Kat and Cyrano Chapter 10: Friendship

Kat and Cyrano
Chapter 10: Friendship

In the first nine chapters, I described in sensuous and erotic detail how the chemistry and the hunger between Eric and me led to some wonderful and creative sexual adventures four years ago.

But if it had just been about the sex, then Nov. 10, 2008 wouldn’t still be a cherished memory and one of the happiest days of my life, right up there with my high school graduation and the births of my four children.

There was also friendship, trust, respect, and admiration for each other, which blossomed into genuine love. It’s that friendship and love, mixed with our passion and lust, which made Nov. 10 the perfect storm of love and desire and satisfied sexual hunger.

And it’s our friendship that I want to explore in this chapter. The time frame for this chapter is early to mid October, 2008. During that time, through our emails, and our conversations while riding the bus into downtown, while walking around downtown holding hands and kissing, while sharing breakfasts and lunches, we got to know about each other more than just sexually.

I found out that Eric grew up in a middle class suburb, a couple of thousand miles from here. He was one of three brothers, and the only brother who had any ambitions in life. He began writing professionally, for publication, as a teenager. And by his mid 20s, he was a published book author, too. But there wasn’t all that much money in freelancing, and he let himself sell his soul to get a corporate job in researching and writing reports, which is how he wound up moving to the west coast—closer to finding me.

When one of his brothers fathered a child, who Eric’s brother and the mother couldn’t care for, Eric at age 27 stepped up and adopted his niece, rather than see her go into an endless string of foster homes.

At 40, Eric had met and married a single mother to a 9-year-old son. So now at age 53, he had two adult kids. But his marriage, like mine, was strained, and I think that opened the door for us to find each other on the bus. Eric’s father had been a union representative, and his mother was active in the civil rights movement. So his liberal politics were much the same as mine. Only he was still politically active, when he could find the time, while I no longer was.

I had once worked on the campaign of a presidential candidate, but I grew disappointed in the whole system when he lost, even though the winning candidate had repeatedly proved and continued to prove that he was evil incarnate. I had put time and money into believing in my candidate, and everyone I knew supported him, he even won the popular vote. But the man sworn in as President had the open checkbooks of half a dozen billionaires, a rigged electoral college, a crooked governor as a brother to rig the vote in a key state, and an even more crooked Supreme Court judge behind him. And that outweighed the will of millions of voters.

Once in office, our appointed and unelected President told corporations and the military that they could do whatever they want, launch bloody oil wars, wreck the world’s economies, close factories and then foreclose the homes of those who no longer had the income to pay their mortgages, dump all the toxins they want to into the air, water, and farm soil, do any and every evil they could think up. As President for the wealthy and powerful, and for nobody else, he wouldn’t stop their evil. I was soured on politics after that.

Eric had a big, generous heart, to have loved and raised two children who were not biologically his own. To care about people, more than about money and power, through his liberal political efforts. And to love me so much. And to let me love him and desire him so much, and to help me with my doctorate and with my job search. He said he got that generosity of spirit from his dad; they were very close. His dad was a gentleman and raised Eric to be one, too. As I now knew, Eric was a gentleman in the bedroom too, seeing to and caring deeply about my comfort and pleasure and enjoyment, as a higher priority even than his own enjoyment.

When we met, Eric’s main job (politics were spare time and voluntary for him) was working on all sorts of weird research projects for various government projects, as it was the only steady source of income he could find after President Evil had overseen the destruction of all the world’s economies. We chuckled over some of Eric’s projects.

For example, he helped on an investigation of a prison inmate filing a request to have outside dental work done, which of course wasn’t going to happen. But the inmate’s insistence on a specific dental clinic raised suspicions. Eric’s team’s investigation revealed that the medical facility at that address didn’t do dentistry, but male enhancement surgery. That’s all a prison full of men needed, a guy with male enhancement! And worse yet, paid for on the taxpayer’s dime!

We laughed over that, but I also kissed Eric, gazed through his eyes into his soul, lovingly patted his crotch, and told him how grateful I was that I was the cause of his near constant “male enhancement.”

Eric always wore his “sword” tucked upward along his zipper. He said it was the only way he was comfortable walking; otherwise, he told me, the pressure of his boxers and trousers on his maleness was unbearable to him. And considering his eye-popping, mouth-watering thickness, I can believe that.

But the way he wore his sword pointing upward in his trousers, also had the advantage that his thickness was always prominent for me to look at and daydream over. I sometimes noticed other women noticing (how could they not? His thickness was very prominent, and wearing it pointed upward all the time was like advertising!), and it made me feel like the luckiest woman alive to be routinely riding what other women drooled over.

Eric had so many interests; he was also an amateur historian. And his latest historical research at that time had to do with some sort of nineteenth century steam machinery. He explained that the pipe that flowed into the steam boiler was called a throat, and the valve that controlled how much water flowed into the boiler was called a cock.

“I think I know where this is going,” I gazed adoringly into his eyes and smiled.

He read softly from the 19 th century boiler instructions, “let the cock slowly enter the throat, until the desired quantity of liquid is introduced into the throat, to be heated until steam is produced.”

I rested my head on his chest and purred, “Mmmm, I love when you let the cock enter the throat.”

“And I love that you desire a large quantity of liquid to be introduced into the throat.”

“Mmmm! I love heating your liquid until it steams into the throat!” I purred.

We went on punning like that for several minutes more. I could see his tucked-upward maleness growing longer and thicker under his zipper, and I felt my nipples drilling holes into my blouse. But we were in public, and could only look at each other and daydream.

He also shared with me, his childhood hurts. How he was a reader and a writer, not an athlete, and how that got him bullied a lot. How he was overweight and got bullied for that, then lost a lot of weight and became skin and bones, and he was bullied for that, too. He told me about terrible relationships he’d been in, how women couldn’t seem to appreciate his soft gentleness, his complete lack of the phony machismo that so many women seem to want—the very same sweet qualities that drew me to Eric, had caused so many other women to reject him and hurt him.

As we talked and got to know each other beyond the sex, it turned out my dad and Eric’s dad had the same first name. Even stranger coincidence, my mother’s maiden name was the same as Eric’s middle name! Those coincidences made me feel even more that we belonged together.

Through our emails and face-to-face conversations, I also gradually let him know about me.

I was born in a small west-coast farming town. My family, a mix of English and Native American (mostly Cherokee) heritage from the Midwestern plains, had fled westward from the Oklahoma dust bowl in the 1930s. My maternal grandma taught me the old native ways about sex, about how sex was for the woman, and the man had to prove himself sexually worthy to give himself to her.

Grandma taught me that I had to own my sexuality, to take charge of it.

I did that my own way, and I don’t think this is what grams had in mind. I met this local band in my late teens and loved their unusual and soulful music, I became their groupie. They may have thought it was four guys taking the same girl, and that it was about their pleasure. But I was in charge every moment, seducing them, getting them to do what I wanted to do sexually, and thoroughly and genuinely enjoying all four of them—sometimes separately, sometimes all together, but always I made sure I was in charge and they gave me what I needed and wanted, nothing more, nothing less.

Oddly enough, that long-ago band would play a small role in breaking-up Eric and me. All the threads of my life eventually met in my love for Eric, as you shall see later.

I told Eric I really appreciated him, because with him, we were completely ourselves, neither trying to dominate each other. It was about love and respect as much as about lust and getting each other’s desires met. I’d never really had that before, and I sensed that he hadn’t either, it was wonderful, he was wonderful, and together we were amazing!

I also told Eric about how I had let myself be distracted in high school by a boy. My grades were OK, but would have been better had I focused on studies instead of on him.

With only a high school diploma and in a small farming town, my career prospects weren’t great. And at our graduation party, the boy my hormones were raging for, got me pregnant. It was my fault really, I guess. I had wanted him so much and had lured him into a bathroom—not that he didn’t go willingly and eagerly! But he was a good man, he didn’t run away scared and leave me to be a single mom, and we got married and started raising our daughter. And a son soon followed.

But when both kids got old enough to understand, their father started filling their heads with putting me down all the time. Maybe he felt trapped, getting married and starting a family so young. It was a little scary for me, too, not having much career opportunity as mom of two, and with only a high school education. But I loved my kids and still do, and his attitude just made it all harder for me. Kids have enough hostility toward their parents over not wanting to follow the rules, without one parent turning the kids against the other parent. My first husband was very insecure, and putting me down was his way to feel better about himself.

After a few years of this horror show, two kids and a husband always hostile to me, I filed for divorce. And I went back to school to get my B.A. in English.

Then I took a job as an advertising writer and proofreader, eventually promoting to chief graphic designer for them. My boss was nice to me, and he got a chuckle out of when I pointed out that he had typed “Best of luck” as “Best of fuck.” I kidded him that I knew what was on his mind! Thankfully, his thoughts were on someone else in the office, not on me, when he typed “luck” as “fuck.” I wouldn’t have been comfortable working where my boss was thinking of me in that way.

When I told Eric this story, he told me he had a similar experience. One of his early jobs had also been proofreading, at a typesetting shop, not that different from my work at a graphic arts shop. In those days, Eric told me, the typesetting computers still used floppy disks. But one of the female typesetters, typing promotional material about their shop, had typed floppy dick instead of disk. When they saw her typo, he and others had teased her about what was on her mind. But she had a comeback: “Why would I be thinking about floppy dick when computers have hard dick—DISK! Hard disk!” Eric was never quite certain if she had said hard dick on purpose, or really meant hard disk after all.

I wasn’t there, but I think she was trying to tease back as good as she was getting. I think I would have teased back sexually, too, under those same circumstances.

“I agree with her, by the way,” I kissed Eric’s mouth. “Hard dick is much more fun to think about than floppy dick!”

The graphics design shop eventually became a dinosaur, as personal computers let people and businesses design their own graphics. I then moved closer to my ex-husband, not to be with him, but to see my children, who had moved out of state with him. But my kids didn’t really want to be close to me. I found jobs here and there where I could, but my life was going nowhere fast. So I decided to return to school and earn my Master’s Degree in Education.

While in the Masters Program, I met and fell in love with another man who lived in the college town near where my kids and my ex lived. But he wasn’t a classmate as my first husband had been from high school. We got married, and I had two more daughters by him.

When I graduated, I tried to use my Masters to get work in education. An opportunity came for me to teach in the Midwest. I didn’t want to go and leave my husband, but he didn’t want to be the one holding me back. It led to a lot of argument and a real strain on our marriage, damned if I stayed and he would feel guilty. Damned if I took the job and moved because he didn’t want to relocate with me.

I took my two youngest kids with me and took the job. We were still married, but we were 1,000 miles apart.

As a teacher far from home, I was very lonely. And being in my late 30s, I was flattered by the attention of a 21-year-old student, and allowed myself to have an affair with him. Another boy in my class must have noticed how we looked at each other, and gotten jealous or something. Anyway, that other student one day led the class in chanting “Cou-GAR! Coooo—gerrrrr!” The dean walked in and heard that. And that ended my career as a teacher. Though my lover was 21 and not under legal age, and our affair had been eagerly entered into by both parties with eyes wide open, schools frown on student-teacher relationships. Especially when the teacher was technically still married! My second husband swooped in and took my kids away, and the court insisted I pay him spousal support (he wasn’t working then) and child support, as I was the one who had cheated on him.

Broke and broken, I returned to the west and took work in research. I met and married my third and current husband, a manager at a supermarket near my job, where I frequently shopped. He was 10 years my senior. There was real love there for a while. But the store laid him off, and he refused to look for another job. He blamed me for his job ending, and he began to blame me for every bad thing that had ever happened in his life, even things that happened years before we ever met.

I’d been through two divorces and had four children who rarely spoke to me, and who I hardly ever heard from unless they needed something from me—money or moral support for their own bad life decisions.

My third (and still current) husband claimed my two failed marriages meant I’m a slut, and he said my kids hated me because I’d been a bad parent to them. An ironic claim, as the worse my third marriage got, the closer my four kids got to me. They would visit me and I would visit them. And we spoke on the phone weekly.

Things got so bad between my husband and me, that I took my own bedroom, and we no longer slept together, and barely spoke to each other—which has been our situation for seven years now. I can’t leave him without the danger I’ll be stuck with spousal support payments, as I was in my second divorce, since he doesn’t work but just watches TV and online porn all day. Or goes to see his brother at his cabin up in the mountains and comes back drunk and high.

Mercifully, my third husband and I had no children together, because early in our marriage, I had to have my uterus removed due to a potentially cancerous growth that turned out to be benign. I still have periods, though, my body not seeming to realize that a sexual cycle does no good with an inability to get pregnant. You might recall, I was on my period the first time Eric and I made love.

Anyway, the research job I’d had through most of my third marriage, eventually ended, and I took another research job, which I had been in for two years when Eric and I met and fell in love, and in lust, while commuting to our jobs on the same bus.

In my strained third marriage, I had also decided to go on with my education and get my Ph.D. Not for my career, but as something positive I could do just for me. I was halfway through my doctoral studies when Eric and I met, and he helped me as much as he could, through the second half of my studies.

Besides our pasts, Eric and I also discussed my doctoral thesis quite a bit, and Eric would review and make notes on my drafts for me. We are both writers, so his edits, his fresh perspective, were a big help to me. He told me since his family had been going to college for generations, he had been unaware how tough it is to get into college, first generation in your family; he told me he had learned a lot from helping me, reading my research and analysis.

For his help on my thesis, and for loving me and letting me love him, hardly a day would go by when I wouldn’t tell him “I appreciate you,” usually accompanied by a kiss on his mouth …. and when I could, a kiss on his sweet hardness, too. Because the breathtaking beauty that lay beneath his trousers was another thing I truly appreciated and adored about him! And a “big” (pun intended) reason why I still miss him, three years after we had to split up.

Eric would show me drafts of the books he was writing; he had three books in progress at that time, on top of about 20 he had already published. He had a way of writing history that drew you into the characters and what they were doing, and of rooting for them to succeed in their business and inventive endeavors. He didn’t write about famous people, he wrote of obscure historical characters who nevertheless accomplished much for themselves ,and for the industries or political movements or artistic and musical styles they helped create.

Another thing we discussed in person and in email included when my boss told me they were doing some belt tightening. And although I’d done a great job on research for them for two years, and had made a great presentation out of state for them (the business trip that led to the first sex between Eric and me, on the day I returned), they were going to have to let me go. But they would all give me glowing recommendations.

Eric joked that his recommendation would get me a very different sort of job. But he did say he would recommend me based on his having read my doctoral thesis notes and drafts. I felt it best if he didn’t. It might be hard to explain to my husband, should he see that reference letter, who Eric was and why he was recommending me for a job.

But Eric helped in another way. He knew a recruiter with a lot of connections. And through him, Eric helped me find a job, and to polish up my resume and my interview skills. I got a new job thanks to Eric and his friend. It was weird, though, having breakfast with Eric and the recruiter and discussing my career. Did he notice how I looked at Eric? Did he guess we were married to other people, and not to each other? Would he keep our secret? Was I playing a dangerous game that could blow up my life?

But I got a job through that contact and through that help. And four years later, I’m still in the job they helped me to get.

As I recall, Eric’s cock got about an hour of very appreciative kisses from me, for all his help in picking up my career after my layoff.

By odd coincidence, we seemed to be going through similar life experiences during the 15 months we were lovers and best friends and soul mates.

Case in point: My youngest daughter called me on the phone, scared that she was pregnant and worried that her boyfriend wouldn’t be there for her. There followed weeks of drama, and Eric would dry my tears and calm my upset, and just be there to listen and understand and hold me. Instead of being a jerk by trying to solve our problems, he was sweet for knowing he couldn’t solve them for me and my family.

But being a parent to two kids of his own, he also understood where I was coming from, and his empathy (not sympathy) meant a lot to me. “You can tell me anything. I’ll always listen and be there as a friend and a shoulder to lean on.” Compare that from Eric, to my husband yelling crap about my slut daughter getting what she deserved, like mother like daughter, and so on.

After weeks of this drama, the doctor told my daughter that her home pregnancy test had been a false positive, and I wasn’t going to be a grandma after all. That was a relief for her, but also for me. I know this sounds weird, but I was loving being a MILF (can you call a woman a MILF if her lover is 5 years older than her?) but I wasn’t sure I was ready yet to be Eric’s GILF!

Anyway, right around that same time, Eric’s son, then 21, was sued in a paternity suit by a former classmate from high school. His son insisted he had never even dated, much less slept with the girl, and there were some oddities to this suit: she had waited until the child was 3 years old to sue for paternity, and the mother was broke and in jail, so money was a powerful motivator for her to lie.

The mother wanted to go on one of those TV paternity tests to publicly humiliate Eric’s son. Instead, Eric arranged for his son to get a DNA test privately. But the mother stalled and stalled about testing the baby, which normally should have been done before she ever filed for paternity to get money. Of course the test showed Eric wasn’t a grandpa, and that drama also ended in a whimper. I was still a MILF (Mom I love to F***) to Eric, and Eric was still my DILF (Dad I Love to F***) but neither of us was a GILF yet (Grandparent I Love to F***).

Eric wasn’t happy with some of the managers at his job, and when his pay was cut, he was especially unhappy. So, shortly after he helped me find a new job, he also changed jobs, where his pay was again the same as before the pay cut.

With our new jobs, we could take the trolley instead of the bus. While only two buses ran in morning and evening commutes, the trolleys ran every 45 minutes, day and night. So, we could arrange our schedules to spend more time together. Walking hand in hand, sharing meals, and enjoying parks and motel rooms and mall stairwells together.

Our new jobs also gave us both a little more money for breakfasts and lunches together….and for motel rooms…and we always split all costs. And our new jobs were closer to each other, so it was less commute time after work before we could be in each other’s arms. And we could also be in each other’s arms longer in the morning, before we both had to go to our jobs.

Because of my work years before in a graphics arts shop, I had developed an interest in photography, and especially nature photography. Spectacular scenery, sunrises and sunsets, and unusual plants and animals.

That was another things Eric and I had in common. His writing about history had led to his photography of historical places and historical objects, and he had also started photographing spectacular scenery along his travels, plus unusual plants and animals he would encounter. So from different starting points, we had both come to nature photography.

That shared interest in photography also led to our starting to take erotic photographs of each other, and of our passionate connections. And what is more beautiful in nature than the sexual passion between two people deeply in love?

This type of “nature” photography was risky – our spouses might find those photos – but the love and adoration we put into photographing each other made for some wonderfully erotic and sensuous images. Now that we aren’t together any more, I really appreciate having these beautiful images of wonderful memories. I suspect that Eric is still enjoying them, too. And I still take the occasional erotic photo of myself for fun. But Eric’s images are better, because of the love and adoration he put into capturing me, capturing us, on camera. And of course, the photos I took of him and of us are infused with that same love and adoration.

Even short communications from Eric were getting me wet every time now. But then again, I would have to have been stone cold dead not to be aroused by an email like this from the man I loved (and still love, but can’t have right now): “I’ve just been soaping myself in the shower, wishing you were here, remembering the touch of your hand in my hand on the trolley, the feel of your leg against mine as we sat talking, my hunger to again see and touch the beauty I know lies under your skirt. It all makes my heart race and my breathing heavier. I’m so hard right now, and I so want to give you all of my hardness and make you purr so happily again.”

What could I say to that? ”Your words just sent thrills and chills throughout my whole body. Feeling your presence next to me is very precious, whether we are close to each other on the trolley or holding hands or making love. Every second of every day now, I yearn for closeness with you.”

“Thrills and chills down my body, too,” he replied. “The way you look at me, touch me, just so much to enjoy about being with you. Getting to know about each other’s family and past, is also increasing our passion and our lust, and yes our love for each other. Your body’s reactions to me have been wonderful so far, and I know our intensity will only increase as we get to know each other in every way! Especially the ‘biblical’ way of a man and a woman ‘knowing’ each other.”

Another thing we had in common, though not in a good way, was our out of town trips with our spouses around that time, around early to mid October 2008.

My husband Frank has a brother, Jim, who lives a nearly hermit life in the mountains. That time of year, it was cold and snowy up there. Frank insisted I go with him to visit his brother, to maintain the fiction with his family that our marriage wasn’t a farce. He wore me down with his demand, and I wound up going on this trip, though it would mean three days without seeing, talking to, kissing, or even emailing my Eric.

Jim had an airhead girlfriend named Denise. Jim, Frank and Denise barely had a three-digit IQ totaling up among the three of them! I was bored and I was unhappy, being stuck there instead of in Eric’s arms.

Frank was mean to me in front of Jim and Denise, but I had long ago decided not to let that upset me. I felt (and still feel) nothing with Frank, neither joy nor pain, just numbness.

I told Frank I had come along because he wanted to maintain the fiction that we were happily married, and his cruelty to me in front of his brother didn’t fit in with that plan of his. The next two days, we barely spoke to each other, but it was at least a nice break from his unrelenting meanness.

Frank and Jim spent most of the time those three days, watching sports on TV and drinking beer 6 cans at a time each. I tried to converse with Denise, but she really knew very little about very little.

Bored, I grabbed my camera and headed out to the snow, to see if I could find interesting things to photograph.

After about an hour, I was too cold, and I headed back into Jim’s cabin. I then started scanning through my new photos in the camera.

Denise looked over my shoulder. “Those are good photos. You have a good eye for photography.”

I flipped back one more photo, and to my shock, it was a photo I’d taken of Eric protruding so beautifully out of his open jeans—with my saliva all over his magnificent hardness!

I hastily flipped back to the photos I had just taken. But Denise had seen.

“You’re so lucky!” she winked. “Jim’s nowhere near as thick as Frank. Lucky you!”

I wasn’t about to tell her that’s not Frank!

But then Denise said “That must be a while ago? Frank was thinner then, huh? Not such a big beer belly?”

Denise looked at me, and she must have seen something in my eyes.

“Oh!” she laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Frank. Is this man as fun as he looks?”

“Girls just want to have fun,” I softly sang the Cyndi Lauper anthem.

“I understand,” Denise winked. “Jim’s not enough for me, either! Mine’s named Jack. And yours?”

“Eric,” I whispered. “And if Frank hadn’t dragged me up here to pretend to Jim that we still give a damn about each other, I’d be in Eric’s arms right now!”

“Aww, poor baby!” she smiled. “Jack should be in me and Eric should be in you right now. Neither of us should be in this godforsaken cabin with these drunks. I know how you feel.”

“It is what it is,” I frowned, and she nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, I didn’t mind Denise’s air-headedness quite so much. We both tried to ignore Frank and Jim the rest of our days up there, and she even went with me to find plants and animals and scenery to photograph. She made the rest of the time barely tolerable, so I didn’t scream … or kill Frank.

Still, it was nice to get back to Eric again after three days.

Around that same time, maybe a couple of weeks later, Eric’s out of town trip with his own spouse was also a disaster.

Eric had arranged to spend a Saturday with Mark, one of his closest friends. They had lived near each other years ago, but Eric had moved north and Mark had moved south, and now 150 miles separated them. But Mark came up to our area on business once or twice a year, and Eric always looked forward to seeing his friend again.

But Eric’s wife’s sister, Betty, and her husband Bob, had insisted that Eric and his wife go to a barbeque they were throwing for Betty’s co-workers, that same day. Eric had protested that he already had plans to see Mark, and besides, neither of them knew any of Betty’s co-workers. They would be strangers to all of the party guests, and would be outsiders, as the guests who worked together chatted and cut them out of the conversation.

But Eric’s pleas had fallen on deaf ears, and they drove the 75 miles each way to attend the barbeque. So, Eric wasn’t going to get to see his friend for another 6 to 12 months.

The party was supposed to start at noon. When Eric and his wife arrived, Betty said the invites had said noon so that the guests would be there by 1 pm. The first guests started trickling in at 2 pm, and there weren’t many people there until 3 pm. Bob then started the barbeque, and the food was ready around 4:00. By that time, Eric and his wife were starving and bored, and Eric was mad about wasting three hours doing absolutely nothing, when he was supposed to be with his friend who he hadn’t seen in a year.

Just as Frank always finds ways to blame things on me that I had nothing to do with, so too did Eric’s wife find ways to blame the party’s late start on Eric. Eric and his wife fought during the whole drive home. She insisted he drop her home and then go see Mark, but by then Eric’s heart really wasn’t in seeing his friend any more. Finally, Eric decided that an hour with his friend was better than nothing.

And so he had gotten to visit with Mark from 7 to 8 PM, when he had to drive home before he was too tired to drive any more. After waiting a whole year to see his friend again, he spent 5 hours doing absolutely nothing at a barbeque that started late, and only an hour with his friend. And on top of that, his wife was blaming him for this disaster of a day that he had never wanted in the first place.

Eric and I began to share books about coping with verbally abusive spouses. It was bad enough the drama in my life and in his life, and now we were having to drag our drama into each other’s life and try to help each other cope. And that negativity, I think, also eventually led to our “happily ever after” lasting only 15 months.

Ironically, our bad marriages had led to our love and our incredible sex, but discussing and coping with all that drama with our spouses, also injected a poison into our relationship. And the fact that neither of us could leave our spouses without financial ruin, meant we could never move our relationship forward from the secrets and sneaking around, being ever wary. And that wasn’t going to work long-term. For either of us. And that’s why, as hard as it was for me to do, I eventually just had to end it.

But that ending was still far off in our future at that time, and there were many great moments then and later—especially the powerful magic we would share on Nov 10, 2008. And I prefer to focus on those happy times, and not so much on what went wrong and why.

One of these simple but happy memories: one time, after we both started our new jobs, and we switched from bus to trolley commuting, the trolley was standing room only. And as the trolley car careened around a sharp curve, I went flying … straight into Eric’s arms. The rest of the trip, he stood facing me, his hands holding the hand rails on either side of me, so I couldn’t slide anywhere on turns. And he told me he would always hold me safe from hurt. I purred and kissed him and thanked him, and told him I appreciate him and am grateful for him. He kissed me back and told me he’s very grateful to have found me, too.

I pressed up tighter against him, and I purred, “Mmmm, I can feel your gratitude, baby!” He was wonderfully and powerfully hard against me. And I was so happy and contented. And I couldn’t stop kissing him, rubbing against him, and loving the feel of his hardness pulsating against me. I didn’t care that 1,000 fellow passengers could see us. To me, it was just him and me wrapped in each other’s arms, in our private world, safe and secure in our love and in our hungry desires.

From then on, he held me safe every time we had to stand, rather than sit, while riding the trolley. Well, I was safe with him nearly every time.

But there was this one time, when we hadn’t planned to see each that morning, because Eric had to go into work earlier than I did. But Eric’s trolley arrived at our stop late, and it hadn’t pulled out of the station yet when I arrived. When I spotted him on the train, I rushed to where he was seated, and I hugged him, before taking the seat next to him. Unfortunately, in my haste to be in his wonderful loving arms again, I hadn’t noticed his briefcase, which I tripped over.

I swore, partly at him, but mostly at the situation. I regretted my anger a split second later, because I was snapping at him in the same way my husband snaps at me, and I never wanted to treat Eric that way.

He apologized, and I said I was sorry for being clumsy and careless this morning. It was the first time, I think, that I hadn’t treated Eric as kindly as I always wanted to. But, sadly, it wouldn’t be the last time. I guess when you are scolded day in and day out, it becomes tough not to scold others, even those you love.

We kissed and it was forgotten…for the moment. But the awkwardness of that moment, his not thinking to moving his briefcase for me as I rushed to him, and my not noticing, both of us at fault and yet neither of us, my scolding him for an embarrassment that really did me no hurt and no harm. It was, perhaps, another nail (though a small one) in the figurative coffin that our relationship would eventually be buried in.

Again, I don’t want to dwell on these negatives, in what was mostly a way above average relationship in every way, and led to the best sex of my life. But these little incidents, these details, I think help me to understand and come to grips with why something so wonderful and so incredible, eventually crashed down around us. Why our happily ever after lasted only 15 months.

We did a lot of hugging and kissing and pressing up against each other on those long trolley rides from the suburbs into downtown. But we also both knew we had to be discreet, always careful who might see or find out about us. After having to pay spousal support in my second divorce, after losing my teaching job over an affair with a student, I couldn’t afford to be reckless. Eric couldn’t afford a messy, expensive divorce to be with me, either. And he understood that as well as I did, and we both tried to make sure we didn’t get caught. But always having to look over our shoulder and sneak off to remote places is another of the factors, I think, that led to our eventual break-up, after just 15 months together.

We came real close to trouble once, still early in our relationship. By coincidence, we had both had to work late one evening. I was going to go straight to the school where I was studying for my doctorate. So we hadn’t planned to meet up that evening, as we did most evenings before going home to our spouses.

Unknown to Eric, his wife had decided to meet him at the trolley station and take him out to dinner, since he had worked late. I was getting into my car and spotted Eric. Eric saw me and loudly called to his wife standing nearby, so I would know it wasn’t safe to acknowledge him. I made sure to drive off in a different direction from them, so there was no chance his wife would figure anything out. That scare stayed in my mind, and I think also helped lead to our eventual break-up. But that break-up was still a long way off in our future then, as was the day Eric gave me the precious gift of the best and most magical sex of my life, for an entire 7 hours.

So these are just a few examples of what a sweet and caring man and good friend and true gentleman – and gentle man – Eric was. Why I fell so completely in love, as well as deeply in lust, with him. And why the incredible 7 hours of sex on Nov. 10, 2008 (which I’ll tell you all about later), was about so much more than sex. And why the man who Eric was (and is) made that date so unforgettable for me.

Had that day been just about sex (no matter how good), it would not have made that date one of the best, happiest, and most joyously memorable days of my whole life.