I used to think we were normal. Safe, even.
We weren't exactly sexual trailblazers when we tied the knot. I'd had one very brief -- and let's just say not exactly fireworks-worthy -- encounter with a guy I dated for a few months. Archie had a handful of flings under his belt, but most were more "hello and goodbye" than "once upon a time."
We did sleep together before the wedding -- we weren't that old-fashioned -- but our shared experience was more "starter pack" than highlight reel. Nothing scandalous, nothing wild. Compared to what some couples bring into marriage these days, we were beginners.
That said, we were solid. Comfortable. Sweet, even. We laughed a lot. We made dinners, made plans, made a life. And then -- bam -- along came Mark, born just over a year in, with Lisa hot on his heels fifteen months later. The early years were a beautiful, chaotic blur: baby bottles, diaper blowouts, laundry piles, and sleep deprivation so deep I forgot what day it was.
We didn't have time to be bored, let alone discontent.
As for me? No affairs. No secrets. No wandering eye. I wasn't restless -- and there weren't any dashing strangers queuing up to tempt me, either. I gained baby weight -- three times -- and I wasn't exactly sprinting back to the gym. The mirror didn't reflect some sultry goddess of lust. More like someone's tired wife with spit-up on her shirt and dry shampoo in her hair.
And yet...
But there was... one thing. A blip. A footnote in our story.
It happened when I was pregnant with Lisa. Archie was out of town for a job interview -- fancy company, wining and dining him -- and he didn't know a soul there. We hadn't had sex in a month and wouldn't be able to for another two, and well... somewhere between "lonely" and "rationalizing," Archie convinced himself a little extracurricular activity might be "therapeutic." Someone passed him a call girl's number, and -- gulp -- he actually called.
She came to his hotel room. He was nervous, awkward, unsure if this was something he could even do. (Literally. At first, he couldn't.) But she had this massage thing -- don't ask -- and eventually, things got moving, so to speak. It was quick. Impersonal. The kind of thing that should've faded into the background of a marriage.
Except it didn't.
He kept thinking about her. Not in a run-off-and-find-her kind of way, but... she lingered. In his head. In his fantasies. Even during our moments, sometimes she'd sneak in, uninvited. Not as a threat, but as a ghost of something Archie didn't quite understand yet.
By the time everything finally came bubbling to the surface, our relationship was hanging on by a thread -- and not a very sturdy one. We hadn't been intimate in, oh, about five months. Not that anyone was keeping score... except maybe me.
Don't get me wrong -- Archie's a good husband. Really, he is. He does the dishes, folds laundry without being asked (sometimes), and never acts like babysitting his own kids is some heroic favor. After a long day in the domestic trenches, a little help goes a long way.
He still tries, too -- especially at night, when the house is quiet and the kids are finally asleep. That's usually when he'll sneak in a back rub or try to pull me close. But honestly? By then, I'm toast. Utterly spent. There are flickers during the day -- strange little moments when he's not around and I do miss him, maybe even crave him a little. But by the time he walks in the door? Poof. It's gone. Drowned in laundry, spilled juice, sibling squabbles, and dinner that won't cook itself. I'm just... done.
So, inch by inch, we drifted. No fights. No blow-ups. Just a slow, quiet widening of the gap between us.
Now we've got three kids, and the idea of passion -- real, knock-your-socks-off passion -- feels more like a bedtime story we used to believe in than something we're actively living. That one night with the call girl, plus whatever private daydreams it stirred up afterward, was the beginning and end of Archie's "cheating," if you even want to call it that. I genuinely don't think he ever meant for it to become anything more.
From his point of view, our sex life was perfectly fine. Better than fine -- satisfying, even.
From mine? Not so much.
Then there's Barbara and Ken -- our across-the-driveway neighbors. They're about our age, and from the moment we met, it just... clicked. They were warm, funny, low-key -- the kind of people you actually want to run into in your pajamas. Their kids were close in age to ours, and we all seemed to be floating in the same middle-class boat. Similar income, similar chaos, similar wine-fueled rants about sleep training and school fees. It was easy. Familiar. Comfortable.
Maybe a little too comfortable, depending on how you look at it.
But this wasn't just about shared schedules or mutual kid-wrangling. There was something more. That effortless connection you can't plan or fake -- the kind that happens when all the little social gears click into place on their own. You can have all the common ground in the world, but if the chemistry's off, it's just small talk and awkward silences.
With Barbara and Ken? It clicked. Instantly.
I liked Ken right away. He had that quiet, confident thing going -- the kind of man who doesn't need to be the center of attention but still somehow draws it anyway. Fit but not flashy, well-dressed in a "this old thing?" kind of way, and always ready with a story worth hearing. Even better, he actually listened -- like, real listening, not the nod-and-smile kind most people fake their way through.
And Barbara... well, Barbara was something else entirely.
She was stunning. Curves that turned heads -- the kind of figure you'd expect to fade or shift with time, but hers? Still a masterpiece. Nothing softened. Nothing sagged. Everything right where you'd expect it in some impossibly generous twist of nature. But what really got me wasn't her body. It was her eyes.
She had a way of looking at you -- not just at you, but through you. Deep. Direct. Like she could sift through your words and pull out the secrets you hadn't even admitted to yourself. People would probably call it "bedroom eyes," but that doesn't really do it justice. It wasn't just about sex. It was intimacy. Intensity. That kind of focus that makes you feel a little naked -- in more ways than one.
And yes... I was attracted to her.
Not just a casual girl-crush or the kind of admiration women sometimes share with a wink and a compliment. I thought about sleeping with her. Not obsessively -- just flashes, flickers, mental snapshots I didn't ask for. They caught me off guard. I'd never had those kinds of thoughts before, not about a woman. And I wasn't sure what to do with them.
Still, Barbara and I got close. Really close. We'd sneak off to movies our husbands wouldn't sit through -- slow-burn foreign films or costume dramas with tortured stares and not a single explosion. We talked all the time -- on the phone, at the store, in dressing rooms, holding up tops and giving each other the kind of brutally honest feedback only real friends can get away with.
Sometimes we'd drift into personal territory, a little too deep, a little too revealing -- and then laugh it off, like, oops, look at us oversharing again. But it kept happening. And I kept going back for more.
One weekday evening, we had plans for our usual escape -- something foreign, moody, and very French, I think. The kind of film where everyone looks gorgeous and miserable and smokes too much. But when we got to the theater, we found out it had already come and gone. Replaced by something loud, predictable, and painfully American.
Barbara glanced at the movie poster, made a face, then turned to me. "Drink instead?"
"Sure," I said. "That little place down the road looks halfway respectable."
"Perfect." She smiled and casually looped her arm through mine like it was just... how we walked now.
We ended up in this cozy, dimly lit restaurant-bar -- the kind with soft music humming underneath every conversation and candles on the tables that made everyone look a little more mysterious than they really were. We slipped into a corner booth and ordered drinks. I don't usually go for alcohol, but that night, I said yes to a mojito -- and didn't ask for the weak version.
It didn't take long for the volume of our voices to drop and our bodies to lean in. There was something about that space -- the shadows, the sweetness of mint and rum, the way Barbara swirled her drink like she was waiting for secrets to rise to the surface.
