It goes without saying that the one you shouldn’t have is the one you can’t shake.
I met Ray ******* at a bar in Austin when I was 21. Milky-skinned and quietly neurotic, he liked me right away. His hair was like a thick, dark mound of chocolate, and he had a commanding, friendly smile that made everyone feel special. We spent hours that first night talking over beer and vodka. He was into kung fu, managed and wrote for a local ‘zine, and worked part-time as a waiter. He and his girlfriend had moved to Austin about a year ago and had since pretty much stopped talking. They didn’t live together. As the conversation flowed, it never crossed my mind to wonder what I was doing with a guy who had a girlfriend, or what he was doing with me.
After that first night, we proceeded to have an on-again-off-again love affair. It was silent and passionate, and although I barely knew him, I felt I loved him. We rarely talked, only long enough to make our plans over the phone. And then of course there were the obligatory niceties we exchanged soon as I arrived at his place, hair done up, wearing a skirt and feeling special.
His apartment was neat and bare. I remember a black sofa, a stark white refrigerator, and shades of gray that permeated his apartment. The only thing of color was his bedspread, which was a deep, thick blood red. We spent of our time together on that bedspread. We didn’t talk much – didn’t need to. We shared intimate moments as the hours passed, traffic zooming by below his bedroom window. He lived near the airport, and I remember the sound of airplanes. I counted them as they passed overhead with Ray dozing next to me. His sheets were grey, his bedroom neat. There was no hint of a girlfriend – no photographs, no mementos. The entire time I was there, I don’t recall a light ever being turned on.
Once, we did something that did not involve sex or kissing or lying in bed together listening to the traffic and airplanes pass by. On a hot, summer day Ray was going on about this great soundtrack he’d just gotten - The Man With the Golden Arm. He asked me to listen to it. I was stunned. I don’t remember my reply, but it was probably something like, “Yeah sure, okay” – a sort of quiet, shocked reply. He was pleased. He opened a bottle of red wine and sat on the carpet in front of me. He poured me a glass and handed it to me over his shoulder. There was that smile. I sat on the sofa sipping my wine looking past his thick, dark hair at the stereo. The record spun around and around and we sat in the dark, quiet room one Austin afternoon, not having an affair.
The next night we watched The Man With the Golden Arm. From what I remember, Frank Sinatra gave a stunning performance as a man with a mad heroin addiction. He wanted to stop, but as many tragedies go, it was too much for him. Once again, I sat on the sofa with Ray at my feet, sipping wine, and wondering when we’d go into the bedroom and lie on that blood red bedspread together.
About a year later I graduated and moved back to Dallas. We got together from time to time. I’d drive down there and stay with friends during the day, and him during the night. He had finally broken it off with his girlfriend, and I believed him when he said they’d been breaking up for years. The relationship carried on for a handful of weeks, but sadly the magic was gone. The dark, quiet apartment that had become so comfortable felt dingy and claustrophobic.
That was 10 years ago. The weird thing is: I’ve never felt bad about the affair. I can’t explain it. It’s a terrible thing to be with another woman’s man, or to be the other woman. As it is, I have nothing but wonderfully hazy memories of red wine and Frank Sinatra, of shades of gray and the sound of airplanes overhead, of passing hours and hours on a dark red bedspread. None of it makes much sense, but then again, it doesn’t have to.
