Flashback

Chris's visit was great. Of course we had great sex. But I also told her that I wanted to tell Jerry about it -- all of it. She disagreed. Two weeks after her visit, Jerry came up. It's a small town. All my Alaskan friends knew Chris and Jerry were married. While Chris was there, we made no attempt to hide our relationship. When Jerry was there, he later said he had sensed some kind of tension around in the air.

While Jerry was visiting me, I wrote Chris a letter, expecting her to receive it before his return. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The next I heard from either of them after Jerry left was a call from Chris. She told me that she had picked Jerry up from the airport and gone on to work, dropping him off at home. My letter arrived the same day. Jerry opened it and read it before she got home from work. They'd argued and decided it was time to move on. She asked me if I'd help her pay for the divorce and she could come back up to live with me. I told her I thought I should distance myself from them both for a while. When she had gotten divorced and everything was settled, we could talk about whether we had a future together.

They divorced. I met a new woman and fell for her. We made a trip home and Jerry said he wanted us to join him and Chris for lunch. They were still friendly, he said. I accepted. At the table he told me how he felt about it all. I had no choice but to sit there and take it. He didn't get angry, didn't yell. Just told me what a shitty friend I was. He did give me credit for all my attempts to end it, and for wanting to us to confess our disloyalty and infidelity. It says something about his attitude toward Chris that he made the remark, "It would have been different if you had someone to offer in return." I suppose their marriage hadn't had much of a chance even without me.

I returned to Alaska. Chris did eventually come north, but we were definitely finished. She married a guy and had a daughter. Jerry also remarried and has at least one child. I've lost contact with them for the last twenty years or so. I've been through two more marriages that ended in divorce. I'm now on my fourth wife. The one who will really be around until 'death do us part'. I've never been the 'other man' again, nor have I ever been unfaithful in any of the relationships in which I've been involved.

That's as much of my story as I want to tell right now. It's all true. I make no excuses for past indiscretions. It's just the way it was then, and the way things happened for me. I was, at the time, able to rationalize everything. Now I am able to see it all more clearly.