They did figure it out. It was easy to figure out. They were both young and frisky and educated, and actually it wasn’t much of a difficult problem. A hard one, yes, but of course that was part of the fun of it all.
In fact, they found multiple solutions to the same fun problem. They found creative ways to effect exactly what they wanted to effect but with Bill being able to say, in his own way, that he wasn’t cheating.
To her credit, Arlene was not pushy. She did not pressure him to go out with her, to go home with her, to be with her. She led him to understand that her mother was really quite okay and that as far as things were going in her life, so long as her mother was okay and the prognosis was good, she was in decent shape.
But there did come a time when they were sitting opposite each other in a diner and Arlene let slip something about the true nature of her real feelings.
They had finished the night shift and gotten out relatively early. Bill’s wife was hanging out with Tim and her friends, and since it was summer and they weren’t going to school, after all she was graduated now, she mentioned that they might be out late. So Bill and Arlene met at the diner where they usually met if they weren’t going to her house. She had a Sundae. He ate hot Apple pie in vanilla sauce.
At first they didn’t talk much, but then they started to talk about what they were going to do after they finished in the diner.
“I’d like to, well you know what I’d like to do,” Arlene said.
“I can guess.”
“No, I don’t think you can guess.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you haven’t got a clue as to how I actually feel.”
“So maybe you ought to tell me how you actually feel,” Bill said.
“You mean you really don’t know?”
“I’m not so sure what I know. I’m not so sure I even know what I don’t know.”
“Well then you’re pretty stupid.”
“Arlene, don’t be so cryptic. If you’ve got something to say, say it.”
“I wish you’d never gotten married. I wish I’d met you before I did, under other circumstances maybe.”
“Ah, geez,” Bill said.
“Yeah, ah geez.”
They had a long period of silence before Arlene, who was clearly holding back tears, looked at Bill and said, “Fuck it. Let’s go to my house.”
They did.
They sat in her living room and popped Quaaludes, something they did pretty frequently when they were together, then they smoked a joint, then they drank white wine. Arlene kept several bottles of white wine appropriately chilled in her refrigerator for Bill and her to drink.
She kicked off her shoes. She sat facing him with her legs tucked under her. She slowly began unbuttoning her blouse.
Bill knew he should have gone home at that moment, but he also knew he wasn’t going home. He watched her undress, watched her sit in just her bra and panties before him. He watched her begin to sensually rub her hands along the inside of her thighs. He watched her reach to him and begin to take off his shirt.
“Tell me you really care about me,” Arlene said.
“I really care about you,” Bill said. “And if I weren’t married I’d…” He stopped himself there.
“You’d what?”
Bill reached out for Arlene and pulled her into his arms. Interestingly, he wasn’t thinking about her and he wasn’t thinking about his wife. He was thinking about Mary, the woman he really loved, or, at the very least, the woman he thought he really loved.
Oh, the webs we weave.
