To a dear friend and our shared, secret love
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It was a sweet, almost chaste kiss. Our lips meeting tenderly. Softly. It was also a prolonged, hot kiss. If that makes any sense.
A long overdue expression of the deep love we felt for each other. Finally expressed.
That paradoxical kiss, chaste yet hot, soft yet long, is the perfect metaphor for our love. Don't get me wrong. It was not sexual, but not exactly asexual either. It was not even romantic love, for so many reasons. But it was still love.
We had met... well how we met doesn't really matter. It was nearly three years ago. At first a lot of flirting, then sexy, suggestive conversations.
Then she pulled back. I suspected she decided she was not interested in me sexually, but for some reason we kept talking.
We became friends. Great friends. Friends who can talk about anything, who share everything. Friends who cannot wait for the next email or text, who smile when one arrives. Through ups and downs, joys and disappointments, we were friends.
And we loved each other. Sure, there were reasons never to have reached that point. I was old enough to be her father. We were married to other people.
However, we were also a lot alike, subject to the same weaknesses. Dealing with the same sources of unhappiness. And getting into trouble as a result.
But not with each other. We were each other's greatest cheerleader. We wanted all that was good and happy for the other. We cried when the other cried and laughed together.
Other than a fleeting encounter early in our friendship, we had not spent any time together until six months had passed. Then another lunch together two months later.
"Let's get together for lunch each month," I said.
She loved the idea.
