Just The Tip Please

Most of my friends don’t know this about me, but last summer I became an addict.  My drug of choice took me over emotionally, physically, and mentally.  It’s all I thought about, all I wanted, and was the last thing I could have or should want to have, or so I thought.   So what was my drug of choice?  Wasn’t booze, wasn’t cocaine, or meth, or pot, or hell wasn’t even cigarettes; my drug was a married man.  I knew it was wrong, but man when I was with him did it feel right.  It started out innocent, friendship, hand holding, drunk flirting, but when the words came out of his mouth – “I’m not supposed to feel like this…” I knew in some way I was his drug, too.  It started innocently enough, spooning on a couch.  We knew it was wrong and nothing happened at first, but with each late night jaunt we got closer and closer.  Hands traveled places they shouldn’t, and then one night my shirt came off and well the rest is history.  The first time we were together we didn’t kiss, maybe we did for a few seconds, but the kissing came later.  I remember the next day thinking everyone could read mistress on my face.  I didn’t sleep that first night, heck I didn’t sleep most nights he and I were together.  The first time it happened I thought that’d be it, we got it out of our system, one and done…I didn’t tell a soul.  I knew what my friends were going to say, my family, I had made my bed and had to lie in it, and lie I did…I lied to my best friends, my family, to co-workers, everyone I cared about became people I couldn’t let in.  I wish I could sit here and say I didn’t fuel the affair, but I’d be lying again, so I’m going to tell you the truth, I was just as much to blame as he was, I welcomed the 2 am online conversations, I didn’t put a stop to the inappropriate texts, and even when I knew I shouldn’t be alone with him in my apartment I was..hell one night I remember praying and hoping he’d call after we left a mutual friend at a bar…and he did, and it happened a few more times over a few months.  One time we both agreed it had to stop but a month later, he was back naked in my bed.

Why did I keep going back for more?  Like an addict, I was addicted to him, to the way we talked, the way he knew me so well, the way he touched me, the physical intimacy and passion that existed between us…up until that point I had never felt the kind of passion with a guy, the way I did with him.  But as the story goes, the mistress never gets the guy in the end…what I got was a headache, a headache over the guilt, over the lying.  I even ended up going to confession!!  Yes I told a priest, I was having an affair with a married man; and in case any of you are wondering the penance for that is ten Our Fathers and the Act of Contrition.  I wish I was joking.  Anyway, when the two of us were together time stood still, but when we weren’t together reality was staring me in face…it wasn’t until my friends started catching me in lies I knew I had reached the end of the road.  When I finally came out with it, my friends had known, they said what I knew there were going to say, I took their advice and began to move on or tried to…I wish I could tell you that I quit my drug by choice, because I was ready to quit it, but external circumstances actually made me quit my drug.  Eventually, I would have had the will power and strength to give it up, but am thankful that fate stepped in and helped because my drug of choice was killing my spirit, my relationships, and broke my moral compass….and even though the highs were highs; the lows were low and lonely.  After all, we all know the married man never leaves his wife for the mistress, and if he does who’s to say he’s not going to turn around and do the exact same thing to you.