Mechanism of an Extramarital Affair

Another white morning has dawned. As if it can erase the night preceding it. As if!

I am propped up against the headboard. Trying to summon the will to get up and switch on the geyser. To get to the kitchen and get my coffee.

There’s a strong urge to throw up. I hope the coffee will keep it down. It’s always like this these days – a very, very uncomfortable morning-after.

I spend a wistful minute recalling those halcyon days of endless vodka and no perceptible morning-after complications. But being an alcoholic is no fun anymore!

Always a little woozy, a little underwater, a little less in control of my limbs these days! Gone are the days of razor-sharp mornings after nights of sin.

Talking of sin, I steal a quick glance at my husband who is holding the newspaper two inches higher since I surfaced, his cup of tea languishing nearby, untouched. Has he figured out yet how far Bono and I have progressed? Knowing me, he should. Two months is long enough a hanky-panky to start getting physical with your regular drinking buddy. It’s certainly long enough for me. And Bono is a musician. I have always had this thing for musicians, especially guitar-players. They are all great kissers. Without exception!

And Bono’s talents go much farther than mere kissing. He really has breathed life into these ageing hormones after what seems like eternities. Only 34, and I had no semblance of a sex life to speak of. The husband I had married for precisely this purpose cannot understand my need to be bedded by more than one man. He had actually expected me to sleep with him alone, and no one else. He thankfully did not proceed to bash me up, when the cat was out of the bag, and retired into that shell of his.

I am parched. All that vodka last night has really left me dehydrated. But with my husband acting like he was crucified last night, even a simple task like swallowing a glass of water starts to become a major feat. I’ll just go on daydreaming about Bono – that’s simpler. The way he starts to kiss my neck could be straight out of B-grade movies. Reminds me – that love bite he gave me last evening must be like a red flag ablaze on my throat. I touch it self-consciously. Not because my husband is watching from behind his newspaper, but because I remember all over again the unbearable pleasure of that moment.

When he is all over me, kissing me, slowly undressing me, murmuring softly that I am the goddess he has always dreamed of, I swear I melt. I melt like a burning candle, burning for his touch all over me. It’s not like the forceful taking of my body that so many of my sexual companions prided themselves on. Even that petulant husband of mine would only bother with me for the three minutes it took for him to complete the act, when he was still interested in completing the act with me, that is.

But Bono – he’s a dream. As we sit and drink at his place, on a nice soft mattress on the floor, his guitars nearby waiting like sentries, he slowly starts to touch me. It begins with diffident holding of my hands, massaging them softly, persuasively. And by then of course I am ready to forget everything and just be in his arms, while he slowly removes my jacket and pulls my head down on his shoulder. It’s pure bliss.

But I do protest anyway. He silences me with a kiss.

“Uh oh, please, let go!”

“Why?”

“You know why!”

“No, I don’t! You don’t have to punish yourself for that ass of a husband of yours.”

It’s not as if I pretend I am so pure and untouched by everyone except my husband. But I don’t want it to be with him like it is with others. I have longed for this gentleness so long; I don’t easily want to lose it. But then, Bono obviously would not have stuck around indefinitely unless there was something in it for him – something more substantial than kissing.

So we take more of each others' clothes off.

“You are so beautiful!” he observes dutifully.

I say nothing. Just snuggle closer and wait for the inevitable to take place.

And when it does, it seems as if it hasn’t. I am yet to meet a guy like Bono who can go on kissing me so gently even when he is actually inside me.

My husband had always been anxious to know if I had managed to “have it”. It was easier to tell him I had, than tell the truth and go through the procedure of his trying to make me “have it”.

And then I had to wade through such an “interesting” collection of males of the species in order to have my fun my way. It was getting tiresome, too expensive and too taxing on my equilibrium. Until Bono came along! I almost fell in love with him!

Gone are the days of going out with a guy, thinking long and hard where my husband would probably be hanging out at that hour, still checking out the joint for any signs of my husband, or any of his buddies, hastily downing a few drinks and then getting smuggled surreptitiously to wherever my companion was planning to fornicate with me. All that breathless excitement, the waiting, the imagined ecstasy – over, the moment we had finished the act. I swear it never lasted one second longer!

With Bono it’s a bit different. Very different, I admit. Maybe because he’s an expert at the game. For one, he will always take me to his small bachelor pad for drinks and the rest of it. I never have to look over my shoulder constantly to see if anybody I know could see me.  No wonder Bono’s place has become such a haven of peace and relaxation for me. My husband doesn’t have the foggiest idea that I visit him there, or for that matter that such a place exists. Not that it matters if he did. He’s beyond all that now, and wouldn’t touch me if his life depended on it. We are still together as the apartment is leased in both our names, and we prefer to live in peaceful tolerance of each others’ vices rather than get into the hassle of looking for another place.

I don’t know about him, but as far as I am concerned, it suits me just fine. No deadlines, which my parents had insisted on imposing on me for as long as I was living with them, which was until the ripe old age of 30. And ready meals for whenever I am hungry, unlike when I was living alone and had to cook myself some instant noodles while running a temperature simply because there was no one else to do it for me.

Yeah – I have everything. A home, although I have to share it with a husband who refuses to sleep with me, a job that pays enough for me to sustain my drinking habit, looks with which to snare men whom I want to have sex with, and the brains to stay out of steady relationships.

But Bono is different. As he gradually frees my body of even my underwear, I dive under the sheets. Bashfulness is an emotion so unfamiliar to me these days. I would just lie there while each of the others did it to me. It was so very wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am! I took a special kind of pride in keeping it that way.

Which is why Bono’s talents merit description. First, he can turn me on like an electric bulb in a second. And I must admit here that it has more to do with tender coercion, than any real physical urge. I suppose this is what I have been missing all along, in my numerous flings with testosterone-filled males – the tenderness with which Bono persuades me into submission. I suppose after that the actual act has very little relevance.

So I had dozed off into a blissful slumber. Here, in Bono’s quiet, soft room, it’s easy to do that. But I wake up with a start anyway. The otherwise delicious music wakes me up with a jolt.

I scramble out of habit to get my act together. Bono restrains me with a languid hand.

“Why don’t you stay back tonight?”

“You know that’s out of question!”

“Maybe it isn’t as out of question as you think.”

I frown. Something about that question is not quite right. But I can’t stay to figure that out now. I need to rush. Even with a non-existent marriage, I do have a husband to return to.

I step into the quiet haze of my own home. My husband and I have always had our own keys. So I can quietly slip into my room without announcing my presence.

My cell phone beeps and startles me out of my reverie. Who would be messaging me at this hour? Bono, too impatient to type messages, would always call.

The screen blinks – multimedia message received, it says.

Without thinking, I click ok. This MMS-enabled phone is a gift from Bono. In spite of my not being too tech-savvy, he insisted on getting me this phone. As far as I am concerned, phones are for making and receiving calls and for the odd text message. But this brand new gadget can receive images and even videos, though it cannot create them. Bono has the exact complement of this one – the one that shoots photographs and videos. He often takes a picture of me and sends it to my phone on MMS.

This must be the latest. I wait while the message is updated, and gasp!

It’s an unmistakable shot of Bono and me entwined in a nakedly carnal embrace. And it’s a familiar number!

The phone beeps again as it receives another message. The content is pretty much the same, except that that this one has a greater degree of undress.

I sink into a nearby couch.

Like a sledgehammer the question hits me – if Bono is a part of these pictures, then who was the one shooting them? They are too well shot to be from some random angle that the camera phone happened to be hidden at.

As if in response to my confusion, up pops a video, shot from a distance, but leaving no room for conjecture, of Bono and me making out on the mattress. My mind goes blank.

And before I can react, my husband is suddenly in the room, asking to use my phone. That’s a first!

“Can’t you use the land line? My phone is out of charge, and I have lost the charger.”

“Oh! Here’s the charger, sleepyhead, right here on your dresser where it always is. Here, give me the phone, and I’ll put it on charge. The land line is not working, silly, or I would have used it long ago.”

Oh please! Can’t this nightmare just end? I limply hand him the phone and he starts fiddling with it!

“Hey, I thought you had an urgent need to use the phone!”

“Oh yes! A very urgent need indeed! After all, how often does a guy get to watch a porn film starring his wife?”

I had thought the quota of shocks for the day was over. But what was he saying?

“Darling, what do you think I am – an imbecile – I’ll watch you having affairs under my nose and not make use of it? But it takes a guy with my brains to exploit the business opportunity. By now, your very torrid two hours with Bono are well-documented history. It’s out there in cyberspace for any guy with Internet access or an MMS-enabled phone to access it. But of course, I had the sense to put it on a paid site. And of course, I wanted you to be the first to see it. So I sent you some of the clips on your phone. After all you had a starring role in that film, and have a right to watch the premiere.”

My throat is dry. I am having trouble breathing. The bastard! I don’t know how he managed to film in Bono’s apartment, but I must warn Bono. After all, he has everything at stake – his reputation, his future in music ...

The phone is ringing! I gather the last ounce of energy to wrench it from my husband’s hand, and flip the thing open.

“Hello!”

It’s Bono! In spite of the last 15 minutes, my heart swells with an indefinable emotion. I clutch the phone to my ear.

“Yes, Bono, it’s me. Something horrible has happe …”

“Yeah, goddess, I know. But don’t you just love yourself in the movie? It’s so aesthetically shot, you wouldn’t think it’s a porn film. And goddess, you look so beautiful – the film has done justice to your beauty!”

“Bono, what are you saying? I …”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a bit of a surprise to you. But both your husband and I agreed – it’s such a wonderful opportunity. I let him film the thing and he and I get to split the money equally. That means new instruments for the band and advertisements for all our gigs. Can you imagine? The band-members will soon be celebrities. And you have done such a wonderful job! Not that I did badly, and it’s well worth it. As they say, no publicity is bad publicity. After all, what’s a rock star without some skeletons in his closet to keep him in the news …”

He drones on. I know it’s a nightmare. The alarm will go off any minute …