Two Loves Pt. 02

Another long silence ensued before Em said with a wry smile, "I'm going to turn them down. It means I'll probably lose my job."

"Em ...?"

"I'm turning down the move because if I go to Charlotte I'd never get to see you again ... or maybe only once or twice a year. It'd make things difficult. I know you're going to have to keep coming out to California for a while, and if I stay here, I'll still get to see you every few weeks." She gave me a smile and squeezed my hand, "I'm just trying to stay close to my boyfriend. Charlotte wouldn't let that happen."

"Where would you work? The job market's not all that good right now, is it?"

"There are lots of places still hiring around here, particularly proven engineers. I was thinking I'd look around anyway. The continuing hiccups at Verbatim are starting to get to me."

We walked into the condo holding hands. I knew I could always be romantic with Emma and that she'd appreciate it. Boyfriends did that kind of thing. She still liked to use that word when she referred to me. I'd long ago given up the discussion about my inadequacies in that role: because I was anchored to the east coat, married, the father of two, and because I couldn't do all the things I thought a boyfriend ought to do for a girlfriend. She rebuffed my comments with a puff of air – a harrumph of dismissal at the ideas.

We made love as we always did once we were settled in her condo. In our afterglow, Em lay with her head on my chest wrapped in my arms. I told her, "Em, I love you very much. When you first told me about Charlotte ... well, I felt tears in my eyes and a bad feeling in my gut. If you have to take a job like that, we'll find a way to make this still work."

Emma leaned up and kissed me tenderly. She said, "I love you too. I'm committed to you silly, and I know you're committed to me ... and we're both committed to Megan, even if she doesn't know about me. Commitment is about making choices that preserve the relationship. In this case, we all want to preserve the balance of things. Staying with Verbatim would make things go out of balance. The choice is to leave the Big V and find another job. I could float and do nothing for a while too; I have money to sustain a float for a while."

"Thank you," I whispered to her as my hand moved to rekindle the carnal pleasures we'd enjoyed a while earlier. I leaned in and kissed her breasts, sucking the nearby breast. Emma moaned and pushed up into me; she clearly liked the direction I'd taken our conversation. Soon, we were both involved in a second round of sexual pleasure.

When we were cuddling again in our feelings of love for each other, Em asked softly, "Are you doing well inside ... you know emotionally? The last few times we've been together, you've talked about work so much I've been wondering if you're avoiding some other issues."

I thought for a while. Em knew I'd heard her and had gone into analysis mode. I started slowly, "Em, I love you, and I love Megan. You seem content with our limited time together, and I wish I could give you more. In the meantime, Megan has moved into her own world surrounded by patients, the clinic, and keeping up with modern medicine; between her work and the kids, I'm just feeling like I've moved to the back of the priority list."

Em sat cross-legged next to me. Her posture proved highly distracting given her nudity. "Well, Matthew Carter, let me remind you that you are my highest priority. But, and don't take this the wrong way, I wouldn't want you around all the time." She reached and took one of my hands and held it in hers against her breast. I could feel her erect nipple.

She went on before I could say anything, "I'm glad there's a Megan in your life, as well as an Eleanor and a Sarah. They're my family. I live vicariously, like normal people, through you having a growing family. Every time you share some little family thing you've done, I'm grateful in at least three ways. First, I'm glad you feel you can be open with me about your 'other' life; second, I find joy in sharing the experience with you. The more colorful and detailed you make it, the more it's like I was there. I like that. And third, I'm thankful that I don't have to go through the experience to feel it. Isn't that silly, I like to hear about it, but not experience it."

I started to say something, but Emma put a finger on my lips. "I'm not finished yet," She told me sternly. She gathered her thoughts and then went on, "Megan has picked a tough profession, and she's good at. Her inattention to you is temporary. If anything, the two of you are in a dance where you both work hard at your jobs and parenting, and then expect the relationship to remain romantic. It won't; that's life. Rest assured, that if you were living here and we were married, we'd have the same kind of relationship you have with Megan. You'd fly to the east coast once a month and have your romantic time with Megan." She laughed and added, "Maybe, this time, when you go home, you should think that's what's going on."

I laughed and said, "I'll try it."

"Now, what else bothers you," Em asked.

"If you and I were married, would you want me to feel guilty over having an affair with Megan?"

Em said, "Deep question. Are you having guilt feelings?"

"Every now and then. To be honest, I have my life compartmentalized. When I'm with you, I'm the boyfriend. After ten years or so, we have our own vocabulary, our rituals, our sacred areas, and areas we avoid with each other. We're in my west coast compartment now. The east coast compartment contains Megan, the kids, our parents, and circle of friends. My roles there include husband, father, son, son-in-law, friend, and so forth. We speak another language back there, and have different rituals, sacred cows, and taboos."

She asked, "So, if things stay in their boxes, you don't feel guilty?"

"Usually," I replied thoughtfully. "Sometimes, something happens that reminds me of both worlds, like that time when my friend Mark confessed that he'd had a series of one night stands. Completely different, and no love involved, but it reminded me that I live in two worlds at the same time. What bothered him most was being labeled a 'cheater.' That label bothers me too; yet somehow this doesn't feel like cheating. I just happen to be in love with two women, and one just happens to know about the other."

After a pause and some kisses, Em asked, "Have you ever told anybody about us?"

"No; no one. How about you?"

"A few people at work know I have a boyfriend. I also told my sister a couple of years ago. She was worried I was a lesbian. She asks every now and then about you, and I tell her about what we've done – the dates we've been on. She's been great – not judgmental about my seeing a married man, but she always reminds me that she doesn't want to see me hurt."

"After these years together, do you see this heading someplace that will give you pain?" I felt concerned.

"No. If it stopped tomorrow, I'd still be the most grateful person on the planet because I had a all this time with you." I leaned in and kissed her.

I said, "We're both in our mid-thirties. Supposedly your biological clock is ticking very loudly about now. Do you want to have children? If we don't do something about that, will you feel hurt?"

"God, no!" Em exclaimed. "That's one of the primary reasons I like watching you and your kids from three thousand miles away. I'm not a kid person, except to hear about it from someone else; same with my nephew and niece. Moreover, the thought of childbirth scares the hell out of me, not helped I might add by your detailed descriptions of the birthing process for Eleanor and Sarah. Ugh!"

We both laughed, yet I felt some pang of the past deep in Emma, a part of her she'd not shared with me. Perhaps it was in her tone of voice. Even though her parents lived an hour's drive away, I knew she seldom saw them. Yet, when she spoke of them, it was always with affection and pride. Her father had just retired and her mother had stopped working full time. Her sister's family lived in Texas, and again, despite the blood relationship they seldom saw each other.

The conversation turned to blander topics, and then the kiss of sleep sealed the night.

Emma's job situation had changed dramatically by the time I got back to the west coast four weeks later. She was unemployed. Of course, I knew this from our telephone conversations. I'd been able to go out a day early, so we had a full day and evening before my business meetings started. I didn't even have to make up an excuse. Megan was going to be working at the clinic, and she just accepted my comment about taking a restful day in the Bay Area without question. She seemed unusually affectionate as we said goodbye.

"So, I got my first unemployment check on Friday," Emma announced with a smile. She went on, "I feel guilty. I made so much money, and I've saved so much over the years. They even paid me for all the vacation time I hadn't used, and they let me exercise my open stock options."

"Are you going to job hunt, or let the world find you?"

"I threw a few rocks into the job pool and made a lot of ripples. We'll see what happens next. Other than that, I might just let the world find me, as you put it."

I remained elated from Em's commitment to our relationship that she'd expressed the month before. I knew she was going to remain near her Palo Alto home. I offered to help; by now I had a widening circle of contacts in the area. Em looked interested, so I pulled out my Filofax and let her scan my contacts – many were in Oracle, of course.

"We should have done this before," Em said. "We know a few of the same people, like this technology prof at Berkeley – Carl Reynolds."

"You should talk to the academics," I advised. "They're usually consummate networkers. Reynolds probably knows what's going on in every tech company in the area." Em nodded agreement with the idea. She also picked two other names of people she'd like to talk to. Before the hour was out, she had appointments to see of them the following week.

Next: The Affair Continues Through Several Decades, and a Sad Revelation