The first time I slept with him it had felt almost like love. He was an attractive man; his body tall and lean, the strands of grey in his hair the only reminder that he was almost twice my age. Just before he touched my lips with his index finger with the agility of a well-practiced lover, I could feel my body physically aroused by the anticipation of his touch. There was that familiar warmth in my loins, and I knew that my body was receptive. He had been careful not to rush. It was our fourth “date” and until then it had mostly been the two of us spending the afternoon in a hotel room, talking over coffee or enjoying a meal. By then I had lulled myself into believing that I was falling in love with him. That he was not simply seeing me as an object of lust.
So, when he finally kissed me that day, I found myself responding to him, my hands slowly moving to the nape of his neck, my body rising a little to meet his. When he touched my body, tracing his fingers deftly to my breasts, my nipples were already hard. By then I knew that the love-making would be good. That it would not horrify my soul as much as I had anticipated. And when he stood up from the bed he looked at me and smiled. Not the smile of a conqueror as I had expected but that of a lover. That smile puzzled me as I watched him dress; carefully putting on the shirt he had been wearing so as not to crease it more, and the pants that he had placed neatly on the armchair close to the window that faced Paseo de la Reforma. By then I had dressed too, and was standing next to the window; the view of the boulevard down below in the corner of my eye. Once he was ready, he walked up to me and kissed me on the mouth; taking time to enjoy the kiss. By then, I had already begun to feel that deep sense of guilt that would accompany each time we made love since that day. I stayed in the room another hour or so; taking a shower, drying my hair and dressing in the same clothes again. Something stopped me from staying naked while he dressed even though it would have spared me the trouble of getting dressed twice. I guess, I didn’t want to allow him the luxury of seeing me naked other than while we were making-love.
It’s been almost two years since the first afternoon that I had allowed him to touch my body. By now, I had expected our love-making to have fizzled out and for him to have lost interest in meeting me.
“You are the only other woman I sleep with other than my wife.” He told me once. The mention of his wife making me cringe a little. It was a breaking of rules; to talk about our personal lives, other people we were seeing. I smiled and continued to watch him dress from my vantage point at the large window. But the thought haunted me for weeks after that day. Why had he told me that information? I knew he had a wife, possibly children but I preferred not to care. It would do me no good to know about his other life. The one that he would be proud to display openly. The next time I met him, I punched him in the shoulder as I straddled him. Wincing in pain, he looked at me like a child who had been spanked for no apparent reason.
“What was that about?” He asked me, his voice hoarse.
“That was for being a jerk.” I said cryptically as I slowly started to move my hips rhythmically. By then he was already holding me by my hips. A trace of puzzlement left on his face.
There had been only a few exceptions to our meetings. After we met, the entire week would pass without even a word from him unless there was a reason for him to write to me. And I in turn, could forget that he existed. In in a city this big it was not difficult to become self-involved. I had my work, the occasional meet-up with friends in the evening, and the weekend visit to see my parents. The week went by like this until the next Thursday when I would check my phone messages to see if there was a change in plans.
But on Thursdays, by mid-morning something within me would begin to build up. It was palpable. I would get impatient with the passage of time until midday, the usual traffic jams that barely registered in my mind during the rest of the week would annoy me, and the minute hands on my watch seemed to be in an eternal battle against me. I never bothered to name this feeling I would have each Thursday morning. I was not going to allow myself that kind of sentimentality.
After I parked my car in one of the shopping malls close to the hotel, I would walk from there, conscious of the looks that I received from other pedestrians. Growing up I never considered myself a beauty; my body and my face never seemed to conform to what was considered beautiful among boys I knew back then. But the unwanted attention of men had always been something that I had had to contend with. I learned to not care.
The short walk from the shopping mall to the hotel, was all mine. I guarded it fiercely even from thoughts of him. The Paseo de la Reforma, with its constantly changing facades always fascinated me. It stood out among the other main arteries of the city; the wide boulevard always felt transplanted from elsewhere. It’s ability to transform itself was comforting. There was no judgement of my own transformation. From single woman to someone’s mistress. And when I finally get to the hotel room, swipe the card and wait for the “click” as the lock opens I know that my transformation is complete. For the next three hours, I’m his. And I never know if he is completely mine.
Six months ago, there was a break in our routine. It had all begun with our paths crossing by accident. A simple enough incursion of the one into the other’s life. It didn’t even last a full five minutes. But it changed something between us. We didn’t meet each other for the next two weeks and I was convinced that it was over between us. I continued with my everyday routine but somewhere in the back of my mind I could sense a rupture. I decided to ignore that nagging feeling. It was not like I was missing him.
But on the third Thursday morning a message from him woke me up.
“I want to see you. Let’s meet at the usual time. Nothing’s changed.”
I stared at my phone in the hazy blue of the morning seeping through the curtains. It was cold and I could feel a lump forming in my throat. I wasn’t sure how to respond. This could be the moment that I would finally break from our Thursday routine. Freedom for me from the guilt that I would feel each time. After a few minutes, I replied with a brief “okay”.
When I walked into the hotel room that afternoon, for a moment I thought he looked relieved. Had he thought that I would not keep my promise?
It was strange to have him caress my face gently, gazing into my eyes like he was finally able to see directly into my soul. It made me uncomfortable. He was showing something more than desire towards me.
“Is everything okay?” I asked desperate to change the mood in the room.
“Yes.” He said flatly, taking his hand from my face.
“That’s good.”
“Imogen….” He said, his body turned away from me. I could not see the expression on his face but his voice sounded different. It was thick and devoid of the clear confidence that I was familiar with. Gooseflesh appeared on my arms, making the ends of my nerves sting with the sensation. And immediately, I remembered the first time I had met him in that hotel room. I had been nervous; struggling with my own conscience that day. He had smiled and pronounced my name the way only my father did. A clear “j” instead of the “h” that everyone used when saying my name. I had long ago given up correcting the pronunciation to anyone new. A running joke between my father and I; It was he who had named me after a young woman he had met as a student in London. A class mate he had been too shy to profess his love to with his English that stubbornly clung to the traces of his native Spanish. For two years, he had been in love with the young woman only to return to Mexico City to meet my mother who he had married promptly.
I rubbed my arms instinctively to get rid of the gooseflesh, dispelling the memory from my thoughts.
“What is it?” I asked, dropping my bag to the floor next to me slowly.
“I’m sorry.” His head was lowered and I could see the profile of his face. In the diffused grey light of the autumn afternoon, I thought he looked his age. The subtle crow’s feet spreading like a fan from the corner of his eye, the greys more prominent on his neatly combed hair.
“I don’t understand.”
He turned to me, his expression; distraught.
“I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. My wife and son were next to me and all I could do was freeze. I know I could have at least smiled with you.”
I could feel my jaw tense. Yes, remembered how I had felt when he had ignored me. It had hurt my feelings. The hot tears that had trickled uncontrollably from my eyes had shamed me. And even with my best efforts, I hadn’t been able to control them. Once I was home I had rationalized everything that had happened. The look of cold avoidance in his gaze was part of the deal. But my own weakness at the sight of him with his family had taken me by surprise. The knowledge that our relationship was limited to the confines of a hotel room made me feel sick to my stomach. I was nothing more than a mistress.
“I understand.” I said, my voice sounding like that of an automaton.
“I didn’t know if I could meet you after that day. That’s why I cancelled our meeting.”
“Then why meet me today?” I said, feeling stung by his words.
He walked closer to me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It was strange to see him this way. His emotions visible on his face, his hands shaking a little as he caressed my hair.
“Because I realized that I couldn’t be without seeing you. That despite what I had told myself over and over again each time we met….” He paused and held me by the shoulders.
“What did you tell yourself?” I could feel anger rising within me. It was strange that I had felt offended by what he had just said. This revelation of his own inner thoughts felt like a burden.
“That…. that you were….. a distraction. A temporary distraction that would go away. That my heart and my loyalty belonged only to my wife.”
I pushed his arms away and walked to the other end of the room. The need to distance myself from him and this revelation; urgent. He stood in the middle of the room, his arms still afloat in the air.
“So, what’s changed since I saw you at the restaurant with your family, huh?” I asked, feeling my own voice break from the weight of my emotions.
For a few seconds, he looked at me in a daze, seemingly confused by my question.
“I……. I couldn’t believe how I felt when I saw you that day.”
“You mean you wanted to fuck me then and there!” I said feeling breathless as I controlled my anger.
“No……I didn’t want to fuck you.” He looked offended.
“Then?” I stood in my corner of the room. The physical distance between us the only thing stopping me from slapping him.
“I…… I realized that I was in love with you.” He sighed as if a burden had just been released.
His words took me by surprise and I sat on the floor, my legs giving in. Instinctively, I covered my face with my hands. Tears began to fall in between my fingers and down my face. Why had he done this?
He sat on the floor next to me and embraced me. I could feel his arms around my body, and the steady rhythm of his breathing as he held me.
“I’m sorry.” He said again.
“Fuck you!” I said from behind my hands, a mix of anger and sadness rising like a wave in my mind.
“I deserve that.”
“You will never leave your wife or your family.”
“I …. I don’t know.”
“Fuck you!” I said again. My heart pounding like a rabid animal in a cage. I wanted to beat him, to feel my fists hitting the flesh of his body.
“I’ve fallen in love with you. I know I’m not supposed to even say that but….” he began.
That was when I punched him right in the face. The force of it making him fall flat on the carpet of the hotel room.
“What are we going to do?” he said after a few minutes, as he slowly raised his torso from the floor. A bright red mark appearing on his left cheek.
It’s spring and the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom. As I walk to the hotel I step on delicate purple petals littering the sidewalk. Their beauty fleeting, just enough to make you hopeful. Only to then fall to the ground with the next rain, to be trampled and ground to nothingness.
“This is my favorite season.” He tells me, looking out the window at the purple blooms down below. Turning towards me he smiles. I could see that he is happy to see me.
“For you.” I say and hand him a flower that I had picked up on the way.
He chuckles and kisses me on the mouth. As I walk closer to him, I smell his aftershave; subtle and intoxicating at the same time. He embraces me tenderly; I feel the pressure of his arms around me. I feel safe. But I also feel trapped.
Since the day I punched him, our routine had changed. We now meet twice a week. Thursdays at midday and on Tuesdays in the evening.
“I feel at peace with you.” He says to me. I nod my head silently.
When we make love afterwards I feel his body respond to me differently than before. His pleasure more intense, the release more enjoyable. Once we are done he spends more time with me before he starts to dress. Languid, he takes time to embrace my naked body. And I in turn have begun to let him see me naked as I sit in the arm chair while he dresses. He smiles as he watches me take him in with my eyes.
“Turned on enough?” He asks.
“Hmmmmmm….” I say softly.
When he is ready to leave, he kisses me on the forehead. He picks up the flower from the table next to the armchair and puts it inside his jacket pocket.
I smile because my heart fills with tenderness for him. As I watch him close the door, I contend with that now familiar feeling; of feeling safe and of feeling trapped.
Maybe there’s a way out from this routine for me. From the conflict of my emotions. The tug of familiarity, the comfort of his physical presence and the promise of a future. Equally strong; the burden of my conscience, the fear of judgement and the knowledge that I live in a borrowed dream.
As I pick up my clothes from the floor near the arm chair, I cannot help the sadness that fills my heart. The absence of him, the coldness of the silence in the room and the now slow movements of the minute hand on my watch making me feel hopeless.
I take a deep breath. Maybe next Tuesday I will tell him it’s all over. There’s no more us. That I cannot continue to live in a borrowed dream.
When I come out of the shower, I shiver from the sudden blast of cold air in the room. I grab a dry towel from the rack in the bathroom and pick up my phone. There’s a message from him. It’s a photo. The wide boulevard framing him, the burst of purple in the top half of the picture. A smile on his face. For a moment, I wonder about the significance of the image. That’s when I see the purple blur peeking from behind his jacket pocket. I thought he had forgotten the flower. It makes me smile. This gesture of his. Its tenderness catches me unawares.
I type a message to him. “I always feel hopeful when the Jacaranda blooms.”
He replies immediately. “I love you.”
And that feeling, like a nagging itch bothers me again. Safe and trapped. I shake my head to dissipate the uneasiness that I feel. The canopy of Jacaranda covers my view of the street below as I look down from the window. I slowly dress myself and arrange my hair before I open the door of the room. It’s bitter-sweet and I know I’m living on the precipice of something dangerous. As the lock shuts behind me with a click and I stand in the carpeted hallway; the line of closed doors makes me feel suddenly alone. Then the realization that I will meet him again next Tuesday comes naturally to my mind. Same as usual.