This fictional story was inspired by my visit to a fashion designer's shop. I had seen a piece of clothing that he designed, and then painted on, it was a lovely, beautiful jacket, with a sad, beautiful woman's face on it. It somehow reminded me that movie called "In the Mood for Love". I saw that movie years ago and it was by far the most memorable movie I watched - I remember thinking - "wow, unsatisfied desire, love story at it's finest." It was quite moody and I liked to write moody stories and that became a foundation of this story (two married people having an affair under a difficult circumstance just like the movie).
I thought some more and made sketches in my head about how to write a love story. I thought, hmmm.. would it be cool if two old lovers re-met and they started a relationship, and one was looking back reminiscing the old days and thought how much they shared in common, while the other (female) looking forward, and feeling tentative and conflicted about the lack of common things they shared. So I wrote a little story called The list, where the woman made list of things that they had in common, part of her felt that the list was short and part of her wished, despite her fatalistic view of her relationship with this man (because they are both in committed relationships with other people), that the list would grow, like their relationship, it was their unwritten story. This story had no perfect beginning or a real ending, just life itself.
“We have a lot in common”. He said in such a defensive tone.
She raised her eyebrows, surprised by his comments. She was a woman in her late 30s, she had longish dark brown highlighted hair, and almond shaped eyes. She was petite, pretty, with a curvy but toned body. She was a bit shy when pressed and appeared to be more reserved when she was around him. She wanted to tell him that she was not really trying to be snarly earlier on. She was simply stating a fact, the fact that they both liked watching porn and that was something that they had in common.
His response was unexpected. She dwelled on it for some time after she left him. She did not mean that that was the only thing that they had in common, and she really had not taken a stock on what they did have in common. Perhaps it was more than porn. Perhaps there were more, but at the time, she really just wanted to focus on the fact that they liked unconventional porn.
He had the perfect side profile, very Germanic. She knew that because she enjoyed looking at his profile when he was driving. She took pictures of his side profile using her smartphone. She kept those pictures and looked at them occasionally when she was away from him. She liked to look at him when he was up and close to her, but not when he was walking away from her. When she observed his back as he walked away from her, he felt alone, lonely, proud, and a bit sad. She didn’t know why he left her with such impression, but she remembered distinctively that was how she felt fifteen years ago: April 1998, when she first met him. It felt melancholy, symbolic of their inevitable future, him walking away from her, that was irrational on her side, but she preferred to think that was the reason why she did not liked his back towards her. He had not changed that much since they met fifteen years ago. He’s approaching 47, there were quite a bit more wrinkles around his eyes. He no longer had really bleached blond hair, which she seemed to remember him as, but his facial features remained the same. She still liked looking at him. She still liked the way he kissed her, when she was barely awake. She was near sighted, and he was far sighted, so she could see the fine wrinkles around his eyes, when he turned himself over from his side of the bed, to kiss her. She wondered what he saw of her up and close, perhaps she was just a blurred vision of some woman he bedded.
She began to like staying over at his place. It felt utterly familiar. It was like her home away from home. She knew which drawer in his bathroom the small hair dryer was located, she knew which side of the bed she should take, which shower head she used, and she knew when he left his towel on the floor, what it meant, she also knew which tooth brush was hers, when she had forgotten her own. She knew which drawer he kept their toys. She also noticed the walls were not as bare as she initially thought. There were framed photographs, photographs of women mostly, their feet, their calves, their legs, their skirts, but rarely their faces. It felt moody, very much like the way she felt about him. Whenever she was around him, it kind of reminded her the movie “In the Mood for Love,” an art house movie produced in Hong Kong, about two people tied together under rather rare circumstance, love unfulfilled. She liked to think that would be the way their story ended, one of those days.
These were the fine details and thoughts of a woman of her situation would have for her secret lover. Her boyfriend. They didn’t have a traditional relationship, they barely talked when they were apart from each other, but she thought of him often, and she believed in her heart, he did the same. Terminology was unimportant at this point, it was what it was. A few days later, she’d sit in front of writing desk and start to take a stock of what they truly had in common besides watching porn:
1. Left-handedness
2. Like to listen to NPR - both 91.7 and 88.5
3. Fashion conscious
4. A believer of Botox
5. Travel
6. Reading
7. Outdoor activities
8. Exercise
9. Liberal
10. Things German
11. Unusual sexual fantasies for some others, natural for them
She stopped. That was all that she knew of him. That was not exactly a lot of things that they had in common, but perhaps he knew her more than she did of him? She made a mental note to ask him what he thought that they had in common the next time she would see him.
If there were a next time.
They took a break, intentionally or not, it was the kind of break they both needed. They never did see each other more than once or twice a month, but the break was four weeks long, for reasons that she couldn’t articulate or explore with him, they stopped seeing each other. She lost her cool and retreated to a place where she had to regroup, and came out of the other end with a new attitude, an attitude of “I don’t give a flying fuck if he sees me or not.” That was when things started to change. The things were changing in a way that she liked, she was becoming more in tune with his emotions. She knew that he needed time to recover, and she knew that she needed time to chill.
The fact of the matter was that she knew that the moment he introduced “love” into the picture, they both freaked out. That was the only explanation that made sense. Love had nothing to do with their arrangement. Love just got into the way. It should have only been just fucking. But people didn’t just behave like animals, they fucked and they also felt. That was the problem. The problem about fucking was that inevitably fucking would get caught up with feeling. Then there was always the definition. “What is he to me?” She had finally decided: to call a spade a spade. He was her boyfriend. Whatever the limited capacity boyfriend he was, he was nonetheless her boyfriend. She wanted to call him “Boyfriend LLC.” Emphasis on LLC.
Folks, here was the tale that you’ve been waiting for.
Once upon a time, there was a young girl, and a youngish boy. They met at a group outing, through some mutual friends. He asked her out, she was a crazy girl who loved sex and provocation. He liked that about her. They dated. They drifted apart. They stayed in touch, she got married, he stayed unmarried. Throughout the years, they were friends, sort of kept in touch, stayed marginally friendly in a rather non-sexual way.
Fifteen years later, when he turned 46, she sent him an email. A happy birthday email with a hint of "shall we get together for lunch?"
He responded right away. Danced around the timing about meet up, until a month passed and she asked him again. They met up, and by second date, they were back in the sack again, and time, time passed by them and it had been roughly 8 months since they started this. Whatever happened to time, neither one of them knew. They spent more time apart than being together, they never managed to spend one single weekend together, and each of their encounters were unique, memorable and brief, and therefore, devastatingly beautiful.
Then one day out of blue this man told her that he loved her, and to her surprise, she said “I love you” back. It became this unspoken incident. A foul play. “Love” was not a word to be tossed about without consequence. The consequence, in their case, was that he disappeared, did not respond to her emails for a week, and then cancelled on their dates one after another, and she retreated, gotten sad, depressed, and reset. Both needed to time to reset, to reset back to the beginning, when they first started.
He took her out on their first proper date recently. Dinner, show and then asked her to stay over at his place.
Like the first time they went out fifteen years ago, she wore no underwear, this time, under his direction. On their way back, he figured her, she was aroused, screaming for him to stop. He drove with one hand on the wheel, let her scream until she collapsed.
In his place, he took her hands, and led her onto his bed, she was lying on her back while he took off his belt, his pants and took out his penis, he stuffed it in her mouth. She sucked on it until he was hard, and then he entered her. Just like that, they made up.
She wanted him to last. He told her then he’d go to bed without coming.
Early in the morning, they woke up together, she went down on him until he was ready, and then he fucked her. Telling her how much he loved fucking her, just like when they first started seeing each other. He fucked her, she asked him to fuck her from behind, and he did, and he came. They took an early morning nap together, for a little while before having to get ready to go to work. He told her again that they made a good couple. She believed him. She couldn’t find a better lover. One understood her. She liked to be fucked from behind. She liked him muffling her, covering her mouth with his hand forcefully. she wanted to scream, no voice would come out, she could barely breath, she was feeling suffocated. His strong hand covering her mouth and she couldn’t break free. It felt like rape. The way she enjoyed it. She told him so afterwards, even though at the time, she thought that she might faint from lack of air. He acknowledged it, and simply said softly, “I know, baby.” He knew her deepest, darkest secrets, desires and he knew how to satisfy them. He liked them too.
No one used the word “love” again.
But she knew that she loved him still. She could tell that he loved her, in his own way as well.
“Maybe that was why he thought that was what we had in common.” She later thought to herself. “Maybe the mere fact that he knew how much they felt for each other but they were unable to explain to each other, was something in common.”
She added it to the list.
12. Unable to explain to each other how they really feel for each other or to what extent.
In the evening, just before she fell asleep, she asked him, “Did you miss me?” He said, “Yes I did. And sometimes it’s just not physically possible. We are not in the same physical location.” She knew what he meant. She knew that he was being truthful. She was satisfied with her inquisition.
“I don’t have sex with anyone else.” She thought to make that declaration. “Me either.” He responded.
She didn’t believe him. But then again, if she told anyone that she’s not having sex with her husband, and only with her boyfriend LLC, no one would believe her either. But she did not, does not, probably would not, in the future, unless he left her, for good.
She decided to add that to the list as well.
13. Does not have sex with other people but each other.
“We were together a long time ago, and I’m glad that we are back together again.” Earlier that evening, he told her that, he was referring to when they first dated, in 1998. She thought that was a strange way of looking at things, yet, not surprised. In that purely physical way, they were indeed back together. In her imaginary world, she always only half believed him. In her mind, she was convinced that he had a girlfriend, whom he lived with, and he kept his apartment as their love shack. It was always seemed not touched, as if the only time he was there, was when she was there with him. One time she saw him at his place and she found a lost piece of pearl in bed, and it was hers. That time, she had not seen him for weeks also. She wanted to ask him that the next time she saw him. She wanted to believe that his place was his and hers, the love shack that they would return to, whenever they were hungry for each other. It would be fair. She wanted to believe that he too was in a committed relationship. So that they were on equal ground. She added that to the list.
14. Both in other committed relationships (Confirm and verify with Boyfriend LLC)
She thought about the way they interacted. He very rarely talked. Initially she thought that he was shy, and then she realized it was how the dynamics between the two of them played out. Over time, she realized that she feared him. It was not rational, but part of that could be a result of their BDSM style relationship. She feared losing him. She feared how he would disappear, and she feared her emotional attachment was too intense. She wanted to be “out of sight out of mind”. She wanted him to leave her, break it off with her, so that she didn’t have to feel that intense longing of him.
She suspected that he had been able to operate differently. He felt secure, and in control of their arrangement. She was never in control and somehow she liked it.
15. In a mutually beneficial BDSM relationship
She wrote item # 15 down.
Then she put her pen down. She decided to review the list and make amendments as time went on. Like writing a piece of short fiction, it required editing and rewriting. She decided that this list would grow. She’d like to see it grow.
The story had not been fully written; she thought for a while and decided that was the only truth she knew. That, and how much they still desired each other.
Make that #16.
16. Still desire each other the same way as they first reconnected 8 months ago.
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