Maybe I was meant to be a swinger, that's what it is. I'm just in an open relationship … that only one of us knows about …
He'll never know. He'll never find out. My heart can still belong to him – that's all that counts, right? I can get pleasure from someone else, desire from elsewhere, but still belong to him in a way he needs.
Fucked up. So fucked up. But it begins to make sense. Especially right around the time when you stop caring if he did the same thing. Cause that's what stopped me in the beginning, the ol' “well how would I feel if he cheated on me?” trick.
That worked for the first year or two. Then, slowly but surely, it went away. I didn't care. Mike could have gone and fucked half the neighborhood, and I would've been ecstatic – because it would've meant I could do the same. It would've meant my best friend was finally experiencing the pleasure and desire he had been missing out on for so long. It would mean that I could finally experience it, too.
Because experiencing it with each other was no longer a possibility.
He'll never know ...
~Italy~
It was hot and muggy in Italy – murder on Misch's hair. It was also go, go, go! From the moment they got there, she had to hit the ground running. They landed at night, went straight to bed, and she was woken up at six in the morning to get ready for the day. Jet lag was still very present as she muscled through the work, trying to explain coding and filing procedures to a translator.
The first few days took adjusting. Time changes, climate changes, cultural changes, and on top of all that – her nerves. She was a nervous wreck.
How am I going to do this!? I don't even know what flirting is anymore. I haven't even tried to pick anyone up yet, and I already feel like puking. This is such a bad idea. I'm not doing it.
If there was anywhere a woman would want to work on her self-confidence and man-getting abilities, Italy was the place. The men were very aggressive and very vocal. Misch didn't speak a word of Italian, but she didn't need a translator to tell her the kinds of things that were shouted at her, and every other woman on the street, on a daily basis.
Dinner was another exercise in being single. She dined alone, not really having much in common with her boss. She would sit at the bar in the hotel lounge, and men would come up to her and start prattling away in Italian. Same thing happened at the outdoor cafes and restaurants she went to; men would walk up and just start talking to her, switching languages when they discovered she wasn't Italian.
“Are you alone?”
The first couple times she heard that, Misch's standard response was, “I'm married”. She'd been saying it for so long, it was a hard habit to break. Eventually, though, she got to where she could say “yes” back to them. She wasn't going to lie – it was bad enough that she was attempting to lie and cheat on her husband, she wasn't going to lie to anyone else. She wore her rings, and if they asked if she was married, she told the truth.
“I am, but he's not here.”
Shockingly, this didn't deter most men. If anything, they became more aggressive. She wondered if it seemed like a challenge to them. Mischa didn't like it. She wasn't a prize to be won. She felt cheap enough as it was, she didn't need a man making her feel that way, too.
On top of that, the idea of actually cheating on her husband made her feel kind of sick to her stomach, and she was also simply too nervous. A man would sit close enough to touch her and she would practically jump out of her skin. Laugh like a nervous donkey, then scoot away. Finish her drink and run away. She would share drinks and laugh, and one man went as far as caressing her bare thigh, but she always psyched herself out. Found herself making excuses to get away, begging off for the night.
Maybe I can't do this.
Having sex with another person was all fine and dandy in her mind. But when it was time to put her “plan” into action, she had a realization. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't. She had planned and schemed and worked for a year, and when the “prize” was right in front of her, she didn't want it anymore. She had totally overthought it, watched too many rom-coms, read too many romance novels. That wasn't real life, this was – a boring, shadow of a marriage that she was too weak to get out of. She had to learn to deal with that, because she clearly wasn't able to be a heartless, cheating vixen.
How did I think I could do this? I'm not that person. I can't do that to him. I made my decision when I married him. I made my bed, and now I have to lay in it. For better, or for worse.
And so her first week in Italy went. Amazed at her surroundings. Overwhelmed by her job. Scared of her future. Regretful of her feelings. She was all over the place – definitely not the right frame of mind to start something that might ruin her life.
Oh, and the tiny fact that actually doing it would make me the worst. Person. Ever.
At the end of that first week, she felt better about herself. Better than she had in a long time. She wasn't going to cheat on her husband, she wasn't going to become that person. She was going to do her job, Mike was going to visit, and maybe being in Europe would reignite that spark. Reignite something, anything.
Life was good. She was a good person. Nothing bad was going to happen.
“You are alone?”
Mischa sighed and looked up from her manual.
“Yeah, but I'm busy,” she replied, her voice terse. Her plan was over – no more flirting for her. No point in being a bundle of nerves all the time for no good reason. She hadn't even bothered dressing up, was just wearing a simple black sundress and sandals.