The essence of this story is true - a woman calling her husband, long-distance, to tell him what she's up to in her hotel room with another man. It was told to me by a long-time friend, someone I trust. I can't, however, vouch for the dialog; I don't remember his tale verbatim and so I've imagined what a woman like my friend described - gutsy, sure of herself, determined to be free - might say.
You talkin' to me? Yes, I'm talkin' to you...
"It's complicated," she said.
He nodded empathetically but remained silent. It was her story to tell if she wanted to. She could either go on, keeping alive both the conversation and their nascent interest in each other, or just let it end.
Sitting on a tall barstool, she took another top-to-bottom look at the man standing next to her and liked what she saw. Still, she took a moment, sipping her vodka, to dial up her feminine instinct - "
what do you think, Instinct? Go? Or no-go
?" No alarms went off so she decided to take another small, cautious step forward.
"My husband is a good man," she said. "He really is."
Again, the man simply nodded, holding her gaze with his. "Not a very exciting man, to be honest," she continued, "but a kind man, a good husband and a very good father to our daughter."
"Sounds like there's a lot there to like," the man said.
"Indeed," she replied. "But I'm sure you know that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Goodness can be like that. Goodness can be suffocating."
"I guess..."
Goodness was the very thing now going bump in the night of their nearly 20 years of marriage. They lived in a Midwest city, where he was a mid-level city official, a deacon in their church, a member of the church choir, a Little League coach, a Rotarian and a staunch Republican.
"Not a Scoutmaster? How did he miss that?"
That tickled her. "I am so surrounded by goodness there are times I could puke. Normally, I'd say 'I could shit' but I don't want you to think I'm uncouth."
It was his turn to laugh. And he did.
She had been thinking, when the man approached her and invited her to a drink, of how she and her husband had been growing apart over time. The first crack occurred over women's rights, which she supported ardently and he regarded as unimportant. It diverged even further over civil rights, the cultural and foreign wars, and now politics. It seemed as if she was for something, he wasn't.
"He takes the Bible very, very seriously," she said, noticing that the man's eyes were occasionally slipping down from her eyes to her scoop-neck blouse and her breasts. Far from being offended, she was flattered.
"He's conservative and a born-again Christian," she said. "He believes there really is a God, that there's a heaven and a hell and - this really gets me - that there's really a devil, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, or whatever you want to call him, prowling the Earth looking to recruit sinners."
"Hmm...I'm a card-carrying sinner," the man said, "but I was never recruited. I volunteered when I discovered the wonder and joys of the female sex. Never regretted it, never looked back. Well, let me correct that: I do look back when a pretty woman passes by to see if the rearview is as nice as the front view."
"Did you check me out that way this afternoon in the exhibit hall?" she asked with a sly smile.
"Yes, I most certainly did."
"And?"
"Front to back, you're a babe. A witty, smart babe. I'm delighted to be having a drink with you right now and I'd be even more delighted to spend more of the evening with you."
"Well, we'll see about that - maybe, maybe not."
"Go back to what you were saying about your husband and complications."
"Oh, goodness and Satan and sin? I think it's all nonsense. Goodness can squeeze every last drop of fun out of life. I try to find as much fun as I can from life. So I'm not much of a "Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes."
"Okay. But please tell me: do the complications rule out the two of us having some fun together tonight?"
She looked at him for several seconds as a little smile quickly grew into a laugh. "What you're really asking me, aren't you, is this: what are your chances of getting into my pants tonight? Or should I say panties?"
"Okay, you're right...what are my chances of getting into your panties tonight? Do the complications make that..." His voice trailed off.
"Not...necessarily. My husband and I have this little game we play when I'm away from home. It's called "guess-what-I'm-doing"? Maybe ten years ago, I realized I've got a sexually adventurous streak in me, much more so than he. Travel offers a break from the vanilla sex I get at home. If I meet an attractive, congenial man, a man like you, who can make me laugh, who's fun to be with, then I'm fair game."
"Ahhh, you're my kind of woman."
She laughed and went on: "The complication, since you ask, is front-loaded. If we can get that squared away I'd say your chances are pretty good. Here's the deal: We go up to my room where the fun's going to take place. Once there, you become mute and stay mute as one of those monks who take a vow of silence...that is, if you want a piece of me.
"You'll just sit there when I call my husband. He and I will chat briefly about family stuff...how is he, how am I, how's our daughter, how's the dog, blah-blah-blah. But you've got to be...let me repeat, got to be...absolutely quiet until I hang up that phone. Can you live with that?"
