Dating : ‘Twas Only a Brief Affair

A summer fling — summer love — summer madness

My sister once said, “You were always the good one.” And laughed.

We were having one of those lavish family breakfasts — the kind you make when out of town friends and relatives come to visit.

You know the kind.

Where you run your ass off prepping and preparing: scrambled eggs, pancakes with real, Canadian maple syrup, waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, sausages, bacon, fresh fruit compote, toasted bagels and cream cheese. The kind of spread that puts your local IHOP to shame.

You can feel your arteries hardening just inhaling all those luscious, rich aromas. Except you’re usually too busy serving and flipping pancakes and freshening everyone’s coffee to actually eat more than two consecutive bites.

Everyone else chuckled at her comment. She hadn’t sounded bitchy. Just making fun of herself. She was always in the shit, and I wasn’t.

But it felt like a dig, somehow. The good one. If only they knew…

I’d met him while travelling for work. Neither one of us was a kid, but there he was. Tall, good-looking, lonely. An otherwise completely respectable married man with older teenagers and an absent partner. She was, I was told, away at school, studying for her degree.

When I commented how difficult it must be, living apart for months at a time, he told me their relationship was complicated.

So, should I have heard the warning bells?

Probably, but of this was long before ‘complicated’ had become the synonym for every partnership woe. When you use the word ‘complicated’ now to describe a relationship, it’s usually a polite way of saying circling the drain.

Then — not so much.

Contract completed, I toddled back to the city, and resumed my not-so-normal single-life. But imagine my surprise when tall, dark, and dangerous arrived on my doorstep a few weeks later. For coffee? Maybe lunch?

He obviously had more on his mind than lunch. He stood in the hallway door of my new apartment radiating excitement, recklessness and heat. Needless to say, lunch suddenly became very low on our priorities.

And the sex was beyond good. It was freakin’ amazing. Hot, sweaty, wild, loud. The coming together of two passion-starved, lonely people. Everything promised in those men’s magazines at the used-bookstore where I’d worked nights to put myself through uni.

And then some. He was good, really good. A considerate lover who gave as good as he got. Our pillow talk consisted of a lot of gasping and moaning. Before and after.

The rest of that long, hot summer passed in a blur. I’d put in my normal week. Get up, go to work, have lunch with friends, catch a movie. Sometimes two weeks would drift by.

And there he’d be, on my doorstep, eyes sparkling, sexy as all hell. The prelude to another blissful weekend. In bed, on bed, a break for food, a nap or two. The ceiling fan on high, working overtime to cool our heated bodies.

I’d listen to the gentle hum of the blades as we lay, slick with sweat, limbs entwined. Oh, those lazy, hazy, crazy days.

Towards the end of the summer, though, I noticed a change. Up ’til then, we rarely talked about his wife. The kids, yes. What they were doing. His obvious pride in their success.

But now, he started talking more about his missing partner. How she’d be finished school soon. How he and his wife were still good friends, with the children in common of course, but friendship was all she wanted, now.

So then how did I figure in this? Was I a sex toy? Well, okay, so was he, actually, but that was the arrangement. Or lack of arrangement.

I was up for the sex. Or down for it — take your pick. But, call me a coward, with my track-record, I certainly was not up for another long-term, emotional relationship. And it looked as if we were heading in that direction.

I liked him. A lot. He was a good guy — well, except for cheating on his wife — though, according to him she wouldn’t care as long as it stayed out-of-town and didn’t ever embarrass her.

Truthfully, though, I didn’t see myself as long-term mistress material. It didn’t quite fit.

It conjured up images of silk-draped lampshades and swanning about in a lacy peignoir, waiting, martini glass in hand, for my married lover to grace me with his presence. So I could relieve his considerable, pent-up sexual tension — well, mine too, I suppose — and send him back to his real-life.

I preferred one-night stands. They felt more honest, somehow.

Because at the end of an affair, somebody always gets hurt.

I realized it wouldn’t be me. Probably not his wife. But, what about those kids? Would they be the ones to wear the fall-out of the inevitable rupture? Or would we carry on until death-do-us-part, our own, real-life country song?

Carrie Underwood’s “Two Black Cadillacs” sums it up quite nicely, don’tcha think?

Two black Cadillacs driving in a slow parade
Headlights shining bright in the middle of the day
One is for his wife,
The other for the woman who loved him at night
Two black Cadillacs meeting for the first time

And the preacher said he was a good man
And his brother said he was a good friend
But the women in the two black veils didn’t bother to cry
Bye bye, bye bye

Except for the “bumping him off” part, later in the song, it’s a pretty good fit. I really couldn’t see it happening, but who knows where life will lead you?

So, my summer fling ended. It was sad. I hated to see the sparkle die out of those come-hither eyes. I hurt him, ending it, but hopefully, the damage was contained. Who knows?

But when I remember that steamy summer, I have no regrets. It happened. We did what we did. And had a f**king wonderful time doing it.

Here’s to summer love… It’s not all about hot sand and beach bodies. Sometimes, the rest of us get to play, too.

So much for being the good one.