A friend of mine is carrying on with a married man. She says it's just a fling, but last night I heard her tell somebody about her boyfriend who lives in England.
He is married with no children and says he doesn't love his wife. He texts and phones my friend constantly. He flies over from London to her flat, in Dublin. She buys new underwear and they drink the pink champagne he got at the airport.
She used to know him years ago, when they were at school. Then he moved away. Out one night, she bumped into him in a nightclub, and they talked for hours. He said she had looked so beautiful, standing there by the bar, that he just had to go over and talk to her. Cheesy, she knows, but somehow, with a cocktail in hand, it worked.
He told her about his wife and their non-existent sex life and about how he felt trapped. It wasn't a case of him being irresistible that night. It was just that he took such a deep interest in my friend, asking all about her, telling her how attractive she was, that when the moment of truth came - "spend the night with me?" - she couldn't resist.
He took her back to his hotel. Lying in the bubble bath with him, drinking wine, she felt as if she was in a really good episode of Sex and the City or Desperate Housewives. He was over on business the following week. They dined at the Trocadero, where she looked at other couples and wondered whether they were in the same situation. She brought her overnight case, stuffed with three varieties of underwear, to a posh hotel.
She had looked forward to it all week, but the night was a little bit of a disappointment. There was no bath this time, and she had expected more in the way of, I don't know, acrobatics. Also, he was a bit too bowled over by the underwear for her liking. Even afterwards, when she put on the comfortable, practical outfit she had bought to sleep in, he oohed and aahed so much it was embarrassing.
In the morning his female boss spotted them on the way out of the hotel. She made a big show of averting her eyes but sat there going through some paperwork, grinning at the antics of her errant employee. The doorman gave my friend a wink on the way out. She felt as if she was in a movie.
Don't get her wrong. She has told him nothing can happen. She told him that last time, when they were in her flat eating pizza and drinking pink champagne. His wife thought he was at a graduation party and, you know, his friend had recently graduated, so it wasn't a total lie. That night she said: "You know nothing can happen. Nothing long term. Nothing serious. I am not going to be your bit on the side. I am not going to be your mistress." He said: "I know that. I'll have to do something at my end. I didn't expect to fall for you so hard." She said: "Well, so long as you know."
She says all that, but they've hardly been off the phone since, and he is coming back in May, and she thinks she might be able to open a lingerie store with all the stuff she's been buying.
I spoke to him the other night. He sounds cultured and fun and younger than I expected. He sounded nervous, too. There's an awareness that what he is doing is wrong, but the feelings are too strong, he tells her, to ignore. And my friend, well, she isn't used to being treated this way. Flowers sent to her office and little cards and romantic text messages. Maybe, six months down the line, she'll have to put her foot down and say no more and mean it. Although you never know what is going to happen. He could actually leave his wife. My friend wouldn't rule it out.
It's not that he is irresistible. He is wonderful and everything, but it's a bit like an article she read in a women's magazine about a girl who is in love but not in lust. She doesn't feel like ripping his clothes off every time she sees him. But that's okay. He treats her with respect. He treats her the way few other men have. He treats her.
In the meantime she goes out clubbing, and if she meets someone else she won't be holding back on account of him. He can hardly expect exclusivity. They have talked about what it would be like should he leave his wife. Which is amazing, as they have only been doing this for a few weeks. The thought of him leaving his wife is scary; my friend imagines the pressure she would be under to make the relationship work. And, like he says, she might never be able to trust him, given how they met. And it's a difficult one because, as she says, you never know what is going to happen. You just never know.