COMFORT

I am just drifting off to sleep when I feel your hand on my back.  Sleepily but with infinite tenderness, you rub my lower back, your hand moving upward to caress my neck, your fingers sliding along the base of my skull... the lovely, leisured movements causing me to emit a sleepy moan.  These nightly back rubs are absolutely delicious.

My thoughts drift as you continue your ministrations.  I'm a lucky woman, I know that.  How many husbands of nearly twenty years still give back rubs... and almost every night too?  It's as if you sense my tension spots.  You know them by heart.  The knot under my shoulder blade, the sensitive skin behind my ears.

As the curtain of sleep begins to fall, I suddenly find myself thinking about Leslie.  Leslie has been my best friend for nearly thirty years, since we were girls in school pinafores.  We've lived through the tired years of babies and toddlers, the tough ones of teenagers.  We've always been there for each other.  Until now, perhaps.

"There's nothing between us anymore, Mags."

I pause in the buttering of my scone and glance at Leslie over the tea table.  We've kept a weekly 'appointment' at The Copper Kettle since our children were in nappies.  "Between who?"

"Me and Hugh, of course."  Leslie pushes her teacup around in her saucer, spilling the liquid over the rim.

I bite into the scone and watch her thoughtfully.  "What's happened?"  Something, obviously.  Leslie is as jumpy as a cat, her eyes darting around nervously.

"The problem is, nothing has happened, for years,"  she retorts, with a hint of venom.  "He comes home from work, disappears behind the newspaper, and then it's up to bed with a sleepy 'Goodnight then, love.'  That's it.'

This night time ritual sounds uncomfortably like the one in my own house.  "After twenty years, you can't expect..."  I begin.

"What?  Passion?"  Leslie's eyes sparkle dangerously.  "That's not fair, is it, Maggie?"

"It doesn't matter what's fair,"  I argue.  "You and Hugh have been together for what--"

"Nineteen years."  It comes out in a sigh, like a prison sentence. "It's a long time, Maggie.  Time enough to fall apart, to lose whatever little you had in the first place."

Leslie is sounding so certain about the failure of her marriage, determined almost.  Something is definitely not right.

"You need to make it work..."  I'm spouting truisms, but I can't help it.  The last thing I want is for Leslie to walk out on her marriage.

"It takes two, you know,"  Leslie retorts.  "Hugh isn't interested in anything anymore, except for his daily comforts.  As long as he has his slippers, his newspaper and a hot meal at night, he's fine.  I might as well leave and hire a housekeeper."

"You're not actually thinking of leaving, are you?" I ask anxiously.

Leslie is silent, averting her eyes.

"Leslie... maybe you need a little shake up in your routine, get away for a weekend..."

"Actually..."  Leslie's voice sounds as if she is forcing herself to be casual.  "I am thinking about getting away for a weekend."

"Oh?"  I take another bite of scone.  "Well, that's good, then."

"But not with Hugh."

I'm not dim, although I probably should have cottoned on a bit sooner.  "I see.  And not by yourself, I suppose?"

"No."  Leslie reaches over and grabs my hand, her expression beseeching.  "Try to understand.  Maybe you and Tim have something more... alive than what's between me and Hugh..."

"If you think we're at it like newlyweds, then you're wrong,"  I say a bit sharply.  "Maybe I'm more realistic than you, Leslie.  I don't expect to have a fiery romance when my husband has seen me give birth to three children, he's balding and I've got stretchmarks from my neck to my ankles."  I smile, trying to lighten the mood.  "It's silly.  We may not have passion anymore, but we've got something better."

"What?  Habit?"  Her voice is twisted with bitterness.

"Love. Comfort." 

"That's not enough."

"Leslie."  I take a breath and try to order my thoughts.  "Who is he?"

"I met him at work."  Leslie works part-time for an accountancy firm.  "His name is Darren, and he's thirty-one..."

"Leslie, he's ten years younger than you!"

"So?  Since when is that supposed to matter?"

I see the determined gleam in her eye, and I realise that nothing I can say will change her mind.  She's already decided.

"We're going to Paris,"  she continues, her eyes now lit with excitement.  "Hugh thinks it's a girls' weekend, but Darren has it all arranged.  The best hotel, five star, and dinner at a wonderful places he knows..."

I bet.  I shake my head, not wanting to take it in.

"Maggie, he makes me feel so beautiful, so desired.  Alive."

"I know."

"No, you don't,"  Leslie returns, unfairly.  "How could you?"

Actually, I know all too well.  I might sound a bit self-righteous, talking about passion and comfort and the security of a twenty year marriage, but there was a time when I didn't think like that.  There was a time when the hand gently caressing my back felt like a burden, not a treasure.

It was six years ago now.  I was working part-time teaching English at the local comprehensive.  Peter was the French teacher.  I'm not sure now why I was so intrigued, so easily led.  I was thirty-five, with three children in primary school and a husband who was determined to get the next promotion, and spent fourteen hours out of twenty-four at the office.  I think I must have looked around at my life and had a sudden spurt of fear... that this wasn't all it had promised to be, or that I had hoped it would become.  Where was the passion, the romance?  The tingling down to your toes when he looked at you, the delicious, shivering anticipation of a first kiss, the sudden thrill of brushed shoulders in the hallway... was it an accident or did he mean to touch you like that?

Peter gave me all of that, in a way.  At first, our friendship was innocent, a mere exchange of pleasantries in the staff room.  Then we were assigned games duty together and spent a pleasant half hour bantering back and forth.  He was witty and smart and charming... and eleven years younger than me.  He beat Leslie's toy boy by a year.  None of that seemed to matter, though, and if I felt any guilt at what I was doing, I resolutely pushed it away.  Besides, my inner self reasoned, we'd never actually done anything wrong.  Yet.

Then there was a Year 8 trip to France--Paris, actually--and the English teacher who had been planning to go with Peter as chaperone broke her ankle at the last minute.  I was the replacement.

"I can't go,"  I said automatically, panicking at the realisation of what this would mean.

"Why not?"  Tim smiled at me encouragingly.  "You've always said that the Year Eights are a good group.  It should be fun, and I can hold the fort down for a few days."

I stared at him despairingly, unable to explain that it wasn't fourteen Year Eights I was afraid of, but the other chaperone.  Peter.

It would have looked silly, not to mention suspicious, for me to say no consider the circumstances.  I spent the next few days in a turmoil of uncertainty, not knowing what I should do, what I should think of doing.  Was I actually contemplating something happening between me and Peter?  Was I considering an affair?  I watched Tim's benign face over dinner, watching telly, brushing his teeth, and I felt like a wretch for even imagining something happening between me and Peter.

But then something in me broke.  Burst, like a hole in a dam.  First it was a little spurt of anger, of jealousy, and then the flood gates were opened. 

I deserve more than this, I thought furiously as I looked around at a house that needed at least four hours of intensive cleaning, a husband who was lightly snoring in front of the television, and children whose squabbles had become a constant din.  I hadn't had a manicure or even a decent haircut in years.  I hadn't bought myself new clothes--pretty, stylish clothes--in almost a decade.  I was basically a drudge for my family, and I was having no more of it.  I was going to Paris.

At the last minute I tossed a satin negligee from my newlywed days into my suitcase.  It doesn't mean anything, I told myself, but I was already tingling with anticipation.

We managed to behave with complete decorum for the first two days.  I began to wonder if I'd been imagining any spark between us.

Then, on the second evening, things began to happen.  The Year Eights were finally asleep after a boisterous day of sightseeing, and Peter and I had just finished checking their rooms.  We stood in the narrow hallway of the hotel, Peter stooping slightly in the low doorway.

"Well, that's it for tonight, then.  Fancy a drink?"

He said it so casually, with so little concern, that I almost missed it.

My heart skipped a beat as I affected a casual nod.  "Sure."

The bar downstairs was intimate, tiny tables crowded together, cigarette smoke creating a blue haze.  A single saxophone wailed away on the stereo.

We were forced to sit with our knees touching, our faces close as we shared a bottle of red wine.

I don't remember what we talked about now.  I'm not sure if I was even aware of it at the time.  My nerves were jumping, my senses singing every time Peter gave me that heavy lidded gaze of his.  When his knee pressed against mine, I almost dropped my drink.

"There's still half a bottle left,"  he said, almost ruefully.  "Should we finish it upstairs?'

He was so smooth, I was almost missing his pickup lines.  I nodded dumbly, and we headed upstairs to his bedroom.

A thousand thoughts flitted through my head as I stood in the doorway of his room.  Did I really want to do this?  I was wearing cotton Granny-style knickers, my satin negligee crumpled in the bottom of my suitcase.  Peter suddenly looked very young, boyish almost.  My anticipation was rapidly turning into a case of nerves.

Suddenly he grabbed me, his earlier urbane smoothness now replaced with boyish ardour.

"Maggie, you're so beautiful,"  he murmured, before his mouth crashed down onto mine.

If I'd had any vague fantasies of a night of passion, they were completely squashed by that kiss.  All I could feel were his rather wet lips on mine, and when I opened my eyes I saw that he had a rather pubescent looking pimple above his eye.  Suddenly, I felt ridiculous.  Ridiculous and old.

"Peter..."

"What?  Don't talk, Maggie, let's not spoil the moment--"

Any moment we might have had, or teacherly wisdom I had been meaning to impart, was lost.  "I think I'm going to be sick."

I made a mad dash for the toilet, mindless of the noise I made.  After I'd washed my face and hands and restored myself to some semblance of ordered calm, I returned to the bedroom.

Peter sat on the bed, flicking through the channels on the television with the remote control.  There was a look of bored disgust on his face, and I felt even worse.

"I think I'll go now,"  I said quietly.

Peter barely looked at me, just shrugged.

Back in my bedroom, shame and humiliation rolled over me in waves.  What on earth had I been thinking?  Had I actually believed for a moment that I could find something better in the arms of a selfish, callow boy?  Had I really been willing to contemplate throwing away one of the most wonderful men in the world?  I crawled into bed, sick at heart.

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, with Peter and I acting as polite strangers.  Fortunately, he left the school that summer and I never saw him again.

Your hand drifts down my back again, your fingers kneading the tired muscles between my shoulders.  I sigh in contentment.  I know I can't help Leslie.  She's determined to have this fling.  But maybe, just maybe, she'll realise her foolishness before it's too late.  Like I did.

It's a fruitless quest for passion, I know.  Passion comes and goes, even with the best marriages.  Love, comfort, security.  These are the things that last.  I've learned to live with it.

Just then, your hand moves from my back to my front, and you nuzzle my neck meaningfully. Giggling, I turn over and put my arms around you, tilting my head upwards for your kiss. 

Who says you can't have it all?

THE END

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Copyright © 2008 by Katharine Swartz