altogether. She was a petite woman with small hands and even smaller feet that seemed to always have a shade of white coating them. As a woman I knew that all of those shades were different.
She was gentle in every aspect of the word, going around and spreading that gentleness to everyone she spoke to. She played soft R&B lowly inside her penthouse suite twenty-four hours of the day, even when she wasn't home and her space always smelled of patchouli and brown sugar. She was such a hygiene princess and I'd never known her to smell of the same scent twice. And if you asked her the name of the scent, she'd say 'a lady never tells'.
My seductress was mysterious and beautiful, knowing how too answer questions without actually answering anything. She was intelligent with her words and took her numbers even more serious. She was understanding and everyone seemed to enjoy her. She had curves that undeserving women paid to have and a biological face that men and women went under the knife just to acquire. She wore brown the most, and everyone stared. She commanded attention wherever she went. She didn't have to ask for it, and she definitely had mine.
My seductress was woman.
She was the exact opposite of who I had married.
My husband. The definition of man.
He was much bigger than me, protective, and too jealous, but sweet when he wanted to be. He was motivated and dedicated, ready and willing to work hard to provide every second of every day. He felt like that made him a man. He ate like there was a hole in his stomach, worked out too hard, and hurt himself plenty. He turned into a teddy bear when he was sick and had trouble admitting when he was wrong.
He was rough and tough and masculine and manly.
And somehow I loved them both.
I adored my husband. He made me feel safe and secure, like no one would ever get to me without making it through him first, especially when he held onto me at night. We shared most of the same values and he never tried to own me the way most men do. He wanted a family just like me and took family in general very serious. He was an athlete with no sport, a disciplined man that was sexy in a suit while also looking perfect in a jersey. He was driven and devoted. He damn sure wasn't perfect, but he was the man I knew I would spend the rest of my life with.
I adored my seductress. To the point that calling her seductress seemed disrespectful to the connection we shared. Even though I was married, I loved her.
She was sweetest to me, and more romantic than any man I had ever encountered. She was stern yet so feminine all at the same time, making everyone across from her fall in love. But she loved me and it was very clear. She took me out so much, and introduced me as her woman always. She sent me truffles shaped like roses because I told her roses were useless and she sent me roses because she said they weren't.
And I knew she loved me the night that the sin of adultery had gripped us with its talons. She made my wrongs feel right and didn't stop to give me gripes. She respected my choice because I'm grown and can make my own decisions. She respected me.
We spent that entire night learning, exploring, teaching. She had no problem falling back and allowing me to teach her too, telling me that if she was going to please me correctly, she needed to know how. She was an amazing communicator that night and I may have fallen in love that night too.
She was too smart, way too smart, smart enough to piss smart people off. She was so good with kids that every time I saw her with one, I wanted to start the process of giving her one. She could have conversations with me without ever bringing up sex and she could hold me without slipping her hand in my panties. When she held me, there was a grand canyon sized difference between her and my husband. She smelled like love, hummed along to the R&B that surrounded us, and caressed me all over. Not just places that she enjoyed. Sometimes we swayed, but most nights, when the moon shined through the skylight in her bedroom, she just held onto me.
I hated myself for the confusion in my soul.
There was no doubt in my mind that I loved men. I loved the testosterone running through their blood that made them so competitive. I loved that they always found it necessary to protect something, whether it be a person or a thing. I loved and was jealous of how chiseled their bodies could become so quickly. I loved to feel a man's weight on top of me with his tough, working hand in mine.
But I had a new love for women that both concerned and confused me. I didn't know why I liked these things, I just did.
I loved to feel the softness of a woman's hand across my cheek or the feeling of acrylics against my neck. I loved the unintentional switch in a woman's hips when she walked. I loved how bossy they could be. I loved the curves in a woman's body that made it painfully obvious that she was woman. I loved the way women always seemed too smart for their own good and how they used that knowledge to flirt.
I loved the femininity of a woman, and that they couldn't help when it flowed out of them. I loved that pet names were daily vocabulary words for them. I loved that they loved to make things pretty, no matter what it was.
I found myself enjoying the small things about women, then the larger things, and eventually almost everything. Yet I didn't know if that applied to all women or just my seductress. She felt like the love of my life, but so did my husband.
So I ask one more time, how do affairs begin?
Stay, while I try my damnedest to figure it out.
