this time three years ago, i was having an affair.

today and yesterday were days full of intense memories, sparked by the hot weather, by music i hadn't listened to in years, by being dissapointed by a friend and too much time alone.

while pondering about my birthday on sunday, i remembered that three years ago, the person to congratulate me first was not d., my partner back then, but c.

three years ago, i was having an affair.

those were the last months of being with d. things were coming to an end, had been coming to an end for a while. the basis of our relationship had been eroded by him making all major decisions without me, by his warped view of me, by his warped view of our future.
i didn't quite dare to take my things and leave, and ended up in an affair instead, sunconsciously looking for a catalyst to make me end the relationship with d.

i met c. in a group setting through a close mutual friend, away from both our hometowns, found him interesting and attractive, liked his quick and creative mind, desired his attention. i wonder whether part of my attraction to c. was actually our mutual friend, who i had longed for and lusted after for a good 3 years before this all happened. being with c. was being in our mutual friend's territory in a way. warped, i know. but probably more to the point than i'd like to admit.
in any way, the attraction seemed to be mutual, and somehow, we ended up outside, it was a lush summer evening, and things developed from there. my mind is all confuse can't seem to choose what's right or wrong.
it wasn't spectacular, but nice enough.
a lack of safer sex supplies (my partner wasn't there, so why should i carry my kit around?) limited our activities. and in all honesty, i'm not too sure whether i'd have gone along with it. while i had emotionally moved away from d. quite a while ago, it still felt like cheating: unfair. i broke all arrangements d. and i had made in our two years together.
it wasn't the first time i had "slipped" while with d. there had been others before, i had fallen in love once, in lust twice, looked for re-assurance, too.

home again after the slip with c., i decided it was all going to be a one off thing. despite that, a few days later, i found myself writing emails to c, bringing what had happened up, indicating i had liked it a lot.
a few days later, we were on the phone. ended up being on the phone for four hours.

that night, drum & bass being the soundtrack from the club in my courtyard, was the start of a phone/online experience like none before or after. it was insane, intense and stupid. it felt beautiful while it lasted.
had they been in english, these eMails could have gone straight into the fiction section of scarletletters.

the day after the phone call, i eMailed him again. unfortunately i don't have all the mails i send him back then, i didn't have my own computer back then, and hence don't know what exactly i wrote him. from what he wrote that day, i gather that he read one of his short stories to me on the phone, that we discussed relationships and the upcoming solar eclipse and what had happened. it's the most hamless of all the emails he wrote. he.

i wrote mine at the puter pools at uni and got regularly disconnected when writing pages and pages of replies, red faced and flushed and excited. pages full of confessions and desires and questions on how things should develop in and between the lines.
i still have all his mails. i am still amazed by how daring we both were, by how my feeling were awakened again while still being in the fucked up relationship with d., by the desire and lust that nearly drips out off these mails.

we started being on the phone every day. emailed several times a day. to share the cost of calls, we'd stop every hour so the callee could call the caller.
d. started to wonder why my line was always busy late in the evening, and i took on calling him when c. and i were making our phone breaks. that bit felt terribly deceitful, was terribly deceitful. but i had turned that bit in my head off, most of the time, and somehow seperated the screwed up 2 year old ldr with d. from the sizzling ldr stuff between c. and me. i wanted hours and hours of c.'s voice on the phone. wanted more and more of his intense emails. didn't care i was tired all the time from staying up till 4am with him on the phone and waking up from dreams in which i was still on the phone with him.
one night, he told me all about his family. his father's suicide. his mom's schizophrenia. the trouble with his brother.

c. called me at midnight on my 21st birthday, and was the first to congratulate (d. didn't call until sometime the next day), a few hours later, when the little party i had had was over, c. and i were on the phone again, and i remember what it felt like to tell him that i couldn't get him out of my head and wanted to continue what had started, wondering whether i was making a fool out of myself: it felt like jumping into an ice-cold pool, only to realize it really was a warm jacuzzi and that i had had nothing to fear.
whereas being with d. made me feel trapped and locked in, i felt free and accepted and carried by c.

i still have an email from july 5th 1999 in which i ponder how and why things developed the way they did; a true morning after email, c. and i had had the most exquisite phone sex you can imagine the night before.

i was further away from d. in these phone calls than while c. and i had been kissing. the calls were unfaithfulness at its best. what happened over the glassfibre cables was more intimate than any kissing, any making-out, any groping. we let all defences down. and good lord, did that feel spectacular.

it wasn't all sweet and sexy and erotic though, july 6th in contrast shows the guilt i felt over the betrayal and pondered about what i should do (knew the only way out anyway), and how much i worried about c. thinking i might enjoy the double-play. the sex with c. aside, i hated every minute of the double-play, as exciting as it was.

three years ago, i was having an affair.

things with d. were deteriorating, obviously. i can't remember specifics, just bitd of horrible weekends here and in d.'s new hometown. sex i didn't want but felt obliged to have, evil comments intended to hit were it hurts most, emptiness the size of the grand canyon between us.

d. and i broke up, finally, several weeks overdue, one weekend in his new town. i drove him to work, the worst of all songs "time to say goodbye" on the radio. i was sad and tired but already feeling the relief of it being over, and felt the relief the 300kms home.

but instead of making the way ready for a new relationship with c., the breakup meant breaking away from him, too. i just couldn't do it. i suddenly felt threatened by what had seemed promising the week before. i felt under pressure by his wishes, i just couldn't start all over again, as much as i had needed the glorious last few weeks with him.
instead of finally seeing him again in real life, we never got around to make that real. instead of watching the solar eclipse together, like planned, i ended up in bed with one of my best mates that day. i needed to get the relationship with d. out of my head, so i screwed j. lustfully but relationship less. full of love, but without commitment. and good grace, did it feel good.
i remember the night at my place. "and in your eyes i can see what's on my mind". a sunny saturday morning in his flat, after a night of walking through his beautiful hometown which felt like paris, just smaller, a night of booze, and thc and feeling the sheepskin rug and sex. a morning that felt good. it was the good kind of love between two friends. the only thing that was missing though was "being-in-love". had that been there, it would have been perfect.

when i had finished the relationship with d., there just was no room for being in love, at all. not for j. not for c. for no one. just for me and my egoism.

i never told d. what had been going on. it wouldn't have mattered in face of all the bullshit that was between us anyway. indeed i used c. as the catalyst to end my relationship with d. i needed him for that. i still feel guilty for that and still don't have any excuses or justifications.
it sounds terrible to say that, but by projecting what i was missing with d. on c., by living out what i was missing with d. on the phone with c.

three years ago, i was having an affair.

an affair that that couldn't be transformed into real life. when c. and i finally met again, i think i was already with ev. the differences between c. and me were starkly obvious. his expectations were, too. it never got to be.
above all, i felt sorry, for the hurt i caused, for dissapointing his expectations, for not being what he wanted me to be. for being faulty and using hum to get out.

three years ago, i was having an affair.

through glassfibre wires and eMail programs. an affair, that i still remember fondly. an affair i feel sad about because i had been so unfair. an affair i feel good about because it taught me how to be open again and awoke parts of me long believed dead.

three years ago, i was having an affair.

it seems like so much longer ago. i can not see myself doing the kind of double-play again. can not see myself in uni with my partner a few metres away, checking eMails from someone else who excites me more than the entire weekend with my partner. can not see myself being so secretive. can not see myself being so un-whole, see myself so betraying.
strangely enough, with ev, for the first time ever, i am not looking for re-assurance with someone else. i don't feel like missing out. don't feel limited but safe. feel completely happy as a twosome and can not see myself being unhappy in it.

for the first time ever, i feel whole in a relationship.

but three years ago, i wasn't and was having an affair.
i was a different me back then.