I am a married 38 year old man, a professor of medicine. I am happy, successful, my life is full of joy and meaning. I don't work too hard. I am a good father, and spend lots of time with my children. And I am a good husband, I spend lots of time with my wife, we are good friends. She is beautiful, and our sex life is okay. We are not "soul mates" though, and occasionally I have yearned to meet someone--even just a friend--with whom to feel that thrill of passion, as though the two of us were destined to meet all our lives.
While I consider myself cultured, and a fan of classical music, I rarely make it to concerts, except one evening last year, when it all started.
I went alone. Best seat in the house. And as I got settled into my seat, listening to the orchestra tune up, there she was...a goddess, maybe 24 years old, tall, blonde, blue eyes, slender, with an elegant gown and jewellery. Her movements were graceful, poised, feminine, and sensual, with a light, friendly, kind demeanour. She was there with a female friend. And she seemed to recognize me, smiled, and approached me in my seat! That instant of first eye contact, to my amazement, showed mutual interest and excitement. She said her name was Christine, and she had been in one of my lectures a few weeks previously, and enjoyed it very much (I give single lectures every few months to a new group, and my contact with each group ends after each single lecture.
I'm a bit of a maverick in my lecture style, I make them improvised, light-hearted, somewhat irreverent, and hopefully funny) There was a sparkle in her eyes as she talked, and I was completely swept away with delight and surprise. I've always been a shy person, never thought of myself as someone a beautiful young woman would approach. So it was already a little fantasy come true. A beautiful moment of life. I'm often struck that beautiful moments happen spontaneously and randomly in a person's lifetime--maybe once every few years--but usually I've been either too shy or too stunned to act on them. This moment, though, started my imagination churning, and I knew I had to DO something.
The concert was beautiful. I loved the fact that Christine shared the same taste in music too (I find it so hard to find someone to share this part of myself with).
We met later in the lobby. I wished her well, but also left her with one of my cards and invited her to drop by if she ever had study or career questions, or to arrange an elective. Our handshake secretly gave me shivers.
I secretly yearned for her to contact me, and resisted the urge to find out her contact info, feeling it might be intrusive. Soon I had lost hope that this would happen, but embraced my memory of that evening as a precious moment to be savoured.
So when she e-mailed me a question it was a pleasant surprise. At first we had a pleasant, witty exchange around medical questions for her exams (I emphasize that I have nothing to do with her exams, at this point I was just an unrelated member of the faculty). Later I worked up the courage to invite her for lunch.
Every moment of contact we both knew that something special was going on. There was a special chemistry. We knew that we would be lovers.
She knew about my family. And I was struggling with some guilt about pursuing things. But we both knew that we would find a way. It was reckless and forbidden and dangerous. And beautiful.
She understood me so perfectly. We met one morning at her apartment. I had taken the day off work. I brought her a pair of simple but beautiful gold earrings, and she blushed as she put them on. We were silent together, my eyes lingered in hers, and I reached toward her to embrace her.
