The Crush: An Affair in Three Parts

by Ben Boswell

  I've actually been very lucky in life with men. My dad was never able to overcome my mom's convictions, but even still, I have fond memories of sitting with him in the park, sharing an ice cream, the two of us promising not to tell Mom who would have been upset that I wasn't in the library instead.

  The second positive influence was Bobby Battle. I still love the name. Bobby Battle, senior, quarterback on the football team, square jawed, handsome, and popular. He appeared to be a stereotypical big-man-on-campus. And I fell in love. Or something. I didn't even know him. I just observed him from afar. I was a mousey sophomore. He really could not have been farther out of my league.

  But my mom had filled my head with a lot of self-confidence, and a lot of bad advice about men. "You don't need to look pretty, honey. Any decent man will be able to recognize your inner beauty." That kind of stuff. So I approached Bobby, head up, shoulders back, and asked him out.

  I still cringe when I think about that scene. It could have -- should have -- gone so badly wrong. In a movie, this would have been the moment where he laughs in my face, humiliating me, followed by him telling the story to all the other cool guys and popular girls, triggering endless torment. Or worse, where he takes advantage of me and then throws me away without a second thought.

  But, bless him, Bobby didn't do either. He didn't agree to go out with me either. But he did sit me down and talk to me. He told me that I seemed like a "nice girl" but not really his type. He told me that he didn't really know me, but that I was always so serious that it seemed like I'd built a shell around myself. He brushed the hair out of my eyes, and asked me why I was so afraid to be pretty, or friendly, or fun.

  I'd like to say it was an epiphany, but it wasn't. I took it hard, and for a while, I tried to convince myself that Bobby was just shallow. But it planted a seed. It made me think, and after a while I began to understand what he was saying and also what my dad had been trying to hint at while staying in my mom's good graces.

  I guess I matured. It was a slow process, and in a lot of ways I was locked in to my high school persona - Gloria the Nerd. But by graduation, I'd already changed a lot. My clothes fit properly. I was running to stay fit. I bought a bikini for the pool. And, I was determined to have more fun.

  When I went off to college, I was really ready to be someone new, and just in time for my new life, I got a new name. I'd always been a film buff, and I joined the film club. It was mostly guys, just a few girls. We'd screen a movie and then talk about it, or joke about it if it was bad. We screened the Elvis movie Viva Las Vegas, and some of guys decided I looked like Ann-Margret, so they started calling me Ann or Annie, and it stuck.

  I'm sure Mom would have been appalled. And a few years earlier I'd have been horribly offended as well. But I was now at the point where being nicknamed after world-famous sex symbol, particularly one with a certain retro chic, was something I could embrace. I was tired of being Gloria, and happy to become Ann.

  I met the third wonderful man of my life in film club. Dave. He was a grad student, and at first I wondered what he was doing hanging out with mostly undergrads. But he didn't give off the creep vibe at all. He was so shy. He'd sit next to me at screenings, but not even look at me. But I could tell he liked me. And I liked him. He was cute, very funny, and very, very smart. He could quote these long passages from his favorite novels, and he had an encyclopedic mind for movie screenplays.

  I asked him out. It was funny. When I did it, he actually sighed in relief that I had saved him from having to do it. At least that is how I remember it. He insists that he made the first move.

  Dave was the first boy I kissed. Well, at least the first since some stupid game of spin the bottle in like sixth grade. But he was my first real kiss, and of course, my first lover.

  Our first time was, um, awkward. Dave was a fine lover. He had some experience before me, but he wasn't a real Casanova. And I was so nervous. But it worked. And the magical thing is that it got better and better every time. We've been married ten years now, and truly, our sex life has never been stronger. It is always satisfying, and I mean always. He knows just how to touch me, kiss me, hold me. We still have sex a couple of times a week, which I think is pretty good after this long.

  But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. We became inseparable. And right before graduation, he asked me to marry him. It was a strange moment. He'd become insecure about the fact that I'd never been with another man, and he raised the issue. I don't even remember what I said. I think I offered to go get gangbanged or something. But I do remember trying to reassure him, while at the same time admitting that I'd thought about the issue as well.

  I mean, look, when Dave raised the issue, it was already something I'd considered. My girlfriends thought I needed to experiment. My friend, Emily, insisted that I needed to "sample some more cocks." My former roommate, Becky, claimed I'd "always wonder what was out there." I dismissed their arguments out of hand.

  We got married, and immediately Dave moved away. He had a post-doc in Boston, and I had a job at an engineering firm run by one of our professors at the University down in Atlanta. So, after living together in college, we began our married life by living apart.

  It was hard. We missed each other. And it was particularly hard for me. I was 21, by all accounts very pretty, working in a field with six men for every woman. I was technically married, but practically single. We didn't have enough money to travel back and forth weekly, so we saw each other more like monthly. And like most young people, I'd go out to bars, to happy hours, to company softball games, the usual stuff. And everywhere, guys would hit on me, wedding band or not.

  I ended up getting close to a guy from work, Robbie. He was a funny, nerdy guy. Just my type. He was my age, had moved down South from Michigan, knew no one and was very lonely. We were friends, just friends.

  And then one night, we had a little too much to drink. He was walking me home. It was a chilly night, and like most Atlantans I was underdressed for the weather. He was holding me tight to keep me warm, and I liked the feel of his body.

  When we got to my place, I invited him in. I was buzzed and vulnerable and lonely, and I didn’t want to be by myself.

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  I hadn’t planned it… or maybe I had. I knew he wanted me. I’d seen in it his eyes, in the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. Drinking, laughing, walking home just the two of us…. I guess the most I can really say is that I hadn’t consciously planned it.

  "Yes," I replied blushing.

  We went upstairs. I poured us some wholly unneeded glasses of wine. I'd told him the origins of my nickname, and he said he'd never seen Viva Las Vegas. So we sat on the sofa and put the DVD into the player. Truth is, it is an almost unwatchable movie, and certainly not entertaining enough to distract us from the attraction we were feeling.

  I don't know if he kissed me first, or if I kissed him. But soon, we were embracing passionately, sucking each other's tongues. He cupped and massaged my breasts. I rubbed his penis through his pants. I lifted my shirt over my head, and he unsnapped my bra. I climbed into his lap, grinding into him as he suckled my rock-hard nipples. I could feel his cock beneath me, also rock hard and straining against his pants as if trying to tear through the fabric to seek its target.

  And then I stopped. I thought of Dave. Really thought of him. About what I might lose if I didn’t stop it now. I pulled back.

  "I can't," I groaned, still sitting in his lap.

  Robbie sighed and pushed me aside.

  "Okay," he said quietly.

  And like that, it was over.

  In retrospect, I doubt I could have resisted had Robbie pushed the point. I was drunk, horny, and lonely. When he left, I masturbated frantically thinking of him, thinking about how much I would have liked to feel him inside me.

  But I woke up the next morning hung over and tremendously grateful to him. I also realized, I think for the first time, that fidelity doesn't just
happen. You need to work at it, at least to the point of not putting yourself in a position to let anything happen.

  It is a lesson I applied diligently for the next decade. And I needed to because there were many, many offers.

  A lot were easy to turn down. Loutish drunken frat boys offering me untold pleasures if I would just accompany them into the bar bathroom. An obese man with brutal body odor in business class who kept calling me "Dollface." A lackey for a Mideast despot who offered me a spot in a, for lack of a better word, harem (this actually happened!).

  A lot were tougher. My first boss, a lovely, brilliant man who gave me my professional start, made a heartfelt pass at me one evening several months after his wife passed away. It was heartbreaking to say no. On a business trip to LA, a genuine A-list celebrity, a People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" past winner approached me in a restaurant and told me I was the "most beautiful woman in the room" and asked me to come to his Malibu home for a nightcap. I almost said yes, and I'm not sure Dave would have blamed me if I had. I certainly would have understood if the cases were reversed and he'd fielded an offer from Scarlett Johansson. But of course, that is easy to claim in the abstract.

  Anyway, I'd learned my lesson well, and knew the importance of working on fidelity. Which is why when I saw Greg, I saw trouble. Here was the kind of man who embodies temptation. He was obviously interested. And we'd be working at close quarters for the next several months. A class A nightmare.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Greg would look at me hungrily. Men do it all the time. In feminist theory they call it the "male gaze,” a way of looking at a woman that inherently sexualizes her. Your reaction to it depends a lot on your personality and, of course, who is doing the gazing. Older men who do it often come off lecherous. Shy guys end up looking creepy. But when Greg does it, the only word to describe it is fiery. He'd sit there, looking me up and down, obviously undressing me with his eyes, a confident little grin on his face until I'd blush, and then he'd smile and look away.

  He was always cool, so cool and collected, that it became almost a challenge to see if I could puncture his persona. He was pursuing me, but without ever quite acknowledging it. I longed for an opportunity to put him in his place, to parry an inappropriate comment with a well-time barb, but he never gave me the chance. Flirting for him was a stand-off weapon, deployed with precision and deniability, and it was making me nuts.

  It started with the way he referred to me. “Red.”

  “Heya, Red, have a good weekend?”

  No one had ever called me that before. It was inappropriate, of course, but to point that out would have seemed shrill, especially when used casually like that. And anyway, I hate to admit it, but I sort of liked the attention. From him.

  “Yeah, Greg, how about you?”

  I couldn’t help but notice his smirk. He knew he was getting away with something. And, fuck him, he’d known he’d get away with it. He was a man used to getting his way with women. Handsome, confident shit.

  You know what the real warning sign was? Or at least should have been? I didn’t mention him to Dave. No “we have a new guy in the office.” No “you won’t believe what Greg did.” No. I kept Greg to myself. I should have seen that for what it was. I didn’t. I never gave Dave a chance to save me from myself. I didn’t want him to.

  Double entendres. Or was it just me reading sex into every conversation, every passing comment?

  “Do you have time to read the proposal, or all you all tied up?”

  Flutters in my stomach as I thought of him producing a rope. A stupid, weird fantasy. I’ve always had it, never mentioned it even to Dave. Was Greg able to see into my dreams like that?

  Him getting another cup of coffee. “I had a late night.”

  And immediately, I was picturing him, naked, gloriously naked, riding a slut hard. That was another thing. I was so jealous. If he even smiled at another woman, the words flooded my mind. Slut. Whore. Bitch. Cunt. So much for sisterly solidarity.

  “I bet,” sneering.

  His grin. You should try it.

  My own jibes always fell short. I tried to tease him about his hair. His perfectly coifed, thick, black hair, with streaks of grey that seemed almost calculated, vain. He lived in corporate housing. Boring. Antiseptic. When he mentioned it, I chimed in, “Greg spends all his housing allowance on his barber.”

  That smirk. Glad you noticed.

  He could see the effect he had on me, but he never mentioned it, never acknowledged it. Was he just being a gentleman? No. The grins, the smirks, the smiles. The way his eyes lingered on my ass. How he made it a habit to always be in my line of sight. Small gestures. Getting me a cup of coffee. Dropping by my desk to deliver comments on my proposals rather than sending a markup through email.

  I know in telling it, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Nothing there. All in my mind. Except it wasn’t. I could feel it. I couldn’t help but feel it. His sexual energy was the elephant in the room.

  It is hard to explain what happened next. But the short version is that I escalated things. I couldn't just let him get me flustered, I had to do the same to him. I started dressing more provocatively. Finding excuses to lean over and let him look down my cleavage, cleavage that I’d made sure looked good as I dressed in the morning. Standing in front of the mirror, leaning forward, trying on different bras until I got just the look I wanted.

  I'd walk into his office and sexily perch myself on his desk and talk business. I was trying to get a rise out of him. I think, I was hoping he'd lose his cool, make a pass at me that I could reject. That would break the tension. End it. Or maybe not. We don't always know exactly our own real motivations. But the most I got out of him was an invitation to a happy hour with his latest conquest, that chubby, little, slut Peggy from marketing.

  In retrospect, what he did next was brilliant... and diabolical. As I escalated, he drew back. He stopped looking me over, stopping even the most casual flirting, and instead began to date around the office more widely. Now Tina from accounting. Then Elena the office manager. And it made me jealous, insanely, irrationally jealous. I knew… just knew he was doing it to make me crazy.

  I was thinking about Greg all the time. Some days he had me so worked up that I had to go to the ladies’ room and masturbate thinking about him just to release enough tension to get any work done. I still never admitted to myself that I wanted him. My plan, that I repeated to myself over and over, was always to lure him in, make him fall in love with me so I could dump him. Or at least that is how I rationalized it. Even though my fantasies were filled with raunchy sex with Greg, the goal was to gain the upper hand. In my mind, I was obsessed with him because I hated him, when in reality I was obsessed with him because he'd become this perfect, illusive, unattainable prize.

  After all these years, I was still, in a way, little nerdy Gloria pining after Bobby Battle. So I was fully primed when, having flaunted his other dalliances in my face, he turned again his attention to me full-force.

  He only had a few weeks left in the office, but all of a sudden he was omnipresent in my life, constantly dropping by my office to chat, asking me as a favor to help him on his projects that often required working late and dining together.

  He was now more openly flirtatious, commenting on my clothes and shoes, talking about "how lucky" my husband was. And now that he was out in the open, instead of slapping him down, I relished it.

  At the same time, his reputation as a cocksman, for lack of a better word, began to spread. Elena and Tina almost came to blows over him. Peggy was gushing to anyone who would listen about what an extraordinary lover he was.

  I was officially infatuated. And my infatuation broke down my defenses. I constructed elaborate rationales for why I should be able to get what I wanted. I'd never been with another man. Wasn't it natural to be curious? I'd been so good for so long, even if I gave in this time, my batting average, so to speak, would still be very respectable. Sure, I wanted Greg, but think of how
many men I’d hadn’t wanted!

  And most perversely, I convinced myself that what I was doing was best for Dave.

  As my sexual obsession with Greg blossomed, I found myself resenting Dave. His kindness began to seem oppressive. I resented that he'd locked me up before I'd even had a chance to really know myself. I found myself getting snippy with him. I realized none of that was fair, but I had begun to blame Dave for my desires, and I reasoned that if I were to give in to them, I would really be doing him a favor by eliminating the reasons for my peevishness.

  Now, in reality, I don't know that Dave ever noticed that I was getting snippy with him. I'm not even sure that I was, but I was horribly guilty about my feelings about Greg, and as a result probably perceived my attitude toward Dave as worse than it was. For all I know, he just thought I was a little tense because of work pressures rather than so horribly nasty that it would be worth letting me have an affair in order to relieve the tension.

  But, the point is, the way I ultimately let myself give into temptation with Greg was by convincing myself it was in Dave's best interests that I do so. And since I was doing it for Dave, I decided he should be involved. I was doing him a favor after all, or so I convinced myself.

  It will take me a long time to forgive myself for what I did, probably longer than it will take for Dave to forgive me. If I'd been strong, I would have rejected Greg outright. If I'd been brave, I might have just fucked him in secret. But I was neither.