I never imagined that after twenty-two years of happy marriage, having two children, a son who graduated from high school last spring and is going to the University of Arizona on a baseball scholarship, and a daughter, now sixteen, who seems to be Miss "everything" at school, that there could have been anything more fulfilling in my life. Arthur, my husband owns his own software company, is wildly successful and has treated me like his princess throughout our marriage.
We have everything we want, live in a status community and are considered pillars of the Congregational Church to which we have belonged for fifteen years. For the last five years I have been part of a bible study group...a group of women who have become "best friends," four of whom meet regularly to play bridge. But, I have to confess to you who read this, something has happened in my life that you might consider contrary to your concept of a model wife and mother and a moral, Christian woman. But perhaps, if I can only make you understand my feelings, the joy this new dimension will make sense to you...even if you think this new aspect of my life doesn't meet your moral standards. But then, maybe you'll consider walking a mile in my shoes. My name is Mary Wilhelm.
It happened after one of our bridge games, and I have to confess that it became more than just one it. It was a combination of "its" that I will never explain to my husband, even though he might understand, if he found out.
It is a secret part of my life that I both live for and live in dread of. I am the dummy right now at the bridge table. Do you see the woman across the table? Her name is Amanda Firestone. She's always been, in so many aspects, just a cut above the rest of us, who are all in our mid to late forties. She is too, but, she looks ten years younger and is probably the most glamorous woman I have ever met; I suppose that is what attracted her to me. I've always been a flirt and have enjoyed flirting with men. I think it shocked me at first when Amanda began flirting with me, the way I had been flirting with men.
It was not long after I met her that we became best friends. For some reason I viewed her as a kindred spirit. Her flirtatiousness, I considered, was just evidence of her being a free spirit.
Arthur and I became best friends with her and her husband David. Our son Lee and their son Corey are best friends as well; they both played on the high school baseball team, and both have received scholarships to play at major universities. If I had one thing that could be called jealousy toward Amanda was her relationship with her son.
While I've always considered Lee as my pet there was always a distance between us. Perhaps the distance was on my part because, as he grew into the god-like creature he has become, I needed to keep space between us to avoid a pattern of familiarity that could lead to something...inappropriate. Amanda, on the other hand, had a relationship with her son, Corey that oozed camaraderie. She was always hugging him, kissing him on the cheek, holding hands and the like. It seemed so healthy and I wished it could be that way between me and Lee.
