A Spy in the House of Friends

Alexandra had known Jason almost as long as she had known her husband. She was running down the steps from their second floor apartment and Jason was on his way up. She stopped mid-step, "Are you looking for John?" he smiled his sweet, shy, yet friendly smile at her and answered that, Yes, he was looking for her boyfriend (and husband-to-be though she didn't know it at the time) and his best friend of the last twenty years. She did an about-face and took him back to the apartment. "We'll wait for him."

She flopped down on the couch and folded her legs under her long flowing dress after slipping off her sandals and Jason took the armchair opposite. They slipped into an easy banter. Alexandra giggled while twirling strands of her brown hair around her finger as he told her stories he and John had growing up together and Jason ran his hand through his wavy blond hair. The thought never occurred to her then that something would ever happen between them. Alexandra was too much in love with John whom she had met about two months previously. But it was this first meeting that had sparked his interest as she was to learn much later.

This "much later" turned out to be about seven years later. Over these seven years they lived their separate lives which sometimes touched, sometimes merged and sometimes drifted apart. In the beginning, she thought Jason didn't much like her and in fact he tried not to. Jason stood up for his buddy's previous girlfriend and advised his friend against getting involved with this new woman. Then the old girlfriend faded out of the picture and the tension was released. Alexandra and John got married about a year later. Jason and his wife and little boy lived in another town and Alexandra and her husband rarely saw them except when Jason and his family made a trip to the big city or she and her husband went to visit them on long weekends.

The relationships among these four people were of varied intensities.

Alexandra and John: the couple everyone envied, both good-looking, both intelligent and cultured, both artistic. In the beginning madly in love, then marriage, a child “ love, but no madness “ harmony flecked with spats and bitterness, infrequent sex.

Jason and his wife: together for so long that one could hardly think of them as anything else but a couple. Both highly intellectual, but she nagged and he smiled. She was meticulously neat and he was habitually late.

Jason and John: lifelong friends who had shared everything, from girlfriends to boy scout tents, from lunchboxes to deep secrets. They had had their tiffs over the years, but they had always reconciled their differences.

Alexandra and Jason’s wife: thrown together by double dates at local restaurants and camping holidays. In the beginning a bit wary of each other, sticking mainly to small talk, but slowly, gradually over the years growing closer, sharing a few confidences.

But Alexandra and Jason had a relationship that grew and flowered over the years. He was attracted to her from the beginning, but it took her a while longer to feel the pull. At first she found herself smiling when he made his silly little jokes. She felt her eyes well with tears when she heard him sing and play the guitar along with John, always a bit hesitant, a little timid and trifle softer than her husband, whose voice and strumming always rang out loud and clear, so sure of himself.

Alexandra was always amazed at how child-like Jason was because she, too, was like a child and rarely met any other adult who possessed this quality. Children flocked to them and at their children's parties, they would both be the ones organizing games of pin-the-tail, glancing knowingly at each other over the swarm of toddlers’ heads, while the rest of the parents sipped their whiskeys making small talk with other bored parents.

Whenever Alexandra and John had one of their tiffs, Jason always comforted her, sticking up for his friend, but without making her feel threatened. At these times he used words and expressions that were so abstract that she often didn't know what he was going on about, but he soothed her anyway with his incomprehensibility and the light pressure of both his hands holding one of hers. She felt a little twinge in her stomach whenever they greeted each other and he gave her a tight squeeze and whispered in her ear, "How are you, my friend?" Alexandra knew they were friends in the real sense of the word. Alexandra could go to him and Jason could go to her.

But she had started to feel something more than friendship. Or was it more than friendship? In the sense that Alexandra had always felt that true friendship always had a dose of the erotic, whether covert or overt. Even with her close female friends, there was something there. The same with her male friends, there was always some kind of physical attraction, whether both parties admitted it or not. Even with her male homosexual friends there was some underlying eroticism.

And so it was with him. When their families were on summer holiday together and they were swimming at the beach, she could feel this irresistible urge to reach over and run her hand through the hair on his chest. When they sat next to each other in a restaurant, urbanely nibbling on their pasta al pesto, she couldn't help but slightly graze her knee against his. And when they danced together, she knew that they danced a bit too close than was respectable or socially acceptable, but she loved the way her head fit in the crook of his neck, the way her hand slipped so easily into his, the way her breasts rest against his chest, the way their hip bones grazed against each other, the way their legs locked while he expertly lead her through the dance with the slightest of pressure on the small of her back.

It was almost like a freak storm, the way they decided to go out for a drink that rainy night when they met by chance at the cinema. How was it that over the period of seven years they had never gone out for a drink, just the two of them, despite the fact that they were such good friends? Well, that was easy to answer: their friendship was subject to John and Jason’s arrangements. Alexandra and Jason met whenever the men arranged for all of them to meet, and that was that. But then again, how do you arrange something like that? "Bye, I'm going out with my best friend's wife tonight. You know we really like each other." Or: "Bye-bye hubby, you stay home with the baby tonight, I'm going out with your lifelong buddy and pal, we have so much to discuss."

So that night it was inevitable. The only thing stopping Alexandra so far was that she wasn't sure exactly how much affection he felt.

But nothing had prepared Alexandra for the passion they were to share. And it came out by accident - well, almost by accident. After meeting by chance in the cinema, they decided to go to a nearby bar that Alexandra had gone to a couple of times with her girlfriends. It was a small, crowded place with jazzy danceable music.

They were almost the first ones there as it was an after-hours place, but they were soon so deeply engrossed in their conversation that they barely noticed the place fill up around them. It was as if they were the center of the world and nothing else happening around them really mattered. They sipped their vodka sodas and occasionally emerged from their little world to take notice of a particularly up-beat track. The more they drank, the more they began to sway to the music.

At some point she slid off her stool and started moving to the rhythm in the little niche she had made for herself in the jam-packed and smoke-filled by now watering hole. Jason smiled at her as if he truly enjoyed just watching her watching the way her blue knee-length dress flared out when she managed a quick turn, exposing more of her toned thighs, seeing how her eyes sparkled as she whipped her head round to focus on his eyes, reveling in her unstoppable smile as she danced just for him, feeling the music ripple her body. The pulsating crowd around them pushed them up against one another and they took a small turn together. They had danced together before, but this expectant swaying together and the hot, sweaty atmosphere of eroticism in the bar was so full of anticipation that they knew something had to give.

Then, as they were mashed together in the crowd, shifting their weight in sync from one foot to the other in an excuse to be touching, he leaned forward to give her a kiss on the cheek. Alexandra impulsively turned her head so that the kiss landed right smack full-center on her lips. Jason tried to pull away, but she put her lips against his again and then again. Then, almost as if they were admitting that this was something they had wanted to do for ages and ages, they clutched at each other so tightly it seemed they would never let go of each other.

Why did she turn her face? Why did he lean forward to kiss her at that moment? Was it that they had had too much to drink? Was it the general feeling of camaraderie in the dancing-bar? Or was it that they had wanted each other for so long that they just couldn't hold back any more?

Jason paid for their five rounds of drinks and they stepped out of the bar. But they just couldn't contain themselves. They wrapped their arms around each other and sank into a long, deep kiss and lost themselves. Now there was no holding back, no timidity, no "should I?", "what am I doing?" Their kisses were soft and moist enough to allow their lips to glide over one another's, their tongues gently explored each other's mouths, but they weren't too probing or too hard. Then their kisses grew harder and more urgent as they gripped frantically at each other. At some point they realised the rain was pouring down on them and they were soaking wet.

They ducked into his car and continued to melt into each other. She climbed onto his lap and pulled up his shirt. She had to feel his bare chest against hers. As soon as they touched, she felt as if she had suddenly come home after a long and tiring journey. He looked in her eyes and asked her if she wanted to go and make love. Yes, yes, yes. Now there was no question of morals, of faithfulness, of lawfulness or unlawfulness, of friendship or betrayal. Now there was only need, urgency, love, desire, tumescence and moistness. They sped to his office. On the way, Alexandra sat back and watched his profile. It was as if she was seeing him for the first time. Now she knew the attraction was mutual.

And so they gave themselves to each other on the black leather couch of his office under the dark gaze of shut-down computer monitors, sleeping fax machines and telephones that wouldn't start to ring for another four hours. They stripped off their clothes and wrapped their arms around each other. They kissed as if they never wanted their lips ever to part again. They tried to touch each other with every available inch of body, their legs intertwined, their chests pressing together, their hands running over any other part skin that wasn't in full contact. And their pelvises ground against one another. When he entered her, it was as if hot honey was being poured into her. It was so sweet and warm and tingling, like a shot of comfortable electricity. They pushed into each other as if he could never be deep enough. He wanted more, more and still more. They were "one" or as close as they could be. They both came with a frantic sense of urgency and then fell asleep in each others' arms.

Alexandra woke some time later, it could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour; she had lost all track of time. It was cold. She knew she had to go home, but she was afraid to look at her watch. He awoke just as these thoughts were going through her head and knew what she was thinking. But they couldn't resist making love one more time, now more slowly, exploring each other a bit more, feeling the love flowing between them, as if there were an invisible stream running from his heart to hers and from hers back again.

When Alexandra got back home at 6:30 in the morning, her husband was waiting for her at the door. "Where the hell have you been? I was ready to call the police!" She immediately felt that she was sixteen years old again and her father was telling her off after a night on the town. But this wasn't her father now, this was her husband, the man she lived with, loved, the man who was her equal, with whom she shared everything. Alexandra explained she was with his friend, his best friend and that they had got to talking and they lost track of the time. He was reassured. "Well, I'll tell him off too next time I see him. Keeping my wife out so late!" he joked.

Over the next few days, Alexandra didn't know what to make of the situation. Did she feel guilty? Any normal, civilized, moral person would. She had cheated on her husband and with his very best friend. But somehow she didn't. Was she totally insensitive? Or was she so caught up with passion that she was immune to social norms? She felt guilty that she didn't feel guilty. She wasn't even that sure that the whole thing had happened. They hadn't communicated, they hadn't seen each other. Of course it had happened! Maybe she just didn't want to accept it.

But she had to. She kept running over the scenes in her mind, savoring them, loving them. Or they would pop into her consciousness at the most inopportune times, while they were having a family dinner, or while she was putting her daughter to bed.

Alexandra had to see him. She had to know whether this had all been a figment of her imagination or if it had really happened the way she thought it had. Was this a one-off thing -- never to happen again, something they would forget, act as if it had never happened? Or would they make love again? Would they give themselves the chance to explore each other more extensively, more deeply, more, more...?

She was afraid to call him at home and she was afraid to ask her husband for his office number. She couldn’t remember exactly where his office was. She remembered the bend of the street and the little stone wall, but she couldn't remember the name of the street. But she just had to see him. So she walked up and down the wide avenue from where she knew the street turned off and at each turning walked up a little way to see if she could find the little stone wall and the five little steps to the wide wooden door that led to the black leather couch. After about an hour of walking up and down the avenue, when she was just about to give up hope, she found it. She pleaded that Jason would be there. She rang the doorbell and some stranger opened the door. She asked if Jason was there and Alexandra was shown inside.

There he was! She knew it was silly, but her knees turned to water when he smiled at her, that same sweet, shy, boyish smile. She wanted to just run into his arms and tell him how much she had longed for him, thought about him, wondered about him. But this was his place of work and she had to contain herself. She nervously lit a cigarette until he finished talking to some client. After he was finished, he cocked his head in her direction and said, "I've been wondering how you were."

"So, have I," she answered. "I don't want to keep you long, I know you're busy. I just want to talk to you a few minutes alone."

He took her into another empty office and sat down in chair opposite her. They stared at each other for the longest time under the bluish light of the fluorescent tubes. She felt that she was looking at him, really looking at him, for the first time since she had first met him. They had always avoided each other's eyes as if they would say too much. Now they had said it and so she could see the flecks of gold in his sea-green irises. She could see how his ash-blond hair suddenly blended in with his eyes so perfectly that there was a kind of instant harmony. She could see the masculine angle of his chin, but at the same time the aura of feminine sensitivity about him. They sat staring at each other like that for a few moments and suddenly they wrapped their arms around each other and squeezed tight.

Then came words. "It doesn't have to happen again if you don't want it to," he blurted out. "I know this is an incredibly dangerous and difficult situation, but I can't say I don't want it to happen again...â€