My Little Secret
I had looked forward to this with an almost perverse pleasure. No kids. No husband. For a few precious moments, no one knew where I was or what I was doing. It was just him, me, and the dirty little secret that we shared.
Once a week I would go to the bank, take out the cash, and hope that my husband would never ask what it was spent on. It was the fear of being caught, of being found out. It was the fear of being told that I was just a vain forty year old woman trying to stay young forever. It was those fears that lead me all the way across town where no one knew me and no one knew him.
Greg was his name. A name of ridiculous simplicity for what he was in my mind; my miracle worker, my hope, the magician of impossible dreams, and the sinful secret that I kept to myself each week. A Greek god smelling of aftershave and wearing khakis with the crotch bulging at eye level. His touch was gentle; his skin was bronze and smooth. Once a week, Greg would replenish my graying middle-aged self-esteem with his kind words and caresses. I would feel beautiful and sexual. I would go home to my husband as a sexual vixen and he would be none the wiser. What could possibly be the harm in that?
With mirrors surrounding me and pointing out every aging flaw, Greg still strokes my head with a tender hand and comments on my body. He claims that a twenty year old would kill for my body. I do not argue, but instead surrender myself to him and tell myself that if he is lying that it is better that I do not know.
When he is done, I am ready to go back home to the man that I have been married to for almost twenty years this summer. I am ready to face my husband as a sexual creature, a little older that the golden haired girl I was when he married me, but still desirable, still soft with a few lingering traces of youth. I thank Greg by offering him a few more bills from my purse to keep our secret.
“On your next appointment, we need to do something about those split ends.” He calls back as he struts off to pull his next client out from under the dome shaped hairdryer. “All these dye jobs are frying the ends! That bleach will eat your hair right up to those gray roots if you aren’t careful.”
Once a week I would go to the bank, take out the cash, and hope that my husband would never ask what it was spent on. It was the fear of being caught, of being found out. It was the fear of being told that I was just a vain forty year old woman trying to stay young forever. It was those fears that lead me all the way across town where no one knew me and no one knew him.
Greg was his name. A name of ridiculous simplicity for what he was in my mind; my miracle worker, my hope, the magician of impossible dreams, and the sinful secret that I kept to myself each week. A Greek god smelling of aftershave and wearing khakis with the crotch bulging at eye level. His touch was gentle; his skin was bronze and smooth. Once a week, Greg would replenish my graying middle-aged self-esteem with his kind words and caresses. I would feel beautiful and sexual. I would go home to my husband as a sexual vixen and he would be none the wiser. What could possibly be the harm in that?
With mirrors surrounding me and pointing out every aging flaw, Greg still strokes my head with a tender hand and comments on my body. He claims that a twenty year old would kill for my body. I do not argue, but instead surrender myself to him and tell myself that if he is lying that it is better that I do not know.
When he is done, I am ready to go back home to the man that I have been married to for almost twenty years this summer. I am ready to face my husband as a sexual creature, a little older that the golden haired girl I was when he married me, but still desirable, still soft with a few lingering traces of youth. I thank Greg by offering him a few more bills from my purse to keep our secret.
“On your next appointment, we need to do something about those split ends.” He calls back as he struts off to pull his next client out from under the dome shaped hairdryer. “All these dye jobs are frying the ends! That bleach will eat your hair right up to those gray roots if you aren’t careful.”
