2006, Palo Alto, California

By The Former Scarlett J.

I fired my shrink. My life coach dumped me. I was tired of staring at your picture on your Web site next to your thin, anxious wife. So I went back to yoga to clear my head.

I had an inkling that I would be the fattest woman in the room, at size 14. I was not looking forward to the full-length mirror. I had a vague feeling that it might be her yoga studio. I had a tiny, glimmering flash of hope that you would have run there with her, that maybe you’d be lifting while she was flowing.

And damn it if I wasn’t right.

All those nights of driving by your house, of haunting the parking garage where I used to blow you, and there you were. I was running late, she had just gone in, and there I was with my worn mat tucked under my arm, my Prana togs not compensating for my tummy bulge, when I saw you kiss her good-bye.

Oh, in my fantasies, you reach out for me from behind, stop me with my hand on the door. In my dreams, it’s you who devours me, who shows up on my doorstep. But we take what we can get.

Two steps forward, and there was no going back. You turned to run, and I took another step. Her back was turned to us. I was now beyond
reproach, in the zone, out of her grasp, and I had you for an hour and a half.

“Hey. John.”

You turned, and I saw this flash across your face of apprehension, and then of relief, and then of pure pleasure. Your eyes turned warm again, as if none of it had ever happened. You grinned.

“Hey. Hey! How … are you?”

“I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Is there somewhere we can go?”

Your jaw sets. The twinkle in the eyes stays. The smile. Only your words change. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Neither was leaving me crying in the street.”

“I’m not responsible for….” You turn away. You’re going to walk away from me, after all this time.

I match your speed. “I feel like ice cream, don’t you?”

We’re halfway down the block. You push into me, jostling me with your elbow the way a dog knocks into another one. You smile. It’s on. It’s broad daylight, and once again, you’re getting away with it.

Because it’s been so long, it’s like it never happened.

Your wife is thinner than me. In pictures, the muscular cords of her neck stand out like a man’s. Her bland, slightly anxious expression haunts me; her little gray eyes stare out from the Meet the Team page on the Web site of the business where you are the CEO and CFO. Your neck and hers shoot up out of identical corporate T-shirts, a cheerful blue. Hers like a tree, rooting out of her torso. Yours on the line.

Your wife belongs to that elite group of professional women with good jobs. She wears expensive, comfortable shoes that promote an active lifestyle. Her body is hard in all the right places from yoga, Pilates, probably, and the Alexander Technique, neck floating free over the expanding back. She seems to tan well. That helps in Hawaii, where you go every year with her. She probably still owns, and wears, bikinis.

The one and only time I ever wore a bikini, I was 16 years old and hadn’t eaten for weeks. That was the end of that. Now my bathing suits are always black. Because I belong to the other group, the one with the breasts and the undisciplined tummy that never sits flat, no matter how many crunches I do. The one with the stretch marks from the one baby I managed to have before my marriage exploded. Many current fashion trends are unkind to my body and thus are off-limits. I can be a size 10 … if I starve. This year, I don’t shop at Lane Bryant, but that’s this year.

I’m 34. Sharon Stone was 34 when she made Basic Instinct. Although I don’t have Hollywood’s body, I, too, am a siren, the object of desire. From men on the street and online. From my male co-workers. From you.

When we were together, your eyes followed me around rooms. Your hands, mouth and the rest of you betrayed yourself with me. In an alley four blocks from your house. In a parking garage overlooking your neighborhood. In the middle of the day in an empty auditorium. My curves, my flesh, your playground.

You claim that you love her, that you love her and not me, that she is everything to you. She is everything a woman should be: smart, well-bred, wealthy, accomplished. She has a supportive family and a loyal circle of friends. She saved you from yourself. She made you who you are today. She is beautiful, you claim, and sexy, and loves and trusts you implicitly.

You say all this, and then my hand goes to your lap, and then you stop talking.

There are things you want to do that your wife will not consider. You do them with me, so much bigger than your wife and even than you in some places, though I fit in your arms very well. So much less photogenic than your wife, so much harder to shop for, so much more difficult to place. So much less socially acceptable. Like the things we do when we’re alone. When you let it happen.

When your hands are on my body, I don’t think about your wife or the fact that she’s so much thinner than me. I can’t, because the feeling of your hands on me, of your mouth on me, of your skin and muscles and hardness, is so amazing that I lose myself. I only really think about that when you and I are in a social situation together, like an acting class or a party, trying to pretend we’re not having an affair.

I notice you, and whether or not you are watching me or pretending, you don’t care. If your eyes move to me, I suck in my tummy, even though when we’re alone, it’s just there with us. But I suck it in because you and I do not look like we belong together.

You don’t really look like you belong with her either. Have you noticed that lately? I know where she belongs and where I belong, but I don’t really know what to do about you. Where do you belong?

Your wife knows what to do with you. She must. Because I don’t. Except one thing. Which I seem to do quite well.

It is strange, being the other woman to your wife. If you showed a total stranger pictures of the two of us and asked him who the mistress was, he would probably say your wife. Ah, yes, of course. Why wouldn’t he go for … that … if he could get it? It’s explainable. That other woman, the one with the breasts and hips and tummy, must be his wife. His wife has let herself go.

But if she would, I wouldn’t be there. Or would I?

There is a strange victory in adultery. I wouldn’t put up with you if I could talk myself out of it. But the way you covet me is addictive. My breasts, my hips, my flesh. My arms, my legs, my ass. The noises I make from my mouth. As you kiss my neck. My neck.

On the line like yours.

Scarlett J. survived this and learned her lesson. Names and some details have been changed to protect those involved.