She'll be here today. In my house, in my bed where I linger now although I know I should get up. I'm enjoying the feeling that the thought of her evokes. I wish she were here now. It would be easier to handle now, without the pre-amble and the politeness. The 'zipless fuck'. The longing could be satisfied without the guilt, perhaps. Guilt is probably the wrong word - sense of unease might describe best my feelings.
I'm the lover of a married woman. She commits adultery and I commit myself not at all. The guilt is her prerogative, I suppose. We two are so different. Chalk and cheese, so to speak. If she WERE here now she'd complain of the cold. I never have heating on in the bedroom. Can't sleep when I'm too hot. I'm always warm and like doors and windows open. She likes them shut firmly and is always cold. I now possess a concessionary hot water bottle for her feet and close the back door which I once left open inadvertently all night, much to her horror. She wasn't here, of course, because it's difficult to leave a husband and three children overnight without a pretty good excuse, but she worried about the door so I check it. Actually, it's unfair to say she worried about the door when it was me she worried about. Anyway, when she's cold I think she seems vulnerable and she clings to me for warmth. Not just warmth, I know, but it is easier to think so.
Our physical closeness has always been the same and makes the relative superficiality of our conversation surprising. I, on the one hand, suspect that I don't have anything deep and meaningful to contribute and I like to think that I accept things the way they are. Easy way out. She, on the other hand, bottles things up and is often, probably, simmering fit to boil over - something I'd rather she didn't do. That's why I don't ask her questions. If I were to ask her if she loves me she'd say yes, unequivocally. If I ask myself that question about her I can't begin to form an answer. It's as if I lack the necessary emotional resources to decide. I hate myself for never having told anyone that I love them, in spite of the fact that I don't consider myself an unfeeling or uncaring man. I'm too old to be a 'new man' so I won't change now. Am I a product of the British stiff upper lip syndrome - emotionally crippled and unable to express myself intimately? I'd like to think I could be part of the permissive age (even that expression dates me) but deep down inside I'm afraid - and ashamed? - of the full expression of 'love'. 'Whatever that means'. I've never married but I think that marriage is where sex belongs even though I indulge in it. I'm fifty-eight now and when I was the right age for this kind of thing you weren't supposed to 'go all the way' unless an engagement had, at least, been mentioned. And, of course, I always steered well clear of all that. She's married, though, so this time I have an excuse not to commit myself. There are limits on the relationship. I have my cake and get to devour it avidly, too. Makes me a hypocrite, really, I know. But I have never been able to resist a woman's eyes and, sometimes, for my own convenience, I've imagined those eyes were telling me to come to bed.
I'm still in bed. I like to take things out from my head and examine them in rather a detached way sometimes but I'd never let anyone else see them, not even her, although she would come closest to being allowed. Vanity is interesting to explore. Vanity has a great deal to do with this relationship. A case of flattery getting you everywhere. How could I resist the charms of a girl twenty two years my junior? I have been lured into temptation, powerless to resist. That train of thought suits my fireplace, as they say. Of course, I can't help it. She is sophisticated, educated, middle class and I am in her power, guiltless and blameless. I don't hold with 'that sort of thing'. I was brought up chapel in a pit village, for God's sake. I have been led astray. None of which is true, plainly. I am a grown man, old even, not an impressionable, callow youngster. But I can't admit to myself that I've instigated the affair, even though I know I'm the one who can't keep my hands off her, who always has to touch and taste (the forbidden fruit). I want desperately to see her yet I'm sure I hurt her by not letting it show. I'm certain I am the more selfish as I believe she cares for me in a human way - I mean in a compassionate way as a fellow traveller in life for whom she watches out. She is truly altruistic in that way. She makes everyone feel special, I'm sure; although she says she has lost the ability and desire to cherish her husband in that way.
