by Sam Anthony
Apprehensive that I might inadvertently say something to start a distracting conversation, I stay silent and cross my fingers, because if it happens, it’s mind-blowing.
Alcohol seems to make Tamsin particularly horny and uninhibited, and on these occasions, she’s inspired in the bedroom. Without a doubt, the top ten sexual experiences I’ve ever had – with Tamsin – have been when she’s initiated it in an inebriated state.
◆◆◆
I spent another restless night thinking about what Sophia had said; all sorts of questions jostling for attention in my mind.
Did I want to have sex with Sophia? God, yes!
Did I want to have an affair? No! I’m a nice guy.
What about if I could get away with it, without being caught? Perhaps.
What did Sophia look like naked? I so wanted to find out.
Should I make a list of pros and cons before I make a decision? Definitely.
How about a spreadsheet? Stop being such a spreadsheet nerd!
Did Sophia really want to have sex with me? Yes! She did. She really did!
Where could I research how to have an affair and get away with it? The internet.
◆◆◆
“I asked Dave what other pranks he’d played, but he couldn’t think of any. That’s a bit weird isn’t it?” Tamsin asks me.
“He’s probably just too embarrassed to admit them,” I reply. “Some of the things he does are pretty immature.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know … mostly schoolboy stuff like …” I’m struggling.
At that moment my phone rings. It’s Charlie.
“Charlie’s asking where her yellow pyjamas are,” I say.
Tamsin snatches my phone and directs Charlie to the exact location of the misplaced nightwear.
The conversation goes on for so long that by the time she ends the call, Tamsin has completely forgotten what we were talking about.
It looks like I’m in the clear. At least for now.
◆◆◆
Just before we leave the party, I find myself alone with Sophia in a dimly lit corridor. She moves in close and tilts her head upwards. Her lips are extremely tempting, but before I can decide whether to kiss her or not, a couple of inebriated colleagues stumble into us and knock Sophia off balance. The moment passes and we smile at each other and go our separate ways.
From the car, while waiting for Tamsin to complete her goodbyes – which usually take an inordinately long time – I send a text message to Sophia.
“Hi.”
“Hi. You ok?” comes the immediate reply.
“Wanted to kiss you!” I quickly message back.
“Me too, you sexy hunk. X”
I turn off my phone just in time, as Tamsin opens the door and slides into the car.
“Home, James,” she giggles, “and don’t spare the horses!”
I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have to murder Dave. Not yet, anyway.
◆◆◆
Cons:
I might destroy my marriage and forfeit my family.
I might lose my home, my car and most of my money.
I might destroy my reputation, and no longer hold the respect of the people I care about the most.
I might make myself ill through stress and worry.
I might contract a sexually transmitted disease.
I might have to live with guilt for the rest of my life.
I might spend all eternity burning in hell, if it exists.
Pros:
Hot sex!
It was a no-brainer.
I was going to have an affair!
Chapter Three
The Phonecall
Christmas Day is one of my top five days of the year, along with my birthday (birthday sex), our wedding anniversary (anniversary sex), Valentine’s Day (Valentine’s Day sex) and every day of our summer vacation (holiday sex). Christmas Day, however, is always a special family day, even when we have to spend it with my mother and Greg. The kids look forward to our regular traditions and won’t let us change anything from year to year.
This Christmas morning begins, as it has always done, with Charlie and John excitedly entering our bedroom at 7:30 a.m. carrying the present-filled stockings which have miraculously appeared at the end of their beds during the night.
They take it in turns to open their presents, and during a lull in the proceedings I check my messages and emails. Tamsin isn’t impressed. “You’re not going to spend all day looking at your phone, are you? It would be nice if we could just have one day without gadgets,” she says.
So I dutifully switch it off. And then back on again as soon as Tamsin walks into the bathroom. But I make sure it’s now on silent mode and won’t even vibrate. Then I forget about my phone and just enjoy the festivities. I fully intend to eat and drink far too much, as is my tradition.
◆◆◆
As usual, my mum has spent a ridiculous amount of money on Charlie and John. She dotes on her grandchildren and spoils them rotten by buying really thoughtful and expensive gifts, often overshadowing the gifts we’ve given them. She must put as much time and effort into carefully handpicking their presents as she does into buying something for Tamsin which she knows that Tamsin will hate. This year she’s excelled herself, by giving Tamsin one of those DNA testing kits where you spit into a tube, send it off to the labs, and four weeks later you discover you’re descended from Ethelred The Unready.
My mother, like many older people in this country, is slightly – unwittingly and thus unapologetically – racist, and she’s mentioned a few times that Tamsin’s family ‘look like they come from gypsy stock!’ Obviously she never says this in Tamsin’s hearing, but still there’s no love lost between them. I guess that this gift is my mum’s way of trying to find out if her theory is correct. But it won’t succeed. My expectation is that this gift, as is traditional, will go straight into Tamsin’s reject-box to be donated, at the first opportunity, to one of the local charity shops.
I like to think I know my wife pretty well. While her mouth usually says something like, “Oh, how lovely! That’s so thoughtful of you, Irene.” By the time the words reach my brain they’ve become, “Well, you’ve done it again, you old battle-axe. Why do you hate me so much?”
Tamsin is a talented actress, and she performs brilliantly once again when Mum and Greg call our landline – two minutes after we’ve started our dinner – to wish us a Merry Christmas from sunny Spain. If I didn’t know better, I’d genuinely believe that she’s delighted with her new gift.
I’ve no idea why my mother dislikes Tamsin, but they’ve never hit it off, and it’s been the same since the first time I brought Tamsin back from university to visit my family home.
◆◆◆
On my first day at university, I found myself miserable, friendless and living in a hall of residence, in a tiny, grotty room opposite a tall, good-looking, dark-haired chap called Jake. I’d left school at eighteen to work with my dad at his building company, then returned to full-time education six years later as a mature student. Despite our age difference – I was six years older and a year below Jake – we got on really well and soon became firm friends. It was through Jake that I first met Tamsin – the love of my life – as they were undergraduates on the same course. By my second year, there was a group of seven of us who had become good pals. We used to hang out with each other all the time, and shared a student house together in my second year. For a while, we even formed a prog rock band which went by the inspired name of Prurient Curiosity. I was on lead vocals, Tamsin played keyboards and Jake made a raucous noise on the guitar. The others had little musical talent, but made up for it in enthusiasm. We were awful, and the band didn’t last long, but the bond we formed at university turned out to be permanent, and the seven of us have subsequently kept in touch and tried to meet up at least once a year.
◆◆◆
The next day was a Saturday, so I had the whole weekend to do some re
search before I saw Sophia again on the following Monday, and gave her my decision.
I waited until Tamsin had left the house to go to the gym, then locked myself in my office, booted up the computer and set to work.
Unfortunately, I’m a bit behind the times when it comes to anything technical, unlike my kids who seem to perform magic on their various devices.
The first thing I did was type ‘how to have an affair without getting caught’ into a search engine. I was hopeful that I’d find something useful, but I was gobsmacked when I got 545 million hits. There were 545 million articles out there giving advice on how to have an affair successfully! It seemed like I wasn’t the only person in the world who was planning to cheat on his wife.
The top three search results were:
“My perfect affair - how I’m getting away with it”
“10 easy ways to have an affair without getting caught”
“How not to get caught cheating: 14 steps (with pictures)”
I skimmed these three articles and realised that I’d already made one big mistake. The advice was: Use private browsing mode on your web browser. Apparently, employing this method will avoid leaving suspicious entries in the search history, like the four I’d already generated in the first twenty minutes of my cunning plan to be really careful.
Not a problem, I thought. I can delete my search history when I’m done. But it seems that this is suspicious too. Why would anyone delete their entire search history if they had nothing to hide?
With a bit more research, I discovered that I could delete selected sites and searches from my history, while leaving behind a few innocuous ones in case anyone ever looked.
After some cleaning, I was satisfied that I’d left no suspicious traces, and I opened a private browsing window and resumed.
I’d already realised that I had a lot to learn if I was going to have an affair and keep it secret.
◆◆◆
Jake has just left. He always pops in on Christmas Day for a brief visit. It’s another part of our tradition. Twice divorced, Jake drives over two hundred miles in order to spend part of Christmas Day with each of his three children and his goddaughter, Charlie.
By 7 p.m. I’m in need of the bathroom. While I’m standing and relieving myself, my right hand is busy, but I have nothing to do with my left, so I take out my phone for the first time in several hours, and discover that I’ve received thirteen text messages, all from Sophia.
They start off pleasant enough, but soon take a worrying turn.
8:35 “Hi”
10:22 “Hi!”
11:12 “Hi!!!”
11:54 “Happy Christmas! xxx”
12:32 “Are you ok?”
13:03 “About to have lunch. Message me soon x”
15:40 “Why aren’t you replying? I’m feeling fat and very squiffy!!!”
16:10 “I miss you! Drinking my sorrows away x”
17:18 “We should be together today. I love you! xxx”
17:49 “Just thrown up. Feel wretched!”
18:10 “Are you ignoring me?!”
18:22 “Message me now or it’s over!!!”
18:32 “I’m so drunk!”
Tamsin knocks on the door. “Are you all right in there?” she says.
I leave my phone on silent, but I switch it to vibrate.
“Just coming,” I reply and head back to rejoin my family.
◆◆◆
For someone having an affair, Bank Holidays and rites of passage must be the worst. There’s an expectation on a day like Christmas Day that everyone has to have a wonderful time and everything has to be perfect within the family, but anyone committing adultery is fully aware that everything is not perfect. How can it be when they’re part of a disloyal marriage? Their spouse may not be aware of it, but they can’t hide from the fact. Couples in this position, especially those who have a closer relationship with their lover than their spouse, will inevitably feel lonely and isolated when they’re unable to communicate with each other.
I can’t exactly blame Sophia for missing me on Christmas Day. It’s quite sweet, really.
◆◆◆
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
As we complete the third round of our traditional card game, my phone begins to vibrate in my pocket. It isn’t ringing out loud, but everyone can hear the vibrations. I know it’s Sophia; inebriated and unpredictable. What do I do?
“I said aren’t you going to get that?” Tamsin is frowning at me as she shuffles the cards.
I take the phone out of my pocket and take a peek at the screen.
“I don’t recognise the number,” I lie. “But I’d better take it. You never know, it could be something important.”
What’s Sophia playing at? It’s Christmas Day and I’m at home with my family. Has she forgotten the rules, or is she just too drunk to care?
As casually as possible, I make my way into the kitchen and close the door firmly behind me.
“What are you doing calling me on Christmas Day? It’s a family day,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry, Lee. When I didn’t hear from you all day, I was so worried. I’ll hang up,” Sophia slurs in reply.
“No! Not yet,” I snap. “You need to help me come up with a reason for this phone call. What am I going to say to Tamsin?”
“Just say it’s a wrong number.”
I pause for a few seconds.
“Actually, I can’t think of any reason why that won’t work. Nice one.”
“You see. I’m not just a pretty…”
“Listen, Soph. I need you to do me a favour,” I say, interrupting her.
“Anything, Lee,” she says, obviously aware that she’s not in my good books.
“Take another look at rule seven and rule fourteen,” I say, and hang up on her before she can respond.
◆◆◆
I decided the safest thing to do would be to compile a list of rules. If Sophia and I were going to cheat on our spouses successfully, without anyone getting hurt, we’d need to be singing from the same hymn sheet. I’d write the hymn sheet and insist she agreed with and abided by the lyrics. It would be like a contract; a set of guidelines we’d both have to follow in order to eliminate any chance of us being caught having an affair.
For the rest of the weekend, I spent every spare moment, when Tamsin was out of the house, using private browsing mode to acquire the best advice for having an affair and getting away with it. I compiled handwritten lists of do’s and don’ts until I had several pages of guidance, then I condensed these pages as much as possible and turned them into fifteen simple rules. It took quite a while to memorise all fifteen, but once I had, I shredded all the paper I’d used and flushed it down the toilet.
◆◆◆
There are two distinct types of affairs: emotional and physical. Tamsin would be more distraught if I had an emotional affair rather than a physical one. If I fell in love with another woman, that would distress her more than if I had meaningless sex with another woman. Somehow, I think she’d see it as more of a betrayal; the perception of closeness, the sharing of feelings and secrets, the confiding in each other.
I take the opposite view. I’d be devastated if Tamsin had a physical affair; sharing her body, my body, with another person, man or woman; I don’t think I could get past it. I’d be forever comparing myself with him or her. Was he a more skilful lover than me? Did she know the secret ways to turn Tamsin on which she never shared with me? Did he have a firmer body than mine? Was he better endowed? I’d never be able to stop imagining Tamsin and her mystery lover in bed together, or in the shower, or in the back seat of Tamsin’s car.
In contrast, an emotional affair which didn’t lead to anything physical: no harm, no foul. Did he fulfil Tamsin’s emotional needs better than me? Who cares!
I need to be clear with Sophia that our relationship has no emotional aspect whatsoever. It’s entirely physical.
◆◆◆
“That was quick
. Who was it?” Tamsin asks as I rejoin my family at the card table.
“Oh, just a wrong number. Someone trying to get hold of a guy called Tony. We had a quick chat and I reckon he must have had the last two numbers the wrong way round when he dialled. He sounded pretty drunk to be honest. Whose go is it?”
“It’s yours, Dad,” Charlie replies, before adding, “Who’s still dialling numbers in this day and age? All my contacts are in the address book on my phone. I can’t remember the last time I had to physically type the individual numbers.”
“Yeah, weird huh?” I say, discarding the ace of hearts before I realise that I actually need that card. “Your go, John.”
John gleefully picks up the ace of hearts and the game resumes.
That was too close for comfort, but I think I got away with it again.
◆◆◆
On the following Monday morning, I took my lunch into Sophia’s office as usual. She looked particularly attractive that day in a new fitted dress and knee-high boots. She was wearing her hair up, and I couldn’t help but imagine kissing her beckoning neck.
“Well?” She didn’t beat around the bush. There was an eager expression on her face.
“Well, what?” I replied, nonchalantly.
“Can we do it? Can we have an affair?”
“I don’t understand why you’re so keen,” I said. “Am I really that ravishing?”
“Yes! I’ve fancied the pants off you for ages, but it’s not only that. Things haven’t been great at home for quite a while. I love Joe and I’d never leave him, but we’re more like housemates than husband and wife these days. He just wants to play golf all the time, but I want a regular damn good shagging.” She flushed. “I was hoping you’d be the man to give me one.”