Twenty-Four (Part I)

I never wanted it to happen, but I fell in love with a married man.

He was the assistant manager at a small, independent book store I worked at in ______, Michigan, an outwardly conservative midwestern town notable at the time for having the highest concentration of both churches and liquor stores per square mile in the country. It was, therefore, an ideal venue in which to feel conflicted and at odds with one's better nature -- a place whose very architecture appeared to encourage its inhabitants to simultaneously wrestle with demons and hope for salvation.

Adrift after graduating from a local college, I divided my days at the bookstore between shelving books in my allotted sections -- Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Science -- and waiting on customers behind the store's broad wood counters, perpetually littered with employees eccentric reading materials. My fellow booksellers were artists and writers, misfits and weirdos -- a motley crew lead by the store's enigmatic manager, a stoic man who quietly hand-picked his employees based solely on how interesting he personally found them to be, rather than on anything resembling actual skills or qualifications. Still, they were some of the smartest, most fascinating people I've ever known. And, to this day, it remains far and away the best job I ever had.

My relationship with the man began innocently. I was, in fact, pseudo-dating several other store employees at the time, and had little interest in a thirty year old married man. Besides, he didn't even vaguely resemble my type. A rockabilly-styled Francophile with a serious Jonathan Richman fixation, his blond hair and bright blue eyes crowned a broad smile that radiated almost child-like gentleness and optimism. Quietly gracious to the point of self-effacement, he was the absolute antithesis of the brooding, rebellious types I was naturally drawn to.

But our connection was strong, and we began spending more and more time together. For months we palled around at the bookstore, oblivious to the eyebrows that were starting to rise around us. In time I began picking him up for work each morning on my way to the store, and during our ride would bombard him with that day's indie rock fixation, gushing about the profundities of the Silver Jews song "Trains Across The Sea" as he sat grinning at me serenely from the passenger seat. There was something almost familial in our interaction, something that put me so much at ease that I didn't really think about what we were doing until one day, in the backroom of the store surrounded by skeletal shelves piled with books, I caught him gazing at me with a look of wan seriousness on his face, an expression that betrayed deeper feeling. I realized then, with a mixture of alarm and excitement, what had happened. There was no overwrought confession. There was, however, a brand new understanding.

Over the next several months we did nothing technically untoward, despite being sick with what we felt for each other. It was a daily struggle for each of us to keep control of ourselves physically, to not cross over that line we instinctively knew neither of us could recover from. Then one night, sitting in my car in a dark parking lot following a work event, we turned to each other and together moved into a kiss that literally blinded me for a few moments, as if an enormous spotlight had dropped from the ceiling of my car and washed everything in the visible world a pure, blazing white. We'd finally crossed the line. We couldn't go back.

It was the spring before I was to leave for Graduate School, and I was house-sitting at the home of two college professor friends who were doing a faculty exchange in Ireland at the time. Several nights a week the man would come to the house and we would sit together for hours, talking earnestly about what we were doing, how we felt, about what all of this meant and what we should do about it. We kissed a few times, nothing more. Somehow it was enough to be alone with him -- a monumental relief to be able to actually live for just a few moments at a time the feelings I worked hard every moment of every day to choke down.

One night during a visit we argued badly and I directed him to leave, retreating clumsily to the bedroom upstairs. I laid down on my back in the dark room, tears rushing down my temples, gripping the comforter beneath me with both fists, overwhelmed by the futility of the situation I'd gotten myself into. The man appeared in the doorway, a dark silhouette glowing eerily at the edges. Tentatively, he moved to the bed and laid his body on top of mine, both of us fully clothed. He whispered that he loved me, his voice shaking. In the dim light streaming in from the hallway I watched as he closed his eyes and gently caught my sweater between his teeth, his face contorting into an expression of almost rapturous torment. It was terrible. It was beautiful. It needed to be over.

. . . . .

Continued here: Twenty-Four Part II