“It’s not as complex as you believe it is,” I said, swirling the wine in my glass, like all the sophisticated people did, “It’s just fucking. That’s what it is.”
He rolled his eyes. He was handsome in a rugged sort of way. For example, he had that broken nose every romance hero ever did. He had a day old stubble, and I knew if I ran my palm against it like I pictured, it would feel so rough, so scruffy and I imagined him moving his mouth down between my thighs and—
“It’s certainly not just that. You have to think about the reasons why a person must be driven to the point of submitting to infidelity to get what he wants,” He said, pushing back his glasses.
He was wearing a dark button down and a pair of dark pants. His brown hair was thick, in waves. He taught English 101 in the local college, so yes, a professor.
And so was I. I taught Biology 101. We had no reasons to start talking about infidelity. But we were invited to a housewarming party by our colleague, Minty, who didn’t know about boundaries. For whatever reason, Minty thought it would be nice to invite her colleagues to her home for a night of mingling.
Now people stood around her living room, opening the champagne, sipping the chardonnay, nursing the whiskey neat and like me gurgling down red wine.
You could bet I was wearing a black turtleneck and was touching my pendent that had an S for locket. I never got the point why people wore the letter of their name on their fucking neck but here we were.
“By saying that, you are suggesting, loyalty isn’t a choice. It’s like some sort of dead end job, like a service for God, like a responsibility you can’t get rid of and infidelity is the sin we have no choice but to submit to.”
He took a sip of his white wine, “I’m not saying that. I’m simply suggesting that sometimes a simple pursuit of pleasure becomes so important, so necessary, because of the mundane life we lead, infidelity seems like the only answer. The same way suicide seems like the only choice to a depressed person.”
“Or for pleasure you could go home and fuck your wife.”
“There are a multitude of nuances you are skipping here. For an infidelity, for it to happen the first time, sometimes it will be with someone whom you don’t know, whom you haven’t slept with before, so in a way, you are sleeping with a stranger, it’s something new. It is a show. You can perform. You are someone new. To someone who didn’t know you before. To a wife, who knows all your ins and outs there’s nothing left to show, nothing left to know either.”
He set down his glass on the coffee table as he said so.
This conversation had started with harmless suggestions that the philosophy professor was cheating on his wife. Then somehow Mr. English and I got into a heated argument and before we realized everyone around us had left. Now we stood in front of each other, huddled beside the fireplace.
He shoved both of his hands inside his pockets, while I touched the chain on my neck.
“You could role play.”
That made him burst into a laugh so boisterous, it seemed like it came deep down from his chest. I loved that sound. I know I sounded stupid but I had a point.
“It’s not really-”
I cut him off. I literally raised my forearm as if I intended to karate chop him, “I mean, I know what you mean, in a practical way. But I’d argue you are completely wrong. No matter how shitty your situation is, how badly things are going for you, flirting with your teaching assistant when you’re a professor with a wife and a kid, is always a choice.”
