Essence of an Affair Read online

  Obsessive

  Essence of an Affair

  Max Sebastian

  Copyright (c) 2018 by Max Sebastian All rights reserved.

  Cover image (c) Studio10Artur | Bigstockphoto.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  1. The Arrangement

  2. Technical Fault

  3. Obsessed

  4. The Date

  5. Revelation

  6. Her Touch and her Tale

  7. Afraid

  8. Watching Her

  9. Waiting

  10. Turned On

  11. Eve's Orchard

  12. In the Laboratory

  13. A Closer View

  14. Comfortable

  15. Preparing for Him

  16. Boundaries Crossed

  17. Deep Connection

  18. Fresh Pastures

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Max Sebastian

  1

  The Arrangement

  'I think my wife is considering having an affair,' said Jens. His new therapist didn't seem to react at all, visibly.

  After a long moment, the man asked, 'And how does that make you feel, Mr Nielsen?'

  For a long moment, he just stared out of the window at the view across the choppy waters of the Peblinge So toward the pretty houses in the Norrebro district of Copenhagen. He scratched at stubble on his jawline that was so short it wasn't even properly visible yet, and yet bothered him nevertheless. His hands were still cold from being recently washed.

  Jens sighed. 'It's never happened before.'

  'You say you 'think' she's considering having an affair. Have you talked to her about it?'

  'No,' he smiled. 'That was the deal. She knew when she married me that I couldn't... you know...'

  'You couldn't, or you wouldn't?'

  'It's the same thing, isn't it?'

  'I wouldn't say so. Some people with a physical disability can't, but...'

  The therapist left the rest of his sentence unsaid, but it still irritated Jens immensely. The guy didn't have to say the words, there was just that look in his eyes, the one that said you're probably making it all up, just to get attention. Jens hated breaking in a new therapist, but sometimes it had to be done. You moved to a new city, or your therapist decided to retire to some seaside shack in Esbjerg, and there was no alternative. Wasn't like your shrink would take a three-hour drive just to keep up with a certain patient.

  'So you have a special arrangement in your marriage? Is that it? Would you tell me about it?'

  He had to take the new guy through it all, step by step. Explaining everything like he was talking to a child, from the very beginning. Chapter One, I am born. I get too close to another human being--or an animal, or an unclean surface--and I start seeing millions and millions of teeming, squirming, wriggling bacteria that will make me sick if I get anywhere near.

  'When we met,' Jens said, trying to straighten the disposable tissue paper covering the leather couch on which he was sitting, 'We were... Neither of us could go anywhere near other people.'

  'Your wife...' The therapist rustled through his papers to find details on Jens and his marital status. 'Effie. That's short for... Elizabeth? Euphemia?'

  'Effia. It's an African name--her mother is originally from Ghana. Father is Danish, from Lyngby, so...'

  'And she is like you? Does she also have--'

  Jens shook his head, 'Oh no, she's not like me. Hers is... post-traumatic. She was... attacked. A long time ago, in college.'

  'A stranger, or somebody she knew?'

  'It was after a party. Some guy. It left her--'

  The old man nodded. He didn't have to tell a therapist what that kind of experience might do to a young woman like Effie.

  Jens remembered how she had looked when she had first joined the support circle at the Frihavnskirken community center. She'd worn a hooded top, the hood up almost all the time. Protective. She hadn't looked at anyone, certainly hadn't spoken to anyone, or the group. She kept to herself in coffee breaks. She and Jens had been the only ones in the group who never spoke in the circle of trust--the group leader did not force anyone to contribute, but always made it clear how much better members might feel to talk.

  Effie had made incredible progress since then; Jens much less.

  'You met her at your support group?'

  Jens nodded.

  It had taken six months before she would even engage with the group. After that, he'd seen her listening intently to the others, paying attention to their stories, to the details of difficulties out in the real world, tales of progress being made. After a year, she began to open up about her experience, about the man who had taken advantage of her, about the terror she had experienced, the pain.

  Even early on, he'd been able to tell she was curious about him, about why he wouldn't talk, even after so long in the group. She also seemed frightened of him, at least in the beginning, as she was of all men.

  'You connected with each other, you shared a similar reluctance to engage with society?' the therapist said, always seeking to boil down life into something that might not sound out of place in an academic journal.

  'We eventually got talking,' Jens said.

  Jens had put it down to serendipity, but it had been a strange kind of serendipity. He had been on his way to group when his car wouldn't start. The dashboard had said the battery was depleted--and yet, Jens had a very strict routine, so he knew he hadn't forgotten to connect the car up to the charging station outside his apartment. The charging station had failed. He reported the problem--but then he either had to miss group, or face the germ-laden awfulness of the bus.

  On the bus, pressing his eucalyptus oil soaked handkerchief over his mouth and nose, he'd seen Effie take a seat a few rows in front of him. His mind had been on other things--the little wad of used chewing gum jammed in the corner of the window next to him, the faint smell of cigarette smoke in the air, the filth encrusted on the seat in front of him, the sense that he was probably sitting on thousands of microbes carrying the flu virus--so, at first, he didn't notice that a group of young men up at the front of the bus were trying to hit on Effie. But they were talking and laughing so loudly while getting up from their seats to show off that eventually there was no way to avoid noticing them. When Effie showed no interest, it seemed only to wind them up further. It was beginning to turn nasty, Jens could see. He could also see Effie curling up in a ball on the seat, pulling her knees up under her chin and her hood down over her head. She was even shaking a little.

  Jens wasn't quite sure how he had managed it. He remembered that it had taken every ounce of his strength and courage to stand up and walk to the front of the bus to confront them.

  After that, Effie always sat with him at group. It was certainly good reward for his bruises. With his car working again, Jens would swing by her place near the university each week, and give her a lift to the community center. They didn't talk much to begin with--but they didn't need to. They smiled at each other. She seemed to relax around him, something she didn't seem to do around anyone else. And she seemed to realize very quickly that Jens's sensitivity to people and the world around him meant that she would do well to wear no perfume, and she even took to using scent-free toiletries before getting in his car each week.

  'It says in your notes that you believe she's made a lot more progress than you have, since you started your group sessions,' the therapist said.

  'She's done very well,' Jens agreed. Was he
envious of her? Perhaps he would be if he could conceive of a world in which he wasn't so revolted by people around him. He didn't envy the fact that she went to work in an ordinary office, that she was around ordinary people much of her day, that she occasionally had to travel to faraway places and stay overnight away from home, to deal with things that were not routine.

  'So tell me: have you ever been... intimate... with your wife?' the therapist asked now.

  'No,' Jens said, without hesitation. But then after a brief pause, he seemed to think some kind of justification was required, and added: 'She never expected it--she knew from the start how it would be.'

  'Your arrangement...?' the older man prompted.

  Jens gave a curt nod. 'She was making better progress than me--she was able to be around men. Even back when we were just starting to talk about getting married, I thought there might come a time when... she would want to be... intimate... with a man again.'

  'So what was your arrangement?'

  'That if she... felt the need... she could do what she needed to... you know...'

  'You're saying you would let her have an affair if she wanted one?' the therapist prodded.

  Jens drew in a deep breath, then gave another nod. 'I can't do as she needs,' he sighed. 'And she knew that.'

  There was a long silence, and Jens wasn't sure if the therapist was waiting for him to say more, expecting him to say more, or whether he was simply putting down his observations on the page. He did seem focused on whatever he was writing. Jens could hear only the scratch-scratch-scratch of the man's pen. All that handwriting--somehow it seemed so old-school now. Everything in modern life was tap-tap-tap at a keyboard.

  Then the therapist stopped writing, and calmly looked up at Jens. He said, 'It is unusual, in a case like yours, that you connected like that with someone else--that it even went so far as marriage. Particularly before you had your condition under any kind of control.'

  Jens shrugged. 'We trusted each other--and only each other. And when all was said and done, we were looking for some kind of permanent thing...'

  'You wanted stability in your lives. That's understandable,' the therapist nodded. 'And routine, that makes you comfortable. The guarantee of a permanent routine...'

  'We did love each other,' Jens pointed out. 'We just--I just--knew we couldn't have the kind of physical relationship that I--'

  'But you knew early on that she would want a physical relationship?' the therapist asked him, peering over the top of his glasses. 'You knew it enough that you discussed with her the need for her to have the freedom to have a physical relationship with somebody else, after you were married?'

  Jens sighed again. 'Even after what she went through... she still had sexual desires. She wasn't entirely comfortable getting close to anyone, and she was deathly afraid of men, but she still... you know... had needs.'

  'She told you this while you were dating?'

  'When we were getting serious about each other. When it came time to consider... you know... commitment.'

  'She told you she would need something more than you could give?' the therapist asked him.

  Jens smiled. 'She always said--when we were talking about getting married--that she wouldn't need to, that she didn't need another man. But sometimes, very occasionally, I would see her notice an attractive guy, and I could tell she was interested in him. That there was a part of her that responded to him. Sexually.'

  'And did that upset you?'

  'Not at all. I trusted her. I didn't think about anything to do with sex myself, with her or anyone else, so it didn't bother me that she might occasionally get the hots for somebody else. It was as if she had discovered a book she really liked, or a movie she really loved.'

  The therapist nodded. 'But you knew enough to envisage that she might, someday, need some kind of sexual release?'

  'I read a lot. I watch TV. Women in the media... they're not afraid, anymore, of talking about their sexuality, about their desires, their needs... I knew she had needs. Before we started dating, when she was still nervous of men, she dated women.'

  The therapist's face remained impressively neutral. Not a hint of judgement anywhere in his grayish features.

  'She told you that?'

  'She mentioned it to the group, once or twice. And occasionally, I would see her leave the Frihavnskirken center with somebody.'

  'And it never made you question why she might want to date a man, someone like you?' the therapist asked.

  'To start with, I didn't really know it was dating. We just hung out together. Spent time together. Later, we went to meet her family... and she introduced me as her boyfriend.'

  'You met her family?'

  Jens smiled. Nodded. 'It was... difficult. She has a large family. I couldn't... it was too much...'

  'What happened?'

  'She just told them I was sick. Put me to bed. We left, quietly, without much fuss the next morning.'

  The therapist sighed, empathizing.

  Another pause. Jens watched through the window as a flock of geese flew slowly, majestically by, dipping down to skim over the waters of the Peblinge So.

  The therapist said, 'So now you believe your wife is considering having an affair. You don't think she's ever done it before and maybe you just didn't know about it?'

  Jens thought for a moment or two. 'It's possible,' he nodded. 'I don't think so, though. The way she's acting now... she's never really been that way before. It's not just the washing machine...'

  The older man cleared his throat. 'Uh... the washing machine?'

  Jens took a deep breath. This was personal stuff. But if you couldn't tell your therapist, who could you tell?

  'Our washing machine broke,' he explained to a rather baffled-looking therapist.

  'Your washing machine broke?'

  2

  Technical Fault

  As a happily married couple, they had their routine. It worked. They weren't, however, fully prepared for when the routine was disrupted.

  Normally, Jens came home from work first. Once safely ensconced in their apartment in the Osterbro district, just north of the city center, he would wash his hands at the kitchen sink, strip off all his clothes, put them in the washing machine, and switch it on to do a half-load. Then he'd step under a hot, hot shower and rigorously scrub the day's grime from his skin and his hair with the usual scent-free products. Then, once completely clean from head to toe, he'd put on crisp, freshly laundered nightwear before settling down to a plate of warm quiche and salad in front of the television.

  Effie tended to work later, and arrive home after him. These days, since her promotion, she had settled into a routine where she would arrive home two full hours after he did, at about 8pm. The increase in pay justified her longer hours, at least in her mind. For Jens, it worked to help him be out of her way as she changed out of her clothes and put them in the washing machine while his were now drying. She would also immediately hit the shower before putting on clean nightwear and settling down to some food.

  'Hey sweetie, how was your day?' she'd ask him, before sitting opposite him on the couch to tuck into the same, bland, largely scent-free supper as he'd had earlier.

  'Good. I think I've nearly perfected the Rose D'Or.'

  'Wonderful. You'll have to bring me home a sample when it's done.'

  'How... was your day?' he had to remember to ask her. It bothered her when he forgot, when he was too introverted.

  'Great--I hit my targets early. A few of us might go out for a drink tomorrow night, if that's okay.'

  'Of course.'

  When Effie went out at night after work, or if she had to stay particularly late at the office, their routine adjusted. But, as it still followed a regular pattern, so Jens was not troubled by it. If Jens was in bed by the time she got home, Effie would go up to the swimming pool on the top floor of their apartment complex, and that way she wouldn't need to wake him to take a shower. After her swim, she'd put on fresh clothes she kept in a loc
ker up there in the women's changing room, and she'd return to the apartment, put her dirty clothes in the washing machine and quietly slip into the bedroom. Jens didn't mind the faint smell of chlorine about her after she'd had a swim. He had always associated that smell with cleanliness--his subconscious certain that the chlorine killed the bugs that crawled on a person's skin.

  'But you were saying that your washing machine broke?' the therapist prompted him.

  'That's right.'

  'And I take it, this washing machine is a cornerstone of your daily routine with your wife?'

  'You could say that.'

  One day Jens came home to find that the damn thing just wouldn't switch on, no matter what setting he tried. Frustrated, he tied his dirty clothes up in a plastic garbage bag and dropped it beside the washing machine. Then he emailed the building super about the problem, and texted a warning about it to Effie, who had been out that evening with her co-workers, celebrating hitting their monthly targets. That night after her swim, she had also tied her dirty clothes up in a plastic bag and stowed it with his.

  The next day the washing machine still hadn't been repaired when Jens came home. With another day's clothes sealed in a plastic bag, he had been so irritated that he'd had to sit down and fire off another email to the building super before he had even taken his evening shower.

  Then later, while he was sitting down in front of the TV eating his dinner, he had noticed the unusual smell of women's perfume.

  At first, he had tried to ignore it, his theory being that a new member of the building's cleaning staff had not yet been briefed about his strict no-perfume rule when tending to their apartment. Then, when he took his plate back to the kitchen area, he noticed that the smell wasn't all over the apartment, as might have been the case if a cleaner had simply been wearing perfume. It was from one particular location--the laundry waiting to be washed.