Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [81]
Only a few months earlier I would have pursed my lips that such an irresponsible feature would ever be published: fancy encouraging people to commit adultery. Now my perspective had changed somewhat.
I dashed to the counter and presented the cash to the shop assistant. ‘May I have it in a paper bag?’ I asked politely and she scowled. At first I thought she’d somehow guessed my evil intent but was relieved to realise it was my request for the paper bag that was the problem. Everyone’s an environmentalist these days.
Once back in my office I pored over the article eagerly. I don’t know what startling insights I was expecting from an article published in a magazine whose raison d’être was the Holy Trinity of beauty, fashion and romance, but I wasn’t behaving particularly rationally by this time.
The first and number one rule, opined the author, was:
Don’t have an office affair. It will inevitably end in disaster.
Oops - blown that one. Gee the author didn’t beat around the bush did she? ‘Inevitably end in disaster’ - but surely nothing in life is one hundred percent certain? I was comforted by a quote from Mark Twain: ‘All generalisations are false, including this one’. I decided that Alex and I would somehow prove to be one of the rare exceptions to this rule, although how it was all going to end peaceably seemed a bit hard to think about at this stage.
The other rules were:
• Don’t discuss your home life with your lover.
• Never ‘foul your own nest’ (bring your lover home to bed).
• Don’t tell anyone about the affair.
• Don’t communicate by home computer or mobile phone.
• Never have unprotected sex.
It was a shame about the last one - shutting the gate after the horse has bolted as it were - but the others were still implementable.
Later that afternoon, I marched into Alex’s office, closed the door and laid down the ground rules for our affair.
‘You are not allowed to phone or text me on my mobile or send me any personal emails. I am never inviting you to my home. You are not to tell any of your friends. We are not going to have sex in the toilets at work or anything stupid like that and if you’re having fantasies about me giving you a blow job at your desk one evening after office hours think again - it’s not going to happen. I value my job too much to risk getting caught.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘although I’m a bit sad about the last one. And of course Paul knows already but I think he can be trusted.’
So I had set the ground rules in place, but by this stage had fallen so completely under Alex’s spell that I no longer paused to reflect whether I should be doing any of this in the first place.
15
Madness and possession
I’m guessing this chapter is the whole point of the exercise: my confessional. Although, even as I write the title I am conscious that I may be being less than honest. ‘Disingenuous’ is the word my mother would use. Was I mad during this period, or simply bad?
Sexual desire - lust is another word. My immediate thought was to describe it as a genie that’s been let out of its bottle, a very recalcitrant genie with its own agenda, mind you. Upon reflection, I think the metaphor is not potent enough. I’ve started thinking more along the lines of a serpent that entwines you in its vice-like grip, controlling your every action and stifling your carefully cultivated sense of right and wrong as easily as a python stifles the breath out of an unsuspecting small mammal that has stumbled across its path. Poor old snakes get a bad rap that is not always deserved, but if the imagery was good enough for the Bible and Harry Potter (although it’s probably blasphemous to mention the two in same sentence), then on this occasion it’s good enough for me.
Yes, unless you’re fully