Interesting Revelations . . .

Isn’t it interesting and exciting (and worrying) when somebody you thought you knew all about, tells you something so completely out-of-character that it just takes your breath away.

We met friends for dinner two nights ago . . . a good friend who I’ve known since school days. Although we chat regularly on the telephone (and that’s the thing!), we hadn’t seen each other since the summer. It was her birthday and J and I had arranged to meet up with her and her husband at our favourite local restaurant.

That morning I’d arrived at the office to find an email from V saying he was arriving in London later that day and would I like to “meet-up”. Once again he’d given me no notice whatsoever! I replied that I had a prior engagement which I couldn’t change. I was initially annoyed because I actually had been looking forward to seeing him again and I’d asked him previously to give me at least a few days notice when he next planned to be in London. But when he called later in the day he said the reason for his visit had come-up suddenly and he had to be in Brussels the next afternoon. He also pointed-out that even if he had given me a week’s notice, I had arranged the meal with our friends well before Christmas, so wouldn’t have been able to change plans anyway . . .

Our meal was pleasant and just the normal chat about families, children, schools and our Christmas etc. We invited them back to ours for drinks from where they would order a taxi home.

Whilst the men continued chatting with drinks in the living room my friend joined me in the kitchen as she wanted tea instead of more wine. As we boiled the kettle and I prepared tea (and a coffee for J) she asked if I could “tell the boys we would be getting together again for a girly night in the next week or so?” I looked at her quizzically and nodded that of course I would, but I was confused as to whether she wanted to meet or not? She told me she needed an “alibi” and would I mind?

I stood listening . . . with amazement . . . she seemed so excited she was almost shaking. She held my hand and asked me if I remembered one of her first boyfriends (who had been at school with us). I knew who she meant (they’d dated for several years, but he’d moved away after leaving school) . . . and I just nodded as I suddenly realized what she might be saying next !!

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since they’d broken-up all those years ago, but he’d just recently got in touch with her again after some sort of school reunion (for which I remembered I'd ignored the invitations for). His marriage had split up several years ago and he was back living in London. She was blurting out “I’ve started seeing him. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it.”

I was just so surprised at what she was telling me I didn’t know how to react or what to say. She pulled me further into the kitchen whispering in short bursts as I tried to calm her down and assure her we were out of earshot of the boys. She is absolutely the last person, amongst all our friends, that I could possibly have thought would actually be having an affair ! Although she married after J and I, she has four children (of similar age to our two), that had all arrived quite closely together and her husband is such a nice, easy-to-get-along with type of person . . . I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When I was telling J afterwards, he described her as the “plainest of Plain Janes”, and “doesn’t look the type”. She is very petite, dresses, (and acts) very conservatively. Even knowing how different we all are in private, neither of us would ever have expected her to actually be in a similar position to us.

“What about [her husband]?” I asked her, not sure to ask “does he know?” when of course I was sure he didn’t know! “God, it would kill him, he’d kill me!” she replied. She told me she’d only been with her “new” man twice, but she had to have more. He was doing things she’d never done before and that she and her husband hardly touched anymore, let alone had “proper sex”. She was having orgasms, he was making her feel like she never had before. She’d spent all afternoon in bed with him just before Christmas. Her husband had never “kissed her down there” but her lover loved it and she felt like an 18 year old having just discovered sex for the first time.

I was asking her if she knew what she was doing, what she was letting herself in for, and what ‘his’ expectations of the relationship were . . . and all the time I was thinking “should I be telling her I understand, should I be telling her about J and I ?” But she was talking (whispering) so fast that I couldn’t have got a word in edge-ways anyway. She was hugging me and telling me she just had to “tell someone” and that she “couldn’t stop now it’s started”. I was relieved that she was saying she knew it was just “a fling” and could never last and that she could never leave her husband and the kids. (“It would destroy them”). She wanted to know if I thought she “was a slut” and did I think less of her . . . but before I could answer she was asking if I could say we would be “getting together with the girls” one evening next week.

We couldn’t stay in the kitchen for long of course . . . and when we returned to the living room I felt so self-conscious and sheepish and sure that J and her husband must have noticed that the atmosphere had changed. But J said later that they’d been too busy continuing their conversation about the state of the economy etc. etc. that neither of them would have noticed any change in our demeanour.

But after the taxi had arrived, and I returned to the living room to interrupt J from switching on the TV to watch the news with “you will never, EVER believe this”, I didn’t know what to think about what I’d just heard. After getting over his initial surprise and disbelief, J just says “see everyone is at it”. But I am torn between thinking more happy about our own relationship . . . and then worry that perhaps my friend is not actually quite in the same position as us, and that perhaps in her situation it can only end in tears.

Best wishes - Edith
http://www.scarletsecrets.co.uk/edithsdiary