Alana Rose curled her legs underneath her as she sat on the center of the king size bed. She leaned by her side against the propped pillows and watched her husband Nick Samuel worked on his desk. She was wearing a Victoria Secret festive red cami adorned by a single big white candy wrap print in front and pajama pants detailed with similar prints but smaller and sipping a glass of white wine. He was in his white undershirt and blue shorts and his back was turned to her.
"Honey, I dreamt of you last night that you're having an affair with a woman," she began.
"Oh, was she pretty?" Nick asked playfully although it struck a note in his conscience and slowed down his typing on his lap top.
"I think so. Hmm kind of looks like me but I know she's not me," she said staring at the ceiling letting the wine roll lazily into her mouth.
Nick turned around and draped his arm on the back rest of the swivel chair and gazed at her.
"How do you feel in that dream?"
"Bothered. Thinking of course that you've fallen for that girl."
"What did you do about it?"
"Nothing. Well, I couldn't do anything. It's just like I'm asking you why are you doing this to me?"
"And what did I tell you?" Nick rose from the chair and sidled on the bed to lay next to her resting his head on a hand. He intended to listen and placed another hand on her thigh that was on top of the other.
"You were trying to explain something."
Nick's face became glum and she noticed it.
"It's just a dream Nick, now you look bothered than I should be," she said smiling sinking her left hand through his black tousled hair.
"You're a handsome guy Nick and I know that lately we're not making it. I know you've always wanted it but I refuse because I don't feel any sex drive. Loss of lubrication and that feeling of just sagging out and getting lost about it, I don't know what's happening to me. It's a hormonal phase maybe or I'm getting menopausal."
"For Chrissakes, you're only 36 and you look 26 to me. You don't exercise and yet you still have a knock-out figure. You're luckier than me while I go and work my ass off in the gym to maintain this muscle tone and all that," he said not really veering out of the subject but simply expressing his adoration to his wife.
"Tell me Nick, you've been active physically with your gym and sports, you're looking good, feeling good, having a nice career, having money and I suppose some girls out there would like to bed you. And you could be tempted because we're not doing it. Are you?"
"What?"
"Tempted to do it with someone else or has anyone been trying to hit on you?"
He sighed contemplatively. He knew that it was dead-end thing and he was cornered. "A few days ago it happened. I had a fling with this girl. Just a short fling. Not an affair. An accidental one, spur of the moment thing. Maybe a classic one-night stand."
"What? You did?" Her hands trembled and he took away the wine glass from her and put it on the night table.
"Yeah, I'm guilty, bothered and I'm sorry, honey. It's a good thing that you brought up that dream otherwise I wouldn't know how to confess it to you."
"Oh my god, how can that dream be real and so true?" She covered her face with her hands.
"How did it happen Nick?" She said softly as her hand eased off on her face and tried to regain her composure.
"I saw this girl I got acquainted years ago through a guy named Dustin Craig. I was getting out of the door of the Enterprise Center and she was standing right there at the parking counter. She was waiting for her car being taken in to her by the parking attendant. "Like my mink coat, Nick?" she asked me and I was startled for I knew her and yet I couldn't remember her name right away. So I was like stunned. "It's Lindsay", she said. "Oh how are you Lindsay? You're coat is fabulous?" I said.
"You working here?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. She was carrying many shopping bags so I helped her through her car when it pulled off in front. Her car was a silver Bimmer Z4 convertible, actually my dream car.
She asked me what time I was getting off. I said I'm leaving at 5:00.
"I'm staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Please I wanna invite you at the bar. I'll be there at 5:00. I need someone to talk to if you care. Can you do it?" she asked me.
"Yeah, I guess so. I'll see you there," I said.
"Is she pretty?"
"Yeah. Kind of looking like that Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek."
"Gosh, she's young."
"I don't know her age. Yeah, she looks young."
"Younger and prettier than me I suppose."
"You're still pretty and I adore you more than anyone else in this world," Nick said.
"Then why'd you do it? Have you any control of yourself?"
"I have control but it was weakened. I've gotten horny like a teen-ager. With the vitamins you've been giving me, the gym work, I always have a hard-on most of the time even if I wasn't thinking about sex."
"How could you!" Alana said angrily and shoved out his face with the palm of her hand with a force that made him fall out of the bed. Then she slumped on her tummy on the bed, her head and hands dangling off the other side. One hand shielded her face as tears ran off from her eyes. Nick got up and looked at her wife. The sight of her shaking body and nice round butt were stirring him to arousal. But he shook his head at the untimely moment of this drama unfolding before him, thinking he'd caused further damage to an otherwise already staling sexual relationship between them. He climbed on the bed and tried to calm her down.
"I'm sorry Alana. This is the first time I committed a mistake and I won't do it again. Forgive me. It's just sex. There's no love in it and I don't want to do it again with her. In fact I've been praying and wanting you back in my arms like before-- always hot, hotter than me and I miss that terribly. I'm just waiting for you, letting that hormonal pace or whatever that is to pass through and go away."
She was wordless but her sniffing was upsetting him, flogging his conscience at every heartbeat.
"Listen, why don't we forget and start anew huh?" he said tentatively landing his hand on her butt and kissing the exposed skin of her back.
"Was she good in bed?" she asked sneaking out a glance.
"Every woman who's got the desire will always try to be good. Like it's putting your best foot forward. She initiated it. When I met her at the bar, she ordered our drinks and then she decided that we go instead to her room. It's much fun with room service, she said and led me up there.
"Oh God, oh god," she cried aloud, stomping her fists on the side of the bed, hurt by the way her husband was going into details as he was that way, very brutally descriptive.
"Hon, I know how you feel about it but try to look at it as an accident. I mean that's better off than me getting run down by a cab and me getting injured or dead."